Space Therapy

 

One of the things that we observe here at La Ville au Roi (Eleusis) is the therapeutic effect of people simply having space. Modern people experience life as rather crowded. They feel under pressure and stressed, which is really a modern way of saying frightened. We are not frightened in the extreme way that one is if a real tiger walks into the room. That is an acute emergency and one either jumps out the window and escapes or one gets eaten. Either way it is soon over. The modern person, on the other hand, experiences a chronic low level anxiety that eats away day after day. This anxiety is sustained by a wide variety of complexities that are characteristic of daily life in a modern society. We are all trying to keep many balls in the air simultaneously. Often people come into therapy seeking a way to manage this stress. Or they take up mindfulness or yoga or some recreational pursuit as a way of obtaining some distraction and thus having interludes of calm. To a degree this can work as a palliative, but it also carries the risk of becoming 'just one more thing' on the list of daily obligations.

In Buddhism we say that meditation is like letting the swirling mud in a glass of muddy water settle naturally. No procedure is necessary, merely the absence of anything that will further stir up the water. Here in our thirty or so acres of mixed woodland, people have space and time to let such settling happen, sometimes with remarkable results.

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Replies

  • Yes, I used to love Trungpa when I studied with him many many years ago.

  • Reminds me of 30 years ago with Trungpa's space awareness effort

    https://www.karmecholing.org/program?id=6600

     

     

    (Online) Mudra Space Awareness: Gesture Practice for Intense Times
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