Buddhist Recovery Network

I found this from a pretty neat blog: dharmadoctors.org.

"Dharmadoctors.org is dedicated to serving health care providers by providing Buddhist resources and inspiration for the enhancement of their practices and the benefit of their patients. Both Medicine and Buddhism are fundamentally concerned with alleviating suffering, and a dialogue between these two great traditions seems not only natural, but of particular relevance in today’s climate of health care crisis."

One of their recent entries that I found interesting is on The Buddhist Recovery Network.

"The Buddhist Recovery Network supports the use of Buddhist teachings, traditions and practices to help people recover from the suffering caused by addictive behaviors. Open to people of all backgrounds, and respectful of all recovery paths, the organization promotes mindfulness and meditation, and is grounded in Buddhist principles of non-harming, compassion and interdependence. It seeks to serve an international audience through teaching, training, treatment, research, publication, advocacy and community-building initiatives."

Religious Diversity in the 111th Congress

I am happy to be able to start posting again. I recently sent my computer to be fixed and now that I just picked it up, I feel reconnected with the world. This bit of news is quite interesting, another addition to all the other diversity issues in 2009 politics.

"Two years ago, Keith Ellison became Congress’ first Muslim member; shortly after Rep. Pete Stark outed himself as Congress’ first openly atheist elected official. The 110th Congress also saw the arrival of two Buddhist politicians, another first. Those Buddhists, as well as Ellison and another Muslim, are back for the 111th Congress, which began today and the Pew Forum says looks a lot more like the people it represents:

Although a majority of the members of the new, 111th Congress, which will be sworn in on Jan. 6, are Protestants, Congress - like the nation as a whole - is much more religiously diverse than it was 50 years ago."

Read full article.

Photo from The Jewish Journal.

Vegatarian Bodh Gaya Campaign

Tibetans for a Vegetarian Society, a nonprofit public charitable trust, is campaigning for the Bodh Gaya to be a vegetarian zone.

"We are trying to create awareness and mobilise support of locals as well as tourists transforming Bodh Gaya into a vegetarian zone.

Abstaining from buying, selling, or consuming any form of meat during the pilgrimage tour in the holy land is the key to the success of the campaign"

Read full article

Meditation an alternative to anti-depressant drugs

Studies show Buddhist meditation a better remedy for depression than drugs, The Telegraph reports. The study is funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

"Fifteen months after an eight-week trial, 47 per cent of people with long-term depression who underwent the group psychology therapy had suffered a relapse, compared with 60 per cent of those taking anti-depressant drugs.

Professor Willem Kuyken, from the Mood Disorders Centre at the University of Exeter, said the technique - known as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) - could shorten NHS waiting lists for psychological therapies.

He said: 'Anti-depressants are widely used by people who suffer from depression and that's because they tend to work.

'But, while they're very effective in helping reduce the symptoms of depression, when people come off them they are particularly vulnerable to relapse.

'MBCT takes a different approach - it teaches people skills for life.

'What we have shown is that when people work at it, these skills for life help keep people well.

'Our results suggest MBCT may be a viable alternative for some of the 3.5 million people in the UK known to be suffering from this debilitating condition.' "

Handling stress

As UCLA students, I think we can safely say that we are quite familiar with stress throughout the academic quarter. Here's a Daily Bruin article about therapy for stress.

"To address this issue, researchers at UCLA are diving in to get a full understanding of the many different types of anxiety to develop more effective treatments and to get the word out to the public: that anxiety exists but can be minimized to improve one’s quality of life.

The newest project coming out of the UCLA Anxiety Disorders Research Clinic is a study assessing the differences between two forms of treatment: cognitive behavioral therapy as well as the new application of mindfulness meditation as therapy to treat anxiety.

The study uses a functional MRI brain imaging tool to assess the changes in brain activation after patients received one of the two treatments during a 12-week period, Niles said.

The study will be done of people suffering from social anxiety, the fear of being severely judged in social situations, and general anxiety disorder, which is the excessive worrying about areas of life that can be trivial and out of one’s actual control."

Dalai Lama recovers from surgery

The Dalai Lama went through an operation on Friday to remove gallstones from his body. He was hospitalized in New Delhi.

"He will probably spend two days in hospital, then a few days in Delhi while he recovers. At the end of the month he will resume his schedule," aide Tenzin Taklha said."

Study Shows Meditation Helps Immune System

Although this article was dated a while back. When I first read it, I thought it was so interesting that I clipped it from the Daily Bruin and saved it. I hope you guys like it! Here's the link for the article.

http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2008/aug/04/study-shows-meditation-helps-immune-system/

Eco-friendly Fish

As many Buddhists keep to vegetarian diets, many also do not. For those that don't, how can we contribute to helping the Earth as much as possible even by consuming meats?

The Environmental Defense Fund provides two great articles with information on the ten eco-best and eco-worst fish to eat. They provide information on the source of the fish, the capture methods, how it affects the environment, and how it affects your own health. Many of the non eco-friendly fish have high PCB and mercury levels that can be harmful to one's health. Here are the links to the two articles:

Ten Eco-Best Fish

Ten Eco-Worst Fish

More information on smart seafood choices