Via @iamcaroline  – aka Caroline Contillo who is the associate director of The Interdependence Project came a tweet making me aware of this project that blows my mind and I think is much needed given the ability for Occupy participants to become burnt out.

Mindful Occupation is well worth checking out and it’s mission is best defined by this quote from their website:

We know that many people at Occupy sites around the country are struggling to figure out how to build spaces of support and healing. We also know that police violence and the stresses of street protest can have very real mental, emotional, and energetic effects that are all too often not taken seriously.

Our aim with this booklet is to stimulate discussion, raise awareness, provide support, contribute to maintaining a more sustainable movement, and lay the foundation for the next stage of the movement. We want it to be a living document: open to revisions and remakes. We also hope this helps start conversations. Many people are doing amazing healing work within and around the Occupy movement – street medics, health professionals, bodyworkers, herbalists, energetic medicine practitioners, radical therapists and social workers, and others. We want to facilitate more discussions and get the word out about more good practices and techniques.

Their website also features an exceptional list of resources for any activists who are seeking more information on psychological first aid for both themselves and those in our communities.

For more information do check out their Facebook page to see how you can get involved.

Thanks again to Caroline for mentioning this project and igniting a spark!

Ethan Nichtern has just posted a link to a video speaking to the subject of  “The Enlightened Artist” 

Via Rod from The Worst Horse and Shambhala SunSpace comes this treasure from Pema Chodron

With all of the chaos going on around me in Montreal, I really needed this interview with ecoBuddhist Joanna Macy featured in Tricycle Magazine titled “Allegiance to Life”

Look at what you’re feeling. You may be feeling sorrow, you may be feeling outrage. You may be feeling dread and fear. You may be feeling futility and powerlessness. But whatever it is that you’re feeling, just take a look at where that’s coming from. It’s not coming from an attitude of “How do I get ahead as a separate person?” but rather from my caring for life itself. Those feelings of grief and despair or panic don’t come out of some personal craziness, but out of our caring for life. And that caring, in turn, comes from a sense of belonging. I care what happens to this Earth because that’s where I come from, that’s my larger body. I need the air to breathe; I need clean soil to grow food. I’m not just disembodied out there in outer space. 

Feeling alarm or devastation can guide us to a deep sanity, reminding us of who we are and what we need. It can remind us that we belong to this larger body and that we care for it. Our power to act, our power to take part in the healing of our world, our power to bring things back into balance, comes from the same source as that devastation. Our pain for the world, and our power to take part in the healing of our world, both come from the same place.

The article features several MBSR instructors and mental health experts speaking of the health benefits of meditation and then – kerplunk- there’s me. The vision of exceptional meditation practice.

Using the power of cat videos I wanted to support this article by conveying that before meditation practice, I was like this:

I just recently watched Brilliant Moon, a beautiful movie dedicated to delivering the story of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s life. Narrated by Richard Gere (what Buddhist films aren’t these days?!), the film is made up of both photographs, archival film and where footage was not available, there are lush animated sequences by artist/animator Branco Teslic that add much to the storytelling process and help to fill in the blanks.

The film is broken into chapters each charting a different phase in Rinpoche’s life through to the many roles he maintained (including son, monk, student, hermit, teacher, father, husband, grandfather, author, practicioner) and many of the locations he found himself in, taking him from his birthplace of Tibet on to life in Bhutan and visits throughout the world.

Noted Buddhist teachers are peppered throughout the film and His Holiness the Dalai Lama has much to say about Rinpoche’s mark on Tibetan Buddhism. Students described him as “kindhearted, gentle, someone who never got angry and always reacted with kindness.” Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche was interviewed in the film and spoke to Rinpoche’s soothing style and his reputation as an easygoing master who quite often shared jokes with his students.

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche dedicated his life to spreading the dharma and in a particularly touching part of the film, returned to Tibet after 30 years of exile when he was 75 years old and visited every monastery he was invited to and didn’t turn anyone away who wished to speak with him.  He was motivated by a desire to give teachings and empowerments to Tibetans who had been denied this for many years and he also rebuilt many monasteries regardless of sect, including the restoration of Samye monastery and the establishment of Shechen monastery.

Alive Mind Cinema have brought us a remarkable film on an incredible master and I highly encourage you to check it out for yourself. I won’t spoil the ending, but as is the case with many Buddhist films… there is a reincarnation

(If you’re more of a book person, do check out the biography by the same name)

I highly recommend this book and it is now part of our professional training required reading because it also offers a fresh perspective from which to teach mindfulness skills.

Via Shambhala SunSpace comes this video from Michael Stone on Mindfulness.

The Next Day – A powerful interactive piece from The NFB relating the stories of those who survive suicide attempts.

Sumeru Books have just released LAMA CHÖPA: The Guru Puja Composed by Panchen Lozang Chökyi Gyaltsen  and Transalted by Rob Preece

Lama Chöpa is a practice of guru devotion special to the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In Sanskrit, lamais guru, and chöpa is offering, so Lama Chöpa translates into English as “offering to the spiritual guide.” In the Gelugpa tradition, there are many guru yoga sadhanas, but Lama Chöpa is the most popular and sacred text.

Social media for existentialists (Just because I love McSweeney’s and it’s pretty funny)

Via Caturday

How not to tell a colleague to **** off – The Under 35 Project

I had to work up to just picturing her in the practice, let alone sending any metta. It surprised me to realise however that the first stage of sending myself metta, was every bit as important as the latter stages. It was ok to realise that I was suffering too.

Open City: An article about Hassidim in Montreal

The most fundamental need of a person is to share their lives with other people. Every society is privy to the best and the worst of people. Every person, regardless of persuasion, colour, race or creed has the capacity for the best and for the worst within themselves. The deciding variable is the ego. When we measure each other against the backdrop of our egos, our experiences, prejudices, and limited knowledge, the result is often misconstrued conclusions.

Death in the Desert in an American Buddhist Cult  /Rebuttal: “Psychosis, Stabbing, Secrecy & Death at a Neo-Buddhist University in Arizona.”

“You can waste your whole life in Dunzie” – Pema Chodron

I think one of the gifts of getting older is getting more and more comfortable with who we actually are. After years of trying to be a better version of ourselves, trying to be more fabulous and perfect, we relax a little into embracing our wonderful, ordinary, as-is selves. And create from there.

It may sound strange to describe it as such, but this book is like a great selection of short, fast punk rock songs. No need to go off into heavy, long guitar solos. Time to just get to it. Get in and get out. Living Fully does just that. It’s a collection of many short chapters that together give a full soundtrack to what it is to be human and how to discover how best to navigate this reality we find ourselves in.

Quite a bit of terrain is covered in this book, but don’t be fooled, it is a deep read and does cover every aspect of human existence. Ambitious yes, but Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche has successfully achieved this with this book in my opinion. The writing is clear and concise and grounded very much in Tibetan Buddhism as well as the full experience of being human – every nook and cranny.

The concept of freedom is referred to quite often within the pages of “Living Fully”, as the essence of this book is about how to experience each moment of our lives and be present. The topics covered within its pages primarily relate to the theme of how to break through confusion and how to find freedom from suffering and provides instructions on what qualities we can cultivate to help us on the path and in turn, live a good life.

Suggestions such as examining our intentions, thinking of how to be of benefit and working with our minds by using meditation and mindfulness are referred to regularly in “Living Fully”. A large part of the book speaks to how meditation helps to reveal wisdom and serves as a buffer against the challenges that can arise in our lives.

Concepts core to Buddhist thought such as the nature of change and impermanence, obstacles, antidotes, karma, self-liberation, non-duality, attachments and specifically, as the title would suggest, the power that comes from realization around our precious human birth and the need to act now are all explored within the book. Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche also spends some time expressing how important it is for one to have a teacher in one’s life and how this relationship can help us on our spiritual path. The concept that the teacher is always available to us 24/7 is also explored as well as how we ourselves are our best teachers in guiding ourselves along the way since at the end of the day, nobody can do the work for us but ourselves.

The final chapter of the book comes from a Question and Answer session with Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche and mainly focuses on the topics of love, work and life in our present age. This section alone was quite nourishing for me as it related much to topics that I’m currently focused on such as how to balance my attachment to technology with my desire to share and connect with others as well as how to function in the material world but be free.

“Living Fully: Finding Joy in Every Breath” is one of those valuable books that can be picked up and referred to at any point as any chapter that you turn to will provide you with insight. Regardless of how far along in practice and study a student is engaged on the path, Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche has written a book that deepens the core principles of how to be present in every moment and makes that possibility less daunting.

In the book “Living Fully- Finding Joy in Every Breath” there is a Question and Answer session with the author Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche which really resonated with me so much that I wanted to share it with you.

Question: Many young people are addicted to Facebook and Twitter, or spend their entire day on their iPhones and iPods. Do you think these technological developments prevent people from living in the moment?

Rinpoche: Many brilliant and ingenious people have created these products for our benefit. Such innovations can help humankind to progress and grow. But if we use technology for destructive purposes, such as nuclear weapons, we can destroy our lives. Tools such as the internet or cell phones can enhance our lives if we use them with a positive motivation, for the benefit of ourselves and others. The point is not the tool itself, but how we use it.

That said, tools like Facebook and Twitter could trap us in meaningless distraction. We must remember that the most satisfying thing is to live fully. If we cannot be truly satisfied and content with ourselves, the next new gadget will soon leave us bored of our problems. We need to be aware of the confusing thoughts and emotions that bombard us when we use these tools. We need to learn how to handle these intruders!

- Quote and image from the book “Living Fully”