Mariah Boisvert
Word Count: 1320
AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS – A long hike in New Zealand inspired an Irishman to tell Abby Bliss, two strangers at the tine, about how meditation helped him confront his depression.
Looking back almost 15 years later, Bliss said this encounter was the reason she began meditation, a big part of her life that she now brings with her to her job as a student advisor in the University of Massachusetts journalism department.
Abby Bliss in her office in the Integrative Learning Center at UMass Amherst on Oct. 20, 2016
Bliss has a soft smile and short, dark, wavy hair that frames her face. She has a thin physique and wears simple, tasteful clothing with a lot of natural, neutral colors.
She grew up playing soccer, playing on the Doherty High School Varsity team for four years. Bliss also has always enjoyed reading. “ I like words, ideas, expression,” Bliss said.
Bliss has always gotten along with her three sisters. Her mom had a career as a librarian at Worcester public library and her father was A journalist at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. She grew up with newspapers constantly around the house and spent a lot of time in a newsroom.
“I know all of this is pretty usual and nondescript, but that was my childhood,” Bliss said.
While Bliss had a happy childhood, she had a strong distaste for her hometown of Worcester. She said it was “a homogenous place, a really grey, industrial town. When you’re in high school and you have to wake up early to a grey place, it really affects you,” she said. She said Worcester was “insular. And not open-minded.” Bliss also said, “there was diversity around but I didn’t experience it.” She only knew people in her own neighborhood. Within her high school, she did not know people outside of honors classes. “Nothing felt integrated,” Bliss said, “But I suppose I could have done more to bridge those gaps.”
Bliss’ first inspiration to travel came about from a soccer camp in seventh grade in Scandinavia. She played a series of tournaments in Finland and Sweden, on a summer team that was created for people in Worcester and neighboring towns. She did not do any traveling after that until college.
When deciding on a college, Bliss looked for a school that was as different from Worcester as possible, leading her to the University of Arizona in Tuscan, Arizona. She enjoyed the change of scenery; it was far away, there were seasons, it was warm and most of all, it was bright. “I think there are less than 30 days of clouds in Tucson a year,” said Bliss. “I also really liked how independent the students seemed. I got into smaller, more competitive schools, but they felt claustrophobic. I wanted to be autonomous and anonymous,” said Bliss. She graduated with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Psychology.
Though she loved the atmosphere of the University of Arizona, Bliss didn’t “click” with a lot of people. “They were west coast partiers and I was a crunchy, nerdy person from the east coast,” she said.
Bliss showed up to summer orientation in “khaki shorts and Birkenstocks, with a button down Abercrombie plaid shirt.” She said, “they didn’t know to give me the parent flier or student flier -- I could easily pass as a boring parent. I knew right away that I wouldn’t fit in there.”
Bliss’ ultimate goal upon graduating was to travel the world.
She got a job as a mail deliverer for about three months to make some traveling money. As hoped, she earned enough to move to New Zealand, which is where she met the Irishman while hiking. He convinced her to attend a( ten-day) 10-DAY meditation course, which she attended two weeks after the hike. The experience really resonated with her.
Bliss ran out of money in New Zealand. At the same time she discovered that the biggest meditation center outside of India, the Vipassana Meditation Center, was in Shelburne, Massachusetts. “This was the only reason I came back home,” Bliss said.
Upon her return, she volunteered at this center. To pay for expenses, she reverted back to delivering mail for one month. She took some time to travel to Puerto Rico, Italy, France and India. When she got back, she became a long-term volunteer at the meditation center and eventually became the head of registration there.
Meditation appealed to Bliss’ desire to discover a mental challenge, as she was already very invested in physical challenges – namely hiking, yoga and running. Furthermore, as she spent more time in nature, she realized distractions got fewer. “I needed to look to my mind,” Bliss said. More than that, though, being in the silence of nature made her realize “how loud” her mind was.
Bliss considered applying to graduate schools and “settling down.” But she was asked to be a formal teacher at the Vipassana Meditation Center. She decided to combine her passion for traveling with her newfound love for meditation and began leading meditation courses in Chile and Bolivia. She helped start a center in Argentina for Spanish-speaking students.
The students in Argentina had a lower quality of life than those in Massachusetts, but she noticed that they “worked harder and complained less,” which provided her with an example to try to emulate when she went back home. Bliss believes that “you have to be the student at some point,” she said.
Additionally, although there are differences between these students and those in the United States,“it was equally as challenging for the people to sit for hours without allowing their thoughts distract them,” Bliss said, which says a lot about human nature.
Meditation is “for all ages, all occupations, all people,” Bliss said. She believes that our challenges are not unique. “No matter what part of the world you live, what our family situation is or how much money you make, we are all human and share the same issues,” Bliss said.
Bliss officially came back to Massachusetts in 2013 and looked towards a steady career. Prior to this time, she “cynical about society’s expectations of a normal 9-5 job,” she said. She thought a desk job was boring and constraining. In high school and college, “things felt prescribed,” she said. Now that she “got traveling out of the system,” she said she is “very comfortable at a 9-5 job.”
In regards to her travels, Bliss said, “I didn’t know I had something to get out of my system. But I think I did.” As she got older, she spent less time traveling at a time.
Advising was appealing because she said it was a “meaningful way to apply my guiding and counseling skills.” She said, “I could have wound up in any department. It was the advising that really appealed to me, but I just got lucky that I also ended up in a department that I love.”
She has a strong interest in journalism because “when it is working right, it should help connect the world,” Bliss said. “It teaches us about other places. Journalism consists of discovery, listening, and expression. I love each of these.”
Bliss opted to attend Karen List’s “Introduction to Journalism” seminar because she felt that in order to best advise students, she needed to experience class from their perspective.
Though not all students know about Bliss’ meditation, her ‘zen’ demeanor is apparent.
In the 2016 spring semester, Chelsea White, a journalism major, sat at the same table as Bliss every Monday afternoon during the seminar. Still, she had no idea about Bliss’ background in meditation. But White did notice “a calmness about Abby. She always spoke softly and eloquently,” White said.
Bliss didn’t just observe List’s class. There was a lot of talk about counseling and help available for students, which Bliss was more than willing to share information and insight about.
List said that Bliss was an “enthusiastic participant.” One time List jokingly told Bliss that “she had to do the assignments—and she did,” List said.
Helping others to gain clarity has always been important to Bliss, whether that be through advising or leading meditations. It is only a coincidence that her last name is Bliss, but it certainly fits.
