BEAUTIFUL NAKED MINDS
The naked mind is a mind without distraction. It is a mind in pure focus, present, open, and unencumbered. It is a state of mind reached by meditation. While it has been practiced for thousands of years, there are some new insights into how meditation affects the mind and body as well as how it can affect society as a whole.
In it's simplest form, meditation is a way to learn how to train your mind. When you learn how your mind works, you learn how to react more effectively in the moment, which in turn allows you to handle and accept life as it comes.
Beyond the growing personal trend in meditation practice, the naked mind is proving to be of great benefit to medicine, education, social action, and business. Because meditation fosters empathy, people who meditate work better together and have better relationships with their customers. A recent article in The New York Times, by David DeSteno, professor of psychology at Northwestern University, describes how his team, including psychologist Paul Condon, neuroscientist Gaelle Desbordes, and Buddhist minister and teacher Iama Willa Miller, found that meditation has a significant impact on compassion, mood, and openness to others.
Google engineer, Chade Meng-Tan, leads “Search Inside Yourself,” a program that produces dramatic transformations in attitudes among participating Google employees. His goal is to “create conditions for inner peace, inner happiness, and compassion on a global scale.” He believes these qualities can translate to profits, both monetary and psychic.
In essence, meditation can help us to control our own minds, strengthening our abilities to manage stress, solve problems, and maintain happiness. It is powerful enough to help even the most needy --- people who are at high levels of dysfunction and disorder, like prison inmates and drug addicts.
“Dharma in Hell: The Prison Writings of Fleet Maull,” by Fleet Maull (Prison Dharma Network, 2012), is a collection of writings created during Maull’s 14-year incarceration in a maximum security prison. From the depths of despair, amidst violence and darkness, Maull rises up, finds his inner strength, and triumphs.
Maull has become an esteemed spiritual leader. He created the Prison Dharma Network, a program which teaches meditation to inmates which has already proved great success in improving the lives of those who might otherwise have continued in their negative spirals. His efforts are among those featured in a new film, “The Naked Mind,” directed by Sarah Barab and Paxton Winters.
Video: Sarah Barab, Youtube.
The film explores the effects of meditation and its potential for collective evolution, looking at both western science coming out of US and European neuroscience labs, and eastern traditions in Tibet and India.
“The Naked Mind” features interviews with spiritual leaders and teachers on the leading edge of mediation practice. We get a glimpse, via infrared camera, into the life of Machig, a 30-year-old, Caucasian American who practices Dark Retreat. For forty days, she sits in a meditation box in sensory deprivation -- with no food, water, or light. She is able to self-regulate her autonomic nervous system with complete meditative absorption.
Neuroscientist Richard Davidson, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, works intimately with H.H. the Dalai Lama for the Mind & Life Institute. He provides a third-person perspective on what is physiologically happening in various states of meditation.
Video: Sarah Barab, Youtube.
Additional interviews include those with:
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His Holiness, Karmapa XVII
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H.E. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche - recognised as the main incarnation of Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro (1894-1959)
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Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche -- temporal and spiritual director of Shambhala, a global network of meditation and retreat centers.
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H.E.Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche -- teacher of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism,
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Matthieu Ricard -- buddhist monk, photographer, scientist, and author. Dubbed the "happiest person in the world" by popular media
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Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo -- Western practioner of extended retreat, including 12 years in a remote Himalayan cave
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Joan Halifax Roshi -- Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and author. Founder, Abbot, and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist monastery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Acharya Fleet Maull, M.A. -- author, meditation teacher, consultant, executive coach, trainer, university teacher, end of life educator and social activist working for peace, prison reform and social transformation
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Richard Davidson, PH.D. -- William James and Vilas Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People and works intimately with H.H. the Dalai Lama for the Mind & Life Institute.
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Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. --- founding Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Founding director of Stress Reduction Clinic
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Willoughby Britton -- neuroscientist, Brown University.
In addition to documenting the spiritual journeys of other great minds, the filmmakers confront their own biases and prejudices, turning the camera on themselves.
With stunning cinematography and an original score by internationally acclaimed cellist Claudio Bohorquez and saxophonist Hayden Chisholm, Naked Mind exposes the true beauty of the mind in its most pristine state of being.
The Naked Mind Organization is a not-for profit mission to bring meditation into veteran's hospitals, prisons, rural high schools, and universities.
For more information on Naked Mind or to help fund the project, click here.
Photo: Courtesy of Naked Mind
Rich Pierson, co-founder of Headspace, an online meditation company, that aims to make meditation more accessible to more people in their everyday lives, is one of the nine panelists, including Arianna Huffington, at the Third Metric Conference in London (July 30, 2013). They will be discussing the redefinition of success, to include mindfulness as a metric.
Pierson, like many practitioners, has a daily routine that he is pretty strict about. His version: He wakes up at about 6:00 a.m. for 45 minutes of meditation, surfs for an hour, has breakfast, and then gets to the office around 9:00.
“It really is the most profound, yet brutally simple technique,” explains Pierson. “Almost too simple for our minds to understand.”
But you don’t need to spend 12 years or 90 days or even an hour to reap the benefits of meditation. In his rececnt TED talk, Headspace co-founder and former Buddhist monk, Andy Puddicombe, tells us “All it takes is 10 mindful minutes.”
“When was the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking?” Puddicombe asks. Even a brief clearing can refresh your mind.
“Most people assume that meditation is all about stopping thoughts, getting rid of emotions, somehow controlling the mind. But actually it’s about stepping back, seeing the thought clearly, witnessing it coming and going.”
A recent article in the Huffington Post, “How to Meditate Without Meditating At All,” shares easy ways in which you can weave informal meditation practice into your daily routine. It points out that many successful people like Oprah, Rupert Murdoch, and Arianna Huffington credit meditation for their razor-sharp focus, and enviable levels of productivity and creativity. Espousing simple techniques, like paying attention to your normal day-to-day rituals, such as taking a shower, making your bed, sipping your morning coffee, or putting on your socks, can bring your mind to a more naked, present awareness.
Other ideas:
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Go for a run -- sans iPod
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Take a stroll down Memory Lane
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Cook something, using heart and attention
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Write in your journal
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Go stargazing
Enjoy the beauty of your naked mind and get down to the bare essence of what makes you you.
