So, What IS "Mindfulness?"

Last night I had the pleasure of sharing an evening of discussion with psychoanalyst, Jeffrey Rubin at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Tucson. My “piece” was a summary of “mindfulness” as understood within the buddhist tradition and in particular how, with the mainstreaming of “mindfulness” in all sorts of psychological contexts, much of the subtlety of the concept is being lost. As several friends from the community there asked if I could provide copies of my notes, I thought I’d do one better and work them up into an essay. (My notes are – at best – little phrases and lists to jog my memory, written in a pocket-sized notepad!) So, here it is:

Research into “mindfulness” dates back at least 30 years or so, but it’s been only in the last decade or so that there has been a tremendous growth in interest, deeper research, application in various contexts (including therapies directed toward anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, eating disorders) and in marketing! It seems that many folk feel that if you can just slip the word “mindfulness” into whatever your packaging, you will guarantee greater acceptance of whatever it is you’re selling!

However, there’s a discrepancy between how mindfulness is described in the buddhist texts and how it is described by many contemporary buddhist teachers as well as in the psychological mainstreaming of mindfulness. Again and again, I read passages that describe mindfulness as “bare attention.” For instance, here’s how Sara Weber defines mindfulness in her essay, “An Analyst’s Surrender” from Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: “a cultivation of a moment-to-moment awareness of changing perceptions in a neutral, impartial way.” Carey Wong offers this succinct definition at the about.com website: “Mindfulness is a type of meditation that essentially involves focusing on your mind on the present. To be mindful is to be aware of your thoughts and actions in the present, without judging yourself.”

Note the common understanding that mindfulness embodies “present moment awareness,” and holding a “neutral, non-judging, impartial” attitude or perspective toward experience. Yet, this is not quite how mindfulness is taught in the earliest buddhist texts! In fact, this description more accurately fits the definition of another term, manasikara, which simply means “attention” or “mental engagement.” This would be the initial moments of bare cognizing before recognition, perception and conceptualization. This “bare attention” is actually considered a “neutral” mental factor, neither inherently wholesome or unwholesome.

The word that we generally translate as mindfulness in Pali is sati, which is a form of “recollection” and “non-forgetfulness” which includes: retrospective memory of the past; prospectively remembering to do something in the future; and a present-centered recollection as the unwavering attention to a present reality.  This kind of mindfulness may be used to sustain bare attention, but nowhere in the basic texts do we find mindfulness (sati) equated with bare attention (manasikara).

Indeed, for “right mindfulness” to be present, sati requires the concomitant presence of “clear comprehension” (sampajanna) which is a form of introspective awareness that includes: precise knowing (a knowing of discrete moments of experiencing); complete knowing (seeing impermanence, the not-self nature of phenomena; the ultimately unsatisfactory nature of phenomena; liberation); and balanced knowing (the observation of all phenomena with sati). In the Satipatthana Sutta (a key text on the practice of sati), the three factors of recollection (sati), clear comprehension (sampajanna) and ardency (atappa) together make up “appropriate attention” or “wise reflection” (yoniso manasikara).

Sati is understood as a wholesome mental factor that clearly distinguishes between wholesome and unwholesome mental states and behaviors, and is used to then cultivate and support wholesome states and behaviors and to counteract and diminish unwholesome states and behaviors. Nothing “impartial” or “neutral” about that!

When buddhist meditation is reduced to “bare attention” – as it so often is by many contemporary teachers and by almost all in the psychological community – what often gets neglected are ethics (sila), and practices such as the immeasurables. While “bare attention” as a calm, non-reactive awareness plays a crucial part in samatha (calming or tranquility meditation), it can also lead to profoundly liberating insights – but generally only for those with a fairly developed practice and understanding. An often-repeated story from the sutras is when the buddha tells a student “In the hearing, let there just be the hearing; in the seeing, let there just be the seeing.” What is overlooked is that this particular student was already highly advanced. Such an instruction for a beginner would be meaningless and not at all helpful! As it is often said of meditation in general: simple but not easy. Nothing could be “simpler” than “just hearing” or “just seeing,” but the difficulty of doing so is tremendous!

The potential danger of “bare attention” is that by itself, while it can suppress unwholesome mental factors, it can also prevent wholesome factors from arising. Remember that sati includes remembering the pain that a past action caused (for yourself or another), and prospectively remembering that you do not want to repeat such an action in the future. Such recollection would be impossible with “bare attention!”

Also, the four immeasurables: friendliness (metta); compassion (karuna); joy (mudita) and equanimity (uppekha) which are seen as wholesome mental factors to cultivate (bhavana, the word most used to refer to “meditation” in the early texts) can only be practices with mindfulness, not “bare attention!”

So, in an integrated practice of buddhist meditation that would include samatha (calming) and vipassana (insight), samatha would be the primary method of developing sati (mindfulness); then one would move on to vipassana, applying sati and its discerning intelligence to each of the four foundations of mindfulness (body; feelings; mental formations; dharma).

Briefly, the recollection of the body begins with the breath; and goes on to include the whole body; the postures of the body; the activities of the body (and nothing gets left out including shitting and pissing); the parts of the body; the elements of the body; and finally, the ultimate reality of the body: it will be a corpse!

The recollection of feeling investigates the felt sense of experience, seeing how all experience is either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, arising physically or psychologically and that such feelings lead to reaction if sati is not present.

The recollection of mental formations includes emotions, discursive thinking, perceptions, etc. And the recollections of dharma investigates and categorizes experience according to aspects of the teachings of the buddha, including the five hindrances, the seven factors of awakening and the four noble truths. Alternatively, this can take the form of investigating the impermanent nature of all experience until the insight into not-self leads to “letting go” or “awakening.”

Again, its important to contemplate the fact that a sniper is practicing “bare attention” as he prepares for his kill. From the buddhist perspective, when mind is engaged in an act of harming, it is not even capable of sati (mindfulness). As the sniper waits and prepares, there will be heightened attention, vigilance, concentration and energy, but with an intention to cause harm, these factors are all under the sway of unwholesomeness. Free from its ethical matrix, mindfulness becomes “bare attention.”

For mindfulness to become “right mindfulness,” it requires the ethical and wisdom aspects, along with the meditation aspects of the eight-fold path. The eight limbs, divided into these three trainings (ethics, meditation, wisdom) are the yoga taught by the buddha.

Finally, I’d like to briefly touch upon the process behind the cultivation of mindfulness. It all begins with the arising of consciousness based upon the contact between a sense organ and a sense object. In buddhist thought (generally, there has been deviation from this understanding in some forms of buddhism such as much of vajrayana and zen) there is no “pure consciousness” that exists outside of causality. It always arises interdependently! And, there are six consciousness: one for each of the five senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, tasting) and then mind consciousness.

This consciousness is understood as the mere cognizing of sense object by the sense organ. Then, supporting mental factors help to create meaning from this raw cognizing. For example, my tongue makes contact with chocolate and a feeling arises. I find it pleasant because of many factors, not least of which is my conditioned response to chocolate based upon previous experience.

Contact, feeling, perception, intention, attention are “universal mental factors” that arise in every moment of consciousness. Meditation doesn’t begin until we apply the initial application and sustained attention, supported by energy to keep us “focused.” Three ethically variable or neutral factors also are generally present while meditating: conviction or confidence; joy; the impulse to act. There are said to be “variable” because as you might imagine, these three factors can equally arise when doing something unwholesome!

But, with all these mental factors present, I may be meditating, but it won’t be “mindfulness meditation.” Sati is a wholesome mental factor which only arises under special conditions. It cannot arise in the presence of any unwholesome factors. If envy is present, for instance, there is no mindfulness. BUT, in the very next moment, there can be recollection (mindfulness/sati) of the previous moment that we can investigate. But only if we are well-trained and have developed this skill.

With mindfulness, the arising of eighteen other wholesome mental factors is said to arise including among them: equanimity; non-greed; non-hatred; self-respect; respect for others; tranquility; lightness; and malleability.

Finally, to the surprise of many when they hear this, mindfulness alone does not inevitably lead to liberating wisdom (panna). If mindfulness is not linked to the mental factor of insight, it will not in and of itself lead to any significant change in your understanding and behavior! This helps explain why so many long-term practitioners seem not to have the ‘breakthroughs’ that others may speak about. It’s also why even great teachers can so often fail to live up to their own teachings!

Real transformation comes from exposing and uprooting the deeply embedded tendency to project ownership onto experience; to take any phenomena as being “I,” “me” or “mine.” A key contribution to the larger yoga tradition is the buddha’s insight that meditative stabilization must be combined with the liberating discernment of the not-self nature of phenomena.

An old analogy has mindfulness being like the hand that takes a sheaf of grain in it’s grip and wisdom the hand that holds the scythe that cuts it down.

May all beings be free!

September Daily Practice: Wisdom Practice -- Equanimity

Well, with this posting, this blog marks it's first anniversary. I'm wondering if those who have signed on as followers could offer some feedback on what has been helpful, what hasn't been so helpful and what you'd like to see on this blog. In a nutshell, I'd like this blog to be of service to you and all those who wish to live more mindfully, and I'd also like it to be more 'interactive.'  In looking over the past year, there's been less and less comments made, and I wonder what this signifies?

As for this month's Daily Practice, I'm sharing the fourth of the Four Immeasurables, the one that can be most challenging, and yet is ultimately the foundation and nourishment needed to expand the other three (friendliness, compassion and joy) 'immeasurably!'

A lot of people I know avoid reading the paper first thing in the morning—being confronted with all of the injustices and bad deeds in the world is an unsettling way to start the day. It’s difficult to read about the latest corporate finance scam or the obscenity of human trafficking and keep your peace of mind, and it’s even harder to know how to respond. The conflict feels even more immediate when you witness an unjust act firsthand, or are yourself the recipient of one, whether it’s having your wallet stolen, your car broken into, or any sort of hurtful behavior directed your way. The answer to this problem is upeksha, or equanimity, the fourth of the brahmaviharas. This state of mind allows us to respond to the nonvirtuous deeds of others, and indeed, to all of life’s fluctuations, in such a way that we are, as Buddhist scholar Peter Harvey describes it, the opposite of the way James Bond likes his martini: Stirred but not shaken. When we cultivate equanimity, we’re moved by injustice in the world and motivated to make things better, but our deep inner serenity is not disturbed.

Sometimes translated as indifference, upeksha is not a bland state of neutrality. In fact it means we care, and care deeply about all beings evenly! The Buddhist tradition’s understanding of upekkha or equanimity is one of balance. A balanced heart is not an unfeeling heart. The balanced heart feels pleasure without grasping and clinging at it, it feels pain without condemning or hating, and it stays open to neutral experiences with presence. Insight Meditation teacher Sharon Salzburg speaks of equanimity as a “spacious stillness of mind,” within which we can remain connected to others and all that is happening around us, while remaining free of our conditioned habit of grasping at what is pleasant and pushing away what is unpleasant.

  

One way to experience equanimity is to experiment with mindfulness meditation. Rather than fixing one-pointed attention on a single object such as the breath or a mantra, mindfulness meditation involves the moment-to-moment awareness of changing objects of perception. Mindfulness is like a flood light, shining awareness on the whole field of experience including sensations, emotions, and thoughts as they arise and pass away in the dynamic, ever-changing flux that characterizes the human experience of body and mind. Mindfulness allows you to see the nature of the unfolding process without getting caught in reactivity, or into being overly identified with it as ‘self,’ and this insight changes your relationship to the mind-body. The waves keep coming, but you don’t get swept away by them. Or as Swami Satchidanada often said, “you can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf!” This ability to remain balanced amidst ever-changing conditions is the balance of equanimity.

There’s an old story that illustrates the wisdom of this state of mind. A farmer's most valuable asset is the one horse he owns. One day it runs away. All the townspeople commiserate with him, "Oh, what terrible luck! You've fallen into poverty now, with no way to pull the plow or move your goods!" The farmer merely responds, "I don't know if it's unfortunate or not; all I know is that my horse is gone."

A few days later, the horse returns, and following it are 6 more horses, both stallions and mares. The townspeople say "Oh! You've struck it rich! Now you have 7 horses to your name!" Again, the farmer says, "I don't know if I'm fortunate or not; all that I can say is that I now have 7 horses in my stable."

A few days later, while the farmer's son is trying to break in one of the wild stallions, he's thrown from the horse and breaks his leg and shoulder. All the townspeople bemoan his fate: "Oh, how terrible! Your son has been so badly injured, he'll not be able to help you with the harvest. What a misfortune!” The farmer responds, “I don't know if its a misfortune or not; what I know is that my son has been injured.”

Less than a week later, the army sweeps through town, conscripting all of the young men to fight in a war... all except for the farmer's son who is unable to fight because of his injury.

The fact is, you can’t know what changes your life will bring, or what the ultimate consequences will be. Equanimity allows for the mystery of things; the unknowable, uncontrollable nature of things to be just as they are. In this radical acceptance lies peace and freedom – right there in the midst of whatever pleasant or unpleasant circumstances we find ourselves in. When we open to the truth that there is actually very little we can control other than our own reactions to circumstances, we learn to let go.

Cultivating the qualities of kindness, compassion, and joy open your heart to others. Equanimity balances the giving of your heart’s love with the recognition and acceptance that things are the way they are. However much you may care for someone, however much you may do for others, however much you would like to control or wish that things were other than they are, equanimity reminds you that all beings everywhere are responsible for their own actions, and for the consequences of their actions.

Without this recognition, it’s easy to fall into compassion fatigue, helper-burnout, and even despair. Equanimity allows you to open your heart and offer as much love, kindness, compassion, and rejoicing as you can, while letting go of your expectations and attachment to results. Equanimity endows the other three Brahma-Viharas with kshanti – patience, persistence, and forbearance. So you can keep your heart open even if the kindness, compassion and appreciative joy you offer to others is not returned. It is equanimity that brings immeasurability or boundlessness to the other three Brahma-Viharas.

If you practice asana, your practice can offer a good opportunity to become better at recognizing where, when, and how you get caught in or swept away by reactivity, and to observe your attachment to results. You might even observe an attachment to results in your motivation to practice in the first place! The desire to feel good and avoid the unpleasant might very well condition your whole experience of practice. But fixating on the results can cause you to miss key aspects of the process. As you continue in your asana practice, at some point it’s likely that factors outside your control—anatomical realities, injury, aging or illness – will affect your practice. When they do, you have a chance to practice equanimity by letting go of your attachment to the results you had been seeking. Equanimity gives you the energy to persist, regardless of the outcome, because you are connected to the integrity of the effort itself. Equanimity allows me to feel inspired by the beauty of the backbends modeled by B.K.S. Iyengar in Light On Yoga, knowing my back will never be able to accomplish them, and enjoy practicing the backbend I can do today.

In The Bhagavad-Gita Krishna tells Arjuna that this attitude of focusing on the action without attachment to the outcome is yoga: “Self-possessed, resolute, act without any thought of results, open to success or failure. This equanimity is yoga.” Similarly, Patanjali tells us in Yoga Sutra I:12 - 16 that abhyasa, continuous applied effort, coupled with vairagya, the willingness to observe experience without getting caught in reactivity to it, will lead to freedom from suffering.

  

For a formal practice to cultivate equanimity, begin with some calming breaths, or a mantra meditation. Once you feel calm, reflect on your deepest desire for happiness and freedom from suffering, both for yourself and others. Contemplate your desire to serve the needs of others and to be compassionately engaged in the world. Acknowledge both the joy and the suffering that exist throughout the world; the good deeds and the evil ones. As you continue to breathe into your heart’s center, acknowledge the necessity of balancing your desire to make positive change in the world with the reality that you cannot control the actions of others.

Bring to mind the image someone for whom you have no strong feelings one way or the other. With this person in your mind’s eye, repeat the following phrases to yourself, coordinating with the out-breath if you like:

“All beings like yourself are responsible for their own actions.”

“Suffering or happiness is created through one’s relationship to experience, not by experience itself.”

“Although I wish only the best for you, I know that your happiness or unhappiness depends on your actions, not on my wishes for you.”

“May you not be caught in reactivity.”

Feel free to use similar, appropriate phrases of your own devising. After a few minutes, shift your attention to your benefactors, those who have offered you support and assistance throughout your life, including teachers, friends, family, as well as the unseen workers who keep the societal infrastructure working. Silently repeat the phrases to yourself as you contemplate these benefactors.

            

After several minutes, begin to reflect upon your loved ones, directing the phrases to them, followed by the difficult people in your life. While feeling kindness, compassion and joy for those we love comes more easily than it does for those with whom we have difficulty, it is often the opposite with equanimity. It’s a lot easier to accept that those we dislike are responsible for their own happiness than it is for those we care for deeply since we feel more attachment to them. Whatever your experience, simply note any reactivity and see if you can be equinanimous with your reactivity!

Broaden your reach after a few minutes to include all beings everywhere throughout the world, and then finally concentrate contemplating equanimity in regards to yourself, noticing how taking responsibility for your own happiness and unhappiness can feel the hardest of all.

“All beings, including myself, are responsible for their own actions.”

“Suffering or happiness is created through one’s relationship to experience, not by experience itself.”

“Although I wish only the best for myself, I know that my happiness or unhappiness depends upon my actions, not my wishes for myself.”

“May I not be caught in reactivity.”

When you cultivate metta, the friendly quality of kind regard, karuna, the compassionate response to the suffering of others, and mudita, the delight in the happiness and success of others, it is equanimity that ultimately allows you to truly expand your capacity to experience this kind of boundless love for those beyond your immediate circle of friends and family, opening to the infinite capacity of your heart to embrace all beings.

Upeksha Bhavana: Cultivating Equanimity

The meditation and cultivation of equanimity helps create and sustain a balanced mind that remains calm and at peace within all the changing circumstances of life; what Zorba, the Greek calls, “the full catastrophe.”

Preliminary Practice: Begin with some calming breath or mantra meditation. When you are experiencing some modicum of calm, begin the cultivation of equanimity.

Basic Practice: As with the previous meditations. Especially here, if there is any agitation or anxiety present, return to calming, stabilizing breath work.

The Phrases:

All beings are the owners or heirs of their karma.

Appropriate action leads to good results; inappropriate action leads to bad results.

Everyone must face his or her own situation.

Although I wish only the best for you, I know that your happiness or unhappiness depends upon your actions, not my wishes for you.

May I (you, he, she, they) not be caught in reactivity.

Use these and other appropriate phrases.

The Traditional Sequence of Upeksha Bhavana:

1.     To a neutral person.

2.     To benefactors.

3.     To loved ones.

4.     To difficult people.

5.     To all beings.

6.     To yourself.

Book Club: "The Body of Truth" by Ajahn Amaro Bhikkhu

It’s with the sequencing of this essay, following mine and Jill Satterfield’s, that I believe Michael Stone’s editorial expertise shines. With Jill, we read a personal account of mindfulness practice directed to the body. With my chapter, there’s the explicit tying in of the Buddha’s teachings to the larger Yoga Tradition and the explication of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. Here, in Chapter 12, Ajahn Amaro emphasizes the body as the path of truth – Dharma itself.

First, the Ajahn emphasizes how the body and mind in the Buddha’s teachings are not seen as two radically different phenomena. While they are not generally seen as “identical,” they are seen as completely interdependent (for the most part; traditional Buddhism posits a form of consciousness that can indeed exist independently of the body, and which links one life to another).

In the section “Dimensions of Nature,” Ajahn Amaor explains the concept of namarupa, and its five component khandhas (also known in Sanskrit at skandhas). He then goes on to introduce the other “patterns” or “models” that are used in the Buddhist tradition to describe the human condition: the six senses (ayatana) and the elements (dhatu).

His second section, “Mindfulness of the Body” for the most part, reiterates some of the salient points I make in my essay. What I especially appreciate in Ajahn Amaro’s section is his distinction of the Buddhist emphasis on the body and the ‘mundane’ aspects of life for liberation, in contradistinction to the typically ‘transcendent’ and ‘withdrawal’ understandings of ‘enlightenment.’

In “The Present – Full of Useful Possibilities,” Ajahn Amaro points out how the body is always experienced as ‘present’ while the mind can appear to be caught up in the past and future. It is this very ‘present-oriented’ nature of the body that Buddhist meditation takes as it’s opening to limitless potential for freedom. As he writes, “…since the body is always in the present, the simple recollection of its presence is a surefire method to key the attention into the reality of the way things actually are.” And it is too often forgotten by students seeking some ‘other-worldly’ experience that seeing things as they really are is the door to the wisdom of liberation!

His section on “Walking Meditation,” though short, explains the importance of this practice for the cultivation of mindfulness. By extension, other forms of conscious movement – such as hatha-yoga, Tai Chi and various forms of martial arts and even weight-lifting -- can be developed as forms of mindfulness meditation. This is still something I find many students not fully grasping! They seem to fixate on sitting meditation as the be-all and end-all of meditation practice! Apparently, as the Buddha himself aged, and suffered from various physical ailments, walking meditation became his preferred method of practice.

Finally, for this post, I’ll end with a few words about sila, the ethical teachings of the Buddhist tradition. Ajahn Amaro says about sila that it is the “basis of practice.” I would go as far as saying that sila is the whole of the Dharma. Currently, a group of students I am working with are going through intensive sila study and practice with the ‘goal’ of taking refuge. They are beginning to see sila as real, on-the-ground mindfulness training. They are also seeing sila as more guidelines to freedom than restrictions or prohibitions. As one student said, “When I practice sila, I find myself free of many anxieties, concerns and sufferings I thought were simply part and parcel of life!” Ajahn Amaro refers to the precepts as “rules,” but I think that term misses the living spirit of sila.

I’ll post a concluding post on this chapter later this week, but for now, I’d be happy to hear any comments from those of you who have been reading along. OR, even from those of you who have not read the book, but have been following this blog ‘book club.’

BOOK CLUB: "Mind and Body at Ease" by Sarah Powers

I’ve long been a fan of Sarah Powers’ work, so I was looking forward to reading her contribution to Michael Stone’s anthology, Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind. Sarah’s essay is Chapter 7 of this book, and she begins right out of the gate, so to speak, asserting, “Hatha Yoga is an introspective path.” Of course she’ll have no argument from me on this point, but I wonder still how many practitioners understand it as such?

The next part of her opening sentence strikes me a bit strangely though, when she seems to place the “introspective path of self-transformation” that is Hatha-Yoga purely in terms of using “the body as a vehicle for harmonizing and strengthening one’s energy” that allows one to then – with this ‘balanced energy’ – be in a place of better understanding for freeing our minds with the “meditative awareness practice” that is mindfulness. She goes on to speak of “braiding” Hatha Yoga and mindfulness together as our practice life.

I say this strikes me strangely because I think that in our practice life, these are not at all two ‘things’ we braid together as much as one fully integrated, comprehensive practice. In cultivating a mindfulness of body, for instance, while practicing the postures and movements of Hatha Yoga, the practice jointly balances energy and cultivates understanding and freedom of mind. In my own practice, I cannot sense them as two when we approach Hatha Yoga as an introspective path.

I don’t wish to belabor the point here, but I do want to clarify that what may seem like two practices that complement each other can indeed be approached as one single, comprehensive practice. And honestly, this is how it feels when I’ve taken class with Sarah: seamless!

Her distinction between “active attention” and “receptive attention” is an interesting one. Of course, various mindfulness meditations emphasize these different forms of attention regardless of the posture one is in. For instance, the body scan most often used as either First or Second Foundation practice requires much active attention as one directs one’s attention throughout the body in a systematic way. While doing so, one is encouraged to maintain an ‘equanimous mind’ which is a non-reactive receptive state.

That she sees these two forms of attention as related to yang and yin approaches to yogasana is telling, and again makes sense. Whenever I am offering equanimity practice, I emphasize yin-yoga practice, though of course, again, this kind of receptive, non-manipulating kind of attention is also needed in more vigorous vinyasa as well – as Sarah also mentions. It is always, ultimately, a matter of emphasis. Almost always, distinctions made for didactic purposes over-emphasize the differences and make it sound like they are truly separate, while in practice, we find a more fluid relationship to these approaches.

One thing I really appreciated about Sarah’s contribution is her examples from her own life. It is important for practitioners to understand that this ‘practice’ is, as she writes, a ‘life-practice,’ so her use of her hot flashes as an example of working with mindfulness is very pertinent. One caveat: ‘awareness of sensations’ is more accurately associated with the Second Foundation of Mindfulness, and I suspect her referring to is as the First Foundation on page 92 is a typo or simply a slip of the pen, so to speak, which I think becomes obvious when she refers to the First Foundation of Mindfulness as “mindfulness of the body” on the very next page.

I completely feel at resonance with Sarah, especially when she writes about what I call ‘building a bigger container.’ When we rest in a more receptive mode of attention in the face of discomfort, we are doing so not to become more stoic, but to cultivate the ability and capacity to meet the unavoidable afflictions, disappointments and difficulties of everyday life “without adding suffering to our suffering,” as she puts it. This is a real freedom that is truly available to any of us, if we simply give ourselves the time and permission to stay in that receptive state.

I also appreciate her drawing attention to ‘self-talk’ as part of our mindfulness practice. So much of this self-talk can be so unkind and self-lacerating. Most people would be appalled at the idea of saying such things to others, but their minds lash out at them with such vitriol. And then there is all the under-mining self-talk that she speaks about.

In the chain of causation, there is what she refers to as the first and second ‘beats’ of stimulus and assessment, and the third and fourth beats as reaction and action. Mindfulness is a form of nirodha, or containment. We feel a reaction of grasping or aversion to a sensation that is assessed as pleasant or unpleasant and we consciously inhibit any action based upon the conditioning so that we can choose a more creative way to respond.

Sarah strongly makes the point that mindfulness allows us to see the choices our life experience make available to us. Without mindfulness, we live in an almost automatic mode of conditioned reactivity and end up feeling ‘victimized’ by ‘fate.’

Along with Chip Hartranft’s opening chapter, “Awakening to Prana” and chapter five, “Joining With Naturalness” by Ari Goldfield and Rose Taylor, I find Sarah’s contribution to be my favorites so far. All of them offer solid, sound understandings and approaches that I hope are making the relationship between Yoga and Buddhism more clear among readers. What do you think?