Wow, I have a lot to say here. I was thinking it through this morning after dropping my kid off for school. I’ll try to be concise. (Later note: I failed at that.)
To me, these are all different things:
None of those need be linked to the other.
Likewise, I think how those relate to the dichotomy of “chaos and chatter and laughter” and “peace” is also a separate concern.
Mindfulness is really just a skill to be developed. It doesn’t require that things be calm or you be accepting or loving, or that your mind is clear. It’s really about developing the ability to bring greater observation and awareness; not quite, but almost like improving “focus”.
Some of it is simple, but not easy. While sitting, can you clearly observe the way a chair pushes against your body? Is it a clear sensation or pretty muddy? Can you feel the strong contrast between where the chair is and isn’t pressing against you?
Until you’ve developed the skill of observing physical sensations in a calm environment it’ll be hard to do it with any other distractions. There are poetic things like feeling the sun on your skin, or the brush of the wind, but all the mundane sensations are equally valid.
Once you’ve learned to observe that more clearly, you learn to observe without interacting. You can feel where something’s uncomfortable (you may not have noticed how uncomfortable it was before) but you don’t change anything.
Eventually you can learn to observe these sensations clearly while in the middle of a mentally engaging conversation, or other activity – and do so without it distracting you or changing your behavior.
A typical starting point in the Taoist/Daoist traditions is watching the breath. It takes awhile to learn how to pay attention to the breath, and to feel it clearly in different parts of your body – your nostrils, your sinuses, your upper back, your diaphragm. To be able to answer questions: Is your breath high in your chest? Is it low in the belly? Is there some tightness in the throat?
Then you train the skill to observe… without changing anything. At first it’s really really hard. You think “I’m trying to feel my breath passing through my sinuses”, and end up breathing a bit heavier and differently so you can feel it. The skill is to not change anything, but still feel it.
You can then build on that and watch what your breath does in various other situations, calm, heated, active, etc. Observe but don’t change it. And don’t let the act of observation change anything else. If you’re excited and animated, observe what’s happening to your breath, but don’t let it affect your excitement.
From there, that skill leads into observing aspects of the mind. When you think or feel something, try to see if you can observe exactly where that’s coming from. Observe, but don’t analyze. See if you can catch the thought at the moment it arises, and watch how it develops and affects you.
You can, of course, mentally take notes. And you can analyze it later and make changes etc. Obviously there can be value to that. Therapy.
Mindfulness is not the only skill, though. Learning to use intention to interact/influence things is a later skill, after you have that foundation.
This already is too long, so I think I’ll basically stop.
What I do want to get across though is: mindfulness is just developing the ability to observe things crisper and clearer. It doesn’t mean you accept it and don’t judge it or love it or even like it. Instead, just learn to clearly observe that you’re judging it, and hate it… and do it while also being physically, mentally and emotionally overwhelmed.
As far as the other words, I don’t think “accepting”, “cleared mind”, “passive”, “non-negative emotions” are necessarily things to strive for. Nor that peace and quiet is fundamentally better than chatter and activity. Yin and yang, literally. They’re both real and neither should be denied.
Given that I have two young kids with lots of energy (3 and 5), and emotional dysregulation issues with the older one, plus extra-curricular activities and home-cooked meals every night… I do prefer a bit more peace and quiet in my external world when I can. Fortunately since I work from home, I have a bit more control over that.
My internal world is pretty active and busy though.
(I do occasionally calm things down to work on things like “observing the breath” and some “walking mindfulness”-ish stuff.)
To put some numbers to my preferences of active/calm… externally, probably 30/70, internally 90/10.
There’s one other bit I wanted to unpack in all of this: this idea of chasing calm/quiet.
There’s a kind of mythological idea of the lone Eastern monk going off into the mountain forests, seeking peace and quiet on the quest for truth and enlightenment. There’s similar Western ideas of doing the same, to get closer to God.
As a contrasting idea, there are many Taoist/Daoist lineages where the goal is to integrate rather than separate. Monks will start out isolated at a monastery to learn the basic skills, but then be sent back into society to further their development. You’re only getting half of the experience if all you chase is calm.
