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COMMENTARY
Too Early to Tell: The Potential Impact and Challenges—Ethical
and Otherwise—Inherent in the Mainstreaming of Dharma
in an Increasingly Dystopian World
Jon Kabat-Zinn
1
#The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication
Introduction
It is said that Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Premier, who as a
young man was a major force in the Chinese Revolution,
when asked late in life by a journalist for his thoughts
about the legacy of the French Revolution, replied BToo
early to tell.^
1, 2, 3
Itbecameamemeofsorts,evenifitwasbasedona
misunderstanding. I love the whole notion that it may be
too early to tell—about a lot of emergences in our world.
But sometimes, we need to act forcefully and with resolve,
based on the best projections for what may take place given
various lines of broadly accepted scientific evidence (such
as the global receding of the glaciers and the melting of the
polar ice caps) and its modeling algorithms, even if we
cannot be sure of just how bad could be, such as in the
case of global warming. By the time it plays out in real
time, any action is already too late. My late Korean Zen
teacher, Seung Sahn Seon Sa, was fond of saying, meaning
just that, BThe arrow is already downtown.^Whether the
overwhelming evidence for global warming is denied by
politicians in any given moment out of cynicism, igno-
rance, or greed is quite another story.
So perhaps at this moment in time, it is way too early to
tell what the likely fate of humankind will be, given our
self-destructive, aggressive, violent, tribal, dualistic, and
delusional tendencies as a species, in spite of all the
civilizations, diverse cultural flowerings, beauty, under-
standing, wisdom, and compassion and basic human
goodness that humanity has also brought to the planet
in the very short arc of human history—say, to be gen-
erous, perhaps 400 generations since the last ice age.
British historian, Arnold Toynbee, famously said that in
the future, the coming of Buddhism to the West would
be seen as the signature historical event of the twentieth
century. Maybe it is even now, half a century later, way
too early to tell.
A major koan in the Chan tradition, over fifteen hundred
years old: BWhat is the meaning of Bodhidharma’scoming
from the West?^
4
One credible answer: BToo early to tell!^
Even now.
I would say that the same is true of the mainstreaming
of mindfulness in the world as both a practice and a way
of being. In terms of the work of MBSR (mindfulness-
based stress reduction), to say it right off the bat, since it
is increasingly questioned by people unfamiliar with it in
practice, the mainstreaming of mindfulness in the world
has always been anchored in the ethical framework that
lies at the very heart of the original teachings of the
Buddha.
5
Sila,meaningBvirtue^or Bmoral conduct^in
the Pali language, is represented by the third, fourth, and
fifth factors of the Eightfold Path (the fourth of the Four
Noble Truths): wise/right speech, wise/right action, and
wise/right livelihood. While MBSR does not, nor should
it, explicitly address these classical foundations in a clin-
ical context with patients, the Four Noble Truths have
always been the soil in which the cultivation of mindful-
ness via MBSR and other mindfulness-based programs
(MBPs) is rooted, and out of which, it grows through
ongoing practice. More on this to follow, in terms of
the both Hippocratic Oath and the Bodhisattva Vow.
Parenthetically, MBSR was also designed from the
*Jon Kabat-Zinn
mindfulness@umassmed.edu
1
Center for Mindfulness, University of Massachusetts Medical
School, 55 Lake Avenue North, Worcester, MA 01655, USA
Mindfulness
DOI 10.1007/s12671-017-0758-2
beginning as a vehicle of right livelihood for the people
who would be drawn to become MBSR instructors.
6
Now that mindfulness already has a multidecade track
record in the mainstream of medicine, health care, as well
as increasingly in other societal avenues, however, nascent
at this particular time, from the law to education to gov-
ernment, to criminal justice, to sports, perhaps the major
challenge for all of us who practice the dharma in one form
or another and care deeply about suffering and the end of
suffering and the root causes of suffering is to contribute
optimally and skillfully to the ongoing development, re-
finement, articulation, and embodied authenticity of dhar-
ma wisdom in all the various domains within which it is
taking root, whether within the mainstream or within more
Buddhist-oriented streams. After all, the mainstreaming of
dharma through mindfulness is prima facie a positive and
healing occurrence and a tremendous opportunity for ad-
dressing some of the most fundamental sources of pain and
suffering in our world at this moment in time. That would
include the Orwellian distortions of truth we are now see-
ing on a daily basis in the news, and the perpetuation of
dystopian Bgovernance^by seemingly elevating greed, ha-
tred, and delusion to new heights, with all its attendant
consequences for the fragility of democratic institutions.
My guess and profound hope is that as planetary citizens
and devoted mindfulness practitioners, we all have neces-
sary, even critical roles to play in what unfolds from here,
however, small or insignificant we might think our contri-
bution might be when we begin, especially in light of the
mega-geopolitical forces playing out in our time through
terrorism, war, cynicism, and death around the world, and
the historical roots that feed such forces within the human
family and how easily these are invoked and played upon
by demagogues. The evidence of the flowering of mindful-
ness in this era (see Fig. 1as one indicator) is widespread.
It can be gleaned from the depth and breadth of research
articles in the journal Mindfulness and increasingly
throughout the top tier scientific and medical literature, in
the documenting and curating of this exponential flowering
in the Mindfulness Research Monthly, and in the various
series of edited volumes in Mindfulness and Behavioral
Health being put out by Springer, including the latest vol-
ume, devoted to Mindfulness and Ethics (Purser et al.
2018). The very fact that a major scientific publisher thinks
the subject of mindfulness and ethics is relevant enough to
invest its resources to bring this topic into this convention-
al form of mainstream academic discourse is significant, as
is the fact that there are so many different credible voices
and perspectives being expressed from vastly different
backgrounds. Nirbhay Singh is to be congratulated on his
leadership in generating these vehicles for reporting ongo-
ing research and offering a range of opinion pieces and
perspectives on the field, and even more for helping to
develop the field itself and the ongoing discourse and in-
quiry that are evolving through his launching of the journal
Mindfulness,andoftheMindfulness in Behavioral Health
Series through Springer. Academic volumes may not
change the world all that much, but they sometimes put
their finger on the pulse of emergent possibilities in science
and medicine that can augur transformative changes in
planetary culture.
WhatIintendtodointhispaperisofferanon-
exhaustive perspective on the original core aspirations, as
I experienced them, behind introducing mindfulness as a
practice and as a way of being into the mainstream world,
initially through medicine and health care in the form of
MBSR, and then—as the meme and practice took root and
interest spread with increasing evidence of its multifaceted
efficacy—to varying degrees into education, business, so-
cial justice, politics, and the more global domain of ac-
knowledging a moral and exceedingly practical responsi-
bility for the planet on the part of our species as a whole.
For me, this trajectory has always been one of generating
an ever growing number of hopefully skillful approaches
for effectively addressing widespread suffering and its root
causes in the human mind. These classically take the form
of (1) greed; (2) fear and aversion, and the distain, enmity,
and vilifying that frequently accompany them, including
the racial/ethnic dehumanizing phenomenon of Bothering^;
(3) delusion, namely, mistaking appearance for reality; and
(4) the toxicity, ignorance, and blindness that arise from
ignoring intrinsic human values such as kindness and com-
passion, and the humanity in others. When these intrinsic
human values are ignored, their absence tends to under-
mine our speech, our actions, our choices and sources of
livelihood, and thus, potentially, our ethical stance and
moral core as human beings. That absence also undermines
our social fabric as democratic communities and our com-
mitment to value, if not celebrate, both commonality and
difference in pluralistic societies.
That said, an unintended but in retrospect inevitable
consequence of the speed and effectiveness with which
mindfulness has moved into the mainstream of so many
disciplines and aspects of life in the past decade is that
the very word Bmindfulness^is now at some risk of losing
its meaning, as a small minority of people, mostly out of
ignorance or opportunism, I am guessing, apply it to ad-
vertise and sell dubious products that have little or nothing
to do with mindfulness and, in some cases, promote seem-
ingly exploitative agendas in business and elsewhere. In all
likelihood, they have no idea that mindfulness is rooted in
an ancient and arduous meditation practice and an ethical
soil. My hope is that this is a temporary and self-limiting
phenomenon that will remedy itself as the ongoing dynam-
ic of mindfulness/universal dharma moves ever more deep-
ly into the mainstream of society and contributes to
Mindfulness
shaping the minds and understandings and communities of
those who are deeply touched by the practice itself. Our
ongoing debates and dialogs on the subject in the growing
global mindfulness community can contribute to that larger
aim.
Working Definitions of Mindfulness:
Just so, it is clear what I mean when I use the word
Bmindfulness,^I am using it as a synonym for Bawareness^
or Bpure awareness.^The operational definition that I of-
fered around the work of MBSR and the intentional culti-
vation of mindfulness (or access to mindfulness) is that
mindfulness is the awareness that arises from paying at-
tention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-
judgmentally
7
. Non-judgmentally does not mean that there
will not be plenty of judging and evaluating going on—of
course there will be. Non-judgmental means to be aware of
how judgmental the mind can be, and as best we can, not
getting caught in it or recognizing when we are and not
compounding our suffering by judging the judging. Of
course, awareness is an innate, constitutive, and defining
aspect of our humanity. It is at least as powerful and useful
as the faculty that allows for thought and emotion, because
it affords a momentary opportunity to hold those energies
from an additional vantage point or dimension of experi-
ence (a knowing that includes but also transcends the
merely conceptual), thus, promoting the possibility of dis-
cernment and wisdom. The practice of mindfulness
includes coming to recognize the faculty of awareness
within oneself and learning how to befriend and inhabit it
as the primary dimension/abode of experience, a faculty
that can be an effective and liberating counterbalance to
the also very powerful and creative, although too often
imprisoning and blinding faculty of thinking (and the emo-
tions that accompany our thoughts, likes and dislikes,
memories, and anticipations). These two modes both ben-
efit from collaborating seamlessly together. Moreover,
awareness has the potential, with a greater ease of recog-
nition and access, to become the default mode of our
moment-to-moment experience, rather than its opposite,
mindlessness, or mind wandering (Killingsworth and
Gilbert 2010). It should also be noted that, since in Asian
languages, the word for Bmind^and the word for Bheart^
are usually the same, we cannot fully understand the word
Bmindfulness^in English without simultaneously hearing
or feeling the word Bheartfulness.^They are one and the
same. Thus, the meditative cultivation of mindfulness,
whether formally or informally, involves intentionally, as
best we can, bringing an openhearted and affectionate at-
tention to our experience. This points to the essential non-
separation between mindfulness and compassion, at least
the way I understand it within the framework of MBSR.
8
Another way to frame Bmindfulness^that I have found
useful is that it subtends the multidimensional domain of
relationality itself. We can bring awareness to the question
of who is speaking when we say things like BI have a body^
or BIambreathing^or BI am thinking^or BIammeditating.^
The non-trivial question of BWho am I?^points to
Fig. 1 Number of publications
on mindfulness by year
Mindfulness
wakefulness itself, and non-separation, to the mystery of lived
experience and sentience, and the artificial separation inherent
in subject/object duality.
Taking the non-dual perspective into account suggests
that it is important to thread the intrinsic complementarity
of the instrumental and non-instrumental dimensions of
mindfulness together from the beginning both in one’s
own practice and in one’s teaching, if one is in a position
to offer instruction in the practice of mindfulness.
9
The
instrumental dimension puts learning to meditate in the
same domain as any other learning, such as to drive a car,
or play a musical instrument—you learn the method, work
at it diligently, make progress toward targeted goals, and
eventually develop some degree of familiarity or even mas-
tery. The non-instrumental reminds us that with medita-
tion, from the very beginning there is also, seemingly par-
adoxically, no place to go, nothing to do, and nothing to
attain—no special state, insight, or way of being. This is
because every experience is already special if held in
awareness. Being alive is special. Experiencing anything
is special if it is recognized as pure experience without
fabricating an Bexperiencer^and a subsequent self-
centered and perforce limited narrative to support it.
Neither the instrumental nor the non-instrumental domain
by itself is sufficient to embody wakefulness, wisdom, and
compassion or to help others to uncover these dimensions
of being in themselves. Together, like two strands of a
double helix, they support each other.
10
Are Mindfulness-Based Interventions
Watered-Down Dharma?
In 1991, I was asked the following question by a journalist
working for a Buddhist magazine (Tricycle, in its first year):
What are the implications of taking mindfulness practice
outside of its formal traditions and historical context? Is
there a danger of watering it down too much, of endan-
gering its integrity?
This is how I responded in 1991:
I think there is always a danger of a tradition losing its
integrity or being distorted by someone whose under-
standing is limited. But it’s even more of a danger, if one
is concerned about human suffering, to become so doc-
trinaire that you’re basically captivated by your own
requirements to be pure to a particular tradition.
Religious traditions are famous for their parochialism.
Lots of Buddhists get into ego trips, such as BMy prac-
tice is better, deeper, faster, more complete, or more
spiritual than your practice.^
In 2016, I was invited to revisit the same question for the
magazine’s 25th anniversary edition. Their invitation stated:
The idea would be that we ask you this question again,
today, after so much has happened with the mindfulness
movement. What are your thoughts on the way this is
playing out? Has anything surprised you? You have
been an important figure in this development, but now
it’s gotten so big. What do you make of the whole thing?
Is there a next phase of development that you would like
to see?
What follows is my response to that same question, 25 years
later, modified and expanded upon for the purposes of this
paper and the collective inquiry and dialog taking place at this
point in time throughout the mindfulness community.
This is a big question, and rightly so given the increasing
buzz and hype around mindfulness in the commercial and on-
line worlds at this moment. To address it even partially, we
will also need to take into account and honor the seriousness,
the depth, and the authenticity with which mindfulness has
taken root in mainstream culture in so many different domains
in so many different parts of the world. So my response will be
quite a bit longer than in 1991 (which was 2 years prior to the
airing of the Bill Moyers PBS Special, Healing and the Mind,
seen by over 40 million viewers, in which MBSR was featured
in one 45-min segment), a time in which very few people in
the mainstream culture understood that the word
Bmindfulness,^if they knew it at all, had anything to do with
an ancient meditative discipline and tradition, or that it might
be infinitely deep and have profound life-transforming and
even world-transforming implications. It was also a time in
which anything having to do with meditation or yoga was
considered the far side of the drug-crazed lunatic fringe by
mainstream culture, so there were major obstacles to any at-
tempts to make the practice of either understandable and com-
monsensical within society as a whole.
We can see that the original wording of the question
Tricycle posed in 1991 carried an implicit assumption, an
assertion that the dharma was of necessity being Bwatered
down^to one degree or another in MBSR, and the question
was framed as: BWhen is it Btoo much?^It also included
concern for mindfulness being taken out of its historical, cul-
tural, and religious contexts, thereby, possibly endangering its
integrity and depth. These are increasingly important ques-
tions in this era and certainly merit examining and debating,
as I believe our community is doing more and more. They are
also deep, multidimensional questions, not amenable to brief
and facile responses.
To get started, what if we posited for a moment that, in
essence, the dharma (the lawfulness that the Buddha discov-
ered, described, and offered skillful methods for developing
[bhavana]) is not being watered down (whatever that might
Mindfulness
mean—Let us not forget the Zen Master who described his
efforts as Bselling water by the river,^and Btotally without
merit^) (Kapleau 1965) and that whatever we mean by
Bhistorical, cultural, or religious context^is era-dependent?
What if in this era, mindfulness has been contextualized ade-
quately and appropriately—or adequately and appropriately
enough—in the domains within which mindfulness training
of one kind or another, some of it nascent, is taking place in
mainstream settings—medicine and health care, K-12
schools, college and professional schools, corporations, the
law, prisons, the military, policing, social agencies, and gov-
ernment—at least up to now? Revisiting the question might be
especially timely, given that the boundaries between the main-
stream and the Buddhist world are so much thinner and less
distinct than they were 25 years ago—witness Tricycle’s
reach, and that of other Buddhist publications, the Dalai
Lama’s global prominence, the influence of the Mind and
Life Institute over the past 30 years, Mindful magazine, this
journal, and so many other currents in the mainstream world.
What is more, the urgency and the need are, if anything, more
pressing than ever—witness the Black Lives Matter move-
ment in the USA as a response to endemic racism and police
violence in poor neighborhoods, the fear and mistreatment of
immigrants, particularly the so-called Bundocumented,^the
underlying and tenaciously persistent social and economic
injustices in our inner cities, the energy and pipeline wars
pitting the power of the state against indigenous people on
their own land, the growing concerns about the accessibly of
clean water, the ascendency of Trump and the forces and
values he represents, and the growing mindset of populism
around the globe that is grounded in many deep and legitimate
grievances, but that is also readily exploited and potentially
betrayed by cynical manipulation.
This may indeed be a pivotal moment for our species to
come to our senses both literally and metaphorically in terms
of mobilizing and operationalizing in the mainstream world
and its institutions what we know to be the intrinsically
healing, illuminating, and potentially liberating virtues and
power of mindfulness, both as a practice and as a way of
being. In embarking on such a path, we might transcend or
at least learn how to work more imaginatively, creatively, and
with good will with the tyranny of our own thoughts in the
form of conventional dualisms, such as right/left, liberal/
conservative Democrat/Republican, rich/poor, true/false, the
good guys and the bad guys, and even sacred/secular, which
may all be, in their own domains, true to a degree, but not true
enough to bring about either healing or peace or compassion
or wisdom at the levels that the planet, our species and many
many others, are calling out for. More on this below.
Perhaps the question BWhat is called for now?^in 2017, in
terms of wise and compassionate action for each of us indi-
vidually and all of us collectively as contributors to and par-
ticipants in this broadening conversation in both scholarly
and practitioner (in all senses of the word) circles might be a
worthy koan at this moment, where, for whatever reasons,
there is a risk of falling into reflexive parochialisms. A collec-
tive inquiry in the spirit of good will, deep listening, and an
appreciation for the inclusivity of the dharma is especially
important if we care about nurturing a wiser and more com-
passionate world at a time when discovering and drawing
upon our deepest innate resources as human beings (our Btrue
nature^we might say) may, without exaggeration, be critical
to the survival of our world and of our species and many
others.
We know that there are as many doors into wakefulness
and embodiedwisdom as there are human beings. Even within
the framework of Buddhadharma, everybody’suniquetrajec-
tory starts of necessity with encountering it within one culture,
or tradition, or school or person—one of a host of other path-
ways and perspectives that may also play their roles at some
point in a person’s life in eventually coming to understand the
teachings to some degree, always in flux, embody them as
best one can, and live them wholeheartedly through ongoing
learning, growing, opening, and ultimately, coming to terms
with things as they are, which has nothing to do, just to be
clear about it, with passive resignation, but rather with dis-
cernment and enaction
11
in whatever ways are deemed appro-
priate to the circumstances, always changing of course. To be
explicit, I mean that the underlying motive force for this work
is the intuition, the longing, and the very real possibility of
liberation from greed, aversion, and delusion on the individu-
al, institutional, and global level, nothing less. This first re-
quires that we recognize those factors in our own lives and
minds when they arise and learn through practice how to not
be so caught by them. Politically, that might mean developing
a democracy 2.0 based on the Hippocratic principle to first do
no harm, and grounded in the lawfulness that a universal dhar-
ma foundation based on widespread embodied practice might
provide. If democracy is truly based on the rule of law, and the
law itself were grounded on the first principle of minimizing
harm and maximizing wellbeing for all members of the body
politic, writ large and understood broadly—a kind of political,
social, and economic Hippocratic Oath—then the lawfulness
of the dharma might well provide an inescapable and essential
foundation for upgrading the wisdom inherent in our laws and
institutions at present to be adequate to the age in which we
find ourselves—if we are to face and deal mindfully and
heartfully with the ways in which we can be driven primarily
by fear and ignorance rather than by love and wisdom. A
recognition of the process of Bselfing^and learning how not
being so caught in its gravitational pull is essential for us to
find a new way to transcend those mind states that distort
experience and further separation as opposed to inclusion
and a larger Bat-home-ness^that allows for discomfort with-
out it leading to scapegoating and violence, but rather more in
the direction of kindness and mutual flourishing.
Mindfulness
This being so, we might ask whether we can usefully and in
all humility differentiate Buddhadharma from a more univer-
sal articulation of that very same dharma that might serve as a
door into insight and potential liberation from stress and suf-
fering of all kinds for those for whom the Buddhist doors are
not going to be readily accessible? That has been our intention
in MBSR from the very beginning, so I stand by my response
of 25 years ago. Non-dual Mahayana teachings suggest that a
direct transmission outside the sutras is possible,
12
and that all
of the dharma is, we might say, holographically embedded in
any one element of the dharma.
13
In the face of suffering, how
much exposure to mindfulness (also understood as
heartfulness) would be too little, or too Bdecontextualized,^
14
if it inspired or propelled somebody who was suffering in one
fashion or another to practice mindfulness both formally and
informally and find new ways to be in a wiser relationship to
the actuality of his or her situation, inwardly and outwardly,
until there is no absolute separation between inner and outer?
I recognize that critics can object that Bmindfulness^as we
use the term may not be Bright mindfulness^(sammasati).
This is a topic for further conversation, beyond the scope of
this paper. Let me just assert that we consider what we teach in
MBSR and other mindfulness-based interventions to be
Bwise^or Bright^mindfulness, to whatever degree we can
manage to embody and convey it, and keep it in the forefront
of our awareness.
15
MBSR was meant to be a potentially
skillful and potent glide path into the heart and essence of
dharma wisdom, a first exposure at least, and a direct first-
person one at that, based entirely on practice and empirical
investigation of one’s direct experience. But it was not, nor
was it ever meant to be a vehicle for teaching Buddhism per
se, disguised, Bstealth,^or of any other variety. Still, it bears
keeping in mind that Buddhism itself was and continues to be
an evolutionary and historical development, and that the
Buddha himself was, arguably, not a Buddhist.
MBSR As One of an Infinite Number of Possible
Skillful Means
The whole idea from the beginning of MBSR, now in its 38th
year (by one count, there are over 740 programs in hospitals
and medical centers worldwide
16
) was to make mindfulness
meditation practice so commonsensical to people facing
stress, pain, and chronic illness that they would actually incor-
porate it into their lives as a practice and a way of being on a
more or less daily basis long enough to see for themselves
whether it was of some value in facing and befriending suf-
fering—and in the process, understanding the nature of their
own suffering to one degree or another over time and perhaps
even freeing themselves from its root causes.
17
MBSR (and
hopefully the same can be said for its many mindfulness-
based cousins
18
) was always meant to be a skillful means for
making the universal essence of dharma, or at least a first taste
of it, accessible to virtually anybody who cared to explore it,
thereby, hopefully reducing the barriers to ongoing wakeful-
ness, embodied kindness, and wisdom in human beings, what-
ever their views, convictions, and personal history.
19
From the start, originating within a hospital and academic
medical center, MBSR was of necessity rooted in the ethical
soil of the Hippocratic Oath, namely, to first do no harm. This
truly noble vow that each doctor takes upon graduating from
medical school, has undergirded medicine and health care, at
least in principle, from their very beginnings. It was further
elaborated by Maimonides in the twelfth century in Egypt.
Succinctly put, the patient’s needs come first, before the needs
of the doctor and other caregivers. There is a foundation of
selfless action built into this medical ethos, akin to the
Bodhisattva Vow, namely, to work for the liberation of others
with all one’s energy, putting their liberation above one’sown.
Still, returning to primum non nocere, it is important to ask
how, practically speaking, would one even know if one was
doing harm in one way or another, either by commission or
omission, without a high degree of mindfulness on the part of
the physician, especially during the doctor-patient encounter?
20
The same might be said for assessing what the patient’sneeds
might truly be. We can see that mindfulness inevitably lies at
the heart of the Hippocratic principle, as does heartfulness/com-
passion. And it is an oath, so in that sense, a sacred vow if we
take it at face value, which means seriously and personally.
And it includes one’s own wholeness as a caregiver, so from
the non-dual perspective, kindness and clarity extended to the
other is inseparable from kindness and clarity extended to
oneself.
Heterogeneity Among MBSR Teachers
and Participants
Regarding the depth and authenticity of the dharma roots of
MBSR and their actual embodiment in practice, as with any
educational or clinical program or curriculum, there is inevi-
tably a heterogeneity in the quality and depth of its delivery
and in the container within which it is unfolded, especially
since none of us, as far as I know, claim any special attain-
ment. The quality of any MBSR program depends critically
on the embodied presence, understanding, and lived experi-
ence of the instructor including, of course, the rigor and depths
of her or his (1) own training trajectory with dharma teachers,
(2) personal meditation practice, (3) understanding of the
dharma, and (4) motivation to do this kind of work in the first
place. Even among well-trained and highly motivated MBSR
instructors, as with any other field, there will always be a
spectrum of competencies, strengths, and weaknesses each
of us will encounter as we work to continually develop our-
selves as authentic teachers and as human beings, hopefully
Mindfulness
receiving ongoing support from the greater sangha of fellow
MBSR instructors and our other teachers. In parallel fashion, a
group participating in an MBSR program together will always
show a range of benefits, from nothing or even getting more
encumbered by one’s problems and challenges, to new and
possibly liberating ways of being in relationship to the present
moment, silence, awareness,stress, pain, and social situations.
Not every person taking an MBSR program will go on to
cultivate a deeper dharma practice, although many do. And
yet the Bseed^of mindfulness as a way of being can invisibly
take root in one’s heart by the end of 8 weeks of participation
in a MBSR program, or even before, and may be carried there
in some fashion, even in the absence of a regular practice or a
conscious remembering to bring it into everyday life
circumstances.
Moreover, as with any educational curriculum, not every
teacher is necessarily capable of inspiring a lifetime of ongo-
ing practice, inquiry, and deepening development in others.
Quantitating such variables and their consequences both ret-
rospectively and prospectively would certainly be a valuable
contribution to future research. At this juncture in time, the
global MBSR and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy
(MBCT) teacher communities are taking great pains to estab-
lish minimal teacher competency standards and criteria as well
as high-level professional education to maximize their long-
term impact on the wellbeing and continued development of
the lives of participants in 8-week-long mindfulness-based
programs. In a number of professional training programs,
Buddhist meditation teachers with interest in contributing to
high dharma integrity in mainstream mindfulness programs,
such as MBCT, are an integral part of these efforts.
21
Possible Long-Term Effects Within Society
From its inception, MBSR was conceived as a public health
intervention rather than a therapy, designed to, over time,
move the bell curve of society as a whole in the direction of
greater health, wellbeing, and wisdom through tapping the
deep interior resources and reservoirs of the heart and mind
and body native to all of us, by virtue of being human, for
learning, growing, healing, and transformation, as well as the
social connectedness and learning from each other that spon-
taneously arise in class-like settings, when room is made for
such, to catalyze and promote health in every dimension of
that term. Reflecting back over the past 38 years since the
inception of MBSR, there are many thousands of people
who now have an ongoing meditation practice because of
having taken a mindfulness-based program at some point in
the past. One signature characteristic of undertaking an MBSR
program is that, by design, it requires an immediate lifestyle
change in the form of devoting significant time each day to
formal mindfulness meditation practices (the body scan,
sitting meditation, and mindful hatha yoga) as well as a range
of informal mindfulness meditation practices throughout the
day in virtually any and all life situations.
In this way, MBSR serves as a catalyst for exposing large
numbers of people in society to meditation practice, as well as
a portal into a lifetime of ongoing practice for many. Beyond
that, there are now many hundreds if not thousands of clini-
cians, researchers, graduate students, young scientists and
physicians, and other professionals who are committed to
the cultivation of mindfulness in their own lives, often within
various Buddhist traditions. Some are also ardent students of
its root texts, teachers, and teachings. But virtually, all of them
are working inmainstream (I avoid the term Bsecular^as best I
can, as in Bsecular mindfulness,^since it feels dualistic to me,
and surrenders the sacred
22
element of practice and embodied
wakefulness, something I am not willing to do) settings to
bring a greater mindfulness and heartfulness into the culture
in a broad range of different ways and in many different do-
mains. As noted above, this includes medicine, health care,
public health, primary, secondary, and Bhigher^education,
business, the legal profession, the tech world, professional
and amateur sports, social activism and social justice, criminal
justice, the military, and government, to name a few. Some are
nascent efforts, while many have been in place for years and
are thriving. For example, the Parliament in the UK has a
popular 8-week mindfulness program for members of the
House of Commons and the House of Lords (at the time of
writing, over 140 parliamentarians have already taken the pro-
gram). It recently issued an All Party Parliamentary Report
23
recommending major mindfulness initiatives in four areas of
national interest: health care, education, business/innovation,
and criminal justice. Nothing like this has ever happened be-
fore. They are now in the process of reaching out to
Parliamentarians in other countries to develop a Global
Mindfulness Initiative.
24
In the USA, Congressman Tim Ryan (D, Ohio) wrote a
book entitled A Mindful Nation that inspired the title of the
UK report (Ryan 2012). He is still in office. This nascent trend
within government is now of even greater import in the face of
Brexit, the Trump presidency, and other nations’moves in a
similar direction.
In a telling parallel unfolding that underscores the inter-
weaving strands of various traditions within the more univer-
sal framework and underpinnings of mindfulness-based inter-
ventions, some prominent MBSR teachers and researchers
were formerly or remain decades-long students of senior
Buddhist teachers in various traditions. Others completed a
traditional 3-year retreat, or in a few cases, multiple 3-year
retreats, yet were motivated following that experience to train
to become MBSR teachers. And some MBSR teachers or
teachers-in-training are currently senior Chan monks and nuns
from China and Taiwan. How are we to understand this phe-
nomenon and the desire among Buddhist meditation teachers
Mindfulness
to teach MBSR, especially if MBSR suffers from the various
flaws that some suggest that it does, including being unethical,
or engaging in inappropriate and potentially harmful Bcultural
appropriation?^
To my mind, these and many other emergences suggest
manifold and virtually limitless opportunities for further cul-
tivation and development by people who have a deep love for
the dharma and a deep understanding of it through both schol-
arship and personal practice. The need is infinite, so why not
help build an ever-self-correcting edifice of ongoing learning,
wisdom, and compassion in the world rather than assume,
usually wrongly, that mainstream efforts such as
mindfulness-based programs—if they are indeed what we
mean by calling them Bmindfulness-based^in the first
place—are fundamentally unethical, dumbed-down, or di-
vorced from a deep liberative potential? Even if there are
specific instances where problems need to be addressed, as
of course there always are, does that mean we should abandon
the essence? Hardly. Problems, no matter how challenging,
might be seen as rich opportunities for ongoing learning on
all our parts within a robust ethical framework and ongoing
collective inquiry. Iterative interaction and cooperativity, this
is how things evolve on this planet, and within the brain and
social systems…there is no one right way. There are always a
multiplicity of interacting, self-illuminating streams, much
like ongoing neural-net algorithms that evolve over time from
massive iterative inputs and outputs.
The Stress of Success
Figure 1shows the growth in the number of papers per year
since 1980 in the medical and scientific literature that have the
term Bmindfulness^in the title.
25
It is immediately apparent
that mindfulness has become a Bfield^of research and clinical
practice with a body of increasingly high quality scientific
evidence in support of its various potential applications and
effects. This in itself is a noteworthy phenomenon, an example
of the confluence and conversation between science and dhar-
ma that is taking place in our time.
26
Government and private
funding for mindfulness research has followed a similar curve.
The overall quality of the research, as in any field, could be
described as Bmixed.^However, as suggested above, it is
increasingly becoming more rigorous, with more sophisticat-
ed study designs, active control conditions, investigation of
underlying biological pathways through which mindfulness
might be exerting its effects, and publication in top-tier
journals.
27
One of the original accelerants to this curve was the devel-
opment of MBCT and the papers that have stemmed from its
impact and investigation since the year 2000. Another accel-
erant comes from increasing interest in meditation among
neuroscientists and from the studies they have pursued on
various aspects of mindfulness and its possible neural corre-
lates. This includes studies of structural and activation chang-
es in the brain, investigation of possible mechanisms of ac-
tion—including attention regulation, emotion regulation, per-
spective taking, social interconnectedness, and interpersonal
neurobiology—as well as changes in functional connectivity
between brain regions and networks. Other contributing ac-
celerants to this curve at various times have included entire
scientific journals as well as special issues of journals devoted
to mindfulness research, major funding by NIH and other
agencies, national and international conferences on the sub-
ject, and Mind and Life Institute-sponsored dialogs between
scientists and philosophers and scholars, on the one hand, and
the Dalai Lama and other contemplatives on the other.
28
There is no question in my mind that the exponential in-
crease in papers in the scientific and medical literature in the
past 10 years, as shown in Fig. 1, is functioning, both for better
and for worse, as a primary driver of worldwide interest in
mindfulness. That being the case, it was virtually inevitable
that, as noted earlier, Bmindfulness^would sooner or later
come to be hyped, commercialized, even exploited by some,
especially by those who may not be grounded in ongoing
personal practice but are just looking to capitalize on some-
thing that is trending hot at the moment. At the same time, it
has generated a great deal of legitimate interest and coverage
in the press and on television, some of it accurate and some of
it not.
It was equally inevitable that the so-called Bmindfulness
revolution^
29
would be criticized by others in a reactive back-
lash, perhaps without understanding the full dimensionality of
the phenomenon in question, including the role of MBSR and
its formulation from the beginning as a potentially transfor-
mative dharma vehicle, not only for individuals but for insti-
tutions and the larger society, with radical (in the sense of
going to the root) implications for both social and political
justice.
30
These second order phenomena may be a transient social
cost of Bsuccess.^I do think that the outsized popularity and
hype accorded to mindfulness at the moment will be a passing
fad, and that those with more opportunistic motivations will
soon become bored and move on to the next next thing.
Hopefully, Bmindfulness^will fast become so Byesterday^to
those interests. That will leave those of us who care deeply
about it and see its potential for healing and liberation from
suffering and the causes of suffering in one form or another to
continue doing our work and cultivating our practice in ways
that the world is actually starving for, and we might also say,
literally and metaphorically, dying for. These are the stakes, in
my view. In this regard, perhaps the less we use or overuse the
word Bmindfulness^and the more we embody it in our being
and our doing, the better.
I have been told by Buddhist scholars that the dharma has
fallen into decline many many times over the centuries in
Mindfulness
many of the cultures of Asia, only to reinvigorate itself and
society cyclically in key moments when the conditions are
right. This is probably one of those Bkey moments,^if not
the most critical key moment ever on the planet, auguring a
potential renaissance in all senses of the word, if we can come
to grips with our own endemic enmity, fear, and self-
centeredness as a species, as nations, and as individuals.
Never have we needed the wisdom and freedom of the dharma
and our inborn potential to realize it as we do now, for the sake
of all beings and for the sake of the planet itself. So, taking
certain risks to go beyond any parochial and fundamentalist
perspectives we might harbor and deal directly with our own
fears and our attachment to favored but necessarily limited
views is what is called for in this era. And that includes our
tendencies to fall into dogmatic, sectarian, or hopelessly dual-
istic perspectives—for instance, making BBuddhists^and
Bnon-Buddhists,^or for that matter Bus^and Bthem,^Bthe
good guys and the bad guys^—in our own minds and then
being attached to those distinctions in an absolutist way. This
is the opposite of wisdom.
There are many different issues being debated nowadays in
the scholarly community, such as whether MBPs have an eth-
ical basis and whether they are optimal in terms of their ex-
plicit dharma content, or for that matter, in the Bdosage^and
duration of the meditation practices and the formats in which
they are delivered. I certainly welcome empirical approaches
to all these issues. Yet, misunderstandings and unwarranted
assumptions abound. One example: the mischaracterization of
contemporary mindfulness programs such as MBSR and
MBCT as emphasizing bare attention (sati) without recogniz-
ing that they also include its complement, what is known as
clear comprehension (sampajañña), in other words, discern-
ment functioning together with attending (satisampajañña).
31
This view may merely reflect a lack of familiarity with MBSR
and its pedagogy. The same may be the case for those who
assert that the Four Noble Truths and the Four Foundations of
Mindfulness do not serve as the foundation of MBSR. In fact,
they are the bedrock of MBSR, even though they are never
mentioned. It is an empirical question as to whether they need
to be explicit in an 8-week clinical or educational program
designed to teach people how to take better care of themselves
over the lifespan by developing a meditation practice.
Certainly, some people who first encountered mindfulness
through an MBP have sought out explicitly Buddhist teach-
ings and communities and found a great value in doing so.
Yet, it may be a conceit to imagine that making the dharma
more explicit in a Bsecond generation MBP^would necessar-
ily add anything to the introduction of mindfulness within the
mainstream for those with no interest in Buddhism or Dharma
but who are suffering intensely from the slings and arrows, the
full catastrophe, in Zorba’s term, of the human condition. Or it
may not be. Certainly, there is room for an infinite number of
imaginative approaches to healing the human condition.
Conclusion
There has never been a better or more necessary time for all of
us as human beings to wake up to our own collusion in the
status quo, to the deep roots of self-centeredness and of subtle
or not-so-subtle greed, hatred, and delusion within ourselves
and our institutions, and to do what we can, being who we are,
individually and collectively, for the sake offuture generations
as well as for our own—and even for ourselves as embodied
individuals. Luckily, there is no essential separation between
these. We only get this one moment, and this ever-so-brief
human life to embody and live what we know and who we
are, including the knowing of what we do not know—that is,
to live our dharma as a radical act of sanity and love.
It seems to me that each one of us has a unique opportunity
and a unique role to play in this unfolding, based on our love,
our practice, and our unique karmic trajectory, grounded in
our essential interconnectedness, non-separation, and com-
mon humanity. At this moment on the planet, we need all
the various and disparate voices participating in this conver-
sation, and we need to listen to each other with open hearts
and deep attending. If we cannot do that, how could we pos-
sibly expect reconciliation across the greater divides of polit-
ical and social animosity and active harming we are seeing
enacted throughout the world today? This is the challenge and
the promise of a democracy 2.0. This is the challenge of mind-
fulness and heartfulness embodied. It is up to us.
The dharma of course, whether with a big BD^or a little
Bd,^will take care of itself, as it always has. All we need to do
is take care of what truly needs tending, with tenderness, and
with resolve. And that is only everything.
How will it all unfold? You already know what is coming.
Too early to tell.
Endnotes
1
Apparently he mistakenly though he was being asked about the 1968 street
demonstrations in Paris.
2
Zhou Enlaiapparently also acted decisively during the Cultural Revolution to
save the magnificent 900-year-old Chan Buddhist Xiyan Temple in Suzhou by
ordering it encircled by a brigade of the People’s Liberation Army. I was told
this by Chan monks at the monastery who have participated in MBSR profes-
sional training programs.
3
The same might be said of the American Revolution and our 250 year exper-
iment with democracy, especially given the malaise and deep divides in views
and perspectives underlying the 2016 US presidential election, to say nothing
of the deep scars and enduring legacies of the Native American genocide that
have neve r been fully owned or healed, the hundreds of y ears of the enslave-
ment and trading of African human beings upon which the economy of the
country was built and its legacies, and other similar historical patterns of
othering, disregard, dehumanization, oppression, and exploitation —See
Zinn (2015).
4
The legendary and most likely mythological figure, said to have brought the
dharma from India to China in the 5th Century, sat in a cave for nine years
facing a wall, and eventually became the first Chan Patriarch in the Chan
Mahayana tradition.
Mindfulness
5
See p. 146 in Kabat-Zinn (2003).
6
See Kabat-Zinn (2013).
7
See p. 145 in Kabat-Zinn (2003). See also Kabat-Zinn (2005a).
8
See Condon et al. (2013).
9
See Kabat-Zinn (2005b). See also Dunne (2013).
10
See Joseph Goldstein (2002). See also Tanahashi (2014).
11
SeeVarelaetal.(2017).
12
See, for example, Luk (1974).
13
This is clear in the ways that Bhikkhu Analayo, for instance, points out how
all four satipatthanas partake of the same essence: “Each of them leads to
liberation, like different gateways leading to the same city.”Anālayo (2003).
See also p. 22, first paragraph. It is equally the case in the Anapansati Sutta (p.
21). Thich Nhat Hanh makes the same point regarding the Eightfold Noble
Path factors; see Hanh (1998).
14
Respectfully “recontextualized”would be a more accurate way of framing it.
15
Had I decided, for purity’s sake, to call it “The Right-Mindfulness-Based
Stress Reduction Program,”how much traction do you imagine it would have
had in medicine in 1979? Or even now? Some things are better left implicit—
and embodied. They are felt in the authentic presence of the teacher, and
explicitly articulated and transmitted only as appropriate to the context of the
moment. In MBP’s, many different domains of Buddhadharma can be implic-
itly present and embodied to whatever degree possible in the instructor,
grounded in his or her own ongoing practice, and presence.
16
See http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/stress-reduction/find-an-mbsr-program/
for MBSR instructors world wide certified by the University of Massachusetts
Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society.
17
That is, to make meditation practice as American as anything else in our
society that might have value as a lifestyle choice, such as regular exercise.
18
See Crane et al. (2016).
19
It was one way to introduce relatively rigorous formal meditative practices
broadly in the society in the hope that they would take root and be incorporated
into the unfolding daily lives of virtually everybody who is touched by their
liberative potential. Thirty-eight years downstream from that effort, it has also
led to introducing such practices in childhood through school-based programs.
20
For a compelling treatment of the value of mindfulness in medical practice
across a wide array of disciplines and more generally, see Epstein (2017).
21
See for example: Crane et al. (2012), (2013).
22
In the sense of “extremely important and deserving of respect —usually but
not necessarily associated with religion”;“Veneration: A feeling of profound
respect or reverence.”American Heritage Dictionary.
23
http://themindfulnessinitiative.org.uk/images/reports/Mindfulness-APPG-
Report_Mindful-Nation-UK_Oct2015.pdf`
24
http://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org.uk/about/who-we-are
25
According to David Black of UCLA and MRM, who ran the data analysis,
this graph is a trend estimate based on a title search of papers in the medical
and scientific literature. It is a conservative estimate since mindfulness studies
don't always use mindfulness in the title of the paper. It should be regarded as a
snapshot in time (considering database updates, in press issue assignments,
and other parameters). It will not map perfectly onto any other search at one
time point, as all parameters are constantly updating. For this reason, year-to-
year frequencies may differ when the citation numbers are recalculated. All in
all, each curve of this kind is a trend estimate (David Black, personal commu-
nication Feb 27, 2017).
26
See for example: www.mindandl ife.org; See also, W. Hasenkamp (Ed.), The
monastery and the microscope: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on mind,
mindfulness, and the nature of reality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
27
See for example, Creswell (2017).Also see Goleman and Davidson (2017).
28
See Kabat-Zinn and Davidson (2011). Also see www.mindandlife.org and the
collection of Mind and Life Institute volumes on dialogues with the Dalai Lama.
29
See Boyce (2011).
30
See for example, Kabat-Zinn (2011). See also: http://greatergood.berkeley.
edu/article/item/how_mindfulness_can_defeat_racial_bias
31
See for example, Thera (2014).
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appro-
priate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the
Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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Mindfulness
