THURSDAY 20 NOVEMBER
By Robina Courtin

Just arrived in town from Europe is Igor Sarmientos, the son of Jorgé, whom we commissioned to write some music for us especially for our Gala Benefit concert. Buddhfonias, The Sound of the Buddha, is the result.

The concert is Monday night November 24, after the first day of the conference, Happiness & Its Causes. It’s a benefit for our own Liberation Prison Project, as well as John Muir Elementary School and Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics.

Igor, a conductor, timpanist and cellist, will conduct the second half of the concert, which culminates in Buddhafonias.

Igor told us more about the music recently.

Immersed since childhood in the magic and mysticism of Catholicism, it wasn’t until recently that Jorgé first heard about Buddhism and its approach to the human mind from his son Igor, himself a Buddhist.

Here, he found himself on new ground. “This is not my father’s usual language,” his son says. Involved in political activism against the right-wing military in the 1960s, and having even spent time in prison, his music over the years has reflected his views of the world. In Buddhfonias, he delves into the internal for the first time.

The first part, Depression/Anguish, reflects the confusion and chaos of these mental states, symbolized by the woodwinds and followed by the brass in blocks of random structures, and finally the strings. The different rhythms, dynamics and nuances represent the depression, confusion, and the ignorance that is the source of human suffering.

A long note held by the third horn leads into the second part, Meditation/Calm Abiding. Rather than “music for meditation,” Sarmientos uses music as an unconventional language to describe a moment of silence and single-pointed concentration, or “calm abiding.” More than a description of meditation itself, the theme acts as an observer of the process of a person in meditation, deconstructing the meditation experience. This state of repose is expressed by the long notes of the winds and strings. The solo trombone and first violins softly lead an insightful idea, moving toward dissolution in a low line played by the violas that ends the Meditation.

Finally there is Illumination/Liberation. In the mind of the composer, the moment of illumination is a triumphant march-dance, written in a joyous 12/8 rhythm that demonstrates an optimistic, happy and transforming vision (as opposed to just a philosophical idea). This is expressed like an epic battle and triumph over negativity and neurosis, which leads to the state illumination or liberation. This harmonious and rhythmically pleasing orchestration leads the listeners to the conclusion of the piece, leaving them with the understanding that the ultimate goal has been achieved – the ego, described by the great Buddhist teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche as our worst enemy, has been triumphantly overcome.

Jorgé will be at the concert; it will be his first visit to San Francisco.



Come to an amazing event, our Gala Benefit concert, on Monday 24 November!
MONDAY 21 OCTOBER
By Robina Courtin

One of the highlights of our Happiness & Its Causes conference is a separate event on the first night, Monday 24 November: the world premier of an orchestral poem called Buddhafonias that we commissioned a couple of years ago from the Guatemalan classical composer Jorgé Sarmientos.

It will raise funds for three San Francisco organizations:
• Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics, which have doing an amazing job since the 1960s in providing free cutting-edge health care to the uninsured and underinsured of the city;
• John Muir Elementary School, our neighbors in Ross Mirkarimi’s District 5 and one of the poorer schools in the city;
• and Liberation Prison Project, which I run, which supports the spiritual practice of thousands of people in prison around the United States who write to us for help.

Instead of charging for tickets, we’ve decided to open the concert to everyone: you can make a donation once you’re there. We want to fill the hall with a thousand people – so even if you won’t come to the conference, please come to our concert!

But you need to register: click here.

The idea of a gala benefit has been growing in my mind since I met Jorgé five years ago when his son Igor, also an accomplished musician, invited me to teach at the Buddhist center he was running in Guatemala City. At the time, Igor was director of the Guatemalan National Orchestra and ran the Youth Orchestra, which he founded.

I attended a performance of a flute concerto of Jorgé’s and was deeply moved by the depth and scope of his music. I’m not an expert, but I was brought up with music: my mother was a classical singer and pianist and I studied singing with her until my early 20s (giving it up when I failed to be accepted at a college in London – I became a hippie instead!).

Jorgé has been composing for fifty years and it saddened me that so little of his music has been recorded or even published; only recently has someone catalogued his works. He seemed so little appreciated in his own country: he’s old now, and he still has to travel a couple of hours by bus every week to pick up his pension.

I was impressed with Igor as well: he started playing as a timpanist in the National Orchestra when he was 13. He’s a cellist as well, but mainly he conducts. These days he’s working in Moldavia, traveling in Europe as a visiting conductor.

Why not have a fundraising concert in San Francisco, I thought to myself back then. We could ask Jorgé to write something for us and Igor could conduct. And we did.

The piece he wrote, finished just a few months ago, is called Buddhafonias: the Sound of the Buddha. Igor told me that he talked at length to his father about the inner journey of person on the Buddhist path. He said that what Jorgé finally wrote – a twelve-minute for a full orchestra of sixty-four instruments – is not in his father’s usual musical language, but that he was very moved during the writing of it.

The three parts of Buddhafonias track the internal process of a practitioner, from confusion to liberation: Anxiety, Calm Abiding, and Liberation. It’s the culmination of a full evening’s concert.

We invited the San Francisco Sinfonietta to perform the music. Urs Leonhardt Steiner and his musicians are rehearsing the works every week until the event. Urs will conduct the first half of the concert and Igor the second, which includes a concertino for marimba, also by Jorgé, with the soloist Matthew Coley.

Urs will also talk at the conference: he does great work in San Francisco, using his music to help human beings. He will show how “singing can improve our mental health” – and will get the conference delegates to sing along to prove his point.

Look forward to seeing you!


Happiness conference in London
MONDAY 13 OCTOBER
By Robina Courtin

I’m just back from a week in London, where the second European Happiness & Its Causes conference was held. This year’s was organized by World Happiness Forum, which Tony Steel in Sydney launched last year. We’re collaborating closely with them on our event in San Francisco.

As always, there was a whole range of speakers in London, and all kinds of people attending. And everyone was very moved: talking about happiness gets to the very heart of what matters. Everyone in London is just as worried about the way the world is going as we are in the US – but all the more reason, it seems, to reassess our values and our priorities.

The Blue Room
On Friday, there was much talk about education. Kevin Hogston, the deputy head of Latchmere, a small school in Surrey, was a delight: he showed how they’d transformed things for the children by using a system called SEAL: Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning, focusing on five social and emotional aspects of learning: self-awareness, managing feelings, motivation, empathy and social skills. And he showed how they had turned an old storage room into The Blue Room, a place to relax and meditate in. (www.latchmerej.kingston.sch.uk/seal.htm)

Looking to the Future
In San Francisco, our conference – HappinessAndItsCausesSF.com – closes with LOOKING TO THE FUTURE: TEACHING HAPPINESS TO CHILDREN (Tuesday 25 November). Three marvelous people, all working in California, will demonstrate what they’re doing to help transform the way we educate, all of them hands-on activists, not just academics.

Randy Taran of Project Happiness in Palo Alto will talk about how their curriculum can empower youth to create greater happiness, for themselves and others. Christine Carter, the Executive Director of Greater Good Science Center in Berkeley, will talk about the science of raising happy kids. And Pamela Cayton will describe the curriculum that she has created over the past eighteen years, which is being implemented at Tara Redwood School in Santa Cruz. After they’ve presented their work, Patricia Jennings, Director of Garrison Institute’s Initiative on Contemplation and Education, will lead them in an in-depth discussion.

Workshops
Our main conference sessions are on Monday and Tuesday November 24 and 25: an amazing range of speakers from the worlds of psychology, philosophy, the arts, education, etc. But on Sunday and Wednesday, eight of our speakers will go into more depth on their topics.

On Sunday morning, Thupten Jinpa, the Dalai Lama’s principal translator and a scholar in his own right, will describe the marvelous methods that Tibetans have used for centuries that enable one to “constantly maintain a joyful mind.” In the afternoon on Sunday, I will describe how to be our own therapists: how to unravel the complexities of our own emotions to become clearer and stronger and more open to others.

On Wednesday, there are six workshops. You can choose in the morning between Philippe Goldin’s Meditation, Emotion and Brain Systems; Pam Cayton’s Seven Steps to Awakening Knowledge, Strength and Compassion, and Gina Gibney’s Look Inside, Speak Through Movement, Work Together.

In the afternoon on Wednesday you have the choice between Sujatha Baliga’s Restorative Justice: Going Beyond Blame and Anger, Yeshe Khadro’s No Regrets: Advice for Living and Dying, and Ben Eiland and Friends’ Hearing the Call of the Drum.

Such good people doing so much to help others!

Thupten Jinpa is involved in many projects, one of them at Stanford, collaborating with Project Compassion.

Philippe is backing up his own meditation experience with scientific proof of its efficacy in his work at Stanford.

Pam has worked for years developing her curriculum for educating the whole child.

I read about Gina in Vanity Fair several months ago: the ground-breaking work her dance company is doing in New York City with survivors of domestic violence. I was impressed – and delighted that she agreed to come to our conference.

Sujatha is a lawyer who’s working in a George Soros funded position with Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, proving how easy it is to solve problems with communication and an open heart.

Yeshe Khadro’s an old friend from Australia who runs a remarkable community palliative care service in Brisbane, renowned throughout Australia, especially for its personal approach. In her workshop she will show a film of advice His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave to Karuna Hospice.

And Ben Eiland is doing amazing work with Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics, who bring cutting-edge medical services to the poor of San Francisco. He will bring together for this workshop some of his Native American friends who use drumming to help people struggling with addiction.

See you in six weeks!


Working hard on the conference
MONDAY 6 OCTOBER
By Robina Courtin
 
All proceeds from our Happiness & Its Causes conference will go to two non-profits: Liberation Prison Project, which I run, and Tse Chen Ling, a Buddhist center run by Michelle Stewart. We’re both part of the FPMT, a worldwide Buddhist organization, which has its main office in Portland.
 
LPP and TCL share the same house at 399 Webster Street in San Francisco. Twelve people work here full time, and some of us live here – and these days almost every one of us is fully involved in working for the conference: it’s taken us over!

The conference seems to be creating a lot of energy! People are very excited about it. There's no doubt we all want happiness, but it's true too that sometimes we have no idea how to find it or even whether it's possible.

There are so many ideas about just what it is; usually we think of it as something we have to find, like a needle in a haystack. But I must say I like Buddha's very practical approach to it: he says that stable happiness is what comes when we get rid of all those painful states of mind that we know so well: anger, fear, jealousy, low self-esteem and the rest. It sounds almost too simple, but the more we think about it and practice it, the more it makes sense.

Meanwhile, we're all working hard on making our conference happen: to provide a forum for all the amazing people we have lined up to talk about human happiness and how to achieve it, for ourselves and others.

Kate MacDonald, for example, is the prison project’s Communications Coordinator: she does our bi-monthly newsletter and our website. The newsletter, Liberation, is a major part of the work we do to serve our community of students, who happen to live in prisons. They can’t access the internet, nor can they write to each other, so our newsletter is their lifeline.
 
These days, though, Kate has had to leave the newsletter aside to work full time on marketing the conference – and we’re doing so much in our efforts to attract people to our conference! She’s being helped by Sarah Brooks, our Prisoner Support Coordinator, and Sarah Brown, our bookkeeper.

And our Teacher Coordinator Carina Rumrill is looking after our Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Australian nun Ven. Chokyi has just arrived from Sydney, where she works for the conference there, to take over the coordination of the organization of the entire event. She's helped by our new Office Manager Mike McEntee.

A great team!
 
The Bay Area has some 8 million inhabitants and we decided to focus mainly on them in our marketing. Our conference is on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and we figured that the majority of people interested in attending Happiness & Its Causes would be from the Bay Area. It seems an appropriate thing to do during Thanksgiving – and we discovered that there are conventions and conferences throughout the week, including on Thanksgiving itself. (Apparently, some 30% of all people who come to this city, come for conferences and conventions.)
 
We have ads on the back of fifty city buses, and next week we will have ads on the BART trains as well. We mailed 95,000 copies of our 20-pp program to people and have emailed hundreds of thousands. Sixty thousands post cards will be dropped at 2,000 places in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles. We even have ads in the form of magnets on the sides of our car!
 
We have full page ads in the October and November issues of Common Ground, Bay Area Business Women, and November’s San Francisco Arts Monthly. And in August we had full page ads in Psychology Today, Mandala and Snow Lion.

We had audio ads on a dozen podcasts with Personal Life Media; and we have our own podcast with Buddhist Geeks.

We're doing our best to reach every one of you 8 million people!
 
This is my first experience of organizing something like this, and I’m enjoying it immensely, but I have no idea what to expect. Everyone is telling me that most people will register for the conference in the last month. Let’s see if our hard work pays off!

 
Why Happiness?
MONDAY 29 SEPTEMBER
By Robina Courtin

Why did we decide to have a conference about happiness?

It all started in 2007, when my friend in Australia, Tony Steel, chairman of Terrapinn, a worldwide company that runs conferences, invited me to speak at Happiness & Its Causes, in Sydney. He’d launched this, and another called Mind & Its Potential, as a way to help support the Buddhist center he runs there.

Three and a half thousand people turned up: I was amazed! We must do this in San Francisco, I thought to myself. It’s from here that I run Liberation Prison Project, which supports the spiritual practice of thousands of people in prison, mainly in this country and Australia (where we also have an office). What a perfect way, I thought, to support this non-profit activity.

There were fifty+ speakers in Sydney, each talking from various points of view about happiness and how to achieve it. People are hungry for this! It’s clear we all want happiness – do our market research and simply ask people, and we’ll get 100% agreement: yes please!

But the interesting part is that we differ radically about exactly what happiness is and whether it’s attainable.

Tony gave me the go-ahead. We set our dates and booked a venue: November 24 & 25 at the Westin on Third Street in downtown San Francisco. We decided to follow Sydney’s lead and hold pre- and post-workshops as well.

Very soon, it had taken on a life of its own: we have the most marvelous group of people, 40 of them, all excited to be involved. One of the 20th century’s greatest psychologists Paul Ekman, for example, will open the conference with three other thinkers, including Thupten Jinpa, a Tibetan scholar and the principal translator for the Dalai Lama. They will deconstruct happiness, telling us exactly what it is and whether it’s possible: fundamental questions.

There’s great research going on these days: one of the most important findings of the 20th century is in the field of neuro-plasticity: contrary to long-held beliefs, it’s now clear that our brains can change. Owen Flanagan will tell us about this. Darren McMahon will touch on some of what he covers in his marvelous book, Happiness: A History, published in 2006.

I decided that I wanted people in other fields to talk about what makes people happy, not just psychology and philosophy. Early in the year I read in Vanity Fair about New York choreographer Gina Gibney, whose dance company uses movement to help abused women and children. I rang her up and she accepted immediately!

I invited my dear friend San Francisco psychologist David Matsumoto, who had also talked in Sydney, but Tony had got him first for his Singapore conference! David is also a judo master and I knew that his daughter had trained with him since she was a little girl. So we invited her instead, Sayaka, She was honored to part of the 2008 US judo Olympic team and will describe the benefits of a physical discipline.

Melissa Mathison spent weeks working closely with the Dalai Lama on the screenplay of Martin Scorses’s marvelous film, Kundun, about His Holiness and the people of Tibet: I am delighted that she will tell us about her experiences.

People will talk about happiness and health, how to help dying people be happy, the psychology of happiness, how to teach happiness to children – the very things we all think about.

We can see it’s even possible to find happiness in the most painful situations of life. Linda White’s daughter was murdered. She will sit down with San Francisco television news anchor Pam Moore, her own granddaughter Ami, and André Smith, my friend in North Carolina who teaches for us in prison there and whose own son was murdered too: they will talk about how they learned to forgive – something that seems almost impossible for most of us.

What has moved me deeply these past months of growing the program and inviting the speakers: there are so many good, good people in the world doing what they can to help humanity, and I honored to give a forum to just a few of them.

This is just the beginning! Happiness & Its Causes will be an annual event in San Francisco – and who knows where else. . . (I love New York City, for example!)

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