change therapy

every month i delve into the buddhasphere to come up with interesting tidbits in buddhist writing. this time around i was interested in the concept of right action. the poem we start out with today is the famous shin jin mei poem the perfect way knows no difficulties except that it refuses to make preferences; [...]

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please enjoy this guest post by my good friend jael, who is currently studying a fascinating therapeutic technique called focusing. when i was in my early 20′s i decided to switch from social science to computer science and math at university and live at home with my parents. when the offer of admission arrived, my [...]

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after my post about small and SMART goals on garfield’s blog, i got inspired to write another one at brainblogger about the pitfalls and benefits of goal setting, this time taking a bit more of an academic slant. larry ferlazzo took up that post and talked about goal setting in the classroom. it made me [...]

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may is mental health month. it might be useful to think about what we’re talking about here. what is mental health? there are many definitions out there. years ago i wrote a paper about my definition but i can’t find that paper anymore. so why not try again. let’s see … mental. health. mental mental [...]

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god is not one, for someone with my buddhist and ecumenical leanings, was a bit of a provocative book title so i started reading it with some resistance. was this going to be some rabid right-wing pseudo intellectual trying to persuade me that all gods are bad except his? really, the title of the book [...]

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recently, i have had numerous little conversation bits on twitter about meaning and meaning making. rather than expound on my ideas here, i’d like to invite you to reflect on the questions below and/or the words of others who have thought about the topic. maybe you’ll come up with your own questions. maybe we can [...]

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you are reading an article about truth right now. at this moment, your eyes are working sufficiently to be able to read this article, which is written in lower case, and involves a quote by nietzsche. in the alternative, you are listening to an audio program that is translating these words into voice, or someone [...]

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last month we had a conversation about acceptance, and i’d like to continue it. evan said, “i think changing the world can be valuable, too.” maybe there is no either/or between acceptance and making changes. to accept comes from the latin, meaning to receive (as in “UPS delivered a parcel for you, and i accepted [...]

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after reading this morning that BC philosopher and counsel to psychologists sydney banks had died, i thought i’d write a bit about him.  alas, i cannot find in myself any interest in his work.  he talked about the three principles of mind, thought and consciousness. if there’s a sydney banks fan among you out there, [...]

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a few reflections on the essay on women philosophers in the last post. one of the things i got from that course in women’s studies is a bit of a background in and also support for the concept of writing in and from the first voice, in writing from and about the particular: “what i [...]

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what follows are excerpts from an essay i wrote in 1995 on women in philosophy, and how women’s voices often speak more to the particular (i.e. real life examples and experiences) rather than the general. it is interesting to look back on it, to see what’s still the case, and what has changed. in the [...]

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while my blog was in hiatus, i was not entirely silent. conversations happened on twitter, for example this one regarding the concepts of “will” and “will power”, mostly with gassho. i was going to comment on some of these, also give you the tweets of what other people were saying. but perhaps it would be [...]

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elizabeth’s writing prompt #5 my quirks and errors are part of my truth. truth. such a harsh mistress. in order to know my truth, i have to know myself. like anyone else, i have i don’t know how many bones, i don’t know how many muscles, i don’t know how many kilometres of gut, hair [...]

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my last post was inspired by the 20th anniversary of the tiananmen square massacre. in it i was musing about what it takes to stand up against whatever oppression we’re experiencing, be it political or in a smaller social environment. making that decision marie reflected: “i guess it’s a matter of deciding what is more [...]

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may 15 – time for another buddhist carnival. if you want to see previous buddhist carnivals, go here. today there is no topic, really, just a criss-cross romp through the buddhasphere. another enlightenment machine … like the one you see depicted to the right. here are some explanations i have made an exciting new “thought [...]

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