History of Halloween explained (video)

The History of Halloween: Traditions Explained
(Mythology & Fiction Explained) Let's look at the history of Halloween (Hollow's Eve) and examine how it has changed over the years. Enjoy mythology and folklore and want to learn more? Consider subscribing to the channel to keep up-to-date with all the latest news and uploads.

• ➧ twitter.com/MythsExplained

How to feed your demons (Tibetan Buddhism)

Lama Tsultrim Allione (lionsroar.com, October 13, 2020), artist Carole Hénaff (illustrations); Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Lama Tsultrim Allione teaches an innovative technique to turn inner demons into friends
Feeding our demons rather than fighting them contradicts the conventional approach of dealing with whatever assails us. But it turns out to be a remarkably effective path to inner integration.

Demons (maras in Sanskrit) are not bloodthirsty ghouls waiting for us in dark corners. Demons are within us. They are energies we experience every day, such as fear, illness, depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship difficulties, and addiction.

Anything that drains our energy and blocks us from being completely awake is a demon. The approach of giving form to these inner forces and feeding them, rather than struggling against them, was originally articulated by an 11th-century female Tibetan Buddhist teacher named Machig Labdrön (1055–1145).

The spiritual practice she developed was called Chöd, and it generated such amazing results that it became very popular, spreading widely throughout Tibet [the head of an empire] and beyond.

In today’s world, we suffer from record levels of inner and outer struggle. We find ourselves ever more polarized, inwardly and outwardly. We need a new paradigm, a fresh approach to conflict. Machig’s strategy of nurturing rather than battling our inner and outer enemies offers a revolutionary path to resolve conflict and leads to psychological integration and inner peace.

The method that I [Lama Tsultrim Allione] have developed, called Feeding Your Demons™, is based on the principles of Chöd adapted for the Western world. Here is an abbreviated version of the practice, in five steps: 

Step 1: Find the Demon in Your Body

After generating a heartfelt motivation to practice for the benefit of yourself and all beings, decide which demon you want to work with. Choose something that feels like it is draining your energy right now. If it’s a relationship issue, work with the feeling that is arising in you in the relationship as the demon, rather than the other person.

Thinking about the demon you have chosen to work with, perhaps remembering a particular incident when it came up strongly, scan your body and ask yourself: Where is the demon held in my body most strongly? What is its shape? What is its color? What is its texture? What is its temperature?

Now intensify this sensation.

Step 2: Personify the Demon

Allow this sensation -- with its color, texture, and temperature -- to move out of your body and become personified in front of you as a being with limbs, a face, eyes, and so on.

Notice the following about the demon: size, color, surface of its body, density, gender if it has one, its character, its emotional state, the look in its eyes, something about the demon you did not see before.

Now ask the demon the following questions: What do you want? What do you really need? How will you feel when you get what you really need?

Step 3: Become the Demon

Switch places, keeping your eyes closed as much as possible. Take a moment to settle into the demon’s body. Feel what it’s like to be the demon. Notice how your normal self looks from the demon’s point of view. Answer these questions, speaking as the demon: What I want is… What I really need is… When I get what I really need, I will feel… (Take particular note of this answer).

Step 4: Feed the Demon and Meet the Ally

Take a moment to settle back into your own body. See the demon opposite you. Then dissolve your own body into nectar. The nectar has the quality of the feeling that the demon would have when it gets what it really needs (i.e., the answer to the third question). Notice the color of the nectar.

Imagine this nectar is moving toward the demon and nurturing it. Notice how the demon takes it in. You have an infinite supply of nectar. Feed the demon to its complete satisfaction and notice how it transforms in the process. This can take some time.

Notice if there is a being present after the demon is completely satisfied. If there is a being present, ask it: “Are you the ally?” If it is, you will work with that being. If it is not, or if there is no being present after feeding the demon to complete satisfaction, invite the ally to appear.

When you see the ally, notice all the details of the ally: size, color, surface of its body, density, gender (if it has one), its character, its emotional state, the look in its eyes, something about the ally you did not see before.

When you really feel connected with the energy of the ally, ask these questions: How will you help me? How will you protect me? What pledge do you make to me? How can I access you?

Change places and become the ally. Take a moment to settle into the ally’s body and notice how it feels to be in the ally’s body. How does your normal self look from the ally’s point of view? When you are ready, answer these questions, speaking as the ally: I will help you by… I will protect you by… I pledge I will… You can access me by…

Take a moment to settle back into your own body and see the ally in front of you. Look into its eyes and feel its energy pouring into your body.

Now imagine that the ally dissolves into light. Notice the color of this light. Feel it dissolving into you and integrate this luminosity into every cell of your body. Take note of the feeling of the integrated energy of the ally in your body. Now you, with the integrated energy of the ally, also dissolve.

Step 5: Rest in Awareness

Rest in whatever state is present after the dissolution. Pause until discursive thoughts begin again, then gradually come back to your body. As you open your eyes, maintain the feeling of the energy of the ally in your body. Source

Feeding Your Demons™ is a process created and developed by Lama Tsultrim Allione. © Tara Mandala. For further information and training in Feeding Your Demons, go to taramandala.org.

Buddhist Ghosts and Goblins (video)

Zombies, spirits, and ghosts are prominent tropes in Buddhist history and Tibetan culture in particular, where they make repeated appearances in both oral and written histories. Add to this an extremely strong indigenous Tibetan tradition of belief in horrendous creatures and we have something truly frightful. We can all relate to fears on some level as well as understand the rationalizations to explain life's moments and unknowns in human history. In the Halloween spirit we look back at the stories and reasoning behind many of the creatures that go bump in the minds of us mere mortals.

• HUNGRY GHOSTS 
• WHAT WE SEE IS WHAT WE BELIEVE 
• The Daily Buddha: thedailybuddha.com
• The Daily Buddha: facebook.com/wordsaswisdom 
• Daily Buddha Store: thedailybuddha.threadless.com

Easter Island mystery: NOT a story of collapse?

Sarah Sloat (Inverse)

Easter Island: A Popular Theory About Its Ancient People Might Be Wrong
“Rapa Nui is not a story about collapse.”
Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, is a 63-square-mile spot of land in the Pacific Ocean.

In 1995, science writer Jared Diamond popularized the “collapse theory” in a Discover magazine story about why the Easter Island population was so small when European explorers arrived in 1722.

He later published Collapse, a book hypothesizing that infighting and an over-exploiting of resources led to a societal “ecocide.” However, a growing body of evidence contradicts this popular story of a warring, wasteful culture.

Scientists contend in a new study that the island’s most iconic features are also the best evidence that ancient Rapa Nui society was more sophisticated than previously thought, and the biggest clue lies in the island’s most iconic features.

The iconic “Easter Island heads,” or moai, are actually full-bodied but often partially buried statues that cover the island. There are almost a thousand of them, and the largest is over 70 feet tall.

Scientists hailing from UCLA, the University of Queensland, and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago believe that, much like Stonehenge, the process by which these monoliths were created is indicative of a collaborative society.

Their research was published in August 2018 in the Journal of Pacific Archaeology.

Study co-author and director of the Easter Island Statue Project Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Ph.D., is focused on measuring the visibility, number, size, and location of the moai. She tells Inverse that “visibility, when linked to geography, tells us something about how Rapa Nui, like all other traditional Polynesian societies, is built on family identity.”

Van Tilburg and her team say that understanding how these families interacted with the craftsmen who made the tools that helped create the giant statues is indicative of how different parts of Rapa Nui society interacted.

Previous excavations led by Tilburg revealed that the moai were created from basalt tools. In this study, the scientist focused on figuring out where on the island the basalt came from. Between 1455 and 1645 AD there was a series of basalt transfers from quarries to the actual location of the statues — so the question became, which quarry did they come from?

Chemical analysis of the stone tools revealed that the majority of these instruments were made of basalt that was dug up from one quarry. This demonstrated to the scientists that, because everyone was using one type of stone, there had to be a certain level of collaboration in the creation of the giant statues.

“There was more interaction and collaboration.”

“We had hypothesized that elite members of the Rapa Nui culture had controlled resources and would only use them for themselves,” lead author and University of Queensland Ph.D. candidate Dale Simpson Jr. tells Inverse. “Instead, what we found is that the whole island was using similar material, from similar quarries. This led us to believe that there was more interaction and collaboration in the past that has been noted in the collapse narrative.”

Simpson explains that the scientists intend to continue to map the quarries and perform other geochemical analysis on artifacts, so they can continue to “paint a better picture” about Rapa Nui’s prehistoric interactions.

After Europeans arrived on the island, slavery, disease, and colonization decimated much of Rapa Nui society — although its culture continues to exist today. Understanding exactly what happened in the past there is key to recognizing a history that became clouded by colonial interpretation.

“What makes me excited is that through my long-term relationship with the island, I’ve been able to better understand how people in the ancient past interacted and shared information — some of this interaction can be seen today and between thousands of Rapa Nui who still live today,” says Simpson. “In short, Rapa Nui is not a story about collapse but about survival!”

Sarah Sloat is a writer based in Brooklyn. She has previously written for The New Republic, Pacific Standard, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

• Huge Human Inequality Study Hints Revolution is in Store for U.S.
• Humans are still evolving: 3 examples of recent adaptations
• Scientists may have finally pinpointed humanity's ancestral hometown

This post originally appeared on Inverse and was published August 12, 2018. Sign up for our newsletter

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"Borat" makes not-so-funny comeback?

Sacha B. Cohen, Stephen Colbert (Late Show); Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

(The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Oct. 27, 2020) Sacha Baron Cohen offers up the story of what happened when Ali G duped and interviewed Donald Trump. 

"Borat" gives Colbert the true story about what happened during Ali G's interview with dumb Don Trump. Cohen's character "Ali G" and Trump both made a "career out of playing absurd buffoons." Sadly, "Borat 2" looks terrible, even worse than his last two films about a gay character and a developmentally disabled action star. Never mind. They are embarrassingly weak attempts at gross out humor compared to "Borat 1." Rather than lampooning American culture and hypocrisy, it's just half-baked ideas poorly acted. Maybe there's humor here, but not if the trailer is any indication. #Colbert #Borat2 #SachaBaronCohen

• Tribal voting (ca-tccc.org...media-poll-2020)
• Survey Monkey for insightLA Community
  
• Tag surveillance for you (go.getxyfindit.io)
  

Are they real? Buddhism and ghosts (video)

Buddhist Cosmology (4): Ghost Realm
(Ajahn Sona, Arrow River) This is Part 4 in a continuing series on Buddhist cosmology. In dialogue are two Western Theravada Buddhist monks, Ajahn Sona and Ajahn Punnadhammo. There is a Buddhist cosmology book available for free download: arrowriver.ca/book/cosmoB... Ajahn Sona has a podcast: anchor.fm/ajahn-sona. This episode: anchor.fm/ajahn-sona/episodes...

Pagan Guided Meditation: SAMHAIN

(Magic and Mundane) Nature guided meditations are now available in a podcast (natureguidedmeditations.podbe..., on iTunes podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... and Spotify open.spotify.com/show/4Pa8Hhc...). Samhain (pronounced /sao-inn/) is a time for gratitude to the ancestors with a guided meditation. This is a spur-of-the-moment, unscripted visualization I recorded when I pulled out a mic to prepare for an exciting project soon to be announced. There was no tripod, so please excuse the occasional mic bump or the purring cat. I hope you find it useful. I am very grateful for any constructive feedback. Have a blessed autumn.

Kamala, FB censors... (Jimmy Dore comedy)

 

Bernie Sanders tries to defend voting for corrupt Joe Biden as an alternative

Spiritual Classic: When Things Fall Apart

Maria Popova (Brain Pickings); Ashley Wells, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

American Tibetan-Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön wrote a spiritual classic on transformation through difficult times. 

In every life, there comes a time when we are razed to the bone of our resilience by losses beyond our control — lacerations of the heart that feel barely bearable, that leave us bereft of solid ground. What then?

“In art,” Kafka assured his teenage walking companion, “one must throw one’s life away in order to gain it.” As in art, so in life — so suggests the American Tibetan Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön.

In When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (public library), she draws on her own confrontation with personal crisis and on the ancient teachings of Tibetan Buddhism [actually a quasi-Vajrayana form of Buddhism dubbed "Shambhala Buddhism" by its founder Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche] to offer gentle and incisive guidance to the enormity we stand to gain during those times when all seems to be lost.

Half a century after Albert Camus asserted that “there is no love of life without despair of life,” Chödrön reframes those moments of acute despair as opportunities for befriending life by befriending ourselves in the deepest sense.

Writing in that Buddhist way of wrapping in simple language the difficult and beautiful truths of existence, Chödrön examines the most elemental human response to the uncharted territory that comes with loss or any other species of unforeseen change:

Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.

This clarity, Chödrön argues, is a matter of becoming intimate with fear and rather than treating it as a problem to be solved, using it as a tool with which to dismantle all of our familiar structures of being, “a complete undoing of old ways of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and thinking.” Noting that bravery is not the absence of fear but the intimacy with fear, she writes:

When we really begin to do this, we’re going to be continually humbled. There’s not going to be much room for the arrogance that holding on to ideals can bring. The arrogance that inevitably does arise is going to be continually shot down by our own courage to step forward a little further. The kinds of discoveries that are made through practice have nothing to do with believing in anything. They have much more to do with having the courage to die, the courage to die continually.

In essence, this is the hard work of befriending ourselves, which is our only mechanism for befriending life in its completeness. Out of that, Chödrön argues, arises our deepest strength:

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us. …

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Decades after Rollo May made his case for the constructiveness of despair, Chödrön considers the fundamental choice we have in facing our unsettlement — whether with aggressive aversion or with generative openness to possibility:

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don’t get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It’s a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs.

To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior. We catch ourselves one zillion times as once again, whether we like it or not, we harden into resentment, bitterness, righteous indignation — harden in any way, even into a sense of relief, a sense of inspiration.

Half a century after Alan Watts began introducing Eastern teachings into the West with his clarion call for presence as the antidote to anxiety, Chödrön points to the present moment — however uncertain, however difficult — as the sole seedbed of wakefulness to all of life:

This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it’s always with us. …

We can be with what’s happening and not dissociate. Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives.

Illustration, Lisbeth Zwerger, special edition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.

Remaining present and intimate with the moment, she argues, requires mastering maitri [metta] — the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness toward oneself, that most difficult art of self-compassion. She contrasts maitri with the typical Western therapy and self-help method of handling crises:

What makes maitri such a different approach is that we are not trying to solve a problem. We are not striving to make pain go away or to become a better person. In fact, we are giving up control altogether and letting concepts and ideals fall apart. This starts with realizing that whatever occurs is neither the beginning nor the end. It is just the same kind of normal human experience that’s been happening to everyday people from the beginning of time. Thoughts, emotions, moods, and memories come and they go, and basic nowness is always here. …

In the midst of all the heavy dialogue with ourselves, open space is always there.

Another Buddhist concept at odds with our Western coping mechanisms is the Tibetan expression ye tang che. Chödrön explains its connotations, evocative of Camus’s insistence on the vitalizing power of despair:

The ye part means “totally, completely,” and the rest of it means “exhausted.” Altogether, ye tang che means totally tired out. We might say “totally fed up.” It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope. This is an important point. This is the beginning of the beginning. Without giving up hope — that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be — we will never relax with where we are or who we are. …

Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there’s anywhere to hide.

Decades after Simone de Beauvoir’s proclamation about atheism and the ultimate frontier of hope, Chödrön points out that at the heart of Buddhism’s approach is not the escapism of religion but the realism of secular philosophy. And yet these crude demarcations fail to capture the subtlety of these teachings. She clarifies:

The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God… Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there’s some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. It means thinking there’s always going to be a babysitter available when we need one. We all are inclined to abdicate our responsibilities and delegate our authority to something outside ourselves. Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves. …

Hopelessness is the basic ground. Otherwise, we’re going to make the journey with the hope of getting security… Begin the journey without hope of getting ground under your feet. Begin with hopelessness.

Art from The Lion and the Bird by Marianne Dubuc.

Only through such active self-compassion to our own darkness, Chödrön suggests, can we begin to offer authentic light to anybody else, to become a force of radiance in the world. She writes:

We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts.

Complement the immensely grounding and elevating When Things Fall Apart with Camus on strength of character in times of trouble, Erich Fromm on what self-love really means, and Nietzsche on why a fulfilling life requires embracing rather than running from difficulty, then revisit Chödrön on the art of letting go.

• Elizabeth Gilbert on Love, Loss, and How to Move Through Grief as Grief Moves Through You
• The Wisdom of No Escape: Pema Chödrön on Gentleness, the Art of Letting Go, and How to Befriend Your Inner Life
• When Leaving Becomes Arriving: Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on Ending Relationships

This post originally appeared on Brain Pickings and was published July 17, 2017.

Friends over partners: Friendship at the center?

Rhaina Cohen (The Atlantic, Oct. 20, 2020);

What if friendship, not marriage, were at the center of life?

Ms. Kami West had been dating her current boyfriend for a few weeks when she told him that he was outranked by her female best friend.

West knew her boyfriend had caught snatches of her daily calls with non-lesbian Kate Tillotson, which she often placed on speaker mode.

But she figured that he, like the men she’d dated before, didn’t quite grasp the nature of their friendship. West explained to him: “I need you to know that she’s not going anywhere. She is my No. 1.”

 

Tillotson was there before him and, West told him, “she will be there after you. And if you think at any point that this isn’t going to be my No. 1, you’re wrong.”

If West’s comments sound blunt, it’s because she was determined not to repeat a distressing experience from her mid-20s. At that time her boyfriend had sensed that he wasn’t her top priority. In what West saw as an attempt to keep her away from her friend, he disparaged Tillotson, calling her a slut and a bad influence.

After the relationship ended, West, 31, vowed to never let another man strain her friendship. She decided that any future romantic partners would have to adapt to her friendship with Tillotson, rather than the other way around.

West and Tillotson know what convention dictates. “Our boyfriends, our significant others, and our husbands are supposed to be No. 1,” West told me. “Our worlds are backward.”

In the past few decades, Americans have broadened their image of what constitutes a legitimate romantic relationship: Courthouses now issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Americans are getting married later in life than ever before, and more and more young adults are opting to share a home rather than a marriage license with a partner.

Despite these transformations, what hasn’t shifted much is the expectation that a monogamous romantic relationship is the planet around which all other relationships should orbit.

• The Friendship Files: Friendly conversations with friends about friendship

By placing a friendship at the center of their lives, people such as West and Tillotson unsettle this norm. Friends of their kind sweep into territory typically reserved for romantic partners: They live in houses they purchased together, raise each other’s children, use joint credit cards, and hold medical and legal powers of attorney for each other.

These friendships have many of the trappings of romantic relationships, minus the sex. More

What's wrong with America? (comedy)

Are the latest protests in Thailand a game changer?

(Al Jazeera English) Thailand's King is facing his biggest challenge since ascending to the throne four years ago. Pro-democracy protesters are demanding curbs on his powers and are calling for the resignation of the prime minister, a former army general.

• Presenter: Imran Khan
• Guests: Nutta Mahattana, leader of the "We Vote" movement
• Pavin Chachavalpongpun, Kyoto University
• Jade Donavanik, College of Asian Scholars
• Subscribe to our channel: aje.io/AJSubscribe
• twitter.com/AJEnglish
• facebook.com/aljazeera
• Website: aljazeera.com
• #AlJazeeraEnglish #Thailand #InsideStory

Healing society through our relationships

Akemi (insightLA.org); Amber Larson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Ever sat in silent meditation, focused on the breath, and wondered, How does this practice help dismantle oppression and make the world an equitable place for all? I know I have.

It's especially true these days of loss, infuriating uncertainty, and heartbreak. For most of my life, I’ve been at a very external side of social change, mobilizing people to vote.

 

If we can just repeal Citizens United and fund schools and create social safety nets, everything would be fixed, I would think as I left a campaign flyer on yet another stranger’s doorknob. But after the 2016 election, I realized our needed societal transformation runs deeper than policy change.

 

Policies are a reflection of cultural beliefs and values, and dominant culture is steeped in control, domination, judgment -- which all stem from the story of the separate self. Our meditation practices help us examine that story.

 

Through observation, we learn how our reactive, unconscious minds create delusion and suffering, and how, indeed, we are all one, all interconnected. But how do we rewrite the story at a societal level? How can our institutions and systems and politics reflect interbeing, reflect love?

 

There is no one answer to this, but I do know central to this is how we are in relationship to others. What we practice at the smallest scale, in our intimate connections -- with family, friends, coworkers, Sangha peers, Mother Earth -- sets the patterns for the whole system.

 

In the era of COVID and digital interface, many of us struggle to feel true connection. Can Instagram likes and comments, texts, and emails compensate for real intimacy? What do radically present relationships look and feel like?

 

Even during COVID I’ve had powerful experiences of them. Listening deeply on the phone, crying and dancing and singing with my roommates, bearing witness to the pain of others who hold different identities than I do in Zoom gatherings, facing conflict with courage and open hearts.

 

I let my body and heart show me how to nurture my relationships. Who would feel good to be with, and when, and how? I let intuition guide me to joyful collective presence. Let’s learn how to truly be together.

 

And from this place we’ll transform the world around us. And in the meantime, vote for the most enlightened policies and candidates possible. Start conversations about ballot issues with those around you. Encourage others to vote, from love rather than fear... And breathe.

Let's connect. 

Register now for these upcoming Special Events, Retreats, Affinity Groups, and Practice Groups.
Featured Special Event Series

 

 

 

For the Sake of All: Practices for Love and Liberation 2-Day Workshop

with Martin Vitorino, PhD and Brooke D. Lavelle, PhD

2-day workshop starts Saturday, October 31, 2020 | 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM PT

Register Now

 

 

Upcoming Retreats

 

Cultivando el Refugio Interno y Comunitario en Tiempos Difíciles con Tere Abdala y Kate Lila Wheeler

3 días de retiro empieza el viernes, 23 de octubre y termina el domingo, 25 de octubre de 2020 | Los horarios de las reuniones varían; Ver horario diario

Register Now

 

Equanimity is Not Indifference with Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD

Half-day retreat on Saturday, October 24, 2020 | 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM PT

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Mindfulness, Meditation, and Coping with Death: A One-Day Retreat for Professional Health Caregivers with Suzanne Smith, MSN, RN, NP and Judith Hall, BS, RN

Wednesday, November 4, 2020 | 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM PT

Register Now

 

 

More Special Events and Series

THIS WEEKEND

 

TODAY
People of Color Sangha Practice Group with Thomas Davis, Tere Abdala, Gullu Singh, JD, and Alisa Dennis, Ph.D.

Weekly group meets Fridays | 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM PT

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TODAY
Mindful Recovery (Affinity Group)

Monthly group meets this Friday, October 16, 2020 | 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM PT

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Entering Into Silence with Bob Stahl, PhD

Saturday, October 17, 2020 | 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM PT

 

Register Now

 

The Opposite of Suicide is Connection: Community, Hope, and Healing in Difficult Times with Brian Stefan, Mariela Bravo, and Lisa Kring, LCSW

Monthly group meets this Saturday, October 17, 2020 | 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM PT

Register Now

 

Sunday Morning Practice Group with Trudy & Friends led by Gullu Singh, JD

Weekly group meets Sundays | 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM PT

Register Now

 

 

Affinity Groups

Mindful Parents Practice Group: Fridays, 1 - 2 PM PT

Mindful of Whiteness Anti-Racist Practice Group:  Fridays, 6 - 7:30 PM PT

People of Color Sangha Practice Group: Fridays, 7 - 9 PM PT

Mindful Recovery: This Friday, 7:30 - 9 PM PT

Managing Stress and Emotions from Job Loss: This Saturday, 8:30 - 9:30 AM PT

The Opposite of Suicide is Connection: This Saturday, 12:30 - 2 PM PT

Refuge for Mental Health and Healthcare Providers: This Saturday 2 - 3:15 PM PT

Meditation Coalition People of Color Sangha: Sundays, 6:30 - 8 PM PT

Youngish Adult (20s and 30s) Practice Group: Sundays, 7 - 8:30 PM PT

Meditación en Español: Los Lunes, 6:30 - 7:30 PM PT 

BYOD: Supper with Old and Older Friends: This Tuesday, 5:45 - 7 PM PT

Men’s Wednesday Morning Practice Group: Wednesdays, 7 - 8:30 AM PT

Meditación en Español: Los Miércoles, 9 - 9:45 AM PT

Mindful Aging: Wednesdays, 10:15 - 11:45 AM PT

View All Affinity Groups

 

 

Practice Groups

Morning Community Sit – Guided Meditation: Weekdays, 7:30 - 8 AM PT

Calm the Mind: Fridays, 12 - 12:45 PM PT

Walking the Buddha’s Path Together: Sundays, 9 - 10:30 AM PT

Long Beach Sunday Practice Group: Sundays, 10 - 11:30 AM PT

Sunday Morning Practice Group with Trudy & Friends: Sundays, 11 - 12:30 PM PT

Mindful Support: What Does My Heart Need Now?: Mondays, 6:15 - 7 PM PT

Stillness in a Chaotic World: Tuesdays, 6:15 - 7 PM PT

Community Practice Group: Tuesdays, 7:30 - 9:15 PM PT

South Bay – Redondo Beach Practice Group: Tuesdays, 7:30 - 9:15 PM PT

Training In Compassion and Resilience: Wednesdays, 12 - 12:45 PM PT

Be With the Body: Wednesdays, 6:15 - 7 PM PT

Deepening Your Practice (Peer Led): Thursdays, 7 - 8:30 AM PT

Thursday Evening Practice Group: Thursdays, 7:30 - 9:15 PM PT

View All Practice Groups

 

 

 

Rent a Cabin at Big Bear Retreat Center: If retreat practice is challenging because of your living situation or you would like to practice in a private location, Big Bear Retreat Center is offering a limited number of its cabins for rent.

Learn more at bigbearretreatcenter.org/solo-hybrid-retreats.

 

 

See our full list of ONLINE offerings

 

 

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Santa Monica: 1430 Olympic Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90404
East Hollywood: 4300 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
Benedict Canyon: 9940 Westwanda Dr.
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Mailing Address: InsightLA P.O. Box 7278
Santa Monica, CA 90406