Jon Kabat-Zinn from the Mindfulness in Society conference

I had the pleasure of meeting Jon Kabat Zinn at the conference last week. He did several talks and led a full day practice and dialogue. Here are my 'take aways' from his talks.

'Something is happening and that something is nothing.' Jon was commenting on how the hotel staff must have  seen the group! One day we did a whole lunchtime in silent meditation which must have seemed quite strange from the hotel staff's point of view. What were we all doing? We must be crazy, or in a trance. Even reading my notes, it is easy to see how meditation and its lessons could seem weird, obvious, not particularly significant, only for hippies. As you can imagine, for me, there is an ocean of truth in every bullet.

• MBCT and MBSR courses are a 'lab'. You don't need books. You do the experiments on yourself. You don't ask the experts. You become the scientist of your own body, mind and heart.
• The 8 week course is planting a seed. Nothing may happen for you while you are doing the course. But it might plant a seed. It is important for the teachers not to be attached to the outcome of what happens in the course. It is just about being connected to whatever happens.
• Meditating in a group is important because it is liberating. It is talking about the interior. It normalises what we think - because we know other people are thinking the same. We think we are a mutant and it is only us experiencing these things. Hearing about it from a group - you start to see patterns and your build the capacity to 'hold' these patterns. To see the patterns. You don't need to see it. It is enough to be aware of it.
• There is an idealisation of what mindfulness will become. It is not going to change everything.
• If you can learn to deal with a mind state like boredom, then you can deal with any mind state. The 'curriculum' is whatever bubbles out of the human experience.
• Why do we have to do 45 mins of meditation each day - that is a lot! If you ask a lot, you will get a lot. If you ask for a little, you get a little. In 45 minutes, that is enough to get bored, be in pain, experience the challenge of the human condition. You get all of that to work with in the meditation. Whatever comes up is what is 'on the curriculum'.
• Mindfulness is about paying attention, choosing to pay attention and keep the attention where you want it to be. Meditation is a cultivation tool that you already have. 
• Non-judgement doesn't mean not judging but to be aware of that judgement. We can watch the whole thing. We can hold the whole thing in our attention - including our judgement.
• We are always trying to be someone we are not, to get somewhere, to be someone. Then we will be okay! But we take our minds with us.
• Mindfulness is not a state.
• Be - it is the best education
• Thinking is a narrative, not actuality.
• Mindfulness = heartfulness. Mind and heart are the same words in Pali.
• Relationality is important - it is about us and not now.
• Waiting suggests expectations - so just be. Let go.
• Walking meditation mirrors our mind wandering - we are not trying to get anywhere. We are where we are. Here. Now.
• Sit as if there was no yesterday and as if there is no tomorrow.

Shauna Shapiro - from the Mindfulness in Society Conference

In March 2013, the Mindfulness in Society conference took place in Chester, UK. Here are some 'take aways' from Shauna Shapiro's key note presentation.

Intention is important - what intention do we have? She gave a nice anecdote about the first presentation/talk she did on mindfulness and she felt really nervous about doing it, whether she would be 'good', 'accepted' and Jack Kornfield said to her, 'Why are you here?'. That reminded her that what she wanted was to be of benefit. Intention isn't a destination, it is a direction.

With intention goes attention and attitude. There is a great quote she gave, 'The most important thing is to remember the most important thing.

We have 12,000 - 50, 000 thoughts a day and apparently, our mind wanders 46.9% of the time. Our repeated experience shapes our mind - our neuroplasticity. It's not just about what we practice when we meditate, its what we practice in our lives. Mindfulness offers us a choice point - we can create highways through repeated thinking - but there is also a choice to create a country path, into a lane, into a road - and so it builds. Mindfulness helps us to stand back and witness rather than be immersed in the drama of our story.

What you practice makes you stronger. Mindfulness is about acceptance, openness, kindness, curiosity, non-striving, letting go, trust, compassion. She gave a nice anecdote about a nun that had said that she said thank you for everything that happened to her. Good or bad. Not because she wanted it to be happening. But because it was already there and its about how you approach that reality.

Some people feel worried that mindfulness will make us passive and calm and don't want to feel that because they are passionate and have strong feelings. Acceptance is about that moment - you are accepting what is here now because it is here now.

Our minds can be a great cause of suffering. Christopher Gremer said, 'The unstable mind is like an unstable camera, we get a fuzzy picture. Shauna gave a quote that 'suffering = pain x resistance'. If pain is 100 and resistance is 100 you get 1000 units of suffering. If you can have the pain, and not resist it then suffering is 0. You still have pain but it can be our minds, our thinking, rumination, that lead to more suffering - and more disconnection from our experience.

In 2012 they did a study (Shapiro, Jazzeri, Goldin) that showed that mindfulness improves self-efficacy, happiness, academic performance, ethicial decision making and reduces cognitive rigidity. There is a danger that we will lose the transformational side to mindfulness as it moves into the mainstream. It may be misunderstood. It may be understood only superficially. Mindfulness can also be another self-improvement project and we can beat ourselves up using it. It is not about that - the intention is self-liberation.

Interconnectedness is a crucial part of what is being developed in mindfulness. The word compassion is incomplete if it doesn't include yourself.

Emo Philips said: 'I used to think that the mind was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realised who was telling me that.'


Reflections on the overall conference...

What struck me from the beginning was how the conference embodied 'mindfulness'! I don't know why I was surprised but I had only explored mindfulness on my own, with friends with mutual interests or with my MBCT group. To be around 300-500 people, and being asked at the beginning of the conference, before the first key note speech, to close my eyes and take a breathe, and feel the seat I was sat on, took me by surprise. It was a great start.

Throughout the conference we were reminded to breathe, to take note of the pressure we might feel to see, hear lots of things, or to meet lots of people - or how nervous we might be because we don't know anyone and others all seem to know each other. There was a gentleness, a kindness, a humbleness to the whole event.