| "Watch a flash of lightning. If you watch it at the | | | | least modify troublesome "hang-ups." |
| moment lightning strikes, you will see it for yourself. If | | | | Meditation is experiencing a mindfulness and |
| you are imagining in your mind how lightning strikes | | | | compassion in all areas of life, being present, even if |
| before or after the event, you may not be regarded | | | | "hang-ups" come up; its purpose is to completely |
| as having seen the flash of lightning. Try to know | | | | release us from the suffering of not understanding with |
| things for yourself by actual observation of things as | | | | penetrative and liberating intuitive insight. We penetrate |
| they happen." -M. Sayadaw | | | | our intentions. We see how our intentions (too often |
| My own history of therapy mainly consists of a | | | | greedy, selfish, angry, negative) motivate our speech, |
| two-year period when, as a recreation therapist at | | | | thoughts, and actions. We become "present-minded," |
| Agnew State Mental Hospital in San Jose, California, I | | | | rather than "absent-minded." We look at what we're |
| was sent to Esalen Institute for in-services on how to | | | | doing in our lives. |
| improve and grow as a therapist. | | | | I sometimes practice just breathing from my stomach, |
| I especially benefited from Gestalt therapy. Important | | | | filling my belly and lungs, allowing the rising and falling of |
| "unfinished" situations would emerge and be dealt with. I | | | | the belly, expanding on the in-breath and contracting- |
| did bio-energetic exercises with Alexander Lowen. | | | | releasing the breath on the out-breath. |
| We'd strike large pillows with a tennis racket, | | | | If I'm very distracted, I'll count to ten, paying close |
| screaming out "held-in" anger. We'd experience how | | | | attention to each of the ten breaths in my body. If I get |
| tensions in our body had a strong emotional | | | | overwhelmed by some strong sensation or feeling, I'll |
| component; we allowed ourselves to breathe deeply | | | | start counting again. After ten breaths, I just sit for a |
| into the tummy, expanding the stomach and lungs, | | | | short while, observing what arises. I may relax into the |
| breathing in and contracting chest and stomach, | | | | peace within myself. Part of my attention still stays |
| breathing out. We'd put ourselves in touch with the | | | | with the breath, but now the breath is "in the |
| energy moving in us and observe how our movement | | | | background." |
| and flow get clogged up by our thoughts and | | | | Buddha taught that if we cultivate a wholesome |
| emotional expression. | | | | morality, real wisdom, and meditation, then an |
| I've since left such therapies and ascribed to myself | | | | intelligence and true love blossom in us. We create a |
| more gentle methods, such as sitting meditation or | | | | space for ourselves to see how we often experience |
| talking to a dear friend. But therapy cleared the way to | | | | in light of what happened in our past or with an anxiety |
| my being able to sit peacefully. The therapy made my | | | | about the future. We see that conceptual thought can |
| conflicts obvious (some from childhood trauma) and | | | | block the freshness of immediate perception. With |
| facilitate some process of integration and "completion." | | | | practice, we experience a deep concentrated |
| It helped me be more emotionally healthy. | | | | awareness that is now, moment to moment. We're |
| I was asked to act out, move, dramatize, be aware of | | | | honest, inside and out. |
| bodily reactions and contractions, to express feelings | | | | St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises is analogous: practicing |
| directly, to touch and be touched. I was releasing some | | | | to release "inordinate attachments" so we can "find |
| "buried parts of me" that took up so much psychic | | | | God in all things." During the day, I might pay attention |
| energy. The basis was that the truth would make one | | | | to a very ordinary activity such as eating. Am I eating |
| free, so that I'd say to the therapist what I might say to | | | | consciously, healthfully? Am I being honest with others |
| my mother, my friend, my own self, if only I could | | | | and myself? Ignatius recommended we take a few |
| speak the truth of my feelings. I discovered I didn't | | | | minutes to examine our consciousness in our thoughts, |
| need to live up to others' expectations. I quieted my | | | | intentions, words and actions and to do this in a loving |
| own self-critical voice. | | | | way to ourselves, as well to as others. |
| I also benefited from body-exercises such as yoga | | | | Therapy addresses unique forms of suffering by |
| and Feldenkrais movement, wherein I could experience | | | | revealing underlying emotional-organic patterns and |
| kinesthetic feedback and thus deeper experiential | | | | integrating what is learned into a more easeful living. |
| understanding of the particular patterns which "tie me | | | | Vipassana in contrast, as Dr. Gary Schouborg writes, |
| up." I could sense ease from therapy in letting those | | | | "is concerned with how we are with, or relate to, our |
| knots go. Perhaps the best therapy for me was just | | | | thoughts and feelings." |
| sitting in the hot tubs at the spectacular shores of Big | | | | Vipassana is supported by concentration, which in turn |
| Sur, just being, quietly alone, outside in the dark, under | | | | creates awareness (sati) and intuitive insight and |
| the stars and wafting sea breezes. | | | | intelligence about the ways things are. We explore |
| So for two years, I would go to a variety of | | | | impermanence, dissatisfaction and non-self as |
| weekends at a very "laid back" but therapeutically | | | | sensations, emotions, feelings, thoughts arise and |
| intense setting while working in the extremely | | | | subside within our minds. |
| institutional setting of Agnew Hospital. | | | | Psychotherapy is concerned with what thoughts and |
| The benefits for me were that I didn't feel so controlled | | | | feelings we have and what we do about them, |
| by my need to be liked and to please and the | | | | eliminating or coping with neurotic ones. Vipassana |
| resentments underneath. I could say "no" as well as | | | | aims to help us get to the point where we do not |
| "yes" to projects without agonizing over possibly | | | | identify with any thoughts and feelings, including the |
| displeasing someone. I could more comfortably be with | | | | neurotic ones. We cultivate within ourselves a |
| my ordinary relationships. | | | | detachment, a place of perspective from which we |
| How do I compare my therapy with vipassana? As a | | | | respond to events. |
| student of meditation, I don't feel there's any | | | | As Mark Epstein notes in his book, Going to Pieces |
| competition between therapy and meditation. They | | | | Without Falling Apart, "Stillness does not mean the |
| can be mutually beneficial and overlapping as when a | | | | elimination of disturbances as much as a different way |
| therapist may ask a client to practice "not identifying | | | | of viewing them...we get in trouble with anger if we try |
| with" troublesome thoughts, feelings, obsessive desires. | | | | to eliminate it through denial or avoidance, or if we turn |
| Likewise, in meditation, we see where we are carried | | | | it into hatred |
| away by troublesome thoughts and desires. | | | | We don't confuse this inner "let-come-what-comes" |
| What is often called "meditation" seems incomplete to | | | | practice to weaken our full human involvement in living. |
| achieve a final personal liberation from "ordinary human | | | | We don't give up doing "good" or resisting "evil" in the |
| suffering." Meditation in its radical sense goes beyond | | | | world, as if everything's fine the way it is. Vipassana |
| its therapeutic benefits. "Learn to concentrate," "Be | | | | teaches us how to respond to events without |
| relaxed," "Loosen Stress," "Be fully alive and present." | | | | attachment. Even if we're passionate activists, we are |
| All these psychological benefits are wonderful; yet | | | | not overly attached to results and praise and blame. |
| consider the message of a Tibetan Buddhist thangka, | | | | We become aware of how we react, no matter what |
| depicting the meditator having her/his head cut off! Our | | | | comes our way. Dr. Schouborg notes: "People easily |
| addiction to our own egos seems to be very forceful. | | | | read into Buddhism a debilitating rather than liberating |
| Our spiritual practice isn't to "make us feel good." | | | | passivism." |
| Dogen: "We practice to know the self and to let go of | | | | I don't think our human development ever ends, so I |
| the self." | | | | don't see a total resolution to all my conflicting |
| We may have to go through a kind of "spiritual death" | | | | psychological influences. Yet, at least as a possibility |
| in our meditation practice. So meditation has more | | | | (exemplified in the rare lives of "enlightened ones" such |
| universal, general purposes (namely to end | | | | as the Buddha), in vipassana, there may be a final |
| unnecessary mental suffering, stress and anguish) than | | | | resolution of all separation in us. |
| the particular orientation of therapy to eliminate or at | | | | |