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The Press Association: Group psychology involving Buddhist meditation techniques can be just as effective at combating depression as medication, a study has found. The treatment, known as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), helps people focus on the present instead of dwelling on the past or planning the future. Read more here.

CBC News, Canada: That roller-coaster economy got you worried about your professional future? Maybe problems at home are eating away at you and affecting your performance on the job. Think about it: meditation could be your ticket to cutting stress and improving the way you perform. Recent studies have found that meditation can slow progression of HIV, reduce death rates and extend lifespan and reduce overall stress. Read more here.

Herald Tribune: Why meditate? A better question is why not? A regular meditation practice is good medicine for body, mind and soul. Countless studies have explored its therapeutic benefits and found meditation can lower stress and your risk of heart disease, and treat many anxiety disorders. Read more here.

Bodhipaksa shares an anecdote about smoking and meditation, and explores the difference between meditation as a sitting practice and meditation as an attitude towards ordinary activity.

When I was teaching meditation at the University of Montana I had a student called Connie who was very concerned about her smoking habit. In my youth I sometimes used to smoke roll-ups at parties and I sometimes even bought tobacco… Read more

Most people will tell you the greatest happiness in their lives comes from having children, but research shows that most people aren’t all that happy while parenting. Can mindfulness make parenting more enriching? Bodhipaksa thinks it does.

In an article in Atlantic magazine, author and Yale University professor of psychology Paul Bloom makes a provocative observation about parenthood and happiness:

Pretty much no matter how you test it, children make … Click to read more »

Wales Online: THE comedienne, Ruby Wax, has revealed how she has learned to cope with depression by practicing “Mindfulness”, an approach that blends modern therapy with ancient meditation practices. Ruby claims mindfulness was an important element in her cure. Read more here.

The words “abundance” and “spirituality” may not seem to go hand in hand but, Bodhipaksa argues, mindfulness, properly seen, is inherently enriching.

Once, on retreat, I was in a discussion group in which we were discussing the metaphors that encapsulated how we saw our spiritual practice. We all had very different ways of seeing what we were trying to do with our lives.

One person thought in terms of becoming a kinder person, … Click to read more »

Globe and Mail: The patients are sitting still, their eyes closed, meditating, on the floor of a group therapy room at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. It is the fifth week of an eight-week training course in mindfulness meditation for people recovering from depression. Mindfulness-based psychotherapy is growing rapidly in popularity, and these patients are part of a clinical trial to assess whether it can prevent relapses as effectively as antidepressant medications. Read more here.

The Daily Bruin: Sitting back, getting comfortable and concentrating on the breathing patterns of your own body is how some people use mindfulness meditation to focus. People learn from mindfulness meditation to deal more effectively with many aspects of everyday life, including stress, said David Creswell, a research scientist at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA. In recent years, the practice of becoming more mindful and tuning in to ones internal experiences has gained scientific momentum. Multiple research studies … Click to read more »

Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News: Researchers at UCLA report that the practice of mindfulness meditation stopped the decline of CD4 T cells in HIV-positive patients suffering from stress, slowing the progression of the disease. The study was just released in the online edition of the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. “This study provides the first indication that mindfulness meditation stress-management training can have a direct impact on slowing HIV disease progression,” said lead study author David Creswell, a research scientist … Click to read more »

A not-entirely-random selection of blog posts on meditation.

Meditation for Busy Women Series: Part I - Shifting

Zen Coffee Meditation

Meditation articles

Introduction to mindful meditation

Jessica Alba: Childbirth Is Like Meditation

A not-entirely-random selection of blog posts on meditation.

Insight

Meditation, not drugs

9 levels of mindful meditation

Daw Aung Sun Suu Kyi and Meditation

Meditation

Collectively we’re spending longer and longer commuting: The average American takes around 30 minutes to get to work, and in large cities the drive can take much longer. In rural areas commuting can also eat up the miles and hours: I know two Buddhists in New England who each drive 1000 miles (1600km) per week.

Even without those extremes, commuting makes for a lot of time spent in cars, trains, buses, and … Click to read more »

Seattle Times: The essence of Buddhist practice is realized through the art of giving. It doesn’t matter what we give, nor does it matter how we give. The attitude of offering freely with no thought of any return is the heart and soul of meditation and mindfulness. Read more here.

Given that it’s the mind that makes up the stories with which we try to make sense of the world, perhaps it’s not surprising that the mind tells us the story that it is the most important part of ourselves.

We think of ourselves as distinguished from other animals by our thinking. When we think about what makes us uniquely us (as opposed to another individual human being) we often point to our memories … Click to read more »

When life pulls the rug out from under us, we have a choice. We can either look backward at it as a disaster, or look forward through it as an opening toward something new. Sunada tells her own story of how she woke up in the midst of a personal crisis.

This week, I closed a major chapter of my life. I watched as my beloved Bösendorfer grand piano, which I had just sold, was wrapped … Click to read more »

Without mindfulness we are only half alive. Author and teacher Vajragupta suggests keeping watch on four levels of awareness.

Spiritual life is about transformation: we need to know who we are in order to know what must be transformed. And we need to bear in mind our sense of purpose, our sense of who we want to become. At our least aware, we are bundles of habits, thrown hither and thither by whim, chance or circumstance. The … Click to read more »

Mounting credit card bills, snowy commutes, crowded stores — the holiday season can often bring tidings of stress and frustration. But a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of Toronto has found that mindfulness meditation helps people brush off unpleasant feelings and stay focused on the task at hand.

Professor Philip Zelazo in the Institute of Child Development, along with Dr. Catherine Ortner from the University of Toronto and meditation instructor … Click to read more »

BBC News: It’s hard to find a way out of the trudge of the daily commute, but some are finding meditation can help. And, don’t worry, the lotus position is not a must.

By Trushar Barot, BBC News

It’s hard to find a way out of the trudge of the daily commute, but some are finding meditation can help. And, don’t worry, the lotus position is not a must.

Crowded, noisy, smelly, boring. Those in the rat race put up with … Click to read more »

We are on the road, driving with the mind wandering to our office, home or elsewhere, but rarely do we drive in complete awareness. Read more