Meditation information

Editor’s Note: Following our recent article on meditation in Maine, by Amrita Narayanan Bruce, we had a number of people write to us or contact us in much the following manner:

I really enjoyed your article on meditation. Nice to see a serious treatment of an important subject. Didn’t know about the Sufis and am glad they are here. Just one thing. I have been looking for the new address of the Portland Zen Center and you didn’t give it. Where on St. John’s street is it located? In fact, where were all the places you wrote about located? a have just moved to Portland and have been currently looking for a center/teacher in this area.

I was curious about what Joan Wadman had to say concerning her philosophies towards meditation.

So much so that I would not mind trying to contact her at the Portland Adult Education Center. They weren’t listed in the phone book. So, I was wondering if you could somehow point me in the direction of getting ahold of either Joan, or the Center itself.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Again . . . wonderful job with the article.

Thanks for your time and consideration . . .

 

Apparently, we should have provided some contact information for the many meditation groups and sources we wrote about in the article. So, here they are:

 

Zen Meditation Group

Contact: Keith Walker 773-8480.

 

Sufi Meditation Group

Contact: Norrisdale, 774-1203 or Basir Rahima, 741-2010.

 

Self-Realization Fellowship

Contact: International Headquarters, 323-342-0247.

 

Maine Rigpa Sangha (Tibetan Book of Living and Dying group)

Contact: Joan Wadman, 428-3399.

 

Transcendetal Meditation

Contact: Dr. Camille French, 846-8600.

 

Social Meditation

Contact: David Kaufmann, 781-3371.

 

More McCullough

President Bush reads David McCullough’s John Adams (Dan Kennedy’s timely review, August 31, ’01). The book symbolically under his arm, he ponders the Republican model as set by Adams. Like Adams, Bush works towards a strong domestic policy. But Bush is a chameleon. He sends out ‘democratic’ advances on next year’s tax bill, he wants to give the elderly prescription drug coverage, he rallies with labor unions (the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa is suddenly news again), he wants to revitalize schools, have teaching accountability, national testing . . . even his photos show a different man every day.

Tom Daschle Democrats worry about the Republicans opening the Social Security lock box and spending the surplus. They should be worried. Bush is prancing around in cowboy boots all over their domain. What if, gasp, Bush spends the surplus on social programs? (The surplus came from the Republicans’ ‘welfare reform act’ that Bill Clinton signed into law in August 1996.) Now the ‘welfare reform act’ is up for review, Bush is at the door he’s huffing and puffing but instead of the expected wolf we find a totally different cat.

Bush may be all over the stage in his domestic policy but aside from whirl-wind tours of Europe and Russia, nixing Kyoto, and going ahead with star wars any way (Didn’t Putin say OK? get rid of old treaties and rusting arsenals.) Bush remains steadfastly out of foreign policy. Palestinians and Israelis blow each other up, China sells arms to Iran, NATO is falling apart and Bush turns his nose to home. His only dip in foreign ‘waters’ or desert waters is with Mexico. The dashing Vicente Fox is ready to make Mexico a US colony. Think of all the votes and cringing Democrats!

Lucia Connelly

Falmouth

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