About this item
Book by Tara Bennett-Goleman
About the Author
For many years I have been fortunate in studying with some of the great living meditation masters in the Vipassana and Dzogchen traditions, traveling to see them in Nepal, India, Bhutan, and Northwest China near the border of Tibet. This life-changing training and practice continues to inform every aspect of my work; in a sense my interest in fusion grew from integrating the insightful depth of these Eastern wisdom traditions with the accessible skills, breadth of understanding, and creativity of Western modalities.During the same period I was practicing mindfulness meditation in intensive retreats, I also did a post-graduate training in Schema Therapy with Dr. Jeffrey Young, founder of the Cognitive Therapy Center of New York. As I was steeping myself in each of these Eastern and Western traditions, I began to see how they were offering similar insights and methods for working with the mind, though from different cultural perspectives - and in combination they powerfully complemented each other. I began to use this integration in my own work as a psychotherapist, which led me to write Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart . I continue to teach workshops about Emotional Alchemy, and am working on a follow-up book.One of the outgrowths of teaching Emotional Alchemy workshops internationally, has been developing a program for professionals to package their unique skills and integrate them with awareness training. Buddhist practice, simply put, aims to understand how the mind works in order to relieve suffering, and to be there for the needs of others in whatever way we can. The program, called Karuna Workshops, offers seminars inspired by an attitude of generosity, to further insight and compassion, and to raise funds for projects that benefit others. I co-founded the program with partners in Denmark, which continues to the present.In graduate school my Masters thesis focused on caring for yourself while helping others, which evolved into a workshop for health professionals, and also a wellness education program for elders to help other elders, drawing on the wisdom of their lifelong experience. As a workshop leader, I have sometimes given presentations in restorative natural settings in the Caribbean, Europe, and the U.S. These gatherings are designed as educational vacations that provide nurturing, contemplative learning environments where people in the group readily become a bonded community.One current interest extends this work to caretakers and social activists to turn inward, connecting with their own inner resources, while turning to each other for mutual support and to exchange ideas, as well as learn from inspiring social change leaders. One work-in-progress is organizing a think tank for people engaged in meaningful work to benefit others, to learn from Dr. Ariyaratne, whose Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka brings Gandhian and Buddhist principles to the challenges of development in the Third World.One of the things that inter