Spacious Awareness in Mahāyāna Buddhism and Its Role in the Modern Mindfulness Movement

Abstract

This paper investigates a particular understanding of ‘awareness’ in Mahāyāna Buddhism and its relevance for secular mindfulness. We will focus on the Zen and Mahāmudrā traditions which share a view of awareness as an innate wakefulness, described using metaphors of space, light and clarity. These traditions encourage practices in which the meditator rests in this spacious ‘non-dual’ awareness: Zen’s ‘just sitting’ and Mahāmudrā’s ‘open presence’. We explore the role of this approach within secular mindfulness, in particular Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). We see how Jon Kabat-Zinn brought influences from Zen into the creation of MBSR, in his approach of ‘non-doing’, and in the practice of ‘choiceless awareness’, akin to Zen’s ‘just sitting’. We then examine how ‘open presence’ meditation is developed in the Tibetan Mahāmudrā tradition, using a sixteenth-century text Mahāmudrā: The Moonlight as our focal point. Turning to interviews with leading UK mindfulness teachers with Tibetan Buddhist training, we explore how this understanding of awareness can infuse meditation with a sense of ‘space’, and how that manifests in their teaching. We argue that a willingness to explore the ‘space of awareness’ can help mindfulness to offer a transformative path beyond stress reduction and therapy.

Notes

1. Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen (known jointly as Chag-zôg, phyag-rdzogs) grew up as distinctive traditions, but were brought closely together in the 19th-century Non-sectarian (Ris med) movement (Lutz, Dunne, and Davidson 2007, 508; Williams 1989, 115). I have chosen to focus on Mahāmudrā as it has been less explored in academia than Dzogchen, apart from John Dunne’s work cited below.

2. See Everyday Mindfulness (2017), Mindfree Mindfulness Courses (n.d.), and Optimal Living (2017).

3. Insight Meditation teachers have founded the Mindfulness in Schools Project, take leadership roles at mindfulness teacher training institutions, and give keynote speeches at the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice Conference (Bangor University 2015; London Insight, n.d.). Gaia House, an Insight Meditation retreat centre, offers retreats specifically for mindfulness teachers (Gaia House 2016).

4. The Triratna community has a plurality of Buddhist influences too complex to discuss here (Triratna Buddhist Community, n.d.).

5. Insight meditation practitioners included Chris Cullen, Madeleine Bunting. Triratna: Vishvapani Blomfield, Michael Chaskalson. Shambhala: Ed Halliwell, Bridgette O’Neill, Tessa Watt, Chris Tamdjidi. Contributors are listed in Mindfulness Initiative (2015), 81.

6. In the UK these include Cindy Cooper and Bridgette O’Neill (Bangor University), Ed Halliwell (author, teacher), Dr Jonty Heaversedge (author, chair of Southwark NHS Clinical Commissioning Group), Chris Tamdjidi (Director of Kalapa Academy), Tessa Watt (teacher, author, Associate of Oxford Mindfulness Centre).

7. My comments are based on 25 years personal experience of Shambhala Training.

8. Shenpen Hookham’s Awakened Heart Sangha; Rigdzin Shikpo’s Longchen Foundation.

9. In my courses, participants often request copies of readings they find meaningful.

10. For example, I attended a Bangor University Teacher Training Retreat (January 2015), during which only 3 of 30 participants practiced regularly with eyes open, all Tibetan or Zen practitioners.

11. ‘Mindfulness, Compassion and Insight’ training is run at Aberdeen University, Kagyu Samye Ling and other locations (Harris 2016; Mindfulness Association 2016).