Conscious communing replacing pubs to give Aussies 'the new high'

Sydney, Mon, 07 May 2012ANI

Sydney, May 7 (ANI): Sydney is apparently experiencing a new kind of nightlife.

It comprises groups of anything from 30 to more than 300. And, together, they're transforming what it means to get high.

Instead of going out to get blitzed, they're going out to get buzzed and instead of ending the night unconscious, they're ending the night more conscious, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Projects such as The Conscious Club, Soul Sessions and Wake Up Sydney! all started in the past couple of years and they're all growing increasingly popular.

In fact, if a person is not fast it's extremely hard to get a ticket - their events all sell out, usually within a couple of days.

Majorly because they are fun. There is good food, a far friendlier (but, just as pretty) crowd than average for Sydney and anything and everything from live music to movies, meditation to circus acts and even laughing yoga.

And at every event talented talkers take to the stage to share their ideas and inspirations. Topics range from science to inner-silence, entrepreneurship to enlightenment and everything in between.

The founders of 'The Conscious Clu'b said that they were tired of the same old pub or club routine where they would yell at each other for hours before going home with nothing to show for it except a hoarse voice and a hangover.

Only twelve days after the inception of the idea, they held their first event late last year. Two hundred people packed out the venue in Bondi. To cater to growing demand, they are already ready to move to a bigger space.

Founder and renowned meditation teacher Tim Brown asserted that attendees are the full age spectrum and around a 50/50 split of men and women. He believes the events are so popular because they allow people to engage and feel energised.

Likewise, the thought of sharing an enhancing experience with others is what inspired Wake Up Sydney!.

The founder, Jono Fisher took what he thought would be a two-month break from his corporate role seven years ago. Burnt out, depressed and unhappy he insisted that he started reassessing what was important to him.

"I started falling in love with a bunch of things, like meditation, music, performance, wine and chocolate," he said.

"I thought maybe they could be shared. So, I booked a cinema and hoped people would come."

"We had 800 people come to our last event from just one email," Fisher said.

"Everyone's [coming] ... people in suits, Buddhists, young people. Just people who want to hang together and be uplifted and hear real stories."

Eloise King's Soul Sessions are a more intimate affair, with space for only 33 people at the monthly wine and dine events in Surry Hills.

But, they were triggered by the same desire to share information and inspiration. And as a journalist of 15 years she has abundant access to both.

Such conversations have given her the tools to surmount many of her own demons like anxiety and an eating disorder.

So, within two weeks of the idea, she organised the first Soul Session on sex, love and marriage.

King thinks that the growth of these sorts of events - what Tim Brown calls "enlightertainment" - is a response to people's need for inner-nourishment and connection. They also provide the tools to integrate spirituality into increasingly stressed, busy lives.

Brown agrees that increasing number of people are realising that their levels of stress and distress are unsustainable.

Which is why the events often comprise meditation and encourage inner-awareness. While he maintained that they are designed to create a more conscious community, he insisted that they are secular.

"[Becoming more conscious] can be really fun and playful and enjoyable - and multi-dimensional, [the events are] all-inclusive rather than exclusive. Anybody can come - if you're a meditator great, if not, that's fine. We wanted to create an environment that was a more open space that allowed everyone to come in," Brown added.

New center offers mix of yoga, dance, meditation, and tea

Yoga, meditation, spiritual guidance, tea, and art have been wound together into a new center dedicated to serving the inner being.
“It’s very much a healing arts center,” said Jessica Howard, founder and artistic director of the Heron Dance, Yoga and Meditation Studio, at 187 Plymouth Ave.

Howard, a trained dancer, opened the center in January. She’ll hold a free open house Saturday and Sunday to allow visitors a chance to see all the center has to offer.

It will feature local and visiting artists and teachers who will offer classes and demonstrations in yoga, dance, and improv. There will be healthy food demonstrations, informal live performances in dance, Alice’s organic tea tasting, an art and photography exhibit, and more.
Howard said opening such a place has “been a dream.” She plans to offer affordable artist space and increase her other offerings.
“It’s been surreal,” she said.

Howard said Heron will be a place where people can come to relax and read, learn about themselves, dance, exercise, and find balance.
“It all goes together so well,” Howard said. “I’m hoping for a place where people can come to connect with their individual self ... a place to explore, play and be.”

Howard, a native of New Hampshire, opened the center after teaming up with building owner Greg Squillante. The organic tea, which comes in unique and custom blends, is named for his mother, Alice.
Howard and Squillante will also offer spiritual guidance. An introductory course examines religions, philosophy and spiritual paths.
Howard studied theater and dance at Keene College in New Hampshire. She is a member of the Lorraine Chapman Dance Company in Boston and is also a freelance dancer and choreographer.

At Heron, she’ll teach yoga, barre ballet dance, modern dance and creative movement.

Read more: http://www.heraldnews.com/newsnow/x272280055/New-center-offers-mix-of-yoga-dance-meditation-and-tea#ixzz1tusq67kX

Life in Phnom Penh is noisy. Most mornings, I am woken at dawn by the squeak and yell of the refuse collectors; as I try to doze some more, my slumber is punctured by the revving of motorbike engines and the shout of street vendors. The cycle to work is fraught and hectic, and even in the relative sanctuary of my air-conditioned office, I am bombarded by emails and harangued by the trilling of mobile phones.

It’s not just the city’s sounds that distract me, I also have a lot of head noise. As a single 20-something, I’m constantly reminded via the medium of Facebook, that unlike my friends and university peers, I have so far failed to: enjoy an insane 24-hour party lifestyle, bag a six-figure salary, afford a mortgage, nab a handsome husband or create a beautiful baby.

In a bid to find some silence, I took a friend’s advice and on Monday night, attended a meditation session at Wat Lanka. 

My friend Kim beautifully describes the feeling of balance and groundedness that she draws from spending time meditating. “It is particularly helpful in Phnom Penh where there is a lot of peripheral stress from all the chaos and traffic,” she says.

Tucked behind a concrete wall on busy Sihanouk Boulevard, very little of Wat Lanka but its glorious golden roofs are visible from the road. However, stepping though the gate and into the compound, its beautiful facade, the colour of soft rosy sunsets, is revealed. 

At the back of the building a flight of stairs takes me up to the meditation hall where three rows of saffron-coloured cushions have been laid out on the tiled floor in front of a vast golden statue of the Buddha. Around the top of the room are a series of enchanting frescos and underneath, carved wooden doors are open to allow in a cooling breeze.  I found out later that Wat Lanka was used as a storage room by the Khmer Rouge during the regime’s ruinous rule and so it was spared total destruction.

My first go at meditation

Anna Brown 

Friday, 04 May 2012

Many of the 25-odd cushions had already been occupied when I arrived, but a vermillion-clad monk swept over to offer me another space. 

The meditation sessions at Wat Lanka do not offer instruction and so I sat down, tucking my feet under me in what I imagined was an appropriate meditation pose and closed my eyes. 

It’s an interesting feeling to sit silently with 20 other people and to concentrate only on the contents of one’s own head. I was aware of people around me, but with my eyes closed their being there was irrelevant other than a small sense of shared stillness. The sounds of the street were still audible but muffled, as if we were sat in a bubble. 

Kim had told me about her experience of meditation, “You don’t feel the time passing, sometimes it’s like you’ve not even been there,” she explained. “You feel completely centred on yourself”.  

It was interesting to try and force my mind to clear, not to let it get caught on petty troubles or silly daydreams. I found that random thoughts began to slip across my consciousness like oil on water. 

For a few moments I was able to concentrate on my breathing and it was lovely to be so conscious of a light draft across my face and the sensation of rise and fall as I filled my lungs.

Soon, though, my feet filled with pins and needles and I became uncomfortable on my little cushion. I’m told that by focusing on the little pains, they can be made to go away, but I am afraid I will need much more practice until I can meditate with such concentration. In the meantime, my toes will have to get used to the numbness, because I will be back there next week, trying to find that elusive inner peace.

VA testing whether meditation can help treat PTSD

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By Steve Vogel, Updated: Friday, May 4, 5:00 AM

Seeking new ways to treat post-traumatic stress, the Department of Veterans Affairs is studying the use of transcendental meditation to help returning veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Veterans Affairs’ $5.9 billion system for mental-health care is under sharp criticism, particularly after the release of an inspector general’s report last month that found that the department has greatly overstated how quickly it treats veterans seeking mental-health care.

VA has a “huge investment” in mental-health care but is seeking alternatives to conventional psychiatric treatment, said W. Scott Gould, deputy secretary of veterans affairs.

“The reality is, not all individuals we see are treatable by the techniques we use,” Gould said at a summit Thursday in Washington on the use of TM to treat post-traumatic stress suffered by veterans and active-duty service members.

By some estimates, 10 percent of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan show effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, numbers that are overwhelming the department

“Conventional approaches fall woefully short of the mark, so we clearly need a new approach,” said Norman Rosenthal, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University’s medical school.

Rosenthal told the gathering that TM, a meditative practice that advocates say helps manage stress and depression, is “possibly even a game-changer” in how to treat PTSD.

VA is spending about $5 million on a dozen clinical trials and demonstration studies of three meditation techniques involving several hundred veterans from a range of conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Results from the studies will not be available for 12 to 18 more months.

But Gould said he was “encouraged” by the results of other trials presented at the summit.

Two independent pilot studies of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans showed a 50 percent reduction in symptoms of post-traumatic stress after eight weeks, according to the summit’s sponsor, the David Lynch Foundation, a charitable organization founded by the American filmmaker and television director.

Results from the initial phase of a long-term trial investigating the effects of TM on 60 cadets at Norwich University, a private military college in Vermont, have shown promise, school officials said at the summit.

Students practising TM at Norwich showed measurable improvement in the areas of resilience, constructive thinking and discipline over a control group not using the method. “The statistical effect we found in only two months was surprisingly large,” Carole Bandy, an associate professor of psychology who is directing the Norwich study, said at the summit.

“For us, it’s all about the evidence,” said Norwich President Richard W. Schneider, who added that he was a skeptic before the trial began.

Operation Warrior Wellness, an initiative of the David Lynch Foundation, is providing TM training to troops recovering from wounds at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. Soldiers report “dramatic improvements” in sleep, according to the foundation, as well as significant reductions in pain, stress and the use of prescription medications.

Lynch, the director of “Blue Velvet,” “Mulholland Drive” and the television series “Twin Peaks,” is a longtime practitioner of TM.

“The VA is very interested in what this can do,” Lynch said in a telephone interview Thursday. He acknowledged that many in the military are wary of transcendental meditation, with its New Age and mystic connotations.

“Big-time,” Lynch said. “They’re skeptical until they start hearing stories, or experiencing it for themselves.”

Sample open inquire within

Published: Wednesday, May 02, 2012

By Joe O’Loughlin

While driving to workout early one morning, I drove by an apartment complex on Woodland Avenue. In the inky darkness a white sign in front of the complex caught me.

Standing out in bold relief were four words written in crimson red:

SAMPLE OPEN

INQUIRE WITHIN

My early morning sojourns to the gym provide the precise “ingredients” for my “reflection cocktail:” quiet, solitude and a period of free and unfettered mental association.

Because of this “perfect storm” for meditation, my mind was immediately directed to think of how every waking moment you have the opportunity to explore the sample of the eternal world to come if you only bother to inquire within.

For me, it means shutting off all the weapons of mass distraction that the world foists upon us all with reckless abandon. What “nquiring within” means is delving deep into your heart and soul and getting in touch with God. On those times when I do it seems like a whole world of order, tranquility and beauty opens up to me. Thus, a sample of what awaits.

Perhaps because I have always been pre-disposed to this kind of introspective mindset (and even more so as I grow older), even seemingly innocuous signs meant for a different, literal interpretation take on a whole new meaning for me.

In the whirlwind of this onrushing world, both with its vexing and pervasive negativity to discourage us juxtaposed with enticing allurements to tempt and distract us, there seems to be scarce time to withdraw and enter the deep and vibrant interior life that waits within.

Yet, your discipline is richly rewarded when you abandon the maddening merry-go-round of this life and take the time, even if but for fifteen precious minutes a day, to explore the breath-taking terrain that adorns the landscape of your soul. 

Take a moment to adjust your spiritual vision. If you do you will begin to see the "signs" are all around you, like the “Sample Open Inquire Within” experience I had the other morning in what many might feel was a period of blank 5 a.m. darkness and desolation.

When you change your perspective you will decipher things in a whole different manner. In doing so you will find yourself directed to a fuller and more robust enjoyment of this life on a spiritual level while understanding the serenity of the one that awaits to a more profound degree.

The world belongs to humanity, not leaders, says Dalai Lama: Effects of meditation on the brain to be discussed

If you're interested in Buddhist psychology or Tibetan holistic culture and history, a new Tibetan center opens today. The Tibet House California, a place of learning about Buddhist psychology and Tibetan culture for all peoples, will be temporarily housed in the Trinity Cathedral Church of Sacramento at 2620 Capitol Avenue until a permanent house is found for the center that goes beyond a museum of Tibetan culture.

The world belongs to humanity, not leaders, says the Dalai Lama. According to an April 25, 2012, CNN U.S. article, "Dalai Lama: World belongs to 'humanity,' not leaders." The Dalai Lama explained, "The world belongs to humanity, not this leader, that leader, kings or religious leaders. The world belongs to humanity. Each country belongs essentially to their own people," he said in an interview Wednesday on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight."

The Dalai Lama also said in that same CNN article, "Politicians at times forget that, even in democratic countries like the United States. Sometimes they are short-sighted. They are mainly looking for the next vote."

Tibetan Center in Sacramento promotes dialogue between Buddhist psychology and modern psychology. Check out the May 1, 2012, Sacramento Bee article by Stephen Magagnini, "Tibet House California's opening in Sacramento draws Dalai Lama's Blessing." Also check out the website of the national Tibet House events page.

Intensive Meditiation Training Discussion

During the summer, Tibet House Sacramento will host a discussion led by Cliff D. Saron of the UC Davis, to discuss the effects of Buddhist meditation on the brain. See, UC Davis: Center for Mind and Brain: Clifford Saron. Dr. Saron's work centers on two broad areas, according to the UC Davis website.

The first is focused on the training of attention and emotion regulation through contemplative practice. Dr. Saron's main project at UC Davis is known as “The Shamatha Project” a large-scale collaborative and multimethod longitudinal study of the effects of intensive meditation training.

At UC Davis, Dr. Saron's team uses qualitative, self-report, behavioral, electrophysiological, and biochemical measures to begin to elucidate the many levels of personal and physiological change that accompany such training. Dr. Saron's second research area concerns sensory processing, multisensory integration, and interhemispheric communication in children with autism spectrum disorders.

In collaboration with colleagues at the CMB and M.I.N.D. Institute the psychologists are using sensitive behavioral measures, eye tracking, and dense channel array event-related potentials to investigate possible deficits in these low-level processes which likely contribute to the complex phenotype of autism.

Dali Lama blesses (sanctions) the opening of Tibet House California in Sacramento today

The Dali Lama has blessed (sanctioned) the opening of Tibet House California today. The Sacramento-based center is designed to promote an understanding of Tibet.

Emphasis on most Tibetan culture is related to holistic psychology and holistic health related to Tibetan culture and religion, philosophy, and psychology. The house also promotes an understanding of Tibet and its culture.

The goal of Tibet House is to recreate the historic culture of Tibet which will preserve the Tibetan culture and psychology, philosophy, holistic health and meditation writings, and faith intrinsic in the culture. Tibetans in exile hope someday to go back to Tibet and to preserve their history, folklore, and culture.

There are other Tibetan culture houses or museums that are more than museums to preserve culture and psychology located in Delhi, India and in New York. How they go beyond museums is that the Tibetan culture houses promote dialogue between Buddhist psychology and modern psychology. Check out the center's website, particularly the links that discuss Buddhist psychology connections with modern psychology.

Serious seminars are planned for all peoples to learn about Tibetan culture and Buddhist psychology. The Tibetan House is meant as a place of learning for people of all backgrounds. In Sacramento there are around 300 Tibetans. But in the rest of Northern California, estimates say about 3,000 Tibetans reside in the regional area.

The center is planning to start projects that benefit the people of Tibet, Tibetan entrepreneurs in California, and related aspects of culture. A psychologist also will advise the center. Co-directors of the center are the Rev. Dean Brian Baker, and Dr. B. Alan Wallace. Until the center finds a permanent location, it will be operated from the church.

Stanford scholar tracks meditation's migration from ancient monasteries to modern yoga

May 2, 2012 by Kelsey Geiser in Psychology & Psychiatry

For many Americans, "yoga" conjures up mental images of athletic-minded people engaging in a simultaneous "warrior pose" while being told to focus on their breathing.

What many yoga enthusiasts may not realize is that this athletic practice represents only one of the various ways in which aspects of Buddhism have infiltrated the secular American culture.

From its start, Buddhism has emphasized the achievement of a state of liberation and enlightenment, which can be achieved through a variety of methods, including meditation. Historically, this mentally challenging practice has been limited to monasteries and not even utilized by the typical Buddhist. Over time, however, the less technical forms of meditation have become popular in the United States – a glimpse of which can be seen in the athletic practice of yoga and its focus on counting one's measured breaths.

Religious Studies Professor Carl Bielefeldt has dedicated his academic career to the study of 13th century Japanese Zen, a tradition of Buddhism that emphasizes the practice of meditation. As Bielefeldt describes it, the deep visualization of more technical meditation could not realistically play a role in modern American life. "I am not going to get up in the morning and enter into a deep state of trance and visualize something because then I will be late for work, so instead I will get up in the morning and watch my breath in and out."

Tracing the route to modern Buddhist meditation

As the editor of a project to translate the scriptures of the largest school of Zen in Japan, the Soto Zen School, Bielefeldt is shedding light on the works of the 13th century Zen master Dōgen.

Bielefeldt said he is providing annotation and translation of the master's often-obscure essays in hopes that the English translation will help his work to be more accessible to the international community.

Buddhist meditation has taken a long journey to reach U.S. shores. While it technically began in China in the seventh century, it was not popular in countries such as Japan and Korea until approximately 1200.

When Japan opened itself to the West in the 19th century, Buddhism changed forever. As Western ideas of religion and the academic field of religious studies began to flood into the country, many citizens began to view their spiritual practice of Buddhism as a form of religion for the first time.

Not only did Western influence come into the country, but Japanese traditions of Zen flowed out as well. "Zen became popular in the West, but then there was a certain kind of feedback system where people in Japan became more interested in Zen, saying 'Oh, other people outside of Japan find this interesting, maybe there is something more to it,' " Bielefeldt said.

Despite this feedback system, the movement of meditation from the monasteries to ordinary communities in Japan and other Asian nations did not rival the movement in the United States. As Buddhism moved to the western hemisphere, meditation began to spread into the broader cultures, even outside of the religious realm. Today, Bielefeldt notes, meditation is used in health care as a way of coping with pain and in the sports industry as a way to focus the mind.

"We [Americans] don't really have much example, certainly to this degree, of a religion escaping from its religious tradition and background and community into the broader culture," said Bielefeldt. "We are looking at a religion that is going to have broader diffuse influence on American culture than any other major religion."

Bringing meditation theory into the classroom

Recently, Bielefeldt brought his broader interest in meditation into the classroom. His winter-quarter class on Buddhist Yoga was created to give students a basic understanding of meditation's role within Buddhism and societies across the globe.

Bielefeldt connected with students through an emphasis on meditation's journey from Japanese monasteries to San Francisco apartments.

"Meditation appeals to what is more interesting, typically, about Buddhism," said Bielefeldt. "It is a religion in which we can do something, do a practice, a kind of utilitarian or therapeutic practice."

The class focused on meditation as a form of Buddhist soteriology or, in other words, as a theory of salvation or "what people in the religion want or expect to get, hope to get, and how they get it."

In class, Bielefeldt focused on the meditation path taken by some Buddhists to achieve this salvation. Buddhism, unlike other religions, is not a way of life, but rather a means to get from one state to another. "Buddhism is often said to be a raft that takes you from one shore to the other shore," said Bielefeldt. "Then you don't carry the raft with you afterwards."

Buddhists generally strive to achieve the three elements of the spiritual discipline before they can reach their desired end state of awakening: ethics, mental (including meditation) and wisdom. "Meditation is a kind of door between the elements," said Bielefeldt. "In one sense it's a kind of behavior, so it has to do with ethic. In another sense it involves certain states of understanding, so it is connected with wisdom."

While some Buddhists approach meditation through the traditional practice of visualization, "It is really complex and requires a lot of work," said Bielefeldt. "It is not a thing that you can just sit down and do on a Saturday."

The technicality of this meditation has, for the most part, been limited to Buddhists in monasteries rather than ordinary practicing Buddhists. It is only since the 20th century that there have been concerted efforts to bring meditation practices out of the monasteries.

Through this movement, the more popular forms of meditation have been the less technical ones, the "mindfulness practices." These mindfulness practices, however, have taken a much stronger hold in ordinary communities in the United States than in many Asian countries.