CHAPTER 21

Κεφάλαιον καʹ

 1953-1960
INTEREST in ZEN BUDDHISM

RENEWAL of
LECTIO DIVINA

The integration of mindfulness into Western medicine and psychology can be traced back to the growth of Zen Buddhism in America in the 1950s and 1960s, partly through early writings such as

Zen in the Art of Archery (Herrigel, 1953)

The World of Zen: An East-West Anthology (Ross, 1960)

and The Method of Zen (Herrigel, Hull, & Tausend, 1960)

Henri DeLubac (Exégèse médiévale, 1959) demonstrated that the monastic practice of lectio divina together with fourfold “spiritual” exegesis had undergirded a monastic literary culture that regarded contemplation as the goal of scriptural study,

 1960-1970
MEDITATION and PSYCHOTHERAPY
[EEG STUDIES]

VATICAN II
LITURGICAL RENEWAL

Beginning the 1960s, interest in the use of meditative techniques in psychotherapy began to grow among clinicians, especially psychoanalysts

(e.g., see Boss, 1965; Fingarette, 1963; Suzuki, Fromm, & De Martino, 1960; Watts, 1961). Through the 1960s and the 1970s, there was growing interest within experimental psychology in examining various means of heightening awareness and broadening the boundaries of consciousness, including meditation.

Early electroencephalogram (EEG) studies on meditation found that individuals who meditated showed persistent alpha activity with restful reductions in metabolic rate

(Anand, Chhina, & Singh, 1961; Bagchi & Wenger, 1957; Wallace, 1970),

as well as increases in theta waves, which reflect lower states of arousal associated with sleep (Kasamatsu & Hirai, 1966).

VERNACULAR LITURGY

LITURGY  of the HOURS
WIDELY AVAILABLE and ENCOURAGED for THE LAITY

Beginning in the 1960s the term lectio divina began to appear with increasing frequency in European monastic literature.
By the 1970s and 1980s the term Lectio Divina became more widely used in the English-speaking world, resurfacing once more in monastic constitutions,

 1970-1974
TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Κεφάλαιον καʹ

Beginning in the early 1970s, there was a surge of interest in and research on transcendental meditation, a form of concentrative meditation technique popularized by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Wallace, 1970).

The practice of transcendental meditation was found to be associated with reductions in indicators of physiological arousal such as oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide elimination, and respiratory rate (Benson, Rosner, Marzetta, & Klemchuk, 1974; Wallace, 1970; Wallace, Benson, & Wilson, 1971).

The “yogic flying” claims emerged in the mid-1970s, when Maharishi Mahesh Yogi introduced the TM-Sidhi program (around 1975-76) as an advanced add-on to basic Transcendental Meditation.

A few key details:

• The technique, drawn from sutras in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, was supposed to allow practitioners to achieve levitation and eventually true flight through mastery of consciousness.
• In practice, what's demonstrated (and widely photographed/filmed) is practitioners sitting cross-legged and hopping or bouncing across cushioned mats — often called “hopping” by critics and skeptics, versus “yogic flying” by TM organizations.
• The Maharishi claimed this practice, especially when done in large groups, could produce beneficial effects on the surrounding population and even world peace — this became known as the “Maharishi Effect.”
• TM organizations have held “yogic flying” competitions and demonstrations since the late 1970s, and continue some form of these events today.
• The claims have been a major source of ridicule and skepticism from scientists and journalists, and are frequently cited as evidence of TM's departure from testable, mainstream science into pseudoscientific territory — contributing to the broader credibility concerns

 customaries, and daily calendars.CHRISTIAN ZEN

 In 1971, William Johnston published a book titled “Christian Zen.”  (Harper and Row)

He describes “mindfulness” as important – but it is not  strongly emphasized”

1974 CENTERING PRAYER

Father William Meninger (1974 applied Cloud of Unknowing in ?workshop at Spencer?) based on Cloud of Unknowing. Reflections later published as: The loving search for God : contemplative prayer and the Cloud of unknowing. by: William Meninger,. Publication date: 1994; 

Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating 1978 Finding Grace at the Center, St. Bede’s Press

“MANTRA”  CHRISTIAN MEDITATION

In 1974, John Main left Saint Anselm's Abbey in Washington and returned to Ealing Abbey in London, where he began Christian meditation groups at an old house on the monastery grounds.

 1980-
MINDFULNESS
 

MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) 1982

Application of mindfulness meditation as a form of behavioral intervention for clinical problems began with the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, which explored the use of mindfulness meditation in treating patients with chronic pain (Kabat-Zinn, 1982), now known popularly as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.

Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002),

DBT Dialectical Behavior Therapy  (1993) ; ACT Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (1999)

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993a) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999). In this review, both meditation-oriented interventions (i.e., MBSR and MBCT), as well as interventions that teach mindfulness using less meditation-oriented techniques (i.e., DBT and ACT), are considered as a family of “mindfulness-oriented interventions”, and thus are of empirical interest.

MBCT Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy 2002

Since the establishment of MBSR, several other interventions have also been developed using mindfulness-related principles and practices, including Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT;

2015
SECOND-GENERATION MINDFULNESS

EMPHASIS on BUDDHIST ORIGINS and PRACTICE

William Van Gordon, Edo Shonin, and Mark Griffiths formally introduced the concept in a 2015 publication

The Shift: While first-generation programs (like Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction developed in the late 1970s) focused primarily on secularized, attention-based awareness, second-generation mindfulness re-anchored the practice within its broader traditional Buddhist contemplative framework.
SG-MBIs (Second Generation - Mindfulness-Based Interventions)integrateethical, compassion-oriented (e.g., loving-kindness), and wisdom-based dimensions requiring longer training and citations from Buddhist doctrine