The Foundation of A Happy and Peaceful Mind

ADay of Mindfulness(one-day retreat)

for Health Care and Human Service Professionals
from 9:30 to 16:30 on Saturday April 9, 2016

at Centre on Behavioral Health,The University of HongKong

Dear friends,

You are invited to attend a Day of Mindfulness (DOM) for health care and human service professionals, co-organized by HKU Centre of Behavioral Health and Plum Village Mindfulness Academy – Hong Kong. This DOM is part of our “Healthy Body, Healthy Mind” Initiative to integrate mindfulness practices to the physical and mental health fields.

The foundations of the is imitative are the teachings and practices of Mindfulness based on the Discourse on Full Awareness of Breathing (Anapanasati Sutta) and the Discourse on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness Satipatthana Sutta), as taught by the Buddha about 2,600 years ago. We also studied how the mind works, based on the teachings of Manifestation – Only Psychology, which was systematized in the 4^th century by the Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher Vasubandhu of the Yogacara Buddhist School. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh has used these teachings to form the foundation for meditation practices to help us nourish our body and mind, to develop insight and to help us transform pain and suffering into peace and happiness. Even though the teachings are from Buddhist tradition, the practices are non-sectarian and are open to people of all faith.

For this year’s DOMs, we will study in depth the Discourse on Full Awareness of Breathing. As human, our being is made up of 5 components: body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness. Mindfulness is to be mindful about something. In order to be mindful about something, we first need to be mindful of our in-breath and out-breath. Being aware of our breaths is to be aware of our body, which helps us to be aware of our feelings, perceptions, mental formation and consciousness. We can develop specific exercises to get in touch with our feelings, mental formations, and perceptions. Why is this important? Consider someone who suffers from performance anxiety. He can take the medication symptoms. We need to look deeply into the fear of not being accepted, of not being loved for not having a good performance. Hence, the need to look into our feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness.

In the day of mindfulness, we will learn the practice of being back to our breath, anchoring our mind in the in-breath and out-breath. We become calm and clear when the mind and body are together in one place, with the help of our mindful breath. We will practice listening to the bell, walking meditation, eating meditation, exercise meditation (mindful movements), and relaxation meditation (total relaxation) … We practice to stop, to slow down the thinking in our mind via bodily actions.

You can find more information about activities of past days of mindfulness at  http://mindfulnessacademy.org/en/programs/health-care-dom

A sample program for the day of mindfulness is as follow:

Location:

Fees: HKD200.00 (including vegetarian lunch and tea)

How to register

Please fill in the attached registration form along with the cheque and mail to Centre on Behavioral Health, HKU.

For details, please refer to Plum Village Mindfulness Academy Website at mindfulnessacademy.org

295