https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=2R6IMhjtBEw
So, hi Jonathan, could you tell us what you think of the mindfulness revolution? This is Paul Dumasle. Of the mindfulness revolution and the current trend from psychologists like John Verbecky to use oriental spirituality. As psychology students, I see a lot of it and it makes me somewhat uneasy. And I cannot put my finger on what bothers me about it exactly. Seems to have something to do with Father Stephen Freeman’s warning about the modern tendency to see spiritual practices as mere techniques. Yes, I agree. I totally agree. I think that I think that there’s something about the mindfulness revolution, which is extremely individualistic and continues in the kind of individualism of the modern world. And which is why it wants to create technique without story, technique without cohesion, techniques without love, that kind of thing. And so, it doesn’t mean that mindfulness is bad. Of course, mindfulness is fine. In the church, we are said to always remember death. That’s the way Christians talk about mindfulness, is to remember your death. And that, so it is to be attentive to your sins, to be attentive to the places where you misstep, to the places where to see yourself in your crookedness, you could say. And so, to be mindful of your sins and to be mindful of God, to remember God, to remember your sins. Those two things at the same time. To always remember that there’s something above you and to always be aware of the places where you are stepping aside. And so, that is the way that mindfulness is, a form of mindfulness has always been part of Christianity. And so, a good way to understand that, if you want to connect it to something like mindfulness revolution, there is something about that. So, for example, if you were to be mindful of your death while you pray, what you would be doing is, as you’re praying, let’s say you’re praying the Jesus prayer, you’re repeating the Jesus prayer, and all of a sudden, you notice that you’re saying the Jesus prayer, but then you’re also thinking about something else. So, that’s a form of remembering death, like noticing the places where you die, noticing the places where you break apart, where your being is broken and fragments. And so, when you notice that, often it can be enough to snap things back together, to snap the fragments back into the whole. And so, that’s a good way to use it as a Christian.