Mindfulness Meditation: There’s An App for That

July 8, 2015 / Teri / 4 Comments

I’ve recently heard about a new genre of “apps” that are being developed to provide “digital therapy,” or relief from all the stress and distraction caused by… all those other apps. Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’ve found the best therapy for my overworked, distracted, and oftentimes anxious mind, is to get away from anything with a glowing screen.

But recently, (on an eight hour drive to Northern Michigan with my family) I had the luxury of reading a whole article in the New Yorker on mindfulness meditation, and on one meditation guru in particular, Andy Puddicombe. The article bills Puddicombe, as a “mindfulness guru for the tech set.” Based in Venice Beach, California (around the corner from Google) Puddicombe is the developer of Headspace, an iPhone app that teaches meditation and mindfulness techniques.

Since I have been studying and practicing mindfulness meditation for a few years now, I initially eyed this “techie” version with suspicion. Is this the real thing, I thought to myself? Or some watered down version, for Google executives and Silicon Valley types.

As I read, though, I was pleasantly surprised. It turns out Andy Puddicombe, a forty-two-year old from London, was trained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. After a series of life traumas in his young adult years, Puddicombe left college and lived for ten years in Buddhist monasteries in Nepal, India, and Burma, where he became a monk in the Theravadan tradition.

After years of sitting, the article describes, Puddicombe moved to California where he could surf (a sport enhanced by mindfulness) and he developed Headspace as a tool that would make meditation more accessible to the “harried strivers” of today’s contemporary world. According to the New Yorker:

He translated Sanskrit and Tibetan terms into English, and eliminated some of the trippier exercises, like ‘visualizing bright white lights.’ In the monastery, an hour of meditation was considered a brief session, but that didn’t fly with Puddicombe’s clients. ‘I realized early on that it had to feel manageable,’ he said. He set about condensing the exercises into short chunks: twenty or even ten minutes.

Overall, the article was excellent. It not only described the growing mindfulness movement and the way scientists are tracking the positive effects of meditation, but it even summarized Buddhism and the history of meditation in India, dating back to before the Buddha was born in 480 B.C.

So I decided to check Headspace out for myself. I downloaded the app and have been working through a free ten day trial of guided meditations.

My overall impression is that this is a good resource for those new to meditation. Puddicombe is a great guide and teacher, his voice (with its endearing British accent) is gentle, positive and easy to listen to. There are some cute animations that really help you understand the meditation techniques in contemporary terms. And although, Puddicombe never uses Sanskrit, Tibetan, or Buddhist language, he obviously understands the tradition and I appreciate how he has translated it for us modern day folks.

My only small critique would be that the ten minute sessions Puddicombe uses are too short to really feel the benefits of meditation. Most practitioners insist on at least 20 minutes. But again, it’s a good start. And I think it would be hard to convince the Google executive to take more than ten minutes to try this contemplative practice. Also, while listening to Puddicombe’s voice guiding me through the session, I oftentimes wanted more silence. I’ve enjoyed my sitting practice of meditating in silence, moving through my prayer beads, for twenty minutes. I feel like I get to know my own mind better this way. But again, Puddicombe’s guided version is definitely worth it. I’ve appreciated the variety it has added to my practice and I will probably even subscribe to Headspace (it’s $13.00 a month) to see what else he offers.

about a daily spiritual practice

July 25, 2013 / Teri / 2 Comments

sprouting-seed We can hardly get Christians today to observe a weekly spiritual practice, let alone daily. This was my response to the teacher of the meditation conference I was attending who claimed he had never visited a church that encouraged a daily spiritual practice. My teacher was a writer whose writing flourished once he embraced Buddhism and a daily meditation practice. His statement irked me – as a Christian, as a leader in the Church, as a pastor who immediately questioned herself. Had I ever encouraged my parishioners to a daily spiritual practice? I had. Hadn’t I? Of course I had.

Why was I so defensive? How many churches had my Buddhist friend actually visited? He’d never visited mine. So why did I take his criticism so personally?

I just finished my sermon on Luke 10: 38-42 where Jesus tells Martha that she needs to spend time sitting and listening at his feet. Working through this text I felt as if Jesus was speaking to me as well as Martha. I do so much in my life. I am constantly doing. But everything I am doing is expected of me. I can’t stop parenting my children, nurturing my marriage, or investing myself in my vocation as a college chaplain. Jesus expects me to do these things. I know he does. He’s the one who, I believe, called me to marriage, parenthood, and ordained ministry. But in the midst of all this doing he also wants me to have a daily sitting practice, a time of listening at the feet of Christ.

Throughout my life I’ve tried a variety of spiritual practices. I’ve prayed the liturgical hours. I’ve meditated, contemplated, walked the labyrinth, invested myself in centering prayer and lectio divina (sacred reading). I’ve gone on spiritual retreats, spent time with monks and nuns, and worshipped in a wide variety of communities. All of this spiritual practice has been wonderful and incredibly edifying. But when I get busy, it all slips away. The doing takes over the practicing and I become like Martha, envying all the Mary’s of the world.

There is something not right, though, about the guilt I feel as I fail in these daily spiritual practices. My Christian faith is my life, a life incredibly full of meaningful work, healthy relationships, and amazing opportunities to serve and give. Why, in the midst of all of this, must I feel like something is missing?

My husband, Dan, is one of my greatest inspirations. Also a Presbyterian minister, Dan feels most at home in the academic world. Prayer is not really his thing. He can do it, of course. And he is often called upon to pray. But his preferred spiritual practice is cerebral. He is awakened by reading the words of Thomas Merton, Bernard Meland, Paul Tillich and John Cobb. I liken Dan’s theological reading to the deep contemplation Thomas Merton describes that leads to the gift of awareness, or “an awakening of the Real within all that is real.”[1] Over the past twelve years of our marriage I have observed Dan’s daily practice of deep theological contemplation gift him with a wonderful awareness. He is the most spiritually mature person I know.

I’ve come to realize that each of us, as children of God, is unique. Therefore, our practices can be unique. Practicing our faith together, in community, is tremendously important. Faith that is only practiced alone is a self-centered, static faith. We must gather together around some commonly held rituals and practices. But it is just as important to have our own, unique, individual practices that open us up and awaken us to the divine.

At this point in my life, I’m awakening to the idea that writing is my spiritual practice. Writing is what leads me to a deep place of contemplation. It is my path to awareness. Oftentimes, I don’t know what I know until I write it out. I also don’t know what I believe. Writing is the practice that brings spiritual seeds to the surface for me. God plants these seeds as I walk through the world, noticing life. Writing brings the seeds to bloom. I can only know and appreciate their flowers if I am diligent in my practice. When I am diligent, I feel the satisfaction and the peace that comes from, again in Merton’s words, awakening to the Real within all that is real.

How about you? What is your unique daily practice? What leads you to a deep place of contemplation? What helps awaken you to the Real within all that is real? Whatever it is, do it daily.

[1] Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, (New York: New Directions, 1961), p. 75.

about the church

June 28, 2013 / Teri / Leave a comment

I love the Church. To be clear, I love the old, mainline, rooted in tradition, liturgical, theologically complex, organ-blaring, butt-numbing pew kind of church. I have given my life to this Church. I am passionate in her service. I am emboldened to lead a new generation through her doors. And yet, sometimes I stop to wonder why?

The Church has challenged me and nurtured me in all the ways I needed to be challenged and nurtured. She put me in a pulpit and told me to preach. Only then did I discover my voice. She pushed me to follow Jesus behind the prison walls, within the mental health ward, to the communities of Mexico, to the rural poor of South Carolina, and into homes of impoverished families living in my own community. She taught me profound spiritual practices. She introduced me to the most inspiring of people. She opened the scriptures for me and she surrounded me with a community the likes of which cannot be found on Facebook.

But the Church has not always been good to me. She passed me by for positions in favor of a less experienced, less talented man. She passed my husband by for positions because as a working pastor myself I could not be the traditional “pastor’s wife.” She, the Church, placed me in some horribly dysfunctional congregations working with some horribly dysfunctional people. And she, the Church, has made me sit through committee meeting after committee meeting after committee meeting during which a LOT was said, but little was actually done. (This could be a form of human torture.)

Yet, in the face of her flaws (the mistakes she refuses to confess, the prejudice she still harbors, the certainties she will not let go) I still believe in the Church’s potential. I believe in her because I believe we need her. I believe we need a place to console us in grief and celebrate with us in new births, a place where we can cry unabashedly and name the complexities of life. I believe we need a place where we talk about things that matter, a place that will challenge us to move outside of our selves and our little worlds, a place that will prod us towards our neighbor who thinks and believes differently. I believe we need a place where people of all ages can gather around commonly held rituals, a place where we can sing, and pray, and play the blues in the context of Good News. I believe we need a place where we can feel hope.

I believe, at her best, and by the grace of God, the Church can be that place. This is whom I have given my life to, because this I believe.