Ref:MindfulnessMeditation1 This tape has been prepared to assist the listener in developing skills of self development learning and

healing. The skills taught on this and subsequent tapes are based on the stress reduction and relaxation programme conducted at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre by Dr Jon KabatZinn. Many of the details of the programme described on this tape have been drawn from his book, Full Catastrophe Living, published in 1990 by Dell Publishing. The stress reduction and relaxation programme has been running for over fifteen years. Several thousand people have completed the programme, and there is considerable outcome research published in professional journals demonstrating its usefulness in a wide range of areas including stress related medical problems, severe and chronic pain, panic and anxiety, sleep disorders, and interpersonal stress. The programme is unique in that it does not contain many of the components commonly found in various self help books and courses concerned with stress management. Rather, the programme is based on the rigorous and systematic training in mindfulness. To describe mindfulness simply, it is simply moment to moment awareness. To be mindful of the moment is to be fully focused and aware of what one is experiencing at the moment. A rather delightful story told by Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist priest, in his bestselling book, The Miracle of Mindfulness explains the concept nicely. Thirty years earlier, when he was a novice, washing the dishes was not a pleasant task. He describes how during the season of retreat when all the monks had returned to the monastery, two novices had to do all the cooking and wash the dishes for well over one hundred monks. They had no soap, but only ashes, rice husks and coconut husks. They would first have to heat up a big pot of water before they could do any scrubbing. Nowadays, the monks have a kitchen equipped with liquid soap, scrub pads and hot running water which makes the task more agreeable. He writes: Whilst washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. At first glance, this might seem a little silly: why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that is precisely the point. The fact that I am standing there and washing these bowls is a wondrous reality. I am being completely aware of myself, following my breath, conscious of my presenceIf while washing the dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not washing the dishes to wash the dishes. Whats more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact, we are completely incapable of realising the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we cant wash the dishes, the chances are we wont be able to drink our tea either. Whilst drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future (or the past) and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life. There are other simple examples of mindfulness, or the lack of it. I can be

hurriedly eating a meal, totally preoccupied in my mind with some other activity. My wife will ask me at the end of the meal what I have eaten, and I will be unable to tell her. When it comes to handling stress, or anxiety, or chronic pain, the inability to be mindful of our experience often just magnifies our difficulties in the longer term. Jon Kabat-Zinn writes the problem of stress does not admit to simple minded solutions or quick fixes. At root, stress is a natural part of living from which there is no more escape than the human condition itself. Yet some people try to avoid stress by walling themselves off from life experience; others attempt to anaesthetise themselves one or another to escape it. .But if escape and avoidance become our habitual ways of dealing with our problems, the problems just multiply. They dont magically go away. What does go away, or get covered over when we (try to) tune out our problems or run away from them, is our power to grow and to change and to heal. When it comes right down to it, facing our problems is usually the only way to get past them. Marsha Lineham, a pioneering therapist who works with extremely disturbed patients describes mindfulness in another way. She talks about the ability of noticing the experience without getting caught up in it. When it comes to accepting unpleasant realities such as difficult circumstances over which we have no control, or the physical limitations of illness or injury, she speaks of the concept of radical acceptance. She notes that freedom from suffering requires acceptance from deep within of what is. She encourages clients to let go of fighting reality, and to be mindful of what is. Some of her very disturbed patients have had a very traumatic past experiences. Radical acceptance does not mean that one condones physical, sexual or emotional abuse, but she argues that radical acceptance is the only way out of this personal hell. Acceptance is acknowledging what is, which is the not same as condoning it or judging it as good. She argues that emotional (and physical) pain creates suffering only when we refuse to accept the pain. Mindfulness skills develop the quality of awareness that a person has. Learning mindfulness means learning how to focus and the mind and the awareness to the current moment, rather than having our mind jump from thought to thought. If you think that the skills of mindfulness will be quickly learnt with little effort, then you will be disappointed. But if you are willing to commit yourself to the disciplined practice of the exercises set out on these tapes, then you will be able to develop your inner capacities for personal growth and healing. You can certainly look forward to developing a calmness that will make you less reactive to the inevitable stresses of life. If you have physical limitations or pain, you can look forward to a marked reduction of the impact of these unfortunate realities. If you suffer from anxiety and panic, you will develop a calmness that will lead to you being less reactive when things go wrong, when people are difficult, and when things dont go the way you had planned them to go. Everyone can look forward to developing an attitude of mind that allows us to be more comfortable with the limited control that we often

have over the forces in our life. A friend of mine sails a boat, and he once remarked to me that whilst he cant control the direction and the strength of the wind, he can always adjust his sails accordingly, and generally end up getting where he wants to be. Jon Kabat-Zinn writes that when we are able to mobilise our inner resources to face our problems artfully, we find we are usually able to orientate ourselves in such a way that we can use the pressure of the problem itself to propel us through it, just as a sailor can position a sail to make the best use of the pressure of the wind to propel the boat. If you hope to make use of the force of your own problems to propel you in this way, you will have to be tuned in, just as a sailor is tuned into the feel of the boat, the water, the wind, and his or her course. You will have to learn how to handle yourself under all kinds of stressful conditions, not just when the weather is sunny and the wind is blowing exactly the way you want it to. We all accept that no-one controls the weather. Good sailors learn to read it carefully and respect its power. They will avoid storms if possible, but when caught in one, they know when to take down the sails, batten down the hatches, drop anchor, and ride things out, controlling what is controllable and letting go of the rest. Kabat-Zinns book is full examples of people who took up the challenge of developing mindfulness, and learning how to live as if each moment was important, as if each moment counted, and could be worked with, even if it was a moment of pain, anxiety, sadness or despair. The systematic development of mindfulness has been part of the Buddhist meditation tradition for over 2500 years. The skills as taught here do not require you to learn or take on any particular beliefs or ideology. Nevertheless, its relevant that mindfulness comes out of the Buddhist tradition, which has as one of its main focus, the relief of suffering and the dispelling of illusions. Apart from the writings of a few scholars, the Buddhist tradition has been largely unknown in Western thought. Its most popular reintroduction was in the 1960s, through the efforts of the transcendental meditation movement. It was only then that Western medicine began to look at the benefits of this skill The essential component of mindfulness meditation is paying attention to the present moment. We all pay attention to things, and get totally engrossed in the experience, so meditation is not such a foreign or irrelevant concept. However when we begin to learn to develop the skill of paying attention, we quickly discover that our mind is seldom focused on the present, but darts hither and yon getting caught up in distractions, the past, the future, what ifs, and often we can have very little experience of the actual present moment. A very common example of this occurs when we drive a car along a familiar journey. We may get to our destination and have little or no awareness of the trip, whether or not we stopped at the traffic lights or stop signs, or the other vehicles on the road that we somehow managed to avoid. We could go back to our earlier example of washing the dishes, we will often lose contact with that experience as our mind focuses more on the cup of tea or the television

programme that will follow. Shortly, I will present you with a simple task. The aim of this task is to give you an opportunity to notice just how easily your mind is carried away from the present moment by other thoughts or things. For this brief little experiment you will need a chair that is straight backed, allowing you sit in a comfortable but upright position. If you are not in such a position now, switch off the tape whilst you arrange such seating. Now you are sitting in a chair, and your back is straight but not held tense. Close your eyes and become aware of your breathing. Dont try to control your breathing, just let it happen naturally and be aware of it. Notice how your breathing feels, and just try maintaining your complete focus on your breathing as you breathe in and out and in again. I will now be silent for three minutes.

How did you go? If you thought that it was a silly thing to do, to just sit and watch your breath, know that this is simply a judgement that your mind has made. Then let go of that judgement, and refocus your attention gently back on the process of breathing in and breathing out. If you think that your breath is a trivial and unimportant thing on which to focus, then keep your mouth closely closed and squeeze your nostrils closed with your thumb and finger. It wont take very long before your breathing suddenly becomes a very interesting experience to observe. For most people, their attention will be focused on their breathing for only a few seconds, before wandering off onto some other thought or sound. Most of us find it quite difficult initially to focus on our breathing for any length of time, and it requires a disciplined commitment as we train ourselves to stabilise and calm our own mind. This little three minute experiment can give you a feeling for what meditation is about. Its the process of observing your body and mind intentionally, without judgement, letting your experiences unfold moment by moment, and accepting them as they are. It doesnt involve thinking I shouldnt be thinking about this, and nor does it involve judging the experience how am I going, am I doing this properly? And nor does it involve trying to suppress certain experiences, I shouldnt be thinking about this now. Before we get to the first basic exercise in developing mindfulness, there are a number of important attitudes that go with and form part of mindfulness meditation. They are non-judging, patience, a beginners mind, trust, non striving, acceptance, and letting go. Non judging challenges us to step back from the constant stream of judging and reacting that we normally get caught up with, and moving to let go of notions that things are good or bad, but rather they just are. Thoughts such as this is boring, this isnt working, I am doing this really well are all judgements. When they emerge into your awareness, notice them, but dont follow them or act on them in anyway, simply gently refocus to your breathing.

Patience. Think of some of the skills that you learnt as a child. Skipping, serving a tennis ball, writing smoothly, learning to balance on a bike. All these required patience. The more you try to force these skills into being, the more failure and frustration you will generate. So it is with mindfulness. The skill will emerge, but you need to be patient. In our fast moving world complete with quick fixes and instant solutions, patience is a virtue that is sometimes lacking. Beginners mind. A beginners mind is one that is willing to see everything as if it were for the first time. We often know so much about an experience that we miss seeing things as they really are. Preconceptions can get in the way of perception. Trust. As you develop your skills in mindfulness, you will develop more trust in yourself and your feelings. One of the reasons for developing mindfulness is to become more fully yourself. And to develop the certainty that you can trust yourself to cope, no matter what the world throws at you. Non striving. In our Western way of living we absorb the message from an early age that any goal worth achieving is worth striving for. In meditation this attitude can be a major obstacle. If you focus on achieving such goals as relaxing, reducing your pain, or healing an illness, then you have introduced into your mind an idea of where you want to be, and that is not where you are right now. Mindfulness involves simply paying attention to whatever is happening. If you are anxious, just pay attention to the anxiety. If you are experiencing pain, then be with the pain as best you can. Acceptance. This means seeing things as they actually are in the present. If you are stuck in a traffic jam, then you are stuck in a traffic jam. You dont have to like the experience, but that is the experience that you have got, and fighting reality by insisting that it not be so will only get you more frustrated. Acceptance doesnt mean condoning or liking certain aspects of our life, or the actions of others in our lives. It doesnt mean trying to change your own self destructive habits or tolerating unfairness or giving up on trying to change things around you. In meditation we develop acceptance by taking each moment as it comes, and being with it fully, as it is. Letting go. Kabat-Zinn describes how hunters go about catching monkeys. They will cut a hole in a coconut that is just big enough for a monkey to put its hand through, they will then tie the coconut to a tree, and put a banana inside the coconut. The monkey comes down, puts his hand in and takes hold of the banana. The hold is sized so that the open hand can go in but the fist cannot get out. All the monkey has to do to be free is to let go of the banana, but it seems most monkeys dont let go. Some of us have experienced the difficulties in letting go of thoughts when we try to go to sleep. Our bodies can be ready to go to sleep, but our minds are still going nineteen to the dozen. If we try to force ourselves to sleep, it just makes things worse. One of the tasks in developing mindfulness is developing the ability to let go in the waking state as well.

In the University of Massachusetts programme, participants are required to give a commitment to practice the skills for 45 minutes per day, six days per week. Just as an athlete needs that degree of commitment to a training programme in order to achieve their goals, so you will need to commit yourself to the disciplined practice of mindfulness. There will be some days when you dont feel like it, but your commitment needs to override this not feeling like it. It is most useful if you develop the discipline of practising at a particular time and in a particular place each day, so that it quickly becomes part of your normal routine. If you choose to do this, then the regular practice isnt as hard as you might think. The practice of mindfulness meditation requires attention to breath. No matter what else is going on in your life, you are breathing. From the moment you are born, to the moment of your death, you breathe. We usually dont pay any attention to this, that is until we start to learn to meditate. The easiest way to begin practising mindfulness meditation is to simply focus your attention on your breathing, and see what happens as you attempt to keep it there. There are several ways in which you can observe your breath. You can observe it at your nostrils or you can focus on your chest, or on your stomach. When we get stressed and woundup, our breathing tends to get faster than normal, and becomes more focused on the top part of the chest. On the other hand, when we relax and calm down, our breathing generally becomes slower, and more stomach focused. Most people find that developing the skill of stomach focused breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing, is very beneficial. The easiest way to learn diaphragmatic breathing is to do it. For a start, stretch yourself out on a bed or the floor, and relax your shoulders. Gently place one hand on your diaphragm, that area between your navel and the bottom of your ribs. Gently place the other hand on the upper part of your chest, so that your thumb is touching the region of your collarbone. TO BE CONTINUED