CREATIVE CONNECTION

December 2009

Mindfulness Meditation Makes a Difference in Your Learning and Happiness

Presently, I am taking an on-line course, The Brain and Mindfulness with Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., psychologist and ordained monk, and Dan Siegle, M.D.  The course is offered by Sounds True.  Contact them at www.soundstrue.com.

These two men are masterful teachers, researchers, and practitioners of different aspects of mindfulness.  Jack Kornfield focuses on the spirit and the psychological aspects of mindful meditation, while Dan Siegle teaches the body/brain aspects of this wonderful practice.

I would like to focus on two aspects emphasized in the course.  The first is that directing your attention is a key factor in helping your brain integrate the information that is being taken in.  In my 8-week mindfulness course, I do teach you to guide your attention to various objects like to your breath or down to your toes in order to ‘turn on your light of awareness’.  Yet, I did not realize the powerful effect this has on the brain.   According to Siegle, the integration process in the cortex of the brain occurs when you have focused your attention.  This attention is what triggers the passage of information down through the layers in the cortex, and as a result, learning takes place.

So what difference does this make?   When you are reading, meditating, multi-tasking, or walking, and your attention is on a past or future concern, you do not integrate the learning that is right in front of you.  In addition, the short-circuited process impacts your deep felt satisfaction, sense of well being, and happiness.   In order for integration of the experience to occur you need, for example, to focus on reading when you read, or focus on eating when you eat.  The mindfulness course teaches you to focus.

Jack Kornfield brought to the course the principle and practice of pausing and naming thoughts.  He said that much suffering is created by withdrawing from a challenge.  So how can you control the natural urge of your prefrontal cortex brain reaction to avoid a challenge?  What allows us to rise above these automatic reactions?  Kornfield gave several practices to enhance this awakening:

• Pause in your sitting meditation and focus on the pause in the breath cycle between the out-breath and in-breath.
• Naming -- When meditating and you notice your attention has drifted to thinking about something, name silently … “thinking”, “frustration”, “past”, etc.  Whatever thought or feeling comes up, name it.  You will then notice the freedom from being caught up in that thinking and return to your focus.

Finally, Dan Siegle emphasized that in just eight weeks, in the systematic manner outlined in the course, you can improve your consciousness, your attention, your compassion and/or mood.   The integration of the information process in the brain cortex occurs better if taught intensely over less time.  This means that the most important part of the 8-week course is your daily meditation practice.  I can attest to this from the feedback that I have received from participants in my mindfulness course who report greater healing of their symptoms if they have maintained a steady practice over the 8 week course.

I encourage you to enter the mindfulness meditation course and dwell intensely in it.  It can make such a difference in your life and in the lives of those around you.  It is not necessary to understand the brain’s role in mindfulness meditation in order to practice mindfulness, however, it does help you know that this ancient practice has far reaching health and healing benefits.  It certainly encourages my own practice.

Judy