Question & Answer With Vidyamala Burch
Question & Answer With Vidyamala Burch
Join Melli and Vidyamala to hear the answers to the top ten questions submitted by summit viewers. These questions are quite deep and profound in nature and will be beneficial for anyone interested in deepening their practice and gaining more insight. Vidyamala answers…
- Do skilled meditators still find themselves in moments of disconnection? Do they still slip into autopilot?
- I don’t know who I am any more. If I am not my thoughts, Not my emotions, not my body then who am I? I feel disoriented and confused about this? What is my self?
- I’ve had what feels to be a genuine shift of consciousness into awareness but since then I’ve become completely preoccupied with mortality and the impermanence of things and feel afraid a lot of the time. Is this just a stage I need to push through?
- In mindfulness, when do we ‘lean in’ and really experience a feeling and when do we ‘tune out’? Is there a space for doing both when you’re in pain?
- When I feel restless and there is a strong urge to move during meditation what should I do? Should I gently move or do I have to stay perfectly still?
And more…
In the second video, experience a mindfulness practice with Angel Kyodo Williams, Founder of the Center for Transformative Change, senior mindfulness teacher and author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace.
Listen to Vidyamala Burch here
Listen to Angel Kyodo Williams here
Show Notes
Join The Mindfulness Summit Journey here
Come and join the community discussions at any time on our Facebook page
If you’d like to find out more about Vidyamala Burch go to www.breathworks-mindfulness.org.uk
For more on Angel go to her website here angelkyodowilliams.com
Check out Melli’s blog, events and retreats at MrsMindfulness.com
Audio
Video
Transcript
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Purchase a full access pass to unlock downloads for the full interview transcripts, audio, video and separate audio meditation tracks.
Buy full access pass
Purchase a full access pass to unlock downloads for the full interview transcripts, audio, video and separate audio meditation tracks.
Buy full access pass
Purchase a full access pass to unlock downloads for the full interview transcripts, audio, video and separate audio meditation tracks.
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I can’t wait for tomorrow: And Jon-Kabat-Zinn. Cheers.
Lovely to listen to your interview Vidyamala. I have a real sense of gratitude that you were my first meditation teacher.
no, I couldn’t hear Angel. Too much static
So much background noise in the mediation! Hard to hear everything.
Really grateful to those who sent in questions.
I love listening to Vidyamala. I learned so much from her answers to these great questions. Looking forward to the meditation with Jon Kabat-Zinn tomorrow. It’s so exciting to know that so many people will be meditating together. I bet the world energy will shift; well, at least I know my energy will. Thanks so much for a great month, Melli!
Thank you so much Melli for putting together this Mindfulness Summit. It has meant a great deal to me. I am one of those people that are on this “Mindfulness” journey alone as I live in a rural area and there is no access to teachers or training. I have not even found any other like minded people to communicate with either. That is why this program have been so wonderful for me. I am really looking forward to tomorrow to hearing Jon Kabat Zinn. He is the one that started me on this journey 2 1/2 years ago with his CD’s. The Sounds True website has also played a major part in my mindfulness.
Hi Melli and team
Words are not enough to express my gratitude for all the hard work you have done to bring more light on our Planet.
Thank you for the enormous generosity,kindness and love.I am sure it will go a long way.I already feel the benefits and I will continue to learn and apply mindfulness.
With deep appreciation
Maria
Thank you very much for your help!
Thank you, Melli. This has been such a wonderful journey. I intend to purchase the full access pass, but I want to know what is the best way to find an 8 week course that is mentioned repeatedly. Of course, I would want something close to where I live, but want to make sure the course is worthy. Thank you.
Hi Wendy, just like you I have looking for a good mindfulness course in my neighborhood. I couldn’t find anything that suited me, so I’m now doing an online course led by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield through SoundsTrue.com. It’s exactly what I had been looking for. It has already started, but I’m sure they’ll do it again in the new year.
Thank you, Iris. I’ll definitely look into that!
Thanks to Vidyamala for the insight Into letting go in order to allow the new….even though I knew that, it really sank into my being. Thank you Melli and co for the wonderful gift you have given us all. It is deeply appreciated.
Brilliant, super job with this summit….could not gave been better. Q and A was very good…..learned a lot. Many thanks for job well done!!!!!!
I have so loved the summit. I am pleased to say that I have managed to involve one other person, a small step but it has made me happy. I am just starting this journey and feel like the summit has given me a head start! THANKYOU SO, SO MUCH LOVE ALWAYS XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I have loved this summit – please do not stop after tomorrow! I have only been practising mindfulness for about a year, but it has really helped with my anxiety, and your videos have ensured that I make mindfulness part of my daily life at times when I think I would have otherwise neglected it. Thank you.
This has been an incredible experience. What a great wealth of knowledge has been shared! Thank you. Looking forward to your next step.
Thank you so very much for this fantastic summit! I only and unfortunately missed 2 of them. Every interview and practice has been a great ressource on mindfulness and encouraged me to keep practicing and be more mindful in my life and work. I will miss this daily appointment a lot and hope to find a way to still connect. Thank you Melli and your team as well as all participants!
Hi Melli. I am grateful to you and your team for this summit. This month was really a treat for me. I learnt new things everyday. I also thank all the speakers. All the best for future & all good wishes from me. Really appreciate your efforts. Once again thank you very much.
Thank you Melli for such a wonderful adventure in mindfulness.
I was wondering if you could re-post the audio version of Angel Kyodo Williams meditation? The audio posted was a repeat of Kaira Jewel Lingo’s meditation.
Thank you.
Praise to all the speakers! Such good stuff! I wanted to give a recommendation about Vidyamala. I experience chronic pain from an injury. I read Vidyamala’s (and Danny Penman’s) book “You are not Your Pain” an 8 week course. It helped me a lot during a particularly difficult time. I would recommend it to anyone with any kind of pain. Thanks Vidyamal! And thanks Melli for bringing us this summit!
Please post link to Vidyamala Burch resource -the one she mentioned in her talk. Thank you.
here it is: http://www.breathworks-mindfulness.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=173&Itemid=1648
I have enjoyed this summit so very much. Thank to all of the organizers and presenters for such a wonderful experience.
I am looking forward to continuing with mindfulness throughout my life.
Thank you Melli and your team for this month of insight & learning. it’s been inspiring and emotional.
I have family in NSW and tuning into the Mindfulness Summit has also felt a bit like being in daily contact with that part of the world – I just realised that today.
All ready for tomorrow.
Thank you from me in London
I would have loved to hear the mediation with Angel Kyodo Williams. It was very scratchy. I will check her website.
I agree, the sound was very bad. It was even more distracting that the crackling went in and out when she was talking and not talking.
Same. Static in with her voice, silence when she wasn’t talking. I thought the video was constantly stopping to buffer, but it was just the sound dropping in and out. That meditation was a bust for my monkey mind; the start/stop was way too distracting 🙂
That said, wow, has this month ever been an amazing gift! Thank you SO much for bringing the world together like this, Melli!
Thank you , Melli. So many points of view, all relating to mindfulness. It will seem so lonely when this. Ends. So glad I bought the pass, and continually review. It was more than I could ever process in one month.
Again, with deep gratitude, thank you.
What an impressive person is Vidyamala. I don’t recall any other speaker who emphasizes love and wonder so much. And the warrior concept I also love. Tenderness and toughness, softness and resilience–yin and yang. We would not know one without the other–sorrow and joy, suffering and well-being. All one.
I’ve been using meditation since I was very young because it helped me to ease my headaches (I suffer from migraine) and gave me the possibility to feel better with myself. In all these years I tried , often by myself , to understand what I was doing. During this summit for the first time I have the very clear feeling that I am beginning to understand what to do and how to do it. Mindfulness is no more a mysterious process that functions magically. Now I can begin to use Mindfulness mindfully 🙂 Thank you very much Vidyamala for your answers. They are for me a true example on how meditation transforms a person in a wonderful human being. Thank you Meli and thanks to your group for thinking in the future of this wonderful community that you have put togheter with the Mindfulness Summit.
She reminds us that we are developing a skill, a new habit that replaces old ones. And like any skill it takes practice, practice, practice. And overcoming the habit of a lifetime will not come soon or necessarily easy. And at first, like the first time you ride a bike, it’s pretty awkward, but after many repetitions, you start to get the knack of it and soon much of it becomes second nature. There is an awesome power in sheer repetition.
Thank you so much Meli and everybody who made this summit possible. I have been interested in spirituality for years but with so many philosophies out there I have been stuck, not knowing which or if any, path to follow. This summit allowed exposure to so many wonderful teachers with such different philosophies and it has become clear that the core values rarely differ, and I now feel I can move forward, beginning with mindfulness. With heart-felt gratitude, Kristi.
Vidyamala is one of my favorites so was so happy to see her here today for the Q&A. I suspect she also has a great sense of humor; it sort of comes through nicely.
Thank you so much for this summit. It has dramatically changed my life and really made the world seem so much smaller-in terms of learning about all the great teachers and researches out there, and also bigger through my own practice. The wisdom contained in these talks is truly astounding! From the bottom of my heart, thank you Mindfulness Summit team. You have done an amazing thing that will be so far reaching. I’m sure you must have considered how many people’s lives you’ve touched, not just through the Summit, but exponentially. Go you(s)!.
If you do this again, there are two things which I would really appreciate for you to consider:
1) In order for Mindfulness to become mainstream, it has to be able to reach places outside of the internet and to be as accessible as possible. I am thinking about this a lot: how to bring it to communities who wouldn’t normally have access to it. In the US, with the exception of the Veterans programs, it stays largely in white, affluent communities. I am personally committed to bringing it to more communities, once my practice is there. I really wish the Summit would offer single downloads. As a single mom, I simply cannot afford to buy the entire Summit, yet there were certain talks I am heartbroken to no longer have access to. I know that $100 doesn’t seem like a lot of money to a lot of people, but to many of us, that’s the difference between buying groceries or not.
2) Having a community forum in order for people to interact and build relationships would be most helpful. I don’t currently have a teacher and I know a lot of other people online who depend on forums and apps in order to interact and create Sanghas. But the Summit was set up in such a way that Melli was always the focus and things had to sort of go through her. I found myself trying to connect but ending up feeling really disconnected from the other participants. There was a lost opportunity for greater empowerment and the spreading of excitement, ideas, and growth. At the end of this Q & A you said you are working on that so I hope there will be some news in the future!
Thank you again for all of your hard work and perseverance. It was a great opportunity and I feel lucky to have participated.
Hi Ellen
if you have access to a smart phone search for the ‘Insight Timer’ App. It has great lead practices by many of the speakers in this summit, keeps stats of your practices so helps keep you motivated, has community groups so you can stay connected with others and is free to anyone with a mobile phone connection, I hope you can find it 🙂
Hi Shelley,
I am on Insight Timer! I love it. Thanks for taking the time to reply. 🙂
Thank you so much Mellie for hosting these. I learned so much from all these speakers. Hope something like this can happen in the future!
Namaste,
Vidyamala mentioned “Mindfulness in Daily Life” as a booklet? course? Can you give links or more info? Thanks.
I have the same request. So interested in her booklet, The Art of Mindfulness in Daily Life. Can you please post the link to that. This was an amazing Q and A. Thank you so much.
here it is: http://www.breathworks-mindfulness.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=173&Itemid=1648
I have thoroughly enjoyed this last month. It has been a joy to listen to all the wonderful speakers after dinner every evening (I am in the UK). I meditate (practically) every day and this has been a transformative experience. However, I am struggling with the concept of being mindful through the day. I often find myself driving home and thinking that I haven’t been as mindful throughout the day as I would like (I occasionally use the word ‘should’ – then very gently change it to ‘would like’). On reflecting more closely on my day, I often see that I have been more mindful than I think but my mind leans toward the ‘oops, forgot to be be mindful’ negative slant rather than what I have managed to do. Does any of this make sense to anyone or am I just dribbling on endlessly with no point being made?? Lol.
Thank you Meli and team for a really inspiring month. It has been wonderful meeting so many experienced teachers and beautiful practices. I wish you all the best with extending this community in the future.
These questions were amazing! I was especially moved by Vidyamala’s answer about the newness that loss gives birth to. After a huge loss about a year ago, I ended up on a path that led me to panic attacks and intense “death anxiety”. This is actually how I ended up here, thanks to a wonderful therapist who started me gently on the mindfulness path with Jon Kabat=Zinn’s Mindfulness for Beginners. Now, about three months into my journey, I can see such growth already and feel so much more grounded and centered and joyful and CONTENT (which is a word I love, since it’s really about being in the moment without striving). Without the loss and the pain that followed, I’m not sure my life would have moved here. So I am blessed with the growth from the loss and Vidyamala summed that up so beautifully.
Thank you Melli (and team) from the bottom of my heart for your hard work on the Summit. It came at the exact right moment for me and has truly changed my life from the inside out.
Dear Melli,
Thank you so much for this summit and all of these wonderful teachers. I have enjoyed every single person . I have learned something each time, even when I would initially think, “This topic doesn’t really apply to me.” This summit has been transformative for me and I can already see a little ripple effect around me as my husband becomes curious about what I am doing and I start to speak more mindfully to my employees and I recommend John Kabat-Zinn to a woman at the gym whom I overheard complaining about her chronic pain. I feel kinder and more present and grateful for each moment. I join those who hope this community can be continued in some way. I have also reached out to a local Buddhist and mindfulness teacher so I can develop my practice more fully. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you Melli. Check out Mettatations.com to discover a new practice to help you have more Peace, Love, and Compassion in your mind, body, and heart. Thanks.
Wonderful growth in the last month.
Thank you so much Melli for bringing to life your ideas.
I will incorporate what I have learned, into my daily life.
I hope to explore even further as time passes.
Thank you and thank you to all your presenters as well.
Nam myoho renge kyo.
This was an awesome Q&A! Great questions and answers. Helped me soo much. Extremely grateful!
Once again thank you so much for putting on such an amazing summit . i have enough links and resources to last a life time. Your a star!
I echo the many messages of thank you! Congratulating you Melli and your team for making us all connect in this way. I will miss the daily connection with the summit…
A huge thank you specially to Vidyamala today for her generosity in sharing her insight, knowledge and expertise. Your teaching today about the other half of impermanence, i.e. A new becoming, the arising of the new is tremendously inspiring. Hearing it articulated with such clarity is a true invitation to live life in this moment…and this moment….and this one…. Thank you!
May you all be well. Look forward to meditating we all of you tomorrow 🙂
Thank you Melli, team & all the speakers
I have to say that I have really enjoyed every one of the talks and practices you have organised. The amount of work you must have put it has been phenomenal as these videos don’t just drop out of the sky! A huge thank you to all involved.
I’ve been aware of mindfulness and practiced sporadically, however having completed the 30 days so far and doing it daily, I feel more grounded and calm and the internal chatter has reduced hugely. I will definitely continue the daily and go further to bring it into my community. It is so needed for our present day world, out childen, our teens, our stressed out workers, everyone needs this. Life is passing people by and we need to wake up and see and live each moment.
Looking forward to the finale with Jon Kabat Zinn. Much gratitude to all 🙂
I was in the hospital when I began listening to Melli and Vidyamala, so the questions and answers could not have been more appropriate for me. Listening to Vidyamala, I realized that although I had not been able to do my formal practice under the acute condition I was in yesterday, I had used some of the mindfulness techniques she suggested. What a wonderful realization!
Melli and team, you have put together something with the Mindfulness Summit that far transcends anything I could imagine. I suspect this has effected many many of us, and it would not be unfair to say you’ve changed many lives at a time. I hope this will continue in some form, as you suggested.
My deepest appreciation to you.
This is my first time trying meditation and hearing about mindfulness. I have truly enjoyed the education have acquired listening to all the talks. I will miss taking the time out from my day, because I made sure I had the quiet time. I will try to continue to take the time each day and practice meditation. Is there any suggestion for an audio of short guided meditations as I really find they help me focus. Thanks for giving me this journey!
JoAnn, you might check out Soundstrue.com
That is where I learned of the summit. I believe if you subscribe to their newsletter, you will be able to access talks with various speakers for free, as well as purchase CDs, etc.
Hi JoAnn you can also find quite a few ten min practices here if you are interested: http://www.breathworks-mindfulness.org.uk/downloads
Dear Mellie, I would like to to thank you deeply, you have touched my heart in so many ways on so many days. …..what generosity of spirit…I am so privileged to have taken part, and to be part of it,
with deep love
ani xxx
PS… if there is some way that you find you can continue something like the summit in some form, is there is a way any of us who have participated can help?
Thank you Vidyamala for sharing your wisdom and embracing us all with your kindness and warmth. Thank you Angel for guiding us in meditation. And thank you Melli for putting together such an incredible learning experience. It has been transformative, inspiring and awesome. Thank you.
Thank you melli and Vidyamala for this verry interesting question and answer session.
I find that Vidyamala has a verry easy to understand and optimistic way of explaning the for me new insights of how live realy is.
It wil surely help me to create a better live for me and my loved ones.
Thank you very much Vidyamala Burch, I really appreciated what you shared in the summit it really spoke to my heart, you kindness, tenderness and wisdom. I loved what you said about loss and re birth, it gave me something to reflect on instead of loss and pain, looking at what is new in this moment and what is pleasant. I am keen read your book.
There were a few people who asked where to find the resource Vidyamala mentioned about mindfulness in daily life if you go to her website that Meli put a link to and then go to books, or resources it is there
Thank you Meli for the summit. It has been a great resource and encouragement to me as i have just been practicing on my own and listening to talks on dharma seed. I will go back slowly and re-listening to the talks and check out other resources. Thanks very much.
HI rachel. The booklet is ‘the art of mindfulness – mindfulness in daily life’ on this page http://www.breathworks-mindfulness.org.uk/books-cds-dvds
Best wishes to you!
Heartfelt thanks to you Melli and to your team for this wonderful summit. I have learned and enjoyed so much. A lotus to you 🙂
Fabulous!! Such an amazing community. Deep questions and wonderful teachings as a result! Thank you Melli & Vidyamala. A deep bow to you Melli for your generous heart and beautiful spirit! I am touched, moved and inspired by your being you! With gratitude and love
Help! Technical Problem!
The audio track for the meditation does NOT match the video track with Angel Kyodo Williams.
Instead it’s the identical one from a few days ago – the Four Pebbles meditation with Kaira Jewel Lingo.
Can someone fix this please? Thanks in advance.
WOW! THANK YOU SO MUCH MELLY FOR CREATING THIS SUMMIT! It was amazing! As I am French speaking, some sessions were a bit hard for me to understand, but still, I understood a lot. Started meditation again since October 1st, meditated almost every day and I feel this summit has given me the kick to go on.
I live with chronic disease which limits me very much in my daily activities. This summit opened a door. for me…
AND Today’s session was tremendous! Thank you to Vidyamala. Her answers were so pertinent and profound, coming from a lived experience.
Thanks to both of you for your generosity!
Thanks to all the lecturers!
Hélène
From Québec, Canada
Far away from Australia ( I understood that is where you live Melly?!)
Thank you for a very insightful and empathetic talk.
I’m so grateful to you, Melli, Matt, your team, the speakers… it’s been a wonderful month, listening to these talks I’ve learned so much and deepened my knowledge, but something even more important: i recovered my faith in human beings and human mind. Everyone can be a better version of him/herself!! Thank you so much, it’s been the most transforming experience I ever had!! Lots of love.