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Victor Bradford's Tips and Links Victor is a teacher at Rocky Mountain Insight.
SOME WEBSITES, AUTHORS, BOOKS, AND ITEMS FOR YOUR TOOLBOX
In general, after finishing a book, lecture, or audio, ask yourself, “Did this resource make me a better person,” (not “Did it just make me feel better?”) and also, “Will this resource benefit other sentient creatures as I interact with them?” If so, investigate the author further. And enjoy. It’s a wonderful adventure. Good written or audio resources can provide perspective for your mind and heart – the most miraculous entity in the entire known universe. Those below cover a wide range and some are quite specialized, so check them out using Amazon, inter-library loan, and other sources. Also, use the website Links and Bibliographies! This list is, despite its length, incomplete. The field keeps evolving, and if I have left out your favorite author, I humbly restrict the list to sources I am somewhat familiar with. In most cases, this paper gives the author’s name rather than specific books or all-too-brief reviews of many books (it’s long enough as it is) -- many authors have published several books or articles and you can research them on Amazon. The resources listed below are reasonably good sources, as far as I know, but no one can know them all in depth. The good news is … you don’t need to. Nearly all Buddhist teachings are holographic, and although you will find some are better than others for you, you will benefit by taking almost any of them to heart. All you really need is your mind, your heart, and perhaps your breath. I hope this brief list helps you continue a journey of a lifetime.
WEBSITES (also use the Links on each of these sites!): Accesstoinsight.org (excellent summary of the early
Buddhist scriptures --Other good websites are available in the links and also in Buddhist and Yogic journals. --As always, “just because you saw it on the internet (or in a book) doesn’t mean it’s true (or up-to-date),” and as always, trust everyone but keep a current virus checker. LOCAL RESOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF COLORADO SPRINGS: The Springs has many good groups, including Rocky Mountain Insight (rockymountaininsight.org), Shining Mountain Sangha (a Zen group; smszen.org), No-Gate Dojo Sangha (Zen; Ralph and Carol at 447-9427) and a Tibetan group (635-7804). David Gardner (a Colorado College professor) occasionally teaches classes on Buddhism, and leads a Tuesday night group meeting at 5:30 at First Congregational. Currently, you can sit with a group just about every day except Saturday (and several Saturdays each month also have group activities). Check with each group to find if they have newcomer orientation requirements. The Springs has a gentle group of Benedictine nuns at Benet Hill (benethillmonastery. org). They give classes, offer retreats, and host Centering Prayer activities. You may attend Vespers and other daily prayer services with them. Denver has an excellent Buddhist group (insightcolorado.org). If you are moving or traveling, D. Morreale (from the Denver sangha) has written a compendium of Buddhist meditation centers and retreat centers across the US and Canada, entitled Complete Guide to Buddhist America. Speaking of retreats,…. RETREATS: A retreat is an irreplaceable way to expand your practice rapidly and qualitatively, and to relax and take in the dharma. Journals, websites, and local dharma centers give good sources of information. Other good sources for retreat locations include J. Torkelson (Colorado’s Sanctuaries, Retreats, and Sacred Places book) and Ram Dass (Journey of Awakening book). Colorado has major retreat centers in Crestone, Red Feather Lakes, and the Springs (at Benet Pines). You can take an armchair pilgrimage to Buddhism’s holy sites in India in the book, Meeting the Buddha. PUBLICATIONS/JOURNALS (these may be available at the local library or online): --Consider visiting the local Benet Hill or CC libraries to browse through their journals. --Outstanding online publications include Inquiring Mind (inquiringmind.com) and Insight Journal (dharma.org, then BCBS). Desert Call (spirituallifeinstitute.org) is one of the many journals from the Christian contemplative tradition, What Is Enlightenment (wie.org) is published by A. Cohen’s group, and Parabola (parabola.org) publishes a thoughtful, eclectic journal. Tricycle, Buddhadharma, and Shambala Sun are popular magazines, and you can find several good yoga journals. Online journals include buddhistethics.org, uhpress.hawaii.edu/journals/pew, and westernbuddhistreview.com. CHILDREN’S BOOKS: Dharma resources for kids make enjoyable reading for adults, too. The Jataka Tales, which are stories about the Buddha’s previous lives, provide an excellent foundation for kid’s tales and even seem like decent fairy tales (key in “jataka” on Amazon for several choices). Many discussions and guided meditations, especially on compassion, seem well-suited for older kids, too, especially when they are most receptive. If you visit Wisdompubs. com, dharmapublishing.com, snowlionpub.com, or pariyatti.com and put “children” in the search key you will find many choices. You can benefit you and your kids at the same time, because when they see you benefiting from the dharma, they will perceive its benefits more clearly. Parenting books to consider include J. and M. Kabat-Zin (Everyday Blessings), S. Eastoak (Dharma Family Treasures), and K. MacLean (The Family Meditation Book). MEDITATION SUPPLIES: Dharma Crafts (dharmacrafts.com), Carolina Morning (zafu.net), and Pema Design (pemadesign.com) are among several good resources for meditation supplies. Everest Nepal Imports of the Springs is a good local source. You can download a program at http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/timer/timer.html to ring a bell at the end of a specific time (good for timing your meditation periods), or you could program your own with a recorder and a microphone. GUIDED MEDITATION BOOKS AND AUDIO RESOURCES: Guided meditation uses an audio source or a teacher to guide you through the meditation. It differs from other methods, such as mindfulness of breathing (which relies on observation and attentiveness training). Guided meditation is excellent for developing qualities which you are trying to reinforce (such as loving-kindness), and for developing a more solid foundation in any meditation method. Experts use it, too. Sources for audio and written guided meditations include the websites listed above, J. Kornfield (Meditation for Beginners audio and Path With Heart book), S. Salzberg (Insight Meditation and Lovingkindness audio), J. Kabat-Zin (Guided Mindfulness Meditation audio), A. Wallace (Attention Revolution book), leighb.com/ metta.htm, rockymountaininsight.org then DharmaStore, dharmaseed.org then key in guided meditation, dharma.org/ims/ then “download dharma talks” on the left, audiodharma.org then “guided meditation” tab on the left. As always, websites are constantly changing but the above links should get you in the general area. And, as always, the bibliographies in many of the books listed here are also great resources for further research. --Lucinda Green (the Rocky Mountain Insight founder) has excellent guided meditations, including for sweeping, compassion, and mindfulness with breathing, available at rockymountaininsight.org. --Thich Nhat Hanh has written a book/CD on Walking Meditation and a book, The Blooming of the Lotus, which contains wonderful gatas or mantras for guided meditation. --P. Levine gives many fine guided meditation exercises in One Year To Live. --M.Williams, et al, have written The Mindful Way Through Depression, which contains a CD with guided meditation specifically for difficult emotional times. --Of course, you can record, print, or memorize your own guided meditations, using your own ideas or the above sources. Other sources lending themselves well to guided meditations include the Dhammapada (a classic Buddhist writing) and the Psalms. CHANTING: --Websites for chanting include the ones listed in the first paragraph, divinegold.com/ meditation/meditationchants.htm, yoga-insight.com/history/yoga-chants.aspx, soundstrue.com, and bellaonline.com/ articles/art17100.asp. Of course, Gregorian chant has been used by Christian monastics for centuries. MEDITATION AUTHORS AND BOOKS (geared toward Buddhism): --Any book on meditation should include compassion! --Among modern teachers of meditation, H.H. the Dalai Lama is justifiably among the most beloved and well-respected (except, of course, by the Chinese government). --Alan Wallace is an exceptionally gifted, wise, scholarly author who emphasizes Tibetan Buddhist mindfulness practice (he has studied early Buddhism too). His book, The Attention Revolution, is perhaps THE best single book for attentiveness training. --Jon Kabat-Zinn established the U of Mass Medical School stress reduction program and wrote a classic stress-reduction book based on that program (Full Catastrophe Living). He has also written The Mindful Way Through Depression, Mindfulness for Beginners, and Guided Mindfulness Meditation (written and audio). --Ram Dass has outlined various meditation methods in Journey of Awakening. --Thich Nhat Hanh (The Miracle Of Mindfulness; Peace Is Every Step) is a well-respected Buddhist teacher of mindfulness and meditation. --Larry Rosenberg, a teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Massachusetts, has written a wonderful book on mindfulness with breathing, called Breath By Breath. --Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness), A. Wallace (Boundless Heart), and Sylvia Boorstein (Happiness Is An Inside Job) are deservedly well-respected for teachings on compassion. --Ayah Khema, a Buddhist nun, has written one of the best Theravada (early Buddhist) resources on advanced meditative states called Who Is My Self. You will be well off attending a retreat given by her disciple, Leigh Brasington, if you are interested in them. --Snow Lion Publications, Pariyatti Book Services, and Wisdom Publications are outstanding resources for books and audio sources (see their websites, above). --The popular Idiot’s and Dummies guides to meditation and Buddhism are fairly good. --Christian meditation sources include Fr. Thomas Keating (centeringprayer.com), A. deMello, St. Francis, St. Benedict, St Anthony, Brother Lawrence, Thomas Merton, Meister Eckhart, D. Steindl-Rast, T. Dubay, Therese of Avila, John of the Cross, the Desert Fathers/Mothers, and The Cloud of Unknowing (wonderfully anonymous author; J. Walsh and W. Johnston have excellent translations). Benedictine abbeys often have good websites, links, and teachings. The Christian tradition has a long history of attempting to blend contemplation with work or action, as exemplified by Mother Teresa (the subject of several good books on active meditation). Christian orders have used Lectio Divina (Divine Listening) for centuries; some excellent material can be found at contemplativeoutreach.com and valyermo.com, and in books by M. Pennington (Lectio Divina) and T. Hall (Too Deep For Words). The Paulist Press has an excellent series entitled Classics of Western Spirituality, and the Philokolia has remained a beautiful source of Christian spirituality for centuries. -- The Kabbalah is perhaps the primary source of Jewish meditation, and good Jewish perspectives are offered by D. Matt (The Essential Kabbalah), Aryeh Kaplan (Jewish Meditation; Kabbalah and Meditation), and D. Cooper (God Is A Verb). Interestingly, many recent American Buddhist teachers have Jewish backgrounds. --Several good books and anthologies of Rumi’s Sufi meditations exist. --Yoga was developed even before the time of the Buddha resources include Diana Lang (Opening to Meditation), Easwaran (Meditation), Bodhipaksa (Guided Meditations). You can find many resources in yoga journals and magazines. -- Other resources such as Tai Chi, Qui Gong, Pilates, legitimate martial arts, etc. can be superb adjuncts to silent meditation. Other cultures and groups have what seem to be good meditation-related methods, too, but I am not adequately familiar with them. --An overlooked “resource” for meditation is called lucid dreaming, where you become consciously aware you are dreaming. S. LaBerge’s books, including Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming, are perhaps the best introduction to this interesting area. BUDDHISM: Books are great but a good, knowledgeable, gentle, trustable human teacher is a big help to keep you on track, and a sangha can provide supportive friends. Fortunately, the basics are simple, but there is enough depth to last a lifetime. Mindfulness of Breathing and Compassion are, as the Buddha said, enough to take you all the way. -General Buddhism: --In my opinion, perhaps the best general single introduction to Buddhism would be J. Kornfield’s A Path With Heart. Perhaps the best single intermediate source for understanding Buddhism would be In The Buddha’s Words: An Anthology Of Discourses From The Pali Canon, by Bhikkhu Bodhi. --A good anthology, such as The Best of Buddhist Writing, Nixon Under The Bodhi Tree, or An Introduction To The Buddha And His Teachings, can introduce you to several writers and teachers, so you can choose who appeals to you. You will probably soon notice Western Buddhism has a very different flavor from the classic texts. --Another option is a reasonably good encyclopedia, and D. Keown and C. Prebish have published the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, a large and expensive summary. --Good introductory resources include S. Hagen (Buddhism Is Not What You Think), D. Lopez (The Story of Buddhism), J. Smith (The Beginner’s Guide), T. Chodron (Buddhism For Beginners), D. Keown (Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction), and P. Harvey (An Introduction To Buddhism). --Books on the life of the Buddha include Nanamoli (Life of the Buddha), H. Saddhatissa and J. Kornfield (The Life of Siddhartha), D. Kalupahana (Siddhartha), M. Walsh (The Historical Buddha), and W. Nelson (Buddha: His Life And Teaching). H. Hesse’s Siddartha, which seemed like a good read when I was in undergrad school, has more to do with the author’s fertile imagination than with the historical Buddha. -Early Buddhism (Theravada): The Pali Texts are the major source for early Buddhist writings. Deep and scholarly, they are the “real thing” for those interested in classical Buddhism. Bhikkhu Bodhi has written an anthology of the Pali Texts, noted above, and has also updated A Comprehensive Manual of the Abhidhamma (an advanced text on Buddhist psychology). B. Buddhaghosa has written a classic but difficult summary of the Texts called The Path of Purification, and M. Flickstein has then summarized Buddhaghosa in a book called Swallowing The River Ganges. Pariyatti Book Service (pariyatti.com) and Wisdom Publications (wisdompubs. com) are useful sources for current literature. For purists, the Pali Text Society and the Buddhist Publication Society are great resources. Our sangha has a copy of a Pali dictionary if you want to find the specific meaning of certain words, and accesstoinsight.org has a glossary and links to on-line sources. --The Dhammapada (part of the Pali Texts) is not only a masterpiece of Buddhist literature, but of all spiritual literature and perhaps all literature in general. These short, gentle verses summarize the Buddha’s practical teachings. Many translations exist, among them Mascaro and Byrom (the most poetic) and Palihawadana and Carter (more scholarly). Accesstoinsight.org has a good, scholarly translation for free. --Ajahn Chah and Ajahn Buddhadasa are excellent authors/teachers in the Thai forest tradition (which emphasizes mindfulness meditation), and they taught many of modern Western Buddhism’s founders. --Nyanaponika Maha Thera, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Bhante Gunaratana, Analayo, Sujato, and Thanissaro Bhikkhu are wonderful teachers in the Sri Lankan tradition. --Burmese monks, including Ledi Sayadaw and U Pandita, have written outstanding books on meditation and Buddhist thought, while S.N. Goenka, trained in the Burmese tradition, is especially good for the “sweeping” method. --D. Kalupahana has written masterful academic books on early Buddhism, including Principles of Buddhist Psychology, Ethics In Early Buddhism, and Buddhist Philosophy. -Zen and Mahayana Buddhism: --Mahayana (the “Great Path”) and classical Buddhism are far more similar than separate, and one distinction is that Mahayana Buddhism relies on additional resources – notably the Heart Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, and the Lotus Sutra. Nagarjuna, a masterful scholar who lived around 800 years after the Buddha, links Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism and is considered one of Buddhism’s greatest developers. D. Kalupahana, K. Inada, J. Hopkins, J. Garfield, S. Batchelor, and the Padmakara Translation Group have written commentaries and translations of Nagarjuna’s philosophy (none are easy, though). --Zen authors include S. Suzuki (whose charming collection of sermons entitled Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind may be the most enjoyable introduction to Zen), D.T. Suzuki, Jan C. Bays, P. Kapleau, C. J. Beck, J. Austin, J. Halifax, and J. Herrigel. -Tibetan Buddhism: We now have skilled translations of many Tibetan Buddhist texts. Of course, the Dalai Lama has written extensively, and A. Wallace (one of his disciples) has written a fine introduction (Tibetan Buddhism From The Ground Up) to go with his many other translations and original works. Because of the volume of material, you may want to visit the Snow Lion (snowlionpub.com) and Wisdom Publications (wisdompub.com) websites. Nearly anything from the Padmakara Translation Group should be worthwhile and scholarly. Some classic sutras, or teachings, include Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, the Hundred Verses of Advice, and the Seven-Point Mind Training. Tibetan Buddhist authors also include Kathleen McDonald, Gen Larimpa, T. Wangyal, J. Kongtrul, R. Thurman, K. McLeod, Chogyam Trungpa, and Jeffrey Hopkins (Tibetan Buddhism can be more esoteric than Zen or Theravada Buddhism, but it uses insights gained from earlier traditions, so it may be advisable to gain some practice in these forms before “taking on” the Tibetan form. Westerners often want only the fastest ways, but some advanced techniques are not suitable or productive for everyone). -Other Buddhism --Buddhism From A Catholic Perspective, by P.Williams (a Christian), explains Buddhism to Christians. --S. Batchelor (Buddhism Without Beliefs) is a professed atheist, whose interesting intellectual insights challenge conventional Buddhist thought, demonstrate that Buddhism is compatible with atheism or agnosticism, and celebrate diversity. --Modern and amusingly interesting books include P.Garfinkel (Buddha Or Bust), S. Kaza (Hooked), D. Moore (The Accidental Buddhist), and S. Salzberg and S. Loundon (The Buddha’s Apprentices: More Voices Of Young Buddhists). S. Boucher has written a “feminist Buddhist” perspective (Opening The Lotus), and you will find books with perspectives on anything from gay Buddhism to Jewish Dharma. --Works on Buddhism and the West include S. Batchelor (The Awakening of the West), L. Sutin (All Is Change), C. Allen (The Search for the Buddha), and R. Fields (How The Swans Came To The Lake). Buddhist histories include H. Dumoulin (History of Zen Buddhism) and D. Kalupahana (History of Buddhist Philosophy). --H. Nakamura’s masterful and scholarly volume, Ways Of Thinking Of Eastern Peoples, can help explain how differences in language, culture, etc. have influenced the development of such diversity in Buddhism. --“Green Buddhism” has recently become popular, and authors include J. Loori, M. Bekoff, M. Mosko, B. Nyanasobhano, and M. Ricard. --Buddhists have been active in the Hospice movement, a gentle and caring community for those nearing life’s end. Zenhospice.org, S. Levine, J. Halifax Roshi, and R. Smith give good information and links. R. MacFarlane, The Compete Bedside Companion, is the best single source I’ve found on caring for a dying loved one (although you should also check out a local hospice), and other authors include L. Brammer (Caring For Yourself While Caring For Others), D. Kuhl (What Dying People Want), and J. Shannon (The Caregiving Sourcebook). Hospice volunteering can help you experience mindfulness of life’s transience and brevity (integral parts of Mindfulness of the Body and the First Noble Truth). INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: The authors listed below generally respect and even cherish the differences and diversity in each religion, rather than attempting to make some kind of watered-down combination. --Authors include T. Merton (Asian Journals), J. Cowan (Buddhist Meditation For Christians), K. Culligan (Christian Insight Meditation), W. Johnston (Christian Zen), R. Aitken (The Ground We Share), M. Borg (Jesus and Buddha), S. Boorstein (That’s Funny You Don’t Look Buddhist), and W. Apel (Signs of Peace). Modernhaggadah.com seems an interesting Jewish resource. Occasionally, monks from Asian and Western traditions meet to share their thoughts, and some of their proceedings have been published in books such as The Gethsemane Encounter (Gethsemane was Thomas Merton’s home abbey), Speaking of Silence, and Transforming Suffering. HEALING, SCIENCE, AND BUDDHISM/MEDITATION: --Jon Kabat-Zinn helped begin the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program and his book, Full Catastrophe Living, is a modern classic. Other sources include D. Goleman (Emotional Intelligence), R. Remen (My Grandfather’s Blessings), H.Benson (The Relaxation Response), M. Ricard (Happiness), Pema Chodron (When Things Fall Apart), and Daniel Siegel (The Mindful Brain). --The Dalai Lama, T. Chodron, and P. Chodron have good anger management books. --Sources on Buddhism and Psychology include D. Kalupahana (Principles of Buddhist Psychology), A. Aronson (Buddhist Practice On Western Ground), P. deSilva (Introduction to Buddhist Psychology), C. Brazier (A Buddhist Psychology), R. Segal (Encountering Buddhism), and M.Epstein (Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart). --To explore the interface between meditation or religion and science, consider The Dalai Lama (The Universe in a Single Atom), R. Davidson (Visions Of Compassion), M. Beauregard (The Spiritual Brain), S. Begley (Train Your Mind Change Your Brain), A. Wallace (Choosing Reality, Buddhism and Science, and Hidden Dimensions), J. Polkinghorne (The Faith Of A Physicist), F. Collins (The Language Of God), J. Hayward (Gentle Bridges), M. Ricard and T.X. Thuan (The Quantum and the Lotus), and M. Ricard and J. Revel (The Monk And The Philosopher). Anything by the Mind and Life Institute on the Dalai Lama’s frequent conferences with scientists would be well worth considering. --Authors discussing recent “mind-body connection” studies include A. Harrington (The Cure Within), S. Begley (Train Your Mind Change Your Brain), and J. Schwartz (The Mind And The Brain), and N. Doidge (The Brain That Changes Itself). --William James holds a singularly respected, pioneering position in this field. Several works summarize the prescient thoughts of this sensitive genius, notably his own The Varieties of Religious Experience and Pragmatism And Other Essays. --“Brain science” is an exciting new area, with many wonderful books explaining modern science’s interest in the brain -- by far the most complex known material entity in the entire universe (although scientific dogma, or dogmatism, often gives an annoying, materialist-speculation-stated-as-fact explanation for everything the brain does). Reading directly from an author educated in the sciences and research can keep “filtering by the press” to a minimum (bogus misinterpretations of quantum physics, relativity, and evolution have contributed to bad understanding of both science and spirituality), although S. Begley, S. Blakeslee, and D. Goleman are conspicuously wonderful exceptions to that rule. J. Ratey has written a reasonably good overall introduction to neuroscience entitled A User’s Guide To The Brain. The New York Science Times Book of the Brain, and items from the nytimes.com Tuesday science section, remain excellent, stimulating, non-technical introductions. Science News and The Scientific American Mind journal are pleasant ways to keep somewhat current (keeping completely current in this field, even for specialists, is hopeless due to its vastness and rapid evolution). The Springs library also has copies of several primary journals, like Science and Nature, which often have articles on neuroscience. Good technical authors include A. D’Amasio, G. Edelman, E. Kandel, R. Penrose, V. Ramachandran, R. Sapolsky, and J. LeDoux. M. Shermer’s (How We Believe) skepticism may be frequently annoying and negativist but also thought-provoking (tackle this only after you develop Trust). An intermediate level in this field requires some neuroanatomy, and good ways to “step in” include M. Diamond (Human Brain Coloring Book), S. Goldberg (Clinical Neuroanatomy Made Ridiculously Simple), J. Pinel (A Colorful Introduction To The Anatomy Of The Human Brain), and J. Nolte (The Human Brain). I am unfamiliar with A. Bard, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Human Brain, but you may want to examine this too. Journals, annals, and conferences provide far more recent information than books. If you travel to a nearby medical school library you can browse articles in such journals as J. Cognitive Neuroscience, the Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences (nyas.org), and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. That will keep you busy for a day, and it’s worth a visit! The Oxford University Press has a great series of anthologies on subjects such as Free Will, Truth, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Time, etc. which are generally well-edited and contain some of the landmark papers in modern philosophy. Not for the faint-hearted, but neat to browse through. Cognitive-Behavior Therapy is compatible with some meditation methods and seeks to stabilize moods (among other goals). One of its founders (A. Beck) has written several books and other authors include D. Greenberg (Mind Over Mood) and D. Burns (Feeling Good). Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy are somewhat newer approaches, represented by Z. Segal et al (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy For Depression) and C. Germer (Mindfulness and Psychotherapy). Brain health seems well correlated with heart health and blood vessel health. Good brain (and general) health books include N. Weller (Healthy Aging And Longevity; NY Academy of Sciences Annals), J. Ratey (Spark), G. Vaillant (Aging Well), L. Walford (The Longevity Diet), G. Butler (Managing Your Mind), L. Hoffman (The Healing Power Of Movement), L. McCleary (The Brain Trust Program), G. Colum (The Positive Power Of The Aging Brain), G. Small (Longevity Bible), and the Dana Guide to Brain Health. When looking for sources on health, you can get more information than you can ever use from reputable sources such as the Mayo Clinic, the Harvard Health Letter, webmd, and organizations such as the American Association of Pediatrics (website aap.org), the American Cancer Society, etc. They include alternative health sources, too, and the Mayo Clinic even has a program for spirituality and medicine. Kids’ health is especially important, and the aap.org website listed above has resources on topics such as resiliency in kids (just key the term into their search engine). Healthy humor can be sensitive, but joy can improve mental healing and can help transfer feelings of guilt, rage, personalization, etc. (when my mom was dying, one of the most serendipitous events I can remember was that the person who came to buy her car turned out to be a professional comedian). Written resources include N. Cousins (Anatomy Of An Illness), S. Hyde (No More Bad Hair Days), B. Johnson (Plant A Geranium In Your Cranium), and A. Klein (The Courage To Laugh). J. Dunham’s DVD’s are also worth looking into. Speaking of joy…. HAPPINESS: Original and later Buddhist texts often refer to truth-given joy (which is completely distinct from stimulus-driven joy or just “feelin’ good”). At least two of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment deal with joy, but in Buddhism, happiness is generally considered a by-product of meditation, or an intentional aspiration such as compassion, rather than a goal in itself. Stimulus-driven joy is usually a source of attachment and inevitable heartache. Happiness and character development have become popular in recent years, partly because the Positive Psychology movement has given academic legitimacy to the study. The movement’s “founder,” Dr. M. Seligman, has moved from Happiness as “feeling good” (hedonic happiness) to happiness as a lasting quality of character (noted in his book, Character Strengths and Virtues). Authors include M. Seligman (Learned Optimism), M. Ricard (Happiness), A. Wallace (Genuine Happiness; Boundless Heart), D. Steindl-Rast (Gratitude: The Heart of Prayer), A. Siebert (The Survivor Personality), S. Taylor (The Tending Instinct), D. Goleman (Emotional Maturity), J. Prochaska (Changing For Good), T. Karasu (The Art of Serenity), R. Foster (How We Choose To Be Happy), the Dalai Lama (Art of Happiness), R. Emmons (Thanks!), K. Jamison (Exuberance), M. Csikszentmihalyi (Flow), A. MacIntyre (After Virtue), P. Foot (Natural Goodness), G. Thomson (On Aristotle), and S. Salzberg (Lovingkindness and Lovingkindness Meditation audio). This list isn’t exhaustive and the field keeps evolving. SOCIAL ACTIONS: Social actions can be a path to compassion but can also produce its opposite -- unhealthy animosity over things we cannot control, and attachments to your (or someone else’s) ideology and views. Avaaz.org is a website offering e-letters addressed to political leaders and organizations (including such things as the Tibetan repression). Sarvodayausa.org provides information on the Sri Lankan non-denominational program Sarvodaya, which has been active in charitable distributions during the tsunami. THINGS TO BE CAREFUL WITH: Meditation Sells, and “self-help” type books have become among America’s most popular modern genres, so resources are of uneven quality (although you can learn from nearly all of them). You can be skeptical if something seems too trendy, too easy, dogmatic, uncompassionate, scattered, too-good-to-be-true, etc., or if your Baloney Meter starts to light up (but be open-minded). Westerners are an impatient lot, but impatiently rushing into advanced esoteric meditation techniques (like Kundalini) can be intense and unnecessary. Perhaps the only potentially dangerous areas in meditation include sources that suggest drugs (especially psychedelics) are “cheap fast power-tickets to nirvana” (e.g. some books by authors like A. Watts or T. Leary), sources that imply character or morality do not matter, sources (including teachers) that infer meditation makes thinking or mental discipline unnecessary, and sources that imply you can throw away your medicine when you meditate – meditation works, but it works differently from medication, has different goals, and requires capable intention. One who needs medical help deserves the benefits of a medical treatment plan. and remember…… THERE IS -- NO -- SUBSTITUTE FOR MEDITATION!
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