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anxiety
April 2009 
Friday Five - 2
Umguy
From holy memes and kosmic blog starters: It's week 2 for the Friday Five! We give five questions, and Zaadzsters answer them in their blogs. Join in! Tag your blog with the words “friday five” and let the pod know you posted. And if you have an idea for next week's Friday Five, send them to suzanne. Scatter the seeds!
Week 2: Teach!
1) Who's your favorite teacher, school or otherwise, and why?
I think it's my mother. There's being helped through childhood. And there's talking with her now, with all my adult issues, and seeing my family, and how I was conditioned, in a whole new light. It's just kind of this endless starting point for figuring out so many things.
2) Who was your least favorite, and why?
I had a third grade teacher who hated children and tormented us endlessly.
3) What are the differences between bad and good teachers?
Well, to put it in short hand: bad teachers tell you want to think and good teachers show you how to learn.
4) How can YOU become a great teacher? (And if you're already great, how can you become even better?)
Cultivate skillful means. Practice taking different perspectives.
5) If you could teach any subject in the world to any one group in the world, what would you teach to whom? And how?
Intro to Buddhism and Integral for the insecure. How: oh, mostly I'd to a lot of paraphrasing.
Access: Public
i'd love to hear your intro to buddhism…
Suzanne: We'll have to swap notes.
I like your defintion of a good teacher v. a bad teacher – excellent distinction.
What would you want to focus on in your introduction to Buddhism?
Peace,
Bill
Bill:
I'm a little embarassed to admit just how into figuring this out I got.
The first thing I would emphasize is that some minds function by creating an overload of fear, stress and anxiety. But that’s just the way some minds are. It’s not a big deal. Eventually working with those difficult thoughts is what will set you free.
And, you know, your thoughts are not the be all end all of who you really are.
Then some kind of simple meditation technique – probably mindfulness, like I learned at the local Shambhala center.
I’d want to include the Kegan concept of the subject of one level of development becoming the object of the next and how meditation is, in part, about making your mind an object to be seen from a new subject. And how much that changes things.
Then cover the four nobles truths and the eightfold path. Trying to emphasize in the eightfold path a little of Roger Walsh’s take on ethics, you live properly in order to live at peace, and that very much includes mental peace.
Well… I really want to keep thinking about this.
Sounds like a good introduction.
Have you read Lama Surya Das' Awakening the Buddha Within? He does a tour of the eightfold path, but for each step he provides a wealth of information from the Buddhist traditions supporting and expanding on that step. It's really a great book.
Do you have plans to teach this, or are you just thinking about it for now?
The topic of teaching brought up my fears about doing it again. I've thought about teaching Spiral Dynamics since I've done the certification, but my fears of public speaking and of putting myself in that role again keeps stopping me from doing it.
I taught a little when I first got out of school, but it wasn't a good experience. Teaching freshman composition in a community college setting was not fun. It made me fear teaching.
Sooner or later, I need to face the fear and just do it. I know what I need to know, so it's just a matter of facing the fear.
Anyway, I like the outline you presented.
Peace,
Bill
Awakening the Buddha Within was one of the first books on Buddhism I read. I read it over an extended camping trip and still keep it on my bookshelf. I remember thinking of it – especially the eightfold path part – “this is exactly what I need.”
I don't think I could seriously consider teaching, I just don't have the personality for it. But as a writing exercise – even just to more fully articulate all of this – I think I might give expanding this a try.
Your posts on Spiral Dynamics are always very good. But, like I said, I certainly know where the fear comes from. Maybe with all the shadow work you've written about teaching would be a very different experience now.
Thanks for the comments. I'm excited about thinking about these things.