Many people long for a spiritual practice that makes sense and is not woo woo or dogmatic. I find that many people have been very disappointed or hurt by conventional religious organizations, but yet want something to put their energy into that has meaning.
Generally speaking Buddhism is not a religion but a way of becoming conscious of our life, as it is. Every Buddhist teacher has their own expression of mindfulness practices and how they might be integrated into everyday life.
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist monk and Dharma teacher from Vietnam who brought a style of mindfulness practice to the attention of Western meditators that has been very accessible and useful in our modern daily life.
Thich Nhat Hanh developed 14 mindfulness trainings that sort out qualities of our life that need attention, no matter what we believe. These are areas that every human being deals with daily.
Fourteen mindfulness trainings: Openness, Non-attachment to Views, Freedom of Thought, Awareness of Suffering, Compassionate Healthy Living, Taking Care of Anger, Dwelling Happily in the Present Moment, True Community and Communication, Truthful and Loving Speech, Protecting and nourishing the Sangha, Right livelihood, Reverence for Life, Generosity, True love.
http://www.orderofinterbeing.org/for-the-aspirant/fourteen-mindfulness-trainings/
He also developed a movement called Engaged Buddhism which extended mindfulness meditation into social activism, working directly with cultural problems that plague all of us.
In an interview in Shambhala Sun:
“When I was a novice in Vietnam, we young monks witnessed the suffering caused by the war. So we were very eager to practice Buddhism in such a way that we could bring it into society. That was not easy because the tradition does not directly offer Engaged Buddhism. So we had to do it by ourselves. That was the birth of Engaged Buddhism.”
“Buddhism has to do with your daily life, with your suffering and with the suffering of the people around you. You have to learn how to help a wounded child while still practicing mindful breathing. You should not allow yourself to get lost in action. Action should be meditation at the same time.”
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1579
Thich Nhat Hanh’s influence on the mindfulness movement in the West has spread into health care, education, business, and sports. His organization of The Order of Interbeing-Tien Hien continues to provide a non-theistic approach to consciousness. More on Mindfulness and The Order of Interbeing/Tien Hien: http://www.orderofinterbeing.org
As a psychotherapist with forty-five years of meditation, I would encourage mindfulness of East meets West. There is a relationship of Western psychology with Buddhist psychology that is very important and sometimes over looked. As meditators we thought we could meditate our problems away without psychotherapy. We thought the spiritual bypass would take care of it but only acted as a defense against our individual and ancestral history; such as, child abuse, sexual abuse and discrimination, racial prejudice, religious confusion, trauma and so on. These matters need personal help, which in turn helps our meditation practice, which in turn benefits our psychotherapy. We are on a cutting edge of evolution where the ancient wisdom traditions and modern rationality, science and psychology can come together.
