Presence: How Mindfulness and Meditation Shape Your Brain, Mind, and Life

249 Pages·2017·1.98 MB·English

by  VERHAEGHEN

i
Presence
ii
iii
Presence
HOW MINDFULNESS AND MEDITATION SHAPE
YOUR BRAIN, MIND, AND LIFE
Paul Verhaeghen
1
iv
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Verhaeghen, Paul, author.
Title: Presence : how mindfulness and meditation shape your brain, mind, and life /
Paul Verhaeghen.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Oxford University Press, [2017] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016042416 (print) | LCCN 2016055305 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780199395606 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780199395613 (UPDF) |
ISBN 9780199395620 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Mindfulness (Psychology) | Meditation. | Mind and body. | Brain.
Classification: LCC BF637.M4 V47 2017 (print) |
LCC BF637.M4 (ebook) | DDC 158/.9—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016042416
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
v
This book is dedicated to you.
May you be happy.
May you be safe.
May you be free from harm.
May you be at ease.
vi
vii
{ CONTENTS }
Preface  ix
1. What Is Mindfulness?  1
2. Your Body and Brain on Meditation  17
3. The Meditating Brain in Action: Attention, Body, and Self  39
4. Telltale Traces in the Brain  75
5. From Monkey Mind to Monk’s Mind: Mindfulness Practice
and Attention  95
6. Mindfulness Practice and Well- Being  117
7. Mindfulness as Medicine  145
8. Meditation and Mindfulness: Final Words  159
Notes  175
Bibliography  193
Index 219
viii
ix
{ PREFACE }
This book began with a bottle of orange juice. A big bottle. Half a gallon of
very nice orange juice. Organic, not from concentrate, no pulp.
The intended recipient of said juice was my son, but he no longer wanted
it, preferring, I believe, hot chocolate instead.
This was about the fifth time he had changed his mind in the space of a
minute or so.
So I did what every parent occasionally dreams of doing: I lifted the
bottle— still sealed— high above my head, with both hands, and I smashed it
into the kitchen floor with all my might.
The thing exploded.
My son was three years old at the time and so— by all signs and for all
intents and purposes— was I.
It took quite some time to clean up the mess— the oak floor, the walls, the
ceiling, the stove, the kitchen furniture were all soaked. From time to time we
still find two cookbooks joined together by the sticky force of my stupidity.
As one of my favorite writers would say: “So it goes.”
As soon as the bottle left my hands, in the suspended moment of my own
disbelief that I just did that, I of course grasped how very wrong this was, how
utterly senseless, how needless, how selfish, how heedless.
As episodes of domestic violence go, this one was pretty tame. But still.
Standing there in the aftermath, with my wife and son gaping at dumb-
founded me with his beard and glasses dripping with juice, something clicked.
I had just reacted to something that wasn’t true. I had had a flicker of a
thought in my head, and I had followed it through. I had given a mere flicker
of anger a set of black wings, as if I had no say in the matter, as if I had no
freedom.
And, of course, in such moments of frustration, you have no freedom.
I realized two things.
One: I did want freedom. I didn’t want this— I was better than that,
wasn’t I?
And two: I vaguely remembered actually being better that that.
So I promised myself to get back to that time. I promised myself to go back
to meditation.