---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony...@yahoo.com> wrote :

 Yes there was a change in the fundamentalism. The practical operational policy 
now is that people will get referred to professional mental health resources as 
needed. You ask about mindfulness meditation as therapy, in the operation of 
the new policy I doubt that the clinics on campus or that TM teachers out in 
the world will be providing mindfulness branded prescriptions for mental 
illnesses. That particular mental-health prescription would be coming from 
experts certified or licensed in mental health counseling otherwise, as needs 
be the case. Take a look at the policy as it operates. It is a major change. 
 
 
 According to the science Mindfulness therapy may have its place for some 
people, as does the practice of transcending meditation. Also with this policy, 
TM would no longer dispute a place for mindfulness practices in mental health 
modality based on where modern science is going. TM takes great pain to 
differentiate the practices and benefits of the two different practices. 
Evidently the two meditations each have their places in mental health 
well-being. Culturally though I doubt we we'll see a merger of meditation 
trademarks of the two meditation institutions. It seems both are quite busy 
entrenching themselves each in their own science of uniqueness. Bolstering, 
each seems to have valid mental health science behind their own existence. 
 
 
 But the TM policy in practice now is much clearer with this policy revision 
governing the movement's mental health policy. The policy sends people to 
experts in mental health for particular mental illnesses. 
 
 
 The TM movement changed in process with this by an amalgam of urgent need for 
re-assessment and modern science in the 21st Century. That is okay and 
healthful in itself. Calm minds prevailed inside the process. 
 
 
 The TM Policy Initiative on Mental Health:
 

 
 http://portals.mum.edu/Customized/uploads/guidelines-for-mental-health.html 
http://portals.mum.edu/Customized/uploads/guidelines-for-mental-health.html
 



---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote :

 


---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote :

 In TM Policy.. A comprehensive look at mental health and a changing of 
position. 
 
 
 Adapting a Culture to Changing Times,
 

 

 The TM Policy Initiative on Mental Health:
 

 http://portals.mum.edu/Customized/uploads/guidelines-for-mental-health.html 
http://portals.mum.edu/Customized/uploads/guidelines-for-mental-health.html
 

 

 

 salyavin808 writes:

 

 Nice to see you've dropped Marshy's teaching that TM was the ultimate cure for 
every mental ailment, but this isn't reflecting a changing culture - the world 
was always like that, he was just too keen to teach you otherwise. It's a 
healthy thing to have struck his fundamentalism from the record.
 

 Don't get me wrong, TM is a nice thing to do but the cure for the world's pain 
it is not. Have you thought about introducing Mindfulness Cognitive Behaviour 
Therapies? Very useful indeed for depression and anxiety states which are the 
most common acquired problems in the world today. Assuming the TMO has the 
flexibility to recommend techniques that it comprehensively rubbished not so 
long ago you will find it more effective than a lot of talking therapies. It 
also has a fine "hands on" style which may suit people used to doing stuff with 
their heads.

 

 

 The TM Policy Initiative on Mental Health:
 
 
 http://portals.mum.edu/Customized/uploads/guidelines-for-mental-health.html 
http://portals.mum.edu/Customized/uploads/guidelines-for-mental-health.html
 
 
 The FF Mental Health Alliance: Shifting Cultural Attitudes
 
 

 update meeting: November 2015:
 

 
http://us11.campaign-archive1.com/?u=8106b31a70de58c5f10ebc41b&id=64e514542b&e=4a03ac3b4a
 
http://us11.campaign-archive1.com/?u=8106b31a70de58c5f10ebc41b&id=64e514542b&e=4a03ac3b4a

 



---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote :

 Communal Work in Progress..
 

 "Thirty or 40 years ago, there was a great resistance to using the tools of 
Western psychotherapy and Western psychology. People at various ashrams or Zen 
centers or Buddhist centers and so forth would say, “All you need to do is 
chant, or do the mantra, or sit in Zen meditation, and it will take care of 
everything.” And other tools were considered to be unnecessary or even kind of 
lower-level practices. 
 
 
 Now, I could tell you the names of the therapists of half of the main Zen 
teachers and lamas around the country, because they realized that in our 
modern, Western time, we need all the help we can get. We need to marry these 
powerful spiritual disciplines with the wisdom and the understanding of this 
particular culture. That wisdom and understanding includes tools for healing, 
tools for trauma work, tools for emotional intelligence. And in the last 40 
years, these have become integrated much more actively across the spiritual 
teachings."
 -Jack Kornfield
 how-can-people-be-deeply-spiritual-and-emotionally-immature


---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote :

 October 13th
7:30-8:45PM

 

 

 The full FMHA group meeting this coming Tuesday night
 7:30 - 8:45 PM
 PROGRESS REPORTS from mental health initiatives in Fairfield in the last year. 
How to get help, here, and now. Open Q&A + Handouts. Come with any and all 
questions to move us all forward to the next level now. Upcoming Workshops - be 
part of the next great workshop.

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote :

 Dear MJ thanks for your empathy and support on this. There is a lot of good 
work being done around community mental health in Fairfield, Iowa. It is work 
in progress and certainly there yet are still some tough nuts to crack within 
this work but good work by a lot of good people is being done on many fronts.   
    

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote :

 Excellent, go for it and may all those with problems in Fairfield and 
surrounding environs get the help they need.
 

 From: "dhamiltony2k5@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 12:20 AM
 Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: FF Mental Health Alliance: Shifting Cultural 
Attitudes Subcommittee
 
 
   updating.. 
 

 FMHA MEETING AGENDA
 
 
Ongoing Items
 Happy Mothers Day!
 
 Anxiety Lecture: We are well underway with many initiatives in preparation for 
the event - with special thanks to stellar volunteer Patrick Williams. Attached 
below is an "Event Tracker" to offer a perspective of all that is underway. 
Please review and let us know if we are missing anything of if you have any 
suggestions. Most notable is publicity in the form of articles in the Weekly 
Reader and the Fairfield Ledger last week! Posters are also up on campus and 
around town. Regional Mental Health Professionals: FMHA would like to feature 
properly credentialed mental health professionals. Send us your info and we 
will add you to our list on LetsGoJeffCo, where we have a list started, along 
with other regional resources. (http://letsgojeffco.com/ resources/mind.html 
http://letsgojeffco.com/resources/mind.html) Organization Focus: We will 
temporarily suspend larger group meetings. In the meantime, the Steering 
Committee will meet to focus on strengthening the core of the organization so 
that we may be poised to grow with a more solid foundation. Other active 
volunteers are warmly invited to participate. Details to follow. New Meeting 
Location: We may have gotten the Sondheim Center as a location to host meetings 
once a month. Confirmation and details to follow. Ongoing outreach: If you have 
any ideas, skills, or support to make this group better, contact us. scott@... 
mailto:scott@... Attachments and Links: Anxiety Lecture Event Tracker 
http://ardentcenter.us9.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=9db52c96f615edc3ab1772b2c&id=34197274bd&e=f262db1f14
 Anxiety Lecture Poster  
http://ardentcenter.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9db52c96f615edc3ab1772b2c&id=b1203bceed&e=f262db1f14-
 Download and post it on Facebook, email to friends, etc... Strategic Plan 
http://ardentcenter.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9db52c96f615edc3ab1772b2c&id=cd61a27ff3&e=f262db1f14
 which contains all of our goals Archives of Mental Health Matters with Dr. 
Scott Terry 
http://ardentcenter.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9db52c96f615edc3ab1772b2c&id=bc0e11557b&e=f262db1f14
 Let'sGoJeffCo 
http://ardentcenter.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9db52c96f615edc3ab1772b2c&id=d38d4b8bc6&e=f262db1f14
 Mental Health Page  
 Craig and Scott wishing you well - and reminding you of how powerful you can 
be to make a difference in our world today.

 



---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote : 

 [November 2014]

 


 Towards Actionable Plans..
 

 
 
 Dear Committee Members;
The focus of the next working meeting will be on implementation of the stage 
plans of the various subgroups. [currently 11.11.2014] We are now at the point 
of developing an implementation of each of the goals. Come join us. We want you 
to join us.

This is being sent this out to all so you know what the Shifting Cultural 
Attitudes Subcommittee is working on. This 'Cultural Group' is working through 
a process of creating a Strategic Plan so we can take all the wonderful ideas 
we have been banging around and create an actionable plan out of them. Find 
attached an explanation of writing SMART goals and a template for the team 
leader to fill out for the goals your group were working on during Tuesday 
night's meeting. When the team leader has entered the information into the 
actionable plan template, please forward to Ken Daley for inclusion in the 
Strategic Plan.
 
 
 At previous Alliance working meetings two working subgroups formed and met — 
the “MUM/MSAE” group and the “Outreach and Education” group. Those two groups 
met again last week. Thank you to everyone in those groups for stepping up and 
contributing in this way. Please contact your group liaison to check on if you 
are meeting this coming week, and on what work needs to be done between the 
sessions. 
 

 
 Template Explanation:
 
 
 Writing SMART Goals
STEP 1: Understanding the nature of SMART goal writing
There are several variations of the mnemonic SMART.  For the purposes of our 
Mental Health Alliance exercise we will use the following.
S pecific
M easurable
A ttainable
R elevant
T ime Bound
Specific: The more specific and detailed your description, the greater the 
chances of realizing your goal. 
Measurable: In the specific statement from above you stated the outcome you 
were hunting for. Now is your chance to find measurable steps to attain your 
goal.
Attainable: Calculate your ROI (Return On Investment). Are the effort and time 
you devote to the execution of this goal worth it?
Relevant: Will the achievement of this goal puts you closer to your even larger 
scale goals? Is this important to our mission?
Time Bound: You need to put deadlines and a linear sequence on the tasks needed 
to reach the goal. Nothing will kill a project quicker than not being able to 
see an end point to achieving the goal.
STEP 2: Writing SMART goals
To help guide you in writing SMART goals for our Mental Health Strategic Plan 
we will use the following template. After you write the goal using the template 
and all the columns are filled out, go back to STEP 1 and see if your goal 
meets the SMART criteria.  If yes, move on to writing more goals. If no, you 
know what to do ;-)
 
 
 Work in Progress... If you wish to be part of one of the other groups that 
were listed (still being developed and waiting for more people), or if you want 
to create a group that is not yet listed, please let us know. 
 
 
 - Fairfield Mental Health Alliance
 

 

 

 FF Mental Health Alliance Tuesday, 10/28/14
 Working Session:

Agenda:
 Yes, let’s use Tuesday’s meeting to identify our specific points of focus:
 We will be primarily focused on following-up on the great work that Ken did 
last week on culture and this community. We will be checking in with everyone 
if there are other announcements or issues that need to be addressed. We will 
also look at some of the website updates, as well as other projects that need 
to be addressed.   Other past areas that we will also address, as time permits: 
Updates and recommendations/action steps from the groups? Fairfield Mental Help 
website — content gathering and assembling? Ideas for follow-up community 
meetings? Progress from Mental Health First Aid meeting? Any residual 
dissuasion from last Sundays big meeting on campus that needs to be addressed?  
What do we create now from this work? Next event on, or off, campus? Check in 
on how we’re doing on the whole. Are we headed in the right direction? Any 
course corrections needed? Any further suggestions? Hear from each of the small 
groups on their progress. See if we have enough people to form the Resources 
group we planned on, and enough professionals to form the Professionals group. 
Meet again in small groups — since this is where the action is at this point. 
Individually check in as to what you are up to in creating a difference our 
community, and if you need any support from the rest of the group, or find out 
if you have suggestions and ideas for the rest of the group. "Let’s do think of 
the most interesting, useful, practical, informative, 
behavior-and-attitude-changing topics we can." Craig
 
Let me know if there are any agenda items that you personally have that you 
want to develop at this meeting, please let me know. If you are not on Atrium, 
or have not been on there since last week, please log on and contribute your 
thoughts. We want to hear what you are thinking. 
 Looking forward to seeing all of you again.
 
 

 The Fairfield Mental Health Alliance
 October 5th Meeting Notes
 
 


 
 


 You asked: What did you think about (the Oct 5 meeting) last night?
 Look this has been about creating change and that meeting was a timely showing 
of some progress of change. The meeting was not the conclusive meeting but it 
does show the movement has changed some and all the people on stage help show 
the integration this is taking. 
  On the left hand of the stage as the audience viewed it were all these 
different practicing clinical professionals who also have integrated 
alternative modalities in to their practices as they are useful and have basis, 
and then Pat on the right side clarifying and holding up the movement's 
franchise. Pat did quite a deft job clarifying on behalf of the movement and 
Maharishi. Afterall, it was a movement community meeting. Pat is really quite 
controlled smart, homey, funny, and theatrical all at once.  I enjoyed watching 
him.  It was really quite brilliant.  
 

 This is the second meeting where he has spoken for our collective practical 
concern as to compassion and our working to help people solve mental health 
issues being essentially compassionate.. [very buddhistic? ]
  It will be very interesting to hear when that language of compassion gets 
picked up, adopted and used by spokespersons up the chain of TM command. That 
actually is extremely interesting that he is changing the inside by leading 
with that idea. It has always been said that TM is without heart, well then if 
it is not a trick then we see this movement of the movement from the upper 
level around this whole mental health thing is showing some heart, even though 
it took boxing them in to a corner to help them show it. This is quite a 
change. 
  
 Question of course now is the carry-through. There is more work to do to 
figure out the practical delivery of policy. The clinic, type of credentialed 
staffing, and how they are going to administrate those trip-wire questions on 
their forms. That MUM student who spoke in the Q and A was very effective at 
holding their feet to the fire once again in public.  They got to come up with 
more compassion to show on that one for people to believe them.  
 It is about showing change on their part.  Compassion?  Their administrative 
banishing of Tom Allen was not the timely example of any change there. Opps. An 
long-time old meditator and yes with criticisms of the organization which they 
were soliciting to hear, but an apostate?  No, not then.  Hurt now? yes.  Not 
great timing for the handling of one of the poster persons of  Fairfield Cares. 
   
 Incrementally the meeting was an important meeting strategically. It will be 
another step when they have the confidence to post the policy to point to on 
their webpage.
 -Buck in the Dome
 


 Okay, things change. Git ready for change. Things are changing inside TM. 
There yet are a lot of good people in TM for good reasons and the 
organizational model and processes has changed since the demise of the founder. 
There is a lot more transparency and process. We'll see if you can change 
around this. 
  -Buck on the Ground in Fairfield
 

 mjackson74 wrote :
 The fact that they had that ['Explicative Deleted] Bob Schneider, a 
cardiologist, doing a lecture on Vedic psychiatry which was primarily more 
Movement bullshit of think sweet thoughts, don't think negative thoughts, read 
Hindoo scriptures and do TM - that says what the Movement really thinks and is 
doing about TM suicides than the community meetings they are participating in 
ONLY to save face and put on a good show until they can get the people 
suffering from depression alone to tell them its their fault, their karma, they 
just aren't pure enough yet, so more TM Siddhi practice and some yagyas as well 
as a good big fat donation to the Movement will cure them. 



 

 salyavin808 asks:
 So, what happened at the meeting, who said what and what are they going to do 
about it? 
 
 
 Dateline Fairfield, Iowa. The Oct 21st meeting? It was one in a continuation 
of working meetings held about mental health in the community that have been 
ongoing for months now most every Tuesday going under the working banner of the 
Fairfield Mental Health Alliance. These are working meetings of people who are 
interested in being activley involved in helping with communal mental health. 
On alternating Tuesdays are working committee meetings while on the off 
Tuesdays is the large group meeting where the committees bring their work. The 
larger meetings are very business like organized by agenda. A lot has been done 
[accomplished in very tangible ways] over several months to facilitate mental 
health in to the community. 
 The meetings are open to interested people who would be actively involved. 
They are not gripe sessions where people just hate, bitch and complain, but 
working meetings looking for action steps to work on and facilitate. Different 
aspects have been focused on and worked on within the ongoing previous meeting 
process. Last month before this last meeting the other night was the 
presentation and distribution of the campus guideline for psychological health 
treatment. That was a historic meeting and showed the work of a lot of people. 
 
 
 This current meeting the other night was a facilitated meeting getting down to 
the cultural things that may underlie meditator communal mental health. 
Everything came on to the table. It was really well facilitated.  Evidently it 
is now time in the process to really consider elements of our culture.  There 
were about 40 people around the room of various ages and rank in the community. 
The meeting had a cross-section representation of students, graduates of the 
whole school system, long-term community meditators, campus people, and 
movement leadership. 
  It was extremely well facilitated lasting within and hour or so such that 
everyone was asked to speak and participate in a series of rounds around the 
room where everyone was asked by the facilitator who ran the meeting to respond 
to particular questions in short and those comments were captured on whiteboard 
and poster boards by scribes in front of everyone to be kept and read through 
out the meeting. 
 Starting with a question something like, in only a few limited words and 
without statement what do you see the problem is here in the community culture 
with mental health? 5 or so words. It went around the room. Then once 
everything was on the boards in front of everyone came the next question, in a 
word how do you feel now about all that was said? It went around the room to 
everyone including movement leadership. 'Hopeful' was a common comment among a 
range of feelings.
 Last large question of the group was something like, in five words what should 
be done to effect change in the communal culture? Again time was taken to go 
entirely around the room and the answers were recorded by scribes on boards in 
front of the whole group to read. That went around the whole room and 
everything was said without comment or discussion.  It just moved around the 
room to everyone.  These were pertinent action points. 
 In the end of the meeting then everyone was asked to come forward and 
physically vote with a limited number of hash-marks to what they felt were the 
most important points offered in the meeting. That data then will subsequently 
generate a report with priority for a future meeting about what it might take 
to change the culture of the movement around mental health. It was all very 
open and very well done.  Communal process to continue,,
 # #
 Now, as the science evidently does seem to indicate do take some quiet time 
for effective transcendent meditation for the welfare of your mental health and 
go forth and have a better day. 
 Jai Guru Dev,
 -Buck in the Dome
 

 

 ? “..the role of principle Barry hater - and you have to admire the gusto!” 
 No, we all rate posts as we may read them on spectrum; from posts that make: 
Observations, to suggestions, to criticism, by negativity and tone, to 
apostasy, thence to active anger and hating. In reading these posts I feel Ann 
through reading the individual postings here simply lost some faith more in 
Turq by her better understanding of his writing and approach here after reading 
the Lenz book that was posted here. It is that simple also. 
  I always read the Turq and feel he has a valid perspective from having 'been 
there' at a time, by his contrast with spiritual experience like Fleet's, and 
now I feel I have an even better understanding of him as a critic from this 
recent Freddy Lenz/Rama thread on FFL. Context often is everything. 
 
 
 That is something that is particularly good about the writing on FFL, that it 
often can render down what is truth. Judy was very much part of that process 
when she was here. Ann also helps with that by virtue of her mind about things 
and by life experience as context about things here. Some here have been pricks 
and Ann may be prickly towards people at times.  Rick seems to welcome almost 
everyone contributing to the related topics of FairfieldLife. I thank Rick for 
that. Public forum is often one of the best checks against theocratic tyranny. 
 
 
 There was an amazing open meeting last night in meditating Fairfield where 
everything was on the table in front of a bunch of the higher-up apparatchiks 
of the new TM movement. For upward pressures on the organization being beyond 
theocratic control, FFL has long been a part of the calculus of the meditating 
Fairfield communal culture. 
 There is a lot of change going on inside right now by virtue of the attention 
of public forum. Turq in his way has been part of that for years by force of 
his experience, personality and writing. I would miss him if he gets entirely 
hounded or completely embarrassed off of this forum. In the same way I feel it 
was really mean the way they hounded Judy personally off this list and out of 
this community. Rick and the moderators should have stopped that before the 
end. 
 I would hope we could all be kinder with one another in process. 
 Jai Guru Dev, 
 -Buck in the Dome 
 

 Om, Dear MJ; under a theory that ethics is a leading economic indicator of 
organizational life, could your vitriolic level as to TM, the Maharishi and the 
meditation he promulgated and some of TM's past leadership be malleable if the 
new TM movement has changed its ethical code and behavior? Or, are you locked 
in to your feelings and opinion? Just wondering. I am seeing quite a lot of 
change [movement] in the new TM movement.  Does that kind of healthy change 
dismay your position?
 Kindly,
 -Buck
 











 


 















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