"The Clock" Teaching, an Emptiness exploration for classes 3/26 and 3/28

http://www.theknowledgebase.com/products/emptinessadeepdive-2010-losangeles-geshemichael

Simple words about Emptiness:

Dear friends, I happened upon this list during my studies.  Emptiness can be complex to discuss and understand, but this list put it all so simply in a way that's easy accept.  The authors are all close students of Geshe Michael Roach.  

Because things are empty, everything comes from seeds.

- Ningpo

Everything comes from how you treat other people.

- Rebecca

There is nothing in your reality that is not coming from your kindness in the past.

- Nicole

The way I see you is dependent on the karma I planted.

It all comes from how I treat others.

The way I experience you, comes from how I treat others.

- Christine

All things exist in dependence on a person observing them.

- Peter

Things exist in dependence on causes and conditions, their parts, and a mind to observe them.  Things need other things in order to exist.

- Nick

Envisioning ourselves as more than the body:

"Our feelings of isolation and alienation from our fellow human beings are in part due to thinking we are nothing other than the body.  Delinking the sense of self from one's own corporality is an important step  in re-identifying oneself as part of a larger whole, a nexus of being that joins us together."  - Lama Marut, A spiritual Renegade's Guide to the Good Life, pp. 153-154.

Ash Wednesday Class: Renunciation + finishing Chapter 8

Hi Friends,
Happy Mardi Gras!  This Wednesday we will meet to finish up Chapter 8 (using worksheet 8.4) and discuss Renunciation, the bedrock of the spiritual path.
With gratitude,
Keith

"Renunciation in this instance is not just throwing things away but, having thrown everything away (or given everything up), we begin to feel the living quality of peace. This peace is not feeble peace, feeble openness, but it has a strong character, an invincible quality, an unshakable quality, because it admits no gaps of hypocrisy. It is complete peace in all directions, so that not even a speck of a dark corner exists for doubt and hypocrisy. Complete openness is complete victory because we do not fear; we do not try to defend ourselves at all."

~ Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

"Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism"

Excellent Audio for the Exchange of Self and Other:

Dear dharma friends,

These audio lectures are an excellent complement to our study of the Exchange of Self and Other (Chapter 8, Meditation).  They are from 2004 and focus entirely on the end of the chapter.  The first time I was exposed to this book, the lectures were similar in topic and style.  I highly recommend these and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

On transparency:

"From what I have been saying, I trust it is clear that when I can permit realness in myself or sense it or permit it in another, I am very satisfied.  When I cannot permit it in myself or fail to permit it in another, I am very distressed.  When I am able to let myself be congruent and genuine, I often help the other person.  When the other person is transparently real and congruent, he often helps me.  In those rare moments when a deep realness in one meets a realness in the other, a memorable "I-thou relationship," as Martin Buber would call it, occurs.  Such a deep and mutual personal encounter does not happen often, but I am convinced that unless it happens occasionally, we are not living as human beings." - Carl Rogers, A Way of Being.  

Many thanks to Laura Hasenstein for sharing this quote during her class! 

Chapter 8: Worksheet 8.4

For classes on February 19 and 21, 2014.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B20QPR_lUz-Lci1DMmkyMnM4Ujg/edit?usp=sharing