Meditative Explorations of Spaciousness, Unobstructedness and Absence
Six sessions from November 8th – December 13th, 2026
Main Meeting Time: Sundays from 9am-10:45am California time* / 5pm-6:45pm UK time
Optional Guided Meditation: Wednesdays 10am California time / 6pm UK time (meditation is 45 min. long)
Teacher: Susy Keely
Registration: Using this form: https://forms.gle/yYe7e1Q5dF1pznqP6
This course meets on zoom and is offered on a Dana basis.
Course Description:
The premise of this online course is to offer a chance to play with perceptions of space, awareness, unobstructedness and absence through exploring a range of meditation practices. These practices encourage us to tune into what surrounds the obvious, most noticeable aspects of experience. We will be working with meditative ways of looking that include, emphasize, or engender perceptions of space in ways that will support the deepening of our emptiness practice and capacities as insight meditators. As well, when we cultivate perceptions of spaciousness, openness, and lack of obstruction we may open lovely flavors of samadhi and mystical perception.
The course will approach things from an insight/emptiness perspective above all else. Really spending some time exploring and soaking in the “non-things” within experience can shed light on how the sense of objects comes to be. All of the practice explorations will involve playing with different ways to shift, soften, or set down the habitual ways we perceive and establish objects within experience as solid and inherently existing. As well working with the attenuated end of the spectrum of experience (space, quiet, absence, and openness) helps to develop one’s capacity to release clinging in subtle ways. Most (though not all) of the practices offered will naturally bring some degree of well-being.
This course is focused on working with the sense of experience on a perceptual level. While there are fruitful ways that the underlying principles contained within the practices can be applied on the level of personality (our interpersonal relationships or personal narratives) this will not be the focus of the class. Instead we will mostly be working with what is coming in through the sense doors vs. working on a narrative level.
This course will be most applicable to experienced meditators working within a Buddhist context. As with most of the insight/emptiness courses I offer, these explorations will be framed within Rob Burbea’s approach to emptiness meditation. Most of the mediative explorations in this particular course are not pulled directly from Seeing that Frees (Vastness of Awareness practice being the major practice from STF that will be included). That being said, it’s not necessary to be familiar with Rob’s teachings specifically to benefit from this course.
In some ways this course will follow kind of a lab format – the explorations are not linear, but touch on different aspects of the same theme from different angles. These kinds of courses make a space to share and interact with people who love the art of meditation.
The four major meditative themes that will be explored within this course are:
- Tuning into the sense of space or stillness within experience (inner, outer)
- Resting attention “between” or around noticeable objects within awareness
- Cultivating a sense of spacious awareness (Vastness of Awareness practice + other variations on this theme)
- Exploring the sense that objects can be experienced as less-solid, or permeable (by awareness, breath, or a sense of space)
Course Details:
Main weekly session: we’ll explore one or two practices/meditative exercises each week, have some explanatory teaching, and have time for questions and sharing.
Outside of main session: There will be a 45 minute weekly guided practice to support the explorations within the main session – this will be optional to attend in person, and a recording will be made available.
Attendance & size: The course size will be limited. Participation (reports, questions etc.) will be encouraged though not mandatory. Recordings will be made available of the weekly teaching and guided practice, but not the questions and sharing from participants. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you sign up for this course with the ability and intention to come to the main weekly sessions.
Prerequisites: As this is not an introductory course, it is expected that participants have the capacity to settle their own minds and bodies, and have some familiarity with buddhist meditation/mindfulness meditation principles.
As with any insight meditation / buddhist meditation practices, it is possible that some of the guided practices will open very different ways of sensing self and world. This is a desired outcome, but if you find yourself to be at a place in your life that is not stable and well balanced, or that you lack adequate personal support, it is recommended you take this course at a later time. There will be some chance for interaction within the sessions, but it will be minimal and individual support will not be offered.