Is mindfulness the new common sense?

By Nancy Gahles

Mindfulness, as described in the Buddhist text “What the Buddha Taught” by Walpola Rahula, is “simply observing, watching, examining. You are not a judge but a scientist.”

Contemporary mindfulness practice teaches us that mindfulness is simply paying attention, on purpose, to that which is in front of you in that moment, without judgement, criticism, or attachment.

Mindfulness meditation is born of this contemporary style, developed and popularized as a secular technique for stress reduction by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, a molecular biologist with a long-term meditation practice. In 1979, Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. His premise for research on stress reduction arose from the Buddhist concept of dukkha, a Pali word that translates to “suffering”, “pain”, “unsatisfactory”, or “stress”. The Buddha said that his only purpose in life was to remove the cause of suffering for all people, to remove dukkha.

Indeed, Kabat-Zinn’s early research with patients suffering from anxiety and chronic pain showed significant reduction in symptoms. An ever progressive and burgeoning body of research bears out the benefits of mindfulness meditation on the whole-person health landscape of body, mind, and spirit.

How does mindfulness meditation relate to common sense? The practice of mindfulness meditation, as we know it, is derived from the Buddhist tradition of vipassana, which means “insight” in the Theraveda tradition. In the Mahayana tradition, it is called “sunyata”, the Buddha nature within.

The call for people to practice common sense and the cultivation of that quality is inherent in all cultures. All wisdom traditions, all cultures have a name for the innate wisdom that animates us all. It is our “God self”, our “Christ within”, the “Holy Spirit”, the “Ruha”, the “Holy Breath”.

It is this breath that we use to initiate the meditation. Once we begin to engage with our breath, once we allow the connection to our body, once we receive the sensations that are present, once we notice the thoughts that arise, and once we perceive the flow and transition from breath to breath, from moment to moment, we see our reality clearly.

We are able to see, as in a virtual reality, the way in which our sensations, our feelings, create thoughts. We can witness the thoughts that arise, and we can feel the pain they stand for and the stories that we tell ourselves about them. In the perfect impermanence of the duration of a single breath, we can choose to keep that thought alive by thinking it over and over or we can bear witness to the origin of the thought and its effect on our life.

In the safety of pure observation, without judgment or criticism, it is possible to choose whether this thought and the feeling that generated it, are of value to you. Are they a source of dukkha? Do they cause pain, suffering, disquiet, intemperance on any level? If so, then right thinking is called into play. Common sense. In that moment you are aware and able to make the right choice for you according to your highest good. Of late, this act of being good to yourself, of choosing wisely that which feeds your soul, has been called loving kindness.

Simply being present to yourself, authentically observing, it is natural for insight to arise. Your inner nature, your Buddha nature, your Christ self, and your highest consciousness will make itself known. Acknowledging that, making it a conscious intention to be compassionate to yourself by allowing wisdom to arise is common sense. This is my definition of common sense. An inborn knowing. Being present to the flow of unending pure consciousness. For the bliss of it.

All spiritual traditions have scriptural references to attest to this. The way to get there, to access this inner knowing is a well hewn path as well. It is this way, the Tao of old, that the modern mindfulness practice is born of. Tao means the way in Chinese. The Tao Te Ching, a classic Chinese Taoist text, describes the mysterious unnamable process through which everything in the Universe happens:

There is no need to run outside
For better seeing,
Nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide
At the center of your being;
For the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart and see
If he is wise who takes each turn:
The way to do is to be.

In my understanding, the rise of mindfulness meditation at this time follows the axiom, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Never has our global society been more in need of teachings that arise from our own inner truth. It is time to go within, to close out the voices all around us that threaten to destroy us with hate crimes, school shootings, bullying, violent rhetoric and unkind behaviors of all manner. In 1673, Samuel von Pufendorf wrote, “more inhumanity has been done by man himself than any other of nature’s causes.”

Common sense may have intrinsic nature, but it also must be cultivated lest it fall by the wayside as uncultivated crops do when left unattended. The cacophony of noises from the outside influences, the peer judgments, the corrupt hierarchies need to be met in the silence of our own heart and evaluated with our own liberated minds.

Mindfulness meditation is a practice that will facilitate a way to come to our senses, to build a solid base of experience to trust ourselves and not to rely exclusively on the outer world. Kabat-Zinn in his book, “Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness,” wrote:

“I don’t know about you, but for myself, it feels like we are at a critical juncture of life on this planet. It could go any number of ways. It seems that the world is on fire and so are our hearts, inflamed with fear and uncertainty, lacking all conviction, and often filled with passionate but unwise intensity. How we manage to see ourselves and the world at this juncture will make a huge difference in the way things unfold. What emerges for us as individuals and as a society in future moments will be shaped in large measure by whether and how we make use of our innate and incomparable capacity for awareness in this moment. It will be shaped by what we choose to do to heal the underlying distress, dissatisfaction and outright dis-ease of our lives and of our times, even as we nourish and protect all that is good and beautiful and healthy in ourselves and in the world.”

It makes perfect common sense to me. Fortunately, the practice of mindfulness has gone out of the monastery and into the mainstream. Wisdom 2.0 recently held a conference showcasing notable who are advocating for Mindfulness in America and putting it into public policy. Representative Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) spoke passionately about the need for social emotional intelligence fostered by Mindfulness in communities, in schools and in the military. Rep. Ryan has acted upon the precepts in his book, A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can
Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance and Recapture the American Spirit, which he gave to every member of Congress. Now there is a Quiet Time Caucus every Monday on Capitol Hill that he often leads before Congress votes, and he has raised over $3.6 million in funding for mindfulness research and programs.

Gabrielle Horowitz-Prisco, executive director of The Lineage Project, was riveting in her heart directed passionate description of the inequities in the social justice system. The non-profit brings mindfulness programs to incarcerated, homeless, and academically vulnerable youth to help them manage stress, build inner strength, and cultivate compassion. They train youth-serving staff and organizations in the development of mindful and trauma-conscious cultures and practices.

Kudos go to Soren Gordhamer, founder of the Wisdom 2.0 conferences and author of Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Secrets for the Creative and Constantly Connected. Soren began the Lineage Project in 1999 first bringing meditation and yoga programs to adolescents on Rikers Island and to young people in locked detention with what was then the New York City Department of Juvenile Justice.  Their work demonstrates the intersection of wisdom and compassion and makes total common sense.

I leave you to contemplate in the silence of yourself a few common sense takeaways about mindfulness from the Wisdom 2.0 conference that all integrative healthcare practitioners can relate to:

“People are yearning for a community”
“A vision for a justice system built on love, compassion and healing.”
“I got really sick and changed my life to focus only on what’s really important to me.”
“I don’t say yes to everything. Family relationships come first.”
“Reclaim ‘elder’ from ‘elderly.’ Moving from reverence to relevance.”
“Take your timeless wisdom and define it based on good judgment and pattern recognition from your past experiences.”
“An equation: Despair=suffering-meaning.”