Category: Contemplative Psychotherapy
The Good Therapy Blog
July 29th, 2010 |
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields…,
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon…?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? ~ Mary Oliver(1)
We are in the “dog days” of mid-summer. Dog days suggest dullness or stagnancy, but I prefer to think that any slowing down typically brings one into the basic wisdom of the heart which finds that slowness leads to a softening and a heart opening.... Read More
June 29th, 2010 |
Give up contention:
This is called finding the unity of life.
~ Lao Tse
As human beings we hurt one another. We make mistakes. Because of unskillful thoughts, speech and actions, we do harm to others and ourselves. Yet, without reconciliation we only deepen the harm and increase our suffering. This aspect of suffering pierces the heart. The primal mystery of being human relates to the heart and to a state of unknowing which can paradoxically be penetrated through vulnerability.
“Interbeing,” a term coined by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk who has been deeply engaged in bringing... Read More
June 3rd, 2010 |
The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at the other’s welcome,
And say, sit here, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self. ~ Derek Walcott*
Aging, and the fixation with our appearance, for those of us who are contemplatives, may seem a shallow, banal preoccupation. It may be an embarrassment to admit that we are stumbling in this particular underworld of suffering. Yet, the paradoxical truth is that the spirit lives in this juxtaposition of the superficial, the mundane, and the... Read More
May 4th, 2010 |
If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature—
Even a caterpillar—
I would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of God
Is every creature. ~ Meister Eckhart*
One early Sunday morning, I heard a piercing howl. The howl iced my heart and stopped my breath. I sat immobilized in bed for a few seconds when the second howl came. I went to my window. Two beautiful Huskies were running aimlessly across my back yard; they seemed terribly lost. As I stood watching and listening to one of the dog’s frightened howls, there was only the sound of pain—suchness or presence**—in pure pain.... Read More
May 3rd, 2010 |
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
The habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings. -The Buddha
Happy spring! Spring is, of course, for planting seeds, and along with planting comes tending. Tending our gardens calls for awareness and compassion, and to realize that no aggression is needed. The weeds don’t require aggression, and it harms us, so why use it?
In the garden of our minds, weeds are the habitual patterns we perpetuate... Read More
March 30th, 2010 |
“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” – Buddhist saying
We all experience pain in our lives. Unfortunately, our attempts to manage pain often turns it into suffering instead of relief.
When we ignore pain, we don’t learn anything, and we continually repeat the habits that create suffering.
Grasping at our pain - making a solid story about it - means we miss the actuality of it. We might experience depression or anxiety as a solid, unchanging... Read More
March 3rd, 2010 |
My favorite bumper sticker: Don’t Believe Everything You Think.
We are such experts in how horrible we are, what losers we are, how much we should suffer. We can tell anyone, and frequently tell ourselves, how we have failed, how we have wasted our lives, amounted to nothing. This may or may not be so. But it is only part of the story. We disregard our own grace and beauty when we are focused on having yelled at someone we love, or bounced a check, or not met our own or another’s expectations. We forget that we... Read More
February 24th, 2010 |
"Hold fast to the Great Form within
And let the world pass as it may
Then the changes of life will not bring pain
But contentment, joy and well being"
Tao Te Ching, Verse 35
My client walks in and begins crying; covering her face, she is looking down, searching for some thing, some words to identify her experience. She speaks in anxious circles, words revealing nothing but the space that she cannot find comforting. She admits that her life is “dominated by thoughts” and that she is constantly mining for a jewel that will explain what is going on. As she seeks to find meaning, to... Read More
February 2nd, 2010 |
Contemplative psychotherapy, unlike most western models of psychotherapy, does not see the individual as ill. Pathology is not the focus of treatment, rather it is present moment awareness of just what is happening that forms the foundation of therapy. The core belief that we all suffer, and that suffering is inevitable, is the basis of the work. The Buddha taught The Four Noble Truths, which identify: that suffering exists, what the cause of suffering is, and how we can be released from suffering. Symptoms, ranging from unresolved grief... Read More
