Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Mindfulness Is Not A Drug

Yes, it's possible to use meditation as a means of escaping from oneself, rather than as a means of genuinely and beneficially connecting with oneself. Then you might end up feeling, as one client told me today, "stoned". You might feel high, or good, and this would be pretty much the equivalent of smoking pot, or drinking alcohol, or using other drugs or behaviors in order to self medicate against difficult or painful feelings.

I've known clients who have spent literally years doing this, imagining that they were somehow accomplishing something significant through their "meditation". A true mindfulness discipline on the other hand is a matter of connecting dispassionately, more objectively, with your own experience, whatever it might be, developing a non-judgemental attitude toward that experience, and an ability to observe it without acting on it.

One American Buddhist teacher whose writings I admire, Pema Chodron, speaks about fearlessness. I find her definition of "fearlessness" to be very accurate in terms of good mental health development: not turning away from your own direct experience. You notice that fearlessness here does not mean an absence of the experience of fear. Rather it's about connecting mindfully, more as an observer, courageously and compassionately with whatever your experience is, including the experience of fear., and not running or distracting from that.

The ability to do this is essential to growth, to healing, to recovery from addiction, to recovery from trauma, to good communication, to relationship skill, and on and on. It's essential, really, to happiness and wellbeing. Being "in the Now", a condition universally recognized as desireable and liberating, is only possible through mindfullness, through present awareness of one's moment to moment experience. Of course, this takes practice and development, and is not achieved all at once and forever.

Let's learn how to really pay attention.