Meditation, mindfulness and thoughtfulness

By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

Two recent articles in The Island extolled the virtues of thoughtfulness, the second supporting piece largely reproducing passages from the first (“Thoughtfulness or Mindfulness” on 5th June and “In favour of Thoughtfulness” on 14 June). Whilst agreeing with the learned writers that the world is what it is today due to thoughtfulness, the creative aspect of the human mind, I was rather taken aback by some comments slighting mindfulness, the main reason for doing so being the commercialisation of mindfulness, as typified by the comment: “All human progress is indebted to people who observed, experimented, invented, created and above all used their imagination with hardly any guidance from mindfulness gurus”!

Science has advanced to produce AI, and some have even started writing articles using AI tools, though only an honest few admit to doing so! In spite of all these advancements, mind and brain remain enigmatic there being no consensus on what the functions of the mind are or what the relationship of the mind to the brain is. It was the Buddha who analysed the mind long before modern scientists did so, or even the Greek philosophers, and it was unfortunate that Buddhism, the religion that evolved subsequently, has submerged the great intellectual achievements of the Buddha. What psychologists now call metacognition is what Buddha described as Sathi: ‘awareness and understanding of one’s own thought process’.

Mindfulness is being misused as much as thoughtfulness. In addition to all the constructive aspects referred to in the articles, thoughtfulness has heaped misery and destruction, too, in spite of the other meaning of the word being ‘consideration towards others’. We do not have to look to the past replete with many instances but just looking at the misery imparted on the innocents in Gaza illustrate what mindless thoughtfulness can do!

Leaving aside misuse, mindfulness and thoughtfulness are interrelated, perhaps serving different purposes at times but working in tandem at other times. Apples, and indeed many other objects, have fallen to the ground but no one cared a hoot or gave any thought to it till, on a summer’s day in 1665 an apple fell beside Isaac Newton seated contemplatively under an apple tree in the garden of Woolsthorpe Manor, seven miles from where I pen this, as Cambridge University had closed in August due to the Great Plague. Mindfulness of the event triggered thoughtfulness in Newton and gravity was discovered!

No one denies exercise is of benefit to the body, multitude of costly Gyms cropping all over being testimony enough. That walking, the best exercise, is free but not fashionable, is another matter! Less emphasis is given to the fact that the brain also needs exercise though Indian sages realised this three millennia ago. Predating the Buddha, Samatha meditation is calming and increases concentration. Perhaps, this helps with thoughtfulness. The Buddha introduced the concept of Vipassana, insight and Vipassana meditation, mindfulness as a concept and Mindfulness meditation evolving from these. The spread of these in modern times is an interesting story.

How intractable migraine led to the spread of mindfulness meditation across the world is the fascinating story of Satya Narayan Goenka. It is well worth listening to him on YouTube, which has many programmes of his, the best being, “The Buddha – Super Scientist – Discourse at IIT Bombay”. S N Goenka was born in Rangoon, Burma to a rich Indian Sanatana Hindu family in January 1924. He was a successful businessman and leader of the Hindu community in Burma, delivering lectures on Hinduism regularly. In 1955, he started getting debilitating attacks of migraine which were resistant to all the drugs available at the time, needing regular injections of Morphine. In desperation, on the recommendation of a friend, he sought the help of a reputed Vipassana teacher, Sayagyi U Ba Khin (1899 – 1971), who also happened to be the first Accountant General of Independent Burma. Ba Khin had studied Vipassana under the great teacher, Saya Thetgyi.

Goenka met with a refusal from Ba Khin, who said: “I do not want to belittle a technique that helps you overcome all suffering by treating your migraine. If you want to do it, do it fully and I can teach you”. Goenka replied “But sir, I cannot do it as I am a devoted Hindu. I respect the Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu but cannot embrace Buddhism”. Ba Khin had then questioned Goenka whether Hinduism is against ‘Seela’, Samadhi and Panna. Goenka had to admit that it was not. Ba Khin has replied “That is all the Buddha taught and, therefore, you can practice Vipassana. Anyway, we do not believe in conversion to Buddhism”. Prior to starting the ten-day course of Vipassana meditation, Ba Khin had given a little book and turning the first page itself changed Goenka’s attitude. It said “Do not believe” which took him by surprise as he was brought up in a tradition ‘to believe in the words of the gurus’. At the end of the ten-day course of meditation migraines were easing off but, more importantly, he realised what an ego-centric person he was.

After training with his teacher for 14 years and having realised the value of the technique, Goenka came to India in 1969, after handing over his business to the family, to reintroduce Vipassana, which had been lost for over 2000 years. Shortly before his death in 1971, Ba Khin authorised Goenka to teach and his ten-day courses attracted many around India and abroad. When a course was held at the ashram of Mahatma Gandhi, some participants who had been associated with Gandhi suggested he sees Vinoba Bhave, considered to be the spiritual successor to Mahatma Gandhi. When he told Vinoba Bhave that Vipassana purified the mind, Vinoba Bhave replied: “I do not believe it as the purity of mind can be achieved only by the mercy of God” and challenged Goenka to prove by changing the behaviour of unruly schoolchildren and prisoners.

He demonstrated convincing results with school children but no prison would allow him to conduct a course, as he insisted he should live with the prisoners for the ten days of the course. No one was prepared to imprison him, even though he requested them to do so! He persevered and finally in 1975, Ram Singh, Home Secretary of the Rajasthan government, who had taken part in one of his programmes, gave him special permission to conduct a programme in Jaipur jail.

When he went for the programme, he was horrified to find that the prisoners were brought in chains, as they were murderers. When he insisted that shackles be removed it was done but jailers armed with guns were stationed during the sessions, with strict orders to shoot to kill if any suspicious movement occurred. Guns were not fired and two courses were conducted with convincingly good results. Since then, prison Vipassana programmes have spread far and wide and two excellent films, based on these, are available on YouTube:  “Doing Time, doing Vipassana, a film made in 1997 by two women filmmakers from Israel focussing on the Vipassana programmes done in Tihar Jail, New Delhi, one of the harshest jails in India, where one programme was conducted for 1000 prisoners and “The Dhamma Brothers”, a film made in 2007 about the Vipassana programme in a high-security prison in Alabama, USA.

With the widespread of Mindfulness Meditation, scientists got interested, encouraged by the dynamism of the Dalai Lama. Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn started the Centre for Mindfulness in Medicine in Massachusetts General Hospital and subsequently Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) got acceptance as therapy for depression. We still do not know much about depression and most drugs like Prozac, which were prescribed widely in the past, were pushed on the basis of scanty data produced by random clinical trials.

One of the first publications on anatomical changes was in Psychiatry Research in January 2011 by Sara Lazar’s group titled “Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain grey matter density”. MRI studies showed increases in grey matter concentration within the left hippocampus and other regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation etc. in the MBSR group compared with the controls.

However, these results were thrown into question by a paper titled “Absence of structural brain changes from mindfulness-based stress reduction: Two combined randomized controlled trials” by Tammi and others in Science Advances, in May 2022. Contradicting this was a publication which reported on meta analysis using 11 trials, published in Scientific Reports of October 2023 titled, “Mindfulness-based randomised controlled trials led to brain structural changes: an anatomical likelihood meta-analysis” by Savannah Siew and Junhong Yu which came to the conclusion “Mindfulness interventions have the ability to affect neural plasticity in areas associated with better pain modulation and increased sustained attention. This further cements the long-term benefits and neuropsychological basis of mindfulness-based interventions.”

Elizabeth Blackburn, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2009 with Carol W. Greider for their discovery of telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes telomeres, the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes to prevent their degradation, with her team published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009, a significant paper titled, “Can Meditation Slow Rate of Cellular Aging?” which concluded that “we propose that some forms of meditation may have salutary effects on telomere length by reducing cognitive stress and stress arousal and increasing positive states of mind and hormonal factors that may promote telomere maintenance. Aspects of this model are currently being tested in ongoing trials of mindfulness meditation.” However, a paper by Nirodhi N. Dasanayaka, Nirmala D. Sirisena and Nilakshi Samaranayake, titled “The effects of meditation on length of telomeres in healthy individuals: a systematic review, meta analysis of 5 studies” published in Systematic Reviews in May 2021 concluded the effect of meditation on telomere length per se is still unclear. Strictly designed and well-reported RCTs with larger sample sizes are required to provide evidence of higher quality.

More work needs to be done but Mindfulness Meditation may prolong life, too!