WELL BEING Archives - Mindful Happiness

September 12, 2017 By Admin

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, dependent origination, and emptiness of all phenomena related to the former. It is the total integration of these concepts, processes, and experiences that guide us on our personal path to enlightenment or nirvana. If we achieve wise-mind skills and meaningful regular meditation/yoga practice – as well as keep the above information in mind – we will also achieve mind and body wellness to the highest possible levels.

In an advanced contribution to our understanding of consciousness, , R. Spira (2017). The Nature of Consciousness opens up many doors of awareness to just what consciousness is and what it is not. Spira reminds us that only consciousness is aware of consciousness, and that WE are the only conscious entities that are aware of experiencing it. Unlike the epiphenomena of the universe, in which we become aware of the seamless, unified wholeness of it all, the space between the subjective (our mind – the I/Me/Mine)) and the objective (something outside or inside that you become aware of) eventually leads us to an error in perception: That we are separate, substantial, solid individuals experiencing separate, substantial, solid things in the world. We believe the objects and experiences we are aware of are solid, full, real forms of form in a very temporary time-space continuum. However, our consciousness and awareness are transparent, empty, and formless; thus, our mind-body of experience making sensory contact with objects – and registering as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral – is also transparent, empty, and formless. It is simply just how the mind and body function. Consciousness has no set of values or valences; it is simply a state of neutral awareness.

Leading physicists (Einstein, Planck, Bohr, and Schrodinger to name a few) have for a very long time noted that observation effects the observed; that is that subjective (mind) investigation of objects of matter do change the objects of matter. We can only observe the wave energy or the particle at one time but not both. As we observe subjectively, the object of observation undergoes some form of change. Perhaps this is the barely noticed effect of the very subtle energy in observation impacting the observed. So our consciousness is the only absolute reality of all things that appear to exist. The momentary sensory contact with objects and experiences produces that which consciousness is aware of. So, with these somewhat heavy viewpoints from Buddhist Psychology, we will examine upclose the meditative experience of being conscious of pure emptiness. Personal awareness of your consciousness is a neutral continuum of constancy, but sensory contact with objects and experiences leading to pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant feelings is a limited time-space phenomenon in the present moment.

As you meditate, apply complete attention, awareness, and deep consciousness on the following statements about your possible meditative experience here now. This is difficult; do your best.

Consider the reality of physical, empty, transparent space between your mind and the object of interest.
This inter subject-object space is invisible, but your consciousness knows it is there (close or far).
We can experience timeless-space and spaceless-time.
Since the essential nature of mind is awareness (pure and empty consciousness), our space-time and time-space consciousness is borderless and boundless.
In the experience of conscious emptiness there is no up, down, right, left, outside or inside – there is no solid object entity, just atomic space and surrounding space.
The human mind is the action of pure consciousness/awareness via sensory contact with objects.
Our awareness of being conscious of our consciousness means that is the only true entity of the self.
It is the I/Me/Mine of the ego that registers consciousness of something, anything.
Consciousness of ultimate emptiness is the highest understanding possible in human life as well as in physics.

For more details refer to Spira, R. (2017). The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter. Oxford, UK: Sahara Publications, pp. 3, 19-33.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Stress in America – 2019 Every year the American Psychological Association ( November, 2019) conducts an extensive survey to determine the levels of stress in America. The data below does NOT include children; therefore, the already high numbers would be much higher. Here are some highlights. Stress levels are quite high but stable. Increased concerns […]

Concentration Vs Mindfulness? Many people new to meditation often confuse the differences between mindfulness or accepted bare attention to whatever arises in the moment and concentration or strong penetrating awareness on one thing without distraction. Concentration is a more intensely focused and engaged form of mindful attention. Concentration is sustained, powerfully focused, one-pointed attentional awareness. […]

Deepak Chopra Ideas on “The Future of God” – Part 1 Deepak Chopra’s new book, The Future of God… (2014) presents some very challenging perspective on spirituality, atheism, and formal religion. Here I will simply present some paraphrased details and my own ideas on these topics. Basic Foundations Human beings have special talents for searching […]

Three Meditation Practices to Further Your Expansion Based on the ongoing “bad news” about various domestic and world events, and the knowledge that people DO NEED more compassion and self-compassion in their hectic and challenging lives, I am writing three brief meditation practices on different aspects on compassion-wisdom as noted on my site. Hopefully, these […]

Supervision and Self-Care in Trauma Therapy Today there is an ever-increasing demand for effective trauma therapy. Our American clinical history on this matter leaves much to be desired. John N. Briere and Cheryl B. Lanktree offer important suggestions on how to use clinical supervision and self-care in your clinical work with clients suffering from serious […]

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 […]

Pursuit of Happiness – Mindful Happiness Gilbert, a professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of Stumbling on Happiness, implies that we make mind-errors in our search for happiness. Happiness is a core human emotion, most often activated into consciousness via the midbrain reward centers and dopamine activation. Perhaps our hardwired brains are made to […]

Buddhist Thought on Joy and Suffering 1) You actually DO have some control over your emotional destiny. 2) The core “conceptual” view of reality is that your inner emotional experience – especially negative afflictive emotional states related to people, places and things you REACT to – are perceived as totally true. 3) In a non-conceptual […]

Emptiness – Meditation Practice The Brahma-Viharas (higher abodes) include four powerful meditation practices ( Loving Kindness/Maitri or Metta; Compassion/Karuna; Sympathetic Joy/Mudita; and, Equanimity/Upekkha) that involve boundless radiation outwardly all the way into the infinite universe. These boundless or infinite space meditations, working with deep absorption and projecting kindness outwardly, may lead to positive changes. Experienced […]

Effective Clinical Supervision Perhaps other than the mental health status of the therapist and her/his ethical clinical skills, there is no more important variable in successful clinical work than effective CLINICAL supervision. I emphasize “clinical’ because in today’s bureaucratic systems, so much supervision tends to be about required procedures like utilization level, reporting requirements, and documentation for services […]

Mindfulness-Based Emotion Regulation The following emotional regulation practices (also called emotional balance skills) have been supported by over 2500 years of mindfulness training and current psychological research on human emotions. These practices/skills are to be practiced before they are needed, and directly applied when they are needed. Here is the list. 1) Practice noticing and […]

Mindful Happiness Book Review The Awakened Introvert: Practical Mindfulness skills… By Arnie, Kozak, Ph.D. Dr. Kozak begins his book noting the processes of mind that often cause people to suffer. Critical judging, unhelpful story telling, over-attending to past suffering or losses and angst about possible future realities (the brain’s default mode), and auto-pilot inattention to important […]

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 […]

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 […]

Mindfulness – Self-Kindness Practice Befriending the self is one of the most difficult things for Americans to do. It is probably true that self-kindness is difficult for most people; however, the current rampant criticism (I am right! You are wrong!) and extreme greed manifesting in the United States tends to produce two opposite extremes: […]

Pathways for Coping with Loss and Grief Jeanne Cacciatore, a Zen priest and bereavement specialist, offer sound advice on the process of loss and grieving. In her book, Bearing the Unbearable: Love and the Heart Breaking Path of Grief (2016), she presents the process as a series of contractions and expansions; contractions are the inward path of […]

Brain Habits – Helpful Vs Unhelpful Nora Volkow, MD, Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse ( video below) has noted that people suffering from addictions may experience some dysfunction in in brain areas related to personal motivation, reward recognition, and inhibitory controls. Neuroscientists have utilized various brain imaging techniques to document this possibility in addicted individuals. These […]

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 […]

Self-Reality Checks Are Needed in Your Mindful Clinical Practice It is highly important for helpers working in the co-occurring conditions field to become keenly aware of their own realities in practice and life that impact clinical effectiveness. Below I have listed four areas that show up in clinical surveys and added four more that I […]

Expanded Lectio Divina for Self-Development In this post I will provide an expanded version of this process by combining information from Origen, the Carthusian Monk Guigo II, and Augustine of Hippo. The presented process of 12 steps may be used to enhance internalization of sacred writing and/or to support internal healing of the participants. […]