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Mindfulness Meditation
By Jon Kabat-Zinn
Director, Stress Management
Clinic
University of Massachusetts
Medical Center
 When
most people hear the word
meditation, they often think of
transcendental meditation or
similar practices used to evoke
the relaxation response. In
these approaches you focus
attention on one thing, usually
the sensation of breath leaving
and entering your body or a
mantra (a special sound or
phrase you repeat silently to
yourself). Anything else that
comes into your mind during
meditation is seen as a
distraction to be disregarded.
These practices can give rise to
very deep states of calmness and
stability of attention. They are
known as the concentration, or
"one-pointed," type of
meditation — what Buddhists call
shamatha or samadhi practices.
Mindfulness is the other major
clhassification of meditation
practices, known as vipassana,
or insight meditation. In the
practice of mindfulness, you
begin by utilizing one-pointed
attention to cultivate calmness
and stability, but then you move
beyond that by introducing a
wider scope to the observing, as
well as an element of inquiry.
When thoughts or feelings come
up in your mind, you don't
ignore them or suppress them,
nor do you analyze or judge
their content. Rather, you
simply note any thoughts as they
occur as best you can and
observe them intentionally but
nonjudgmentally, moment by
moment, as the events in the
field of your awareness.
Paradoxically, this inclusive
noting of thoughts that come and
go in your mind can lead you to
feel less caught up in them and
give you a deeper perspective on
your reaction to everyday stress
and pressures. By observing your
thoughts and emotions as if you
had taken a step back from them,
you can see much more clearly
what is actually on your mind.
You can see your thoughts arise
and recede one after another.
You can note the content of your
thoughts, the feelings
associated with them, and your
reactions to them. You might
become aware of agendas,
attachments, likes and dislikes,
and inaccuracies in your ideas.
You can gain insight into what
drives you, how you see the
world, who you think you are —
insight into your fears and
aspirations.
The key to mindfulness is not so
much what you choose to focus on
but the quality of the awareness
that you bring to each moment.
It is very important that it be
nonjudgmental — more of a silent
witnessing, a dispassionate
observing, than a running
commentary on your inner
experience. Observing without
judging, moment by moment, helps
you see what is on your mind
without editing or censoring it,
without intellectualizing it or
getting lost in your own
incessant thinking.
It is this investigative,
discerning observation of
whatever comes up in the present
moment that is the hallmark of
mindfulness and differentiates
it most from other forms of
meditation. The goal of
mindfulness is for you to be
more aware, more in touch with
life and with whatever is
happening in your own body and
mind at the time it is happening
— that is, in the present
moment. If you are experiencing
a distressing thought or feeling
or actual physical pain in any
moment, you resist the impulse
to try to escape the
unpleasantness; instead, you
attempt to see it clearly as it
is and accept it because it is
already present in this moment.
Acceptance, of course, does not
mean passivity or resignation.
On the contrary, by fully
accepting what each moment
offers, you open yourself to
experiencing life much more
completely and make it more
likely that you will be able to
respond effectively to any
situation that presents itself.
Acceptance offers a way to
navigate life's ups and downs —
what Zorba the Greek called "the
full catastrophe" — with grace,
a sense of humor, and perhaps
some understanding of the big
picture, what I like to think of
as wisdom.
One way to envision how
mindfulness works is to think of
the mind as the surface of a
lake or ocean. There are always
waves, sometimes big, sometimes
small. Many people think the
goal of meditation is to stop
the waves so that the water will
be flat, peaceful, and tranquil
— but that is not so. The true
spirit of mindfulness practice
is illustrated by a poster
someone once described to me of
a 70-ish yogi, Swami
Satchidananda, in full white
beard and flowing robes, atop a
surfboard and riding the waves
off a Hawaiian beach. The
caption read: "You can't stop
the waves, but you can learn to
surf."
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