DEAR BONNIE: My father's birthday is coming up -- the first since he passed away last year. My father's birthday parties would always be huge family gatherings, with a big dinner and a birthday cake. It became an annual tradition to which we all looked forward. The family and I are thinking of throwing him his typical birthday party, but just wishing him happy birthday in heaven this year. What do you think? -- GRETCHEN IN LITTLETON

DEAR GRETCHEN: I think that's a great idea --and your father will love it! Honoring those who have passed on by holding a meal in their honor is a practice as old as time itself.

Almost every religious tradition holds a ritual offering of food to its departed loved ones and sacred spirits.

At Passover, Jewish families leave a seat for the prophet Elijah at their Seder table, pour a cup of wine (the "Cup of Elijah"), open the front door of the home, and recite several verses (mostly from Psalms) to invite Elijah inside.

It is a common practice in Zen Buddhism to make food offerings to hungry spirits. At formal meals during sesshin, an offering bowl will be passed or brought to each person about to partake of the meal. Everyone takes a small piece of food from his or her bowl, touches it to the forehead, and places it in the offering bowl. The bowl is then ceremonially placed on the altar.

But what I am most familiar with, and what your father's birthday party reminds me of, is the ancient tradition of "dumb suppers" -- these were meals held in honor of a deceased loved one.

While it is nice to keep chatter to a minimum at a meal in honor of a loved one, dumb suppers today no longer need to be silent. You may want to jot down your favorite memories of your loved one and read them aloud at the table, taking turns with your other guests. You may want to play his favorite music, lightly, as a dinner accompaniment. This is a special celebration in honor of your father. If you send out paper invitations to your guests, write out an invitation for your father as well.

Definitely consider serving your father's favorite meal. Make sure to put a place setting and a chair at the head of the table for him! By the place setting, you can put things that remind you of him, such as a necklace or photograph. For my purposes, I place the guest of honor's chair across from mine, so that I may gaze into the space there, like divination, during the meal. Ultimately, where you place them is not important. What is important is that you serve the guest of honor's chair first, your invited guests next, and then yourself. It's the intention of hospitality that matters most.

And when it comes time to blow out the candles and cut the cake, allow him to have the first slice of cake. Leave it untouched at his place setting until cleanup time. There is a similarity to the Buddhist tradition here: The guest of honor's meal is taken outside and left as an offering to them.

When I do a dumb supper, I like to keep the environment light, life-affirming and full of happy memories.

Gretchen, your father would be honored to have another birthday party. He will be thrilled to see the whole family around the dinner table again. Cheers!

Psychic medium Bonnie Page is available for private readings by appointment at Messages from Heaven Healing and Learning Center, 272 Central Street, Leominster, or by calling 978-297-9790. Email questions for her column to bonniepage@verizon.net and include a phone number (not for publication).

Originally posted here:
Dinner and spirits: Those who have passed can still receive meal invite - Sentinel & Enterprise

Parnel Wickham is the only daughter in a family with roots in Cutchogue that date to 1699. Her father, John, was an iconic farmer who was widely known across Suffolk County. Her mother, Anne, a church organist, was the granddaughter of the minister at Mattituck Presbyterian Church, who was also a local historian.

Her brothers, Tom and Jack, worked the farm as they grew up. While Parnel did no farm work, she helped her mother manage the farm stand. She spent her high school years away from Cutchogue at a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania. By her own account, she was often homesick.

She married in 1967 and had a daughter named Julia. Parnels second child, a daughter named Diana, died at age 7 after years of extraordinary hardship for her and her parents that was rooted in serious birth defects. On top of that, her husband left her after 37 years of marriage.

In her marriages demise were a million questions and personal ghosts to deal with, which boiled down to key issues: How to find peace? How to deal with the suffering of grief and depression?

Today, at 74, Ms. Wickham finds herself looking back with a measure of honesty and candor about the life she has lived, the events she has dealt with and how discovering the practices of Zen Buddhism after her divorce brought her to a more peaceful place in her life. The journey of Parnel Wickham has come far.

Whatever I was yesterday, I am different now, she said.

She was interviewed at Cutchogue New Suffolk Library, formerly a church founded by Wickham ancestors who bolted from the Presbyterian church across the street in the 1860s in a bitter dispute over the issue of slavery. Or so the story goes. The first Wickham in Cutchogue lived in the house that stands today next to the library. Here, she is on family ground.

I have been incredibly fortunate, she said. I have met the most wonderful people who have been unbelievably helpful to me. Everybody has something to deal with in their lives. To have people who over and over I can go back to and say, Can you help me? and they say Yes, I can is very powerful and very world changing.

It is not as if the past has been magically scraped away. The past has made her as surely as her present defines her.

Its not that I am free of it. That is who I am. To put it in Buddhist terms, I am free of the suffering. It doesnt make me sad or angry. I am here. There is a little space now in between things. Thats what Zen practice is. I have what I need.

Ms. Wickham has formed a sangha, or group, called Peconic Bay Zen that meets in the historic Jamesport Meeting House on Monday nights. The group has taken the summer off and will begin meeting again in September. Meanwhile, as if a Buddhist moment has inexplicably arrived on the North Fork, another group led by two Sri Lankan monks has just begun meeting on Friday nights in the old Grange Hall on Sound Avenue in Riverhead.

This moment began on an April weekend in 2011, when Ms. Wickham brought a Tibetan monk named Lama Migmar Tseten to her New Suffolk house. Her house filled up with the curious. Many who met that weekend continue to gather for North Fork Buddhist activities in various sanghas that meet nearly every day of the week.

For Ms. Wickham, the journey to now can almost be told as a book on local history. Joseph Wickham arrived in Cutchogue in 1699 and bought what would later be known as the Old House on the Cutchogue Village Green, as well as all the land west of it to what is now the North Fork Country Club, and south to the bay. He also purchased Robins Island.

His grandson, Parker, lost all of that plus a large holding in Riverhead in the aftermath of the American Revolution because he was a supporter of the British against the insurgent colonists. A son of Parker bought land just west of the familys former Cutchogue holdings and several generations of Wickhams lived there until the early 1850s, when a James Wickham and his wife, Frances, bought the farm where the family lives now and has its Main Road farm stand.

In 1854, James and his wife, who had no children, were murdered in that house by a farmhand, who was later hanged in Riverhead. James brother William took over the farm; he died in 1881 of blood poisoning. His son James took over until his death also from blood poisoning in 1914. James son Parker took over until his death in a car accident on the Main Road in Cutchogue in 1930. His brother John Parnel, Tom and Jacks father then took over. John Wickham died in 1994. Tom has run the farm since his fathers death.

There is a Shakespearean feel to Wickham history. Some of the events in Parnels life seem to be a continuation of the past. She says she might not have sought out Buddhism had they not been visited upon her, in particular her divorce.

She speaks of karma the Buddhist principle that past and present actions and intentions have future consequences.

Certain things are set in motion before our lives come about, she said. They are all the things that make up who we are. However, karma also means nothing is set in stone. Every time we take a breath we have the opportunity to change the world. Thats liberating.

While these events in her familys history are not minor issues to Ms. Wickham, her life now, as she said, is in a different place.

I have to go back generations to talk about today, she said. I grew up in a family that valued the practices of religion. These practices provided very strong roots. We had to go to church. I had to sit there. I had to sing in the choir. I had to play the piano for Sunday school Buddhism is based on a different model. It is not a question of doing something because someone told you to do it, or belief in a creed. Buddhism has no creed. It is deeply personal.

Ms. Wickhams self-discovery continues to unfold through a daily practice of seated meditation, exercise that includes long walks and awareness of the workings of her mind and emotions as she goes about the daily routines of her life.

Its important for people to know that the process of self-discovery and personal liberation takes consistent effort over time, she said. I attend to the practice every day, in specific ways that have been taught by many generations of Buddhists of all traditions and cultures. This explains in part why I am a Zen Buddhist.

The Peconic Bay Zen group meets Monday nights in the historic Jamesport Meeting House. The group is taking the summer off, but meetings will resume in September. For more information, email peconicbayzen@gmail.com.

The Long Island Buddhist Meditation Center has moved into the mid-19th-century former Grange Hall on Sound Avenue in Riverhead. Considerable remodeling of the facility has already occurred, and the leader of the group, Bhante Kottawe Nanda, will also live in the hall. The group meets on Friday nights at 7 p.m. Tuesday night meetings will also be scheduled. For more information, visit libmc.org or facebook.com/LongIslandBuddhistMeditation/.

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Quiet your mind with meditation on the North Fork - Northforker (blog)

By Thomas JoinerThe Washington Post

We may live in a culture of distraction, but mindfulness has captured our attention.

Books on the practice include guides to "A Mindful Pregnancy," "Mindful Parenting," "Mindful Politics," "The Mindful Diet" and "Mindfulness for Teachers." Corporations, sports teams, even the military and police departments provide mindfulness training to their employees. A bevy of podcasts offer tips for living a mindful life, guided mindful meditation and interviews with mindfulness evangelists.

Another sure sign of cultural saturation: You can order "a more mindful burger," at Epic Burger in Chicago, or an "enjoy the ride" trucker hat from Mindful Supply Co.

I was dismayed when mindfulness began to encroach on my field: psychology, and specifically the treatment of suicidal behavior. A psychiatrist colleague's proposal for a book on bipolar disorder prompted the feedback pre-publication reviewer "less lithium, more mindfulness" even though less lithium can lead to more death by suicide in patients with bipolar disorder.

Of course, we're all intrigued by interventions that show promise over the standard treatment, especially for the most difficult cases. But I wanted to know whether mindfulness had merit. So I soon found myself immersed in the literature and practice sitting shoes-off in a circle, focused on the coolness of my breath as it hit the back of my throat.

Beware the impostor

What we might call authentic mindfulness, I found, is a noble and potentially useful idea. But true mindfulness is being usurped by an impostor, and the impostor is loud and strutting enough that it has replaced the original in many people's understanding of what mindfulness is.

This ersatz version provides an excuse for self-indulgence. It trumpets its own glories, promising health and spiritual purity with trendiness thrown in for the bargain. And yet it misunderstands human nature, while containing none of the nobility, humility or utility of the true original. Even the best-designed, most robust research on mindfulness has been overhyped.

Although there are various definitions of mindfulness, a workable one, drawn from some of the most respected practitioners, is the non-judgmental awareness of the richness, subtlety and variety of the present moment all of the present moment, not just the self.

Mindfulness is not the same as meditation, although meditative activities and exercises are often deployed in its cultivation. Neither is it the emptying of the mind; far from it, as the emphasis is on full awareness. And it is not about savoring the moment, which would demand dwelling on the positive. Mindfulness recognizes every instant of existence, even those of great misery, as teeming and sundry. It encourages adherents to be dispassionate and nonjudgmental about all thoughts, including those like "I am hopelessly defective." Mindfulness wants us to pause, reflect, and gain distance and perspective.

Accepting one's thoughts as merely thoughts is very different from treasuring one's thoughts; one may as well treasure one's sweat or saliva. This is about recognizing that each thought is inconsequential and thus not worth getting depressed or anxious about. Viewing the mind's moment-to-moment products as of a similar standing as floating motes of dust myriad, ephemeral, individually insignificant is admirable and requires genuine humility.

But mindfulness has become diluted and distorted. The problem has somewhat less to do with how it's practiced and more to do with how it's promoted. People aren't necessarily learning bad breathing techniques. But in many cases they are counting on those breathing techniques to deliver almost magical benefits.

And, all the while, they are tediously, nonjudgmentally and in the most extreme cases monstrously focused entirely on themselves. That is troublesome for mental health practice and for our larger culture.

The inward gaze

At a mindfulness retreat I attended in 2013, the workshop leader exhorted us to remember the selflessness of genuine mindfulness and not to "fetishize" it as a cultist solution for self-enhancement. And yet we spent 90 percent of that retreat focused on our own sensations the minute muscular changes as we engaged in "mindful walking," the strain points in our muscles and joints during "mindful stretching."

The trendy version of mindfulness tends to be described in terms of what it can do for us as individuals. For example, a recent article on the website of Mindful magazine described "How mindfulness gives you an edge at work." Likewise, the book "10-Minute Mindfulness" promises: "When you are truly experiencing the moment, rather than analyzing it or getting lost in negative thoughts, you enjoy a wide array of physical, emotional and psychological benefits that are truly life changing."

It's true that numerous studies seem to support the benefits of mindfulness for a variety of life problems. Yet headlines tend to oversell what the studies show. Moreover, the effects of mindfulness seem to fade under the scrutiny of rigorous and tightly controlled experiments.

I have been particularly intrigued by the work of British psychologist Mark Williams and his colleagues, who have suggested that mindfulness interventions may be useful for preventing and treating depression. Unfortunately, their impressive 2014 study, which included a large and representative sample of adults, was not particularly supportive of a mindfulness-related approach. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy with meditation and without failed to outperform treatment as usual (with previously prescribed antidepressant medication) in preventing recurrence of major depressive disorder.

More specifically, about half of those in the study experienced a recurrence of depression, regardless of whether they were randomly assigned to the antidepressant plus mindfulness with meditation group, the antidepressant plus mindfulness without meditation group or the antidepressants alone group. (Because taking someone with major depressive disorder off medication can cause their depression to come roaring back, as famously happened with the writer David Foster Wallace, studying mindfulness therapy without medication in this population is not an ethically responsible option.)

I don't mean to suggest that we should thoroughly dismiss the potential of mindfulness. Some reputable studies have shown that mindfulness training can reduce mind wandering and improve cognitive functioning, as measured through GRE scores. But when many of the supposed effects of mindfulness fade in the hands of highly credentialed teams publishing well-designed studies in the best journals, we should be skeptical of the benefits promulgated by people and in outlets that are not as scientifically rigorous.

The joys of mindlessness

It's worth noting, too, that some research suggests that mindfulness may backfire. For instance, one study compared a group of participants who briefly engaged in mindfulness meditation with a group who did not. All the participants were asked to memorize a 15-word list; all the words involved the concept of trash (e.g., "rubbish," "waste," "garbage," etc.). A key point is that the list did not contain the word "trash." Close to 40 percent of the mindfulness group members falsely recalled seeing the word "trash," compared with about 20 percent of the control participants (who had been advised to think about whatever they liked). Ironically, being mindful meant losing awareness of details.

Mindfulness, as popularly promoted and practiced, can itself be a distraction. It purports to draw on ancient traditions as an antidote to modern living. Yet it exacerbates the modern tendency toward navel-gazing, while asking us to resist useful aspects of our nature.

Snap judgments and "mindless" but superb performance are two such elements of our evolutionary endowment. Our nervous system perhaps nature's crowning achievement evolved to discern figure from ground, to discriminate, to judge, often on an almost reflexive basis. And when we are fully absorbed in an activity, in a state of flow, it can be adaptive to lose self-awareness. A sure way to throw elite golfers off their game is to ask them to think aloud as they putt.

Interestingly, in contrast to much of the hyperbolic praise heaped on mindfulness, there is convincing evidence that the repetition of some activities, such as aerobic walking, even if done quite mindlessly, promotes health. Mere walking three times a week for 40 or so minutes at a time has even been shown to increase the volume of people's brains enough to reverse usual age-related loss by almost two years.

So, rather than reading books on mindfulness or attending retreats or ordering a mindful burger, you may want to consider taking a walk.

Thomas Joiner is a professor of psychology at Florida State University and the author of "Mindlessness: The Corruption of Mindfulness in a Culture of Narcissism," from which this essay is adapted.

Read more here:
MIND GAMES: Mindfulness has its place, but not as a quick mental health fix - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

We may live in a culture of distraction, but mindfulness has captured our attention.

Books on the practice are numerous, including guides to A Mindful Pregnancy,Mindful Parenting, Mindful Politics, The Mindful Diet and Mindfulness for Teachers. Corporations, sports teams, even the military and police departments provide mindfulness training to their employees. A bevy of podcasts offer tips for living a mindful life, guided mindful meditation and interviews with mindfulness evangelists. Another sure sign of cultural saturation: You can order a more mindful burger, at Epic Burger in Chicago, or an enjoy the ride trucker hat from Mindful Supply Co.

I was dismayed when mindfulness began to encroach on my field: psychology, and specifically the treatment of suicidal behavior. A psychiatrist colleagues proposal for a book on bipolar disorder prompted the feedback pre-publication reviewer less lithium, more mindfulness even though less lithium can lead to more death by suicide in patients with bipolar disorder.

Of course, were all intrigued by interventions that show promise over the standard treatment, especially for the most difficult cases. But I wanted to know whether mindfulness had merit. So I soon found myself immersed in the literature and practice sitting shoes-off in a circle, focused on the coolness of my breath as it hit the back of my throat.

What we might call authentic mindfulness, I found, is a noble and potentially useful idea. But true mindfulness is being usurped by an impostor, and the impostor is loud and strutting enough that it has replaced the original in many peoples understanding of what mindfulness is. This ersatz version provides a vehicle for solipsism and an excuse for self-indulgence. It trumpets its own glories, promising health and spiritual purity with trendiness thrown in for the bargain. And yet it misunderstands human nature, while containing none of the nobility, humility or utility of the true original. Even the best-designed, most robust research on mindfulness has been overhyped.

Although there are various definitions of mindfulness, a workable one, drawn from some of the most respected practitioners, is the non-judgmental awareness of the richness, subtlety and variety of the present moment all of the present moment, not just the self. Mindfulness is not the same as meditation, although meditative activities and exercises are often deployed in its cultivation. Neither is it the emptying of the mind; far from it, as the emphasis is on full awareness. And it is not about savoring the moment, which would demand dwelling on the positive. Mindfulness recognizes every instant of existence, even those of great misery, as teeming and sundry. It encourages adherents to be dispassionate and nonjudgmental about all thoughts, including those like I am hopelessly defective. Mindfulness wants us to pause, reflect and gain distance and perspective.

Authentic mindfulness is also humble in the sense that it places the self in its proper, minuscule place within each moments infinitude. The mindful person is attuned to the miasma of sensation that has nothing at all to do with ones own subjectivity, but rather concerns the features of the present moment surrounding ones own mind, in its minute detail and its vastness, too. And, in addition to attunement to this external moiling of sensation, one is also and simultaneously dispassionately attentive to the contents of ones own mind.

Accepting ones thoughts as merely thoughts is very different from treasuring ones thoughts; one may as well treasure ones sweat or saliva. This is about recognizing that each thought is inconsequential and thus not worth getting depressed or anxious about. Viewing the minds moment-to-moment products as of a similar standing as floating motes of dust myriad, ephemeral, individually insignificant is admirable and requires genuine humility.

But mindfulness has become pernicious, diluted and distorted by the prevailing narcissism of our time. The problem has somewhat less to do with how its practiced and more to do with how its promoted. People arent necessarily learning bad breathing techniques. But in many cases they are counting on those breathing techniques to deliver almost magical benefits. And, all the while, they are tediously, nonjudgmentally and in the most extreme cases monstrously focused entirely on themselves. That is troublesome for mental health practice and for our larger culture.

Authentic mindfulness has always been susceptible to this distortion because of its encouragement of an inward gaze. At a mindfulness retreat I attended in 2013, the workshop leader exhorted us to remember the selflessness of genuine mindfulness and not to fetishize it as a cultist solution for self-enhancement or for the affluents petty aggrievements. And yet we spent 90 percent of that retreat focused on our own sensations the minute muscular changes as we engaged in mindful walking, the strain points in our muscles and joints during mindful stretching.

It is easy to see how this emphasis could be misinterpreted. In moderation, self-examination can lead to a reasonable and unobsessed awareness of ones emotional tendencies, thought patterns, impact on others and blind spots. But to encourage an inward gaze among incredibly self-interested creatures is to court excess.

The trendy version of mindfulness tends to be described in terms of what it can do for us as individuals. For example, a recent article on the website of Mindful magazine described How mindfulness gives you an edge at work. Likewise, the book 10-Minute Mindfulness promises: When you are truly experiencing the moment, rather than analyzing it or getting lost in negative thoughts, you enjoy a wide array of physical, emotional and psychological benefits that are truly life changing.

Or consider this promotional language for a workshop this summer co-sponsored by UCLAs Mindful Awareness Research Center. Practitioners report deeper connection to themselves, more self-compassion, and greater insights into their lives. The emphasis is on the individual: connection to themselves, self-compassion, insights into their lives.

Indeed, self-compassion and self-care are intertwined with the popular concept of mindfulness. The notion seems to be that it is not selfish to tend to and even to prioritize ones own needs for care and understanding. After all, this line of thought goes, how can one be available for others unless one is fully present, and how can one be fully present unless ones own needs are met? The reasoning here contains a kind of trickle-down logic.

Of course, self-care in the sense of adequate sleep and nutrition is eminently sensible. But it seems that the most ardent fans of self-compassion focus on things like relaxing vacations, restorative massages and rejuvenating skin-care regimens. This preoccupation gives the impression that self-compassion is code, and a rationalization, for doing things people already find pleasant. Theres nothing wrong with pleasant activities, but those already have a name: pleasant activities. Calling them self-care adds little meaning and unhelpfully obscures that such activities are not essential to survival or health or caring for others and that they can be foregone in the service of sacrifice and honor.

What do we really know about what mindfulness can do for us? 10-Minute Mindfulness mentions advantages including reduced levels of stress, anxiety and overthinking, plus improved memory, concentration and sleep. And there is some mild scientific support for those benefits. Headlines regularly announce further breakthrough discoveries. In the past few weeks alone, weve heard that Mindfulness-based intervention significantly improves parenting, Mind-body therapies immediately reduce unmanageable pain in hospital patients and Mindfulness may lower blood sugar levels.

Its true that numerous studies seem to support the benefits of mindfulness for a variety of life problems. Yet headlines tend to oversell what the studies show. Moreover, the effects of mindfulness seem to fade under the scrutiny of rigorous and tightly controlled experiments.

Take a look at that parenting study, a fairly typical example of mindfulness research. The study, published by the Journal of Addiction Medicine, didnt look at parenting in general. Its target population was mothers enrolled in treatment for opioid addiction who started with a low level of parenting skills. Thats certainly a worthwhile focus, though narrower than one might have assumed based on the headline. The intervention was a bit of a mishmash. It involved mindfulness themes, such as attention and nonjudgmental acceptance, along with meditation and activities such as the creation of a glitter jar to settle the mind. The mothers also received feedback on how they interacted with their babies, and they learned about the impact of trauma on parenting. So what was the active ingredient that contributed to the observed improvements in parenting behavior? Its impossible to say. And because there was no control group, we dont know if the progress of their addiction treatment or showing up with their children at a treatment center for two hours a week for 12 weeks was what made the difference.

The pain study was more rigorous. Patients reporting unmanageable pain were randomly assigned to one of three 15-minute interventions: mindfulness training focused on acceptance of pain, hypnosis focused on changing the sensation of pain through imagery or a pain-coping education session. The study authors framed their research in the context of the opioid crisis, but their findings dont suggest that mindfulness willplay much of a role in its resolution. Only about a quarter of patients in the mindfulness group reported a decrease in pain substantial enough to be considered of even moderate clinical importance. And the mindfulness group didnt exhibit any meaningful decrease in perceived need for opioid medication. Here, as in the vast majority of well-controlled mindfulness research, an intervention related to mindfulness failed to outperform in fact, slightly underperformed an active comparison treatment (hypnosis) and exceeded only a very inert comparison group (education). Nevertheless, studies like this are held up by mindfulness enthusiasts as proof positive of its special power.

Given my own specialty area, I have been particularly intrigued by the work of British psychologist Mark Williams and his colleagues, who have suggested that mindfulness interventions may be useful for preventing and treating depression. Unfortunately, their impressive 2014 study, which included a large and representative sample of adults, was not particularly supportive of a mindfulness-related approach. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy with meditation and without failed to outperform treatment as usual (with previously prescribed antidepressant medication) in preventing recurrence of major depressive disorder. More specifically, about half of those in the study experienced a recurrence of depression, regardless of whether they were randomly assigned to the antidepressant plus mindfulness with meditation group, the antidepressant plus mindfulness without meditation group or the antidepressants alone group. (Because taking someone with major depressive disorder off medication can cause their depression to come roaring back, as famously happened with David Foster Wallace, studying mindfulness therapy without medication in this population is not an ethically responsible option.)

I dont mean to suggest that we should thoroughly dismiss the potential of mindfulness. Some reputable studies have shown that mindfulness training can reduce mind wandering and improve cognitive functioning, as measured through GRE scores. They have found that mindfulness mitigates sunk-cost bias when we resist abandoning an effort and cutting our losses. But when many of the supposed effects of mindfulness fade in the hands of highly credentialed teams publishing well-designed studies in the best journals, we should be skeptical of the benefits promulgated by people and in outlets that are not as scientifically rigorous.

Its worth noting, too, that some research suggests that mindfulness may backfire. For instance, one study compared a group of participants who briefly engaged in mindfulness meditation with a group who did not. All the participants were asked to memorize a 15-word list; all the words involved the concept of trash (e.g., rubbish, waste, garbage, etc.). A key point is that the list did not contain the word trash. Close to 40 percent of the mindfulness group members falsely recalled seeing the word trash, compared with about 20 percent of the control participants (who had been advised to think about whatever they liked). Ironically, being mindful meant losing awareness of details.

Mindfulness, as popularly promoted and practiced, can itself be a distraction. It purports to draw on ancient traditions as an antidote to modern living. Yet it exacerbates the modern tendency toward navel-gazing, while asking us to resist useful aspects of our nature.

Snap judgments and mindless but superb performance are two such elements of our evolutionary endowment. Our nervous system perhaps natures crowning achievement evolved to discern figure from ground, to discriminate, to judge, often on an almost reflexive basis. And when we are fully absorbed in an activity, in a state of flow, it can be adaptive to lose self-awareness. A sure way to throw elite golfers off their game is to ask them to think aloud as they putt.

Interestingly, in contrast to much of the hyperbolic praise that is heaped on mindfulness, there is convincing evidence that the repetition of some activities, such as aerobic walking, even if done quite mindlessly, promotes health. Mere walking three times a week for 40 or so minutes at a time has even been shown to increase the volume of peoples brains enough to reverse usual age-related loss by almost two years.

So, rather than reading books on mindfulness or attending retreats or ordering a mindful burger, you may want to consider taking a walk.

Thomas Joiner is a professor of psychology at Florida State University and the author of Mindlessness: The Corruption of Mindfulness in a Culture of Narcissism, from which this essay is adapted.

View original post here:
Column: Mindfulness Hype Can Drive You to Distraction - Valley News

Chinas online education industry has grown rapidly in the past few years, but analysts believe more business opportunities will surface as technology advances and capital pours in.

The country could become one of the worlds most vibrant online education markets in the future thanks to growing household spending power, an undersupply of education resources, and the introduction of the two-child policy, analysts said.

The market is likely to grow 20 per cent annually, reaching 270 billion yuan (US$41 billion) in 2019, up from 156 billion yuan in 2016. Globally the online education market will rise to US$190 billion by 2019, statistics from iResearch and Decebo showed.

This means big opportunities for online education companies in China, which had attracted 144 million users by June this year, according to data from China Internet Network Information Centre.

The advancement of technology is the foundation of the growing online education industry, said Du Miaomiao, an analyst at iResearch.

Differing from traditional teaching, new technology allows companies to broaden the student base, save on classrooms, and even provide smarter services.

Live-streamed classes, for example, have enabled educators to reach out to students who would face long commutes. Demand in third- and fourth-tier cities in China will be a significant growth area, an iResearch report said.

What the online education firms are trying to capture at this stage is a new market instead of the existing one, said Zhang Dongdong, marketing director of EEO, a developer of online classroom software.

Videoconferencing technology has also lowered the cost of running an education business, said Alex Lee, chief executive of MAST Education, a provider of individual online tutoring for the Advanced Placement programme in the US and the International Baccalaureate curriculum.

Full-time tutors nowadays are paid more than HK$800 for an hour. The tutors on our platforms are anywhere from HK$200 to HK$600, said Lee.

New technologies can also help take education services to a new level by using big data and artificial intelligence.

Other technologies include automatic grading of handwritten essays, and online search tools to help uncover answers to problems. Innovators are also exploring the use of virtual reality and augmented reality in education.

Chinese online education start-ups attracted more than 50 billion yuan of investments in the first half of 2017, an iResearch report said.

After a wave of investments in online education in 2015, investors are becoming more rational now, said iResearchs Du. It is not a shrinking market, but is developing healthily, she said.

Among the biggest players, VIPKid, which provides live-streamed English-language courses taught by teachers based in North America, completed a fundraising of US$200 million on August 23, the biggest in Chinas kindergarten to age 12 education industry.

Traditional brick and mortar education giants have also stepped into the field. The top two Chinese education firms listed on Nasdaq, TAL Education Group and New Oriental Education, have invested in more than 100 companies spanning online tutoring platforms, social apps and education technologies.

TAL and New Oriental could be adopting technologies such as artificial intelligence faster than most investors would expect, according to a Jefferies report by analyst Johnny Kin Man Wong.

The two firms have adopted a dual-teacher model: for each class, one teacher would lecture by live broadcasting, and the other would supervise students in physical classrooms.

In spite of ample capital, analysts said cutthroat competition made it difficult to operate profitably.

Most online educators either charge individual customers or businesses, including schools and government bodies. About 70 per cent of operators suffered net losses, according to a 2016 report by Chinas Internet Education Research Institute.

One challenge for those in those in kindergarten to age 12 sector is that their customers are the parents who pay for their childrens education. And in many cases, they are only willing to buy online teaching services if they come accompanied by supervision and tutoring to facilitate the learning process, iResearchs Du said.

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China's online education market to grow 20pc annually, bolstered by new technologies - South China Morning Post

Right before Labor Day weekend I shared a ramen-noodle lunch with Jeff Maggioncalda, the new CEO of online education firm Coursera, who gave me an interesting reason for why he took the job. The founding CEO of the original robo-advisor Financial Engines, Maggioncalda says hed been midway through a mid-career semi-retirement when he read Tom Friedmans book Thank You for Being Late, which among other Friedmanesque very large thoughts stresses the importance of community and education as the savior of society. When a recruiter called about the top job at Coursera, a five-year-old startup and one of the original MOOC (massive open online course) companies, Maggioncalda saw an opportunity for meaning.

Coursera and its ilkUdacity and Minera Project are two examplesare an appropriate topic of conversation on the day after Americans honor those who work. Courseras take is that higher education is too expensive and too airy-fairy to meet the needs of todays students. Whats needed are specific classes that serve the needs of todays students, like courses on how to code specific software languages and brand-new fields like machine learning and data science. Coursera also is working with individual employers like Google (googl) to design classes that employees and developers need to succeed on their platforms.

Maggioncalda says Coursera isnt only interested in offering these trade-oriented classes, but he may not have had time yet to survey all his firms offerings. I asked if I could take an introductory course on French, and he assured me I could. If theres a French class offered at Coursera.org, I couldnt find it.

Coursera is a big idea with a ton of funding, $200 million in all. I have no idea how Coursera is doing because Maggioncalda wont say. (It is growing fast and is funded by luminaries like New Enterprise Associates and Kleiner Perkins, he points out; But fast is nearly meaningless, and the well-funded Juicero had impressive backers too, including Kleiner Perkins.)

Coursera sells access to groupings of courses it calls specializations, sold as a subscription for $49 a month. It also has created online degrees with prestigious universities, including a $20,000 MBA from the University of Illinois (my alma mater) that Maggioncalda says would cost $118,000 in person.

Companies like Coursera are great ideas that could fill a tremendous need. Whether or not they can become businesses is another matter.

***

I admired this article by Noam Scheiber in The New York Times, also a good Labor Day read, about how the Trump Administration is acting on its reverence for entrepreneurs by making concrete regulatory changes. Note this articles dispassionate, analytical tone about an important subject. What you take away from it likely will depend on if you share the presidents high opinion of entrepreneurs.

***

Finally, just for fun, I thought you might like this piece about a local bookstoreand a really good one I visit regularlythat has survived for 50 years.

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Coursera's Online MBAs Could Be Big Business - Fortune

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Students walk along the Casper College campus in Casper. In August, the college announced a new online degree program in office management.

Students walk along the Casper College campus in Casper. In August, the college announced a new online degree program in office management.

Casper College announced recently a new online program in office management, available as both an associate degree and a certificate.

Prior to this semester, the degree was offered only on-campus.

Interim School of Business Dean Roberta Marvel hopes that working people can find time for the program now that its available online.

The academic program includes a mix of software, human resources and business courses. Graduates will be able to enhance their abilities at their current job or find a new career with the skills taught in the programs. According to the colleges website, graduates are prepared for jobs as office or executive assistants.

Successful graduates are suited for a wide variety of positions depending on the industry they choose for employment, Marvel said in a news release. Graduates will have the technical, industry, and business skills for a professional position in a variety of industries.

College spokesman Chris Lorenzen views online degrees as an avenue for people who cant be on campus, and one that allows for growth in statewide enrollment rates.

The program is available to both full- and part-time students.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than 2.8 million students across the country were exclusively enrolled in online classes in 2014, or about 14 percent of the total college enrollment at the time.

Follow crime and courts reporter Elise Schmelzer on Twitter @eliseschmelzer

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Casper College offers new online programs in office management - Casper Star-Tribune Online

China Online Education Group (NYSE: COE) and ITT Educational Services (NYSE:ESI) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares China Online Education Group and ITT Educational Services revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

ITT Educational Services has higher revenue, but lower earnings than China Online Education Group. China Online Education Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than ITT Educational Services, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for China Online Education Group and ITT Educational Services, as provided by MarketBeat.

Profitability

This table compares China Online Education Group and ITT Educational Services net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

24.0% of China Online Education Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 62.7% of ITT Educational Services shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.8% of ITT Educational Services shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

China Online Education Group has a beta of -0.67, suggesting that its stock price is 167% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ITT Educational Services has a beta of 1.96, suggesting that its stock price is 96% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

ITT Educational Services beats China Online Education Group on 7 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About China Online Education Group

China Online Education Group is engaged in providing online English language education services to students in the Peoples Republic of China (the PRC). The Company operates an online education platform that provides online tutoring programs to students through the Internet. Its platform analyzes teachers teaching aptitudes, feedback and rating from students, as well as background, and recommends suitable teachers to students according to their respective characteristics and learning objectives. The Company develops and tailors its curriculum to its interactive lesson format. The Company offers various courses, which include Classic English and Classic English Junior that are focused on the development of English communication skills. The Company also offers various specialty courses that are focused at situation-based English education and test preparation needs, such as Business English and International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Speaking.

About ITT Educational Services

ITT Educational Services, Inc. is a provider of postsecondary degree programs in the United States. The Company offers master, bachelor and associate degree programs to over 45,000 students, and short-term information technology and business learning solutions for career advancers and other professionals. It has approximately 138 campus locations in over 40 states. It offers online programs to students in all over 50 states. It designs its education programs, after consultation with employers and other constituents, to allow graduates prepare for careers in different fields involving their areas of study. It provides career-oriented education programs under the ITT Technical Institute name and the Daniel Webster College (DWC) name. The ITT Technical Institutes offers over 50 education programs in various fields of study across business, drafting and design, electronics technology, criminal justice, information technology (IT), and Breckinridge School of nursing and health sciences.

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Reviewing China Online Education Group (COE) & ITT Educational Services (ESI) - The Ledger Gazette

Punjab News Express/Balbir SinghLONDON :The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has announced the launch of a new junior education programme called ITF Knowledge, designed to better prepare young players for a career in the professional game.The online programme, which consists of videos, apps, leaflets, PDF information and question and answer session, has initially launched with two available modules - anti-doping and integrity - with further topics set to follow, says ITF statement.ITF Knowledge has been created in line with the strategic priorities laid out in ITF2024, which features a significant emphasis on integrity.The anti-doping module is designed to supplement the detection and deterrence elements of the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme (TADP), with the aim of contributing to the overall effectiveness of the TADP.The module comprises documents, video and a quiz to provide a more effective combination of education tools for players around the subject of anti-doping. As an additional benefit, those who complete the module are given access to additional online education materials.The integrity module provides an introduction to the Tennis Integrity Unit, the anti-corruption body which covers all professional tennis around the world.The aim of the module is to inform and educate players about integrity in tennis and to protect them on their journey as a tennis player. Through a range of interactive activities including video, quiz questions and real life case studies, players will develop a better understanding of their responsibilities under the Tennis Anti-Corruption Programme (TACP) and know when to take action to protect themselves.ITF Knowledge is aimed primarily at players who register through their IPIN, but is also accessible to coaches, parents and any others who wish to sign-up, and is available in three different languages English, French and Spanish.

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ITF launches online junior education 'ITF Knowledge' - Punjab News Express

At most bars, nonalcoholic options run to fruity mocktails and ginger ale. At Honeys in East Williamsburg, theres kvass, the ancient Russian beverage and purported health tonic fermented from rye bread. While this Slavic staple might seem an odd thing to stumble across in the wilds of artisanal Brooklyn, its not, when you consider that Honeys is actually the tasting room of Enlightenment Wines, the adjacent meadery that has made a mission of injecting local terroir into lost-in-time elixirs.

Kvass can be found elsewhere in New York, but not on tap like at Honeys, and nowhere near as lively and refreshing. The amber, fizzy liquid, made from chunks of toasted dark sourdough rye soaked in water, lacto-fermented, sweetened with a bit of honey and keg-conditioned, is nothing like the malty soda gathering dust on Brighton Beach supermarket shelves, or even the invigorating pickle-briny beet and kraut alt-kvasses that have ridden the probiotic marketing wave. Kvass has been a decade-long obsession of Enlightenment co-owner Raphael Lyon, but not just any kvass rather, the pre-industrial, home-brewed kind that people drank in the sixteenth century.

What makes our kvass special is that its alive, he says, referring to the lacto-fermentation that gives it its characteristic flavor pleasingly tart, with a satisfying roundness. You might compare it to that other K-drink, though Lyon wishes you wouldnt: Kombuchas filled with caffeine and sugar, he says, which is why people become addicted to it. His kvass has an ABV of under 1 percent, but if you want something stronger, you could order a Kvass Kollins, one of the drinks on an appealingly original list created by Lyons partner, Arley Marks, and bartender Torrey Bell-Edwards to showcase Enlightenments repertoire. The sweet-sour cocktail combines kvass with barrel-aged Brooklyn gin and the foamy chickpea cooking liquid called aquafaba, which Honeys sometimes sources from Dizengoff. Its served with a biodegradable straw thats actually a strand of uncooked bucatini, and it just might be the embodiment of Brooklyn mixology today.

93 Scott Ave., at Randolph St., East Williamsburg; 401-481-9205

*A version of this article appears in the September 4, 2017, issue ofNew York Magazine.

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An Old-world Tonic Gets a Fresh Spin at Brooklyn Bar Honey's - Grub Street