THE MINDFUL GEEK Michael W. Taft 2015 Copyright © 2015 by Michael W. Taft All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Cephalopod Rex Publishing 2601 Adeline St., 114 Oakland, CA USA www.themindfulgeek.com www.deconstructingyourself.com International Standard Book Number: 978-0692475386 Version number 001.11 “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ~ C. G. Jung CONTENTS Acknowledgements Introduction The Power of Meditation 5 Meditation and Mindfulness 11 First Practice 24 Labeling 34 Getting It Right 38 The Three Elements 44 The Meditation Algorithm 53 Darwin’s Dharma 62 Stress and Relaxation 70 Beyond High Hopes 82 Take Your Body with You 90 Meditation in Life 100 Acceptance 103 Reach Out with Your Feelings 113 Coping with Too Much Feeling 135 Meditation and Meaning 141 Concentration and Flow 149 Distraction-free Living 157 Learning to Listen 164 Sensory Clarity 170 Building Resilience 180 Heaven Is Other People 192 The Brain’s Screensaver 199 Ready? 209 Endnotes 213 Acknowledgments I’d like to thank my meditation teachers, Dhyanyogi Sri Madhusudandasji, Sri Anandi Ma Pathak, Dileepji Pathak, and Shinzen Young for all their love, patience, and guidance over the decades. Shinzen in particular has been instrumental in the ideas, formulations, and system presented in this book. The Hindus have a saying that your first spiritual teacher is your mother, and that is certainly true in my case. Thanks, Mom. And thanks to my whole family. Thanks to Thomas Metzinger, Judson Brewer, Dave Vago, and Richie Davidson for serving as friends and inspiration, and for their research and thought leadership which is moving the field forward. Thanks to Sandra Aamodt, Bridgette Anderson, Al Billings, Gareth Branwyn, Bill Duane, Braxton Dudley, Jessica Graham, Sean Dae Houlihan, Todd Mertz, Julianna Raye, Zachary Schlosser, Corey Swartsel, Lindsay Stärke, Ishan Walpola, and Erik Yates all contributed vital notes, feedback, and enthusiasm that helped to greatly improve this text. And thanks to Troy Coll, Carol Schneck Varner, and Emily Yates for proofreading above and beyond the call of duty. Thank you to Bill Duane and Michael Van Riper for giving me the opportunity to field-test so many of these ideas and teaching methods with the übergeeks at Google. Thanks to Rick Hanson for his unflagging and deeply enthusiastic support. Peter Baumann for making so many things possible, and for keeping things interesting. Corey Swartsel, Douglas McLeod, Ellen Balis, Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo, Amy Hertz, Amber Rickert, Jessica Graham, Tami Simon, Yogi Nataraja Kallio, Shyamaa Creaven, Steve Aizenstat, and Rick Jarow for being wonderful human beings. Thank you to Morgan Blackledge and Laura V. Ward, who have been friends on this journey of awakening ever since the old days in East Lansing. Requiescat in pace, Robert Nash. Thank you to Krisztina Lazar and Ernst Schmidt for helping to conceive and design the exterior. Thanks to Gareth Branwyn for editing the final manuscript, and for contributing so much experience and help to the crowdfunding campaign. Hail, Eris! A deep thanks to all my students over the years who have taught me so much, and for being such fierce, brave, and loving people. Very special thanks to Krisztina Lazar. Finally, the creation of The Mindful Geek was made possible by the generous contributions of many individuals to its Indiegogo funding campaign. I’d like to thank the following people, as well as many others who wished to remain anonymous. My apologies if I have inadvertently left anybody off of this list. Adam Farasati, Adam Pfenninberger, Allison Ayer, Alvin Alexander, Ana Rubio, Andrea Lazar, Arrowyn Husom, Audrey M Korman, Bianca Petrie, Bobby L Bessey, Boris Schepker, Brent Cullimore, Brian Baker, Brian P Rumburg, Bridgette Anderson, Brooks M Dunn, Charlotte Kay, Christine Rener, Cory Smith, Cyril Gojer, Damian Frank, Daniel Abramovich, Daniel B Horton, Daniel L Ruderman, Daragh J Byrne, Darin Olien, David B Tierkel, Denise G Ellard, Dianne Powers Wright, Dominick Pesola, Donniel Thomas, Douglas McLeod, Elan J Frenkel, Elvira Gonzalez, Emily Barrett, Emily Yates, Eric Klein, Erin Diehm, F F Seeburger, Francesca de Wolfe de Wytt, Francis Lacoste Julien, Gareth Branwyn, George R Haas, Gil Evans, Giuseppe Falconio, Glenda K. Lippmann, Heidi E Clippard, Heidi Hardner, Hirofumi Hashimoto, Hulkko Heikki, Isabelle C Lecomte, Jacqueline Nichols, Jamie L Rowe, Jeanette Cournoyer, Jessica Clark-Graham, Joan T Sherwood, Joel Bentley, John B Rasor, Jonathan Schmitt, Joy C Daniels, Judy N Munsen, K A Berry, Karen Cowe, Karen Yankosky, Kaycee Flinn, Kenneth Britten, Kenneth Lalonde, Kestrel C Lancaster, Laura Saaf, Laura V Ward, Lauren Monroe, Laurie Morrow, Linda L. Small, Linda Read, Lindsay M Stärke, Lisa J Brayton, Loren W Smith II, Louis Billings, Lydia Leovic Towery, Mark J. Miller, Mark K. Glorie, Marsha E Parkhill, Micah Daigle, Michael Baranowski, Michele P Berry, Michelle L Lyon, Yogi Nataraja Kallio, Nick R Woods, Noah J Hittner, Pamala Lewis, Paula A Zittere, Peter H Goh, Pokkrong Promsurin, Qadir Timerghazin, Randy Johnson, Rebecca L. Johnson, Richard Miller, Robert D Larson, Robert Y Smith Jr, Saiesh C Reddy, Samuel D Brown, Sanjeev Singh Guram, Sara A. Sporer, Scott R Petersen, Sharad Jaiswal, Shyamaa Creaven, Stefan Kahlert, Stephen Wharmby, Stina Stiernstrom, Sue Kretschmann, Susan Whitman, Suzanne Rice, Timothy Boudreau, Todd Sattersten, Troy Coll, Tyler Osborn, Volkmar Kirchner, William D Culman, William Duane, William H Taft Jr, Willow Pearson, and Zachary Schlosser ⚛ Introduction From Zen temples in Japan to yogi caves in India, I’ve been meditating for over thirty years. As a result, I have extensive experience in both Buddhist and Hindu meditation traditions. I started in the late 70s, because I was experiencing so much teenage anxiety. Meditation gave me some relief, and I was hooked. In the 1990s, I worked as editorial director for Sounds True, a publishing company specializing in spiritual and psychological teaching programs. While there, I had the good fortune to meet dozens of the most popular and interesting spiritual teachers in the world. I produced their programs, which meant that I got exposed to the workings of dozens of traditions. At Sounds True, I met an American meditation teacher named Shinzen Young1 and helped to create his classic program The Science of Enlightenment. I found his style of teaching, which was both science- oriented and ecumenical, attractive for a number of reasons which deeply resonated with me. While nominally a Buddhist, he could talk intelligently about the spiritual practices of many religions and 1 traditions. He was also a geek—fascinated by dead languages and abstract mathematics. I liked his modern, rational, and non-sectarian viewpoint. I have studied and worked with Shinzen for several decades now, and I am currently a senior facilitator in the Basic Mindfulness system he created. Basic Mindfulness is by far the most comprehensive and industrial-strength meditation system I’ve encountered. Much of what you’ll find in this book is Basic Mindfulness,2 and you have Shinzen to thank for the real clarity and brilliance behind these techniques. I have altered the system in several respects, however, in order to make it more accessible and friendly to those whom we might call “mindful geeks,” and also to fit my own teaching style, methods, and predilections. About ten years ago, a friend asked me if I would consider teaching him, and a group of people he knew, how to meditate. Having had to work through so many of my own difficulties the hard way, I was happy to give others the best of tools and the skills I had learned to help improve their lives. Our society doesn’t prepare people to deal with most of the challenges we actually end up facing. Stress, overwhelm, constant worry, the breakup of meaningful relationships, death of loved ones—these are just a few of the aspects of life that our schooling never addresses. I can only imagine how much a meditation class in high school, even as an after school activity, would have helped me with my significant childhood anxiety. We receive no formal training in emotional regulation, ability to focus, healthy forms of relaxation, nor in a dozen or so skills that would be invaluable to ourselves and society. Having gone out and acquired these skills on my own, I could see how others around me could benefit from them too. I wanted to share so much of what I’d learned, but the world had changed since I began this journey. I had learned meditation within the traditions—chanting in temples, meditating in caves, taking pilgrimages high in the Himalayas, worshipping deities. But the people who asked me to teach them meditation were usually 2 uninterested in the “spiritual” aspects. They were mainly younger, tech-oriented individuals, many of whom had come out of the punk/alternative/art scene, who were not about to get into the esoteric practices I’m so fond of, or enter the worldview of another culture quite that deeply. They wanted to gain the benefits of the practice without drinking the Kool Aid. As chance would have it, my own thoughts and practice were evolving along similar lines. While I loved (and still do) the spiritual, religious, and cultural practices around meditation, I found myself increasingly drawn to exploring the more psychological and neurological understandings of it, and the human brain in general. Starting around 2000, I became very interested in what neuroscience and evidence-based psychology had to say about meditative states and practices. I had the good fortune to work with Peter Baumann to develop the Being Human project,3 which put me in touch with some of the leading researchers in the field, such as Richie Davidson, Judson Brewer, David Eagleman, among many others; psychologists Paul Ekman and Helen Fisher, as well as philosophers such as Thomas Metzinger.