Mindfulness marching to the mainstream does not appear to show signs of slowing down. That’s good in balance. However, I have been increasingly not mentioned much these days aspects of the approach that are considered important to make meditation a habit.
Individualistic cultures often portray mindfulness as a solo exercise. Maybe that’s not a surprise. We imagine someone sitting alone and cultivating attitudes such as curiosity and kindness. Practice mindfulness yourself is definitely helpful. However, traditionally, learners trained in groups and communities. I think that most of the therapeutic benefits of personal mindfulness come from this tradition. why? This is because if you get closer to practice, you can learn alongside others.
Why can the community continue to meditate?
When people gather for the first session of mindfulness training, it is common to explore what leads each individual to the approach.
During the opening session, you will hear others talk about the stress that arises from common issues such as:
Busy, uncontrolled thoughts physical or emotional pain in the world that demands consumption and mastery of the degree of tension dehumanization of personal and professional commitments
Often, there is the initial realization that the real problem is not just me as an individual. Instead, people see the common burden of living in the human world in the frail human being.
Suddenly, we are all involved in this together, from places where we are often marginalized and alone. We don’t feel bad because we are flawed, but this is the path of things in the world that we share.
Suddenly, often from alienated places, alone, and perceived. We’re all together. And we don’t feel bad because we are flawed, but this is the path of things in the world that we share. It’s not our own fault. This reduces pressure and brightens. My journey to mindfulness is beginning to come.
Over time, as groups of people develop this kind of mindfulness, a sense of connection and commonality usually develops. There is a sense of mutual support that allows us to learn, love, laugh at ourselves and let go together.
This way we stay together as a group may be the same, or perhaps even more important, as formal meditation practices we take as part of our work.
I think it’s easier for people to open up to themselves and each other, especially when promoted by good teachers. I also found that meditation in groups is one of the best ways to encourage people to practice on their own. Perhaps counterintuitively, that sense of unity makes meditation more meaningful. This makes meditation more manageable on its own. Integrity helps to make meditation a habit, whether solo or in the community.
More research is needed
In my opinion, this hypothesis – mindfulness as a group activity is much stronger than practicing yourself, and using apps and CDs in books (though these may be good) – has not been thoroughly investigated in mindfulness research.
I really don’t know what the specific benefits of learning mindfulness together are. However, people’s attitudes and behaviors indicate related research that shows that the operating environment provides several cues.
It is logical that a meditative community will become a more exciting and influential learning zone for mindfulness than where speed, greed and “go alone” is the norm. However, this is not offered to most people, and at least not beyond the first eight weeks of a mindfulness-based stress relief or cognitive therapy course. There are still very few completely secular options for continuous training available to graduates of such courses. Also, there are no retreat centres that are completely dedicated to a non-dochitral mindfulness approach.
If we want the current surge to mindfulness to become more than just a drop in sane in the ocean of materialistic madness, we need to create a community where conservation can curate core attitudes and approaches that protect practices from perversion, dissolution, and misuse. We want to make meditation a habit for more people…and we want to do it in a healthy and supported way.
This is not a simple task and does not happen completely. We live in a messy world with messy minds. Taking the purist line of sermons can be counterproductive.
Mindfulness is now in the mainstream that the feeling that we have to go alone is part of the problem rather than a solution.
I think naming the problem gives you a better chance. Mindfulness is in the mainstream of feelings It’s part of the problem and not a solution that we have to go on its own. Yes, the pressure on one’s own self-help approach to mindfulness is strong. But going that path, we may actually be something that is a pale mimic of the powerful force that allows for mindfulness to be possible.
If we sympathetically acknowledge social and environmental disorders, we can all be collectively responsible and leaning against each other for support, making lasting and positive impact.
