EA mindfulness course with Ollie Bramford

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After a lovely short meditation session in EAG London conference, I joined a 4 week EA meditation course led by Ollie.

Course had 4 in-group sessions in Wednesday evenings with homework in-between.

Wisdom and compassion are the 2 wings of a bird to fly. You need both to fly.
eagle of wisdom and compassion

What did I take from this course?

  • a habit of meditation
  • change of mindset (being more compassionate with myself)
  • a better understanding of what to compromise on and what not.
  • helped me forward my thinking of how I think about my life.
  • the push for things I would not do normally. You have freed me from my boundaries.

Week 1 - Body scan: habit of focus

try meditating just for 30 seconds. the most important part is to train to clear your mind and form a habit. You will add extra time later.

Meditating after physical activity works better.

A way to calm down breath - put a hand on abdomen, breathe through nose or focus on something else.

you have a lifetime to nurture this practice, no need to rush.

Guided focus meditations

Mindfulness of body and breath (8m 10s)
Mindfulness body scan meditation (14m 47s)
Guided meditations from Prof. Mark Williams.
Prof Wiliams is Founding Director and Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford Mindfulness Centre.

Selection of short guided mindfulness meditations (3-19 mins) from Diana Winston, Director of Mindfulness Education, Mindful Awareness Research Center, UCLA.

Attending to breath (20m 00) Guided meditation from Adyashanti

Adyashanti is a renowned contemporary American spiritual teacher and author from the San Francisco Bay Area who offers talks, online study courses, and retreats in the United States and abroad.

Week 2 - RAIN: difficult emotions

RAIN is a self compassion meditation best used when feeling difficult emotions.

It could be a good tool to support therapy.

The biggest success factor is meditating via community: a friend, group, etc. The support from others is crucial.

Emotions are our navigation system to navigate, survive and thrive in the world.

We are aware of only a small part of our “mind-body”, the rest you don’t see and feel. You have a bunch of often unfelt emotions - a compost heap.

Caring for your unfelt difficult emotions allows them to “compost”, you help yourself deal with them and be better off later on.

If it becomes overwhelming, it’s getting unhealthy to explore deeper. Best to change attention to something else.

Guided RAIN meditations

RAIN self-compassion (11m 31s), guided meditation from Tara Brach.
RAIN self-compassion (20m 15s), guided meditation from Tara Brach.
Tara is an American psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW).

RAIN self-compassion, written guidelines from Tara Brach, with which you can do this practice at your own pace.

Selection of self-compassion guided meditations and exercises from Kristin Neff.
Kristin Neff is an associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s department of educational psychology. She is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, and conducted the first empirical studies on self-compassion.

Week 3 - Metta: heart practices

Loving kindness, gratitude, joy - all are types of heart practices.

Metta - the attitude and intention of loving kindness

  • a low risk meditation, a balm
  • cultivates a mind ripe for healing and insight
  • unconditional quality: inclusive of all
  • do not use romantic partner, but a being easy to love
  • little and often, every day = great, weave it into going to sleep or end of meditation practice

Cultivating loving kindness makes life for you and people around you easier.

“mindfulness is clear, bright, full of attention”
“our attention follows our intention”

Guided metta meditations

Loving-Kindness (Metta) guided meditation (8m 09s) with Sharon Salzberg.
Sharon Salzberg is a New York Times bestselling author and a renowned teacher of Buddhist meditation practices in the West. In 1974, she co-founded the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts, with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein.

Embodied Metta (20m 05s) Guided meditation from Tara Brach

Selection of heart-opening meditations (~30 mins) from Jack Kornfield.
Jack Kornfield (born 1945) is a American author and teacher in the Vipassana movement in American Theravada Buddhism. He has taught meditation worldwide since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practices to the West. In 1975, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, and subsequently in 1987, Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Jack is the senior teacher in Ollie’s teacher training course.

Week 4 - Vipassana: deep insight

Vipassana translates into insight/investigation

just take a look, see what’s actually is happening.

Sense of inquiry, noticing the impermanence makes it a Vipassana practice.

Concentration is the groundwork to get to insight and notice change and impermanence, imperfecion, impersonality.

Freeing especially on a retreat. Allows us to “ride the storms” of our lives, agency.

Non-dual state/practice - makes you notice that the sense of self is constructed within the mind (advanced).

Questions

When I practice Metta, I want to talk to the people in my mind in my native language, not in English as provided by the guide. What should I do?

  • get some sort of translations - google Metta scripts in Latvian
  • use visualisation instead of words, imagine a golden light of loving kindness

Is it important to choose one, not more people to focus my loving kindness?

You can use whatever amount of people that you have problems with

What are the downsides to lyng down and meditation?

It is one of the offcial postures of meditation. Only drowsiness and falling asleep.

I’m feeling sleepy, what to do?

There is a big difference between being mindful and daydreaming. If you notice that, be clear and try to get back into it.
If sleep hygiene is good and still fel sleepy, do more physical meditation types.

About mixing methods - is that a normal thing, ok to do?

Different teachers will give different answers.
Ollies take: if you take it intentionally, can be very powerful. If you don’t have the discipline yet, that can be a rummination. I often practice that way, but it did not work very well then.

What kind of meditation to balance for me?

The longer I meditate, the less important the specific practice it is for me. But focusing on loving kindness can be a good starting point.
/ Tara Brach

The best practice is the one you actually do. If you are feeling motivated by it, do it.
/ Ollie

Over the course of years, balancing more core qualities work pretty well.

In short to medium term: sure, prioritize certain practice.
In longer term: more balanced

How to switch from guided to self-guided meditations?

Don’t rush it, you have easily avaiable world class meditations.
If you are feeling drawn to it, guide yourself. Do a meditation retreat to learn specific techniques to get more depth and nuiance to do it independently.

How do I keep a more balanced life outside meditation?

There are many contributing factors to this (eating, sleeping, routine, social environment, feeling safe). Holistic approach is good.
Over time you should become less reactive. Cultivating your outer environment is just as important as inner.

How to respond skilfully to stress endorsed by others?

Take a deep breath, keep the attention on bodily sensations.

How to choose the proper length of meditation? Does it makes sense to cut meditation short when I don’t feel like it?

Generally you should sit through it. Your attention will settle. Caveat - if you find an immediate need that has to be served (sleep, moving)
It is important to sit through restlessness.

What’s the relationship between “open monitoring” and vipassana?

open monitoring is very similar practice - a concentration practice with a wide angle. spreading your attention to everything.

Are meditation retreats really worth it?

Yes, I highly recommended a retreat for a week or longer once a year. This is the key for most practitioners. You probably will get more from 10 day Vipassana retreat than practicing for 20 minutes for 3 years. Because after 2-3 days mind gets very still and you get a window to access pockets you usually don’t get in.

It is easier to notice pain and negative states than pleasure or joy. Is that normal?

Yes, as pain is often stronger in a specific place, while positive feelings can be more subtle. In the way buddhism are modern mindfulness emphasizes equinimity and does not cultivate pleasant experiences (yoga emphasizes it way more). A term “kundalini awakening”.

Resources

A ton of useful links to resources and QA tested meditations are in the original course material.

Ollie’s guided meditations

Practices:

Shorter mindfulness meditations:

EA mindfulness course cover

Retreats

Best in class retreats in Europe:

Go for the teachers that resonate with you and check tehm before!