Tearing off the Sparkling Feel-Good Spiritual Bandaid: Recognizing Spiritual Bypassing and Facing Our Discomforts
A 3-Week Practice Group
August 7th, 14th, & 21st
Wednesdays 7pm to 8:30pm Taught By: Janine Schipper
NO REGISTRATION NECESSARY
Have you ever thought something along the lines of “Once I awaken or become enlightened, I will know exactly how to handle every situation with grace and wisdom?”
Or perhaps you have dismissed your emotions as unimportant because in meditation practice we watch the arising and passing of emotions, recognizing them as ultimately “empty.”
There is a very real tendency for us to place all of our apples in the spiritual basket, so to speak; to believe that spiritual practice will make all our problems disappear. In its extreme form, we may use spirituality as a mechanism to repress our most challenging feelings.
While we may experience (and research confirms) tremendous benefits from spiritual practice, there can also be a shadow side to spiritual practice, what Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist John Wellwood calls spiritual bypassing. According to Wellwood, a spiritual bypass is when we "use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks".
In this 3-week practice group we will:
Learn to recognize spiritual bypassing and deepen our ability to apply our practice to daily living.
Explore the inherent emptiness of thoughts and feelings while concurrently recognizing their reality.
Learn strategies for being with and relating to challenging emotions while deepening our spiritual practice.
This course is designed to support practitioners in their spiritual journey and is rooted in Buddhist principles and practices. The teacher is a sociologist and meditation teacher with no professional background in psychology or counseling. The course is not designed to replace therapeutic support.
There is NO FEE for this study group. The teachings of the Buddha have been sustained by the 2,500 year old tradition of dana, a Pali word meaning "generosity.” Participants are encouraged to help FIMC facilitate such programs as well as the teacher by offering donations at the end of the meeting. In the act of giving, we develop our ability to let go, cultivate a spirit of caring, and honor our inter-connectedness.
Location: Bell Garden Buddhist Center
2708 N. Fourth Street, Suite B-3
Flagstaff, AZ 86004
Janine Schipper is a professor of sociology at Northern Arizona University where she writes about and teaches courses in environmental sociology and contemplative studies. She is the co-author of Teaching with Compassion: An Educator’s Oath to Teach from the Heart (Rowman & Littlefield 2018) and author of Disappearing Desert: The Growth of Phoenix and the Culture of Sprawl (University of Oklahoma Press 2008). Janine is a guest teacher at the Flagstaff Insight Meditation Community and facilitates workshops on compassion and mindfulness practices. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona with her husband and three wild beautiful children.
