|
My former teacher, Shinzen Young, used to talk about how he endeavors to remove the mist from mysticism. I very much like that metaphor, because it means that we can gain clarity in a field so difficult and partly even impossible to talk about. Just because the ground of Being cannot be conceptually grasped does not mean that there cannot be full clarity of view and experience.
Conversely, we can push the envelope from the other side. Conceptually clear science remains limited and stale, when whole swaths of human experience, such as subjective experience, have to remain outside its purview, just because it is not quantifiable. Scientific method and attitude fully deserves to be expanded to its full potential and be applied beyond the objective to domains such as consciousness, awareness, attention and the full richness of subjectively experienced life. To this end science has to be imbued with sentience, recognizing that the very processes of scientific investigation are a subjectively informed phenomenon.
To change topic for a moment, I have not written in a while, because we have been swept off our feet implementing many changes at our Mindfulness Centre to meet the ever growing demand for our work.
Our patient and student population has now grown so much that Dr. Linda MacDonald and I have been running 4-5 separate 12-week MBSR programs every three months, fall, winter and spring. This amounts to 180 people who take our OHIP-covered MBSR programs every year, and are able to benefit from this powerful clinical practice that according to countless testimonies profoundly changes people's lives for the better. Despite having increased the number of programs, we still have too long a waiting list. We are therefore looking for additional physicians, who have the experience and training to join our teaching staff. They must be interested in furthering their education by learning our particular approach to mindfulness, called Dynamic Mindfulness, which emphasizes somatic attention and the inclusion of Interpersonal Neurobiology in the curriculum.
To shorten the waiting times, we are also experimenting with having Kate Kerr teach an 8-week MBSR program. She has been a longterm mindfulness student of mine, and is also a graduate student of the teachers training program at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Healthcare and Society at the University of Massachusetts. Her program is not covered by OHIP and will appeal to people who can afford paying for it.
In order to be able to devote more energy and time to the development of the Mindsight Intensive, starting in 2017 Dr. MacDonald will teach the bulk of all the MBSR programs. I will only teach sessions 10 & 11 in each group, so that people can also have some exposure to my teaching style.
I was finally able to start the Mindsight Intensive 8 weeks late after the ordeal with losing my voice. We had 4 sessions so far and the process seems to be vibrant and promising. The format is somewhat different, given that we are able to use a large Yoga studio, allowing me to use slides and have all the sessions video recorded. We will continue our journey on January 2nd, 2017 with a review and consolidation session of what was explored in the past 4 sessions before Christmas.
Already many interesting questions, challenges and topics are appearing from the synergy of the group. The first one I will be addressing in more detail below is the question of how to learn efficiently, and how to deal with feelings of discouragement during the learning process.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and lots of health, play and mindfulness in the New Year.
Kindly,
Dr. T.
|
