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March 2025

Stephan Bodian ~ Waking Up Through the Metacrisis: Finding Deeper Ground in Challenging Times

Saturday, March 8, 2025 @ 9:00am-10:30am (Pacific Time)

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.

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

Find out more »

Engaged Nonduality: Love in Action ~ Rev. Deborah Lee, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Ph.D., and Lisa Ferguson Ph.D.

Sunday, March 9, 2025 @ 9:00am-11:00am (Pacific Time)

As of SUNDAY early morning March 9th, clocks in the USA are turned forward 1 hour - "Spring Ahead". Daylight Savings Time begins.
The time shown for this event is Pacific Daylight Time.

Engaged Nonduality: Love in Action
with With Rev. Deborah Lee, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, 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.

In this action-oriented session of the Engaged Nonduality Series, Lisa will be joined by two speakers who have extensive experience bringing love into action. While the community of nondual contemplatives is informal and emphasizes direct knowing, we can learn a lot from other spiritual communities that have deeply engaged with action and ethics. Rev. Deborah Lee leads the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, whose core value is the sacredness of each person and a commitment to stand in solidarity with those who are not treated as sacred. Dr. Moe-Lobeda carries deep wisdom of understanding and communicating structural sources of harm and leverage points for collective love in action. She compassionately encourages us to wake up to new ways of seeing, and new possibilities of being. We will weave the wisdom of these courageous speakers with the wisdom of the nondual understanding and explore how love is moving us into action.

This session will include meditation, talks, inspiring stories, experiential exercises, and time for participant Q&A.

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.

Rev. Deborah Lee is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, which envisions a world without harm, advocating for a world where every person is considered sacred across bars and borders. With over 30 years dedicated to the intersection of faith and social justice, Rev. Deborah Lee brings expertise in various realms, including popular education, community organizing, and advocacy. Her commitment is evident in her multifaceted engagement with issues such as race, gender, economic justice, anti-militarism, LGBTQ inclusion, and immigrant rights and abolition.
Under Rev. Lee’s leadership, IM4HI’s accomplishments range from closing detention centers and preventing deportations to responding to the needs of arriving immigrant youth and families. They’ve also established Sanctuary congregations and initiated efforts to divest from prisons and other carceral systems of harm, investing instead in thriving and healthy communities.

Cynthia Moe-Lobeda (she/her), is Founding Director of the Center for Climate Justice and Faith, and is a co-founder of Seattle University’s Center for Environmental Justice and Sustainability. She is a Professor of Theological and Social Ethics, who has lectured or consulted around the world on ethics, agency and hope, climate justice as related to race and class, economic globalization, faith-based resistance to systemic injustice, and eco-feminism. She is author or co-author of six volumes and over 50 articles and chapters. Her Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation won a Nautilus Book Award. Her most recent book, Building a Moral Economy: Pathways for People of Courage, is an invitation to courageous creativity, and to explore economic life as spiritual practice.

Lisa Ferguson, Ph.D.is the founder of Climate Compassion, 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.

To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter

Find out more »

Lisa Schumacher ~ Your True Nature (In-Person & Livestream)

Thursday, March 13, 2025 @ 7:00pm-9:00pm (Pacific Time)
Sunrise Center (& Livestream), 645 Tamalpais Dr, Suite A
Corte Madera, CA, USA & LIVESTREAM, Worldwide, CA

Open Circle is hosting a series of SATSANGS & a DAYLONG with Lisa Schumacher in California, USA.
March 13th (7-9 pm, PT) ~ Corte Madera, CA
March 14th (7-9 pm, PT) ~ Berkeley, CA
March 15th Daylong (10:30am - 4:30pm, PT) ~ Fairfax, CA
March 16th (2-4 pm, PT) ~ Sebastopol, CA

All events are In-Person ~
Livestream
is also available for March 13th to 15th
Click here to access details & registration for ALL events in series.

A meeting with Lisa is an opportunity to step away from your day to day life and devote time for inquiry into the source of who you are. There will be a few moments of silence to start the meeting and then Lisa will speak and invite you to share about your realizations and ask questions about awakening.

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 $30
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Pre-registration for In-Person attandance closes at Midnight on March 12 (the night before event)
Pre-registration is encouraged, but you can also just show up & pay at door. Come & join us!

OR


If you register for Recording access by event date, link to access it will be sent to you within a week.
If you register for Recording access AFTER event date, please forward your confirmation email to web@opencirclecenter.org to notify us that you registered after event date.

For inquiries contact LocalEvents@opencirclecenter.org

If you have symptoms of a respiratory infection, or have had a recent
Covid exposure or positive test, please stay home out of consideration for others.

Find out more »

Lisa Schumacher ~ Your True Nature (In-Person & Livestream)

Friday, March 14, 2025 @ 7:00pm-9:00pm (Pacific Time)
Northbrae Community Church (& Livestream), 941 The Alameda
Berkeley, CA, USA & LIVESTREAM, Worldwide,

Open Circle is hosting a series of SATSANGS & a DAYLONG with Lisa Schumacher in California, USA.
March 13th (7-9 pm, PT) ~ Corte Madera, CA
March 14th (7-9 pm, PT) ~ Berkeley, CA
March 15th Daylong (10:30am - 4:30pm, PT) ~ Fairfax, CA
March 16th (2-4 pm, PT) ~ Sebastopol, CA

All events are In-Person ~
Livestream
is also available for March 13th to 15th
Click here to access details & registration for ALL events in series.

A meeting with Lisa is an opportunity to step away from your day to day life and devote time for inquiry into the source of who you are. There will be a few moments of silence to start the meeting and then Lisa will speak and invite you to share about your realizations and ask questions about awakening.

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 $30
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Pre-registration for In-Person attandance closes at Midnight on March 13 (the night before event)
Pre-registration is encouraged, but you can also just show up & pay at door. Come & join us!

OR


If you register for Recording access by event date, link to access it will be sent to you within a week.
If you register for Recording access AFTER event date, please forward your confirmation email to web@opencirclecenter.org to notify us that you registered after event date.

For inquiries contact LocalEvents@opencirclecenter.org

If you have symptoms of a respiratory infection, or have had a recent
Covid exposure or positive test, please stay home out of consideration for others.

Find out more »

Lisa Schumacher ~ Let Love Lead You, return to what is Sacred ~ Daylong (In-Person & Livestream)

Saturday, March 15, 2025 @ 10:30am-4:30pm (Pacific Time)
Private country home & LIVESTREAM Fairfax, CA United States

Open Circle is hosting a series of SATSANGS & a DAYLONG with Lisa Schumacher in California, USA.
March 13th (7-9 pm, PT) ~ Corte Madera, CA
March 14th (7-9 pm, PT) ~ Berkeley, CA
March 15th Daylong (10:30am - 4:30pm, PT) ~ Fairfax, CA
March 16th (2-4 pm, PT) ~ Sebastopol, CA

All events are In-Person ~
Livestream
is also available for March 13th to 15th
Click here to access details & registration for ALL events in series.

To be yourself is to be free and at peace with yourself and your life. Through direct inquiry, it is possible for you to discover that the source of happiness is alive in the core of your Being right now. The support for this is waiting for your attention.

In our retreat together, we will cultivate deep insight with silence, inquiry and opening to what we love. All are welcome.

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

Pre-registration is Required for In-Person Attendance to this Daylong, as space is limited.
Registration for In-Person attendance closes at Midnight on March 14 (the night before event)
Sliding Scale: $60 to $120
No one turned away for lack of funds.

OR


If you register for Recording access by event, link to access it will be sent to you within a week.
If you register for Recording access AFTER event, please forward your confirmation email to web@opencirclecenter.org with your request that we send the recording.

 
For inquiries contact LocalEvents@opencirclecenter.org

Lunch:
Bring your own lunch, or drive 5 minutes into town where there are restaurants, as well as the Good Earth Natural Foods Store that has a full hot and salad bar, plus deli.

Location:
The meeting will be held at a private home in the Fairfax hills, with views of Mount Tam and hiking trails. Address and directions will be provided upon registration.

If you have symptoms of a viral infection, or have had a recent
Covid exposure or positive test, please stay home out of consideration for others.

Find out more »

Ishita Sharma ~ Embodiment Lab – Experiments in Embodying Presence

Sunday, March 23, 2025 @ 9:00am - 10:30am (Pacific Time)

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.

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

Find out more »

April 2025

Stephan Bodian ~ Waking Up Through the Metacrisis: Finding Deeper Ground in Challenging Times

Saturday, April 5, 2025 @ 9:00am-10:30am (Pacific Time)

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.

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

Find out more »

Dorothy Hunt ~ Honoring the Life and Teachings of Ramana Maharshi ~ Retreat Day (In-Person & Livestream)

Saturday, April 12, 2025 @ 10:00am-4:00pm (Pacific Time)
Community Congregational Church of Tiburon ~ & LIVESTREAM, 145 Rock Hill Drive
Tiburon, CA United States

“There is no greater mystery than this—that being the Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.”

Ramana Maharshi has been a light shining in the darkness for countless seekers of Truth.  His expression of Truth beautifully and lovingly embodies the Absolute, and yet his method of Self-Inquiry does not require seekers to leave home, hearth, job, or family life.  In his words, “All that is required to realize the Self is to be still.”  Join us for this day of silence and satsang, reflecting on the life and teachings of this great sage. There will be a 1½-hour break for lunch and afternoon tea.  Apart from satsang, the retreat will be held in silence.


Dorothy Hunt, Spiritual Director of Moon Mountain Sangha will facilitate this retreat day. She is a teacher in the spiritual lineage of Adyashanti and founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy. Dorothy has a long and deep connection with the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and offers this day to any who are interested in coming to sit in silence and listen with the Heart.

Presently, Dorothy offers satsang and retreats via Zoom, and dokusan by phone. For more information, please visit www.dorothyhunt.org

Pre-registration is Required for In-Person attendance.
Pre-registration for In-Person attandance closes at Midnight on April 11th (the night before event)
Sliding Scale: $60 to $120
No one turned away for lack of funds.

OR


If you register for Recording access by event, link to access it will be sent to you within a week.
If you register for Recording access AFTER event, please forward your confirmation email to web@opencirclecenter.org with your request that we send the recording.

For inquiries contact LocalEvents@opencirclecenter.org

Lunch: There will be a 1 & 1/2 hour lunch break.
Bring your own lunch to eat outside on the patio overlooking the Bay.

If you have symptoms of a viral infection, or have had a recent
Covid exposure or positive test, please stay home out of consideration for others.

Find out more »

May 2025

Stephan Bodian ~ Waking Up Through the Metacrisis: Finding Deeper Ground in Challenging Times

Saturday, May 3, 2025 @ 9:00am-10:30am (Pacific Time)

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.

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

Find out more »
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