“Secular” mindfulness as deeply Buddhist | Robert Wright & Jon Kabat-Zinn [The Wright Show]

6:03 Was the Buddha a Buddhist?
9:02 What the Buddha meant by “suffering”
14:12 Mindfulness as awareness
19:58 “Secular” mindfulness as sacred
30:41 The trap of goal-oriented meditation
40:25 The heart of the Buddha’s message
44:23 When Jon discovered his purpose
53:18 Mindfulness training in schools
Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Jon Kabat-Zinn (Center for Mindfulness, Guided Mindfulness Meditation Practices)
Recorded on April 11, 2018
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[@Jutho529]

So that there less shooting in school and less bullying in school. I wish school can adopt mindfulness meditation.

[@grounded9623]

Robert, ask your guests a question and then let them talk, brother.

[@lmansur1000]

I love this conversation and I am so glad to find out these podcast by Robert Wright!! Thank you for your program! I just finished hearing Your interview with Stephen Bachelor with whom I took a retreat I think around 2005; and also Jon Kabat-Zinn whose book and program I took at a church of Religious Science probably in the 90's before that time... when I was searching and did not know where to start. Listening to you and to them , made me realize that every step I took in trying to understand life and how to be happier has contributed to my deeper understanding of things re Buddhism and life at this time in my life. I will definitely explore your book Why Buddhism is True. I clarified so many things during your interview with Stephen and now with Jon... I am still listening and excited about the interview and looking forward to more!!

[@williamwatters9928]

After some years in a Thai forest temple as a lay monk the most useful thing I took away was the Thai word Bouy Wiang meaning 'let it go'. Annata or non self is useful mind state when pain arises. Pain, experienced through the sense of touch demands your attention. The more you resist it the worse it gets . Give it all your attention but observe without you being the sufferer. Interesting talk but the way is here and now, the point between the breath ending and the point it begins again. It calms the mind.

[@blissbrain]

I just found this video, my 2 'teachers' together!!! what a gift. so cool!!!

[@eceisik83]

This was beautiful and informing as always. Thank you Robert Wright! Jon Kabat Zinn is upfront, honest and pragmatic about the whole thing without doing injustice to the essence and origins of Dharma, despite the criticism he opened a much wider dharma gate than there was pre-his life's work(hopefully results in a dharma flood:)) which I myself walked in through but got deeper and deeper later and many more will do so too IMHO...

[@agajafarli6707]

+Ece Isik Merhaba Ece😊

[@drsr4560]

He created MBSR in such a manner that it is a means of pursuing the Dharma (in addition to its more Western-based / outcome-oriented purposes)

[@markfuller]

@8:30 where Jon didn't pursue the popular career, you should interview Dr. David Vago. He trained for neurology and chose to study meditation (against all his field leaders' advice). He ended up meeting the Dali Lama who told him (and other researchers) that their work is the most important being done today. He brings a secular/neurological perspective to mindfulness. There is a really good Tedx talk he did titled "Self-Transformation Through Mindfulness | Dr. David Vago."

[@susydyson1750]

'mental health' knowing the brain 🧠 functions slowing recognition of emotions feeling kindly towards others and your self ! all the way through from kindergarten to university study

[@cwilkinsonwck]

I feel the schools should learn what Buddhism has to offer and make it correspond to any religion, anapanasanti and vipasana. , calmness awareness meditation can really give children tools they are completely lacking. For example instead of teaching them to breathe in and breathe out by intentionally regulating it should be more you breathe out your breath and instead of Ami tofu you can say aameen, or use 6 healing sounds or more correctly 6 healing breath. The point is to define mindfulness and show how it is in the pause as heart rate and breathing rate link up, and awareness increases as to the calmness

[@robinstarbuck211]

Love these guys! Great connections & expansion.

[@Idlinfarm]

I love you guys.

[@MrCanigou]

God, I wish I could become at least half as alert and fresh at Jon's age www.pbs.org/video/robert-wright-and-jon-kabat-zinn-fflbgy/ Thank you Robert for sharing these fertile conversations

[@upalisirimalwatta2922]

Understanding the word "dukkha", one has to take two more words (anichcha, anatta) together. Buddhas core teaching is base on five aggregate relationship to sense related mind activity. Personalizing subjective experience (upadana) is the root cause of suffering. Buddha said ‘Sankittena panchaupādānskandha dukkhā’ "සංඛිත්තේන පඤ්චුපාදානක්ඛන්ධා දුක්ඛා"

[@mindfulmoments4956]

I really like the statement “the Buddha was not a Buddhist.” I think this is a very important point considering that it is the people who call the teachings of the Buddha a ‘religion’ - this probably happens because the teachings are not easy to grasp. As I see it, what the Buddha did was to methodologically present the “science of the consciousness.”

[@mrtambourineman6107]

Me too Diane, me too.

[@noahhubscher2926]

A science of mind. This is why I like the term secular Buddhism. It leaves out dogma and transcendency. Very interesting and containing a tremendous amount of contemplative wisdom.

[@mindfulmoments4956]

@@noahhubscher2926 True. As I see it however, there is no ‘dogma’ in Buddhism. If you are referring to ‘rebirth’: scientific investigations conducted by psychiatrists Jim Tucker, Ian Stevenson and many others have demonstrated that reincarnation is a very plausible phenomenon (they have investigated thousands of cases).

[@alantracy6757]

In fact the research is starting to show that mindfulness is good for most things it’s evaluated for depression, anxiety, ocd, suicidality, ....

[@csiribicsiriba]

Amazing how westerners think themselves so clever discovering what Asians have known for thousands of years 🎉

[@lakedistrict9450]

Off topic , but why has John got such dark eyes?

[@drsr4560]

He created MBSR in such a manner that it actually is a means of pursuing the Dharma (in addition to its more Western-based / outcome-oriented purposes)

[@NullStaticVoid]

interesting stuff. Like what was said about the phrase 'Secular' being a dualism. I used to use the term myself a lot to emphasize my own philosophical relationship to Buddhism. But it is true that it creates an artificial exclusion or adversarial relationship between the religious Buddhists and mindfulness practitioners. I have not experienced any such schism in my experience. Wish that Robert Wright would do some speech therapy to get rid of his stammer. I'm not sure if it's as annoying to everyone else. But I am a former stammerer myself, and it's is very jarring to me. Detracting from the content of the talk.

[@dellwright1407]

I think the difference between secular mindfulness practitioners and Asian Buddhist (say vipassana practitioners) is in part to do with how the nature of the mind and consciousness is generally perceived and understood in the West vs. in traditional no-Western societies. I found the additional practice of Focusing (Eugine Gendlin) changed my own continuing mindfulness practice into something closer to what I've read about in Asia and indeed other non-Buddhist traditional countries. This was something of a surprise after more than 25 years of mindfulness and vipassana practice as a Westerner! I was pretty good at gaining meditative calm and reflection via mindfulness and good equanimity on vipassana retreats... but this is not quite the same thing as insight and wisdom. If you read the biography of say Dipa Ma and looking at what she achieved, and indeed her students, I think this speaks to that.

[@nancyfigueroa653]

Thank you both gentlemen. You conversation is like a raft floating on a rebellious river that is there to help me across. Forever grateful. The rest is up to me.

[@alantracy6757]

It triggers uncomfortable thoughts for me when Jon takes or is asked to take by an interviewer a political or religious stance. There is no need to be drawn into it. It’s a mental skill; moving on

[@markbrad123]

A lot of Buddhists argue mindfulness needs Buddhist agenda motivation(not grasping desire) such as love,joy,compassion,equanimity(Brahma Viharas) ; yet other mystics(such as Krishnamurti), argue that these qualities arise spontaneously, and there is an intelligence in the awareness.Thinking if the mindfulness skills are well tuned it doesn't matter, floating motivations may happen or not.

[@dellwright1407]

In my own experience concentration/calm, mindful awareness and compassion/self-compassion are all of great benefit. I would say mutually complimentary and I don't share any one of them on its own to others either.

[@soezone208]

Krishnamurti isn't wrong But you just did mindfulness on 10-day course and so on. You need to learn about non-clinging and Brahma viharas first because you aren't deep into the practice yet. It might become poison such as detachment and withdrawal from life. That's why Buddhists argue you need to practise Brahma viharas and non-clinging first or at the same time. But if you can practise mindfulness correct and thorough manners, you don't need to learn about Brahama viharas. it will come automatically like two sides of the same coin.

[@markbrad123]

@@soezone208 Easy either way , when formlessness surpasses form it ceases to matter if lines are drawn in the sand. Gets so deep no-thing will tangle and it all unravels naturally. It is when people get stiff on the shallow side of form it is the slippery slope (existence craving) between unconditional love to conditional love.

[@soezone208]

@@markbrad123 The thing is most people don't have the time nor intention to practise meditation deeply. So you have to make sure your teaching is retard-proof or It will come back and bite you in the butt.

[@projectmalus]

Quitting smoking, exercising and making good dietary choices can achieve mindfulness in a preventative approach. Meditating achieves it thru a problem solving approach. It's relatively easy to inspire the former, by economic rewards or by legislation, whereas the latter is inspired more by altruism. Perhaps both are needed, but for different reasons. Awareness can come from communication, education and the aforementioned diet and exercise, but awareness can be painful and confusing, too many thoughts, more relations to consider, all that baggage, and this is where meditation can smooth the troubled waters. I think that if diet etc are ignored then mindfulness becomes a case of mind over matter and this introduces a kind of duality. I'd rather see awareness as an object that can be influenced, in the way that the outcome of a system is an object but can be influenced by the quality of its parts.

[@soriya011]

2 the mindfulness teachers who dont reveal that mindfulness that they teach comes from buddhism for fear that this revelation may make some people uncomfortable & may turn some people away: - if you present a quote thats not your own & if you dont mention the source, then you're guilty of plagiarism, - most of the theorems in math are named after the people who proved them, & - most of the discoveries in science are named after their discoverers. so, why dont you reveal or mention that mindfulness comes from buddhism?? tell the truth, never mind the people who feel uncomfortable or turn away, tell everyone includin' of course these people that mindfulness is 2 reduce or eliminate their stress, that it's not 2 try 2 convert them 2 buddhism, that the buddha clearly said that you dont have 2 abandon your religion in order 2 practice his teachin's, that therefore they can keep their religion and practice mindfulness at the same time.

[@earthmeditationtribe8032]

Well said Riya .. it's almost like the conversation about intellectial property. . the Buddhists surely must be acknowledged.

[@bofbob1]

I think you answered your own question… Fact is, many don't share your attitude of "never mind the people who feel uncomfortable or turn away". We can argue whether we should mind them or not, but in any case you had the answer to your question all along… We had yoga classes at school when I was kid. It wasn't presented as a secular practice detached from the religious tradition. My parents were fundamentalist Christians. I was taken out of those classes and prevented from attending. They didn't want me to be influenced by that "demonic mumbo-jumbo". Had we had meditation classes, I imagine my parents also would have taken me out of those classes if it had been presented as a Buddhist practice. I get that you don't care about kids in that situation and that it's more important to you that proper credit be given to the Buddhist tradition. That's fine, but given my own experience I think you'll understand why it is that I'm so grateful to people like Kabat-Zinn and to those who are mindful of those who feel uncomfortable or turn away".

[@plfong22]

I dont think there is such thing as Secular Buddhism. My guess is people just need to attach a tag or name to make Buddhism more relevant in the modern world, hence Secular Buddhism. Buddhism is just Buddhism. It is a philosophy that can be adopted by anyone, be it atheist or other religion. Maybe why the word "secular" needs to be attached to it. Mindfulness is simply awareness. To be aware but not comment or rather describe it. The intellects tend to explain too much on something simple. However simple is not that simple. For instance, when you walk along the beach and you hear the waves rushing to shore. You merely be aware of the presence of the waves without commenting "its quite a loud or powerful wave". Just be aware of its presence. This is mind training and to be applied no matter where you are or what you do. The same concept applies to meditation that emphasize on the presence of breath or rather air being inhaled and exhaled. This may sound simple but its tougher than imagine because our mind tends to wander and may be awhile or moments before we are aware that our mind has gone astray. Then we simply bring the attention to breathing again. Distraction is ok and dont think too much about.

[@noahhubscher2926]

Secular Buddhism is a term for me because it leaves out dogma and transcendency. Secular Buddhism then is just a science of mind. Very interesting and containing a tremendous amount of contemplative wisdom.

[@markfuller]

Stephen Batchelor explains why "Secular" is a real thing. It's a real modern movement as buddhist nations were colonized. It was intended to empower the lay people with the benefits of buddhism without the religion/rituals/hierarchy. (He gives one example where buddhist priests in the movement insisted that there must be priests. The movement banned them. That's an example of how secular buddhism can resonate with many people who reject authorities telling them what it is, or which strain is correct. There may be benefits to the larger organization, history, etc. But, there is an essence of buddhism that people can practice withuot priests, and rituals, and deciding which strain is correct. Most people I know get turned off by that stuff.).

[@plfong22]

@@markfuller You are missing my point, period.

[@Brough1111]

Sugar coated doughnuts have essence.

[@geoffreydawson5430]

BUddhism is not a Universal term! Non-dualism is actually not the main focus of Buddhism! The Pali Suttas do not proclaim a need to acknowledge a non-dual existence. Non-dualism is a tag on from the Hindu practices the Buddha used to come to his enlightened philosophy. Kabat-Zinn is simply a Buddhist practitioner of the Mahayana tradition. The aim of a Mahayana practitioner? To spread the word of the Buddha, to become a Bodhisattva!