The Mindfulness Summit

Rock on Mike, well said!

 

Walt,
Excellent idea. The key is daily
practice

I am having some issues also. here are some links i got today. -1- make sure you signed up for the 31 day challenge. Then check this out . I got it via Email today

You can tune into the summit now by choosing one of these 3 options (read this carefully):
1. If you have already created a password and a Free Access Pass in the past 2 days then login with your password here
2. If you have not been able to watch any sessions yet and this is the first time tuning into a talk, then you need to create a Free Access Pass by registering a password here
3. if you have lost your password and have had any troubles with this in the past 2 days go here. We have improved the password reset process.

and here is a link to join the 31 day challenge click here
Matthew

 

BR, I take no offense. We each need to do what is right for us. Are you saying the forum talks are boring or the meditation is boring?
Matthew

 

Hi everyone,

I'm really enjoying this, and I thought that I would gather together some helpful links from the Summit so far. I hate to think that our wonderful Walt is having trouble logging in, and I hope that he finds this information helpful.

You can always get to the current day of the program by going to:
http://themindfulnesssummit.com/live/

It will ask you to register with a username, email, and password. Melli O'Brien, the organizer, seems to be handling emails very responsibly, so I wouldn't hesitate to give her this information. If you have already watched one of the videos, you can click on the orange login link at the bottom to login using the credentials that you set up earlier.

On any given day, you can watch or listen to an interview with that day's interviewee, for free. Interviewees are typically true leaders in the field of mindfulness. Most of the big names in mindfulness seem to be participating.

Once the next day has begun, (at midnight California time) the audio and video from the previous day's lecture is no longer available. As a teacher, I actually like this system because it forces us to start a daily habit of watching the videos. If we happen to miss a video it's not really a problem, because it was free anyway . However, if we want, we can make a donation and receive an all access pass to the recordings for all days. Mellie assures us that the donation will be forwarded to mindfulness -related charities.

Once the next session has started, you can still access the webpage, which has some helpful links about the interviewee for that day. Here are the webpages for the first three days:
http://themindfulnesssummit.com/sessions/mark-williams/
http://themindfulnesssummit.com/sessions/joseph-goldstein/
http://themindfulnesssummit.com/sessions/dan-harris/

Mark Williams, from day one, is a famous mindfulness researcher from Oxford. Joseph Goldstein, from day two is a noted leader in the teaching of mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy in the United States. Dan Harris, from day three, is an anchor for NightLine and the author of a book that is consistently one of the best sellers in my list of mind-body books:
http://www.novelrank.com/user/forestfortreestms

 

BR, yes they are. That said, I have been meditating since 2008. It has been the biggest thing toward my TMS recovery and life changes in general. As Jon Kabat-Zinn says, it is ironic how much effort it takes to do nothing

 

What I am enjoying the most about the summit so far is the way that it reminds me just how much I need mindfulness.

As someone who has his own experience of organizing webinars and recorded interviews, I also liked how Melli organized the first three interviews. Mark Williams, a famous psychological researcher from Oxford, was able to establish scientific credibility in the very first session. He was able to authoritatively speak about the scientific evidence that mindfulness changes lives. His interview is actually still available: http://themindfulnesssummit.com/sessions/mark-williams/ .

What is so special about mindfulness is that while it has a history of literally thousands of years of wisdom tradition there are also thousands of well-designed scientific studies verifying that it changes lives. Whereas Mark Williams is a special authority on the scientific studies, the next interviewee, Joseph Goldstein, is an expert on the wisdom tradition. He has 40 years of studying and teaching mindfulness and Buddhist psychology.

While the first two days brought in experts on the scientific literature and Buddhist philosophy, the third day brought in Dan Harris to talk about his own experiences. Because I love science, I would have thought that I would like Mark Williams the most, but I found that I really liked Dan because I could really relate to him. For someone who is a celebrity, he seemed very down-to-earth. It made me want to get his book:
http://www.amazon.com/10-Happier-Reduced-Self-Help-Actually/dp/B00I8NLVFY

Did anyone else notice that the place that Dan Harris was continuing to study mindfulness was actually the center that Joseph Goldstein set up? Here's Goldstein's Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goldstein

I'm curious, of the talks so far, which ones have others found most interesting?

Incidentally, here is Dan Harris' famous panic attack on live television. It was one of the things that forced him to realize he needed a change in life and therefore was one of the things that brought him to meditate. He has come a long way:

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I'm glad you liked it, Angelic!

I just did the following seven minute meditation by Melli, the woman who conducts all of the interviews and who organized the summit. It was wonderfully relaxing, and I like it because I figure I can always make seven minutes of time for myself.

Click here to download the mp3 audio file

I got the recording from the following page, which contains tips on how to meditate for all 31 days of the summit. She refers to it as the 31 days of mindfulness challenge:
http://themindfulnesssummit.com/31days/

I think it's helpful for those days when there isn't a guided meditation during the interview. If others give it a try, I'd love to hear if you liked it.[/mp3]