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I feel like I haven't heard the word "mindfulness" (outside of the context of a schoolmarm telling a 19th-century child to be mindful of her work) until recentl

I feel like I haven't heard the word "mindfulness" (outside of the context of a schoolmarm telling a 19th-century child to be mindful of her work) until recently, but now it seems to be everywhere. Is this a clinical term or a new-age term?

someone28373 12y ago
It's an ancient concept. For an example of an actual practice look up noting in relation to this term.
diydsp 12y ago
One can probably credit a subset of hippies in the 1960s in the U.S. for traveling to India and bringing "Eastern" practices here to the (more or less) mainstream, including Buddhism and "Sati," which is the basis of mindfulness. I don't know enough about other countries to comment on how popular it may be in other places and how it go to be that way. In their shotgun approach, some New Age practioners may incorporate mindfulness, but they haven't invented it... In their urge to explain everything with the left brain :) academics and clinicians strive to explain mindfulness... Anyway if you get the urge, it's a fun thing to learn and study. You'd probably find it beneficial/profitable, too. It's delightful to me to learn how much of our behavior is stimulus-response and how much is choice. The concept of free will much more than a yes/no question--- it's much more like oil and water. it becomes binary if you never shake up the container, but once you do, you realize our choices and thoughts are a complex mixture of free will and reactionary behaviors :) The habits are usually beneficial b/c they save time, but when they get in the way they can be reversed, by first becoming aware of them through mindfulness.
- dinarebecca 12y ago
  Yes! Mental agility. A gorgeous thing.
stolio 12y ago
It's a buzzword, it gets thrown around a lot in spiritual circles. It's also an important part of Buddhism that sometimes gets confused as the only part. The Theravadan tradition of Vipassana is sometimes called "mindfulness meditation" (it's also called "insight meditation") so there's a good chance when you hear the word it traces back to them. If somebody's giving a teaching it has a fairly specific meaning but when people just toss it around they're essentially saying they're making an effort to pay attention to whatever's in front of them, or whatever their mind is doing, or just whatever's happening at that moment. You kind of have to pick up from context exactly what it means to the person using it.
clark-kent 12y ago
Yeah its a buzzword that describes a practice that has been going on for thousands of years. The term "mindfulness" may have been around for sometime, but I think we hear it more often these days because meditation is becoming more fashionable and trendy. In some circles, "mindfulness" is referred to as "presence", which is the term I prefer to use. Another good term for it is "stillness".
fractalcat 12y ago
The modern use of the word was spawned by a book by Thích Nhất Hạnh[0] called The Miracle of Mindfulness. It was then codified into clinical practice by (among others) Marsha Linehan, who incorporated the book's ideas (in combination with behavioural therapy) as dialectical behavioural therapy, which was the first evidence-based treatment for borderline personality disorder[1]. Since then it's been a prominent feature of popular psychology (and real psychology, though in a more restricted context). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%B... [1]: Linehan M., Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder

someone28373 12y ago

It's an ancient concept. For an example of an actual practice look up noting in relation to this term.

diydsp 12y ago

One can probably credit a subset of hippies in the 1960s in the U.S. for traveling to India and bringing "Eastern" practices here to the (more or less) mainstream, including Buddhism and "Sati," which is the basis of mindfulness. I don't know enough about other countries to comment on how popular it may be in other places and how it go to be that way. In their shotgun approach, some New Age practioners may incorporate mindfulness, but they haven't invented it... In their urge to explain everything with the left brain :) academics and clinicians strive to explain mindfulness... Anyway if you get the urge, it's a fun thing to learn and study. You'd probably find it beneficial/profitable, too. It's delightful to me to learn how much of our behavior is stimulus-response and how much is choice. The concept of free will much more than a yes/no question--- it's much more like oil and water. it becomes binary if you never shake up the container, but once you do, you realize our choices and thoughts are a complex mixture of free will and reactionary behaviors :) The habits are usually beneficial b/c they save time, but when they get in the way they can be reversed, by first becoming aware of them through mindfulness.

dinarebecca 12y ago
Yes! Mental agility. A gorgeous thing.

stolio 12y ago

It's a buzzword, it gets thrown around a lot in spiritual circles. It's also an important part of Buddhism that sometimes gets confused as the only part. The Theravadan tradition of Vipassana is sometimes called "mindfulness meditation" (it's also called "insight meditation") so there's a good chance when you hear the word it traces back to them. If somebody's giving a teaching it has a fairly specific meaning but when people just toss it around they're essentially saying they're making an effort to pay attention to whatever's in front of them, or whatever their mind is doing, or just whatever's happening at that moment. You kind of have to pick up from context exactly what it means to the person using it.

clark-kent 12y ago

Yeah its a buzzword that describes a practice that has been going on for thousands of years. The term "mindfulness" may have been around for sometime, but I think we hear it more often these days because meditation is becoming more fashionable and trendy. In some circles, "mindfulness" is referred to as "presence", which is the term I prefer to use. Another good term for it is "stillness".

fractalcat 12y ago

The modern use of the word was spawned by a book by Thích Nhất Hạnh[0] called The Miracle of Mindfulness. It was then codified into clinical practice by (among others) Marsha Linehan, who incorporated the book's ideas (in combination with behavioural therapy) as dialectical behavioural therapy, which was the first evidence-based treatment for borderline personality disorder[1]. Since then it's been a prominent feature of popular psychology (and real psychology, though in a more restricted context). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%B... [1]: Linehan M., Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder