Post by Admin on May 12, 2017 14:38:46 GMT -5
If you are interested in how the mindfulness we practice came to be, and how it has become part of cultures and lifestyles, look no farther than Japan. Steve John Powell's article on BBC.com on 9 May 2017 is a very nicely done discussion of ways that Mindfulness, following its Buddhist traditions, has come to permeate the daily life of its people and culture. His piece is titled, "The Japanese Skill Copied by the World: with banner phrase Mindfulness has become trendy around the world in recent years – but in Japan, it’s been ingrained into the culture for centuries." We find him accurate in his explanations of the various Japanese language terms and practices as they pertain to what we in the West call 'Mindfulness'. As someone who lived in Japan for some time and is married to a Japanese, I give Mr Powell good grades on his explanations.
While of course we know that the mindfulness meditation we learn in MBSR has its roots in certain Buddhist teachings going back to India over 2500 years ago, it is -- to this reader -- interesting to see how a culture has evolved with Mindfulness as a key component of its development. We in the so-called Mindfulness movement (as exemplified by Sam Beard's Global Mindfulness GIFT project) hope to see the core principles and understandings of Mindfulness to spread far and wide, to help all cultures.
While of course we know that the mindfulness meditation we learn in MBSR has its roots in certain Buddhist teachings going back to India over 2500 years ago, it is -- to this reader -- interesting to see how a culture has evolved with Mindfulness as a key component of its development. We in the so-called Mindfulness movement (as exemplified by Sam Beard's Global Mindfulness GIFT project) hope to see the core principles and understandings of Mindfulness to spread far and wide, to help all cultures.
The article starts like this:
This may seem a long way from mindfulness, which in recent years has become synonymous with what the Japanese call zazen – meditating cross-legged on a cushion. But according to Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded its renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic in 1979, mindfulness is “not really about sitting in the full lotus… pretending you’re a statue in the British Museum. Simply put, mindfulness is moment-to-moment awareness.”
And this present-moment awareness has been deeply ingrained into the Japanese psyche for centuries. You don’t hear people talk about it, but it manifests itself in myriad ways....
Read entire article HERE....
This may seem a long way from mindfulness, which in recent years has become synonymous with what the Japanese call zazen – meditating cross-legged on a cushion. But according to Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded its renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic in 1979, mindfulness is “not really about sitting in the full lotus… pretending you’re a statue in the British Museum. Simply put, mindfulness is moment-to-moment awareness.”
And this present-moment awareness has been deeply ingrained into the Japanese psyche for centuries. You don’t hear people talk about it, but it manifests itself in myriad ways....
Read entire article HERE....