Smash Notes
Hannah Knapp of Within Meditation - How does Meditation help us to evolve as an individual and as a species?
(0-10 minutes) Hannah introduces herself and Within Meditation . Within Meditation studio is in San Francisco and they offer 30 minute guided meditations to people who work in the financial district. Hannah talks about how she teaches beginners and how that is different from teaching more experienced meditators. Beginners have a lot of expectations and…
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Notes
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Beginners are usually very unsure of what is going to happen with meditation and how to walk through it. A lot of guidance and suggestions are helpful in beginner classes to make participants feel comfortable. As they become more experienced, less guidance is needed and there is more of a desire to simply have space and time for a break from the chaos of life.
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It is insight meditation. This is the style of meditation that many of the popular mindfulness practices come from. A vipassana retreat is an experience in silence for 10 days where you sit with many people for different lengths of time. During this time, participants are simply trying to to be present in their current moment and observe what is happening around them and within their bodies.
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Hannah Knapp tells Stewart Alsop on Crazy Wisdom that people arrive already holding an idea of what meditation is, and that idea steers the practice. When she teaches, she keeps the instructions short. Mindfulness, as she guides it, is paying attention to what is happening now, without judgment.
Afterward she asks what the sit was like. New students often say their mind would not stop. She tells them of course it did not. The mind thinks the way the nose smells. The point is not to stop thinking. It is to notice, interrupt, and come back to the present, over and over. People do not think less as they improve.
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It feels very different to have a group and a teacher to spin questions off of rather than being alone. It is helpful to have a positive teacher/group experience in order to glean information and techniques to apply in solo practice.
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Hannah Knapp of Within tells Stewart Alsop on Crazy Wisdom that one appeal of the short guided apps is the permission they give. Meditation does not require a dedicated room or a large block of time. A longer sit gives one kind of experience. A minute at a stoplight, or while you are standing in a line, is still practice.
In class she likes to send people out with intention setting. As they leave the stillness, they choose what they want the day to be, from that quiet rather than from the to-do list. She has more room for intention setting in hour-long office workshops than in a 30-minute studio class. Her favorite cue is a trigger.
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Hannah Knapp tells Stewart Alsop on Crazy Wisdom that the choice between regulation and awareness depends on how strong the emotion is and on the context. Alone on the cushion, she stays with awareness. She notices whatever arises and lets the wave pass, because nobody else is affected.
When her toddler is in a full-blown moment and awareness alone will not let the feeling run its course, she regulates, because the last thing she wants is to end up yelling. She uses affect labeling. She says, out loud, that she is feeling angry, and that often drops the charge the way a breath does. She separates that from Buddhist practice.
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On Crazy Wisdom, Hannah Knapp of Within says her first move with her four-year-old, when he is upset, is to have him stop and breathe. They are regulating together. She is not asking a panicking child to notice his thoughts. He is not resistant, but he does not yet see the breath as a tool he can pick up on his own.
The conversation also cites Jon Kabat-Zinn on sharing mindfulness with people you love. Do not push the practice on them. Let them see you do it, and let them learn it from someone else.
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The more people who are conscious and aware of themselves vs. being impacted by what is around them, the more people are able to connect with each other's humanity. There is then the possibility that all of the conflict and chaos around us goes away.
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On Crazy Wisdom, Stewart Alsop asks Hannah Knapp of Within whether meditation is tied to evolution, of a person or of the species. Knapp is curious about a human ability other animals do not seem to share: turning consciousness back on itself. She compares it to tool use. Both look like evolutionary gains, and both are double-edged. The mind that can feel excitement can also feel anxiety.
On an individual level, Knapp says her own consciousness feels as if it is evolving. She wonders about epigenetics, behavior leaving a mark that can be passed on, and she felt the difference in her first pregnancy, going through it with more awareness than she would have had years earlier.
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