Ian Gawler Blog: Learn to relax, and change your life

We hear so much these days about mindfulness and meditation, yet relaxation is often overlooked or even dismissed. It seems relaxation has become the poor cousin of Mind-Body Medicine.

Having taught meditation for over 30 years now, it is my experience relaxation itself is incredibly useful, and without deep physical relaxation, mindfulness and meditation are far less effective.

So this week, how to deepen physical relaxation before meditating and how to maintain relaxation of body and mind in daily life. Only 4 weeks before the cancer residential Ruth and I will present in Auckland,  Cancer, Healing and Wellbeing - more detail later, but first, with the spirit of Easter still close by,





Thought for the day

Truly I tell you
If you have faith as small as a mustard seed
You can say to this mountain
‘Move from here to there,’ 
And it will move.
Nothing will be impossible for you.
                   
                       Matthew 17: 20, 21      






Why bother with learning to relax?
You may take up meditation to manage stress or to heal physically or mentally, to find more peace and balance in your life, to be more efficient at work or to perform better at sport, or to be a nicer person. All these things will be vastly assisted by beginning by learning to relax.

There is a beautiful synergy between relaxing the body and calming the mind. The more we relax the body, the more that relaxation flows on to calm the mind. The more we calm the mind, the more the mind sends out messages that relax the body. Therefore, when we bring concentration and mindfulness to the process of relaxing the body, this synergy leads to profound relaxation of both the body and the mind.

Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation
Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation (MBSM) is the style of meditation I have been teaching for over 30 years and it is very simple. There are four key steps, preparation, relaxation, mindfulness and stillness.

Preparation is to do with all the practical details of your meditation.


Relaxation comes second, and here we take time to learn how to relax our body and our mind. This


frees us to be in an ideal state to learn and practice mindfulness, and to then advance into the simple silence of meditation itself.


                   Cats are pretty good at relaxing


How to get started – a summary
The Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) is an age old, well tried and tested, super reliable way of letting go of tension and stress, relaxing deeply and experiencing inner peace. Again, my feeling is that this technique may well be overlooked or disregarded by many meditators – to their disadvantage.

To learn the PMR, we learn how to pay attention to four things in each muscle group of the body, starting with the feet, then moving on to the calves, thighs and so on.

These are the 4 things we need to pay attention to
1. Notice how each area of the body feels when we first take our attention to it.

2. Contract the muscles in that area and hold the contraction long enough to notice the feeling that the tightening of the muscles creates.

3. Slowly and smoothly relax the muscles, noticing the feeling of tension releasing and the feeling of relaxation that follows.

4. Give attention to what that area feels like now that we have relaxed it.
We begin by noticing the feeling of relaxation in the muscles of the feet, then we work our way up through calves, thighs, tummy and so on up through the head.

Concentration and the PMR
As we practise the PMR exercise, we do need to concentrate. We concentrate on doing the contracting and relaxing of the muscles, and we particularly concentrate on the feeling as we go through the 4 steps described above.

However, it will work best if our concentration is light rather than too intense. As an analogy, consider a stringed instrument such as a violin or a guitar: if the strings are either too tight or too loose it will sound bad. The strings need just the right amount of tension for them to be in tune and for the instrument to sound its best.

So it is with the mind. If we are too relaxed, too ‘loose’, it will not work so well. Too intense, too serious, too much effort, and again it will not be so useful.

Mindfulness and the Progressive Muscle Relaxation exercise
There are two ways to do an exercise like the PMR. One way is to do it mindfully, the other is mindlessly. Mindfulness is simply concentrating on what we are doing in a way that is focused but free of judgment.

Mindlessness, on the other hand, is when we do not pay attention, when we do not concentrate, and when our mind wanders off and thinks about all sorts of other things.

The wandering mind

Almost everyone will find that, as they do these exercises, the mind will wander, so we need to use the vigilant part of our mind to notice when we do become distracted and, once we recognise this, to bring the mind gently back to the exercise again.

The key here is to avoid beating yourself up in the process. Be reassured that this is the normal experience. Especially for beginners, the mind does tend to wander and become distracted. We need to notice this and bring it back.



Beginning your practice
The text for the Progressive Muscle Relaxation exercise is in all my books. You can either learn the
script so that you can lead yourself through the exercise or you can use a CD or download to guide you through. You do not necessarily need to learn the scripts word-for-word, although you can if you prefer.

The PMR follows a simple pattern of contracting the muscles and relaxing them, starting with the feet and then moving progressively up through each significant muscle group of the body.

The phrases recommended for use between each set of muscles are intended to keep the mind focused and to build a feeling of relaxation all through the body. The fewer phrases you need to use to stay focused and the longer the gaps between the words before you become distracted, the simpler the whole exercise is and the better it works.

Of course, initially it can be helpful to be led by an experienced teacher through exercises like these, and many people find listening to CDs very useful, especially as beginners. But either way, the intention is to learn to do these exercises for yourself, and to repeat them until you master them in the way described.

Making progress
You will probably find within a week or two of beginning this practice that you can do the PMR without having to think about it too much. The next step is to simplify it. To learn to gain the same depth of relaxation more directly. So we learn to do the PMR without contracting the muscles first. Then even more simply. All this is in the books.

Do be warned that as you become more familiar with any exercise there is a tendency to lapse into doing it on automatic, in that way we describe as being mindless. So as you become more familiar and proficient with this and all the other exercises, remember to do them mindfully. The key principle is to pay attention and be interested in what you are doing; interested in that open, curious and non-judgmental way.



Concentration, mindfulness and relaxation


By concentrating on the feeling of relaxation in the body, it is as if we become absorbed in the feeling of relaxation itself. As we feel the body relax, the mind goes with it. The relaxation of the body flows into the mind. Our body is relaxed. Our mind is relaxed. And we simply rest in that feeling of relaxation.




               But then again, some dogs relax OK too!



How to proceed
In my experience this approach based on the PMR works well for many people. In fact, when I first started to teach meditation, this was all I taught. Many people reported developing a deep awareness of relaxation in both the body and the mind, and were satisfied with this as a reliable technique for meditation.

RELATED BLOGS
Slow down and go faster

RESOURCES

BOOK
 : Meditation – an In Depth Guide, Ian Gawler and Paul Bedson:  a useful manual to practice with, to study and refer to. Details : CLICK HERE

CDs and Downloads : A series of meditations to help support and develop your meditation has been prepared by my wife Ruth and myself : Details : CLICK HERE

Mindbody Mastery  - The on-line meditation program and support system I helped develop.
Details : CLICK HERE

NOTICEBOARD

1. Warrnambool:  Sunday May 4th, 2014

The heart and science of
Health, Healing and the Mind

Seeking to use the power of your mind
for health, healing and wellbeing ?

Interested in a deeper experience of meditation ?

What really is best to eat ?

• Dissolve every day stresses; experience mindfulness, relax effortlessly, meditate profoundly
• Discover the practical, life changing implications of neuroplasticity, epigenetics and telomere research
• Clarify your questions; be confident of eating well and living well – and enjoying it!

Ideal for people interested in evidence based health and wellbeing, disease prevention and management, for health professionals and for those seeking profound healing

Date: Sunday May 4th, 2014 : 10am (arrive 9.30) to 4pm
Venue: St Brigid's Community Center, 186 Port Fairy - Koroit Rd, Crossley 3283
Cost: $130, conc $90 Includes morning tea.  Please bring lunch to share.
Enquiries: Integrative Health Services - Rosemary Gleeson : 0447 6177 68
                    or email rosemarygleeson@ymail.com

Bookings: Online CLICK HERE 
                   or via telephone with Visa, Mastercard : call Angela on (03) 5966 6130



2. Cancer, Healing and Wellbeing : Auckland, May 16 - 23
This 8 day cancer recovery program residential program is evidence based and will be highly experiential. We will cover the full range of Integrative Medicine options, with the emphasis on what people can do for themselves – therapeutic nutrition, exercise and meditation, emotional health, positive psychology, pain management, the search for meaning and so on.

I will personally present the majority of the content but along with Ruth, participants will have the additional support and experience of Liz Maluschnig and Stew Burt; two very experienced and committed New Zealanders.
For details on this and the other cancer related residential programs for 2014 CLICK HERE

Meditation’s 3 great gifts

For some reason most probably to do with those delightful but mischievous creatures known as computer gremlins, this blog dropped out of the ethers, so I am re-posting. Apologies for any inconvenience to those who have read it already, I think it one of the better ones for those yet to read it!

Why do so many people meditate these days? What is really on offer? Are you missing out? Or are you experiencing meditation’s 3 major benefits?

This week, we go Out on a Limb, go to the heart of meditation and seek to understand why it is so reliable as a stress-free way to manage stress.

Also, more details on the tour of New Zealand that starts with an evening public talk in Auckland on Thursday 14th November and includes workshops and retreats around the country – details CLICK HERE.

Then breaking news with a very important piece of research examining the effects of taking multi-vitamin/mineral supplements on the lifespan of women with breast cancer, but first

Thought for the day:
In meditation the mind keeps wandering.
We keep bringing it back, and it wanders again.
And we bring it back again, and so it goes on,
Maybe for months and years, until at last the mind becomes stabilised . . .
Thoughts go roving around in the head,
But if we bring them down into the heart, that is, the centre of the person,
They come to rest.
Fr Bede Griffiths. River of Compassion: A Christian Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita.

Being asked to speak at the Happiness and its Causes conferences in Brisbane and Perth this week on the topic of stress and anxiety set me to think deeply about why meditation is such a reliable and all-encompassing antidote to both. This led to understanding meditation's 3 great gifts.

Now to be clear, when I speak of meditation, I speak of learning to relax deeply in a physical sense, and then to go beyond the activity of the thinking mind into a deeper stillness.

In fact, meditation introduces us, or perhaps just makes abundantly clear, that the mind does have these two aspects; there is the active thinking mind and the still mind.

The thinking mind is the domain of stress – how we perceive things, how we interpret things. Clearly a great deal of stress is to do with how we think. To a large extent it is the thinking mind that determines the stress we may or may not experience.

The still mind is beyond all this. The still mind is calm and clear. The still mind is highly creative, highly productive, but it is the domain of deep, natural peace.

How then to help the thinking mind let go of stress, to become clear and calm, to become stress free?

First an analogy. If we were interested in the true nature of the sky but had never seen it before; and went outside on a cloudy grey day, we could form the view that the sky was this grey fluffy stuff that filled the space above us.

However, those of us who do have a little more familiarity with the sky; we know of course that clouds as we call them are only one part of the sky. There is a second part, a second aspect – that big blue canopy we are so familiar with and that is so evident on a cloud-free day.

Those of us that are more familiar with the sky know that clouds come and go, the blue canopy is always there. So even on the cloudiest, stormiest, wildest of days, sooner or later the clouds do clear and there it is. It was always there of course, that clear blue sky, it is just that sometimes the clouds obscure it from our direct sight.

So, the analogy is good. With our minds, thoughts come and go all the time; they are ever-changing and impermanent. Happy thoughts, stressful thoughts. They come and they go. But sooner or later they will clear, and reveal this deeper stillness, the more fundamental enduring, stable aspect of our mind.

So there is the active and the still mind. Meditation provides a reliable way to go beyond the activity of thinking mind and directly experience the stillness of the more fundamental or true nature of our mind. And in doing so, meditation offers 3 major benefits: Profound Peace, Natural Balance, and the View.

Profound Peace speaks for itself. There is a natural ease, an inner clarity and confidence that comes with meditation that provides a profoundly effective antidote to stress.

But more, this profound peace, coupled with deep physical relaxation brings Natural Balance to our whole being. Physically our body chemistry and physiology regains its natural balance. It is like meditation resets our factory settings and recalibrates the physiological changes we know accompany adverse stress, and over time becomes our default setting.

So this is how meditation diffuses stress and anxiety – with a return to a natural, healthy balance. But there is still more! This natural balance flows on to be experienced as emotional balance, mental balance; there is even a deep sense of connectedness and a natural rise of love, compassion and altruism – a spiritual balance.

And perhaps even more profoundly, meditation offers a new perspective. We begin to see the world, and our life, not just from the perspective of the ever-changing “thinking mind”, but also from a more profound vantage point – that of the still mind, the true nature of our mind.

The View is a word that is used to encapsulate how we view the world, how we interpret our life. What meaning and purpose we experience in this life. Our View is tied up with our values, our ethics, our habits, and our beliefs. How we live our life.

Now, our View of course is radically affected by our perspective. For those whose perspective does happen to lead them to think that all they are is just this body, it is easy to imagine how they “over-identify” with their body image and their physical health and in doing so become highly stress-prone.

For those whose perspective or View is such that they conclude life is all about relationships, and in so doing over-identify with their partner or children, or even their community, it is easy to imagine how the ups and downs of life will make them particularly vulnerable to chronic stress.

For those whose View is that life is all about mental reason, and as a consequence over-identify with the rational, logical, scientific aspects of their mind, it is easy to imagine how the mysteries of life, the unexplainable, the new, the challenging makes them significantly prone to stress.

So, one elegant definition of stress is “over-identification with the wrong part of our self”.

Body, emotions and mind are very important, but they are not who we really are. Over-identifying with them will mean we are bound to be stressed, maybe even full on anxious.

When we change our perspective, everything changes. If we have a problem, as we see it, and we fixate on it, it is like holding an egg to our eye – we can see nothing. It is a big problem and it obscures everything. However, if we hold the egg at arms-length, we recognise it for what it is. It is an egg with loads of possibilities, loads of potential.

So meditation introduces us to who we really are, what is in our heart’s essence. And in doing so, meditation offers three great gifts Profound Peace, Natural Balance and the View.

Truly meditation offers a unique pathway to stress free stress-management.

RELATED BLOGS
Meditation in 4 easy steps

NOTICEBOARD
Ruth and I will be presenting a range of public talks, workshops and retreats around New Zealand
in November/December.

We start with an evening Public Talk in Auckland on Thursday November 14th (which will be followed up by a weekend in Auckland on November 30th and December 1st), then there are a range of other events.

We are delighted to be including our first meditation retreat in New Zealand (which quite a few Aussies have also booked for already!) - December 2 -8.

Please do let anyone you may know in NZ about the visit -  all the details are on my new public Facebook page: Dr Ian Gawler,    or the website.

NEWS
An important new study has shown that taking a regular multivitamin and mineral supplement (MVM) significantly reduced mortality for women over 50 with breast cancer.


Given how contentious the supplement issue has been in cancer medicine for years, and how often people tell me that their oncologists have told them MVM will reduce the benefits of treatments and give advice not to take them, this study adds weight to a growing body of research that does support their use.


Here is a short summary of the abstract and the reference for the full article.



This prospective study followed the effects of MVM use on breast cancer mortality in postmenopausal women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. It included 7,728 women aged 50-79 at 40 clinical sites across the United States and followed them for a mean of 7.1 years after breast cancer diagnosis.



In adjusted analyses, breast cancer mortality was 30 % lower in MVM users as compared to non-users (HR = 0.70; 95 % CI 0.55, 0.91). This association was highly robust and persisted after multiple adjustments for potential confounding variables and in propensity score matched analysis (HR = 0.76; 95 % CI 0.60-0.96). 



The results suggest a possible role for daily MVM use in attenuating breast cancer mortality in women with invasive breast cancer but the findings require confirmation.



Wassertheil-Smoller S et al, Breast Cancer Res Treat. Multivitamin and mineral use and breast cancer mortality in older women with invasive breast cancer in the women's health initiative; 2013 Oct; 141(3):495-505. doi: 10.1007/s10549-013-2712-x. Epub 2013 Oct 9.

For the full reference, CLICK HERE

Ian Gawler Blog: How to access your own inner wisdom

What do we call it? Intuition? Instinct? Gut feeling? Insight? Inner wisdom? We all have times where we seem to access some deeper, more profound aspect of our being that speaks to us with wisdom and guides us towards a good decision, a good choice; that leads us through complexity to do the right thing at the right time.

Now imagine being able to connect and communicate with that inner wisdom at will. For this is the domain of Creative Imagery as taught by Dr Nimrod Sheinman, a world authority with this technique. Ruth and I are delighted to be hosting Nimrod back in Australia in October when we will combine to teach these methods in a residential program in the Yarra Valley: Images, Words and Silence.

So this week, lets go Out on a Limb once more and examine the rationale and techniques behind inner wisdom. But first

Thought for the day
The decisive factor is not the problem, 
But the way we think about it. 
Albert Einstein

Modern neuroscience tells us that our mind’s capacity to store information is pretty well fool proof. It seems that everything we ever learnt, everything we ever saw, heard, read or experienced is actually stored in our memory banks. Storeage is not the problem; remembering it – now there is an issue!

Some people it seems do have almost perfect memories. But for most it is partial recall. We probably all have the experience of knowing we know something, having it “on the tip of our tongue”, but struggling to actually remember it.

Then again, we can all probably observe in ourselves how sometimes we seem to act with real insight, with an inner wisdom that leads us to do just the right thing in a situation where a poor choice could have led to a real mess. Then other times we may have been baffled by the poor choices we did make and the chaos that followed. Ah, the benefit of wisdom in hindsight!

So imagine being able to learn, or even teach others a technique that reliably accessed this bank of stored memory and inner wisdom. Actually, it is not so hard when you understand how the mind works and take the time to develop a simple but profound technique.

Quite simply, wisdom does not exist in the rational, thinking mind. That analytical, deductive, calculating aspect of our mind is useful for many things, but of itself, it contains no wisdom; just thoughts and thinking. No, wisdom dwells in the deeper recesses of the unconscious mind. It is in the unconscious where instinct, intuition and insights are to be found.

So if we are to access our inner wisdom, we need to access our unconscious. It is like we need to communicate between two different systems, the conscious, thinking mind, and the unconscious wisdom mind. This is where it gets easy. For what we need is an interface, a common language that both the conscious and unconscious minds can speak.

Welcome to the world of Creative Imagery. For images are something that the conscious mind can create, understand and communicate with; while images are the natural language of the unconscious.

So we can learn to create an image for our inner wisdom in a form with which we can communicate. The image becomes the bridge between these two aspects of our mind. Then we can enter into a dialogue between the conscious mind and the unconscious. We can pose questions, put problems to that deeper inner wisdom and have it speak to us in simple and clear language; a language we can understand, the language of symbols.

I have to say that having first learnt this technique from Nimrod many years ago, I have taught it to many people over the years and seen them gain major insights that made sense of symptoms of physical illness, that gave direction in life, that did solve burning questions and provided major life lessons and insights.

But given this process could work, how would you know the response you received from this inner wisdom, this inner guidance was real and could be taken seriously? Well happily that too is easy. Sometimes when we sit to contemplate and think something through, we know we are having an inner debate and the conclusions are inconclusive. Sometimes we reach a point of inner certainty.

Where Creative Imagery is so powerful, is that it commonly leads to this inner certainty. Put simply again, if one does an exercise like this and doubt remains, then doubt remains. But if as often occurs, there comes an inner knowing, a conviction; then that leads to the confidence to take the guidance received seriously.

So from October 28th, Ruth Nimrod and myself will lead a 5 day residential retreat at the Foundation’s beautiful Yarra Valley centre and teach this technique. The training is designed for those who seek to use these methods personally, as well as for health practitioners who may like to teach them. We will combine this with an overview of how to learn, teach and deepen the experience of stillness meditation, as the meditation supports accessing inner wisdom and has so many benefits in its own right.

This will be a fabulous program and Ruth and I are very pleased to be able to welcome Nimrod back to Australia and work with him again.

For full details, CLICK HERE, while to book, call the Gawler Foundation on 03 59671730.

RELATED BLOGS

The 3 most powerful tools for personal transformation

RESOURCES

BOOKS The Mind that Changes Everything – details on how to use Creative Imagery and many other mind techniques

CD: Mind Training – the double CD that details how the mind works and how we can use it to greater effect.

Ian Gawler Blog: How to increase creativity with meditation

If Jackson Pollock was the archetypal boozing, tortured artist, would he have painted anything worthwhile if he had found inner peace? Or would he have been an even better painter if he had indeed found inner peace.

If Steve Jobs was the super-cool Zen creator, would Apple even have come into existence if he had not meditated?

If, as Spike Milligan said “it is all in the mind”, how does sitting quietly to train your mind through meditation build creativity?

Maybe it is because of the type of mind meditation produces.

A calm and clear mind
Leave a glass of muddy water undisturbed; the mud settles and we are left with clear water. The mind is the same. Left undisturbed, it becomes calm and clear. Then comes the capacity to recognize simplicity amongst complexity. For Jobs, this led to Apple’s elegant, functional design.

The beginner’s mind
As the mind settles and becomes less agitated, there comes a certain freshness. The capacity to bring a new perspective to the commonplace. Meditation fosters curiosity, awe and wonderment.

The focused mind
But for creativity to advance from being a good idea to a manifest work, we need concentration and grounded application. Training the mind through meditation is like going to the gym to develop physical muscles. Going inwards, we develop inner strength and things get done.

Mindfulness
So often good ideas, insights, creativity, get hijacked, diluted, destroyed by the events of ordinary daily life. Trauma from the past, fear for the future, the pressures of modern living, all conspire to overwhelm creativity. Mindfulness teaches us to let go of unhelpful concerns for past and future and to function more joyfully in the present.

The wisdom mind
Science has much to offer, but is based on the intellect, which is analytical and linear, and has little to do with creativity. For true creativity, we need to go beyond the realm of the intellect. Not to become irrational, but non-rational, beyond-rational; and to access that deeper, more profound inner world of wisdom and creativity.

MEDITATION - a TECHNIQUE for CREATIVITY
There are many ways to meditate. A simple and reliable approach is to break it down into 4 east steps.

1. Preparation. This is about organizing 10 - 20 minutes once or twice a day, finding a suitable place, taking up a symmetrical, balanced posture, settling into that posture and turning your mind inwardly – away from day to day events.

2. Relaxation. Then we learn to relax the body and calm the mind. This is easily achieved by focusing the mind and concentrating on the feeling as we relax the body. Doing this frees us from the physical tension so often associated with stress, allows our body’s biochemistry to regain its natural, healthy balance and settles “the mud” in our mind.

3. Mindfulness. As we relax more, we naturally become more aware. This leads to mindfulness, where almost like an impartial observer, we can be aware of the sounds around about us, the thoughts and feelings within us, and remain undistracted and unperturbed. Calm and clear.

4. Stillness. As we progress, we notice a deeper stillness. At first a glimpse, then a deeper experience of the truth and essence of who we really are, what is in our heart’s essence.

ACCESSING MEDITATION
One convergence of modern creativity and technology with the ancient mind science of meditation is Mindbody Mastery. It combines a downloadable meditation program with an innovative support package including daily emails, weekly SMS messages, webinars etc to add to and reinforce your learning and practise.

The biggest challenge with meditation is to actually do it! Evidence tells us that the Mindbody Mastery support system actually does help people to practise regularly. The Mindbody Mastery website is in the final stages of a major upgrade that will be completed any day now.

Happy meditating and may the creativity be with you.

RELATED BLOGS
Mindbody Mastery

Meditation in 4 easy steps

NOTICEBOARD
A reminder I will be in Brisbane, Coff’s Harbor, Katoomba and then Sydney in June and July. Details on the website: CLICK HERE

NEWS
1. A Miracle in a classroom. A fabulous new film available to download Room to Breathe 

Room to Breathe is the first mainstream documentary about bringing mindfulness into education. It is an authentic representation of what it’s like to teach mindfulness in a truly challenging environment. By providing a raw and realistic look at the process, it shows how even the most difficult classrooms can be turned around with patience, teaching skill, and partnership with school staff.

Room To Breathe is a surprising and inspiring story of transformation as struggling kids in a San Francisco public middle school are introduced to the practice of mindfulness meditation.

Topping the district in disciplinary suspensions, and with overcrowded classrooms creating a nearly impossible learning environment, overwhelmed administrators are left with stark choices: repeating the cycle of trying to force tuned-out children to listen, or to experiment with timeless inner practices that may provide them with the social, emotional, and attentional skills that they need to succeed.

The first question is whether it’s already too late. Confronted by defiance, contempt for authority figures, poor discipline, and more interest in “social” than learning, can a mindfulness teacher (Megan Cowan from Mindful Schools) succeed in opening their minds and hearts?

To watch the trailer: Click here 

“This film beautifully and authentically portrays the power of mindfulness to change individuals, families, one classroom, and perhaps, one day, the world.”
 Diana Winston, Director of Mindfulness Education, UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center

Buy the film:  Click here


2. Mindfulness in a Huff
The much read Huffington Post has recognized the value of mindfulness, in 20 different ways! 

They say “Even though the academic research on mindfulness meditation isn't as robust as, say, nutrition or exercise, there is a reason why it's been around for literally thousands of years. And we're starting to get a better understanding of why it seems to be beneficial for so many aspects of life, from disease and pain management, to sleep, to control of emotions.”

To read the full article, CLICK HERE

Ian Gawler Blog: Non-meditation; A personal account

Before Easter, Ruth and I led our annual 7 day Meditation in the Forest retreat. It caused me to reflect personally upon the 4 traditional stages of learning and practising meditation, and that ultimate goal where meditation becomes a continuous part of daily life and there is no further need for formal practise – non-meditation.

Also, the Melbourne weekend of workshops is only a few weeks away. So a friendly reminder. Most of the recent events have booked out, so if you, family, friends or colleagues are planning to attend, booking soon may make good sense.

I must say, the new cycle of workshops, focusing on research breakthroughs in the areas of neuroplasticity, epigenetics, telomeres and nutrition, coupled with plenty of time for meditating together and good conversation amidst like-minded people, has been a delight to present and well received.

Finally, powerful research exposes one of the major challenges for modern medicine, Big Pharma, balanced by an extraordinarily moving music video from Eric Whitacre.

So lets “Go out on a Limb” this week and talk about being busy, taking time out, meditation and non-meditation; but first

Thought for the Day
When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change
                                            Max Planck, originator of quantum theory, Nobel Prize in Physics 1918

Fresh back from speaking at the Holistic Cancer Congress in New Zealand, and before heading off to Western Australia to present a series of workshops came our annual Pre-Easter Meditation in the Desert retreat at the Foundation’s delightful Yarra Valley centre.

Even leading a meditation retreat provides some genuine peace amidst a busy life. But it raises the question. If meditation is about learning to be more relaxed, more centred, more at peace, more calm and clear in our thinking and our very life; is there a point where we actually “get it”, and cease to need to formally meditate; where we reach the stage of non-meditation?

I have been meditating fairly continuously and seriously for nearly 40 years. I have had the best of teachers, and the good fortune to introduce and contribute to the teaching of many others.

So this seems like something it would be useful to share; what happens for me in my own meditation practice.

The bottom line is I have meditated around 500 hours each year for many years now. I like to think it is reasonably true that to some degree in my daily life I am “relaxed, centred, at peace, calm and clear in my thinking and my very life”. As a blessing of my teachers and my regular practice, it is probably fair to say that to some degree I have actually “got it”.

But being open, I need regular practice to sustain all that. My life is very busy and often productive. I am often working with people in the midst of the maelstrom of personal crisis as they face life-threatening situations. I have been a public figure for many years and faced the full range of challenges and emotions, so called positive and negative, that such a life entails.

But as the years go on, despite all this, there has been a way through, a way that has left me feeling more content, more fulfilled at a deeper level. Happily, Ruth continues to find me good company.

And how? Regular meditation has been the key. I do my practice these days because I enjoy it, but also because I know it enables my unbalanced back to remain stable and healthy atop its one leg; and I know meditation enables me to remain in a “good” state of mind amidst the ups and downs of everyday life.

So in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition I am familiar with, the 4 stages of learning meditation are

1. Calm abiding: Focusing the mind in a way that leads to a state of calm,  undistracted awareness

2. Clear seeing: realizing the truth of what one is actually aware of. This is somewhat like the marriage of mindfulness and wisdom.

3. One taste: Where there is awareness of the 2 aspects of the mind, the thinking mind and the more essential, true nature of the mind; and both of them are known to be aspects of the same truth.

4. Non-meditation: Where the awareness of truth is simply there throughout the day and night and there is no need to meditate or not to meditate. The job is done. Non-meditation.

So I fantasize about reaching this point of non-meditation, but in the interim, am bloody grateful for my teachers and my own personal kindness (commonly known as personal discipline) that has me meditating every day. And gives me the opportunity to teach others.

NEWS
1. Melbourne: Weekend workshop; A New Way of Living - only a few weeks away

Saturday May 11th : Meditation and the Power of the Mind
Sunday May 12th : Living Well, Being Well

Bring the family, invite a friend or two, inform your colleagues!
Maybe you know someone living in Melbourne who would benefit/like to attend.

For full details and to book, LINK HERE

2. Blog jumps
Some of you may have noticed that a previous blog post took it upon itself to jump onto the home page. It is a mystery as yet as to how "A New Way of Living" suddenly appeared in front of last week's post on "The 2 best ways to practise mindfulness", but if you missed the mindfulness post, it may be worth scrolling down!

3. Eric Whitacre in Concert and on video.
Eric Whitacre combines ethereal “modern” (as in composed recently by himself) classical music and singing with state of the art new technologies. He is coming to Melbourne and will perform with Ruth’s brother David Berlin, principal cello at the MSO, on Sat, April 13th.

In a moving and madly viral video last year, Eric led a virtual choir of singers from around the world. He talks through the creative challenges of making music powered by YouTube, and unveils the first 2 minutes of his new work, "Sleep," with a video choir of 2,052 on this great TED talk. Well worth a few exalted minutes: Link here.

4. Undue industry influences that distort healthcare research, strategy, expenditure and practice: a review

Here is the Abstract from a major recent research paper that speaks for itself. Normally I would paraphrase research findings, but this one seems best to be reproduced as is.

Background
Expenditure on industry products (mostly drugs and devices) has spiraled over the last 15 years and accounts for substantial part of healthcare expenditure. The enormous financial interests involved in the development and marketing of drugs and devices may have given excessive power to these industries to influence medical research, policy, and practice.

Material and methods
Review of the literature and analysis of the multiple pathways through which the industry has directly or indirectly infiltrated the broader healthcare systems. We present the analysis of the industry influences at the following levels: (i) evidence base production, (ii) evidence synthesis, (iii) understanding of safety and harms issues, (iv) cost-effectiveness evaluation, (v) clinical practice guidelines formation, (vi) healthcare professional education, (vii) healthcare practice, (viii) healthcare consumer's decisions.

Results
We located abundance of consistent evidence demonstrating that the industry has created means to intervene in all steps of the processes that determine healthcare research, strategy, expenditure, practice and education. As a result of these interferences, the benefits of drugs and other products are often exaggerated and their potential harms are downplayed, and clinical guidelines, medical practice, and healthcare expenditure decisions are biased.

Conclusion
To serve its interests, the industry masterfully influences evidence base production, evidence synthesis, understanding of harms issues, cost-effectiveness evaluations, clinical practice guidelines and healthcare professional education and also exerts direct influences on professional decisions and health consumers. There is an urgent need for regulation and other action towards redefining the mission of medicine towards a more objective and patient-, population- and society-benefit direction that is free from conflict of interests.

Stamatakis, E et al, European Journal of Clinical Investigation, 25 MAR 2013
DOI: 10.1111/eci.12074. To link to the reference, click here.

RESOURCES
During Meditation in the Desert, ( September 5 to 15) I will be expounding on the 4 stages of meditation discussed above, along with other aspects of practical Buddhist techniques and philosophy.