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#3776 - Thursday, January 14, 2010 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
How to
help in Haiti through legitimate organizations:
http://luthar.com/how-to-help-haiti-relief-efforts/
A Poem by Durga
Looking at
the red flowers on my table with the
sun shining on them, I notice a tiny sparkling drop of water
at the end of each stamen in every flower.
'Only God
can create that,' I thought. Only that
infinite intelligence which has manifested the creation,
and whose hand is apparent in every single thing,
could have done that.
Then I think
that 'I' too, from the point
of my body/mind and sense organs, from the point
of functionality, I too am a manifestation
and a part of that infinite intelligence.
There is
nothing here which is separate from
the Lord, not the intricately formed flowers, or the
perfectly round, tiny drops of water now sparkling
in the sun, or my body which is breathing, or the space
in between, nothing is separate from that.
I thank the
teachings of Vedanta and my teacher
and her teacher for helping me to gain this perspective
which now seems entirely self-evident to me. I think
of those who may feel that they have no connection with
the things they see around them, and I remember when I
myself thought like that, and how alienating and isolating
that type of thinking was.
Wherever I
look I see the Lord, and wherever I see the Lord,
I also see the same limitless being/existence/consciousness,
which is my very own self, now manifest through an infinite
intelligence and shining in a tiny drop of water.
Harihi Om!
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/durga/aTinyDropOfWater.htm
Western Emptiness Teachings and Joyful Freedom
The Mahayana emptiness teachings are considered key for attaining liberation from cyclic existence. Yet their difficulty has made them less intuitive than they might be. This class will offer insights from the Western tradition that can come to the assistance of the Western student. We will learn several Western emptiness meditations and experience how they can foster joy, lightness, compassion, and freedom.
This class was presented in condensed form at the 2009 Science and Nonduality Conference in San Rafael, California.
This class is open to Buddhists, non-Buddhists, and anyone interested in the variety of non-dual approaches.
Location:
Nalandabodhi New York
324 West 23rd Street #2A
New York, NY 10011
Phone: 212-399-2193
Schedule:
Saturday, January 16
9:30am – 5pm
(bring your lunch or lunch money to order in)
Registration fee: $25, may be paid at the door.
To enroll: Pls send e-mail to: tomas_sander@yahoo.com
For more information:
http://tinyurl.com/ya6vghp
Detailed Description: The Mahayana emptiness teachings are considered key for attaining liberation from cyclic existence. Yet these teachings have been notoriously hard to understand, and in practice not as deeply transformative as they could be.
This class will present insights and reasonings from the Western philosophical tradition that can make the emptiness teachings much more intuitive to the Western student. These Western resources will be put to use in fresh new analytic meditations, and applied with the soteriological know-how of the East. The goal is the traditional one, to dismantle the false sense that the self and other phenomena exist inherently, i.e., in a non-empty way. The meditations are inspired by the work of writers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Thomas Kuhn, Jacques Derrida, and Kenneth Gergen.
We will also cover the beautiful side to the emptiness teachings, which is an aspect very different from the analytical rigor they are usually known for. We will discover how studying emptiness leads to a joyful sense of freedom. As you meditate, the heavy, essentialist, absolutizing feelings basic to suffering melt away. Life becomes light, free, other-directed, and compassionate. You gain joy because you have lost the heaviness of absolutist demands and expectations about things. This joy frees you up for self-creation, openness towards others – and if you are so motivated – the creation of a better world.
This one-day class will teach the skills needed for Western emptiness meditations, so that you will be able to practice effectively after the class.
