“Attention deficit treated with meditation,” “meditation relieves depression, pain,” “meditation reduces chocolate cravings” – these are just some of the medical claims for the benefits of meditation that I have written about in this blog. And these are just a small sample of the kinds of claims that have been made for meditation in the news media, in books, in blogs (most notably The Huffington Post) over the past couple of years. These stories provide hope and they get people to try meditation. But what if they are too good to be true? If meditation fails to make me more attentive, fails to make me happier, and fails to help me confront the chocolate stack in the Bookstore, should I give up on meditation?

These are precisely the concerns of neuroscientist, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Family Medicine, and director of the mind-in-body lab, at Brown University, Catherine Kerr. She is a practitioner of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and she has personally conducted scientific studies on the effects of MBSR on other practitioners. She is well acquainted with the benefits of meditation, as well as the so-called ‘scientifically proven benefits of meditation’ and she wants people to understand just how little (as well as how much) scientists know. Tricycle magazine editor, Linda Heuman recently interviewed Dr. Kerr for the Tricycle magazine blog and their conversation provides a counterweight for anyone who is thinking, “Wow, this news article makes meditation sound really impressive. I should give it a try.” You can find the interview at “Don’t Believe the Hype,” (Tricycle, Oct 1, 2014).

A Tricycle magazine article caught my eye today. The article, “The Gift of Gratitude,” is by Ajahn Sumedho, a Buddhist monk. He has this to say about the connection between gratitude and joy:

A life without gratitude is a joyless life. If life is just a continuous complaint about the injustices and unfairness we have received and we don’t remember anything good ever done to us, we fall into depression – not an uncommon problem these days. It is impossible to imagine ever being happy again: we think this misery is forever.

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I came across the phrase “sleepwalking through life” in a recent magazine article by Ezra Bayda (Tricycle, Fall 2014). It spoke to me right away. First, the image it conjured up (no doubt enhanced by a zombie fad that just won’t go away) of vast populations shuffling along, lost in thought, moving in a dream world, never seeing their thoughts for what they were, week after week and year after year, was extraordinarily powerful. And then I mulled it over. I realized that “sleepwalking” has even deeper roots. “Buddha” means something like Awakened, and not Enlightened. So, if you aren’t Buddha, you’re sleepwalking, right?

An intriguing line of reasoning, but one that can quickly set my mind spinning up more daydreams. “Waking up sounds good. I should get started right away.” If I catch myself sleepwalking, I might feel like a failure. More thoughts, “I should deepen my resolve, make a note in my diary to try harder, try to be more like someone who I think is more awake.” And on and on.

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Weekly meditation is being offered this summer in the Eliot chapel during the noon hour.

The main change is that we are meeting on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays. Otherwise, each session follows the same schedule used during the school year with the first bells rung at 12:10 and the last bells rung at 12:40 (see Meditation Schedule page for more info).

I am going to be traveling during the summer and will not always be available to lead meditation myself. However, the chapel is reserved for meditation from 12-1 and members of the Reed community can take advantage of this beautiful space whether I am around or not.

Travel dates, i.e., dates when I won’t be present to lead meditation:

• Th, June 12
• Th, June 19
• Th, June 26
• Th, July 17
• Th, July 24
• Th, July 31
• Th, Aug 14
• Th, Aug 21
• maybe more to come… please check back (or join our mailing list for last-minute updates)

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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