March/April 2010

THE NEXUS INTERVIEW

Ed & Deb Shapiro

How can it change you? Might its many practitioners be changing the world? We ask Ed and Deb Shapiro.

BY RAVI DYKEMA

When Ed and Deb Shapiro met in Boulder in 1986, after a mutual friend set them up, it wasn’t the typical blind date. She from London and he from the Bronx, they were married six months later in London at the Chelsea Town Hall, site of the marriages of Mick Jagger and other luminaries. On their honeymoon, they met privately with HH the Dalai Lama at his residence in Dharmsala, India in 1986. Over the next 24 years, they crafted not only a successful marriage, but also a business partnership that has yielded books, television shows, meditation CDs and numerous other ventures.

Each came to the relationship with formidable spiritual training. Ed studied with Swami Satchidananda in 1967 and received personal training from Paramhamsa Satyananda at the Bihar School of Yoga from 1968 to 1970. Years later, he took Bodhisattva vows with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder.

Deb has trained with Tai Situ Rinpoche, and created his Maitreya Institute in Hawaii. Tai Situpa married Ed and Deb, in a ceremonial service in a Buddhist Monastery in Scotland, a few weeks before their legal marriage in London.

Over the next 23 years, the Shapiros have written 13 books on meditation, personal development and social action, including Your Body Speaks Your Mind (Sounds True, 2007), which won the Visionary Book Award 2007, and Voices from the Heart (Rider, 1999), and have led meditation retreats and personal development programs worldwide.

The inspiration for their latest book, Be The Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World (Sterling, 2009) "arose in response to the need to make sense of what's happening in the world," says Ed. "We wondered, 'Could something as subtle and understated as meditation also have an affect on business, conflict resolution, or politics? What change could happen if something so simple were to become a global movement?'"

The aim of this book, they say, is to make meditation as mainstream as yoga. Here, Nexus publisher Ravi Dykema talks with the Shapiros about meditation, both on the cushion and in the world.

RD: How did you come to write this book?

ES: It came to me a couple of years ago, when I realized that people meditate in groups; we have Buddhist meditation, we have Hindu meditation, yoga meditation, Christian meditation, all the different traditions and practices and forms of meditation. But what about meditation reaching beyond that, beyond any particular practice or tradition? What if meditation weren’t tied up with some idea of a religion, or a tradition, and everyone just did it? Would it change the world? As a truly dedicated meditator, I know in my heart of hearts that meditation helps us get through the madness of our own minds. When we do that, we can experience our true nature, our joy, our happiness, peace and clarity. And we wanted to share that message with more people.

RD: That question – “can it change the world” – may sound to some like the statements made by some religions. It echoes the claims of some religious people that if we all would just follow the teaching of Mohammed, or Jesus, or the Baha’I faith, the suffering we endure and that we inflict on others would end.

DS: This is completely different. Meditation isn’t about following anything. It’s about making friends with your self. There’s no religion in it whatsoever. It may be used by religion, but the actual experience of meditation is simply being present.

RD: But how does that change the world?

DS: By changing the attitudes and behaviors of the people who meditate.

RD: Can you give me a specific example?

ES: We looked at business people who meditate, and how their business has changed as a result of meditating. For example, we talked to Steve Demos, who started White Wave Soyfoods in Boulder. His father was an entrepreneur. He was fighting against becoming another businessperson like his father, and through meditation he discovered right livelihood. It was like a light bulb going on for him: that he could make money doing something from a right livelihood place. There’s no harm to him, the product or the person who buys it. And the whole thing for him as a businessman was the meditation. He said without it, none of this would have existed.

RD: How else did meditation help the people you interviewed? Did it increase their creativity?

DS: Absolutely. Here’s a wonderful example about a man named Mark Mawrence, who was a member of the city council in Santa Monica, California. The city of Santa Monica was having a huge problem with the homeless people on the seafront. Everyone walking on the seafront was getting accosted by homeless people asking for money. The city council asked Mark to come up with a solution.

He’s in the habit of meditating regularly, and his favorite form of meditating is surfing. So he went out on a board and let the waves just move him, and he went into a quiet space of meditation. In that moment, two dolphins suddenly jumped up in front of him, and he knew what he had to do.

To make a long story short, the city had two enormous bronze dolphins made, and where their mouths are, just slightly ajar, is a place for money. People could put money into the dolphins instead of giving it to the homeless, and all the money collected in the dolphins would be used to feed, house, clothe and educate the homeless. The homeless very quickly learned that they weren’t going to get anything from passersby, that begging was pointless. And they’ve absolutely turned around what was becoming a dangerous situation in Santa Monica.

RD: Would you call what he was doing on the surfboard “meditating?”

DS: Oh, absolutely. So many people say to us, “I can’t possibly meditate. I can’t sit still. My mind’s too busy. I fall asleep.” But there are an enormous number of ways in which people can meditate, and we talk about many examples in the book. You can fire walk. You can jog, or surf. You don’t have to meditate sitting still on a cushion, and you don’t have to do some esoteric or weird practice. It’s just about being aware and present in the moment.

ES: And sometimes it happens without really doing anything at all. Here’s a great example: Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut, flew to the moon in Apollo 14. He walked on the moon. He returned to the space capsule, and he had nothing to do. His job, which was to walk on the moon, was complete. So then, as they were on the return voyage to earth, he was looking at the universe and the stars moving all around him, and watching the earth – this tiny, little thing, like a tiny ball – getting bigger and bigger as he got closer, and he started going from outer space exploring to inner space, where he had a Nirvanic experience.

RD: So that was like a spontaneous meditative experience, as opposed to “he was meditating.” Did he continue seeking out those “Nirvanic” experiences?

ES: Oh, yes. He came back and started the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and became a regular meditator.

RD: It sounds like your book talks about some off-the-cushion, in-the-real-world aspects of meditation.

DS: Yes, it does; that’s important. It’s not what’s happening inside you when you’re meditating, but what you do when you get off the cushion. How are you in the world? How does it change you?
The beauty of meditation is, when we’re in that quiet space, we drop our boundaries. It’s as if who we are as this separate individual begins to dissolve, and we find ourselves merging into everything that is around us. From that comes the awareness that we are all one. We may not be one physically – I can see you sitting opposite me, you look different from me, and so on – but on another level, there’s really no difference. We’re here together. What helps you helps me, and vice versa. That awareness of interconnectedness then begins to influence everything we do.

RD: I know a few studies have suggested that the brain actually changes through the process of meditation. Were you able to document anything like that?

DS: Yes. We interviewed a couple of scientists who have been studying how the mind changes through meditation. Both of them talk about how you can see the brain changing; it becomes happier. The area of the brain that is responsible for our happiness gets bigger in response to meditation.

RD: When you say “meditation,” what exactly do you mean? Is this something I can do every once in a while? Does it have to be a regular practice? How often, and for how long?

DS: From my personal understanding and experience, meditation is about being absolutely present. Most of us are so externalized and caught up in other things going on around us, our ability to be completely present is quite limited.

RD: What do you mean by “being absolutely present?” Because here we are, in this room together. Unless you leave the room, as far as I know, you’re present.

DS: I am saying being present in the moment, without any thought or distraction coming from a focus on the past or future. There’s just a complete awareness, right here, right now.

ES: So I’m picking up a cup of tea as I sit with you, and I’m sipping the tea. I’m not thinking of your cup of tea, and I’m not thinking of the cup of tea I had yesterday that might have been better, or the one I would like to have because it might even be better than that. I’m just with this cup of tea.

DS: But sitting is important, too. During sitting, we consciously remove the external distractions, so it’s easier to just be with what is. Being present is a very natural part of our being. Little children are present with what they’re doing. They watch an ant walking down the sidewalk, carrying a crumb, and it’s all that exists in their world in that moment. They aren’t thinking of what they had for breakfast, or what their best friend did at their playdate yesterday. They’re just watching the ant.
It’s very natural. But we’ve spent so many years covering it up, that we have to practice getting back to that place of just awareness of what’s happening in the moment, without thinking of the past or future. That’s why sitting is important. That’s the practice.

RD: Do adults ever experience that feeling of being just completely present, without meditating?

DS: Oh, sure. Its happened to me, it’s happened to many people I know, in situations ranging from walking in nature to doing mundane daily chores.

RD: What exactly happens?

DS: The sense of yourself as this separate individual completely dissolves, and you become one with everything around you. I remember sitting outside once, and I just became the birds flying in the tree. I became the tree. I became all the different aspects that I was looking at. There was no separation from me, none whatsoever. There was no sense of a separate me.

It happened to my mother, when was doing the dishes. She heard the sound of a thrush, and in that instant she found herself completely transferred out of where she was and into a space of absolute oneness. It was a totally natural, spontaneous experience of meditation. Once this happens, though, we have an enormous desire to re-experience that feeling. The easiest way to do that is to sit quietly—what some would call meditating.

RD: What does it feel like if a person is being absolutely present with you?

DS: I’ll give you an example. When we were on our honeymoon 23 years ago, we met with the Dali Lama. He was so completely and utterly present with me in that room, I felt as if I was the only person that existed.

ES: I thought he was my best friend.

DS: And you know perfectly well that the moment we had said goodbye, he was off doing something else. But when we were there, we were all that was. That was really my first experience of being with somebody who is totally present. But he meditates for three hours every morning. He still feels the need for it.

So, in regards to your question about how much we need to meditate and how often, I think each individual has to find out for themselves. They have to see what works for them. For some people, 10 minutes is all they can do. Other people love an hour.

ES: And there’s no right or wrong method or technique. There’s not even a right experience to have or way to feel during meditation—it’s all okay. If you’re sitting there on your cushion, and your mind is going bananas, it’s okay. Just be present with that. You can’t catch the mind; it’s like catching the wind. You just sit there, and watch it, and be with whatever comes up during that period of time. Deb is saying ten minutes. I think half an hour would be great. If you can do that each day, you will see a difference. And you’ll know when it’s working.

RD: Can even the smallest addition of mindfulness make a difference?

DS: Sometimes. I was just talking to someone who had gone to her first mindfulness meditation weekend, and she came away already changed. She could already feel the difference within her, so it can be pretty instant.

ES: It’s like cleaning the dust from a tabletop. Meditation is like cleaning the dust off your mind.

RD: Over our lifetimes, the world has gone through a lot of changes, and we’ve seen various kinds of meditation grow large and then shrink: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Transcendental Meditation, EST, and so on. During all of this, have you seen meditation change the world? Are EST graduates leading the charge to fix the world, for example?

DS: Not as far as I can see. But we don’t know what the world would be like if they hadn’t meditated. What we do know is that when we meditate, we change. And when we change, then the world we create around us changes.

RD: This brings me to another interesting point. In an interview we printed many years ago, entitled “Narcissism and the New Age,” Ken Wilbur branded the new age movement in its many forms as unusually narcissistic. How does traditional meditation reconcile with modern new age practices?

DS: We never mentioned the words “new age” once, so I can’t actively comment; I do think very few people who are of the sort of new age genre really “get” meditation. I think for a lot of people, the new age movement is typified by various forms of visualization or positive thoughts or creating affirmations. But all of these practices involve using your active, thinking mind, rather than quieting and stilling the mind.

ES: The new age involves channeling and past-life experiences, and all these different practices that have to do with being in your mind. A lot of what’s happening in the new age involves boosting the ego, rather than being able to see through it. In past-life experiences, people are always princesses or religious leaders. I’ve never heard of anyone who had a past life experience where they were a garbage collector. Our egos get caught up in wanting to be acknowledged, wanting to be thought of as special. The beauty of meditation is where we see through all of that, where we see the emptiness. We realize that the ego and our involvement with it is very temporary. The more I go into meditation, the more my ego becomes sort of redundant. Meditation doesn’t boost the ego; meditation humbles. The Dali Lama says “I’m just a simple monk.” He doesn’t say “I’m the Dali Lama. Touch my feet.” He’s very humble.

RD: What do you mean, “the ego becomes redundant?”

ES: The more we meditate, the more we’re able to see the totality of life and our small place in it, and the more respect we have for this whole creation. We become fearless, because we realize there’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing’s a big deal.

Which doesn’t mean you won’t experience difficulties in life. Deb and I go through a whole lot of difficult situations. We’re still human beings. Maybe Deb and I will have an argument, but it never goes on. Anytime we have a disagreement, we just stop and look at it, and quite often we laugh. We’ll look at the ceiling and I’ll say it’s flat, and she’ll say it’s white, and we’re both right. It’s just our egos getting into the situation. It’s not like meditation guarantees that you’ll never go through anything. It just gives you the ability to see it for what it is—not a big deal.

RD: Have you encountered any downside or dangers of meditation?

ES: The only time I’ve really seen it is if a person is psychotic or very unstable. These people can get too caught up in extended periods of meditation, and lose the sense of the world, and find it harder to function in daily life. Which is sort of ironic, because in meditation, we seek to recognize the insubstantiality of the world. But it’s not about withdrawing from the world, or thinking of it as a bad place. It’s about being in the world differently.

RD: I had a personal experience with that, when as a young adult I lived in an Indian ashram. My parents certainly didn’t understand or feel comfortable with my decision.

ES: If our culture embraced this introspective journey as part of the growth process, it wouldn’t have scared them.

DS: And that’s very cultural. In Thailand, for example, they require that all men devote one year to national service; in our country, national service is the armed forces. In Thailand, it’s spending a year in a monastery. And it’s funny how cultural differences work. For kids who grow up in an ashram, instead of leaving the “material world” and going to India to meditate as you did, they leave the ashram to go out into the material world. And their parents say, “Why do you want to go make money? You can just live in the ashram!”

RD: So it sounds like individual paths have a lot to do with how and when and why people meditation.

ES: Yes. Why are some people butchers and some people terrorists and some people humanitarians? Everyone has his or her own path. A lot of those paths are not going to lead to meditation. But all we can do is the best we can do. If we can help one person, that counts. It’s that way for everyone: try to help, do your best and leave the rest. But everyone has to have their own trip, their own experience.

RD: What about the experience of writing this book? What was that like for you?

DS: It was an amazing journey, and an incredibly humbling experience to be endowed with so much wisdom. It was also challenging to honor that without making it an anthology, but instead bringing all these unique voices into it. When our editor read it, she said she felt like she was sitting in a room listening to them talking to each other.

RD: And the Dalai Lama wrote the introduction?

DS: Yes, and we felt so blessed!

ES: And it was a fabulous introduction. He said “Anyone interested in meditation should not only read what these people have to say, but also try it out. If you like their suggestions and they are helpful to you, use them. If they aren’t, disregard them. Treat this book as you would a cookery book… You’d try out the recipes. Some you’d like, and would use again. Like cookery, meditation only makes sense if you put it into practice.”

DS: As soon as we got that forward, I said “This book now has its own wings; this is beyond us now.”

RD: Do you think this book will have longevity?

ES: I think so. We’re hoping that this will, in some way, help meditation become more mainstream, like yoga. Maybe in 50 years people will say “Isn’t it funny that people didn’t meditate back then?” Or even “Isn’t it funny that people did this whole separate thing and they called it meditation? We’re just calling it life.”

DS: All the stuff we go through, all our ego stuff, is the extraordinary bit of us. But the perfectly ordinary stuff – the spiritual practice, the quiet, the reflective, the meditative – is what we think of as extraordinary. So we relegate meditation to the last thing on our list. We have to do everything else first, and then if we’re lucky, we’ll have time to meditate.

ES: And when you think of the things that occupy our minds, the worries and concerns, there’s nothing real about them. Worry is about something that doesn’t exist right here, right now. If I worry, I’m afraid of something that’s not happening.

RD: Most people don’t view it that way, though.

DS: I know. And that’s the difference that we’re trying to share.

Ed and Deb Shapiro will be leading workshops in the Denver area titled, "How you can be the change," at the Caritas Spiritist Center in Boulder (CaritasSpiritistCenter.org): March 11, April 16, 7-9 p.m. And March 13 and April 17, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

To learn more about the Shapiro's work, visit edanddebshapiro.com, or call (720) 310-5112. In addition to their books and workshops, you can find their new weekly column on Oprah.com.