Modern Psychology adoptions of practices from traditions of Buddhism, Vedic teachings and more.

MINDFULNESS BASED COGNITIVE THERAPY (MBCT)

• Designed for groups, also used in individual therapy
• Emphasis on daily practice of mindfulness exercises taught in session
• The process of attending to present-moment experience in a non- judgmental way
• The ability to pay attention and notice experiences in the present
• The ability to refrain from judging experiences
• The ability to accept positive and negative experiences without avoidance or
  reactivity 

SELF ACCEPTANCE – MEDITATION ON LETTING GO

1. During meditation exercises, emphasize acceptance of experiences.

“Mind will frequently wander, this is completely normal and to be expected”
“There is nothing to change, no particular state to be achieved”
“Allowing your experience to be how it is, right now”
“Welcoming all of your experiences like a friend”

2. Mindfulness of breathing

Awareness on quality of breathing (fast/slow, deep/shallow)
Abdominal breathing (inflating/deflating like a balloon)

3. Practicing full body awareness of tension/discomfort

Breathing “into” tension and letting go on exhale

SELF ACCEPTANCE – BALL METAPHOR

What if what you’re doing with these thoughts, memories, and feelings is like fighting with a ball in a pool? You don’t like these things. You don’t want them, and you want them out of your life. So you try to push the ball under the water and out of your consciousness.However, the ball keeps popping back up to the surface, so you have to keep pushing it down or holding it under the water. Struggling with the ball in this way keeps it close to you, and it’s tiring and futile. If you were to let go of the ball, it would pop up and float on the surface near you, and you probably wouldn’t like it. But if you let it float there for a while without grabbing it, it could eventually drift away to the other side of the pool. And even if it didn’t, at least you’d be able to use your arms and enjoy your swim, rather than spending your time fighting.

SELF ACCEPTANCE – GUEST HOUSE.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

The Guest House
By Jalaluddin Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

Witnessing Awareness – Dr. Vastant Lad on MIND

The mind is the only sense organ that has the capacity to see itself. The ears cannot hear themselves. The eyes cannot see themselves, unless there is a mirror. The tongue cannot taste itself. Nevertheless, the mind can see itself. It has double-arrowed attention. The mind can look outside and, at the same time, it can look inside. In the kingdom of the senses, the mind is king. Mind has the capacity to choose and is a powerful instrument of experience. Right from this moment, bring discipline and watch the mind. Watching the mind means looking at your thoughts as they are, looking at your feelings and emotions as they are, without identifying them as “this is my fear, this is my thought.” Without identification, justification, evaluation and notification, you can see a clear-cut gap between two thoughts, a space between two memories, a distance between two emotions. In that space, there is a door. Enter into that door. 

Thought is like a lingering cloud in the sky of consciousness. You are not the cloud; you are only watching the cloud. In between two clouds, there is a vast space. Remember that no cloud can stay in the sky. In the same way, no thought can stay in the consciousness. Just sit quietly or lie on the floor and watch the total movement of thinking. Let the mind thinkwhat it wants. It may think about good things or bad things. It does not matter; do not judge. Just observe the thinking. When you go on observing your thinking in this way, within one week you will see that thinking becomes slower. You can clearly see a space between two thoughts. If you enter that space, you will forget your body and your problems and you will be in a dynamic space. Take care not to name it.

The vast, incredible, immeasurable space is your true nature. Your true nature is endless and boundless existence. Live in the present, in the state beyond time and aging, which can be reached through sensitive awareness. You can remain in that vast space 24 hours a day.

External sounds— the cry of a child, the barking of a dog, or a musical sound— all come into the ear and dissolve. You become the center of the whole universe, the whole existence, the whole presence.

To maintain such a state is pure love. When you are in the state of love, it is joy and bliss, which is your true nature. The molecules of bliss start flowing into your body. All disease is wiped out. You can achieve radical transformation of your brain cells simply by watching the movement of your mind at every moment.

Mano vaha srotas is profound, because it has its root in the universe and its fruit in the heart of every human being. Your heart, the fruit, and the universe, the root, merge together. Then you flower. The flowering of bliss and love takes place when the fruit and the root merge together.

“Before practicing meditation, we see that mountains are mountains.
When we start to practice, we see that mountains are no longer mountains.
After practicing a while, we see that mountains are again mountains.
Now the mountains are very free. Our mind is still with the mountains,
but it is no longer bound to anything.”
—Thich Nhat Hahn: —

Meditation on Fear and Anxiety

Fear and anxiety are common obstacles that can hinder a meditation practice. However, by acknowledging and addressing these emotions, individuals can cultivate greater awareness, clarity, and peace of mind. Here are key insights from the psychology of fear and anxiety meditation:

• Fear as a natural response: Fear is a natural human response to perceived threats, whether real or imagined. In meditation, fear can arise as a result of confronting uncomfortable emotions, thoughts, or physical sensations.
• Anxiety as a learned response: Anxiety disorders are often rooted in learned patterns of thinking and behaving. Meditation can help individuals recognize and challenge these patterns, promoting a more balanced and adaptive response to stress.
• Mindfulness as a key component: Mindfulness meditation, in particular, has been shown to reduce anxiety by increasing awareness of the present moment and decreasing rumination on worrisome thoughts.
• Body-focused techniques: Guided meditations that focus on the body, such as progressive muscle relaxation or breathwork, can help individuals short-circuit the fear response and cultivate a sense of calm and grounding.
• Embracing fear: Rather than trying to suppress or avoid fear, some meditation approaches encourage individuals to embrace and explore their fear, fostering a greater sense of acceptance and compassion.
• Faith and uncertainty: Meditation can involve an act of faith, trusting that the practice will lead to greater insight and peace, even in the face of uncertainty and fear.

Practical Meditation Techniques for Fear and Anxiety

1. Body-focused meditation: Use progressive muscle relaxation, breathwork, or qigong to cultivate a sense of calm and grounding.
2. Mindfulness meditation: Focus on the present moment, observing thoughts and emotions without judgment.
3. Guided meditations: Listen to guided meditations specifically designed to address fear and anxiety, such as those that use visualization, imagery, or body-focused techniques.
4. Embracing fear meditation: Explore and acknowledge fear, rather than trying to suppress or avoid it.
5. Short-circuiting the fear response: Use techniques like deep breathing or physical relaxation to interrupt the fear response and promote a sense of calm.

Helpful to Remember

• Meditation is a practice, not a cure-all. So patience and a gentle attitude of mind with oneself as we explore these techniques is a very helpful reminder.
• Please consider seeking guidance from qualified meditation teachers or therapists if the  struggle with persistent fear or anxiety persists

CONCEIT: 

She speaks about conceit where there are several meanings to the word and one meaning is it is an idea , a conception. Nowadays we tend to think of conceit as a kind of Pride…. somebody praises you and if you’re conceited, thinking we’re better than other people. It can mean thinking we’re worse than other people because that’s a kind of conceit also. Most of us compare ourselves with other people a lot of the time – it’s a part of the critical mind to which we are all prone: seeing fault in other people or seeing thoughts in ourselves as well kind of conceit in a sense comparing making endless comparisons between ourselves and others. If we didn’t make comparisons there’d be no judgment no ground for criticism. All this comparison is not the reality, it’s just an idea we have so that’s related to conceit in the oldest sense, a conceit of something that really isn’t true. The Buddha said:  thinking I’m better than somebody else is deluded thinking,  I’m worse than somebody else is equally deluded and even thinking I’m equal to somebody else is deluded. And we all do this we all compare ourselves with others it’s a habit of mind that we might often not even be aware of. It’s just so endemic somehow if we tend to think generally that we’re better than other people we tend to look down on them and we don’t really respect them. You might be dismissive or rude, you might prejudge somebody based on our own biases or maybe we just don’t like that person so we tend to think they’re less good than we are in some way or we think they’re not as smart or as wise or competent or whatever as we are. We might not even be aware that we’re thinking we’re Superior to other people. It’s just a habit of mind we are caught into and we don’t even see it because we’re used to it or we think it’s true: “well yes I really am better than other people! What’s the problem? I’m seeing clearly.” Or you might think: oh no I’m not like that I think everybody’s equal I don’t think I’m better than other people I respect everybody but if we look more closely we might see those little seeds of conceit little waves that we think we’re better than somebody else because we all have them. We might have a little bit of conceit but praise is always in relation to unpraise! …it’s a proud vs inadequacy thing as Rev. Master Jiyu used to say: the two sides of one coin. We we try to prop ourselves up if we’re feeling badly about something. We look for thoughts on another person to make us feel better sometimes…thinking I’m anything if deluded. it’s separating ourselves off from other people: there’s me over here and then others over there. And this is the false conceit that the Buddha talks about: the false view of oneself that we think is real. …Our body is impermanent, painful and subject to changes. it will age it’ll change and eventually it’ll die and it’s just a body we’ve been given. There’s no cause for pride in it at all. The illusion of being a me, a self with its attributes a strong body or a weak mind-all those attributes that we might attribute to ourselves. In fact they all change they all come and go, Nothing lasts forever. Our minds change constantly – thoughts-they’re not our own. Whoever we think we are, we’re responsible for what we do with them. We can actually keep letting go over and over and over.

 

What gives you a sense of awe? You might imagine standing on a wide-open plain with a storm approaching, or holding the tiny finger of a newborn baby. That word, awe – the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world – is often associated with the extraordinary. But you don’t need remarkable circumstances to encounter awe. You can find it every day, often in the humblest places. Staring up at a starry sky; looking at a sculpture that makes you shudder; listening to a medley of instruments joining into one complex, spine-tingling melody – those experiences remind us that we’re part of something that will exist long after us. Luckily, we don’t need to wait until we stumble upon it – we can seek it out. Awe is all around us. With a little intentionality, we can reclaim our sense of wonder in the everyday, ordinary moments of life. Perhaps awe, while an ordinary response to the extraordinary, is also an extraordinary response to the ordinary. Featuring Dot Fisher-Smith. Filmed in Ashland, Oregon, USA.