I gave this talk on March 6, 2025. A recording follows the text.

There are thousands upon thousands of students who have practiced meditation and obtained its fruits. Do not doubt its possibilities because of the simplicity of the method. If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
– Dōgen

I recently listened to a long podcast interview of Ellen Langer, a pioneering and iconoclastic social psychologist who I admire immensely. I’ve never met her, but her work has quietly influenced my own—and my view of human folly and potential more broadly—for the past 30 years. She has been studying awareness, attention, and their implications for personal and social wellbeing for nearly half a century. 

Langer initially was interested in what she called mindlessness. Her work on mindlessness quickly piqued her interest in its opposite, which she called mindfulness. Langer’s use of the term mindfulness has led to some confusion between her ideas, on the one hand, and practices and ideas initially associated with Theravada Buddhism in the West, on the other hand. Today, Buddhism writ large—all streams and practices, including Zen—tends to get reduced to the term “mindfulness” in the Western popular imagination. Buddhism and mindfulness have become nearly synonymous.

But Langer didn’t know anything about meditation or the way some people were using the word mindfulness when she began her research. She chose the term mindfulness to describe her own research interest independently decades ago, and she’s still not particularly interested in so-called mindfulness meditation. 

Let me tell you just a bit about Langer’s work and findings. I learned about her as a graduate student as I worked closely with one of her colleagues. I used to spend endless hours in the basement of Williams James Hall, where the Harvard psychology department had its library, photocopying articles and book chapters I needed for my work on conflict resolution. Can you imagine? That was the Stone Age. Who does that anymore?

One of Langer’s early experiments involved copy machines. She observed how people standing in line to use a copier reacted when one of her graduate student collaborators tried to cut the line. Sometimes she would say, “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the xerox machine?” About 60% of the time the collaborator would be allowed to cut. But, sometimes, when her collaborator cut the line, she would say, “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?” In these cases 93% of these poor people mindlessly let Langer’s collaborator go first, even though she had given them a contentless non-reason for cutting the line. Needless to say, everyone else was in line because they also needed to make copies.

Langer became famous after another of her early experiments. She put a group of frail men in their 80s together in a residence that had been set up in every way to resemble the world 60 years earlier. The newspapers were reprints from their youth. Antique radios and TVs played music and shows from their 20s. Before long, these men were playing basketball together. Their mental health improved markedly. Blood draws before and after the experiment showed important biomarkers improved significantly, becoming typical for a young person.

Langer has produced scores of other fascinating, pathbreaking research over the years, much of it focused on improving health and healthy longevity. I’m looking forward to reading her most recent book, The Mindful Body. As the title suggests, she doesn’t accept the notion of mind-body dualism.

So in this interview I mentioned, Langer said something that has led to this talk. Asked whether her work on mindfulness was connected to mediation, Langer said no, then added, “mindfulness is what happens after meditation.” She’s implying that mediation can be mindless, or just unrelated to mindfulness by her definition. She’s more interested in the experience of those of us who meditate when we’re not meditating. Meditation is valuable from her perspective only if it promotes mindfulness as she defines it. And, even when it does, she’s saying it isn’t the only way to become mindful off the cushion. While I do think different forms of meditation can produce benefits other than those Langer cares about most, I agree with her as far as she goes.

But Langer’s conception of mindfulness is mainly contrasted with Vipassana meditation—its techniques, goals, and effects. Vipassana meditation is quite technique heavy and goal oriented. Langer is focused on developing our capacity to notice new things, to be present, and to be sensitive to context and perspective. In Vipassana, the goals are to develop insight into the three marks of existence (impermanence, no-self, and unsatisfactoriness), and eventually to attain nirvana: the end of suffering by exiting the cycle of birth and death. It offers a structured and staged approach to meditation in pursuit of these goals.

Zen’s shikantaza approach to meditation is very different, and very resonant with Langer’s work. All the comparisons of Langer’s work to Buddhism seem to focus on Vipassana, so I asked an AI engine (Claude) if it’s ever been compared to Zen. Here’s what Claude said:

“Most comparative analyses have indeed focused on contrasting Langer’s approach with meditation-based mindfulness derived from Vipassana/Theravada traditions (particularly as adapted by Jon Kabat-Zinn).

However, there are some interesting conceptual parallels between Langer’s approach and shikantaza . . . :

1. Non-goal orientation: Both Langer’s mindfulness and shikantaza emphasize process over outcome. Langer critiques mindless pursuit of goals, while shikantaza explicitly avoids meditation as a means to an end.

2. Present-centered awareness: Both approaches value immediate experience rather than abstract analysis. Langer emphasizes noticing novelty in the present moment, which aligns with shikantaza’s open, non-discriminating awareness.

3. Rejection of rigid techniques: Langer’s approach doesn’t involve formal meditation techniques, and shikantaza is considered the most technique-free form of meditation.

4. Creative engagement: Langer emphasizes creative engagement with one’s environment, which has some resonance with Zen’s emphasis on spontaneous, unfiltered interaction with reality.”

There’s so much more I’d like to say about this, and about what I think is going on when we sit shikantaza, but we’re out of time. Let me end with Langer’s definition of enlightenment, which she was asked about at the end of the interview. She seemed a bit taken off guard because it’s not really her thing, but she was happy to respond anyway. (Langer is a very happy person.) I loved her answer. She said enlightenment is being curious about the reasons someone else is doing what they’re doing. That it’s a shift in disposition so that everything and everyone isn’t judged solely from our present, myopic perspective. She traces all our problems, personally and collectively, to that mode of perception and judgment.

Amen.