MINDFULNESS PRACTICES Archives

July 3, 2015 By Admin

Mindfulness Practices

Mindfulness Practices to help Reduce Your Worry & Suffering

My last post dealt with various mindfulness-based practices and skills that may help to reduce created suffering due to excessive worrying. I will add a few more practices in this post. First, let us go back to Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and his Meditations. In Book 2, page 14 he advises himself (also us) to allow nothing to interfere with our emotionally stable directing mind (as I interpret – the mindfulness-based mind using prajna/wisdom skills). He also reminds us that we are an integrated part of the force of NATURE that governs all worldly and universal activities (change, impermanence, our good/bad fortune). Since we have no independent origination, and since we are subject to all forces tied to cause and effect in NATURE, Marcus tells us to deal with our tasks in a diligent manner – but a diligent manner including dignity, sympathy and dispassionate justice. It does appear that Marcus Aurelius had a touch of Buddhism and/or Taoism in his philosophy of life.

Recently Tricycle Magazine presented five other practices that may be helpful in reducing secondary suffering related to compulsive worry. Zen teacher Barry Magid recommends that we learn to leave ourselves alone. Do your utmost best to STOP self-criticism, self-devaluation, and feeling “less than” in your worldly activities and interactions. Just sitting in zazen will open up your mind-doors to this possibility. So do more meditation – just sitting and observing your thoughts go by like clouds in the sky. Practice bare attention and pure awareness without any storylines or evaluations whatsoever. Just be aware of what comes up (worry, reasons to worry, stories about your worrying), and LET IT GO as you bring attention back to your breath. Do this over, and over, and over again.

Teacher Gil Fronsdal recommends that we practice more and more metta, loving kindness meditation. This is my personally most favored meditation practice. It can do wonders for one’s troubled mind. It is both a practice in self-compassion and compassion for others. Since you are the one worrying, do your loving kindness meditation on yourself – and possibly for the person/s you are worrying about. May I be safe. May I be healthy, May I be free from suffering and worry. May I be happy. May I live with more ease.

The Sri Lankan monk, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, recommends that we practice more and more vipassana meditation (insight meditation). Practice on both your joy and your suffering. Bring full attention then concentration to the very earliest arising of either joy or worry (suffering) in your awareness, and get to know their arising qualities. Just pay concentrative attention to their arising and their falling away. Do not go into storylines and memories about your joy or worry. Just observe closely their arising and falling away while in meditation. Do not track associations or causal thinking. Pay strong attention to only the arising and falling away of these mind-states.

Insight meditation teacher, Peter Doobinin, recommends that you do much more walking meditation. Just walk inside or outside (better I think). Walk at the pace you desire. Pay attention to your feet touching earth and the movement of your legs lifting, placing forward, and landing on the earth. Hold your hands by your sides, in front or behind you. Just pay attention to the walking body movements. Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, sometimes add a more sensory approach to his famous standard walking meditation format. After walking in meditation on your legs moving and your feet touching earth (complete stability in sensation), you may want to add paying attention to what your sense-doors perceive. What do you see, hear, feel, taste, smell? Just notice and note it; do not evaluate it or judge yourself or others.

For more information refer to Marcus Aurelius (translation by M. Hammond, introduction by D. Clay). (2006). Meditations. New York: Penguin Classics, Book 2, page 14. Also see http://www.tricycle.com/practice/five-practices-change-your-mind

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

Essential Knowledge for Clinical Supervisors This post will include information and skills dealing with research on role induction practices, quality of clinical supervision, psychodynamics of alliance, and progress measurement. Since the information and skills for all these topics is complex, I will do my best to keep it as clear as possible. This information aims […]

Vipassana Meditation – Emptiness One of the great insights from regular, long-term vipassana practice is the experience of emptiness. The actual knowing of it by the experience of it. This is not your typical conceptual emptiness of the West; it is not total void, negative beings, or nihilistic pit, or suffering in endlessness. It is […]

Liberate Yourself with Spiritual Energy Cultivating authentic inner and outer peace is the only way to a happy and good future. Learn to use your spiritual higher self to let go of self-centerednesss, greed, and entitlement. Work to free yourself from the endless grasping for material “things.” Does it really matter what kind of car […]

The Holy Year of Mercy Like the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, Pope Francis in The Church of Rome, is sharing his opinion on compassion and mercy in life. Although Pope Francis distinguishes compassion (a human action) from mercy (a divine action), the two positive conditions are quite similar in values, attitudes, and behaviors. Pope […]

Advanced Buddhist Practices Abiding in Emptiness The various impediments (enemies) to abiding in emptiness are noted below. We have strong attachment to objects of mind and our sense door pleasures. We experience strong desire and cravings as our norms. We over-attach to forms of affection. We may become stuck in grief related to our experienced […]

Common Barriers to Meditation Practice Dan Harris, an ABC news anchor, has just published a book on Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. In his book Harris notes several common barriers to regular meditation practice, and what to do about them. Since I have been meditating since the early 1980’s I have added additional suggestions. Here are the barriers […]

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 […]

Meditation on Ecodharma and Buddhist Ecology Sit calmly and begin to breathe in and out deeply and slowly. Open your eyes to see and appreciate the natural environment you are in. Close your eyes now if you wish to do so. Know that this nature – the sky, clouds, stars, father sun, mother moon, […]

Human Beings Have Trouble BEING Human – Some Sound Advice from Dr Anthony Quintiliani The world today appears to be even more destructive than ever before in human history. However, historians and violence researchers inform us that we as average persons are safer today than we were in the past. Finger-tip access to world-wide media […]

Anahata – Heart Chakra Meditation Practice Rumi noted that to reach the sky we must use our hearts. 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 […]

The Journey of Human Compassion Practices Where are YOU on the journey of human compassion practices? I modified interpretations of compassion to present a more formal depiction of compassionate practices and skills. Go ahead; take the compassion quiz. Your Goal: To Reduce Human Suffering Human Warmth Unconditional Positive Regard Human Caring Compassionate Actions […]

Vipassana Meditation: Impermanence Although standard vipassana meditation practice leading to insight about the true nature of reality does not recommend what I am about to do, I plan to do it anyway. This meditation center is all about innovation in practice and generalization regarding the benefits of meditation for both regular meditators and novices. Below […]

Spiritual Mantras from Buddhism Spiritual Mantras: Mantra practice is certainly not informal Buddhism, nor is it a way to apply practical mindfulness skills to life. The path of mantra practice is much deeper than the psychological applications for good health. Mantra practice is a highly important part of formal Buddhist practice, especially on the spiritual […]

Henry David Thoreau & Walking Meditation Henry David Thoreau is, perhaps, the most individualistic of the American Transcendentalists. He asked us to consider what we have learned that is useful as we travel our own “stream of life.” He cautions us not to regret when we die that we “had not lived.” He advised us to […]

My blog site mindfulhappiness.org has many posts on meditation, Buddhism, education, clinical practices and self-activated emotional health practices. Perhaps you may wish to initiate a Reflective Journal practice after you do practices presented on the site. There are many benefits from maintaining a written journal about personal experiences and practices. Not only does a […]

Using Meditation, Yoga and Breathing… You can Anchor your Choice Making A key outcome of serious practice is that you now reduce auto-pilot reactivity to people, places, things, emotions, sensations, craving, and memories and at the same time notice your mind CAN BE in charge of your brain-body reactions. Yes, regular daily mindfulness practice allows […]

Introducing Your Clients to Brief Meditations Psychotherapists often ask about ways to introduce mindfulness and meditation to clients. There are other posts on this Blog that offer basic introductory information on both content and process. Here I will simply introduce you to four brief, basic meditations for clients suffering from anxiety and/or depression, along with […]

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 […]

Practice: Yogi Deep Meditation on Inner Listening Carl Jung noted: Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakens. The Katha Upanishads (800-400 BCE) noted: One path leads outward and the other inward. [The] way inward leads to grace. The Mind Cave Focus instructs us to close our eyes and expand your third-eye space to the back of […]

Mindfulness Training From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton,Vermont The Problem: Many people become stuck in the suffering of their past, and they continue to re-experience an event in the futile hope to better understand it, or to find an escape from it. Many of the same people become fixated fearfully […]