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ALOHA ALL:

Hope all’s well with you in these times of the corona virus pandemic.

I am really pleased to announce that we will have our first MINDFUL HAWAII COMMUNITY MEETING, although by ZOOM, since the stay at home order was made in response to the pandemic. Though we are all caught in this common fate, I’m grinning ear to ear at the possibility of at least meeting with you folks on ZOOM.

Please note the time and date in your busy calendars for this community meeting. We will meet via ZOOM at 1:00 PM SATURDAY 11 JULY 2020. The Zoom meeting information is below.

At our meeting, we will have a meditation session and talk by DR. DEAN NELSON, Founder of the Kailua Shambhala Meditation Center. Dean studied under Meditation Master and Spiritual Teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and has written several books, one of which is called “Don’t Waste Pain.” He is working on another one right now and hopes to have it published later this year.

Not long ago the Honolulu Star Advertiser reported that a “New Poll finds Happiness at its lowest in 50 years.” No doubt the corona virus pandemic has ushered into people’s lives much uncertainty and gloom about their futures. The poll also found that more and more people are experiencing increasing loneliness, turning to smoking and drinking more, and losing their tempers more easily.

In this context, and even before the pandemic, interest infinding HAPPINESS has hit an all time high. In line with this upsurge, The New York Times not long ago reported that a class on happiness was interestingly the most popular class at Yale University. Its a popular class that attracts record breaking numbers of students enrolled in any Yale class over the years of its offering. HAPPINESS is embedded in our national constitution making it a national purpose and right for each individual to pursue it.

How does one become HAPPY is an important, perpetual and elusive question. To bring some perspective to this question, I asked Dr. Dean Nelson if he would share with us what he has learned about this over the years. Lucky for us, Dean said ok.

For our upcoming meeting Dean has said “The entire mindfulness path can be looked at as a journey to happiness or joy. You can look through the lens of what motivates us in virtually all of our daily activities as an attempt to find happiness. As the Dalai Lama said ‘The purpose of our lives is to be happy.’ The whole purpose of meditation is to get happier. And in that pursuit, one’s taste buds for what happiness is gets changed, more sophisticated. You become a Connoisseur of Happiness. The book I’ve written is daily play and reminders to enhance happiness in our off cushion lives. The best meditation is the one that gets integrated and positively affects our lives. Mindfulness is obviously not a separate activity from our daily lives. We can allow and remind ourselves to get lighter and happier.”

Dean’s Upcoming book is called “BECOMING A CONNOISSEUR OF HAPPINESS: AN EVERYDAY USER’S GUIDE TO JOY.” He plans to share some practices and thoughts from the book.

Mark your calendars and don’t miss our community meeting. TAKE CARE AND BE WELL.

JIMMY

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Topic: Mindful Hawaii Community Meeting – July 11, 2020
Time: Jul 11, 2020 01:00 PM HawaiiJoin Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8079803726?pwd=aG1iR2VNZlNRZkFTV0IwZk00UWtOUT09
Meeting ID: 807 980 3726
Password: 0000
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