... receptivity ... involves an awareness brought to presenting experience with a sense of curiosity, willingness, and/or self-compassion/acceptance. Receptivity is not to be confused with a feeling (necessarily) and can be thought of more as perseverance/resolve in ‘turning toward’ or ‘leaning into’ a sense of receptivity (or compassion, or willingness to experience what is arising in the formal practice), repeatedly, when attending to present-moment experience.
... present-moment attention ... involves attending to the present moment, including relating to experience as it manifests in the body (i.e., bodily sensations).
In short, the essence of mindfulness practice (as it is used in MBSR) involves perseverance in coming back again and again and again to the present-moment experience with a sense of receptivity to each moment-to-moment experience during the formal practice."
Del Re AC, Flückiger C, Goldberg SB, Hoyt WT. Monitoring mindfulness practice quality: An important consideration in mindfulness practice, Psychotherapy Research 2012 DOI:10.1080/10503307.2012.729275
An important aspect of perseverance, not explicitly mentioned above, is cultivating seemlessly continuous mindfulness practice 24/7.
Thank you kindly Nathan. The Abhidharma is certainly thorough.
ReplyDeleteIn this blog I try to use secular terminology from Western psychology, education, neuroscience, palliative care, personal experience etc to connect at the deepest level of our universal human condition - as modeled by Jon Kabat-Zinn. His approach is inclusive and deep, embraced by the religious of differing traditions as well as those who have no particular religious affiliation. The common bond seems to be an urgent felt need for the evolution of our personal and collective consciousness and to embody this now in congruent wise behavior.
Another blog: http://www.johnlovas.com/ is intended for more advanced meditators.
A third is for health-care professionals: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/
Namaste,
John
Thanks for your response, John!
ReplyDeleteAs I said, I read your entire blog (though not the other two blogs you maintain), so I see that you're trying to take a scientifically informed secular approach, just as does Jon Kabat-Zinn, whose work I know very well. Since I'm a scientifically-minded person who understands the virtues of evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence, that's the approach with which I'm also most comfortable.
Given the nature of your response, I want to clarify that my point in citing the Abhidharma was not to appeal to religious authority (a concept that holds no validity for me), but to point out how interesting it is that the same kinds of behavioral processes that are being investigated empirically in the article that you quote were already being investigated phenomenologically and written down thousands of years ago. Maybe that is due, as you say, to "the deepest level of our universal human condition," or maybe not. In either case, Jon Kabat-Zinn (and Sharon Salzberg, whom you also cite in your first blog post) both acknowledge that the forms of practice they teach are heavily inspired by ancient South Asian sources that today we call Buddhist. They didn't just invent this stuff on their own, and they don't claim that they did. It is the result of an ongoing intercultural dialogue (as Arun Bala explores in The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science, sometimes called the continuity thesis).
Best wishes and thanks again!
I think we're both on the same page Nathan. Like Kabat-Zinn, I try to express the truth as I see it from where I am in my own meditation practice, in broadly understandable contemporary language, as free as possible from terminology that might trigger resistance. The idea is to connect at a meaningful depth and be as helpful as possible in this age of frenzied distraction.
ReplyDeleteThe Buddha brought about a massive forward leap in the evolution of consciousness, and our current understanding of Buddhist wisdom is what guides Kabat-Zinn, many others, and myself. The Buddha's final advice was that it's up to each one of us to make it our own.
I make no claims to have come up with any of this, hence the vast majority of what I post are direct quotes which I interpret to be helpful in reducing suffering through awakening to what is true.
Namaste,
John
John, thanks for your reply, which I think is very eloquent. I couldn't have said it better. Keep up the good work!
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