March 2023
Stephan Bodian ~ Meditation without a Meditator: From Deliberate Awareness to Nondual Presence ~ 2-Part Online Retreat
March 4 & 5, 2023
9:00 am – 12:00 pm, Pacific Time
Time Zone Converter
Event will be recorded and emailed
to participants after each meeting.
You're welcome to join even if you can't attend all the live sessions.
Many seekers who shift from progressive approaches like deliberate mindfulness to a more direct approach continue to search for the right meditative strategy, the sweet spot that allows them to let go of their efforting and drop into their natural state of nondual presence. But paradoxically it’s this very strategizing that needs to drop away as presence reveals itself to be the nature of reality, the deeper ground beyond a separate self, not something that you can strategize into being. You can’t do it—you can only join the nondual presence that’s always already taking place.
So how exactly can you position your awareness to fall into nondual presence? In this two-day mini-retreat you’ll learn how to take the backward step to illuminate the deeper ground of Being as your true nature or true Self beyond all division. Once that deeper identity has been revealed, you no longer have to search for what is already so blatantly obvious. You merely need to be it.
The retreat will feature self-inquiry, direct pointers to the nature of reality, and a series of guided meditations that lead you through the stages of awakening to nondual presence. In nondual presence life unfolds effortlessly, without an illusory someone in charge of the unfolding, as an expression of the exquisite intelligence at the heart of the Mystery. Absolute and relative dimensions of Being—universal and individual, trans/impersonal and personal, one and many—dissolve into a single, vibrant, multidimensional, perfectly imperfect current of love and manifestation. Just This!
Bio
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 a five-session mentoring intensive 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.
More about Stephan Bodian: www.stephanbodian.org
Sliding Scale: $60 to $90
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.
Pamela Wilson ~ Nourishing Stillness, Nourishing Ourselves ~ 4 Part Online Retreat
March 8, 10, 15 & 17, 2023
10:00 am – 12:00 pm, Pacific Time
Time Zone Converter
Event will be recorded and emailed
to participants after each meeting.
You're welcome to join even if you can't attend all the live sessions.
Self Care for the Divine in form! Join Pamela and Friends for an inquiry into opening to being nourished in every way, within, without… Allowing the constancy of gentle support and nourishing strength to renew and refresh our beingness and all others.
Like a kink in a garden hose, "I can'ts", ideas and habits can separate us from the all pervading loving sustenance of Life.
As Life, we are uncontained, receptive and at ease with receiving and giving….from our breath, sunlight, evening stars, friends, creativity. Life can appear to wear us down, but in the deep rest of the rooted return to substratum we rise, refreshed, with less history.
Pamela Wilson evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She is celebrated for her ability to open the heart and create a space in which long-cherished struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please bring your questions!
More about Pamela: www.pamelasatsang.com
Please note Daylight Savings Time starts in the US before the 3rd retreat meeting,
which may influence your local start time if you're tuning in from abroad.
Sliding Scale: $80 to $120
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT ~ EMBODIED AWAKENING: Healing Your Body-Mind
This event will explore how we heal our body-mind through the experience of embodied awakening. When we bring awake awareness to our physical, emotional, and mental issues, and allow them to rest in that presence, a healing takes place in a way that is not possible otherwise.
A direct experience of this will be facilitated through guided meditation and shared presence. Lynn Marie will also offer her therapeutic experience and skills as needed.
It is best to attend this event live in order to benefit more personally. However, you are welcome to register and attend through the recording.
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT is a nondual psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and author. She offers knowledge and wisdom gained from over 30 years of experience both as a therapist and with nondual spiritual teachings. She is the author of Awakened Relating:
A Guide to Embodying Undivided Love in Intimate Relationships and The Awakening West: Evidence of a Spreading Enlightenment.
Sliding Scale: $25 to $45
Some Partial Scholarships Available
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
Chesaray & Julian ~ The Alchemy of Connection: Exploring the Transformative Power of Dyads
In this two hour event we will open with a mediation, explore a dyad, and have time for exchanges with Chesaray and Julian. Dyads are an exceptional way to deepen in the felt sense of presence, relationally heal, and explore one's growing edge.
Our personality is a collection of conditioning we received largely from our relating with other human beings and that conditioning informs our experience. Working with others in a dyad is a direct way to see the conditioning, meet it with heart, and let it go. Done with care, sincerity, and presence, the space between two people, can become a vehicle for healing and awakening.
The power of co-inquiry can bring aliveness into our everyday relating, develop our capacity to co-regulate, and shift how we view ourselves.
For more information about other Dyad offerings visit www.chesaray.org/co-led-retreats
Chesaray offers courses, sessions, and retreats based in non-duality, embodied awakening, and the healing arts. Chesaray's search for “What is Real?” began as early as she can remember. Life has always been her greatest teacher. Experiences as a teen drove her into an unavoidable contemplation of grief, God, and death. Her university studies in Philosophy of Mind and Buddhism led her to study abroad in India, where she set her heart on embodying freedom. She was gifted with a non-dual awakening at 22 with Jon Bernie that lifted a tremendous amount of unconscious suffering from her shoulders, and has since experienced the fire of that opening guiding her life. Exploration of the psyche, soul, and soma has led her into ongoing training and practice in meditation, conscious movement, bodywork, psycho-therapeutic modalities and a devotion to learning from life experience. She descended into a dark night of the Soul for many years and she is left with an abiding experience of the heart of Being and a gift of healing Grace.
Julian's strength of presence deepens and amplifies people's direct connection with their True Nature. He carries a gentleness, delicacy and precision for integrating all aspects of our humanity in the process of awakening. His intuitive capacity supports people in finding the root of what challenges them most and encourages a steady awakening to reality. Julian has a background in practicing with multiple spiritual masters, as well as training in men’s work, group work, energetic bodywork, and post traumatic growth somatic therapy. He brings a holistic approach to helping people heal, rest into their True Nature and embody who they really are.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
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
Marlies Myoku Cocheret ~ Women’s Satsang ‘Woman Flowering’ (for Women Only)
Dear Woman,
You are wide-open and eternally free space filled with potentiality and love. That is it! Very simple. Your beautiful female body rests and is held within that silent-space. Your body is strong, lush and precious - like a flower. Beauty! We need to care for that beauty so that the light that we are shines brightly. It takes silence, deep listening and tender hands to open the petals of your flower one by one.
During this satsang, we enter sacred space together. We begin in silence and are nourished by our precious nature, our home ground, which I call the Great Her. This is our foundation .... our soil, the source of our vitality. Through meditation, sharing, and gentle movement, we allow ourselves to be fully touched by the all of you - your physicality, psychology, felt sense, emotions, thinking and being. Then, in surrender we enter the mystery. We are taken by deliciousness, power and aliveness. There is an utter welcoming of all of you - your humanity and your divinity. The perfect soil for Woman Flowering!
Come and join this adventure!
Special Note from Marlies:
'For my women events, I work best with cisgender women. Working with transgender women is outside my area of expertise. I have a colleague who is well experienced in this field that I am happy to refer transgender women to.' - Marlies
To read more about Marlies' 'Way of Woman' events, please click HERE.
Marlies Myoku Cocheret de la Morinière has devoted her life to the Beloved. She brings a potent invitation into the deep Silence that we are. The kindness of her gentle and direct teaching guides us home like a lighthouse. Marlies has been offering satsang and retreat since 2000 when Adyashanti asked her to teach. She lives in Santa Cruz, California and works internationally as a psychologist, Hakomi therapist and Tantric Educator.
Marlies is interviewed in the book Awakened Relating. A Guide To Embodying Undivided Love in Intimate Relationships by Lynn Marie Lumiere, and in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom by R.M. Robinson.
“With Adya, the bottom fell out. I deeply knew I am not this body, mind, thought, psyche, and I am also all these things as well. There was no in and/or out. All is One.”
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
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
Jeannie Zandi ~ Meeting Gnarly States
Join Jeannie and friends to navigate the terrain of meeting challenging human states and how to stay present.
Jeannie’s gift for inviting people to join her in resting and rooted presence evokes a deep meeting with oneself and reality. Within that, Jeannie’s humor and iconoclasm serve to bring people into an understanding that is beyond the intellectual. Through silent and guided meditation, spontaneous talks and exchange with participants, Jeannie will host a space of clarity and warmth where the richness of relating can be explored safely and your innermost questions met fully.
Jeannie Zandi is the director of Living as Love, a nonprofit organization dedicated to seeding a culture of the Heart on the planet, inspiring, teaching and supporting people to live from their essence as Love. A year before the birth of her daughter, Jeannie was plunged into a dark night of the soul that culminated in a radical shift of consciousness. She is known for her fearless clarity, tender mercy toward humanness, and a juicy, poetic and often humorous style that draws from Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Christian mysticism and the ongoing revelation of fully engaged living.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
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
April 2023
Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
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.
Gail Brenner, Ph.D ~ Bringing Heaven to Earth: Fully Alive in Everyday Life ~ 3-Part Online Course
3-Part Online Course
Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday - April 15, 18 & 20, 2023
9:00 am – 11:30 am, Pacific Time, each day
Starts at noon Eastern, 5pm UK, 6pm CET
Time Zone Converter
Recording will be sent out each day to all who register
You're welcome to join even if you can't attend all the live sessions.
The nondual teaching invites us to recognize the truth of who we are beyond any conditioned ideas about ourselves. And this recognition changes everything.
We no longer believe the fear-based, limited ideas we hold about ourselves and the world, and we open to everything, flowing with things as they are. Rather than needing to fix and control, we get out of our heads and rest effortlessly as the Being that we are, loving whatever appears.
This knowing radically transforms our relationships with others, how we relate to ourselves when we’re triggered, and how we meet the challenges that arise in the course of human life. Where before we felt stuck and limited, we now live in wonder, curiosity, and heart.
Let’s gather in loving community to explore living everyday life with nothing in the way…endlessly available to all that is…
This 3-session course offers you an invitation to open to a fresh way of being, fully aligned with your natural essence as whole, peaceful, primed for joy, and lacking nothing. You’ll learn to untangle the limited ways you think about yourself and find your way home to the ever present space of inner aliveness, the sacredness of all of Life.
Each session includes guided meditation, clarifying wisdom, small group sharing, Q&A, and joyful celebration together. You’ll come away with skills to feel grounded, safe, and connected within yourself and in your life. You’ll experience more space for the natural arising of intimacy, generosity, inspiration, and delight.
“This course has changed my life. Gail is able to transform through her presence and I think anyone open to healing would benefit.” ~ Erica C.
Session 1: How We Show Up for Ourselves and for Life
We’ll name and explore essential qualities of awakened awareness: openness, curiosity, humility, compassion, and devotion. How do we embody these qualities in everyday life?
Session 2: Insight Into Conditioned Patterns
We’ll understand how we contract into limiting ideas about ourselves and forget the truth of our being. We’ll practice wise and kind ways to be with emotions and the nervous system.
Session 3: Awake in Everyday Life
We’ll get practical about relationships, resentments, hurts, frustrations of daily life, and anything else you’re struggling with. How do we navigate these situations without losing our authentic Being? How can you, more and more, step into your full magnificence as you were meant to be?
“Gail creates, embodies and models a very safe space which is helping to create safety in myself on a day to day level which is Huge.” ~ H.F.
Free Information Session: Please join Gail for a free information session on Thursday, April 13 at 9am Pacific, noon Eastern, 5pm BST. You’ll learn more about the course and get a taste of the safe and loving community that supports this work. Please click the link to register.
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qdOuprj8uHdG2HNeCxXyO7jk_TP3CmzRY
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
"I feel accepted, included, safe, loved and also, as importantly, I feel that my presence in the group can offer the same qualities to others.” ~ Sue E.
"It was pure delight (and relief) to find such a healing container in this sangha group. Gail's masterful facilitation and unhurried attention to our experience of coming together, shifting into direct experience, and powerful questions were grounding and illuminating.” ~ Lisa L.
Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is your guide. As a psychologist, author, and teacher, she transmits a love of truth with a fire that burns brightly. Gail is an expert in healing from early trauma and brings to this work years of experience with individuals and groups. She is known for creating the safe space needed for deep inner exploration. Gail is the author of the award-winning The End of Self-Help and Suffering Is Optional.
Sliding Scale: $80 to $130
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.
Jeannie Zandi ~ Will
Join Jeannie and friends to explore the theme of will, personal will, Holy will and the right use of will.
Jeannie’s gift for inviting people to join her in resting and rooted presence evokes a deep meeting with oneself and reality. Within that, Jeannie’s humor and iconoclasm serve to bring people into an understanding that is beyond the intellectual. Through silent and guided meditation, spontaneous talks and exchange with participants, Jeannie will host a space of clarity and warmth where the richness of relating can be explored safely and your innermost questions met fully.
Jeannie Zandi is the director of Living as Love, a nonprofit organization dedicated to seeding a culture of the Heart on the planet, inspiring, teaching and supporting people to live from their essence as Love. A year before the birth of her daughter, Jeannie was plunged into a dark night of the soul that culminated in a radical shift of consciousness. She is known for her fearless clarity, tender mercy toward humanness, and a juicy, poetic and often humorous style that draws from Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Christian mysticism and the ongoing revelation of fully engaged living.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
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
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT ~ FREEDOM FROM LOW-SELF-ESTEEM IS POSSIBLE
Do you think negatively about yourself? Are you overly critical of yourself and lack confidence?
Many people in our Western world have negative thoughts about themselves, which may stem from unhappy childhoods, and the effects of media, school systems, etc. When we identify with these thoughts, believing them to be true, they form an artificial self. Our artificial self is made up of many thoughts, beliefs and programs that we have become identified with on all levels: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
To be fully free from low self-esteem, we need to remember who we truly are. To do that, we connect with our Natural Self, which is not really a self, it is a vast Being. It is our Nature—pure and untouched by programming or emotional trauma/wounding.
The more we come into our Natural Self, the more we can disidentify with the artificial self. By doing this, programming related to low self-esteem naturally resolves, if we allow it to. Our Nature is the only power that can do that!
This 3-hour webinar will include guided meditation, experiential process, and dialogue. It is recommended that you attend in person to benefit from working with Lynn Marie directly. However, you are welcome to register and attend by watching the recording.
Participant feedback: “I feel inspired when I am with Lynn Marie, inspired by her presence and her own human/healing/spiritual journey. I feel naturally encouraged: I too can heal. I too can drop old false beliefs and grow into greater clarity of awareness, greater ease in my experience of being, and greater freedom.”
Lynn Marie Lumiere is a seasoned psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and author. She offers a rare blend of embodied spiritual wisdom with a skilled therapeutic approach that facilitates healing of psychological trauma/wounding and the embodiment of awakening. Her depth of experience, rooted in her own healing and awakening journey, spans decades of expertly guiding individuals in the resolution of their trauma and into connection with their true nature. She is a trustworthy and competent guide for both healing and freedom on all levels, with a natural empathy for the human struggle that is born of her own life process. She is also the author of Awakened Relating: A Guide to Embodying Undivided Love in Intimate Relationships.
Sliding Scale: $25 to $45
Some Partial Scholarships Available
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