"The genius of Tulku Urgyen was that he could point out the nature of mind with precision and matter-of-factness of teaching a person how to thread a needle and could get an ordinary meditator like me to recognize that consciousness is intrinsically free of self ... I came to Tulku Urgyen yearning for the experience of self-transcendence, and in a few minutes he showed me I had no self to transcend ... Tulku Urgyen simply handed me the ability to cut through the illusion of the self directly, even in ordinary states of consciousness.  This instruction was, without question, the most important thing I have ever been explicitly taught by another human being.  It has given me a way to escape the usual tides of psychological suffering - fear, anger, shame - in an instant. "


Posts tagged with 'compassion'

Recent research: articles from autumn journals

10th December 2014

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - Endnote - which currently contains over 21,400 abstracts. I also regularly tweet about emerging research, so following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ (click on the relevant icon …

Recent research: articles from late summer journals

3rd September 2014

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - Endnote - which currently contains over 21,200 abstracts. I also regularly tweet about emerging research, so following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ (click on the relevant icon …

Recent research: articles from summer journals

10th August 2014

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 21,000 abstracts. I also regularly tweet about emerging research, so following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ (click on the relevant icon …

Birmingham BABCP conference: first day - decentering, compassion, insomnia, social anxiety, sp/sr & barbecue (3rd post)

24th July 2014

This is a quick overview of the first full day of the annual BABCP summer conference in Birmingham. I intend to return to some of the key learning points in later posts. I've already written about the pre-conference workshop I went to on "Emotion regulation" in a couple of earlier …

European positive psychology conference: love, national happiness comparison tables, & life satisfaction assessment (2nd post)

3rd July 2014

I wrote yesterday about the two pre-European Conference on Positive Psychology (ECPP) workshops I went to on "Positive supervision" and on "Positive relationships". Then in mid-afternoon on Tuesday, the conference proper began. It was heralded by Taiko drummers and a cluster of brief welcoming speeches. Apparently there are 920 people …

Recent research: articles from April journals

1st May 2013

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains nearly 19,600 abstracts. Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas …

Attachment style in both health professionals & their clients, therapeutic alliance & mindfulness

17th April 2013

I had lunch with a health professional friend the other day. Later he emailed me saying "The last few times we have met you have mentioned the importance of attachment style in determining aspects of the interaction between patients and health care professionals." He went on to raise a series …

Recent research: articles from March journals

3rd April 2013

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains nearly 19,500 abstracts. Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas …

Recent research: articles from February journals

4th March 2013

I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - EndNote - which currently contains over 19,000 abstracts. Every few weeks I scan through all the articles I've found interesting in the previous month (in the general areas …

Do psychotherapists, doctors and leaders develop "emotional chainmail"? Some ways of building both stability and empathy.

28th February 2013

In the last couple of days I've written two posts on the possibility of developing "emotional chainmail" when faced with repeated experiences of suffering ... "Do psychotherapists, doctors and leaders develop "emotional chainmail"? Description of a possible problem" and "Do psychotherapists, doctors and leaders develop "emotional chainmail"? Two kinds of …