One of the Radiant Mind students from Germany asked me a wonderful question today, on the phone. We were talking about the practice of ‘just sitting’ and allowing everything to be as it is, which is one of the foundations of most nondual work, or the training in awakening to unconditioned awareness.

Just sitting is not the same as meditation. Meditation usually has some kind of focus, like the breath, or a mantra, and a goal as well, some kind of state we are trying to reach. Just sitting begins with the end, it begins with the recognition that there is nowhere to go, nothing to achieve, and nobody to achieve it. Our natural state, the openness of awareness itself, is not an object, not something I can find, grasp, or get any closer to than I already am.

The woman I was working with told me that the Radiant Mind course has ‘ruined her meditation practice.’ She was laughing as she said this. Then she asked me something, which I experienced as a kind of spontaneous koan, a question that arose from within her that cannot be answered by the mind. This was her question: If I am not even watching, not trying to witness, then what is the difference between just sitting and hanging around?”

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Often, when my students or clients are struggling with deep places of contraction and isolation, they will tell me they feel like a worm. This seems to be some kind of collective image for a place where we feel small, helpless and cut off from the nourishment bubbling up from inside.  Rumi refers to it here:

There is a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.
Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it Grace, whatever,
something wakes him, and he is no longer a worm.
He is the entire vineyard, and the orchard too,
the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that does not need to devour.

Rumi

This is what I am offering you, if you come to ‘The Yoga of Effortless Being’ 5 day retreat-- a chance to discover for yourself what this deep wellspring within is--how to connect with it, and how to receive this nourishment in your body, in your heart, and in your mind.

For more information about this reatreat, or to register, click here: http://tinyurl.com/343b7zk

with love
Shayla

Dear friends:

I encourage you to consider this possibility:  spending 5 days in a beautiful place, where you can look with clarity, courage, and compassion at yourself, your life, and what you really want.

In my work work with people all over the world, I am seeing that we have entered a time of great movement, a time when structures of thought, belief, and perception are breaking down. This is a time of great possibility, and it is also a time when we need support, a strong container to hold us as we learn to inquire, to express ourselves without defence or blame, and to discover what it means to be fully human.

Our bodies are not separate from the land, from the water, from the trees. When we spend time in a place where the silence is deep and the beauty profound, something opens up inside our cells. We breathe differently, we move more slowly, and we have a real chance to become truly intimate with ourselves. We will be exploring what it is to be fully present--to open to the living stream of our body, our feelings and our authentic being. We’ll learn how to move through the instincts for control and security to another way of being that is undefended, tender and deeply alive.

This is not an experience that will feel good for five days and then be gone. It is a genuine opportunity to take responsibility for yourself and your life, to find out what it means to come out of isolation and live a life of integrity and love.

Please call me or email if you have questions about this retreat.  For more information about registration and the retreat, click here:  http://tinyurl.com/343b7zk

with love
Shayla

Contrary to what many people assume, there is actually a big difference between the practice of learning to recognize and rest in awareness, and the practice of mindfulness. People often assume they are the same, and they are not. In mindfulness practice, we are focusing on the content of our moment to moment experience. In awareness, we are not really concerned with the contents--not focusing on them, and not trying to block them out either. Just letting them be as they are. Our focus is the open space, the boundless field of awareness, in which everything is happening. And of course we can’t really focus on this awareness in the way we focus on an object, like our breath, or our feelings.

So awareness practice is much more about letting go of the impulse to grasp, to understand, to fixate on anything, and just relaxing into the openness of our own being, which is always here, as soon as we are willing to let go.

love
Shayla