A few years ago I was extremely stressed out which caused me to have a lot of tension in my muscles. During this time I discovered mindfulness meditation and began practicing it. Within a week the tension abated and I felt much better overall with far less stress than before. So after seeing that it worked for me I began studying it more and realized it is backed by science.
So why meditate? Because it works!
So why meditate? Because it works!
Meditation has been scientifically
proven to change your brain and body for the better. If one has any doubt of
this all they need to do is research the scientific literature; read articles like, Mindfulness Meditation Benefits: 20 Reasons Why It's Good For Your Mental And Physical Health by By Amanda L. Chan; or they can just
watch this short video clip below of Dr. Herbert Benson from Harvard Medical
School
Direct link to the above video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WajTafbG7II
In fact, in the article here it says that some doctors are now prescribing mindfulness meditation as a way to manage stress, anxiety, and chronic pain, etc., by recommending meditation twice a day for five minutes at first, and working your way up to twenty minutes.
Now the mindfulness meditation I am advocating here has nothing to do with Hindu dogma, chakras, the Hare Krishnas, or any New Age ideas that contradict science, etc; all of which I personally reject. I am merely presenting a way to be less in your head (i.e. controlled by unwanted thoughts), and more in your body (being attuned to your five senses).
A good analogy that explains partly why meditation is so healthy as a stress reducer, is if we think of the brain like a computer which is running all the time. Well sometimes our computer at home starts to run a little slow and this is often because there are too many programs running online. Likewise our thinking mind is running excessive thoughts all day, that may make us function less optimally. When we want the computer to run better, we shut down programs and go offline, or we re-start the computer, which gives the computer a break as it reboots. This is analogous to what mindfulness meditation does for the brain and body. For all day long you are engaged in constant "mind chatter" as you run endless streams of thought in your mind. Going "offline" for ten to twenty minutes or more a day allows the body to reboot and rejuvenate.
OK, so you are interested in mediation, now what? I suggest one start with this short video clip below:
Caution & Disclaimer: In this post I will be providing links to several programs on meditation. For safety reasons, to not practice mediation when your attention is fully required elsewhere. Do not listen to these audio files while driving or when your full attention is required for obvious safety reasons.
Direct link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspY43lxqhE
Also see these two short articles that will briefly explain how
to meditate, which are available online:
Image source: http://www.mindfulness-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/self-regulation-of-attention-299x300.png
I believe that the above is all you need to start a basic mediation practice, which I have read should ideally last at least ten to twenty minutes per session. For more articles on mindfulness and audio programs that provide guided meditations and other resources see the links below. Again, do not listen to these audio programs while driving or when your full attention is required.
Once you start your meditation practice I recommend watching my YouTube video play list here that will give the viewer several valuable insights, how to lessons, and advice about mindfulness.
What you will find is that the more you practice meditation the more mindful you will become in daily life. In fact, mindfulness is not just a meditation practice, it is a philosophy of life if you will. According to Dr. Tanzi there are four types of mindfulness:
1. Sensory Awareness: Imagine a sunset, then imagine a baby crying, the smell of pop corn, licking a lemon, and the touch of rough sand paper. If you deeply imagined these things your senses were enlivened.
2. Body Awareness: Be aware of your muscular skeletal system. Ask yourself, "How do I feel right now?" Pay attention to your internal organs, your breathing rate, heart rate, etc. This will cause you to be aware of your body's needs and help you know how to fulfill your body's needs, whether it's breathing more slowly, or releasing tension from a tight muscle. Overtime this will become intuitive. Listen to your body: go to bed when you're tired instead of staying up late watching TV; eat more mindfully so you don't overeat, etc.
3. Mental Awareness: Observe your thoughts and feelings going through your mind and nervous system. Become more "self aware," that is aware of your "selfing," how your thinking patterns/mind chatter affects you self perceptions. Observe your thoughts and self-talk and how this affects your emotions.
4. Social Awareness: Be more aware of others around you (friends, family, co-workers, society in general). Give the three A's to people: your Attention, Affection, and Appreciation.
Source: Super Brain by Dr. Tanzi on PBS
I also recommend, that during your meditation practice one start reading the really short book called, Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Kabat-Zinn is the director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. There are other books on mindfulness I enjoyed and learned a lot from but they teach ideas I personally don’t subscribe too, like reincarnation and other Buddhist dogmas I personally reject. So I still recommend this book by Jon Kabat-Zinn because it is a purely secular book grounded in science without any appeals to ideology, dogma, or supernatural claims. Unlike many other authors that talk about mindfulness, Kabat-Zinn is a scientist by profession and seeks to ground Eastern practices in the empirical sciences and avoids other worldly speculation. His book is for everyone regardless of one’s religious or irreligious views. He presents a way to achieve equanimity without appealing to “new age” nonsense as is found in some of the meditation literature. Toward the end of his book he explains why he tends to avoid the word “spiritual” and instead seeks to ground the practice of mindfulness in science in order for all to benefit from it.
Jon Kabat-Zinn also incorporates the American contemplative tradition, quoting from those like Thoreau and others, in order to ground his words in universal realizations that combine both East and West. His goal is to make meditation simple. His little book seeks to encourage and inspire you during your mediation practice.
According to Jon Kabat-Zinn mindfulness is better understood as "heartfulness," as he explains in the brief clip below:
1. Sensory Awareness: Imagine a sunset, then imagine a baby crying, the smell of pop corn, licking a lemon, and the touch of rough sand paper. If you deeply imagined these things your senses were enlivened.
2. Body Awareness: Be aware of your muscular skeletal system. Ask yourself, "How do I feel right now?" Pay attention to your internal organs, your breathing rate, heart rate, etc. This will cause you to be aware of your body's needs and help you know how to fulfill your body's needs, whether it's breathing more slowly, or releasing tension from a tight muscle. Overtime this will become intuitive. Listen to your body: go to bed when you're tired instead of staying up late watching TV; eat more mindfully so you don't overeat, etc.
3. Mental Awareness: Observe your thoughts and feelings going through your mind and nervous system. Become more "self aware," that is aware of your "selfing," how your thinking patterns/mind chatter affects you self perceptions. Observe your thoughts and self-talk and how this affects your emotions.
4. Social Awareness: Be more aware of others around you (friends, family, co-workers, society in general). Give the three A's to people: your Attention, Affection, and Appreciation.
Source: Super Brain by Dr. Tanzi on PBS
I also recommend, that during your meditation practice one start reading the really short book called, Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Kabat-Zinn is the director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. There are other books on mindfulness I enjoyed and learned a lot from but they teach ideas I personally don’t subscribe too, like reincarnation and other Buddhist dogmas I personally reject. So I still recommend this book by Jon Kabat-Zinn because it is a purely secular book grounded in science without any appeals to ideology, dogma, or supernatural claims. Unlike many other authors that talk about mindfulness, Kabat-Zinn is a scientist by profession and seeks to ground Eastern practices in the empirical sciences and avoids other worldly speculation. His book is for everyone regardless of one’s religious or irreligious views. He presents a way to achieve equanimity without appealing to “new age” nonsense as is found in some of the meditation literature. Toward the end of his book he explains why he tends to avoid the word “spiritual” and instead seeks to ground the practice of mindfulness in science in order for all to benefit from it.
Jon Kabat-Zinn also incorporates the American contemplative tradition, quoting from those like Thoreau and others, in order to ground his words in universal realizations that combine both East and West. His goal is to make meditation simple. His little book seeks to encourage and inspire you during your mediation practice.
According to Jon Kabat-Zinn mindfulness is better understood as "heartfulness," as he explains in the brief clip below:
I like to think of mindfulness as "body centering" and/or "sensory attunement," or simply "awareness." For more definitive definitions see here.
During your mediation practice I also recommend consulting this short article titled, The Attitudinal Foundation of Mindfulness, a brief adaptation from Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Full Catastrophe Living at www.mindfulness-meditation-now.com/support-files/seven-attitudes.pdf
During your mediation practice I also recommend consulting this short article titled, The Attitudinal Foundation of Mindfulness, a brief adaptation from Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Full Catastrophe Living at www.mindfulness-meditation-now.com/support-files/seven-attitudes.pdf
A short book that deals with the philosophy of mindfulness
and the Buddhist aspects of it is Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki.
For a book that discusses a lot of the science behind
mindfulness I recommend: The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the
Cultivation of Well-Being by Daniel J. Siegel. For a brief overview of this book see http://www.openground.com.au/articles/Siegel-article.pdf
My Own Personal Advice
& Reflections on Mediation:
I have found a good metaphor for mediation is the scene in the movie, For Love of the Game, where Kevin Costner’s character “clears the mechanism” in
the scene below:
In this analogy, quieting the crowd in the audience is like
quieting one’s own inner voice chatter, and focusing on the pitch is analogous
to focusing on one’s breathing during meditation. Another great illustration of
mindfulness in sports is the following clip from the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance on being “in the filed”:
The following is what has worked for me when I first started
my meditation practice.
I found that counting each in breath and out breath, up to a
hundred, was a good way to get out of my “inner voice chatter” and into my
body.
I find that doing a body scan is helpful. See the links
above, where audio programs on the body scan are available for free. Also see this article here and this eight minute body scan presented by NPR.org, here.
Another thing that helped me in my meditation practice is a concept described by Adam Smith called the impartial spectator. This helped me realize that I was the "observer of my thoughts" and that I didn't have to cling to them or entertain them when they arose in my consciousness. I could simply observe them as if from a distance, and let them go. So as the observer of my thoughts I often think of my thoughts, while meditating, like clouds floating across the sky or leaves
flowing down a river. I watch the leaves float by without following them down the
river, or I watch the clouds pass across the sky without following them. Instead I stay open and aware.
Since I am a highly cognitive left-brain person by nature I find that the following terms and way of expressing being mindful helps me understand and define the phenomenon:
- Experiencing non-duality
- Word-free consciousness
- Non-conceptual states
- Absolute Unitary Being
- Pure being
- Sensory aliveness
- Savoring reality
- Left-brain silence and right-brain expansion
- Awareness of the all within and all around
- Grounded in the present beyond the pairs of opposites
I also put together the following diagrams to help me to be
more mindful. In the first diagram below the idea is that when meditating the
goal is be centered in the here and now and allow worries/ruminations,
thoughts, and ideas, to fade away like soap bubbles floating away and popping out of
existence temporarily during your meditation session:
Of course, sometimes the thoughts or images do not fade away and linger in your awareness and that is OK. The goal is to try and detach from them, to notice them as imaginary objects apart from your awareness of them while you seek to come to your senses more and more.
This next diagram reminds me to avoid clinging to mental constructs (thoughts, labels, and images I construct in my mind) and being "mindlessly" lost in abstractions, clinging to the past or worrying about the future. The center of the circle is where I want to be when I am mindful.
This next diagram reminds me to avoid clinging to mental constructs (thoughts, labels, and images I construct in my mind) and being "mindlessly" lost in abstractions, clinging to the past or worrying about the future. The center of the circle is where I want to be when I am mindful.
These diagrams remind me to not cling to my thought bubbles,
like the ones you see in cartoon strips containing the character’s thoughts and
imagination; to instead be more here in the moment and not constantly cling to
“there” missing the beauty and vitality of this moment. I like the image below that also illustrates this nicely:
Mindfulness is not just a way of meditating, it is a way of being. We often get lost in the tunnel of excessive thinking and worrying, which creates stress internally and externally. To illustrate this I created the image below contrasting the idea of being in the tunnel versus being aware or mindful:
Image source: http://myhusbandsblackdog.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/mindfulness-poster.jpg
Mindfulness is not just a way of meditating, it is a way of being. We often get lost in the tunnel of excessive thinking and worrying, which creates stress internally and externally. To illustrate this I created the image below contrasting the idea of being in the tunnel versus being aware or mindful:
When we are in the tunnel, which is being lost in our "thought bubbles," we can be near people but not be present around them. We hear people but we are not listening because we are in the tunnel. We are with our friends and family but we're not really with them because we are in the tunnel. Mindfulness is not just about taking time out to meditate but also being more engaged with others and more aware of your surroundings. The diagram here does a good job of summarizing mindfulness in one image.
Image source: http://www.themindfulword.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/love-is-in-the-air.jpg
Mindfulness is about being fully alive and in the moment. We can practice mindful eating where one savors each bite. We can even be mindful when doing the dishes. We can mindful in almost everything.
What Mindfulness Meditation is Not:
If you are trying to meditate and you hear yourself say, "I'm meditating now," then you're not meditating. You are engaged in mind chatter. For "you" (by that I mean your inner voice/narrator) can't meditate. Meditation is a full body sensory experience. Meditation is the awareness between thoughts, the feeling of organic interconnectedness that is experienced beyond concepts and images; the touch of reality, the sound of life.
Mindfulness meditation is not visualization, daydreaming, or pondering something. If you are attempting to meditate and you are daydreaming or lost in images and thoughts, that is not mindfulness meditation. If you are in deep thought pondering something, that is not mindfulness. Now, visualizing can be a form of meditation as we saw with the monks in the video above, but mindfulness meditation is not visualization; it is not envisioning anything but being centered in your body and sensory experience.
I've heard that when certain Eastern persons meditate their teacher walks around with a small, harmless stick, to whack them with if they are not mediating and instead distracted and lost in thought. For if they are meditating they are in their body, and fully present in their senses, thus they will sense the teacher approaching. If they are not sensory present and pondering something or daydreaming they won't be aware of the teacher approaching and will get whacked with the stick.
In Conclusion:
Mindfulness is a profound phenomenology that extends beyond mere practice for twenty minutes a day, for it can enrich your entire life. It can explain why there is power in acceptance and
forgiveness, which are focal points of all self-help, religion, and psychology;
for it allows one to be centered in the present and not overly attached to the
past. A lot of the divisiveness in the world is because of people clinging to
mental constructs and labels, as people are not experiencing each other
mindfully, but are labeling others instead according to mental constructs.
Mindfulness practice can help people realize when anger and anxiety arises, what
the physiological triggers are, the thoughts involved; and thus they are better able
to manage these internal sensations. Thus mindfulness, as a way to manage anger and anxiety, as well as a way of encouraging the labeling of people less and experiencing
their full humanity more, can ideally lead to the cultivation of compassion and
global unity.
This state of experiential awareness between thoughts, attachments, and
ruminations, is a phenomenological experience of oneness with reality, which
for many can also provide profoundly meaningful experiences. For many it is the way to alleviate our modern state of
obsessive thinking, thinking, and more excessive thinking that leads to chronic
anxiety. It is a way to break from the endless mental game of constructing and
clinging to thought forms that give rise to perpetual dissatisfaction, fear,
and uncertainty. When mental constructs abate, the worry cycle tends to
disintegrate, and the person becomes more enveloped in the experience of being
alive right here, right now; fully aware and in the moment, savoring each sight,
sound, taste, touch, and smell. According to those who experience profound states of meditation, they
often describe it as, liberation from mental constructs and experiencing union
with reality and experiencing pure being. They are freed from the confines of being chained to their mind's making of scenarios and images of fear and angst that are most often
fictitious. They learn to observe these images and scenarios and detach from them. This opens them up to savor the real, touch each texture anew, to feel more deeply, see more clearly, and to really listen to others. They feel connected to the great chain of being and feel fully
alive in and of the universe.
