Success and Failure, Gain and Loss, Praise and Blame, Pleasure and Pain can haunt our life. All these wordly conditions weave in and out of each other.

Working with judgments is a kind of “royal road” of transformation, taking us into our deep and often unconscious views, sense of self and pain. We look at the importance of this work, and the speaker tells personal stories illustrating four ways of working with judgments: 1. mindfulness 2. seeing core patterns of mind and heart 3. metta, compassion, joy – using heart practices, and 4. deep inquiry.

Metta to self is traditionally a starting point for Metta practice. Yet this is challenging for many of us as we work with our pain, judgments and demons. As we develop in Metta to self, we bring Metta out into the world, which deeply needs it. This requires a lot of creativity. We end by exploring the coverage needed to bring Metta into the world, and the need for a "tough metta" -- a Metta able to respond to difficult situations, a Metta that is neither passive nor a pushover.

Mindfulness practice is a confrontation with what is true in each moment--we examine the ways we defend against painful experience so that we can open to the richness of being alive.

The Core curriculum for life: How to Live, How to Die, How to deal with pain, aging, illness, death & seperation.

“Being human is a guest house” wrote Rumi. Every day we greet new arrivals – joys, sorrows, hostilities and more; and moments of awareness too. We bow to the present moment and greet them all, be they thorns or unruly monsters like malice, shame, fear, anger or greed. Can we see them all just as they are, painful or pleasant – impermanent, not ours, not who we are? Can we let them come and go, and be grateful? Treat whatever passes through the heart as empty. After all, these are karmic messengers from beyond bearing unique spiritual gifts. For in their presence, we strengthen our practice. Wisely attentive, reflective, and aware, we are on the magnificent path of waking up.

Judgement is a painful excruciating state of mind that creates feelings of alienation and separation. This talk explores some of the ways that we experience as well as how to work with it.

Is your meditation directed toward learning about who you are? What areas do you shy away from paying attention to yourself? Where are you self-protected? Do you feel the pain associated with those areas? Become increasingly aware of one of those areas and see what difference bare attention (caring attention) makes to that pain. Offer that area metta to ease the pain of looking. The pain will ease in direct proportion to your understanding of it, and understanding is achieved through direct observation.