Contemplative Care & Spirituality: Going Beyond Mindfulness Practice for Being with Suffering & Grief

Rev. Jin神仁法師

Contemplative Care & Spirituality: Going Beyond Mindfulness Practice for Being with Suffering & Grief

A Public Symposium presented by the Rinbutsuken Institute for Engaged Buddhism

the Sophia University Institute of Grief Care

the Tokyo Jikei Medical University Palliative Care Center

November 4, 2017

Tokyo Jikei School of Medicine, Tokyo

sponsored by the International Buddhist Exchange Center (IBEC)

Introduction

The practice of Buddhist based mindfulness meditation is now sweeping the world. Entering various secular fields like business, medicine, and even sports, mindfulness practice has helped people to reduce work related stress, be more efficient and focused in their endeavors, and find a pathway to inner peace. There are, however, critics of this movement—including the Buddhists that helped spawn it—who point out that mindfulness meditation (samadhi) in and of itself is not sufficient for true transformation and that isolating it from the ethics (sila) and a deeper understanding of the roots of ignorance (panna) can distort the practice in unfortunate ways. Furthermore, as wonderfully simple as mindfulness may seem, it is usually not a practice that is accessible for the deeply traumatized, such as those experiencing suicidal depression, recovering from a natural disaster or traumatic event, or dealing with the grief of a lost loved one. To become intimate with such people, and to be able to guide them to a place of stability from which an intensive mindfulness practice could be of help, requires a type of caregiver or “guide” who is in fact highly developed in all three of these facets of mindfulness, ethics, and the accompanying wisdom and resilience it requires to engage deeply in suffering.

(To read the whole report, please click at the following connection.)

http://jneb.jp/english/japan/rinbutsuken/jikeisymposium2017