Joe, a student in my online class, was worried that meditation would hurt his career. He works in a very competitive business where everyone is single-mindedly pushing and driving hard all the time. The whole idea of “letting go” seemed absurd in that context. But at the same time his stress and anxiety levels were sky high. He knew this wasn’t a sustainable way to live.

Yes it’s true that in meditation, we’re told to drop everything and let go. But that doesn’t mean becoming passive and ineffectual. There’s more to this instruction than meets the eye.

There’s an image that comes to mind for me to …

Another Friday night at this tiny neighborhood watering hole in Tokyo: By 7:30, the bar stools and tables in this cozy joint are filling up; office workers settle in with their cocktails and Kirin beers. And by a little after 8, it’s time for the main act.

Vow’s Bar in the Yotsuya neighborhood has no house band, no widescreen TV, no jukebox. But it does have a chanting Buddhist monk so tipplers can get a side of sutras with their Singapore Slings or something even more exotic.

A pair of younger monks — conspicuous with their shaved heads, bare feet and religious garb — man …

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On Feb 1, Wildmind is moving to a new office in a converted mill building on the Main Street of Newmarket, NH, right next to the waterfall that runs over the Macallan Dam.

The place is still a building site, as you can see below, but you can also appreciate how lovely it’s going to look.

Grab the picture with your mouse and drag to move around inside the panorama.

We’ll post further news and photographs as things progress.

Tom Heneghan: Rasanath Das, an ex-investment banker turned Hindu monk, was spending recent Sunday afternoons leading Occupy Wall Street protesters in meditation until police cleared their camp at New York’s Zuccotti Park this week.

The 32-year-old monk isn’t sure now where his next session will be. He’ll keep following the protesters to lead meditation, though, convinced they will only roll back the inequality around them if they find equanimity deep inside.

“Anger won’t solve anything,” he told Reuters. “We have to work from the heart … there is so much distrust now.”

Das has been a discreet presence at the protests, leading short sessions …

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I’m sad that Steve Jobs has died. No one has had as much effect on the computer industry as he has. His company, Apple, has transformed the way we relate to computers.

I only recently learned that Jobs was a Buddhist. According to his Wikipedia biography, he went to India in the 1970s and came back a Buddhist. In 1991 his wedding ceremony was performed by a Zen priest. He was a very private man, and I don’t think he talked much about his religion.

I thought a fitting tribute would be Jobs own words, from his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, in which he eloquently discusses how an awareness of …

Entrepreneurs are significantly more likely to pray several times a day or to meditate, says sociologist Kevin Dougherty, a co-author of the Baylor Religion Survey.

The survey can’t answer whether prayerful, peaceful folks are more likely to take a business risk or whether the stress of a start-up drives folks to their knees or to the lotus position, Dougherty says.

Either way, 34% of entrepreneurs say they frequently look up to the Lord, compared with 27% of non-entrepreneurs. Nearly as many, 32%, say they look inward in meditation while just 22% non-entrepreneurs say they practice any of the eight forms of meditation…

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Sanjeev Shivadekar: Meditation is the latest mantra which the state administration is keen on adopting to enhance efficiency in Mantralaya [the administrative headquarters of the state government of Maharashtra in South Mumbai].

At a recent meeting with senior bureaucrats, chief secretary Ratnakar Gaikwad advised babus to consider conducting vipassana and meditation courses to enhance the output of the administration. Gaikwad also recommended these techniques to the student community as well as a tool for prison reforms.

“Vipassana is a methodology that helps one gain control over the mind, which helps in increasing work efficiency. I start my day with meditation and it really…

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Bringing mindfulness to work allows us to:

• be more focused
• feel less stressed
• communicate more effectively
• bring compassion to the workplace and
• feel confident at work.

When considering how we approach work, we can ask ourselves:

• How do I relate to myself?
• Am I aware of my thoughts, feelings and actions or do I run on automatic pilot?
• How do I relate to my colleagues, coworkers and boss?
• Am I kind, friendly and compassionate or do I need to have my own way?
•  How do I relate to my work? Do I bring curiosity and creativity to my work or is it just a means to a paycheck?

Here are twenty ways to bring mindfulness with you to work:

1. Set an …

Mary Barnett: Former athlete and current assistant principal at Orchard Knob Middle School LaKesha Carson said she was used to employing a variety of techniques to de-stress and unwind after a particularly crazy day.

But what she learned last week during the first day of faculty in-service at the middle school was the opposite of everything she has ever done or thought to do.

“As a former athlete I have been all about a good hard workout. So I think of de-stressing as going hard, pumping the weights, running, running, and getting that sweat up,” Carson said.

Slowing down, breathing correctly and just sitting quietly were just a few of the techniques Carson and the entire…

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(Click on the image to enlarge.)

A Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey on religion, education, and money was covered in a recent NYT article. The article was titled Is Your Religion Your Financial Destiny?, which is probably misleading because it doesn’t seem that the survey could possibly indicate whether educational attainment and family income were the result of people’s religious affiliations, or vice versa. Other issues might also be at work, such as geographic ones. If you’re in a poor, rural area there’s probably not likely to be a Buddhist temple handy, but there may well be a Baptist church.

Despite all this, the data are fascinating. As …

Ten minutes of meditation before a meeting could significantly improve its outcome, according to research by the Kyoto Convention Bureau.

A group of 20 did five separate exercises – including memory, language, comprehension and listening tests – on two separate occasions, 12 days apart.

Before the first session there was no preparation, but before the second participants each did a 10-minute meditation exercise.

The study found that after the second session delegates showed an average improvement of 12.5% in completing the tasks.

The largest individual improvement across all the tasks was 21%, while the smallest individual improvement was 2%.

Reverend Matsuyama, a Zen Buddhist priest, who…

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conducted the meditation session, said: “It is a simple principle; …

Stressed-out employees at Justice Canada in Ottawa will soon be able to seek relief in a taxpayer-funded program that uses the Buddhist concept of mindfulness to help them cope with personal and workplace pressures.

The department invited bids last week for two nine-week “mindfulness-based stress reduction” sessions designed to help up to 40 public servants “learn to relate more consciously and compassionately to the challenges of work and personal life.”

According to Justice Canada’s request for proposals, the program will help employees “deal more effectively with difficult thought and emotions that can keep you feeling stuck in everyday life.

“The practice of mindfulness can support you to work with and understand the …

As my colleague Rusty wrote last week, you shouldn’t get mad at work. But sometimes it just happens. One minute you’re typing up a memo, and the next, you realize it’s been a good minute since you took a breath. Anger has a devilish way of sneaking up on us—especially at work.
But here’s a cure: walking meditation.
At the onset of anger, the best thing you can do for yourself and your career is get up from your desk and walk away. Implement these steps for a successful walking meditation session, and your quality of life at work will dramatically improve.
The goal is to observe the act of walking while becoming completely aware …

As ISU faculty members know, the life of a career academic is filled with stress. Juggling research, grading and teaching taxes the emotional reserves of scholars at every level, from adjunct to department chairperson. At times, the pressures of their jobs can seem inescapable.

But for two ISU instructors, this is not the case. Brian Eslinger and Joel Geske said they find relief from the stress of work in the Buddhist traditions of mindfulness meditation.

Historically, the term “meditation” has been used to refer to many different practices within Buddhism, including breath-counting, repetition of a word or phrase known as a mantra and the contemplation of paradoxical questions called koans. Broadly speaking, the aim of meditation is to attain enlightenment — a …

One of the most frustrating things in my life is that for the last few months, because of a change in my wife’s work schedule, I haven’t been able to get up to the prison I’ve been teaching in for the last seven years. I miss the guys there. I regard them as part of my “sangha” (spiritual community). I have great respect for them as spiritual practitioners because of the sheer effort they have to make in order to remain sane and balanced in a very challenging environment. Not only do they stay sane and balanced, but some of them bring about huge changes in their lives. …

The transformation of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons from the recreational drug-using, model-chasing manager of seminal 1980s rap artists Run-DMC, LL Cool J and Will Smith into a serene 21st-century prophet of veganism and meditation may be surreal, but it’s also quite real.

Even in his dark days of excess, Simmons had a lot of light around him. As 1990s entrepreneurs like Suge Knight made the rap business virtually synonymous with invective and violence, Simmons stood above them as a relative paragon of virtue, achieving unmatched success with humor and hustle rather than brutality. As he matured and embraced his holistic lifestyle, Simmons became “Uncle Rush,” …

The Vancouver Sun has a nice, although brief, article on reducing stress.

1. Exercise. It helps to release stress, as it improves overall physical and mental health, and improves sleep. This could include any type of activity or meditation, including yoga, tai chi or even a brisk walk to the store.

I don’t know if meditation strictly counts as exercise, but certainly both physical exercise and meditation are very valuable in reducing stress.

2. Focus on building a strong support network. Relationships are vital to coping with stress throughout the year.

Buddhist teachings place a lot of stress on building a sense of community, with an emphasis on spiritual friendship, lovingkindness, and sangha …

QANTAS has been ordered to reinstate a flight attendant banned from international duties over her practise of Falun Gong.

Sheridan Genrich, from Sydney’s Lane Cove, was demoted to a short-haul attendant after she was threatened by authorities during a 2008 stopover in Beijing and deported because of her spiritual beliefs.

In making his ruling, Fair Work Australia Commissioner Frank Raffaelli said he was unimpressed with the way Qantas had carried out its investigation into Ms Genrich’s case.

“The implication of Qantas’s action is that there is a restriction on the practice of her spiritual beliefs in private, which is contrary to both Australian and international law,” Commissioner Raffaelli said in his judgement, which was obtained by The Epoch Times.

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We’ve recently added some new items to our store that you might want to check out. Many of these are fair trade products. Purchasing these items helps us with our work of promoting the practice of meditation and helps to support traditional crafts and the Tibetan Buddhist way of life.

This set of five classic Tibetan prayer flags is hand-printed on cotton by the Tibetan Nuns Project in Dharamsala, India. The proceeds from these sales help to support nuns who have fled the Chinese occupation of Tibet. The Tara flags are also available in a larger size.

My partner goes for a run and comes back looking despondent. ‘I struggled all the way round,’ he says. ‘It was as if I’d never run before.’ He has run several times a week for 3 years now.

‘I know how you feel,’ I say. I’m not thinking about running, though, but meditation. I’ve been meditating for some years now, but when I sit down sometimes it feels impossible. My head itches and the items on my ‘to-do’ list compete for attention. There are odd bodily sensations that could be illnesses in the making. And if all else fails, there’s my good old tinnitus.

Outside responsibilities of …