DELWYN DICKEY

Last updated10:45, May 28 2017

LAWRENCE SMITH/Stuff.co.nz

The Vipassana Meditation retreat north of Auckland has concerns that a new pistol range being built nearby will disrupt the peace and tranquility of the area.

The Vipassana Meditation Centre north of Auckland is heading to the High Court in an attempt tostop a proposed gun club from disrupting its tranquility.

The centre's efforts to overturn a certificate of compliance through the courtnext month, which is seeing agun club opening in its quiet neighbourhood, could be a serious stumbling block to the project.

Last year Raymond O'Brien and Victoria Pichler were issued a certificate of compliance from Auckland Council for two pistol areas comprising a six-bay shooting range they planned to develop on their newly acquired lifestyle block in rural Makarau.

LAWRENCE SMITH/FAIRFAX NZ

Kirsty McKay from the Vipassana Meditation Centre north of Auckland is heading to court to stop a new pistol range from being built nearby.

Auckland council's manager of resource consenting, Ian Dobson, said under the council's district plan this is a permitted recreational pursuit in rural areas.

READ MORE: *Country's largest gun club to be built *Police allowed to use gun range *Police Association alarmed at gun club's ban

LAWRENCE SMITH/FAIRFAX NZ

Pistol shooter Raymond O'Brien is upbeat about the court hearing and is confident the range's certification will stand.

O'Brien and Pichler had plans to quickly expand the range from six bays to 30, including two shotgun ranges and a rifle range, with the backing of the Auckland Shooting Club which would make it one of the biggest facilities of its kind in the country.

Meanwhile, down the road between rolling hillsandsurrounded by native bush,up to 1500meditators a year hand in their cellphones, sit cross-legged and suspendall connection with the outside world for 10 days while they observe their breathingin silence.

Vipassana meditators are not the only ones upset with the plansother neighbours to the Tuhirangi Rd property were angry they weren'tconsulted. Many had only found out about the plans by accident on the club's website.

LAWRENCE SMITH/FAIRFAX NZ

The meditation centre isn't alone in its concerns about O'Brien's plans.

Auckland Council maintains neighbours don't need to beconsulted for a certificate of complianceand the bigger plan didn't need to be taken into account, as resource consentswould have been needed for parts of it.

"Without having received a resource consent application to assess, we cannot determine what parts of their proposals would require a resource consent," Dobson said.

While not a direct neighbour, theVipassanaMeditation Centre had serious concerns that noise from the gun club would be a serious distraction formeditators who have been coming to their nearby property forquiet contemplationfor over 30 years.

LAWRENCE SMITH/FAIRFAX NZ

Vipassana's clients have been coming to the centre for quiet contemplation for over 30 years.

The VipassanaTrust started legal proceedings in Decemberlast year, challenging the Auckland Council's granting of the compliance certificate. The case will be heard in the Auckland High Court in mid-June.

"The Certificate of Compliance could only have been properly issued by the Auckland Council if the proposed shooting range complied in all respects with the relevant district and regional plans and did not need resource consent," trustee Kirsty McKay said.

Auckland Council could not have been satisfied the activity did not require resource consent under the Resource Management Act,the trust alleges.

Auckland Council says it will abide by the court's decision.

O'Brien is upbeat about the court hearing and is confident the certification will stand.

"Even if it is voided, we still have a valid application. We would simply fix the things that need doing," he said.

But despitethe optimism,if the court maintains thecertificate shouldn't have been issued, therecouldbe some serious issues forO'BrienandPichler.

If certification is out, the gun club may not be able to operateon the site until a resourceconsent is granted.

The club is planning to openon July 1 for general membership.It has been confirmed Deputy Prime MinisterPaula Bennettwill officially openthe Auckland Shooting Club and Range Facilities on July 7.

Given the level of animosity from neighbours and some in the community, it seems unlikely Auckland Council wouldgrant aresourceconsentnow without eitherconsulting immediate neighbours or publicly notifyinga consent application.

-Sunday Star Times

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Meditation centre heads to court to stop pistol range from disrupting its tranquility - Stuff.co.nz

Forbes

Meditation For Energy: To Naturally Energize Your Body And Mind Forbes It's so tempting to get another cappuccino or Red Bull. I get it. It's 3 pm, you have hours of additional work, and the lure of caffeine feel overwhelming. There is another way. Here's an energizing meditation you can do for just thirty seconds that ...

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Meditation For Energy: To Naturally Energize Your Body And Mind - Forbes

Over the past few years, the wellness world has been focused on meditation and mindfulness and how it can help improve your life. Of course, meditation has also been around for millennia, but its apparent ease of access and minimal investment has definitely helped create its recent uptick in popularity.

And while there are many great reasons to meditate (increased concentration, lower stress levels, better sleep, to name a few), there's the small problem of it not going exactly as planned for many who practice.

In a new study published in PLOS One, "The Varieties of Contemplative Experience," researchers found that meditation didn't only deliver positive reactions it could also produce negative or "challenging" ones, such as fear, involuntary body movements and panic.

Noting that these types of results are often under-reported in literature, the study's authors interviewed almost 100 people who practiced meditation, as well as teachers from three main traditions (Theravda, Zen and Tibetan). They discovered that meditation affects seven main aspects: cognitive, perceptual, affective (i.e. emotions and moods), somatic (relating to the body), conative (i.e. motivation or will), sense of self and social.

The subjects reported a variety of reactions, both positive and negative, and they lasted anywhere from as soon as the person started practicing to 25 years into their practice.

While the introspective nature of meditation is meant to bring up difficult thoughts (as with people who re-experienced traumatic memories) and is certainly meant to be a challenge, many believe they'll automatically reap the benefits right away. But the practice isn't as simple as sitting down, closing your eyes and letting the good vibes flow your mental state, your teacher and even your physical location can make a difference.

This is a good example of how a contextual factor can affect associated distress and functioning, Jared Lindahl, one of the study's co-authors, said in a press release. An experience that is positive and desirable in one situation may become a burden in another.

Similarly, people have been questioning the use of apps and other technology, which coerce you to meditate for a certain amount of time or at a specific point in the day, to aid in mediation, which might also create stress with regards to a habit that's meant to be calming.

"Analytics motivate us, like fitness trackers, but then they create the feeling of wasted effort if we cant get our points," wrote Jon Mitchell, lifelong meditator and author of In Real Life: Searching for Connection in High-Tech Times, on his blog. "More content-heavy meditation apps, like ones that guide you or use particular sounds or images, insinuate themselves into your meditation. They dont teach a practice you can do without them."

There's no question meditation can help people, but it seems that it doesn't necessarily help everyone. And with the flood of good news stories on the practice, that can make people feel like there's something wrong with them, when that is not in any way the case.

During the interviews, some people learned for the first time that they are not completely alone in having had this experience, Lindahl said. The social awareness we think this project can raise could be a key way of addressing some of the problems.

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Meditation Can Have Negative Effects, As Well As Positive Ones: Study - Huffington Post Canada

Friday May 26 2017

Many types of meditation are practiced across the world

"Meditation can leave you feeling even more stressed," the Daily Mail reports.

The claim is prompted by a study of 60 practitioners of Buddhist meditation in the US which found they'd had a range of "challenging or difficult" experiences associated with the practice.

However, it's not clear how relevant the results are to the majority of people who use meditation apps or take mindfulness classes.

The study only included people in Western countries who meditated within one of three Buddhist traditions, and importantly who'd had negative experiences. So the numbers of people in the study reporting, for example, fear, is only representative of people who'd said they had a negative experience through meditation, not of all people meditating.

The study does make an important point, however, at a time when mindfulness and meditation has become more popular, that the effects of meditation are not always positive or harmless. Some people in the study reported feeling depressed or suicidal, and a few needed treatment in hospital as a result.

Classical Buddhist literature discusses potential pitfalls of mindfulness and meditation, such as maky (hallucinations) and "Zen sickness" a sense of imbalance and loss of identity. So these warnings should not be glossed over by teachers of Buddhist inspired techniques.

Also, healthcare practitioners who recommend meditation need to be aware of the associated risks.

The study was carried out by researchers from Brown University and the University of California in the US. It was funded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the Bial Foundation, the Mind and Life Institute and the 1440 Foundation.

The study was published in thepeer-reviewed journal PLOS One on an open-access basis, so it is free to read online.

The Mail covered the study particularly badly. It began by sneering at the celebrities and "yummy mummies" that practice mindfulness, without apparently noticing that the study excluded generic mindfulness-based interventions and looked only at specific Buddhist meditation practices.

It reported that 82% of people questioned had experienced fear, anxiety or paranoia, without making it clear the study only interviewed people with negative experiences. It also said that people who had previous psychological problems had been "ruled out" of the study. Yet the study reported 32% of people interviewed had a history of psychiatric disorder (only people with current mental illness, or similar unusual psychological experiences not linked to meditation were excluded).

Finally, the Mail said the study interviewed "nearly 100" people about their experiences, when they actually interviewed 60 people.

This was a qualitative study. Qualitative studies, like this one, use interviews to ask people open-ended questions about their experiences of specific issues, such as meditation.

Experiences were then grouped into categories. The researchers looked specifically for people who'd had negative experiences of meditation, because they say these experiences had not previously been properly investigated.

This type of research is useful to gather detailed information about people's experiences. It doesn't tell us how common these experiences are, what causes them, or why these people in particular experienced them.

Researchers recruited 60 people who were regular practitioners of one of three types of Buddhist meditation, and who had experienced a challenging or negative experience linked to meditation.

They interviewed them about what they experienced, how they understood it, and what effect it had. They also interviewed 30 "experts" mostly meditation teachers about their understanding of what caused challenging experiences and how they could be managed.

The interviews were used to compile models of types of experience (described as "domains") and models of the factors that could affect people's likelihood of having this type of experience. Researchers say this element should only be understood as the opinions (often conflicting) of the teachers and experts interviewed, not as a definitive list of causes.

Researchers identified eight "domains" of experience from the interviews, which included both positive and negative experiences. These were:

Of the practitioners interviewed, 60% were also meditation teachers, and 41% of them said their challenging experiences followed meditation of 10 hours a day or more. This suggests they were more intensive practitioners than the average person doing perhaps half an hour a day.

The researchers said the experiences were likely to be caused by meditation, as they'd passed criteria designed to assess causation. These included whether they happened at the time of the meditation practice, whether they were linked to more intense practice, whether they receded when people stopped meditating and returned when they began again, and that they were consistently reported by people in the study.

Some experiences were directly causedby meditation, while others might be secondary for example, fear at loss of sense of self or even tertiary for example distress at the way they were treated by a meditation teacher after having a challenging experience.

The researchers say the results suggest that "meditation practices on their own may produce challenging effects, but the specific type of effect, as well as its likelihood, duration, and associated distress and impairment, is influenced by a number of additional factors."

They add that the results "should not be interpreted as conclusive" because the study is one of the first in its field.

Many people around the world find meditation can be helpful. However, as with most things, there can be downsides.

Some people especially if they practice intensive meditation for many hours, such as on a retreat have challenging or difficult experiences. Some religious teachers within Buddhism say these can be part of the path of the religious experience. However, for people doing meditation hoping to experience health benefits, without a religious context, these experiences can be unexpected and difficult to deal with.

There are limitations in this study that mean we shouldn't try to apply it too widely. The people interviewed were quite a select group all had volunteered to talk about challenging experiences during meditation, the majority were meditation teachers, they were almost all white and highly educated (42% had a master's degree and 25% a doctorate). Their experiences may be different from those of the average person attending a meditation class orusing a meditation or mindfulnessapp on their phone.

The serious, long-lasting nature of some of the negative experiences reported, however, are cause for concern. People who experience depression,suicidal feelings or other serious problems after meditation should seek medical help.

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Does meditation carry a risk of harmful side effects? - NHS Choices

On May 20, San Francisco-based tech giant Salesforce.com Inc.showcased to the public its newest namesake towerSalesforce Tower Indianapolis.

It was Salesforce's latest local milestone in a journey that began almost four years when it announced its deal to acquire ExactTarget for $2.5 billion. ExactTarget had about 1,000 local employees at the time. Today, Salesforce officials said, its Indianapolis headcount exceeds 1,600.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was in town for the grand opening, and he spoke with IBJ about the company's plans to train 500 apprentices and hire additional exployees, as well as his vision for having all local employeesnow scattered across three buildingsin the tower. The conversation, edited for brevity and clarity, follows:

IBJ: Back in 2014 you told IBJ you wanted a tower in Indianapolis. Now it's here. How does it feel?

BENIOFF: Well, we've never been more excited about Indianapolis, and we've never been more excited about Salesforce. We have our tower here and we now have the ability to fulfill our dream to become not only Indiana's largest tech employer but also to help develop the future of Indiana's workforce with our next-generation apprenticeship program that we plan to pilot right here in Indianapolis.

IBJ: How will that program work?

BENIOFF: We know that the requirements for the workforce of the future are changing dramatically, and rapid advancements in technologywhether it's cloud computing or artificial intelligencemean that there's going to be a vast retraining of individuals looking for new jobs.

As part of that, we've made a new system thats available online called Trailhead. And Trailhead is a one-to-one learning system that helps people gain expertise in using our Salesforce platform. And we have hundreds of thousands of people on that system today. It's a very exciting online capability, and we are going to do that in a physical way with a Trailhead apprenticeship program. We're going to bring people into our company and provide that exact same knowledge that Trailhead provides to them virtually.

IBJ: What prompted this?

BENIOFF: We want to be the key people to provide that Salesforce knowledge to these people who we call Trailblazers. I'll tell you that of the top 10 jobs in the U.S. that are available now in the tech industry, two are Salesforce jobs. One is Salesforce administrator and the other is Salesforce developer. Indeed published that survey, and if you want those high-paying jobs, you need these Salesforce skills. We've taken factory workers and even ministers and we've been able to give them these valuable skills to transform their lives.

This is really important. The world is changing rapidly, especially with respect to technologyeverybody realizes that. We don't want anybody to be left behind, so we need to provide both online and in-person training at scale, and we plan to headquarter that right out of Indianapolis.

IBJ: Who are the types of people you plan to target for this and what's your goal? Do you plan to hire them?

BENIOFF: It's across the board, and if you look on the Trailhead website, you'll see the wide variety of people from different industries who have made this decision to learn these skills and how it's impacted their lives. Those are not our employees. Those are users of this technology; they work for customers of this technology.

IBJ: What are some the features of Salesforce Tower Indianapolis?

BENIOFF: First, you're going to see our Trailhead interior, which kind of has the resemblance of a national park with our green carpets, lightwood fixtures, and probably the most remarkable thing is the tremendous amount of open space and lack of offices. There are very few offices and very few conference rooms.

The second thing, of course, is that the very top floor of the building will be known as the Ohana Floor. We'll use that for collaboration, communication and coordination during the day for our employees to have events, lunches and dinners. But we'll make that top floor available to the communityreligious organizations, non-profits, and non-governmental organizationsso they can have catered events or programs on the weekend or when we're not using it.

In addition to that, every floor in the tower has meditation and mindfulness rooms. We believe it's really important to give our employees the ability to completely disconnect in a world that's always on. And so those mindfulness rooms are very popular in the world where we put them in. Of course, they serve all peoples and all religions.

And on each floor there's a Salesforce lounge, which is very similar to a home-living environment where employees have an opportunity to relax. Maybe they want to read or make themselves some type of food or snack. It's a residential environment with tremendous views made possible by the tower.

IBJ: Did you ever consider building from scratch here?

BENIOFF: We did. In fact, in our original discussions we thought we would have to build from scratch. But, as you know, through a twist of fate we were able to lease the tower for it to take on our namesake.

IBJ: How many towers bear the Salesforce across the globe?

BENIOFF: The big ones are San Francisco, Indianapolis, New York and London. There's also a very large facility in Munich, Germany. There's a large headquarters building in Paris, France. And I think those are the major facilities right now.

IBJ: Is there anything special about the Indianapolis tower?

BENIOFF: The view of Indianapolis.

IBJ: What's your long-term vision for real estate now. I understand employees are in three buildings right now. Do you want everyone in the tower eventually?

BENIOFF: Ideally, everyone is in the tower. Our goal is for everyone to be in one place.

IBJ: Last year, Salesforce said it planned to add 800 jobs in Indianapolis. It had about 1,400 at the time. How's hiring going?

BENIOFF: Hiring here has been great. We still have a lot of openings. We need technical talent. We need the best and brightest, especially in regard to our schools, colleges and universities. And we're also moving people here from other headquarters locations like San Francisco.

IBJ: How much of that relocation activity is actually happening? Is it few and far between or is there a lot interest?

BENIOFF: There is interest. As housing prices increase in places like the San Francisco Bay area, Indianapolis now with the Salesforce Tower provides an attractive opportunity for people in high-price urban areas to move here and have a great lifestyle at a reasonable price.

IBJ: As you may know, there are a whole host of tech firms that have official plans to expand headcount here. Do such plans make it tougher for Salesforce to meet its hiring goals?

BENIOFF: I actually think it'll be easier because there will be more people spreading the good news about Indianapolis. Yeah, we don't want to be the only ones. That is never a good situation.

IBJ: The ExactTarget acquisition was almost four years ago and it became the foundation for your Marketing Cloud. So what has theacquisition meant for Salesforce?

BENIOFF: Well it's transformed Salesforce from being just a B2B [software] provider to being a B2C provider. And you can see the tremendous growth from when we bought that company to where we are today. Just through that line, it's amazing and it's phenomenal how much we've been able to grow. And it's been a huge catalyst for that growth.

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In Q&A, Benioff riffs on Salesforce Tower meditation rooms, Indy strategy and more - Indianapolis Business Journal

The Red Turtle tells the tale of a man trying to escape a desert island. Photograph: Studio Ghibli

The legendary Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli knows a thing or two about talent. Co-founded by the great auteur Hayao Miyazaki, the company is the home of classic films such as Spirited Away, Howls Moving Castle, My Neighbour Totoro and the Tale of the Princess Kaguya. But until the gorgeous Oscar-nominated feature The Red Turtle by Michael Dudok de Wit, Ghibli had never worked with a non-Japanese director.

It is not hard to see why Dutch animator Dudok de Wit caught the attention of a company that cherishes the traditional techniques of 2D, hand-drawn animation over the flashy computer-generated techniques favoured by many other animation studios. The Red Turtle is a work of profound simplicity and exquisite beauty. Although the films animation style is quite different to much of the Ghibli output, its themes a deeply spiritual examination of nature, magic and mystery chime perfectly with the companys ethos.

While The Red Turtle is Dudok de Wits first feature film, his gentle, elegantly sparse short films are considered to be masterpieces of the medium. Isao Takahata, co-founder of Studio Ghibli, was struck first by Dudok de Wits six-minute 1994 film the Monk and the Fish; he subsequently fell in love with the Oscar-winning meditation on mortality, Father and Daughter (2000). In 2004, Takahata and Dudok de Wit met at the Hiroshima international film festival, and in 2006, Dudok de Wit received a letter offering him what he later described as the once in a lifetime chance to make a feature film with Studio Ghibli.

The result of a collaboration, which afforded Dudok de Wit a creative freedom beyond what he could have hoped for, is a truly stunning film. Perhaps closest in tone to the mythic fantasy and fairytale quality of Takahatas the Tale of the Princess Kaguya, The Red Turtle is nonetheless very much its own beast. His Ghibli collaborators stressed that they didnt want Dudok de Wit to adapt his style to fit in with the distinctive Japanese sensibility of their usual productions. This was to be a European film, the idea and approach was Dudok de Wits to choose.

The story he decided to tell has more in common with the fairytales and Greek and Roman myths that he devoured as a child, than it does with the bombastic assault of much of contemporary animation.

The Red Turtle is the tale of a man who is stranded on a desert island during a storm. His desperate attempts to escape, by lashing together bamboo canes to form a raft, are repeatedly thwarted by some unseen undersea force that shatters his vessel. On his third attempt, the man comes face to face with his saboteur, a giant red turtle

What follows is an unquestioning acceptance of the enchantment and mystery of the natural world that is very reminiscent of the Tale of the Princess Kaguya, a film that tells of a perfect female child who is found inside a stalk of bamboo. But while the story of Kaguya unfolds within the restrictions of the Japanese court, The Red Turtle embraces the wild unpredictability of nature, in a story that combines quiet moments of intimacy with the intense savagery and drama of the natural world.

Perhaps the most remarkable achievement is that the film does all this entirely without words. Dudok de Wit had originally intended to include a few lines of dialogue, but was persuaded not to by Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki. Its a bold decision that invests the films striking visual component with a potent magic. And visually, the film is a wonder.

The backgrounds were drawn using charcoal on paper, giving it a hand-hewn artisanal quality that works beautifully with the rough realities of the location. Dudok de Wit decided against the traditional palm-fringed island that has become a cinematic cliche. Instead, his island is unpredictable, with green glades smashed by furious and sudden storms.

This is not a film that hammers home a message; its more intriguing and elusive than that. But while there is no overt ecological agenda here, there is something that is both simple and powerful a reminder and a celebration of our spiritual connection to the natural world.

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The Red Turtle: a moving meditation on our relationship with the ... - The Guardian

Submitted by Tushita Kadampa Buddhist Center

Tacoma, WA: Tushita Kadampa Buddhist Center in Tacoma, WA will present a day course titled, Connecting with Our Dream-Like Self & Letting go of Problems; A Meditation Workshop, Sunday, June 4th from 10:00 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The problems we face in life, which seem so solid and real, will disappear like last nights bad dream when we apply Buddhas teachings on emptiness, the way things actually exist as opposed to the way they appear. In the book Modern Buddhism, Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche explains:

Dream-Like Self; a Meditation Course

If we dream of an elephant, the elephant appears vividly in all its detail we can see it, hear it, smell it, and touch it- but when we wake up we realize that it was just an appearance to mind. We do not wonder, Where is the elephant now? because we understand that it was simply a projection of our mind and had no existence outside our mind.

This view of emptiness, the dream-like nature of things, teaches us that we can overcome our fears and gradually become more peaceful, flexible, and creative. In How to Transform Your Life, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche writes:

All our delusions stem from self-grasping ignorance. Self-grasping ignorance is the source of all our negativity and problems, and the only way to eradicate it is to realize emptiness. Emptiness is not easy to understand, but it is extremely important that we make the effort. Ultimately our efforts will be rewarded by the permanent cessation of all suffering and the everlasting bliss of full enlightenment.

In this day course, Gen Kelsang Wangpo will teach how we can recall and apply these profound teachings throughout our day and transform our life and experiences with wisdom.

Everyone is Welcome

For more information or to register call (360)754-7787 or visit http://www.MeditateInOlympia.org.

The course will take place at Tushita Kadampa Buddhist Center located at 1501 Pacific Avenue S, Suite #301 Sprague/United Way Building in Tacoma.

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Connecting with Our Dream-like Self A Meditation Workshop - The Suburban Times

New York Times

A Novelist's Meditation on Loss and Identity New York Times Zinzi Clemmons, whose first novel is What We Lose. Credit Monica Almeida for The New York Times. When Zinzi Clemmons was in third grade, her family moved from West Philadelphia to Swarthmore, Pa., drawn by the quality of its public schools.

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A Novelist's Meditation on Loss and Identity - New York Times

MADISON In addition to Mahjongg, canasta, bridge, ping pong, poker, coloring, trips and movies, the Madison Senior Center inside the Madison Civic Center at 28 Walnut St. has added more fitness programming to its schedule.

Popular instructor Donna Sue Dowton will continue to lead classes in Stretch and Flex, Not Your Daughters Yoga and Balance and Stability. In addition, she has introduced Meditation, a twice-monthly class in the Senior Centers Activities Room, designed to educate adults about the benefits of guided breathing and relaxation exercises.

A classroom setting is less likely to have the distractions of a home setting, and the guided exercises allow students to concentrate on the fundamentals rather than sequence, Dowton explained.

Better Sleep

Among the benefits of meditation, Dowton noted, are lower blood pressure, improved blood circulation, lower heart rate, slower respiratory rate, less anxiety, deeper relaxation and better sleep. For an additional charge of $10, a 40-page booklet and CD can be purchased.

The meditation classes is under way and will continue on the first and third Tuesday of each month. There is a $5 fee per class which is billed on a quarterly basis.

Registration is ongoing for Stretch and Flex, Balance and Stability and Not Your Daughters Yoga.

Stretch and Flex is held at 10:30 a.m. Mondays and at 9 a.m. Thursdays, and students can sign up for once-weekly or twice-weekly classes. The yoga class meets at 11:30 a.m. Tuesdays, and the balance class is held at 1:15 p.m. Wednesdays.

The fee is $60 for a 12-week series. Donna Sue Dowton is a certified Personal Trainer and Group Exercise Instructor who has worked exclusively with senior citizens since 2001. Her training includes certifications in balance, posture, anatomy, chair yoga, and exercise for people with joint replacements, arthritis, and osteoporosis.

All classes are held on the upper level of the Madison Civic Center at 28 Walnut St. For information, call (973) 593-3095.

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Meditation joins fitness classes at Madison Senior Center | Madison ... - New Jersey Hills

LUNENBURG -- Residents are trying to stop a four-day music and meditation festival from being held next month.

On May 16, selectmen granted the nonprofit Unifier Festival a temporary license for an all-ages, interfaith, and substances-free event at 300 Holman St. from June 22 to 25.

The festival has drawn support from those planning to attend. But a "super majority" of Holman Street residents want nothing to do with it, said Steven Whitman, of 473 Holman St.

"We're looking for the Board of Selectmen to rescind the license," said Whitman, formerly the director of the Department of Public Works in Leominster and founder of the civil engineering firm Whitman & Bingham Associates.

In its fourth year, Unifier Festival organizes "sacred celebrations" featuring yoga, music, dance, live art, and spaces for "interfaith ceremony" and permaculture, according to festival literature.

Jason Cohen, festival curator, stressed that the attendees have a reverence for land and community.

"There are hippie festivals where people come in and make places less beautiful, but that's not what we're doing," said Cohen. "We don't want to disturb you if you live three or four houses down."

In a certified letter dated May 20, Whitman wrote selectmen and Holman Street homeowners have retained a lawyer to pursue avenues for blocking the festival.

"Never have I witnessed such an arbitrary and capricious decision by a town or city board such as this one," Whitman wrote.

UMass Memorial psychiatrist Daron C. Massey owns the nearly 35-acre property at 300 Holman St. where the event is planned.

Cohen said Massey attended a past Unifier event. Massey volunteered to let Unifier use his land this year while organizers close a deal on a permanent property in Tolland, Cohen said.

Leominster attorney John Dombrowski is representing the 15 Holman Street homeowners aiming to halt Unifier, Dombrowski said.

They say their rural enclave cannot support the expected 500 attendees and their 250 cars.

"I have nothing against festivals or whatnot, but this is in a residential area," said Eric Blomgren, of 272 Holman St., who added his wife, a nurse, would be disturbed with noise from the festival.

The Board of Selectmen and town manager, homeowners allege, made a procedural error during the permitting process.

According to homeowners, Town Manager Heather Lemieux should have notified homeowners via mail of two May meetings when festival organizers appeared before the Board of Selectmen seeking the permit.

Advance notification would have allowed abutters to attend the meetings and voice opposition to the festival, according to several abutters.

"I have no idea why you would permit 500 people to camp by my house and not give any notice about the presentation," said Eric Short, of 502 Holman St.

The hearing was posted in advance on the town website in accordance with open meeting laws, said Lemieux.

Selectmen Clerk Paula Bertram, at last Tuesday's meeting where two abutters spoke against the event, said festival organizers addressed all health and safety concerns had by the Conservation Commission, Nashoba Board of Health, and town Fire and Police Chiefs.

Bertram said selectmen are open to reviewing abutters' concerns. She said she is not inclined to revoke the entertainment license.

"If by procedural error we made a mistake, we erred, then we will correct that error," said Bertram.

Festival opponents and proponents may get the chance to hash out their differences at a special selectmen meeting tentatively scheduled for June 6, said Lemieux.

Lemieux said town officials must consult with the town's attorney before confirming that date.

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Lunenburg neighbors call on town to stop music-meditation fest - Sentinel & Enterprise