How to Train a Wild Elephant_ And Other Adventures in Mindfulness - Jan Chozen Bays [72]
Discoveries in neuroscience that show beneficial effects on the brain from meditation have also contributed to the increasing popularity of mindfulness. In 1979, at the same time Jon Kabat-Zinn was launching MBSR, the cognitive scientists Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch held a conference at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where Western and Eastern approaches to the mind were discussed. The understanding of mind based on meditation became an object of inquiry for scientists, leading to the first meeting sponsored by the newly formed Mind and Life Institute. Called “Dialogues between Buddhism and Cognitive Science,” it was held in October 1987 in Dharamsala, India, at the seat of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who had encouraged these conversations to take place and has been an active participant in almost all of the more than twenty meetings that have occurred since. One of the things His Holiness had hoped would come out of these investigations was proof from a scientific perspective that meditation was beneficial for brain health. As Matthieu Ricard and Daniel Siegel indicate in the pieces excerpted in part 3 of this book, science has indeed confirmed that the brain is “plastic” or changeable throughout life and that mindfulness and other forms of meditation help the brain change—even grow—in positive ways. In May 2010, Richie Davidson, the foremost researcher into the neurological effects of mindfulness and other kinds of contemplative practices, opened the Center for the Investigation of Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The new center is dedicated to the study of how contemplative practices might play a useful role in changing the mind in a positive manner. Researchers there will be aided by the sophisticated equipment for studying brain activity housed in the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, where Davidson has carried out his research for many years.
In this book, you will hear from many people, including many of the most authoritative voices in the world of mindfulness. They will take you on a mindfulness journey, beginning with personal instruction, then discussing various ways that practice may be useful in your life, and ending with a short survey of ways that mindfulness practices are starting to make inroads into key sectors of society.
In part 1, “How to Practice Mindfulness,” we learn what mindfulness is, how to practice it, and why we may want to practice it. In the first selection, Jan Chozen Bays, MD, an experienced meditation teacher, pediatrician, and author of Mindful Eating, describes how mindfulness is “fully paying attention” to everything inside and outside without judgment or criticism. Rather than draining our energy; mindfulness refreshes us. Mindfulness does involve some effort, though, as Susan Smalley and Diana Winston, of MARC at UCLA, point out. While it may be simple, it is not necessarily easy. We have to want to be present and make the effort to do so. Jon Kabat-Zinn gives us plenty of reasons to want to when he talks about how the benefits of mindfulness are more profound than just learning to pay more attention. Because we are more aware of our thoughts, we actually become more aware of our motivations and what we really desire in life.
In part 2, “Mindfulness in Daily Life,” we are