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  • MANNY: Good afternoon my friends. My name is Manny and we are delighted today to have

  • my friend, Bob Stahl with us today. Bob is a--he's--so, Jon Kabat-Zinn is the founder

  • of MBSR calls Bob the go--the go-to person for MBSR in all the West Coast. Jon says this

  • if you need anything by MBSR, go to Bob because Bob is the man and I have a lot of respect

  • for Bob for this and other reasons and besides being jolly and wise and amazing. Bob founded

  • and directs the MBSR program in five medical centers in San Francisco Bay Area including

  • the El Camino Hospital in Mountain View and the O'Connor Hospital in San Jose. He lived

  • in the Buddhist monastery for eight and a half years and he is most recently the co-author

  • of this book, a "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook," and it is available for

  • sale if you--if you want to--after this talk right over there and I think that's it. With

  • that, please welcome my friend and our friend, Bob Stahl.

  • >> STAHL: Thank you. You all hear me okay? So, very nice to be here and thank you for

  • making some time out of your work day to come and hear about mindfulness which is what I'll

  • be speaking about today. And maybe, I'll just start by sharing a little bit about my own

  • personal journey, how did I end up becoming a "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction" teacher.

  • And my actual journey began quite young in life when I had an experience when I was four

  • years old. I was riding in the back seat of my parent's car and I had this realization

  • that I or anyone could die at any moment. It was a very powerful realization at four

  • years old and I brought this up to my mother and father and they said to me very lovingly,

  • "Don't worry, Bobby," I was called Bobby then, "Don't worry, Bobby, it's not going to happen

  • for a long, long, long, long time." And I actually could tell by the sound of their

  • voice that they were being very loving and they were trying to protect me but I knew

  • what I knew and what I knew was that they were not telling me the truth because what

  • I knew was that death could come at any moment to anyone. And that was a very shocking realization

  • at four years old to realize this and unfortunately to say by the time I was nine years old, I

  • lost a younger brother who died of a disease. My best friend, Ellen, who lived across the

  • street from me, I played with her everyday, went into a diabetic coma and passed away

  • one evening and downstairs, in the family house that I was living in, my grandfather

  • died of a heart attack. And so, growing up, I experienced a lot of confusion and despair.

  • What is this life and this also coincided with the--the 1960s and as, you know, the

  • times were a-changing and the Beatles grew their hair long and there was social unrest,

  • there was lots happening; I grew up outside of the Boston area. Well, after graduating

  • high school and my sole purpose was to get out of high school because school didn't make

  • any sense to me and I decided that I needed to do something after discovering that my

  • friends had all gone to college and thought "Well, maybe I should go to college." And

  • so, I ended up going to school in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, a small state college.

  • I was really into downhill skiing and I thought, "Well, this would be a good place to go,"

  • like, you know, ski area. And started school there and I was having a good all time partying

  • and after flunking out in my sophomore year and being [INDISTINCT] made it back on warning,

  • I decided "Well, maybe I should take a look at what's actually on the course catalog and

  • see if there is anything interesting there that I would like to take and for whatever

  • reason, very funny enough, there's this course called Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Zen.

  • I had never taken a class like this ever before in my life and I figured that I had nothing

  • to lose. I've had experiences growing up in Boston with the orient Chinese restaurants,

  • ironically enough and that was a very different feel there and I was alert to the East in

  • many ways not only with the food but with the art and so, I took this class, Hinduism,

  • Buddhism, Taoism and Zen and when I went into the class, I was shocked to discover that

  • my professor was sitting on top of his desk in a full lotus position. Now, I had never

  • seen a professor like this before. Most of them had suits, jackets and ties and they

  • were pretty straight and pretty uptight. But this guy was sitting on top of his desk in

  • a full lotus and he began talking. And when I--listening to him, I realized and sensed

  • that he knew something that I didn't know and I wanted to know what he knew. There was

  • something about him. I never met a person like him ever before. And we began studying

  • the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, a way of life and I just fell in love with the Tao and I

  • never realized that people thought about life in this way. My education thus far was about

  • reading and writing in arithmetic and it made really no sense to me because--and I've looked

  • back on this, I was really in a place of a lot of despair and confusion. I was very lost

  • and didn't even know that I was lost, that's how lost I was. Well, after reading the Tao

  • Te Ching and coming across epigram number 47, where he said "There's no need to look

  • outside your window, everything that you need to know is inside you." And when I read that,

  • it was this--almost like a redwood tree hit me over the head and woke me up and I recognized

  • that I've been spending most of my life looking outside of myself for answers and then if

  • I wanted to know anything, I needed to begin to look inside here and that really began

  • my journey of meditation which is now over 35 years ago and kind of amazing when I look

  • back at it at this point. That class began a journey, a spiritual journey if you will

  • for me and I ended up moving to San Francisco and--and getting--going to graduate school

  • in Counseling Psychology and getting introduced more formally to the pasana of mindfulness

  • mediation. And from there, that led me to studying with a teacher and she said "Why

  • don't you come with me to Burma and meet my teacher, Venerable Taungpulu Sayadaw who is

  • a Theravadan forest monk and Burma is now called Myanmar. And so on November 9th, 1980,

  • I embarked on a plane to Southeast Asia to Burma to become a forest monk for a temporary

  • period of time. Life was very different in Burma and the life of a forest monk is a lonely

  • life but it's a very powerful life of very intensive meditation practice and I really

  • loved that life at the time that I was there. Then we moved--we were invited to come back

  • to the United States and we brought our teacher, Taungpulu Sayadaw and we founded with a group

  • of us, a monastery in Boulder Creek right here in Santa Cruz County, not too far away

  • and started a monastery by Big Basin state park called Taungpulu Kaba Aye Monastery and

  • I ended up living there for over eight and a half years practicing very intensively.

  • And after leaving the monastery, entering into the advanced practice, getting married,

  • having two children makes the monastery look easy. I needed to get a job and I was fortunate

  • enough to get a job working at the Cabrillo College Stroke Center in Santa Cruz, working

  • with people with strokes and Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, other orthopedic and neurological

  • conditions and my job being hired there as a counselor was to teach meditation, relaxation

  • as well as interviewing prospective new students and so forth, assessing students. And I began

  • to teach mindfulness at the stroke center and I used to get feedback from various students

  • saying "This mindfulness is really helping me." And I remember this one old lady saying

  • "Yeah, this mindfulness is really keeping me out of a nursing home," and I said "What

  • do you mean?" she said "Look at me, I'm an old lady, I got to pee in the middle of the

  • night, you know, and every night I have to get up and I have to walk to the toilet and

  • so when I walk to the toilet, I'm mindful lifting my foot up, moving it forward, placing

  • it down. I'm being mindful of each step because if I'm not mindful, I'm going to end falling

  • and breaking my hip and ending up in a nursing home." She had had a stroke, so she was very

  • unsure on her feet. And I would hear many other very practical aspects of mindfulness

  • bringing it into one's life or health and well-being. While I was at the stroke center,

  • I was sharing some of my work with an ex-monk friend of mine that sent me eventually a book

  • called "Full Catastrophe Living" by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and I read this book and I said

  • "I can't believe that somebody has created a whole program based on mindfulness and working

  • with stress, pain and illness, I want to do this." And I wrote Jon a letter, this was

  • back in 1990 and a couple of weeks later, Jon called me on the phone and thanked me

  • for writing him the letter and then inviting me to come to UMass Medical Center to meet

  • with him and see the center and as my family is from the Massachusetts's area, it was actually

  • in a couple of moths later I was--I came to the UMass Medical Center. This was all before

  • Jon became much more famous in 1993, "When Healing of The Mind" was featured with Bill

  • Moyers. He's got very busy since then. But it was wonderful to meet Jon back in the early

  • 1990s and he was very supportive with me starting a program and so, I was very fortunate when

  • I came back to Santa Cruz that I began a program in 1991 at the Cabrillo College Stroke Center

  • and then later at El Camino Hospital here in Mountain View in Santa Cruz Medical Foundation

  • where we actually involved in starting the first Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programs

  • in California and I've been teaching at these medical centers and more ever since. So, I

  • feel very grateful to Jon Kabat-Zinn and this work of mindfulness and bringing it into mainstream

  • America and I really appreciate the genius of--of this practice in how we can--here I

  • am now at Google speaking about something that I went off to Asia far and many years

  • ago and--and how that mindfulness has proliferated in our culture and it's so amazing that when

  • we hear about mindfulness, its effects with as we search in neuroscience, in education,

  • in psychology, mindfulness is spreading its wings in many different areas and it's currently--well,

  • it's kind of a hot item, mindfulness. I understand that mindfulness is also offered here at Google.

  • I'm very happy to hear about that. I understand there's a new eight-week class starting this

  • Thursday with my colleague, Renee Burgard and I understand the class is full, in a waiting

  • list but don't worry there's going to be more classes. So if you're interested, you can--you'll

  • hear about them. But as a working definition, I want to--maybe just speak a little bit about

  • mindfulness, what is it? How does it relate to stress reduction? And I'd also would like

  • to do some practice and I think that this is a perfect place to do practice, right here

  • in the midst of the work day. But first I'll just begin with what is mindfulness and so,

  • we've heard of this word a lot and I trust if I--how many of us here are familiar with

  • mindfulness practice. So there's a quite a number of hands up. This is wonderful, if

  • I asked this question about 15 years ago, I might find one person. So, this is very

  • wonderful. And so, perhaps some of this will be a--you will hear some of what I have said

  • before but may you take it as in a new way because mindfulness really teaches us about

  • beginner's mind, seeing things fresh and new and in the moment. And when we speak of mindfulness,

  • we're really speaking about learning to be more present in our moment to moment, day-to-day

  • life and when you consider the only moment that we actually ever really live in is the

  • present moment which is right now, you're listening to me, we're here in this room,

  • this is what's happening. Yet at times, and I trust that we'll would probably see in the

  • workings of our own mind that it's difficult to actually stay present and we might be thinking

  • "I really hope this guy gets done at 2 o'clock because I got to go back to work and I got

  • to do this and that or maybe he's thinking about what happened earlier in the morning.

  • Maybe, it's no coincidence that John Lennon once said "Life is what happens while you're

  • busy making other plans." It's a very funny wonderful statement but sometimes if we take

  • a look at the workings of our mind, we see that it's often occupied in future thinking

  • in past memories and often missing what's happening in the moment. A psychologist friend

  • of mine once remarked after beginning his mindfulness training that her mind often worked

  • in two modes of operation and I said, "What do you mean?" Because, yeah, my mind is either

  • rehearsing or it's rehashing. Rehashing or rehearsing? I love that. And when you think

  • about all of the energy that we put into rehearsing about future, rehashing about the past, we

  • could actually bottle them as an energy source. We would have no energy crisis. We are so

  • much of the time living somewhere else other than this present moment. So, in mindfulness

  • training we're training ourselves to be more present in our moment to moment, day-to-day

  • life. For those of us whose sort of a perfectionist you can forget about it right now about being

  • mindful every single moment. And if you approach it that way, it would probably be maddening

  • and you'll probably end up quitting. But if we can bring more mindfulness into the moments

  • that we have and make it a practice, we'll find that our mindfulness will begin to grow.

  • Mindfulness, again, is this quality of being present. There's actually two types of practices