The Mindfulness Bell 91: Mindfulness & Public Health, 2023

Contents of The Mindfulness Bell Issue 91

1. Rebuilding Health by Thich Nhat Hanh
2. The New Thich Nhất Hạnh Center for Mindfulness in Public Health
3. Ripple Effects of Mindfulness by Reina Kato Lansigan
4. From Selfness to Cellness by Jo-ann Rosen
5. Embracing Our Nervous Systems  with Plum Village Practice by EMBRACE Sangha
6. Breathing through Intergenerational Trauma by Stef Rodriguz Bathgate
7. Utilizing the Energy of Mindfulness to Heal the Mother Wound by Salina Khan-Fuchigami
8. Poem: Hero of Hearts by Craig Cowden
9. Neuroscience-Infused Body Scan by Brother Phap Linh
10. The Ānāpānasati Sutra: Happiness Sandwich and Mindful Shaking by Maíra Fernandes de Melo and Nomi Green
11. Reflections on a New Year of Growth at the Happy Farm by Mick McEvoy
12. Recipe: Comforting Lentil Soup by Jess Brown
13. My Encounters with Mindfulness by Sara Sena
14. Four Mantras on Love by Hà Down
15. Wake Up Schools as a Public Health Movement by Orlaith O' Sullivan
16. Poem: From a Student to a Teacher (on his birthday) by Teri West
17. Book Review: Autism and Buddhist Practice by Gijs Van den Broeck
18. Leaving a Legacy to Support Thầy’s Continuation by the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation

Excerpt from the Editor's Welcome Letter

When the Buddha sat under a pippala tree on the banks of the Neranjarā River, determined to understand his mind, he was not interested in coming up with a new theory for the world. He wanted to transform his suffering. This issue of The Mindfulness Bell continues in the spirit of the Buddha’s first-person science of the mind: practical, open-minded, and non-dogmatic.

How do we as practitioners participate in a real science of the mind? It starts by being aware of our breath and of our body to learn from our own lived experiences here and now. Through raw experimentation—shining the light of mindfulness on our body and mind—we see what to do and what not to do. Intuition manifests and we become scientists, evolving our approach in light of the evidence of experimental data. In meditation, our own mind and body are the laboratory. Subject and object are one, and we see ourselves as a participant in the health of the collective: collective awakening is the realization of public health and wellbeing.

Thầy reminds us in his 2012 book Love Letter to the Earth, “Every advance in our understanding of ourselves, our nature, and our place in the cosmos deepens our reverence and love.… In the twenty-first century it should be possible for us to come together and offer ourselves the kind of religion that can help unite all peoples and all nations, and remove all separation and discrimination. If existing religions and philosophies, as well as science, can make an effort to go in this direction, it will be possible to establish a cosmic religion based not on myth, belief, or dogma, but on evidence and the insight of interbeing. And that would be a giant leap for humankind.”
Come, experiment, play, and learn with us.
Brother Pháp Lưu
Advisor and Editor

Excerpt from the article "Rebuilding Health" by Thich Nhat Hanh

Thích Nhất Hạnh teaches us to stop running and findhealing, peace, joy, and happiness in our breathing and our walking

When we practice mindfulness, every practice should be the healing itself. Suppose you are
practicing mindful breathing. You think that the breathing will bring healing, but you have to
breathe in such a way that every breath is healing itself. It is not a means, it is an end. If we breathe an in-breath and feel calm and pleasant, then the healing is there. But if you suffer and you have to make a lot of effort to breathe in, that is not healing.

An in-breath can be healing or not, depending on the way we breathe. Mindful breathing means
that while breathing in we are mindful of our in-breath. Mindfulness is the content of our in-breath.

Learning to Stop
We have a habit of running, and this habit may have been transmitted to us by our parents and our
ancestors. We run because we are not comfortable in the here and the now. We are running to look
for something to make us happier, and behind that running there is a belief that happiness is not possible here and now. So we run into the future looking for more conditions of happiness. We run but we do not know that we are running because running has become a kind of habit energy pushing us. When you breathe in mindfully but cannot stop the running, then your in-breath does not have the power to heal. For healing to take place, your in-breath has to be able to stop you from running.

You learn to take an in-breath in such a way that it becomes so pleasant that you can keep your attention on it. You breathe in in such a way that you find peace, happiness, and joy in your in-breath. If you can do that, then you can stop running. But if you breathe in with the purpose or the desire to get something out of your in-breath—such as health—you are still running.

Breathing is an art. You learn to breathe in so that your in-breath brings you peace, happiness,
joy, and contentment; that is the only way to breathe so that you can heal. When you walk, you
do the same thing: walking meditation helps you to stop running. If you walk with the idea of achieving something, you are still running. If you make a step and you are entirely satisfied with that step, if you find the joy, peace, and happiness that can nourish you, that is healing. So stopping the running is very important. But you cannot stop just because you want to stop. The willingness to stop is not yet stopping. You need to have some insight to be able to really
stop. It’s like relaxation: every one of us knows that relaxation is good for us. The tension in our body has been accumulating for a long time, and you want to relieve it. You have the desire to release the tension, and you try to do it, but you cannot— because the willingness to relax is not relaxation. You need to have some insight to be able to relax and release the tension. That is why mindfulness has to be coupled with insight. Mindfulness is the kind of energy that helps you know what is going on in your body. With mindfulness, if there is tension, you know there is tension. If there is pain, you know that there is pain. Mindfulness can help you see more deeply that you have a body, and that this body is a continuation of the body of your father, of your mother, and of your ancestors. If you keep your mindfulness alive, then you become more and more concentrated and you begin to see. You begin to have the kind of insight that can help you get out of your suff ering, get out of your illusion, and help you to stop. Mindfulness is connected with concentration and insight; if you practice mindfulness well, you get concentration and insight at the
same time.
[…]

Excerpt from the article "Embracing Our Nervous Systems with Plum Village Practice"

Introducing the EMBRACE Sangha, a new resource for transforming trauma

As Thầy often reminded us, Buddhism and our practice should be renewed with some regularity and with a view to embracing new understandings. Cultivating greater awareness of our nervous system and embodied traumatic response offers one such avenue to generate new understandings of Thầy’s teachings. Our BIPOC [Black, Indigenous,and People of Color] teachers and fellow practitioners have led the way for us beautifully, whether it is through the teachings offered by Dr. Larry Ward, and Kaira Jewel Lingo, Dr. Ward’s Wind Gate course, ARISE’s Race: A Dharma Door (RADD) training, or the ways in which our BIPOC Dharma teachers and Order of Interbeing members offer the practice in BIPOC Sanghas. Recognizing that this learning is essential to manifest a beloved community, one that offers a genuine sense of welcome and belonging to all,  a question went out in the turbulent summer of2020: Might anyone be interested in exploring trauma-sensitive mindfulness in the context of our Plum Village practice? The large response captured the energy of the moment, and the newly-formed Care-Taking Council (CTC) of what would become the EMBRACE (Embodying Mindfulness-Based Resilience to Awaken Community Empowerment) Sangha quickly created a framework for ensuing conversations. Affinity-based study groups were formed: one of BIPOC women; one of men (mixed racial and intergenerational); and two of white women. Members were invited to gather biweekly through the six months from November 2020 to May of 2021.Together, each study group read, practiced with, and reflected on the book Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing by David A. Treleaven. Each group’s “mission” was to explore how the work of Treleaven and others could enhance our own experience of Plum Village practice and promote safety and belonging in our Sanghas. In keeping with Plum Village practice, each session opened with a guided meditation on trauma sensitivity, enjoyed mindful movement, and included Dharma sharing. Building on our awareness of the First Noble Truth, we learned that none of us is immune from the kinds of shattering experiences that can dysregulate our nervous systems. Moreover, while trauma in its myriad manifestations may impact many of us, even so-called ordinary daily events can upset our nervous system and lead to unskillful words and actions.By the summer of 2021, word had spread of this opportunity to develop and practice with adeeper understanding of the nervous system andthe workings of personal, interpersonal, and societal trauma. Requests for more study groups came pouring in. […]