right livelihood

Anyone who’s in the area is invited to our Open Evening at Wildmind’s office on 55 Main St (Suite 315), Newmarket NH 03857 On Dec 6, 6:00 until 9:00.

You can explore the lovely Mill Building, see our office, talk to the staff (all two of us!) and learn what we do, enjoy free chai (made by a Buddhist business in Montana) and samosas (spicy Indian pastries), and there will be free yoga and meditation classes.

We’ll have a free door gift for every visitor, and we also have some lovely meditation gifts for sale, so you might be able to get some of your seasonal gift shopping done and support our Buddhist Right-Livelihood Project! Other health-related businesses in the building will be open as well — including the new yoga studio, Winter Crow design, Michael Card the chiropractor, and Cool Ed’s art studio, so this is a real chance to mingle and relax. Come along!

And here’s where to find us:

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Meditation finds an ommm in the office

November 28, 2012

Wallace Immen, the Globe and Mail: Not long ago, a CEO who openly practised meditation in the office might be considered weird, and a manager who urged employees to train their minds to be more self-aware on the job would be suspect.

But that’s changed. A slew of books published this year promote meditation for self-awareness as an aid to decision-making and leadership.

Managers are promoting mental-awareness techniques to help employees cut stress and improve communication. And executives are finding meditation helps them stay cool under fire.

Last fall, Kira Leskew found herself screaming on the phone to a supplier who’d failed to …

The ROI of practicing mindfulness at work

November 12, 2012

Michael Carroll: Mindfulness meditation, at first glance, provokes a reasonable question: “why on earth would I, or anyone for that matter, sit still doing nothing for long periods of time?”

We can take two basic approaches to answering this question: we sit still for long periods of time in order to get a lot of benefits — to get a return on our investment — an ROI.

Or we sit still for long periods of time in order to achieve nothing.

Let’s take the ROI approach first. Recent scientific research seems to document that mindfulness meditation produces a wide range of positive results …

Ignoring the inbox – a new morning mantra

November 11, 2012

Eli Greenblat, The Age: If you, like most office workers, open your email first thing in the morning, then you might be setting yourself up for a horrible day and wasting hundreds of hours a year.

The work email inbox is a “pandora’s box” of nitty-gritty detail, gossip and distractions that are best dealt with later in the morning, and pressing the “send receive” button as soon as you slouch in your seat is the worst way to start your day.

These are the somewhat controversial views of Danish organisational behavioural expert and corporate consultant Rasmus Hougaard, who has taken his new way …

A new arrival…

September 24, 2012

Bodhipaksa

This handsome fellow just arrived in our office. We used to sell this Buddha statue, and others, plus a full range of meditation supplies, in our online store.

Your making a purchase helps us to keep this site running.

Ten tips for mindful working

September 4, 2012

Kulananda

on practice

If you walk to the bus stop, Tube or train station, turn off your phone. Feel your feet on the ground and the movement in your legs and hips. Notice how you’re breathing.
If you drive to work, take a few moments when you first get into your car just to notice your breath and your body.
As you sit at your desk or workstation, take a few moments from time to time to tune in to your body sensations. Notice any tension that might be there and breathe into it – softening and easing.
When you have a break, instead of reading the paper or searching on the internet, get away from your computer – take a short walk and get outside if you can.
At lunchtime, turn off your phone and get some air. Pause. If you meet with colleagues over lunch, try talking about things other than work.
Find ways of setting up mindfulness cues in your workspace. Perhaps when your phone rings you could use that as an opportunity to check in with your breathing.
Before heading home, review the day. Acknowledge what you’ve achieved, make a list of what you need to do tomorrow and, if you can, put your work down.
Use your journey home as a way of making a transition. Walk or drive mindfully. Take your time.
Change out of your work clothes soon after you get in and make a point of greeting everyone at home in turn.
If you live alone, feel what it is like to enter the quiet space of your own home.

From: The Mindful Workplace (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), by Michael Chaskalson, CEO of Mindfulness Works.

Mindfulness: helping employees to deal with stress

September 4, 2012

Occupational Health: Occupational health teams should be encouraged to get behind the concept of mindfulness, an alternative approach to helping staff cope with pressure experienced in the workplace, says Suzy Bashford.

The UK’s first Mindfulness at Work conference, organised by Mindfulnet, took place in February this year. The message from the event was that mindfulness, a meditation-based approach to stress management, can provide an antidote to the relentless pressure and information overload that exists in many UK businesses. It can also help employees thrive under stress and relate better to colleagues or clients.

The growing body of evidence in this area (there are …

Be more mindful for a better workplace

August 22, 2012

Jen Weigel, Chicago Tribune: Can you be a success in the world of business and still be mindful? What exactly does it mean to be “mindful” anyway? According to Mirabai Bush, one of the creators of a mindfulness course developed for Google employees called “Search Inside Yourself,” you will be more productive and motivated if you use respect, compassion and generosity in the workplace.

“Mindfulness has to do with paying attention to what’s happening in the moment without judgment,” said Bush. “Sometimes people think being mindful means being slow — it’s not about being slow, it’s about being slow enough that you can …

The real Buddha Bar, tended by Tokyo monks

December 30, 2011

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 …