No Mud No Lotus

This is a reflection from a series of mini-homilies delivered at All Souls Interfaith Gathering in their Sunday Morning Meditation series.

I had a very special experience last weekend. I was invited to attend the ordination of my nephew at Thich Nhat Hahn’s Blue Cliff Monastery in upstate NY. He was accepting ordination as a Novice into the Order of Interbeing; becoming a monk. It was also the 3 year anniversary of TNH’s passing, so it was a big weekend there, with lots of flowers and added events. It’s quite a commitment for a 20 something young man to make, giving up all possessions, shaving his head, accepting the simple brown robes of the order. No more Netflix. No more bacon…

At the same time, I had been working feverishly on a research grant application to do a study on, coincidentally, the effects of meditation on the physical and mental health of college students. Grant writing, as I discovered, is not as fun as they make it out to be. Nevertheless, it was actually going fairly well until I ran up against the IRB- the institutional review board, which I was told later is secretly known as “The Place Where Dreams Go To Die”. Now, keep in mind, I purposely chose the most simple and basic premise for a study, where I simply run my 3 credit Mindfulness Meditation course, and take some surveys along the way. But the IRB was not to be trifled with. They responded with a message:

Please be aware that a new study was just released on the adverse effects of mindfulness training which are widespread

With a link to a study that, well, I don’t want to call it fake news, but maybe closer to the research version of clickbait. Yes, studies suggest that “Adverse Effects” occur with some meditation practices, but when I dug deeper to see what they defined as “AE’s”, they included:

 ·       Unusual experiences

·       Physical or psychological suffering or discomfort

·       A challenging, difficult or distressing experience  [hold for ironic laughter]

And there’s a lot to be said about this, but I guess my general response to this is, if you’re meditating and are not experiencing any physical or psychological discomfort or being challenged, I want to know your secret!

But on another level, it reminded me of one of the most famous mottos of mindfulness, and that is NO MUD NO LOTUS. The beautiful lotus flower that is so iconic to the notion of spiritual actualization, grows in a substrate of stinky muddy muck. And what a perfect analogy to the process of self-actualization through mindfulness and meditation. Because this practice is not about avoiding our suffering but confronting it, making friends with it, transforming it into the radiant beautiful flower that it holds the potential for.

In the research study of the Horrific Dangers of Sitting Still and Doing Nothing, I found an interesting little section, where they followed a group of Buddhist monks and they found that

100% described meditation as challenging (difficult, unpleasant thoughts and emotions)
25% of the interview data involved problems with meditation
20% reported threats to sense of reality

YET, 100% described meditation as valuable and conducive to wellbeing. In fact, many described difficulties (even severe ones) as important to their development.

I think the lesson here is that, if we give it long enough, science will eventually catch up to what the ancient masters have known for milenniae. No mud, no lotus.

I think it’s only appropriate to hear what Thay has to say about the subject:

“It is possible of course to get stuck in the “mud” of life. It’s easy enough to notice mud all over you at times. The hardest thing to practice is not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by despair. When you’re overwhelmed by despair, all you can see is suffering everywhere you look. You feel as if the worst thing is happening to you. But we must remember that suffering is a kind of mud that we need in order to generate joy and happiness. Without suffering, there’s no happiness. So we shouldn’t discriminate against the mud. We have to learn how to embrace and cradle our own suffering and the suffering of the world, with a lot of tenderness.”