Mayan Magic Tour of Mexico (12/6)

The Sun God shines all day then transforms itself into a jaguar to pass through the underworld. Learn more about these Maya and pre-Hispanic philosophies and belief systems, while viewing sacred sites, natural wonders, and reveling in rich Mexican traditions and vegan food. This is our Mayan Magic Tour of Mexico.

We’ll camp out on the site of the pyramids of Teotihuacan, before taking a hot air balloon ride at sunrise the next morning.

We’ll admire floating gardens, explore the pyramids at Chichen Itza, delve into Mexican-German artist Frida Kahlo’s life at her blue house museum, swim in pristine cenotes or volcanic sink holes, hike to the top of a sacred mountain with a hidden temple at the top, indulge in local vegan delicacies, while on a rooftop overlooking the luminescent skyline, and dance salsa in the Zocalo or central square of Mexico City’s vibrant plaza.

These are just some of the wonders that await participants. ellorawellness.com

ITINERARY

(Subject to change. All activities led by licensed, experienced, native tour guide)

• Day 1: Arrive in Mexico City, head to Teotihuacan pyramids for group dinner, hold opening ceremony, yoga, meditation, camp on site
• Day 2: Hot air balloon ride above Teotihuacan (optional), guided tour of ancient pyramids, head to hotel in Mexico City, yoga, meditation
• Day 3: Visit anthropology museum, tour the Zocalo, see downtown Mexico City, aerial and/or acroyoga class (optional)
• Day 4: Tour Coyoacan, view Blue House (Frida Kahlo's home), salsa dancing in center square, aerial and/or acroyoga class (optional)
• Day 5: Boat ride down Xochimilco floating gardens, drive to Tepoztlan, check in to hotel, hike mountain to Aztec temple, sacred plant ritual (optional), meditation on mountaintop
• Day 6: Drive or fly to Chiapas, check in to hotel, bathe in cenotes, hike​
• Day 7: Tour San Cristobal de las Casas, homecooked vegan meal, yoga, meditation
• Day 8: Fly to Valladolid, tour the town, sound and light show (if available), check in to hotel, yoga, meditation, community circle
• Day 9: Tour Chichen Itza, yoga, meditation
• Day 10: Drive to Bacalar, check in to hotel, enjoy beach time, yoga, meditation
• Day 11: Drive to Playa del Carmen, volunteer at nearby animal sanctuary, Black Sheep Retreat Sanctuary, community circle, yoga, meditation
• Day 12: Drive to Cancun, closing ceremony, fly home.

• Shared room: $2,800; Private room: $3,100
• (Prices subject to change due to airline fees)
• Price includes: breakfast, lunch, snacks (all the food served on this retreat is vegan), purified water, and transportation within Mexico.

All are welcome! Organized by Vanessa Marsot, the genie starring in this Los Angeles home movie with her wacky vegan Valley friends, in conjunction with Lisa Levinson (Vegan Spirituality LA Meetup). Get tickets:

• Venmo: @Vanessa-Marsot
• Zelle: (818) 383-5998
• PayPal: vmarsot@gmail.com
• To use credit card, contact vmarsot@gmail.com
• Minimum 4 participants needed to allow trip to happen at level described.
• ellorawellness.com

Bhakti Love Fest w/ Jai Uttal (10/13-15)

BhaktiLove.com; Jen Bradshaw (Dharma Buddhist Meditation.), Wisdom Quarterly

instagram@bhaktilovereunion (bhaktilove.com)

Drum circle at Bhakti Love, hippies in the California woods, devotional music fest

PHOTO GALLERY: Bhakti Love Reunion | 3-Day Yoga Retreat & Music Festival

• Event Schedule - Bhakti Love Reunion | 3-Day Yoga Retreat & Music Festival
• Tickets for BHAKTI LOVE 2023 in Weldon from BrightStar | Events to Uplift (brightstarevents.com)

My Magic Mushroom Jamaican Retreat (video)

J Airplane; Stone Age Man, 4/29/22; Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Inside a magic mushroom retreat: a special inside look from start to finish

(Stone Age Man) A big thanks to all current and future patrons who are helping fund this science and filmmaking outreach via Patreon. Thanks also to Tradd at Blue Portal in Jamaica: blueportalretreat.com

• Magic Mushrooms DEMYSTIFIED: The Science

Michael Pollan was right: Change your mind

Follow on instagram.com. Go to curiositystream.thld.co and use the code STONEAGEMAN to save 25% off today, only $14.99 a year. Thanks to Curiosity Stream for sponsoring video.

• Music: goo.gl/roSjb7
• (Jonas @behindthescience)
• Instagram.com
• X: twitter.com
• FB: facebook.com
• Website: untamedscience.com

Jonas and I are creating a whole series of how-to-filmmaking videos to get others started. Here is the first video (bit.ly/2AcYvHJ) and book (amzn.to/2zV88LS).

Help us create amazing, world reaching content by translating and transcribing videos on this channel: bit.ly/2Crnjgu.

All videos made ourselves with this gear: Full video setup: kit.com/UntamedScience (Buying through these links helps support the channel). To see how these videos are done, there's a channel dedicated to show that: Edu: robnelsonfilms

Main DSLR : https://amzn.to/2Sho2qc Second Camera : http://amzn.to/2B9HInR Main Lens - http://amzn.to/2BaEXTk The Adventure Camera Bag : http://amzn.to/2B8WYRH The Macro Lens - http://amzn.to/2hHUhxW Telephoto Lens - http://amzn.to/2za1FJV Our MegaWide Lens - http://amzn.to/2z9KtnS Our BEST oncamera Mic - http://amzn.to/2hGuSVt The Drone - http://amzn.to/2z84Bqc My Moving Timelapse setup - https://amzn.to/2SeCZcJ GoPro HERO 7 - https://amzn.to/2ShoPHG Our Filmmaking Book!!! - http://amzn.to/2zV88LS

Yoga Process for Emotions w/ Bree

Bree VanZutphen (Clarity & Calm); Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma BM Meetup), Wisdom Quarterly

PROCESS: Self-Inquiry, Yoga, Release

Kathleen and Bree lead an upcoming workshop & retreat

This is a 90-minute practice of ecstatic release, dance, yoga, self-inquiry, catharsis, music, movement, vocal release, and various somatic techniques with Yogini Bree VanZutphen.

The class is designed to take elusive concepts and process them through our physical bodies.

This class addresses the physical, emotional, mental, energetic, and spiritual layers of our being. It's a deep dive to play to understand internal alignment and discuss how to translate the practice into our daily lives.

The purpose of this practice is to cultivate a deeper relationship with self and as a result a deeper relationship with the world around us. Please bring pen and paper or a journal to class.

Crystal singing bowls created an excellent sound bath at a recent Kinship workshop.

• (PRICE: $25 or sliding scale)
• FREE TO RSVP: Yoga Process for Emotions with Bree (Kinship Yoga), Sat., 10:00 AM | Meetup
• Yoga Process for Emotions with Bree (PasaDharma)
• Schedule — Kinship Highland Park (kinshipyoga.com)
• Clarity & Calm with Bree VanZutphen (claritycalm.com)

Meet Bree

Bree VanZutphen (founder of Clarity & Calm) is a yoga and meditation teacher, reiki practitioner, breathwork facilitator, creator, and dancer.

She set off on a healing journey after a former life as a dancer. It was then that she found yoga, which helped heal her body, mind, and spirit.

After years of practicing yoga and meditation, she discovered active breathwork. This served as a catalyst to help her start to process the repressed emotional energy that still lived in her body.

Now she combines somatic (bodily) techniques in all of her teachings and is passionate about addressing the physical, mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual aspects of Self in everything she facilitates.

“Become an expert at feeling space

rather than filling it.”

- Bree VanZutphen

Retreat: Clarity and Calm with Bree VanZutphen

The intention at the core of her classes is to hold space for participants to deprogram their bodies and minds, freeing them from conditioning put upon us by our upbringing, society, and the collective (un)consciousness that inhibits the unique essence of each individual.

She values freedom, authenticity, truth, conscious choice, community, and connection to the Self and the divine above all else.

Bree VanZutphen teaches workshops online and at studios throughout Los Angeles. All of her programs help facilitate connection to truth and deep remembering. She leads several healing retreats locally and internationally every year that combine deep self-inquiry, connection with community, tapping back into the sacredness of nature.

Her greatest passion is helping others come home to themselves and recognize the magnificence they already possess. Unearth and integrate hidden aspects of self through a combination of techniques, such as mindfulness, subconscious reprogramming, emotional release work, mindset, and movement. More

Instead of death, near-death meditation (video)

Scott M. Taylor, Ed.D. (neardeathmeditations.com); Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly

The brain can be tracked.

Why Near Death Experience? Near-death experiencers, called NDErs, have provided a rich map of the nonphysical universe. The millions who have had made this journey describe it with awe and wonder.

NDErs are profoundly changed by the experience. We can be, too ― thanks to the transformative power of near-death meditations.

Join Scott Taylor on a guided tour into the sacred realms of the near-death experience ― via Near-Death Experience Meditation retreats or albums that can be used at a time and place that is most convenient.

• Register for upcoming NDE Zoom Retreat January 15-20

Scott M. Taylor, Ed.D., is America's foremost facilitator of near-death meditations and retreats, having helped thousands explore the journey of transition. More

"The NDE program brought clarity to the rules of the physical and nonphysical worlds in order to act with conscious choice! …What I discovered was all there is, is LOVE. Until I experienced it in the nonphysical, I have felt only a morsel of its grandeur. My hope is that others will have the same opportunity to experience eternity now."

— Michele Blair

How I Switched Off the Pain: Vipassana (film)

Hard Is Easy (documentary, 1/26/20); Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Vipassana documentary

Vipassana means "insight" in the exclusively Buddhist language Pali. It is a form of meditation and associated attention practices that produce intuitive direct-knowledge of reality. It is the path of purification, the path to freedom the Buddha taught on top of extraordinary serenity (samadhi, the ecstatic meditative absorptions). Serenity is calm concentration that temporarily purifies the mind/heart, whereas insight meditation produces knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment, which are permanent liberation and freedom from all suffering.

How was the free 10-day retreat?

(Hard Is Easy) I'm not a woo woo person, but 10 days of complete silence in an insight (vipassana) meditation retreat was a life-altering experience for me.

In this video I tell the full story from how I got myself to sit still for about 120 hours to brain science and psychology of the mind to, of course, the things that were super weird or seemed like it at first.

The goal is not to make anyone try vipassana nor is it the opposite. It took me about four years to finally get myself to try it. And despite my mind-opening experiences, vipassana is a very personal journey. It is probably not for everyone.

I tried many types of meditation before. Unfortunately, most of them were surrounded by spiritual woobee doobee [hogwash, nonsense]. And I got no real benefits from them apart from relaxation.

The vipassana technique (taught by U Ba Khin and his student S. N. Goenka) gave me a glimpse into my deep brain and deeply programmed behavioral patterns.

The group makes it bearable. Everyone's in.

Being more mindful of our crazy minds is the road to a happier life. Many great people use this mindfulness practice.

Colin O'Brady is an endurance athlete who crossed the landmass of Antarctica alone and unsupported. Yuval Noah Harari is a famous historian who wrote Sapiens. Both claim that they could not have achieved what they did without the help of vipassana meditation.

Here's another fun fact: The Buddha was NOT teaching Buddhism. [He taught the efficacy of karma and in his day was known as a Karmavadin, a "Teacher of Karma." He said he taught the Dharma, the liberating Truth, the path to direct realization so that no one thereafter needs a teacher to know what's true.

In fact, the Buddha or "Enlightened One," the former Prince Siddhartha Gautama, was more of a body-and-mind scientist, who did many experiments on himself to rediscover the path when there was no one in the world who knew it. Today, people know it. Find one of those teachers.

What the Buddha always said was, "Don't believe me, Experience everything for yourself and draw your own conclusions." The buddhas merely point the way. Be happy.

"The Enlightenment Trap"...Wim Hoff (audio)

Glynn Washington (WNYCstudios.org); Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.) Wisdom Quarterly

The Enlightenment Trap

A student trip to India. A goody two-shoes gal, Emily O'Connor. A delusion that she is a bodhisattva (later developments). A suicide. It's an "Enlightenment Trap"! The existential crisis leads her teacher, Scott Carney, on a search for meaning.

He studies how many Westerners go off the rails in India -- and how many "fake gurus" drive them to it. Like, who the heck is this Wim "The Iceman" Hof?

What Doesn't Kill Us (Scott Carney)

He has to be fake, the fakest of the fakes. A skeptical journalist goes to Poland to take the training then fights freezing temperatures alongside the fitness guru to test the limits of his own mortality.

Read more about Scott’s adventures with Wim Hof and his record-breaking ascent up Mt. Kilimanjaro in the book What Doesn't Kill Us. See what else Carney is up to on his website.

• Produced by Adizah Eghan
• Original score by David Last
• AUDIO: Snap Classic: Season 8, Episode 17
  

What about gays? Goenka in Berkeley (video)

Mr. and Mrs. S.N. Goenka via Dhamma Naturalmind; Ellie Askew, Wisdom Quarterly

Q&A: Goenka-jii (of free 10-day insight meditation vipassana retreats fame) addresses a few amusing questions from Californians in this Dhamma (Dharma) talk in Berkeley, California, USA on June 8, 2002. The original video was uploaded to vridhamma.org, a resource for more videos and information.

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Session 12 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, CYM, Carmel, NY (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Wisdom Quarterly

American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi teaches at the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS), Chuang Yen Monastery, in Carmel, Upstate New York: This retreat is being streamed live (and stored). This is Session 12: "Exploring Dependent Origination," Abhidharma Study and Meditation Retreat, Monday, Sept. 2, 2019, 2:10 PM.

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Session 11 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, CYM, Carmel, NY (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Wisdom Quarterly

American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi teaches at the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS), Chuang Yen Monastery, in Carmel, Upstate New York: This retreat is being streamed live (and stored). This is Session 10: "Exploring Dependent Origination," Abhidharma Study and Meditation Retreat, Monday, Sept. 2, 2019, 10:20 AM.

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Session 10 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, CYM, Carmel, NY (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Wisdom Quarterly

American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi teaches at the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS), Chuang Yen Monastery, in Carmel, Upstate New York: This retreat is being streamed live (and stored). This is Session 10: "Exploring Dependent Origination," Abhidharma Study and Meditation Retreat, Monday, Sept. 2, 2019, 9:00 AM.

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Session 9 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, CYM, Carmel, NY (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Wisdom Quarterly

American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi teaches at the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS), Chuang Yen Monastery, in Carmel, Upstate New York: This retreat is being streamed live (and stored). This is Session 9: "Exploring Dependent Origination," Abhidharma Study and Meditation Retreat, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019, 3:35 PM.

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Session 8 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, CYM, Carmel, NY (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Wisdom Quarterly

American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi teaches at the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS), Chuang Yen Monastery, in Carmel, Upstate New York: This retreat is being streamed live (and stored). This is Session 8: "Exploring Dependent Origination," Abhidharma Study and Meditation Retreat, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019, 2:10 PM.

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Session 7 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, CYM, Carmel, NY (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Wisdom Quarterly

American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi teaches at the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS), Chuang Yen Monastery, in Carmel, Upstate New York: This retreat is being streamed live (and stored). This is Session 7: "Exploring Dependent Origination," Abhidharma Study and Meditation Retreat, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019, 10:20 AM.

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Session 6 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, CYM, Carmel, NY (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Wisdom Quarterly

American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi teaches at the Buddhist Association of the United States (BAUS), Chuang Yen Monastery, in Carmel, Upstate New York: This retreat is being streamed live (and stored). This is Session 6: "Exploring Dependent Origination," Abhidharma Study and Meditation Retreat, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019, 9:00 AM.

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Session 5 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, CYM, Carmel, NY (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Wisdom Quarterly

BAUS Chuang Yen Monastery, Carmel, Upstate New York: streamed live (and recorded), Session 5: "Exploring Dependent Origination," Abhidharma Study and Meditation Retreat, Saturday, Aug. 31, 2019, 3:30 PM.

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)

"A Still Forest Pool" (audio)

Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery, May 16, 2019; Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

BOOK READING: A Still Forest Pool

(Abhayagiri Sangha) Ven. Nisabho reads the following selections from A Still Forest Pool, an early compilation of Ajahn Chah's teachings arranged and published by Jack Kornfield and Paul Breiter:

• The Simple Path, p. 5
• Buddhist Psychology, p. 12
• Thieves in Your Heart, p. 21
• Problems of the World, p. 40
• Don't Imitate, p. 66
• Who is Sick?, p. 87
• Some Hints on Practicing, p. 97

The conversation following the readings touches on how the book was compiled, the influence it had on Ajahn Nyaniko's path to monasticism, and whether or not it was a book offered to a retreatant on a plane flight. This reading was offered on March 23, 2019 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery, Northern California.

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Session 4 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, CYM, Carmel, NY (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Wisdom Quarterly

BAUS Chuang Yen Monastery, Carmel, Upstate New York: streamed live (and recorded), Session 4: "Exploring Dependent Origination," Abhidharma Study and Meditation Retreat, Saturday, Aug. 31, 2019, 2:10 PM.

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)
• The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: A Course in the Anguttara Nikaya with Bhikkhu Bodhi

Bhikkhu Bodhi: Dependent Origination (LIVE)

Bhikkhu Bodhi (BAUS.org) via YouTube live stream; Editors, Wisdom Quarterly

• INFO: Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat (Aug. 30-Sept. 3)

Bhikkhu Bodhi study retreat 8/30-9/3 (video)

Bhikkhu Bodhi (BAUS.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka, Bhante (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

• WATCH FREE: LIVE STREAM ON YOUTUBE

Abhidharma Study Retreat with Bhikkhu Bodhi: "Exploring Dependent Origination"

(Chaung Yen Monastery, Upstate NY, Aug. 30-Sept. 3, 2019)

Each year since 2013 Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi has been holding a Labor Day Weekend Retreat on the Abhidharma ("Ultimate Doctrine" or "Higher Teachings"), the Buddhist philosophical psychology [and physics].

At this year’s Abhidhamma retreat Ven. Bodhi will be exploring the Buddha’s teaching of dependent origination (paticca samuppada), the existential principle that all things (except for nirvana) arise dependent on conditions.

Dependent origination specifically traces the chain of conditions that leads to suffering and binds us to samsara, the cycle of repeated birth and death, thereby revealing what we must do to attain liberation.

At the retreat the venerable will be discussing dependent origination from two complementary points of view -- the perspective of the sutras and the more technical Abhidhamma perspective.

We will first examine a selection of sutras from the Nidana Samyutta, the “Connected Discourses on the Chain of Conditions.”

Thereafter, we will explore the 24 conditions that the Abhidhamma system applies to its analysis of dependent origination.

This part of the retreat, based on The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), Chapter 17, will give us a detailed understanding of this central Buddhist principle.

2020, Route 301, Carmel, NY 10512, (845) 225-1819, (845) 228-4283

PREPARATION

It is recommended that students obtain copies of A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma and The Path of Purification. FREE versions of both books are available by clicking on titles. Paper copies may be purchased from store.pariyatti.org (CMA, PoP).

A selection of relevant sutras will be sent out. Those who wish to explore the subject in detail should study Chapter 17 of The Path of Purification and the first part of Chapter 8 of the Manual of Abhidhamma.

But if they appear too difficult to study, despair not. Bhikkhu Bodhi ("Bhante") will be treating them in a clear and comprehensible manner.

2019-Abhidhamma Schedule

Suttas on Dependent Origination

Syllabus

RETREAT

The retreat begins on Friday evening, Aug. 30, 2019. It continues through 11:00 am on Tuesday, Sept. 3rd. It includes lectures and discussion periods, question-and-answer sessions, and five periods of meditation each day. Prior attendance at earlier retreats is not required to register for this retreat. The retreat schedule and syllabus are posted. More + Register

• Begins: Aug. 30 (Friday), 7:00 pm
• Ends: Sept. 3 (Tuesday), 11:00 am
• Place: Kuan Yin Hall, Chaung Yen Monastery
• Buddhist Association of the U.S. (baus.org)
• Registration time: August 30th at 5:00 pm
• WATCH FREE: Live stream on YouTube
• Join this retreat remotely in Southern California