The 9 Attitudes of Mindfulness By developing our skills of non-judgment, patience, beginner's mind, trust, non-effort, acceptance, abandonment, gratitude and generosity, we can become truly aware. Our minds endlessly evaluate and judge. It is part of our evolutionary development and is necessary for our fight or flight response to danger or threat. However, some judgments on a personal level become repetitive and unhelpful, and can lead to a general feeling of not being good enough.
Cultivating the attitude of letting go, or of non-attachment, is fundamental to the practice of mindfulness. The nine attitudes of mindfulness (discussed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in a video below) are a series of interconnected attitudes that Kabat-Zinn adopts as a way to facilitate mindfulness without trying to force a certain sensation or form of action. An important warning for acceptance is that it doesn't mean that you have to like everything, or that you have to take a passive attitude and abandon your principles. It refers to having an attitude of openness, enthusiasm and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner would.
Trusting yourself and your intuition is at the core of the concept of trust within the nine attitudes of mindfulness. Because mindfulness can seem like a massive topic, choosing a single “mindfulness sub-topic” to focus on among the 9 attitudes can be an effective way to grow your practice. This “grabbing” attitude undermines the cultivation of mindfulness, which involves simply paying attention to whatever is happening. The attitude of a child who sees something for the first time is at the heart of the concept of a beginner's mind.
This is the first in a series of blogs that analyze the fundamental attitudes of practicing sustained and effective mindfulness. Attitudes help you cultivate a certain way of being in the world over time, rather than forcing an abstract standard of mindfulness to “be achieved”. The nine attitudes are qualities that can be cultivated both in everyday life and in the formal practice of mindfulness. But first of all, let's start with Kabat-Zinn's definition of mindfulness before delving into the attitudes we must cultivate to increase our attention and well-being.
