Thich Nhat Hanh and Mindfulness

I believe it was Graham Ward who said something like “all contemporary experiences are based on economic exchange.” This is a kind of fatalistic (realistic?) appraisal of the totalizing effects of the market in contemporary society. As a sometime pseudo-Christian-monastic-Zen-Luddite myself, I sometimes imagine it is possible to escape from this reality, to exercise meditation, to take a small bath with a cold glass of water, a few candles, making sure I breathe diaphragmatically, embracing the here and now, cultivating imagination and compassion and what not, and then it occurs to me that the directions for meditation were given me in classes that cost $919 apiece per quarter, in a slew of books that, taken together, cost roughly $500, the odd freely downloaded podcast, the water costs money to run in the bath tub, the candles cost money, the bic lighter I used to light them with and fall into a brief despair, before thinking: screw it, I feel better and more connected to myself and the world after my breathing and smiling activates a few beta waves (a trivialized version of what takes place). I’m left thinking – is there anything wrong with that? Is it only wrong when the mind begins reducing everything to price tags for personal gain. Is the corporate profit motive, the military industrial complex the devil? (By the way, watched Sicko the other night, great movie, and made me nostalgic about my Frankfurt days) On marketplace today, they rattled off some figures, Texas Instruments’ numbers are down, a few other tech stocks are down, people are wary, only there were some big winners, guess who? Defense stocks and Drug stocks. Hm. Here I am reminded of my older brother becoming an evangelist for medication in the nineties, convinced that half of society had treatable, brain-chemistry based illnesses. Maybe society since Francis Bacon has a treatable, brainless-based illness. Or maybe since Adam. Where was I? Oh yeah, so, I remember hearing Thich Nhat Hanh’s voice on the Ethan Hawke Hamlet (not the best version, but some good moments, and hey, it’s Hamlet). I remember being transfixed by the voice. It’s played during the to be or not to be speech, and Thich Nhat Hanh added, “we also have ‘interbe,’ we are interconnected. We have mother father, brother, sister, but also earth, air, water, forests” or something like that. On a hunch I went to podcasts on itunes and looked up Thich Nhat Hanh, only to find yes, it is his voice, and yes, it is still transfixing, and he has wonderful truths to remind us about. His message is fairly simple, yet profound: a police chief from Wisconsin and an African American Baptist Minister from Ohio (?) were giving stories about how his teachings helped them. Essentially, he teaches mindfulness, bringing body and mind together through breathing and walking meditation. He teaches mindfulness workshops, speaking to all manner of groups. He’ll be at UCLA coming up for a Psychotherapy and Mindfulness Seminar, which I would love to afford. I also just went to Vroman’s, where there is always some display with Zen books and some purchasable doo-dads, like a portable zen garden or something. Coming back down the stairs from a bathroom break while studying, I saw a display on the very thing I spent a half hour researching online yesterday: A book with a CD and DVD for a mere $25, which I was very tempted to buy. Mind you, I have several books on meditation, but none by Thich Nhat Hanh, and none on walking meditation. This is something of a separate issue and one for which my wife recently gave me a half hour lecture over Shabu Shabu, I need to put into practice what I know. This is not new information, but somehow application comes difficult to me. I am simply full of excuses and perhaps lazier than most. Anyway, After spending $500 on fillings (the same day I watched Sicko, ironically), $140 on the GRE General and $130 on the GRE subject test, not to mention the $3.50 on a mocha, I chose not to purchase the item. Which brings us back to Graham Ward, if you follow me. Although I have decided to be more proactive in my relationship with the outside world. At no time did I feel more disconnected from society as grad school and college. Maybe it’s the transience of place in the academic experience, maybe my emotional life was always rooted in a different place, but now I listen to local radio, pay taxes, root for the local team. Pay some attention to local and national politics. I’m a citizen. As a citizen, I’m looking up poetry readings to go to for some mutual inspiration. There’s a local group that gets together for mindful meditation every Wednesday evening, cleverly called PasaDharma group. Now, in times past, these things seemed so esoteric, new age, sort of ‘out there’ as my parents might say. But in listening to Thich Nhat Hanh, in listening to Roshi Wendy Nakao (head abbot of the Los Angeles Zen Center), they have the ring of truth, they strike that balance between joyful expression and honesty, and humility, something I’m missing in my Christian communities these days. I also know of those who claim their turn toward zen helped them become more committed to their Christian walk. Of course, I also know those who left everything to move into the zen center, and drop acid to find all the lost heroes from past lives that still inhabit their soul. Sooo, we could go either way, it looks like.