ABSTRACT
Jon will describe the revolution in medicine that has occurred over the past 30 years that has integrated the mind back into the body and developed a remarkable range of practices for integrating one's experience, reducing stress, healing the body, coping more effectively with emotions such as anxiety, anger, and depression, and cultivating greater well-being and happiness. His work has been instrumental in bringing Buddhist meditative practices, as he likes to say, "without the Buddhism" to full acceptance within the mainstream of medicine, psychology, and health care, and has shown them to be effective in people suffering from a wide range of medical...
Keywords: Lumberjacks
Comments
I very much liked the observation that the negative effects of stress are related to our perception of how much stress we are experiencing and not the actual severity of our situation. Thus implying that the best way to avoid stress is to remain relaxed. The serenity in the eye of the hurricane as it were...
Also very interesting to see how an eight week course in mindfulness can have such a great impact on stress, even as much as three years later. For my own part, when all around me is breaking loose in work, and I see a colleague in distress, I smile at them, put my hands in a posture that implies meditation, take a deep breath and say 'relax, stress won't help the situation'. I may however forward them the link to this video, as the Dali Lama apparently said 'are we going to keep this knowledge to ourselves?' Its too important not to share this one.
In any case, I think a less stressed world would be a more peaceful world. I can't see relaxed people living in the here and now wanting to fight unless they really really need to... :)
It is amazing that you can indeed choose to be calm and optimistic. You may as well, as the opposite doesn't work any better and it is bad for you.
There is a source of really great, free buddhist teachings that I really enjoy and gain much from. I amnot sure if you will think the same of them, but here is the link anyway . . . http://www.aci-la.org/teach_marut.html
There is an actual school that these are a part of and they are offering the equivalent of the education a buddhist monk called a geshe gets, but in english. From my understanding, they are putting the audio and much of the written materials out for free. There really is some great stuff on there if you like that sort of thing.
I agree too on the peaceful word. Being aware and here and now, relaxing you self and knowing your self can't be good for the war machine, or consumerism for that matter.
Oh, here is another video on a similar topic that you might enjoy as well. I didn't think it was as good, but worth the watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf6Q0G1iHBI