Just Keep Noticing

Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH), has written a book, A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit. His book highlights some examples:

Alan Marlatt uses mindfulness to address our national substance abuse problems. Marlatt is the founder of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention. Thousands of mental health counselors and therapists are teaching clients mindfulness to help with depression, with social anxiety, with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other mental health issues.

Midwife Nancy Bardacke, the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting Program, has found that expectant parents who learn mindfulness “develop skills for working with the stresses of pregnancy and everyday life.” (163).

Others have adapted MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) specifically for teens to equip teens during that very stressful time of life with “the skills they need to keep themselves balanced in a world that can be difficult and complicated for young people.” It trains the brain for resilience and cheerfulness.

Oakland’s “Mind Body Awareness Project” is bringing mindfulness training to gang members. Mindfulness enables 12- and 13-year-old boys to “see for the first time that it’s OK to be who they are and that they don’t have to belong to a gang to attain self-fulfillment.” (164).

Mindfulness has the power to liberate us from the manacles of our own reactivity. Reactivity. Something occurs; we don’t like it; the limbic system is triggered, and we just react. Stress levels go up; the capacity to empathize goes down. Reactivity in our schools produces increased stress from the negative judgmentalism of peers, which, at the extreme, includes bullying -- and sometimes a corresponding inability of bully victims to get unstuck from the role of victim. Reactivity in our military can put soldiers in a mindset of “shoot ‘em all and let God sort it out.” Reactivity in our police is a contributing factor in readiness to shoot unarmed civilians. Traumatic stress levels can lead to PTSD for the rest of their lives.

Some frustration and anger is inherent in the work they do. Absence of skills to manage those feelings is not. Reactivity shows up in disease rates, and pain, and pain medication, and self-medication with alcohol or drugs, licit or illicit. Reactivity shows up in gang loyalty to one’s insiders and gang violence toward those seen as rivals.

There is no easy way to health, no magic bullet. It’s not easy to get out and exercise everyday. That’s a hard discipline. But the heart attack you could have prevented hurts a lot more. If we haven’t been training ourselves in nonjudgmental awareness, in identifying our feelings, in empathizing with ourselves and with others, then when the reactivity comes – and it does come from time to time for everyone – we have no resources for managing it.

Problems, there will always be. As the Congressman points out, and my own experience certainly confirms:

“We will still misplace our keys. We will still forget people’s names. We will still say and do things that may hurt others, including those we love. We will say the exact wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. But in each of these instances, with mindfulness we may do it just a bit less. We may see the humor in our mistakes and be able to laugh at ourselves more. We may be just a little less critical of others, and of ourselves. Or we may deal with our mistakes more quickly and with a more sincere and kind heart. We may more easily forgive the people who have hurt us. We may sit down and have civil political conversations with those who strongly disagree with us.”

So it’s not like this is going to solve all your problems.

Last Jun 5, a headline in the Washington Post read “Meditation and Mindfulness Aren’t As Good for You as You Think.” I don’t know if this is true, since I don’t know how good for you you think they are. The article points out that

“we still can’t be sure what the active ingredient is. Is it the meditation itself that causes the positive effects, or is it more to do with learning to step back and become aware of our thoughts and feelings in a supportive group environment?”

Everything I know leads me to emphasize the importance of both. There’s a magic in being still and quiet every day. There’s also a magic in a supportive group environment. And the combination is greater than the sum of the parts. I always recommend both daily practice by yourself and weekly gathering to practice in a group.

The article then points out that for some people sitting alone and being fully present to whatever thoughts and feelings arise can be disturbing. Sometimes the thoughts and feelings aren’t pleasant ones. Mindfulness practice can be emotionally and psychologically disturbing.

This is true. You can bring it forth, get to know it, gradually work out a peace with it – or you can keep trying to keep it buried, and then, from the depths it will poke through in various unexpected ways. You can plunge into what is disturbing now -- or you can hide from it, for a while. Eventually, it always catches up. Remember that verse from the Gospel of Thomas:

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

And again, it’s invaluable to have a supportive group, and if possible, a teacher, to help you work through disturbing experiences that may arise in meditation.

We all have our demons. Rather than keep fighting to suppress them, better to welcome them, embrace them, and befriend them – though that can be difficult, frightening, and disturbing at first. The only way out is through.

In addition to the demons within, there’s the suffering around us. In a recent meeting of our Journey Group facilitators, one of our facilitators told about having undertaken, for the last three months now, to really be attentive to people and surroundings. This facilitator reported,

“It’s not always good. There are some sad things that I would have preferred not to think about. Some of what I’m now noticing is not fun and not happy.”

That is exactly right.

Showing up for life means showing up for all of it. Presence to the sadness is as important as accessing wellsprings of love, peace, and joy – and, really, presence to the sadness, the tragedy, the pain and loss and grief that is all around, is a necessary and integral part of accessing the wellsprings of love, peace, and joy.

When I offer the prayer each Sunday, I aim to, among other things, bring our collective attention to the hurt in this world because mindfulness that isn’t attentive to the magnitude of pain isn’t mindfulness. The strategy of just not thinking about the enormity of the world’s anguish – or of your own -- is sooner or later going to fail.

Old age, sickness, and death come for all of us and all our loved ones. Best to get ready now. Moreover, in the meantime: compassion. Compassion requires attention to suffering.

It all begins where you are. Wiggle your toes again. Feel the way they push against your shoes. Feel the weight of your feet on the floor. Now notice the pressure of your body on your seat. Notice how your back feels.

Just.

Keep.

Noticing.

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This is part 3 of 3 of "Mindfulness"
See also
Part 1: Mindfulness
Part 2: Mindfulness in Unlikely Places: Congress

Mindfulness in Unlikely Places: Congress

Stress is not a big problem in my life, and that is a blessing. When I gather with other UU ministers, I hear from many of my colleagues that they are stressed. A 2014 study by a leading "Christian think tank" has shown that stress and exhaustion in pastoral ministry causes as many as 70 percent of pastors to regularly consider leaving, and many of them actually quit. I see very clearly what’s stressful about this calling, but I am not chronically stressed, for which I am deeply grateful for the blessing of zen practice in my life. (I am also really enjoying my time in White Plains, and for that I'm also grateful to the wonderful congregation I serve.) Other practices might serve that purpose just as well – I don’t know about those. So I can personally testify to calmness, peace, a sense of well-being, and manageable levels of stress. This is a blessing that I wish for every one of you.

And.

At the same time, I am often very distracted, ADD, and unfocused. The things that I myself say – repeatedly – help with that – when I really listen to them and take them to heart.

That’s my story. Let me tell you about someone else who is an enthusiast for mindfulness. There’s a US congressman from the Midwest named Ryan. No, not Paul Ryan. Congressman Tim Ryan from Ohio’s 13th congressional district was first elected in 2002 at age 29. He’s now in his 7th term. Three years ago, Tim Ryan came out with a book: A Mindful Nation. Not what I would expect from a sitting congressman. Full title: A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit.

It seems that sitting still and being quiet for a while each day – and trying to be mindful throughout the day – is not only a spiritual discipline but a patriotic duty.

Tim Ryan’s journey to mindfulness began with Jon Kabat-Zinn. Jon Kabat-Zinn is himself an interesting guy. Born Jon Kabat in 1944, he hyphenated his last name to Kabat-Zinn when he married Myla Zinn, the daughter of Howard Zinn (1922-2010), the great historian/social activist. Jon, as his father-in-law was, is a man committed to transformation. A professor of medicine and a long-time student of the Korean Zen master, Seung Sahn, in 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn integrated medicine and Zen and created MBSR – Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction – and began teaching it at his Stress Reduction Clinic. Today, over 200 medical centers and clinics in the US and elsewhere use the MBSR model. Jon Kabat-Zinn is the author of:

• Full Catastrophe Living:How to Cope with Stress, Pain and Illness using Mindfulness Meditation; and
• Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.

Then, in 2005, Jon Kabat-Zinn came out with another book: Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness. There was a 100-page section on mindfulness and politics, so Kabat-Zinn’s publisher mailed a copy to each of the 535 members of Congress. Casting bread upon the waters. You never know. Maybe one of them will read more than a page.

And one of them did. Congressman Tim Ryan read the copy of Jon Kabbat-Zinn's book that Kabat-Zinn's publishers mailed him: Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness. A couple years later, Ryan went on a 5-day mindfulness meditation retreat led by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Five days of mostly silence, with instructional talks and guidance sprinkled in. Five days of practicing bringing attention to immediate experience -- the mind wandering off, and being brought back.

Since then, Congressman Ryan has had a daily mindfulness practice. Says Ryan:

“It quiets the mind. It helps you harness more of your energy. It increases your focus and allows you to relax and pay better attention to what you’re doing and to those around you. My football coaches would have loved it. It’s the kind of performance enhancer any athlete would be eager to have. . . I wrote A Mindful Nation to promote the values of slowing down, taking care of ourselves, being kind, and helping each other.”

Congressman Tim Ryan’s book surveys the scientific studies about how mindfulness practice strengthens our capacity for attention, for nonjudgmental sympathetic understanding. He goes on to devote chapters to:

• Mindfulness in our schools: how it can increase our children’s attention and kindness. 
• Mindfulness in our hospitals and doctors’ offices: how it can improve our health and our healthcare system. 
• Mindfulness in our military, police, and firefighters: how it can improve performance and build resiliency for the military and first responders – and how, later on, mindfulness is the path for coming to terms with PTSD. 
• Mindfulness in the workplace: how it can help us rediscover our values and reshape our economy.

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This is part 2 of 3 of "Mindfulness"
Part 1: Mindfulness
Part 3: Just Keep Noticing

Mindfulness

Wiggle your toes. Feel the way they push against your shoes. Feel the weight of your feet on the floor. Think about what your feet feel like right now – their heaviness.

Congratulations. You have just done a few moments mindful meditation. It’s not so hard. And yet, sustaining the habit of it is.

Presence and mindfulness is our theme of the month for June. In your Journey Groups you’ll be sharing and reflecting about presence and mindfulness – what it means -- and what it might mean -- for you. Today: some reflections that may help prepare the way for your further explorations in your journey group.

Mindfulness is a technique extracted from Buddhism in which one tries to notice present thoughts, feeling and sensations without judgment. The aim is to create a state of “bare awareness.”’ Mindfulness is now a key concept in psychology, referring to a psychological quality that involves:

• “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally;”
• “a kind of nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is.”

Mindfulness is paying attention to present moment experiences with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to be with what is. So it has two aspects:

• bringing attention to immediate experience – particularly, noting mental events as they happen.
• being open, curious, and accepting of whatever it is that you’re noticing.

From a calm awareness of bodily functions, of sensations, of emotions, of thoughts as these things arise, wisdom emerges.

That's easy to say. It takes a lot of practice to develop the habit of doing it.

First, though, a personal confession. Fourteen years ago this month, I began a meditation practice. Almost every day – on average about six days out of seven – I sit down cross-legged and straight-backed, and I am still and silent for 25 minutes. Thoughts arise; I notice them, and let them pass. During those years I’ve also been on, I count, 45 meditation retreats, for a total of over 250 days. For many of those 14 years, I’ve led one or another small sitting group that once a week sits together, and I give a talk. In that context I have talked about mindfulness more than any other topic that you’ve heard me address.

I’ve been carrying on about mindfulness, directly and indirectly, for a dozen years, and I have to tell you that there’s a peculiar phenomenon that afflicts career preachers. We get so we can talk about certain things fluently, and earnestly – sometimes even persuasively – and forget that the message still applies to us. This is where preachers get a reputation for being hypocrites. We’re so familiar with what we’re saying that we aren’t ourselves paying attention to the message. It’s not just evangelical or Christian preachers. Any counselor or professional advisor is susceptible to this: the discovery that they’ve been giving out guidance to others for so long that they fail to notice that they themselves have slipped into habits contrary to their own advice. After 14 years, I have to confess that I am often distracted.

On the plus side, I have noticed the emergence of an abiding calmness. Anxiety or fear or anger occasionally arise – they always will – but I do experience them as visitors, as companions who have come to be with me for a little while, not as the all-consuming dictators that take over my life for periods, as they used to.

Scientific American reported one year ago:

“MRI scans show that after an eight-week course of mindfulness practice, the brain’s 'fight or flight' center, the amygdala, appears to shrink. This primal region of the brain, associated with fear and emotion, is involved in the initiation of the body’s response to stress. As the amygdala shrinks, the pre-frontal cortex – associated with higher order brain functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making – becomes thicker. The 'functional connectivity' between these regions – i.e. how often they are activated together – also changes. The connection between the amygdala and the rest of the brain gets weaker, while the connections between areas associated with attention and concentration get stronger.” ("What Does Mindfulness Do to Your Brain? 2014 Jun 12)

My own experience is consistent with that.

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This is part 1 of 3 of "Mindfulness"
See also
Part 2: Mindfulness in Unlikely Places: Congress
Part 3: Just Keep Noticing