Life Application Sessions

These three series of classes will build upon the Primer and Gateway Series by applying Zen principles in daily life. These classes are organized in to three tracks that provide key tools for participants to apply in their daily life. Prerequisite: Primer Series and Gateway Series.

Track 1: Freeing the Mind

This series of three classes will help you get unstuck and move beyond your past mental conditioning that has limited you from being personally effective.

LA 1A: Connecting to Your Deepest Aspiration

This class will provide guidance and tools to empower you to move beyond your habitual conditioning by using the skill set of Focusing to explore your deepest aspirations. The class will explore six important principles for living a Zen-inspired life. A guided exercise will help you clarify your own principles and core values leading to a more effective and empowered life.  Concepts of "not knowing", "bearing witness",  "aspiration", "principle-centered", "three treasures", and "three pure precepts" will be presented.

LA 1B: Discovering Your Inner Richness

This class will facilitate a process for discovering the source of joy and happiness through further letting go. It will explore the nature of impermanence, suffering and self. This will be facilitated experientially through using the Big Mind process. Concepts of "gap", "big mind", "no self" and "emptiness" will be presented.

LA1C: Authentic Presence

This class will explore the true nature of freedom. It will help you experience calmness, stability and sanity when the world around you is chaotic and unpredictable. A Big Mind process will be used to explore the nature of mind and freedom. Concepts of "mind", "freedom", "metaphor" and "authentic presence" will be presented. 

If you have completed the Primer and Gateway Series, you may sign up for Track 1, by clicking here.

Sequence of Classes

You may take any Track in whatever order you wish. So you can take Track 2 without ever taking Track 1. Each Track stands on it's own. But within the track of classes, we do ask that you take those classes in the order they are given. So for example, if you sign up for the third track of classes, "Contributing Yourself to the World", you would need to take LA3a: Honoring Values and Commitments, before you took LA3b: Appreciating the Inter-dependency of Life. After taking Track 3, you would still be able to take Track 1 or Track 2 at any time in the future.

Track 2: Connecting with Others

This is a series of three classes that will help you overcome past obstacles and burdens that have prevented you from having healthy and productive relationships with others.

LA2A: Increasing Empathic Awareness

This class will convey the techniques, skills and benefits associated with empathic awareness and active listening. It will involve interactive dialogues presenting concepts of "keeping company" and "active listening".

LA2B: Building Effective Language Skills

This class will showcase the communication style and approach that will resolve conflict and build stronger inter-personal relationships. It will consist of a talk and visual presentation demonstrating four steps for communicating more skillfully. It will present concepts from Nonviolent Communication as developed by Marshall Rosenberg.

LA2C: Advanced Authentic Expression

This class will offer advanced tools that allow you to communicate with integrity and evolve yourself away from past ineffective habits. It will consist of practicing and applying the previous four princples of Nonviolent Communication through experiential role plays.

If you have completed the Primer and Gateway Series, you may sign up for Track 2, by clicking here.

Track 3: Contributing Yourself to the World

This series of three classes will help you evolve your mindset from a "me-centered" perspective to one of appreciation, loyalty, and service to the world.

LA3A: Honoring Values and Commitments

This class will show how honoring values and commitments leads to a life of focus, happiness and overall emotional and physical well-being. It will consist of a talk and interactive inquiry, presenting how to remain in integrity in challenging life situations. It will introduce how to work with five wisdom energies that can be practically applied to every area of your personal life. Concepts of "core values", "boundaries", "three tenets" and "five wisdom energies" will be presented.

LA3B: Appreciating the Inter-dependency of Life

This class will introduce the nature of interdependency and how your being connected to a larger world can help you negotiate many of the areas where you often get stuck in working with organizations, businesses and groups. It will suggest ways to invite space into the workplace as a way of transforming work into a more meaningful and spiritual practice. Concepts of "the gap", "inter-dependence", "synergy", "complexity", "gridlock" and "supermeme" will be presented. 

LA3C: Authentic Leadership

This class will lead you in discovering your unique strengths and how you can use them to find your place in the world through self-realization, service and stewardship. The class will consist of a Big Mind process that helps you integrate previous class materials to discover and embrace your own leadership potential. Concepts of "Four Quadrants", "integral perspective", and "authenticity" will be presented.

If you have completed the Primer and Gateway Series, you may sign up for Track 3, by clicking here.