Featured Events
John Astin ~ This Extraordinary Moment: Moving Beyond the Mind to Discover the Miracle of What Is
Through a series of guided inquiries, meditations, music and dialogue, John Astin invites you into a deep exploration of a very simple yet profound question: “What is experience actually made of?” Together, we will peer around the edges of what we think experiences are, and discover the myriad ways that reality transcends our ideas about what it is and who we are. Adyashanti writes in the Foreword to John’s most recent book, This Extraordinary Moment: “John Astin’s book is an invitation into a profound experience of being that is, quite literally, unimaginable. It offers a way of perceiving that is direct, immediate, and rich with wonder. What John has written here is really a guidebook for breaking the spell of conditioned thinking, and discovering what lies on the other side of our imagination—reality beyond words, and an experience of being that is beyond the known. Read this book, but even more, contemplate it. And perhaps it will evoke within you something greater than can be imagined.”
Sunday, June 23, 2019 @ 7:00pm-9:00pm at Chochmat Halev, Berkeley, CA, USALarry Robinson ~ This Precious Jade Teacup Is Already Broken: Participating Joyfully in the Suffering of the World
Larry Robinson is something of a modern-day Renaissance man. Moving easily from the meditation hall to the halls of power, Larry is a long-time Zen practitioner, a published poet, a potter, a retired eco-psychologist, and a former Green Party city councilman and mayor of Sebastopol, known for starting off city council meetings with poetry. He is also the founder and producer of the critically acclaimed Rumi’s Caravan, a performance troupe dedicated to restoring the soul of the world through reviving the oral tradition of ecstatic poetry. Larry has been practicing meditation for 50 years, primarily in the Zen and vipassana traditions, and is a member of the Occidental Laguna Sangha in Sebastopol, a Zen gathering in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi. “We are living through a time of societal and ecological collapse. Many of us are overwhelmed with feelings of grief and helplessness in the face of such enormous loss and suffering. It requires great courage to keep our hearts open at such a time. The Buddhist practices of Brahmaviharas ─ compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy and equanimity ─ offer a pathway to avoiding the twin perils of despair and naive hope while still being fully engaged in the world.”
Tuesday, June 25, 2019 @ 7:00pm-8:45pm at Falkirk Cultural Center, San Rafael