July 2020
Getting Real on the Cushion
Given the recent eruption over racial injustice, this week's facilitated community meditation gathering will be devoted to providing a safe space to share what has been evoked within us, both individually and collectively.
From a place of grounded presence, together we will lean into and explore the collective shadows that are clearly calling out to be met. We will feel into what it is to be a primarily white sangha at this time: what emerges when we sit with this, and how we can move forward from a place of unity to support and welcome communities of color.
This open group will include a brief check-in and a 20 minute, lightly guided meditation, followed by sharing. This is an opportunity to gather together as a Sangha to support each other during these challenging times.
The group will be facilitated by Open Circle’s Kate Foley. Kate is an experienced group facilitator and is moved to offer a welcoming space for us to connect and meditate with one another during these uncertain times.
This is a dana-based offering ─ anything from $0 to whatever you are able and/or moved to donate is welcome. Any donations received this week will be donated to groups supporting an anti-racist agenda
Register to receive the event link.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
*CANCELLED* Ellen Emmet ~ The Awakening Body
***This event has been cancelled.***
If you already registered for this event, please check your email for more information.
Love Always, the Open Circle Team
Riyaz Motan, MFT ~ Embodied Presence: Listening and Guiding from Wholeness ~ 4-part Course
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.
4-part Course:
Fridays, July 10, 17, 24, 31
10:00 am – 12:30 pm, Pacific Time
This course is for healers — psychotherapists, counselors, interns, psychology students, transformational coaches, spiritual counselors, holistic practitioners, body/mind workers and other related healers that are interested the therapeutic applications of nondual wisdom. It is an invitation to explore our healing work as a sacred path of embodied awakening.
While many of us already have our own spiritual practices that support and inform us in our work; this course invites us to more deeply explore and integrate our awakening into our work with clients. We will learn to attune to presence, and practice listening and relating from our deepest ground. In doing so, we open ourselves up to the root source of healing and wholeness — the ground of being; we open up our bodies and our innate sensitivity, and we allow for the emergence of intuition and heart wisdom to inform and guide our healing work.
Over the course of four weekly meetings, we will explore the following areas:
- Listening, speaking, and relating from embodied presence.
- Being the context, not getting lost in content
- Learning to rest in, and trust, the unknown.
- Energetic resonance; listening with your whole being/whole body.
- Creating ‘experiential portals’; honing in on your clients’ beliefs, feelings, sensations, and the relational field to facilitate spontaneous and deep discovery.
- Inviting the client to explore their experience from unconditional presence; helping them to drop below the problem-solving mind, to be fully present and open, and to allow for the spontaneous unfolding of their experience.
- Exploring the foundational role of energetic transmission in the healing relationship.
Riyaz Motan, MFT is a licensed psychotherapist and has been in practice for over 20 years. He has been a long-time clinical supervisor to students and interns, as well as serving as an adjunct professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
In 2013, Riyaz took over teaching The Art of Listening at CIIS from his mentor, John Prendergast, PhD., who is a seminal figure and pioneer in the nondual approach to psychotherapy. Riyaz offers consultation, trainings and presentations on this nondual approach to psychotherapy.
Sliding Scale: $60 to $120
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
Stephan Bodian ~ Sharing the Love That We Are
In this time of widespread fear, confusion, and suffering, we’re called upon to dissolve the apparent boundaries that separate us and share in the boundless love at the heart of reality. In these gatherings, we will be practicing a nondual version of the Tibetan practice of tonglen, breathing in the suffering and transmuting it in the boundless heart into peace, love, compassion, and ease of being. This practice benefits not only our brothers and sisters around the world, who are of course not separate from us, but ourselves as well, as it fills our own being with love at a relative level and transforms our individual heart into a vehicle for universal love.
In addition to the extended compassion meditation, there will be direct pointers to the groundless ground of our essential nature, as well as ample time for Q&A, dialogue, and discussion.
Stephan Bodian has been sharing the direct approach to spiritual awakening for more than 40 years. A former Buddhist monk, a licensed psychotherapist, and a longtime student of Advaita master Jean Klein, Stephan received Dharma transmission from Adyashanti in 2001. Since 2007 he has taught the annual months-long School for Awakening, which will begin again, in online form, in January 2020. His books include Wake Up Now and Beyond Mindfulness.
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 48 hours.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Stephan Bodian ~ Sharing the Love That We Are
In this time of widespread fear, confusion, and suffering, we’re called upon to dissolve the apparent boundaries that separate us and share in the boundless love at the heart of reality. In these gatherings, we will be practicing a nondual version of the Tibetan practice of tonglen, breathing in the suffering and transmuting it in the boundless heart into peace, love, compassion, and ease of being. This practice benefits not only our brothers and sisters around the world, who are of course not separate from us, but ourselves as well, as it fills our own being with love at a relative level and transforms our individual heart into a vehicle for universal love.
In addition to the extended compassion meditation, there will be direct pointers to the groundless ground of our essential nature, as well as ample time for Q&A, dialogue, and discussion.
Stephan Bodian has been sharing the direct approach to spiritual awakening for more than 40 years. A former Buddhist monk, a licensed psychotherapist, and a longtime student of Advaita master Jean Klein, Stephan received Dharma transmission from Adyashanti in 2001. Since 2007 he has taught the annual months-long School for Awakening, which will begin again, in online form, in January 2020. His books include Wake Up Now and Beyond Mindfulness.
Find out more »Tilicho ~ Deep Dive into Awakening and Healing: 2nd Chakra – 4-Hour Workshop
During this series of workshops with Tilicho, we inquire about our Real Nature and bring awareness and healing to the traumas and mind patterns preventing us from really being ourselves: from opening to the present moment as it is.
This session focuses on the second chakra: Desires, Sexuality, Money and Death.
You are invited to dive deep within, and from a place of Self-recognition, let all causes of suffering emerge to the surface, in a safe atmosphere of love, compassion and understanding.
Thanks to the very interactive format of the meeting, you’ll be able to receive personal guidance and suggestions about your awakening and healing journey.
We meet from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm, with a half an hour break.
This workshop is part of a monthly series, where we explore ourselves chakra by chakra. You are welcome to attend the whole series, or join individual workshops, even if you have not attended the previous ones.
Tilicho spontaneously realized the Self in 1998 without following any teaching or practice. The absence of spiritual conditioning allowed her to see through the veils of spiritual idealism and illusions. She ended up spending thirteen years in Tiruvannamalai in south India, the seat of Ramana Maharshi and the sacred mountain, Arunachala. While recognizing the beauty of the Advaita teachings, she also observed that they can easily be misunderstood and distorted. Although the Self is eternally free from the world, it is not separate from it. Clarity does not exclude openness. Her teaching stresses the need to combine Masculine and Feminine qualities and approaches. It is an invitation to find unity within and without.
Sliding Scale: $25 to $50
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within 48 hours.
You're welcome to join, even if you can't attend the live session.
Time Zone Converter
Tilicho ~ Deep Dive into Awakening and Healing: 2nd Chakra – 4-Hour Workshop
During this series of workshops with Tilicho, we inquire about our Real Nature and bring awareness and healing to the traumas and mind patterns preventing us from really being ourselves: from opening to the present moment as it is.
This session focuses on the second chakra: Desires, Sexuality, Money and Death.
You are invited to dive deep within, and from a place of Self-recognition, let all causes of suffering emerge to the surface, in a safe atmosphere of love, compassion and understanding.
Tilicho spontaneously realized the Self in 1998 without following any teaching or practice. The absence of spiritual conditioning allowed her to see through the veils of spiritual idealism and illusions. Although the Self is eternally free from the world, it is not separate from it. Clarity does not exclude openness. Her teaching is an invitation to find unity within and without.
Find out more »Marlies Myoku Cocheret ~ The I of the Storm – A 4-part Course
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.
4-part Course: July 21, 23, 28, 30
10:00 am – 12:00 noon, Pacific Time
Join Marlies and friends in these series of four online satsangs and bring the realization of the stillness that you are into your living reality.
These times demand a strong presence and ruthless tenderness if we are to care for the world as love right now. The silence of love is our only Refuge. Are you ready to rest as the I of the storm?
During these satsangs, Marlies guides us in meditation and gives dharma talks. You are invited to share so please bring your experience, presence and questions. You will receive great support as we weather the down pouring of division and bewilderment that these times have brought upon us.
Marlies Myoku 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. She helps people to see that freedom and peace lie not in escaping from difficulties, but rather in completely welcoming and receiving all that the Mystery presents.
She has been offering satsang and retreat since 2000 when Adyashanti asked her to teach. Marlies is trained as a psychologist in The Netherlands, a Hakomi therapist, and a Tantric educator. For over 25 years she has been ushering seekers into living the Divine in the body. She has a passion and a gift for bringing together the Sensual Body and the Silence of our Being.
She lives in Santa Cruz; California and works internationally. 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.”
Sliding Scale: $70 to $120
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
Marlies Myoku Cocheret ~ The I of the Storm – A 4-part Course
Join Marlies and friends in these series of four online satsangs and bring the realization of the stillness that you are into your living reality.
These times demand a strong presence and ruthless tenderness if we are to care for the world as love right now. The silence of love is our only Refuge. Are you ready to rest as the I of the storm?
During these satsangs, Marlies guides us in meditation and gives dharma talks. You are invited to share so please bring your experience, presence and questions. You will receive great support as we weather the down pouring of division and bewilderment that these times have brought upon us.
Marlies has devoted her life to the Beloved. She brings a potent invitation into the deep Silence that we are. She helps people to see that freedom and peace lie not in escaping from difficulties, but rather in completely welcoming and receiving all that the Mystery presents.
She has been offering satsang and retreat since 2000 when Adyashanti asked her to teach. 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
Getting Real on the Cushion
Given the recent eruption over racial injustice, this week's facilitated community meditation gathering will be devoted to providing a safe space to share what has been evoked within us, both individually and collectively.
From a place of grounded presence, together we will lean into and explore the collective shadows that are clearly calling out to be met. We will feel into what it is to be a primarily white sangha at this time: what emerges when we sit with this, and how we can move forward from a place of unity to support and welcome communities of color.
This open group will include a brief check-in and a 20 minute, lightly guided meditation, followed by sharing. This is an opportunity to gather together as a Sangha to support each other during these challenging times.
The group will be facilitated by Open Circle’s Kate Foley. Kate is an experienced group facilitator and is moved to offer a welcoming space for us to connect and meditate with one another during these uncertain times.
This is a dana-based offering ─ anything from $0 to whatever you are able and/or moved to donate is welcome. Any donations received this week will be donated to groups supporting an anti-racist agenda
Register to receive the event link.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter