Benefits of Long-term Mindfulness:

Improving morality

The modern movement of Mindfulness was born as a secular practice about 35 years ago. It didn’t have a religious belief system or a set of moral regulations as a foundation of its practice. However, the early western teachers of the secular Mindfulness practice learned their meditation from the Buddhist Theravada Vipassana teachers/monks and the Japanese Zen masters. Those early teachers of Mindfulness were extremely dedicated and some of them lived many years even as monks in Burma before starting to teach Mindfulness. They are now respectfully called ‘the first generation Mindfulness teachers’ and have practiced Mindfulness for more than 35-45 years. They set the direction for the modern Mindfulness movement in the West. One such early teacher is Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Pioneering Work of Prof. Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn started out as a molecular biologist but his deep interest in meditation drew him towards the study of how the mind facilitates healing. Now a Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Dr Kabat-Zinn has focused his research on the benefits of Mindfulness meditation for patients with chronic illnesses and stress related conditions. Thirty-six years ago, in 1979 he started the currently world famous Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts to teach sick people non-religious meditation practices. That eventually lead to the development of 8 weeks MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) program at the center and it has become the most widely practiced secular Mindfulness program in the world today.

Unexpected Results at MBSR Programs

The majority of Dr Kabat-Zinn’s patients were those who were given up by the conventional doctors as ‘hopeless’. Most of his patients were in deep physical pain or depression and were not responding adequately to conventional medical treatments. Such patients started to recover after the 8-weekMBSR program to the surprise of the conventional doctors. However, to Dr Kabat-Zinn it was not a surprise as he expected the improvements due to mind body connections. He explained that when the patients applied the wholesome practice of Mindfulness as a habit, over time positive results could be gained physically and even emotionally.

The improvements of the patients were not the unexpected. The unexpected result was the gradual observation over the years that the long term practice of MBSR Mindfulness program could lead to improved morality among the participants. Some of his patients were abusively violent due to mental stress or physical pain. With continued practice those patients became non-violent and non-abusive and became better spouses maintaining faithful relationships,better parents and even gave up alcohol and other addictions. These practitioners started to demonstrate improvements in their morality – even when they were not religious people.

Over the years they observed that this interesting aspect became even more pronounced whenever the practitioners came from religious cultural backgrounds. So those with Hindu backgrounds became better Hindus and Muslims became better Muslims and Buddhists became better Buddhists after long term practice of this secular Mindfulness.

There had been concern among certain religious leaders about the absence of emphasis on morality or ethics in secular Mindfulness. For instance, most Buddhist traditions require vows of higher ethical behavior prior to training in meditation. Such formality is extremely helpful in providing a structure of safety for monastics and within residential meditation retreats.It is also useful for purifying the mind in preparation for deeper practice. However, it is equally possible to integrate a foundation of ethical behavior into the practice of Mindfulness itself. The emphasis in secular Mindfulness is on learning and developing Ethical behavior through first-hand experience and insight.

In secular Mindfulness, the practitioners are taught over 8 weeks’ period with an explicit emphasis on using one’s inner and outer life as a laboratory to explore as to which behaviors lead to suffering and which leads to real happiness. This could be the reason for the improvements of morality and ethics among the practitioners of secular Mindfulness.

Stemming from these results it could be even argued that Mindfulness and Morality have a bi-directional potential for supporting each other.

Aruna Manathunge has practiced Mindfulness for over 42 years. During the past 7 years he has closely followed the development of Mind Science in the Western world. He has had a long career as the Country Head of Sri Lanka and the Head of the Indian Sub-Continent of an American Pharmaceutical Multinational company. Presently Aruna conducts Coaching in Mindfulness to Schools and Companies. Aruna can be contacted at [email protected]