Mindfulness and Christian Devotional Meditation Mindfulness, derived from Buddhist, is a meditation aimed at creating more self-awareness with acceptance and self-compassion as the primary focus. Fernando Garzon, PsyD, contributed an article to Society for Christian Psychology on the differences between this popular practice in Psychology as well as Christian Devotional Meditation. Although both appear beneficial in treating patients and helping them overcome negative emotions, Christian Devotional Meditation looks at God and Scripture as well as self-experience. Although many Christian Psychologists are trained in mindfulness meditation for behavioral training, stress reduction, or acceptance and commitment therapy with observable results, …show more content…
The focus shifts from primarily being on the self, to being on God, Scripture and the self. This practice is also known as contemplative prayer and has been around for over 2000 years with a variety of definitions and strategies all focusing on God and the Scripture as well as the self to examine experiences. In practicing Christian Devotional Meditation instead of Mindfulness, the client can gain a deeper relationship with the Lord and others and “cultivate spiritual growth or emotional healing”. Christian Devotional Meditation takes mindfulness a step further in incorporating faith with the practices of a secular …show more content…
In using Meditation, he would focus on self-awareness, discover his cause of depression and learn to accept himself. By using Christian Devotional Meditation, the first truth he discovered is God loved him. This process “encouraged him to see if he could just acknowledge [his] feelings, trust God…surrender his anger at himself and others to God... and trust God’s grace” for his healing. Like mindfulness, Christian Devotional Meditation is against suppressing reactions and feelings, but the client is encouraged to work through these negative feelings with God in mind and his love and grace for us. Although he had to face painful memories, valuable insights and growth were learned from it and he was reminded that God is in control. This practice produced results of his relationship with God, his family and himself changed and his depression
... By having them journal their prayers to God daily and encouraging them to read these entries frequently to refresh the memories of those prayers and seek for those that are answered allows for each client to find their way to a spiritual understanding that is not necessarily demonstrated by my impact, but that of God Himself. I am available to answer questions that pertain to the bible, but allow clients to interpret the teaching to their lives and recovery. These approaches allow clients to not rely on my experiences, but on their own encounters and knowledge. Gently guiding them to hear and see how God works in a client’s life is a rewarding and satisfying experience.
I hope that this author writes more about his successes and failures with this method. I would like to know the statistics associated with this method. Just for my own edification, I would like to find out how often his patients experience God’s presence in these sessions and when they experience God if it is always a peaceful experience. I believe God to be a loving God but I am also aware that there are certain things that anger him and I would be curious to find out whether that aspect ever presents its self. I am very interested in this method and would like to research it to a greater extend. I am also thinking about trying it myself but would like to research it more before I do.
The origin of mindfulness is rooted in Buddhist philosophy and practice tradition which is more than two and half thousand years old. Mindfulness can be practisced by anyone of any faith and religion and involves training the mind and doesn’t enforce any religious belief system.
There are many forms of mindfulness interventions, some of which include mindfulness based stress reduction, mindfulness based cognitive therapy, dialectic behavior therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy. Some mindfulness interventions incorporate mindfulness meditation practices and skills and others incorporate psychological and behavioral versions of mindfulness skills. Mindfulness based interventions entail mindfulness meditation practices and skills gathered from Buddhist philosophical origins, and transformed into a secular context to encompass a more universal perspective and application. Through mindfulness group and in-home practices, individuals develop mindfulness skills and attitudes, which include focusing, maintaining attention through focusing on ones breath, accepting one’s current circumstance and experience, which also includes awareness of physical sensations, all by taking a non-judgmental stance. Furthermore, the three primary components of mindfulness are attitude, attention, and intention. Attitudinal components include non-judgment, acceptance, trust, patience, curiosity, and kindness; Attentional components include maintaining focus and the ability to switch focuses; Intentional components include having an intention to practice and to intentionally self-regulate ones attention. Incorporating these concepts into ones life helps the individual be able to shift their habitual patterns through observation and recognition, and embark on a path of reflective response rather than maladaptive reactive behavior (Burke,
Meditation is an age-old practice that has renewed itself in many different cultures and times. Despite its age, however, there remains a mystery and some ambiguity as to what it is, or even how one performs it. The practice and tradition of meditation dates back thousands of years having appeared in many eastern traditions. Meditation’s ancient roots cloud its origins from being attributed to a sole inventor or religion, though Bon, Hindu, Shinto, Dao, and later, Buddhism are responsible for its development. Its practice has permeated almost all major world religions, but under different names. It has become a practice without borders, influencing millions with its tranquil and healing effects.
Meditation is a private devotion or mental exercise consisting of a number of techniques of concentration, contemplation, and abstraction to heighten spiritual awareness. It has also been defined as, “Consciously directing your attention to alter your state of consciousness.” Meditation has been practiced around the world since the ancient times. It was used back then and still used today for spiritual growth (becoming more conscious). Meditation is mostly concerned about your attention, where it is directed to, and how it alters or changes a person’s consciousness.
Last Spring, as part of a senior project, I took Tai Chi classes and researched how meditation is used in mind/body medicine. I read several books by doctors who use meditation as a form of healing, in stress-reduction clinics and as treatment for people suffering from severe pain and panic disorders. One doctor in particular, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn teaches a method he calls mindfulness, in which he has his patients meditate in order to achieve total mind/body awareness. Zinn instructs patients to focus on their pain and to become aware of it. This often helps them realize that they can live with their pain. No pain is too extreme, he says, in the same way that no emotion is a wrong emotion. Awareness is the only absolute, and the only thing that allows people to live in the moment. Not live for the moment, but live in the moment.
The purpose is to investigate the following; “Meditation in Christianity and Buddhism are different pathways leading to the same destination.” Buddhism is a philosophy than a religion was originated about 2,500 years ago in India and about 376 million followers worldwide. Prince Siddhartha Gotama (Buddha) worshipped for years to enlighten himself and found a “middle way” between his two lives, meaning finding moderation and balancing life’s extremes. Whereas, Christianity has about 2.4 billion followers worldwide and based on his teachings of Jesus, who lived about 2000 years prior. In Christian meditation, metaphysics and transcendentalism are used as philosophies because individuals think during their prayer to reflect on unseen things in a spiritual way, including Holy spirit and are observed to connect with God intellectually and spiritually. Nevertheless, Buddhist meditation is to focus on relaxing the brain by forgetting about the meaningless things.
As one can see, meditation is a sacred act that can have endless benefits. As well as being a physical act, activities such as transcendental meditation can also be fulfilling spiritually and mentally. Through deep concentration and relaxation, meditation becomes an altered state of consciousness. This essay has shown many ways as to why this is so. Through the simple acts of letting one’s mind go, there are endless possibilities that can happen. Without meditation and altered states of consciousness, the world as we know it would be completely different.
Throughout history, it seems that medicine and spirituality have been linked in many circumstances. In a study looking at the use of complementary and alternative therapies in cardiac patients, spiritual healing was one of many practices patient sought to utilize. In another study, 29% of participants chose to use prayer or premeditation as a way to cope with their chronic illness. In both studies, prayer or meditation was more likely to be used by individuals who had a large social network, as well as support from another person in the same health situation. Based on these studies, it seems that many individuals (not just cardiovascular patients) turn to their spirituality in times of health distress.
Over twenty-five hundred years ago, Buddha Guatama practiced meditation and came to what is known as “The Four Noble Truth,” an important principle in Buddhism (Elder, 2010). This principle informs the reader of what suffering is and how affect is. This is a great example of how valuable meditation is- on the very first session ever recorded, the awareness that came from it would later be the foundation of a new religion. This proves how powerful meditation can be. Furthermore, some form of meditation can be found in various religions. Although the styles, techniques, and ideology behind the meditation can vary per religion, personal transformation is the key goal (Modi, Singh, 2012). Today, in Western society, mindful meditation (a form of meditation) has grown in popularity, used for relaxation and to help treat those who suffer from mental illness’ and mood disorders. Viewed as alternative medicine for the mind and soul, it is beneficial for our emotional and mental
Buddhist religion in general is mostly about overcoming the desire of the body. Just like Buddha left his home and abandoned all that he had to experience the real life and lived like everyone else, Buddhists accomplish this in the form of meditation. Meditation in Zen Buddhism reflects the belief that focusing on inner self is one way to calm your mind down and shut out the world and all the other distractions. There are a lot of people who use meditation, such as practicing yoga, and this would include Christians and other people as well. In visiting this meditation center I saw that the Buddhists practice meditation because both meditation and listening are an important part of their beliefs.
People with GAD dwell on their worries excessively, give to much attention to their fearful thoughts, and respond emotionally to negative images. Meditation can help the person to step back from these thoughts, emotions and images and view them as an observer watching from the outside this helps to reduce the stress response and put negative thinking into perspective. Meditation helps control of physical tension by inducing the relaxation response (Wilson, 2009).
By utilizing a set of research methods, that inducts different types of mindfulness meditation training programs, and advanced mindfulness practitioners to matched control, with a capitulation of detection that enhance our understanding of the nature of mindfulness. While providing insights that will help me to target symptoms and populations that are likely to benefit from mindfulness meditation
Oshita, D., Hattori, K., & Iwakuma, M. (2013). A Buddhist-based meditation practice for care and healing: An introduction and its application. International Journal Of Nursing Practice, 15-23. doi:10.1111/ijn.12040