Can meditation fix anything? And if it can’t, then why bother?
Meditation practice, particularly in the form of mindfulness meditation, has become part of the public consciousness in a way unimaginable two or three decades ago. As a mindfulness teacher I have often been approached by people who hope that a mindfulness course will help in some way with a problem, be it anxiety, insomnia, depression or a myriad of other things. To such questions I usually answer “maybe”, and suggest they try it. I’m not being cautious when I say this, as I genuinely don’t know, but I would recommend meditation to anyone who wants to try it for much wider reasons than it might sort out an immediate problem.
There is a growing body of evidence that some forms of mindfulness practice can help with depression and a range of physical and mental health problems, but the overall evidence is not as compelling as drug therapies. Drug therapies have evolved over decades, with huge investment, and they can be very swift in their effect. Nevertheless, scientific evidence is often a powerful justification for someone to try meditation , and very valuable in some contexts, particularly in healthcare. Drugs often come with a huge set of side effects, and people are naturally wary of those. Drugs also do not help people develop a sense of personal agency in dealing with health issues, whereas meditation can.
However, this utilitarian perspective is limiting and does not explain why many people maintain a regular meditation practice long after any problem they were trying to address is resolved. Or indeed, why do some people meditate without any health or stress-related trigger event? Meditators are not immune to the challenges life throws at them – they still get sick and sad like everyone else. And meditation takes a lot of time, so it is fair to ask “why bother?”.
Interestingly, when Jon Kabat-Zinn was inspired to develop Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), it was not as a curative intervention. Rather, he foresaw that MBSR would not help people fix their problems but that it would help them live more easily with them. The early success in this began a deep exploration of the potential of meditation practice in clinical settings, leading to the research findings that Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, a derivative of MBSR, could be as effective in treating some forms of depression as standard drug treatment. A small industry has evolved in research into how and why mindfulness can alleviate or cure diseases.
I increasingly wonder if this pursuit of hard, scientific evidence has sometimes diminished the case for meditation practice rather than enhanced it. The scientifically proven practices (MBSR, MBCT, and various derivatives) are all intense and challenging, and require a serious and deep commitment for eight weeks to gain the claimed benefits. The mindfulness field has gravitated to seeing these practices as definitive, but in fact they are just a small subset of a much wider range of mindfulness and meditation practices. And there are some research projects that have arguably harmed the case for mindfulness by taking too narrow a perspective.
In one of my early classes I had someone who was studying for a PhD in epistemology. She was very polite in class, but in a coffee break she made a cogent attack on the “scientific evidence” I was quoting as a motivation for MBSR. Her point was not that the scientific controlled trial approach was bad, but that we gain knowledge in a much more diverse way, and that using such narrow evidence was not compelling. I did adapt my teaching after some reflection – I do not meditate because of a controlled trial, I do it for a much wider and richer appreciation of its value, and I try to bring that into my classes.
The most famous meditator, the Buddha, lived a privileged life as a prince until he witnessed old age, sickness and death, and was advised that everyone, even princes, could not escape them. He left his palace and became an ascetic, hoping to find a way of escaping these human afflictions. After many years, he realised that there was no escape but there were ways of living that were fruitful even in the face of old age, sickness and death. He then went out to teach what we would call today Buddhism. Buddhism is not curative, rather it is a way of orienting to the world and living well within the natural constraints of being human.
So Jon Kabat Zinn and the Buddha (and indeed many other great meditation teachers) did not set out to provide quick and easy answers to the challenges of life, but to offer a way of living more easily with them. They did not set out to cure anyone, but to help anyone who was willing to explore meditation practices to change their orientation to life and the challenges life poses. That may, sometimes, alleviate or even cure a condition, but that expectation at the outset is not always necessary nor even helpful.
So, if meditation is not a curative practice, the fair question is why bother? It takes time and effort. To those with a long established practice, the answer is usually very clear, but often very individual. It is also may change over time. So the rest of this blog is more personal.
Once I established a meditation practice, a lot of my severe stress symptoms reduced very quickly. They did not go away, and life was still incredibly challenging, but things improved and I started to build some perspective. My sleep improved considerably, and my irritability dropped. On their own, they were enough motivation to continue practicing, at least for an extended period. It soon became a habit, like brushing teeth and eating. Mostly I felt better after a meditation session, and if I had to miss a session I noticed a little more tension in my shoulders.
Among meditators, it is recognised there is a honeymoon period when starting out meditation. There is initial elation at its effect, but eventually the changes are woven into every day life, and then enthusiasm for regular practice can wain or even stop. Those who continue start to see meditation in a wider context, not as an immediate cure or mood lifter.
Slowly over months of practice some of my attitudes changed – I became less driven and reactive. My patience improved – a godsend as a single parent of three children. In psychological terms, I was starting to de-centre, to become more aware of my thoughts and emotions, and to develop more equanimity. Various psychologies talk about personal development (Jung and individuation, Maslow and self-actualisation, Berne and autonomy, Buddhist psychology and insight, ACT and psychological flexibility). For me, the regular practice of unhooking from thinking has been a slow but steady change in my dealing with life. I better understand my own psychology and to some extent that of others.
So, the honest answer for me to the question “why bother” is complex and diverse. It is very much an exploration, not just of myself, but in all aspects of life. Yes, like many I set out meditating in a time of considerable trauma, but I persisted long after the trauma subsided. It is indeed an adventure, one sparked by curiosity and reinforced by experience.
I feel we need a wider dialogue on the benefits of meditation, and not just mindfulness meditation. Even the high end research is in many ways tunnel-visioned mainly down particular forms of mindfulness practice. There are many rich traditions out there, spiritual and secular, that have much to offer. There needs to be a greater abstraction and wider understanding of how and why various practices benefit. Professional organisations need to embrace mindfulness and meditation in all its forms, and not constrain themselves to rigorous application of a narrow range of practices. And from an epistemological perspective, we need to embrace research approaches that are not based on the rigorous controlled trials that are rightly most useful and effective in drug development – meditation is not a drug substitute, it is much more than that.
Finally, as a practitioner and teacher, I want to continue my exploration, and to understand better how meditation and similar practices can bring benefits more widely. There will always be some new challenge thrown my way, and hopefully people who want to learn and engage with meditation and mindfulness practice. The adventure continues.