 Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay With the proliferation of Mindfulness literature and its mainstream popularity, many articles or teachings about Mindfulness come from sources that do not have a good understanding of the Sutras or human physiology. Worse, they can be misleading and inaccurate.
There is nothing wrong with cultivating happiness and/or overcoming suffering as a Mindfulness goal. What is wrong is the “clinging” or attachment to that goal that is problematic. The notion of “chasing” happiness connotes clinging. Clinging or attachment in the Sutras is considered problematic because of its failure to consider the “True Nature of Reality,” which encompasses:
Goal setting is encouraged in Mindfulness practice. Planning or making projections is an aspect of goal setting. Anticipation, analysis, assumption, using past knowledge as a basis for knowledge —and knowing the goal ahead — are all usual components for planning a goal. As a matter of fact, the brain architecture is established primordially to be in a “predictive” mode. We need to know what is going to happen because our body is always in motion. The brain causes the mind to make estimates and learn from miscalculations to adjust its next plan of action. Planning is an inherent nature of the mind and goal setting is a natural aspect of predicting the future. In the Sutras, specifically in The Noble Eightfold Path (see Bhikkhu Bodhi’s book of that title), one of the eight prescriptive ways for ending personal suffering is the path of Right Effort/Samma Vayama. Taking into consideration the goal of happiness in Mindfulness practice, it makes sense that Right Effort is oriented towards well-being and the avoidance of setting goals that compromise well-being. Therefore, in making plans or setting goals, it is necessary to know how to make goals that produce only well-being. Goals that can be destructive, such as Russia’s war to conquer Ukraine, do not qualify as an appropriate goal in Mindfulness practice. Clinging or attachment to a goal is not a part of goal making because of its potential for collision with the True Nature of Reality. It is not wise to cling to any goal that can fail to be achieved due to factors that are beyond anybody’s ability to control. When we cannot achieve that goal, it is useless to suffer for its failure when it is, in fact, nobody’s fault. Due to the nature of impermanence, it is not possible to hold onto happiness all the time and “chasing” it will cause disappointment. However, if happiness is set up as a realistic goal incorporating the fact that from time to time happiness cannot be sustained, then it is fine to consider happiness as a goal. Obviously, living happily most of the time is better when compared to a life dominated by suffering. Mindfulness practice, incorporating skillful means and insight/wisdom, is designed to shift our life experience toward more happiness than when not practicing Mindfulness. It is important to remember that there are factors beyond anybody’s control. For example, no one expected the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Syria and Turkey on February 6, 2023. The goal of being alive and well did not materialize that day for the over 50,000 people dead and 850,000 displaced children. If people knew that earthquake was going to happen, I am sure the victims would have moved away at least the day before it happened. Therefore, when setting goals it is best to
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 All about the Mind. Mindfulness practice recognizes that the mind is the director of life experience and behavior. There is a lot of truth to this and, therefore, it is worthwhile to understand how the mind works. Putting it Together. Mindfulness training is on focusing the mind. Such attention has proven to be an effective way to overcome life’s stresses and to cultivate personal happiness, However, sole emphasis on the mind is incomplete and can even be misleading without also taking into consideration the body. Our bodily architecture is determined by our DNA, with a given set of abilities that influences the mind. The linking together of mindfulness literature that draws on traditional Buddhist sutras, with the study of biology, particularly neuroscience, is necessary to understand human behavior fully and the ways we can change for moving towards well-being. These disciplines are like two jigsaw puzzle pieces that fit together to form a complete picture of how the body/mind works. Much like Ying and Yang, these two approaches form a synergistic whole — indispensable and necessary for practicing mindfulness realistically and pragmatically. By understanding the science of how emotions, fabrications, distractions, and illnesses affect our beings, a mindfulness practitioner can become more forgiving of oneself and others and hence become more compassionate. With more acceptance and tolerance, we can overcome personal suffering and cultivate our own happiness. “If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.” ― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality Spring Offering. In fall 2022, I began a pilot discussion group on mindfulness and the brain science that informs it using a single article “From many to (n)one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind,” published in 2021 in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. Participants gained many new insights and wanted to learn more. In response, I launched Integrating Science & Mindfulness in January 2023. This course of study sheds light on our practice of Mindfulness Meditation by reading works in the field of neuroscience from such groundbreaking authors as Nobel Prize laureate Eric R. Kandel, Antonio Damasio, Christof Koch, Jaak Panksepp, Norman Doidge and Jill Bolte Taylor. The aim is to understand what goes on in the body/mind that makes Mindfulness such an effective life practice for dealing with life stresses.
See YouTube video link below to learn more about the class. The next 12-weel session begins on April 12. Integrating Science & Mindfulness is offered on a dana (donation) basis so that anyone may attend. To register, visit https://www.mindfulnessmeditation.us/2023-winter-classes.html  “Every time I meditate, I fall asleep.” said a student in a Mindfulness Meditation class. I have heard this comment before. My response was, “How wonderful that you found this out. It can become a valuable subject for contemplation.” Also noteworthy was the detail that other students in the class did not share the same experience of falling asleep while meditating.
Human learning or experience is an active, ongoing process, and perception is a complex process. How a person makes sense of a phenomenon, like meditation, is not uniform or universal, but rather personal. Taking input from the senses about what is “out there” is not without prejudice. The input includes a “guessing” process, as our senses do not accurately represent reality, but rather interpret it. For example, the eye cannot see without contrast. That is why camouflaging is an effective way of hiding something. About Context How information is received and perceived by the brain via the senses depends on context. The same object in a different context may carry a different meaning. For example, water can be perceived as a threat during a flood but as a welcome relief after finishing a long-distance marathon. Blue jeans in Indonesia are thought of as “modern” since their Western influence connotes “an advanced culture.” The wearer may feel proudly fashionable, even though jeans are uncomfortable to wear in tropical heat. In the same way, Asian food in the West can mean “exotic” because it comes from faraway and unfamiliar cultures. But how we eat the food is contextual. Americans tend to dunk sushi in lots of soy sauce, while Japanese people know that the saltiness of too much soy sauce on the rice detracts from the flavor of the fish. Mindfulness Meditation came to the West from the East, a seemingly exotic, mysterious and unfamiliar place to a Westerner. This can mean that the practice is difficult to comprehend and foreign. In this context, if meditation is viewed as something that promotes relaxation, then it makes sense to feel sleepy while meditating. If we understand how context can influence perception and, in turn, meaning, then it is useful to pay attention to context. Much like learning about swimming, meditation practice can be understood by looking at the plain facts of what is. In learning how to swim, we learn about buoyancy and treading water. If you can tread water and float in the shallow end, then you should be able to do the same in the deep end (without fear). Different levels of salinity in the water produce different levels of buoyancy. This informs our insight/wisdom/knowledge about being buoyant in water. As we swim in different water currents, we realize that we need more or less exertion to go with or against the current. In lap swimming, if a person swims towards you with a butterfly stroke or a back stroke, you notice that these two strokes produce different kinds of force. You quickly learn how to adjust and maneuver if you are going to swim past these swimmers. In Practice If we take Mindfulness Meditation (also known as breath meditation or concentration meditation or Samatha) to be like learning to swim, without any preconceptions, then we can see it just as it actually is. Mindfulness Meditation brings the mind into a state of alertness, with ardent focus and energy (not relaxation). We use the breath as an object to stay focused on exclusively. As we meditate, we allow all experience simply to be — to welcome it without aversion or a desire to change it. Just as in swimming, insight in meditation comes by doing it. Through meditation you will discover that the mind is unruly: it introduces thoughts that can take your attention away from the breath. You will learn how to navigate and negotiate those thoughts so that you can remain focused on the breath. You will gain insight that the content of that thought is egocentric (about you or relating to you or meaningful to you) and can easily tantalize you to follow it. Basically, meditation gives you the opportunity to exercise controlling your mind so that you can overcome those thoughts while keeping the mind where you want to be — on the breath. For Daily Life Obviously, this breath meditation exercise is useful to manage the mind outside of the meditation practice, too, as the mind would behave in the same way. You will discover that aversion or wanting things to be different from what is going on makes the meditation exercise more challenging. In the same way, in our daily life experience, learning “to be” is another option rather than “doing.” There is nothing wrong with doing or being productive. However, by learning to control the mind we can choose the option of just “to be.” To enjoy just where you are, such as lounging at the beach, for example, does not require you to plan or do anything. By understanding how context can affect perception and meaning, we can change the interpretation of any object and phenomenon. We can see the glass as half empty or half full. Knowing this, we can shift our response or experience from negative to positive thoughts, when appropriate. Mindfulness practice has only one goal: to overcome suffering or to cultivate happiness (two sides of the same coin). Therefore, understanding how context can change perception and meaning, we can use this insight to achieve the goal of life — to be happy.  Transformation is a natural manifestation of change from "the usual." In Mindfulness practice that transformation is about a life free from suffering or living happily. Transformation may appear to be sudden. Most often, however, the grounds for changes to occur need to be carefully laid -- akin to laying the foundation of building before the frame can be erected.
The Buddha himself took many years to become enlightened; it was not a sudden eureka event under the Bodhi tree. What is critical for successful transformation -- which can involve numerous challenges on the journey and enormous time or investment -- is RESOLVE. May your resolve to end suffering be strong enough to endure for success. May the incremental steps of kaizen, the Japanese notion of continuous improvement along the way, lead you toward happiness. The link below explains more about the Japanese concept of kaizen and how it is transformative. https://bigthink.com/smart-skills/kaizen/ Massaging the mind by “gladdening it” is achievable by picking the abundant, low-hanging fruit. Gratitude is a choice that we can make each day as we go about our lives. In his film project, Happiness Revealed, cinematographer Louie Schwartzberg integrates exquisite film imagery with voiceover by Brother David Steindl-Rast to create a visually moving meditation on living gratefully. Hope you enjoy this short film and share it with others.
I find it useful to listen to different people who speak on the topic of Mindfulness. Their points of view provide rich resources from different perspectives and bring synergy to my own understanding. In this Mind & Life podcast, Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MSBR) and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, shares his life experiences and the path of his 50-year immersion in Mindfulness practice.
Good Relationships Benefit our Health & Well-Being One of the longest ongoing research studies (started in 1938 by the Harvard Study of Adult Development) has followed 724 men of different socio-economic backgrounds to discover the answer to well-being and health. The Study’s director, Dr. Robert Waldinger, is well-versed in the implications of this research. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1973 and went on to become a a psychoanalyst and a Zen priest as well as the founder and executive director of the Lifespan Research Foundation and professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. His TED talk offers much insight about the basis for happiness. See: https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness This long-term research at Harvard shows that “good relationships” are the key contributing factor to health and well-being. This makes sense to me, as we are social beings. According to Dr. Waldinger, most people assume that wealth and fame are the necessary elements for well-being. But the research clearly found that this is not so. Instead, the sometimes “messy” relationships with family, friends, community, and others are the catalyst for well-being and health. Spending quality time with others is so important, according to Dr. Waldinger. While 20% of Americans (over 66 million people) currently feel a loneliness that is detrimental to their health and well-being, some of the 90-year-olds in the study report chronic pain yet they are happy and healthy. Mark Twain recognized the value of good relationships when he wisely wrote: “There isn't time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.” Society Today As we age, we will undoubtedly experience the deaths of more of our friends and family. During this COVID-19 pandemic, people have experienced more social isolation, more loneliness, and spikes in break ups and divorces. Our mobile society means that many of us no longer live in the places where we were born or in the communities where we grew up. In this age of globalization, we have lost the sense of our “village community.” Breakdowns in our social structures, heightened by the pandemic, have exacerbated health risks and misery in our community.  Creating a Virtual Sangha Mindfulness practice is designed to improve our relationship to ourselves and to others. As our relationships strengthen, we also boost our own health and happiness. This is where our newly formed WhatsApp Right Speech Sangha comes in. What’s a sangha? It is a Sanskrit word meaning community. In Mindfulness practice, a sangha is a community of people practicing Mindfulness and supporting each other. Sangha is a critical element for successful Mindfulness practice. A sangha is a safe place where everyone can share thoughts, be in touch with one another, and discuss their Mindfulness practice in relation to their personal life challenges and discoveries. It is a place to socialize and lend support to one another. In today’s world we can use a social media platform to form a sangha dedicated to alleviating loneliness and bringing people together for the benefit of all. A virtual community needs no real estate. There is no cost to join. And you are most welcome to join us. WhatsApp Right Speech Sangha is run by volunteers, and you can join the Admin group if you like. Currently. Diane Haas, Ron Kinder, and George Klein have been very kind and generous to step forward to be the administrators for the sangha. I have been involved for the past few months to assist the Admin group in developing the sangha. However, I am going to resign from the Admin group after posting this blog so that it will be just for you as practitioners and not a teaching medium for me. How can this virtual sangha benefit everyone? Here are some of the ways:
 Right Speech The sangha establishes Right Speech as a method for interacting with each other. This means:
 Ultimately, the goal of Mindfulness practice is to improve our collective well-being. To join the WhatsApp Right Speech Sangha, please e-mail Diane Haas at diane.haase@comcast.net with your request. May all beings be happy!  This spring, I was asked by the Happy Valley Library and the Lake Oswego Parks and Recreation Department to offer several weeks of Mindfulness programs to serve their communities while they coped with the global COVID-19 pandemic. I learned that as people began dealing with the “new normal,” they felt that their lives were turned abnormally “upside down.” This topsy-turvy world caused great stress. How can Mindfulness help us live in this unfamiliar world we find ourselves in? Mindfulness is designed to address real life challenges. I hope that this blog would help you in dealing with the uncertainty and changes we face during these extraordinary times as well as when we can feel the rhythms of normalcy in our daily lives. Mindfulness practice is not just about sitting in meditation; it also embodies the following aspects:
So, how can Mindfulness practice can be used in overcoming the stress from radical changes to our lives during this pandemic? Insight into the nature of reality reveals that change is the norm and not an exception. Some changes are gradual and harder to notice, while others are radical. If you look carefully into nature, you’ll realize that everything changes. Just look at your own body. It is always changing: skin tone, hair loss, weight changes, aging, etc. If we don’t notice some of these subtle changes, we may become deluded into thinking and wishing that things remain the same — a false concept of normalcy. The notion of things changing as not being normal is neither scientific nor realistic. It is downright incorrect. As we come to understand that reality is in constant flux, we lose our aversion to change — a major cause of stress. Also, we when learn not to cling to how things were, another stress factor is gone. Biology and neuroscience provide good answers to the delusion that things should remain the same. All organisms, including human beings strive for reliability, dependability, sustainability, predictability and normalcy for survival purposes. The more difficult it is for an organism to predict and rely on its knowledge about its environment, the harder it is for that organism to survive. Humans, a species that has adapted to so many different types of environments around the world for centuries, are designed for survival and not for happiness. However, we have the capacity, through our neocortex, to regulate emotions for happiness.  In dealing with loneliness as an outcome of social distancing, for example, we can focus on the aspects of Wisdom and Skillful Means of mindfulness practice and use them to overcome the stress of loneliness and to cultivate happiness. Here’s how:
Relativity: There are many levels of loneliness. You may come to realize that your condition is not so bad compared to what others in solitary confinement or torture chambers, for example, may be experiencing. Imagine what the late Senator John McCain experienced as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Options for connectivity: Humans are a social species and our connections to people are essential for us to survive. In the midst of this global pandemic, however, it is wise from a public health perspective to maintain social distance. Yet there are so many different ways that you can still connect with people: phone calls, virtual meetings, meeting outdoors six-feet apart with masks on, waving hello to people you pass by on daily walks, etc. Focus on interconnectedness: You can choose to focus your mind not on the loneliness, but on the interconnectedness of your being with everything that is in nature — wild animals, birds, insects, flowers, trees, the weather, etc. Nature is always interacting with you in this universe of life experience; you are in this together all the time. You even breathe in and out the air that we all share. Focus on the positive: The time away from commuting and meetings that you now have, for example, provides you with the gift of time for you to do things that you did not have time for before, things that can improve your well-being. For example, you can clean your home and do repairs, learn how to cook or sew or paint, read more books or take online classes, etc. Practice is the practice. With practice you can reorient your mind and train it to look at things and phenomena that help you to overcome suffering and to cultivate happiness. Our brains are neuroplastic, which means that we can guide our brains to change in response to experience and create more positive neural connections. Regular meditation is a way to exercise your mind to help you develop these coping skills and to deal with life challenges beyond loneliness. Think of it this way: your life must end. Why not be happy now? Is it better to feel miserable? Isn’t it better to live happily every day and savor this limited life experience on earth and fill it with the richness and joy of living? Let’s make this life worth living and kick the can of stress. All good wishes for a healthy and happier New Year!  Last week my wife shared with me the “word of the day” sent to her in an e-blast by Word Genius. The word was “Mindfulness.” Two definitions were offered:
I believe that both definitions are lacking since “Mindfulness” encompasses so much more than consciousness or a therapeutic technique. Mindfulness is a way of being that guides us toward enlightenment and freedom from suffering. We can trace the origins of the concept of Mindfulness back to the Pali/Sanskrit word “Sati.” The word Sati is derived from one of the 80,000 Buddha's discourses (known as sutta in Pali or sutra in Sanskrit), called Satipatthana Sutta which is translated as the Discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. The four foundations of Sati include:
While the Buddha never had a specific section describing the term Sati in the suttas, by reading many suttas one can see a repetitive pattern that describes what Mindfulness is. Sati/Mindfulness is a mind pose, attitude, or way of being which brings together three qualities of mind: (1) clarity, (2) undivided focus of attention, and (3) objectivity. When the mind state embodies these three characteristics it becomes unified and synergistic. The sense of ego is diminished along with subjectivity, allowing us to see the naked truth. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of the practice of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Professor of Medicine Emeritus of at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, defines Mindfulness as “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.” This conscious awareness is not actually Mindfulness, but the outcome of Mindfulness. When the mind behaves in this unique non-subjective way, we are able to see things as they really are in an objective way. Mindfulness, encompassing subject and object, is a dance between the conscious and the unconscious. In English, “Sati” refers to the Hindu custom of a widow jumping into the funeral pyre of her dead husband as voluntary act of devotion to follow him into the afterlife. This sacred act was abolished in India in 1829. However, linguistically Sati also embodies a sense of sacredness in that it has the healing ability of enabling a person to see things with a unique perspective that alleviates suffering by gaining insight into the true nature of reality and freedom from suffering. What is the true nature of reality? That is the subject for another blog post.  Image by kai kalhh from Pixabay What does pond scum have to do with meditation? They were the focus of Dr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn's groundbreaking research on telomeres, the ends of DNA chromosome strands that get shorter each time a cell divides. She, along with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase."
It turns out that the length of telomeres is related to the aging process, cancer and a higher risk of death. In her 2017 TED Talk (link below), Dr. Blackburn points out that that new research has shown that chronic stress can shorten telomeres. Yet how we respond to life events is important and can help us control the way we age. The good news is that meditation has a positive effect on attitude and on telomeres. https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_blackburn_the_science_of_cells_that_never_get_old |
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Welcome to the Top of Mind blog on Mindfulness Meditation. This is the place to share reflections on topics that can help us deepen our practice and enrich our lives. Archives
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