Early Morning Stress Reduction Inspiration - 6/6/2013
Early Morning Stress Reduction Inspiration - 6/6/2013 |
- Early Morning Stress Reduction Inspiration - 6/6/2013
- Documentary shows meditation helps with ADHD and PTSD
- Advice For Healthy Living: Get Off Your Duff
- Uniting ‘American Buddhism’ with global citizenship
- Living whole-heartedly
- Meditation relieves anxiety?
- Tips For Success: This Is Not Another Article About Failure
- Tips For Success: This Is Not Another Article About Failure
- The spiritual language
- There’s a crack in everything
- Tips For Success: This Is Not Another Article About Failure
| Early Morning Stress Reduction Inspiration - 6/6/2013 Posted: 06 Jun 2013 01:00 PM PDT  "We all have the seeds of love in us. We can develop this wonderful source of energy, nurturing the unconditional love that does not expect anything in return." ~Thich Nhat Hanh      Read More @ Source |
| Documentary shows meditation helps with ADHD and PTSD Posted: 06 Jun 2013 12:00 PM PDT
What binds the three — and ultimately frees them — is mindfulness meditation. The trio is followed in Free The Mind: Can You Rewire The Brain Just By Taking A Breath?, a documentary that follows the work of University of Wisconsin psychology professor Richard Davidson on children with ADHD and veterans with PTSD. It opens June 7 at The Bloor Cinema. With his study of "contemplative neuroscience," Davidson is trying to understand how the brain regulates emotions… Read the original article » Read More @ Source |
| Advice For Healthy Living: Get Off Your Duff Posted: 06 Jun 2013 11:00 AM PDT  The New York Times reported on a study from the journal Circulation, which found that for each additional hour of television a person sat and watched per day, their risk of dying rose by 11%. According to the Harvard Business Review article, Sitting is the Smoking of Our Generation, "After 1 hour of sitting, the production of enzymes that burn fat declines by as much as 90%. Extended sitting slows the body's metabolism affecting things like (good cholesterol) HDL levels in our bodies." Read more »  Read More @ Source |
| Uniting ‘American Buddhism’ with global citizenship Posted: 06 Jun 2013 10:00 AM PDT
Is there an American Catholicism compared to what Catholics practice the world over? An American Judaism? Perhaps, but only from a demographic or political perspective. Buddhism in the US, however, has developed a distinct American flavor. The very philosophical tenets of Buddhism have been adapted since the religion reached the United States in the 1960s. How, then, do "American Buddhists," if they indeed exist, relate to the rest of the world? American Buddhists are clearly part of a global Buddhist community. For one, the Buddhist movement Soka Gakkai International (SGI)… Read the original article » Read More @ Source |
| Posted: 06 Jun 2013 09:00 AM PDT The happiest people I know have something in common: they are whole-hearted in how they engage in their lives…whole-hearted in relating with others, in work, in meditation, and in play. They have a capacity to give themselves thoroughly to the present moment. |
| Posted: 06 Jun 2013 08:00 AM PDT
Buddhist monks and Zen masters, have known for years that meditation can lower anxiety, but the mechanism has not been clear, until now. "Although we've known that meditation can reduce anxiety, we hadn't identified the specific brain mechanisms involved in relieving anxiety in healthy individuals," said Fadel Zeidan, postdoctoral research fellow in neurobiology and anatomy at Wake Forest Baptist and lead author of the study. "In this study, we were able to see which areas of the brain were… Read the original article » Read More @ Source |
| Tips For Success: This Is Not Another Article About Failure Posted: 06 Jun 2013 07:00 AM PDT  Your fear of failure might just be the thing that's stopping you from succeeding spectacularly and the thing that...stops you...from...doing the...yada, yada, yada... Honestly, I couldn't go through with it. I don't think I can read another article about how important failure is. Let alone write one. The necessity of failure to an endeavor is widely appreciated, but there's something else out there that's spoken about in hushed tones in dark alleyways. It can equal fear of failure when it comes to blocking what you want, but it's something a little more subtle, a little more nuanced, a little more insidious. It's the Fear of Success. |
| Tips For Success: This Is Not Another Article About Failure Posted: 06 Jun 2013 07:00 AM PDT Your fear of failure might just be the thing that's stopping you from succeeding spectacularly and the thing that...stops you...from...doing the...yada, yada, yada... Honestly, I couldn't go through with it. I don't think I can read another article about how important failure is. Let alone write one. The necessity of failure to an endeavor is widely appreciated, but there's something else out there that's spoken about in hushed tones in dark alleyways. It can equal fear of failure when it comes to blocking what you want, but it's something a little more subtle, a little more nuanced, a little more insidious. It's the Fear of Success. |
| Posted: 05 Jun 2013 11:00 PM PDT Continuing from the last blog, I need to add that it takes time and good fortune (punya) to develop the ability to understand the spiritual language of Buddhism, especially, in regard to what it is really saying and pointing too. It not just about words and their dictionary meaning. A spiritual context is also present. It also takes time to gain the ability to learn what is not a spiritual language. Incidentally, this is where I believe the line of separation between the advanced students and the tyro is to be drawn. The tyro has almost no understanding of spirit. Obviously, I cannot pour into some tryo or beginner's ears the magic medicine that will give them the ability to understand the spiritual language of Buddhism. It's not that easy. The tyro's tendency to turn spiritual words into spiritual materialism is ever present even among veteran monks. Even if some forward progress is made, it is short lived because of the tyro's habit of looking at life from the perspective of materialism. It is a truism to say that those who have had real spiritual experiences are much different than the spiritual materialist—even the spiritual materialist of twenty or more years. Just recently, I listened to a lecture by a Malaysian Theravada monk about undermining the ego. Of course, anyone who has tried to translate attâ or âtman into English knows that the term "ego" is a calque. The borrowing of ego is not at all representative of attâ/âtman. For one thing, it is loaded with too much psychological baggage. Ego can mean reason and circumspection (Freud); something to get rid of (cultism); the organizing center of wholeness (Blanck and Blanck); the fundamental cause of fragmentation (Neo Gnostic psychology); the small self as opposed to the higher self (Jung). The list goes on. The monk's lecture amounted to a huge misreading of what the Buddha meant by anattâ or no-self. The monk was unconsciously misleading his audience. If the monk had a real spiritual experience he would have realized, almost immediately, what anattâ is, namely, his finite psychophysical body. From this, the belief that the self is the bad guy is ludicrous—it's wrong. It is just the opposite. Only someone who has realized what the self is, first hand, knows exactly what the not-self (anattâ) is which has to be rejected. By analogy, without knowledge of what gold is (that is, having seen it first hand), how can one distinguish brass or fool's gold (iron pyrite) from real gold? Spiritual materialists are so blind and devious that if the Buddha stood right in front of them discoursing they would not recognize him or her. The core of the problem, surely, is a condition of spiritual blindness (avidya) if not a kind of spiritual sleep so that one lives always in dreamland. To borrow a turn of phrase, their eyes are wide shut. How is the spiritual materialist to be gradually weaned off of their special variety of materialism? I don't think there is an easy answer. I don't think the Buddha had the answer either. |
| Posted: 05 Jun 2013 10:00 PM PDT
Right now in New Hampshire, where I live, it's late spring or early summer, and the trees, of which there are many on my route to work, are resplendent. Last night's rains have left the greens and purples of the leaves rich and saturated, and the world is alive and vibrant. And yet for a few minutes it was as if I was seeing this through a filter that stripped out all the beauty. And in a way I was; the filter was my mind, clouded by preoccupations. With this filter of self in place, I saw the world, but didn't allow myself to resonate with its aliveness and beauty. Some part of me recognized that I was impoverishing my experience, and my thinking dropped away and the world's beauty came flooding in. It was a deeply enriching and satisfying experience, just noticing and appreciating all this beauty as I moved through it. Everything was beautiful. Everything. I've been noticing, since starting to practice the mudita bhavana (the meditation in cultivating joyful appreciation) that I'm becoming much more appreciative. Yesterday I was walking to my local cafe, and saw Larry sitting on a doorstep, having a cigarette. And I was struck by how much I liked the style of his baseball boots. They were attractive in themselves, but the shape and color of them perfectly complemented the rest of his clothing. So I commented on this, and we got into a conversation about them; he says they're cheap shoes, but that he really loves them. So do I. In the cafe, there was a new display of five paintings by a local artist. They were all good, but three in particular were really excellent. And the way that the paintings had been displayed was beautiful, and I couldn't help thinking that those particular artworks belonged in that space. So I shared that with Michelle, the cafe's owner. It's good to share what we appreciate. And Michelle herself is a lovely person, and I noticed that there was a touching vulnerability about her, like she was perhaps feeling a bit down, but was dealing with it in her usual patient and kind way, staying calm and graceful while under pressure. The filter of "selfing" seems to be dropping away, and beauty is being allowed in. "Unselfing" allows esthetic appreciation to take place. It allows the heart to resonate. So I'd suggest, from time to time, just dropping your "selfing" activities; drop those filters of self-preoccupation and let the world's beauty in.  If you like my articles, please click here to check out my books, guided meditation CDs, and MP3s, including The Heart's Wisdom, which includes all four brahmavihara meditations. I wonder if beauty is simply the meeting of the world and an appreciative mind? There can't really be an experience of beauty without a complementary experience of appreciative awareness. I didn't experience the trees as beautiful until I dropped my filters and appreciated them. And in some sense there seems to be no such thing as "objective" beauty. When we have an appreciative mind, it can seem as if everything is beautiful. It's not just the obviously beautiful things (trees, flowers) that you can resonate with. Even cracks in concrete, a crumpled Coke can that a car's run over, a pair of cheap baseball boots, a pile of dirty dishes can be received with appreciation and so have their own beauty. True, there are some things it's easier to appreciate, and therefore to see as beautiful; for example we've evolved to have positive responses to nature. And there are some things it's hard to appreciate; it's hard to see a facial deformity without wincing. But it seems anything can be seen as beautiful if we look the right way. Even brokenness can be beautiful. A few weeks ago I dropped my iPad mini and the screen cracked right across, diagonally. Perhaps because I'd been doing lots of lovingkindness meditation, this didn't bother me at all. When I look at the screen I find I like my iPad more, not less. Mine is the only iPad that's cracked in that particular way. It's unique, and lovely. Interestingly, when other people see the crack they're aghast. They react as if I have broken every limb in my body. But to me, there's something lovely about this crack. The Japanese have an art called kintsugi. When some ceramic household object, like a favorite teapot, breaks, it's repaired with gold resin, so that the cracks are highlighted. Objects repaired in this way are seen as more precious and beautiful than undamaged items. This makes me think that everything is cracked. As Leonard Cohen said, "There's a crack in everything." And appreciation seems to have the ability to make things whole again, to fill the cracks with gold. Read More @ Source |
| Tips For Success: This Is Not Another Article About Failure Posted: 05 Jun 2013 06:00 PM PDT Your fear of failure might just be the thing that's stopping you from succeeding spectacularly and the thing that...stops you...from...doing the...yada, yada, yada... Honestly, I couldn't go through with it. I don't think I can read another article about how important failure is. Let alone write one. The necessity of failure to an endeavor is widely appreciated, but there's something else out there that's spoken about in hushed tones in dark alleyways. It can equal fear of failure when it comes to blocking what you want, but it's something a little more subtle, a little more nuanced, a little more insidious. It's the Fear of Success.  Read More @ Source |
Barb Turnbull, Toronto, Thestar.com: A young boy is plagued by anxiety and ADHD and two soldiers suffer stress disorders after going to war.
Jeff Ourvan, Globalpost: Can someone be an American Buddhist?
If we experiment with this letting go of control—if we engage wholeheartedly with each other and in our activities—our sense of being enlarges. More and more we discover the innate curiosity and care that leads to giving ourselves fully to this moment, and then this one, and again…this one. Rather than racing to the finish line, we choose, with all our heart, to be here for our life.
Indian Express: Scientists have found that meditation can reduce anxiety by as much as 39 per cent and have also identified the brain functions involved.
This morning I was heading to work and I became aware that I wasn't letting the world in. | You are subscribed to email updates from BuddhaRocks ☸ To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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