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A major trend in popular spirituality right now, mindfulness is a technique by which practitioners focus on the present moment and what they objectively experience through their senses. The idea behind the technique is to interrupt thoughts and judgments that can potentially be overwhelming and heighten anxiety, thus reducing depression and other mental health disorders.
For example, if a person is experiencing stress while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, he might try to focus instead on the feel of the fabric covering the chair that he’s sitting on, on hearing the sounds of the music piping through the office waiting room, on looking at the flowers blooming on a potted plant nearby. Taking in these experiences and focusing one’s mind on them without judgment (such as deciding that the music that’s playing isn’t to one’s taste), is believed to calm the mind.
To some extent, this understanding of mindfulness is of a natural technique that doesn’t involve spiritual practice. Controversy arises in Christian circles, though, over the origins of mindfulness as a non-Christian Eastern meditation technique primarily associated with Hinduism and Buddhism.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, acknowledged that there can be positive natural benefits from techniques similar to mindfulness. The CDF also didn’t necessarily condemn Christian use of such techniques, noting that some are also common to Eastern Christian spiritual practice. It did warn, though, of their limitations:
Eastern Christian meditation has valued psychophysical symbolism, often absent in Western forms of prayer. It can range from a specific bodily posture to [focus on] the basic life functions, such as breathing or the beating of the heart. . . . On the other hand, the Eastern masters themselves have also noted that not everyone is equally suited to making use of this symbolism. . . . Understood in an inadequate and incorrect way, the symbolism can even become an idol and thus an obstacle to the raising up of the spirit to God. . . . It can degenerate into a cult of the body and can lead surreptitiously to considering all bodily sensations as spiritual experiences.
Mindfulness as a natural technique has both advocates and critics in Catholic circles. Some think that it is inherently dangerous, whereas others believe it can be integrated into Christian practice. In any case, we must heed the Church’s warning that reliance on natural techniques in prayer can lead Christians into believing that contemplation of God is the fruit of their own efforts instead of a free gift of God:
Some use Eastern methods solely as a psychophysical preparation for a truly Christian contemplation; others go further and, using different techniques, try to generate spiritual experiences similar to those described in the writings of certain Catholic mystics. Still others do not hesitate to place that absolute without image or concepts, which is proper to Buddhist theory, on the same level as the majesty of God revealed in Christ, which towers above finite reality. . . . These and similar proposals to harmonize Christian meditation with Eastern techniques need to have their contents and methods ever subjected to a thoroughgoing examination so as to avoid the danger of falling into syncretism.