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:

• Goal: The aim of Mindfulness is to align with the goal of attaining well-being and happiness in life.
• Meditation: The purpose of mind exercise to develop our own capacity for mind control and to gain insight.
• Skillful Means: The good news is that we can gain proficiency in utilizing our mental resources to overcome suffering.
• Insight & Wisdom: These tools of self-knowledge guide us to learn the truth about reality and how things actually are.
• Ethics: Moral principles are necessary to create both the internal and the external environments conducive to happiness.
• Scientific Perspective: Science is rooted in predictable, replicable and reliable methods — not based on mere beliefs.

 
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.

Many new students come to my Mindfulness Meditation class with the goal or desire to stop the troubling “mind chatter” going on in their head. The human default mode network (DMN as it is known in neuroscience) is that of mind-wandering or ”monkey mind.” I always explain to them that there is nothing wrong with monkey mind. In fact, it is a sign of a normal and healthy brain function. During mind chatter, the flow of blood provides nutrients to nourish the brain. A disruption to the mind chatter can be a symptom of brain abnormalities such Alzheimer’s or a coma.

I further explain to my students that it is not the “chattering” that causes their troublesome experience rather it is the “content and quality” of thoughts that are produced during such chattering. If the thought content and quality are negative, (for example: I don’t like myself, I failed, I am not desirable, etc.) then the affect is adverse. If, however, the thought content and quality are positive, (for example: I feel great after that exercise, I enjoyed that meal, I like where I am, etc.) then their affect is wholesome.

If you study the content and quality of your thoughts produced during mind chatter, you will find that they are always in the languages and experiences that of your past: there is no way that they would contain anything to which you have never been exposed. For example, you will never think of pepes unless you know that it is a delicious dish from Java where the fish/chicken/tofu is smeared with curry and other exotic herbs, wrapped in banana leaf and barbecued. Your thoughts do not chatter in Sundanese or Arabic, unless you know those languages.

For those of you who have attended my classes or presentations, you know that understanding the science of why mindfulness meditation practice is so effective for our health and well-being is one of my passions. Here is a link to a Google University talk by Philippe Golden, a researcher in clinically applied affective neuroscience at Stanford University's Department of Psychology who also has a solid background in Buddhist studies. Enjoy this a fascinating talk from 2008.

This election cycle has heightened the rhetoric of those speaking out against different ethnic groups and women. In the 10 days after Donald Trump became the official president-elect, 867 hate incidents were documented nationwide by the South Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. The affects of racial hate are in front and center our own Portland metro backyard. In West Linn High School, students walked out in mid-November to protest students who called a fellow Muslim student a terrorist and a Latino student "illegal." At Lake Oswego High School, a racist comment was posted for several weeks on the student-run Facebook page and an anti-Semitic photo was posted in the school cafeteria.
 
Over the past few months, Dr. Larry Sherman, Professor of Neuroscience at the Oregon Health & Science University, gave several public talks on You and Your Racist Brain: The Neuroscience of Prejudice. He was also invited to speak to at Lake Oswego High School in early December in response to the post-election hate incidents on campus. In Dr. Sherman’s view, racism exists when one group dominates, excludes or seeks to eliminate another group on the basis of differences that it believes are inherent, hereditary and unalterable. He further explains that racism, in large part, involves learned behaviors that stem from the human brain’s tendency to engage in prejudice, a process where our brains make judgments that are not based on experience or reason.
 
I agree with Dr. Sherman’s definition of racism and his linkage between the brain, conditioning and prejudice. Moreover, when we look at racism from the perspective of Mindfulness as a form of unwholesome judging, we can gain more insight about its direct affect upon us.
 
From a Mindfulness perspective, racism falls into the category of judging, which includes comparing. Judging is a normal part of our human makeup that is shared by all beings as a way to navigate life. Our ability to judge helps us to discern, for example, the differences between:

• survival versus demise,
• hunger versus being satiated,
• right versus wrong,
• big versus small,
• us versus them,
• superior versus inferior,
• rich versus poor,
• acceptable versus deplorable.

 
This ability to discern through judging and comparing can be beneficial in Mindfulness practice to distinguish between the concepts of wholesome versus unwholesome and happiness versus suffering. So it is not the act of judging or comparing that may cause us to suffer, but its applications and how we relate to them.
 
With wisdom as our guide, we can discern what kind of judging can cause stress and what kind of comparing can help us to eliminate suffering. Judgments or comparisons that cause friction, a breakdown in harmony, compromise peacefulness, threaten happiness, promote greed, hate and delusion (the latter three, known as the Three Roots of Suffering, according to the Buddha) are clearly unwholesome.
 
As we tune into our awareness of body, mind and feelings through Mindfulness Meditation, we can really sense how unwholesome conduct feels very different compared to wholesome conduct. When we turn our awareness mindfully to racism, we may experience the sensations of tightness, heaviness, constriction, uneasiness. Our heart may feel queasy and racy. We may feel an impulse to strike or run away. Our mind may become muddled or obsessed. We may feel unsafe. We may feel ill will, hate or fear arising. We may also experience that our sleep quality — and our health — are adversely affected. Indeed, Dr. Sherman views racism as “a public health problem” due to the high cortisol effects of stress on our bodies — both for victims and perpetrators.
 
The opposite of racism is tolerance. The experience of tolerance through Mindfulness practice may give us a bodily-felt sense of ease, release, warmth, lightness, groundedness, composure, contentment, and confidence. When we practice tolerance, we more likely experience a stronger impulse towards kindness, generosity, compassion, tranquility, happiness, and better health.
 
In our practice, we can overcome unwholesome judging by bringing awareness to our minds and noticing what arises. Our detached inner dialogue may include phrases such as:

• “Ooh … this is intolerance.”
• “This is unwholesome judging.”
• “The mind feels this way.”
• “The emotion feels like this.”
• “The body is stressed out.”

This internal feedback loop is our direct, authentic, experiential response to what is unwholesome.
 
Our practice of Mindfulness is enough to allow what is unwholesome to lose its grip and power over us. Take some time to contemplate which option is more beneficial for your well-being — tolerance or intolerance. As we deepen our awareness of cognition and bodily-felt experiences through meditation, we gain an insight that nurtures our wisdom in pursuit of a life free from suffering. We may reclaim, once again, our inner peace, and stay on the path to cultivate our happiness.