Office Hours for the Intro to Mindfulness Workshop

If any of you in the current Mindfulness Practice Workshop wish to talk about anything related to mindfulness practice or simply want to share your experience or feedback with me, I am offering "office hours" on Zoom on Wednesday 5/1 & 5/8 between 9:30a & 11a.  Feel free to stop in anytime for a short or long stay.  I've plenty of work to do if no one comes, don't feel obligated.  Zoom link after the break.

Also if you want some one-to-one time with me, just ask.  If you don't have my contact info use the contact form to the right of the screen.  Happy to give it to you.

Lovingkindness, Science, and Sharon Salzberg

I like papers about meditation related topics published in peer reviewed journals, and I like teachers who truly embody what they teach.  Here's a neat connection between the two related to a discussion about lovingkindness meditation we had recently in the Intro to Mindfulness Practice workshop sponsored by LFV & FHNN.

From a paper published in the Frontiers of Human Neuroscience in 2022:

Several studies and review papers have demonstrated the effectiveness of LKM [lovingkindness meditation] on symptom improvement for psychiatry disorders, including relieving pain, increasing social connection, reducing anger, hostility, depression, and anxiety. 

[...]  

A few other studies investigated more modern forms of LKM or compassion meditation. Long-term LKM meditators are reported to have a lifelong change of positive psychological characteristics such as empathy, motivation, and honesty. This may partially explain why LKM is known to increase a sense of well-being.

One of the references used in the paper is the Sharon Salzberg's now classic book Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. (New York, NY: Shambhala Publications).  "Sharon’s seminal book, originally released in 1995 and re-released in 2020, with a Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn."

Sharon, a co-founder of IMS, is one of the most beloved teachers around and a skilled advocate for lovingkindness meditation for decades.  She travels extensively.  I've had the good fortune to see her on the West Coast when I lived there and in the DC area when she substitutes at times for Tara Brach at Insight Meditation of Washington's Wednesday night gathering at the RRUUC just up the street from LFV & FHNN.  Look for her and read her books.

Practice, practice, practice

Dr Ekberg's video is about the many things that contribute to dementia.  Have a look at this clip in which he talks about how stress harms the brain and his recommendation about what to do about it.  It's just a minute or so then he goes on to talk about alcohol.  Please practice, even a little, every day.

Intro to Mindfulness, April 2024

Week 1 Homework

Start reading The Issue at Hand by Gil Fronsdal.  It is free online or you can buy it from Amazon.  Most of the chapters are just 1 or 2 pages.  Read the first 4.

Sit relaxed and alert for 5 minutes or more everyday and practice these 2 types of meditation: 

#1 Concentration

Anchor your attention on some aspect of your breathing like the feeling of air entering and leaving your nostrils or the rise and fall of your belly as you breathe in and out.  Each time you become distracted by thoughts, emotions, sounds, etc., simply return your attention to that anchor with good humor.  The more quickly you learn to return to the achor without chastising yourself for getting distracted, the quicker you will develop concentration.

Ways to maintain focus on your anchor while doing breathing meditation:

• counting exhales from 1 to 9 then repeat, on distraction start at 1 again
• say to yourself "breathing in" on inhale & "breathing out" on exhale
• mental noting:  when distracted by a thought say to yourself "thinking, thinking", distracted by a sound "hearing, hearing", by a sad memory "sadness, sadness", etc then return gently to focus on your anchor

If anchoring in your breathing process is too hard, try finding an anchor in your hearing or vision.d

#2 Lovingkindness (friendliness, goodwill, wellbeing)

To support and deepen every aspect of practice, we practice an attitude of friendliness toward ourselves and others using lovingkindness meditation.  Sometimes dismissed as inconsequential, this meditation is an advanced and essential mindfulness practice.

Rest assured you don't need to feel loving, kind, or friendly to do this meditation and develop an attitude of friendliness.

The traditional targets of lovingkindness:

• Yourself
• A benefactor, perhaps an older relative, for whom you already feel very well disposed
• A neutral person, perhaps a clerk at a store or a bus driver, someone you see frequently but with whom you do not have only a casual relationship
• Family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, the local community
• All beings everywhere

One at a time, visualize each of these groups and offer them phrases of lovingkindness.  Some traditional phrases:

• May you be peaceful
• May you be safe 
• May you be healthy & strong
• May you be at ease in the world
• May you be happy

Feel free to use your own words, however, do not get too clever.  This is not the place for "May my partner actually listen and hear me."  Keep it simple and kind -- purely positive.

Traditionally, lovingkindness meditation is considered an important way to protect yourself from harm.

Altered Traits & Mindfulness

 

This talk compliments the previous post by Gil Fronsdal about mindfulness in society in which he covers some of the recent history of mindfulness in America and the related research being done.  Richard Davidson and Daniel Goleman are two of the very first people to do research on mindfulness.  You'll likely remember Goleman for his work on emotional intelligence.

And here's Dan Goleman in a 6 minute video published just days ago.

Mindfulness in Society

 

This is from 2011 and is the only example I'm aware in which Gil Fronsdal uses PowerPoint slides.  The first half is about how secular mindfulness has permeated our society since about 1990 with exponential growth.  Gil then presents what is meant by mindfulness and how that idea has expanded over the years.  He finishes with a wonderful vision of how mindfulness can bring greater happiness, satisfaction, compassion, empathy, etc. throughout society.