Secular Buddhism Podcast

Episode 139: Mindfulness Interview with Dr. Sarah Shaw

Noah Rasheta: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Secular Buddhism Podcast. This is episode number 139. I am your host, Noah Rasheta. Today I'm going to share the audio of a recent interview I did with Dr. Sarah Shaw, author of a new book called Mindfulness: Where It Comes From and What It Means.

Dr. Sarah Shaw is a faculty member and lecturer at the University of Oxford. She has taught and published numerous works on the history and practices of Buddhism, including An Introduction to Buddhist Meditation and The Spirit of Meditation.

Without further delay, here is the audio from my interview with Dr. Sarah Shaw.

Noah Rasheta: What inspired you to write this book?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: It's something that's always interested me. I've always noticed that mindfulness gets described in different ways in different historical periods. Then Casey Kemp and Nikko Odyssey at Shambhala actually asked me to do a short history of mindfulness, so I had to make it very short, which is very, very difficult. But I did enjoy doing it because it's something that's just always interested me.

I often read articles about mindfulness, and they can be quite rigid—you know, "it's this" or "it's that" or "it's this." I must have a hundred of them on my computer, and some of them are really quite dogmatic. But what I liked was the way that in different settings, the word just gets used slightly differently and has a slightly different feel and application. There's an underlying thread of what it is, but people keep things alive by sort of changing formulations a bit and perhaps looking at them in new settings. So that seems the mindful way to approach the subject. I found it great fun to do. I really enjoyed it.

Noah Rasheta: That's great. It's interesting how you mentioned there are so many different ways to use the word, right? When somebody says, "Oh, I'm trying to be more mindful," you almost have to ask, "Well, what does that mean to you?" There are so many interpretations of what it means to be mindful.

Dr. Sarah Shaw: I think people are different, and what one person needs may be different from another person. So I wouldn't want to be rigid about how it should be interpreted.

Noah Rasheta: Yeah, well that's great. Tell me a little bit about your background with Buddhism, with mindfulness. Where did all that start? What got you interested in this topic?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: Well, I started meditation many years ago when I was at Manchester University. That's where I first really encountered the word mindfulness in a Buddhist setting. Amusingly, my meditation teacher told me that he hadn't met many people who were so unmindful—that I really needed to practice more than most. I think that's a classic problem for academics who can get very overfocused and lose awareness of their surroundings. So I was intrigued by it then, and I tried to practice it and have ever since. I'm not sure I've ever really found out what it is, but I'm still practicing it and trying to arouse it.

Noah Rasheta: Yeah, well I love how the title of the book brings up right away two things: "Where does it come from" and "What does it mean?" If you had to answer that in a short way to somebody in an elevator, how would you answer that? Where does it come from, and what does it mean?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: I would say where it comes from is there's only one place it can ever come from, of course, and that's from ourselves. The only person who can be mindful and do something about it is oneself. And what it means—I would say an attentive alertness to what it is that brings health to the mind. Something like that.

Noah Rasheta: Yeah, I like that. It seems like sometimes—at least the way that mindfulness has evolved in the West—there seems to be a tendency to think of mindfulness as an altered state. But what you're describing seems more like an altered trait. It's a way of being that can affect everything that we do, rather than thinking, "Well, here's my normal, ordinary life, and when I'm mindful, I'm separate from that. It's this other state that I'm in."

Dr. Sarah Shaw: Ideally it would be nice to be mindful all the time. I think we all have lapses, but one can certainly be mindful in daily life, and it helps to be mindful in daily life. One needs it, of course, in meditation. So it's something that can be there all the time. How you arouse it under different circumstances might be different, but it's a quality that, according to the Buddhist tradition, is there when the mind is healthy and alert.

There's a Buddhist tradition called the Abhidhamma, and it says that when mindfulness is present, lots of other factors come into play too—like confidence, alertness, good humor, balance. A lot of these other qualities come in as well.

Noah Rasheta: And what's nice is the moment that we are mindful of the fact that we're not mindful, we've already started, right?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: Absolutely. It's a good point to be, yeah.

Noah Rasheta: So what would you say is the biggest misconception that you've encountered about mindfulness?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: I didn't think very much in those terms, actually. Oddly enough, because I am an academic, and that's what we're trained to do. A misconception? I would say the notion that it's somehow something that is very different from our daily experience. I think that's probably the biggest one. And also, something that's "owned" by anybody, you know? Like, you can't just say that psychology knows what mindfulness is in a way that the practice-based traditions perhaps don't. Everybody will have found some way of arousing alertness and the attentiveness of mindfulness under different circumstances. So possibly I'd say the biggest misconception would be thinking that it was something you couldn't do in everyday life.

Noah Rasheta: Yeah, and I would agree that that seems to be a very common misconception. People will tell me from time to time, "You know, these topics are interesting, but mindfulness isn't for me. I'm not capable of it" or something like that. And I always say, "Well, it would take mindfulness to even make that assessment."

Dr. Sarah Shaw: Exactly. What people in my tradition say to meditators when they come and say, "Oh, I don't think I'm the sort of person who can meditate. You know, I'm too anxious or worried"—we always say, "Well, that's just the human mind. It's not that you're different from anybody else." And I think as soon as people realize that, they realize they can do something about it. So that to me is the most important thing.

Noah Rasheta: You know, this kind of segues into one of the chapters that I really enjoyed in your book. You talk about mindfulness with the analogy of music, and specifically with the tightness of a string—like on a string instrument, whether it be a guitar or a violin or whatever. When the string is too tight, it doesn't sound the way it could. The best sound you can get out of it is when there's a balance. But when it's too loose, you have the same problem. And so this makes me think of what you were just saying about the misconception that "this isn't something I can do." It's like all of us are the instrument all the time. We can't help it. That's just what we are. The string's either too loose or it's too tight. And mindfulness is kind of the technique to help us realize, "Oh, maybe I'm trying too hard, or maybe I'm not trying hard enough." Somewhere in the middle—the Middle Way—is where things get a little bit easier. Just like with an instrument, it just sounds better when there's the right amount of tension. Would you care to elaborate a little bit more on that as an analogy for mindfulness and the way we practice it?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: It's a very ancient image, and the story is quite an interesting one. A young man decided to practice meditation, and he worked so hard doing all these meditations that his sandals got worn out and his feet all bloody because he was doing all these walking practices, trying to keep awake and practice. He goes to see the Buddha, and the Buddha just says to him, "When you were a layman, did you play the lyre?" I suppose it's like the guitar or something now. And the young man said yes, he had. And he said, "What would you do if your strings were too tight?" And he said, "I'd loosen them." And he said, "What would you do if they were too loose?" And he said, "I'd tighten them a bit." And he said, "What happens when you have the evenly tuned, the calm tuning of the note?" And he said, "Oh, then you can play wonderful music."

I've always loved that image because after that, he realizes he's been putting in too much effort. Of course, like all people who put in too much effort, he's convinced he's not putting in enough, which is one of the characteristics of that state. But when he steps back and sees he's been putting too much in and just relaxes, then he progresses well.

I like it because I think we all notice what it is that helps us keep in balance. You know, maybe you do just need an evening just relaxing and not doing anything at all. And maybe sometimes you do need to go out and perhaps do some jogging or get some exercise. I think we sort of know something about ourselves, which is like a kind of internal balance or spirit level, if you like. That's my way of putting it. And mindfulness can really make you more attuned to that—to what is right for you. Because, like a musical instrument, we're all different. Some of us are kind of violins, some violas, some double basses or whatever. We all have a different instrument. It's really about coming to know it. If you do play a musical instrument, and I used to years ago, you have to kind of like your instrument and have a good relationship with it.

And I think a lot of people get a very funny idea about Buddhism—that you have to stop enjoying life or negate things. But this is never said, and joy is supposed to be one of the factors of awakening. So we all have a capacity for joy and for appreciating the instrument we've got. And I think mindfulness is a way of helping us find that.

Noah Rasheta: That's wonderful. That's a beautiful way of describing it. So what would you say is the biggest takeaway from the book? What do you hope people get from reading it?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: What I hope it would show is that mindfulness is something we can all do, and it's like a kind of birthright. We can all try to do it. And also, it will tend to make us happier in a way that will be ethical. Mindfulness tends to make you more alert to other people, and there isn't a conflict between doing things for yourself and for other people. I think we sometimes think there is, you know? That we need to do things for me and for other people. Mindfulness gives the balance of inside, outside, and both inside out and outside. And if one practices it, one finds, I hope, the middle way—the right way ahead.

So that's rather a long thing to say, isn't it? I haven't got any snappy takeaway from it. Other than that it's worth trying.

Noah Rasheta: I like that. I think that's a good takeaway and a good invitation for someone who might be listening to this and thinking, "I might pick up this book and see what it's all about." So which leads us to the next thing: for someone who's interested, where is the best way to find the book? Where is it available?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: If you go to the Shambhala Publications website, you'll easily find it there, and on all the big sites like Amazon and all the other ones, I think you'll find it there too. They seem to be very, very good in publicity and distribution. So I think it will be easily accessible.

Noah Rasheta: Great.

Dr. Sarah Shaw: And it's an audiobook as well. Oh, I forgot to say—it's an audiobook as well. I did read it out for audio, and I think it might even be on a free trial at the moment so you can hear it on audio. Very difficult to read things out, though.

Noah Rasheta: Well, that's great. And if someone wants to learn more about you, do you have a website or somewhere where people could read more, learn more about you and other projects you might be working on?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: I am an academic, so all my academic work is on the University of Oxford website and the University of South Wales, UK where I teach as well. So I think I've got something on their websites. And my other books are all on sites like Amazon and Goodreads and things like that. You'll find other books I've written. I like stories, so I've translated a lot of Jataka stories if people are interested in that.

Noah Rasheta: Oh great.

Dr. Sarah Shaw: But it's my work that's interesting, not me. It's the books—the things that I've enjoyed doing—and I hope people will want to look at.

Noah Rasheta: Well great. I was just reading the Jataka stories—the story of Prince Five Weapons. Is that one that you're familiar with?

Dr. Sarah Shaw: Yes, I translated it for Penguin Classics in my book on the Jatakas. I think it's possibly my all-time favorite Jataka story.

Noah Rasheta: Oh wow. That's one that we talk about often with my kids.

Dr. Sarah Shaw: Yeah, I did an audio of it for my meditation group, the Samatha Trust, as well. So that's on their website. I told it on that one. I think it must be my favorite Jataka story—about the boy who, against all the odds, triumphs. And it's just very funny as well. What I like about that story is he has to fight a monster, and when he's overcome the monster, he doesn't just leave it at that. He makes sure that monster behaves well afterwards. It's a monster eating things in the forest, eating up anybody who comes into the forest. So the prince overcomes him and he is set free, but at the end, he doesn't leave it at that. He says, "Now you start being friendly to other beings." And the monster does. And people come and see him. So I think that's a wonderful story.

Noah Rasheta: Yeah, that's great. I'm gonna have to check out your other books. And it's funny because this podcast episode will immediately follow the previous one, which was about the story of the Sticky Hair Monster. So this is actually kind of a follow-up thought on the previous one. That works pretty well.

Dr. Sarah Shaw: Oh good, I thought it was a bit of a sidetrack, but it is my favorite story, I think.

Noah Rasheta: That's great. Well, I want to thank you again for taking the time to join me on this call. I'm excited to share this podcast episode and to introduce my podcast listeners to some of your work, specifically this book, Mindfulness: Where It Comes From and What It Means, which is available now. And if anyone has any follow-up questions or wants to know more, I'll have the podcast episode set up where people can comment on it. And if something really interesting comes to mind, I could reach out to you by email.

Dr. Sarah Shaw: Well, keep an eye on that then. Yeah, thank you very much for inviting me as well. It's been very nice to talk with you.

For more about the Secular Buddhism Podcast and Dr. Sarah Shaw's work, visit SecularBuddhism.com and the University of Oxford website.