Working Through Our Mental Afflictions in Today’s World: A Buddhist & Psychotherapeutic Approach to Attachment, Aversion & Ignorance

Fridays, Oct 9 & 16, 7–8:30pm EDT

IN-PERSON & ONLINE

In this two-part class, psychoanalyst and Buddhist teacher Dr. Pilar Jennings will explore the foundational Buddhist teaching on mental afflictions that interfere with our shared wish for well-being. With efforts to understand the particular struggles so many are facing at this moment in history, together we’ll examine the spiritual and psychological nature of attachment, aversion, and ignorance and how it manifests in our changing conditions.

Themes will include the difference between needed interpersonal attachment, and the demand for control that is elusive for us all. We will also consider the role of anger as a common response to suffering, thinking through the Buddha’s teachings on anger and contemporary psychological insights that illuminate its frequent pitfalls. Lastly, we’ll examine the nature of ignorance in Buddhist psychology as a way to illuminate the nature of selfhood. In this discussion, we will think through the process of developing needed self-cohesion, while simultaneously softening a sense of separate selfhood.