Secular versus Non Secular Mindfulness

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blue neurons communicating

Over the past 35 years Jon Kabat-Zinn and the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center have pioneered an expansion of the acceptance of mindfulness as an evidence based approach to stress reduction and the related health disorders that result from chronic stress…..and there are many. From it’s base of stress reduction mindfulness has expanded it’s research and positive outcomes to include practically every area of human experience including, but not limited to learning in the schools, performance in the workplace and on the athletic field, creativity, communication and leadership. In doing all of this they have received push back from some people who feel that mindfulness belongs in the realm of spirituality.

This debate is completely senseless to me and here’s why. Wikipedia defines spirituality as: “Traditionally spirituality has been defined as a process of personal transformation in accordance with religious ideals. Since the 19th century spirituality is often separated from religion, and has become more oriented on subjective experience and psychological growth. It may refer to almost any kind of meaningful activity or blissful experience, but without a single, widely-agreed definition.” I agree with this definition because when I ask people to define spirituality I never get two answers the same. Everybody can agree on what religion is but not spirituality. So for the sake of this blog I will simply define spirituality as a sense of interconnectedness with oneself and the world around us. There is a lot that transforms and unfolds as a result of this. As mindfulness unfolds in the practitioners life that sense of interconnectedness becomes palpable. It’s the same sense of interconnectedness that results from Buddhist mindfulness practice or mindfulness based stress reduction practice or all the other mindfulness based applications that are being employed now. To try to separate that sense of interconnectedness from any human experience is really a form of confusion and for those who think secular mindfulness is even possible, I think they are mistaken. Even though it appears that mindfulness is sometimes being commercialized into something that it is not, it really isn’t as long as it is taught correctly, that is…with heart and compassion. No matter how it is applied, mindfulness will bring you to that sense of interconnectedness or sense of spirituality. That is it’s nature so it can do nothing but this. How that sense of spirituality is expressed is completely up to you.

When I first saw mindfulness being delivered in the healthcare system I thought that was a perfect place for it. I’ve always thought that the healthcare system would be a perfect vehicle for educating and bringing people into wholeness and connectedness. This has continued to be true and has expanded beyond my original vision. I think the best is yet to come. I believe the healthcare system has the potential to be a center of spirituality.

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Commercialism and Mindfulness

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pac man chasing dollar signs

We are living in a time when mindfulness has become a buzz word and occupies a prominent position in the media. Is this good or bad…or maybe it doesn’t matter? Mindfulness’ popularity springs from it’s roots with Buddhism although I am of the school of seeing mindfulness everywhere, in every spiritual tradition and in every walk of life. Perhaps because of views like mine, mindfulness has entered the realm of pop culture and consequently there could be some misinformation being passed along. I’ve seen it everywhere…people calling themselves mindfulness practitioners or teachers when in fact they haven’t really digested the basics of the practice let alone how to convey what they do know to others. I don’t really have an issue with that because you have to start somewhere and unless you are just jumping on the fad wagon things will sort themselves out eventually. Perhaps where it is most noticeable is in the marketing/commercialization of it. I’ve seen mindfulness work it’s magic in many situations and know firsthand that it’s like water in that it will find it’s path and eventually work it’s way through everything. I find it to be most effective when the non striving attitude is employed. It’s ok to have goals but I think the best way to achieve the goals is by working from “the top down”. In other words just do the practice and let the intelligence of the mind/body take it from there. There are many however that apply mindfulness to every disorder or desired outcome you can think of and “sell” it as the answer to each situation. I’m all for capitalism but I think in many cases this attitude goes too far and results in disappointment for those who have sought “the answer” for their particular issue or goal and didn’t get it. It could be argued that whatever gets them practicing is good. Sometimes I agree with that and sometimes I don’t. My rule of thumb is to be completely honest and open while explaining the nature of learning mindfulness. I’ve never had anyone tell me it is easy, nor was it easy for me. That’s a good starting point. There’s lots more from there.

This next example, while not really an example of commercialism, is an interesting instance of mindfulness’ qualities being put to a different use than usual…Recently someone told me they were alarmed at hearing that mindfulness was being used in the military to hone the skills of our “killing machines”. I suppose there are elements of mindfulness, particularly the ability to focus, that allows soldiers to do their job more efficiently. There is also the ability to let things go and move on, that would be a good skill for a soldier. In fact, there are lots of qualities that we find in mindfulness that would help in military training. Here’s where the nuances kick in. Yes, there are useful skills that can be applied to military situations, but the heart of mindfulness is compassion and kindness and it’s difficult to employ that when you’re killing other people. I suppose an argument could be made for it but I’m not so sure that it would hold water very long.

Here’s a summary from the book Zen at War: (Mindfulness is a big part of Zen training so this is a recent example of how a valuable skill set can be abused if it isn’t balanced with the heart.) “A compelling history of the contradictory, often militaristic, role of Zen Buddhism, this book meticulously documents the close and previously unknown support of a supposedly peaceful religion for Japanese militarism throughout World War II. Drawing on the writings and speeches of leading Zen masters and scholars, Brian Victoria shows that Zen served as a powerful foundation for the fanatical and suicidal spirit displayed by the imperial Japanese military. At the same time, the author recounts the dramatic and tragic stories of the handful of Buddhist organizations and individuals that dared to oppose Japan’s march to war. He follows this history up through recent apologies by several Zen sects for their support of the war and the way support for militarism was transformed into ‘corporate Zen’ in postwar Japan. The second edition includes a substantive new chapter on the roots of Zen militarism and an epilogue that explores the potentially volatile mix of religion and war. With the increasing interest in Buddhism in the West, this book is as timely as it is certain to be controversial.”

All in all I tend to go with the long view that like water, mindfulness will find it’s way and ultimately be a very useful path to improving lives.

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The Many Uses of Mindfulness: Spirituality in the Present Moment

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electric man

Here’s a combination of quantum physics, mindfulness, science fiction(perhaps) and spirituality. This may end up sounding a bit “out there” but what the heck…fun is fun and it’s entertaining to speculate “what if” even if you can’t prove it(yet).

There have been many studies about mindfulness that say if you practice mindfulness in a certain way predictable outcomes will happen. Science let’s us predict the probability of repeating results if a certain protocol is followed. To my knowledge no one has actually gone to first principles as the source of these interactions. We rely on cause and effect and are unable to actually prove the mechanism behind the cause.

In the case of mindfulness within a spiritual context we can come up with an interesting possibility. What if we are spiritual beings in/or around a physical body. What if that spiritual being was essentially coherent, organized energy and affected its surroundings in a coherent, organized, energetic way. If the spirit occupied the body then we would have an ideal situation where the energetics influence the body and awaken the corresponding energetic system in the body. At that point the body would reflect and express the energy of the spirit by exhibiting similar qualities of coherence and organization.

There are many spiritual traditions that say the spirit has yet to fully occupy the body. They say there are many reasons for that and at the core of those reasons is a hesitancy to fully occupy a body that has a tendency towards fear. Fear and fearlessness working on cohabiting.

Let’s say attention is the mechanism that moves energy/spirit much like a rudder steers a boat. Since mindfulness is about attention in the present moment let’s say the body represents the present moment since all mindfulness practices begin with the “mind/body”. In this scenario you have mindfulness as the mechanism that steers the energy/spirit into the body through meditation and practice. So….perhaps it is that coherent, organized energy/spirit that creates the transformation of the body and sets the stage for healing and realization of human potential. That would explain the first principle of why mindfulness works and would encompass spirituality and quantum physics(energy on a sub atomic level and it’s behavior). If in fact the process of embodying spirit is a first principle then we still have a way to go in our understanding of these broader issues. So is this explanation just science fiction and if so, is science fiction merely a glimpse as to what is possible as time unfolds?

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The Many Uses of Mindfulness: Boredom and Restlessness

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human figures

I’m not sure if boredom and restlessness have ever been studied together but two of the first things I encountered when I started practicing mindfulness were boredom and restlessness and I always noticed them together. It was an interesting observation as I can’t say I noticed either very much before I started practicing. Since I noticed it in myself I have become aware of just how prevalent these two things are in people. With restlessness I have come to be able to read body language to the point where I notice all the little movements associated with it. The big one is the leg that constantly is moving up and down while sitting (restless leg syndrome). I become aware of someone’s boredom through conversation and noticing that they have a hard time focusing. We see a lot of boredom and restlessness with ADD and ADHD and we know how prevalent that is.
So where is this coming from? In the world of stress when we have a situation of being stuck in fight or flight and the stress hormones continue to rage unabated we have the phenomenon of getting addicted to our own adrenaline. This is very similar to any drug stimulant addiction but perhaps worse as most people don’t realize the connection and it becomes hard to address. Years of research have taught us the ramifications of being stuck in fight or flight on our adrenal glands. There is an enormous amount of stress on them and sometimes they just shut down. When that happens there is a domino effect and we are also deprived of the adrenaline that we get so used to. At that point we actually go into withdrawal and experience a host of symptoms, two of which are boredom and restlessness. The problem gets compounded when we try to reproduce the adrenaline with destructive behaviors and substances. It’s like an addict trying to get their fix so they can “relax”.
When we practice mindfulness we gradually come out of fight or flight and when we do there is a gradual decreasing of adrenaline and the other stress hormones. When that happens we can experience the same withdrawal that a drug addict experiences. Two of those experiences are restlessness and boredom. As the body normalizes through mindfulness practice and we slowly get used to not having our adrenaline fix the boredom and restlessness go away. This is exactly what I experienced when I was coming out of fight or flight through my mindfulness practice. It took awhile but eventually my restlessness and boredom disappeared. The restlessness was replaced by a sense of calm and stillness. A sense of curiosity, fun and adventure replaced the boredom.

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The Many Uses of Mindfulness: Loneliness

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nude woman painting

How could a world so full of people be suffering from an epidemic of loneliness? We don’t hear a lot about it for many reasons. Perhaps we are embarrassed and think that we are the only ones who are lonely and that others will think less of us for it. The irony here is that thinking we are the only ones suffering is a symptom of loneliness and a stumbling block to realizing the extent in which those feelings are shared by others. Even if we did realize it and even though “misery loves company” it certainly wouldn’t do us any good. Loneliness is one of those many experiences that are interconnected with others such as fear, anxiety, anger, depression and so forth. Lonely people try many ways to break out of the loneliness. Most of the time it involves setting up activities with others and staying as busy as possible hoping to keep the loneliness at bay. At best that is a temporary fix and at worst it deepens the loneliness.
The truth of loneliness is that it is exclusively an inner phenomena. The most common way of coping with chronic stress nowadays is by disconnecting from the present moment. It’s a strategy that has been hard wired into our nervous systems as a way of dealing with danger/fight or flight. We are disconnecting from our bodies, thoughts and emotions and with chronic stress the disconnection stays with us for extended periods of time. It is when we are disconnected like this that we lose touch with ourselves and that subsequent sense of loneliness is a reminder to us to reconnect to ourselves. It’s a symptom, a message from the body trying to get our attention to correct a situation. That’s what all symptoms are…messages from the body/mind to pay attention to it’s needs. If you are not in your body you are certainly not in the present moment and the present moment is where we connect with ourselves and the world around us. Mindfulness brings us back into the body/mind which is where the present moment resides. Once that happens there is a shift in the nervous system which reverses the fear, loneliness, isolation and so forth and we feel like we are “in touch” once again. In touch first with ourselves where loneliness disappears and then able to reconnect with the world around us in new deeper ways.

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The Many Uses of Mindfulness: Sports/Teamwork/Performance

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person with soccer balls and basketball

Perhaps my first experience of mindfulness happened in sports. While growing up I couldn’t get enough of sports and would play 8 hours a day if I could. It didn’t matter what sport….whatever was in season was good enough for me. As I got older I focused more on tennis, baseball and basketball. As my skills deepened I started having what we call today “zone or flow” experiences from time to time. I would have laser focus and an ease of performance that was remarkable to me and it wasn’t until I started practicing mindfulness that I realized that what I was experiencing was in fact the present moment experience talked about by practitioners of mindfulness. Up until then I wasn’t able to duplicate my “zone/flow” experiences at will while playing sports but once I started practicing mindfulness I was able to sustain the flow consistently in sports and out of sports. We now know through countless studies of mindfulness and sports what exactly is going on in the mind/body connection while experiencing the peak performance/flow/zone. Athletes all over the world are incorporating mindfulness into their training regimen in order to give them an additional edge in competition. It is also starting to dawn on many of these athletes that if they could sustain the experience outside of sports it would greatly enhance their everyday lives.

Sports has become such a powerful metaphor for life nowadays that we are putting everything athletic under the microscope and trying to discover what makes an elite athlete tick. There are of course many things that make an elite athlete tick and many of those things are not accessible to everyone. What is accessible to everyone is the mind/body integration that produces the present moment experience…..the practice of mindfulness. There is a realization that all those peak qualities have a far reaching benefit that extends way beyond sports. It extends into every aspect of our lives. Qualities such as inner and outer teamwork (mind/body coordination) , enhanced focus, attention, intuition and reduced physical, emotional and mental stress are qualities that we can use everywhere and in every situation. So whether you are LeBron James looking to express your inner Bill Gates or Bill Gates looking to express your inner LeBron James there is now a path that allows you to meet in the middle. It is called mindfulness and it deposits you square into the present moment.

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The Many Uses of Mindfulness: Energy

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Albert Einstein

We have come to recognize that the ancients had an excellent understanding of energy far before modern science was able to measure it. It has become an enormous field of study and generally can be divided into two forms, physical and non physical. Within these two categories are multiple sub categories and descriptions about how physical and non physical energy relate to each other. As this is a blog and by definition should be kept brief I will not go into all the academic areas of energy but will keep it simple and relevant as to how we can access more energy for our lives. I think it is evident to everyone that we need energy in our bodies to function and accomplish everything. Our bodies have an energy of their own which interacts with the energy that exists all around us and throughout the universe. All the ancient traditions have a name for it and it had been known for a long time. In India it is called Prana and in Asia it is called Chi or Qi. It is somewhat akin to the electromagnetic energy of modern science but not quite, as modern science hasn’t fully grasped the true nature of it. If they did we would have far more “clean” energy at our disposal.

Since the “Universal energy” is constant and always accessible I’ll discuss how and why we can’t always seem to access it ourselves. Why can’t our bodies continuously replenish themselves with the energy that is everywhere? I think we need to look at our nervous systems as the meeting point for the physical and non physical energy. If our nervous systems are in balance then there is a natural flow between the physical and non physical energies. Eastern medicine goes into great detail about the energetic system of the body and how to keep it in alignment so that the energy continues to flow. Western medicine is only beginning to recognize this but if we look at the nervous system we can find a meeting point for the two systems. We are well aware through our studies of stress that the autonomic nervous system is getting battered about by modern stress. We know that many of us end up getting stuck in the fight or flight response for years and that the ramifications of dealing with the resulting havoc on the nervous system are related to a host of health problems. When our health suffers, our ability to access the physical and non physical energy suffers. We end up disconnecting from ourselves in order to cope with the stress and in so doing perpetuate the situation. I’ve spoken many times about how mindfulness reverses this disconnection and sets the nervous system back on it’s course to balance. When that happens the body is able to regain it’s own energy and reestablish the connection with the “non physical” energy. When that happens, we can utilize both forms of energy to reestablish the vitality and energy that is so necessary in order to truly participate in life.

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The Many Uses of Mindfulness: Attention Skills

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clock with no hands

The current definition of mindfulness is the ability to pay attention moment by moment without judgment on purpose. This definition is the summary/end result of a number of processes that go on behind the scenes. Mindfulness has been the subject of over 1800 studies over the past 30 years and central to all of these studies is the importance of attention to the present moment. Through research and the experience of thousands of people over at least 2500 years we have come to realize that mindfulness is key to bringing our bodies/lives into balance. In a world suffering from an epidemic of ADD and ADHD it is particularly important to use mindfulness as a way of resolving this and many other issues.

Let’s take a look at the broader relationship of attention to who we are. I’m going to step out of the world of research and discuss what my personal experiences have been regarding this broader view. The world of experience used to be all we had until the scientific revolution. Science has been a valuable tool for many things and with the breakthroughs in quantum research it would not surprise me if we could eventually measure what has thought to have been unmeasurable.

To me, attention is the third process and perhaps the most critical in how we experience things and get things done. The sequence is: being, awareness, attention, creativity/imagination, intention, and action/expression. Most of as can agree that being is a given as a first principle although I understand there are some who are not sure that they even exist. These people notwithstanding, we would next get to pure awareness. After awareness would come the all important attention to the present moment. I see being as the ocean, awareness as a boat and attention as the rudder. We all know what happens to a boat in the ocean without a rudder. Apply that to your life and the realization of the importance of present moment attention becomes clear. The effectiveness of creativity/imagination, intention, and action/expression is directly related to the rudder of attention. Without that rudder it’s easy to see how the rest can go astray. The rudder of mindfulness is the element that creates the necessary symmetry to allow all these things to line up and flow naturally together with a sense of ease. When this happens there is cooperation with the energy that is everywhere and the expression of “being in the flow” comes to life.

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The Many Uses of Mindfulness: The Smile Exercise

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smiling cat

Many years ago came across a study that spoke about all the tiny muscles around the mouth and how smiling engaged those muscles in a particular way resulting in a release of endorphins, natural pain killers and serotonin. It also lowers blood pressure and boosts the immune system. In addition, in the 1980s, some interesting studies on the physiology of smiling brought it back into the consciousness of the psychology field. One study found that when subjects contorted their faces to indicate fear, their body temperatures increased and their pulses sped up. Dr. Zajonc’s research took this observation further, into a full-fledged proposal for why a smile might trigger happiness. It basically goes like this: When the temperature of any body part changes, the chemical activities connected with that area also change. Therefore, when facial muscles are activated in an expression, the biochemical processes associated with those areas of the face are altered according to their temperature change. And research suggests that a cooler brain creates good emotions, while a warmer brain produces negative emotions [source: Goleman].

Zajonc points to the part of the body called the internal carotid artery, which is the “pipe” that delivers the majority of blood to the brain. This artery flows through an opening called the cavernous sinus, which contains lots of facial veins. When someone smiles, causing certain facial muscles to stretch and tighten, veins are constricted. This would cut down on the blood flowing to the cavernous sinus, which in turn would reduce the amount of blood flowing through the carotid artery to the brain. Less blood volume means the temperature of that blood drops. When that cooler blood gets to the brain, brain temperature would drop, too, triggering a happy feeling. The theory works in reverse, too: Zajonc says that when the muscles involved in a frown tighten, the result is increased blood flow to the cavernous sinus and, by extension, a warmer brain. So, if Zajonc is right — and not everybody thinks he is, but it’s an interesting possibility — does that mean you could avoid sadness for the rest of your life by faking a smile?

Definitely not. Even proponents of the theory don’t suggest that smiling can make unhappiness go away. The theory basically states that in a state of emotional neutrality, putting a smile on your face can tip you in the direction of a positive feeling. My experience is that it can actually go further than that. I’ve seen positive effects for a wide spectrum of starting negative emotional states, not just neutral ones. Suffice it to say that if you are already happy it simply enhances the happiness. The smile can be forced or not, either way it works.

So many years ago I decided to put it all to the test. I started putting a small smile on my face while meditating, much like we see in pictures of the Buddha. I was pleased with the results so started ending my MBSR classes with an exercise I made up one day. At the end of class we all spend 60 seconds putting on a big smile and noticing what is going on physically, mentally and emotionally much like we do in a mindfulness practice. After 60 seconds we go for another 60 seconds with that same big smile and same mindful attention only this time making eye contact with everyone in the class. So that’s a 2 minute exercise and the results have been impressive. I have continued for over 20 years to do this class ending exercise and it continues to be a high point of everyone’s experience.

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