KoanCollector

For myself, and within the Buddhist understanding that I subscribe to, mindfulness belongs to a specific type of spiritual cultivation practices that involve meditative concentration. Samadhi, which is one of the three categories of Buddhist practice, also can be translated from Sanskrit to mean “holding oneself in equanimity” (Chuang, 2012, pp. 290-294).

Within the Buddhist context, samadhi is specifically meant to address the symptom of existence, that being suffering. In this way, mindfulness can be used to reduce psychological symptoms. However, I personally think that one must be careful. If a client is fixated on the purpose of their mindfulness practice being the alleviation of psychological symptoms, then they are attaching to an outcome. The more one wants their meditation to give a certain result, the more that they may upset themselves when the results are not perceivable to them.
It should also be discussed that the practice of samadhi is not enough. From the Buddhist perspective, it is only through the practice of all three practices of virtue (Śīla), meditative concentration (Samadhi), and wisdom (Prajñā) that the cessation of suffering is attained. In order to support one’s mindfulness practice, having a practice of living a moral life is necessary. In one study, mindfulness practice with additional Buddhist ethical instruction (ethicalM) was found to enhance personal growth and increase prosocial behavior when compared to secular mindfulness (secularM) (Chen & Jordan, 2020). Secular mindfulness’ distancing from the initial Buddhist context has been recently discussed more, with secular mindfulness being called “McMindfulness” (Hyland, 2017). Forbes (2022) even suggests that secular mindfulness programs such as Mindful Masculinity go so far as to reinforce neoliberal hegemonic masculinity instead of challenging it. All of this shows that mindfulness must be situated within a context that integrates the cultivation of wisdom and virtue simultaneously with mindfulness. Mindfulness can be used to help people do many things, but if we are to be assisting people in pulling triggers and harming living beings with mindfulness, then there seems to be little point in cultivating it.

As such, I believe that we should once more integrate mindfulness into the spiritual and religious contexts from which it originated, whether it be Yogic, Daoist, Buddhist, or Abrahamic in origin. We must be careful in segregating methods and practices from the systems that have long kept them integrated with a larger system of holistic practice, lest we destroy something that had an important function and cause great harm before even being conscious of it.

In other words, we must be mindful.

References
Chen, S., & Jordan, C. H. (2020). Incorporating ethics into brief mindfulness practice: Effects on well-being and prosocial behavior. Mindfulness, 11(1), 18–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0915-2
Chuang, T. (2012). Faxiang: A Buddhist practitioner’s encyclopedia (R. Smitheram, Ed. & Trans.; First Edition). Buddha’s Light Publishing.
Forbes, D. (2022). Neoliberal hegemonic masculinity and McMindfulness: The need for Buddhist values and principles in mindful masculinity programs. Religions, 13(6), 544. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13060544
Hyland, T. (2017). McDonaldizing spirituality: mindfulness, education, and consumerism. Journal of Transformative Education, 15(4), 334–356. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344617696972