Imagine a hospital where everyone (doctors, nurses, patients, clerks, auxiliaries, trainees, managers, general managers, relatives of patients) practices forty-five minutes of meditation a day. No, it is not a dream nor are we talking about an unspecified future. In Massachusetts they do it regularly and … Since the seventies.
“Awareness doesn’t grow simply because you’ve decided it’s a good idea to be more aware. To develop a solid meditation practice, you also need a strong commitment to work on yourself and enough self-discipline to persevere in the practice when you encounter difficulties.
In the stress reduction clinic the basic rule is that everyone practices: no one is simply a spectator. The presence of relatives or friends is accepted only if they undertake to practice exactly like patients, forty-five minutes a day, six days a week. Doctors, medical students, nurses and therapists from various disciplines who do internships in the clinic, must all commit to practicing the same meditation program as patients. Without this personal experience, they would not be able to understand the path of patients and the kind of effort it takes to work on the energies of their mind and body.”
