Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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

December 3, 2016 By Admin

Gratitude Along with Sadness and Fear – It Is life

Gratitude Along with Sadness and Fear – It Is Life

The famous Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh gently advises us to appreciate the many things that we may take for granted.  For example, when he does walking meditation he believes and feels that the the earth below his feet is, itself, a miracle of reality. Yes, he advises us to more deeply appreciate the earth and all it does for us. For Thanksgiving Day he suggested that we smile at the entire universethichnhathanh_mindfulhappiness for supporting our existence; the food we have eaten comes from the interbeing of many forces: earth, sunshine, rain, seeds, and the people who farmed and transported it. Hopefully we all practiced mindful, appreciative eating
on this holiday. Hopefully, we all practiced some form of gratitude. And hopefully, we did not forget those who are less able to eat a good meal on such a day.  Hopefully, we reached out with gratitude, compassion, and generosity to those less fortunate than ourselves. This is the kindness of people. This is a special form of joy.

Pema Chodron, another very famous Buddhist teacher, advises us to have an open, kind heart. Even if we cannot locate it exactly, we can “feel” the inner tenderness of our soft-heartedness. Perhaps under that inner tenderness we shall also discover a special kind of human sadness, a sadness that feels as natural as it does uncomfortable. She notes that such a sadness is an pemachodron_mindfulhappinessinherent, natural sadness that humans experience. Perhaps it is part of our long genetic history; perhaps it is an outcome of daily witnessing (via media) the suffering of so many people; and, perhaps it is an outcome of our own personal suffering. Human do have ample supplies of
emotional pain.  All people suffer; all people experience joy; and, all people experience times of neutral boredom. This is theWAY it is. This is part of our human tenderness in life. So have the courage to feel your tenderness and joy as well as your suffering.

Gyalwang Drukpa of Tibetan Buddhist fame, suggests that we can utilize active compassion to combat fear of differences, fear of others. Humans have common experiences; some of these experiences include uncertainty and fear. Usually there is greater personal fear when we confront diversity – people, places and things different than ourselves. These reactions often come in times of great inequalities in human experience. He notes that fear thrives on concerns about differences. It can become the basis for hateful aggression. To bring peace to our fears we need to embrace such differences through highly active compassionate behaviors. If we can celebrate human differences, and if we can welcome them with deep awareness and curiosity, we combat fear. Tolerance and acceptance of others is the higher way of life.  Can we do it? It requires compassionate action!https://www.amazon.com/How-Train-Wild-Elephant-Mindfulness/dp/1590308174

For more information refer to Chosen Bays, J. How to Train a Wild Elephant... p.143 .  Also refer to Thich Nhat Hanh. How to Live… Chodron, P. The Pocket Pema Chodron, pp. 39-40 ,and the August 2016 presentation given by His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa at the Bucerius Summer School on Global Governance.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition in Production…Coming soon!

 

Filed Under: Featured, Gratitude Meditation, Gyalwang Drukpa, Pema Chodron, Suffering, Thich Nhat Hanh Tagged With: GRATITUDE, GYALWANG DRUKPA, MINDFUL NHAPPINESS, PEMA CHODRON, THICH NHAT HANH

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Yoga Nidra and Your Inner Peace Yoga Nidra will allow you to relax like you may never have relaxed before.  Follow these modified instructions for your best relaxed state.  If at any time during Yoga Nidra you feel uncomfortable, simply stop and breathe in a manner that restores equilibrium.  Although this uncomfortable outcome is highly […]

Intervention Skills to Calm Your Anxiety It is estimated that approximately 40,000,000 American suffer from an anxiety disorders, especially generalize anxiety and panic disorder. Sometimes general “talk therapy” fails to help improve your condition; you may need cognitive-behavioral therapy with research-based mindfulness skills or dialectical behavior therapy.  CBT, MBSR, ACT and DBT are the evidence-based, […]

Meditation Guide to Getting Started Since just sitting in basic (mindfulness or vipassana) meditation is such an important practice on your way to emotional regulation – and possibly and eventually to Enlightenment – I decided to offer a quick review of this skilled practice.  Practice every day! 1) Sit comfortably with your back softly errect […]

Mindfulness in the NFL Yes, mindfulness as part of sports psychology programming is being used in the NFL.  Yes, big and physically tough football players are being helped via a mindfulness component of sports psychology. There are some important roots here. Dogen, the famous ancient Japanese Buddhist meditation master, brought Chan Buddhism from China to […]

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 […]

The Nine Bow Ritual for Those You Respect Deeply The Nine Bow Ritual is a simple practice of deep respect.  Think of a person, living or not, for whom you have very strong positive feelings.  If you select a person no longer living, you may be surprised at the emotional impact of this ritual. If […]

Looking at Early Judeo-Chrsitian Meditation Practice An early description of enlightened liberation in Buddhist meditation practice reads like this: Birth is destroyed, the spiritual life has been lived, what had to be done has been done. There is no more coming back to any state of being.  Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness […]

Strategies to Cool Your Hot Emotions: Using Mind and Body First, let me note that one of the best sets of mind-body approaches to cooling down hot emotional reactions can be found in the various emotion regulation skills and practices in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (created by Marsha M. Lineman, a practicing Buddhist).  These skills may […]

Vipassana Meditation and Introduction Vipassana meditation, as taught by S. N. Goenka, has been practiced in India, Europe, the United States and in many other parts of the world. There are various claims for effectiveness when used as a form of meditative treatment with various populations (often correctional and substance using populations); however, there is […]

Psychoanalytic Gems – Even More D. W. Winnicott has made significant clinical contributions to both building therapeutic alliance and maintaining a positive, helpful focus in psychotherapy. Below I have noted various approaches to use in your therapy.  Use of these “gems” requires considerable knowledge and skill by the therapist.  Here is the list: Respect the […]

Loving Kindness Meditation from The Buddha Loving Kindness Meditation (hereafter LKM) is, perhaps, one of the most popular meditation practices in the world. What many practitioners do not know is that one form of it came directly from The Buddha. Along with LKM wisdom we also are guided by the enlightened words of The Dalai […]

The “I AM THAT” Meditation Elena Brower’s new book, Practice You: A Journal (Sounds True, 2017) has many thoughtful suggestions on how to connect with the true inner self, and – more importantly – how to improve your self-views and the experience of your deep inner self. Below I have modified her presentation of the “I Am […]

Help For Therapists: Working with Diversity Clinical interventions, especially strongly evidence-based interventions, impact clients via new skills and practices in mind-body clinical realities. No matter how good (or “good enough” ) a clinical intervention is it requires a highly positive, active therapeutic relationship. As ample research suggests, a strong and positive therapeutic relationship in therapy […]

Concentration Vs Mindfulness? Many people new to meditation often confuse the differences between mindfulness or accepted bare attention to whatever arises in the moment and concentration or strong penetrating awareness on one thing without distraction.  Concentration is a more intensely focused and engaged form of mindful attention.  Concentration is sustained, powerfully focused, one-pointed attentional awareness. […]

Mindful Walking Meditation: How to Walk by Thich Nhat Hanh – A Powerful Short Book of Wisdom In my opinion, Thich Nhat Hanh and The 14th Dalai Lama are the two most important and wise teachers of mindfulness, meditation, compassion, and Buddhism in the 21st century.  Below I will offer my interpretation of Thich Nhat Hanh’s […]

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 […]

Our Brains React to Worry According to research by The American Psychological Association in 2015, some of the core sources of severe stress reaction for Americans are: financial problems, job-related problems, family problems, and health problems.  Our lives are complete only with joy/happiness, suffering and boredom – sometimes referred to as pleasant, unpleasant and neutral […]

Honoring First Nation – Native American Spirited-Wisdom American First Nation or Native American People (according to how they wish to be named) have  a strong spiritual traditions honoring life, the earth and the heavens.  Naming these wise peoples is a problem; out of respect one would call them First Nations, Native American, or a specific […]

Beads: Significance in Spiritual and Religious Practices The significance of religious and spiritual practices in the world is enormous.  Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist practitioners make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s population. The  CIA estimates are that Christians (33%), Muslims (23%), Hindus (14%) and Buddhist (7%) make up the majority of religious followers. […]

Concentration, Contentment, and Loving Kindness I have written various entries on concentration meditations in prior posts.  Yes, concentration meditation is beyond pure mindfulness meditation.  Here I will present briefly two other forms of meditation that are quite intentional and also beyond mindfulness: contentment and loving kindness meditations. Let’s begin with intentional meditation of contentment. Contentment […]

Mindful Happiness Tags

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

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

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

Copyright © 2021 · Mindful Happiness