For Brain Education and Peace
This is from Ilchi Lee’s YouTube channel.
“This is a clip I took of a waterfall and stream in NewZealand. I hope this cool and pure water from one of the most pristine backdrops on Earth washes away your worries, stress, and nervous anxiety to start you week off right. Enjoy!”
Biking, running, carpooling and taking public transit to work are all great ways to reduce your carbon footprint.
One of the major causes of carbon emissions in the world is vehicle traffic. When every employee at your place of work drives to and from the office each day, that’s a lot of carbon that is eroding the ozone layer and will cause serious environmental decline. There’s hope, however. If you change the way you commute, you can reduce your carbon footprint and improve your health. Here’s how:
Bike
Do you have a rusty Schwinn in the garage? Give it a quick tune-up, put air in the tires and hit the road. Biking to work will allow you to take one car off the road and get in shape at the same time. You can improve your respiratory and cardiovascular health by becoming a cyclist. Plus, you may find you lose weight and overall feel better just by switching from driving to biking to work.
Run
Some people aren’t huge fans of bicycles and would rather spend their commute pounding the pavement. Some people are concerned that they’d need a shower after getting to work. If so, stop at a local gym to do so, or give yourself a quick face wash, towel-off and fresh application of deodorant in the bathroom before putting on your work clothes. Keep an outfit at the office so you don’t have to worry about carrying one while you run. Make sure your running shoes fit properly so you don’t get blisters. You may even find you are more energetic and productive after running to work than if you’d sat in your car and driven there.
Take Public Transit
For many employees, running or biking to work isn’t possible because they live too far away. If that rings true for you, see if you can take public transit instead of driving. Find a bus, train or combination of the two that will allow you to get to work in a timely manner. This will reduce your carbon footprint and you can even enjoy reading a book on your way to the office.
Carpool
Not every area has a public transit system and you may not want to run or bike to work. Instead, find a colleague that lives near you and switch off driving. Have him or her drive one day and you the next. This way you are still eliminating one car from the roadway, and you can make a new friend or strategize for the workday on your commute.
“Meaningful” is a succinct way to describe Ilchi Lee’s book, “The Call of Sedona: Journey of the Heart.” At first glance, the book would seem to be a wonderful guide for the best nature sightseeing that Sedona has to offer. But as you traverse the book’s 222 pages it quickly becomes an inspiring handbook for self-discovery.
Since his very first visit to Sedona in 1996, Ilchi has shared the messages and inspiration he received from this magical land with the world. The Call of Sedona: Journey of the Heart is a vibrant account of Ilchi’s personal journey. The softcover edition includes Sedona meditations, spiritual insights and ancient history of the land and its profound effect on those who journey from all corners of the earth to experience its magic.
Offering an open invitation to visit, Ilchi shares the many inspirations he has received from being in Sedona, and believes Sedona’s beauty and energy will help visitors connect with the most powerful parts of themselves and reignite their dreams and passions.
Ilchi writes, “It is always our dreams that lend meaning and value to our daily life. If you need a dream, or if you need to rediscover a dream you’ve lost, come here to Sedona.”
Whether you are looking for armchair adventure or the real deal, Ilchi’s The Call of Sedona shows the way to meaningful experiences to reconnect with nature and to our true inner nature as well.
For an intimate look at Sedona from your desk, visit www.CallofSedona.com. This beautiful and inspiring website is the companion to The Call of Sedona book and offers information on upcoming Sedona meditation retreats and workshops, a guide to organizations which can help you transform your life, book reviews, an insightful weekly blog, and more, all based on the beautiful Sedona message Ilchi wishes to share.
Ilchi is a New York Times bestselling author who has dedicated his life to empowering people to live their fullest potential. He has penned thirty-three books including Healing Society: A Prescription for Global Enlightenment and Brain Wave Vibration: Getting Back into the Rhythm of a Happy, Healthy Life.
As a young man, when Ilchi Lee began asking himself, “Who am I and what is my purpose here?” he stopped struggling with life and began a journey that would lead him to study, among other wisdom, the spiritual practice of Tao.
Ilchi Lee believes that developing the potential of the human brain holds the key to discovering the true potential of all of humanity. It was he who initiated the spiritual movement of enlightenment which led to the formation of Tao Fellowship, the 501c (3) non-profit organization established in 1998 to promote the spirit of Tao as a universal principle of harmony and peace. Although he doesn’t currently hold a title or position within the organization, Ilchi occasionally lectures for Tao Fellowship as his other endeavors with this ideal continue.
Tao Fellowship works to amplify and develop the spiritual and peaceful nature of the brain and “to close the gap between a person’s personality and his/her divine true nature.” The dream for one harmonious, peaceful world continues to be carried out through Tao Fellowship core teachings of meditation, holistic healing and Qigong. Learn more about the tradition of Tao for spiritual awakening and natural healing of body, mind and spirit at the website, www.taofellowship.org.
Ilchi Lee talks about meditating in the beauty of nature.
In a recent video titled "Sedona Nature Meditation: Become One with the Serenity of Nature," Ilchi Lee talks about how reaching the summit of a mountain is like reaching that calm, quiet place inside your brain.
"From here, you can see things that are normally too far away," the video presentation says. "You can sense things you may have ignored."
Focusing on the key energy inside you, your mind can naturally become calm and surreal.
Getting Back to Nature
Meditating out in nature is rejuvenating on several levels. Getting back to greenery has a soothing effect on the mind, especially after spending long hours in the office or other indoor spaces.
Whether you're on top of a summit or in your forested backyard, nature can serve as the focal point for mindful meditation. Find a comfortable position sitting or lying down. Start with a few deep breaths, then close your eyes and bring yourself to the sensations of the present moment. Hear the blue bird's song in the distance; smell the leaves and the fresh rain; feel the wind blowing gently against your cheeks.
Pay close attention how your body feels – this is your chance to reconnect your mind and body to the beauty and fragility of your natural surroundings.
When your mind begins to wander, bring it back to the experience of nature. Try focusing in great depths on a single detail: If you hear a bird's call, notice the texture of it and how it resonates in your ears. Avoid labeling the sensations. It may seem to have a shape.
As with any form of meditation, breathing plays a key part. Inhale and exhale in an easy, deep rhythm. Focus on breathing through your diaphragm instead of with your shoulders.
When you feel ready, inhale deeply and open your eyes again. Scan the landscape, from the dirt to trees to flowers to animals and leaves. Any time spent in nature can serve as a form of meditation.
Listen to what your heart tells you. You don't have to stay idle if you don't want to! Some meditators like to stand up and go for a little walk through forested trails. Simply being in nature provides an opportunity to realign yourself with some of the deepest roots of being. Just remember to stay focused on nature.
Discover the five steps in Ilchi Lee’s Brain Education System.
Ilchi Lee, a New York Times best-selling author and the president of the International Brain Education Association, developed his own Brain Education System for the human mind. The brain, Lee points out, is something not only for scientists to discuss; rather, each individual should establish the authority to understand and manage his or her own brain. After all, to accomplish anything we set our minds to, we must first set our minds.
So, Lee introduced Brain Education to provide individuals with tangible tools to navigate their way down the path of their personal development. Creating the life you want as your greatest masterpiece is the ultimate use of the human brain. It is the birthplace of our behavior, gatekeeper of our memories and training facility to our happiness. To work on the mind-body connection, Brain Education helps us make choices that improve our circumstances. Here's are the five steps of Brain EducationLee's practices:
Step One: Brain Sensitizing
In the first step, practitioners use stretching, breath-training exercises and energetic movement to awaken their primary senses and hone self-awareness of between the brain-to-body connection. The act of doing something and consciously recognizing you're doing it is the key to the basics. Focusing on breathing also improves cardiovascular circulation.
Step Two: Brain Versatilizing
You may work on touching your toes to improve your body's flexibility. Now it's time to enhance the flexibility of both body and mind. Through careful observation and self-discipline, you can slowly alter behavior to produce healthier, more productive habits. What's crucial in this step is the plasticity, or rewiring the brain's activity.
Step Three: Brain Refreshing
At this stage, practitioners become acutely aware of the influence of stored emotions and preconception of the quality of their lives. Start to release the memories and ideas that are no longer useful. On a neuroscientic level, this is akin to pruning neurons that your brain does not use. Once you do this, you can face any situation with a clear, fresh mind. Emotional awareness and control not only dispels unproductive thoughts, it enables you to see that creating emotions can be a matter of choice.
Step Four: Brain Integrating
Incorporate various functional areas of the brain to unleash latent capabilities. This enhances communication between the left and right hemispheres, as well as between the cerebral cortex and subcortical structures.
Step Five: Brain Mastering
Like everything in life, practice makes perfect. Apply and re-apply the first four steps of Brain Education toward specific, concrete goals. This results in well-grounded foundation for personal development. At the end of the day, the goal is to improve quality of life for you and those around you. In this way, practitioners become the conscious authors of their lives.
Ilchi Lee Keynote:
I’d like to welcome you to this Ilchi Lee Keynote. In this lecture, we join Ilchi Lee in Boston for a talk he gave at the premiere of his film, Change, the LifeParticle Effect.
In this his first public lecture in Boston in over six years, Ilchi Lee discusses how being aware of and focusing on our energy allows us to utilize our brain’s potential to the fullest.
Being a role model of enlightened sexuality is all the more critical for our children’s learning. In sexuality, as with all life experience, we must be the change we wish to see in the world.
Through these discussions, we will be able to develop a basis of trust with our children, leading to better communication. When we can speak about sex with our children, we will find that it frees our ability to talk about other topics. These conversations will assure our children that they are being respected, which will lead them to develop self-worth, responsibility, and maturity. Through these sincere, honest discussions, you may even change your own preconceptions.
Read more quotes by Ilchi Lee. Below is an observation of a contributor to this blog: David Lawston.
Sex and sexuality are extremely controversial issues in American culture and although attitudes toward sex remain ambivalent, there have been massive changes in American sexual behavior over the past 50 years, including the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Sex-related social problems can be classified in three categories. Gagnon and Simon’s classification scheme for sex-related social problems is like this:
Ilchi Lee emphasizes the brain because it is the thing that creates and controls every aspect of human life. Health, feeling and experience, physical movement, motivation and purpose–all of these are based on brain activity. All life can be improved by better use of our brains.
In the past, humanity has tended to ignore the brain because it was poorly understood and under appreciated. But human understanding of the brain is exploding, and now is the time to utilize that knowledge to our best advantage.
All of the answers to life’s challenges reside in the brain. If we can release that potential, I believe that humanity can solve many of the world’s difficult challenges. This is also true for you on a personal level. Do you have too much stress in your life? Relaxing your brain waves can have a profound effect on the stress reaction in your body. Do you have relationship problems? Examining the addictive emotional patterns established in your brain will help you begin to change them, which will in turn to change your interactions with others. Every human problem is created in the brain, and so is every solution. Through better understanding and care of our brain, we gain greater confidence and the capacity for mastering all our life skills.
Ilchi Lee led the inaugural training program called the Energy Circulation School, held in Otsu, Japan, September 30-October 1, 2007.
The school is a high-level program combining a lectures on energy circulation, Dahn-mu (energy movment) traning (including his demonstration of Dahn-mu), meditation (on a ship), and energy-circulation (Unki) training. For this one-night/two-day course in Otsu, 51 people registered.
Recently Ilchi Lee has been emphasizing that the key to training is communicating the power of Cosmic Energy (Chunjikiun in Korean) for generating greater health, happiness and peace. In his lecture, he said that everything is to be found in Dahn-mu, and that Dahn-mu is a process of learning how to get in touch with the Cosmic Energy in the body. Jangsaeng (Longevity) Walking is also a form of Dahn-mu, performed while walking around. He described the three stages of doing Dahn-mu: Jung-choong (Physical) Dahn-mu, Kijang (Energy) Dahn-mu, and Shinmyeong (Spiritual) Dahn-mu.
Ilchi Lee explained these nine specific effects of Dahn-mu on us:
According to observers of Ilchi Lee’s Dahn-mu demonstration to music, his entire body exuded Cosmic Energy, energetically emanating from his toes and fingertips. In watching his Dahn-mu, the observers called it an inspiring experience that opened their heart.
