2025 Practice Offerings

 
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The Buddha taught “All things are without a self,” which may make us wonder why we as awareness practitioners spend so much time focused on what is purportedly nonexistent. Why do we focus on what the ego is doing? Why is it important to be aware of what the voices are saying? Why is diagramming suffering necessary to ending suffering? Why isn’t there an emphasis on only practicing attention on Awareness so that we can deepen our relationship with Consciousness Being Bliss?
 
If we are asking this question, we have underestimated our worthy opponent!
 
Any experienced meditator will attest to the difficulty of keeping attention on Awareness for the duration of the sit. The mind wanders and attention follows, resulting in reinforcement of identification with the illusion of a self that is separate from life. To maintain awareness of What Is, disidentification from “ego-I” is essential. Yes, we practice that movement over and over, but when the voices are their loudest do we know in our bones that “ego-I” is not me?  Don’t we still fall for “what’s wrong with me”? Are we not still led by the “fantasy of authority” to follow a course that is not “love in action”? Don’t we find it difficult to live from what we grasp intellectually as our True Nature? Don’t we still suffer?
 
If you answered in the affirmative to any of these questions, then you understand the wisdom of Nisargadatta Maharaj’s words:
 
To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not.
Discover all that you are not -- body, feelings, thoughts, time, space, this or that -- nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you. The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.
 
The clearer you understand on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realise that you are limitless being.
 
The focus of this yearlong retreat is “The Practice of Disidentification.” Using the tools of no-self-hate, observation, compassion and humor, we will discern the difference between “IT” and “ME.” Through weekly assignments and daily morning groups, we will practice transforming identification with the ego-self into awareness of “no-self.” We will come to understand the mystery at the heart of the Negative Way: that beyond “not this, not this” is Awareness itself.
 
We will be assisted by a famous correspondence that many of us are familiar with, The Screwtape Letters. It may be argued (would that be Wormwood in action?) that the text is archaic, irrelevant, Christian, sexist, over-used, clichéd. But is it?
 
If we pay attention, everything enlightens.
— Practice adage
 
For this Sangha, any text, whatever the vintage, is simply a framework to delight in the practice of Awareness. Besides, in the pursuit of discovering “What Is us,” we will use everything in our experience to see how we cause ourselves to suffer so we can drop that and end suffering!
 
Register today for another year of deepening practice in the now familiar format of weekly assignments, daily practice, and conversations with the Guide and Sangha on the “morning groups,” 9.00 - 9.30 a.m. Pacific, Monday through Friday.
 
Cost $600
Payment can be made in full or in quarterly installments of $150.
The first assignment will be mailed out on Friday, March 14.
Morning shows begin Monday, March 17.