Monday 31 December 2012

New Years Day Intention-Setting Kirtan in Vancouver - 7pm

                 ॐ
Namasté Friends
You are invited to join us for a
NEW YEAR'S DAY ~ INTENTION SETTING KIRTAN ~
January 1st, 2013
7 PM

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
~ BLESSINGS FOR NEW BEGINNINGS ~
OM GUM GANAPATAYE NAMAHA
Let's mark our shift to the NEW YEAR 2013
A YEAR OF TRANSFORMATION AHEAD
We'll start it off by setting our Highest Intentions,
singing our truth and delivering
the spirit of the NAME
with our friendly voices lifting in
call and response KIRTAN and Mantra meditation

Bring your intentions, sankalpas,
admirable resolves and unwaivering determination
to make this your best year, ever!
You might even consider writing your sankalpa on paper
and having it with you.


Join Sandra Leigh (Vox, Harmonium), Stefan Cihelka (Tabla),
Kim Fischer (Response) & many friendly voices.
All are welcome. No experience is needed.

PLEASE NOTE A DIFFERENT START TIME
for this special event:

7 PM
Open Door Yoga Studio
2111 W.16th @ Arbutus in Kitsilano
(doors open / warm up at 6:45)
~ Gratitude ~
$20 donation /$15 underemployed / $10 concession
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
This event is fueled by donation in order to
keep the KIRTAN lamps burning brightly.
No one turned away for lack of funds
because we have volunteer exchange available.
Please contact us before the event for details.
KIRTAN IS THE YOGA OF LOVE
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
May All Beings Be Peaceful
Om Shanti Om

Saturday 29 December 2012

Peaceful Bhajan & Jane Fonda Speaking about Yoga Practice

              Om Namaha Shivaya (Peaceful Bhajan)

Sitting Down with Jane Fonda
By , LA Yoga, December 11, 2012.

LA YOGA: Tell me about your own yoga practice.

Jane Fonda: I started yoga late in life, in 1996. As is my way, I went from not doing yoga to doing Asthanga. At the time, I was married to Ted Turner and found a great teacher who would travel with me so I had great and detailed teaching for several months. I practiced Asthanga for about four years; then I stated practicing Iyengar. Then I stopped for a while because of back surgery—I had arthritis, which is why I’ve had hip and knee replacements and I have only restarted yoga recently.

LA YOGA: What inspired you to begin?

JF: All along, there was a little wise voice in the back of my head that was a whisper at first: “You need to meditate; you need to learn to do yoga.” I’m wound tight, I have a lot of energy, I move fast, and I know that I need to slow down and go in. I didn’t realize how yoga does everything — it is aerobic, it works your muscles, and it works your soul and mind. It keeps you limber, balanced, and centered. It had a huge impact on me.

In my book Prime Time, in the chapter “The Work In,” I talk about learning to meditate while on an eight-day silent Buddhist meditation retreat at the Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico.  Eight days of silent meditation in a group—that is hard! But if I’m going to do something, I’m going to go right into the fire.

LA YOGA: Why these videos now?

JF: It took me three years to do the research for Prime Time. All the research pointed to the importance of staying physically active, to the extent that it blew my mind. If you ask Dr. Oz and other experts what is the number one most important thing for people to age successfully, they would say to stay physically active.

I thought: Who better than I to help people do that because I’m old and I’ve build up credibility in the workout arena? Most of what’s out there is for people who can do what I used to do, and since I can’t do that anymore, my demographic is being left out.  And I don’t mean just people who are chronologically old but people in their  40s who have never worked out, are out of shape or have had surgery, or people who are getting back into exercise or beginning it for the first time. These are all included in the demographic I address now.

LA YOGA: What do you do in your own life to stay balanced?

JF: Now I do the yoga videos, but before yoga, I knew that I needed to stay active. Something happens to me when I start to move: I feel so good and have such a sense of well-being that I miss it when I don’t have it. It keeps me centered. I come from a long line of depressed people on both sides of my family, and without staying active, I would tend to become depressed. The older I’ve gotten, the more important it is. I used to do it to look good but now I do it to feel good.

LA YOGA: How has your fitness regime changed?

JF: One word. Slower. When you grow older, you want to go slower or you will get hurt. You can still lift weights, but they are lighter. I no longer run, but I do walk. There is something about yoga that when you are done with it you feel elegant, taller, straighter, prouder, and wiser. I feel that I look better from the inside out. I know that 90% of that is attitude that comes from the inside. I think that yoga is one of the major contributors to that inside-out beauty.

LA YOGA: What has shifted for you as a result of your yoga and meditation practices?

JF: I’m kinder. I listen to people with more compassion. I am more patient.

                                    

As I describe in “Work In” in Prime Time, I had a powerful meditation experience that inspired me to study physics.

Meditating is hard. Once you achieve mindlessness, you know where to go and it becomes easier. It’s like you can’t do it, can’t do it, can’t do it, and then you can. My “can” happened on the seventh day. There were sixty of us at the temple at Upaya, and there was a noise that accompanied the sensation and I felt as though I was being sucked into a tunnel—the doors were opened and we went out the doors and over the tops of the trees and over the hills and out there.

On some non-cognitive level, I experienced the fact that we are all one. We are made from molecules of the stars and we are all just fields of energy. Yoga helps remind me to not be stressed when I breathe and realize that we are just part of the stars. Yoga is the thing that brings me back there.

LA YOGA: Did these experiences surprise you in any way?

Yoga practice offers a link to the state of mind which I have come to cherish. As you get older, it can make the difference between living a self-realized life or not.

LA YOGA: Speaking of acting, how does it feel to be acting again?

JF: It has helped me to be in the moment and stay present. Whenever a young actor happens to let it be known that she does yoga, I think, “She is going to be okay.” I wouldn’t want to be a young actor for anything. It’s much harder now; it was harder for me than it was for my dad. It’s become more competitive with more pressure on the wrong things. People old and young need something to maintain a perspective.

Yet, if you are doing yoga and thinking about what you have to do during the day, you aren’t really doing yoga. You have to be present in your body in the moment to get out of it what there is to get out of it. When you are present in your body, you are capable of compassion and empathy for yourself as well as others. Your brain isn’t just between your ears; it’s in your whole body, the neurological system in your whole body. 

Thursday 27 December 2012

Time of Grace

If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation. ♥  
~ Lao Tzu

 
The Gayatri Mantra Around The World - Deva Premal


Monday 24 December 2012

Merry Christmas!





 


A 25-foot (7.57 metre) tall sand sculpture of Santa Claus, created by Indian sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik, is seen at the Golden Beach in Puri on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2008. Despite Christians forming a little over two percent of the billion plus population in India, with Hindus comprising the majority, Christmas is celebrated with much fanfare and zeal throughout the country. AFP PHOTO/STR (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images) 2008 AFP.

Bangla Dhun (Live in New York City 1971) - Ravi Shankar And Ustad Ali Akbar Khan


  
 



Sunday 23 December 2012

Peace & Goodwill

"Goodwill unto all religions; peace unto all people; peace unto all creatures; peace unto all that lives." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Beautiful! 

                        I AM ~ Guru Singh & Seal

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”
― Black Elk

Wednesday 19 December 2012

Reminder: Global Kirtan - December 21, 2012

 
FRIDAY, December 21, 2012
GLOBAL KIRTAN

& Mantra Meditations
ST. PAUL'S LABYRINTH
7 PM
1130 Jervis @ Davie
West End, Vancouver
(pay parking at the old Super Value lot on Davie)

CANDLE LIGHT & LABYRINTH
Mantra Meditations on PEACE & LIGHT & LOVE
Labyrinth Angels 11.11.11
Featuring the inspiring energy of the
WORLD PEACE FLAME
with Sandra Leigh (Vox, Harmonium) Stefan Cihelka (Tabla)
Kim Fischer (response vocals) and many friendly voices

ABOUT THE GLOBAL KIRTAN:
We at GPaC Kirtan Community feel honoured
to be participating in this Global Kirtan &
World Peace Prayer event.
Thanks to the initiative of K.d. McComb in California,
thousands will gather internationally,

connecting heart engines, positive intentions
to wake up to our Highest Aspirations,
both individually and for the whole of creation.
It's a very special time for us ALL
WE ARE ONE HEALING VIBRATION !
Come sing, dance, walk or rest in meditation a while.
The Labyrinth is a mystical, magical healing space
of transformation.


Wherever you are: 21.12.2012
set the positive intention of GRATITUDE,
Future Hope, LOVE,
HEALING, respecting one another
and this beautiful planet we call EARTH.
 
Join us in this special celebration
EVERYONE IS WELCOME
Admission : $20 /$15 for underemployed
$10 for students and seniors
                                 labyrinth

Thursday 13 December 2012


What would happen if a Billion people were all unified in meditation, prayer, and celebration through a single sound vibration at the same time?

                              1 Billion Oms

Let’s find out! 3 Minutes could change all of our lives!
PARTICIPATE in the world’s largest simultaneous meditation and OM vibration in modern history on December 22nd, 2012 at 12PM India Standard Time
See Time Zones Map for what time this is where you live.
 
Live webcast 

***************************** 

Watch THE BLOOM: A Journey Through Transformational Festivals

 

Wednesday 12 December 2012

The Shift: Spirituality & Ethics Beyond Religion


“All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.”   ~ Dalai Lama

Did the Dalai Lama Just Call for an End to Religion
By Richard Schiffman, Religion Dispatches, November 29, 2012. 

Well, not exactly—here is what the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism actually told his four million friends on Facebook earlier this fall: (see above quote).

It is easy to sympathize with the Dalai Lama’s frustration. After millennia of being preached at by priests and prophets, humanity is still addicted to war; we continue to lay waste to the planet’s fragile ecosystem; we torture animals, repress ethnic minorities, and ignore the plight of the poor.

Worse still, religion has often been in service of the very sins of intolerance that its prophets have railed against. Abortion clinics are bombed to support a “pro-life” agenda; religiously inspired hatred in the Middle East have fueled ongoing war—religiously inspired hatred everywhere have led to countless horrors.

In the past, such moral failings, while contributing to human misery, did not put life itself at risk. But that has changed. Our once-marginal species is now the dominant life form on the planet numbering over seven billion souls. Granted, there are still more microorganisms in a shovelful of prime agricultural soil than human beings on Earth. But bacteria don’t have brains, and the crux of the problem is that we do.

To call the brain a “problem,” of course, is only half of the story. The human mind has created art, science, philosophy, government, education, and the miracles of modern medicine. Religion, with its exalted ethical and spiritual teachings, is another example—whatever Richard Dawkins might say—of our human capacity for creating good.

The New Atheists are right of course when they fault religion for not living up to its own ideals. They would get no argument from the Dalai Lama on this. But His Holiness would be quick to point out that the moral principles themselves are not to blame—it’s our failure to act on them.

The Dalai Lama recommends a radical new approach: a religionless religion, if you will, stripped of myth, superstition, and narrow dogmatism, and focused on the practical work of transforming human behavior. He wants to incorporate the insights of the hard sciences as well as psychology, philosophy, and sociology into a broad-based new discipline to address our current moral crisis.

But can religion be rationalized into a pure system of ethics without losing its (historically) persuasive power?

Some have pointed to Buddhism itself as an example of just such a system. Western practitioners like to think of Buddhism as a methodology for self-cultivation rather than as a religion per se. But Tibetan Buddhism, with its pantheon of deities and arcane practices, certainly looks familiarly religious to those of us brought up on Western religious myths and symbols.

I suspect that His Holiness would agree that these religious elements are not a bad thing. Because religion, for all its faults, seems to have an unrivaled capacity to move us, and to motivate us.

Perhaps that has something to do with stories—we want to know how our private stories fit into the greater cosmic narrative. The Dalai Lama seems to be saying that religion needs to work harder to bridge the gap between the story that it tells and our actions in the world. It is not enough to provide believers with a comforting world view; religion should give people tools to act upon the sacred ideals that it preaches.

The way to accomplish this, according to the Dalai Lama, is spiritual practice. “We are now in the twenty-first century,” writes Tibet’s leading monk.
“The world is also facing a lot of new problems, most of which are man-made. The root cause of these man made problems is the inability of human being to control their agitated minds. How to control such a state of mind is taught by the various religions of this world.” 
The Dalai Lama advocates prayer and meditation as an antidote to the mind’s capacity for mischief. But he insists that we need not limit ourselves to traditional spiritual techniques. He has written a book on the convergence of views between Buddhism and science and he helped to organize conferences where religious thinkers meet with scientists to explore their common ground. This is because, in his view, science can help religion to fine tune its own methods. (Neurology has already gone a long way toward validating the reality of spiritual states by documenting, for example, similar changes in regions of the cerebral cortex in Cistercian monks during prayer as it has shown in Buddhist monks during meditation.)

The Dalai Lama believes that the fundamental ethical discoveries of religion are scientifically verifiable. When we actually live religiously—and don’t just profess a set of beliefs—we become more forgiving, peaceful, tolerant, attentive and inspired. This in turn leads to profound psychological and physiological changes which can be studied—and even measured.

It is time, the Dalai Lama says, to take the discoveries of spirituality out of the monasteries and into the world. While mindfulness meditation has been introduced into schools, hospitals, and even corporate boardrooms as a technique to lower stress, improve concentration, and help resolve conflicts, Tibet’s religious leader is acutely aware that none of this is enough. “It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been able to keep pace with such rapid progress in our acquisition of knowledge and power,” the Dalai Lama told a group of scientists in 2005.

The bottom line is that taming the mind creates more peaceful and contented human beings. This is the crux of the Dalai Lama’s message—because, as his urgency suggests, we are running out of time to get it right.

Sunday 9 December 2012

God Particle: Understanding the Universe

Higgs particle picture


 God Particle" Found?
National Geographic, Top 10 Discoveries of 2012.
Illustration by Moonrunner Design Ltd., National Geographic

In July, two separate teams working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) reported they were more than 99 percent certain they've discovered the Higgs boson, aka the God particle—or at the least a brand-new particle exactly where they expected the Higgs to be.
The long-sought particle may complete the standard model of physics by explaining why objects in our universe have mass—and in so doing, why galaxies, planets, and even humans have any right to exist.

(See Large Hadron Collider pictures.)

Full story >>

Published December 3, 2012.

CMS Higgs-event.jpg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of physics. All other particles in the Standard Model have been seen in experiments, but the Higgs boson, first predicted to exist in the 1960s, is difficult to create and detect. It may have finally been discovered in July 2012, but it will take further testing to know for sure. 
 
Its discovery (or non-existence) would be monumental[6][7] because it would finally prove the existence of the Higgs field, the simplest[8] and longest standing explanation of how the electroweak interaction divides into electromagnetism and the weak force (known as "symmetry breaking"). It would also confirm how fundamental particles acquire mass, and guide other theories and discoveries in particle physics. This unanswered question in fundamental physics is of such importance that it led to a decades-long search for the Higgs boson and finally the construction of one of the most expensive and complex experimental facilities to date, the Large Hadron Collider[9] able to create and study Higgs bosons (if they exist) and related questions.

6 reasons why the 'God particle' matters

“Without the Higgs particle, other particles, such as electrons and quarks, would be massless and the universe would not be what it is.

“Now, with the amazing results from the [Large Hadron Collider], we are finally finding growing experimental evidence that the Higgs really exists.

“The second part of the story about the Higgs particle is even more exciting as it provides us with a window to new physics — a tool for the exploration of the truly unknown.

“The next stage will be a detailed and careful study of its properties. Successful completion of this second stage will bring us closer to uncovering new physics, explaining dark matter and other mysteries of the universe.”

— Prof. Valentin Khoze, director of Durham University’s Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology in Durham, England 

"Today's discovery teaches us something fundamental about the building blocks of the universe and how the fundamental particles that build the world around us acquire mass.

"The Higgs boson matters because it tells us about 'matter.' This is curiosity-driven research and addresses basic questions about the evolution of the universe.

Read the whole article here

 

























Saturday 8 December 2012


From the Heart: Bring it On 12/21/12

By Alan Cohen, Om Times, December 3, 2012. 

We have arrived at December, 2012, the month prophesied as a turning point in human history. Much ado has been devoted to the December 21st solstice date. The Mayan calendar is said to end here; some soothsayers predict the end of the world; others predict the beginning. Groups are gathering at the Great Pyramid in Egypt, Machu Picchu, and sacred sites around the planet. All year people have been asking me, “What do you think will happen on December 21st?” I recently picked up a hitchhiker who asked me this very question. Millions of people are wondering, some are fearing, and others are hoping. 

Eckhart Tolle declared, “Suffering needs time.”  This pithy statement implies that any event in time is subject to suffering, because time is an illusion and we are bigger than it. He goes on to say, “it [suffering] cannot survive in the now.” Tolle has mined gold here. Why make a big deal about events in time?  Why not dive into the eternal now moment and let time take care of itself? As Ram Dass said in his classic book Be Here Now, “If you can be here now, when ‘then’ become ‘now,” you will have superconsciousness and superawareness and know exactly what to do.” 

So I suggest you worry not, wonder not, and hope not for any event associated with the December 21st solstice. A more powerful approach is to live fully in the present moment. If you waste the now by thinking or worrying about the future, when the future comes you won’t be there to receive it. It’s all a lot simpler than we have been told.  

Read the whole article here.  


 

Friday 7 December 2012

Amma, the Hugging Saint: Letter to Women


                                  


                           Amma, the Hugging Saint

Mata Amritanandamayi is a holy woman from India who embraces people around the world in order to take on their karma and heal the mind, body and spirit.

                          Amma on 20/20

From Amma: A Letter to My Soul Sisters, Everywhere:

My Beloved Sister,

I could hear the pain in your voice and feel the utter fatigue and exhaustion in your energy, and that deeply concerns me. You are pushing yourself far beyond the limits that y
our body and mind can tolerate. It is time to Surrender. What I mean by that is, you need to gather all the concerns you have for your family and rather than trying to do it all yourself as you see fit, gather all of those concerns, all of the anxiety, all of the pain and confusion, and offer it all to the Divine Mother, unconditionally. Offer it all to Her, as She knows each one of us better than we know ourselves. She knows our strengths, our weaknesses, our karmas that we came here in this lifetime to deal with, She knows the highest and best path we must tread in order for all of that stuff to be worked out. Yet we still feel the necessity to carry the whole bag of boulders on our own shoulders.

I have found that this simply does not work, and by taking the whole bag onto our own shoulders, thinking that we have to know all the answers, leaves no room for Mystery and Miracles. Sometimes, in order for us to really learn a lesson, we need to be fully in it; to experience it in all it's messy totality, to be immersed in it completely. Only then can we really understand, and make corrections. This is true for all of us. We have certain things that we came here to master, but we can not master them until we totally understand them. Sometimes we have to let our children and our loved ones find out for themselves as they experience the lessons of life. 
 
Meanwhile, you stand beside them as a Luminous Guide, a Lamp of Wisdom and and most importantly an Incarnation of Unconditional Love. That is your gift to them. Nothing else is necessary. You are their Greatest Gift, and you do it with more Love and Wisdom than anyone I have ever known. You are Precious. Yet, you need to learn how to surrender the bag of boulders that you constantly have hanging over your shoulders, dragging you down, and possibly killing you with it's weight. Because ultimately, God is their True parent, and God is our True Parent. 
 
By learning how to surrender and offer the control back to Him/Her, we are acknowledging that God knows better than we do, what needs to be done, and at the right time, in the right way, and in the proper doses. Surrender does not mean that you are letting go of your concerns for your children and loved ones; in fact, it is quite the opposite. 
 
By giving the control back to the Divine, you are releasing the weight of all the frustration, pain, grief, agony, resentment, and confusion to a Higher Power who can take it all into Her Divine Heart, with the Strong Intention and Belief that God has the Immense Love and Power to Transmute and Transform even the most hopeless of situations. I try to Practice Surrender in every moment of every day, and the comfort, peace and stillness it brings me is beyond words, and Magical & Miraculous things happen. When I forget, and I go back into worry and control mode, chaos comes crashing in again. Just Let Go, Sister. Offer that Huge Bag of Boulders to Her, Unconditionally. Trust and Faith are your Companions now.

As much as we'd like to think that we have the power to change what needs to be changed, heal what needs to be healed, support what needs to be supported, and wave our magic wand so that all will be well with the world, we simply don't have that power. The only one we have power over is ourselves. Really, after all these years of being a Mother-to-all, what I have finally realized is that our power comes from LOVE alone. It is the Power of Your Love that works to Heal and to caress, to comfort and to console, to allow someone to be who they are, make mistakes and to also learn from their mistakes by taking responsibility for them and learning from them. 
 
Each of us has both gifts and challenges that we bring with us when we incarnate into this world. Some of us have more gifts than challenges, and vice versa. You are one of those Precious and Powerful Souls that comes here with an amazing amount of Gifts that you offer freely to the world. You are an Amazing and Beautiful incarnation of the Divine Mother's Shakti. Everyone you touch is changed in some special way, just by being near you. There is no need for you to carry everything on your own shoulders; that just makes everything more difficult and brings you down in the process. 
 
Think of God as being a Super-Computer that carries all knowledge and wisdom within itself, in addition to being the Cosmic Generator of Love. Why would you want to carry around a heavy bag of everyone's problems and sorrows when you have access to the Cosmic Super Computer that has the ability to see all, to know all and to solve all manner of problems in a way that we simply can't? 
 
Beloved Sister, Let Go and Let God! Deepen your Faith in Her, and Trust that She is there to find the most creative solutions to all problems if you would just let go and give them over to Her, with Consummate Faith and Trust. If you don't, then I fear that we will loose you to a heart attack or stroke, because you have carried this heavy load for so long. 
 
Please consider what I am trying to say, and know that I am saying this out of my deep Love for you. The world needs you, Sweet One. You are so Precious, and you came here to complete the Dharma of carrying on an Ancient Lineage, a Divine Sisterhood. This is your Gift to the world. Do not doubt yourself or entertain fears that are not based in reality. Cultivate your faith in yourself and in your intimate connection to Divinity. Leave the bag of boulders behind and move ahead in faith and trust that God will not only carry it for you, She will transform and transmute it all in the proper way.

Please know that I love you with all my heart, and I am so deeply appreciative of your presence in my life. You are Precious to Me, Sweet Sister. I am always here for you, whenever you need me.
 
                      

Wednesday 5 December 2012

A-Z of Kirtan: B is for Bond

No, nothing to do with Daniel Craig, though kirtan is definitely more shaken than stirred. This kind of bond is about relationship and genuine connection. A mantra is much more than just a potent sound, it is a personal address, a call for help, a heartfelt expression of gratitude.

To go deeply into the practice of kirtan it is important to understand that the call and response is not just between the leader and the rest of the group. The deeper response comes sometimes very subtly, sometimes very obviously from the from the one we address when we sing.

 

It is said that this Divine person is present within every heart as the inner guide and dearest friend and can be perceived by regular practice. This is because the words of a mantra don’t just describe the person, they are non different from that person.

 

Regular names, like Boris Johnson, don’t invoke the presence of that person (for better or worse!), but the names of the Divine are exactly the opposite. If sung with deep feeling, the experience is unlike that of any other exchange.

 

Depending on our level of investment, kirtan can be infinitely more rewarding than a meaningful exchange with a lifelong friend, or as shallow as water cooler chit chat. Like any relationship, if given quality time, attention and care, a genuine bond will form. Are you satisfied with anything less?

********************************************* 

The Modern Shaman

| December 5, 2012. 

A Shaman is a tribal spiritual healer and elder, who gives guidance on the journey of life, which they themselves have partaken and found successful routes through. To become a Shaman one has to go on their own journey which usually in tales a traumatic incident or psychological/spiritual Illnesses that they overcome. Which they overcome and by overcoming the illness/journey they are able to help other people with the same ordeal.

Read more here

Tuesday 4 December 2012



Rumi ~ The Eternal Ecstasy 



Bhakti Messenger    
"Universal Prayer" -- the new album from Bhakti Messenger

We are four spiritual seekers who have turned our talents to serving the Divine Consciousness through kirtan, a traditional Indian form of call-and-response chanting.  

Monday 3 December 2012

Mindfulness Meditation: Words of Wisdom from Buddhist Master


4101.vasn 20110810 final    a2 34379 i001 Thich Nhat Hanh offers path to end pain, anger

Thich Nhat Hanh offers path to end pain, anger

Douglas Todd, August 10, 2011, Vancouver Sun.

One of the world’s most famous Buddhists on Tuesday led about 1,500 people on a walking meditation across the expansive University of B.C. campus.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a tiny 84-year-old Zen monk who was exiled from his native Vietnam for four decades, was wearing a brown monk’s robe and toque as he headed the slow parade of silent walkers. (See exclusive photos of the event.)

Earlier, the noted Vietnam War protester told an enraptured audience inside the War Memorial Gym that happiness can be found through the popular meditation technique called “mindfulness,” which he said will help people overcome their pain, anger and suicidal tendencies.

The monk’s one-hour morning “dharma talk” was the public part of a six-day meditation retreat Hanh is leading at UBC for more than 800 people.

              Related: “Famous Buddhist tells West: ‘Look to Jesus’
              “More scrambling people seek mindfulness”
              “‘Nice’ Buddhism growing in Canada, despite rivalry”
              “Why does Thich Nhat Hanh appeal mostly to whites?”
              “‘Engaged’ Buddhists shouldn’t ignore politics, says Sulak Sivaraksa”
              “Martin Luther King fought evil with good”

Speaking in a whispery voice inside the large gymnasium, the peace and environmental activist lamented how young people in Hong Kong are jumping out of tall buildings to their deaths because they “do not know how to handle their painful emotions.”

Urging people to learn the art of mindfulness, which emphasizes focusing on breathing to calm the mind and heart, Hanh said strong emotions are “like a storm,” and are usually short lasting. “You don’t have to die because of one emotion.”

Hanh, who leads monastic communities in North America and Europe, is being accompanied in Vancouver by dozens of brown-robed monks and nuns.

One of them told the audince, which was made up predominantly of Caucasians, that Hanh was the first to use the term “engaged Buddhism.”

This form of Buddhism counters the Eastern religion’s historical tendency toward quietism, which has often resulted in Buddhists disengaging from society to seek individual psychological liberation.

Hanh, however, has been a devoted human-rights activist ever since the Vietnam War in the 1960s. He is credited with convincing civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. to publicly oppose U.S. military actions in the South Asian country.

On Tuesday, after displaying his skill at the art of calligraphy at UBC’s Asian Centre Auditorium, Hanh said he remembered first coming to Vancouver decades ago, when he tried to convince various leaders to oppose the Vietnam War.

Hanh, who makes his home in a meditation centre called Plum Village in the Bordeaux region south of Paris, also increasingly stresses environmental sustainability.

The Buddhist prayers offered for retreatants at the silent vegetarian lunch stressed “moderation” and the need to “reduce global warming.” The cost of the six-day retreat was $700 each, including food and simple lodging. Participants said they appreciated the low price.

Heesoon Bai
, an education professor at Simon Fraser University, said she was on the retreat because Hanh “is an embodiment of mindfulness. His gentleness is so strong. It’s interesting he regards himself as a spiritual ‘soldier.’”

Anglican Rev. Ellen Clark-King, who works at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver, said Hanh’s “message of going deeper speaks to a general hunger for spiritual exploration in Cascadia,” another name for the Pacific Northwest.

“I think his teaching about mindfulness – about being awake to what is happening around you and within you – is relevant no matter what faith one belongs to,” said Clark-King, who attended the monk’s public talk.

Mindfulness is a way to “free oneself to encounter God. It’s not a replacement or substitute for the Christian God,” said Clark-King, whose new book, The Path to Your Door: Approaches to Christian Spirituality, will be published this fall by Continuum Books.

An exhibition of Thich Nhat Hanh’s calligraphy will be on display until Thursday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The monk will also give a sold-out public talk at the Orpheum Theatre at 1: 30 p.m. on Sunday.

                Related:  “Jesus: One of the great psychotherapists”

UPDATE: Those who no longer want to practise alone (a very B.C. thing to do) could join a Buddhist community (sangha) based on the work of Thich Nhat Hanh. Jeanie provided this link to the group. http://www.mindfulnessvancouver.org

Saturday 1 December 2012

Riding the Waves of Creativity

For Young Artists--Of All Ages