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.”

Cause and Effect

For every cause there is a reaction or consequence. This order of cause and effect is a natural law of human behavior and is called kamma in the Pali, more commonly known as karma in the Sanskrit language.

We think of this as an active process happening outside ourselves (It’s just my karma), but if we follow the thread before the action, we find that frequently there is a word or thought that precedes it and influences our kamma. So, kamma is due to any thought, word or deed. If you follow the thread even further before the thought, you find that the cause is created by our mental intention.

Within the context of kamma, if we do a good (thought, word or) deed that arises from our intention, we will be rewarded at some point with a good action. Some believe that this reward may manifest in a future lifetime, but we can look at kamma within the context of this lifetime.

Science has confirmed that the mind is arranged in mind moments. One thought follows the next in a sequence of nano-seconds (we really can’t multi-task despite what others say). The quality of the intention in this moment affects the next moment. For instance, if someone yells at you, you can yell back based on your conditioned behavior patterns (unconscious intention) or you can pause for a moment and be mindful of your intention.

Mindfulness is the ability to be present for what is happening at this moment without judgment and it is what we apply in that pause. Mindfulness is the key to understanding cause and effect and how we can change the quality of our intention so that we can work with our negative behavior patterns. And mindfulness is cultivated through meditation – it allows us to become aware of the quality and condition of our mind and our intentions. We do this by noticing the thoughts and feelings that arise in each moment. And then the pause before acting creates the opportunity to change unwholesome responses to wholesome responses.

And as we care for each one of our mind moments, we construct a life with less negative kamma and more positive kamma, both now and perhaps in future lifetimes.

Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech and mind.

–A. Sixes 63 [Ven. Thanissaro, translation]

Dolce far niente

An article from the Los Angeles Times a while ago suggested that people who eat a Mediterranean diet, which consists of a large amount of fresh fruits, vegetables, grains and small amounts of fish and meat, not only live longer and are less likely to develop chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes, but the diet may even stave off depression. A number of nutritionists, epidemiologists and physicians advocate this type of diet because the scientific literature supports these prior conclusions, but the link between diet and depression is a new one.  

In discussing the other possible reasons for this finding in the Mediterranean population, the article in the L.A. Times mentioned something the Italians call “dolce far niente” or pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness, or also translated to mean the sweet enjoyment of having nothing to do.

Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests, “Non-doing has nothing to do with being indolent or passive. Quite the contrary. It takes great courage and energy to cultivate non-doing, both in stillness and in activity. Nor is it easy to make a special time for non-doing and to keep at it in the face of everything in our lives which needs to be done.”

Releasing that idea that we must check our email (again), what is the time (five minutes after we looked at our watch), see whether the stock market went up or down in the last hour, twitter about our anxiety or check in with our facebook page. In fact, the idea is to get off the treadmill and listen a bit more to our hearts, rather than the must do, should do mentality.

And in doing so, we find something else emerges; how we actually feel. And if we pay attention to what we feel, not only can we learn something about ourselves, but we may even find some relaxation by being in the present moment.

The art of Being, the art of Non-doing is very subtle. Non-doing is not merely a lack of activity but an energy experience of stillness.
This Non-doing is your presence, your very amness, the positive experience of being truly alive. ~Aziz

Letting Go….

As we follow the seasons, we understand that in the natural world plants and animals are now taking in energy to prepare for rebirth or renewal. As sentient beings, we have the opportunity to follow this natural progression, going from introspection to transformation. Moving into introspection allows us the time to determine what no longer serves us, letting go of old ideas, opinions, judgments, hurts and anything else that restricts our ability to be creative, take in new ideas, or restricts our ability to see other perspectives.

Preparing for my own “transformation”, I have been working with the concept of letting go. Ultimately, I’m hoping to cultivate the mind of non-attachment or cittavivaka in Pali. So when desire or attachment is great, I say “Let go, let go, let go” to myself until the desire fades.

I’m mindful that this season, in particular, and our society in general wants us to fill our mind with wants, ideas, opinions, judgments, prejudices, regrets and expectations. And so we buy, argue, disagree, dislike, judge, and get angry and disappointed. Noticing when this happens and working with letting go has allowed me to create space and energy to work skillfully with whatever comes up. I do this with the added help of meditation.

Meditation is a skillful way of letting go; allowing one to renunciate that which is unnecessary (nekkhamma in Pali). Mentally letting go of greed, hatred and delusion so that we can see the mind as naturally empty and luminous and then allowing the right things into it.

This year’s solstice occurs with a full lunar eclipse, something that hasn’t been seen since 1554. It starts at 1:30 am and will continue until 5:30 am. The solstice is symbolic of the rebirth of the sun to those in earlier times. During a lunar eclipse, the moon, the Earth, and the sun align so that the sun’s rays are shielded from the moon.

We can consider this transitional period from solstice to New Year 2010 as an opportunity for us to renew ourselves and realign with what is truly important. Letting go can begin that process.

Letting go a little, you have a little peace.

Letting go a lot, you have a lot of peace.

Letting go completely, you have a lot of peace.

– Ajahn Chah

A Bad Case of ME

At a small group gathering at a retreat in Barre, Massachusetts, one of the woman in the group declared that she had a “Bad Case of Me”. She explained by saying that she was “cranky” because she was assigned a roommate, the weather was too cold and that dinner was being served too early. I could feel her pain. That’s because both of us were experiencing dukkha or suffering. Why were we suffering? Because we were so caught up in “selfing” or with what WE WANTED and COULDN’T  GET. The result was that we were “cranky”.

You know that that feeling…. of unsatisfactoriness and agitation; of feeling bad for ourselves and blaming everyone else. We are so attached to our view of the world and so reluctant to let it go. We have an opinion about politics, child rearing, religion and feel we are RIGHT and everyone else is WRONG. It’s really all about us, isn’t it? It’s a Bad Case of ME.

Think about the last time someone disagreed with you. Did you identify with your thoughts and feelings, or were you able to allow them to pass through you. If you identified with them, you may have become insulted, insecure or just plain mad. It creates a roller coaster that we then ride all day.

What if we thought about the possibility that maybe it’s not important that we are right. With the holidays arriving, we might try to create some space around that opinion, world view, or perspective. Try to take a deep breath, relax and pay attention to what you are feeling as you suffer through yet another encounter with your relatives, friends, co-workers. Is cousin Willy really a drunk? Or does he drink because no one will talk to him at family gatherings? Or is he loud because no one will give him a few moments of their time? Can we spend time enjoying our grandchildren, rather than spending time telling our children how they should be raised? Maybe your co-worker isn’t lazy, he just doesn’t want to compete with the likes of you! If you create some space around “A Bad Case of ME”, perhaps you can treat this “dis-ease” with humor and a larger perspective. It may allow you to enjoy this present moment, exactly the way it is, rather than how you want it to be. And the way it is may not be so bad.

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

Dana or Generosity

Dana is the Pali for generosity. When we think of generosity, we usually think of giving money to those in need. But generosity can take a variety of forms. We can be generous just by stopping what we are doing and giving our full attention to someone. We can be generous by giving up a parking space or allowing someone to get in front of us in line. We can be generous to ourselves by not berating that person who cut us off in traffic, for the negative hormones that we release with this thought pattern only harms us. Can we be generous to the victims of that terrible car accident that resulted in a massive traffic jam, making us late for every appointment we have for the rest of the day? Can we can be generous by trying not to judge those around us (now that’s a challenging one!).

 Notice how you feel with each act of giving. Most of the time, it creates a good feeling in us. As we make others happy, we ourselves are filled with happiness.

So, it really isn’t about the actual act of giving, it’s about our state of mind. What was the quality of your heart and mind as you wrote the check to that charity, as you were giving full attention to that person, as you were allowing someone to take the space or spot in front of you in line. What was the quality of your heart and mind when you were stuck in that traffic jam?

Because in the end it’s really not about the actual act of giving, but about non-attachment and loving-kindness. Are we attached to our things, perspectives and judgments?  Can we widen our horizon to understand that those things will not necessarily bring us happiness and will eventually disappear — or we are– we can’t take them with us. Are we so attached to our perspective that we can’t listen to someone else’s? This is especially pertinent today as we hold onto our political views and ideals. Instead of respectively discussing our point of view, we go into a tirade of why other party/parties are wrong. Can we respond with an open heart to whatever or whoever is there? That’s generosity.

If you have the opportunity, take a moment to think about how generous you were over the last 24 hours and then think about all the opportunities you will have to be generous in the next 24 hours. The reality is you can be generous to yourself and others every moment in the next 24 hours. What will the quality of your heart and mind be in each of those moments?

“It is a gain for me, it is well gained by me, that in a generation obsessed by the stain of stinginess, I dwell at home with a mind devoid of the stain of stinginess, freely generous, open-handed, delighting in relinquishment, one devoted to charity, delighting in giving and sharing.” When a noble disciple recollects his own generosity thus, on that occasion his mind is not obsessed by greed, hatred or delusion; his mind is straight, with generosity as its object. — Buddha