Letters | Healing effects of mindfulness meditation can help us achieve inner balance

Reading Time:1 minute

Hong Kong residents attend a mindfulness retreat camp in Wu Kai Sha, Ma On Shan, by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. Photo: Thomas Yau

Published: 11:00am, 25 Dec 2018Updated: 11:00am, 25 Dec 2018

I refer to the article “How mindfulness and meditation turned a workaholic’s life around, and how they can help you beat stress” (November 28).

Decades of scientific, psychological and religious studies have highlighted the benefits brought by mindfulness meditation. Lamentably, many individuals still resort to different mainstream alternatives for stress relief and escaping reality, be it binge drinking or smoking. All these nonetheless can never soothe the spirit.

Attaining a calm and harmonious inner balance is definitely the best response to our dynamic and uncontrollable external environment. Mindfulness meditation’s healing effect, derived from one’s own experience, becomes an indispensable tool to rejuvenate the body and purify the mind continuously and consistently.

Under mindfulness, practitioners should abstain from all desires to strive for or pursue goals. There is never any goal, destination or achievement one is seeking, but a sense of calm.

1 in 7 Hong Kong pupils from poor families ‘overloaded with stress’, and most turn to video games or food

Meanwhile, regardless of how experienced one is, distractions are always prevalent, especially physical ones like knee pain or backache. One should simply try to get back to the object of focus in meditation as the centre of calmness and relaxation.