InsightLA: Youngish Adults Practice Group

InsightLA Meditation Practice Group - Santa Monica/Online; Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Interested in mindfulness meditation with a supportive hybrid in-person/online community of peer practitioners. Join us either by Zoom online or in-person at the Benedict Canyon Retreat House, within beautiful nature-rich environs. Share the collective wisdom related to sitting meditation practice.

**All weekly meetings beginning in January 2024 will be held Sundays from 7:00-830 pm PST. Attendees will have optional time for connection from 8:30-9:00 pm after the session finishes.**

Young-ish (in your 20s, 30s or 40s)?

What’s most alive in your practice? What are you struggling with? In a supportive group environment, we will meditate and explore practical application of the Buddhist wisdom tradition in daily life.

We’ll focus on the challenges you might be facing as a youngish adult, including:

• How to live the teachings of mindfulness and compassion in daily life, navigating transitions, relationships, and careers.

If you have a topic that you would like to bring more mindfulness to, bring it up in the group!

Who is this practice group for?

The Young-ish Practice Group is for people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who would like to deepen their mindfulness practice and understanding of Buddhist psychology in community. All are welcome, regardless of previous mindfulness or meditation experience.

Intentions:

• Explore Buddhist psychology and mindfulness science to support practical integration in daily life. (There's no need to identify as a Buddhist because ALL are welcome).

• Foster ongoing development of inclusive community and supportive friendship among younger practitioners.

• Practice in support of the cultivation of wisdom and the alleviation of suffering for all beings, without exception.

Typical Group Activities/Format:

• Welcome and introductions

• 30-40 minute guided mindfulness meditation.

• Variety of Buddhist Dharma talks, exploration of mindfulness science, small group discussion, other experiential exercises.

Scheduled Teachers:

• March 17: Michael Karakashian

• March 24: Eileen Ybarra

• March 31: Lulu Toselli

Where is this event?

Santa Monica and online via Zoom. As weather permits, expect to be mostly outdoors.

For those attending in-person, find directions and accessibility information here.

Please consider carpooling as there is limited parking available (more info). Click Sign Up to the left for ride-share options.

> In keeping with the principles of the Dharma that underlie all InsightLA activities (primarily non-harming), we are requiring that all attendees be fully vaccinated in order to attend this in-person event. Masks are optional as all attendees are fully vaccinated. Attendance is limited to 30 to allow for social distancing.

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Donation Based

Although this is a donation-based class, registration is required. Suggested donation: $20. If you cannot attend, please cancel your reservation so that others may attend in your place. Space is limited.

• SIGN UP: Youngish Adults (20s, 30s, 40s) Practice Group (insightla.org)
  

"When Things Fall Apart" (Pema Chodron)

Ani Pema (Pema Chodron Foundation); Goodreads; Crystal Q. (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön's teaching are very practical. That's why she's a beloved spiritual author.

She collected talks she gave between 1987 and 1994 to create When Things Fall Apart. This is heart advice for difficult times, a treasury of wisdom for living when overcome by pain and worry.

• She discusses using painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and courage 
• communicating so as to encourage others to open up rather than shut down 
• practices for reversing habitual patterns 
• methods for working with chaotic situations 
• ways for creating effective social action... More

• (4.3 out of 5 from 25,426 ratings), 1,475 reviews 
  

  • SEE QUOTES from When Things Fall Apart

No Panic Guide to the Coronavirus

Chief Content Officer Kristen Muller (LAist.com, KPCC.org); Editors, Wisdom Quarterly

I don't know anything about coroner's virus! Jimmy Kimmel ambushed me in Hollywood.

.

I don't know what I'm doing, but I'll BS the US.

This week has been unlike anything we’ve experienced before. News about the coronavirus pandemic is evolving hourly.

Follow local Los Angeles COVID-19 coverage at LAist.com, where the most recent developments [laundered, censored, government-approved and free of rumors and inconvenient truths] on the spread of the virus in Southern California, including a constantly updated "No Panic Guide for Living Through Coronavirus in L.A."

Trump's idiotic lying worsens virus scare

I'm lying. (Just kidding). I'm not!

LAist will continue to interview local and state health officials daily, including Director of L.A. County Public Health Dr. Barbara Ferrer. Want a question asked? Share it HERE. We are also providing a place for community members to share their experiences, through our local shows, our social media accounts, and our newly formed Facebook group: A No-Panic Support Group For Living Through Coronavirus in L.A.

Quarantine. Shelter in place. Jump online.

The top priority is keeping staff safe and healthy [not citizens]. While reporters are still out in the community, they are taking the precautions recommended by health experts. When possible they are talking to people by phone, and when they need to conduct in-person interviews, they are avoiding large groups and using microphones that allow them to stay the recommended 6 to 10-feet back. At headquarters, staff is restricting who can come into the building, with all nonessential staff working remotely.

How to make money from disaster with gov't

Because up-to-the-minute information is essential, stay posted but remember this is a marathon, not a sprint. Resources are dedicated to covering [Wuhan Flu, Bill Gates Disease, novel coronavirus, that Chinese things the US military brought to China] COVID-19, coverage of other important stories like the 2020 census.

Let's look for ways to celebrate the country and region’s resiliency.

• Disaster capitalism: Alphabet Corporation (Google, Verily) making money from the coronavirus scare (Ask Naomi)

Meditation and Going Beyond (video)

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (tergar.org); Ananda (DMI), A. Wells, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

FEAR, what is it good for?

Amber Dorrian, CC Liu, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha taught that "Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely" (quote). Wisdom overcomes all ignorance and therefore dispels all fear.

Some say fear protects us. We evolved to pay extra attention to somethings in the perceptual field.

Being forewarned by our bodily-intuitive Emotional Navigating System kept us alive.

Maybe, but fear paralyzes us and is not necessary. How do we know?

• AUDIO: "The Happiness Machine"
  

We know because the Buddha and other arhats (enlightened beings) have uprooted fear -- one of the three unwholesome roots of action.

Greed, hate/fear, and delusion govern most of us.

But enlightened individuals have overcome slavish attraction to sensual desires, aversion ("fear" and loathing) to unpleasant experience, and delusion about the Four Ennobling Truths.

Those four truths encapsulate the Dharma, Buddhism, the Buddha's teaching regarding liberation:

• (4) The Noble Eightfold Path is the fourth truth.
• (3) It culminates in nirvana, the end of all suffering.
• (2) The cause of suffering that one can overcome here and now is craving.
• (1) That craving gives rise to disappointment.

Craving (thirst, yearning, pining, being greedy and insatiable) is painful. The Buddha preferred that living beings live joyfully free of all kinds of suffering:

Live in joy, in love,
Even among those who hate.

Live in joy, in health,
Even among the afflicted.

Live in joy, in peace,
Even among the troubled.

Look within. Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of living in the way.
(Sapphyr.net)

Pain and suffering may bring us to Buddhism, which offers a very doable path to complete freedom. If unpleasant experience of all kinds is the problem, what is causing it? Not craving alone, but its causes and conditions include ignorance and fear (bhava, a subtle kind of aversion to the unpleasant).

We crave the pleasant and feel fear/loathing for the unpleasant. We wish for life and delightful experience to continue. And we fear and dislike that it will end. We love gain, we fear loss. We love praise, we fear blame... There are many vicissitudes.

Julia Roberts, the world's most famous Hindu, travels the
world on a spiritual quest for fulfillment in "Eat Pray Love."

The enlightened do not vanish the moment they touch nirvana, which many mistake for a kind of emptiness or nothingness. They live fearlessly. If fear were necessary as the only antenna that could protect us and keep us alive, the enlightened would not last long.

Mindfulness (sati), wisdom (panna or Sanskrit prajna), and clear comprehension (sampajanna) are far better guides. As yet unenlightened, fear does not serve us. It is a last resort. We panic. We worry. We stir up our own problems. The antidote?

Loving-kindness, compassion, sympathy (empathic joy), and impartiality (unbiased equanimity) all displace fear. Understanding displaces fear. Being here now -- mindfulness of the present moment free of thinking and just being -- displaces fear.

Giving into fear strengthens fear. It nourishes the unwholesome root of aversion (dosa). The fearful grow more fearful until they are crippled. They die just the same without ever having lived.

The loving -- temporarily freed from fear, full of kindness and concern for themselves and others -- live now and, if they reach enlightenment in this very life, overcome death altogether.

(Nirvana is not death but a deathless state hard to conceive and easily mistaken for some kind of eternal life, which paradoxically it is not).

Fear, what is it good for? Practically nothing. Feel the fear, a message from our conditioning, and do it anyway.

• PHOTOS: Fear quote (FoxPowerYoga/Facebook); deva "angel" in Burma (dondoc-foto/flickr.com); Buddha in Thailand (lucas78/flickr.com); Julia Roberts, "Eat Pray Love" still shot (via dukkhagirl.thisiszen.com).
  

Using "Panic Attacks" for Meditation (video)

(AwareSilence) Clip from the DVD "Joy of Living: A Public Talk"

In this talk, based on his groundbreaking first book, The Joy of Living (Harmony Books), Tibetan Buddhist teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (Karma Kagyu lineage) invites us to join him in unlocking the secrets behind the practices of meditation.

Working with neuroscientists at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, he provides clear insights into modern research indicating that systematic training in meditation can enhance activity in areas of the brain associated with happiness and compassion.

Mingyur Rinpoche has also worked with physicists across the country to develop a fresh, scientifically-based interpretation of the Buddhist understanding of the nature of reality.

Mingyur Rinpoche weaves together the principles of Tibetan Buddhism, neuroscience, and quantum physics in a way that is changing the way we understand the human experience.

• mingyur.org

(DrQuickbeam) Mingyur Rinpoche's guided meditation

Fear of the Flu?

(WQ) Fear, the media demands it. It fans the flames in the guise of good science when the research bias is built into the process. In spite of all other evidence, fear rules. One worries, and it is by fear and worry that one does things certain to cause harm in the hopes of escaping possible harm. Who would purposely inject toxins like mercury (Thimerosal or Thiomersal) and substances likely to induce autistic spectrum disorder in children, pregnant women, or anyone? A fearful person would. Vaccines -- not as a concept but as they are practiced by the pharmaceutical industry -- will harm those who ingest them. While doing little if any good, harm is guaranteed. Unfortunately, mass panic makes vaccination demand a social phenomenon. However, as an individual decision, it is possible to avoid harm.

• Education trumps fear (Healthy Planet, Healthy Me, 10/23/09)
• LISTEN NOW or DOWNLOAD

The medium of the vaccine is animal-based. No version of it is vegetarian. Whether one is ingesting a live virus (attenuated) as a mist or by injection, the body is being burdened by toxins that will not prevent contracting the disease and are likely to lead to the disease. The harm is called iatrogenic. An incomprehensible amount of harm is caused by pharmaceutical products prescribed and used as directed. It is not an accident, it is not misuse. Education and non-fear, keeping oneself sane and balanced in spite of a panic or media frenzy, is the solution. This is neither the first campaign nor will it be the last. This is how wars are sold to the public, how people accept the loss of civil rights, and how we hand over our health. It will happen again. Politicians are complicit, and trusted voices in public health and the university follow along. Look into it, beyond the scare tactics, or be afraid, very afraid. An example of the immediate harm brought on by worry is the harmful use of "hand sanitizers."

Worries about hand sanitizer overuse
A surge in the use of germ-killing gels as a substitute for hand washing raises safety concerns. What to watch for

Money: Putting "Panic" in Perspective

Largest stockpile of cash ever seized: tend to riches lest the Market or Gov't eat them.

NOT FDIC INSURED • MAY LOSE VALUE • NO BANK GUARANTEE

Six facts to help dispel the fear and 10 key reminders for investors

Chief Investment Strategist Corner (October 8, 2008)
James Swanson, CFA

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Six facts
1. In January of 1970, a bear market started that lasted until May of that year. The market during that time fell 35.4%. In May, a bull market began that lasted until January 1973 and brought a 124% gain in stock values.

2. In April 1981, another bear market commenced that lasted nearly a year and brought a 24.7% decline. Then, in March of 1982, the market began to rise and continued doing so until June 1983, bringing an overall gain of 71.7%.

3. July 1990 brought a downward market that lasted three months, until October 1990, at which point equity prices had fallen 22.4%. Then, in the same month, a new, now legendary, bull market took hold and lasted nearly eight years, until July 1998, delivering a 330.7% gain for the market.

4. Dating back to 1975, 8 of the last 15 bull markets have started in the autumn months of September, October, and November.

5. Since 1957 there have been 15 bear markets, as measured from peak to trough, and on average they have lasted 10 months and brought an average decline of 29.4%.

6. The duration and degree of these bear markets were significantly less than the duration and magnitude of bull markets. During the same period, there were also 15 bull markets, which lasted, on average, 30 months and brought average gains of 112.5%.

10 key reminders for investors
1. Panics are based on emotion, and emotions can take on a life of their own. A herd-like mentality develops, and words that start to be used repetitively — such as “collapse,” “endless,” and “plunge” — only feed the frenzy. But it is important to remember that emotions are not your friend when it comes to making big decisions about your savings, retirement, or college money.

2. Individuals and the professional managers they hire to oversee their long-term assets are investors, not traders. There is a big difference. For investors, what matters is the long run, not today’s events.

3. No one is alone in their concerns. We all have lots of company.

4. Panics and downturns are part of the free market system. They have occurred throughout history. While this knowledge may not ease the pain, these sharp, sudden downturns still have to be recognized as part of a cycle that often includes years of slow and steady upward progress.

5. Historically, bear markets, recessions, and market panics have been relatively brief in comparison with the duration of bull markets. Since World War II, economic expansions have, on average, lasted five times longer than recessions, and bull markets have been twice as long as bear markets.

6. Cyclical downturns have historically been connected to credit excesses. This time is no different. Prudence in borrowing will be rewarded in the next cycle.

7. Collapses do not bring everything to a halt. Even during the worst of down times, people still go about their lives, raising children, going to work, and planning for the future.

8. Risk-seeking in the markets has vanished. But the pursuit of risk is a normal state for the markets. U.S. Treasury bills may look smart today, but at some point risk-seeking will return. It always has.

9. The largest government bodies in the world have acted to lessen the severity of this crisis.

10. You cannot control events. You can only control your response to them.

The Root of Money

(new 10/02/08 version)