An introduction and overview
The people, the organisation and its evolution
Articles about the process by the senior Tara therapists



Extracts from Articles by Tara Rokpa Therapists

Edie Irwin: The simple things in life in Tara Rokpa
Carol A. Sagar: Art therapy as an integral part of Tara Rokpa
Brion Sweeney: The relevance of Buddhist methods for Western psychotherapy
Akong Rinpoche: Tara Rokpa Therapy/Training - The meaning of the name


Edie Irwin: The simple things in life in Tara Rokpa: relaxation and massage, painting and drawing (from the booklet 'Back To Beginnings', Tara Rokpa Edinburgh 1991)

One of the activities of the group in this work is massage. Even at the simplest, most unschooled level it can be very useful for relaxation. A compassionate motivation - the wish to benefit the other person without expecting something in return - is the key ingredient with this type of massage. Even if you only practise simple massage of the hand, there is a real chance to help the other person experience a more relaxed and open aspect of themselves. Massage also has real benefits for the person who gives it. It provides an opportunity to develop and express compassion in action more directly than often seems possible. It is a way of gaining confidence in one's own value for others and a way of breaking through our fears of touching others. In addition, by learning more about helping others in this way, we naturally develop an interest in our own physical existence - which helps to dispel fear and ignorance in this area. Just as many adults have experienced very little caring touch since childhood, so with self-expression through colour and form. Yet playing with colour in the way children do, provides an inexpensive, harmless outlet for the expression of feelings which can be a direct communication from oneself to oneself. The emphasis here is on spontaneity and on finding a form for feelings in an uncontrived way. There is no emphasis whatsoever on 'art'. It doesn't matter whether it 'looks good'. Sometimes we need to let ourselves see unbeautiful sides as well as the beautiful. An added benefit of working with colour and spontaneous imagery is that it takes us into a part of the mind which is deeper than formal language. When we were babies we could see and imagine long before we could put things into words. So, when recollecting the earliest time of our lives, expressing feelings in visual form may come much more easily than in words.

top of page

 

Carol A. Sagar: Art therapy as an integral part of Tara Rokpa

Art therapy does not make its goal the production of art products and artefacts, although some of these may actually come into existence. Art therapy in Tara Rokpa offers a safe environment and a non-judgmental accepting relationship. In this way, participants come to learn to trust the situation enough to use the art materials in many different ways of his or her own choice. This actually taps into the healing and creative energies which are the potential of all humanity. In order to realize this creativity, the participants use the safe psychological holding space of this work to actualise and give form and expression to their feelings relating to past, present and future. In working with the art materials ego controls are let go of, repressed material comes closer to consciousness and a process of psychological re-structuring and re-integration can follow.

top of page

 

Brion Sweeney: The relevance of Buddhist methods for Western psychotherapy
(from a public talk given in Berlin Aug. 1996)

In Western medicine, in the language of psychiatry and psychotherapy, in general we have a strong emphasis on pathology. There is a sense that something has to be basically wrong with a person who has difficulties. These diagnostic terms we use are very much part of our language and how we see ourselves, almost the modern equivalent of original sin. But also in the West, in some schools we have the beginning of an idea that there can be miscommunication, or miscoordination, without there necessarily being fundamental pathology, for instance in systemic theory. But this understanding is present in the East, in Buddhism, already for a long time. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha taught something called 'Buddhanature' or an 'essential goodness' in the essence of each being. That is not to deny that we have conditioned and habitual ways of dealing with things that can cause problems, or that some of Freud's theories, for example the description of the ego defense mechanisms, seem very accurate. We defend ourselves against things outside of us that we fear, through various defenses and set up problems that we don't really need. But this conditioning, this way of defending ourselves, this fearfulness we have, need not necessarily be fundamental. The Buddhist notions of the mind open the possibility that we could experience the world without this defensiveness, without emotional clouds between us and reality, without the suffering created by this defendedness. That we could even find within ourselves joy, and the ability to open to further caring, and to a very full life. In the West, we may have some theoretical understanding of these matters, but our practical understanding, I am a little bit suspect of. But it seems that in the East, particularly in the Buddhist tradition, practical methods for actually undoing conditioning and becoming more in tune with this essential nature have been there for a long time. In the West we are very hungry for concepts, and we still believe somehow that if we get the right concepts, this is like the golden key that would unlock everything. However, what we perhaps need to emphasize is working with the experiental, which can involve time and hard work.

top of page

Akong Rinpoche: Tara Rokpa Therapy/Training - The meaning of the name
(excerpts from a public lecture given in Berlin, Aug. 1996)
Tara (sanskrit) is in Tibetan Dolma. Dolma means to free something, to be free or the method of freeing. Tara is a mother aspect, in a sense of spaciousness and limitlessness - being able to hold and carry everything through love and compassion.
Rokpa (tib.) means help, in a sense of coordination and harmony, of coordination between inner and outer environment.
Training or therapy means not to be arrogant: "other people don't know anything, but I am better". Training means mainly understanding. We develop understanding by analysing ourselves, looking into positive and negative things which are in ourselves. Training has to do with maturity, with understanding, with digesting experience, not pick a new idea and put it into our brain. All understanding is already within ourselves, our inheritance, but we don't realise this. What we are doing is learning how to recognise this.
With this understanding, we approach therapy or training as how to simplifiy our life, not to complicate it. How to digest all the things that are happening to ourselves and outside of ourselves, to understand and to be given time to develop patience.
The foundation for this process is compassion. This therapy teaches: everything is based on compassion. Compassion for oneself; not just for other people. We need to understand, to forgive and to have compassion for ourselves. We also need to have compassion for our friends, and for our enemies. One's own problems, and the concept of enemy or friend - this is all misunderstanding and confusion, created without any reason. So compassion is the main therapy which can enable us to overcome all our difficulties whatever they are.
"If you imagine that your mind is like space, then you are able to digest all your problems without any difficulties."
What we try to achieve is limitless space, so that the mind becomes like space. All the things that are happening in the mind, like happy, unhappy, sad, enjoyment are like different buildings in space. It doesn't matter how many buildings are happening, still there is space, this space can never be filled. If you imagine that your mind is like space, then you are able to digest all your problems without any difficulties. This is the conclusion of what we hope to achieve by understanding Tara Rokpa Therapy or Training, that you become like space, and then you can build anything you want to build, the space can never be too small!
"Compassion is the main therapy which can enable us to overcome all our difficulties whatever they are."

 


home