Sandra García Sánchez-Beato: "In meditation we immerse ourselves in a subtle mind".
We interview Sandra García Sánchez-Beato, a psychologist who incorporates meditation into her work.
Meditation is a reality that has been present for millennia in many cultural practices both in Asia and beyond. However, it is meditation linked to Buddhism and Hinduism that has the deepest roots, and today, far from losing importance due to the secularization of society, it continues to be used even outside religious contexts.
In fact, meditation is increasingly valued in the field of psychotherapy. For this reason, we interviewed psychologist Sandra García Sánchez-Beato, who integrates meditation into her work both in helping her patients and in the training programs she promotes through her "Awakening" project. through her project "Awakening".
Interview with Sandra García Sánchez-Beato: this is the 'Awakening' project.
Sandra García Sánchez-Beato is a General Health Psychologist and has been practicing meditation for decades and integrating this element in her way of offering therapeutic support. In this interview she talks to us about her project "Awakening: Psychotherapy, Mindfulness & Dharma".
How did the idea of creating the Despertar project come about?
The idea has been the result of a personal and professional process. I have been working as a psychotherapist for more than 15 years and for more than 20 years practicing the path of meditation within Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism. In all this time, I have realized that they are two powerful complementary paths.
From clinical psychology, we approach the core of conflict by looking for the root, understanding our history. We incorporate resources in our clinical sessions helping our patients to compensate and manage their emotional world and different personality structures. We really get significant results that help us feel better and find a different way of living. We manage to enhance the best of ourselves and live with wellbeing. However, we do not manage to eradicate the root of suffering.
It is as if we were going from one side of a shore to the other rowing and contemplating different landscapes but without getting anywhere. We alleviate symptoms and compensate for many tendencies, but it is not a path that helps us to free ourselves from suffering.
From meditation, we immerse ourselves in a subtle, spacious, luminous and unobstructed mind. At least we begin to savor it and to look at a feeling of fullness that fills everything. From that spaciousness we can begin to observe that mental processes are not solid, their nature is inherently empty of an existence of its own. We begin to discover that our reality is not as solid or fixed as we believe it to be. It is constantly changing, and this transience brings us a sense of lightness and freedom if we integrate and understand it. As we go deeper on this path we come to realize how important it is to let go of the clinging to self and transform emotions into primordial wisdom.
We start a path with a new route. And both help us to go beyond the established.
The Awakening project is born with the intention of offering these two integrated paths. We provide a roadmap for those who want to venture to awaken their hearts to their true nature and begin to live in a different way until they definitively let go of suffering.
How do the classes take place?
Currently, classes are adapted to online and presenline format. Live sessions where you can interact with teachers or professors and also memberships or recorded sessions where the student can access at their own pace without the need for schedules. When the health situation allows it, face-to-face sessions and activities will also be offered.
Mindfulness is very important in Despertar, why is Mindfulness a useful resource?
Mindfulness is the first step to transform our mind. We have to be vigilant to our processes as a way of self-knowledge. Mindfulness brings us to the present moment. So we can start from where we are. Wherever we are.
After that step, we can go further. Practitioners need to know that the path to explore is much longer. Mindfulness is the first step, but from our Awakening project we want to offer much more for those interested in deepening.
Do you think that offering online training options will be more accessible to people in general? Have we already reached a point where most people see it as a viable option to learn without attending classes in person?
Online training frees us from the constraints of space and time. The meetings are open to everyone and that is very enriching. It makes it easier for people from different countries or cities to participate, which would otherwise be impossible.
Even so, from Despertar we also want to resume face-to-face activities when the health situation allows it. The energy of the group when practicing meditation or sharing an activity is enhanced. We are relational beings and the encounter with other people with whom we share interests and points of view is something very enriching and nourishing that we cannot give up. Our intention is to facilitate meetings and retreats whenever possible.
In Awakening you also count with the participation of Tibetan Buddhist masters, why do you think it is important to have their experience?
I am very fortunate to have a teacher and great spiritual friends from Tibetan Buddhism. They have a great experience in the spiritual path because they have already walked it and they have a mastery that we do not have. On the spiritual path we are all apprentices, like children in kindergarten. That is why we need the figure of a qualified teacher.
If we take years to learn worldly knowledge at school and university and we go hand in hand with teachers, how can we not need the guidance of teachers who have walked the spiritual path? This is a more complex path and also has its dangers and risks. Spiritual masters guide us to walk it and not fall into wrong practices or confuse our mind. We can do it on our own, but we will advance faster if we are taught and accompanied. It is like with studies. We can be self-taught, but if we have a good teacher we advance much faster.
An important point is to know how to choose qualified teachers. There are false teachers that can harm us more than help us. In Awakening we have the blessings, collaboration and advice of teachers of the Shangpa Kagyü and Dagpo Kagyü lineage (lineage of S.S.Karmapa) of Tibetan Buddhism, belonging to the community of Dag Shang Kagyu. A great honor and a great opportunity for everyone who practices with us.
What are the next goals you plan to achieve through Despertar?
Despertar has just been born with strength and among our objectives is to establish and promote our platform. To create a meeting point for those of us who have decided to improve our lives and start a path towards the awakening of our hearts. Generate synergies, create a community of sympathizers and practitioners of meditation or contemplative sciences. To favor an accompaniment with highly qualified and experienced professionals within the world of meditation, who provide resources and support to different groups. Always from the basis of knowledge of psychotherapy, under the light of awareness and meditation practice.
For this we will provide alternatives, courses and workshops of interest: mindfulness for different groups, workshops on compassionate leadership, programs on compassion, emotional awareness, acceptance and commitment, Dharma, conscious body, psychotherapy, conscious education.... We will be creating spaces to address and explore different topics of practice and study.
We have other projects that we will progressively share and adapt to the needs that we feel are arising among our students.
(Updated at Apr 14 / 2024)