Mind Your Health: Using Mindfulness to Heal Your Body

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Los Angeles, CA (USA) -- Scientist and meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn includes in his pages of “Full Catastrophe Living” a horrifying story that speaks powerfully about the mind-body connection.

When renowned cardiologist Bernard Lown was in training to become a physician, he had in his clinic a patient, “Mrs. S.,” who had a narrowing of one of the valves on the right side of her heart, the tricuspid valve. She was in mild congestive heart failure; however, she functioned well enough to maintain her job as a librarian and do household chores.

She would come to the weekly cardiac clinic run by Dr. S. A. Levine, a well-respected professor of cardiology at the Harvard Medical School and at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, to receive digitalis and injections of a mercurial diuretic. One week Dr. Levine greeted Mrs. S. warmly, as he usually did — the two had an affable relationship — and then he turned to the entourage of visiting physicians and said, “This woman has TS.” With those words he abruptly left.

Dr. Lown describes what happened after that:

No sooner was Dr. Levine out of the door than Mrs. S.’s demeanor abruptly changed. She appeared anxious and frightened and was now breathing rapidly, clearly hyperventilating. Her skin was drenched with perspiration, and her pulse accelerated to more than 150 a minute. In reexamining her, I found it astonishing that the lungs, which a few minutes earlier had been quite clear, now had moist crackles… I questioned Mrs. S. as to the reasons for her sudden upset. Her response was that Dr. Levine had said that she had TS, which she knew meant “terminal situation.” I was initially amused at this misinterpretation of the medical acronym for “tricuspid stenosis.” My amusement, however, rapidly yielded to apprehension, as my words failed to reassure and as her congestion continued to worsen. Shortly thereafter she was in massive pulmonary edema. Heroic measures did not reverse the frothing congestion. I tried to reach Dr. Levine, but he was nowhere to be located. Later that same day she died from intractable heart failure.

The story is as tragic as it is inspiring: If this woman’s thoughts could induce congestive heart failure, then they also hold incredible healing powers.

In his book, Kabat-Zinn discusses a hundred or so scientific studies that suggest that our thoughts, emotions, and life experiences can very definitely influence our health. The practice of mindfulness, in particular - moment-to-moment awareness and cultivating an attitude of non-striving and non-doing - can bolster our immune system, determine which genes in our chromosomes are turned on, lower blood pressure, regulate emotions under stress, reduce pain, increase our stamina, and make us much more fun to be around.

For example, researchers at the University of Wisconsin looked at the effects of an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction course (MBSR) founded by Kabat-Zinn 35 years ago. The course was delivered in a corporate setting during working hours with healthy, but stressed-out employees.

The researchers found that brain scans of those that participated in the course showed activity suggesting they were handling negative emotions like anxiety and frustration more effectively (or more emotionally intelligently) than the group that was on the waiting list for the course. There was right-sided to left-sided movement within the prefrontal cerebral cortex that is involved in the expression of emotions.

The study also found that the people who completed the eight-week training in mindfulness showed a significantly stronger antibody response in their immune system after given a flu vaccine (at the end of the eight weeks of training) than did those who were on the waiting list.

Another study conducted at UCLA and Carnegie Mellon University showed that participating in an MBSR program reduced expression of genes related to inflammation, measured in immune cells sampled from blood draws. The mindfulness training also lowered C-reactive proteins in participants, which is an indication of inflammation - a core element of many diseases.

Given that on any given day, I am battling symptoms of one or more of five health conditions - bipolar disorder, Raynaud’s phenomenon, thyroid disease, pituitary tumor, and aortic-valve regurgitation - I thought I should enroll in Kabat-Zinn’s eight-week course offered at our local hospital (taught by a trained MBSR instructor). So every Friday I show up for Getting-Life-Under-Control school, where I’m taught coping skills geared for those of us with colorful childhoods and blessed with fragile mental-health genes, or for anyone who wants to look as calm as the Dalai Lama.

The twelve of us in this course are taught things like how to transform an automatic or habitual stress reaction to a mindfulness-mediated stress response, how to disengage from the emotional, alarm reaction of our automatic nervous system and be able to see with a perspective that breeds calm. The class consists of many sessions of formal meditation, where we choose an anchor for our thoughts - our breath, or sound, or an emotion - and return to that anchor over and over, learning to gently let go of any thought or thought pattern outside the present moment, such as judging, planning, or analyzing.

My illnesses haven’t disappeared. I am far from being cured. However, I’m beginning to heal. Kabat-Zinn makes that important distinction in his book.

He acknowledges that “there are few outright cures for chronic diseases or for stress-related disorders,” however, “it is possible for us to heal ourselves — to learn to live with and work with conditions that present themselves in the present moment. Healing implies the possibility that we can relate differently to illness, disability, even death, as we learn to see with eyes of wholeness.”

At the very least, I think I am communicating with my body well enough these days that if a doctor told me I had TS and walked away, I would blame his rudeness on an empty stomach, say something impolite, and then go on to think about something else.

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Originally published on Sanity Break on Everyday Health.

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Mindfulness: A Secularized Buddhist Practice in the West

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Richmond BC, (CANADA) -- Mindfulness is a technique that is integral to the Teachings of the Buddha. It is the seventh element of the Noble Eightfold Path which encapsulates the principal teachings of the Buddha.Mindfulness or ‘sati’ is a whole-body-and-mind awareness of the present moment. It is awareness of body, feelings, thoughts and phenomena that affect the body and mind.

It is the detached observation of what is happening within us and around us in the present moment. Being fully mindful means being fully attentive to everything as-it-is, not reacting to or generating thoughts on what one experiences at the moment. In the practice of mindfulness the mind is trained to remain in the present, open, quiet, and alert, focused on the present moment and to accept one’s thoughts and responses without judgement.

All judgments and interpretations of feelings and thoughts are overlooked or just registered and dropped. To be mindful is to be fully present, not lost in daydreams, anticipation, indulgences, or worry. It is a mental mode of being engaged in the present moment without evaluating or emotionally reacting to it.

Regular mindfulness training helps to enhance and strengthen the brains ability to pay attention. As with any skill, regular practice of mindfulness enhances the skill so that it arises naturally and spontaneously.

Mindfulness involves self-discovery and becoming more compassionate to self and then ultimately towards others. Mindful living leads to a more fulfilling and grounded life, being able to understand oneself and one’s environment without judgement.

It is about waking up to your life and enhancing mental and emotional resilience. Mindfulness helps to create harmony in heart and mind and therefore in the world around you as well. Mindfulness is becoming a lifestyle among some sections of the Western society. It has become an element in their daily routine bringing them benefits similar to those of physical exercise and sound relaxation.

In a society characterized by unpleasant and unhealthy effects of excessive competition, impatience and stress, mindfulness practice makes people recognize the need to slow down and pay attention. Among many people, As a remedy to an uneasy, unbalanced, troubled, discontented, distressed and unhappy mind characterized by negative mood and stress, mindfulness exercises have been found to be of much help to develop a happier, healthier and fulfilling life. Mindfulness is the most direct way to overcome sorrow and lamentation, end pain and anxiety, and realize the highest form of inner happiness. 

Mindfulness practice has been subject to much research in several disciplines in recent years and publications on mindfulness has proliferated in the Western world. The efficacy of mindfulness is supported by a growing body of scientific research. Applied research has shown that mindfulness has a positive impact on people’s health and wellbeing. 

In particular it has a positive impact on the human brain. Studies have shown that it can alter brain patterns and behavior. Hospitals and community centres have started to offer courses on Mindfulness practices. Mindfulness entered the medical mainstream in the 1970s.

Today, Mindfulness is taught and practiced in many prominent hospitals in the USA, Canada several other Western countries. Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction” practice (MBSR) developed by the Medical School of the University of Massachusetts in USA has been used successfully to treat a wide variety of illnesses.

Mindfulness exercises have helped alleviate suffering from psychological illnesses such as anxiety, panic disorders and phobias. They have become clinically proven methods for alleviating stress and chronic pain. An increasing number of Medical Centres worldwide now offer mindfulness based therapies for mood and other disorders.

Many studies have revealed the effectiveness of  mindfulness practices in reducing psychological stress. They have led to improvements in both mental and physical health, alleviating depression, anxiety, loneliness and chronic pain.  

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the practice of mindfulness as part of psychotherapy. Researchers are using brain imaging techniques to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms by which mindfulness practices work. Some psychotherapists find that mindfulness meditation as an adjunct to counseling and other treatments can help troubled people learn to release negative emotions and thought habits.

After receiving mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, patients report noticing that negative thoughts lose their power over time. Mindfulness techniques were used to help children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder to concentrate, and for soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder recover and now for professionals of various fields as a technique for developing focus, clarity and compassion. Research has shown that Mindfulness practice can be effective in managing depression. It can be as effective as antidepressants in treating depression.

Its ability to improve performance is one of the primary reasons for greater attention on Mindfulness practice in the West. Professionals and those of the corporate culture, but also institutions, companies, and nations are adopting ‘mindful’ practices and associated ‘compassion’ and listening to others as management practices to an increasing extent. 

Among some of these institutions are Google, the USA Military, especially the US Marine Corps, prisons, Social services work, LinkedIn networking site. In the US military mindfulness training includes ‘brain calming’ exercises to improve performance. Snipers benefit from mindfulness training.

It enhances attention, concentration and aim. It is gaining ground as a useful practice  among prominent sports personnel including Olympic athletes and movie stars. Students who want to boost their performance and also parents, teachers or caregivers wishing to be more attentive to others’ needs may  all find mindfulness training highly useful.

Buddhist Ethical Principles underlying Mindfulness Practice

Although lectures and public talks and discussions, publications, workshops, forums, seminars, courses, retreats and other forms of intense interactions on the subject of Mindfulness practises are conducted in the West, it is rarely that these Mindfulness Trainers and Experts” in the West, acknowledge the fact that they have learned these wholesome  practices from Buddhism.

One reason may be the fact that these practices may not be of much appeal to the ordinary Westerner, if religion” or a faith tradition is associated with it.  Most Westerners perceive erroneously that Buddhism is a religion or a belief system in the conventional sense.  The trend among modern day Westerner  is to distance themselves from religion which some perceive to be a corrupt outmoded and outdated institution which is generally corrupt and has a divisive effect on society.

In this light, the Buddhist Bhikkhu communities of the different Buddhist traditions should be in the forefront highlighting what the Buddha Dhamma or the teachings of the Buddha is all about, how it differs from the conventional theistic faith traditions and the overall spiritual benefits that could be attained through Buddhist practices such as Mindfulness as propagated in Buddhist teachings.

It is a pity that our Buddhist Bhikkhus who are found in abundance in the Western world are not actively involved in this popular trend in the West, highlighting the spiritual aspect of Mindfulness practice, and showing that spirituality associated with Mindfulness practice involves no belief system but is focused on inner transformation leading to calm and peacefulness. It will help one to deal effectively with everyday difficulties and to live a richer, happier and a fulfilling life. But more importantly, it will help one to develop a state of consciousness leading to a state of awakening to realities of life, to the ultimate meaning of life.

Mindfulness meditation helps one to develop emotional intelligence, self regulation, and empathy necessary for successful relationships. It is remarkably useful for facing interpersonal challenges.

In the Western corporate culture, in the rush to secularise it, Mindfulness have been turned into a technique divorced from ethical responsibility. In fact, its training and promotional ventures are highly commercialized often associated with a high price tag.

Mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition is to transform one’s sense of self. It is not about attaining personal goals attached to personal desires. The goal of mindfulness practice is to liberate oneself from greed, ill will and delusion (loba, dosha moha” or the three main defilements in Buddhist teachings) and not to achieve stress reduction.  The real focus of Buddhism is on awakening, on coming to some insight or wisdom about our true nature. Without that, we cannot get at the real source of our ‘dukkha’or suffering. 

From the Buddhist perspective, the ‘mindfulness movement' that is becoming increasingly popular in the Western World is not addressing the most deep-rooted forms of human suffering or ‘dukkha’. In fact, it seems to be reinforcing the kind of self-centred individualism that seems to be the basic problem in Western society.

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The Art of Mindfulness with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

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Seoul, South Korea -- Plum Village sits silently within the serene countryside of Bordeaux, France.

The peaceful country road leads to a warm outburst of sunflower fields and the endless fields of ripening grape vines.

Bordeaux, also known as the wine country, mesmerizes all passerby with the sweet fragrances of their famous grapes. During the Summer, when the Sunflower are in full bloom, the footsteps of practitioners who came from afar in search of the Buddha dharma and a peaceful mind imprint the country road leading to Plum Village.

Returning to the home of your mind is like returning to the warm embrace of your mother. Plum Village follows the essence of Mahayana Buddhism, but adapted the practice in order to fit the cultural conditions of the Western people. The melodic and serene chanting of the Buddhist Sutras in Vietnamese by the monastics of Plum Village calms the mind of practitioners.

“I have arrived. I am home.”

This is the mantra that Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, (called Thây, which means teacher in Vietnamese, by his students)  has given to all that come to Plum Village. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, a poet, a scholar, and a peace activist. His life long efforts to generate peace and reconciliation moved Martin Luther King, Jr. to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. He founded the Van Hanh Buddhist University in Saigon and the School for Youths of Social Services in Vietnam.

Thây was the one who created the spiritual home for thousands of people across the globe. He reached his awakening amidst the tumultuous time of the Vietnam war and exile from Vietnam. Through his teachings on the Art of Mindfulness, Thây realized that Buddhism needs to change according to the current generation.

The people's deep reverence for Thây and his teachings can be felt through their actions and the teachings that they follow. In a very few words, Thây puts in very simple terms what many of us struggle to come to terms with. His teachings, "The Art of Mindful Living" is very simple and easy to understand. People from all different religion respect and follow Thây's well-spoken takes on core Buddhist ideas.

The Art of Mindful Living is the core teaching at Plum Village. The Mindfulness practice begins with observing our daily routines such as walking, eating and sleeping with mindfulness.  By perceiving the world with mindfulness, our structured daily routines are transformed into daily happiness and miracles.

The mind that is not tamed also does not follow the body. Thus, with every small step, the mind aligns itself to become mindful. When the mind begins to follow the body, happiness is no longer in the future. The practitioners that follow Thây's teachings are able to experience the happiness brought upon by mindfulness and serenity.

In Plum Village, the monastics follow their own rituals, while the practitioners spend their time casually. No one forces anybody to practice. All the practices at Plum VIllage is done voluntary.

In the eyes of the conservative Asian Buddhist, the practice programs taught at Plum Village is simple and casual.Each year, the practitioners return to their spiritual hometown, because the intimacy and relaxation of being in your hometown can awaken deep emotions.

It is here in Plum Village where one can alleviate some of the stress created from our capitalistic and materialistic society.

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and 40 monastics from Plum Village will be coming to Seoul, Korea in May 2013, as part of his Asian Teaching Tour and offer his teachings,  “The Art of Mindfulness.” This event will be hosted by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, and Buddhist Television Network (BTN).

The schedule is as follows:

3 - 7 May
Weoljeongsa Retreat

10 May
Busan Public Talk at Beomeosa Temple (15:00 local time)

12 May
Day of Mindfulness at Dongguk University

13 May
Seoul Public Talk at Jamshil Indoor Gymnasium (19:00 local time)

14 May
Wake Up program at International Seon Center

On May 3rd to May 7th, Thây will be hosting his mindfulness retreat at the Woljeongsa temple, where participants will enjoy a temple-stay program while sharing their dharma experiences with Thây and Plum Village monastics. This event is open to all public and will be held in English with Korean translations.

On May 10th, Thây will give a public talk, “Peace is Possible,” to commemorate the 60th years of Peace between North Korea and South Korea.  This event will begin at 3pm and is open to all public and will be held in English with Korean translations. To arrive at Beomosa temple, take the Busan Subway to Beomeosa Station (Busan Subway Line No.1), take Exit No.5 or No.7 and walk between the two exits along the road for about 5 minutes  until you reach the Samsin bus stop. Take Bus No.90 and you will arrive at Beomeosa Temple Ticket Office.

May 12th is the Day of Mindfulness. The Day of Mindfulness is a daylong program which will be held at Dongguk University in Seoul.  During this program, one can cultivate mindfulness in our daily lives.  Other activities include walking meditation, formal lunch together with the community, and a discussion of the practice in the afternoon. All activities are led by Thây and the Plum Village monastics. The day usually ends around 4:00 pm. This event is open to all public and will be held in English with Korean translations.

On May 13th, Thây will give a public talk, “Stop and Heal,” for the Korean public at the Jamshil Indoor Gymnasium, starting at 7pm. This event is open to all public and will be held in English with Korean translations by Ven. Haemin, a Korean monastic who graduated Harvard University and teaching at the University of Massachusetts.

To arrive at Jamshil Indoor Gymnasium take the Seoul Subway Line 2 to Sports Complex Station and Exit #6 or #7.

Tickets are available on Interpark:

http://ticket.interpark.com/Ticket/Goods/GoodsInfo.asp?GoodsCode=13001577

On May 14th, the Plum Village monastics will be holding the Wake Up Program for the young people in Korea. The Wake Up program - Young Adults for a Healthy and Compassionate Society, is a world-wide network of young people practicing the living art of mindfulness, where everybody shares the determination to live in an awakened way. This event will be open to all young people (18-35years old) and will be held at the International Seon Center in Mokdong, Seoul.

For more information on Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Korea tour in May, please access:

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Buddhist Voters Aim To Bring Mindfulness To The Ballot Box

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Washington D.C., USA -- The mindfulness movement has seeped into Silicon Valley, Capitol Hill, and even the United States Military Academy at West Point. Next stop: the voting booth.

A new California-based group wants the estimated 5 million Americans who practice mindfulness to move off their meditation cushions and into the polls on Tuesday (Nov. 6).

If meditation can calm hyperactive kids, ease the pain of drug addicts and tame the egos of Fortune 500 CEOs, it can surely help a stressed-out and polarized country choose a president, says the Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams.

An artist and veteran activist from Berkeley, Williams is the force behind MindfulVOTES, a nonpartisan campaign that she believes is the first attempt to mobilize mindfulness meditators.

"Mindfulness practices are maturing in our country and entering the mainstream, but if it's not applied in our lives, it doesn't matter," said Williams. "It's time for our community to go beyond its own navels."

Broadly defined, mindfulness is a meditative practice designed to encourage a clear and nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment, often by observing one's breath. In Buddhism, mindfulness is one of the seven factors of enlightenment and a step on the Noble Eightfold Path.

Organizing meditators politically -- especially its leading Buddhist teachers -- has proven more difficult than expected, Williams said. "You know the phrase 'like herding cats'? This is like herding lions and tigers."

Hoping to leverage attention during an election year, the group raised funds to attend the Democratic and GOP conventions this summer. It followed the leads of the liberal group MoveOn.org and the League of Women Voters by encouraging activists to host "mindful circles" and circulate an online voting pledge.

MindfulVOTES also solicited the services of 250 "mindful" leaders and tapped 20 A-list ambassadors, including Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio congressman who practices mindfulness meditation.

"We will demonstrate that the Mindful community is a block of conscious voters, engaging in politics in a new and impactful way," the group says.

Williams, who defines herself as "post-Zen" and practices at the new Dharma Community in Berkeley, said MindfulVOTES hopes to attract diverse strands of Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Christian and nontheistic meditators. According to researchers, more than 1 million Americans take up meditation each year.

But Williams said the only a small number of mindful circles have organized thus far and the pledge-to-vote campaign faltered. "We're learning as we go along," she said. "This is a huge exercise in getting our feet wet."

There is no central Buddhist hierarchy or organization in the U.S. Instead, dozens of small groups dot the landscape, from Japanese-American devotees of Amida Buddha and Tibetan refugees to Zen converts. Many Buddhist clergy are part time and spend their few free hours building their own institutions, Williams said.

Still, Buddhist ethics and philosophy contain clear moral mandates, including the need to take political responsibility, said the Rev. Danny Fisher, a leading young Buddhist activist.

"Mindfulness, wisdom and ethical action are like three legs of a stool," said Fisher, a professor and coordinator of the Buddhist chaplaincy department at University of the West in Rosemead, Calif. "Buddhists in North America tend to focus on the first leg. Thinking about ethical issues, our role in the larger world, and the direction of the country is often less pronounced."

Fisher laments that American Buddhists lack firebrand figures like the late Protestant peace activist William Sloane Coffin or Cornel West, the provocative public philosopher. Instead, Fisher said he often looks to politically active Buddhists in Thailand and Burma for inspiration.

In some Asian countries, Buddhist groups have developed deep ties to political parties. Soka Gakkai International, for instance, founded its own party in Japan the 1960s and maintains strong connections to the New Komeito Party. SGI-USA spokesman William Aiken said he doubts that such alliances would develop in the United States.

"In the American Soka Gakkai Buddhist community, we feel that to identify with one partisan political philosophy over another would limit our mission to support the Buddhist practice of a very diverse membership," he said.

Still, there are scores of politically engaged Buddhists in the United States -- even if they don't publicly identify their religion, said Aiken and other Buddhist leaders.

And while they remain small, there are several political Buddhist groups in the U.S. The Berkeley-based Buddhist Peace Fellowship, for example, was founded in 1978 by the late Robert Aitken Roshi, an American Zen leader.

In January, the Berkeley-based group will embark on a new campaign to encourage young Buddhists to connect their meditation practice and religious studies with "active nonviolence," said Katie Loncke, BPF's director of media and action. Just as important, she said, it will connect politically active Buddhists with each other.

"Many of us are out there looking and not knowing how to find each other."

Loncke said she is encouraged by the MindfulVOTES campaign, but also thinks Buddhists should address the root causes of suffering and societal injustice.

"Buddhism tends to get fuzzed into this kind of magical thinking -- that if you're mindful and you vote, then everything will get better,"

Loncke said. "But that shortcuts political education."

For Williams, the goal of MindfulVOTES this year is more immediate.

"We want people to take a breath," she said, "and realize that there is such as thing as Nov. 7."

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/06/buddhist-voters-bring-mindfulness-to-ballot-box_n_2079801.html

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Mindfulness meditation found to combat loneliness

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LOS ANGELES, CA (USA) -- A new study finds that mindfulness meditation can help older adults battle feelings of loneliness while also boosting health.
The study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior & Immunity, shows that eight weeks of training in mindfulness meditation (a total of 2.5 hours a week) is linked with decreased loneliness.

<< Older adults reported reduced feelings of loneliness after taking part in an eight-week training on mindfulness meditation.

The study included 40 participants between ages 55 and 85, some of whom participated in an eight-week training programme (a total of 2.5 hours a week) called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, which was established by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the US.

“We always tell people to quit smoking for health reasons, but rarely do we think about loneliness in the same way,” said study lead J. David Creswell said in a statement dated July 24.

“We know that loneliness is a major risk factor for health problems and mortality in older adults,” he said, adding that the research suggests that mindfulness meditation training could be “a promising intervention for improving the health of older adults.”

Using the blood samples collected, the researchers also found that the older adult sample had elevated pro-inflammatory gene expression in their immune cells at the beginning of the study and that the training reduced this pro-inflammatory gene expression, which the researchers said could “reduce older adults’ inflammatory disease risk.”

Aside from alleviating loneliness, mindfulness meditation has also been shown in recent research to have positive effects on the brain – linked with brain changes that may even have effects against mental illness.

Another recent study also found that mindfulness meditation, along with moderate exercise, was linked to a reduction in the severity of colds and flu during winter.

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Can Buddha Mindfulness Fail When Dying?

Greater positive karma
can overpower lesser negative karma in the moment.
Greater negative karma
can overpower lesser positive karma in the moment.
Which kind of karma are you empowering in the moment?

- Stonepeace

Question: Someone else asked, ’One person earnestly recites the Buddha-name (Amituofo) his whole life, but on the brink of death regresses for a moment, and consequently does not get to go to the Pure Land. One person piles up evil his whole life, but on the brink of death aspires to enlightenment and recites the Buddha-name, and consequently gets to go to the Pure Land. Why should the good person lose and the evil person gain?’

Answer: Ah! Only one person in a million accumulates evil his whole life and then achieves correct mindfulness on the brink of death. Without the roots of goodness from past lives, on his deathbed he will be harried by pain and suffering and plunged into darkness and confusion: how would he be able to generate correct mindfulness? Again, among good people, only one in a million regresses on the brink of death. If there is such a person, it must be that his lifelong Buddha-name recitation was done casually and in vain: it was not pure and earnest.

‘Pure’ means that his mind was not chaotic and mixed [with other concerns as he recited the Buddha-name]. ‘Earnest’ means that there were no mental interruptions or breaks [to his recitation]. So [if his recitation was pure and earnest], how could any regression occur? This being so, those who do evil should come to their senses quickly, and not falsely imagine that they will have this kind of undeserved good fortune on the brink of death. Those who seek the Pure Land with a genuine mind should be ever more pure and earnest, and not worry that on the brink of death they will regress.

Pure Land Pure Mind
Master Zhuhong (Chu-hung), Translated by J.C. Cleary

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