- Email: [email protected]
Mindfulness, Embodied
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Mindfulness, Embodied To the Editor:
I
read with some interest the Clinical Perspectives column by David C. Saunders, MD, PhD, in the June 2015 issue of the Journal, “Being Mindful of Mindfulness: Past, Present, and Future of Mindfulness in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.”1 However, I was surprised when he stated, “Contemporary mindfulness has roots in Buddhist contemplative practices that stretch back centuries.” He would do well to remember that the Buddha did not invent meditation. Before he reached enlightenment and became the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama studied Samkhya and practiced yoga. We even know the names of his gurus. Samkhya is the oldest of the Indian philosophies of how to live, and yoga is the practice that leads to a peaceful mind, the two of which together are referred to as a darsana. Neither of them is a religion. The Mahabharata states that a person who understands that Samkhya and yoga are always taken together has the “right knowledge.” Apparently, America’s mindfulness guru, Jon KabatZinn, realized that meditation without yoga is not a complete practice and has added yoga to his teaching and personal practice. Max (of Saunders’ epigraph) and his mother seemed to be on the same beam when Saunders reports that Max said, “My mom says that mindfulness happens when you do the peace tree!” When my young patients ask for a meditative practice (which they increasingly do), I give them a yoga practice, not just a meditation practice. In my experience, a few older teenagers can sit to meditate, but most children and adolescents need body and breathing components in addition to meditation to engage fully and sustain a meaningful practice. In fact, we all do. James H. Grubbs,
MD, LFAACAP
Uncommon Health Initiatives Foundation Austin, TX
[email protected] Disclosure: Dr. Grubbs reports no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest. 0890-8567/$36.00/ª2015 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2015.08.006
REFERENCE 1. Saunders DC. Being mindful of mindfulness: past, present, and future of mindfulness in child and adolescent psychiatry. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2015;54:437-439.
Dr. Saunders replies:
I
am grateful for Dr. Grubbs’s commentary and appreciate the opportunity to respond. The letter raises 2 critical questions about mindfulness in the contemporary setting:
first, the role of bodily movement in the cultivation of mindfulness; and second, the usefulness of historical claims about authentic or inauthentic mindfulness practices. Regarding the first, I share Dr. Grubbs’s enthusiasm for movement within mindfulness practices. Dr. Grubbs’s experience is commensurate with my own, namely that children and adolescents often show great eagerness for movement-based lessons and activities. I agree with his observation that Jon Kabat-Zinn was wise to incorporate movement into his popular Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program and have found that it plays an even more pivotal role when teaching children. With respect to the initial point about what the Buddha “studied” and “practiced” (as stated by Dr. Grubbs), I caution against making claims about what the Buddha did or did not do, say, or teach, especially in the venue of modern psychiatry. To begin, within the academic study of religion, there is little that scholars can definitively say about the historical figure we now call “the Buddha,” least of all what he thought, studied, or practiced. Even less clear is what should count as “authentic” or “inauthentic” mindfulness practice. Contemporary practitioners of mindfulness would do well to eschew rhetoric of authenticity, in which claims are made about what is authentic and what is apocryphal. Such claims are fraught with unfounded assumptions and methodologic complications and sometimes reflect allegiance to one lineage or another, rather than demonstrated historical fact. The tremendous ambiguity of the term mindfulness is rivaled only by the equally opaque term yoga. It is not at all clear what either word means in any precise sense. Ask 100 people what yoga (or mindfulness) is, and you will get 100 answers—if not more. Therefore, what counts as real or fake will prove elusive to anyone who seeks it. In my article, I was careful to state only what we know is true about contemporary mindfulness. First, it has roots in Buddhist practices, a claim that is not in dispute. This does not preclude the influence of other traditions on contemporary practices—Samkhya, Christian, secular, or otherwise— and it does not diminish the profoundly diverse assortment of Buddhist meditation practices we call “mindfulness.” Second, I mention that mindfulness practices stretch back centuries, but not necessarily to the time scholars think the historical Buddha lived (approximately 500 BCE) because it is virtually impossible to know what he did and did not do. Third, I was keen to avoid any mention whatsoever of the historical figure we call the Buddha for the same aforementioned reasons. Although we are in accord that movement-based practices are integral to the cultivation of mindfulness for children and adolescents, I disagree with why Dr. Grubbs finds that to be the case. Claims about what the Buddha did or did not do, what counts as authentic or inauthentic mindfulness (or yoga), and so forth, do not and should not carry any weight in the contemporary study of contemplative practices within child and adolescent psychiatry—or any academic field, for that matter.
JOURNAL 956
www.jaacap.org
OF THE
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF C HILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY VOLUME 54 NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER 2015
I
read with some interest the Clinical Perspectives column by David C. Saunders, MD, PhD, in the June 2015 issue of the Journal, “Being Mindful of Mindfulness: Past, Present, and Future of Mindfulness in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.”1 However, I was surprised when he stated, “Contemporary mindfulness has roots in Buddhist contemplative practices that stretch back centuries.” He would do well to remember that the Buddha did not invent meditation. Before he reached enlightenment and became the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama studied Samkhya and practiced yoga. We even know the names of his gurus. Samkhya is the oldest of the Indian philosophies of how to live, and yoga is the practice that leads to a peaceful mind, the two of which together are referred to as a darsana. Neither of them is a religion. The Mahabharata states that a person who understands that Samkhya and yoga are always taken together has the “right knowledge.” Apparently, America’s mindfulness guru, Jon KabatZinn, realized that meditation without yoga is not a complete practice and has added yoga to his teaching and personal practice. Max (of Saunders’ epigraph) and his mother seemed to be on the same beam when Saunders reports that Max said, “My mom says that mindfulness happens when you do the peace tree!” When my young patients ask for a meditative practice (which they increasingly do), I give them a yoga practice, not just a meditation practice. In my experience, a few older teenagers can sit to meditate, but most children and adolescents need body and breathing components in addition to meditation to engage fully and sustain a meaningful practice. In fact, we all do. James H. Grubbs,
MD, LFAACAP
Uncommon Health Initiatives Foundation Austin, TX
[email protected] Disclosure: Dr. Grubbs reports no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest. 0890-8567/$36.00/ª2015 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2015.08.006
REFERENCE 1. Saunders DC. Being mindful of mindfulness: past, present, and future of mindfulness in child and adolescent psychiatry. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2015;54:437-439.
Dr. Saunders replies:
I
am grateful for Dr. Grubbs’s commentary and appreciate the opportunity to respond. The letter raises 2 critical questions about mindfulness in the contemporary setting:
first, the role of bodily movement in the cultivation of mindfulness; and second, the usefulness of historical claims about authentic or inauthentic mindfulness practices. Regarding the first, I share Dr. Grubbs’s enthusiasm for movement within mindfulness practices. Dr. Grubbs’s experience is commensurate with my own, namely that children and adolescents often show great eagerness for movement-based lessons and activities. I agree with his observation that Jon Kabat-Zinn was wise to incorporate movement into his popular Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program and have found that it plays an even more pivotal role when teaching children. With respect to the initial point about what the Buddha “studied” and “practiced” (as stated by Dr. Grubbs), I caution against making claims about what the Buddha did or did not do, say, or teach, especially in the venue of modern psychiatry. To begin, within the academic study of religion, there is little that scholars can definitively say about the historical figure we now call “the Buddha,” least of all what he thought, studied, or practiced. Even less clear is what should count as “authentic” or “inauthentic” mindfulness practice. Contemporary practitioners of mindfulness would do well to eschew rhetoric of authenticity, in which claims are made about what is authentic and what is apocryphal. Such claims are fraught with unfounded assumptions and methodologic complications and sometimes reflect allegiance to one lineage or another, rather than demonstrated historical fact. The tremendous ambiguity of the term mindfulness is rivaled only by the equally opaque term yoga. It is not at all clear what either word means in any precise sense. Ask 100 people what yoga (or mindfulness) is, and you will get 100 answers—if not more. Therefore, what counts as real or fake will prove elusive to anyone who seeks it. In my article, I was careful to state only what we know is true about contemporary mindfulness. First, it has roots in Buddhist practices, a claim that is not in dispute. This does not preclude the influence of other traditions on contemporary practices—Samkhya, Christian, secular, or otherwise— and it does not diminish the profoundly diverse assortment of Buddhist meditation practices we call “mindfulness.” Second, I mention that mindfulness practices stretch back centuries, but not necessarily to the time scholars think the historical Buddha lived (approximately 500 BCE) because it is virtually impossible to know what he did and did not do. Third, I was keen to avoid any mention whatsoever of the historical figure we call the Buddha for the same aforementioned reasons. Although we are in accord that movement-based practices are integral to the cultivation of mindfulness for children and adolescents, I disagree with why Dr. Grubbs finds that to be the case. Claims about what the Buddha did or did not do, what counts as authentic or inauthentic mindfulness (or yoga), and so forth, do not and should not carry any weight in the contemporary study of contemplative practices within child and adolescent psychiatry—or any academic field, for that matter.
JOURNAL 956
www.jaacap.org
OF THE
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF C HILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY VOLUME 54 NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER 2015