The 16 Guidelines for Life
From 16Guidelines
The 16 Guidelines for Life is a set of practical and straightforward tools for developing happiness and meaning in everyday life. It is the first project of Essential Education, a non-profit organisation that aims to help people develop their natural capacity for compassion and wisdom. The 16 Guidelines are featured in a book, 16 Guidelines For Life: The Basics by Alison Murdoch and Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw, first published in 2005.
The 16 Guidelines are not a prescriptive doctrine or a set of commandments. They are offered as opportunities to explore one's own life experiences and to see whether the 16 Guidelines can help to improve the quality of that experience.
The 16 Guidelines
Because of the interconnectedness of their meanings, the 16 Guidelines are best thought of as making up a continuous circle running from Humility around to Courage.
However, the 16 Guidelines are arranged in four Wisdom Themes, and may be presented in a table as follows:
16 Guidelines Training
Individual, personal experience is crucial to appreciating the power of the 16 Guidelines. 16 Guidelines training workshops introduce people of all ages to the experiential framework of the guidelines and give them the skills they need to apply them in everyday situations.
16 Guidelines training courses are designed to encourage participants to think for themselves. They provide practical tools that can be immediately put to use in daily life. They feature exercises, mindfulness practice, brainstorming and discussion, video, music, and the creation of personal action plans.
The skill of mindfulness – the ability to know what is happening while it is happening – is fundamental to all applications of the 16 Guidelines.
16 Guidelines Resources
16 Guidelines resources are media that facilitate practice with the guidelines. Official 16 Guidelines resources are published by Essential Education or its partners, while unofficial resources may be any item with a link to the guidelines or the wisdom themes, including websites, videos, poems, etc.
You can find official 16 Guidelines resources on the publications page of the 16 Guidelines website. This wiki is mostly concerned with unofficial 16 Guidelines resources.
