[Avodah] What is Mindfulness and does Judaism have

[Shoshana L. Boublil]

> Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:00:26 -0800 (PST)
> From: Yonatan Kaganoff <ykaganoff at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Avodah] What is Mindfulness and does Judaism have it

> I am trying to respond to a number of responses to my original post in a 
> single email.  Please forgive me if I err on the side of brevity.

I haven't as yet read this complete thread, so I am skipping and just 
responding to 2 issues:

>  So I still have yet to be convinced that Judaism teaches any form of 
> Mindfulness, let alone Mindfulness 2.0.

I'm not an expert on terminology of Mussar etc., so while I may not know 
what something is called, I do know that it exists.  In this case the Gmara 
brings (at least) 2 examples of mindfulness.  I'll bring one:

Lomdim Nekiyut [learning cleanliness] from the cat.

This is a perfect example of Mindfulness.  You are attentive to the world 
around you and you carefully examine it -- and learn from it something that 
impacts on your own behavior.

Other examples are present in the G'mara. Many of them are incorporated in 
Aggadita.

>  2) I personally think it a bit arrogant to describe all of Buddhaism 
> [Mahayana, Hinayana (Theravad), Tibetan, (Rinzai and Soto) Zen, American 
> Western, etc.] in broad strokes.  Especially, as most Western Jews (and 
> Christians) practice a deracinated disconnected form of Buddhism, cut off 
> from normative Buddhaism as it has been practiced for two thousand years.
>
>  But I think that MB has hit on a key appeal of Western Style Buddhism to 
> many Jews.  Instead of constantly acting and reacting, constantly climbing 
> up the ladder (whether that ladder is material success, spiritual 
> accomplishment, or learning Torah) many Ju-Bus find in Buddhism the "Be 
> Here Now" a stillness that is absent from Judaism as practiced in most 
> circles.

Professor Friedman, of the Dept. of Chemistry at BIU, went to study in India 
etc. in his youth.  Many years later, when he became religious, he wrote an 
article which was published in Rav Hesse's Emunot VeDeiOt.

During discussions, ( I was his student) Prof. Friedman once summed up the 
differences between Judaism and Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies:

The Eastern Philosophies deal with "Shev VeAl Ta'aseh".  Reaching Nirvana is 
a complete stillness that does not impact on the world, or as the Prof. used 
to say "does not harm the world".

For Jews, this is insufficient.  We are ordered also "Kum Aseh" -- we have 
the obligation to impact on the world and fix it, to do things.

This would mean that it is quite logical for people who don't want to pursue 
"Kum Aseh", to limit themselves to "Shev VeAl TaAse" - the stillness you 
describe in Eastern philosophies, b/c if they studied Judaism, they would be 
required to do more.

BTW, there are quite a few testimonies of this sort here in Israel.  They 
usually include the point that as the Jewish student reached the highest 
level of study and sought for more, the Eastern teacher, after discussing 
matters with him, sent him back to Israel to learn b/c only Judaism has the 
higher level his soul required.

Shoshana L. Boublil