The author of this article is a former practitioner of Hindu, Tibetan Buddhist, and Zen meditation for a total of 14 years
The advocacy of mindfulness meditation in secular society continues to get attention. A Washington Post news article, “Meditation and Mindfulness May Give Your Brain a Boost” by Carolyn Butler, promotes mindfulness as a way to reduce stress and tension.
Buddhism teaches that everyone is ignorant of true reality and is trapped in the delusion that they are an individual in a real world. Buddhism teaches that the self does not exist; belief in self is a result of attachment to this world due to the five aggregates or skandhas: form, feeling, perception, mental formation, and consciousness (the latter is awareness of the other four skandhas). The mind is part of this delusion/attachment, so thoughts are in the way of realizing the true nature of reality. Therefore, mindfulness, which is not only a form of meditation but is a way of viewing the world, is essential in Buddhism. Mindfulness helps cultivate detachment, which leads to lessening attachment and escaping rebirth, leading to eventual enlightenment and liberation from rebirth.
Mindfulness is also addressed in other articles on this site here, here, here, and here, so please read those to more information. It is difficult to put all the data into one or two articles.
Stress is the Newest Bogeyman
Studies at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston claim that Mindfulness meditation causes brain changes for the better. Nearby is the Center for Mindfulness (formerly the Stress Reduction Clinic) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, founded in 1979 by Zen Buddhist Jon Kabat-Zinn. Kabat-Zinn’s stress reduction and mindfulness program has spread to dozens of hospitals and medical centers around the country.
The article cites an earlier study that showed “decrease in gray matter in the amygdala, a region of the brain that affects fear and stress, which correlated with a change in self-reported stress levels.” Whether this decrease really indicates stress reduction, temporary or permanent, is not known. Showing cause and effect in the brain is difficult with something as vague and varied as meditation (there are a variety of ways to meditate). Moreover, there are other ways to reduce stress. Studies of mindfulness continue to remain inconclusive on its benefits:
“Something has gone wrong with the science of mindfulness. The literature on its supposed mental and physical benefits is conceptually and methodologically precarious and has been divulged in a sensationalist way. Academic articles describe weak results as ‘encouraging’ and ‘exciting’; popular best-selling books about mindfulness, many of which are written by researchers, are bursting with magical promises of peace, happiness and well-being. The replacement of orange-robed gurus by white-collared academics who speak of the benefits of ‘being in the present moment’ is a powerful social phenomenon, which is probably rooted in our culture’s desire for quick fixes and its attraction to spiritual ideas divested of supernatural elements.”
There has been a great effort on the part of alternative treatment practitioners to emphasize stress in the culture, which then allows them to advocate their particular remedies for it. This effort has succeeded to the extent that people automatically accept the need for stress reduction techniques without thinking about whether stress really is such a problem for them, and whether one needs to practice the recommended techniques in order to reduce their alleged stress.
Moreover, negative results have been undereported or not reported at all:
“We have recently reviewed some of the evidence for what we call the ‘dark side of meditation’, which includes evidence of somatic, psychological and neurological problems associated with meditation practice. This is a surprisingly under-researched area, mostly consisting of case studies, but not exclusively. A cross-sectional study on the effects of intensive and long-term meditation reported that over 60% of individuals had at least one negative effect, which varied from increased anxiety to depression and full-blown psychosis. Qualitative research on mindfulness meditation shows that it may increase the awareness of difficult feelings and exacerbate psychological problems.”
Mindfulness therapy is now a growing trend in psychology and psychotherapy. One example is the very influential psychiatrist Daniel J. Siegel, who founded the Mindsight Institute and a founding member and codirector of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, as well as the author of many books. Dr. Siegel incorporates mindfulness into his teachings and theories, and even teaches Mindfulness openly.
Has anyone considered that instead of taking time to learn a stress reduction technique and practicing it, it would be more valuable and practical to use that time for playing board games with one’s children, going to a park, relaxing to soft music, reading a good book, taking a nap, developing a hobby, or one of many other pleasant activities that people enjoy? Studies have shown that such actions lower blood pressure and bring down heart rates.
The Chattering Monkey
You might notice the term “monkey mind” popping up here and there; it is becoming more common. In promoting mindfulness, the thinking mind is targeted as a “chattering monkey.” Thoughts are the chatter, and meditation is to tame and silence this monkey mind, so that it can become “Buddha mind.” As one site states:
“Often in meditation, that monkey mind doesn’t transform into a peaceable primate, but continues to scurry about, distracting attention. Indeed, it is common for thoughts to appear to increase in intensity during concentrated meditation practice. This is either because whilst in the confines of the practice the monkey mind reacts with increased activity, or because in focused meditation thoughts are ‘lit up’ and are noticed more than they normally are.”
Thoughts are treated as an independent activity, divorced from the “true” essence of the person, which is the Buddha self, or formlessness. The temporal world, including the mind, are part of a “rising and falling” which is not real. One must transcend this rising and falling through meditation practice.
Meditation trains the person to watch thoughts so that the meditator does not attach to the thoughts and follow them. The meditator is the “witness” or “observer” of thoughts. Eventually, the space between thoughts widens until there are no thoughts and “No Mind” is reached. The site continues:
“Buddha Mind is our real nature, the unconditioned ‘Mind’ – and words are metaphors here, remember – that lies beneath the conditioned monkey mind that is interdependent with the world with which it interacts.”
Mindfulness meditation is therefore the Buddhist way to tame the so-called “chattering mind” and uncover the silent Buddha mind underneath all the rising and falling. It is not designed for stress reduction or to be a trendy dabbling for harried Westerners. It is rigorously religious and strictly spiritual.
The Mind and God
Whereas thoughts and thinking are dangerous to spiritual enlightenment in mindfulness, God tells us that thinking and reason are part of how God wired us, since man is made in his image. Reason and thought are rooted in God’s character.
Moreover, the world is God’s creation. It is not a mere illusory phenomenon of rising and falling. The world was created good (Genesis 1), became corrupted through man’s sin (Genesis 3; Romans 5), but one day will be restored (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1).
Any teaching that the mind or thinking is bad or prevents spiritual understanding is at odds with the nature of God as he has revealed himself. In giving us his word in the 66 books of the Bible, he expects thinking and reasoning since language cannot function without them. Using the term “chattering mind” or “monkey mind” denigrates the mind God gave us.