Paul McKenna (behavioral scientist, author, hypnotherapist) introduces the problem of stress—affecting psychological and physical health—and presents Big Mind, a Zen-derived meditation by Genpo Roshi, as a scientifically interesting technique. He recounts Utah University brain-imaging work showing people new to Big Mind can display brain patterns similar to long-term meditators. McKenna says he has his own adapted version of Big Mind and will demonstrate it and teach stress-management and relaxation techniques in an upcoming Mindvalley masterclass.
Chapters
A lot of people don't realise how much stress affects their lives. Not just their psychological well being, but their physical well being and health as well. I'm Paul McKenna, I'm a behavioral scientist, I'm an author and I'm a hypnotherapist. I've been working with people for over 30 years, working with some of the world's most amazing people, from the arts, from business, from sports, but also with people that are very challenged, people that sometimes have been labeled incurable, people that everyone else has given up on. You will become your role model. I'm particularly inspired by the work of Genpo Roshi. He's a Zen master and he created what I believe is the best meditation in the world called Big Mind. When I got to know Genpo Roshi years ago, his work was being studied by Utah University. They were particularly fascinated by the Big Mind technique. They would put people in this brain image resonancing chamber and they would be able to map the brain waves. So they would take a seasoned meditator, a monk, somebody who'd been meditating for decades, put them in the chamber and they would map the brain waves. Then they would take someone who'd never meditated in their life, put them in the chamber with Gempo, and he would do the Big Mind process on them. And lo and behold, they'd have similar patterns to the seasoned meditator. Now, some people in the Zen world were very happy about this amazing breakthrough. Some were not because they've been sitting in Lotus for 20 years and there he is teaching it to plumbers, accountants, students, et cetera. And I find it to be particularly powerful. In fact, I have my own version of Gempo's work, which is different. And I'll be demonstrating my version of Gempo's Big Mind technique in this masterclass. In my upcoming masterclass with mindvalley, we go deeper into understanding what causes stress and teach you some techniques so that you can relax profoundly and change the way you perceive stress so that you see things rather than threats as challenges. I'll help you to use the creative part of your unconscious mind to solve problems so much more easily so that they don't bother you in future. So I'll help you control your stress, worry less and be happier.
