The Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts is offering its 10th Annual Scientific Conference, called Investigating and Integrating Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society. It features more than 75 presentations that include research forums, presentation dialogs, workshops, keynotes, preconference institutes and workshops, breakfast roundtables, and a full day of mindfulness practice.

March 28-April 1, 2012
Four Points Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center
Norwood MA USA

Click here for full details.

Here’s a message from Saki Santorelli, Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness, and Conference Chair.

What does it means to live mindfully? How do we bring more calm and inner clarity into our daily lives? How can we stay confident and purposeful when times get rough?

This gentle introductory residential retreat is open to all, especially those with no prior experience with meditation or Buddhism. We will explore the Buddha’s teachings on mindfulness in a down-to-earth, practical way through meditation, discussion, and hands-on exercises. We’ll also investigate how to live with greater awareness and contentment with ourselves, and in turn, how to live in harmony with the world around us.

Joe, a student in my online class, was worried that meditation would hurt his career. He works in a very competitive business where everyone is single-mindedly pushing and driving hard all the time. The whole idea of “letting go” seemed absurd in that context. But at the same time his stress and anxiety levels were sky high. He knew this wasn’t a sustainable way to live.

Yes it’s true that in meditation, we’re told to drop everything and let go. But that doesn’t mean becoming passive and ineffectual. There’s more to this instruction than meets the eye.

There’s an image that comes to mind for me to …

I saw this during its first run in Cambridge MA, and thought it was excellent. If you’re in the LA area, I recommend you see it!

Here’s the original article:

Oscar and Tony-nominated actor John C. Reilly — you know him from an impressively long list of films including Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Gangs of New York, Cedar Rapids, and on and on — has been selected to direct Buddha: Triumph in the Life of the Great Sage, written and performed by Evan Brenner at LA’s Bootleg Theater. The drama is set for this February 3 to 25, 2012 — a reenactment of the life of the Buddha. The play is based on Buddhist texts.

While discussing his play, Brenner said, “I …

Begin the new year on a positive note! Learn all about mindfulness and start down the road to better health, happiness, and well-being.

We’re very excited to announce “The Mindful Life” – a new introductory meditation online course starting January 2. It’s a comprehensive four-week course on mindfulness – not only the how-to of meditation, but also ways to bring more awareness and aliveness to your life overall. It combines the wisdom of the Buddha’s teachings with the latest research in neuroscience and psychology – so you get the best of both worlds. Weekly “daily life exercises” help you take what you learn into action in life.

The things that …

It’s discouraging, isn’t it, to watch ourselves fall repeatedly into our same old habitual traps. We try to practice mindfulness, but it can be frustrating. Do you ever have days where you’re so caught up that you realize only at night, despite your best intentions, that you weren’t mindful for even one moment?

And it’s especially hard when we’re face to face with lifelong tendencies that resist change in a big way.

But don’t lose heart. It doesn’t mean you’re no good at this. After all, you NOTICED that you weren’t being mindful. That noticing is a positive event. Even though it happened after the fact, …

People often come to my meditation courses because they want to learn how to slow down their crazy busy lives.

So you start sitting for 10, 20, or maybe even 30 minutes a day. But after some weeks of this, you still feel like things are crazy busy and all over the place. So your meditation isn’t working, you say to me.

Here’s my first thought. I’m wondering if you’re thinking of meditation as something you can drop into your life for say, 30 minutes a day, and have it counterbalance the other 15 or so hours that your mind is on full tilt. (I’m assuming you spend …

Feeling ready to invest in your own health and well-being? Want to make the effort to grow in a new direction? And begin feeling more at ease with yourself and your world?

You can learn how with Wildmind’s meditation courses. They’re all personally guided by Sunada, an experienced meditation teacher who provides ongoing feedback and support.

Beginning October 3, 2011:

• The Path of Mindfulness and Love (4 weeks)
• Change Your Mind (4 weeks)

Read more about our courses here.

I remember feeling very frustrated – and frankly a little baffled – when I was first learning the metta bhavana practice. Especially around the fourth stage, the difficult person. How was I supposed to feel warmth and affection for somebody I admitted not getting along with?

It was a tall order, and the whole idea left me feeling inadequate. I often sat there wondering what the heck metta was supposed to feel like, because I just didn’t get it. I figured there must be something wrong with me. I’m wondering if you’ve ever found yourself in a similar place.

Stress is a fact of life for many of us, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Mindfulness meditation can make all the difference between feeling stressed out and well-balanced.

For those of you in the Boston area, Sunada Takagi is offering a course on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) to help you start down the road to health and wellbeing. The program centers on the ancient practice of meditation, presented in a pragmatic, common sense way. You’ll learn how to build up your inner resources for healing and growing — so you can start taking charge of your life.

MBSR is based on Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s pioneering work …

• Stressed?
• Living with chronic pain, illness, anxiety, or depression?
• Looking for more peace of mind?

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) helps you discover your natural capacity for ease and confidence.

In this program, you’ll learn how to develop the life skill of mindfulness. It’s your natural human capacity to pay wise attention to your moment-by-moment experience. It helps you become clearer and more focused – and better able to respond creatively to whatever life throws your way.

The program centers on the ancient practice of meditation, presented in a pragmatic, common sense way. You’ll learn how to build up your inner resources for healing and growing — so you can …

Feeling ready to invest in your own health and well-being? Want to make the effort to grow in a new direction? And begin feeling more at ease with yourself and your world?

You can learn how with Wildmind’s meditation courses. They’re all personally guided by Sunada, an experienced meditation teacher who provides ongoing feedback and support.

Beginning September 6, 2011:

• The Path of Mindfulness and Love (4 weeks)
• Change Your Mind (4 weeks)

Read more about our courses here.

I’ve been working on getting a daily yoga practice going. I thought it might improve my overall energy levels, and help with the chronic tension in my back and shoulders. But it’s been a “two steps forward, one step backward” sort of path. It’s especially on those days when I’m feeling pretty good that I tend to slack off. I think what the heck, I don’t really need it today. But then one day becomes two, then three… And I find myself feeling sluggish and tight again. Ugh.

So I’m re-experiencing firsthand what it’s like to try and get a healthy new habit going. It sure isn’t easy. How do we keep ourselves motivated?

I have a long history of depression. And though it’s thankfully not a constant companion anymore, it still drops by for a visit now and then. This past week was one of them. Being in it again gave me another opportunity for practice. But it also showed me how far I’ve come. I have the confidence that there’s a way out.

When these moods come lately, they go up and down, and usually pass away after a week or two. (Thank goodness! It didn’t used to be that way.) And all the things that seem so hopeless and overwhelming when I’m down suddenly turn manageable when the mood …

One of my clients — I’ll call him Mark — took up meditation to help with his lifelong anxiety. He was all too aware of his tendency to over-analyze and worry about everything. He’d been meditating on and off for two years, gone on retreats, read tons of dharma books, done everything he could think of.

But he felt like there was no progress at all. He told me that every sit still featured that same old frenzied monkey mind swinging from tree to tree. It was nothing but frustration.

I have to say, I empathize. I bet you’ve been in a similar place, too. We all take up …

When one of Sunada’s best friends from college lost her brother recently, it served as a wake up call for her. It was a reminder that life is short, and there really is no time to lose.

My friend Cecily recently lost her brother to illness. He had just turned 50 the week before he died. She is devastated.

Cecily is one of my best friends from college. We’ve known each other for 32 years. It’s that rare kind of friendship where even if months pass without connecting, we still pick right up where we left off. We’ve never lived anywhere near each other since graduation, but we’ve stayed in touch through all our ups and downs. It’s a friendship I treasure.

One of my clients – I’ll call her Kathryn – came to me because she was feeling overwhelmed. Her relationship of five years is fraying. Her career has stagnated. She has money concerns. She feels trapped in the small town she lives in. And she has a little two-year-old daughter to care for through all this. What to do? Where to start?

We live in such a quick-fix, instant gratification culture. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking we need to DO something about this. Right away.

But is that really the most constructive thing to do?

When the ground underneath us falls away like …

After tossing and turning through some sleepless nights, Sunada discovered a few things about the discomfort at the root of her insomnia. Realizing that it’s always there on some level, it’s given her something real to work with, day and night.

I turn to look at my bedside clock. 3:18 am. Here I am again, wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Darn it.

This has been happening a lot lately. So I thought, how about trying something different? Why not use that time to meditate? You know, lie in bed, completely present with my body and mind, and being with how it all just IS? You’d think this would …

Just in case you’re taking this meditation thing too seriously, here’s a short video to make you laugh. Maybe you’ll recognize a little of yourself in it! I sure did.

You committed to yourself that you’ll meditate. And you do, for a few days or weeks. But then something happens. You miss one day. Then another. And before you know it, you’ve stopped entirely. Hmmmm…. What happened?

As a meditation teacher, I’ve been involved in many conversations on this subject. So I thought I’d look at what leads us to choose not to meditate, and how we might work with that choice more skillfully.

Less than ideal conditions

A very common scenario is putting off meditation on a day when we’re just not feeling up to it. Maybe we’re feeling lousy or distracted. Or the rest of the household …