Welcome to this talk on mindfulness meditation.
What is mindfulness meditation?
And whenever I think of it,
Of mindfulness meditation,
There is an image that comes to my mind.
And it's an image that a colleague of mine had in her office many years ago.
It is a cover image of the New Yorker.
And on this image,
A skinny woman sits cross-leggedly trying to meditate.
But what she is really doing is she is glaring at a fly nearby.
And I like this image because it exemplifies so clearly what meditation is not about.
But what is meditation?
Meditation at its core is focusing or directing attention in a deliberate way.
There are many meditations in different religions and also in non-religious traditions.
There are also many styles of meditation.
I will be focusing on mindfulness meditation,
Also called insight meditation or vipassana meditation.
In Western societies,
Mindfulness meditation is often practiced in secular contexts.
The roots of mindfulness meditation are in Buddhist traditions,
Where this form of meditation has been refined by practitioners throughout centuries.
Mindfulness meditation was popularized by the historical Buddha about 2,
500 years ago in India.
Mindfulness meditation denotes being aware of current experiences with a warm-hearted acceptance.
So there are two key elements of the definition.
One is the awareness of the present experience or the attention to the present experience.
And the other is kindness and benevolence in relation to that experience.
To exemplify that both elements are equally important,
In Buddhist tradition,
There is the metaphor of the two wings of the bird,
With one wing being the attention and the other wing being the kindness and the benevolence.
And the bird can only fly with both wings.
And mindfulness is not something exotic.
We all have mindfulness and mindful moments in our lives.
When we enjoy a nice sunset,
For instance,
That paints the sky in a range of colors.
When we experience the changing nature of the ocean,
Or when we listen attentively and wholeheartedly to a friend,
All these are moments of mindfulness.
And over a hundred years ago,
Emily Dickinson said,
To live is so startling,
It leaves but little room for other occupations.
And there is also a more modern depiction of mindfulness by a German author,
Carsten Dusse.
If you stand in front of a door and wait,
You stand in front of a door and wait.
If you argue with your wife,
You argue with your wife.
This is mindfulness.
And I like this depiction because when we do something mindfully,
Whether it is standing in front of a door and waiting,
Or whether it's arguing with our spouse,
We can be fully present with whatever is there.
And when there is an attention and a benevolence in our presence,
There arises a feeling of connectedness,
A feeling of being home.
And this is important for a long time,
Western scientists,
Including myself,
Conceived mindfulness as a skill that we can cultivate in addition to the skills we already have.
And this is also how I practiced mindfulness meditation for many years as something new to learn.
And whenever I was not being very mindful,
I felt a sense of falling short at the task at hand.
However,
The picture that is coming from the Asian roots of mindfulness,
And that is also emerging increasingly in scientific studies,
Is that mindfulness and benevolence are innate capacities.
That at our core,
We are mindful,
Caring beings.
And that we live in a world that is adding unnecessary layers of conditioning on top of that.
So by practicing mindfulness meditation,
We can get rid of unnecessary conditioning to reveal our true loving and caring nature.
This is exemplified by a story of a large clay statue of the Buddha in Sukhothai,
Thailand.
This statue was cared for with much reverence by the monks throughout five centuries.
The statue had withstood violent storms,
Invading armies and changes of government.
One day,
One of the monks realized a crack in the statue of the Buddha.
When he shone his torch into the crack,
He saw a shimmer of gold.
And it turned out that underneath the clay lay one of the largest golden Buddha in Southeast Asia.
The monks believe that the golden Buddha had been covered in clay many centuries ago to protect the statue of the Buddha from invading armies.
And like the statue of the Buddha,
We all carry within us innate goodness,
Our true gold that is oftentimes hidden by protective layers of armoring.
And as we would expect with a practice that reveals the gold,
Scientific studies,
Including my own,
Have revealed a myriad of benefits of mindfulness practice.
Studies have shown that mindfulness meditation can reduce stress,
That it can improve physical and mental health by,
For instance,
Reducing anxiety,
That it induces neural plasticity,
That it increases pro-social behavior,
And that it can contribute to the resolution of conflicts,
And on and on and on.
So it seems like something giving worthwhile giving a try to explore the impact of the practice of mindfulness for yourself.
And while mindfulness meditation is beneficial in general,
Of course it has limits and it is not a magical cure.
And there are also periods in life when it is okay to modify the practice or not to meditate.
And so I encourage you to listen to your inner compass.
And whenever it feels wrong to engage in mindfulness practice,
It's important to follow this inner compass.
Meditate in a way that feels better,
Modifying the practice,
For instance,
By opening the eyes,
By doing practices like movement meditation,
Or by pausing the practice altogether.
Mindfulness meditation is not an aim in and of itself.
It is aimed at benefiting the well-being of the practitioner and their surroundings.
And mindfulness is really a lift and a social experience.
It is applicable to all aspects of daily life.
It is how we perceive the world,
How we react to events,
And how we interact with each other.
The historical texts capturing the original teachings of the Buddha remind us over and over again that the practice of mindfulness is to be done internally and externally.
So internally,
By paying a caring attention to whatever experience is present,
And externally to have that same caring attention to whatever sensations arise and whatever is going on around us.
Mindfulness at its core is really about caring deeply about living beings,
Including oneself,
And about showing this in words and deeds.
And sometimes we may find ourselves striving too hard to achieve a certain goal at hand,
Losing sight of what really matters,
A bit like the woman in the New Yorker image.
And when that arises,
Mindfulness can help us to find home again,
And to connect in a caring way with the present moment,
And with all the wonderful and rich beings that are here right now.
To end,
I will share a quote from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Remember your radiant true nature.
The essence of mind.
Trust it.
Return to it.
It is home.
Remember your radiant true nature.
The essence of mind.
Trust it.
Return to it.
It is home.
