Through the years there have been a number of postings here on Shinzen Young's Break Through Pain, in which he introduces meditative techniques for people in chronic pain, much like Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program.
I was referred to an MBSR teacher in 2002, a year into this, and "graduated" into Shinzen's fold a few months later. The guy is considered to be perhaps the best mediation teacher in the U.S., having gone to Japan in the 1960s as a graduate student in Asian Languages and the nice Jewish kid from LA was subsequently ordained as a Buddhist monk, going onto to be one of a handful of people who has been fully trained (in Asia) in each of the three major schools of Buddhism.
But what really sets him apart is that he is totally into post-graduate mathematics and neuroscience, on account of which he sees the great hope of the future in the melding of the deep Asian understanding of "I am-ness" (the combination of our subjective sense of self interplaying with an objective world) and the most advanced levels of neuroscience.
And in this regard, the relief of suffering from chronic pain has had a near visceral centrality for many years. And I have benefitted greatly from that over quite a number of retreats since March of 2003, along with the opportunity to sit regularly with a many people who have become in some cases very close friends. Literally, as CRPS brought my professional life to an end, another one opened for me. And I don’t even have to leave the house: once a month Shinzen puts on a total of five programs over the course of the weekend, in which people call in to a conference call center for 2 to 4 hour long sessions of guided meditation and Q&A sessions, with people participating from as far away as Northern Finland, Cypress, Israel and Hong-Kong all in real time.
I have learned to experience pain, sadness, sight, sound, joy, you name it, as just sensation, without (when I’m lucky) attachment or aversion. And so have avoided (per my psychologist) any real depression even as my body starts to fall apart, as we all do in the end. And all - at least in my case - without any real aspect of what might be called “faith.” Just taking the pieces of any particular situation apart, until they are down to manageable bite sized pieces. With the highest calling being in taking in as much physical and emotional pain – both of my own and others – digesting, processing and returning it to self and world as love and compassion.
In any event, for a while now I’ve wonder how I might introduce personally introduce Shinzen to more people this group. And then last week, it fell into my lap. Google invited him onto its campus a few weeks ago to deliver one in its series of TechTalks, which was promptly posted on YouTube in flaming HD as only the likes of Google can do. The 1:08 talk is a little “techy” at times, after all he’s speaking at Google, but
at about the 34 minute mark he makes it as real in terms of chronic pain as you could ever imagine.
Perhaps the only term that’s important to know is “orthogonal” which refers, in the simplest terms to when two or more intersecting lines (axis) are perpendicular to each other, such that any position in a 2-demensional spaces can be defined by where it lines up against the 2 perpendicular axis, and in a 3-dimensional space against the 3 perpendicular axis, and so on.
So with no further ado, Shinzen Young on TechTalks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XCWP4pODbs
I would be curious as to comments anyone might have after viewing the talk.
Mike