Monthly "Wise Heart" Study Group for MB-CT Grads
The new group for Mindfulness Workshop grads meets the third Thursday of every month.
This is a monthly group to support grads in maintaining practice and broadening understanding of underlying concepts.
Michelle Morrison and I will teach one new concept of mindfulness psychology each month. We will secularize the material in Jack Kornfield’s great book The Wise Heart, A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology. We will secularize the material for this group.
Note: you do not have to attend every group. But we do recommend you buy the book. It’s on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and perhaps at your local book store.
There are 3 good reasons to join us:
1. An amazing book
Jack teaches in a warm and relatable way, integrating stories about his students and other mindfulness teachers. I keep several copies in my library and tablet for different purposes.
In our first meeting we covered this mindfulness principle from Chapter 1: See the Inner Nobility and Beauty of All Humans.
It's often not easy to see the person in front of us with compassion. What we often “see” is superficial - informed by our snap judgments or prejudices. Or, once we form an impression of someone we stop seeing them in all of their complexity. After all, it's easier to "judge a book by it's cover" than to take a moment to look deeper. But what are we missing? What are her hopes and dreams? What are his worries and sorrows? Is the person really so different from me? Our experience is much different when we look beyond our outdated or fixed impressions of a person.
Jack's suggests two methods for "seeing the inner nobility and beauty" of a person. One is to visualize the person as a baby or as a 5-year old, and the other is to picture the person as old and frail. These are simple ways to help us to step out of preconceived prejudices, open ourselves to other possibilities, and see with fresh eyes.
You might like to experiment with this practice. Details are at the end of chapter 1. As Jack recommends, you might start practicing on just one or two people on a day you’re feeling good and work your way up to more. When we meet September 19 people who have been working this can share their experience.
We will then move to Chapter 2: “Holding the World in Kindness.” We will explore what compassion is, how it arises in us, why self-compassion is so important, and what the benefits of compassion are for ourselves, others, and the world.
While it is recommended that you read the chapter, it is not required -- we will offer a complete teaching. Still, you may eventually want the book. Here’s a link to the book on Amazon (or you might find it in your local book store.)
2. Michelle Morrison
Some of you will remember Michelle’s co-leading during the last few Days of Mindfulness. Michelle is a decade-long friend and an inspired teacher of the concepts that Jack has so masterfully brought into a modern context. While Jack is a psychologist and Buddhist scholar, Michelle and I are primarily interpreters of these concepts within a mindfulness (not Buddhist) framework. For the first 3 meetings we will teach together, and after that we will take turns.
3. Great Meeting Space
The group will meet monthly, the 3rd Thursday of each month, from 6:00 pm - 7:45 pm at TRS Professional Suites. TRS is dedicated to the healing arts and is beautiful and easy to get to. It’s at 4o Exchange Place in Manhattan.
Register for the September 19 group
The cost of the course will be $60 per month, but is reduced to $30 for the first 3 months, to encourage participation and so you can experience this new offering.
Let us know if you can attend, and we will send you a note from PayPal for the $30 registration fee.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Donald Fleck
917-202-5148
info@DonaldFleck.com
Michelle Morrison
646 554-7092
OneWaveYoga@gmail.com