We met at Swanwick Centre outside near the pool, with a couple of new people joining. After a short meditation, Oda introduced a central question for inquiry: What is relationship?
It quickly revealed a paradox: relationship seems to imply both separation and connection. If there were no distance, no distinction, would relationship even exist? Yet without some shared ground, connection would be impossible. This tension opened further inquiry into whether we relate to others directly, or primarily through images and memories. Can we truly relate to someone without the interference of thought? And if we cannot fully know another, or even ourselves, is there a way of relating that does not depend on knowledge?
The conversation deepened by distinguishing between sensing and thinking. Is it possible to be in direct communion with a daisy? If we sense it, can it sense us too?
A pivotal turn came with the question: What is the purpose of relationship? Many observed that relationships are often driven by motive, by seeking something. Can there be relationship without motive? The group explored whether psychological need shapes how we relate, and whether true relationship requires a certain inner wholeness or aloneness. It was suggested that without this, relationship may become transactional. At the same time, relationship itself acts as a mirror through which we come to know ourselves, as Krishnamurti repeatedly pointed out. Is self-understanding possible without relationship?
The inquiry returned to the body, where participants noticed areas of tension—in the chest, and elsewhere. Through attentive observation, there were moments where these tensions softened slightly, suggesting that awareness itself has a transformative quality. This mirrored the earlier question about the mind: can the mind see its own movement clearly enough to become quiet?
Rather than arriving at conclusions, the meeting ended with an open invitation—to remain with these questions, to sense rather than resolve, and to explore whether relationship can be discovered anew, beyond habit, motive, and thought.
To end, a reading from The Urgency of Change by J. Krishnamurti was suggested:
“Can there be relationship if there is no contact, not only physical but at every level of our being, with another? One may hold the hand of another and yet be miles away, wrapped in one’s own thoughts and problems. One may be in a group and yet be painfully alone. So one asks: can there be any kind of relationship with the tree, the flower, the human being, or with the skies and the lovely sunset, when the mind in its activities is isolating itself? And can there be any contact ever, with anything at all, even when the mind is not isolating itself?”
Meditative Self-Inquiry with Oda Lindner, April 30, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaWe met at the Gorge Park Pavilion and began in a simple and unstructured way: arriving, exchanging a few words, and then settling into a shared space of attention. Through gentle movement and awareness of the body, the group eased into a deeper inquiry with a central question: how does this exploration relate to our daily lives? Rather than treating meditation as something separate or reserved for quiet moments alone, the dialogue opened the possibility that meditation may be done with eyes open. “We live in this world with open eyes, why meditate with closed eyes?”
From there, the conversation moved into the nature of awareness itself. “When I know that I am aware, I become calmer.”
As the dialogue unfolded, the question of the language, communication and understanding the words differently was brought up. What does it mean to “think together”? Is it possible to listen with such intensity that there is a shared movement of attention, rather than individual interpretations shaped by the past?
The group explored how language both connects and limits us, and whether confusion, so often something we try to resolve quickly, can instead be held and observed without rushing to conclusions. In doing so, confusion itself became part of the inquiry, something alive and revealing rather than a problem to fix.
The conversation also touched on emotions like anger, fear, empathy, and compassion. Rather than judging or suppressing these states, what happens when a feeling is fully experienced without resistance or identification?
Some observed that when there is complete attention, the usual sense of “I am angry” gives way to simply “anger is present,” and in that directness, something shifts. This opened a broader reflection on relationship, whether seeing that we all share similar patterns of struggle and division can naturally bring about compassion.
By the end, the dialogue returned to the question of being together: what is the role of a group in this kind of exploration? Many felt that the shared space revealed aspects of themselves that might remain unseen alone, acting as a mirror through relationship. Yet the inquiry remained open: whether such dialogue can truly move beyond words into a direct perception of life as it is. We left not with answers, but with a sense that this attention, this questioning, is itself the essence of meditation in daily living.
Meditative Self-Inquiry with Oda Lindner, April 26, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaWe met at Swanwick Centre outside near the pool, with a couple of new people joining. After a short meditation, Oda introduced a central question for inquiry: What is relationship?
It quickly revealed a paradox: relationship seems to imply both separation and connection. If there were no distance, no distinction, would relationship even exist? Yet without some shared ground, connection would be impossible. This tension opened further inquiry into whether we relate to others directly, or primarily through images and memories. Can we truly relate to someone without the interference of thought? And if we cannot fully know another, or even ourselves, is there a way of relating that does not depend on knowledge?
The conversation deepened by distinguishing between sensing and thinking. Is it possible to be in direct communion with a daisy? If we sense it, can it sense us too?
A pivotal turn came with the question: What is the purpose of relationship? Many observed that relationships are often driven by motive, by seeking something. Can there be relationship without motive? The group explored whether psychological need shapes how we relate, and whether true relationship requires a certain inner wholeness or aloneness. It was suggested that without this, relationship may become transactional. At the same time, relationship itself acts as a mirror through which we come to know ourselves, as Krishnamurti repeatedly pointed out. Is self-understanding possible without relationship?
The inquiry returned to the body, where participants noticed areas of tension—in the chest, and elsewhere. Through attentive observation, there were moments where these tensions softened slightly, suggesting that awareness itself has a transformative quality. This mirrored the earlier question about the mind: can the mind see its own movement clearly enough to become quiet?
Rather than arriving at conclusions, the meeting ended with an open invitation—to remain with these questions, to sense rather than resolve, and to explore whether relationship can be discovered anew, beyond habit, motive, and thought.
To end, a reading from The Urgency of Change by J. Krishnamurti was suggested:
Meditative Self-Inquiry with Oda Lindner, April 23, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaWe met at the Pavilion in Victoria. There were two requests for this meeting: to dialogue about curiosity and about relationship.
As in the last few meetings we began with 10 minutes of Bodymeditation, connecting to the body and asking : “Can we feel where the body ends and the space around it begins?”
Exploring tingling and sensations in the body brought us to questions about pain and what it does to both body and awareness. Can we be curious about pain? Is it possible to expand the space around pain through curiosity? One of us was experiencing more severe pain and was pointing out that severe pain does not allow for space and curiosity.
Another then asked if it was possible to see the whole when there is pain. Can we be wit the pain?Can we watch the motives for moving away from pain? Can there be a completeness with the seeing and being with the whole process?
Opening everything up to curiosity, where possible, seems to increase space and awareness. Is it possible to see the whole without attachment or looking for results? At what point do we move away from the whole thing? Can awareness see the whole movement of shifting and changing? Can we stay even with the anger about pain? These all were questions that came up.
We also saw that life moves constantly and seems to be ungraspable. The mind tries to fix a point and grasp it, but it can’t be held down, so the mind begins to see the impossibility of fixing and grasping. It sees the futility of that. Does it then not become quiet, open and curious? Does life then not come from the unknown?
Tying it back to pain we asked: is there the openness even in chronic pain to see how that pain shifts and changes? Is there energy enough to keep up that curiosity?
Finally one of us pointed out that pain is a contraction or concentration of the free flow of life. There is a density of concentration. Can we see this in each other? We are all human and all know these contractions of the free flow of life. Can there come out of this a natural empathy and a way of being with each other?
Meditative Self-Inquiry with Oda Lindner, April 19, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaWe gathered on the lawn by the pool at Swanwick Centre, beginning with introductions and a gentle body meditation, feet on the ground, breath, small movements, arriving not only individually but together in a shared sense of aliveness.
From there, we continued from where we left off in the last dialogue, with the question: Can the quality of meditation we experience with life be shared in a group? What is it that keeps us separate?
As we explored, it became clear how easily thought divides through interpretation, memory, and the need to protect ourselves. We saw that analytical thinking can become a defense mechanism, a way to avoid direct contact with experience. This brought another question. What is our shared interest? Is it love and truth, and can it be approached at all through seeking?
The question arose: who is it that is seeing, hearing, or aware? Perhaps every attempt to identify a “who” may itself be another movement of thought. In trying to name or define it, we seem to create separation again. This led to the sense that the observer may not be separate from what is observed, but part of the same movement.
After some analytical explorations, Oda invited us to pause for a short experiment: sitting in silence for 5 minutes, listening and sensing without thought or want. In that stillness, something shifted. For many, there was a quiet clarity, a soft sense of connection with what is, the birds, the breath, the simple fact of being here. For some, unease or anxiety surfaced, as if silence revealed what is often kept at a distance.
Oda shared that a presence of love was felt in that quietness. Not as an idea, but as something directly felt. And perhaps in such moments, a different kind of togetherness appears, a shared presence and connection to all around us.
Meditative Self-Inquiry with Oda Lindner, April 16, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaWe met at Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion. The exploration began with the question, “Can there be an intent in meditation?” and whether meditation can be something we decide to do, or whether intention already introduces a goal that moves us away from what meditation actually is.
Very early in the dialogue, sport was used as an example: noticing how, in the middle of playing, one can become emotionally involved, caught in winning, losing, and reaction, and yet also be aware of it, and how that awareness changes the quality of the experience.
Participants were then guided through a short body meditation. Afterwards, one participant shared how thoughts were distracting him from simply being with the body, such as noticing the feet, breath, and other sensations.
From there, the dialogue looked at what happens when we say “I want to meditate” and whether that already introduces effort, direction, and a sense of doing. This led to the question, “What is it that we do not do?”
A central inquiry emerged: “Can awareness look at awareness?” and whether awareness can exist without an object of attention at all.
The discussion then turned to the sense of self: “Who is the me who wants to improve myself?” and whether this “me” is anything more than a thought attempting to reorganize itself. Earlier in the dialogue, a question, “What benefit is there in having a ‘me’?” was raised. It opened into the broader question of fragmentation as a possible source of suffering. Another key question was “Does awareness suffer?”, or whether suffering belongs to identification, memory, and fragmentation rather than awareness itself.
The dialogue closed with an open inquiry into whether such seeing, without the interference of the “I”, remains purely individual, or whether there is a possibility of a shared group awareness.
Meditative Self-Inquiry with Oda Lindner, April 12, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaWe met outside on the lawn near the pool at the Swanwick Centre to explore meditation together. One participant, deeply influenced by Jiddu Krishnamurti, shared his personal journey, describing meditation as moments of being fully present without thought, often supported by sensations such as sound, breath, and bodily awareness.
He felt he had learned to “stop thinking” at times and saw this as meditation, though he also noticed how frequently thought would return. He connected these experiences to broader ideas about vibration, consciousness, and occasional mystical impressions.
The facilitator gently questioned whether the very act of “trying to be empty” might itself be part of the problem. She invited the group into a simpler, shared exploration: sitting quietly, sensing the body, and observing without effort—allowing silence rather than attempting to produce it.
The dialogue then opened into key themes central to Krishnamurti’s teachings:
– Meditation is not a technique but part of daily living
– Thought is rooted in the past and can distort perception
– True stillness comes not from control, but from understanding the movement of thought
– Seeing the destructive nature of psychological patterns may itself bring about change
The group reflected on fear, responsibility, and whether real change begins within oneself rather than externally.
Overall, the conversation moved from personal experience and seeking toward a shared inquiry into whether meditation is an effortless awareness—free from trying, control, or accumulated knowledge.
Meditative Self-Inquiry with Oda Lindner, April 9, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaThis was our first meeting of 2026 in Victoria, facilitated by Oda Lindner, our guest facilitator for this month. It started with a presentation by Oda that explored meditation as a gentle shift from doing to being and contrasting thought-based meditations with Bodymeditation, feeling your senses instead of being in your head.
Oda brought up Mr. Duffy from James Joyce, who “lived a short distance from his body.” This time, Oda spoke about how Bodymeditation came to her. She mentioned Tibetan slow-movement yoga and progressive relaxation techniques. Participants were then guided through a sequence of slow movements done seated, where the body became a way to anchor attention and quiet the mind.
There were reflections on practices like Tai Chi and Vipassana, yet here the emphasis was on freedom and exploration, nothing to improve, only a deepening sensitivity to what is.
Oda read a paragraph from Meditations by J. Krishnamurti (Part 4), which begins with:
Meditation revealed itself not as something we do, but something that unfolds in full attention, where striving fades and thought loosens its grip. “I am not separated from what I am doing” was one of the reflections. The distinction between human being and human doing was mentioned, “a being that has a certain kind of knowing”.
There was also an exploration of the relationship between thought and awareness.
Thought tends to divide, label, and fragment, while awareness has a unifying quality and can bring a sense of wholeness and love.
The session ended with a shared observation: when there is full attention, there can be a sense of connection and love, without effort. “When I give full attention, labels fall away.” In such moments, there is no separation between the observer and what is observed, only a quiet, benevolent presence. “What separates us is our thoughts.”
Meditative Self-Inquiry with Oda Lindner, April 5, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaThis was our first on-site meeting of the year and part of the Centre facility’s reopening after the winter season. We met on the grounds in front of the main house on a sunny, warm afternoon. Oda Lindner, who is joining us from Ontario for the month of April, was our facilitator.
We began simply — each sharing what draws us to these teachings. Then Oda invited us into a quiet attentiveness: to feel the body as it is, to notice the breath, the subtle restrictions, the aliveness in the hands and feet — and to let that awareness gently spread.
From there, the question emerged: What is meditation?
Many spoke of awareness — of watching reactions as they arise, of seeing conditioning in daily life. But then came a deeper turn: What is the problem of meditation? It was already there as a hint in the meaning of the word “to ponder”, “to measure”.
Gradually, we saw it — the meditator himself. The one who seeks, measures, evaluates, and hopes to become something. In that very movement, meditation is lost.
The dialogue unfolded into a shared insight: that meditation is not separate from life, and its flowering must be in the everyday — in relationship, in reaction, in the ordinary moments we often overlook.
There were questions about society, disorder, and what humanity may become. But again and again, we returned to the importance of not projecting the future and instead staying with the intensity of what is here and now.
Perhaps meditation begins when nothing is sought — when there is only a quiet, open observation of what is, without a goal.
And maybe that is where change truly begins.
Online series The Urgency of Change with Javier Gómez Rodríguez, March 15, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaThis was the last of the six-part series on The Urgency of Change, entitled ‘The Religious Life’. The presenter framed K’s approach in the historical context of the clash between science and religion in the 19th century. Science dismissed religion as superstitious and philosophers proclaimed that God was dead. In contrast, the theosophists felt that the rampant materialism and social Darwinism of the new age of progress was ushering the Kali Yug or age of chaos. They maintained that at such times a new teacher appeared to impart to humanity the new religious wisdom needed to bring about a new culture. And they identified a scrawny Brahmin boy standing on the beach outside the TS compound in Adyar, Chennai, as the vehicle.
K accepted the term ‘religion’ as the most suitable to what he was and had to teach. He dismissed the authority, belief, dogma, and moral systems of organised religion. He maintained that the first rule of spirituality is that there is no authority, and he emphasised questioning and seeing rather than the acceptance of dogmas. His approach focused on self-knowledge, which requires freedom. While we can all learn from whatever religious tradition, truth itself has no tradition, for it is a matter of perception of what is from moment to moment. Religion is thus a living thing requiring the highest awareness and intelligence rather than moral principles and their dualistic judgments. Right action arises from immediate perception of what is, which involves freedom from prejudice, fear and self-interest. So morality is perceptive, not prescriptive. As the self is the core factor of division, the ending of the self is the ending of conflict and suffering and the essence of wholeness at the heart of the religious life.
The question was raised as to the meaning of dying to the past, as this is what the ending of self implies. It was suggested that the past ends when we stay with the patterns of conflict that make up the self and there is an insight into their falseness. When we see something is false, it vanishes as though it had never existed. While this happens in relation to particular patterns, K’s deeper quest is for an insight into and ending of the pattern maker. Another participant raised the question of suffering. K defined death as the ending of attachment and attachment as one of the causes of suffering, so death would be the ending of suffering. But while there is a natural component to our attachments and their losses and pains, there is a psychological attachment not to the person but to their image and this is the ground of suffering. It is in the ending of this false attachment that suffering ends, and that is the death of self.
One of the participants shared her personal experience of an uninvited state of non-duality, which brought her in contact with the actuality and revealed the meaning of living without a centre and the qualities of freedom, love and peace that emerge from it. Next the group discussed suffering as resulting from the time-bound nature of self. It was proposed that psychological suffering is delusional since it springs from the past interfering with perception and creating a division from what is. The self is time and as such it is always incomplete, so it pursues becoming. The time of self denies being, and that is suffering.
One of the participants proposed that the group continue to explore together after the seminar, and it was agreed to share emails. Ralph invited participants to consider attending upcoming retreats at their centre in Victoria, including a five-day online workshop with Jackie McInley. It was announced that Javier would be the support person at the centre this coming October.
Online series The Urgency of Change with Javier Gómez Rodríguez, March 1, 2026
/in Event Summaries /by Anastasia ShtaminaThe presenter began the meeting by reviewing the series of The Urgency of Change and the unfolding of the universal human challenge of how to live in this world. He emphasized the central importance of awareness in meeting that challenge, as it is the factor that makes for right perception and the ending of conflict, meditation being the culmination of awareness as the ground of goodness. He touched on the related questions of stopping thought, thought’s relationship to language, and the subjects of beauty, art and expression. He concluded his introduction by mentioning the chapter entitled ‘What Is’, which he had previously overlooked but which drives home the need to face things as they are if we are to live without illusion.
He pointed out that for Krishnamurti meditation is not measurement, method or a means to an end but opening a space for the emergence of wholeness, beauty and truth. It begins with the observation of what is in choiceless awareness, i.e. without judgment or division. He recalled that K had given practical indications for the active exploration of meditation and the need for persistence. One new aspect was K’s statement that meditation is the essence of energy, perhaps meaning the summation of it by reducing wasteful activity and conflict, introducing clarity and a non-frictional quality into relationship. The stopping of thought is fundamental in this, because the predominance of thought in our existence is equivalent to living in the past, which is not living at all. The past is the observer, which is the factor that destroys relationships through division and conflict. So stopping this movement is a life-or-death issue. But thought cannot be stopped by effort or will, which are part of thought. It stops when we perceive its destructive impact in relationship. Thought is language, a symbolic system whose re-presentations introduce the past into observation, giving rise to the duality of the observer and the observed, the dreamer and the dream. K had suggested that without this duality there would be no need for dreaming, thus extending the wakefulness of awareness to the deepest states of meditation in sleep. The mind would thus be always awake, which is the heightened sensitivity of the greatest art of all, the art of living. This art involves the absence of self, which is the essence of skill in action in the whole of life, which is living beauty and living love.
The discussion began with the theme of art as the absence of self and creative skill in action. This led into an exploration of wakefulness as a causeless state and K’s view of cause as motive, desire and will, which are all structures of thought, of the past, whose endless chain of cause and effect is the definition of karma. The breaking of this chain of psychological causation is freedom. It was remarked that the Buddhist approach is very similar. This chain was illustrated by the example of past conditioning shaping our lives and creating the feedback loop of self-recognition that is the principle of psychological isolation and conflict. The question was raised about how seeing ends the past or reduces its power to dominate the present. It was suggested that the very act of seeing naturally puts the past in its place by revealing its constructive or destructive nature in relationship. So seeing is the greatest skill. The conversation concluded with a reflection on the brain’s creation of symbolic structures to protect itself from the full impact of direct experience. This led back to the theme of meditation and energy, which the presenter related to K’s ‘process’ and its challenge to the brain, which may have developed the self to keep that overwhelming flow at bay. The notions of analytic idealism and Donald Hoffman’s conscious agents theory were mentioned as suggesting the necessity of such protective boundaries, but there was no time left for the group to go into this.