Mindfulness & Awareness in Portlandia

by Patrick Groneman
(Follow Patrick on Twitter)

I finally had a chance to watch an episode of the much-hyped TV series Portlandia this week.  It pokes funs at Oregon's hipster mecca in a sweet-yet-universal-truth-telling sort of way.

I thought this scene was a pretty hilarious example of our tendency as humans to get sucked into the digital realm.

I also thought it was a great illustration of how "mindfulness" and "awareness" operate, as taught in the Buddhist tradition.  Sometimes in our culture these two words are used interchangeably, but in fact, they have two distinct meanings.

Buddhist Psychologist Mark Epstein defines mindfulness as " being aware of exactly what is happening in the mind and body as it is occurring.”  And awareness as more simply our "bare attention", which notices whatever is going on.

In the scene Fred's attention is jumping from his computer, to his cell phone, to his DVR, with no sense of continuity or intention in his action.   In my experience, this is just what it feels like to be lost in thought during meditation (or lost in anything else for that matter).

His call for "Help!" is a glimpse of how "awareness" operates.  Fred saw that he was lost in his technology loop, that his mind was all over the place -- fractured.   Awareness sees when we are fractured and calls in mindfulness to help keep us focused.

In this scene Carrie is a good stand-in for "mindfulness".  Fred's (Who is awareness) calls her over asking for help to stay focused.  Carrie brings in a picture of Fred from high school as a reminder for him that he can be content and happy with who he is -- regardless of the status of his Netflix queue.

As a result, Fred becomes aware of what is going on in his heart, mind and body -- at least until Carrie turns on the mind-fi, and he spins off again.

So in short, awareness is something is always there, but is sometimes ignored by our feedback-obsessed-neurotic mind.  Mindfulness is more of a skill, an ability to stay focused *with intention* over a period of time.  This is what we train through meditation practice.

To anyone who is relatively new to all of this, that's as simple as I can explain it --   Spinning off, noticing, and coming back to the present moment -- spinning off, noticing, coming back... over and over again.

More info on Portlandia available here.