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Alex S

Traditional Buddhist Mindfulness | Kagyu Africa - 0 views

Alyssa Lau

Intimate distances: William James' introspection, Buddhist mindfulness, and experientia... - 0 views

    • Alyssa Lau
       
      The idea of Mindfulness has grown in the last 60 years, it is use as an act of "therapy" rather than an act of "religion" Example of Traditional vs western ideals of mindfulness
  • approached as a therapy, to be studied and evaluated using established scientific methods, rather than as a religion
  • ‘Psychology
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  • Western Buddhism can be understood as a “culture of awakening,”
  • rather than a religion
  • To “wake up” existentially involves acting upon four “ennobling” tasks,
  • embrace dukkha (suffering, pain or unsatisfactoriness); let go of craving for things
  • nvolves caring for oneself and others.
  • he great risk of the engagement with mindfulness in the West, whether through Buddhist Studies or Psychology, is that it is taken as an object of study, to be written about, rather than as something to do or be.
  • Introspective observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always. The word introspection need hardly be defined – it means, of course, the looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover. Every one agrees that we there discover states of consciousness (p. 185; emphasis in original).
Tara Picudella

Just being - 0 views

  • For me, the most fruitful means for self-knowledge have been music and meditation.
  • I believe that neither discipline should be limited by having to have an end result.
  • Mindfulness means paying attention, on purpose, to one's own thoughts, feelings, and judgments17—“observing the observer, observing the observed.”18 Buddhist meditation is the practice of mindfulness and requires only the belief that knowing oneself can foster compassion.1
joshua gallo

How to Practice Mindfulness Meditation | Psychology Today - 0 views

  • Cultivating mindfulness is the key to overcoming suffering and recognizing natural wisdom: both our own and others'.
  • Mindfulness meditation is unique in that it is not directed toward getting us to be different from how we already are. Instead, it helps us become aware of what is already true moment by moment.
  • Instead of struggling to get away from experiences we find difficult, we practice being able to be with them.
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  • Perhaps surprisingly, many times we have a hard time staying simply present with happiness. We turn it into something more familiar, like worrying that it won't last or trying to keep it from fading away.
  • When we are mindful, we show up for our lives; we don't miss them in being distracted or in wishing for things to be different.
  • So, how do we actually practice mindfulness meditation? Once again, there are many different basic techniques. If you are interested in pursuing mindfulness within a particular tradition, one of the Buddhist ones or another, you might at some point wish to connect with a meditation instructor or take a class at a meditation center. Still, I can provide one form of basic instructions here so that you can begin.
joshua gallo

Shambhala Sun - How to do Mindfulness Meditation - 0 views

  • In mindfulness, or shamatha, meditation, we are trying to achieve a mind that is stable and calm. What we begin to discover is that this calmness or harmony is a natural aspect of the mind.
  • There are certain conditions that are helpful for the practice of mindfulness. When we create the right environment it’s easier to practice.
  • Often we just plop ourselves down to meditate and just let the mind take us wherever it may. We have to create a personal sense of discipline. When we sit down, we can remind ourselves: “I’m here to work on my mind. I’m here to train my mind.” It’s okay to say that to yourself when you sit down, literally. We need that kind of inspiration as we begin to practice.
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  • The Buddhist approach is that the mind and body are connected.
  • we become more and more familiar with our mind, and in particular we learn to recognize the movement of the mind, which we experience as thoughts. We do this by using an object of meditation to provide a contrast or counterpoint to what’s happening in our mind. As soon as we go off and start thinking about something, awareness of the object of meditation will bring us back.
Alyssa Lau

Mindfulness: Top-down or bottom-up emotion regulation strategy? - 0 views

    • Alyssa Lau
       
      Mindfulness gives off siginificant positive changes.  mechanics: emotion regulation strategies - the ability to regulation one emtion and emotional repsonses.  2 ways of emotional strategies:  1) top-down model: everything is affected from the upper level - Cognitive reappriasal - change the effort of the emotional reponse, In other words, a different meaning/ output that changes the input of emotions. 
  • direct modulation of emotion-generative brain regions without cognitively reappraise emotionally salient stimuli
  • bottom–up
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  • haracterized by a direct reduced reactivity of “lower” emotion-generative brain regions without an active recruitment of “higher” brain regions,
    • Alyssa Lau
       
      Bottom- up model: Direct modulation of the regions of the brain that does not change the meaning of the emotional impact.  the lower level affects the upper levels of the model. - Characterization 
  • op–down em
  • otion regulation strategy facilitating positive cognitive reappraisal
  • if mindfulness training is primarily a bottom–up process, MBIs might be effective for patients not responding to traditional psychotherapies.
  • op–down mechanisms
  • cognitive reappraisal, to regulate unpleasant emotions
  • o assess whether mindfulness practice can be best described as a top–down emotion regulation strategy, as a bottom–up emotion regulation strategy, or as a combination of both strategies, on the basis of functional neuro-imaging studies employing emotion regulation paradigms.
  • mindfulness
  • raditionally been defined as an understanding of what is occurring before or beyond conceptual and emotional classifications about what is taking or has taken place
    • Alyssa Lau
       
      Binary of this paper: The Western definition of mindfulness vs. the traditional definition of mindfulness
  • classical descriptions of mindfulness
  • raditional contexts
  • raditional descriptions of mindfulness
  • asily translated within current Western theoretical frameworks
  • mindfulness
  • (1) a specific state that arises only when the individual is purposely attending to present moment experience, (2) a mental trait that differs both among and within different individuals at different time points, and (3) specific practices designed to cultivate and maintain the state of mindfulness
  • (1) modern clinical MBIs, such as MBSR and MBCT, that have been specifically developed to integrate the essence of ancient Buddhist practices with the modern clinical practice as a means to reduce a variety of physical and psychological symptoms
  • Alternatively, both processes could be more or less associated with mindfulness training depending on the emphasis given by specific instructors and traditions.
Alyssa Lau

Relational mindfulness, spirituality, and the therapeutic bond - 0 views

    • Alyssa Lau
       
      Relational Mindfulness pracrice: the traditional style/ defintion of mindfulness Can contribute to the development of spiritual qualities such as transcendence, boundlessness, ultimact, and interconnectedness.  Enchaned by spitial compoents. 
  • spiritual aspects of mindfulness practice has the potential to deepen its benefits
  • Asian Journal of PsychiatryVolume 5, Issue 4, December 2012, Pages 351–354This issue includes a special section on Spirituality and Psychiatry <img alt="Cover image" src="http://ars.els-cdn.com.esf.idm.oclc.org/content/image/1-s2.0-S1876201812X00054-cov150h.gif" class="toprightlogo"/> Relational mindfulness, spirituality, and the therapeutic bondMelissa D. Falb<img alt="Corresponding author contact information" src="http://origin-cdn.els-cdn.com.esf.idm.oclc.org/sd/entities/REcor.gif">, <img src="http://origin-cdn.els-cdn.com.esf.idm.oclc.org/sd/entities/REemail.gif" alt="E-mail the corresponding author">, Kenneth I. Pargament Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403-0232, United StatesReceived 10 April 2012Revised 23 July 2012Accepted 25 July 2012Available online 13 September 2012AbstractMindfulness training, which emphasizes deliberate non-judgmental attention to present moment
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  • connections between mindfulness, interpersonal relationships, and psychotherapy.
  • potential impact of relational mindfulness on the psychotherapeutic relationship.
  • ill consider the ways in which mindfulness practice might be considered spiritual and how this spiritual element is especially relevant to relational mindfulness ideas and practices.
  • The emerging concept of “relational mindfulness” focuses attention on the oft-neglected interpersonal aspects of mindfulness practices.
  • mindfulness practiced in relationship to other people.
  • emphasizing the interactions between two or more people who take a deliberate stance of awareness and attention to their emotional and bodily states as influenced by their dealings with one another.
  • ntentional awareness in relationship to another person can have healing benefits.
  • Relational mindfulness in particular appears to have potential to be an agent for cultivating enhanced interpersonal harmony
  • ttunement of an individual with the self
  • leads to an improved ability to attune with others
  • how psychotherapists relate to themselves (e.g. in a warm and accepting manner versus one which is hostile and controlling) is predictive of how they relate with patients.
    • Alyssa Lau
       
      A nice example of how relation mindfulness can influence psychotherapeutic outcomes on how psychoterapists relate and devlope relations between paients. 
  • mindfulness training can help mental health practitioners increase their understanding and awareness of qualities of mindfulness, as well as to model those processes in sessions with patients.
  • four qualities: transcendence, the sense that an object or experience goes beyond our everyday, usual, or ordinary understanding;
  • oundlessness, a sense of vast, unrestricted space and time; ultimacy,
  • are secular programs which have removed references to the Buddha and to Buddhist concepts in order to make these programs more widely accessible in a western, medical context.
  • relational mindfulness most obviously cultivates the spiritual quality of inter-connectedness, improving our sense of unity with a relationship partner
  • relational mindfulness practices can lead to a sense of transcendent relationship to another human being in that the “other” becomes seen from outside our ordinary (e.g. psychiatric) perspective,
  • hus, the qualities of spirituality can arise within a mindful relationship such as that cultivated through relational mindfulness practices.
Alyssa Lau

West Meets East - 0 views

  • The new centers often were staffed by Western teachers,
  • many of whom had first encountered meditation in the Peace Corps and later trained in monastic settings in the East
  • Creating a new wisdom tradition
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  • None of us wanted ou
  • supervisors or clinical teammates to think of us as having unresolved infantile longings to return to a state of oceanic oneness
  • how radically meditation practices could transform the mind. Therapists of the day typically viewed meditation as either a fading hippie pursuit or a useful means of relaxation, but of little additional valu
  • mindfulness meditation was making inroads into the medical community.
  • Jon Kabat-Zinn, who, beginning in 1979, had adapted ancient Buddhist and yogic practices to create Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester.
  • MBSR was used primarily to augment the treatment of stress-related medical disorders, and was of particular interest to clinicians working in behavioral medicine.
  • The first use of mindfulness in psychotherapy to capture widespread attention among clinicians was Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), introduced in the early 1990s to treat suicidal individuals with complex disorders for which little else seemed to work.
  • he central dialectic in DBT is the tension between acceptance and change.
  • In searching for a means of helping therapists and their clients to experience what she called “radical acceptance”—fully embracing helplessness, terror, losses, and other painful facts of life
  • Because she empirically demonstrated that DBT could help challenging and volatile patients, the method rapidly became popular
  • he next big development came from Zindel Segal, Mark Williams, and John Teasdale, cognitive psychologists in the tradition of Aaron Beck, who were working on treatments for depression in the 1990s
  • They came across mindfulness practice through Jon Kabat-Zinn and MBSR
  • Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), which combined elements of an 8-week MBSR course with cognitive therapy interventions designed to help patients gain perspective on their thinking and not identify with their depressive thou
  • ghts.
  • This standardized, 8-week course couched meditation practices in Western, scientific terms
  • “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, and nonjudgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment
  • Steven Hayes and his colleagues had
  • radical philosophical orientation that they called “relational frame theory.”
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which they describe as a psy
  • chological intervention that uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together with commitment and behavior change strategies, to increase psychological flexibility
  • ACT doesn’t teach many formal meditation practices, but uses imagery, metaphor, and brief exercises to cultivate awareness of the present, loosen identification with thought, and increase openness to the experience of moment-to-moment change
  • ACT encourages clients to identify and pursue activities that give life meaning.
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