Mindfulness for Stress Reduction | MBSR in San Francisco with Augusta Hopkins

How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains: Sara Lazar

How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains: Sara Lazar at TEDxCambridge 2011 – YouTube. Sara Lazar’s 2011 research shows how meditation changes the brain, specifically the executive function and working memory regions. Scientifically validated benefits of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction: Decreases Stress Reduces Symptoms Associated with: depression anxiety pain gastrointestinal disorders insomnia psoriasis and eczema Enhanced […]

Letting Go Leads to Freedom

We are so self centered it’s difficult to see it. Of course we once believed that the sun revolves around the earth. It sure ‘seems’ that way. If you sit in a Kuti (a small one room building), with 4 walls and a widow in each wall, all day the light of the sun makes […]

Young Urban Zen

Young Urban Zen is an oasis for people in their 20’s and 30’s who are drawn to meditation.  Weekly gatherings support the development and cultivation of a personal practice. The group meets on Tuesdays from 7:00 – 8:30 pm at Buddha Hall, 300 Page Street. After the gathering people often go out for dinner, further […]

SF Urban Dharma

SF Urban Dharma was founded by Noah Levine more than ten years ago and has grown into a multi night gather which is close to having it’s own home in SF. Currently there are gatherings on Friday – the long time weekly gathering – Mondays and Wednesdays all from 7:30-9:00pm   Weekly Friday gathering led […]

Don't Know Mind

This story, often attributed to Chinese Folklore, beautifully illustrates Don’t Know Mind.  I enjoy sharing it with mindfulness students in my MBSR classes. It’s a story about a farmer and a horse which reminds us that things don’t always turn out how we expect. After sharing it with one student a few weeks ago she […]

Insight Meditation Center (IMC)

The Insight Meditation Center (IMC) is a community-based urban meditation center for the practice of Vipassana or Insight meditation. It is a non-residential center in Redwood City, California, dedicated to the study and practice of Buddhist teachings. IMC offers a broad range of practice and community activities. This includes a weekly schedule of meditation sessions, […]

Non-Striving

This Yoga Journal story illustrates beautifully the practice of non-striving. The Breath of Life ~ Evan Weselake Buried under an avalanche, an avid backcountry skier finds that the one thing he can do is all that stands between him and oblivion. There were 21 of us skiers zigzagging up British Columbia’s Mt. Traviata on that […]