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Here you will find an archive of recorded monthly meditations offered by Teachers for Academy graduates. Practice portions are each approximately one hour long. Click on a title to read a description and link to the practice and/or sharing. Enjoy!
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Ale first invites us to recite the first Refuge Poem as an aspiration, helping us to connect to the expanse within our channels and chakras and, through that, with inner spaciousness. He then guides us to focus internally on our body, starting at the Secret Chakra, noticing how each corresponding part of the body feels. We also notice how each chakra, together with the Central Channel, helps us become more fully connected and supports the external posture of the body.
We next ‘do the bells’. Ale uses the sound of a bell to signal us through the transitions, first visualizing the channels, then doing the nine breathings and then moving to each chakra, first bringing our focus to that chakra and then doing the associated Tsa Lung exercise. All of this is done in silence, without any commentary from Ale. After completing these exercises, we notice how different the chakras feel than they did before.
Connecting more deeply with the sense of spaciousness in our three channels and five chakras, we next take refuge in our Body of Emptiness. As we become fully aware of that spaciousness, we experience the warmth that emerges and feel the interconnectedness amongst us all. We draw on the qualities we need to nourish ourselves and give to others.
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Inevitably in crisis we take on certain energies and stress in our bodies. In this meditation Raven guides us in using the 3 Doors and the sacred sounds of ‘Ah’, ‘Om’ and ‘Hung’ to soothe our stress and calm our worried minds.
Raven first guides us to connect with our breath to discover a sense of stillness that’s already there within us. As we experience the stillness, the open, unbounded space arises. We feel the support and warmth of the breath loosening where we hold the tightness, fear and stress.
As we deepen into this openness, we now connect to the healing power of sacred sound. We sound the warrior syllables at the Crown, Throat and Heart, aware that every cell within us is receiving the healing energy of sound, allowing us to release the stress and tension we are holding there.
At each chakra, as the sound fades, Raven encourages us to breathe the vibration that still rests in the space around us into every cell in our body, clearing the tension of our body, allowing the thinking mind to rest and our emotions to dissolve like clouds.
At ‘Ah’, as we keep listening to the silence that is in the space, we become the light of awareness that arises. We can radiate this light to any part of us that carries a story and allow it to loosen the subtle patterns of our human condition.
At ‘Om,’ we chant that sacred sound that takes us back to remember our original completeness to any part of us that is carrying a sense of lack, soothing our fears, releasing that part that is looking for whatever would make us feel safer.
At ‘Hung’, we feel this Hung like a blue vibration, flowing from our Heart, singing to those parts of us filled with doubt, judgment, blame, and bringing a sense of presence, wisdom, and compassion for our human condition.
Raven then sings the song of Ah, Om and Hung, encouraging us to go beyond the physical bodies and the stories we have been holding because we’ve forgotten, we’ve been ignorant of who we truly are.
With each breath, as we experience the warmth of our open heart, we can feel the collective breath of our sacred circle and, through this, the sense that we are all interconnected. And now we can send the warmth of our collective breath out to our families and community.
We have learned through this pandemic how important it is to wash our hands. Raven urges us to wash our inner bodies as well. Every time we wash our hands, we can chant Ah, Om Hung, and as we chant these sacred sounds, we are cleansing our inner body, through the 3 doorways of stillness of our body, silence of our speech, and spaciousness of our mind. We can show up in the midst of crisis, bringing this healing energy to our families and our community. Though we are physically distant we know this connection flows from our heart to them. The power of our own practice can benefit all.
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In this meditation, Gabriel focuses on the family – lineage, ancestors or current family members. We first reflect on what needs healing in relation to our family, allowing a flow of appearances to reveal themselves without needing to choose.
We next work with the 9 Breathings, Tsa Lung and 3 Doors. Then, resting in Refuge, we focus our attention at the heart and experience the emergence of our inherent healing qualities, the natural warmth of connecting to ourselves and to each other.
Next, abiding in Refuge, we invite a guest from family disconnection or pain – ancestors, lineage or any of the roles that get triggered in ourselves in relation to family interactions. We embrace the guest with spacious awareness and warmth. We abide with this for a while in Refuge and then release whatever has not dissolved. Continuing to rest in Refuge, we now host whatever emerges and chooses us.
Gabriel then invites us to consider others, with an understanding of how impactful family pain and suffering is, how pervasive. With compassion we recognize that It touches everyone.
In this guided practice, Marcy Vaughn leads this guided meditation for all practitioners. First, through stillness, silence, and spaciousness of mind, abiding in inner refuge. Then, noticing our response to open questions posed by Marcy, we discover how we are alive at this time to our body, our relations, our community and the natural environment, bringing the warmth of connection to all that we encounter.
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In this practice we become more familiar with the allowing self by experiencing a series of contrasts – first doing our normal practices with exaggerated effort, and then feeling the difference as we release into allowing. Each time, we move from doing to being we become more aware of the difference between the controlling self and the allowing self.
We first focus on the breath, exaggerating the effort by trying to deepen the breath, feeling the tension as we try forcing the breath. As we let go, just sitting back and allowing the breath to come and go, we experience opening and relaxation in the body. We notice how different it is when the body is open and relaxed and the mind has released any need for the breath to be different.
We next draw our attention to the 3 Channels. We first do the 9 breathings with an exaggerated intention of keeping awareness and breath together. Then, as we just feel the channel taking in the breath, we notice how the breath flows more easily into the pathway. The mind is participating without trying to control.
We then bring awareness to our throat. To open the throat chakra, we sing the syllable ‘Ah’ three times. The effort comes when we strengthen the sense that we are singing the syllable, we are making the sound. We feel the energy of trying to make the sound loud or full or trying to have it radiate. When we do ‘Ah’ again, rather than making the sound, we allow it to resonate, not needing it to be any different than whatever comes through naturally.
Laura encourages us to become aware of those moments in our practice when we drift away from deepening as a sign that we’ve switched from the allowing self to the controlling self. At that moment, we can use the felt sense of the controlling self as a signal to soften and return to the allowing self – with its ease of trusting that control is not needed, its openness to just letting things be – and rest there.
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This practice is about deepening our connection to Inner Refuge, our true essence that supports us when we are in our daily life. As we walk our daily path as humans, we will get lost, we will disconnect. We can trust our connection through the doorways, back to our Inner Refuge to help us in those times.
Raven brings into today’s meditation some of the practices she teaches in her new program Walking the Healing Path. The focus is on slowing down and deepening our awareness of both the practices themselves and of the confidence and joy we experience when we’re in Inner Refuge. In this way, we can become aware of the subtle shifts in energy that occur when we lose that connection in the chaos of our daily lives. We can then step back into Inner Refuge, watch the pain speech arise and just sit with that.
We begin with the 9 Breaths of Purification, directly experiencing the 3 Channels of Light and noticing the energy of the channels. Raven reminds us of how easy it is to do the 9 Breathings automatically and how important it is to slow down, connect to the 3 Channels and notice the breath and the warmth, how the energy moves through the channels, and how clearing the stuck energy affects our awareness. As we clear each channel, we directly experience the space that arises and rest our attention there.
We then focus on the Life Force energy in the Heart Chakra and do three Life Force Tsa Lung. We connect to the healing breath, becoming aware of the phases of the breath – inhaling to breathe in the positive qualities, holding to create warmth, movement to loosen whatever blocks the heart from opening. Slowing down and connecting on this deeper level creates a memory that can help us catch that part of ourselves that gets lost in the chaotic energy of our daily life.
Raven next guides a beautiful practice into each of the 3 Doors, using the Inner Refuge Poems to deepen and enliven the practice. She concludes by asking us to imagine how we can support ourselves in our daily lives through remembering the connection with Inner Refuge we have experienced in this practice.
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In this meditation Gabriel focuses on the precision of attention and on listening to the silence. This meditation helps us to deepen our understanding and appreciation for ways the 3 Doors interweave.
We first connect with our body and give ourselves permission to rest. Focusing on the natural release of every exhalation supports us as we deepen into rest.
We then visit each of the chakras, starting at the Crown, releasing more deeply at each one into the restful stillness of the body. Scanning through our body, we find an experience of restful stillness and focus there on the stillness of the body, allowing the door of stillness to open.
We become stillness, transforming from a physical stillness alone, into an inner stillness, one that is not bounded by our body. We experience the expanse of our nature, the unbounded spaciousness and sky-like experience of our essential self.
As we experience a greater sense of openness and space, we can listen to the silence. As we rest our attention on the silence, we experience the door of silence opening into presence and awareness. Recognizing the spaciousness of our nature, we allow ourselves to be present and allow everything else to be as it is.
We recognize that no matter how often, frequently and for how long we may have been disconnected, coming home is always an experience of warmth. We draw our attention to the heart and the warmth of all inherent, positive, healing qualities. Reconnecting is always the wonder of experiencing that we have everything we need, complete and perfected.
As we continue to rest, Gabriel suggests that we make the inquiry, “How does the past live in me?” We then listen to the silence and simply acknowledge and allow what comes. Gabriel then invites us to ask, “How does the future live in me?”, then “How does the present live in me?”, once again listening to the silence as our support.
Listening to the silence is a support for being open to receive responses to the questions that we ask, allowing the answers to emerge rather than wandering into searching intellectually. When we listen to the silence, our awareness illuminates the space in which, without any judgement, the responses can inform us.
We next allow ourselves to connect to the 3 Channels of Light and practice the 9 breathings. Then resting in Refuge, we host whatever is living in us, acknowledging, accepting and embracing it with kindness. We finish by visiting each of the chakras, sounding the corresponding sacred syllable once and then enter into mantra.
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This mediation was recorded at a reunion of the Latin American 2 Academy. The death of one of the participants in this Academy just a few weeks prior to the gathering provided the opportunity to focus on how we can draw on the Inner Refuge to deal with grief – supporting ourselves as well as the one who has died.
We first connect through our breathing to inner stillness, the present moment and to our intention for our practice.
Ale then brings our attention to our chakras. As we move upward from chakra to chakra, we allow the energy in each one to create greater opening in the areas surrounding that chakra. We notice how supported each chakra is by the energy of the others where we earlier abided.
As our chakras support us to connect to spaciousness, we go from the stillness of the posture to the spaciousness of the inner refuge. Our posture becomes not just a posture of body, but of energy and of mind. The nine breathings help us let go of tensions and connect more to the openness and spaciousness of the channels.
We then practice the Tsa Lung, noticing how each chakra can experience more spaciousness. Through the door of each chakra we connect to the spaciousness of the inner refuge and then expand into the spaciousness of our entire being and take refuge there.
Ale then invites us to bring whatever we want to work with into this space. That may be the image or memories or relationship with one who has died. We host whatever arises – grief, sadness, the joyful moments spent together – just breathing and staying with that.
With spaciousness and awareness, we notice the warmth that connects us to whatever we are hosting. We notice what changes as we bring a spacious, luminous hug to the person or situation we are hosting. Ale encourages us to bring that warm, spacious hug to ourselves, and then expand it to others around us, noticing how that feels.
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We start with singing three warrior syllables at each of the chakras.
We then return to each of the chakras in turn. At each one we first rededicate our lives to being in sacred space. We then bring in first family members or friends and then the collective consciousness, each time once again dedicating ourselves to being in the stillness, silence and spaciousness of being.
In our throats, we feel the power of words and move into the awareness that we are the living stillness, the silence of being and the deep, boundless spaciousness of mind. Bringing our friends and families into this infinite space, we know that they, too, are that infinite presence. We connect more deeply to the interconnection of all life.
As we drop into our heart chakras, we feel the warmth in our hearts, knowing it to be the intimate source of all the interconnections of all life and all of the qualities we already are, sacred, boundless. As we bring in family and friends and the interconnection of all, we rest in the knowing that support is always around us.
Descending the central channel and entering the space below the navel, we know the heat to be a part of our nature.
Then, in the Secret chakra, we feel the desire that’s pulling us out into the world. We know our friends, family and ancestors to be part of this sacred space. We feel the collective consciousness of all those who are bringing their energies, prayers and sacred awareness into this world that we create, the world that we actually want to live in. Here we know that support is all around us, within us, grounding us to be in the sacred space that we already are.
Finally, after returning to the warrior syllables and singing three at each chakra, we are given ample time to simply abide in the stillness, silence and spaciousness of Being.
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We enter the Inner Refuge through the 3 Doors and the 5 Chakras and rest there. Marcy then drops three questions into each Chakra: Am I well? Am I loved? Am I showing up fully for my life?
We practice sitting in open awareness, just being present with whatever moves in us in response to each of these questions at each of the Chakras. In this way we can really feel and sense how we are living in this moment. Are we fully present to this experience of being alive? Are we showing up fully, generously?
We then do the 9 Breathings, bringing the three channels of light into this inner terrain of images, recollections and sensations. Moving through the channels with our breath, we feel the pathways supporting us to awaken and nourish a sense of open presence.
We repeat this process, relating it to how it is to be in the presence of our family and friends. We allow the inquiry to bring alive what happens to us as we invite them and feel their presence. Are we well as we rest and allow ourselves to feel how our family and loved ones live in us? Are we loved? Are we showing up fully? Again, we bring this inquiry to each chakra in turn, starting at the Crown.
We repeat the 9 Breathings and then turn our attention to how the community, culture, and the environment around us are living in us. Are we well in the presence of our culture and how we’re experiencing it? Are we loved? Are we showing up fully and generously? We once again hold this inquiry at each chakra in turn.
Finally, we sing the warrior syllables three times at each chakra, feeling the light, vibration and love nurturing ourselves, our families, the culture and the environment.
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Laura dedicates this practice to helping us deal with the challenges of living in our world and coming into relation with situations that are beyond our control.
Laura firsts invites us to become aware of how we are in this moment in each of the Doors, and how the settling of one Door supports the settling of the others. She then turns our attention to the collective, asking us to host one thing that particularly bothers us in the political, ecological or social situations that surround us. We notice how it affects us in body, speech and mind and how we react to it.
Laura then uses the five-fold teaching of Dawa Gyaltzen to lead us out of this suffering.
She invites us to recognize how our suffering arises from our own narrative about what we are seeing and experiencing. The way we see it causes us to experience it and to react in a particular way. It is our vision that causes us pain.
She encourages us to take a step back and remember our shared truth: whenever we are caught, whenever we react through any of the poisons, we are lost in suffering. We are stuck in the world we created. Vision is mind.
Laura asks us to bring full awareness to any of the Doors, noticing how that Door holds this vision. We can then use this Door to release – releasing tension from the body, allowing our inner voices to calm, supporting the mind to let go of how intensely it is trying to make sense of it all. As we allow the structure of tension, emotional response and belief to fall apart, we recognize that mind is empty.
As the structure dissolves, the space of Self is no longer cluttered by it and the awareness of Self is no longer confined in it. Letting it all go frees us into a larger sense of Self. Emptiness is Clear Light.
If our awareness remains pervasive, and we allow the space of possibility to remain wide open, we stay self-aware. Clear light is union.
Laura invites us to notice how we feel, now that we are less bound by what disturbed us, more aware of being bigger than the reactions we were caught in and the structures we were living in. Union is great bliss.
From where you are now, Laura suggests that we once again look at the world around us and feel whatever’s different. When we step outside or dissolve the structures of our own mind, we engage life very differently.
“I notice that when it is my own particular situation, I can see it as the aberration of my own way of seeing things. This is much more difficult when it’s a collective vision. When it’s a collective vision it feels much more like it has the weight of truth.”
Outtakes:
– how we’re inhabiting our body, any internal movement of emotions, any activity of the mind. a change in any of the Doors affects the others.
As the body settles, we rest our awareness on the support of stillness and the inner voices calm down. As the inner voices quiet, we let our awareness rest on the support of silence, and the mind becomes more peaceful. As the mind releases its thoughts, we can rest in the support of spaciousness.
begin by finding the comfort of our posture and just sitting with awareness of whatever we may be holding, opening to our breath
We release more deeply into the support of the posture, noticing how this affects the breath and mind. Remaining connected to the sense of being grounded and supported, while feeling upright and alert
As we work through the body, breath and mind are affected.
Laura then turns our attention to the collective, inviting us to move through the landscape of the political, ecological and social situations around us and to recognize all that we are carrying – or turning away from. She points our that we are affected by so much because we are fundamentally connected to everything around us. She asks us to settle our focus on something that particularly bothers us and to host that thing, noticing to how it affects us and how we react to it. She then invites us to recognize how all of this arises from how we are seeing the situation, our own narrative on what we are seeing and experiencing, our overlay of interpretation. This whole thing is our vision. The way we see it causes us to experience it in a particular way. The way we experience it causes us to react in a particular way. All of this brings pain. This is our vision.
It can be hard to see it as our vision. We protest that this is real. We want to protect the way that we see this. Laura points out that there are other people who see the same thing in very different ways. She asks us to recognize how we might react to them, the anger, the upset.
All of this is the activity of the mind who created and protects the vision and the world the vision is part of and who insists that we stay bound to this vision. This mind does not want us to leave its own boundaries.
We sit with our vision, our reaction to our vision and our recognition of the creator of our vision as we feel our body, and notice our breath and mind. Laura reminds us that every experience is constructed from body, speech and mind.
We host the door that calls to us that is most activated as we sit with vision, reaction, creator.
Everything that we experienced was constructed by the limited self and is now being deconstructed as we see through the fear and agendas of the one who created it.
If the whole structure of how we have seen something, struggled with something, been troubled by something is allowed to dissolve, where are we? What happens when this all is gone? The space of Self is no longer cluttered by this structure. The awareness of Self is no longer confined in it. Letting it all go frees us into a larger sense of Self. Can we remain present, expansive, Self-connected, very aware? Emptiness is Clear Light.
Can your awareness remain pervasive or does it begin to generate objects to attach to, something else that has been bothering you, thoughts that you are starting to have. Grip nothing. Allow the space of self, the space of possibility to remain wide open, as you stay self-aware. Clear light is union.
As you see if that sense of openness is challenged, come back to the body, connecting to the stability of the body, its stillness, and as the mind rests there, feel that natural opening again. If, as you sit, your awareness closes down, begins to waver, be very attentive to the inner silence, letting that support the calming of any inner turbulence so that the awareness can be clearer and more pervasive.
Since you are less bound by what had disturbed you, more aware of yourself as being bigger than the reactions you were caught in and the structures you were living in, how do you now feel? What begins to move in you? Union is great bliss.
From where you are now, once again look at the world around you or the relationships you’re in and feel whatever’s different. When we step outside or dissolve the structures of our own mind, we engage life very differently and can feel that last line of the dedication – In liberating my own being may I benefit others – from this place we can benefit more.
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We start by connecting with the three channels, sensing the breath circulating through them. We do the Nine Breathings, paying attention to the mind guiding the breath and following it through the channels, as well as the exhalation and release. We rest in the feeling of openness this creates.
As we connect with the spacious openness in the Central Channel, we bring our attention to each of the Chakras in turn, starting at the Secret Chakra. Ale guides us to recognize how the lightness and openness of the Central Channel creates greater spaciousness at each Chakra, helping us to become, not only lighter and more open in the Chakras, but also stronger, more relaxed and more comfortable in those parts of our body associated with each one.
As we go from Chakra to Chakra, releasing tension from each part of our body, we become more and more deeply relaxed. We rest in the expansiveness of the 3 Channels and the 5 Chakras, taking refuge in this Body of Emptiness.
We next do one Tsa Lung at each Chakra and in the Central Channel, resting in the spaciousness after each one. Aware of the vibrancy there, we take refuge in the Body of Light.
We then sing the five Warrior Syllables several times at each of the Chakras, resting in silence at the end of each series. Finally, we rest our awareness in the vibrancy of the five sounds with their five colors. Resting in the silence, full of the impact of that vibrancy and color, we connect with the Body of Great Bliss and rest in that.
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Raven first shares with us her own daily practices of using the teachings of Dawa Gyaltzen to notice when she turns experience into a solid vision and of regularly focusing on the warmth and spaciousness in her central channel and heart to center and ground her.
Today’s practice is about slowing everything down, noticing the space around us and the power of the breath that is like a bridge between the outer space and the inner space. It’s about focusing on the warmth that arises when we are in open awareness.
We practice the 9 Breaths of Purification, noticing the vivid aliveness of the boundless space around us and then feeling the warmth and healing energy of the breath as it flows through the channels. We sense what is released, directly experience the space that arises as we clear and then rest in that space. We continue to experience the warmth of the breath that loosens and dissolves, the subtle energy inseparable from the space around us.
We next bring our attention to the Heart and do 5 Life Force Tsa Lung, experiencing the spaciousness in our Heart Chakra and connecting to the warmth of the breath that continuously flows from the space around us, expanding our Heart Chakra. With every breath, as we exhale back into that space, we loosen more and more, clearing the boundedness in our Heart and Central Channel, expanding and clearing the sense of separation within us.
As she guides us, Raven weaves the words of Dawa Gyaltzen into our practice. We feel the support of the warmth of our breath that naturally arises, connecting us to that spacious, luminous awareness and the clear light of our true nature. Resting in that breath, resting in that open awareness and the warmth, we become the warmth of clear light. Raven then quietly speaks the words of the five-fold teaching into the spacious awareness and warmth that we are experiencing, deepening our connection even more.
Finally, at the very end, we feel the warmth of spacious awareness in our heart flow up to our eyes and, as we open our eyes, we allow that light to flow out into the space around us.
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In this practice Gabriel guides us to use precise attention to develop greater stability.
Whenever we find our attention wandering, we simply refocus without judgment or self-criticism. Once we refocus, it’s easy to feel that we’ve fulfilled the instruction. Before we know it, though, our attention is wandering off again. So, we bring intention to continuing to stay present, remaining open to what is actually happening and reconnecting when necessary.
As we focus on our breathing, Gabriel invites us to expand into openness by imagining ourselves breathing out from the center of the body and expanding outward.
We next practice the 9 Breathings, with focus and precision, recognizing that the channels are each made of luminous light at the very core of our restfulness. We notice as our attention guides the breath through the channels.
We then explore the 3 Doors with this same precise attention. Gabriel guides us to experience the Door of stillness providing access into the spaciousness of our nature without boundary – the space that includes all of us.
We next listen to the dimension of silence with the potential of awareness to emerge and illuminate the space of our nature. Awareness also illuminates whatever appears in the space without bias, letting it be. We become aware of being open and vast.
We then bring our attention to our heart and feel the warmth of being, connected to the spacious awareness of our being, to each other and beyond, the light of awareness illuminating our inherent goodness. We rest in this source of goodness and replenish, Gabriel reminding us that this is who we are.
We bring any family or close friends into our meditation and once again connect to the 3 Channels of Light. We practice the 9 Breathings again, either opening and deepening our connection to Refuge or clearing any blocks created by aversion, attachment and separation.
Then, once again using our practice of precise attention, we sing the sacred syllable three times at each chakra, imagining the specific color of light radiating, and focusing on the qualities particular to that chakra.
In this practice we explore the possibility of remaining open and present in the warmth of Refuge, even as it moves in us or as we shift our attention outward.
Do we lose connection to our Heart when we open our eyes? If at that moment we start judging, or looking for approval, we can slip into a pain identity, without even realizing it. Can we reconnect when we realize we’ve disconnected?
We first explore the spaciousness in all directions around us, and in each of our chakras. We then feel the warmth of connection with each other that we can find in that spaciousness.
We next gather our focus in the heart center, resting with warmth and kindness there. We then feel the inner warmth and kindness moving along paths of light from the heart to the door of the eyes. When we open our eyes, we feel the kindness pouring out from our eyes into the space around us. We rest here.
Can we still feel the connection to the heart, as we open our eyes?
As we gently allow our eyes to close again, we return to the heart space and reflect on a situation in our lives where it’s difficult to experience the warmth of kindness. Opening our heart to acknowledge this pain, we just rest with it, feeling that the kindness of our open heart can touch any places of contraction that we hold.
Nourished in the warmth of kindness, we once again feel this warmth moving up the subtle pathways to the eyes. This time, as we open the eyes, Marcy invites us to see through these eyes of kindness that the pain vision may be releasing into the warmth of kindness.
Laura introduces us to those parts of the body that support various qualities, such as being grounded, expansive, balanced, alert, or calm. When we are not connected to one of these qualities, we can bring closer attention to the point of posture that supports it: stability through the lower body, expansiveness through the chest, balance and equanimity through the arms, alertness through the spine, calm through the chin curving downward.
We focus on the breath and places in our body where the breath cannot fully enter. Laura encourages us to bring soft mind and breath there. Little by little more of the body breathes and opens as it does so.
As we feel the movement of inhalation and exhalation, we recognize how the inhalation sharpens our presence and fills us with vitality, while the exhalation supports the deep release into greater inner space. Focusing on the exhalation, aligning with the energy of release, we follow the breath as it quiets completely, feeling the cessation of movement in the body. We discover stillness as we feel the peacefulness in our body in this moment of rest.
We find the silence in the moment. If there are any sounds in the environment or any inner voices, Laura encourages us to just let them be, sinking into the quiet beneath their turbulence. We rest there.
Release brings a more expanded sense of self. We recognize this space as our own nature, spacious and filled with vitality. We expand more and more into this spaciousness.
This practice is about using the 3 Doors and the 9 Breathings to deepen our confidence in the Inner Refuge through direct experience.
We bring whatever it is in our life that is currently causing stress into the practice and notice how it creates blocks in the 3 Channels. We then bring this pain body into the 9 Breathings, slowing everything down so we can experience the 3 channels and connecting to the breath more directly.
We expand the practice by clearing each channel several times, noticing what arises in the channel and what has been cleared. We enter deeply into stillness, silence and spaciousness in each channel, becoming aware of the space that arises as we clear.
We then rest our awareness at the Crown, further clearing and opening the Central Channel and experiencing the expansion from the Central Channel, flowing out in all directions around us.
Opening into the space where we are sitting, we experience how the freshness of the breath enlivens and supports our direct experience of the unbounded, unchanging essence of our true nature. As we notice the qualities that arise spontaneously from the awareness of spaciousness, we experience the warmth of open awareness. We invite the pain identity we have been working with to rest in this warmth and discover how abiding deeply in Refuge like this does, indeed, deepen our confidence.
We start with the 9 breathings, focusing on family and close friends and anything that emerges in need of healing.
We then practice focusing and refocusing through the 3 Doors, Gabriel providing us with ample periods of silence in which we can develop stability of attention and the capacity to rest.
He encourages us to recognize the reactivity that arises when we wander off and to acknowledge, accept and embrace that reactivity with spacious awareness and warmth.
While we are in spaciousness in the Heart, Gabriel invites us to experience gratitude for our teacher, Tenzin Rinpoche, for the 3 Doors teachings and for the growing sangha of practitioners.
In this meditation Marcy guides us on a journey of focused attention. We start at our hands, resting in stillness in the mudra of equanimity. We play with expanding our awareness to include the whole body, then narrow it back down into the hands.
We shift the intimacy of our focus inward, bringing it into the Central Channel, and then ride an inner current up to the Crown, where we rest our attention. Open to the space above, we expand our focus to include the hands, the Secret Chakra and the distance between the Crown and the Secret Chakras.
Regathering our focus at the Crown, we next open to include the space around us – first above us, then behind us, below us, to the right, to the left, and finally before us. We then expand our awareness, extending it into all directions.
We next sing ‘A’, radiating white light in all directions. We explore traveling with this radiance throughout our body, sounding ‘A’ at various locations, feeling each time the gift of spaciousness there.
We focus once more on the Crown, then release into the openness and radiance, resting there. We then bring that open, radiant awareness back down through the Central Channel, pausing to focus at each of the Chakras and finally resting our attention once again in the stillness of the mudra of equanimity.
In this meditation, Alejandro leads us in an exploration of our subtle body, through feeling the five different kinds of breath in our chakras and letting the expansion of that breath find its way into our movement.
The meditation starts with Alejandro helping us to get into our bodies and our chakras by focusing on each of the chakras, noticing how each supports the others.
We then begin the Tsa Lung practice with Alejandro encouraging us to experiment at each chakra with moving as the body feels it wants to move, exploring and allowing ourselves to be playful. We’re free to move in this creative, playful way in the first repetition, and then transition by the third repetition into the familiar way we’ve performed the Tsa Lung exercises all along.
This is followed by the 9 Breathings of Purification. We are then invited to take refuge in spaciousness and silence. In the end, we further energize the chakras by singing the Warrior Syllables three times each, helping us to connect with the joy and bliss that is within.
Gabriel first talks about releasing effort and resting into the Refuge. Hosting, which can only be done when in Refuge, means leaving everything as it is, allowing each moment to unfold and simply being present and aware, just as it is.
The meditation practice begins with Gabriel helping us to release into Refuge through awareness of body alignment and breathing. We then rest into the Refuge at each of the chakras, starting with the Crown, supported and nourished by the specific energetic qualities at each chakra – spaciousness, awareness, warmth, ripening and effortless manifestation and action. We deepen our connection to Refuge through focusing on each of the 3 Doors.
Gabriel then provides the opportunity for us to invite a pain identity into the Refuge to dissolve.
Note: There is a small technical problem 20 minutes into the video, when the video transmission briefly stops. The video quickly resumes.
Watch Video (English), Listen to Audio (English), Watch Video (Spanish), Listen to Audio (Spanish)
In this meditation, Laura highlights the fluidity and interconnectedness among the 3 Doors. She starts by helping us to ground ourselves through awareness of the body, recognizing where our holding pulls against letting go.
She helps us discover and explore the flow of one Door into another through becoming aware of the breath and the body moving together. As the breath deepens, the mind expands. As the mind expands, there is a refinement of breath that fills the expansion and the body can more deeply release subtle tensions.
We practice bringing awareness and breath into the Throat, then the Heart and finally the Navel. We breathe deeply and directly into each of these chakras, drawing the breath into any contractions or tensions we encounter, enabling a subtle release of tension.
At the outset Alejandro invites us to become aware of a project, relationship or situation that we can run through our meditation practice to notice where we can open more.
Then, starting at the Crown and moving downward, we first do the Tsa Lungs exercises and then the Warrior Syllable at each chakra. Alejandro next guides us go deeper by relaxing the area around each chakra in turn, this time starting at the Secret Chakra and moving upward, then focusing on the Central and Side Channels.
He then leads us in the 9 Breathings of Purification, followed by connecting with Refuge through the 3 Doors of Stillness, Silence and Spaciousness. Alejandro then invites us to host at each of the chakras whatever issue we identified at the outset.
We end by singing the Warrior Syllables again one time each, connecting with the space of each chakra as we do.
Raven guides us in a deep exploration of the 3 Channels and the spacious open awareness we can find there.
She first helps us release deeply into our body through awareness of our breath and then to enter into greater openness as we rest in the open space of each channel. As we begin the 9 Breathings of Purification, she encourages us to notice the space that opens as we clear the channels.
We then abide in open awareness in the 3 Channels, supported by Raven’s gentle suggestions to recognize the awareness of our true essence as open and unchanging and to experience the warmth that arises from the awareness of this open, unchanging essence.
We first rest our attention in the stillness of our hands, then move up the core of our body to the Crown. We sing A and then move down the Central Channel, singing the associated Warrior Syllable at each chakra.
Marcy then invites us to release the imprints of this life through the Warrior Syllables. Starting in the Secret Chakra, we recognize our accomplishments and then release our attachment to them as we sing Dza. At the Navel, we release our emotional connections and attachments with Ram. At the Heart we focus on the inherent kindness and love that is there, and, as we chant Hung, we connect with that pure love. In the Throat, with Om we clear the identity that is held in language and memory. At the Crown, A illuminates the space as Source.
Recorded Live at the First International Retreat. Part One, Part Two
Part One – Meditation
This meditation focuses on how our strong sense of ‘me’ and ‘I’ interferes in our lives and how opening up to the collective can free us.
Rinpoche first encourages us to breathe out the strong sense of ‘only me.’ He points out how our sense of ‘I’ excludes others in our interactions with them. He explores how the effortful striving of ‘I’ interferes with our spiritual practice. He invites us to release that sense of ‘me’ and the efforts of the grasping mind into the sacred space
He then shifts the focus to feeling our connectedness with the sangha and becoming aware of how the power of the collective wisdom can help us expand our sense of self. He invites us to rest in the positive quality of the collective.
The meditation ends with a recording of a mantra to awaken the collective wisdom, freeing us from separation and duality.
Part Two – Talk
In this talk Rinpoche discusses the value of allowing the different aspects of ‘me’ and ‘I’ to dissolve into a greater sense of expanded self and inclusiveness, a greater empathy for others and an expanded collective awareness. This greater inclusiveness allows us to more easily find solutions to the challenges we face.
December 2017, Karen Patrick – Watch Video, Listen to Audio
November 2017, Gabriel Rocco – Watch Video, Listen to Audio
October 2017, Laura Shekerjian – Watch Video, Listen to Audio
September 2017, Raven Lee – Watch Video, Listen to Audio
August 2017, Marcy Vaughn – Listen to Audio (partial practice only)
July 2017, Karen Patrick – Watch Video, Listen to Audio
June 2017, Alejandro Chaoul – Watch Video.
May 2017, Laura Shekerjian – Listen to Audio
April 2017, Raven Lee – Watch Video, Listen to Audio.
March 2017, Alejandro Chaoul – Watch Video.
February 2017, Gabriel Rocco – Listen to Audio
January 2017, Marcy Vaughn – Listen to Audio