NEWSLETTER

Monthly Newsletter

To receive the MMC Newsletters, please send a request to Joseph Emet at: josephemet at gmail.com (you need to copy this address by hand, replace at by @ and take out the extra spaces around the @ symbol). The Newsletters are sent on or about the middle of every month. They contain information about coming events, and an Inspiration Corner (often a poem or a quotation from Thich Nhat Hanh).

PAST NEWSLETTERS

AUGUST 2010: A NEW BEGINNING

This year, Mindfulness Days are integrated into a series. Each Mindfulness Day can be taken alone, or as part of an 8 session series of mindfulness training seminars.
The complete series comes with an attestation of attendance, and is appropriate both for those who are interested in personal growth, and also for those who are interested in using mindfulness techniques in their professional lives. More information at http://www.mindfulnessmeditationcentre.org/days.htm
Weekly programs start on Monday, September 13, at 10 am at Padua, and at 7:30 pm in Pointe-Claire.
More information at http://www.mindfulnessmeditationcentre.org/weekprog.htm

MINDFULNESS DAY: SATURDAY OCTOBER 2 from 9 to 12:30 — A REVIEW OF MINDFULNESS PRACTICES
(at Pointe-Claire.)
This workshop is for beginners and seasoned practitioners alike. For beginners, it focuses on the basics of a new attitude that we cultivate as we do our best to include periods of meditation and sessions of group practice into our schedules. For advanced practitioners, it addresses issues of how to deepen our practice so that our life can reflect our new skills of awareness, and insights into who we are each day.
You are invited to bring along a quote or a poem, either written by you or someone else, that is particularly meaningful for you in this context. Your contribution can be in the form of a statement, or a question.
Reservation necessary (email josephemet@gmail.com). In your email please include whether you wish to join in a potluck lunch after. Cost 20 dollars, or free with seasonal membership.

UNDERSTANDING THE ANXIOUS MIND

is the title of a long essay that appeared recently in the New York Times. Here, to whet your appetite, is a quote that almost celebrates anxiety:
"Those who reported themselves as scoring high on anxiety traits, like being nervous about performing well on the job, turned out to be better employees, but only if their worrying was accompanied by high cognitive ability.
Worriers are likely to be the most thorough workers and the most attentive friends. Someone who worries about being late will plan to get to places early. Someone anxious about giving a public lecture will work harder to prepare for it. Test-taking anxiety can lead to better studying; fear of traveling can lead to careful mapping of transit routes."
The complete article can be accessed at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazine/04anxiety-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=magazine&src=me

STORIES OF A SUMMER

Ô Jus, a new smoothie and juice bar, has just opened in Montreal's Mile End district at 5443 Parc Ave. (at St-Viateur). The vision of its owner, Valerie Legge, is to provide a bright, upbeat atmosphere in which to enjoy drinks and food that are both healthy and tasty. The menu includes freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices, a wide variety of blended fruit smoothies, home baking (with organic flour), bagel sandwiches with a wide choice of vegetarian fillings, yogurt parfaits, etc. The café offers internet access on its 3 built-in computer screens as well as a wi-fi connection. For those experiencing any technical difficulties, there is even a computer repair shop in the basement! And if you prefer conversation or simply watching the world go by, there is a little terrace out front on the sunny side of the street. In order to further integrate various elements of community life, local artists are invited to show their works on a rotating basis. Feel free to check out this new neighbourhood spot for yourself - yet another example of how our values and visions of health and happiness can be woven into our daily lives.

A new CD, with the working title "BE HERE NOW" is nearing completion in Joseph Emet's studio.
The songs are about living in the light of mindfulness, and are presented in a popular and lighthearted style. The recording sessions have been going on every week since early June.

Those who attend our meetings might know that Chantal Jacques started a meditation group at work (The Veterans' Hospital in Ste. Anne) two years ago. She reports that "this group met at lunch once a week for a 20 min. guided meditation and 10 minutes of sharing. Over the years, the group has expanded by word of mouth, and now has a stable core of about 8 members. At the beginning of the summer, the employee's health nurse attended our group and requested that we open up the group to more employees. Having experienced first hand the effects on her mind and body, she sent an email to all employes informing them of the documented benefits of Mindfulness Meditation and invited them to try it on their lunch hour. More than 50 people responded. We integrated 20 of them into our group and made a waiting list for the rest. We are presently looking for a permanent space for meditation in the building.
Our workplace sangha is growing as our employer and health office recognise the benefits of meditation on health and the workplace atmosphere. Personally, I love hearing my co-workers remind each other to 'Just Breathe' after a stressful meeting or event."

WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?

Here is an interesting teaching by the Dalai Lama. It appears in the context of a discussion of emotional awareness between him and Paul Ekman:
" The sanskrit term is sati, and the Tibetan word is drenpa, which literally mean "memory, recollection." Mindfulness is bringing to the present the awareness of things that you have learned.
When mindfulness is equated with "bare attention," it can easily lead to the misconception that the cultivation of mindfulness has nothing to do with ethics, or with the cultivation of wholesome states of mind and the attenuation of unwholesome states. It is incorrect to equate the two. The primary meaning of mindfulness is recollection, and non-forgetfulness. Bare attention, as calm, nonreactive awareness of one's meditative object plays a crucial role in practice, but it is not a complete practice, and by itself, it can be very helpful, and yet very limiting."
Edited from pp 55-56 of Emotional Awareness, A Conversation Between the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman.
Highly recommended.

Please share this Newsletter with someone you know who might be interested.