LONGEVITY, REGENERATION, AND OPTIMAL HEALTH

A Program in Contemplative Self-Healing

Stress, Allostasis, and Learning in the
Indo-Tibetan Tradition
Joseph Loizzo,a Mary Charlson,b and Janey Petersonc
a

Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Center for Complementary and
Integrative Medicine; Adjunct Assistant Professor of Religion, Columbia University
Center for Buddhist Studies; Founder and Director, Nalanda Institute for Contemplative
Science, New York, New York, USA
b

Professor of Medicine and Professor of Complementary and Integrative Medicine,

Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University, New York, New York, USA

Assistant Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in Medicine, Assistant Professor of Clinical

Epidemiology in Complementary and Integrative Medicine, and Assistant Professor of
Clinical Epidemiology in Cardiothoracic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical College,
Cornell University, New York, New York, USA

This paper reviews current behavioral health interventions and introduces a self-healing
program based on the Indo-Tibetan tradition. While most work on behavior change
emphasizes cognition and motivation, this review highlights stress-reactivity as a ratelimiting resistance to learning. Surveying cognitive-behavioral theories, it finds these
limited in modeling stress-reactivity. Reviewing current interventions that address
stress by integrating relaxation, mindfulness, imagery, or movement with cognitivebehavioral education, it attributes their limited effectiveness to the limits of their model
of stress and their strategy of eclectically mixing techniques. Next, the article explores
the Indic model of stress-cessation and self-healing assumed by mindfulness practice,
concluding that it more fully reflects current findings on stress and learning. It reviews
the theory and practice of mindfulness and of two less known contemplative vehicles preserved in Tibet, using more advanced techniques and insights better suited to
lay lifestyles and secular cultures. It suggests that the Tibetan tradition of integrating
all three vehicles of contemplative insight and skill in one self-healing practice should
maximize coherence and effectiveness while minimizing confounding variables caused
by eclecticism. Finally, the paper introduces an intervention that integrates mindfulness with techniques of cognitive analysis, affect modulation, motivational imagery,
and reinforcing breathing, tailored over centuries into a complete, threefold path of
self-healing. A pilot study of this intervention in women treated for breast and other
gynecologic cancers suggests that the whole spectrum of Indo-Tibetan mind/body practices can be readily mastered and effectively used by Westerners to reduce stress and
enhance learning and quality of life.
Key words: mindfulness; contemplation; imagery; self-healing; health education;
Indo-Tibetan

Background and Significance

Address for correspondence: Dr. Joseph Loizzo, Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, 1300 York Avenue, Box 46, New York, NY 10065. joeloizzo@
nalandascience.org

The purpose of this paper is twofold:

to review current theories and research on
cognitive-behavioral health interventions and
to introduce a contemplative self-healing program based on the Indo-Tibetan mind and

Longevity, Regeneration, and Optimal Health: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1172: 123147 (2009).
C 2009 New York Academy of Sciences.
doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04398.x 

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health science tradition. It presupposes the convergence of several lines of research clarifying
the mechanisms and health effects of mindset and lifestyle, ranging from the corrosive
effects of stress-reactive habits to the healthpromoting effects of positive outlook, affect
and behavior.14 As basic stress research shows
the pervasive impact of stress-reactivity in
promoting wear-and-tear on natural systems of
immunity, tissue healing, regeneration, cognition, motivation, and learning,59 clinical researchers and health practitioners have begun
to look more seriously into techniques of stressreduction, relaxation, positive motivation, and
healthy behavior change.1013 This new clinical focus on stress-reduction and health education has been further intensified by convergent research in positive health, showing the
unexpected effects of positive reinforcement
and practice in promoting use-dependent increases in immunity, tissue regeneration, neural plasticity, cognition,1416 motivation, and
learning.1723 This general shift is illustrated
by this volumes specific focus on the role of
psychosocial variables like stress or lifestyle on
the wide variations recently observed in human longevity, resilience, and quality of life.
Current research in this and related fields
is increasingly highlighting the deficiency of
conventional healthcare in mobilizing the untapped potential for self-healing and optimal
health.2432 This gives compelling support to
recent efforts at developing effective psychosocial, behavioral, and educational interventions
in emerging fields like rehabilitation medicine,
preventative medicine, complementary and integrative medicine, mind/body medicine, and
positive health.3340
This paper surveys current thinking and research in this promising area, specifically to explain the limitations of conventional interventions and to introduce our efforts to overcome
those limits by adapting time-tested mind/body
theories and methods from the Indo-Tibetan
medical tradition.41,42
While much of this work on behavior change,
including our own, has focused on cognitive

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

and motivational factors in the adoption of new

behavior,32,4348 recently we have begun to explore the hypothesis that stress-reactivity acts
as a rate-limiting resistance to learning and
healthy life-change.49 Consequently, we have
also been shifting our focus towards the study
of health interventions that include various
methods to reduce stress and facilitate learning.50 Only one of the NIH Behavior Change
Consortium (BCC) projects addressed stress as
a variable of interest. In the Mediterranean
Lifestyle Trial, which was designed to help postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes reduce cardiovascular risk, stress management
was conceptualized as a key initial and longterm outcome of the trial. In addition to focusing on eating patterns and physical activity,
the Comprehensive Lifestyle Management intervention incorporated a stress management
component that included 20 minutes of yoga,
15 minutes of progressive deep relaxation techniques, 15 minutes of meditation, and 5 minutes of directed or receptive imagery. However,
neither this project, nor any of the other Consortium projects, conceptualized stress as a barrier to maintaining new behavior change to
promote health or prevent disease. We believe
that this oversight reveals an important hidden
weakness in cognitive-behavioral and motivational approaches to health behavior change
and its maintenance.
This analysis and the findings of our work
in the BCC suggest that addressing perceived
stress versus life learningnot the specific
health behavior of interestmay be the ratelimiting variable in helping patients initiate
and sustain behavioral change over the long
term. In other words, we believe that stressconditioned resistance is the major barrier
to initiating and sustaining health behavior
change. Moreover, while many in the field have
begun to address this variable, by integrating techniques like relaxation, mindfulness or
imagery with cognitive-behavioral health education,5157 we believe that the limited effectiveness of this strategy reflects the fact that
cognitive-behavioral learning models are not

Loizzo et al.: Contemplative Self-Healing

well designed to address the multi-factorial nature of stress-reactivity.58 Instead, we favor integrating analytic, social-emotional and behavioral insights and skills based on the same Indic
model of stress-cessation and self-healing assumed by mindfulness practice.
Cognitive-Behavioral Models
Informing Conventional Behavioral
Interventions
Although stress appears to play an important role in determining whether people
undertake and maintain potentially important health-related behavior changes,59,60 little attention has been focused in previous research, including our own, on the question
of whether and how stress is a barrier to
learning and adopting new behavior following illness episodes.61 We believe this reflects
the theory of mind/body causation assumed
in cognitive-behavioral psychology and therapy.6265 First, cognitive-behavioral interventions assume a linear, unidirectional model of
the effects learned habits of thinking have on
mood, physiology, and behavior. Typical models portray habitual thinking as triggering a
cascade of conditioned responses that includes
learned social emotions, learned forms of behavior, and innate physiologic responses. Informed by this behaviorist view of mind/body
causation, researchers exploring the complex
psychobiology of stress depicted it as a topdown cascade following the linear stimulusresponse model of classical conditioning. Thus,
the individuals distinctive response to a challenge that could cause stress has come to be
viewed in cognitive-behavioral terms as a cascade of two or more learned habits that made
it more or less likely to trigger the physiology of
the stress response.46,66,67
The first of these habits, cognitive appraisal,
refers to the cognitive assessment of a perceived
stressor as more or less threatening, given the
parallel assessment of the individuals coping
capacity and supports. Appraisal is thought to

125

reflect a range of learned concepts that shape

the individuals constructs of self and world, including age, gender, ethnicity, self-involvement,
self-efficacy, socio economic status and social
support.6878 The second habit, affective reaction,
refers to the habitual social emotion the individual has in response to the cognitive appraisal
of the stressor and his or her coping capacity
and supports. Affective reactions are thought to
include an individuals range of learned stressreactive emotions including anxiety, hostility,
shame, helplessness, and hopelessness or depression. These emotions are thought to reflect emotional memory and reaction-patterns
learned in previous stressful or traumatic experiences, further enhancing the sense of threat
and reinforcing a negative cognitive appraisal
of self and stressor.70,71,79,80
Stress-reactive emotions are then thought
to trigger a third phase, the physiological stress
response, which refers to the combination
of innate physiological responses with
learned forms of instinctive, stress-reactive
behaviors. The physiology of the stress response is thought to include a neurologically
mediated increase in sympathetic arousal in
the autonomic nervous systems, known as the
fight-or-flight reaction, as well as chemically
mediated activation of the hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal axis, leading to the release
of catecholamines and glucocorticoids that
mobilize all mind/body systems for reflexive
aggressive and/or defensive action.73 The
final phase in the conventional model of
the psychophysiology of stress, often called
adaptation, is the long-term conditioning of
mind and body to the repeated triggering
of this cascade of aversively conditioned
cognition, affect, and behavior. Adaptation is thought to reinforce the individuals
stereotypical habits of stress-reactivity and is
known to adversely affect multiple aspects of
health, aging, and mind/body capacity.81,82
The model of allostatic load developed by
McEwen and colleagues serves as a laboratory measure the cumulative effect of the
triggering of the physiological stress response,

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Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

viewed as a failure to maintain allostasis or

dynamic balance with the challenges posed
by a constantly changing natural and social
environment.8387
Limitations of Current
Cognitive-Behavioral Models
and Interventions
While cognitive-behavioral models provide
a basic framework to understand stress and the
stress response, we believe they are incomplete
for several reasons. First, this model frames
stress reduction reactively, i.e., as a primarily outward-focused, problem-specific process
principally mediated by cognitive variables and
styles. Since its development, however, there
have been major shifts in consensus within cognitive science and stress research, where its
conceptual and empirical foundations lie. According to the current consensus in cognitive
science, the organization of human behavior is
primarily proactive and mediated by the hierarchical integration of cognitive, affective and
behavioral systems of memory, learning, and
adaptation. In addition, stress research has
demonstrated that stress is a nonspecific, general response that overwhelmingly represents a
(short- or long-term) systems failure in adaptation at the cognitive, affective, and/or behavioral levels. Second, cognitive-behavioral
models rely on a unilinear model of causal
sequencing and a dualistic model of mind
and body that lead to an underestimation of
the role of predisposing variables (maladaptive
habits causing allostatic load, and consequent
wear and tear) and to a significant dissociation
of cognitive mediators of coping from affective and physiological mediators. Third, being
deeply influenced by the medical model of cognitive therapy, cognitive-behavioral models of
stress and learning emphasize the unlearning
of pathological habits of stress-reactivity while
neglecting the maladaptative habits endemic in
the population, as well as the potential for positive health through the enhancement of learn-

ing and adaptation above the statistically normal range.

We believe the literature, taken together with
our own prior research, points to the critical
role for an integrated system of stress-reduction,
self-healing, and learning enrichment, not only
in facilitating the adoption of new health behavior, but also in sustaining and extending
healthy behavior change over time. Thus, our
recent research has focused on testing whether
a contemplative self-healing program of multifactorial education designed to overcome stressconditioned resistance and enhance learning
competence at multiple mind/body levels is
more effective in achieving long-term behavior
change than interventions targeted directly at
changing health behaviors from the top down.
Unlike cognitive-behavioral models, the integrative model of stress and learning assumed by
our intervention drawn from the Indo-Tibetan
mind science tradition frames stress reduction
as a primarily inward-focused, generalized process mediated equally by cognitive, affective
and behavioral variables. We believe that this
model is more consistent with current cognitive science and stress research in two important ways: (1) it approaches human behavior
as an active, constructive process of learned
changes meant to maintain allostatic balance
(Skt. svastha) with a changing reality; and (2)
it views the distress cycle (sam
. sara) as a general condition of maladaptation (vikr.ti) that reflects a (short- or long-term) systems failure of
learning and self-regulation at the cognitive, affective, and/or behavioral levels (i.e., a failure
of allostasis). Second, the integrative model we
have been investigating relies on a reversible
feedback-loop model of conditioning and deconditioning sequences and a non-dualistic,
circular interaction of mind/body factors (see
Figure 1). Finally, this model views the cycle
of stress-reactivity as endemic to the human
condition though exacerbated in the course
of illness, aging, and dying; and it also views
this cycle as one of two potential modes of
human existence, detailing the possibility and
practical steps by which it can be unlearned

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Loizzo et al.: Contemplative Self-Healing

FIGURE 1. How the basic causality of stress is reversed through self-healing.

and replaced with a cycle of healing that leads

to optimal health. Taken together, these aspects of the Indo-Tibetan model more accurately represent the primary role of predisposing variables (causing allostatic load) and the
mutual reinforcement of cognitive, affective,
and physiological mediators of maladaptive
versus adaptive behaviors and their respective
outcomes.
In practice, the Indo-Tibetan model of mind
and health offers not only a more complete
and accurate picture of the psychobiology of
stress and healing, but is also better suited to the
learning and maintenance of healthy behavior
change in a general population. This is in large
part because it is not illness based, but rather
addressed to helping ordinary individuals to
understand and face the inexorable stresses of
the human condition. Faced with the stressful
facts of life, including the inexorable realities of
illness, aging, and death, most humans feel severe stress reflecting a real inability to effectively
understand and respond to such ultimate challenges. This is often exacerbated by cognitivebehavioral interventions based in mainstream
Western healthcare, which is not only illness
based in a way that pathologizes normal human experience but is also framed in a quantitative, mechanistic language that only professionals can understand. Many women after
undergoing the ordeal of diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, for instance, suffer a sub-

clinical syndrome resembling post-traumatic

stress disorder (PTSD).8893 The common inclination of research clinicians to treat this condition as a disorder or comorbid feature of
an illness episode reflects the bias cognitivebehavioral and psychodynamic therapies share
with our medical system as a whole. That is, the
failure to acknowledge illness, aging, and death
as existential features of the human condition,
rather than alien intrusions to be eliminated,
avoided, or denied.
In contrast, the basic model of mind/body
health in the Indo-Tibetan tradition is explicitly aimed at teaching the individual the skills
and insights necessary to master the human
condition of distress-prone living. Its existential or positive health orientation, language,
and methods typically help individuals feel
that they are being empowered to face the
enormity of the challenge of resuming life
in the wake of a major illness. This proactive focus on the big picture as opposed to
the conventional medical focus on disease specific behavior typically translates into greater
sense of coherence, meaning, or calm in individuals participating in contemplative interventions from the Indo-Tibetan tradition.
Furthermore, these interventions are not just
tailored to reduce general stress-reactivity that
might impede learning, but are also proactively
equipped with positive health skills and insights
that facilitate and enhance learning and health.

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Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

FIGURE 2. Techniques and insights offer a gradual pathway from stress to healing.

This means that one and the same intervention can be designed to help carry an individual through the initial phase of overcoming resistances to healthy behavior change as
well as subsequent phases of maintaining and
extending healthy life change into the domain
of optimal health.
For most if not all diseases, behavioral and biological risk factors occur simultaneously and
require multidisciplinary research on integrative health, which is key to developing an
understanding of how health at the individual
and societal level is maintained.73,94 Integrative health is thus a broad framework that encompasses complex biological, psychological,
cultural, and social pathways to health and disease.31,73 Because even transactional cognitivebehavioral models tend to view mind and body
in terms of linear causal sequences, predisposing or synergistic variables like a history of
trauma, anxiety, depression, or addictive disorders are seen as more or less independent
variables whose etiology and treatment are not
an integral part of an individuals pattern of
stress-reactivity or resistance to learning and
higher development. We know of no previous
work that has demonstrated the relationship
of perceived stress, learning, and healthy behavior change, and we know of no previous
work that has attempted to test intervention
approaches designed to influence the mainte-

nance of health behavior change by focusing

on reducing the impact of perceived stress on
learning and positive adaptation. In addition,
cognitive-behavioral interventions informed by
the unilinear models of conventional medical
research and practice tend to approach all individuals with a generic diagnostic mindset and
monolithic prescription of insights and skills.
However, each individual has their own pattern of mind/body stress-reactivity.75,95,96 Factors such as history of exposure to chronic stress
or trauma may condition diverse styles of psychophysiologic stress-response.60,7678,97 Further, individuals vary widely in deficits and/or
strengths in cognitive and emotional and behavioral intelligence, affecting their receptivity to different modes of learning and styles
of teaching. Consequently, more effective interventions will also need to integrate a range of
diverse insights and skills suited to the range of
individual patterns of reactivity and learning, as
does the integrated contemplative intervention
we have been studying (see Figure 2).
Recent Mind/Body Interventions
and the Indic Contemplative
Science Tradition
Growing interest in the clinical efficacy of
stress-reducing interventions for a wide range

Loizzo et al.: Contemplative Self-Healing

of medical conditions can be traced to the

convergence in the 1970s of two lines of investigation begun in the 1950s.98,99 By integrating pioneering stress research with the
first physiological studies of Indian meditation, Herbert Benson laid the groundwork
for a new, mind/body approach to psychosomatic or behavioral medicine.100 Benson
showed that patients with ischemic heart disease and hypertension seemed to benefit from
learning a meditation-based method of eliciting the relaxation response.101,102 Gaining a
broader evidence base since the 1980s,74,103106
mind/body medicine was recognized by the
National Institutes of Health as a promising
new clinical research field, while meditationbased stress-reduction programs gradually displaced hypnosis and biofeedback as the standards in psychosomatic research and practice.107,108
Despite this shift and the growing research
consensus behind it,41 the conventional wisdom that mind/body interventions function
like hypnosis (by simple relaxation and/or
suggestion) continues to limit understanding
of meditation-based interventions and to obscure their relevance to the critical problem
of learned health behavior.109 The clinical
consensus emerging around the mindfulnessbased stress reduction program (MBSR) developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn has helped to focus research into the mechanism and clinical
potential of such interventions.110113 Central
to this consensus is a new view of meditation as a discipline of attention114 and a new
model of stress-reduction as a method of facilitating healthy behavior change via the enhancement of learning.113,115 This model is
consistent with the learning paradigms current in cognitive neuroscience116 and cognitive therapy,63 as well as with classical
Indo-Tibetan views of meditation as a basic
educational method with medical applications
in self-healing, illness-prevention, and healthy
aging.117119
Conversely, a link between stress-reduction
and learning competence also helps to explain

129

the negative correlation we have observed between stress and behavior change. Individuals
under stress are less likely to risk entertaining new ideas or behaviors and more likely to
engage in reactive patterns defensively and automatically, without the benefit of higher cognitive assessment and innovation or higher social coping behaviors.120,121 Consistent with
this negative correlation is the positive correlation between positive stimulation and learning found in studies of the effect of enriched
environments on neural plasticity and learning
competence. It now appears that the combination of stress-reduction and learning enrichment is gaining further support from current
hypnosis research, where learning models of
hypnosis are further challenging the conventional wisdom that mind/body interventions
work via a placebo-like mechanism involving
relaxation and suggestion.114,122,123 We believe
that the intervention approaches most likely to
yield effective reduction of stress-conditioned
behavior, and thus lead to better maintenance
of behavioral change, are those approaches that
utilize what has been learned from emerging
research on meditation-based stress reduction
that focuses on attention variables and learning
competence.
In order to appreciate the potential advantages of a contemplative approach to learned
behavior change, we must first consider the limitations of previous strategies combining cognitive therapy with relaxation techniques and/or
supportive interventions. The new learning
paradigm in stress-reduction has fueled a long
association of mind/body interventions with
cognitive therapy.124 Some have gone so far
as to integrate mindfulness skills into cognitive
treatments, notably in personality and mood
disorders.51,125127 The strategy of these interventions is to use mindfulness as an active ingredient that supports the learning and maintenance of skills such as cognitive reframing,
emotional self-regulation, and social effectiveness by building capacities for objective selfobservation, affect tolerance, and presence of
mind.128

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Although comparing meditation-based

methods with cognitive therapy is a helpful
corrective to hypnosis-based misconceptions
of mind/body methods, remembering their
differences is equally important.128 In particular, it helps to recall that cognitive therapy
may also be compared with hypnosis in that it
combines top-down suggestive methods like
thought-replacement with relaxation and/or
support in ways that replicate the combination
of suggestion and absorption in hypnotherapy.
Underlying the surface contrast between the
learning paradigm of cognitive therapy and
the manipulative paradigm of hypnotherapy
is a deeper similarity: both were developed
to overcome the persistent effects of aversive
conditioning without full knowledge of how
the psychophysiology of stress reinforces
such negatively conditioned habits at various
mind/body levels.
In contrast, the learning paradigm of Indian
contemplative therapies revolves around a contemplative model of the psychophysiology of
stress (Figure 1), which describes how stress reinforces aversive conditioning and how healing and learning critically depend on reducing stress and extinguishing cognitive, affective,
and behavioral stress-reactivity.129 Although
not fully articulated in any Western psychology,3,130 such an integrative stress-based learning paradigm could account for the limitations
of mind/body interventions observed in recent
studies. One such study of behavior change
in patients with heart disease (the ENRICHD
trial) used an intervention combining cognitive
therapy for depression with social support and
showed less depressive symptoms, greater social
ties, but no difference in cardiac events.131,132
From the perspective of an integrated stresslearning model, the limitations of such interventions may be accounted for by several
factors.
First, while classical cognitive therapy targets depressive or anxious thought patterns, it
neglects self-involvement and other defensive
thought patterns that promote stress-reactive
emotions like hostility and clinging.133 While

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

cognitive therapy teaches skills for modifying

depressive or anxious thought patterns, it typically does not teach skills for directly modulating anger, fear, shame or other stress affects
themselves.125,134 Second, while social support
in general seems to counter the effects of stress,
psychoanalytically oriented individual and/or
group supports may encourage the ventilation of negative thoughts and emotions that
reinforce stress-reactivity and inhibit learning,
directly or indirectly.135 Third, the variable effects of unstructured social support must be expected even with standard psychiatric interventions such as supportive-expressive therapy or
clinical support groups, since any interventions
not structured to systematically reduce stress
and promote learning may overlook or unwittingly reinforce one or more factors of stressreactivity and learning-resistance.136
Thus, a meditation-based approach to stress
reduction and behavior change represents a significant innovation in that it offers a promising alternative to the more widely practiced
cognitive-behavioral treatments reported in the
literature. However, there is a need to test
whether contemplative approaches that integrate cognitive-affective-behavior learning are
more effective by helping to teach patients how
to reduce stress-conditioned resistance and enhance learning and behavior change than an
intervention explicitly designed to motivate behavior changes piecemeal.
A more current strategy under study by some
researchers is combining cognitive therapy with
mindfulness-based stress-reduction rather than
with relaxation or support.133 Patients learn
about the basic discipline of attention and
about impact of stress on the mind and body.
Breathing exercises involving deep abdominal
and slow breathing helps to deepen relaxation
and facilitates receptivity to learning. Then
patients are introduced to advanced practices
including cognitive reframing in order to alter stress reactive thinking and learn how not
to identify with negative thinking or emotion.
They learn not to imagine the worst, enhancing
the threat of everything. They learn to override

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Loizzo et al.: Contemplative Self-Healing

a stress reactive imagination. In some interventions, patients then learn to increase positive
emotions through imagery and visualization.
Behavioral interventions even include skillslearning programs for interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance.125,137 While pilot studies so far have found
such hybrid interventions as or more successful
than conventional modalities,138,139 in the absence of full-scale randomized controlled trials
it is unclear to what extent they have resolved
internal contradictions and overcome limitations caused by mixing conflicting paradigms
and methods.140 One such intervention based
on the pioneering work of Masha Linehan, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) tries to hybridize a biological disease model of borderline
personality disorder with a cognitive therapy
model of desensitization; Western philosophical models of dialectical thinking with Buddhist
theories of relativity and interdependence; and
mindfulness skills aimed at a general stress response with psycho-education aimed at diseasespecific psychopathology.125 Another hybrid intervention developed by Teasdale and others,
mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
uses mindfulness to build more objective selfawareness or metacognition, enhancing the effectiveness of conventional cognitive therapy
for depression. Other examples of eclectic interventions are common in mind/body medical research and practice.52,53,126,141 As we see
it the next challenge is to develop and/or adapt
interventions whose assumptions and methods
are as coherent as possible.128 This should minimize confounding variables internal to those
interventions and maximize their effectiveness
and research transparency.
While it is commonly assumed that there
is a large literature on the impact of stressmanagement programs, in fact there is remarkably little empirical data. Several small trials evaluating the impact of mindfulness-based
stress reduction techniques have shown that
daily hassles and overall psychological distress
were significantly reduced.54,55,112,142 A systematic review of studies of mindfulness-based

stress reduction demonstrated that the samplesize weighted mean effect size was 0.59. The
standard error of the effect size estimate was
0.41.128 Another of our aims in drawing on the
Indo-Tibetan tradition is to build on its many
advantages as a standardized, text-based tradition of academic medicine and psychology.
The extensive methods of educating and training expert practitioners as well as educating the
general public will no doubt facilitate the work
of making interventions more reproducible as
well as more effective and widely applicable.
The Theory and Practice of
Contemplative Self-Healing
Interventions
The contemplative self-healing program we
have been studying has been designed to meet
these challenges. Rather than mix mindfulness
practice with Western medical techniques of
cognitive therapy, dynamic therapy, hypnotherapy, or guided imagery, our intervention integrates mindfulness with techniques of cognitive analysis, affect modulation, motivational
imagery, and reinforcing breathing that have
been designed and tailored over thousands of
years to complement and advance the contemplative science of self-healing and mindfulness
practice. Extending the work of pioneers influenced by the Hindu Yoga, Theravada Buddhist, and Zen Buddhist traditions, it draws
on the Wests more recent encounter with the
civilization of Tibet, which preserved the Indian mind and health sciences in their most
complete and advanced form, as refined in the
worlds first university at Nalanda.143 Rather
than teaching mindfulness alone or mixing
it with the distinct paradigms and methods
of cognitive therapy or dynamic therapy, our
intervention exploits the fact that the IndoTibetan mind and health science tradition preserves what may be the worlds most complete
contemplative system of cognitive-affectivebehavioral stress-cessation and learning enrichment, including three complementary systems

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of mind/body methods designed to overcome

stress-conditioned resistances to healthy behavior change. While prior interventions extracted
mindfulness from its niche within the continuing, multidisciplinary curriculum of IndoTibetan health education, our intervention
draws on all three core disciplines of that curriculum and integrates the preliminary system
of mindfulness practice with intermediate and
advanced systems of contemplative practice
aimed at initiating and maintaining cognitiveaffective-behavioral change.
The theory underlying contemplative stresscessation, self-healing, and optimal health in
the Indo-Tibetan tradition is defined in the four
noble truths (caturaryasatya), the basic framework of all Buddhist learning, science, and civilization.124 According to the first two truths
suffering and originthe basic condition of human life is one of preventable stress and distress
(duhkha) whose origin lies in a causal cycle made
up of twelve mutually reinforcing mind/body
factors. The cycle is rooted in two evolutionary predisposing factors called misknowledge
(avidya) or self-involvement (atmagraha) and unhealthy emotion (akusala-samskara) or addictive emotion (klis..ta-samskara). These predisposing factors then condition the development of
self-consciousness and perception in a way that
promotes stress-reactive experience and motivation as well as stereotyped, compulsive behavior and life. Thus, the Indo-Tibetan model
anticipates the findings of contemporary stress
research, by distinguishing cognitive, affective
and behavioral aspects of stress-reactivity. It
refines and expands on current models by
identifying two key predisposing variables that
serve as root causes of stress and learning
resistance. And it also breaks down each general phase into several steps, further clarifying the multiple factors reinforcing stressdriven behavior and lifestyles. Finally, it
expands the scope of current models in both
the macroscopic and microscopic dimensions,
by showing how the basic human condition of
misknowledge-conditioned development operates within three different time frames, that is:

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

generations, within lifetimes and from moment

to moment.
According to the crucial third and fourth
truthsextinction and pathShakyamuni
learned that this causal cycle could be
changed/reversed into a cycle of healing and
learning in which realistic self-knowledge, positive motivation, and healing virtues gradually generate a life of optimal peace, freedom,
longevity, and happiness. Equal in importance
yet opposite in direction to the second truth of
origin, the fourth truth of extinction describes
the fruit of his journey of contemplation: a circle
of healing and learning in which the mind and
body are gradually freed of learned distresshabits as well as the innate instincts of stress and
violence underlying them. Thus the four noble
truth framework of Indic mind/body practices
revolves around the psychobiological model of
stress-reactivity and stress-cessation spelled out
in the second and third truths, which describe
how distress-prone thinking, feeling, and action reinforce suffering and how healing and
learning depend on eliminating distress and
promoting health by replacing stress-reactivity
and its causes with self-healing and its causes
(Figure 1).
Although Figure 1 numbers each factor and
depicts the link between factors as linear and
unidirectional, this is mainly for ease of presentation. Both the distress cycle and the healing circle are understood as highly dynamic
and interactive processes which can be seen
as operating in many different biological time
frames, from the intergenerational frame of reproduction and development, to the one-life
frame of individual development, and the subtle frame of moment-to-moment reinforcement versus plasticity and learning. Likewise,
each factor is understood as involved in a dynamic, reversible equilibrium with its neighbors and through them with all other factors
in the cycle. This complex dynamic process of
mind/body causality is thus not too loose
to explain regularities but not too tight to
preclude learning, hence its name, dependent
origination (pratityasamutpada). This highly

Loizzo et al.: Contemplative Self-Healing

dynamic, interactive view of mind/body causation is what lays the foundation for recognizing the binary potential of human learning
and development discovered by the Shakyamuni.144 Anticipating current notions of selfregulation (yogacara) and use-dependent plasticity (prasrabdi), this basic model supports the
linkage between stress and learning, compulsive reactivity and positive health, that is key
to the explanatory elegance and power of the
four truth framework. Hence, this sophisticated view of mind/body causation helps to
make the Indo-Tibetan model both more accurate and complete than current cognitivebehavioral models.
Most important to understanding the practice of self-healing in this tradition is the fourth
truth of the path that links the basic condition of suffering to the fruitional condition of
optimal well-being.145 The truth of the path
spells out eight steps towards self-healing that
may be simplified into three synergistic disciplines of reeducation: wisdom (prajna ), meditation (samadhi), and ethics (sila). Meditation aims
at developing conscious regulation of the workings of the mind, nervous system, and physiology through control of attention, concentration, breathing, and posture. Wisdom aims
at clear and objective knowledge of reality
through analysis that helps the mind expose and
reform unrealistic, self-involved views. Ethics
aims at developing skilled actions that are effective in achieving personal and social aims
like well-being, freedom, and happiness. Taken
together, the third and fourth truths transform the basic science of the first two truths
into a positive framework of stress-cessation,
self-healing, and optimal health, by describing the natural human potential for self-healing
that reverses the cycle of stress-prone living as
well as the complete gradual path of unlearning and relearning that helps ordinary individuals access that self-transcendent potential
(tathagata-garbha).
The path is often further simplified into a
dual format combining wisdom or insight with
contemplative-ethical technique (upaya). Prac-

133

tically, the path of contemplative self-healing is

not limited to stress-reduction but specifically
targets each of the twelve factors of distress with
specific insights and techniques that systematically foster the unlearning of distress factors and
the enriched learning of positive health factors.
As mapped in the global framework of
mind/body practices outlined elsewhere144 (see
Table 1), the four noble truths leading to personal freedom were later enhanced by the
addition of two other vehicles for traveling
the contemplative path using techniques and
insights better suited to the conditions of secular society and culture. The techniques and
insights of the first vehicle of practice, integrated in current interventions like MBSR,
DBT, and MBCT, focus on mindfulness and
renunciation of personal distress and compulsive habits. Those of the second vehicle, minimally addressed by current mindfulness interventions, focus on self-transcendent insight and
empathic skill to transform stress-driven social
perceptions and emotions. Those of the final
vehicle, only integrated in our intervention, focus on developing the vision and inspiration
to reshape a stress-driven cultural form of life.
Key to the development of this complex curriculum were the monastic universities of classical India exemplified by Nalanda, committed to making contemplative arts and sciences
available to the secular and lay communities of
India. Tibetans adopted the Nalanda tradition
of combining all three vehicles into a gradual
path (Skt. pathakrama, Tib. lam rim) tailored to
the demands of teaching contemplative selfhealing to lay people in a highly active, secular
culture.146
Table 1 outlines this comprehensive tradition of integrating all three vehicles of practice,
mapping the practices following a crosscultural matching of the esoteric integral process (yoga tantra) map of the nervous system
with modern triune maps developed by Freud,
Panksepp, and others. In addition, it maps the
way in which Indic models and methods anticipated and expand on the current model of
allostatic load, by describing the effects of stress

134
Euphoric/Ecstatic
Devotion/Flow
High/Integral

Low/Exclusive
Care/Concern

Discipline
calm
Mastery/Flow

Joy/Mastery

Imaginal/Visceral

Analytic/Gestalt

Reflection/
Mindfulness
Alertness/Effort
Low/Inclusive
Relief/Release
Focus/Refocus

Subtle/Limbic

Subtlest/Core

Social concern

Process integrity

Daydream/
Dreaming
Orgasm/Sleep

Traumatic
cognition
Traumatic
affect
Stress instincts
Coarse/Cortical
Personal care

Waking/Fantasy

Motive/Intent
Aids (lift)
Blocks (drag)
Mental level
Neural level
Practice phase

TABLE 1. Comparative psychoneural map of stress-reduction and learning enrichment

Arousal/Attention

Skill level

Insight level

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

in terms of the accumulation of negative energies (pran.a) and drops (bindu) and by linking
these to the stress-reactive cognition, affect and
instincts that pose blocks (avaran.a) to learning, as
well as to the contemplative aids or powers (bala)
that help overcome those blocks. Elsewhere,144
we have argued that these blocks and aids may
be conceptualized as allostatic resistance or drag
versus allostatic facilitation or lift, respectively.
In terms of clinical application, our contemplative intervention translates the gradual path
methods from the Nalanda tradition into a series of eight skills or techniques and twelve insights or strategies for healthy change, all tailored to the needs of mainstream Westerners
(Figure 2). The skill sets and insights are taught
in a 20-week contemplative learning program
and range across all three phases of the continuum of mind/body practices mapped in a
global framework of mind/body practices. The
program introduces this comprehensive system
in two modules: 8 initial weekly group classes
focus on teaching meditative techniques or skill
sets; and another 12 weekly classes focus on
teaching contemplative insights and lifestyles.
Outside of the structured 90 minute classes,
which combine lecture and discussion with experiential learning exercises, homework consists of daily practice guided by meditation CDs
and by structured manuals. Taught in adapted
Tibetan style, individuals learn insights and
skills suited to various needs of daily living so
that they can use the ideas and tools best suited
to the complex and varied challenges of their
life in the world.
In the first 8 weeks, three contemplative
techniques are introduced. The discipline of
combining stable open-mindedness with
heightened attention is the basic skill set of
mindfulness. This is complemented by an intermediate level skill set of social-emotional
self-care called mind-clearing or mind-training
(Skt. buddhisoddhana, Tib. blo-byong), meant to
help participants protect their self-healing practice from the social stresses of everyday life.
Finally, visualization, affirmation, and deep
breathing are taught as an advanced skill

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Loizzo et al.: Contemplative Self-Healing

set called the action or performance process

(Skt. kriya-carya-tantra, Tib. bya-spyod-rgyud) to
enrich and speed the learning of contemplative insights and healthy lifestyle changes.
In the second, 12-week module on lifelong
stress-cessation and optimal learning, all three
skills are combined to speed the mastery of
contemplative insights and lifestyles as well
as to help students integrate them through
a multi-dimensional visualization-based contemplative learning practice that influences
cognition, emotion, physiology, and activity
synergistically.
The techniques all involve the intensification, stabilization, and effective deployment
of attention to expose and reform automatic
learned habits of mind, body, emotion, and action as well as the innate instinctual programs
underlying them. The insights direct attention
towards the discrimination of unhealthy habits
and the conceptual understanding and experiential learning of healthy alternatives.
The results of a pilot study of this intervention in 46 women recently treated for breast
cancer and other gynecologic cancers suggest that the whole spectrum of Indo-Tibetan
mind/body practices can be readily mastered
and effectively used by contemporary Westerners to reduce stress and optimize learning and
quality of life.50 The study suggests that an integrated program of contemplative self-healing
may be effective in reducing the distress and disability experienced by women who have been
treated for breast or gynecologic cancer. Our
findings indicate that the intervention improves
overall well-being, as well as emotional wellbeing and function, as measured by scales designed to assess quality of life in cancer patients.
This intervention was associated with reduced
angst and increased coping using fighting spiritpositive orientation. Changes in quality of life
were correlated with changes in biological measures known to be reflective of stress, including cortisol levels, lymphocyte subtypes, and
natural killer cells. The magnitude of withinpatient difference is greater than that reported
in other studies and is equaled by only one

other methodologically rigorous trial in breast

cancer patients. That trial evaluated a 15-week
program of three times a week aerobic exercise
versus a control group. It is, however, extremely
difficult to get patients to engage in or sustain
this level of aerobic exercise; and less intense
physical activity has not been effective in improving quality of life in women with cancer.
Finally, although this integrated contemplative intervention builds on Indian and Tibetan
cultural traditions and practices, and teaches
skills and insights based on the tradition, it
does not require patients to adopt alien ideas
or beliefs. If it did, it would have limited applicability. In fact the intervention was designed
and refined to make the most effective methods
of contemplative learning available to lay and
secular communities. The acceptability of the
intervention was clear in the qualitative comments of the patients who participated.
Conclusion
Given the interest we all have in recovering
from and preventing disease while enhancing
health, longevity, and quality of life, the importance of the interventions discussed in this
paper should be obvious. Also clear from our
review of the field is that this is a crucial time
for complementary medical research, when the
importance of behavioral health is being reinforced by encouraging findings in many areas. This paper draws attention to the possibility that a promising new field may be further
advanced by contact with a time-tested nonWestern scientific tradition of reducing stress
and promoting optimal learning and health.
The very fact that this may be true raises a
number of complex issues of methodology. Perhaps most crucial, it challenges our preconceived bias that no human system of knowledge
or expertise other than modern Western science and technology can possibly offer a complementary science: a coherent, reproducible
system of alternative theories and methods that complements those of conventional
biomedicine.42 Since these complex issues have

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Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

been more fully explored elsewhere,143 here it

must suffice to say that the distance in theories and methods between Western behavioral science and Indo-Tibetan contemplative
science is not as great as we had imagined.
Growing access to a comprehensive array of
traditional methods for teaching contemplative theories and practices of optimal health
to experts and the general public raises the
possibility of more effective, reproducible interventions in complementary medicine,4951
mind/body medicine,147149 public health, and
education.142 In particular, the Tibetan tradition is unique in preserving what may be the
worlds most rigorous and comprehensive systems for optimizing mental functioning as well
as quality of living, aging, and dying.42 Most
intriguing is the fact that these systems include
ways of teaching a variety of individuals of different inclinations and temperaments a variety
of methods suited to a variety of sustainable
lifestyles.
The next steps are to establish the effectiveness of this intervention in a full randomized
breast cancer trial as well as in other promising clinical areas, such as cardiac rehabilitation and mood disorders. If such trials show
effectiveness, it would be enormously useful to
those who face the challenges posed by the limits of conventional biomedicine in rehabilitation, prevention, and positive health. Finally,
if effectiveness and mechanism are established,
this and similar contemplative interventions
integrated, manualized, and reproduced in disparate cultures over thousands of yearscould
help raise research and clinical standards in a
promising, emerging field in healthcare.
Appendix A: Structure and Content
of the Contemplative
Self-Healing Program
Class Format
The intervention provides psycho-education
in a group setting. Each class is divided into the
following parts:

Part 1: Initial Guided Meditation Session:

15-minute initial practice of the guided meditation of the week.
Part 2: Question and Answer Session:
45 minutes of structured questions and answers
between participants and instructor, in which
each participant is encouraged/called on to
show their comprehension of material and to
report on homework practice.
Part 3: Lecture-Discussion Session: 30 minutes structured lecture-discussion introducing
specific principles and practices of meditationbased behavior change, in which participants
are encouraged/called on to check comprehension (syllabus below).
Part 4: Final Guided Meditation Session: 15minute final practice of the guided meditation
of the week.
First Segment: Initial 8-Week Program in
Basic Meditative Techniques
The weekly syllabus of principles and practices taught and exercised in the first eight-week
program was as follows:

Week 1: The Basic Principles and Skills

of Self-Healing
Principle: People need skills that help them
face illness and stress as opportunities for selfhealing
Skill: Beginning mindfulness, focused on
breath and body
Objective: Participants learn the four noble
truth framework of self-healing, as well as the
definition of basic mindfulness practice as a
discipline of stable open-mindedness and attention. Regarding mindfulness, they learn the
two main types of resistance to open-minded
attention: distraction and dullness, and how to
counteract these by exercising the mental muscles of mindfulness and alertness. The role of
attention as the rate-limiting step in exposing
and overriding normally automatic habits is explained to show how mindfulness lays the foundation of self-healing. Participants have an initial and final experience of guided mindfulness

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Loizzo et al.: Contemplative Self-Healing

focused on breath and body, and are prepared

to practice it within and between meditation
sessions as homework.

Week 2: The Dependent Origination

of Suffering
Principle: Recognizing the causal cycle of
distress and how mindfulness skills help to break
it
Skills: Mindfulness and alertness, focused on
sensation
Objectives: Participants review the 12 factors and four phases of the distress cycle, as well
as their role in undermining healing, learning,
and quality of life. They focus on the critical
third phase where one finds the weakest link
most readily broken by mindfulness: the link between addictive craving and obsessive clinging.
Regarding mindfulness, they learn how mindfulness and alertness focused on sensation and
emotion serve as keys to exposing and renouncing normally automatic stress-reactions driving
compulsive behavior. They have an initial and
final experience of guided mindfulness focused
on sensation and emotion, and are prepared
to practice it within and between meditation
sessions as homework.

Week 3: Our Potential for Ending

the Cycle of Suffering
Principle: Recognizing the human potential
for freedom of mind and action, and how mindfulness can help actualize it
Skills: Mindfulness and quiescence, focused
on mental states and processes
Objectives: Participants are introduced to
the three levels of consciousness and neural processcoarse, subtle, and extremely
subtleas well as to the gradual way mindfulness of mind helps attention gain the stable
focus needed to influence deeper mind/body
processes. In particular, they explore the way
mindfulness and alertness deepens into quiescence and transcendent insight, allowing the
mind to expose and analyze the perceptual
and predisposing factors that anchor the distress cycle. Participants have an initial and

final experience of guided mindfulness and

quiescence focused on consciousness and its
processes, and are prepared to practice them
within and between meditation sessions as
homework.

Week 4: The Lifelong Path of

Contemplative Self-Healing
Principle: Applying mindfulness skills to foster lifelong self-healing through wisdom, concentration, and ethics
Skills: Mindfulness and concentration, focused on causal elements and events
Objectives: Participants learn about the
three disciplines and phases of contemplative
self-healing as well as the three kinds of support for maintaining contemplative learning
and healthy life change. They are introduced to
single-pointed and equipoised concentration as
the athletic pinnacle of attention, only possible
through the synergy of natural focus with the
highest levels of healing insight and motivation.
They have an initial and final experience of
guided posture and breathing techniques (akin
to Hatha yoga) that help support concentration,
motivation, and wisdom, and are prepared to
practice them within and between meditation
sessions as homework.

Week 5: Deconstructing the

Distress-Prone Personality
Principle: Recognizing the need for skills to
help expose self-involvement and destructive
emotions
Skill: Combining self-analysis with quiescence
Objectives: Participants learn how involvement with a traumatized, childhood sense of
self serves as the root of the cycle of distressprone life, predisposing us to negative emotions and the compulsive personality style and
lifestyle they promote. Practically, participants
learn to combine meditation with self-analysis
as well as the fourfold framework for exposing and analyzing self-involvement along
with the habits it supports. They have an initial and final experience of guided analytic

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insight meditation, and are prepared to practice

it within and between meditation sessions as
homework.

Week 6: Cultivating a Self-Healing

Personality
Principle: Recognizing the need for skills that
help build objective self-knowledge and positive
social emotions
Skill: Transforming social life though contemplation on empathy
Objectives: Participants learn about the role
of objective self-knowledge and positive social
emotions in transforming a distress-prone social self and life into a self-healing personality and lifestyle. Practically, participants learn
how combined quiescence and insight contemplation are used to transform negative social emotions like attachment, anger, envy, and
shame into positive emotions like love, care, joy,
and peace using the fourfold framework of social self-transformation. They have an initial
and final experience of imagery-based socialemotional contemplation, and are prepared to
practice it within and between meditation sessions as homework.

Week 7: Envisioning and Rehearsing

a Self-Healing Life
Principle: Recognizing the need for skills to
help deconstruct and reconstruct habitual perception
Skill: Transforming cultural perception
through role-modeling imagery and affirmation
Objectives: Participants learn about the role
of affirmative imagery and recitation in transforming habitual distress-prone cultural perception of the world into a self-healing vision
of better ways of being in a more ideal world.
Practically, participants are shown how to craft
their own image of an ideal healer or healthy
self, as well as a self-healing affirmation. They
have an initial and final experience of guided
visualization and recitation as a vehicle for envisioning and rehearsing a healthy vision of a better self and world, and are prepared to practice

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

them within and between meditation sessions

as homework.

Week 8: Energizing and Realizing

a Self-Healing Life
Principle: Learning the role of skills that help
transform stress physiology through healing energy and chemistry
Skill: Self-transformation through recitation
and breathing
Objectives: Participants review the role of
advanced recitation and breathing techniques
in developing conscious control over neural energies (pran.a) and drops (bindu) that help energize and realize a self-healing life. They learn
how visualization-guided abdominal breathing
and breath-holding help access and harness the
positive energy and chemistry of healing and
learning. Practically, participants have an initial
and final guided experience of deep abdominal
breathing and breath-holding exercises, and are
prepared to practice them within and between
meditation sessions as homework.
At the end of the initial 8 weeks participants are practicing an integrated meditation
exercising their mindfulness, quiescence, and
transcendent insight skills within a guided
social-emotional visualization, enhanced by
affirmative recitation and deep breathing.
At this point, participants are familiar
enough with the basic techniques of mindfulness, social-emotional insight meditation, and
visualization to build on those skills with a
sequence of 12 progressive contemplations.
These contemplations are meant to help individuals develop healing insights and strategies that galvanize their break with the cycle of distress and foster a new self-healing
outlook, attitude, and lifestyle. Following the
gradual path method of the Indo-Tibetan tradition, these contemplations start by prompting a fresh analysis of the most basic facts of
life and build one theme at a time towards
insights into the highest reaches of human
potential. The method of gaining insight is
one of five step contemplation, beginning

Loizzo et al.: Contemplative Self-Healing

with discursive analysis, moving through analytic reflection on what has been learned
to analytic and focused contemplation within
meditation sessions, finally culminating in
practical application in dialogue with ones human potential, meditatively evoked as a visualized encounter with an ideal healer or healthy
self set in a visualized ideal healing and learning
environment.

139

The syllabus of insights reviewed in the second segment of the intervention program is as
follows:

Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of death, its nature and meaning,
in light of the greater freedom and responsibility possible for those who exercise mindfulness,
alertness, and other contemplative muscles.
Challenging extreme views of death as a moment of final annihilation or judgment, this session explores the possibility of a middle way in
which death is seen as the touchstone for the
hard choices that can make life more enjoyable and meaningful; a constant reminder of
the importance of letting go of illusions and
embracing the present as it is. Its intent is to
counter negative emotions that stem from the
denial of death and other challenging facts of
life.

Week 9: Recognizing the Preciousness of

Human Life

Week 11: Recognizing the Effectiveness

of Human Action

Insight: Taking illness as an opportunity to

make life more meaningful
Practice: Correcting self-limiting views of life
through imagery-based insight meditation
Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of human life, its meaning and
potential, in light of the greater freedom and
responsibility possible for those who exercise
mindfulness, alertness, and other contemplative muscles. Challenging extreme views of
mind as having little or no lasting effect or as
solely dependent on the will of a higher power,
this session explores the possibility of a middle way in which exercising the human minds
full potential for learning and change is seen
as the real opportunity of life, the best chance
to make a deep and lasting difference in the
quality of life for oneself and others. Its intent is to counter the stultifying forms of selfinvolvement, from self-indulgence to self-pity
and self-righteousness.

Insight: Making a real difference for oneself

and the greater world
Practice: Seeing each act as an opportunity
to change life for better or worse
Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of human action, its nature and
consequence, in light of the greater freedom
and responsibility possible for those who exercise mindfulness, alertness, and other contemplative muscles. Challenging extreme views
of human behavior as determined by causes beyond our control or as predetermined by God,
this session explores the possibility of a middle way in which every act of body, speech, or
mind has an inevitable consequence on our development, incrementally altering our lives in
ways that make us more or less fit for health,
freedom, and happiness. Its intent is to counter
the sense of alienation and powerlessness that
comes of minimizing human freedom and
responsibility.

Week 10: Facing Impermanence

and the Immanence of Death

Week 12: Committing to the Necessity

of Inner Peace

Insight: Using the immanence of death to

prompt self-healing and self-change
Practice: Breaking through denial based on
ignoring the immanence of death

Insight: Recognizing that real peace of mind

depends on inner not outer conditions
Practice: Seeing peace as a choice to accept
what is, without illusions or violence

Second Segment: 12-Week Program in

Contemplative Insights and Lifestyles

140

Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of peace, its nature and benefits,
in light of the greater freedom and responsibility possible for those who exercise mindfulness,
alertness, and other contemplative muscles.
Challenging extreme views of contentment as
dependent on the satisfaction of instinctive
needs or as solely reflecting the grace of God,
acceptance of others or God, this session explores the possibility of a middle way in which
peace is the developmental effect of adopting
an outlook, attitude, and lifestyle committed
to facing reality without illusions or violence.
Its intent is to counter the distorted perception
that expects true contentment to come without
effort or from others.

Week 13: Finding Reliable Guidance

towards a Self-Healing Life
Insight: Recognizing that the path to selfhealing requires reliable guidance
Practice: Identifying and trusting reliable
mentors, traditions, and communities
Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of guidance, its nature, risks, and
benefits, in light of the greater freedom and
responsibility possible for those who exercise
mindfulness, alertness, and other contemplative muscles. Challenging extreme suspicion
of guidance as regressive or as a matter of blind
faith, this session explores the possibility of a
middle way in which identifying and trying reliable guidance is a necessity for anyone wishing to replace familiar habits with healthy alternatives. Its intent is to counter the sense of
the world as a cold and lonely place devoid
of the refuge or support we need to heal and
change.

Week 14: Understanding the Value

of Empathy
Insight: Valuing empathy as the way to impartial experience of the world
Practice: Exercising the potential for empathy through image-based contemplation
Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of empathy, its nature, scope, and

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

potential, in light of the greater freedom and

responsibility possible for those who exercise
insight, quiescence, and other contemplative
muscles. Challenging extreme suspicion of
empathy as regressive or as solely a matter of
duty or divine grace, this session explores the
possibility of a middle way in which it figures as
a powerful mental muscle that acts as the basis
for a realistic sense of ourselves and others, and
the ground of impartial, objective experience
of life and the world. Its intent is to counter
the traumatic sense of the world as a threatening place where others are hostile or indifferent
competitors.

Week 15: Facing the Cost of Traumatic

Self-Involvement
Insight: Recognizing self-involvement as the
root cause of distress-prone life
Practice: Dismantling learned and innate
self-involvement in image-based contemplation
Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of the self or person, its origin
and nature, in light of the more accurate
self-knowledge possible for those who exercise
insight, quiescence, and other contemplative
muscles. Challenging extreme views of the
self or person as a name for the brain or as
powerless creatures of a jealous God, this session explores the possibility of a middle way
in which the self or person is recognized as a
social contract that serves to regulate the relationships between human beings and to protect the freedom and responsibility each individual has for his or her action. Its intent is
to counter the reactive sensitivity that mistakes
pleasant, painful, or neutral contact with the
world for a matter of personal favor, attack, or
indifference.

Week 16: Cultivating the Benefits

of Care and Love
Insight: Identifying compassion as the most
effective way of being with others
Practice: Cultivating love and compassion
through image-based contemplation

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Loizzo et al.: Contemplative Self-Healing

Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of love and compassion, their nature and benefits, in light of the greater freedom and responsibility possible for those who
exercise insight, quiescence, and other contemplative muscles. Challenging extreme views
of love and compassion as self-interested instincts or as solely a matter of divine grace or
duty, this session explores the possibility of a
middle way in which the social emotions of
love and compassion are recognized and nurtured as natural muscles that can be exercised
and extended to expand the scope of proactive
social relations. Its intent is to counter the addictive craving for positive attention that blocks
higher social emotions and locks humans into a
regressive attachment to childish illusions and
habits.

Practice: Transcending familiar self-constructs through imagery and affirmation.

Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of mentoring, its risks and benefits,
in light of the greater freedom and responsibility possible for those who exercise vision, inspiration, and other contemplative muscles.
Challenging extreme views of mentoring as a
form of regressive dependency or as restricted
to blind obedience to God or his representatives, this session explores the possibility of a
middle way in which mentoring is recognized
and developed as the natural medium of social
learning and self-transcendence. Its intent is to
counter a rigid mindset that blocks the human
potential for lifelong development and locks humans in a self-limiting shell of automatic habits
of mind and action.

Week 17: Claiming the Power

of Responsibility

Week 19: Practicing the Virtue of Vision

Insight: Committing to altruism as the spirit

of objectivity and social effectiveness
Practice: Cultivating a mature social self
through guided contemplation
Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of altruism, its nature and benefits,
in light of the greater freedom and responsibility possible for those who exercise insight, quiescence, and other contemplative muscles.
Challenging extreme views of altruism as a
form of genetic self-interest or as a mere duty
or the sole province of saints and God, this session explores the possibility of a middle way in
which altruistic concern and resolve are recognized and developed as natural muscles that
can be exercised to power and direct a proactively engaged social life. Its intent is to counter
the obsessive clinging that inhibits the growth
of a higher social self and locks humans in
a fear-based attachment to self-defeating selfcenteredness.

Insight: Recognizing visions of self and world

as templates for self-transformation
Practice: Transforming habitual perception
through role-modeling imagery and affirmation
Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of perception in light of the greater
freedom and responsibility possible for those
who exercise vision, inspiration, and other
contemplative muscles. Challenging extreme
views of human perception as mirroring reality
or as a benighted shadow of divine perception,
this session explores the possibility of a middle way in which perception is recognized and
shaped as a creative process meant to guide the
current action and future development of individuals and societies. Its intent is to counter the
mindless reproduction of familiar patterns that
blocks humanitys full potential for transforming self and world through creative vision and
the action it guides.

Week 18: Recognizing the Need

for Mentoring

Week 20: Harnessing the Power

of Inspiration

Insight: Identifying qualified others as models for self-transformation

Insight: Using recitation and breath-control

to energize self-transformation

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Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Practice: Harnessing the energy and chemistry of arousal through restorative breathing
Objective: Participants reexamine their familiar view of mind/body states in light of
the greater freedom and responsibility possible for those who exercise vision, inspiration,
and other contemplative muscles. Challenging extreme views of mental states as determined by brain processes beyond conscious
control or as reflecting positive input from others or God, this session explores the possibility
of a middle way in which mind/body energy
and chemistry are recognized as products of
mental, verbal, and physical actions and vehicles to be consciously shaped to support the
realization of personal and social aims. Its intent is to counter the experience of facts of life
like illness, aging, and death as senseless, random events beyond our control and to harness
our full potential for altering our neurobiology
and biochemistry to best meet lifes ultimate
challenges.
Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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