Mindfulness
On life’s journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him.
—Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, 563-483 BCE
Now is a stressful time in the United States for many people as much of our infrastructure is caving in to to inevitable and necessary changes. As a result, ordinary people are experiencing loss as companies and governmental agencies liquidate and fold, downsize and the like. And the credit crisis hits just about everyone as home values plummet, stocks dip and salaries are lowered.
I guess I am bringing this up because I was really annoyed when someone I care about lost his job and the people at this company were pumping him for information about various people and situations in the company. The co-workers were totally without any regard for this guy’s feelings of loss and abandonment. These people were both rude and insensitive. But, more than rude, they lacked the necessary empathy and awareness that this person was in a state of shock and despair. They were not mindful of the situation of the other party. Or didn’t care. Believe me, my friend noticed how they acted and probably will never forget. When we are in pain, even minor actions on the part of innocent parties can be amplified in the mind.
The way we perceive stress and how we react to our perception can determine how stress affects us physically, mentally and emotionally. Stress reactions can be stimulated by anything that we believe to be a threat from verbal discussions, as with my friend, to jumping out of an airplane for fun. The body is filled with stress hormones (like cortisol) and adrenaline which causes the heart to race along with many other reactions. Constant stress can cause many (even, perhaps most) diseases including arthritis, multiple sclerosis, high blood pressure, stroke, gastrointestinal problems, diabetes, asthma, headaches, depression, insomnia, fatigue, eating disorders—and more.
The Buddha lumped a lot of this together and just called it suffering.
Meditation practices common in eastern philosophy are exactly what modern practitioners are teaching to decrease harmful behavior leading to diseases and emotional breakdown. These ancient practices have been proven to reduce stress, improve health and increase happiness and compassion.
If my friend’s co-workers had been more mindful and compassionate, they never would have said half of the things that they did which caused so much pain. They would have been mindful of the situation and not just thinking of themselves. But, they have to stay in the moment, on purpose, paying attention to every nuance with total awareness.
Mindfulness involves stopping the habits that keep us stuck in the “reactivity” that causes suffering to others and to ourselves. The Tibetan Buddhist author Pena Chodron says that “the root of mindfulness is experiencing the itch as well as the urge to scratch, and then no acting it out.”
Staying in the moment is key. Staying in the moment, not the past, not the future is what enables us to be able to pay attention to today, to what we are doing and experiencing what we are feeling in our bodies–what we think in our minds. We can learn what we do by habit. By ritual. By rote.
When we pay attention to what we are thinking and doing we can break the cycle. We can become conscious again. This does not necessarily mean that we will be happy about the situation. We may become aware of a pattern of negative thinking or unconscious behavior. But, by first recognizing the pattern or activity, we can change it.
So, while you might want to run away to an ashram or retreat to learn Yoga and meditation to change your life, you don’t have to do that to gain the benefit of mindfulness. Luckily there is great research going on in the medical community that identifies the effects of mindfulness on the body. There is much for us to learn about how our mind affects biology. But, there already have been hundreds of studies that can demonstrate that mindfulness practices can reduce the negative physical and emotional consequences of self induced stresses. The result can be less pain and suffering from chronic disease, improved impulse control, better mental health, better communication and emotional regulation.
But, in the meantime, we all need to practice awareness, compassion and empathy by putting ourselves in our neighbor’s shoes before we speak a word. A little compassion and support goes a long way.
May 13th, 2010 at 6:26 am
Thank you for your post. It has given me a little to think about. Thanks again!