What is mindfulness and how can I use it for self care?
It is quite interesting how things allign and fuse at times in life. I happen to observe that in my life quite regularly. This was an essay I submitted as a part of the study of a course in mindfulness, from University of Leuven, a technique I will start coaching in 2020. In this essay I discuss how Zen Budhism, Daoism and Stoicism contribute to mindfulness meditation and how I use or plan to use them in my own practice. I invite you to continue reading, it gives an interesting overview of what in the world is this mindfulness and how can it benefit you should you include it in your meditation practice.
How I understand it
I was always attracted by Zen practices, however, my knowledge was pretty superficial at age of post University years. It took maturity and 6 years of practice in meditation and direct contact with East Asian religions and their way of life to actually have the mental and emotional capacity to understand Zen concept of mindfulness better.
Greek Philosophers, attracted me too. But they outnumbered my desire to explore them with gusto and were perhaps too deep to understand for my young mind that was scattered in being intersted in so many different things.
I left the academic approach for the time being and focused on the experiential learning – by traveling. I found Bali, such a great place of healing and magic and it captured me to merge with explore their Buddhist-Animist colourful rituals.
As far as the Daoist philosophy of mindfulness, I didn’t have much connection to it. However, over the years I got in closer contact with Chinese civilization via books revealing Chinese culture and history, studying Feng Shui and Chinese horoscope, teaching Chinese students English and traveling to China. I developed an admiration towards Chinese civilization as I could understand from practice so much more how their wisdom of living influenced Western civilization over the centuries. In that sense, Daoism having spruced from China is a philosophy quite worth looking into.
How can philosophy help us live a better life? What thread can we see in Zen Budhism, Daoism and Stoicism?
Interestingly, I discovered a common thread with all three of the philosophies which aligns with my personal understanding of the world.
Our souls and minds are intrinsically pure and it is the civilization constructs, our own judgments and the way we observe things around us, that make us suffer.
How to stop the daily suffering (depression and stress)
Zen Buddhism nourishes the idea that the human mind is naturally pristine and clear. And that most of the human suffering is caused by wrongful ways of looking at the world around us. The way we observe and perceive the world causes our very suffering or popularly called stress.
The mindfulness meditation practice requires allowing mental events and activities to arise and pass without us getting involved. Only by engaging with them will they naturally cease, leaving our minds pure, settled as the still surface of the water.
On many occasions during my own meditation practice, I have encountered what they call the Shikantaza meditation, where besides observing the thought and emotions that show up in our consciousness, the goal is to eventually drop the mind and the body to attain a sense of spiritual freedom. The liberation via the cultivation of the so called non mind. It happens after practicing meditation for a while.
It is deliciously freeing.
How to perceive my problems as part of the larger context?
Secondly, the Daoism got me really enthused with its concept of how our awareness of the world around us via cognitive processes and cleverness of human civilization is keeping us away from experiencing the world directly, as it is.
By observing the world via our theories or desires, we keep the reality away from us. When we meditate, in a way to experience something in the context of a whole, we can see clearly how the things are and be able to think and act more skillfully in harmony and equilibrium of consciousness.
Here, as I observed earlier with other Chinese practices, Daoistic meditation, has for a goal development of practical wisdom of the non-thought applied for the purpose of the betterment of the every day life experiences.
Use your heart to discern what is true and what is false
As for Stoicism, I was a bit confused, since the main postulate is to cultivate the watchfulness – practice of cultivating the insight and recognizing the world as it is, while the emotions, attachments, desires, fears constitute the false judgment of the world around us that cause our suffering.
At the same time the rationality is uplifted as necessary for deepening the man’s part in the world, but simultaneously they talk about the practice of recognizing the false judgments by differentiating, each instance with our hearts. Seems the mind and heart were working together, but the accent is on ratio – the mind.
I do keep the practice of differentiating with my heart, and or my gut, not with my intellect, but certainly it is an excellent practice to add to the tools – keep questioning every thought. Is this thought I am thinking really true?
Stoics are famous for their practice of contemplation of daily events at the end of the day to keep improving and strive for excellence in all areas of their life. I simplified it to a daily practice to mentally go over the events of the day, and congratulate yourself on the good results or see what behaviour and situations can be improved in the future.
All in all, the three philosophies helped me broaden my understanding of the world of spirituality and meditation, but also they seemed to fit in as the missing pieces of my knowledge puzzle, to add wisdom of ancient civilizations and their practices to my own mindfulness practice and teachings.
Subscribe on the newsletter below to receive newest articles, information about the group practice and access discounts on new trainings and retreat programs.