The Meditative Life

Toward a Contemplative Curriculum

Arthur Zajonc — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:21:39 +0000

Last night I welcomed thirty faculty from U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities to the opening session of a weeklong gathering on Contemplative Curriculum Development. When introducing themselves, each spoke of how they longed to make whole a divided life, of how in their teaching they sought to cultivate the inner capacities of their students as well as traditional analytical skills and critical faculties.
In the coming days they will work with professors who have already integrated meditation into their teaching in remarkable ways, from Jody Ziegler's contemplative seeing of a work of art, to Daniel Barbazat's contemplative exercises for economics. Not only is meditation a means of stress reduction and cultivating attention, but it is a way of learning more deeply about ourselves and our world: of cultivating wisdom. In the words of Shantideva, "This entire preparation the Sage (the Buddha) taught for the sake of wisdom. Thus one wishing to bring an end to suffering should develop wisdom." If we would relieve suffering, we require wisdom, which is more that knowledge.
So sit quietly, settle the mind and the body, finding the sanctuary of silence, that sweet territory that is always available to us, and place at the center of your attention a word or phrase. You could use, for example, "to end suffering, develop wisdom." Allow each word its space within you, and feel the meaning of the words rise from the silence. Repeat the words again, and then move back into silence once more. Shift slowly between word and silence until the significance of the line meditated stirs and lifts you.
In such an exercise we learn the real importance of attention. It is true, as Mary Oliver says, "This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists, and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness." ("Low Tide", Amicus Journal, Winter 2001)

Meditating our Emotions: Finding Martin Luther King

Arthur Zajonc — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:36:26 +0000

Meditation's reach has recently gotten significantly broader. Over the last couple of years, Google's Chade-Meng Tan has teamed up with the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society to develop a successful course for Google employees called "Search Inside Yourself." It is a key part of the School of Personal Growth at Google University, and combines research into emotional intelligence as presented by Daniel Goleman with meditation, which is taught by Zen master Norman Fischer and the Center's senior fellow Mirabai Bush. But Meng's vision is much greater, and includes world peace. He wants the SIY course to be an "open source" resource for businesses everywhere and envisions the combination of meditation and emotional intelligence as key to bringing forth human flourishing and a compassionate world.

Most of us don't work at Google, and our vision is more modest, but we are all aware that when we search inside ourselves emotions play a large, and often times, disruptive part in our inner life. One of the primary purposes of meditation is to work with emotions, bringing light and balance into what can be a turbulent and disturbing arena. The goal is not to eliminate emotions, but to refine them, make them less tormenting and more transparent and intelligent. As every artist knows, feelings can be cognitive if they can be made lucid and responsive. They can become ways of connecting more fully to the subtle dimensions of the world, but that is often not our experience of them.

Normally, we view experiences, emotions, and thoughts unreflectively from inside. We identify with them. They are us, we are them. In this sense we are enmeshed in our emotions and thoughts, and often driven by them. The following exercise provides us with some distance from our own emotions, allowing us to consider them from the outside and work with them from a new vantage point. The discovery of that new and higher vantage point is not always easy, but once we learn the way to it, then the narrow pathway to emotional equanimity can open and allow us to consider the most intense emotional struggles of daily life gracefully from a viewpoint familiar to us from meditation. By way of introduction, I relate an episode from the life of the American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

During his years of work on behalf of black Americans, Martin Luther King ceaselessly advocated for nonviolent action as a means of drawing attention to the oppression of blacks, especially in the South. He received many threats and suffered several attempts on his life. In one instance his home in Montgomery, Alabama, was bombed while he was at a church meeting. The porch and front of the house were heavily damaged. His wife, Coretta, and daughter Yoki were in the back of the house at the time, and no one was hurt. By the time King arrived, an agitated crowd of hundreds of black neighbors had gathered, ready to retaliate against the police who were there. Their much-loved leader and his family had been attacked. Facing the strong possibility of a race riot, the police asked King if he would address the crowd. King went out onto what remained of his front porch, held up his hands and everyone grew quiet. He said, "We believe in law and order. Don't do anything panicky at all. Don't get your weapons. He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that is what God said. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. Love them and let them know you love them." When Martin finished, everyone went home without violence, saying "Amen" and "God bless you." Tears were on many faces. King had felt the same emotions of anger at the attempt on the lives of his family and himself, but he was also able to find a place in himself from which he could speak and act that did not answer hate with hate, but instead could meet hate with love.

In our own lives we experience similar if smaller affronts, but they can lead to long periods of brooding anger and internal agitation. The meditation begins by selecting from out of past experience an occasion of hatred, jealousy, desire, anger, etc. It should be strong but not overwhelming or too recent. Then, after having settled the mind, and found your way to the gateway of humility and the path of reverence as described in my previous blog entries, relive the occasion selected. As you call the situation back to mind, it is important to allow the associated negative emotions (desire, pride, anger...) to rise up once again. Feel their force, sense the stir of feelings and the undertow that, if left unchecked, might well lead you back into the dark, uncontrolled emotions of the original situation. Only by allowing these feelings some sway can we practice overcoming them and so learn to hold the situa¬tion in a new light. As the emotions begin to take hold, like the arrival of Martin Luther King's angry neighbors, look within yourself for higher ground, for a place from which to inwardly behold yourself and the entire situation. Encompass the conflicting parts of the drama within your field of attention. Feel the contention between two selves. Move away from the undertow of destructive emotions and take up your place as a witness. Find your way from the mentality of the crowd to the Martin Luther King in you. From your new vantage point, go on to experience the inner dynamics that are at play in the situation.

To come under the sway of negative emotions is to be blinded. When carried away by anger, lust, or jealousy, we do not really see who or what is before us. We cannot judge the forces at play or intuit the right way forward. Now, from the new vantage point, attempt to see who really stands before you and what forces are actually active. In the midst of the occurrence, sense the history behind it and the possibility that lies beyond it. The events of the day and indeed your entire life have led to the encounter and to the negative emotions. They are factors that can be seen and appreciated.

If others are involved, imagine them in like manner. They too bring a history and future to the encounter; they too lived through events unknown to you during that day. Do not psychoanalyze yourself or the other person. Rather, simply appreciate, sympathetically and objectively, the complexity and multiple dimensions of the drama that is unfolding. It is not a question of right or wrong but of compassionate understanding. The emotional force of the exchange, though still present, is now viewed and held differently. When we speak and act from this place of compas¬sionate understanding, we are better able to disperse the angry mob, and to answer hate with love.

If we are sailing on the high seas and a storm hits, how do we respond? To simply curse the wind and crashing waves would be immature as well as ineffective. Far better to accept the fact of the storm, over which we have no control, and turn our attention to that over which we do have control, namely ourselves and the sailboat. How much sail should we have up, what should be the heading, is the cargo tied down and are the hatches shut? Life presents us with storms and trials. Often they are not of our making, but how we handle them is. This exercise is, therefore, not designed to empty us of emotion but rather to help guide us through high seas.

It should be clear that we cultivate equanimity not so as to be better prepared for a counter attack, but rather so we can find an opening for understanding and reconciliation. From the vantage point of the helm or the high ground we may well discover the petty basis for our jealousies or the illusory grounds for our desires. The insight so gained does not automatically lead to the destruction of jealousy and desire. It is much harder to live our insights than to have them! Nevertheless, a beginning is made by not giving ourselves over to our emotions, but pausing to set aside egotism, seek higher ground, discover the Martin Luther King in ourselves, and so hold the conflict in a far more generous pair of hands. I sometimes call this the Martin Luther King exercise because King, while still possessed of human frailties, seemed so often to live, speak, and act from a high place beyond ego that we can call, with Thomas Merton, the "the silent self."

Meditation and the Practice of Virtue

Arthur Zajonc — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:57:28 +0000

Establishing a meditative life can lead to a more settled and attentive mind, but to what end will you direct these capacities? If you are more attentive, to what will you direct your attention? If more settled, on what will you rest your mind?

The legendary Tibetan sage Milarepa (c. 1052-1135) is said to have used his miraculous siddhis or "psychic powers" to bring devastation to an avaricious landlord who treated his parents poorly. When meditation made its way to the West in the sixties, some of those most interested in its offerings were the special forces of the world's military. Their uses of attention would be lethal. I raise this issue because in their descriptions of the meditative path, the contemplative traditions of all cultures emphasize the importance of virtue, and for good reason. Ethical conduct is not guaranteed by contemplative practice. Meditation can be use for selfish as well as selfless ends, to win basketball games or turn a greater profit as well as to mitigate suffering. Therefore it is important at the outset to lay the sound ethical foundations for the meditative life. If one does this adequately, then one's practice serves not only oneself, but others as well.

In the Buddhist tradition this is called sila or "moral conduct," and is understood to be the foundation on which the entire meditative path is based. In the Eightfold Way, Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood define moral conduct for the Buddhist. In Christianity one speaks of faith, hope, and love, or of the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Whether the virtues be Roman, Jewish, or Hindu, every society and culture has recognized the importance of ethics for life. For these reasons I always begin my meditation sessions with a practice that directs me toward virtue and selflessness. In this I am helped by two observations.

The Portal of Humility, and the Path of Reverence
The first is a statement by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner who wrote that humility is the portal through which the contemplative practitioner should enter into the practice of meditation. The second is from Albert Schweitzer's journal of a boat trip along the narrow creeks of Africa. He had long been seeking a universal ground for ethics when suddenly, "Late on the third day, at the very moment when, at sunset, we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses, there flashed upon my mind, unforeseen and unsought, the phrase, ‘Reverence for Life.' The iron door had yielded: the path in the thicket had become visible." Humility and reverence for life have become for me the portal and path into the meditative life.

I have found three types of practices particularly helpful in cultivating the moods of humility and reverence. The first is the boundless beauty and majesty of nature. When John Muir wrote Our National Parks, he suggested that we, "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees." Having spent a few minutes settling the body and mind, as I described in my previous blog entry, I imagine a beloved scene from nature. In my case, it is a high mountain pond in the Rockies to which my family backpacked many years ago. In my mind, I settle myself pondside on a bit of grass and picture the water's shimmering surface, the winging of a bird in the blue sky overhead, the craggy peaks set between pond and sky, a gentle breeze on my cheek... The sheer beauty and scale of the scene invokes in me the feelings of wonder and humility. Like Schweitzer, I feel a reverence for this good Earth and for life. I linger and deepen the feelings of humility and reverence as I reorient from my busy life to my life of meditation.

Prayer
The second practice is not open to everyone equally: it is prayer. For those with access to prayer, it too can be a powerful and effective entry point into meditation. It also is a way of redirecting ourselves away from the mundane to the essential dimensions of life via humility and reverence. Finally, a human being can become the door. This practice is somewhat more challenging, but we can place a mentor, a loved one, even a student or client before us in our imagination, and cultivate reverence before the mystery and preciousness of their being. Every human life is boundless, a pearl of great price. We can approach the meditative life with that perception clearly in mind. I find this last means of special value if, later in my meditation, I wish to work with a practice that is concerned with the problems of another person, but more of that later.

The way we end a practice session is as important as the way we begin. I close with dedication and gratitude. Dedication to remind me that the fruits of meditation are not primarily for me, but are intended to be of benefit to others. Gratitude for the grace in my life, but in this moment for the time spent in the santuary of contemplative silence.

For those who appreciate a bit of scientific evidence that meditation can affect one's ethical life, consider the 2008 study by neuroscientists Antoine Lutz and Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin. They compared 16 novices with 16 expert meditators concerning compassion, and found that the "data indicate that the mental expertise to cultivate positive emotion alters the activation of circuitries previously linked to empathy." Which is a scientific way of saying that the practice of cultivating compassion makes a real difference in the depth of our empathetic connection to others.

I conclude with a few lines from St. Francis and from the 8th century Buddhist Shantideva who, although separated by continents and centuries, voiced the same moral sentiments, which can be ours as well. First, St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon...

Then, Shantideva:

May I be a protector to those without protection,
A guide for those who journey,
And a boat, a bridge, a passage
For those desiring the further shore...

Establishing Peace, Cultivating Wakefulness

Arthur Zajonc — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:34:03 +0000

Meditation came of age on August 4, 2003, when Time magazine's cover showed an attractive young woman meditating and obviously enjoying the experience. The affective neuroscientist Richard Davidson (University of Wisconsin) had just reported the results of his landmark study of eight expert meditators (each with over 10,000 hours of practice), which showed the stunning changes in brain activity possible in meditative states. That same year Anne Harrington (Harvard) and I moderated a Mind and Life MIT meeting of the Dalai Lama with psychologists, neuroscientists, and Buddhist scholar/practitioners to jointly "Investigate the Mind." From the extraordinary response of the audience of 1000 scientists and scholars one could consider it a watershed meeting. (See the book The Dalai Lama at MIT). In a few decades meditation had gone from an obscure set of mental exercises practiced by Buddhist monks in the Himalayas, and by their Christian counterparts in isolated and austere monasteries, to a widely accessible set of exercises as easy as breathing or eating a raisin.

Not long ago I was listening to Jon Kabat Zinn at the 30th anniversary conference of his pioneering work at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society. Few have done as much as Kabat Zinn to make meditation accessible to the general public and applicable to the real needs of individuals. He and his colleagues around the world have also done a great deal of research on the effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in helping those with psychological and/or physical health challenges. During the days of the MBSR celebration, and in the same hotel, I was working with the leadership of the Mind and Life Institute which is now focusing its attention on the possible benefits of contemplative exercises in education. For the last fifteen years of so, I have been working with hundreds of other professors and administrators on exactly this theme in higher education through the academic program of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and the newly formed Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education. Indeed, meditation has come of age, and is now widely recognized as serving many needs, both personal and societal.

In recognition of this, it is fitting that there be a blog on meditation in Psychology Today and I am pleased to be asked to offer one. My contributions will range widely, including discussions of scientific studies and as well as concrete practices that may be of use to readers. I will give my personal views as to the transformative potential of meditation, as well as the appropriateness of various practices to different situations or difficulties. I do this based on my forty years of personal practice and study, and my nearly twenty years of teaching meditation in many contexts. It will, of course, represent only my view on this enormous and emerging field. I welcome other view points.

Let me close with a simple practice. It can be an entry point for our consideration of the wealth of practices that comprise the meditative life. In future entries I will explore and chart the several regions and stages of meditative practice and experience. Taken together I hope that they contribute to an enhancement of your well-being as well as to a deepening of your insight into life.

Settling the Body, Settling the Mind
Sit comfortably; the particulars of the posture are not important at this point. Close your eyes, or soften your gaze ahead. Allow your daily thoughts and feelings to slip away. In this exercise we are seeking to settle the body and the mind. Rest your attention lightly on the breath, feeling its inhale and exhale, the rise and fall of your belly, a gently stirring at your nostrils. Follow its natural rhythm. Distracting thoughts and emotion are repeatedly set aside, returning one's attention gently to the breath. As an aid you may chose to count each exhale 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3... Or label each triplet with the associations: sky, ocean, and Earth. If distracted, release the thought, settle back to breath: 1, 2, 3, sky, ocean, Earth... Repeat for five of so minutes, allowing the mind and body to settle, to become more still, to be more peaceful. With each disruption, inner or outer, release yourself from it and settle again gently on the breath, becoming quiet and still: 1, 2, 3, sky, ocean, Earth... When you sense the practice is at its end, close with the cultivation of gratitude, a practice all its own, and with which we can end every practice session.

Twin gestures form this practice. The first is the establishment of a deep and abiding peace that with time can come to radiate through our lives. The second is a gentle wakefulness that enhances our attention, brushes away the sleep that clouds our mind, and brings a subtle clarity to our lives. I think that Rumi had something of this in mind when he wrote:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.