The Reed campus is loaded with caregivers. Teachers, staff, roommates, all looking after one another day after day. I think it is fair to say that care giving is one of the most rewarding experiences a human can have, and is one of the things that makes campus life so satisfying.

It seems a little paradoxical, then, that care giving can also be something we dread. Will I be able to meet all of today’s challenges? How long can I continue to meet the needs of my students, co-workers, friends?

Face it, caregivers need care too. Care giving is not only rewarding, it is also stressful and demanding. We need to be able to take a break from our responsibilities, to take time to look after ourselves. We may even need to let someone else take care of us.

A recent Times article (“When the Caregivers Need Healing,” July 28) explores these issues and shows how a mindfulness practice can offer caregivers yet another tool for sustaining themselves.

What happens when we sit in mindful meditation? Life happens. It is always happening, but we rarely pay attention to it. When we sit in mindful meditation, we sweep away all of the little activities that normally occupy our attention and leave just one thing before us: the activity of life.

A research investigation published in the July 4 issue of Science magazine took a look at how people respond to having nothing to do with themselves (“Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind”, Wilson et al.). Budding psychologists might want to read the full article, but the editor’s summary tells us a lot: Continue reading →

“Just before I walked into my qualifying exam, the committee convinced me that I was going to fail … Later, when I interviewed for postdoc positions, committee members had nothing positive to say … It was a continuous barrage of criticism aimed at undermining my self-confidence.” – Dr. Fanuel Muindi, Science (18 July 2014, p. 350)

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NY Times, March 23, 2014: “In an industry in which grueling schedules are embraced as a badge of honor, efforts to promote work-life balance reflect a significant change in corporate culture.” http://nyti.ms/1dDWpfA

A close friend, a NY Times subscriber, periodically sends me ‘teasers’ about articles in the paper. When this one arrived in late March, I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. After all, after several months of patient, painstaking work, my thesis students had just emerged from Spring Break in full-blown panic mode. It was go-go-go: finish your experiments and calculations, prepare and deliver your public seminar, write-format-defend your thesis. Go! At the same time, the juniors in our department had begun a group anxiety attack: the Qual. Faculty like me, caught between senior angst and the administration of a record number of junior quals, were having attacks of our own. Work was everywhere. Sleep? Rest? Not to be found. Thus, when the Times email appeared, I paused for a brief moment and asked myself, had the nation’s Paper of Record become concerned about the over-the-top, caffeine-supercharged lifestyles of the Reed community?

That thought lasted only a moment. The next flicker of thought reminded me that modern society is filled with workers who believe they can’t stop working. Workers who wear supercharged lifestyles as a proof of self-worth, as a badge of honor. The article could have been about academics, but surely the Times was writing about some other career?

All of which brings me to meditation. There is no work ‘product’ in mindfulness meditation. No doing. No honor. No badge. Just being aware. This sitting we do is completely subversive.

Subvert the Dominant Paradigm! Meditate!

One of the most pervasive experiences in a college community is fear. Coming to campus in the fall, first-years ask, Will this be ok for me? Starting a new semester I ask, Will this work out ok for me? Faced with an important performance (a test question, an unanswered thought hanging over a conference discussion, a face-to-face meeting with your adviser, a lecture to give) we worry, Will I be found out? Will I be discovered to be the inadequate imposter that I think I am?

The thoughts that surround fear are just thoughts, but they are constantly rippling back and forth across the Reed community as if blown by an unseen wind. Unchecked they can quickly convert what were supposed to be opportunities for new experience and growth into soul-sapping dread and terror.

Author David Guy described his personal confrontation with fear and stage fright, and how he slowly learned to deal with it through meditation, in his book, Waste No More Moonlight (excerpted in Summer 2003 Tricycle as “Trying to Speak: A Personal History of Stage Fright”).

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Graduation is well behind us. Everyone is trying to figure out how to accomplish all those special things that we couldn’t do during the school year and can only attempt during summer break. At the risk of loading you down with more than you can possibly handle, here’s a suggestion for one more thing to practice this summer: err in the direction of kindness.

This suggestion, which comes from the graduation (convocation?) speech that George Saunders delivered to the Class of 2013 at Syracuse University, can be applied in many ways. Am I being kind to others? Am I being kind to myself? What does a slight shift towards kindness require of me?

Many folks tell me that they would like to meditate, but don’t have the time for it. Sometimes I reply that there isn’t a required minimum time that they need to spend in meditation, that even a little quiet time might be helpful, but mostly I don’t say anything. I realize that people really do lead busy lives and silence, non-doing, sitting, even for a few minutes, feels like a hard thing to take up. We are programmed to do. If we not-do, we think we will fall behind.

But perhaps there is a small opportunity here? What if I told you that 2 minutes of not-doing, just watching the way you breathe and listening to the sounds all around you, might be an act of self-kindness? That it might be one small way in which you can ‘err in the direction of kindness’ towards yourself? Would you be willing to do that much for yourself?

The role of contemplation in human affairs is gradually working its way into higher education. The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education has been a gathering spot for educators who see “the life of the mind” as something larger than a purely intellectual pursuit. And just recently, Brown University has announced a new academic concentration that they call the Contemplative Studies Initiative.

Speaking with USA Today (June 3, “Contemplating a New Major?”), Prof. Harold Roth says that contemplative studies “looks at human contemplative experience across culture and across time from different perspectives.” The concentration requires courses in cognitive science, religion and philosophy, and concentrators can choose whether to focus their course of study on the sciences or the humanities.

One of our regular meditators, Breesa, tipped me off to an interesting connection between meditation and pop music: Rick Rubin: Rick produces pop music of all varieties. His “clients” have included the Beastie Boys, Dixie Chicks, Metallica, LL Cool J, Eminem, Aerosmith, and Johnny Cash. So many of his productions have “gone platinum” and won awards, he is considered a “super producer.”

So what makes it possible for Rick to hear what each of these artists has to offer, build a trusting collaboration, and bring out their best? As Rick puts it, it starts with the quiet that he finds through meditation:

“I’ll spend time with an artist and listen very carefully … the more time you spend being quiet and looking in, your intuition grows and you trust it more. Messages come if you’re looking for them. Through meditation I developed the skill to know what to ask for. It’s like a knowing.”

More Rick Rubin quotes and information (and more information about the ability of meditation to enhance our ability to listen), can be found at “How Super Producer Rick Rubin Gets People To Do Their Best Work” (by Ruth Blatt, Forbes, 4/28/2014)

Anam C.ara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue (1956-2008) opens with:

It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world.

But we can find it if we just stop and listen.