Mindfulness Revisited
A professor friend of mine likes to accuse his colleagues of “navel-gazing.” Too many academics, or so he teases, preoccupy themselves with their own thoughts, and beyond that, with a very narrow range of concerns they have adopted as their own. They should transcend that self-focus, he insists, and concentrate on the world in all its complexity.
Less common than it once was, the term navel-gazing conjures images of Eastern yogis in the lotus position. Dismissing the turmoil of everyday affairs, they turn inward, seeking what is enduring and true. The navel, one of the key portals of the body, is especially important because it expresses our connection to our mothers and indeed, to the origins of life itself.
A sometime recipient of my friend’s reproofs, I do not renounce navel-gazing, at least if that means quiet times of pondering with an open spirit. Similarly, I support meditation, if that means disciplined attempts of mind and body to connect with the sources of being. Surely in an activist, materialistic culture like ours, people suffer from too little contemplation rather than too much.
However, I do concede that pondering may focus on the wrong sets of concerns. Efforts to center ourselves may lead to our becoming self-centered. I developed such themes in my previous post, “Rethinking Mindfulness.”
This post continues that theme. I suggest that mindfulness means a mind that is full rather than one that is empty. Doubtless, there is place for emptying the self of daily concerns, and for acts of simplification and clarification. However, the better part of self-development occurs through acts of engagement rather than withdrawal. If we are to ponder our placement in the world, let it be in these more expansive terms.
Below, I discuss three themes fundamental to experience — and to meditation: time, space, and freedom.
Recovering the momentary
Most of us are not trained philosophers. Still, we understand the meanings of time well enough. There is, of course, the concept of clock time we learn as children. Time of that sort — divided into seconds, minutes and hours — moves forward at a steady, unstoppable pace. So do the days, weeks, months, and years. History is a road that moves in one direction only. Do not “waste” time or “spend” it foolishly.
In meditation, people break the spell of chronological time. Instead of minutes, think of moments. This is what anthropologists call periodicity, the idea that most “things” in the world have their own sequence of development — with a beginning, middle, and end. Things “last” as long they last; there is no point of rushing them or imposing the logic of clocks upon them.
Think of a good dinner or party you have attended. It proceeds in its own way, building coherently and then ending. Afterward, when people ask if the occasion was a good time, or if you had a good time, they do not expect you to tell them how many minutes it lasted. Instead, they want to hear how the event proceeded, perhaps with comments on who was there and what they did.
In much the same sense, people have a life-course, a coherent trajectory of existence. Differently again, there is family history, which transcends many individual lives. Groups, even societies, run their courses. Everything exists as a process of coming and going. To acknowledge that continuity is to glimpse eternity.
So it is that people try to enter moments fully as they meditate, shutting out the claims of the world. Inside these domains, experience begins, builds, and completes itself. Commonly enough, practitioners focus on psychological time, how the ebb and flow of circumstances appears to “them.”
However, it is equally important to recognize that there are other, perhaps more important, realms of time besides psychological time. We participate in these sequences of development; we experience ourselves as elements of them. Many readers perhaps are familiar with the “seven generations” principle of certain Native American societies, such as the Iroquois nation. According to that vision, people are to see themselves as standing in the middle of generations who have come and gone and who are yet to be born. That same idea applies to stewardship of the land. One does not discover the meaning of life by pondering it from a thoroughly private perspective or by ignoring the other earthly creatures who have made one’s own existence possible and who will perpetuate it after they are gone.
Space as place
The geographer Yi-Fu Tuan has explained that space and place are two different concepts. The idea of space refers to our awareness of openness, distance, and emptiness. By contrast, the idea of place signifies our activity of comprehending, naming, or otherwise giving human meanings to space. In that fashion, a building becomes a “home,” a stretch of land a “country.”
Much as they resist the spell of clock time, meditators counteract ideas of place that are confining or toxic. For that reason, it is common to enter, or at least envision, open environments that seem unspoiled by people. Think of a beautiful beach, mountaintop, or meadow.
However, we should not see settings like these as open spaces to which we escape, or worse, as locations to set out a mat and stretch. Quite the opposite, settings of this sort have logics of their own, which we should respect. In other words, a good portion of our being there should focus on what those settings have to teach us. Just as the natural world acquaints us with the different meanings of time sustained by its countless animate and inanimate forms, so it makes clear that spaces are places for all kinds of beings besides ourselves. Again, we do not live apart from these commitments of other creatures; we live amidst them.
We might apply the same attitude to humanly constructed environments. Some of the places we go to relax and reflect are settings we should question. What about that pricey vacation resort, spa, or rooftop at the club? What does such luxury and sense of privilege entail? Is exclusivity a prerequisite for feelings of escape, protection, and serenity?
Once again, the point is that mindfulness should mean attentiveness to the conditions that create our distinctive vantage points on the world.
Reconsidering freedom
Most of us believe, and are proud to believe, that we are in charge of our own existence. Our culture idealizes that condition. Each person, or so we learn, should pursue their own visions of life, liberty, and happiness. Our thoughts and behaviors are among our most cherished possessions.
Few of us would disagree with that ethic. Still, it is critical to remember that we do not fashion our lives just as we choose. Society itself provides many guidelines for what we can be and do. Our jobs structure our days; the income we receive makes possible some activities and not others. We accept directives from governments, medical facilities, churches, and clubs.
More intimately, we acknowledge the influence of family and friends in our lives. Many of their claims feel like impositions, but most of us realize that we need such people to give our lives stability and purpose.
Not surprisingly, we may see meditation as a moment of “me” time, cut off from such involvements. To meditate is to set aside the transience of human affairs.
Nevertheless, if mindfulness constitutes an attempt to discover the meaningfulness of existence and to still the turmoil of selfhood, then practitioners must acknowledge that there are realms of order that are even more important than our psychological attempts to understand ourselves. Religious people find that sense of security and direction in their respective traditions. Many others believe there is some spiritual quality to the world, some vast coherence that makes life sensible. Still others avow that other humans, and indeed all creatures, matter. Their existence somehow enfolds and dignifies our own.
Meditation should not be a flight from these vast ranges of involvement. The quest is not to be free of the world that surrounds us but to discover our place within it and to chart a proper course. It is to understand what we can do to enhance those conditions, not just for our sake but also for the sake of others. Withdrawal is not an endpoint but a prelude to engagement.