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Vipasana Meditation on Mental Health and Life Stress
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Transcript of Vipasana Meditation on Mental Health and Life Stress
A Research Proposal Submitted for the Registration of Ph.D Degree in Psychology
VIPASANA MEDITATION ON MENTAL HEALTH AND LIFE STRESS
By
CHANDRAKANT SRIMANT
Guide
Prof. S.P. MELKERI
Department of Psychology
Gulbarga University, Gulbarga
DEPARTMENT OF STUDIES AND RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY GULBARGA UNIVESITY, GULBARGA
2012
Introduction :
Modern societies are constantly changing all over t eh world. People go
through various changes and social problems everywhere. The rapid
developments in science and technology brought us convenient living, but that
lifestyle does not give us comfort. Every minute, there are many kinds of crimes,
accidents, and natural disasters in the world. People never know what will happen
in the near future. In these living circumstances, people have to compete for
surviving and it causes stress, anxiety, worry and emotional problems. These
negative feelings can create toxin which might be harmful for our body. For
instance, over-stress can create different problems such as insomnia, asthma,
depression, drug addiction, smoking, alcohol abuse, and other illnesses.
Thus, it is quite necessary to learn how to cope with stress and negative
feelings. This study introduces meditation, one of the effective techniques for
handling those problems. From doing meditation, our mind can be calm and
peaceful, and we can find true happiness in the end. Meditation can also bring
personal insight and self-understanding. It is doorway into an enlightened way of
knowing ourselves better so that we can overcome many stressful situations by
our inner sources. Many studies have already demonstrate that meditation has a
healing effect on various kinds of disease.
Meditation was already introduced as a powerful technique for well-being
five thousand years ago in Asia. However, it was spread to Western society
thousands of years after it was adopted in the East and it finally started to gain
popularity in the mid- 20th century. (Meditation : History , 2008). Western people
have started to practice meditation and have adapted it to medical, health care,
scientific, and psychotherapeutic purposes. Nowadays meditation is already
popular in many Western countries.
In India, meditation became very popular a hundred year ago. It has been used for
many purpose such as managing stress, obtaining better health, healing various
kinds of diseases.
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2. CONEPTS OF MEDITATION AND MINDFULNESS
The key concepts of relation to meditation are explained in the following
2.1 Concept of Meditation
“Meditation means being meditative, silent, peaceful, with no thoughts in
the mind and it is consciousness without content. When a mirror is not reflecting
anything, it is meditation”, said Gautam Buddha (Beckett 2008).The word
meditation is derived from two Latin words: Meditari (to think, to dwell upon, and
to exercise the mind) and the mederi ( to heal). It is originally from Sanskrit word
“medha” which means wisdom. Buddha is one of the biggest proponents in the
meditation history. Buddha has been also known as one of the biggest meditation
representation around since 500 B.C (Jones 2008). It has also been said that
meditation has originated from Shamtha, which is the Sanskrit term for the basic
foundation of calm and relaxed bare attention. Such calm acknowledging is the
essential and fundamental step, a “letting go” that allows the meditator to access
the next stages (Austin 2006, 11). In other words, meditation is a systematic way
of making our minds quite so that we can contact our true identity - self, which is
the source of constant joy, bliss and peace. (Meditation Corner, 2004).
In addition, meditation can help us to understand our own mind. We are
able to learn how to transform our mind from negative to positive, from disturbed
to peaceful from unhappy to happy. The aim of meditation is overcoming negative
minds and cultivating productive thoughts (Gyatsa 2007). The attitudes needed for
meditation are non-judging, patience, beginners; mind, trust, acceptance, and
letting go (Kabat- Zinn 2007).
2.2 Concept of mindfulness
Meditation has been recently used as way to manage stress and gain the
state of mindfulness. In other words, meditation is a practice of cultivating
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mindfulness. It is about being aware of where your mind is from and trying to be
‘here and now, at the moment’. Various thoughts can disturb the procedure while
mediating, but one can releases the thoughts freely and let them go. By doing this,
people can realize that the thoughts may not be an entity of absolute truth. When
your mind is clear of distracting thoughts, you can obtain new perspective and
new ways of handling stress and other problems.
The concept of mindfulness had roots in Buddhism and other
contemplative traditions where conscious attention and awareness are actively
enriched. It is most commonly defined as the state of being attentive to and aware
of what is happening in the present. (Brown & Ryan 2003).
Basically, there is nothing particularly Buddhist about it. People are all
mindful to one degree or another, moment by moment. Meditation is an essential
human capacity. The contribution of Buddhist traditions has been in part to
emphasize simple and effective ways to refine this capacity and bring it to all
aspects of life (Kabat - Zinn 2003, 146).There are several definitions of
mindfulness, Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as our capacity for awareness and
self-knowing. It is the practice of paying closer attention not only to the world
around us, but to the cultivation of our own minds and bodies (Kabat - Zinn 2005,
75). In this other journal, mindfulness is often spoken as insight meditation, which
means a deep non-conceptual seeing into the nature of mind and world. This
seeing requires a spirit of perpetual and persistent exploration as in, “What is
this?” toward whatever arises in awareness, and toward “Who is attending”, “Who
is seeing”, “Who is meditating”/ (Kabat -Zinn 2003, 146).
In addition, mindfulness is a skill that allow us to be less reactive to what is
happening in the moment. It is a way of relating to all experience - positive,
negative, and neutral - such that our overall level of suffering is reduced and our
sense of well-being increases. We are easily caught up in various distracting
thoughts which are mindlessness. In contrast, when we are mindful, out attention,
is not involved in the past or future, and we are not judging or rejecting what is
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occurring at the moment. We are present. This kind of attention generated energy,
clear mind, and joy. It is a skill that can be cultivated by anyone (Germer 2005,
241-253).
According to Olendzki (2005), in western countries, most therapists
consider meditation as a relaxation technique. Some meditation may be relaxing,
but the style and the purpose of meditation decide its effect in part. (Germer
2005). Mindfulness in contemporary psychology has been adopted as an approach
for increasing awareness and responding effectively to mental process that
contribute to emotional distress and maladaptive behavior (Bishop 2004, 230).
People may misunderstand what mindfulness meditation does. Mindfulness
meditation is not a relaxation exercise and it is not a way to avoid difficulties in
life. We confront our difficulties before the eliminate them. Moreover,
mindfulness meditation is about settling into our current experience in an alert and
objective way, not about achieving a different state of mind (Germer 2005, 16).
In this busy modern society, we just run forward. However we should stop
running and try to be in the present so that we could realize and see deeply that
there are many conditions we can be happy about. Washing dishes is usually any
annoying job, but it can be a pleasant job after mindfulness meditation. The
following chapter discuss how this mindfulness process can occur in our mind.
History of Meditation
Meditation has been extensively practices in many civilization for
thousands of years. It is, however, difficult to trace the history of meditation
without considering the religious context within which it was practiced and
because the term meditation refers to so many different practices (see above). It is
thus not clear when meditation firs arose, yet research suggests that primitive
hunting and gathering societies already used repetitive, rhythmic chants to
appease the gods, thereby inducing different states of consciousness that may be
considered as meditative states.
4
Most of the neuron scientific research on meditation reviewed in this thesis
involves Buddhist contemplative traditions or practices that are derived from early
Buddhist traditions. Furthermore, Buddhist history and philosophy are important
features that are intertwined in the context of most Buddhist meditation traditions.
Therefore, a short overview of the history of Buddhist meditation is in place.
Siddhartha Gautama, born around 500 BCE in ancient India (Nepal), was
the founder of Buddhism. Different meditative techniques were already being
practices at that time on Siddhartha was known as the Buddha and he would spend
the rest of life sharing his experiences of enlightenment in teachings known as
‘dharma’. He also founded the monastic way of life, with meditation as a central
component. The central goal of Buddhist meditation is the elimination of suffering
by exercising control of one’s own mind and senses. To achieve, this, the Buddha
taught two types of meditation, samatha meditation and vipassana meditation.
Samatha literally translates to “quiescence” and its practice refers to inducing a
state in which the particular maintains focus on an object for a theoretically
unlimited amount of time. Vipassana translated to “insight” and vipassana
meditation involves a type of meta-awareness that enables the practitioner to gain
insight into one’s assumptions about identity and emotions resulting in a
realization of “selflessness”. These two types of meditation from the basis for the
wide variety of meditative practices that have been developed since and are
integrated in most practices where the cultivation of samatha and vipassana
respectively enable the stability and clarity of the meditative state.
After the Buddha died, the original unity of Buddhism began to fragment
with the most significant split occurring around the 4 th century BCE. This split
resulted in two forms, one now known as the Mahayana tradition of northern Asia
and the other tradition now known as Thervada spreading all over India and
southeast Asia. In the 3rd century BCE Buddhism was spread all over India and
beyond to other countries as far as Sri Lanka, Egypt and Greece. From Sri Lanka
5
it was spread to Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos where it was
named Theravada Buddhism. Around the 1st century CE, Mahayana Buddhism
arrived in China, where it flourished around the 6th - 8th century CE and evolved
into other forms of Buddhism such as Pure Land Buddhism and Chan or Zen
Buddhism. These forms of Buddhism were then spread to Japan.
It was only in the middle of the 19th century that Buddhism first came to be
known in the west when the European colonial empires brought the cultures of
India and China to our attention and Chinese immigrants were coming to the west
coast of the United States. Following the turbulences of World War II in the 20 th
century, Buddhism gained more popularity, with Zen Buddhism becoming
particularly popular in United States. Asian masters and westerners who had
studies in Asia were now able to found monasteries and spread the Buddhist
lifestyle and practices even more. Today it is estimated that there are around 350
million Buddhist in the world, with estimates between 2 and 10 million followers
in the west.
Different types of meditation
The common feature across the many divergent meditative practices is the
regulation of attention. Depending on how the attention processes are directed,
meditative practices have been classified into two categories concentrative (also
referred to as focused attention (FA) meditation and mindfulness (also referred to
as open monitoring (OM) mediation. These two styles of meditation roughly refer
to samatha and vipasanna and are often combined, either within a single practice
session or over the course of a practitioners training, and are found in many
contemplative traditions including, Zen, Vipassana and Tibetan Buddhism.
Focused attention meditation entails focusing and sustaining selective
attention on a specific mental or sensory activity such as repeated sound, as
imagined image or a bodily sensation caused for instance by respiration.
Sustaining selective attention involves the constant monitoring of the quality of
this attention. With distractions arise and attention wanders away from the chosen
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activity, a practitioner is generally instructed to recognize this mind wandering
and to subsequently disengage the attention from the distraction and redirect
attention to the intended activity. When progressing in this form of meditation,
attention rests more readily and stable on the chosen activity and thus the ability
to sustain focus becomes more and more ‘effortless’. In advanced practitioners,
FA meditation is reported to create a sense of physical lightness and energy and
the need for sleep is said to be reduced.
OM meditation entails non-reactive and non-judgmental monitoring of the
content of ongoing experiences, without focusing on any explicit object or
activity. OM meditation is characterized by an open presence and the cultivation
of the ‘reflexive’ awareness associated with a more vivid conscious access to the
rich features of each experience, such as ongoing emotional or cognitive
processes. Even though there is no contrasting foreground, this awareness remains
in the background. A central aim of OM meditation is to gain more insight into
the usually implicit features of one’s mental life and it is said to enable the
practitioner to more readily transform emotional and cognitive habits. In advanced
practitioners, OM meditation allegedly leads to enhanced sensitivity to bodily and
environmental feathers while it reduces of the form that creates mental distress.
Zen Meditation
Zen Meditation knew two major forms, Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen. Both
forms of practice usually start with focusing the attention on the breath as a means
to develop the basic level of concentration required for more advanced of
meditation. In Rinzai Zen, practitioners are instructed to concentrate on Koans
konas are riddles that cannot be solved with knowledge or thinking. Koans are
ways to help the practitioners get rid of the thought processes common to ordinary
consciousness and to instead access pure awareness of the present moment. Soto
zen is a practice based on mindfulness and open awareness. Practitioners are
instructed to observe their thoughts and emotions without clinging to them but to
let them go and to bring their attention back to the present moment.
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Mantra Meditation
Mantra or prayer meditation is one of the most widespread and popular
forms of meditation and is present in Tibetan Buddhism, as well as in Sufism,
Hinduism and many other traditions. Practitioners are instructed to recite a
mantra, either aloud or sub vocally, thereby focusing their full attention on the
recitation or on the meaning of the manta. A mantra can be religious or mystical
sound, a word, a sentence, or a poem. The particular bodily sensation that are
induced by the recitation or a mantra believed to clam an focus the mind and
body.
Transcendental meditation
Transcendental meditation is aimed at quieting and ultimately transcending
the ordinary stream of internal mental dialogue by means of reciting a mantra.
However unlike mantra mediation, mantras used in transcendental practice have
no meaning but are used for their sound, which is such that attention easily and
automatically attends to it. Transcendental meditation thus places a primary
emphasis on the absence of concentrative effort and instead aims at developing a
witnessing, thought-free, unbounded awareness in which the mantra becomes
more secondary and ultimately disappear. The sensation induced by the sound of
the mantra are believed to clam the mind and body without the need for intense
concentrative efforts and are believed to result in profound relaxation, marked by
breath quiescence, and reduced conceptual content.
Compassion meditation
Loving- kindness or compassion meditation aims at the generation of non-
referential feelings of loving - kindness or compassion toward all living beings
and is also a common practice in Tibetan Buddhism. This kind of meditation
begins with the visualization of a respected, a beloved and a neutral person in
order to evoke feelings of compassion to each of these persons separately.
Practitioners are then instructed to gradually broaden their focus from this one
particular person towards a combination of these persons and finally towards all 8
living beings and everyday life, thereby developing a non-referential, reflexive
state of compassion. The cultivation of compassion is believed to create a general
sense of well-being and to aid in prevention of feelings of anger or irritation.
Vipassana Meditation
In Insight or Vipassana meditation, practitioners also begin by observing
their breath and the sensations it evokes around the nostril area to help develop a
focused and sustained attention. Practitioners are then instructed to mentally scan
each and every part of their body carefully and feel the sensations in each of those
parts. The aim of this practice is to keep the attention moving and to objectively
observe the experienced sensations, thereby avoiding the development of feelings
of aversion or desire for specific sensations.
Vipassana is not just a technique. It is a way of being in this world,
although initially one has to employ a method or make preparations for the
required change to occur. It is a return to our true, real nature, which we have
forgotten. It is observation of the contents of our mind as they appear and
disappear without reacting to them. The typical reactions that arise are those of
craving for, or aversion to, things. Detached observation, with suspended
evaluations and mental reactions, does not encourage the suppression or
expression of emotions but sees with impartiality, making it possible for us to deal
with these emotional reactions appropriately.
It may seem an almost impossible task to eradicate all cravings and
aversions (and one might question the desirability of such an Endeavour when one
sets out on this path) but what one can hope for initially is freedom from one’s
fears and addictions to one’s desires, which can be a hindrance to the real goals of
life. Vipassana enables us to transform our reactions (which are conditioned) into
actions that are based on a free choice. The Theoretical StanceVipassana practice
is based on the individual’s inner experiences. No theoretical framework is used
to explain or analyze intrapsychic phenomena. It is assumed that the meanings
hidden inside the experiences will be revealed to the individual as the inner
9
unfolding takes place. No attempt is made to impose meaning from outside. The
individual is encouraged to face anything that comes up in the mind, no matter
how distressing, without any desire to distort it.
Vipassana meditation is unique in many ways. As the meditation that was
practiced by the Buddha and that led to his liberation, it is the cause underlying
his subsequent historical role—it is the second womb through which he was
reborn enlightened. No other person,or system of self-development, has
influenced so many hundreds of millions of people, across so many historical
eras, among so many nations and cultures, in such an unambiguous manifestation
of compassion, harmony and peace. Historically, before the Buddha, all religions
were a mixture of moral injunction, propitiation of gods, magic, superstition, and
ethnocentrism. The Buddha brought forth the idea of a limitless community, not
based on language, ethnicity, locality, not even upon species! His teaching was
the first to emphasize the commonality of all living beings as the basis of
relatedness, and was the first to encourage spiritual development that was
psychological and social, and that did not rest upon placating some fantasized
god. The Buddha realized that liberation lies in our own hearts, rather than in
aligning with a powerful external Other whom we may be able to cajole or coerce
into saving us.
While other religions or cultures had praised virtue, the liberating role of
ethics had been previously circumscribed by ritual and by other attempts to
manipulate events. The
Buddha brought to the attention of humankind the identity of virtue and
exaltation. His teaching fused into one what had previously seemed like two
aspects of existence—empathic ways of living, and gratifying personal feeling
states. Through the practice of Vipassana, the Buddha raised into the
consciousness of the human community a sunrise of universal, non-tribal,
psychological, ethical, non-superstitious relatedness towards all,that advances its
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practitioner and his or her environment towards becoming vehicles oflove and
liberty.
Vipassana is not only what the Buddha practiced, but it is what he
preached. He encouraged Vipassana practice as universally relevant and
beneficent for kings, merchants, housewives and murderers. While he emphasized
that not everyone could use Vipassana to become a Buddha within this lifetime,
he claimed that everyone could grow on the path. The same sunlight falls on all of
us. While we all view different scenes, when we awaken, we all see by the same
morning light. Not everyone can benefit to the same degree but everyone can
benefit from the equanimity and loving-kindness that form the foundation of
Vipassana.
The uniqueness of Vipassana also rests upon its basis in empiricism. The
Buddha discerned the technique by observing what functioned effectively for him.
Like any carefully tested observation of nature, Vipassana is a description of
natural law that is reliable across time and culture. It is free of antecedent beliefs
or assumptions, and contains the same timeless factuality as knowing the ocean is
wet and the land is solid. It is more accurately described as an ethical psychology
than as a religion. Even to the modern listener, it rings true, not because of ethno
scriptural authority, nor even because of the Buddha’s historical apotheosis, but
because it harnesses reason and observation to explicate personal experience. It
carries us to the edge of the ocean of existence, where our life is bared to
realizations that are obvious and inevitable, like the fact that we are temporary
visitors in an ancient, ongoing, vast universe.
The definition of Vipassana meditation is: The method by which a person
may attain total purification. Total purification means the absence of hate, fear,
greed, and delusion, and the presence of love, compassion, and equanimity.
Through the practice of Vipassana, a person became the Buddha, that is, he
became unshakably anchored in goodness, incapable of harm, and able to explain
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his methodology to others so that, if their attainments were not as absolute as his,
at least their direction would be the same.
Vipassana is merely the careful delineation of common sense. It captures
what is common to all civilized communities, and extracts the essence: to avoid
harming others, to help others, and to cultivate thoughts and emotions with those
same patterns. Even this simple definition encompasses the social, interpersonal,
emotional, cognitive, and behavioral development of the individual.
Vipassana is the only path we can take with the conviction that we are
following the historical guidance of the most powerful, enduring, and authentic
first-person testimonial about personal transformation into absolute goodness.
We are all mammals who identify with the sensations of our own bodies.
We protect them at all costs and often grab immediate palliation and pleasure at
the expense of virtues we like to believe we have embraced, but which in fact
we place second to continuous self-mollification. We crave pleasure and fear
pain. Our journey down the path beyond pleasure and pain can easily be diverted.
We need to be grounded in a meditation that roots us in the bigger picture of what
ennobles our life. We require a reminder, a discipline, a practice that helps us to
draw away from shortsighted reactions to our sensations. We need restorative
guidance to activate the life of love and reason in the real texture of our daily
adventures. When we anchor ourselves in the perspective of Vipassana
meditation, every thought and breath can be incorporated into a path of awareness.
Then our smallest choices become the forces that shape our relationship to our
bodies, our emotions, our neighbors and the world. We become travelers of the
Path, people who live with conscious intention (though varying success) to
activate wisdom in every moment.
Vipassana is unique as the path to total purification, the method of the
Buddha, the source of his attainments, the outflow of his realization, and a
practical, moment by moment psychology that is ethical, behavioral, emotional,
cognitive and spiritual. But “unique” doesn’t mean exclusive. Occasionally
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everyone is spontaneously practicing the same thing: observing how their
reactions to little signals of bodily comfort gain too much clout in determining the
direction of their lives, and attempting to gain some objective distance from these
petty tugs, so that life can flow in harmony with greater and more numinous
forces of gratitude, service, and joy. Just as exercise is to some degree intrinsic to
human life— though it may be pursued by some people only haphazardly and
minimally— Vipassana is the Buddha’s term for a natural capacity of our minds.
Many people hone it without self-consciously labeling it and many cultures teach
aspects of it under different names. All pure beings, regardless of what terms they
use, have arrived where they are through detachment from narcissistic
preoccupation with the sensations of their own bodies.
All loving, engaged, and generous lives are based upon the same
psychological law: practicing equanimity within the sensations of our own life.
Vipassana is unique not in the sense that is it better than some other path, but in
the sense that it already lies within and flows with any teaching of helpfulness, no
harmfulness, and loving relatedness.
Water—the solvent that enables cells, tissues, life—is a compound that is
ubiquitous and clear. Rather than rarity, universality makes water unique.
Vipassana is unique in its evocation of the general principle. It is unique not in
contrast to, but as the active ingredient within all paths of peace. It is not a
religion, but a religious psychology; it is not psychotherapy, though it is
psychotherapeutic.
Vipassana simply means clarifying human nature at its junction with the
sensations of life. Its uniqueness isn’t that it can be found only in an isolated,
specialized locale, but that the path to Vipassana begins at every front door.
Because Vipassana commences everywhere, belongs to no one, and has neither
esoteric teaching nor priesthood to preserve it, it is itself only when it is purveyed
as common property for the common good. When sold for profit, it is no longer
Vipassana— just as physical or emotional intimacy, by definition, ceases to be
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themselves if they are exchanged for money; just as friendship, by definition, has
no fee. Vipassana is analogous to a supper among friends whom you have invited
to your house, while professional psychotherapy is analogous to a restaurant.
Vipassana is not comparable to professional healing, which is fairly dispensed for
a livelihood by particular healers applying their skills to individual problems in
particular ways at particular times and places. If Vipassana is like water, the
universal solvent, then professional healing is analogous to medication—an elixir
of medicinal use for a specific time, place and person.
A Psychological Systems Definition of Vipassana
Vipassana is an ancient, free, nonprofessional, nonsectarian, ethical, universal,
psychology of spiritual development. It is based upon methodical, continuous,
objective observation of oneself at the level of sensations. This special form of
observation catalyzes a multilevel, systems development throughout the strata of
one’s personality. Part of Vipassana’s unique contribution to mental health
derives from its constellation of psychological actions. Vipassana can be
conceptualized as the creation through meditation of a force field that energizes
new patterns in six levels of personality.
a) Vipassana induces changes at the molecular level of the meditator’s body.
Systematic, increasingly refined and subtle self-observation, without reaction,
alters the flow of stress-related chemicals. The practice of equanimity as a
recurrent and lifelong focus, reduces the frequency and intensity with which
somatic alarm signals release their
Neurotransmitters. Storage, release, amount and type of circulating messenger
neurochemicals are altered by long term practice of harmony and non-reactivity
in the place of anger, fear, or passion. The meditator’s body to some degree will,
over time, come to consist of different substances than formerly.
b) Vipassana changes the biology of the meditator’s body. As reaction patterns
Change, as neurochemical composition changes, and as a self-aware and
compassionate lifestyle increases, sleep, diet, and expressions of distress as well
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as patterns of pleasure may all be affected. Psychosomatic diseases, as well as
basic functions like weight, heart rate, or alertness may be altered. Meditators find
themselves choosing to avoid old habits and choosing to cultivate new personal
options that spring from a keener relationship to their bodies. If over a lifetime
you select a calmer diet and more salubrious relaxations, you become a different
animal. Our tissues have the capacity to remold themselves to some extent in
response to our friendship with them. Attunement to our bodies is automatically
experienced as nurturance of them.
c) Vipassana has a dramatic effect at the psychological level. Old complexes are
relinquished, new attitudes and virtues are cultivated, memories resurface,
relationships are seen and developed in new light, the future is deconstructed and
reopened in new ways, human history and community are known to have different
potentials than was once believed, and event after event in one’s life is
experienced and reexamined in a new perspective. This is the most dramatic and
obvious contribution of meditation and the reason it is attractive to many people.
d) Vipassana is value-based education. The goal of Vipassana is to manifest the
virtues of love, compassion, joy and equanimity, and as a psychology it can be
understood as incorporating direct learning. Virtue is cultivated in privacy, and it
is also interjected from the examples of teachers, who may reside as nuclei of
inspiration in the minds of their students. In this sense, Vipassana incorporates a
cognitive-behavioral psychology that encourages active practice of ideal ways of
solving problems, of interacting with others, or of participating in society.
Vipassana is also something you do. Reverence, respect, gratitude, service are
ways to be in the world that can be learned, just like riding a bicycle, and
meditation is also a discipleship to right action. Character building is a matter of
repetition and effort, not just of sitting still with eyes closed. Vipassana is training
in psychological culture.
e) Vipassana is an environmental psychology that stresses the feedback
loop of harmony. The way we treat the world determines much of the response
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that we will get. This principle is not limited to the human world. The motivations
with which we deal with cats, elephants, and trees are also expressions of our
psyches, and set in motion responses which we will in turn be receiving back from
the recipients of our outgoing messages. For a meditator, respect for life is a
logical extension of self-respect. The air, the earth will reply to us and tell us how
our wishes, fears and concerns are impacting them and therefore recalculating to
us. The world is a sensitive receptor of our inner life.
As our inner world expresses itself through actions, the membrane of our
surroundings vibrates with the destruction or joy that we have generated. To the
meditator, everything around us is a mirror in which we are revealed. Everything
around us is also feeling the sting of our wrath, or humming our hum. Awareness
of our living environment is the psychological sensibility of Vipassana.
f) Vipassana is a path to nibb±na, the transcendence of the material world.
Encoded in the psychology of Vipassana is a faith in the More, an intuition of the
Beyond. Vipassana is a psychology of the numinous, free from any concrete
description, belief, vision, theology, anthropomorphism, fantasy, or reduction of
any kind. Vipassana contains an experiential thrust beyond limits of concept and
speech, to animating, personality impacting faith in absolute good.
Although no attempt is made to analyze the experience, one does use some
understanding of certain universal principles, which are helpful in freeing oneself
from past mental reactions, false beliefs and false self definitions. All experiences
are understood in terms of the following three principles:
1. Anicca (impermanence): nothing is permanent; everything exists against the
background of no-thingess, which is predominant. This to leads to a state of
unsatisfactoriness, which is at the bottom of human life, and one begins to
question the essence of things.
2. Anatta (agolessness or non-identification): not identifying oneself with what
one encounters during introspection. It is not a denial or disowning parts of
16
ourselves but recognition of false identifications and letting go of things that we
are holding on to out of our own insecurities.
3. Dukkha (suffering): this is the corollary of impermanence. One can think of
two different types of suffering, in-built and self-created. In-built suffering is not
related to anything in particular. It is about eventual nothingness or uncertainty
about things. In spite of our best efforts we remain subject to chance and battle
with doubts about the fairness of human life.
It is easier to avoid self-created suffering as it originates from our own mental
reactions, self-definitions and the conclusions we draw about our experiences and
the world in general. There is a link between the two types of sufferings. Our
unwillingness to accept inbuilt suffering makes us react in certain ways leading to
further suffering. Vipassana encourages us to confront the ultimate concerns
pertaining to in-built suffering. The ‘acceptance of suffering’ in Buddhist
psychology is generally misunderstood as a nihilistic approach. The acceptance
should not be viewed as the end point. Rather, it is a means of achieving the goal
of total eradication of suffering. Even in-built suffering dissolves with the
dissolution of one’s ego. It becomes a non-issue as one transcends the human
ways of looking at things.
Benefits of Meditation
Meditation is basically a method for working on the mind. First, we learn
how to identity our different positive and negative mental states, and then the
utilize methods for removing negative states and developing positive ones. As our
mind becomes more positive, we learn how to react well to everyday situations
and our relationships with others. In other words, our actions become positive and
effective, and our overall experience of life becomes more satisfying and useful to
ourselves and others.
Meditation is used to assist in reaching a higher level of spiritual entity and
self awareness. It has been practiced widely in many cultures around the world,
especially the more spiritual cultures of Asia.
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However, in Western countries, meditation is a method to combat stresses
of increasing work pressure resulting in absence because of illness. In
Netherlands, it is reported that employers are so attracted towards the benefits of
meditation that provisions have been made to put meditation into workers
contracts. Also the Dutch Police and Department of Defense have introduced
meditation to training programmes to assist employee’s physical and mental
effectiveness (Beckett 2008).
Recently mindfulness meditation has been applied to many psychological
and health related problems and researchers show successful positive outcomes in
this. A simple technique practices for as few as 10 minutes per day can help to
control stress, decrease anxiety, improve cardiovascular health and achieve a
greater capacity for relaxation (Stoppler 2005).
Meditation relaxes the body and mind as well as help to gain peace without
any side effects. It is easy to practice any time and by anyone. It does not require
any special equipment and can be practiced wherever we want. It is possible to do
while walking, eating, riding a bus or doing laundry. Sitting, walking, Tai Chi,
and yoga are quite popular forms of meditation whereas drawing, painting,
dancing, and listening to music could also be simple methods which could be
practiced on a daily basis.
Meditation makes people more than only feel good and clam. It makes us
perform better and it has an effect on the whole body. It helps to slow down the
heart rate and breathing and also normalizes blood pressure. It decreases the
sweating level and helps us to use oxygen more efficiently. Adrenal glands
produce less cholesterol, our mind ages at a slower rate, and our immune function
improves. It makes our mind clear and increases creativity. People who meditate
regularly find it easy to give up life-damaging habits such as smoking drinking
and drugs. Besides this, meditation had various psychological and physiological
benefits. Firstly, as psychological benefits, meditation reduces stress, anxiety and
depression. It also increases creativity, intelligence, moral reasoning and memory,
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it reduces irritability and moodiness. Moreover, it increases emotional control,
self-esteem and alertness. It also helps to improve relationships and concentration.
Secondly, as physiological benefits, meditation prevents, slows, or controls pain
of chronic diseases. It also boosts the immune system and helps lower blood
pressure and cholesterol levels. In addition, it improves airflow, especially in
those with asthma (Meditation 2008).
Moreover, doing a meditation in a right way can be useful in headaches,
mental stress, symptoms of pre-menstrual syndrome and menopause as well as
many other diseases and blood circulation. It provides stamina, strength and
flexibility to fight every kind of illness, diseases, physical and mental problem.
The important features of meditation are that it works without side-effects and any
medicine. Many studies have demonstrated the board range of positive impact or
meditation on many other kinds of diseases such depression, anxiety disorder,
obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia, post traumatic stress disorder.
(Brantley 2005: Kabat-Zinn 2003)For instance, meditation can work for
depression. Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and isolation are symptoms of
depression. Meditation increases self-confidence and feelings of connection to
other people. Many studies have shown that depressed people feel much better
after provoking the relaxation response (Hargreaves & Mason 2001: Segal,
Teasdale & Williams, 2002).
In addition, in medical studies, meditation has been shown to lower blood
pressure and cholesterol levels. Further study continues to measure the impact and
benefit of meditation on the risk factors to cardiac problems, as well. These
include hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, and insulin resistance. In a study
published in the winter 2007 Ethnicity & Disease medial journal, transcendental
meditation positively impacted patients who suffer from congestive heart failures
(Benefits of meditation). Also according to Brantley (2005). Mindful Based Stress
Reduction (MBSR) approach, which was designed by Kabat-Zinn et al. in
Massachusetts Medical Center in MA, was reported in many researchers as a
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magnificent method for treating chronic pain, depression, cancer, eating disorder,
cardiac disease, and stress reduction (Brantley 2005, 139).
The following sentences are a more detail example of the effect of MBSR
approach. A study conducted by Kutz et al. (1992) investigating the effects of
MBSR on a group of people with long term anxiety and obsessive neuroses as
well as personality disorder. They showed expressive improvements in self-rated
and therapist rated symptoms. Kabat-Zinn et al. (1996) utilized MBSR programs
based on mindfulness meditation for patients with anxiety disorders and found a
reduction in the levels of anxiety and panic during the course and over a 3 moth
follow-up period. Over the last 25 years, mindfulness training has been used in
hospital clinics and community setting offering pain management and stress
reduction programs including MBSR (Melbourne Academic Mindfulness Interest
Group 2006, 286).
In summary, meditation may be an effective treatment option for
conditions such as anxiety, stress, chronic pain and eating and affective disorders
as well as being an adjunctive treatment or other physical health conditions and
behavior change interventions (Melbourne Academic Mindfulness Interest Group
2006, 287).
As a clinical point of view, meditation should not be conducted for some
people such as borderline psychotic or psychotic patients without supervision by
psychotherapist familiar with meditation. This is because those sensitive patients
bring dizziness, feelings of dissociation while they are doing meditation. Also
therapists should provide careful instruction, training, and follow-up observation
(Carrington 1978, according to Shapiro 2008, 8).
Balanced mindful of love and compassion. This scientific law that one’s
thoughts, feelings, judgments and sensations become clear. Through direct
experience, the nature of how owe grows or regresses, how one produces
suffering or frees oneself from suffering is understood life becomes characterized
by increased awareness, non delusion, self control and peace.
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Mental Health
Mental health is a term used to describe either a level of cognitive or
emotional well being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the
discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an
individual’s ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and
efforts to achieve psychological resilience. The World Health Organization (2005)
defines mental health as “a state of well being in which the individual realizes his
or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work
productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution of his or her own
abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and
fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution of his or her community”. It was
previously stated that there as on one “official” or mental health (WHO, 2001).
Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories
all affect how “mental health” is defined.
In the mind 19th century, William Sweetzer was the firs to clearly define
the term “mental hygiene”, which can be seen as the precursor to contemporary
approaches to work on promoting positive mental health. Isane Ray (2007) one of
thirteen founders of the American Psychiatric Association, further defined mental
hygiene as an art to preserve the mind against incidents and influences which
would inhibit or destroy its energy, quality or development. Many mental health
professionals are beginning to or already understand, the importance of
competency is religious diversity and spirituality.
Life stress
The modern world, which is said to be a world of achievements, as also a
world of a stress, on finds stress everywhere. Whether it be within the family,
business organization, enterprise or any other social or economic activity, right
from the time of birth tell the last breath drawn, an individual is invariably
exposed to various stressful situations. Thus, it is not surprising that interest is the
21
issue has been rising with the advancement of the present century which has been
called the “Age of Anxiety and Stress” stress is a subject which is hard to avoid.
The terms is discussed not only in our every day conversations but has become
enough of a public issue to attract widespread media attention whether it be radio,
television, newspapers, of magazines the issues of stress figures everywhere.
Rosch(2008) found that stress is difficult for scientist to define because it is
a subjective sensation associated with varied symptoms that differ with each
individual. In addition, stress is not always a synonym for distress. Increased
stress improves productivity up to appoint, after which things rapidly deteriorate,
and that level also differ for each individual. By finding the happy medium it is
possible to maintain balance and harmony in daily life, being more productive and
less self-destructive. Interestingly Kornfild (2004) finds that to Vipasanais to look
into our lives with interest and kindness and discover how to be wakeful and free.
Vipasana meditation is the development or discovery, depending on your
orientation, of consciousness independent of the visual and verbal symbols that
constitute what we call thought. It is the deliberate cultivation of a mental state of
the body with an attentive focus of the mind. The focus may be on a sound
(mantra), a breathing, an object, a part of the body, a mental image, or a
prayer(Keefe,1986)
Depression. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH ); (2009)
describes the state of depression as persistent sad ,anxious or “empty”
feelings ,feelings of hopelessness and pessimism, feelings of guilt, worthlessness
and helplessness, irritability, restlessness and loss of interest in activities or
hobbies once pleasurable, including sex. Other symptoms may include: fatigue
and decreased energy; difficulty concentrating; remembering details and making
decisions; insomnia, early- morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping;
overcoming or appetite loss; thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts; and
22
persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps or digestive problems that do not
ease even with treatment (NIMH,2009).
Review of Literature
The purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of Vipasan Meditation on certain areas of the Meditators life. This chapters a is a survey of some studies conducted in this area.
This is a new area of research, and therefore there is a paucity of research studies.Vipasana Meditation, so far has focused on an Meditators.Therefore,the researcher has reviewed the available literature on Meditation in the few decades.The research studies were from books, classical studies, research journals and PsychINFO,PsychNET,PsychAPA also on line journals.
Vipasana Meditation:A positive mental Health Measure by Lt.Col.M.B.Pethe and Dr.R.M.Chokhani(2010).Found that Vipasana’s ability to tranquillize the human mind, changing its turbulence to calmness with increased vitality, makes it a positive mental health measure and an excellent human potential development method. The meditator becomes free to live for higher values, richer goals: loving-kindness, compession, sympathetic joy and peacefulness. Vipasana thus leads people from narcissism to mature, social love, to a life of altruiSM3 and this personal transformation becomes the catalyst for social change and development.
In a pilot study Walach et al.(2007) evaluated the potential of Vipasan based stress reduction for management and others. Workers participated in vipasana training for stress – related problems (n=12 ); (control n=12 ). The authors conducted interviews and measured coping and mental health. Qualitative interviews indicated that subjects had attained more awareness of work- related problems contributing to stress and had grown more critical toward their work environment. In the treatment group, positive strategies of coping with stress increased and negative strategies of coping decreased with significant difference at post treatment compared to control. Eighty- two percent of the participants reported having reached their personal goal and good mental health.
Paraissman (2008) found that Vipasana based stress reduction training is an effective treatment for stress and anxiety that accompanies daily life and chronic illness’Vipasana training is also therapeutic for healthcare providers, enhancing their interactions with patients.
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The literature review suggests that further exploration of Vipasana meditation as an effective tool for enhancing mental health, stress, anxiety and depression. Therefore this research analysis was initiated in the hope of developing greater understanding and awareness of ourselves and one another through vipasana meditation in a sprit of compassion and loving-kindness.
Methodology
Statement of the problem
To find out the impact of “Vipasana Meditation on Mental Health and Life
Stress “of newly joined and experienced Vipassana meditators and non Vipasana
meditators. The focal point and differences due to, gender and age.
Objective of the present study :
1. To assess and analyze the Vipasana Meditation on mental health and life
stress.
2. To find out differences between men and women Vipasana meditation
participants and non participants
3. To know the mental health of Vipasana participants and non Vipasana
participants.
4. To find out the life stress of Vipasana participants and non Vipasana
participants
5. To known the relationship between Vipasana meditation, mental health and
life stress
6. To know the impact of Vipasan meditation, mental health and life stress on
aged.
The Variables
Independent variable - Vipasana meditation, gender and age
Dependent variable - Mental health, stress ,Depression and Anxiety
Hypothesis
Following are the major hypothesis for the present study they are
1. There is significant impact of Vipasana mediation on mental health and life
stress.
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2. There is a significant difference between men and women Vipasana
meditation participants and non participants.
3. There is significant difference between mental health of Vipasana
participants and non Vipasana participants.
4. There is significant difference between life stress of Vipasana participants
and non Vipasana participants.
5. There is a significant relationship between Vipasana meditation, mental
health and life stress.
6. There is significant impact of Vipasana meditation, mental health and life
stress on age.
Population of the study
The population of the study consists of participants and non participants of
various Vipasana meditation centers.
Sample
The sample consists of 600 among them 200 newly joined Vipasana
meditators and 200 more than two years experienced meditators and 200 General
group.
Tools
1.The Mental health Inventory (MHI)developed by Dr.Jagdish Dr.A.K.Srivastava (1983)
2.Life stress Inventory by Holems and Rahe (1967 )
3. The depression Anxiety and stress Scales (DASS) Whilst Lovibond and lovibond’s
(1995)
Statistical Analysis
Descriptive statistics, Chi-square, Fishers’s exact test, two-way mixed-design
MANOVA,independent t-test, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and repeated
measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) Effect size has been computed and
Pearson correlation between variables is performed were used to analyze the data,
based on the on the were used to assumptions of statics.
25
Result and Discussion.
A significant difference was observed among 3 selected groups in their mean life stress scores, where F- value of 471.69 was found to be highly significant. The mean life stress scores of 3 groups-general, newly joined and experienced are 214.71, 157.51 and 128.27 respectively. Further, Schaffer’s post hoc test indicated that general group experienced maximum stress, followed by newly joined group and those who were put in 2 and more years of experience in Vipasana had least stress scores. All the multiple comparisons of mean differences were found to be significant. Further, between male and female respondents also a significant difference was observed in their mean stress scores (F=87.36; P=.000), where male respondents experienced significantly higher stress (mean 177.96) than female respondents (mean 155.91). Lastly the interaction between group and gender was found to be significant (F=38.147; P=.000), where we find that among newly joined respondents, no difference was observed between male and female respondents, and in rest of the groups male respondents had high stress scores than female respondents.
Conclusion
1. There is significant impact of Vipasana mediation on mental health and life
stress.
2. There is a significant difference between men and women Vipasana
meditation participants and non participants.
3. There is significant difference between mental health of Vipasana
participants and non Vipasana participants.
4. There is significant difference between life stress of Vipasana participants
and non Vipasana participants.
5. There is a significant relationship between Vipasana meditation, mental
health and life stress.
6. There is significant impact of Vipasana meditation, mental health and life
stress on age.
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Note: According to UGC Regulation I am published bellow mentioned two papers
related to my PhD topic.
1.Chandrakant Srimant and Professor S.P.Melkeri (Aug-2010).Impact of
Vipasana Medtation Life stress ‘Orient Journal of Law and Social Sciences,Vol-
iv,issue-9, 87-90.
2. Chandrakant Srimant and Professor S.P.Melkeri (Dec-2010).Effect of Vipasana
Meditation on Mental Health ‘Gorakhpur Social Scientist,Vol-1,No-2,45-50.
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