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

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.

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)

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

Personal Observations - 3
Class size
Duration
Hours per session

- 20 to 25
- 16 weeks
- 2 hours

Gangsters and hooligans not included

and none are hardened criminals none on death row

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

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)

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.

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

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 lifes terms.

10

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.

11

Core beliefs of the programme - 3

Meditational techniques and exercises
coupled with psycho-education offers
commonality to all religious traditions.

12

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

13

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

14

Research questions - 1

15

The following asked during first lesson:

1.

Have you been taught meditation before?

2.

Do you practice meditation daily?

3.

Do you feel anxious in your present environment?

4.

Do you feel depressed in your present environment?

5.

Do you wish to learn meditation?

6.

Do you think meditation can help you reduce you

anxiety, depressed and stressful states?

7.

Can you commit two sessions of meditation practice

each of 15 minutes duration (morning and night)?

Research Questions - 2

16

Research questions - 3

Intake 6 (commencement 5th March 2013)

N 20 males
Yes No

Q1 - (learned med?) 7
Q2 - (med daily)
4
Q3 - (anxious?)
5
Q4 - (depressed?) 0
Q5 - (learn med?) 20
Q6 - (med helpful?) 16
Q7 - (commitment?)13

13
16
15
20
0
4
7

17

Research questions - 4

Intake 10 (commencement 9th Feb 2015 )

N 8 males (long term)

Yes
No

Q1 - (learned med?) 6
Q2 - (med daily)
6
Q3 - (anxious?)
0
Q4 - (depressed?) 0
Q5 - (learn med?) 8
Q6 - (med helpful?)
Q7 - (commitment?)8

8
0

2
2
8
8
0
0

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Methodology - 1
Warming - up

15 mins

Psycho-spiritual education

60 mins

Mental relaxation/meditation -

30 mins

Grounding/summarizing
questions/answers

15 mins

Warming up exercises
Some news about outside world
Chanting
Some jokes
General conversation
Creating a warm and friendly environment

20

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

21

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.

22

Psycho-spiritual education - 3

Attempts are made to integrate traditional

religious beliefs to various aspects
modern sciences so as not to bore the
audience

23

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

24

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)

25

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 lifes
processes (dhammanupassana)

26

Meditation - 4
Above methodology taken from:
-

Satipatthana sutta (Discourse on

the Foundation of Mindfulness)

27

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)

28

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

29

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

30

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

Summarising and discussion

Sharing of experiences by
participants

32

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

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

34

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

35

Findings of intake 5

36

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

Findings of intake 6

37

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

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

38

Verbal reporting by intake 5

This group less vocal as and

hence difficult to obtain
individual experiences or
sharing of views

39

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

40

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

41

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

42

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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.

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THANK YOU.
THATS ALL FOLKS.