AMERICAN COUNSELLING
ASSOCIATION
Asia Pacific Counselling Conference - Singapore
June 18th - 19th 2015
Cultivating spirituality through meditative
practices for offenders
By Jeffrey Po PhD.
18th June 2015
2
Sharing
 This paper is a sharing of personal
experiences.
 There is no proper research methodology
involved.
 Results are not validated and cannot be
taken as reliable.
 The aim is hopefully some pointers can be
useful to you.
3
Personal Observations - 1

The experiences accumulated over period of five
years.

Profile of those incarcerated:





Substance abuse and gambling/gaming addicts
Criminal breach of trust
Credit card fraud
Manslaughter
Loan Shark (illegal money lender)
4
Personal Observations - 2
 Age median - Early thirties to late fifties
 Ethnicity
- Chinese
 Sex
- Males
 Education
- Primary education
to Degree holders
 Medium of
instruction
- English language
5
Personal Observations - 3
 Class size
 Duration
 Hours per session
- 20 to 25
- 16 weeks
- 2 hours
Gangsters and hooligans not included
and none are hardened criminals - none
on death row
6
Personal Observations - 4
 Most came from non-dysfunctional
families though some from middle class.
 All received family support and members
of families visit them.
 All first timer though in intake 9 and 10
were repeat offenders
As of date total of 10 intakes
7
Personal Observations - 5

Mental and emotional state of incarcerated when
entering prison:
 Anxious (unknown environment and people)
 Fear (of being sodomized)
 Depressed (uncertainty of future)
 Confused (institutional instructions vs. hearsays
 Difficulties in adjusting to prison schedule and
programme (i.e. meal time, waking and sleeping,
exercise schedules)
8
Personal Observations - 6
The engagement of meditative
techniques to elicit the relaxation
response and for the inmates to find
meaning while in prison started with
last three intakes.
9
Limitations of presentation - 1
 Unable to record statistics
 Statistical numbers obtained verbally
and/or by show of hands
 Unable to record findings in writing
Hence this presentation is a private
sharing
10
Core beliefs of the programme - 1

Prison authorities believe that some sort of
English medium presentation to English
speaking audience could be beneficial.

The incarcerated are privileged to received
religious instructions if they request for.

Offering them hope for recovery

To offer the incarcerated to live life on
their own life’s terms.
11
Core beliefs of the programme - 2

Though religious instructions are readily
available to those incarcerated spiritual
instructions are not available.

I would believe that a spiritual instruction and
education is a greater and more powerful tool
than only religious instructions.

Spiritual instructions and education is more
encompassing and non-sectarian.
12
Core beliefs of the programme - 3

Meditational techniques and exercises
coupled with psycho-education offers
commonality to all religious traditions.
13
Alternative techniques in
Psychotherapy and Counselling?
Today’s psychologists are increasing
integrating complementary and alternative
medicine techniques into their work with
clients.
Jeffrey E. Barnett (2013)
APA Monitor April 2013
14
Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness training boosts test scores and
showed significant improvements on reading
comprehension tests and working memory
capacities on 48 undergraduates in University
of California, Santa Barbara
The Monitor on Psychology
Publication of APA
June 2013 Vol 44 No 8
15
Research questions - 1

The following asked during first lesson:
1. Have you been taught meditation before?
2. Do you practice meditation daily?
3. Do you feel anxious in your present environment?
4. Do you feel depressed in your present environment?
5. Do you wish to learn meditation?
6. Do you think meditation can help you reduce you
anxiety, depressed and stressful states?
7. Can you commit two sessions of meditation practice
each of 15 minutes duration (morning and night)?
16
Research Questions - 2

Intake 5 (commencement 14th Aug 2012)

N - 21 males







Q1 - (learned med?)
Q2 - (med daily)
Q3 - (anxious?)
Q4 - (depressed?)
Q5 - (learn med?)
Q6 - (med helpful?)
Q7 - (commitment?)
Yes
No
7
6
21
20
21
21
21
14
15
0
1
0
0
0
17
Research questions - 3

Intake 6 (commencement 5th March 2013)

N – 20 males
Yes No







Q1 - (learned med?) 7
Q2 - (med daily)
4
Q3 - (anxious?)
5
Q4 - (depressed?) 0
Q5 - (learn med?) 20
Q6 - (med helpful?) 16
Q7 - (commitment?)13
13
16
15
20
0
4
7
18
Research questions - 4

Intake 10 (commencement 9th Feb 2015 )

N – 8 males (long term)
Yes
No







Q1 - (learned med?) 6
Q2 - (med daily)
6
Q3 - (anxious?)
0
Q4 - (depressed?) 0
Q5 - (learn med?) 8
Q6 - (med helpful?)
Q7 - (commitment?)8
8
0
2
2
8
8
0
0
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Methodology - 1

Warming - up
-
15 mins

Psycho-spiritual education
-
60 mins

Mental relaxation/meditation -
30 mins

Grounding/summarizing
questions/answers
15 mins
-
20
Warming up exercises

Some news about “outside” world

Chanting

Some jokes

General conversation

Creating a warm and friendly environment
21
Psycho-spiritual education - 1
 Buddhist topics - Buddhists ethics, morals and
doctrinal, topics
 Science topics - the human body, developmental
growth, emotions, behavior,
personality, end of life, after life
issues etc
 Social issues
- ethics, law, society, work
stigmatization, community,
returning to community etc
 Personal devp - character building, team work,
cooperative alliance etc
Psycho-spiritual education – 2
• Fatalism/predestination vs predetermination
• Acceptance of living and dying
• Moment to moment enrichment
• Dis-identification of “old self” to a new
identity through a process of meditative
transformation.
22
23
Psycho-spiritual education - 3
 Attempts are made to integrate traditional
religious beliefs to various aspects
modern sciences so as not to bore the
audience
24
Meditation - 1
 Affirmation
 Choosing a topic
 Eliciting relaxation response
 Body scan
 Mindfulness and observation on topic
Meditation – 2
 Choosing a topic:
 In Buddhist methodology that are 40
meditative topics that can be chosen
 The one chosen for the programme is that
of utilizing the “in-out breathing”
technique (anapanasatti - discourse on the
mindfulness of “in-out breathe-work”)
25
26
Meditation - 3
 Focusing on whole body and relating the
body to subtle energies (kayanupassana)
 Focusing on body feeling/sensations and the
noticing of emotions such as anger, peace,
happiness, frustrations etc (vedanupassana)
 Focusing on thought processes
(cittanupassana)
 Focusing on meaning of life and life’s
processes (dhammanupassana)
27
Meditation - 4

Above methodology taken from:
-
Satipatthana sutta (Discourse on
the Foundation of Mindfulness)
28
Meditation - 5
• The primary technique in meditative
practice is focusing (concentrating), noting
(being mindful) and creativity
(enlightenment)
• The secondary technique is that of
reflecting (the cultivation of wisdom)
29
Meditation - 6
 Buddhist meditational techniques being
engaged because they are structured.
 It is secular in approach
30
Meditation - 7
• The focus meditative methodology in this
programme is that of samatha
(tranquility/calmness) style of meditation.
• The other type vipassana (insight) of
meditation also used to allow the clients
to reflect upon the meaning of their own
life journey
31
Grounding - 1

Grounding is to get the meditator back
to present moment reality

Can be done through:
 Rubbing palms, forearms and face
 Stretching
 Back exercises
32
Summarising and discussion

Sharing of experiences by
participants
33
Discussions - Some pitfalls and dangers
 Physiological -
headaches, stiff necks,
backaches, visions, sounds
 Psychological -
evocation of past memories
 Emotional
experiencing emotional
upheavals
-
 Fear
 Indecisiveness
 Disenchantment
34
Difficulties encountered by inmates

Sharing cells with those not sympathetic

Noise/disturbances created by cell-mates

Not conducive cell temperature

Not sufficiently disciplined - lazy

Doubts on the efficacies of meditation

No immediate benefits
35
Cultivations of the Preliminaries - 1

Inmates advised of the importance of
cultivation and radiation of preliminaries
to oneself and to others that include:
-
Forgiveness
-
Love
-
Intention
-
Compassion
36
Findings of intake 5
• Course ended 4th December 2012
• Only 18 inmates remained - rest transferred to other
sections
• Out of the 8 inmates:
- 100 % meditated regularly - morning and
evenings
- 55% indicated that they have benefitted from the
meditation practices and that they felt more
confident, less anxious about their incarceration and
about having to serve the remaining sentence
37
Findings of intake 6
 Course ended 25th June 2013
 Only 8 inmates remained - rest transferred to other sections
 Out of the 8 inmates:
- 100 % meditated regularly - morning and evenings
- 100% indicated that they have benefitted from the meditation
practices and that they felt more confident, less anxious about
their incarceration and about having to serve the remaining
sentence
- 50% mentioned visualising “nimittas” (signs)
- No one experienced auditory “nimittas”
- One mentioned the heightened awareness of sensitivities to
environment
38
Findings of intake 10
• Since all were repeat offenders, the subject
of meditation not new to them
• Many in the past did not go beyond the
benefit received with “relaxation
techniques”
• Therefore they did not receive the full
benefits of meditation practices.
• They now realised that meditation can bring
them beyond merely being relaxed and calm
39
Verbal reporting by intake 5

This group less vocal as and
hence difficult to obtain
individual experiences or
sharing of views
40
Verbal reporting by intake 6

One inmate reported that he was aware
that a few others who were not present
did meditated regularly

Two inmates were of the opinion that they
felt that those not present had benefitted
by meditating regularly
Verbal reporting by intake 10

Realised the importance of engaging
psycho-education and some modern
scientific findings into the ancient art of
meditation

Able to relate the mind function of
meditation to daily living environment
41
Unofficial comments by prison
authorities
 Fact that the programme ran for ten intakes
indicated the usefulness of the programme
 Will arrange for similar programme after a
two month break
 Inmates are better behaved and more
reflective
 Inmates showed behavioral change as the
course progressed
42
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Hi Jeffrey
This comes from the bottom of my heart. The period of incarceration
(Nov 2012 - Apr 2015, presently on home detention until actual release
in Apr 2016) should have been the darkest days of my life. However, I
was blessed with the opportunity to be re-introduced to Buddhism
through the fortnightly counselling sessions (run by volunteers from the
Buddhist Federation) and more significantly, the Structured Buddhist
Course conducted by you. The principles and concepts introduced to
me are modern and certainly very relevant. To say that my eyes were
opened is an understatement indeed.
In simple language, you have taught me to change my mindset,
understand the true meaning of happiness and above all, how we can
all achieve contentment. Through constant effort, I've made giant
steps in finding inner peace. The lessons learnt shall be remembered
and used to guide me for the rest of this life.
I also wish to state that meditation has helped me to find a balance in
my life. Now that I'm in the process of rebuilding, such knowledge has
stood me in great stead. The benefit that I've derived is proving to be
the most valuable form of "wealth" that I can possibly acquire. Thank
you so much and I hope that you can continue to do the tremendous
work that you've been doing for so many years.
I wish you the best of health.
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THANK YOU.
THAT’S ALL FOLKS.