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Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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November 26, 2017 By Admin

More on Mindful Breathing

More on Mindful Breathing

  1. 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 think about it happening, just allow it to happen. Now feel it down to the sides of your neck and out to your shoulders.  Simply allow soothing subtle sensation to spread this way. Move it down the arms all the way to your fingertips. Recall a substance-free happy experience and smile more. Feel the emotion, even perhaps love. Now slowly and gently place both hands over your heart and rock gently.  Continue for a couple minutes. Notice!
  2. Gratitude breathing –  Breathe calmly, deeply and simply focus all of your attention on at least five things you know you have personal gratitude for. Sometimes very simply things can be very powerful here.
  3. Quicken-Breath – Breathe deeply and quick for a few breaths. Inhale through your nose and push the exhale out through your mouth. Force the exhalation out so you can here a quick puff. Blow the exhalation out. Continue for 5-6 breaths. Notice!
  4. Body-Breathing – Practice abdominal breathing for a few breaths. Now imagine and visualize the healing energy of the in-breath bringing wellness to your whole body.  On the exhalation, imagine and visualize the out-breath removing all toxic feelings and substances from your body. Continue for 7-8 breaths.
  5. Stranding Tall Breath – Now stand up and assume the horse posture (feet at shoulders’ width apart and back gently straight.  As you inhale deeply raise your arms from your sides upward toward the ceiling or sky. Imagine bringing in healing energy from your feet to the top of your head on each inhalation. As you exhale slowly bring arms down at the end. Continue for 5-6 breaths. Notice!
  6. Quintiliani’s  Healing Breath – Practice abdominal breathing for a few breaths. Now imagine that with each inhalation you bring in something you seek (feelings of joy, calmness, safety, etc.).  Practice for a while. Now imagine that with each exhalation you remove from your body-mind all negative mood states (sadness, depression, anxiety, fear, anger, etc.). Practice this for a while.  Now do both – in with the good and out with the unhelpful.  Notice!

For more refer to Quintiliani, A. R. (2014). Mindful Happiness…Shelburne, VT: Red Barn Books.

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 of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Breathing, Breathing, Featured, Inner Peace, Meditation, Meditation Activities, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness, Practices Tagged With: BREATHING, MEDITATION, MINDFULNESS, PRACTICE

November 21, 2017 By Admin

Making the Best of the Holidays

Making the Best of the Holidays

Thanks to Sounds True, we have many good suggestions for making the most of the holidays.  It is a norm for the holidays to be happy and joyous, and it is a norm for many people for the holidays to be filled with emotional and behavioral challenges.  To reduce your stress and reactivity over the holidays and time with family, see the edited listing below.  I have added some skills that were not included in the Sounds True listing.

  1. Selfcare may require that you practice meditation, yoga, tai chi, qi gong and other forms of concentration and movement during the holidays. Do these practices more often if possible.
  2. Practice preview in the morning by noting one thing you look forward to in the day. Practice review in the evening regarding one thing you enjoyed during the day. Stay with the positive.
  3. Practice helpful breathing techniques often during the holidays. Take a breathing break. Smile as much as possible.  Allow this “mouth yoga” to help you when encountering interpersonal challenges.
  4. Use your own mantra. Make one up that helps to keep you stable and say it to yourself often. This is especially important during times/events when stress reactivity may occur.
  5. When your mind and body begin to tighten up as stress precursors, go directly to your heart. Fine a soft and gentle place there to rest, and forgive others if ready and able to do so.
  6. Practice the thymus rub or thymus thump as a self-defense practice. Rub hard and long or thump moderately to reduce building emotional reactivity or anxiety.
  7. If you know the old Callahan Technique or current emotional freedom methods, tap on essential relief areas/points and use your mantra to support cognitive modifications in thoughts.
  8. Recognize that sometimes to protect yourself, you will have to say “NO.”  Do  so softly and respectfully. But do it when necessary.
  9. Monitor your emotional eating and alcohol consumption as forms of self-medication during the holidays. The American norm of “excess” also happens when we sit down for family meals, especially if there is unresolved emotional tension  between people.
  10. Use grace a lot during the holidays. Become familiar with your own form of grace. Be generous with it during the holidays. Add some gratitude practice.
  11. If you know how to do it, practice loving kindness meditation. For example, May I be safe, healthy, free from suffering, happy, and live with ease.  Do so for others in your family, especially people who may trigger your emotional reactivity. Remember that all people suffer.
  12. Be generous with your time, space, affection and love during the holidays. Be certain these expressions  are authentic, but know that they does NOT have to be 100% authentic.  Do your best. Fake it if necessary until you make it!
  13. Go outside at night and get in touch with the winter sky. Look at all those stars with utter amazement. Enjoy them!  You may want to practice outdoor meditation on the sky, stars, moon, etc.
  14. What ever happens remain in the present. Do NOT fall back to past painful memories and experiences; do NOT fast forward to fears and apprehensions about the future. Stay in the present moment, breathe, and make the most of it all.
  15. Practice random acts of kindness during the holidays. Small meaningful things can produce great emotional rewards when they come from the heart.
  16. Before bedtime, practice calming body scanning.  Do this practice slowly, and do your best to “feel” the soothing, calming sensations in your body.

For more information refer to Sounds True (2017).  A Holiday Companion.

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 of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Activities, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Benefits of Meditation, Benefits of Mindfulness, Breathing, Featured, Holiday Blues, Holiday Coping, Meditation, Meditation Activities, MIndfulness Tagged With: MAKING THE MOST OF THE HOLIDAYS, MINDFULLNESS DURING HOLIDAYS

October 28, 2017 By Admin

Mindful Breathing with Mindful Observation

Mindful Observation  Through Mindful Breathing

The following guided meditation is a combination meditation from Asanga’s Grounds of Hearers, Jam-Yang-Shay-Pa’s concentration meditation on the breath, and the Anapanasati Sutta. These guided meditation instructions have been simplified and combined for contemporary use by lay meditators.

Observation of Observation – Mindfulness in Breathing

  1. Contemplate breathing in and out with complete mindfulness.  Then do so by breathing in and out.
  2. Notice mindfully how a long breath feels in the body, and notice how a short breath feels in the body.
  3. With mindful contemplation notice the feeling in the body when you breathe in and out. Now do so with long and short breaths. Notice and experience the movement of your breath in and out, long and short.
  4. Calm the body. Continue to breathe in this way with an intention to purify your body of all defilements.
  5. Contemplate how your mind works when you meditate on your breath. Work on calming your mind.
  6. Now breathe with an intention to gladden your mind, calm your mind, and let go of your mind.
  7. Notice closely how it feels when you release your mind in mindful, calm breathing. Purify your mind!
  8. See if you can achieve meditative stabilization. Breathe in and out, long and short. Purity and notice!
  9. Allow your body and mind to experience inner joy. Simply breathe in and out, long and short.
  10. Contemplate the experience of a glimpse of impermanence in body and mind by breathing in and out.
  11. Notice the utter impermanence of thoughts, feelings, and breaths. They simply arise and fall, always!
  12. Just practice being your mind-body breath and release desires. Separate yourself from desire.
  13. Consider renunciation of ego-mind suffering in samsara. Let the body and mind breathe in and out.
  14. Did you experience any short experience of bliss in this breath meditation? Can you describe it?
  15. Was there any moment when you experienced inner happiness in this process? Can you describe it?

For more information refer to Zahler, L. (2009). Study and Practice of Meditation: Tibetan Interpretations of Contemplation and Formless Absorption. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, pp. 105-136.

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 of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Benefits of Meditation, Breathing, Featured, Meditation, Mindful Observation, MIndfulness Tagged With: BREATHING, MINDFUL MEDITATION, MINDFUL OBSERVATION

October 20, 2017 By Admin

Relational Suffering and Buddhist Practice

Relational Suffering and Buddhist Practice

Recently I experienced a deep, sudden, afflictive emotional experience. This sudden and profound sense of loss was due to temporary heartbreak; the temporary heartbreak dealt with rejection from a younger woman I found to be interesting and attractive (inside and outside). My “lost” person seemed to possess all the attachment cravings characteristics I desired, was a fellow “stream crosser,” and an intelligent person; she was also strongly engaged in nature, exercise, reading, Buddhism, and clinical practice. So many things in common! However, after spending what appeared to be quality time together hiking, reading, and enjoying a great dinner, she decided against continuation of our short-lived relationship. The “spark” she felt no longer glowed, and she ended our relationship before it had any full substance of being.  My age was also a factor. Ah, impermanence!  Oh, yes, I was quite aware – very  mindful about my desire and craving.  Such is samsara and the Four Noble Truths.

My immediate emotional experience was like what C. Darwin described in his book, The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals. A key theme for Darwin was that human emotion intensified after being expressed, and once expressed it became difficult to suppress or repress. Another theme clarified that human survival was based on the ability to passively accept emotion in the present moment. This should sound familiar to readers of this blog site.  Darwin was so far ahead of his time!  In Buddhism impermanence, dependent origination, and no-self all support one’s radical acceptance of emotional dissatisfaction in the moment, and the calm abiding of moving on from it. In fact, radical acceptance of afflictive emotions may be a flexible mental and bodily form of moving through the pain. I had experienced this in my life when I practiced vipassana, loving kindness, and other meditations on loss, grief and mourning due to the unexpected death of my loving wife, Ellie. In the end, we are all left with our experience of emptiness. Ultimately, we are all alone.

Susan Piver’s The Wisdom of a Broken Heart offers much about the devastating dissatisfaction one experiences when a significant relationship ends. At the same time, however, the experience may open up a pathway to greater spiritual and emotional transformation. This suffering may help us become emotionally stronger and resilient, may help us become more internally centered. In Buddhism emotional “feelings” may be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. In the end current or contemporary reality has little to do with ultimate reality. We may also experience abandonment anxiety, fearing or suspecting that we will be left alone; once the loss experience happens, we find ourselves in abandonment depression – we have in fact been left alone. For some people these are normal cycles of life. For most of us this is not true.

Becoming fully aware and not running from the raw emotional pain in our meditation, I think, is the WAY to go. Caution – DO NOT do this if you are not an experienced meditator. In my journey through emotional suffering I practiced tranquil samatha, insight clarity of vipassana, single-pointed concentration of samadhi, liberating zazen, and loving kindness (including the dead). Vipassana, loving kindness, and J. Kornfield’s guided meditations of painful emotional experience were the most helpful in my own transformation. In some strange and difficult way, it all came together in prajna wisdom about ultimate reality. Of course my recent disappointment was nothing like the painful depths of serious loss, grief and mourning. Nevertheless, it is still strong suffering.  At one point for a brief period I found myself “feeling” strong dissatisfaction and deep-seated aloneness.   It was pure sadness, and it was the purification that sadness can bring. L. Rinzler in Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice for the Heart Broken notes that mind training through regular meditation usually moderates our emotional reactivity. Yes, I did not get what I desired – simply another lesson about attachment and craving. Moving through such pain is all about calm abiding as you face it, experience it, and make space for it in you mind-body-heart system.

In the September, 2017, issue of Lion’s Roar there is a series of brief writings about love, its benefits, limitations, and consequences. The questions we need to ask are: Who am I? Why am I here? What is ultimate versus samsaric happiness – and dissatisfaction. The Buddha’s teaching in the Metta Sutra include the hope that we ALL will be peaceful and happy. And yes, may we all live free from enmity and danger. May we all learn how to deal with suffering (the first arrow) without sending the second arrow (our mental, emotional, behavioral responses) into our souls. We may suffer  much in relational interactions because the level of love is high, thus the emotional reaction to loss is also high. In these short writings, much is offered to us. J. Kornfield calls us to practice loving kindness meditation. K. Neff recommends more self-compassion – always a good idea – and S. Salzberg calls for more generosity. J. Lief tells us to practice meditation with space, ultimately sharing that space with others. P. Chodron believes we need more tonglen practice. These experts all offer wisdom-based, wise-mind instructions on how to deal with love and its loss, human joy and human suffering. We are left with the realization that the most important thing is to “enjoy” happiness in the present moment when we experience it, and know that we cannot cling to it. Our ultimate reality is not the same as our contemporary reality.

So my many readers, rest yourselves in the deep ocean of inner peace and tranquil being. When you experience emotional suffering in relationships, contemplate and meditate – finding your true path to your inner Buddha-nature. Remain kind to yourself and to others. May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you be free from suffering. May you be happy. May you find the “middle way” to live with ease.

For more information refer to The Dalai Lama and Goleman, D. (2003). Destructive Emotions: How We Can Overcome Them. New York: Bantam Books; Darwin, C. (1890, 1921 Edn.).The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals. London, UK: Murray; Piver, S. (2009). The Wisdom of a Broken Heart. NY: Simon and Schuster; Rinzler, L. (2016). Love Hurts: Buddhist Advice for the Heart Broken. Bolder, CO: Shambhala Publications; and, Lion’s Roar (September, 2017). pp. 43-54.

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 of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

 

Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Breathing, Buddhism, Featured, Meditation, Personal Suffering, Practices, Relational Suffering, Relationships, Suffering Tagged With: EMOTIONAL, MEDITATION, RELATIONAL SUFFERING

June 14, 2017 By Admin

Breathing Practices and Emptiness

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.

  1. Notice the feel of your posture. Once comfortable notice your breath as it is. Relax and close your eyes if ok. Rest your hands in your lap, on your thighs, or in a mudra. Feel your body sensations as you breathe in and out at your own pace. Just notice the normal breath in the inner quietude. Now slowly deepen and extend your in (arising) and out (falling) breaths.  Notice.
  2. Within the same breathing experience, now bring stronger attention to the inner feel of your body sensations. Allow the sensations to root your present-moment emotional experiences. Notice what the quality of these emotional experiences are.  With each breath go a bit deeper into the awareness of the emotional experiences. As you become more keenly aware of your emotional experiences, notice which of the sense-doors are more active.  Are emotions based on the past, future. or the present moment? Notice the arising and falling away of experience.
  3. Now focus on the objects of your mind. Be in choiceless awareness as you simply allow to come into your awareness what ever comes into your awareness. Try not to either desire/cling or avoid what you are experiencing at this time.  Let’s move to the five aggregates of experience. Notice material form that you become aware of. Notice your feeling tone. Notice your perceptual experiences as you meditate on breath. Notice the differences between volitional and automatic mental formations – thoughts, etc. Pay attention to the culmination of personal consciousness through these experiences.  Continue to meditate on your breath. Perhaps, you will be aware of making contact with objects of consciousness as they occur. Perhaps not.
  4. As you continue to meditate on your breath, become more aware of the four-links in dependent origination. Nothing arises of itself; everything that arises (and falls) depends upon causes and conditions that allow the arising and the falling. This is dependent origination and impermanence. First notice making sensory contact (in Buddhism this includes thoughts about it) with objects of attention. Then notice how automatically you mind creates a positive or negative (sometimes neutral) evaluation of the contact experience. Next this leads to craving/clinging or avoiding the experiences.  When we try to avoid negatives, we suffer; when we try to hold on to positives, we suffer. Contemplate these realities as you meditate on your breath.
  5. Now we move to impermanence, hints of so-self, and ultimate realities in experiences. Focus strong attention on the exact point of arising into consciousness of objects, contact with them, and emotional experiences.  Do the same with the falling away of these “realities.” Bring strong conscious awareness to your breath, continue to meditate on it. Notice the arising of thoughts about experiences, and note the falling away of thoughts about experiences. Who/what is experiencing these experiences?  Are they self, not-self, or no-self.  Confused? Just meditate now.
  6. Now just sit quietly, calmly and contemplate what you may have learned from these linked breathing meditations.  Any new or clarified insights?

For more information refer to Armstrong, G. (2017). Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators. Somerville, Mass: Wisdom Publications, pp. 13-98.

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 of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Breathing, Breathing, Emptiness, Featured, Meditation, Practices Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, BREATHING, EMPTINESS, MEDITATION, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, MINDFULNESS

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