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Mindfulness on BBC Breakfast

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“Today we talked to Dr Danny Penman, author of “Mindfulness – A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World,” and our culture correspondent, David Sillito who has been finding out if mind over matter really can help improve pain and depression…”

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HBO’s ‘Enlightened’ take on modern meditation

NPR: Can people really change? That’s the question Laura Dern and Mike White ask in their new HBO series, Enlightened, which premieres Monday night. The show features Dern as Amy Jellicoe, an ambitious executive who has a nervous breakdown at her workplace. She goes to a rehabilitation center in Hawaii, where she experiences an awakening.

When Amy returns home, she wants to put her new philosophy into practice — meditating, communicating better with her mother (Diane Ladd), and fostering a healthier relationship with her ex-husband (Luke Wilson). But she finds her lessons of enlightenment being put to the test.

Show creator Mike White…

Click to read more »

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Meditative channel added to TV choices at Illinois medical center

Patients watching television in their rooms at Springfield, Illinois, Memorial Medical Center now can turn on a channel that features instrumental music and soothing nature scenes.

The CARE Channel was added to the hospital’s TV lineup a few months ago, Memorial spokesman Michael Leathers said.

CARE, which stands for “Continuous Ambient Relaxation Environment,” is provided through a 19-year-old company in Reno, Nev., called Healing Healthcare Systems.

A news release from Memorial said the channel is designed “to enhance and promote healing.”

Susan Mazer, chief executive officer of Healing Healthcare Systems, said Wednesday the channel’s videos of waterfalls, mountain ranges, wildlife and flowers are not repetitive and have original music playing in the background.

“It’s kind of like walking in a garden,” she said.

The channel’s programming changes by the time of the day. It includes sunrise and sunset scenes during the day and starry skies at night, Mazer said.

More than 600 hospitals nationwide pay for the CARE Channel, which Mazer said has unique content designed to promote rest and sleep. Scenes on the channel focus on nature. They contain no people or “artifacts” of civilization such as telephone poles, fences or buildings, she said.

In downstate Illinois, the CARE Channel is offered at Taylorville Memorial Hospital, Passavant Area Hospital in Jacksonville, Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, and Methodist Medical Center in Peoria. The channel is scheduled to be switched on in April at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Lincoln.

St. John’s Hospital in Springfield doesn’t offer the channel, but St. John’s spokeswoman Erica Smith said the hospital does have “meditation” recordings on CDs and cassettes that patients can play in their rooms.

A sample of the CARE Channel is available at www.healinghealth.com.

Memorial officials didn’t say how much the hospital pays for the 24-hour service, but Mazer said: “The cost is truly reasonable. It’s pennies per bed per day.”

Dean Olsen can be reached at 788-1543.

[via BeHealthySpringfield.com]
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Groupon Superbowl ad trivializes the suffering of the Tibetan people

Groupon, an outfit that offers discount coupons online, ran what it no doubt thought was a witty little ad during the Superbowl (apparently some kind of US sporting event in which massive numbers of people celebrate physical excellence by sitting in front of TV sets for hours, consuming large quantities of calories washed down by alcoholic beverages).

The ad begins with what appears to be a serious tone, with the actor Timothy Hutton saying: “The people of Tibet are in trouble, their very culture in jeopardy.” This is of course, true. Since the Chinese occupation began, Tibetan culture and religion has been oppressed. Many Tibetans have fled the country in order to escape persecution. Monasteries have been dynamited. Buddhist scriptures have been destroyed. Ethnic Han Chinese have flooded into Tibet, outnumbering the native population and overwhelming the culture. Most seriously of all, many Tibetans have been imprisoned and tortured for trying to practice their Buddhist religion.

But then Hutton switches to a more “jovial” tone, noting that Tibetans are still able to “whip up a great fish curry”, and that “since 200 of us bought at Groupon.com, we’re each getting $30 worth of Tibetan food for just $15.”

Never mind that “fish curry” is not a Tibetan dish, the switch in tone inevitably conveys the message, “Who cares about all that suffering! Save money with Groupon!” It’s an appallingly cynical use of the suffering of the Tibetan people. Groupon appears to be saying “Tibet doesn’t matter. Their suffering is a joke.” The company’s defense of their ad actually just reinforces that impression. Groupon’s founder, Andrew Mason, is quoted in the UK’s Telegraph as saying:

So what if we did a parody of a celebrity-narrated, PSA-style commercial that you think is about some noble cause … but then it’s revealed to actually be a passionate call to action to help yourself?”

To me there’s something nauseating about “a passionate call to action to help yourself.” As if we’re not already saturated with those. Mason seems to take his job rather too seriously, apparently thinking that saving money is the highest value — higher than compassion or any of that boring stuff. It sounds like he needs to get out more, and perhaps to get in touch with more fully human values outside the grubby marketplace.

The “so what” is that the ad trivializes suffering. In fact it invites people to actively disregard others’ suffering. The ad itself presents the suffering of the Tibetan people as a joke — something less important than “helping yourself” by saving money at a restaurant. Had the ad been focused on the problems of some fictitious ethnic group, Groupon might have got away with this emotional bait and switch game, and it might even have been genuinely funny. But trying to turn the suffering — including rape, torture, and cultural genocide — of real people into the “straight-man” lead-in to a joke about saving money is just crass and insensitive.

Update: Yes, Groupon raises money for Tibet. Although apparently not very effectively, and this ad was not even indirectly a pitch to help Tibet.

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Awareness in our technological world

monk with laptopTechnology brings a world of spiritual knowledge to our fingertips. But immersing ourselves in a world of gadgets may also distance us from more authentic connections with teachers, family, and friends. Guest blogger Justin Whitaker takes a look at the double-edged sword of our hyper-connected world.

Since you are reading this, presumably on a computer or other high-tech device, you owe a thing or two to technology. Nearly all of us in the Western world and a fast-growing number in the East live in a world molded and directed by technology. We have lived amidst changes that could scarcely be imagined just fifty years ago. We wake up, push a button or two for coffee, assemble our morning meal from plastic containers in the refrigerator, and flip open the laptop to start our day. Whether we are aware of it or not – and our goal is to be aware – technology shapes our life. Thus in practice, we need to recognize not only how we individually use or do not use technology, but also how technology affects whole communities and future generations.

 Today we face countless distractions, a ‘hedonic treadmill’ of chasing the next newest thing, and a virtual black hole for time spent waiting for computers to boot up, web pages to load, etc  

What exactly is technology? It is any human creation that has been put out into the world, thus affecting our lives, from the ancient technologies of iron tools and grain bins to the cutting edge world of nano-gadgets and skyscrapers. On the one hand all of this has allowed humanity to grow and flourish as it has. Today we enjoy extraordinary efficiency, easy travel, and abundant leisure. On the other hand we face countless distractions, a “hedonic treadmill” of chasing the next newest thing, and a virtual black hole for time spent waiting for computers to boot up, web pages to load or files to download, and so on.

Modern technology has brought countless pages of ancient texts to our computer screen and untold hours of audio and video to download to our iPods and MP3 players. It might seem that there is no need to leave one’s home to find great teachings, and, when one does have to venture out, one can have those teachings pumped into their ears the whole time. Not only do we not need to find a teacher or a community of practice, but we don’t have to sit down to read texts or set aside time devoted solely to hearing great teachings. This is great, right?

Not so fast. How do we grow in awareness at the grocery store when we’re trying to pick out the best apples, remember the three other things we need, and listen to a discourse on the Four Noble Truths at the same time? When we’re in the grocery store, shouldn’t we just be in the grocery store. Shouldn’t our full awareness be with the sights and sounds around us? When we’re driving, hiking, etc, shouldn’t we just be in that activity?

Many observers our culture describe a rise in narcissism, a decline in attention span, the disappearance of traditions, and even a loss of basic civility, all at the hands of our modern conveniences. Many people are losing touch with friends and loved ones in real life and substituting them with virtual networks and television. One study recently showed that the relationship centers of peoples brains, those that become active when we enjoy time with friends and family, were also stimulated when regular TV watchers put on their favorite sitcom. With a touch of irony, the sitcom used in the study was “Friends.” What is going on?

 I can only guess what the Buddha would say if he wandered into my cluttered house today, let alone if he used his ‘higher knowledges’ to wander into my equally cluttered mind.  

It is said that Socrates lamented the advent of the book, the cutting edge technology in his day. To him it signaled a shift from wisdom, which was a virtue that could only be embodied in a person, to knowledge: facts about the world that could be recorded and studied in books. He worried that people would stop deeply learning things and instead rely on external hard drives, as it were. At that time, roughly the same time that the Buddha was teaching in India, one had to go find a teacher with whom to study. This was often difficult, but it forged the virtues of resolution and dedication. Years and often lifetimes were spent under a single teacher perfecting one’s understanding and practice, the key ingredients for wisdom.

Simplicity, too, was a virtue of years gone by. The Buddha often scorned household life as stifled and filled with impurity and praised the monastic life for its peace, quiet, and lack of possessions. I can only guess what the Buddha would say if he wandered into my cluttered house today, let alone if he used his “higher knowledges” to wander into my equally cluttered mind. The simple pace and simple activities of the past, albeit usually much more physically demanding than today, have all but disappeared.

It is too simplistic to see technology as simply a tool, one that we can use skillfully or unskillfully, or not use it at all. The technology of the last fifty years has radically changed the way that most of us interact with the world. We need to become aware of the broader societal impacts of technology itself. As material wealth has grown, levels of life-satisfaction have not. What is missing? Or, rather, what have we lost?

With our mind on these questions it is helpful to study the lives of men and women of the past. They have accomplished our goal of happiness or awakening without the aid of computers, cell phones, and even basic conveniences like books and MP3 players. There’s little chance for many of us actually living as they did, but we can wonder what it might be like to go without our favorite gadget now and then, to consciously cultivate more face-to-face time with people as well as more simplicity and silence when we are alone.

These little things help form the very foundation for our practice. They have been taken for granted for so much of human history and have clearly been eroded in recent years. But, with awareness and determination, it is well within our power to bring them back to the center of our lives.

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The Dollhouse and the Dharma

Eliza Dushku, DollhouseSo far there’s only been one episode of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, so perhaps it’s a bit early to be talking about overarching themes, leitmotifs, or its deeper meaning, but this is a show I’ve been long anticipating and so my mind was primed right for the start to resonate with any thematic elements to do with identity and selfhood – for that (I confidently announce, based on one episode and a trailer) is what Dollhouse is about.

But first to step back a little. Joss Whedon, the show’s creator, is most famous as the creative force behind (in chronological order) the seven seasons of the hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the somewhat less well-known five seasons of Angel, the science fiction cult classic Firefly (which didn’t quite complete one season), and the three-episode web-based mini-series, Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Do you sense a pattern in those descriptions?

Whedon, although superbly creative, has not been faring well. His material has gotten no less brilliant over the years, and in fact I’d argue that Firefly is one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen, but in terms of popular exposure, he’s not been doing well. Is Dollhouse his last chance to show he’s a fit for prime-time television? Or has prime-time television been showing that it’s incapable of recognizing real talent? Either way, Whedon and Whedonites are surely hoping that Dollhouse will be a hit.

So was it? To be honest, the first show did not quite ever sizzle. The acting seemed a little off, the script was not electrifying, and the first show had a lot to do, introducing the main characters, the show’s premise, and a single-episode storyline, all inside 50 minutes. That was a lot to pull off in a show that you might have expected to start with a two-episode pilot that would allow the director to do all three of these things thoroughly. But at least the program showed promise, and that’s enough to get me, at least, to tune in next week.

But this isn’t exactly meant to be a television review, so let’s get onto the show’s theme and how it relates to Buddhist practice…

The premise of Dollhouse is that a private organization is hiring people out as programmed tools to meet the needs of its clients. The show starts with the show’s star, Eliza Dushku, in an interview of sorts. It’s pointed out to her that “actions have consequences” — a very familiar teaching in the Buddhist world, where that phrase stands in as a modern restatement of karma. Dushku seems pressured into taking on some kind of role, but as yet we don’t know what that is, nor do we know what she’s escaping.

Dushku plays “Echo,” who is one of the reprogrammable agents hired out by the Dollhouse to do whatever the clients want. Echo can have her brain rewired to be — so far — the perfect girlfriend for a wild weekend of fun, or an “experienced” hostage negotiator. In principle she can be anything or anyone. This isn’t just the downloading of skills and knowledge that you see in the movie, The Matrix, but the imprinting of the personality culled from a real person, or even from a collection of people, complete with personal memories going back to babyhood (at one point we see Echo having an imprint removed, and we see her thoughts rewind to the point where a mother is bending over a crib).

If the owner of the personality imprinted on her brain had asthma, then Echo will have asthma, bringing up the fascinating question of the relationship between the mind and the body, and the powerful effect that beliefs can have on our physiological responses. If the “original” was abused as a child, Echo will have the memories and feelings associated with those events. These were elements that proved to be crucial to the plot of the first episode.

When Echo is in character she seems to have some awareness of her programmed role; she talks about getting her “treatment,” which is what the programming process is called. It’s unclear exactly what her understanding is of what a “treatment” consists of, but it seems that in her programmed state she has no awareness whatsoever that she has another life between “engagements.” In fact, between assignments she drifts around the Dollhouse in a childlike state of innocence, blankly serene, naive, and being talked to as if she were a rather slow child. Her normal personality — which we discover at the end of the show through a home movie to have been bright, intelligent, and irreverent — has been erased.

I suspect however that not all of Echo’s original personality have been removed. This is a show, I believe, about Echo attempting to find what is real inside her. After a fake date near the start of the date she remarks “It’s not often you find something real.” In her Dollhouse life, of course, she never finds anything real — at least not about herself.

However it may be a trace of her “real” former curious self that leads her to wander around in parts of the Dollhouse where she’s not supposed to be, and that leads her to witness another girl getting her first “treatment.” An image of this flashes back into her mind while she’s in character, bridging the gap between her programmed “engagement” personality and her wiped “Dollhouse” personality, or non-personality.

There are no signs yet of her original self, but at least we’ve seen that the Dollhouse’s programmer cannot create an absolute firewall between the different facets of her life. I predict that in future episodes we’ll see more memories or “echoing” across the boundaries of her various lives, including memories from her original life.

Echo, I expect, will be engaged in a search for her “original self.” In Zen Buddhism of course there is the idea of the “original face.” This phrase comes from the koan, or existential question that is inaccessible to rational understanding, “What did your face look like before your parents were born?” The “original face” is our essential nature, which is emptiness. This rather puzzling concept points beyond the self-definitions we have that are based on an attachment to impermanent factors such as thoughts, feelings, memories, and cultural conditioning.

We all have an idea of who were are that is based on these things. And yet our feelings, thoughts, and even our memories change. So our sense of having a self that is in some way continuous and stable is delusive. Like Echo, we believe ourselves to “be” the personality we currently have. If we tend to be rather serious, we think that’s who we are, as if we could never be anything different. A bad-tempered person might say, “That’s just the kind of person I am.” We get attached to particular configurations of mental states and we identify with them. We think that they constitute, in some absolute sense, what our identity is. But when we observe the mind in meditation we discover that every aspect of ourselves arises, exists for a while, and then vanishes.

We also discover through practice that even powerful personality traits can vanish. I have a friend who became interested in Buddhism in the following way: He had an employee who was very prickly and hard to work with. And over a period of just a few weeks she became much mellower and relaxed, and a pleasure to be around. He was curious about this and asked what had happened to her. “Meditation,” someone told him. “What kind of medication?” he asked. “No, meditation.” A major aspect of a person’s personality had just changed. She was in some sense a different person.

Through introspection and the mental “treatment” that meditation, mindfulness, and ethical practice can bring about, we can reprogram our personality — not in quite the same way as happens with Echo, but in a way that can make a real difference in our lives.

Through meditation (and in other ways as well) we can become more aware that we in fact don’t have a “personality” at all, but that we have a variety of “sub-personalities” that are in often conflict with each other.

Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale University and the author of Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human argues that the self is not a single entity but a multiplicity:

Many researchers now believe, to varying degrees, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another. This theory might explain certain puzzles of everyday life, such as why addictions and compulsions are so hard to shake off, and why we insist on spending so much of our lives in worlds­—like TV shows and novels and virtual-reality experiences—that don’t actually exist.

It’s as if within us there are various characters who can take the helm of the self and steer us in different directions, depending on which one is in control. The sub-personality that thinks at night that we’ll get up early in the morning to go out running is not the same sub-personality, often, that we wake up with. And we can seamlessly switch from one sub-personality to another, with no awareness that this is taking place. We do this, often, by rationalizing. The self that wants to lose weight gets shoved aside by the self that likes eating pizza, and the pizza-loving sub-personality tells us that we’ll do some extra exercise tomorrow. Usually that’s enough to stop us noticing that our priorities have shifted 180 degrees.

I’ve written about this before, and suggested that ethics can help us develop more of a unitary self:

For example the five or ten precepts … provide an “objective” reference point to turn to when competing selves may drive us to act in a way that’s against our long-term happiness. When we find ourselves about to blurt out something hurtful, say, we can note that this goes against our ethical code, pause, and find a more skillful way to express ourselves — one that takes into account other needs, such as the need to be in harmony with others. We end up with more of our needs met when we act this way — both the need to express our reservations about something and the need to have harmonious relationships.

I also pointed out that both samatha (calm abiding) and vipassana (insight) meditation lessen the tensions between sub-personalities:

Over time the “distractions” — the other selves — simply manifest in awareness less and less. We become more concentrated and happy. The meditating self becomes more complete and sufficient, able to take care of the underlying needs of the multiple selves for prolonged periods of time without needing to suppress those selves. This is what we call samatha or “calm abiding” meditation.

In vipassana meditation — which is complementary to, rather than opposed to samatha meditation — we observe different “selves” arising and passing away, in the form of stray thoughts, fantasies, and emotions. We can develop equanimity as we watch these arise and pass, and realize that none of them is ultimately “us.” If they’re just passing through “us” — as clouds pass through a clear sky — how can they be part of “us”? Which leaves the question of what, ultimately, we are.

And that brings us back to the notion of the original face, or what we are once we realize that we are not in any ultimate sense the impermanent and insubstantial currents of sensation, thought, and emotion that pass through us. In attaching to impermanent and aspects of ourselves and believing them to be permanent and substantial, we are fundamentally failing to understand who we are. To see who we really are we have to look for our “original face.” The “us” that these things pass through is, perhaps, our “original face” — the true self.

To recognize our true face is to become spiritually Awakened. When this happens we no longer identify with the contents of the mind, but instead we recognize that we are the space in which experiences arise. We can therefore experience joy, suffering — any experience, really — and remain in a state of peace.

Perhaps, rather than (or as well as), Echo discovering that she was born in such-and-such a place, had such-and-such a name, had experiences a, b, and c, and options x, y, and z, she will come to the realization that these things don’t define her anyway. Perhaps she’ll find her original “self” and realize that it’s in some sense no more hers than any of the roles she played. Perhaps she’ll see beyond the flow of impermanent sensations, thoughts, feelings, and memories, and perhaps she’ll see that she’s essentially undefinable. Perhaps by the end of the show she’ll have seen her original face. I’d like to think so.

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