McMindfulness & The Mindfulness Industrial Complex | (12/29/2020 — “Ask Us Anything” With Denny K Miu)

McMindfulness explored via the original Pali word “sati” while touching on the 5 Hindrances, "right" mindfulness, dependent origination (or Conditional Genesis) especially "Contact" link, four Foundations of Mindfulness, some of the critiques and upsides of McMindfulness, the story of Shiva and Hindu goddess Sati, body/qi/Mind/”Void”, and Suttas mindfulness metaphors.

Transcript

Good morning,

Good afternoon,

Good evening.

Welcome to another monthly episode of AUA,

Ask Us Anything.

Welcome Josh.

Hey Denny,

What's going on?

Good to see you.

Hey.

Yeah,

So I see you every Saturday.

I'm very happy with that.

Pretty much,

Yeah,

That's about right.

Yeah,

With your online exercise,

Gurpura,

Doing I-Jin-Jin,

Stretching exercises.

Well,

Not so much stretching anymore,

But yeah,

And then working with Chi and.

.

.

Yeah,

It has evolved.

It's been really exercising.

Yeah,

It has evolved.

We'll talk about that at the end of the show and maybe next week we do one on Chi and Dao-Yin and that kind of thing.

Okay.

So you pick a topic or you pick a list of topics and then we kind of zero into this thing called the MEC mindfulness.

Can you give us a little bit of background?

Why did you pick that topic and what is sort of the common understanding of what that means?

You know,

That's a great question.

There's a.

.

.

I think it's a fairly popular book.

I haven't actually read it,

But it made a lot in the media.

It's MEC mindfulness.

I forget the subtitle and the author.

Apologies.

That can be looked up and we'll include that in the show notes.

And then we also call this.

.

.

What were you saying?

MEC mindfulness and the mindfulness industrial complex,

Right?

So it's basically.

.

.

I like to look at it as just kind of the popularity of mindfulness.

So,

You know,

There's good and bad things about that and kind of.

.

.

The book goes into a lot of criticism on mindfulness and how it's used probably improperly.

Boy,

I don't even know where to start on this.

But the term actually itself comes from kind of comparing it to McDonald's,

Right?

It's kind of pre-packaged.

It's been.

.

.

The mindfulness has been pre-packaged and just kind of.

.

.

It's the same whether you get a burger at McDonald's.

No matter what country in the world you're in,

It's pretty much the same standard process.

It's kind of like stripped down,

Watered down,

Possibly versioned,

Not really.

Sometimes out of context.

And,

You know,

I'm just going to start rambling here until I get.

.

.

Have Denny get me on track because there's really so much to tackle with it.

I think,

In general,

I think the United States is very good in solving.

.

.

In identifying and solving first world problem,

Right?

You know,

We say first world problem,

You know,

We think that these are important problems,

But actually,

You know,

There's a lot of people out there whose lives are centered around much more essential things,

Right?

So I think America has this history of taking things from a different culture and very quickly adopting it to our needs,

Quote unquote,

Our needs,

Which is what I call the first world need.

So I don't think Josh and I are here to.

.

.

Wanted to criticize,

You know,

What someone might call make mindfulness.

My thought always is that as a Buddhist practitioner,

I don't want to think about what's right or wrong.

I just want to think about what's right for me and what was not right for me.

So I think when we talk about make mindfulness with context that,

You know,

It's like the fast food.

But fast food has its place.

Fast food has its place.

Fast food is addressing a need.

You know,

Something.

.

.

Someone told me that the fast food in the United States is really finger food.

You know,

It's like how we serve breakfast in McDonald's or these other fast food places that you have to.

.

.

It has to be eaten in one hand,

And that would be American breakfast.

So we have a way of really identifying needs and addressing them,

Even if we have to take something from foreign.

So mindfulness is definitely one of those.

And I remember we had discussions early on when Master Joo-woo wanted to start the academy in Maba.

And I remember he and I were traveling and I said,

Master,

You know,

You need to call it academy and not an institute,

Because the academy has this idea that it's a place for training and all that.

And then I stopped there.

I didn't want to go beyond,

You know,

To find a name.

So eventually he found the name of Right Mindfulness Training Academy.

And I remember we had a discussion and I kind of raised the question.

It wasn't like an objection or anything.

I just thought that the word mindfulness is overused.

That's one of the problems with branding is that you have to find something that is.

.

.

That people can relate to,

But not so much that they have a preconception of what it is.

So that's why,

You know,

Like when we talk about our Saturday class and Josh mentioned how it's.

.

.

Every day it evolves,

You know,

Every day it evolves.

And so right now we focus more on fitness,

Because that's another.

.

.

That's a term that people can really understand now,

What does fitness mean,

Right?

Especially now that we've been at home,

You know,

For a good nine months now.

Fitness becomes very important.

And so the question is,

You know,

Can you elevate that to just not physical fitness?

So this is sort of a roundabout way of saying that whatever mindfulness means,

I believe it has its place.

I'm not here for the show.

Well,

That's the thing.

So it does have,

You know,

There's positive or pros and cons to it about mindfulness being popularized.

The good point is that,

You know,

There's a lot more unwholesome and unskillful things people could be interested in.

But just having that name out there,

I feel is helpful of mindfulness instead of,

You know,

Not being familiar with that term.

I would say tons of people are familiar with the term mindfulness,

Which I feel is a good thing,

Right?

Yeah.

So I feel like what Josh and I wanted to do is as if we're really introducing the European cuisine with the idea that,

You know,

The burgers and the fish has already been so ingrained into the thinking,

Right?

So rather than wasting our energy to criticize one,

We just thought,

Hey,

You know,

It opens the door,

Let's have a discussion.

And I think after reading Josh's comments and some of his thoughts on mindfulness,

I thought,

Well,

Why don't we kind of structure a show around what we thought is the definition?

Yes,

That's where we've got to start because some people might just think they know what it means and so that's it.

They know it and then on to the next thing,

Right?

Instead of actually delving into it and knowing what the actual meaning and origin comes from and then also why it's worth really practicing and not just the surface level of it.

It's ironic that the word mindfulness,

And we'll talk about that in a minute,

That comes from the Pali word sati,

S-A-T-I.

And then it translates into a Chinese word called nen.

Nen comes with a combination of two words,

Which means now and the mind.

So in that sense,

It's a very good word in that it represents the temple awareness,

You know,

Just bringing it now and here,

Which is very good.

Except that,

As I mentioned many times,

In the Chinese language,

One word is ambiguous.

You cannot have a precise meaning with just one character because it really depends on what it conjugates with.

So the problem that we have in the Western world,

Really defining the word mindfulness,

Reflects itself also in the oriental or the Asian culture in that there's so many different definitions of nen,

Which is the equivalent of mindfulness.

So anyway,

Why don't we just jump in and I prepare some PowerPoint if it's okay,

I'll run through it and then we can have a discussion as we go.

So let me share this.

Denny,

Before you get started,

I'll just toss in a few things from definitions,

But I'm already familiar with Denny's definition and I'm pretty much mostly on board with that.

I'll just give you some other definitions from teachers here.

Sure,

Sure.

Let me see.

Can you share screen or do I have to give you permission?

Oh,

No,

No.

I'm just reading from some notes I have previously.

Sorry,

I forgot to.

So anyway,

Biku Inalio calls mindfulness,

Keep calmly knowing change.

So K-C-K-C,

Keep calmly change.

Gil Fronsdale,

Who's in Bay Area,

I think at Redwood City,

Close to,

I guess,

Where Denny's at.

A cultivation of clear,

Stable,

Non-judgmental awareness.

And then this is from Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein about mindfulness a little bit longer.

Being aware of what's going on as it actually arises,

Not being lost in our conclusions or judgments about it.

Our fantasies of what it means,

Our hopes,

Our fears,

Our aversion.

Rather,

Mindfulness helps us see nakedly and directly.

This is what's happening right now.

So that goes to Denny's thing.

And then maybe towards the end,

I'll come back with some classic metaphors from the suttas that the Buddha gives about different modes of mindfulness.

Different kind of illustrations about mindfulness.

OK,

Thank you,

Josh.

I think,

Thank you for that.

And I think,

I think that and this kind of brings to the point that I think I like to go back to the original definition of mindfulness.

Real quick,

Denny.

I'll hand it over.

Sorry.

Go ahead,

Josh.

Go ahead.

There's some other just like one word translations,

Of course,

You know,

For Sati.

The one I find could be helpful to is bodyfulness.

It's kind of a made up word,

But it's not just the mind.

It's bodyfulness.

Another one is the awareness.

Noticing,

You know,

I'm blanking on some of the other ones.

But those are some some other awareness is another one.

But all these kind of there's not like a really complete one word definition.

OK,

Denny.

Yeah,

I as you're just have one that's pretty accurate.

Yeah.

As you're speaking,

I am thinking,

Imagine yourself going to opera and you want to describe the opera and I give you a ticket.

OK,

I don't think we would like to describe the entire opera and all the historical backgrounds and all that with just ticket.

The ticket is a ticket.

I think it's what I have seen.

And this is going back to what I said about the word mindfulness is that it is so over described both by the Western culture and the Asian culture that we're going beyond the ticket now.

The mindfulness,

The word mindfulness is a simple,

Simple,

Simple thing.

It just it means remember.

Now,

If you don't have a way of remembering where your mind is,

Then what happens is that it's as if you don't have the ticket to go to see the opera.

But it's also a mistake to think that you should just like take this ticket,

This word called mindfulness and try to jam all the ways of describing practice into the word.

So those things that you mentioned,

I'm not saying that they're right or wrong.

I'm just saying that they actually go beyond the word mindfulness.

They're now more into and I'd like to be able to do a show in the future about what's Samatha and what Pashna.

And in fact,

Talk about that in again in the Asian context,

Especially in the Zen Buddhism where they use the word called silent illumination.

So what you would describe and these are the scholars who spent a lot of time explaining mindfulness.

I believe they go beyond the original definition.

They're now approaching the entire spectrum of the practice,

Talking about how to how to focus on your sensors,

How to not follow your sensors.

And we'll talk about that.

This is very,

Very,

Very good topic.

And I think today just talk about the original definition.

And in fact,

The original definition of mindfulness is,

In fact,

What masters you or teachers.

OK,

It's just it's the ticket to the opera.

Is that OK?

This is really this is really important,

Too,

Because,

You know,

This.

Yeah,

It simplifies it.

There's a saying that if it's not if it's not easy,

It's not possible.

But the thing.

But with the remembering one of the most simplest things on earth is,

OK.

Yeah,

I have a body.

Right.

But how many times a day are we actually conscious of that until it's pointed out,

Until we remember that there is a body.

Right.

You know,

It seems like the easiest,

Simplest thing in the world.

But,

You know,

How can we constantly keep remembering that there's a body?

Right.

Well,

One of the things that I wanted the example I use and I thought I make fun of my my students.

I talk about my small army of Cantonese speaking grandma.

And so one of the things I remind them is is two things.

One is I said,

How many times you check your purse when you go out every other five minutes,

Every other 15,

30 seconds.

I mean,

We check a purse constantly.

We check our wallet constantly.

Well,

Guess what?

That that's not that's not something you are born with.

You know,

You give something to a child and they don't check it.

They don't check it.

OK,

So unless it's a smartphone,

Unless it's a smartphone.

Now,

That's yes,

That's constantly because that's that's an acquired skill is to remember,

You know,

Where your wallet is,

Where your purse is,

Where your iPhone.

That's an acquired skill.

Ironically,

We don't have that skill.

Just like you said,

Josh,

In terms of checking to see where a mine is,

You know,

It's like it's like it's like we're driving with both with the one feet on the on the on the brick and one feet on the on the gas pedal.

And we're pushing them together or not knowing which one is which.

We don't we don't constantly say,

OK,

You know,

Left foot should not be on the pedal and the right foot is pressing down on the accelerator.

That's all we're talking about is just to remember.

The other one,

The only example I use is in again,

You know,

Mostly my students are grandmothers.

I say,

Well,

When you take your grandkids to school,

You know,

That's part of what they do because it is a multi-generational family.

And so the grandparents take the grandkids to school.

I said,

How do you cross the street?

Do you hold their hands or do you not hold the hands?

Of course you hold their hands.

Why do you hold the hands?

Well,

Because if you don't hold the hands,

They run away and then now they get kidnapped or they get run over by a car.

It's very dangerous.

Of course you could hold their hand.

It's not even a question.

Well,

How many times do you hold your mind?

You know,

That's what it is.

OK,

So anyway,

I want to start something.

I want to,

You know,

Like in a practice,

I always say start from zero.

Start from zero.

Right.

Just start from zero.

So I like to start from zero.

So here's a slide that I prepared and it's the topic of today's presentation,

Which is called mindfulness and with the subtitle Mindfulness Industrial Complex.

That's just that's far enough here.

But,

You know,

It's attention grabbing.

We think of it as an industry,

You know,

Like this industry,

This mindfulness industry is very,

Very good in identifying the first world problems.

So what are the first world problems?

So the first world problems are especially now that we're,

You know,

Shelter in place.