Starting from the Now

 Many people have lately been critiquing the mindfulness movement as being a sometimes glib and shallow "version" of Buddhist teaching that does not encompass the whole of Buddhism. I don't really agree because I think that any interpretation of what something should be is bound to alienate some parts of one's experience. I generally tend to subscribe to the idea that mindfulness is the beginning of something, in the sense that everything begins with mind. But knowing that mindfulness itself does not cover all aspects of Buddhist philosophy and practice does not bother me as much as it does others. I think it's because I don't devalue "beginnings"; they are expressions of what is always here, and always changing into something else. Why valorize the "after" and why stay only in the "beginning"? Both beginning and after are moments in the totality.
   Mindfulness is a commitment to be now with all the messiness of one's lived experiences. It doesn't mean that I am mastering an all-seeing, all knowing wisdom, but it means that whatever I am doing I am starting from the ground of experience, which is this moment. Even when there are all these turbulent feelings in me (tiredness, exhaustion, irritation), I am honoring these as parts of my being and not trying to silo them off, but nor am I making them into a fixed identity. Again, this is how experience can flow without the interruptions of conceptual absolutes.