Psychology: "mindfulness" in science (audio)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka; Professor Ellen Langer (Harvard/ellenlanger.com), Krista Tippett (onbeing.org, 5-29-14)

What could Sid or the Buddha teach Ziggy Freud on the psychotherapeutic couch?

Note the Buddha heads behind Dr. Freud's chair. This is the original therapy couch (HW)

Langer says keep it simple; notice things rather than practicing mindlessness (Kris Krug)

 

Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness

Counter Clockwise

Harvard University social psychologist Prof. Ellen Langer's unconventional studies have long suggested what brain science is now revealing: 

Our "experiences" are formed by the words and ideas we attach to them, that is, the labels we add to our cognitions. Naming something "play" rather than "work" can mean the difference between delight and drudgery. 

She is one of the early pioneers -- along with figures like Buddhist researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn and Herbert Benson -- drawing a connection between mindlessness and unhappiness and between mindfulness and health. 

Going deeper

"Mind" (citta) is a process, not a thing.

Buddhism is not mere material "science" (the particle physics the Buddha talked about in terms of kalapas) but goes beyond materiality to mental- and mystical-experience, detailing processes that science has yet to acknowledge, detail, or come anywhere near explaining.

 

The Buddha meant two distinct practices, mindfulness/clarity (sati-sampajañña) -- present time awareness that does not reach back into the past or project forward into the future -- and the fourfold setting up of mindfulness (satipatthana/vipassana) as a formal meditation practice that, on top of absorption, leads to insight and liberation of mind and heart.

 

Buddha's Brain (Dr. Rick Hanson)

Dr. Langer describes just the initial practice of "mindfulness," bare awareness, which is possible without formal meditation or yoga.

She recommends the basic practice of “the simple act of actively noticing things.”

 

This is bare awareness, which in a Buddhist context is practiced as "presence of mind" in the absence of the internal distractions that come from discursive elaboration (thinking about), mental proliferation (papañca), and interpretation/color-commenting based on our mental formations and fabrications (sankharas).

• What is mental "proliferation" (prapañca)?

Psychologists distinguish "top-down processing" (projecting, seeing what one thinks is there, going from the mind to the outside world) from "bottom-up processing" (going from what's actually there to the mind that perceives it and attempts to understand it free of prejudice).

What is "mind"?

This gray material goo is not "mind."

MIND in Buddhism can refer to consciousness (viññāṇa), knowing (ñāna, one of the "psychic powers" or iddhis, a synonym of wisdom/paññā, the best and hightest being aññā), discrete mental processes (cittas), the "mind door" near the heart, perception (saññā), the ~50 mental formations (sankharas) led by volition/will (which is the basis of karma), or more comprehensively as the Four Aggregates (Sanskrit skandhas, Pali khandhas) apart from the first, namely, form or materiality (rūpa). More

• What is the equanimity-knowledges of existence?
• How to contemplate for intuition and insight
• Mind/heart is susceptible to perversions, distortions (taints/defilements, and fetters/bonds) 
• "Consciousness" in Abhidharma's Buddhist psychology

• 5 Mindfulness Steps that Guarantee Increased Success and Vitality
• Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity
• Mindfulness in The New Yorker
• Paths to Mindfulness
• On Being interview with Krista Tippett

Buddhist Meditation and Psychology

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Douglas Burns, Buddhism and Depth Psychology (BPS.lk)

In Buddhism, "mind" and "heart" use the same term, citta, and the "mind door" is in the area of the physical heart rather than the skull (Thimphu, Bhutan/SoulTravelers3.com)

  

(psychologyandtheother.com)

...If the cause of suffering (dukkha, "disappointment") is primarily psychological, then it must follow that the cure, also, is psychological. Therefore, we find in Buddhism a series of "mental exercises" or meditations designed to uncover and heal our psychic aberrations.

 

Mistakenly, Buddhist (insight-) meditation is frequently confused with yogic meditation, which includes physical contortions, autohypnosis, quests for occult powers, and an attempted union with GOD [Brahman]. None of these are concerns or practices of the Noble Eightfold Path. 

 

There are in [original*] Buddhism no drugs or stimulants, no secret teachings, and no mystical formulae. Buddhist (insight) meditation deals exclusively with the everyday phenomena of human consciousness. In the words of Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, a renowned Western Buddhist scholar-monk:

In its spirit of self-reliance, Satipatthana [the setting up of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness] does not require any elaborate technique or external devices. The daily life is its working material. It has nothing to do with any exotic cults or rites nor does it confer "initiations" or "esoteric knowledge" in any way other than by self-enlightenment. Using just the conditions of life it finds, Satipatthana does not require complete seclusion or monastic life, though in some who undertake the practice, the desire and need for these may grow (The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, Nyanaponika Thera, London: Rider & Co. 1962, p. 82).

Unless the reader suspects that some peculiarity of the "Western mind" precludes Westerners from the successful practice of meditation, note also the words of Rear Admiral E.H. Shattock, a British naval officer, who once spent three weeks of diligent meditation practice in a Theravada monastery near Rangoon, Burma:

Meditation, therefore, is a really practical occupation: it is in no sense necessarily a religious one, though it is usually thought of as such. It is itself basically academic, practical, and profitable. It is, I think, necessary to emphasize this point, because so many only associate meditation with holy or saintly people, and regard it as an advanced form of the pious life... This is not the tale of a conversion, but of an attempt to test the reaction of a well-tried Eastern system on a typical Western mind (An Experiment in Mindfulness, E.H. Shattock, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1960, pp. 17-19).

The Buddha in the Golden Triangle (Ursula in Aus/Ursula_bkk/flickr.com)

  

Reading about meditation is like reading about swimming; only by getting into the water does the aspiring swimmer begin to progress. So it is with meditation and Buddhism in general. The Dharma must be lived, not merely thought. Study and contemplation are valuable tools, but life itself is the training ground.

 

Using words

The following passages are attempts to put into words what must be experienced within oneself. Or in the words of the Dhammapada: "Buddhas only point the way. Each one must work out one's own salvation with diligence."

Meditation is a personal experience, a subjective experience, and consequently each of us must tread our own path towards the summit of enlightenment. By words we can instruct and encourage, but words are only symbols for reality. More

*"Original" Buddhism?

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

(meditationgold.com)

After the original dispensation (sasana) was set up by the historical Buddha, the Dharma he set rolling began to be conflated with the indigenous Brahmanism of his day. It eventually swallowed Buddhism, calling the Buddha an incarnation (avatar) of the god Vishnu, and making the Buddha's contrary message part of orthodox Hinduism. Adi Shankara is responsible for throwing Buddhism out of India with the idea of promoting the "eternal teachings" (Sanatan Dharma) free of foreign influence. The Buddha was a foreigner from the northwest frontier. Although the Buddha rejected the authority of the sacred Brahminical Vedas, modern Vedantic-Hindus and Mahayana-Buddhists ignore the differences and blend the two traditions. While this departs from the original message of the Buddha, teaching the same thing with new names gives Buddhism a longer history, elevates Sanskrit above Pali, Prakrit, and Magadhi, and loses sight of what the Buddha felt was indispensable for actual enlightenment (bodhi) and final-liberation (moksha), which he called "nirvana" to distinguish this Path's goal from the goal of the ancient Brahmins. For them "the end of rebirth and suffering" is "rebirth in Brahma's eternal heaven." The Buddha rejected this, pointing out that it was not permanent but changing just like all planes of rebirth. The key difference between Brahmanism (Hinduism) and Buddhism regards the soul or self (atta, atman). Until one penetrates anatta, the impersonal or not-self nature of all things, one will not enter the first stage of Buddhist enlightenment called stream entry. Therefore, there will be no actual liberation but only continued wandering on in samsara, the Wheel of Life and Death, through heavens, hells, and other realms.

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Explaining the "Parable of the Raft"

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ven. Karunananda, Ph.D., Wisdom Quarterly

Siddhartha was an ascetic under trees in search of freedom from samsara's seas (Hokusai)

 

Ascetic Sid, Mes Aynak (livescience.com)

According to the historical Buddha, the "Sage who came from the Shakya clan," if we want to cross over from this shore (samsara) full of danger to the further shore (nirvana) beyond all danger, we need to put together a "raft" (a sufficient understanding of the practice).
 

We gather just enough material then we strive diligently and consistently. We exert just enough effort (viriya), paddling with every limb we have, to cross over to nirvana.

• The Parable of the Raft

Persistent balanced-effort is the gradual path the Buddha taught, or we risk exhausting ourselves and giving up long before we reach the goal. Or we die trying by the legendary exertion that gets all the attention (in the story of the Buddha, of forest dwelling monastics, of patriarchs in later schools) in spite of the fact that it does not work to overdo it. Paradoxically, sometimes the "effort" required is allowing, that is, accepting, non-doing, abandoning the detrimental, letting go of clinging.

Under a sprawling Bodhi tree

Siddhartha persists but with ease and balance accessing the wealth of the jhanas.

 

Bodhi tree shrine, India (Themeplus)

Siddhartha did not succeed under the Bodhi tree because he tried so hard: So long as he was trying that hard, he could not succeed. He succeeded because he eased off, first accepting help from the maiden Sujata then realizing that jhanas (blissful and equanimous meditative absorptions) were the way. As an austere ascetic, he had been so afraid of pleasure and of becoming attached to it that he had avoided

A sufficient raft is all we need. Even a poorly fabricated raft is enough to get across over the flood (ogha), this sea of samsara. "Enough" concentration is enough, enough insight is enough. The goal exists.
 

Whether or not we achieve (patiently allow) absorption, access concentration may be enough. It becomes the route we take, the one now available to us. The Buddha's gradual path takes us from virtue to calm (samatha) to effortless-concentration (samma-samadhi). 

 

Even a flimsy foundation may be just enough support to successfully practice mindfulness (four foundations or bases) that support wisdom. Liberation depends on it.

The swirling, whirling, sucking sea

If there is time and a suitable teacher, a more stable platform is helpful. A human life is extraordinarily rare. It's a terrible thing to waste and a wonderful thing to utilize to finally see nirvana. If all one reaches is absorption (jhana), which is purifying by suppressing the defilements, that will lead to a very welcome rebirth.

But the end of all rebirth and suffering is the goal for those who have understood what the Buddha taught. So beyond calm, there is liberating-insight to strive for. This breakthrough is accomplished by practicing the factors of Dependent Origination. One thereby sees and undoes suffering. It is only by knowing-and-seeing the Path (magga-phala, "path-and-fruition" consciousnesses) that one awakens to unending peace.

The world is the world is the world

O, spirit, where shall I sit? - Try that tree (Deen406)

From this world, it is easy to see dukkha (suffering, disappointment, woe, lack of fulfillment from our many endeavors).

 

It is also visible from the lower Sensual-Sphere deva worlds, but on this plane we have drive due to there being reasons to strive constantly on our heels, urging and reminding us of the dangers: aging, sickness, ignominy, death, rebirth. The threat of defamation and infamy are very real as we face Eight Worldly Conditions:

• success and failure (gain and loss),
• fame and obscurity, 
• praise and blame, 
• pleasure and pain.

Who needs "the end of all suffering"? We all would IF we understood what the Buddha meant by dukkha. Some say, "All life is suffering." That is completely wrong -- unless one grasps what "suffering" means as a translation of dukkha. All the Buddha ever taught, according to him, was suffering and the end of suffering, disappointment and the end of disappointment, dukkha and nirvana. 

The way to nirvana is enlightenment (bodhi). And the way to enlightenment is mindfulness (as set up moment to moment and actively developed through contemplative themes outlined in the Maha Satipatthana Sutra). And the way to mindfulness is "meditation" (calm, zen, jhana, serenity, samatha, unification, singlemindedness, absorption, nondistraction, and samma-samadhi or "right concentration"). And the way to meditation is virtue (sila), which imparts peace of mind and non-remorse.

Samsara is impermanent (ever changing), unsatisfactory (disappointing), and impersonal. There is great danger inherent in it for the unenlightened. So we should get enlightened or into the stream certain to take us to enlightenment as soon as possible. Danger, what danger?

Until stream entry there is an ever-present danger of falling into unfortunate realms (rebirth destinations) for indeterminate periods of time. Then, during those times, one forgets the goal, forgets even the possibility of there being freedom from suffering, the possibility of awakening from this miserable dream with nightmare aspects. Continued: Who am I?

Who am I?

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ven. Karunananda, Ph.D., Wisdom Quarterly

But I am. I am this I am! "I think; therefore, I am"! I am my thinking, no, the Thinker, right?

 

Continued from Explaining the Parable of the Raft. All we see is an illusion, seeming to be what it is not: seeming to be stable, seeming to be able to satisfy/fulfill us, seeming to be a thing (when it is really a composite).

A composite? Things are not single-things but amalgamations of things. We can see it all around us, as things fall apart. So long as they seem solid, we repeatedly forget that they are something else.

 

But what we never see, never dream, are never told, are never taught except that a buddha rediscovers and teaches the world is that ALL things are impersonal. "I" is an aggregate-thing, "ego" is a thing, "self" ("soul") is a thing. What is it composed of?

 

Self/No-self (gingernutdesigns/flickr.com)

It is composed of FIVE HEAPS of things (and those things themselves are things, dharmas, composite-aggregates of other things). 

1. Forms, 2. sensations, 3. perceptions, 4. formations, and 5. consciousnesses are the categories of heaps, things, bundles of phenomena that keep giving rise to the illusion, "SELF," the idea or assumption that there is a "self" and, likewise, that there are others. And we never see, or more correctly, and never is seen. What is not known-and-seen? We never awaken to what is real. Nirvana is real.

Why do we neglect the highest good, the ultimate goal of knowing-and-seeing? There are many reasons, which seem private and idiosyncratic. But for all they come down to the defilements (āsavas, the inflows and outflows that swirl in samsara). So why are we surprised that we feel disappointed, empty, unfulfilled, desperate, miserable, alone, out of control? All of that is dukkha.
 

Budai (Hotei) hears, sees, speaks no harm.

The "defilements" are of different kinds: taints of [clinging to] sensuality, being, views, and delusion. The Buddhist scholar Isaline Horner translates the original terms kāmā-, bhavā-, diṭṭhā-, and avijja-āsava -- quoted by Padmasiri De Silva in An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology (2000) -- as the "cankers" of "sense-pleasure, becoming, false views, and ignorance." The word canker suggests something that corrodes or corrupts slowly. These figurative meanings perhap describe facets of the Buddha's conceptual teaching of āsava: kept long in storage, oozing out, [seeping in], taint, corroding, and so on.

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The Neuroscience of Awakening (audio)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Mitch Jeserich (KPFA.org, 10-15-13)

Forest tradition meditation in pristine jungle in northeast Thailand (withfriendship.com)

 

Pacifica Radio host Mitch Jeserich (KPFA FM, Berkeley) delves more deeply into meditation this time looking at it from a Buddhist perspective with Dr. Rick Hanson, author of The Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom as well as the voice and brain behind The Enlightened Brain: The Neuroscience of Awakening (7 CD box set), and American Vajrayana (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's Shambhala) Buddhist nun Ven. Pema Chodron ("How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind" 5 CD box set).

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Meditation Teacher to the Stars

 

(HuffPost Live) His clients include overweight mogul Oprah, comedian Russell Brand, genius Martin Scorsese, and schlocky showman Dr. Oz, but renowned transcendental meditation teacher Guru Bob Roth also serves low-income and under-served communities by sharing his passion: TM. And he stresses that "Stress is the New Black Plague." The guru Roth joins Nancy Redd to explain the benefits of meditation for everyone regardless of socioeconomic status or prestige in society. More