Mindful Meditation
Entrance Walkway, Koto-in Zen Temple, Kyoto.
I'm not a Buddhist. I don't believe in the religion's teachings, requirements or stories. That said, I agree with many of the central precepts of Buddhism; my experience sees truth in some of the teaching, and I find the practice of Buddhism to be quite useful as I work to develop as an individual.
My first interaction with the religion came, as I'd guess is true for many Westerners, when my friend Matt suggested I read Siddartha by Herman Hesse. A freshman in college, I was supposed to be studying chemistry. Instead, I repeatedly hit Matt up for book suggestions.
Matt, a math genius who, despite taking near-graduate level mathematics courses as a freshman, instead chose to be an English Lit major, offered winner after winner: Brave New World, 1984, A Confederacy of Dunces, Slaughterhouse Five, and a full slate of books that I'd skipped or skimmed when they'd been assigned in high school. So Siddartha was Matt's doing. And I'm forever grateful.
What struck me most about Siddartha was how well it explained aspects of my own personality that I'd always felt made me different, made me foreign from other people. Siddartha's openness, his willingness to see the world from other points of view, his objective detachment from others and his refusal to make quick or permanent judgments reminded me of myself. Naturally I, the confused, ungrounded, more than a little narcissistic 18 year-old quickly focused my attention.
Today daily, directed meditation is being found to have numerous positive benefits, including improved memory and recall, reduced pain levels, extreme body control and treatment for depression:
Last week, psychologists from the University of Exeter published a study into "mindfulness-based cognitive therapy" (MBCT), finding it to be better than drugs or counselling for depression. Four months after starting, three quarters of the patients felt well enough to stop taking antidepressants.
MBCT marries Eastern meditation with Western cognitive therapy. Patients are taught the simple technique over eight sessions and then practise it at home for 30 minutes a day. Professor Willem Kuyken, whose team at the Mood Disorders Centre of the University of Exeter carried out the research, says: "Anti-depressants are widely used by people who suffer from depression and that's because they tend to work. While they're very effective in helping reduce the symptoms of depression, when people come off them they are particularly vulnerable to relapse. For many people, MBCT seems to prevent that relapse. It could be an alternative to long-term antidepressant medication."
But back in 1998, all of these potential benefits were unknown to me. Even had I known about them, the book's repeated focus on humility, personal experience, experimentation and mindfulness would have been the primary draw, even though such focus pointed out just how much work lay ahead.
Despite Siddartha's profound impact, I didn't think much about Buddhism until after college, when I stumbled across a copy of Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
Wow. What a read. Techniques described and explanations given allowing for productive meditation, all succinct and clear. Philosophy and worldview shared without the use of spiritual tales or any need for preaching. Every sentence emenating calm and wisdom. Less than 200 pages, but so powerful.
I began to practice sitting meditation and active zen awareness. Quickly, I found that I stunk (yes, all practice is good practice, but still...) and was reminded that I had a lot to learn. So challenging was the exercise that I usually gave up in a matter of minutes. I lacked patience.
That was eight years ago, and between then and now I've gone through periods where I've mediatated often, and periods, usually several months, without any practice. The lessons taught by Shunryu Suzuki, however, have kept me calm and allowed me to work through extreme, difficult personal challenges. And while I should practice more at home on my own, I now accept my own limits and supplement my lack of discipline with occassional trips to meditate with others.
So thanks to Matt and Herman Hesse and Shunryu Suzuki. My life, and hopefully the lives of those around me, are better because you took the time to share what you'd learned. Time for me to sit and to breathe.
[Image by One Man's Perspective, used under a Creative Commons license.]