The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings

Since I am now an aspirant to be ordained as a lay member of the Order of Interbeing I have decided to try and focus my blogging around the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the order.

The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings are the very essence of the Order of Interbeing. They are the torch lighting our path, the boat carrying us, the teacher guiding us. They allow us to touch the nature of interbeing in everything that is, and to see that our happiness is not separate from the happiness of others. Interbeing is not a theory; it is a reality that can be directly experienced by each of us at any moment in our daily lives. The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings help us cultivate concentration and insight which free us from fear and the illusion of a separate self.

Much of Buddhism in the West seems to be orientated towards meditation or mindfulness as a kind of sensory experience. There is a danger that it becomes something else to acquire. One of the things that attracts me to Thay as a teacher and the Tiếp Hiện (接现)* order is the emphasis on engaging our intellectual and moral faculties as well. Mindfulness is a tool to see things as they really are and act accordingly. It is our “wrong” views that cause suffering in ourselves and others.

The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings are:

1. Openness
2. Non-Attachment To Views
3. Freedom of Thought
4. Awareness of Suffering
5. Compassionate, Healthy Living
6. Taking Care of Anger
7. Dwelling Happily in the Present Moment
8. True Community and Communication
9. Truthful and Loving Speech
10. Protecting and Nourishing the Sangha
11. Right Livelihood
12. Reverence for Life
13. Generosity
14. True Love

* Nerd Note: The fact that I can cut and paste Chinese ideograms from Wikipedia into my blog is just amazing for someone like me who started programming with ASCII text and Latin-1 and a bunch of other incompatible encodings. I bow to you in gratitude UTF-8.