Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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

May 26, 2018 By Admin

Meditating in the Gap of Nothingness

Meditating in the Gap of Nothingness

The Buddha taught about your four best friends, that is how the body changes physiology when you sit, stand, walk/move and every time you are lying down. Modern Western neuroscience now supports this statement of 2500+ years ago. Thich Nhat Hanh added the importance of your breath, walking meditation, and half-smile; these realities also change your physiology.  Jon Kabbat-Zinn added the importance of simply being present this moment, and making everything your teacher. The initial subtle changes are in anatomy and nervous tissue, then the brain takes over and the mind-body follows. So you have some very natural “best friends” to assist you in dealing with everyday challenges and suffering.

I have used regularly all of the above in my own practice. I have been especially fascinated with the power of the breath. The multitude of breathing techniques, and the ability to control my own arousal and calming with attention to changes in breath. In my years of practice I have found the quiet gap between breaths and thoughts – between all rising and falling perceptions of conscious awareness – too be especially helpful.  There is phenomena and there is the gap. As you rest in the utter silence of this special time and place, you are nearer to death than at any other time in your awakened states. There is nothing there, no movement, no breath, no life. All that exists in that quick moment is emptiness and vast boundless nothingness. Below I have noted the steps for meditating in your gap. Hope you will do this often.

  1. Sit in a comfortable meditation posture or do this while lying down on your back.
  2. Begin with a few soothing deep, long, slow breaths.  Continue!
  3. Now bring full attention to your breathing – its feel, its motion, its sensation.
  4. Just concentrate a bit on the moving breath in and out, deep and slow.
  5. Now with gentle attention notice the subtle reality of the gap between your in and out as well as you out and in breaths. The gap is in the middle way between the arising and falling of breath.
  6. You may also notice that when meditating you have thoughts; it helps to pay attention to the gap between thoughts rather than the content of thoughts. Just focus on the gaps.
  7. You may also notice that there is a gap between the arising and falling away of emotional awareness.
  8. For some finding the gap just before your ego-mind begins to evaluate an experience can be a real discovery.
  9. For some it would be helpful if you allowed the gap just before you speak harshly. Are the gap not the words.
  10. Now practice! No matter what the content is before or after the gap, ignore it all and focus only on the gap itself.
  11. No matter what comes into consciousness, just let it all go and stay with focused attention on the gap and its internal self-experience.
  12. Perhaps your gap has a color, or some depth, or some other characteristics that makes it more interesting. Just feel your attention there without judgment or evaluation of any kind. Just BE the gap!
  13. For some the gap is far away; great space and distance separates you from being in it. You just see it.
  14. If your gap is far away in the distance, does it appear as a distant and very large valley? What do you see?
  15. If your gap is close to you in space and time, are you silently being in it or moving into it?
  16. Is there silence or sound? If there is sound, what kind of things do you hear?
  17. Do you feel safe in the gap, or does it produce other feelings?
  18. Go as deep into the gap – your personal gap – as you feel comfortable with. Notice!
  19. Can you find peace, quiet, solitude, perhaps even self-love there?  Try it again!
  20. Continue your practice until you decide to stop or meditation time is over.

For more information refer to Bodian, S. (2017). Beyond Mindfulness: The Direct Approach to Peace, Happiness, and Love. Oakland, CA: Non-Duality Press/New Harbinger Publications, pp. 5-19.

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, Breathing, Featured, Meditation, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness, Practices Tagged With: BREATH, MEDITATION PRACTICE, THICH NHAT HANH

December 20, 2015 By Admin

Happiness Path According to The 14th Dalai Lama

Happiness Path  – The 14th Dalai Lama

His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama has suggested, among many other important things, that MINDFUL-HAPPINESShumans may experience true inner happiness by regular practice on the path to enlightenment. In his 2012 book, From Here to Enlightenment, he noted that personal happiness may be attained via specific behaviors and ways of being.  Here is list for you to consider.

  1. Work at having a sound mind. Psychological health includes moderation in thoughts and overcoming afflictions. Mind-soundness and health allow us to experience the feelings of joy. Thus we feel happier.
  2. Practice being within a mental reality that is relatively free from suffering.  Suffering (like neutrality and happiness) are norms of human nature.  Using wisdom to reduce your suffering opens mind-doors to the experiences and feelings of joy.  It is all about your personal emotions.
  3. Realizing that long-term, natural happiness is supported by ongoing life experience with brief moments of joy and happiness. Happiness is an inside deal.  It is all about how we react to the realities of the moment.
  4. Practice greater acceptance and gratitude. Practice greater mental recognition of improved life satisfaction.  Avoid traps of general dissatisfaction made stronger by  by attachment, desire, clinging, and craving.
  5. Practice stronger and stronger self-compassion. This is a required foundation for compassionate actions on behalf of others.
  6. Practice greater and greater compassion for others, including thoughts, works, and actions. 
  7. Allowing the gentle expansion of wisdom and skilled awareness through the regular practices of meditation and compassion. Wisdom and inner peace make space for joy.
  8. Learning how to use your wisdom-mind to improve regulation of self-discipline in the actions of brain, mind, heart, body, and emotions – all in the present moment of experience.
  9. Learning how to let go of personal stuckness in the past and fearful apprehension of the future.  Complete engagement in the present moment is the way.
  10. Recognition that whatever is, is! Turning into the presence of suffering, neutrality, joy, and happiness.
  11. Practice holding appreciation for your personal life, regardless of the level and intensity of suffering you may experience.
  12. Lastly, but most important, participate fully in regular, daily practice of mindfulness, compassion, and meditation.

For more information refer to Dalai Lama  (2012). From Here to Enlightenment... BostonL Snow Lion, pp. 39-48.

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, Dalai Lama, Featured, Happiness, Meditation, Meditation Activities, MIndfulness, MIndfulness Activities, People, Practices Tagged With: DALAI LAMA, DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, HAPPINESS, HAPPINESS PATH, MEDITATION PRACTICE, MINDFULNESS TRAINING

December 9, 2015 By Admin

Forgiveness Meditation Adapted from Jack Kornfield’s Work

Forgiveness Meditation Practice – Mindful Happiness – Dr Anthony Quintiliani

  1. Sit comfortably in a meditation posture. Allow your breath to remain natural without any intentional modification.  Allow your body to relax, and allow your mind to be open to and to expect forgiveness.  Focus attention on your heart area deep within your soul, and allow yourself to feel the soothing rhythms of forgiveness bathe you in calmness. Now gently slow and deepen your breathing.  You are now ready for forgiveness work.
  2. From all the people I may have harmed or hurt in the past, whether knowingly or not, I ASK for their forgiveness. Please forgive me for whatever I did to cause your emotions to become unpleasant.  I can see your suffering face in my mind’s eye. I am so sorry! I am so sorry! I am so sorry!
  3. From my own deep higher self, I ASK for forgiveness.  For the many ways I have harmed or hurt myself, whether knowingly or not, I ASK for self-forgiveness now.  Causes and conditions allowed negative afflictions to harm me by my own emotional reactions. I can feel my face, heart, soul,  and mind-body experience my own painful emotions. For this I ASK forgiveness.  I forgive myself! I forgive myself! I forgive myself!
  4. From people who I know have harmed or hurt me, whether knowingly or not, I ASK myself to forgive them now. I may or may not be ready for complete forgiveness; I will go with what comes from inside myself.  Whatever level of forgiveness appears – or if only a slight intention to forgive – I am ready to act on it. If I am ready to forgive you, I can see your face in my mind’s eye; I realize you also suffered and harmed me in the process. I offer my deep intention to forgive you as a person.  I experience compassion for your suffering. If I am ready I say deep inside myself: I forgive you!  I forgive you! I forgive you!
  5. If you are having trouble moving yourself through this forgiveness meditation process, you may want to follow Windmind’s advice on how to forgive.  A) For the sake of self-care, give up your anger, resentment and hate. B) Use your supports and spiritual strengths to forgive the person if not their actions. C) Work very hard on letting go of the past – holding on to past pain and suffering simply makes it longer-lasting. D) Allow your intention and forgiving actions to liberate you from the chains of continued pain and suffering. Empower yourself to let go and feel true liberation from past causes and conditions – thoughts, words and actions – causing your pain and suffering.
  6. Now concentrate your meditative powers on liberation from your heart-held suffering and pain.  Forgiving yourself and others allows the letting go of your pain and suffering. NO need to hold on to past pain and suffering; the longer you hold on to it emotionally, the longer you suffer. Be with your deep true see; feel this in your mind-body-heart-soul – FORGIVE!!!!  BE the “forgiver.”

For more information on Jack Kornfield’s forgiveness practices refer to www.jackkornfield.com/meditations/forgivenessMeditation.php

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: Featured, Forgiveness, Jack Kornfield, Meditation, MIndfulness Activities, Practices Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, FORGIVENESS MEDITATION, JACK KORNFIELD, MEDITATION PRACTICE, MINDFUL HAPPINESS

January 15, 2015 By Admin

Anahata – Heart Chakra

Anahata – Heart Chakra Meditation Practice

Rumi noted that to reach the sky we must use our hearts.

heart_chakra-MindfulHappiness-Anthony-Quintliani

The Heart Chakra is a very popular focus of meditation practice.  Here we will simply review some characteristics and then move on to a meditation practice.

Specific characteristics: Green color, YAM sound (say at least three times with a soft A), sense of touch, located in center of chest (cardiac plexus and thyme area), and malachite or emerald stone.

Functional characteristics: Respiration, circulation, immune system, and life itself.

Emotional characteristics: openness, unconditional love, duty, devotion, peace, harmony, awakened compassion, and emotional consciousness.

Now for the meditation practice.

  1.  Just rest in meditation on the breath just as it is now – just be aware.  In and out. In and out.
  2.  Now gently bring full attention to the feelings of a deeper, slower, more complete breath.  In and out. In and out.
  3.  Pay full attention to your heart chakra area, and bring full attention to it.  If you wish, you may place both hands over your heart area.
  4.  Breathe in green energy very slowly and deeply, and say YAM to yourself at least three times.  Say it slowly.
  5. Go deeper with your emotional consciousness into your heart area.  Appreciate it!  Appreciate it!
  6. Use your imagination and breathe in the feelings of inner peace and harmony.  In and out. In and out.
  7.  Awaken your deeper emotional consciousness, and feel the sense of unconditional love for yourself and others.  In and out. In and out.
  8. Now simply rest with yourself.  Hold yourself emotionally in this unconditional love and inner peace.

Rumi-Only-from-the-Heart-can-you-touch-the-Sky-Mindful-Happiness

CLICK THE LINK BELOW for the PDFWorksheet 

Anahata The Heart Chakra Practice

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 to Order!

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

Filed Under: Activities, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Featured, Meditation Activities, MIndfulness Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, MEDITATION PRACTICE, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, THE HEART CHAKRA

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

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 […]

In-Depth Means to Discover and Be Your True Self Henry David Thoreau reminded us that it is not what you look at, but it is what you see that matters. How do you SEE yourself?  John Muir reminded us that the sun shines in us as well as in our souls. Do you find “the […]

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 […]

I Have Questions Our spiritual traditions have many sources of powerful spiritual origination: Shiva, Buddha, Jesus, Saint Francis to note just a few.  The Roman thinker Seneca noted that our most feared day is our last on earth, but this is also the beginning of our eternity.  As a practicing Buddhist, a secular meditation teacher, […]

Happiness Path  – The 14th Dalai Lama His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama has suggested, among many other important things, that humans may experience true inner happiness by regular practice on the path to enlightenment. In his 2012 book, From Here to Enlightenment, he noted that personal happiness may be attained via specific behaviors and ways of […]

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 […]

Review:  Deepak Chopra’s Idea’s on ” The Future of God” Part 2 of 3 In part 2 of this 3-part series, I will discuss the role played by consciousness in various levels of spirituality.  In the beginning, there was the word.  The word is sometimes associated with pure consciousness, since without consciousness there cannot be […]

Finding Your Seat with Your Demons and Dragons: Resolutions You may think the creation of the Gestalt-like therapy activity of sitting in different chairs and acting “as if” the you in that personality-chair is the source of your responses is a relatively new psychotherapy intervention.  However, some roots of this process may go back as […]

Improving Your Self-Esteem – An Action Contemplation The UCLA Higher Education Research Institute’s surveys and V. Mamgain’s ideas about neoclassical economics of happiness help provide a means to deconstruct improved learning in higher education and also personal happiness in the process. According to the UCLA research surveys, higher education students want more spirituality and personal […]

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 […]

Self-Help Journaling – Two Methods Generally there are two forms of self-help journaling: writing about worries and concerns OR writing about joy and happiness. In my more than 35 years of clinical experience I have not found the former to be very helpful. Most people stuck in negative mood states are not easily able to […]

Personal Experiences When in Longer-Term Silence The luxury (or horror depending on your perspective and psychological structure) of being in long-term silence is a rare thing in today’s noisy, super-active and reactive world. The experience is difficult to describe verbally. The best we can do is count on our own experiences and the writings of […]

Trauma Informed Care – The Absolute Basics This post aims at providing a very basic introduction to Trauma Informed Care.  Advanced versions of this information are available from the author.  So what is Trauma Informed Care (hereafter TIC)?  Below I have listed rationales of need and core characteristics of TIC in organizations. Why We Need […]

Amitabha Buddha – Pure Land Meditation The following meditation had been modified by me to make it a more specific self-healing meditation and to better fit the time we now live in. Sit quietly and complete 3-4 deep, calming breaths. Pay attention to the quality and density of the light you see outside of your […]

Mindful Happiness – Happiness – Guided Imagery of Your Life This experience will include guided imagery and multi-sensory memory of happy experiences in your life.  At time, shadow experience may pop up, in which a happy memory has an unhappy component.  Your mindful concentration will be needed to remain on track with only the happy […]

Psychodynamics of Alliance – Therapeutic Relationship Enhancement This post includes basic considerations, processes, and clinical skills necessary for developing a strongly positive clinical alliance and therapeutic relationship in therapy.  Here the alliance is required for any substantial change in psychotherapy, and the therapeutic relationship rides the quality of the initial alliance to expand and inter-penetrate […]

Improving Client/Patient Collaboration  in Treatment To improve collaboration between you and your clients/patients, simply practice the following behaviors as your norms.  See the list below, and practice, practice, practice. Present with an attitude of helpfulness and authentic caring. Empathy and authentic concern are required. Recognize the reality that clients/patients are at different levels of readiness […]

Drink a Cup of Tea with Thich Nhat Hanh According to the article “A Perfect Cup of Tea” by Noa Jones, The Great Meditation Master offers this sage advice about the best way to enjoy a great cup of tea. I suppose if you would rather drink coffee, the same suggestions may apply. Recognize that […]

A major part of suffering comes with the inability to shift unhelpful, negative focus on troubling thoughts and feelings.   This cognitive reality is common in all the major mental health problems people suffer from: anxiety, depression, trauma, substance abuse, and eating disorders. Due to the lack of “wise-mind” skills most people suffering from these […]

Quintiliani’s Brief Life Experience Screening Years ago, when I received a rather large number of managed care referrals for  adolescent “treatment failures” and their families, I soon realized that typical screening, assessment and therapy was NOT working well. I tried so, so hard to reach these young people – all experiencing extreme psychological suffering with […]

Mindful Happiness Tags

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

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

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

Copyright © 2022 · Mindful Happiness