Archive for category: Event Summaries

The Power of Loving Awareness

March 24 – 26, 2023

With GP Walsh

Zoom Online

GP Walsh has joined us for a number of years now either in person or online from Seattle to facilitate weekend retreats to which participants are welcome from anywhere in the world. Most join us online from Canada or the US. In this case there were a total of seventeen attendees for the three session workshop entitled “The Power of Loving Awareness”.

Each meeting began with a short guided meditation led by GP and focusing on some aspects of our true nature as pure awareness. The basic question being explored was “Who am I?” GP asked a number of questions which might stimulate insights about our true identity (or lack of it) and which often drew from the world of Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. Is Awareness without an agenda our true nature? Are we the self-aware space in which all experience happens? Is there a sense of gratitude for being here? Can anything be experienced outside of awareness? These and many other questions were shared by GP in order to encourage a kind of looking which was beyond opposites and essentially indescribable. Nothing is rejected in this kind of inquiry and we embrace both the “nothingness” and the “somethingness” of life. In practical terms, to ask what we are not is sufficient to end human suffering.

Over the three days GP explored a good number of the teachings of Buddhism, including those about dealing with fear and anger. In Buddhism and other similar teachings, including those of J. Krishnamurti, inquiry into the workings of the mind and heart brings about happiness. In Buddhism, right practice is necessary and brings us to Being (which is still perceived by something which has no attributes). The mind is not an enemy but, rather, just a bunch of thoughts made of an awareness which could be called “loving awareness”. Freedom is to be okay with whatever is present. Can my sorrows be allowed to be present? Can my humanness be allowed? It is all impermanent and there is nothing we can do to make things perfect. This is It!

GP’s discourses were both profound and yet beyond explanation and “knowing”. Truth is full of paradoxes and yet can be a beautiful Mystery. The answers to the questions and the Zen koans are found in BEING the answer and in the opening of “the Heart”, not in intellectual concepts. GPs pointings and the group discussions explored the broad and challenging territory of non-dual self-inquiry and the insubstantiality of any position being taken about the nature of things. Is there anything “out there”? We were challenged to examine our processes of projection and belief in the existence of a separate self. GP pointed us to the experience of delight in the loving engagement with the nature of life, with the impersonal and the personal dimensions, with being fully present with “what is” right now. This is the “Buddha mind”. No path was being prescribed. We are our own true path if we are genuinely looking and inquiring into our experience, whether it is “positive” or “negative”. Belief in any story creates suffering and the need to choose eventually falls away (or not). Some quotes from Krishnamurti and others highlighted what GP was speaking of, including his statement that “relationship is a mirror in which we discover ourselves.”

The third meeting ended with time for personal questions from the participants, who asked about the nature of faith, ritual, and the tendency towards self-abuse and self-hatred, and not doing what we know is right. GP emphasised compassion for oneself and others and curiosity about what is happening and how “danger” is perceived.

We can also ask “What is the most loving thing to do in this moment?”

Exploring Ourselves

March 12, 2023

With Jackie McInley

Zoom Online

Jackie joined us via Zoom from Ojai, California. At the beginning of the session there were 13 participants in total but a couple more arrived as the meeting got going. In her introductory talk, Jackie mentioned the value of David Bohm’s work on dialogue wherein he shared richly with Krishnamurti and others. In particular she found it interesting how he explored the quality of attention necessary to function in a manner that went beyond thought. What was the space of “not knowing” that Bohm liked to look into and which provided a sense of “shared meaning” in his dialogue meetings. How do we get into that space of “beyond thought” or attention? She suggested that a good beginning was the act of “listening”. Then there seemed to be an inevitable arising of an image or images and a giving of more importance to some images than to others. As a group we explored the factor of thinking that is beyond our conscious awareness but at the same time is creating our experience of life or reality. We are mostly unaware of our thinking process while it is inventing a “me” and guiding that “me” in its responses and reactions.

We looked into the issue of “Identification” and the creation of our identity, especially the role of memory as an abstraction which nevertheless determines much of our experience of reality. Jackie felt that the dialogue today was one of a great richness of discovery as we looked at the workings of thought and its creation of images, memories, and interpretations. Our images are mistaken for reality, which is a very serious matter! It is how we can end up killing each other. Krishnamurti and Bohm gave great importance to “thinking together” because it meant penetrating the illusions of thought so they are not believed to be worth going to war over. Does “thinking together” mean questioning our assumptions and finding a quality of freedom in the spaciousness of such inquiry?

Exploring Ourselves

Sunday, February 19, 2023

With Jackie McKinley

Zoom Online

Jackie joined us from the Krishnamurti Centre in Ojai, California. There were a total of fifteen in attendance for the Sunday morning meeting. After the usual opening silent period, Jackie posed a few questions, focusing the attention of the group on the reaching for clarity in the exploration of ourselves, a clarity that seems often illusive. In this case, the endeavour involved looking at questions and issues such as the nature of “image” and “awareness”. Given that the human mind is generally strongly conditioned, Jackie asked what can interrupt our normal way of conditioned perceiving. Is sustained questioning the necessary action? Does it mean looking from a state of non-accumulation? Perhaps it is “doubting” that is the essential action that can generate something new in our consciousness. It was suggested that, rather than attempting to give answers, we could engage in ongoing questioning.

Ideas offered by participants included examining the “mirror of relationship” concept put forward by Krishnamurti in his talks and writings. The idea of image as a “representation” of reality espoused by another spiritual teacher was suggested as a possibly useful way of looking at the thought process. This was in turn challenged with the question, “Can we question our representations?”

Further exploration generated such questions as “Can we all question together?”, “Are we afraid to doubt?”, and “Can we love the responses to our questions rather than judging them?” One participant commented that he felt the sharing had become very fluid and had moved beyond the naming of our experience. Another offered that we may have entered into a state of “choiceless awareness”, another term often used by J. Krishnamurti. It seemed that this was a good place to bring the meeting to a close which might also be a new beginning.

Exploring Ourselves

February 5, 2023

With Jackie McInley

Zoom online

Thirteen men and women were present for this Sunday morning meeting. Most were regular attendees but it seemed quite interesting that one new member of the group was originally from Nepal and had Tibetan roots. He was welcomed warmly into the dialogue environment and seemed to be quickly at home with our style of self-exploration. He had apparently studied Krishnamurti’s teachings to a significant degree and was able to converse easily on the subject of self-knowledge. It soon became clear that we were focused on a deep exploration of the aspects of human conditioning which create an attachment to certain beliefs, assumptions, and ideas of what is necessary in our thought and behaviour. As usual, Jackie led the group by questioning any assumptions that arose and was willingly joined in the endeavour by everyone present. One of the participants asserted that he questioned everything he thinks and he appeared to find no argument there. The issue of the “observer” and the “observed” was proposed as being perhaps the central habit of thought creating conflict and confusion. It was said that “experimentation” is necessary in order to go beyond what the mind says is necessary. A crisis may need to happen in us before we can clearly see the harm done by the division between the “I” and the world. We may need to face the fact of psychological death.

The inquiry moved into the issue of listening. What is the quality of our listening to each other? Can we see or hear what is being said or can we see the impediments to deeply listening as they arise? Are we interpreting what is being said rather than conversing in a state of clarity? Can we listen to ourselves at the same time we are listening to others? Is our listening revealing things or obscuring them? Can we observe without judgement or without “intention” in the form of an agenda? How does an interest in finding out fit in? It was suggested that seeing what thought is doing weakens its “drivenness” and dissolves its tendency to become solid. The result may then be a greater spaciousness and openness. As we moved along we were regularly challenged by Jackie, our facilitator, to keep questioning all conclusions and assertions of “knowing”. This seems to keep the energy of the group and of the dialogue from getting bogged down with an acceptance of ideas that may be less than fully true or supportive of freedom. There is a sense of digging tentatively – and yet possibly more deeply – into the nature of reality and the consciousness of the human being (which is us).

DB

Meeting Life

January 20 – 23, 2023

With Mukesh Gupta and Ann Engels

Zoom online

Mukesh joined us from Agra in India and Ann from Belgium in order to form a strong team which provided a loving and sensitive environment for a group of eleven inquirers to explore the topic of “Meeting Life” for a period of three days. Each day offered a couple of hours of contemplation in a large space of silence, awareness, and love that Ann invited us to create together. Each day she guided us in an opening meditation which immediately brought a sense of spacious silence. Mukesh then asked us to be simply aware of our experience in the present moment. Can we meet this moment’s reality with a silent stillness that implies meeting everything in ourselves and in our experience?

Usually we are meeting life from our past memories and projections, Mukesh pointed out. Is the quality of this “meeting” limited or are we meeting life from the wholeness of our being, with all our senses? Can there be listening from the space of silence and attention? If there is, then whatever is false will fall away and what is true will remain. The mind is naturally quiet when engaged in looking and listening. No force or suppression is needed. We are simply aware of how thought is creating “noise” and this awareness brings a spontaneous silence and a seeing of what is arising. Whatever arises passes away like a cloud in a blue sky but the sky remains as it is.

Is it possible, Mukesh asked, to see the futility of effort and conflict? Can the noise be understood in clear seeing? He spent a little time describing the process of thought which creates conflict and noise and the significance of naming our experience in the pursuit of happiness or desire. Mind is pursuing its own idea of happiness depending on conditions, but what is it that is searching for happiness as a seeker? Are we creating a separation? Understanding ourselves is essential. It requires inner silence and awareness beyond thought and “ego” as a noisy mind cannot meet life in any new way. To be aware of this fact brings peace.

After a five-minute silent break we continued with questions and discussion. Many interrelated perceptions were shared and the reality of the “separate self” was questioned, The topic of Silence was looked into from numerous angles and its existence in the here and now was acknowledged and given value. In silence the desires of the mind can be seen and dissolved. The energy of silence may even invoke that same energy in others and the truth of this was reported to be felt in the group.

The theme of the second day was Awareness. Again, there was a lovely guided meditation with Ann and a talk by Mukesh. Some of the significant differences between thought and awareness were explored and time spent with their many implications. The limitations of judgement and belief in “good” and “bad” were looked at and the presence of attention and awareness right from the beginning of self-inquiry were suggested. We explored the desire to change the way things are and the problems it generates. After examining awareness from a number of viewpoints it was expressed that it acts without goal or motive and is, in fact, a kind of “deep love” with a transformational quality.

About half way through the session it was suggested that we break into smaller groups. This option was reported to create a greater intimacy and depth in the investigation and it was employed again on the third day of the workshop. After the breakout sessions the whole group reconvened to share the experience.

The theme of the third day was “Love”. There was a sense that we had prepared the ground for such an exploration and were perhaps able to enter it more “skillfully” than in the first hours of the workshop. Ann read some passages from Rumi and Krishnamurti which seemed right on target and led to fruitful “meditation”. The quote from K was as follows: “Can all that is not love be washed away? If we don’t know what to do, then do absolutely nothing…. then there is love.” This quote stimulated a rich discussion of the factor of “not knowing” in the unfoldment of self-knowledge. There were long silences and a quality of stillness in the group as the meeting moved on through the days. As Ann said in her concluding thoughts, the weekend was “a beautiful, slow sharing of awareness and love.”

DB