Lektion 1
Mindful Awareness As Empowerment And Response-Ability
Mindfulness and meditation do not require us to withdraw and close down. They can open us up, show us our powers and potential, and give us the freedom and lightness to act differently. We can win back our attention on what matters and find independence. We can model a different way of life.
Lektion 2
Be A Shambala Warrior Wielding The Sword Of Insight
'Keep Your Vision as Wide as the Sky, but Seive Your Actions Like Fine Flour'. This quote from the Tibetan sage Padmasambhava is a key to action in the world. We may only be able to do small things, but if we stay with a spacious big mind and heart, there will be a rightness in what we do. The big mind includes experiencing life through the lens of the three characteristics of dukkha - dissatisfaction, anicca - changeability and flow, and anatta - the dynamic and transparent nature of the self.
Lektion 3
What Steals Our Power And How To Win It Back
When we undertake projects, missions or efforts to change things, there are often many disempowering voices either in the background or foreground, such as I give up, ít is all too much for me, it is too depressing, I can't make a difference anyway, I feel angry and agitated all the time, I escape into diversions and addictions. There are many ways in which we can surface and meet these mind states, soften them, and let them go. They are replaced by the continuous power of a compassionate heart.
Lektion 4
How Do We Choose Our Direction?
Making choices is not easy, and we can get caught up in loops in the mind trying to work out the best options. Here we will explore issues of choice, intention and will. In addition, we will look into non-choice and the way we are influenced by circumstances we cannot control. We will discuss karma, and how to dance with unpredictable life.
Lektion 5
How Trust Can Change The World
We are primed to resist and try and overcome difficult circumstances. But trust can be a better strategy and certainly a better way to live in this world. It is a sense of readiness to meet things as they are, to call them by their true name, and to act without illusion, anxiety, and pressure. For example, how can we go out to a difficult political confrontation or go in to face an experience of sickness as a Taoist?
Lektion 6
How Can Emptiness And Anatta Be A Source Of Effective Action In The World?
Emptiness is usually assumed to be a refined state of being from which it is hard to engage with the world. But the opposite is true. If we are less self-important and live without a strong sense of me and mine, we can find ourselves with less sense of success and failure, measurement, pressure and resistance. Instead, a lightness of being allows us to do more, with more energy and creativity.
Lektion 7
Compassionate Action In An Insecure World
We often find our compassion is exhausted and our heart feels dried up. But there are many ways we can re-energize our hearts. For example by understanding, seeing and dissolving the blocks to compassion. Or by exploring sympathetic joy and empathy as a primary practice for a period. A deep awareness of our own vulnerability and fragility can energize compassion. And the .clarity that we are all together in the same boat, on this planet which is our home.
Lektion 8
We Can Go Out Into The World And Make A Difference
Sometimes we can do great things, and sometimes small things with a great heart, as Mother Teresa said. We act more freely if we let go of expectations and dependence on outcomes and instead manifest our dharma qualities in the present moment. If we take care of the present, the future will take care of itself. With deep listening and awareness, we will find ourselves called, and we will have the capacity to respond, whether it is for ourselves, those close to us, the community or the planet. We can act from a place of default basic happiness, and non-duality in which the world is expressing itself through us.
