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Abstract

Although some claim that phenomenology and mindfulness have much in common, others hold that these comparisons are based on a flawed understanding of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction. This article addresses the debate on the alleged similarities and differences between phenomenology and mindfulness practice. It first illustrates the differences by contrasting a pair of key ideas in Husserl’s philosophy and in Kabat-Zinn’s conception of mindfulness, respectively, that appear to be similar, but turn out to be quite different: the natural attitude versus the mind’s natural tendency. A Merleau-Pontian turn is then proposed, away from Husserl’s philosophy, toward the paradoxes which Merleau-Ponty regards as inherent to the phenomenological reduction and the phenomenon of expression. This article claims that it is not so much the phenomenological reduction as such that resembles mindfulness practice, but that a more helpful comparison can be found in their shared paradoxes: the paradox of productive unachievability and the paradox of expression. In the end, it is discussed how these shared paradoxes matter for the debate on phenomenology and mindfulness.

Keywords

Merleau-Ponty mindfulness phenomenology paradox of expression phenomenological reduction language

In a sense, the highest point of philosophy is perhaps no more than rediscovering these truisms: thought thinks, speech speaks, the glance glances. But each time between the two identical words there is the whole spread one straddles in order to think, speak and see. (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, p. 21)

It has been claimed that phenomenology and mindfulness have a lot in common (Bitbol, 2019; Depraz, 2019), and phenomenology has been frequently used to explore the practice of mindfulness (Čopelj, 2022; Hartelius, 2015; Lundh, 2020; Lutz et al., 2015; Medeiros et al., 2021; Petitmengin et al., 2019; Sevilla-Liu et al., 2020). According to Depraz (2019), mindfulness practice can enrich phenomenology, by offering it a detailed method of practice, and according to Bitbol (2019), phenomenology can be helpful to mindfulness practice, by providing words for its non-conceptual experience. Lundh (2020, p. 495) considers the practice of mindfulness as one of the “phenomenological practices,” and some even claim that the two concepts, phenomenology and mindfulness, are identical, by claiming that both are defined by experience without conceptual judgments (Walach, 2021). Stone and Zahavi (2021), however, argue that most of these comparisons between mindfulness practice and phenomenology are based on a flawed understanding of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction. Finding similarities between mindfulness practice and other phenomenological philosophies, like Merleau-Ponty’s, will be even harder, they claim. This paper explores mindfulness practice, as introduced in Western health care by Kabat-Zinn (1982, 2019, 2020), in the light of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception (2012), and it shows that it is not the phenomenological reduction as such that resembles mindfulness practice, but that their resemblance rather lies in their shared paradoxes.

This article starts with a few remarks on the conceptualization of mindfulness, followed by a short discussion of a recent debate on the alleged and contested differences and similarities between phenomenology and mindfulness practice. Subsequently, it zooms in on differences between Husserl’s phenomenological reduction and mindfulness practice, by contrasting a pair of key ideas that may appear to be rather similar, but turn out to be quite different: the natural attitude versus the mind’s natural tendency. After discussing these differences, a Merleau-Pontian turn is taken to a more fruitful comparison of similarities, namely the shared paradoxes of mindfulness practice and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological reduction, in particular the paradox of “productive unachievability” and the paradox of expression. Finally, it is shown how these paradoxes matter for the debate on phenomenology and mindfulness.

Mindfulness—The Concept

Although the exponential growth of studies on mindfulness practice (Frank & Marken, 2022; Kabat-Zinn, 2020) may suggest otherwise, “mindfulness” is not a sharply defined concept at all. In Buddhist traditions, mindfulness has to do with “the development of a lucid awareness of what is occurring within the phenomenological field” (Khoury et al., 2017, p. 1162). By contrast, Dreyfus (2013) claims that describing mindfulness as bare noticing whatever occurs, misses the point that mindfulness in Buddhist traditions is also about evaluating what is noticed in mind and body, and about changing the mind’s habitual reactive patterns. Čopelj (2022) calls those who see mindfulness as bare attention “quietists,” and those, like Dreyfus, who think mindfulness comprises evaluation, “cognitivists.” Lutz et al. (2015) claim that the various conceptualizations of mindfulness are best understood as a form of family resemblance (Wittgenstein, 2009): They share various characteristics but have no essential core. Moreover, the concept of mindfulness has been described as a process, as a skill, as an intervention strategy (Munoz-Martinez et al., 2017), and as a trait or disposition (Karl & Fischer, 2022).

In Western health care, mindfulness was introduced as an intervention strategy by Kabat-Zinn (1982). Nowadays, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy are the most studied mindfulness-based interventions (Baer, 2003; Howarth et al., 2019; Kabat-Zinn, 2020; Stein & Witkiewitz, 2020). Kabat-Zinn operationalizes mindfulness in MBSR as “the awareness that arises by paying attention on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 2020, p. xxxvii). Mindfulness means “waking up” (Kabat-Zinn, 2019, p. 3), and is opposed to “taking life for granted” (Kabat-Zinn, 2019, p. 5). According to Kabat-Zinn (2019), mindfulness is not just a concept but a way of life. Although Kabat-Zinn’s operationalization of mindfulness has been contested, for its alleged restriction to the present moment and to non-judgmental awareness (Dreyfus, 2013), in a reply to this criticism he claimed that his operationalization is not meant to be a definition and that he never ignored the Buddhist origins of the concept of mindfulness (Kabat-Zinn, 2013). Notwithstanding the conceptual discussions, MBSR as an intervention strategy has been well documented in manuals (Santorelli & Kabat-Zinn, 2014), and has frequently been the object of scientific research (Frank & Marken, 2022; Kabat-Zinn, 2020). Therefore, Kabat-Zinn’s conception of mindfulness is used in this paper.

Phenomenology and Mindfulness—A Recent Debate

In their analysis of Bitbol’s (2019) and Depraz’ (2019) positions, Stone and Zahavi (2021) claim that the comparisons these two French phenomenologists make between phenomenology and mindfulness are based on a flawed understanding of Husserl’s concept of the phenomenological reduction. This section first addresses the arguments in Bitbol’s and Depraz’ papers, followed by a discussion of Stone and Zahavi’s criticism and a review of Bitbol’s and Depraz’ subsequent rebuttals.

Bitbol (2019) compares different exponents of phenomenological philosophy and various conceptions of mindfulness. Yet we can say that his paper contains a central comparison: Husserl’s idea of the epochè and the phenomenological reduction is compared with mindfulness as it is conceptualized both in Western mindfulness-based practices and in the Buddhist path. By contrast, Depraz (2019) selects one circumscribed Buddhist practice that she compares to Husserl’s philosophy: the practice of samatha-vipassanā sitting meditation, in which the first Sanskrit term means “mindfulness” and the latter “awareness.”

Bitbol’s (2019) and Depraz’ (2019) analyses of the similarities between Husserl’s phenomenology and mindfulness practice are rather similar, but not quite. Bitbol describes the epochè as the suspension of “the tacit ‘natural’ belief in an objective world allegedly given out there from the outset,” but also as “the suspension of discursive judgments about the world” (Bitbol, 2019, p. 134, emphasis in original). Mindfulness as non-judgmental awareness in the present moment resembles the suspending of discursive judgments about the world in Husserl’s epochè. In mindfulness practice focusing attention on one’s breathing is central, to get into a state of attention that will enable oneself to open up to the fullness of experience. According to Bitbol, this is “to favor a state of epochè” (Bitbol, 2019, p. 138, emphasis in original). Depraz interprets the epochè as the suspension of prejudices and detachments of the mind regarding the world, in which she sees an analogue with mindfulness. Both Bitbol and Depraz notice that phenomenology and mindfulness practice are never-ending processes. Bitbol refers to Husserl’s claim that any attempt to practice the epochè will be corrupted by the natural attitude: “Husserl’s method might well consist in noticing this corruption as soon as it occurs, and compensating for it immediately after” (Bitbol, 2019, p. 140, emphasis in original). This idea of inevitable corruption, so Bitbol claims, resonates with the basic idea of mindfulness that attention will always be corrupted by distraction and that mindfulness is about noticing the distraction and to come back to attention. Depraz too highlights the resembling back-and-forth character in both the epochè and the path in mindfulness practice, both being never-ending processes.

Depraz (2019) and Bitbol (2019) both mention a different motivation for phenomenology and mindfulness practice: knowledge in the former and the ending of suffering in the latter. Another difference both authors describe lies in their methods: Whereas mindfulness offers a detailed method, phenomenological methods are less circumscribed. Therefore, according to Depraz, mindfulness practice can enrich phenomenology, by offering it a detailed method of practice. Bitbol and Depraz both contrast the non-discursiveness of the state of mindfulness versus the descriptive analysis of the eidetic reduction and the reduction to the lifeworld in phenomenology. Furthermore, Bitbol makes a distinction between the idea of the epochè and the idea of the reduction. He interprets Husserl’s epochè as a process of dissolving beliefs that is paused at certain stages, to perform several phenomenological reductions. These phenomenological reductions are constructed out of what is left after the epochè, for instance, the reduction to the lifeworld or the eidetic reduction, reducing from individual objects to stable essences. As phenomenology pauses in the process of epochè at these reductions, words can be found for what is extracted. Therefore, this process of pausing and finding words for what can be extracted from what is left after the epochè, can contribute to finding words for the experience of mindful awareness in mindfulness, Bitbol suggests.

Stone and Zahavi (2021) consider Bitbol’s (2019) and Depraz’ (2019) positions as exponents of comparisons between phenomenology and mindfulness practice that are based on a flawed understanding of Husserl’s epochè and phenomenological reduction. They discern two different ways in which Husserl’s epochè has been misunderstood. In the first misinterpretation, the epochè is understood as bracketing our theories and thoughts about things, to be open to return to the things as they reveal themselves in experience, after which these things can be described carefully. The second misinterpretation is that not only our theoretical luggage is bracketed in the epochè but also “our concern with and absorption in the world of objects” (Stone & Zahavi, 2021, p. 170). According to this misinterpretation, the focus is redirected from the experienced objects to “the how of experience” (Stone & Zahavi, 2021, p. 170, emphasis in original), this is to the acts of consciousness. To demonstrate why both these interpretations are wrong, Stone and Zahavi return to Husserl’s description of the epochè. Husserl’s epochè is nothing more than the suspension of the natural attitude, our natural tacit assumption that the world exists independently of us. According to the first misinterpretation, the epochè is misconstrued as a return to the object, and according to the second, it is misinterpreted as a return to the subject, while the epochè, properly understood, investigates the relation between object and subject, between world and mind. Reading their critique on Bitbol’s and Depraz’ comparisons between phenomenology and mindfulness, one could say that Stone and Zahavi claim that Bitbol’s interpretation of Husserl’s epochè tends to overemphasize the experienced objects, while Depraz’ interpretation tends to overemphasize the acts of consciousness. Stone and Zahavi conclude that it would be better to look for similarities between phenomenology and Buddhist philosophy, instead of comparing phenomenology with mindfulness practice, although they do not provide positive reasons for this claim.

Depraz (2022) responded to Stone and Zahavi’s (2021) criticism, by calling their vision on both phenomenology and mindfulness “poor and reductionist” (Depraz, 2022, 3:27). She claims that with non-reductionist views of phenomenology and mindfulness, a fruitful comparison on a practical level is indeed possible. She presents a more complex view of phenomenology as “passive, receptive, co-embodied and generative” (Depraz, 2022, 4:09) and a broader view of Buddhism as a practice comprising “awareness,” “self-other equalizing,” “impermanence,” and “emptiness” (Depraz, 2022, 4:17). Where Stone and Zahavi claim that Depraz (2019) misunderstood Husserl’s concept of the phenomenological reduction, Depraz (2022) claims that they “are not interested in the practice, only in conceptual distinctions” (Depraz, 2022, 17:25) and thereby are “violently conceptualizing” what is a practice (Depraz, 2022, 18:00). In an online lecture, Bitbol (2022) responded briefly to Stone and Zahavi’s criticism, claiming that in mindfulness practice the distinctions between the act and the object and between self and world become irrelevant. Following up on their individual responses, Depraz and Bitbol collaborated in writing a joint reply to Stone and Zahavi’s critique (Depraz et al., 2024).

So, the recent debate on the comparison between phenomenology and mindfulness appears to be a confrontation between theory and lived practice: The reproach of misunderstanding the concepts of Husserl’s phenomenology meets the reproach of conceptualizing mindfulness practice with reductive or irrelevant distinctions. In the next section, an analysis of differences between Husserl’s phenomenology and mindfulness practice is provided by contrasting a pair of key concepts. Subsequently, a Merleau-Pontian turn is taken to the shared paradoxes of mindfulness practice and Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, and finally, it will be shown what this comparison means for the debate on mindfulness and phenomenology.

The Differences —The Natural Attitude Versus the Mind’s Natural Tendency

By discussing a pair of false friends, some differences between Husserl’s phenomenology and mindfulness practice will come to the fore: the natural attitude in phenomenology and the mind’s natural tendency in mindfulness practice. In Husserl’s (1931/2013) phenomenology, the natural attitude refers to our tacit belief in an outside world that exists outside independently of us. In doing phenomenology, we should suspend this natural attitude, to be able to obtain knowledge about the phenomena, about how things appear to us. According to Husserl the existence of an outside world that exists independently of us, is neither denied, nor doubted, nor affirmed, but our natural assumption that it exists, should be “bracketed.” At first sight, the mind’s natural tendency in mindfulness practice seems similar to the natural attitude in Husserl’s phenomenology, but in fact, it has quite a different meaning.

Through practicing mindfulness one will become familiar with the mind’s natural tendencies: our habitual thought patterns of wanting to escape from the present moment and constantly evaluating what is happening in terms of like or dislike (Kabat-Zinn, 2019):

It doesn’t take long in meditation to discover that part of our mind is constantly evaluating our experiences, comparing them with other experiences or holding them up against expectations and standards that we create, often out of fear. [. . .] We tend to see things through tinted glasses: through the lens of whether something is good for me or bad for me, or whether or not it conforms to my beliefs or philosophy. If it is good, I like it. If it is bad, I don’t like it. (Kabat-Zinn, 2019, p. 55)

Mindfulness is thus neither about trying to stop the mind’s natural tendencies nor about suspending them. According to Kabat-Zinn (2019), practicing mindfulness has to do with becoming aware of the natural tendencies of the mind, to recognize, observe, and watch them. By just watching these habitual self-involved thought patterns without wanting to change them, by understanding our thoughts as being just that, thoughts, these thought patterns change by themselves. Dreyfus (2013) stresses that obtaining a focused and calm mind is not the goal of mindfulness practice, it is rather a means “to gain a deeper understanding of the changing nature of one’s bodily and mental states so as to free our mind from the habits and tendencies that bind us to suffering” (Dreyfus, 2013, p. 51). It is not the evaluative character of our thoughts, for instance to label experiences as pleasant or unpleasant, that is harmful and binds us to suffering, but the mind’s habituative tendency of “clinging to pleasant experiences and rejecting unpleasant ones” (Dreyfus, 2013, p. 53).

In phenomenology too, the natural tendencies of the mind are recognized. According to Husserl (1931/2013), there is an immediacy with which the natural world presents itself already loaded with values for me, leading to “approval and disapproval” and “desire and aversion” (Husserl, 1931/2013, p. 103):

Without further effort on my part I find the things before me furnished not only with the qualities that befit their positive nature, but with value-characters such as beautiful or ugly, agreeable or disagreeable, pleasant or unpleasant, and so forth. (Husserl, 1931/2013, p. 103)

But in suspending the natural attitude in phenomenology, it is not the tendency of desire and aversion as such that is at stake, as it is in mindfulness practice, but at stake is the general thesis of the natural world, the assumption that this natural world exists independently of us. It is this assumption that should be bracketed.

To sum up, by comparing phenomenology’s concept of the natural attitude with the concept of the mind’s natural tendency in mindfulness practice, we do not only see that these concepts have different meanings, but this comparison also illustrates the different goals of phenomenology and mindfulness practice. As was also mentioned by Bitbol (2019) and Depraz (2019), the goal of phenomenology is epistemological and the goal of mindfulness is psychotherapeutic and to relieve suffering.

In this section, differences between Husserl’s phenomenology and mindfulness practice were identified by analyzing a pair of concepts, concepts that appeared to be false friends. To understand the resemblances, we will look at shared paradoxes in the next section, in which a turn will be made to Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the phenomenological reduction.

Shared Paradoxes of Mindfulness and Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology

By moving from Husserl’s philosophy toward Merleau-Ponty’s, the debate on the comparison between phenomenology and mindfulness practice takes a new turn. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the body is often used to relate phenomenology to mindfulness (Pulkki et al., 2017) and other meditative practices, such as yoga (Kee, 2024; Morley, 2001, 2008; Pulkki et al., 2017), Zen meditation (Olson, 1986), and nondirective meditation (Solli, 2017). This article focuses, however, on the paradoxes in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, and explains that similar paradoxes can be found in the practice of mindfulness.

Paradox of “Productive Unachievability”

In his preface to the Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty (2012) famously describes the phenomenological reduction as paradoxical. Performing the phenomenological reduction, suspending our natural attitude, our belief in the existence of the world: It is paradoxically the very suspension of our belief in the existence of the world that makes our attachment to the world appear. Therefore, the phenomenological reduction can never be complete. Indeed, we can take a step back, but we can never step out, being always bound to our point of perspective, to our body and to our situation, these three being intricately interrelated. As Merleau-Ponty (2012) concludes, “The most important lesson of the reduction is the impossibility of a complete reduction” (p. lxxvii).

Paradoxically, it is the impossibility, or unachievability, of a complete phenomenological reduction that is its very output. We have to commit ourselves to the phenomenological reduction, and notice that it cannot be completed: Only then it will appear to us that we are always already embodied, bound to a historical place and time, and interwoven with others. When we start to reflect, it is from this situated position. That is why philosophy has to start anew time and again: “The phenomenological world is not the making explicit of a prior being, but rather the founding of being; philosophy is not the reflection of a prior truth, but rather, like art, the actualization of a truth” (Merleau-Ponty, 2012, p. lxxxiv).

In Merleau-Ponty’s (2012) description of the phenomenological reduction, a paradox of productive unachievability can be found. It is only when we commit ourselves to the phenomenological reduction that we will notice that it cannot be completed, and it is precisely in becoming aware of the impossibility of a complete reduction that it will appear that we are always embodied being-in-the-world. That is why Merleau-Ponty (2012) calls the phenomenological reduction “the formula for an existential philosophy” (p. lxxviii). The paradox of the figure of “productive unachievability” is that it turns into a positive outcome what at first sight appeared to be a failure. Therefore, it would not be correct to consider this inevitable unachievability a failure at all. As Merleau-Ponty (2012) states: “The unfinished nature of phenomenology and the inchoate style in which it proceeds are not the sign of failure; they were inevitable because phenomenology’s task was to reveal the mystery of the world and the mystery of reason” (p. lxxxv).

A similar paradox of productive unachievability can be found in mindfulness practice. The attempt of being aware, of being present here and now, tends to fail. For instance, in practicing sitting meditation—one of the exercises in mindfulness practice—focusing attention on our breathing will fail time and again, attention will wander away and we will become involved in thoughts. When we notice this, we just refocus attention on the breathing. “We repeat this hundreds thousands of times, millions of times, as necessary” (Kabat-Zinn, 2020, pp. 65–66). But precisely in becoming aware of our own unawareness, time and again, lies the fruit of the effort: “Forgetting or neglecting to be mindful can teach you a lot more than just being mindful all the time. [. . .] It is in the coming back to mindfulness that seeing lies” (Kabat-Zinn, 2019, p. 160).

It is in the coming back to mindfulness that we will see what the consequences of not being mindful have been, and what effects practicing mindfulness brings (Kabat-Zinn, 2019, p. 160). This paradox of productive unachievability has some kinship with two of the paradoxes that Shapiro et al. (2018) discerned in mindfulness practice: the paradox of acceptance versus change and the paradox of effort versus non-striving. It is only by accepting what is at this present moment that things may change, and mindfulness practice paradoxically requires both effort and an attitude of non-striving. The paradox of productive unachievability, however, addresses the paradox that this non-achieving in mindfulness practice may be the very source of productive outcomes. When time and again I will not achieve to be mindful, I will eventually become aware of the mind’s natural tendency to wander away all the time. When time and again I let the present moment pass by unnoticed, absorbed as I am in self-centered thoughts and judgments, becoming aware of this may transform this failure of being mindful into being grateful for life as it is.

So, in both Merleau-Ponty’s (2012) interpretation of the phenomenological reduction and in mindfulness practice, the paradox of productive unachievability can be discerned. Bitbol (2019) makes a rather similar argument when he compares Husserl’s claim that any attempt to practice the epochè will be corrupted, with the noticing of distraction and coming back to attention in mindfulness practice. Also, Depraz (2019) compares the back-and-forth character of both the epochè and mindfulness practice, both being never-ending processes. These comparisons, however, do not yet capture the paradox described in this section that precisely in these endless processes of inevitable incompleteness fruits can be found.

Paradox of Expression

Next to the above-described paradox inherent to the phenomenological reduction, Merleau-Ponty (2012) also describes a fundamental paradox in the phenomenon of expression. As is well-known, for Merleau-Ponty body and language are entangled: It is through one’s body that one can make gestures and sounds that can become invested with meaning. His central idea is that we inhabit the world being bodies and that our embodied being in the world and our giving sense to the world in an embodied way, is prior to thinking about it. In line with this, speaking is for Merleau-Ponty prior to thought. Speaking is not the physical expression of thought, but is the very constitution of thought: “For the speaker, then, speech does not translate a ready-made thought; rather, speech accomplishes thought” (Merleau-Ponty, 2012, p. 183).

So, according to Merleau-Ponty (2012), there is no thought before it is expressed in language. Like moving one’s body does not depend on a mental image of one’s body, similarly, speaking does not rely on a representation of what is going to be said. Articulating the words, uttering the sounds, is a form of using one’s body that does not require prior thinking or deliberation. We make use of available significations “without a thought, just as without thinking we ‘find’ our arms and legs” (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, p. 18). While we are speaking, making use of words that are already familiar to us, on that very moment thought is constituted. Something new is created that was not ready-made and just waiting to be uttered in speech. But this also implies that when something novel is expressed, this event of expression is dependent on what has been said before. This makes speech “a paradoxical operation” (Merleau-Ponty, 2012, p. 408):

Thus, speech is this paradoxical operation in which—by means of words whose sense is given and by means of already available significations—we attempt to catch up with an intention that in principle goes beyond them and modifies them in the final analysis, itself establishing the sense of the words by which it expresses itself. (Merleau-Ponty, 2012, pp. 408–409)

So, every instance of speech entails elements of both creation and repetition: creating new meaning by making use of existing words. The paradox of expression entails the paradox that every speech event balances between two poles that are both never reached: Expression is “between pure creation of meaning and pure repetition of acquired significations” (Landes, 2017, p. 598, emphasis in original). Merleau-Ponty (2012) uses various concepts to address these elements of respectively creation and repetition in speech events: “originary speech” and “secondary speech” (p. 409), and “speaking speech” and “spoken speech” (p. 202).

The creative element of speech, speaking speech, depends on the repetitive element of spoken speech, of what has been put into words before, while at the same time, there would not be spoken speech if there was no speaking speech. It is therefore important to underline that both dimensions of speech, its historical, traditional dimension (spoken speech), and its innovating, transforming dimension (speaking speech) are mutually dependent (Slatman, 2003, especially chapter IV). Kee (2018) emphasizes that speaking and spoken speech are not separate instances of speech, but that both are more or less present in all instances of language. That is why there is no such thing as words emerging from “pure silence”: “It is only in so far as the subject already responds to the demands of language, and in the terms of a language, that it can find expression for itself” (Marratto, 2012, p. 177). Speaking speech and spoken speech are interwoven and each new expression, itself making a creative use of what was said before, enlarges possibilities of what can be expressed in the future (Landes, 2017). In The Prose of the World, Merleau-Ponty (1973) expresses the relation between speaking word and spoken word in a more metaphorical, almost mysterious, way:

For it will enable us to detect beneath spoken language, whose sounds and sentences are cleverly suited to ready-made significations, an operant or speaking language, whose words have a silent life like the animals at the bottom of the ocean and come together or separate according to the needs of their lateral or indirect signification. (Merleau-Ponty, 1973, p. 87)

Speaking speech tries to express what was not yet expressed, but is indebted to what was already said (Apostolopoulos, 2019; Slatman, 2009). According to Slatman (2003), this paradox of expression and the paradox of productive unachievability of the phenomenological reduction, are related. As we are first of all embodied situated being in the world, the discursive expression “returning to the things themselves” is in itself already paradoxical, as it aims to give words to a pre-discursive world: “To return to the things themselves is to return to this world prior to knowledge, this world of which knowledge always speaks” (Merleau-Ponty, 2012, p. lxxii, emphasis in original).

Merleau-Ponty (2012) distinguishes between “lived perception,” experience itself, and “verbalized perception.” The meaning of lived experience, perceptual meaning or “sense,” is verbalized and conceptualized in linguistic meaning, “signification.” Anything we say about experience is expressed in language, therefore, according to Merleau-Ponty, it is not possible to disclose “pure” experience in words. The perception-language relation in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology is, however, even more paradoxical than the tenet that pure perception is mute (Apostolopoulos, 2019). As Apostolopoulos elaborates, there is another paradox of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s (2012) Phenomenology of Perception, even more in his later The Visible and the Invisible (Merleau-Ponty, 1968): Linguistic expression not only seeks to describe and articulate experience but also forms and transforms it. Perception is invested with linguistic meaning, the “spoken speech” dimension of language. When, for instance, we see a glass, our perception is structured because the word “glass” is already familiar to us, we do not apply the concept, it was already inherent in perception. Added to this, “speaking speech,” in its search to express lived experience, can open up more layers in perception, and in trying to further articulate these layers, perception is continually formed and reformed, for the speaker and for the listener. By the same token, acts of speaking speech, authentic expression, can shed new light on experience and on our world:

By engaging with authentic expression, we develop an interpretative attitude that can be applied more liberally, and can be directed to non-literary or non-linguistic objects (e.g., places or persons). According to Merleau-Ponty, this promises to disclose new features of our world. (Apostolopoulos, 2019, p. 59)

It is in trying to articulate the many different perceptual experiences in an intersubjective dialogue that we might be able to see what was overlooked before (Apostolopoulos, 2019).

In mindfulness practice, we can also identify a paradox of expression. Mindfulness is said to be non-discursive and non-conceptual, so speaking about it or verbal instruction of mindfulness becomes paradoxical:

Mindfulness is inherently nonlinear and non-conceptual, thus trying to define and teach it using only the conceptual logical mind leaves significant gaps. Because mindfulness helps us to step out of our habitual narrative streams of thought, it is challenging to describe using words. (Shapiro et al., 2018, p. 1693)

In Zen Buddhism, which is consensual to mindfulness practice, the paradox of expression can also be discerned. As pure experience is seen as “primordial and pre-reflective, from which the self as well as subject-object distinctions emerge” (Krägeloh, 2019, p. 22), this non-duality of pure experience cannot be captured in conceptual language. That is why kõans have been used in the practice of Zen meditation. Kõans are questions to which no rational answer is possible. Being paradoxical themselves, like the kõan What is the sound of one hand clapping? they are intended to induce non-dual awareness by setting aside conventional logic (Krägeloh, 2019). In the practice of mindfulness, we do not find the use of kõans, but we see ample use of metaphors instead. These metaphors too have the function to express and induce the non-conceptual and non-dual state of mindfulness: sitting as steady as a mountain not moved by the clouds and the winds,¹ or sitting as open as a an inn, just witnessing and welcoming anything that comes. Dunne (2013) concludes, based on his own experience and that of other practitioners, that MBSR is “overall adopting a non-dual approach to practice” (Dunne, 2013, p. 75). We see this reflected in the instruction Kabat-Zinn (2020) gives on practicing “choiceless awareness,” this is just sitting, without a special focus of attention: “Practice being completely open and receptive to whatever comes into the field of awareness, letting it all come and go, watching, witnessing, attending in stillness. Allow yourself to be the non-conceptual knowing (and the not-knowing) that awareness already is” (Kabat-Zinn, 2020, p. 74, emphasis added).

One could say that in the above quote, the paradox of expression in mindfulness practice is expressed. However, it is not clear what this paradoxical and opaque allowing yourself to be the non-conceptual knowing, means. As it is not a logical expression that can be explained by analysis, it should rather be approached as a kõan itself, or considered to be a metaphorical use of language, being the non-conceptual knowing. Then reading this quote could be seen as a very means to evoke the experience of mindfulness, what Kabat-Zinn (2019) himself hoped his texts will do.

Conclusion

After having discussed the shared paradoxes in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and mindfulness practice, providing a Merleau-Pontian turn in the debate on phenomenology and mindfulness, the question remains how this matters for either. The conclusion is warranted that new light can be shed on one of the tenets in mindfulness practice, namely that the experience of mindfulness is non-discursive and therefore cannot be expressed in words. The shared paradox of expression, discerned in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and in mindfulness practice, shows that this is not an exclusive characteristic for mindfulness experience at all. Speaking about experience is always paradoxical. It is always an endeavor trying to find the words that signify the sense of one’s experience. Giving in to silence, however, is not productive. In the process of trying to find the right words, correcting oneself, and searching for better ways to express oneself, one’s experience will open up and show more layers of complexity, experience itself will be changed, not only for the speaker themselves but also for the listeners. It is the shared paradox of productive unachievability, discerned in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and in mindfulness practice, that fuels the ongoing search for expressions and better expressions for what at first sight may have been considered to be mute, non-discursive experience.

There is still another way how the discussion of the shared paradox of expression in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and mindfulness practice can refine thinking about mindfulness practice as allegedly non-discursive. Experiencing mindfulness practice or experiencing a state of mindfulness: these experiences are already invested with linguistic meaning before we even try to apply any concept to them, or before we paradoxically state that these experiences are non-discursive. Our perception, our experience, is already structured by tokens of spoken word that have already been used in these contexts for ages, and that have become familiar to us. So, there is no such thing as experiencing mindfulness practice without inherent linguistic meaning.

The discussion of shared paradoxes in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and mindfulness practice may indicate directions for further phenomenological research. As said before, the ongoing, and never-ending, processes of trying to express what is experienced in mindfulness practice simultaneously form and transform experience. It is an empirical question what words are actually used, and by whom, to describe mindfulness practice and to describe states of mindfulness. It is also an empirical question how words are used in the teaching processes of mindfulness practice and how these words actually form and transform the experiences of mindfulness practitioners.

To conclude, let us assume that all what has been said in the recent and ongoing debate on phenomenology and mindfulness enlarges the possibilities for future expressions. Moreover, let us hope that some of what is said may evoke the experience of mindfulness.

Said by whom? Said to whom? Not by a mind to a mind, but by a being who has body and language to a being who has body and language, each drawing the other by invisible threads [. . .]—making the other speak, think, and become what he is but never would have been by himself. (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, p. 19, emphasis in original)

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sanneke de Haan, Jenny Slatman, and two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Ingeborg van den Bold

Notes

Author Biography

Ingeborg van den Bold holds an MA and a BA in philosophy from Tilburg University and an MSc and a BSc in medicine from Utrecht University. She worked as a medical doctor in a hospital and in the public health domain. As a researcher in philosophy, she is currently working on her PhD project “Mindfulness and the body in the experience of being ill” at Tilburg University.

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Mindfulness and the Paradoxes in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology

Abstract

Keywords

Mindfulness—The Concept

Phenomenology and Mindfulness—A Recent Debate

The Differences —The Natural Attitude Versus the Mind’s Natural Tendency

Shared Paradoxes of Mindfulness and Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology

Paradox of “Productive Unachievability”

Paradox of Expression

Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author Biography

References