Request for a resource: Christian Mindfulness

Dear Sangha:

I'm working with a client right now in a DBT group. She is having difficulty with the idea of mindfulness, which is an important part of the DBT curriculum. She is a Fundamentalist Christian.

I think she trips over the idea of mindfulness practices being something foreign and "other", and perhaps contradictory to Christianity. E.G.- wouldn't the idea of giving up judgmental thinking lead us into ways of evil.

Have any of you encountered in your lives the opportunity to explain mindfulness to non-Buddhists? How have you done it?

Are there any web references or books to recommend?

JKT

There are many resources on this topic. The most notable are works on the teachings of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection which he called The Practice of the Presence of God. His teachings emphasize "presence" in the everyday activities of life or "attention" combined with the "intention" that everything is done as a love offering to God. He was a cook's helper in a Carmelite Monastery in France, and considered one of the "lower monks", not a "choir monk". Not being privy to the higher forms of liturgical prayer practice he decided that his practice in the kitchen would be his prayer. In this way through the deeply transformative insights he had, wrote letters to spiritual friends which were saved, and became a widely acknowledged spiritual friend and teacher to many.
Here's what Amazon has: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_31?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=practice+of+the+presence+of+god&sprefix=practice+of+the+presence+of+god

Another classic resource is The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Pierre De Caussade, a French writer and priest from the 18th century.

And another resource would be books on the "Little Way" of St. Terese of Liseux, which arises from her autobiography and her understanding that the way of holiness is to make each act of the everyday a love offering.

I would add that despite the Catholic origin of these sources, many evangelical Christians follow the teachings of Brother Lawrence and cite them as an authority.

The origins of Christian mindfulness go deep into the earliest centuries of the desert tradition of contemplation and hesychastic meditation. The problem here is that a fundamentalist evangelical often doesn't acknowledge the validity of the contemplative tradition.
But here's one link that gives some background. http://www.emptybell.org/articles/christian-mindfulness.html

I've written some on the subject myself but again the problem with biblical fundamentalism it tends to deny the mystical and contemplative side of this. Brother Lawrence though has some credence among some Evangelicals.

Here's an article by a Christian Evangelical psychologist:
http://christianpsych.org/wp_scp/2010/02/14/christian-psychology-and-mindfulness/

It is notable that Marsha Linehan the creator of DBT, has been a student of Willigis Jager, a Christian Zen teacher.

What is DBT?


*****

I have a fundamentalist friend and once she asked me about prayer and meditation, the similarities and the differences. Knowing something about her form of prayer, the only thing that came to mind is what Mother Teresa said in an interview:

Interviewer: When you pray to God, what do you say?
Mother Teresa: I just listen.
Interviewer: So what does God say to you?
Mother Teresa: He just listens.

This is something both my friend and I could understand.

mokuan

@ Mokuan-"What is DBT?"


Dialetical Behavioral Therapy. It is a therapeutic approach that was authored by a woman at the University of Washington, a clinical social worker by the name of Marsha Linehan. It was initially formulated to address a particularly difficult demographic of clients presenting with symptoms and behaviors associated with Borderline Personality Disorder. It makes use of mindfulness training to assist teaching clients in identifying the cognitive drivers/precursors of dysfunctional behavior and to alter them and thereby manage their behavior more effectively. It has been very successful to the point that it is now used with a much wider and more varied client population. (Perhaps Jim would like to add to or make any corrections in my generalized summary description.) I had acquaintance with Marsha Linehan briefly in the later 1980s due to her association with a network of Christian Zennists who were connected with the Cistercian Abbot who was my spiritual friend and mentor for about 10 years, and who were also students of Willigis Jager and later Pat Hawk, of the Robert Aitken lineage. That network still exists here: www.seventhunders.org

Marsha Linehan PhD is a faculty member in the psych department at University of Washington / Seattle. She is one of the major developers of DBT. I attended one of her workshops in the Portland area last December. Had a chance to speak with her briefly and asked about her connection to Buddhism. And it turns out she trained at Shasta Abbey in 1976, prior to going to Germany to complete her training. She is certified as Roshi.

DBT is a therapy that combines cognitive behavior therapy with mindfulness. The curriculum include emotional regulation, distress tolerance and relationship effectiveness. DBT groups feel to the client more like graduate seminars than they would feel like a traditional therapy group. This form of therapy was originally designed for clients who were frequently in crisis, clients with borderline personality disorder. As the field has grown, it has been found successful for clients with mood disorders, anxiety, drug addiction and eating disorders.

The concept of Wise Mind comes up frequently in this work. That is, the place where emotion mind and rational mind overlap is Wise Mind. When we are in Wise Mind we can make decisions that are less likely to lead to suffering. This is not the case for rational mind or emotion mind.

DBT groups include instruction in mindfulness. This over time allows a de-identification with thought and emotion. (I am not my thoughts, I am not my emotions.) The mindfulness component also allows de-linking of "automatic" responses that many people have to events, thoughts and emotions. (I teach into that component by asking the clients to pay attention to the gaps between events thoughts and emotions, "Mind The Gap.")

When I facilitate one of these groups I remember sitting under the pines at Shasta learning about the law of dependent origination.

Here is a good resource:

http://www.wccm.org/

Another resource: http://www.oocities.org/scrate/attend.html

This is an essay by Abbot Thomas Keating, a Cistercian monk, the co-founder of Contemplative Outreach and the practice of Centering Prayer, a contemplative prayer practice based on The Cloud of Unknowing. The essay is entitled: The Practice of Attention/Intention.

Sample text:
"When you emerge from centering prayer, the present moment is what happens when you open your eyes. You have been in the present moment of prayer when you were completely open to the divine life and action within you. Now you get up out of the chair and you continue daily life. This is where
attentiveness to the content of the present moment is a way of putting order into the myriad occupations, thoughts and events of daily life.

Attention
to this context simply means to do what you are doing. This was one of the principal recommendations of the Desert Fathers and Mothers of the fourthcentury. The disciple would come for instruction and say, "I am interested in finding the true self and becoming a contemplative. What should I do?"
The Desert guides would reply in the most prosaic language. "Do what you're doing." Which means, bring your attention to the present moment and to whatever is its immediate content and keep it there." For instance,it is time for supper. Well, put the food on the table. This is true virtue. Turning on the television at that time or making a needless phone call
might not be. Attending to the present moment means that our mind is onwhat we are doing as we go through the day. Thus we are united to God in the present moment instead of wondering about what we are going to do next or tomorrow. There might be a good time set aside for planning but not now.

To be completely present to someone you are talking to is one of the most difficult of all practices. Your presence will often do more than what you say. It gives others a chance to be present to themselves. Moreover,if your presence is coming from a deep place within, the divine compassion that is inspiring you will be there for them in the degree that they are capable of receiving it.

To be totally present to children, if you have them, to the old folks,
if you have them, to counselees if you have them, to the job of the present moment that needs a responsible fulfillment - this is what might be called how to act from the center, how to do contemplative service, how to put order into ordinary daily life by being present to the occupation of the present moment. This cuts off an enormous amount of needless reflection, projects of self-aggrandizement, and wondering what people are thinking of us."

The Philokalia is a four volume collection of the teachings of the tradition of Hesychastic Meditation or Prayer of the Heart in Eastern Christianity, extending from the fourth century to the fifteenth century. Here is a brief summary of early teachers in that tradition that emerged from the deserts of the Middle East addressing vigilant mindfulness of thoughts. The second paragraph in particular is quite pertinent to the issues addressed in DBT:

"St. Isaiah the Solitary, a desert monastic of Palestine, proclaimed the practice of the remembrance of God as an awakening or uncovering of the Divine Presence that dwells within in the Heart. (Hatch, p.15) He asserted that attachment to thoughts is an obstacle to this full realization. This Eastern tradition of desert prayer is articulated well by John Climacus, a monk living near Sinai around 600 A.D. He advocated a prayer
of one phrase, called a monologistos, a single word in which we anchor ourselves in an ongoing remembrance of and surrender to God, in the Prayer of the Heart. He added the dimension
of harmonizing the prayer with the breathing. In his Ladder of Divine Ascent he gives the major dimensions of Eastern Orthodox contemplative practice. (Hatch, p.27) The practice goes as follows and one step leads to another:
(1) Stillness of thoughts (apothesis) and (2) the remembrance of Jesus united in breathing,leading to stillness (hesychia). The initial phase is the laying aside of distractions in the practice of the monologistos. The middle phase is the concentration on what is being said.And the conclusion is the "rapture in the Lord." The result of this practice is the conversion of all desire into the one desire, God. "I have known hesychasts whose flaming urge for God was limitless. They generated fire by fire, love by love, desire by desire." (John Climacus) (Hatch, p.27) The use of the Jesus prayer, in its short and longer forms, as one form of this Prayer of the Heart undergoes further development to the very present in the
Eastern tradition.

The Linking of Thought and Compulsion
Philotheus of Sinai, in his writings on Prayer of the Heart in the Philokalia (Kadloubovsky, p.338-339), beautifully
articulates the psychology of thoughts, sin, and addictions. He describes the ability of the will and spirit to resist or let go of thought, and thereby find greater freedom. He explains the process of entrapment in thoughts as follows: (1) impact - the first
stage when the thought or image is produced in the mind, (2) coupling - when the mind engages with volition the thought or image, and attachment rather than detachment results, (3) merging together - the volitional and active involvement or identification with the thought or image in choice, (4)
captivity - the image or thought becomes activated in an active choice toward action with dependence or complete involvement in the thought or image in a way that is disharmonious with atunement to God. This process, while seemingly complex in explanation, is rather simple, often unconscious, and every day in its action. "

How about The Cloud of Unknowing? (author unknown). Magnificent book.

Love your quote from Mother Theresa, Mokuan. I heard another similar one from a Hindu monk, "I look at Him, He looks at me." But I have to admit that my favorite simple reminder is "Be Here Now". The book really started the spiritual motor up, and the title still reminds me, when I sit and whenever I remember, that that is what my job is, right now.

I'm getting a little behind in my work and feeling pressure, so this may come out rather disjointed as I rush to capture my thoughts. I apologize in advance.

Lately, I've been thinking a great deal about being in the moment, about being here and now, and it makes me wonder what the Buddha really experienced sitting under the Bodhi tree. If I remember correctly, after years of of self-destrutive practices, he recalled sitting as a child in the garden, and it was that memory that led him to renounce ascetic practices and return to just sitting.

I remember from my own childhood those moments of living just in the moment, just being in the here and now. There are specific instances that stand out clearly in my own mind. And now, every fiber of my beings, yep, that's it.

I'm sure we all have memories like that, that in hindsight seem profound. So could the Buddha's enlightenment have been just that simple? Could it be that being in the here and now is all we really need to do?

Oh wise and wonderful beings on this forum, let me know what you think.

Many thanks in advance,
mokuan

PS. Thank you JKT, Bill R, and Jitusdo for the above explanations and links.

@ Mokuan "I remember from my own childhood those moments of living just in the
moment, just being in the here and now. There are specific instances
that stand out clearly in my own mind. And now, every fiber of my
beings, yep, that's it."
**************
Well stated, Mokuan. I think you have something there and, yes, likewise for me. In the mystic dimension of the major Wisdom traditions there is something of a teaching that enlightenment is simply a recovery, or re-membering an experiential truth that is already possessed in the Heart or spiritual center. The mystic practices of the Semitic traditions of the Middle East are frequently entitled "The Remembrance of God." It is notable that the Buddha, when he reached his dead-end in the spiritual journey, he remembered what he had done intuitively as a child, just sat and brought his attention to his breathing. A very similar thing happened to me in the throes of a crisis at age 21. I remembered what I had done at age three, just sat and breathed and went to a "place" within of pure presence, pure being.

Developmentally it seems we are both doomed and gifted to develop a complex brain, and the creation of that complex brain is an egoic self based on a separate self consciousness. Then as an adult we grieve for our "expulsion from the Garden," and the place of unity. The wisdom teachers teach that our task in the human realm is to individuate or incarnate in this humanity, in the medium of personhood, flesh, and experience this inner truth that we already possess from the beginning- as T.S. Elliot says, 'arriving where we began and discovering it again for the first time.' That fits for me, but as the historical Yeshua bin Yosef has said, to "enter the kingdom within, we must become a little child.' In that sense mindfulness or pure unified presence, is both the path and the fulfillment of that path, the "at-one-ment" with true being.

Mokuan your right if it isn't just this, here and now, what can it be? All the rest is about and about; skillful means at its best, delusion and confusion at its worst.

"Then as an adult we grieve for our "expulsion from the Garden," and the place of unity."

I've heard this described as "building our cage." That is, we aren't expelled from anywhere, but instead we build a cage. In our sense of loss we spend our lives gilding the cage, rather than escaping it.

At least that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

"In our sense of loss we spend our lives gilding the cage, rather than
escaping it."
*************
That seems to be the spectrum of our choice. Some choose a course of freedom and recovering the original unity, in my view.

Here,here Bill

@ Jim

Referencing our discussion about Marsha Linehan, there is a front page article in the NY Times on her own personal struggle with mental illness and the integration of her spiritual life and Zen practice in coming to an effective and compassionate methodology in helping others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html?_r=1&hp

If we lost the unity and are trying to recover it, what will prevent us from losing it all over again?
If losing the unity is a FACT, then there are two things, minimum, us, and the other. Where is your non-duality of Buddhism then?

If, however, there was never such loss, but we don't know it, then the remedy is clear.

I read the article about Marsha Linehan at the office today. Brave woman- she admitted having a long history of inpatient care for what sounds like borderline personality disorder. Also very touching, I thought, knowing the source of work with clients.
This wasn't mentioned in the article, but a main component of her therapy that she teaches is dialectic thinking. Getting past narrow ways of thinking... allowing the wise mind to speak.

Ms. Linehan's story is another, yet especially evocative example of how the healing of a central personal koan becomes the means of not only awakening and transformation, but also compassionate service in the world.

In the case of my own father who was raised in an alcoholic home with domestic violence, entered the Marine Corps at age 16 (parents lied about his age). By age 19 he was in the worst fighting in the Pacific in WWII. When I knew him as a child he was unable to function as a parent or successfully in his contracting business,(which he lost). By facing his koan of violence and alcohol addiction, through working on his recovery, and his PTSD, he became a gifted alcohol counselor working with vets in the VA system who were decimated by violence and addiction. By the time of his death, he was my best friend, an open hearted kind transformed man who had learned how to love and serve. He died in my arms in a loving release.

Wonderfully touching story Bill.What better way to leave this Earth, than the giving of ones tender Heart to others.
Bought tears to my eyes.

John, thanks for the kind comment. The father I knew as a child was not a person I wanted to be around. (I didn't know him that well because my parents divorced when I was two, although I worked with him as a teenager when his alcoholism was progressing and his business collapsed.)He was mean and self centered. He was known among men as a "tough marine". The crucible of alcoholism "saved him" as he says. He became a real human being. The person I held in my arms at his death was a warm, compassionate human being, who would readily melt in tears and affectionate embrace when he saw me. It's a real story of transformation, one that is a sign of hope also for me as my journey continues. Because of his transformation he used the wounds of existence to help other man with similar wounds.Analagous in a way to the Marsha Linehan story referenced above.

Hope for all of us too Bill.
When the pain of our past actions starts to open us up we can truely feel for others.
I have never had a drink or mental health problem, or seen the horrors of war, but when I
was a teenager I had a horrific motorcycle accident, with five months in hospital, leaving me with a paralised right arm.Life was never the same any more, but I learned to adjust.
My mother had said it was a turning point in my life. It wasnt until I reached my thirties
that the stifling constrictions inside pushed me to look for release or resolution. Which gave rise to an emotional bomb going off, it took years to bring it under some kind of control and eventual convertion to love. But we live in the real world not in the sky, and that is always being tested. Different routes to the same destination as your Dad, Marsha,
and your good self.

john wrote:

Hope for all of us too Bill......
Different routes to the same destination as your Dad, Marsha,
and your good self.

Well spoken, John.

JKT: your client may find Thich Nhat Hanh's book 'Living Buddha, Living Christ' helpful. It considers the Buddha and Jesus as 'brothers' and is very respectful towards Christianity (as Thich Nhat Hanh is whenever he mentions it in his writings).

Hi John,

I have a similar story about my Grandfather who was at one time a Sargent in the Canadian Army. I went to live with my Grandparents when I was 13 yrs. old. He was an alcoholic who jointed A.A. the yr. I was born so I never knew him as an active alcoholic. From the age of 10, they used to take me along to A.A. meetings. I've been to lots of A.A. meetings with them over the yrs. I grew up. I listened to the stories people shared there about themselves and their addiction. I was quite the education! Even though my Grandfather quit drinking the yr. I was born it took many yrs. for him to soften and be able to express love. It wasn't until I was 19 yrs. old that this transformation was noticeable to me. He had been a moody, emotionally distant Grandfather who seldom expressed his positive feelings. At 19 he was able to give me a real hug and tell me his stories of his life with a refreshing openness. I knew then I was truly loved by him. I have A.A. to thank and the mysterious workings of God, En, Great Spirit, whatever you call it.

It was good to hear the story of your father. It made me feel happy this happened in your family. Bye, claire

Wonderful to discover this thread on a quiet morning! Thanks to all for the personal stories, information, and links.

JKT, I don't know it this idea will be helpful at all, but your client's story brought to mind something in the New Testament book of Galatians (2:20), where Paul says "...it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me..." Mindfulness practice in a Christian context, then, might be seen as Bill and others have noted simply paying attention to the presence of "Christ who lives in me." Or as Mother Theresa said so eloquently (thanks Mokuan for the quote) listening.

I know it's unwise to press too hard on parallels between different faith traditions, but it has always seemed to me that what Buddhists call "Buddha Nature" might be pretty closely related to what Christians call "the resurrected Christ".

Lots of food for thought in this thread, and thanks to all.

Jim