USA Today Piece on Mindfulness in Hospitals and Schools

A recent article in USA Today outlines the growing frequency of secularized "mindfulness" techniques being employed in hospitals and primary and secondary schools across the U.S. The article reports on some relevant stats, highlights the extraordinary work of Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and generally suggests that, based on an increasing number of scientific studies that are showing the positive psychosomatic effect of these techniques, there is a growing acceptance and practice of them in a variety of venues.

"Once thought of as an esoteric, mystical pursuit, meditation is going mainstream. A government survey in 2007 found that about 1 out of 11 Americans, more than 20 million, meditated in the past year. And a growing number of medical centers are teaching meditation to patients for relief of pain and stress."

Marilyn Elias of USA Today has the entire story.

Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh on Speaking of Faith

The Vietnamese Buddhist Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh is featured in the most recent installment of the Speaking of Faith radio program from American Public Media.

Host Krista Tippet re-broadcasts her interviews of Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh in 2003 during a mindfulness retreat in Wisconsin. Thay (as students and followers address him) is a relevant and prophetic voice speaking of the real possibility of living an evenminded and contented life amidst the plurality of greed, hatred, and violence extant in the world. In this program, he speaks of his life as a monk during the war in Vietnam and the different practices he engaged in and programs he founded to help alleviate the suffering caused on every side of that conflict. He speaks of "being peace," "engaged Buddhism," and "mindfulness" and their relevancy for life in today's world.

Also interviewed are Cheri Maples and Larry Ward, both participants in the retreat. They speak of how Thay and his teachings and practices have changed their lives for the better. Cheri is a licensed attorney and consultant on justice and community corrections. She was ordained as a dharma teacher by Thich Nhat Hanh in 2008. And Larry Ward, who happens to be a fellow student in the religious studies program at University of the West, is co-director of the Lotus Institute in Encinitas, California and an ordained Baptist minister. Both of these interviews are personal, insightful, and helpful in shedding light from a different angle on Thay's Buddhist teachings and practices.

As a Unity student and Christian, I've found Thay's approach to Buddhism very approachable, for it speaks more clearly and directly to me as an American Christian interested in mindfulness practices. Even though we have analogous practices in the Christian contemplative tradition (meditatio -- centering prayer, contemplative prayer; and affirmative prayer), opening myself up to the Buddhist version of these practices has been instructive for two fundamental reasons: 1) as a result I've been able to better humanize and understand Buddhists and Buddhist teaching and 2) it has reintroduced me to the vast and deep contemplative tradition at the heart of Christian spirituality. Thay has a way of communicating the Buddhist mindfulness and socially engaged principles so simply and clearly (so that everyday Westerners can relate to them) that, even though I've been aware of many Buddhist texts and doctrine for years, these teachings took on fresh meaning and import.

Listen to the Speaking of Faith show with Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh.

(Above photo from Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village website.)

Science of Mindfulness - Jon Kabat-Zinn, Meditation, and Spirituality

Recently American Public Media interviewed Jon Kabat-Zinn, founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He explores how, through both science and experience, mindfulness practice in one's life mitigates stress and thus plays a key part in the prevention and treatment of illnesses.

Due to the character of the times (what with economic instability, the fast-paced stride of American daily life, and over-inundation with information) Americans experience a huge amount of stress in our lives. What Kabat-Zinn has done is researched and published significant findings on the positive affects of meditative techniques on mental and physical health and de-mystified (or clarified might be a better term) the practice of mindfulness.

The chief import of Kabat-Zinn's work is that it shows, using scientific methodologies, that how one chooses to view life and what one pays attention to can have demonstrable influence on one's well-being. Also, it makes these traditionally spiritual or religious techniques much more palatable to the non/a-religious in the modern/post-modern West. People who would normally never touch these practices due to the religious, cultural, or linguistic baggage that they often come with are now presented with scientific evidence that they work and in a linguistic universe that isn't threatening to their sensibilities.

We in Unity have always acknowledged the reality of the affects of contemplative techniques on the mind and body (I'm thinking of even early works of our founders - for example, see C. Fillmore's Atom-Smashing Power of Mind [1949]), and have readily pointed to past scientific research that has suggested this is the case (such as Andrew Newberg's work on prayer and neuroscience).

Kabat-Zinn's research can be added to the growing list of scientific corroboration of ancient mystical-spiritual truths. However, his work is interesting also because, though it recognizes that many people link mindfulness with religion, it doesn't propound to be dealing with explicitly "religious" or even "spiritual" techniques; he argues that these techniques don't have to be associated with religion or spirituality.

Though I thoroughly respect and admire his work and feel it's doing much good, I feel he's dissociated these practices from religion too much. They are historically and culturally grounded in religious contexts, which speaks to the role religion plays in their actual engagement and effectiveness. That is, because these practices emerged from religious individuals and communities with explicitly spiritual concerns, these meditative techniques are intrinsically geared toward and infused with spiritual aims and purposes. I think that stripping them of their religious connection is somewhat degrading to the religions from which they've come and prevents a full experience of what these techniques were created to do - experience the Ultimate and live according to these insights.

I'm not saying that using them for the purpose of stress-relief is unwarranted. To the contrary, I think it's wonderful that people can benefit from these mindfulness practices without recourse to religious concerns. The non-religious may think that meditative techniques only have non-spiritual benefits, but I'd want to ask for a definition of spirituality here. I view spirituality as the human being's process of making meaning, discerning value, and bettering oneself through specific practices to this end (religion has more of an institutional or social form of spiritual concerns). Thus, according to my understanding, spirituality and religion are not the same thing and aren't mutually inclusive to each other - they can occupy different spheres. Mindfulness is spiritual in at least the sense I've suggested. This, coupled with the intimate historical-cultural connection, leads me to believe that it is almost impossible to say that there is absolutely no spiritual aspect to these techniques. My argument is probably grounded in semantics or word usage, but it's something to think about.

Nonetheless, Kabat-Zinn has done some great work at the Stress Reduction Center and I highly commend him for his efforts in helping people to live better, more health-ful lives.

Listen to the interview with Kabat-Zinn on Speaking of Faith on American Public Media.