Welcome to old-timers and newcomers to THE NEW SEMESTER STARTING HERE NOW. Posted by John on November 01, 1999 at 13:01:12:
Welcome to old-timers and newcomers alike to the new semester here now
at Teaching Tools for Mindfulness Training's interactive on-line
classes. I am coaching how to recognize what mindfulness is, and
showing some ways to practice it and use it in life . . . if a person
finds out that they'd like to learn that once they experience what
mindfulness is.
We have a new domain and URL address here now:
mindfulnessclasses.com
And I can be met with privately by e-mail at the Coach's Office, at:
coach@mindfulnessclasses.com
This semester, we are going to have something new in our little "one-
room schoolhouse" on the Web. We are going to have a First Grade in
Classroom Talk, as well as any other threads of conversation that are
posted here that have to do with learning mindfulness, sharing about
mindful experiences, and asking questions about learning mindfulness.
So beginners will be quite welcome in Classroom Talk, all the way
through, as before! I wish to emphasize that! I mean it from my
heart. And I give newcomers priorities in my attention in the
classroom, for the old-timers are mature enough to benefit in this as
well.
And we will also have some "advanced" threads of classes in the First
Grade, which will pertain to using mindfulness for studying human
behavior while it's going on, and learning how to make skillful mindful
choices *on the spot* to play for peace and harmony with other people.
These First Grade classes will require great courage and unflinching
honesty and objectivity in order to undertake making selective changes
in one's being—the type of efforts that are referred to as
"transformative work" in spiritual schools. In the First Grade, I will
be assisted by our two seniormost class-members, Sally and Jeff, in
keeping the lesson plan on track when appropriate, and in balancing out
extremes in postings, when such occurs, as our "ombudsman," so to speak.
Sally as Hall Monitor, and Jeff as Blackboard Eraser have shown that
they are good at these skills in previous semesters.
If you are a newcomer, let me lay out a bit about how the site is
arranged. You can reach the Kindergarten and the Playground through the
Access Foyer. (The Kindergarten is where mindfulness is taught. In
the Playground we study the basic make-up of human behavior.) And all
the discussions we've had during the previous semesters of Classroom
Talk are available in the Archives in the Access Foyer there.
If you are considering undertaking a "steady and casual" approach to the
course of study laid out on this website during the year 2000, I suggest
you start by visiting the two classes on "What is mindfulness?" (linked
on the Site Map). If you'd like to follow that up by learning what
mindfulness is by the experience of it through exercises that are
coached on-line here), I recommend visiting the classes on "a
philosophy" (Site Map) first, for some background information that can
be helpful, and then going to the Kindergarten to plunge in with the
five basic experiential classes there.
These classes contain experiential exercises that are designed to guide
you into the experiences of "having awarenesses" with your five ordinary
senses, and then into catching-on to the inward-outward experience of
mindful awareness. There need be no doubt about what you experience, as
each exercise is designed to focus on what is "simple, obvious, and
apparent." Collectively, these exercises will guide you through to
mindfulness as we are discussing that in all the other classes in this
school and here in Classroom Talk.
If you find you have questions about mindfulness at that point, or if
you don't seem to be absolutely clear about what mindfulness is when you
have completed those classes, by all means ask me about it in Classroom
Talk. That's what I'm here for. Classroom Talk is for answering your
questions at any stage of your participation here. And this is
especially important with regard to understanding the experience of
mindfulness, because this is *the central understanding and experience*
in all of the rest of the classes here.
After you have learned mindfulness, if you feel interested, you can then
take any of the other classes that you find throughout the school, and
benefit from them. Go ahead and browse at random through other parts of
the school, as your inclinations carry you. There is also a Research
Building on the TTMT Campus, and a magazine, Mindful Awareness Magazine.
The purpose of both of these is to show students that mindfulness is not
something unique or different here in our little school, but actually a
state of consciousness that is practiced and developed in many classical
spiritual as well as secular traditions and schools. The research
papers, and the articles in MAM will show you this same mindfulness as
it has been studied in different cultures around the world, and in
different fields of educational expertise.
It is my wish that people will feel comfortable here in this school who
have their hearts *devoted* to many diverse spiritual and professional
paths. I am doing my level best to make these classes as compatible
with, for instance, Gnostic Christians, Sufi Muslims, Vipassana
Buddhists, and Hassidic Jews, as it is intendedly compatible with
Gurdjieffians, Transpersonal Psychologists, Gestaltists, Humanists,
Phenomenologists, Existentialists,
meditators of all kinds, and non-meditators, as well. The approach to
learning and applying mindfulness that is found in this school is NOT a
separate path to be followed, but only a subordinate basic coaching of
the art of awakening that is applicable to all such schools and fields.
This school provides innovative teaching tools that may greatly
accelerate a student's progress along any personal path that he or she
may choose to follow. That is what all these classes are designed for.
And the TTMT approach, therefor, is secular.
So . . . welcome to the new semester here, Kiddees! May we each and all
go even farther than we've come already as we approach the end of this
fascinating Millenium!
Coach John Bilby
Tucson, Arizona
mindfulnessclasses.com
coach@mindfulnessclasses.com
Continue with Winter 1999/2000 Classroom Talk or
Post a new discussion in the current Classroom Talk
Archived February 13, 2000