“Empathy is innumerate.
” - Paul Bloom
“In the Dzogchen teachings there’s an analogy to ringing a bell (to instantly see the illusory nature of the self). You briefly ring it and then the continuity of the sound evolves for as long as it will. And then you ring it again.
” - Sam Harris
“Do you want to hear my favourite procrastination joke? I'll tell you later.
” - Piers Steel
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.
“ The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart. ” - Dhammapada
Yesterday evening was the fifth session of this 12 evening training course. I wrote about the fourth session last week. As usual, this evening, the material we were due to cover was described in a dozen Powerpoint slides which the participants received as a handout. See slides 1-6, Powerpoint or slides 1-6, PDF and slides 7-12, Powerpoint or slides 7-12, PDF.
“ A man is as happy as his mind allows him to be ” - Abraham Lincoln
So it was the second session of the group yesterday. I blogged about the first session last week. Sadly a couple of people couldn't get to this second meeting - due to a pre-planned holiday and to an unexpected crisis. It's quite common for participants to miss one or two evenings across a twelve session course like this, but I want to be careful when people miss such an early meeting. It's important that they don't lose their way and get left behind. They will get copies of the handouts and the Autogenic CD, but I also make a note to contact them myself.
“Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue
” - Rollo May
Yesterday we had the first evening of the Life Skills group. I've written in the past about the background planning behind this group. How did this first meeting go? Well there were nine of us - eight participants and myself. Rather demandingly I'm both running a new course and trying to get used to new technology at the same time. For years, when running small group trainings here at our house, I've used an overhead projector to shine transparencies up onto the wall. For a while I've wanted to upgrade to a laptop and data projector, and this evening I went ahead to put this into practice.
“Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
” - Henry Ford
In the 1970's I taught yoga and several different types of meditation. In the 1980's I began teaching courses in Autogenic Training, a form of deep relaxation/meditation. I continued running Autogenic classes for about 25 years. In addition to the relaxation/meditation exercises, the teaching also covered several other life skill/stress management techniques. For a much fuller description of these eight session courses, visit the Autogenic Training section of this website.
