Living Longer Column,
Published in the American Free Journal, April 22, 2010 (800 words)
by Art Kunkin
(Note: If you want to receive a free monthly email newsletter updating the schedule of events in Joshua Tree reported on here, please call the Joshua Tree Retreat Center at 760-365-8371, or by visiting the website www.jtrcc.org. You can also signup for this email newsletter, edited each month by yours truly, at the Retreat Center Book Store at 59700 29 Palms Highway, Joshua Tree, California).
The Tibetan Breath Work, now scheduled in convenient classes at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center and on-line as well, is a remarkable and easy way to increase your health, your peace of mind and your longevity.
This teaching was first brought to Tibet 1200 years ago by Guru Padmasambhava, a professor at the University of Nalanda in India. Foreseeing the destruction of Nalanda by foreign invaders, this teacher selected a few of his advanced students and went to the other side of the Himalayas where he preserved his Dzogchen teaching within the isolated country known as “Forbidden Tibet.”
The Tibetan Breath Work was later introduced to British journalist and publisher Edwin Dingle in Shanghai, China by a worker in his printing plant known as the Sage of Shanghai. One day this man asked Dingle to come to a nearby temple to witness an important ceremony. In a corner of the temple courtyard was the Sage, going through breathing exercises such as the young man had never before seen. As Mr. Dingle later said, “It was the first time I had ever seen a man really breathe.”
Edwin Dingle completed his studies of the Breath Work in 1911 when he visited Tibet at the bidding of the Sage. Dingle then came to the United States where he started the Institute of Mentalphysics in 1927, now headquartered since the 1940s at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center. Mr. Dingle was later honored with Fellowships by the Royal Geographical Society and the American Geographical Society for his maps of China and research into the Chinese economy.
Breath, without which there is no life, is used in the Mentalphysics techniques to bring the body into balance, revitalizing every cell, and increasing well-being with life-force energy. The set of 8 Yogic Breaths and their affirmations energizes and exercises key organs and glands. The abundant supply of oxygen to the brain brings clarity of thinking as well as refining and sharpening the memory.
Prana, the mysterious “food of the soul” described in Eastern teachings as a major component in the air we breathe and as the principle from which all life is derived, is then utilized and stored within the body for healing and youthing. After being learned, the 8 Yogic breaths are used on a daily basis.
Other events at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center include a Sunday morning Tai Chi exercise class, a Wednesday night Desert Gathering and a Thursday evening life drawing class. Also, there is a monthly roundtable presentation of mythological legends, drum circles, meditation classes plus a number of workshop retreats lasting a week or more sponsored by various spiritual groups such as Spirit Rock, Four Winds and Nine Gates. Local organizations such as the Morongo Basin Arts Council, Theatre 29 and the Firefighters also use the facilities of the Retreat Center on occasion.
Among the retreats in Joshua Tree are those of an authorized American Buddhist teacher of Dzogchen named Lama Surya Das as well as some Tibetan teachers of Dzogchen from the pre-Buddhist tradition known as Bon-Po. I also teach a class at the Retreat Center based on Western and Tibetan Dzogchen alchemy including material from the Tibetan Book Of The Dead plus some unusual modern scientific insights into the Breath Work of Mentalphysics.
To conclude this information about events at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, I plan in next week’s column to write in depth about the upcoming seminar of the Monroe Institute starting May 30 at the Retreat Center. Robert Monroe, the successful businessman-author of “Journeys Out Of The Body” founded the Monroe Institute to teach brain and dream techniques for consciously experiencing our non-physical “bodies.” As far as I know, this will be the first event of the Monroe Institute in the Western United States. Registration information is available at 760-365-8371. I am hoping to attend this five-day Retreat along with other locals.
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Art Kunkin is the journalist who founded the alternative weekly newspaper, The Los Angeles Free Press. A free download of a magazine cover story interview with Art about his research into
stopping aging is available at www.immortality-is-possible.com. (“The Last Alchemist: Has The King Of The Hippies Discovered The Secret Of Everlasting Life?”) Art’s book, “Life Extension: The Secret Of Immortality Finally Revealed” is available at a reduced sale price of $9 at his web site www.alchemyrevealed.com. These weekly Living Longer articles are archived at www.artkunkin.com Please email Art at artkunkin@gmail.com with your questions or comments.