The good news about MBSR training is that it is simple to understand. The knowledge that practicing present moment awareness reverses the stress cycle by counteracting the disconnect coping mechanism caused by the fight or flight experience makes sense and is easy to grasp quickly. The other news is that practicing mindfulness meditation and mindfulness in everyday life takes a fair level of commitment and determination.

Our culture is a high adrenaline, multi tasking experience. From an early age we are bombarded with stimuli that tear down our ability to focus and be in the present moment. The resulting strain on our healthcare system attests to the inherent problems of living life in the fast lane. Yet to go against the “norm” in our culture is to create other problems where we feel like we don’t belong and a sense of alienation creeps into our lives. To slow down and focus on the present moment is like swimming against the current and creates its own stress.

So, we have to ask ourselves if it is worth the discipline of practicing MBSR training since it is likely to be a permanent requirement of our new lifestyle as long as we live in a culture like ours. Even if we don’t there are many reasons to practice mindfulness once a baseline norm is reached and peak performance mode appears as a permanent possibility. An important realization is that mindfulness gets easier the more you practice. After awhile it simply becomes the way you are and practice becomes easy and fun. Considering the rewards it seems obvious to me that the commitment is worth making. MBSR Scottsdale serves the needs of the MBSR Phoenix community and is available to all who are willing to make the commitment.

When I started my mindfulness meditation practice 45 years ago one of the first things I came into contact with was my sense of humor. I had lost touch of that sense through my tumultuous adolescent years and was happy to regain the perspective of humor. It all came home to roost one day when I was watching Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream starring Mickey Rooney as Puck. Mickey Rooney died last week so perhaps that is why my return to humor is in the forefront of my awareness. Puck’s famous line of “What fools these mortals be” struck a chord with me and began to crystallize the essence of my world view. I realized that although things seemed so serious on many levels that underneath it all is that sense of humor. I found myself experiencing events and thinking how ridiculous it all is. At the same time life is meant to be played out in earnest. Another Shakespeare quote came to be my mantra..”All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. It would be easy to let humor sink to the level of cynicism and we all see that unfolding daily in many kinds of humor. There is humor to suit every emotion and perspective and the comedians of the day give plenty of opportunity to experience it.

So how does my mindfulness practice influence my sense of humor. I realized a long time ago that a lot of humor comes from pain and suffering and many comics will be the first to admit that unhappy experiences drive their comedy. It’s like the Blues musicians always say..”you have to suffer to sing the Blues”. In many many cases that is true with comedy. If you look at the 7 stages of grief you will recognize the starting point for much of our comedy. At the core of pain, suffering, grief, depression, anxiety etc. is fear. During my adolescent years I experienced all of these emotions with fear being the most palpable. It was when I embraced my mindfulness practice that the fear gradually went away. For me fear took the form of fear of dying and when I dealt with that all the other “negative” emotions went away by themselves. It is when the fear left me that I was able to rediscover my sense of humor and sense of the ridiculous without descending into cynicism and all the related fear based emotions. Coming into the present moment allowed that sense of humor to flower and at the same time embrace the love, compassion, kindness and interconnectedness of our mortal foolishness.

Mindfulness and compassion have been historically linked for a long time. Wikipedia defines compassion as: “Compassion is the feeling of empathy for others. Compassion is the emotion that we feel in response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire to help.[1][2]Compassion is often regarded as having an emotional aspect to it, though when based on cerebral notions such as fairness, justice and interdependence, it may be considered rational in nature and its application understood as an activity based on sound judgment. There is also an aspect of compassion which regards a quantitative dimension, such that individual’s compassion is often given a property of “depth,” “vigour,” or “passion.” The etymology of “compassion” is Latin, meaning “co-suffering.” More involved than simple empathy, compassion commonly gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another’s suffering.

For fun, let’s take a look at the “chicken or egg” relationship between mindfulness and compassion. There are those who would say that mindfulness gives rise to compassion and those who would say the reverse. To make this discussion even more fun I will take the side of the egg as being first. There are many reasons for this but in an effort to keep this blog simple I will say that the shape of an egg is more primal and from a cosmological/mathematical/quantum standpoint would be easier to spring from the “nothingness of black space” than a chicken.

From here I will jump to my conclusion in order to stay true to simplicity. My experience has been that compassion can gradually lead to mindfulness, but that mindfulness always leads to compassion. The key ingredient is actually mentioned in the Wikipedia definition, “interdependence”. My experience with mindfulness has been that the deeper I go into the present moment, the more obvious it is that everything is interconnected and interdependent to the point of the realization of the feeling of oneness with all. It’s easy to see how the flow of everything is moving together. As that realization/feeling matures and unfolds it becomes natural to have compassion with/for everyone, everything and of course, oneself. Now that we have had our fun, we can freely admit that the answer to this question of what came first really doesn’t matter…..as the chicken and the egg discovered long ago!

Food/Eating has always been central to the human experience because of it’s obvious relationship to survival. Today, food/eating plays a much larger role and in fact has become not just a science but an art as well. In becoming such a focal point in our culture it gives us an opportunity to not only enjoy it in all it’s diversity but to suffer with it as well. Like all things in life, whether we enjoy or suffer through our experiences is highly influenced by our relationship to them.

Mindfulness directly address this root cause by allowing us to reconnect, come out of fight or flight and put the stress cycle and fear of survival behind us. At this point we are free to see food as it really is….something that nourishes us and sustains life. As we reconnect to our bodies and our dulled senses become enlivened, we are also in for the treat of being able to experience food/eating in a deeper more enjoyable way. If we pay attention mindfully to our food/eating our bodies will tell us what we need to know about about quantity, quality and how to enjoy.

In the practice of mindfulness the main theme is our relationship to the present moment via our connection to our bodies, minds, breath and emotions. Because stress plays such a large role in our lives, and since stress is dictated by our relationship to our experiences, it makes perfect sense that the practice of mindfulness which brings balance into our lives could play a pivotal role in how we experience food and eating.

The big issue with stress is coping by disconnecting from ourselves and the present moment and getting stuck in the stress cycle for extended periods of time(think years). That fight or flight experience has one major function….survival. If we are stuck in survival mode then our relationship to everything will be through the lens of survival/fear including our relationship to food/eating. We will magnify it’s importance as a strategy for survival and grasp onto it for all we are worth. We’ll grasp onto it and won’t be able to get enough of it to ease our fears of survival because the root cause of being stuck in fight or flight hasn’t been addressed. It will also result in other forms of food/eating dysfunction.

We are living in a time when mindfulness has become a buzz word and occupies a prominent position in the media. Is this good or bad…or maybe it doesn’t matter? Mindfulness’ popularity springs from it’s roots with Buddhism although I am of the school of seeing mindfulness everywhere, in every spiritual tradition and in every walk of life. Perhaps because of views like mine, mindfulness has entered the realm of pop culture and consequently there could be some misinformation being passed along. I’ve seen it everywhere…people calling themselves mindfulness practitioners or teachers when in fact they haven’t really digested the basics of the practice let alone how to convey what they do know to others. I don’t really have an issue with that because you have to start somewhere and unless you are just jumping on the fad wagon things will sort themselves out eventually. Perhaps where it is most noticeable is in the marketing/commercialization of it. I’ve seen mindfulness work it’s magic in many situations and know firsthand that it’s like water in that it will find it’s path and eventually work it’s way through everything. I find it to be most effective when the non striving attitude is employed. It’s ok to have goals but I think the best way to achieve the goals is by working from “the top down”. In other words just do the practice and let the intelligence of the mind/body take it from there. There are many however that apply mindfulness to every disorder or desired outcome you can think of and “sell” it as the answer to each situation. I’m all for capitalism but I think in many cases this attitude goes too far and results in disappointment for those who have sought “the answer” for their particular issue or goal and didn’t get it. It could be argued that whatever gets them practicing is good. Sometimes I agree with that and sometimes I don’t. My rule of thumb is to be completely honest and open while explaining the nature of learning mindfulness. I’ve never had anyone tell me it is easy, nor was it easy for me. That’s a good starting point. There’s lots more from there.

This next example, while not really an example of commercialism, is an interesting instance of mindfulness’ qualities being put to a different use than usual…Recently someone told me they were alarmed at hearing that mindfulness was being used in the military to hone the skills of our “killing machines”. I suppose there are elements of mindfulness, particularly the ability to focus, that allows soldiers to do their job more efficiently. There is also the ability to let things go and move on, that would be a good skill for a soldier. In fact, there are lots of qualities that we find in mindfulness that would help in military training. Here’s where the nuances kick in. Yes, there are useful skills that can be applied to military situations, but the heart of mindfulness is compassion and kindness and it’s difficult to employ that when you’re killing other people. I suppose an argument could be made for it but I’m not so sure that it would hold water very long.

Here’s a summary from the book Zen at War: (Mindfulness is a big part of Zen training so this is a recent example of how a valuable skill set can be abused if it isn’t balanced with the heart.) “A compelling history of the contradictory, often militaristic, role of Zen Buddhism, this book meticulously documents the close and previously unknown support of a supposedly peaceful religion for Japanese militarism throughout World War II. Drawing on the writings and speeches of leading Zen masters and scholars, Brian Victoria shows that Zen served as a powerful foundation for the fanatical and suicidal spirit displayed by the imperial Japanese military. At the same time, the author recounts the dramatic and tragic stories of the handful of Buddhist organizations and individuals that dared to oppose Japan’s march to war. He follows this history up through recent apologies by several Zen sects for their support of the war and the way support for militarism was transformed into ‘corporate Zen’ in postwar Japan. The second edition includes a substantive new chapter on the roots of Zen militarism and an epilogue that explores the potentially volatile mix of religion and war. With the increasing interest in Buddhism in the West, this book is as timely as it is certain to be controversial.”

All in all I tend to go with the long view that like water, mindfulness will find it’s way and ultimately be a very useful path to improving lives.