On this walk, I noticed things I usually would have missed. I heard how a brook sounds different when you listen to its melody upstream vs. downstream. I watched how snow really falls: what seems like only a few flakes observed horizontally is a load of white when you look up into the sky. I became quiet enough to hear an animal bustling in the spongy snow covered ground. Finally, I figured out that snow was more air than water. It took an enormous amount to quench my thirst. This was far more than a lovely stroll. I actually experienced what seemed like a merging with the quiet and serenity of wintertime. To say this memory is one of my most vivid is an understatement. It ranks in intensity and depth with the birth of my son.

“I’m having to deal with the reality that I saw a lot of bad things. I’m having a tough time dealing with the civilian casualties,” says Stinzo, 31. “I feel like Americans, although they seem to be informed by the news, it’s not a reality to them. I feel like most of these people in America feel like it’s watching a movie, and when the movie ends, you leave and you’re back at your normal life,” he adds. “I don’t want to tell people I’m an Iraq veteran, because immediately I’m bombarded with questions, especially the question of having to kill somebody. It’s very frustrating, and it makes me very angry inside.”

Leaving the two-lane highway that leads away from the tiny village of Springwater, a dirt road takes you past a sprinkling of houses, turns into the woods. and winds its way toward the center itself. Fifty yards from a gravel parking lot partly sheltered by the surrounding woodlands, high on the hillside, is a large, modern, wooden building, with great glass windows looking south. Entering a reception area, where racks hold shoes and invite you to leave yours, you find someone from the staff there to greet you. Neatly printed white sheets of paper on a bulletin board give you your room number and job for the retreat, and you find your way to the room and roommate with whom you will spend the next week, stow away gear, make your bed, and return to the main floor of the building to connect with old friends or to meet with new faces, an activity that continues through a serve-yourself dinner of soup and bread at five o'clock. As the conversations continue, most are mindful of the silence that will ensue after the orientation at seven.

Joseph Goldstein: ...This could be clarified by the distinction of two words which often get confused. You know often people understand in Buddhism that there's a great value on detachment and that sounds a little grey. You know just to be detached from everything. Robert Wright: Right. JG: That's not what the teaching is about. The teaching is about non-attachment. Detachment implies a sense of withdrawal. RW: Withdrawal from? JG: From whatever. RW: Including joy, including... JG: Anything! RW: Right. JG: It's like a pulling away from. Non-attachment doesn't imply withdrawal it simply implies not holding on. So that's a very different experience, it's a very different mind-set. That's really what we're practicing.

The Krishnamurti Foundation of America is pleased to announce our second Krishnamurti Summer Study Program for college and post-graduate college students. This is an exciting four week in-depth program that will introduce the life-changing teachings of J. Krishnamurti. The goal of this program is to help students to discover for themselves a new perceptual understanding of life based on fresh insights and self-knowledge gained directly through dialogue. We have structured the Krishnamurti Summer Study Program as a traditional college course to enable students to apply for college credit from their own particular colleges, if they wish. The program begins July 1 and runs through July 28, 2006. Each day students enter into penetrating dialogues; we watch videos of Krishnamurti in dialogue with many serious explorers of the mind, and we read from selected writings. In addition the group takes hikes into the beautiful valleys and mountain trails that surround Ojai and visits the lovely beaches of Santa Barbara. The cost of the entire program is $1300 which includes all meals, a room in Besant House on Oak Grove School's campus, all books and other materials, and all transportation within Ojai. If you know any students that might be interested in this unique program, please tell them about it. For more detailed information, and for application guidelines, please go to the KFA web site: http://www.kfa.org/student.php

Show me where you can penetrate into the mystery that is yourself, without the benefit of a gimmick, a device, a method, or some step-by-step program that claims to make it easier? Many courses are available to help improve you, promising empowerment, transcendental energy, rejuvenation, and all manner of remediation for the body and mind. However the truth is we really don’t know how to “see” ourselves, or how to get to know who we are directly. This points to one of the qualities of what Krishnamurti talked about, direct perception of who we are, without the interference of experts, or authorities.

I get asked this question a lot. I suspect people ask because they think that probably everybody else can meditate but they can't. They want to be reassured that they are not alone, that there are at least some other people they can identify with, those hapless souls who were born incapable of meditating. But it isn't so simple. Thinking you are unable to meditate is a little like thinking you are unable to breathe, or to concentrate or relax. Pretty much everybody can breathe easily. And under the right circumstances, pretty much anybody can concentrate, anybody can relax. People often confuse meditation with relaxation or some other special state that you have to get to or feel. When once or twice you try and you don't get anywhere or you didn't feel anything special, then you think you are one of those people who can't do it. But, meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel. It's not about making the mind empty or still, although stillness does deepen in meditation and can be cultivated systematically. Above all, meditation is about letting the mind be as it is and knowing something about how it is in this moment. It's not about getting somewhere else, but about allowing yourself to be where you already are. If you don't understand this, you will think you are constitutionally unable to meditate. But that's just more thinking, and in this case, incorrect thinking at that. True, meditation does require energy and a commitment to stick with it. But then, wouldn't it be more accurate to say, "I wont stick with it," rather than, "I can't do it?" Anybody can sit down and watch their breath or watch their mind. And you don't have to be sitting. You could do it walking, standing, lying down, standing on one leg, running, or taking a bath. But to stay at it for even five minutes requires intentionality. To make it part of your life requires some discipline. So when people say they can't meditate, what they really mean is they won't make time for it, or that when they try, they don't like what happens. It isn't what they are looking for or hoping for. It doesn't fulfill their expectations. So maybe they should try again, this time letting go of their expectations and just watching.

The Great Bear Rainforest is part of the largest coastal temperate rainforest remaining on Earth and supports some of the oldest surviving cultures in the Western Hemisphere. Its preservation is one of the most compelling conservation visions of our time. Today’s agreement — and the unique partnership between industry, environmentalists, governments and local communities that made it possible — marks a watershed event for both conservation and industry.

While Western researchers are exploring the effects of meditation on physical health, Alan Wallace, a leading Tibetan scholar and one of the Dalai Lama's translators, pointed out that when faced with physical ailments, Tibetans traditionally turned to doctors or healers, not to meditation. The purpose of meditation, added the Dalai Lama, is not to cure physical ailments, but to free people from emotional suffering.

Mind and Life Institute chairman Adam Engle compared meditation to exercise, saying a healthy mind is as important as a healthy body. "So, in the same way that you've got a myriad of physical exercises to help your body, there are a myriad of mental trainings. And this is not well known. Most people, when they think about meditation, they think about turning your body into a pretzel and zoning out somewhere," he said. "But it is really just a word for mental training."

All you practitioners, male and female, who wish to realize the faultless and correct point of view, should let your mind rest fully awake in a state of unfabricated emptiness. When your mind is quiet, then rest in that quietness without trying to fabricate anything. When it doesn't think, then rest in that non-thinking. In short, no matter what takes place, let your mind rest without fabricating anything. Don't try to correct, suppress or cultivate anything. Don't try to place your mind inwardly. Don't search for an object to meditate upon outwardly. Rest in the meditator, mind itself, without fabricating anything. One doesn't find one's mind by searching for it. The mind itself is empty from the beginning. You don't need to search for it. It is the searcher himself. Rest undistractedly in the searcher himself. "Have I now grasped that which should be observed?" "Is this the right way or not?" "Is this it or not?" No matter what takes place rest in the thinker himself without fabricating anything. No matter what kind of thoughts occur, excellent or terrible, good or bad, joyful or sorrowful, don't accept or reject, but rest in the thinker himself without fabricating anything.

To Krishnamurti, the key to understanding the complex relationship between fear, dependence and security lies in the fact that we irresistibly gravitate towards permanency. However, nothing in and around us stays the same; all the elements in our psyche, even our particular desires themselves, undergo change or die out altogether. Permanency is nowhere to be found. Krishnamurti suggests that in the search for a reliable source of gratification, we invent the "self" and imbue it with a sense of continuity in order to ensure that gratification can be re-lived, the pleasure repeated. Against the ever-changing backdrop of our ideas, feelings and opinions, the self appears as the most "real" and constant aspect of our psyche - all while being, paradoxically, altogether intangible. Just as the physical body is localized by its shape and outline, in the psychological sphere preferences, emotions, motives and ideas give definition to the self. The self relies on acknowledgement from its environment in order to reinforce its validity. Entire social conventions and rituals - for example, birthdays, marriage announcements, national celebrations - have been created and are being vitalized in response to this shared requirement, this common need to "place" the self in the world. We feel attracted to individuals who reinforce our self-image and shy away from others who doubt or oppose who we think we are. In either case, the fact that the "I" feels - pain or pleasure - proves that the "I" exist. Anything that threatens the gratification of this self-image sparks the emotion we know as fear. Fear, in our experience, is tied to the anticipated loss of that which we hold dear, of that on which our security depends. However, our experience is also that time heals all wounds. Nothing that we put together for our security is irreplaceable, even complete identities can be changed. Certainly, it takes time and energy to radically "re-frame" our lives, but the survival and adjustment mechanisms of thought are infinitely inventive and resourceful. Krishnamurti relates the source of fear not to the loss of any particular dependence or attachment, but to the inherent insufficiency of the self, to an awareness of a deep-rooted emptiness. All the “adornments and the renunciations that the self assumes can never cover its inward poverty”. As such the self can never be without fear; its very fabric or texture is anxiety as it tries to block out the truth of its non-existence. The root of this anxiety then is not the fear of death per se – the ultimate loss of all identifications – but stems from the underlying perception that we are already dead or, rather more precisely, that we have no substantial existence outside of thought. To Krishnamurti complete security can only be found in coming to terms with the fact that we are nothing. That is, nothing in the sense of "not a thing created by thought”.

As for modern developments, in trying to formulate a definition of meditation, a useful rule of thumb is to consider all meditative techniques to be culturally embedded. This means that any specific technique cannot be understood unless it is considered in the context of some particular spiritual tradition, situated in a specific historical time period, or codified in a specific text according to the philosophy of some particular individual.

Science, the product of Aristotelian thinking and the European rationalist enlightenment, now turns its attention to the intuitive transformation of personality through awakened consciousness (and other such Asian meanings of the term enlightenment). This means that the faculties of logic and sense perception, hallmarks of the scientific method, are now being trained on the personality correlates of intuition and insight, hallmarks of the traditional inward sciences of the East. To grasp what meditation is has proven to be no easy task. The underlying and usually hidden philosophical assumptions of traditional, rationalist science do not value the intuitive. They do not acknowledge the reality of the transcendent or subscribe to the concept of higher states of consciousness, let alone, in the strictest sense, even admit to the possible existence of unconscious forces active in cognitive acts of perception.

The essential difficulty here is not just the reformulation of meditation techniques to fit the dictates of the scientific method, but rather what might be called a deeper, more subtle, and potentially more transformative clash of world epistemologies. It is not simply that meditation techniques have been difficult to measure but rather that, in the past, meditation has largely been an implicitly forbidden subject of scientific research. Now, however, major changes are currently underway within basic science that presage not only further evolution of the scientific method but also changes in the way science is viewed in modern culture. An unprecedented new era of interdisciplinary communication within the subfields of the natural sciences, a fundamental shift from physics to biology, and the cognitive neuroscience revolution have liberalized attitudes toward the study of meditation and related subjects. Meanwhile, the popular revolution in modern culture grounded in spirituality and consciousness is having a growing impact on traditional institutions such as medicine, religion, mental health, corporate management strategies, concepts of marriage, child rearing, and the family, and more. Increasingly, educated people want to know much more about meditation, while our traditional institutions of high culture remain unprepared as adequate interpreters.

Physiological Effects The Cardiovascular System
— Heart Rate — Redistribution of Blood Flow — Blood Pressure and Hypertension — Other Cardiovascular Changes The Cortical System
— EEG: Alpha Activity — EEG: Theta Activity — EEG: Beta Activity — EEG: Hemispheric Synchronization — EEG: Dehabituation — Specific Cortical Control — Other Cortical Changes Blood Chemistry
— Adrenal Hormones — Thyroid Hormones — Total Protein — Amino Acids and Phenylalanine — Plasma Prolactin and Growth Hormone — Lactate — White Blood Cells — Red Blood Cell Metabolism — Cholesterol The Metabolic and Respiratory Systems
Muscle Tension
Skin Resistance and Spontaneous GSR
Other Physiological Effects
— Brain Metabolism — Salivary Changes — Effectiveness in the Treatment of Disease — Treatment of Cancer — Changes in Body Temperature — Alleviation of Pain — Exceptional Body Control

Behavioral Effects

Perceptual and Cognitive Abilities
Perceptual Ability
— Reaction Time and Perceptual Motor Skill — Deautomatization — Field Independence — Concentration and Attention — Memory and Intelligence Rorschach Shifts
Empathy
Regression in the Service of the Ego
Creativity and Self-Actualization
— Creativity — Self-Actualization
Hypnotic Suggestibility
Anxiety
Psychotherapy and Addiction
— Psychiatry and Psychotherapy — Addiction and Chemical Dependency
Sleep
Sex Role Identification

Subjective Reports

Equanimity
Detachment
Ineffability
Bliss
Energy and Excitement
Altered Body Image and Ego Boundaries
Hallucinations and Illusions
Dreams
Synesthesia
Extrasensory Experiences
Clearer Perception
Negative Experiences

Searchable Bibiliography

You have touched on an important and controversial topic. I participated in the TM basic course here in Finland 5 years ago. Learning the meditation technique was the good thing. However, there was already then something really strange going on in the TM movement (World Government, etc.) and I decided not to participate in the extended course. What made me sad is that there was no critical public discussion within the TM movement, all messages from gurus were taken as a given. At least to me this is a sign of a very closed religious community :-( The mantra system in TM is based on some Sanskrit words which are seen by some scholars as variant names of Hindu gods. These mantras are provided to the student by the TM teacher in a private tutoring session and the mantras are selected with a pretty simple system based on age and sex of the meditation student. On the Internet (e.g. Freedom of Mind Center) and in many analytic books covering meditation movements there is this list of TM mantras available. (Please, make your own search, during my TM basic course I had to make a promise that I will not reveal my mantra!). When I later heard that the mantra I was given may be a Hindu god name variant, I felt a bit odd. Joke: In Finnish language this mantra given to me does not mean anything imaginable and I don't know much about Indian belief systems, so hopefully there is no harm done to my head ;-) Talking about TM in schools: I very much encourage teaching meditation in schools but I find TM meditation very unsuitable in its present form. Group meditation is a great experience and at school it could remove anxiety and stress. At least in Finnish schools children between 12-18 years are very closed and separated mentally from each other. In that sense meditation could help them to be more open, creative, and enable them to smile :-) However, meditation has such a bad reputation especially among some praying, religious people that they are afraid of it. (Some people just don't get it that in meditation you do not pray or beg anything ;-) So, let's hope there will be a truly independent meditation technique on the way to schools and workplaces. Could it be based on ideas of Jiddu Krishnamurti or some other positively critical thinkers? Take care, Mikko A. Innovation, Creativity and Learning Researcher Beyond Creativity P.S. Thank you for this fantastic blog, Meditation. It has given me so many insights. Please, allow people to comment on blog entries more easily :-)

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To love anything beautiful in a country is normal and natural, but when that love is used by exploiters in their own interest it is called nationalism. Nationalism is fanned into imperialism, and then the stronger people divide and exploit the weaker, with the Bible in one hand and a bayonet in the other. The world is dominated by the spirit of cunning, ruthless exploitation, from which war must ensue. This spirit of nationalism is the greatest stupidity. Every individual should be free to live fully, completely. As long as one tries to liberate one's own particular country and not man, there must be racial hatreds, the divisions of people and classes. The problems of man must be solved as a whole, not as confined to countries or peoples.