2015 MBSR Manual

Mindfulness-Based Stress

Reduction (MBSR)

Home Practice

Manual

Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives. It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment. We feel more alive. We also gain immediate access to our own powerful inner resources for insight, transformation and healing.

-Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.

-Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D

Princeton Center for Yoga & Health

Orchard Hill Center, 88 Orchard Road

Skillman, NJ, 08558

609-924-7294 www.princetonyoga.com

Mindfulness-Based

Stress Reduction (MBSR) with Robin Boudette, Ph.D.

Licensed Psychologist

Deborah Metzger, MSW, E-RYT500

Founder & Director, Princeton Center for Yoga & Health

2015

Wednesday, October 14, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm Class 1

Class 2

Class 3

Class 4

Class 5

Class 6

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

6:30 – 9:00 pm

6:30 – 9:00 pm

6:30 – 9:00 pm

Wednesday, November 11, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm

Wednesday, November 18, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm

All Day Retreat Sunday, November 22, 2015 10:00 – 4:00 pm

Class 7 Wednesday, December 2, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm

Class 8: Program conclusion

“Taking What I Learned Into My Future”

Wednesday, December 9, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm





Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Class #1

“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”

~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“What is needed is to learn afresh, to observe, and to discover for ourselves, the meaning of wholeness.”

~David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order

Home Practice

Formal Practice: (Keep track of your practice in the meditation log)

1.

Practice the Body Scan CD at least six days this week.

2.

Keep track of your practice on the Meditation Log.

3.

Read and Review Handout on the Seven Attitudinal Foundations of Mindfulness

Practice.

4.

Eat one mindful meal this week and record in Meditation Log

5.

Read Upstream/Downstream fable

6.

Nine Dots Exercise

Informal Practice:

1.

Choose at least one activity and perform it mindfully. Some suggestions might include: eating a meal, walking the dog, brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, showering, taking out the garbage, paying bills, putting children to bed, etc.

Bring all your attention to the activity and be fully present. When you notice your attention wandering into future or past, simply and gently escort your attention back to the moment-to-moment experience of the activity.

Acknowledge yourself for being proactive about your health and well-being by choosing to take this course. Strengthen and renew your commitment to fully participate in this process.





Nine Dots

Instructions:

Placing your pencil on the page only once, draw four straight lines that pass through all nine dots without lifting your pencil from the page.





Upstream Downstream a Contemporary Fable

By: Donald B. Ardell

It was many years ago that the villagers of Downstream recall spotting the first body in the river.

Some old timers remember how Spartan were the facilities and procedures for managing that sort of thing. Sometimes they say, it took hours to pull 10 people from the river, and even then only a few would survive.

Though the number of victims in the river has increased greatly in recent years, the good folk of

Downstream have responded admirably to the challenge. Their rescue system is clearly second to none: most people discovered in the swirling waters are reached within 20 minutes-many less than 10. Only a small number drown each day before help arrives - a big improvement from the way it used to be.

Talk to the people of Downstream and they'll speak with pride about the new hospital by the edge of the waters, the flotilla of rescue boats ready for service at a moment's notice, the comprehensive plans for coordinating all the manpower involved, and the large numbers of highly trained and dedicated swimmers always ready to risk their lives to save victims from the raging currents. So it cost a lot, say to the Downstreamers, but what else can descent people do except to provide whatever is necessary when human lives are at stake.

Oh, a few people in Downstream have raised the question now and again, but most folks show little interest in what's happening Upstream. It seems there's so much to do to help those in the river that nobody's got time to check how all those bodies are getting in the river in the first place. That's the way things are sometimes.





Diaphragmatic Breathing

By Deborah Metzger, LSW, E-RYT500

Founder and Director, Princeton Center for Yoga & Health

Modern medicine has finally acknowledged what the yogis have known for thousands of years - that the breath is intimately connected to the autonomic nervous system and the mind. Even some hospitals and medical establishments are now willing to train people in breath regulation and diaphragmatic breathing.

Conscious diaphragmatic breathing is extremely relaxing to the autonomic nervous system and is essential preparation for deep meditation.

The diaphragm is a huge muscle that rests horizontally across the base of the rib cage. Imagine an oval shaped dinner plate or bowl, turned upside down, and inside your lower rib cage. The diaphragm is connected in the front, along the sides of your lower ribs, and also along the back.

Diaphragmatic breathing allows the diaphragm muscle to expand the lower belly as well as filling the lungs and expanding the chest.

Being more like sponges than muscles your lungs cannot produce the exchange of gases required in breathing. They must rely on the contraction of the `cone' which surrounds them - in particular the floor of that cone which is the diaphragm. This is why using your abdominal or stomach muscles in breathing, which indirectly activate your diaphragm, produces better breathing.

On inhalation, the diaphragm muscle contracts, and pulls downward, such that the ribs flare out slightly, and pulls the bottom of the lungs downward to bring in air. On exhalation, this releases and the air goes out. With the Yoga practice of deep diaphragmatic breathing, the space just below the breast bone, at the upper abdomen pushes in slightly so as to exhale more completely.

The benefits of abdominal breathing:

(Abdominal breathing is also known as diaphragmatic breathing)



Increased oxygen supply to the brain and musculature



Improves the venous return to the heart, leading to improved stamina in both disease and athletic activity.





Like blood, the flow of lymph, which is rich in immune cells, is also improved.

By expanding the lung's air pockets and improving the flow of blood and lymph, abdominal breathing also helps prevent infection of the lung and other tissues.



When more oxygen reaches the brain, the mind often feels clearer; concentration improves



Breathing deeply helps slow down the thought process, reducing agitation and nervousness.



But most of all it is an excellent tool to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation response) that results in less tension and an overall sense of well-being.





Diaphragmatic Breathing

(Diaphragmatic Breathing is also known as abdominal breathing)



ABDOMINAL BREATH EXERCISE

The Abdominal Breath, or natural breath, is the basic breathing technique. For maximum effect, do this exercise in a relaxed setting where you can be alone for at least a few minutes.

1.

Lie on your back or sit comfortable with your spine elongated and place your hands on your abdomen, fingertips just touching over your naval. Allow the muscles of your face and shoulders to relax. Soften the belly.

2.

Inhale slowly and deeply, letting your abdomen expand like a balloon (No one is looking; let that belly of yours expand into its full and rounded glory!). Your fingertips will slightly separate and you’ll feel your abdomen expanding if you’ve got it.

3.

Let your abdomen fall as you exhale slowly, like the balloon deflating. Your fingertips will touch again as your abdomen contracts. You can even press gently to squeeze out more of that old stale air.

4.

Inhale easily. Feel your belly expand again.

5.

Press the air out as you contract, as you pull in your abdomen while exhaling (you can even imagine drawing your naval towards your spine).

Finally, as best you can, just be aware of your breathing – how it comes in and goes out naturally, without any effort on your part. Relax into this effortless quality…Remind yourself that there is nothing you need to do right now except to watch the rising and falling of your chest and belly…You don’t need to go anywhere or get anything done, you don’t need to improve yourself in any way…simply observe your breath as it comes and goes naturally, simply being aware of what is happening right here, right now.

You have now become reacquainted with the abdominal component of your breath with which you were born. Don’t worry if it doesn’t come easily right away or if you find yourself forgetting most of the time – you’re working with an old, established habit. Simply create an intention to breathe more deeply more often.

Be patient – while “breathing” sounds like an easy thing to do- diaphragmatic breathing takes practice>

Many people find that they can only do this form of breathing for a minute or two at first. That’s fine – accept this and keep to about a minute or two for about a week or so. Gradually the time will extend, if you’re patient. There’s no point in forcing things – and if you’ve been breathing ineffectively for years then another week or so won’t make that much difference – just so long as you are moving in the right direction and creating a new habit.





Mindful Eating: A Taste of Mindfulness

Try this exercise with any meal, a part of a meal, or even one mouthful. You’ll find there are many occasions for practicing mindful eating. The idea is to eat with awareness, focusing moment by moment on seeing the food, taking it in, chewing, tasting, and swallowing. It is easier to practice mindful eating if you eat in silence than if you converse with other people. However, even in a group, you can eat mindfully if you concentrate on doing so.



First, look at what you are about to eat. What is it? How does it look? Where does it come from? How do you feel about putting this food into your body right now? How does your body feel anticipating eating in this moment?

 Tune in to your breathing as you look at the food, knowing you are about to take it into your mouth and body.



Feel the food in your mouth. Chew slowly and focus your energy on the food’s taste and texture. You might try chewing longer than you normally do to fully experience the process of chewing and tasting.



Note any impulse you have to rush through this mouthful so that you can go on to the next. Let such impulses remind you that you already have food in your mouth, so you needn’t go on to the next bite to have a complete experience of eating. Stay in the present moment with this mouthful rather than rushing on to the next one.

 Before swallowing, be aware of the intention to swallow. Then feel the actual process of swallowing so that you become more conscious of this action as well.



Approach each mouthful in the same way. Bring awareness to how much you are eating, how fast, how your body feels during and after the meal, and whether you are eating in reaction to various events in your life and to the feelings, especially anxiety or depression, that may result from them.

You can replace eating with other sensory experiences, for example, enjoying a sunset, smelling a candle, listening to music, etc…





Meditation Practice Log

Do not expect anything in particular from this exercise. See if you can give up all expectations about it and just let your experience be your experience.

Record on this form each time you practice. In the comment field, put just a few words to remind you of your impressions: what came up, how it felt, what you noticed in terms of physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, etc. It’s important to write the comments immediately because it will be hard to reconstruct later.

Date Practice Time Comments/Thought/Impressions





Full Catastrophe Living:

Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness - Chapter 22

by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Joan Borysenko (Foreword by), Thich Nhat Hanh (Preface by)






















Class #2

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”

~Lao-Tzu, Tao-te-Ching

“We don’t see things as they are,

We see things as we are.”

~Talmud, author unknown

Home Practice


1.

Practice the Body Scan at least six days this week.

2.

Practice Awareness of Breath for 10-15 minutes on your own at least six days this week.


1.

Mindfulness of Routine Activities:



Brushing Teeth



Washing Dishes



Exercising



Starting your car



Waiting at a Red Light



Breathing when the phone rings



Taking a shower



Taking out the garbage



Shopping

 Reading to kids



Walking the dog

2.

Fill out the Pleasant Event Calendar for the week. Notice one pleasant activity each day and fill out the chart as suggested.

**Note: Next week we will be doing some gentle yoga, so please wear loose and comfortable clothes or plan to change before class, bring a large towel or mat.













Pleasant Events Calendar

What was the experience?

Were you aware of the pleasant feelings while the event was happening?

Yes. EXAMPLE

Heading home after work –stopping, hearing a bird sing.

How did your body feel, in detail, during this experience?

What moods, feelings, and thoughts accompanied this event?

Lightness across the face, aware of shoulders dropping, uplift of corners of mouth

Relief, pleasure, “That’s good”, “Pretty song”, “it’s so nice to be outside”.

What thoughts, sensations and emotions do you notice now as you write this down? t’s such a small thing but

I’m glad I noticed it. .I get a warm feeling and a tingling in my body.





Pleasant Events Calendar





What thoughts, sensations and emotions do you notice now as you write this down?





What we see. Perceptions. Illusions.






Class #3

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all that you ever have.”

Eckhart Tolle

“The mind is like the wind and the body is like the sand; if you want to know how the wind is blowing, look at the sand…”

Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen

Home Practice


1.

Alternate Body Scan Meditation with Guided Yoga at least six days this week.

2.

Sitting Meditation with Awareness of Breath 15-20 minutes per day.

3.

Fill out the Unpleasant Events Calendar for the week. Notice one unpleasant activity each day and describe it as suggested.


1.

Do your best to “Capture” your moments during the day. Mindfulness of going on

“Automatic Pilot”; when, where, and with whom. Can you notice times of avoidance, numbing, aversion? Can you notice moments of engagement, presence? Can you notice how your body speaks to you about when you are present and when you are mindless?

2.

What kinds of feelings, experiences, thoughts and situations tend to pull you “off center?”

Does your body give you hints as to being pulled off center? Can you begin to listen?





Additional Reading

Mindful Yoga

by Jon Kabat-Zinn

As you have probably gathered by now, bringing mindfulness to any activity transforms it into a kind of meditation. Mindfulness dramatically amplifies the probability that any activity in which you are engaged will result in an expansion of your perspective and of your understanding of who you are. Much of the practice is simply a remembering, a reminding yourself to be fully awake, not lost in waking sleep or enshrouded in the veils of your thinking mind.

Mindful yoga is the third major formal meditation technique that we practice in the stress clinic, along with the body scan and sitting meditation. Yoga is a Sanskrit word that literally means “yoke.” The practice of yoga is the practice of yoking together or unifying body and mind, which really means penetrating into the experience of them not being separate in the first place. You can also think of it as experiencing the unity or connectedness between the individual and the universe as a whole.

We have already seen that posture is very important in the sitting meditation and that positioning your body in certain ways can have immediate effects on your mental and emotional state. Being aware of your body language and what it reveals about your attitudes and feelings can help you to change your attitudes and feelings just by changing your physical posture. When you practice the yoga, you should be on the lookout for the many ways, some quite subtle, in which your perspective on your body, your thoughts, and your whole sense of self can change when you adopt different postures on purpose and stay in them for a time, paying full attention from moment to moment. Practicing in this way enriches the inner work enormously and takes it far beyond the physical benefits that come naturally with the stretching and strengthening.

This is a far cry from most exercise and aerobic classes and even many yoga classes, which only focus on what the body is doing. These approaches tend to emphasize progress. They like to push, push, push. Not much attention is paid to the art of non-doing and non-striving in exercise classes, nor to the present moment for that matter, nor to the mind.

Work at or within your body’s limits at all times, with the intention of observing and exploring the boundary between what your body can do and where it says, “Stop for now.” Never stretch beyond this limit to the point of pain. Some discomfort is inevitable when you are working at your limits, but you will need to learn how to enter this healthy “stretching zone” slowly and mindfully so that you are nourishing your body, not damaging it as you explore your limits. In the stress clinic, the ground rule is that every individual has to consciously take responsibility for reading his or her own body’s signals while doing the yoga. This means listening carefully to what your body is telling you and honoring its messages, erring on the side of being conservative. No one can listen to your body for you.













Unpleasant Events Calendar










Unpleasant Events Calendar



















Class #4

“Do you have the patience to wait

until your mud settles and the water is clear

Can you remain unmoving

Until the right action arises by itself?”

~Lao-Tzu, Tao-te-Ching

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

~Viktor Frankl, MD, Man’s Search for Meaning

Home Practice


1.

Alternate the Body Scan Meditation with Guided Yoga and

Sitting Meditation at least six days this week.

2.

Record your practice in the Meditation Log.

3.

Read Chapter 24 on Emotions and Health.

4.

Read “Coming Home to Our Body” by Tara Brach


1.

Do your best to be aware of stress reactions during the week, without trying to change them in any way.

2.

Awareness of moments of feeling Stuck.

3.

Awareness of turning away from the moment, blocking, numbing, contracting.





The Journey

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles.

"Mend my life!" each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible.

It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. but little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do- determined to save the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver,





Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

Chapter 24 by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Joan Borysenko (Foreword by), Thich Nhat Hanh (Preface by)





























Coming Home to Our Body: The Ground of Radical Acceptance - Chapter 5 by Tara Brach


































Class #5

“Non-doing has nothing to do with being indolent or passive. Quite the contrary. It takes great courage and energy to cultivate non-doing, both in stillness and in activity. Nor is it easy to make a special time for non-doing and to keep at it in the face of everything in our lives which needs to be done.”

~Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things, and stand firm in that which you are.”

~Kabir

Home Practice


1.

Listen to the Expanding Awareness Meditation at least six days this week. Use the periods

2.

of silence to practice more deeply on your own.

Keep track of your practice on the Meditation


1.

Bring awareness to moments of reacting and explore options for responding with greater mindfulness and creativity.

2.

Do this in Meditation practice as well.

3.

Practice Opening up space for responding in the present moment.

4.

Use the breath to slow things down.

5.

Re-Read the Seven Attitudinal Foundations of Mindfulness Practice.

6.

Acknowledge yourself for being proactive about your health and well-being by choosing to take this course. Strengthen and renew your commitment to fully participate in this process.





Keeping the Faith without a Religion

By Roger Housden

Becoming ungraspable is the eventual aim of all spiritual practices, even if they are not advertised as such.

They are meant to lead us into the empty spaciousness that we are—the very spaciousness that busyness is so effective at disguising, at least for a while. Along the way, however, the ego can imperceptibly turn practices into another form of doing, becoming, in their turn, a substitute for the very no-thingness they are designed to lead toward. In that way, we can take on the identity of a proficient meditator or spiritual practitioner, someone with spiritual experiences under his or her belt, rather than the fluid identity of one whose name is “writ on water.”

You probably have some practices of your own already, and they are doubtless of use to you.

But for now, instead of practices, let’s consider a general orientation, one that can encourage rest instead of effort, being rather than doing, whatever we may or may not be doing - a disposition that is resonant and synchronous with the spacious field that we are.

A fully lived life is not dependent on what we do or on whether we deem it to be worthwhile or not. It is about the sheer simplicity of being. Being what? That we shall discover only when we rest awhile from being everything that we think we are, including being a meditator or a spiritual practitioner.

“Negative capability” was the term the poet John

Keats used for this capacity to let go of all willful trying, however subtle it may be. It is essential, he said, to have periods of empty space in one’s life to allow creative ideas to surface. In 1818, he wrote these lines in a letter to his friend

J. H. Reynolds:

“Let us not therefore go hurrying about and collecting honey-bee like, buzzing here and there impatiently for a knowledge of what is to be arrived at; but let us open our leaves like a flower, and be passive and receptive—budding patiently under the eye of Apollo and taking hints from every noble insect that favors us with a visit.”

Every spiritual tradition recognizes that the mind needs to come to rest to reflect the clear light of being. Once, in India, I met a man who said that all that was needed was to park the body somewhere and do nothing else but sit still for a while. ‘Don’t try and sit still,’ he said. ‘Don’t force yourself into a posture that will make you sit still. Relax, and stay awake and attentive in the relaxation. If you don’t you will fall into a stupor, which is not relaxation but its caricature. Be kind to yourself. Take your time. Don’t try and meditate. No technique is necessary; just let yourself relax mindfully and deeply into the present moment that manifests as the simple sensation of your body sitting there.’





Your Brain on Meditation

By Kelly McGonigal

Science proves that meditating restructures your brain and trains it to concentrate, feel greater compassion, cope with stress, and more.

Yoga citta vritti nirodhah.

Yoga is the ending of disturbances of the mind. (Yoga Sutra I.2)

Nothing is quite as satisfying as a yoga practice that's filled with movement. Whether you prefer an intense and sweaty vinyasa practice, a gentle but deliberate Viniyoga practice, or something in between, all systems of hatha yoga provide a contented afterglow for the same reason: You sync your movement with your breath. When you do, your mind stops its obsessive churning and begins to slow down. Your attention turns from your endless to-do list toward the rhythm of your breath, and you feel more peaceful than you did before you began your practice.

For many of us, accessing that same settled, contented state is more difficult to do in meditation. It's not easy to watch the mind reveal its worries, its self-criticism, or its old memories. Meditation requires patience and—even more challenging for most Westerners—time. So, why would you put yourself through the struggle?

Quite simply, meditation can profoundly alter your experience of life.

Thousands of years ago the sage Patanjali, who compiled the Yoga Sutra, and the Buddha both promised that meditation could eliminate the suffering caused by an untamed mind. They taught their students to cultivate focused attention, compassion, and joy. And they believed that it was possible to change one's mental powers and emotional patterns by regularly experiencing meditative states. Those are hefty promises.

But these days, you don't have to take their word for it. Western scientists are testing the wisdom of the masters, using new technology that allows researchers to study how meditation influences the brain.

The current findings are exciting enough to encourage even the most resistant yogis to sit down on the cushion: They suggest that meditation—even in small doses—can profoundly influence your experience of the world by remodeling the physical structure of your brain. Read on to find out how, and then put each finding into practice with meditations by yoga teachers Christopher Tompkins, Frank Jude Boccio, and Kate

Vogt.

How Meditation Trains Your Brain

Using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, Eileen Luders, a re-searcher in the Department of

Neurology at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, looks for evidence that meditation changes the physical structure of the brain. Until recently, this idea would have seemed absurd. "Scientists used to believe that the brain reaches its peak in adulthood and doesn't change—until it starts to decrease





in late adulthood," Luders says. "Today we know that everything we do, and every experience we have, actually changes the brain."

Indeed, Luders finds several differences between the brains of meditators and non-meditators. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage in 2009, Luders and her colleagues compared the brains of 22 meditators and 22 age-matched non-meditators and found that the meditators (who practiced a wide range of traditions and had between 5 and 46 years of meditation experience) had more gray matter in regions of the brain that are important for attention, emotion regulation, and mental flexibility. Increased gray matter typically makes an area of the brain more efficient or powerful at processing information. Luders believes that the increased gray matter in the meditators' brains should make them better at controlling their attention, managing their emotions, and making mindful choices.

Why are there differences between the brains of meditators and non-meditators? It's a simple matter of training. Neuroscientists now know that the brain you have today is, in part, a reflection of the demands you have placed on it. People learning to juggle, for example, develop more connections in areas of the brain that anticipate moving objects. Medical students undergoing periods of intense learning show similar changes in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for memory. And mathematicians have more gray matter in regions important for arithmetic and spatial reasoning.

More and more neuroscientists, like Luders, have started to think that learning to meditate is no different from learning mental skills such as music or math. Like anything else that requires practice, meditation is a training program for the brain. "Regular use may strengthen the connections between neurons and can also make new connections,"

Luders explains. "These tiny changes, in thousands of connections, can lead to visible changes in the structure of the brain."

Those structural changes, in turn, create a brain that is better at doing whatever you've asked it to do. Musicians' brains could get better at analyzing and creating music. Mathematicians' brains may get better at solving problems. What do meditators' brains get better at doing? This is where it gets interesting: It depends on what kind of meditation they do.

Over the past decade, researchers have found that if you practice focusing attention on your breath or a mantra, the brain will restructure itself to make concentration easier. If you practice calm acceptance during meditation, you will develop a brain that is more resilient to stress. And if you meditate while cultivating feelings of love and compassion, your brain will develop in such a way that you spontaneously feel more connected to others.

Improve Your Attention

New research shows that meditation can help you improve your ability to concentrate in two ways. First, it can make you better at focusing on something specific while ignoring distractions. Second, it can make you more capable of noticing what is happening around you, giving you a fuller perspective on the present moment.





Some of the most fascinating research on how meditation affects attention is being conducted by Antoine

Lutz, PhD, an associate scientist at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in collaboration with Richard Davidson and the Laboratory for Affective

Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin. Their work has shown that concentration meditation, in which the meditator focuses complete attention on one thing, such as counting the breath or gazing at an object, activates regions of the brain that are critical for controlling attention. This is true even among novice meditators who receive only brief training. Experienced meditators show even stronger activation in these regions. This you would expect, if meditation trains the brain to pay attention. But extremely experienced meditators (who have more than 44,000 hours of meditation practice) show less activation in these regions, even though their performance on attention tasks is better. The explanation for this, in Lutz's view, is that the meditation training can eventually help reduce the effort it takes to focus your attention. "This would be consistent with traditional accounts of progress in meditation practice. Sustaining focus becomes effortless," Lutz says. This suggests that people can immediately enhance concentration by learning a simple meditation technique, and that practice creates even more progress.

The researchers also looked at whether vipassana meditation training can improve overall attention. (Vipassana means "to see things as they really are," and the meditation techniques are designed to increase focus, awareness, and insight.) Researchers label our inability to notice things in our environment as

"attentional blink." Most of us experience this throughout the day, when we become so caught up in our own thoughts that we miss what a friend says to us and have to ask her to repeat it. A more dramatic example would be a car accident caused by your thinking about a conversation you just had and not noticing that the car in front of you has stopped. If you were able to reduce your attentional blink, it would mean a more accurate and complete perception of reality—you would notice more and miss less.

To test whether meditation reduces attentional blink, participants had to notice two things occurring in rapid succession, less than a second apart. The findings, published in PLoS Biology, reveal that the meditation training improved the participants' ability to notice both changes, with no loss in accuracy.

What explained this improvement? EEG recordings—which track patterns of electrical activity in the brain, showing precise moment-by-moment fluctuations in brain activation—showed that the participants allocated fewer brain resources to the task of noticing each target. In fact, the meditators spent less mental energy noticing the first target, which freed up mental bandwidth for noticing what came next. Paying attention literally became easier for the brain.

As a result, Lutz and his colleagues believe that meditation may increase our control over our limited brain resources. To anyone who knows what it's like to feel scattered or overwhelmed, this is an appealing benefit indeed. Even though your attention is a limited resource, you can learn to do more with the mental energy you already have.





Reduce Your Stress

Dhyana heyah tad vrttayah.

Meditation removes disturbances of the mind. (Yoga Sutra II.11)

Research also shows that meditation can help people with anxiety disorders. Philippe Goldin, director of the

Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience project in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, uses mindfulness meditation in his studies. The general practice is to become aware of the present moment—by paying attention to sounds, your breath, sensations in your body, or thoughts or feelings—and to observe without judgment and without trying to change what you notice.

Like most of us, the participants in Goldin's studies suffer from all sorts of disturbances of the mind—worries, self-doubt, stress, and even panic. But people with anxiety disorders feel unable to escape from such thoughts and emotions, and find their lives overtaken by them. Goldin's research shows that mindfulness meditation offers freedom for people with anxiety, in part by changing the way the brain responds to negative thoughts.

In his studies, participants take an eight-week mindfulness-based course in stress reduction. They meet once weekly for a class and practice on their own for up to an hour a day. The training includes mindfulness meditation, walking meditation, gentle yoga, and relaxation with body awareness as well as discussions about mindfulness in everyday life.

Before and after the intervention, participants have their brains scanned inside an fMRI (or functional MRI) machine, which looks at brain activity rather than the structure of the brain, while completing what Goldin calls "self-referential processing"—that is, thinking about themselves. An fMRI scanner tracks which brain areas consume more energy during meditation and, therefore, which regions are more active.

Ironically, the brain-scanning sessions could provoke anxiety even in the calmest of people. Participants must lie immobilized on their back with their head held in the brain scanner. They rest their teeth on dental wax to prevent any head movement or talking. They are then asked to reflect on different statements about themselves that appear on a screen in front of their face. Some of the statements are positive, but many of them are not, such as "I'm not OK the way I am," or "Something's wrong with me." These are exactly the kinds of thoughts that plague people with anxiety.

The brain scans in Goldin's studies show a surprising pattern. After the mindfulness intervention, participants have greater activity in a brain network associated with processing information when they reflect on negative self-statements. In other words, they pay more attention to the negative statements than they did before the intervention. And yet, they also show decreased activation in the amygdala—a region associated with stress and anxiety. Most important, the participants suffered less. "They reported less anxiety and worrying," Goldin says. "They put themselves down less, and their self-esteem improved."





Goldin's interpretation of the findings is that mindfulness meditation teaches people with anxiety how to handle distressing thoughts and emotions without being overpowered by them. Most people either push away unpleasant thoughts or obsess over them—both of which give anxiety more power. "The goal of meditation is not to get rid of thoughts or emotions. The goal is to become more aware of your thoughts and emotions and learn how to move through them without getting stuck." The brain scans suggest that the anxiety sufferers were learning to witness negative thoughts without going into a full-blown anxiety response.

Research from other laboratories is confirming that mindfulness meditation can lead to lasting positive changes in the brain. For example, a recent study by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University put 26 highly stressed adults through an eight-week mindfulness-based course in stress reduction that followed the same basic format as Goldin's study. Brain scans were taken before and after the intervention, along with participants' own reports of stress. The participants who reported decreased stress also showed decreases in gray -matter density in the amygdala. Previous research had revealed that trauma and chronic stress can enlarge the amygdala and make it more reactive and more connected to other areas of the brain, leading to greater stress and anxiety. This study is one of the first documented cases showing change occurring in the opposite direction—with the brain instead becoming less reactive and more resilient.

Together, these studies provide exciting evidence that small doses of mental training, such as an eight-week mindfulness course, can create important changes in one's mental well-being.

Feel More Compassionate

Maitryadisu balani

The cultivation of friendliness creates inner strength.

(Yoga Sutra III.24)

We typically think of our emotional range as something that is fixed and unchanging—a reflection of the personality we're born with. But research is revealing the possibility that we may be able to cultivate and increase our ability to feel the emotional state of compassion. Researchers have found that feeling connected to others is as learnable as any other skill. "We are trying to provide evidence that meditation can cultivate compassion, and that you can see the change in both the person's behavior and the function of the brain," Lutz says.

So what does compassion look like in the brain? To find out, Lutz and his colleagues compared two groups of meditators—one group whose members were experienced in compassion meditation, and the other a group whose members were not—and gave them the same instructions: to generate a state of love and compassion by thinking about someone they care about, extend those feelings to others, and finally, to feel love and compassion without any specific object. As each of the participants meditated inside the fMRI brain scanners, they were occasionally interrupted by spontaneous and unexpected human sounds—such as a baby cooing or a woman screaming—that might elicit feelings of care or concern.





All of the meditators showed emotional responses to the sounds. But the more experienced compassion meditators showed a larger brain response in areas important for processing physical sensations and for emotional responding, particularly to sounds of distress. The researchers also observed an increase in heart rate that corresponded to the brain changes. These findings suggest that the meditators were having a genuine empathic response and that the experienced meditators felt greater compassion. In other words, compassion meditation appears to make the brain more naturally open to a connection with others.

These meditation techniques may have benefits beyond the experience of spontaneous compassion. A study by psychology professor Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues at the University of North Carolina, Chapel

Hill, and the University of Michigan, found that a seven-week lovingkindness meditation course also increased the participants' daily experience of joy, gratitude, and hope. The more participants meditated, the better they felt. Participants also reported a greater sense of self-acceptance, social support, purpose in life, and life satisfaction, while experiencing fewer symptoms of illness and depression. This study provides strong evidence that chipping away at the illusion of separation can open us up to a far more meaningful connection to life.

Commit to Change

As the evidence for the benefits of meditation grows, one of the most important outstanding questions is, How much is enough? Or, from the perspective of most beginning meditators, How little is enough to see positive change?

Researchers agree that many of the benefits happen early on. "Changes in the brain take place at the very beginning of learning," Luders says.

And many studies show change in a matter of weeks, or even minutes, among inexperienced meditators. But other studies suggest that experience matters. More practice leads to greater changes, both in the brain and in a meditator's mental states. So while a minimal investment in meditation can pay off for your well-being and mental clarity, committing to the practice is the best way to experience the full benefits.

Luders, who was a lapsed meditator when she started her research, had such a positive experience being around seasoned meditators that she was motivated to come back to the practice. "It's never too late,"

Luders says. She suggests starting small and making meditation a regular habit. "The norm in our study was daily sessions, 10 to 90 minutes. Start with 10."

If you do, you may discover that meditation has benefits beyond what science has revealed. Indeed, it will take time for science to catch up to the wisdom of the great meditation teachers. And even with the advances in brain technology, there are changes both subtle and profound transmitted only through direct experience. Fortunately, all you need to get started is the willingness to sit and be with your own body, breath, and mind.





Loving kindness Meditation by Kate Vogt

Put it into practice:

Sit comfortably in a place where you won't be disturbed. Take three to five quiet breaths. Gently close your eyes.

Imagine the horizon spanning through your chest with a radiant sun rising in your innermost center—your heart. As though being melted by the solar warmth, release tension in your shoulders and across your throat. Soften your forehead and rest your attention inward on the light deep within. Take 7 to 10 smooth, even breaths.

As you inhale, invite the glow from your heart to expand toward the inner surface of the body. With each exhale, let the light recede. Take another 7 to 10 peaceful breaths. Inhaling, invite the light to touch the parts of you that interact with the world—your eyes and ears, the voice center in your throat, the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet. Exhaling, feel your light shine more clearly. As you continue to inhale and exhale, silently say: "I radiate friendliness for those who are happy, com-passion for those who are unhappy, equanimity toward all." Continue until your attention wavers. Then, sit quietly for several minutes.

When you feel complete, place your palms together in front of your heart and bow your head. Release the backs of your hands to your thighs and lift your head. Gently open your eyes to return to the horizon of the world.

Mindfulness Meditation by Frank Jude Boccio

Put it into Practice:

Mindfulness requires concentration, but rather than concentrate on any one object, we concentrate on the moment and whatever is present in that moment.

To begin, take a comfortable seat. Bring attention to your breath by placing your awareness at your belly and feeling it rise and fall. This will help you tune in to the sensorial presence of the body. Once you feel settled, widen your awareness to include all the sensations in your body as well as any thoughts or feelings.

Imagine yourself as a mountain. Some thoughts and feelings will be stormy, with thunder, lightning, and strong winds. Some will be like fog or dark, ominous clouds. Inhaling, note "mountain." Exhaling, note

"stable." Use the breath to focus on the present moment; cultivate the ability to weather the storm. If you find yourself swept up in a thought or emotion, notice it and simply return to the breath. The key is to pay attention to the ever-changing process of thinking rather than to the contents of your thoughts. As you begin to see that they are indeed just thoughts, they will begin to lose their power. You will no longer believe everything you think! Continue to watch and become mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations for 5 to 20 minutes.

Kelly McGonigal teaches yoga, meditation, and psychology at Stanford University and is the author of Yoga for Pain Relief.





Mindfulness of the Breath

By Segal, Williams and Teasdale (2002).

1. Settle into a comfortable sitting position, either on a straight-backed chair or on a soft surface on the floor, with your buttocks supported by cushions or a low stool. If you use a chair, it is very helpful to sit away from the back of the chair, so that your spine is self-supporting. If you sit on the floor, it is helpful if your knees actually touch the floor; experiment with the height of the cushions or stool until you feel comfortably and firmly supported.

2. Allow your back to adopt an erect, dignified, and comfortable posture. If sitting on a chair, place your feet flat on the floor, with your legs uncrossed. Gently close your eyes. It may help to imagine a light thread attached to the back of your scalp pulling your head gently upwards and allowing your spine to lengthen.

3. Bring your awareness to the level of physical sensations by focusing your attention on the sensations of touch and pressure in your body where it makes contact with the floor and whatever you are sitting on.

Spend a minute or two exploring these sensations.

4. Now bring your awareness to the changing patterns of physical sensations in the lower abdomen as the breath moves in and out of your body (When you first try this practice, it may be helpful to place your hand on your lower abdomen and become aware of the changing pattern of sensations where your hand makes contact with your abdomen, Having "tuned in" to the physical sensations in this area in this way, you can remove your hand and continue to focus on the sensations in the abdominal wall.)

5. Focus your awareness on the sensations of slight stretching as the abdominal wall rises with each in breath, and of gentle deflation as it falls with each outbreath. As best you can, follow with your awareness the changing physical sensations in the lower abdomen all the way through as the breath enters your body on the in breath and all the way through as the breath leaves your body on the outbreath, perhaps noticing the slight pauses between one in breath and the following outbreath, and between one outbreath and the following in breath.

6. There is no need to try to control the breathing in any way—simply let the breath breathe itself. As best you can, also bring this attitude of allowing to the rest of your experience. There is nothing to be fixed, no particular state to be achieved. As best you can, simply allow your experience to be your experience, without needing it to be other than it is.

7. Sooner or later (usually sooner), your mind will wander away from the focus on the breath in the lower abdomen to thoughts, planning, daydreams, drifting along—whatever. This is perfectly OK—it's simply what minds do. It is not a mis¬take or a failure. When you notice that your awareness is no longer on the breath, gently congratulate yourself—you have come back and are once more aware of your experience! You may want to acknowledge briefly where the mind has been ("Ah, there's thinking").

Then, gently escort the awareness back to a focus on the changing pattern of physical sensations in the lower abdomen, renewing the intention to pay attention to the ongoing in breath or outbreath, whichever you find.

8. However often you notice that the mind has wandered (and this will quite likely happen over and over and over again), as best you can, congratulate yourself each time on reconnecting with your experience





in the moment, gently escorting the attention back to the breath, and simply resume following in awareness the changing pattern of physical sensations that come with each inbreath and outbreath.

9. As best you can, bring a quality of kindliness to your awareness, perhaps seeing the repeated wanderings of the mind as opportunities to bring patience and gentle curiosity to your experience.

10. Continue with the practice for 15 minutes, or longer if you wish, perhaps reminding yourself from time to time that the intention is simply to be aware of your experience in each moment, as best you can, using the breath as an anchor to gently reconnect with the here and now each time you notice that your mind has wandered and is no longer down in the abdomen, following the breath. You may wish to focus your concentration by counting your breaths. On the outbreath say “one” quietly to yourself and then “two” on the next outbreath. When you reach “ten”, start at the beginning again, saying “one”,

“two”, “three” on the outbreaths.

11. Mindfulness exercises are best done before eating eg before breakfast or the evening meal. If you have had a drink or used any other drugs, allow their effects to wear off before trying to meditate














Class #6

“In opening we can see how many times we have mistaken small identities and fearful beliefs for our true nature, and how limiting this is.

We can touch with great compassion the pain from the contracted identities that we and

others have created in the world.”

~Jack Kornfield

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Home Practice


1.

Alternate the Sitting Meditation, the Body Scan Meditation, Yoga or Expanding Awareness.

Use the periods of silence to practice more deeply on your own.

2.



1.

Continue to watch for what makes you shut down, to withdraw, to pull in.

2.

What puts you on “Automatic Pilot?”

3.

Bring intention and right effort to being awake as you can, as often as you can.

4.

Whenever you find yourself with “down” time (waiting at a light, waiting for diner, waiting in a waiting room, standing in line) use this as an opportunity to practice mindfulness of breathing and then open your awareness to include sensation, thought, and environment.





Harvard Unveils MRI Study Proving Meditation Literally Rebuilds The Brain’s Gray

Matter In 8 Weeks by FEELguide • November 19, 2014 • Health, Spirituality, The Human Brain

Test subjects taking part in an 8-week program of mindfulness meditation showed results that astonished even the most experienced neuroscientists at Harvard University. The study was led by a Harvard-affiliated team of researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the team’s MRI scans documented for the very first time in medical history how meditation produced massive changes inside the brain’s gray matter. “Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric

Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.

Sue McGreevey of MGH writes:

“Previous studies from Lazar’s group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced meditation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.” Until now, that is. The participants spent an average of 27 minutes per day practicing mindfulness exercises, and this is all it took to stimulate a major increase in gray matter density in the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.

McGreevey adds: “Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased graymatter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.”

“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. You can read more about the remarkable study by visiting Harvard.edu.














Class #7

“All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.”

~Buddha

“The reality of life is that your perceptions -- right or wrong -- influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place.”

~Roger Birkman

Home Practice


1.

Try practicing without the CDs this week. Practice the Body Scan, Yoga or Sitting Meditation.

(If this is too difficult, alternate between the recording and self-guidance every other day.)

Optional: include a loving-kindness meditation at the end of any other formal meditation.

2.



1.

Mindfulness in daily life. Practice on your own in preparation for when the course is over.

Bringing awareness of the unfolding present, moment-by-moment. Paying attention, on purpose, without judgment. Breathe.

2.

Practice Walking Meditation whenever you can.

3.

Pay attention to what you put into your body (food, noise, information, distraction, stress, burden, conflict, rest, etc.) and notice how it impacts you.





The Three Minute Breathing Space



“The breathing space provides a way to step out of automatic pilot mode and reconnect with the present moment.”

From Segal, Williams, and Teasdale Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression (MBCT)

(2002)

Here is a practice we teach in our Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programs at

Princeton Center for Yoga & Health. It is a simple and easy technique which can be used at any time during the day, just before or even during meetings. We recommend that you practice it 3 times per day to make this ‘your own’ – so you build the skill that is available to you when you need it. As one of my teachers said, “You can’t dig a well when the house is on fire”! Try it! You’ll be amazed at the outcome of adding this simple yet profound practice to your toolbox.

There are 3 parts to this practice, to begin with, take at least the 3 minutes for this practice, once you’ve got it down, it can be done in 1 minute or less when you really need it to interrupt a habitual reaction to stress.

Awareness

Bring yourself into the present moment by deliberately adopting an erect and dignified posture. If possible, close your eyes. Then, bringing your awareness to you inner experience, ask: What is my experience right now?

What thoughts are going through the mind? As best you can, acknowledging thoughts as mental events, perhaps putting them into words (e.g. Planning,

Ruminating, Worrying)

What feelings are here? (Turning towards any sense of emotional discomfort or unpleasant feelings, acknowledging their presence.)

What body sensations are here right now? Perhaps quickly scanning the body to pick up any sensations of tightness or bracing.

Acknowledge and register your experience, even if it is unwanted.





Gathering

Then gently redirect full attention to the physical body breathing itself, to each in breath, and to each out breath as they follow, one after the other.

Move in close to the sense of the breath in the belly…feeling the sensations of the belly wall expanding as the breath comes in …and falling back as the breath goes out.

Follow the breath all the way in and all the way out, using breathing to anchor you into the present.

Your breath can function as an anchor to bring you into the present and help you tune into a state of awareness and stillness.

Expanding

Expand the field of your awareness around your breathing, so that, in addition to the sensations of the breath, it includes a sense of the body as a whole, your posture, and facial expression.

If you become aware of sensations of discomfort, tension, or resistance, zero in on them by breathing into them on each in-breath and breathing out from them on each out-breath as you soften and open. If you want to, you might say to yourself on the out-breath:

“It’s okay…whatever it is, it’s already here: let me feel it.”

As best you can, bring this expanded awareness into the next moments of your day.

The key skill in using MBCT/MBSR is to maintain awareness in the moment. Nothing else.





Metta Meditation

The practice of Metta meditation is a beautiful support to other awareness practices. One recites specific words and phrases evoking a "boundless warm-hearted feeling." The strength of this feeling is not limited to or by family, religion, or social class. We begin with our self and gradually extend the wish for well-being happiness to all beings.

There are different descriptions of the practice. The following is a basic set of instructions from the book

"The Issue at Hand" by Gil Fronsdal written as a gift to the community. It is freely given.

Brief Instructions for Loving-Kindness Meditation

To practice loving-kindness meditation, sit in a comfortable and relaxed manner. Take two or three deep breaths with slow, long and complete exhalations. Let go of any concerns or preoccupations. For a few minutes, feel or imagine the breath moving through the center of your chest - in the area of your heart.

Metta is first practiced toward oneself, since we often have difficulty loving others without first loving ourselves. Sitting quietly, mentally repeat, slowly and steadily, the following or similar phrases:

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

While you say these phrases, allow yourself to sink into the intentions they express. Loving-kindness meditation consists primarily of connecting to the intention of wishing ourselves or others happiness.

However, if feelings of warmth, friendliness, or love arise in the body or mind, connect to them, allowing them to grow as you repeat the phrases. As an aid to the meditation, you might hold an image of yourself in your mind's eye. This helps reinforce the intentions expressed in the phrases.

After a period of directing loving-kindness toward yourself, bring to mind a friend or someone in your life who has deeply cared for you. Then slowly repeat phrases of loving-kindness toward them:

May you be happy. May you be well. May you be safe. May you be peaceful and at ease.

As you say these phrases, again sink into their intention or heartfelt meaning. And, if any feelings of lovingkindness arise, connect the feelings with the phrases so that the feelings may become stronger as you repeat the words.

As you continue the meditation, you can bring to mind other friends, neighbors, acquaintances, strangers, animals, and finally people with whom you have difficulty. You can either use the same phrases, repeating them again and again, or make up phrases that better represent the loving-kindness you feel toward these beings. In addition to simple and perhaps personal and creative forms of metta practice, there is a classic and systematic approach to metta as an intensive meditation practice. Because the classic meditation is fairly elaborate, it is usually undertaken during periods of intensive metta practice on retreat.

Sometimes during loving-kindness meditation, seemingly opposite feelings such as anger, grief, or sadness may arise. Take these to be signs that your heart is softening, revealing what is held there. You can either shift to mindfulness practice or you can—with whatever patience, acceptance, and kindness you can muster for such feelings—direct loving-kindness toward them. Above all, remember that there is no need to judge yourself for having these feelings.

Excerpts gratefully reprinted from the book The Issue at Hand by Gil Fronsdal, guiding teacher of Insight

Meditation Center.





Metta Phrases

Metta is often practiced by silently repeating several phrases directed initially at oneself, and then successively to a benefactor, a friend, a neutral person, a difficult person and to all beings. The original phrases suggested by the Buddha are as follows:







May I be free from enmity.

May I be free from hurtfulness.

 May I be free of troubles of mind and body.

 May I be able to protect my own happiness.

 May you be free from enmity.

May you be free from hurtfulness.

 May you be free of troubles of mind and body.

 May you be able to protect your happiness.

 May all beings be free from enmity.

 May all beings be free from hurtfulness.

 May all beings be free of troubles of mind and body.

 May all beings be able to protect their happiness.

Often today, different phrases are taught, such as









May I/you/all beings be happy.

May I/you/all beings be healthy.

May I/you/all beings be safe.

May I/you/all beings be peaceful.

What's most important is to use phrases that are meaningful to you - and not too complex; simple is better.

But do notice how much easier it is to say the original phrases to someone you have great difficulty with - for example your least favorite politician or a terrorist. It might be quite difficult to wish that very difficult people be happy, healthy & safe (maybe you can do the peaceful phrase). But certainly you can wish they be free of enmity and hurtfulness. And you certainly can wish that those very difficult people be free of troubles of mind - after all, then they would not be so difficult. And maybe their difficulty stems in part of from troubles of body, so maybe you can do that part as well. And when you understand that the only happiness that can be protected is that which is generated via wise and wholesome actions, you can even wish difficult people have happiness that can be protected.


















Class #8

“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf”

~Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

~Mary Oliver

Home Practice


1.

Go back to using the CDs, using whichever techniques you wish. Keep up the practice and make it your own.

2.

Stretch your body every day, at least for a few mindful moments.


1.

Returning to breath, body, awareness of thoughts & feelings, and environment as often as you can.

2.

Reminding and inviting yourself to wake up and be present as best you can, as often as you can.





Do You Resist Meditating?

By Ora Nadrich Life Coach, Mindfulness Meditation (Published 2/2014)

"Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile.

Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment."

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

When I teach people mindfulness meditation, I'm always touched by how absorbed and peaceful they look while they're meditating, but even though they love it while they're doing it, many of them admit they don't on their own.

It's always curious to me why people avoid or resist doing something that gives them tremendous joy, or in the case of meditation, inner peace. They know how good it makes them feel when they're doing it, and yet, they don't or "can't" seem to find time to do it during their day.

And that's the very thing I want to address: how to find time in your day to meditate. It would be great to carve out 20 minutes to sit quietly and meditate, and if you can do it twice a day, even better. But if you can find just 10 minutes -- we're talking the amount of time it probably takes for you to wash you face, brush your teeth and floss

-- you can meditate.

Here's a list of some ways you can find time to meditate in between the times you think you can't. Try these for

10 minutes:

1.

When you wake up, if the first thing you do is go on your gadgets -- computer, iPad, phone, etc. -- meditate instead.

2.

Before you take a shower, meditate.

3.

If you turn on the TV to watch it even for a little while, meditate instead.

4.

If you're working from home, take a break and meditate. You don't even have to get up from the chair you're sitting in.

5.

If you work at an office away from home, do the same during your lunch break. Or if you go out, do it somewhere you can, like at a park or even in your car.

6.

When you come home, before you get into your evening routine like making dinner, etc., meditate.

7.

Before you turn on the TV to watch the news or your favorite shows, meditate.

8.

Before you take a bath or shower, meditate.

9.

Before you get ready for bed, meditate.

The truth is, we all have 10 minutes to spare, so why not give that time to meditate? You know it makes you feel good, you just need to do it.

And by the way, you found time to read this article, didn't you? Just saying...





5 Reasons Not to Meditate

By JC Peters

I’ll be honest: I’ve never liked meditating. I’ve dabbled in it, and forced myself to sit for 30 day meditation challenges, and it was boring and hard. Plus life is so busy: Five minutes a day is a lot to ask!

There are so many types of meditation that just don’t jive with me. I don’t like the idea of sitting for twelve hours a day

(some Vipassana styles), or getting whipped by a bamboo stick if I start to fall asleep (some Buddhist meditations). In classical yoga meditation, the intent seems to be to escape from the horrid reality of having a body into the bliss of nothingness. No thanks. This culture gives me (especially as a woman) enough reasons to try to escape my body. I’m trying to learn how to love it, here.

The truth is, more than anything, I am afraid of sitting still and feeling my feelings.

So lately, I’m facing my fears, and trying again. In the practice I’m trying, you lie down, feet on the floor, knees bent and resting against each other. You breathe into your belly and feel. Without the distraction of the knee, hip, and back pain that can arise from sitting upright, deeper emotions can rise up to the surface.

You just relax and feel them. I’ve discovered five great reasons not to ever do this:

1.

You’ll have to feel your feelings . All that anxiety, anger, shame, and fear you’ve been trying to suppress

(with drinking, eating, Facebook, being “busy”) will hit you with its full force. This is not a practice of rainbows and flowers. Ugly, uncomfortable feelings are trying to talk to you, and if you meditate, you give them the chance.

2.

You will lose the ability to lie to yourself. If you practice feeling what you feel, your mastery for selfdeception will start to fail. It gets harder to convince yourself that this relationship is going to work or that you really do like your job, or that it’s okay to keep letting your boss talk down to you. You might even have to do something about it.

3.

Your powers of prevarication will weaken. Admitting to yourself what you really feel makes it that much harder to deceive others. You could get incredibly vulnerable, and it will show. You might have to tell someone you love them. Or that you need help. Or cry in public.

4.

Your spiritual high horse may kick you off. Spirituality is not pretty. It’s not about positivity, or who can have the most inspiring Facebook feed. This kind of work is humbling. You’ll get a good long look at the mistakes you’ve made, and all the ridiculous and mundane thoughts that run through your head when you try to be still. You’ll realize how much we are all the same in this way.

5.

You’ll discover that you’re not actually all that busy . “Busy” has become a badge of honor in our fastpaced world where our fascinating lives are constantly on display through social media. It’s not that everyone else needs you so you have no time for yourself. It’s that you don’t want to spend time with yourself. Having nothing to do means emotions could arise, and as we’ve established, that’s terrifying.

When we make it a practice to stare our lonely hearts down, we don’t have any more reason to be afraid.

In conclusion, don’t meditate. It could change your life





Resources on Meditation and Yoga

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Author) - August 18, 1995

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson (Author) , Miriam Z. Klipper (Author) - November 2000

Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times by P.T. Judith Hanson Lasater Ph.D. - Oct 18, 2011

Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat by Richard Faulds, Senior Teaching Staff of Kripalu Center, Robert Bull and Paul Conrath – 12/27/05

Take a Deep Breath by James E. Loehr, MD and Jeffrey Migdow, MD

Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn - Jan 18, 2006

Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla Kabat-zinn and Jon Kabat-Zinn - Apr 15, 1998

The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Book & CD) by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn - Jun 2, 2007

The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being by Daniel J. Siegel - Apr 1, 2007

Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation by Daniel J. Siegel - Dec 28, 2010

The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley - Oct 14, 2003

Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope - Sep 5, 2000

Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine by Saki Santorelli - Mar 7, 2000

Free Relaxation Experience Audio by Deborah Metzger http://www.princetonyoga.com/free-relaxation-mp3/

Gentle Yoga Sequence for the back: Yoga Journal Sequence by Deborah Metzger http://www3.yogajournal.com/poses/sequence_builder/?new=1&action=custom&yj=sequence_view&id=13529





2015 MBSR Manual

Mindfulness-Based Stress

Reduction (MBSR)

Home Practice

Manual

Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives. It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment. We feel more alive. We also gain immediate access to our own powerful inner resources for insight, transformation and healing.

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.

Mindfulness-Based

Stress Reduction (MBSR) with Robin Boudette, Ph.D.

Licensed Psychologist

Deborah Metzger, MSW, E-RYT500

Founder & Director, Princeton Center for Yoga & Health

Wednesday, October 14, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm Class 1

Class 2

Class 3

Class 4

Class 5

Class 6

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

6:30 – 9:00 pm

6:30 – 9:00 pm

6:30 – 9:00 pm

Wednesday, November 11, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm

Wednesday, November 18, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm

All Day Retreat Sunday, November 22, 2015 10:00 – 4:00 pm

Class 7 Wednesday, December 2, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm

Class 8: Program conclusion

“Taking What I Learned Into My Future”

Wednesday, December 9, 2015 6:30 – 9:00 pm

Class #1

“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”

“What is needed is to learn afresh, to observe, and to discover for ourselves, the meaning of wholeness.”

Upstream Downstream a Contemporary Fable

Full Catastrophe Living:

Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness - Chapter 22

Class #2

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”

“We don’t see things as they are,

We see things as we are.”

Class #3

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all that you ever have.”

“The mind is like the wind and the body is like the sand; if you want to know how the wind is blowing, look at the sand…”

Mindful Yoga

Class #4

“Do you have the patience to wait

until your mud settles and the water is clear

Can you remain unmoving

Until the right action arises by itself?”

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

The Journey

Class #5

“Just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things, and stand firm in that which you are.”

Class #6

“In opening we can see how many times we have mistaken small identities and fearful beliefs for our true nature, and how limiting this is.

We can touch with great compassion the pain from the contracted identities that we and

others have created in the world.”

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”

Harvard Unveils MRI Study Proving Meditation Literally Rebuilds The Brain’s Gray

Class #7

“All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.”

“The reality of life is that your perceptions -- right or wrong -- influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place.”

Brief Instructions for Loving-Kindness Meditation

Metta Phrases

Class #8

“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf”

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Do You Resist Meditating?

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