Talk 1
Mindfulness and their application to therapy
This talk is designed for people in the caring professions such as doctors,
nurses and therapists.
Content and structure
Scope and plan of the talk
What is meditation? What is mindfulness?
Painful experiences
Physical pain. Mental – emotional pain, past pain, present pain, future pain,
difficult life situations, difficult emotions
Eckhart Tolle’s concept of ‘the pain body’
The mindfulness approach
One day at a time, one moment at a time
Now breathing – now living – now sensing
Resources
Full Catastrophe Living Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Power of Now Eckhart Tolle
A Path with Heart Jack Kornfield
This talk is designed to be only 30-40 minutes long, leaving time for questions and answers with the audience within a one hour slot.
Talk 2
Buddhism can be seen as a science of mind and a science of happiness
This talk is designed around presenting a few key concepts in everyday language.
Content and structure
Scope of this talk
Historical and geographical perspectives
The perspective on suffering
The perspective on transience
The perspective on Interdependence
The perspective on ‘dhamma’ or ‘the way it is’
The Three Refuges Buddha Dhamma Sangha
The perspective on Samsara, Nirvana, Utopia and God
Resources
The Mind and The Way Ajahn Sumedho
In My Own Words The Dalai Lama
This talk is designed to be only 30-40 minutes long, leaving time for questions and answers with the audience within a one hour slot.
Talk 3
The Bhagavad Gita is the most popular and revered scripture of the Hindu faith.
This talk is designed as an introduction to its key messages.
Content and structure
Introductory comments
1 The spiritual crisis of Arjuna – The Gita as an allegory for the battle involving
Dharmakshetre (the field of Dharma) and Kurukshetre (the field of Action)
2 Sadhana (spiritual practice) as the dynamic tension between Dharma
(doing the right thing) and Yoga (being the right person)
Vishnu as Lord of Dharma and Shiva as Lord of Yoga
3 The yogas of the Gita. Bhakti (devotion) Gynana (knowledge) and Karma
(action in life) Karma yoga as the path of ‘disentangled participation’
4 Yoga as ‘Chitta Vritti Nirodha’ or Cessation of the ‘Modifications of Mind’
5 Yoga as ‘The Breaking of Contact with Pain’
6 Yoga as ‘Kshetrajana’ or ‘Knower of the Field’
The Witness state or ‘buddhi yoga’
7 The message of cosmology – the nature of time and cyclical systems
‘The Breath of Brahma’ ‘without Krishna it will not be done
without Arjuna it cannot be done’ – the principle of synergy
This talk is designed to be only 30-40 minutes long, leaving time for questions and answers with the audience within a one hour slot.
Talk 4
This talk is designed to point out the essential unity of the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita and the teaching of the Buddha.
Content and structure
Introductory comments
Who is a Hindu? Who is a Buddhist?
The Hindu View of the historical Buddha as the Tenth Avatar of Vishnu
How Buddhists see Hindus.
The historical and geographic movement of Buddhist teachings outside
the shores of India
Systems of Indian Philosophy. The vedic based systems and the non-vedic based
systems (Nastika systems) of Buddhism and Jainism
The unity of concept of Brahman in the Bhagavad Gita and
the ‘Unborn, Unformed and Unconditioned’ in Buddhism
The unity between the way of the Hindu Sannyasi and the Buddhist Bhikku.
The unity between the essential teaching of the Gita and the Buddha-dharma
This talk is designed to be only 30-40 minutes long, leaving time for questions and answers with the audience within a one hour slot.
Talk 5
21-12-12 means nothing at all, or a lot depending on whom you speak to.
The winter solstice 2012 represents the end of one age and the start of
A new cycle of time according to the Mayan Calendar. Find out more.
Content and structure
Introductory comments
The Mayan Calendar and the ‘End of Time’
Western Astrology – Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn in a formation called Yod
(Finger of God). For three thousand years and more the world has lived by expansion and complexation. This trend has reached saturation.
The great new age thinkers believe that the way forward lies in a different approach
To macro-economics, education, defence and the sharing of resources.
The ‘Higher Powers’ can only work through the agency of man. It is an opening to this synergy that will be the challenge of the future.
Resources
Greg Bradden 2012 Choice Point
Nicolaya Christi 2012 A Clarion Call
John G Bennett Witness
This talk is designed to be only 30-40 minutes long, leaving time for questions and answers with the audience within a one hour slot.