Welcome to the 21 Day Meditation Challenge.

Welcome!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Happy 21!!!!!

Thank you to everyone who joined me in this wonderful challenge! I will continue to keep the site up and active, as I am going to continue to meditate daily. Feel free to stop back anytime for new postings and updates.
Again, thank you.
~Avantika

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Notes from class

I am taking the Psychotherapy and Meditation course with Tara Brach and including my notes here. Please keep in mind that the information here is copy written and meant for personal use and not public distribution. Also, because they are notes, do not be bothered by grammar. Respect. Thanks!


Session One: Introduction to the Course

We live behind a false veil, an exterior that keeps us separated from who we truly are. Trapped behind this cloak, we build stories and beliefs that may temporarily serve our safety and well-being, but that ultimately separate us from the reality of our lives. Beyond this veil is the great sea of potential for living fully, with an understanding of our true self. In this session, we begin to uncover the layers that we’ve created and to learn how the practice of mindfulness can open us to the realization of our true identity.

The trend of bringing meditation into the psychotherapy practice is because of science. Meditation frees the heart and mind. The essence of the training of professionals is the capacity to come into the presence of Now. There is aliveness in this moment. This is another way of saying coming home to who we truly are.
The Key to teaching client's Healing and Freedom: Trust the power of heart and awareness to awaken in all circumstances. In Buddhism, heart and awareness are the two wings. The heart = compassion & amplification of awareness = clear seeing and having moments of awakening. Another way of saying this is to "practice loving presence".

The process of healing is the process of coming home to loving presence or coming home to who we really are.
The 3 main objectives being explored in this course are:
Basic core principles of Buddhist Psychology
Meditations focused on loving presence
How to implement these principles and practices into the clinical practice

How does this work in your own heart and mind? Your own practice is essential. It strengthens present-centered attention (dealing with wondering mind), it arouses compassion and empathy, and it arouses affect tolerance in our own inner states.

When you put a cup of salt in a basin of water, the water becomes salty. When you put a cup of water in a lake, there is very little difference.

There is a transmission of energy between you and your client when your practice is solid.

The Power of Intention: Everything rests on the tip of one’s motivation (Tibetan Buddhism), this essentially means that it is essential to reflect on what really matters, in any circumstance.

Sincere reflection: Open to what is right here, feel the breath, notice the sense of arriving: in this moment, this body, this heart.
What is my intention for this training, what really matters? Notice what it is about your life’s mission that you really care about? Using the quote of Mary Oliver “Tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Aspiration and motivation are essential to the process of discovery and growth. This guided reflection will create a space to ask the question, “What really matters to me, and what is my motivation?” These questions help you set the ground before you wholeheartedly enter this process.
Before you begin, find a comfortable place where you will not be disturbed and listen to the reflection with an open heart and mind. Use the space at the end of the reflection to record your thoughts.

Questions for Reflection:

What are your intentions for this commitment?

What thoughts or images came up for you about your aspirations?

How has motivation been a support or a block in your past endeavors?

Realistically, what type of time commitment are you able to make toward your individual practice during this course?

We create, out of necessity or forgetfulness, a covering that can protect us from all manner of pain and trauma. Suffering occurs when we mistakenly believe that this false layer is our true self. In order to fully realize our identity, we need a technique for recognizing those times when we identify with the covering. That technique is mindfulness, which is the act of being in the present moment. This segment will further explore the roots of our suffering, and begin to investigate the antidote of mindfulness.

Buddhist philosophy on suffering has it’s connection with several schools of psychotherapy. Wisdom, generally speaking, merges at the core with several schools of thinking.

Perception of separation: We suffer because we identify with the concept that we are a separate self.
With taking form (by becoming human), we identify with form. Primal mood of the separate self is fear. With more self-concept/self-consciousness, the more we are driven by fear. As a consequence, this self-identification leads to greater attachment, i.e. holding on to good experiences and running from circumstances that are unpleasant. Separation causes us to feel this mechanism in a very deep (and unconscious) way.  This is truly the essence of negative ego effects such as proving, obsessing, blaming, self-numbing, defend and so on.
There is a fundamental mistrust at the core of it all. Trust is a sense of belonging. Ego is necessary, but our reptilian brains are highly active. We are designed to be vigilant. (Fight or flight).
Our nervous system is designed to be aware of what are the consequences are when things go wrong, rather than what happens when things go right. This is a product of the sympathetic nervous system which rules our fight or flight tendencies. It is a very old system because before we evolved to our current human form, we needed this system to survive. There is a built-in a built-in bias towards the negative. This is what makes us Velcro for pain and Teflon for pleasure.
We learn from failure and it is very hard to extinguish that conditioning. Our mood of fear becomes full blown when we get caught in the cycle when our ego identification gets hitched to that looping. Core patterns, both conscious and unconscious, dictate the level of pain that we endure on a regular and consistent basis. In other words, who we are is identified with the loop that causes suffering.
In fight or flight, we cannot connect to the wholeness and openness of love.
We get so caught up in our own survival that we lose connection with this great mystery that we are co-creating with.
Inquiry requires us to investigate the basis of this:
  • ·         Degree of bonding as children
  • ·         society pressures
  • ·         genetics
  • ·         culture

Each of these contributes to the trance of unworthiness.
This is how we fall victim to our identity with our insufficiency.
All negative behaviors related to not having deep levels of health and intimacy are rooted in the idea that “something is wrong with me.”
This is also what drives us to seek spiritual meaning. This is the other side of the perception of separation.  There is a possibility to believe in the depth of our wholeness. There is a possibility to venture beyond our conditioning, both by confronting it and by choosing to be vulnerable in spite of it.
We can live today with fear, or we can drop into who we are, our essence.
Pay attention to the identification of our conditioning. Our real sickness is home sickness. Home sickness is the tendency to not love who we truly are are, despite our imperfections.
We leave home by leaving the present moment. When we leave, we suffer. It also makes the people who love us suffer. We cover our purity in order to make it, in order to survive. But we suffer when we take the covering to be real, and not the purity that rests within it.

Questions for Self-Reflection:
Are there any instances in your life in which you identify with insufficiency?
What are some ways you self-judge yourself or your actions?
What are the results, big or small, of those self-judgments?
What do you feel would be essential to include in your idea or definition of mindfulness?
What, if anything, has changed or been added to your understanding of mindfulness?
How might you incorporate mindful attention into your daily life?
How might you use this exercise in the process of helping others, in a personal or clinical setting?

The benefits of mindfulness have been proven in research settings across the globe, but what is really happening when we train in mindful attention? Session one concludes with an exploration of the psychological processes at work behind this training.
Two powerful questions to implement into the practice with clients:
What is happening right now?
Can I be with this?
R.A.I.N.
R = Recognize
A = Allow

936Hz Pineal Gland Activator

Just completed meditation with this one. Super powerful!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Day 17 of the Challenge

Hello Everyone,
Sorry for the delay in communication. We have had several days of feeling under the weather. It is great to be back and I am looking forward to hearing how your commitment is going. Please post comments below or on the events page on the Amber Moon Wellness site. Thanks for your support and happy meditating!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Meditation Gives Brain a Charge, Study Finds

Meditation Gives Brain a Charge, Study Finds


By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 3, 2005; Page A05



Brain research is beginning to produce concrete evidence for something that Buddhist practitioners of meditation have maintained for centuries: Mental discipline and meditative practice can change the workings of the brain and allow people to achieve different levels of awareness.
Those transformed states have traditionally been understood in transcendent terms, as something outside the world of physical measurement and objective evaluation. But over the past few years, researchers at the University of Wisconsin working with Tibetan monks have been able to translate those mental experiences into the scientific language of high-frequency gamma waves and brain synchrony, or coordination. And they have pinpointed the left prefrontal cortex, an area just behind the left forehead, as the place where brain activity associated with meditation is especially intense.
"What we found is that the longtime practitioners showed brain activation on a scale we have never seen before," said Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the university's new $10 million W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior. "Their mental practice is having an effect on the brain in the same way golf or tennis practice will enhance performance." It demonstrates, he said, that the brain is capable of being trained and physically modified in ways few people can imagine.
Scientists used to believe the opposite -- that connections among brain nerve cells were fixed early in life and did not change in adulthood. But that assumption was disproved over the past decade with the help of advances in brain imaging and other techniques, and in its place, scientists have embraced the concept of ongoing brain development and "neuroplasticity."
Davidson says his newest results from the meditation study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November, take the concept of neuroplasticity a step further by showing that mental training through meditation (and presumably other disciplines) can itself change the inner workings and circuitry of the brain.
The new findings are the result of a long, if unlikely, collaboration between Davidson and Tibet's Dalai Lama, the world's best-known practitioner of Buddhism. The Dalai Lama first invited Davidson to his home in Dharamsala, India, in 1992 after learning about Davidson's innovative research into the neuroscience of emotions. The Tibetans have a centuries-old tradition of intensive meditation and, from the start, the Dalai Lama was interested in having Davidson scientifically explore the workings of his monks' meditating minds. Three years ago, the Dalai Lama spent two days visiting Davidson's lab.
The Dalai Lama ultimately dispatched eight of his most accomplished practitioners to Davidson's lab to have them hooked up for electroencephalograph (EEG) testing and brain scanning. The Buddhist practitioners in the experiment had undergone training in the Tibetan Nyingmapa and Kagyupa traditions of meditation for an estimated 10,000 to 50,000 hours, over time periods of 15 to 40 years. As a control, 10 student volunteers with no previous meditation experience were also tested after one week of training.
The monks and volunteers were fitted with a net of 256 electrical sensors and asked to meditate for short periods. Thinking and other mental activity are known to produce slight, but detectable, bursts of electrical activity as large groupings of neurons send messages to each other, and that's what the sensors picked up. Davidson was especially interested in measuring gamma waves, some of the highest-frequency and most important electrical brain impulses.
Both groups were asked to meditate, specifically on unconditional compassion. Buddhist teaching describes that state, which is at the heart of the Dalai Lama's teaching, as the "unrestricted readiness and availability to help living beings." The researchers chose that focus because it does not require concentrating on particular objects, memories or images, and cultivates instead a transformed state of being.
Davidson said that the results unambiguously showed that meditation activated the trained minds of the monks in significantly different ways from those of the volunteers. Most important, the electrodes picked up much greater activation of fast-moving and unusually powerful gamma waves in the monks, and found that the movement of the waves through the brain was far better organized and coordinated than in the students. The meditation novices showed only a slight increase in gamma wave activity while meditating, but some of the monks produced gamma wave activity more powerful than any previously reported in a healthy person, Davidson said.
The monks who had spent the most years meditating had the highest levels of gamma waves, he added. This "dose response" -- where higher levels of a drug or activity have greater effect than lower levels -- is what researchers look for to assess cause and effect.
In previous studies, mental activities such as focus, memory, learning and consciousness were associated with the kind of enhanced neural coordination found in the monks. The intense gamma waves found in the monks have also been associated with knitting together disparate brain circuits, and so are connected to higher mental activity and heightened awareness, as well.
Davidson's research is consistent with his earlier work that pinpointed the left prefrontal cortex as a brain region associated with happiness and positive thoughts and emotions. Using functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) on the meditating monks, Davidson found that their brain activity -- as measured by the EEG -- was especially high in this area.
Davidson concludes from the research that meditation not only changes the workings of the brain in the short term, but also quite possibly produces permanent changes. That finding, he said, is based on the fact that the monks had considerably more gamma wave activity than the control group even before they started meditating. A researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Jon Kabat-Zinn, came to a similar conclusion several years ago.
Researchers at Harvard and Princeton universities are now testing some of the same monks on different aspects of their meditation practice: their ability to visualize images and control their thinking. Davidson is also planning further research.
"What we found is that the trained mind, or brain, is physically different from the untrained one," he said. In time, "we'll be able to better understand the potential importance of this kind of mental training and increase the likelihood that it will be taken seriously."

Self-Esteem: A Guided Relaxation Session

Thursday, February 3, 2011

You CAN make a difference

Please take a moment to watch this funny and inspiring video with Seth Godin.

Seth Godin on the tribes we lead | Video on TED.com

Katy Perry - Firework

This is in support of Santosha and the Still Point Healers who are gathering this weekend.
I am really looking forward to sharing depth and connection with you.
Bless you,
~Avantika

Tara Brach - Audio Dharma (Teaching Talks)

Tara Brach, Ph. D.is a psychologist and internationally renowned expert on Buddhist meditation. She is also the founder and senior teacher of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, a spiritual community that teaches and practices Vipassana meditation. She has worked with Jack Kornfield and other prominent Vipassana Meditation experts.[1] Dr. Brach also teaches Buddhist meditation at many centers in the United States and Canada including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Massachusetts. A clinical psychologist, she has taught extensively on the application of Buddhist teachings to emotional healing.[2] In 2003, Dr. Brach authored the seminal work, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha,which encapsulated Dr. Brach's application of Buddhist teachings such as mindfulness to the psychological process of accepting and healing trauma.[3] Dr. Brach is a peace activist, and an engaged Buddhist. As such, she co-founded the Washington DC Buddhist Peace Fellowship.
The following is a link to her website which has a wide variety of free audio files: Tara Brach - Audio Archives

Works Sited:

  1. ^ Kornfield, J. (2003). Publisher's Weekly review of Radical Acceptance: Embracing your life with the heart of a Buddha [Publisher's Weekly Editorial Review]. Retrieved April 17, 2009, fromhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553801678/ ref=dp_proddesc_1?ie=UTF8&n=283155
  2. ^ Adelman, K. (2005, May 1). What i've learned: Tara Brach. Washingtonian Magazine.
  3. ^ Brach, T. (2003). Radical acceptance: Embracing your life with the heart of a buddha. NY: Bantam

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Guided Meditation for Day 3 of the Challenge

Hello Everyone,
I am launching the third meditation a little early. After much effort, I am able to upload guided meditations specifically for you. I am basing each guided meditation on your comments and questions from phone conversations, Facebook comments and comments from this official site page.
If you are benefiting from this service, I encourage you to consider donating to cover the expenses of running such a comprehensive site. I thank you for your generosity.
Have a beautiful meditation.
Namaste,
The Meditating Yogini
Avantika


Muppet Show - James Coburn and Animal in Meditation

Hello Everyone,
Ashera, Amy W. reminded me of this clip from the Muppet Show. As a mother of a 2 year old, I am constantly confronted with the importance of not taking myself too seriously. As a wise woman once told me, "If it is not pleasurable, it's not sustainable."
In the spirit of joy,
~Avantika


Free Online Meditation Timer Link

Thank you Logan. This is a wonderful tool. This will make keeping track of my time so much easier!

Circling the Wagons - Surrounding With Protective Light

Thank you to Sumetra for sharing this...


Sometimes we need to circle the wagons in our own life which means asking for help and support.


There are times when we may know of someone who is in great need and wants help, but we may feel at a loss about how best to help them. It is at such times that we can ask for help in surrounding them with support and protection, just like the pioneers once circled their wagons in the middle of unknown territory. Whether this means turning to an already established community such as a service organization or gathering support from diverse sources, a group of people can be brought together to help an individual or an entire community. It doesn’t always take money to help someone either--cooking, cleaning, driving, fund raising, or offering emotional support are all valuable and have the added benefit of the closeness of the human touch. In any case, the universe sends angels in the form of willing friends or strangers to gather their individual lights to surround those in need with the warmth of compassion.

Some people may have difficulty accepting or even recognizing aid when it appears in unexpected guises from unlikely sources. All we can do is to follow our inner guidance, give when we are moved to do so and shine our light to the best of our ability. As we join our energy with those in the circle, we become part of something that is larger and more powerful than the individuals within it.

When we act as part of a community of service like this, we are reminded that we are not only assisting an individual or select group in the moment, but we are serving the greater good. We are creating a better world, and can rest assured that help will be there for us as well. As we offer our own light to the collective glow to help someone through a time of darkness, all of our lights become brighter. We can live every day from this place of light, knowing the freedom from fear and worry that allows us to receive and share the protective and supportive light of life. 

Guided Meditation Day 2

Hello and welcome everyone to day 2 of the meditation challenge. We are working on bringing you full 20 minute guided meditations and these will be available to you very soon. In the meantime, we invite you to watch/listen to the following meditation as a support to your commitment to practice.
Also, keep the comments coming. Let us know how we can best support your journey.
Wishing you happiness and peace.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Preparation and Posture

Preparation

Find a room in your home where you will be undisturbed. If this is not possible, a corner in a room could become your place of regular meditation. Prepare the room if you can with a lighted candle, some fresh flowers, and some lighted incense, or aromatherapy oils to purify the space. Make sure the room is warm, and that the lighting is soft. When you first begin to meditate choose a place that is not too noisy. A blanket over your legs can be comforting. Placing a shawl, or blanket around your shoulders can also be a part of your attire for your meditations. Wear loose, comfortable clothing making sure there is no tightness at your waist, hips, or chest. Switch off your mobile, and take the phone off the hook. Turn off any other appliances that may interfere with your meditation. This is time out for you, your time away from all other responsibilities. Affirm that you deserve this time out.

Posture

You can sit in a chair with your feet flat on the floor, and your hands resting in your lap, or on your thighs. It is preferable to sit for meditation without leaning onto the back of the chair.

You may choose to sit on a cushion on the floor. You can do this by sitting cross-legged. Choose a cushion that elevates your buttocks. Rest your hands in your lap. Traditionally the palms of the hands can be upturned on your thighs with the thumbs and index fingers lightly touching.

Some of the meditations you can do lying down. However, in the early stages there is a tendency to fall asleep, and so lying down is not generally recommended. As you continue your practice lying down to meditate can also be a challenge to stay awake.

However you decide to sit, keep your back straight throughout the practice.

To help centre yourself, gently sway from side to side, and then gently move from your hips, forwards and then backwards. You will sense where the centre of gravity is in your body to keep you aligned.

For more information visit: The Fragrant Heart

The Quote of the Day - Thich Nhat Hanh

Can you share with us how mindfulness plays a role in your everyday life?
"Mindfulness makes life beautiful and meaningful. When I am mindful of my in-and-out breath and relax my whole body, I am in touch with how good it is to be alive. I am in touch with my state of health and feel grateful for everything that is going well in my body. Then with mindfulness I can be aware of the beauty of the sky, the smile of the flower, the singing of the birds. I can be deeply in touch with my own suffering and hold it with love and tenderness, rather than suppressing it or running from it. Because I can be truly present for myself, I can be truly present for those I live with, listening deeply to them and speaking words that inspire hope and self-confidence. In this way, I can bring joy to someone each morning and relieve the pain of someone each afternoon."

The Buddha, A Film by David Grubin

The following is a link to the PBS film, The Buddha by David Grubin. This film is masterly produced and feature some of today's leading teachers and scholars of Buddhism including: His Holiness The Dali Lama, Bob Tinzen, Jane Hirshfield, Mark Epstein, and The Venerable Metteyya Sakyaputta, among others. This film is also available on DVD and on Itunes. 
Please Enjoy.
The Buddha, A Film by David Grubin

The Noble Truths Explained

The Noble Truths of Buddhism
Interpretation by Barbara Engler

The First Noble Truth
Universal dissatisfactions characterize human existence. This is the problem of suffering. Our perceptions of pain are due to not getting what we want, being exposed to what we don’t want and not being able to keep forever what we love and not being able to eliminate what we hate.

The Second Noble Truth
Begins the application of dependant origination to the problem and on identifying the causal conditions on which suffering depends.  Suffering and dissatisfactions, the disease, if you will of human existence, cannot be by themselves. They arise from our craving, our thirsting, and desiring for things to be other than they are.
Comes in Two Flavors:
Attachment - This includes greed and possessive love.
Aversions-Which includes anger, resentment and hate.

The Third Noble Truth
Derives a solution through the application of the same principle. Because human suffering arises out of craving, to bring our disease to and end, we must cease the self defeating liking and disliking that causes it.  Although we cannot get rid of physical pain, emotional pain and aging, we can eliminate the anxiety we cause ourselves with our cognitive processing. To eliminate suffering we must get rid of craving, in doing so we can achieve freedom from unnecessary psychological pain.

The Fourth Noble Truth also known as the Eightfold Path
  • Right Understanding - Understanding the interconnectedness and the impermanence of everything.
  • Right Thinking – Cultivating thoughts of selfless detachment, compassion, and non-harming and then extending these to all sentient beings.
  • Right Speech – Abstaining from lying, slander, gossip, and injurious speech and speaking that which is positive and constructive, otherwise maintaining a “noble silence”.
  • Right Action – Acting in ways that will benefit and not cause suffering to others or oneself. 
  • Right Livelihood – Avoiding ways of making a living that are based in the exploitation and the suffering of animals or people.
  • Right Effort – Cutting off unwholesome thoughts before they can be transformed into actions and nurturing wholesome ones instead.
  • Right Mindfulness – Maintaining full awareness of our actions and experiences in the present moment and their likely consequences.
  • Right Concentration – The disciplining, concentration, and one-pointedness of the mind resulting in the practice of meditation.
The first two components of the Eightfold Path are related to wisdom, the following three to moral conduct, and the last three to mental discipline. (Engler, 2009)

Guided Meditation for Day 1 of the Challenge (Reloaded)


WELCOME TO DAY 1 OF THE CHALLENGE
Hello Fellow Practitioners. Today begins our first official day of the challenge. I will be uploading guided meditations to help support your practice. Please use the comment section to post insights, challenges and reflections. Continue to check-in with the blog to see what others in the community have posted.
Today's video is about 15 minutes in length. Unhook the phone, set aside the day so that you can be in full relationship with your breath. Be sure to sit in a relaxed, open and comfortable position. Once the guided meditation is complete, spend another five minutes (or more) to complete today's practice. Good luck!