Developing Mindfulness

“Most of us are not particularly sensitive to either our body or our thought processes. This becomes all too clear when we begin to practice mindfulness. We can be surprised at how difficult it is just to listen to the body or attend to our thoughts as events. When we work systematically to bring our undivided attention to the body, as we do when we practice the body scan or the sitting or the yoga, we are literally increasing our connectedness with it. We know our body better as a result. We trust it more, we read its signals more accurately, and we know how good it can feel to be completely at one with our body in a state of deep relaxation. We also learn to regulate its level of tension intentionally, in ways that are not possible without awareness.

The same is true for our thoughts and feelings and for our relationship to the environment. When we are mindful of the process of thought itself, we can more readily catch our own lapses of mind, the inaccuracies in our thinking, and the self-subverting behaviors that often follow from them. As we have seen, the great delusion of separateness that we indulge in, coupled with our deeply conditioned habits of mind, the scars we carry, and our general level of unawareness, can result in particularly toxic and disregulating consequences for both our body and our mind. The overall result is that we may feel deeply inadequate when it comes to facing and living within and changing the full catastrophe of our lives.”
- Jon Kabat-Zinn  Full Catastrophe Living

Peace

When consciousness is calm and open, we rest in equanimity. As our peaceful heart meets other beings, it fills with love. When this love meets pain, it transforms itself naturally into compassion. And when this same openhearted love meets happiness, it becomes joy. In this way, we can find happiness everywhere. The Thai Buddhist teacher Ajahn Buddhadasa says that finding goodness everywhere allows us to be servants of peace. – by Jack Kornfield from Bringing Home the Dharma

May this holiday season, however you celebrate it, be filled with loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity!

Appreciating Nature

As the season progresses the weather changes, the light becomes dimmer and the pace of life slows. There are fewer people around this coastal town allowing us the opportunity to appreciate what nature has to offer.

Many of the leaves fell off the trees in late summer due to the salt water damage from a tropical storm that came through our state. But some of the trees were not affected. Those leaves that were unaffected by the storm put on an unbelievable show this year. There weren’t a lot but those that changed were the ones tucked away in protected spots or behind a row of trees that took a beating. One of my maple trees was not affected by the storm and the leaves this year were a combination of brilliant red and yellow; red around the outside edge and yellow in the body of the leaf. I’ve never seen anything like it! As I gawked at the wonder of it all, a few leaves fell off the tree reminding me that they were there only for a short time and I was grateful for the opportunity to see them. Then it occurred to me that this noticing or mindfulness develops easily and spontaneously in nature.

Our resident woodchuck is getting fatter on the grasses and flowers in my lawn and he stopped to spend some time with me as I cut a few late season roses earlier this week. He viewed me safely from behind a rock where he could make a quick getaway if he needed to. It was wonderful to have him there and he seemed to listen as I questioned him about his weight gain. He was only about 20 feet away! His presence allowed me to connect with nature in a different way; with a non-human participant.  Being with animals, whether it’s a woodchuck, fox, woodpecker, moose, or any other animal creates a profound joy and appreciation. Some of the creatures are truly special.

My husband and I took the morning to walk along a coastal area that is filled with boulders, waves and beautiful views. Today we could see forever and appreciated the water, surf and spray. We chatted as we enjoyed the warmth and movement and we mentioned how lucky we were to be able to enjoy this unusually mild day. We noticed how the space around us created spaciousness to emerge within us; and then quietude and peace. It was a perfectly amazing day.

Nature requires that we are mindful in order to appreciate it. It brings us back to this moment and teaches us about interconnection, selflessness, and impermanence. If we care about what we see, we recognize its fragility, we understand we are an integral part of the greater universe, and that we have a responsibility to maintain and protect it. 

“Nature” is what
we see –
The Hill – the
Afternoon –
Squirrel – Eclipse –
the Bumble bee –
Nay – Nature is
Heaven –
Nature is what
we hear –
The Bobolink –
the Sea –
Thunder – the
Cricket –
Nay – Nature is
Harmony –
Nature is what
we know –
Yet have no art
to say –
So impotent our
Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.

~ Emily Dickinson

Non-Attachment

As we go through life we constantly (every moment) assign our experiences to either the “I like it” or “I don’t like it” category. (Then there’s also the neutral category, but that means we aren’t even present for that experience, so I won’t get into that here.) This wanting/not wanting is where suffering comes from; if we like it, we move towards it or desire it, if we don’t we discard it or move away from it. So there is this constant push/pull that informs our life and our actions. If we weren’t so attached to these two ways of being, perhaps we could have more calmness and equanimity in our lives. But instead we are buffeted from one thing to another in search of happiness.

Studies indicate that people who are optimistic and are able to release negative emotions and accept things as they are and are not attached to a particular perspective have a longer life expectancy than those that are pessimistic and worry or try to control or change things that are out of their control. This non-attachment is not a passive or complacent attitude, but an attitude of acceptance that works with what is, rather than how we would like things to be.  

We are attached to many things which include sense objects, distorted incorrect views, theories, opinions, and beliefs, activities and practices based on superstition and incorrect views, and everything that we describe as “me” and “mine.”

To begin to release our attachments, we need to first become aware of (mindfulness) whatever arises within our field of consciousness or experience and become aware of how you relate to it. The acronym R.A.I.N. may assist you in this process. R.A.I.N stands for

R = Recognize when a strong emotion is present.
A = Allow or acknowledge that it’s there.
I = Investigate the body, emotions, and thoughts
N = Non-identify with whatever is there.

R.A.I.N. is an insightful self-inquiry practice that you can bring into your daily life to help you discover deeper threads of what you are attached to. Throughout the next week, bring recognition to any strong emotion and allow the emotion to be present. Investigate what you feel physically, mentally, and emotionally and see where it takes you. The last element, non-identification, is very useful because it helps to deflate the mind’s stories and reactions. It’s like going to a movie, where you sit back and watch the actors play out the drama. You can see that these thoughts are all impermanent and not identify with any of them.
 

“Attachment is like holding on tightly to something that is always slipping through my fingers
–it just gives me rope burn.”
–Lama Surya Das

Kindness Leads to Wisdom

The concepts of mindfulness and meditation are becoming more and more mainstream thanks to fMRI machines. These functional MRI machines allow scientists to see the parts of the brain that are being used when one is meditating and in a deep state of concentration, when time and place fall away and we no longer define ourselves as “I” and when we are cultivating loving-kindness. But research on loving-kindness is also being done on a less technical level.

In the Buddhist tradition, we cultivate loving-kindness in preparation for wisdom. The ancients knew that one does not occur without the other and now there is research that may support that.  

Recent work by Brian Hare suggests that dogs may have more intelligence then chimps even though chimps are considered more sophisticated animals.

But chimps can’t understand even basic human gesturing, like pointing, but dogs can. If you have two cups with food underneath one and you point to the cup with food, the dog will go and get that treat. But to understand this requires cognitive abilities; that there is an animal that has something I don’t and that that animal is trying to communicate to me.

In 1959, Dmitry Belyaev gathered wild foxes in Russia and kept a group as a control and bred the other group for kindness. Only the foxes that were nicest to the humans  – those that would approach without fear or aggression – got a chance to mate. Over many generations of breeding for kindness, he found that only the group of foxes  who were bred for “niceness”  understood pointing. The control group did not.

Wolves did this breeding naturally over many generations. Those that approached human settlements looking for scraps and were less fearful and aggressive were rewarded with food from the humans. Over time, those wolves became our dogs.

In both these situations, intelligence followed naturally in those animals that were ” nice”. Even though chimps are smarter than dogs in many ways, Brian Hare, the Duke scientist that proposes this theory, says that the chimps are also more emotionally volatile. This interferes with cooperation, even when it’s in the chimp’s own interest.

Hare suggests that our species first learned to tolerate each other, to be kind and patient enough to cooperate and that this is what led to language, tools and civilization.

Imagine what our world might look like if we all were kind – cooperation and wisdom would abound!

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them, humanity cannot survive.

– His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Practice Opportunites

This blog comes about after teaching an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program and attending a six-day silent retreat. It became obvious to me how important supporting a home practice of meditation is and how we all need a little help from time to time.

As we move through our life, sometimes our meditation practice falls by the wayside or we get pulled into the drama of everyday life and forget the teachings. This is the time we need our formal practice more than ever, but it’s so hard to sit then. So often we walk right by our cushion and think “I need to do that soon.” And we don’t. So it becomes increasingly important to have practice opportunities that kick start our practice.

There are many opportunities and they may be as convenient as your local, weekly sangha meeting. Well, maybe we don’t go weekly, but see if you can commit to the next session. In my area, which is Rhode Island, there are mindfulness meditation sessions in Wickford, Rhode Island at Grace Yoga on Tuesday mornings and in Middletown, RI at Innerlight Center for Yoga and Meditation on Wednesday mornings.

The Insight Meditation Community of Providence, Rhode Island holds Weekly Sitting Meditation and Dharma Readings on Tuesdays at 7:30 pm at 354 Broadway, 2nd floor, Providence. Sitting practice is 30 minutes; readings, recorded dharma talks and discussion are also integrated into the evening.

The first Sunday of each month the Insight Meditation Community of Providence offers a First Sunday Extended Practice in the afternoon from 2:00 – 5:15; please arrive by 1:50 for a short orientation. This is an extended sitting, walking practice for those who are familiar with longer sits. For more information contact Benjamin Hall at 401 941-3701 or join the group on Facebook.

Also in Providence, the Brown University Contemplative Studies Initiative offers a series of lectures by well-known contemplatives. Some past speakers were Sharon Salzberg, Chip Hartranft, and Shinzen Young. Visit their events page for more information.

Brown also offers a comprehensive list of organizations and retreat locations for all spiritual traditions on their Links page. 

But you don’t have to go to Brown to listen to uplifting and supportive lectures. There are many available online. Dharmaseed offers talks that are usually 60 minutes long and they are free but they appreciate any donations you may be able to give them to support their work. These talks are by a variety of well-known dharma teachers and tend to be quite extraordinary.

Sounds True is an independent multimedia publishing company that works with the world’s major spiritual traditions, as well as the arts and humanities, embodied by the leading authors, teachers, and visionary artists of our time. You can purchase a variety of materials from Sounds True, but the site also offers free interview podcasts with Tami Simon. Of note is the interview with Jack Kornfield on Difficult Times and Liberation. Another is a podcast by Thich Nhat Hanh, entitled Meditation is for Everyone.

Perhaps you’d be interested in Phillip Moffitt’s site. He is a Spirit Rock meditation teacher and his site is a wealth of information; articles, talks, etc. Two of my favorites talks are Cultivating Steadiness in Meditation or Starting Your Day with Clarity.

Sometimes we just need someone to guide us through a meditation. For some free, short meditations go to Mindful Meditations by Diana Winston, another Spirit Rock teacher who also works at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center.

Or you can listen to Mindfulness of the Body by Jon Kabat-Zinn which is only 10 minutes long.

Or perhaps you can just sit on your cushion for 10 minutes following the breath as it moves into and out of the body……

 Breathing in I calm my body.

Breathing out I smile.

Dwelling in the present moment.

I know this is a wonderful moment.

-Thich Nhat Hahn….Being Peace

More Scientific Research on Mindfulness Meditation

As the positive effects of mindfulness meditation are experienced by more and more people and greater interest in the technique is created, the scientific community has responded by studying this ancient tradition more intensely. The most recent research supports previous research indicating that mindfulness meditation increases the gray matter in the brain, especially in the areas associated with attention, learning, memory, compassion, and emotional integration.

In a study entitled Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density by Sara Lazar PhD. at the Massachusetts General Hospital, 16 people had an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) before and after an eight-week Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction program. Analysis of the MRIs found increased density in grey matter in the hippocampus (important for learning and memory) and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion and introspection. If you are a researcher or would prefer to read the original article, you can find it here.

If you do a search in PubMed.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, for studies published from January 1, 2011 through March 27, 2011 on mindfulness meditation you will find 24 scientific papers published in that small period of time. These articles are diverse and look at mindfulness meditation and its effects on sleep, breast cancer survivors, mood, depression, smoking cessation, decision-making, quality of care, eating disorders, fibromyalgia, and pain.

One recent study that has not yet been published is “The Shamatha Project”. Clifford Saron, PhD. is the lead research scientist and he is located at the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis. His research looked at how long-term intensive meditation practice effects cognition, emotion, health physiology, and motivation. The study looked at how these aspects of mind were affected by three months of intensive full-time training in meditative quiescence (Shamatha) and emotional balance (loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity).

“Preliminary results indicate that attention and emotional functioning were affected in positive ways. Performance on laboratory tasks showed training-related enhancements in perceptual sensitivity and the ability to sustain attentional focus and withhold habitual responses when instructed to do so. Analyses of facial expressions in response to film clips revealed increased emotional resonance with human suffering and reductions in emotions that distance people from others. Also, overall psychological functioning improved across the duration of the retreat, and these psychological benefits corresponded to improvements in performance on some cognitive tasks and biological indicators of physical health related to cellular aging. In short, repeated practice in focusing the mind and opening the heart appears to stabilize attention, promote health and well-being and lead to more compassionate emotional responses.”