IntroMindfulness
Mindfulness Meditation:Part 1 Use for concentration , sleeping problems and general introduction.
These writtings are meant to be a guide, the real teacher is realty from the practice, you must convince youself. Read, think, practice, then practice some more, again and again, then return to read somemore, do some more thinking, then practice, practice, and more practice.
You may want to start by reading bare bone instructions for mindful breathing and then actually practicing it.
Mental health, and the medical speciaty that treats is disorders is the realm of psychiatry, a much misunderstood field. I have often thought that if you knew what I know about field it could help you make proper and infomed descions about what if anything may be wrong, and what to do in terms of further diagnosis and treatment. One aspect of diagnosis and treatment is self understanding , a knowing of what is in the mind, as it is happening, and the minds response to it. This is the realm of mindfulness meditation, that has possible uses in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental health disorders.
"I really don't know what is wrong!" Many times I evaluate a child, an adolescent or and adult for problems and no one is quiet sure what is presicely wrong, " something is just not right, they are not thier normal self " often there are non specific complaints, like, "can't sleep, but I don't know why" or "he just stopped doing what he should be doing at home, at school, at work" or "she just doesn't seem to care anymore". Often when you ask the identified patient what is causing this they cannot tell you " I don't know" and no matter what is asked, or done or suggested they still don't know. sometime they really dont know , nor do the people who know them the best, nor do any "tests" help, or all these other souces of information may just add confusion to the issue, even lead to the wrong diagnosis and then the wrong treatment. The real souce of information must ultimately come from within the mind itself, and from the person themselves.
Mindfulness may help you know what is wrong. Mindfulness is about knowing oneself, about getting off automatic pilot and being aware of what is going on in ones mind and how you are responding to it, in the present moment, and because it does not use thinking, but feeling-sensing, it is useful regardless of age or educational background, or level of intelligence. For the patient who doesn't really know what is wrong being mindful and applying it to breathing, by doing mindful breathing or formal meditation may not only help tell us what is really wrong, futher more the process itself may be helpful if not healing depending on the nature and the severity of the problem.
How can mindfulness help? Mindfulness is hard to descibe because it is part of the experiencing mode of the mind, and must be expereinced to be understood, and the best way to do that is to practice mindfulness based breathing by itself or as part of formal meditation. Mindfulness can help by switching us from the thinking-doing mode when it is no longer helpful into the experiencing -being mode which often has the abilty to get to causes and driving forces behind our problems. It can help you be aware and deal in a new way with the feelings and body sensations that are causing and driving your thinking, your emotions, and disturbing body sensations involved in psychosomatic disorders like headaches, stomach-intestinal problems, certain kinds of skin problems like certain types of hives, rashes, and many other pshysical and mental problems that are driven by the minds resposes to feelings and sensations.
The thinking-doing mode of the mind and its problems.We mostly use the thinking-doing part of the mind to solve problems even when we are on auto pilot. The thinking mode working on auto pilot, that is out of concious awareness, is one reason, why the person may not know, how could you if your mind is working mostly on auto pilot. The thinking mind does not accept feelings for what they are, but trying to be protective, and get as much pleasure as it can, and avoid as much pain as it can, it moves away from the negative feelings, go towards and wants more of the postive, and perhaps most damaging it ignores, what it initally percieves as neutral, or less interesting. Here is a second souce of not knowing, the ignoring of the seemingly neutral. Many times the neutral the boring, the less interesting are the souces of what may be wrong or at least contributing to the problem. Another souce of not knowing fostered by this mode is its quickness, it jumps in with judging and thinking and reacting and controlling before the original stimulating feeling whether they are seeminly positive, negative or neutral , can run its course in the present moment, before it really gets to know it even for a few more mind moment, to reallly see how good, or bad, or neutral it may be, and give it a chance to show its true wave like nature, showing the bad with the good, and to get a sense of it true intensity, and a sense of its true duration. To add insult to injury because it cuts off knowing of the wave like nature, prematurely one will never know how it is connected to other things that may be contributing to the problem. The thinking mode as it thinks it changes and distorts the original reality of the stimulating feelings and bodily sensations, masking it , making it harder and harder to know, by putting layer and layer of thought and emotion, in does this in seconds, and continues to do so, day after day, month after month, year after year, making it harder and harder to know and deal with the orginal stimulus, which is now more and more distorted. The thinking mode tends to make things less and less known, distorts reality, and in the long run fuels the very feelings and sensations that are driving your problems, leading to increase suffering, and less general satisfaction.
Mindfulness can reverse thinking mode problems: Mindfulness can reverses the effects of the thinking mode, and by applying it to breathing it can increase the minds present moment awarness, thus makes us out of auto pilot, to let us know what is happening in the present moment, and then moment to moment, furhter it increses concentration so the mind is calmer, slower and more stable from reacting to feelings. It wil allow you to accept feelings and bodily sensations regardless of emtional charge, positive , negative or neutral, not giving in , nor avoiding,nor ignoring, but treating all equally, this being called acceptance with equanimity. it will then give you the time and the power to put thinking mode activities in the back of your mind, as you keep the driving feelings and sensations in the front of your mind, so you can now use direct experience, not thinking to observe, evaluate, get to know their wave like nature, and in the process they will get weaker, easier to manage, and may evenually go away.
Video Games, TV, Movies, the "internet" and other mass media entertainment "not knowing" and poor concentration. This is introduced here and will be futher discussed, see No 4452 "The Quest for Power and Pleasure-Video Games vs Mindfulness" , as food for thought. Many of the things we do foster this, auto pilot unknowing overly emtionally reactive yet simultaneously mentally numb mind states. We engage in many mindless activities to entertain ouselves, that make our mind more and more automatic in its responses, in a sense taking away our freedom to know, thus to choose how to respond, instead we end up automaitcally reacting, based on condtiontioning from past experience, and from fantasy about future needs and fears, many times encouraged by these activities. What are some of these activities? Things like excessive use of electroning mass media with its hypnotic audio visual multimedia stimulation as seen in video games, TV, the movies, the excessive stimualtion of rock concerts, even more usual entertainment by oneself and other is filled with mindless over stimualtion that overloads the senses, acutlly numbs them, encouraging more and more automatic reactions to things.
Mindfulness Described: Mindfulness is the first moment of an experience before thinking changes and distorts reality. It is pre conceptual experiencing, and accepting that experience for what it really is, not being biased or moved by the emotional charge, whether positive, thus not being pulled toward it, nor being pushed away if negative, and not ignoring if it seems neutral. This emotional even mindedness of treating evrything equally is called equanimity. Mindfulness doesn't use thinking, it is before thinking, it uses direct experiencing, which is feeling-sensing the emtional components and bodily sensations of associated mind states, thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations. It is mirror awareness reflecting what is before thinking and concepts, is experiences the wave like nature of reality, allowing to unfold, moment to moment, being aware of one experience, then letting it go for the next mind moment of experiecne. Mindfulness is paying attention on purpose to the present moment, then moment by moment, accepting it for what it is with equanimity, and then not using thought, but using direct experiencing by sensing-feeling the wave like nature, allowing it to unfold, and then letting the experience go, for then next mind moment of experience.
Being a subspecialist in Child Psychiatry ADHD , or Attention Deficet Hyperactivity Disorder is a chief problem presented to me and thus the interest in a form of meditation that offers hope to help treat this because of its empahsis on paying attention moment by moment.
A second common complaint I am presented is with trouble sleeping in all age groups, and I quickly discoverd as I paracticed this form of meditation the benficial effects it could have on sleep. One form of sleep difficulty has to do with paying attention in that the thinking mode of the mind is so active, like in ADHD, that the person having trouble sleeping can't pay attention long enought to the experience of sleep, to allow to take effect. Mindfulness meditation using breathing offers some help for this common mental