Hillary holds her seat

One of the benefits of meditation is that you become less reactive. You cultivate the ability to rest in a calm, clear space so that you can choose how to respond rather than habitually hitting back.

There may be no better illustration of that than Hillary Clinton, who was the only witness in an 11-hour highly politicized hearing having to do with the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Libya that left four Americans dead; Clinton was secretary of the state at the time.

Clinton was widely praised for her calm, somber attitude through the day of questioning by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. How did she do it?

"I tried to meditate in the breaks," an NPR reporter overheard her say.

NPR notes that there had been no formal breaks in the hearing up to that point, so Clinton was practicing what's sometimes referred to as stealth meditation -- meditating in place so that no one knows you're doing it (as opposed to going outside to sit under a tree or locking yourself in your office). It can be done by placing your attention on an object or a sensation -- your breath, the feeling of your hands holding a pen, the warmth coming off a cup of coffee, the droning sound of a politician making a statement. The trick is to stay present, not to space out. One way to do that is to become aware of all that's happening, noticing the sound, the sensation, the movement, without becoming engaged with them -- to rest in the awareness of what's happening.

Meditating in place is a skill that's helped immensely by practicing in designated meditation sessions. If your mind has practice in resting in awareness it can find that place on the spot more easily. "If you can practice even when distracted, you are well trained," says one of the Lojong slogans. (Lojong is a system of Tibetan Buddhist mind-training slogans.)

If you can practice patience in the traffic jam with a sense of humor approach or whatever approach you want to use, you are training for really major difficulties in your life. So, it sounds silly, but actually, it’s true. If you’re sowing seeds of aggression in the traffic jam, then you’re actually perfecting the aggression habit. And if you’re using your sense of humor and your loving-kindness or whatever it is you do, then you’re sowing those kinds of seeds and strengthening those kinds of mental habits; you’re imprinting those kind of things in your unconscious. So, the choice is really ours every time we’re in a traffic jam. Pema Chodron

If a tree falls

I often tell meditation students that there is no perfect place to meditate. We meet in a beautiful, serene room -- where we hear yoga students "ommming" in the studio next door, the beeping of the crosswalk sinal, and the skateboarders in the parking lot.

But last weekend I was in a place that was as good as it gets: A former Shaker mill in upstate New York. The room where we practiced had wide, worn wooden floors and large windows that opened onto a view of trees whose leaves were kissed with yellow. A brook flowed down the hill, providing the constant -- yet constantly changing -- sound of water flowing over rocks that spas and therapists try to simulate with fountains to borrow its calming effect.

We were doing body-centered practices, relaxing into the earth, listening to the voices of nature, feeling our toes, one by one, and it was as smooth as the floors that had seen a hundred years of wear. We went outside for walking meditation, filing silently to a relatively level place beside the brook. And we were met by the buzz of chainsaws.

People on the neighboring property were cutting down trees, massive trees that had stood for years and years. As I reached one end of the path, getting ready to turn back, there was a mighty crash as a tree hit the earth. Before we went back inside, another tree was down, thudding its weight into the ground.

Back on our cushions, the leader dinged a bell. "Chainsaw meditation," he said.

People obviously had strong feelings about what happened. Some simply stopped and stared at people with the chainsaws, angry expressions on their faces. My feelings were mixed. We'd just taken down a tree at our house that was dying (and planted a new one), and I'd gotten in the habit of noting dead branches on trees as I moved through the world. There was a tree along the stream that was dead and dry and undoubtedly will fall into the water this winter when the weight of the snow settles on it. That, in turn, will change the stream in some way.

I'd been to this same center in the spring -- the teachers and other students were all different, the water in the brook was higher, the leaves were new, not getting ready to die.

Everything changes -- the yoga class moves on to stretching silently, the crosswalk stops beeping and traffic moves, the chainsaws finish their work for the day. Meditation is about becoming aware of what's there in the moment -- the external phenomena, the internal thoughts, and the interplay between the two -- and resting in the awareness that says, "right  now, it's like this." That's where calm and wisdom abide.

When we speak of "calm abiding," we are not referring to a calm situation, such as meditating in a quiet, beautiful place. We are speaking of a mind that stays steady in the midst of fluctuating circumstances. -- Yonge Mingyur Rinpoche

You are not your craving -- and neither is the chocolate

A new study by Canadian researchers says that mindfulness can reduce chocolate cravings.

Lead study author Julien Lacaille, a psychologist at McGill University in Quebec, told Reuters that practicing mindfulness meditation, which emphasizes identifying and distancing oneself from certain thoughts -- without judging them -- weakened chocolate cravings among people with a self-declared sweet tooth.

It's an interesting study for reasons that go beyond simply decreasing food cravings. The researchers worked with almost 200 subjects -- who admitted they were prone to strong cravings for chocolate and wanted to diminish them -- to determine which aspect of mindfulness had the greatest effect. 

Participants were divided into five groups, four of which received training in mindfulness meditation techniques and were told to practice specific ones when they craved chocolate over a two-week period. Those in the fifth group were told to distract themselves when craving arose.


The researchers focused on three distinct aspects of mindfulness meditation: Awareness (simply noticing one's thoughts); acceptance (not passing judgment on one's thoughts), and disidentification (seeing thoughts as separate from oneself.) Participants were assessed before and after the study to determine how effectively they practiced the techniques.

After two weeks, participants were given a piece of chocolate to unwrap and touch for one minute; after it was taken away, they rated their craving. Those trained in disidentification reported less-intense cravings, the study found. Further analysis showed that the specific craving for chocolate, as well as the general state of craving, was reduced for who learned to see cravings as thoughts.

While that's an interesting breakdown of skills, it doesn't suggest to me that you should train only in recognizing thoughts. Awareness and acceptance are keys to being able to do that skillfully. Without first seeing that the thought exists, you can't recognize it as a thought. If you don't accept it but try to push it away or deny it, you're still attached.

Several Buddhist teachers, including Tara Brach and Sharon Salzberg, teach a process with the acronym RAIN -- Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Non-attachment (which equates to disidentification).

The extra step -- Investigate -- refers to giving yourself a chance to explore the thought: Is it habitual? When does it arise? How does it feel in the body? What does chocolate represent -- an indulgence, a reward, a hug?

It's also important to note that there's nothing wrong with the chocolate -- it's our attachment to it that may benefit from modification. As long as you know that the chocolate won't bring lasting happiness -- and enough of it over time may lead to added pounds -- go ahead and enjoy it in the moment.