Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

  • Home
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
    • About
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Contact

January 17, 2016 By Admin

Emptiness – Infinite Space Immaterial Sphere

Emptiness – Meditation Practice

The Brahma-Viharas (higher abodes) include four powerful meditation practices ( Loving Kindness/Maitri or Metta; Compassion/Karuna; Sympathetic Joy/Mudita; and, Equanimity/Upekkha) that involve boundless radiation outwardly all the way into the infinite universe. These boundless or infinite space meditations, working with deep absorption and projecting kindness outwardly, may lead to positive changes. Experienced practitioners have reported mental beauty, positive affective attitudes, kindness, benevolence, generosity, and liberation happiness. The meditation below also requires that we utilize Mindful Happiness - The Brahma-Viharasawakening factors such as mindfulness, concentration, joy, energy, letting go, and tranquility. Hopefully, your practice of this compassion meditation will also reduce your sense of a solid, impermanent self as it leads you to experience the sphere of infinite space. Caution: If at any time you experience the discomfort of extreme dissociation, decide whether to continue or stop.  If you stop, simply rest in good self-care. Breathe and relax. If you feel that you desire the company of another person, invite a supportive meditator to share this experience with with. The following meditation is based on the Chinese Agamas, especially the Samyukta Agama as presented by Bhikku Analayo.  I have modified the presentation to enhance the practicality of practice.

  1. Begin with a brief period of loving kindness meditation, then shift into a brief self-compassion meditation dealing with personal suffering you have experienced – suffering you know other people have also experienced.
  2. Now with calming breath, continue with loving kindness and compassion for specific people you know, then to specific groups, ending with suffering that all people experience in life. May all beings be safe, healthy, happy and at ease.
  3. Continue to practice, but now work on reducing the perception of space between you and others who suffer.
  4. Now practice by reducing your attachment to personal possessions. Concentrate and contemplate on the personal meaning of this attachment-reducing practice. Notice your resistance or lack of readiness. Let go!
  5. Now practice reducing your emotional clinging to your physical body. Reduce, reduce, reduce!
  6. Allow yourself to move your perception BEYOND your personal experiencing of the SELF, your self.
  7. Drop your self-cherishing and self-centeredness as you work very hard to expand your authentic caring about other people and their happiness. Place them first; place yourself last. This is challenging!
  8. Now we are ready for a HUGE leap! Practice letting go of your self-attachment to your ego. Experiment with letting go of attachment and experience – even perceiving your mind and its actions. Go blank!
  9. You have probably experienced some reduced perceptual energy as you cultivate moving gradually toward emptiness of self, emptiness of mind, emptiness in general.
  10. Experience the flavor of being in a boundless compassion as you experience moving BEYOND your physical mind and physical body.  You have entered the experiential edge of boundless emptiness. Where is the self now?
  11. Imagine experiencing (without self conceptions) compassionate movement toward and into the sphere of infinite space. Notice the feeling as you approach emptiness.
  12. Being well on your way into emptiness, experience sympathetic joy for others with good fortune.  Personalize this via specific people you may know. Notice as you begin to enter the sphere of infinite consciousness.  Notice without evaluation the feeling of being so far out there!  Just notice. Perhaps there is a floating feeling.
  13. Being even more on your way into emptiness, notice the experience of deep equanimity – moving closer to the sphere of nothingness. Remain in that space for a moment.
  14. Relax in your blissful state of joy.  Rest in your present awareness and notice your personal joy in liberation.
  15. Rest now.  Allow in whatever helps you most in this experience. Just BE as you are now! Notice the joy.

Samyukta Agama-Mindful Happiness

For more information refer to Analayo, Bhikku. (2015). Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation. Cambridge, UK: Windhorse Publications, pp. 1-74.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

CLICK HERE  or any image below to Order 

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

MindfulHappiness_Amazon           mindful-happiness_barnes_and_noble

Filed Under: Activities, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Benefits of Meditation, Benefits of Mindfulness, Counselor Activites, Featured, Meditation, Meditation Activities, Mindfulness Training, Practices, Training Tagged With: DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, EMPTINESS, MEDITATION, MINDFULNESS

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Mindful Happiness Book Review The Awakened Introvert: Practical Mindfulness skills…  By Arnie, Kozak, Ph.D. Dr. Kozak begins his book noting the processes of mind that often cause people to suffer.  Critical judging, unhelpful story telling, over-attending to past suffering or losses and angst about possible future realities (the brain’s default mode), and auto-pilot inattention to important […]

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 […]

An Advanced View on Meditations on Emptiness An earlier post on the Dalai Lama’s book, Meditations on the Nature of Mind, ended with suggested meditations (my own personal contemplation’s) about emptiness.  I will first review those contemplations.  Contemplate deeply on what emptiness means personally to you.  Contemplate about a time when you received a glimpse of personal emptiness. […]

A Buddhist Sutta on Your Desires and Suffering This post is about the Buddhist Sutta called The Gilana Sutta (SN 35:74). It is a touching story about a young monk, who became very ill. Another monk informed The Buddha of the young monk’s health conditions. Buddha visited and hoped he had improved and held on to […]

Happiness #5 – Last Post on Characteristics This will be my last post for a while on the important topic of happiness.  Here I will hit a few highlights about simple joy and lasting inner experiences of true happiness. Simple Joy – We experience simple joy in simple experiences, small sometimes subtle events in our […]

Laughter to Support you in Suffering As we all know life is filled with joy, suffering, and neutrality or boredom. This is THE WAY IT IS! Or, as a very good old friend often reminded me: “It is what it is!”  In Buddhism we preach a middle way in various areas of practice; the same […]

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 […]

Consciousness, Emptiness, and Well Being This is an advanced post on the complex relationship among consciousness (awareness), emptiness, and well being. Readers with advanced understanding of Buddhist Psychology will recognize the inherent relationships among consciousness, emptiness, and well being and interactions with core Buddhist concepts and experiences such as happiness and suffering, impermanence, non-dual nature, […]

Trauma: Object Relations Therapy Object relations therapists, D. W. Winnicott especially, have presented a logical analysis on how to provide object-relations-oriented therapy to people suffering from the effects of psychological trauma. Such attachment-based trauma therapy provides support and healing from trauma, loss and long-term trauma-effects.  The interventions below combine the best of object relations therapy, […]

 Poem on Nature    – Haiku-Like As I sat peacefully by the westward window of my sunroom at my retreat center, I noticed!  I noticed the restless, natural movement of a tormented sky trying to calm itself.   Here is my poem. “The Sky, the Lake and the Mountains” Sitting at our home, alone – […]

Using Creativity in Clinical Supervision Effective clinical supervision is a combination of hearable direction about clinical practice, gentle-direct leadership, clinical “Know-How,” evidence-based skills, complex psychodynamics, and the willingness to work with others on their developmental processes. There are risks involved. I have provided clinical supervision and consultation to other clinicians for 43 years without a […]

Gratitude Practices to Improve your Emotional Mood The following fourteen suggestions may improve your emotional mood.  One reward from practicing gratitude is that we tend to feel a little better no matter what our causes and conditions are at the time.   Here is the list. Make a habit of thanking people.  “Thank you.” Appreciate […]

Using Your Compassionate Mind in Psychotherapy For you to become a more compassionate therapist, follow the details noted below. These preconditions, skills, and practices are required as a baseline for  compassionate practice. You need the ability to access calmness in an environment of emotional suffering, chaos, or conflict.  Most people do this by breathing in […]

Mindfulness-Based Therapy for Trauma In line with the thousands of studies now available supporting the use of mindfulness-based interventions in depression, anxiety, chronic pain and addictions (via emotion regulation and interoception), this post will review recommended mindfulness interventions for trauma and PTSD. The post will note information from two recent books on this topic. Also recognize […]

More RESPECT Needed for People Being Served Recently, I read a post by William White, the well-known Recovery advocate.  The post dealt with the troublesome area of language used to describe, refer to people suffering from various conditions – addictions being only one.  While some may respond to his post by thinking it is simply […]

How Suicide impacts Psychotherapists One of the greatest fears of psychotherapists is that one of their clients will commit suicide.  Here are some common reactions of psychotherapists when one of their clients commits suicide.  In some ways these reactions are sequential, but no exact concrete sequence is well documented. Here is a list to consider. […]

Expanded Lectio Divina for Self-Development In this post I will provide an expanded version of this process by combining information from Origen,  the Carthusian  Monk  Guigo II,   and  Augustine of Hippo.   The presented process of 12 steps may be used  to enhance internalization of sacred writing and/or to support internal healing of the participants. […]

Meditation on Ecodharma and Buddhist Ecology   Sit calmly and begin to breathe in and out deeply and slowly. Open your eyes to see and appreciate the natural environment you are in. Close your eyes now if you wish to do so. Know that this nature – the sky, clouds, stars, father sun, mother moon, […]

More on Mindful Breathing Whole-Heart Breathing – I have modified and expanded this great process from Thich Nhat Hanh.  If comfortable close your eyes and simply breathe calming and deeply for a few breaths. Add you personal half smile and allow the soothing (sometimes very subtle) sensation to spread all over your face.  Do not […]

Overcoming the Hindrances of Ill-Will and Aversion Although regular daily practice and sincerely following of The Eight-Fold Path in one’s life may be the best ways to overcome various hindrances, there may be some additional practical suggestions to consider on the path.  We will begin our discussion with common human pain and suffering; we will […]

Mindful Happiness Tags

CONSCIOUSNESS HAPPINESS VIPASSANA MEDITATION MINDFUL TRAINING SELF EXERCISES ENLIGHTENMENT BRAIN MINDFUL MEDITATION WISE MIND COVID-19 SELF COMPASSION ELEANOR R LIEBMAN CENTER VERMONT ADDICTION THERAPY. BREATHING MINDFULNESS TRAINING MEDITATION WALKING MEDITATION MINDFUL MINDFULNESS EMPTINESS ANTHONY QUINTILIANI DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI MINDFUL HAPPINESS SELF ESTEEM SUFFERING TRAINING BUDDHISM THICH NHAT HANH COMPASSION ACTIVITIES PSYCHOTHERAPY TRAUMA MEDITATION PRACTICE MBSR CLINICAL SUPERVISION VIPASSANA PRACTICES PRACTICE SELF MEDICATION JOURNALING ACTIVITY SELF CARE

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Site Map

Copyright © 2021 · Mindful Happiness