Be Your Own Therapist

Google Tech Talks
October 3, 2008

ABSTRACT

We spend our lives being seduced by the outside world, believing without question that happiness and suffering come from "out there." In reality, Buddhist teachings explain that they come from the way we perceive and interpret things, not the things themselves.

This deeply held misconception is at the root of our dissatisfaction, self-doubt, anger, depression, anxiety, and the rest. But our minds can change. By becoming deeply familiar with the workings of our own cognitive processes through introspection and learning to deconstruct them - truly, being our own therapists - we can loosen the grip of these neuroses and grow our marvelous potential for contentment, clarity, and courage, which are at the core of our being.

Speaker: Venerable Robina Courtin
A Tibetan Buddhist nun for 30 years, beloved teacher and power-house personality, Ven. Robina Courtin is Executive Director of Liberation Prison Project, based in San Francisco. (LiberationPrisonProject.org)

A lifeline for people with nothing and no one, since 1996 Liberation Prison Project has supported the spiritual practice of over 15,000 prisoners, mainly in the US and Australia. These days, the project spends $50,000 every month, nearly half of it on salaries and benefits for a fulltime staff of ten (eight in the US and two in Australia, including three former prisoners), supported by a team of 150+ volunteers worldwide.

Ven. Robina travels the world, teaching and raising funds, touching countless hearts and minds with her down-to-earth, no-nonsense packaging of the Buddha's teachings, often filled with tasty stories from her own real-life struggles, attachments and relationships. She is able to put across to her students in and out of prison that change is possible; everyone can learn to develop their qualities, to be joyful in the face of difficulties - even on death row.

"Ven. Robina has taught me to look at everything that occurs in my life with a different view," writes one Australian prisoner. "She has given me dignity, courage, and honor."

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[abstroint]

This video is so powerful and made me look at my life as a whole. I feel empowered!!!!!!

[Atepethi]

@Winobie75 Oh god that made my day. So you were a religious person without knowing ? If I were you, I would totally invest in the self perception department.

[NWOareScum]

@stellarshore - just an observation of the possible whys that anyone following a right path in a mostly wrong environment may appear to not have benefited from that right path.

[stellarshore]

@NWOareScum What? I dont think I get you.

[NWOareScum]

@stellarshore - i found being entirely buddhist doesn't work in the idiot west, the people who are the problem use it to walk all over you. so i had to incorporate the only language they understand - tyranny and violence, and deal with the scum that way.

[NWOareScum]

if you're actually mad tho it won't work out will it. you'd probably overcharge yourself then go to yourself as a different practicioner, which'd then cause further fragmentation of psyche.

[Winobie75]

@Atepethi If one so much as accepts that it IS POSSIBLE to enhance the skill of self perception then will power can suddenly accomplish a great deal more.

Buddhism makes a lot of sense, Having watched this vid I would like to become a Buddhist (though I get the feeling that perhaps I always have been one without knowing it by name. :-)

[springstern]

Great lecture! I didn't even realize that all my life philosophy reflects budda's teachings, at least in Rabina's interpretation.

[a0578877]

In the Quran, Muslims know that all human kind throughout the historical timeline are born at Fitrah which means they are in the most pure mental state of mind and are considered Muslims and it is up to their parents to turn them away to a non Muslim religion or not. But if they die before reaching the age of puprity then they are considered Muslims and go to heaven.

[a0578877]

Ur consciousness is given to u by God since he has the right to take it away from you at any given moment. Don't tell me it was there as a result of coincidence. Buddha had a more emotional approach to understanding one's life when infect he was not divine worshipper of Allah.