Mindful Primates

"In myths from around the world, men and women have searched for an elixir that will bring protection from suffering. Buddhist psychology's answer is mindfulness. How does mindfulness work? Let me illustrate with a story.

If you've ever seen the film Gorillas in the Mist, you know about Dian Fossey, the courageous field biologist who befriended a tribe of gorillas. Fossey had gone to Africa to continue the work of her mentor George Schaller, a renowned primatologist who had collected more intimate information about gorilla life than any scientist before him. When his colleagues asked how he was able to learn so much about these shy and elusive creatures, he attributed it to one simple thing: he didn't carry a gun.

Previous generations of biologists had entered the territory of these huge animals with the assumption that they were dangerous. So the scientists came with an aggressive spirit, large rifles in hand. The gorillas could sense the danger around these rifle-bearing men and kept a far distance. By contrast, Schaller -- and later Fossey--entered their territory without weapons. They had to move slowly, gently, and above all respectfully toward these creatures. In time, sensing the benevolence of these humans, the gorillas allowed them to come among them and learn their ways. Sitting still, hour after hour, with careful, patient attention, Fossey finally understood what she saw: a whole new world of tribal and family relationships, unique personalities, habits, and communication. As the African American sage George Washington Carver explained, 'Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.'

Mindfulness is attention. It is a non-judging and respectful awareness... When people initially come to a meditation class to train in mindfulness, they hope to become calm and peaceful. Usually they are in for a big shock. The first hour of mindfulness meditation reveals its opposite, bringing an unseen stream of evaluation and judgment into stark relief...

But like George Schaller, we can put aside these weapons of judgment. We can become mindful. When we are mindful, it is as if we can bow to our experience without judgment or expectation."

~ from Jack Kornfield's, The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology (Chapt. 7), Bantam, 2008.

No one who looks into a gorilla's eyes - intelligent, gentle, vulnerable - can remain unchanged, for the gap between ape and human vanishes; we know that the gorilla still lives within us.
~ George Schaller