How to Incorporate Your Spiritual Practice with Mindfulness?
My meditation students often ask me this question, sometimes with a hint of discomfort or hesitation. I was told that I sound too rational for such questions, because my method of teaching mindfulness relies on psychology, not spirituality. The truth is, I consciously choose not to discuss my spiritual beliefs in public because, to the extent that I have them, they belong in my private life. I focus on psychology when I teach meditation because this is something that everyone can benefit from, regardless of the culture they come from or their specific life circumstances. There’s also the fact that I’m a psychotherapist, which makes me qualified to discuss psychology.
I am not, however, closed off to discuss people’s spiritual practices and, in fact, I find the topic fascinating. Religion and spirituality can be such important psychological resources – firm, authoritative sources of meaning for many people. As a therapist and a life coach, I’ve worked with people who have vastly different spiritual beliefs, ranging from Christians, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims to polytheists such as Wiccans or other pagans and occultists. I’ve learned from each and every one of them and grown as a professional and as a person.
I’ll share some of my thoughts on how to combine meditation with your religious and spiritual beliefs and lessons that I learned from my clients.
Is mindfulness really spiritually neutral?
Mindfulness is often marketed as a mind training system, or as a way to reduce anxiety and stress. And that’s true enough – it does train your mind, it does reduce your anxiety and it does make you more resilient to stress. When I began practicing mindfulness I was very careful to find teachers who taught secular mindfulness, something that I teach today too. But as years went by and as I began seeing how I’m being transformed by the practice, I began wondering whether it truly was spiritually neutral.
Let me briefly explain the very vague way I think of spirituality. For me, spirituality refers to a sense of connection to something greater than myself coupled with a kind of search for meaning, purpose, and perhaps even transcendence in life. Taken that way, I hope you can see that I can find something spiritual in many places. Beauty is a spiritual experience for me, perhaps the most powerful one. Standing in front of the statue of Antinous in the Vatican Museums or the Discobolus in Palazzo Massimo in Rome are spiritual experiences. Looking at the ocean and watching the sunset from Havana’s Malecón is a spiritual experience. Think about how Ralph Goings or Edward Hopper depicted all the Americana tidbits such as diners to make them somehow transcendent and, yes, - spiritual. In my world, the term spiritual doesn’t always refer to believing in God so much as it entails a sense of awe somehow coupled with the idea that this awe connects me to others who are equally in awe of that particular thing.
Being spiritual entails a recognition of the interconnectedness of all things and a desire to cultivate qualities such as love, compassion, gratitude, kindness. All of these arose spontaneously from my own meditation practice even if I didn’t try to cultivate them specifically. For years, my meditation practice was simplicity itself – focusing on the breath. And somehow from all that focusing on the breath, compassion began to arise, as did loving-kindness.
In Buddha’s original language, Pali, the word for mindfulness is sati and one of its meanings, according to some linguists is memory/remembrance. In other words, through practicing mindfulness we are remembering what is within us, and who we are. Tibetan Buddhists, for example, think that there is a spark of enlightenment within each and every one of us. They don’t use the word awakening for no reason! All the boundless enlightened nature is already there, you just need to remember it’s there, to awaken it.
And while every Buddhist will tell you that you can practice meditation and not be a Buddhist, meditation is a part of many Buddhists’ spiritual journies. Right mindfulness is one branch of the Noble Eightfold Path, the road to enlightenment.
What about other religions?
So far, I’ve only mentioned my own weird, half-baked ideas about spirituality and I referenced Buddhism because this is where most Western mindfulness practices come from, but what about other religions?
Because modern psychology got its ideas about mindfulness from Buddhism, thanks to extraordinary teachers like Jon Kabat-Zinn, Sharon Salzberg or Joseph Goldstein, we don’t talk about mindfulness and other religions, but mindfulness is a part of many if not all spiritual traditions. This deserves more attention that I can give it in one blog, but I’ll try my best to mention things I came across over and over again working with my clients.
Within Hinduism, for example, the practice of mindfulness can be found in forms of yoga, such as Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga, which emphasize self-awareness, meditation, and the cultivation of present-moment attention.
Many older forms of Christianity such as Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism have contemplative practices that involve mindfulness, such as centering prayer or the practice of "the presence of God," which involves maintaining awareness of God's presence in daily life.
Tihovanje is a term that comes from the Serbian language and translates as "practicing quietude" (quietuding isn’t a word, is it?). It refers to the practice of being in silence or stillness, both externally and internally. Tihovanje can encompass various forms of contemplative or meditative practices that involve seeking solitude and quietening the mind. In Serbian Orthodox Christian tradition, tihovanje often refers to a form of silent prayer or contemplation, where individuals withdraw from external distractions and engage in deep inner reflection, seeking a connection with God or the divine. It involves stilling the mind, letting go of thoughts, and entering a state of receptive silence to experience the presence of God. Tihovanje is considered a way to cultivate spiritual awareness, inner peace, and a deeper communion with the divine. It is often practiced in monastic settings or by individuals seeking a contemplative approach to spirituality.
The Roman Catholic tradition has something interesting to offer as well. The Ignatian meditation system is based on the teachings and writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The system is outlined in his Spiritual Exercises. It is designed to guide individuals through a structured process of reflection and prayer, aiming to deepen their relationship with God, discern their life's purpose, and make decisions aligned with their values and faith.
Ignatian meditation typically involves a series of guided reflections and imaginative contemplations, often focusing on scenes from the life of Jesus or biblical narratives. Practitioners are encouraged to engage their senses, emotions, and intellect to enter into the scene imaginatively, interact with the characters and events, and seek personal insights and spiritual growth.
Sufism, a mystical tradition within Islam, incorporates mindfulness techniques in the form of dhikr (remembrance of God), where practitioners repeat sacred phrases or names of God with focused attention and presence.
Judaism has rather elaborate meditation systems too. One prominent form of Jewish meditation is Hitbodedut, which is associated with the teachings of Rabbi Nachman, a Hasidic master. Hitbodedut involves secluded and spontaneous personal prayer and meditation, often done in nature or in a private setting. It encourages individuals to engage in heartfelt conversation with God, expressing their thoughts, emotions, and desires, while seeking a deep personal connection with the divine.
Another form of Jewish meditation is called Kabbalistic meditation, which draws from the mystical teachings of Jewish Kabbalah. Kabbalistic meditation involves contemplation on divine names, symbols, or concepts to access deeper levels of understanding and connection with God's presence.
Finally, modern pagans incorporate different mindfulness practices in nearly every aspect of their spiritual practice. Meditation in modern paganism often focuses on nurturing a deeper connection with nature, spiritual energies, and the divine in the many forms it may be conceptualized. (It’s important to remember that “neopaganism” isn’t one thing but an umbrella term for a set of rather diverse and eclectic polytheistic practices.) Many of my pagan clients see meditation as a way to become more attuned to the rhythms of the natural world, cultivate inner wisdom, and experience spiritual transcendence, including communicating with spirits or deities they work with in their spiritual practice.
Another form of meditation in neopaganism involves working with symbols, archetypes, or deities from various pantheons. This can include visualization practices where individuals focus on specific symbols or invoke the presence of deities for guidance, healing, or spiritual communion.
Trance and ecstatic practices are also present in some neopagan traditions. These practices involve altering one's state of consciousness through rhythmic movements, dance, drumming, chanting, or other methods to induce a trance-like state, allowing individuals to access deeper spiritual experiences or connect with spiritual entities in particular ways.
Meditative rituals and ceremonies are common in neopaganism as well and represent a kind of informal meditation practice. Giving offerings to ancestral spirits or deities involves intentionality and present moment awareness, both as a sign of respect and as a way to connect.
Incorporating mindfulness into your religious/spiritual practices
Mindfulness can serve as a tool for deepening spiritual connection within any spiritual tradition you follow. It can be an effective way of enhancing prayer or supporting your worship experiences, developing self-awareness.
There are very few religions and spiritual paths that don’t advise you to cultivate compassion, gratitude and loving-kindness – mindfulness meditation can be a wonderful resource to cultivate these as there are specific practices that you can learn and do on a daily basis! It can help individuals to cultivate qualities such as patience, gratitude, and non-judgment, which are also valued in many religious traditions.
Meditation with phrases
Many meditation practices that I teach involve phrase repetition. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about mantras, but phrases that we focus on in meditation that help us cultivate certain qualities. For example, if you want to cultivate compassion you may use a phrase such as May all beings be free from suffering. And in meditation you gently and slowly repeat the phrase and observe feelings and thoughts that arise in response to it.
When I teach meditation, I supply my students with a number of phrases that deal with the “four boundless qualities”: loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. I also encourage them to modify them, expand them, come up with their own phrases. In the past, I’ve had Christian clients who have used Bible verses to cultivate certain virtues or just to deepen their own understanding of their religion.
Prayer as meditation
If you pray daily, that’s a practice that you can incorporate with your meditation. Depending on your spiritual practice, you can use prayer as a phrase and then meditate on it, or you can use a simple mindfulness practice to prepare for prayer.
Many of my clients have found it beneficial to spend 10 – 15 minutes focusing on their breath or body before they begin prayer. This way, you allow yourself to center, you sharpen your focus and you are able to really connect with the words when you recite your prayer.
Informal mindfulness practice
The second way that I teach people to cultivate mindfulness, after formal meditation, is through informal mindfulness. Informal mindfulness means using everyday activities to cultivate mindfulness: walking mindfully, washing the dishes mindfully, listening mindfully.
In my own way of teaching, I like to combine informal mindfulness with our values and virtues. In my courses, I offer things that are general enough for most people. For example, I talk about the four Stoic virtues and clients can choose to consciously practice them in situations that they choose. It’s a way to not only becoming more aware of your thoughts and feelings in everyday life, but also a way to work on your personal growth, providing that Stoic virtues resonate with you.
When my clients are religious and choose to share that with me, they will sometimes use certain religious principles or ideas and adhere to them intentionally to practice informal mindfulness. Adhering more closely to the rules of your religion will certainly be a validating experience in itself.
Clarity
Ultimately, practicing mindfulness, even its simplest forms like observing your breath, will help you get more clarity in life. In my own lived experience, I learned that mindfulness connects me to my values. In the past, I was surprised to learn what my values were (positively surprised).
In addition to that, sharpened perception, clarity of thought, and a still mind allow you make decisions that align with your values.
The aesthetic
In the beginning of this text, I mentioned that my own sense of spirituality is deeply connected to the aesthetic. It’s through informal mindfulness (mindful walking) that I was able to understand this and at times was struck by overwhelming and powerful feelings or awe and gratitude.
On rare occasions I will also photograph what causes these feelings. I will share some of those photos with you. I am by no means a professional photographer and my camera is my cell phone, but that’s not the point. The point is to illustrate the nonverbal aspect of what spiritual means to me, the ability to find beauty in something transient and intangible, mundane even. It’s quite possible that you will see a pile of pointless images where I find sublime beauty, that you will remain indifferent to what causes me to feel awe. As I am looking at the images below I am also seeing something that contributes to that sense of the spiritual. It’s the same awe that I documented in my hometown, in Budapest, in Miami and Havana - cities that are in different countries, different continents, in countries with wildly different cultures and social norms yet profoundly special to me. The same awe lives in all those places!
The kind of spirituality I am talking about is not a formalized religion or even an articulated system of beliefs; in my case it’s just images and banal corners of everyday reality, for someone else it may be a religion, but it somehow still is the same, a connection to something greater. Ultimately, being spiritual is an experience – and there is no better way to attend to unfolding experience than to practice mindfulness!
