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Download full ebook of Advances In Contemplative Psychotherapy Accelerating Personal And Social Transformation 2Nd Edition Joseph Loizzo Editor Fiona Brandon Editor Emily J Wolf Editor Miles Neale Editor online pdf all chapter docx
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“In this important volume, the authors have succeeded in deepening the
current mutual embrace between psychotherapy and meditative practice.
Written with clarity and featuring leading minds in both domains, this book
signals the emergence of a new, theory-linked contemplative psychotherapy
that crosses schools and boundaries in its pursuit of real clinical deliverables.”
Zindel Segal, PhD, distinguished professor of psychology in
mood disorders, University of Toronto Scarborough
SECOND EDITION
Edited by
Joseph Loizzo,
Fiona Brandon,
Emily J. Wolf,
and Miles Neale
Designed cover image: © Getty Images
Second edition published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Joseph Loizzo, Fiona Brandon, Emily J. Wolf and Miles Neale;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Joseph Loizzo, Fiona Brandon, Emily J. Wolf and Miles Neale to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used
only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2017
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Loizzo, Joseph John, 1955- editor. | Brandon, Fiona, editor. | Wolf,
Emily J., editor. | Neale, Miles, editor.
Title: Advances in contemplative psychotherapy : accelerating personal and
social transformation / Joseph Loizzo, Fiona Brandon, Emily J. Wolf,
Miles Neale.
Description: Second edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Revised
edition of: Advances in contemplative psychotherapy / edited by Joseph
Loizzo, Miles Neale, and Emily J. Wolf. 2017. | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022056626 (print) | LCCN 2022056627 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032153087 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032153063 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003243588
(ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Psychotherapy. | Mindfulness (Psychology) | Empathy.
Classification: LCC RC480.5 .A32 2023 (print) | LCC RC480.5 (ebook) | DDC
616.89/14--dc23/eng/20221209
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056626
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056627
ISBN: 978-1-032-15308-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-15306-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-24358-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003243588
Typeset in Goudy
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
We dedicate this volume to the living example
Of His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama of Tibet,
Who has done more than anyone to stimulate open dialogue
Between modern physical science and ancient contemplative
science,
Who has helped birth the promising field of contemplative
neuroscience,
And who inspires us all as a vibrant embodiment
Of the radical open-mindedness and unconditional compassion
We need every day as psychotherapists, caregivers, teachers, and
healers.
In the spirit of a great seventh-century Nalanda Master,
We offer one of His Holiness’s favorite aspirational verses
To the heroic human spirit of altruism:
Contents
x Co n t e n t s
References 421
Index 456
Contributors
For much of my life I have worked with caregivers in the most challenging of
clinical settings—end-of-life care—as well as with activists on the front lines
of pressing struggles in social justice and social action. In the course of this
work, I have witnessed firsthand the insidious impact of empathic distress in
caregivers and activists.
As a practitioner and teacher of Zen, I have been fortunate over the years
to be able to deepen my reliance on Buddhist teachings on compassion.
Not only has my practice of wise and skilled care sustained me, but I soon
learned that my students and colleagues facing similar challenges found it
equally helpful in sustaining their life and work. My work with clinicians
and others prompted me to develop a heuristic map of compassion, based on
social psychology and neuroscience, and the development of a process called
G.R.A.C.E. that is a way to cultivate compassion in the process of interacting
with others. This work has expanded into the many compassionate outreach
programs we have developed at Upaya Zen Center, including Being with
Dying, our training program for palliative care clinicians, and our popular
annual Neuroscience and Zen Brain conference.
Since my work in the 1970s with pioneering psychiatrist Stan Groff, and my
ongoing work with the contemplative neuroscience community of the Mind
Life Institute, I have been deeply involved in the field building around con-
templative neuroscience. Seeing the growing body of meditation research
showing its beneficial effects on the brain, along with the mounting evidence
of its practical efficacy in healthcare and psychotherapy, has been inspiring
for us all. Yet the latest work done by colleagues like Richard Davidson and
Tania Singer showing the beneficial effects of compassion training on the
brain’s processing of human suffering I find even more promising and poten-
tially impactful for world health and well-being. Compassion training clearly
xvi F o r e w o r d t o t h e S e c o n d E d i t i o n
has the power to protect caregivers from burnout, and to make them even
more effective in helping others face the many difficult challenges of life in
our age. This is why I was happy to learn of the publication of Advances in
Contemplative Psychotherapy: Accelerating Healing and Transformation.
In parallel with the laboratory research on compassion done by my friends
at Mind Life, and very much in synchrony with the practical applications
of mindful compassion we teach at Upaya is the Certificate Program in
Contemplative Psychotherapy (CPCP) developed by Joe Loizzo and his col-
leagues at Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science. Nalanda Institute’s
three-year CPCP trains practitioners in mindfulness-based psychotherapy
first, and then moves on to training them in the wisdom and arts of compas-
sion and embodied compassion shared by both the Zen and Tibetan Buddhist
traditions. I was very pleased to hear that Joe and his co-editors Miles Neale,
Emily Wolf, and Fiona Brandon are compiling this second edition of the
book, including many of my close colleagues and expanding on the social
face of healing and transformation.
It is my pleasure to recommend to you this new edition of the book, which
offers interested therapists and caregivers an introduction to Buddhist teach-
ings, neuroscience, psychology, and the clinical and psychosocial dimensions
of integrating mindfulness, compassion, and embodiment techniques into
psychotherapy. I believe that expanding the training in mindful compassion
skills to psychotherapists can enhance their ability to deepen, expand, their
care of their clients, spreading the healing hand of human kindness to ever-
wider circles of those most in need.
Rev. Joan Jiko Halifax
Abbot, Upaya Zen Center
Santa Fe, New Mexico
www.upaya.org
Preface to the Second Edition
As caregivers today, we find ourselves in a pivotal time—a time when our per-
sonal lives, our professional lives, our clients’ challenges, our institutions, and
communities, even the Earth itself, are all at once at a turning point. Over
the last centuries, human civilization has made enormous strides. Modern sci-
ence and technology have brought undreamed of standards of health, wealth,
information, and opportunity within reach for whole populations, although
many the world over still go without their fair share. After millions of years
living in isolated groups and societies, most humans now have some sense of
themselves as part of a global community of nations, however flawed. Despite
our vulnerability to pandemics like COVID-19 and the stark inequities of
access to healthcare, a growing share of humanity live longer, more comfort-
able, more connected lives than any of our forebears. Every day we learn more
about the workings of the human genome and brain, even though the depths
of the mind still elude modern science.
Yet increasingly, in an age of ever-escalating change, all the outer progress
we have made sets a stark backdrop that exposes the root cause underly-
ing the alarming rise of stress-related illness, addiction, trauma, racial and
gender-based violence, extreme economic inequity, religious persecution, and
environmental toxicity today. This root cause is us—more precisely, our self-
protective stress instincts—and the real limits they put on our inner capac-
ity to heal, thrive, communicate, and collaborate, no matter how favorable
the outer conditions of our lives have become. This one hard constant has
been addressed since the dawn of civilization, by great sages like Buddha,
Confucius, Empedocles, Ezekiel, Jesus, Socrates, and Zoroaster. More recently,
the founders of modern psychotherapy, Freud, Jung, Ferenczi, Reich, and oth-
ers, took up this timeless challenge, exposing that root cause as a vestige of
our evolutionary past.
xviii P r e f a c e t o t h e S e c o n d E d i t i o n
Framing this hard problem in the mythic language of the Sicilian Greek
thinker Empedocles, Freud (1930/1962) proposed in his Civilization and Its
Discontents that “the evolution of civilization … must present the struggle
between Eros and Thanatos, between the instinct of life and the instinct of
destruction, as it works itself out in the human species” (p.69). Now that the
modern Western quest to master nature and the world has become increas-
ingly destructive, putting much of the Earth and its life at risk, each day
reminds us of the inner work which the dominant culture of the modern West
has too long deferred. While many of us are just waking up to its destructive
side, the fact is that modern Western culture has been destructive all along,
causing escalating harm inextricably linked with the progress it achieved.
This harm is evident not just in today’s environmental crisis, but in the cul-
tural systems of white supremacy, extreme capitalism, and insidious patriarchy
that have left a wake of violence, oppression, and exploitation evident in the
brutal legacies of slavery, genocide, colonialism, globalization, and climate
change. While the West has made some real strides in counteracting this
legacy of harm, including powerful movements of resistance and liberation
that have advanced equal rights for Black and Indigenous people, People of
Color, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, women, and LGBTQ+ indi-
viduals further than ever before, the specter of racial, gender, and other forms
of systemic oppression in Western societies is still painfully real.
This shadow face of modern Western culture largely accounts for the fact that,
while the science and technology for equitably shared global health, wealth,
and well-being is ready at hand, the social will to fulfill that promise is sorely
lacking. I trace this tragic lack to two main forces: one evolutionary, and one
cultural. The evolutionary force at work is the biological drive for survival—the
death-grip of prejudice, negativity bias, stress-reactivity, and reflex trauma that
locks down our life-giving human genius for well-being, creativity, empathy,
love, compassion, and altruism. The cultural force is the rising predominance
of a colonizing capitalist culture based on patriarchy and white supremacy
that feeds on, rationalizes, and institutionalizes the worst fears, de-humanizing
biases, and destructive instincts of all those it touches—a culture of scarcity
that has denied our inner potential for positive human social development and
inclusive community in favor of a self-defeating and exclusive drive to accumu-
late wealth, privilege, and power in the hands of a few.
A child of the Enlightenment, Freud saw modern science and psychotherapy
as the only hope for understanding and ending our individual and collective
self-enclosure and the suffering it causes. Yet Jung believed we could not wait
for these relatively young disciplines to help us know and heal ourselves fully
P r e f a c e t o t h e S e c o n d E d i t i o n xix
and deeply. A child of the Romantic Age, he urged that we integrate mod-
ern physical science with the timeless inner arts and sciences of our world’s
contemplative traditions. In support of that vision, he advocated for a funda-
mental shift in psychotherapy and modern culture away from its egocentric,
materialist values towards a post-modern culture of collective consciousness
and timeless spiritual values.
Of course, the future of psychotherapy and its impact on the world is no
longer in the hands of Freud’s direct heirs. It is time for each of us as conscious
individuals and concerned professionals, as caretakers of the future of human-
ity and our Earth, to take a stand and take action to help our families, our
clients, our societies, and our world change as quickly and radically as they
can. It is with this clear and present urgency in mind that my fellow editors
and I have rallied our colleagues together to offer Advances in Contemplative
Psychotherapy.
Advocating for a global renaissance in psychotherapy, this book offers a vision
for the future of our field based on the recognition that Freud and Jung were
both largely right. Declaring a new day for the great inner work of human-
ity, it highlights a confluence of traditions that holds great promise for our
future at a pivotal time. What is that confluence? It is the watershed formed
by the joining of two great streams of human knowhow, arisen in neighbor-
ing civilizations only to flow in opposite ways. I mean the Greek stream of
evolutionary psychology and physical science, belatedly come of age in the
West; and the Indian stream of evolutionary psychology and contemplative
self-healing, precocious yet remarkably preserved in the meditative and yogic
traditions of the East.
However contrary to our provincial sense that East and West will never meet,
the reunion of these neighboring streams was bound to come with globaliza-
tion. In fact, the modern father of world history, Arnold Toynbee predicted
that their confluence would be the most impactful and promising event of
our age. I believe I speak for the contributors to this volume when I say that
finding ourselves in the thick of this historic watershed was, and is, the most
potent force in our lives. When friends and colleagues feel overwhelmed by
the global challenges we face today, I often share with them a thousand-
year-old prelude to Toynbee’s prediction, which offers a radically optimistic
vision of our future. The Tibetan teaching of the Wheel of Time (Kalachakra)
predicts that contemplative scientists (vidyadharas) will emerge from obscurity
onto the world stage as East and West collide early in our present millennium,
to help usher in a new global age of mindful science education, egalitarian
democracy, sustainable happiness, and universal compassion.
xx P r e f a c e t o t h e S e c o n d E d i t i o n
Of course, the recent paradigm shifts that have upgraded all prior estimates
of our capacity for social attunement and mindful brain integration help gal-
vanize such hopeful visions, making them far less removed from scientific
reality and human possibility than ever before. As I proposed in Sustainable
Happiness (Routledge, 2012), the East–West confluence many great minds
foresaw does seem to be evident here and now, fueling the rapid emergence
and mainstreaming of long inconceivable fields like contemplative neurosci-
ence, contemplative psychotherapy, and contemplative social justice. The
discovery that our genomes are malleable, and our brains plastic, has merged
together with evidence that contemplative practice promotes plasticity, social
engagement, brain integration, and epigenetic change. Downstream from this
new amalgam, the confluence of new science and ancient practice is giving
rise to an expanding array of ever-more effective contemplative interventions,
contemplative psychotherapies, and contemplative approaches to psychoso-
cial change. So while the global challenges we face now seem unprecedented
in scale and scope, the root of them all is older than our species itself. And
given the global melding of modern physical science with timeless contem-
plative science, the empowering culture, and practical solutions we need are
ready at hand. Although there is no time to waste to apply that salve to what
ails us, each day I must remind myself to take in the mounting evidence that
we live in times of such hopeful change.
Like all great transformations, this one began as an improbable dream, con-
ceived simultaneously by many like-minded individuals. Raised in the heyday
of psychoanalysis by an existential psychiatrist and a Catholic world history
teacher, I conceived the dream that was the seed of this volume while strug-
gling through the books on my dad’s office shelves, from Freud’s Civilization
and Its Discontents and Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul to Thomas
Merton’s Contemplation in a World of Action. The world I saw reflected in that
office was divided: with modern science, medicine, and psychiatry on the side
of Freud’s skepticism; and our ancient traditions of contemplation and ethi-
cal action on the side of Merton’s mysticism. While Jung had tried to bring
these two sides of our nature and culture—outer and inner, material and
spiritual—back together again, the gulf proved too wide, and too deep. The
fault-line seemed to threaten our integrity and humanity and led me to dream
of a psychology—and a life—in which science, healing, contemplation, and
action were all woven together in a seamless whole.
That dream only began to feel like it might become a reality when I met my
first teacher of Buddhism, Robert Thurman, at Amherst College, in 1973.
Although I knew then, as now, that Buddhism alone was no more the answer
P r e f a c e t o t h e S e c o n d E d i t i o n xxi
than the Catholicism I was schooled in, it did have a vital ingredient I sensed
could help bridge our modern divide: a rigorous, scientific approach to self-
knowledge, contemplation, and ethics. From then on, my way would be a
middle way between modern medicine, neuroscience, and psychiatry on the
one hand, and the Buddhist contemplative science of self-healing and eth-
ics of social healing on the other. When I went with Bob to India in 1979,
he introduced me to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to many of the most
senior teachers in the Tibetan refugee community, Yongdzin Ling Rimpoche,
Tsanshab Serkhong Rimpoche, Tara Tulku, Demo Locho Rimpoche, and
Ngawang Gelek Rimpoche. They would introduce me firsthand to the living
legacy of Indian Buddhism, which their Tibetan ancestors brought from the
world’s first university at Nalanda in North India, and faithfully preserved
through the centuries. These exceptionally clear and caring beings would
be my inspiration through the long years of medical education and psychia-
try training, along with my psychotherapy mentors, Rolf Arvidson, Leston
Havens, Myron Sharaff, and Robert Rosenthal, and my research mentors,
Herbert Benson, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Bruce McEwan, and Mary Charlson.
Along the way I met follow travelers, including Dan Brown, Chris Germer,
Paul Fulton, and Mark Epstein at Harvard, and Dan Goleman, Vesna Wallace,
Richie Davidson, and Thubten Jinpa at regular meetings with His Holiness
and interested scientists, clinicians, and scholars starting in 1986. Still, the
two sides of my path—Western and Buddhist—only began to merge into one
ten years later, in 1996. That was the year I began a PhD program in Buddhist
psychology at Columbia and was urged at the same time by my new psychia-
try colleagues there to start a Center for Meditation and Healing (CMH) at
Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. This was when and where the mandala of
Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science began to manifest itself in my
life, as part of today’s global renaissance of the legacy of Nalanda University
and its world class contemplative science tradition. The Columbia CMH, offi-
cially founded in 1998 with my colleague Ina Becker, was the first mind/body
medical center in a major academic department of psychiatry, and the first
anywhere to integrate Tibetan compassion practice, role-modeling imagery,
and advanced breath-control skills together with basic mindfulness and
Hatha Yoga. It was there that I met a circle of very dedicated students who
would help me found Nalanda Institute, including Miles Neale and Emily
Wolf, who served as psychology interns, research assistants, and interven-
tionists in studies applying Nalanda Institute’s Compassion-Based Resilience
Training (CBRT) to mixed groups of medical and psychiatric clients, and to
groups of women recovering from breast cancer.
xxii P r e f a c e t o t h e S e c o n d E d i t i o n
into social engagement and prosocial embodiment, the time has come for a
new generation of therapies that meld the new science with humanity’s most
potent methods of change. The discipline of psychotherapy offers a ready-
made network for the faithful distribution of this blend of new science with
timeless art. Along with related disciplines in healthcare, counseling, coach-
ing, education, and community-based social action, psychotherapy offers an
existing network of people that already share the requisite aims, skills, and
values, at a turning point in history when there is no time to reinvent the
wheel. It is our hope as editors, as a faculty, and as a community of lifelong
learning and practice, that this book and the rigorous, multidisciplinary
training it represents will not only inform and inspire interested colleagues
but help raise awareness of ways we can each leverage our life’s work, to accel-
erate the transformation all humanity needs, personally, socially, culturally,
and globally, right now.
On behalf of my fellow editors and the whole Nalanda Institute community,
I would like to express our deep gratitude to all the inspiring individuals we
have felt so privileged to work with as fellow faculty and students over these
years. More specifically, I want to acknowledge our past and present partners
and CPP program directors in the US, Canada, Europe, and Latin America,
including Mar Aige, Fiona Brandon, Javier Garcia Campayo, Ann Campbell,
Rahshaana Green, Diego Hangartner, Pilar Hurtado, Begona Martinez,
Marco Mascarin, and Helen Hyunjung Park. I am equally grateful to our core
faculty, Dr Nida Chenagstang, Pilar Jennings, Sharon Salzberg, and Robert
Thurman; and to all of our incredible visiting faculty, including Tara Brach,
Sieso Paul Cooper, Richie Davidson, Mark Epstein, Diana Fosha, Paul Fulton,
Chris Germer, Roshi Joan Halifax, Rick Hanson, Sue Johnson, Rev. angel
Kyodo williams, Ethan Nichtern, Lama Rod Owens, Stephen Porges, Lobsang
Rapgay, Zindel Segal, Dan Siegel, Jasmine Syedullah, David Vago, and Jan
Willis, many of whom have contributed chapters to this volume based on
their teaching at the Nalanda Institute CPP.
Of course, this book would not have come to fruition were it not for the
patience, enthusiasm, and special gifts of a whole circle of enlightened altru-
ists. This circle includes the managing editor of the second edition Fiona
Brandon, our Nalanda Fellow in humanitarian aid, Maria Thorin, our con-
genial editor at Routledge Anna Moore, our dynamic library science and
graphic arts duo, Tom Damrauer and Diane Bertolo of Lotus and Pixel, and
the extremely kind and gifted artist Robert Beer.
Last but not least, I am forever indebted for all that is good and true in my
life to my soul mate, partner in all things, and Nalanda Institute Director of
xxiv P r e f a c e t o t h e S e c o n d E d i t i o n
Joseph Loizzo
xxvi Introduction
begun to show how gene regulation drives development and day-to-day adap-
tation (Carey, 2013). This broad vision of genomic fluidity naturally dovetails
with the new paradigm in neuroscience—use-dependent plasticity—yield-
ing a view of our brain as more dynamic, functional, constructive, and ever-
evolving than we previously thought. The new science of plasticity has led
pioneers like Eric Kandel and Norman Doidge to propose a more optimistic,
transformational paradigm for twenty-first century psychotherapy (Kandel,
1999; Doidge, 2016).
Aligned with this new direction, breakthroughs in our understanding of the
prefrontal cortex, limbic system, and brainstem have revealed the human
brain to be much more geared to social cognition, social emotional devel-
opment, and social autonomic regulation than was believed in Freud’s day
(Siegel, 2007). These breakthroughs have prompted a new generation of
relational and embodied approaches to psychotherapy, like those articulated
by Daniel Siegel, Louis Cozolino, Stephen Porges, and Bessel van der Kolk,
(Siegel, 2010a; Cozolino, 2006; Porges, 2011; van der Kolk, 2014). Finally, two
related lines of advancement—through affective neuroscience, positive psy-
chology, and trauma therapy—have further challenged prior low estimates
of humanity’s potential for embodied social healing like Freud’s, by revealing
our robust capacity for prosocial emotions, the far-reaching benefits of motiva-
tions like love, compassion, and altruism, and the profound benefits of posi-
tive imagery, breath-work, movement, and transformational mind/body states
like flow (Amihi & Koshevnikov, 2014; Brown, 2009; Lutz et al., 2008; Singer
& Klimecki, 2013).
These converging lines of influence have come together to foster a sea change
in mainstream science’s approach to human practices long dismissed as unsci-
entific. The shift began when the first research studies of meditation, notably
transcendental meditation (TM), inspired the groundbreaking clinical para-
digms of the 1970s and 1980s: Herb Benson’s relaxation response and Jon
Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) (Beary & Benson,
1974; Kabat-Zinn, 1982). As these clinical paradigms were found effective in
heart disease and chronic pain, they sparked the development of the first
mindfulness-based interventions for mental health—dialectical behavior
therapy (DBT) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) (Linnehan
et al., 1991; Teasdale et al., 1995).
These promising clinical studies in turn opened the door for the first phase
of serious lab research on the neurophysiology of meditation and yoga. This
phase came of age in a series of major breakthroughs starting very recently, in
2004 and 2005. Two teams, one led by Richard Davidson at the University of
I n t r o d u c t i o n xxix
Wisconsin, and another by Sarah Lazar at Harvard, were responsible for mov-
ing their field from its long marginal status to center stage in the new neu-
roscience. Lutz and Davidson’s 2004 study showing that Tibetan monks can
self-generate high frequency gamma synchrony at will, and Lazar’s 2005 study
that mindfulness meditators show increased thickness in the prefrontal and
insular cortex, both directly linked meditation with neuroplasticity and neu-
rogenesis (Lazar et al., 2005; Lutz et al., 2004). This put meditation at the
heart of the new neuroscience, as one of the most effective and reproducible
paradigms of neural plasticity, and the only model for the conscious self-reg-
ulation of plasticity. It is this multi-disciplinary confluence of advances that
led Davidson to describe the newly central field of meditation research as
contemplative neuroscience.
Fueled by the growing evidence base for the benefits of contemplative prac-
tice, the last two decades have seen a groundswell of interest in applying
popular mindfulness and related practices like self-compassion in almost
every sphere of contemporary life—from healthcare to business, education to
wellness. One of the most important applications from a public health stand-
point has been in the growing movement to bring contemplative wisdom,
ethics, and practice to the epidemic stress and trauma caused by systemic
racism (williams et al., 2016; Willis, 2008). As the COVID-19 pandemic high-
lighted the severity of chronic racial health disparities in the US and the
murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd drew unprec-
edented attention to violent police interactions with Black, Indigenous, and
other People of Color (BIPOC), the American Medical Association offi-
cially declared racism a public health threat and proposed a plan to counter
it (American Medical Association, 2021). All this prompted new interest in
the convergence of critical race theory, social psychology, and sociology into
liberation psychology (Prilleltensky, 2003), and raised awareness of embodied
contemplative approaches to dyadic psychotherapy like Resmaa Menakem’s
somatic abolitionism (Menakem, 2017) as well as therapeutic frameworks for
healing racialized trauma that integrate individual with community-based
strategies (French et al., 2020; Chavez-Dueñas et al., 2019).
of integration, pointing out three basic differences in aim and method that
distinguish the two traditions. 1) The two differ in their institutional base
and disciplinary landscape: Buddhist psychology is based in monastic edu-
cation in the context of Indian spirituality and contemplative science; psy-
chotherapy in secular healthcare in the field of modern psychology and
neuroscience. 2) They differ in their theory of evolution: Buddhism assumes a
Lamarkian model of evolution, as driven by learned habits of mind and action
transmitted across generations by social imprinting and modeling; psycho-
therapy is informed by a Darwinian view of evolution, as driven by random
mutation and natural selection, transmitted by genetic inheritance. 3) And
they differ in their healing methodology: Buddhist pedagogy involves a multi-
modal strategy combining individual mentoring, peer learning, group classes,
and healing community, relying on a progressive path of mind-brain altering
individual and group contemplation; psychotherapy involves a more targeted
strategy relying on intensive individual re-parenting bonds, and milder, more
limited relaxation states, sometimes combined with cognitive-behavioral
learning for individuals and/or groups.
On the one hand, it is no accident that these two traditions are now engaged in
an increasingly deep and far-ranging dialogue. On the other, there is still ample
reason for us to be careful to respect the distinctions between them, so that we
can weigh apparent similarities and differences in light of the broader cultural
contexts in which they evolved. Of course, avoiding misunderstanding or mis-
appropriating contemplative traditions like Buddhism, and respecting their dis-
tinct cultural context and roots does not require us to adopt an extreme cultural
relativism. Like modern psychotherapy, Buddhist psychology claims to see and
treat mental suffering in ways that are universally applicable to humans across
history and culture. And, like psychotherapy, it has in fact been found helpful
in several civilizations, over centuries since its inception. So, rather than think-
ing of Buddhist practice and psychotherapy as apples and oranges, I prefer to see
them as different varieties of one and the same species of human practice. This
seems not altogether contrary to Freud’s view, judging by his own efforts to find
historical roots for the modern practice he called psychotherapy in the ancient
Greek traditions of Socratic and pre-Socratic pedagogy.
The fact that Freud felt a need to go back to the Greeks to find the roots of
psychotherapy is not surprising given the genesis story of modern science—
that it emerged in the fifteenth century as a renaissance of previously lost
xxxii Introduction
the scientific culture of the West has been one of the very few glaring excep-
tions to the rule. So the recent trend I described towards bridging that mod-
ern divide and reuniting contemplation and contemplative community with
science and healing is not really new, but a return to the commonsense view
shared by most of humanity for most of history.
Given world history, these three waves of Buddhist thought and practice,
along with their counterparts in the Hindu Yoga tradition, have only recently
come together again in the global melting pot of Western Buddhism. So we
are fortunate in this volume to have contributors whose integration was influ-
enced by each of the major waves, seen in the synthetic Nalanda tradition as
“three vehicles” of Buddhist contemplative science and practice (Thurman,
1996).
In light of traditional scholarship, each part of the book is devoted to one
of these vehicles. Part One, Mindfulness and Personal Healing, is mainly
devoted to the integration of early Buddhist psychology, non-violent ethics,
and mindfulness meditation with classical analytic and cognitive therapy.
Part Two, Compassion and Social Healing, is mainly devoted to the inte-
gration of Mahayana Buddhist psychology, relational ethics, and compassion
meditation with relational and interpersonal psychotherapy. And Part Three,
Embodiment and Natural Healing, is mainly devoted to the integration of
Vajrayana Buddhist psychology, liberative ethics, and embodied meditation
with embodied transformational therapies.
system are consistent with current thinking about embodied approaches like
Jungian analysis, Gestalt therapy, Somatic Experiencing (SE), Sensorimotor
Psychotherapy (SP), and Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy
(AEDP) (Porges, 2011).
The fact that we find synergies between such an array of contemplative prac-
tices and psychotherapies may seem improbable, but it is quite consistent with
what early studies concluded about the general effects and mechanisms of
meditation and psychotherapy. In a prior review, I summarized the findings
of the first few decades of research on the neuroscience of these two distinct
human practices (Loizzo, 2000). Meditation and psychotherapy appear to
have their effects by the same common pathway: a sustained strategic amal-
gam of two complementary mechanisms. Both practices reduce stress using
relaxation techniques to lower sympathetic arousal and boost vagal tone; and
both also simultaneously enhance learning using techniques that heighten
attention and promote neural plasticity (Porges, 2011; Siegel, 2007). In this
way, the two work to create an optimal internal environment that disarms
stress-reactive resistances and fosters the enrichment of learning. By opti-
mizing the brain’s full capacity for social learning, these practices expand
the mind’s openness to shared introspection and corrective dialogue; and by
cultivating that shift in a stable, supportive, and equitable social learning
environment, they sustain that openness through repeated practice over time.
As a result, they facilitate a gradual dismantling of dissociative barriers to
integration, and cultivate the growth of higher self-awareness, self-regulation,
and self-transcendence though the development of integrative structures and
processes in the brain (Delmonte, 1995; Siegel, 2012).
If meditation and psychotherapy in fact share a common neural mechanism
and psychosocial intent, why do both cultural practices employ such a broad
range of methods? The science behind the first premise—that all methods
of meditation and psychotherapy work by deepening relaxation and height-
ening attention—helps explain the main finding of psychotherapy research,
that effectiveness depends far more on psychosocial process than therapeutic
technique (Norcross, 2011). The mix of safety and stimulation makes good
anthropological sense, in that it recreates the secure playful bond of early
childhood, the evolutionary matrix for human social learning and brain
development. Yet there remain two major reasons why, within a common
process of calm presence and attentiveness, these twin cultural practices of
corrective re-parenting would involve a multiplicity of methods.
The first reason has to do with the complexity of the human mind-brain, a com-
plexity mapped in various ways by all schools of contemplative psychology and
xxxviii Introduction
Table 0.1
Interdisciplinary, Intertraditional Framework (by Joseph Loizzo)
While we have adapted Nalanda gradualism as one strand of the DNA of this
book, partly to offer a template for the Western strand of our emerging field,
our primary aim is to survey the past, present, and future of this convergence
in the most synoptic and inclusive way.
In Part One, Mindfulness and Personal Healing, we survey its recent past,
the already fruitful cross-fertilization of the psychology of insight and the
practice of mindfulness with modern psychodynamic, cognitive, and libera-
tive psychotherapies. Contemplative psychotherapist, educator, and equity
consultant Kamilah Majied explains the vital importance for clinicians of
all backgrounds to continually expose and transcend unconscious coloni-
alist biases and surveys the rich legacy of BIPOC (“global majority”) and
LGBTQ+ pioneers in decolonizing, liberative approaches to psychotherapy.
Contemplative psychotherapist Miles Neale explains the psychology of meta-
cognitive awareness, where the two streams of Buddhist and Western psy-
chology converge. Baptist-Buddhist religion scholar and civil rights activist
Jan Willis explores the resonance between the Buddha’s teachings on social
healing and change and the civil rights movement led by Dr Martin Luther
King. Renowned Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg then presents the psy-
chology of mindfulness from the standpoint of the Theravada tradition of
insight meditation in which she was trained. Integrative neuropsychologist
Rick Hanson next explores the neuroscience of mindful-self-healing and
self-change in light of the revolution of neural plasticity. Next, two eminent
integrative clinicians—Zen psychoanalyst Sieso Paul Cooper and Theravada
psychotherapist Paul Fulton—introduce us to their masterful integration of
mindfulness practice with contemporary psychoanalysis and mainstream psy-
chotherapy. And finally, contemplative psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher
and LGBTQ+ activist Moustafa Abdelrahman shares his wisdom on tailoring
mindfulness-based psychotherapy to the needs of LGBTQ+ individuals and
groups.
In Part Two, Compassion and Social Healing, we are introduced to the wave
of the present, the comparative social psychology of compassion, by the
Tibetan doctor and research psychologist Lobsang Rapgay, who shares his
unique synthesis of the Tibetan practice of cultivating compassion with the
relational analysis of Melanie Klein. Acclaimed author and thought-leader
Lama Rod Owens shares his take on applying the Tibetan Buddhist arts of
compassion training to the challenges of healing—especially for BIPOC indi-
viduals—in a society dominated by the violence of systemic racism. Eminent
I n t r o d u c t i o n xli
The Historical Buddha, Shakyamuni (Robert Beer, Used with Permission)
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to a revolted dependency until the danger of its being again
subjugated by the parent state has entirely passed away. This
extreme test was, in fact, applied in the case of Texas. The
Congress, to whom President Jackson referred the question as
one 'probably leading to war,' and therefore a proper subject
for 'a previous understanding with that body, by whom war can
alone be declared, and by whom all the provisions for
sustaining its perils must be furnished,' left the matter of
the recognition of Texas to the discretion of the Executive,
providing merely for the sending of a diplomatic agent when
the President should be satisfied that the Republic of Texas
had become 'an independent State.' It was so recognized by
President Van Buren, who commissioned a chargé d'affaires
March 7, 1837, after Mexico had abandoned an attempt to
reconquer the Texan territory, and when there was at the time
no bona fide contest going on between the insurgent province
and its former sovereign.
First.
In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities,
bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there,
and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or
unwilling to stop or mitigate. It is no answer to say this is
all in another country, belonging to another nation, and is
therefore none of our business. It is specially our duty, for
it is right at our door.
Second.
We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford them that
protection and indemnity for life and property which no
government there can or will afford, and to that end to
terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal
protection.
Third.
The right to intervene may be justified by the very serious
injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and
by the wanton destruction of property and devastation of the
island.
Fourth,
and which is of the utmost importance. The present condition
of affairs in Cuba is a constant menace to our peace, and
entails upon this Government an enormous expense.
{590}
"The long trial has proved that the object for which Spain has
waged the war cannot be attained. The fire of insurrection may
flame or may smoulder with varying seasons, but it has not
been and it is plain that it cannot be extinguished by present
methods. The only hope of relief and repose from a condition
which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of
Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in
behalf of endangered American interests which give us the
right and the duty to speak and act, the War in Cuba must
stop.
Congressional Record,
April 11, 1898.
First.
That the people of the Island of Cuba are, and of right ought
to be, free and independent, and that the Government of the
United States hereby recognizes the Republic of Cuba as the
true and lawful Government of that island.
"Second.
That it is the duty of the United States to demand, and the
Government of the United States does hereby demand, that the
Government of Spain at once relinquish its authority and
government in the Island of Cuba and withdraw its land and
naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters.
"Third.
That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is,
directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces
of the United States, and to call into the actual service of
the United States the militia of the several States, to such
extent as may be necessary to carry these resolutions into
effect.
"Fourth.
That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or
intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control
over said island except for the pacification thereof, and
asserts its determination when that is accomplished to leave
the government and control of the island to its people."
Congressional Record,
April 16, 1898, page 4386-4387.
{591}
"Resolved, etc.
"First.
That the people of the Island of Cuba are and of right ought
to be free and independent.
"Second.
That it is the duty of the United States to demand, and the
Government of the United States does hereby demand, that the
Government of Spain at once relinquish its authority and
government in the Island of Cuba and withdraw its land and
naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters.
"Third.
That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is,
directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces
of the United States, and to call into the actual service of
the United States the militia of the several States, to such
extent as may be necessary to carry these resolutions into
effect.
"Fourth.
That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or
intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control
over said island, except for the pacification thereof, and
asserts its determination when that is accomplished to leave
the government and control of the island to its people."
Congressional Record,
April 18, 1898, pages 4421-4422, and 4461-4462.
"The position of Spain being thus made known and the demands
of the United States being denied with a complete rupture of
intercourse by the act of Spain, I have been constrained, in
exercise of the power and authority conferred upon me by the
joint resolution aforesaid, to proclaim under date of April
22, 1898, a blockade of certain ports of the north coast of
Cuba, lying between Cardenas and Bahia Honda and of the port
of Cienfuegos on the south coast of Cuba; and further, in
exercise of my constitutional powers and using the authority
conferred upon me by the act of Congress approved April 22,
1898, to issue my proclamation dated April 23, 1898, calling
forth volunteers in order to carry into effect the said
resolution of April 20, 1898. …
Congressional Record,
April 25, 1898, page 4671.
Congressional Record,
April 25, pages 4674 and 4693.
E. Marshall,
The Story of the Rough Riders,
chapter 1
(Copyright, G. W. Dillingham & Co., New York).
"2. The Department does not wish the vessels of your squadron
to be exposed to the fire of the batteries at Havana, Santiago
de Cuba, or other strongly fortified ports in Cuba, unless the
more formidable Spanish vessels should take refuge within
those harbors. Even in this case the Department would suggest
that a rigid blockade and employment of our torpedo boats
might accomplish the desired object, viz, the destruction of
the enemy's vessels, without subjecting unnecessarily our own
men-of-war to the fire of the land batteries. There are two
reasons for this: First. There may be no United States troops
to occupy any captured stronghold, or to protect from riot and
arson, until after the dry season begins, about the first of
October. Second. The lack of docking facilities makes it
particularly desirable that our vessels should not be crippled
before the capture or destruction of Spain's most formidable
vessels.
{593}
The prudent policy here set forth restricted the action of the
fleet to blockading duty so closely, during the early weeks of
the war, that no serious demonstrations against the Spanish
land batteries were made. Admiral Sampson had been urgent for
permission to force the entrance to Havana harbor, before its
defenses were strengthened, expressing perfect confidence that
he could silence the western batteries, and reach a position
from which the city would be at the mercy of his guns; but he
was not allowed to make the attempt. The projected occupation
of Matanzas was not undertaken.