Minding the Indigenous Mind Mindfulness Journeys to Nirvana

Minding the Indigenous Mind

Mindfulness Journeys to Nirvana

Greetings Mindful Friends and Relatives,

The Buddha once said, "There is a way to be purified, to overcome sorrows and grief, to release suffering, to secure the right path to realize nirvana. This is to be mindful." Mindfulness is a journey that enables us to contemplate the origin of all things that arise in our minds and bodies and the termination of them. As we come to understand that nothing is permanent, we are relieved from our suffering. In this column I wish to share a short fiction/nonfiction story that I wrote about a mindfulness journey that I have begun and have yet to complete.

Day 1, Afternoon

I arrive at my destination to begin a ten day journey of mindfulness and neurodecolonization sitting meditation. I have sat in meditation for several hours a day, for a number of days, in the comfort of my own home. But that was in the northern California town where I live. This is the first time that I will be sitting outside, back home on the rez, and I imagine the energies, sensations, and effort will be quite different.

The buffalo grass is waving in the winds and the air is filled with the fragrances of sage and the earthy-smelling Buffalo Bur and Owl Clover flowers. No mosquitoes. No wood ticks. No biting flies, yet. To the east of where I will be sitting are the rickety willow frames of the sweat lodges from last year’s Sun Dance and my brother’s fasting camp. A lone bird, probably a scout, sits atop the one in the center, occasionally flapping its wings to keep its balance in the sporadic gusts of the prairie wind.

To the south, I can see the all but translucent shades of dirty, yellowish-brown plumes of arsenic, chromium, nickel, lead, and dioxin clouds rising from the coal gasification plant across the Missouri river. The rising ash makes no sound but portends a tale of climate change and compromised health for all creatures, waters, and lands. My Amygdala, the fear-central region in my brain, activates as I experience a bit of anxiety realizing that I am probably breathing in the noxious fumes that are blowing across the lake from the plant.  

I gently place my big, dark purple, square Zabuton meditation cushion on the place that I have cleared for my sit. On top of it, in the center, I place my smaller round, black Zafu cushion. I sit on the Zafu as a test run, close my eyes, cross my legs, and sink into it. It is slightly off center and I stand up and make a few adjustments. I lay my two blankets that I’ve brought for the chilly evenings and mornings next to the cushions and go about setting up the sun shade, positioning it over where I will be sitting.

I will sit for long periods of time, meditating in silence, focusing my attention on training my awareness and concentration to mindfully tune in to my mind, body, thoughts, and all the sensations that arise. When my body asks, I will get up and mindfully move around, exercise, stretch, walk, eat and drink, and sleep. 

Day 2, Morning

The first several hours of my mindfulness journey have been pleasant, as it seems that I have been able to hold the awareness of my breath and body without too much effort. My brain waves seem to be holding very nicely at a mid to upper Alpha band range, and I feel alert, relaxed, centered, and alive. Enlightened already? I smile at my arrogance.

Whenever an unpleasant memory, a twinge of anxiety, or a sense of boredom enter my field of awareness I acknowledge them, befriend them, accept them, and return to the awareness that I am breathing in and breathing out; whenever joy, happiness, or desire make their way into my consciousness, I do the same.

Day 4, Night

I stand looking at the stars above me and the darkness that envelops the land. The breeze is cool, and I detect the smell of smoke, probably from the fires that are burning in Colorado this summer. Tonight before I begin meditation, I find myself wrestling with many fears and self-doubts. After some time, I sit down and begin focusing on each in and out breath. I see the exact moment when each in breath originates outside my body, and I consciously breathe it in. I continue watching it as it fills my entire body and then ends when I can no longer take in any more air. I hold the fullness of my breath in my body for a moment and then take note of the instant that my out breath begins inside me and then exits through my windpipe and throat, and finally trails out of my nostrils: “Breathing in I see the origin of my breath, Breathing out I see the cessation of my breath. Breathing in I see the origin of all things, Breathing out I see the fading of all things.”

Day 53, Morning

I don’t know how long I’ve been distracted or if I’ve been mindfully maintaining my awareness of all the processes of my mind and body. It seemed for a long time that I had been successfully engaging the awareness of my breath and body. Then for extended periods, my consciousness began picking up mesmerizing, sometimes very disturbing, old memories that I had long forgotten, or didn’t know had taken up residence within me. When I regained my mindfulness, I gently detached from them, remembering that they are just memories. Before I could return to my focused breathing, my awareness exploded into beautiful shades of black and I found myself sitting alone in the deep, dark recesses of celestial space, breathing in and breathing out.  

A wood tick is crawling across my face and it is at this moment that I realize that I have been visiting the “ghost cave” of makyo (魔境,), clinging to the experience of illusion and self-delusion. I smile and release myself from my bubble of deception. 

I’m not tired or hungry, but I feel the wind and sun gently caressing my exposed skin. For some reason I feel it most in my hands: “Breathing in, I make my body calm and at peace. Breathing out, I make my body calm and at peace.” Calmness and peace evade me and I open my eyes and stand up, stretch, and begin walking to the west.

Day 54, Night

            I’m sitting. I’m solidly grounded to mother earth, feeling her electromagnetic energies probing me as they rise, making their way to the stars above, and then descend back deep below to where they came from. Sometimes the waves of energy are so strong and saturated that I feel every part of my body pulse and inflate like a balloon that is filled with liquid electricity. I sit very still, unmoving, lest my body spring an energy leak and my soul escape, only to be whisked away and pooled together with the falling stardust. Concentrate. Breathe.

 Sometimes the energies have a predictable pattern, and I am able to brace myself for each incoming wave as it builds momentum and strength and then releases into a calm buzzing in my ears and toes. At other times, the waves seem to chaotically materialize from all directions and engulf every molecule in my being, bringing me closer to a thermodynamic death. Death? Death is not so bad.

The ultimate fate of the universe is heat death. One day the universe will weaken to a state of having no thermodynamic free energy and therefore will no longer sustain the processes that devour energy, including life, including me. It starts to rain; gently at first and then a downpour bursts from above. I remind myself that I am at peace.

Day 55, Day

I remember the electromagnetic waves are distractions, and I go back to my breathing and adjust my Purple coneflower meditation position so that it is stable and synchronized with each breath. I allow my belly to become soft and begin my inverse breathing. I silently repeat to myself, “Breathing in I am connected to all life. Breathing out I am connected to all life.” My breath is alive.

Day 72, Night

The chirping sounds of the multitude of crickets all around me have now magically converged into single ringing chime that washes over and through me. The sound touches me for only a moment and then proceeds far beyond, to the north. When I become distracted enough I can hear it change back into millions of cricket voice choirs, rising and falling in an ancient unison. Their song begins to synchronistically pulsate with the beating of my heart. I use this shift in my perception to go back to my mindfulness breathing in the present moment: “Breathing in I bring clarity and purpose to my life. Breathing out I bring clarity and purpose to my life.”   

Day 81, Afternoon

I’ve finally made peace with my memories of death. They arise and I no longer react with fear or grief. The blood has dried on all their faces and their smiles have returned. Their eyes sparkle and they turn and walk back toward the east and gradually fade away: “Breathing in I feel compassion for the suffering of those that have died. Breathing out I feel love for those that have died. Breathing in I feel compassion for my suffering, having died with them many times. Breathing out I feel compassion for my suffering, having died with them many times.”

Day 88, Morning

I slightly shift my sitting position and notice that all of last night’s aches and shivers are gone, and the burning in my legs from sitting in my semi-Purple coneflower position has finally faded away. In the southeast, the sun has now fully transcended the earth and raised itself over the horizon to see if I am sitting where it saw me last evening. Through the skin of my closed eyelids the sun produces a deep red that bleeds into my field of vision. The shade of red changes as I gently raise and lower my chin towards and away from the sun. All the life in the summer air has begun buzzing, singing, fluttering, and floating through the humid, damp sky that hangs above me.

My attention on my breath is like my breathing itself: life. The pace of my breathing remains unchanged, and I notice how my lungs and belly fill completely with the warm, sticky air that is gently blowing from the west. I exhale with awareness as my lungs empty emotional toxins from long, long ago. My mind silently utters good-bye confusion as I breathe out; good-bye self-pity as I breathe out; good-bye greed as I breathe out; good-by historical trauma as I breath out. In a moment of distraction, I am able to feel my breath as it enters and exits the hollow centers of the hairs on each of my thin, dehydrated, sunburned, wrinkled arms.

Day 90, Evening

With the subtle changes that are going on around me, I begin to ascend out of the deep breathing awareness that I had been suspended in for much of the past eighty-nine days. I feel myself being slowly liberated my from my connection to my meditation cushions and it seems as though someone has turned off the spigot of the earth’s electromagnetic fields. I am ending my sitting to return to the world of chaos, and I am reminded of Qigong Master Duan Zhi Liang’s teaching about disorder and confusion: “The essence of all evolution in nature emerges from chaos. By understanding the infinite energy that is always available to us, we can flow naturally with the chaotic energies of the universe.” Breathing in I draw in the never-ending life-force that envelops me. Breathing out I draw in the never-ending essence of this time.”

Day 91, one minute after midnight

I feel a hot, panting breath in my face, and the intense smell fresh of blood enters my nostrils. I slowly open my eyes to see that I am in a six-inch, face-to-face staring contest with a large mountain lion. In his eyes I can see the smoke rising from the coal gasification plant and his fur smells of crude oil. We calmly look at each other for few seconds. I uncross my legs and move my body slightly forward to stand up. My visitor steps back, allowing me the room that I need to get to my feet.  I pick up my cushions and blankets and walk through the grass towards the gravel road. My companion follows beside me as we both fade into the darkness, heading towards the lights of White Shield, heading towards nirvana.

Michael Yellow Bird, MSW, PhD., is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes and a professor and the director of graduate education in the Department of Social Work at Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA. His teaching, writing, research, and community work focuses on social work with Indigenous Peoples, neurodecolonization, neuroscience and social work, and employing mainstream and traditional Indigenous mindfulness practices in tribal communities to promote health and well being. He can be reached by email at:  mjy9@humboldt.edu 

Minding the Indigenous Mind The Healing Power of Visualization: Limitless Potential

Minding the Indigenous Mind

The Healing Power of Visualization: Limitless Potential

Greetings Mindful Relatives and Friends,

In the Medicine Buddha Meditation a visualization practice designed for “Healing For Yourself” is provided to the reader that wishes to use her or his own creative mind to recover from illness. A passage from the text reads: “In response to your request, infinite blue rays of light stream down from the heart and body of the King of Medicine. The light completely fills your body from head to toe, purifying all diseases. If you have any pain or any specific illnesses, focus the blue light directly to this spot and visualize the light burning away the pain and disease. All ailments due to interfering forces and the negative karma and mental obscurations that cause these, as well as anxiety, fear and negative emotions are also purified. These leave you in the form of dirty liquid which then completely disappears.”

Visualization is a powerful practice that can be used to heal many emotional, spiritual, and physical disorders and improve performance. The belief that visualizing healing thoughts can result in improving a person’s well being was, and still is, considered silly and childish by many practitioners of western mainstream medicine. However, visualization, positive thinking, and mindfulness meditation practice (all part of the mind body medicine) have increasingly gained credibility as more and more scientific evidence of their effectiveness has been documented.

In this column, I will define visualization, share some interesting and incredible stories of how it has been used, and offer a simple healing visualization exercise that you can practice.

The practice of visualization is not new. It dates back thousands of years.  The Medicine Buddha Meditation manuscript, that contains the above healing visualization practice, was written more than 1400 years ago. Throughout history there is evidence that it has been used to prevent and heal physical and emotional disease.

What is visualization?

The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “the formation of mental visual images.” But more than that, it is our ability to see things with the mind and experience the content of the visual mental imagery that we see. It involves focusing our imagination on behaviors or events that we want to occur in our life. For instance, if we want to lose twenty pounds we might begin by visualizing ourselves looking and feeling lean, fit, and healthy. After, let’s say after 15 minutes of practice, twice a day for two weeks, we then shift our visualization to include seeing that our clothes are looser and stepping onto a scale that reads twenty pounds lighter. On a deeper level, our visualization will be reprogramming our attitudes and behaviors so that we can lose the weight. It also will be changing our brain chemistry for learning and memory so that we can integrate more incoming information (what else do I need to do to lose weight?) with the data that we already have stored (what have I already tried that’s worked or not worked?). 

Visualization is a big part of our evolutionary biology and human consciousness. In fact, Mike and Nancy Samuels, the authors of the book, Seeing With the Mind’s Eye: The history, techniques, and Uses of Visualization, say that “visualization is the way we think. Before words, images were. It is the heart of the bio-computer. The human brain programs and self-programs through its images. It is the ultimate consciousness tool.”

Visualization in the News

There are numerous stories of the healing power of visualization. On March 3, 2011, Elizabeth Cohen, CNN senior medical correspondent wrote a story entitled, “Can You Imagine Cancer Away?” The article shared David Seidler’s story of overcoming cancer using visualization. In 2011 Seidler, 73, won an Oscar for best original screenplay for the movie, "The King's Speech." Cohen says he suffered from cancer but survived because “he visualized his cancer away.” Seidler says he beat his bladder cancer by visualizing a "lovely, clean healthy bladder" for two weeks, and the cancer disappeared. He's been cancer-free for more than five years.

One of the most impressive stories about the power of visualization that I’ve read concerns Tibetan monks using a practice called Tummo, which is documented to produce extraordinary levels of body heat. In a 2002 article in the Harvard Gazette, staff writer William J. Cromie, wrote: “In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as Tummo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators' shoulders.

          “For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering. If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour. Attendants removed the sheets, then covered the meditators with a second chilled, wet wrapping. Each monk was required to dry three sheets over a period of several hours.” When asked how they are able to produce such extreme changes in their body temperature, “the monks describe relaxing, focusing on their breathing. They picture air coming in and out, as a kind of energy. They visualize it as a flame, a fire coming out their chest.” If you’re interested you can watch the following Youtube video about the practice of Tummo: “The Best Hard Evidence for Buddhist Tummo (Inner Fire) Meditation,”  www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Arr4C52grQ.

Visualizing  Stars

Many celebrities are well known for their use of visualization and claim that it has played an important role in their success. In a Youtube video, Billy Mills, Lakota, winner of the men’s 10,000 meter race in the 1964 Olympics describes how visualization helped him win the race:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfLLNksZmoY. Allyson Felix, the winner of the women’s 200 meter race in the July, 2012 Olympics has spoken of how visualization has helped her racing performance. Figures such as Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Will Smith, and Bill Gates have also discussed how visualization has been important to their success.

My favorite visualization story is about actor Jim Carrey. When Carrey was just starting out in Hollywood, he was completely broke and out of work. He decided to do something about it. He wrote a check to himself in 1987 in the sum of 10 million dollars. He dated it Thanksgiving 1995.  On the bottom he wrote “for acting services rendered.” He carried around the check in his wallet and looked at it every day and visualized it for years. In November of 1994 he received $10M for his role in the movie “Dumb and Dumber.” Amazing. 

What a lot of folks may not know is that outside his comedic personality and movie roles, Jim Carrey has been engaged in a life-long pursuit for meaning and purpose. An important online video clip of this rarely seen side of him is entitled, “Jim Carry on Awakening.” It can be found in the spirit library at: http://spiritlibrary.com/videos/eckhart-tolle/jim-carrey-on-awakening.

            Trying Practicing Visualization

If we want to experience the healing power of visualization it is important that we practice consistently and creatively. Below is a simple visualization that you can begin with. When you are ready you can find many more practices by searching the web, buying a CD or book, or joining a group that engaging in therapeutic visualization. 

Mountain Meditation Visualization

1.    Find a time when you can sit quietly for 10 minutes

2.   Sit in a comfortable position to be in that allows your spine and head to be straight. Make sure your head is straight, but relaxed and your chin is slightly tucked in towards the chest. Both feet should be flat on the floor and hands resting on your lap.

 

3.   Begin to progressively tense and release the muscles from your toes to your head until they become relaxed and peaceful. Notice where there is tension and smooth and calm those muscles in your imagination.

 

4.   Begin observing your breath and observe your breath as it enters and leaves your body. Remain in tune with feeling air pass in and out of your nostrils as you inhale and exhale.

5.    Visualize a mountain and then become that mountain. See yourself as being that majestic mountain with your summit in the clouds. Imagine how solid and strong and how connected to the earth you are. You have stood for thousands of years strong, peaceful, and stable. Now quietly say to yourself:

 

Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain
Breathing out, I feel solid and strong.

The weather has always been in a state of flux around you. The views change from blue sky with gentle breezes and showers to mighty banks of storm clouds, dispensing heavy downpours, to sleet and snow. Yet, you have stood firm and immovable, and the winds of change have whirled for centuries around you without any noticeable effects. Now say to yourself:

Breathing in makes me calm.
Breathing out helps me settle.

Just like changes in weather around the mountain that are whirling about outside of you, any troubling emotions, feelings, symptoms, or thoughts that whirl around you in your everyday life shall not disturb you when your visualize. You shall remain tall, solid, strong and connected. Now say to yourself:

Breathing in, I see and feel secure.
Breathing out, I feel grounded and well.

You shall remain upright, firmly grounded and connected to the earth, regardless of the weather and emotions whirling around you. So now just sit and continue to follow your breath as you sink deeply into a clear visual awareness of your majestic mountain base. Become one with the feelings of solidity, strength and connection. Say to yourself:

 

Breathing in, I feel still and connected.
Breathing out, I am grounded and healed.

End your visualization when you are ready.

The Mountain Visualization Meditation practice leads to a calm, strong, and grounded state of mind. You can use this exercise as often as you need to overcome the stress and uncertainty that arises in your life. Remember, you have limitless potential and visualization can transform you in amazing ways. But it will not happen until you make it a regular part your life. Begin today and tomorrow you may find yourself recovering from a serious illness or reaching a goal you thought was not possible. Visualize deep healing and radiant health within you; see it extending to everyone in the community. Can you see it? I can.

Now, I’d love to hear from you.

                                                            My Daughter: Arundhati Yellow Bird, Age 4 1/2

Michael Yellow Bird, MSW, Ph.D., is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes and a professor and the director of graduate education in the Department of Social Work at Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA. His teaching, writing, research, and community work focuses on social work with Indigenous Peoples, neurodecolonization, neuroscience and social work, and employing mainstream and traditional Indigenous mindfulness practices in tribal communities to promote health and well being. He can be reached by email at:  mjy9@humboldt.edu 

Minding the Indigenous Mind: How the practice of mindfulness can contribute to Indigenous Education

        Mindful Greetings Friends and Relatives,

The Buddha once said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” In this column I want to advocate for the use of mindfulness practices in schools that serve and educate Indigenous youth. I believe that mindfulness is an activity that teachers, administrators, school boards, parents, and students should regularly engage in; it can be easily incorporated into the health and wellness curriculum of the school. Mindfulness is a practice that enables one to improve their thinking and to train their mind and attention to attain greater levels of awareness, stability, concentration, and calm. In this column I will define mindfulness, its significance, and its linkages to neuroscience and Indigenous cultural traditions.

An Exercise in Mindfulness

            Before launching into the reasons why mindfulness is appropriate in schools that education Native youth, I want readers to experience for themselves a simple breath counting exercise that is commonly used in mindfulness practice. It is an exercise that helps establish a foundation for deeper attention and awareness.  If you start to fall asleep or find it difficult to concentrate due to racing thoughts, twinges of anxiety or restlessness, pleasant or unpleasant memories, and body aches and pains during this exercise, just remember that this is normal when you are beginning to learn how to “tame” your mind. However, as you gently press yourself into a consistent routine of practice, you will find yourself entering into deeper and more sustained states of awareness, calm, and well being. The distractions in your life will gradually become quieter and less troublesome.   

1. To begin with find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.

2. Get into a comfortable position sitting in chair or cross-legged on the floor. If you choose the floor you can sit on a pillow or a cushion to help support you and to reduce the strain on your knees. As you get into your sitting position make sure that you keep your back straight but relaxed and your neck aligned with your spine. Your head should be held as if you are balancing a ball on top. If you choose to sit in a chair make sure that both feet are resting flat on the floor.

3. Relax your shoulders and rest your hands, palms down, on the top of your legs if you’re sitting in a chair. If you are on the floor rest your hands on your lap, knuckle side down. One hand can rest inside the other, with palms facing upward, fingers slightly and gently curled up, and thumbs lightly touching. Take a deep breath and settle into a relaxed, balanced position that feels grounded and calm.

4. Close your eyes and bring your attention to your breathing. Settle into your breath but don’t force it. Just allow it be as natural as possible. Allow yourself to experience what this natural, relaxed breathing feels like for a bit.

5. When you are ready begin counting silently to yourself: Count 1 on your first in-breath, 2 on the out-breath, 3 on the in-breath, and 4 on the out-breath. Repeat this pattern and continue counting for the next five minutes.  

6. If any thoughts come up that distract you away from your counting. Observe their content and how they make you feel, but do not get attached to them or judge them. Just allow them to be and as soon as you remember return to counting your breaths. It’s important not to get frustrated or judge yourself when you get distracted. Just stay relaxed and continue to return to your breathing and counting, remembering that it is your anchor.

7. When you are ready gently open your eyes, continue to let your breathing be relaxed and natural. Take a deep, cleansing breath and observe how you feel and what your surroundings look like. Write down what this experience was like. Was it pleasant, difficult, or relaxing? How did it make you feel? If you are an educator or parent, after you try it, you might help your students or child(ren) practice this exercise.

 What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness refers to being deeply aware of what is happening from moment to moment outside and inside us, without judging or attaching to the content, feelings, and emotions that arise. It refers to living deeply and richly in the present moment and not responding to life in a distracted and mechanical manner. For instance, when a student learns how to mindfully count his or her breaths, she or he will develop a greater awareness of his or her breathing. She or he will notice if the breaths that are taken are long, relaxed, and deep or short, rushed, and shallow. With this awareness she or he can make adjustments to  so that their breathing more tranquil and efficient.  After some time the student and teacher will notice that the deeper calm, awareness, and ability to concentrate that is acquired can be carried over to other activities in and out of school.

The Significance of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is one of the fasting growing approaches in the helping and healing professions. In a book entitled “The Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness,” (2008, edited by Fabrizio Didonna) several of the contributors to this text share how mindfulness approaches are becoming well-known in the field of psychology due to growing body of evidence that shows the positive effects these interventions have when treating a number of behavioral and psychological conditions. In the book, “Mindfulness-based Treatment Approaches,” (2005, edited by Ruth A. Baer) mindfulness-based treatment approaches are credited with successfully treating anxiety, depressive relapse, eating disorders, psychosis, and borderline personality disorder. In a paper entitled, “The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being,” (2003, written by Kirk Warren Brown and Richard M. Ryan), mindfulness is credited with improved self-regulated behavior, positive emotional states, and declines in mood disturbance and stress.

A growing number of K-12 schools in the U.S., with students from many different ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds are using mindfulness practices to improve academic performance and deal with student stress and behavior. For instance, The Garrison Institute, an organization dedicated to transformation of society through contemplative methods, compiled a major report in 2005 on the use of mindfulness in grades K-12. Several schools participated in this study and reported that students who learned mindfulness practices developed a number of noble qualities: emotional balance and intelligence, peacefulness, well being, compassion, gratitude, empathy, confidence, a sense of safety, forgiveness, and love.  Teachers also benefited: reduced stress, more alertness and patience, and less reactivity.

Linking Mindfulness Practices with Neuroscience

 The value of mindfulness practices such as meditation is supported by a wealth of scientific findings. One important discovery linking mindfulness and the brain is neuroplasticity, which refers to our brain’s ability to change its neurons and reorganize its networks and functions due to new experiences. When a student learns something his or her brain forms new connections between brain cells. As she or he practices and memorizes what was learned, networks become stronger, enabling the person to become more accomplished at whatever task has been undertaken.

When a student practices mindfulness a number of important circuits in the brain are positively affected. For instance, the Amygdala, a region in the brain that is associated with fear, anxiety, and aggression, quiets down and the left side of the prefrontal cortex of the brain, an area located approximately behind and above the left eyebrow, is activated. Research has shown that this area is associated with happiness, well being, and an enhanced immune response.

 In the book, “How God Changes Your Brain,” (2009) neuroscientists Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman state that “As neural functioning begins to change, different circuits become activated, while others become inactivated. New dendrites are formed, new synaptic connections are made, and the brain becomes more sensitive to subtle realms of experience.” Newberg and Waldman report that the research has consistently established that mindfulness practices such as meditation, positive thinking, and visualization change the structure and function of our brains and improve our health, optimism, and performance. In one study, renowned neuroscientist Richard Davidson and colleagues (2007) concluded that, “When the framework of neuroplasticity is applied to meditation, we suggest that the mental training of meditation is fundamentally no different than other forms of skill acquisition that can induce plastic changes in the brain.”

The Linkage between Mindfulness and

 Indigenous Cultural Traditions

Although many people associate mindfulness and meditation with eastern spiritual traditions, almost all human cultures have engaged in practices that include the use of deep, focused thought, listening, and attention. This is particularly true of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world. When spiritual leaders taught sacred rituals to the uninitiated members of the tribe (mainly the youth), it was required that the novice engage in concentrated, uninterrupted attention to what was being presented, its meanings, and how it was connected to the traditions of the people. Among some tribes, before youth would be introduced to certain sacred practices they might be required to undergo a purification process where they would be spiritually cleansed so that their minds and hearts would be in a good place (without negative thoughts or feelings). Children were reminded that bad thoughts and lack of focus would taint their experience and their ability to learn. 

            When young people were passing into adulthood many would be guided into the formal process of “vision-seeking” to understand their purpose in life and how their actions would contribute to the well-being of the tribe. The preparation for vision-seeking was long, intense, and challenging. It required deep mindfulness and long periods of meditation, which focused on what was being sought (a vision, special healing powers, or insights). It also required one to focus on the process: an uninterrupted, steady focus and awareness of the special prayers and songs that were to be used, and an interpersonal humility and maintenance of pure, compassionate thoughts. 

In closing, many Indigenous youth are not given the opportunity, nor are they pressed, to engage in formal mindfulness practices to improve their well being. While it may not be appropriate for school personnel to direct students in cultural mindfulness practices, they can implement mindfulness into the school setting. Developing mindfulness is not easy but it is worth doing since it is culturally appropriate, easy to implement, low cost, and it works. Mindfulness involves systematic training and practice and is a process that takes place over time. However, dramatic, positive changes can occur when one gently and consistently practices mindfulness. It is a journey that is well worth it for native students and those that teach them; for when they are invited to enter into states of deep awareness and concentration their worlds, experiences, and lives become much richer, less fearful and angry, more vivid, creative, peaceful, and healed. Raising the educational success and well being of Indigenous students is just one mindful breath away.

Michael Yellow Bird, MSW, Ph.D., is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes and a professor and the director of graduate education  in the Department of Social Work at Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA. His teaching, writing, research, and community work focuses on social work with Indigenous Peoples, neurodecolonization, neuroscience and social work, and employing mainstream and traditional Indigenous mindfulness practices in tribal communities to promote health and well being. He leads a regular morning mindfulness practice for staff, students, and faculty in his department. He can be reached by email at:  mjy9@humboldt.edu