Three faculty members from the University of Redlands in Redlands, California — Fran Grace, professor of Religion, Lisa Olson, associate professor of Biology, and Celine Ko, assistant professor of Psychology — have received a grant of $5,000 to fund research on the “Impact of Meditation Curriculum on Physiological and Psychosocial Stress, Well-Being, and Correlates of Academic Success.”

The grant will allow faculty members to explore the relationship between meditation, and the physical and psychological side effects of stress.

The grant was awarded by The Trust for the Meditation Process.

The research project will focus on studying previous observations from Professor Fran Grace’s meditation-based Seminar on Compassion in the Religious Studies department. The …

Daniel DeBolt: Meditation teacher Shaila Catherine once added it all up. It turned out that she’s spent more than eight of her 50 years in meditative silence.

“I love meditating,” she says, calling a limitless source of bliss — if you can stop your busy life long enough to do it.

What could have been a passing interest at age 17 has turned into a thriving practice called Insight Meditation South Bay. Teaching what she calls Vippassana Insight meditation, the non-profit has grown to have more than 1,400 students, and sometimes over 50 at each session. Events, classes and even a monthly day-long meditation are held in several …

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On June 20th, celebrate the official beginning of summer by joining Long Beach residents for the 10th Meditation Flash Mob in Long Beach, occurring simultaneously with over 300 cities around the world through the MedMob network.

A “flash mob” is a large group of people meeting in a crowded public place for the purpose of engaging in a coordinated, unexpected, inspiring activity. The MedMob conducts network meditation flash mobs to increase awareness of the benefits of meditation, and to make it more commonplace in public spaces!

This MedMob will occur from 5:30-6:30pm on Weds. June 20th at the Local Harvest Farmer’s Market at Marine Stadium, at the small park facing the water behind …

The Bonsall Community Sponsor Group has filed an appeal to the county Planning Commission’s April decision to allow a Buddhist monastery in Bonsall to expand into a meditation center.

County spokesman Gig Conaughton said the appeal could be heard by the Board of Supervisors sometime this summer.

The Bonsall Community Sponsor Group opposed the expansion of the Dai Dang Monastery when the project went before the local board, and group members argued that it would be inappropriate for the area at last month’s Planning Commission meeting.

Opponents also included neighbors, a local farmer and the Farm Bureau.

The monastery is at 6326 Camino del …

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Saturday, Apr 7 10:30 am to 12:00 noon, at West Valley College, Saratoga, CA.

Price: $12

Phone: (408) 702-2319

Join UCLA behavioral research scientist, Dara Ghahremani & National Director of the Art of Meditation, Rajshree Patel as they explore how we can tune back into ourselves despite the daily demands in a stressful environment.

Rajshree Patel, known for her intellect, humor and dynamism, will share insights on how to handle mental chatter through meditation. As a former Los Angeles district attorney she accidentally walked into a meditation workshop. After she started her meditation practice, she discovered that she could handle twice the number of cases as compared to her peers in lesser amount of time and was much more productive. Dara Ghahremani with his …

Gary Warth, North Country Times: The San Diego County Planning Commission is scheduled on Friday to hear a proposal to add a meditation center to a Buddhist monastery in Bonsall, and a community group plans on fighting the project with a petition signed by about 400 people.

The Vietnamese Buddhist Meditation Congregation has proposed the expansion of the Dai Dang Monastery off of Camino del Rey, and neighbors have said they fear that the quiet monastery where 10 monks live will become a noisy destination when hundreds of people begin visiting for ceremonies.

The Bonsall Community Sponsor Group, an advisory board to the San Diego …

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Rachel Signer: Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled that state of California prisons were so bad as to be inhumane, violating the 8th amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.

The reason? Overcrowding. California must to reduce its prison population by 30,000 prisoners, according to the ruling.

Overcrowding is a perennial issue in US prisons in no small part because the recidivism rate is remarkably high. In 1994 the largest study of prisoner recidivism ever done in the United States showed that, of nearly 300,000 adult prisoners who were released in 15 different states, 67.5 percent were re-arrested within three years.

James Fox, who founded the nonprofit …

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Dr. Norman Rosenthal: Lately there has been a storm of publicity – and deservedly so – about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The public has become better educated about this potentially disabling disorder and its symptoms, such as hypervigilance, an exaggerated tendency to startle, flashbacks, nightmares and emotional numbness, to name just a few.
Mental health professionals have emphasized the need to diagnose and treat PTSD wherever it arises. In this piece, I would like to draw attention to yet another group suffering from PTSD – child victims of prostitution who, against all odds, are trying…

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Hannah Guzik: Those who stumble into ZanZilla yoga studio Tuesday night might think a punk rock concert’s about to start. But instead of head-banging to music, the tattooed will sit and quietly meditate.

They’re dharma punx, and they’re making meditation hip for Generation X.

“Unlike most Buddhist groups, where you’re likely to see gray hair and some kind of Indian costume, at these meditations you’re much more likely to see tattoos, piercings, shaved heads and dyed hair,” said Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx: A Memoir. “It’s definitely a modern American youth movement.”

Levine, who started the movement when his…

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Lara Salahi and Catherine Cole: When Danilo Ramirez, 44, was diagnosed with stage 2 lymphoma, his doctor told him chemotherapy and radiation would offer him his best shot to survive. But the thought of medical treatments with harsh side effects overwhelmed Ramirez.

“Mentally [chemotherapy] was really hard on me,” said Ramirez. “There were nights that I couldn’t sleep at all, knowing that I had to face that.”

Ramirez was too claustrophobic to endure radiation treatments, which required wearing a large protective mask.

“He almost was willing to refuse treatment for a potentially curable cancer,” said Ramirez’s doctor, Dr. Rex Hoffman, who is also the medical director of radiation oncology at Roy and Patricia Disney Family Cancer Center in Burbank, Calif.

“Without treatment, he would …