Cross-Cultural Mindfulness

Introduction to Cross-Cultural Mindfulness

We are facing a time in humanity of great division and despair as we witness the unfolding of a dying ecosystem. We are experiencing the challenges of a world in crisis, pandemic, war, racial inequality, economic disparity, displacement, and climate devastation. We need a framework for building up ourselves and each other - together.

“Indigenous and Eastern cultures have long recognized that the only constant is change, and the principle of interdependence is essential for survival.”

- Angeles Arrien

Cross-Cultural Mindfulness is a framework that brings together universal principles common across many cultures to help us integrate with our most primordial selves.

According to vocabulary.com, "Primordial comes from the Latin words primus, meaning 'first' and ordiri, 'to begin.' So it is easy to see that this adjective means 'first of all, original.' When something is primordial, it has existed since the earliest time, like the primordial mud some scientists believe was the source of all life on Earth."

This framework centers on the foundations of mindfulness that are grounded on the breath, body, heart, and mind. Cultures from all four corners of the world understand this framework to be fundamentally necessary to connect with our direct experience of the ever changing flow of life itself, which is essential to how we hold ourselves and each other in this very difficult time for humanity. In this course, participants will:

• Cultivate stillness, deep listening, and the ability to pay attention to present moment experience with a quality of mind that is alert, open, aware, and fully alive.

• Explore Earth-Based Practices to experience the truth that can be revealed through being in direct relationship with Nature.

• Practice ways of tracking what is present for us, the visible and invisible.

• Learn how to witness the mirroring of our internal and external realities through a self-assessment tool that explores how we are surviving and thriving.

• Learn the distinction between Cross-Cultural Mindfulness and secular mindfulness.

Every time we practice mindfulness meditation, we are actively engaging with life itself internally and externally. Our internal landscape is a full living ecosystem no different from our beloved Earth, deeply connected to one another with no separation of other living beings, seen and unseen. Hence, this is why we honor the form and the formless as we acknowledge those who have come before us and after us. Our ancestors are living through us and the acknowledgement of our cultural roots is vital for a deeper understanding of our freedom beyond this body, this culture, this identity and this world. We open ourselves to this precious life shared with so many and embody the knowing that we are not separate from any of it. This practice is a vital antidote to the divisive patterns being amplified in our declining ecosystem worldwide.

Finally, as most know, the timeless practice of mindfulness was historically taught by the Buddha. The teachings of the Buddha belong to all living beings. At the same time, Asian descendants whose cultural and ancestral lineages have preserved Buddhism throughout history, have a particular birthright to Buddhism. Known as Heritage Buddhists, these Asian diaspora communities must navigate the complexities and intersectionalities of modern day Buddhism. Many must practice holding the tension of oppressive aspects of patriarchy and traditionalism in Buddhism while also the harms of racism, invisibility, erasure, and cultural appropriation perpetuated by colonization. Cross-Cultural Mindfulness honors the contributions of Heritage Buddhists to the ongoing preservation and expansion of mindfulness and contemplative practices worldwide while making space for the evolving complexities and unfolding needs facing these specific practitioners.