You make some keen observations about Western Buddhist practice as well as mainstream mindfulness culture. I've noticed many of the same tendencies, including in myself at times.... but one thing that's nagging at me--don't you think some of the problem you're describing is rooted in the suttas? Yes, Western culture has translated and co-opted Buddhism in a way that reinforces our avoidant patterns, but from what I've read of the Pali suttas (in translation) there also seems to be a tendency toward avoiding "negative" emotions, attachment to worldly concerns, and of course, the emphasis on monasticism and celibacy... even the descriptions of the goal in terms of becoming a "non-returner" or arhat seem to emphasize transcendence of this world, and certainly romantic relationships. Personally I've gravitated toward Vajrayana and feel some ambivalence toward the suttas for that reason.
I really related to this article and appreciate your description and insights. I spent 17 years in a traditional Buddhist sangha led by a western teacher. So many unpleasant emotions like jealousy and competitiveness would come up over and over just trying to get along or pull together as a group for a special event or ritual and I always felt like a failure for not being able to let go or to even have feelings in the first place. It was very confusing. I finally left my teacher and community and found my way into social tango dancing. It’s like being in a sangha in many ways, however this time there is a lot of physical contact, and emotional expression actually helps you in your dance. Fortunately I also feel like some of the skills I developed in my Buddhist community like concentration and compassion have really helped out my dance practice. It’s so important to take the big picture view like you are doing here, and I really appreciate what you have written. Sometimes I wonder if we just have to go through what we went through….
That's why I like somatic experiencing. I don't know about the various traditions enough, but so far I haven't been able to reduce it to anything else I encountered. At core it seems to me about becoming more and more able to feel and follow one's impulses. So, it looks to me, the opposite of withdrawal...
Reading this after returning from Sesshin two days ago, so quite timely.
One learning I'm sitting with related to this is the sutra on the relative and the absolute, and how both are needed.
Zen Buddhism has become a way of life for me in the absolute and, in my experience, it still strongly recognizes the truth of the relative. I see other practices like parts work, somatics, etc to be tools to work in the relative. We can work with our parts and emotions, expressing them fully, without clinging, while also seeing that they are impernanent, and that we are far more vast than the experience itself.
The relative and the absolute. Both are true. Both are needed.
This was beautiful Daniel and fairly represented. I found this quite similar on a foray into Goenka's Vipassana. The 10 days was entirely focused on a narrow view of equanimity with no reaction to anything, then a brief explanation of compassion but advice that you shouldn't engage with compassion until you can be perfectly equanimous. I left there saying thanks for the good technique, very helpful within a silo, but you've missed half the point.
The best of Buddhism and any religion is in community, dharma and connection. If something doesn't teach you how to live and be in any moment with intense connection with the universe, it's leaving something out. But it is important to balance all of those things together, because if you lose even one you create an imbalanced practice.
If you only focus on connection and experiencing, you lose out on the ability to step back and witness your patterns and connections of your mind. If you focus entirely on equanimity you end up locked up in a room for up to 100 days in Vipassana without any experience of the world. If you focus entirely on right action and right work you lose the ability to let go of societal constructs.
There's always a *yes* and that can sometimes be really difficult to navigate within our own flawed and fragmented mental context window through which we experience the world. You have to seek a deep and rich connection to a spiritual tradition within a strong enough community and support system that you're willing to take everything in, the comfortable and uncomfortable. Cheers!
Thanks for sharing this post. I've had a different experience of Western Buddhism in the sangha I'm currently in (Planetary Dharma). It's actually quite different than your experience. I suppose I'm lucky. I've never been more in touch with and accepting of the full range of my emotions in my life. Since joining and practicing with this sangha my relationships with my children, husband and most friends are substantially more open, loving, honest and close than before. It's wild. I experience my emotions fully while also holding them more loosely. I experience my egoic self as more developed and strong while at the same time empty and open, which is freeing. I've also had experiences with NVC that illuminated my emotional needs in an embodied way and helped me to express them.
All that said, I'm aware there are other sanghas and teachers who don't take this approach. I also see the mindfulness movement as problematic in the ways you describe.
The Emerald Podcast has a few episodes that speak to this. One in particular I like is called "Why mindfulness isn't enough." Thanks for your article Daniel. It's a great reflection of aspects of western buddhism and the mindfulness movement.
Ah. You’re singing my song… Back in the early 00’s I bought a house in a town I’d never visited before, 50 mins on the train from where I worked.
The were a Mahayana Buddhist centre just around the corner, which I started frequenting. First every week for an hour after work, where the public were invited to try mindfulness meditation. Then twice a week, then for a few hours each weekend, until I found myself sometimes going at the crack of dawn for morning rituals.
After a couple of years I’d been to the main temple in the UK for a week’s retreat and then on to Berlin for a higher Tantric empowerment.
It was a great sangha and we were a close knit community, but niggles stared to creep in. I’m a bit ND and tend to try and do things right, if I’m going to do them at all, but I was faced with a certain amount of hypocrisy which never felt accidental, but rather a choice to ignore teachings or bypass them for certain comforts etc.
I wrestled with my own ‘inadequacies’ and the very fact that I was observing such transgressions, such as - spending all weekend at a silent retreat and then witnessing someone clap their hands together to squash a mosquito. Or, the monk have everyone believe he was a vegetarian for months, if not years, but then during a weekend deep dive into Lam Rim during our book study, he let slip that he would treat himself to a meat pasty from time to time.
What I began to notice was that, me in my later twenties was an outlier, and most of the ppl I was hanging out with were in their later 40’s, 50’s and 60+. People searching for something, people moving into or out of the third quarter of their life…
I began to recognise that it seemed to be all about selling books, opening more Buddhist centres and funding temples around the world.
That may sound cynical, but I wanted to connect with people, but there was this ‘emptiness’ between us all and we were on a journey of enlightenment for all other beings, by becoming enlightened ourselves.
There were a few people I knew who were ordained, some of which I strongly disliked as they didn’t appear to be very nice people. (I’m writing this now, not as a practicing Buddhist, but just a guy who’s had dalliances with Christianity, Buddhism and Yoga (I undertook a 200hr Ashtanga Yoga Teacher Training Course about 12 years ago))
Briefly skipping forward a few years, I attended a couple of meditation classes of the same flavours while living in Istanbul… The person who took the classes and who was in residence at the centre was part of the wider/inner circle of the main group/following. I was talking to her about her time visiting Dharamshala and specifically monks in saffron robes. She basically said that you can’t trust any of them and a lot of them would rob you…
Skipping back a bit. While still living in the UK I was enquiring about engaging with the local community and at each step of the way there was resistance and pretty much a smiling ‘no’ at the end of each enquiry.
The final straw which broke my allegiance was when I was walking home from the centre late one summer’s evening. I’d been at the centre doing some kind of ‘karma yoga’ which was basically me giving lots of my time for free.
I saw a black cat laying in the road. As I bent down to examine it, I could see it was still breathing and that it had been run over. I called the centre to speak to one of the residents (who was later ordained) and she spoke to the monk… I asked if she could help me call the vet and/or drive it round there. They didn’t lift a finger and could care less. This being, who was clearly in pain. Their mother and also their child having been born and reborn for into samsara for time immemorial - and they basically ended the phone call.
I stroked the cat and lightly massaged the crown of its head. It let out a huge sigh and stretched after a few mins - its bones clicking where it’s been struck by a car - and then it was dead.
The time was near 23:00 - it was a very warm and balmy night. Quiet and otherwise idyllic.
I scooped up the cat and put it on the pavement and went home. I didn’t prostrate in front of my own alter ever again.
Within a short time I met a woman who I later married and moved.
While I can see that many of your points are valid to some extent; the focus of this article and the claim that "This isn't a critique of Buddhism itself, but rather of how Western culture has shaped Buddhist teachings through the lens of its own intimacy disorder." appears false to me.
The western mindfulness is based on the Pali tradition, and the points you are making are, from my understanding, and as someone previously noted, rooted in the suttas and additionally in the Pali tradition.
Since you are making this distinction, it would be of value if were able to explain and support the claim how this is specifically related to "Western Buddhism" and how it is different in the Theravada tradition of the East.
It is true that Western Buddhism is BASED on the Pali canon, but it departs from it radically too. Its major figures such as Kabat Zinn explicitly present mindfulness teachings as decontextualised, and as science- and psychology-based. KZ himself had extensive training in sati inc with teachers from various traditions (Zen, Theravada, non-dual), but when it came to wheeling out the practice to the masses - an action based on a vision he had whilst on retreat - Buddhism was consciously taken out of the picture. This was likely a savvy marketing move as it allowed a practice that has religious context to find a home in many environments it would never have been allowed into (schools, the miliitary, prisons). Whatever it was, it has meant that much of what makes mindfulness sati has been removed. It is debatable, for instance - in fact highly contentious - whether KZ’s defintion of mindfulness as “bare attention” is doctrinally correct. Also, mindfulness within a Buddhist context is inextricable from ethical cultivation, community-building (and sometimes ritual practice). Mindfulness is sometimes delineated as “right mindfulness”, presumably in order to make the point that one could theoretically rob a bank mindfully - but that would not be mindfulness in the Buddhist sense.
I could go on here but hopefully you get the point. It is true that Buddhism has always adapted to the culture it finds its way into - Tibetan Buddhism for instance took on some of the characteristics of the indigenous shamanic practice when it first entered Tibet, so in some ways mindfulness as reflective of Western culture isn’t a surprise. What is different in this case is that mindfulness has become so stripped back that it bears little relationship to its “roots” - unless, of course, those roots are being used to legitimise it as an “authentic” practice. Modern mindfulness wants its cake and to eat it too.
I realize the occurrence of cultural adaptions and of elements that are loosely or not at all connected to its roots, especially in the movements of mindfulness schools that consciously disregard themselves as Buddhist.
As a person who has learned and practiced almost exclusively in East, I will not comment on how Buddhism is taught and practiced in the West; my point was that the arguments made by the author in the article can be applicable of the Theravada teachings and practices in the East, hence both the claim that "This isn't a critique of Buddhism itself" and the distinction made by using the term "Western Buddhism" appears false from my understanding.
Some examples:
"We're taught to observe our emotions rather than enter into intimate relationship with them."
How does this view differ in the East? Does this not resonate with Ādittapariyāya Sutta (Fire Sermon) as an example?
"Perhaps it would recognize that freedom comes through deep participation with all dimensions of life rather than withdrawal."
There are numerous passages in the Suttas where Buddha, the monks etc. are referred to as "recluse" (ex. "The recluse Gotama") and where renunciation is the central theme.
"The historical Buddha didn't lead or teach a life of isolation - he created a sangha, a community of practice, and said that friendship is the 'whole of the path'."
Has the author experienced the communities (monasteries) in the East to know the differences between the communities found in the practice centers in West?
How it was on Buddhas time can only be speculated, but there are numerous of passages in the Suttas indicating seclusion as a common theme as part of the lifestyle and practice.
Thank you for digging deeper into this. Your examples are helpful for understanding your pov and, yes, every point you raise here makes sense. Context is everything, right? (Buddhism itself being an exemplar of that idea!)
I’m pondering all of this and have no answers really, just a lot of unknowns. Which feels messy but also respectful to the truth of things, and the topic in hand.
Wishing you well and thanks again. I am very much enjoying not having to come down hard on one side or the other!
Thank you, Daniel. I may add that Gestalt Awareness Practice in the tradition of Dick Price, one of the original founders of Esalen, addresses this very point - by cultivating presence (non-judgmental awareness) we grow our ability to respond to what the moment is asking of us, rather than react to how we wish reality to be. This practice is more active than traditional meditation, though it is neither better nor worse - simply different. We all need to find practices and maps that help us become more complete versions of ourselves. There is no time to waste.
I liked most of this post, but I was a bit surprised by
> Relationship challenges become opportunities to practice non-attachment and 'non-violent' communication instead of opportunities to break through to deeper connection.
Since in my experience either NVC or something based on its core principles is exactly what allows breaking through to deeper connection. E.g. I recall the anecdote in one of the NVC books about a woman attending a workshop on expressing your needs. She suddenly went white and shared that she just realized she'd been angry at her husband for decades for not considering her needs, when she'd never even told him what her needs were. Likewise, my own ability to actually express what I wanted and needed went up dramatically when I first ran into NVC's tools and it taught me how to actually look at my interpersonal upsets and understand what was going on with them clearly enough that I could communicate it to others.
Hi Kaj. I also have experienced the same with NVC, I took a course maybe 15 years ago and it gave me the language and understanding around my experience and my emotions that I previously had not had. That being said, it was only the first step in a much deeper exploration in working with what I later would learn was an avoidant attachment style.
What I have noticed about some avid "practitioners of NVC", i.e. close friends of mine who use NVC as their main tool for communication and "personal growth", I notice there is an avoidance of going much deeper than this surface layer that NVC so elegantly works to uncover. I have a few friends who have remained in the same rut for all the years I have known them, stuck on repeat about "when this happens, I feel this way". There becomes a new avoidance of the actual material beneath that. NVC can be a catalyst for deep transformation, or it can be a tool to avoid the deeper layers when we don't explore what's there (or take any kind of ownership).
I don't know specifically what Daniel was referring to, but this is what came to mind for me as I laughed a bit at how accurate this felt to me.
Hi Shane! Thanks, that makes sense. I do agree that NVC tends to be a bit surface level and it feels possible to get stuck there, especially if you don't have any other tools. Among other things, I think its insistence on refusing to count interpersonal feelings - like "feeling betrayed" etc. - as feelings is... certainly valuable in a conflict situation, but also limits one's ability to clearly see what exactly is going on with their emotions. Something like "feeling betrayed" isn't reducible to something like "feeling disappointed" or "feeling upset" without losing information, a sense of betrayal (whether accurate or not) is tracking something important on top of those feelings!
I guess that tracks with what Daniel was saying about this fitting in with avoidant communication. :) If you never say you're feeling betrayed, then that may let you resolve conflicts better, but you're also hiding something about your true experience, possibly in an attempt to manage the other's feelings for them.
Yes, and… out of the belly of this beautiful practice is evolving a new, depth level real-time intimacy-communication and communal practices that are profound. I’ve had the pleasure to sit with seasoned meditators over the past 5 years and what’s being birthed right now is a kind of intimacy we’ve not known. It’s depth level attachment, attunement, intimacy and empathy that cuts right through the Maya and malaise. It is also deepen my practice more than the last five years and the previous two decades even through isolated retreats. Isolation has its place in this path. But it will only get you part of the way to being a self-actualized and emotionally intelligent human with no fixed position.
This is what i've been feeling about Western Mindfulness lately. Detachment, cherry picking and putting things out of the context.
Maybe i've been doing it wrong but I had a feeling something was off there.
Now i prefer to meditate just by walking, going to nature, slowly reading books, helping people, giving something to the world.
Or by going to the church. I haven't been very religious in last years but now i'm starting to appreciate mass in the catholic church.
There is something special about participating in the service with other people in temple; about being there with people who are serious about their faith and devotion.
For me all this east spiritual experience is just advance focus management.
Just don’t worry unnecessary if you cant do anything about your problem in current moment, just put your focus on breathe. When it will be possible to do anything, put your focus back and solve it.
I really can’t see any encouragement to avoid anything.
Avoiding can be only done by you and you need to make this choice.
There are three poisons in Buddhism, and attachment is only one. Releasing attachment needs to be balanced with accepting the things we are averse to. Applying anti-attachment to aversions, and anti-aversion to attachments is antithetical to the Buddhist path.
I call this rational bypassing. Sam Harris reminds me of someone who practices this way. The idea seems to be that suppressing emotions in favor of pure rationalism is how some people with a so called scientific mindset view “equanimity.”
The practice is about feeling the feelings, allowing them to arise and pass away, and gaining insight into the conditions that cause them to arise and being non-reactive in their presence. If you aren’t feeling when you believe you are equanimous, there is bypassing going on. It took me a while to figure that out.
You make some keen observations about Western Buddhist practice as well as mainstream mindfulness culture. I've noticed many of the same tendencies, including in myself at times.... but one thing that's nagging at me--don't you think some of the problem you're describing is rooted in the suttas? Yes, Western culture has translated and co-opted Buddhism in a way that reinforces our avoidant patterns, but from what I've read of the Pali suttas (in translation) there also seems to be a tendency toward avoiding "negative" emotions, attachment to worldly concerns, and of course, the emphasis on monasticism and celibacy... even the descriptions of the goal in terms of becoming a "non-returner" or arhat seem to emphasize transcendence of this world, and certainly romantic relationships. Personally I've gravitated toward Vajrayana and feel some ambivalence toward the suttas for that reason.
I really related to this article and appreciate your description and insights. I spent 17 years in a traditional Buddhist sangha led by a western teacher. So many unpleasant emotions like jealousy and competitiveness would come up over and over just trying to get along or pull together as a group for a special event or ritual and I always felt like a failure for not being able to let go or to even have feelings in the first place. It was very confusing. I finally left my teacher and community and found my way into social tango dancing. It’s like being in a sangha in many ways, however this time there is a lot of physical contact, and emotional expression actually helps you in your dance. Fortunately I also feel like some of the skills I developed in my Buddhist community like concentration and compassion have really helped out my dance practice. It’s so important to take the big picture view like you are doing here, and I really appreciate what you have written. Sometimes I wonder if we just have to go through what we went through….
That's why I like somatic experiencing. I don't know about the various traditions enough, but so far I haven't been able to reduce it to anything else I encountered. At core it seems to me about becoming more and more able to feel and follow one's impulses. So, it looks to me, the opposite of withdrawal...
Was just editing our podcast together last night, it was wonderful & and great to see the thread we touched on brought out into full form here.
Reading this after returning from Sesshin two days ago, so quite timely.
One learning I'm sitting with related to this is the sutra on the relative and the absolute, and how both are needed.
Zen Buddhism has become a way of life for me in the absolute and, in my experience, it still strongly recognizes the truth of the relative. I see other practices like parts work, somatics, etc to be tools to work in the relative. We can work with our parts and emotions, expressing them fully, without clinging, while also seeing that they are impernanent, and that we are far more vast than the experience itself.
The relative and the absolute. Both are true. Both are needed.
This was beautiful Daniel and fairly represented. I found this quite similar on a foray into Goenka's Vipassana. The 10 days was entirely focused on a narrow view of equanimity with no reaction to anything, then a brief explanation of compassion but advice that you shouldn't engage with compassion until you can be perfectly equanimous. I left there saying thanks for the good technique, very helpful within a silo, but you've missed half the point.
The best of Buddhism and any religion is in community, dharma and connection. If something doesn't teach you how to live and be in any moment with intense connection with the universe, it's leaving something out. But it is important to balance all of those things together, because if you lose even one you create an imbalanced practice.
If you only focus on connection and experiencing, you lose out on the ability to step back and witness your patterns and connections of your mind. If you focus entirely on equanimity you end up locked up in a room for up to 100 days in Vipassana without any experience of the world. If you focus entirely on right action and right work you lose the ability to let go of societal constructs.
There's always a *yes* and that can sometimes be really difficult to navigate within our own flawed and fragmented mental context window through which we experience the world. You have to seek a deep and rich connection to a spiritual tradition within a strong enough community and support system that you're willing to take everything in, the comfortable and uncomfortable. Cheers!
Thanks for sharing this post. I've had a different experience of Western Buddhism in the sangha I'm currently in (Planetary Dharma). It's actually quite different than your experience. I suppose I'm lucky. I've never been more in touch with and accepting of the full range of my emotions in my life. Since joining and practicing with this sangha my relationships with my children, husband and most friends are substantially more open, loving, honest and close than before. It's wild. I experience my emotions fully while also holding them more loosely. I experience my egoic self as more developed and strong while at the same time empty and open, which is freeing. I've also had experiences with NVC that illuminated my emotional needs in an embodied way and helped me to express them.
All that said, I'm aware there are other sanghas and teachers who don't take this approach. I also see the mindfulness movement as problematic in the ways you describe.
The Emerald Podcast has a few episodes that speak to this. One in particular I like is called "Why mindfulness isn't enough." Thanks for your article Daniel. It's a great reflection of aspects of western buddhism and the mindfulness movement.
I also thought of this episode!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/64iID6pjaiESrb7ENob2y3?si=mObFxPKhRXKcQ8I17ZyIBg
wow, loving the emerald podcast, what other episodes you love?
Ah. You’re singing my song… Back in the early 00’s I bought a house in a town I’d never visited before, 50 mins on the train from where I worked.
The were a Mahayana Buddhist centre just around the corner, which I started frequenting. First every week for an hour after work, where the public were invited to try mindfulness meditation. Then twice a week, then for a few hours each weekend, until I found myself sometimes going at the crack of dawn for morning rituals.
After a couple of years I’d been to the main temple in the UK for a week’s retreat and then on to Berlin for a higher Tantric empowerment.
It was a great sangha and we were a close knit community, but niggles stared to creep in. I’m a bit ND and tend to try and do things right, if I’m going to do them at all, but I was faced with a certain amount of hypocrisy which never felt accidental, but rather a choice to ignore teachings or bypass them for certain comforts etc.
I wrestled with my own ‘inadequacies’ and the very fact that I was observing such transgressions, such as - spending all weekend at a silent retreat and then witnessing someone clap their hands together to squash a mosquito. Or, the monk have everyone believe he was a vegetarian for months, if not years, but then during a weekend deep dive into Lam Rim during our book study, he let slip that he would treat himself to a meat pasty from time to time.
What I began to notice was that, me in my later twenties was an outlier, and most of the ppl I was hanging out with were in their later 40’s, 50’s and 60+. People searching for something, people moving into or out of the third quarter of their life…
I began to recognise that it seemed to be all about selling books, opening more Buddhist centres and funding temples around the world.
That may sound cynical, but I wanted to connect with people, but there was this ‘emptiness’ between us all and we were on a journey of enlightenment for all other beings, by becoming enlightened ourselves.
There were a few people I knew who were ordained, some of which I strongly disliked as they didn’t appear to be very nice people. (I’m writing this now, not as a practicing Buddhist, but just a guy who’s had dalliances with Christianity, Buddhism and Yoga (I undertook a 200hr Ashtanga Yoga Teacher Training Course about 12 years ago))
Briefly skipping forward a few years, I attended a couple of meditation classes of the same flavours while living in Istanbul… The person who took the classes and who was in residence at the centre was part of the wider/inner circle of the main group/following. I was talking to her about her time visiting Dharamshala and specifically monks in saffron robes. She basically said that you can’t trust any of them and a lot of them would rob you…
Skipping back a bit. While still living in the UK I was enquiring about engaging with the local community and at each step of the way there was resistance and pretty much a smiling ‘no’ at the end of each enquiry.
The final straw which broke my allegiance was when I was walking home from the centre late one summer’s evening. I’d been at the centre doing some kind of ‘karma yoga’ which was basically me giving lots of my time for free.
I saw a black cat laying in the road. As I bent down to examine it, I could see it was still breathing and that it had been run over. I called the centre to speak to one of the residents (who was later ordained) and she spoke to the monk… I asked if she could help me call the vet and/or drive it round there. They didn’t lift a finger and could care less. This being, who was clearly in pain. Their mother and also their child having been born and reborn for into samsara for time immemorial - and they basically ended the phone call.
I stroked the cat and lightly massaged the crown of its head. It let out a huge sigh and stretched after a few mins - its bones clicking where it’s been struck by a car - and then it was dead.
The time was near 23:00 - it was a very warm and balmy night. Quiet and otherwise idyllic.
I scooped up the cat and put it on the pavement and went home. I didn’t prostrate in front of my own alter ever again.
Within a short time I met a woman who I later married and moved.
While I can see that many of your points are valid to some extent; the focus of this article and the claim that "This isn't a critique of Buddhism itself, but rather of how Western culture has shaped Buddhist teachings through the lens of its own intimacy disorder." appears false to me.
The western mindfulness is based on the Pali tradition, and the points you are making are, from my understanding, and as someone previously noted, rooted in the suttas and additionally in the Pali tradition.
Since you are making this distinction, it would be of value if were able to explain and support the claim how this is specifically related to "Western Buddhism" and how it is different in the Theravada tradition of the East.
It is true that Western Buddhism is BASED on the Pali canon, but it departs from it radically too. Its major figures such as Kabat Zinn explicitly present mindfulness teachings as decontextualised, and as science- and psychology-based. KZ himself had extensive training in sati inc with teachers from various traditions (Zen, Theravada, non-dual), but when it came to wheeling out the practice to the masses - an action based on a vision he had whilst on retreat - Buddhism was consciously taken out of the picture. This was likely a savvy marketing move as it allowed a practice that has religious context to find a home in many environments it would never have been allowed into (schools, the miliitary, prisons). Whatever it was, it has meant that much of what makes mindfulness sati has been removed. It is debatable, for instance - in fact highly contentious - whether KZ’s defintion of mindfulness as “bare attention” is doctrinally correct. Also, mindfulness within a Buddhist context is inextricable from ethical cultivation, community-building (and sometimes ritual practice). Mindfulness is sometimes delineated as “right mindfulness”, presumably in order to make the point that one could theoretically rob a bank mindfully - but that would not be mindfulness in the Buddhist sense.
I could go on here but hopefully you get the point. It is true that Buddhism has always adapted to the culture it finds its way into - Tibetan Buddhism for instance took on some of the characteristics of the indigenous shamanic practice when it first entered Tibet, so in some ways mindfulness as reflective of Western culture isn’t a surprise. What is different in this case is that mindfulness has become so stripped back that it bears little relationship to its “roots” - unless, of course, those roots are being used to legitimise it as an “authentic” practice. Modern mindfulness wants its cake and to eat it too.
Thanks for sharing your views.
I realize the occurrence of cultural adaptions and of elements that are loosely or not at all connected to its roots, especially in the movements of mindfulness schools that consciously disregard themselves as Buddhist.
As a person who has learned and practiced almost exclusively in East, I will not comment on how Buddhism is taught and practiced in the West; my point was that the arguments made by the author in the article can be applicable of the Theravada teachings and practices in the East, hence both the claim that "This isn't a critique of Buddhism itself" and the distinction made by using the term "Western Buddhism" appears false from my understanding.
Some examples:
"We're taught to observe our emotions rather than enter into intimate relationship with them."
How does this view differ in the East? Does this not resonate with Ādittapariyāya Sutta (Fire Sermon) as an example?
"Perhaps it would recognize that freedom comes through deep participation with all dimensions of life rather than withdrawal."
There are numerous passages in the Suttas where Buddha, the monks etc. are referred to as "recluse" (ex. "The recluse Gotama") and where renunciation is the central theme.
"The historical Buddha didn't lead or teach a life of isolation - he created a sangha, a community of practice, and said that friendship is the 'whole of the path'."
Has the author experienced the communities (monasteries) in the East to know the differences between the communities found in the practice centers in West?
How it was on Buddhas time can only be speculated, but there are numerous of passages in the Suttas indicating seclusion as a common theme as part of the lifestyle and practice.
Thank you for digging deeper into this. Your examples are helpful for understanding your pov and, yes, every point you raise here makes sense. Context is everything, right? (Buddhism itself being an exemplar of that idea!)
I’m pondering all of this and have no answers really, just a lot of unknowns. Which feels messy but also respectful to the truth of things, and the topic in hand.
Wishing you well and thanks again. I am very much enjoying not having to come down hard on one side or the other!
Thank you, Daniel. I may add that Gestalt Awareness Practice in the tradition of Dick Price, one of the original founders of Esalen, addresses this very point - by cultivating presence (non-judgmental awareness) we grow our ability to respond to what the moment is asking of us, rather than react to how we wish reality to be. This practice is more active than traditional meditation, though it is neither better nor worse - simply different. We all need to find practices and maps that help us become more complete versions of ourselves. There is no time to waste.
I liked most of this post, but I was a bit surprised by
> Relationship challenges become opportunities to practice non-attachment and 'non-violent' communication instead of opportunities to break through to deeper connection.
Since in my experience either NVC or something based on its core principles is exactly what allows breaking through to deeper connection. E.g. I recall the anecdote in one of the NVC books about a woman attending a workshop on expressing your needs. She suddenly went white and shared that she just realized she'd been angry at her husband for decades for not considering her needs, when she'd never even told him what her needs were. Likewise, my own ability to actually express what I wanted and needed went up dramatically when I first ran into NVC's tools and it taught me how to actually look at my interpersonal upsets and understand what was going on with them clearly enough that I could communicate it to others.
Hi Kaj. I also have experienced the same with NVC, I took a course maybe 15 years ago and it gave me the language and understanding around my experience and my emotions that I previously had not had. That being said, it was only the first step in a much deeper exploration in working with what I later would learn was an avoidant attachment style.
What I have noticed about some avid "practitioners of NVC", i.e. close friends of mine who use NVC as their main tool for communication and "personal growth", I notice there is an avoidance of going much deeper than this surface layer that NVC so elegantly works to uncover. I have a few friends who have remained in the same rut for all the years I have known them, stuck on repeat about "when this happens, I feel this way". There becomes a new avoidance of the actual material beneath that. NVC can be a catalyst for deep transformation, or it can be a tool to avoid the deeper layers when we don't explore what's there (or take any kind of ownership).
I don't know specifically what Daniel was referring to, but this is what came to mind for me as I laughed a bit at how accurate this felt to me.
Hi Shane! Thanks, that makes sense. I do agree that NVC tends to be a bit surface level and it feels possible to get stuck there, especially if you don't have any other tools. Among other things, I think its insistence on refusing to count interpersonal feelings - like "feeling betrayed" etc. - as feelings is... certainly valuable in a conflict situation, but also limits one's ability to clearly see what exactly is going on with their emotions. Something like "feeling betrayed" isn't reducible to something like "feeling disappointed" or "feeling upset" without losing information, a sense of betrayal (whether accurate or not) is tracking something important on top of those feelings!
I guess that tracks with what Daniel was saying about this fitting in with avoidant communication. :) If you never say you're feeling betrayed, then that may let you resolve conflicts better, but you're also hiding something about your true experience, possibly in an attempt to manage the other's feelings for them.
Yes, and… out of the belly of this beautiful practice is evolving a new, depth level real-time intimacy-communication and communal practices that are profound. I’ve had the pleasure to sit with seasoned meditators over the past 5 years and what’s being birthed right now is a kind of intimacy we’ve not known. It’s depth level attachment, attunement, intimacy and empathy that cuts right through the Maya and malaise. It is also deepen my practice more than the last five years and the previous two decades even through isolated retreats. Isolation has its place in this path. But it will only get you part of the way to being a self-actualized and emotionally intelligent human with no fixed position.
This is what i've been feeling about Western Mindfulness lately. Detachment, cherry picking and putting things out of the context.
Maybe i've been doing it wrong but I had a feeling something was off there.
Now i prefer to meditate just by walking, going to nature, slowly reading books, helping people, giving something to the world.
Or by going to the church. I haven't been very religious in last years but now i'm starting to appreciate mass in the catholic church.
There is something special about participating in the service with other people in temple; about being there with people who are serious about their faith and devotion.
For me all this east spiritual experience is just advance focus management.
Just don’t worry unnecessary if you cant do anything about your problem in current moment, just put your focus on breathe. When it will be possible to do anything, put your focus back and solve it.
I really can’t see any encouragement to avoid anything.
Avoiding can be only done by you and you need to make this choice.
But I am pretty sure I am an ignorant here.
There are three poisons in Buddhism, and attachment is only one. Releasing attachment needs to be balanced with accepting the things we are averse to. Applying anti-attachment to aversions, and anti-aversion to attachments is antithetical to the Buddhist path.
I call this rational bypassing. Sam Harris reminds me of someone who practices this way. The idea seems to be that suppressing emotions in favor of pure rationalism is how some people with a so called scientific mindset view “equanimity.”
The practice is about feeling the feelings, allowing them to arise and pass away, and gaining insight into the conditions that cause them to arise and being non-reactive in their presence. If you aren’t feeling when you believe you are equanimous, there is bypassing going on. It took me a while to figure that out.