“Welcome, Welcome”
My beloved mentor, Pamela Wilson begins each Satsang (sacred gathering) by saying the word “welcome” two times…followed by a little bow of her head.
I invite you to pause for a moment and really listen as I say “welcome, welcome”. I invite you to open your heart to receive and feel the intention - more than a greeting, this is an invitation to open the heart and to receive.
Welcome to this circle.
Welcome to this space.
Welcome to this time.
May our time together be sacred and purposeful.
May we create an authentic and safe environment for each of us to rest in the heart and listen to the stillness.
“Listen. Can you hear the voice of wisdom whispering in the silence?”
- Shani
The following passage captures perfectly what it means to listen to the stillness (or silence) and captures perfectly the intention for our time together:
Sacred Silence
- By Richard Rohr, The Centre for Contemplation and Action
Most of us who live in a capitalist culture, where everything is about competing and comparing, will find contemplation extremely counterintuitive. How do we grasp something as empty, as harmless, as seemingly fruitless as the practice of silence?
Silence needs to be understood in a larger way than simply a lack of audible noise. Whenever emptiness—what seems like empty space or absence of sound—becomes its own kind of fullness with its own kind of sweet voice, we have just experienced sacred silence.
When religious folks limit their focus in prayer to external technique and formula, the soul remains largely untouched and unchanged. Too much emphasis on what I call “social prayer” or wordy prayer feeds our egos and gives us far too much to argue about. How can we truly pray when we are preoccupied with formula and perfection of technique?
If we can see silence as the ground of all words and the birth of all words, then when we speak, our words will be calmer and well-chosen. Our thoughts will be non-judgmental. Our actions will have greater integrity and impact.
When we recognize something as beautiful, that knowledge partly emerges from the silence around it. It may be why we are quiet in art galleries and symphony halls.
As one author I read years ago said, silence is the net below the tightrope walker. We are walking, trying to find the right words to explain our experience and the right actions to match our values. Silence is that safety net that allows us to fall; it admits, as poets often do, that no words or deeds will ever be perfectly right or sufficient. A regular practice of contemplation helps us trust that silence will uphold us, receive our mistakes, and give us the courage to learn and grow.
As Richard Rohr so beautifully expresses, at the heart of all spiritual traditions is the recognition that we are One with all of life - that there is no separation.
My goal for this session is for you to know this Truth as a felt sensation in the body rather than as an illusive mental concept.
Over the course of our twelve weeks together, the teachings of Eckhart Tolle and Pema Chodron will be reinforced by the ancient practice of Qigong. “Qi” means life force energy and “Gong” means the flow of or practice of; so Qigong means the practice of flowing life force energy. Though this simple definition is accurate, it fails to fully capture the essence and mystery of Qigong. Qigong is much more than following a series of prescribed movements, it is a practice of DEEP PRESENCE…and this is why I chose to dive deep into the practice of presence for this session.
We will spend the first several weeks focused on Eckhart Tolle’s teachings (mostly from his book “A New Earth”, but also touching on his first book, “The Power of Now”). We will then naturally transition to a discussion of Pema Chodron’s book, “Welcoming the Unwelcome, Wholehearted Living for a Brokenhearted World”. Pema’s wisdom will beautifully support and reinforce Eckhart Tolle’s teachings of presence and grace by providing timely, relevant and practical “how to’s”.
Together let us embrace the art of listening to the silence…
and hearing the wisdom that transcends all words!
“When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thoughts. A depth returns to your life. Things regain their newness, their freshness. And the greatest miracle is the experiencing of your essential self as prior to any words, thoughts, mental labels, and images. For this to happen, you need to disentangle your sense of I, of Beingness, from all the things it has become mixed up with, that is to say identified with. That disentanglement is what this book is all about.”
- Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth”
During our twelve weeks together, we will be exploring the heart of Eckhart Tolle’s teachings. Like many others in the western world, “The Power of Now” (1997) and “A New Earth” (2005), were my first foray into what is often referred to as new age spirituality (even though Eckhart himself refrains from calling it this…as do I). Eckhart Tolle’s teachings went mainstream in 2008 when Oprah Winfrey discovered “A New Earth” and asked Eckhart to join her in offering a free online course. This course was one of the first of its kind and over half a million people from all around the world signed up (I was one of them).
Eckhart Tolle has often been credited for bringing present moment awareness into mainstream thinking. As we will discover presence is and always has been at the heart of all spiritual teachings, including the practice of Qigong.
“Opening yourself to the emerging consciousness and bringing its light into this world is the primary purpose of your life.”
-A New Earth
Pema Chodron, an American born Buddhist nun, is a gifted communicator and teacher. She is a resident teacher at Gambo Abbey Monastery in Nova Scotia and the author of many best selling books including: “The Wisdom of No Escape”, “Start Where You Are”, “When Things Fall Apart”, “The Places that Scare You”, “No Time to Lose”, “Practicing Peace in Times of War”, Smile at Fear”.
“Whether distraction and aggression proliferate globally or peacefulness and harmony grow stronger depends on how we as citizens feel about ourselves.”
- Welcoming the Unwelcome, Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World.
Bringing it all together:
In recent sessions, we discovered the power of The Five Agreements (by don Miguel Ruiz) and of the Ho’oponopono Forgiveness Ritual
The Five Agreements:
In his teachings, don Miguel Ruiz helps us to break our self-limiting agreements and replace them with agreements that bring us personal freedom, happiness and love:
1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
4. Always Do Your Best
5. Be Skeptical, But Learn to Listen
The Ho’oponopono Forgiveness Ritual
This ancient Hawaiin forgiveness ritual proceeds from an understanding of the unity of everything in the world, which is true even though we feel ourselves to be separate. Because everything influences everything else, we contribute to harmony if we discover our share in disharmony and enter instead into the healing process of directing the following four sentences to a person or situation (can be spoken or said silently):
I am sorry
Please forgive me
I love you
Thank you
As we learned (and will continue learning), the Five Agreements and the Ho’oponopono Forgiveness Ritual offer profound wisdom and practical tools. At the heart of both of these teachings, and, in fact, all spiritual traditions, is the recognition that we are all connected to the One-Life energy that creates and sustains us, and that separation or “me-ness” is an illusion created by the mind.
As you can see all of the teachings weave together into one beautiful and continuous tapestry! Through our time together, you will be reminded of the practical wisdom of the Five Agreements and the Ho’oponopono Forgiveness Ritual and you will discover how Qigong is the perfect practice of integrating this timeless wisdom into the body to enhance your health and wellbeing!
On Grace…
“Grace is the constant love that animates, permeates and balances everything and everyone. When we bring awareness and gratitude to Grace, it awakens balances, and resolves even the unresolvable.”
- Pamela Wilson
“We need a return to grace. We are all fighting hard battles, and we need all the help we can get. Yet we’ve lost sight of grace, which for so long was an essential, treasured quality, and which ought to be at the heart of how we interact, how we inhabit our bodies and the world around us. Life in the twenty-first century is often rushed, clumsy, and frustrating. We’re distracted and we let the door slam on the person behind us, we trip over curbs as we’re texting, we’re running late, we fail to notice. Our bent postures show us the unfeeling habits we’ve fallen into. We’ve given into gravity. We’ve forgotten how to move through life with grace.”*
- Excerpt from “The Art of Grace” by Sarah L. Kaufmann
* We are here to remember - welcome to our journey! 💗
Our Closing Mediation:
Prayer of the Lotus Nector
Beloved Kuan Yin, help me realize the connection to myself and to Life that I need to be able to live my highest vibrational life, where I am well, replenished, joyful and connected to the endless flow of divine energy and life force in our Universe. Please bring me clear guidance about how to best cultivate chi now, how to be open to receive the Nectar of the Lotus, the life force and love of the Divine Mother, for my highest good, so be it. Om Mani Padme Hum.
“Om Mani Padme Hum”
This is a powerful heart opening mantra.
It means ’the opening of the jewel in the lotus,’ or ‘may the heart awaken with divine compassion and may I know myself to be an awakened being of light’.
EASTERN GODDESS OF COMPASSION KUAN YIN
Kuan Yin takes multiple forms, to meet the needs of all beings. She is gentle but like any feminine being she will assume a more ferocious form if necessary in order to protect what she loves. She takes masculine forms when that will best serve her higher loving purpose, bringing through much needed sacred masculine energies of tenderness, strength, courage and protection, as well as the divine feminine energies that nourish our souls.