Terrance Wolf
"With our minds...
we make the world"... opening lines from a Buddhist text. What kind of world are we making for ourselves?
Making a meaningful world for ourselves necessarily involves working with relationships; marital, friends, work or school. The process of "dharma-therapy" involves increasing self awareness, usually seen thru the lens of our relationships. This is the domain of real challenge and growth for most of us. Mindfulness and self-inquiry are powerful tools for this most important work.
Terrance Wolf
650 743-6251 Sequim, WA
Applied Buddhism...
involves silent meditation, active inquiry and guided contemplation. These are the core practices for being calmly awake and these are classically Buddhist practices. My own practice in this domain spans more than 40 years. It's been a very interesting path.
This work (applied Buddhism) is suitable for individuals, couples or work teams. All confidential sessions are offered in person or via phone or Zoom.
I like to meet people who have a meditation practice and with those who are beginning meditation...but everyone has the same basic awareness so everyone can benefit, including myself. As you might expect, sessions will be seasoned with Buddhist teachings where appropriate.
What are we really doing here?
Much of the work that I would like to do with you involves contacting difficult and painful emotional content without defense and for a purpose other than psychological relief.
I have an active meditation practice that has been aided by many intensive silent retreats. I teach "mindfulness" meditation in the style I was taught, from Burmese and Thai traditions. Sitting meditation is enormously important and a rocket-booster for creative expression.
To paint...or not?
As a sentient being I must feel life, the bodily tactile sense of being alive, as a prelude to expression. It’s process without the idea of product. Before I begin painting I may not feel much of anything. So, I just spread some color. From that simple action there often follows a sense of where to go next, or maybe not and I continue to just move the paint. Keep going with an open and shifting awareness; inner…outer…posture…breathe…mood/attitude. Through the body, into the eyes, back into the body. In this way, we develop a practiced freedom of expression and sensitivity.
The next morning there is something to wonder about. What was I thinking/feeling?
And then there's psychedelics...
Maybe you've noticed in recent years in medical literature and within the media in general there has been much talk about psychedelic drugs/medicines. I am following developments in this arena and have been trained for the use of psychedelic with clients.
There has been frustration with the poor efficacy of normal psychotherapy, although it remains one of the most important avenues for personal growth that we have in western culture. I have felt this frustration in my work with clients...years go by and the same problems persist, as though they just walked in the door yesterday. If we can expand to include mindfulness, body-based practices such as yoga, and ritualistic practices we will likely have a larger field of choices for life and for art. These sorts of mind/heart work can connect us with the transpersonal dimensions of life, and in so doing, our ongoing habits of mind may appear hollow and useless. Psychedelics are also an important gate into the transpersonal, beyond "my problems" and into vastness and beyond. We can return from these "trips" with a new sense of humility, wonder and awe, a direct experience of the love and interconnectedness of all life...beyond "my life." That can change everything. We can then begin to move toward the light and out of the darkness of our symptoms.
Jack Kornfield's book title, "After the ecstasy, the laundry", says it beautifully. But, if you have never felt the ecstasy it can all feel like laundry, it can all feel like drudgery. We deeply long, in our heart of hearts, for the direct experience of God or the divine. For some of us psychedelics has ushered us into the presence of God, and we have never been the same since. That moment of grace changes everything. Onward...