October 2005

Also available online at http://www.wildmind.org/newsletter/200510.html

Dear Wildmind Subscriber,

Welcome to our latest newsletter. As usual, we bring you a round-up of the latest international news on meditation -- with reports of meditation being used to help quit smoking, deal with post-partum depression, and deal with chronic pain -- as well as news of Wildmind's meditation courses. And once again we have a quote of the month, with commentary by Bodhipaksa. We apologize for there being no book review this month. Even meditation teachers can get too busy to read!

In this issue:

• Our next online meditation courses start Monday, October 3.
• Meditation in the news.
• Support our translation project.

Our next online meditation courses start next Monday, October 3.

Meditating has been shown in clinical studies to improve both mental and physical health. If you've ever been curious to find out more about meditation's powerful potential for reducing stress, staying healthy, and for encouraging conscious relaxation, sign up for one of our convenient online meditation courses.

These four-week courses offer a content-rich experience and interactive experience, with online readings, guided meditations in MP3 and RealAudio format that you can download to your computer, a discussion forum, and personal attention in your online journal. And you have access to all these things 24/7.

Our courses are suitable for anyone from complete beginners to more experienced practitioners. You'll learn powerful techniques for reducing stress and developing patience, relaxation, and calmness in a friendly and supportive environment.

Our September courses will be led by Sinhendra, an accomplished teacher who is part of the team at Dharmavastu Buddhist Study Center in northwest England. Sinhendra has a background in theatre arts, and has done post-graduate study in the history of ideas.

Sinhendra

Our next online meditation courses -- from all levels from beginners onwards -- start Monday, Oct 3. Make sure you book your place now.

Meditation in the News

Sep 29 Buddhist group therapy: A temple-stay program delves into the self (JoongAng Daily, S. Korea) - Temple program offers unique mixture of meditation, sightseeing, hiking, worshiping, and most of all, group therapy.

Sep 29 Quitting smoking through meditation (Versus.com) - Meditation is growing in popularity as yet another option available to those who wish to quit smoking.

Sep 27 Exercise is effective way to deal with stress (Knoxville News Sentinel, Tennessee) - Miltary wife discusses stress-reduction strategies.

Sep 26 Film director wants to bring meditation to schools (Here & Now - audio) - Lynch has started a foundation designed to bring TM into the nation's schools.

Sep 23 Beyond standard pain relievers (Newswise) - The September issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource explores alternative ways to manage chronic pain.

Sep 21 The sound of silence (Kathmandu Post, Nepal) - "My early meditation attempts were more about curiosity rather than conscience."

Sep 20 Dalai Lama's visit creates a buzz (Austin American-Statesman, Texas) - Thousands will pack Erwin Center to hear Tibetan head of state speak.

Sep 19 Meditation eases baby birth blues (Warrnambool Standard, Australia) - Meditation helped a Warrnambool father live with postnatal depression twice.

Sep 15 Down time (Hartford Advocate, Connecticut) - How a 10-day course of Vipassana meditation has changed the lives of prisoners in India and the United States

Sep 14 The art of meditation (Houston Chronicle, Texas) - Rothko Chapel offers series to help find inner peace

Sep 13 Q&A: Doctor offers meditation as way to tame stress (Michigan Live) - You may have a mind that is full, but is it mindful?

Sep 9 Caution for children doing meditation (All Headline News) - Some child-health experts are cautioning that, until more is known, meditation shouldn't be touted as a cure-all for stressed-out, hyperactive or underperforming kids.

Sep 8 transformation as healing (Science and Theology News) - According to Karl Peters, understanding spiritual transformation is much more than just an academic pursuit.

Sep 6 Stunning news of a tumor serendipitously discovered (New York Times) -"Practices like meditation ... can improve quality of life for people with a variety of diseases, in part by reducing depression, pain and anxiety."

Sep 5 It's cool to be calm (Los Angeles Times) - Meditation can help kids focus, but does it have health benefits?

Sep 5 Calgarians protest Chinese government (CFCN, Calgary) - Falun Gong practitioners and supporters in Calgary held a live re-enactment Sunday, of torture methods they say are used in China against citizens who practice the "art."

Sep 4 Dalai Lama & scientists at Mind & Life Institute conference (Press Release) - Dalai Lama will join acclaimed speakers from the scientific and contemplative communities to discuss science and clinical applications of meditation.

Sep 3 If meditation is good, God makes it better (New Scientist) - Those practising spiritual meditation were more relaxed and better able to withstand pain than people performing secular meditation, a new study finds

Sep 2 Spiritual meditation 'may reduce pain' (The Telegraph, UK) - Meditation makes people more relaxed and able to withstand pain if it has a spiritual basis, say scientists.

MP3's available on our online store

We're pleased to announce that all of our own CDs are available as MP3 downloads in our meditation supplies store, either as individual tracks or as complete CD downloads.

Support our translation project

Our mission is to benefit the world by promoting awareness and compassion through the practice of meditation.

Join our list of benefactors! If you've benefited from our site and would like to give something back, then making a donation can help us enormously. You can give as little as a dollar, but of course feel free to give as much as you want!

All contributions (which are tax deductible) go to our translation fund, which aims to help us translate Wildmind into other languages in order to help people around the world develop mindfulness and compassion. We now have French and Spanish versions of the site online, and Chinese, Polish, and Russian versions are in preparation.

Quote of the Month

"Craving is less blamable but hard to remove. Hatred is more blamable but easier to remove. Delusion is very blamable and hard to remove."
The Buddha

In Buddhist teachings, craving, hatred and delusion are acknowledged as the three "root poisons" that lead to suffering in our lives. When we act based on one of these mental states, suffering inevitably follows, and it's for that reason that we're enjoined to train the mind to act increasingly on the basis of contentment, lovingkindness (metta), and mindfulness. In fact it is the purification of the mind in this way that constitutes the basis of all Buddhist practice.

We're generally fairly familiar with craving and hatred, and their respective drawbacks. According to the Buddha -- and this must be taken as a generalization, and therefore subject to exceptions -- hatred is the worst of these two ills. While craving may be selfish and may involve causing harm to others (I'm going to grab my share of the pie and I don't care about your needs) it doesn't set out to cause harm, while hatred does. Hatred has at its core a desire to cause harm, while craving is only incidentally harmful to others.

Delusion is something that we tend not to think about so much, but from a Buddist perspective it's even worse than craving and hatred in terms of its harmful effects, and even harder to uproot. It's worse in both regards because it's delusion that allows craving and hatred to exist and that makes them so seductive. We tend to assume, deep down, that we'll be happy if we can simply hold on to things that give us pleasure and keep at bay those things that seem to threaten our happiness. Delusion is the driving force of both craving and hatred. And it's hard to spot delusion, because we have to look for delusion with the only tool we have at our disposal -- the deluded mind itself!

The reaon we're able to accomplish anything at all in the task of conquering delusion is that while we can try to ignore the impermanent nature of reality, reality has a way of reminding us that things, after all, do change. We can practice denial to some extent, but impermanence is still absolutely there, and available for us to perceive.

When we do start to recognize the impermanent nature of reality better, we find we suffer less. When we're ill or are feeling emotionally low, we know that this will all pass. When we're brought into contact with someone we find difficult, we relate to them more in terms of their potential rather than reacting to them as if they were a fixed and unchanging entity, sent to bug us for eternity.

Delusion may be hard to uproot, but is is uprootable if we begin the practice of cultivating mindfulness: a patient, accepting attitude of observing the impermanent flow of our experience. This is exactly what we do in mindfulness meditation, as we observe thoughts, emotions, and sensations arising and falling, while sitting without clinging.