Aug 26, 2012

Posted in Past Events

Sat, Sept 15: Meditation Retreat, Catherine Baum

On September 15, 2012, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm the Ventura Buddhist Study Center will be presenting a retreat at An Lac Temple. The primary goal of the retreat is to help meditators better integrate their current vipassana meditation practice into their daily professional and personal life. The retreat is based on the techniques utilized by the Mindfulnes Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. The leader will be certified MBSR instructor, Catherine T. Baum.

For those not familiar with this program here is a little history. In 1979 Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulnes Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts to treat the chronically ill and to aid the medical staff in their work. This sparked a growing interest and application of mindfulness ideas and practices in the medical world for the treatment of a variety of conditions in people both unhealthy and normal .

Much of this was inspired by the Buddhist traditions, where mindfulness, vipassana, is the seventh step of the Noble Eightfold Path taught 2500 years ago by Siddhartha Gautama . Thich Nhat Hanh was one teacher who brought mindfulness and, particularly, mindfulness-in-action techniques, to the attention of Westerners. It was on a retreat he led in the United States that an American doctor, Jon Kabat-Zinn, first realized the appropriateness of mindfulness practice in the treatment of chronic medical conditions. He also soon discovered its benefits for the doctors, as well. After training in mindfulness, overworked medical residents at Massachusetts General Hospital were found to be more effective in their work with patients.

Kabat-Zinn adapted Hanh's teachings on mindfulness into a structured eight-week program that has since spread throughout the world. As Kabat-Zinn explains the goal of the program is not stress reduction, that is only a side-effect. The goal of MBSR is to integrate mindfulness into daily life. Mindfulness, and other Buddhist and yogic meditation techniques, as psychological applications, receive support in the West from figures such as Jack Kornfield , Joseph Goldstein , Tara Brach , the Alan Clements , and Sharon Salzberg . The teachers who have been widely attributed with playing a significant role in integrating the healing aspects of Buddhist meditation practices with the benefit of psychological awareness and well-being.

The leader, Catherine T. Baum, has been teaching MBSR continuously for 20 years. She has conducted seminars and retreats together with such notables as Jon Kabat-Zinn and Robert Stahl and at institutions such as Duke University, Department of Psychology, UCLA, UCLA Jonsson Cencer Center, The Society of Behavioral Medicine, San Diego as well as the Cancer Resource Center, Oxnard, and is currently associated with the Wellness Community, Thousand Oaks. Originally she studied directly under Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli. She began her training as an instructor in the MBSR program in 1993. She is a founding member of the MBSR Teachers Association of Southern California. Additionally, Catherine begain her training in Iyengar Yoga with senior Iyengar instructors in Bombay, India and Bellingham, Washington, over 26 years ago and has been a yoga instructor continuously since then.

Suggested donation is $45.00

For registration or further details contact:
An Lac Mission
901 S.Saticoy Avenue
Ventura, CA 93004
805-659-9751 (Office) or
805-758-2028 (Bhante Sutadhara)
missionanlac@yahoo.com
venturabuddhistcenter.org