New Interest in Mindfulness

By Dennis Green

Because of advances in neuroscience and perhaps higher levels of stress in our society, there is a newfound interest in mindfulness. The Dali Lama, head of Tibetan Buddhism, invited western neuroscientists some years ago to do brain scans of monks who had been meditating for many years, to see if their brain waves and structure were any different from the norm.

Well, now that you mention it…

In 1967, Bladdy and I drove down off the Great Walora Ranch and out to the UCSB campus to see what this guy, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, was all about. We’d taken acid a few times, and found it a bit…strenuous…and were looking, as many of our friends were, for a “legal high.”

There he was in a small room in the basement of the UCEN, the Maharishi, sitting on a small deerskin rug and emanating joyfulness. He was so happy he could barely contain himself. But he spoke to us for about an hour, the 17 of us attending his lecture, and offered to initiate us into his practice of Transcendental Meditation.

We were given a mantra, and told it should not be spoken aloud, but allowed to resonate over and over inside the mind until the state of mindfulness ensued. We were also advised to sit in meditation twice a day, for 20-40 minutes at a time, in the early morning and late afternoon, in a quiet, peaceful setting. I have been practicing TM ever since.

Later, I became a TM “trainer,” coaching people new to the practice, people having difficulty focusing on their mantra, and suggesting other techniques they could add, such as an awareness of breathing, muscular relaxation, and a whole philosophy of “no attachments” common to Buddhism and helpful to the practice of mediation.

I learned that my own mantra, with its two syllables, is a “householder” mantra, that is, suitable for someone active in the world, as compared, say, to a one syllable mantra like “Om,” which is more suitable as a “recluse” mantra. Other refinements followed.

A year after our first encounter, Blad and I returned to campus to see the Maharishi’s second lecture, but this time it was held in Campbell Hall, which holds 900 people, and there were students standing in the back. One student raised his hand and protested, “But Jesus told us we have to suffer to know Redemption!” And the Maharishi smiled broadly, and said, “No need to suffer, no need at all.”

In the following months, Maharishi attracted some famous followers to his Ashram in India, including the Beatles and Mia Farrow, who eventually accused the guru of making a pass at her. This is the same little twit who married Frank Sinatra and went skinny-dipping in the Kennedy pool, and later wound up with Woody Allen, who schtupped her adopted daughter. Yikes.

But eventually, the Transcendental Meditation Movement spread worldwide, established a university and attracted many thousands of practitioners. I knew its benefits first-hand. New studies show that meditation changes brain activity, from Alpha or Beta waves, indicative of alertness and agitation, to Theta waves, best described as “energized but calm.”

Over time, it also changes the brain, making the frontal right lobe more active, where relaxation occurs, and dampens activity in the left frontal lobe, where anxiety, stress and feelings of anger or resentment reside. Tibetan monks exhibit brain wave patterns neuroscientists had never seen before.

I had a personal reinforcement of its importance when, at age 55, I had my first heart attack, and was told by my cardiologist that stress is the number one factor in heart disease and the narrowing of the arteries — not cholesterol or even inflammation — and that the stress of my work as creative director in Lazzari & Green Advertising would have to go.

So I changed my life, as we wound down LGA, and I returned to teaching and writing. I also took many classes in stress reduction, including T’ai Chi, Qi Quong, “Therapeutic Touch,” and “Gentle Yoga.” T’ai Chi is known as “The Moving Meditation” and Qi Quong as “The Ancient Dance,” and both contribute strongly to a state of mindfulness.

All I can say is that I experience, when in that state, a wonderful sense of transparency, that I am completely open to all the world and it is all flowing through me, like the wind in the willows. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything!

©2010 Dennis Green