Mindfulness is not some kind of new vaccine, the effects of which remain unknown even after passing serious trials. It is a very ancient practice that can change our consciousness for the better. As is well known, the Buddha taught mindfulness more than 2,500 years ago, and it became an essential practice in almost all Buddhist traditions. It is called sati in Pali, smriti in Sanskrit, and dranpa nyerzhak in Tibetan. Countless people have practiced mindfulness, resulting in inner peace and even profound experiences such as enlightenment. Many people in Asia still practice it with great reverence as a means of inner liberation.
Within recent decades, mindfulness has become quite popular in the West, almost a fashionable trend. There are now countless workshops, retreats, and apps devoted to mindfulness. Personal testimonies and scientific research supporting its positive effects have catapulted mindfulness into the cultural limelight. Many people in the West have found that they can use mindfulness to train their minds, develop a more positive outlook, and learn to work with their thoughts and emotions. This is not merely an assumption; there is concrete evidence of its benefits. One of the greatest strengths of mindfulness is that it can be universal. It can be practiced by people from different backgrounds because it is not built on a rigid theistic religious doctrine.
Uncertainty about the future, the decline of close-knit communities, toxic political divisions, the pervasive pressure of meritocracy, and climate change are contributing to increasing mental distress. The state of our minds may not get better on its own. Loneliness, depression, and anxiety are on the rise, according to some research. The situation can continue to spiral downward if we have no way to reflect on and understand our inner world and psyche.
You can easily encounter people who will tell you that mindfulness has profoundly changed their lives and that they wish they had discovered it much earlier. They may realize that if they had found it sooner, they would have suffered less and perhaps been kinder to others. Mindfulness can not only reduce stress; it can also become a profound spiritual practice that may transform our consciousness.
The opposite of mindfulness can be called unmindfulness—a state of mind in which we believe our thoughts and opinions without questioning them and are ruled by our emotions, lacking the wisdom of self-reflection. We all pay a high price when we fall prey to this state of mind. It may be the genesis of much of our suffering.
Think about two people living together who get into arguments because of their differences of opinion. With mindfulness, they can question their own thoughts and refrain from acting out their emotions in destructive ways. This is just a tiny example of its potential effect. We are constantly creating problems for ourselves simply because we do not know how to work with our minds.
Being ruled by our mind is perhaps one of the biggest causes of greed, hatred, depression, prejudice, fear, and misery. This has to do with the fact that we experience everything in life through the prism of the mind. Our sense of right and wrong, good and bad, is shaped and interpreted by our minds.
In the old days, mostly monks and nuns practiced meditation. In some Buddhist traditions, learning how to meditate was a big deal. They often studied meditation closely with a qualified Dharma teacher. Dharma teachers understood that without proper guidance, meditators could run into problems known as the “pitfalls of the path.” They knew when someone was ready—or not ready—to practice certain forms of meditation.
People often go through what is called nyam in Tibetan, which can be understood as a kind of Dharma-related meditative experience. It may involve unusual visions, ecstatic states, feelings of exaltation, or an intensification of fear and other emotions. Dharma teachers traditionally guide their students in working through these unusual experiences so that they do not become attached to them or stuck in them. When people encountered problems, it was often understood not as evidence that there was something intrinsically wrong with meditation, but that the meditator might have been practicing incorrectly or without proper guidance.
So is there a dark side to mindfulness?
There is no doubt that some people may experience unwanted effects from mindfulness practice. It can sometimes make people more sensitive to their inner experiences, bringing underlying emotions or thoughts to the surface and intensifying their awareness of them. If someone does not know how to practice mindfulness properly, particularly in accordance with traditional Buddhist approaches, this can sometimes lead to unpleasant or destabilizing experiences, especially for someone already struggling with mental health issues.
But does this mean that mindfulness itself has a “dark side”?
If some people experience unwanted consequences from an activity, practice, or product, does that automatically mean that the thing itself has a dark side? If so, we might come up with phrases such as the “dark side of walking,” because someone can twist an ankle or fall. Furthermore, what about the “dark side of water,” since someone can literally die from drinking too much water? Or how about the “dark side of bok choy”? Someone can gain weight from eating too much of it. Such a phrase might not go over well with many people in Asia who have eaten bok choy as a staple food for generations. By the way, bok choy is both harmless and delicious!
Instead of thinking in terms of the “dark side” of mindfulness, we should recognize that without the guidance of a qualified Dharma teacher, some people may end up practicing incorrectly. In an age when mindfulness has been co-opted and commercialized, we do not always know exactly who is teaching it or how it is being practiced.
The concept of the “dark side” of mindfulness can therefore be misleading. It may lead people to believe that there is something intrinsically wrong with mindfulness, when many problems associated with the practice may have more to do with how it is taught and practiced.
Perhaps it is time for everyone to revisit the way meditation has traditionally been taught in Asia and to draw upon essential ancient wisdom as a source of guidance for the practice of mindfulness.
Beyond its benefits at the individual level, mindfulness has the potential to help society become happier and kinder. The more people embrace mindfulness, the greater its potential benefit may be. It is one of the few ancient spiritual practices that can be practiced by people across cultures and traditions. Its potential to contribute to social transformation is enormous.
Overall, the widespread adoption of this ancient practice in the modern world is not something to be feared, but something to be welcomed. We should be grateful to the Dharma teachers who have been true pioneers in making these practices accessible to the general population.
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