Meditation

Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Donovan, who traveled to India four decades ago to study transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, will be joined by Eddie Vedder, Sheryl Crow, Ben Harper and several others at an April 4 fundraiser in New York for the David Lynch Foundation, which promotes the use of meditation by at-risk youths. The two surviving Beatles, however, are not planning to use the opportunity to come together, a spokeswoman for Starr said Wednesday. "They are doing their own sets," she said.

A Zen-inspired garden marks the entrance of a Mar Vista home designed in the International style and surrounded by stands of bamboo. At the heart of the U-shaped home, which looks out on a lap pool, is a two-story great room with a wet bar, fireplace and clerestory windows. Location: 3571 Grand View Blvd., Los Angeles 90066 Asking price: $2.695 million Year built: 2006 Architect: Ron Godfredsen House size: Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, 4,250 square feet Lot size: 10,804 square feet Features: Floor-to-ceiling glass windows, recessed doors, 40-foot lap pool, guest suite with patio, two fireplaces, skylights, basement, den, media room, office, wine cellar, gym. About the area: Last year, 263 single-family homes sold in the 90066 ZIP Code at a median price of $705,000, according to DataQuick.

A yoga meditation program could reduce depression symptoms and boost mental health, a study finds, and that's not all - it may also show benefits at the cellular level. The study, published recently in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry , involved 49 caregivers ranging in age from 45 to 91 who were taking care of family members with dementia. Caregivers are at risk for high stress levels, often with no outlet or relief, which can lead to health problems. The participants were randomly assigned to two programs: Kundalini yoga Kirtan Kriya meditation or passive relaxation with instrumental music.

We know filmmaker David Lynch for the dark surrealism of "Eraserhead," "Blue Velvet," "Inland Empire" and "Twin Peaks," as well as for his deep, abiding love of coffee. Lynch is also passionate about transcendental meditation, which he first took up "on a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning" in 1973. That passion spawned a book, "Catching the Big Fish," and the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace. Lynch spoke about what TM means for him and why others should try it too. Catch the longer podcast at latimes.com/davidlynch.

Molecular biologist and author Jon Kabat-Zinn was a pioneer in applying the Buddhist concept of mindfulness to Western medicine and secular society. But he doesn't consider himself a Buddhist. "Mindfulness, the heart of Buddhist meditation, is at the core of being able to live life as if it really matters. It has nothing to do with Buddhism. It has to do with freedom," Kabat-Zinn said in a telephone interview from Lexington, Mass. "Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant.

HONOLULU -- Home-based caregivers of ill or elderly family members are under enormous physical and mental stress, but daily meditative yoga may be a simple, effective strategy for maintaining health, according to a study presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn . UCLA researchers Helen Lavretsky and Michael Irwin conducted an eight-week, randomized trial on the effects of meditation exercise on 49 people who...

The brains of experienced meditators appear to be fitter, more disciplined and more "on task" than do the brains of those trying out meditation for the first time. And the differences between the two groups are evident not only during meditation, when brain scans detect a pattern of better control over the wandering mind among experienced meditators, but when the mind is allowed to wander freely. Those insights emerge from a study to be published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which looked at two groups: highly experienced meditators and meditation novices, and compared the operations of the " Default Mode Network " -- a newly identified cluster of brain regions that go to work when our brains appear to be "offline.

Meditation appears to be a powerful way to take away pain -- just a short session is more potent than even morphine, if we’re to believe the headlines -- but let’s take a closer look.  In a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience , meditation rookies reported feeling less pain after meditation training than they had felt before the training. The novice yogis weren’t simply being polite -- scans of their brains backed up their “less-hurt” claims.

Depression increasingly looks to researchers and clinicians like, say, a psychiatric version of bronchitis or a heart attack. Some people come down with a case of it, have it treated (or not), and it goes away. But for a great number of patients, it's a chronic condition that must be treated when it flares. And after depression's acute symptoms subside, many patients need to manage the disease -- to continue with some kind of treatment -- to reduce the likelihood of experiencing repeated bouts of mental suffering.

Although meditation has been described as a reflective mode of thought, a more accurate definition might be a mode of "no thought," not unlike that of an employee at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Our daily worries and chattering minds recede into the background and the pure energy of our own being comes through, letting us experience complete delight in living. Yes, it does share many similarities with an alcoholic stupor, but without the morning-after breath. Even major corporations have integrated stress-reduction programs into their agendas and have found that by introducing meditation-based techniques, production improves, people function more efficiently and Stanley from Accounting swipes 30% fewer office supplies.

A yoga meditation program could reduce depression symptoms and boost mental health, a study finds, and that's not all - it may also show benefits at the cellular level. The study, published recently in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry , involved 49 caregivers ranging in age from 45 to 91 who were taking care of family members with dementia. Caregivers are at risk for high stress levels, often with no outlet or relief, which can lead to health problems. The participants were randomly assigned to two programs: Kundalini yoga Kirtan Kriya meditation or passive relaxation with instrumental music.

Delve more deeply into Bali's cultural side on a 12-day tour that emphasizes drumming, meditation, spiritual ceremonies and more. Tribal Music Tours leads a group of 14 to the Indonesian island on a trip that includes daily guided meditations and daily healing drum circles (drums provided). Guests stay in jungle villas in Ubud where exploration begins by foot to the Monkey Forest and the village. During the trip, participants jam with gamelan masters during a drum workshop, visit drum craftsmen and master healers, take a Balinese dance workshop and experience a men's kecak trance dance by night.

"The past is a foreign country," novelist L.P. Hartley wrote, "they do things differently there. " And those extra bits of time around the holidays - on a long drive to visit relatives or waiting for the holiday meal to cook - are perfect for exploring how things were done differently in time periods far from our own. Stephen Greenblatt's "The Swerve" (W.W. Norton) is a splendidly told chronicle of a 15th century book hunter's incredible discovery in a German monastery - a moldering copy of the ancient Roman poem "On the Nature of Things" by Lucretius - and how that poem's humanistic message inspired new thoughts and swerves in ideas leading to the Renaissance.

The brains of experienced meditators appear to be fitter, more disciplined and more "on task" than do the brains of those trying out meditation for the first time. And the differences between the two groups are evident not only during meditation, when brain scans detect a pattern of better control over the wandering mind among experienced meditators, but when the mind is allowed to wander freely. Those insights emerge from a study to be published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which looked at two groups: highly experienced meditators and meditation novices, and compared the operations of the " Default Mode Network " -- a newly identified cluster of brain regions that go to work when our brains appear to be "offline.

Growing numbers of U.S. hospitals, responding to patient demand, are integrating acupuncture, massage therapy and other alternative services into their conventional medical care, a new national survey shows. Forty-two percent of hospitals in the survey said they offer one or more alternative therapies, including meditation, relaxation training, homeopathy and chiropractic care. That's up from 37% of hospitals that said they offered such medical services in 2007. The alternative options are provided mostly in outpatient settings and come primarily in response to patient requests.

Reporting from San Francisco -- Jonathan Moscone had been building toward this moment for nearly 30 years. His father, Mayor George R. Moscone, was assassinated on Nov. 27, 1978, by former Supervisor Dan White, who sneaked into San Francisco City Hall with a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson and fired four bullets at the mayor — two into his torso and two into his head. On this winter day in 2008, Moscone is on the set of an Oscar-winning film about that tragic moment. The movie is "Milk," the story of White's other victim: Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California and the man who reduced George Moscone to a footnote.

Memoir of a chattering mind . . . Now, I'm a down-to-earth kind of guy, not given to imaginative extra-corporeal explanations for the mysteries of existence. Nonetheless, I don't rule out that human life might have some sort of spiritual component. Accordingly, it seems to me reasonable to explore that which reasonably promises to transcend the din and scramble of everyday life. Meditation, I think, falls into that category.

'Eyes closed, heads down. Focus on your breathing." The men in the sanctuary obediently followed their Buddhist chaplain's command, bowing their cleanly shaven heads and beginning their meditation exercises. A bell chime hung in the air before melting into silence. Most of the men were new to the relaxation technique, seeking to add a little Zen to their lives. But the venue for this course was not a posh studio in Silver Lake or Santa Monica. These men were trying to get in touch with their chi at Men's Central Jail.

Reporting from San Francisco -- There are graphic details of her years as a sex slave, descriptions so unsettling that a judge has refused to make much of Jaycee Lee Dugard's grand jury testimony public. There are chapters dedicated to her life today — a mix of intensive therapy and simple pleasures, of healing from 18 years as a captive and seeing her teenage daughters blossom, finally, in freedom. But while Dugard's memoir "A Stolen Life" chronicles her growth from victim to survivor, from terror to strength, it also is an indictment of the parole system and a meditation on loneliness.

Cheryle and Ernest Chin were anxious about getting home to Australia, and American Airlines wasn't making it easy. The massage therapist and her real estate developer husband had started out three days earlier in Brazil; they were still thousands of miles away, and the shortest flight of their multicontinent odyssey had just been canceled — San Francisco to Los Angeles. Photos: San Francisco International But for two people on a forced seven-hour layover, the Chins looked remarkably relaxed.