Meditation

Get the Brain to Reduce Anxiety with Meditation

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0818_anxiety-Cog

Anxiety is a very common emotional state. It is a state characterized by feelings of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. For most people occasional anxiety is manageable. But for many it is chronic or extreme in magnitude and can have a major disruptive effect on their lives.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S. It is estimated that 40 million people or 18% of the population will experience impairment due to of an anxiety condition this year. Although treatable only about a third will receive treatment. About 5% of the U.S. population takes anti-anxiety prescription medications. But many self-medicate as alcohol and recreational drugs are frequently used to cope with anxiety. To make matters worse people who experience anxiety and stress have a very high propensity for drug abuse and addictions. In addition, anti-anxiety medications are frequently used, especially by young people, for recreational purposes

Hence, it is important to find an alternative to drugs for the treatment of anxiety. Contemplative practices would appear to be well suited for the role. Anxiety is a concern about a potential negative occurrence in the future. By training the individual to focus on the present moment contemplative practices can mitigate the importance of the future and thereby reduce anxiety. Indeed, contemplative practices have been found to be quite effective for treating anxiety (See previous post http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/the-mindfulness-cure-for-social-anxiety/)

Contemplative practices are known to have profound effects on the structure and function of the nervous system. So, it would be expected that the anti-anxiety effects of meditation would have associated changes in the brain. In today’s Research News article “Neural correlates of mindfulness meditation-related anxiety relief”

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4040088/

Zeidan and colleagues found that mindfulness meditation reduced anxiety by activating a network of brain regions including anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex and insula while reducing activity in the posterior cingulate cortex.

The anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex and insula have been shown to be involved in emotion regulation. So, it is no surprise that they should be activated as meditation lowers anxiety. The posterior cingulate cortex is a part of what is called the default mode network that is involved in mind wandering and ruminative thinking. Again, it is no surprise that the area responsible for rumination and worry would have its activity decreased in concert with meditation induced reduction in anxiety. Both of these mechanisms would be expected to enhance self-awareness processes particularly of the present moment, increase emotion regulation and decrease rumination and thereby produce anxiety relief.

Hence, meditation would appear to be an ideal treatment for anxiety. It is safe and effective and appears to act by altering nervous system activity. Continued meditation practice has been shown to produce lasting changes in these areas. So, meditation would appear to not just be a quick fix but a lasting treatment for the scourge of anxiety.

So, change the brain with meditation and reduce anxiety.

CMCS

 

Pain is a Pain – Relieve it with Meditation

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In a previous post we discussed the application of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) for the relief of pain in adult women.

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It was demonstrated that the combination of meditation, body scan, and yoga contained in MBSR was effective for pain management.

Not everything that is effective with adults is also effective with children and adolescents.

Hence, it is important to establish if mindfulness training is also effective with adolescents. In today’s Research News article “The Effects of Mindful Attention and State Mindfulness on Acute Experimental Pain among Adolescents”

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4027879/

Petter and colleagues investigated whether a very brief mindfulness session would affect pain sensitivity in 13-18 year-olds. Although the brief manipulation was not effective, they found that adolescents who were meditators and high in mindfulness had significantly lower pain in a standardized pain manipulation.

Hence it appears that mindfulness is associated with lower sensitivity to pain even in adolescents. It is noteworthy that meditation practice alone was associated with the reduction in pain perception. Hence, although the other components of MBSR, body scan and yoga, may also be helpful, they are not necessary for pain relief.

McGrath and colleagues then addressed how mindfulness might produce lower pain levels. They found that mindfulness reduced catastrophizing, the tendency to magnify the threat value of pain, to feel helpless in the face of pain, and to ruminate about pain. It was this reduction in catastrophizing that produced the pain relief. In other words catastrophizing mediated the effect of mindfulness on pain. These findings complement the theoretical work which places catastrophizing as playing a central role in adolescent chronic pain.

Hence, it appears that in adolescents pain is magnified by catastrophizing. In this form of thinking, the presence of pain brings forth unsettling memories of past pain and rumination about future pain. The individual then becomes focused on the pain and thoughts about the pain. This form of thinking builds on itself in a vicious cycle of catastrophizing magnifying pain which in turn magnifies catastrophizing.

Mindfulness can break this vicious cycle by focusing the individual on the present moment. This reduces the amount of thinking about the past and future which is the source of catastrophizing, which then tends to reduce the perception of pain. Hence, mindfulness emphasizes present moment awareness, reducing catastrophizing, and in turn reducing pain.

Mindfulness training is also known to directly affect the brain pathways and cortical areas that underlie pain perception and thereby reduce the magnitude of the pain signal in the brain. In addition, mindfulness reduces the emotional reactions and the arousal response to pain. This also mitigates pain perception.

This is important to discover a method to treat pain without drugs. The prescription pain medications, primarily opiates, are addictive, disorienting, and very dangerous with thousands of deaths each year attributable to overdoses of prescription pain medications. Mindfulness training is a great alternative, effective and safe. But beware, it has such positive benefits that it may become addictive!

So, practice mindfulness and stop pain being a pain.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Feeling Feelings: Getting in Touch with the Body

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Most of us spend the majority of our lives lost in thought. Even when we become aware of our surroundings it is principally of the sights and sounds surrounding us. It is usually only when something is very wrong that we become aware of our bodies, what is called interoceptive awareness. We are generally unaware of the signals from our bodies such as the breath, movements in the GI tract, heart beats accompanied with surges in blood pressure, the sensations from our muscles and joints, even the sensations from our skin. Adding to the lack of awareness of our bodies we are also unaware of our implicit beliefs and attitudes about our bodies and the emotions that accompany these attitudes.

To exemplify this, just for a moment start paying attention to the sensations coming from the contact of your clothing with your skin. You were in all probability totally unaware of these sensations until your attention was directed toward them. Now notice the feelings from your facial muscles. Are they tense, relaxed, or something in-between. You probably were not aware of their state yet they can be good indicators of stress and your emotional state.

This can be a real problem as interoceptive awareness is extremely important for our awareness of our emotional state which is in turn needed to regulate and respond appropriately to the emotions. Being aware of the state of our bodies is also important for maintaining health, both for recognizing our physical state and also for making appropriate decisions about health related behaviors. Interoceptive awareness is even fundamental to our sense of self and world view.

Obviously it is important that we find ways to improve our poor body awareness. Most contemplative practices focus attention on our internal state and thus should improve our body awareness. But, in fact there is little empirical evidence on the issue. In today’s Research News article “Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through 3 months of contemplative training”

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4284997/

Bornemann and colleagues examine the effect of a 3-month training employing focused meditation and body scan meditation on interoceptive awareness. They found significant increases in five of the eight scales of interoceptive awareness compared to a control group.

It was found that meditation and body scan practice improved the regulatory aspects of interoceptive awareness. These include Self-Regulation which is the ability to control distress by paying attention to sensations from the body, Attention Regulation which is the ability to focus in a sustained way on the sensations from the body, and Body Listening which is the ability to gain insight into the physical and emotional state by listening to the signals from the body. These are important skills involved in being able to not only be aware of body sensations but to use these sensations to better understand and control their internal state and physical wellbeing.

Contemplative practice also improved Emotional Awareness, which is the ability to be aware of and understand the connection between body sensations and emotions, and Body Trusting, which is experiencing one’s own body as a safe place. These are also important abilities as they allow us to trust in the usefulness of the information from the body to better understand and control our emotions.

It is interesting that the contemplative practice did not increase Noticing of body sensations such as heart beat and breathing. Rather it appears to markedly improve our ability to use the information from our bodies to understand and regulate our emotional or motivational state. This is very important to our wellbeing both mental and physical. It puts us better in control by providing the signals we need to be better able to regulate our state.

These improvements in interoceptive awareness could also explain to some extent how mindfulness practices produce their well-documented significant improvements in physical and psychological health and wellbeing. It simply makes us better able to respond to and control our bodies and our emotions.

So engage in contemplative practice and learn how to feel your feelings and benefit your body’s signals.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Make the Brain more Efficient with Meditation

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Meditation has been shown to alter the nervous system. It changes the size of brain areas, their connectivity, and their activity. It even appears to protect the brain from the degeneration that normally occurs with aging. These changes are thought to underlie meditation effects on physical and psychological health. These effects of meditation were reviewed in a previous post

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http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/08/01/this-is-your-brain-on-meditation/

The increased connectivity between brain areas implies that meditation may make the nervous system more efficient, processing information faster and more effectively. But, the prior studies do not directly measure information processing efficiency. In today’s Research News article “Neurophysiological Effects of Meditation Based on Evoked and Event Related Potential Recordings”

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http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2015/406261/

Singh and colleagues review studies that have used the electrical signals from the brain to track how fast and effectively sensory information is processed in the brain during meditation. They report that the research indicates that indeed the brain processes this information more efficiently while engaged in meditation.

There were two different types of improvements reported with meditation. The first is simple processing on sensory events, sending the signals from the sensory organs to the cortex where complex processing occurs. They found that this simple level processing was improved during meditation.

The second type of processing is more complex and involves making decisions about the sensory information. This type of processing was also found to be improved in meditators. There was improved attention and switching of attention, greater perceptual clarity, lower automatic reactivity to the information and its emotional content, greater emotional acceptance, and lower anticipation and fear of pain. These results are remarkable and suggest that meditation increases the efficiency of the brain, improving the distribution of limited brain resources.

How can such a simple practice such as meditation have such profound effects upon the nervous system. In meditation, information processing is greatly simplified and focused. By reducing intrusions and the onslaught of complex sensory experiences, thoughts, implicit speech, and ruminations, meditation may allow the brain to focus on a reduced number of tasks and thus learn to process them simply and more efficiently.

It is also the case that the nervous system adapts to the kind of processing that it’s asked to do in a process called neuroplasticity. By reducing the complexity of processing the brain may improve and allocate its resources to focused tasks, improving its speed and effectiveness in processing them. Simply put, by making the world simpler, with fewer distraction or discursions the nervous system can better learn how to effectively make sense of what’s present.

So, meditate and make the brain better.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This is Your Brain on Meditation

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“Our minds have the incredible capacity to both alter the strength of connections among neurons, essentially rewiring them, and create entirely new pathways. (It makes a computer, which cannot create new hardware when its system crashes, seem fixed and helpless).” ― Susannah Cahalan

There has accumulated a large amount of research demonstrating that meditation has significant benefits for psychological, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. Its positive effects are so widespread that it is difficult to find any other treatment of any kind with such broad beneficial effects on everything from mood and happiness to severe mental and physical illnesses. This raises the question of how meditation could do this.

The nervous system is constantly changing and adapting to the environment. It will change size, activity, and connectivity in response to experience. For example, the brain area that controls the right index finger has been found to be larger in blind subjects who use braille than in sighted individuals.  Similarly, cab drivers in London who navigate the twisting streets of the city, have a larger hippocampus, which is involved in spatial navigation, than predefined route bus drivers. These changes in the brain are called neuroplasticity. Over the last decade neuroscience has been studying the effects of contemplative practices on the brain and has identified neuroplastic changes in widespread areas.

In today’s Research News article “The Meditative Mind: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of MRI Studies”

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471247/

Boccia and colleagues summarize the current state of research on the effects of meditation on the nervous system. They show that meditation activates a network of brain areas that over time, in experienced meditators, increases in size and in the ability of these areas to interact (increased connectivity).

The particular parts of the brain that are affected by meditation are areas that have been demonstrated previously to be involved in self-referential processes, including self-awareness and self-regulation, attention, executive functions, and memory formations. The altered structures have functions that align perfectly with the types of changes observed in expert meditators. These include increases in present moment awareness of the self and the environment, sustained attention, cognitive ability, memory ability, the abilities to regulate emotions and responses to emotions.

Hence, it appears that meditation alters the nervous system in important ways that result in changes in the individual’s psychological and physical makeup that in turn affect health and wellbeing.

So, meditate and improve your brain.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Treating Adult ADHD with Mindfulness

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is most commonly found in children, but for about half it persists into adulthood. It’s estimated that about 5% of the adult population has ADHD. Hence, this is a very large problem that can produce inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity, and emotional issues, and reduce quality of life.

The most common treatment is drugs, like methylphenidate, Ritalin, which helps reducing symptoms in about 30% of the people with ADHD. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the drugs appears to be markedly reduced after the first year. In addition, the drugs often have troublesome side effects, including nervousness agitation, anxiety, irritability, sleep and appetite problems, head and stomach aches, nausea, dizziness, and heart palpitations. If that’s not enough they can be addictive and can readily be abused. So, drugs, at present, do not appear to be a good solution, only affecting some, only for a short time, and with unwanted side effects.

There are indications that mindfulness training may be a more effective treatment for ADHD. It makes sense that it should be, as the skills and abilities strengthened by mindfulness training are identical to those that are defective in ADHD, attention, impulse control, executive function, emotion control, and mood improvement. In addition, it is a relatively safe intervention that has minimal troublesome side effects.

In today’s Research News article “Mindfulness Meditation Improves Mood, Quality of Life, and Attention in Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder”

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http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2015/962857/

Bueno and her colleagues apply mindful awareness training for the treatment of adult ADHD. They found large clinically significant improvements in sustained attention, detectability, mood, and quality of life. Particularly important was the finding that mindfulness significantly improved attention as prior studies were not able to detect attentional improvement.

It is actually surprising that individuals with ADHD can sit still to meditate. But, it appears that they not only can, they report that they like it and it relaxes them.

Mindfulness practice is training in attentional focus. So, it is not surprising that this training improved attentional ability in people with ADHD. The improvement was not just in general attentional ability but also in detectability, the ability to discriminate relevant from irrelevant visual signals. Hence, mindfulness training appears to be particularly helpful in improving the ability to pay attention to the intended target while decreasing the degree to which other stimuli in the environment might intrude and distract the individual.

Mindfulness training improves executive function, cognitive control. This combined by the reduced distractibility decreases impulsive behavior, keeping behavior better regulated by thoughtful intentional processes. People with ADHD often fault themselves for their impulsive behavior and judge themselves harshly when these behaviors emerge. So, with mindfulness the individuals begin to feel better about themselves. Mindfulness training has been shown to improve the individual’s ability to keep emotions in check, to feel the emotions but to respond to them appropriately.

All of these benefits of mindfulness training for people with ADHD make it easier for them to function in life and combined with mood enhancement, produces a significant increase in quality of life. Mindfulness seems to make many aspects of the individual’s life better.

So, use mindfulness training to help manage ADHD.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

What to Look for in Meditation

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“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there – buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.” – Deepak Chopra –

Over the last week we’ve posted descriptions of meditation and a few meditative techniques. (see below). Today we will discuss what you should look for and explore in meditation.

Meditation is much more complex than it appears on the surface. Beneath the calm resting outward demeanor of the meditator a storm can be raging. If you have tried meditation at all then you’re well aware of this. I love the ocean metaphor of meditation. On the surface there may be storms and turbulence, but go just a few yards below the surface and everything is calm, peaceful, and deep. This is how you should view meditation. Let the storms rage on the surface, but look into the depths.

One of the first things that you should notice in your meditation is the fact that no matter how hard you try the mind wanders off, not just a few times, but repeatedly meditation after meditation, day after day, week after week, etc. There is a tremendous insight here just waiting to be noticed and that is that you cannot control your mind. When given a very simple task to do, simply follow the breath, perhaps with counting, over a very brief period of time, you find that it is almost impossible to do. Reflect on this fact. It is very important and the beginning of the wisdom that emerges from meditation.

Think about it; you cannot control your mind! An implication of this is that it is not under your control. Well, then who or what is controlling it? After a while it begins to dawn on you that the mind is simply the operation of the brain, a biological entity that has been programmed by experience and the genes. Viewing the mind is no different than viewing a computer screen and the operation of this very complex electronic entity. When you’re meditating, you’re just watching your internal computer doing its thing.

Look then at what you’re trying to do when you attempt to control your mind in meditation. You’re asking your mind to control your mind. You’re trying to use an uncontrollable entity to control an uncontrollable entity. No wonder you repeatedly fail. You’re watching the uncontrollable surface of the ocean. You need to go deeper!

Note that we’ve been saying that you cannot control the mind, that you’re watching your own biological computer at work, and that you need to go deeper. Look at this statement. Think about it. What is the “you” that is trying to control, that is looking, that is trying to go deeper. Think about Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment“ and ask yourself what is it that’s paying attention. In fact as who or what is doing the asking.

It should be becoming evident that there is something much deeper than the mind. The mind is just the surface turbulence. The true “you” is simply aware of all this froth. It is not the froth. It is the ocean of awareness. Later you’ll come to see that the ocean of awareness also contains the surface and the whitecaps. But for now, separate them and look simply at what’s looking, what’s hearing, what’s feeling, what’s noticing the thoughts. Spend time in meditation just doing this. Look for what’s looking.

You’ll note that you can’t find what’s looking. It’s like a camera trying to take a picture of itself, a microphone trying to hear itself. What you can do is get a sense of it. You can feel its presence by noting that no matter what is going on, its calm presence is always there simply observing, being aware. Note that it is just watching and aware of the present moment. It’s just aware of sights, sounds, feelings, thoughts, rising up and falling away, coming and going. This is what you should be looking for in meditation; not what’s being perceived, but what’s doing the perceiving. When you are able to do this you are now becoming aware of what the “you” truly is, what “you” really are.

Abide there! Spend time there, even though your mind takes you away again and again, hundreds of times. Just keep coming back. Be entranced and amazed by the presence that is your true self.

“Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in eternal awareness or pure consciousness.” – Swami Sivananda

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are available at the Contemplative Studies Blog http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/

In prior posts we discussed the preliminaries for meditation

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/20/beginning-meditation-1-preliminaries/

, http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/21/beginning-meditation-1-preliminaries-2/,

and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/22/beginning-meditation-getting-started-1-positions/

Breath Meditation http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/23/208/

and http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/24/beginning-meditation-getting-started-3-breath-following-2/

Open Monitoring Meditation http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/25/beginning-meditation-getting-started-4-open-monitoring-meditation/

Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) practice http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/26/meditation-techniques-loving-kindness-meditation/

And Body Scan Meditation http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/27/meditation-techniques-body-scan-meditation/

Meditation Techniques – Body Scan Meditation

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“It’s amazing to me that simultaneously completely preoccupied with the appearance of our own body and at the same time completely out of touch with it as well.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

In prior posts we discussed Breath Meditation

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http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/24/beginning-meditation-getting-started-3-breath-following-2/

Open Monitoring Meditation

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1057568944267031/?type=1&theater

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/25/beginning-meditation-getting-started-4-open-monitoring-meditation/

and Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) practice.

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http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/26/meditation-techniques-loving-kindness-meditation/

Today we will discuss another meditation technique, Body Scan Meditation. This technique is excellent for bringing present moment awareness to all of the sensations throughout the body. It can help to increase your awareness of precisely how each part of your body is feeling at the present moment. We’d appreciate hearing comments and suggestions from others. There are many paths!

Many people go through their day with very little awareness of the feelings and sensations from their bodies. This can be a major problem as these sensations carry important messages. They can reflect your state of health or even reveal emotions that you were unaware were affecting you. It can make you much more aware of when you’re experiencing stress, allowing you to better manage it. It can heighten your awareness of the non-verbal cues that you may be sending others, allowing you to better understand other peoples’ responses to you. As the proverb goes “know thyself” and Body Scan meditation can help.

To begin the meditation lie down on the floor on a mat or pad on stretched out on your back with your hands alongside your body. Gently close your eyes. There will be a tendency to fall asleep during the practice as the deep relaxation takes its toll on your awakeness. Don’t be concerned if you do fall asleep, many people do. But try to “fall awake” and really focus your attention. If you can feel yourself getting very sleepy you might try opening your eyes.

For a couple of minutes just relax and move your attention to the sensations from throughout your body, skin, muscles, joints, and internal organs. Feel the energy of life throughout. Now move your attention to the toes on your right foot. Feel the sensations from your toes, noting any tension, pain or discomfort, but particularly just become aware of everything you feel from your toes. Try to watch your breathing and imagine the air moving into and out of your toes on its way to the lungs with every breath. If you don’t feel anything, don’t worry, just note it and move on.

Now do the same thing for the bottom of your foot, moving your attention to the sensations from the top of your foot and then breathing through it. Take your time and fully appreciate the sensations. Then move on and repeat the process for the bottom of the foot, then the ankle, followed by the lower leg, the knee, the upper leg and thigh, the pelvis, and the hip. The entire process is then repeated for the left leg moving from toes to hip.

After completing the scan of the left hip repeat the process for the abdomen, the lower back, the upper back, the chest, the shoulder blades, the armpits and the shoulders. Then moving on to the sensations from the fingers on both the left and right sides simultaneously, back of the hands, front of the hands, wrists, forearms, elbows, and upper arms. Then move your attention to the sensations from the neck, the throat, the jaw, the lips, the nose, the cheeks, the ears, the eyes and eyelids, the forehead, the top of your head, and the back of your head.

After completing the scan, just relax like you did in the beginning, feeling the sensations from throughout your body. Just lie there for a few minutes silently enjoying the peace and quiet, with full awareness of your body and all the sensations from all over it. Experience the wonder of your body. Experience the awesome vehicle of your life. Feel the life everywhere throughout. Luxuriate in the sensations and simply enjoy being alive.

There are many variations of the body scan. You might do well to find a guided body scan meditation on the web and use it to guide you initially. But, eventually move on to doing your own body scan as you find it works best for you. Remember that this is a practice and must be repeated on a regular schedule. But if you do, you’ll be amazed at the relaxation and stress relief it brings, the ongoing awareness of the sensations from your body, and the appreciation for your living body.

So, practice the Body Scan meditation and get in touch with your body.

“Through practising body scan awareness meditation, we can greatly reduce the detrimental effects of stress and make our working lives pleasant and enjoyable.” ― Christopher Dines

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

Meditation Techniques – Loving Kindness Meditation

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In the last posts we discussed beginning meditation practice building up to open monitoring meditation practice.

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 4 – Open Monitoring Meditation

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http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/25/beginning-meditation-getting-started-4-open-monitoring-meditation/

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 3 – Breath Following 2

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/24/beginning-meditation-getting-started-3-breath-following-2/

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 2 – Breath Following 1

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/23/208/

Today we will begin to discuss other meditation techniques and practices, starting with Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM). This is a simple but very powerful practice. We’d appreciate hearing comments and suggestions from others. There are many paths!

Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) is designed to develop kindness and compassion to oneself and others. This is a seemingly ridiculously simple technique, but research has demonstrated that it is very impactful. This is true even if you are already a kind and compassionate person. Engaging in the practice will further reinforce and enhance it further. (see Loving Kindness Meditation and the Disease of the West http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/loving-kindness-meditation-and-the-disease-of-the-west/

In western culture it is quite common for people to have a negative view of themselves, often feeling inadequate and unworthy or simply disliking themselves. So, for westerners, practicing loving kindness to themselves is particularly important. It is essential that we learn to be kind and compassionate toward ourselves. This is the foundation for honest and sincere kindness and compassion for others. So, pay particular attention to and carefully practice LKM toward the self.

LKM starts exactly like every meditation in a comfortable posture with the eyes lightly closed. Begin whatever meditation practice is your current practice and continue for a couple of minutes until you feel calm and focused. Then begin by bringing lovingkindness to yourself. Envision a time when you felt completely loved and accepted. Let yourself fully engage in the memory, feeling what it was like, feeling the inner sensations and the ease of well-being. Once you have this fully present begin slowly and meaningfully to say to yourself while maintaining the lovingkindness feelings:

“May I be happy. May I be well. May I be safe. May I be peaceful and at ease.”

With each statement use the lovingkindness feelings to reinforce the wish to yourself. Wholeheartedly engage in honestly wishing yourself well and visualize how it would feel to truly be happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Sincerely make these wishes in the unshakable knowledge that you deserve to be happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Repeat the process around three times. But, you can adjust this as you get experience with the meditation to a number that is comfortable and seems appropriate to you.

After completing sending lovingkindness to yourself move on to wishing lovingkindness to others. Start with someone who you are close to and care deeply about. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases with sincerity, truly wishing them well. Repeat the process around three times.

Now move on again to a person you know who may be going through hard times and difficult challenges. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases with a heartfelt desire that they feel happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Repeat the process again around three times.

Next move on to someone you know but are not particularly close or have strong feelings about, perhaps a neighbor or a work associate. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases with a heartfelt desire that they feel happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Visualize that your words actually take effect within that person. Repeat the process again around three times.

Finally comes the most challenging practice. Think of someone who you truly dislike or who has harmed you or simply someone who you have a particularly difficult time with. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases. See that person as a human being who, like everyone, needs happiness, wellness, safety, and peace. This may be difficult but recognize that for you to be a truly compassionate person you must really want everyone to be well, unconditionally.  Repeat the process again around three times.

Depending upon the length of your meditation you may repeat this whole process by going back to wishing happiness, wellness, safety, and peace to yourself, to a loved one, to someone in need, to a neutral person, and again to a disliked person.

There are many variations of the lovingkindness words. Find a set that feels comfortable, natural, and real for you, a set that you can repeat without having to think about it or search memory for the exact words. In fact the actual words don’t matter. It is the engagement in wishing well and really feeling it that is most important.

Try this practice. You may be amazed at how good it makes you feel and how much it alters your view and approach toward yourself and others. Remember that it is a practice and has to be engaged in repeatedly over time to be effective.

So, practice lovingkindness meditation and strengthen your compassionate nature.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 4 – Open Monitoring Meditation

psyjdc 13 Comments

 

In the last two posts we discussed breath meditation practice.

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1056602071030385/?type=1&theater

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/23/208/

and

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http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/24/beginning-meditation-getting-started-3-breath-following-2/

Today we will discuss open monitoring meditation. This is the next logical step in the development of your practice. We’d appreciate hearing comments and suggestions from others. There are many paths!

We left off with following the breath meditation practice. As we moved from counting every inbreath and every outbreath to silently following the sensations associated with breathing we moved from a very focused task with internal speech (counting) to a silent, much more unfocused, task of attending to all of the body sensations associated with breathing. The idea is to remove the mind from the process and thereby let the mind quiet.

Open monitoring meditation goes one step further. In this practice we open up our awareness to everything that we’re experiencing regardless of its origin. We still pay attention to the sensations associated with breathing but open it up further to all bodily sensations, including the feelings from the skin of touch, coldness or hotness, the pressure exerted by gravity on our rear ends sitting on the chair or cushion, tingling sensations on the skin and elsewhere, sensations from muscles and joints, sensations of balance and body position, the subtle feeling of our heart beating with the consequent blood pressure surges, and the feelings from our internal organs such as from our stomachs, bowels, bladder, etc.

In addition, we open up our awareness and pay attention to external stimuli, sights, sounds, tastes, and smells. Even with our eyes closed we can perceive visual stimulation, some due to light penetrating the eyelids and some due to spontaneous activity in the neural systems underlying vision. In open monitoring meditation we let it all into awareness and don’t try to focus on any one thing or exclude anything.

The openness extends to thoughts. Although we don’t try to engage in thinking, thoughts will inevitably arise anyway. In open monitoring meditation we don’t try to stop them. We just watch them rising up and falling away. As a friend remarked we let them in the front door and out the back and don’t serve them tea! We don’t judge them or censure ourselves for having them, no matter what their content. We just observe them and let them go.

There’s a lot going on and it is impossible to take it all in at once. You just let it happen. Let attention go where it may. But, don’t hold onto anything. Just let it naturally flow. Don’t try to pay attention to one thing or another. Just let whatever captures attention capture it and allow it to shift whenever it does. Don’t judge the experiences that you have as pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad, right or wrong, interesting or dull. Just experience them as they are.

As Adyashanti likes to say, we simply “let everything be as it is.” This sounds simple but it is devilishly difficult. The mind easily drifts away and our mind wanders. There is nothing to hold it, nothing to entertain it, so it wanders away. This meditation involves frequent mind wandering. This is different than simply watching the thoughts. You’ve been taken away by your thought and aren’t watching them, you’ve become them. But, don’t worry. This is what happens normally and to some extent will continue even after years of practice. When you notice this happening, just gently return to your open awareness feeling grateful for reentering a peaceful state.

Be patient, slowly but surely, the mind wandering will happen less and less often for shorter and shorter periods and open monitoring will increase in duration. All of the mind activity will slowly dissipate and you’ll open up to a beautiful, peaceful, quiet experience.

After you’ve completed the proscribed length of the meditation again review your experience. Ask yourself what thoughts arose and why. It may be as simple as some sight or sound captured your attention and the mind followed, dwelled on it, and free associated to it. But often there are repeating themes that can be seen as indicative of your wants and needs or unresolved issues. It can be very illuminating to follow up on these. Ponder them for they can be very revealing.

Often during the meditation you will begin to go deep into the experience when suddenly the mind takes over and tries to control the experience. This sometimes occurs with an overt sensation of fear. Take a careful look at this. The mind may be acting as if it’s threatened and doesn’t want you to proceed further. This is a wonderful indicator that you’re really making progress. You may not think so, but it is. Deep, deep, meditative states are often resisted by the mind. When this happens take it as a sign that you’re on the right track.

The mind will often subtly silently take control and direct your attention to one thing or another. It takes some experience to detect the difference from true free open experience and that directly silently behind the scenes by the mind. You may think that you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be. The mind can be tricky. Stay with your practice and persevere. These mind takeovers will occur less and less often.

Practice open monitoring meditation and begin to see things simply as they are.

CMCS