Session 6: Mindfulness & Communication

Walking Meditation

Thich Nhat Hanh’s walking meditation is the specific type of walking meditation recommended and taught by Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. It uses the practice and movement of walking as an anchor to the present moment, and helps the practitioner to deepen their connection with the earth. The key instructions of this particular walking meditation are to:

• Move slowly, calmly and comfortably

• Bring awareness every moment to each step

• Silently repeat one of the affirmations with every step

• Cultivate gratitude and love for the earth through your feet as you walk

• Walk with a half smile

There are many different affirmations which can be used, for example:

• Inhale, “I calm my body,” exhale, “I bring peace to my body.”

• Inhale, “I have arrived,” exhale, “I am home.”

• Inhale, “In the ultimate,” exhale, “I dwell.”

Thich Naht Hanh’s walking meditation is said to help the practitioner to feel more grounded in their body, as it reminds them that the earth can be an anchor even when they feel unsettled. It also helps to reunite the mind and body, as the use of the breath and the affirmation focus the mind in the present moment where the body dwells. Walking and breathing help the practitioner to connect more easily to their body. By walking with love and gratitude, the practitioner feels more respectful and valuing of Earth, and as such is more likely to feel nourished by the experience.

Approach and Avoid

Approach and avoid are arguably two of the most fundamental tendencies of even the simplest organisms. Either you move toward something that’s good for you, like nutrition, or you move away from something that’s bad for you, like a toxin or a predator. These fundamental behaviors also correspond to good feelings and bad feelings, so by our nature, we seek out good feelings and avoid bad feelings. Mindfulness and meditative practices can be one method of disempowering those biological levers so we no longer automatically react to this fundamental incentive structure of trying to avoid painful feelings and seeking the thing that’s gratifying. Mindfulness meditation can teach us to observe and choose the feelings we want to follow or not follow, which not only brings us closer to our authentic self (and therein a bit more contented), while also helping us treat others more compassionately and, sometimes, see the world more clearly for a moment.

Sometimes this 'clarity' may come from getting a closer look at your process on a day-to-day level by being mindful of your own inner dialogue and beliefs and how they affect what you wind up doing in certain situations. Unless we are practicing mindfulness, we rarely observe our inner dialogue with any detachment or ponder its validity, especially when it concerns our thought and beliefs about ourselves. For instances, if you have the habit of saying to yourself "I could never do that" when you encounter some kind of problem or dilemma, such as learning to use a tool or fixing a mechanical device or speaking up fo yourself in front of a group of people or in any other situation, one thing is pretty certain - your won't be able to do it. At that moment your thought fulfills or makes real its own content. Saying "I can't" or "I could never.." is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Our beliefs and attitudes, our thoughts and emotions, can actually have a significant influence on our health - mental and physical. When we're on automatic pilot, they are what influences who and what we approach and avoid, how we talk to ourselves, and how we interact with others. So we practice bringing intentional awareness to our beliefs and attitudes, our thoughts and emotions, and we become aware of a relationship we have with our own internal experiences. Maybe it is the tone in which we talk to ourselves when suffering, or a body tension, or how we hear ourselves talking to our children. To bring non-judgmental awareness to these experiences (as best as possible), moment after moment, offers opportunity for compassionate communication with ourselves and others. 

The Sunshine Behinds the Clouds

When it is raining, we think that there is no sunshine. but if we fly high in an airplane and go through the clouds, we re-discover the sunshine again. We see that the sunshine is always there. In a time of anger, negativity or despair, our love is still there also. Our capacity to communicate, to forgive, to be compassionate is still there. You have to believe this. We are more than our emotions, our dark thoughts, we are more than our suffering. Recognize that we do have within us the capacity to love, to understand, to be comppasionate. If you know this, then when it rains you won't be desperate. You know that the rain is there, but the sunshine is still there somewhere. Soon the rain will stop, and the sun will shine again. Hope. If you can remind yourself that the positive elements are still present within you and the other person, you will know that it is possible to break through, so that the best things in both of you can come up and manifest again. 

The practice is there for that. The practice will help you touch the sunshine, the goodness within you so that you can transform the situation. You can call this goodness anything you wan to, whatever is familiar to you from your own spiritual tradition.  -Anger, Thich Nhat Hanh

Loving Kindness

Loving kindness meditations, unlike other meditations, so have have an objective in mind: to cultivate and send out compassion to the world and all living beings in it, including ourselves. This meditation is a powerful tool to help you experience forgiveness and compassion for yourself, those you know, and even those you don't. By actively visualizing yourself extending love to people during your meditation, a sense of peace and calmness finds a way to settle in.