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Schedule
Friday nights, 7-9 pm. Doors open at 6:45.
1716A Linden Avenue (door on the right)
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Save the Date! 2012 Fall Retreat
St. Mary's Sewanee
September 12-16
Join us for the 2012 Luminous Mind Retreat at St. Mary's in Sewanee, TN. The retreat will be held in noble silence, Wednesday evening through Sunday noon. Teacher and other details to be determined. Stay tuned!
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"Learned Helplessness"
by Ken McLeod
The purpose of a family is to provide a nurturing environment that protects the children from the vicissitudes of the world while they are developing the physical, emotional and intellectually abilities to function on their own. Love, compassion, joy and equanimity are vital: love so that the child opens to the world; compassion so that the child learns not to fear suffering; joy so that the child feels confident in his or her own abilities; and equanimity so that the child can be free to go when he or she has matured.
All too often one or more of these aspects is distorted by the family system. Instead of love, the child experiences a demand for affection; instead of compassion, a fear of suffering; instead of joy, derision of his or her abilities; instead of equanimity, judgement.
And whenever the child says, "Hold on, there's something wrong here," the power of the family system comes into play:
"What? You don't love your mother! Shame on you."
"You can't do that, you might get hurt."
"You think you're hot stuff, huh? Let me show you a thing or two."
""You must be evil to even think that."
Similar conditioning mechanisms operate in most systems. The system uses shame and the withdrawal of attention to instill a fear of survival. Simultaneously, the system presents the view that power resides in the system, not the individual. The combination creates a dependence on the system for survival. Gradually, the system is internalized and the person identifies with it - he sees himself the way the system sees him. His sense of who he is is defined by the system.
One of the primary characteristics of learned helplessness is that the person feels passive with respect to the system. The passivity, however, is only half the story....
--Ken McLeod, Buddhist teacher and writer
http://www.unfetteredmind.org/learned-helplessness/0
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This Friday we will listen to our penultimate talk -- Session 11 in the series by Pema Chodron, Noble Heart. Topic: Shunyata (Emptiness) Meditation.