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Showing posts from September, 2014

How Does Mindfulness Reduce Depression? An Interview with John Teasdale

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How does being aware of what you’re doing while you’re doing it help with depression? There are a number of ways in which being mindfully aware of what you’re doing while you’re doing it can help with depression. Depression is often kept going, from one moment to the next, by streams of negative thoughts going through the mind (such as “My life is a mess,” “What’s wrong with me?” “I don’t think I can go on”). Redirecting attention away from these ruminative thought streams by becoming really aware of what we’re doing while we’re doing it can “starve” the thought streams of the attention they need to keep going. That way, we “pull the plug” on what is keeping us depressed, and our mood can begin to improve. Read the rest here:  http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/01/19/how-does-mindfulness-reduce-depression-an-interview-with-john-teasdale-ph-d/  John D. Teasdale Ph.D. was a leading researcher at Oxford University , and then in the Cognition and Brain Sciences Uni

Meditatation is the way

I had the greatest opportunity to learn Meditation (the proper word is Bhavana, Ill explain why), from three great teachers: Professor Sumana Ratnayaka ( www.pdn.ac.lk/arts/pali/sumana_rath.html ), Mr. Gamini Priyantha, and Mr. Vipula Wanigasekara. Mr. Gamini Priyantha and Mr. Vipula Wanigasekara (www.vipulawanigasekera.com) had two short but important discourses on meditation while Mr. Sumana Ratnayaka was with us for the  whole day observing Sil, in occasion with the Binara Poya that falls today (8th September). One person had a question for Mr. Sumana Ratnayaka: How do we benefit from Meditation in out day today life?. The answer was brilliant. Mr. Ratnayaka explained that it is impossible to separate Bhavana from the day today life. Western notion of Meditation, does not cover the meaning of Bhavana. Bhavana is to be practiced not just when we are sitting on our meditation cushion, but to practice with our day-today actions, speech and thinking. In other words, there is no pat