In Buddhism hope is grounded in the potential of the human mind, in the power of thoughts. The first verses of the Dhammapada, the sermons of the Buddha, explain: "What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind" (1973, p. 35). The Buddha was a man who reached enlightenment, a man who "woke up." He illustrates for all humans the potential for enlightenment - i.e., we can all achieve spiritual awakening.
Inherent in a Buddhist understanding of the world is the reality of suffering, as stated in the following sermon of the Buddha: "Now this, monks, is the noble truth of pain: birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful, sorrow, lamentation, dejection, and despair are painful. Contact with unpleasant things is painful, not getting what one wishes is painful" (cited in Hopfe, 2005, p. 132). The way leading to the cessation of pain is the Eightfold path, or the Middle Path. While Buddhism has developed quite differently in various parts of the world, a common practice is some type of meditation, modeled after the Buddha's own path to spiritual awakening.
A common Buddhist practice, particularly in North America, is mindfulness, or paying close attention to the present moment. K. Kissel Wegela (2003) notes that most kinds of psychotherapy teach some kind of mindfulness, or tracking the moment-to-moment occurrences of their experiences in the present. In contrast, "mindlessness," cultivated by desynchronizing body and mind, rejects who we are in the present moment. An important hallmark of mindlessness is loss of compassion.
64 Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health
"We feel half alive, alienated, and lonely; we suffer. We become selfish and lose track of our hearts" (p. 25).
When used in the context of contemplative psychotherapy, mindfulness increases one's ability to see recurrent behaviors and to perhaps try different ones. Bringing mindfulness to memory can be therapeutic as well: "Unless we can bring something different to our present experience of a memory, like mindfulness or 'maitri' or compassion, we will simply plant more seeds of its recurrence. In contemplative psychotherapy we make use of our clients' everyday activities to help them cultivate mindfulness" (pp. 34-5). Mindfulness helps individuals realize that their stories about themselves are not really solid, thus enabling change. And change is a source of hope.
