From my understanding, mindfulness does not imply no thinking. It is more like not reacting to the thoughts that arise. I am a beginner so don't quote me here, though!
I understand it through a Christian lens and the traditions of Contemplation, Hesychasm, Centering Prayer.
The latter two are enormously controversial, and it's sort of amusing that Carmelites and many other orders don't seem to make the same waves, as long as it's called Contemplative, I guess.
But honestly, it's really fantastic and takes significant discipline to bear fruit. I've simply tried it on the surface and experienced results, but to truly practice it is to choose a guru, and devote oneself singularly to it. The mentally ill are generally too haphazard to follow such a path.
I did find a YouTube channel that provides guided meditations called "The Mindful Christian" and again, recasts Mindfulness with a Christian ethos, and I enjoy the attentive guidance where otherwise my mind would wander in abject silence. But an experienced Mindfulness practitioner would tolerate that wandering, redirect focus, and continue on. The focus is generally assisted through use of mantra or specific repetetive phrase, but experience permits us to release even the words and transcend their meaning and sensations.
It's a matter of releasing our ego and self-concern and permit a larger perspective to take over, however you'll conceive that. It may begin with an emptying of the mind, but seeks a grounded-ness, a better awareness of reality, allowing the immanent power to envelop us, and practcing our ability to remain rooted despite all the world's attempts to wrest us into fantasy, paranoia, psychosis, lies.
Hesychasm describes a specific discipline of the Eastern Orthodox/Byzantine tradition where monastics will incorporate the physicality of breathing and body posture, reciting mantras, if you will, with the spirituality of contemplation and emptiness from distractions or concrete bodily concerns.
I believe that the controversy arises somewhat for a real need for discipline and guidance, so that the emptiness is not filled with something worse or demonic. So that one doesn't lose oneself to the numinous and indeed forget reality entirely. Some practitioners report missing appointments or forgetting their surroundings while immersed in contemplation. Beware.
> It is more like not reacting to the thoughts that arise.
Surely this is as close an approximation to not thinking as conscious humans are capable of. Anyway, words get useless pretty quickly describing internal phenomenon. I just think "mindfulness" is itself simply so vague and so widely applied it could apply to basically any kind of mental therapy.
What I want is less mindfulness, please, I want an empty head.
yeah i try to understand it as not creating emotional cycles tied to an idea in your mind, cycles that can spin and leave you ruminating at best, fully depressed in worse cases
The latter two are enormously controversial, and it's sort of amusing that Carmelites and many other orders don't seem to make the same waves, as long as it's called Contemplative, I guess.
But honestly, it's really fantastic and takes significant discipline to bear fruit. I've simply tried it on the surface and experienced results, but to truly practice it is to choose a guru, and devote oneself singularly to it. The mentally ill are generally too haphazard to follow such a path.
I did find a YouTube channel that provides guided meditations called "The Mindful Christian" and again, recasts Mindfulness with a Christian ethos, and I enjoy the attentive guidance where otherwise my mind would wander in abject silence. But an experienced Mindfulness practitioner would tolerate that wandering, redirect focus, and continue on. The focus is generally assisted through use of mantra or specific repetetive phrase, but experience permits us to release even the words and transcend their meaning and sensations.
It's a matter of releasing our ego and self-concern and permit a larger perspective to take over, however you'll conceive that. It may begin with an emptying of the mind, but seeks a grounded-ness, a better awareness of reality, allowing the immanent power to envelop us, and practcing our ability to remain rooted despite all the world's attempts to wrest us into fantasy, paranoia, psychosis, lies.
Hesychasm describes a specific discipline of the Eastern Orthodox/Byzantine tradition where monastics will incorporate the physicality of breathing and body posture, reciting mantras, if you will, with the spirituality of contemplation and emptiness from distractions or concrete bodily concerns.
I believe that the controversy arises somewhat for a real need for discipline and guidance, so that the emptiness is not filled with something worse or demonic. So that one doesn't lose oneself to the numinous and indeed forget reality entirely. Some practitioners report missing appointments or forgetting their surroundings while immersed in contemplation. Beware.