Is mindfulness for enlightenment or for stress?

Moris Beracha.- 

I constantly hear arguments about the true goal of mindfulness. On the one hand, a group of faithful followers of this practice see it as a way to reduce stress, sadness, and fears. On the other hand, the greatest Buddhist meditation scholars defend it as a means to renounce suffering and achieve enlightenment.

Certainly, the practice of mindfulness brings benefits to many human beings that are under intense pressures. The mental and corporal changes it produces are remarkable and it is known that there are big companies that are pushing their workers to be followers of this discipline, given the positive results that are then achieved in work performance.

An article by Robert Wright for Wired approaches to this discussion and quotes “It’s true, on the one hand, that many devotees of meditation are pursuing the practice in a basically therapeutic spirit. And that includes many who follow Buddhist meditation teachers and even go to extended retreats. It’s also true that mindfulness meditation, as typically taught to these people, bears only a partial resemblance to mindfulness meditation as described in ancient texts”.

I always try to explain the people who come and ask me why I have been practicing mindfulness for so long and not simply a sport, that although I started looking for a solution to my states of anguish due to work, on the way I have been understanding that more than a practice it is a way through which you decide to transit. It is a lifestyle. It is a philosophy of life. In this type of experience the pace of progress depends on each one, there is no goal but to learn to live in the present.

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