Cultivating Spirituality for Offenders through Meditative Practices

1. AMERICAN COUNSELLING ASSOCIATION Asia Pacific Counselling Conference - Singapore  June 18th - 19th 2015 Cultivating spirituality through meditative practices for offenders   By Jeffrey Po PhD. 18th June 2015 

2. Sharing • This paper is a sharing of personal experiences. • There is no proper research methodology involved. • Results are not validated and cannot be taken as reliable. • The aim is hopefully some pointers can be useful to you.

3. Personal Observations - 1 • The experiences accumulated over period of five years. • Profile of those incarcerated: • Substance abuse and gambling/gaming addicts • Criminal breach of trust • Credit card fraud • Manslaughter • Loan Shark (illegal money lender)

4. Personal Observations - 2 • Age median - Early thirties to late fifties • Ethnicity - Chinese • Sex - Males • Education - Primary education to Degree holders • Medium of instruction - English language

5. Class size - 20 to 25 Duration - 16 weeks Hours per session - 2 hours Gangsters and hooligans not included and none are hardened criminals - none on death row Personal Observations - 3

6. Personal Observations - 4 • Most came from non-dysfunctional families though some from middle class. • All received family support and members of families visit them. • All first timer though in intake 9 and 10 were repeat offenders As of date total of 10 intakes

7. Personal Observations - 5 • Mental and emotional state of incarcerated when entering prison: • Anxious (unknown environment and people) • Fear (of being sodomized) • Depressed (uncertainty of future) • Confused (institutional instructions vs. hearsays • Difficulties in adjusting to prison schedule and programme (i.e. meal time, waking and sleeping, exercise schedules)

8. Personal Observations - 6 The engagement of meditative techniques to elicit the relaxation response and for the inmates to find meaning while in prison started with last three intakes.

9. Limitations of presentation - 1 • Unable to record statistics • Statistical numbers obtained verbally and/or by show of hands • Unable to record findings in writing Hence this presentation is a private sharing

10. Core beliefs of the programme - 1 • Prison authorities believe that some sort of English medium presentation to English speaking audience could be beneficial. • The incarcerated are privileged to received religious instructions if they request for. • Offering them hope for recovery • To offer the incarcerated to live life on their own life’s terms.

11. Core beliefs of the programme - 2 • Though religious instructions are readily available to those incarcerated spiritual instructions are not available. • I would believe that a spiritual instruction and education is a greater and more powerful tool than only religious instructions. • Spiritual instructions and education is more encompassing and non-sectarian.

12. Core beliefs of the programme - 3 • Meditational techniques and exercises coupled with psycho-education offers commonality to all religious traditions.

13. Alternative techniques in Psychotherapy and Counselling? Today’s psychologists are increasing integrating complementary and alternative medicine techniques into their work with clients. Jeffrey E. Barnett (2013) APA Monitor April 2013

14. Mindfulness Meditation Mindfulness training boosts test scores and showed significant improvements on reading comprehension tests and working memory capacities on 48 undergraduates in University of California, Santa Barbara The Monitor on Psychology Publication of APA June 2013 Vol 44 No 8

15. Research questions - 1 • The following asked during first lesson: • Have you been taught meditation before? • Do you practice meditation daily? • Do you feel anxious in your present environment? • Do you feel depressed in your present environment? • Do you wish to learn meditation? • Do you think meditation can help you reduce you anxiety, depressed and stressful states? • Can you commit two sessions of meditation practice each of 15 minutes duration (morning and night)?

16. Research Questions - 2 • Intake 5 (commencement 14th Aug 2012) • N - 21 males YesNo • Q1 - (learned med?) 7 14 • Q2 - (med daily) 6 15 • Q3 - (anxious?) 21 0 • Q4 - (depressed?) 20 1 • Q5 - (learn med?) 21 0 • Q6 - (med helpful?) 21 0 • Q7 - (commitment?) 21 0

17. Research questions - 3 • Intake 6 (commencement 5th March 2013) • N – 20 males Yes No • Q1 - (learned med?) 7 13 • Q2 - (med daily) 4 16 • Q3 - (anxious?) 5 15 • Q4 - (depressed?) 0 20 • Q5 - (learn med?) 20 0 • Q6 - (med helpful?) 16 4 • Q7 - (commitment?) 13 7

18. Research questions - 4 • Intake 10 (commencement 9th Feb 2015 ) • N – 8 males (long term) YesNo • Q1 - (learned med?) 6 2 • Q2 - (med daily) 6 2 • Q3 - (anxious?) 0 8 • Q4 - (depressed?) 0 8 • Q5 - (learn med?) 8 0 • Q6 - (med helpful?) 8 0 • Q7 - (commitment?) 8 0

19. Methodology - 1 • Warming - up - 15 mins • Psycho-spiritual education - 60 mins • Mental relaxation/meditation - 30 mins • Grounding/summarizing questions/answers - 15 mins

20. Warming up exercises • Some news about “outside” world • Chanting • Some jokes • General conversation • Creating a warm and friendly environment

21. Psycho-spiritual education - 1 • Buddhist topics - Buddhists ethics, morals and doctrinal, topics • Science topics - the human body, developmental growth, emotions, behavior, personality, end of life, after life issues etc • Social issues - ethics, law, society, work stigmatization, community, returning to community etc • Personal devp - character building, team work, cooperative alliance etc

22. Psycho-spiritual education – 2 • Fatalism/predestination vs predetermination • Acceptance of living and dying • Moment to moment enrichment • Dis-identification of “old self” to a new identity through a process of meditative transformation.

23. Psycho-spiritual education - 3 • Attempts are made to integrate traditional religious beliefs to various aspects modern sciences so as not to bore the audience

24. Meditation - 1 • Affirmation • Choosing a topic • Eliciting relaxation response • Body scan • Mindfulness and observation on topic

25. Meditation – 2 • Choosing a topic: • In Buddhist methodology that are 40 meditative topics that can be chosen • The one chosen for the programme is that of utilizing the “in-out breathing” technique (anapanasatti - discourse on the mindfulness of “in-out breathe-work”)

26. Meditation - 3 • Focusing on whole body and relating the body to subtle energies (kayanupassana) • Focusing on body feeling/sensations and the noticing of emotions such as anger, peace, happiness, frustrations etc (vedanupassana) • Focusing on thought processes (cittanupassana) • Focusing on meaning of life and life’s processes (dhammanupassana)

27. Meditation - 4 • Above methodology taken from: - Satipatthanasutta(Discourse on the Foundation of Mindfulness)

28. Meditation - 5 The primary technique in meditative practice is focusing (concentrating), noting (being mindful) and creativity (enlightenment) The secondary technique is that of reflecting (the cultivation of wisdom)

29. Meditation - 6 • Buddhist meditational techniques being engaged because they are structured. • It is secular in approach

30. Meditation - 7 The focus meditative methodology in this programme is that of samatha(tranquility/calmness) style of meditation. The other type vipassana (insight) of meditation also used to allow the clients to reflect upon the meaning of their own life journey

31. Grounding - 1 • Grounding is to get the meditator back to present moment reality • Can be done through: • Rubbing palms, forearms and face • Stretching • Back exercises

32. Summarising and discussion • Sharing of experiences by participants

33. Discussions - Some pitfalls and dangers • Physiological - headaches, stiff necks, backaches, visions, sounds • Psychological - evocation of past memories • Emotional - experiencing emotional upheavals • Fear • Indecisiveness • Disenchantment

34. Difficulties encountered by inmates • Sharing cells with those not sympathetic • Noise/disturbances created by cell-mates • Not conducive cell temperature • Not sufficiently disciplined - lazy • Doubts on the efficacies of meditation • No immediate benefits

35. Cultivations of the Preliminaries - 1 • Inmates advised of the importance of cultivation and radiation of preliminaries to oneself and to others that include: - Forgiveness - Love - Intention - Compassion

36. Findings of intake 5 Course ended 4th December 2012 Only 18 inmates remained - rest transferred to other sections Out of the 8 inmates: 100 % meditated regularly - morning and evenings - 55% indicated that they have benefitted from the meditation practices and that they felt more confident, less anxious about their incarceration and about having to serve the remaining sentence

37. Findings of intake 6 • Course ended 25th June 2013 • Only 8 inmates remained - rest transferred to other sections • Out of the 8 inmates: - 100 % meditated regularly - morning and evenings - 100% indicated that they have benefitted from the meditation practices and that they felt more confident, less anxious about their incarceration and about having to serve the remaining sentence - 50% mentioned visualising “nimittas” (signs) - No one experienced auditory “nimittas” - One mentioned the heightened awareness of sensitivities to environment

38. Findings of intake 10 • Since all were repeat offenders, the subject of meditation not new to them • Many in the past did not go beyond the benefit received with “relaxation techniques” • Therefore they did not receive the full benefits of meditation practices. • They now realised that meditation can bring them beyond merely being relaxed and calm

39. Verbal reporting by intake 5 • This group less vocal as and hence difficult to obtain individual experiences or sharing of views

40. Verbal reporting by intake 6 • One inmate reported that he was aware that a few others who were not present did meditated regularly • Two inmates were of the opinion that they felt that those not present had benefitted by meditating regularly

41. Verbal reporting by intake 10 • Realised the importance of engaging psycho-education and some modern scientific findings into the ancient art of meditation • Able to relate the mind function of meditation to daily living environment

42. Unofficial comments by prison authorities • Fact that the programme ran for ten intakes indicated the usefulness of the programme • Will arrange for similar programme after a two month break • Inmates are better behaved and more reflective • Inmates showed behavioral change as the course progressed

46. Hi Jeffrey This comes from the bottom of my heart.  The period of incarceration (Nov 2012 - Apr 2015, presently on home detention until actual release in Apr 2016) should have been the darkest days of my life.  However, I was blessed with the opportunity to be re-introduced to Buddhism through the fortnightly counselling sessions (run by volunteers from the Buddhist Federation) and more significantly, the Structured Buddhist Course conducted by you.  The principles and concepts introduced to me are modern and certainly very relevant.  To say that my eyes were opened is an understatement indeed.   In simple language, you have taught me to change my mindset, understand the true meaning of happiness and above all, how we can all achieve contentment.  Through constant effort, I've made giant steps in finding inner peace.  The lessons learnt shall be remembered and used to guide me for the rest of this life. I also wish to state that meditation has helped me to find a balance in my life.  Now that I'm in the process of rebuilding, such knowledge has stood me in great stead.  The benefit that I've derived is proving to be the most valuable form of "wealth" that I can possibly acquire.  Thank you so much and I hope that you can continue to do the tremendous work that you've been doing for so many years. I wish you the best of health.

47. THANK YOU. THAT’S ALL FOLKS.