Kaki Hunter is no stranger to success. Her background includes a career as a successful film actress, a published author and a recognized guru in sustainable building.

Two years ago, however, despite all of her success, Hunter says she found herself miserable and at what she describes as, “an extremely low point in life emotionally, spiritually and physically.”

After hearing about friends’ experiences with Vipassana, a 2,500-year-old silent meditation technique designed to eradicate human suffering, Hunter decided to enroll in a 10-day retreat.

The program required all participants to abstain from all communication, including talking, eye contact, writing, music, and reading. As Hunter entered into “noble silence” and …

Dorothy Erler may have Alzheimer’s disease, but that hasn’t slowed the 82-year-old Westchester resident down one bit.

In 2009, Erler was one of eight individuals who participated in a clinical study conducted by the Cornell University Memory Center based on the TTAP Method, which stands for Therapeutic Thematic Arts Programming.

The innovative program utilizes the arts and meditation to help individuals with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia to have an enhanced quality of life.

“I enjoy the activities,” says Erler, who sketched a picture of a cabin. “The sketch reminded me of a vacation spot that I would go with my family during the summers on Lake Owassa in Northern New Jersey near the Pennsylvania border. We had canoes and rowboats. …

Originating in China, Zen Buddhism took hold in Japan in the late 12th century.

Unlike more traditional factions of Buddhism, Zen fosters the belief that enlightenment can be gained through meditation and intuition instead of blind devotion and dogma. It advocates achieving a balance between appreciating the beauty of our natural, physical world, while freeing oneself from the earthly preoccupations that inhibit the path toward nirvana.

This delicate balance has long been fodder for the creation of art. And for local artist Fumino Hora, it’s the basis for her latest body of work, “The Way of Samsara,” which currently comprises an installation-style exhibit in the Hodge Gallery at Pittsburgh Glass Center.

A native of Tokyo, Hora came to Pittsburgh in 2006 after living …

Ed Gabrielsen has spent his life trying to marry the body and the mind, first as a singer and later as an instructor of yoga and meditation. He has worked with people touched by cancer at the Dempsey Center, teaching a class titled “Music and Meditation.”

He currently teaches at Healthy for Life Wellness Center in Norway, where his wife, pediatric doctor Jill Gabrielsen, also has a medical practice.

Name: Ed Gabrielsen

Age: 47

Hometown: Norway

Single, relationship or married? Married

Children? We have two children.

You’ve been a musician for a long time. What does music do for you? Music is an art that expresses thoughts and emotions in a way that goes beyond words. I feel very fortunate to be a musician because my life …

Seth Lepore drifted away from the Catholic Church as a teen and spent the next two decades searching, experimenting with Buddhism and dabbling in the self-help and New Age movements.

Now he is returning to Rhode Island with a one-man show that chronicles his adventures and the characters he met along the way. It’s called “Losing My Religion, Confessions of a New Age Refugee,” and it opens Wednesday at Perishable Theatre on Empire Street.

Lepore, now 36, is based in Brattleboro, Vt., after years in such New Age hot spots as Boulder, Colo., Prescott, Ariz, and the San Francisco Bay Area. He said he’s glad to be back on the East Coast.

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Although this CD was suggested to me as yoga or meditation music, I don’t do yoga and don’t hold with the notion that meditation is (just) about relaxing, and would never have music on in the background while I’m sitting. Nevertheless, I loved the music.

Kitarō, a Grammy and Golden Globe award-winning Japanese musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist, composes luscious sound-scapes incorporating the sounds of both western and traditional Japanese (and sometimes middle-eastern) instruments, along with natural sounds, such as birdsong and water.

“Sacred Journey of Ku-Kai, Vol. 4″ is the latest in a series of a collection of albums inspired by the Buddhist monk Kukai’s classic pilgrimage to …

Icelandic artist Snorri Asmundsson is set to visit Palestine and Israel this September with his meditation pyramid.

The stated goal of the project is to spread love and affection using meditation from the so-called Love Pyramid. It is hoped the pyramid will become a sort of ‘love battery’ which will send its charge out to all receptive souls.

The artist will meditate in his glass pyramid in several different squares and plazas in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Although Asmundsson will use his performance art to meditate and pray for peace; his pyramid will nonetheless be made from bulletproof glass. The whole trip will be recorded by …

War, oil spills, earthquakes, tornadoes, disease and nuclear proliferation are the realities of our world today.

Peace and tranquillity are what we long for, but those qualities are elusive and rare in our lives. So when the opportunity presents itself to get closer to that state, many take it, which is why more than 4,000 people from across Western Canada and the United States gathered Sunday in the country, 45 kilometres north of Edmonton.

They had come to see the Jade Buddha of Universal Peace, which is supposed to bring inner peace and happiness to those who see it. How could it not, under…

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Every time Sunada watches Bobby McFerrin or Yo-Yo Ma perform, she’s left in awe. It’s not just their amazing musicianship, she says. What uniquely comes through in their music is their generosity of spirit and totally engaging way of expressing their individuality. As a musician herself, she muses on what it takes to cultivate that kind of open-hearted spontaneity and creativity.

I recently read an interesting discussion that’s given shape to my thinking on this subject. It was about the difference between spontaneity and impulsivity. While the two terms are often used interchangeably, there are some subtle but important differences.

A Korean-born artist gives visual expression to the Zen teaching of No Self, a meditation on the path to overcoming alienation between an individual and society or nature. Read more