The Popularization of Mindfulness: Fears Unfounded and Otherwise

I recently came across an interesting set of notes from a speech about current innovations in Buddhism/mindfulness. About 3/4 of the way down the page, the author gets into what he calls the problem of "yogification"--so named because, "In just thirty years, yoga has seen itself move from being a genuine spiritual discipline into a mundane stretching exercise available at every gym." Similarly, he worries that one potential problem is that mindfulness practice could become "merely a stress-reduction trick".

This worry is nothing new, it's been expressed in every generation, and there is certainly a place for vigilance. I have a respectful but differing perspective. I am hard-pressed to see a difference between what could be framed as a superficial sort of meditation--by just staying plugged into your electronic, virtual brain (like with his Buddhify app or Rewire, for example)--and the popularization of elementary aspects of hatha yoga as problematic. We could similarly worry that kindergarteners' language skills are generally not Pulitzer-worthy.

At a time when physical education programs are being dropped from our schools and mindfulness app creators are speaking of "innovating" mindfulness teachings in such a way that they feel adapted to each new Zeitgeist and local culture, how bad is it that ANY form of exercise has a certain, trendy shine or spin to it? We have too many fat kids and adults as is, and a hard enough time getting good food on our tables, so I would encourage almost anyone to stretch, sweat, and enjoy their bodies as is generally recommended even by "yoga" teachers who are "only" supportive stretching coaches. Basically, "yoga" has been Americanized/Westernized and modernized, creating some sense of connection to our universal history and to specific traditions and the current communities who are hardcore about those traditions. It's gonna be ok.

The question is not whether hard cores are watered down by popularization--generally they have more opportunities for advertising and recruitment and the inner circles retain a sense of exclusivity anyway. Anyone not steeped in the culture, education, and practice of these traditions will interpret them in a somewhat uninformed, elementary manner. That's how we begin learning most things. It is not a problem that kindergarteners aren't Ph.D-level English academics or globetrotting, adventurous writers or weirdly creative recluses. It's actually great that kids learn to read and write. What's more, you don't need to care AT ALL about: the origins of our 26-letter alphabet, the English language (for myself and my readers), the history of spoken and written language, or the evolutionary developments that led humans to language--in order to be an awesome writer or orator.

The reality is that people will continue to put on their "Zen faces" and pretend to know more than they do, practice better/harder than they do, and place themselves above other people who do/know less. This has always happened and it is hard to see any end in sight. Social status is part of what we do as social animals. To the same extent that I'm sure the creators of these apps have had to address the criticism that what they're doing isn't "the real thing", the worry about yogification may be unnecessary. The same quest for status will continue to push individuals interested in mindfulness to compare their practices and insight to other folks' practices and insight; the same hubris that pushes for inflated grandiosity will push for critique (see this post or Rohan's comments for examples:). Transparency and familiarity allow one to trade out worry for clarity and allow one to trust oneself in these open, mutually supportive communities. If stretching or checking your iPhone can get you started or keep you involved, head on down to the local studio or download that app today! We will continue to check out whether your pants are cool, whether you're as poised as I am in tree pose, and whether your Android is better than my chosen gizmo...and breeeeathe.

Really, Nonconceptuality Again?!

I've been meditating on a pretty steady weekly basis with Soryu Forall lately. During one of these last few weeks he brought up the difference between conditional and unconditional happiness. It reminded me of a few connections I never finished putting together for the attentional stage developments beyond Clarity. I felt like I had plenty of time to work out some of these details for a couple reasons. First, only so many people are living from Clarity anyway and fueling or crafting their own sense of consistent inspiration. And second, while I'm willing to say some things that I'm not all that sure of, I try not to take that habit too far. But working with Shinzen has really helped clarify Mindful Appreciation, and that pushes the envelope concerning clarity about, well, Clarity. In one sense, acting from the stage/structures of Clarity can mean living/acting from a sense of an inspired self. Described from a different direction, we could say it has a lot to do with consistently acting from beyond the limited/individual sense of self. There is a very real, salient feeling of transcendence--moments of being absolutely just your authentic self and other moments of being so absorbed in what you're doing that it is as if there is no self "there" to speak of. But there are limits to the personal sense of inspiration and clarity as well, and I was less sure how to speak about this prior to hearing the term "unconditional"/"unconditioned" again in the right context. Since I was less sure about describing psychological structures or common states and ways of being beyond inspiration than I was with describing inspiration--which I'm now thinking of calling personal inspiration--it took a while of just letting theory sort of simmer on the back burner without paying it much attention. Part of what i had right was that I was using the term "joy" to describe this next stage of Nonconceptuality. It seemed important and somehow related to what I identified as the chief attentional skill for this stage--justice. Now, I have to say that I was somewhat confused by these two standing out together as distinguishing this stage from others, but having ground through a ton of contemplative material--much of it taken in without really grasping it--this apparently odd juxtaposition struck me as just right, even though I didn't know why it was right. I had little faith in my ability to figure it out by trying too hard to do so, so I set it down for a while. Why justice and joy since you rarely see joyful judges? Well, I knew that something along the lines of "joy" was right because I met contemplative folks who weren't that joyful, and their emotional stance actually seemed like a sign of a lack of fulfillment. Fulfillment is probably quite different from realization or actualization, so I don't really claim any ability or feel much interest in classifying who is at which level. But I knew that if I was going to continue to encourage folks to put a lot of continued effort into becoming better people, then it seemed like that path should at least eventually include a sense of fulfillment of some sort. Here's the simple breakdown. It's okay to be motivated, but it's impossible to recognize justice as just when working from a motivated, grasping-oriented mindset. It's impossible to live beyond grasping without largely living beyond a sense of limitation. Dealing with limitations and looking at limited resources, etc. generally makes sense but it is not totality. If you get beyond the lived sense of limitation with some undertones of positive emotionality (which is our birthright as mammals), something of indescribable beauty has been waiting there for you the whole time, living right there the whole time. (In Rumi's words, "The others would be jealous if they knew of this.") In contacting that beauty, only compassion makes sense. (In Soryu's words, "Mindfulness is seeing everyone as wonderful." If mindfulness also involves accurate perception, how can that be true?) Without knowing the limitlessness of this beauty, there can still be some fear of loss; but if you taste this truly, if you soak in it, it becomes impossible to fear any loss because there are no bounds. And this is the other "part" of totality. Now for justice as a skill. Probably every human being I have met has been sure that they are somehow being cheated by other people, life, the universe, or something if they are not living an authentically inspired life ("jealous"). Just as emotionality is our birthright as mammals, inspiration is our birthright as human beings. We know, at a very deep level, that we are being cheated if we are not feeling the love, tasting the beauty, "sharing" in the feeling of limitlessness itself. But because of whatever reasons--and there are many--we either settle for cheap knock-off imitations or we focus on the more superficial ways in which we are dissatisfied. Any conception or feeling of justice that does not direct others to the literal best that they can be may be justifiable retribution (and understand that I am not knocking retribution) but it is not something that I could call justice. It is by going completely beyond limitation itself that we can completely "contact" a joy that surpasses conditions, that is neither inside or outside of conditions.

Karen Horney and Mindfulness-into-Clarity

Karen Horney focused a good deal of her psychdynamic theory on interpersonal motivations. She broke things down to three major motivations in relation to others--the movement away from (withdrawal), the movement against (aggression), and the movement towards (compliance). In Buddhism, the trinity is: aversion, attachment/grasping, and ignorance. In more modern, psychological terms, we focus a lot on the dance between approach and withdrawal where the more neutral space can be seen as immobility of some sort--either something along the lines of apathy or, alternately, equanimity.

I'm learning a lot from working with Shinzen. One of the central stages I've listed is Mindful Appreciation. To some extent, I've tried to delineate attentional techniques or practices that are supportive of the particular developmental qualities and opportunities at each stage. Some of the benefits of mindfulness practice include: sensory clarity that comes from experiencing (seeing, hearing, or feeling)"through" the permeability of perceptions and conceptions; increased equanimity; increased strength of concentration; greater chances of recognizing "openings" for gratitude or appreciation in our lives; and an increasingly consistent turn from emotional reactivity to being in touch with our own and others' genuine emotions. Different styles or types of mindfulness practice will have a greater influence on different benefits.

One of the most significant benefits that stands out is that we create a space or fulcrum from which we do not have to unquestioningly or unintentionally "go with" these semi-conscious or semi-intentional psychological movements that Horney mentioned. In other words, we can separate the initial impulse towards withdrawal, aggression, or compliance from the continuation of that impulse which turns impulse into a full-blown and self-sustaining process that we can describe as habitual reactions. We can feel and witness the impulse without allowing it to move us. This becomes a sort of "fourth" psychological movement option--remaining. Remaining with the initial impulse rather than running through a usual process. In Shinzen's phraseology, he describes equanimity as the ability to allow sensory experience to come and go without push (aversion) or pull (grasping).

Beyond the deeper, quicker, or more spiritual aspects of what mindfulness like this can lead to, it allows us to check the previously unquestioned unfolding of the processes by which we have come to know and create a limited sense of self. We could also call this self an "incomplete" self because this self--as primarily a collection of temperament and habits--does not primarily move from the ground of being or a sense of the simultaneity of abundance of/in the universe and ever-spontaneous vitality. Part of the development from Mindful Appreciation involves getting more in touch with the vitality through practicing nonidentification with habitual reactions. It is difficult or impossible to distinguish a sense of self from habitual reactions if we cannot see our habitual reactions and see them for what they are. Without bringing some clarity and equanimity to these reactions, we will tend to identify with those we like and attempt to suppress those we do not. That very movement (identify/suppress or grasping/aversion) feeds the ignorance, allowing that personal, neutral psychological space to remain as apathy or ignorance.

If we can "see through" the habitual psychological processing, we have the option of relating to the world around us through new ways, through unique or spontaneous responses that allow us to "feel" the vitality of each moment. That ends up being a decent description of the inspiration that can be seen as an intentional attentional practice corresponding to the following stage of Clarity. Inspiration can be described as moving from the moment of clear seeing into vitality, appreciation, or spontaneity (including "nurture positive" in Basic Mindfulness terms)--basically, a simple, positive jolt following the moment of equanimity. It looks like we can move from an understanding and experience of these brief sequential movements (or moments) into more consistently noticing this vitality and positivity as flow.

Secondary Traumatization

I finished my master's degree in counseling in 2006, five years ago. In that education, trauma was not addressed adequately and so, it's not surprising that secondary or vicarious trauma was not addressed well either. Secondary traumatization occurs when one works closely with trauma survivors. It's the stress and stress reactions that we pick up from dealing with traumatic experiences secondhand. A list of the signs and symptoms can be found on pages 3 and 4 here.

As the above linked article suggests, balance in one's own life, physical health and relaxation, and supportive social relationships are very valuable in dealing with secondary stress. But I'd also had the feeling for a long time that there must be some specific concentration/meditation technique that directly addressed the individual experience of this particular type of stress. Well, it's taken five years to find a fitting approach, process, or technique, but I believe I've found it (or, at least, one--since others might find that there are different techniques that work better for them).

In Shinzen Young's work, found on the web at Shinzen.org and basicmindfulness.org, there is a particular technique in his "Focus In" way of knowing yourself as a spiritual being. (This post gets a little technical, but it does not really get into anything too archaic. A familiarity with practicing meditation will help in grasping the value of the techniques listed--and the system overall--but part of what I like about this system is that it is accessible to beginning meditators.)

As one begins to develop the ability to pay attention to different streams of input into perceptions (Shinzen suggests working towards being able to "focus in" on mental talk, mental image, and emotional body-type sensations as three somewhat separate streams or foci), one becomes increasingly able to focus primarily on emotional body-type sensations. In my experience, this is the best place to work with secondary traumatization because of how our bodies carry the stress from traumatization that our thinking minds often want to ignore or turn away from.

As one focuses on emotional body-type sensations, it is possible to differentiate sensations that feel primarily physical (the weight of various body parts as one sits, the temperature in the room, maybe a slight breeze blowing across arm hair or one's face, etc.) and sensations that are both physical and emotional such as a tightness in one's stomach or shoulder muscles that is related to remembering working with trauma. At this point, it's good to realize that the physical body is not necessarily identified with, defined by, tied up in or tied down by, one's psyche. As we distinguish the difference between primarily physical sensations and emotion-laden physical sensations, it's easy enough to see that "I have a body but I am not my body". In other words, physical sensation alone does not define or describe us. ONce this is pretty clear, it is easy to feel a sense of not worrying about the physical body and being able to focus strongly on the emotional-physical sensations that sort of symbolize our experience of psyche, the sensations and feelings that let us know we are human.

If one sits in meditation for 30-60 minutes, simply noting feeling-sensations without trying to do anything other than notice them, one is likely to have moments when one is NOT noticing emotion-laden feeling sensations. We can look at those moments as "rest". (So, another way of approaching what I'm speaking about here is to begin with Shinzen's "way" of focusing on rest. In that case, the distinctions I've listed are still important.) This state of a restful psyche or emotion-body, which we primarily will tend to experience in relatively brief moments initially, alleviates a great deal of acute stress if we become aware of it. Shinzen described this focusing on rest in the emotion-body as "letting your humanity fall away". Speaking from experience, being able to take even a brief rest from one's tortured humanity (when it is so) does not change that one's job may be just as demanding and emotionally challenging the very next day, but it is so important to be able to find any rest. It can be the difference between feeling emotionally challenged and emotionally crippled by an intense profession.

One of the things I like about Shinzen's approach is that he focuses on mindfulness as improving one's ability to concentrate, clarity of senses, and equanimity. As one works on distinguishing different types of sensory phenomena, the exercise itself strengthens the power of one's concentration. Working with concentration in this manner--in distinguishing different input streams or foci--improves the sensory clarity. This is opposed to feeling muddled by incoming stimuli or under a "barrage" of stimuli. And by increasing concentration and clarity, if we include a reasonable understanding of ourselves and mindfulness itself, we improve equanimity along the way.

To the same extent that we improve the likelihood of making a jumpshot the more we practice our intention and ability to make jumpshots, we apply our increased concentration, clarity, and equanimity to familiarizing ourselves with a restful state when we practice resting awareness through intention and mindfulness techniques. THis increases the likelihood of feeling restful and extends the moments of being restful. I believe it was in one of Chogyam Trungpa's books where I read that the Tibetan for "meditation" is familiarization. Rather than having some ridiculously lofty or vague description of why to meditate or how to, we can simply say that it is worth familiarizing oneself with an emotionally restful state. For me, whether that can or needs to tie into anything more idealistic is secondary to the immediate beneficial effects. If couched within a larger framework, this technique can connect to broader meaning or applications but doesn't need to in order to be worthwhile. Thanks, Shinzen.

Differentiation in Vocational Fields

One of the accepted realities of those who see development, for the most part, as I do, is that there is a consistency in how we move from one major stage of development to the next. In general, we solidify a self-identity and personal experience at one stage, then we begin to differentiate from that stage as we become increasingly aware of the nxt. Following differentiation from one stage and what can look like a fanatical--or at least very focused emphasis on the one following--we reintegrate the earlier stage into our self-identity. A good analogy is when people change religions or move to a new country. You have to put a lot of energy into getting out of the old and into the new. It initially takes a lot of focus to sort of fit into the new place. Then, once you're somewhat settled, you really start to realize just how much of you was shaped by what came before. At that point, there is some chance of integrating history and the present situation.

I've also talked about how this process can be experienced as moving from impulse (the initial dissatisfaction with one's current situation or stage) to effort (the effort to change) to intention (like intentionally integrating the multiple stages or aspects) to grace.

Grace seems rare enough. As we shift our weight from effort to intention, we realize that we can't simply spend our whole lives struggling, and with that realization can come too much of a rejection of struggling. We need to struggle or commit whoeheartedly to necessary effort when it is necessary. But effort alone won't set us up--at least not in this economic environment--for longterm success and wellbeing. Now, if we actually make an attempt to shift our weight from intention to grace, it is possible to reject intention and the ability to hold onto one's intention too much. This may seem obvious in the meditators who want to simply, "Let be and let free."

While we have a reasonable number of role models who have moved from flat-out physical and emotional effort to a basically intentional and thoughtful sense of self-direction, we have fewer successful role models of grace. But there is a real value in "letting go" to a greater extent once one has mastered a general field or specific business. IF we can retain the willingness to put in effort when necessary, and IF we can maintain consistent intention while looking for something more, THEN it is worth relaxing one's focus to take in more of the environment. Taking in more of the environment allows for more flexible, more fitting changes as the environment changes.

Today, I am impressed with just how easy it is to drift away and forget or simply lean away from effort and intention in teh search for grace.

Ego and Tranquility IV

For many people, then, the beginnings of realization begins in uneasiness, fear, and the judgment that the way they had been (largely unaware) was no good or at least not good enough. This makes spirituality or personal growth a trial, a difficult journey, or something along those lines. We end up with truisms like the idea that life begins at the edges of your comfort zone, as if a life of awareness begins in uneasiness. But this sort of understanding puts us in a living paradox like the ones Zeno loved to create. And we end up fighting our own egos or trailing uneasiness and dissatisfaction along with a cavalier sense of jumping into God-knows-what as what life is really all about. As if cliffdiving with your eyes open will keep you alive if you jump onto submerged rocks. A cavalier attitude with its attendant thrills and streamers of dissatisfaction may not be what clarity is about even though it is what some people decide that their lives are about.

Clarity has an effect on what that intermediate state, or clutch state, feels like. The belief in cliffdiving with eyes open definitely involves intention, but it may lack some degree of clarity if it includes the superstition that eyes being open rather than closed means you won't hit rocks. So there are many people out there preaching the value of intention, which is great, but very intentional people have set up oppressive empires, unethical corporations, and corrupt governments. Tranquil folks have improved their own lives by learning to develop a sense of serenity within themselves, often without influencing many others around them. No one of these influences is paramount. They come together in the same vehicle, though, if they are intentionally incorporated. If tranquility is practiced, we diminish the influence and the need for apathy. If clarity and awareness are developed, we diminish the influence and the need for being shocked into awareness.

An emphasis on clarity keeps us aware that things are changing. An emphasis on tranquility allows us to feel an ultimately undefined and indefinable sense of consistency. Ego, like using a pronoun to signify many things at different times and in different contexts, is a vehicle that is real enough to feel real yet empty enough to fit in all these influences. The interaction between immediate awareness of this moment, ego, and environment allows for the combination of continuity and change that sets us up for seeing the difference between random change and spastic actions as opposed to progress.

Ego and Tranquility III

Let's come at this from a different angle to see if we can complete the picture. Internal states, moods, and external situations change more rapidly than self-identity tends to. Ego includes self-identity (what we think and experience ourselves to be) as well as habitual patterns of feeling and behavior. In the same way that what we think of ourselves is not all of who we are, patterns of feeling and behavior are also not all of who we are. We can see genetic temperament, rather than something like Freud's "id" as basic to ego.

Once a relatively consistent ego is established in adulthood (as it is with almost all adults), intentional shifts in state, fluidity between states, and openness--especially awareness of openness--become more important to personal development. Intentionally incorporating openness and fluidity into self-identity incorporates openness and fluidity into ego without changing history or the uniqueness of one's individuality. In other words, one begins to wipe the slate of personality clean rather than wiping it blank.

I guess that if I'm going to title this series "Ego and Tranquility", I should probably include something on tranquility. It sort of fits with the blankness. In moderating states, we might start off by simply noticing what sort of state we're in. Once we notice, we might also notice a response to being in that state--either like or dislike. Both like and dislike tend to drive the "logic" of that state. By not wanting to fear snakes, I keep thinking about snakes, and this reminds me that I fear snakes. David Barlow has done great work with anxiety and fear. You can essentially wear out someone's snake phobia by keeping them around snakes for long enough, showing them that snakes are not necessarily dangerous, and eventually getting them to hold snakes.

If you aren't willing to deal with the intense reactions that his process demands, or if dealing with something less tangible (than snakes) like shame, it becomes important to apply a sort of clutch (like in a vehicle with a manual transmission). We do this by regaining some degree of control over our sympathetic nervous response. This ends up being the same as when moms soothe upset children, except we aren't relying on snakes to wear us out or moms to calm us down. We're relying on ego as a transitional object (our vehicle) and using awareness and intention as the clutch. The interesting thing is that ego might seem to drive us wherever any given internal state is directing us if we are unaware and also unable to hit the clutch. Hitting the clutch may leave us pointed in the same direction, moving with some left-over momentum, but we are no longer continuing to speed towards the goal of some state (like anger) rather than driving the bus ourselves.

This can be like waking from a dream or realizing--all of a sudden--that you're behind the wheel but that you've been on autopilot. That moment between when you are impulsively following the logic of whatever state--like when anger is pushing you towards revenge, for example--and when you realize that you are actually driving can have a number of different feelings. It can feel somewhat disappointing and apathetic, it can feel liberated or light (including an "unbearable lightness of being"), and it can also feel tranquil, peaceful, serene. It is the experiential definition (rather than semantic definition) of unawareness to not notice the state you had been in and the feeling of transitioning. Realizing this lack of awareness can be like suddenly realizing that the ground is not solid beneath your feet. Most people prefer denial and unawareness to this realization and the uneasisness and fear it can bring.