CoSMI - 1.0.1.09 - Authenticity - Know Yourself - Mindfulness
Deuteronomy 18:9
When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.
You don't have to do all the work yourself, as you would have to do if you simply followed introspection. You can get psychological counseling. We are going to talk about that, but first I would like to talk about mindfulness. I would like to talk about mindfulness first because it is a potentially useful tool, but secondly, if you do go for psychological counseling, it is extremely likely, in the current environment, that they are going to set you on the path of mindfulness anyway. It's very popular right now.
I do not want to recommend mindfulness unreservedly. Originally, mindfulness came from a weird variant of Eastern mysticism known as Transcendental Meditation that arose in the 1970s. It became very popular for a while, and then sort of fell out of favor. Except for the mindfulness part, which sort of lived underground for a while, and then, as I pointed out, became popular once again in psychological counseling circles. But its origin does give it certain problems. Particularly for those that I am addressing in this particular series, who are, after all, Christian. Eastern mysticism is not terribly consistent with Christian theology and philosophy. Although mindfulness has been semi-sanitized by various people who have tried to extract it from its Transcendental Meditation origins, it's surprising how often the philosophies of Buddhism, Hinduism, and other Eastern philosophies and religions pop up. If you examine the materials on mindfulness carefully, you will find that the concepts of Nirvana and attempting to achieve a state of nothingness come up a lot.
(I should tell a story that will point out just how pernicious this danger can be. I attended a session where they were discussing Transcendental Meditation and the potential risks. One person challenging the presentation said that he used Transcendental Meditation just for the purposes of aiding studying and wasn't taken in by the mysticism parts of it. The presenter asserted that even if you didn't think you were being taken in, you were being affected by it. "No, I'm not," said the challenger. "Yes, you are," said the presenter. "No, I'm not," said the challenger. This seemed to be pretty pointless until the presenter said to the challenger, "All right, if you are not being affected by the mysticism, then tell us your mantra." The mantra was an aid to meditation given during Transcendental Meditation, just simply a word that the meditator would repeat. However, the philosophy of Transcendental Meditation said that the mantra was a secret and should not be disclosed to anyone. The challenger, even though there was no point in not disclosing his mantra, would not do it, thus proving the presenter's point that he was, in fact, being influenced by the Eastern philosophy behind the practice.)
You don't have to go for psychological counseling in order to get training in mindfulness. If you just do a search on the Internet, you will come up with all kinds of people and websites who are willing to train you on mindfulness. An awful lot of them, of course, will want you to buy books or take courses or otherwise pay them. However, there are courses out there that will teach you about the basics of mindfulness without charging you anything for it. Go and find these sites, but remember they are going to vary in quality. Anything that you find on the Internet should be taken with a grain of salt. Possibly a whole bag of salt.
The online sites that are going to be useful to you will assist you with the business of sitting in silence, and then asking yourself the kinds of questions that we have already started to explore. Think about how you feel. Think about why you feel that. First of all, just examine your own feelings: physical sensations, what do you hear, how comfortable do you feel, what do you feel emotionally. Use this to learn more about yourself. The better mindfulness sites will guide you in asking these questions and in examining the answers that you get from this practice.
As I say, for a Christian, the practice of mindfulness is not without its risks. Please do be careful. I have not yet experienced a mindfulness site that is not contaminated with Eastern mysticism and philosophies in one way or another. I cannot unreservedly recommend it as a practice. However, it can help you if you do it carefully and prayerfully.
CoSMI series:
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/05/cosmi-00100-introduction-and-table-of.html
Next: TBA
No comments:
Post a Comment