IT'S ALL IN THE MINDFULNESS\For popular new kind of stress reduction, the time is now.

Byline: Elizabeth Cosin Daily News Staff Writer

The present is now.

The second just before is gone, the one ahead has yet to happen, so all that's left is a single moment, right here, right now.

Focus on it.

If you can do that and do it successfully, you are practicing a new kind of stress reduction that is gaining believers all over the San Fernando Valley.

It is a form of meditation called mindfulness and has become so popular that classes fill up as soon as they are announced. Those who practice it here say it has helped change their lives and their outlook - literally their ability to live in the moment.

But while its theories are based in part on Far East disciplines and Buddhist philosophies, mindfulness should not be mistaken for traditional meditation. This isn't transcendental meditation or yoga or channeling. Leave your mantra and your sari at the door.

This isn't checking out, it's checking in.

"It's not some California flaky thing," says Barbara Slensker of Thousand Oaks, a graduate of a mindfulness class she took in Oxnard. "I wasn't looking for that because it just isn't my thing. I just knew I needed to find a way to deal with the stress of my life. I didn't want to go through life asleep."

Mindfulness differs from traditional meditation practices such as transcendental meditation, which requires one to repeat a thought or mantra over and over until it is the only thought in your head.

The theory behind mindfulness is, as creator Jon Kabot-Zinn likes to put it, finding time during the day for "undoing." A person should focus on moments as they happen, not think about the moments that either already happened in the past or might happen sometime in the future, Kabot-Zinn says.

To do this, practitioners use different methods of focus - one is to listen to your breathing - while noting thoughts as they occur in your mind naturally.

"It's really about observing the activity of the mind and getting out of its way without identifying so strongly with it," says Kabot-Zinn, who wrote "Wherever You Go, There You Are," a best-selling kind of instruction manual for learning how to use mindful meditation. Kabot-Zinn developed mindfulness as part of the stress-reduction clinic he runs at the University of Massachusetts, basing it on years of experiencing various philosophical disciplines.

"I like to use the image of the surface of the ocean," Kabot-Zinn continues. "The mind is like the ocean, and on the surface it waves. And it's constantly waving as you're thinking this thought, that thought.

"When you notice what's on your mind, you begin to develop a stability of mind, some calmness, some clarity, some concentration. And over time, if you keep practicing, that actually grows," he says.

Slensker of Thousand Oaks sought out mindfulness because of the stress she endured as the office manager of an ophthalmology center in Oxnard. A successful working woman, mother and wife, Slensker knew her solid outward appearance was belying something troublesome under the surface.

"If you were to look at me, you would think that I'm a pretty together person," she says. "But I really wasn't. I wasn't handling stress very well. Underneath, I wasn't the self-assured woman that most people thought I was."

Mindfulness has changed much of this for Slensker, who says the hard work she has put in trying to master the discipline has opened her mind and her spirit. She was so moved by her experience that she has convinced several co-workers to take the course, too.

In the meantime, Slensker used to take the long, daily commute to her office and forget everything about the ride. Now, when she drives by the eucalyptus trees that line one section of the Ventura Freeway (101), she sees things she never noticed before.

"It's a small thing, I know, but now when I drive to work I can see the birds that sit on the top branches of those trees," she said. "It reminds me that I am not sleepwalking through life, that I am paying attention. It's a wonderful feeling to realize you're awake."

Kabot-Zinn has been refining his program for years, but got a boost in 1993 when it was featured on Bill Moyers' PBS program "Healing and the Mind." He started getting calls from people wanting to learn, so he set up a school in upstate New York to train health care professionals.

"The response has been overwhelming," he says.

Katherine Baum was watching PBS from her home in Camarillo one night three years ago, and she, too, was struck by Kabot-Zinn's idea of taking time to be "still."

Baum phoned Kabot-Zinn's clinic at the University of Massachusetts as soon as she woke up the next morning and told them she wanted to learn more about mindfulness. They sent her a reading list and told her to call back if she still was interested. She did.

"The more I read, the more I found out, and the more excited I got," says Baum, who owns an industrial real estate company with her husband. "It was like everything I had done in my whole life was just short of coming together."

Baum wasn't a stranger to meditation, having dabbled in transcendental meditation since the early 1980s. But she sensed something was different about mindfulness.

Her interest has never peaked.

Baum since has traveled to Kabot-Zinn's school in New York to take a course on how to teach mindfulness. She now teaches it at St. John's Medical Center in Oxnard and in the Westlake Village office of the Wellness Community, a series of centers around the country that helps patients and their families deal with the psychological effects of serious illness.

More than 200 people have taken Baum's classes.

"It filled up before we even put a flier out," says Marty Nason, the executive director of the Wellness Community in Westlake Village. "Within two hours of sending the word out, it was filled. The response was truly remarkable, and it continues to be a very popular class."

Mindfulness also has attracted health-care professionals interested in the theory that a healthy mind may be as important in curing disease and living longer as a healthy body. In fact, Kabot-Zinn routinely uses mindfulness at his stress-reduction clinic, which also targets patients who are recovering from serious illness such as heart attacks and strokes - conditions often brought on by stress.

Clinical psychologist Mae Keyson, who practices in Woodland Hills, was exploring that very theory when she sought out Kabot-Zinn's program nearly three years ago. She and her partner, yoga instructor Marsha Accomazzo, since have taught the class three times a year at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

"We've had people with all kinds of physical ailments take the class," she says. "People with cancer, multiple sclerosis, heart disease - and the response has been wonderful for them. We also get people who have work-related stress. The program has been a great success."

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Photo (1--Cover--Color) She's focusing on the now, in a new kind of stress reduction called mindfulness. (2) Mindfulness teacher Katherine Baum uses temple bells to help participants find something to focus on while learning mindfulness techniques. Michael Owen Baker/Daily News (3) Barbara Slensker sought out mindfulness because of the stress she endured as an office manager. She has convinced several co-workers to take the course. Gus Ruelas/Daily News (4) No stranger to meditation, Baum sensed something was different about mindfulness. Michael Owen Baker/Daily News