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Moderator: Do you believe in reincarnation and 
how does that effect your life?

Dr. Robert Thurman: I do believe in it, but I want to be clear that when I say "I believe" it's like asking if I believe in Fifth Avenue. I believe it's there. 

If I had to go to the Metropolitan Museum I would drive to the park and turn right. 

My belief in reincarnation, as is the most case in Buddhists, is the common sense that the next life is there waiting for you, just like you think the street is there that you can walk on. It's not mysterious. 

My ground for it is that we perceive continuity in all things, everything in the universe, things transform. ... 

I further would say that from the time that the sense of the future life became common sense to me, it helped me very much take this life more seriously, and try to be more responsible, and more creative. 

Because it gave me a sense that whatever happened in this life, whatever I did, or acted, would have consequences that would go on continuously. ....

Dr. Thurman: Try to learn one new thing. Read something about another culture. Try to meditate a little and observe your own mind. 

Try to refrain from doing something that you know is bad for you. Not drastically like quitting everything all at once, but just a little bit. 

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Just do everything bit by bit, like Bill Murray said in "What about Bob?" He said, "baby steps, baby steps." 

A key thing is that one is changing all the time, everyday, no matter what; there's no way out of it. So if you don't try to get a little better, then it's likely that you'll get worse. 

It's important to try to live consciously, or mindfully. ....

Dr. Thurman: Try to wake up, getting a cup of tea, brushing my teeth, et cetera. I think that it's important to try to do everything as a part of spiritual practice. 

Anything you do you should try to combine it with a spiritual practice. If washing the dishes, imagine that you are clearing the negative thoughts in your mind. .... 

Don't overdo it when you're busy, but spend some time clearing the mind. If I can do that in the evening, I have a restful sleep. If I do it in the morning, I have a more creative day.

Or at least not with a high level of creative productivity.

**A. H. Almaas. Diamond Heart Book Two: The Freedom to Be

"We live in a world of mystery, wonder, and beauty," Almaas observes in the Preface to this book, "but most of us seldom participate in this real world, being aware rather of a world that is mostly strife, suffering, or meaninglessness."

In the series of twelve inner-work teachings collected here (e.g., "Hanging Loose," "Acceptance," "Love," and "Being Oneself"), Almaas integrates Sufism, Zen and Vajrayana Buddhism with Gurdjieff and modern psychology into what he calls "the Diamond Approach" to self realization, and as the book's subtitle suggests, into "the freedom to be." .. [from review by reader: G. Merritt:]

Constructive living is an adaptation of the work of Japanese psychiatrist Shoma Morita, M.D. (Morita Therapy) and, to a lesser extent, Yoshimoto Ishin (Naikan) by David K. Reynolds. ...
some of the basic principles of Constructive Living:

Feelings are uncontrollable directly by the will.

You can't simply make yourself feel what you want to feel. You can't make yourself fall in love with someone or feel grateful to someone who has just hurt you. You can't willfully and reliably change your feelings when you're feeling depressed or lonely. While western methods of therapy are intent on changing such feeling states, Constructive Living suggests that it was not possible, nor even desirable. 

Feelings must be recognized and accepted as they are.

Rather than try to fix, transform, ignore or "work through" unpleasant feelings, CL simply advises people to accept their moment to moment feeling states, shifting attention to what can be done to change the situation constructively.

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Fear tells us we may need to protect ourselves. Anxiety helps us prepare more thoroughly. Physical pain tells us we may need medical care. Rather than see feelings as "bad" and "good", Constructive Living suggests that while a feeling might be experienced as unpleasant, it still serves some useful purpose.

The mind not only holds answers to existential questions about ourselves and our world, but it is also key to overcoming the everyday problems of living...

We experience the world through our sensory awareness. All the data we receive from our senses bring about a response in our consciousness.  ...

Buddha believed that the [stimulus-organism-response] interaction is so intimately interconnected that without sensory stimuli to be aware of there is no consciousness or response. Consciousness is always consciousness of something...

Early Buddhism proposed a theory of motivation that helped to explain how people become unhappy in their lives.

As Gordon Allport, a famous psychologist, once said, "Motivation is the 'go' of personality."  In a sense, Buddha would have agreed.

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We desire pleasant sensations to continue and unpleasant ones to stop. These desires bring about a desiring state of mind, which leads to grasping after things to satisfy the desire, creating a grasping state of mind.

Such thoughts can lead us into difficulty. False beliefs and assumptions create states of mind that bias and limit our perception.

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We try to teach in a way that combines intuitively the best of the Vipassana orientation with the most accessible and least cryptic of the Zen energy. The combination is quite wonderful.

We use the breath as a major focus of awareness, and then we integrate it with a range of different experiences. ...

We're trying to cultivate calmness and concentration in a context of clarity, perception, and mindfulness. ...

The two fundamental things that most people get out of the program, independent of symptom reduction, are these. First, the breath is an ally and can be used to calm down and see more clearly.

The other, related discovery, is that you are not the content of your thoughts. You don't have to believe them or react to them. That's incredibly liberating.

Jon Kabat-Zinn  - one of the earliest students of Zen Master Seung Sahn and a founding member of Cambridge Zen Center. .. 

His book Full Catastrophe Living was a NYTimes bestseller.

I think it's for each one of us to find our own way, to find our own expression, to find how we can best express ourselves. You don't have to follow in anybody's footsteps or imitate anyone else. Just realize your own voice, your own mind, and express that.

I would just say, whatever you are, just be that and express that totally and freely. It isn't for us to determine it ahead of time, or to try to force ourselves into some particular idea we might have.

Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear. When I was first married, my husband said I was one of the bravest people he knew. When I asked him why, he said because I was a complete coward but went ahead and did things anyhow. ...Pema Chodron

**When Things Fall Apart...../  Pema Chodron is Resident Teacher at Gampo Abbey

[Publisher's Weekly:] Bennett-Goleman, a psychotherapist and longtime student of Buddhist meditation, draws on decades of experience to elucidate how Buddhist practices of non-judgmental awareness or mindfulness and the cultivation of compassion can unclasp the grip of the most addictive and deeply entrenched emotional patterns.

Tara Bennett-Goleman: I think people want to feel empowered through their own inner resources, not to exclude the importance of support from others. Learning that there are tools of awareness that can free the mind is incredibly liberating for people. ... Awareness itself can be transforming - it's not necessary to think of mindfulness as this spiritual, esoteric thing. It helps you deepen the natural qualities of your mind...  ...[quotes from book site emotionalalchemy.com]