Can a Christian practice mindfulness?Yoga, mindfulness and Christian prayerA map of the different spiritualitiesWhen researching whether the Church recommends or discourages mindfulness for Catholics, one notices that most references in the few magisterial documents that speak of it, move between total disapproval, or a strong call for caution when applying it. The same happens if one looks for opinions on the subject in religious information web pages faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, since evidently they are nourished in the first place by the opinions emanating from the pastors.
Serious problems
It is true that there are very good reasons for many bishops, priests and discerning people to discourage mindfulness. For example, in some Church institutions, traditional spiritual exercises (based on external silence, reception of the sacraments and preaching) have been replaced by yoga, Zen meditation or mindfulness retreats.
On the other hand, there are Catholic schools and universities that offer activities on these subjects as if they were the natural or "modern" replacement for the Christian way of praying. Just because of these two facts, we must recognize that the confusion generated has been very noticeable and, even, especially serious in some contexts, so it is natural that many people have set off all the alarms.
The admiration for Eastern practices has gone hand in hand with the rise of many pseudo-religious, esoteric, magical or fanciful beliefs. Of course, they have affected not only Christians but all citizens, to the point that one can find clinics presenting as therapies of similar efficacy physiotherapy or reiki sessions (a Japanese healing practice based on the idea that a vital energy flows through the body and can be channeled by the therapist's hands; its assumptions are incompatible with the Christian faith).
The growth of the celebration of Halloween (the second most expensive holiday after Christmas) or the normalization of many supposed "spiritual" practices (horoscopes, tarot, Ouija, Santeria and many others) are other examples of this phenomenon of diversity of unscientific or irrational beliefs.
To such an extent has the relevance of approaching this type of matters been minimized that not even topics directly related to the devil are taken with a minimum of credibility. Therefore, it is not surprising that one of the largest commercial chains in Spain put on sale two months ago a game, for those over 14 years of age, called "Invoke demons". The protests it generated on social networks led to its removal from the shelves, but it shows well the extent to which these issues are frivolized.
In spite of this worrying context, it is worth considering in depth whether mindfulness can be considered a therapeutic practice different from the previous ones. Christian faith should not be afraid to take advantage of all that is true and good in all things. Add to this the fact that mindfulness is increasingly recommended by many psychologists and psychiatrists to address stress or anxiety, and it would be quite counterproductive for the Church to oppose it without well-founded reasons.
The Christian faith upholds the compatibility between faith and reason, so the believer should not be afraid to analyze things calmly and deeply.
Westernization of yoga
Mindfulness, known in English as "mindfulness", is a practice that has its roots in Buddhist philosophy, being a fundamental part of the Dharma wheel, which summarizes the fundamental teachings of Buddhism. Specifically, "mindfulness" is part of the "Noble Eightfold Path", one of the steps of yoga to try to eliminate suffering.
Undoubtedly, this Buddhist perspective is incompatible with the Christian faith, since it seeks to attain a state of complete happiness that does not require divine help. Its Gnostic heritage is evident, since knowledge and personal asceticism are the main causes of personal development.
Fifty years ago, Western societies were much less credulous and syncretistic than they are today, so it was not easy for yoga and all the religious and cultural ideas on which it is based to penetrate public opinion. However, a group of doctors thought that some of its practices.
could be beneficial to mental health, regardless of whether their assumptions were accepted. One of them was Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a doctorate from MIT, who in the 1970s developed a stress reduction program based on mindfulness in the United States. To gain acceptance, he eliminated the religious component of the Eastern practice, which facilitated its acceptance in health and wellness contexts.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a practice that can be done in many ways. To begin, it is enough to be properly seated in a chair, close your eyes and try to pay full attention of the mind to the breath. Another possibility is to try to notice other perceptions of the different senses of which we are not usually aware.
While trying to concentrate for several minutes on bodily sensations, it is easy to become distracted by other thoughts that have probably also occupied your attention at other times of the day: a purchase or call to be made, a work issue, a family problem, and so on. Many of these thoughts can be negative or stressful, especially if one accumulates them and constantly turns them over.
Mindfulness invites people to let thoughts go, especially if they are stressful or negative, but when this is not possible, it tries to make the practitioner notice the positive aspects of a bad thought. Is it really so bad? Does it help if I get stressed or depressed? Can I be happy in spite of that bad news?
Once the subject who practices mindfulness has relativized the importance of his thoughts and emotions, he will try to return to pay attention to bodily sensations. Doing this once is of little use, but if one repeats it daily and acquires a certain habit, one will be able to increase one's capacity to attend to the present moment and stop being continually distracted by other hypothetical thoughts that produce stress. As it is logical to suppose, one of the effects of the practice of mindfulness is an increase in the ability to concentrate.
Attitudes that develop
As we have seen, mindfulness aims to pay as much attention as possible to the present moment, making it easier for negative thoughts not to colonize the mind and end up exhausting it. The regular practice of this therapy tries to foster a series of attitudes in people, especially:
-Acceptance: accept the present moment even if it is bad or, as far as possible, emphasizing the positive.
-Not judging: many times you cannot change your circumstances, but what you can do is to decide what attitude to take towards them, trying not to make harsh or negative judgments that do not solve anything and only produce dissatisfaction.
-Do not become obsessed: if you do not achieve something you do not have to feed uselessly the anxiety for not achieving it. It is more positive to try to enjoy the road you travel until you achieve a goal.
-Patience: do not always look for what pleases us, do not try to do things perfectly. The important thing is to improve little by little.
-Confidence: believing that you are capable of achieving whatever you set out to do, so it is important not to give up.
Valuation
Analogous to going to the gym regularly, if you practice 15 or 30 minutes of mindfulness daily, you can develop a good "mental musculature" to face the day to day. However, just as in sports, one can get injured if one does
In the case of mindfulness, it is also necessary to find a balance between acceptance of one's own limitations and a proactive attitude to try to change what can be changed. It is good here to bring up Aristotle's saying: virtue is found in the middle ground between vicious extremes.
This article is not intended to establish a medical judgment on mindfulness, assessing to what extent it is effective, for which problems it is most useful to recommend it, etc. Health professionals are the ones who should assess this issue.
What is interesting to note is how this therapy is being recommended by more and more therapists (including some who are good Catholics) and many people admit that it has positive effects on their lives.
So, seeing what exactly the practice of mindfulness may consist of and how it is perfectly detachable from the religious and syncretistic roots of yoga, it is worth asking whether it has anything that directly attacks Catholic dogma or morality.
Mindfulness and Christianity
If the above has been correctly understood, it does not appear that there are something inherently wrong with the practice of mindfulness. Another thing is that one goes to courses, books or therapies that mix mindfulness with other esoteric issues. However, in that case it is important to know that these proposals would be deviations from what most therapists understand mindfulness to be.
Another risk that may arise for a believer is that the practice of mindfulness may awaken in him a certain curiosity or attraction to Eastern methods of meditation (yoga, Zen, etc.) or alternative natural methods (such as reiki). If a person has little knowledge and practice of faith and a tendency to credulity, he or she may be fascinated by the unknown and think that there is as much wisdom in other cultures as in Christianity; that the lack of evidence in other religious traditions is comparable to the lack of evidence for a Christian to accept the Genesis account, and so on. Now, these types of problems should encourage Catholic leaders to promote formation in these types of questions. It is not a good attitude not to make the effort to discriminate which aspects can be positive and which cannot.
Mindfulness is not prayer
The first reason why mindfulness is confused with Christian prayer is because the same word is often used to describe both practices: "meditation". For example, on the one hand, "meditation" is spoken of in a Christian context as a mode of personal prayer, distinct from formal vocal prayers (such as the rosary or breviary). On the other hand, when one practices mindfulness one also says that one is going to devote time to "meditation". The same concept is used, but its meaning is very different.
But the parallels between the two practices do not end there, since from the outside the two can be indistinguishable. One person cannot tell whether another is praying quietly trying to talk to God or trying to concentrate on his senses and thoughts. Now, these two activities are actually very different. Prayer is a dialogue of man with God, while mindfulness is a psychological introspection with oneself. In prayer one tries to seek God's will and identify with Him, while mindfulness seeks to find physical and psychological well-being.
Understanding these differences is essential to understanding the difference between a healthy meditation practice to improve health and Christian meditation. The former can develop positive attitudes for personal well-being, while the latter opens to a personal relationship with God through dialogue. The recommendations of the Church's pastors have always emphasized this aspect in their commentaries over the past two decades.
Problematic positions
Without pretending to name specific names, it is good to know that some priests with great media influence have promoted certain meditation practices in which it is not clear where their methodologies lead. Some of these positions are worrisome because they do not make it clear whether personal introspection is an end in itself or, rather, are only a means to improve concentration and get away from the noise of the daily grind, which then seeks to develop a personal relationship with God.
Other proposals, even more deviant, maintain that it is necessary to transcend the limitations of Christian dogmas and sacraments in order to enter into a direct relationship with God. Naturally, these types of ideas, held by priests or other relevant persons in the Church, have aroused the concern of the hierarchy and provoked its pronouncements.
It is of course good that these wake-up calls have occurred, although at times overly prescriptive judgments may have been made against mindfulness. In this regard, it may be even better to investigate further whether the meditation advocated by many psychotherapy practitioners is always problematic for a believer or can be accepted as a means to improve emotional health and well-being (knowing that these are always limited).
