Al Reiger, The Western Courier: Some call it mental toughness. The ability to block out the thousands of screaming fans, the pressure of failing your team and school can give the young athletes on the Florida Gulf Coast men’s basketball team a competitive edge as they make their push toward the Elite Eight

Mindfulness, visualization and compassion — practices rooted in ancient eastern religions such as Buddhism — have been proven to help people with addictions, life problems and to foster happiness overall.

Dubbed the “Zen Master,” former NBA head coach Phil Jackson applied these principles of Buddhism to his life and…

Read the original article »

The statement in the title of this post is a common belief in spiritual and religious circles, but it appears there’s some hard evidence that when you harm others, you harm yourself as well.

According to a press release from the Association for Psychological Science, researchers looked into why it is that some soldiers (31.6%) who have traumatic combat exposure develop PTSD.

It seems that three factors are important: age, a history of childhood physical abuse, and harming civilians or POWs.

…childhood experiences of physical abuse or a pre-Vietnam psychiatric disorder other than PTSD were strong contributors to PTSD onset. Age also seemed to play an important role: Men who were younger than

…

There are only a few more days left in which to book your place on Bodhipaksa’s weekend retreat in Florida, February 22 to 24. Bookings will close on February 19th, at midday US Eastern time.

Explore the Buddhist teaching and practice of Bodhicitta, on a residential weekend retreat in the beautiful surroundings of the Florida Retreat Center, about 35 minutes south of Tampa.

The Bodhicitta is the Heart of Awakening. It’s something that happens as our practice gains momentum and develops a life of its own. Seemingly from nowhere, compassion begins to emerge, and our main task is to get out of the way and let it happen.

On this weekend retreat, Bodhipaksa will …

Nicki, from Wildmind’s Google Plus Community, offers her take on “how it’s going so far” in the 100 Day Challenge:

The first thing I’ve noticed is a welling-up and outpouring of compassion. In interactions with friends I’ve been almost wholly focussed on them, their lives and interests and how to help them, rather than caught up in some internal dialogue with myself. And the compassion also extends more widely into the world.

Last week I was buying lunch in a takeaway shop, and saw an elderly man sitting slowly cutting and eating a piece of roast chicken (with apologies to vegetarian readers). It was obvious that the movements were difficult

…

I wanted to let you know about a free 8-session video interview series – The Compassionate Brain – hosted by Rick Hanson, PhD, through Sounds True.

The guests are (in order) Richie Davidson, Dan Siegel, Tara Brach, Dacher Keltner, Kelly McGonigal, Kristin Neff, and Jean Houston, with Rick offering a summing up in an eighth session. (Rick is a neuropsychologist, a regular contributor to Wildmind’s blog, and author of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom.)

So far over 33,000 people have seen these free videos, which explore how to use the power of neuroplasticity—the mind changing the brain to transform the mind—to open the heart, build courage, …

There’s a lot of sickness going on at the moment, this being cold and flu season, so the question arises, what should you do about your meditation practice if you’re sick?

It’s tempting to “take the day off.” After all, that’s what we often do with work when we’re feeling under the weather.

But that’s not the approach that the Tibetans take. When they’re sick they do more, not less, meditation. The reason is that they assume, rightly or wrongly, that the illness is the result of previous bad karma, and they want to offset that with karmically healthy activities. So they meditate more. And actually meditating has been …

As our ancestors evolved over millions of years in small bands, continually interacting and working with each other, it was vitally important to communicate in hundreds of ways each day. They shared information about external “carrots” and “sticks,” and about their internal experience (e.g., intentions, sexual interest, inclination toward aggression) through gestures, vocalizations – and facial expressions. Much as we developed uniquely complex language, we also evolved the most expressive face in the entire animal kingdom.

Our faces are exquisitely capable of a vast range of expressions, such as showing fear to send signals of alarm, interest to draw others toward an opportunity, or fondness and kindness to …

Times of India: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama inaugurated a three-day international conference on ‘Buddhism and Society’ at Atisha hall of Central University of Tibetan University (CUTS), Sarnath on Sunday. In his inaugural address, the Dalai Lama said Buddhism is not only a religion but an ancient science. Emphasis should be laid not on its propagation, but its practice, he added.

Notably, a number of Buddhist scholars and followers of the faith have arrived here to participate in the three-day international conference which will culminate on January 15. Discussions on several topics, including Buddhist and scientific approaches, ecological significance and contemporary relevance of …

Read the original article »

Almost everyone is going around making judgments all the time, about others — and about themselves. It’s hard to remember to be compassionate, or to actually be compassionate if we remember. Here’s one perspective that helps me.

Behind every negative emotion, there’s a positive intent or valid need. So when we’re grumpy and unpleasant to people, for example, there’s a need and an intent to defend ourselves (our feelings being fragile and easily provoked at that time). When we crave something it’s because we’re short on happiness, and see the object of our craving as a source of the happiness we need. When we’re worrying about something we’re looking …

Victoria Gill, BBC: Performing deliberate acts of kindness makes pre-teen children more popular with their peers, say scientists.

A team led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, “assigned” children three acts of kindness each week for four weeks.

After the four weeks, children were happier and more liked by classmates.

The researchers say than encouraging such simple “positive acts” could help children to get along with classmates and even prevent instances of bullying.

The findings are published in the open access journal Plos One.

Cuddling and cleaning
Working with 400 school children aged between nine and 11, the team assigned whole classrooms either …

Read the original article »