Secular Meditation: 32 Practices for Cultivating Inner Peace, Compassion, and Joy — A Guide from the Humanist Community at Harvard

Praise for Secular Meditation

Meditation is as important for the mind as exercise is for the body — and Rick Heller offers many simple, powerful ways to get the benefits of this profoundly useful practice. Grounded in solid research on the brain and physical and mental health — and full of practical ideas and methods — this friendly, down-to-earth guide is a wonderful resource for both beginners and longtime meditators.

— Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence

This straightforward yet comprehensive guide to meditation is an ideal introduction for those new to the practice as well as a valuable compendium that will offer fresh perspectives for seasoned meditators. In lucid, jargon-free language, Rick Heller offers a compelling case for a humanistic and secular spirituality that has its origins in Buddhism but speaks directly to the conditions of a post-creedal age.

— Stephen Batchelor, author of Buddhism Without Beliefs and After Buddhism

"I love that this book begins with kindness practice! Everyone, regardless of views or beliefs, can develop happiness and wisdom. In Secular Meditation, Rick Heller and the Humanist Community at Harvard offer a straightforward way for nonreligious people to connect with their inner capabilities for compassion and clarity."

— Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness

This book — at once simple and profound — is a joy to read. Rick Heller manages to capture the essence of traditional Buddhist practices and translate them into a no-nonsense secular format. His suggestions for practice are straightforward and can be easily incorporated into daily life.

— Kristin Neff, PhD, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Self-Compassion

This book has the potential to benefit many people. Rick Heller has a light and yet substantial style that makes his writing lovely and approachable. He is clearly practicing what he is writing about, which makes for an authentic and sincere offering to this world.

— Narayan Helen Liebenson, guiding teacher at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center and the Insight Meditation Society

"Secular Meditation is a clear and generous adaptation of Buddhist and other practices for the humanist community. It is a great book for people who believe that the human mind can be trained just as the body can but who are uncomfortable with any supernatural claims. It is simple and accessible, opening doors to generosity, clarity, and joyfulness in this life."

— James Ishmael Ford, author of If You’re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break

Rick Heller combines his secular humanist worldview with his expertise in guiding weekly meditation sessions, producing a unique reference work that’s approachable, practical, and based firmly in the natural world. This book fills a gap in the current literature: a workable guide to meditation in theory and practice for a secular audience.

— Ted Meissner, founder of the Secular Buddhist Association and host of the Secular Buddhist podcast

Rick Heller’s book represents a milestone in the emergence of a truly naturalistic form of contemplative practice. It will do much to help more people find happiness in life.

— Daniel Strain, executive director of the Spiritual Naturalist Society

I can’t say for sure, but we may be seeing the beginning of a major revolution. This revolution is in some ways a natural next step from the Scientific Revolution that occurred about five hundred years ago and the Neolithic Revolution that occurred many millennia before that. Ever since the Neolithic, human spirituality has tended to center on a literal interpretation of organized myth. The Scientific Revolution decentered those myths. So is humanity now left without a source of deep meaning and moral compass? Perhaps not. The Mindfulness Revolution offers a totally new direction: industrial-strength psycho-spiritual growth based on industrial-strength attentional skills — concentration power, sensory clarity, and equanimity. This book offers a rich banquet, inviting you to taste many flavors of mindfulness.

— Shinzen Young, director of Vipassana Support International

"Secular Meditation is a wonderfully practical book grounded in the latest neuroscience. Rick Heller shows readers how one can mindfully learn to love others and be loved by others. It provides a step-by-step guide for anyone who wants to live a happy life."

— Paul J. Zak, PhD, author of The Moral Molecule

"Secular Meditation by Rick Heller is a wonderful door-opener for people who are interested in the benefits and how-to of meditation and mindfulness practices but who are skeptical about the religious sources. Heller, the meditation teacher for the Humanist Community at Harvard, has collected thirty-two practices that will have something for every curious reader. His style is warm and engaging, with great stories sprinkled in, and he pulls the reader into trying out attention and kindness practices from all different angles to find their right fit."

— Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD, coauthor of A Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness

"In simple, accessible language, Secular Meditation introduces practices that profoundly transform our hearts and consciousness. Through a rich weave of stories, teachings, meditations, and inquiry, this book offers trustworthy guidance on the journey of awakening."

— Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge

Copyright © 2015 by Rick Heller

Foreword copyright © 2015 by Greg Epstein

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, or other — without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The material in this book is intended for education. It is not meant to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified medical practitioner or therapist. No expressed or implied guarantee of the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given or liability taken.

Portions of this book previously appeared in magazine articles in Buddhadharma, Faith Street, The Humanist, The New Humanism, Tikkun, UUWorld, and Wise Brain Bulletin.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Heller, Rick, date.

Secular meditation: 32 practices for cultivating inner peace, compassion, and joy: a guide from the humanist community at Harvard / Rick Heller; foreword by Greg Epstein.

pagescm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60868-369-7 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-60868-370-3 (ebook) 1.Meditation—Psychological aspects. 2.Happiness. 3.Relaxation. 4.Secularism—21st century. I. Title.

BF637.M4H45 2015

158. 1'2—dc232015027201

First printing, November 2015

ISBN 978-1-60868-369-7

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10987654321

For Cindy

Contents

Foreword by Greg Epstein

Introduction

Part One: Cultivating Love and Compassion

1.Loving-Kindness Meditation

2.Your Daily Dose of Metta

3.Compassion Meditation

4.Self-Compassion

5.Sympathetic Joy

6.Frequently Asked Questions about Compassion Practices

Part Two: Finding Inner Peace

7.Mindfulness of Breath Meditation

8.Ambient Sound Meditation

9.Mindfulness of the Body Meditation

10.Face Meditation

11.Mantra Meditation

12.Frequently Asked Questions about Mindfulness

Part Three: Cultivating Joy

13.Walking Meditation

14.Walking in the City or Suburbs

15.Mindfulness in Nature

16.Mindful Manual Labor

17.Mental Noting of Actions

18.Mindful Vision

19.What If You Never Saw It Again?

20.Contemplative Photography

21.Mindful Viewing of Museum Exhibits

22.Mindful Couch Potato

23.Mindful Eating

24.Frequently Asked Questions about Cultivating Joy

Part Four: Additional Practices

25.Mental Noting of Emotions

26.Yes! We Have No Bananas

27.Intentional Daydreaming

28.Meditation on Whatever

29.Mindfulness of Thoughts

30.Mindful Speech and Listening

31.Exploring Don’t-Know Mind

32.Meditative Reading

33.Mindfulness of Your Place in the Universe

34.Using Mindfulness to Break Bad Habits

35.Making a Habit of Mindfulness

36.Other Frequently Asked Questions

Tips on Creating Your Own Mindfulness Group

A Secular Invocation

Acknowledgments

Resources

Glossary

Endnotes

Index

About the Author

Foreword

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN just being nonreligious and being a humanist in community may come down to practice. At the Humanist Community at Harvard, we’ve spent the past several years creating a community of nonreligious people, of different backgrounds, who are drawn together by positive humanistic ideals such as reason and compassion. Even though we do not believe in the supernatural, there are positive aspects of participation in a religious community that we too would like to enjoy.

Our community offers lectures, discussion groups, classes for kids, and more. A mainstay of the community is a weekly meeting of a mindfulness and meditation group. Although the group’s practices are chiefly adapted from Buddhism, we exclude any beliefs and practices — such as the concept of rebirth — that conflict with mainstream academic science. We see the Buddha as an important cultural, literary, and historic symbol and figure but one who is no more authoritative than Socrates or Benjamin Franklin.

Buddhism appeals to a large number of Westerners who identify as nonreligious. This popularity began in the early twentieth century, when Asian Buddhist leaders such as D. T. Suzuki began traveling to the United States and very purposefully packaged Buddhist practices to appeal to secularized Westerners looking for answers to questions about life’s meaning. A century or so later, with more scientific knowledge and a more diverse and interconnected population, we are seeing an increase in the demand for practices and techniques that can address our spiritual longings without dogma or rigidity.

Perhaps both the greatest promise and the greatest challenge of Buddhism is that it is so diverse. Many people I speak with think that all Buddhism is secular and that it involves no god or gods. However, one of the most widely practiced versions of Buddhism worldwide today is Pure Land Buddhism, which involves prayers meant to transport us in the afterlife to magical heavenly realms where we may encounter giant godlike creatures, hungry ghosts, and other apparitions. These ideas, embraced by many millions of people, don’t get much publicity in the West. Neither does the fact that Tibetan Buddhism involves many beliefs, practices, and magical concepts that Westerners would consider irrational, at best, if we even understood or were aware of them.

Tibetan Buddhism has become quite popular in the United States and elsewhere in large part due to the inspirational leadership of the Dalai Lama in response to Tibet’s struggle for political autonomy from China. In his approach to Buddhism, the Dalai Lama has gone well beyond even what secular Westerners might think of as reformism. His book Beyond Religion indicates a broad skepticism about the existence of anything beyond this natural world — up to and including the theological tradition that identified him as its leader and as the rebirth of a great spirit.

Consistent with the Dalai Lama’s liberal approach, the word mindfulness has become enormously popular in recent years. It is often associated with key insights and techniques from Buddhist traditions and practices, but without the cultural baggage of a 2,500-year-old Asian tradition. The Dalai Lama has said that in sharing these practices, he’s not trying to convert people to Buddhism but rather to inspire them to be more humane and compassionate in whatever religion or philosophy they hold dear. We’re delighted to take him up on this compelling call. Mindful of the huge history of cultural appropriation, we do not claim that our Buddhist-influenced humanism is in any sense true Buddhism. The label is not important. For us, this practice is about learning, as humbly as we can, from human heritage in a sincere effort to live good, grounded, socially and personally constructive lives.

Today, mindfulness practitioners and teachers include clinical psychiatrists and research psychologists who have sought to distill the essence of Buddhist teachings into a secular form. They also include yogis, spiritual leaders, life coaches, and a huge range of other teachers. If you set out to study Buddhism or mindfulness in the West today, you’ll find an enormous variety of options. How to choose?

The Humanist Community at Harvard has long recognized that there’s much of value in Buddhism and mindfulness. We are, however, skeptical of any claim of revealed authority, of the notion that any individual or way of thinking has the definitive answer to how we ought to live. Humanists do not believe in gods, but we do believe in evidence. Before adopting contemplative practices or spiritual techniques into our lives, we want to see proof that such things are actually effective. That’s why, in addition to presenting secular meditation practices, this book also discusses recent scientific research on mindfulness.

Who is this community, however? We’re an unusual organization that has come together to foster community for people who would usually be defined by what they’re not — people who are atheists, agnostics, secular, nonreligious. It’s not a church. It has no dogma. It has no requirements, judges, priests, or inviolable rites. But it does draw on a long tradition of people thinking together about what the good life can mean. And just as the Dalai Lama is not trying to convert you to Buddhism, we’re not trying to convert you to humanism. We are simply presenting for your consideration ideas that we have found useful.

Rick Heller has been pioneering this approach to mindfulness practice in our community for five years, and only now does it feel like the idea we had back then is attaining widespread relevance. When you consider the billion nonreligious people on this planet, it becomes evident that there is a desperate need for practices that can help us center ourselves, connect with our values, and help one another emotionally, practically, and politically.

This book is an initial effort to catalog some of those practices. It’s not the final word on the subject: it’s a guide, not the guide, for nonreligious people. It is the product of efforts by a group of people who’ve simply chosen to meet together regularly to help one another try to get a little better at life. Rick writes invitingly and modestly about how you explore a rich inner life. It’s my pleasure to invite you to join us on the journey.

Greg Epstein,

Harvard University Humanist Chaplain

Introduction

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, I started noticing flashes of light when I was in a darkened room. My eye doctor said I should visit a specialist right away because it could be a sign of a detached retina, which can lead to blindness.

This was alarming news, but I tried to settle my emotions by being in the moment. On the drive over to the ophthalmologist, I was able to enjoy the colors of fall foliage rather than focus on the medical problem. When I got to the doctor’s office, though, it was harder. For one thing, there was no artwork on the wall — nothing to look at except utilitarian office furniture.

Then the medical assistant called me in. She tried to retrieve my record on the computer. It wouldn’t come up. She apologized and said she would have to take notes by hand. She was clearly irritated. I decided to offer her my best wishes by practicing a short loving-kindness meditation. This particular meditation uses certain phrases, and the words I said silently went something like this:

I’d like you to be safe

I’d like you to be healthy

I’d like you to be happy

I’d like you to be at ease in the world

I don’t know if it made any difference to her, but it sure made a difference to me. Shifting my attention from my problems to her problems, and feeling kindness toward her, gave me a terrific boost. Later I received good news when the doctor diagnosed my condition as a vitreous detachment that did not jeopardize my eyesight.

Loving-kindness meditation is just one of the meditations I’ll be sharing in this book. From a secular viewpoint, this practice works not by sending vibes through the atmosphere but by changing our own feelings, and subsequently perhaps our actions, in order to be more caring.

I believe that loving-kindness is a critical element of mindfulness. Lately mindfulness has become popular, even trendy. Mindfulness is often defined as paying nonjudgmental attention to the present moment. There’s increasing scientific evidence that mindfulness can help people reduce their stress and enjoy life. It’s getting press for other presumed benefits, too: it’s been touted at the World Economic Forum in Davos as a way to increase corporate profits, and the New York Times’s influential Well blog reported on a study demonstrating that mindfulness helped students improve their test scores. There’s even interest in mindfulness as a way of improving accuracy in rifle shooting.¹

Although mindfulness originated in Buddhism, the recent growth spurt has come in secularized forms that are gaining popularity in health care, business, and the military. Along with growing interest, though, a growing number of people say that something is being lost in the move to secularize mindfulness. In particular, critics fear that, stripped of its ethical moorings, attention training will just help people do what they already do more efficiently: if they are inclined to exploit or harm others, for instance, then exploiting people with focused attention will lead to greater harm.²

To avoid such negative effects, mindfulness must be rooted in love. In the original Buddhist approach, it already is. Mindfulness is about paying attention with a particular attitude. This attitude is frequently described as nonjudgmental, but that doesn’t necessarily mean neutral or clinical. In fact, the attitude that goes with mindfulness is often described as being friendly, kind, or even loving. Can you really be nonjudgmental and loving at the same time? Yes, if you love just about everything!

This book focuses on training attention and kindness. The goal is to arrive at a place of nearly universal love, kindness, or friendliness to whatever is happening in the present. I maintain that universal love is possible. A person does not have to be born with special traits in order to be compassionate and loving. It is a learnable skill.³

This book starts with a loving-kindness meditation, one of the meditations I lead for the Humanist Community at Harvard. Although learning to feel more love toward other people may seem like quite a challenge, it’s a fairly easy guided meditation. You don’t have to clear your mind of thoughts, so even if you think of yourself as someone who can’t meditate, you can do this meditation.

Love comes from within. We often think we need to be among friendly people or excellent circumstances to feel love. But in fact, good circumstances are just a crutch that helps us love. If you visit a natural wonder like the Grand Canyon and you love it, it’s not because the Grand Canyon loves you. It doesn’t even know you exist. You produce these feelings yourself. Love is generated within the brain. We can train ourselves to turn it on. When you love someone or something, even if it doesn’t love you back, you still feel good because you are feeling love.

Training yourself to love your enemy may be going too far if your enemy is someone who might physically harm you. Yet even if it may be unwise to love bad actors, you don’t need to hate them. When you hate someone, you’re not thinking rationally. The proverb When you seek revenge, dig two graves is a reminder that when you act out of hatred, you often harm yourself too. Therefore, it’s appropriate to employ a measured amount of loving-kindness even with bad actors, to shift your feelings from hate to neutrality. This shift allows you to think rationally about people who harm others; you can act to prevent them from doing harm without boiling with outrage and becoming part of the problem yourself.

Loving-kindness meditation is just one of the powerful meditations that we have been practicing at the Humanist Community at Harvard, which serves the needs of nonreligious people in the Boston area. Secular humanists are people who do not believe in the supernatural but do believe in helping fellow human beings. Sometimes this helping takes the form of packing meals for low-income people who might otherwise go hungry. Sometimes we help by sharing techniques such as meditation that soothe emotional distress and add zest to our lives.

Our meditation practices are largely adapted from Buddhism, but we have carefully secularized them. We discard any beliefs or practices that involve the supernatural — such as rebirth — and cast a skeptical eye over anything that remains. You could say that we’re rummaging through the Buddhist closet for things that fit. In doing so, we are participating in a larger movement sometimes called secular mindfulness or even secular Buddhism. Just as many humanists are taking up meditation, some Buddhists are discarding supernatural beliefs. Coming from different directions, we have arrived in the same place. Even after the supernatural elements have been shaved off, much in Buddhist philosophy remains valid and can enrich humanism.

Sometimes I hear people question the relevance of a secularized Buddhism. People have asked me, Isn’t Buddhism pretty secular anyway? Not entirely. The one time I attended a Tibetan meditation, the meditation itself was followed by prayers to a goddess. I have attended a few Zen meditations, but I don’t care for the robes, incense, or bowing before a statue of the Buddha. Some argue that these Zen practices aren’t really religious, but they certainly feel that way to me. Even the