Mindfulness or Mindlessness? - Robert Sharf

Really thought-provoking talk by Robert Sharf on Mahasi-based 'mindfulness' in the present day, covering all sorts of topics including morality and the social, relationship of practice to affiirming or questioning the cultural context, phenomenology and the idea that it's possible to achieve non-conceptual and non-judgemental 'bare awareness,' 'mindfulness' techniques (including Zen and Dzogchen as well as Mahasi) and their relationship to lay practitioners and short-term results, figure-and-ground reversals, etc.

Thanks Rowan I had a quick listen - very interesting - keen to hear other views on this.
He covers alot of territory and I am a little confused (without the time for a few more listens) as to which aspects of mindfulness he is bringing into question. I would have thought a monastic life would actually be more conducive to mindlessness or meditation sickness as it is more easily able to negate critical and challenge thinking compared with lay practice which is rich in such challenges daily. Apologies if that is exactly what he is saying - as I said, only had a quick listen. Actually I have a bunch of questions but would need to listen a couple more times to ensure my questions were valid.

What I noticed is that he critiqued the underlying beliefs that proponents of mindfulness carry; the critique was in terms of the western philosophical tradition, epistemology in particular. He says the whole project of bare attention assumes that there is an underlying "blank slate" in the mind that is precognitive, detached from culture. That the interest in mindfulness plays into notions of happiness complicit in consumer capitalism. The whole point is for the white middle class to enjoy life even more, whereas the Buddha taught the basic unsatisfactoriness of life. I'm condensing this into a series of blunt propositions, but this was the main idea. He thinks that divorcing mindfulness from the context of Buddhist ethics and devotional practice is what leads to an unbalanced and self-centered approach.

One response I had is that he doesn't say much about awakening itself, other than to point out that traditionally, lay people who woke up would abandon the world and go into a monastery. We westerners think we can have it all, our big fat lives plus the benefits of practice. But does the practice outlined by Mahasi Sayadaw actually lead to awakening? He seems to be critical of the notion that lay people can do this relatively quickly, without leaving our lives behind. Has he talked with people who have done it? Has he tried it himself?

The process itself hurts, to quote the heading of Ona's thread on that subject. In my experience, bare attention or noting open the mind to what hurts as well as what is pleasant and relaxing. This is made more difficult in the context of lives in the world, where we have to keep it together for coworkers and family, most of whom have no idea what we are up to. After awakening there is disorientation and a complete reordering of our priorities. I don't see Sharf addressing any of that stuff in his talk.

As for westerners' disinterest in Buddhist ethics, I would point out that there are miserably painful examples of one Buddhist monk after another coming over here to teach and sexually abusing female students. How has a complete immersion in Buddhist life and culture made them less self-indulgent?

These are my initial thoughts.

Because that always bugs me, let me suggest this: how a person is is not impacted by any one factor. Being trained in ethics doesn't make you ethical.

A whole host of other conditions coming together, the whole of ones being, impact how one responds in any given situation.

The reason this gets on my nerves a bit is because many people don't like ethics stuff because it points to things they might have to consider changing in how they behave. So they point out how badly other people behave (despite being taught manners, ethics, law, or whatever) and say "therefore why should I bother." I think that's selling yourself short. Aim high, not because everyone else is doing it right, but because it's a beautiful way to respect your own and others' human being-ness. Trying to be ethical/virtuous also points out how often we ourselves fail, and that helps us develop compassion for everyone else's constant failures.

Yeah but... [insert long discussion of problems of combining heirarchy/authority and ethics, especially different consequences/punishments of different ranks fo people for the same behavior, and the use of institutional power to suppress the discovery/punishment of institutional members, and how all ethics really boils down to treat people fairly and don't be an hypocritical ass, and how all these institutions just complicate the heck out of something so gosh darn simple]

Yet.. [insert manditory statement of agreement, because I agree that it's easy to snipe from the sidelines, rather than realize first-hand how difficult it is to be in the game.]

My point was not that monastic life automatically produces self-indulgent abusers, but that it is no guarantee of upstanding ethics. There are things about monastic life that might lead to an increase in such problems (read Shargrol's comment), not to mention a lack of experience in coping with daily temptations. I would also say that I think many western laypeople have a tendency to be in awe of renunciatiates because we see our own dissatisfaction, and imagine that someone else, living a life that seems exotic, is a kind of Yoda-like paragon. The truth is we are all human. No one, not monks, not laypeople, can escape that. And the context of a full Buddhist practice is no protection.

Getting back to Sharf---

Sheesh, I have a totally different opinion. It's quite clearly a crap talk, seemingly uninfluenced by speakers personal experience with the subject matter. As a result, he's just slinging contentious statements.

Well, I think you're keying into the interesting ideas that might be spurred by his talk, which is great. But I find that the talk itself is sloppy.

I kept listening and listening to the talk, hoping that there would be something empirical in what he was saying, but there was none. He's making arguments by association/correlation just simply conflating different practices, different metaphysics, historical events, etc. in a way that's more rhetoric than argument.

I honestly think that if you listened to the talk again and then asked yourself, "do I support the accuracy of this statement?" I'll bet you'll find there aren't many that you would personally think is accurate.

That said, it is thought provoking in it's own way!

I think Shargrol's evaluation was how it was shaping up for me too - there were threads pulled from a lot of different territories but not woven into a conclusive set of points that I could find - but listened only briefly. I think I was just worried about spending the next 500 eons in a zombie hell!
Definitely admire others who pulled some well formed points out of it though.

Just finished listening to the talk.

I think he makes a lot of valid points. Specifically, I think it's a huge mistake to assume that MBSR and other so-called "mindfulness-based" psychotherapies are Buddhism proper. That is, MBSR does not encompass Buddhism, nor does it really lead to the goals of the more extensive Buddhist traditions. It does, however, provide some therapeutic benefit. As long as people know they aren't being taught "Buddhism" and that their reduction in stress isn't necessarily "nirvana" or "enlightenment", there's really nothing wrong with it.

On the other hand, his warnings about the dangers of "bare attention" approaches seemed incredibly overblown. As a method, it can be very powerful to frame one's perceptions to such a model. Whether or not it's "true" in a "really real reality" sense is beside the point, in my opinion. My truth criterion is pragmatic; what "works" is what is "true" for me. If there's a goal, and this helps one reach it, than it's "true."

As I grow in my practice life as a Buddhist, I'm coming to think that I have much to gain from incorporating the views and practices found in the larger Buddhist tradition, rather than just noting, or just resting as "bare attention." Ethics are becoming very important to me, as is developing stronger concentration.

Lastly, I don't think he provided a full enough picture of "sati" in terms of how it's used in the early Canon. The different aspects of practice are interrelated in ways that make them difficult to tease apart. Sati is often paired with "sampajanna" ("clear comprehension"); sati meaning to bring something to mind (whether awareness of the body, thoughts, feelings, etc., or remembering the teachings in the present moment), and sampajanna is seeing these things clearly in terms of the teachings brought to mind. The two, when practiced together, lead to panna (or prajna); which, of course, is "insight."

So, sati in some sense does include a kind of bare attention to what arises; so long as we understand that what arises is compounded with factors of both past and present karmic input - or "This/That Conditionality." This post is getting too long :-/

Anyway, I guess there's so much more that can be said about this. I wish I could have a conversation with this guy, so we could really get somewhere.

I agree at a high level, but I think the talk is mostly a denouncement of so-called bare attention practices.

What would be VERY interesting --- and what I had been hopeing he would speak to -- is if he objectively described the benefits of monastic practice (including criteria by which to assess the ethical results of the practice) and compared it with the mindfulness tradition. That would be a true contrast/comparison.

Frankly I think it would very interesting to explore how one could objectively assess "ethicalness". I think defining "ethicalness" is very important, and the heart of the tension. For some, sex and reproduction, working for one's income, engauging in commerce, acting as a policeman, soldier, artist, lawyer, etc. are inherently unethical and thus monastic life will always be more ethical. That's too tautological for me.

But if ethics means using limited resources and time for the benefit of ourselves and others -- which I think is at the heart of it -- his premise of the inherent superiority of monasitic paths could be more finely questioned. In fact, it would be difficult to discuss monastic groups without also considering the societal support structures that they require. Which really starts opening up the question and really leads to "what is the most ethical approach for promoting practice in an entire society"? Suddenly having lay people do mindfulness practice seems to be an enhancement of the overall society, rather than something that stands to degrade the monastic tradition.

Great conversation! One of my concerns about 'mindfulness' catching on is the possibility of unexpected Dark Night experiences, though I don't imagine that will happen to most. But when it does happen with no understanding of what's going on, it's pretty dangerous. I wouldn't say though that the dichotomy is between 'monastic path' and 'bare-attention-only-lay' path. One can pay a great deal of attention to aspects of spiritual practice/life other than bare attention as a layperson. And, certainly in the Buddhist context, the problem with 'lay' activites is not that they're inherently unethical - by no means. Rather, it's that feeding those processes feeds the desire-craving-clinging-suffering complex, and furthermore distracts from the primary goal. This is not a point of view that I now agree with, but it's a different thing from saying those activities are inherently unethical or somehow tainted.

And, I do wish that Sharf had mentioned his own experience here, if he has some - I have no idea whether he's a practitioner or not - for me that would have added value, but I'm also not of the perspective that only texts from people who are practitioners and discuss their practice will have relevance or value for my own. The work of lots of scholars who aren't practitioners or who don't talk about their practice has been really useful for me in terms of 'sorting out my path' over time.