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September 2003 Dear Wildmind Subscriber, We'd like to extend you a very warm welcome to Wildmind's latest newsletter. This is the first edition since June, due to Bodhipaksa taking a two-month sabbatical to attend retreats and to do a book-launch tour in the UK. Bodhipaksa plans to take a longer sabbatical in 2004 in order to concentrate on two books he's working on, so if you're curious about our online courses, this fall or winter is a good time to do something about it. Our next online meditation courses start Monday, September 8. Our courses can help you to deal more effectively with stress, so that you can experience more joy and creativity in your life. Make sure you book your place now so that you can experience the benefits of meditation. In this issue:
Meditation in the news We've been busy collecting together recent news stories concerning meditation. Meditation " boosts immune system " Chill out to multiplex meditation Hello to College Joys: Keep Stress Off Campus Company Keeps Sales Mantra but Drops the Dalai Lama
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Give $1 to Wildmind Our mission is to benefit the world by promoting awareness and compassionate values through the practice of meditation. If you've benefited from our site and would like to give something back, then making a small donation can help us enormously. Of course you can feel free to give more than a dollar! |
Our online courses We offer four online courses as well as our popular Life Member Program. For more information, click on any of the photographs or links and you'll be taken to our online store, where more details are available. Our next online
courses start on Monday, September 8. |
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Life
Member Program
Lifelong access to all of our course materials, but without personal feedback and guidance. Suitable for self-directed students. ($95) |
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"The Path of Mindfulness and Love" Our introduction to meditation, helping you to transform your life through mindfulness and lovingkindness, and helping you to set up a regular practice. ($65) |
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A level two course, introducing advanced techniques for combating negative mental states and for cultivating calmness, energy, contentment, and concentration. ($65) |
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"Entering
the Path of Insight"
Introducing the practice of insight meditation, which helps us to appreciate the interdependent nature of the reality we live in. ($65) |
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"Awakening
the Heart"
An alternative level two course, introducing the cultivation of lovingkindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and emotional balance. ($65) |
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Wildmind's CD still #1! Bodhipaksa's popular CD of guided meditations is Amazon.com's has been climbing the charts at Amazon, and is now their best-selling meditation title. Of course you don't have to go to Amazon to purchase it -- you can buy it from our bookstore. |
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Book of the month Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom by Joseph Goldstein (Paperback, $10.47) |
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Rereading Goldstein's classic recently in preparation for a forthcoming interview, I was struck by just how outstanding a teacher of meditation he is compared to many of the other big-hitting Insight Meditation teachers, excellent as they are. This is due in no small part to the depth of his understanding of the Buddhist tradition. Instead of treating meditation as an independent and secularized discipline he sees it as an integral part of a whole system with the aim of living life well. This understanding of the breadth of Buddhist practice shows in the way he covers the Buddhist path, practicing in everyday life, dealing with distractions, practicing lovingkindness, etc., with clarity, gentleness, and subtlety. The topics covered are those which Goldstein has been most frequently asked by his meditation students over the years, and I recognized in him a practitioner who has dug deep into his experience in order to find ways to help others to grow and develop. Goldstein's wisdom and maturity make this a book well worth reading. If you want to buy this book from Amazon.com, click on the cover or title above. To purchase from Amazon.co.uk, click here. |
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Quote of the month "Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance." Jean Petit-Senn (French poet, 1792-1870) |
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At one time in my life, I was feeling rather down. I was short of money, my work wasn't going well, and I found myself one day walking to the post-office on a gloomy winter day feeling lonely and despondent. The houses I was walking past were large, comfortable, and expensive, and I kept finding myself thinking that while many other people had plenty of work and money I was barely scraping by and that no one was interested in what I had to offer. As you'll appreciate, this way of thinking caused me a great deal of suffering. Often when I hit a crisis in my life, some creative part of my mind offers me a way out, and that's just what happened. I was walking along doing a walking meditation that involved taking my awareness to different parts of my experience in turn. And as I noticed a particular sensation, such as the cold air moving over the skin on my hands, I found myself inwardly saying, "true wealth is cold air flowing over my hands." This went on for some time. "true wealth is feeling my feet hitting the ground. true wealth is the smell of a bonfire. true wealth is the sound of traffic. true wealth is seeing bare branches against a gray sky. true wealth is my breath flowing in and out." As I continued to let the focus of my awareness move around my experience, and as these phrases continued to irrupt into my mind, I found I was no longer worried about money. I found that I felt instead a sense of great richness, as I enjoyed being in the moment, and as I appreciated my experience. I didn't want to be doing anything other than what I was doing at the moment, and I completely let go of the anxiety about money that had been plaguing me. It's easy for us to assume that we can't be happy unless we have more, and yet simply slowing down and enjoying the moment brings a sense of abundance. Bodhipaksa Copyright © 2003, Bodhipaksa. |
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