Add comment October 28th, 2007
Posts filed under 'general comments'
Space, Time and Knowledge at the center
Putting Space at the center helps me to focus awareness on how self and world are indistinguishably intertwined. Putting Time at the center and seeing how the dynamic flow of life is greater than my self-centered concerns feels very pertinent right now. Recent events allow me to feel grateful that I am able to do this to some extent, but a question arises. Briefly: we applied to a boarding school for our 16 year old son, due to increasing patterns of social isolation and were delighted that he wanted to go after we all visited the school. After the admissions process dragged on for weeks, my wife eventually realized that the school was concerned about how withdrawn he seemed. This process caused my wife an agony of anxiety, which I was spared because I could view it all as a “dynamic process” that the admissions people at the school had to go through. However, I think my wife–in her anxiety–was more in tune with Time’s energy and she recognized, in time for us to write some ardent e-mails and arrange a second visit to the school, that they were not sure they could accept him. Now that he has been accepted for this fall, a question arises: How does my comfort with a larger dynamic of time relate to the importance of being awake and responsive to the need to act in the moment? In retrospect, I think it is very possible that the school would have turned our son down on the basis of their first impression, and that it might have then been too late to change their minds. I also wonder whether I needed my wife’s anxiety to bring their ambivalence to the surface in order to respond to it. Part three of this exercise, putting Knowledge at the center, is helping me interact more with my son. In my hope to be able to understand him better and interact with him more, it feels crucial that I learn to recognize that his positions are as important as my own. I can already feel the benefit of this approach.
I hope the retreat is nourishing for all of you who attend — Michael
Add comment June 19th, 2007
About read-out
Indeed, Jack. It is helpful for me and I can continue reading. Ihave now an orientation. Thank you. Arthur
1 comment June 10th, 2007
Reminders and Observations on the Process of Writing Posts
1. Please remember to sign your name to Posts. You don’t need to do that for comments; the software takes care of it automatically.
2. If you are writing a post for a specific category (such as the TSK online class), please be sure to go to the “categories” section of the page on which you are writing a post and uncheck the “general comments” category and place a check in the box next to the specific category in which you want your Post to appear.
3. If your sense is that comments to Posts get lost, you could try writing everything as as a Post, even if it is a comment on someone else’s post. If you do, please make it clear what previous post you are referring to. The advantage is that others are more likely to see it. The disadvantage is that the stream of posts becomes more chaotic. But feel free to experiment.
Jack
Add comment October 26th, 2006
