Meditation situation

Portlander’s are increasingly doing nothing to solve problems of the mind and body

By Amrita Narayanan Bruce

Incense is burning, drums are beating and happy smiles play upon the faces of the group of school-teachers, lawyers and bank-tellers, who sit on the floor and on cushions with their eyes closed. “Thoughts are like wild donkeys. Stay away from thought traffic,” intones today’s group leader, Norrisdale, quoting the Sufi mystic Rumi. His rapt audience is from the greater Portland area, far away physically from India, where Sufism originated, but no less devoted mentally. In South Portland this Monday night, like many other Americans nationwide, they are finding it extremely beneficial to sit and do nothing.

Across the bridge in Portland, the Zen Meditation Group of Portland is chanting in Shino-Japanese. In a few minutes they will bow to each other before settling down on comfy black cushions, eyes slightly open, to, well, do nothing.

Meditation, what one long-term Portland meditator described as “the practice of looking inward and being present and aware to what arises,” has moved from the preserve of saffron-clad Eastern monastics to that of the Western layperson. And the number of converts are staggering. Recently, I was at a week-long meditation conference in Los Angeles where 4000 people, mostly Westerners, gathered to meditate together for two hours daily. Last month, I observed a lissome and aerobic Portland denizen reading a classic text on meditation while on the stepper at Planet Fitness. Yesterday, I read that William Ford Jr. meditates. And I could probably fill several pages with the names of the Hollywood celebrities who sit devotedly on expensive cushions imported from Hyderabad for the exclusive purpose of inner contemplation.

A little theory

Aldous Huxley (who went on to become a meditator and disciple of the reputed Indian meditation teacher Swami Prabhananda) wrote: “The ordinary waking consciousness is a very useful and, on most occasions, an indispensable state of mind; but it is by no means the only form of consciousness, nor in all circumstances the best. Insofar as he transcends his ordinary self and his ordinary mode of awareness, the mystic is able to enlarge his vision, to look more deeply into the unfathomable miracle of existence.” Huxley is pointing out what many who meditate regularly have experienced first hand — there are other ways of experiencing the world than the way we are experiencing it right now. In this very moment, as you are sitting there in the park, reading this newspaper, you are very likely experiencing what meditators call “ordinary awareness,” not the enlarged vision to which Huxley is referring.

The way to transcend ordinary awareness, say the mystics, is to mediate. Swami Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian monk who pioneered the spread of meditation in the west in the ’20s, and was revered by his many American followers, wrote: “Through meditation one can experience a stable, silent, inner peace that can be a permanently soothing background for all harmonious or trialsome activities demanded by life’s responsibilities. Lasting happiness lies in maintaining this evenly peaceful state of mind.”

Those who meditate consider this state of mind natural to the human condition. In many meditation classes, the ideal state of mind is referred to as “pure consciousness” or even “your true nature.” Describing this return to one’s own nature, the Buddhist meditation master Soghyal Rinpoche says, “Meditation is a way to bring us back to ourselves, where we can experience and taste our full being, beyond all habitual patterns.”

Both Yogananda and Rinpoche have been accepted as masters in their respective spiritual traditions, and their teachings along with many others have a huge following in the United States. “People who meditate are looking for an immediate, direct spiritual practice based on direct experience rather than a belief system,” says Keith Walker of Portland’s Zen Meditation group, reflecting on the growing trend towards meditation versus mainstream religions.

Mainely practice

In Portland, there are several possibilities for group meditation, as well as opportunities for one-on-one meditation instruction, spanning the gamut of the meditative tradition. There are many ways to classify the different meditation traditions, one easy way is by technique. Broadly, most meditation techniques fall into either a “concentration” approach or a “mindfulness” approach. Both approaches move towards the state of mind described earlier as “your true nature,” a peaceful and joyful state.

Why don’t we always experience this state? Meditation theory says that much of our mental activity is unconscious, unnecessary, and the cause of suffering. Meditation techniques are therefore designed to eliminate unnecessary mental activity. The concentration approach helps the practitioner achieve one-pointedness in mental activity by providing focus during meditation: bringing attention to the cadence of each breath, an image or a sound. The mindfulness approach urges that the individual not concentrate on anything, allowing instead all thoughts to come and go in the belief that one can eventually reach a point where there is no more “thought traffic.”

At the Zen Meditation Center on Portland’s St. John Street, there are several Zen meditation groups that meet at different times during the week, including the Zen Meditation Group and the Casco Bay Zen Group. Zen meditation seems very suited to the seeker who likes some amount of ceremony, but wants no talk of God during their meditation experience. The Zen Meditation group is not affiliated with any larger Zen group or any particular spiritual teacher. “The ritual around meditation is kind of like a container in which to hold the meditation,” says Keith Walker, explaining the simple ceremonies of the Zen Meditation Group. “Once you are sitting on the cushion, there is no structure.”

During a session with the Zen Meditation Group, there’s no distinct group leader nor is there a lot of talk. Newcomers need to arrive early to get a short briefing but once the session starts there is silence except for the chanting at the beginning and the end of the session, and the occasional banging of a brass gong that serves as an indication to begin the sitting meditation, walk mindfully, or begin chanting again.

When I entered the meditation, I bowed, following the example of the others, once to honor the space, again to choose my cushion, and a third time to my fellow meditators and the austere altar comprising a few flowers, a candle, incense, and a statue of the Buddha.

The meditation is begun with a chant called the “Heart Sutra,” which sets an intention for the meditation and affirms that “emptiness does not differ from form.”

“Chanting gets you in a meditative state and clears your mind,” says Patty Ryan, one of the participants. After the invocation, I am alone with my thoughts for over an hour with two, minute-long breaks to stretch in between and walk around the room mindfully, enjoying the meditative state. The goal is to watch your thoughts but not to hold on to any one in particular. So it’s okay to think about what you ate for lunch but not advisable to fixate on it. As I sit, I notice that first there is a rush of thoughts, then the thoughts fall away and I am left with what I can only describe as “a pleasant sense of emptiness.”

Can emptiness be pleasant? Well, think about it, there’s something kind of freeing about not having to think at all. “You start to see over time how your thoughts have pulled you around,” says Ryan, who has meditated regularly for 10 years. When these thoughts pass, in what remains lies the glimpse of what meditators often refer to as “the authentic self” or “true self.” This authentic self is the self without the external stuff, “It’s the innate qualities of heart and mind that have the capacity to guide us through life and doesn’t depend on analytical kinds of reasoning,” says Walker. Like most of the others who attend the Zen Meditation Group, Walker has a personal meditation practice which means he sits down to meditate, by himself, at home on days that the group does not meet.

At the end of the class, I told Ryan that I’d experienced a few seconds empty of thoughts but that it hadn’t lasted long. “In Zen we don’t think you should hold that as a goal” she said, “otherwise you become attached to it.”

When I visited the Sufi Meditation group that meets in South Portland I noticed some similar qualities in the approach to meditation, but the most distinct difference was a general emphasis on concentration and attention to particular sounds rather then a general mindfulness of each thought. In addition, devotional overtones are stronger, although the students are from different religions. The Sufi order was founded to “provide an opportunity for personal transformation, apply the spiritual ideals of love and harmony to everyday life and serve God and humanity by helping to relieve suffering” according to the pamphlet given to me by Norrisdale, who led the group I attended.

The Sufi group in South Portland is part of the Sufi Order International, which has a loose link to Islam and Hinduism. The class begins with an invocation to the divine “toward the One, the perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty.” The invocation is meant to bring divine energy to the meditators and is accompanied by drumming. The Sufi practice is based on “wazifas,” words of power that embody qualities of the divine that we might wish to see in ourselves. The meditation is led by a different person each week, always someone who has been initiated into the Sufi order. Initiates who have decided to devote themselves exclusively to the Sufi path take turns weekly to organize and choose a focus for the group meditation. The Sufi order does have a hierarchical structure, so initiates are doing more advanced meditative techniques than newcomers.

The practice that I attended consisted of concentrating simultaneously on one’s breathing and these wazifas, which are in Arabic. We used the wazifas Zahir and Batim, Arabic words that refer to the manifest and unmanifest aspects of the divine. Under the guidance of the teacher leading the session we synchronized the Zahir with each inhale and the Batim with each exhale, first saying these words aloud and then silently and internally.

Chanting forms a part of almost every meditation group. The process of chanting, meditators say, draws your attention inward. “Chanting is a way of tricking you into concentration,” says Norrisdale, explaining that chanting can be done aloud or silently as we did with the wazifas. “At some point in your meditation you are totally concentrated on the breath and the divine qualities,” says Norrisdale. This, I deduced, is somewhat akin to the moment of experiencing the “authentic self” that was talked about at the Zen Meditation Group.

Minding the master

While the Zen Meditation Group and the Sufi group do not have a master meditation teacher or guru to whom they are connected, there are other groups in Portland that do. To clarify, the word guru does not just mean someone who knows a lot about something (as in “Web guru”, a major misnomer). In meditation tradition, a guru is a realized and enlightened master. One group that is dedicated to such a master and works with the concentration technique of meditation is the Self-Realization Fellowship group that practices in Winterport, Maine, with plans to begin a group in Portland this fall. All practitioners (“Self-Realizationists”) have individually studied teachings dispensed by Self-Realization Fellowship International, a society that disseminates information on meditation technique, founded by the direct disciples and on the writings of Swami Paramahansa Yogananda (a notable devotee of Self-Realization Fellowship is former-Beatle George Harrison). Self-realizationists are from all over the world and have all completed an identical three-year (or more) home-study in meditation techniques sent to them by the international headquarters.

Maine practitioners from this tradition meditate daily, and congregate to meditate weekly in Winterport. They’re trying to re-start a Portland group that dissolved almost two years ago when key members moved to the west coast to be closer to the international headquarters of the group. “We only work with people who are seriously dedicated to meditation as taught by Paramahansa Yogananda,” says Judy Faust-Grey, a practitioner who lives in Harpswell. “It’s hard to get a group started when you don’t want to advertise or attract spiritual shoppers,” she adds.

“Spiritual shopping” is a malaise often discussed in the meditation world and is considered an especially large problem in the west. The term refers to an inability to settle down to one meditative tradition and a drifting (shopping) between the various traditions. The thinking behind this espoused by meditation masters is that while many meditation techniques and traditions are excellent and offer equally authentic ways of reaching the same goal, it is beneficial even necessary at some point to choose one path to follow devotedly, so as not to spread oneself too thin.

“At some point you have to decide which path is for you,” says Joan Wadman, who organizes the weekly meetings of the Maine Rigpa Sangha, a meditation group that is centered around the teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist master Soghyal Rinpoche and his organization, Rigpa International. “Otherwise, if you don’t decide, then it becomes very easy for your ego to make you run from one path to another every time doubts or fears come up.” Wadman should know. She has been studying with Soghyal Rinpoche for 20 years. Studying directly with a lama who is almost universally acknowledged as a master has given Wadman a unique perspective on meditation. “Relaxation is not the main goal of meditation,” she says. “That’s just a positive side effect. Meditation is a means of enlightenment and freedom from living in your ego.” Wadman just returned from a retreat with Rinpoche in France where 800 people often meditated six hours a day and sometimes up to 11 hours a day. Now that’s a little more than ordinary old stress-busting.

Wadman, who is a realtor by profession, has been teaching an introductory course in meditation at the Portland Adult Education Center since 1993. The Maine Rigpa Sangha evolved out of the huge interest in meditation she found in Portland. The Rigpa Sangha offers a beginners group as well as a more advanced meditation group “for those who have finished their spiritual shopping and are ready to commit to this path.”

Affiliation-free stress

While many meditators will agree that meditation will eventually become spiritual whether you like it or not, if you are seeking a non-spiritual approach you are probably best off with individual instruction. Especially for those seeking to alleviate specific physical or mental problems, Transcendental Meditation might be an option. Brought to America in the ’60s by an Indian master called Maharishi Mahesh Yog, “TM,” as it is widely known, is the kind of meditation that has been most widely researched in the west, with very positive findings, and is practiced by two million people worldwide (notable devotees: Howard Stern and Stevie Wonder). “The technique settles the physiology of the body and mind to a state of deep rest,” says TM teacher and Yarmouth-based chiropractor Dr. Camille French. In this deep state of rest, the practitioner can reach what doctor French refers to as “pure consciousness,” a state where “artificial stuff washes off and you find that you are more yourself.” What makes it most suited to the Western psyche, perhaps, is that it’s free of any reverential devotion to the man who brought the technique to America. While some might argue that this makes the teachings less pure and robs seekers of the connection to an enlightened master, this secular approach to meditation works very well for those who don’t want to align with a group or guru.

Outside of sitting meditation, Portlanders might be able to get a taste of the meditative state without the foot cramps if what David Kaufman says is true. This Portlander, who spent several years in India, says meditation is an “altered state” that can be reached by methods other than sitting and doing nothing. Kaufman calls his technique “Social Meditation.” The practice consists of interactive exercises with the group, such as one in which participants scream “I hate you” for a period, followed by “I love you” for a period. With his stimulating exploration of the “12 different stages of human expression,” Kaufman says he can put students into “a meditative state,” minus the hours of silence and group chanting in Sanskrit or Japanese. While it’s hard to believe that group interactions could take you to the same place as silent reflection, the technique used by Kaufman does play on Huxley’s interesting idea that there is more than one level of consciousness available to us at any given point. Classic meditation, however, seems to be centered around allowing all external consciousness to fall away so social meditation probably wouldn’t fall into this category.

Enlightenment aside

I see meditation as a stress-management technique,” says Professor William Gayton at the University of Southern Maine, who often recommends meditation to patients he is seeing in therapy. For meditation techniques designed exclusively to beat stress, those who think chanting is new age mumbo-jumbo should consider The Relaxation Response (Wholecare, paperback 2000) by Dr. Herbert Bensen, or Wherever You Go, There You Are (Hyperion, paperback 1995) by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. These two books, both written by doctors, were most recommended by the doctors and psychologists that I spoke with for patients interested in meditation. “Benson’s book offers a non-religious, non-spiritual approach to meditation,” says Gayton.

Gayton, like many other psychologists and doctors, is in tune with recent discoveries that, from a purely physiological perspective, meditation is ideal for stress management, which, in turn, makes it useful to treat a whole host of related symptoms. Aside from drugs, meditation is the only activity known to reduce blood lactate, an indicator of the body’s stress and anxiety. In addition, meditation also increases the calming hormones melatonin and serotonin (the former is used in sleeping pills and the latter often appears in anti-depressant drugs). Several studies have shown that 75 percent of insomniacs were able to sleep normally when they meditated regularly.

“Meditation is energizing and relaxing,” says Portland-based Dr. James Kirsch. “It’s more efficient than sleep. I find that 20 minutes of meditation gets me going, it’s much better than taking a nap.” Kirsch’s observation during his own meditation is true for everyone — research has shown that meditation creates a unique hypometabolic state in which the metabolism is in an even deeper state of rest than during sleep. During sleep, oxygen consumption drops by eight percent, but, during meditation, it drops by 10 to 20 percent, offering us a scientific basis for the wild stories of Indian yogis who spend days, buried underground, meditating with no oxygen.

Kirsch often recommends meditation to his patients, particularly in cases of hypertension, anxiety disorders, and to those coping with long-term pain. “Many specific complaints such as a rash or pain are related to stress,” he explains, “and meditation reduces stress.” Kirsch cites a dramatic example of a patient who had an abnormal pap-smear. The gynecologist recommended surgical treatment, but the patient had asked for some time to see if the abnormality would go away naturally. The gynecologist said she was risking fatal cancer if she postponed the surgery. But the patient was very determined. With Dr. Kirsch’s encouragement, the patient spent three months meditating intensively, and at the end of the period the pre-cancerous abnormality was gone.

Dr. Kirsch emphasizes, however, that the woman’s determination played a large role in the process and that he would not necessarily recommend meditation over surgery unless the patient was exceptionally motivated.

“There’s this expectation that there’s a pill for every ill,” says another Portland doctor, Joseph Py. He explains that stress not only can’t be cured by a pill, but must be reduced in the first place if any of the pills are to work. “There’s a part of the nervous system that’s called the sympathetic nervous system that controls your flight or fight response,” he says. “In many people who have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromailgia, and many other chronic conditions, their sympathetic nervous system is tuned way up and is pumping out cortisol (a stress hormone). Meditation helps calms down this system. When the system is really tuned up, sometimes none of the therapies can work, but meditation is essential to helping all the other therapies work.”

What Py is saying about the sympathetic nervous system supports what doctors have always suspected is true: our state of mind can affect our body, its functioning and its healing, when it is damaged. Research shows that long-term meditators experience 80 percent less heart disease and 50 percent less cancer than non-meditators. “The psychological and physiological trauma of my operation were lessened to a great degree by my meditation practice,” says Jasmina Agrillo, a Portlander and regular meditator who recently had a brain tumor removed. “The meditation calmed me down and prevented fear from affecting my brain and body,” she adds.

What is it about meditation that makes chronic pain more bearable? “It’s conscious relaxation,” says Dr. Kirsch. “When we are awake we are combating pain. Meditation stops the battle against pain, it allows it to run its course.” A Kennebunk-based chiropractor and a yoga teacher, Dr. Mary Taylor explains that meditation allows people to see that you need not suffer because your body is suffering. “Meditation allows you to see the disease process on a diagonal. You begin to realize, ‘it’s hurting my body but it’s not hurting me.’ ” Studies confirm that regular meditation can significantly reduce chronic pain.

“But I’m too busy to do nothing”

If you are not experiencing chronic pain or feeling the pressing need to connect with the infinite, it might be hard to understand the fuss about the actual experience of sitting and doing nothing, easier perhaps to comprehend why one might seek such a diversion. “Its sounds ridiculous, but in the context of the most affluent economy in the world I think we (Americans) are having a hard time being happy,” says Kennebunk-based Clint Willis, editor of the book Why Meditate (Marlow & Co., 2001). “Everywhere you look around you, you are being urged to buy something, be competitive, or worry about your financial future . . . there’s this notion that as long as you can own a lot of stuff and be safe from poverty then you will be happy . . . but it’s not true. We spend all this time making money and spending it so that we don’t have to think about some of the realities of life — that we are going to die and that the people around us we love are going to die and that no identity we can create for ourselves can protect us from this.”

Willis is touching on one of the strongest experiences that draws people to meditation: the unsatisfactory experience of living in the world. “When you meditate, you realize that the notion of yourself that you have created as the most important thing in the universe is really a joke,” says Willis. “All the anxiety and fear at the thought of being the center of the universe drops away. This provides a tremendous sense of relief, to know that you are not as important as you thought.”

Elaine McGillicuddy, who founded Portland Yoga Studio and has been meditating for over twenty years in the Christian tradition, experiences the peace she finds in meditation as a very loving presence. “It’s very hard for us as people to accept that we are loved by a larger presence and we don’t need to do anything or achieve anything, we can let go of all ambition and just be in that moment.”

During our conversation, long-time meditator Wadman observed: “Our (American) society rewards those who keep themselves in constant activity and it has led to the American habit of not taking time to reflect and contemplate.” In fact, in the East, Westerners, especially Americans, have long suffered from the reputation of being compulsively active in order to avoid reality.

It seems that, surely if slowly, Portlanders, at least, are slowing down, contemplating, and, yes, doing nothing; whether it be to commune with a higher power or just to get healthy. Kipling once said that “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet,” but it seems that we have seen an end to this pessimistic prediction here in our own backyard.

Amrita Narayanan Bruce can be reached at amritabruce@yahoo.com.