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[Back to index of December articles] Opening minds By Lucy Chumbley For 10 full minutes, 1,500 people sat in near perfect silence in the nave of the National Cathedral. Invited by the Rev. Canon Eugene Sutton to offer a "silent hymn of happiness, of praise, of thanksgiving," participants in the Nov. 11 program "Meditation on the Move: from Monastery to Lab to Main Street" had immediately become still. In the ensuing silence, unbroken by shuffling feet or the scratching of a pen, a creaking chair or a cough, something began to happen. Details, previously overlooked, sprang into focus: first the pattern on a red kneeler, then a small stone figure on the Canterbury pulpit with uplifted arms. Finally, a message carved atop the wrought iron gates that separate the nave from the altar; "Worship the Lord in the Beauty of His Holiness." "The name of the game here, the practice, the invitation, is actually to be present," panelist Jon Kabat-Zinn, a medical professor and meditation researcher had said earlier in the evening. "To actually be anywhere - to be where you already are." Created as a sacred space, the cathedral was built for the very purpose of spiritual mindfulness, he said, pointing out that "every architectural construct is designed to elevate the human heart and the human spirit." Kabat-Zinn, the founder of both the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare and Society and the Stress Reduction Clinic shared his insights on a panel that included Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of the international best-seller Emotional Intelligence and Father Thomas Keating, a Cistercian monk who helped revive the ancient practice of Centering Prayer and is the author of numerous books on spirituality, including Open Mind, Open Heart. Lynn Neary of National Public Radio moderated the discussion, which was part of Meditate DC, a weeklong series of events about meditation and contemplation that coincided with the Dalai Lama's recent visit to Washington. The three panelists spoke about the concepts and practice of meditation and mindfulness from different perspectives - religion, science, medicine and psychology. Being mindful, Kabat-Zinn said, means being present in your life. It is a kind of attentiveness, a moment to moment cultivated awareness. "This has got to be the hardest work in the world - to actually show up in our lives and be present," he said. "When you talk about meditating, the real meditation is your life. The real challenge of mindfulness is to wake up - to come to our senses." Father Keating said that contemplative prayer did not come easily to him when he began to attempt it, and he at first failed to find the kind of beatific peace he was seeking. Unable to clear from his mind the thoughts that came crowding in, he became frustrated, he said, but eventually came to understand that it is the intent that matters. "In centering prayer we teach that there's no sense of failure except when we get up and leave," he said. "Intention is there… it's an opening to a presence that you believe is waiting for you, welcoming you." That relationship is at the heart of the Christian experience, he said, explaining that "self knowledge is a way to know the truth and it's a way to know the Creator." It is important not to have a preconceived notion about the spiritual journey, he said. "Seeking the unknown - that's what we're seeking in the monastic tradition and the unknown is always a little faster than you - but it leaves behind footprints," he said. "What you expect to happen on the spiritual journey will not happen, and what you do not expect to happen will happen and prepares you for the spiritual journey," he said. "The journey is a relationship." While meditation can deepen the spiritual journey for the faithful of all religions, it not necessary to believe in God in order to practice mindfulness, Goleman said. "The Dalai Lama challenged people to take [meditation] method and practice out of the Buddhist concept," he said. "'If this helps relieve suffering, it should not just be for Buddhists,' Out of compassion, he was taking it out of the Buddhist concept and that for me is a deeply spiritual act." Goleman cited a scientific study that measured activity in the brains of Buddhist monks who had spent their lives practicing meditation. When the monks were asked to meditate, he said, there was a significant increase in activity in their left prefrontal cortex - the center for happiness. "The average for the monks was a 100 percent increase in activity," he said. "Some were 700 to 800 percent." While these are "highly cultivated brains," Goleman said, even ordinary people immediately experienced a 10 percent increase after being taught to meditate. "Here's the good news - you can see it from the beginning," he said. "The more we practice, the more we'll benefit. The brain continues to be shaped throughout life: We now see we can take some control over the way the brain shapes itself." Americans have come a long way since the 1950s, Kabat-Zinn said, when it was "highly improbable that Americans of any ilk - even weirdoes - would be interested in something that looks from the outside like nothing at all." But there is now a groundswell of interest in meditation - the common language of silence - across faiths and disciplines. "We have, it seems, a sort of tide that is coming in, moving the human family to new levels of consciousness, requiring a kind of corporate crucifixion to reach a new resurrection," Keating said. "Everybody is one, is equal, we all have the same source, the same destiny… we're all sitting on a planet in the middle of nowhere and to fight about the real estate is absolutely insane." [Back to index of December articles]
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