"Slant learning" is a method of using "slants" (perspectives) to challenge or support our own.
Below is my summary of the different slants on mindfulness that have proven popular over the past 3 millennia.
Those considered are from Hinduism, Buddhism (Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana), Taoism, Dzogchen, and modern secular disciplines.
This chapter is intended to give you firm ground to stand on regarding why we're doing things the way we're doing them in this course.
If you've done any homework on the way mindfulness has been taught through the millennia, you'll have discovered the theme of discipline.
Most monks live on a strict schedule. They manage their monastery and its affairs with a precision akin to military officials—only with much less stress.
But these aren't the only monks.
Some retreat into the forest or mountains to live in solitude, sometimes for years at a time. Some of them maintain a disciplined schedule (AKA the "organized method", but others do things differently).
These other monks practice what's called the "natural method". They forego the perceived security of doing things the way everyone else does them and opt, instead, to live and practice by their own curiosity, ingenuity and experimentation.
You don't need more than one guess which of these methods is more suited to modern life.
Besides, unless you wish to ordain as a monk (which is drastic and unnecessary) then you have only one option: the infinite variables of 21st-century living make the natural method the only fit.
When I realized this I was scared. Discipline, tough as it is, serves as a kind of comfort blanket. "Surely it's a safer bet to do things the way most practitioners have." I thought.
But most practitioners haven't realized the deepest truth. If they had, they'd be teaching it.
I considered ordaining at one point. But for a Westerner like me this is a dramatic move. I would have upset my loving family and sacrificed a good life with plenty of opportunity for good practice.
I chose, instead, to apply the natural method and make the modern world my monastery.
The old teachings recommend many techniques for actively manipulating the contents of the mind. For example, step 10 of Gautama Buddha's primary meditation method, anapanasati, instructs "gladdening the mind".