Dharma Sunday

What does it mean to learn from a teacher, and how does that relationship support awakening? In this hour-long dharma talk, we’ll explore the role of the teacher–student relationship in spiritual practice—its possibilities, challenges and ethical foundations. 
Drawing on traditional teachings and contemporary perspectives, the talk will reflect on the role of discernment, trust, inner wisdom, responsibility and agency in cultivating a relationship with a teacher or teachers. 
We will also consider the breadth of what “teacher” means in an Eastern context, as a principal that permeates our outer, inner and innermost world, how being a student is a practice of taking life itself as our teacher.

This special meditation session will focus on weaving together a profound blend of practices inspired by Longchenpa’s three excellences, along with other potent methods for awakening the special kind of courage, compassion, and spiritual strength needed in these challenging times.
These perilous times challenge us all to source new depths of spiritual strength, wisdom, compassion, inspiration, and courage.
This special meditation session will focus on weaving together a profound blend of practices inspired by Longchenpa’s three excellences, along with other potent methods for awakening the special kind of courage, compassion, and spiritual strength needed in these challenging times.
Insight will also be drawn from the Leveys’ new book – Manual for the Awakening Warrior – which explores how these practices meet the real world of activism, social justice, and courageous earth stewarding for the benefit of all.  (See: http://WisdomAtWork.com/LeveysAwakeningWarrior/)

The terms “Awakening” and “Realization” are used in many different ways and are often interchangeable. Join us to explore all the angles, all the while striving to maintain plausible deniability.
Beyond the embarrassment that “Enlightenment” is something we in fact can have no idea about, the terms “Awakening” and “Realization” are used in many different ways in many different paths. We will examine these notions from different angles, with examples from traditional frameworks found in the Mahayana Sutras, the Five Paths, the Four Yogas of Mahamudra, and the Three Words of Garab Dorje.

This class combines body-oriented meditation practice with a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lesson, the brilliant sensory-motor approach to gently and wisely re-educating the neuro-muscular system. Alternating meditation, a Feldenkrais movement lesson and discussion will allow the techniques to complement and empower each other and to enhance mind-body connections and general well-being.
Many new and long-time meditators discover that Feldenkrais practices can help them feel greater physical ease and less pain, both in meditation and in everyday activities, by freeing up habitual patterns embedded in the neuromuscular system.
For this program, you will need a place to lie down and a chair to sit on. A resource handout will also be available for participants.

What does it mean to become truly present and why does it matter? In this midday Sunday session, we will explore radical presence, a state of being that understands that there is only–and only ever will be–the here and now. To enter radical presence means to grapple with how we self-exile: all the ways we absence our body, parts of our world, and even our life itself. 
We will consider how returning to the body, the moment and all the conditions of our life begins to restore a reliable refuge that has always been here, an eternal version of time. 

Natural Dharma Fellowship’s Dharma Sundays are donation-based gatherings open to all, offering a wide range of topics. Led by highly trained NDF Dharma and guest teachers, these live, interactive sessions include guided meditation, teachings, and time for questions and discussion. Please join us to settle into the support of sangha and the joy of practicing together.