"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. "


Posts tagged with 'optimism'

The building up specific strengths exercise: a personal & practical exploration

22nd August 2016

"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man" Polonius in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" I have been writing a series of blog posts about character strengths - most recently "Twelve practical suggestions for exploring our character …

Conflict: not too much, not too little - when to get real & problem solve in close relationships

5th June 2011

Yesterday, in the blog "Conflict: not too much, not too little - the importance of assertiveness in close relationships", I looked at a series of four research papers from James McNulty's lab at the University of Tennessee on the importance of appropriate assertiveness rather than excessive forgiveness when a couple …

Conflict: not too much, not too little - the importance of assertiveness in close relationships

4th June 2011

(this post is downloadable as both a Word doc and as a PDF file). I've recently written a couple of posts on conflict - "Conflict: not too much, not too little - some research suggestions" and "Conflict: not too much, not too little - how to make it constructive". Today …