mantras

Original article no longer available.

Children as young as 10 are picking up Transcendental Meditation, and they’re not the only ones feeling good about it

Stephanie Whittaker: Every morning, as soon as she awakens, 13-year-old Joelle Cazeault sits up in her bed, closes her eyes and performs a ritual unknown to most children. She spends 10 minutes doing Transcendental Meditation.

“I repeat my mantra and it slows my breathing,” says the student at College St. Maurice in Ste. Hyacinthe.

Ditto for the afternoon. Joelle meditates when she gets home from school and, she says, it gives her the alertness and focus she needs to do her homework.

Meditation is a ritual she began three years ago when her parents, who have meditated since the 1970s, enrolled her in a Transcendental Meditation course: “They think it’s important for my life and that it can help me become enlightened.”

Perhaps it is inevitable that baby boomers, the generation that learned to chill out in heightened states of consciousness, want their offspring to experience the same.

Children as young as 10 are learning Transcendental Meditation and are reaping the rewards at school. “I always had good marks but they got even better after I learned to meditate,” says Joelle.

She’s at the forefront of a coming trend. There is a growing push in the U.S. to put “ohm” in schools by making Transcendental Meditation part of the curriculum. The movement is poised to take Canada with it.

A U.S.-based group called Stress-Free Schools has helped set up T.M. programs in 50 schools south of the border and has piqued the interest of educators in Canada.

Six Montreal-area schools want the program.

“My students deserve to have this, and it will transform the whole school,” says Marielle Mayers, an elementary school principal in Ville d’Anjou.

Michele Beausoleil, a Montreal teacher of T.M., is keen to get started: “We’re ready to teach the children, teachers and principals and I’ll work to help the schools find funding from foundations.”

Stress-Free Schools was founded in 2004 by a group of meditating parents in New York City, who were concerned about social problems in their schools.

Two months ago, the organization held a conference at Montreal’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel to explain to educators how teaching T.M. to children as young as 10 can benefit their schools.

Christian Meditation: Death of the Self (The Times of India)

April 8, 2004

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Christopher Mendonca, The Times of India: Christians the world over celebrate the Sacred Triduum, the three holy days that form the core of their spiritual calendar. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter mark the commemoration of events that literally changed the course of history. The word ”memorial” in Hebrew means to relive the event; so the celebration of the Eucharist is much more than a mere commemorative event. The practice of Christian meditation dates back to the beginning of Christianity; its objective is to daily ”empty the self” to experience the fullness of God. It is consonant with Jesus”s invitation to his disciples to take up their cross daily and follow him. It is central to Easter celebrations, ”dying” to rise to a New Life.

The way of meditation is the way of silence. Silencing the ceaseless chatter of a mind buzzing with thoughts is not easy. The way to silence is the way of the mantra. Choosing a sac-red word and repeating it from the beginning to the end of the period of meditation forms part of the essential teaching of Christian meditation. It is advisable to choose a word of four syllables and pronounce them with equal length. The recommended word in the Christian Tradition is Ma-ra-na-tha. In Aramaic, the language of Jesus’s time, it means ”The Lord comes”.

Once we commence this daily practice, a few guidelines can enable us to go deeper. Firstly, we are not to assess our progress. The feeling of success or failure may be the biggest distraction of all. We are not to look for ”experiences” in our meditation. We come to meditation in poverty of spirit. So be faithful to the recitation of the word/mantra during the period of meditation, and to the daily practice, twice a day, morning and evening. The minimum time prescribed is 20 minutes, the optimum 30 minutes…

The way of saying your word, your mantra, is the way to stillness. Eastern Christians call it hesychia. It is pure prayer, worship in spirit and truth. It purifies the heart of contradictory desires and unifies us. The place of unity is the heart where we find our deepest and most natural orientation towards God as our personal source and goal.

A still mind creates conditions for receptivity. We open ourselves to God”s presence, so that his life can pour into us, making us channels of his grace. There is a Zen story about receptivity. A Japanese professor went to a Zen master. They talked and had tea together. The teacher took a cup and handed it to the visitor. He poured in the tea until the cup was full. He went on pouring and the tea spilled everywhere. It is overflowing, cried the professor. The master replied, â€œYes, when something is full you can”t put anything else in. So I can give you nothing because you are already filled with yourself and your own ideas. We cannot receive God”s love and it cannot grow in us unless there is some space. When we meditate we are creating space within us, space that God can fill.

Jesus is the personification of this “emptying of self” who, though God, did not think equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself (Phil. 2:6). When you have nothing more to live for; when your own righteousness ceases to count for anything; when you are knocked down, battered and bruised; when rituals cease to work their magic for you and observances fail to appease; when words become meaningless and the logic of your syllogism proves nothing; when the silence of the empty tomb beckons you, only then can you be filled with the fullness of God.

(www.wccm.org)

(Today is Maundy Thursday.)

Time to reflect called religion (Charlotte Observer, North Carolina)

March 28, 2004

Cristina Breen Bolling and Gail Smith-Arrants, Charlotte Observer, North Carolina: What started as an unheralded effort to open Cabarrus County’s first charter school became a battle this month after local residents raised questions about the school’s plans to teach Transcendental Meditation.

Directors of the planned Carolina International School say they want to offer 10 minutes of Transcendental Meditation — commonly called TM — to fifth- through 12th-graders each day, to help them center themselves and learn better.

But about a half-dozen local residents and Cabarrus County commissioner Bob Carruth contend that TM is rooted in Hinduism, and as a religious practice, shouldn’t be taught in a school that receives public money.

The meditation, developed from an ancient Indian practice, was introduced in the United States around 1960 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, known to many for his friendship with the Beatles.

Psychology researchers most often study the physical and psychological aspects of the meditation rather than a religious component. TM is practiced by people of many faiths.

School director Richard Beall, who practices TM, defends the meditation, which he says is just one feature of a school that touts individual learning plans, small class sizes and the International Baccalaureate program.

“I’m standing here telling people that this has nothing to do with religion. It’s a mechanical technique,” Beall said during a meeting Thursday night for parents interested in enrolling their children in the school.

“It requires no religious or philosophical belief. … Our contract with the state is our charter, and we’re going to obey that.”

State officials are talking to experts about TM in response to the parents’ complaints.

Like other schools that receive public money, Carolina International School isn’t allowed to include religion as part of its curriculum and must give its students the same End of Grade tests that public school students take.

N.C. law allows up to 100 charter schools, which are privately run and publicly funded. A Charter School Advisory Committee recommends schools to the N.C. State Board of Education, which authorizes the schools with a charter. Carolina International received its charter in January.

It would be the first charter school in Cabarrus County and the county’s first school to offer the International Baccalaureate program geared toward students who can do accelerated work. The school has already enrolled more than 300 students, and more than 200 others are on a waiting list, Beall said. About 60 percent are from Mecklenburg County, 40 percent are from Cabarrus County and a few are from Stanly County, he said.

Beall received several graduate degrees related to education from the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, which was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In 1981 he helped established Maharishi Middle and Upper Schools in Iowa, where he served for 10 years as middle and high school principal, social studies teacher and coach.

People who use Transcendental Meditation learn to focus on a mantra to let stress and other distractions slip away.

Critics, however, say the trademarked practice can cause depression, anxiety and other side effects, and say they worry the practice will involve more than 10 minutes of relaxation.

TM is rare in schools, but not unheard of. Students at one Detroit charter school practice TM daily. High school students in a Georgia public school district took part in a study into whether TM could affect their blood pressure and response to stress.
What qualifies as religion?

N.C. charter school officials say they’ve heard about a half-dozen complaints about the Cabarrus County school and are researching whether the meditation technique has ties to religion.”If that has been determined to be religion, then that can’t be part of the school. It’s really that simple,” said Michael Fedewa, chairman of the state charter school advisory committee.

Workers at the state office of charter schools are trying to sort out whether TM has religious links and will report back, possibly as early as April 8.

State charter school leaders have questioned the school’s plans to offer TM in the past, but never did outside research on the topic, Fedewa said. The charter school advisory board asked Beall and other Carolina International School leaders to come in a few months ago for a meeting to talk about TM.

“In all cases, they looked us dead in the eye and said `This is not religion. There is no religion being taught,’ ” Fedewa said. “They appear to have answered our questions forthrightly and to our satisfaction.”

That’s not enough for Beverly Henley, a Harrisburg parent who said she doesn’t think state charter school officials took the time to investigate TM fully. Henley said she started looking into the school for her own children, but now opposes taxpayer funding for it because she says the religious tie is clear.

“It sounds like the (charter school advisory board) asked him, `Is this TM a religion?’ and he said, `No.’ So they said, `It needs to stay that way.’ ”

Carruth, the county commissioner, said if Carolina International School is allowed to open using TM, then he’d encourage Christian schools to apply for charter school status so they, too, could receive public funding.

“Why not? To me, that shows that’s how they interpret the law,” he said.
Court ruling

Thursday’s meeting heated up when critics challenged Beall’s explanation that TM is simply a peaceful moment of reflection and has nothing to do with religion.

Some questioned whether students would be forced to go further than meditation, perhaps having to watch teachers undergo a ceremony that allows them to teach TM.

They also cited a 1977 federal court ruling in which a judge in New Jersey ruled that Transcendental Meditation was a religious practice and cannot be funded in public schools.

“It’s a restated form of Hinduism. I believe that’s the real question here,” said Cindy Picarella, a Cabarrus County resident. “I would like to put my child here, but I cannot put my child in this school because I believe it is a religion. … And I still have to pay for it, but I don’t want to pay for it.”

Beall responded: “TM isn’t a religious experience for me, and it shouldn’t be for a student….

“We’re going to make sure everybody involved in this understands what it’s about.”

[Original article no longer available]

Wind and a Prayer (Village Voice, NY)

January 7, 2004

Original article no longer available…

Erik Baard, Village Voice: Freedom Tower Engineer Wants Turbines To Double as Prayer Wheels

The shining tower planned for the gawked-upon gap of the World Trade Center may be the first skyscraper to pray for its city. The designer of the wind turbines that will occupy the top of the “Freedom Tower” wants the rotors to serve as prayer wheels, cycling through mantras of peace.

Tibetan Buddhists write the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” many times over on thin papers and enclose them within cylinders called mani, which are also inscribed with the mantra. These spin on an axle, continuously repeating the prayer. The words aren’t directly translatable, but they invoke blessings from Chenrezig, the embodiment of compassion.

That tradition could be a starting point for a spiritual gesture in the same airy reaches once filled with death, according to engineer Guy Battle, who’s overseeing the wind farm for the planned Freedom Tower. Architect David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, master planner Daniel Libeskind, and developer Larry Silverstein haven’t yet ruled on the proposal, and no artists have been commissioned to explore it.

The turbines are to produce a fifth of the electricity needed by the building. “They are simple generators, but they can be somehow linked with the memorial. People could even put prayers on the propellers,” Battle says. A reflection of mourning, forgiveness, and hope open to all faiths and ethical traditions would give real meaning to the skyscraper’s somewhat stilted name.

Imagine if, from miles away in any direction, you could look to that skyscraper and know that within its ethereal, translucent summit was a testament to our better selves, our shared prayers. That is the architecture of who we are as a people. And coincidentally, the northwesterly winds turning those prayer wheels would follow the same glinting line of the Hudson River that the planes of 9-11 used as a flight path to murder. It’s the kind of gentle defiance that would drive Al Qaeda mad.

Leaders of the rebuilding process have emerged from storied grapples over the shape of the tapering structure. The reported debates between Childs and Libeskind about the building’s proportions comically reprise the tale of how Sen no Rikyu, the 16th-century tea master, was tested by a carpenter over exactly where a flower basket should be placed. So it seems somehow fitting that such a humble, quiet idea inspired by Buddhism and entering so late would bring an apt element of remembrance, and restore to the urban spire a spiritual and aspirational force.

Of course, the prayer wheels would be an unorthodox interpretation of an ancient practice. Such wheels, or mani, are usually vertical, while the turbines would be horizontal. Nor are they usually as hard to see as what Battle proposes. “But the intention is a large part of the process, so if your intention is genuine, then the slight variations in the execution of the device are less important,” says Ganden Thurman, director of special projects at Tibet House.

The metropolitan cynic is tempted to dismiss such sentiments as hokey, but at some level, any sincere gesture of love is. Many residents of Lower Manhattan have remarked that the twin towers were a familiar presence, felt over the shoulder even when not seen. The thrill of the new won’t fill that void for long. Downtown planners must create a symbol that earns enduring affection by not just building high, but by giving a sense of renewal to those who look up.

Such an invisible aspect wouldn’t force any change in the appearance of the Freedom Tower or the contested 16-acre site. “I think the final form will be very close to what you saw at the unveiling. The broad strokes will be the same,” says Kenneth Lewis, SOM’s project manager. The building will rise from the street grid and torque to minimize wind resistance. Despite its glassy skin, an exoskeleton of diagonal supports and a concrete core will lend the building rigidity. A lacy truss of cables, which Childs says was inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge, will characterize the upper portion where the turbines are to be housed. Workers in the tower’s 2.6 million square feet of office space will be protected by fireproof safe havens and filtering systems to guard against chemical and biological attacks.

Mocked as everything from a martini toothpick to a toy soldier’s feather, the spire and antenna have been thorny issues. Skyscraper architect Cesar Pelli has consistently argued that such towers should have a spire, that the tapering profile is intrinsic to the medium. Yet after viewing the Freedom Tower, he told the Voice, “I think they should get rid of the spire. It detracts from the design, makes it lose strength.”

The antenna will likely bring the entire structure to 2,000 feet, the limit imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration, Lewis said. It needs to be that high to widen the television broadcast area. Even PBS has joined this cause, because the poor can’t afford cable educational programs. But at the 1,776-foot mark the materials used to build the spire will change, and it will be illuminated. “The 1,776-foot mark will definitely be acknowledged. The bottom part of the antenna will be like the Statue of Liberty’s torch and the upper part like the flame,” he said.

It’s doubtful that the Statue of Liberty echo will resonate much, over time. In truth, Liberty Enlightening the World already has its counterpoint across the harbor in Battery Park City. The comparatively small, tiered hexagon of the Museum of Jewish Heritage urges contemplation of the genocide unleashed by intolerance and the achievements that are possible for even a minority community when freedoms are secure. But the spire’s offset placement atop the Freedom Tower will be distinctive—centering it would push the design toward mimicry, and lopping it off would leave a silhouette that’s unjustifiably banal. As Skyscraper Museum director Carol Willis says, “I think that its slender proportions and pointing to sky really satisfy the definition of a skyscraper as a romantic notion.”

And height, in this case, does matter. “As architects, we don’t talk about designing the world’s tallest building,” Lewis says, but there’s an undeniable groundswell of desire to see the Freedom Tower become the world’s pinnacle.

If only for the moment. In a stark reminder of the ways of this world, the ecologically friendly Freedom Tower, even if recognized as the world’s tallest by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, will be closely bracketed by two monuments to oil power. For now, the title belongs to the Petronas Towers, designed by Pelli for the Petroliam Nasional Berhad, the national oil company of Malaysia. Upcoming is the Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which breaks ground this month and is slated for completion by 2009. The latter tower is also being built by SOM, and will be “comfortably taller” than anything else in the world, according to the firm.

The Burj Dubai derives its graceful symmetry from a six-petaled desert flower. Other examples of the newest generation of record-setting skyscrapers, like the bamboo-stalk-inspired Taipei Financial Center, have eschewed the boxy international style to reflect local cultures and organic forms. But perhaps the unseen prayer wheels will allow the Freedom Tower, as no building ever has, to speak profoundly for, and of, the people of its city.

Transcending stress

December 8, 2003