In 1979 Jon Kabat-Zinn a medical doctor at the University of Massachusetts, Shrewsbury campus, who was trained in both Zen and Theravada meditation, came up with Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) as the name for the practice he used in his chronic pain clinic.
By Angel Roberto Puente
Maybe you have to be old, like me, to know that the first form of meditation to go viral was Transcendental Meditation.
It’s a form of silent meditation developed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the mid 1950s. The TM technique involves the silent repetition of a mantra or sound, and is practiced for 15–20 minutes twice per day. You pay to receive the mantra from one of their teachers.
In the 60s and 70s it became so famous that the Beatles and the Beach Boys were among its celebrity practitioners. The organization still exists but is no longer in the forefront of the meditation movement. It’s the most widely studied technique and shares the benefits of other ways of meditating. Shocker, it’s not Buddhist, it’s Hindu Advaita. (1)
Enter Mindfulness!
In 1979 Jon Kabat-Zinn a medical doctor at the University of Massachusetts, Shrewsbury campus, who was trained in both Zen and Theravada meditation, came up with Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) as the name for the practice he used in his chronic pain clinic.
He coined the mindfulness term to separate his method from the core meditative principles of the Buddhist practices, divorcing them from their cultural and religious contexts (specifically, Japanese Zen Buddhism), and applying best practices from the scientific literature and his own experiments. (2)
And off it went! Today almost all kinds of meditation are lumped under the mindfulness insignia. As if they all were the same. Are they?
I’ll venture into this mine field with only two aspects as qualifiers: states and traits. In psychology, states are understood as a fact of life:
“During every waking moment of life, a human mind consists of a variety of mental states. These mental states are typically named in common sense terms, such as emotions (e.g., fear, disgust, love), cognitions (e.g., retrieving a memory, planning the future, concentrating on a task), perceptions (e.g., face perception, color perception, sound perception), and so on.”
These states can be mapped to brain networks. (3)
On the other end:
“Trait theory is one of the major approaches to the study of human personality. In the framework of this approach, personality traits are defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion that are manifest in a wide range of situations. The most important features of traits are relative stability over time, different degrees of expression in different individuals, and influence on behavior.” (4)
There aren’t very many good studies on the effect of meditation on psychological variables. But a purvue of current research shows that overall, “the therapeutic effects of meditation practices cannot be established based on the current literature.” (Ospina et al., 2007, p. 6)
Although many approaches to meditation include concentration and mindfulness techniques to some degree, it is obvious that these approaches are not all the same.
Accordingly, one might not expect identical results from practicing different kinds of meditation. Two ways to pay respect to this diversity are, (a) to focus on the preponderance of one technique (e.g., an emphasis on concentrative vs. mindfulness techniques) or, (b) to focus on the approach to meditation itself (e.g., TM).
So, for somebody who practices meditation (the central part of yoga), one would expect positive changes in dealing with emotions, in personality traits and also in measures of self-actualization. One might also expect practitioners of meditation to change their everyday behavior. Moreover, due to enhanced powers of concentration and awareness (and less susceptibility to stressful events), cognitive processes should also benefit from meditation practice.” (5)
My experience is that to develop permanent traits, meditation has to be seen as a training.
A definite sequence has to be practiced over and over until it becomes second nature. When it becomes ingrained, there is no difference between what you do sitting and what you do in daily life. That’s the importance of an embodied practice.
When the body-mind is congruent, of one piece, the true aim of good practice, the effects become habitual. Otherwise practice is only a play on states, sometimes it makes you feel good and sometimes it doesn’t. Practice well!
(1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/
(4) https://www.researchgate.net/
Angel Roberto Puente‘s love of investigation started in his infancy when he would take apart the toys he received at Christmas. Erector sets were all he got afterwards. An early experience of the non conceptual set him on a voyage to reconcile a Christian upbringing with Zazen practice and studies in Psychology. Having achieved a comfortable solution he now sits with Morning Star Zendo. A zen group led by a Jesuit Priest/Roshi. As a mature introvert, he still takes things, and now concepts and held beliefs, apart.
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
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El amor de Ángel Roberto Puente por la investigación comenzó desde su infancia cuando desarmaba los juguetes que recibía en Navidad. Lo único que consiguió después fueron juegos de montaje. Una experiencia temprana de lo no conceptual lo llevó a un viaje para reconciliar una educación cristiana con la práctica de Zazen y los estudios de Psicología. Habiendo logrado una solución cómoda, ahora se sienta con Morning Star Zendo. Un grupo zen dirigido por un sacerdote jesuita/Roshi. Como introvertido maduro, todavía separa las cosas, y ahora los conceptos y las creencias. Check out his site here.
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