 About

 Free download
 Books

Blog
A Buddhist approach to stress
management
Posted by Padma on Oct 30, 2013 in Buddhism | 10 Comments

Last weekend was a tough one. I got a call from my kidney

specialist on Friday saying I needed an urgent scan as the previous
scan suggested my kidney may have a dodgy artery in it that was
in danger of bursting.

If it burst and I wasn’t in hospital already, that was pretty much it

for me.

Then at 5pm on the Friday he phoned to say they couldn’t fit me in,
but it would ‘probably be alright’ until Monday morning when he’d
managed to get me an appointment. If anything happened over
the weekend I should go straight to A&E (what us Brits call ER).

I therefore had a weekend of trying to stay calm to keep my blood

pressure down so as to minimise the chances of bleeding to death
in the 48 hours before my scan.
What is stress?
This situation is what you might call ‘stressful’. We often have
stressful things to deal with in our lives. We often don’t do a great
job of dealing with it.

Stress kills. In my case that could’ve been imminent, but generally,

stress is dangerous.

When I trained as a massage therapist many years ago, we had to

do a lot of training in anatomy and physiology. When it came close
to exam time, the tutor said, “If you’re asked what causes a
condition and you don’t know, say stress. That causes everything.”

Stress takes whatever the weak link is in your body and makes it
weaker.

Stress isn’t just a way you feel. It isn’t just a mental state. All mental
and emotional states have a bio-chemical counterpart in the body.
Mind and body are fundamentally interconnected.

(Hardcore scientists would say that there is no mind. Only brain

and hormones. I don’t see it quite like that, but that’s for another
post.)

Buddhism and stress

The fact that mind and body are so interconnected is good news. It
means you can affect the body with the mind.

When applied to stress, this means you can use Buddhist

psychological tools and approaches to keep you relaxed and
healthy.
One thing I’ve found incredibly useful over the years is something
that the Mahayana teacher Shantideva said. He said that the
anticipation of pain is often much worse than the pain itself.
What this means to me is when faced with anxiety, it’s really
helpful to stay in the present moment. Everything else doesn’t
exist. Kidneys bursting, massive internal bleeding, rushing to the
hospital, death, fear, crying, pain – all that stuff only exists in your
mind whilever it doesn’t exist in the present moment.

That is, it’s a fiction that you’ve created. That fiction is causing you
stress. The present moment itself is perfectly peaceful and
everything’s fine.

So I try to bring myself back to the present moment, staying with

what’s real, right now.

Buddhist meditation can be great for that – particularly

mindfulness practice. But this weekend I mostly used distraction.

I hung out with my niece and nephew and played X-box. I’ve never
really played one before. I played for a little while, but man, they’re
quite intense! Far more involved than Space Invaders. I’m gonna
have to get one though. The graphics are amazing!

But I digress.

Teenage kids take your focus away from your own stuff. They have
their dramas and insecurities that are REALLY IMPORTANT and
fashion and the latest X-Box game is far more significant than silly
old people’s kidneys.

Our personal story is very easy to get caught up in and take too
seriously. When you’re an adult with a health problem this is easy
to do. When you’re a teenage kid you can multiply that by at least
ten. So I decided to forget my story while I couldn’t do anything
about it and enjoy theirs instead.

The result
The fact that I’m writing this may give you a clue.

I made it until Monday, got to the hospital, was injected with dye
and stuck in a radiation machine. It turned out I didn’t need
surgery and they sent me home.

Once I’d got the official ‘OK’ I felt exausted and spent a whole
bunch of time in bed. So I was definitely holding a lot of stress in
my body even though I wasn’t focusing on it. Perhaps meditation is
better than X-box after all?

I don’t know what’s happening in my body, only that I didn’t need

immediate surgery. I guess I’ll find out the details in the fullness of
time. For now, I’m not going to stress about it.

--------------------------------------

Did you know The Meditator's Handbook is out? It has everything

you need to set up and maintain an effective meditation
practice. Check it out!

Leave a Reply

 Name (required)

 Email (required)
  Website

 CAPTCHA Code *
Submit Comment

Type and

BROWSE ALL POSTS

Browse a list of every post on this blog, with a short summary of what each
post is about.

© 2020 My Buddhist Life All Rights Reserved.

 
Powered by WishList Member - Membership Software

This site uses cookies More infoNo problem

Buddha Space
Readings, Reflections & Reviews

 Home
 Buddhist Glossary
 Buddhism by Numbers
 Teachers
 Teachings
 Weblinks
 G (blog author)
Sunday, May 12, 2013

Buddhism & Stress

Having one of those days? The Buddha can help.

Stress is a big problem these days. Stress-related illnesses are common ailments in the twenty-first
century. Modern life seems geared towards creating stress in us, whether it's at home, at work, at
school, or at the supermarket. We are stressed out with the pressures put on us by our parents,
partners, children, work colleagues, neighbors, and just about everyone else. We don't have to meet
those that bother us, either: politicians, business moguls, and celebrities can cause irritation to us.
And it's not limited to human beings, either. Animals such as pets or strays can make us stressed.
Even the weather can get us down, raining when we want the sun, dry when we want the rain, etc. 

A particularly stressful day might include an argument with a partner, discipline issues with the
children, and the dog hassling to be taken for a walk. And that's before even leaving the house! This
is followed driving the kids to school and being late for work due to the daily traffic jams. At work, the
boss is extra demanding and a disagreement with a colleague causes friction. Upon returning home
through a rain storm, there's nearly an accident, and clothes get drenched in the process. Finally at
home, a burnt supper lies slaughtered on a plate, not exactly the reward one might expect after such
a day. The evening news presents story after story of crooked politicians & petulant celebrities. At
last in bed, exhausted, insomnia strikes - the final nail in a coffin of stress!

Some things we can improve in our lives through positive action, reducing stress in the process. We
can relate better to those around us, spending more time with our loved ones and listening to their
concerns, responding in appropriate ways that lessen stress for all concerned. We can perform to
the best of our ability at work, being conscientious workers, minimizing the possibility of conflict with
work colleagues. We can go to bed early and get up early so that we not only get enough sleep, but
also have enough time to get the following day off to a good start. We can be more selective with
what we watch on TV, and when we watch it, so that potentially stressful programs don't affect us so
much. These are general steps we can take to improve our lot in life and reduce stress; but, there
some things we can't change, like other peoples' behavior, the weather, and the stock market! 

This is where Buddhism comes in. Buddhism contains many teachings & techniques that can lead to
a reduction in stress. Indeed, the ultimate goal of the Buddhist life, nirvana, is described as the
complete absence of any kind of stress. To achieve enlightenment isn't immediately achievable for
all of us, however - when was the last time you met someone you thought was a living buddha? - but
nevertheless, Buddhism can help us to significantly reduce our stress levels if we learn a few of its
basic teachings and techniques. The core teachings of the Buddha are called the four noble truths
(ariya-atthangika-magga), and are as follows: 

1. Life is stressful (dukkha, often translated as 'suffering,')

2. The cause of stress is craving (tanha, often 'desire.')
3. To end (nirodha) craving is to end stress.
4. There is a path (magga) to end suffering.

From these truths (which are called 'noble' because they lead to nirvana, or enlightenment) can help
us to understand stress better. They don't refer to specific types of stress, nor to medical conditions
that cause acute forms of stress - for the latter, please refer to a qualified medical doctor. But, for the
majority of us suffering from your run-of-the-mill stress that permeates life, Buddhist teachings can
be of profound help. (And, in conjunction with medical assistance, they can be of use to those of us
with clinically-diagnosed stress, too.) In essence, they can be summed up in the following statement
by the Buddha: "I teach stress and the ending of stress." The latter is achieved through first
recognizing the existence of stress, understanding its causes, and letting go of them, thereby letting
go of stress itself. And there are a number of ways to do this.
One simple exercise, traditionally ascribed to the Buddha, is called mindfulness-of-breathing. It is
normally practiced sat cross-legged, but can be done sat on a chair, as long as we re sitting in an
alert posture. With eyes closed, focus attention on the breath as it touches the nostrils, watching it
go in, and then come out of the nose. To begin with, this can be very difficult as the mind will wander
away into its own reveries. It's important to return attention to the breath as soon as this is noticed. A
helpful method is to count the breaths from one to ten, starting again each time the mind drifts or ten
is reached. Mindfulness-of-breathing can be done for ten to fifteen minutes, ideally twice per day.
But, even once a day will be of benefit, calming as well as focusing the mind. This will not only
reduce stress when meditating on the breath, but will seep into the rest of one's day, making one
more resistant to stress.

Having practiced mindfulness-of-breathing for some time, it will be able to establish the mind in a
calm and focused state easily. This will enable one to go to the next stage of the practice: looking at
and analyzing stress. When calmer, the ind will not so easily get stressed, but underlying causes of
stress will be there, and stressful states will still occur, if less often than before. When they do, a
calm & focused mind will be able to look closely at particular forms of stress and their causes. When
their causes are clearly seen, which will be certain types of craving, then the latter can be let go of,
leaving no causes for the further arising of those kinds of stress. There are many other techniques
we can use to the same end, some of which are described in other articles in this blog. Please use
the search facility to the right of this page to explore for more.

An example of this is realizing that a specific form of stress is caused by the desire for someone to
be different to the way they are. Fighting with those aspects of reality that we cannot change will
lead to stress, but seeing that a person we cannot avoid causes stress, and that we cannot change
them, can be the cause of stress reduction, if we let go of the desire for them to be different.
Reflecting, "So-and-so is the way they are, and that's not going to change," can lead to letting go of
the craving for them to be other than they are. With this acceptance comes a lessoning of stress.
This technique can be applied to many causes of stress that we experience, reducing the suffering
that we are normally victims of due to our ignorance. By looking into the nature & causes of our
stress we are developing wisdom, the cure for ignorance. Buddhist enlightenment is taking this
process to the very core of all our ignorance & suffering - but that's not within the scope of this
particular article! For now, let's leave it here. A little daily meditation & reflection can do wonders for
our stress levels.

Posted by G at 12:00 AM   

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

Labels: Reflections

6 comments:

Was Once said...
 This is not really Buddhist, but Bentinho in the talk( and both parts are great) explains
how we experience ourselves individually and hence STRESS>
http://youtu.be/W2srY1P3QVM?t=26m2s
May 13, 2013 at 5:59 AM

G said...

Thanks for the link, Was Once!

May 24, 2013 at 8:19 AM

joe tenderloins said...

hey guys your not cool

December 18, 2014 at 10:08 AM

Anonymous said...

Hi There,

My name is Sally and I am writing because of a personal connection to mental health

problems caused by financial stress. The life of a freelance writer can be financially
insecure as you might imagine, but I have learned recently how money matters can
affect the mental and physical health of older adults like my parents who are now
planning for retirement.

Recently, I came across brokeandbroker.com while researching a piece inspired by

my own family. A combination of my father being downsized in his 60s and my
mother falling ill have combined to seriously affect their financial planning for
retirement and has exacerbated their health problems. They have inspired me to write
a guide for seniors and their families about the most common causes of financial
stress, how it affects the person, and provide some coping strategies. You can read it
here: http://reversemortgagealert.org/financial-stress-coping-guide-seniors/. I thought
you might be interested in it after reading
http://www.brokeandbroker.com/1991/elderly-signature-trust-trustee-finra-awc/.

It would be wonderful if you could give my resource a little mention on your site
because many of your readers will find it useful and interesting. Of course, I would
love to write a short introduction for you on the same topic. Just let me know which
you prefer.
 Best Regards,
Sally
March 25, 2017 at 5:27 AM

Anonymous said...

Hi There,

My name is Sally and I am writing because of a personal connection to mental health

problems caused by financial stress. The life of a freelance writer can be financially
insecure as you might imagine, but I have learned recently how money matters can
affect the mental and physical health of older adults like my parents who are now
planning for retirement.

Recently, I came across buddhaspace.blogspot.com while researching a piece inspired

by my own family. A combination of my father being downsized in his 60s and my
mother falling ill have combined to seriously affect their financial planning for
retirement and has exacerbated their health problems. They have inspired me to write
a guide for seniors and their families about the most common causes of financial
stress, how it affects the person, and provide some coping strategies. You can read it
here: http://reversemortgagealert.org/financial-stress-coping-guide-seniors/. I thought
you might be interested in it after reading
http://buddhaspace.blogspot.com/2013/05/buddhism-stress.html.

It would be wonderful if you could give my resource a little mention on your site
because many of your readers will find it useful and interesting. Of course, I would
love to write a short introduction for you on the same topic. Just let me know which
you prefer.

Best Regards,
Sally
March 25, 2017 at 5:31 AM

Braddie G said...

Stress is the main reason behind mental illness. You can also Buy Etizolam Online to
reduce your mental stress.
February 13, 2020 at 6:32 PM

Post a Comment
 Newer PostOlder PostHome

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Readings, Reflections & Reviews

 Bankei's 'Song of the Mind' (15)
 Buddha and Eckhart (7)
 Buddha and Religion (7)
 Buddha and Science (7)
 Dhammapada (9)
 Karaniya Metta Sutta (7)
 On Awakening (7)
 Poetry (30)
 Readings (114)
 Reflections (94)
 Reviews (51)
 Thai Buddhism (7)
Subscribe To Buddha Space
 Posts

 Comments
Blog Archive
 ►  2017 (18)
 ►  2016 (25)
 ►  2015 (36)
 ►  2014 (36)
 ▼  2013 (50)
o ►  December (3)
o ►  November (3)
o ►  October (3)
o ►  September (3)
o ►  August (3)
o ►  July (3)
o ►  June (3)
o ▼  May (5)
 'In the Unborn,' by Bankei
 Birth-Day, Death-Day, & Everything-Inbetween-Days
 Buddhism & Stress
 Thai Buddhism: A Land of Smiles
 Thai Buddhism: Saving Face & No-Face
o ►  April (6)
o ►  March (6)
o ►  February (6)
o ►  January (6)
 ►  2012 (103)
 ►  2011 (28)
 ►  2010 (52)
 ►  2009 (60)
 ►  2008 (35)
Buddha Space Followers
Search Buddha Space
Search

Blog List

. . .where you stop, nobody
knows

With a New Mind comes New

Mood


American Buddhist
Perspective

The Coronavirus is coming –

Some thoughts from Hong Kong


Awakening the Buddha in us

Four Ways of Letting Go


Bodhi Leaf

Anger and Social Change


Buddhavacana


Digging the Dharma

The Jewel Lamp: A Praise to

Bodhicitta Verse 169


Fly Like a Crow


Following in the Footsteps

Dentokan Aiki Jujutsu: Ushiro

Zemi Otoshi (Henka Waza)


Karmadungyu

How the Convention of Buddhism

Came to China?


No answers

Marilynne Robinson: 2017

Chicago Tribune Literary Prize


Ox Herding

What Matters


Pinoy Buddhist


Solitary Retreat

A Simple, Short, Breathing

Meditation


Spiritual Gurus of India

Dhammapada - Chapter 15 -
Happy


The Buddha Diaries

GRATITUDE


 The Buddhist Blog

"Happiness" on Independent
Lens.


The Middle Way


The Mindful Moment


The Reformed Buddhist


The Worst Horse


Tricycle Editor's Blog


Truth a Paradox

Say Something


Vitakka Vicara

Every Path Has Some Puddles


When This Is, That Is


Words of Truth

How a mental breakdown

brought me to grace

The Author

G
View my complete profile
Ethereal theme. Powered by Blogger.
 SKIP TO CONTENT



 Popular
 Latest

 Sign In

 Subscribe

HEALTH

Why So Many Americans Are

Turning to Buddhism
The ancient Eastern religion is helping Westerners with very
modern mental-health problems.
OLGA KHAZAN
MARCH 7, 2019
Enjoy unlimited access to The Atlantic for less than $1 per week.
Sign in
Subscribe Now
 ANNATAMILA / SHUTTERSTOCK, KATIE MARTIN / THE ATLANTIC



 Link Copied

Dressed in flowing gold robes, the bald female meditation teacher told us to do nothing. We were
to sit silently in our plastic chairs, close our eyes, and focus on our breath. I had never meditated,
but I’d gone to church, so I instinctively bowed my head. Then I realized, given that this would
last for 15 minutes, I should probably find a more comfortable neck position.

Sign up for The Atlantic’s daily newsletter.

Each weekday evening, get an overview of the day’s biggest news, along with
fascinating ideas, images, and voices.
Email Address (required)
Sign Up
Thanks for signing up!
This was the first of two meditation sessions of the Kadampa Buddhism class I attended this
week near my house, in Northern Virginia, and I did not reach nirvana. Because we were in a
major city, occasional sirens outside blasted through the quiet, and because this was a church
basement, people were laughing and talking in the hallways. One guy wandered in to ask if this
 was an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The more we focused on our breath, the teacher assured
us, the more these distractions would fade away.

After we had meditated for 15 minutes, the teacher shifted focus to the topic of the class: letting
go of resentments. This was the real reason I had come to this meditation class, rather than
simply meditating on my own at home with an app. I wanted to learn more about Buddhism and
how its teachings might be able to improve my mental health—and that of the myriad other
Americans who have flocked to some form of the religion in recent years. These newcomers
aren’t necessarily seeking spiritual enlightenment or a faith community, but rather hoping for a
quick boost of cognitive healing.

MORE STORIES


Neuroscience Has a Lot To Learn from Buddhism

MATTHIEU RICARD   WOLF SINGER

Should Schools Teach Kids to Meditate?

AMANDA MACHADO

If Buddhist Monks Trained AI

ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL

Read: The kindness cure

The people I spoke with were young and old, but few were Buddhist by birth. Perhaps some have
just run out of options: Mental-health disorders are up in Western societies, and the answer
doesn’t seem to be church attendance, which is down. There’s always therapy, but
it’s so expensive. My meditation class was $12.

As she opened a book on Buddhist teachings, the teacher told the class that holding grudges is
harmful. Resentment feels like clutching a burning stick and complaining that it’s burning us.
And yet, being harmed by someone also hurts. So, the teacher said, the question was this: “What
do I do with my mind if I feel like I’ve been harmed by someone?”
Americans everywhere seem to be asking themselves variations on this very question: What do
we do with our minds?

The 40-something dad in Los Angeles was plateauing. He had achieved most of his career goals,
rising to the position of senior manager at a large company. But the competitive nature of the
work had taken its toll on his marriage, and he was in the process of getting a divorce. He rarely
saw his grown children. “In short, I am going through a midlife crisis,” the dad told me via
email, a few days before I attended the meditation class. (He asked to remain anonymous,
because his divorce and other struggles aren’t public.)

Last year, this dad turned to traditional psychotherapy for a few months, but he didn’t see as
much of a benefit from it as he had hoped. He felt like he was mostly being taught to justify
destructive emotions and behaviors. His therapist did, however, recommend two books that were
helpful: How to Be an Adult in Relationships, by David Richo, and The Wise Heart, by Jack
Kornfield. Both authors work in Buddhist themes and ideas, and earlier this year they introduced
him to the practice of meditation.

Hungry for more, the dad recently attended a Buddhist meditation class in Hollywood, where he
learned ways to deepen his own meditation practice and to change his approach to relationships.
Now he feels more open and is willing to be more vulnerable around his family and friends. “As
a Catholic, I struggle with some of the religious concepts,” he says, “but it doesn’t prevent me
from adopting the Buddhist techniques and philosophies.” Besides, he told me, it really does
seem like the universe has been putting Buddhism in front of him.

Though precise numbers on its popularity are hard to come by, Buddhism does seem to be
emerging in the Western, type-A universe. The journalist Robert Wright’s Why Buddhism Is
True became a best seller in 2017. Buddhist meditation centers have recently popped up in places
such as Knoxville, Tennessee, and Lakewood, Ohio. There are now dozens of Buddhist podcasts,
among many more apps and playlists geared specifically toward personal, non-Buddhist
meditation. Four in 10 American adults now say they meditate at least weekly.
Hugh Byrne, the director of the Center for Mindful Living in Washington, D.C., says the local
meditation community has “blossomed in the past few years.” As I stress-Ubered from meeting
to meeting in D.C. recently, I noticed a few “meditation spaces” where far more consumerist
establishments used to be. Academic research on mindfulness meditation has also exploded,
making what in the West was once an esoteric practice for hippies more akin to a life hack for
all.

Buddhism has been popular in various forms among certain celebrities and tech elites, but the
religion’s primary draw for many Americans now appears to be mental health. The ancient
religion, some find, helps them manage the slings and arrows and subtweets of modern life.
Many people are stressed out by the constant drama of the current administration, and work
hours have overwhelmed the day. There’s something newly appealing about a practice that
instructs you to just sit, be aware, and realize nothing lasts forever. Perhaps the comfort comes
simply from knowing that the problems that bedevil humans have been around since long before
Gmail.

A few themes and ideas seem to unite the disparate experiences of the people I interviewed. The
Buddha’s first “noble truth” is that “life is suffering,” and many of Buddhism’s newly minted
Western practitioners have interpreted this to mean that accepting emotional pain might be
preferable to trying to alleviate it. “Buddhism admits that suffering is inevitable,” says Daniel
Sanchez, a 24-year-old in New Jersey. “I shouldn’t focus on avoiding suffering, but learn how to
deal with suffering.”

In addition to meditating every morning and night, Sanchez reads the Diamond Sutra and Heart
Sutra, texts from the early Middle Ages, and listens to zen talks. The sutras are quite a departure
from the normal content of psychotherapy, in which one might ponder what truly makes one
happy. Buddhist thought suggests that one should not compulsively crave comfort and avoid
discomfort, which some see as permission to hop off the hedonic treadmill.

A Colorado life coach named Galen Bernard told me that Comfortable With Uncertainty, by the
Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, has influenced his well-being more than anything else, except
perhaps his very first experience on Prozac. He says the book and its teachings have helped him
avoid labeling certain experiences as negative by default. For example, transitioning to a
friendship with an ex-girlfriend after their breakup was painful for him at first, but Chodron’s
and others’ writings helped him see that “it might seem like too much pain,” he said, “but
actually it’s just an experience I’m having that … can actually be a portal to joy on the other
side.”

For decades, people have been attempting self-improvement through classes and seminars, many
of which incorporated elements of Eastern religions. The Human Potential Movement of the
1960s influenced the work of the foundational psychologist Abraham Maslow and, perhaps less
positively, the Rajneesh movement, documented in the Netflix show Wild Wild Country. In the
1970s, the organization Erhard Seminars Training, or EST, offered courses on how to “take
responsibility for your life” and “get it.”
What’s different—and perhaps reassuring—about Buddhism is that it’s an existing religion
practiced by half a billion people. Because relatively few Caucasian Americans grew up
Buddhist, they generally don’t associate any familial baggage with it like some do with, say, the
Christianity or Judaism of their childhoods. While liberating, this also means that the practice of
secular Buddhism often differs dramatically from the religion itself. All of the secular
practitioners I spoke with for this piece are reading different books, listening to different
podcasts, and following different teachers and traditions. Their interpretations of Buddhist
teachings aren’t necessarily consistent with one another or with traditional texts.
I ran some of their insights by an expert in Buddhism, David McMahan at Franklin and Marshall
College, who said some of these Western interpretations are slightly morphed from Buddhism’s
original cultures and contexts. Buddhism carries with it a set of values and morals that white
Americans don’t always live by. Much like “cafeteria Catholics” ignore parts of the religion that
don’t resonate with them, some Westerners focus on only certain elements of Buddhist
philosophy and don’t endorse, say, Buddhism’s view of reincarnation or worship of the Buddha.
Call them “buffet Buddhists.”

From 1958: The meaning of Buddhism 

Taken out of their Buddhist context, practices like meditation “become like a dry sponge,”
McMahan said, “soaking up whatever values are around.” Traditional monks don’t “meditate for
business.”

This so-called secular Buddhism, says Autry Johnson, a Colorado bartender and tourism worker
who meditates regularly, “is a little more accessible to people that wouldn’t primarily identify as
Buddhists, or already identify with another religion or philosophy, but want to adopt aspects of
Buddhist practice to supplement their current worldview.” (Indeed, many meditation centers
emphasize that you don’t have to be Buddhist to attend sessions.)

Buffet Buddhism may not be traditional, but its flexibility does allow its adherents to more easily
employ the philosophy for an antidepressant jolt. Some people practice Buddhism and
meditation as an alternative to psychotherapy or psychiatric medication, given mental-health
care’s cost and scarcity: Sixty percent of counties in the U.S. don’t have a single psychiatrist. “I
have pretty good health insurance,” Bernard said, “but if I want support, it’s a month and a half
to see someone new. Having a resource that I can pop open is invaluable.”

Some people turn to both Buddhism and psychotherapy. “There’s an overlap between the reason
people will come to therapy and the reason they come to meditation,” says Byrne, the Center for
Mindful Living director. Some therapists are even starting to incorporate Buddhist concepts into
their practices. Tara Brach, a psychologist and the founder of the Insight Meditation Community
of Washington, D.C., offers meditations and talks with titles like “From Human Doing to Human
Being” on her website. In Texas, the psychologist Molly Layton encourages clients to mindfully
“sit with their thoughts,” rather than to “jump into the cycle of their thinking.”
Mary Liz Austin, who practices psychotherapy at the Center for Mindful Living, similarly helps
clients see that “it’s the attachment to the outcome that really causes suffering.” Another favorite
teaching of hers is Chodron’s aphorism “Everything is workable.” This means, essentially, that
something good might come out of even the worst moments. “I’m having an experience right
now with my father-in-law. He’s dying of cancer. It’s a shitty situation,” Austin says. “But what
I’m seeing is that the fruits of this cancer diagnosis is everyone is by his bedside, everyone is
showing amazing love to him, and that allows the people in your life to show up in a way that
you see so much what matters.”

At times, it’s the meditation teachers who sound more like psychotherapists, offering practical
tips for dealing with existential quandaries. Byrne, who also teaches meditation, wrote a book
about the power of mindfulness for habit change. He uses mindfulness meditation to help people
understand impermanence, another Buddhist teaching. The idea is to see your emotions and
experiences—including anxiety or pain—as constantly changing, “like a weather system coming
through,” he says. Everything, eventually, ends.

Cecilia Saad found this to be an especially attractive element of Buddhism. A close friend of hers
was diagnosed with cancer three years ago, and Saad was impressed by how calm she remained
throughout her diagnosis and treatment. “We’ve talked a lot about her outlook, and she always
goes back to her Buddhism,” she says. Now, when Saad is stressed about something, the concept
of impermanence helps her to imagine that she’s already survived the event she’s dreading.

At my meditation class, the teacher read from her book in her even, perfectly unaccented voice.
The book told us to consider that there are two reasons someone might cause us harm: It’s their
nature to be harmful, or a temporary circumstance caused them to act in a harmful way. Either
way, the teacher said, it doesn’t make sense to be angry at the person. The nature of water is wet,
so you wouldn’t rage at the rain for getting you wet. And you wouldn’t curse the clouds for
temporarily having a weather system that causes a downpour.

“When are we compelled to hurt people?” she asked, rhetorically, before answering: “When
we’re in pain. It’s easy, if you see the fear, to have some compassion.”

She asked us to close our eyes and meditate again, this time while thinking about letting go of
resentment toward someone who had harmed us. I shifted awkwardly and wondered how the
burly guy sitting in front of me wearing a LIFT LIFE  T-shirt felt. I was having trouble focusing
on resentment, and my eyes flickered open involuntarily. It was 30 degrees outside, yet most of
the seats were taken. The fullness was uplifting. Still, it was remarkable that so many of us were
willing to stumble through the freezing dark just to take in some basic wisdom about how to be
less sad.

In Sunday school, when you opened your eyes during prayer, other kids would tell on you,
thereby implicating themselves as having opened their eyes, too. That’s how people are
sometimes, I thought: They’ll burn themselves for the chance to harm someone else. I took a deep
breath and tried to have compassion for them anyway.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to
letters@theatlantic.com.

OLGA KHAZAN  is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Weird: The Power
of Being an Outsider in an Insider World.
ConnectFacebookTwitter

MOST POPULAR
 1 30 Movies That Are Unlike Anything
You’ve Seen Before
These films, each unforgettable in its own way, are essential viewing.
DAVID SIMS

 2 The Malignant Cruelty of Donald Trump

The president is defaming the memory of a woman who died nearly 20 years ago—
and inflicting pain upon her family today.
PETER WEHNER

 3 Donald Trump, the Most Unmanly

President
Why don’t the president’s supporters hold him to their own standard of masculinity?
TOM NICHOLS

 4 The End of Hong Kong

China has moved to take away the city’s autonomy, one of several aggressive actions
by Beijing across the region.
TIMOTHY MCLAUGHLIN
 5 The Prophecies of Q
American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase.
ADRIENNE LAFRANCE

 6 Estonia Already Lives Online—Why Can’t

the United States?
Using secure identification, people there can bank, apply for government assistance,
file for sick leave, order prescriptions, and get medical care—all online.
NINA JANKOWICZ

 7 CNN Is Picking Ratings Over Ethics

Instead of pressing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for answers, the cable
network had his younger sibling ask him questions.
DAVID A. GRAHAM

 8 The Rest of the World Is Laughing at

Trump
The president created a leadership vacuum. China intends to fill it.
ANNE APPLEBAUM
 9 Social Distancing Is Not Enough
We will need a comprehensive strategy to reduce the sort of interactions that can lead
to more infections.
DEREK THOMPSON

 10 What’s Behind the COVID-19 Racial

Disparity?
Outrage is warranted. But outrage unaccompanied by analysis is a danger in itself.
GRAEME WOOD

VIDEOS

 The Iguana King

NICOLAS POLLOCK   BRIANNA PRESSEY

 What Was Lost When SXSW Was Canceled

EMILY BUDER
 A Coronavirus Prayer

JAMES PARKER

 The Last True Hermit Was Alone for 27 Years

EMILY BUDER

 About
o Our History
o Staff
o Careers
 Contact
o Help Center
o Contact Us
o Advertise
o Press
 Podcasts
o Social Distance™
o Floodlines
o The Ticket: Politics from  The Atlantic
o Crazy/Genius
 Subscription
o Purchase
o Give a Gift
o Manage Subscription
o Download iOS App
o Newsletters
 Follow
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

 Privacy Policy
 Do Not Sell My Personal Information
 Advertising Guidelines
  Terms Conditions
 Responsible Disclosure
 Site Map

TheAtlantic.com Copyright (c) 2020 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

 About
 Free download
 Books

Blog
A Buddhist approach to stress
management
Posted by Padma on Oct 30, 2013 in Buddhism | 10 Comments

Last weekend was a tough one. I got a call from my kidney

specialist on Friday saying I needed an urgent scan as the previous
scan suggested my kidney may have a dodgy artery in it that was
in danger of bursting.

If it burst and I wasn’t in hospital already, that was pretty much it

for me.

Then at 5pm on the Friday he phoned to say they couldn’t fit me in,
but it would ‘probably be alright’ until Monday morning when he’d
managed to get me an appointment. If anything happened over
the weekend I should go straight to A&E (what us Brits call ER).

I therefore had a weekend of trying to stay calm to keep my blood

pressure down so as to minimise the chances of bleeding to death
in the 48 hours before my scan.

What is stress?
This situation is what you might call ‘stressful’. We often have
stressful things to deal with in our lives. We often don’t do a great
job of dealing with it.

Stress kills. In my case that could’ve been imminent, but generally,

stress is dangerous.

When I trained as a massage therapist many years ago, we had to

do a lot of training in anatomy and physiology. When it came close
to exam time, the tutor said, “If you’re asked what causes a
condition and you don’t know, say stress. That causes everything.”
Stress takes whatever the weak link is in your body and makes it
weaker.

Stress isn’t just a way you feel. It isn’t just a mental state. All mental
and emotional states have a bio-chemical counterpart in the body.
Mind and body are fundamentally interconnected.

(Hardcore scientists would say that there is no mind. Only brain

and hormones. I don’t see it quite like that, but that’s for another
post.)

Buddhism and stress

The fact that mind and body are so interconnected is good news. It
means you can affect the body with the mind.

When applied to stress, this means you can use Buddhist

psychological tools and approaches to keep you relaxed and
healthy.

One thing I’ve found incredibly useful over the years is something
that the Mahayana teacher Shantideva said. He said that the
anticipation of pain is often much worse than the pain itself.
What this means to me is when faced with anxiety, it’s really
helpful to stay in the present moment. Everything else doesn’t
exist. Kidneys bursting, massive internal bleeding, rushing to the
hospital, death, fear, crying, pain – all that stuff only exists in your
mind whilever it doesn’t exist in the present moment.

That is, it’s a fiction that you’ve created. That fiction is causing you
stress. The present moment itself is perfectly peaceful and
everything’s fine.
So I try to bring myself back to the present moment, staying with
what’s real, right now.

Buddhist meditation can be great for that – particularly

mindfulness practice. But this weekend I mostly used distraction.

I hung out with my niece and nephew and played X-box. I’ve never
really played one before. I played for a little while, but man, they’re
quite intense! Far more involved than Space Invaders. I’m gonna
have to get one though. The graphics are amazing!

But I digress.

Teenage kids take your focus away from your own stuff. They have
their dramas and insecurities that are REALLY IMPORTANT and
fashion and the latest X-Box game is far more significant than silly
old people’s kidneys.

Our personal story is very easy to get caught up in and take too
seriously. When you’re an adult with a health problem this is easy
to do. When you’re a teenage kid you can multiply that by at least
ten. So I decided to forget my story while I couldn’t do anything
about it and enjoy theirs instead.

The result
The fact that I’m writing this may give you a clue.

I made it until Monday, got to the hospital, was injected with dye
and stuck in a radiation machine. It turned out I didn’t need
surgery and they sent me home.

Once I’d got the official ‘OK’ I felt exausted and spent a whole
bunch of time in bed. So I was definitely holding a lot of stress in
my body even though I wasn’t focusing on it. Perhaps meditation is
better than X-box after all?

I don’t know what’s happening in my body, only that I didn’t need

immediate surgery. I guess I’ll find out the details in the fullness of
time. For now, I’m not going to stress about it.

--------------------------------------

Did you know The Meditator's Handbook is out? It has everything

you need to set up and maintain an effective meditation
practice. Check it out!

Leave a Reply

 Name (required)

 Email (required)

 Website
  CAPTCHA Code *
Submit Comment

Type and

BROWSE ALL POSTS

Browse a list of every post on this blog, with a short summary of what each
post is about.

© 2020 My Buddhist Life All Rights Reserved.

 
Powered by WishList Member - Membership Software

This site uses cookies More infoNo problem