Tag: Suffering

The Power of Now

Spiritual masters have long held that we are happiest when our minds are situated in the present. They note that suffering occurs when our minds wander to the past or future. But is this empirically true?

Matt Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert conducted a brilliant study involving real time experience sampling. This was exceptionally difficult to do before smartphones.

We solved this problem by developing a Web application for the iPhone (Apple Incorporated, Cupertino, California), which we used to create an unusually large database of real-time reports of thoughts, feelings, and actions of a broad range of people as they went about their daily activities.The application contacts participants through their iPhones at random moments during their waking hours, presents them with questions,and records their answers to a database at www.trackyourhappiness.org.1

Here’s what they found:

Figure 1. Mean happiness reported during each activity (top) and while mind wandering to unpleasant topics, neutral topics, pleasant topics or not mind wandering (bottom). Dashed line indicates mean of happiness across all samples. Bubble area indicates the frequency of occurrence. The largest bubble (“not mind wandering”) corresponds to 53.1% of the samples, and the smallest bubble (“praying/worshipping/meditating”) corresponds to 0.1% of the samples.
First, people’s minds wandered frequently, regardless of what they were doing.

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Second, multilevel regression revealed that people were less happy when their minds were wandering than when they were not [...] and this was true during all activities [...].

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Third, what people were thinking was a better predictor of their happiness than was what they were doing.

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In conclusion, a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.

What are the implications for living well? Be here now. ✸

  1. Killingsworth MA, Gilbert DT. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science 2010;330(6006):932. PMID: 21071660.

This Is Water

Last weekend, I lead a residential wellbeing retreat at the Dan Anderson Renewal Center on the Center City, Minn., campus of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. We examined the origin and nature of suffering, and some potential solutions.

We used David Foster Wallace’s This Is Water as our core text. Here are my PowerPoints that explore some related ideas:

Many thanks to Paul Anderson for inviting me to lead the retreat. And a huge thanks to Peg Schroeder for assistance with planning and onsite support.

Based on positive evaluations, it seems likely that we will offer the retreat again to all comers (not just health professionals). ✸

Who Am I?

I’m finally getting around to memorializing some of the “self-help” books that have helped me over the years. The thread that runs through this grouping is the difference between “I” and “me” (or “true self” vs. “false self” or “observing self” vs. “observed self”—this has been described in various ways).

David A. Frenz, M.D.

“Me,” the conceptual self, can suffer; “I,” which is pure awareness or consciousness, never can. The end of suffering involves withdrawing your attention from “me” and resting in “I.”

This can be a little difficult to understand, let alone practice, which is why I seldom use it psychotherapeutically. But for those who are ready, it can be liberating.

Anthony de Mello’s Stripping Down to the “I” (starts on Page 46) is a great place to start. If it seems like nonsense, don’t be troubled and simply ignore this post. If, however, you’re intrigued, consider reading on.

Received Wisdom — 1

Suffering

 

Mental suffering takes place when we don’t get what we want, or when we’re forced to live with and endure what we don’t want.

—Steve Hagen

 

Steve Hagen. Buddhism Plain and Simple. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1997, p. 30

Received Wisdom is the big ideas that I use with patients. This post is the first in a series of many.