The Zen Peacemakers and Bernie Glassman return to Auschwitz for Bearing Witness Retreats on Nov 1-5, 2010.
To read descriptions and/or to register, please click here. This retreat includes Youth from Israel, Palestine, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, US and other countries.
THE FIRST SYMPOSIUM FOR
WESTERN SOCIALLY ENGAGED BUDDHISM
A recent review of over 52 empirical and theoretical studies, spanning the years from 2003-2008, published by the National Institute of Health concluded that, “a more mindful way of being is associated with less emotional distress, more positive states of mind, and better quality of life.”
This particular review - a meta-analysis of empirical findings on this topic - encompassed a cross-section of research spanning four domains: the mind, the brain, the body, and behavior. The study concluded that,
“The latest scientific research on mindfulness has demonstrated beneficial effects on several aspects of whole-person health, including the mind, the brain, the body, and behavior. Clinical trials and laboratory studies alike suggest that the mechanisms of mindfulness involve not only relaxation, but important shifts in cognition, emotion, biology, and behavior that may work synergistically to improve health. There is also emerging evidence that mindfulness training is associated with greater meaning and peace in one’s life (spirituality), as well as enhanced relationships with others. A number of cutting-edge technologies, including brain imaging, are being used to examine the potential health benefits of mindfulness, an ‘inner technology’ we all possess. Finally, research is beginning to prove what mindfulness practitioners have known of for centuries … that greater attention, awareness, acceptance, and compassion can facilitate more flexible, adaptive responses to stress, which, in turn, can help free us from suffering and realize greater health & well being.”
As this study indicates, an entire new paradigm is emerging within health care in this country as the wisdom of the East encounters modern Western scientific discipline. This new paradigm of “inner technology” is beginning to revolutionize the field of mental health services.
New mental health approaches to treatment based on mindfulness and acceptance-based practices are proving themselves as effective alternative treatments for a broad spectrum of psychological disorders including anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress, alcoholism, chronic pain, etc.
One truism of American culture is that if you build a better mouse trap, people will beat a path to your door. As more and more mental health professionals embrace and empirically demonstrate the efficacy of mindfulness and acceptance-based therapies as skillful means for ameliorating the suffering encountered by their clients, it is entirely possible that a wider and wider circle of American culture will be exposed to the Dharma – perhaps in ways that are not currently possible for more traditional forms of dharma practice.
New therapies like Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) are already making substantial inroads as viable forms of psychotherapy that owe much of their philosophical, theoretical and technological orientation and capability to the Dharma.
For example, it is not uncommon to find mindfulness exercises in clinical mental health manuals taken directly from the work of prominent Buddhist Teachers such as Pema Chodron, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Thich Nhat Hanh, etc. Many clinical protocols incorporate quotes and sayings from ancient masters such as the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Zen Master Seng-Ts’an to mention but a few. Buddhist concepts such as sunyata, beginner’s mind, the uncarved block, etc., are employed as principles and metaphors to help clients understand the functioning of their own minds.
One current application of mindfulness and acceptance-based practices for the treatment of a significant mental health issue is the Brattleboro Retreat’s Partial Hospitalization and Therapeutic Community Residence program for Uniformed Service Professionals; e.g., firefighters, police officers, emergency medical personnel, etc., suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Founded in August of 2009, the Uniformed Services Program (USP) at the Brattleboro Retreat was designed by a long-term (25 years) Zen student who also is a trained mental health professional. The program incorporates mindfulness and acceptance-based clinical protocols including DBT, MBSR and ACT. It also incorporates specific Zen practices of the Zen Peacemaker Order such as daily Council Practice and Zazen.
The program is designed as a 10-day “retreat” with an enriched schedule of mindfulness and acceptance-based clinical offerings that in many ways mimics the intensity of a 10-day Zen sesshin.
Patients start their day at 6:30 a.m. and follow a rigorous clinical schedule that concludes each night at 9 p.m. Throughout the day, patients practice mindfulness meditation and Zazen. Council practice is a regular part of the clinical programming with an opening and closing Council beginning and ending each day’s “practice.”
Clinical programming focuses the attention of patients on metaphors and experiential exercises designed as skillful means to help each client derive the innate wisdom they already posses to transform their lives.
The program is built upon six core clinical processes derived from mindfulness and acceptance-based principles and techniques of treatment. They are as follows:
BE HERE NOW: Individuals with PTSD and associated conditions apportion much of their conscious awareness to ruminations about the past and worries about the future. In effect, they are living mostly in their heads and not present to witness their own moment-to-moment experience. MBSR is used to train patients to bring their attention and awareness back into the moment.
JUST NOTICE IT: One significant problem experienced by people who struggle with difficult internal experience; e.g., thoughts, memories, emotions, bodily sensations, etc., is the tendency to fuse their ongoing empirical sense of self with these internal experiences. The program works with patients to adopt an observer perspective from which they can just notice internal experiences without defining themselves by these ever changing internal phenomena.
STAY WITH IT: Much of the psychopathology that arises as symptomatic behavior results from unwillingness to simply experience difficult emotions and bodily sensations. The alternative to simply staying with these internal experiences until they run their course and fade away is to take deliberate action to avoid and escape them. Self destructive behavior; e.g., drinking losing one’s temper, manipulating, etc., functions in the short run to provide temporary relief from internal painful experiences but in the long run never succeeds in permanently keeping them at bay. Acceptance skills are taught to patients to empower them to stay with difficult internal experience until it runs its course without engaging in experiential avoidance of their lived experience. Distress tolerance skills derived from DBT are taught to patients to help them cope with difficult emotions until they subside.
LET IT GO: Patients are also taught how to defuse from conditioned patterns of thought that often accompany painful emotions. Techniques that are part of the ACT protocol as well as the practice of Zazen helps patients to experience the relief that can accompany the process of bearing witness to thought without engaging it; i.e., thinking non-thinking. Patients report that this skill helps them to re-contextualize their thoughts as just thoughts rather than the literal truth of self.
CHOOSE A PATH: Once patients begin to experience a measure of psychological clarity we teach them a process for identifying what is most important in their lives and the skills necessary to chart a course toward valued living. Patients are empowered to recognize life goals and loving actions that can move them in the direction of a more vital life.
JUST DO IT: Once patients begin to identify the paths in life they wish to travel equipped with a new found confidence in themselves, they begin to take the necessary actions to move themselves in more life affirming directions. Of itself the fruit is born.
A recent summative and formative evaluation of this program concluded the following based on a statistical analysis of pre-post measures on program specific variables related to the six core clinical processes above:
The program significantly reduces the symptoms of PTSD for 88% of the residents treated.
The program also significantly reduces symptoms of depression for 88% of the residents who have participated in the program.
The application of the core clinical processes of mindfulness, psychological flexibility, defusion and valued living result in statistically significant changes in patient behavior and these changes predict overall improvement in patient functioning and well being.
In conclusion, mindfulness and acceptance-based ‘inner technology” based on Dharma principles and validated through western scientific methods is demonstrating that the ancient wisdom of the Buddha is revolutionizing modern mental health services resulting in innovations in compassionate care for those who struggle with “mental illness.”