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July 2, 2014 By Admin

Breathing Meditation Practices

From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation, Monkton, Vermont

– Five Breathing and Meditation Practices –

Attention and concentration on the breath are common practices to attune meditation capacity. We use the breath as an object of attention in our mind training. The better your quality of attention and concentration, the better your meditation flow. In an earlier post, I provided instructions on using breath as an object of attention in pacifying the mind.
Today I will provide brief practice instructions for four other breath meditations. These brief instructions are meant only as introductory formats.

Caution: Although it is rare, some people may become anxious when trying to do breath practices. The anxiety may have many sources: vagus nerve issues, inattention due to digital addictions, a serious anxiety disorder, unresolved traumatic experience involving breaths of submission (in limbic hippocampus memory), etc. If at any time in practicing these breathing techniques you experience strong discomfort, please STOP the practice. Be aware that even though breath re-training can be highly effective in calming a dysregulated nervous system, it is not a substitute for prescribed medical or psychological treatment you may be receiving. However, breath training may be highly compatible with such treatment. Collaborate with your healthcare provider for advice here.

1) Mindful Awareness of Your Breath As It Is

Sit in a comfortable position, either lotus style or in a straight back chair, or use a stool to sit on with your knees on a meditation mat. Keep your back and head straight, ears level with shoulders, eyes slightly open and downward in direction, and the tip of the nose lined up with your navel (Dogen’s way). Just allow your awareness to be set on the in and out movement of your breath. Do not in any way control how your are breathing. Simply allow your breath to breathe you – paying mindful attention to its flow. When your attention moves off the breath, gently return your attention back to your breath. If possible continue for at least 10-20 minutes. If your attention moves off the breath, use self-compassion to carry it back the breath. Be kind.

2) Counting the Breaths

Since mental activity (thoughts in the past or future – or even in the present) is often a common distraction in meditation practice, it may be helpful to count to ten for ten breaths. Sit comfortably in a meditative posture. On the first breath say “one” to yourself on the exhalation; this is subvocal self-talk. Make the sound of “one” in your mind last all the way to the end of the out-breath. Then begin with the next breath – saying “two” on the exhalation and holding the thought all the way to the end of the out-breath. Do this all the way up to ten for ten breaths. When you reach “ten” simply begin again with “one.” If your mind wonders off the breath before you reach ten, or you catch yourself beyond the count of ten, begin again with “one.” You may want to make an mage of the number you are saying to yourself. In this way both cognitive/verbal and visual parts of the brain are active – helping you to meditate. If your mind continues to wonder off, say the number, make an image of the number, and FEEL the flow of the breath on exhalation. If possible continue for at least 10-20 minutes. If you have difficulty, be kind and considerate to yourself – and continue!

3) Variation on Square Breathing

Sit comfortably in a good meditation posture. Begin with a couple full, deep, cleansing breaths. Then bring full concentration to how your heart and belly feel when you breath slowly and deeply. On the first full in-breath pay attention to the right side (downward) of your torso from just below the heart area down to the hara (deep belly about 2 inches below the navel and about 2 inches in). On the first out-breath pay close attention to how it feels when your attention moves (left) across the hare. On the next in-breath notice how it feels when you pay attention to it moving (upward) from the hare and up the left side of the torso to the heart area, and on the next out-breaths simply pay attention to the moving breath as you pay attention to it moving right just below the heart area. A square has been made. If possible practice for at least 10-20 minutes.

4) Gap Breathing Practice

Sit in meditative posture and take a couple full, deep, slow breaths. Now pay complete attention to the noticed GAP between the in and out breath, and between the out and in breath. Yes, there is a slight gap in time when you are not breathing. Do not worry, this gap is natural. It is simply part of our slower, deeper breathing process. Pay attention ONLY to the gap between the in/out and out/in breaths. If you can do this, go psychologically deeper into the gap. It may be bottomless! If you have problems with attention here, make an image on a gigantic, beautiful, far-away valley and pretend that your gap is in that deep, distant valley. Continue to pay full attention only to the gap between your breaths. If you have difficult, gently and self-compassionately bring your attention back to the gap and nothing else. If possible practice for at least 10-2- minutes.

Practice these four breathing meditation, and if you like one best – do that one for the fifth. Good luck on your journey.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

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June 26, 2014 By Admin

Perception and Processing of Emotional Experiences-

From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation

We humans have a unique way of perceiving and processing emotional experiences. Years ago I developed a formula to understand the perception and process of emotional experiences: CABS-VAKGO-IS/Rels. The C stands for cognition; we spend a great deal of time thinking about pretty much everything we experience in awareness and even in our dreams. We are a species dominated by our cognition and consciousness. We also have affect, of in lay terms the A implies emotional experience – especially the internal aspects of sensations and feelings. The B stands for behavior, which is often the end-product of cognition coupled with emotion. It tends to be our cognition and behavior that make us suffer or “experience” happiness. It can be our behavior (self-medication with mind altering substances) that may result in serious life problems.

Mindfulness-based “wise-mind” skills may help us to enhance positive, helpful, effective life habits – thus creating highly adaptive and mindful responses to life’s challenges. Human also use sensory systems to navigate the world of emotional experience. VAKGO represents visual, auditory, kinesthetic, gustatory and olfactory. We use our senses (to see, hear, feel, taste and smell) in memories of past experiences, in sensory awareness of present moment experiences, and in mental projections of possible future experiences. Humans also use intuition and spirituality to better understand our emotional experiences. Lastly, the Rels refers to all inner human experience in relationship to significant people, places and things in our lives. We may develop both problems and skills utilizing each of these perceptual processing channels. It is ultimately up to us; we can develop unhelpful habits that lead to suffering and pain, or we can develop helpful habits that lead to greater joy and happiness. All this occurs in our brain via mind training.

The human brain does some fascinating things with our sensory perception. Perception consists of energetic impulses in our sense organs. Then after brainstem processing, the thalamus acts as a relay station. Sensory inputs are relayed to various brain regions for processing and evaluation. For example, emotional events are transmitted to the amygdala, and verbal/word events are transmitted to the temporal areas. Color and visual inputs move to the occipital area, and touch and movement inputs are relayed to the parietal area (as well as to the somatosensory and somatomotor strips). The all-important hippocampus records and stores memories; it also initiates memory categorization (over 20 types of memory categories). The prefrontal area, the limbic area (amygdala and hippocampus), the reward centers, and various sensory-related brain regions interact to solidify precise meaning-making of the events (short-term memory).

Eventually the brain retains long-term memories of emotional events. In the future when a sensory system or memory fragment is stimulated, the human brain is capable of re-activating the entire memory – the neural networks in the sequence of event and its associated emotional realities. Through brain plasticity our amazing brain promotes intelligence and adaptability in the future. The more we know about HOW to USE our minds to influence our brain’s processing and evaluating, the greater mindfulness power we have to reduce personal suffering and enhance personal happiness.

It is up to YOU!

For more information refer to Michio Kaku (2014). The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind. New York: Doubleday, pp. 104-129.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

June 13, 2014 By Admin

Advanced Meditation On Perception

Mindfulness Training

From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton,Vermont

The Problem: Many people become stuck in the suffering of their past, and they continue to re-experience an event in the futile hope to better understand it, or to find an escape from it. Many of the same people become fixated fearfully on the future, perhaps expecting similar forms of personal suffering and pain. From Freudian “mastery” to limbic system hard-wired processes, being stuck in the past and apprehensive about the future prevents us from being in the present moment – thus limiting the power that mindfulness may possess to truly help us NOW.

Practice being in the present moment only.

One approach to practice that may be quite helpful is presented by Bhante Gunaratana. His 2014 book Meditation on Perceptions: Ten Healing Practices to Cultivate Mindfulness offers some important help.

From the Four Noble Truths and other sources we learn that the primary sources of suffering and pain are personal cravings for self-centered desires and the fact that everything always changes. Root causes for craving are ignorance and delusion about the “way things are” as well as lack of cognitive understanding about impermanence, selflessness, dependent arising, and emptiness. We humans require a lot of mind training and wisdom about our reality and our happiness.

We will improve our status and may even attain true happiness by recognition of root sensations as the foundations of emotions – mindfulness in body, mind, sensory perception, and objects of mind.

The Girimananda Sutta offers special mind training on samatha concentration (tranquility, calm abiding), contemplation, and vipassana (“special seeing” via insight and awareness of ultimate reality) meditations. The “ten healing practices” include meditation on perceptions of impermanence, selflessness, impurities, change, abandoning, dispassion, cessation, non-delight, pure breath, and bodily feelings (includes perception, thought, and consciousness).

Let’s begin to practice. Select one of the ten healing practices, learn about it, and make it your mind’s object of attention and awareness. The seven instructions below may be used with all ten healing practices – or the perception meditations on them. Practice regularly.

Practice in a quiet place so that you can build up meditation on perceptions without being disturbed or distracted. When your mind wonders simply and gently bring it back to the healing practice you are meditating on.

Adopt a stable and comfortable posture so your body will be relaxed while meditating. You may sit on a meditation cushion, use a bench, a chair, or even do the meditation while standing, walking or lying down.

Bring full attention to the present moment – NOT to the past (it is gone) or to the future (not yet here). Your meditative power is in the present moment only. Use it well. Presence is sacredness.

Fully focus the mind on the coming and going of your breath – just pay attention in complete awareness.

Expand your awareness of your own breath – coming, going, in, out, long, short, at the nose, in the chest, in the hara, etc.

Be gentle with yourself and your practice. Do it on a regular basis – daily is best!

Remain flexible and positive in your meditative presence.

Time to begin for as long as you wish to practice. Select one of the ten healing perceptions and meditate on it with complete awareness for as long as you wish to practice.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D. LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

June 6, 2014 By Admin

Inner Healing Energy of Chi – Clear Mind; Tai Chi

Interoceptive Practices for Generic Tai Chi & Chi Kung Postures

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D.

From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for the Study of Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

These practices will require either knowledge of Tai Chi/Chi Kung postures or following pictures of the same postures. Be prepared before you begin to practice. In this post we will practice postures so that we can concentrate on (be fully aware of) inner feelings of moving chi energy. It is recommended that you do some brief warm up exercises before beginning the Tai Chi and Chi Kung movements. Interoceptive skills are highly important for emotional self-regulation; these skills help us to feel sensations in the body just before they activate as words, emotions, and behaviors.

Important! Do these movements ONLY if you are healthy enough to do so.

1) Standing in wu, wu ji or horse posture simply focus complete attention inwardly. Build attentional power so all other mental activity is replaced by standing still with full attention on inner feelings of your chi energy. Stand quietly in deep inner awareness of body feelings.

Practice for 3-5 minutes; do your best to stay focused inwardly.

2) Gather chi by slowly scooping up imagined chi energy from outside of your body. As you bring up your arms from scooping low near the ground, imagine that the whole body is covered by healing chi – and that the chi is entering the inside of your body. Scoop for 3-5 minutes, and pay close attention to feelings inside your body. Feel it all now.

3) Build chi awareness via calm energy breathing. In standing posture while breathing-in, bring your hands (palms shoulder-width apart facing each other) up to your shoulders. Turn palms down and breathe-out slowly bringing your hands back to your hara level. Repeat this practice for 3-5 minutes. Remain focused on your body’s energetic feelings. Attend to the chi; allow it to be your awareness.

4) Place your right foot out in front of your body (yang) with about 60% of body weight on that foot and hold your left foot at a 45 degree angle (yin). Extend your right hand out palm facing out up to your shoulder level. Remain in this posture for 4-5 minutes. Focus attention on the feelings on chi energy moving through your body. Notice the feeling of chi energy. Concentrate your mind so it is the chi energy.

5) Repeat the same posture with the same instructions – but now place your left foot out holding your right foot at an 45 degree angle.

6) Standing stable with both feet shoulder-width apart on the ground, breathe in deeply and calmly. Now place both hands palms out at shoulder level and push out with some force. Repeat then hold for 5-6 minutes. Being in full awareness feel the chi energy moving in your body. Allow the awareness to be your mind’s only object of attention.

7) Complete several, slow energy ball movement. Hold your hands palms facing but not touching, and imagine that you are holding a chi energy ball between your hands. Now while breathing in and out at a steady rate, make circles with your hands. Bring complete awareness to the chi energy moving in your body as you make these circles. Practice for 3-4 minutes. Pay close attention to the feelings in your body. Now speed up the circles (be certain you are making circles). Practice more rapid circling for 3-4 minutes; notice the energy in your body. Be sure to breathe fully. STOP! Be aware of your chi now.

8) To end simply stand silently, breathing in and out slowly and deeply – Welcome to the healing qualities of Tai Chi.

A. R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

For more information refer to Master Kam Chuen Lam (2014). Qigong Workbook for Anxiety: Powerful Energy Practices to Rebalance Your Nervous System and Free Yourself from Fear. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

May 2, 2014 By Admin Leave a Comment

Self-Medication in Various Areas of Suffering

My third posting on self-medication-

Comes from the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont.

Now we will turn our attention to how people become habituated to self-medication to obtain brief moments of joy and/or to avoid emotional suffering. Recall that self-medication becomes a habit (dopamine released in reward centers of the brain) because we learn that certain behavioral responses to suffering provide us with either a short-lived experience of joy or quick avoidance of cues/situations that are associated with painful emotions. So just how do people do this in various clinical conditions. Well, addictions to chemical molecules and their effects is most clear: when we feel sad/depressed/lonely, we learn that a stimulant drug will improve our mood soon, and when we feel anxious/fearful we learn that a depressant drug will improve our mood soon. What we do not yet know is that this learned pattern lays the foundation for a trap, a trap into addictions. Since we did not have wise-mind skills (mindfulness) to better cope with our pain, we used a quick-fix; however, the quick-fix will have to be repeated over and over again for an expanded duration of relief from suffering. The sadness/depression as well as the anxiety/fear are not improved long-term and, in fact may become more severe. As we continue to self-medicate, the addiction increases in severity – frequency, dosage, and negative life consequences will increase.

A deeper look into depression shows us that self-medication may take on other forms of behavior beside taking mood-altering drugs. Some depressed people learn other ways to self-medicate. They may eat more sugars and fats or they may not eat at all in an effort to improve their mood. They may also isolate – stay in bed or at home – to avoid situations (people, places, things) that may cause stressful challenges or more depressed affect. They may capitalize on their fatigue by seeking lots of help and support from others to do things for them. Although social-emotional support is often very helpful for depressed people, doing too much for them may become a source of learned helplessness, thus learned hopelessness and decreased self-esteem. If their depression is part of a mixed condition of emotions (bipolar conditions), when in mania they may also buy many things and consume more and more as a means to improve their mood. There are many ways to self-medicate – and all of them lead to the same place – short-term gain and long-term deterioration.

The experience of severe psychological trauma (PTSD) may offer the best examples of self-medication for anxiety. In this condition people learn that if they avoid people, places, things that may/have been associated with traumatic cues, they may be able to avoid traumatic symptoms. So negative reinforcement is at work – avoidance becomes a habit for short-term improvements but long-term deterioration. In fact many clinicians believe that PTSD cannot be effectively resolved as long as the primary coping behavior is avoidance of cues associated with the traumatic experience. Another factor complicating PTSD is the co-occurrence of depression and chemical addictions – and sometimes rage reactivity caused by limbic hyper-arrousal and emotion dysregulation. So once again, the person may revert back to self-medicating their pain.

Another complication in self-medication is cutting and other self-destructive behaviors. Severe depression may lead to suicidal behaviors, and severe trauma may lead to self-mutilating. In some cases where trauma has left the person feeling numb, this is also a condition where self-medication may occur. Some clinicians believe that when a person cuts or self-injures there is a consequential set of internal bodily reactions. Endogenous opioids may activate, thus causing a change in sensation and emotion. They person is no longer feeling numb. The behavior is reinforced to repeat in the future. There may also be a secondary effect in that people who care about the person may come to their rescue and pay more attention to them. Perhaps be more kind to them. Sometimes the attention is desired, and sometimes the attention is undesired.

I hope this slightly expanded posting about self-medication has helped you to see how wide-ranging it can be for people who continue to suffer from physical and emotional pain. Their primary hope for self-empowerment is learning and using evidence-based mindfulness skills in their lives and obtaining effective psychotherapy. Of course for some, medications may also be necessary.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!