What did the Buddha really mean by “mindfulness?”

http://sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/489246

What did the Buddha really mean by “mindfulness?” B. Alan Wallace describes how misunderstanding the term can have implications for your practice.

B. Alan Wallace tricycle

Buddhist scholar and teacher B. Alan Wallace is a prolific author and translator of Buddhist texts. With a B.A. in both physics and the philosophy of science from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Stanford University, he devotes much of his time combining his interests in the study of Buddhist philosophical and contemplative traditions and their relationship to modern science

The Mindfulness Craze

The Mindfulness Craze:

by Sravasti Abbey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_v8v1nksGE&list=TLhulA8pSuRhQyMDA3MjAxNQ&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4KeeGXtsds&list=TLhulA8pSuRhQyMDA3MjAxNQ

Published on Jul 19, 2015

Clarifying how the classical Buddhist presentation of mindfulness differs from how mindfulness is taught for secular purposes.

2015 UC Davis CMB Mindfulness Research Summit, by Clifford Saron

2015 UC Davis CMB Mindfulness Research Summit 

Introduction : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8SiKyFNPfQ

Published on Jul 18, 2015

Part 1 of 12 from the May 21, 2015 UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain day-long meeting "Perspectives on Mindfulness: The Complex Role of Scientific Research" - Remarks (and performance) by CMB Director Steve Luck, PhD, Conference Chair, Clifford Saron, PhD, and Cellist Barbara Bogatin. 

See http://cmbmindfulnesssummit.faculty.u... for full conference program and http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edufor links to other conference talks and other information about the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis.

Steven J. Luck, PhD is the Director of the Center for Mind & Brain and a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Luck’s research focuses on the intersection of vision and higher cognitive processing. His laboratory has developed methods that are now widely used to assess the capacity and precision of visual working memory, leading to an explosion of research on the structure of internal mental representations and how they vary across individuals and groups. Dr. Luck also studies neurocognitive processing in schizophrenia, where he has found many aspects of impaired cognition can be explained by changes in network dynamics that lead to an aberrant hyperfocusing of attention. Dr. Luck is also a leading expert on the use of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to measure the neural activity underlying cognition. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he is the winner of many prestigious awards, including the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences.

Clifford Saron, PhD, Research Scientist (effective 7/15) at the Center for Mind and Brain and MIND Institute at the University of California at Davis, received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1999. Dr. Saron is Principal Investigator of the Shamatha Project, a longitudinal investigation of the effects of intensive meditation on physiological and psychological processes central to well-being, attention, emotion regulation and health. It was conceived with and taught by Alan Wallace, with the talents of a large consortium of researchers at UC Davis and elsewhere. In 2012, Dr. Saron and his colleagues were awarded the inaugural Templeton Prize Research Grant in honor of H.H. the Dalai Lama from the John Templeton Foundation to continue this work. Dr. Saron also studies sensory processing and integration in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and is part of a large collaborative study examining if mindfulness-based interventions can ease the chronic stress of mothers of children with ASD.

Barbara Bogatin, cellist, has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony since 1994, and holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School. Before joining the San Francisco Symphony she played with New York Chamber Soloists, the New York Philharmonic, Casals Festival, and as principal cellist with Milwaukee and New Jersey Symphony Orchestras. She has performed and recorded on Baroque cello and viola da gamba with Aston Magna, the Amati Trio, Connecticut Early Music Festival and New York’s Classical Band, and played at music festivals including Chamber Music Northwest and Lake Tahoe Summerfest. With her husband, Clifford Saron, she has led workshops on meditation and music practice at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Esalen Institute, Stanford Symposium for Music and the Brain, Telluride Compassion Festival and the Institute for Mindfulness South Africa Conference.

Evan Thompson, PhD - Context Matters: Steps to an Embodied Cognitive Science of Mindfulness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJHCae1liAI

Published on Jul 18, 2015

Part 2 of 12. This opening talk by Evan Thompson, PhD, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia was given as part of the 2015 UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain research summit "Perspectives on Mindfulness: the Complex Role of Scientific Research" on May 21, 2015.

Robert Sharf, PhD -The “work” of religion and its role in the assessment of mindfulness practices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mzNLf3L7U

tricycle: Across the Expanse, Anne C. Klein on the transmission of Tibetan Buddhism

http://www.tricycle.com/blog/across-expanse

July 15, 2015

Across the Expanse

Anne C. Klein on the transmission of Tibetan Buddhism

This interview with the scholar-practitioner Anne Carolyn Klein was originally published in the July–December issue of Mandala, a magazine run by the nonprofit organization Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition. We are republishing it here because of its excellent discussion of transmission, the secularization of Tibetan Buddhism as it has come West, and other ideas that speak practically and directly to the experiences of Western dharma practitioners. —Eds.

Sky News: Schoolchildren To Get 'Mindfulness Training'

http://news.sky.com/story/1519722/schoolchildren-to-get-mindfulness-training

Schoolchildren To Get 'Mindfulness Training'

Thousands will be monitored to see if the practice can help cut the risk of depression and other mental health problems.

INFORM AUTUMN SEMINAR

INFORM AUTUMN SEMINAR
Children, Minority Religions, and the Law

Date - Saturday, 17 October 2015; 9.30am – 4.30pm
Location – Clement House, London School of Economics 

Registration is now open and can be done using a credit/debit card through PayPal or by posting a booking form and a cheque payable to 'Inform' to Inform, Houghton St., London WC2A 2AE. Tickets (including buffet lunch, coffee and tea) paid by 28 September 2015 are £38 each (£18 students/unwaged). Tickets booked after 28 September 2015 will cost £48 each (£28 students/unwaged). 

What is in the best interests of a child?

All states who are members of the UN (except the United States) have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which requires the State to act in the best interest of the child. Since ratification, there have been several occasions when States have intervened in what was perceived as infringement of the well-being and/or rights of children living in religious communities. But have these states (or their local authorities) acted in the best interest of the child?

While there are documented cases where children have been neglected and/or harmed when raised within religious communities (both new and old), some minority religions argue that what society proposes (in its culture, education, medical provisions) is not at all in the best interest of the child, and aim to protect their children from such negative influences. Who should decide on what is in a child’s best interest? In this seminar we will concentrate on legal issues surrounding children in minority religious communities, from a variety of perspectives.

Provisional Programme 

9.30 - 10.00         REGISTRATION

10.00 - 10.15       Eileen Barker (Founder and Honorary Research Fellow, Inform) Welcome and Housekeeping

10.15 - 10.40       Amanda van Eck (Deputy Director, Inform) Introduction

10.40 - 11.05       Heiner Bielefeldt (UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief)Religious Socialization in Light of Article 14 of the Conventions on the Rights of a Child

11.05 – 11.30      Alain Garay (Lawyer in Paris, France) Children, Minority Religions and the European Court of Human Rights Case Laws 

11.30 – 11.55      TEA/COFFEE

11.55 – 12.20      Jean Swantko Wiseman (Twelve Tribes lawyer since 1983, USA) Germany to Twelve Tribes Parents: You can Get Your Children Back if You Leave Twelve Tribes

12.20 – 12.45      Tony Brace (Legal Department, Watch Tower Society) Jehovah’s Witnesses: Children, Blood Transfusions and the Law (Who Holds the Key or Controls the ‘Flack Jacket’?)

12.45 - 13.45       LUNCH

13.45 - 14.10       Roger Kiska (Senior Counsel, Deputy Director, ADF International) Judicial Dogmatism: Home Education and the Rise of Humanist Statism in Europe

14.10 - 14.35       David Waldock Reflections on a Tennis Shoe

14.35 - 15.00       TEA/COFFEE

15.00 - 15.25       Anat Scolnicov (University of Winchester) Children, Family and Community - A Clash of Rights?

15.25 – 15.50      Lorraine Derocher  

15.50 – 16.30      GENERAL PANEL DISCUSSION   

WPost: Dalai Lama getting his second wind

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/dalai-lama-getting-his-second-wind/2015/07/10/02cfe2e4-26b8-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html

WPost : Dalai Lama getting his second wind

By Lauren Markoe July 10 at 2:49 PM

The Dalai Lama is not done.

As the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism celebrates his 80th birthday in the U.S. this week, much of the non-Buddhist world sees a kindly, aging monk who preaches the gospel of compassion.

But many of those who follow the Dalai Lama closely say the world’s best-recognized spokesman for religious freedom is not the retiring kind. His work, they predict, may increasingly engage him with people and events far removed from centers of Buddhist thought.

A New Way Forward

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/new-way-forward

A New Way Forward

Buddhist tradition and modernity are in many ways incompatible. But one Western intellectual tradition may hold a key to bringing the two into meaningful dialogue. Linda Heuman

http://enews.buddhistdoor.com/en/news/d/58639

Theravada Bhikkhuni Order Revived in West Java, Indonesia

Buddhistdoor International Karluk Halgal 
2015-06-30

The founder of the Mahabodhi temple was Asoka the great

The founder of the Mahabodhi temple was Asoka the great

by Priya Thangjam & Thangjam Sanjoo 

The founder of the Mahabodhi temple was Asoka the great :: Part 1
Priya Thangjam & Thangjam Sanjoo- 2 parts series on Mahabodhi temple

The founder of the Mahabodhi temple was Asoka the great :: Part 2
Priya Thangjam & Thangjam Sanjoo- 2 parts series on Mahabodhi temple

Facing the Great Divide : Classical vs Secular Buddhism

http://secularbuddhism.org.nz/resources/documents/facing-the-great-divide/

Facing the Great Divide

by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

As the winding river of Buddhist tradition flows beyond the boundaries of its Asian homelands and enters the modern West, it has arrived at a major watershed from which two distinct streams have emerged, which for convenience we may call ‘Classical Buddhism’ and ‘Secular Buddhism.’ The former continues the heritage of Asian Buddhism, with minor adaptations made to meet the challenges of modernity. The latter marks a rupture with Buddhist tradition, a re-visioning of the ancient teachings intended to fit the secular culture of the West.

From the Heartland to a New Epicenter: “Conceiving the Indian Buddhist Patriarchs in China”

http://newlotus.buddhistdoor.com/en/news/d/47197

From the Heartland to a New Epicenter: “Conceiving the Indian Buddhist Patriarchs in China”

Buddhistdoor International Raymond Lam 
2015-07-03

It is not always easy to imagine the intentions of those who write hagiography, which is formally defined as the biography of a saint or religious leader. However, in the case of Chinese treatments of Indian masters, hagiography was not merely a means to inspire Chinese Buddhists with the miracle-making and moral power of their Indian spiritual forebears. It was, at its core, a way to redefine models of Buddhist sanctity and legitimize China as an ideal land for the flourishing of Buddhism.