What is Mindfulness Meditation?

A lot of confusion exists about what meditation and mindfulness really are, is there a difference between them, and what’s their purpose and benefits. So let me take a few minutes of your time and bring some clarity.

Meditation is an ancient path that consists of wisdom, techniques and practice, and allows you to manifest the life that you choose. It also empowers you to create a life full of happiness, inner freedom, fulfilment and purpose.

Meditation is thousands of years old, predates the world’s major religions, is scientific and systematic, and has been used by people and cultures across the ages. Unfortunately, as religions become embedded in local populations, this ancient path of living your highest life came to develop a strong religious flavour. The non-religious masters retreated into the background and the religious teachers took centre stage.

Many great individuals used this wisdom, including the young prince Siddhartha Gautama, who later went on to be known as the Buddha, the Awakened one. In his years of teaching, he selected and used a few techniques from this vast science, which continued even after his passing under the label of ‘Buddhist Meditation’. These include vipasana, ana-pana-sati, and more, all of which existed before Buddha, but now came to be packaged differently.

Buddhism spread across the world and eventually found root in the fertile soil of young American minds. A minute number of Americans were eager to try it, but the large population stayed away from participating, because of the strong religious packaging these techniques were presented in.

In 1979, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn secularized one particular type of Buddhist meditation and renamed it mindfulness. Over the next 30 years, that simple act successfully spread a small part of meditation to thousands of individuals from all fields of life, and into hundreds of hospitals and other medical facilities worldwide.

To summarize, meditation is the whole book on how to live your intended life, with many chapters, and mindfulness is one of the chapters in the book of meditation.

A little more on Mindfulness –

In essence, mindfulness is about paying total attention and awareness to something, without judgement. These can include our experience of the present moment, our own bodies, our thoughts and emotions, our unseen assumptions and our conditioned habits of mind and behaviour.

With the hectic lives we lead today, when was the last time you were able to slow down and breathe, much less pay attention to the present moment? I bet it’s been awhile. In fact, on most days you’re probably feeling so overwhelmed, worried and stressed that you’re happy just to make it through another day.

In the past 35 years, meditation in various forms (including mindfulness) has found its way into the mainstream of medicine, health care, and psychology, where it has been broadly applied and continues to be studied through clinical research and neuroscience.

In fact, in recent years, meditation and mindfulness have also begun to move into business environments, sports performance, the armed forces and even astronauts.

Mindfulness is being conscious of what you’re feeling, more intentional about your behaviors, and more attentive to the impact you have on others. Start using mindfulness meditation and you will see benefits such as improved focus, greater control over stress, balanced emotions, stronger immune system, a clear mind and many more…

But don’t just take my word for it. There’s plenty of scientific research that backs up what I am saying, and I am happy to show you how to make the benefits real in your life too!

SoulCentre is Asia’s Premier Personal Development Centre for meditation, mindfulness and stress management.

Attend our popular ‘Meditation Made Simple’ program and understand how meditation and mindfulness can benefit your life tremendously.

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Meditation Class - The importance of a teacher

With the introduction of Google, we spend many hours researching and reading "stuff" on the web. We soon become an expert on any and every topic by reading second hand information in huge amounts.

So can we learn mediation on the web, and do we really need a teacher?

The simple answer is "Yes" you can learn meditation (to a certain extent) on the web and "Yes" you do need a teacher if you are serious about Meditation.

So why do I say you need a teacher?

First, the mind is a tricky little devil, and over 60,000 thoughts are whizzing through in any one-day. So you sit to meditate and some of the first thoughts that come in are;

• “ Am I doing this right?”

• “ What should I be thinking?”

• “ How do I stop thinking and have no thoughts “

This is natural and most of us start out like this on our journey with meditation. Having a teacher with you allows you the confidence and freedom to ask these questions and to be guided on correct answers.

Having no thoughts is one of the many myths of meditation; it's a little bit like expecting the heart to stop beating once you tell it to.

So a teacher also dispels these myths.

Having sat through 12 years of meditation classes I have heard so many myths ...

•  You have to sit cross legged to meditate

•  You have to shower before you meditate

•  You have to place your palms on your knees and make a lotus shape with your fingers to meditate

•  You have to meditate for over an hour to benefit

•  Meditation is religious

•  You cannot meditate during your menstrual period

These myths, and many more, are easily dispelled by a teacher and thus put the mind at peace.

A teacher will explain clearly what meditation is and what it is not.

A teacher will also listen to what you are saying and be able to guide you as an individual to experience the technique that is best for you.

After all there are thousands of techniques in meditation and it’s not a "cookie cutter" experience where everyone is precisely the same.

A teacher will also see your habits and challenge you a little to see them for yourself. After all meditation is all about getting to know yourself and to see how your own thinking and actions bring results in your life.

So sign up for a class today!

SoulCentre is Asia’s Premier Centre for Meditation

Our next program is on 16/17/23/24 August

We have 10 am and 7 pm classes

How to stay calm in the storm...

8 powerful strategies to swim while others are sinking

The storm is all around us. Stock-markets plunge, economies around the world go into a tail-spin, and thousands lose their jobs and their livelihood. Relationships break up under the stress, divorce rates shoot up and millions across the world slide into debt for years to come. News of doom and gloom is the flavour of the day, every day. Everywhere you look, un-certainty and in-stability reigns.

How do we handle this storm that has come upon us? How do we stay centred even as the world shakes? How do we swim while others are sinking?

Here are 8 focused qualities that are powerful solutions to a time of crisis, guaranteed to keep you calm in the storm of life.

1. Have a willingness to make and follow hard choices  Crisis forces you to take a realistic look at the bigger picture of your life and make some hard choices to move forward. Be willing to do this rather than resist it. Make difficult choices if you need to and demonstrate a whatever-it-takes attitude. Remember, it takes less energy to get an unpleasant task done “right now” than to worry about it all day.
2. Have a personal vision  Having a personal goal of getting out of the crisis, as it will become the light that guides you forward. A goal will motivate you and make it easier to take corrective measures while having no goal will just make you drift and lose direction through the crisis. Goals give you power. Choose not to waste your precious present life on guilt about the past or concern for the future.
3. Set a clear strategy  To reach the goal, plan a clear strategy, and communicate it to others who are a part of it. Plan your journey forward and walk the plan. It is a truth that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Simplify your life!  Start eliminating the trivial things.  Also  don't major in minor things. Eliminate unnecessary commitments.
4. Be persistent  Probably the key quality to coming out of crisis is persistence  a determined mind that just never gives up. Once your mind is set, stick to your target with Crab-like persistence, changing only if a better way shows itself. Practice consciously doing one thing at a time, keeping your mind focused on the present.
5. Capitalize on opportunity  There is good even in the worst of times. Identify this by looking deeply at how you can benefit in the long term from the current crisis. Be quick to spot opportunity and to seize it to your advantage. Warren Buffet, the world's best performing investor, is famously known for making his greatest and largest purchases at a time of crisis when everyone else is selling. Welcome change as an opportunity and challenge to learn and grow
6. Be patient  Be willing to wait for the reward of your efforts. Believe that the strong man is a patient man. A crisis has little flexibility for the impatient or the irritable. Take time to be alone on a regular basis, to listen to your heart, check your intentions; re-evaluate your goals and your activities. If your schedule is busy, prioritise your activities and do the most important ones first.
7. Follow your vision with constant and constructive action  Take positive and persistent action on a regular basis. Even if the results are not fast to come, trudge on ahead towards your goal. Take baby steps if you have to, but whatever you do, make sure you are moving ahead all the time. The direction you are going in is important, not the speed. Plan to do something each day that takes you one step forward.
8. Stay optimistic  The night is darkest before the dawn breaks. Behind every dark cloud is a silver lining. The sun shines even when the clouds cover it. The dark night leads to sunrise and the day will end in darkness. Be aware of the larger movements and rhythms of life and stay optimistic even as you go through this time of chaos and crisis. You are bigger than it, and this is not the end of your life; it is just a comma in the sentence of your life, not the full stop. Having a positive mind-set is the greatest asset you can have in a time of inner or outer crisis.
   

"Meditation is the stabilizer of life"

Living in a world of duality, we are sure to experience the good and the bad, the pleasant and the unpleasant.

To enjoy happiness we must be able to handle the storms of life in a positive manner.

Meditation gives you anchors that allow you to be strong inside even as the world around you changes. It empowers you to be calm in the storm of life.

Meditation provides the wisdom and tools to stabilise your life, no matter what happens.

Meditate. Stabilize.

 - Vikas