Interviews

An interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Door of Mindfulness

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. is internationally known for his work as a scientist
and meditation teacher bringing mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine
and society. He is Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in
Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical
Center. The founder and former director of the UMMC Stress Reduction Clinic,
and of its four-year prison project, Dr. Kabat-Zinn has trained groups of
judges, CEO's, doctors, Catholic priests, and Olympic athletes, and prison
inmates in mindfulness. He is the author of Full Catastrophe Living: Using
the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness; Wherever
You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life; and
co-author, with his wife Myla, of Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of
Mindful Parenting.

LP: Jon, what were your teenage years like? Was there a person or a
particular practice that was helpful for you when you were a teen?

JKZ: I did not know anything about meditation when I was a teenager. I grew
up in New York City and spent a lot of time on the street. I was kind of a
street kid but I also had the benefit of a family in which my father was a
scientist and my mother an artist. So I had a lot of different influences
working on me simultaneously. But most of my friends were from the street and
we spent all our time hanging out. It was basically a tough environment, at
least by the standards of the day. We would fight a lot but we also played a
lot of sports, right there in the street. It was also definitely a climate in
which I felt my survival depended on carefully reading signals from other
people, friends and strangers, because some people seemed quite dangerous. I
developed a certain kind of armor plating to protect myself physically and
psychologically. Part of this was developing a tough guy persona, where
people could not tell how dangerous I might be. I carried this in my body.
That is how I got through my younger years. Then it took about ten years to
let go of that armor once I left that environment, and sometimes I'm not sure
if it's completely done with me even now. Easier to put on than to take off.

This kind of thing can happen to us when we are young, especially if our
world is not particularly friendly or welcoming. We might put on certain
masks, just to protect ourselves, then come to believe in them so much that
we forget we have them on, or that there is something interesting underneath.
Moreover, If you take the mask for real, you might embark on a dangerous path
to show others or even yourself how tough or how brave you are. This can also
get played out by taking chemicals into your body that change your
perceptions. One of the reasons people take drugs is that they offer an
immediate feeling of pleasure that can seem a lot more attractive than the
run-of-the-mill daily grind. But after a while, you may not know how you feel
anymore, and get more and more out of touch with who you really are, and what
you care about.

LP: The "just say no" to drugs stance may not take it far enough. There is no
substitute offered or alternative ways to gain a more pleasurable existence.

JKZ: Sometimes, when you taste feelings of deep relaxation or well-being,
free from any anxiety or worry, as can happen when practicing meditation or
doing yoga or Qi Gong, it really feels different from our normal everyday
states of mind. But rather than being an escape, as most drug experiences
wind up being, these so-called consciousness disciplines wind up putting us
more in touch with what is deepest and best in us already, a potential that
we often have no idea we have, let alone that it can be developed, refined,
and put to amazing use. And I do think that young people live much closer to
this than most adults. It is not unfamiliar territory to them, but often it
is never talked about, or understood, and actually honored and respected. But
in practicing meditation, at any age, we may quickly come to realize that our
mind is very versatile, and that we can have a real say in our perceptions
and our states of mind. We may come to see that there is more than one room
in the house, so to speak, meaning that there are other states of mind
besides fear and anxiety. So there really are much healthier ways to
experience moments of well-being and happiness than taking drugs. They may be
a little slower and require more inner work of a certain kind at first, but
the ultimate payoff is far greater, namely your life, and deep feelings of
self worth and belonging to something beautiful and greater than yourself.

Meditation can be thought of as a way to go about exploring all the different
rooms in the house of our own being, and seeing if we can inhabit them and
make good use of them. We may gradually come to see that we can come to know
ourselves, to see what is underneath the mask. We might discover that there
is a trustable inner dimension of our being that is always OK, is always
reliable. And that maybe we could live there. In other words, you decide to
redecorate the house and take up residence as yourself. Then you do not need
to march to anyone else's drum. You do not need take part in harmful and
destructive and self-destructive activities, such as robbing someone or
getting high, because you know that that will just generate more pain all
around, and perhaps you don't need or want any more pain. Change of this kind
really occurs when you come to realize that you would simply be happier not
taking part in such activities and feeding the positive aspects of your being
instead, and reaching out to actually help other people who may also be in
pain.

LP: But possibly a way to that place is by developing a different
relationship to that longing for relaxation and well-being?

JKZ: Exactly. But that is very hard to come by as a teenager all by yourself.
If you have a mentor or friends who are grounded in other ways of being, it
can be very helpful. So it is not just "Don't do drugs because they are no
good for you," but to hear from people who have gone that route and can speak
from their own experience, that has more impact.

My own view is that everyone is a miraculous being. This is not how most
teenagers tend to think of themselves! Nor other age groups. We tend to think
everyone else is OK but there is something wrong with me, so I have to do
things that prove that I am OK.

LP: In a juvenile hall class awhile back we got on the subject of aliveness
and talked about where the youth find aliveness in their lives. One kid said
he felt it most when he was running from the cops -- and most everyone in the
room nodded their head in agreement. Do you think that this aliveness is what
we are seeking?

JKZ: When Bill Moyers was interviewing Joseph Campbell for the PBS television
series "The Power of Myth," at a certain point Moyers had a revelation and
said, "Joe, I think I know now why myth is common to all cultures. It's
because myth articulates the deep meaning of life for the people in the
culture." Campbell, who had studied so many different cultures, replied,
"People say we are looking for meaning in life. I do not think that is what
we are looking for at all. I think what we are really looking for is an
experience of being alive."

So we might say that most of us are sleepwalking through our lives much of
the time, and as a consequence, in some ways we may be more dead or numb than
alive. Children of course see the adults looking kind of moribund and
completely self-absorbed and running frantically on a treadmill that seems to
be very largely meaningless, and they think, "I do not want to go in that
direction. That's dead. So I am going to take risks that will give me a
thrill. I may live a short life, but at least I am going to feel alive." But
if you can see that you can live your life so that every moment is an
adventure, is vital, you do not need to engage in self-destructive activities
to get that alive feeling. Actually everything that happens to you, including
the moments of boredom and pain become part of the adventure, and your
awareness shifts their meaning and gives you ways to work with those
experiences to grow more secure and happier, and to feel more connected.
That could be a powerful way to relate to one's experience, but in order to
get there you have be willing to inhabit moments of boredom, and see that we
actually make the boredom; it is not that the world is boring. You then see
that there are various levels of mind and that the mind itself, your mind, is
one of the most interesting things on the planet, and worth exploring, and
also taking care of, along with your body.

LP: How about introducing practices to diverse populations. Do you see
possible dangers in that?

JKZ: I think what matters most is the intention of those who are doing the
teaching -- especially that they are practicing the meditation themselves and
really living what they are teaching. If there is a sincerity inside one's
own efforts, if being mindful is actually seen and conveyed as an act of
love, if others come to feel that paying such exquisite attention in one's
own life really is an act of loving acceptance and liberation, then the
practice can be extremely powerful and useful. From my experience, I think
offering awareness practices to different populations touches people
universally. Mindfulness practice is not solely Buddhist. The Dharma is not
just Buddhist. If it were uniquely Buddhist it would not be nearly as
powerful. If it was just Buddhist then it would only be for Buddhists, which
is dualistic. Then you are creating a difference between Buddhists and non
Buddhists which is not Buddhism because you are clinging to a differentiation
that really only comes from your thoughts. So the Dharma itself and awareness
itself and attention itself cannot possibly be limited and are profoundly
human. They can be healing and valuable to all people.

But I do think we need to be sensitive to the environments in which we choose
to work. We need to use the vocabulary of the audience. It is unlikely that
traditional vows or the taking of precepts will go over well with the
majority of teenagers or CEOs for that matter. But I think that it is
important to emphasize the fundamental principle of non-harming. Any small
experiences of gratitude or sense of belonging need to be acknowledged. What
teenagers and people in general want more than anything else in the world is
to belong, to have a place that is theirs in which to stand and be
themselves, and to be honored for that, and to have a sense of being a part
of something larger. Such feelings, of course, make up some of the most
profound and fundamental experiences of being human. And sometimes it takes
hard work and a degree of struggle to attain such a sense of belonging. No
one else can do that work for us, although many people can help to one degree
or another. From this point of view, life is really an adventure. The real
question is, Can we be here for it? Of course, it helps if at least one
person -- a parent or a mentor or a caring adult -- is there and sees and
accepts us as we are.

I think there is tremendous value in introducing mindfulness to various
groups of people. Who would not benefit from mindfulness? The preciousness of
the practice is so transformative that even tiny doses of it can be extremely
valuable. So working with people in prison, working with youth, the elderly,
in hospitals, working with teachers in schools, is all valuable. One of my
colleagues, George Mumford, taught mindfulness practice to the Chicago Bulls
for four years. I trained the US Olympic men's rowing team in mindfulness in
1984. I truly believe that the more people who practice mindfulness to one
degree or another in their lives, the more we will have a world where compass
ion and empathy and wisdom are actually realized in our lives and in our
institutions. This is in some ways the ultimate calling for people who care
to do this work.

LP: And in some ways it cuts to the essence of Buddhist practice even though
it is not introduced as Buddhist?

JKZ: It does. How could it not? And you learn as you go. One's attempt to do
this work, if you keep your eyes open and are willing to be honest and name
things as they are, can be profoundly transformative.

And you can use all these different doors. You can use the Tai Chi door, the
Qi Gong door, the Yoga door, the singing door, the dancing door. There are
millions of doors in. I like to give people a variety of doors because people
have different propensities toward one practice more than another. I do not
care which door they go through as long as they end up in the room.

LP: But awareness or mindfulness is the quality that infuses whatever
practice one chooses?

JKZ: Exactly. It unifies all the practices. What matters is your willingness
to be completely present from moment-to-moment without having to fill the
space with anything or to push anything away. No matter how you bring someone
to that point once he or she tastes it, it is a new ballgame.