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Mindfulness |
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The Heartful Dodger on MTV
In the Spring 2010 issue of Tricycle, Alexander Sharkey wrote a profile of Vinny Ferraro, an ex-convict and recovering drug addict who now works as the teacher-training director of the Mind Body Awareness Project (MBA) in Oakland, California. In Sharkey's piece, "The Heartful Dodger," Vinny talks about leading MBA's Challenge Day—a mindfulness-based program that introduces kids to mindfulness exercises in order to open them up to their own "thoughts, fears, prejudices, and vulnerabilities"—and how he works with kids to help them find freedom beyond conditions: More » -
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The biology of mindfulness
In a new interview with The New Humanism's editor Rick Heller, Daniel Siegel (above) lays out the neurological fundamentals of smelling a rose, the mental architecture of a mirage—and of always wanting a new toy (just not the iPhone 4). He has taken a particular interest in understanding how past experience conditions our perceptions, and he describes himself to Heller this way: More » -
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Bonnie Myotai Treace on Generosity and Attention
Week 2 of Bonnie Myotai Treace's Tricycle Retreat begins today. In this week's talk she elaborates on last week's theme of generosity and introduces the theme of attention. While stressing the importance of attention in practice she tells a story of a Japanese Emperor that visited a Zen master asking for a great teaching. In response to the Emperor's request the master painted a calligraphy of the character for 'attention.' The Emperor thanked him but stated he was looking for more of a teaching than one simple character. Upon being asked to elaborate on this teaching, the master's response was simply to once again paint the character on another piece of paper and hand it to him. This apparently went on for quite some time. Eventually the Emperor saw that this repetitive action WAS the great teaching—that one must come back to attention again and again and again. More » -
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Watch: Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel on Empowerment
Teacher, scholar, and author Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel speaks about the essential purpose of empowerment: to awaken our potential. She begins, Like all things on the Buddhist path, all the rituals, teachings, and practices have to do with awakening your Buddha potential, or clarity of mind. The promise for all this is that we naturally have this wakeful mind but it gets obscured or confused. (continued) More » -
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"Buddhism & Psychology: The Art of Counseling" sponsored by Naropa University and FACES.
The Inaugural Boulder Institute on Mindfulness "Buddhism & Psychology: The Art of Counseling" will take place July 28-31 at the St. Julien Hotel in Boulder, Colorado. Speakers will include Daniel J. Siegel, MD; Jack KornField, PhD; and Karen Kissel Wegela, PhD. This conference highlights an emerging trend in the field of psychotherapy: the inclusion of mindfulness in counseling. National conversation in the field shows that mindfulness awareness has already been proven to enhance psychotherapy. Current research shows that the benefits of mindfulness can help us explore aspects of ourselves that are not ordinarily noticed, experiences that occur below our level of consciousness. For more information, visit Naropa’s site. More » -
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Chronic pain? There's hope.
I've heard plenty about meeting pain with meditation, and there's a whole book about it—or many, but this latest book is one I may read in preparation for old age. Author Tim Parks, inspired by a A Headache in the Pelvis, a book by two Stanford urologists who recommend meditation, decided to give it a try. And—drum roll—it worked; his chronic pelvic pain was significantly alleviated. According to tomorrow's Irish Times: It took about three months to lower the levels of pain to such an extent they were no longer a problem, he says. More »
