When clarity tilts toward the dreamlike
Greetings folks,
Please join in on tomorrow’s class! It’s a simple way to move the body, modulate the breath, and focus the mind (and even maybe sweat a bit!).
The truth is that in the practices that I share and support, there’s ultimately no future event to work towards. Yes, there are the benefits of a healthy body and a relaxed mind, the ongoing goals and achievements that are won or lost, but really the fundamental truth is simply that we are sharing time and space together, quietly.
Perhaps samadhi can be understood as everyday perceptions—“when clarity tilts toward the dreamlike”—a reorientation revealing the continuous fabric inherent within the spaces that we’re all already participating in.
Looking forward to more shared times and spaces.
Peace,
-[s]
CULTIVATE SELF KNOWLEDGE & CARE
IN GESTURES OF MEDITATION | CLASSES THIS WEEK (PACIFIC TIME)
Sunday (1/30) @ 10:15am
REGISTER | Full Led Primary Ashtanga Yoga Series
Tuesday (2/1) Doors open @ 7am, close by 10am
REGISTER | Self-paced, self-practices in a shared, trans-personal space. Mysore style and beyond. Learn more.
Thursday (2/3) Doors open @ 7am, close by 10am
REGISTER | Self-paced, self-practices in a shared, trans-personal space. Mysore style and beyond. Learn more.
Meditation & Predictive Processing
A clear, robust, and helpful discussion between neuroscientist and longtime meditator Dr. Ruben Laukkonen and Oshan Jarow on the Musing Mind podcast.
"Part of what makes our habits our habits is that we assign them high precision...so by shifting precision weighting around [through deconstructive practices like meditation], we are, by definition, loosening the tendency of the system to engage in its usual habitual responding."
How might we "draw back the preferential nature of awareness" altogether? What does 'quieting the mind' actually mean from a predictive processing point of view?
Ruben's article, “What Is the Present Moment?”
Ruben & Heleen Slagter's paper, “From many to (n)one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind”
EATING THE SKY
Monday (1/31): The New Moon happens at 9:46pm (PST) in the Sravana Nakshatra—the way of the listener, symbolized by the ear. It’s a good time to quiet down and deeply listen and receive. It’s not simple because, as the Jyotishis point out, it’s a dark moon, with no light. Underground seeds can germinate however. And in the dark we can see our own projections, and there can we discern between these projections and the sounds of Others. Quieter still, the sound within silence, as Parvaty Baul shares below.
Tuesday (2/1): Lunar New Year! The Year of the Water Tiger. “Tiger years have the potential to be explosive,” but submerged in water, this year may be less aggressive: “The water tiger is a more open-minded tiger.” | LA Times
Wednesday (2/2): Groundhog Day. Oh gawsh—we all know the drill here. Confront your shadows! We attempt to ascend and come out of our little holes and have a glimpse and a gander at the greater world. 🕳 Obviously the movie is all about change through practice and repetition, quite akin to the way Ashtanga Yoga is taught; that is, repeating the same situation every day. Here Phil Conors demonstrates that actual change is not dependent upon the external conditions, they remain the same. Yet Phil changes (inside), thus his view, orientation, and motivations alter the same dreary situation, alchemizing lead into gold.
RESONANT FREQUENCIES
This Thursday screening at Zebulon of Oulaya's Wedding, directed by Hisham Mayet with Cyrus Moussavi and Brittany Nugent. A Sublime Frequencies production.
Also resonating—
“But there is also sound in the silence, inside us.”
When will I be united
with the Man of my Heart?
Day and night
like a rainbird
I long for the Dark Moon,
hoping to become his maidservant.
But this is not my fate.
I caught a glimpse
of my Dark Lord in a dream,
and then he was gone
like a flash of lightning
vanishing into the cloud it came
from, leaving no trace.
Meditating on his image
I lose all fear of disgrace.
Poor Lalon says,
He who always loves,
knows.—Lalon Phokir (Translated from Bengali by Carol Salomon)