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Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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October 10, 2018 By Admin

Practicing Interoceptive Meditations Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Practicing Interoceptive Meditations

Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

The mindfulness-based process and intervention of interoception (also called neuroception) has slowly moved from meditation practice into clinical practice, now being part of the recommended MBSR, ACT, and more current CBT-based therapies. The three brief meditations below are presented to expand the use of interoceptive processes in therapy practice. They are presented in very brief form, so slow down the work when using these in your therapy practice. Rather than repeating the introductory process, I will note it here. Be sure to use it in each meditation.

Begin with the following for all three meditations;

  1. Place your body into a calm and comfortable sitting or lying position.
  2. Breathe slowly and deeply for at least ten breaths. Extend the exhalation for the last three breaths.
  3. Use your imagination energy to recall a time when you were in bright, warm sunlight – feel this warmth on your skin right now. Using imagery of that time and place may be helpful here. Without thinking, just feel it.

Warm Hands Meditation

  1. While sitting comfortably, rub your hands together quite vigorously until you can feel heat in your palms.
  2. Place your warm hands on your cheeks with some pressure, and allow the warmth to penetrate into your face.
  3. Not working too hard at this, slowly and compassionately move the sensation of warmth through your body – face, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, torso, upper legs, lower legs, both feet – all the way to your toes. Do not at all be concerned about if you are doing this correctly. Simply use your personal strong intention.
  4. Rest calmly in the remembered-warmth of your sun-experience and your inner power of warm self-sensation.
  5. Rest in your personal, warm power and allow self-healing to occur.  Use your personal power NOT your thoughts.

Warm Heart Meditation

  1. Repeat step #1 from the above meditation.
  2. Place your warm hands crossed over your heart, and notice the sensation of penetrating warmth.
  3.  Consciously open up your heart chakra, feeling gentle and warm vibrations. Allow them to spread out.
  4. Allow this inner experience of sensation to kindle self-love for yourself. DO this now.
  5. Just BE you; sit there with this experience and appreciate who/what you are right here now.
  6. Do not worry at all if you are doing this correctly.  Just be with your interoceptive sensations and feelings.

Inner Warmth of Self-Healing Meditation

  1. Repeat the meditation above, and spend some time and energy intensifying the warmth if possible.
  2. Now simply and effortlessly move the warmth to any specific place in your body that needs healing.
  3. Do not think about this, just be with the experience and ALLOW it.
  4. Do not concern yourself abut whether or not you are doing this correctly. No thinking, just feeling.

You may wish to practice post-meditation journaling after you complete these three brief meditations.

These meditations were inspired by meditations lead by Thich Nhat Hanh at a Norwich University(VT) retreat and by CBT-mindfulness research at the University of California San Diego Medical School in 2017 and 2018. Refer to W. J. Sieber’s supervisory work.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Featured, Interoception, MBSR, Meditation, Meditation Activities, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness, MIndfulness Activities, Mindfulness Training, Nhat Hanh Thich, Self Care, Stress Reduction Tagged With: INNER WARMTH MEDITATION, INTROCEPTION, MBSR, MEDITATION, NEUROCEPTION.MINDFULNESS, WARM HEART MEDITATION

June 24, 2018 By Admin

Meditation at the Deepest Levels

Meditation at the Deepest Levels

In 2007 M. A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, opened up a whole new, deeper perspective on why consciousness or pure awareness is the root of self. Even in a Buddhist  “no-self” view, Singer’s inquiries leave us with a great deal to unravel.  Here are some reasons why Singer’s believes that deep meditation is the highest form of pure awareness in the self as the observing being.

  1. Deep meditation, beyond the experience of single-pointed concentration, bring you into an experience where you are observing/experiencing consciousness or awareness itself.
  2. This deep meditative experience is consciousness pointed back to itself. It is ultimate you!
  3. As inner and outer worlds integrate into a single state, you “see” the true nature of self.
  4. Because only deep and prolonged meditation can focus consciousness on our true nature, it is the “highest state” of being.  The observing self is the seat of consciousness, your root of all being.
  5. Romana Maharshi’s question of “Who am I?” is fused within this deep meditative state.
  6. There are no more emotional projections, unending cognitions, rising and falling emotions, incessant evaluations, cravings – just inner peace with observation of the true self. A “felt sense” of safety.
  7. For some this deep meditative experience is the source of special spiritual experiences.
  8. The non-attachment to “people, places, and things” allows us to let go of all judgments.
  9. Our sensory contact with objects, phenomena, experiences is at rest. We no longer have to desire or fear what comes next in life. Just radically accept the now.
  10. Welcoming impermanence and change without ego infections bring us joy and happiness.
  11. This you as watcher is the state of your intuitive self, and may be the path to connection with boundless emptiness in space and time.  It may be your connect to great wisdom.
  12. With these new perspectives on personal experience, you suffer less, have more joy, and may attain both personal happiness and great enlightenment.
  13. Perhaps these are the experiences so valued by Buddha, Christ and Maharshi. This ultimate formlessness may be discomforting for some who may not yet be ready for it. You are the change that so often in the past has caused great suffering.  In deep meditation, you learn to allow it all.

For more information refer to Singer, M. A. (200-7). The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself.Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, pp. 31-38.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Activities, Benefits of Meditation, Featured, M.A.Singer, Meditation, Meditation Activities Tagged With: DEEP MEDITATION, M.A.SINGER, MEDITATION, MINDFULNESS, THE UNTETHERED SOUL

June 12, 2018 By Admin

Calming Your Self-Critical Self with Mindfulness

Calming Your Self-Critical Self with Mindfulness

A core problem for many people is their incessant self (or other) criticism. This is a major part of our psychological mind suffering today. In the past life for most people was more difficult, so human basic needs were the energized priorities; today so many of us have been “spoiled” by having basic needs met and lingering with more time to worry about usually less important things.  Observe the number of TV ads aimed at improving how you look, or improving what others may thing about you. Note how the aim of some ads is to improve your perceived status, but not your inner reality of who you really are.Yes, looking ok, being healthy, and more importantly being happy are all important to our successful functioning. However, we tend to be dominated by limbic-brain survival mechanisms that boil down to interpersonal attraction and feeling liked by others. We ask: Am I good enough?  D. W. Winnicott may have some answers for us, and he would be more apt to focus on psychological well-being above superficial qualities – how we look, status,  etc.

Our competitive world and the American economic rat-race cause many to suffer from on-going “red ants” – what I call automatic emotionally loaded negative thoughts. Cognitive Therapy, Recovery Oriented Cognitive Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy all can help reduce our thought-caused suffering. These approaches when implemented correctly work much faster than psychodynamic methods, which tend to prolong and deepen  dependency on therapists and serve mutually self-rewarding experiences (some unconscious for therapists). All evidence-based approaches work, but how well and how fast do they work? There may be a moral question involved when a therapist uses a much slower method with outcomes that are no  better than more efficient methods. They all involve a strong therapeutic alliance and clinical relationship. That also all involve a deeper change process not simply symptom reduction.

Why do we suffer so much from our own thoughts? Why do we sometimes project our own feared or actual character flaws onto and into others? There are so many causes. It all begins with the quality of our early attachment experiences. How good was the quality of your own early attachment experience with parental before thinkers like Freud came to the same conclusion. And, what about the level of your own self-medication? Do you self-medicate to reach some short-term joy or perhaps to just feel a bit better? In self-medication we eventually learn that it just works for a brief period and almost always leads to more serious problems – addictions of all kind including to our “I-Smart” phones.  figures and other caretakers? Were you reasonably satisfied and nurtured, or were you experiencing what The Buddha called dissatisfaction with what is. Did early life experience leave you craving for what you did not receive? We seek pleasure and hope to avoid pain; The Buddha noted this 2600 years ago – way, way

Below I have listed various self-critical patterns that we human have befriended. I also note some mindful ways to counteract their unhelpful emotional effects. Sometimes is means just taking better conscious control overs our CABS – cognition, affect, behavior and sensory sensations. Other times to means learning and using regularly new skills. At times it means we need professionally competent therapeutic help to improve our lives.

Do what is needed! Here the list.

  1. Self-Devaluing thoughts – STOP and be mindful of your strengths. Use the ‘doing” of your strengths as antidotes.
  2. Feeling inadequate – STOP and recall times when you had a lived experience with success no matter how small.
  3. Deep distortion of self-disdain (even self-hate) – STOP and do your best to practice
  4. mindful self-compassion.
  5. Not being “good enough” – STOP and recognize this is a social construct of unhealthy competition. Use strengths.
  6. No spiritual self – Consider what if any spiritual practice you might explore or do more of. Being in nature helps.
  7. Feeling you do not have enough – Recognize that if basic needs have been met, it is time to work harder on higher emotional needs. Stop thinking – only if I had… then I would be happy. This is almost always untrue.
  8. Hopeless perfectionism – STOP and recognize this is also a social construct based on the projections of others, who believed they were not perfect enough. These introjects became your beliefs. There is NO perfectionism; it is totally impossible to achieve it because it does not exist. Think: I am good enough as I am now!
  9. Stuck in conditioned life (samsara) – where when you are happy you become dissatisfied because it does not last, and when you are suffering you become dissatisfied because you are not happy. Craving and trying to prolong happiness and being without happiness both lead to just more suffering. Find small things to have gratitude for.
  10. A list of more mindfulnesss-based “things” you can do to counteract automatic negative thinking and feeling: live in the present moment; stay grounded with helpful cues – things are ok; allow negative thoughts to pass – do not get hooked by them; Un-trap yourself from a painful past by living presently with what is; practice radical acceptance of what you cannot change; meditate and do yoga a lot to cultivate more inner peace; practice self-efficacy in a very conscious manner; learn and live by the Four Noble Truths; let go of your shame so you can flourish; learn and use The UCLA four step process; use cognitive disputation and reframing more and more often; DO better self-care and learn to locate and “feed” your protective dragons; ask your inner self-helper for guidance on how to be healthier and happier; seek out and learn from an ethical mindfulness mentor; if possible, practice more self-love and less self-doubt. Do more of these practices more often; I believe you will find things will improve.
  11. I realize that some of you may not be aware of some of the terms noted above, so do some good “Googling” about them. When you have a set of practices you like – practice them every single day of your life.

A helpful book to read is Brenner, G. (2018). Suffering is Optional: A Spiritual Guide to Freedom…Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Behavior, Buddhism, Calming, Featured, Meditation Activities, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness, Self -Kindness, Self Care, Self Medication, Spiritual Energy Tagged With: ACTIVITIES, CALMING, CRITICAL -SELF, MINDFULNESS, SELF CARE

April 14, 2018 By Admin

Meditation on Ecodharma and Buddhist Ecology

Meditation on Ecodharma and Buddhist Ecology  

  1. Sit calmly and begin to breathe in and out deeply and slowly.
  2. Open your eyes to see and appreciate the natural environment you are in.
  3. Close your eyes now if you wish to do so.
  4. Know that this nature – the sky, clouds, stars, father sun, mother moon, especially the trees – is your natural environment of being in this life.
  5. This biosphere is our sacred ground, from which we all arise and to which we all fall at our end.
  6. Mother earth and the surrounding universe deserve our deepest respect.
  7. In Asia, forest monks have ordained old, wise trees to spare them from the wrath of consumerism.
  8. Know that ecodharma is an activist Buddhist program aimed at protecting nature and the earth.
  9. We are living and dying in a vast ecological man made disaster, escape from which requires that our species survives AND that the earth survives as well.
  10. Our survival depends upon a healthy, breathing, cleansing earth and atmosphere.
  11. Now take a few minutes in your own silent solitude to contemplate deeply what has been noted above. Pause.
  12. Recall that The Buddha was confronted by the devil-like Mara. This was an attack on his hard-won enlightenment. The Buddha touched the ground with his fingers and hand to re-establish his connection to mother earth, and his enlightenment survived all challenges.
  13. So today, we should all touch the earth gently with respect – we can touch earth with our fingers, hands, feet, heart, soul, and self.  We may even wish to prostrate ourselves on mother earth to show our deep love and respect.
  14. The Buddha was born, lived, became enlightened , and died (parinibbana) in the gracious company of trees.
  15. Thich Nhat Hanh noted that our caring for and being with the earth is a way of reconnecting with interbeing of all living things.  This great teacher also advised us that to walk and live on Pure Land requires that we love the earth.
  16. Soto Zen founder Eihei Dogen noted that rivers, mountains, and “the great wide earth” as well as “the sun and the moon and the stars” are all part of our personal enlightenment in our minds.
  17. Take a few more minutes to contemplate these teaching. Pause.
  18. Today’s bodhisattva have become an ecosattva to help save the world and humankind – the greatest and most noble act of active compassion and love.
  19. We must be fearless as we confront the extremes of “conspicuous consumption” and its destruction of the earth and all living things. This deadly competition may kill all of us in the future.
  20. Contemplate on this: What will you do very soon to join this battle to save mother earth and the human race as we know it? Pause.

For more information refer to https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/growing-buddhist movement… https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/trees-meditation-teaching... https://tricycle.org/magazine/100-best-climate-solutions… https://tricycle.org/magazine/love-letter-earth… Retrieved 4-21-18

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Buddhism, Ecdharma, Featured, Meditation, Meditation Activities Tagged With: DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, ECODHARMA, MEDITATION, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, MINDFULNESS

February 22, 2018 By Admin

The Reality of Experience

The Reality of Experience

What is deep mindfulness?  Deep mindfulness is the concentrated awareness of all experiences, preferably without evaluating as pleasant or unpleasant. Deep mindfulness is pure awareness as it becomes part of personal consciousness. We humans, however, are always evaluating our experiences and phenomena as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant – often getting hooked into wanting the pleasant to remain and hoping to avoid the unpleasant. Such patterns make both mental and physical phenomena and our self-perceptions conditioned on outcomes of experiences. All experiences are within deep feeling of the mind and body; cognition, emotion, and behavior become one with related consequences of our actions. All too often, without wise-mind mindfulness skills and wisdom, we make our lives more unsatisfactory. Happiness is there but for our mindlessness about it.

Try this mindfulness challenge!

ALL experiences and phenomena occur in Time, Space, Place, Dimension, Evaluation, and Mind-Body Awareness. Brain-Mind-Body-Heart-Soul awareness of experiences color our reactions to them.  We want more of what we desire/crave and less of what we hope to avoid – all depending on our evaluations of experience as pleasant or unpleasant. Go into a deep contemplation on how time, space, place, dimension, evaluation, and mind-body experience impact every single thing you are aware of. Contemplate very deeply HOW these understanding may help you to become a happier and more peaceful person. What did you uncover? You may wish to record your findings in a journal if you keep one.

For more information refer to Spira, R. (2017). The Nature of Consciousness…Oxford, UK: Sahaja Publications, pp. 151-165.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Classroom, Deep Mindfulness, Featured, Meditation Activities, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness, Practices, Self Care Tagged With: DEEP MINDFULNESS, MINDFULNESS, REALITY OF EXPERIENCE

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