Meditation & mindfulness

FOR HEALTH & WELLBEING

All that we are, is the result of all that we have thought.

Buddha.

Hit pause and get your chill on.

A course in meditation and mindfulness practice for young transgender people.

OVERVIEW Client
Face Value / Blueprint 22.

Contacts
Amanda Baker / Veronica Carver.

Duration
1 hour per week x 8 weeks.

Start date
Monday 14 January 2013.

Goal
To teach awareness of the benets of meditation and mindfulness, and how to develop a daily practice of meditation and mindfulness, to the young people of Face Value / Blueprint 22. In particular, how it can contribute to your wellbeing, at work, and in daily life, and how you can incorporate it into upir daily lives. To teach a basic set of practical tools that young people can use to cope with the stresses and strains of every day life. To create a new baseline for happier living.

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Hit pause and get your chill on participants will learn 4 meditation techniques, and 4 mindfulness techniques, including pause button techniques, all versatile enough that they will be able to use them whenever and wherever they should need.

Session 01
Tea Introduction. Serve tea, and settle the students into the room. Volunteers for next week? 5 mins. Inspirational talk. Introduction and orientation. What were doing this week. What were doing on the course. The benets of a regular meditation & mindfulness practice. Causes and solutions for physical, mental and emotional stress, and how a regular meditation and mindfulness practice can help. Why meditate? When to meditate. How to meditate? The four postures of meditation. 15 mins. Meditation 01. Lying down bodyscan meditation. 20 mins. Meditation 02. The pause button. A micro meditation to use any time. 5 mins. How to practice. How to practice this week. Homework and how to time your meditations. 5 mins. Resources. Where to nd further resources. http://silenc.es/fv Questions. Any questions? 5 mins.

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Talk
Welcome back! Introduction / orientation. The practice of meditation and mindfulness is good for you. The evidence continues to gather and this course is designed to help those who wish to become healthier and more ecient in their lives. Why I practice meditation. What Ive got out of it. So what is meditation and mindfulness? Meditation consists of two broad types: Concentration. Introducing a narrow focus such as a mantra or image, known in Sanskrit as shamatha, which means in Sanskrit, calm abiding. Insight. With typically a wider, more investigative focus leading to a clear seeing of how things really are. This practice is traditionally called prajna which means clearseeing or wisdom. Mindfulness. Is simply paying attention. Can be an internal focus, for example mindfulness of the body. Or an external focus on an activity like you see with Japanese tea ceremony. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh says: Ill use the term mindfulness to refer to keeping ones consciousness alive to the present reality. Mindfulness is not the same as enhanced self-consciousness, although it may start out that way. A key skill in meditation and mindfulness is to train the mind with concentration so it can stay where you put it. This has tremendous value in itself; its hard to achieve anything in life without focus. In addition, it provides a basis for seeing how things are, for achieving insight. As we learn to pay attention more and more fully, this in itself changes reality. What were discussing here is a simple and natural thing. Theres nothing special to believe in or particularly take on board. We just do it. Its important to know that there are reams of theory and philosophy behind meditation in the context of many of the worlds cultures, but practice is what achieves the result. Theres a Zen saying, A painting of a rice cake cant satisfy hunger. The practices were going to be doing come from the Zen tradition. The Japanese word Zen comes from the Sanskrit dhyana which means meditation. The Zen tradition claims roots in the India of two and a half thousand years ago, and from there travelled to China and Japan. Youll nd other mindfulness teachings around. Probably the most popular one nds its roots in the teachings of a twentieth century Burmese monk called Mahasi Saydaw (1904-1982). More recently Mahasi Saydaws teachings have been combined with yoga and cognitive behavioural therapy and is taught in a clinical setting at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre in the UK. One thing that is distinctive about our branch of Zen, the Rinzai tradition, is that it has hundreds of years of openly teaching meditation for wellbeing. The most important Zen master in recent centuries, Hakuin (1685-1768) wrote a whole book on the subject called Yasenkana which was a best-seller. Back in the eighth century a Chinese Zen master called Keiho Shumitsu classifed Zen or meditation into ve types, the rst type he called bompu zen. A more recent Silences : http://silenc.es / hello@silenc.es

master wrote. It is zazen (sitting meditation) practiced simply and solely for the sake of improving physical and mental health. It has nothing to do with either religion or philosophy. My teacher used to say that he would like to see everybody without exception practising this kind of Zen. For just as physical exercise is good in a general way for the body, so Zazen on this level is undoubtedly benecial to both physical and mental health. (Yasutani Hakuun Roshi in The Middle Way August 2010). Now on to practicalities. Meditation practice is a bit like music practice a little bit every day is more valuable than a whole heap once in a blue moon. If you practice piano every day, in a year youll be playing Beethoven. The same type of development is possible with meditation. Or some people prefer to compare the parallels between mental culture and physical culture. The government now advises people to exercise ve times a week. Its probably only a matter of time before the advice is also ve times a week meditation practice. Well be going through the eects of meditation in detail a bit later but for now you can know that a whole host of scientic studies have provided evidence of meditations benets for health, well-being, mental clarity and calm. If thats what youre looking for, meditation will work for you. But remembering our image of playing a musical instrument it will only work if you practice. So at this stage, I have to ask you for a commitment. I have to ask you for 30 minutes of your time each day, every day for the eight weeks of our course. If you can commit to the practice, you will get the results. So I want you to think seriously about this. In fact well be asking you to do some other things in your day as well, here and there so you can think in terms of a little more time. So, can you do this? There are reasons why I ask for this commitment and consistency. Its all for your benet. It will make no dierence to me, but it could make a lot of dierence to you. One is that you will have good days and bad days guaranteed. Sometimes you wont be enjoying your meditation very much. Sometimes it will feel extremely pleasant. Over time it mostly gets better and over time youll become more clear about the benets to your life so weve found the best way to help you clarify these changes is to have a meditation diary. And the most important part is the beginning. On the rst page you write your resolve this is you starting the engine. You dont get anywhere on your journey without getting your motor running. So we need to think seriously at this point about whether meditation is going to be good for you. So lets look at the two, and there are really only two impediments. Firstly meditation isnt typically helpful for people who have what are often called diseases of the self. If you have or suspect you may have conditions like paranoia or schizophrenia, meditation can under some circumstances make it worse. So this course isnt suitable for you. Secondly you need to be sure that you have the time to engage fully in the course. Can you devote a little more than 30 minutes a day every single day for the duration of the course? Are you willing to try everything the bits you like and the bits you dont like? Are you willing to postpone immediate gratication of slobbing out in front of the tv or even dealing with some of your very real responsibilities for the long term, lifelong benets that youll reap from a meditation practice. Be real with yourself.

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Decide now is it right for you to follow through and practice or not? Of course I only want you to commit to your meditation programme for the eight-week duration of the course. After that its completely up to you. So decide now. If for whatever reason youre not ready to commit now, then youre free to leave and you can have 100% refund of the course fee. Im sure we all wish you well and youre welcome to come back at another time. If youre ready to embark on this journey, please open the rst page of your meditation diary and write the following, I undertake for the duration of my meditation course to faithfully practice to the best of my ability for thirty minutes a day. I will do my best to practice all of the subsidiary exercises. I make this undertaking of my own free will. Ok good, so lets get going. Lets have a three minute toilet break and start our practice. The classical texts talk about the four postures of meditation walking, standing, sitting and lying down. Were going to start with meditation while lying. There are two main positions lying on your back or if you cant get comfortable like that, lying on your right side. Try both and then choose one for the group practice. Lying on your back. Extend your spine. Extend your legs all the way down into your heels, legs out straight. If its more comfortable for your back, you can bend your knees, place your feet down on the oor and have a support under your knees. Lie as straight as you can. You may feel comfortable with your head down on the oor or you may want a little support. Your hands can be folded on your belly or if you wish you can have your arms a little away from and beside your body with your palms face up. Have your mouth closed and your tongue resting on the roof of your mouth. Breathe through your nose. Have your eyes closed or half-closed and soft, looking along the line of your nose. Lying on Your Right Side. If your body doesnt allow you to lie on your back, try on your right side. Have your right hand under and supporting your head. Your knees a little bend, legs one on top of the other. Have your left arm draped along the left side of your body. Your mouth and eyes are just like in the lying on your back position. Feel free to adjust to make yourself more comfortable. Talk about breathing in the belly as opposed to the chest. Dont worry about thoughts, just let them come and go. The physical body, relaxed and yet broadly straight, reects the mental state. Spend three to ve minutes helping people nd their way into the posture. Check everyone, then have them stretch and sit up. Ask for feedback. When everyone is clear, have them lie down and adopt the meditation position Introduce the rst meditation practice.

Bodyscan meditation
So the rst practice were going to work with is called the Bodyscan meditation. This is a variation on a practice called nanso no ho, taught by Hakuin Zenji who is one of the most important Zen masters in our lineage. So as we mentioned you can practice

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this meditation and all the others well be doing standing, sitting, walking or lying down. Were going to practice lying down. So come into a comfortable position, lying on your back if at all comfortable or if you need to, lying on your side. Have your palms at your side with your palms facing up. Make sure your spine is long and straight, your neck as well. Just adjust your position so that you can get as comfortable as possible. Allow your eyes to rest down you can close your eyes or rest them half open along the line of your nose, whichever for you is most comfortable. Have your mouth closed and your tongue resting against the roof of your mouth. Just relax and feel your breathing in your belly. When you relax you can naturally feel the rising and sinking of the breathing in your belly. As your body relaxes, have your mind be aware and sensitive. Were going to bring this presence or awareness through the body. First of all were going to bring the attention to the crown of your head; just becoming aware of the crown of your head. Dont try to change anything, dont try to do anything; just being present with how things are in the crown of your head. And now bring your awareness into your forehead. Just present; aware. And now into the left side of your head, above your ear. The right side of your head, and the rear side of your head behind your forehead. And bringing your awareness now into your eyes, rst your left eye, your right eye, your right ear, the back of your head in line with your ears, your left ear; bringing your awareness into your nose, moving downwards through your body all the time; just being present, aware of how things are in your nose. And now down again, aware; around your mouth, your right jaw, the back of your head at the base of your skull, your left jaw. Moving your awareness down again into your throat at the front. Not doing anything; not changing anything just aware. All the transformation you need comes simply from your awareness. Moving your awareness to the right side of your neck, to the level of your throat, the back of your neck, the left side of your neck; moving your awareness down again to the top of your chest at the front, into your right shoulder, into the top of your back, your left shoulder, just present, just simply aware. Moving your awareness down again, moving always downwards into the area of your chest on the level of your heart, slightly to your left, the right side of your chest, under your right arm, your upper back on this level, under your left arm, becoming aware of your arms themselves, your right upper arm, your left upper arm, moving your awareness down into the lower part of your chest cavity rst on the left side. On the right side, and now the right side of your body, roughly on the level of your elbow, your back on this level, the left side of your body on the level of your elbow, your solar plexus, the right side of your abdomen, the right side of your body, the rear side of your body on this level, the left side of your body, becoming aware of your elbow on your right side, on your left side, simply present, simply aware; moving your awareness down again to the level of your navel, just being present, just being aware whats here at the front of your body, the right side of your body on the level of your navel, the rear side of your body, the left side of your body. Moving your awareness down again to the level of your pubic bone in your lower belly just present, aware; now the right side of your body on this level, the rear of your body, your lower back, the left side of your body; moving your awareness into your right lower arm, your left lower arm, moving your awareness down again into the level

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of your pelvis at the front of your body, moving your awareness into your right hip, the rear of your body on this level, your left hip. Moving your awareness down again into your right upper leg, rst the front, the right side, the rear side of your right upper leg, the left side, moving your awareness into your left upper leg, rst the front of your upper leg, the right side, the rear side, the left side of your left upper leg, moving your awareness, your presence into your right wrist, what happens when an area comes into your awareness like this? Moving your awareness into your right palm, the back of your hand, your right thumb, your right index nger, middle nger, ring nger, little nger. Moving your awareness into your left wrist, the palm of your hand, the back of your hand, your left thumb, your index nger, your middle nger, your ring nger, your little nger; moving your presence, your awareness down into your right knee, rst the front of your knee, the right side of your knee, the back of your knee, the left side of your knee; moving your awareness into your left knee, the right side of your left knee, the rear side of your knee, the left side of your knee; moving your awareness down again, into your right lower leg, the front of your leg, the right side of your lower leg, the rear side of your lower leg, the left side of your lower leg; moving your awareness to your left lower leg, the right side of your lower leg, the rear side, the left side and back to the front; moving your awareness down again into your right ankle, rst the front of your ankle, the right side, the rear of your ankle, the left side, back again to the front, moving your awareness down into your left ankle, the front of your ankle, the right side of your ankle, the rear side and the left side of your ankle. Moving your awareness into your right foot, the topside of your foot, your right heel, the sole of your foot, your right big toe, your second toe, your third toe, your fourth toe, your fth toe, moving this presence, this awareness into your left foot, the topside of your foot, the left heel, the sole of your left foot, your left big toe, your second toe, your third toe, your fourth toe, your fth toe. Now moving your awareness again up to the crown of your head, letting your awareness just sweep down through your body, perhaps a little faster now, a little more easily, through from the crown of your head all the way through and over your face you head, your neck, over your shoulders, your chest, your upper back, down through your upper arms, down through your mid-back, your abdomen, your elbows, your lower arms, your hands, down through your pelvis, into your legs, down through your upper legs, your knees, your lower legs, your ankles, your feet, thats right. As you become aware of all these areas you may nd your awareness can slip down through the body even more readily, even more easily, just letting this happen very naturally, and now, allowing your awareness to be generalised through your whole body, particularly allowing yourself to be aware of any places of any kind of discomfort, tension, stress, anything thats not 100% how it might be; allowing these areas to be held in this gentleness, in this curiosity, this presence of your awareness. Dont try to change anything; just being aware, being present; the changes come when theyre ready, and even if they dont come, thats ne too. When youre in this quality of awareness, your relationship to all these things changes in a very benecial way, and when you feel your awareness very diused throughout your body, very present and very gently become aware of your ngers, your toes, gently starting to move into your ngers, your toes, gently, gently, allow yourself a really good, deep stretch, a really good stretch, allowing your body to open up, to wake up so that youre ready to carry on with the next thing. Can play CD if you wish. Silences : http://silenc.es / hello@silenc.es

Afterwards, feedback session with partners, then with the whole group. Check everyone is comfortable to go home and practice. Meditation diary. Have students note down how they felt, any particular insights/ inspirations that might have arisen, also when appropriate give a guesstimate of what percentage of the time they could stay with the meditation object. Remind students to take a few minutes to do this after each meditation period when they go home. Assignment for the week. To take 30 minutes once a day to practice the bodyscan meditation and update meditation diary. If you need a timer, you can use an alarm clock or a mobile phone on vibrate. Question to be answered. What happens if, with the best will in the world you miss a day of practice? The answer comes in two parts Really, really, dont miss a day. Carry straight on the next day. Note that you missed a day in your meditation diary and then just keep going. Final questions.

Micro meditation.
Let your meditation practice be a sanctuary. Harshada Wagner Perhaps you nd yourself seeking a moment of peace in the midst of the motorway of life? Or you want to improve the quality of your daily meditations? Maybe youre stressed out, under pressure, or in a dicult situation, and you need to take stock. Maybe you usually reach for a cigarette, a drink, rescue remedy, a tranquilliser, or perhaps something else. Whatever it is, you wont always have it with you. This simple practice is one you will always have with you, you wont be searching your pockets, cursing the lack of your usual prop. Its a very good trick to have up your sleeve. Let me share a basic meditators tool with you, one you can use any place, any time. Micro meditation is a form of mindfulness practice. Its a way to hit pause, refresh, clear cache, revitalising your mind and freshening up your day. Its like going to the wash room and picking yourself up with a splash of cold water. Set aside a minute for yourself, mentally dropping whatever youre doing. Dont wait for the perfect moment, there wont be a better one. 1. Stop whatever youre doing. 2. Shut your eyes. 3. Focus on your breath. 4. Mindfully take three rounds of in and out breaths. 5. Gently open your eyes and resume what you were doing.

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Youve just created your sanctuary, one you can return to any time you wish. When you return to activity, youll nd yourself more able to focus, with a better perspective on things. Use this micro meditation any time you need to hit the pause button. Perhaps when you are at work, with family, friends, or just in the streets or at the shops. If you dont have time, then you can even make this meditation shorter, a single in and out breath. Even if youre feeling stressed out of your mind, and youre running late for work, you can only improve things by hitting the pause button for a single in and out breath.

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Ando Perez, founder of Silences.

Silences : http://silenc.es / hello@silenc.es