Upcoming at Temple Isaiah

Temple Isaiah, 55 Lincoln St., Lexington

For information, call 781-862-7160 or visit http://templeisaiah.net.

Friday, Jan. 3

5:45 p.m. Tot Shabbat (especially for families with children under 6) and Shabbat Club (especially for families with children in grades 1-5) followed by dinner; 8 p.m. Shabbat Service

Saturday, Jan. 4

9 a.m. Shabbat Service & Torah Discussion Vayigash (Genesis 44:1847:27); 11 a.m. Bat Mitzvah Service

Friday, Jan. 10

6:15 p.m. Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday, Jan. 11

9 a.m. Shabbat Service & Torah Discussion Va-ychi (Genesis 47:2850:26)

Friday, Jan. 17

6:15 p.m. Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday, Jan. 18

9 a.m. Shabbat Service & Torah Discussion Shmot (Exodus 1:16:1)

Friday, Jan. 24

6:15 p.m. Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday, Jan. 25

9 a.m. Shabbat Service & Torah Discussion Va-eira (Exodus 6:29:35); 11 a.m. Bat Mitzvah Service

Friday, Jan. 31

5:45 p.m. Tot Shabbat (especially for families with children under 6) and Shabbat Club (especially for families with children in grades 1-5) followed by dinner; 8 p.m. Shabbat Service with Temple Isaiah choir

Upcoming at Church of Our Redeemer

The Church of Our Redeemer,6 Meriam St., Lexington, has a contemplative practice group that meets each month to support and help each other in maintaining a meditation practice or other contemplative activity.

All are welcome to meetings at 11 a.m. on the third Monday of each month in the library at the Church of Our Redeemer.

At each meeting, participants check in about how each persons practice is going, then discuss a monthly topic. After discussion, they spend 20 minutes in meditation or centering prayer together. Instruction is offered for those who are beginning or need a refresher.

For information, visit https://our-redeemer.net/calendar.

Lexington Catholic Community announces WINGS program

The Lexington Catholic Communitys WINGS (Women IN Gods Spirit) group is pleased to announce its winter program being led by Liz Walz, an Associate of the Sisters of Providence of Holyoke.

Walz is executive director of the Genesis Spiritual Life & Conference Center in Westfield, founded a Catholic Worker house in Philadelphia from 1997-2007, and is certified in spiritual direction, massage therapy, and as a yoga teacher.

In this five-week series, Catholic saints, mystics and wisdom figures will lead participants to grow in love for God, for others, for creation, and for themselves. Each session will begin with a brief history and will feature a practical and accessible form of prayer inspired by the selected saint or mystic. Sessions will be experiential, with poetry, music, silent reflection and an opportunity to share. Participants will walk away with practical tools for putting on the mind of Christ.

Mark your calendars and join us on Thursday mornings from 9:30 to 11:15 a.m. on Jan. 9, 16, 23, 30 and Feb. 6 at the St. Brigid Parish Center, 1995 Mass. Ave., Lexington.

Refreshments are served and membership is not required to attend any session.

Upcoming at Lexington Catholic Community, serving Sacred Heart and St. Brigid Parishes

Daily Masses: M-W-F at 9 a.m. at Sacred Heart Church, 16 Follen Road; T-Th-Sa at 9 a.m. at St. Brigid Church, 1981 Massachusetts Ave.

Saturdays: 5 p.m. at St. Brigid Church

Sundays: 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 5 p.m. at Sacred Heart; 9 a.m., 11 a.m. at St. Brigid

ADULT FAITH FORMATION - LEARN ABOUT THE GOSPEL OF JOHN: On Tuesday, Jan. 7, the church will begin a new mini-course to continue the study of Johns Gospel (Chapters 11 21). The group meets in the St. Brigid Parish Center. It gathers at 9:45 a.m. for coffee, tea and conversation before starting its study session at 10 a.m. Fr. Chen leads the Thursday group that will be exploring John Chapters 1- 10. Come to learn and meet some awesome people too. No previous Bible experience is necessary. Contact Suzanne to reserve your place.

OVER SIXTY CLUB: The church will hold a house dessert party from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 19. Enjoy homemade desserts, coffee and tea while relaxing with fellow members.

THE WOMENS BOOK CLUB will meet at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 23, at Sacred Heart Parish Center, when it will discuss, "Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World," by Eileen McNamara.

WINGS: The Lexington Catholic Communitys WINGS (Women IN Gods Spirit) group will hold winter program being led by Liz Walz, an associate of the Sisters of Providence of Holyoke. Walz is executive director of Genesis Spiritual Life & Conference Center in Westfield. She founded a Catholic Worker house in Philadelphia from 1997-2007 and is certified in spiritual direction, massage therapy, and as a yoga teacher. In this five-week series, Catholic saints, mystics and wisdom figures will lead participants to grow in love for God, for others, for creation, and for our own selves. Each session will begin with a brief history and will feature a practical and accessible form of prayer inspired by the selected saint or mystic. Sessions will be experiential, with poetry, music, silent reflection and an opportunity to share. Participants will walk away with practical tools for putting on the mind of Christ.

Join in at 9:30 a.m. Thursdays Jan. 9, 16, 23 and 30; and Feb. 6, at the St. Brigid Parish Center, 1995 Mass. Ave., Lexington. Refreshments will be served and membership is not required.

Rosary before Mass: Pray the Rosary before the 9 a.m. Mass at St. Brigid Church at 8:40 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament: From noon to 2:45 p.m. every Friday at St. Brigid Church.

Lexington Catholic Community High School Prayer Breakfasts: The church welcomes all teens in grades 9-12 at 6:45 a.m. Friday, Jan. 3, for High School Prayer Breakfast. Gather in St. Brigid Parish Center Library (1995 Massachusetts Ave.) and have breakfast sandwiches and cinnamon roll waffles. Everyone enjoys a delicious meal, with students heading off to school at 7:20 a.m.

First Baptist Church Lexington plans carols, service

First Baptist Church, 1580 Massachusetts Ave., Lexington, holds Sunday school at 9:30 a.m., followed by worship at 10:30 a.m. For more information, call 781-862-9050 or visit http://www.fbclexington.org.

The rest is here:

News from Lexington's houses of worship - News - Wicked Local Lexington

MISSION, Kan., Dec. 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (Family Features) If you worry that you or someone you love will get heart disease or even have a heart attack, it's understandable.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

Research shows you can lower your risk, particularly if you team up with family, friends or co-workers. This kind of social support may be the key to your success.

To mark American Heart Month, NHLBI, one of the National Institutes of Health, is inviting people across the country to team up and join #OurHearts, a national heart health initiative that encourages people to improve heart health together.

"Studies show that having positive, close relationships and feeling connected to others benefits overall health, blood pressure, weight and more," said NHLBI's Dr. David Goff, director of cardiovascular sciences.

Consider these five tips that can help lower your risk of heart disease:

Risk: Inactivity Solution: Move more throughout your day. Aim for at least 150 minutes each week of physical activity. Build up to activity that gets your heart beating faster and leaves you a little breathless. If you're busy, try breaking your daily activity into 10-minute chunks. Stay motivated: Make walking dates. Join a pickup soccer or basketball game. Join a fitness class with your neighbor. Grab a loved one and dance in your kitchen.

Risk: An unhealthy diet Solution: Consider an option like NHLBI'sDietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH)eating plan, which is free and scientifically proven to lower high blood pressure and improve cholesterol levels. Stay motivated: Invite friends to cook up heart healthy recipes together. Start a lunch club at work and trade recipe ideas.

Risk: Smoking, even occasionally Solution: Quitting can be beneficial to your overall health, even if you've smoked for years. Set a quit date and let those close to you know. If you've tried quitting in the past, consider what helped and what made it harder. Stay motivated: Ask your family and friends for support or join a support group. Find resources and connect with a trained counselor at 1-800-QUIT-NOW or smokefree.gov.

Risk: Inadequate or poor-quality sleep Solution: Sleeping 7-8 hours each night helps improve heart health. Try going to bed and waking up at the same time each day. Getting a 30-minute daily dose of sunlight may also improve sleep. Stay motivated: Resist that late afternoon nap. Turn off all screens at a set time nightly. Relax by listening to music, reading or taking a bath.

Risk: Uncontrolled stress Solution: To help manage stress, try relaxation therapy and increase physical activity. Talk to a qualified mental health provider or someone you trust. De-stressing may also help improve sleep. Stay motivated: Join a friend or family member in a relaxing activity like walking, yoga or meditation every day.

Learn about heart health and heart healthy activities in your community at nhlbi.nih.gov/ourhearts. Use #OurHearts on social media to share how you and your friends, colleagues or family members are being heart healthy together.

Michael French mfrench@familyfeatures.com 1-888-824-3337 editors.familyfeatures.com

About Family Features Editorial Syndicate A leading source for high-quality food, lifestyle and home and garden content, Family Features provides readers with topically and seasonally relevant tips, takeaways, information, recipes, videos, infographics and more. Find additional articles and information at Culinary.net and eLivingToday.com.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0fd01a66-357b-4f92-8596-9f472ee49ff6

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5 Ways to Improve Your Heart Health - Benzinga

The new year is a time when many consider adopting lifestyle changes to move toward better mind and body health. One change to consider is learning about meditation or mindfulness practices.

With five groups meeting in Carbondale, you can find one on almost any day of the week; in the morning or evening, and even those offering online options.

As the stressors of everyday life increase, many have sought complementary health practices to bring more balance to their lives. A report based on data from the 2017 National Health Interview Survey found that U.S. adults use of meditation tripled between 2012 and 2017, from 4.1 percent to 14.2 percent.

Laura Bartels, of the Mindful Life Program, says we can train our mind and body to first relax and when we learn to release all that stuff we hold and now with a relaxed body, lets see if we can couple that with stable attention.

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institute of Health, lists the benefits of meditation on their website. It is generally considered to be beneficial for reducing blood pressure as well as symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome and flare-ups in people who have had ulcerative colitis and assisting in smoking cessation. It may ease symptoms of anxiety and depression and may help people with insomnia and pain management. They caution it should never be used in place of medication or in delaying seeking medical treatment.

The Carbondale groups offer a variety of practices; some meditations are silent, while others offer guided meditation and discussion.

Linda and Russ Criswell lead a silent meditation group that Linda describes, When a group of people gets together in silence, its more silent than when youre by yourself. The silence is really powerful.

Some groups are based on Kriya yoga or Buddhist-based meditation practices.

Monica Muiz of Mountain Institute describes the Kriya meditation practice, brought here from India, as, Its not a religion, but its a spiritual science.

Ted Reed says Mindfulness Meditation Communities practice is based on 2600-year-old Buddhist teachings. A teaching for an age-old problem, he says, the monkey mind has been around as long as humans have been around.

Mountain Institute

Kriya and Lamplighting meditation, directly from Maha Avatar Babajis lineage, guided relaxation & stress relief techniques, with silent meditation & chant

Studio 2, 202 Main St.

Monday evening, 6 to 7 p.m.

Contact: Monica Muiz at 970-379-6602 https://mountaininstitute.com

Mindful Life Program

Third Street Center, 520 S. Third St., Suite 28

Monday evenings, 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., guided meditation, discussion & weekly mindfulness readings

Tuesday evenings, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., (location WoC Dharma Center in Suite 36), mindfulness for those in recovery

Thursday evenings, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., online meditation using Zoom app

Contact: Laura Bartels at 970-633-0163

Home

Mindfulness Meditation Communities

Tibetan Buddhist philosophy & meditation

Carbondale Community School,

1505 Dolores Way

Sunday mornings, 9 to 10:30 a.m.

Contact: Ted Reed at 970-379-8422

Mindfulness Meditation Centers

Silent Meditation

Silent & unguided group meditation

The Launchpad, 76 S. 4th St.

Monday, Wednesday, & Friday mornings, 6:45 to 7:30 a.m.

Contact: Russ & Linda Criswell at 970-388-3597

Way of Compassion Dharma Center

Weekday mornings, except Tuesdays, 6 to 6:30 a.m., online meditation using Zoom app

Wednesday evenings, 6 to 7:30 p.m., meditation & Dharma teaching

Saturday mornings, two 24-minute groups.

The first session starts at 8:00 a.m., the second one starts at 8:30 a.m., Silent meditation & Buddha of Compassion practice

Third Street Center, 520 S. Third St., Suite 36

Contact: John Bruna at admin@wocompassion.org

Home

True Nature Healing Arts

Owner Eaden Shantay said they are currently not offering meditation, as he is on sabbatical.

See more here:

Find the meditation group that fits your style and schedule - soprissun.com

A version of this article originally appeared in Issue Ten of Gear Patrol Magazine with the headline How to Get Better at Everything Subscribe today Illustrations by EMMANUEL POLANCO

Its not just yogis and gurus who benefit from quiet time dedicated to focusing on the present moment; elite athletes and corporate strivers alike practice meditation for its performance benefits. The mind-body discipline has long been known to boost concentration, reduce stress and help with a good nights sleep. But dedicated training can also produce faster, better decision-making thanks to increased adaptability and insight. Its a simple, effective way to step up your game, no matter what that game is. Pause, take a breath, and read on to learn your TMs from your FAMs from your oooooommmms.

Best for CEOs: Open monitoring meditation involves watching your thoughts and feelings without becoming attached to them, maintaining a non-reactive and non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. Its been a favored technique of CEOs like Arianna Huffington and the late Steve Jobs. Recent research suggests OMM practitioners can control their states of consciousness and attention, and according to Michael Gervais, a high-performance psychologist who works with the NFLs Seattle Seahawks, long-term repetition can help identify which thought patterns are beneficial to performance and which ones are worth discarding. Plus, OMM can promote divergent thinking, which is conducive to creativity.

Best for Athletes: Focused attention meditation increases mindfulness by turning your concentration to your breath. By focusing on a simple target, like the in and out of your lungs, its easier to notice when your mind wanders, says Christina Heilman, Ph.D, C.S.C.S., and author of Elevate Your Excellence: The Mindset and Methods That Make Champions.

Focus is a huge part of athletic performance, Heilman says. Wherever your focus goes, everything follows. Learning to ignore irrelevant cues allows insight as to whats important in the moment, whether thats hydration or a subtle shift in the opposing teams defense. Elite performers such as Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings and pro golfer Rory McIlroy practice FAM.

Best for Moguls: Transcendental meditation improves mood, attention, focus and emotional intelligence, and can promote a state of inner peace. A lot of us are stuck because we dont take time to reflect, Heilman says. A TM session allows time to process experiences and learn from them. Long-term transcendental meditators show significantly higher blood flow to the brain regions used for adjusting behavior and focusing attention. One study showed school staff in San Francisco who practiced TM enjoyed better moods, higher emotional intelligence, and increased adaptability and stress management skills.

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Meditation Can Make You Better at Everything: Here's How - Gear Patrol

This Top-Rated App Can Help You Deal With Stress in the New Year

Stress tends to accumulate around the holiday season but it's not like it simply disappears otherwise. Life is full of stressors, from tight project deadlines to frustrating coworkers to rush hour traffic. Don't just accept the stress, deal with it appropriately by investing in your own mindfulness. Aura is a meditation app that can help you manage stress and anxiety effectively without resorting to bad or destructive habits.

Aura was created by top meditation teachers and therapists and designed to help you prioritize and improve your mental health. Personalized with AI, Aura provides short, science-backed mindfulness meditation exercises every day to give you the peace of mind you need to power through stress and anxiety to be your best self. Each day, you'll get a free 3-minute guided meditation session and have the option to choose between 3-, 7-, or 10-minute meditations throughout the day depending on your availability. By rating each meditation experience, Aura learns your preferences and can provide more specific meditations to meet your needs. Through the app, you can also track your mood patterns, save unlimited meditations, and access additional wellness content like life coaching sessions, stories, and music.

Find out why Aura has a 4.7 rating on 17,000 reviews in the App Store and a 4.5 rating on more than 7,000 reviews in the Google Play Store. Right now, you can get a one-year premium subscription for 57 percentoff $94.99 at just $39.99, a three-year subscription for 78 percentoff $284.97 at just $59.99, or a lifetime subscription for 83 percentoff $499 at just $79.99.

Related: This Top-Rated App Can Help You Deal With Stress in the New Year 3 Stress-Busting Relaxation Exercises You Can Do Anywhere (60-Second Video) How to Feed Your Brain to Combat Stress

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This Top-Rated App Can Help You Deal With Stress in the New Year - Greenwich Time

Ursula didnt just dampen the Christmas spirit, it also left a trail of devastation in places that had earlier known the frightening fury of wind and rain and whose residents were then still treading the tortuous road to full recovery.

The stunning blow was doubly cruel for its timing, no matter that in these parts December is not always sweetness and light.

Occasionally, December descends or departs accompanied by a typhoon in full orchestra, so that, weather-wise, somewhere in this unhappy archipelago, there is terror even on Christmas Eve, inflicted by the unforgiving elements.

The new yeara constant symbol of hope, made more significant in that this one ushers in a new decadethus begins on a sobering fact: Ursula has set the nation back once more, and not exclusively in physical terms: lost lives and property, a new level of homelessness, damaged infrastructure, ruined agriculture.

The psychological state of its people, strained close to breaking by various disasters that leave them with unfilled needsexisting as well as newly formedis now even more fragile.

Its uncertain if there are still inner reserves with which to brace for yet another pummelling by earth, wind or fire, which invariably exposes the frailties of structures due to official corruption and greed (for example, a building that crumbled in an earthquake yields the grim discovery of substandard steel) or the brutal exigencies of impoverishment (coastal dwellings made of light materials are easily demolished by a storm surge).

After a lifetime of typhoons that grow fiercer by the year, those displaced by such calamities invariably seek shelter in schoolhouses.

A poignant question now haunts survivors in Eastern Visayas unable to quickly rebuild their dwellings: Where will they go when classes resume in 2020?

And yet, it is the disaster-weary that provide a heartening glimpse of never-say-die: television footage of six men fording chest-high floodwaters, bearing on their shoulders a prostrate neighbor requiring medical attention.

The footage, although all too brief, offers a shot in the arm for the new year, illustrating in fresh and vivid detail that Filipino trait, resilience, which politicians like to trot out in claiming credit for the survival of their constituents, even if these same constituents remain trapped in a primitive state.

Resilience is toughnessthe ability to cope with and not snap in critical conditions. Survivors of the apocalyptic Yolanda displayed it when they picked up the pieces of their lives and carried on in the face of the realization that long-term government succor would not go beyond the customary food packs, money doles and grand promises of better housing.

For the moment, the survivors of Ursula in the Visayas and in the Mindoro provinces need help, including the most basic: food, water, clothing.

The other urgency is housing materials, so they can put a roof over their heads. Now as in the aftermath of Yolanda, long-term planning is essential.

Assistance is sure to be forthcoming from the public, here and elsewhere; what is crucial is how its handled to the best advantage of target beneficiaries in the long term.

But apart from the necessity of giving, there are grim issues to address in this celebration of new beginnings.

Now more than ever, there is no room for indifference to the injustice that prevailsfrom the continuing escape of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos heirs from accountability to the continuing detention of prisoners of conscience; from the stalled trials of accused plunderers to the brazen refusal of powerful thieves to return purloined money despite official orders for them to do so; from the impunity with which fake news is manufactured and the law is violated in the highest places, to the barefaced attempts of lawmakers in the House to perpetuate themselves in power, to the unrelenting campaign against truth-tellers

Once more into the fray then, with 2020 vision marking the resistance to disempowerment, mindful of Nadine Gordimers sharp reminder: When people are deprived over years of any recourse to the provisions of civil society as a means of seeking redress for their material and spiritual deprivations, they lose the faculty of using the law when, at last, such recourse is open to them.

The result of this conditioning now is fashionably called the culture of violence; an oxymoron, for culture implies enlightenment, to aim towards attaining the fullness of life, not its destruction.

Click here for more weather related news."

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Meditation for the new year | Inquirer Opinion - INQUIRER.net

Principles of Mindfulness Leadership and Meditation

1) According to Buddhism, following Mind is the ultimate goal:

I follow spiritual and mystic traditions (mostly Hindu and Buddhist philosophies) and draw inspirations for leadership coaching . With the following article, I am endeavoring to shed light on the concept of mindfulness leadership and meditation.

In Buddhist traditions, mind is the ultimate deal. Mind is the deathless and timeless aspect of our being. Resting in its core of peace and calm is the way to countering human vices. That is the basic premise of Buddhist teachings. So, what is mind and what is its nature? The basic nature of mind is empty. This sense of base and bare awareness is transparent, clear and expansive. When we become quietin body, in mindwe feel and acknowledge our core of peace. We realize that this core of peace, basic awareness and primordial mind is non-quantifiable and yet all-knowing. It is that timeless aspect of our being that has existed before us and will remain after our worldly departure (Buddhists believe in the concept of reincarnation and the fact that our self or our Consciousness which essentially is non-self is a continuum.and empty). And acknowledgement of this aspect of our being can be brought about through the practice of mindfulness meditation.

2) Mindfulness Meditation explained:

In acknowledging the co-existence of mind and no-mind, being and non-being lay the great human challenge. Yet, arriving to a state where we witness non-duality is liberating. This state of non-duality is also called the Buddha-like-mind or the Buddha-mind. When we acknowledge and align to this illusory aspect of our being, we become more affectionate and empathic. We witness compassion imbuing our being; we are more open and creative. We love more and are loved more in return. That is the power of meditation. And mindfulness. The aforesaid analysis is also entertained and offered in the Buddhist practice of Mahamudra and is also its premise. And yet, Mahamudra can beand perhaps needs to bea non-intellectual undertaking or practice oriented more towards its practical approach and implication. Perhaps that is why it has classically gained appeal to laymen.

Now, getting back to the state of non-doing and just being:

When we are not thinking, or not indulging in relentless day-dreaming, ruminating and getting lost in the past and future, we notice, amid silence, that there is a silent knower or what I call an on-looker. This is called base awareness or in Tibetan Buddhism, rigpa. This aspect, as I mentioned before, is the non-dying core. So, this central peaceful core is what we should seek to align and acknowledge: to attain unswerving peace, balance and wisdom . Yes, mulling over our own existential inquiries, whilst aligning to our core of silence can help answer classic bigger questions of life like: Who am I? Where was I before I was born? (This particular question is also explored in a different Buddhist tradition, namely Zen Buddhism), What will happen to me after I am physically or bodily gone? But it is beyond the scope of this little article, so let me concentrate on the peace and calm generating effect of meditation.

In Mahamudra, we try to align to that state of unity. Here let me also add this: that the Buddhist meditation practice of samatha (of gently focusing ones mind in one object, mostly breaththe in-breath and out-breath to elicit mental and bodily calm and concentration ), and vipassana (the process of gaining wisdom and insight through the sheer positive effect of mental stillness), can be seamless. And, the above-said practices of samatha and vipassana complement Mahamudra.

3) How following Mindfulness Meditation has positively affected my life.

Personally, when I practice samatha and vipassana, I witness how past hurts and slights (that others have inflicted upon me and I have perhaps knowingly and unknowingly inflicted in others) have left a mark in my body through bodily aches and discomfort . Modern medical science is an evolving field: further research could elicit that many bodily ailments could have their origination in pent up hurts, slights and emotions. So, getting back to how the Insight helps me acknowledge my own mistakes (and the mistakes and hurts inflicted upon me), it also brings me to a sense of release. And calm and peace. It makes me realize how pent up emotions and hurts should be released. We need to forget our hurts in the pastand forgive. Since we cant go back in time, all we can do is not let those moments persist. Lets untie those knots. Perhaps Buddhist meditation is hinting at this very discernible effect and result of meditative and contemplative undertaking. Yes, even thoughexploring full repertoire of Buddhist practice leads to deeper understanding of our own existence, and goes beyond beckoning bodily and mental peace and calm; yet, starting with eliciting bodily and mental peace and calm through it is a great way to start. It can appeal to non-followers or non-practitioners of Buddhism too owing to its sheer power of helping attain peace and calm and transforming lives.

Link:

Principles of Mindfulness Leadership and Meditation - Thrive Global

Let your Conscience be your guide!

AVERILL PARK, N.Y. (PRWEB) December 26, 2019

The first-ever National Conscience Month is being launched January 1, 2020 by The American Meditation Institute (AMI), an organization devoted to providing comprehensive training in Yoga Sciencethe worlds oldest holistic mind/body medicine. With the mission of encouraging individuals across the nation to practice using their conscience as a guide, this month-long observance is vital educationespecially for those burdened by stress, burnout, fear, anger and the general discontent that pervades our society.

New Years Eve means the making of resolutions for millions of Americans. However, while stating a resolution can be easy, sticking to it often proves to be quite difficult. The challenge comes soon after the first of the year when old, unconscious habits kick back in, or we find we are not fully committed to the resolution and we lose our focus and will power. This year, National Conscience Month reminds us to use the inborn technology of our Conscience for creating and keeping personally meaningful and culturally beneficial resolutions.

The inspiration for National Conscience Month grew out of the Yoga Science Law of Karma which states simply that thoughts lead to words, actions and, eventually, to consequences. According to Leonard Perlmutter, AMI founder and originator of Conscience Month, This law of cause and effect is as real and unavoidable as the Law of Gravity. Once we appreciate the mechanics of the Law of Karma (that thought precedes action, and action precedes consequence), we all can start experiencing the unimagined, profound benefits to be found in relying on the unerring wisdom of the Conscience as it guides the thoughts we choose to think, words we speak and actions we take.

National Conscience Month's (January 2020) campaign will:

1. A free screening of the movie Peaceful Warrior to be followed by an engaging discussion about the importance of using your Conscience as your guide for a healthy, happy, and productive life. This two-part event will be presented at the Cohoes Music Hall, 58 Remsen Street, Cohoes, NY, on January 9, 2020 at 7 pm.

2. Four high school students from the Capital region in New York State will be awarded the first-ever National Conscience Month scholarships totaling $2,000. Recipients will be selected through original artistic creations inspired by the use or denial of the Conscience. Submissions will be accepted in four categories: Creative Writing; Visual Art (two-dimensional); Music or Song; and Video.

Public Service Announcement: "The Time is Now" https://youtu.be/zUJH4ge_320 Public Service Announcement: MORE https://youtu.be/yWFgxjXB8HA

INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITY: Leonard Perlmutter, originator of National Conscience Month and founder of The American Meditation Institute will be available for interviews. Contact Robert Washington for details.

Media Contact: Robert Washington 60 Garner Road Averill Park, NY 12018 Tel: 518-674-8714 Fax: 518-674-8714

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The American Meditation Institute Inaugurates National Conscience Month to Instruct and Inspire Humanity on How to Let Their Conscience be Their Guide...

Being a student comes with its fair share of difficulties, regardless of your age or the type of educational system you're following, for that matter. One of the most difficult aspects is the learning process itself, since it's riddled with roadblocks, high volumes of information or even information that you don't necessarily find utility for at all times. However there are methods that can help students boost their ability to slow down, focus and synthesize information in a way that streamlines the learning process and propels them closer to their end goals:

There has been a lot of talk about meditation these past years, as it gradually found a way into more and more people's daily lives. This is mostly because practicants are starting to discover its multiple benefits that tend to span over their physical, emotional and spiritual sides. Having said this, there is an abundance of meditation techniques out there, each of them with their own purpose and style.

To this end,countless studieshave proven that daily mindfulness meditation sessions, for example, will have tremendous effects on your well-being by slashing the inflammatory response caused by stress. This type of meditation also helps you become more centered, calmer and more inclined to adopt a positive attitude. Considering meditation teaches you to continuously be focused on the present moment, it also lengthens your attention span considerably. As a student you may already know these attributes or lack thereof can make or break your studying game in the long-term.

Sports are detrimental to a student's physical and psychological health, as engaging in some sort of regular sports activities will help decrease stress levels and improve your ability to focus. Since sports are mostly fast-paced and goal-oriented, they will help you get a better grasp on what tasks are more important, while also motivating you to leave those procrastinating days behind.

Sports also inherently teaches you how to deal with failures, which in turn will make you as a student become more proactive and ready to get back in the game, regardless of the difficulties you are facing. So, regardless if you are planning to enroll in an online class with reputable portals such asTraining.com.auor in a traditional type of educational system, practicing sports as little as 1-2 times a week will help you become a more relaxed and productive student.3. Declutter and Organize Your Life

Unfortunately, students often tend to underestimate just how important their living and working environment is and more often than not will let clutter fill up their lives. It's been proven that ourbrains on clutteractually become cloudier and more anxious, which in turn leads us to adapting coping mechanisms, such as watching TV shows or eating junk food. However decluttering can also feel like an impossible and painful task, especially to those suffering from a form or another of hoarding disorder.

Thankfully, science backs up the benefits of decluttering, leading us to understand that if we commit to cleaning out our personal environments, we will most likely commit to solving other problematic aspects of our lives as well. As a student, you'll see an increase in your quality of sleep and diet, as well as in your ability to focus and efficiently carry out tasks.

An inability to perform in school can also be linked to something seemingly unimportant as note-taking. Take the time to objectively assess how you take your notes while you are in class or while you browse books and you may find that sometimes they are incomplete or jotted down in a hurry.

It's also important that when you take notes, you do so mindfully so you can assimilate the information as you write it down and create a strong base to which you can later on add missing details. There are manynote-taking techniquesout there and there is certainly one that best fits your personality as well.

All in all, being a student is all about balancing your projected goals and the effort it takes to meet them with the ability to relax and have fun. By implementing the techniques above into your life, you'll most likely see how this balance is easier to attain than you ever thought was possible.

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Becoming a More Relaxed and Productive Student in 4 Engaging Ways - University Herald

Deep Learning

One of the factors often credited for this latest boom in artificial intelligence (AI) investment, research, and related cognitive technologies, is the emergence of deep learning neural networks as an evolution of machine algorithms, as well as the corresponding large volume of big data and computing power that makes deep learning a practical reality. While deep learning has been extremely popular and has shown real ability to solve many machine learning problems, deep learning is just one approach to machine learning (ML), that while having proven much capability across a wide range of problem areas, is still just one of many practical approaches. Increasingly, were starting to see news and research showing the limits of deep learning capabilities, as well as some of the downsides to the deep learning approach. So are peoples enthusiasm of AI tied to their enthusiasm of deep learning, and is deep learning really able to deliver on many of its promises?

The Origins of Deep Learning

AI researchers have struggled to understand how the brain learns from the very beginnings of the development of the field of artificial intelligence. It comes as no surprise that since the brain is primarily a collection of interconnected neurons, AI researchers sought to recreate the way the brain is structured through artificial neurons, and connections of those neurons in artificial neural networks. All the way back in 1940, Walter Pitts and Warren McCulloch built the first thresholded logic unit that was an attempt to mimic the way biological neurons worked. The Pitts and McCulloch model was just a proof of concept, but Frank Rosenblatt picked up on the idea in 1957 with the development of the Perceptron that took the concept to its logical extent. While primitive by todays standards, the Perceptron was still capable of remarkable feats - being able to recognize written numbers and letters, and even distinguish male from female faces. That was over 60 years ago!

Rosenblatt was so enthusiastic in 1959 about the Perceptrons promises that he remarked at the time that the perceptron is the embryo of an electronic computer that [we expect] will be able to walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself and be conscious of its existence. Sound familiar? However, the enthusiasm didnt last. AI researcher Marvin Minsky noted how sensitive the perceptron was to small changes in the images, and also how easily it could be fooled. Maybe the perceptron wasnt really that smart at all. Minsky and AI researcher peer Seymour Papert basically took apart the whole perceptron idea in their Perceptrons book, and made the claim that perceptrons, and neural networks like it, are fundamentally flawed in their inability to handle certain kinds of problems notably, non-linear functions. That is to say, it was easy to train a neural network like a perceptron to put data into classifications, such as male/female, or types of numbers. For these simple neural networks, you can graph a bunch of data and draw a line and say things on one side of the line are in one category and things on the other side of the line are in a different category, thereby classifying them. But theres a whole bunch of problems where you cant draw lines like this, such as speech recognition or many forms of decision-making. These are nonlinear functions, which Minsky and Papert proved perceptrons incapable of solving.

During this period, while neural network approaches to ML settled to become an afterthought in AI, other approaches to ML were in the limelight including knowledge graphs, decision trees, genetic algorithms, similarity models, and other methods. In fact, during this period, IBMs DeepBlue purpose-built AI computer defeated Gary Kasparov in a chess match, the first computer to do so, using a brute-force alpha-beta search algorithm (so-called Good Old-Fashioned AI [GOFAI]) rather than new-fangled deep learning approaches. Yet, even this approach to learning didnt go far, as some said that this system wasnt even intelligent at all.

Yet, the neural network story doesnt end here. In 1986, AI researcher Geoff Hinton, along with David Rumelhart and Ronald Williams, published a research paper entitled Learning representations by back-propagating errors. In this paper, Hinton and crew detailed how you can use many hidden layers of neurons to get around the problems faced by perceptrons. With sufficient data and computing power, these layers can be calculated to identify specific features in the data sets they can classify on, and as a group, could learn nonlinear functions, something known as the universal approximation theorem. The approach works by backpropagating errors from higher layers of the network to lower ones (backprop), expediting training. Now, if you have enough layers, enough data to train those layers, and sufficient computing power to calculate all the interconnections, you can train a neural network to identify and classify almost anything. Researcher Yann Lecun developed LeNet-5 at AT&T Bell Labs in 1998, recognizing handwritten images on checks using an iteration of this approach known as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), and researchers Yoshua Bengio and Jrgen Schmidhube further advanced the field.

Yet, just as things go in AI, research halted when these early neural networks couldnt scale. Surprisingly very little development happened until 2006, when Hinton re-emerged onto the scene with the ideas of unsupervised pre-training and deep belief nets. The idea here is to have a simple two-layer network whose parameters are trained in an unsupervised way, and then stack new layers on top of it, just training that layers parameters. Repeat for dozens, hundreds, even thousands of layers. Eventually you get a deep network with many layers that can learn and understand something complex. This is what deep learning is all about: using lots of layers of trained neural nets to learn just about anything, at least within certain constraints.

In 2010, Stanford researcher Fei-Fei Li published the release of ImageNet, a large database of millions of labeled images. The images were labeled with a hierarchy of classifications, such as animal or vehicle, down to very granular levels, such as husky or trimaran. This ImageNet database was paired with an annual competition called the Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (LSVRC) to see which computer vision system had the lowest number of classification and recognition errors. In 2012, Geoff Hinton, Alex Krizhevsky, and Ilya Sutskever, submitted their AlexNet entry that had almost half the number of errors as all previous winning entries. What made their approach win was that they moved from using ordinary computers with CPUs, to specialized graphical processing units (GPUs) that could train much larger models in reasonable amounts of time. They also introduced now-standard deep learning methods such as dropout to reduce a problem called overfitting (when the network is trained too tightly on the example data and cant generalize to broader data), and something called the rectified linear activation unit (ReLU) to speed training. After the success of their competition, it seems everyone took notice, and Deep Learning was off to the races.

Deep Learnings Shortcomings

The fuel that keeps the Deep Learning fires roaring is data and compute power. Specifically, large volumes of well-labeled data sets are needed to train Deep Learning networks. The more layers, the better the learning power, but to have layers you need to have data that is already well labeled to train those layers. Since deep neural networks are primarily a bunch of calculations that have to all be done at the same time, you need a lot of raw computing power, and specifically numerical computing power. Imagine youre tuning a million knobs at the same time to find the optimal combination that will make the system learn based on millions of pieces of data that are being fed into the system. This is why neural networks in the 1950s were not possible, but today they are. Today we finally have lots of data and lots of computing power to handle that data.

Deep learning is being applied successfully in a wide range of situations, such as natural language processing, computer vision, machine translation, bioinformatics, gaming, and many other applications where classification, pattern matching, and the use of this automatically tuned deep neural network approach works well. However, these same advantages have a number of disadvantages.

The most notable of these disadvantages is that since deep learning consists of many layers, each with many interconnected nodes, each configured with different weights and other parameters theres no way to inspect a deep learning network and understand how any particular decision, clustering, or classification is actually done. Its a black box, which means deep learning networks are inherently unexplainable. As many have written on the topic of Explainable AI (XAI), systems that are used to make decisions of significance need to have explainability to satisfy issues of trust, compliance, verifiability, and understandability. While DARPA and others are working on ways to possibly explain deep learning neural networks, the lack of explainability is a significant drawback for many.

The second disadvantage is that deep learning networks are really great at classification and clustering of information, but not really good at other decision-making or learning scenarios. Not every learning situation is one of classifying something in a category or grouping information together into a cluster. Sometimes you have to deduce what to do based on what youve learned before. Deduction and reasoning is not a fort of deep learning networks.

As mentioned earlier, deep learning is also very data and resource hungry. One measure of a neural networks complexity is the number of parameters that need to be learned and tuned. For deep learning neural networks, there can be hundreds of millions of parameters. Training models requires a significant amount of data to adjust these parameters. For example, a speech recognition neural net often requires terabytes of clean, labeled data to train on. The lack of a sufficient, clean, labeled data set would hinder the development of a deep neural net for that problem domain. And even if you have the data, you need to crunch on it to generate the model, which takes a significant amount of time and processing power.

Another challenge of deep learning is that the models produced are very specific to a problem domain. If its trained on a certain dataset of cats, then it will only recognize those cats and cant be used to generalize on animals or be used to identify non-cats. While this is not a problem of only deep learning approaches to machine learning, it can be particularly troublesome when factoring in the overfitting problem mentioned above. Deep learning neural nets can be so tightly constrained (fitted) to the training data that, for example, even small perturbations in the images can lead to wildly inaccurate classifications of images. There are well known examples of turtles being mis-recognized as guns or polar bears being mis-recognized as other animals due to just small changes in the image data. Clearly if youre using this network in mission critical situations, those mistakes would be significant.

Machine Learning is not (just) Deep Learning

Enterprises looking at using cognitive technologies in their business need to look at the whole picture. Machine learning is not just one approach, but rather a collection of different approaches of various different types that are applicable in different scenarios. Some machine learning algorithms are very simple, using small amounts of data and an understandable logic or deduction path thats very suitable for particular situations, while others are very complex and use lots of data and processing power to handle more complicated situations. The key thing to realize is that deep learning isnt all of machine learning, let alone AI. Even Geoff Hinton, the Einstein of deep learning is starting to rethink core elements of deep learning and its limitations.

The key for organizations is to understand which machine learning methods are most viable for which problem areas, and how to plan, develop, deploy, and manage that machine learning approach in practice. Since AI use in the enterprise is still continuing to gain adoption, especially these more advanced cognitive approaches, the best practices on how to employ cognitive technologies successfully are still maturing.

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Are We Overly Infatuated With Deep Learning? - Forbes