Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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

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

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

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

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 […]

A Radical Feminist in her Time Over 800 years ago Hildegard of Bingen presented radical viewpoints on women-power and male-dominance in the Christian Church, stone/gem healing, meditation, insight and intellect, the web of life or planetary oneness, being in nature, environmentalism, and personal stories of suffering, etc.  Despite her outspoken manner and her popularity among […]

Trauma Therapy:  Basics from Some Expert Clinicians For many years trauma therapist have used many approaches in their psychotherapy. Most of these approaches lack strong empirical support for outcomes, and are often the “favorites” of these therapists.  One might wonder what benefits therapists derive from using approaches that are not evidence-based. If an intervention fails […]

Meditation for Managers and Helpers  Let’s Talk – Contact Me – Click Here I am a Licensed Psychologist-Doctorate and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor with 35 years of clinical experience in community clinics, schools, professional organizations, and universities (OSU, UVM, etc.). I have been the past Clinical Director of Howard Center, and Past President […]

Vipassana Meditation -No-Self   Journey 3 In this third vipassana meditation I will guide you on a meditation dealing with the experience of no-self.  No-self is a highly advanced experience in Buddhist meditation and wisdom practices, and it is, perhaps, one of the most misunderstood concept and experience. Along with impermanence, dependent origination, typical reality […]

How to be Happier in a Relatively Unhappy World In today’s fast-paced, digitized, unstable world – with it uncertainty, childish tweets from on-high, and general dissatisfaction with things as they are – how may one become a happier person. It is clear that isolation will not work; it is clear that aggressive actions in opposition […]

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 […]

Mindfulness Practices for Expanding Acceptance Mindfulness and contemplation can be great allies in our struggle to better understand each other.  This is especially true when it comes to matters of interpersonal relationships and highly significant relationships.  It is also important in diversity, or as some now refer to it – variation in human beings.   Variation may […]

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 […]

Plasticity – The Amazing Human Brain We humans are very fortunate in that our brain is one of the most complex entities in our known universe. Natural selection, genetic modifications, and use-related neuroplasticity have blessed us with a brain quite capable of some of the most complicated tasks imaginable. Some of these tasks (medical miracles, […]

What Consciousness Really Is Considering that we have been to the moon and back, and more recently surveyed important moons of Saturn, science is still a very long way from understanding how the human brain works – and even further away from having a clear, agreed-upon interpretation of human consciousness.  Consciousness is the “stuff” of […]

Vipassana for Depression, Anxiety, Trauma, and Addictions The integration of Vipassana meditation with various forms of therapy has for many years been a standard of treatment worldwide and in Vermont, especially when impulse control and emotion regulations issues are included.  Buddhist Psychology offers clear explanations why this intervention may be helpful for so many suffering […]

Approaches to Treating Chronic Pain Chronic pain is one of the most common and costly physical conditions in the United States. The following approaches have proven to be somewhat effective in reducing personal suffering from chronic pain. Although some of these can be practiced on your own, it is wise to work with a pain […]

Helping Professions and Emotional Balance Helping professions must practice to achieve emotional balance.  Working conditions for the helping professions have become more and more difficult over time, especially with the advent of so called “helpful technologies” and ever-increasing governmental/funding requirements for documentation.  When I started in the (behavioral health) field of clinical psychology and addictions […]

Zen Buddhist Practices – Egolessness In our practice we often inquire, and sometimes experience, the no-self and/or egolessness. What is egolessness? Who and what do we think we are? Some say that when we die the essence but not the ego lives on into new experiences. Karma and re-birth are givens in this spiritual view. […]

Core Elements in Clinical Supervision In addition to what supervisors bring into group supervision and clinical training, the list below will be used for discussion about YOUR supervisory role. The order of content below is generally random. The content noted applies to clinical supervision; it could also apply to doing effective therapy. The skills and […]

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, […]

Human Needs and Spiritual Experience and the Need for Supportive Rituals From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont Recently the Human Givens Blog in the United Kingdom presented a post about human needs.  I will paraphrase their information as well as information from other sources for Mindful Happiness.  Having such […]

Enhancing Hope in Psychotherapy The enhancement of personal hope is a key part of successful psychotherapy practice. Some view this requirement as a foundational aspect of the therapeutic alliance; others do not hold the same view.  In the case of serious co-occurring disorders, especially trauma and substance misuse, initiating, developing, and sustaining a hopeful future-view […]

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 […]

Mindful Happiness Tags

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

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

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

Copyright © 2023 · Mindful Happiness