The Promise of Mindfulness Part I: Holding Fear, Outrage & Faith

“An awakened and compassionate world.”

This is the guiding vision of the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School where I took another deep dive into mindfulness meditation earlier this month in the form of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher training.

 

I love this vision. I have deep faith in this vision.

And ( I am ashamed to say this…) after the mass shooting this past weekend at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where eleven elderly worshipers were murdered by a self-avowed Anti-Semite, I did not go to my own church service on Sunday morning with my children because I was afraid to.

I know that is not what I’m supposed to do in the face of domestic terrorism.

I’m supposed to bravely continue to live my life exactly the same way to show those who terrorize us with violence and threats of violence that their tactics will not work.

And yet, what if sometimes those tactics work on me?

What if I do have deep faith and sometimes I am afraid?

A few months ago a woman was raped while running on a Rails to Trails paved jogging path in suburban New England where I live, and since then, I have chosen not to hike alone.

Once again, fear.

But it can also be outrage.

Award-winning science fiction writer Philip K. Dick once wrote:

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

That sentiment resonates deeply for me right now- as it did a few weeks ago when the United States elevated Judge Bret Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court at the same time I was attending that 9-day MBSR teacher training at the Center for Mindfulness.

Because living freely in reality is not about being optimistic or pessimistic. It is not about thinking positively or thinking negatively.  It is about the facts. It is about causes and conditions. 

And if the causes and conditions don’t change, the facts don’t change either.

You see, I can find myself appalled, yet not surprised, by the okay-ness that many men and some women had about the lifetime judicial appointment to the highest court in the United States of a man who was investigated for a history of sexual assault, sexual misconduct, and sexual humiliation of young women, and even hear on television, radio, and in conversation men say: Even if it's true, I'm still okay with him being on the court, that does not change the facts.

And even if I have my own version of historical amnesia or delusion in which I “forget” or suppress the reality of the ways in which people harm people (and animals, and the earth, etc), until events like those above wake me up, like a slap in the face, landing me in fight (outrage) or flight (fear) mode, the facts don’t change.

It is probably self-preservation though, because to consciously remember facts about, for example, the United States' centuries-long legacy of institutional failure to protect girls and women from harm up to and including marital rape until 1993, my faith in that guiding vision of “An awakened and compassionate world” can feel more than elusive to me.

In fact, I actually can start to have comic book images in my mind of a kind of reverse-evolution that looks something like this cartoon I found on the internet:

(mhbenton.wordpress.com)

Having said all of that, before I toss in the evolutionary-towel altogether, I've decided to try to remind myself of what I believe is one of the promises of mindfulness- something I’ve come to think of as Reality-based Faith, or Mindfulness-based Faith.

 

In the type of mindfulness-based therapy that I practice as a psychotherapist, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, we have a skill that we teach clients called Radical Acceptance, and as part of understanding and utilizing this skill, the Psychologist who developed this therapy, Dr. Marsha Linehan, teaches us that it starts by saying to yourself: Things are as they should be.

Things are as they should be.

What does that mean though?

Eleven people are murdered on the basis of their religious beliefs with an AK-15 assault rifle.

Things are as they should be.

A woman is raped while jogging in her hometown.

Things are as they should be.

A judge accused of sexual assault is elevated to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Things are as they should be.

What this statement means is: there are causes and conditions for these three realities- these three facts.  And therefore, if the causes and conditions do not change, these three realities will not change. 

These facts will remain unchanged.

So to say the antithesis: things should not be this way, is factual incorrect because these realities were caused.

Unless…they are not. 

Because the reverse would also have to be true too.

If the causes and conditions for hate and other acts of violence like murder and rape change, then what?

Would our reality of people harming people (and animals, and the earth, etc) also change?

This is what Reality-based Faith or Mindfulness-based Faith means to me, and makes a guiding vision like: “An awakened and compassionate world” an actual possibility for humanity.

So here’s the million dollar question: Where does one begin to change those causes and conditions?

At the 9-day MBSR training earlier this month, the senior teacher, Pam, read this poem to our group:

Clearing

by Martha Postlewaite 

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.

May it be so.