Mindfulness Update
I am writing a tome for my grandkids: A Note To Self - what I wish I had known when I turned 26 and thought I knew everything! The first chapter is on Mindfulness - because it turned out to be my long term salvation and gift. Rather than make you wait for the ultimate publication of my weighty book, here’s a synopsis of that first chapter. I think it is important to life itself, so there.
I started meditating in 1956 when I entered the seminary. For 13 years in religious life I meditated for 30 minutes each morning. No one taught me how. I read about it, and just worked at it. More recently, I have been researching just how this works, and I think I have figured out a little of what is going on. This is based on some neuroscience and psychology research which you can see in the References.
Meditation is often called "mindfulness." I prefer that term because it fits very well with what I have learned. There are at least three stages to the skill at my level. It is my impression that there are many “higher” levels, but I have no experience of those. My guess is that most practitioners would put all of my levels at the beginner stage - and that is just fine.
Metacognition A good name for the first stage is “metacognition.” With some work you can gain an awareness of what is going on in your brain, and you get some ability to manage that. It takes a bit of work to get to the point where you can even recognize what is going on, and become fully aware of it. The simplest techniques I have found are Transcendental Meditation, Breathing awareness, and The Relaxation Response. They are all very similar, and very simple. You can read more about those in the references.
Our brain is not doing just one thing at a time. When people first try this exercise, they are usually amazed at the level of activity. I recently heard a podcast discussion between Sam Harris and Yuval Noah Hararii. Both are avid practitioners of mindfulness. Harari said the first time he tried this, in graduate school at Oxford, he was simply astounded by how much was going on, and how little control he had over it. He said that he now meditates 2 hours each day. That and writing three best selling books! Works for me. (Harris #3)
There are thousands of things going on in our brain that are necessary to maintain our life and well being. A few of these come to the surface of consciousness when the brain thinks it is important. For example, the lion on the trail should generate a response in my muscles and adrenalin to flee - and that will happen before I am even aware of seeing a lion. When I encounter a stranger, my brain does an immediate pattern recognition exercise, and tries to determine if this person is friend or foe, and what kind of person they are. It does that in a subsecond. If I have learned to pay attention - the first stage of metacognition - I might be able to see that happen.
We put a mental model of the world on top of our experience all the time. We tell our internal story of what we see and do. And this is generally not conscious. I was persuaded of this when I realized one day that I was making a mental judgment on every single person I met, and finding them to be less capable than myself. I was not even aware of this - and it was coloring and affecting my whole life. I was absolutely stunned when I finally realized this. I will expand that experience at the end of this.
The first step then is to simply recognize what is going on, and to learn to get to a state where one can see the ideas, the emotions, and choose to “let them go.” You do not suppress them - you let them go. This can be done by focusing on breathing, or a mantra. That is the technique that most people have found helpful. This stage requires a fair amount of investment. The minimum seems to be about 20 minutes once or twice a day. If you can regularly practice TM or Relaxation Response consistently for 20 minutes every day, you can move to the next stage. This should be a daily exercise - think of it as building mental muscle.
If 20 minutes seems like a lot - start with 5, or 3. Research indicates that you will get some benefit. Think of it as something like brushing your teeth. It keeps your brain healthy. One exercise is to spend the first few minutes of wakefulness, while in bed, thinking of your loved ones. It will set the tone and color for your whole day.
In some traditions, this level seems to be the ultimate goal. The practitioners get to a place of detachment and abstraction where they can ignore concerns and gain inner calmness. To me, this seems too dispassionate - too disengaged. I am not going to sit in a monastery for hours every day contemplating my brain’s processes. Life is much more than that. There is a whole world out of there of people and things I want to live WITH.
Mindfulness The next stage is where you actually pay attention to what is going on in your world outside of the practice of meditation. I think of this as “waking” mindfulness - being really aware. You need meditation as a muscle building exercise, but you can use the skill in all of life. A really fine piece of music is especially uplifting if you stop and really feel it. A lovely poem can bring on a sense of beauty if you let it. A starry sky, a walk in the woods, a bird’s call - they are all moments to savor and hold on to. Taking out the trash is your contribution to our healthier world. Driving a car can be an exercise in the mechanics of the machine, the social interactions of drivers, the sun on the windshield, the stress of traffic, the risk of an accident. It is no longer an automatic “get me from here to there.”
At this point, you have managed to quiet your mind somewhat, and you are able to selectively pay attention to specific ideas or sensations. Now you get to choose where to spend your mental energy. How much you can choose may depend on your personal biological and psychological makeup. As in most things, humans are spread out on a spectrum with a bell curve distribution. Most of us are in the “normal” range, but there are always outliers on both ends. If you are in the normal range, as I think I am, this part should come easily. If you are somewhat outside the norm, it may not be that simple.
Emotions This ability to focus is especially helpful with our “gut brain” - our emotions. We have this mental model that we are “thinking” all the time - but that is not really true. We are “feeling” all the time. 90% of our brain activity is emotions. We tend to think that we are rational beings - but we are really emotional and social beings. Our brains are tuned to our social selves - not to our rational selves. The “fast brain” responds automatically. Our “slow brain,” the rational engine, takes a lot of energy and time to get things going. Normally emotions kind of carry us away. When something happens, an emotion responds automatically. It is rare that we can stop and look at it, and actually choose what to do with it. We kind of just run with them. When an "idea" is presented, it generates an emotion in our gut, positive or negative. If it attacks a belief, or our membership in our group or tribe, in our family, in our group, we will get an enormous negative, defensive surge. See the Lisa Barrett reference. This is also the “fast” and “slow” brain described by Daniel Kahneman. Actually “thinking” is a whole lot of work. “Responding” is quick and automatic.
With sufficient mental muscle, when an emotion arises, you can pause, look at it, and decide what to do with it. You can be in charge of it. This is basically Steven Covey’s Habit 1 - Be Proactive. Covey was not a scientist, but he figured out how humans work pretty well. (Covey)
Awe At this point, with the constant stream of things somewhat managed, you can now choose where to spend your mental time and energy. I would like to encourage you to start with AWE, and move on to EMPATHY. I think most people are automatically aware of these at some level. But I think it takes some practice to be able to consciously invoke them.
Awe is a general term for the thing that happens in your brain when you see something amazing, a perspective on “life, the universe and everything.” It could be a starry sky, the milky way, a great symphony, a wonderful story, a poem. To me, every living thing is awesome. That this inert pile of matter that is the universe has given rise to living, sentient, feeling beings is totally amazing. I find every one of them beautiful. A few of us have had what is called a “religious experience” of this sort. People report that those are life changing. This is somewhat like that, but a bit more under your control. If you know any one who has had this “experience,” ask them about it. They will enjoy sharing it, and you will learn something significant.
Now that you can manage your stream of consciousness a bit, you can choose to feel every waking moment with this kind of awareness. A walk in the park is amazing. Conversation with friends is great. A painting, a statue, a photograph is moving. Pause, feel it, enjoy it. Don’t just brush it aside and move on. As they say, smell the flowers, live in the moment. You are in charge of this. When someone offends you, you can pause, examine it, and decide how to best respond. When you are drawn to a person, or food or event, you can look at that - take a moment - and decide what to do.
My personal gut says that most people are working on automatic cruise control most of the time. We may someday understand this well enough that it could be a skill we teach in grade school: Reading, Riting, Rithmatic, Realizing. None of those skills are automatic, and we know that most children can learn them easily. We decided within the last few hundred years that our society requires these minimum skills, and we are glad to pay for their education. We should add this one! AND then another on “Practical Economics” - compound interest, debt, etc. Maybe next year? See The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness - excellent introduction for anyone. But I digress.
Empathy Meditation or mindfulness needs a moral compass. It is perfectly possible to learn to practice mindfulness with a totally self centered worldview. I think it might be hard to maintain that kind of focus while meditating, but there is no reason to think it cannot be done. It will work out much better for yourself and the rest of us, if you adopt a moral lifestyle that is supportive of generosity and unselfishness.
So I encourage you to take one more step - to move to Empathy. I think this is a choice - not an automatic progression. We are social beings - we need each other, we have to figure out how to live together. This is the next level. Empathy is the regard and care we give other people. Every human is an amazing collection of experiences and abilities. Every single one of us is deserving of respect and care. I have learned to carry this about as a kind of ever present mantra. I call it the “I wish you well” mantra.
From my childhood, I had a very different mantra that constantly played in my brain. I was totally unaware of it. As noted, most of us are unaware of what is playing there most of the time. The skill of meditation or mindfulness, and an intervention from one of my bosses and my dear wife finally brought it to my attention. I had spent every single waking moment comparing myself to other people - and feeling myself superior to them. When I finally saw what was going on, it amazed me that this had colored everything about my life for decades, and I had no awareness whatsoever that it was going on. It took me considerable effort to quiet that constant need to compare and be superior. I found I had to substitute some other idea, some other emotion in order to suppress this negative one. Just as I used a mantra to let go of things, I now use this mantra as a positive one: I wish you well. More on that later.
I Wish You Well I first learned this from a physician at the Mayo Clinic. He suggested that a simple mental model could help with personal stress. I find it works for all kinds of things. The idea is to mentally say to yourself, on every encounter with another person - “I wish you well.” Don’t actually say it - just think it. If you are sincere in that wish, it will change everything about you, inside and out. You will appear more friendly and open to the other person. They will be aware of it at some unconscious level, and they will automatically respond. You can do it on the phone with a smile. You can think it while writing an email and it will color what you say. I have written much more about that here.
I want to emphasize that this is a choice. It is not as automatic as the awe phenomena. One can discuss the moral or psychological implications of this, but I can tell you that it works. Instead of going with the default mental model, which is often one of competition, choose to do this one. You will be amazed at the result in your life and your relationships.
Life is not a competition There is some research on this that many of us in our culture have a constant mental model of competition. We unconsciously form this mental model that all of life is a competition. We have to be better than, or faster than every person we meet. That is why some of us speed up to get in front just before the exit. That is why some of us sacrifice family and friends and ethics to get a high paying job, with more wealth, a bigger house, a finer car. This mental model, or backdrop, or worldview view is going on in the mind without any conscious awareness. I think it is how most people operate most of the time, at least in our part of the world. We have a kind of hierarchical view of society. We are on such and such a level, others are above or below, and I need to get higher on the scale. Some of this is from our nation’s culture, some of it is just human. If you are interested in the cultural aspects of this, I highly recommend the book cited by Geert Hofstede in the references. That was another mind altering insight for me.
More Advanced Levels I am no expert at this, but it is my understanding that meditation has many more applications at higher levels. The Herbert Benson book The Relaxation Response cites just a couple of examples of this. Pain management is one. Our body has a physical reaction to some of its parts to inform us of a problem. But our brain’s response to that can be something we manage - not just a reaction. I think I can do this in the dentist’s chair pretty well - but I have totally failed at this for kidney stones. If someone can manage that pain they are a candidate for sainthood.
The book also mentions a meditation technique for changing a habit, or solving addiction. It feels something like self hypnosis to me. Sam Harris has many more words to say about all of this, if you want to pursue his research. He is a big advocate of psychedelics in this type of treatment and enhanced mental awareness. I tend to treat that with a bit more caution.
A Story
This is my personal “insight” story in some detail.
You can skip this if the above was enough to persuade you to try this discipline.
Background. My family upbringing gave me a very poor sense of self worth. I was extremely self conscious as a teenager. I had a very low self esteem. To help resolve this, I somehow started a constant mental model that I was in competition with everyone, and that I was better than them. I happened to be somewhat brighter than average, so the model worked fairly well. It gave me enough confidence to struggle on. But it was a terrible operating philosophy. The mental state you have about others leaks out all the time – you are projecting a model which their pattern recognition engine picks up. And the sharper ones will be able to see exactly what you are doing.
The scariest or most insightful part of this is that I had absolutely no idea that this mental process was going on. I did it all the time, but I was not actually aware that I was doing it. It was just part of my mental view of the world. We interpret everything through a screen that filters reality, our “story.” The genius part of this is that you can become aware of that story, and you can change it.
Insight: I had not realized what I was doing with this mental framework of competition until an event brought it home to me very clearly. I had just been promoted to a much higher position in the company – I was now an “officer.” I shook hands with the CEO. They put a dozen roses on my desk, and doubled my salary. Great. I went to my first officer’s staff meeting – the senior management of our division. There were about 1,200 people in the division, in about 6 departments. I was now one of those department heads. When I walked into the meeting room, I could see that there was a kind of hierarchy. The boss sat at one end of the table, and the senior folk sat near him. So, not being a total dummy, I went down near the other end to find a seat. We never had “assigned” seats, but you get the picture. We had some discussion, and the boss introduced a new topic. He stated the question, and then asked the guy at the other end of the table across from me what he thought about the issue. He wisely started as far from me as he could – I could watch and learn how this works. The next person spoke, and the discussion moved up the hierarchy. The department head next to the boss, Al D., was speaking, and he said something that I disagreed with. So, I spoke up to tell him what I thought. Well, that stopped all of the discussion. The boss changed topics, and on we went. I wondered about that, but I soon forgot about it.
Later that week, I had my one on one with the boss. We went over what was going on, and as I was about to leave, he said, “Oh yes, I want you to go and apologize to Al D. for what you said in the staff meeting.” I said, “What?! Why should I apologize?” He said, “You offended him with your comments.” I tried to argue – no I didn’t, nothing like that happened. Instead of arguing, the boss just stood up and shouted at me: “Go apologize!” I said, “Yes sir” – and left. I went directly to Al D.’s office. I still could not believe what the boss had told me. I would never insult Al – what was he thinking? I walked in, and started with: “Al, I don’t know what I said at the staff meeting, but if it offended you in any way, I sincerely want to apologize.” He was very gracious, and he accepted my apology. He clearly had been offended. Evidently, everyone in the room had seen it. And I had no clue what I had done. How on earth could I offend someone like that in a meeting and not even realize I was doing it!
That evening, after dinner, I was talking with my lovely wife, and I recounted this story to her. When I got to the punch line, she rolled her eyes. She did! As if to say, I can’t believe he just said that. So I said: “Wait – what?” She said, “You do it all the time.” Me: “What do I do all the time?” She: “You sound like an arrogant SOB when you argue with people.” What! Good Lord, I was thinking. How could that be? How could I have not been aware of this?
The next day, I had my own staff meeting with the department supervisors. I did not tell them the whole story, but I did say something like, “It has come to my attention that sometimes I come off like an arrogant SOB. And I know it is hard to believe, but I was totally unaware that I was doing this, and I want to stop it. I would appreciate it if you see me doing it, you bring it to my attention.” More rolled eyeballs – like they are going to criticize the boss to his face. Not going to happen! Man, I was thinking. This is really something. What is going on?
Fortunately, I had the opportunity to reflect on this, and I had the benefit of Steven Covey’s course on 7 Habits. After some work and reflection, it slowly dawned on me that for most of my life, I had been walking around with a mental model where I was in competition with everyone I met, and I had to be better than them. In every encounter, I would see someone, measure them up, and decide that I was better – so there. It was a constant thing running in my brain ALL THE TIME. I would be distributing communion, or serving people a meal, or just walking by them, and that comparison game was going on – ALL THE TIME. It is kind of hard to believe, but that is what I was doing. It literally took me years to get that running stream of consciousness out of my head, and to adopt a “I wish you well” framework – but I did it! So I know that you can do it too – put your mind to it.
Hopefully you do not have as problematic a “worldview” as I did. The key thing is to recognize that some kind of program and filter is running in there all the time - try to pay attention to it and choose what you want it to do. It could be improved. Don’t be a victim of your automatic mental model. My totally uninformed guess is that about 80% of us are operating in that mode most of the time.
References
Barrett, Lisa Feldman, How Emotions are Made. I just mentioned in passing that our “ideas” are really “emotions.” This book explores the research behind that. This is a complex scientific work, by a preeminent neuroscientist. See her wikipedia entry. The theory is fairly new and somewhat debated. I think it is a brilliant insight, because it fits perfectly with all of the other evidence I have found. (DUH! That is called confirmation bias !) This is a “theory” but it is based on empirical research, not opinion. For a more populist explanation, see her much shorter book: Seven and a half Lessons about the Brain. She also has a TED talk you might enjoy.
Benson, Herbert, and Miriam Z. Klipper, The Relaxation Response (1992) This book opens the door to the TM technique, and explains its power in scientific terms.
Benson, Herbert, Beyond the Relaxation Response: The Stress-Reduction Program That Has Helped Millions of Americans (2019) This is a more recent summary of some of the best recent research into TM. It does not hold itself out to teach TM, but that is just what it does. He provides a simple, step by step introduction to the first level of TM. No charge. The four basic components for eliciting the Relaxation Response are: a quiet environment, a mental device (known as a mantra in most forms of meditation), a passive attitude, and a comfortable position. To get a feel for this, you can watch this short video where he teaches the technique. https://youtu.be/nBCsFuoFRp8. This article in Psychology Today is also a good introduction: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/heart-and-soul-healing/201303/dr-herbert-benson-s-relaxation-response And here is a shorthand description of the technique - which you can download. http://catholiccharitiesla.org/wp-content/uploads/Managing-Stress-The-Relaxation-Response-TS-2-04.pdf
https://youtu.be/-wIt_WsJGfw
This is an excellent book. Pink generally looks at lots of research, and then writes a nice summary of it to make it available to the rest of us. He has one chapter on mindfulness that I found very helpful. This is from page 217. I liken his idea of “awe” to the religious experience that many people describe.
“The other study examined the effect of awe. Awe lives ‘in the upper reaches of pleasure and on the boundary of fear,’ as two scholars put it. It ‘is a little studied emotion . . . central to the experience of religion, politics, nature and art.’ It has two key attributes: vastness (the experience of something larger than ourselves) and accommodation (the vastness forces us to adjust our mental structures).
Melanie Rudd, Kathleen Vohs, and Jennifer Aaker found that the experience of awe – the sight of the Grand Canyon, the birth of a child, a spectacular thunderstorm – changes our perception of time. When we experience awe, time slows down. It expands. We feel like we have more of it. And that sensation lifts our well-being. ‘Experiences of awe bring people into the present moment, and being in the present moment underlies awe’s capacity to adjust time perception, influence decisions, and make life feel more satisfying than it would otherwise.’
Taken together, all of these studies suggest that the path to a life of meaning and significance isn’t to ‘live in the present’ as so many spiritual gurus have advised. It is to integrate our perspectives on time into a coherent whole, one that helps us comprehend who we are and why we’re here.”
