turquoiseb: > ...mindfulness can be completely secularized. > "Mindfullness" is a Buddhist religious practice, so it might be difficult to "completely" secularize it. If you tried to do so, you'd get something very much similar to the TM practice.
In order to totally secularize the Shamtha pratices of the Theravada, you would have to leave out anything that the historical Buddha said about it in the Buddhist scriptures. Everyone knows that "meditation" in the yogic sense originated in India with the historical Buddha, Shakya the Muni (563 BCE). Shakya was a recluse who founded the Buddhist religion, which is praticed all over the planet. You're not going to be able to eradicate the centuries of belief and superstition of Buddhists any more than TM is now separated from Hinduism. Shamatha is just like TM practice, using an object in order to obtain a simple "calm abiding". That would be just another form of the relaxation response. It's when you start talking about "Enlightenment" that you run into the religious and metaphysical problems!
