Practical Non-Duality
(Formally A Year of Meditation)
How to be peaceful and effortlessly joyful by recognising reality and living in accordance with it
Explore a monthly theme through bite-size blogs, reflections and meditations, available any day, any time, to suit you.
Be part of a friendly community of meditators who value everyone equally, founded on kindness, appreciation and mutual trust.
Weekly Meet Ups in October
Join us for this week’s live online meeting on Zoom on Thursday evening at 8pm.
The Zoom link is here.
Join Heather and your meditation community for a one hour session, including a short teaching, meditation or reflection and opportunities for sharing in breakout groups and in the main group. Sessions will be recorded, with recordings available to stream.
Also, it’s your opportunity to ask Heather any questions about the training and about your meditation practice.
Meetings take place on Thursday 1 October (cancelled), Thursday 8 October, Thursday 15 October and Thursday 22 October.
You can access the recording from 8 October here.
OCTOBER WEEK THREE
Teaching Blog for Week 3 - Living in Beauty
When we think about some of those times when we have felt connected with aware being, our true nature of effortless peace and happiness, we may find that some of these experiences are connected to the environment around us. Those moments of awe and wonder as we look at a beautiful view, look at the night sky or experience a sunrise or sunset, are often moments of connection with aware being.
The non-dual perspective teaches us that we share our being with everyone and everything. As we have explored, the recognition that we share our being with another person is love. Rupert Spira teaches that the recognition that we share our being with the objects that make up the world is beauty.
One of the key teachings of Buddhist teacher Thich Naht Hahn was interbeing, that nothing can exist by itself. We are all interconnected and dependent on each other and the world around us. The very atoms of carbon and oxygen we are made up of were forged in past generations of stars millions of years ago.
A flower is "full of the cosmos" because it relies on soil, minerals, light, and air. A piece of bread contains the sky and the farmer's labour. Everything contains everything else.
If we pay attention, we can find beauty in the most mundane things. We will practice this. Then we become able to experience beauty, awe and wonder in a wider range of experiences, including our day to day routine experiences, which we might normally ignore or find boring.
Our perception of the world around us is a co-creation between the objects seemingly ‘out there’ and the finite mind seemingly ‘in here’. For example, the optics of the eye enable us to see an area the size of a 50p piece held at an arms distance from us in focus. However, our experience is that we see the whole of our field of view in focus. This is because the finite mind creates the three dimensional world we experience around us, as an hallucination within the mind, based on the pieces of information coming in through the senses.
Think of how the mind creates a world around us in a dream. This same process is happening while we are awake, except that our experience of the world is anchored to the information coming in through the senses. This is why we can fly, interact with people who are no longer with us, or travel long distances in a moment in a dream, but we cannot do this when we are awake.
So the world that we experience around us is a creation, we could call it a projection, generated by our finite minds. This projection relies on our pre-conceptions, in other words conceptualisations of past experiences, as well as the limited information that we receive through our senses. So, our experience of the world around us in this moment, depends on what we have each previously experienced and how we have conceptualised it. For example, we see red and orange as different colours because our language discriminates between these two colours. In other cultures where there is only one word to cover the colour spectrum of red and orange, people see different shades of one colour.
This is before we begin to think about our attitudes to the world we perceive around us. A well known saying is that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. So, it is within our power to condition the finite mind to experience more beauty, so that we live in beauty.
We will also explore this in practice this week.
When we recognise how interconnected with the world we are and the beauty, wonder and awe that arises from the recognition of the being we share with the world around us, our attitude to the world around us naturally changes. This can lead to a growing value of appreciating the mundane and simple things in life, and so living a more simple life. It can also lead us to take more care of the world around us, to act as stewards, to live more sustainably and take care of the natural environment. Because it is in accordance with our true nature, living a simple life and taking care of the environment, give us peace and happiness.
OCTOBER WEEK THREE MEDITATION PRACTICE SCHEDULE
This practice schedule is for guidance only. Trust your own ability to fit the practices and reflections into your week.
You are welcome to journal about your meditation practice if you would like to. You can use the journaling prompts provided below and/or journal freely.
FORMAL MEDITATION PRACTICE AND JOURNALING PROMPTS
Friday 16th October and Monday 19th October - October Meditation - journaling prompt ‘If I allow myself to live in alignment with aware being what values would I live? ’
Saturday 17th October and Tuesday 20th October - Living in beauty - journaling prompt ‘What is my relationship with the objects around me, how am I interconnected with them?’
Sunday 18th October and Wednesday 21st October- Creating the experience of the world - journaling prompt ‘Given that my finite mind creates my experience of the world around me, how interconnected am I with it?’
Thursday 15th October - Online meet up on Zoom at 8pm (Zoom link above)
INFORMAL DAILY LIFE PRACTICE
Daily life practice - Pause and feel your feet on the ground.
Look at the world around you. Contemplate that this world you experience is a creation of your finite mind. What do you notice?
Given that your finite mind creates your experience of the world around you, how interconnected are you with it?
OCTOBER WEEK TWO
Teaching Blog for Week 2 - Living in truth
If we recognise more and more what is true about our experience, both our inner and outer experience, then we can live in accordance with that recognition. If we fight with reality (that which is true) we will always lose, we will experience sorrow on the inside and conflict on the outside. If we live in accordance with reality, with our true nature, then we will experience peace on the inside and harmony on the outside.
Our fight with reality involves denying the impermanence of everything in the world. On a day to day basis we oppose many inevitable small changes in circumstances, and so we suffer. We are upset when the supermarket stops selling our favorite food. We get annoyed when the presenters change on our favorite TV program. The resulting thoughts, emotions and sensations that roil around us cause us to suffer. It is wise to recognise that everything changes and to allow the changes to be opportunities for learning - our curriculum for the day.
Then there are the bigger inevitable changes, which can cause immense suffering, in particular, illness, loss of ability and death, in ourselves and in those whom we love.
As we know, the suffering arises because we identify with the content of experience, the thoughts and perceptions, rather than identifying with our true nature of aware being, that which knows. The contents; thoughts, perceptions, sensations are always changing and moving, always coming and going. Therefore they are not essential to us, they are not our true nature. Our true nature is that which is changeless, always present, always here and now, always at peace and happy.
This week we will explore in practice these ideas by imagining that the content of our experience is removed from us and abiding as what is left, our true nature.
We will also explore in practice how time and space arise from thoughts and perceptions, respectively. The passing of time is an abstract concept. The past is made up of memories, which are just thoughts. The future is made up of imagination, which is also just thoughts. Thoughts are not essential to our true nature because they come and go. The only time we ever experience is now. Our experience of time is eternally now. The experience of the passing of time is an illusion created by the process of thinking.
The experience of space is made up of perceptions. If I look at a mountain, my sense of sight indicates that it is out there, a long way away in space. However, the experience of the mountain is a perception, a happening in my finite mind, so where is the mountain? We never experience a place we call there. The place we call there, the mountain over there, is never experienced. When we climb there mountain, the mountain experienced as being here. The only place we ever experience is here. The experience of the space of the universe is a creation of the process of perceiving.
If we recognise that the only real experience is here and now and the rest is simply an abstraction, we might be persuaded to inhabit the here and now more fully. This is why simple ordinary presence is so powerful. It is the portal to our true nature; aware being, always peaceful, whole, happy and effortlessly joyful and whose nature is love. So our path is to recognise and live in accordance with this.
Rupert Spira tells a story of his first love. He imagined that he would spend the whole of his future life with this person. Then she broke up with him in a brief phone call and his whole world collapsed. We have all had these moments in our lives. This made him consider where he would invest his happiness. He concluded that the best investment is in recognising and then living in accordance with aware being.
OCTOBER WEEK TWO MEDITATION PRACTICE SCHEDULE
This practice schedule is for guidance only. Trust your own ability to fit the practices and reflections into your week.
You are welcome to journal about your meditation practice if you would like to. You can use the journaling prompts provided below and/or journal freely.
FORMAL MEDITATION PRACTICE AND JOURNALING PROMPTS
Friday 9th October and Monday 12th October - October Meditation - journaling prompt ‘If I allow myself to live in alignment with aware being what values would I live? ’
Saturday 10th October and Tuesday 13th October - Living in truth - journaling prompt ‘Based on my experience what is my true nature?’
Sunday 11th October and Wednesday 14th October- Exploring time and space - journaling prompt ‘Based on my experience, what is my experience of time and space?’
Thursday 8th October - Online meet up on Zoom at 8pm (Zoom link above)
INFORMAL DAILY LIFE PRACTICE
Daily life practice - During your day pause from time to time and ask yourself, what is my experience of here and now?
OCTOBER WEEK ONE
Teaching Blog for Week 1 - Life Values: Living in the service of love
According to Rupert Spira, life values in a non-dual understanding are not deliberate rules or moral mandates to follow. Instead, they are the natural expression of recognising our shared being.
The first stage is to intellectually understand the non-dual understanding that the nature of our being is peace and love and that we share our being with everyone and everything. Then with practice, as we sense into and abide as aware being this intellectual understanding gradually becomes an experiential knowing. We truly know and believe from our personal experience the non-dual understanding. This takes time and practice.
The values that we live then flow organically from this experiential realisation that underlying all that makes up the universe is one infinite consciousness or aware being. Over time the way we live our lives transforms. However, we can help this process along by exploring the values which may flow from the non-dual understanding, and beginning to live in accordance with those values, even before our intellectual understanding becomes experiential knowing.
If the non-dual understanding is the truth, if it is the ultimate reality underpinning this relative experience of the world, then if we live in accordance with reality, we are likely to be happier.
Values are fundamental beliefs or standards that guide how people and groups evaluate what is important, desirable, or worthwhile. Once we know our values, if we are able to live in accordance with our values, then we feel that we are living a life which matters and living it with integrity. Values are not things that we do and then tick off our list. Values are like a direction of travel and guide the direction in which we move.
The question then arises - what values arise from the non-dual understanding. The first is love, which in this context is not understood as an emotion felt by one person for another, but as the experiential knowing of non-separation. In other words, that we are all manifestations of one infinite being. This means I am you and you are me from different perspectives. The experiential understanding of this is love.
When you interact with another person, animal, or environment, you recognise that the underlying aware presence in them is the exact same aware presence in you. Love is simply the absence of the boundary between "me" and "other."
This is the value we are exploring this week. Living life in the service of love. This is a process of discernment because our finite mind, our whirlpool in the river of one aware being, believes itself to be separate from all the other selves and from the world around it. We each believe the illusion that we are a separate self.
Therefore, we will begin this process of discernment by recognising the felt sense difference between living in the service of this separate self with its wants and desires and living in the service of love? Self-love is also important and so this process of discernment can be tricky. However, it often comes down to what is the best to support the mental and physical wellbeing of me and of all the others and of the environment in the long term.
We will also take time this week to explore the duties, rules and moral codes which we impose upon ourselves and where they come from. This might arise from seeking approval, avoiding guilt, or seeking future reward and may be based on what those around us or our culture believe to be important. These imposed values may require a wilful effort to maintain.
We will explore how this is different from allowing values to be an organic expression of knowing one’s true nature. We will see how values can arise naturally from living in alignment with the felt reality of non-separation. We might get glimpses of these or have an intellectual understanding of what these may be. However, until we experientially know our true nature these values may also require a wilful effort in the meantime.
OCTOBER WEEK ONE MEDITATION PRACTICE SCHEDULE
This practice schedule is for guidance only. Trust your own ability to fit the practices and reflections into your week.
You are welcome to journal about your meditation practice if you would like to. You can use the journaling prompts provided below and/or journal freely.
FORMAL MEDITATION PRACTICE AND JOURNALING PROMPTS
Friday 2nd October and Monday 5th October - October Meditation - journaling prompt ‘If I allow myself to live in alignment with aware being what values would I live? ’
Saturday 3 October and Tuesday 6th October - Living in the service of love - journaling prompt ‘How can I discern the difference between living in the service of this separate self with its wants and desires and living in the service of love?’
Sunday 4 October and Wednesday 7th October- Imposition of values - journaling prompt ‘What values do I impose on myself? Where do they come from? How is this different from allowing values to be an organic expression of knowing one’s true nature?’
Thursday 1st October - Online meet up on Zoom at 8pm (Zoom link above)
INFORMAL DAILY LIFE PRACTICE
Daily life practice - Notice any values I impose on myself? Where do they come from? Notice and natural arising of values from the non-dual understanding.
SEPTEMBER WEEK FOUR
Teaching Blog for Week 3 - Relative and ultimate relationship together
The non-dual understanding that underpins these teachings is that we are all localisations of one aware being. The universe is like a river of aware being (or consciousness) and each of us are whirlpools - the flow of the whirlpools seem separate from the flow of the river, but it is all made of the same water.
There is another analogy which we have been using in our practice this month, in which the universe is like a vast sea of aware being (or consciousness) and each of us is a wave in that sea. While the waves seem separate from each other, they and the sea are all made of the same water.
So the ultimate non-dual truth is that we are each whirlpools in one river or that we are each waves in one sea of being. Everything is made of the same water, ie. made of one awareness or consciousness.
Often we recognise this in those moments when we look into the eyes of a person who we love. We see ourselves in them. In other words we recognise our being in the being of this other person, and so we love them. This makes us happy because it is in accordance with our true nature.
From the non-dual perspective, we can begin to intellectually understand that we share our being with everyone, even those people that we don’t like and the billions of people that we have never met. As we continue to practice, this intellectual understanding gradually percolates into our being so that we sense our shared being in all others.
However, we live in a relative world where our perceptions and thinking solidify the universe of aware being into me inhabiting this body and mind and all the others inhabiting their bodies and minds which seem separate from me. This relative world is one in which the vast majority of people are bought into the idea of separate selves, which idea is the foundation of our culture and society. This is the culture and society which we have to navigate.
We have to cultivate the skills to practically navigate the relative world which we inhabit, where wafting around saying that we love everyone won’t work and where relationships can be incredibly challenging.
We have explored this month how in the relative world, mis-matches in conditioning between ourselves and others, the processes of positive and negative projection, imbalances in relationships and many other factors, means that our relationship can be challenging. However, the underlying understanding that we are called upon to love everyone can motivate us to explore these challenges.
This month we have explored these challenges and seen how practicing this way gives rise to insight into the underlying dynamics of a relationship. Practicing to understand these dynamics and recognising that no-on is to blame for them is an act of love for those we do not like. Understanding the dynamics and holding the intention of love can support us to change our perspective and way of being as we engage in relationships with others. This then transforms those relationships.
This is hard emotional work and you might ask: what is the point? As Rupert Spira says the prevailing belief in separate selves prevalent in our culture leads to sorrow on the inside and conflict on the outside. We see this all around us. Whereas the recognition of our shared being leads to love on the inside and harmony on the outside. Which of these do you want to embody and live?
A skilful way to live in the world is to hold both the ultimate truth of oneness and the relative reality of separateness which we seem to inhabit in our minds as we navigate our relationships.
SEPTEMBER WEEK FOUR MEDITATION PRACTICE SCHEDULE
This practice schedule is for guidance only. Trust your own ability to fit the practices and reflections into your week.
You are welcome to journal about your meditation practice if you would like to. You can use the journaling prompts provided below and/or journal freely.
FORMAL MEDITATION PRACTICE AND JOURNALING PROMPTS
Tuesday 22nd September and Saturday 26th September - September Meditation (with or without ambient music) - journaling prompt ‘What did I learn about human relationship from this practice’
Wednesday 23rd September and Sunday 27th September - Meditation on ultimate relationship - journaling prompt ‘How do I respond to the statement - We are waves in one sea of being, we recognise our being in the being of others, this calls on us to love everyone?’
Friday 18th September and Monday 21st September - Reflection on ultimate relationship - journaling prompt ‘What is it like to hold both the ultimate and the relative truth as we navigate this relationship?’
Thursday 24th September - Online meet up on Zoom at 8pm (Zoom link above)
INFORMAL DAILY LIFE PRACTICE
Daily life practice - When you see another person or an animal say to yourself, “I share my being with you and so I love you” and notice what happens.
SEPTEMBER WEEK THREE
Teaching Blog for Week 3 - Balancing self with other in relationship
As we have explored previously the non-dual understanding calls on us to love everyone. However, that does not require us to be a doormat. Rob Nairn always said in relationships that there was no need for self sacrifice. By this he meant that we need to pay attention to the balance between kindness and compassion for others and kindness and compassion for ourselves.
Many of us have deeply ingrained habits of people pleasing and conflict avoidance which prevent us from setting healthy boundaries. There may be some domains of our life where we are able to be authentic and have sufficient agency to set healthy boundaries and there may be other domains where we are unable to do this. So we might be authentic and assertive in the domain of our work, but unable to do this in certain family or friendship relationships, or vice versa.
The practices this week will put these relationships under scrutiny and create the conditions for us to begin to understand the underlying dynamics. Why do we feel disempowered in some relationships, but empowered in others?
If we are people pleasing and allowing others to take advantage of us, this is not good for us. It tends to leave us exhausted and/or resentful. But it is also not good for the other person in the relationship as it enables them to reinforce a habit which is harmful to others and to their relationships and so to themselves.
This is also the case where we go to any length to avoid conflict in particular relationships. This can undermine our agency and authenticity in the relationship and leave us frustrated and unhappy. Again, it is not ok for the other person because by allowing them to act unreasonably, the habit is reinforced, which is not good for them or the others in their life.
At the same time we need to remember that we share our being with others and our aim is not to harm the other person, but to understand the dynamics of the relationship, so that the needs of self and others are balanced.
As before this is not something that we have to we. We can trust these meditation practices to deliver insight over time. We bring to mind the relationships and create conditions for underlying thoughts, emotions and sensations to arise. We do nothing with these other than notice them without agenda. There is nothing to change and nothing to fix. We trust the insight to do its transformative work of its own accord.
Over time we find ourselves naturally responding differently in our relationships to the triggers which previously undermined our agency and authenticity. When our understanding and way of being in a relationship changes, as we are one half of the relationship, the relationship changes. Sometimes in wonderful and even miraculous ways.
SEPTEMBER WEEK THREE MEDITATION PRACTICE SCHEDULE
This practice schedule is for guidance only. Trust your own ability to fit the practices and reflections into your week.
You are welcome to journal about your meditation practice if you would like to. You can use the journaling prompts provided below and/or journal freely.
FORMAL MEDITATION PRACTICE AND JOURNALING PROMPTS
Tuesday 15th September and Saturday 19th September - September Meditation (with or without ambient music) - journaling prompt ‘What did I learn about human relationship from this practice’
Wednesday 16th September and Sunday 20th September - Tonglen for balancing relationships - journaling prompt ‘What do I notice about the dynamic in this relationship around people pleasing and boundary setting?’
Friday 18th September and Monday 21st September - Reflection on authenticity and agency in relationship - journaling prompt ‘How can I balance my needs for authenticity and agency with the other in this relationship?’
Thursday 17th September - Online meet up on Zoom at 8pm (Zoom link above)
INFORMAL DAILY LIFE PRACTICE
Daily life practice - When you are engaged with another person, pause and feel your feet on the ground. Notice any people pleasing or inability to set boundaries. What do you notice? Sense into and rest as the innate kindness of aware being. Then trust the unfolding of the engagement.
SEPTEMBER WEEK TWO
Teaching Blog for Week 2 - Projection
This week we are looking at projection, which is the psychological process which operationalises our conditioning, into thought, speech and behaviour. What I know about projection was taught to me by my first meditation teacher and friend Rob Nairn as well as what I have experienced in my practice and in my life.
There are two types of projection, positive and negative, both arise when we feel something uncomfortable within our mind and so project it out onto someone or something else to ease the discomfort.
Positive projection takes place when we admire someone who has qualities we wish that we had but believe that we don’t have. The belief that we don’t have these qualities can be uncomfortable. However, we might make ourself even more uncomfortable by admitting to ourselves that we have these qualities or the potential to develop these qualities.
We often find it easier (due to our conditioning) to admit to our weaknesses than to admit our strengths. We might think that someone is so popular or so successful or such a great meditator and feel down on ourselves because of this. Or we feel it would be uncomfortable to admit our own popularity, success or meditation abilities. Therefore, we project these desired qualities onto someone else.
The problem with positive projection is that by projecting these qualities onto others we undermine and disempower our own potential to embody these qualities.
In the field of spirituality we can easily project our potential onto our teachers or others in our community of practice. If that potential is for liberation, then positive projection of this quality onto others is a large block in recognising our own awakened nature. Also, it can be very uncomfortable for the teachers or peers who are projected on to in this way and it separates us from each other.
The best relationship we can aim for with our meditation teachers is one of mutual friendship and respect, in which we are walking the path side by side supporting each other.
Negative projection is generally spoken of more widely. This is where we project something we find uncomfortable within ourselves which is ‘negative’, such as a feeling of anger, onto others. When I use the word ‘negative’ in this context, I am not saying that these emotions are inherently negative because emotions such as anger can hold a powerful wisdom within them. I refer to them as negative due to their power to destroy our happiness and the happiness of those around us.
Negative project can be recognised when we are blaming someone or something else for make making us feel a particular way. We are projecting much of the time, so nothing wrong. As we explored last week, we are often blaming others through the process of projection due to our assumptions or expectations being different from another’s. This is part of the rich tapestry of the human condition.
Negative projection often leaves us feeling angry and resentful and the person we have projected onto may not care or may be oblivious to our projection. This is like eating poison and expecting the other person to die.
The approach to projection which we will follow this week is to notice, feel and allow our experience to unfold itself without agenda. We notice and surrender the thoughts, emotions and sensations and trust that our simple presence and awareness of them is sufficient to generate any insight. The insight leads to change……all of its own accord!
SEPTEMBER WEEK TWO MEDITATION PRACTICE SCHEDULE
This practice schedule is for guidance only. Trust your own ability to fit the practices and reflections into your week.
You are welcome to journal about your meditation practice if you would like to. You can use the journaling prompts provided below and/or journal freely.
FORMAL MEDITATION PRACTICE AND JOURNALING PROMPTS
Tuesday 8th September and Saturday 12th September - September Meditation (with or without ambient music) - journaling prompt ‘What did I learn about human relationship from this practice’
Wednesday 9th September and Sunday 13th September - Reflection on positive projection - journaling prompt ‘What did I learn about my habits of positive projection?’
Friday 11th September and Monday 14th September - Reflection on conditioning relationships (challenging relationships) - journaling prompt ‘What did I learn about my habits of negative projection?’
Thursday 10th September - Online meet up on Zoom at 8pm (Zoom link above)
INFORMAL DAILY LIFE PRACTICE
Daily life practice - At the end of the day, pause and feel your feet on the ground. Reflect back on the day to see if you can recognise any positive or negative projection. Then sense into and abide as aware being.
SEPTEMBER WEEK ONE
Teaching Blog for Week 1 - Conditioning in relative relationship
From the non-dual perspective, we recognise that we share our being with everything. This is the source of love and why the nature of our being is love. This is why love feels so good and makes us happy. It is what we truly are.
From the non-dual perspective, my being is your being is everyone’s being. When we love someone this is because we see our being in them. Particularly, we look into their eyes and recognise our common being.
This recognition calls upon us to love everyone. What does this mean? It calls upon us to have a genuine heartfelt wish that others are happy and free from suffering, just as we wish for ourselves to be happy and free from suffering. It calls upon us to act on this wish, wherever we can, but as Rob Nairn used to say “There is no need for self-sacrifice”. We must balance our authentic needs with those of others, for us all to maximise our mutual happiness and minimise our mutual suffering.
We will be looking at how to manage this balance later this month.
This week we will be looking at the way conditioning impacts our relationships. When we like someone, this is generally based on conditioning that is mutually pleasing. In life we have expectations, assumptions and beliefs about how things should be, how we should behave and about what is right and wrong. Where these expectations are compatible we will generally like a person. We will easily understand and agree with where they are coming from in our conversations with them and we will easily understand and agree with the ways in which they behave. So we come to like this person.
So, what happens when we don’t like someone? This is often because our conditioning is different from their conditioning in a way that causes conflict. They might speak or behave in a way that conflicts with our expectations, assumptions and beliefs about what it is acceptable to say and how it is appropriate to behave. We won’t easily understand why they say things that we might find uncomfortable or offensive. We won’t easily understand why they behave in ways that we find inappropriate. So we come to dislike this person.
For some people that we don’t like, we can wish them well and walk away. If there is a conflict in conditioning then this might be the wise approach to take to improve mutual happiness and reduce mutual suffering.
However, some people we don’t like we are stuck with. This might be because they are family members, friends of a friend or relation, work colleagues or neighbours. This is an opportunity to challenge our conditioning and be curious about the expectations, assumptions or beliefs that this person infringes.
To do this we become curious about the thoughts, stories, emotions and sensations that arise when we bring this person to mind. Then we can remind ourselves that just as we did not choose our conditioning, neither did they. This creates the causes and conditions for insight to arise in relation to the source of our dislike for this person, which can enable us to more clearly understand what is going on in the relationship.
Then we can remind ourselves of our common humanity. That we all just want to be happy and all just want to be free from suffering. And that fundamentally we are all one, in that we share our being. On the basis of this we we can wish the other well.
Practicing in this was can change our perspective on the relationship. When our perspective changes, then because we are one half of the relationship, the relationship can change. At the very least we can engage in our interactions with this person with more skill and grace.
Again, this does not mean that we have to be a door mat. It may mean that we can set a healthy boundary in relation to the person, based on our new found understanding.
Next week we will explore projection, which is the psychological process which operationalises our conditioning. At the end of the month we will come back to the shared being which is the basis of love for all.
SEPTEMBER WEEK ONE MEDITATION PRACTICE SCHEDULE
This practice schedule is for guidance only. Trust your own ability to fit the practices and reflections into your week.
You are welcome to journal about your meditation practice if you would like to. You can use the journaling prompts provided below and/or journal freely.
FORMAL MEDITATION PRACTICE AND JOURNALING PROMPTS
Tuesday 1st September and Saturday 5th September - September Meditation (with or without ambient music) - journaling prompt ‘What did I learn about human relationship from this practice’
Wednesday 2nd September and Sunday 6th September - Reflection on conditioning relationships (good relationships) - journaling prompt ‘How does mutual conditioning lead to easy relationships?’
Friday 4 September and Monday 7th September - Reflection on conditioning relationships (challenging relationships) - journaling prompt ‘How do differences in conditioning lead to challenges in relationships?’
Thursday 3rd September - Online meet up on Zoom at 8pm (Zoom link above)
INFORMAL DAILY LIFE PRACTICE
Daily life practice - When in relationship with another, notice what goes easily and what is challenging, recognise how these aspects of the relationship arise from similarities or differences in conditioning, which we did not choose. Then, sense into your common humanity with this person.
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