Meditation #49

Surya-Chandra Das:

program in that quiet, in that silence, we start to notice all the things that we've been avoiding for a lifetime. Perhaps all of a sudden it starts to catch up with us and we start to start to see those things that have been buried in the unconscious. They come forward and in the silence we have a chance to observe those, be aware of them.

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

In our pursuit of mindfulness or meditation, it brings us to reality and it awakens us to be present to the world as it exists. And it's not all light and rosy. There are dark shadows. There is suffering. That's universal. We have to deal with some things that sometimes we don't particularly want.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast Show Number 49 Meditation, airing for the first time on August 19, 2012 on WLOB and WPEI Radio portion Portland, Maine. And with me in the studio is my co host Genevieve Morgan.

Genevieve Morgan:

Hi Genevieve, Good morning Lisa. I'm a struggling meditator. How about you?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have struggled with meditation over the years, but I no longer consider myself a struggling meditator. I just do the best I can and I don't beat myself up for it. Whatever meditation I get done, which is on a pretty regular basis, I give myself a pat on the back for

Genevieve Morgan:

I find I meditate more easily when I'm walking.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, walking meditation has been a long time tradition and it's a good entry point for a lot of people because in our culture we're not really used to sitting still.

Genevieve Morgan:

How did you come to mindfulness or a practice of mindfulness?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've always understood that mindfulness was an important part of being a doctor and a human being and a parent. When I went down to the University of Massachusetts and did my preventive medicine residency or fellowship, after I trained in family medicine, I had the chance to train in Jon Kabat Zinn's program at the center for Mindfulness. And I did a mindfulness based stress reduction program which was pretty life changing.

Genevieve Morgan:

So it worked.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it did work. And it also. It helped me to sort of focus in on the type of doctor I wanted to be and to know that there were other people like me out there that were championing the idea of medicine done differently.

Genevieve Morgan:

I think one of the most moving things for me about meditation is how often it's come up in our program over the past 46 shows, 47 shows. It just seems to be a common thread in wellness.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

There are a lot of people out there who are meditating, from doctors to yoga teachers to. Well, there are a lot. You're absolutely right. And there are a lot of fitness trainers. There are a lot of guests who have come on who have talked about the idea of centering and how this has become important in their lives. I also know for me, one of the classes that I took several years ago with Dr. Herbert Benson out of Harvard was on spirituality in medicine. And this is something that I know that one of our guests is going to bring up, if not both of them, is this idea that there's something bigger and that spirituality does impact us in a physiologic way. And Dr. Herbert Benson had a conference for many years that actually addressed that issue.

Genevieve Morgan:

That was way back in the 70s. Correct. It's been a concept that's been percolating for a very long time, if not that thousands of years in the east, but certainly with modern Western medicine. It's coming more and more to the forefront.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is true. It's also true that people will often associate spirituality with religion and organized religion, and they'll have sort of a gut reaction because perhaps they've had an experience in their lives that's made them averse to religion. But spirituality and religion are not the same thing. So when we talk about spirituality and healing and spirituality and medicine, it doesn't mean that we believe people need to go and join a church per se. And it also doesn't mean that if you meditate, you have to have any sort of affiliated organizational religion in your background. So it's an important thing for people to understand.

Genevieve Morgan:

That's true. I think that one of the reasons why I feel so much more contemplative when I'm walking is because I'm usually walking in nature. And there's something that connects me to a larger force that's much more accessible when I'm strolling through the woods or sitting by the ocean. And I don't associate that with religion at all.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is very true. And I think that there continue to be things. As much as I have a lot of training in Western medicine, I have a lot of training in Eastern medicine, and I still believe that there are intangibles out there that help us to heal our bodies, heal our communities, and really remain connected to the world. Things that we can't necessarily prove but certainly seem to have an impact. We're happy to have in the studio with us today Dr. Joseph Semmes, who is currently True North's director of research, and also Surya Chandra Das from the Rolling Meadows Retreat center up the coast here in Maine. Those of you who are listening, you're gonna get a lot out of this show, so keep on listening and thank you for joining us. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour Podcast is pleased to be sponsored by the University of New England. Our collaboration with the University of New England allows us to present a segment we call Wellness Innovations. This innovation is meditation. This comes from the April issue of the journal Emotion Om. Meditation is a big help for emotional issues. School teachers who underwent a short but intensive program of meditation were less depressed, anxious or stressed and more compassionate and aware of others feelings, according to a UCSF led study that blended ancient meditation practices with the most current scientific methods for regulating emotions. A core feature of many religions, meditation is practiced by tens of millions around the world as part of their spiritual beliefs, as well as to alleviate psychological problems, improve self awareness and to clear the mind. Previous research has linked meditation to positive changes in blood pressure, metabolism and pain, but less is known about the specific emotional changes that result from the practice. This new study was designed to create new techniques to reduce destructive emotions while improving social and emotional behavior, and arose from a meeting in 2000 between Buddhist scholars, behavioral scientists and emotion experts at the home of the Dalai Lama who posed a In the modern world, would a secular version of Buddhist contemplation reduce harmful emotions? The answer, it appears, is yes. For more information on this wellness innovation, please visit drlisabelisle.com for more information on the University of New England, visit une.edu.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

as part of today's Meditation show, we're interviewing another doctor whose name and reputation precedes him in the community, is quite well known. He's been around for quite a while. This is Dr. Joseph Sims. Dr. Semmes, thank you for being with us today.

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

Thank you, Lisa. It's a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I know you as somebody who's been educating and practicing medicine in the community in Maine for quite a while. But before that you also practiced as an emergency room physician in Virginia.

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

Yes, I kind of came up through hospital classic training tribes of internal medicine, critical care, practiced emergency medicine in the Georgetown system for a little over 12 years, actually maybe 15. I had some medical challenges and moved up here and have worked at Mercy in the emergency department at True north, an integrative medicine center in Falmouth for more than a decade and have also been involved in end of life care initiatives in the state.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And for those who are listening and are followers of our show, Dr. Bethany Hayes came in and spoke about Vitamin D and Sunshine a few weeks ago. So she's blessed our space with the True north presence. And we thank you for continuing on.

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

Well, the pleasure is mine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So, Dr. Semmes, you went from emergency medicine to an interest in yoga and meditation and a very different approach to medicine. Why meditation? What was it about meditation that you found interesting?

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

Well, I had a life threatening illness in 1996 and in fact an inoperable form of pancreatic cancer. And I'd been to Johns Hopkins. They'd opened me up, closed me, and a cousin who was doing a contemplative prayer or centering prayer practice invited me to a working group that met once a week for 20 minutes of meditation or centering. We tend to think of meditation as all being an Eastern technique and connected to yoga and to Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, there's a very rich mystical tradition of breath focused centering also in Christian Europe from way early. And some of those people, like I think it was John of the Cross and Teresa Davila had taken the ball and run from other mystics earlier. Now things sort of shifted in the west and got kind of less mystical in the last few hundred years. But I think there's a Benedictine monk named Thomas Keating who has a large centering practice of contemplative prayer, which is essentially, as far as I can tell, the same technique as that followed by the Tibetan Buddhists and others that focus on sort of their breath. I once had a healer who, his recommendation to me early on in my road was to just feel the, the air moving through my nostrils and just sort of pay attention to that. And when other thoughts occurred to you, let them float off and return to it. And so I found over the course of a few years that doing 20 minutes twice a day and then once a week, 20 minutes with a group of people, I found that I was able to sort of quiet that monkey in the mind that is referred to to sort of smooth out the frenetic sort of static of my kind of distraction. I think you should both be aware that I kind of come from a real strong tradition of mindlessness. My mother, as I grew up, I think she used the term inconsiderate to describe me. Gosh, I'd like to have a nickel for every time. I was diagnosed long ago with attention deficit disorder. And I think probably half of the emergency physicians in the country probably share this kind of neural circuitry because it's a perfect structured job. They give you a. A head sheet with a complaint, you go solve the problem, check in and check out. And being distracted sort of goes along with the practice.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you were mentioning before we came on air that there is an organizing thing that happens in the brain with people who meditate.

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

Well, I don't pretend to be much of a neurologist and the structure of the brain is, I think, extremely complicated and not well understood. Although certainly people can do surgery while someone's awake and hit a certain part of the brain and they can't talk and they know not to cut in there. But what really has impressed me over the last decade is that the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which is the publication piece for our national academy of our really top scientific leaders in our country, has had numerous, very deep, impressive technological studies of meditators, both experienced meditators and people who are taught four week courses and also show brain changes by imaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance and also EEGs, and sometimes fusing these to make interpretations. Now, if I can back up a little bit, and obviously not obviously, but I didn't exactly center before I came in here. So if I'm jumping around, please forgive me, it means I'm more at the periphery than the center, so to speak. But one of the earlier investigators of meditators was Harvard Professor Herbert Benson, an MD who went to Tibet and those areas of the east and studied meditators. And he didn't have functional MRIs, but he looked at their blood pressure and their pulses and their temperatures. And he was really impressed with how it changed their nervous systems on a moment by moment basis. And you hear of people who are advanced meditators that can sit in freezing weather and melt the snow around them. So it's pretty intriguing what's really going on now. Benson, his work initially kind of was published in a book called the Relaxation Response. And he promoted in actually the same way that a 14th century Christian mystic talked about the cloud of unknowing, which was almost a way of, of sort of opening yourself to the divine by focusing on one divine word or one mantra, if you will, as a way to help focus your attention and become more centered. Dr. Kabat Zinn at UMass in Worcester referred to mindfulness or meditation as mindfulness based stress reduction and looked at very specific body functions like heart rate and blood pressure and temperature. Herb Benson, Dr. Benson sort of brought this to the next level where beyond the relaxation response and beyond this physiology is a sort of a higher realm of centeredness, of being present. And whether that's connected to, and I don't mean to get too mystical here, you know, the presence of the divine or whether it's just an ability to become more connected to others, more awake, more aware of others, more aware of oneself and one's own feelings and thoughts and what baggage you bring to things and whether it just makes people feel more compassionate and more connected to each other.

Genevieve Morgan:

You mentioned that you had gotten diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And how did you.

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

I really shouldn't use the term pancreatic cancer. It was in my pancreas, but we should probably call it carcinoid because it's from a family of slow growing tumors of a different kind of biology.

Genevieve Morgan:

But nonetheless there was fear and emotion around that. How has mindfulness or the practice of meditation, how does it help people in moments of stress and illness, either in your experience or in treating other people?

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

Well, I think that personally, when I've been feeling overwhelmed or disempowered, or at times when you feel like you're no longer a human doing, you've been forced to be a human being and you're sort of stuck doing less and less physically contracting. Well, you always have your breath until at some point we have our last breath. And you know, maybe I'm going to ramble here, but it's interesting that we in the western scientific context think of gas transport and oxygen coming in and carbon dioxide going out and management of our blood ph. And whereas in the east they talk about bringing in prana or chi or the life force. And you know, the truth is man breathing really is bringing in the life force and it'. Swell. Let me say that I kind of am from the show me state of Missouri in that I don't want to be a Pollyanna and believe stuff that really I don't believe. I've had a really hard time believing stuff I don't believe. But at the same time, I think an open mind is a very good traveling companion along with healthy skepticism. And I think opening to some of these ideas of the east are, is very seductive and reasonable. And so I do. In spite of all the blood gases that I've done in ICUs in my career and looking at phs and oxygen and carbon dioxide, I like to think that there is prana or qi moving into my body when I breathe.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you're not alone in thinking this as a physician because recently I understand there was a mindfulness course offered at the Maine Medical center for physicians over there. Is that true?

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

Oh yes, indeed. Dr. Dreher from the Division of Family Medicine and other thought leaders at Maine Medical Center. I think it was about two years ago put together. Maybe it's an eight week course using a, a course design that came from the University of Rochester College of Medicine. And it's interesting that there are, there seems to be a union, an evolving cross fertilization, if you will, of thinking in medicine, in end of life care, in poetry, in gosh, even marital counseling. I'm going to just sort of go sideways for a second and mention that there's now understanding of the brain function that shows that when someone's emotionally upset and gets into an argument that the frontal lobe, which is where looking down and being objective and understanding sort of what's going on, is taken offline. And so when people are arguing and their emotional limbic systems are stimulated, they are really not able to process any information that, that doesn't support their sort of position. I'm talking sort of in the context of say, an argument that occurs in say, a relationship. So the lesson that we're learning from the brain science is really very similar to the lessons of the traditions of the east and even earlier Christian thinking is that to be quiet and to sort of move away permits a centering where that frontal lobe that is part of being mindful can come back online and sort of reconnect with that emotional part of the brain which is lower down. So. Jumping back, I'm reminded that in 1999 there was a wonderful editorial in the Journal of the American Medical association called Mindful Practice. It was by Dr. Epstein from the University of Rochester. And I remember reading it back then and just thinking how wonderful that this is in the Journal of the ama. And I think that it is just one example of how organically good ideas flourish sort of like good plants do, to use the metaphor. If the fertilizer and earth is there, and the idea is the seeds are there, they will grow and they're growing all over the country.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So do you think this is a case of if the student is willing, the teacher will appear?

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

I think that's very true. I mean, Although that's the old saying, build it and they will come. And that's not always true. It's also fortune favors the prepared mind, as Pasteur said, and the good Lord helps those who help themselves, as my mother would say. And so I think it is important to be proactive and to seek out people to help your Training

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Doctor Sims, you mentioned that part of your journey began in 1996 with your own illness and your journey is continuing. And I believe you are doing something very interesting right now with hospice and palliative care. Why was this important to you and what has this meant to you in your own life?

Surya-Chandra Das:

Well,

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

I must admit that it took me to get hit over the head with a sledgehammer to pay attention to some of the important things like end of life. And as a physician, in my training 30 odd years ago, the focus was on the disease much more than on the patient. And we referred to the nephrotic syndrome in room 741 as opposed to the whole patient's. And that tradition is changing. I do want to mention that William Osler, who's often thought to be the father of modern medicine, who was an internal medicine doctor at Johns Hopkins University at the turn of the last century, studied many dying patients to try and understand what was going on with them. He also thought that the practitioner, the physician should develop the characteristics the practice of equanimitas, which I guess is Latin for centeredness really. And it was so that you could listen well to what the patient had to say. A lot of the time busy non centered clinicians, whether they're early in their training or very experienced, come charging into the situation with their own sort of mo, their own sort of ideas, their projections, and it leads to a very unsuccessful patient provider interaction. So I think that what Osler was onto was 120 years ago is what we're rediscovering. Osler also said that he thought that the highest calling of the physician was to help people die well. And having early in my training seen that medicine, much like in the realm of birth in obgyn, childbirth was taken away from the home and families and communities and brought into the hospital. And then death was taken away from home and families and brought into the hospital. The problem was Jennifer and Lisa, is that maybe that physicians are selected for a little more fear of death than the average person. In fact, a wonderful mentor of mine, Brownie Wheeler, a former chairman of surgery at Jon Kabat Zinn center down at UMass Worcester and a neighbor in South Portland, Brownie Wheeler once told me there is pretty good data that shows that medical students when they are surveyed, have a much higher level of fear of death than their controlled age and gender kind of peers that are not going into medical school. So what you had is the house of medicine took death away from the community and put it down at the end of the hall and didn't look at it. And basically it was a big mistake. So over the last 20 years, a new field of hospice and palliative care has emerged which is growing very rapidly. And it's exciting to see that these skills of waking up and listening and customizing to the whole patient and the uniqueness of the story of that patient or their family situation is being addressed in ways that I didn't see it being addressed in the hospital practices that I saw 20, 30 years ago.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Dr. Sims, I think that people are going to have lots of questions about meditation and some of the things that you've mentioned. And I know you have a pile of things, that pile of books and resources. You're going to give us some of those titles that we'll put up on our website. But there's a poem that you were hoping to read that I'd like to end with. Would you read that for us?

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

I'd be honored. And I wanted to let you listeners realize that this is Taken from the middle of the syllabus for training in mindfulness for medical students and residents that was developed at the University of Rochester and has been rolled out here in southern Maine at Maine Medical center and hopefully soon at Mercy. And this is the. These are the comments of a 13th century Muslim poet named Rumi. And Rumi was a Sufi, and the Sufis are a sect of Islam. And I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that they were very in love with God and didn't sweat the small stuff. So what I like about the Guest House here is that,

Surya-Chandra Das:

and I'm going

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

to back up and say, in our pursuit of mindfulness or meditation, it brings us sort of to reality and awakens us to be present to the world as it exists. And it's not all light and rosy. There are dark shadows, there is suffering. That's universal. And so this Sufi Muslim poet, Rumi, has written this. Or actually he didn't write anything. He just said these things and other people wrote them down. But it's called the Guest House, and it's about the ability to be hospitable to unwanted and unexpected guests in addition to those that you sort of want, because we have to deal with some things that sometimes we don't particularly want. So bear with me, listeners. The Guest house, this being human, is a guest house every morning a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness. Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all, even if they are a crowd of sorrows who void, violently sweep your house empty of its furniture. Still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thank you for that, Dr. Semmes. It's been a pleasure to have you in with us today and thank you for sharing your wisdom.

Dr. Joseph Semmes:

Well, I'm just a conduit for a lot of others thoughts and the honor and delight is mine. Keep breathing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

as part of today's Dr. Lisa Radio Hour Meditation show, we are interviewing Surya Chandra Das, who, along with his wife Patricia Brown, is the co founder of the Rolling Meadows Retreat here in Brooks, Maine, just north of Belfast. Thanks for coming in and joining us today.

Surya-Chandra Das:

You're welcome. Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I know as someone who has studied in the mindfulness tradition myself, down with Jon Kabat Zinn and the University of Massachusetts, I understand how important meditation is, and I know this is something that kind of has ebbed and flowed in popularity in this country. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? Why do you think it is that sometimes people are more open to the importance of meditation and health, and other times not so much?

Surya-Chandra Das:

Well, I don't know about collectively particularly, although I suspect that it's very clear that the beginning of meditation happened in the wave of people coming from the east to the estates. There's a wonderful book on that subject. I think it's called American Veda that talks about the influence of the east on us. So on a collective level, that was the beginning of it when people from, from India and Japan started coming to this country. And then of course, a major influence on this was the Beatles back in the 60s. So collectively that's probably the beginning of it all. On an individual basis level, what I've noticed is that when people are in periods of transition, they seem to seek out something to stabilize themselves, to find some way of, of being centered and rooted. And I think that's the way they find themselves in meditation. That was true for me, for example, when I was in a place where I left a career, I wasn't sure. What I wanted to do next. And somebody handed me a piece of paper about a meditation retreat. And I went to that and it changed my life. So I find it's when people are broken free of kind of a. A way that they've been, and there's a space of an open space, then oftentimes meditation comes in. So that's what I've noticed. And then oftentimes when they get back on a track and they think they've got it figured out, they let the meditation go. And that can happen in the course of a year, that can happen in ebb and flow, and it can happen over the course of a lifetime. So to me, that's what it is. And some people just stay with it all the time. But it's very common for people to come and go, let it go. If something happens, maybe there's an illness, maybe there's a loss of a loved one or something happens, loss of a job, then they say, I need to find some place that's bigger than my culture's idea of what's important.

Genevieve Morgan:

Tell me a little bit about your use of silence in your retreats. Because meditation is a self exploration. I've been to your retreats and you use silence in them as a way to enhance a beginner's entry into meditation. Tell me about that.

Surya-Chandra Das:

For me, perhaps the most important part of the retreats is the silence. That's been my experience. What I find meditation is, is an opportunity for us to. To let go of the distractions in our life. Our life is filled with doing and activity. And it's been expressed as a. One way of thinking about it is on the relative plane of our life, we move in a horizontal direction, kind of going horizontally back and forth. And meditation is an opportunity to tap into the vertical, the other direction. And the intersection of those two points is where the kind of the payoff is. And when we're busy doing on our cell phones, when we're busy talking with other people, when we're reading, when we're doing all these other things, we're on that horizontal, which is where we spend a good deal of our time. In this silence, we start to minimize those distractions. And I think of it as a container to hold ourselves so that we drop back into this more vertical place. And then in addition to that, what happens in that quiet, in that silence, we start to notice all the things that we've been avoiding for a lifetime perhaps. And it just, all of a sudden it starts to catch up with us and we start to start to see those things that have been buried in the unconscious. They come forward and in the silence we have a chance to observe those, be aware of them, not have to do anything with them, but just to notice them and to start to get the incredible power of this invisible awareness that we just overlook all day long. So I think that silence just allows us to become more aware of our unresolved material and more aware of the awareness that's so powerful in helping us live in that. In that intersection of the vertical and the horizontal. As Eckhart Tolle speaks of it, as in the now, that's his term. Such a nice, simple term.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What types of things have you noticed come forward for people?

Surya-Chandra Das:

Everything. There's nothing that doesn't come forward. Childhood issues that they haven't resolved, you know, traumas. One of my beliefs experiences is that all of us at one degree or another have trauma in our lives. It's just the way our lives are. It's the human condition. And particularly, I think, in a culture such as ours that has been so focused on the doing and the becoming and not so much in the hard place. And so we're all raised individually. Individually and as a culture in this trauma. And as we become still and aware of the body, aware of the sensations, these traumas, this conditioning comes forward and it shows up in a myriad of ways. People who have had sexual abuse didn't even know it, it starts to arise. People who have become aware of the fact that in their relationship that they have perhaps been very passive in a way that hasn't been helpful. And they didn't even know that. And so they become aware of that. It's all the stuff in our lives that. Well, and even. They even become aware of how joyful their life has been. And they didn't even pay attention to it. So it's just we become aware of what we didn't know and it covers the entire gamut. I guess I could give you an interesting example, simple as that. My wife had been teaching yoga asana classes for some years. And I had started meditating before she did. And I suggested she go to a meditation retreat. And she said, I don't need to go to a meditation retreat. I said, well, you know, it helps you become present, you know, not be so caught in your mind. She said, well, I'm always. I'm always present. Wherever I am, I am, you know, just the way I is. I said, well, okay. And she went to the retreat and she came back and said, oh, my God, I had no idea. So I think one of the things we do is we become aware of how conceptually oriented we are that we don't even know that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems as though meditation should be so easy. You sit quietly and you're quiet, and then there's quiet, but it's not so easy. Can you speak to that?

Surya-Chandra Das:

Sure. I always say that meditation is very simple, but it's not easy. And why? I don't know exactly. But I just think that the. Particularly in this culture because it's so, as I said before, it's so focused on the conceptual. From the time we're very young children, we're encouraged to be conceptual, to study, to read, to know, to understand with the mind. So this place of quiet is. Is not developed for the majority of us. There are some people that it's natural, but for the majority of us, we're very, very mental. And so it's almost like it's a big ocean liner that's moving like a momentum that gets going, powerful movement of this big force. And it takes a time for that to slow down. And so when we're going along at, say, in the ocean liners, we get 20 knots. To ask it to slow down to no speed at all is going to take some time. Additionally, there's this other thing that we call the ego in this work, and that's a very strong force. And in the silence in the present moment, the ego is not there. And so this thing we call ego wants to assert itself and does a number of things to get in the way of our sitting still. And so anybody who's. Who's most anybody, anyway, who's sat still for any period of time will notice the 10,000 things that you think are more important than the sitting still. And that's the ego. That's the ego that wants to come forth. It wants to create a struggle. It wants to create issues. It wants to create, oh, I've got to answer my ego emails. I've got to check the cell phone. I've got to do these things, which is really just its way of staying front and center, staying in charge. So those are a few ideas of why it's simple but not so easy.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What are a few pointers that you can give to our listeners as far as either beginning or maintaining a meditation practice?

Surya-Chandra Das:

The first thing that I think is really helpful is this quality of being kind and gentle to yourself. One of the things that I've noticed you said, what comes up for people almost universally, I would say I experience people being hard on themselves. It's a really strong, strong force in this culture. The Dalai Lama, when he was first coming to this country to do some guiding, was seeing American students coming before him and was stunned and went to one of his people that had brought him over and said, what's going on with those people? Everybody seems to be disliking themselves and judging themself. And he said, I don't understand. And they tried to explain to him that this is not an unusual phenomenon and it's universal. And so one of the things that I think is really important is you start out with some way of being kind to yourself. I encourage people to find ways to nourish themselves and their life around. Not just to be sitting in a cushion, but how do you nourish yourself in general in your life? It makes it, I think, easier to be kind to yourself when you start to sit with your stuff and start to observe all these things. So that's one thing. People find it helpful to find a space that they consistently can go to that becomes familiar. You're kind of drawn to it. If you have the opportunity to have a special room, that's helpful. If you don't, at least maybe you can make a part a corner of your bedroom or some space that's really more your space rather than a group. If you have a family, it's not your family space. And I know that I have, over the years, found that a little altar could be helpful. Because it draws me to that. And I'll put things on the altar that have meaning to me, and that draws me to it. Maybe a picture or maybe something from nature. Those are all very helpful, I think, to begin with, too. This is controversial, maybe, but I think some people find it helpful to set a time that they're going to sit. And maybe to start, if you're not in a retreat setting on your own, to not start with too much time. So maybe 10 or 15 minutes would be, depending on you, could be enough. And so just sit in the little timer. Because if you don't, you might say after three minutes I've had it. So you start a timer, and I'll say, I'll set for 10 minutes. I'll set 15 minutes. And keep it very simple and just see if you can just stay there and continue to be with this quality of kindness. And I think also, of course, and I still do now, I think it's good to have inspirational materials, whether you have a tape or. Nowadays, I guess you don't have tapes, but you have the ipod, and then you have books and stuff around that just inspires you because we need inspiration. One of the Buddha's teachings that there's the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. And so in the Buddha, you have the Buddha nature, the Dharma is the teachings, and you have the Sangha. That's the group. So finding some way to support yourself with teachings and maybe with some other people that you can go to from a periodic basis to just get together. In Portland, I know there's a number of Sanghas that people get together and they support themselves to keep doing this. Because it's like we're asking ourselves to swim up the river. In a culture, the river is going in one strong direction, and meditation is actually asking us to go in the other direction of that river and do that all by yourself, without some support, I think is asking too much of ourselves. So I have a short reading. I get an email weekly from a person. I think it summarizes much of what I'd like to say about meditation. It is natural that thoughts and feelings arise and disappear. What is unnatural is when we grab hold of them as though they mean something and don't let go. We superimpose our own illusions on what is actually real and alive in this moment. As long as you are lost in the thinking, you are not alive to what is here and now. Things arise and things pass. There is no reason for it. This is simply the way it is. You will love, you will lose, you will cry, and it will pass. Life wants to awaken you to love in this moment, wants to awaken you into joy. Life is waiting for you. But the person says, as soon as I make enough money, as soon as I get my boyfriend back, as soon as I figure out my problems, then I will be at peace and the moment never comes. So stop bowing down to the mind and all its fantasies, knowledge and drama, and really give yourself to experiencing what is real in this moment, to that which is obvious. When you give up the mind and experience this moment directly, then immediately you will be at peace.

Genevieve Morgan:

How do we find out more about Rolling Meadows Retreat if people out there want to.

Surya-Chandra Das:

The simplest would be the website. I think it's www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com. and there's a. I was going to say there's a resource page that has a large listing of various books and resources on meditation on spiritual practice on on all this topic, if that's of any use.

Genevieve Morgan:

As a special gift for our listeners today, Surya is going to lead us through a guided meditation. If you're driving or operating heavy machinery, please stop, find a comfortable place to sit or lie down where you can close your eyes safely and join us.

Surya-Chandra Das:

It's often helpful for a person meditating to close their eyes. So if that's comfortable, I would suggest that you close your eyes and begin to settle your attention on your breath. Just start to notice the movement of the breath coming in and going out. You might begin to focus on the actual felt sense of the breath if you're able to breathe through your nostrils, notice the felt sense of the breath coming in through the tip of your nostrils. There's nothing special about this, just an ordinary sensation. And you might notice if there's a difference in the felt sense of the breath as it comes in and the breath as it leaves the body, as it leaves the nostrils. It's natural for thoughts to arise and pass away. So don't be worried about controlling the thoughts or banishing the thoughts, but just let them come and go. Just returning to the sensation of the breath as it rises and falls. Perhaps you might notice the sound of the breath. Breath and expanding awareness. Notice beyond the point of entry. Perhaps feeling the sensation in your chest, maybe in your abdomen or your ribs, perhaps the shoulders are moving some. But let yourself just notice what's here right now by way of sensation in the body as you follow the breath, letting go of any struggle, any need for something to be different than it is. Then starting to notice perhaps a sensation in your jaw, spreading the awareness a little more, or the skin of your face. There's nothing to do, there's nothing to change, nothing to fix or improve. Just be here. Just be here as it is, not as the mind wants it to be, but just as it is. And then perhaps letting your awareness, letting your attention come into your heart space, into the area, the breastbone, heart center, your spiritual heart, And start to notice whatever arises and pass away, passes away from this place. We often think of awareness coming from behind the eyes, but actually it's everywhere. So can we, can we notice from our heart dropping down below the neck and see if that changes your experience, letting there be more and more space, space around thoughts, space around sensation, Space around emotion. And if you like, you might begin to start to notice this awareness. Notice that which notices. What is that like? What does that feel like? What happens if you notice that which notices? Most importantly, can you bring a quality of gentleness, tenderness and kindness to this noticing? And notice how this awareness, how its very nature is. Spacious, open, tender and kind. And what's it like to just let yourself for this moment, for the next few moments, just be this spacious awareness. Letting go of your identification with name, personality. Just be the spacious awareness that you are Namaste.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we've been speaking with Surya Chandra Das who along with his wife Patricia Brown is the co founder of the Rolling Meadows Retreat center up in Brooks north of Belfast here in Maine. Thank you so much for coming in and speaking with us today about meditation and for inspiring our listeners. Those of you who are out there who have just gone through the guided meditation to perhaps begin a practice in their own lives, thank you. You've been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 49 meditation, airing for the first time on August 19, 2012 on WLOB and WPEI Radio Portland, Maine. Today's guest included Dr. Joseph Semmes from True North Health center and Surya Chandra Das from the Rolling Meadows Retreat Center. For more information on our guests, visit drlisabelisle.com please also take a moment to like us on Facebook and let us know what you think of our show. Also, if you happen to know my sisters, Doctors Amy and Adele Belisle, please wish them a happy birthday august 19 here 2012 happy birthday sisters. I wish you all the best for the upcoming year. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for being part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.