The basic idea: after a long day of work (at whatever it is you do for a living in 2025), you come home, lay down, and put your head inside the Optocoupler. It closes over your whole head like a pyramid-shaped mask, sealing out sights and sounds. Then, a mysterious disco-ball-like strobing pattern starts pulsing in front of you, accompanied by crackly digital sounds that could be bacon frying or raindrops hitting a touchscreen. What could be more relaxing?

Read more at Fast Company Design…

This imagery “represents an aspiring meditator, who is following the path consisting of the stages of meditation that ends in the accomplishment of a calmly abiding mind and the beginning of the practice of insight meditation.”

The Social Life of Meditation

I’m really interested in hearing more about The Here and Now project… Great stuff!

Original Mixed Media Print with Artist's Haiku Extolling Breath- swallownest on Etsy

The course starts with a free open house on May 12, and continues on May 19, 26, June 2 and 16. Classes will be from 7 till 8:30 pm and the total cost is $25 for the series.

This course while based on the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is designed to be applicable for anyone. No previous experience in meditation is required.

Classes will be held in a studio space located at the NHC Institute (Natural Health Consultants) -  4240 Girouard Avenue (near Ville Marie Metro).

Should you wish any further information, leave me a note in the comments section or email me at tanyamcg at the gmail dot com

Meditation #3 / Scott Eagle 2000

“I was begining to very directly confront the idea of death, and to think about what kind of purpose there is behind things, and about how I could make my life meaningful,” he said. “I began to ask myself what kind of images in modern society really inspire me in a deeply spiritual way, and I couldn’t think of many. So I asked myself, ‘How can I create images that will speak of something bigger than everyday life but that will also connect me to my fellow human beings as well as to the future and the past?’”

Artist- Scott Eagle

I would like one of those “Nervous Breakthroughs” Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche speaks of!

When I heard the words, ‘nervous breakthough’ of course I started singing it to the tune of Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown”. Ahhh the ever poetic Henry Rollins..

His method of teaching is so clear and direct & I really appreciated this series of talks.

To view the full series of talks, click here

The centuries-old practice of Zen meditation might help reduce sensitivity to pain, say researchers in Montreal who compared pain responses in people trained in the technique and those who are not.

In the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, Joshua Grant, a doctoral student in physiology at the University of Montreal and his colleague Prof. Pierre Rainville looked at how or why mediation might influence pain perception.

Scientists recruited 13 Zen meditators with a minimum of 1,000 hours of practice to undergo a pain test. Their reactions were contrasted with 13 non-meditators.

Subjects included 10 women and 16 men between the ages of 22 and 56.

The study involved applying a heated plate to the calves of subjects intermittently and measuring at which temperatures the subject reported pain.

Most people felt moderate pain at 48 C, but meditators only started feeling pain at 50 C, the researchers found.

“Now that two degrees doesn’t seem like a big difference, but it’s actually a huge difference in terms of thermal pain,” said Grant.

Zen meditators experienced an 18 per cent reduction in pain intensity, the researchers reported.

Dealing with pain

During meditation-like conditions, it appeared that meditators further reduced their pain partly by breathing more slowly: 12 breaths per minute versus an average of 15 breaths for non-meditators.

“The Zen practitioner senses pain but deals with it in a different way,” said Myokyo, a monk and teacher of Zen meditation at the Abbess Centre Zen de la Main in Montreal.

It could be that slower breathing was linked to reduced pain by keeping the body in a relaxed state, Grant said.

“While previous studies have found that the emotional aspects of pain are influenced by meditation, we found that the sensation itself, as well as the emotional response, is different in meditators,” he said.

Psychologist Ann Amsa teaches techniques such as visualization and breathing to help people with chronic pain.

Amsa said Zen mediation also works on the mind to lessen pain. Meditators observe good and bad sensations and then accept and release them so painful stimulation is felt less intensely, she said.

If meditation changes the way someone feels pain, then people would need to take less pain medication, Grant said.

The next phase of the research will involve MRI scans to learn how mediation affects brain activity.

The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Mind and Life Institute Varela Grant, and the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec.

I haven’t been in a Buddhist course in almost a year. It’s been 6 months since my last Shambhala level and I don’t have a Meditation Instructor. My participation in the sangha is pretty spotty at best.

I’m considering checking out other Buddhist temples here in Montreal to see if maybe it is a change that I’m looking for. Could it be that I need more direction in my practice? Seems like I’m imbalanced in terms of participating in the local sangha….