Mindfulness Training & Advocacy | Asia Pacific
Thinking, working too fast and constantly striving would kill our wellbeing. Here is an invitation to slow down, inspired by Thich Nhat Hahn’s poem Drink Your Tea, and in honor of his memory.
Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves
– slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Image credit: Mikhail Vasilyev, Unsplash
Whenever you’re feeling down, overwhelmed, anxious, have hope that these feelings don’t last forever and we’ll find our way home eventually. Inspired by “Hope” is the thing with feathers, by Emily Dickinson.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Image credit: Tran Mau Tri Tam, Unsplash
Arriving and embracing the present moment with the people around you instead of frequently being lost in the head with our thoughts, often reviewing the past or speculating about the future, or being buried in our mobile phone.
Inspired by Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem: Please Call Me by My True Names (extract).
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 19 mins
Image credit: Lasma Artmane, Unsplash
Happy 2022! The mind is an incredible machine that generates ideas, solves problems but it can also produce thoughts that cause us grief and make us do things that we regret. How do we practice disengaging especially from thoughts that are not true, not realistic, not useful and only serve to weigh us down?
Inspired by the tradition of Soto Zen, we simply watch our thoughts, coming and going as they are as we are a third party, not identifying ourselves with thoughts, not judging, not needing to react to every single thing the mind tells us to do. Here we are just sitting quietly and watching. The pause allows wisdom to emerge and perhaps a new found appreciation for how the mind works.
Emily Dickinson describes this in her poem (extract).
The Brain — is wider than the Sky —
For — put them side by side —
The one the other will contain
With ease — and You — beside —
The Brain is deeper than the sea —
For — hold them — Blue to Blue —
The one the other will absorb —
As Sponges — Buckets — do
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 19 mins
Image credit: Matheus Queiroz, Unsplash
Closing 2021 with a gratitude mindfulness practice, bringing to mind whom we’re grateful for, and what we’re grateful for this year and right this moment. Happy 2022, and make the leap, folks!
Crossing, Jericho Brown (extract)
We work, start on one side of the day
Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight
Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks.
Thank God I’m different.
I’ve figured and counted.
I’m not crossing
To cross back.
I’m set
On something vast.
It reaches
Long as the sea.
I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery.
I don’t march.
I’m the one who leaps.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 19 minutes
Image credit: Sarah Shull, Unsplash
As we wind down for the year and set New Year resolutions, we anchor on what the heart longs for without judging ourselves. Simply just holding our desires in mindful awareness and allowing whatever emotions that arise when we bring to mind and feel in the heart what we truly want at the deeper level.
Inspired by William Wordsworth The Rainbow (or My Leaps Up). Life begins when we embrace our humanity with grace, and acknowledge what we really want even if it’s not within reach or seems silly.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 20 minutes
Image credit: Andreas Brun, Unsplash
Whenever we’re feeling down, upset, angry or worried about something, using stillness might be helpful. It’s about allowing our emotional energy to find a resting point. Inspired by this poem Stillness by Karen Lang.
In the stillness
I feel
I listen
I face my truth
In the stillness
I see
I acknowledge my needs
I let go In the stillness
I receive
I rejuvenate
I heal
In the stillness
I reconnect
I am one with everything.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 17 minutes
Image credit: Werner du Plessis, Unsplash
Radical self-love by paying attention to the body with care and compassion is a way to tap into our subconscious wisdom for guidance instead of being confined by limiting stories and beliefs the mind tells us. We end with this poem on Self-Love by e.h. (Erin Hanson).
Every heart’s a hurricane,
Each soul a starlit sea,
Every mind’s a meteor
Unbound by gravity.
And everybody’s wishing
They could learn to tame their tides,
When nothing more than nature
Is what’s echoing inside.
Every life’s a lightning bolt,
Yet everyone’s told no;
Bite back all your thunder
And don’t let the wild things show.
Every heart’s a hurricane,
Everyone a world within,
Every life too short for loathing
Any storms beneath your skin.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 20 mins
Image credit: Ludemeula Fernandes, Unsplash
If every day is precious, every moment is too. This practice is about taking the time to just be, to appreciate the preciousness of each moment as it is. To just sit without constantly living in the head, in our stories and plans. Finding the balance instead of striving or planning in the head on how to strive. Being in the being mode.
Inspired by Days, written by Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate.
Each one is a gift, no doubt,
mysteriously placed in your waking hand
or set upon your forehead
moments before you open your eyes.
Today begins cold and bright,
the ground heavy with snow
and the thick masonry of ice,
the sun glinting off the turrets of clouds.
Through the calm eye of the window
everything is in its place
but so precariously
this day might be resting somehow
on the one before it,
all the days of the past stacked high
like the impossible tower of dishes
entertainers used to build on stage.
No wonder you find yourself
perched on the top of a tall ladder
hoping to add one more
Just another Wednesday
you whisper,
then holding your breath,
place this cup on yesterday’s saucer
without the slightest clink.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 19 mins
Image credit: Jeanie de Klerk, Unsplash
Our thoughts could be discouraging, demotivating, compelling us to quit. This is a meditation of practicing staying the course, not giving up so easily. Inspired by I Bend, a poetry written by Selena Odom.
I bend but do not break.
I’ve been lost, but I’m not a loser.
I’m a wreck, but I’m not totaled.
I’m fractured but not broken.
I’ve failed, but I’m not a failure.
I’ve fallen hard but can get up again.
I’m isolated, but still I’m free.
I have been destroyed but will rebuild.
My heart is broken, but it will mend.
See, no matter how close I come to breaking, I just continue to bend.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 18 mins
Image credit Paul Hanaoka
The question of the day is: what will you let go of? Here is a meditation session of learning to let go of what upsets and weighs us down, recognizing that all our experiences, good and bad, are impermanent. Often thoughts and desires that accompany the feelings magnify our distress, the need for things to be in a particular way, like the need for us to stay calm and centered during a meditation. Otherwise the session feels like a waste of time. Actually the best time to practice is when the mind is unsettled. We’re cultivating accepting situations or reality as they are before deciding on the next best response.
Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 20 minutes
Image credit: Dorothe Wouters, Unsplash
It’s easy for negative thoughts or negative inferences to take root. They can be as subtle as “I can’t do this” to something extreme we won’t say to others like “You’re (I’m) stupid”, or excessive worry and downplaying ourselves or others.
One outcome of negativity is that it can lead us to a striving mode, needing to fix or improve ourselves. We sign up for a bunch of courses, throw ourselves into projects to shut off the pain, make ourselves feel like we’re progressing in life. A striving mode can also mean to deliberately avoid situations.
This is not to say we don’t do anything to improve our life outcomes or to purposely invite difficulties, but we want to be more discerning about what thoughts we want to act on and what actions are really necessary, lest we end up distressing ourselves further or shy away from living a full life.
In this meditation, we acknowledge thoughts as they are (just thoughts), and practice restoring a sense of being or balance. When we’re in a less driven-doing, judgmental mode, we can see our priorities and what really matters with more clarity.
We also use the poem Negative Thoughts (extract) by Murray Lachlan Young to convey the theme of the practice.
Negative thoughts
Oh, they come and they go
And sometimes they come
A lot more than they go
Then do what they like
And say what they please
To stifle your life
With their negative squeeze
So why not breathe in
And exercise choice
Why not breathe out and say “No” to the voice
And say “I’m worth more much, much, more than all that
And that negative voices
Are uncool and old hat”
So why not decide
That it’s time to get free
And stand up to the (deeply uncool) voice
Of Negativity
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 14 mins
Image credit: Dim Hou, Unsplash
To register and join our Wednesday Pause meditation, please go here
To view the complete archive of our meditations, go here
This is an adaptation of the Lake Meditation written by Jon Kabat Zinn, founder of MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction). We are cultivating the qualities and energy of a lake – silent, merely reflecting back what it sees as it is, and returning to stillness whenever the wind, rain and storm pass. Visualizing ourselves as the lake. Like it, we can return to our original being of stillness and silence once unwelcome thoughts and feelings move on.
We end with this poetry There In The Stillness by Show You Love (extract).
There in the stillness, the whisper of angel’s wings
There in the stillness a place for beggars and kings
There in the stillness a fluttering of the soul
There in the stillness someone broken is being made whole
There in the rest a river of life overflows
There in the rest a fruitful garden grows
There in the rest I am anchored and secure
There in the rest is a joy so real and pure
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 17 mins
Image credit: Redd, Unsplash
This is an adaptation of the Mountain Meditation, created by Jon Kabat Zinn, founder of MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction). We are cultivating the qualities and energy of a mountain – solid, strong, dignified, unmovable, and not apologetic for our presence. So like the mountain, we remain grounded despite experiencing strong emotions and intrusive thoughts.
I am the mountain
Snow falls, gone soon after winter
Spring clouds, drift by not a matter
Summer sunshine, only a fair friend
Autumn leaves, fall with an end
Seasons come and go
Yet I remain unmovable, to know
Thoughts emerge, emotions arise
Winds come
Rain falls
I don’t turn them away
Come what may
Because I am the mountain
Guide: Noelle Lim
Poem written by: Noelle Lim
Duration: 18 mins
Image credit: Justinas Tessalis, Unsplash
Often what makes it difficult to accept change is the experiences that are triggered such as anxiety, sadness, fear of the unknown. Ruminating on it only compounds the suffering. This practice is about cultivating the capacity to welcome change, even those we don’t like, in order to ease into stepping out of our comfort zone and taking risks. Poetry for today is Change by Kathleen Raine.
Change
Said the sun to the moon, You cannot stay.
Change
Says the moon to the waters,
All is flowing.
Change
Says the fields to the grass,
Seed-time and harvest,
Chaff and grain.
You must change said,
Said the worm to the bud,
Though not to a rose.
Petals fade
That wings may rise
Borne on the wind.
Are you ready to change?
Says the thought to the heart, to let her pass .
You will change,
says the stars to the sun,
Says the night to the stars.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 19 mins
Image credit: Malek Dridi, Unsplash
The invitation is to accept our thoughts and feelings as how we would accept what happens in nature around us like the sound of birds, the rise of the sun, the four seasons. Inner experiences are after all the outcomes of the mind and body, and we are in turn the product of nature. Acceptance helps us meditate in peace.
Inspired by Margaret Atwood’s poem The Moment.
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 19 mins
Image credit: Keanu K, Unsplash
Today’s Wednesday Pause is a practice of self-love. Cliche as it sounds, its really an invitation to be gentle with ourselves, meaning whatever that is arising, whether we like it or not or find it inadequately stimulating, we gently accept the moment as it is. This reduces the hold unpleasant feelings has over us. And if we find ourselves experiencing strong emotional energy be it grief and anxiety, we respond with gentleness without needing “to do something” to fix it and make it go away. It’s as if you respond with gentle energy instead of brute force, counterintuitive as it may seem.
Inspiration sought from Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself (1892, extract).
I celebrate myself and sing myself
And what I assume, you shall assume
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.
I exist as I am that is enough
If no other in the world be aware I sit content
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged
Missing me one place, search another
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 22 mins
Image credit: Mathilde Langevin, Unsplash
It’s easy to give up on meditating when we lose patience. The benefits may not be immediate and it can feel somewhat unpleasant when you’re just sitting still and not doing anything. Yet there is enough neuroscience evidence to show that mindfulness helps strengthen the brain and allows us to be more at ease in responding to difficulties. It’s probably the cheapest “solution” to mental health woes because you can meditate anywhere, anytime without guidance. This practice is about not giving up by giving yourself permission to be patient.
Inspiration from Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise (extract).
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 18 mins
Image credit: Timothy Meinberg, Unsplash
Part of responding wisely to our difficult feelings is to let go of the need to react, and instead transform that emotional energy by returning our attention to the breath or body. Letting go of reactivity is an act of letting go the need to pander to our cravings and fears. By extension this means letting go the need to cling on to the idea of a self. Some people may describe it as our ego or pride. The Buddha said, “Nothing is to be clung to as I, me or mine.”
The invitation in this practice is to decouple from the self by firstly taking the bigger picture, zooming out to sense our body as a whole like a vessel or container instead of getting lost in the mess of our thoughts and feelings that arise within, and each time the mind instructs us to do something, we can just let it be by not needing to answer back or act on them even if they seem so compelling and urgent.
Finally, we rest in awareness that we’re not alone in our journey. There is a group we’re plugged into – a family, workplace, society, country, and in this Zoom space as we meditate together even if it’s for a brief moment.
Charles Causley’s poem “I am the Song” is read as a gentle reminder that there is no me and them, no independent self as such. All organic beings are interdependent in this universe.
I am the song that sings the bird.
I am the leaf that grows the land.
I am the tide that moves the moon.
I am the stream that halts the sand.
I am the cloud that drives the storm.
I am the earth that lights the sun.
I am the fire that strikes the stone.
I am the clay that shapes the hand.
I am the word that speaks the man.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 20 mins
Image credit: Amy Baugess, Unsplash
This is a practice of decoupling or de-centering from mental chatter, and viewing thinking as a mental event. It’s often not easy as our thoughts are so compelling and urgent, requiring us to act on them immediately, in the process exhausting us. Here we develop our capacity to observe and let go of the need to answer back or to react toward our thoughts. The practice ends with a reading of Robert Frost’s poem The Sound of Trees (extract).
Here’s the full poetry.
I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 20 minutes
Image credit: Erica Leong, Unsplash
Kindermind Center 