NEW STUDY FINDS THAT MINDFULNESS MAY PREVENT ABSENTEEISM

An 8-month parliamentary inquiry in the United Kingdom has found that public servants may be less likely to burn out if they use mindfulness techniques to control stress, anxiety and depression.

The inquiry, which was conducted by the British All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness, found frontline public servants could be less likely to fall ill with stress, or quit altogether, if they engage in mindfulness.

A number of small pilot studies on the potential impact of mindfulness in the public sector are already underway in the UK. One hundred frontline health workers in Surrey were given mindfulness training last year and showed a fall in sickness absence, according to the UK Department of Health. Several prisons are running pilots to see how mindfulness can help convicted criminals avoid re-offending while 300 teachers in a network of academy schools in the northwest of England have also been trained.

‘[Mindfulness] could be rolled out to prison staff, GPs and in key professions where there is big burn out,’ said Chris Ruane MP, co-chair of the group. ‘If we prove conclusively that mindfulness can stabilise those individuals it would be a great benefit to society.’

‘Absenteeism costs the public sector a lot and giving people mindfulness training could save money in the short and long term,’ added co-chair Tracey Crouch MP. She added that interest in the practice is growing in Westminster and that she knew of two British Cabinet ministers who use mindfulness techniques. Sixty MPs and 55 peers have also had training in mindfulness.

The report represents the most significant political pressure yet to bring mindfulness into the mainstream.

Note. Acknowledgements are due to The Guardian for material in this post.

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THE MYTH OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT

At this time of the year many people make a resolution, which is often short-lived, to embark upon some sort of self-improvement program or to give up some bad habit. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am all for personal transformation, but there is a right, and a wrong, way to go about it, both in thought, word and deed.

One of my all-time favourite spiritual teachers Alan Watts [pictured below left], in his book The Wisdom of Insecurity, has this to say about the wrong way to embark upon self-improvement:

I can only think seriously of trying to live up to an ideal, to improve myself, if I am split in two pieces. There must be a good ‘I’ who is going to improve the bad ‘me.’ ‘I,’ who has the best intentions, will go to work on wayward ‘me,’ and the tussle between the two will very much stress the difference between them. Consequently ‘I’ will feel more separate than ever, and so merely increase the lonely and cut-off feelings which make ‘me’ behave so badly.

The reason the good ‘I’ can’t change the bad ‘I’ is because they are one and the same. Worse still, both ‘I’s’ are illusory. When I use the word 'illusory' I am not saying these 'I's' do not exist. They do exist---but only as self-image in our mind. The 'I's' are, however, illusory in the sense that they are not what they appear to be. All the 'I's' and 'me's' in your mind are brought about by thought, and they have no reality in and of themselves. They appear to be 'solid,' 'fixed,' and 'permanent,' but they are not. They are, as the Indian spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti used to say, the product of thought which divides.

Yes, despite appearances to the contrary, and our own misbelief, these ‘I’s” do not have any separate, independent, discrete and permanent existence from the person each one of us is. The great Scottish philosopher David Hume came up with what is known as the ‘bundle theory,’ which postulates that our mind constructs hundreds of waxing and waning selves. None of these selves ever come together as a single unified entity. They are no more than a bundle of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and sensations. Neuroscience has shown that Hume, along with a considerable number of other eminent philosophers, was right.

Alan Watts explains how the phenomenon of self occurs:

The notion of a separate thinker, of an ‘I’ distinct from the experience, comes from memory and from the rapidity with which thought changes. It is like whirling a burning stick to give the illusion of a continuous circle of fire. If you imagine that memory is a direct knowledge of the past rather than a present experience, you get the illusion of knowing the past and the present at the same time. This suggests that there is something in you distinct from both the past and the present experiences. You reason, ‘I know this present experience, and it is different from that past experience. If I can compare the two, and notice that experience has changed, I must be something constant and apart.’

Over time our sense of self hardens, but it is never more than image---self-image---in our mind. And the bottom line is this---‘I’ can’t change ‘me.’ You see, the ‘I’ that wants to stop smoking or drinking is the ‘me’ that wants to keep smoking or drinking. What’s more, all such ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ are in the past. They are all the result of past thinking and past conditioning. They can never result in the attainment of something in the now, let alone the future. When we work and rely upon only our ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s we will never, never succeed in our endeavours. As William Temple, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, said, ‘For the trouble is that we are self-centred, and no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour.’

The only program of self-improvement that has any chance at all of being successful is one where the person that each one of us is makes a decision to invoke the power of one’s own personhood. That power is not of self; it is a ‘power-not-oneself.’ Self can’t change self, for all our mental selves are in and of themselves not only powerless but also contradictory and in opposition to each other. Hence the need to rely upon a power-not-oneself---the power that comes from being a person among persons.

Now, what is a person? Well, the well-known English philosopher P F Strawson [pictured right] wrote much on the subject. Strawson articulated a concept of ‘person’ in respect of which both physical characteristics and states of consciousness can be ascribed to it. Each one of us is a person among persons---a mind-body complex. We are much, much more than those hundreds of little, false selves---all those waxing and waning ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’---with which we tend to identify, in the mistaken belief that they constitute the ‘real me,’ that is, the person each one of us is. Only the latter is ontologically real. Personal freedom and real personal transformation come when we get real, that is, when we start to think, act and live from our personhood as a person among persons. We need to get our mind off our ‘selves’ and rise above them if we are to get real. And remember this---there is no human problem that is not common to other persons among persons.

Now, here are the steps involved. You begin by making up your mind and make a decision to do X [X being whatever positive thing you wish to see actualized in your life]. Great power arises from the making of a decision. Then nail that decision up in your mind and don’t look back. A big part of not looking back means that when any thought, feeling, perception or sensation arises that is to the contrary of the doing of X, you proceed to reaffirm and thus strengthen your original decision and resolve to do X by performing some action---the important word is action---that is not only consistent with the doing of X, it will actually help to bring about X. In the words of the American essayist and minister Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Do the thing and you will have the power.’ The power is in the doing---the power of the person that you are. It’s the ‘act as if’ principle taught by the great American philosopher and psychologist William James. He said, ‘If you want a quality [of personhood], act as if you already had it’ [emphasis added]. Now, who must act? You, the person that you are, must act.

For example, if your decision is to give up smoking, and a thought arises that a cigarette would be nice right now, you immediately do something that is consistent with being a non-smoker. For example, you go somewhere, or mix with someone, where smoking is simply out of the question. Forget all about so-called will-power, for there is no such thing. The ‘will’ is simply your ability to make a decision; it has no power in and of itself. We will always do whatever is our strongest want. It’s want-power---fortified with enthusiasm---and not will-power that we need. Another problem with so-called will-power is this---it is simply the imposition of one illusory ‘self’ over another. It’s the old problem all over.

One more thing, motivation is essential for successful personal transformation. Motivation is motive plus action, the latter being the doing of all that is necessary for X to actualize. What is your motive for doing X? (There may, of course, be more than one such motive.) Your motive must relate to you as a person. For example, if you want to give up smoking, your motive may be to be a healthier person or a wealthier person (as smoking is, among other things, damn expensive). Keep your motive upfront in your consciousness. Your motive is your want-power. For all intents and purposes they are one and the same.

So, remember this. Self can’t change self, but the person each one of us is can indeed change---and change for the better---if we want, that is, really want, change more than anything else and are prepared to go to any length to get it.

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HOW 2014 BECAME THE YEAR OF MINDFULNESS

If, as they say, mindfulness is sexy then it’s the only sex I appear to be getting these days. Just kidding---or am I?

Now, keeping myself fully erect (oh dear), the purpose of this ever-so-brief post is to bring to your attention the fact that late last year The New Republic had a most informative article on mindfulness. It’s well worth a read.

MINDFULNESS AND THE OVERCOMING OF UNPLEASANT SENSATIONS

‘Unpleasant sensation is the greatest obstacle on the road of vipassanā [insight meditation or mindfulness]. Only when the meditator is able to overcome that obstacle can he forge forward to attain the rewards beyond unpleasant sensation.’

Those words come from what I consider to be one of the best books ever written on the subject of insight meditation (vipassanā)---The Yogi & Vipassana (Buddhist Meditation: The Sunlun Way). The author of the book, Sunlun Shin Vinaya, [pictured left], was for many years the presiding abbot of Kaba-Aye Sunlun Monastery, Yangon (Rangoon), in Myanmar (Burma). 

Most people have sought to meditate in one form or another at some point in their lives. For example, you may have sought to relax your body or your mind, but rest assured that is a form of meditation. Now, we all know what happens sooner or later. Yes, we experience some unpleasant sensation in either our body or our mind. And you know what we almost invariably do next. We resist the sensation. We fight against it. We try to expel the sensation. The result? Yes, we only drive the unpleasant sensation deeper into our consciousness.

In his book The Yogi & Vipassan Sunlun Shin Vinaya gives us some very good information and advice on the subject of unpleasant sensations:

And it is possible to overcome unpleasant sensation. Since unpleasant sensation too is subject to the law of impermanence it must come to an end some time. This end can occur in various ways. Its intensity can subside; but this would not be a true ending. Some measure of unpleasant sensation would remain. The real overcoming of unpleasant sensation takes place when the meditator dwells in the sensation watching the sensation without thinking any thought connected with the sensation, and it is consumed, it ends, it snaps, it is shed, or extinguished. It is said to be consumed when it gradually subsides till there is no remainder. It ends when the meditator follows it till there is no more of it like a road followed to the end, like a length of string felt along the whole length till not more is felt. It snaps when it breaks off suddenly as when a taut rope is snapped. It is light which has used up its oil and wick.

It sounds almost counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? We are told to dwell in the sensation, that is, to watch the sensation ‘without thinking any thought connected with the sensation’, until the sensation is consumed. In time the sensation will ‘end’ and ‘snap.’ Yes, it will be ‘shed’ or ‘extinguished.’  Yes, if we stay with--but not cling to, identify with, or own--the unpleasant sensation, and watch it choicelessly (that is, non-judgmentally, simply observing the sensation in and as the sensation ['Sensation exists']), the sensation will gradually subside. It will lose its power, intensity, grip and command in your consciousness. Such is the power of non-resistance. Such is the power of choiceless awareness and bare attention. And such is the nature of reality, for that which arises will in time cease. The 'secret' here is not to experience in depth the actual arising, duration or ceasing of the sensation but merely to ride with it. There is a world of difference between the two.

Why not put this into practice the next time you experience some unpleasant sensation, unpleasant thought, or unpleasant feeling?

A NEW YEAR OF TIMELESS RENEWAL---THROUGH THE PORTHOLE

I call it the ‘porthole experience’ or ‘porthole effect.’

Have you ever been in a cabin on a ship and looked through one of those traditionally circular portholes on the hull of the ship? At any moment in time you see in and through the porthole just a small fragment---and a moving one at that---of reality. Not only that, but what you see at any particular moment in time very quickly disappears from view, and becomes the past, only to be replaced by a new and different fragment of reality. And on it goes.

The porthole experience or effect illustrates that life is constant flux and constant movement. In that regard, it was the American spiritual psychologist Vernon Howard who said, ‘Real life is a timeless renewal in the present moment.’ That’s a great description of the porthole experience. In addition, the porthole experience illustrates that we experience life fragmentally, that is, in and through successive ‘portholes,’ metaphorically speaking.

Here’s a truth. So-called ‘time’ and ‘space,’ which are really one (‘space-time,’ they call it), are all so very relative. They are no more than mediums---more correctly, a single medium---in which all things exist and have their being, and are not 'things' in themselves. Life, however, is ceaseless movement and is essentially timeless and spaceless. Life is whatever happens at any point in time in the medium of spacetime. Here’s another truth. Everything---and I do mean every thing---is contained within ‘the now.’ All duration or time is total and complete in the now. There is an ‘eternal’ quality about the now. It is forever new. And what of the so-called present, past, and future? Are they separate and distinct? Not really. Let me explain.

The so-called present moment has its unfolding in and as the now. The so-called past, in the form of memories, inherited characteristics and tendencies, the so-called karmic consequences of past actions---all that is no more than the expression of a present reality, being a present ‘window link’ to the eternity of the now. It’s the same as respects the so-called future---that is, any ideas about or hopes for the future are present ideas and hopes. 

The omnipresent and ever-present present---what we call the present moment or the now---is simply that which presents itself before us, in and through successive ‘porthole’ experiences, as the now---the Eternal Now, to use a popular expression. So, the present embraces past, present and future. The Christian theologian Paul Tillich says as much in his book The Eternal Now. Tillich writes, 'The mystery of the future and the mystery of the past are united in the mystery of the present. Our time, the time we have, is the time in which we have "presence."' 

The now is the only moment we truly have. The now is the portal---the porthole, if you like---through which we experience the present moment, indeed every moment … but only one moment at a time. Each and every new moment of the day---every day---is a ‘new year,’ so to speak, and it’s a porthole through which we experience the ceaseless flow of life … moment by moment. One porthole experience after the other … then another … and so on. The ‘secret’ of life is to focus your undivided attention and awareness on only the content of the particular porthole. All too often we strain to look back on what was just a moment or so ago the content of our porthole, or we strain to look forward to what is yet to come into view in our porthole. That is not the way to live mindfully. It is living … yes, mindlessly. Life---the experience of the moment---dies on us if we look back or look forward.

To live mindfully means to constantly ‘die’ and ‘rise again’ into newness of life … one porthole experience after another. Most of us tend to drift through life mindlessly, but it need not be like that. We need to be alive to each new ‘porthole’ experience of the present moment.

Happy New Year, everyone!

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MINDFULNESS---THIS IS THE REFRESHING!

MAY WE ALL WAKE UP THIS CHRISTMAS

Once again, Christmas is almost upon us. (Egad, I hear some of you say.) But what are we to make of the story of the birth of the Christ child?

As I’ve tried to say elsewhere, the Nativity Story is so much more than a supposedly literal (ugh) account of the birth of Jesus. The story is a myth in the truest and most sublime sense of that word. It speaks of the reality of a spiritual event that we all can experience, Christian and non-Christian alike.

What event? Well, it’s this---the birth of the Christ child within our ‘hearts’ (that is, minds). You see, we all need to wake up, surrender, and be born anew. The message of the Buddha, in two English words, is this---wake up. The message of the prophet Muhammad, in one English word, is this---surrender. The message of Jesus, in five English words, is this---you must be born anew. The message of Humanism is that we can and must give shape and meaning to our own lives. As I see it, it’s all essentially the same thing. We must change in a very radical way, and the change referred to must go beyond what is ordinarily understood as self-improvement. Yes, each one of us must undergo a Copernican revolution---a deep, inner psychological revolution, transformation, and mutation---in the way we think, act, and live. We must surrender, let go, and die to self, indeed die to the very idea that there is a separate, independent, permanent self at the core of our being, in order that a new sense of being---metaphorically and symbolically, a new-born baby, at least at first---may be born in our psyche.

Now, most of what I’ve said above is rank heresy to fundamentalist and evangelical Christians. That does not worry me at all. Indeed, I draw great comfort and pleasure from the fact. You see, I am proud to be a heretic. A heretic is one who chooses, and who chooses to think differently and be different. We need more heretics in the world---more people who are prepared to think and live differently. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that only a heretic can change our damaged, troubled and threatened world. And only a heretic, who is prepared to surrender and throw out of the window all their past thinking and conditioning on matters religious and non-religious, can wake up and change the world for the better.

And despite what some would have you believe---the conventional Christians mentioned above---only you can wake up and be born anew. No one---not Jesus, not Buddha, not Muhammad, nor anyone else for that matter---can wake you up or otherwise effect this new birth to which I have referred.

May we all wake up this Christmas. It is said that Christmas is a time of giving and thinking of others. That’s a damn good way of surrendering and giving up our illusory sense of self as well as all our tired, worn-out beliefs and conditioning. Yes, it's a damn good way of---waking up!

Happy Christmas!

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ALL THINGS ARE NOT ONE

We often read or are told that all life and all things, including all people, are one. It’s a nice, comforting, New-Agey idea … but it’s not true. Not at all.

Now, look. Nothing in this world is simple. Whatever exists in this universe is complex and has internal differentiation, involving numerous differences and relations. Each thing is ‘a multum in parvo plurally related,’ to borrow a phrase from William James [pictured left]. ‘Things are with one another in many ways,’ wrote James, ‘but nothing includes everything, or dominates over everything.’ 

Not only that, whatever exists does, however, do so in situations. Those situations are themselves complex and are also in complex relationship to other complex situations, and all these complex situations exist in the one space-time, belong to the one order of being, and exist under certain invariably complex conditions. For example, a table consists of wood, nails, glue, etc, not to mention the carpenter with his tools who ‘made’ the table. The table sits on the floor of the room. The floor is supported by the foundations of the building, and so on. Yes, whatever exists does so in situations which are in complex relationship to other situations.

In realist philosophy this state of affairs is known as ‘situationality.’ Yes, everything that exists has some relation with some other thing that exists, but it is not true to say that everything is related to everything else nor is everything one in some overall monistic sense, and nothing in quantum physics proves otherwise. Co-existing situations often comprise or constitute a system, and some systems are very much connected to other such situations. However, while some situations have connections with other systems, not all systems are connected to all other systems. We know all this to be the case.

Traditional Buddhism, for the most part, is empirical and realist in its overall thrust and content (even though you will find in many places a considerable amount of superadded superstitious nonsense). A cardinal, perhaps the core, teaching of Buddhism---arguably the only thing that holds all Buddhist teachings together---is this: all phenomena are arising together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect. This is known as the teaching or principle of interdependent relations. 

Perhaps even more importantly, this teaching more accurately states that things arise dependent on conditions and cease when those same conditions cease. Buddhism sees causation as a complex phenomenon going far beyond mere constant conjunction in the nature of some ‘regularity’ theory. The emphasis is on causal connections, or the relationship, between two events that are separated in space-time. (Note. At the sub-atomic level phenomena such as quantum entanglement show that connections can at times survive even physical separation, but it remains the fact that those connections exist under certain conditions even if we don’t fully understand the nature, extent and scope of those conditions.)

Causation is never a simple thing. Invariably, multiple factors are necessary to produce any given effect. In light of this complexity and plurality, it is never as simple as selecting one such factor from a set of jointly and severally sufficient conditions and taking that factor to be the cause of the particular effect, for we are dealing with a complex system whose parts, as previously mentioned, are at least to some extent interdependent.

Buddhism goes further and seeks to distinguish causes and conditions In that regard, the English word ‘conditionality’ encapsulates essence of the Buddha’s teaching of (in Pāli) paţicca-samuppāda (in Sanskrit, pratītya-samutpāda), or ‘dependent arising’. Now, conditionality and causality are not the exact same thing. Conditionality is a much broader concept of causality. When we speak of the ‘cause’ of some event we are referring to something that is directly and immediately responsible for the occurrence of the event, whereas the word ‘condition’ is wide enough to embrace supporting and contributing factors as well. Buddha Shakyamuni is reported to have said on many occasions, ‘This being, that becomes.’ In other words, the most general quality or a thing is that it is the condition for another. More fully, the Buddha would say:

This being, that becomes; from the arising of this, that arises;

This not being, that does not become; from the ceasing of this, that ceases.

This conditionality---that is, all things are ‘conditioned things’---was said by the Buddha to be universal, underlying all of reality, irrespective and quite independently of anyone noticing it.

Now, there is a sense in which all life is one. I am not advocating monism or pantheism. When I say that life is one, I am trying to say a couple of things. First, a single logic applies to all things and how they are related. Secondly, all things exist in the same order or level of reality, and on the same ‘plane’ of observability. If these two things were not the case, it would be impossible for us to be attentive to, and otherwise aware of, what happens from one moment to the next, let alone speak meaningfully about things. Just think about that for a few seconds, and it should be obvious to you that such is indeed the case.

Call it the ‘interconnectedness of all life’ or, if you like, ‘InterBeing.’ The latter wonderful term comes from the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh [pictured right]. I love that word ‘InterBeing.’

The bottom line is this. Although all things are not one, there nevertheless is only one life manifesting itself in all things and as all things. And if that be the case, we owe each other certain ethical duties. Those ethical duties (for example, the golden rule) do not depend for their existence on any religion---not even Buddhism, for which I have the greatest respect. They flow naturally and inevitably from the very nature of existence itself.

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THERE WAS NO FIRST CAUSE---AND NO NEED FOR ONE

InterBeing