Mindfulness For Just About Everything (Part 2)

Here is the second part of Paramabandhu’s excellent exploration of the lessons Buddhist techniques around meditation and mindfulness training can bring to the field of mental health – especially to problems with depression and addiction. Drawing on many years of experience as a consultant psychiatrist and Dharma teacher, here he takes questions on his previous talk and elaborates on the general theme. There’s a wide range of material opened up – and considerable detail about how we can actually go about applying these techniques to whatever challenges we face in your own lives. Essential listening.

Please note – the questions in this recording were made at very low levels. We’ve amplified and clarified where possible – but the general sound quality drops noticeably at these points. However, they are all now audible and, in almost all instances, questions are repeated by Paramabandhu before he answers.

Talk given at San Francisco Buddhist Center, 2006

Contents

01 Question-and-answer session – two books to reference on mindfulness; working with depression – discrepancy monitor and rumination

02 Knowing what you can and cannot change – considered action

03 Difficulty doing mindfulness work when actively depressed; noticing subtle shades of pleasant and unpleasant

04 Can mindfulness initiate depression? Stepping out of patterns of thinking; difference between rumination and ‘staying with’; body awareness

05 Over-active mind; 12 step program – something to actually do; expectations and suffering; having your experience – the truth as sometimes uncomfortable

06 Letting go of what you don’t have; relationship break-up; staying with unpleasant experience and not compounding it – the Buddha in the ‘Dart Sutta’

07 Not identifying with one feeling; sexual addiction; recovery from addiction and mindfulness practice

08 Rumination in the body; working with internal sensations; using metaphors to work with your mind

09 Psoriasis and mindfulness

10 What is meditation? A brief introduction and exercise – the ‘Three Minute Breathing Space’

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