"It is to be expected that serious psychological transformation involves some level of discomfort and difficulty. Indeed, learning how to tolerate exposure to discomfort and gaining the ability to confront and overcome difficulty has a lot to do with what makes a person grow in new ways. The knack is to know how much of this is healthy, even if painful, and at what point it may become unhealthy. ...
It is useful to distinguish between mindfulness as a mental state on one hand and the unskillful pursuit of this state on the other. Consider the case of a person plunging into the jungle, in search of a beautiful and healing flower, he gets torn up by thorns and battered by branches in the process. The problem is not that the flower itself is harmful; what is harmful is only the means of pursuing it. A similar confusion exists when researchers (or media reports of research) say 'Mindfulness can be harmful' when what they really mean is something like 'Going into prolonged situations of silence and isolation, with unrealistic or uninformed expectations, under the inadequate guidance of an unsuitable teacher, when one has a history of psychological fragility, can be harmful.' ”
Andrew Olendzki PhD. "The Mindfulness Solution" Tricycle, Spring 2015. www.tricycle.com
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| Monet's garden, Giverny |
“All individuals during the course of their life, are faced with uncontrollable outcomes, undesirable events, and uncertainties. Some of these events may involve questions regarding the relationship of the individual to the cosmos’s seeming chaos; how to create (or discover) life’s meaning; understanding issues of good and evil; developing a stable, positive identity while recognizing the inevitability of illness, decay, and death. These issues represent, to a greater or lesser degree, that which is unknown, uncertain, ambiguous, even chaotic in the world. And these situations and issues, which are seemingly out of control, or appear beyond human control, may cause feelings of existential stress, frustration, surprise, fears, and vulnerability.
Psychological research has shown that meaning and purpose, whether as an independent construct or as part of a sense of control, are important for both emotional and physical well-being. Although not often directly examined, most Western medical therapeutics and psychotherapies are based on an assumptive belief system that views the universe as random and purposeless.
The spiritual context of meditation, whether theistic or nontheistic, challenges that belief system. One of the aspects of the meditative experience within the esoteric core of all contemplative religious traditions is an experiential view of the universe, at its deepest level, as a sacred, whole unity. The ineffable, nondualistic experiences of profound unity – meditation as an altered state – which has been called the ‘still completeness’ and the heart of religion, have been described in individuals’ encounters with the noetic across many different spiritual traditions.”
Shapiro DH. Examining the content and context of meditation; A challenge for psychology in the areas of stress management, psychotherapy, and religion/values. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 1994; 34(4): 101-135.
