Disease and Dis-Ease
on the Spiritual Path
Wise companionship for those facing illness, ailments, and the fragility of life
A four-part webinar series from SDI
Presenter
Kō Sam Tullman
Dates
October 17, 24, 31, & November 7, 2024
9:30AM-11:00AM PST
12:30PM-3:00PM EST
Find your local time zone.
Duration
6 hours (total)
Webinar will be recorded.
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi
Join our four-week webinar series, Disease and Dis-Ease on the Spiritual Path, a series on being a wise companion to yourself and others when the fragility of human life is most evident: in times of illness. Each session will offer grounding practices, insightful discussions, and contemplative exercises, helping you deepen your understanding of the body-mind-spirit connection. We will cover the spiritual and neurobiological process of tending to those things which ail us, that they may teach us. Whether for personal growth or supporting others, this series provides valuable tools to navigate the spiritual journey through dis-ease. Transform challenges into opportunities for learning and compassion.
“The real difficulty in overcoming our obstacles is not the obstacle itself but our own attitude towards it.”
― Sri Aurobindo
In This Course, You Will Explore...
- The relationship between body and mind scientifically, and the neurophysiology of safety
- Sickness in contemplative traditions
- Default Mode Network of the brain, rumination, self-orientation
- Predictive Processing Theory of neuroscience
- Formation of a "sick" or "well" identity
- Mindfulness of change in one's immediate experience, the fleeting nature of thoughts and feelings and their relationship to concepts, stories, and identity
- Compassion -- what it is, and what it isn't
- Connecting to others through suffering
- Illness and Wellness in flux in day to day life
- Brain and behavior in everyday life, and susceptibility to environment
Sessions
Session 1: Disease & Dis-Ease
In this first week of the series, we will dive into what it is to be ill or well from an embodied perspective, learn how these states manifest themselves neurobiologically and feed into the rest of our lives, and what the great teachers and sages of times past have taught about the fragility of this human condition.
Session 2: Beyond Identities of Well & Unwell
In this second week of the series, we will take a scientific approach to gently taking apart what sets our minds in stone, that we may put it together in a more helpful, malleable way.
Session 3: The Most Important Thing
In this third week of the series, we will dive into what it is to care in the hardest times, and find that little is beyond the scope of our care. We will practice means of injecting care into our identity and letting care hold our identity in a more flexible state.
Session 4: A Warm, Sweetly Incensed Hall of Mirrors
In this fourth and final session, we will remember that which connects us to all of life: the desire to be happy. We will place our work up until this point in the context of loving others, and skillfully walking about in the world.
“The best way to avoid pain is to embrace it and see it as a teacher.”
― Lao Tzu
Host
Kō Sam Tullman
Sam Tullman, MPH, is one of the cofounders of the DiabetesSangha. He founded DiabetesSangha in 2020 with a few friends in an effort to bring the benefits of meditation practices and intentional community to the Type One Diabetes community — a community he joined at age 8, when his pancreas stopped producing insulin. He is a dedicated student of Rinzai Zen Buddhism, but draws heavily in his life and practice from a range of religious traditions, and from modern Western psychology and Neuroscience.
In his professional life, Sam is the Head of Behavioral Science for Quilt Technologies. At Quilt, he aims to make healthy, life-affirming choices simpler and more engaging. He does this by matching people who are struggling to content and exercises that are relevant and interesting to them in the moment, and giving these individuals windows to see more deeply into their wellbeing. Previously, he worked at the intersection of brain, technology, and behavior, developing systems to identify and change psychological states through physiological data. As part of this process, he analyzed the brain activity of meditation masters, death row inmates, and participants in clinical trials for psychedelics. He received an MPH in Social and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Washington and a BA in Biological Basis of Behavior from the University of Pennsylvania.
Additional Information
- Participants from all spiritual traditions and orientations are welcome in this webinar series as are those with all levels of spiritual experience.
- Each session will run 90 minutes. We understand that the timing of the seminar will not be convenient in every time zone on the planet. For those who have trouble making this time, a recorded copy of each session will be made available to all those who sign up.
- CEU credits are available for all those who participate. SDI will provide a certificate of completion for self-reporting to agencies. More information can be found here: continuing education units (CEUs).
- Cost: $119 for non-members, with significant discounts for SDI members
- Scholarships are available for those facing financial hardship. Please apply here.
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