MY BLOG HAS MOVED

2/23/2009

Feeling homesick

I believe that many of us actually walk around feeling homesick because we have never has even a quick glimpse of the home that is the larger whole. If it happens sometime that we do get that quick glimpse, whether in meditation, prayer, or by simply looking up into the blue sky, we call it a miracle. Then we might realize that something important is missing from our everyday lives, and we begin the search for the larger whole, spirit, or for simple awareness. Still, we have no real idea of what they’re looking for. The experience is actually beyond words.

2/13/2009

It feels like home

Meditation gives us a glimpse of the larger whole. Most of you have had that glimpse – even for a brief moment. It’s a place of great concentration and great clarity. I like to call it home. It feels like home. You know you’re there when your shoulders drop, the muscles in your body relax, the muscles in your face relax, the breath is slow and steady, internal talk isn’t important and you are deeply at peace.

The Psychotherapist's Corner

A meditation-inspired psychotherapy offers people a way of understanding their problems as well as a way of healing them... This full day retreat offers an opportunity to engage in learning mindfulness psychotherapy.

"The approach to working with others that I advocate is one in which spontaneity and humanness is extended to others."
---Chogyam Trungpa Rimposhe



Confusion, though uncomfortable, is a healthy state of mind. That's because it creates a great need for calm and clarity.


Psychotherapists can teach depressed people to become aware of their internal talk. This leads to the insight that thoughts are simply thoughts - nothing more. It also teaches that the person is bigger than his or her thoughts or the depression that comes with them. The result is a greater capacity to cope.


Meditation is a method for moving beyond the isolating tendency of the thinking mind.


Whether in a psychotherapy office or sitting on a cushion, we are practicing awareness. In the psychotherapy office our awareness is trained on the past and on the future. In meditation it is trained on the experience of awareness itself.

Narcissism is a double-edged sword; individuals suffering from narcissism either idealize or devalue themselves and others. Buddhist psychology blunts both sides of this sword by declaring that there is no solid and lasting self. Meditative exercises allow individuals to personally discover that they are ever changing, impermanent, and in the flow of life.


Meditation increases the psychotherapist's capacity for single pointed awareness. Relating in this way to a person who comes for help is an act of deep caring. It heals.


Strange how people come into our offices feeling guilty for trouble that is well beyond human control.



Letting go is a skill that can be taught.