Meditation

Wise Speech

"What You Can't Communicate Controls You." When I first heard that edict year ago, I instantly recognized how true that was for me.

In difficult communications I could never find the right words and found myself thrown around by my anxiety around conflict, namely my need to be liked and my desire to do as little harm as possible.

Often my communications would err on the side of not being truthful and sucking up some hurt or would boil over in frustration or anger, resulting in a much more complicated mess.  I erred on the side of not even trying and felt amazingly confined and bottled up.

Then I learned some models for communication that helped me speak with less blame and more ownership of my experience and I could feel my heart flowing again.

The Buddha taught extensively on  Skillful Speech.

A quick summary:

1. Be kind

2. Tell the truth

3. Be aware of how the other person is listening and

4. Be timely

These guidelines are challenging.  The only way we can be kind and tell the truth is  when we shift our consciousness to a place that lessens or removes blame.

I've found Non-Violent Communication (NVC) to be a most amazing modality for communication, particularly when it comes to difficult conversations.  NVC forces us to reflect on:

1. What can we agree actually happened?

2   What do I feel?

3. What's the unmet need?  What was I hoping for?

4. What life-affirming request might I make?

These inquiries slow down the process and force us to investigate what's true.  Oftentimes these questions reveal our 'story' which is usually colored by embellishments or tinged with some form of aversion, clinging or delusion.

Eventually we discover the corollary to that initial statement:  What you can communicate sets you free.

Some links you might enjoy:

More on NVC

The NVC DC community

My talk on Wise Speech

 

More Evidence

So many studies are pouring in on the effect of meditation and mindfulness.  Here are a few you might find interesting:  

Transcendental Meditation effective antidote to  record stress levels in school students

With record levels of student stress reported in a recent UCLA survey, can a simple stress-reducing meditation technique be a viable solution? A new study published in the Journal of Instructional Psychology found the Transcendental Meditation technique significantly decreased psychological distress in at-risk racial and ethnic minority public school students by 36 percent over 4 months compared to controls. The study also found significant decreases in trait anxiety and depressive symptoms.

 

Tuning out: How brains benefit from meditation

Experienced meditators seem to be able switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, according to a new brain imaging study by Yale researchers.

 

(Thanks, Laurel.)

,

Genuine Success

,

Climbing a ladder is one thing.  Making sure your ladder is against the right wall is something totally different. A great teacher I once encountered said, "The higher up you are in an organization or the more responsibility you are carrying, the more you need to be on retreat."

When we rely on the executive function to make important decisions that affect not just our lives but the lives of those around us, we have to find a way to create healthy distance from the day-to-day details to reflect on what is most important and intuit what is next.

I had the good fortune to speak at Tony Mayo's leadership group.  Their focus is on 'vitality, service and outstanding performance'.  Mindfulness is a key to his approach to conscious leadership.

If you feel the need for executive coaching and working with like-minded leaders, Tony is accepting a few new people in his course this January.  I am impressed by the caliber of his presence as well as by the participants in his group.

More information here, including videos, podcast and articles.

,

At least 31 flavors

,

The truth is the truth and yet it seems to have infinite flavors. I'm just back from a retreat with Tara and Anam Thubten.

While in the context of a classical Theravaden schedule - walking and sitting meditation, social silence, group interviews, mindful movement - retreatants also got a blend of teachings from the Tibetan perspective with Anam, Tara's western Buddhist psychology perspective and to complete the mash up, my own blend of mindful movement and commentary.

As Joseph Goldstein writes so beautifully in his book, One Dharma, all these views emanate from the same source.

This blending of teachings, experiences and cultural perspectives resulted in a sense of great friendship and camaraderie.  Anam will be leading meditation and giving a talk at my class in Arlington tonight.

 

 

,

Equanimity and Joy

,

Equanimity and Joy are two of the 'immeasurable states.'  When we experience them there are no limits to how vast they extend. I gave a talk this week on Equanimity, which is on my podcast or streaming here.

But here is an inspiring expression of limitlessness in the face of hardship.  Get out your kleenex for this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W86jlvrG54o

 

(Thanks, Bob.)

 

,

MTTI Launches

,

The Meditation Teacher Training Institute's two-year training started this weekend with 60+ participants.  What a wonderful group of dedicated teachers.  This is the first regional training of it's kind and I'm amazed to think what it will be like for the DC Metro area to have such caring teachers taking it to the streets here. We generated a list of the populations these folks feel called to serve and literally gives me goose bumps to think of the healing potential being unleashed.  Folks are drawn to work with those who are incarcerated, youth, hospice, those working with addictions, those working on the corporate level, those who feel marginalized and don't have access to these transformational practices and teachings.

It's an honor to be part of this journey.

 

Freedom from Suffering

I'm enjoying the six-week series I'm leading with Dr. Gary Kaplan at the Kaplan Center for Integrative Health.  Particularly since I've had a four-day migraine.  I've really had to practice what I've been preaching these last weeks. Along those lines, I gave a talk at the recent week-long IMCW Fall Retreat entitled "Transforming Your Relationship to Pain."  It's now up and available for streaming or download through iTunes.

Here's the link.

May you be free.  Or at least free-er.

 

,

Retreating

,

You just can't estimate the value of stepping back from daily routines and habits. Our daylong retreat last Saturday included hours of silent meditation, two movement flows, two deep body scans, time sharing silence and words as we explored what happens when we both relax and pay attention.

If you can wedge a retreat into your schedule, do it!  As the saying goes, 'the more dynamic your rest, the more dynamic your activity.

,

A Journey This Weekend

,

This Saturday I'm leading a retreat called "A Meditative Journey:  Movement, Meditation and Deep Relaxation." We'll be exploring meditation through the lens of relaxation, taking time to contact and release deep-seated stress through breath and movement as well as lying down 'body scan' meditations.

The day is all about slowing down and drawing the attention inward.

This is one of my favorite retreats.  Do come if you can!   Click here to register  online.

 

,

Transforming Your Relationship with Pain

,

 Next month I'll be joining with my good friend Dr. Gary Kaplan, Founder and Medical Director of the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine in McLean, VA to offer a series called "Transforming Your Relationship to Pain."  This is a topic of great interest to me as I've been struck with migraines regularly since I was about six.  When I practice meditation on shifting my relationship to pain, I am serious about it!

A few months ago Gary and I taught a six week series called "Medical Meditation" where we explored and measured the effects of establishing a meditation practice over a six-week period.

Here's a quote from Gary's write up:

During this initial training we wanted to see if we could objectively demonstrate an improvement in the participants' health. To do so, we measured their morning and evening cortisol levels (a physiologic measure of stress) and asked everyone in the group to complete a pre- and post-training questionnaire called the "SF-36."

After just 6 weeks of training, the group's evening cortisol levels did decrease, a finding consistent with the improved sleep reported by many members of the group. The participants also experienced an overall improvement in their emotional well-being as measured by the SF-36. In addition, as you can read below, the participants greatly enjoyed the program.

Jonathan and I were pleased that the participants not only perceived that they had received health benefits from the program, but that we were able to objectively demonstrate an improvement. Our findings are consistent with a growing body of scientific literature demonstrating that the regular practice of meditation reduces physical pain, improves sleep and brain function, and strengthens the immune system.

It's somewhat astounding and consistently pleasing to discover again and again how much shifts inside and outside when we engage into these attentional training methods.  We're excited to be diving directly into how we can transform our relationship to pain.  Of course, 'pain' is a synergistic blend physical, emotional and mental states.

The bad news is that 'pain' happens.  The good news is that we can indeed shift our relationship to it.

A few links if you're interested in more:

Meditation: Can It Reduce Your Pain? by Dr. Kaplan

You Can Think Your Way Out of Pain

Meditation Leads to Greater Pain Relief Than Morphine

Meditation Reduces the Emotional Impact of Pain

 

I'll have more to share as we move through the program.  This course is fully enrolled now, but we hope to be offering it again soon.

 

In the meantime,if you like, here's a talk I gave on the topic during a weeklong meditation retreat last year.

 

,

Back from the Heartland

,

I was in Alberta, Canada this last weekend leading a retreat called "Yoga and the Art of Inner Listening."  I'm fascinated by the play of awareness and intuition and deeply enjoyed the immersion into embodied inquiry with such kind people. As I flew across the continent and watched the landscape shift from the wooded east to the plains of the midwest I remembered my years in college and grad school while simultaneously working on a farm on the Illinois/Wisconsin border.

There is a reason they call this the heartland.  There's something about the openness of the earth that is reflected in the open hearted kindness of my fellow adventurers.

Here's an image from a little further north and west than where I was.  (Thanks, Laurel.)

 

And here's a link to the image from NASA.

Meditation and Pain

I've been collaborating with Dr. Gary Kaplan from the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine in McLean, VA, to bring meditation to those who are working with chronic pain.  In our first series we explored classic meditation techniques and tracked cortisol levels to determine whether a six-week meditation regime would lower the levels.  The good news:  Yes!  I've yet to completely understand the 'statistically significant' numbers, but by all accounts, there was a measurable difference in how the participants felt. We're going one step further this fall with a series specifically on techniques for working with pain.

The evidence is in that mindfulness can dramatically make a difference when it comes to coping with pain, or as we say in the meditation business, 'unpleasant sensation.'

Here's an article that spells this out in greater detail.

 

 

,

Being. In Nature

,
Close your eyes and awareness naturally flows inward and to the other senses.  Our daylong retreat on Saturday explored what it means to "be" with nature as a backdrop.
.
Much of our day was on a knoll over the Potomac River at River Bend Park.  Though it was in the high 80's, every small breeze added to the cocktail of sensations:  bird songs, the rush of the river over rocks, the rich humid air, the occasional plane overhead and the irregular drumbeat of Piliated woodpeckers working over dead trees nearby.
.
Meditation in nature provides so many doorways to paying attention.  One technique is to narrow your awareness to one square foot of forest floor and to notice all the details ... from the diversity of plant life to the movement of bugs.
.
A more expansive meditation is to cloud gaze and feel the space in which everything forms, changes and disappears.
.
Meditating in nature in a group provides a rich sense of camraderie, a sense of 'being alone together.'  The photo above is from a trust walk.  One partner is blindfolded, doing walking meditation with the senses open.  The other partner is providing caring support.  It's a wonderful dance of vulnerability, openess and receiving.
.
I'm inspired to do more of these retreats.  Stay tuned if you'd like to join in the future.  We end at 3:30, providing you time and space to practice the meditation technique, put so eloquently by friend and teacher Eric Kolvig, 'to wander like a happy dog.'