Nagarjuna: Nāgārjuna (from Sanskrit Nāga + Arjuna, Chinese Lóngshù 龍樹, Tibetan Klu sgrub); circa 150 – c. 250 CE) was a philosopher and Mahāyāna Buddhist monk from South India. He is considered the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school [2, 3]. He is widely considered to be the most important Buddhist philosopher after the Buddha himself [4, 3]. Indeed, at least in Tibetan Buddhism, he is called the "second Buddha" [5]. He was a well-known defender of the new Mahāyāna movement. His treatises (śāstras) are the foundational texts of a school of Buddhist philosophy known as the teaching of emptiness (Śūnyatā-vāda) or Middle Way School of Madhyamaka...
Microdosing psychedelics (entheogens) is the practice of consuming very low, sub-perceptual doses of a psychedelic substance—such as psilocybin-containing magic mushrooms, LSD, mescaline, or ayahuasca—designed to support subtle yet meaningful mental shifts without producing a full psychedelic experience [or loss of control].
For adults over 50, microdosing has gained interest as a potential tool for navigating life transitions, supporting cognitive vitality, enhancing emotional resilience, and improving overall quality of life.
Many Americans at this stage report benefits such as improved mood, reduced anxiety, reduced depression, relief from chronic pain and inflammation, better sleep, increased creativity, and a renewed sense of purpose and connection as they mature.
This introductory session explores how microdosing may support healthy aging while emphasizing intention, safety, and integration. Participants will learn:
How to choose an appropriate microdose for body and life stage
Typical microdose ranges and schedules for beginners
Ways microdosing may support mood, cognition, creativity, and well-being over 50
How to safely and legally navigate access to modern healing modalities
Best practices and safety guidelines to maximize benefits and minimize risks
GUIDE: Guzel Gjenasaj is a Ceremonialist, Midlife Midwife, Reiki Master, Medicine Guide, and Spiritual Mentor. She guides women through transformative psychedelic journeys, sweat lodges, and fire ceremonies, integrating somatics, ancestral wisdom, and spiritual practice to support healing, empowerment, and deep reconnection to self, spirit, and purpose.
Entheogenic medicinal substances must only be administered with "set and setting" in mind.
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Who knows what patients might see when dosed
Ever think about studying psychedelics? Well, now it's possible because the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) is offering the first accredited bachelor's degree of its kind in the United States.
Professor of Psychology Nick Walker at CIIS explained the new program on KCBS Radio the Bay Area, saying a lot of people are interested in psychedelics as an area of study.
He described the current situation as a psychotherapy renaissance when people are eager to test the use of drugs that act as hallucinogenicentheogenic potential-medicines.
"There's a lot of very exciting psychedelic research in terms of its potential as a [depression and] PTSD treatment, for instance. There's a lot of work happening with psychedelics, and we think it's very important that people approach it in a scientific fashion, in a well-informed fashion, in an ethically informed fashion.
"Because you know when something like this, when there's a big boom in something like psychedelics, some exciting method of treatment and exploration and personal growth, it can be kind of a Wild West scenario, with people experimenting wildly."
Psychedelics have gotten a lot of attention in popular culture recently, with claims they can assist people in the throes of a deep depression, help veterans and trauma survivors.
Okay, now I've gone too far. Stop the ride, please
A 2023 study by the National Institute of Health said PTSD currently affects an estimated 12 million U.S. adults and "initial clinical trials have demonstrated the potential value of psychedelic-assisted therapy to treat PTSD and other psychiatric disorders."
Hmm, that's kind of a let down, only 50% obscuration, barely dimming our view.
Solar Eclipse Viewing Party
On Monday, April 8, 2024, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm, Caltech (California Institute of Technology) is holding a public viewing event at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics.
This secret event is easy to miss outside the zone
A total solar eclipse will pass over North America, starting in Mexico (which is part of N. America) and entering Texas, which soon will revolt and not be part of the USA, on the morning of Monday, April 8, 2024.
ALERT: Griffith Observatory will not have an official event as all of its staff that normally revels in such events did the smart thing and traveled to Texas to see and film the event live. They will be broadcasting it live on YouTube. And the event planned for Mt. Wilson, the highest point over the City of Los Angeles, cancelled its viewing party. Although most Caltech astronomers also left town, they left behind a young crew to hold an official event of mostly know-nothings.
However, the richest-poorest town of Pasadena, California, which has the greatest wealth discrepancy between the Haves and the Have-Nots, has a private science institute called Caltech.edu. It is set up to view the partial solar eclipse that will be visible in most places outside the "path of totality."
The Science Center near USC and Cal State University, Los Angeles are also holding viewing parties with scientists on hand to assist in interpreting and sidestepping questions about why the shadow of the eclipse is moving in the wrong direction if Earth is spinning from west to east.
The shadow of [what cannot be] the moon will cover part of the Sun over the course of two hours. At its peak at 11:13 am, the Moon (whose name is Luna and Chandra and sometimes Soma) will cover almost 50% of the disk of the Sun. [It's actually Rahu doing it, but why quibble? If science says it's the Moon, no one is allowed to argue.]
Caltech will host a solar eclipse viewing party at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics and the adjacent space.
There will be solar telescopes, free eclipse glasses (as supplies last), and astrophysicists on hand to help everyone get the most out of this rare experience.
Astronomers and volunteers will be present to guide the public through the eclipse and answer questions about the Sun, eclipse, and astronomy.
This is a free event open to everyone. No reservations are needed. Stay as long or as short a time as desired. For directions, parking, and more information, please visit: outreach.astro.caltech.edu. For even more information, please contact Cameron Hummels by email at chummels@caltech.edu.
War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land exposes the financial interests and the dynamics at play leading to further concentration of [rich farm]land [by already very rich oligarchs in Ukraine with the help of war-money supplies from the USA] and finance.
The total amount of land controlled by oligarchs, corrupt individuals, and large agribusinesses is over nine million hectares — exceeding 28 percent of Ukraine’s arable [farmable] land.
The largest landholders are a mix of Ukrainian oligarchs and foreign interests — mostly European and North American as well as the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia.
Prominent US pension funds, foundations, and university endowments are invested through NCH Capital, a US-based private equity fund.
Several agribusinesses, still largely controlled by oligarchs, have opened up to Western banks and investment funds — including prominent ones such as Kopernik, BNP, or Vanguard — who now control part of their shares.
Most of the large landholders are substantially indebted to Western funds and institutions, notably the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank.
[U.S. funds corruption and weapons]
Western financing to Ukraine in recent years has been tied to a drastic structural adjustment program that has required austerity and privatization measures, including the creation of a land market for the sale of agricultural land.
Ukraine's Pres. Zelenskyy put the land reform into law in 2020 against the will of the vast majority of the population who feared it would exacerbate corruption and reinforce control by powerful interests in the agricultural sector.
Findings of the report concur with these concerns. While large landholders are securing massive financing from Western financial institutions, Ukrainian farmers — essential for ensuring domestic food supply — receive virtually no support.
With the land market in place, amidst high economic stress and war, this difference of treatment will lead to more land consolidation by large agribusinesses.
The report also sounds the alarm that Ukraine’s crippling debt is being used as a leverage by the financial institutions to drive post-war reconstruction towards further privatization and liberalization reforms in several sectors, including agriculture. Source
CIA works for corporations, not for the USA, and money rules the world
(UCLACommStudies) Alan Watts was speaking at UCLA, the University of California in Los Angeles on Feb. 21, 1973. This recording comes from the archives of the UCLA Communications Studies Department. It was digitized in 2013. UCLA is still active in its scientific study of Buddhist meditation, mindfulness (sati), or what it now refers to as mindful awareness at its MARC.
Aerial view of the beautiful Southern California campus as it outshines USC (or tries)
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NOTE: The views and ideas expressed in these videos [particularly of radical 1960s British Eastern Philosophy advocate and free love hippies] are not necessarily shared by the University of California or by the UCLA Communication Studies Department.
"[Sir] Jagadish Chandra Bose's wireless inventions antedated those of Marconi." Overhearing this provocative remark, I walked closer to a sidewalk group of professors engaged in scientific discussion. If my motive in joining them was racial [nationalistic] pride, I regret it. I cannot deny my keen interest in evidence that India can play a leading part in physics, and not metaphysics alone.
"What do you mean, sir?"
Plants and metals feel, Bose's instruments show.
The professor obligingly explained. "Bose was the first one to invent a wireless coherer and an instrument for indicating the refraction of electric waves. But the Indian scientist did not exploit his inventions commercially. He soon turned his attention from the inorganic to the organic world. His revolutionary discoveries as a plant physiologist are outpacing even his radical achievements as a physicist."
I politely thanked my mentor. He added, "The great scientist is one of my brother professors at Presidency College."
I paid a visit the next day to the sage at his home, which was close to mine on Gurpar Road. I had long admired him from a respectful distance. The grave and retiring botanist greeted me graciously. He was a handsome, robust man in his fifties, with thick hair, broad forehead, and the abstracted eyes of a dreamer. The precision in his tones revealed the lifelong scientific habit.
"I have recently returned from an expedition to scientific societies of the West. Their members exhibited intense interest in delicate instruments of my invention which demonstrate the indivisible unity of all life [Footnote 1]. The Bose crescograph has the enormity of ten million magnifications. The microscope enlarges only a few thousand times; yet it brought vital impetus to biological science. The crescograph opens incalculable vistas."
"You have done much, sir, to hasten the embrace of East and West in the impersonal arms of science."
"I was educated at Cambridge. How admirable is the Western method of submitting all theory to scrupulous experimental verification! That empirical procedure has gone hand in hand with the gift for introspection which is my Eastern heritage. Together they have enabled me to sunder the silences of natural realms long uncommunicative. The telltale charts of my crescograph [2] are evidence for the most skeptical that plants have a sensitive nervous system and a varied emotional life. Love, hate, joy, fear, pleasure, pain, excitability, stupor, and countless appropriate responses to stimuli are as universal in plants as in animals."
"The unique throb of life in all creation could seem only poetic imagery before your advent, Professor! A saint I once knew would never pluck flowers. 'Shall I rob the rosebush of its pride in beauty? Shall I cruelly affront its dignity by my rude divestment?' His sympathetic words are verified literally through your discoveries!"
"The poet is intimate with truth, while the scientist approaches awkwardly. Come someday to my laboratory and see the unequivocable testimony of the crescograph."
Gratefully I accepted the invitation and took my departure. I heard later that the botanist had left Presidency College and was planning a research center in Calcutta.
Botanist Jagadish Chandra Bose
When the Bose Institute (boseinst.ernet.in) was opened, I attended the dedicatory services. Enthusiastic hundreds strolled over the premises. I was charmed with the artistry and spiritual symbolism of the new home of science. Its front gate, I noted, was a centuried relic from a distant shrine. Behind the lotus [3] fountain, a sculptured female figure with a torch conveyed the Indian respect for woman as the immortal light-bearer. The garden held a small temple consecrated to the Noumenon beyond phenomena. Thought of the divine incorporeity was suggested by absence of any altar-image.
Bose's speech on this great occasion might have issued from the lips of one of the inspired ancient rishis.
"I dedicate today this [Bose] Institute as not merely a laboratory but a temple." His reverent solemnity stole like an unseen cloak over the crowded auditorium. "In the pursuit of my investigations I was unconsciously led into the border region of physics and physiology. To my amazement, I found boundary lines vanishing, and points of contact emerging, between the realms of the living and the non-living. Inorganic matter was perceived as anything but inert; it was athrill under the action of multitudinous forces.
"A universal reaction seemed to bring metal, plant, and animal under a common law. They all exhibited essentially the same phenomena of fatigue and depression, with possibilities of recovery and of exaltation, as well as the permanent irresponsiveness associated with death.
"Filled with awe at this stupendous generalization, it was with great hope that I announced my results before the Royal Society — results demonstrated by [reproducible] experiments.
"But the physiologists present advised me to confine myself to physical investigations, in which my success had been assured, rather than encroach on their preserves." More
1. "All science is transcendental or else passes away. Botany is now acquiring the right theory -- the avatars of Brahma will presently be the textbooks of natural history." - Emerson from the Latin root crescere, to increase. For his crescograph and other inventions, Bose was knighted in 1917.
2. The lotus flower is an ancient divine symbol in India; its unfolding petals suggest the expansion of the soul; the growth of its pure beauty from the mud of its origin holds a benign spiritual promise.
3. "At present, only the sheerest accident brings India into the purview of the American college student. Eight universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania, Chicago, and California) have chairs of Indology or Sanskrit, but India is virtually unrepresented in departments of history, philosophy, fine arts, political science, sociology, or any of the other departments of intellectual experience in which, as we have seen, India has made great contributions....We believe, consequently, that no department of study, particularly in the humanities, in any major university can be fully equipped without a properly trained specialist in the Indic phases of its discipline. We believe, too, that every college which aims to prepare its graduates for intelligent work in the world which is to be theirs to live in, must have on its staff a scholar competent in the civilization of India." - Extracts from an article by Professor W. Norman Brown of the University of Pennsylvania which appeared in the May 1939 issue of the Bulletin of the American Council of Learned Societies, 907 15th St., Washington, D. C., 25ø copy. This issue (#28) contains over 100 pages of a "Basic Bibliography for Indic Studies."
Our 6-week online MAPs classes mirror the format of our in-person classes, but are designed to be taken at your own pace. Learn to bring more mindfulness into your daily life through pre-recorded audio classes, discussion forums, as well as optional live chats with our experienced instructors and fellow participants. Our online classes are an educational experience suitable for people of all backgrounds.
July/Aug Online Classes - Levels I & II:
MAPs I for Daily Living
MAPs II: Next Steps
MAPs II: Cultivating Positive Emotions
Dates: Self-paced, between July 8-Aug 16, 2019
Registration Deadline: Tuesday, July 16
Day of Mindfulness: How Mindfulness Is and Is Not a Psychotherapy with Matthew Brensilver
In what ways does mindfulness practice function as a kind of ‘self-psychotherapy’? In what ways is mindfulness entirely unlike psychotherapy? During our day together, we’ll explore how the mindfulness path overlaps with the healing we might find in psychotherapy: it supports self-understanding, uncovers behavioral patterns and transforms how we relate to our past. Unlike traditional psychotherapy, mindfulness practice relies on states of concentration, letting go and surrender that point to cultivations beyond typical psychotherapeutic aims.
The daylong will include periods of meditation, lecture and discussion. It is not designed as a professional training but an examination of how mindfulness gets under the skin and transforms our heart. All are welcome.
Date: Sat July 27, 2019, 10am-4pm Venue: UCLA Campus
We are delighted to announce that MARC has just released a new app for iOS and Android called "UCLA Mindful".
This app has all the MARC meditations that you are familiar with—our web-based meditations for general use and for MAPs classes in English and Spanish, additional short meditations, meditations for those in the hospital, and of course our weekly podcast meditation from the Hammer Museum.
The podcasts had been on hiatus last year but now are completely updated and will continue to be available on the MARC website and through our new app. You will be able to search and bookmark your favorites on the app.
You can find it on the app store under ‘UCLA Mindful’. If you have an iOS device, find it on iTunes and if you have an Android device, find it on Google Play.
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