Awakening to Presence Training
OCT. - Nov. 2021
Two Farm Events coming up in 2022
Repeating the Course in reverse!
Friends, this is my recommendation for how you can finish up our time together in a really impactful way. To support you in this I will be available via Marco Polo until I go on retreat on January 5th. I will also keep the webpages up from class until then.
Nov. 24th to Dec. 1st – Relax practice a bit if needed.
Dec. 2nd – Dec 8th – Equanimity
1. Review notes from this section of class over a hot drink.
2. Practice sky gazing once a day
3. Incorporate SLLF's into your week
Dec 9th to Dec 15th - Compartmentalizing
Dec. 16th to Dec. 22nd – Scope Fluidity
Dec. 23rd – Dec. 29th - Armoring
Dec. 30th – Jan. 5th - Orienting
For example if my vocation is to become a less reactive person and to saturate myself in gratitude how can my current situation help me accomplish that. If I get triggered at my job or in my family a lot then it might just be the perfect situation for my vocation of gaining less reactivity. With this slight tweak of perspectives you can then begin to have a new level of gratitude for your life as-it-is. Treat those small glimpses of gratitude as the bit coin of your spiritual life.
Nov. 24th to Dec. 1st – Relax practice a bit if needed.
Dec. 2nd – Dec 8th – Equanimity
1. Review notes from this section of class over a hot drink.
2. Practice sky gazing once a day
3. Incorporate SLLF's into your week
Dec 9th to Dec 15th - Compartmentalizing
- Review notes from this section of class over a hot drink.
- Practice Deep Leans three times a day for the week
- Minimize multitasking and increase mono-tasking
- Notice any multitasking that is being done with armoring or avoidance
Dec. 16th to Dec. 22nd – Scope Fluidity
- Review notes from this section of class over a hot drink.
- Fill in the quadrant again - life affirming and life negating micro and macro tendencies.
- Try to identify some PMA’s (Pseudo-Macro Assists) in your life and write them down.
Dec. 23rd – Dec. 29th - Armoring
- Review notes from this section of class over a hot drink.
- Watch a movie and look for unusual or unexpected ways the characters armor or self-sabotage and also the ways they risk vulnerability. Share this project with a friend and compare notes.
- Each morning this week wake up and set the intention of trying to notice moments when you are scared or tight or irritable or upset. Identifying them as they arise is huge and enough. But if you’d like to expand even more then work on breathing into that discomfort for 10 seconds before you fall into reactive patterning.
Dec. 30th – Jan. 5th - Orienting
- Review notes from this section of class over a hot drink.
- Try and make a habit this week of choosing gratitude over victimization and helplessness.
- Take a little time this week (or this month) to have some alone time. Ideally 24 hours or even a weekend. A mini-retreat if you can. During this time reflect on the past year and consider what is of most importance for you in the coming year. Write out a kind of orienting mission statement for what you’d like to orient towards this year. In other words, consider what your vocation is and think of ways you can serve that vocation given the parameters of your life. Can your work and your family life be slightly adjusted so that you are also orienting towards this vocation.
For example if my vocation is to become a less reactive person and to saturate myself in gratitude how can my current situation help me accomplish that. If I get triggered at my job or in my family a lot then it might just be the perfect situation for my vocation of gaining less reactivity. With this slight tweak of perspectives you can then begin to have a new level of gratitude for your life as-it-is. Treat those small glimpses of gratitude as the bit coin of your spiritual life.
Orienting - Setting intentions
Class notes:
Tibetan distinction of meditation practice:
Modern distinction of meditation practice:
Homework:
Off the cushion practice:
On the cushion practice:
Preliminary:
Meditation: Constructive/Che Gom/ Jok Gom
Journal:
Consider what a mission statement might look like for your remaining days. Visit the Vow Museum for inspiration. Look at Buckminster Fullers first one in the West Wing and Eve Ensler in the South Wing.
Link for Vow Museum below:
Tibetan distinction of meditation practice:
- jok gom - single pointed
- shar gom – review
- che gom – analytical
Modern distinction of meditation practice:
- Attentional
- Constructive
- De-constructive
Homework:
Off the cushion practice:
- Morning Orientation - Gratitude - Put your hand on your heart and feel gratitude for another day: to smell, taste, risk, discover, uncover, learn, etc. Gratitude for the work of the heart and set an intention to use these rare and few remaining heartbeats for the expansion of compassion and clarity.
- Express appreciation for someones presence in your life and/or the work they do.
On the cushion practice:
Preliminary:
- Dedicate to stillness.
- Acknowledge what level you are probably on in practice.
- Acknowledge issues that might arise.
- Set an intention to do the practice.
Meditation: Constructive/Che Gom/ Jok Gom
- 24 mins. a day of forgiveness meditation
- Don’t expect it to be fun or easy. Allow space for it to be difficult. Expect there to be resistance. That's normal and just do the practice anyway,
Journal:
Consider what a mission statement might look like for your remaining days. Visit the Vow Museum for inspiration. Look at Buckminster Fullers first one in the West Wing and Eve Ensler in the South Wing.
Link for Vow Museum below:
Armoring - Self-sabotage and self-protection
Finding out what your truth is today is way more interesting than indulging in your fantasies about tomorrow.” |
Class notes:
Four steps towards dis-armoring:
- Identify areas of vulnerability.
- Set an intention.
- Practice disarmament. (aka – practice taking small risks)
- Respect limits
Two Foundational Ways We Armor Against Intimacy With Self & Intimacy With Other
Avoidance:
Judgmental
Victim
Hyper-rational
Fantasy Escape
Savior Complex
Misdirection
Suppress/ Repress
Distract
Control:
Manipulator
Co-dependent
Pleaser
Over-achiever
Dishonest
Eating/ Weight
Compliant/ Over Compensation
Aggression
Armoring = Reflexive responses to existential threats
We are not talking about dropping all armoring, rather we are exploring dropping reflexive or reactive armoring.
Three ways to begin to explore entering into greater intimacy:
- Long for, Yearn for Awakening/ Greater Connection/ Greater Wholeness – Feel the profundity of disconnection and let yourself desire connection.
- Risk - Astika = “there is”. This is usually translated as a 'belief in God', but it does not have to be that reified. It can just mean a belief that there is something more.– Let yourself believe in something bigger.
- Courting/ Flirting – a slow gentle process, don’t rush it. Flirt our way into relationship with the breathing body/earth/ divine. This can also be a type of sideways approach.
The Quarrel – Conrad Aiken
It was then, when the instant darkened to its darkest,
When faith was lost with hope, and the rain conspired
To strike its gray arpeggios against our heartstrings
When love no longer dared, and scarcely desired:
It was then that suddenly, in the neighbors’ room,
The music started: that brave quartette of strings
Breaking out of stillness, as out of our stillness,
Like the indomitable heart of life that sings
And we rose, to the angelic voices of the music,
And I touched your hand, and we kissed without a word.
This has the exact same flavor as spiritual awakening. It also relates to the feeling of making contact with the meditation object. It involves a cleft, a moving into the terror or the discomfort of the unknown before we emerge into a new level of surrender.
Addiction
“Addiction is any ritual or action we perform so we don’t have to feel our feelings and think our true thoughts” – Richard Rohr`
Homework:
Off the cushion practice:
- Begin to track your ways of avoiding intimacy. You can usually identify it by looking at your reaction when you get upset, scared or tight.
- Begin doing reps: 10 seconds a day of leaning into intimacy with presence; with pleasure, with discomfort, with conversation with another person.
- Watch a movie or T.V. show and see if you can identify these two things in one of the characters:
- Ways they express a desire for intimacy – What ways is that expressed
- Ways they avoid intimacy – What methods do they use to sabotage or armor or avoid intimacy.
On the cushion practice:
24 mins. a day of forgiveness meditation
Make sure to do the preliminaries
Journal:
Journal about your relationship to armoring. What has it felt like to risk intimacy. Whats a time you really were not ready to risk intimacy. How did you handle that.
Scoping - Working with micro and macro perspectives
Class notes:
See resource page for more notes.
Two Truths: We looked at the two truths; ultimate reality and conventional reality. We explored in some detail ultimate reality which is also called emptiness or the 'un-findability of inherent existence'.
Using this basic pattern of the deep ultimate potential and apparent reality we extrapolated to begin thinking about scope fluidity.
Scope fluidity is the fluid movement between tuning into the micro details of your life as well as the macro perspectives.
Homework:
Off the cushion practice:
We all engage in life affirming micro and macro and life depleting micro and macro behavior. List 3 ways in each of those categories that you can identify in yourself.
On the cushion practice:
Continue with the forgiveness/ softening practice for 24 mins a day.
Journal:
Journal a bit about micro and macro in your world. Which is easier for you to access. Are you more prone to bypass/ avoid intimacy using micro or macro scopes. What does scope fluidity look like for you. Is there a moment you can recall when you were particularly open and fluid between scopes.
See resource page for more notes.
Two Truths: We looked at the two truths; ultimate reality and conventional reality. We explored in some detail ultimate reality which is also called emptiness or the 'un-findability of inherent existence'.
Using this basic pattern of the deep ultimate potential and apparent reality we extrapolated to begin thinking about scope fluidity.
Scope fluidity is the fluid movement between tuning into the micro details of your life as well as the macro perspectives.
Homework:
Off the cushion practice:
We all engage in life affirming micro and macro and life depleting micro and macro behavior. List 3 ways in each of those categories that you can identify in yourself.
On the cushion practice:
Continue with the forgiveness/ softening practice for 24 mins a day.
Journal:
Journal a bit about micro and macro in your world. Which is easier for you to access. Are you more prone to bypass/ avoid intimacy using micro or macro scopes. What does scope fluidity look like for you. Is there a moment you can recall when you were particularly open and fluid between scopes.
Compartmentalizing - Learning to make space for joy
Class notes:
We explored a little more about scope fluidity and looked at a couple of ways to access macro scope:
1. Creating down time and moments of increased spaciousness.
2. Cultivating awe and being attuned to awe.
Next we looked at both reactive and non-reactive compartmentalizing
Reactive compartmentalizing is usually unconscious.
Non-reactive compartmentalizing has a lot to do with becoming conscious.
We also explored the idea that healthy compartmentalizing has everything to do with focus. So to that end we are working this week on Deep Leans and avoiding multitasking and replacing it with Mono-Tasking for short do-able chunks of time.
Homework:
Off the cushion practice:
1. Deep Lean - Four times a day practice leaning into what ever activity your doing for 90 seconds or so. This means to just relax into the full experience and try to enjoy it or find the pleasure or uplifting aspect of being fully present.
2. Limit your multitasking. The science is out that multitasking doesn't actually save time. What it does do is create a kind of armoring to prevent us from having to feel discomfort. This week practice a little less multitasking and instead practice mono-tasking.
On the cushion practice:
Stay with your practice and bring that energy of Deep Lean and Mono-tasking into your sits.
Journal:
Do some free writes to just assist you in Deep Leans. Use your journal to help you deepen into what is presently arising by noting things in your journal as you become conscious of them. It can help to keep writing and dont stop for 10 mins. If nothing is coming up just literally write "in" or "out" based on whether you are breathing in or out.
We explored a little more about scope fluidity and looked at a couple of ways to access macro scope:
1. Creating down time and moments of increased spaciousness.
2. Cultivating awe and being attuned to awe.
Next we looked at both reactive and non-reactive compartmentalizing
Reactive compartmentalizing is usually unconscious.
Non-reactive compartmentalizing has a lot to do with becoming conscious.
We also explored the idea that healthy compartmentalizing has everything to do with focus. So to that end we are working this week on Deep Leans and avoiding multitasking and replacing it with Mono-Tasking for short do-able chunks of time.
Homework:
Off the cushion practice:
1. Deep Lean - Four times a day practice leaning into what ever activity your doing for 90 seconds or so. This means to just relax into the full experience and try to enjoy it or find the pleasure or uplifting aspect of being fully present.
2. Limit your multitasking. The science is out that multitasking doesn't actually save time. What it does do is create a kind of armoring to prevent us from having to feel discomfort. This week practice a little less multitasking and instead practice mono-tasking.
On the cushion practice:
Stay with your practice and bring that energy of Deep Lean and Mono-tasking into your sits.
Journal:
Do some free writes to just assist you in Deep Leans. Use your journal to help you deepen into what is presently arising by noting things in your journal as you become conscious of them. It can help to keep writing and dont stop for 10 mins. If nothing is coming up just literally write "in" or "out" based on whether you are breathing in or out.
Equanimity - The wisdom of not hacking-your-life
"The heart that is ready for anything"
"Non-interference with the natural flow of sensory experience" - Shinzen Young
"Non-interference with the natural flow of sensory experience" - Shinzen Young
Class notes:
The ancient four required attributes of a reputable Buddhist book.
1.) JUJA - Subject matter is about the wisdom that understands stained and unstained objects. That which leads to enlightenment or further suffering.
2.) GUPA - Purpose is to plant seeds in the readers mind to understand this wisdom.
3.) NYI-GU - Ultimate goal is to lead the reader to a state of total enlightenment.
4.) DRELWA - Relationship between the prior three (To attain enlightenment requires wisdom, which is developed by studying that book).
In preparation for moving into equanimity, the mother of all mental states, we explore some other common mental states that have been sought in the western traditions:
Euthymia
Ataraxia
Aponia
Apatheia
7 supports for the arising of equanimity
Homework:
Off the cushion practice:
Once a day practice sky gazing - just watching clouds and enjoying the sky for a minute or two. Notice resistance.
As often as you think of it practice S.L.L.F.s (stop, look, listen, feel). A typical SLLF takes about 60 seconds.
On the cushion practice:
Continue with the forgiveness practice and dont forget the preliminaries. If you have dropped the preliminaries start them up again.
Journal:
Journal a bit about areas or topics that "land" for you, that cause some reactive patterning. In otherwords explora the places where you have the least equanimity. And explore whether you can have equanimity with those triggers.
The ancient four required attributes of a reputable Buddhist book.
1.) JUJA - Subject matter is about the wisdom that understands stained and unstained objects. That which leads to enlightenment or further suffering.
2.) GUPA - Purpose is to plant seeds in the readers mind to understand this wisdom.
3.) NYI-GU - Ultimate goal is to lead the reader to a state of total enlightenment.
4.) DRELWA - Relationship between the prior three (To attain enlightenment requires wisdom, which is developed by studying that book).
In preparation for moving into equanimity, the mother of all mental states, we explore some other common mental states that have been sought in the western traditions:
Euthymia
Ataraxia
Aponia
Apatheia
7 supports for the arising of equanimity
- Sila – Ethical Behavior
- Faith – Shradha – Faith in the power of practice. Faith that results from personal experience.
- A Well-Practiced Limber Mind. Cultivating increased capacities.
- Well Being – A general feeling of at-easeness, happiness, joy, delight, contentment. (meditative states) We cant make this happen but we can create conditions : a) Spaciousness in life. b) Limited time on computer c) Not multitaski d) Time for play, time for intimacy
- Wisdom – The ability to expand into macro scope when needed. Art helps this.
- Insight – Seeing the constant changing qualities of things. a) All things are impermanent b) All things are incapable of providing lasting satisfaction. c) All things lack a substantial core or essence.
- Freedom – Release – The opposite of holding onto things. Release, forgiveness. Letting go. Yielding yourself.
Homework:
Off the cushion practice:
Once a day practice sky gazing - just watching clouds and enjoying the sky for a minute or two. Notice resistance.
As often as you think of it practice S.L.L.F.s (stop, look, listen, feel). A typical SLLF takes about 60 seconds.
On the cushion practice:
Continue with the forgiveness practice and dont forget the preliminaries. If you have dropped the preliminaries start them up again.
- Dedicate to stillness.
- Acknowledge what level you are probably on in practice.
- Acknowledge issues that might arise.
- Set an intention to do the practice.
Journal:
Journal a bit about areas or topics that "land" for you, that cause some reactive patterning. In otherwords explora the places where you have the least equanimity. And explore whether you can have equanimity with those triggers.