Buddhist Geeks in Los Angeles (InsightLA)

Wisdom Quarterly; Buddhist Geeks coming to Los Angeles (InsightLA.org)

Buddhist Geeks Conference 2014

Buddhist Geeks are excited to announce that their new workshop, "Mind Hacking," will be offered on August 2, 2014 from 10:00 am-1:00 pm at InsightLA in Santa Monica.
 
The workshop will be led by geeks, mind hackers, and Buddhist teachers Vincent Horn and Emily Horn.

 

Over the course of this 3-hour interactive workshop they plan to explore the basics of the hacking mindset as well as discussing four meditative skill-sets for hacking the mind, including:

• Concentration Meditation
• Investigation Meditation
• Meditative Inquiry
• Formless Awareness

During this time together all participants will be engaged in both silent meditation as well as a social form of mindfulness called "social noting." There will be plenty of time for fine-tuning and questions as all journey into a process of hacking the mind, awakening the heart, and rebooting the world.

The Buddhist Geeks Team

25 Mildred Ave., Asheville, NC 28806

The opening keynote at the Buddhist Geeks Conference 2014 will be offered by Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara. She will be joining Geeks in the exploration of convergence. She brings years of experience as both a teacher and practitioner of Zen Buddhism.

"She asks me, 'Why Zen?'
clear blue sky
sunlight dancing off the bare branches
sound of leaves
the little black-headed chickadee whistles
my life so clear, so direct
gratitude for this mind moment."
- from Roshi O'Hara's book: Most Intimate: A Zen Approach to Life's Challenges

Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara received priest ordination from Maezumi Roshi and Dharma Transmission and Inka from Bernie Tetsugen Glassman. She founded Manhattan's Village Zendo, New York. 

• Before Mindfulness: Joseph Goldstein in LA
• About InsightLA and Trudy Goodman
• Heal GRIEF with Induced After Death Communication Some psychotherapists can help the grieving experience a reconnection with someone who has passed away, resulting in the healing of deep sadness associated with grief. The method of inducing this experience, called IADC, was discovered in 1995 by Dr. Allan L. Botkin and works for PTSD.

Buddhist Camping Trip

Seth Auberon, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Dharma Punx (AgainstTheStream.org)

Dharma punks, campers, meditators, and Buddhists of Against the Stream, Los Angeles

A meditating "America" wears sweatshop-free American Apparel attire and holds a fine quality made-in-China American flag on a 4th of July parade float in Huntington Beach (KFI AM)

Meet author/founder Noah Levine

Wisdom Quarterly has been on vacation while the world falls apart.

Over the long Independence Day Weekend, we enjoyed a "Buddhist camping trip" at San Onofre State Beach Bluffs with Dharma Punx. It was a sold out, waiting list only event.
 

Dharma Punx of Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society and guests reserved several campgrounds for 4th of July weekend at Old Man’s beach.

Body vs. board surfing (loltops.org)

It was not a retreat -- and not party central for the happy, clean living campers -- just an opportunity to spend time with sangha ("spiritual community") members, making campfires, surfing, hanging at the beach, and watching 4th of July fireworks.

Who is "Against the Stream"? This short clip shows a gathering at the Santa Monica branch of  Dharma Punx to see visiting Theravada monk Bhikkhu Bodhi for Buddhist Global Relief.
 

Camping dreams not reality

There were 50 people to begin with, but the camping was rougher than expected. It couldn't have helped that we're all spoiled cosmopolitans. The parties with the earliest reservations, first come first served basis, had it no better than the waitlisters really. Anyone looking for debauchery had to consider that there would be children, RVs, and tents.
 

It was four people to a car, three cars per site, so there was carpooling and ridesharing. That's when the fun began -- in addition to a meditation group sits and other activities throughout the weekend. But somehow someone forgot the Twister, or at least we didn't find it.
 

It was every person for him or herself, a real game of Survivor because we could enjoy activities, but ATS did not provide the food, drinks, water, firewood, tents, towels, or even sparklers! There should have been sparklers. ATS did not want to assume any liability for the weekend. It was only coordinating the logistics, and the rest was up to campers.
 

It's just camping and SoCal socializing

It wasn't free but it was cheap: $9 per person, per night (campsite fees) or $18 per person for the whole weekend, two-night minimum.

• San Onofre Bluffs and San Onofre Surf Beach are located south of San Clemente on I-5 (exit Basilone Road)
• BLUFF SITE: this section of the park offers campsites along the old Hwy 101 next to sandstone cliffs, six dirt trails with steep access to the beach.
• All campsites include fire pit and picnic table.

Bhikkhu Bodhi annually walks at Dharma Punx Santa Monica for Buddhist Global Relief

Psychology: "mindfulness" in science (audio)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka; Professor Ellen Langer (Harvard/ellenlanger.com), Krista Tippett (onbeing.org, 5-29-14)

What could Sid or the Buddha teach Ziggy Freud on the psychotherapeutic couch?

Note the Buddha heads behind Dr. Freud's chair. This is the original therapy couch (HW)

Langer says keep it simple; notice things rather than practicing mindlessness (Kris Krug)

 

Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness

Counter Clockwise

Harvard University social psychologist Prof. Ellen Langer's unconventional studies have long suggested what brain science is now revealing: 

Our "experiences" are formed by the words and ideas we attach to them, that is, the labels we add to our cognitions. Naming something "play" rather than "work" can mean the difference between delight and drudgery. 

She is one of the early pioneers -- along with figures like Buddhist researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn and Herbert Benson -- drawing a connection between mindlessness and unhappiness and between mindfulness and health. 

Going deeper

"Mind" (citta) is a process, not a thing.

Buddhism is not mere material "science" (the particle physics the Buddha talked about in terms of kalapas) but goes beyond materiality to mental- and mystical-experience, detailing processes that science has yet to acknowledge, detail, or come anywhere near explaining.

 

The Buddha meant two distinct practices, mindfulness/clarity (sati-sampajañña) -- present time awareness that does not reach back into the past or project forward into the future -- and the fourfold setting up of mindfulness (satipatthana/vipassana) as a formal meditation practice that, on top of absorption, leads to insight and liberation of mind and heart.

 

Buddha's Brain (Dr. Rick Hanson)

Dr. Langer describes just the initial practice of "mindfulness," bare awareness, which is possible without formal meditation or yoga.

She recommends the basic practice of “the simple act of actively noticing things.”

 

This is bare awareness, which in a Buddhist context is practiced as "presence of mind" in the absence of the internal distractions that come from discursive elaboration (thinking about), mental proliferation (papañca), and interpretation/color-commenting based on our mental formations and fabrications (sankharas).

• What is mental "proliferation" (prapañca)?

Psychologists distinguish "top-down processing" (projecting, seeing what one thinks is there, going from the mind to the outside world) from "bottom-up processing" (going from what's actually there to the mind that perceives it and attempts to understand it free of prejudice).

What is "mind"?

This gray material goo is not "mind."

MIND in Buddhism can refer to consciousness (viññāṇa), knowing (ñāna, one of the "psychic powers" or iddhis, a synonym of wisdom/paññā, the best and hightest being aññā), discrete mental processes (cittas), the "mind door" near the heart, perception (saññā), the ~50 mental formations (sankharas) led by volition/will (which is the basis of karma), or more comprehensively as the Four Aggregates (Sanskrit skandhas, Pali khandhas) apart from the first, namely, form or materiality (rūpa). More

• What is the equanimity-knowledges of existence?
• How to contemplate for intuition and insight
• Mind/heart is susceptible to perversions, distortions (taints/defilements, and fetters/bonds) 
• "Consciousness" in Abhidharma's Buddhist psychology

• 5 Mindfulness Steps that Guarantee Increased Success and Vitality
• Mindfulness in the Age of Complexity
• Mindfulness in The New Yorker
• Paths to Mindfulness
• On Being interview with Krista Tippett

Korea Town Night Market (April 18-19)

Wisdom Quarterly; KTownNightMarket.com

FREE admission. Visit the K Town Night Market from the afternoon to midnight.

Korean ceremonial dance on the Buddha's Birthday in Bulguksa (Joonghijung/flickr)