Tag Archives: buddhism

Meditation and Buddhism: online resources, retreats and more

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I promised to elaborate further on my ten worthwhile summer projects, the no. 1 project being “Meditate”. How do you get started? What is it? And for the more curious, how do you find out more about Buddhism?

I have listed several online resources for meditation instructions and Buddhist teachings. However, there’s no substitute for showing up in person at a meditation center to really learn the proper posture and to ask questions about your practice. It is my hope that once you get started, you will continue to meditate throughout your life, and develop wisdom and lovingkindness.

RESOURCES

Tricycle Magazine: a great resource for those who are new to meditation and Buddhism, and for those who are already practicing the Dharma. Sign up for their Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/tricyclemag)

San Francisco Zen Center: the Zen Center is located in San Francisco at 300 Page Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 in Hayes Valley. They have regular meditation sessions for beginners and more experienced meditators. They also run the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County and the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in Carmel Valley.

Dharmaseed.org: online repository of dharma talks by teachers of Vipassana or Insight practices of Theravada Buddhism. Until now, the teachings had been available only on CD or tapes. You can find them now in MP3 format on this website. They continue to add new recordings of teachings given at various retreats.

My personal favorites are the Satipatthana Sutta teachings given by Joseph Goldstein, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts (where I hope one day to go for a two-week or longer retreat). Listen to his other teachings, too, which are very clear and inspiring.

RETREATS

Tassajara Hot Springs: affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center, this wonderful retreat is located at the end of a dirt road in the Carmel Valley. It is about 4 hours from San Francisco. There is no electricity, except in the dining hall, kitchens, Japanese bath house and the zendo (the hall where monks and visitors meditate). It is closed in the fall and winter for the Zen practice period. I went to the Tassajara Hot Springs for a 5-day meditation and yoga retreat which turned out to be a deeply spiritual experience. I joined the monks in their 5:40 a.m. and 8:40 p.m. meditation sessions, hiked in the mountains, did yoga twice a day (2 hours per session), ate delicious vegetarian food from their famous kitchen (the Tassajara cookbooks are sold everywhere) and sat in the Japanese style hot springs. I went to bed as soon after the evening meditation. I appreciated how peaceful I became without the demands of email, mobile phones, Twitter and all the other ways we distract ourselves in our daily lives. There is no cellular signal so one is truly cut off from the world. What a luxury!

BOOKS

Five ways to survive the recession: travel, meditate, do yoga

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Since economists are predicting a severe recession and people think there’s going to be one, we will probably have one. That means a lot of people will lose their jobs, businesses will close down, consultants have no gigs. But you don’t need to get depressed or panic. There are other ways to deal with the recession: get away. What’s the point of sitting at home being depressed? If you have an apartment or a house, try to rent it out, and go to a place where the living costs are lower. Here are a few suggestions that are good for the body and the soul.

(1) Travel to cheap exotic places and have a real adventure: hike the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu, go trekking in Nepal, backpack around India, Sri Lanka and Burma. For the Inca Trail, check out Peru Andean Experience.

(2) Go on a meditation retreat for several months. In the US, the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts has a three-month retreat (http://www.dharma.org/ims/retreats.php), as does Tassajara (Zen Buddhist retreat center) in California. In India, you can immerse yourself in a vipassana retreat in Bodh Gaya or Sarnath: http://www.bodhgayaretreats.org/.

(3) Go on a yoga holiday in Goa, India: http://www.ashiyana-yoga-goa.com/yoga-holidays.shtml.

(4) Volunteer for charity work in developing countries or for Greenpeace aboard one of their ships.

(5) Get away — deep into your mind by taking a course that develops your creativity. Take a class in creative writing, painting, photography, sculpture, cooking, DJing.