Colin Dodgson
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Hi Octavio,
I appreciate the way you have expressed your tools of discovery, and a few prompt me to think of self-awareness as an important ingredient for us: The ability to reflect and recognize when our own backgrounds and approaches might influence us, and we need to allow our students more space for their own discovery.
Virginia, I think your point about asking questions is very important. Perhaps as teachers we can use our questions to guide understanding – knowing which questions to ask to prompt reflection. Thanks for making me think about that!
The thing we’re pursuing is like buried treasure. It’s an innate part of ourselves, this capacity to be fully awake; it’s “in there” as certainly as our pulses and our personalities.
Helping someone else to discover this aspect of themselves might begin with invitation. Something like showing that a map to the buried treasure is available to them, as it is to everyone. Of course, it cannot be a physical map with an ‘x’ marking the place to dig. Rather we can provide them with a way to start in the right direction, with the instruction, which offers a container; the boundaries of the path.
We can offer landmarks, making clear what certain aspects of the journey might look and feel like, or signs to be aware of, like the misconceptions that can lead them astray.
We can give them guidance to see for themselves when they may be straying from the path, with the assurance that they can always return to it. Being sensitive to where they are requires listening intently to what they ask and have to say about their experience. Respecting that each person’s journey may be different calls for hearing what they mean, rather than what we expect to hear, or know ourselves.
Also, we can encourage them along their journey. Not by cheerleading, but by living example, and by helping them recognize glimpses of the inner nature we’re working toward revealing. We can show that even though their progress and discovery is their own, we are on the journey together.
Hi everyone! Colin here, living in the Champlain Islands in Northern Vermont. Juggling work in the ecommerce world, a homestead operation, family life, and now very happy to explore the possibilities of deeper practice and new paths it may lead to. Looking forward to sharing this experience with all of you, getting to know you, and learning from you.
email cdodgsonx@gmail.com, text 802-578-5226
