As another cycle of the Stress Reduction Clinic’s MBSR program comes to a close, I look around one last time and marvel at these people who embarked together on this journey of self-observation, acceptance, and healing eight short weeks ago. Their faces look different now. They sit differently. They know how to sit. We started out this morning with a twenty-minute body scan, then went from that into sitting for twenty minutes or so. The stillness was exquisite. It felt as if we could sit forever.
It feels as if they know something very simple now that somehow eluded them before. They are still the same people. Nothing much has changed on a big scale in their lives—except, in some subtle way that comes out as we review what it has meant for them to come this far on the journey, everything.
They do not want to stop at this point. This happens each time an eight-week cycle comes to an end. It always feels as if we are just getting started. So why stop? Why not keep meeting weekly and continue practicing together?
We stop for many reasons, but the most important one has to do with developing autonomy and independence. Our learning in these eight weeks needs to be tested in the world, when we have nothing to fall back on except our own inner resources. This is part of the learning process, an important part of making the practice one’s own.
The practice need not stop just because the MBSR program is over. In fact, the whole point is for the practice to keep going. This journey is a lifelong one. It is just beginning. The eight weeks is just to get us launched or to redirect the trajectory we are on. By ending the classes, we are simply saying, “All right, you have the basics. Now you are on your own. You know what to do. Do it.” Or better yet, “Live it.” We are purposefully taking away the external supports so that people can work at sustaining the momentum of mindfulness on their own and at fashioning their own ways of putting it to work in their lives. If we are to have the strength to face and work with the full catastrophe in our lives, our meditation practice needs a chance to develop on its own, to depend only on our own intentionality and commitment, not on a group, not on a hospital program.
When I started the clinic and what became known as MBSR thirty-four years ago, the thinking was that after eight weeks of training, people would go out on their own. Then, if they wanted to come back after six months or a year or more, we would make this an option by holding graduate programs in which they could take the practice deeper. This model has worked well over the years. The graduate classes are well attended, and clinic graduates also come back regularly to sit with us during our all-day sessions. These graduate classes have taken many different forms, sometimes five sessions, sometimes six or more, sometimes spaced out monthly, sometimes weekly. Sometimes they have specific themes. But they are all fundamentally about keeping up or reigniting the momentum in one’s practice, deepening it, and integrating mindfulness more and more into every aspect of daily life and living our way fully into what we most love.
For you, the reader, it is important to remind yourself that classes, groups, follow-up sessions, guided meditation CDs, downloads, apps, and books can be very helpful at certain junctures, but they are not essential. What is essential is your vision and your commitment to practice today and to get up and practice tomorrow too, no matter what else is on your agenda. If you follow the outline of the MBSR program our patients follow, as described in Chapter 10, eight weeks should be a sufficient time to bring your meditation practice to the point where it begins to feel natural and like a way of life that you might want to continue with. You certainly will have seen before the eight weeks are over that the real learning comes from within yourself. Then, by rereading sections of this book, by diving into the books on the reading list in the Appendix, and, when possible, by locating like-minded people and groups to meditate with, you can reinforce and support your practice as it grows and deepens. There have never before been more opportunities for doing so, both locally and globally, in the flesh and online, no matter where you live.
Looking around the room now, I am struck by the high level of enthusiasm everyone seems to have about what they have accomplished in this brief period of time and by how much they obviously respect and admire each other’s strength and determination as well as their own. Their superb attendance reflected that commitment.
Edward didn’t miss one day of practice. Since he had started off with the body-scan CD at my suggestion when I first saw him two months before the program began, his effort is even more impressive to me. He feels his life depends on it. He takes time to practice sitting meditation every lunchtime at work, either in his office or in his car in the parking lot. Then he practices with the body-scan CD when he gets home from work, before he does anything else. Only then does he make dinner. He says that practicing this way has lifted his spirits and helps him to feel that he can handle the physical and emotional ups and downs he is going through as a result of having AIDS—including the fatigue he often feels and the numerous tests and protocols to which he is subjected.
Peter feels he has made major changes in his life that will help him to stay healthy and prevent another heart attack. His realization when he caught himself washing his car at night in his driveway was a major eye-opener for him. He too continues to practice every day.
Beverly, whose experiences were described in Chapter 25, feels that the program helped her to be calmer and to believe that she can be herself in spite of her bad days. As we saw, she thought to use her meditation training in imaginative ways to maintain control during medical diagnostic procedures that frightened her.
Marge had surgery for removal of a non-malignant mass in her abdomen right after the program ended, so I didn’t get to talk with her until several months later. I had lent her a copy of the hospital stress reduction video program that I had made years ago, The World of Relaxation, which she used at home to prepare herself mentally for the surgery and to help her with her recovery in the weeks afterward, in addition to her regular meditation practice.* She later told me that she was awake for the one-hour operation with an epidural block and meditated through the whole thing. She heard them talking about dissecting the tumor off the large intestine but was able to remain calm. When she went home, she used the meditation over and over again in the hope of speeding and deepening her recovery process. She said that she had no problems with pain after the anesthesia wore off, as she had had with other surgeries in the past. She says that before she started in the program, she was wound up like a tight spring. Now she feels much more relaxed and easygoing, even though she still has as much pain in her knees as ever.
Art has fewer headaches now and feels he can use his breathing to prevent them from happening in stressful situations. He feels more relaxed, even though the particular pressures of police work are still there. He is looking forward to retiring from it. He liked the yoga best of all and said he experienced a new level of relaxation on the all-day session, when time fell away completely.
Phil, the French Canadian truck driver we have met a number of times along the way, went through some dramatic experiences with the practice. His way of speaking and his willingness to share what he was going through touched everyone in the class. He now feels he will be better able to concentrate and will not be so ruled by his back pain when he takes the exam for his insurance broker license. He feels that his pain is more manageable and that his ability to appreciate his time with his family has made life richer.
Eight weeks later, Roger remains more or less bewildered about his life situation. He made it through the program, which surprised me, and he says he is more relaxed and less dependent on drugs for pain, but he still does not have much clarity about how to face his domestic situation. He lost his temper on at least one occasion, and his wife had to get a court order to keep him away from the house. He clearly needs some individual attention. However, he has been in therapy before and rejects the suggestion of any more at this time, much as I encourage him to pursue it again.
Eleanor is glowing like a lightbulb this morning. She came to the clinic because she was having panic attacks. She hasn’t had one since the program started, but she feels that if one comes up, she will know how to handle it now. The all-day session was extremely important for her. She touched areas of inner peace she said she has never known in sixty years.
And Louise, who told us on the first day that her son “made” her take the program by saying to her, “Mom, it worked for me and now you absolutely have to do it,” found it started helping right away with her whole attitude toward her life, as well as with her pain from rheumatoid arthritis and the restrictions it was imposing on her ability to live the way she wanted to. She found she was able to “get behind her pain” in the body scan, and then learned to pace herself throughout her day. A few weeks ago, she triumphantly told the class of going in the car to Cooperstown for the weekend, something she would never have thought possible before. Of course she visited the Baseball Hall of Fame with family and friends, and each time that she felt she had had enough of the crowds and the press of people, she went outside, found a place to sit, closed her eyes, and just did her meditation, completely unselfconsciously, in spite of all the people milling around. She knew that that was what she needed to do to stay balanced during this potential ordeal for her. She did it a number of times that day and that weekend, and was able to sail through her trip. She exclaimed, “My son was absolutely right. I thought he was crazy, but this has given me another chance at life.”
Loretta, who came for hypertension, found her life changed as well. She works as a consultant to corporations and public agencies. She said before the program that she was always afraid to show her clients the reports she had prepared for them. Now she feels much more confident about her work, declaring, “So what if they don’t like it? For that matter, so what if they like it? Now I see that it’s whether I feel good about it that is most important. It’s made for a lot less anxiety about my work, and a lot better work too.”
This insight, “So what if they do like it?” speaks volumes about Loretta’s growth in the past eight weeks. She has clearly seen that she can be trapped by the positive, by approval, by acclaim, as much as by criticism and failure. She has seen that she must define her experiences on her own terms for them to hold real meaning for her. The rest is just an elaborate fiction, an illusion, although one it is easy to become stuck in.
Loretta’s insight and her ability to embody it in her life are a perfect example of how easy it is to get stuck in our story and think that it represents reality when it does not.† Her realization is a reflection of what we mean by the word wisdom. It reflects the clarity and new possibilities that can arise when you no longer mistake the story it is so easy to fabricate in your head for the actuality of things, and choose instead to shift from the default mode of narrative self-referencing to a more embodied, present-moment mode of not-knowing, of being grounded in the body, and of gentle and open awareness. The more you practice, the more this happens effortlessly.
And Hector leaves feeling he has learned to control his anger better. Since he was a wrestler and carries his three hundred pounds effortlessly, like a massive but delicate bird, it was great fun for me to do the aikido exercises with him. He knew how to hold his center physically, and now he knows how to hold it emotionally as well.
All these people, and the many others who are completing the program this week with other instructions, have worked hard on themselves. Most changed in one way or another, even though our emphasis was and continues to be on non-striving and self-acceptance. The gains most of them made did not come out of idleness or passivity. They didn’t come solely from attending class each week and giving each other support. They came, for the most part, out of what you might call the loneliness of the longdistance meditator, out of their willingness to practice on their own, by themselves, when they felt like it and when they didn’t feel like it—to sit and to be, to dwell in silence and stillness and encounter their own minds and bodies. Any gains they experienced came out of practicing non-doing, even when their minds and bodies resisted and clamored for something more entertaining, something that required less effort.
Before we close, Phil, who has by this time become the class storyteller, shares the following memory with us, which he says he has been carrying around since he was twelve years old, not knowing exactly why. Suddenly its meaning struck him this week as he was practicing:
We were going to a Baptist church in Canada. It was a small church, there was maybe about ninety people going to that church, ya know. There was a lot of problems at the church at that time. And my father isn’t the type of person to go to a church where there was always a kind of problem. The church is supposed to be united, ya know, and working together. And so he says, “Let’s get away from here for a while.” We knew this small church out in the country, in the middle of nowhere. It’s like a four-corner, and there was the church and that was about it. There was all farmers around there. They only had a group of maybe ten, fifteen, twenty people at the most going to the church and, well, we figured we’d go there for support, ya know. They’ll increase their people and we’ll meet new people and make new friends.
So we went there and they had no ministers there. Ministers would come in from here and there different Sundays and just kinda do the service. And that Sunday we were there waiting and waiting. No minister. It was way past time, so somebody decided that maybe we should start singing some hymns, ya know. And so we got together and sang a few hymns and still no minister, and it’s getting late. So one guy says, well maybe someone would like to read something from the Bible and say something, ya know. Nobody said anything, wanted to do anything. But this guy stood up. He didn’t have no education, didn’t know how to read or nothing. He was a farmer, very plain, very maybe what some people would call uneducated, which he was, for one thing, but not dumb, ya know, just plain, not having an education. So he could not read the Bible to say something. But he asked if somebody could read the Bible for him, he knew of the passage. It was about giving. And then, being a farmer, he gave this example, he says: “It’s just like the pig and the cow had a conversation one day together. And the pig said to the cow, ‘How come you get grain, bought grain from the store, ya know, all the best of everything, and I get garbage from the table, garbage to eat?’ And the cow says, ‘Well, I give every day, but you, we have to wait till you’re dead to get anything good out of you.’ ” So he says, “This is what the Lord wants you to do … give to the Lord every day, ya know, give your soul to the Lord, ya know, give praise to the Lord every day and you will be rewarded more ways than one, ya know. And don’t be like the pig and wait until you’re dead for God to get anything out of you.”
So that was what the message was all about. And this is what kept on coming to my mind as I’m doing the body scan … and finally one day it came to me that it’s the same thing with the stress reduction program. You have to give something, you have to really work at it, you have to give thanks to your body, ya know, recognize your eyes. Don’t wait until you go blind and say, “Oh my God, my eyes.” Or your feet, don’t wait until you’re almost crippled, or anything like this … your mind, I mean, they say if you had enough faith, the size of a grain of salt, you could move mountains. The same thing … most doctors say we use a very little bit of our brain. The brain is a very powerful thing, just like a battery in a car. It’s got all kinds of power, but if you don’t have good connections, you’re not going to get anything out of it, ya know. You have to practice your brain to put it to work, in other words, so you’ll get something out of it, ya know.‡
And I says, “My God, this is more or less what this [MBSR] is all about,” ya know. I kinda pictured that together. But this message that farmer gave us in church that day, this spiritual message was very powerful. I got goose bumps when I heard it and I still do. Like I say, it came to me and I just translated it, as it’s the same for your own body. You have to give to be able to receive. I gave this program a lot of effort and time. Sometimes I didn’t feel like driving one hundred miles just for this thing. But I came to every class, never missed a meeting, always on time. But, see, it’s easy once you start getting something out of it. If you put in your mind that you want to try, give it the best there is, all the attention you can, you’ll get something out of it, ya know.
It is clear as they leave the room today that most people understand that although the classes may be over, this is only the beginning. The journey really is a lifelong one. If they have found an approach that makes sense to them, it is not because someone sold it to them but because they explored it for themselves and found it of value. This is the simple path of mindfulness, of being awake in one’s own life. Sometimes we call it the Way of Awareness.
Walking the path of awareness, which means living a life of awareness, requires that you keep up the meditation practice. If you don’t, the Way tends to get overgrown and obscured. It becomes less accessible even though, at any moment that you choose, you can come back to it again because it is always right here. Even if you have not been practicing for some time, as soon as you are back with your breathing, back in the moment, resting in awareness itself as your new default mode, your home base, your home, you are right here again, back on the path—which is also no path, because there is truly nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nothing to attain. You are already whole, already complete, just as you are—and that is perfect—for now—in the warm embrace of your own awareness.
With this perspective, once you are cultivating mindfulness systematically in your life, it is virtually impossible to stop. Even not practicing is practicing in a way, if you are aware of how you feel compared with when you do or did practice regularly, and how it affects your ability to handle stress and pain.
The way to maintain and nurture mindfulness is to develop a daily momentum in your meditation practice and keep it going as if your life depended on it. Now you know directly from your own experience, not as a concept, that it actually does. The next two chapters give you some concrete and practical recommendations for keeping up both the formal and the informal mindfulness practice so that this Way of Awareness can lend ongoing clarity, direction, meaning, and beauty to your life as it continues to unfold.
* Available in DVD and CD form at www.betterlisten.com.
† Recall the University of Toronto study mentioned in the Introduction, which discussed the function of the midline narrative network in the prefrontal cortex, and how its activity diminished and the present moment lateral network activity increased following MBSR training. Loretta’s experience is a graphic illustration of that phenomenon—two distinct modes of self-referencing, which can be influenced through training in mindfulness.
‡ Phil’s intuitions preceded the scientific studies showing positive effects of MBSR on the brain by several decades.