Digital Download - PowerPoint Synchronized with Live Audio

Session Description: Dr Richard Horowitz is board certified in internal medicine, and is medical director of the Hudson Valley Healing Arts Center, in Hyde Park, N.Y. The HVHAC is an integrative medical center that specializes in the treatment of Chronic Lyme Disease. The center has treated over 12,000 chronically ill Lyme patients over the last 27 years, combining Eastern and Western medical approaches in their treatment. Dr Horowitz is a practicing Buddhist with a daily meditation practice, and has studied with meditation masters from the Karma Kagyu Tibetan Buddhist lineage during the past 30 years. During that time, he has studied extensively with H.E. Tai Situ Rinpoche, Lama Norhla Rinpoche, the Venerable Kalu Rinpoche, and has studied Calm Abiding meditation, Vipassana/Insight meditation and Mahamudra meditation for over 10 years with the Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche. The most recent teachings he received were a direct transmission of the mind instructions of Khenpo Ganghar, who was a root teacher for both Thrangu Rinpoche, and the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, considered to be one of the founding fathers of Buddhism in America. These teachings were credited with liberating countless Tibetans from suffering during extremely difficult times.

We too live in extremely challenging times. The external elements are out of balance, where floods, tornadoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes are a regular occurrence, and there are epidemics of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and infectious diseases in our medical offices on a daily basis. Patients often do not cope well these challenges, as they struggle to deal with the consequences of their illness. In Chronic Lyme Disease, often have patients suffer for years going from doctor to doctor looking for answers. Apart from their striking physical symptoms, these patients often present with significant neuropsychiatric abnormalities, including severe depression, anxiety, a loss of hope, and a loss of meaning in their lives.  Despite pharmaceutical interventions, their psychiatric symptoms often cause ongoing suffering, and patients need new tools to cope with their challenging life situations.

This session will discuss several different meditation techniques that can effectively be integrated into our lives to help relieve both our own and our patients suffering. Simple techniques of Calm abiding meditation, mindfulness meditation, and Mahamudra meditation will be shared, in group practice settings. The scientific basis for meditation as well as the Buddhist understanding of the nature of mind and how to use meditation to discover its basic essence will be discussed, as well as ways to work with the difficult emotions that arise in everyday life and medical practice.