TRAINING THE MIND IN RELATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Healing Oneself. Transforming Relationships. (Lojong teaching)

Weekend Retreat

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and sense in which one attains liberation from the self. (Albert Einstein)

If you seek enlightenment, or even if you seek happiness, go to the cause. Nothing eists without a cause. The root cause of happiness is compassion. ( His Holiness, the Dalai Lama)

Mind training is not about manipulating, reforming, brainwashing or exerting authority, dominance and mastery over others. It is about self-mastery. This meditation program, Training the Mind unpacks insights of self-healing, altruism and transformation, within ourselves and our relationships. The enquiry about love, both human and divine, takes us to a higher place of spiritual and romantic understanding and will encompass wisdom topics such as

• Forgiving the past

• Creating a sacred space for love

• Vulnerability and boundaries

• Expanding your capacity to love and be loved.

Changing Story, Changing Self: What are the stories that are influencing how you live and guide your life? What roles do you play in your relationships, your love, your life, at work and with your family and friends? For whom do you play out your stories? Do the stories work or do they lead you into pain? Can you change your stories to move you towards greater happiness and balance? The truth is when you change your story, you change yourself.

Forgiveness, Compassion: Forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace. Our emotional pain and negativity make ego strength the pinnacle of inner development, feeding the ego’s obsession with itself. We develop lifelong habits of that represent a heartless-mind (that suppresses others) and mindless-heart (suppressing ourselves). By concerning our self with the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of our fellow beings, we create an opening in our heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing and criticising others weakens and defeats us. To disentangle ourselves from ourselves, and cultivate a willingness to be present with things just as they are, including the qualities we are seeking to escape, requires ego-flexibility.

Lojong, or mind training is an organised practice emerging from shorthand, condensed instructions for enlivening confidence, wisdom and interpersonal skills quickly and on the spot in everyday life. Traditionally such training requires the practitioner to read, contemplate and action the slogans to spontaneously provoke and psychologically unfold throughout the day, providing guidance. By keeping alert, the practitioner permits the daily events to evoke natural wisdom provided by the slogans, revealing ordinary experiences as extraordinary opportunities to fearlessly wake up and mindfully lead from the inside out.

The weekend provides a practical program of mindfulness practice together with inspiration and reflective learning that maps our journey from compulsion to freedom and shared happiness. It provides ways that help us make the tangible progress through growth and life-change, with a particular focus of developing maitri, the art of love in action as a way to accommodate the energies and experiences of the mind.

We learn to switch into a ‘we-first’ approach, and uncover a fresh paradigm that draws upon our natural resources of awake body, tender heart and open mind. The powerful and insightful teachings work to refine and train the mind to work skilfully with others in challenging and fearful times.

                                         Residential weekend program 6-8 August 2021