#738 Mindfulness in Context

     "Mindfulness is the ‘heart’ of the Buddha’s teachings and is the core of, and namesake to, a class of intervention aimed at alleviating common forms of suffering—Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI’s; originally, Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction [MBSR]; later Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy [MBCT]; and other related programmes). 

     Among Buddhist scholars and Western scientists, both separately and communally, there is a lack of agreement about the specific definition of mindfulness. However, a common basis of understanding exists among Buddhist scholars, although interpretations and descriptions of mindfulness range in emphasis. Some, for example, accentuate aspects of attention, whereas others more explicitly acknowledge the complex and dynamic interplay of numerous factors including the cognitive, emotional, social and ethical.

     Mindfulness within Western psychology is generally assumed to reflect the Buddhist construct. However, definitions of the term vary greatly from that of a simple therapeutic or experiential technique to a multi-faceted activity, which requires practice and refinement. Certainly, a more elaborated definition appears to have greater support from contemplative texts, modern explanations of consciousness, and the functioning of the nervous system.       
     When attempts are made to integrate its traditional roots with modern theories of consciousness and psychological function, mindfulness is also promoted in the West as part of a broad set of practices embedded in a transitional path away from ordinary modes of everyday functioning. It is within the context of this transitional path, which includes affective, behavioural, cognitive, ethical, social and other dimensions, that mindfulness is believed to contribute to the promotion of wellbeing and amelioration of suffering. Given this contextual complexity, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to separate mindfulness from the other components woven together into the fabric of this transitional path.

     Conventional scientific methods may not easily lend themselves to a refined exploration of mindfulness. As Christopher & Gilbert wrote, based on the writings of the Thai monk and teacher Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: ‘Western psychology mandates that constructs must be explicated and operationalized to be accurately assessed. However, most Buddhist traditions dictate that mindfulness cannot be easily extracted and analyzed in isolation from inherently interrelated concepts.’ If this is true, scientists need to embrace new approaches for studying mindfulness, and merely linear, additive models that sum putative markers related to mindfulness will not suffice. Thus, attempts to delineate discrete components of mindfulness are not likely capture the inherent interrelationships mentioned by Christopher & Gilbert, seen as synergistic and mutually reinforcing."

        Grossman P, Van Dam NT. “Mindfulness, by any other name: trials and tribulations of sati in western psychology and science.” Contemp Buddhism 2011; 12(1): 219–239. doi: 10.1080/14639947.2011.564841


#722 Suffering & our Sense of Self

     “The only thing suffering cannot stand is being seen clearly. The reason for that is, that at the root of suffering is an illusion. You can’t do anything to an illusion, because there’s nothing there. You can’t do anything to the water in a mirage. You can’t go and collect it, you can’t purify it, you can’t drink it. You can’t do anything to it because it’s not there. The very best you can do is go up to it and see that it’s not there. That seeing relieves the desire to manage it or collect it. It’s like that with suffering. 
     At the heart of suffering there is an illusion – a nonexistent self. You can’t do anything to a nonexistent self. There is nothing there to do anything to. Seeing, which means experiential understanding, clear seeing is the best you can do. And as a byproduct of that clear seeing, this suffering vanishes, dissolves in time. 
     Because in order to remain present, suffering needs the illusion of a separate self. It revolves around the illusion of a separate self. If that is truly seen to be nonexistent, the suffering simply cannot stand. There may be old habits in the body-mind that run for some time. But because they are no longer supported by the belief and feeling of a separate self, these old habits gradually dissipate. So suffering vanishes as a byproduct of this exploration, not as its goal. Suffering vanishes in the same way a headache vanishes. You wake up in the morning with a headache, you get to the evening and you realize ‘Oh, my headache’s gone. I don’t know when it went. I don’t know where I was when it went. I don’t know how when it went.’ You just notice it’s not there any more. That’s how suffering disappears. It’s a byproduct, not a goal. Its disappearance is a byproduct, not a goal. If you make it your goal, you perpetuate suffering. In fact this is one of the ways the separate self perpetuates itself, sometimes for decades, by trying to get rid of itself. 
     Suffering is to the mind what pain is to the body. You put your hand in the fire, you experience pain. The pain is not a mistake. It’s not something that’s wrong. The pain is there – it’s the intelligence of the body telling you ‘Take your hand out of the fire.’ So pain is working on behalf of your wellbeing. Suffering is exactly the same at the level of the mind. It is cooperating with your desire for happiness. It’s telling you ‘You’ve got your hand in the fire.’ In this case, it’s telling you ‘You’ve mistaken yourself for a separate, limited awareness. Take a look. Take a look.’ So suffering is to the mind what pain is to the body. It’s just a wake-up call. It’s saying ‘You’ve mistaken yourself for an object, for a limited self. Have another look.’ You’re taking a look in order to look at the separate self that you have mistaken yourself for. In that moment you are thinking and feeling on behalf of a separate self. So you are now looking at the separate self on whose behalf you are thinking, feeling and acting. 
     It’s like you spend your life preparing jars to collect the water in a mirage. Your suffering tells you ‘Go and have a look in the mirage. Go and have a look at this water you are spending your entire life organizing and planning around.’ What’s going to happen when you go up to the mirage and see the water isn’t there? What’s going to happen to your water jar business? You’re just going to lose interest in it. You’re just going to stop manufacturing. There’s no water to collect. You just forget it and move on. Suffering is saying ‘Go up to the mirage. See that there is no water there. Go into your experience. See that there is no separate self there.’ That seeing will take care of everything else. And then if you want, you can engage in these loving contemplations, which is a kind of cooperation with the dismantling of the water jar business. It’s post-going-up-to-the-mirage. It’s post-enlightenment sadhana. Enlightenment is seeing what we are. The dismantling of the water jar business is a post-enlightenment sadhana. It’s what we do after the recognition of our true nature and it’s just a gentle, loving cooperation at the level of the body, with what we have already understood. We’re just helping the body feel itself in a way that is consistent with our new understanding. … 
     Don’t worry if this extraordinary event called enlightenment doesn’t seem to have taken place. Remember that enlightenment is not 'an event'. It doesn’t 'take place'. The mind is not party to it. It’s not present when this non-event occurs. It knows nothing of it. So don’t worry about that. 
     Just keep exploring what you truly are. Am I a separate limited awareness? Or is the awareness I know myself to be, totally open, unlimited and ever-present? Because the belief and the feeling that what I am comes and goes, and is limited, and therefore lacking - that single belief and feeling, is at the heart of all your suffering. That’s the only thing in suffering that needs to be explored, not the whole paraphernalia of whatever it is that seems to be causing the suffering. Because if you explore each of the causes in turn, it’s just endless – money, work, relationships … it goes on forever. All these different colors, different facets of suffering, ... It all hinges on one thing: the belief that what I am, the ‘I’ that is knowing my thoughts, and hearing these words right now, the awareness I know myself to be shares the limits and the destiny of the body-mind. That’s it. With that belief, we seem to shrink into a separate self and all our suffering is dependent on that belief and feeling alone. So once that’s clear, you become naturally one-pointed. You see that all your suffering is just based on one thing. So all your disparate energies are now gathered together in that one direction. What am I truly? You even forget about suffering, because you’re dealing with what’s at the heart of it. You forget about the paraphernalia of suffering. Who is this one, this self that is suffering? Who is this one on whose behalf I spend my life thinking and feeling, acting and relating, I spend my life serving? This self – who is it? I’ve never seen it. Where are you? Come out. I want to make your acquaintance. Show me what you’re made of.
     The analogy is of a servant who’s been living in this big old house, serving an old man all his life. And the old man is extremely demanding and unreasonable. The servant is up at five o’clock every morning, cleaning his shoes, making his fire, doing his breakfast etc and he spends his whole life, morning till night serving this old man. He never actually sees the old man. The old man is a bit of a recluse and lives in his bedroom. The servant just has a routine. He just goes through his routine. He begins to get curious. He goes to the pub every now and then on a rare day off and his friends tell him ‘You know you should go and talk to the old man. You should go and see him if he’s so unreasonable.’ So eventually he plucks up his courage and knocks on the bedroom door to discuss his work with the old man. He doesn’t answer. The next day he plucks up courage again, he doesn’t answer, so he takes a peek through the door – can’t see him. The next day he has a bit more courage and opens the door a bit more, puts his head inside the door - he’s not there. So then he get’s a bit bolder and goes in, looks around – it’s funny, he’s not there. He looks in the bathroom – not there. He explores the whole room. And he realizes that this man I’ve been serving all my life, this tyrannical man on whose behalf I’ve been laboring, he’s not there! He was never there! 
     The separate self is like that. We spend our lives thinking, feeling, acting and relating on behalf of a self that is not there. So that’s what we do here. We explore all the bedrooms, then the bathroom, then the cupboards, then the drawers. We look everywhere. The more we look, the greater our confidence grows in knowing that he’s not there. Now it doesn’t necessarily happen at one moment – ‘OK now I’ve discovered that it’s not there’. There’s just a growing confidence day-by-day. It may come in one moment, but it usually doesn’t. It’s just this confidence, this conviction grows in you. He’s not there. And in proportion to that conviction, your thoughts, feelings, activities and relationships begin to change accordingly in direct proportion to your conviction that the old man is not there. You may never be able to say ‘At that moment I discovered he wasn’t there.’ It’s not necessary. Most people can’t say that.”                                Rupert Spira

Above transcribed from this video:

#715 A Quick Introduction to Mindfulness

     Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD, originator (in 1979) of the now immensely popular Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, presents the helpful brief (12min) introductory video below.

     Key suggestions:
               • Practicing just for fun, out of curiosity. 
                          Not to get anywhere, or become anything eg more relaxed, a great meditator etc. 
                          Not to solve some problems you're having.
               • Simply holding this moment in awareness
               • Maintaining a still, dignified posture
               • "Meeting this moment in it's fullness with alertness"
               • Seeing if we can feel the breath (instead of think about it)
                          Seeing if you can surf on the sensations of the breath coming in & out of the body, moment by moment by moment
                          Letting everything else going on in the mind, in the room - sounds, everything, just be in the wings. Not suppressing anything, just featuring the breath.
                          Letting the breath take center stage in the field of awareness, as if your life depended on it, which of course it does, in more ways than you may think.


     See also the superb brief intro to "awareness": http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/113-excellent-introduction-to.html 

#653 Awareness Leads to Spaciousness & Freedom

     “Change will happen naturally as we open to the truth. The more we bring our attachments into awareness, the freer we become, not because we eliminate the attachments, but because we learn to identify more with awareness than with desire. Using our capacity for consciousness, we can change perspective on ourselves, giving a sense of space where once there was only habit. Discipline means restraining the habitual movement of the mind, so that instead of blind impulse there can be clear comprehension. 
     In our quest to understand where our unsatisfactoriness derives from, we are often inclined to search for causes and people to blame. … the search for causes has to lead eventually back to the individual. Although traumatic and terrible things may have occurred, it is the individual’s mind that perpetuates the suffering, and that can be trained to change. As long as we are struggling against the feeling, hoping to eliminate it by getting high or being cured, we are still attached. We can relieve unsatisfactoriness only by sharpening our focus and changing our perspective.”

        Epstein M. "Going on Being. Buddhism and the way of Change. A Positive Psychology for the West." Broadway Books, NY, 2001. 

Rutger Bus   www.dpreview.com

#584 Quality of Attention & Quality of Life

     We humans are fully capable of abysmal stupidity AND equally capable of, and evolving towards, transcendent wisdom. Our infatuation with science and other forms of materialism is starting to wear thin. One of the most vocal and eloquent critics of religion, Sam Harris, just came out with a book on spirituality(!!), in which he uses science to support the essential core treasures held within wisdom traditions. A tongue-in-cheek definition of psychology: "Proving, that what grandma always told us, is true."

     "How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives. Mystics and contemplatives have made this claim for ages - but a growing body of scientific research now bears it out."                         Sam Harris. "Waking Up. A Guide to Spirituality without Religion." Simon & Schuster, 2014.

#563 Meditation Training for Restless, Unhappy Minds

     Researchers in Virginia asked "college-students (to) spend time by themselves in an unadorned room (for 6 to 15 min) after storing all of their belongings, including cell phones & writing implements. They were typically asked to spend the time entertaining themselves with their thoughts, with the only rules being that they should remain in their seats and stay awake.
     ... simply being alone with their own thoughts for 15 min was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid. 

      Research has shown that minds are difficult to control, however, and it may be particularly hard to steer our thoughts in pleasant directions and keep them there. This may be why many people seek to gain better control of their thoughts with meditation and other techniques, with clear benefits. Without such training, people prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant that they would normally pay to avoid it. The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself."
       Wilson TD et al. "Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind." Science 345 (6492): 75-7; 2014.

#471 Life - a Spiral Curriculum

     Life's lessons are not one-time, over-and-done-with events. We may, for example, think that we've fully dealt with, processed, & gotten over certain childhood traumas for example, only to be (unpleasantly) surprised to find that these still hold considerable charge. I suspect we periodically revisit these same issues over a lifetime, hopefully processing them each time (an iterative unburdening process), until we hopefully become naturally equanimous in their presence - objectively aware, but no longer emotionally distorted.
     Awareness & acceptance, working in tandem, at progressively more subtle levels, keep these lessons from being bypassed in our tendency to rush towards one of our many "shoulds". Eternal patience, perseverance & skillful technique is mandatory to fully process our (psychological / karmic) baggage. Some of us definitely need & should seek professional help in this area. It is a highly worthwhile, profoundly valuable journey.

Mural at Just Us cafe in Wolfville, NS by Raul Guzman Enriquez, Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico

#444 Dancing in Constant Change

     “It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today.”           Isaac Asimov
 
     "The psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiraling process marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems as man's existential problems change."                                                       Clare W. Graves (1914-1986) 

      “Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”           William James

Steve McCurry   http://stevemccurry.com/

#341 Not Constantly Up, Happy, Energized?

     "unless plagued with a mood disorder, our evaluation of the future depends largely on the situation. Yet, there is this psycho-spiritual pressure in the air of having to be positive, jovial, and enthusiastic all the time. ... this Zeitgeist (was) in part created by positive psychology. ... (this) artificially created positive mentality has contributed to the housing and banking crisis. Everybody involved seemed to have thrown caution – and ultimately bushels of money -- out the window. Usually well-balanced people were part of a groupthink: 'I believe, and therefore it will be.' "
     From a mindfulness perspective "happiness is not synonymous with or dependent on positive feelings. Instead happiness is having a good relationship with the whole of life, with the light and the darkness, the good and the bad, the concrete and the indefinable. How could there be lasting happiness if we exclude a part of life that is real and that serves a purpose. This understanding should inoculate everybody against the pressure of having to feel optimistic all the time."

       Andrea F. Polard Psy. D. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unified-theory-happiness/201306/cognitive-optimism-versus-zen-wisdom

 

Uloo   www.dpreview.com

#323 Promoting Positive Health: Autonomy, Resilience, & Independence

     "The emerging discipline of positive health, which has developed from the field of positive psychology, proposes that a focus on wellness, rather than illness, leads to decreased health costs, improved mental and physical health in ageing, better prognosis when illness strikes, and longevity. This ‘asset-based paradigm’ provides an alternative perspective for strengthening psychological resilience." 
       Wand T. Positioning mental health nursing practice within a positive health paradigm. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. 2013; 22: 116–124.
 

     It's essential to concentrate at least some of our efforts on thriving, flourishing, and finding true contentment & joy in life. Clearly, there's far more right than wrong with human beings (otherwise, we'd be extinct).
     Intelligent, non-pathologizing approaches that effectively encourage human flourishing include:
• Mindfulness-based interventions eg MBSR, MBCT etc http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/index.aspx
• Solution-focused therapy (SFT) http://www.solutionfocused.net/solutionfocusedtherapy.html
• Internal family systems (IFS) http://www.selfleadership.org/about-internal-family-systems.html
• Appreciative inquiry (AI) http://centerforappreciativeinquiry.net/
• Non-violent communication (NVC) http://www.cnvc.org/

     These evolved approaches benefit clinicians and patients! It's a welcome, hope-inspiring relief to be skillfully bringing out the best in people (vs "waging wars" on diseases).  

    See also: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/04/320-self-centered-judgments-breed-fear.html 

wchee   www.dpreview.com

#287 The Human Journey from "Simple Facts" to Complex Reality

     When a recognized expert in a field of study is asked a specific question, she's likely to respond truthfully "I don't know" and then concisely summarize existing theories about this tiny, circumscribed part of the human experience. This response is the product of a rigorous systematic search for truth, over a lifetime, by a mature, highly educated human being.
     How often do we hear dogmatically expounded simple solutions to problems with which humans have been wrestling for ages? Are these black-or-white views the result of a rigorous systematic search for truth, over a lifetime, by a mature, highly educated human being?
     Simple categorization ("black-or-white thinking") is essential at an early stage of development. We teach toddlers never to do a whole range of things we feel might endanger them; and to always do another list of things that are beneficial. However, as the child matures and becomes able to grasp more of life's complexities, our guidelines become increasingly more nuanced, until they're adults capable of appropriate decisions independent of their parents. This is clearly not a matter of morals ("right-or-wrong"), rather a matter of the child's mind developing progressively increasing capacity to handle the reality of an incredibly complex world.
     Among adults, there's a huge variation in approaching life's complexities, paradoxes, ambiguities, constant changes. A proportion remain at the developmental level of "Do this," and "Don't do that" out of deeply conditioned fear. Only a small proportion of adults actively take on a lifelong rigorous systematic search for truth. Mindfulness practice is an open-ended, life-long approach to investigate "What is this?" "Who am I?", and it does not impose any answers. 
     Many adults' lives are ruled by fear and anxiety. They sense that life is difficult and uncontrollable on many levels, and thus spend their lives distracting themselves: amusements, work, food, drink, material goods, religion on a shallow magical escape / social comfort level, gambling, substance abuse, etc. This is a "life unexamined" not only out of fear, but deep cynicism about introspection, convinced that deeply examining the nature of reality will reveal only darkness. When fear / anxiety / cynicism is the true driving force in one's life, one is profoundly suffering, and creates more suffering for others. It's critically important to realize that this is being stuck at a relatively immature developmental stage ("dark night of the soul"), NOT the final word on reality. It's also critically important to realize that it's (strangely) easier to remain stuck in certainty of something miserable, than to open up to new possibilities!

     We practice mindfulness because life is difficult and we understand that we CAN help our consciousness evolve to more effectively meet life's challenges. 
     Never give up, never give in to cynicism, nihilism - this is a miserable place to park for the rest of one's life! See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/09/181-healthy-maturation.html

Photo: Pawel Klarecki   http://pawelklarecki.blogspot.ro/