Embodying Presence: Fall 2022
Administrative Details: Tuesday
The first class will be on Tuesday, September 12, 9:00-11:00 am PDT (12:00 – 2:00 pm EDT), and will run for 13 consecutive weeks, ending on December 13. $360 for the series, no drop-ins. (Adjustments can be made for regular students with some previous commitments.) A video of the class will be available every week. You can register by e-mailing me at yogarthur@aol.com where I can give you more info on payment etc.
Administrative Details: Saturday
There will be four Saturday classes, 9 – 11 am PDT (PST): September 24, October 22, November 19, December 17. $110 for the four classes: $30/class for drop-ins. Five students minimum per class.
Basic Class Structure
The class begins with a 20 – 25 minute meditation, beginning with guidance on heart opening and then sitting in silence (shikan-taza, the Zen practice of ‘just sitting’.) followed by a check in for questions on practice. Then a period of free movement of your own choice, a demonstration/explanation of the embodied theme of the day and your own personal explorations of the theme. The class will end with a chance for follow up questions, and if time permits, another short meditation.
Class Themes
The core categories are Being, Becoming and Belonging: Being is our shikantaza practice andworking with the Heart Sutra and its challenging pointing to emptiness.. I am currently working on the embodied themes for the fall session (becoming) which will include deeper explorations of the three dantiens through pelvis, ribs and skull bones, the four limbs, working with diaphragm and breath and some spherical, circular and spiralic energy patterns that occur from cell to skin. (More being!) Belonging will include world on healing our ancestral lineage through grandmothers and great-grandmothers as well as the support of our emerging and evolving sangha.
Reading Homework
I have been spending much time with these two books. Powerful and inspiring, but challenging!
Being: “Cultivating the Empty Field” The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi , translated by Taigen Daniel Leighton with Yi Wu. Wonderful descriptions of the ‘undescribable’ with guidance on practice (Cast off the body-mind – then cast off ‘casting off”).
Becoming and Belonging: Essence with The Elixir of Enlightenment: The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization
(two books in one volume) by A.H. Almaas (pen name for Hameed Ali).
Hameed articulates the process of awakening through recognizing and transforming the ego structures, and how embodying awakening activates the many facets of ‘Essence’, such as courage, compassion, curiosity, love, and more. He also references Taosit Vedic, Buddhist and Sufi teachings to show the universality of awakening, as well as Western psychological pioneers and explorers to help understand the developmental processes of the ego. This is a rare and extraordinary book by one who has mastered the practice and the supporting scholarship.
If you are not familiar with Hameed, here is a recent interview of him with Tami Simon.
gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svahah