This is part of ourRoad Trip 2017 summer series "The Smartest Stuff,"about how innovators are thinking up new ways to make you and the world around you smarter.

I lean back against the gray, microfiber-lined cushions inside an egg-shaped pod, and prop my feet on the matching footrest. Black headphones fit snugly over my ears as a spa concierge taps on a Samsung tablet mounted beside me.

"This meditation dome is your personal retreat," the screen reads. "It is a space to calm your senses, relieve stress and align your mind and body."

Exactly what I need.

The concierge lowers an illuminated white dome over my body, making me feel like I'm inside a cocoon. I can see my feet peeking out from under the pod, warding off any sense of claustrophobia. The dome is bathed in a soft light from the LEDs, which glow bright green (a color that "stimulates inner peace," according to the brochure).

A woman's soothing voice tells me to close my eyes. "Take the brief pause we all need to live our most meaningful lives," the voice says through my headphones. "Your body and mind need different things every day, and that undefinable part of yourself will respond in turn. So take this time, just for you, and breathe. Welcome to your journey to the present."

For the next 20 minutes, all I have to do is relax. This may be the best assignment I've ever had.

The author tries out a Somadome, where dark blue light eases stress. It seems to be working.

I'm at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, about 33 miles from Santa Barbara, California, and I'm sitting in a Somadome. This "personal meditation pod" combines color therapy, binaural beats (using sound to influence mood) and special energy healing tiles to help people bliss out.

Yep, it's a high-tech machine that helps people shed stress that's too often brought on by a nonstop diet of emails, texts, tweets and world events. All our tech is freaking us out.

The result is that most Americans me included are feeling stressed, according to the American Psychological Association's anxiety meter, which has been surveying the population's stress levels since 2007. More than four out of five US adults constantly or often check their email, texts and social media accounts, says the APA, adding "this attachment to devices and the constant use of technology is associated with higher stress levels for these Americans."

We can't help ourselves. That's because every time we post, share, "like" a comment or look for something on our phones, we get a sense of reward that keeps us coming back for more. This feeling triggers our brains to release dopamine, the same chemical that causes us to crave food, sex and drugs. Dopamine is at its most stimulating when the rewards come at unpredictable times, such as phone alerts, social media likes and texts.

"Really, we're still cave people," says Martin Talks, founder of the Digital Detoxing consultancy and author of the book, "A to Z of Digital Detoxing."

What do you want to do today? Somadome offers 20 different sessions, depending on your goal. Some are guided, while others simply have calming sounds like waves and pulsing binaural beats.

"When there's an alert, I must see it. It literally becomes a matter of life or death because people can't resist looking at it, [even] while driving a car."

Meditation the 5,000-year-old practice of shutting out the mental noise rattling in our heads can help. Studies show it may lower blood pressure, improve heart rate and reduce anxiety. Researchers at Harvard University found that meditation can rebuild gray matter in the hippocampus part of the brain associated with learning, memory, compassion and self-awareness in just eight weeks. Cancer patients say it makes treatment more bearable.

"There's something really powerful about just being in your own little world for a minute," Sarah Attia, the CEO and creator of Somadome, tells me before I visit Ojai.

When my mother, who was diagnosed with breast cancer almost two years ago, told me she found meditation to be calming, I wondered if it could help me too. But the question was how to get my brain and gadgets to shut off long enough to actually de-stress. Just thinking about feeling less stressed makes me more tense. Could technology actually calm me down instead of being the conduit to my stress?

So began my "journey to the present."

I stand very still in the dimly lit treatment room, arms raised slightly as a woman waves a piece of burning sage around me. The scent wafts through the air, calming me even as my brain tries to process what the heck is going on.

I'm being smudged.

This is the first step in Ojai's Sound Energy Therapy treatment. "Smudging is just clearing the energetic fields of you, of me, of the room," says Susan Wichmann, the bodyworker and healer conducting my session.

I lie down on a massage table, close my eyes and slow my breathing. The sound of wind chimes echoes softly in the room. The next thing I know, I'm jolted awake by a feeling of vibrations on my abdomen. I had dozed off somewhere between the wind chimes and vibrating Tibetan bowls placed on different parts of my body where my energy was "stuck." Wichmann says her techniques get my energy moving again.

Chris Fortin, Zen priest

"I'm just kind of told where to go," she says after the treatment. "Just see how you're feeling physically, mentally, spiritually over the next few days, and see if you notice anything. Some people don't notice a thing. Some have profound transformations."

I'm still waiting to figure it out.

Energy healing, which has deep roots in Eastern medicine, is based on the belief that the human body exudes energies that affect our mental and physical health. The Somadome produces its energy therapy through microcrystalline tiles. (Bear with me. It's hard to explain some of this stuff while skirting less-scientific topics like Chi, Chakra balancing and aura cleansing.)

Shhh! No one wants to be bothered by loud phone calls, smoking or "disquieting conversation" while at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa in Southern California.

More specifically, the Somadome uses so-called Biosyntonie ceramic discs that, according to proponents, block harmful electromagnetic frequencies from phones and other electronics, and "increase energy through the restoration of the normal vortex waves." I'm not making this up.

While there's no scientific evidence to support that claim, I can tell you I'm relaxed as heck while I'm in the meditation pod, although I suspect its light and sound therapy also have a lot to do with that.

Some historians claim sound therapy goes back 40,000 years, when the Aboriginal people of Australia first used ancient didgeridoos to mend bones and heal illnesses. And for centuries, Tibetan monks have used singing bowls to help them enter meditative states. More recently, the British Academy of Sound Therapy (yes, really) claims 95 percent of its clients felt calmer following treatment.

In the Somadome's case, we're talking binaural beats, which Dr. Gerald Oster first described in his 1973 paper in Scientific American called "Auditory Beats in the Brain." Oster found that when the right and left ears hear sounds at different frequencies, the brain produces a third, inaudible beat that can produce five different brainwave states.

Sarah Attia, Somadome

Depending on the brainwave's frequency, your brain marches to a beat that can, for instance, hone cognition (gamma waves), increase concentration (beta), boost creativity (alpha), speed up learning (theta) and help you relax and heal (delta). If you have an important project coming up, you'll want something that triggers gamma or beta waves. Want to really relax? Then delta's the brainwave for you.

"If I want to be more creative, I listen to alpha," says Kelly Howell, the mindfulness expert who voiced the soothing guided meditations in my ear. "If I have trouble sleeping, I tune into delta."

Light therapy is a big part of the experience, too. Somadome cites research that says light helps regulate the autonomic nervous system, which controls bodily functions like breathing, heart rate and digestion.

Each Somadome session (it's $45 for my 20-minutes in Ojai) begins and ends with white light, to "promote balance, increase harmony and contribute to overall healing." Violet contributes to "spiritual insights" and boosts immunity. Green stimulates "inner peace" and strengthens the nervous system. Dark blue eases stress while turquoise "improves intuition and sensitivity."

A 20-minute session with something like a Somadome is great. But what to do on a daily basis? Sure, you can go on retreat vacations at the beach, tickets to a football game, or a night in binge watching Netflix. Or maybe take the occasional mental health day off from work.

It turns out, there are plenty of iOS and Android apps and gadgets to ease anxiety and help us relax. Apple -- with its free Apple Watch app called Breathe wants you to remember to, well, breathe. Biofeedback apps usually rely on wearables or other sensors that detect things like our temperature, respiratory rates and heart rates and then suggest ways you can chill. Unyte's biofeedback hardware (currently $219 on Indiegogo) clips to your ear, while Muse is a $249 headband that monitors your brain's electrical activity.

Of course, contemplating the beauties of nature can help you relax, too.

"People meditating typically don't know if they're in a meditative state or not," says Unyte CEO Jason Tafler. "But it helps to know."

Biofeedback uses several kinds of exercises, including deep breathing, guided imagery, tightening and then relaxing different muscle groups, and mindful meditation (focusing all your thoughts on your abdominal muscles as you breathe in and out, for instance).

"This is a brand new idea that's 2,500 years old," jokes Richard Gevirtz, a psychologist, biofeedback expert and adviser to technology companies, including Unyte. When you inhale for about four seconds and exhale for six, you can change your heart rate and improve your mental and physical state, his research has found. "Clinically, we've seen if you [do this for] 10 minutes a day, you have some powerful changes in your body over the course of six weeks," Gevirtz says.

Dr. John Denninger, a psychiatrist and director of research at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, sees both pros and cons to mobile apps and gadgets.

"If [high-tech devices] get people who wouldn't even think about doing this to do some breathing exercises for even a minute a day, then that's progress," says Denninger, who's investigating the medical benefits of stress-reduction techniques like yoga or meditation. But "one thing I worry about with devices is they could just be a distraction."

The instructions say to "meet at the yurt," most definitely the first time I've been told that. It's another line in the description that really makes my heart race, though: "Please note there is no cell phone reception at Green Gulch."

Richard Gevirtz, biofeedback expert

I've signed up for an all-day meditation retreat through the San Francisco Zen Center at the Green Gulch Farm near Muir Beach, a 45-minute drive north of the city. I've come to the sunnier side of the Golden Gate Bridge many times, but today I'm trying something new: Buddhist meditation. In a yurt. In this case, it's a round, red structure surrounded by a faded wooden deck and fragrant bay laurel trees.

I'm greeted at said yurt by Chris Fortin, a licensed psychotherapist and spiritual counselor who's also the Zen priest and teacher leading today's meditations.

"I'm as addicted as anybody to my phone," Fortin tells me. "But these cell phones are fairly new devices. I just feel like there's a deep need in the world right now, where people can come together where it's safe, where we can speak about what's true beyond sound bites."

We're just 15 women sitting silently in a circle some on the floor, some in chairs with our eyes closed and hands clasped against our chests for zazen (sitting meditation). Sometimes we walk very slowly and deliberately through the woods and gardens surrounding the yurt. That's kinhin meditation. The silence is broken only by the occasional bird call and the plunking of seeds as they fall from the trees.

"The world is pretty crazy," Fortin tells me. "We need all the help we can get."

I agree. We do need all the help we can get, which is why I'm ready to climb into the Somadome again.

I'm feeling so calm, I barely even notice the photographer snapping shots of my feet or the tech workers running on treadmills outside the room. I'm in a Somadome at the health and wellness center in Adobe's headquarters in San Jose, California. The software maker has owned one of the pods since January 2016 and plans to buy a second for its San Francisco offices.

Employees can sign up for free sessions throughout the day or just show up to see if the Somadome is available. It rarely is. "We have a steady 85 percent booking [rate] on it," says Kris Herrera, Adobe's global site operations strategy manager. "When we put it in, our target was 35 percent. It's been so well received."

The Somadome uses sound, color and energy therapies to help relieve stress often brought on by too much tech. In light therapy, violet "contributes to spiritual insights" and boosts immunity.

Adobe's not the only high-tech company that sees the benefits of meditation. Others include Google, Facebook and Apple, whose co-founder Steve Jobs famously embraced Zen meditation and spent time at an Indian ashram. (So did Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.) Google launched a "Search Inside Yourself" course to help employees learn mindfulness meditation, and now runs the group as a nonprofit, the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, to teach techniques to individuals and other companies.

Mindfulness is also gaining popularity in traditional medicine and becoming a component of fitness centers. Somadome is working with Equinox to bring the dome to the high-end fitness club, and Planet Fitness plans to test out the machine. The Four Seasons in Westlake, California, has one installed in its California Health & Longevity wellness facility, which its clinical psychologists can recommend it as part of patient therapy. Right now, there are 20 Somadomes in the world.

Dr. Leasa Lowy, an OB-GYN and bariatric physician who runs the 360 ME medical, weight and lifestyle clinic in the Portland, Oregon, area, found out about Somadome through her daughter, a competitive tennis player who was training at the Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, California, which also has one of the machines. She bought two of them six months ago. The machine costs $14,500, plus $100 for monthly maintenance and content fees.

Lowy plans to conduct medical research with Somadome to track its impact on patients. So far, she's encouraged by the anecdotal evidence.

One patient bikes to Lowy's office to use Somadome before work four days a week because she says it clears her mind and helps her plan her day. Two others who work night shifts use Somadome whenever their hours change and they need to adjust.

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"The most skeptical person, you can put in there and they see it," Lowy says. "You're going to sit quietly for 20 minutes and have an adult time out. Who wouldn't want that?"

Somadome has big ambitions. It's working on a way to mass-produce its dome and refine the machine to include more sensors and possibly incorporate facial recognition technology "so users can get direct feedback about how their session is affecting them," says Cooper Lee, Somadome's technologist.

It's also building a smartphone app that helps you find and book sessions nearby. The Somadome will know who you are when you arrive, and the app will be able to make recommendations for which session you should take based on your age, sex, the type of work you do and what you're trying to accomplish. You'll also be able to use heart rate monitors or wearables like Fitbit to track what happens to your body in and after using Somadome and save all of that data in the app.

"The idea is to use Somadome as a place where people can both take a session that's curated or specifically aimed at their goal, as well as give them feedback," says Gilles Attia, a technology attorney who also partnered with his daughter, Sarah, to bring Somadome to market.

Back at Ojai, I try "Manifest" for my first session, which aims to give me "a renewed sense of peace and guidance" by talking about "the law of attraction and the connectedness of our universe." It's best used "when starting a journey or setting your intentions," the description says. The dome turns a soft violet as Howell's voice tells me to "concentrate on harmony."

I hear birds chirping and Howell's voice telling me all is right with the world. I'm told to repeat phrases like, "I know that I am one with the Universal Mind."

The next day, I opt for "Heal," another guided session that's part of Somadome's physical wellness track. This one uses "delta to release HGH [human growth hormone], which helps to accelerate healing, boost your immune system, and support well-being." I'm told it's "best used when you feel misaligned or have ailments." Considering I'm in physical therapy for typing-related nerve damage, I figure I'll give it a shot.

Dr. Leasa Lowy

After a while, I don't have to focus as much to steadily breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. I feel my shoulders relax and my muscles loosen. I have no way to track the time, and the best thing is I don't even care. I simply breathe.

Did I achieve my goal of getting my mind to stop wandering? No, but that's OK.

"You have to go past the idea of meditation being about clearing your mind," says Cory Muscara a meditation expert who runs his own clinic in Long Island, New York, and teaches mindfulness at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

"You're setting yourself up for failure with that mentality," he says. "I spent six months, 14 hours a day in meditation [with Buddhist monks in Myanmar]. The longest I went without a thought was maybe 48 seconds or a minute."

Eventually, three bells chime. I feel like I could stay in the Somadome for hours.

I don't know if the sessions actually improved my ability to meditate or if I'll see any lasting effects. I don't know if the studies will show real scientific benefits from the energy tiles and other therapies, or if they'll prove to be snake oil. And I don't know if the machines will eventually be found outside of fancy spas and clinics.

What I do know is I feel pretty damn relaxed.

Road Trip 2016: Reporters' dispatches from the field on tech's role in the global refugee crisis.

Road Trip 2015:CNET hunts for innovation outside the Silicon Valley bubble.

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High tech meditation pod relieves stress caused by tech - CNET - CNET

Before you meditate, you must surrender your iPhone. At least thats what a couple of serene young women tell me when I walk into Unplug Meditation, an airy Los Angeles studio with inspirational slogans on the walls. (Keep Going! Live the Life You Love!)

Im here for a 45-minute class called Inner Peace, which promises to teach me the basicsof deep mindfulness, making me calmer, more productive, more focused, and more joyful. After passing through the gift shop, which peddles crystals, aromatherapy eye pillows, and Bad Spirit Remover candles, I settle into a black faux-leather floor seat. Violet lights beam down on a couple of dozen people, from spandexed millennials to graying businessmen. Its like a yoga studio without the yoga.

Thoughts can make us sick or they can empower us, says Sherly Sulaiman, a hypnotherapist with an Australian accent, who sits on a dais. We want them to empower us, right? She instructs us to lift an index finger every time a thought arises. Remember, you are not the thought. You are aware of your thoughts. Spa music wafts from the speakers as index fingers tap out a frantic Morse code. A truck horn blares. Eventually, a bell rings. Ill be outside, says Sulaiman, if you want to ask a question or shareor if you just want a healing hug.

A new breed of upscale meditation studios, which package contemplative practices into 30-to-60-minute classes for about $20 a pop, are spreading across the country. Designed for the affluent mainstream, the hip spaces offer diverse services, including private sessions for about $150 and five-day, $300 mindfulness summer camps for teens. At Inscape, which opened in New York City in November, meditators loll in beanbag chairs under a sailcloth and bamboo dome; at a Los Angeles studio called the Den Meditation, the wellness crowd attend classes like Lunchtime Detox and Candlelight Relax. Following the trajectory of yoga, these for-profit centers have opened in cities from Miami to Calgary.

Im the gateway drug, says Suze Yalof Schwartz, the founder of Unplug and a former Glamour editor. Schwartz floats about the studio, greeting customers with frenetic exuberance. People who would never meditate are now practicing, because were meditation lite. Unplug plans to open two more locationsin Los Angeles and San Franciscoover the next year, and the brands app has users in 37 countries. Its the Netflix of meditation, says Schwartz, beaming.

Meditation, you may have noticed, is becoming as ubiquitous as Starbucks. Studies suggest that it can improve concentration and working memory, lower blood pressure, and even boost immune-system functioning, among many other benefits. Nearly 1,000 apps, such as Headspace and Calm, promise to help you find inner stillness in a now $1.1 billion meditation and mindfulness industry, which includes therapy, classes, retreats, and other services. This swift commercialization is alarming some longtime teachers, who worry that the new studios present an attractive but diluted version of spiritual practices.

Secularized mindfulness programs are like an industrial approach to meditation, says Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey, a teacher at Vipassana Hawaii, a nonprofit Buddhist organization that offers weekly meditation as well as multi-day retreats on the Big Island. Theyve turned it into a commodity and replaced its foundations of generosity and morality with promises of productivity and effectivenesshigher test scores, more effective soldiers, greater wealth, more power.

Others compare selling meditation to bottling water: it makes some people rich while commercializing an abundant resource. But arguably the biggest concern is whether these for-profit centers instructors can support the full range of emotional experiences that practitioners encounter. In some spiritual traditions, becoming a teacher can require more than a decade of serious study. Some of the new studios require as little as 100 hours of training.

According to the guidelines for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, an eight-week intensive program, some practitioners may find that negative emotions worsen before they improve. This is simply because of heightened awareness. Willoughby Britton, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University who studies challenging meditation experiences, suggests seeking out teachers with meditation-instructor training and at least three years of personal practice. But the onus is also on the studios.

It would be easy to dismiss the trend as superficial, but as with exercise, many people are more likely to develop beneficial habits with the help of guided sessions. Its like going to a fitness class for the mind, says Stefanie Seifer, an actor and filmmaker who visits the Den several times a week. Sometimes its hard to practice on your own. I knew how to meditate before; I just didnt do it. But does marketing meditation as a feel-good cure-all set people up for frustration? After all, on any given day the practice can range from blissful to exasperating.

Nobody here pretends you walk in and its magic, says Tal Rabinowitz, founder of the Den. You still have to do it, and we are here to guide you. Like anything, it takes practice and time.

Jack Kornfield, one of the first Buddhist teachers to bring mindfulness to the West, is not particularly worried. Contemplative practices have taken many different forms in Asian cultures for centuries, he explains, and these new studios will survive only if people find them beneficial.

I see it as an offering that serves people where they are, and thats the point, he says. A certain number will know intuitively that much greater depths are possible. But the fact that anybody goes in and takes 20 or 30 minutes to quiet their mind and tend to their body and listen to their hearthallelujah.

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The Pricey New World of Meditation - Outside Magazine

TO THE NEW OWNERS: A Memoir of Martha's Vineyard. By Madeleine Blais. Atlantic Monthly Press. 288 pages. $26.

It's the human face of Martha's Vineyard, not the place itself, that entices in Madeleine Blais' charming, elegiac account of summers spent on its shores.

Blais, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose In These Girls, Hope is a Miracle was a finalist for the National Book Award, married into a socially and politically prominent family that spent summers simply but well on the Vineyard. Sidestepping an unseemly Lament of the One Percent regarding the 2014 sale of the Katzenbachs' long-time island retreat, her account of that family's history (and the island's) lends the mystique of Martha's Vineyard a more grounded view.

The summer home on Thumb Point, built in 1976, rested in a setting of blue gold water on three sides but with no heat, no phone and no TV. Rebuilt in 1978 with a few more amenities, simplicity remained the watchword. For its generations of inhabitants and many guests, the lifestyle meant a steady diet of lassitude and self-direction raised to an art form. Not to say there weren't plenty of activities. After a few days you became a happy animal, scampering barefoot, feral, and fortified, writes the author, currently a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

After providing capsule personal histories of the principal players, all of whom lived by language and shared a passion for social justice, Blais recounts how she and her husband happened upon the happy idea of using old-style ship's log books to record their summers, the minute details and larger themes. There is some excellent writing here, but also some rather mundane material from the logs kept by family members throughout their years at the Point.

But Blais also engages the reader with peripheral stories of how Chappaquiddick and the movie Jaws initiated the transformation of the island from a well-kept secret into a celebrity playground, some of it gated and closed off, with a regrettable invasion of McMansions. The Old Vineyard now exists as a kind of misty-eyed platonic ideal of Kindly Year-Rounders and Grateful Summer Guests coexisting in perfect harmony with a minimum of traffic and a plenitude of just-caught fish.

In her memoir, augmented by recollections from her husband and other island denizens, the Vineyard remains endearingly quaint, though not without a measure of snob appeal, which Blais gamely dissects, along with the island hierarchy and its sometimes inexplicable codes of conduct. The island sometimes feels like a club with secret rules that no one appears all that eager to share.

She also explores the gradual process of racial integration on the Vineyard.

Like any seemingly idyllic place, there are troubles beneath the island's veneer, and a clear-cut difference between the outlooks of full-time vs. summer residents, much less the tourist hordes that arrive by ferry.

Apart from its compelling personal portraits, the book benefits from much gentle humor, a compensatory sweetness, and a touching coda. There are also resonant bits of wisdom, such as Blais' meditation on an evening party: I looked around that night and realized that at certain signal moments the people you gather and the place where they assemble can be in and of itself a work of art, as real as any painting in a museum.

And at least as sustaining.

Reviewer Bill Thompson is a freelance writer and editor based in Charleston.

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Review: 'To the New Owners' a meditation on the character of Martha's Vineyard - Charleston Post Courier

William Parker, Bronx-born bassist-composer extraordinaire, is one of the few jazz musicians who came up through the avant-garde (making his first big marks as a sideman to Cecil Taylor and David S. Ware) yet manages to fuse its techniques and innovations with standard rhythms, a sense of blues that might have wafted up from the Delta, a dash of wit, and a seemingly effortless swing.

His new two-CD album, Meditation / Resurrection (on the AUM Fidelity label), was recorded in the course of a single day last October, at Brooklyn's System Two Studio by Michael Marciano, who also mixed it live, to give it the feel of a spontaneous set at a club.

Or, rather, two sets, as the two discs feature slightly different quartets: Parker's regular bandmates, alto saxophonist Rob Brown and drummer Hamid Drake, joined, on Disc 1, by trumpeter Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson and, on Disc 1, by pianist Cooper-Mooreboth of them wide-ranging musicians, steeped in the avant-garde but also composers for theater, who have collaborated with Parker in the past.

The first disc has more robust rhythmsmost of its seven tracks are danceablewhile the second disc jets more adventurously. None of the music is chaotic or atonal; this is riveting, complex, but melodic jazz, deeply rooted in the fundamentals even while skywriting.

I first heard Parker in 1984 on the violinist Billy Bang's The Fire from Within, one of the startling great albums from that period, and it was no surprise when I learned that he'd studied under Jimmy Garrison (Coltrane's great bassist) and Richard Davis (who played with Eric Dolphy and Andrew Hill). I stumbled across his great percussionist, Hamid Drake, around the same time, on some of saxophonist Fred Anderson's recordings. Like Anderson, Drake was born in Louisiana, moved as a child to the Chicago area, and gravitated to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the collective that produced Lester Bowie, Henry Threadgill, and many other pioneers. You hear all those traditions in Drake's percussion styles (on trap set and various hand drums), including many othersmainly from Africa and the Caribbeanthat he's intensely studied on his own.

These are all musicians who should be better known but seem not to care very much that they're not. (I might be wrong about this; I don't know any of them personally.) They carve their own paths, thrive in their own communities. Parker, who is also a poet and plays various African instruments, has been organizing the annual Vision Festival on Manhattan's Lower East Side for the last 20 years.

If you want to go all-out, I'd recommend his eight-CD set, Wood Flute Songs (if you can find it, and it's worth the hunt), a collection of live performances, with various ensembles, from 20062012. (If you want to sample a bit, start with "Groove #7" on Disc 1.) Brief clips from various albums can be heard on AUM Fidelity's website (click on Artists, then William Parker). But Meditation / Resurrection is an excellent pool for a waist-high jump in. And the live-mix sound is very good: crisp, warm, and present.

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William Parker Quartets, Meditation / Resurrection - Stereophile Magazine

Some people forcibly hold their breath to increase lung capacity or athletic stamina. Others, to achieve a state of light-headedness.

But playing with consciousness doesn't bode well near water, experts said.Two recent drowning deaths in the Sacramento area have been traced to submerged meditating and breathing practices .

On July 18, Sacramento yoga instructor Aaron Pappas was practicing something called the Wim Hof breathing technique. He was holding his breath and trying to hyperventilate because it relaxed him,his girlfriend Sarah Estabrook said.

When she last saw him alive, he was sitting in a pool at Asha Urban Baths with his head and shoulders above water. He lost consciousness and drowned while performing the breathing practice, she said. He died in the hospital on July 23.

Earlier this summerYoav Timmer, 33, died while meditating face down in the Yuba River.

Rich Hanna, assistant director of parks and recreation for the city of Santa Barbara, said people who challenge themselves to breath-holding often don't realize they're in trouble until it's too late.

Hanna pushed to ban breath-holding in public pools after a young swimmer died during training a few years ago.

Theyre just kind of in this state of...euphoria or whatever," he said. "Theres some changes in their system and they don't recognize they're in danger. They basically just go unconscious in the water and pass out."

Karen Wilkinson, a yoga instructor and friend of Pappas, said he had a tendency to get extreme with his practice.

"He was always pushing the envelope, mediating for longer, trying to reach a state of consciousness that he couldnt reach just in his daily life," she said.

"My heart breaks for Aaron, his family and friends, as well as the whole community he's contributed so much to," said Asha Urban Baths owner Cori Martinez. "My prayers are with everyone who feels the loss of his passing."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends against what they call Dangerous Underwater Breath-holding Behavior.

The creators of the Wim Hof method urge practitioners to never try the breathing technique in or near water.

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Breath-holding, Meditation Leads To Two Drowning Deaths ... - Capital Public Radio News

Photo: Michael Cummo / Hearst Connecticut Media

Greenwich native to host free meditation event

Greenwich native Julio Rivera may have stepped away from software engineering to forge a new career path and lifestyle, but traces of his tech background remain in his navigation of the entrepreneurial landscape.

After realizing his original concept to host mindfulness events in New York City under his brand Zen Compass wasnt best suited to his skills and goals, he pivoted. He dropped the vowels mostly made a new website and refined his strategy. I realized I didnt want to do event production, Rivera said of Zen Compass. Ive been playing with this idea for a couple months and now Im forming more of an online community.

Under the name ZnCo, Rivera still plans to host events, but theyll be smaller, more intimate and he will lead the meditation and mindfulness practices.

In addition, ZnCo will be grounded in holding online events that people can attend virtually. Im reaching out to teachers from around the country to lead practices and people will be able to learn meditation from them at their convenience, Rivera said. I want to make teachers more accessible to people anywhere.

His intentions for Zen Compass were always rooted in forming a supportive community for people to learn about meditation and encourage each other in their practices. After holding several events around New York City, he realized an online community may serve this purpose better since location will no longer limit attendance, he said.

To launch his restructured community, Rivera is planning a Meditation and Mindfulness event at the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich on Aug. 10. Im planning on using this as a way to gauge interest from people around here in ZnCo, he said. The event will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. with refreshments at the beginning and question and answer period about meditation included. These sorts of events and the online ones are free for now, Rivera said, as hes focusing on creating value with his brand first.

Hes working with several Greenwich businesses that promote a healthy lifestyle on potentially sponsoring his kickoff event, he said.

I know there will be some hiccups as I learn what Im doing as I go, he said. But I think Ive got it now.

Contact the writer at mbennett@greenwichtime.com; Twitter@Macaela_

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Greenwich native to host free meditation event - Greenwich Time

What exactly is a mantra, you ask?

Its a word or phrase repeated over and over again during meditation.

But using mantras for meditation involves a lot more than just sounding like a broken record. Theyre generally sacred in nature a name or sound that both uplifts you and helps you keep your focus during meditation. In other words, theyre designed to change you.

A long time ago...

The thing about mantras for meditation, is that they give your brain something to do. Yes, spiritual mantras are meant to transform you just by uttering them again and again, but theres a lot to be said for saying something just to keep nonsense babble at bay.

And speaking of nonsense babble, rather than just giving you some meaningless drivel like my shoes are green, or I love pickled herring, (which, for keeping your mind busy during meditation, does have its benefits. But lets face it, this is broken record material and nothing more).

Here are some tried and true mantras to help you use meditation for transformation.

An oldie but a goodie, you really cant mess this one up too badly. The Om is the sacred sound of Hinduism and is said to mean, variously: It Is, Will Be or To Become.

Rhis ones from Tibet and it means, roughly, Hail the Jewel in the Lotus. The jewel in this case is the Buddha of Compassion.

Homage to the Buddha of boundless light.

This is one of the Hebrew Torahs most famous lines, and it was Gods answer to Moses when Moses asked for his name.

The Hindu variant, meaning I am THAT.

Hooponopono (Hawaiian) Mantra.

It all started with the ancient Hindus, but the use of mantras for meditation has since spread mostly through the Far East among Buddhists, Taosts, Sikhs and others. Today, Western peeps on a spiritual path also create mantras.

Many of them seem more like affirmations, but the ones that are short-n-sweet still work nicely for that all-important transformative effect.

Read more from the original source:

These Are The 10 Most Exciting Mantras For Meditation

There are two indisputable facts about high-intensity interval training: First, it's incredibly good for you, offering more health benefits in a shorter time frame than any other exercise. Second, it sucks. To see those big gains you have to really push yourself, which is kind of the point, sure. But it can be painfula reality that puts a lot of people off these kinds of hard-core workouts. According to a new study published in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement, there's a mental trick that can help your HIIT workouts feel better in the moment and help you stay inspired to keep coming to class and commit to this style of exercise.

Researchers took 100 college football players for a month during their peak pre-season trainingthe period when they were doing the most and toughest high-intensity workoutsand offered half of them mindfulness and meditation training while the other half got relaxation training. They then measured the players' cognitive functions and emotional well-being before and after workouts. Both groups showed improvements over players who didn't do any type of active mental rest, but the mindfulness group showed the greatest benefits, increasing their ability to stay focused during the high-demand intervals. In addition, both groups reported less anxiety and more positive emotions about their workoutsan impressive takeaway considering athletes at this level can certainly experience burnout from all the training.

There is one important trick to note, however: The players had to consistently practice the mental exercises to see the benefits in their physical exercises. So basically, one session of mediation isn't going to cut it. The players who saw the most improvement practiced meditation nearly every day over the four-week study period. And the most powerful effect was seen in players who practiced both meditation and relaxation exercises. The more they did them, the less stressful their workouts felt and the happier they felt afterward. Not only that, but they felt happier about their lives overall, showing the importance of mental rest and control for not just HIIT workouts, but for general and overall well-being.

"Just as physical exercise must be performed with regularity to train the body for performance success, mental exercises must be practiced with regularity to benefit the athlete's attention and well-being," the researchers concluded in their paper.

The best part? This is one of those tricks that can work just as well for regular athletes (yes, YOU are an athlete) as it does for collegiate sports starsand you don't have to figure it out on your own. For a complete course, try out one of the new classes popping up around the country that incorporate both HIIT workouts and meditation. Or for a simpler method, try using music to focus your mind away from the pain during a HIIT workout. Never meditated before? Try this 20-minute guided meditation for beginners. Whether on your own, in a class, or with an audio guide, just make sure you do it regularly. You'll be surprised just how much you can actually enjoy burpees.

The rest is here:

The Secret to Crushing a HIIT Workout Is Meditation - Shape Magazine

Its become a common conception that during meditation practice you are somehow supposed to stop thinking.

False.

The mind is a thinking machine, a problem solver, and its a tool just doing what it was brilliantly designed to do. The minds only doing its thing so good luck with ever trying to shut it off completely as this may require getting a full lobotomy.

If during meditation your primary focus becomes controlling the mind and preventing its attempts to think, ironically youve actually only caused the mind to think even more because now youve just given the mind a problem it believes it needs to solve. So if what Ive described is acommon, reoccurring dilemma for you, I highly suggest instead of the whole non-thinking approach you try something different and that beingallowing the mind to be and just do what it was designed to do.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with thinking and the thoughts you have are not the problem either.

The real issue lies in your inability to choose and believe one thought you have over another. For its the thoughts you choose to attach to that become the prominent stories you tell yourself and formulate the belief structures that construct who you think you are, why you feel the way you do, and your general overview on life and how you perceive everything and everyone else in it. And be honest, some of these stories youve attached to and sold yourself as true, hands-over-fist, are downright destructive to your well-being more than others.

Meditations primary purpose is simply practicing to detach from your thoughts and learning to play the role of the observer.

Through observing the mind we are able to see firsthand the stories, methods, and patterns the mind uses to manipulate the perceptions we hold about ourselves, other people, situations, and events. By learning the minds tactics, we can then apply this knowledge outside of meditation and into our daily lives after now clearly being able to differentiate and separate ourselves from the false notion that somehow we are slaves to its neurotic antics.

In other words, meditation is a practice allowing you to become quite skilled in deciphering when its just your mind doing its thing, and possibly more importantly, meditation gives you the priceless insight that whatever the mind is doing is outside of what you are, and with this knowledge you can quickly detach and release from any story that may cause you pain.

The result is that life gradually becomes far less stressful once youve acquired an inept ability to decipher between what was just another story of the mind and what is actual, true reality.

Meditation is the practice of observing your thoughts for the insane comedy show that they can be, then learning not to become emotionally involved and take them so seriously.

There is no wrong way to meditate.

Meditation can become a far more relaxing ordeal for you by simply choosing to release control and allowing whatever thoughts, feelings and emotions wanting to bubble to the surface come up without attaching any judgment. Then just as easily as you allowed everything to come up, now allow it to release without feeling the need to apply a meaning or story to any of it.

You just need to chill homie and just learn to let go of whatever came to visit you without a single hitch involved. Because trying to stop thinking during meditation will drive you crazy.

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Jared Ciofalo aka "The SoulTrekker, is the Founder/CEO of "SoulTrekker: Intuitive Guidance Channeling the Heart's Truth," Spiritual Counselor, Session Facilitator, Channel of Truth, Featured Writer for The Good Men Project and The Holistic Journal, Raw, Uncut Video Blogger and YouTube Channel Extraordinaire. Leaders create more leaders, and true leaders have heart. Jared's heart is blown open and he is unafraid of sharing his miraculous gifts with all of you.

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Excerpt from:

The Greatest Myth About Meditation that will Drive You Crazy - The Good Men Project (blog)

millennial Americans By Kelsey Dallas | July 10, 2017

Thomas McConkie of Lower Lights leads a group in mediation and discussion in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 14, 2017. Photo by Scott G. Winterton/Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY Thomas McConkie sits in a tall, straight-backed chair, the sleeves of his crisp, button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows. He smiles at men and women in sandals, T-shirts and summer dresses, who watch him from two sections of chairs in the center of the room.

Were just a bunch of adults out on the town doing a little mindfulness, McConkie jokes, referring to the activities hell soon lead. Nothing unusual about it.

Meditation groups may not be unique, but this gathering is. McConkie, an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who is also trained in Buddhist mindfulness, is pushing the boundaries of traditional religious practice, helping people of varied faith backgrounds use meditation to deepen their spiritual lives.

We are not here to tell people whether they should continue in their religious tradition or not. We want to provide space and practice where they can come to a new level of honesty and truthfulness within themselves, McConkie said in an interview, referring to his meditation community, Lower Lights Sangha.

McConkies group meditation work recently caught the attention of a couple of Harvard Divinity School scholars who invited him to apply to a conference they hosted in December. He was one of 80 leaders gathered there to discuss the future of faith and community building at a time when organized religion ison the decline.

People meditate as they listen to Thomas McConkie of Lower Lights in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 14, 2017. Photo by Scott G. Winterton/Deseret News

The conference was part of a broader effort, to understand where millennial Americans go to find community and how leaders like McConkie can expand the spiritual offerings of traditional churches.

Were really thinking about how to help build bridges between what has been and what is coming into being, said Angie Thurston a ministry innovation fellow at Harvard.

McConkie, 37, didnt set out to create a spiritual haven for millennials in Salt Lake City. He arrived a year too early for that generation, but grew up with the same sort of discomfort with organized religion thats linked to Americans born between 1980 and 1996.

Born into a blue-blooded LDS family with relatives that included high-level church leaders, McConkie left the faith as a teenager, spending his 20s traveling and working in Europe and Asia while studying Buddhism and developing a meditation practice. It took more than 15 years for him to make peace with his Mormon upbringing and to realize he wasnt done with the faith.

Olivia Knudsen listens to Thomas McConkie of Lower Lights as he leads a group in mediation and discussion in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 14, 2017. Photo by Scott G. Winterton/Deseret News

It was my Buddhist meditation practice that helped deepen my understanding of Christianity and deepen my Christian faith, he said.

McConkie moved back to Salt Lake City almost five years ago, ready to reconnect with family members and old friends. Some expressed interest in learning more about meditation, and Lower Lights Sangha, which launched formally in September 2016, grew out of years of smaller gatherings in McConkies home.

The meditation community is open to anyone, but around two-thirds of the 80 attendees at a recent meeting in June appeared younger than 40.

McConkie said his efforts to deepen faith by drawing on diverse religious practices likely resonates best with millennials.

Theres a huge need, especially in the millennial generation, to start to explore whats beyond partisan and religious divides, he said.

Around 1 in 3 millennials are religiously unaffiliated. Graphic courtesy of Deseret News

Around 1 in 3 millennials are religious nones, meaning they dont affiliate with a particular faith group, according to thePew Research Center. Many of these religiously unaffiliated Americans believe in God and pray regularly but dont want to stick within the limits of a single faith.

Various practices are being unbundled and remixed in peoples individual, spiritual lives, Thurston said.

McConkie begins Lower Lights Sanghas monthly gatherings with a brief breathing exercise. Chairs squeak and groan as people adjust their posture and clear their minds.

I want to invite you for a moment to do absolutely nothing, McConkie says, the words delivered slowly and deliberately in a deep, soothing voice.

Next, McConkie offers a brief description of his meditative philosophy, which blends Buddhist practice with developmental psychology. He asks people to introduce themselves to their neighbor, encouraging them to share what made them want to meditate.

The main event during the two-hour meeting is a group meditation. McConkie asks people to move their chairs into circles of four or five, then provides speaking prompts.

Participants complete sentences like Something you dont know about me is with stories from their own lives, describing their siblings, favorite vacation spots or how lost theyve felt for the last 12 months.

As people sit in their circles, sharing and listening, McConkie strolls around the room, a smile playing on his lips.

A calm has settled over the room since he cracked his mindfulness joke. Hes successfully ushered another group into deeper awareness of themselves and others.

Group members break off into smaller groups and greet each other as Thomas McConkie of Lower Lights leads a group in mediation and discussion in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 14, 2017. Photo by Scott G. Winterton/Deseret News

McConkie said nurturing new connections and growth is one of his strengths. The spiritual side of Lower Lights Sanghas work comes naturally to him; the business aspects of community building are a little trickier.

What I noticed at the December gathering (at Harvard) is that some people are brilliant social entrepreneurs (and) killer marketers. At Lower Lights, I would not say our strength is our business model or marketing plan, he said.

All 80 leaders invited to the Harvard conference lead some kind of community, which organizers defined as a group of people who know each other, care for each other and work together to weather lifes storms. These leaders came from sacred and secular contexts, including art cooperatives, fitness studios and faith groups that meet at bars.

The focus in putting that gathering together was trying to understand what these leaders need, Thurston said.

Conversations centered on issues like funding, overcoming conflict and maintaining relationships even as a community grows. People leading secular groups were encouraged to think about how they could support members spiritually, while leaders from religious contexts like McConkie brainstormed ways to track membership and increase their impact.

I came back from Harvard in December and said we have got to tighten up the organizational side of what were doing, McConkie said.

Over the past six months, he and his team have designed a website and debated the type of nonprofit corporation they should form.

McConkie also had the chance to pick the brains of other leaders, who continue to support him from across the country. Although they were only together for a few days, the 80 leaders and others brought in to advise the conference quickly became their own community, listening and responding to one anothers needs.

These relationships provide for them what theyre providing for others, said the Rev. Sue Phillips, a Unitarian Universalist clergy member who helped organize the conference.

Thurston, working alongside Harvard ministry innovation fellow Casper ter Kuile, said their work grew out of a shared sense that reports on the decline of organized religion were missing the real story: the rise of new types of communities.

Theres such a sense of doom and gloom within religious institutions. But we see an inspiring story of how people are coming together. We want to tell that story, ter Kuile said.

Thomas McConkie of Lower Lights leads a group in mediation and discussion in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 14, 2017. Photo by Scott G. Winterton/Deseret News

The pair have published aseries of reportsoutlining how millennials build community at gyms and dinner party forums, and offer tips for how established faiths can evolve to attract younger members.

Were trying to navigate between institutions and the growing number of young people who are finding different ways in which to bring belonging and meaning to their lives, ter Kuile said.

New developments at the fringes of a faith group can sometimes create a crisis of authority, as more established religious leaders worry about shifts in practice.

Denominational leaders must search for a way to welcome new initiatives like a social justice group or service-oriented gathering without compromising leadership training or core teachings.

Whats emerging asks us to be different, a new us,' Phillips said. The truth is that a lot of denominations focus on propagating the us that they currently are.

Phillips urges clergy members to embrace novel ideas and be patient when there are bumps in the road.

The most powerful things traditional leaders can do is come alongside these innovators and say yes at every junction, she said.

Lower Lights Sangha is not linked with the LDS Church, beyond McConkies and some participants involvement in the religion.

McConkie said Mormon doctrine and practices inspire his meditation and vice versa, and he believes his meditation community calls to younger Mormons looking for new ways to express their faith.

Were discovering new truths together in community. I hope how we evolve is in service of what the church is trying to do and how its trying to grow, McConkie said.

At the end of Junes Lower Lights gathering, McConkie invited people to shout out what they were feeling. Some said they were grateful, happy and feeling connected to everyone around them.

One woman shouted: Im feeling like I should have come months ago.

(Kelsey Dallas writes for The Deseret News)

Read more:

What a Mormon doing Buddhist meditation has to do with the future of faith - Religion News Service