Unconditional Positive Regard for Carl Rogers

The above is from a very interesting series of film -- Carl Rogers (and Fritz Perls and Albert Ellis) all seeing the same client -- Gloria --  for 1/2 hour, to demonstrate each of their techniques.  Here he introduces his approach, and meets Gloria.


"Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me. Neither the Bible nor the prophets -- neither Freud nor research --neither the revelations of God nor man -- can take precedence over my own direct experience. My experience is not authoritative because it is infallible. It is the basis of authority because it can always be checked in new primary ways. In this way its frequent error or fallibility is always open to correction." --From On Becoming a Person, 1961

Trust

For this Sabbatical time, I had an aspiration to attend all the Sesshin; one each month. That has not quite happened, but it has been close. I am reminded of a metaphor that a pastor at a New Thought church I used to go to (yeah, that was an interesting chapter in the spiritual biography) would say about continuous practice. She likened spiritual practice to putting water on to boil. If you are always taking it off and putting it back on the heat, it will never reach that transformational degree of 212.

Hello Kitty rocks the mokugyo

I went to Sesshin in August, September, October and November. Going to that many Sesshin one after another has indeed felt intense, and I admit that missing Rohatsu felt... right.

I can easily error on the side of over-striving and even bullying myself. While certainly dedication and effort is needed, harshness is something extra.

Enough with the fear of slacking! It is not from reality. I jump out of the boiling water and into the fire: Where my meditation practice ends, my yoga practice has been picking up. I am beginning to taste the fruits of that practice, and more often than not, surprising myself with what this body is willing and able to do now. The mind has yet to catch up to the body in this respect. I can trust that everything is as it should be. Transformation is all the time. Geez!

So hi-ho, it's off to January Sesshin I go. The theme is Life Vows. It is one of Hogen Roshi's favorite themes, and is a little unusual in that we get to meet and actually talk within a small group each day to help us articulate and clarify our own Life Vows.

The best part of working with others on life vows, for me, was to see how people organized their vows. (I am a hard core 'J' on the Myers-Briggs if that hasn't already given it away). One woman traced her hand, and had this five-part vow category thing. There were lists, and memorable fun vows along with the serious ones.

I was able to organize mine into vows that related to the Three Treasures; Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And there is a sort of preamble at the beginning. I typed these out, shrank them way down, and laminated them, along with the Precepts on the other side, and carry them around in my wallet (My husband calls me "Dr. J" sometimes for my nearly comical organizational bent).

Anyway, I am going to Sesshin this week, for whatever reason, with whatever result. I had a conversation with someone who reminded me that the results of this Sabbatical will not be altogether (or even mostly) visible, and certainly not measurable. I can trust that everything is unfolding just fine, and that my job is just to keep showing up to this life, whether it's in a Zendo, yoga studio, or eyeballs falling out in front of a computer.

Wishing you all well this week!