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Current brain science tells us that most of what we take to be real time experience is in fact a virtual reality simulation, a life-movie, produced in the middle prefrontal cortex by the splicing of bits of real data with canned images, story lines, and mood music from memory stores in the visual cortex, temporal lobe, amygdala, and hippocampus. Unfortunately, because of our brain’s mindless bias towards negative input and memories, typically the movie we take for our lives is not a comedy, epic, or uplifting documentary, but the rerun of old nightmares stored up from childhood traumas, ancestral traumas, and evolutionary worst case fears and reflexes.

The Tibetan art of role-modeling imagery and affirmation is designed to replace the recycled drama or worst-case horror show we produce by mindless default, with an empowering, optimistic, and transparent simulation of our ideal dream story and life. Centered on our bond with a role-model who inspires our unsung inner hero, this vision acts like the flight simulator astronauts use to train for real flight, or the mental rehearsal athletes use to transcend their current limits. It primes the prefrontal-limbic circuits of positive vision, best-case thinking, and proactive emotion, causing them to sprout new neural networks that will support our active creation of a new dream self and life.  

This sixth class of the Nalanda Four Year Program in Sustainable Happiness takes the art of transformative imagery into the fabric of our daily lives. Once we've begun to transform our self-image with the help of role-modeling bonds, we enter the next horizon of contemplative living: transforming our unexamined life story into a consciously chosen journey towards a heroic life of changing our world. Dr. Loizzo explores the use of imagery and affirmation to rewrite the supposed facts of our life—birth, development and death—into a heroic narrative: dying to our reactive self, resurrecting as our native genius/dream self, and giving birth to a generative way of being that manifests our mature genius for transforming others and the world we share.

Practically, the class focuses on sealing narrative imagery with lucid dignity, and accessing the subtle neural network of blissful genius, based on the Tibetan role-modeling practices of Sheer Brilliance (Manjushri) and Mother Wisdom (Prajnaparamita).   

Prerequisites: initial familiarity with mindfulness, loving-kindness, yoga, and/or an openness to the path of self-transformation.

 

Mondays, April 1,8,15,22,29 and May 6

Monday, March 18; 7-9PM:  The Neuropsychology of Self-World Imagery & Self-Transformation - Sustainable Happiness, 290-307   -
General:$25 / Members:$22.50     

 

Monday, March 25; 7-9PM:  Transforming Our Familiar Story into A Heroic Journey and Life -  Sustainable Happiness, 308-312
General:$25 / Members:$22.50    

 

Monday, April 1; 7-9PM: Setting the Stage for Life-Change: Motivation, Wisdom & Confidence - Sustainable Happiness, 312-324
General:$25 / Members:$22.50      

 

Monday, April 8; 7-9PM: The First Node: Turning the Trauma of Death into Near-Death Awakening - Sustainable Happiness, 324-330
General:$25 / Members:$22.50  

 

Monday, April 15; 7-9PM: The Second Node: Turning Mindless Transitions into Blissful Development - Sustainable Happiness, 330-337
General:$25 / Members:$22.50    

 

Monday, April  22; 7-9PM: The Third Node: Turning Stressful Existence into a Heroic Life of Compassion - Sustainable Happiness, 337-346
General:$25 / Members:$22.50  

 

Monday, April 29; 7-9PM: Sealing and Realizing the Transformation: Consistency & Dedication - Sustainable Happiness, 346-348
General:$25 / Members:$22.50    

 

Monday, May 6; 7-9PM: The Hero's Journey Through Everyday Life: Self-Creation in Practice - Sustainable Happiness, 348-354   
General:$25 / Members:$22.50     click here to register  

SERIES (Mondays, March 18, 25, April 1,8,15,22,29 and May 6)
General:$180 / Members:$162   

 

Required Readings:
Joe Loizzo, Sustainable Happiness: The Mind Science of Well-Being, Altruism, and Inspiration. New York: Routledge, 2012.


Recommended Readings:
Tashi Tsering. Tantra: The Foundations of Buddhist Thought, Vol. 6. Boston: Wisdom, 2012.
Thubten Yeshi. Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire. Boston: Wisdom, 2001.

Presenter:

Joe Loizzo, M.D., Ph.D., is a psychotherapist and Founder and Director of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science, a contemplative learning community that teaches timeless tools of self-healing and interdependence for today’s complex world. On faculty at the Weill Cornell Center for Integrative Medicine and the Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies, Dr. Loizzo lectures widely on the role of contemplative science in the future of health, education and contemporary life, and teaches regular public classes and workshops through Nalanda Institute and Tibet House US. Dr. Loizzo's book Sustainable Happiness: The Mind Science of Well-Being, Altruism, and Inspiration was recently published.

See above.