Rethinking Meditation

Think this ‘mindfulness’ craze has a strong whiff of weirdness? So did I – at first

I SAW IT TWICE A DAY – once when I entered the fitness centre, once when I left an hour later. It was a poster with a picture of a serene woman seated on a cushion, her legs crossed in the lotus position, gazing at a lake. The text read: Mindfulness Meditation, New

Eight-Week Session • Learn the basic techniques

of mindfulness • Gain new coping skills

for everyday life I’d always found the thought of meditation off-putting. It had a strong whiff of weirdness. What’s more, mindfulness meditation was trendy. There were mindfulness books and apps and web courses. Professional athletes, university students and corporate executives all embraced it. It had the aura of a fad about it.

Nevertheless, I was interested in ‘gaining new coping skills for everyday life’ – for I was racing through life at full throttle.

When I decided to become a freelance writer three decades ago, I read that half of all freelancers fail because

they don’t structure their time. So I became a man of to-do lists as rigid as steel beams. I’m also compulsive. For example, I have exercised for an hour nearly every day for the past 40 years.

So I made it as a freelancer. But I had little time for what the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins called the “dappled things” – bits of everyday life that should be savoured. I went for long walks, but only so I could think – work out problems. I very seldom paid attention to the birds or flowers.

So I made a decision. I was going to sign up for mindfulness meditation to see if there was anything in it for me.

The first night 16 of us formed a semicircle around our teacher, who invited us to “sit back, take a moment to become aware of the surroundings you are in, the sensations in your body, the thoughts in your mind and the feelings in your heart.” My Hogwash Detector went off immediately in my head – bells ringi ng, l i ght s flashing, beep! beep! beep!

But then my compulsiveness kicked in and I resolved to attend a weekly class for seven more nights. I learned that mindfulness is a modern adaptation of an ancient Buddhist meditation and involved keeping one’s attention in the present moment.

I CAME TO REALISE that much of my life was being governed by thoughts. These thoughts usually were negative and involved reliving past events ( I paid too much for that car) or anticipating future ones ( I’m going to mess up that speech next week). This mental time travel sometimes caused me great anguish. Buddhists call this swinging back and forth the ‘monkey mind’.

Little of it is necessary, for thoughts are not real. They are like passing clouds. Only the sky is real. And the ‘sky’, to complete the metaphor, is the here and now.

The way out of this internal chaos is meditation – by planting our feet firmly in the present and

Mindfulness makes actual changes in the brain – especially parts that deal with emotional control, learning and memory

recognising negative thoughts when they do arise, rejecting them and returning to the present.

The promised rewards of mindfulness were enormous. Peace of mind. Less stress, anxiety and pain. Help in dealing with depression, substance abuse, smoking. Better job performance. Moreover, an entire array of studies showed that mindfulness makes actual changes in the brain – especially in those parts of the brain that deal with emotional control, learning and memory.

Surely, I thought at first, nothing this simple could reap such benefits. Meditation, I soon learned, is simple. But it’s not easy.

Near the end of that first class, we were asked to sit up straight, place our hands on our knees, close our eyes and concentrate only on our breathing. I lasted about 30 seconds before the first thought invaded. They kept coming, and I was fending them off like a goalie. The minutes dragged by like centuries. At the end of the session I thought I could never meditate.

What it took me a few weeks to realise was that this cycle of heeding my breath, losing focus and returning to my breath was a form of exercise. It was like the push-ups I did every day, only instead of strengthening my arms, I was building up my brain to be mindful. I added ‘meditate’ to my ‘to do’ list.

Mindfulness hasn’t stopped me from thinking, but it often stops a knee-jerk response to that thinking.

When I come to a traffic jam, I now have a choice. My habitual response could be “damn, just my luck. I’m going to be late for the meeting” – played over and over in my head. Or I can step in and say to myself, “I’ll call ahead to explain, and then I’ll have more time to listen to my audio book.”

Every morning I meditate. This is the daily practice that keeps me mindful. Each time I come back from a thought, I am training my brain to be mindful. I do mini-meditations with such ordinary things as brushing my teeth or taking a shower. Meditation hasn’t solved all my problems, but it helps me handle them better.

I have learned that often it was not the events of my life that were stressing me out, but rather my reaction to them. Much of the wisdom I’ve gained from meditation defies description. If you can breathe, you can meditate, but you can only learn how by doing it, like hitting a tennis ball or driving a car.

I’m still obsessive about work, deadlines and all that. But if my writing is rejected by an editor, I am less likely to question my ability. I am less apprehensive about the future. I eat much more slowly and therefore I eat less. I am happier and more peaceful.

So now every morning I try to heed this advice: Don’t just do something! Sit there!