Dear friends,

Upaya will be joining in with our friends from Pax Christi to commemorate Hiroshima Day this year (the 64th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan). We did this four years ago and it was quite a powerful experience for those of us who took part.

Please mark your calendar, and we hope you will join us for these two events:

* Friday, July 31: Witness for Peace -- an evening with two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Jody Williams and Mairead Maguire, at the Santa Fe Convention Center, 7 pm

* Aug 1: Los Alamos: sackcloth and ashes event, with Upaya and other sanghas offering a meditative/Buddhist presence

See the Pax Christi website: http://www.paxchristinewmexico.org/


Details are still to be worked out for the Aug 1 vigil, but we wanted to let you know in advance and we hope you will participate in this important commemoration. We'll post more information on the Upaya enewsletter and website as things get firmed up.

Jul 10, 2009 — Jul 12, 2009
Exploring Compassion and Fearlessness at the End of Life
Frank Ostaseski * Roshi Joan Halifax with special participation by Ann Marie McKelvey, LPCC, MCC (PCC)

This retreat is for professional and family caregivers, those with life-threatening illness and those wishing to explore approaches to end-of-life care and issues related to dying and death. Participants will explore our views of pain, suffering, mortality, and freedom from suffering; perspectives on our encounter with death, as well as psycho-spiritual and contemplative approaches to care of the dying; the development of compassion and resilience in care of the dying, and methods for cultivating empathy, altruism, and compassion and sustaining resilience as we care for dying people. 10 CEUs for this program. Click here to register on-line.

Jul 23, 2009 — Jul 26, 2009
Yoga, Science and Selflessness Practice Intensive
Roshi Joan Halifax * Richard Freeman * David Riley, MD

This retreat is an immersion into the practice and science of asana practice and meditation. It includes an exploration of anatomy and Buddhist and Hindu philosophy. In a unique way, the retreat brings together the practice of Yoga with Buddhism and the latest scientific research in yoga and meditation. It is an exploration of the internal principles and forms of Ashtanga Yoga and philosophies of yoga into the therapeutics of asana practice, and includes pranayama and chanting, as well as the biomechanics of posture and movement. Click here to register on-line.

The whites of her eyes rolled up like a saint
in a filmed drama of staged yogic bliss,
then her head turned and showed it was not paint
that guttered out. The sniper did not miss,
in spite of Neda's black Persian Hijab,
the perfect placing of his pervert's kiss,
but he was just doing his Basij job;
the street was not the place for their complaint.
Religion is the robed disguise of thugs,
whether snipers on the roofs shooting girls,
Taliban buying guns by selling drugs,
West Bank settlers with their Uzis and curls
stealing wells with walls and Adonai's will,
who gave them the land and license to kill.

The whites of her eyes rolled up like a saint
in a filmed drama of staged yogic bliss,
then her head turned and showed it was not paint
that guttered out. The sniper did not miss,
in spite of Neda's black Persian Hijab,
the perfect placing of his pervert's kiss,
but he was just doing his Basij job;
the street was not the place for their complaint.
Religion is the robed disguise of thugs,
whether snipers on the roofs shooting girls,
Taliban buying guns by selling drugs,
West Bank settlers with their Uzis and curls
stealing wells with walls and Adonai's will,
who gave them the land and license to kill.