In the United States we have had the benefit of extraordinary Eastern teachers coming west to teach us their native practices. But without a doubt, those who have had the greatest impact translating classical Eastern practices for Westerners, without dumbing them down, have been our own Western teachers. Many of them are Americans who were drawn to Asia fresh out of college in search of meaning and who came home to share what they learned with the rest of us.
From the Theravada tradition Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg have had a remarkable impact through their organizations the Insight Meditation Society and the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Around the same time that Jack, Sharon and Joseph were studying in Asia, Alan Wallace with the Santa Barbara Institute, Ken McLeod with Unfettered Mind, and Robert Thurman from Columbia University were sitting formidable three year retreats with Tibetan teachers to learn Tibetan practice from the inside-out. In the 1960s, Yvonne Rand stayed closer to home, in Northern California, where she was a disciple of Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi who lived here at the time. Other American teachers followed similar paths at a similar time, but these are the ones who have most influenced me. They are just a few of the dedicated American teachers who have translated classical practice to make it more accessible in the West and more obviously relevant to our modern, everyday lives.
But for those of us who teach secular mindfulness practice there is one teacher who has influenced absolutely everyone. Jon Kabat-Zinn. Touched by the same practices and many of the same Adepts as the American Buddhist teachers, Jon approached the translation issue via a different route. He developed a secular adaptation of classical Buddhist mindfulness practice popularly known as MBSR and integrated it into the medical establishment. Or some might say he infiltrated the medical establishment using MBSR.
Around thirty years ago, while a scientist working at the University of Massachusetts, Jon Kabat-Zinn used the practice of mindful awareness to develop a "mindfulness-based" stress-reduction program for adults. In broad terms, he taught adults to hold off for a short while from reacting to or even analyzing a stressful situation in order to pay attention in a particular way. And it worked. This learned skill allowed those who practiced MBSR to better control their reactive emotions, and therefore respond, when they were ready, in a more thoughtful, calm, reasonable way. Here's what the UMASS website has to say about its Stress Reduction Clinic, the oldest and largest academic medical center-based stress reduction program in the world:
The [UMASS] Stress Reduction Clinic was founded in 1979 by Dr. Kabat-Zinn. Since its inception, more than 18,000 people have completed the eight-week MBSR program. The MBSR stress reduction program continues to expand its influence worldwide with hundreds of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) clinics and freestanding programs attracting tens of thousands of people on five continents.
On October 6 here in Los Angeles, Dr. Kabat-Zinn will kick-off National Breast Cancer Awareness month with a public talk at UCLA's Royce Hall. The organizers - Susan G. Komen's Race for the Cure and The Lynn Lectures - have priced this talk so that it is affordable to everyone. With tickets ranging from $10-$100 those of us in and around LA will have the opportunity to hear Jon Kabat-Zinn speak from his direct, personal experience about the healing power of mindfulness in a talk entitled "Letting Everything Become Your Teacher."
