Mindfulness of Breathing: Managing Pain, Illness and Stress with Guided Mindfulness Meditation [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

The recordings show what a great and deep understanding the speakers have of chronic pain. I strongly recommend them.

A gentle meditation that allows me to reconnect with myself, centres me, and enables me to tap into serene energy.

Gives me the power to carry on with my life, despite the severe pain I live with in my back.

Vidyamala Burch and Sona Fricker. Originally from New Zealand, Vidyamala sustained a spinal injury when she was sixteen. Over twenty years ago she started exploring mindfulness and meditation to manage her own persistent pain and in 2001 began offering these skills to others, initially with funding from the Millenium Commission in the UK. She has been a practising Buddhist for many years and was ordained into the Western Buddhist Order in 1995. She regularly leads meditation retreats as well as offering mindfulness training internationally for anyone wanting to ease their suffering within the secular context of Breathworks. In 2008 she published 'Living Well with Pain and Illness: the mindful way to free yourself from suffering, which is based on the Breathworks programme. Sona started meditating in London in 1972 and was ordained into the Western Buddhist Order in 1974.He has also practised hatha yoga for a number of years. After eight years of teaching Buddhism and meditation in Stockholm, Sweden, he returned to England and became director of a Buddhist retreat centre in Norfolk. He now lives in Manchester, UK, and is committed, through Breathworks, to making mindfulness accessible to Westerners dealing with the stresses of modern life. Sona has a particular interest in meditation and regularly runs courses and retreats internationally in meditation, mindfulness and Breathworks.

Vidyamala was born and raised in New Zealand and first became interested in meditation in 1985, when receiving hospital treatment for a spinal injury. She then moved to the UK in 1990 to live at a Retreat Centre in Shropshire, training further in meditation and preparing for ordination into the Western Buddhist Order. In 1996 she moved to Manchester and in 2001 she started teaching mindfulness-based approaches to others living with physical pain and illness. In 2004 she founded Breathworks with Sona. Her spinal condition deteriorated further in the late nineties and she now uses crutches or a wheelchair for mobility, but she says that her overall quality of life has continued to improve as she has become more and more adept at managing the responses to her physical condition and enriching her life in other ways.The CD's are co-lead by Vidyamala's partner Sona. Sona started meditating in London in 1972 and was ordained into the Western Buddhist Order in 1974. He has led retreats in the UK, Germany, Holland, Sweden, North America, Australia and New Zealand. At present he runs courses in Buddhist studies, meditation and pain management.