KAQI

clicks	1073
Vol (number)	4(2)
title	Narrative Inquiry on Beginners’ Experiences of Breathing Meditation
author(s)	Jung eun (Yongjin) Chun (Chief of Bea·Chae Meditation Counselling Institute)
Keywords	meditation beginners, breathing meditation, unfamiliarity, experience, narrative inquiry
Abstract	The study aims to explore the beginners’ experiences of breathing meditation, utilizing the narrative inquiry method when beginners experienced the meditation for the first time in their life. This study examined the unfamiliarity that beginners faced when starting meditation, composed the stories on the process of experiences and identified the significance of the experiences. In order to examine the cases, three participants were selected, who had expressed their experiences in a explicit and detailed way from previous group programs of breathing meditation organized by the researcher. The group programs of breathing meditation was held from October 2015 to March 2017 and this study collected the recordings of whole program process, interviews on participants’ experiences, before and after the meditation, researcher’s field notes and mediation diaries from participants. Research method applied was narrative inquiry of Clandinin & Connelly - one of qualitative research methods and the research process followed three stages of entering into the scene, text composition at the scene and study on text composition from the scene text. The results of the study showed that based on the participants’ stories after breathing meditation, the meanings of the experiences were summarized as “inconvenience caused by feeling of unfamiliarity and awkwardness”, “struggling with inner-self over the uncertainty in unknown status”, “self-assurance on self breathing” and “beginning of changes toward a freer life”. In conclusion, the breathing meditation experiences turned out to be the initial step of changes toward a freer life with complete confidence in breathing of the participants, after the phase of self-struggling with the unfamiliarity, inconvenience, difficulty, distrust among participants. This study is meaningful as it expanded the scope of understanding on breathing meditation experience by analyzing individual’s vivid experiences through narrative inquiry method and delivered the meanings and values of breathing meditation for the growth of the research participants.
file	Jung eun (Yongjin) Chun .pdf