Ian Gawler Blog: Why the Dalai Lama thinks you are so special - a photographic essay

It is a fact. Maybe The Dalai Lama has not even met you, but he is in no doubt; he thinks you are really special and has good reasons for thinking so. He made all of this very clear in Melbourne last week.

So let us go “Out on a Limb” once more, investigate how it is that the Dalai Lama could know you well enough to say he likes you so much, and share some great photos that convey something of the man and his message.

Also, a fabulously interesting new study from Herbert Bedson showing how the Relaxation Response alters genes for the good, and a reminder I am in Brisbane next weekend presenting seminars, then Coffs Harbour,  Katoomba and Sydney. If you are local, hope to see you there. But first

Thought for the day
Happiness is a skill,
emotional balance is a skill, 

compassion and altruism are skills, 
and like any skill they need to be developed. 

That is what education is about.
                                 Matthieu Ricard


Last week, Ruth and I along with nearly 6,000 others had the good fortune to attend the Dalai Lama’s public talk in Melbourne, following up next day with more formal teachings on the Heart Sutra and The 8 Verses of Mind Training.






So why is it that the Dalai Lama respects you so much and is so confident you are so special?


His answer is simple.

It is because in so many ways you are just the same as the 7 billion other people on this planet.

We all share much in common.

Physically we all eat, drink and … you know the rest!

He thinks it is funny too!

But then again, we all have emotions and minds that can be beset by one trouble after another, but we all (well most anyway) have minds that are coherent enough that if we decide to, we can train them and go beyond ordinary human difficulties and confusions and sufferings, and find long-lasting happiness.











However, of even greater significance, the Dalai Lama is in no doubt that as a human being what you undoubtedly share with the other 7 billion of us is that we all have fundamental goodness.

The inner potential for full enlightenment - as he would put it.

This is what he really admires in you.

Fundamental goodness.

This is what he sees in you.

This is what he bows to.











This is why he travels the world speaking wherever he can, and giving his life to teaching everyone who will listen.










For this message, when taken to heart, when realized, is a direct antidote to any personal misgivings we may have about our selves. A direct antidote to any feelings of low self-esteem or self-hatred. When we know that in our hearts, in our essence, there is this fundamental goodness, this intrinsic purity, then how can we do anything but respect who we really are?

My sense of it is that the root cause of so many of the current maladies that affect people, and I see this over and over in young and old, is low self-esteem. An uncertainty about fundamental worth. Confusion about "who I really am?" and "what I am really worth?"

With low self-esteem comes low self-love and then comes recrimination. Guilt, shame, self-abuse in both obvious and subtle ways. 

So much chronic, degenerative disease has low self-esteem at its heart.

With a healthy sense of self-worth comes self-love and self-care. How could you not look after yourself if you have a sense of this fundamental goodness? Dare I say it, this self-love is like having a direct and unshakeable sense of the sacred within. What follows has to be self-care. So much good health has high self-esteem at its heart.

But then of course there is a major bonus. When we recognise the essential goodness in our self, we naturally recognise the essential goodness in others - all 7 billion of them. While we also can recognise that on the outer level people stuff up, we stuff up, we know that in our hearts we are all pure and good; so there is a basic respect for the potential of each and every person. By finding peace in our heart, we naturally generate peace towards others and contribute to peace in our world.

Peace will never be imposed on the world. A peaceful world can only ever be made up of a world full of people at peace in their own hearts. Recognising our fundamental goodness brings "a peace that passes all understanding". Deep, natural peace.

How do we deal with the fact that we stuff up (well just occasionlly maybe)? How do we develop our own confidence in this fundamental goodness?

The Dalai Lama is clear about the answer to these questions as well: train the mind and practice meditation.



Of the specific teachings he gave, the Heart Sutra is a famous teaching that brings out the essence or the heart of the Buddha's teachings. Through the gradual process of cultivating wisdom, it points out that we can develop the ability to cut through delusions and understand the ultimate nature of the way in which 'I' and all phenomena exist.

The Eight Verses of Mind Training shows us how, through generating compassion, loving kindness and altruism, we can transform our ordinary mind into attaining enlightenment.





It being 2 years since his last visit, one of the first things His Holiness said in Australia was:

I’m very happy to be here once more, having the opportunity of meeting with long-time friends. So, two years have passed, I’m wondering, among our old friends, in the last two years, how many have progressed, in your mental quality? 

Physically we have become older and older, no force can stop that… so it is really worthwhile day by day, week by week, that there is some improvement to mental quality, so that our life can become more meaningful.

With thanks to the official photographer for the following picture with its insert
(for more official photos LINK HERE)

So there is the challenge: What have we done recently to improve our “mental quality”?

What have we done to train our mind? How much meditation have we been practising? This is one of the great benefits of a visit from someone like the Dalai Lama, he reminds us, he re-inspires us to do what we know is so good for us.

If interested, you can view the Public Talks and Sydney/ Darwin Teachings on the Dalai Lama in Australia You Tube Channel (There were some technical issues in Melbourne, but the audio is available) LINK HERE

If you feel motivated to support the Dalai Lama’s work and help the Tibetan cause, go to the Australia Tibet Council and see what inspires you: LINK HERE 

NOTICEBOARD
SEMINARS COMING SOON in Queensland and NSW
This will be my 30th year presenting at the Relaxation Centre in Brisbane.

Ruth and I love these events where we get to meet up with people we know, make new friends, to remind ourselves and others of what works and to share the latest in our field of health, healing and wellbeing.

Please do forward the details to those you may know in any of these places and if you live nearby, we hope to see you at one of the events. Bring your family (we had 5 members from the same family share a day seminar recently), come with a friend, tell your colleagues.


These seminars are interactive, a great way to review what you already know, to be re-inspired and re-enthused, and to learn exciting new things, like the latest breakthroughs in epigenetics, the neurosciences, telomeres and nutrition.

Something for everyone!

Brisbane
June 27; Evening Public Lecture: Health, Healing and Wellbeing
29 – 30; Weekend seminar: A New Way of Living

Coffs Harbour
July 6; Day seminar: Medicine of the Mind

Katoomba
July 9; Day seminar: Health, Healing and Wellbeing

Sydney
July 13 - 14, Weekend seminar: A New Way of Living

RELATED BLOG
On enlightenment

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Famous Harvard Professor demonstrates that the Relaxation Response positively changes gene expression – even in a single session!

Herbert Benson (author of the highly recommended The Relaxation Response) first described the relaxation response – the physiologic opposite of the fight-or-flight response – almost 40 years ago, and his team has pioneered the application of mind/body techniques to a wide range of health problems.

Studies in many peer-reviewed journals have documented how the Relaxation Response alleviates symptoms of anxiety and many other disorders and also affects factors such as heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen consumption and brain activity.

In 2008, Benson and Libermann led a study finding that long-term practice of the relaxation response changed the expression of genes involved with the body's response to stress.  The current study examined changes produced during a single session of Relaxation Response practice, as well as those taking place over longer periods of time.

Both short-term and long-term practitioners evoked significant temporal gene expression changes with greater significance in the latter as compared to novices. Relaxation Response practice enhanced expression of genes associated with energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, insulin secretion and telomere maintenance, and reduced expression of genes linked to inflammatory response and stress-related pathways.

The published results for the first time indicate that Relaxation Response elicitation, particularly after long-term practice, may evoke its downstream health benefits by improving mitochondrial energy production and utilization and thus promoting mitochondrial resiliency through upregulation of ATPase and insulin function.

Benson stresses that the long-term practitioners in this study elicited the relaxation response through many different techniques – various forms of meditation, yoga or prayer – but those differences were not reflected in the gene expression patterns.

"People have been engaging in these practices for thousands of years, and our finding of this unity of function on a basic-science, genomic level gives greater credibility to what some have called 'new age medicine,' " he says.


The full reference is : Bhasin MK, Dusek JA, Chang B-H, Joseph MG, Denninger JW, et al. (2013) Relaxation Response Induces Temporal Transcriptome Changes in Energy Metabolism, Insulin Secretion and Inflammatory Pathways.
To read it, CLICK HERE

Ian Gawler Blog: Be still, and know that I am relaxed

Being on a yacht on an ocean means constant movement. Even when the sea is relatively calm, there is some rocking and rolling going on continually. Out of this experience comes another major meditation insight gathered courtesy of cruising recently on a yacht in the paradise that is Tahiti.

Also this week, advice that our next meditation retreat, Meditation in the Desert is nearly full; then eat well and receive a health insurance discount, plus what happens when an SAS veteran of Iraq stops long enough to consider his food chain, followed by an invitation to take part in a really cool experiment. But first

Thought for the day
In the practice of healing,
a kind heart is as valuable as medical training,
because it is the source of happiness for both oneself and others.
People respond to kindness even when medicine is ineffective,
and in turn,
cultivating a kind heart is a cause of our own good health.
                  His Holiness The Dalai Lama – who is in my home town of Melbourne this week!!!

Having recently returned from a couple of weeks with my elder sister and her husband on their yacht in Tahiti, I wrote a couple of week’s ago about the potential to be stressed or relaxed wherever you go.

In fact, Ruth and I had a deeply relaxing, wonderful time, but the mind’s capacity to make a hell out of heaven, or a heaven out of hell was very evident.













And then came another great insight to do with the importance of stillness.












When it came time to meditate on the boat, I noticed how challenging it was to feel into my physical body and to relax it deeply.

That continual rocking and rolling, whether when the sea was more turbulent or even more sedate, just offered a continual barrier to deeper relaxation.




It must have been a bit like many people new to meditation would find attempting to meditate amidst a lot of noise. The noise just gets in the way; takes the attention and becomes a real barrier to entering into that deeper silence that is meditation.

Of course, with practice and some training of the mind, an experienced meditator can find inner peace amidst noisy chaos, but it takes some doing, some practice.

So my insight came courtesy of this situation that was new to me – attempting to relax deeply and settle the mind with constant body motion. It was fun to be in such a new and different meditation environment, and it highlighted two things.

Firstly that it takes practice to get past potential distractions, whether constant motion, noises of any type, or our own inner thoughts and feelings.

But secondly, and even more importantly, I noticed in the first few days, as I was learning to adjust to the motion and to move past it, that when I could not do so the quality of my meditation was significantly lessened.

My sense is this reveals an issue that is particularly important for those using meditation therapeutically. A key to profound healing through meditation is that when we relax our bodies deeply, and accompany that with deep relaxation of the mind, we return to a state of deep, physiological rest. Deep physiological balance. And in that balance, the body is ideally poised to heal itself. Our biochemistry in balance, our physiology in balance, all our natural healing mechanisms in balance. Switched on, balanced, active and potent.

Natural healing arising out of deep physiological rest.

The point is, that to accomplish all this, we need to let go and to be still. Let go of any physical tension, let go of excessive thinking, let go of worry, anxiety, stress.

Let go and be still.

To do this as a beginner is helped greatly by a quiet environment and taking up a posture that enables us to remain physically still. Being on a boat highlighted this need. For many beginners, noisy neighbors highlight this need.

This is another reason why retreats are so potent in developing and deepening our experience and practice of meditation. Traditionally, meditators took to deserts and mountains for retreats. Places of solitude and silence where the outer environment supported the inner quest. Never heard of a meditation retreat on a yacht, but then again, maybe it would make for a powerful advanced practice!

Happy meditating, and do consider how you use your environment to support and challenge and develop your practice.

RELATED BLOGS
Tahiti's top 5 stress management lessons

Meditation in the Desert

NOTICEBOARD
Meditation in the Desert
This is a retreat Ruth and I only present every few years. We enter into the silence and the presence of the Central Australian Desert, spend 7 days meditating together, experience the outer environment and the inner peace, and then are joined for a few days hanging out with traditional Indigenous leaders of the area. Many find this retreat the experience of a lifetime. Be advised that there are only a few places left, so book soon if you plan to join us. For details, CLICK HERE

RESOURCES
For anyone seeking to deepen their experience of physical and mental relaxation, the CD specifically designed for this is Relaxation for Everyone.

NEWS
Be warned, the video link that follows could change your life but save the lives of others in the process.

Damien Mander spent his early years in the Australian Army SAS and then returned to Iraq as a mercenary. At 29 he stopped just long enough to consider where his life was going and what he was eating.

If you are game, watch what happened next as Damien gives one of the most powerful TED talks I have seen. Click here 

Vegetarians pay less for life insurance
Vegetarians are to be offered cheaper life insurance because, it is claimed, they are healthier and less likely to die early.

The Daily Mail in the UK reports that the Animal Friends Insurance (AFI) insurance agency has devised the Vegetarian Term Life policy to reward non meat-eaters with lower premiums. According to the Vegetarian Society, the risk of some cancers is reduced by up to 40 per cent and of heart disease by 30 per cent.

The new policy, offers a 25 per cent reduction on monthly premiums in the first year only but AFI is arguing for the entire industry to deliver long-term discounts to vegetarians. Epidemiological evidence indicates that vegetarians suffer less from chronic disease, but the insurance industry has not yet recognised this. Currently Insurance companies look at smoking, drinking habits and family medical history when deciding premiums. AFI believes that a vegetarian lifestyle should be given equal weight.

There are believed to be four million vegetarians in the UK, although some people who claim this status are not thought to be entirely faithful.

A spokesman for the Vegetarian Society said: 'This is an important first step. We hope insurance companies will take seriously the fact that vegetarians are less likely to die young from cancer and heart disease.'                        

Reference: Click here

RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY – what goes on in your head while you are being mindful?

For those within easy distance of Melbourne, here is advice of a very interesting research project any of you longer term meditators may like to take part in.

Ian Gawler Blog:The 3 most powerful tools for personal transformation

Announcing an exciting training for health professionals and keen individuals that focuses on the clinical application of therapeutic language, imagery and meditation.

It is with real enthusiasm that I write to tell you that Dr. Nimrod Sheinman is coming again to Australia in October, to join Ruth and myself in a 5-Day residential training that will focus on the use of imagery, meditation and language for inner transformation, personal and professional development.

In this special guest blog, Nimrod describes how he became involved in this aspect of his work, what is on offer (a huge potential for major insights, personal breakthroughs and transformation!), and a little of the program we have put together.

It has been my good fortune to get to know Nimrod well over the last 25 years, and to host several of his previous trainings. He is an excellent teacher, great communicator, highly experienced, compassionate and passionate!

Who will attend?
This training is primarily intended for clinicians, but individuals keen to learn and apply these principles and techniques in their own lives, and who have a good grounding in meditation and imagery already, are encouraged to attend.

It is a special feature of the style of this training that we encourage clinicians and clients to interact and learn with each other as well as from each other.

NOTE: 30 Category 2 CPD Points applied for from the RACGP, and this training/program would qualify as training hours for those applying for registration with ATMA.

To download the flier, CLICK HERE                               For further enquiries call 03 59666130


But first
Thought for the day
Light will someday split you open

Even if your life is now a cage.

For a divine seed,

the crown of destiny,

Is hidden and sown on 
an ancient, fertile plain

You hold the title to.
                           Hafiz

Dr Nimrod Sheinman on Images, Words and Silence




It was 1986. I was an Israeli naturopathic physician who had trained for four years in the US, and now I was visiting Melbourne to meet my brother, who later became the founder of the wonderful organic Himalaya Bakery and Café in Daylesford.









As I was standing in front of my brother's library, a blue book caught my eyes. I pulled it out. The photo on the front cover reminded me of a Rene Magritte painting (the famous European surrealist painter), showing a man in black suit with blue sea and blue sky in the background.










The book's photo showed a tall man standing in front of a blue fence, beyond which is a blue sea and blue sky. The man wears a long blue robe, from which only one leg is seen underneath. The cover extolls "You Can Conquer Cancer". As I opened and began to read the book I became excited. "I have to meet this man", I said to myself.







Back then in the summer or ’86, I was on my way back to the US for a one year Mind-Body Residency at Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington. My area of expertise was mainly Mind-Body Medicine. Although I was well trained in clinical nutrition, manipulation therapy, nutritional supplements, herbal medicine and homeopathic prescribing, "Healing, Consciousness and Transformation" (the name of a course I was co-teaching) was "my thing".

I was very inspired by the then new Mind-Body Medicine findings. I had been lucky to be in the US during the '80s, the years during which psycho-neuro-immunology was discovered, Mind-Body Medicine evolved and holistic medicine organized. I met leading mind-body innovators and thinkers, heard the best holistic experts and learned first-hand from great mind-body pioneers.

I was most interested in the practical application of these exciting new developments, and from amongst the various mind-body tools, Interactive Guided Imagery stood out. I went on to learn skills in this area from Martin Rossman MD and David Bresler PhD, experts, pioneers, authors and later the founders of the American Academy for Guided (Interactive) Imagery.

The forte of Interactive Guided Imagery is the unique guided dialogue between the patient and his or her images or inner metaphors, and the skills needed by the clinician to direct this communication process. Interactive imagery beautifully integrates Mind-Body Medicine principles, along with the Jungian perspective, Mindfulness-based approaches, Empathic Dialogue and lots of "trust the process".

It was my last day in Australia, so all I could accomplish at the time was to find Ian's phone number and call him. We spoke and agreed to meet next year. This became the first time I visited one of Ian's support groups, participated and taught in a 10 day cancer retreat and gave a seminar to his staff.





In 1990, we presented Medicine of the Mind, a two day conference, which as our brochure said, was devoted to presenting "up-to-date information on the theoretical research and clinical data that could well change the face of health, healing and medicine".


My connection and friendship with Ian is now over 25 years old!





In these 25 years, much has been discovered on the mind-body connection, the complementary aspects of imagery and meditation, the power of the mind to heal and the roles of the patient and clinician. A huge body of research is now available to us, as well as experience gained in numerous mind-body and integrative medicine institutes.

Interactive Imagery combined with mind-body and mindfulness-based approaches is a "must have" for clinicians. As a technique, it is a great ally to meditation, because it enables people (with the therapist as a guide) to contact inner feelings, processes, struggles and moods; to look at them differently, to explore them as possible positive guides, to learn from them and reduce their hold.

During the last 25 years, I have been fortunate to teach Interactive Imagery training seminars in Europe, USA, Australia and Israel, and to explore its unique value with physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses and complementary medicine practitioners.

We have witnessed its usefulness in diverse situations, such as in extreme life events, chronic stress disorders, oncology care, trauma work, pain control, and more. Here is what some practitioners have had to say:

"The Interactive Imagery training helped me to connect with my patient's woundedness and their strength, and to empower clients in their healing process", said one psychotherapist.

"Interactive Imagery is a wonderful technique", said one physician, "because it enables me to guide my patients towards their deeper Self, and to harness its healing potential".

Or a social worker’s statement: "Integrating Interactive Imagery with mindfulness enables me to reach the patient's unconscious mind, in order to identify its hidden messages".

All of which will be translated into our coming training in October where those who join us will be experiencing and learning how to:

• Integrate the latest research findings and insights of Mind-Body Medicine with Imagery-based Therapy and Mindfulness-based Meditation  

• Use language, imagery and silence therapeutically, and how best to combine them synergistically to generate healing and wellbeing

• Guide Dialogue between the Person and the Image– the step-by-step approach of communicating with symbols and metaphors 

• Use Interactive Imagery and meditation to transform troublesome "symptom makers" into unique and interesting allies  

• Bring imagery exploration into loaded clinical situations, mobilize personal resources and fortify resilience

This will be a highly experiential, interactive and practical training, uniquely suited to practitioners and informed people keen to work on their own health, healing and wellbeing.


To download the flier, CLICK HERE

For further enquiries call 03 59666130

HOW TO REGISTER

NOTE: 30 Category 2 CPD Points applied for from the RACGP, and this training/program would qualify as training hours for those applying for registration with ATMA.


RELATED BLOG
The Mind that Changes everything

RESOURCES

BOOK: The Mind that Changes Everything

CDs: Mind Training

Mind-Body Medicine

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Bowel cancer? Get off your backside!!!

Associations of recreational physical activity and leisure time spent sitting with colorectal cancer survival.               Campbell PT et al, J Clin Oncol.  2013; 31(7):876-85 

Little is known about the association of recreational physical activity or leisure time spent sitting with survival after colorectal cancer diagnosis. This study examined the associations of prediagnosis and postdiagnosis recreational physical activity and leisure time spent sitting with mortality among patients with colorectal cancer.

CONCLUSION of the Study?: More recreational physical activity before and after colorectal cancer diagnosis was associated with lower mortality, whereas longer leisure time spent sitting was associated with higher risk of death.