wiemken, m. (2012). Fading Self into Path: Behaviorism, Mindfulness, Zen, and Happiness.
Fading Self into Path: Behaviorism, Mindfulness, Zen, and Happiness is a book of theory. It presents a model for Zen and mindfulness whose foundation is built of the psychology of behaviorism. Neither exegesis of ancient texts nor mysticism will be found. It is written in everyday language and does not require training in psychology to read. Now this behaviorism has been tweaked a bit. ‘Covert’ responding (“mental,” in the vernacular) receives the preponderance of attention. Relational Frame Theory (some of which finds its way into Fading Self), has shown us that a behavioristic paradigm can handle the covert quite well. This emphasis on the covert is secondary to the almost complete focus of the book, which is what you can observe about the inside stuff in yourself in practice. Zen says “to study the self is to forget the self,” but what is one watching for? Mindfulness teaches one to stop looking so much to an internal narrative about reality, and to start looking more to reality itself; but why should one learn to let go of the mental stuff when it seems so real? Both questions receive attention. Are they answered? You decide…