The Mystery of Life Energy

In 1975, I was an entering student at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Early on in that journey, I met a young cell biologist in the Department of Physiology who was giving brown-bag lunch talks to staff on his side interest in meditation. I had just learned Transcendental Meditation (TM) before starting at UMMS, so this forum provided an unexpected sort of continuity with that side interest of mine. The junior faculty member was pleased by the high level of staff interest in his talks, and began to wonder about the outrageous possibility that meditation might have some health benefits for the patients in the hospital where we all worked (and believe me, it was an outrageous idea back then!).

However, his lab was located in the basic science research wing of the med school complex and so he had no contact with staff in the totally separate clinical wing, the folks who might help him to set up some sort of pilot project with patients. The only people who spent time in both wings were medical students, and so it fell to me to play the role of the intermediary who traveled between both worlds. I introduced that young researcher – a fellow by the name of Jon Kabat-Zinn – to a progressive and open-minded family practice doc I had gotten to know. They lined up a dozen patients for the first clinical trial of mindfulness meditation, and the rest, as they say, is history.

50 years later, and Jon’s work has had an immeasurable impact on the world of medicine and the culture at large, not just because of the MBSR protocol (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) that he developed at UMMS, but also because of the hundreds of research and clinical papers that have been generated by his Center for Mindfulness in Health and Society at UMMS. He’s also had a big cultural impact from his bestselling books (Full Catastrophe Living; Wherever You Go, There You Are) and his collaborations with everyone from the US Olympic team to the Dalai Lama.  I’d been in intermittent contact with him over the years, in part due to the UMMS scenario, but also spurred by an unusual karmic bond between us – his father, the organic chemist Elvin Kabat PhD, was the thesis advisor for my father at Columbia University back in the 1940s. So something large came full circle when I gave Jon his start in show biz.  🙂

Jon recently gave a talk in nearby Northampton, and I made it a point to attend. He may be 81 years old now, but he has the same quiet wisdom and humor and grace and charisma and presence that he’s always had. This photo of us from that event is weirdly unsmiling (him) and out of focus (me). But I wouldn’t read any symbolism into that; I blame my old-fashioned camera, which the volunteer photographer didn’t know how to hold very steady. Still, the historical significance of the meeting was very meaningful to me: reconnecting with a nice guy from back in the day who went on to become an influential and famous person, and who was simply being present in this moment. Awesome – in the original sense of the word.