Can Mindfulness be
Interesting?
“Do you find mindfulness interesting or boring?”, Mindfulness-Based
Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) Trainer Calvin Onn Yee Han questioned the
participants. With the aim to learn about mindfulness to reduce stress,
improve concentration and regulate emotions in daily life, a workshop titled
“Can Mindfulness Be Interesting?” was organised on 16 January 2021.
It was organised by
UTAR Department of Student Affairs
of Sungai Long Campus’ Counselling and Guidance Unit (CGU) via ZOOM.
Having been a practising lawyer for almost two decades before quitting and
taking a new career path as a Mindfulness coach, Calvin Onn started
practising mindfulness since the age of 14. He has travelled to many places
around the world, participating in various silent retreats including a
month-long retreat in the USA led by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. On top of
that, he has also completed the fourth level of MBCT with Oxford Mindfulness
Centre. He holds a Master Degree in counselling psychology from the National
University of Changhua, Taiwan. He is also the author of the Mindfulness
handbook, Practical Attention System.
“Some people may find Mindfulness boring or never interesting simply because
thinking about the past or future is interesting but staying in ‘nowness’ is
boring. To a certain extent, mindfulness requires us to stay in ‘nowness’
where we rest our mind on certain objects,” said Calvin Onn.
While sharing a brief introduction on Mindfulness and its history, he said,
“Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction)
collected a group of patients in the hospital; the majority of them were
terminally ill. He taught them to practise mindfulness. After eight weeks of
practice, most of the patients recovered from their fear of illness and
death. Since then, it was
developed by institutes, hospitals and organisations in the United States
and the United Kingdom. Three professors from Oxford University, one of them
being Prof Mark Williams, were inspired by him and they developed MBCT to
help the patients with depression.”
Providing insight on mindfulness by giving a demonstration, he said, “Listening and embracing whatever that comes to us is one of the important gists of being mindful. We are here to be attentive and be observant. According to scientific research, doctors estimate that we have 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day. This is especially when we have unconscious thoughts. It pops out in our mind when we are not conscious and it will decide our feelings, emotions and reactions.”
Practising mindfulness to
understand “Thought is not fact”
Meanwhile, he explained the interesting facts of practising mindfulness
through two video clips. He said, “Since we have a lot of thoughts in our
mind if we practise mindfulness, we will be able to discover the three
interesting facts. The first one is ‘Thought is not fact’. Many of us think
that our thought is the reality, which in fact is not. It happens in our
daily lives and most of the time it happens without us being conscious,
without us realising the truth. In MBCT, according to scientists, when we
have a thought and we do not check it with sufficient mindfulness, it will
result in sensations that will come with emotions. In the end, we will react
to what we think automatically without judging the facts, which later
becomes a habit. Hence, to break this habitual pattern, we need to practise
mindfulness to help us see clearly.”
Our thinking pattern is
not voluntary
“Secondly, ‘Thinking pattern is not voluntary’. Many people think that their
thinking pattern is fixed and it cannot be changed, but actually, our
thinking pattern is not voluntary, it is without our control; it is
habitual. In MBCT, we name it ‘auto-pilot thinking’. Because our thoughts
are not facts, if we have many thoughts, it will become a thinking pattern.
Sooner or later, we will assume that our thinking pattern is created by
ourselves, which is not true. Moreover, our thinking pattern is actually
controlled by our previous experience, our previous judgement and previous
rationale. Hence, by practising mindfulness consistently, we can use our
mind mindfully to check the facts and react accordingly,” said Calvin Onn.
Scientists found that a
person averagely has fifty per-cent of negative emotions, thirty per-cent of
positive emotions and twenty per-cent is neutral
While explaining the last point “Negative emotion is not bad”, he said,
“People do not like negative emotion because it is always an issue. However,
our emotion is just an emotion, but our mind will automatically judge and
criticise it.” He then gave an example and said, “Currently, we are
suffering due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so we have a lot of negative
emotions; we have so much fear and worry. But from another point of view,
negative emotion is a good thing. Negative emotion protects us from getting
a virus because we are worried, we are scared, so we will wear a mask and
sanitise our hands. Hence, negative emotion is not necessarily a problem, it
is neutral; it depends on how we judge and react to it. So, do not blame
negative emotion.”
When asked, Calvin Onn said, “By practising mindfulness, we will be able to
fully understand ourselves better. We will be able to see and have better
confidence in the things we do. While practising mindfulness, we will become
happier and our work productivity will improve because the stress is
released.”
He
then explained two ways of practising mindfulness which is “mirror-ing” and
“spa-ing”, “Basically, mindfulness is like a mirror; mirror-ing our six
senses, namely eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin and thoughts. All these are the
reflection of our mindfulness. The reason why we could not stop our mind
from wandering is because we think too much, our auto-pilot is too powerful,
hence too many assumptions and too many judgements in our mind. Besides, we
also need to practise spa-ing. Anything that comes to us, comes to our
‘mirror’, we just do nothing to it. Spa-ing means to do nothing.”
Calvin Onn explaining the
theory of mindfulness after practising mirror-ing and spa-ing
He
then demonstrated the practice of mirror-ing and spa-ing. He said, “The
theory of mindfulness after practising ‘mirror-ing’ and ‘spa-ing’ is our
awareness will become stronger and we will become confident. Indirectly, we
will remove our entire mental problem. Hence, I would suggest practising
mindfulness for about five to ten minutes every day. We can do it twice; a
short moment every time we do but do it more frequently. When we are more
familiar with the mindful state, we will see it becoming more interesting.”
The workshop then wrapped up with an interactive Q&A
session followed by a group photo session. It was attended by more than 190
participants.
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