Newsletters # Oct 09 / Nov 09 / Dec 09 / Jan 10 / Feb 10
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“Getting Unbusy” Welcome to our bi-monthly edition of "Dharma in the Media". Many of the components of this edition revolve around the issue of "busyness" and its alternatives. Below you’ll find an excerpt from our "Book of the Month" on how to get less busy (and accomplish more), and in a new section we’re entitling "Scary Spoof (Because It’s So Like the Crazy Life Many of Us Are Actually Leading) of the Month" you’ll encounter an hilarious depiction of insane multitasking. |
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In one of our "News Stories of the Month" you’ll read about attempts among scientists to reproduce "on demand" the relaxed mind-set of advanced meditators. Spurred by a challenge thrown down by the Dalai Lama (who "divulged that if neuroscientists could find a way to put electrodes in his brain and create the same outcome he gets from me ditating, he would be an eager volunteer"), these researchers are trying to find a technological alternative to the hard work of developing deep states of meditation. While some of us need to learn to get unbusy, others of us should probably become a bit more active (if not busy)! Couch potato TV watchers, listen up: each hour a day spent inertly watching TV entails an 18% greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, an 11% greater risk of all causes of death, and a 9% increased risk of death from cancer. Please also check out the other main sections of our newsletter:"“Good News of the Month" (imagine a newspaper with nothing but good news!), "Cartoon of the Month," the ever-popular "Scary Consumer Product of the Month", and "On-Line Videos of the Month". Please remember that we need your help and recommendations for content for the newsletter. Email us at lamamarut@aci-la.org with your ideas for news stories or on-line videos, movie suggestions, dharma books that you have found helpful, "scary consumer products", relevant websites, or anything else you’d like to share. |
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| BOOK OF THE MONTH | |
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The following has been excerpted from a new book by Marc Lesser entitled LESS: Accomplishing More by Doing Less (New World Library, 2009). Lesser is CEO of ZBA Associates, an executive coaching and consulting company that integrates mindfulness and leadership practices to build high-performing teams, and also a Zen priest. The excerpt appeared recently in Tricycle magazine (see below for link) under the title "Marc Lesser on how to let go of the 5 things that waste your time." There is an old story of a man riding very fast on a horse. As he rides past his friend standing on the side of the road, the friend yells, "Where are you going?" The rider turns toward his friend and yells, "I don’t know, ask the horse!" The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like the person riding that frantically galloping horse. Our incessant busyness—too This may sound easy, but doing less can actually be very hard. Too often we mistakenly believe that doing less makes us lazy and results in a lack of productivity. Instead, doing less helps us savor what we do accomplish. We learn to do less of what is extraneous and engage in fewer self-defeating behaviors, so we craft a productive life that we truly feel good about.
As the CEO of an executive coaching and consulting company, I am certainly not immune to the pressures of balancing work, family, and relationships. Since I am also a Zen priest, I have spent much of the past 25 years exploring how to apply Zen practices to work and relationships, as well as how to apply work and relationships to Zen practice. Recently I have organized some of my insights about productivity and well-being into a five-step practice. "The Less Manifesto", as I call it, focuses on engaging less in five self-defeating habits in order to experience more ease, more composure, and better results in our own lives and in our relationships with others. I have compressed each of the five habits into one word—one behavior or activity we can do less of—but each represents a huge arena of human emotion and psychology. The list is inspired by the traditional five hindrances of Buddhism, but I have adapted it to the day-to-day challenges I observe in working with clients. The activities or categories are these: fear, assumptions, distractions, resistance, and busyness. Engaging in any of these habits can be debilitating, leading us to do more and accomplish less. They are often related or intertwined, creating patterns of self-defeating behavior that contribute to unhappiness and dissatisfaction. In each of the five sections on the following pages, I outline one of these counterproductive habits and provide some explorations that may help change it. Experiment with my suggestions and tailor them to your own life. If we don’t address and change these behaviors, we will always find it hard to accomplish what we want in a way that’s satisfying, no matter how hard we try. But once we change our behaviors, we may find it is possible to do much more than before—and enjoy it. 1. FEAR Fear can also be an enormous hindrance. It can color our world so that a rope appears as a dangerous snake or an offer of friendship is perceived as an imposition or even an attack. We can fear not getting promoted or losing our jobs, fear what people think about us, or fear that people aren’t thinking at all about us. The list of possible fears is almost endless, so it is not surprising that, sometimes without our knowing it, our actions and decisions can become ruled by fear. When we are afraid, our first impulse is to tighten our bodies and shut down our minds. We are no longer receptive and playful, which becomes an enormous hindrance to learning new skills in the workplace, to collaborating, and to making interpersonal connections. Try this: Invite your fears to tea Begin by naming your top five fears. Write each one on a piece of paper. If so inclined, you can actually make a pot of tea and fill a cup for each of your fears. When we acknowledge and open up playfully to our fears, they tend to lose their influence and power. Play with your perception of time Spend some time every day outside of usual "clock time"—in meditation, with mindfulness practice, or by taking a walk in the park, for example. These practices can act as antidotes to the fears we hold about not having enough time. Practice generosity Generosity is an antidote to fear. When you practice being generous with your time, your joy, and your spirit, fear loosens its grip. In fact, finding composure and acting with clarity and resolve, right in the midst of your fears, is a form of generosity that in Buddhism is sometimes referred to as "giving the gift of fearlessness". 2. ASSUMPTIONS For instance, many years ago when I was a young Zen student living at Green Gulch Farm in California, a problem arose among the residents: a sliding wooden door at the entrance of the student living area was regularly being left open. As a result, cold Pacific Ocean winds would sweep in and chill our shared living space. Announcements were made at least a half dozen times at community work meetings reminding people to keep this door shut. But it was continually found open, and over time this became a remarkably divisive issue. People grew emotional, blaming and pointing fingers. In the midst of one tense meeting, Sierra, the farm’s pet golden retriever, opened the door from the outside and joined the group. Of course, Sierra didn’t close the door behind her. Everyone laughed. No one knew that Sierra had the dexterity to open a sliding wooden door. The group’s false assumptions had nearly led to an all-out battle. Admittedly, this story has a comical ending. It’s a rare case when we can actually blame the dog for our incomplete homework or anything else. But the story does point to a lesson about assumptions: When things go wrong and conflict ensues, the fastest and most effective solution is often to identify and let go of any false assumptions. Try this: Ask for feedback Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that we ask our loved ones, "Please tell me. How can I love you better?" Try asking this of your partner, children, or parents, and then listen to what they say. At work, try asking people you trust, "How can I be a better team member?" or "How can I be better at my job?" Soliciting feedback—and then paying careful attention to it—is a good way to reduce assumptions. Distinguish motivation from impact Notice how often you assume what someone else’s motivations are. Much of the time we don’t even know our own motivations, so it can be very difficult to know the motivations of others. But we can be aware of the impact that their actions have within us. Knowing your feelings and emotions and distinguishing these from others’ motivations is an important step in reducing assumptions. Make requests and offers Experiment with making clear requests of others. Try beginning sentences with "I request that…" or "Would you please…?" Also make clear offers, such as "Can I help you with…?" By making requests and offers, we increase clarity and connection. 3. DISTRACTIONS In the age of cell phones and the Internet, many of us have become smitten with the distractions of choice— texting, instant messaging, twittering, listening to iPods, checking email, reading the news online. These distractions can be fun, and, when seen as multitasking, even necessary. The problem is that some distractions are more detrimental to our focus and happiness than others. Most distractions fall into one of two categories: those that draw us in multiple directions at once, resulting in confusion and an inability to complete a thought or action, and those that provide mental relaxation, offering small "breaks" that support intense focus and effort. Clearly, we want less of the former and more of the latter. Try this: Clarify the next steps Write down the items on your mental to-do list—projects, aspirations, or even the groceries. Next to each item, list the next step that is needed to complete it. Often we get distracted by our overwhelming lists of priorities, when what we need is to break them down into doable actions. Appreciate impermanence I saw a cartoon a couple years ago in The New Yorker in which two people were finishing their dinners at a Chinese restaurant and had just opened their fortune cookies. One fortune read, "Someday you will die." If you let this fact sink in—that life is short and we all die—it can act as a powerful motivating force to help maintain focus and priorities. Savor borrowed time Imagine, for a moment, that you have died and now have a chance to return to this life. Now what? What would you do differently? This is a way of acknowledging how short and how precious our lives are. 4. RESISTANCE The fact that everything changes is good news. Or actually, as Buddhists and scientists say, it is neither good news nor bad news. It is what is, neither good nor bad—and this is good news! However, we often find it difficult to accept change and the uncertainty that goes along with it. We grasp at what we know and what is familiar, resisting anything that might take us out of our comfort zone; we hold on to limiting and self-defeating beliefs because it seems safer. But these beliefs only reflect what we think we know about ourselves (I’m not a good cook; I don’t speak well in public)—not what we might actually be able to achieve. Sometimes we resist positive change rather than let go of what we already have. Write down your open-ended beliefs on sticky notes or index cards as daily reminders placed in your office, wallet, or purse. Notice how, one at a time, these more open-ended beliefs challenge your limiting beliefs. Also, question what you gain from holding on to your limiting beliefs. There are always reasons—often fairly compelling, even though not particularly useful—that we hold on to limiting beliefs for so long. Try this: Compile a list of your limiting beliefs and rephrase them as open-ended beliefs Below is a list I formulated for myself, which you can use as a guide. Common limiting beliefs: I don’t have enough time (I’m too busy!). I don’t have enough experience. I’m not smart enough. I’m usually quite stubborn. More open-ended beliefs: I am clear about my priorities and my ability to respond. I know my strengths and what I still need to learn. I love to learn new things and I’m smart enough. I can learn from my mistakes. 5. BUSYNESS Though we usually associate busyness with activity and speed, and lack of busyness with stopping or slowing down, this is not always the case. It is possible to be actively engaged and not be busy. Not being busy does not require that you stop, slow down, or step out of the activity of your life, either. Most of the time, we learn, adjust, and find our composure right in the midst of the activity and intensity of our lives. We have to! Addressing the five obstacles of the Less Manifesto gives rise to an encouraging realization: We don’t need to do anything extra to return to our original state of sharpness and unbridled full-functioning. We only need to do less of what gets in the way. Shunryu Suzuki once said, "You are perfect just as you are, and you can use a little improvement." When I first read that quote 30 years ago, I found it hard to comprehend. But now that I have had many years to ponder it, I believe it is one of the kindest and most freeing pieces of wisdom to live by. We are born with all the wisdom, playfulness, and imagination we need; we just sometimes need a reminder to return to our senses and get out of our own way. Let go of whatever fears, assumptions, distractions, resistance, and busyness may be hampering you. Allow yourself to think and feel and live that way. Acting from this place results in greater composure, and when we act with composure, we are more effective. Try this: Take it easy One way to shed unnecessary busyness from your life is to ask yourself: what am I doing that is extra? Then, for a few hours during the day, pay attention to everyday physical activities like walking or sitting. Do you hold your shoulders tightly or are they relaxed and comfortable? When you walk, is your gait fluid or strained? Notice where you carry tension in your muscles, and when you find tension, relax. Take a deep breath and let it go. Continue to do this throughout the day, paying attention to your body and your posture. By the end of the day, do you notice any change? Do you have less tension, and when you feel it, is it easier to let it go? It can take a lot of practice and attention to relearn ingrained physical habits, but doing so has enormous benefits. See if expending less unnecessary energy makes for more productivity and satisfaction. > CLICK HERE for online source |
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| NEWS STORIES OF THE MONTH | |
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New mom Irma Gomez (congratulations, Irma, and welcome to Matteo!) sent in this for this article entitled "Meditation on Demand" by Peter B. Reiner. It’s from the November/December 2009 edition of "Scientific American". |
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Elaborating, the spiritual leader of Tibet explained to the audience of scientists that although he meditates for four hours every morning, it is hard work. He divulged that if neuroscientists could find a way to put electrodes in his brain and create the same outcome he gets from meditating, he would be an eager volunteer. Now a set of experiments from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University moves us a step closer to making his wish a reality. The neuroscientists managed to induce in mice a brainwave pattern associated with meditation—answering a long-standing question about how this pattern is generated and theoretically laying the groundwork for a cognitive-enhancement technology that could mimic meditation’s effects. . . .
The Dalai Lama’s keen interest in neuroscience has been reciprocated by at least some members of the neuroscience community, who reason that studying people who meditate might lead to novel insights about the workings of the human brain. From the perspective of neuroscience, meditation can be characterized as a series of mental exercises by which a person strengthens control over the workings of his or her own brain. The simplest of these practices is focused attention, during which one concentrates on a single object or experience—say, one’s breathing. Many studies have described how the ability of long-term meditators to focus and attend to tasks differs from people who are new to the practice. . . . The Davidson study was remarkable in that it showed that longterm meditators are able to produce sustained gamma activity in a manner that had never been previously observed in a human being. As such, sustained gamma activity emerged as a proxy for at least some aspects of the meditative state. If sustained gamma rhythm is a hallmark of meditation, could we achieve "meditation on demand" for the Dalai Lama by inducing gamma waves in the brain? . . . At the very least, it is safe to say that the prospect of using advanced technology to mimic at least some of the brain activity present during meditation states has moved from the realm of science fiction to that of scientific possibility. > CLICK HERE for online source |
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Hey, word up! TV watching is bad for you! For those still in doubt, Kris Krajewski and David Simmons both pointed us to this L.A. Times report, published January 12, 2010, and written by Jeannnine Stein. "Watching TV Shortens Life Span, Study Finds" Researchers found that each hour a day spent watching TV was linked with an 18% greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, an 11% greater risk of all causes of death, and a 9% increased risk of death from cancer. The study, released Monday in Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Assn., looked at health data among 8,800 men and women older than 25 who were part of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study. Participants recorded their television viewing hours for a week, and researchers separated the results by amount of viewing: those who watched less than two hours of TV a day, those who watched two to four hours a day, and those who watched more than four hours a day. Researchers found a strong connection between TV hours and death from cardiovascular disease, not just among the overweight and obese, but among people who had a healthy weight and exercised. People who watched more than four hours a day showed an 80% greater risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 46% higher risk of all causes of death compared with those who watched fewer than two hours a day, suggesting that being sedentary could have general deleterious effects. The numbers were the same after the researchers controlled for smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, an unhealthy diet and leisure-time exercise. To him, the results weren’t unexpected. "When we’re in that sitting posture, we’re not using our muscles, and we know from extensive evidence that muscle contractions are important for the body’s regulatory processes, such as the ability to break down glucose and use it as energy." That can cause insulin resistance, which can trigger a spike in blood sugar levels, possibly leading to type 2 diabetes. Dr. Prediman K. Shah, director of the cardiology division of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, agreed. He pointed out that muscles become deconditioned when not used, triggering harmful physiological changes. "If your activity is slowing down, you metabolize cholesterol less and synthesize it more," he said. "The physical activity we do over a 24-hour period is important," says Dr. Gerald F. Fletcher, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., and a spokesman for the American Heart Assn. That means taking the stairs instead of the elevator, gardening, walking the dog . . . "For couch potatoes, sitting on your duff is hazardous to your health," Shah said. "The bottom line is keep moving." > CLICK HERE for online source |
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| GOOD NEWS OF THE MONTH | |
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What would the New York Times look like to a person who had cleaned up their karma such that they were living in a world dominated by good news?
Jennifer MacFarlane found this awesome version of "the news which includes stories about the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the passage into law of National Health Insurance, and the repeal of the U.S.A. Patriot Act: http://www.nytimes-se.com/ [goodnews.jpg] |
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CARTOON OF THE MONTH |
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Thank you, Jessica Sporn, for our cartoon of the month. |
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| SCARY SPOOF(Because It’s So Like the Crazy LIfe Many of Us Are Actually Leading) OF THE MONTH | |
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Nikki Peterson sent this in, thinking it particularly apropos in the wake of teachings in the quiet of Lake Tahoe on how to lead a simpler, saner life. It’s from the "Shouts & Murmurs" section of the June 1, 2009, edition of the New Yorker magazine. The article is entitled "My Quiet Time", and was written by Andy Borowitz. The story begins with a real quotation from the C.E.O. of Disney and then goes on from there. Q. What are some things you do to manage your time effectively? Whoever said that the early bird gets the worm could have been talking about me, only I’m a person, not a bird, and I’m not interested in getting worms, more like getting things done. But I do get up early. In fact, the secret to my success could be boiled down to three little words: my quiet time. It begins at 1 A.M., when I get out of bed, check my e-mail, brush my teeth, scan some documents, and floss. Then I’ll surf the Web, maybe order a sectional couch or trade zloty futures. Last week, I bought a Swiss chalet and sold it at a twenty-per-cent profit while I was still in my pajamas. I wanted to high-five someone, but no one else was awake. Sometimes I can’t remember if I’ve flossed already, so I’ll do it again, just to be sure, while checking my e-mail and maybe sending a fax. Did I mention that the early bird gets the worm? That in many ways applies to me. While I’m on the elliptical and maybe ordering a hovercraft online, I’ll drain a six-pack of Red Bull. Red Bull Red Bull Red Bullybullybull. Then I’ll call London. I don’t have any business in London, but I have a London phone directory and I like to call people at random. It helps me clear my head. You’d be surprised, though, how some people in London will get totally honked off if you call them out of the blue just to say "What’s up?" It’s not an anti-American thing; sometimes I’ll call them with a fake British accent and say "Tallyho!" and they’ll still get pissed. They’ll act like it’s the middle of the night, even though with the time change and everything it’s already 6 A.M. But even if they tell me to go fuck myself it recharges my batteries. There’s no end to the things I can accomplish during my quiet time. I have a fairly nimble contralto voice, and after I pop an amphetamine or two I’ll work my way through the Metropolitan Opera repertoire, taking breaks to revise my will or maybe buy a fishing lodge. One thing I like to do is a controlled burn of dry twigs in the woods behind my house. I’ll do the elliptical for twenty minutes, set fire to the woods, sing an aria from "The Magic Flute", then jump back on the elliptical. Now, here’s something that honks me off: neighbors who call the fire department when you’re in the middle of a controlled burn. Those sirens start wailing and, before you know it, there goes my quiet time. I guess the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who understand quiet time and those who don’t. By the way, you know who really makes the most of their quiet time? Cheetahs. I saw a documentary on them one time and they are awesome. I saw a documentary on them one time and they are awesome. > CLICK HERE for online source. |
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| SCARY CONSUMER PRODUCTS OF THE MONTH | |
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Cindy Lee has been a bit obsessed about the concept of "humane" gadgets for getting your beloved pet dog to stop barking since she saw one version advertized in "Sky Mall". She’s found an on-line product called the "Ultimate Dog Silencer", which claims to be a "humane and effective bark control product". It’s a collar that basically broadcasts an ear-splitting signal into your dog’s ears when he or she barks: http://www.ultimatebarkcontrol.com/dog_silencer_ultimate_v.htm If, on the other hand, you’d rather just skip all the "humane" discourse, you can go for one or another of the dog training collars which send electrical shocks through your pet’s body whenever he or she barks. They’re available from the aptly named K9Electronics at: http://www.k9electronics.com/categories/DogTrainingCollars.aspx |
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| ON-LINE VIDEOS OF THE MONTH | |
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Judith Ring rediscovered this musical message from 1950 posted on YouTube. It’s by Lama (or is it "Reverend"?) Judy Garland, encouraging us to "Get Happy": Very beautiful and moving video of people around the world simultaneously singing "All You Need is Love". Thanks, Diana Peck, for finding this one: |
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| NEW VIDEO AND AUDIO TEACHINGS ON-LINE | |
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Check the "Recent Teachings" section on www.aci-la.org for the latest teachings from Australasia! Lama Marut taught "Jump-Starting Your Practice: Cultivating Joyful Effort" and "The Yoga of the Body, Mind and Heart" in both Melbourne and Singapore. A particular standout was the Melbourne teaching on Bhakti Yoga, a very inspirational lesson on how to see the sacred in your everyday life. At the beautiful Satyananda Yoga Ashram in Victoria, Australia, Lama Marut also offered an in-depth retreat on "How and Why Karma Works", including a great evening satsang with the ashram residents. And Singapore was also treated to the mind-blowing teachings on the Ashtavakra Gita, "Living the Perfect Life, Here and Now". Some teachings are now being broadcasted and archived on ustream.tv. Most recently we recorded a teaching from the Mahasukha Center, Los Angeles "Living the Perfect Life, Here and Now". For Lama Marut’s live channel go here: Join the thousands (literally!) who are downloading free weekly Lama Marut videocasts and audio podcasts! Go to iTunes and search "Lama Marut" in the iTunes Store, or download audio podcasts from aci-la.org: http://www.aci-la.org/mg-podcasts.html
Twitter Into Happiness Just sign up at www.twitter.com and then text "follow LamaMarut" to 40404 from your phone. You’ll get daily inspirational thoughts sent as text messages. |
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| HOW YOU CAN HELP | |
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Help us with our websites! For more information, please email info.lamamarut@gmail.com. Help Transcribe Lama Marut’s Tteachings: We always need transcirbers to transcribe Lama Marut’s precious teachings, to form the basis of books and also to offer to students who prefer to read than listen to audio. For a more extensive list of our Dharma projects and more volunteer opportunities, please visit the ‘Thousand Arms’ site: |
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Help the Retreat Fund! Find out more about the Mahasukha Kula Retreat Scholarship Program, just launched by our wonderful and dedicated retreat committee. |
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Check out our new "Awakening Magazine", your online retreat resource. It includes an article by Lama Marut, quick tips on retreats, and much more. Go shopping at CaféPress – or offer to design a series of items for the retreat fundraising program (email lamamarut@aci-la.org) |
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| UPCOMING TEACHINGS | |
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MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
align=”center”> "Inciting Happiness: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Life", will illuminate Je Tsongkapa’s seminal Buddhist text, The Three Principal Paths. Renunciation, compassion and wisdom form the foundation of all authentic spiritual traditions and are as powerful today as they were thousands of years ago. In addition to Ven. Marut’s teachings, each class will also include guided meditations on the three paths led by Cindy Lee.
THE GREAT AWAKENING TOUR! VANCOUVER | Contact Yvonne Jaques: yvonnejaques@telus.net TAHOE | Contact David Fishman: davidbfishman@gmail.com RENO | Contact Beverle Deerfoot: ayyajaya@sbcglobal.net IDYLLWILD | Contact Lauren Benjamin: info@aci-la.org LOS ANGELES | Contact Lauren Benjamin: info@aci-la.org CAPE ANN | Contact Margaret Redington: gracetales@aol.com BROOKLYN | Contact Ava Gerber: luckylotusyoga@yahoo.com MUNICH, Germany | Contact Holger Wolff: Holger.Wolff@mwea.de FOR FULL DETAILS ON THE TOUR PLEASE VISIT greatawakeningtour.wordpress.com SUMMER EVENTS "THE MISSING TEACHINGS OF YOGA" Full Program:
Lama Marut will be teaching comprehensive reviews of the entirety of the Yoga Sutra and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, as well as a complete 10 class version of the first of YSI’s Bhagavad Gita courses. In addition, we will also be offering a new 10 class course on the Ashtavakra Gita, an amazing text that focuses on the concept of the jivanmukta – one who has achieved enlightenment in this very lifetime. We’re very, very excited to be teaching this extraordinary Sanskrit scripture of the Vedantic tradition.
While we’re hoping you will be able to come for the whole retreat, we’ve also divided the course into three interdependent but separable "modules" for those who can only join us for shorter periods: For more information and to register, please go to > Yoga Studies Institute [ link to http://www.yogastudiesinstitute.org/?news&id=209 ] As many of you know, from this summer we are morphing into a much more limited teaching schedule. This event will be one of only two sets of public teachings we will be scheduling each year, beginning in the summer of 2010. And we are pretty sure the retreat will fill up – so if you wish to attend or would like to know more information, please contact > David Fishman [email: davidbfishman@gmail.com ] as soon as possible to let him know of your interest. "THE SUMMER RETREAT"
"RECOVERING SILENCE: THE MEDITATIVE LIFE AS THE PATH TO FREEDOM AND GENUINE HAPPINESS" For those who wish to begin or deepen their daily meditative practice, and for everyone wishing to live a quieter, happier, and more rewarding life, join us for this exciting (and silent!) residential retreat with Lama Marut in Massachusetts. The Summer Retreat will offer five days of conscious living, mindfulness, and tranquility. Lamas Lindsay Crouse and Rick Blue will teach on living meditatively in relationships and opening ourselves up to others through ‘exchanging self for others’ techniques. You will also learn how to meditate, what to meditate on, and how to live all day long – alone and with others — with awareness, compassion, and wisdom. Lama Marut and Cindy Lee will offer classes on maintaining stillness through the vicissitudes of life and seeing the sacred and being the sacred in everyday life, exploring various spiritual texts that describe what the liberated and enlightened being looks like. Lama Marut will offer not-to-be-missed evening classes on how to use meditation to penetrate the illusions of life, discover ultimate reality and finally go beyond conceptions; recovering silence. Stay tuned for updates… website and registration details coming soon.
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"Awakening to What Is" Happy New Year! As 2009 comes to a close, I’d like to express my gratitude to the many volunteers across the country and world, who offer hours of their time and a wide range of talents and skills to our Dharma projects. We should rejoice at these achievements together and be grateful that we have the opportunity and interest to serve the Dharma. With thanks and all best wishes, |
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| In this newsletter we explore the difference between the part of our practice that requires us to work hard to develop and improve ourselves, and the part that mandates that we stop striving, relax, and just acquiesce to what is. The article below investigates this issue from the point of view of when it is appropriate to aspire to change and when it is crucial to accept things the way they are. Our "Sanskrit Word of the Month" revisits the idea of awareness and acceptance of reality as they pertain to the meaning of "enlightenment".
Also included below in our "Question of the Month" is an exchange as to what the "Big Bang" theory of creation is according to modern science, and what the implications of the theory are for our lives and spiritual practice. DHARMA IN THE MEDIA Please keep sending the wonderful and the weird representations of the dharma in the media. Email us at lamamarut@aci-la.org with news stories, on-line videos, dharma books, websites or anything else tht expresses the dharma in our world. |
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As we have noted in past newsletters, the spiritual life can often seem confusing, replete with paradox and shot through with seemingly contradictory directives. One such perplexity that we have discussed previously is the tension between aspiration (working hard for change) and acceptance (affirming and surrendering to the realities we cannot change). In November’s issue of this newsletter, we argued that it’s important to do both — to work hard AND relax. But we didn’t go on to think about when to do which, when to aspire and when to accept. How do we know when it’s the right time to work hard and make progress toward attaining our goals, and when it’s our best bet to stop making efforts and just “go with the flow”? I think we can see this dichotomy in what are known in Buddhism as the two “wings” of the spiritual life – “method” (inclusive of both the moral restraint of ourselves and the selfless love for and compassion toward others) and “wisdom.” Any authentic and effective spiritual path will have versions of both of these components, and any individual who hopes for success will need to include both in his or her practice. But upon analysis it seems as though the two are making very different demands of the practitioner. One asks us to work hard, and the other to relax. The method side of things provides tools for self-improvement. It teaches us how to develop our morality, our love and compassion, as well as our mindfulness and ability to concentrate. We progress in our cultivation of these and other virtues in order to build up, little by little, what is called our "collection of merit" which eventually produces our physical appearance as a Buddha. The wisdom constituent of a spiritual life relates to our understanding of the true nature of things – our realization of how things really are. We learn to recognize how things exist (they do exist interdependently) and how they don’t (they do not exist independently) in order to emerge from our all-encompassing delusion. On this side of things we overcome what are termed our "obstacles to omniscience" and accrue the "collection of wisdom" that will, at the time of enlightenment, bring us the mind of a Buddha. While the two wings are certainly from one point of view complementary and mutually reinforcing, from another angle they require very different – even opposing – things of us. Method is motivated by the desire for things to be different than they are: we wish that our own and others’ present suffering would come to an end. Wisdom manifests when we stop being deceived about the true nature of things, when we acquiesce to the facts of life instead of unrealistically wishing that they be different. Method concerns our aspirations; wisdom entails acceptance. Method is developed over time – we seek to become happier, kinder, better people ourselves, and we wish that others also become happy and no longer suffer. But wisdom is discovered in the here and now – we acknowledge and accept things the way they really are and give up our delusions based on how they seem to us or how we wish they might be. Method is about becoming – becoming different, better people and bringing about a different, better world over time. Wisdom is about being – being present fully, here and now, in the real world rather than inhabiting a dream-like (or, more often, nightmarish) mirage fueled by ignorance and denial. The attributes developed on the method side of things – compassion, benevolence, altruism, mindfulness, etc. – are positive qualities that we generate and cultivate through training over a period of time. But because wisdom is simply matching our awareness to reality itself – because it is merely the correct apprehension of how things really are – it is not really something that needs to be developed. Wisdom appears when obscurations, distortions, and hallucinations are dispelled; wisdom arises when falsehood ceases. Wisdom is not cultivated, it is realized. While such realization of the truth can be experienced with different intensities (ranging from a mild sort of intellectual suspicion to a deep, direct and life-changing existential event), at bottom wisdom is nothing other than the awareness of what always has been, is now, and always will be. For wisdom to manifest there is nothing to do, only things not to do. Wisdom comes about when there is a cessation of falsification. We stop mistaking our illusions for reality; we accept things the way they are instead of clinging to misconceptions and projecting our fantasies. We accept, for example, change and impermanence and cease to foist our chimeras of permanence and stability upon a world that will never validate or conform to them. Change will never change into changelessness no matter how much we wish it. Wisdom accepts and affirms the changing nature of things. It encourages us to relax into the uncertainty of change instead of trying to arrest it – and suffering as a result of this futile tilting at windmills. Wisdom also requires acceptance of the fact that there are no essences to things or beings, very much including ourselves. Wisdom regarding the emptiness of selves is simply the correct identification of what is and has always been. There has never been a “self” to things or beings. Our idea that things have essences is a complete fantasy with no connection to the real world. When we just stop the reverie and adjust our view to the reality of things, wisdom emerges naturally and without effort. There is nothing positive or constructive to do here; wisdom occurs when we stop defying reality and wake up from our self-imposed dream state. Method, on the other hand, encourages us to never be complacent about the suffering of ourselves and others. As opposed to the fact that things are impermanent and have no essence, suffering can be changed. It is, in fact, because things are “empty” of permanence and self-nature that they can be changed. Method incites us to strive for and aspire to a changed and ultimately perfected state. And it is instigated and underwritten by the recognition that things and beings are changing, and therefore are changeable. The wisdom that entails the acceptance of the reality of change therefore makes possible the conviction that one’s compassionate aspirations for the end of suffering are realizable and not just airy-fairy pipe dreams. Things cannot be changed in the moment, however. Wisdom recognizes and accepts not only change but also the nature and laws of causality that guide change. One such law is that there is always a gap between the time of the cause and the time of the effect. And because of that gap we can’t change the present in the present. The present is a perfect culmination of past causes. Once those causes have come to fruition, there’s no point resisting or striving against the reality they have brought about. From the point of view of wisdom, there is no sane alternative other than to just relax and accept that which you cannot change – i.e., the ever-changing present. But the method side of our practice motivates us to aspire to change the things that we can change – i.e., the future. The present may be the perfect effect of past causes, but it also repositions as the cause of future effects. What we do in our present won’t change the present but it certainly determines the future. Wisdom calls upon us to accept what we cannot change. We can’t change change no matter how hard we try, and we can’t change the present in the present no matter how dissatisfied we are with it. There’s no point in any strategy other than acceptance in these cases. But if the future is in our hands every moment, then it also makes no sense to be anything other than diligent in creating the causes and conditions for a more agreeable time to come. The latter suggests it’s best to work hard, the former encourages us to relax. And to just to give the wheel one last spin: One of the best ways to create better karma and work to fulfill one’s aspirations for an improved future is to begin by embracing the present, as it is. Being upset about what one can’t change cannot but be sowing negative seeds for the future. Unhappiness about the present – wishing that things that cannot be changed instantaneously were different than the way they are – tends to be continually self-replicating and never-ending. Contentment, on the other hand, arises only when discontentment ends, when one accepts the here and now. Aspiring to total acceptance may turn out to be the highest aspiration one can cultivate. |
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"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, "The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely." — Carl Gustav Jung |
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The English verb "to bid" (in the sense of "to utter, to command") is a cognate by way of the Old English beodan, "to proclaim", as is the negative version, "forbid"(to command someone not to do something). The English "bode" ("to be an omen", as in "it does not bode well for the future") is also related through the Old English bodian, "to announce", and so too is the term "ombudsman" (via the Old Norse bodh, "to command"). The word "bud" ("to spring forth") may also be linked. All these words are ultimately traced back to an Indo-European root bheudh- which means "to be aware" or "to make aware". Enlightenment or bodhi thus implies merely becoming aware or conscious of reality as it is. When we become aware of the way things actual are — when we awaken from our hallucinations, misperceptions, and fantasies — we will have achieved the goal of Buddhism. |
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The following question about the “"Big Bang" theory of creation comes from Robert Tyszko: In your talks revolving around karma, you often cite the idea of the "Big Bang" as it applies to the "scientific worldview." You imply, if not frankly state, that this worldview is incorrect because it discounts that there is a cause and effect for everything. You imply that this view espouses that there is no explanation for what came before the Big Bang and that there has to be. Another way that you state it is that this type of worldview states that things happen randomly. I would argue that it’s not that a scientist would say that nothing came before the Big Bang, but rather that they just don’t know what came before the Big Bang. They wouldn’t state that the Big Bang randomly occurred, but rather that a series of events led up to the event, step-by-step. We may not know what caused it, but we know that it was caused. Hi, Bob: While I’d like to believe that scientists provide the view of the Big Bang you’ve articulated (i.e., that the Big Bang was caused, in which case it didn’t happen "for no reason" and therefore also was not a “first cause”), I’ll need to see some proof that this is what science really is saying. Because from what I can tell on the basis of my research, the claim is actually quite different. Here’s an excerpt from an on-line article entitled "The Big Bang Theory: An Overview": "Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something – a singularity. Where did it come from? We don’t know. Why did it appear? We don’t know. . . . Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy — nothing. So where and in what did the singularity appear if not in space? We don’t know. We don’t know where it came from, why it’s here, or even where it is. All we really know is that we are inside of it and at one time it didn’t exist and neither did we". There are, admittedly, a lot of “we don’t knows” in this statement. Nevertheless, if prior to the Big Bang "nothing existed," then it can’t also be that "a series of events led up to it, step by step” (as you want science to say). It is not possible, since nothing existed before it, for there to have been a cause for the Big Bang — for if there was nothing, what could possibly serve as the cause? What we’re left with is a model in which nothing turns into something due to a first cause which itself wasn’t itself caused. Which means the Big Bang happened literally "for no reason" (which is what it means to say "no cause"). The implications of that worldview are what are stake here. If everything has come into existence literally “for no reason,” then there is a kind of randomness and meaninglessness built into this worldview that cannot and does not support a spiritual life. Bob, you clearly want to gravitate toward a worldview of causality, which I applaud. Unfortunately, the standard articulation of the Big Bang theory does not seem to agree with your own. But I’ll bet that if we live long enough, science will be dropping its present incoherent theory. There is, for example, apparently a new theory that says that the Big Bang was indeed caused. . . by a previous Big Bang! That opens up the door to causation without a first cause, which is the only causation that makes any sense at all. |
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For free weekly Lama Marut videocasts and audio podcasts in iTunes, search "Lama Marut" in the iTunes Store, or download audio podcasts from aci-la.org: FULL-LENGTH AUDIO The “Blissful Path to Bliss” retreat, on the gorgeous Lake Tahoe, was attended by many students from across the country. The full retreat audio, where Lama Marut takes retreatants through the entire Lam Rim ~ the steps on the path to enlightenment – is a perfect way to kick-start your new year! Download teachings at: > http://www.aci-la.org/teach_marut_recent.html Audio Podcasts: Download podcasts at: Or go to the iTunes store and search "Lama Marut" to subscribe to "A Lama Sumati Marut Podcast". Video Podcasts: The June 2009 talks at the Three Jewels, Tucson, are the source of three of the latest video podcasts on offer through iTunes. "Practicing Forgiveness and Patience", "Compassion for Those Who Harm", and "Changing the Past" are all difficult practices, but ones which clear the way for us to stop suff You can now watch a selection of Lama Marut’s video podcasts from the YouTube bar at > http://www.aci-la.org/mg-video.html Or go to the iTunes store and search "Lama Marut" to subscribe to "A Lama Marut Video Podcast". LIVE VIDEO WEBCASTS Living the Perfect Life, Here and Now, from LA’s Mahasukha Center: For Lama Marut’s live channel on ustream, go here: For all of Lama Marut’s archived videos on ustream.tv go here: Lama Marut’s Web Gallery Check out Tony Bittick’s photos of the Blissful Path to Bliss retreat! ACI-RENO is online! Visit them at: http://www.aci-reno.org |
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Mahasukha Kula Retreat Find out more about the Mahasukha Kula Retreat Scholarship Program, just launched by our wonderful and dedicated retreat committee. Check out our new “Awakening Magazine,” your online retreat resource. Including an article by Lama Marut, quick tips on retreats and much more. Go shopping at CaféPress – or offer to design a series of items for the retreat fundraising program (email lamamarut@aci-la.org) We Need You! • MAHASUKHA CENTER, LA: • VAJRMUDRA CENTER, Cape Ann: Email, sangha@aci-capeann.org | Web, http://aci-capeann.org • ACI-RENO: Help Transcribe Lama Marut’s Teachings For a more extensive list of our Dharma projects and volunteer opportunities, please visit: For a more extensive list of our Dharma projects and volunteer opportunities, please visit: Or write to us at: Online Communities Join Lama Marut’s pages on: Facebook: MySpace:
Join 700 others who are now receiving daily inspirational messages from Lama Marut sent directly to your phone as a text message! To get your daily dharma fix, just create a profile at www.twitter.com and then text "follow LamaMarut" to 40404 from your phone. Text Messaging of Your Vows Don’t forget this great new service whereby you can be reminded to check your Buddhist vows throughout the day via a text message sent to your phone. Even if you haven’t taken vows, this is a great way to stay mindful of your morality all day long. Check it out:
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Upcoming teachings Rocklyn, Victoria, Australia: Jan. 4, 2010, 7:30 – 9:30 PM, "How and Why Karma Works" Melbourne, Australia: Jan. 8-10, 2010, "The Yoga of the Body, Mind and Heart: Lord Krishna’s Advices on Living the Good Life from the Bhagavad Gita" Singapore: Jan. 15-17, 2010, "The Three Yogas of the Bhagavad Gita" Jan. 18 and 19, "Jump-Starting Your Practice: Advice on How to Cultivate Joyful Effort from Master Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life" Jan. 20 and 21, "Living the Perfect Life, Here and Now" THE MISSING TEACHINGS OF YOGA: An Intensive in the Yoga of Wisdom Friday, August 6 thru Saturday, August 21, 2010 A CLASSICS OF YOGA 200 HOUR INTENSIVE with Lama Marut and YSI Staff Teachers. > Register at YOGA STUDIES INSTITUTE ACI-LA announces a retreat with Lama Marut in Idyllwild, CA.! HEALING FOR HAPPINESS: A MEDITATIVE WORKSHOP ON FORGIVENESS AND GRATITUDE "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." Join Venerable Marut for an empowering three-day spiritual workshop at the beautiful Yokoji Zen Mountain Center, located just 2 hours outside of LA. In the serene wilderness of the San Jacinto Mountains, you will learn and practice heart opening methods for forgiveness. When you truly forgive, misunderstandings transform into gratitude, and happiness flourishes. Starting Friday evening and concluding Sunday afternoon, the retreat will include daily teachings, as well as morning meditation and yoga. Date: Friday April 9 through Sunday 11, 2010 |
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"Competition in Spiritual Practice" This edition of the "Dharma in the Media" deals, among other things, with the issue of competitiveness and our egoistic drive to be "better" than others. |
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While it’s bad enough to (wrongly) think that the way to succeed in school or at the job or in life in general is to aggressively push ahead of others we regard as "competitors," it’s even worse when we infuse and pollute our spiritual life with such a contentious attitude. Below you’ll find an article on the new trend to make yoga a competitive sport, together with a link to a podcast on yoga as big business, a New Yorker cartoon on the search for enlightenment conceived of as a reality TV show, and a %quot;Scary Consumer Product of the Month" that points to the absurd lengths some of us will go to achieve fame – even if only for a few hours and completely fraudulent. In addition, we’ve included articles on gratitude and television and links to some very cool on-line videos. Enjoy! Please remember that we need your help and recommendations for content for the newsletter. Email us at lamamarut@aci-la.org with your ideas for news stories or on-line videos, movie suggestions, dharma books that you have found helpful, "scary consumer goods", relevant websites, or anything else you’d like to share. |
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| NEWS STORIES OF THE MONTH | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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John Calabria found another good one. The article is entitled "Is the Spirit of Competition in the Soul of Yoga?" written by Sara Eckel and published in the Nov. 18, 2009, edition of the "New York Times". |
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The competitors stood nervously on stage, awaiting the judges’ decisions. As each name was called the crowd cheered, and the winner stepped forward to claim a prize, bowing his or her head to accept a medal. “Wow, that was a miracle,” said Kyoko Katsura, the winner in the women’s division of the New York Regional Yoga Championship. Yoga championship? Yoga enthusiasts like to talk about the many benefits of their practice — good health, inner peace, killer abs — but seldom do they brag about the thrill of victory. Yoga as a competitive sport has been almost unknown in this country, largely because the practice is seen as a spiritual quest rather than an exclusively physical exercise like gymnastics.
The ultimate goal of the Choudhurys, who emigrated from India to Los Angeles, is to have yoga qualify as an Olympic sport. “It’s far away,” Mrs. Choudhury said in an interview. “A lot of work needs to be done before we really get into it, but this is our dream.” One big obstacle may be the yoga community itself. To many people, the idea of competition goes against the philosophy of yoga, which emphasizes self-acceptance and inner growth. Although yoga does tend to attract people who are limber, the physical poses, or asanas, are only one aspect of the practice; others include chanting, meditation and reading Sanskrit. "The initial reaction from most people is always the same thing: competition yoga? Those things don’t belong in the same sentence", said John Philp, a filmmaker in New York who directed a documentary film, "Yoga, Inc.", about the commercialization of Western yoga, and wrote a book with the same title.
Also in dispute is the extent to which the Choudhurys could benefit if Bikram yoga — also known as "hot" yoga, because it is usually practiced in a room heated to 105 degrees — were to become the accepted standard for competition yoga, which already takes place in India and more than a dozen other countries. . . . Mrs. Choudhury said she hoped to get the participation of yogis from other schools and was open to tweaking the required poses in accordance with other styles as the competitions evolve. So far her efforts have met with resistance. Many yoga teachers do not like to see the physical aspect of yoga divorced from the spiritual or turned into a contest. "It perpetuates the idea that yoga is for lithe-bodied contortionists", said Michael Alba, a yoga teacher in Boston.
Richard Rosen, director of the Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, Calif., said that the Choudhurys’ Olympic quest was not taken seriously outside the Bikram community. "Most of the people I talk to think it’s very silly", he said. . . . For now, Mrs. Choudhury is focused on creating an infrastructure of regional contests with uniform rules and judging guidelines. At each competition, participants have three minutes to perform the five required postures as well as two other postures of their choosing, which do not have to be from the Bikram repertory. Contestants are judged on strength, flexibility, alignment, difficulty of the optional poses and overall execution. The New York Regional championship, which was hosted by yoga studios and two United States Yoga Federation members, Bikram Yoga NYC and Bikram Yoga Lower East Side, was held in October on the Upper West Side, with 34 contestants and Mrs. Choudhury as one of three judges. Luke Strandquist, a Bikram instructor in New York City who placed third among the men, said he had no problem with the notion of competitive yoga, since the tournaments were limited to the physical aspects of yoga — no one was attempting to rank enlightenment or inner peace.
But Mr. Strandquist did note a contradiction. "As a teacher, it’s the opposite of what I’m always telling my students: that you’re here to practice your yoga, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing", he said. Julie Kleinman, the vice president of programming for YogaWorks, a yoga-studio chain based in Santa Monica, Calif., said she had mixed feelings about competitive yoga. While she said she likes the idea that Olympic-style events could spread awareness of the practice, she is wary of anything that encouraged yogis to compare themselves with one another. A tournament "seems fairly antithetical to what yoga is all about", Ms. Kleinman said, adding, "I don’t really understand how you would compete to be the happiest, most balanced person." Mr. Rosen of the Piedmont Studio said that yoga contests could spread the perception that people with the most flexible limbs were the best yogis. "Unfortunately, yoga has been conflated with asana, which is a huge misapprehension", he said. "If the people who are winning asana competitions are suddenly being seen as more yogic than others, that’s a really bad comparison to make". > Click Here For Story |
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Competitiveness and peace of mind seem contradictory. But gratitude has been proven to enhance tranquility. "Feel Grateful, Sleep Better!" was posted on Oct. 19, 2009, on "About.com: Stress Management", a blog maintained by Elizabeth Scott. Thanks to Bob Arnold for the link. |
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I started keeping a gratitude journal several years ago, and, though I go through phases where I write more often or skip a few nights, I’ve found that I tend to drift to sleep more easily and happily after I’ve gotten myself into the ‘warm and fuzzy’ place that comes from counting my blessings. That’s why I wasn’t completely surprised when I ran across this research study about gratitude journaling: researchers have found that differences in gratitude levels actually affect sleep quality! Researchers assessed 186 men and 215 women (40% of which had clinically impaired sleep), and measured their level of gratitude, their quality of sleep, and five main personality traits (to see if differences in sleep quality could be tied to personality differences). (The five personality traits, which have been generally accepted as definitive to personality, are: openness to new experience, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism.) Researchers found that gratitude predicted better self-reported sleep quality, as well as duration of sleep, and less ‘sleep latency’ (the amount of time it takes to fall asleep after the lights have gone out) and daytime dysfunction. The relationship between gratitude and each of these variables was mediated by the thoughts people had before falling asleep: more positive before-sleep thoughts and less negative ones. All of these results were found to be unrelated to personality traits, including neuroticism, (which one might expect to affect sleep quality and ability to fall asleep). This research is pretty big news for those who need better quality sleep, and those who need more of it (which, according to a sleep poll on this site, includes the vast majority of us)! We can use this information to help ourselves and our children in many areas of our lives, since sleep deprivation affects not only our stress levels, but our daytime functioning. > Click Here For Story |
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Kim Rushton, who does research on trends like this for a living, has passed along the latest findings on television watching: "U.S. TV viewing at all time high in 2008-09" LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Americans are spending more time watching television, as well as playing on computers and chatting on social networking sites. The Nielsen Company said on Tuesday that U.S. television viewing reached an all time high in the 2008-09 season, with Americans spending an average four hours and 49 minutes a day in front of the television.
The figure, which includes Americans watching recorded TV within 7 days of airing and cable viewing, was up four minutes from the previous TV season year and up 20 percent from 10 years ago. Nielsen said the average household watched eight hours and 21 minutes a day on average — also an all-time high. Daily viewing during prime-time remained flat compared to a year ago but was still at its highest peak since 1991. > Click Here For Story "TV Viewing Among Kids at an Eight-Year High" American children aged 2-11 are watching more and more television than they have in years. New findings from The Nielsen Company show kids aged 2-5 now spend more than 32 hours a week on average in front of a TV screen. The older segment of that group (ages 6-11) spend a little less time, about 28 hours per week watching TV, due in part that they are more likely to be attending school for longer hours.
This trend of increased viewing among children mirrors the overall increase in media consumption we’ve been tracking over the last two years across TV, Internet, Games and Mobile phones. And much like their older family members, the majority of viewing for these kids is still done watching live TV. While 97% of kids’ viewing is through live TV, younger kids spend more time than the older group viewing via DVR, DVD and, to a lesser extent, VCR. Four percent of kids aged 2-5 watch via those devices on average across total day compared to 2.3% for those aged 6-11. Their considerable use of these devices at a young age points to them being able to adopt new devices comfortably as they grow up. One more thing younger kids do more than those age 6-11 is watch more commercials. Young kids also watch commercials in playback mode more than older kids and adults, as well as watch their favorite shows over and over and over on DVD, VOD and DVR.TV Viewing Among Kids at an Eight-Year High > Click Here For Story "TV exposure may make toddlers aggressive" NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – The more television that a three-year-old watches, the more likely he or she is to behave aggressively, according to a U.S. study. Just having the TV on in the background, even if the child wasn’t watching it, was also linked to aggressive behavior although the relationship wasn’t as strong, said the researchers.
"Parents should be smart about TV use," researcher Jennifer Manganello from the University at Albany, State University of New York, told Reuters Health. "They should limit the time that children use TV, pay attention to the content of TV programs, and consider how TV is used throughout the home."
The study looked at 3,128 women from 20 U.S. cities who had a child between 1998 and 2000. While there was some diversity of education among the study participants, one-third hadn’t graduated from high school. Two-thirds of the mothers said their three-year-old watched more than two hours of TV a day, and the average viewing time for children was around three hours. On average, the TV was on for about five additional hours on a typical day. After accounting for factors known to be associated with aggressive behavior, such as living in a violent neighborhood or having a mother who suffers from depression, TV watching and household TV time were both still significantly associated with aggressive behavior, such as hitting others, having angry moods, being disobedient, and screaming a lot.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV at all for children two and younger, and two hours a day or less for older kids, lead researcher Jennifer Manganello and her team from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine noted in their report. There are a number of ways that excessive TV viewing could contribute to a child’s degree of aggressive behavior, the researchers add in their study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Children may see violence on TV, and time spent watching TV may mean less time for behaviors that help kids develop positively, such as reading or playing. (Reporting by Anne Harding of Reuters Health, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith) |
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Cartoon of the Month |
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Patricia Swain sent in this cartoon from the "New Yorker Magazine":
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CAPTION: "This week on ‘The Amazing Race to Enlightenment,’ can Jim and Suzy achieve right mindfulness? And will Barb and Candy be eliminated for relentless clinging to the self?" Podcast (and Book) of the Month Thanks to Vancouver resident Hilary Cole for turning us on to this podcast from a CBC radio show called "Q". The second half of the August 3, 2009, podcast is on "Yoga and Big Business". Listen to John Philp, maker of the documentary "Yoga Inc." and author of a recently published book of the same name converse with a representative from "Moksha Yoga", a North American yoga studio chain. > Click Here For MP3
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| SCARY CONSUMER PRODUCTS OF THE MONTH | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Ever wondered what it would be like to be famous?" asks the advertisement for Celeb 4 A Day. If you find yourself in Austin, L.A., New York, or San Francisco, you can purchase an experience real celebrities would pay not to have. You too can be hounded by paparazzi!
"Just think about how much more fun it will be when your personal paparazzi are actually calling out questions about you and your life – just like they do with Lindsay, Brad, and Britney!" Just think! Top-of-the-line is the “MegaStar Package” which last for two hours at a cost to the would-be famous person of $2,999.99 (plus tax) (that’s for New York; it’s slightly cheaper in other cities). The package comes complete with "six personal paparazzi following your every move, asking questions about ‘the star,’ shouting your name, vying for your attention and everything else you’ve seen on T.V. and want to experience yourself". But wait! There’s more. You also get a body guard "to keep those pesky paparazzi [which you’ve paid $3,000 for!] from invading your personal space"; a publicist "to answer all the paparazzi’s questions, making sure you look and sound your best, and, of course, let them know you have ‘no comment!’"; plus a limo, pictures and headlines in Celeb 4 A Day’s "very own gossip magazine", and a DVD with pictures of "your experience".
Thanks again to John Calabria for finding this month’s truly scary consumer product. |
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| ON-LINE VIDEOS OF THE MONTH | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Scott Vacek found this funny and disruptive vid called “Everything is OK Montage”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VE9zU0FKj0&NR=1
Brian Stricker sent in this upbeat music video about addiction to the television: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0DezeQViTg
And thanks to Ava Gerber for sending in this link to a news story about a woman who dissuaded a bank robber through the power of love and compassion:
> Click Here For Story |
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What would someone who was liberated in this lifetime look like? Lama Marut’s recent teachings on "jivanmukti" explore this very question. Based on Chapter 18 of the Ashtavakra Gita, Lama Marut’s new talks, "Living the Perfect Life, Here and Now" at the Mahasukha Center in LA and Lucky Lotus in Brooklyn have been generating much interest and food for thought. His recent visit to New York also included a two-part teaching on the Narada Bhakti Sutra, revealing the path to liberation through the love for and service to God, the Teacher. "Living the Perfect Life, Here and Now" was broadcast live from the Mahasukha Center. Watch the archive on USTREAM: For Lama Marut’s live channel go here: Join the thousands (literally!) who are downloading free weekly Lama Marut videocasts and audio podcasts! Go to iTunes and search “Lama Marut” in the iTunes Store, or download audio podcasts from aci-la.org: http://www.aci-la.org/mg-podcasts.html
Twitter Into Happiness Just sign up at www.twitter.com and then text "follow LamaMarut" to 40404 from your phone. You’ll get daily inspirational thoughts sent as text messages. |
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Service is a wonderful way to stay connected to the Dharma, to help others have access to the teachings, and to create the karma for spiritual teachers and teachings to remain in your life. Please consider volunteering for the below opportunities: Web designers and developers: Transcribing teachings: We will send you an audio file of one of Lama Marut’s teachings for you to transcribe. A great way to listen to teachings! If you would like to do this, please email us at: carmencita.penaloza@gmail.com Geshe Michael Roach and Mercedes Bahleda Holiday CD! "A Christmas Kirtan"
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Help the Retreat Fund! With Christmas just around the corner, you might find the perfect gift at our Café Press store. Spread some "Grace, Devotion and Surrender" this Christmas! Thanks to Olivia Nguyen for her beautiful designs. |
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Lama Marut is returning to Australia and Singapore this January! For information, registration and flyers, please visit lamamarut.org: SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: Rocklyn, Victoria, Australia: Melbourne, Australia: Jan. 8-10, 2010, "The Yoga of the Body, Mind and Heart: Lord Krishna’s Advices on Living the Good Life from the Bhagavad Gita" Singapore: Jan. 15-17, 2010, "The Three Yogas of the Bhagavad Gita" Jan. 18 and 19, "Jump-Starting Your Practice: Advice on How to Cultivate Joyful Effort from Master Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life" Jan. 20 and 21, "Living the Perfect Life, Here and Now" THE MISSING TEACHINGS OF YOGA: An Intensive in the Yoga of Wisdom Join us this summer for an extraordinary two weeks of study, practice and fun in the stunning environs of beautiful South Lake Tahoe. A CLASSICS OF YOGA 200 HOUR INTENSIVE with Lama Marut and YSI Staff Teachers. Immerse yourself in the classic texts of the Yoga tradition; the Yoga Sutra, Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Bhagavad Gita and a new text on Jivanmukti ("liberated in this lifetime”) ~ all taught by Lama Marut. The intensive will also include daily Sanskrit classes, meditation and asana, classes on ‘How to Teach,’ the lineage of the Mahasiddhas and more… This retreat will fill up fast, so please be sure to REGISTER EARLY! For more information, please contact David Fishman:
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"Means and Ends" Does the end justify the means? Or more interestingly, are the means and end separable? Can the very idea that there is a difference between the two prevent us from achieving our goal? In this issue we take a look at questions and issues revolving around the end and the means to it: Is it possible to attain the goal without striving to obtain it, or is the striving itself one of the things that forestalls the realization of the goal? |
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| ATTENTION PODCAST LISTENERS!
If you have any questions that you would like Lama Marut to answer in a podcast interview, please email us at podcast@aci-la.org and we’ll ask him for you! DHARMA IN THE MEDIA Please keep sending the wonderful and the weird representations of the dharma in the media. Email us at lamamarut@aci-la.org with news stories, on-line videos, dharma books, websites or anything else expresses the dharma in our world. |
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When the Way Gets in the Way The teachings of the great spiritual masters are rarely straightforward — although we often wish they were and usually try to make them what they’re not. We hear profound and complex truths and then do our best to squeeze them into our simplified little pigeonholes. Spiritual truths generally do not conform to our desire for black and white divisions. Instead, they often appear to us as paradoxical or even contradictory.
The word "paradox" comes from the Greek "para" ("beyond") and "doxa"("belief"); paradoxos means "beyond belief" or "conflicting with expectation". And the truth does indeed often "conflict with expectation"! When we hear that the best thing to do when someone hurts us is to forgive and love them back, this does not accord with our impulsive and habitual urges. When we read that "the first shall be last and the last shall be first" we wonder if there hasn’t been some mix-up at the printer’s. "A paradox", according to one dictionary, "is an apparent falsehood that is true, or an apparent truth that is false". And we, in our ignorance, often invert the two. We, for example, think of things that are impermanent as permanent, the impure we mistake for the pure, that which is without essence we believe has an essence, and what ultimately brings us problems we think will bring us happiness. Another dictionary defines "paradox" as "A statement that seems contradictory or absurd but is actually valid or true". The fact that the truth can appear to us to be "contradictory or absurd" is simply a measure of the depths of our own ignorance. Bob Thurman is reputed to have said, "A dharma practitioner must have a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance." We must learn to open ourselves up to the paradoxical nature of spiritual truth, which really means we must let go of our usual classification of things into watertight and mutually exclusive categories. We must try to get more comfortable with the risky ambivalence of contradiction, incongruity, and conundrum.
It might seem paradoxical, for example, to say that we practitioners must BOTH learn how to work hard AND learn how to relax, to be BOTH disciplined AND free, to be BOTH mindful AND spontaneous. How can we be two contradictory things at once? How can we embrace and put into practice such paradoxical instruction? We are fortunate that in our immediate lineage we are taught how important discipline and effort are to a spiritual life. Dabblers and dilettantes in the dharma don’t usually stay too long with us. We insist that there is no substitution for — and no real progress without — a regular daily practice: daily meditation, contemplation, dharma study, checking one’s morality, and some kind of physical practice like yoga that will keep the inner energies flowing well. Without the fourth of the six perfections of Mahayana Buddhism — virya or "joyful effort" — not much will happen in your spiritual life, as the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life states clearly:
No effort, no merit. And I think anyone who is honest with themselves will recognize this. We know that it is at those times when we are really practicing well and consistently that we see noticeable shifts in our spiritual progress and level of happiness. On the other hand, it is when we slack off for days or even weeks and months that we backslide into our old habits and the unhappiness they engender. But as many type-A personality dharma practitioners quickly find out, it is possible to bring all the stress we associate with our secular life into our spiritual life as well. We can worry, get tense, feel anxious and insecure, and in general get all worked up about the very thing that’s supposed to bring us relief from such agitation. If your spiritual practice has become the source of anxiety and stress, it ain’t a spiritual practice anymore. It’s important to work hard on the path to improve and perfect yourself. But it is equally important to cultivate a relaxed and stress-free attitude about the path. The way can get in the way if it becomes the source of anything other than happiness and joy. That’s why in the chapter on virya Master Shantideva also insists that to maintain pleasure in the practice one should take time off when necessary: "When one loses strength, one should leave off in order to work again later." All religious traditions have some form of the "holiday" ("holy day"), and in some of them it is programmed into the weekly schedule. Honoring the sabbath means taking a day off from one’s labors – from one’s secular work but also perhaps from the exertions of meditation, study, mindfulness, etc. When one has worked hard all week on a spiritual pratice, it is advisable to "leave off" for a bit, as Master Shantideva advises, so as to return to the practice refreshed, renewed, and inspired. So, work hard but relax when needed. But there’s more. We must also learn to relax about working hard. It’s not just that, without taking breaks, the way or the path can become productive of stress rather than happiness. There is a deeper level to the concept of “the way getting in the way” — of the means themselves becoming obstacles to the end. The very idea that the path leads to a place different from where you are is, ultimately, a problem. It is a form of discontentment with the here and now. And discontentment cannot be overcome through perpetually desiring something that you don’t have or wishing you were someone you are not now. It is overcome by simply being happy with what you have and who you are. There is an obvious problem in the idea that one needs to be a different person or acquire something other or more to be content. We cannot "achieve" or "attain" happiness in any other way than by just being happy with who we are and what we have. We continually defer the goal by thinking that we haven’t yet reached it; we always keep it just beyond our grasp in the indefinite and imaginary future rather than in the real here and now. Paradoxically (as it were), we need to work hard to get to the place where we realize that there has never been anything at all that we need to "acquire" or "obtain". We won’t "reach" or "arrive at" nirvana; we will recognize and realize that it has always been a possibility right here, right now. To quote the great Arya Nagarjuna: There is nothing whatsoever
"Samsara" and "nirvana" are not distinct places or conditions; they are just two different perspectives on present reality. Our idealization of nirvana or enlightenment as some sort of never-never land, some heavenly realm completely and utterly different from where we are now, keeps it always in abeyance and at arm’s length. Anam Thubten, in his new book entitled No Self, No Problem, writes:
We’re deferring our own enlightenment by demanding the appearance of "mangoes, peaches, and halos" in the outer world. But nirvana and samsara are merely different viewpoints on our present reality. There is no nirvana to achieve through hard work and practice (although without hard work and practice, nothing will happen). There is only a nirvana to realize and apprehend through wisdom and understanding the truth (which comes from hard work and practice). We will, eventually, simply notice enlightenment, not procure it. The nirvanic point of view is perfectly content, at peace, with nothing that needs changing or correction. And the samsaric point of view is the opposite. It is defined by discontentment, striving, effort, thirst and craving for something more, something different, something new and transformed from what is. "Samsara", declares the Ashtavakra Gita, "is nothing other than having something that needs to be done". So back to the paradoxical nature of the truth. We must work hard. . . to get to the point where we realize there is nothing whatsoever that needs to be done. As Arya Nagarjuna puts it, we will never get to the goal by grasping at it: "Without grasping, I will extinguish suffering It is the grasping to the nirvanic state of non-grasping that keeps us from the nirvanic state of non-grasping! The very striving for truth, for happiness, for enlightenment, thwarts our awareness of it. In the Ashtavakra Gita, we read that
The "orthodoxy" tells us to discipline and exert ourselves (and that is true). A "heterodoxy" might suggest the opposite, to relax and let go (and that is also true). But the "paradoxy" teaches us to do both – to work hard AND relax, to make strong efforts to come to the realization that nothing needs doing, nothing needs to be fixed or to change or to be anything other than what it is . . . and always has been. |
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"They say the means are after all just means. I would say means are after all everything. As the means, so the end." – Mahatma Gandhi "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." – Epicurus
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Sarva means "whole", "entire", "all", or "everything". It appears in compound in words like "sarvajna" or "omniscience" – one of the qualities of a Buddha – to convey the full completion of something. The word comes into English via the Latin salvus ("whole", "safe", "healthy") in terms like "safe", "salvage", "save", and "salvation". We also see it in the words "salutary" and "salubrious" ("promoting health") as well as in the French "salut" ("health") and the English "salute" ("to wish someone good health"). To "be saved" is thus "to become whole" as well as "to be safe" and "to become healthy",” with the implication being that we are presently incomplete, at risk, and sick. Our spiritual practice moves us from this sense of deficiency to the realization of "wholeness" (and "holiness") or "completeness" that the word sarva connotes. |
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The following question was posed at the Massachusetts Heart Sutra retreat held last month: Are you interested in hearing about the mystical experiences of your students? I sometimes do hear about such experiences, whether or not I’m interested! Special experiences are common among serious spiritual practitioners. Indeed, one can sort of count on them happening if you practice well over a period of time. They come with the territory and can be a good sign that one’s common and samsaric perceptions of reality are shifting. But what’s way more important than just having mystical experiences is what function they serve in your life. If such special events are just enhancing the ego and its sense of importance, then they really are not that special. It is easy to interpret and use these kinds of incidents to just further amplify one’s own sense of self-importance, in which case actually there is nothing “spiritual” about the experience at all! And in answer to the question posed, no, I don’t really care to hear about them, any more than I would want to hear about how rich or beautiful or athletic or talented the student thinks they are. Furthermore, one can get addicted to these kinds of spiritual "highs" and, in between times, neglect one’s daily practice, other people and their needs, and also the miracles that are all around us all the time. The mystical "junkie" again just ends up trying to feed the insatiable cravings of the ego for something that will make it feel unusual and noteworthy. If, on the other hand, the mystical experience has as its result to break down the ego and make the experiencer more compassionate and less self-absorbed, then great! But chances are that if this is in fact the outcome of the incident, the person isn’t going to want to share it much anyway. For what would be the purpose of talking to others about it? If the ego is involved there would be some obvious reasons why one would want to "share". But if it isn’t, there really is not much point in a discussion about the occurrence. The truly sacred is too special to taint by discussing it as one would a cool holiday, a pay raise, or a new car. The sacred is secret and is kept sacred by being kept secret. As the saying goes (attributed sometimes to Lao Tzu), "Those who know don’t speak, those who speak don’t know." In sum, the only really significant mystical experiences are the ones that change us for the better, and not the ones that enhance the ego and its omnivorous desire to make anything into something that would further magnify and glorify it.
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According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube. Percentage of households that possess at least one television: 99 Number of murders seen on TV by the time an average child finishes elementary school: 8,000 Compiled by TV-Free America
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For free weekly Lama Marut videocasts and audio podcasts in iTunes, search "Lama Marut" in the iTunes Store, or download audio podcasts from aci-la.org: > http://www.aci-la.org/mg-podcasts.html New On-Line Interview with Lama Marut on Compassion in the Media Readers of last month’s newsletter might remember our mention of Jon Rubenstein’s awesome website entitled "Adventures in Compassion (In the Screen Trade)". For a 10 minute interview with Lama Marut on media violence, compassion, and "My Name is Earl", > Please click here
FULL-LENGTH AUDIO In October, Venerable Marut returned to the Three Jewels, Tucson, for three wonderful evenings on "Jesus and The Buddha on How to Live the Good Life". For an in-depth exploration of the seminal "Heart Sutra", please take the time to listen to the retreat Ven. Marut lead on this sutra, offering some incredible teachings on emptiness. And the latest tour to Brooklyn and New Jersey was, as always, full of teachings on the full enchilada yoga and a lively two-night talk at Lucky Lotus on Master Shantideva’s chapter on "Killing Anger". Download teachings at: > http://www.aci-la.org/teach_marut_recent.html Audio Podcasts: Download podcasts at: Or go to the iTunes store and search "Lama Marut" to subscribe to "A Lama Sumati Marut Podcast". Video Podcasts: >http://www.aci-la.org/mg-video.html Or go to the iTunes store and search "Lama Marut" to subscribe to "A Lama Marut Video Podcast". LIVE VIDEO WEBCASTS For Lama Marut’s live channel on ustream, go here: For all of Lama Marut’s archived videos on ustream.tv go here: Text Messaging of Your Vows Don’t forget this great new service whereby you can be reminded to check your Buddhist vows throughout the day via a text message sent to your phone. Even if you haven’t taken vows, this is a great way to stay mindful of your morality all day long. Check it out: Lama Marut’s Web Gallery
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Help the Mahasukha Kula Great Retreat Fund NEW DESIGNS at CafePress!! Inspired by the Windhover retreat on "Grace, Devotion and Surrender: Meditations on meeting and becoming the Divine", Olivia has created designs for t-shirts, stickers, bags, cups and more focused around the three themes of grace, devotion and surrender. Please check them out! All profits go directly into the retreat fund: If you’re interested in earning more about our journey to retreat, please visit: Volunteer Opportunities Join Team Marut! For a more extensive list of our Dharma projects and volunteer opportunities, please visit: Online Communities Join Lama Marut’s pages on: Facebook: MySpace: > http://www.myspace.com/lamamarut
Join 700 others who are now receiving daily inspirational messages from Lama Marut sent directly to your phone as a text message! To get your daily dharma fix, just create a profile at www.twitter.com and then text "follow LamaMarut" to 40404 from your phone. |
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Upcoming teachings As part of ACI-LA’s Festival of Bliss, I’m hosting their 2nd Annual Benefit – when they raise the funds necessary to continue to bring Dharma ~ Yoga ~ Happiness to people around the world. If you cannot attend in person, I invite you to join me remotely, on Thursday, November 5th at 7:30pm PST. It is through the generous efforts of ACI-LA and its volunteers that all of the audio and video podcasts, full-length teachings, and live broadcasts are made available to thousands of people around the world. I’ll be teaching on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 3rd and 4th (details in flier below), and hosting the Benefit – with an online Silent Auction and Co-Op Auction – on Thursday, November 5th. I welcome you to watch the teachings, and then join the Benefit celebration to help support the continuation of this valuable resource. Hope to ‘see’ you then. Lama Marut Watch the Teachings & Participate in the Auctions Live by Remote! http://www.ustream.tv/channel/BlissFest CO-OP AUCTION at http://www.aci-la.org/support.html
Los Angeles: November 3 & 4, 7:30-9:30 PM November 5, starting from 7:30 PM New York City: November 21 and 22, 1:00-5:30 PM November 21 and 22, 8:00-10:00 PM Zephyr Cove, Nevada: November 26-29 For more information please visit: Registration at the Yoga Studies Institute:
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"Beyond Alienation" With this, our fourth edition of our bi-monthly “Dharma in the Media” newsletters, we pass along a variety of media links, many of which deal with the theme of our inter-connectedness with others. In our lead “News Story of the Month,” for example, we learn that our personal sense of uniqueness and individuality is probably vastly overblown. If we realized how much we share with others, we’d be more likely to learn from them and their experiences. Have a look also at the “On-Line Videos of the Month” which include beautiful depictions of bodhisattvas acting in our world, and Jon Rubenstein’s “Website of the Month” wherein he offers a goldmine of information about compassion in the media. |
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| Please remember that we need your help and recommendations for content for the newsletter. Email us at lamamarut@aci-la.org with recommendations for news stories or on-line videos, movie suggestions, dharma books that you have found helpful, "scary consumer goods", relevant websites, or anything else you’d like to share. | |
| NEWS STORIES OF THE MONTH | |
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Thanks to Larry Wolf who sent in the link to the following. “What I take from the article,” says Larry, “is a confirmation that we are lousy at predicting the future — and that by hearing from those who already have experience, we can make better decisions.” The article is entitled, “Do You Know What Makes You Happy?: Other People Know More About Our Happiness Than We Do,” and was written by Amy LaVoie, Harvard University, published March 19, 2009. |
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Want to know what will make you happy? Then ask a total stranger — or so says a new study from Harvard University, which shows that another person’s experience is often more informative than your own best guess. The study, which appears in the current issue of Science, was led by Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard and author of the 2007 bestseller Stumbling on Happiness, along with Matthew Killingsworth and Rebecca Eyre, also of Harvard, and Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia. "If you want to know how much you will enjoy an experience, you are better off knowing how much someone else enjoyed it than knowing anything about the experience itself," says Gilbert. "Rather than closing our eyes and imagining the future, we should examine the experience of those who have been there." Previous research in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics has shown that people have difficulty predicting what they will like and how much they will like it, which leads them to make a wide variety of poor decisions. Interventions aimed at improving the accuracy with which people imagine future events have been generally unsuccessful.
So rather than trying to improve human imagination, Gilbert and his colleagues sought to eliminate it from the equation by asking people to predict how much they would enjoy a future event about which they knew absolutely nothing — except how much a total stranger had enjoyed it. Amazingly enough, those people made extremely accurate predictions. In one experiment, women predicted how much they would enjoy a "speed date" with a man. Some women read the man’s personal profile and saw his photograph, and other women learned nothing whatsoever about the man, but did learn how much another woman (whom they had never met) had enjoyed dating him. Women who learned about a previous woman’s experience did a much better job of predicting their own enjoyment of the speed date than did women who studied the man’s profile and photograph. Interestingly, both groups of women mistakenly expected the profile and photo to lead to greater accuracy, and after the experiment was over both groups said they would strongly prefer to have the profile and photograph of their next date. In the second experiment, two groups of participants were asked to predict how they would feel if they received negative personality feedback from a peer. Some participants were shown a complete written copy of the feedback. Others were shown nothing, and learned only how a total stranger had felt upon receiving the feedback. The latter group more accurately predicted their own reactions to the negative feedback. Once again, participants mistakenly guessed that a written copy of the feedback would be more informative than knowledge of a total stranger’s experience. "People do not realize what a powerful source of information another person’s experience can be," says Gilbert, "because they mistakenly believe that everyone is remarkably different from everyone else. But the fact is that an alien who knew all the likes and dislikes of a single human being would know a great deal about the species. People believe that the best way to predict how happy they will be in the future is to know what their future holds, but what they should really want to know is how happy those who’ve been to the future actually turned out to be." Source: http://www.harvardscience.harvard.edu/culture-society/articles/do-you-know-what-makes-you-happy
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Brook Cosby says, "Ran across this on the web, thought of you. Social science researchers talking about religion and higher levels of ‘life satisfaction’." The article was published by the BBC on March 18, 2008. |
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A belief in God could lead to a more contented life, research suggests. Religious people are better able to cope with shocks such as losing a job or divorce, claims the study presented to a Royal Economic Society conference. Data from thousands of Europeans revealed higher levels of "life satisfaction" in believers. . . . This is not the first study to draw links between religion and happiness, with a belief among many psychologists that some factor in either belief, or its observance, offering benefits. Professor Clark, from the Paris School of Economics, and co-author Dr. Orsolya Lelkes from the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, used information from household surveys to analyse the attitudes of Christians – both Catholic and Protestant – not only to their own happiness, but also to issues such as unemployment. Their findings, they said, suggested that religion could offer a "buffer" which protected from life’s disappointments. Professor Clark said, "We originally started the research to work out why some European countries had more generous unemployment benefits than others, but our analysis suggested that religious people suffered less psychological harm from unemployment than the non-religious. They had higher levels of life satisfaction." Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/7302609.stm
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Bogus News Story of the Month |
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Several people sent this article to me. It was supposedly published in the French language paper Tribune de Geneve on July 15 of this year, and has circulated widely around the net (including on "Beliefnet.org"). Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an organization called the "International Coalition for the Advancement of Religion and Spirituality" (nor does its supposed acronym, "ICARUS," make sense), nor is there evidence that the Tribune de Geneve published the story at all. The last two paragraphs add a particularly clever twist! |
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"Buddhism wins Best Religion in the World Award" In advance of their annual Leading Figure award to a religious figure who has done the most to advance the cause of humanism and peace, the Geneva-based International Coalition for the Advancement of Religious and Spirituality (ICARUS) has chosen to bestow a special award this year on the Buddhist Community. "We typically prefer an under-the-radar approach for the organization, as we try to embody the spirit of modesty found in the greatest traditions," said ICARUS director Hans Groehlichen in a phone conference Monday. "But with organized religion increasingly used as a tool to separate and inflame rather than bring together, we felt we had to take the unusual step of creating a "Best Religion in the World" award and making a bit of a stir, to inspire other religious leaders to see what is possible when you practice compassion." Groehlichen said the award was voted on by an international roundtable of more than 200 religious leaders from every part of the spiritual spectrum. "It was interesting to note that once we supplied the criteria, many religious leaders voted for Buddhism rather than their own religion," said Groehlichen. "Buddhists actually make up a tiny minority of our membership, so it was fascinating but quite exciting that they won." Criteria included factors such as promoting personal and community peace, increasing compassion and a sense of connection, and encouraging preservation of the natural environment. Groehlichen continued "The biggest factor for us is that ICARUS was founded by spiritual and religious people to bring the concepts of non-violence to prominence in society. One of the key questions in our voting process was which religion actually practices non-violence." When presenting the information to the voting members, ICARUS researched each of the 38 religions on the ballot extensively, offering background, philosophy, and the religions’ role in government and warfare. Jonna Hult, Director of Research for ICARUS said "It wasn’t a surprise to me that Buddhism won Best Religion in the World, because we could find literally not one single instance of a war fought in the name of Buddhism, in contrast to every other religion that seems to keep a gun in the closet just in case God makes a mistake. We were hard pressed to even find a Buddhist that had ever been in an army. These people practice what they preach to an extent we simply could not document with any other spiritual tradition." At least one Catholic priest spoke out on behalf of Buddhism. Father Ted O’Shaughnessy said from Belfast, "As much as I love the Catholic Church, it has always bothered me to no end that we preach love in our scripture yet then claim to know God’s will when it comes to killing other humans. For that reason, I did have to cast my vote for the Buddhists." And Muslim Cleric Tal Bin Wassad agreed from Pakistan via his translator. "While I am a devout Muslim, I can see how much anger and bloodshed is channeled into religious expression rather than dealt with on a personal level. The Buddhists have that figured out." Bin Wassad, the ICARUS voting member for Pakistan’s Muslim community continued, "In fact, some of my best friends are Buddhist." And Rabbi Shmuel Wasserstein said from Jerusalem, "Of course, I love Judaism, and I think it’s the greatest religion in the world. But to be honest, I’ve been practicing Vipassana meditation every day before minyan (daily Jewish prayer) since 1993. So I get it."
Groehlichen said that the plan was for the award to Buddhism for "Best Religion in the World" to be given to leaders from the various lineages in the Buddhist community. However, there was one snag. "Basically we can’t find anyone to give it to," said Groehlichen in a followup call late Tuesday. "All the Buddhists we call keep saying they don’t want the award." Groehlichen explained the strange behavior, saying "Basically they are all saying they are a philosophical tradition, not a religion. But that doesn’t change the fact that with this award we acknowledge their philosophy of personal responsibility and personal transformation to be the best in the world and the most important for the challenges facing every individual and all living beings in the coming centuries." When asked why the Burmese Buddhist community refused the award, Buddhist monk Bhante Ghurata Hanta said from Burma, "We are grateful for the acknowledgement, but we give this award to all humanity, for Buddha nature lies within each of us." Groehlichen went on to say "We’re going to keep calling around until we find a Buddhist who will accept it. We’ll let you know when we do." |
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| ON-LINE VIDEO OF THE MONTH | |
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Rob Nunn turned us on to this truly awesome depiction of a modern urban bodhisattva at work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzVEFWYTHHE&feature=player_embedded David Simmons found this amazing story of how "one old black man defeated the whole of the Ku Klux Klan" with love and patience – and humor!:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/08/28/howto-defeat-the-kla.html And thanks to Kate Manfredi for sending in this YouTube video of a news story focusing on yoga teacher Jen Swain and her antidote for road rage. Kate remarks, "Now there’s no excuse for anyone not to do a little yoga everyday!" http://www.youtube.com/user/OmTheRoad#play/all/uploads-all/0/a-fpFahH3sw |
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| DOCUMENTARY OF THE MONTH | |
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Check out this trailer "Sunrise/Sunset," a new documentary which depicts a nominal 24 hours spent by the film crew inside the residence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from the beginning of his day, which starts at 3:00 a.m., until sunset, when the Buddhist leader goes to bed. Filmmaker Vitali Manski also got a chance to enjoy an informal conversation about the essence of the universe and the role an individual has to play in religion in general and Buddhism in particular in the frameworks of contemporary society." The film screened this past summer in Los Angeles and elsewhere. |
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| WEBSITE OF THE MONTH | |
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Check out Jon Rubenstein’s blog, "Adventures in Compassion (in the Screen Trade)," at http://becompassion.blogspot.com. Jon is a self-described "show biz manager" and "in a business full of slasher sequels, bug-eating reality TV, and fart comedies, he’s promoting compassion." Lots and lots of cool uploads, links, and other media material from Jon’s Buddhist p.o.v.
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| SCARY CONSUMER PRODUCTS OF THE MONTH | |
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"Need some help waking up?" asks Sky Mall’s website. Instead of doing something sane like going to bed earlier, how about purchasing the "Sonic Boom Alarm Clock AM/FM Radio with Bed Shaker"? It comes with "the newest, most powerful 12 volt bed shaker" as well as "a loud 113db adjustable tone." For those who really want to insure a un-samadhi-like start to their day! Thanks to Holger Wolff for sending in this link to a German ad for the Swiss Army Knife from Hell. You gotta see it to believe it! As if we weren’t obsessed enough already with ourselves, John Calabria has discovered a new soft drink called "Me." The advertizing plays seductively on our narcissism: "You are many different things rolled into a one-of-a-kind individual. You can be energetic, reflective, outgoing, moody, surprising, and unashamed. You don’t fit a category – you are unique. Now there is a beverage that is as natural and refreshing as you. Welcome to the new ‘Me.’" The soda pop comes in flavors like "Uninhibited," "Curious," and "Vivacious." |
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| iPHONE APP OF THE MONTH | |
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Barbara Simundza found this cool app for your iPhone or iPod Touch ($1.99 from iTunes) called "Meditate." It tracks the number of times you sit down to practice and the duration of each session. Check it out: |
| Lama Marut Teaches on Kaladanda Yogawear’s Website | |
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Go to http://www.kaladanda.com for a nine minute teaching on the perfection of stillness by Lama Marut. And be sure to check out the videos on the perfections of generosity, kindness, and patience by, respectively, Mira Shani, Karl Straub, and Narayani which are also found on the Kaladanda site. |
| NEW VIDEO AND AUDIO TEACHINGS ON-LINE | |
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For free, weekly Lama Marut audio and video podcasts in iTunes, search "Lama Marut" in the iTunes Store, or download audio podcasts from aci-la.org: Latest audio podcasts come from Lama Marut’s teachings in Santa Cruz about the Four Arya Truths and the Six Perfections. And check out the videocast "Contentment is Being Happy, Here and Now," about how our constant hallucinations of an imaginary past and fantasies about a future that is yet to come, mean that we are hardly ever where we are right now ~ the present! Full-Length Audio Check the "Download Teachings" section on www.aci-la.org for two wonderful retreats taught by Venerable Marut in August and September, The 5th Annual Windhover Retreat entitled, "Grace, Devotion and Surrender: Meditations on Meeting and Becoming the Divine" and the Zuda Yoga Teacher Training Retreat in South Lake Tahoe. He also visited Mountain Yoga in Tahoe and offered "Happiness, Emptiness and Yoga Philosophy" teachings in Reno. Live Video Webcasts "The Happiness Revolution" at the Three Jewels, Tucson, was retroactively put up online! Click on the link below to watch the archives. >http://www.ustream.tv/channel/happiness-revolution 
For Lama Marut’s live channel on ustream, go here: "http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lama-marut" For all of Lama Marut’s archived videos on ustream.tv go here: |
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| HOW YOU CAN HELP | |
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Help the Mahasukha Kula Great Retreat Fund NEW DESIGNS at CafePress!! Thanks to the generosity and talent of the the wonderful designer Olivia Nguyen (who, by the way, designed the cool wisdom and compassion wings and "Wisdom is Bliss" t-shirts we see being worn all over the country!) we have a whole new set of designs in our CafePress store.
Inspired by the theme of "Grace, Devotion and Surrender" Olivia has created beautiful designs for t-shirts, stickers, bags, cups and more focused around the three themes of grace, devotion and surrender. Please check them out! All profits go directly into the retreat fund: Volunteer Opportunities Join Team Marut! We Need You! We’d love to hear from anyone who could volunteer some time and skill to our various projects. Transcribers, video editors, web designers and developers, graphic designers, marketing and publicity gurus . . . or just drop us a line and let us know you’re out there and want to sign up to become part of the crew. at: For a more extensive list of our Dharma projects and volunteer opportunities, please visit: > http://thousandarms.wordpress.com/ Or for more information, please email:
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| ONLINE COMMUNITIES | |
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Join Lama Marut’s pages on: Facebook: MySpace: Twitter Into Happiness Join 700 others who are now receiving daily inspirational messages from Lama Marut sent directly to your phone as a text message! To get your daily dharma fix, just create a profile at www.twitter.com and then text "follow LamaMarut" to 40404 from your phone. |
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| UPCOMING TEACHINGS | |
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New Jersey: Sept. 29, 7:00-9:00 PM, "The Six Perfections" Sept. 30, 7:00-10:00 PM, "The Happiness Revolution: Ancient Techniques for Radical Transformation" Special Events begin at 7:00, teaching starts at 8:00 Oct. 1, 3:00-5:00 PM, "Completing Your Yoga: Cultivating a Daily Meditation Practice" Oct. 1, 7:00-9:00 PM, "How Yoga Works" Tucson, Arizona: Wednesdays, Oct. 14, 21, and 28, 7:30-9:30 PM, "Jesus and the Buddha on How to Live the Good Life" Los Angeles, California: NOVEMBER 26-29, Thanksgiving Retreat in Lake Tahoe, Nevada: “Blissful Path to Bliss.” Become a part of this great retreat tradition on the shores of the beautiful Lake Tahoe. This year we are going through "De Lam, Steps of the Path to Bliss." Experiencing the Lam Rim of His Holiness the First Panchen Lama (1570-1662) > Click here for more (http://www.lamamarut.org/?page_id=467)
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