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The Psychology of the Awakened Heart – an online...

Jack Kornfield — September 9, 2013

Friends, we’re happy to let you know of a new online video training with our dear friend Jack Kornfield, on The Psychology of the Awakened Heart: A Training in the Four Essentials of a Healthy and Joyful Life. The course will be made available starting October 1st, however you can sign up and join at anytime, working through the material at your own pace, from the comfort of your own home.

The meditation practices passed down from the Buddha are beautiful, time-tested ways to awaken a compassionate, joyful, and loving heart. Buddhist psychology and research from modern neuroscience both show enormous benefits from using these methods as a regular practice or in conjunction with conventional therapy. With The Psychology of the Awakened Heart, master teacher Jack Kornfield invites mental health professionals and meditators alike to an eight-session online video course on the Buddhist psychology of well-being. Each session, Jack will present life-changing practices, wisdom teachings, and healing stories—offering a rich mix of practical and scientific information and experiential exercises based on the timeless principles of Buddhist psychology.

Learn more about this special online training opportunity, watch a video sample, and register here.

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This is your gift to the world

Sounds True — September 7, 2013

The fear of being abandoned. The terror of being lonely forever. The anxiety of being utterly dependent upon another. The panic of unbearable vulnerability and exposure. The dread of the looming death of yourself and everyone around you. These are the great fears that come as you wake, as you fall asleep, and as you dream through this life.

But perhaps the greatest fear of all is the fear of being loved. We don’t really see it this way, though. For when you are really loved, when you are entirely seen, when you are fully held, it is the end of your world as you know it. You will never be the same. You will never again be able to pretend that you are other than perfect and precious as you are. And that is terrifying.

Life is always seeing you in this way.

You long to be loved, to be seen, but please know that the implications are immense; they are cosmic. To allow yourself to be loved in this way a part of you must die. Everything you thought you weren’t must be surrendered. You must let go of the stories of the unlovable one, the awakened one, the special one, the imperfect one, and the despairing one. Love wishes to reveal your nakedness, to remove your clothing, and to burn away all that is false and less than whole within you. What you are is a raging firestorm of creativity, sensuality, openness, warmth, and kindness. Love will never stop until you know this.

In this way, love is a destructive process, for it comes to re-order everything you thought you knew. But will you step into this sweet annihilation? Yes, something will be shattered; actually, everything will be taken away. All that will be left is your wholeness and your raw, tender heart. This is your gift to this world.

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The Heart Center Meditation

Dr. Ann Marie Chiasson — September 3, 2013

One of the most important aspects of awakening, says Dr. Ann Marie Chiasson, is the opening of the heart. The heart is a floodgate which, when open, enables the world’s great mystical teachings and realizations to pour through.

Here, Ann Marie guides you through a short, heart-centering meditation, which you can practice daily, or anytime you wish to access the mystery and intelligence that is your own heart.

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Interspiritual Invocation by Mirabai Starr

Mirabai Starr — August 26, 2013

I wanted to share with you the invocation given by our dear friend and author Mirabai Starr at the recent Wake Up Festival. Invoking the great wisdom traditions throughout our world, Mirabai led the community in prayer and gratitude as we opened this year’s event. Several of you mentioned that you were really moved by Mirabai’s words; we wanted make make a copy available here. May you drink deeply.

Beloved One,
Living Light,
Spirit of All That Is,
we give thanks.
Thank you for welcoming us
to this sacred circle.

We come from everywhere,
and we find you wherever we are:
inside the holy houses of each of the world’s faiths,
and out in the wild places of the earth;
shoulder to shoulder in the mosque,
bending to press our hearts to the ground in surrender;
in the haunting Hebrew melodies of our ancestors
as we call on the Shekinah to infuse us
with her indwelling feminine spirit;
in the communion bread and wine,
which we take in remembrance
of the Prince of Peace.
We hear your voice joining with ours when we chant the Divine Names
in Sanskrit and Tibetan, Tiwa and Maya and Maori.

We meet you high on alpine trails,
where we stop to rest among fragrant wild herbs,
beside a stream rushing with melted snow.
We feel you holding us when we float in the arms of the ocean
and she sways us with her breath.
We kiss you when we are making love;
we mourn you when an elder releases her final exhalation;
we soothe you when we rock a tired child in our arms.

We look for you in the pulsating emptiness,
search for your true form in the heart of formlessness,
unexpectedly recognize you when we give up and turn away.

You shine through the ecstatic stanzas of the poets and mystics,
each one singing your praises in a different language.
You well up in our aching hearts
when we cry out for the pain of the world.
You are the call to justice,
and the answering response of mercy.
You are in the wounding of the earth
and you are the only hope for mending her.

Oh Great Spirit,
Father-Mother God,
True Self and No-Self,
Invisible animating energy of Life:
We claim our place at your table
and find ourselves home at last.
Here may we eat and be filled,
drink and become unbridled,
lay down our burdens and take refuge,
drop into your sacred silence and remember.

And let us take this remembrance back out into our lives,
That we may truly be of service
in this broken and beautiful world.

AMEN.

-Mirabai Starr

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Your heart is love’s tavern

Sounds True — August 24, 2013

There is a brief moment when you imagined that your sorrow was working against you. For an instant there was the sense that your sadness, your despair, and your loneliness were obstacles on the path. But love is a shape-shifter. She will take any form she must to unlock a secret place within you.

Even in the center of your fear, right in the heart of your anxiety, weaved into the fabric of your most scary places there is a raging intelligence, a firestorm of pure creativity. Love is awakening those parts of you that have drifted asleep. This is not a journey into some transcendent, detached, and safe place, but into the heart of a wild, untamed groundlessness. You will feel so much more than you ever felt, care so much more than you ever thought possible, yet you will know nothing. Love will even convince you of her absence if that is how she must reach you.

It may seem like an ordinary Saturday, but what is happening here is far from ordinary. Stop. Breathe. Lay your hands on your sacred body. Touch the earth and feel the aliveness and the rare opportunity that has been given here. It will not last long, friends, for love will be calling you home soon. Every person you meet, each feeling that surges within you, every emotion that comes knocking at the door of your heart, every form that appears – love is sending its messengers to you, one by one.

Your body is love’s temple, your heart is its tavern, your eyes are its windows, your words of kindness are its voice, the way you sweetly touch another are its hands – for it is only through you that love can explode into this world.

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Live from the Wake Up Festival!

Sounds True — August 13, 2013

Dear friends,

We’ve arrived in Estes Park and are preparing the ground for this year’s Wake Up Festival! We get started in just a few hours with an opening ceremony where we’ll be welcoming a few hundred friends from around the world who will be participating in one of our pre-Festival workshops. The main Festival begins on Wednesday which will feature a concert with Snatam Kaur. As a reminder, we’ll be live streaming Snatam’s concert at no cost for those of you who would like to tune in! We’re expecting upwards of 1000 people to share in the Festival with us, and are so happy to be in this field with you all!

This year’s pre-Festival workshops, which we’re quite excited about, include:

Into the Heart of Chanting with Snatam Kaur

Qigong Empowerment – Awaken the 4 Golden Wheels with Robert Peng

Energy Medicine: A Hands-On Experience with Donna Eden and David Feinstein

The Deepest Acceptance: Discovering an Effortless “Yes” to Life with Jeff Foster

Journey with No End: Writing and Spiritual Growth with Mark Nepo

Experiencing the Shamanic Journey: A Direct Path of Revelation with Sandra Ingerman

Leaving you here with a photo live from Wake Up central… sending our love to all our friends around the world.

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