Early Buddhist Texts: COUNTERING FAKE SPEECH with Don de Silva
Fake speech and news undermine our democracies. Today, many are struggling to discriminate between informed debate and misinformation spread through social media. Based on the Early Buddhist Texts, this session will focus on actions taken by the Buddha to highlight the pivotal role of “right speech” in our daily lives. During his time, as now, debates and discussion were common place within and between among contemporary ascetics and contemplative communities. Sometimes, these inter-actions were fierce and fearful. In many discourses, the Buddha urged his followers to abstain from false and harsh speech and gossip and only speak from their experiences.
Time: 23rd March 2.00-4.00
Place: online by Zoom
Cost: £15 (carries 2hrs credit for students registered on Ten Directions training in ecotherapy)
Booking: email courses@tarikitrust.org
Don de Silva is an environmentalist, journalist, author, Buddhist Chaplain, and trainer. He worked as a senior official with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and implemented effective global media campaigns to create awareness about sustainable development and has participated in creating new forms of environmental diplomacy. A certified mindfulness trainer, he focusses on the Buddhist foundations of mindfulness, particularly its relevance to sustainable living. Presently a university mentor, he has worked in chaplaincy, delivering sessions on areas, such as mindfulness and confidence building, reducing stress and anxiety, mindful learning and speaking. Through the Tariki Buddhist Therapists Forum, he has delivered sessions on faith, environment and justice; responding to climate change and COVID 19; and Buddhism and Action..
The Heart and the Imaginal with Ally Stott
Michael Meade, storyteller and scholar of mythology, psychology and anthropology describes imagination as - the deepest power of the soul. He says of soul, that it is - the connective tissue of life. To this my imagination offers the image of mycelium (the gossamer thread-like structures of fungi in soil weaving woodlands or meadows together). If I follow this image and let it ‘speak’ to me, show me something from it’s perspective, my heart stirs, my soul glimmers, I am enriched and expanded as I enter the imaginal realm. This realm or place was referred to by the Celts as the ‘Otherworld’ which exists alongside and is interwoven with ordinary reality, here now. This realm is a place of intuition, healing, myth, imagination, archetypes and soul, as well as a source of inspiration and insight.
As other more linear ways of being, relating and knowing have taken dominance in the West over the last few thousand years, we have lost contact with and devalued the somatic intelligences of the body, the intelligences of this animate Earth, intuition, myth and imagination. Some say the ‘climate crisis’ we are experiencing is a crisis of soul. Having turned our back on the Otherworld we have cut ourselves off from a deep well-spring of life.
During this experiential seminar we will take a creative, embodied exploration of the heart and the imaginal realms. Working this way for ourselves or with others can open portals to memory, experience and connections that may not otherwise be accessible.
Time: 25 March 2.00-4.00
Place: online by Zoom
Cost: £15 (carries 2hrs credit for students registered on Ten Directions training in ecotherapy)
Booking: email courses@tarikitrust.org
Ally Stott has a great love of Hills, Water and Weaving. Many moons ago on Dartmoor she experienced herself being listened to by the Moor and realised everything she was in relationship with was alive with its own voice and soulful intelligence, aware of our presence and communicating. This moment has creatively shaped the direction of her work over the last 15 years as an Ecotherapist, Psychotherapist and Craniosacral Therapist. Ally has a background as an artists and worked for many years with people living with life threatening illness. She is part of Ecotherapy Oxford www.ecotherapyoxford.co.uk and runs retreats, Ecotherapy trainings and New Moon Earth Dreaming gatherings, www.allystott.co.uk.
Alchemical Psychology & Ecology 2: exploring your personal meanings & practices of heart, head, will & hand with Paul Maiteny
This workshop will be an opportunity to share, discuss and deepen understanding of personal experiences, and creative expressions of them that are particularly meaningful to you - eg through poetry, writing, pictures, images, prayers, questions, contemplations, dreams, or other means. We will look them using the symbolic language, art and science of alchemy. This will be explained, as necessary, so it is not essential that you came to part 1 of the workshop in February. For those who did come to that, this workshop will be a continuation and deepening, considering your experience of the work you have done since then.
The emphasis will be on how important it is to develop integrated faculties of heart, head, will & hand in doing the work required of a human in service of ecos. So, please do be sure to bring experiences, inquiry questions, magterisl (as above), etc to work with that relate to these themes. Paul Maiteny: is a psychotherapist and ecologist with many years of experience in both fields. He teaches transpersonal ecopsychology on the Alef Trust's MA, on an MSc Education for Sustainability at London South Bank University, and is a tutor on Tariki's Ten Directions programme.