June 2019
Jon Bernie ~ The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is
Jon Bernie, author of Ordinary Freedom and his latest, The Unbelievable Happiness of What Is, is a contemporary spiritual teacher who offers a compassionate, heart-centered approach to awakening. From his early years growing up as an artist and concert violinist, Jon always had a keen, questioning mind. This led him to discover a self-inquiry process that led to a life-changing spiritual awakening at the age of 16. Despite thinking he was on his way to medical school, he ended up becoming a Zen monk. He has four decades of practice and study in the Zen, Theravada Buddhist and Advaita traditions, and was formally asked to teach by Adyashanti in 2002.
Jon’s teaching focuses on returning the attention to the already enlightened state that lies at the core of our human existence. He is also an experienced healer and teacher of somatic embodiment, trained in the Alexander Technique, Zero Balancing, Self Acceptance Training and the Qigong system of Dr. Yu Penxi. Jon works closely with individuals to facilitate awakening and deep emotional healing, and leads classes, intensives and retreats in the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally. He also does intensive, one-on-one work with individuals both in person and by phone or video chat.
“Trying to find happiness is not possible. Why? Because we cannot find what we fundamentally are. So how do we discover and, in a sense, become one with what we fundamentally are? By learning to feel directly “what is” — that is, what’s being experienced in the mind, body and heart — free of judgment, comparison and analysis. Learning to feel directly could also be described as “being one with what is”. This quality of acceptance or compassion is the essence of our shared Heart of Oneness and simultaneously leads to, and already is, the profound vastness of our true and everlasting Happiness.”
Larry 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 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. He also serves on the boards of the Center for Climate Protection and Meridian University.
“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.”
July 2019
Dorothy Hunt ~ Meditation in Action
“Meditation is not simply the art of sitting quietly on a cushion; it is the art of seeing deeply, being fully present and alive. It is the practice of stopping and noticing who or what is here Now: breathing, looking, eating, drinking, talking, touching, thinking, feeling, sensing. What is the single dimension of our being that is intimate, ever-present, and timelessly awake? Meditation in action is about unifying body and mind in the present moment, and living more and more consciously from the deepest truths we may have realized. If we are living our spirituality and not simply thinking about it, we are invited to BE the light of compassionate presence, authenticity, and love in our ordinary daily lives.”
Invited to teach by Adyashanti in 2004, Dorothy Hunt is the spiritual director of Moon Mountain Sangha, and the founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy. She has been a licensed psychotherapist since 1967. Dorothy is the author of Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness, Leaves from Moon Mountain, Only This! She is a contributing author to several books on nondual awareness and psychotherapy as well as a featured spiritual teacher in Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom.
For more information, please visit www.dorothyhunt.org
No one turned away for lack of funds
Find out more »Pamela Wilson ~ The Intelligence of the Heart
Pamela Wilson is a Bay Area treasure who has been sharing satsang for twenty years around the world, honoring the sage within everyone, and the absolute oneness of All That Is. Her own teachers included Lester Levinson (The Sedona Method), Robert Adams and Neelam. She evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human.
Pamela is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. And she speaks the truth of non-duality, that the universe is one undivided whole. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please come and bring your questions!
“Here we are, benevolent rooted space wearing a remarkably sensitive instrument called the body. Most sages report the body-mind insists on being included and permeated by presence, so it too, can know and live its naturalness. The body is the five elements, already free with no history, though it has born witness to all. As compassion we will be instantly aware of any suffering and answer its call; as stillness we will be aware of remaining restlessness. To be with what is in the moment, this is our function and is at the heart of all longing.”
August 2019
Adam Chacksfield ~ Falling Open Together
Described by Pamela Wilson as “a great messenger of truth a unique transmission that does wonderful things for my spirit,” Adam invites us to share the direct experience of the heart, mind, and life falling open. In this effortless opening, the suffering involved in resisting feelings and believing our thoughts spontaneously releases. This allows our natural abundance of joy, peace, wisdom and love to become apparent and available. Heart-centered but direct, Adam offers a path straight into the truth of who you are. Adam Chacksfield is the founder of the Center for Nondual Awareness and creator of Falling Open, a four-month online course transforming how participants experience their lives.
“We are invited to receive the ultimate gift, for which there is no substitute , worth infinitely more than all our dreams and fantasies. We accept this gift by simply falling open. When the heart and mind fall open, we find ourselves intimately present and completely available to what is here. Our struggle with reality dissolves into harmony.”
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Gail Brenner ~ Suffering is Optional
You’ve had a taste of your true nature as nondual awareness, yet you still find yourself recycling conditioned thought patterns, and getting stuck in the emotions that underlie them. You get triggered and feel scared, sad, angry, or resentful. You’re sometimes overcome by behaviors that seem beyond your control.
This evening will be a safe and supportive intimate group gathering where we untangle the ways we feel separate and discover over and over the infinite peace of our true nature. Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is an eternal student of happiness who blends her experience as a psychologist with a loving presence that invites people into harmony with all of life. She is gifted at meeting our humanness with nondual understanding in ways that are practical and loving. Gail has worked with clients and groups for over 20 years, bringing laser-like clarity to the confusion of common problems, such as reactive emotions, compulsive behaviors, feelings of personal inadequacy, and relationship struggles. She is the author of three books, including The End of Self-Help and her latest, Suffering is Optional.
“Here's some very good news: freedom from unhappiness is possible, and nothing needs to change. You don't need to change your thoughts, process your feelings, learn to relax, or become a better person. The invitation is simply to see things clearly. See clearly through to the essence of what makes you unhappy, and you'll realize that, at the core of your being, there's no conflict, resistance, or separation. You now know peace deeper than you could ever imagine. Shine a laser on every experience that makes you suffer, and you'll always find your true nature, pure being that just is."
Suggested Donation: $15-$25 per person
Find out more »September 2019
Mukti ~ Discover Your True Self
What is the most essential you that is present regardless of thought or emotion? Who or what has been present for all of your life experience? How does this spirit of constancy touch your life? Mukti will offer a mediation and then speak on these compelling topics followed by the opportunity for questions and answers pointing directly to the true nature of Self.
Mukti, whose name is translated as "liberation," is a teacher in the lineage of Adyashanti, her husband. Prior to 1996, when she began studying the nondual, Zen-flavored teachings of Adyashanti, Mukti studied the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda for over 20 years. In her own teachings, Mukti points audiences back to their natural state of wholeness or undivided consciousness. Licensed in acupuncture and certified to teach hatha yoga, Mukti has a love of the whole, in form as well as the formless.
No one turned away for lack of funds
Michael Damian ~ Embracing the Desire for Happiness
"Happiness is not in things. Happiness is in the wholeness of things."
Life is not a meaningless series of experiences happening to no one. For each of us, it feels vitally important that we find real love and happiness, by understanding who we are on both the spiritual and human levels. From the start, this requires that we fully embrace our desire for happiness.
It is inevitable that we will grasp at the wrong things, but as we become established in deep observing, our desires are purified and transformed. Instead of harboring an anxious desire to receive love from outside, we become that very love, in expression.
As we intelligently work with desire, we are also invited to abandon the mistaken quest to lose our sense of self. The real self is conscious presence, and we cannot lose what is infinitely ours. Observing takes us all the way from the most deluded sense of self, and its misguided desires, to the subtle wisdom of consciousness.
From inner listening, the real self arises as direct knowing, deep love and radiant energy. Live here long enough and you become a vital and empowered being, capable of enjoying life in all its forms and seasons.
Michael Damian shares a clear vision of awakening and psychological integration. Arising from a powerful spiritual awakening in 2006, and his practice as a depth psychologist, Michael’s teachings point to the simplicity of knowing our real nature while also mastering our psychology. Michael’s approach is based, in part, on work with A Course in Miracles and his main teacher Barry Long. He is the author of The Art of Freedom: A Guide to Awakening.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
October 2019
Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ Awakening in Daily Living
Shakti is a teacher very well known in Europe and her native Italy, who offers a contemporary and accessible vision of true awakening that is profoundly in tune with Advaita and nondual Tantric traditions.
The spiritual journey inevitably leads to the confrontation between our "spiritual life" and our "material life", discovering how and where we truly embody the truth of our heart. Realizing the emptiness of our true nature is just the starting point of an integration process that can take several years and involve all aspects of our lives, and leads us to several moments of crisis in which old egoic patterns of behavior that are still based on the separative mind emerge to be dissolved by the light of Awareness.
Shakti has spent many years deepening this integration process. With wisdom, humor, and heartfelt connection, she shares a message of discovering our divinity at the very core of our humanity. Shakti has been sharing this message of non-separation since 2003 with many people around the world, especially in Italy and in Europe, where she holds satsangs and retreats.
"Peace is not a destination, but a starting point. Find that Peace that rests behind anything and anybody and bring it into your world. Every human being looks for Peace in their inner or outer reality. In this call for clarity, what we are looking for is what our true nature actually is.
“We are used to imagining that the dissolving of inner and outer conflicts comes as the result of some action, whereas it is only when we move from Peace that those actions will bring the end of any conflict. Moving and living from Peace is recognizing what we are, and integrating it in our everyday life.
“Awakening to your true nature means to wake up to your true essence that lies behind any conflict of daily living. Thoughts and feelings are not an obstacle to this recognition, but the direct expression of how we know or ignore ourselves. Once we find that silence that rests behind manifestation, the ego will come back, out of habit. If we can recognize its presence, not as a disturbance but as an opportunity to integrate the message, our everyday life becomes our true spiritual journey. The Peace of our Being becomes the world we see and live in.”
Suggested donation $15 - $25
No one turned away for lack of funds
Gail Brenner ~ Awakening in the Mind, Body and Heart
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN MOVED FROM SAN RAFAEL TO BERKELEY DUE TO LACK OF POWER IN MARIN COUNTY.
The potential for all of us is to be open, present, and available, to live from inner intelligence, to be in harmony with life. In fact, this is our natural state. But how do we find this open awareness in our ordinary day-to-day lives, especially when life gets confusing and difficult?
In our sacred time together, we’ll use guided meditations, restful silences, and focused heartfelt conversation to skillfully unravel the conditioned identities that make you feel separate.
We’ll practice turning inward toward what you’re experiencing so you can know where your attention is going that’s causing personal suffering. We’ll slow things down so you can be fully present with every thought, feeling, and physical sensation that appears. You’ll learn compassionate skills to help you in challenging moments.
We respect the humanity of your stories, and go beyond them to relax into the openness beyond all stories—undisturbed by any problem or emotion. As you meet the knots of your suffering with the deepest acceptance, they begin to soften, and here you find yourself—in the simple freshness of the moment that is open, peaceful, and infinitely loving.
Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is an eternal student of happiness who blends her experience as a psychologist with a loving presence that invites people into harmony with all of life. She is gifted at meeting our humanness with nondual understanding in ways that are practical and loving. Gail has worked with clients and groups for over 20 years, bringing laser-like clarity to the confusion of common problems, such as reactive emotions, compulsive behaviors, feelings of personal inadequacy, and relationship struggles. She is the author of several books, including The End of Self-Help and her latest, Suffering is Optional.
“Here's some very good news: freedom from unhappiness is possible, and nothing needs to change. You don't need to change your thoughts, process your feelings, learn to relax, or become a better person. The invitation is simply to see things clearly. See clearly through to the essence of what makes you unhappy, and you'll realize that, at the core of your being, there's no conflict, resistance, or separation. You now know peace deeper than you could ever imagine. Shine a laser on every experience that makes you suffer, and you'll always find your true nature, pure being that just is."
Suggested Donation: $15-$25 per person
Find out more »