Posted August 1, 2021 in Monthly News

Behind Every Behavior Is A Positive Intention

…our culture, and also a lot of psychotherapies, demonized various parts of us, and think they are what they seem to be— which never turns out to be the truth.

~Richard “Dick” Schwartz No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

One of the presuppositions of NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) […]

Posted July 1, 2021 in Monthly News

Subjective

So many times over the years I have found myself sharing how the ambiguity of language is both a hindrance and a help. You may recall that Neurolinguistic Programming has been described as the study of the structure of subjective experience.

The key word here is SUBJECTIVE.

In the Karaniya Metta Sutta (The […]

Posted June 1, 2021 in Monthly News

I Am Awake!

If we are aware in a compassionate, focused way, we plant seeds of compassionate focused awareness that lets things go and lets things be. Joyful feelings are free to arise without creating clinging, and painful states can arise without expressing themselves in harmful ways.

~ Ben Connelly, “Cleaning Out the Storehouse”

I’ve been reading […]

Posted May 1, 2021 in Monthly News

Metaphorical Magic

A friend shared a page from The Light of Discovery, by Toni Packer. Toni Packer was a teacher of “meditative inquiry”, and the founder of Springwater Center. Packer was a former student in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen Buddhism, and was previously in line to be the successor of Phillip Kapleau at the Rochester […]

Posted April 1, 2021 in Monthly News

Nominalizations' Negative Impact

This winter I have been most entertained by the official state bird of Florida: the mockingbird.

Florida designated the mockingbird as the official state bird in 1927, and the northern mockingbird is also the state bird of Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.

The first memory I have of mockingbird comes from an encounter at […]

Posted March 1, 2021 in Monthly News

Frozen Chosen

If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors.

All of them are alive in this moment. …

You are a continuation of each of these people.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Anne Lamott was one of the speakers in the Mystics […]

Posted February 1, 2021 in Monthly News

AWE: Potential in the Mind of God

“Suppose we were to share meaning freely without the compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture?” ~ David Bohm

This article has been working on my mind for weeks. The original title was “Attachment to View,” […]

Posted February 1, 2021 in Monthly News

Fly Like an Eagle

The title of my post is based on a song written and performed in the 1970s by the Steve Miller band. It was one of those songs that made an immediate impression on me. Based on record sales and “air time,” it evidently made a similar impression on many others (see “Fly Like An Eagle […]

Posted December 31, 2020 in Monthly News

Adjectives

As 2020 slides into our “past” it is very significant to be intentional about cataloging our experiences in our mind. How will 2020 be remembered? Will it remembered as positive, negative, or can it be remembered as just an experience, without adding any adjectives?

The challenge with adjectives is that we can use them then […]