Mindfulness & Kindfulness

I came across an interesting article a while ago about the increasing amount of Western people who are engaged in the practice of Mindfulness, practicing Mindfulness of breath or generally being mindful during their day.

Apparently, the article tells us, it has been documented that being mindful only, without practicing the other methods traditionally associated with meditation, makes for a very unbalanced and disproportionate experience. In fact, in many cases it can become counter-productive. A group of yogi's and meditators formed part of a study, and the outcome was quite startling: mindfulness only has proven to cause an increase in ego and self-absorbed behaviour!

This was part of my motivation for leaning towards "Maitri" in this week's meditation. Maitri can be translated as 'lovingkindess' or 'unconditional friendliness'. Maitri is a necessary part of mindfulness meditation. Balancing out mindfulness with compassion, equanimity and kindness is essential to establishing a solid meditation practice.

As Bodhipaksa wrote recently on his blog Wildmind:

"There’s an unfortunate tendency these days to see mindfulness as being the only quality we need to develop in meditation, and that everything else follows automatically. But that’s not how practice works, or how it’s traditionally been taught.

Just the other week I had a conversation with someone who seemed rather proud that the only form of meditation practice he did was mindfulness of breathing. He saw this as being a complete and sufficient practice unto itself.

The problem was that his personality seemed very lopsided. He was very austere and emotionally dry. In our conversation there was no emotional give and take, and when I talked about a personal matter that was troubling me his responses totally missed the mark. It was like we were talking two different languages that, rather confusingly, used the same words to mean very different things. It was very perplexing. Although I think he wanted to be able to respond empathetically, he didn’t seem to be able to actually do so.

What was lacking was the balancing factor of kindness and compassion. There is a whole set of meditation practices to do with things like kindness, compassion, appreciation, and reverence. And those practices are important; they are not optional extras but part of Buddhism’s core curriculum."

I really love the way Pema Chodron talks about Maitri in one of her teachings. She's always so straight forward and I find her even a little tongue-in-cheek sometimes. A wonderful, balanced perspective:

"Unconditional friendliness is training in being able to settle down with ourselves, just as we are, without labeling our experience as “good” or “bad.” You can discover who you are at your wisest and who you are at your most confused. You get to know yourself in all your aspects: at times completely sane and openhearted and at other times completely messed up and bewildered. We are all at times a basket case. Meditation gives you the opportunity to get to know yourself in all those aspects."

With our meditation practice, we learn to establish a steadiness. We learn also to be kind to others in our daily life. That is a very basic attitude to have, to be kind to everybody. You may think that's simple, but in meditation terms this means being kind to every body. Not only friends. Not only the person who likes you, not only the person who helps you. Even people who criticise you, who mistreat you, as well as strangers who do neither. Even to animals. To practice that, to treat every living being well, that is the most wonderful way to live. To be kind and respectful to everyone, that should be the fundamental to our practice.

We learn from various religions "treat others as you would treat yourself", but many people are not given a practical method or way to practice this. Even though there is truth and wisdom in those statements, true insight into how to cultivate love for all beings is not part of what we are taught. In meditation, with maitri meditation, we learn to practice kindness - to ourselves as well as to others.

It doesn't cost anything to be kind. And after some time of practicing kindness - on purpose - you will notice it has positive benefits for both yourself as well the the person or animal receiving your kindness. It's just good stuff all 'round.