This where I will try to post notes (and occasionally guided practice or segments of teaching) from meetings of the “Art of Perception” group for people working with Rob Burbea’s teachings offered through the SF Dharma Collective.
If you are new to Rob’s teachings I’d recommend two short series of talks… the first would be a pair of talks that communicate a big picture view of the wisdom/insight/liberation side of Rob’s teachings:
Approaching the Dharma: Part One – Unbinding the World
Approaching the Dharma: Part Two – Liberating Ways of Looking
And a three part series exploring and opening up how one might conceive and relate to ideas of awakening, the path, and contemplative practice:
Questioning Awakening
Buddhism Beyond Modernism
In Praise of Restlessness
For more suggestions on practice directions, see this excellent listing of Rob’s talks and resources on reddit.
Weekly Meetings:
- 10-13-2020
Guided practice: Playing with Breath and Body (very inspired by Thanisarro).
Teaching topic: A few implications of a dharma with a non-realist basis.
How mystical experience is held/related to in Rob’s work (talk: A Mystical Kiss…)
- sanctification of existence
- perceiving in ways that call conventional perception into question.
- a sense of freedom / less solidity of self, less clinging, more love
(the presence of a sense of freedom is what distinguishes the mystical, spiritual experience from insanity)
The Dharma as Art (Talk: In Praise of Restlessness)
- Almost everyone has a relationship to art not burden by whether real or ultimately true. That’s just not the point.
- Valuing the subjective aspects of our path
- Freedom as knowable independently of comparison somehow (like poetic truth).
Some frameworks used to evaluate realness that impact practice include scientific/materialist, ultimate reality as described by various teachings, relative merit of different dharma approaches/teachings.
We did not have specific questions as we took the time to introduce ourselves and share what brought us here tonight…