Did Sherlock Holmes practice mindfulness?

Did Sherlock Holmes practice mindfulness?

I’ve read just about every Holmes story (really!) and there’s no mention of mindfulness or meditation. Holmes certainly never sat cross-legged on a cushion or uttered ‘om’ in any of the stories.

However, in her book Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, psychologist Maria Konnikova describes Holmes as the archetype of mindfulness. Many cognitive psychologists agree, pointing out Holmes’ habits and mental discipline support the three tenants of mindfulness:

1. Intention: Shift from running on auto-pilot to purposeful awareness.
2. Attention: Direct your focus to the present moment.
3. Attitude: Maintain an open, curious, and entirely non-judgmental stance.

They may be right.

In the story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Holmes demonstrates both intention and attention:

“You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room… I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”

Later in the same story, Holmes talks about the third tenant, attitude: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”

This is being mindful without using the word explicitly.

In multiple stories, Dr. Watson notes Holmes had the ability to disengage his mind from a stressful case. Holmes would sit perfectly still for hours, play the violin, or look at architecture. In “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans,” Watson described it as Holmes’ power of “throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things.” Psychologists call this distancing and it’s a mindfulness technique used to keep from being emotionally overwhelmed.

One of my favorite passages in “A Study in Scarlet” reinforces mindfulness:

“A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic.”

Mindfulness advocates selective attention and filtering out mental distractions. Sadly, I seem to remember more trivia than I care to admit.

So, did Sherlock Holmes practice mindfulness? Probably not. But he certainly was mindful.