The benefits of meditation are now a scientific fact. So much so that the WHO recommends practising it to cope with quarantine too. Expert Daniel Lumera explains how to do it the right way.
During this long period of self-isolation and confinement, brought about by the ongoing pandemic, we have all suddenly found ourselves having to redesign our days, overturning established rhythms and habits. Many have also had to contend with loneliness, pain and fear on a new and overwhelming scale. In order to cope with this dramatic situation, the World Health Organization (WHO) has set out guidelines based on three pillars: healthy eating, physical movement and meditation.
To explore this last area — probably the most underrated and least understood of the three — we spoke with Daniel Lumera, an expert in the science of wellbeing and quality of life, and for many years regarded as an international point of reference in the practice of meditation. With him we sought first and foremost to debunk the many myths that box meditative practice into misleading definitions, and to get to the heart of the true reasons and the real, proven benefits that meditation, practised in the right way, can generate for each person's psychophysical health. And there is more. Aided by meditation, we can use this period as a precious opportunity to "finally and instinctively turn inward, to sustain ourselves on inner certainties that do not depend on external elements," explains Lumera. "When everything outside collapses, one finds oneself searching for values within and giving meaning to one's own existence, as also happens in situations such as bereavement or loss."
In this sense, it is possible to view what is happening as an opportunity. "A window has opened which, through the crisis and the absence of reference points that used to determine our sense of identity, is allowing a great many people to awaken to a new awareness of life."
Before delving into the description and analysis of all the benefits offered by meditative practice — particularly during this historical moment — it is necessary to clarify what meditation truly is.
It is a definition "taken very much for granted," explains Daniel Lumera, who is also a teacher, lecturer and author of international bestsellers including Ventuno giorni per rinascere, La via della leggerezza and La cura del perdono. "In the West, to meditate means to reflect, to initiate a process of analysis in which thought works things through. But meditation understood as a practice is not that. Just as meditating is not visualising images. Nor is it praying, because meditation is a secular matter and can be considered spiritual only if by spirituality we mean a universal approach to the meaning and purpose of life," continues Lumera, who came to the practice from a very young age, studying with Anthony Elenjimittan, a direct disciple of Gandhi. "Meditating is not channelling either. I shudder when I hear meditation being associated with new age or esoteric circles. Meditating is not even closing your eyes and finding peace, or witnessing an inner phenomenon of light."
Adding to the confusion is the proliferation of meditation and yoga centres across the West. "Nowadays, unfortunately, meditation has been commodified and has become a popularised phenomenon," comments Lumera. "We use it for its positive side effects as applied to a stressed lifestyle based on doing, which we therefore need to balance with 'knowing how to be' and something that brings us to slow down these frenetic rhythms. Now the virus has taken care of that."
Another practice not to be confused with meditation, and one that is frequently mentioned, is mindfulness. "It is a state of presence that begins with conscious breathing. This process, like the practice of yoga, are all preludes to meditation — tools for arriving at the experience of this state of pure awareness of being."
With the misconceptions cleared away, what does it actually mean to meditate? First of all, it is not about "doing something," explains Lumera. "Meditating pertains instead to the sphere of knowing how to be, and consists of a state of consciousness and mental lucidity, of pure awareness of being. It means being present and aware of the miracle of life, and that there are no definitions, judgements or limits." A seemingly abstract notion, more easily grasped when experienced first-hand. "To meditate in the right way, you need a good guide, someone who can show you the path," continues Lumera. "Meditation is a natural state, similar to that of young children — a state of purity. They do not need to know your name in order to know who you are; they carry no judgements or definitions. This is why being around children is highly restorative. The good news is that this kind of state can also be recreated in adulthood through the correct functioning of the mind."
To offer support to those forced to stay at home in quarantine, and in response to the WHO's proposed guidelines, Lumera has in recent weeks made available online the free programme La cura dell'essere, featuring daily collective meditation sessions divided into two parts: "The first is called dodici minuti and is an evening meditation, guided by me or by one of my students, every day at 7:00 pm. Thousands of people have joined; at times there are up to five thousand people meditating live. The second initiative is called Meditate and is a kind of red cross for doctors, to help them manage the stress of this period. They are short sessions to be practised whenever they wish, for the purpose of restoring themselves."
The duration of twelve minutes a day proposed is no coincidence, but indicates the minimum time sufficient to begin the practice of meditation, as suggested by Lumera himself. For him, the personal standard is — understandably — quite different: "My daily practice exceeds three and sometimes six hours a day. But I was forged by monastic experience. I began at nineteen and was a lay monk for eleven years, following the teachings of the Indo-Vedic tradition. I go on three retreats a year, and in August we exceed twenty-one days of practice, meditating for up to ten hours a day."
As already mentioned, meditation has a hugely important impact on our health and on our mental and emotional balance and on our capacity to "regenerate ourselves deeply". This is a fundamental aspect at this difficult time, explains Lumera, who has frequently collaborated with physician and epidemiologist Franco Berrino, co-author of two of his bestsellers. "By allowing us to truly listen to ourselves at depth, meditating helps us to better manage all the primal instincts — such as anger, helplessness, anxiety and uncertainty — that take hold of us during this period."
The reasons for learning to meditate rest on solid scientific foundations: "There is a vast scientific literature on the benefits of meditation. In the psychophysical field, we know that the practice of meditation acts both on genetics, with effects on processes of de-inflammation and ageing, and on stress and chronic illness."
Particularly noteworthy too are the effects produced by meditation on mood, states of anxiety and the feeling of loneliness. "American studies have shown that consistent practice lowers the production of cytokine in the brain, which is an inflammatory substance that over time can lead to depression."
But there is more. Beyond proving a boon for health, meditating would also give our cognitive abilities an extra edge. Lumera continues: "It has been observed that people who meditate improve their memory and mental clarity, even tenfold compared with others."
Beyond the health-related reasons there are deeper ones. "This state of mind takes you beyond a sense of separation from life, from others, from illness, from nature and from the planet," Daniel Lumera explains to us. "It leads you to develop empathy. It takes you beyond this separate ego that thinks about profit. By experiencing an essential aspect of the miracle of life that all beings share, one is led to develop a natural sense of respect, of kindness towards nature and towards one's neighbour."
One of the main side effects of meditation, then, is an awareness of the interconnectedness of all forms of life. "Meditative practice develops a new way of being human, one that goes beyond the self separated from the collective, revolutionising the paradigm imposed by Western society, based on competitiveness and anthropocentrism."
"We all knew, deep down, that we had to stop. And it could not have happened any other way, if we think about it carefully. It had to be Mother Nature to bring us back to a state of listening, to stop us in order to allow us to feel what was really happening around us. The forests burning in Australia and Brazil did not stop us, the images of glaciers melting did not stop us, the cry of pain from animals did not stop us." With these words, on 21 March, Daniel Lumera began a post published on his website entitled Lo straniero si è fatto virus. A direct intervention through which he sought to highlight the paradox of what the coronavirus is bringing about in our society.
"This virus is simultaneously illness and cure," he explained to us during the interview. "From one week to the next we went from being the ones who closed ports and blocked foreigners — because they brought diseases — to becoming the ones stopped at borders and pointed at. The virus showed us that we had no empathy towards nature, animals and the suffering of others. It, like a biological stranger, entered inside us and made us see how far we are from understanding the nature of life. We, so proud of our civilisation, of urbanisation and of the economy, found ourselves completely powerless in the face of the self-regulation mechanisms set in motion by Mother Nature."
A kind of great contrapasso, in short, which overturned every perspective and reawakened our humility, thrusting in our faces an evidence we stubbornly refused to see: that we are all interconnected. "We human beings have a viral and carcinogenic behaviour towards the planet. We behave like a cancer cell that devours everything, without realising that if the virus brings the system to collapse it too dies, if it is not eliminated first."
In this scenario it becomes clear why, according to Lumera, "the greatest crisis this virus has brought is not the health or economic one, but the identity crisis. Many people are becoming aware that at a biological level we do not exist as we believe, and that we are guests in our own bodies, just as we are guests on the planet."
We also asked Daniel Lumera, as we did all our readers and interlocutors, to write us a personal postcard from the future, with a message of hope sent from a post-emergency world. Here is his message for us: "Do not project yourselves into the future. Live this moment in total presence, giving of yourselves and developing a deep sense of solidarity. Build today the bricks of the future, starting from a new sense of we, one that includes all other species. The most beautiful guidance I can offer is to live every instant as if it were the last or the first."
We now know that one way to begin this journey of listening and reconnection between our inner world and the outer one follows the path of meditation.