9 Attitudes Jon Kabat Zinn

the cultivation of mindfulness of moment moment non-judgmental awareness is really it sounds very simple but it's actually just about the hardest work in the world for human beings because we get so caught up in our conditioned states of mind and when we begin to cultivate awareness it's really important to bring a certain attitudinal approach to it so that we're not trying to force anything to happen or sit in a kind of rigid posture or attain some special state that will you know that we sort of think ah that's what it is I'll be enlightened or I'll just be permanently wise or I'll be this or I'll be that the problem isn't actually with the Enlightenment or the permanently wise or anything like that the problem is with the personal pronouns I me and mine they are very very problematic because who we think we are and who we actually are are very different and there's a huge separation what we think we are is very very small compared to who we actually are and so when we are cultivating mindfulness in MBSR or with people we encourage a certain kind of attitude that's brought to the formal and informal practices that you can keep in mind through your daily life as well and these attitudes there are seven of them that I put in focus Rafi living when I was writing it because it really felt like if you bring if you start to cultivate acceptance if you start to cultivate non-striving if you start to cultivate letting go or letting be if you start to cultivate trust and patient that these qualities can be cultivated in everyday life with your children with your with your parents with your partner or spouse with your colleagues at work and so it's a way of reinforcing and deep the actual formal and informal meditation practices beginner's mind is a lovely orientation to bring to the present moment this moment is always fresh always new we've never been in this one before and yet we bring so many ideas and attitudes and desires to every moment that we can't actually allow ourselves much of the time to see things as if for the first time imagine bringing awareness to your children with beginner's mind so that you actually see them not through your lenses of ideas and opinions about your children but fresh the miracle of them the amazing nature of them so this is something that we could bring to any moment it has the virtue of sometimes we're so expert that our minds are just full of you know our expertise but it leaves us without any realm for novelty or new possibilities in the mind of the expert they say there are very few possibilities but in the beginner's mind there are infinite possibilities because we come to it fresh so it's a kind of a discipline to try to bring beginner's mind to every aspect of your life and not be so stuck in our ideas and opinions about how much we like this or don't like that or what the outcome of a particular situation might be and when we come to things with this freshness it actually again has tremendous transformative qualities associated with it and when you bring it to other people and you're open and spacious with them and don't insist that they be the way they were half an hour ago or two years ago or whatever it is they feel seen and recognized and met in a way that they might not otherwise experience that benefits them and it also benefits us nonjudging is a very important element of mindfulness practice and in fact is part of my working definition of mindfulness which is the awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose in the present moment non-judgmentally and the non-judgmentally is the real challenge because when you start to pay attention to what's on your mind you're very rapidly discover that we have ideas and opinions about everything just about everything and we're always judging things in terms of I like that I don't like that I want that I don't want that this is good that's bad and it's like a steady stream of judging judging judging judging judging so when we speak of mindfulness is being non-judgmental awareness it doesn't mean that there won't be judgments it means that you're you will be aware of how judgmental we actually are and then not judge the judging and when we relate to it in that kind of a way then we begin to see that that our judging is very often black and white it's either this or that this or that good or bad like this like one don't want and we get imprisoned by that kind of view but being non-judgmental doesn't mean that all of a sudden you get stupid and think well I'm not going to be judgmental so I'll just walk out in the street in front of an oncoming truck what difference does it make no it means that we will cultivate discernment this is the capacity to see what's actually unfolding but not to judge it but to recognize it and to understand it in relationship to our experience so when we speak about non-judgmental awareness that's what we're talking about we're talking about a very fine degree of discernment of clarity of wisdom of understanding the interconnections between things and at the same time noticing the tendency to judge quite quickly like don't like want don't want and and to recognize that that actually creates a kind of veil or a filter in front of our eyes that doesn't allow us the thing see that doesn't allow us to see things as they are but to only see them through the lenses of our own ideas and opinions and likes and dislikes which is practically blinding to us so there this is a wonderful discipline the cultivation of awareness of judging and the cultivation of being gently non-judgmental or not judging the judging that we do discover in ourselves in over days weeks months and years we can begin to actually find a way to navigate through our judging in such a way that it no longer dominates our lives in quite the same way and we recognize when it comes up that it's actually in some sense toxic and the more we challenge it and the more we rest in discernment and in pure awareness the more we can live life authentically in the present moment without getting caught by our own habits of mind unhealthy if you will habits of mind you acceptance is a very active process there's nothing passive about it it's not passive resignation but it's an active recognition that things are actually the way they are sometimes they're not the way we want them to be so acceptance doesn't mean that we can't work to change the world or to change circumstances of one kind or another but it means that unless we accept things as they are we will try to force things to be as they are not and that can create an enormous amount of difficulty if we recognize the actuality of things then we have the potential to apply wisdom in that situation to actually shift our own relationship to what is occurring in ways that might be profoundly healing and transformative but without acceptance of one the situation then it's very difficult to know where to stand and without knowing where to stand it's very difficult to take the first step so some things are very hard to accept like when it's something when you experience pain for instance and you don't in your body and you don't know what it's from it's very very difficult to accept it because we first we want to know what it's coming from and if we don't have any answer for what is causing the pain then it can be very very difficult to accept it but what we find working with chronic pain patients is that before you can actually work with pain and suffering you need to actually put out the welcome mat for it and accept it as it is because whatever has been done medically that could be done has been done and you're still living with a certain degree of pain what are people with chronic pain who come to our clinic experience is that there a lot of different ways to actually work with pain but the first step is to actually put out the welcome mat for it which is very hard to do when you're suffering but it's actually a gateway into freedom from suffering so that's one of the most powerful ways in which acceptance can be brought to bear on healing and transforming one's life and is a very very powerful factor and is a very very powerful attitude in the cultivation of mindfulness letting go we could think of as the opposite of clinging or grasping there's a certain way in which when we want something we grasp it we cling to it even if it's an idea and very often we get very fixated in that kind of a way letting go is reminding us that it's possible to actually not get involved in grasping and clinging to what we want and trying to push away what it is that we don't want because it's inevitable that things will arise that are unpleasant and we want to push those away and that other things will arise and they'll be pleasant we'll want to hold on to them so letting go really means letting be it means allowing things to be as they are and not but be too caught up in having to have them be a certain way when the evidence is they already are not that way so therefore not forcing it of course goes with not striving as well allowing things to be as they are in India they sometimes use a particular way of trapping monkeys where they they take a coconut and they cut a small hole in one end and then they tie the coconut with a wire to the base of a tree and they put a banana inside the coconut and then monkeys come down from the trees and they put the hand in the coconut but the hole is crafted so that if you grasp the banana you can't get your hand out of the hole the fist is too big so you have to let go of the banana to actually release your hand so the monkeys don't want to let go and that's how they're trapped so letting go or letting things be as they are means allowing the recognition that when you are caught by your own desire by your own attachment to things being a certain way that that's painful but that the letting go is actually the doorway to freedom and it's something that you don't do once it's something that you practiced over and over and over again moment by moment by moment every time excuse me every time you catch yourself clinging to something you remind yourself it's possible to just let it be and to just let it go the breath can remind us of that too because every time we take a deep that we I'm sorry because the breath can remind us of that because every time we take a breath in we have to let it go because otherwise there's no room for the next breath so it's a natural part of life to receive and then release receive and let it go Trust is a wonderful attitude to cultivate because there are so many different aspects of our lives that we're kind of strangers to and as we cultivate intimacy with ourselves we also cultivate a deep sense of trustworthiness and Trust and a good place to start is with our selves and with our body so can we actually come to trust the natural wisdom of the body and how beautifully the body supports our life we very often take it totally for granted until something untoward happens but noticing that you know in general we can trust that the breath will take care of itself luckily because if we had to worry about the breath we would die a long time ago so we trust that the breath comes in we trust that the breath goes out we trust that the ears can actually hear we trust that the eyes like Julie see we trust that our organs take care of all of the metabolism and biology of being alive there's a wisdom to the body that can remind us that we ourselves are trustworthy and if there are so many beautiful things and so complex that are unfolding so so beautifully in the body well why should the mind be any different why should the heart be any different so the more we can learn to bring trust to ourselves the more we can actually learn to bring trust to our relationships and to other people into nature and to the various challenges that we face in life so that we can actually reside in our own confidence in our own ability to meet whatever comes towards us in ways that can be effective it's all based on trusting ourselves and that's something that we can be cultivated by practice so every time we don't trust ourselves we can bring awareness to it and and remind ourselves that maybe this is a good opportunity to shift from really feeling like we're not able to trust something to actually trusting it when it's in ourselves when it involves other people that gets a little bit more complicated because you don't want to trust naively but other wisdom factors will help us to take care of that you you I don't know if you've noticed this but a lot of times I find that I'm impatient to get to the next important thing happening and so missing the present moment because of my impatience so to actually intentionally cultivate patience and a kind of recognition that things unfold in their own way and that in some profound way things cannot be hurried so when we're always rushing to get someplace else the byproduct of that is that we're never where we actually are which is a tremendous sadness and a tremendous loss sometimes we're impatient with other people sometimes we're impatient at work sometimes we're impatient to get things done but this wisdom of patience is something that is also profoundly healing and restorative and is akin to recognizing as some children don't when they for instance try to make the butterfly come out before its time from the chrysalis that certain things can't be hurried but things do unfold in their own time so if we actually learn to be patient with ourselves then we're inhabited the present moment in ways that have great comfort and great profundity of of both acceptance and wisdom associated with them in the cultivation of meditative awareness or mindful awareness we take the unusual position for Westerners to actually not try to get anywhere else this is what we call non striving or even non doing to actually allow things to be held in awareness without having to operate on them without having to make anything happen or try to experience some special state of either relaxation or well-being or anything but to simply be with the unfolding of life from moment to moment without any agenda whatsoever it turns out this is tremendously healing tremendously restorative for us too because we have so many agendas and we're always on the way to some better moment in the future or trying to escape from something in the past but to actually be in a place where we're practicing non-striving and non doing where we just let things be as they are is as I said tremendously nurturing and healing not easy to do because we have so many different you know such so many different items on our to-do list so the longer you to-do list the longer we should give ourselves some time to practice non-doing role together and non-striving realizing that whatever is already here is good enough even if it's not pleasant in this moment it's enough and we don't need to try to escape from it or may fix it or make anything happen it's a tremendous discipline a tremendous attitude to bring to life and it doesn't mean you won't get things done on the contrary it means that whatever doing you do do will wind up coming out of being and therefore much greater wisdom and much greater appropriateness to the situation now people often ask me well why did you stop at seven and they say I don't know I mean I just stopped at seven but I left out a few that I really probably am going to put in the next edition and one of them would be a gratitude to bring gratitude to the present moment because well say for one thing just we're alive we take that so much for granted a little gratitude Wow the body is working I'm breathing in and breathing out my eyes work my feet work if you know the liver is working the kidneys are working I mean we take so much for granted so in that sense um the the seven attitudes are a way to remind us of that and gratitude really should be in that list another one would be generosity a sense of like how powerful it is when you give yourself over to life and that you give other people what would make them happy not for yourself not so that you can pat yourself on the back and say I am a generous person but because it gives joy to others it it enhances interconnectedness you demonstrate that you care and that you are actually giving some time and attention and thought to someone other than yourself so both gratitude and generosity I think should be included in that list I could go on but I think that nine would be enough it's hard to keep more than nine things in mind at any one time and of course they're all completely interconnected so you don't have to actually remember any of it if you are practicing non-striving then everything else is embedded in that except ISM that is embedded in it I'm so acceptance is embedded in that generosity is embedded in that a gratitude is embedded in that Trust isn't better than that and so forth so any one of these attitudes is the door into all of them and that's why they really are forming in some sense just a different ways of understanding what mindfulness is really about and I probably should say that in all Asian languages the word from mind and the word for heart are the same word so in English when you hear the word mindfulness if you're not hearing the word heartfulness you're really not understanding it fully and so that those attitudes are really part of the heartfulness element of it whether it's seeing things as they actually are the most profound thing you can see is the interconnectedness of all things as soon as you see that then emotions like anger for instance are very different because our fear for that matter are really transformed in some way because of our interconnectedness so so it's a way of seeing other people as they really are and not necessarily seeing them as threats and then being able to find some domain of commonality that comes out of the heart that comes out of the head that comes out of the body that comes out of life as one completely integrated whole you you

Channel: Recovered Mindfully

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Published: Fri Apr 24 2015

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