Did you know that?

• In the Dutch town of Lelystad there is an elementary school where the children Meditate twice a day for 10 minutes. The results are fantastic. The children get quieter and more stable, they achieve better in the national tests. Source: De Telegraaf, a Dutch daily, 22/01/04
• Richard Gere is one of the greatest champions of the Tibet of the Dalai Lama. R. Gere is a convert to Buddhism and has Meditated since age 24.
• Dutch business woman of the year 2003 Jeanette van den Ingh-van Wijk says in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant that she would never have won this title without her daily hour of Meditating.
• Deepak Chopra estimates that people who Meditate for many years often have a biological age that is between 5 and 10 years lower than their chronological age.
• When sleeping, your use of oxygen drops 8%, during a Meditation session, it drops 10 to 20%
• Hormones with a calming effect like melatonin and serotin increase as a result of Meditating, whereas the stress hormone cortisol decreases.
• Dance organiser and millionaire Duncan Stutterheim travels to the Bhagwan temple in Poona every year to Meditate there. His brain child ID&T organises and exports large dancing events with often more than 30,000 visitors.
• Meditating has an immense positive effect on the three great indicators of ageing: our sense of hearing, our blood pressure and our eyesight.
• People that Meditate recover more quickly from diseases and will not often experience situations as stressful. Time Magazine 27/10/03
• Centreparks is already building Zen-gardens in its British bungalow parks and is expecting it will do the same on the continent of Europe.
• According to the latest research Meditation can train our brains and even change its structure positively.
• David Lynch, the director of among other things Twin Peaks, gets many of his bizarre and unbelievable creative ideas while Meditating.
• Fortunately more and more people use techniques to stimulate their intuition: they go in for Meditation more often.
• Many people that suffer from insomnia sleep much better through Meditation.
• "Every day I train myself mentally by means of concentration exercises, Meditation techniques, and attempts to analyse myself. It is a matter of listening to your deepest feelings, seeing who you are and start from that. You develop during your lifetime and you see the results of this in the way you skate" (Bart Veldkamp, champion iceskater)
• Meditation can help people with cancer. Meditating is becoming something that is effective against all sorts of ills and evils in people's lives. Researchers from the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in the Canadian town of Calgary have come to the conclusion that Meditating also helps to make patients with breast cancer or prostrate cancer less stressful.
• Without using any sort of drugs Meditation can help you to reduce your blood pressure.
• Just before winning Wimbledon the famous tennis player Richard Krajicek read the Zen book "Nothing special" by Ch.J. Beck four times. In this way he learned to let go of an error very soon and concentrate right away on the next ball.
• Officials that work in one of the Dutch ministeries can retire into a silence centre that has been specially equipped for Zen Meditation.
• Former Dutch Prime Minister Dries van Agt told his audience in a well-known Dutch television show that he was deeply impressed by Zen Buddhism and especially by Meditation.
• Elaine Aron, author of the best-seller Highly Sensitive People, says in the magazine Top Sante (07/03): "Meditating is good for highly sensitive people. They must find moments of rest in their existence so that they do not get too highly stimulated" Mrs Aron herself Meditates for an hour twice a day.
• Meditating often leads to a reduction of pain and to better acceptance of pain.
• In the U.S.A. 10 million people Meditate every day (Time Magazine, 04/08/03)
• Research has demonstrated that well trained meditators could not even be pulled out of their concentration by gunshots.
• The University of Wisconsin discovered that employees that Meditated have a higher frustration tolerance, more joy in their work, a more cheerful and more optimistic attitude and higher energy levels. It is also clear that conflicts and unpleasant relationships among employees decrease when they start to Meditate.
• In more and more airports you find special Meditation and contemplation centres.
• The university of Cambridge has discovered that insight Meditations halved the relapse ratio of chronically depressed patients.