Buddhism Mindfulness as a modern, Western practice is founded on
Zen and
modern Vipassanā, and involves the training of sati, which means "moment to moment awareness of present events", but also "remembering to be aware of something".
Early Buddhism Sati is one of the
seven factors of enlightenment. "Correct" or "right" mindfulness (Pali:
sammā-sati, Sanskrit
samyak-smṛti) is the seventh element of the
Noble Eightfold Path. Mindfulness is an antidote to delusion and is considered as a 'power' (Pali:
bala) which contributes to the attainment of
Nibbana. This faculty becomes a power in particular when it is coupled with
clear comprehension of whatever is taking place. Nirvana is a state of being in which greed, hatred and
delusion (Pali:
moha) have been overcome and abandoned, and are absent from the mind. According to
Paul Williams, referring to
Erich Frauwallner, mindfulness provided the way in
Early Buddhism to liberation, "constantly watching sensory experience in order to prevent the arising of cravings which would power future experience into rebirths." According to Vetter,
Jhanas may have been the
original core practice of the Buddha, which aided the maintenance of mindfulness. According to
Thomas William Rhys Davids, the doctrine of mindfulness is "perhaps the most important" after the
Four Noble Truths and the
Noble Eightfold Path. T.W. Rhys Davids viewed the teachings of
Gotama Buddha as a rational technique for self-actualization and rejected a few parts of it, mainly the doctrine of rebirth, as residual superstitions.
Zazen The aim of
zazen is just
sitting, that is, suspending all judgmental thinking and letting words, ideas, images and thoughts pass by without getting involved in them.
Contemporary Vipassana-meditation In modern
vipassana-meditation, as propagated by the
Vipassana movement,
sati aids
vipassana,
insight into the true nature of reality, namely the
three marks of existence, the
impermanence of and the
suffering of every conditioned thing that exists, and
non-self. With this insight, the practitioner becomes a so-called
Sotāpanna, a "stream-enterer", the first stage on the
path to liberation. Vipassana is practiced in tandem with
Samatha, and also plays a central role in other Buddhist traditions. According to the contemporary Theravada orthodoxy, Samatha is used as a preparation for Vipassanā, pacifying the mind and strengthening the concentration in order to allow the work of insight, which leads to
liberation. Vipassanā-meditation has gained popularity in the west through the modern Buddhist vipassana movement, modeled after Theravāda Buddhism meditation practices, which employs vipassanā and
ānāpāna meditation as its primary techniques and places emphasis on the teachings of the Sutta.
Anapanasati, satipaṭṭhāna, and vipassana Anapanasati is mindfulness of breathing. "Sati" means
mindfulness; "ānāpāna" refers to inhalation and exhalation. Anapanasati means to feel the sensations caused by the movements of the breath in the body. The
Anapanasati Sutta gives an exposition on this practice.
Satipaṭṭhāna is the establishment of mindfulness in one's day-to-day life, maintaining as much as possible a calm awareness of one's body, feelings, mind, and
dhammas. The practice of mindfulness supports analysis resulting in the arising of wisdom (Pali:
paññā, Sanskrit:
prajñā).
Samprajaña, apramāda and atappa In contemporary Theravada practice, "mindfulness" also includes
samprajaña, meaning "clear comprehension" and
apramāda meaning "vigilance". All three terms are sometimes (confusingly) translated as "mindfulness", but they all have specific shades of meaning. In a publicly available correspondence between
Bhikkhu Bodhi and
B. Alan Wallace, Bodhi has described Ven.
Nyanaponika Thera's views on "right mindfulness" and
sampajañña as follows:
Monitoring mental processes According to
Buddhadasa, the aim of mindfulness is to stop the arising of disturbing thoughts and emotions, which arise from sense-contact. According to Grzegorz Polak, the four
upassanā (foundations of mindfulness) have been misunderstood by the developing Buddhist tradition, including Theravada, to refer to four different foundations. According to Polak, the four
upassanā do not refer to four different foundations, but to the awareness of four different aspects of raising mindfulness: • the
six sense-bases which one needs to be aware of (
kāyānupassanā); • contemplation on
vedanās, which arise with the contact between the senses and their objects (
vedanānupassanā); • the altered states of mind to which this practice leads (cittānupassanā); • the development from the
five hindrances to the
seven factors of enlightenment (
dhammānupassanā).
Stoicism The Greek philosophical school of
Stoicism founded by
Zeno of Citium included practices resembling those of mindfulness, such as visualization exercises. In his
Discourses, Stoic philosopher
Epictetus addresses in particular the concept of attention (
prosoche), an idea also found in
Seneca and
Marcus Aurelius. By cultivating it over time, this skill would prevent the practitioner from becoming unattentive and moved by instinct rather than according to reason.
Christianity Mindfulness traditions are also found in some Christian spiritual traditions. In his Rules for Eating,
St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches, "let him guard against all his soul being intent on what he is eating, and in eating let him not go hurriedly, through appetite, but be master of himself, as well in the manner of eating as in the quantity which he eats." He might have been inspired by
Epictetus' Enchiridion. In addition, Jesus himself, in his Sermon on the Mount, said, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."—Matthew 6:34, NIV,
Transcendentalism Mindfulness practitioner Jon Kabat-Zinn refers to Thoreau as a predecessor of the interest in mindfulness, together with other eminent
Transcendentalists such as Emerson and Whitman: The forms of Asian religion and spirituality which were introduced in the west were themselves influenced by Transcendentalism and other 19th-century manifestations of
Western esotericism. Transcendentalism was closely connected to the Unitarian Church, which in India collaborated with
Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833) and his
Brahmo Samaj. He found that
Unitarianism came closest to true Christianity, and had a strong sympathy for the Unitarians. This influence worked through on
Vivekananda, whose modern but idiosyncratic interpretation of Hinduism became widely popular in the west. Vipassana meditation, presented as a centuries-old meditation system, was a 19th-century reinvention, which gained popularity in south-east due to the accessibility of the Buddhist sutras through English translations from the Pali Text Society. It was brought to western attention in the 19th century by the
Theosophical Society. Zen Buddhism first gained popularity in the west through the writings of
D.T. Suzuki, who attempted to present a modern interpretation of Zen, adjusted to western tastes.
Jon Kabat-Zinn and MBSR In 1979,
Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the
University of Massachusetts to treat the chronically ill. This program sparked the application of mindfulness ideas and practices in Medicine for the treatment of a variety of conditions in both healthy and unhealthy people. MBSR and similar programs are now widely applied in schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans centers, and other environments. Mindfulness practices were inspired mainly by teachings from the
Eastern World, particularly from Buddhist traditions. Kabat-Zinn was first introduced to meditation by
Philip Kapleau, a
Zen missionary who came to speak at MIT where Kabat-Zinn was a student. Kabat-Zinn went on to study meditation with other Zen-Buddhist teachers such as
Thích Nhất Hạnh and
Seungsahn. He also studied at the
Insight Meditation Society and eventually taught there. One of MBSR's techniques—the "body scan"—was derived from a meditation practice ("sweeping") of the Burmese
U Ba Khin tradition, as taught by
S. N. Goenka in his
Vipassana retreats, which he began in 1976. The body scan method has since been widely adapted to secular settings, independent of religious or cultural contexts. Kabat-Zinn was also influenced by the book
The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James which suggests that religions point toward the same experience, and which
1960s counterculture figures interpreted as meaning that the same universal, experiential truth could be reached in different ways, including via non-religious activities.
Popularization, "mindfulness movement" Mindfulness is gaining a growing popularity as a practice in daily life, apart from Buddhist insight meditation and its application in clinical psychology.
Mindfulness may be seen as a mode of being, and can be practiced outside a formal setting. The terminology used by scholars of religion, scientists, journalists, and popular media writers to describe this movement of mindfulness "popularization," and the many new contexts of mindfulness practice which have cropped up, has regularly evolved over the past 20 years, with some criticisms arising. It has also recently been a common trend to see among sport teams, with mindfulness practices being integrated as parts of teams routines. The latest changes when people moved from real-life meditation sessions to the applications on their smart devices has been even more accelerated by the global pandemic. Modern applications are adapting to the needs of their users by using AI technology, involving professional psychologists and offering many different mindfulness approaches to serve a wider audience, such as among athletes. ==Practice==