What spirituality means to me? 2011/4/5 Psychosynthesis class @JFKU

Today, I took a “Psychosynthesis” class at JFKU.  The small size of this class enabled me to make good relationships with teacher and other four students.  One of the students is already my friend and she is so kind and sweet lady.  It may be no exaggeration to say that she is my first friend in America.  I really, really appreciate for her kindness.

The topics of today’s class are “What is Psychosynthesis?” and “About Roberto Assagioli.”  Unfortunately, I didn’t follow all the class conversations but I seemed to make sense key points in these topics.  If I couldn’t understand the idea or conversation and I asked my class mates or my teacher, they told me again or explained to me very kindly.  Of course, first of all, I have to improve my listening skill and speaking skill but more important thing now may be to ask someone without hesitation.

Anyway, as my blog’s title says, we wrote about “What spirituality means to you?” as personal writing late in the class.

This topic was difficult for me because I've never thought about it with seriousness.  Also, to tell you the truth, I don’t like to talk about “spirituality.”  In Japan, most of Japanese people tend to regard spirituality as religion or occult, so I don’t want people around me to think I’m a new religion member or an occultist.  For me, spirituality is to embrace other people with true love.  In my view, real spirituality houses all beings so gently…

Virtual world to real world: Life is beautiful.

As I said earlier that I was happy to start the class, in addition to that, there was another happy thing today. That was to meet my friend who I didn’t see before but we knew each other on Facebook.

When I was walking down the hall to my class room, I was called by someone “Oh, I know you. Are you, are you…Yoh?” At first, I didn’t know her soon, but she remembered my name and said “You are Yohei, right?” Then, I replied to her “Oh, are you XXXX, right? Nice to meet you!” and we hugged each other very kindly.

She is so kind that she took care of me and sent a message to me when I lived in Japan where was damaged by furious earthquakes and tsunami.

Sometimes life is harsh but often is wonderful for me because there is a great encounter like this today!

Eventually spring term started!

Today, my new student life at JFKU eventually started. I looked forward to class beginning for so long. So, I’m very happy now.

Although I’m excited about it, actually I didn’t understand whole class conversations today. I may have to need a voice recorder to repeat my class.

I saw a movie at a theater in Pleasant Hill with my host father. I saw “Source Code.” That was so thrilling and amazing! The theme of this movie is about cognitive science, neurophilosophy and parallel world. Story is here. http://www.enterthesourcecode.com/#/story/

Table 4 Two event

Yesterday, I joined the event of “Table 4 Two” at San Francisco city. “Table 4 two” is a NPO and the concept of this NPO is for those of us in the developed world and children in developing countries to share a meal across space and time. Now, I’m a member of another NPO, so I’m interested in other NPO activity like “Table 4 Two.”

This was my first time to participate in an event in America. I enjoyed it so much! Of course, there are a lot of unknown people (no, all people, haha) but I could make many new friends in this party.

Table 4 Two website: http://www.tablefor2.org/tft_usa/

What is an important point to study English?

Now, I’m struggling with English every day because you know, I’m a foreigner, a Japanese. I always have some new discoveries here every day and some of them are not seen in Japan, so I’m sometimes puzzled.

How can I live in another country, America more comfortably? You may advise me a lot of things but I think that it is important for me to understand American culture and to use English better than what I do now.

What do you mean “to use English?” you may say so. I’ll divide “to use English” into three things. The first is reading and the second is writing and the last is speaking.

First, I suppose that reading is not so difficult because I’ve read a lot of English since I was a junior high school student. In addition, Japanese English education emphasizes reading but unfortunately Japanese English education tends to focus on only reading. Therefore, most Japanese can’t write and speak English very well.

Second, as for writing, I need to practice it more hard because I can write simple English but I don’t have enough confident to write academically. In addition, even if in simple sentences I sometimes can’t express fully what I want to tell. OK, I’m going to write English every day by blog or diary. Writing is the only way to improve my writing skill.

The last, about speaking…this is a most difficult obstacle for me! It is difficult to follow conversations and understand detail things. Hmm…but do I have to understand a conversation in detail? Yes, of course but it is not always important thing. If only I can understand a main point, I can keep participating in more conversation! Perhaps, is it most important to grasp the context of conversation?

Registered spring term courses!

I told you that I would take three courses: Integral Theory A, Integral Theory B and Research Writing this spring term at JFKU but I changed some courses today. Because Integral Theory A is not open this spring and if I want to take Integral Theory B, I have to take Integral Theory A as a prerequisite. Therefore, instead of these, I registered “World Religions” and “Psychosynthesis” this spring term.

Umm... to tell you the truth, I already read some reading assignments of Integral Theory B. It was not a waste of time to read “Integral Spirituality” because it provided me with profound insights and messages.