Past Events › Online Event

Join us for a silent group meditation. Do your own practice quietly in the company of others. Let’s be present, together. .... more details
Mon.: 8:00am – 8:30am (PT) and Wed.: 9:00am – 9:30am (PT)
Ongoing drop-in group – attend as often as you like.
Weekly, with rare exceptions. Verify dates on Full Calendar.

REGISTER

In this transformative talk, spiritual teacher Lisa Cairns explores the profound philosophy of non-duality, which suggests that life is not divided into separate entities, but rather a unified whole. Lisa Cairns delves into how embracing non-duality can radically shift one’s perception, moving beyond the limits of the individual ego and dissolving the boundaries that create feelings of separation and isolation. By questioning the concept of a separate “self” and recognizing the interconnected nature of all things, non-duality offers a pathway to inner peace, acceptance, and freedom from suffering. Lisa Cairns invites listeners to explore how this shift in consciousness can influence their daily experiences, relationships, and sense of purpose, ultimately uncovering a deeper, more liberated way of living.

About Lisa:
In Bali in 2011, Lisa suddenly lost total control while eating banana fritters with ice cream, and there was a sudden and explosive energetic shift; at that moment it was understood, beyond the intellect, non-dual philosophy.

For the past eleven years, she has traveled around the world, sharing an amazing Indian Philosophy called Non duality. She has spoken in book shops, cafes, yoga centers, universities, schools, the UK’s NHS (National Health Care System), conference centers, festivals, theatres and in someone’s front room.

In her talks, she tries to communicate the limitless nature of life, which you could say is at the root of every philosophy, religion or story. This is a tall order, so failing that, she hopes to open doors for anyone who wants to listen, providing a broader perspective on this magical thing we call life.

More about Lisa: www.lisacairns.com

Suggested donation: $15 to $40
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.

REGISTER

The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter

We are not thinking beings who sense; we are sensing beings who think. And re-setting that balance is key to joy, to vibrance, and true liberation!

Join us for Embodiment Lab, an experiential exploration of the body as a doorway to presence and aliveness, returning to the ground of being through our own direct experience.

We will use the fullness of our experience to tune and attune to our bodies, illuminating our deepest healing and freedom. Engaging and transcending our senses, awareness, breath, movement and sound and more, we will use our body's signals to return to sensate presence.

TOGETHER ON OUR CALL WE WILL:

• Explore states of inner coherence in our own experience.
• Engage simple yet profound somatic and energetic practices.
• Experience the healing power of inner and group coherence.
• Have space to share, ask questions and learn from within and together.
• Learn about ways to deepen our access to embodied presence.

All levels of experience are welcom.
BIO

Ishita Sharma serves as a spiritual teacher, healing mirror, embodiment guide, and Core Energetics Practitioner of body-based psychotherapy. Teaching Universal principles of healing and mysticism, she is devoted to supporting healing and awakening in all those committed to living a bright and connected life, sharing their gifts for the good of the Whole.

Growing up in India, asking big questions, Ishita's curiosities about the nature of All Things fueled a series of profound openings. Having her relationship to Self, Life and others re-calibrated, while learning to honor her own body's signals as the ultimate path to God, led her to study various spiritual, neurological, relational, somatic and shamanic modalities, through the Grace of her teachers and the Book of her Life.

Ishita has coached visionaries and leaders from Google, Harvard, MIT, Silicon Valley, Broadway artists, and renowned scientists, coaches, teachers, artists and activists. Clients come to her to grow through their deepest longings and challenges, held and mirrored in their perfect wholeness. She points every one of them back to center.

Ishita’s teachings, like her learnings, support self-study through direct realization. They marry western mind and eastern spirit through the human body and heart to facilitate embodied awakening and authentic connection, the balm for our tumultuous times.

Care for our sacred shared world informs all her endeavors. Ishita now uses her skills to help clients connect with their inner signals so they can find rest in minds, ease in their bodies, joy in their hearts, and embody their True Nature in right relation with Life. She brings 15 years of advanced facilitation, a refined meditation practice, and a fierce devotion to her own healing to serve. She looks forward to meeting and supporting you!

cometocenter.com

Suggested donation: $15 to $40
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.

REGISTER

The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter

Join us for a silent group meditation. Do your own practice quietly in the company of others. Let’s be present, together. .... more details
Mon.: 8:00am – 8:30am (PT) and Wed.: 9:00am – 9:30am (PT)
Ongoing drop-in group – attend as often as you like.
Weekly, with rare exceptions. Verify dates on Full Calendar.

REGISTER

The Buddha said it succinctly 2500 years ago: human existence is, and always has been, marked by constant change and uncertainty. Yet we find ourselves in uniquely challenging and uncertain times: overpopulation, mass extinctions, extreme weather, environmental tipping points, political upheaval, nuclear proliferation, demographic instability and widespread migrations, and the advent of technologies that challenge and distort our understanding of what’s real and true.

Perhaps our civilization is just on the verge of collapse, like so many before it. But since it covers the globe, this raises the unprecedented prospect that the future of human life on Earth may be threatened as well.

Of course, we can always seek refuge in the simplicity and innate perfection of right now and in the knowing that our true nature--awakened awareness, consciousness, the absolute--is undisturbed and never dies, and life is always unfolding in its own sacred and mysterious way.

But, as one of my Zen teachers used to say, what about the blood? That is, what about all the painful consequences at a very human level of all this difficult and precipitous change? How do we find peace in a deeper ground while acknowledging and welcoming our understandable feelings of fear, outrage, or grief and doing what we can to make a difference if we choose?.

Please join me for one or more satsangs in this monthly series (Jan-May) that include meditations for returning to and resting in our deeper ground while welcoming and working with the feelings that these challenging times evoke. There will also be a brief talk and plenty of time for sharing and discussion. This will not be a space for intellectual analysis or political discussion.

Stephan Bodian is a teacher in the nondual wisdom tradition of Zen, Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta. He's been offering the School for Awakening, an annual multi-month intensive program in spiritual unfolding and awakened living, since 2007. As a licensed psychotherapist, he brings a deep understanding of the impact of trauma and early conditioning on the process of spiritual realization and offers individual counseling and mentoring in psychospiritual integration. Stephan studied for many years with Advaita master Jean Klein and received Dharma transmission from Adyashanti in 2001. His books include Wake Up Now and Beyond Mindfulness. For more information, visit : www.stephanbodian.org

Suggested donation: $15 to $40
No one turned away for lack of funds. Any amount welcome.
Stephan Bodian has offered that all donations for this event will go
to support Open Circle in continuing this work of offering teachings.

REGISTER

Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter

A meeting with Lisa is an encounter in openness and silence, where you are invited just as you are and where you will find clear and loving support for your awakening.

You are invited into a community space that values the transmission of peace and love that is present here. In your search for freedom, you can rest in stopping. You can find stillness in Satsang.

“Satsang” means “in the company of Truth” – it describes a meeting where we gather together to uncover our True Nature.

Lisa offers guidance for your awakening, and would love to hear what you are discovering in yourself. All of your spiritual questions and reports are welcome as we discover together how to meet the intensity of the world with an open and loving heart.

This is an embrace of inclusion and an inquiry into the heart of the truth, as it transmits through your life.

All are welcome.

During our meeting together, Lisa will support you with deep stillness and skillful self-inquiry to open to your true nature, leaving behind the illusion of a separate self. During the webinar, you may rest in silence. This is deeply nourishing. We will begin each meeting sitting in silence.

About Lisa Schumacher

Lisa grew up in Colusa, CA, and attended college at San Luis Obispo in the 1980’s. After she moved to Southern Oregon in the early 90s, a friend invited her to a video satsang with Gangaji. Upon hearing Gangaji say “Be your Natural Self”, Lisa’s heart caught on fire and she fell into a deep bow of surrender. That meeting revealed to her the absolute simplicity of the natural, living truth of Love, inseparable from who one is. Lisa moved to Bolinas in 1999 to be closer to Gangaji and the vibrant community around her.

In 2006, Lisa was asked by Gangaji to meet with people and share her discovery of the Love that is alive in the core of one’s being . She holds meetings in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and North America. She’s also a long-time student of Eli Jaxon-Bear, Gangaji’s husband, and a founding teacher of the “Leela School of Awakening”. Lisa is the author of “The Stone I Love”, a book of poetry inspired by her meeting with Gangaji, available on her website.

In Lisa’s meetings, she invites you to rest in stillness. Your discoveries and questions about awakening, deepening, and the unfolding truth are welcome. The teaching is in the tradition of Gangaji, who is a student of Papaji, who had his awakening at the feet of Ramana Maharshi.

Lisa's website: satsangwithlisa.org

Suggested donation: $15 to $40
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.

REGISTER

The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter

Join us for a silent group meditation. Do your own practice quietly in the company of others. Let’s be present, together. .... more details
Mon.: 8:00am – 8:30am (PT) and Wed.: 9:00am – 9:30am (PT)
Ongoing drop-in group – attend as often as you like.
Weekly, with rare exceptions. Verify dates on Full Calendar.

REGISTER

Engaged Nonduality
Re-Sourcing Ourself in a World in Crisis
with John J. Prendergast, Ph.D. and Lisa Ferguson, Ph.D.

Recording will be emailed to participants within a week.
You’re welcome to join even if you can’t attend the live session.

As an informal community of nondual contemplatives who feel deeply moved by the historically-unique existential crises that we now face, how do we respond in a truly creative way? And how do we not succumb to the burnout that political activists so frequently experience?

The answer lies in our capacity to repeatedly re-source ourself in the ultimate source – the heart and ground of being. As we consciously discover the Great Heart behind the human heart and the Groundless Ground beneath our self-constructed ground, we experience a sense of well-being independent of outer circumstances. This discovery is profoundly nourishing to our conditioned body-mind, allowing us to replenish from the deepest source of life. This brings an openness, freshness, spontaneity, and love for life that inspires our creative action in the world.

This meeting will include silent and guided meditations, self-inquiry, a talk, and experiential conversations.

The Engaged Nonduality series

This Engaged Nonduality series, hosted by Lisa Ferguson, explores how nondual wisdom may respond to our world in crisis. We live in a time of multiple intersecting crises that threaten the wellbeing of all life, including climate breakdown, unaligned tech and AI, injustice, war and authoritarianism. The recognition of nonduality has much to offer in these times, including a deep knowing of our wholeness and shared Being, as well as opening to the wellspring of our wise and creative response. This series invites guest presenters to explore how nondual teaching may respond to planetary crises through talks, practices and group participation.

John J. Prendergast, Ph.D. is the author of The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence (2019 ) and In Touch: How to Tune In to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself (2015) and is working on a new book entitled Your Deepest Ground: A Guide to Embodied Spirituality (March 2025). He is a retired Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies as well as a retired psychotherapist. He studied with the European sage Jean Klein for many years as well as with Adyashanti who gave dharma transmission to John in August, 2023. John and his wife Christiane offer residential retreats in the United States and Europe.
www.listeningfromsilence.com
YouTube channel

Lisa Ferguson, Ph.D.is the founder of www.climatecompassion.org, and has focused on supporting planetary wellbeing as a healing arts practitioner, climate justice activist, organizer and contemplative. She offers psychospiritual support to activists through one-one sessions and small groups, weaving together a focus on awakening, healing and wise action.

Suggested Donation: $15 to $40
(any amount acceptable, no one turned away for lack of funds)
Please register early if you can.
REGISTER

The events will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter