Mindfulness for All by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2019-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

MINDFULNESS AND DEMOCRACY

Improbable as it may sound, the fact that more and more people are meditating these days or find themselves thinking about it and wanting to meditate could be thought of as one indicator of our ongoing collective evolution and nascent development as a democratic society.

The United States of America is a nation that, however imperfectly, rather early on declared its independence from oppression and autocracy—economic, political, and religious—a nation that articulated principles of individual autonomy and basic human rights “for all,” that spoke up early for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thus it set the stage for an inevitable and continual, if punctuated and grossly ironic evolution in individual and collective consciousness, given its own roots in genocide and slavery. Clearly the consciousness of the native peoples and enslaved Africans knew a very different reality from that of the lofty principles of the white power establishment enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

For what is liberty, what is freedom, if not the possibility, the right, and even the responsibility of each of us without exception finding our own way, and “way” with a capital W even, in the world—trusting our instincts and experiences, learning as we go, growing as we learn, even from what is most painful and from our own mis-takes and mistakes?

And what is growth metaphorically if not an expanded awareness of oneself in relationship to the larger world and one’s place in it, a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of things and their underlying harmony, even in the midst of chaos, and a deepening ability to live free of those forces, both inner and outer, that cloud our understanding of what is real and fundamental and most important? What is growth metaphorically if not an expanded empathy for others and for the world, a reaching out to suffering by one who already knows suffering intimately, or who could, and knows it? There is a requirement for humility here. Without hard-earned or naturally come-by humility, there can be little enduring wisdom or sustaining of compassion, nor their enshrining in basic laws as a bulwark against gross injustice and tyranny. Whether inward or outward, growth that does not come into harmony with the greater whole is a cancer, a disavowal of wholeness and balance and a major threat to them. Such growth is neither sustaining nor sustainable in a healthy body politic, in a true democracy.

If we allow ourselves to follow a path of evolving consciousness as individuals, in response perhaps to some deep and inchoate yearning for peace and happiness and for a greater freedom from the afflictions of disconnection and distress and dis-ease, sooner or later it will have a profound impact on our relationships with each other and on the society and world we inhabit. It has to.

Peace and happiness are not mere election slogans, commodities to be acquired or conferred. They are qualities that can only be embodied and lived. And they can only be embodied and lived in practice, not merely in the enunciation of principles, however lofty.

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