MEDITATION ORIGINS. Part 4 of 5.
J. Krishnamurti, who relocated to Southern California in the 1930s and attracted the English writers Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood, was perhaps the most prominent spiritual teacher to arrive during this era. Although Krishnamurti (who was raised by Theosophists to be a global teacher) rejected formal meditation and religious dogma in favour of conversation and self-inquiry, Huxley and Isherwood were instrumental in popularising the immense Hindu texts.
By the 1950s, Zen had begun to have a considerable impact on the American counterculture. While Gary Snyder (who subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Turtle Island) studied Zen in Japan, his Beat colleague and friend Jack Kerouac published books that popularised Buddhist notions like dharma, karma, and satori. D. T. Suzuki, the eminent Japanese scholar, also began teaching Zen at Columbia University in New York City in the 1950s. His audience included youthful Thomas Merton, J. D. Salinger, John Cage, and psychoanalysts Erich Fromm and Karen Horney. Around the same time, former Episcopal priest and Zen devotee Alan Watts' works became best-sellers, notably The Way of Zen and Psychotherapy East and West.
A unique series of events in the 1960s created the ground for the mainstreaming of meditation. Many young adult Baby Boomers began experimenting with altered states of consciousness by taking so-called mind-expanding substances like marijuana and LSD. Simultaneously, the Vietnam War sparked a backlash among a substantial portion of the world’s population. It aided in the formation of a counterculture that was antagonistic to the existing quo in many respects. Popular music fostered discontent by extolling the virtues of "tuning in, turning on, and dropping out" – terms that, in another time, place, and context, would have alluded to renunciation of the world in favour of the monastic life. And the spirit of the times, coupled with political upheaval in Asia (including shock waves from Vietnam and the Chinese annexation of Tibet), brought a new wave of spiritual teachers to the New World.
From the perspective of meditation, probably the most significant event of this era was the Beatles' conversion to Transcendental Meditation (T.M. ), which inspired many young admirers to begin meditating as well. (Over the years, the T.M. movement has taught millions of Westerners how to meditate and has pioneered research into the mind-body effects of meditation.) As psychedelics lost their lustre, an increasing number of individuals who had resorted to drugs for contemplative experiences like calm and insight turned to the real thing — and some even sought sanctuary in the yoga communities and Zen centres established by their newfound masters.
Since the 1970s, a new generation of instructors of Eastern spiritual disciplines has emerged in the West, equipped with the knowledge to translate the teachings for their brothers and sisters. As Alan Watts predicted in his book Psychotherapy East and West, the area of psychotherapy has been especially susceptible to Eastern ideas, maybe because psychotherapy, like meditation, professes to give a remedy to suffering. As a result, spiritual instructors frequently phrase their lessons in terms that appeal to advocates of "personal progress."
For tens of thousands of years, Native Americans meditated. In addition to shamans, who play an essential role in tribal life, Native American boys and girls sometimes mark the transition from infancy to maturity by meditating alone in a holy location for three or four days. They seek dreams or visions that grant them particular insight or power and help them contact their guardian spirits through fasting, praying, concentrating their brains, and opening their senses. Native Americans may also meditate alone in nature as adults when they want spiritual nourishment or answers to crucial life concerns. Furthermore, moment-to-moment awareness has long been an essential component of traditional Native American culture.
Simultaneously, scientific experts such as Herbert Benson, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Dean Ornish have helped mainstream meditation. Books on meditation and related topics regularly appear on the New York Times best-seller list. Articles on the practice and benefits of meditation appear not only in health and fitness magazines but also in business journals, as well as major newspapers. Several years ago, Time magazine did a cover article on the rising popularity of Buddhism, and Newsweek printed covers with Ornish and meditation guru Deepak Chopra on them. Time magazine recently featured a photo of a young woman meditating on its surface, with the headline "Mindful Revolution." Without a doubt, meditation has become a widespread practice!
Meditation has grown so popular in the West that it has begun to permeate our culture in ways that were unthinkable even a decade or two ago. Meditation alters how we do business, teach our children, conceptualise and administer healthcare, and treat common psychological illnesses like anxiety and depression, from corporate boardrooms to classrooms.
According to scientific evidence, daily meditation makes you happier, more compassionate, more productive, emotionally intelligent, and more resistant to disease. As a result, an increasing number of public and private institutions are feeling compelled to provide some form of meditation to their patients, inmates, students, employees, and members. Here are some recent developments.
Mindfulness meditation — paying careful attention to your experience from moment to moment without judgement — will become a crucial component of the healthcare system during the next decade. Thousands of clinical and private practice settings worldwide have, and will continue to adopt the approach. For patients with stress-related severe illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension, more and more doctors are prescribing regular meditation practice alongside insulin, beta-blockers, and blood-pressure medication — and mindfulness practice has become one of the go-to methods for working with chronic pain.
The work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and his widely disseminated mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme, combined with extensive research into the health benefits of meditation over the last two decades, has prompted many insurance companies to reimburse for – or even develop – meditation-based stress-management programmes. Consider Aetna, one of the world's largest health insurers and a Fortune 500 corporation. Following a skiing accident, CEO Mark Bertolini turned to mindfulness meditation and yoga to alleviate his chronic pain — and now Aetna's Mindfulness at Work programme is available to the company's workers and employers that purchase employee insurance!
Depression is not only the most prevalent mental disorder, but it is also one of the most persistent. Up to 80% of persons with a significant depressive episode return, and medicines, if they work, tend to lose their effectiveness over time. Scientific research has shown that regular mindfulness meditation promotes good mood by stimulating the brain's happiness centre, the left prefrontal cortex.
Come back tomorrow for the fifth and final part.
Be well.
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