About Meditation
Mindfulness in depth
Mindfulness is not just another word for meditation. It is a specific way of using meditation, and at Lifeflow it sits within a broader framework that also includes relaxation and calm, integration, and ethics.
That broader context matters. It makes mindfulness easier to understand, easier to practise, and easier to bring into the real situations of everyday life.
Are meditation and mindfulness the same thing?
They are closely related, but not exactly the same. In the Buddhist tradition, meditation has three different meanings:
- Mental development (bhavana), the broad umbrella that includes meditation and mindfulness
- Calm and concentration (samadhi)
- Absorption (jhana), the progressively deepening states of meditation
Mindfulness (sati) is one specific way of using meditation. It refers to bringing clear, steady awareness to your body, your sensations, your emotions, your thoughts, and the situations you move through each day.
At Lifeflow, mindfulness is taught alongside three other streams: relaxation and calm, integration, and ethics. We begin covering all four in the Learn to Meditate course so people develop both a solid foundation and practical tools they can use straight away.
The goal of mindfulness
The goal of mindfulness is to develop awareness, and ultimately to gain insight into the fundamental nature of human consciousness.
In therapeutic settings the goals are usually more immediate. Approaches such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) use basic meditation techniques to help people work more skilfully with stress, mood, and difficult patterns.
Lifeflow recognises both dimensions. People often begin with very practical reasons for learning mindfulness, but the training can also deepen into a fuller understanding of how body, mind, emotion, and awareness relate.
For an excellent discussion of this territory, see Dr Michael Yapko’s book Mindfulness and Hypnosis.
The four streams at Lifeflow
All four streams of meditation are introduced in our Learn to Meditate course.
If you want to explore them further, see our text Life in Balance. As with everything in our curriculum, this is an integrated approach to physical and mental health, personal development, and spiritual growth that is grounded in our culture while remaining true to the intention of the original tradition.
Calm and concentration
The first stream develops relaxation, calm, and concentration: the very things most people are looking for when they begin meditation.
It includes meditations designed to bring you quickly to a relaxed and calm state and to take you through the deepening stages of meditation. This stream brings you to your senses.
Mindfulness meditation
In the mindfulness stream you learn to bring your mind fully to whatever you are doing. In the Learn to Meditate course we teach a range of mindfulness practices we call Spot Meditations so you can become more aware of your body, sensations, emotions, and thoughts.
That gives you a strong basis for becoming mindful in everyday situations, from painful patterns you habitually get caught in through to caring and loving relationships where you want to be open-hearted and responsive. Mindfulness meditation helps you deal with these situations more skilfully.
One of Lifeflow’s signature techniques is the Three C Technique™. It is simple to remember, easy to do, and can be applied in any situation. We develop this work further in Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4.
This training has also been valuable for health professionals including doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and nurses, many of whom have incorporated these techniques into their own work. A number of leading mindfulness teachers in Adelaide have trained at Lifeflow.
Integration
This stream brings together relaxation and calm with mindfulness and helps you integrate them with your own physical experience and the different situations of your life.
It includes a range of techniques derived from both the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and the discoveries of Western psychology. These are designed to bring mind, emotions, and body into a more unified whole so you can sustain a healthy state of mind and richer relationships.
Ethics
This stream is not ethics in the narrow moral sense. Its aim is to bring the skills of calm and mindfulness into all of your actions and relationships so you can act more mindfully whatever situation you find yourself in.
It begins by using meditation to become kinder to yourself and more accepting and understanding of yourself. From there, you can see others and the situations around you more clearly, respond more openly, and feel more connected to the communities and natural world you are part of.
Learn to meditate
All you need to learn the skill of meditation, plus practical tools for emotional wellbeing and joy.
This course is suitable for complete beginners and experienced meditators alike. It also forms the foundation for the Levels program and Lifeflow Teacher Training.
more . . .
Relax your body and refresh your mind simply and naturally with drop in meditation and mindfulness classes.
Explore our range of meditation courses covering mindfulness, neuroscience, decision making, and the wider meditation tradition.