It was New Years Eve of 2017. I was sitting alone in my one-bedroom apartment in the Mediterranean island of Malta, wrapped in a blanket and perched on my meditation cushion. In front of me I was being guided in meditation by a Buddhist monk, via YouTube, streaming live from the Nepalese Himalayas. I was in the company of fellow meditators watching the live broadcast from other distant places such as Uruguay, Ethiopia, and Canada.
Today, mindfulness traverses all corners of the globe. From Google offices in London, to jungle retreats in Brazil and Costa Rica, groups in parks in Berlin, to nicely designed apps on our phones – mindfulness seems to be just about anywhere you look.
Even though the way mindfulness is practiced by many is modern and adapted to global audiences, the practices and philosophies have an ancient religious origin that has spanned the past 2500 years.
In order to understand where Western secular mindfulness fits in within Buddhism, we will engage in a little time travel back to India, fifth century BC, where it all began.
Buddhist Origins of Mindfulness
Buddhism originated in India in the fifth century BC. It was practiced for a few centuries in India before practically disappearing from the country in approximately the twelfth century (Gethin), and continued to spread through the trade routes.
The spread of Buddhism from India created different schools in the different places it spread to. There are two main schools of Buddhism; Mahayana and Theravada. Mahayana Buddhism encompasses two different strands of Buddhism – Zen and Tibetan. Zen comes from China, Korea, and Japan; whereas Tibetan Buddhism is from Tibet (Wolf and Serpa).
Mindfulness, as it has been taught in the West, stems from a strand of Buddhism called Vipassana, otherwise known as ‘insight’ meditation. This comes from the school of Buddhism known as ‘Theravada’ Buddhism – the main form of Buddhism practiced in Southeast Asia.
The Buddha
The word ‘Budda’ has two meanings – it is the word used for the state of an enlightened being, as well as the name of a man, born by the name of Siddhartha Guatama on the Indian-Nepalese border and the dates which are most popular for the duration of his life are 566-486 BCE (Gethin)
Guatama Buddha – The Person
Guatama was born into an affluent family and lived a life of material comfort and had a wife and son. Despite the affluence and comfort surrounding him, he eventually became disillusioned with his life and had a realization that he would not escape illness, ageing, or death. He then left his family and affluent life behind and embarked on a spiritual journey as a wandering man.
Guatama learned from many different people, he engaged in what would today be considered very extreme austerity practices, and he eventually sat in meditation under a tree in the northern-Indian state of Bihar and experienced a spiritual awakening.
That’s when he deeply felt and understood the true cause of human suffering and the path to put an end to human suffering. He then went on to orally teach what he learnt.
It is his learnings and subsequent teachings that form the basis of what is now the Buddhist tradition, which modern day mindfulness practices in the West derive from.
Buddha – The Concept
The word ‘Buddha’ is used for anyone who has achieved a state of spiritual awakening in Buddhism. It is not just Guatama Siddhartha who is the Buddha, but anyone has the possibility to become a Buddha.
As Buddhists believe in karma and the process of re-birth, in Buddhist religion someone who has achieved Buddha status is someone who has come to the end of the cycle of re-births.
Locating Modern Mindfulness in Buddhism
So now we have covered a bit of the background, where does mindfulness fit into things?
The Four Noble Truths
As mentioned before, Guatama Siddhartha, the Buddha, had a deep spiritual awakening where he understood the reality of suffering, and the way out of suffering. These learnings are expressed as ‘The Four Noble Truths’:
Noble Truth 1: The truth of suffering
Noble Truth 2: The truth of the cause of suffering
Noble Truth 3: The truth of the end of suffering
Noble Truth 4: The truth of the path out of suffering
Mindfulness belongs to the fourth noble truth: the path out of suffering, which include all the practices that help all humans end the cycle of endless pain and inner suffering.
The Eightfold Path
To narrow this down even further (Buddhism has A LOT of lists), the path out of suffering is then expressed as the ‘eightfold path’:
- Right view
- Right intention
- Right speech
- Right action
- Right livelihood
- Right effort
- Right mindfulness
- Right concentration
The eightfold path is not practiced in different stages, but as it is appropriate to your current situation.
Current-day mindfulness practices in the West most often involve 6, 7, and 8, with the majority of beginner mindfulness courses focusing on only step 7: right mindfulness.
Right Mindfulness
Of course, there is another list for each step in the eightfold path (Buddhists really love their lists!).
There are four particular trainings that make up ‘right mindfulness’:
- mindfulness of the body
- mindfulness of feeling tones (not the same as emotions).
- mindfulness of the mind
- mindfulness of how the mind operates (Wolf and Serpa).
I will go into these in detail in another article, but for now it’s good to know that the most well-known practices in the West are only some of the steps to lead to the cessation of suffering as taught by the Buddha, and typically leave out some of the other steps on the path which many people feel are too religious/spiritual in nature.
The fact that there is no almighty God in Buddhism has made the practices more adaptable to Western culture, and indeed you can practice without having to believe in the cycle of re-birth.
Focus on the Steps That Feel Right to You
How much you want to practice the various steps of the eightfold path is very individual and deeply personal, there is no wrong way to go about it.
You may feel called to practice a certain path due to what you are experiencing in any given moment, and how we feel and what we want to focus on in regard to our inner work changes.
No matter if you choose only some of the steps or want to practice all of them, they all help in their own different ways to cease inner suffering.
