Mindfulness and Ethics: Attention, Virtue and Perfection

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Mindfulness and Ethics: Attention, Virtue and Perfection
Journal Article
Meditation


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Mindfulness is regarded by all scholars and practitioners of all Buddhist traditions as essential not only for the development of insight, but also for the cultivation and maintenance of ethical discipline. The English term denotes the joint operation of what are regarded in Buddhist philosophy of mind as two cognitive functions: sati/smṛti/dran pa, which we might translate as attention in this context (although the semantic range of these terms also encompasses memory or recollection)[1] and sampajañña/samprajanya/shes bzhin, which I will render here as introspective vigilance. The first function involves the fixation of attention on an object, and the second, particularly in the context of Mahāyāna literature, such as the Bodhicaryāvatāra and its commentaries, which is [the] focus of my discussion here, comes to include.[2] The careful maintenance of that attention and of the attendant attitudes and motivations.[3] When we bring attention and introspective vigilance to bear on an object, we can be said to be mindful of it. (Garfield, introduction, 1–2)

Notes
  1. See Shulman (2010) and Gethin (1992, pp. 36ff) for excellent discussions of the interpretation of this term and its roots in Pāli literature.
  2. But see Analayo (2004) for a detailed discussion of the somewhat different sense this term has in the Pāli literature.
  3. Hallisey (2010) translates the Pāli cognate satisampajañña as moral discernment or prudence,[141] while recognizing its sense as "mindfulness and awareness of the way things are[144] in non-moral contexts. The examples he offers as reasons for this translation, however, are not entirely compelling. In each case, the second translation would be felicitous. It appears that Hallisey is motivated in part by a discomfort with the moral import of mindfulness. I hope that my case for its moral import in this context should set this worry to rest.
Citation
Garfield, Jay L. "Mindfulness and Ethics: Attention, Virtue and Perfection." Thai International Journal of Buddhist Studies 3 (2012): 1–24. https://jaygarfield.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/garfield_mindfulness_ethics.pdf.
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Classical WorksAbout this item
An "Introduction to Bodhisattva Practice," the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is a poem about the path of a bodhisattva, in ten chapters, written by the Indian Buddhist Śāntideva (fl. c. 685–763). One of the masterpieces of world literature, it is a core text of Mahāyāna Buddhism and continues to be taught, studied, and commented upon in many languages and by many traditions around the world. The main subject of the text is bodhicitta, the altruistic aspiration for enlightenment, and the path and practices of the bodhisattva, the six perfections (pāramitās). The text forms the basis of many contemporary discussions of Buddhist ethics and philosophy.