2010: A Mindfulness Odyssey

In the last ten years, and beyond, there has been a steadily growing interest in the neurological benefits of practicing mindfulness as alternative to synthetic medication and existing psychoanalytical explanation for ailments like ADHD. For example, many neuroscientists have been studying the effects of meditation on patients with ADHD and find it to be a highly beneficial way of dealing with its symptoms. Meditation, in general, is a mindfulness exercise where the attention one submits is upon a very specific thing. For the meditation technique known as Vipassana, the practitioner begins with full attention on the breath advancing to full attention on the rest of the body. If done effectively, one’s attention becomes acutely aware of things happening within the body, that full observation of its processes is achieved. Susan Smalley Ph.D., a committed blogger for the Huffington Post and founder of the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) at UCLA, has a vested interest in advancing the applicability of meditation as well as other mindfull practices as a solution to attention span and hyperactivity disorders. After studying autism and ADHD for 25 years, she decided upon a scientific approach different from anything she was accustomed to. Even though the medical treatment cured her of her cancer, she believed something more profound to be causing her illness. That is when she turned inward. In all her life, the pursuit of knowledge, reading books, that all she needed existed in a world governed by reason alone never allowed for importance to be given to her own intuition (the body). So she practiced meditation among other holistics, which led her to the profound realization of all things sharing interconnectivity. In her discovery, she learned of the importance of directing her attention away from external influence. There she came to distinguish between the use of reason as a foundation to support an understanding of illness and the sheer potential and efficacy of the human brain to do the same. Instead of books and logic, she turned to her breath, her body itself, to guide her. In the holistic approach, the body as a whole is observed and every part sought to equilibrate.

If the problem with attention deficit disorders is an inability to sustain attention, and meditation is the practice of sustaining attention and its benefits are scientifically measurable, it seems perfectly natural, raw if you will, to employ it. Meditation is basically an attention training program. As Dr. David Rabiner, Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University puts it, meditation is, “paying attention to attention.” However, its use is currently not acknowledged as a provable treatment because research has not yet been published. There is currently an abundance of research being conducted and meditation is believed to be helping with all sorts of issues like, empathy, peace and harmony, stress, insomnia and of course attention deficit.

One very basic way of thinking about how meditation can be considered a solution to ADHD is by looking at a very simple example of an attention span experiment conducted by Dr. Richard Davidson, University of Wisconsin, seen here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?id=1844697211. In the experiment, two groups are tested to study their ability to spot numbers within a rapidly changing series of letters. The group that meditated for three months was able to see all the numbers; the group that did not meditate missed some. This experiment illustrates the notion that a too active mind may be missing out on pertinent information.

Arguably, the prevalence of these problems in our society is a result of the structure of the modern world we are all a part of and contribute to. We are inundated by mass information and mass technologies and we need an acute attention span to run them all productively. For some this leads to mass overload and the inability to navigate in a calm efficient way.

I can relate my own experiences with attention training and the benefits observed. In the summer of 2008, I completed an intensive 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat http://www.dhamma.org/ in North Fork, CA. Among some very important precepts in place while at the retreat, students were also to commit to a vow of silence, called Noble Silence, for the entire 10 days, which meant that you were not allowed to talk under any circumstances to anyone, except of course in an emergency. It also meant that it was in one’s benefit to refrain from making eye contact with anyone. These extremes are probably impractical in our daily lives, but it was an absolutely necessary instrument for students of Vipassana so that experientially, the technique could be learned without distraction. Not talking, not paying attention to anyone but your self for hours on end, let alone days, is a significantly influential way to keeps one’s attention extremely tuned to oneself without distraction. With 10 days of silence, one has ample opportunity to reflect on the bindings, the attachments, and the vices of the external world over the mind. To quote S.N. Goenka, the major proponent for this type of meditation, Vipassana is simply a technique to end suffering (http://www.dhamma.org/en/goenka.shtml). It is the invention of Gotama, the Buddha, in India, over 2500 years ago. It is described as the Art of Living. http://www.dhamma.org/en/art.shtml. Being so acutely tuned to oneself in effect allows for new perspectives of the world. For example, paying attention only to yourself for extended periods of time, gives you the ability to assess the disciplinary nature of the mind, what objects capture attention. In practicing meditation, while attention is placed wholly on the body itself and nothing more, the practitioner is forced to his/her own awareness of attachments to external objects i.e., agitations and disharmonies perhaps related to ego, that are consequently distributed to everyone around us. An example of this would be anger felt for being cut off on the road and the consequent flipping of a bird. Other examples are jealousy, envy, pride.

The research behind meditation is still in its very early stages but is awakening many people to its potential. If in the first decade of this millennia, we began to become aware of the power of the mind, the power of the self and our own intuitive abilities to heal, then it may suit to claim that the next decade will be given to the discovery of its application and the embodiment of the mind. But aren’t our minds already in our bodies?