On March 3, Lisa Dale Miller presented to a large audience a clear and concise look at the skillful application of Buddhist mindfulness in clinical and counseling applications based on her book “Effortless Mindfulness: Genuine Mental Health Through Awakened Presence”. As she explained, Awakened Presence is a natural outcome of an embodied mind recognizing what is, as it is. In her talk she covered the concept of liberation of mind from the perspective of different schools of Buddhism and how a clinician might practically apply this teaching to the people they work with.
One of the points Lisa stressed was that separating mindfulness from its Buddhist roots for clinical application, makes the practice less effective as Buddhism has always been a philosophy/psychology of mind which at its core has always been research oriented. One of the Buddhist roots she stressed was the aspect of emptiness (no self) which helps us to separate the basic un-satisfactoriness of life from the added suffering we bring about by clinging and grasping to what we think life should be. Lisa’s talk can be found here.