I am not terribly surprised that my comment on mindfulness has resulted in so many responses. In 2004 I suggested to the forum that mindfulness functions like exposure therapy which tends to habituate the presence of Anxious Pathology born of core emotional wounds (schema complexes).

The numerous responses were likely due to the exanding awakening that psychology is providing mindfulness meditation new language that can greatly clarify it processes and its efficacy. A relatively simple example:

Common emotional wounds can be thematically profiled as Schema Complexes--to name a few: Abandonment, Defectiveness, Emotional Deprivation, Mistrust, Social Exclusion, Failure, Vulnerability, Entitlement etc.
These complexes are troubling as they form conceptions that can supplant and distort perception.

Schema complexes are not formed solely from enduring misfortunes like not having one's needs met or being deserted. They require the attachment of some type of avoidant coping like having to Look Good, Habitually Seeking to Redeem Honor, Habitual Lying, Getting Over, Getting Back, Aquiring, Being Seductive, Being Judgmental or Chronic Anesthetizing and Burying Thoughts.

It appears to me that mindfulness can function as a replacement for all avoidant coping. This is is how it heals: When the avoidant coping mode is replaced with the adaptive coping mode of mindfulness, it severs the complex. The result is that the old emotional wound gets accepted, reintegrated and you get symptom reduction. Feeling abandoned or feeling emotionally deprived becomes and mere mental event rather than a current reality that must be reacted to. The over emphasis on the emotional wound is diminished as we awake to the understanding that our fear is a mental event with little survival value.

What I have just profiled in psychological terms conceptualizes an emotional healing. However it also provides us a perspective on the nature of mindfulness. A post Freudian-Scienced Based-Western Culture is investigating Mindfulness--and the West is doing an awesome job.

Some of our Western Teachers, secular psychologist and Scientist are fully valid devotees as they are devoted to the pursuit of liberation. New language, new conceptualizations and new blueprints are being developed to map out the path to enlightment.

Today I am asking myself: "Isn't enlightenment breaking through the veil formed from our Schemas and their projected conceptualizations. Aren't I failing to perceive my real circumstance because I am mistaking conception for perception? What does seeing without schema-driven conceptualizing look like? "