short meditation module for Teens !

Secret of teen power
Posted on June 27, 2010 | Author: Vithal C Nadkarni | View 4

JOHN Selby's The Cool Way to Calmspecifically offers meditation for high school students as a non-religious method for calming emotions,clearing the mind,and feeling good in the body.It's contrary to the stereotype of a bearded guru meditating in some far-off cave in the Himalayan wilderness,he clarifies.He was lucky enough to grow up in a town in California where a wonderful meditation teacher called Jiddu Krishnamurti spent half of each year.So by the time he got to high school he had a starting notion of how to take charge of his own mind and to use the powerful tool of meditation to help him through his teen years.
Selby says his short-form'meditation method for teenagers is something one can do anywhere,anytime while taking a walk,sitting in class,playing sports or being out on a date.It's supposed to be something one can do anytime;whenever one wants to calm down,to get clear to be able to enjoy life.

What's more nobody needs to even know that you are meditating,he reassures: All they'll see is that right in the middle of being upset or confused or otherwise emotionally and mentally a mess,you're able to somehow quickly regain your composure,let go of upset feelings,and attain a sense of personal balance and power that allows you to perform at your optimum,relate with strength and compassion,and in general succeed in whatever you're doing at the moment.

In the first four chapters,the book goes back and forth between life scenes of high-schoolers trying to apply meditation to their lives.These stories are punctuated by short explanatory paragraphs.Selby has also experimented with what he calls the modular' meditation method,where each meditation module stands on its own as a short but complete unit.When these are put together in the proper order,the seven meditation modules also work as a whole as one flows from theme to theme,being taken deeper and deeper with each modular addition.

So are you ready to start Without making any effort,experience the change inside when you begin to turn your inner focus of attention directly toward the physical sensation you're feeling even right now,of the air flowing in,and flowing out of your nose or mouth as you breathe, he exhorts.Just tune into your breathing with all your mind's power of attention,and watch six breaths come and go;be open to a new experience and change!

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Buddha's ban on yogic powers !

White magic of exchange
12 Jun 2010, 0505 hrs IST,Vithal C Nadkarni,ET Bureau


The Buddha and his disciples were once waiting for the boatman near the Ganges when a Yogi came by striding and gave them a pitying look only to walk on the water to cross the river. The bewildered disciples looked to the Buddha but he did not respond. Later, as they crossed the river in a sailboat, the Buddha asked the sailor how much he charged to take his retinue across and the boatman mentioned a paltry sum.

The Buddha then told his disciples that the yogi who had meditated for most of his life to learn how to tread water had wasted his life to learn a cheap trick and he went on to bind his followers to a modest code of conduct that never "showed off" siddhis or "miraculous" powers to impress people.

Buddha's ban on siddhis: If you want true liberation give up these powers; only then is the seed of evil destroyed as the individual ego merges with the universal one.

Intriguingly, the Buddha's own personal name, Siddhartha, is based on the root-word Siddha' and literally means "he whose aim is accomplished". He distinguishes between two types of powers: the garden variety of siddhis, which include all those forces of the conditioned world that transform or energise the elements.

These should include modern 'miracles' such as airplanes, satellites, telephones, computers and internet that transform elements. Buddha's second category has extraordinary siddhis or the ability to open beings up for liberating and enlightening truths. Again include secular siddhisof modern age, the byproduct of hundreds of years of continuing improvement. That's the theme of The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley.

Economic progress is an evolutionary phenomenon, he argues , which occurs in an undirected bottoms-up way as a result of the selective survival of ideas and technologies. What makes it work is exchange, today's supreme dharma.