PSI Annual Journal 2004

Let's start at the top: in a transcendent area somewhere above the head called the Sahasrara. Sahasrara comes from the Sanskrit language of ancient India. It is one of the chakras of Hindu Yoga and Tantric Buddhism that signifies physical, psychic, and spiritual realms. Each chakra in the human body is a place of power and awareness. Each has a corresponding natural element, a color, and mantra--a special meditation or prayer-chant. This ancient practice even in the transcendent, spiritual realm is not separated from the body. In mind, matter and spirit, it is connected to all aspects of the physical body.

I think we all know that there is a mind body connection when it comes to health. Here's a practical example. For common warts, current research indicates that topical medicines may be no more useful than the right mental attitude. Informed by this, when a patient comes to my partner Paula, a doctor in internal medicine, to have his or her warts healed, first she provides the customary freezing treatment on the wart, then she asks her patient to repeat these words as she waves her hands over the wart: "Die wart die!" They laugh and it might work.

Staying in the head, in Ajna, the physical brow and mind chakra, there us a pretty good body of scientific research to back up Dr. Paula's incantation. I attended a lecture by a pioneer in modern medicine on the mind body connection, it was by a Dr. Herbert Benson. He's a cardiologist, a heart doctor, at Harvard Medical School in Boston. At his Mind/Body Institute in Boston all the research points to an inseparable connection between the mind, body and spirit. What really got my attention was Benson saying that sixty to ninety percent of all health complaints in the doctor's office cannot be treated by medication or medical procedures, but by self care. Sixty to ninety percent. That's a lot. So repeat after me: die wart die!

With strong evidence in hand, Benson pursued the mind-body connection through self care through nutrition, exercise, and stress management. For stress management, he studied the effect of meditation on our bodies--measuring the levels of oxygen and rate of breathing. He taught his medical subjects to repeat a word, a sound, a prayer as a meditation technique. While his subjects were hooked up to various monitors he discovered that meditation created positive levels of oxygen and lower, more relaxed, breathing rates. Simple prayer or meditation can be good for a person's overall health. So let's all take a deep breath....

Benson's not the only one to discover the benefits of this. Medical schools are starting to require students to talk with patients about their belief systems as part of providing patient care. Again, scientific research is demonstrating that there is a positive, measurable connection between an active spiritual life and health and the ability to cope with illness. Hooray, I say! The mind-body-spirit conversation is less taboo.

In Southern New England, we also have the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn in Worcester, Massachusetts. Starting in the early 80's, Kabat-Zinn, another physician at a respected teaching medical center, started doing research on the positive effects of mindfulness meditation on managing chronic pain and other chronic diseases and conditions. He got encouraging results and wrote a book called Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Illness. The Western world is starting to pay attention.

There hasn't always been a disconnect between body and spirit and wellbeing. Long ago, spirituality and health were inextricably linked. Healers of the body were also spiritual leaders in the community. In the days of the ancient Greeks, the physical healer worked to alleviate suffering or stave off death, while the spiritual healer helped to make suffering or mortality more meaningful. They provided complimentary healing functions. In more recent centuries, there was a growing separation of medicine and religious beliefs and practices. Yet, the connection has never completely gone away and Western scientific medicine is catching up to this more integrative approach.

As we continue to move down from the top of the head: the chakra of the throat is Vishuddha. It is from the throat that we give voice to our condition. Linda Weltner, a writer for The Boston Globe says:
"...I couldn't find my watch. Ordinarily, I'd run around madly, then give up and rush home, but I've decided that stress is playing a part in all the headaches I've been having lately, and so I slowed way down, paid attention to my breathing, and carefully retraced my steps until I found my watch by the seawall....

[She confesses] This is a really scary time for me. All my life I've been trying to hitch myself to schedules and routine....I'm naturally distractible and forgetful.... And just when I've finally gotten the organization of my life down to a fine art, my body has rebelled at the price it's being asked to pay.... When I think I'm my own worst enemy, I despair.... Yet when our Unitarian minister said... "Your life is held in a greater love, encompassed by a larger mind, a deeper strength, an everflowing creativity," I suddenly felt hopeful. I listened intently as Mary went on: "Rest in this greater love. And when you can't feel it, or find its pulse, rest in the tangible love of your family and friends, and congregation, And when you can't feel that, rest in the grace of the world. And when you can't find that, just rest. "

Linda Weltner openly names her problem. She is having persistent headaches and her life is feeling out of control. She has a strong hunch that these are related. Her hunch is confirmed not by an aspirin but a blessing that gives her permission to take rest in the world. But you and I know that when we go to see our doctors about a physical complaint it's hard to not feel defensive when you know the doctor's thinking, "It's all in your head." Or, to venture further by talking openly about your personal wellbeing and the condition of your spirit: a doctor might scoff at this as too un-scientific. Look at me: I'm a minister who's surrounded by doctors in my immediate family, still I feel sheepish and defensive when talking candidly to my own doctor about emotional and spiritual matters, and my own wellbeing. It's not an easy thing to do, so I'm glad that some health practitioners are meeting us half-way.

"Half on the Earth, half in the heart, the remedies for all things." (Joseph Bruchac.) The heart chakra is Anahata. The heart of healing medicine is a spiritual practice. What I like about Benson and Kabat-Zinn's work is how non-sectarian it is. They truly give everyone a way to participate because it's not so much about the beliefs, but the practice of relaxation through meditation or prayer. It's what former priest David Kundtz calls, "How to be still when you have to keep going." You pick a comfortable place, a doable practice, a set-aside moment, and you center, you meditate, you pray.

If our head and our heart knows that meditation and prayer is helpful for our total wellbeing then why don't we do it more often? Many of you come to me to talk about this. When it comes to prayer, some people may secretly feel that they are not worthy of being present to God, so it is a waste of their time. Many are convinced that there is one right way to pray and that surely they will fail. Many people who pray or meditate must face some vulnerability by the simple bareness of the act. Some fear being disappointed: what if God doesn't hear my prayers? What if I don't have total mindfulness? Many are unused to trying to have that much silence and stillness. Some are afraid of the intimacy with God, truth, or themselves. And, of course, like what happened to Linda Weltner with her headaches, there is an overwhelming sense that you can spare no time.

Manipura is the Sanskrit word for the navel. Gerald May writes, "In both Eastern and Western sprituality, there is a fourth way, an appreciation that embraces action, feeling, and knowing and also seeks the 'more'....In Tibetan it is the Way of Total Completeness. In the West it is called the contemplative way." So what do we do with all these obstacles that we face in trying to bring a regular contemplative practice into our lives? If nothing else, you've got to keep it simple. Dr. Benson's research confirmed this. When he first recruited Boston area students to observe while they were meditating, he instructed them to silently count to ten. The students would quit in a panic after number one. Clearly the practice wasn't simple enough. So they instructed the students to just say one to themselves repeatedly and this seemed to work. He discovered that prayer or meditation based on a simple word or phrase does well for many. In fact, whatever the choice of repeated words, he could measure an increased sense of presence, centeredness, God within, wellbeing. When people were asked to do this one to two times a day they had fewer physical maladies, and many described greater creativity, productivity: getting in "the zone."

The time needed for the practice is not a lot, and once we carve a place into our day, say the beginning or end, it's not difficult to do again. Because our minds naturally fill with chatter once we stop and try to get quiet--a simple word or phrase can be a great help. As for the question of whether you deserve it, I want you to know from the bottom of my Universalist heart that all beings are holy and can know the presence of a loving, compassionate universe. There is no one correct meditation or right prayer, though there are many useful guides to help us. Meditation and prayer is much more effective when you lay aside your fears, your obligations, your expectations, and enter into this simple time in a spirit of hopefulness and trust.

The Svadhisthana chakra is in the reproductive area, the groin. Merton writes, "There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity." This chakra helps to remind us of the important inner resources that each of us already possess for healing and wholeness. From a spiritual perspective: all that you need you abundantly have.

We in the West are learning or re-learning the essential connection between the mind, body, and spirit. This is hopefully opening up the quality of our conversations with our healthcare providers, our spiritual leaders, our loved ones, and ourselves toward more effective avenues for healing. A more integrative approach creates a greater possibility for achieving increased mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. This is something that most of us desire, and that all can benefit from.

The Madhara chakra is at the base of the spine and is symbolized by the earth. From the transcendent sky to the rooted earth, all is connected. "There is..." in each of us "a hidden wholeness....There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a found of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out...from the unseen roots of all created being" (Merton). May it be so.

READINGS
From "Hagia Sophia," by Thomas Merton

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a
dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden whole-
ness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom,
the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all
things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence
that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in word-
less gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen
roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly,
saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at
once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of
my Creator's Thought and Art within me, speaking
as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.

Untitled, by Joseph Bruchac

Half on the Earth, half in the heart,
the remedies for all things
which grieve as wait for those who know
the words to use to find them.

Penobscott people used to make
a medicine for cancer from Mayapple
and South American people knew
the quinine cure for malaria
a thousand years ago.

But it is not in the roots,
the stems, the leaves,
the thousand flowers
that healing lies.
Half of it lives within the words
the healer speaks.

And when the final time has come
for one to leave this Earth
there are no cures,
for Death is only
part of Life, not a disease.

Half on the Earth, half in the heart,
the remedies for all our pains
wait for the songs of healing.

PSI Symposium Annual Journal 2004