Day of Mindfulness (one-day retreat) for Health Care and Human Service Professionals
The Day of Mindfulness (DOM) for health care and human service professionals, co-organized by HKU Centre on 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 this initiative 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 4th 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 DOM, we will learn to understand our feelings, their nature and how the breath can be our perfect companion to treasure more our happy moments and go through our emotional storms safely based on the two main essential discourses as mentioned above. We will go through exercises for observing the arising of the feelings, the present of the feelings and the disappearance of the feelings. We will really taste the impermanent and non-self nature of our own feelings. We will find out the teachings ourselves by coming together in this Day of Mindfulness. Be-still in each in-breath and out-breath will take us back to our safe island within right here and right now.
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.