Awakened Living Newsletter Vol. 3 Dec. 7, 2020
Creating Community for those in the Spiritual Process
Time for Meditation
Do you need a new approach to meditation? Many people in an awakening process have long-term meditation practices, but for those who have awakened spontaneously there may be a need to find their own unique style of meditation, or to bring their practice into everyday life in a new way. Fortunately today there are many meditation schools and practices available on the web, and with our tendency to stay at home more and avoid communal gatherings, it is a unique time to deepen our spiritual life and anchor our connection with inner presence. I recognize that for some people meditation seems to activate greater energy releases, as it brings up old patterns and contractions to be released from our system. But this does not mean one should abandon the practice, but only fine tune it and find the way it works best to support us. This might mean sessions that are shorter, sitting with eyes open, being attentive to grounding before or after a session, or walking meditations. It might mean finding the right internet community to sit with, experimenting with various forms such as mindfulness, self-inquiry, guided or moving meditations, or simply practicing more awareness in brief moments throughout the day. (See today’s book review).
Sometimes people contact me who have an affinity for Christian teachings, especially feeling a connection to Jesus. I often refer them to “Open Mind, Open Heart” by Thomas Keating, because he has introduced a form of Christian meditation. Father Keating researched the early teachings of Jesus and believed that early Christians practiced what he called centering prayer, which is similar to several forms of Buddhist meditation, with the focus on a single word such as Jesus, peace, love , openness – whatever connects for you and carrying it deep into the heart. On the website www.contemplativeoutreach.org Centering Prayer is described as “a receptive method of Christian silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God’s presence within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself.”
If you are in an awakening process, and feel a connection to Christianity, this might be a good place to bridge your personal experience with a community of life-minded seekers, or to develop a practice that feels connected to the Christian tradition. Father Keating was Catholic but the program he introduced is ecumenical, open-hearted and open-minded.
The Contemplative Outreach website offers classes in meditation through zoom, and a partner site www.meditationchapel.org has information on many group meditations available on the web daily where you can practice with others. Some of the Contemplative Outreach programs have nominal fees but partial scholarships are available, and the daily meditation programs are free. There are many cities in the US and internationally that host gatherings for practice.
MEDITATIONS FOR INSOMNIA
One of the common issues for those in an awakening process is also a common problem for most of the civilized world – the inability to fall asleep at night. Several spiritually attuned and creative people have established guided meditations that help greatly with relaxation and sleep, once you find the right one for yourself! Most of these programs offer varieties of guidance with various lengths and themes, with music or ocean sounds or silence in the background. Many of them are free, with a more extensive service available for a fee.
Here are a few recommended to me that I have found helpful.
Headspace offers a free basic meditation course and two weeks participation for free, with a $69.99 fee for a year if you subscribe – much less for students. They have an extensive library with various meditation themes and offer meditations each day, sleep sounds and bedtime exercises.
My favorite you-tube programs are those by Jason Stephanson, who has a series he calls Sleep Talk Down, with several meditations of various lengths that guide one into sleep. The Honest Guys is another program with a good series of guided meditations. Both programs have speakers with soothing voices and British accents. I’ve found them very relaxing. Either can be located by putting their name in you-tube and both offer many free meditations, with options for a subscription and down-loading service.
If it is energy keeping you up at night it can help to set aside time during the day to lie down and let it run its course. Our body is an energetic network that holds lots of stress and contraction from our history as well as our daily concerns, and kundalini is a clearing out process and stress-reducing mechanism. It is as if the energy wants you to become completely loose and open, but to get there it has to shake out every stuck place. When we sit all day at work we are holding in patterns. It can help to get up and move and shake out whatever we can deliberately, and if emotional issues are holding us in, find a way to talk them out or write them out. Help them clear out of the energy field. Eventually the energetics of awakening calms down, and when you release into your center, into the essence and stillness of what you are, through meditation, in time the process relaxes and life feels more natural. I think of awakening as leading to a deep relaxation into life bringing freedom from the resistances, demands and disappointments generated by the mind. This is what brings us into peace.
When Meditation Needs a Prayer
In every life there are times when we feel alone, overwhelmed, uncertain, confused and afraid. There are moments of regret and rage and despair. There are moments of wondering why we exist and what is the point of all the suffering we see. Fortunately, there are also moments of light and love, connection and celebration, creativity and contentment -- even the deep peace of knowing all is well. When the good outweighs the challenges, we feel alive and grateful. When we are in a lengthy slump or a dark time of struggle, we can feel like giving up.
Most often it is the darkness that leads us to prayer or meditation, those times we can no longer run away from what is happening either internally or externally. No distraction works, and we are brought to our knees, so to speak. Prayer has been taught to us a way of connecting with a higher power, generally to ask for something we want. I remember praying as a kid that I would win a contest, or pass an exam, and as a young teen praying that my mother would recover from an illness that turned out to be fatal. I learned meditation years later when someone told me it was a way to reconnect with a God I had given up on after she died.
But eventually meditation became for me a longing for Truth – following a longing to know at some deep core what is true. What is the reason for life and death and what is the essence of who I am? It became a way to face and peel away layers of conditioning and clouds of mental chatter to discover the sensation of stillness and presence deep beneath the energies of the mind and body. It became rest, and realizing the longing itself came from the Source I was seeking.
But no matter how deeply we rest, life outside continues to offer upheavals and change. It is the nature of creation that all energies are in continual change and evolution, whether they be of the ocean and mountains and skies, or the activities of humans. Our bodies and our lives are in continual transformation. When these upheavals cause suffering we may miss the innocence of childhood prayer, which had the illusion of setting everything right. At these times I have found I need creative prayers – prayers that are more a setting of intentions and opening of the heart to what is. Prayers of acceptance. Perhaps you too need some creative prayer to carry you through these last legs of our collective crisis, or to support you with a family difficulty. Here are some some prayerful intentions that have meaning for me. What would your list look like?
May I awake each day in presence and peace
May I release all resistance and embrace life as it is
May my mind be quiet and my heart be open
May I find strength to meet whatever belongs to me
May grace support my body, mind and spirit
May I see challenges as opportunities to grow
May my work be of value to others
May I grow in love and presence
May irritations blossom into acceptances
May sadness deepen into love for what is
May I be supported by all love and wisdom in the universe
May I be surrendered to the love and wisdom in the universe
May I feel a connection to Source
May I feel grateful for the opportunity of human life, no matter its many challenges.
Tonglen Meditation
Here's a lovely meditation to help while sheltering,
by non-dual teacher Stephen Bodian, who you can follow on FB.
“For those of us who are safely sheltering at home during these extraordinarily difficult times while so many millions of our brothers and sisters are suffering, this is a perfect time to center in the boundless heart we share and direct our love and compassion to others.
In this exercise, called tonglen in the Tibetan tradition, we begin by resting in and then breathing in and out through the heart, feeling the love that is always available In the depths of the heart, beneath the various emotions that arise.
After a few minutes, we begin deliberately breathing in the suffering, fear, confusion, and other difficult emotions that people are experiencing worldwide and allowing them to transform in our heart into peace, love, equanimity, and compassion. If you’re a visual person, you can imagine breathing in the difficulty in the form of dark smoke, and breathing out the love and compassion in the form of radiant light.
Continue this meditation for as long as you like, breathing in the suffering and breathing out the love, feeling the power of the heart to transform difficulty into ease of being. You can end the meditation by resting in our inseparability, in the one heart that embraces us all in the love of the undivided for itself.
May all beings be happy, healthy, peaceful, and free of suffering!”
Recommendations:
Eckhart Tolle’s Journey of Transformation
Here is a link you might find inspiring to a youtube video by Eckhart Tolle about his own journey of transformation. It can be helpful to know how this journey has unfolded for others, even though no two stories are the same. Phill West suggested it with the comment “Clearly everyone's journey is unique, but I enjoy hearing about the transformation that an individual experiences as they heed the call to awakened living. In other words what are the characteristics of this transformation - e.g., for Eckhart, the ego's waning influence and ultimate dissolution or the mind's shift to non-reactivity and heightened presence.”
Free Webinar on Essential Guideposts &
Misconceptions on the Spiritual Path
Coming soon! Join my friend and colleague Dani Antman on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021, 9 AM, P.S.T., for a free webinar about essential guideposts and common misconceptions on the spiritual path. Dani, a therapist who trained with Dr. Joanie Harrigan in a classical model of working with kundalini, has written a great article about the problem of sexual abuse in relationships with teachers. A link to that is here:
Click link to register for her Jan. 5 talk on guideposts and Misconceptions:
https://daniantman.com/how-five-spiritual-myths-are-hijacking-your-awakening/
Support Groups for Awakening, Kundalini & Empaths
Jill Buchholz is starting two 5-week web support groups this week. Jill is a healer and body therapist with a nursing and fine arts background who has completed training with me. Her groups are a great benefit in finding connection with others in this process, receiving extra support dealing with energies, and refinement of tools for the path of embodiment. They are available on a sliding scale donation of $10 to $15 through Paypal. The Awakening/Kundalini support group meets Monday from 9:30-1:00 PST beginning Dec. 7 and a group for Empaths/Highly Sensitive people meets Tuesday from 9:30 to 11 PST. Contact Jill for further information about these and future groups she may offer. Her email is diamondheartflowing@gmail.com.
Our next issue in two weeks will focus on resources offered by therapists, yoga teachers and others who have trained with me, and are comfortable living in their own awakening process.
BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Way of Effortless Mindfulness: A Revolutionary Guide for Living an Awakened Life
By Loch Kelly
Loch Kelley, (who is a psychologist/advanced Buddhist practitioner & teacher/ teacher in Adyashanti’s lineage) offers in this book an advanced yet simple approach to a lived meditation practice that can help you embody awareness, presence and well-being. He originally learned this approach through Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, and it differs from the popular mindfulness practices usually taught in the West. The introduction says it all – these practices will open you to a “natural, warm and loving awareness already present in us, which reveals qualities or well-being, clarity and compassionate action.” The book provides simple practices for resting in “awake awareness” throughout the day, a level of knowing that is prior to and beyond thinking, clear and open, and offers joy in living. It can help you learn to recognize conditioned patterns and experiences as “waves within the ocean of our life”. The practices Loch offers can be done easily anywhere and do not move you into altered states but rather into a natural sense of well-being, and open-heartedness. They are a great adjunct to your meditation practice, helping you move into embodiment in everyday life. He offers some of these on youtube if you want to try them out. Adyashanti’s endorsement reads “Read this book, put it into practice, and it will transform your life.”
UPCOMING WEBINARS IN JANUARY
Announcing Future Webinars
LIVING WITH KUNDALINI
10 Sessions, every 2 weeks, 10 to 12 PST Fridays Jan 29 to June 4
This webinar is for people who have done an assessment with me and would like to learn more, want support as they move through the kundalini process, and would enjoy meeting other people around the world who they can share their experiences openly with. If you have been in previous webinars you are welcome to join again, and I will focus on themes of general interest to those in our group, and in building a community with you.
The fee is $300, payable at $100 month for the first 3 months 3 months, or $275 if paid in full before the first meeting. Its payable on paypal using my email kundaliniguide@gmail.com. If you are unable to pay or unemployed please contact me by email and we will make other arrangements.
Note: If you are in a role where you would like to support others, this course is a prerequisite to a training program I will offer later in the year. At this time I am planning only two webinars a year, Living with Kundalini, and a training program in the fall.
This is a 10 week in-depth program to help you understand and harmonize kundalini energy and move into the deep realization of your true nature. In this course you will experience:
A clear understanding of the kundalini as part of your process of awakening
A model for understanding the dynamics of kundalini energy
The most helpful practices for harmonizing your energy (fearlessness, breath, psychological clearing, balancing lifestyle, getting in right relationship with it)
Meditations for Awakening to your true nature
Practices for Nurturing the direct experience of Awareness, the key to awakening the Self
Exercises to bring more harmony into your life
Guidance on discussing this process with others
Encouragement to write through any issues that arise
To register please email Bonnie at kundaliniguide@gmail.com.
An initial payment to confirm registration can be made through Paypal using the same email address. Or by mail if requested.
CONSULTING GROUP FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TRAINED WITH ME
Begins Friday Jan 22 10-12 am Meets once a month
If you have completed a training program with me, work with others in this process, (or plan to) and would like to join a consultation and sharing group meeting once a month, please send me an email confirming your interest.
I plan to hold this group from 10 to 12 PST the third Friday of each month beginning Jan. 22. (Note that I have moved the group from Saturday to Friday). The fee will be $30/session payable monthly or every 3 months. Please email me at kundaliniguide@gmail.com to register. If you have completed my training and are now offering a web program or any other service that may be of interest to my readers please send me details and I will include this in a future newsletter. In this way we can create a resource list for experiencers. Be sure to send info on how you wish to be contacted by potential students/clients.
May you all be finding peace and joy as you move through this awakening process.
And may you have a warm and happy holiday season.
This newsletter is written and distributed by Bonnie Greenwell Ph.D
You may forward it in entirety to others who are interested but please do not copy or reproduce articles without permission, Copyright 2020