Zen is not Mindfulness

Mindfulness meditation is very popular, and seems to be helpful with quite a few problems including anxiety, pain and PTSD.  And until recently I believed that Zen was the ultimate expression of mindful mediation.  But it is not.  Zen is not mindfulness.

And this is not a trivial point.  To says that zazen is a form of mindfulness meditation is an error with roots in a deeper confusion.   This basic misunderstanding causes slow progress in Zen practice, pain while sitting, trouble bringing our practice into everyday life and confusion regarding the importance of sitting upright and our inability to do so.   We turn to yoga to try to treat the symptom of this misunderstanding without recognizing the error.  Yoga is not the practice that will help with zen.  Yoga is a distraction from the core problem.     

This fundamental misunderstanding is the notion that it is useful to separate 'the body' and 'the mind'.    But I am getting ahead of myself.

It seems like such a radical thing to say: "Zen is not mindfulness".  Being "mindful" - that is concentrating the focus of attention on some object - is commonly said to be at the center of Zen meditation.  Zen is mindfulness meditation, no?

No, it is not.  And both google and the most eminent teachers would agree.  

If you read the definition of zen and zazen in Wikipedia you find no mention of "mindfulness".  In fact, zazen is defined as quite the opposite: an "approach where the mind has no object at all"  

And if you listen to the wonderful description of zen mediation by the recently deceased abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, Abbot Myogen here, you will hear him describe zazen as "sitting",  "just to sit" and "You're stopping the busyness of your life."  "Ideally, we would give no further instructions."

This becomes more clear if one deconstructs mindfulness meditation:
First one sits down with the intention to be mindful of some object.  Perhaps the breathing, a candle, a stick of burning incense or perhaps some idea like loving kindness.  After a bit, one becomes distracted: the attention drifts in a habitual way.  This is the "busyness of your life".  At some point we discover we are distracted: we wake up to the fact we are no longer focused on our object.  The next step is to stop the distraction.  Having done this we refocus the attention on the object and the process repeats its self:

Intention -> focused attention -> distraction -> waking up -> stopping -> focusing -> distraction  etc.

To simplify, I would argue that the waking up and the stopping are the same thing.  That is, as soon as we are aware of our distraction we have stopped it.  The distraction is now in the past, and at least for an instant we now feel present.  So now we have:

Intention -> focused attention -> distraction -> stopping -> focusing -> distraction  etc.

But the Abbot does not mention any "focusing".  Not a word.  I am sure he is not holding something important back.  The Abbot is suggesting:

Sitting -> busyness -> stopping, sitting -> busyness -> stopping ...
 "sit down and see what happens". 

So there is no "mindfulness".  

But then Abbot Myogen hastens to add something of great importance.  Something he calls 'an upright posture'.  He does not explain why it is important.  But in this movie - in which explains the history of Buddhism, Zen and monastic life in just a few minutes - I am sure "an upright posture" is of central importance.

I love this description of mindfulness because it captures the unity zazen.  He give equal weight to both sides of one indivisible coin.  This practice can only be broken into the "physical" and "mental" for theorizing but in actual sitting they are the same thing.  It is not useful to try to break them in two.  

That the 'body' and the 'mind' are useful distinctions was a error René Descart gave us.  It is not a distinction that is supported by neurology. The gross anatomist may be able to claim some distinction, but in every other way there is no useful distinction.  Even modern theories of pain have abandoning the distinction.  The brain is built upon and about the body.  The connection is intimate in every sense: physically, emotionally, electrically, chemically.  That the 'mind' and 'body' are different is consistent only with our cultural beliefs, but has no basis in reality.

This is fundamental premise in FM Alexanders writings.  In the very first pages of his writing he states that it is not useful to separate the so called physical from the so called mental.  As a very short proof he challenges his readers to find one thing that is purely 'mental' or purely 'physical'.  In all his book he is meticulous to avoid the distinction. In stead he refers to the 'self'. 

I am not advocating a holistic approach.  Those who speak about the unity of the 'body' and the 'mind' are in-fact perpetuating the error.  They assume that it is possible to break the two apart and then make much ado about putting them back together.  If something can not be separated, why talk about bringing it together?

And yet the notion that zen is mindfulness practice is unchallenged.  The experience of zazen as a mindfulness practice becomes a tedious repetitive act with no end.  It is like trying to herd a bunch of cats.  And of course painful because the self is contracted in an attempt to be concentrated.  Thus, to think of zazen as mindfulness will insure the progress is slow and painful.  Something that infects Zen meditation and causes retardation of progress and pain should rightly be considered an illness.  

Intuitively we know that zen is not just something we do with our 'mind' but also something to do with the rest of us - it is also a 'body' practice.  In zen there is vast amount written about how to practice with 'the mind': how to handle distractions, confusion, depression, agitation etc.  But what about the other side of the coin?  What does zen teaching have to say about how to sit upright?  We all agree that sitting upright is important, and most will agree that if we don't do that well we will soon be in pain.  Abott Myogen says it's important to have an upright posture, but where is there any advice on how to do that?  

There is no Zen teaching about how to sit upright!  Zen teaching only polishes one side of the coin.  
Having uncritically adopted the erroneous assumption that 'body' and 'mind' are separate, and then teach only about the mind it has created a very unbalanced atmosphere.  There is a great vacuums in American Zen practice.  The Asian cultures may have had such a physical teaching.  However, we have abandoned that approach as it strikes us as far too strict and harsh.  It simply does not fit a culture that welcomes those who are frail or more sensitive.  The only remnant of what appears to be a "macho" practice is the occasional admonishment during meditation: "Don't move!" 

And try to clean up the mess Zen teachers now recommend doing yoga, tai chi, or any number of activities.   But none of these activities teach one how to sit upright.  Yoga, tai chi and all the rest do not share the foundational teaching of Zen: stopping the busyness of your life.   Any Zen teaching on sitting upright must be based on this stopping.   

And this is where the Alexander Technique is helpful.  F.M Alexander suggested that any stimulus to act should be met with 'inhibition' or 'stopping'.  This is not a periferal teaching in the AT.  The Alexander Technique only teaches two tools, and the first and most important is the use of tool he called 'inhibition'.  I maintain 'inhibition' is exactly the same as the 'stopping' the Abbot used to define Zen meditation.  'Inhibition' equals 'stopping the busyness of your life'.   

For those who continue to think that Zen is mindfulness meditation, consider that the approach almost always leads to back pain.  And that the Alexander Technique is the only intervention scientifically shown to help, in the long term, with chronic back pain.  

The Alexander Technique is the medication for the mindfulness illness.