Shinzen Young About Embodiment, Mindfulness, And The Future Of Science

Shinzen Young talks about embodiment, mindfulness, and the future of science. He is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant. He is known for his systematic approach to categorizing, adapting and teaching meditation, known as Unified Mindfulness.
Interviewer: Serge Prengel has been exploring creative ways to live with an embodied sense of meaning and purpose.

Transcript

Hi Shinzen.

Hi Serge.

So we're going to talk about mindfulness and these days mindfulness is such a good thing and so generally valued that often people have a sense that there is a right way and a wrong way to do it and kind of a little bit of a rigid sense of what it might be and in contrast you have a very curious mind and a very curious approach to it.

So do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Sure.

You could say that I have an approach that I would call,

If I had to find a word for it,

Modern mindfulness.

It's to me a nicer way of saying what some people call secular mindfulness or mainstream mindfulness but I'm going to choose to just call it modern mindfulness and for me modern mindfulness is an interactive dance.

It's science and contemplative practice evolving,

Mutually nurturing each other to optimize their evolution through time.

So can I stop you for a minute?

Sure.

It seems it's very intense when you use the word modern and you use word like evolution that in a way already you're setting this up as something that's not an eternal thing but something that you know evolves over time.

Yes,

Exactly.

The paradigm that we get from Indic civilization which is actually shared by other civilizations,

Ancient Greece,

Some of the thinkers for one thing,

The paradigm there is history goes down as things are better in the past,

Maybe even perfect at some point in the past and then things deteriorate through these four yugas or in Buddhism they talk about in Japanese Buddhism,

Mapo,

The end of days,

Things are so bad now that you know the Dharma is no longer available etc etc.

So there's a notion from India that the only thing that changes through time is things get worse.

There's a notion from science that at least as far as science goes science gets better.

It gets deeper,

It gets clearer,

It gets broader,

It's able to perform more and more powerfully with regards to the practical issues of human well-being etc.

So there's a notion from science that we should expect things to get better and they get better by the scientists having uncensored but respectful disagreements that eventually lead to a consensus and converge to something and that's how science grows.

So I would say that one of the ways that science can nurture contemplative practice that's personal to me as a teacher is that my approach to mindfulness has been informed by the spirit of science.

So part of that informing.

.

.

Let me just repeat that because it's a big thing that mindfulness and the practice of mindfulness,

The teaching of mindfulness inspired by the spirit of science.

Actually the word I used was informed.

It's the same as inspired.

It means that how I go about it has been strongly influenced by the way that scientists go about things.

So that's one of the ways that I think that science can nurture contemplative practice.

Now contemplative practice can also nurture science.

As more and more scientists become meditators they become better human beings and they become better scientists and so that's good for everyone and so the nurturing goes in both directions.

So one of the things that has already happened as far as I'm concerned for me personally other teachers of course are free to look at things in other ways but my approach is quite thoroughly informed influenced by what I call the spirit of science.

Part of the spirit of science is to be very precise about use of language,

Technical terms.

Another part of the spirit of science is to actually assume that things can get better at least that science can get better and in fact we'll have a natural tendency to get better.

So I think that meditation practice and I use mindfulness as a synonym for contemplative practice I define it very broadly intentionally.

I can defend that if someone's interested but in any event I think that contemplative practice aka mindfulness aka meditation should and can improve both the conceptual framework and the techniques and the practices can evolve and get better with time and I think we should think in those terms.

So that's Let me check something.

You equate,

You use the word contemplative practice and in the context of using something defining it as informed by the spirit of science I see an analogy that science starts when people are actually curious and observing and and so defining the contemplative practice might be a way of observing that is appropriate for observing what we're observing in contemplative practice.

I would totally agree with that.

I think that's the way to initially think about things.

Now the reason I laughed is so sometimes you hear people say evolution is just a theory so anyone who uses the word just and the word theory together is ignorant of the nature of science.

That's proof right there.

No one that knows anything about science would ever say relativity is just a theory.

Quantum physics is just a theory.

Newtonian physics is just a theory.

You don't use the word just in front of theory.

You use the word just in front of hypothesis or conjecture but you don't use the word just in front of theory.

Theory is a big deal in science.

To be an established scientific theory you have to have passed a lot of tests.

So we have this word theory that means good science.

A branch of science that's mature.

Now here's an interesting question.

Most people wouldn't maybe think to ask the question but I say words are important.

Being clear about words,

Careful about words is important.

So what is the most,

What is the oldest Western word for meditation or contemplation or mindfulness?

I use them synonymously.

What's the oldest Western word?

Well I mean there is a word in Latin.

I just said it,

Contemplation.

So that's an old word but contemplatio in Latin merely translates a Greek word.

So the Greek word is older.

It was used in pre-christian antiquity for what we would now call meditation.

It was used for other things also but and it was also the word of choice that the Christians use,

The early Christians,

To describe what you do when you go off into the desert and you're all by yourself and you're trying to perfect your soul.

What is that endeavor called?

Well in Greek it's called theoria which is exactly the same word as theory.

So you were spot on dude.

You just totally nailed it.

Xin Zhen Yang gives good etymology.

Yes,

Yes.

No that's really interesting to see the divine in the etymology of theory.

So we're talking about a contemplative approach and do you want to talk a little bit more about mindfulness from that perspective,

A contemplative approach?

Well you mentioned that there's contention,

You know,

What's the right way to do mindfulness etc etc.

You brought that up at the very beginning.

So I would say that part of the spirit of science is to develop what I would call semantic maturity.

I created that phrase.

Semantic maturity is how mature you are in how you use words.

Basically it's how sensitive you are to context.

Same word can mean a little different or very different depending on the context.

So that sort of context sensitivity,

Sensitivity to connotation as well as denotation,

Skill at formulating clear definitions through making the right distinctions on one hand but also making the right groupings on the other etc etc.

All of this is a kind of cultivatable skill in the use of words.

So I think that much of the problem of people being concerned or disagreeing about mindfulness goes to,

To be blunt,

A lack of semantic maturity in the dialogue.

So that people are not clearly defining what they're talking about and they don't bother to ask the interlocutor to clearly define what they're talking about.

So now they're arguing back and forth and maybe there's not even an argument there because they haven't clarified what they're talking about.

So I have chosen to define mindfulness as a synonym for contemplative practice and there's a definite reason why I chose that and it's pragmatic.

Now you could say well mindfulness needs to be more specific.

Mindfulness is I'm mindful when I'm focusing on my breath and I'm not mindful any other time or I'm mindful when I'm anchored in my body but everything else is not mindful or I'm mindful when I'm not caught in my mind but everything else is not mindful or I'm aware of everything but holding on to nothing now I'm mindful that's the definition of mindfulness.

So there is of course it is of course useful to have words that mean all of the above that's true but I would encourage people not to define mindfulness that narrow because there we may be I said may not are we may be at a tipping point with human history where the mutually positive feedback loop between science and contemplative practice where that loop could gain enough momentum to radically alter the course of human history everywhere for the better and radically means quickly but I just said we might be at that tipping point it's it's not ridiculous that we might be at that tipping point but I'm not claiming we are because that would be a an irresponsible intellectually irresponsible claim but if we are at that tipping point then what's more important to have a word that means I'm aware of everything and don't hold on to anything or to have a word that means broadly any and all contemplative practice done anywhere East or West ancient or modern in relationship to science now I'm going to claim to have a word that all human beings experience as safe all major human populations would experience this word as being safe well meditation doesn't quite do it because you can't talk to fundamentalist Christians about meditation it's threatening um contemplation contemplative practice is the right word but people don't really know what that means and it has a connotation even a denotation it's actually a Western thing it's a Christian thing originally and it carries baggage there is however a word that carries minimal baggage meaning it flies in the People's Republic of China in that it will be paid for by the Communist Party and it flies in Tehran in that the ayatollahs allow it to be taught and the word for that thing that works for right-wing and left-wing communist or religious fanatic um that word is mindfulness well how important is that word that word is very important just stop for a moment so we're talking about we put this in the context of a semantic maturity and the context of words but words not really clearly defined not clearly understood and the possibilities for conflict among human beings by using words that are not really clear in their meanings and with the ambiguity and conflict that starts from that and so what we're talking about is finding a concept that has a broad enough basis to be stable to encompass a whole broad range of experience and one that people can relate to coming from very different horizons and perspectives as opposed to a sectarian word that seems to say this is my understanding of mindfulness and unless you qualify in all possible aspects of what I see it as being you're excluded so taking that you know general human experience that is considered positive and and and and and encompassing it in that in that word you know it's really nice how you interrupt and then summarize that's a really brilliant interviewing strategy I've never had that but I I think it's really good I'm going to ask future interviewers to do that I think it's very user-friendly to an audience especially when you have you have someone like me that you just press the button get out of the way because it's just gonna you know there's gonna be a firehose so once again my friend you have nailed it what we need is you actually mentioned both sides there's two desiderata we need two things we need a concept that is formulated in a way that does not that is that any reasonable person would agree with we need a concept that is make sense to any reasonable person and I should say that almost all people are reasonable by my definition so people that voted for someone that you might not like who's the president those people are still reasonable okay so any reasonable person in other words you don't have to agree with someone you can vehemently disagree but you're still talking to a reasonable person most humans are reasonable there may be some cases usually it's pathology or some very weird cases of extreme ism but most humans are reasonable so something that most humans can agree upon and that's the first thing we need and the second thing we need is a word that doesn't threaten anyone for that concept we need those two things if this is going to go viral on the planet so that's why I I have chosen to define mindfulness in a sense very broadly but also to define it very specifically but in a way that covers everything and doesn't turn anyone off so I say that mindfulness is the cultivate the development of a core set of attentional skills and then the application of those attentional skills to all dimensions of human well-being all dimensions so a core development of the core set of attentional techniques I would say skills skills yes a development of a core set of attentional skills that are applicable to all aspects of human activity yes so it's just two concepts to master what is it and why should we care about it mm-hmm what it is mindful awareness is three attentional skills that anyone can see are useful concentration power sensory clarity and equanimity I can explain those or they're on the internet so you can ask anyone to look back at their life experience and they'll know examples of times when they're concentrated and they felt better it did better times when they were scattered it didn't feel as good and they didn't do as good likewise for the clarity and the equanimity pieces so these are things that if you point out to people what they've already experienced in this life and they know it's going to vehemently disagree that it's a bad thing to have an ability to focus on what's important in the moment okay there's no contention in that okay you think should be president not you're not going to argue with that that idea so the so it is the systematic development of these skills or you can think of them as strengths their attentional strength so you you develop the core attentional skills so develop the skill so the question about what contemplative practice is well it's developing a certain attentional skill set and then of course the natural next question is why should you bother doing that and the phrase I would use is to maximize or optimize all dimensions of happiness so that then raises two questions what do we mean by happiness and what do we mean by maximize by or another way to put it is it's a what and a how what is happiness give me a periodic table that covers everything and then how do these attentional skills serve to increase happiness how do they serve as part of optimizing happiness notice I didn't say that these skills are the whole picture in optimizing happiness but I'm going to say that they're key their core and I'll be able to define that in a very clear way what I mean by that so develop the skills optimize a happy that's it so so I almost tempted to say it backwards and to say you know as human beings we want to have a good life a happy life by whatever definition of happy we ago and we want to have a happy life and so that's a that's a goal that no reasonable person could disagree with again the definitions could vary enormously into what constitutes that happy life then we go with the idea that there are some skills some very basic skills that will make this goal possible and that's we talked about concentration quality clarity and equanimity and then comes that will develop these skills and so it's all starting in a way from the goal the means and then the practices as they say in the UK brilliant I love it so you could start that at that end also what would make you happy you can do a motivational interview what would make you happy and they'll start to list all the things and you say anything else anything else anything else anything else and when you've completed that if you've drawn out of them skillfully everything you've got this matrix of all the things that people call happy and it represents a dimensional analysis of happiness I distinguish 20 sub dimensions myself so in any event here's what we mean by happiness and by the way we're defining it broadly enough so it's not just about how you feel it's also about how you act and it's not just about you being happy it's also about your extended identity your friends your family your community your country your your company the whole world the observable universe the multiverse it's not just about one person so we're defining happy to be broad and deep ordinary happiness and it's going to turn out that there's some extraordinary forms demand no extraordinary dimensions of happiness that are independent of conditions so in any event so here's what we mean by the happy and here's how concentration clarity and equanimity in specific function to optimize the happy and so a mechanism plausible mechanism whereby those three skills impact the 20 sub dimensions of happiness that I claim I can present so plausible mechanism the attentional skills how is this related to reducing suffering elevating fulfillment understanding yourself at all levels from the individual psychological to the absolutely impersonal universal um how is it related to positive behavior change to being an admirable person to being a skillful CEO how is it related to a call to service how are these skills related to these dimensions of happiness I can I can give you plausible mechanisms now then the next so that's a how question then the next how question is how do I develop those skills right now you need to do retreat practice you need to do life practice in between retreats you need at least one technique you need to get support eventually it's useful to learn how to give support if you have all those pillars in place for your whole life it is highly probable that you will develop those skills to be not 10% happier but it's easily 10 times happier so that's the message now everything has been defined so carefully here that it can't put off anybody it's it's agreeable to any person um now we need a name for this that's acceptable in all current cultures contemplative practice is the scientific name for it but that carries baggage meditation is the common name for it but that carries baggage what carries least baggage is the other M word mindfulness if we're willing to define it broadly and carefully we get something that is is optimal meaning we have a name that doesn't cause any hiccups because it's linked to science and I don't care what kind of government you live in other than Boko Haram but that's no those aren't reasonable people those are insane fanatics but unless you're living in Nigeria under Boko Haram which isn't much of humanity um this name is mindfulness is okay because of its link to science yeah yeah yeah yeah so that that's my response so so so then we have come to a sense of the place of that activity or that set of skills called mindfulness within the context of human existence at an individual level as well as the level of society exactly yeah yeah and so that's which is a very much broader perspective that say mindfulness defined as an individual pursuit with a sense of I have to you know train in something that increases my performance but we're putting it within that context of something that makes the individual and society perform better the idea is to create a formulation that's easy for any person around the world regardless of their culture that's easy for them to relate to but at the same time can deliver the goods meaning at the deeper levels of freedom from suffering at the deeper levels of maximal fulfillment at the deeper level of understanding yourself comes classical enlightenment and an aspect of skillful action which we have chosen to define as one of the goals of mindfulness action is not mindfulness you can be a very mindful safecracker you can be of meaning you have a lot of concentration clarity and equanimity you can be a very mindful sniper meaning you have a lot of concentration sensory clarity and equanimity I know we would like mindful to be equated with a certain set of values but that's going to turn off people as soon as we start to talk about that yet we have to have those values there they must be there where do we put them conceptually in order not to get pushback well there's a place we can say becoming an admirable person is part of being happy and we claim that mindfulness maximizes all dimensions of happiness including character aka Sheila hmm so in tradition you were talking about reversing things yeah traditional Buddhism Sheila Samadhi prajna right take the eightfold path and you can crunch it down to the threefold training right right character concentration and then wisdom is what happens when the concentration is informed with clarity and equanimity mm-hmm the equanimity is the letting go of craving and aversion the clarity is the careful observation that leads to all there really is no self think all the self here etc etc so the concentration combined with the clarity and equanimity dimensions gives you the wisdom so Sheila Samadhi prajna hmm character concentration but then extended into wisdom so the eight factors boil down to the fort the three trainings but we can there's no reason to say that the Sheila or good character couldn't be thought of as a consequence of concentration clarity and equanimity and wisdom it's a goal so if we put good character up at front then we have to start defining what's good and what's bad Oh exploding can of worms right so if some list that defines good character is equated with mindfulness then you're going to get pushback but generically we say one of that mindfulness affects positively all dimensions of happiness and guess what have having good character and you know what else serving other people those are part of happiness and mindfulness should be applied to those elements of happiness for you know start with a list of what's right and wrong we'll let you decide that right right right so that so so it's not about again we veer away from that very narrow definition of specifics to come to what constitutes the essence and even something like serving people is something that's not necessarily something that comes from a moral point of view but you could say come from an observation that we evolved to be social animals so that it's in us it's part of our fulfillment to not just seek individual fulfillment but you know we're wired to also find satisfaction in you know the sense of being connected and in fact a case could be made that that's our defining feature right that's why these the front part of our brain is so big relative to the other great apes essentially so why does compassion arise well I'm gonna claim it arises for many reasons not just one but as you're suffering less as you are more fulfilled as you understand yourself at deeper and deeper levels it is quite natural to want to be of service to others because now you have the breathing room to do that whereas before all the bandwidth was taken up with so I'm wondering this might lead us to a possible way to conclude this as define I think what you're doing is defining this as a journey where following you know some curiosity about some characteristics we're actually developing a better sense of who we are and what makes us happier and therefore connected to our potential and our you know our sense of being human beings the ancients would be happy to hear that Aristotle was all about two things contracting to find your essence and expanding to realize your full potential and this is defining a path to do that and I'm going to claim that what I'm calling modern mindfulness yeah which is contemplative practice co-evolving with science and I defined contemplative practice I didn't define science but we could get into that so I'm gonna claim that what modern mindfulness represents is the fastest way for that to happen on this planet mm-hmm great thanks Jen

Reviews

Shinzen represents a shining example of the power of science and Dharma in combination. His careful definition of mindfulness deserves worldwide attention. Great insights, great interview.

Another inspiring interview with the cutting edge teacher Shinzen Young.

Many thanks for sharing the clarity and wisdom.surrounding the practice of
mindfulness. .

Namaste

Absolutely fascinating interview that held my attention throughout. I was equally captivated by the skill of the interviewer & the acknowledgment of this skill by the interviewee. Beautiful! 🌞