I subscribe to Ajahn Sujato’s blog and I saw a post linking to this article from the Guardian website about ‘mindfulness meditation’ being made available on the NHS here in the UK. Very interesting.
The semi ironic religious fanatic in me scoffed at the mention that ‘mindfulness meditation’ had been ‘pioneered’ in the 70s in the US. I mean, please, come on guys, people have been doing this stuff for a couple of thousand years.
Maybe the idea of taking advice on meditation from someone who appears to be ‘religious’ puts people off, which is understandable. All the same, basic Buddhist teaching is really none other than nuts-and-bolts instruction on meditation: satipatthana, anapanasati, hindrances, jhanas etc. It’s not mystical or other-worldly, it’s vipassana, innit.
Anyway, I won’t rant about that, I’ll send the religious fanatic away to his cave to contemplate the drawbacks of aversion and do a bit of metta to cheer him up.
Back to the point, however…. I would be really interested to see how meditation is taught ‘clinically’, so to speak. Fair enough if they discard a bit of chanting and incense etc. The thing I’m really curious to know would be if meditation is taught alongside morality, as I really feel this is key to the whole enterprise.
Morality feels preachy, or it can do, can’t it? But I’ve really seen through my own practice that even minor moral transgressions, or things that I know are not right, have a repercussion on my mental well-being. Karma and morality put some people off, I know, and some see it is a kind of mythical hellfire and brimstone type threat. I’ll admit that was my first reaction to it as well but reading Thanissaro Bhikkhu really helped clear it up for me, or at least see it in a new light.
I really see it as being about skillful and unskillful actions of body, speech and mind. The thing that really clocked it for me has been my increasing awareness of how much my mind – or rather this mind – is totally beyond any sort of control whatsoever, and in fact trying to ‘control’ it in any kind of demanding way actually exacerbates suffering and anxiety. Unskillful qualities of mind are totally habitual and don’t need much conscious effort on my own part, they just whirl away quite happily by themselves, but I feel I have a clearer picture of how they have played into negative things that have occurred to me in the past; something I wasn’t aware of before.
Conscious moral action, usually formally put across as abstaining from negative actions, in tandem with meditation, helps create inner peace, I’m really convinced of that. Meditation and daily life can’t be separate things, I’m more than aware of my own drawbacks in certain areas of this relationship, but I can at least feel I’ve got some purchase on their connection.
Ok, the religious fanatic is basically saying it’s best to teach meditation in the context of moral action, that’s what I really mean, and I hope that’s what would happen in these new ‘clinical settings’. I’ll admit it could be difficult to achieve perhaps with some audiences.
Shut up and meditate 
Posted on January 3, 2011
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