Topic: Transform Hurtful Arguments Into a Healing Space (Classroom Talk 4/19/23)

Topics covered: There is no such thing as the winning side of an argument, because the reason we argue with others is that we are in distress; The mind complains, "You are giving me an experience of myself that I don't like." And so we argue because that part of us is sure that we must change others in order to change our present experience. But our experience of life is nothing but the experience of ourselves.

Classroom Talk: 4/19/2023 - The less we try to "teach" others about their shortcomings, the more insight we gain into our own.

Topic: The Unimaginable Power of Being at Peace with Everyone You Know (Classroom Talk 9/7/22)

Topics covered: The reason that life has stopped being precious to us is because we live in constant judgment of everyone and everything; When you really want to understand something, you don't try to understand it with thought only; Our lives are presently shaped by incessant thinking and judgment, which is why our lives are misshapen; Have you ever found freedom from...

Classroom Talk: 9/7/2022 - Nothing makes us more common, more like all those we constantly judge, than being identified with a false sense of self that would have us believe that -- by some "act of God" -- we're so much better than all we see.

Topic: See the Silver Lining Inside Any Struggle with Life (Classroom Talk 6/1/22)

Topics covered: Do our daily struggles with life serve us, or do we serve our daily struggles? The answer is that, presently, we serve our daily struggles; The individual components in nature often struggle against each other naturally in order to perfect nature as a whole; When something happens that we do not want, we typically struggle against the condition that seems to be against us.

Classroom Talk: 6/1/2022 - Trying to assess, and then assign blame to the stress that exists between you and whatever you may be struggling with in life... is like trying to judge which side of the rope in a tug-of-war is to be blamed for the tension (in it).

Topic: The Wisdom to Walk Away from Self-Judgment (Classroom Talk 4/20/22)

Topics covered: Whatever remains concealed can never be healed. What remains concealed is the cause of the conflict we have with ourselves and others; Self-judgment guards the door to self-renewal, convincing us that protecting the old is preferable over the new; Revelation of similarity to your neighbor is what leads to compassion and the end of conflict...

Classroom Talk: 4/20/2022 - No one is free who has an ax to grind with any other person, let alone who grind themselves down with painful self-judgment believing, in vain, that self-punishment is somehow connected to self-perfection.