What is mindfulness?
Originally added on 28th September 2011
Last updated on 3rd November 2011
Last updated on 3rd November 2011
M: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 12
“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor
” - Franklin Roosevelt
Yesterday we had the twelfth & final session of this "Life skills" evening class. There was scheduled to have been a bit less than a three month gap since the last - eleventh - session. However the heavy winter snow we'd experienced had resulted in this last session being postponed.
Antonio Damasio’s “Self comes to mind”: memory and the autobiographical self 1
Originally added on 10th January 2011
Last updated on 2nd February 2011
Last updated on 2nd February 2011
L: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 11
“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.
” - Carl Rogers
K: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 10 (part 2 - therapeutic writing)
“ I thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes. ” - E E Cummings
I wrote yesterday about the first part of this tenth "Life skills" evening. I particularly discussed development of Goodwill practice - very much in the "Nourishing positive states" section of the "Four aspects" diagram (below). In the second half of the evening we moved on to the "Exploring & processing" section of the diagram with the introduction particularly of various forms of therapeutic writing.
J: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 10 (part 1 - goodwill practice)
“The genius of Tulku Urgyen was that he could point out the nature of mind with precision and matter-of-factness of teaching a person how to thread a needle and could get an ordinary meditator like me to recognize that consciousness is intrinsically free of self ... I came to Tulku Urgyen yearning for the experience of self-transcendence, and in a few minutes he showed me I had no self to transcend ... Tulku Urgyen simply handed me the ability to cut through the illusion of the self directly, even in ordinary states of consciousness. This instruction was, without question, the most important thing I have ever been explicitly taught by another human being. It has given me a way to escape the usual tides of psychological suffering - fear, anger, shame - in an instant.
” - Sam Harris
If you want others to be happy, practise compassion. If you want to be happy, practise compassion. Dalai Lama
I: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 9
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
” - Annie Dillard
Yesterday was the ninth evening of this "Life skills" training. I wrote about the eighth session last week. The sequence of regular weekly classes now moves on to increasing gaps between sessions - so it's three weeks until the tenth, a further five weeks until the eleventh, and then an additional eleven weeks until the final twelfth session. My hope is that we will be able to arrange occasional follow-up meetings even after that.
H: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 8
“ A stumble may prevent a fall. ” - Thomas Fuller
G: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 7
“ Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate ” - Barnett Brickner
F: Life skills for stress, health & wellbeing, session 6
“ It is a truism ... that men who are comfortable with their own aggression respond more lovingly to the world in general. ” - George Vaillant
Yesterday we had the sixth session of this twelve evening "Life skills" course. I wrote last week about the fifth session. A dozen slides covering material we explored are viewable/downloadable at slides 1-6, Powerpoint or slides 1-6, PDF and slides 7-12, Powerpoint or slides 7-12, PDF.
