What is meditation, and how can it help us change the world?

In my early 30s, I was going through a rough patch emotionally and I used to see articles in newspapers and magazines about how people – mainly celebrities – had found a new calm through Buddhism. “How did that happen,” I thought. “What’s all the fuss about Buddhism, and is there anything in it for me?”

Finding stillness in meditation - on and off the mat - is the challenge of our times.

Steve Hagen’s book: Buddhism plain and simple.

At first, I was daunted by the many styles of Buddhism – Thai, Zen, Tibetan… and the many different ways to practice – meditation, retreats, temples... Where could I start and how could I learn more when it seemed so amorphous and impenetrable?

Slowly, slowly, I found my way, and I’m happy to report that there was something in it for me, and I too have learned a new kind of calm. In fact, learning about Buddhism has given me a whole new perspective on life – relationships, parenting, people I know and love (and some I didn’t like so much) and people I’ve never met. 

In essence, I think that Buddhist teachings provide a great framework from which to respond to the peaks and troughs of life.

Here’s how I started:

The first book I ever read – a short one that distils the essence of the teachings – is Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen. In the face of so much confusion about Buddhism, I wanted to find a way in that was a) not too religious, b) didn’t require weekends away, and c) was easy to access. Steve Hagen’s book is all of those things. 

Also, for me, it was important to be able to “practice” in everyday life. Some Buddhist writers focus on retreat and removal from society as a path to spiritual growth, but that never appealed to me because I wanted to find a better way to interact with the world and everyday issues. 

In Buddhism, “practice” most commonly takes the form of meditation, which can help you to respond differently to everyday events, once you’ve got the hang of it. Jack Kornfield writes very well about how Buddhist teachings can be integrated into your regular life. I read his book A Path With Heart and I learned to meditate using one of his tapes (that’s a while ago!). His website has many guided meditations that you can access for free; I found his method of teaching very easy to follow and it made a lot of sense. [Another great teacher is Andy Puddicombe, I used his Headspace app as a refresher course a few years ago].

Kornfield teaches vipassana meditation. You start by sitting (cross-legged on the floor, or on a kitchen-type chair) and focus firstly on breathing – in, out, in, out – and then observe your feelings as they arise. Your attention may wander away from your breath and you might start thinking about what to make for dinner, or picking up the kids from school and running errands, or a troublesome problem from the past – and rather than getting carried away with the thought and following it along and trying to resolve it, you just observe the thought and name it – “worry”, or “planning”, or “sadness” – and then let it go. 

You turn your attention back to the breath again, and then another thought will arise. So you name it, and let it go. 

Buddhism teaches that there are no negative or positive emotions – all are valid experiences with lessons to teach us – and that we can learn to sit comfortably with all of them. 

When you first try meditation, you may only mange a few minutes of sitting and “naming” the first time, but if you can stick at it everyday, aiming for five minutes, then 10 minutes, you can slowly build up.

The more you regularly you practice (and it doesn’t need to be for long – five or ten minutes a day can really help), the more you start to become capable of applying the same observation and naming pattern when thoughts and feelings arise in everyday life.

So if you were in the supermarket queue and were overcome by a “negative” thought – you could inwardly say – “Oh there’s that anxiety / problem / sadness again, still there”, and then hopefully let it go. It’s about recognising the full range of human emotions and thoughts, and being ok with them in your life, and knowing that every state we experience is transitory – happiness, sadness, anger, joy – they all come and go, and will pass in time. 

Understanding what the Buddha said about suffering and trying to avoid suffering is key to the whole practice (see Hagen for the full explanation of that). Buddha also had a lot to say about compassion, both for yourself and others, and becoming aware of those ideas has literally made me into a different person. That’s where the new calm comes from.

Just as well, because since I became a mother five years ago [my oldest son is now 11], I’ve often drawn on Buddhist teachings to get me through difficult situations, or had a recognition after a particularly stressful incident with a toddler that I could have handled it better. In that case, I’d set an intention to try and do things differently next time. 

Sarah Napthali writes well about how Buddhism can guide parents in her Buddhism for Mothers series, although the books I mentioned above give a broader foundation of the entire philosophy in a nutshell. 

As for writings that deal very well with the most traumatic events in life, I think Pema Chodron excels in this area. She was previously married, and is a mother, before she became a Buddhist nun, and she very much lives in the real world. I have her books The Places that Scare You and When Things Fall Apart, and they go right to the heart of grief and despair, and help you to realise that these too are passing phases, and that you can make room for them when they arise.

Another great writer is the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh – I have his Peace is Every Step – which is another great example of how to apply the teachings in everyday life.

These ideas may seem like a lot to take in, and it may seem hard to find the time to start, but if you want to try meditating, you might make that a 5-10 minute thing you do just for you, everyday. You could do it in the morning before everyone else is awake (if that works for you, I keep setting intentions to do stuff early but rarely keep them!), or find a quiet spot at lunchtime if you’re working – in a park, or a meeting room with the door shut, or even just before bed, so that you confront the thoughts and emotions of the day, before going to sleep.

I know that I started to feel the benefits of meditation practice early and easily once I began, and now if I feel a little off-kilter or frazzled or overwrought, I find it beneficial to sit quietly for 10 minutes and let the feelings wash over me, quietly and casually. 

I find that sometimes anger and frustration are covering up grief, so sometimes the action of sitting and focussing on the breath and letting the feelings come up can lead to the centre of that grief. 

Then I can actually feel it and cry it out in the meditation, and feel better and clearer when I get up, having allowed myself the time to experience it. Then, I can stop shouting at my nearest and dearest and deal with the problem myself, rather than making everyone else suffer my bad mood.

Having read these few books, tried meditation and then yoga – which I now use like meditation by attending a weekly class – I was still interested to learn more. Again I shopped around for a Buddhist organization that I felt spoke directly to me [I was living in Sydney then] – firstly a Buddhist library, then some night-time classes and weekend meditation sessions – and strangely enough the place where I felt the warmest welcome was a Tibetan Buddhist organisation with monks, nuns, robes and incense. I hadn’t known that’s what I wanted, but sometimes life takes us in unexpected directions. 

Where you go with your exploration of Buddhism will likely be very different to my journey, but hopefully if you’ve had an interest for a while, you might find a starting point here. Most of the books I mentioned are probably available in your library, and the Headspace app is $10, which is a lot cheaper than a counselling session. If you are looking for a calmer, clearer, more compassionate way to approach the world and your relationships, Buddhism might hold the key.

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book: Coming to our Senses.

The book I’ve returned to this year - which I first bought and couldn’t read in 2005 - is Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Its message is more important than ever, now.

PS (14 October 2020).
I’ve been reading a few pages each morning before I meditate, and I’ve nearly finished it now.

There is a particular passage that resonated with me, on page 537, about the way the practice of medicine has changed over recent decades, and I think it’s applicable in architecture too.

Kabat Zinn writes:

“In the past 30 years, Americans have learned to participate in appreciating, refining, and sustaining their own health and well-being to a degree unthinkable in an earlier generation; when you just accepted what the doctor said and never questioned his or her judgement. There were very few hers in those days, but in any case, it was assumed the patient would be a passive recipient of care and simply needed to follow “doctors’ orders”. It was not uncommon to conceal a cancer diagnoses from a patient and only tell the family - the thought being that it would only make the person with the diagnoses feel bad unnecessarily. Now we have a Patient’s Bill of Rights to safeguard the dignity of the patient from condescension and worse…

“… a significant movement to shift the culture of medicine to a more patient-centred, relationship centred, and participatory perspective is taking place. Mind/body medicine in general, and mindfulness-based strategies in particular, under the umbrella paradigm and practices of integrative medicine, are in the vanguard of this cultural shift.”

Reading this passage, I recognised a similar cultural shift that is concurrently taking place in architecture: whereby clients are no longer viewed as passive patrons, but are now active participants in their own projects.

In the same way that it’s starting to be seen as unacceptable for doctors to just issue orders to their patients, without involving them in their options around treatment and care, architects need to reframe the way they deliver their services, and engage more readily and fully with the people they serve.

That’s a big change from the way that architecture was practiced since the formation of Institutes - which aimed to elevate the profession above the building trades and establish architects as the project leader - in the mid-19th century.

This shift feels uncomfortable and even painful at times. But it’s a change worth making, if it creates a market for architecture services where more people feel capable and confident engaging an architect, and accessing the kind of specialist knowledge and expertise that only an architect can provide.

I’m talking about the interface between built form and the environment and social concerns; those highly complex webs of constraints, issues, problems and opportunities that architects navigate every day, and on every project.

I see communication as being key to this cultural shift and I’m encouraged that more architects are putting their future clients at the centre of their outward-facing messaging.

Jon Kabat Zinn calls this kind of transformation an orthogonal shift from the current norm, and I think we’re in the middle of a big one! Would you agree? Feel free to comment below or send me an email to share your thoughts on these ideas.