salyavin808 asks: So, what happened at the meeting, who said what and what are they going to do about it? Dateline Fairfield, Iowa. The meeting? It was one in a continuation of working meetings held about mental health in the community that have been ongoing for months now most every Tuesday going under the working banner of the Fairfield Mental Health Alliance. These are working meetings of people who are interested in being activley involved in helping with communal mental health. On alternating Tuesdays are working committee meetings while on the off Tuesdays is the large group meeting where the committees bring their work. The larger meetings are very business like organized by agenda. A lot has been done [accomplished in very tangible ways] over several months to facilitate mental health in to the community. The meetings are open to interested people who would be actively involved. They are not gripe sessions where people just hate, bitch and complain, but working meetings looking for action steps to work on and facilitate. Different aspects have been focused on and worked on within the ongoing previous meeting process. Last month before this last meeting the other night was the presentation and distribution of the campus guideline for psychological health treatment. That was a historic meeting and showed the work of a lot of people. This current meeting the other night was a facilitated meeting getting down to the cultural things that may underlie meditator communal mental health. Everything came on to the table. It was really well facilitated. Evidently it is now time in the process to really consider elements of our culture. There were about 40 people around the room of various ages and rank in the community. The meeting had a cross-section representation of students, graduates of the whole school system, long-term community meditators, campus people, and movement leadership. It was extremely well facilitated lasting within and hour or so such that everyone was asked to speak and participate in a series of rounds around the room where everyone was asked by the facilitator who ran the meeting to respond to particular questions in short and those comments were captured on whiteboard and poster boards by scribes in front of everyone to be kept and read through out the meeting. Starting with a question something like, in only a few limited words and without statement what do you see the problem is here in the community culture with mental health? 5 or so words. It went around the room. Then once everything was on the boards in front of everyone came the next question, in a word how do you feel now about all that was said? It went around the room to everyone including movement leadership. 'Hopeful' was a common comment among a range of feelings. Last large question of the group was something like, in five words what should be done to effect change in the communal culture? Again time was taken to go entirely around the room and the answers were recorded by scribes on boards in front of the whole group to read. That went around the whole room and everything was said without comment or discussion. It just moved around the room to everyone. These were pertinent action points. In the end of the meeting then everyone was asked to come forward and physically vote with a limited number of hash-marks to what they felt were the most important points offered in the meeting. That data then will subsequently generate a report with priority for a future meeting about what it might take to change the culture of the movement around mental health. It was all very open and very well done. Communal process to continue,, # # Now, as the science evidently does seem to indicate do take some quiet time for effective transcendent meditation for the welfare of your mental health and go forth and have a better day. Jai Guru Dev, -Buck in the Dome
? “..the role of principle Barry hater - and you have to admire the gusto!” No, we all rate posts as we may read them on spectrum; from posts that make: Observations, to suggestions, to criticism, by negativity and tone, to apostasy, thence to active anger and hating. In reading these posts I feel Ann through reading the individual postings here simply lost some faith more in Turq by her better understanding of his writing and approach here after reading the Lenz book that was posted here. It is that simple also. I always read the Turq and feel he has a valid perspective from having 'been there' at a time, by his contrast with spiritual experience like Fleet's, and now I feel I have an even better understanding of him as a critic from this recent Freddy Lenz/Rama thread on FFL. Context often is everything. That is something that is particularly good about the writing on FFL, that it often can render down what is truth. Judy was very much part of that process when she was here. Ann also helps with that by virtue of her mind about things and by life experience as context about things here. Some here have been pricks and Ann may be prickly towards people at times. Rick seems to welcome almost everyone contributing to the related topics of FairfieldLife. I thank Rick for that. Public forum is often one of the best checks against theocratic tyranny. There was an amazing open meeting last night in meditating Fairfield where everything was on the table in front of a bunch of the higher-up apparatchiks of the new TM movement. For upward pressures on the organization being beyond theocratic control, FFL has long been a part of the calculus of the meditating Fairfield communal culture. There is a lot of change going on inside right now by virtue of the attention of public forum. Turq in his way has been part of that for years by force of his experience, personality and writing. I would miss him if he gets entirely hounded or completely embarrassed off of this forum. In the same way I feel it was really mean the way they hounded Judy personally off this list and out of this community. Rick and the moderators should have stopped that before the end. I would hope we could all be kinder with one another in process. Jai Guru Dev, -Buck in the Dome
