April 13, 2015 By Admin

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Breathing Practices and Emptiness Here I will introduce you to five breathing practices, each one moving progressively closer and closer to emptiness/no-self experiences. Do your best to remain open in these practices. Notice the feel of your posture. Once comfortable notice your breath as it is. Relax and close your eyes if ok. Rest your […]

Deepak Chopra’s Ideas on “The Future of God” – Part 3 of In this third and last post I will discuss Deepak Chopra’s views of the three worlds of human experience: Material, Subtle, and Transcendent. As usual, I will paraphrase and add my own comments as appropriate. Belief in god or a higher power has […]

The Failed “War on Drugs” – Let’s Try Treatment On Demand and Fund It The New York based Drug Policy Alliance (drugpolicy.org) and other sources have provided some important information about our failed drug and alcohol policies. Here are a few astounding facts. The United Stares has about 5% of the world’s population, but it […]

Mindful Solidarity with Standing Rock Sioux Earth Protectors The Standing Rock Sioux earth protectors are fighting earth destruction, environmental degradation, oil profiteering, and corporate greed. Yes, I suppose finding huge reserves of crude helps many people become employed in the Dakotas. This is important. But other earth-wise activity (more solar for example) would be far […]

Tibetan Tantric Meditation on Selflessness Mahamudra meditations tend to unify emptiness and bliss, and represent many core principles of Tibetan Buddhism. Nagarjuna’s text on The Middle Way played an important and influential role in these practices. Selflessness of persons and selflessness of phenomena are highly represented in noted meditation practices. Therefore,, this can be considered […]

Practice: Yogi Deep Meditation on Inner Listening Carl Jung noted: Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakens. The Katha Upanishads (800-400 BCE) noted: One path leads outward and the other inward. [The] way inward leads to grace. The Mind Cave Focus instructs us to close our eyes and expand your third-eye space to the back of […]

Using Lectio Divina to Enhance Your Happiness Lectio Divina is an ancient Christian (Benedictine) meditation; it is a form of meditative prayer called “sacred seeing.” We will use a modified version of the process here. Follow the steps noted below. Sit quietly in meditative form, calmly abiding yourself here now. After a […]

More on Yoga Nidra Yoga nidra is sometimes called yoga sleep or yoga relaxation. It is a very powerful mindfulness technique that allows one to relax the body and limbic brain area, while holding mental control for deeper relaxation and projective practices without falling asleep. For some it may be like lucid dreaming, but a […]

Using Lectio Divina to Improve Your Self-Esteem LectioDivina is an ancient form of Christian (Benedictine) meditation. This meditative prayer is sometimes called “Sacred Seeing.” Lectio Divina follows specific steps as a process: lectio or reading a passage; Meditatio or meditating on the passage or image; Oratio or praying (I add – in your own way); […]

Psychodynamics of Alliance – Therapeutic Relationship Enhancement This post includes basic considerations, processes, and clinical skills necessary for developing a strongly positive clinical alliance and therapeutic relationship in therapy. Here the alliance is required for any substantial change in psychotherapy, and the therapeutic relationship rides the quality of the initial alliance to expand and inter-penetrate […]

Forms of Happiness from Buddhist Psychology Given the season “to be jolly” I plan to write several posts on the topic of happiness. The following information notes five stages or levels of happiness. Read them over and see what stage/level may be appropriate for you at this time in your practice. Note that some meditation […]

Vipassana Meditation: Impermanence Although standard vipassana meditation practice leading to insight about the true nature of reality does not recommend what I am about to do, I plan to do it anyway. This meditation center is all about innovation in practice and generalization regarding the benefits of meditation for both regular meditators and novices. Below […]

Effective Clinical Supervision Perhaps other than the mental health status of the therapist and her/his ethical clinical skills, there is no more important variable in successful clinical work than effective CLINICAL supervision. I emphasize “clinical’ because in today’s bureaucratic systems, so much supervision tends to be about required procedures like utilization level, reporting requirements, and documentation for services […]

Risks and Solutions for Compassion Fatigue Perhaps nothing more than compassion fatigue causes more helpers to prematurely exit their fields. First responders are generally seen as the most at risk for compassion fatigue (and possibly PTSD), followed by emergency room medical staff. A third group, medical and clinical staff working with high risk terminally-prone patients is […]

How to Find & Choose an Effective Therapist Recently The Harvard Health Newsletter posted some interesting questions to ask while seeking out a psychotherapist. I will add a few more details and areas of inquiry in this post. Keep in mind that these questions and inquiries do not mean you will be happy and improve […]

Mindful Happiness Explores – The Miracle of Mirror Neurons Between 1996 and 2000 researchers (Gallese and Rizzolatti) at the University of Parme in Italy discovered what are now called mirror neurons. Neuroscientists speculate that mirror neurons (reportedly in the Broca’s area of the prefrontal cortex) activate perceptual responses for internal motor-emotional responses. Thus mirror neurons […]

Buddhist Thought on Joy and Suffering 1) You actually DO have some control over your emotional destiny. 2) The core “conceptual” view of reality is that your inner emotional experience – especially negative afflictive emotional states related to people, places and things you REACT to – are perceived as totally true. 3) In a non-conceptual […]

The Needs of Traumatized Children – Learning Activity As a means to hone in on your helping behaviors, complete this learning activity. NEEDS List a Concrete Example for Each Unmet Need. Biological _______________________________________________ Psychological ____________________________________________ Social __________________________________________________ Emotional _______________________________________________ Educational ______________________________________________ Spiritual ________________________________________________ Attachment ______________________________________________ What can YOU do to help meet […]

Attitudes of Gratitude Thoughts and Applications M. J. Ryan presents some interesting practices in the book, Attitudes of Gratitude (1999). Here are some ideas. Hope you will practice some of them soon. As The 14th Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh suggest, we should always appreciate the preciousness and miracle of human life – our own life no matter what […]

Self-Help Journaling – Two Methods Generally there are two forms of self-help journaling: writing about worries and concerns OR writing about joy and happiness. In my more than 35 years of clinical experience I have not found the former to be very helpful. Most people stuck in negative mood states are not easily able to […]