Mindfulness

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01356-z

ORTHOGONAL ROTATION IN CONSCIOUSNESS

“I Read the News Today, Oh Boy”

Jon Kabat-Zinn 1

# Jon Kabat-Zinn 2020

This chapter was originally written almost twenty years ago. to what and how they responded. There was such a recounting
Today (March 16, 2020), we find ourselves in the midst of a yesterday. There will be another one tomorrow. And none of
global pandemic, underscoring both our universal vulnerabil- it, mind you, is exactly what happened. They are stories about
ity and our deep interconnectedness. Wherever you are, I wish what happened, constrained by all sorts of parameters, some
for you and your family and community and for our deeply of which we know, some of which we may have no inkling of,
interconnected world that this terrible occasion helps us to much of it “spun” one way or another by pundits and by
wake up to the need for selfless wisdom and kindness and political protagonists aiming to achieve or prevent one effect
taking care of all that is most important for our survival and or another. The boundary between fact and opinion is becom-
wellbeing, which clearly entails ensuring the wellbeing of all. ing blurrier and blurrier, and the need for clarity and discern-
The invitation of this moment is to not lose our minds and ment in taking it in more and more essential—if we choose to
hearts when we most need them. The cultivation of mindful- take it in at all, given its overall toxicity. In fact, there are so
ness/heartfulness as our essential interface with everything many mutually exclusive narratives that pass for “the news”
that arises inwardly and outwardly in experience may very that we are forced to live in bubbles of relative misinformation
well be the key to our wellbeing and the wellbeing of the body and slant, and it is often merely a choice between what bubble
politic and our world going forward. May all be safe and free you want to be affiliated with and mesmerized by, although
from inner and outer harm. some bubbles seem to care at least in principle much more
deeply for the First Amendment and some modicum of accu-
* racy and veracity than others. One day we witness enforced
separation of children from their families in the land of the free
I flip on the TV news, or pick up a newspaper and start and the home of the brave. Unconscionable, yet it became a
reading, or these days, on occasion check it on my phone. reality. We do that. But the fact is that throughout our history,
What a perplexing tangle of different forces at play in the horrible things have been done and condoned by our govern-
world. The mind and the heart are instantly bombarded with ment, including by the Supreme Court. Our history is not
a cacophony of suffering and endless analyses and opinions exactly the triumphalist narrative we were fed in our history
about it taking a multiplicity of forms and perspectives. How books in school. Regular people have always spoken out
are we, who are not experts in international affairs or politics against injustice in protest, often at great risk to themselves.
or economics or social policy or criminal justice, or even of But that history has not been taught in our schools until rela-
history, to grasp the enormity and the minutiae of what is tively recently.1
actually going on and the ultimate significance of any of it? We can glean a lot by taking in the news, however it comes
It feels like a huge cascading torrent, this day’s recounting of to us, through the lens of our own discernment and wisdom.
what happened, who said what, who did what, who knew Whether we know it or not, we are continually building our
what when and who didn’t, who went where, who responded own images and opinions of the world and what is going on
out of this never-ending stream of partial information to which
Excerpted from Mindfulness for All: The Wisdom to Transform the World we can easily become addicted, even as we are perhaps be-
by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Copyright © 2019 Jon Kabat-Zinn. Published by coming exasperated and outraged by particular emergences,
Hachette Books. All Rights Reserved

* Jon Kabat-Zinn 1
* See, for instance, H. Zinn and A. Arnove, Voices of a People’s History of
[email protected] the USA:10th Anniversary Edition, Seven Stories Press, New York, 2004,
2009. Also, the American history curricula provided on the Zinn Education
1
Worcester, MA, USA Project (ZEP) website: https://www.zinnedproject.org.
 Mindfulness

the particulars depending, of course, on who you are and what The headlines of today will be old news tomorrow. Yet we
you care about or are even open to hearing or cannot escape are participants in what becomes history on whatever day we
admitting. Our eyes flitting over the newspaper or down the choose to sample it. Only it isn’t called history. It is called being
screen in your hand fill the mind with random details as much alive. And it is unfolding in this era at an increasingly rapid rate,
as with coherent stories or analysis, out of which grow our to the point of being undigestible and unfathomable.
own thoughts, reactive emotions, and whatever opinions we And although it often seems remote and impersonal and
form, all of which tend to proliferate endlessly. Watching the gigantic in scope, we can nevertheless have a small hand in
news on TVor listening to it on the radio does much the same. shaping the news by how we “consume” it, by how we hold it
After a while, however we take it in, it becomes a steady diet, and hold ourselves, especially if we choose to respond to it
and a poor one. For most of the news is a recounting of dukkha and take an action of some kind, even in the tiniest ways, on
in its infinite forms. There is precious little to lift the spirits. the basis of our core human values. Remember (Book 2:
Actually, there is a great deal to lift the spirits, but you have Falling Awake, Lovingkindness Meditation): when one mind
to search it out and listen carefully for it. changes, the entire lattice structure of the universe changes in
The news is different every day, yet there is a certain same- a small way. Small? Yes. Insignificant? Hardly. The seemingly
ness to it over days, weeks, months, and even years. .. it’s just “little” isn’t necessarily so little or insignificant. It can be
the news. In total, it is hard to know what to make of it, how to huge. The downstream consequences can be unpredictably
hold it, and how to respond to it. It is so graphic, and at the consequential. In this era, one person with a smart phone
same time, so abstract and impersonal—at least, until it be- can film an encounter that will be seen and explode on social
comes horribly personal. It is hard to know what to think, what networks around the world. It is a new way of taking a stand.
is actually happening, and whose stories to believe. At least I Of bearing witness. It becomes a political act to participate in
find it hard. Very hard. Beyond the bare bones facts—and this way, to be a node in the network of unfolding events, a
even those are usually grossly and even grotesquely contested news network of one with a potentially vast reach. It is well
in this and most likely every era—perhaps it is impossible. known from the sciences of chaos and complexity that in any
What is more, on one level or another, subtle or not so complex, dynamical, non-linear system such as the weather,
subtle, the endless stream of news we are immersed in, includ- or the activity of human beings, or the process of thought
ing in many instances outright hacking from various sources itself, even the tiniest shift or perturbance can result in changes
intent on sowing misinformation to tilt and disrupt the social of enormous magnitude, sometimes occurring at surprisingly
order, stimulates thinking in us, lots of thinking. We need to great distances from the originating event. Where it concerns
become much more mindful of that fact and its unrecognized the weather, and now even more generally, this principle is
effects on our emotions and our views and tacit assumptions. known as the “butterfly effect” because it is said that the flap
Through cultivating mindfulness, we can readily see that our of a butterfly’s wings in China can trigger storm systems days
thinking, even at its best, is only one of a multiplicity of later in New England or in other far-flung places. By the same
human intelligences (including somatic, emotional, cognitive, token, as we have seen in the earlier books in this series, tiny
intuitive, interpersonal, societal) and that it is best held in but profound shifts in your own body or mind can, over time,
awareness and recognized as thinking rather than being per- lead to major healing. This can happen in the body politic as
ceived as actual fact. In awareness, we can catch ourselves well. The fate of humanity and everything we hold dear may
forming opinions, sometimes very strong opinions, coupled very well hang in the balance. We see signs of this healing
with strong emotions, when taking in the news we are im- unfolding every day.
mersed in. We can recognize what is happening in that very
moment or soon after. This can be a way to intentionally But, you might ask, how can we possibly relate to the news
maintain both clarity and equanimity in the face of the mindfully and act responsibly in the face of the enormity of it all
never-ending onslaught, especially in those moments when and the fire-hose pace at which it comes to us? We are perpet-
we are faced with major crises of conscience and morality that ually deluged by information, mis-information, partial informa-
can shake us to our very foundation, like when children and tion, slanted information, conflicting information, and endless
their teachers are killed in school shootings, an unimaginable opinions and opining on all sides of all issues, some of it ap-
event that has become heartrendingly common, and diagnostic parently coming from bots, that is, computer programs—not
of something deeply amiss in our society. even humans, although programmed by them, one sign of the
On a daily basis, the news stream is likely to stimulate huge increasing invasiveness of algorithms and big data in our lives.
anxiety and insecurity in us, as well as anger and resentment. The Viewed through a slightly different lens, we might say
body contracts with tension that is not easy to release on such a that, whatever news sources we avail ourselves of, we are
steady diet. What is more, this surging sea we are immersed in exposed to what often amounts to a very narrow band of
can also stimulate terminal apathy, or cynicism, or feeling views and perspectives. If we doubt that, all we need to do
overwhelmed, or impotent, and depressed. Have you noticed? is take a look at the less-than-mainstream press, or foreign
Mindfulness

press reports, in the latter case, looking in particular at how control over—until, as in South Africa and countless other
other nations perceive us and the events and views we are places, they all of a sudden surprise the world and some-
embroiled in. how manage to bring about what seemed impossible the
Talk about a complex system! How are we to relate to moment before, without resorting to violence.2 And there
and understand this never-ending stream of different narra- are also those of us, the vast majority, I would say, in this
tives reporting on events unfolding near and far, including country who perhaps have some sense of empowerment in
“events” that may never have actually happened? And how small ways (which are hugely important all the same) and
are we to relate to the fact that, to some degree, this news are just trying to make it through the day and through our
stream affects us deeply, even if we ignore most of it? It lives with a modicum of stability and decency, doing our
saturates the atmosphere, the landscape and the mindscape. work and taking care of our families, and trying to know
It can exhaust us. It can deaden us. It can gradually erode what is happening and what is important to know in this
our dignity, our empathy, and our integrity, whether we dizzying era of rapid change on all fronts, genuinely caring
know it or not, and whether we like it or not. One way to about the health of the world and feeling its suffering. At
mindfully guard against this might be to perceive larger the same time, we are feeling, sensing, and knowing that
patterns that seem to repeat endlessly within the stream, our lives are being deeply affected and challenged by what
rather than just getting mesmerized by the foam and the is going on in the world politically, economically, psycho-
spray of the individual details, however absorbing, mad- logically, environmentally, and spiritually because we are
dening, or frightening they may be. immersed in it, because we are of it, because it is not sep-
We might ask, for instance, what within this endless news arate from us. To “suffer,” from the Latin sufferre, means to
stream represents and documents the vibrant health of our carry, to bear, and we are certainly carrying the world with-
nation or the world? What is right with us rather than merely in us and on our shoulders to some degree. And so, we
wrong with us? We know that the very fact of its being avail- suffer. And at times, it is very hard to bear.
able to us is huge, compared to societies where freedom of the How do we balance our experience of the outer world—
press is not a constitutionally enshrined and presumably sa- when it is mediated not only directly through the senses, but to
cred principle, even when it is under widespread and even such a huge degree indirectly through the news and the large
organized assault. And in parallel, we would also have to political, economic, social, and above all, technological devel-
ask ourselves: How much of what comes to us as news doc- opments that influence and shape our lives—with our interior
uments the disease of our nation and world? And how much of world, with the inner landscape, so intimately interfaced with the
it actually masks the underlying dis-ease, and papers over its outer as to not really be separate from it? Should we minimize
symptoms? our exposure to the outer, even though it affects our lives wheth-
It is anybody’s guess, not that there aren’t endless opin- er we attend to it or not? Should we pay more attention? Should
ions. Obviously, there is no overall “right view,” no all- we pay attention differently? These are the challenges of living
knowing one view, no one way to see, know, or understand in the world nowadays and not altogether renouncing the
it all, just as there is no one way to view and be in relation- “worldly life,” as monastics do in some traditions.
ship to the interior landscape of our own lives, the But renouncing it on occasion, taking a break from all the
sensescapes, the mindscape, the bodyscape that we ex- news periodically, can be tremendously refreshing. Some call
plored directly through our first-hand experiences of these it a “news fast.” Dr. Andrew Weil, a pioneer of Integrative
domains in the mindfulness practices described in Book 2, Medicine at the University of Arizona School of Medicine,
and that, hopefully, you are continuing to cultivate in your recommends it to his patients. My experience of it is that, after
own life in a disciplined way, however hard that may be at coming back from a ten-day meditation retreat, or from
certain moments. For all of our experiences, inward and camping in the wilderness, nothing has changed, even if big
outward, are a reflection of the complexity and dynamism events have happened. Years ago, I missed the whole invasion
of the human enterprise, and ultimately the products of of Afghanistan when I went on a six-week retreat. I could
human minds and human hearts in action and all-too-often, argue that, in one way, I didn’t miss a thing. Think in terms
sadly, in conflict, including with ourselves. of centuries, and you may get my meaning better.
Within the vast diversity of goings on, at any given time
there are always those, as a rule a small minority, who are
willing to brazenly and flagrantly bend, break, or attempt to 2
Although the legacy of Nelson Mandela has fallen far short of the original
rewrite the laws for their own personal or collective gain. optimism in the wake of the remarkable peaceful end of apartheid in 1994.
This has never not been a current within politics every- One-quarter of South Africans live in extreme poverty and the governing ANC
where. Then there are all those who are maximally is riddled through with corruption. See https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/
opinionista/2018-07-18-mandelas-legacy-can-heal-the-festering-wound-of-
disenfranchised, disempowered, who appear to be hope- the-past/; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/world/africa/south-africa-
lessly at the mercy of forces they have no direct say in or anc-killings.html.
 Mindfulness

As the world keeps getting smaller and ever more conten- to what is, and standing in awareness, taking a moral stand,
tious, a line from the eighteenth-century Japanese hermit poet an ethical stand, aligning oneself with one’s principles,
Ryokan keeps resurfacing in my mind: “No news of the affairs embodying one’s truth, without forcing anything to be dif-
of men.” How lovely to have no news of the affairs of men for ferent, but without recoiling from the witnessing, even in
a while. How freeing. Whatever the affairs of state and the the face of overwhelming physical force, or social coer-
news of Ryokan’s day, no one knows it now, and few except cion, and perhaps one’s own fears as well.
some historians of Japan in that particular era would even care. Just bearing witness changes everything. Gandhi knew that.
But Ryokan, who lived as a hermit, begged for his food in the Martin Luther King knew that. Joan of Arc knew that. All three
towns, and played with the village children to the scorn and moved mountains with their conviction, and all three paid for it
ridicule of the elders, and made no attempt to do anything with their lives, which only served to move the mountains even
memorable that would go down in history, is remembered further. They weren’t “chasing after so many things.” But they
and revered around the world centuries later for his poetry did stand for and behind what they knew one hundred percent.
and wisdom. Here is his poem in full: And they knew it from the heart at least as much as from their
heads. And so have countless others, often nameless, who have
shaped and shifted history over the centuries.
My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest; You don’t necessarily have to surrender your life to bear
Every year the green ivy grows longer. witness to injustice and suffering and speak truth to power.
No news of the affairs of men, And just as they were no doubt flawed individuals in some
Only the occasional song of a woodcutter. ways, being human, you too don’t have to be perfect, whatever
The sun shines and I mend my robe. that might mean, to take an ethical stance and speak your truth
When the moon comes out, I read Buddhist poems. in the face of injustice and the power behind it. Being human
I have nothing to report my friends. will suffice. Of course, integrity and honesty are axiomatic here
If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so if we are to be true to ourselves and to the call of the circum-
many things. stances we find ourselves in in any moment. The more bearing
witness while dwelling in openhearted awareness becomes a
To stop chasing after so many things . . . that may be advice way of life for more and more of us, the more the world will
worth taking to heart in some way or other. In exactly what shift— because the world itself is none other than us. But it is
fashion would be for each of us to decide for ourselves, de- sometimes, more often than not, a long, slow process, the work
pending on who we are and what we most love, and how well of generations. And yet, at times, a tipping point is reached that
we know ourselves. could not be predicted even one moment before. And then
Recall (see Book 1, Part 1) Rumi’s lines from nine hundred things shift, rotate, go orthogonal, and very quickly.
years ago: Still, we cannot rely on that happening in the short run. It
requires great patience and forbearance to not turn away from
The news we hear is full of grief for that future, the suffering of the world, and yet not be overwhelmed by the
but the real news inside here enormity of it either, or destroyed by it. It requires great pa-
is there’s no news at all. tience and forbearance not to think we can magically fix it all
or get it all right just by throwing money at what we see as a
And William Carlos Williams’s poignant admonition: problem, perhaps trying to buy influence or allegiance, as is so
much the case in politics, or impose our own values on others.
Clarity and peace do not come easily to us as individuals, even
It is difficult less so as a society. In one way, we need to work at continually
to get the news from poems cultivating those qualities of mind and attention that actually
yet men die miserably every day nurture clarity and peace, selflessness and kindness, even
for lack though, seen another way, they are part of us and accessible
of what is found there. to us in their fullness even now, and actually, only now. At the
same time, we need to recognize our own impulses to perhaps
The French have a saying: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la fall into self-righteousness, arrogance, aggression, othering,
même chose.” The more things change, the more they re- dominance, or indifference, so as not to be caught by them
main the same. There is something to it. And yet, when we and, ironically, blindside ourselves.
bring awareness to the present moment, in any moment, What is true for the inner world is true in the outer world.
that moment is clearly already different by virtue of that Peace, or a change of heart or of view or values, according to
very gesture of ours. Simply bearing witness changes the poet-farmer Wendell Berry, is a practice. As he put it, “A
everything. It is the power of naming what is, giving voice change of heart or of values without a practice is only another
Mindfulness

pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life.” But it example. A sincere outlook and motivation do not be-
is a practice that we will have to develop for ourselves, as there long exclusively to the sphere of religion; they can be
are no models for how to do it. There is also no single one right generated by anyone simply by having genuine concern
way to do it, just as there is no one right way to meditate, or to for others, for one’s community, for the poor and the
love. But trusting our own intelligence, and our capacity to read needy. In short, they arise from taking a deep interest
between the lines and not be taken in by appeals to those fun- in and being concerned about the welfare of the larger
damentalist mind states we can so easily fall prey to, namely community, that is, the welfare of others. Actions
only thinking to maximize our own gain or pleasure (we have resulting from this kind of attitude and motivation will
been calling this “greed”), falling into aversion for what and go down in history as good, beneficial, and a service to
who we don’t like or don’t want or respect (we have been humanity. Today, when we read of such acts from
calling this “hatred”), and forgetting who and what we are in history, although the events are in the past and have
our deepest nature, and who and what others are, or for that become only memories, we still feel happy and
matter, what our country is (we have been calling this “delu- comforted because of them. We recall with a deep
sion,” “ignorance,” or “unawareness”), will allow us to make an sense of admiration that this or that person did a great
important difference, a critical difference, however small our and noble work. We can also see a few examples of such
own little life and energy field may seem in relationship to the greatness in our own generation.
larger forces affecting the world. And as we open our hearts
individually through this kind of inner cultivation, through
practice, we can become examples for each other and inspire On the other hand, our history also abounds with stories
each other, thus amplifying our presence and our potentially of individuals perpetrating the most destructive and
transformative and healing influence within whatever domains harmful acts: killing and torturing other people, bringing
of activity we find ourselves drawn to. misery and untold suffering to large numbers of human
Things change, and it is not always la même chose, the same beings. These incidents can be seen to reflect the darker
old story. Especially if you intend to change the story by waking side of our common human heritage. Such events occur
up and staying awake, and keeping in mind what is most im- only when there is hatred, anger, jealousy, and unbound-
portant, and sharing your beauty with others, and recognizing ed greed. World history is simply the collective record of
and sharing in theirs, however different it may seem to be from the effects of the negative and positive thoughts of hu-
yours, however you choose to pursue it within your comfort man beings. This, I think, is quite clear. By reflecting on
zone, and perhaps well beyond your comfort zone too at times. history, we can see that if we want to have a better and
Acts of integrity and goodness inspire such in others. There are happier future, we must examine our mindset now and
any number of fundamentally benevolent acts and humane and reflect on the way of life that this mindset will bring
important projects occurring in little and big ways everywhere in about in the future. The pervasive power of these nega-
the world. Each offering, however small, serves as a mirror as tive attitudes cannot be overstated.
well as a beacon, reflecting its own and other kindred offerings
of kindness and wisdom and light in all directions. Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
The Compassionate Life

If we look at human history, we will find that a good

heart has been the key in achieving what the world
regards as great accomplishments: in the fields of civil Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to juris-
dictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
rights, social work, political liberation, and religion, for