Trauma happens to everyone. The potential for it is part and parcel of the precariousness of human existence. Some traumas--loss, death, accidents, disease or abuse---are explicit; others-like lack of attunement between children and their parents are more subtle. But it is hard to imagine the scope of an individual life without envisioning some kind of trauma: big or little. Everyone has to deal with it sometime or other.

Despite this fact, many people are reluctant to acknowledge the traumas in their own lives. They shy away from facing them, in the hope that willful ignorance will take them more normal. Carrying on as if their underlying feelings of disease are shameful, or a bother, they stay more on the surface of themselves than need be. The Buddha, one of the world's first great psychologists, saw this tendency toward disavowal as a problem. Always a realist, he made recognition of trauma the centerpiece of his First Noble Truth.

This evening's workshop will explore the Buddhist approach to the traumas of everyday life.