The Sense of Place
4-week online course exploring the sense of spatial relationships, directionality, and the location of awareness in meditation
Meeting Dates: Sundays Nov. 17th – Dec. 8th 2004
Meeting Time: 9:00am to 10:45am Pacific time (which is 5:00pm to 6:45pm UK time)
An optional mid-week guided meditation will be offered Wed. at 10:00am Pacific.
Cost: This course is offered on a dāna or donation basis (see below)
Sign-up: Register using this link
This course will offer ways to play meditatively with the impression of place (spatial relationships, directionality) and our sense of the location and nature of awareness. These aspects of self-construction are part of the habitual, self-oriented way of looking that builds and fixates our experience. The practices offered within this course will provide ways to play with these relationships and orientations in service of our emptiness practice. One strategy for seeing through limiting habits of perception is to pick up practices that encourage us to meet experience in very different ways. As well, some of the angles of practice may be useful to those working with releasing subtle forms of clinging within their practice.
In addition to the potential for deepening insight, some of these practices may open beautiful perceptions of openness or connectedness in different ways. A lovely sense of unburdening can come from perceiving qualities of space and the location of awareness anew, and working to release habits that hold conventional perception in place can open an immediate sense of freedom.
This offering is a part of my sharing what I received from my teachers that I love the most: the chance to explore the radical, wordless art of skillfully directing attention in ways that open up our sense of who we are, and our relationship to our experience.
Practice emphasis: This course will spend time with different shadings of the “Vastness of Awareness” practice that support an exploration of spacious, non localized awareness. We’ll also play with some practices that encourage investigation of the ways we habitually map and orient our sense of self and objects of awareness, as well as offering different ways to play with the sense of space and the direction/location of awareness. Samadhi/breath practice exploring different ways of sensing the breath’s path may also be included to explore the theme of directionality
Session Info: The sessions will be one-hour and forty-five minutes long. They will always include guided practice, teaching, and time for questions or sharing. There will be an optional group meditation session offered on Wednesdays at 10:00am California time / 6pm UK time. This will be recorded and made available the same day. which will be recorded and made available the same day to support your weekly practice.
This course is offered on a dāna basis. While there is no fixed fee for this course you are asked to offer monetary support for Susy’s teachings as you are able, given your own life’s circumstances. I am happy to offer these courses in such a way that everyone is able to attend, while trusting in the group’s generosity to allow me to set aside time for leading sessions, developing guided meditations and course materials.
More about this course/prerequisites: This course is most suitable for experienced meditators who already have good experience with mindfulness or insight practice. This course is short and will move along at a fairly fast clip, and so having the ability to cultivate calm and steadiness of mind for oneself will be necessary. While the course will offer new practice options weekly, meditators will be encouraged to work with the practice(s) offered that feel most alive to them. Each practice will be led within the main teaching sessions, and recordings of guided practices with an annotated guide will be given to each participant to practice with and refer to in the future.
This is an emptiness/insight meditation course. The practices and teaching elements are grounded in the Buddhist meditative tradition, and so it will be helpful if participants have some understanding of Buddhist teachings. Rob Burbea’s framing of emptiness practice and the “Ways of Looking” approach will provide the basis for exploration, so if you are familiar with this it is helpful, but not necessary for participation.