Preface

General Structure for Each Training Session

• I. Initial procedures for each training session

• II. Procedures for each part of an exercise

• III. Concluding procedures for each training session

Part I: Dealing Constructively with Sensitivity Issues

• Exercise 1: Identifying Sensitivity Imbalances

  • Procedure

  • Examples

    • 1. Balanced sensitivity versus hypersensitivity

    • 2. Forms of insensitivity

• Exercise 2a: Quieting the Mind

  • I. While focusing on someone not present

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 2b: Generating Care

  • I. While focusing on someone not present

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 3: Imagining Ideal Sensitivity

  • I. While focusing on someone from your life

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 4: Affirming and Accessing Our Natural Abilities

  • I While focusing on someone from your life

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 5: Resolving to Refrain from Destructive Behavior

  • The ten destructive actions

  • I. While focusing on someone from your life

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 6: Combining Warmth with Understanding

  • I. While focusing on someone not present

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

Part II: Uncovering the Talents of Our Mind and Heart

• Exercise 7: Shifting Our Focus from Mind and from Ourselves to Mental Activity

  • I. While looking around the room

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 8: Appreciating the Clear Light Nature of Mental Activity

  • I. While focusing on someone with whom you have a volatile relationship

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 9: Accessing the Natural Talents of Our Mind and Heart

  • I. While focusing on a photo or on a thought of someone

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 10: Applying the Five Types of Deep Awareness

  • I. While focusing on a photo of a group of people

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

Part III: Dispelling Confusion about Appearances

• Exercise 11: Validating the Appearances We Perceive

  • I. While focusing on something from your life

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 12: Visualizing Life's Changes

  • I. While focusing on someone from your life

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 13: Dissecting Experiences into Parts and Causes

  • I. While focusing on a thought of someone from your life

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 14: Seeing Experiences as Waves on the Ocean

  • I. While focusing on someone from your life

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 15: Combining Compassion with Deconstruction

  • I. While focusing on someone close to you who recently upset you with his or her words

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

Part IV: Responding with Balanced Sensitivity

• Exercise 16: Adjusting Our Innate Mental Factors

  • IA. While focusing on a sweater on the floor before you

  • IB. While focusing on a candid photograph of someone from your life

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

  • IV. While focusing on others and then on yourself to gain a balanced view of the strong and weak points of each

• Exercise 17: Accepting Suffering and Giving Happiness

  • I. While focusing on a photo or on a mental picture of a loved one who is troubled with a problem

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 18: Making Sensitive Decisions

  • Preliminaries

    • 1. Divest decision-making from feelings of dualism

    • 2. Relax to access the natural talents of your mind and heart

  • Actual exercise

    • I. While focusing on a photo or on a thought of someone from your life about whom you need to make a difficult decision, such as someone with whom you have an unhealthy or unsatisfactory relationship

    • II. While focusing on someone in person

    • III. While focusing on yourself

Part V: Advanced Training

• Exercise 19: Identifying the Syndromes of Grasping at Mind's Natural Functions for Security

  • Procedure

  • Examples

    • 1. Physical activity

    • 2. Verbal expression

    • 3. Sensory or mental experiences

    • 4. Expression of warm concern

    • 5. Expression of energy

    • 6. Rest

    • 7. Expression of pleasure

• Exercise 20: Relaxing Triplistic Appearances of Mind's Natural Functions

  • I. Focusing on a person or on some situation from your life

    • Procedure

    • Examples

      • 1. Physical activity

      • 2. Verbal expression  

      • 3. Sensory or mental experience 

      • 4. Expression of warm concern 

      • 5. Expression of energy  

      • 6. Rest  

      • 7. Expression of pleasure  

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

    • Procedure

    • Steps

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 21: Dispelling Discomfort at Eight Transitory Things in Life

  • I. While focusing on various persons from your life

    • Procedure

    • Examples

      • 1. Praise or criticism

      • 2. Good or bad news

      • 3a. Gains or losses

      • 3b. Expectations or demands

      • 4. Things going well or poorly

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself

• Exercise 22: Dissolving Disturbing Emotions into Underlying Deep Awareness

  • I. While focusing on a photo or on a thought of someone from your life

    • Procedure

    • Examples

      • 1a. Naivety about cause and effect

      • 1b. Naivety about reality

      • 2a. Self-aggrandizing arrogance

      • 2b. Inordinate esteem of others

      • 3a. Stinginess

      • 3b. Destructive self-denial in favor of others

      • 4a. Longing desire to possess someone

      • 4b. Longing desire to belong to someone

      • 5a. Clinging attachment to possessing someone

      • 5b. Clinging attachment to belonging to someone

      • 6a. Jealousy

      • 6b. Self-depreciation and guilt with what one has

      • 7a. Anger directed externally

      • 7b. Suppressed anger redirected internally

      • 8. Worry

      • 9. Complaint

  • II. While focusing on someone in person

  • III. While focusing on yourself