Stephen Batchelor offered a series of four workshops last month (Saturday 8, 15, 22, 29, October) on the topic of ‘Mindfulness Based Human Flourishing (MBHF): The Ethics and Philosophy of Mindful Living’.  Sponsored by Buddha-Stiftung, the workshops explored  the role of mindfulness practice as a key to flourishing in every aspect of human life.

In contrast to secular mindfulness programs like Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) which focus on healing a pathology (e.g., anxiety), MBHF provides a comprehensive ethical, contemplative and philosophical framework for mindfulness, based on a secular interpretation of the Buddhist foundation of mindfulness.

At the same time, in contrast to traditional versions of Buddhism, which are oriented to achieving nirvana or the complete and permanent liberation from suffering, MBHF supports human flourishing (eudaemonia) in this world. MBHF is a philosophy and practice for anyone who seeks to respond mindfully, creatively, and caringly to their own and others’ suffering.

The workshops were structured in relation to Stephen’s notion of the four tasks, his reconstruction of the Four Noble Truths. Stephen has created a pithy summary of this fourfold task – Embrace Life, Let Reactivity Be, See Reactivity Stop, and Actualize a Path, or ELSA. For each task, Stephen offered talks on two key themes that are essential components of the task. Each talk was followed by breakout groups and then a Q&A session.

After the series of workshops ended, there was a consensus that Mindfulness Based Ethical Living (MBEL) is a more apt way to characterize this new approach. Since this article summarizes the workshops, we continue to use MBHF in describing the approach.

First Workshop – October 8: Embrace Life (E)

Stephen began this session with an overview of MBHF. This new approach combines secular mindfulness practices, such as MBSR and MBCT, and a secular approach to the dharma. Stephen emphasized the need to move away from the use of Buddhist terms while still retaining the key ideas and insights of Gotama. He also stressed that the development of MBHF needs to be based on a collaborative and democratic approach in which patriarchal power structures are rejected and authority is widely distributed.

As a starting point, Stephen offered a chart, called the ‘Cartography of Care’ as a way of linking 32 dimensions or factors of awakening with the four tasks. For each task, there is set of factors which need to be cultivated as skills and virtues which are essential to human flourishing.

After discussing the overall framework for this approach, Stephen presented the skills and virtues which we need to embrace life in its totality. How do we understand and comprehend our situation as finite, vulnerable beings in a world that is often uncertain and unknowable? How do we gain the ability to be less reactive and have a less biased awareness in this world?

Stephen proposed that that the skills and virtues needed to achieve this task, to embrace life, can be grouped into three categories: 1) the ability to be mindful of the four domains of human experience (body, emotions, mind, and ideas) both inwardly and outwardly; 2) the resolve to be less reactive and promote a non-reactive way of being; and 3) the creativity to respond to life’s difficulties and deal with the internal and external obstacles to flourishing.

Second Workshop – October 15: Let Reactivity Be (L)

Stephen began his discussion on the skills and virtues needed for the second task by noting the centrality of care to MBHF.  He argued that care is an inclusive ethical sensibility and involves a deep sense of empathy, which is oriented toward reducing suffering and promoting flourishing. As the polar opposite to reactivity, expanding the circle of empathy is a key component of a flourishing life.

If we want to be a caring person, we need to understand that reactivity in all its forms prevents us from caring; reactivity limits our awareness and aims to what happens to us as individuals. Reactivity constricts the circle of empathy and thus limits us to a survival mode.

Why are we reactive? In contrast to the traditional Buddhist emphasis on craving as the basic root of reactivity and suffering, Stephen asserted that reactivity has three sources: our biological or instinctual reactions to unpleasant or frightening experiences; our psychological history and development, which often includes some measure of trauma; and the social institutions and habits which contribute to reactivity and suffering, including racism.

While we can never fully eliminate reactivity in our lives, we can, through mindfulness and a sense of care, diminish the impact of reactivity. We can learn how not to react to the reactivity that we experience as a normal part of life. We can let reactivity be.

Certain skills and virtues are essential for letting reactivity be. We need to have confidence in our capacity for change and the value of the path as well as the courage, the strength of heart, to deal with the difficult challenges of dealing with reactivity. Mindfulness plays a key role in the second task, too, as it provides us with the awareness that reactivity is occurring. But that mindfulness needs to be sustained by focus, the capacity to be present with reactivity, which in turn enables us to discern the sources of reactivity.

Third Workshop – October 22: See Reactivity Stop (S)

The third task is to learn how to dwell in a non-reactive space, to see reactivity stop. To the extent that we are less pulled and pushed by reactivity (the second task), we have the ability to experience more frequently moments and spaces in which non-reactivity is the dominant quality of our experience. This experience of non-reactivity was also recognized as central to human flourishing by certain Hellenistic Greek philosophers, who used the term ataraxia to describe it.

Stephen pointed out that it’s important not to see reactivity and non-reactivity in a binary way. They are not absolute states of experience but basic qualities of our experience. For example, reactivity can exist in the midst of non-reactivity. Further, the positive experience of stillness, of non-reactivity, is not to be developed for its own sake but as part of the overall path. There will always be an oscillation between movement on the path and moments of stilling/dwelling in non-reactivity on the path. The space of non-reactivity is actually the space in which we can act with choice and care. We move from non-reactivity to a proactive, skillful response to life’s challenges.

The third task, dwelling in non-reactivity, can be thought of as caring about the condition of our ‘soul’. It’s also linked to a sense of wonder, awe, and questioning.

As with the first and second tasks, certain skills and virtues are essential in accomplishing this task. Stephen led us in an imaginative meditation in which these skills and virtues were experienced in our body, moving from the base of our spine to the top of our head. Beginning with equanimity in the base of our spine, we moved upward to experience focus, stillness, joy, energy, wonder, and, finally, mindfulness.

This meditation helps cultivate a space of non-reactivity, a place from which we can act more wisely and compassionately in the world.

Fourth Workshop – October 29: Actualize a Path

The last workshop focused on how we can create a path, an unimpeded and purposeful space, in which we can respond ethically and skillfully to life’s challenges. Such a path is marked by a sense of wonder and perplexity about our existence and how we should live. The essential question is: What should I do? But this question is not just about my own life; it’s also about how we can together create a society in which all beings can flourish.

To create or actualize this path, we need to cultivate the skills and virtues found in the Noble Eightfold Path. In recent years, Stephen has reimagined and reconfigured the path factors to make them more relevant for our contemporary world. These skills and virtues can be divided into ‘internal’ and ‘external’ components:

The four internal factors are perspective, imagination, mindfulness, and focus. In this context, mindfulness has a primarily ethical dimension. It’s the awareness of what we are doing and its impact on ourselves and others.

The four external factors are those connected to our public words and deeds: application, voice, work, and survival. Here, Stephen pointed to the value of Hannah Arendt’s notion of homo faber, the unique, creative labor of human beings, as a key element of a flourishing life.

In his last talk of the program Stephen asserted that the internal and external factors can also be understood as representing respectively the contemplative and active aspects of human flourishing. The cultivation of both aspects, which mutually support each other, are essential to human flourishing. When we flourish, we have established a balance between a contemplative and active life.

Mindfulness is the core virtue which is present in all four tasks and in both the contemplative and active aspects of our lives. However, mindfulness has different modalities in each context:

• 1^st task – Mindfulness is existential; it is the ability to be attentive to our situation in life, to know what needs to be done to exist.
• 2^nd task – Mindfulness is therapeutic; it provides us with the capacity to experience reactivity and let it be.
• 3^rd task – Mindfulness is contemplative in nature; it gives us the ability to expand and stabilize our internal space so that we can dwell in non-reactivity.
• 4^th task – Mindfulness is ethically-focused; through mindfulness, we have the capacity to know what we should do in particular situations.

Stephen ended the program with a discussion of how an MBHF approach has some natural ‘allies’ in terms of contemporary movements and perspectives, including secular mindfulness programs, engaged Buddhism, Nonviolent Communication, Stoicism, and positive psychology. Rather than see MBHF as an exclusive repository of the wisdom on flourishing, we need to create a coalition of like-minded movements to promote a more mindful and compassionate world.

Next Steps

Stephen emphasized that the program is a work-in-progress, that we are just at the beginning of a process to develop this approach. He invited the participants to think of how they might contribute in the coming months. Several potential projects include exploring the connection between MBHF and important perspectives in cognitive science, the humanities, and political action. Another area is to develop MBHF curricula for courses and workshops.

There was much enthusiasm among the participants about engaging in this effort. A follow-up Zoom meeting was held 19 November and several projects were initiated, including the development of an 8-week course based on this approach.