The question of mindfulness' connection with ethics and compassion

This opinion paper examines the fundamental question of contemporary mindfulness' connection with ethics and compassion, while adding the voice of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist perspectives on the current debate on mindfulness and its relation to the Buddhist concept of sati and satipaṭṭhāna meditation. Drawing attention to the threefold training of morality, concentration, and wisdom constituting an important context in Buddhism, the paper argues that in today's secular context, mindfulness practice seemed to have become divorced from its larger ethical framework and soteriological context of a method for attaining liberation, and turned into a technique for quieting the mind and enhancing focus and awareness. Recognizing contemporary mindfulness' difference from Buddhist sati and satipaṭṭhāna meditation, the paper proposes that the question of how mindfulness practice is or should be connected to ethics be considered independently on the basis of recognizing their essential independence.