THE SOURCE OF JOY

June 9th, 2012

GREEN GULCH FARM ZEN CENTER

This one-day sitting will involve sitting and walking meditation, Dharma talks, Q & A and, by request, private interviews with Michael.

Confirmation will be sent to you when your $80 payment is received. Click the link below and you will be taken to our shopping cart check-out, followed up by our Paypal link. You can easily pay there with either a credit card or through Paypal.

Register Now

If you have any questions, contact Kristi.

November 2, 2011 (#43)

Student: What is the best response to someone who complains a lot?

Michael: It’s often difficult to have open dialog with someone immersed in negativity, but dialog is often the appropriate response more often than not. We always have three options, as I’ve said before, in dealing with difficulty: change it, leave it, or accept it totally. These options apply to every situation. With a negative person we can dialog in hopes of offering change. We can get out of their vicinity or even distance ourselves from their lives. Lastly, we might learn that meeting them with total acceptance offers us a space where openness can offer an increase in consciousness. This increase in consciousness has the potential to transform situations as well as people.

Student: This is so interesting since I’ve watched transformation occur in ways that haven’t been so comfortable.

Teacher: That’s to be expected. Transformation that arises out of a deepening of consciousness isn’t always what the small self wants.

Student: So true. Right now I’m watching friendships wither from a lack of interest on my part. It’s like I feel a deep lack of connectivity in relationships that used to sustain me. Pretty soon it’ll just be me and my cats.

Teacher: Things could be worse. More often than not, cats are the embodiment of enlightenment. But, kidding aside, I should also point out that friendships that wane during the course of deep spiritual work don’t have to end, necessarily. Often I’ve seen them come back even stronger as the work begins to deepen and settle. This doesn’t always happen but when it does it’s pretty cool to see.

October 28, 2010

Student: What allows emptiness to remain undisturbed? Is it when the seeing of the seeing is continuous? By grace only? Or perhaps when preferences are allowed, but not taken so seriously as one thing over another thing?

Michael: Emptiness is never disturbed. The waves of mind spring eternally from its inherent stillness and grace.

Student: So what do we do with those waves of mind?

Michael: We learn to surf. This allows Emptiness to be consciously embodied in, shall we say, an oceanic life.

Student: So the waves don’t stop?

Michael: Let’s hope not. Life’s waves keep things exciting. Learning to surf  these waves means that we fundamentally adjust our relationship to any of life’s disturbances. Rather than seeing disturbances as something to avoid, we start to see them as opportunities for practice.

4/16/12

I returned yesterday from the Infinite Smile Weekend Retreat at Mt. Madonna. The surroundings were beautiful and the “work” was challenging! Michael’s gentle encouragement and detailed instructions guided us as the group moved deeper into the silence. I was gradually able to drop below my surface chatter, and I could observe where my mind goes – to future, past, to judgement, and in between to moments of peace. My fellow meditators were a consistant source of inspiration and support.

I hope that each of you is able to make the time for a retreat (longer is better) with Michael in the near future. There are gifts waiting fo you- just by sitting still with others.

B.P.

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning the Summer of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

___

October 27, 2010 (#41)

Student: What happens when you fall in love?

Michael: We recognize ourselves through another, and then let go. This surrender feels so good that we usually end up clinging to it, which undoes the surrender, which leads to suffering. But if we can maintain an intimacy with the seeing what is sacred in us in others, without the clinging, we’re in for a treat.

Student: Yeah, it’s interesting. I know the experience of falling in love with a man, with my children, then recently with Awareness. But each day, I’m finding that when I don’t cling to any of it, these silly, little, day-to-day things occur and it’s like I fall in love all over again. I just drove by an old man hunched and sitting quietly at an outside table in front of the local Taco Bell, and as he was taking a bite of his terribly nutrition-free food. Right there, it was like I fell in love! It defies explanation. But the opening was unmistakable and beautiful. There’s an innocence, or something, there. What is this?

Michael: Sounds like compassion unfolding from a deep openness to me. We might also call this experience love without the tiniest bit of attachment. Open, free and full. And it’s constant since we start to see what is sacred internally expressed externally, in every situation.

Commuter Zen #84

The Source of Joy

June 9th, 2012

GREEN GULCH FARM ZEN CENTER

This one-day sitting will involve sitting and walking meditation, Dharma talks, Q & A and, by request, private interviews with Michael.

Confirmation will be sent to you when your $80 payment is received. Click the link below and you will be taken to our shopping cart check-out, followed up by our Paypal link. You can easily pay there with either a credit card or through Paypal.

Register Now

If you have any questions, contact Kristi.

Great New York Times piece on teaching meditation to high schoolers…

Students in trouble are given the choice of traditional punishments or participating in the meditation program, where Mr. Snyder will teach them how to meditate, understand volatile emotions and curb impulsive behavior. He intends to take the program to other schools as well.

via Brooklyn Students in Meditation Program Learn to Notice Their Emotions – NYTimes.com.