Showing posts with label zen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zen. Show all posts
Millennium Park Zen Group
Mindfulness as Stability and Investigation
Image by speakingoffaith via FlickrSometimes it's not clear that mindfulness is more than relaxation. It's true, mindfulness can often be relaxing, because we get less caught up in the thought patterns that agitate us. This stabilization of attention is referred to in the traditional meditation texts as samatha, and it is a feature of all mindfulness processes. If we think of mindfulness as constructed of RAIN, we can see that Acceptance and Nonidentification are largely samatha processes. Acceptance eliminates the nearly constant tension that we generate by judging and attempting to control our experiences. "I don't like this, this is bad, I want to change this, what can I do to eliminate this experience, what if that doesn't work..." is a familiar train of thought that can be pretty agitating. With Acceptance, we no longer get involved in that source of stress. Acceptance is a process that encourages samatha, or stabilization.
Similarly, Nonidentification also brings stability. If we refrain from identifying with an experience, we don't get so worked up about it. It's not so personal, and therefore not so important that we change it or control it. In Nonidentification, we learn to take our experience as it is, and our reaction to it is gentler and more flexible because we are not so driven by our narcissistic strivings. So Acceptance and Nonidentification both function to increase our stability, and they help mindfulness practices feel relaxing to us.
But mindfulness goes beyond relaxation and arrives at vipassana, or insight. Once we have established some stability and nonreactivity, mindfulness can help us to see our experience for what it is (Recognition) and to explore our lives more deeply (Investigation). Mindfulness can be thought of as asking the gentle question "What is it?" in a way that is continually supported by our breathing and our willingness to be present.
A Zen Buddhist story tells us that a monk was going on a pilgrimage, and another asked him, "Where are you going on your pilgrimage?" The monk replied, "I don’t know." The other monk commented, "Not knowing is most intimate."
Actually, intimacy depends on our ability to have an ongoing conversation with what is present. In intimacy, there is acceptance, of course, but also openness to what’s next, to what we don’t know. When we think we know something, we stop investigating it. There is a saying, “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert mind, there are few.”
What kind of investigation is mindfulness? Here’s a part of what TS Eliot said about it:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river,
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now. Always
A condition of complete simplicity
Costing not less than everything
We are talking about a kind of investigation into what’s been there all along, but we have been unable to appreciate. An investigation into the source of the longest river of the endless present moment. We hear the waterfall of thought as it is, and recognizing it for what it is allows us to see through it, to hear the children in the apple tree.
Mindfulness tries to approach all moments and events with Beginner’s Mind - we are calm enough that we can be open to not knowing what it is, or what happens next, or how things are supposed to be. We approach each experience as if it were the only time we encountered this thing. Because it is! We might even say that the essential feature of mindfulness is the understanding that we are missing something: mindfulness starts with the premise that there is always more to discover. Because mindfulness is a process of ongoing exploration, it brings a richness to our lives that would otherwise be lost in our shopworn ideas and mental habits.
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MBSR-LD
Many of us have found that, in contrast to the traditional MBSR emphasis on required practice ("You don't have to like it, you just have to do it"), an invitational approach to home mindfulness practice is quite effective. This is especially true when the course helps participants clarify their goals and values. When people know why they want to learn mindfulness, and are supported by their awareness of their deepest values, they will engage genuinely and effectively. I've found that it is very important to devote some class discussions to helping people clarify their values and intentions, because we often need help getting in touch with what is really important to us.
Traditionally, mindfulness practices are learned in the context of vow and intention. In a Zen monastery, for example, monks engage in daily rituals which renew their commitments to work for the liberation of all beings. Having entered the monastery, a monk only has to look around to be reminded that s/he is in this place deliberately, because of a deep intention to realize the buddha way. During my recent three-month experience with monastic training, I was very aware that I had this wonderful opportunity to learn and to grow, and that I needed to pay attention while it was available to me.
I think that clients in our mindfulness-based therapeutic programs participate most fully when they find their authentic reasons for doing so. The mindfulness-based clinical programs we offer, whether "low dose" or "mega dose," are only valuable to the extent that participants recognize them as advancing their life's purposes. I feel strongly that MB programs can benefit by paying attention to the lessons of therapeutic approaches like Motivational Interviewing and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
The psychological community is on the verge of discovering many effective ways of integrating mindfulness principles into therapeutic approaches. The so-called "Third Wave" of evidence-based psychotherapy is just forming now, and nowhere near its crest. Let's encourage each other to explore the possibilities!
Sutra on Mindfulness
In our study group on mindfulness and psychotherapy, we've been asking the question, "What do the original sources tell us that will help us integrate mindfulness into psychotherapy?" I thought it would be good to make the most important sutra on mindfulness available here. This is the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, often translated as "The Four Foundations of Mindfulness," although the title also has more subtle meanings. Maha means "great." Sati means "mindfulness," but it also has the connotation of "remembering." The term uppathana refers to a process of repeated penetration. Sutta is a buddhist teaching. So the Mahasatipatthana Sutta is the great teaching about entering mindfulness time and time again, or I suppose we could say "the teaching on mindfulness practice."
At any rate, here are some translations available on the web. Enjoy your reading!
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.22.0.than.html
http://www.basicbuddhism.org/index.cfm?GPID=47#Breathing
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/mahasati.htm
Mindfulness and Dieting
All we have to do is consider losing five pounds, and we are confronted with dozens of theories of weight loss and hundreds of diets. A lot of them seems plausible, and some of them almost seem doable. The one thing nearly all of them lack is a statement at the end: "If you try to follow this plan exactly, you will probably end up gaining weight instead of losing weight." This is the unfortunate truth. Chronically being "on a diet" is not usually a good thing for one's weight. Efforts to rigidly follow a diet are often a set-up for failure, and failure is often a set-up for eating out of frustration and self-hatred.
In fact, it's difficult to imagine that any generalized diet could actually dictate all of the choices we need to make to eat in a healthy way. For one thing, relying on an external source to regulate our eating deprives us of the most important factor in developing a healthy diet: our inner wisdom.
We often rely on some external program because we do not trust ourselves to be guided by that inner wisdom. This is not a new problem. We have a record of a Chinese Zen teacher in the tenth century saying to the people who had gathered to hear his talk, "If you continue to seek the truth in someone else's mouth, when will you ever have today?" A thousand years ago, it was pretty clear that seeking outside oneself was a good way to become estranged from the here-and-now source of well being that most of us would like to cultivate. The same is true today about many of the things we seek, including a balanced and healthy approach to eating.
Diets aside, human beings are able to access an essential way of regulating weight: we can learn to eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full. We can let ourselves be guided in our food choices by all of our sources of knowledge: about nutrition, health, our hunger, and our preferences in the moment. We can eat in a way that lets us enjoy and appreciate our food and our ability to nourish ourselves. Quite importantly, we live in a culture in which most of us can be sure of our next meal, and so we are not driven to gorge ourselves because of realistic fears of scarcity. We can stop eating when we are satisfied, secure in the knowledge that we can eat more later, when we are hungry again. The hyperavailability of food in modern western societies, while terrifying and tempting to dieters, can be a source of reassurance and security to self-guided eaters, lowering the biological need to eat past the point of satiety. There's more where that came from!
The self-guided "diet" really depends on our ability to know ourselves, to be able to tell the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger, and to have the wisdom to respond skilfully to both. Our dieter's tendency to ignore and suppress moderate levels of hunger ("It's not time to eat yet!") only guarantees that when we do eat, we will have to deal with the pressure generated by distressingly high levels of hunger.
To be self-guiding, we also have to pay attention while we are eating and know when we are starting to get full. We have to be open to all the pleasures that are inherent in eating - tastes, textures, aromas, companionship, feelings of being nourished - so that we can actually feel satisfied with our food.
In other words, to be self-guided in our diet, we need to develop our mindfulness. Eating with full awareness, but without judgment, allows us to guide ourselves in sensible ways. And this is exactly what mindfulness cultivates: our ability to be compassionately aware of ourselves, our experience, and our environment. With mindfulness, we have a tool that is absolutely essential to healthy eating.
In fact, it's difficult to imagine that any generalized diet could actually dictate all of the choices we need to make to eat in a healthy way. For one thing, relying on an external source to regulate our eating deprives us of the most important factor in developing a healthy diet: our inner wisdom.
We often rely on some external program because we do not trust ourselves to be guided by that inner wisdom. This is not a new problem. We have a record of a Chinese Zen teacher in the tenth century saying to the people who had gathered to hear his talk, "If you continue to seek the truth in someone else's mouth, when will you ever have today?" A thousand years ago, it was pretty clear that seeking outside oneself was a good way to become estranged from the here-and-now source of well being that most of us would like to cultivate. The same is true today about many of the things we seek, including a balanced and healthy approach to eating.
Diets aside, human beings are able to access an essential way of regulating weight: we can learn to eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full. We can let ourselves be guided in our food choices by all of our sources of knowledge: about nutrition, health, our hunger, and our preferences in the moment. We can eat in a way that lets us enjoy and appreciate our food and our ability to nourish ourselves. Quite importantly, we live in a culture in which most of us can be sure of our next meal, and so we are not driven to gorge ourselves because of realistic fears of scarcity. We can stop eating when we are satisfied, secure in the knowledge that we can eat more later, when we are hungry again. The hyperavailability of food in modern western societies, while terrifying and tempting to dieters, can be a source of reassurance and security to self-guided eaters, lowering the biological need to eat past the point of satiety. There's more where that came from!
The self-guided "diet" really depends on our ability to know ourselves, to be able to tell the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger, and to have the wisdom to respond skilfully to both. Our dieter's tendency to ignore and suppress moderate levels of hunger ("It's not time to eat yet!") only guarantees that when we do eat, we will have to deal with the pressure generated by distressingly high levels of hunger.
To be self-guiding, we also have to pay attention while we are eating and know when we are starting to get full. We have to be open to all the pleasures that are inherent in eating - tastes, textures, aromas, companionship, feelings of being nourished - so that we can actually feel satisfied with our food.
In other words, to be self-guided in our diet, we need to develop our mindfulness. Eating with full awareness, but without judgment, allows us to guide ourselves in sensible ways. And this is exactly what mindfulness cultivates: our ability to be compassionately aware of ourselves, our experience, and our environment. With mindfulness, we have a tool that is absolutely essential to healthy eating.
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