the 9 attitudes of mindfulness
The Nine Attitudes underpin mindfulness and we try and cultivate and embody them not just during meditation but also in our day to day lives. They are:
Beginners Mind
Curiosity
Patience
Kindness
Non-Judgement
Acceptance
Non-Attachment
Non-striving
Gratitude
So what do they mean and why do they support our mindfulness practice?
Beginners Mind
When we bring a beginners mind to our activities, we drop all preconceptions and try to experience things with fresh eyes and ears, as if we’ve never done them before.
We often see what we expect to see. Our brains have an innate capacity for prediction. This is really helpful in many ways – it helps us utilise previous experience and anticipate what might happen or what to expect next time, even when we don’t have all the information. But it’s so quick to presume, that we often overlook reality. We see what we’re expecting to see, rather than what is actually there. This can lead to mistakes, misjudgements and relationship difficulties.
When we bring beginners mind to our moment by moment experience, we stay aware of our mind’s tendency to assume and expect. We try to remain open-minded in every scenario which allows us to see things as the really are, things that we might otherwise have missed and gives us the opportunity to be pleasantly surprised.
“In the beginners mind there are many possibilities. In the experts there are few.”
Non-judgement
Gosh we like to judge don’t we? Again, this is not our fault, it’s one of the human brain’s default settings. As a social animal our brains are wired to constantly compare and to differentiate. Them from us. Good from bad. Right from wrong. But it’s all relative. One man’s meat is another man’s poison, right? Life is not black and white. It’s every colour and shade imaginable.
Judgement drives us apart and shuts us down. It comes from an assumption we know everything. It puts people and circumstances into neat and tidy boxes whether or not they fit or belong there. It stops as seeing things clearly.
There’s an excellent story told in Steve Hagen’s wonderful book Buddhism: Plain and Simple about the wise Chinese farmer who’s horse ran off.
When his neighbour came to console him, the farmer said “Who know’s what’s good or bad?”
When his horse returned the next day with a herd of horses following her, the neighbour came to congratulate him on his good fortune. “Who knows what’s good or bad? said the farmer.
Then when the farmer’s son broke his leg trying to ride one of the new horses, the neighbour came to console him again. “Who knows what’s good or bad?” said the farmer.
When the army passed through conscripting men for war, they passed over the farmer’s son because of his broken leg. When the foolish neighbour came to congratulate the farmer on his son being spared, again the farmer said “Who know’s what’s good or bad?”
When we find ourself judging, we might ask ourselves instead: who knows?
Curiosity
Curiosity is the antidote to judgement. Rather than thinking this is good or that is bad, we just remain open and curious. It works hand in hand with kindness because it holds no assumptions.
Each time we practice a meditation for example, we remain curious. What am I experiencing right now? What do I notice? If we are meditating and we find our minds are busy and scattered, rather than judge ourselves (“this is a bad meditation session, I’m no good at this”) we remain curious. Where has my mind wandered to? The past or future? Is it planning, ruminating, imagining, worrying…? When we do this, we are more able to offer ourselves kindness rather than self-criticism and by objectively observing with curiosity, our minds interestingly, tend to settle down of its own accord.
If we’re experiencing pain for example, rather than rail against it thinking “I hate this, it’s horrible!” if we bring curiosity to our experience we drop out of judgement mode and notice what the pain is like – is it dull, sharp, continuous, intermittent, hot, cold, static, moving…? It might not make the pain go away, but it can certainly soften our experience of it and make it easier to bear.
Kindness
Kindness is the antidote to judgement, criticism and shame. When we experience shame the learning centres of our brain are actually shut down. But when we experience kindness it opens up the learning centres of our brain enabling change and growth.
It’s a strange thing but we can be very compassionate towards others and yet so hard on ourselves. Not only can we be terribly self-critical even when we’ve done our best, but we can even beat ourselves up for struggling at times. If we’re feeling sad, worried, anxious, fearful, we berate ourselves for feeling this way. I shouldn’t feel this way, others can just get on with it so why can’t I?
If a friend or loved one was struggling, would we tell them they shouldn’t feel that way? That they need to just get over themselves? That they’re stupid/rubbish/weak for feeling that or for making a mistake?
Yet we are so quick to do this to ourselves.
When we practice mindfulness we try always to bring kindness to our experience. Our mind is scattered and busy during meditation? We feel discomfort? Impatience? Worry? Exhaustion? Anger? Boredom? No matter what we experience we welcome it all and bring kindness to it. In this way we don’t get caught in a mental loop of self-criticism, shame and inadequacy. Instead we are able to offer ourselves what we need to get through it. To reach out for support. To try again. To have hope.
Bringing kindness to ourselves fosters kindness and compassion towards others. We feel our common humanity, the difficulties we all face in life and our shared desire for happiness and freedom from suffering. If we encounter a difficult person and we can bring kindness towards their behaviour, to see beyond our bruised egos to the human being that’s struggling in some way or doesn’t know a better a way to express themselves. Empathy and compassion diffuses anger and fear. We are more able to respond thoughtfully rather than react thoughtlessly.
If we’re not used to offering kindness to ourselves it can take practice and time. But again, it’s something that we can grow. And while we’re getting there? We bring kindness to the fact that we find kindness difficult.
Acceptance
Don’t let the attitude of acceptance be confused with resignation or passivity. Acceptance is actually one of the most courageous attitudes we can take. The latin root of acceptance is capere, meaning ‘to take, seize or capture’. In modern parlance we might call this owning our situation. We quite naturally have a tendency to resist things that we don’t like or don’t want to happen, but it rarely helps, rather increases our suffering.
Suffering = Pain x Resistance
Mindfulness fully acknowledges that pain is a part of life. We can’t avoid it.
However, if we can stop resisting things, and bring that unit to zero… well, you do the maths.
When we accept or own our situation, rather than expending our energy on wishing things were a different way or festering about how things should be, we can observe it calmly and clearly and take wise action. It might not remove the problem, but it does remove the suffering.
For example: There’s a traffic jam. You’re going to be late for an important appointment. You curse the damn traffic and fume about your bad luck, catastrophising about the the impact on your day. Does it help? Does it make the traffic clear or you reach your appointment any faster? No. Rather it increases your blood pressure and stress levels and sets you up for One Of Those Days.
How about instead of cursing and fuming you bring an attitude of acceptance to the situation? You think: I’m stuck. I can’t go anywhere. I’m probably going to miss my appointment. There’s nothing I can do about it, it’s out of my control and therefore out of my hands. You stay calm and let your appointment know you will be late and you might need to rearrange. With Plan B organised you relax into your situation, perhaps taking the opportunity to enjoy a favourite radio station, podcast or audiobook, or even calling a friend for a pleasant chat. When you finally get going, you are ready to calmly and positively get on with your day.
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional”
Patience
Some things take time. We don’t plant an apple seed today and expect to eat apples tomorrow.
Unfortunately we now live in a fast paced world where we expect everything instantly – responses, products, information, gratification. Our modern world is eating away out ability to wait, to take time, to go slow. Positive change doesn’t happen in an instant. Habits and patterns of thinking and behaviour that have formed over decades don’t just undo over night.
Having patience enables us to stop trying to push or force things unnaturally and unnecessarily.
Remember what we told by our parents? Good things come to those who wait.
“Nothing in Nature is rushed, yet everything is accomplished”
Non-Striving
Talking of pushing and forcing, quite often when we start out on our mindfulness journey we feel like we should be feeling a certain way. We’re looking for peace, for an empty mind, for pain relief, for something. But if we can bring an attitude of non-striving, we let go of attachments to things being a certain way. We stop trying to force things and let things unfold naturally.
Non-striving works hand-in-hand with patience and acceptance. It helps keep us out of doing mode and helps us stay in being mode where we are able to observe things as they are in the present moment (not how we want them to be), and take wise action accordingly. Sometimes wise action involves not doing anything at all.
For example: if one of my sons is feeling sad or upset about something, I might experience a natural urge to make him feel better – to fix things. This is a sense of striving – of pushing or forcing things to be a certain way. When I can relax into being open to the way things are, I accept his emotions and validate his experience. This gives him space to acknowledge and be with his feelings, allowing them to pass naturally.
Non-striving can sometimes be confused with apathy, being a lazy or not working towards goals or something you want. Having goals is not incompatible with non-striving. In fact the attitude of non-striving can help us achieve our goals in a more harmonious way for ourselves and those around us. The key is keeping our goal held gently and firmly in mind but not holding rigid ideas or being too prescriptive about how we reach that goal. It allows life to present another way that perhaps we hadn’t envisaged. It also gives us the freedom to change our goals if we realise something isn’t working, isn’t quite what we imagined or if something even better presents itself.
Non-attachment
This complements non-striving and acceptance. A perennial human problem is our tendency to grasp and push away. We want to hold onto the things we like and want and run away from things we don’t want or like. We become attached to ideas, possessions, outcomes even relationships. But this ignores the truth that everything in life is constantly changing. Circumstances change and people change. Even on a cellular level we are constantly changing in every moment. When we are attached to having certain things or things being a certain way, when it does’t turn out that way, we suffer.
That’s not to say we can’t enjoy possessions, circumstances, relationships or events. It simply means we acknowledge nothing is permanent and remain open to accepting change. We stay adaptable. We learn to go with the flow.
“…you simply keep clearly in mind where you would like to go, and then patiently and harmoniously follow the river of life until it takes you there. The river of life sometimes takes a winding course toward your goal. It may even seem temporarily to be going in a different direction entirely, yet in the long run it is a more effortless and harmonious way to get there than struggling and striving… it is that balance between keeping your destination firmly in mind and yet enjoying all the beautiful scenery you encounter along the way, and even being willing to change your destination if life starts taking you in a different direction. In short it means being firm but flexible.”
Gratitude
The benefits of experiencing gratitude can be wide reaching and profound. Studies have shown that a regular gratitude practice decreases depression, anxiety, chronic pain and boosts mood, the immune system, happiness and mental and physical health.
An attitude of gratitude can soften many a difficult situation. Whenever I’m stuck in a traffic jam, I take a moment to be grateful that I’m not involved in the incident that caused it. If I’m struggling with something, like a frustrating IT issue, I remember to be grateful for electricity, modern conveniences and the technology that supports my work and life. If I’m ill, I’m grateful for the opportunity to rest and recuperate. No it doesn’t make the problem go away, but it certainly brings a sense of perspective and softening.
Gratitude – like many of the above attitudes – can be grown, developed and strengthened. The more we bring awareness to that which we’re grateful for, the more we notice things to be grateful for. It becomes a virtuous cycle. With repetition and patience we can build the muscle of gratitude until it becomes our default setting. Gradually we come to see that even the challenges life presents us with are an opportunity to learn and grow and we feel less afraid of what might be ahead. We feel more satisfaction, contentment and peace.
Integration into mindfulness
When we cultivate these attitudes and bring them not only to our meditation practice but also to our moment by moment experience, combining them with our intention and our attention, we have a powerful tool to help us live our lives to their greatest potential.
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