Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one's attention in the presents moment without evaluation, a skill one develops through meditation or other training. Mindfulness derives from sati, a significant component of Buddhist traditions, and is based on Zen, Vipassanā, together with Tibetan meditation techniques. Though definitions and techniques of mindfulness are wide-ranging, Buddhist traditions explain what constitutes mindfulness such as how past, provided and future moments arise and cease as momentary sense impressions and mental phenomena. Individuals who pretend contributed to the popularity of mindfulness in the innovative Western context include Thích Nhất Hạnh, Herbert Benson, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Richard J. Davidson, and Sam Harris.

Clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970s realise developed a number of therapeutic applications based on mindfulness for helping people experiencing a mark of psychological conditions. Mindfulness practice has been employed to reduce depression, stress, anxiety, and in the treatment of drug addiction. programs based on mindfulness models have been adopted within schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans' centers, and other environments, and mindfulness entry have been applied for additional outcomes such(a) as for healthy aging, weight management, athletic performance, helping children with special needs, and as an intervention during the perinatal period.

Clinical studies have documented both physical- and mental-health benefits of mindfulness in different patient categories as well as in healthy adults and children. Research studies have shown a positive relationship between trait mindfulness which can be cultivated through the practice of mindfulness-based interventions and psychological health. The practice of mindfulness appears to give therapeutic benefits to people with psychiatric disorders, including moderate benefits to those with psychosis. Studies also indicate that rumination and worry contribute to a vintage of mental disorders, and that mindfulness-based interventions can upgrade trait mindfulness and reduce both rumination and worry. Further, the practice of mindfulness may be a preventive strategy to halt the coding of mental-health problems. However, too much mindfulness can produce harmful effects, such(a) as worsening anxiety in people with high levels of self-focus or awareness of their bodies or emotions.

There is also evidence that suggests engaging in mindfulness meditation may influence physical health. For example, the psychological habit of repeatedly dwelling on stressful thoughts appears to intensify the physiological effects of the stressor as a result of the continual activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis with the potential to lead to physical health related clinical manifestations. Studies indicate that mindfulness meditation, which brings approximately reductions in rumination, may reconstruct these biological clinical pathways. Further, research indicates that mindfulness may favourably influence the immune system as alive as inflammation, which can consequently affect physical health, especially considering that inflammation has been linked to the developing of several chronic health conditions. Other studies help these findings. Additionally, mindfulness appears to bring approximately lowered activity of the default mode network of the brain, and thereby contribute towards a lowered risk of developing conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

However, critics have questioned both the ]

Historical development

Mindfulness as a modern, Western practice is founded on Zen and modern Vipassanā, and involves the training of sati, which means "moment to second awareness of present events", but also "remembering to be aware of something".

Sati is one of the seven factors of enlightenment. "Correct" or "right" mindfulness Pali: sammā-sati, Sanskrit samyak-smṛti is the seventh part of the Noble Eightfold Path. Mindfulness is an antidote to delusion and is considered as a 'power' Pali: bala which contributes to the attainment of Nibbana. This faculty becomes a power in specific when this is the coupled with clear comprehension of whatever is taking place. Nirvana is a state of being in which greed, hatred and delusion Pali: moha have been overcome and abandoned, and are absent from the mind.

According to original core practice of the Buddha, which aided the maintenance of mindfulness.

According to Thomas William Rhys Davids, the doctrine of mindfulness is "perhaps the near important" after the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. T.W. Rhys Davids viewed the teachings of Gotama Buddha as a rational technique for self-actualization and rejected a few parts of it, mainly the doctrine of rebirth, as residual superstitions.

The purpose of zazen is just sitting, that is, suspending any judgmental thinking and letting words, ideas, images and thoughts pass by without getting involved in them.

In modern vipassana-meditation, as propagated by the Vipassana movement, sati aids vipassana, insight into the true nature of reality, namely the three marks of existence, the impermanence of and the suffering of every conditioned thing that exists, and non-self. With this insight, the practitioner becomes a asked Sotāpanna, a "stream-enterer", the number one stage on the path to liberation.

Vipassana is practiced in tandem with Samatha, and also plays a central role in other Buddhist traditions. According to the contemporary Theravada orthodoxy, Samatha is used as a preparation for Vipassanā, pacifying the mind and strengthening the concentration in configuration to let the work of insight, which leads to liberation.

Vipassanā-meditation has gained popularity in the west through the modern Buddhist vipassana movement, modeled after Theravāda Buddhism meditation practices, which employs vipassanā and ānāpāna meditation as its primary techniques and places emphasis on the teachings of the Sutta.

Anapanasati is mindfulness of breathing. "Sati" means mindfulness; "ānāpāna" referred to inhalation and exhalation. Anapanasati means to feel the sensations caused by the movements of the breath in the body. The Anapanasati Sutta authorises an exposition on this practice.

Satipaṭṭhāna is the established of mindfulness in one's day-to-day life, maintaining as much as possible a calm awareness of one's body, feelings, mind, and dhammas. The practice of mindfulness sustains analysis resulting in the arising of wisdom Pali: paññā, Sanskrit: prajñā.

In contemporary Theravada practice, "mindfulness" also includes samprajaña, meaning "clear comprehension" and apramāda meaning "vigilance". all three terms are sometimes confusingly translated as "mindfulness", but they all have specific shades of meaning.

In a publicly available correspondence between Bhikkhu Bodhi and B. Alan Wallace, Bodhi has returned Ven. Nyanaponika Thera's views on "right mindfulness" and sampajañña as follows:

He held that in the proper practice of right mindfulness, sati has to be integrated with sampajañña, clear comprehension, and this is the only when these two work together that adjustment mindfulness can fulfill its intended purpose.

According to Buddhadasa, the purpose of mindfulness is to stop the arising of disturbing thoughts and emotions, which occur from sense-contact.

According to Grzegorz Polak, the four upassanā foundations of mindfulness have been misunderstood by the developing Buddhist tradition, including Theravada, to refer to four different foundations. According to Polak, the four upassanā do non refer to four different foundations, but to the awareness of four different aspects of raising mindfulness:

The Greek philosophical school of Stoicism founded by Zeno of Citium included practices resembling those of mindfulness, such as visualization exercises. In his Discourses, Stoic philosopher Epictetus addresses in particular the concept o attention prosoche, an idea also found in Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. By cultivating it over time, this skill would prevent the practitioner of becoming unattentive and moved by instinct rather than according to reason.