Negotiating the Way: Skillful Means and Invitations to Freedom

Flint Sparks

Everyone wants to be free from unnecessary suffering.  This was the Buddha’s primary concern and it is the function of the practices he taught.  How are we to understand these ancient practices alongside contemporary methods for emotional and relational healing?  In meeting this question skillfully, it is not our aim to merely translate Buddhadharma into a method of psychotherapy, nor is it our goal to elevate modern psychotherapy into a vehicle for spiritually liberation.  However, both paths have profound transformative potential and this class will be geared toward their shared illumination by engaging these teachings and practices with mindfulness and wholehearted attention.  

In this series we will be drawing on two primary forms of contemporary psychotherapy — Hakomi and Internal Family Systems.  These skillful methods weave together mindfulness and multiplicity in such a way that the Buddha’s teachings can be demonstrated as practical tools for personal and relational transformation. We will examine the ways in which our everyday sense of “self” emerges and is sustained. This investigation will include perspectives from child development, attachment theory, and Buddhist psychology.  We will also look at the ways in the Buddha’s teachings of mutual causality reveal the centrality of relationship on the path to awakening. We will also study the ways that attention to relationality and mutual care opens the way to a life of freedom. 

Time: Thursdays from 6:30 - 8:00 PM

Dates:

January 19: Applied Mindfulness and the Hakomi Way

February 16: Multiplicity of Mind and the IFS Model

March 22: Understanding Human Development as Dharma Gates

April 19: Relationships, Relationality, and Mutual Causality

May 17: The Bodhisattva’s Life, a human life, and Appamada

There will be suggested readings and writing practices for each class.

If you are a distant student you may register for the class.  You will then have access to the class recordings, readings, and writing practices which will be posted in a timely manner after each local class meeting.

Registration is now closed for on site participation, however you may still register for online participation. 

Register for the online course here.