Balancing Work And Home Life On The Eightfold Path

In this second of two talks focusing on how Buddhist principles and practices can support a balance in the energy required at work and the energy we all want to have at home, Peter emphasized the importance of integrating various strategies into daily work routines in order to avoid the “energy dumps” of resentment, overwork, relationship conflicts and commuting time so that there’s energy available to enj0y home life and find time and energy for spiritual development.  Next week’s topic will be how a benevolent lifestyle is manifested around issues of money management and material values.

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Balancing Work And Home Life

During this first of two talks, Peter and the assembled sangha members discussed the complications that arise in trying to balance work requirements and home life.  Peter described two boundary issues: internal boundaries and external boundaries, suggesting that much stress results from the conflicts between the “ideal self”, who’s expected to be able to please all people all the time, both at work and at home.  Next week’s discussions will explore how the concepts and practices of the eightfold path can be usefully applied in the dynamic balancing process.

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Relationships on the eightfold path

During this second talk on a Buddhist way to cultivated benevolent relationship, Peter related the eightfold path to developing the quality of relationships, which he terms “practicing relationship”, from the most simple, as with a checkout clerk at a store, to the most enduring and intimate, as within families.  Next week’s topic will be balancing energies between work and home life, as a continuation of Benevolent Lifestyle.

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Relationships Are Spiritual Practice

This is the first of two dialogues exploring the vital importance of relationship experience for developing an integrate sense of self, that is, ego.  Peter combines Buddhist teachings with current psychological understanding of how necessary relationship is, from just out of the womb throughout the lifetime of a person.  When interpersonal dynamics are distorted, the self-states of each person are confused and conflicted.  Benevolent Intention (Right Intention), combined with Clear Awareness (Right Understanding), manifested through Right Speech and Right Action (Benevolent Narrative and Benevolent Behavior), provide more integration in the succession of “selfing moments”.  This integrative process provides the foundation for spiritual growth; relationship is the field of play for this process.  Next week, Peter will discuss various aspects of Buddhist meditative process that fosters skillful relationship experiences.

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