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Mario Martinez Workshop
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This week we begin the epic "Wake Up to Your Life," by Ken McLeod. This is the most thorough book I've ever found with clear, step-by-step instructions for unravelling our habitual patterns and waking up. Books are available on the website hereand I've also ordered five in case it's easier to pick it up at group.

This Friday night we'll cover the first chapter, The Mystery of Being:
1. Welcome
2. Introduction
3. Quotation: Albert Einstein    
4. Chapter I: the Mystery of Being     
5. The Prince and the Horse
6. The Mystery of Life    
7. Separateness    
8. Do You Need a Teacher?    
9. The Teacher-student Relationship
10. Transmission     
11. The Central Role of Attention

May Retreat- My dear dharma friend Greg Bender has agreed to come visit us in May for a teaching of some sort, exact date & details to be determined. Greg has been a practitioner for over 30 years and has been encouraged to teach Mahamudra. We'll discuss it Friday night and I'll send out a survey soon.

Dr. Mario Martinez is having a special weekend retreat this Saturday, April 17. Check it out below.

Dharma Study Date/Time:Friday, 7:00 -9:00 p.m.

Location:Home of Rita Frizzell in the Belmont/Hillsboro neighborhood, 1716A Linden Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212. 615-463-2374. Click here for map.
2009-2010 SignsStarting This Week:
Wake Up to Your Life:
Discovering the Path of Buddhist Attention

Beginning April16

For the first time ever, we will read and practice our way through a book together. And not just any book. Wake Up to Your Lifehas been used as the curriculum for three-year retreats in the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Written by Ken McLeod, it is the first thorough curriculum penned by a Westerner thoroughly trained in the Tibetan ways. Written with incredible precision and freshness, the book clearly details how to cultivate a life of attention and break through habitual patterns... all while being very accessible to anyone, no matter their background. It's truly a remarkable achievement.

We are hoping to invite Ken to Nashville next year, and he said it would be helpful if we have a core group who are familiar with his method. He was happy to hear we are going to work our way through the book. I'm also in touch with a small network of Wake Up to Your Lifestudy groups around the world for additional resources.

We will gather to listen to Ken reading the book via audio CD, but I encourage everyone to purchase the book for your own personal use.

Click here for a full description and link to purchase the book.

titansA Benevolent Path to Wisdom:
Titans without Wrathful Gods


Workshop on the Psychology of
Greatness-Consciousness


Mario E. Martinez, Psy.D.

Date: Saturday April 17th, 2010
Time:  9:30 am. to 5 pm
Location: Belle Meade Executive Suites 4525 Harding Road
(Second floor conference room) Nashville, TN 37205
Cost: $100 individuals, $180 couples, students $80

The mythologies that shape our operant consciousness are based on titans who pay a devastating price for stealing secrets from the gods, or on premises that life is a battle against suffering. But we can transcend titans who sacrifice their gift of immortality to liberate mortals from their suffering, and exalted gurus who detach from human misery by contemplating compassion. Both, well-intended and laudable beings, but unfortunately teaching a path that does not offer a consciousness of personal greatness without the language of suffering: freedom from pain, with a pyrrhic victory!

We can develop the courage to defy those shadow gods of our own creation, and end the illusion that we are disciples of pain. We can learn that, while we are not gods, we have a gift of greatness from God; that while we are not immortal, we can choose to love as if we were; and that existing a life of suffering is a choice we make when we fear living in empowerment more than dying in helplessness.
In this workshop participants are invited to learn the path of titans without wrathful gods, and teachers who live their own greatness without pseudo-humbleness.

Dr. Martinez is a clinical neuropsychologist who lectures worldwide on his theory of Biocognition (how cultural and spiritual beliefs affect health and longevity). He specializes in psychoneuroimmunology and has published numerous professional articles on Biocognition. He is the author of the psychological novel The Man from Autumn and a CD titled The Mind-Body Code. Dr. Martinez has investigated cases of alleged stigmata for the Catholic Church, for the BBC and National Geographic. He has taught psychoneuroimmunology courses with Dr. George Solomon at several universities.
   
To register and for additional information call 615 310 1280
Email: ibp@Biocognitive.com Website: www.biocognitive.com
For more details on the book go to www.themanfromautumn.com
For information on the new CD set The Mind Body Code visit www.soundstrue.com

 
Quote of the Week

Be an Island to Yourself

You should be an island to yourself, a refuge to yourself, not dependent on any other but taking refuge in the truth and none other than the truth.

And how do you become an island and a refuge to yourself? In this way. You see and contemplate your body as composed of all the forces of the universe. Ardently and mindfully you steer your body-self by restraining your discontent with the world about you.

In the same way, observe and contemplate your feelings and use that same ardent restraint and self-possession against enslavement by greed or desire.By seeing attachment to your body and feelings as blocking the truth, you dwell in self-possession and ardent liberation from those ties.

This is how you live as an island to yourself and a refuge to yourself. Whoever dwells in this contemplation, islanded by the truth and taking refuge in the truth--that one will come out of the darkness and into the light.
 
- Digha Nikaya, Shakyamuni Buddha

Let's wake up!

With love,

Rita Frizzell
Luminous Mind

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