A Day of Mindfulness and Meditation
Saturday, June 7th; 12:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Church
1818 Reservoir Road
Little Rock, Arkansas

Free and Open to the Public!

The Ecumenical Buddhist Society will be hosting Arkansas ‘fourth “Change Your Mind Day” on Saturday, June 7th, from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 1818 Reservoir Road in Little Rock. “Change Your Mind Day” is being held in approximately 50 cities throughout the United States and around the world in June. The event’s purpose is to celebrate a day of mindfulness and meditation, and to introduce different types of meditation practices to the general public in a friendly, public setting, free of charge.

The event will include instruction/guidance in sitting and walking meditation as well as visualization, chanting, yoga, and drumming.  You are welcome to attend the entire event or drop in at your convenience.  It’s a great way to explore different types of meditation techniques!

Although the event is sponsored and led by volunteers, who represent primarily Buddhist traditions, it is open to anyone who approaches spirituality in a compassionate, mindful way.  We look forward to seeing you on June 7th!

“By bringing meditation practice into a public forum, we hope to demonstrate that sitting quietly for a short time is a powerful way to ‘change your mind’ and serve the community,” said George Crook, former president of EBS.  “And, because more and more Arkansans are expressing interest in Buddhism, this event offers a unique opportunity to experience Buddhist meditation practices and philosophy.”

For more information, visit www.ebslr.org

The Vesak 2008 Ecumenical Buddhist Picnic will be held this Sunday, May 18 from 3:30 to 7:00 pm at Agri Park in Fayetteville, with dinner beginning around 5:30 pm.  All area Buddhists and all those interested in Buddhist theory and practice are cordially invited to attend. 

This is a wonderful opportunity for members of the various local practice groups to get acquainted and share the Dharma with others.  Your participation will help make this event a success. 

Please bring food and drink, plates, cups, and utensils to share with those attending, as well as lawn chairs, frisbees, games, etc.  Local practice groups are invited to bring information about their group’s practice and activities to share with others.  Those who wish may bring offerings of fruit, flowers, incense, or candles to be placed on the altar.  Talented musicians are invited to come prepared to share their music with the group.

The event will feature one or two periods of silent meditation, dharma talks, and readings.  At the close of the event, Ven. Geshe Thupten Dorjee will offer to those interested the Eight Precepts Vow for observation on Tuesday, May 20, the official date of Vesak.  A copy of the Eight Precepts Vow is available online at http://www.nwabuddhist.info/vesakprecepts.pdf

Full details of the event are available at http://nwabuddhist.info/news/archives/125

Half-Day Zen Retreat With Zen Priest: Daigaku Rumme
June 20th & 21st
Rime Buddhist Center
Kansas City, Missouri

Rime members will have the opportunity to learn more about Zen Buddhism practices June 20-21 with a half-day retreat lead by Zen priest Daigaku Rumme. Rumme, a monk in the Soto tradition, resides at the San Francisco Zen Center and is on the staff of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center. He was ordained a Soto monk by Harada Sekkei Roshi in 1978 and practiced under him for more than 27 years in Japan. The Zen Soto tradition emphasizes sitting as a way to realize one’s Buddha nature. Soto also teaches through the use of koans or paradoxical statements that attempt to aid spiritual insight. This sect of Zen Buddhism developed in China in the 6th century C.E., then spread to Japan and other Asian countries. The retreat will feature several 30-minute periods of seated meditation (zazen) as well as walking meditation (kinhin).
 
Schedule
Friday, June 20th 7:30 pm Talk: Basic Principles of Zen Practice & Realization
 
Saturday, June 21st 10 a.m. - noon - Half Day Zen Retreat
 
Fee
Half-Day Retreat - $60 in advance or $80 at the door. 
 
For more information, visit http://rimecenter.org/ 

Dzogchen Retreat & Teachings With Lama Yeshi Kaytub (Lama Lena)
May 30th, 31st & June 1st
Rime Buddhist Center
Kansas City, Missouri

Lama Yeshi Kaytub (”Lama Lena”) returns to the Rime Center with a Dzogchen retreat featuring teachings from Tsig Sum De Deb, The Three Words of Garab Dorje, which is the essential heart teaching of Dzogchen. Lama Lena will use a heart text in the Nyingma Longchen Nyingthig Lineaage with a commentary by Patrul Rinpoche on the Nature of Mind. The teachings include showing the View of the Natulre of Mind by direct transmission and instruction on this specific meditation and post-meditation experience. It is said that by dedicating one’s self to this single practice, full enlightenment can be achieved in a single lifetime.
 
Schedule
Friday, May 30th 7:30 pm - First Dzogchen teaching
 
Saturday, May31st 10 a.m. - noon - Second Dzogchen teaching
2 - 4 p.m. - Third Dzogchen teaching
Sunday, June 1st 10:30 a.m. Dharma Talk
 
Retreat (all teachings) - $100 in advance or $120 at the door. 
 
Residential Retreat: add $25 per night stay which includes two meals per day (breakast and lunch). Retreatants are on their own for dinner; there are many restaurants near the Rime Center and the Rime kitchen is always available for use.

For more information, visit http://rimecenter.org/

A Day of Silent Meditation
for Young Adults, ages 14 - 25
Sunday, June 22nd; 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Wattle Hollow Retreat Center

This will be an introductory course, with full instruction and guidance by Joy Fox, in various Buddhist-style meditative techniques known as Vipassana, the Pali word for “Insight”. There will be question and answer periods, discussion groups, and time for journaling, walking in the woods, and simple self-reflection.

For those of you wanting some tools to slow the world down a bit  and take a look inside, here’s an opportunity.

This day is offered for dana (the Pali word for donation).  It includes lunch.  Pre-registration is required to attend this course.

For more information or to register, visit http://www.wattlehollow.com/schedule.htm

A Special Preview Screening of
Dalai Lama Renaissance
June 28th from 4:00PM to 6:00PM
Arend Arts Center, Bentonville

A special “sneak preview” of the “Dalai Lama Renaissance,” a feature documentary film narrated by Harrison Ford and including Michael Beckwith (from “The Secret”), and Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Goswami from “What the Bleep Do We Know,” will be presented by The RabBoar Studio on June 28th from 4:00PM to 6:00PM at the Arend Arts Center in Bentonville. 

Fifty-percent of the proceeds will go to the film’s creators who will donate 1/3 to the Preservation of the Tibetan Culture.

“Dalai Lama Renaissance” has screened for enthusiastic sold out audiences throughout the U.S. and world, and has won 10 awards, and is the official selection at 35 film festivals around the world.

“Dalai Lama Renaissance” is an 80 minute documentary film about forty of the world’s most innovative thinkers who travel to India in the Himalayan Mountains to meet with the Dalai Lama to solve many of the world’s problems. What happened was surprising and unexpected.

Narrated by actor Harrison Ford, the film also features Quantum Physicists Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Gowami from “What the Bleep Do We Know,” and Michel Beckwith and Fred Alan Wolf from “the Secret,” Social Scientist Jean Houston, and New Thought minister Harry Morgan Moses. The film also includes other New Thought authors and thinkers who were also a part of these “Synthesis Dialogs” with the Dalai Lama.

You can read more about “Dalai Lama Renaissance,” including watching three different trailers for the film, here: www.DalaiLamaFilm.com

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit http://www.rabboar.com/studio/DalaiLama.htm

KUNDALINI YOGA WEEKEND
WITH MEHTAB AND GURU KARAM BENTON

July 11 – 13
Presented by the RabBoar Studio
Rogers, Arkansas

Come explore and learn Kundalini Yoga, the yoga of awareness, from two of the leading Kundalini Yoga teachers in the United States!

THE YOGA OF SOUND
Friday July 11, 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Enjoy a relaxing and fun evening workshop as we use music and the live sound of the gong to take you on a yoga journey! Simple yoga, guided deep relaxation and the music of the gong will take you where your mind and body have never gone before! Open to everyone.

KUNDALINI YOGA IMMERSION
Saturday July 12
9:00am-12:00pm and 2:00pm-5:00pm
Kundalini Yoga uses movement, breath and sound to balance the chakras and awaken your energy. It is an ancient and dynamic form of yoga that quickly improves health on all levels. In this full day immersion into Kundalini Yoga, we will begin with the basics and take you through a transformational experience. You will study with the husband and wife team of Mehtab and Guru Karam who have taught thousands of beginning students this unique and powerful form of yoga. Open to yoga students and teachers of all levels. No previous Kundalini Yoga experience needed.

OPENING THE HEART CHAKRA
Sunday July 13, 9:00am – 12:00pm
When the Heart Chakra is opened, we are compassionate with ourselves and others in a healthy and empowering way. In this workshop, we will strengthen the physical heart and then clear away the past traumas, grief and disappointments that block us from experiencing the abundance of the heart. Some yoga experience, or participation in Saturday workshop is recommended.

ABOUT THE TEACHERS
Mehtab and Guru Karam Benton are the founders of the Yoga Yoga Studios in Austin, Texas where they have taught thousands of students and trained hundreds of yoga teachers.

Mehtab began teaching Kundalini Yoga
in 1974 inSan Rafael, California where he taught yoga in the public schools and in drug rehabilitation programs. He has taught Kundalini Yoga to students and teachers from around the world and is the author of ten books, including a book on Yoga and the Gong. He is a featured instructor in the University of Texas Master Class series where he plays the gong and lectures on the practice of yoga.

Guru Karam began her life-long yoga
practice at age 16 at a Kundalini Yoga Ashram in Houston, Texas. She has presented classes internationally on Yoga Nidra, the art of deep relaxation and brings a feminine perspective and lively sense of humor to teaching and practicing yoga. She and her husband Mehtab began the Yoga Yoga studios in Austin, Texas and has helped nurtured its growth into one of the largest yoga communities in the United States.

For more information or to register, visit http://www.rabboar.com/studio/Workshops.htm

Vesak 2008
Ecumenical Buddhist Picnic
Celebrating the Buddha’s Birth, Enlightenment, and Paranirvana
Sunday, May 18, 2008;  3:30 - 7:00 pm
Agri Park, Fayetteville

Northwest Arkansas Buddhists will celebrate Vesak 2008 with a potluck picnic beginning at 3:30 pm (dinner starts around 5:30 pm) on Sunday, May 18 at Agri Park in Fayetteville.  All area Buddhists and all those interested in Buddhist theory and practice are cordially invited to attend. 

Sometimes informally called “Buddha’s birthday,” Vesak celebrates the birth, enlightenment (Nirvana), and passing (Paranirvana) of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni. An official state holiday in many Buddhist countries, Vesak is also known as Vaisakha, Buddha Jayanti, and Saga Dawa. The exact date of Vesak varies according to the various lunar calendars used in different traditions.  For many of those traditions, Vesak falls on May 20 in 2008.

Please bring food and drink, plates, cups, and utensils to share with those attending, as well as lawn chairs, games, etc.  Local practice groups are invited to bring information about their group’s practice and activities to share with others.  Those who wish may bring offerings of fruit, flowers, incense, or candles to be placed on the altar.

The event will feature a period of silent meditation, and perhaps a Dharma talk or two.  At the close of the event, Ven. Geshe Thupten Dorjee will offer to those interested the Eight Precepts Vow, to be honored for the 24-hour period beginning at sunrise on Tuesday May 20.  Participants who take the vow undertake to abstain from: taking life (both human and nonhuman); taking what is not given (stealing); all sexual activity; telling lies; using intoxicating drinks and drugs which lead to carelessness; eating at the wrong time (the right time is eating once, after sunrise, before noon); singing, dancing, playing music, attending entertainment performances, wearing perfume, and using cosmetics and garlands; and using luxurious places for sitting or sleeping.

Located on Garland Avenue north of the University of Arkansas and Deane Street, Agri Park features a covered pavilion; in the event of rain, the event will proceed as planned.

Click here to download a flyer for the event.