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PERSONAL MASTERY
TAI CHI CHUAN
QIGONG TRAINING
INSIGHT MEDITATION
THE ENNEAGRAM
INTERNAL MARTIAL ARTS
CORPORATE
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THE ENNEAGRAM |
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The Enneagram Personality Types are a powerful and fascinating system of personality analysis. Used for hundreds of years by Sufi spiritual teachers to help disciples understand their deepest behavioural patterns, this knowledge has been correlated by modern psychological assessment tests, especially the Jungian-based Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
The nine so-called "passions" of the Enneagram system includes every one of the "Seven Deadly Sins" of the Christian tradition plus deceit and fear. According to the Enneagram, human personality is not the result of random experience (no matter how unusual or traumatic). It consists of a series of ego-defensive mechanisms revolving around a single, simple prespective of life that is likely present at birth. There are nine such perspectives - perfection, independence/freedom, success/efficiency, reason, observation, adventure, ideals, justice and non-conformity.
Although the system allows for endless permutation of detail (i.e. individualality), one's basic personality mechanism is so pervasive and deeply rooted that it will conform to one of nine patterns. Major life choices like career and belief systems as well as all important relationships (e.g. spouses, children, bosses or co-workers) are governed by personality patterns. Consider, for example, how many opportunities within a single day that a perfectionist will have to see or do something in the light of perfection.
Most of us hate to be thought of as predictable, but we plainly are. If this were not so, the manipulation of opinion would not be such a big (and expanding) business.
We at the Toronto Tai Chi and Meditation Centres feel that the Enneagram's powerful knowledge is best used in the process of individual transformation and liberation, rather than in further manipulation. Whether at work or at home, the rapid changes taking place in society demand creative adaptation, not programmed response. If you are stuck in your patterns without even knowing it, your range of response is severely limited. The Enneagram can help you recognize patterned behaviour more quickly so that you are not taken in by your own justifications; it can explain the intricate mechanisms behind those patterns. The next, more difficult step is then to free yourself from those patterns. We use the practice of Insight Meditation to help us achieve this. |
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EVENTS |
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