This month we will continue our experiment of bringing a Tomales retreat experience home, by focusing on this year’s BMCM Weeklong Retreat theme of “Building the Will.” We’ll suggest ways in which you can get a taste of a Weeklong Retreat from wherever you are. As a practical way to approach this week’s focus, think of an instance in your daily life where you’d like to apply One-Pointed Attention more. Please share this with us! Hearing about your efforts helps us all to develop our skills.
Consider how you might make the most of this opportunity for applying more One-Pointed Attention during the week. You might choose an idea from the list below, adapted from a worksheet in the Weeklong Retreat, or choose an idea of your own. You may decide to extend an instance where you already have success with One-Pointed Attention. Choose something that will work for you!
This week, our reading from Easwaran discusses how practicing One-Pointed Attention, or ekagrata in Sanskrit, helps us to build our will and deepen our love and loyalty to everyone around us. Please feel free to highlight particular lines or sections from the reading that resonate with you.
This week, we will explore how slowing down the mind can provide a critical inroad to building the will. Slowing down can be challenging, but we have many opportunities throughout the day to keep trying. Remember that slowing down isn’t only about pacing, but also about setting priorities.
During retreats we often work together in small groups to reflect on an Easwaran reading or video talk and to brainstorm practical suggestions to try. Regarding the current topic of Slowing Down, what are some successes you have had? How has Slowing Down helped you to build your will?
Do you have a specific challenge that you’d like tips with? Review the reading below for ideas, or ask your eSatsang friends!
This week, we’ll continue to look at the retreat theme of building the will, and this time through the lens of the mantram.
In light of that, you might carve out some dedicated mantram time this week in a way that works for you. Is there one activity you can do to focus on the mantram? During retreats there are many opportunities for repeating the mantram such as just before eating a meal, or while taking a walk, lying down for a nap, writing mantrams at the beginning of a workshop, or creating mantram art for someone… you choose!
In the spirit of bringing the retreat experience home, you could consider sitting down to write the mantram for a period of time, dedicating your mantrams to someone who needs them. You could do this in unison with Christine Easwaran and friends at Ramagiri Ashram on Sunday.
This week, our reading from Easwaran emphasizes using the mantram to build the will so we can be kind in challenging situations. Please feel free to share particular lines or sections from the reading that stand out to you, and tell us how they might apply to your own life.
Thanks to all of you for sharing your introductions and joining as you can in our “bring a weeklong retreat home” theme. Your reflections are always inspiring because they are a testament to how Easwaran speaks to each of us differently and in just the way we need. This week, we’ll revisit Easwaran’s teachings about how our meditation practice helps build our will.
Also, you might like to meditate with others this week as another way to bring the retreat home. Perhaps you have an in-person satsang to facilitate this, or another place to meditate with others.
As an optional alternative, you might try joining us for a virtual meditation next Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. San Francisco time. This is the same time of day that you would meditate in the morning if you were in Tomales, at the retreat house.
This week, we’ll continue our reading study in which Easwaran discusses the role that our practice of passage meditation plays in building the will. Please feel free to share particular lines or sections from the reading that stand out to you, and tell us how they might apply to your own life. We’d love to hear from you!
We are thrilled to invite you to explore the idea of how you might “bring a retreat” to wherever you are in the world. We know that some of you have recently attended a BMCM retreat in Tomales, California, others may have come to a Tomales retreat long ago, and many of you may not yet have had the opportunity to attend a retreat in person.
Easwaran felt that our BMCM retreats here in Tomales are essential to his students and to the world. Here are his words when he inaugurated our retreat house in 1994:
“Come here often, as often as you can. Renew your commitment. Come together to support each other and rededicate your lives to this supreme ambition. This is a waystation on your pilgrimage. This is your second home.”
With this in mind, over the next two months we’ll offer a taste of the retreat experience by focusing on this year’s weeklong retreat theme and providing suggestions so you can experience elements of this retreat from wherever you are.
We’d like to share one last reminder with you about our online workshop tomorrow: Saturday, June 23 at 2:00p.m. –3:15p.m. San Francisco time. We look forward to enjoying the satsang with you! Even if you’re not able to watch the workshop live, if you register now we’ll send you the recording afterwards.
Can you identify some ways in which you currently enjoy fellowship with other spiritual aspirants? Is there another time during your week that might offer an opportunity for satsang? Think of a small experiment you’d like to try for this purpose.
We’d really love to hear your ideas for cultivating satsang opportunities this coming week! Next week, we’ll ask you to share any results you experienced. Your comments will inspire others, so consider sharing as a way of putting your eSatsang friends first!
We warmly invite you to join us for an online workshop on Saturday, June 23 at 2:00p.m. – 3:15 p.m. San Francisco time. This is a 75-minute workshop on the theme of Spiritual Fellowship. Many members of our eSatsang will be taking part, so it’s a chance for some real-time satsang! n the excerpt below, Easwaran looks at how all eight points can come into play when we are with other people – both passage meditators, and also family and friends who may not practice passage meditation.
What are some of the ways that Easwaran applies the eight points to satsang, which you find surprising? Is there anything in the reading that resonates with your personal experience? We’d love to hear your comments and reflections about how interacting with others impacts your spiritual practice in positive ways.
Would you like to meditate with others this month? If so, get an extra boost with this month’s theme of Spiritual Fellowship, and join our passage meditation community for a virtual meditation on Saturday mornings at 6:30 a.m. San Francisco time. We use Zoom software which allows us to videoconference with each other. In the reading that follows, Easwaran shares how important rich personal relationships are for everyone – and in fact they “constitute one of the great blessings of this earth.” He also reminds us of the important role that relationships have in helping us train ourselves to become more selfless in daily life. Do you have examples of how you can see this blessing in your daily life? We’d love to hear about how your relationships are helping you whittle away your self-will.
A little over a year ago, we launched the current interactive format for the eSatsang. It’s enabled us to communicate with each other more directly and in a timely manner on Easwaran’s teachings. As a one-year celebration, we’d like to re-visit the seventh point in the eight-point program: Spiritual Fellowship!
Throughout this month, we’ll look at how Easwaran encourages us to seek spiritual fellowship, or satsang, in different ways in our daily lives. We’ll explore this topic through a reading study of Chapter Seven in Easwaran’s book, Passage Meditation.
This month’s theme will culminate with the next Returnee Online Workshop on Saturday, June 23, at 2:00p.m. – 3:15 p.m. San Francisco Time. Many members of the eSatsang will be taking part, so it’s a chance for some real-time satsang and to extend our discussions. Please join us!
We’ve come to the final week of our month-long look at our use of technology, and how we can apply the eight-point program to it. It’s been interesting hearing all of your successes and challenges, and inspiring to hear about the creative ways you’ve been experimenting.
In the tenth of Easwaran’s technology aphorisms, he asks for “technology with a human face.” Have you seen creative examples in action of “technology with a human face”? To conclude this month’s topic, we’ll leave Easwaran with the last word in the reading excerpt below. In the following article, he reminds us of our ultimate goal and responsibilities. He encourages us to take “discriminating action”, and to learn how to choose freely the things that will make us the most compassionate and kind person we can be. We look forward to your comments!
Thank you again for all of your thoughtful comments regarding technology use and how it relates to our spiritual practice. Have you noticed benefits to an additional focus on your use of technology as seen through a spiritual lens over the past few weeks?
In the next section of our ongoing reading study, Easwaran suggests that we cultivate discrimination by trying alternative forms of entertainment, particularly in the company of children. Is there a substitution you’ve made in the past that you’ve found enjoyable? Is there a technology-free entertainment you’d like to try this week? Please feel free to share your reflections on this week’s reading study or on your experience with alternative entertainment. We look forward to hearing your ideas!
Thanks to all of you for your insightful comments and engagement with our current theme of technology. It’s a rich topic, and it’s great you’re taking the time to consider it as a satsang. Were you motivated to look more deeply at your technology use or to try something new this week?
Have a look at the three aphorisms below from Easwaran. Is there something tangible and specific you can try in your regular life at home, inspired by one of these? Or is there an idea here that you’ll think about and be more aware of this week? For example, you might do your spiritual reading this week while being more attuned to the sages’ understanding of the “indivisible, the full.” Or perhaps you can create a small sense-training experiment around technology for the week – you decide!
This month we’re shifting to considering the relationship between our use of technology and our practice of the eight-point program. We’ll be using the latest Blue Mountain Journal to lead us.
This is a special opportunity to share as a satsang about technology. It’s a topic that touches us all, so this is a chance to slow down, and reflect on our own technology use – with the eight points at the forefront. It’s a chance to speak openly about experiments you’ve tried or ask for tips with a specific challenge.
In each week of May, we’ll focus on three different aphorisms from Easwaran (about his relationship to) on technology. We invite you to reflect on his statements (one or all three) as they relate to your life. We’d love to hear your technology triumphs and trials. In addition to the three aphorisms, we’ll share a longer reading excerpt for inspiration.
Thanks to everyone for your enthusiasm and engagement during our study of Easwaran’s book, The Compassionate Universe over these past two months. It’s been a dynamic and inspiring closer look at the connections that Easwaran makes between our practice of the eight-point program and the Earth we all inhabit together.
We’d like to leave Easwaran with the last word as we conclude this theme. In the excerpt below from The Compassionate Universe, Easwaran reminds us about the need to change our conditioning in order to find satisfaction in a more selfless lifestyle.
What part of this reading resonates with you? Please share your thoughts and ideas regarding the art of living in simplicity. We’d love to hear about any small or big changes you’ve been making to live a more efficient and selfless life.
To celebrate Earth Day this Sunday, April 22, we’re having a “Mantram Relay for Earth.” Will you join us?
To participate, choose a time of the day that you are available (any of the 24 hours), and fill out your name and location on the sheet. During your chosen time, we invite you to write your mantram with as much concentration as possible, in honor of Mother Earth. Feel free to write your mantram outside or near natural surroundings.
This week we encourage you to try your chosen activity again or to try a new one. Remember, Easwaran suggests many small activities from the reading last week. What other suggestions do you have? And please let us know what challenges and successes you’ve experienced.
For inspiration, please enjoy this three-minute clip of Easwaran commenting on a poem by Kabir, in which he draws parallels between the rainforest and the mind, and reminds us how all of the activity within it can be quietened.
Thank you for participating in our contemplative Compassionate Universe activities last month! We're happy to be continuing our environmental theme for the month of April also. Join the “Mantram Relay for Earth” on Sunday April 22, 2018 in honor of Earth Day. As a community, we’ll take turns to fill as much of this 24-hour period with mantrams.
Easwaran often shared about the balance between needing to go inward in meditation, in order to gather resources to do good out in the world. This week, we’ll look at how we can make small contributions to the natural environment in practical and subtle ways.
As you read the excerpt below from Easwaran’s book, The Compassionate Universe, are there lines or paragraphs that are inspiring to you, or that strike you?
Thank you for sharing your reflections on our compassionate universe experiments over the last few weeks. It’s been an inspiration to hear from each of you. If you haven’t had a chance to try one of our previous activities, this week is another opportunity!
We encourage you to continue your contemplation in nature by choosing one of the following activities:
- Experience the mantram in nature for 15 minutes, again!
- Reflect on the passage “Let Me Walk in Beauty” and/or begin memorizing it.
- Read and comment on the excerpt from Easwaran’s The Compassionate Universe below.
Also, a reminder that if you already have this passage memorized, have you been using it in your meditation this month? Have you noticed an impact?
This week we’ll continue our reflection on the passage “Let Me Walk in Beauty”, and we’ll expand our theme of the Compassionate Universe to include the mantram.
This week, try to find time to experience the mantram in nature. If you haven’t spent focused time with the mantram in nature before, no problem! The idea behind this exercise is to say the mantram silently with as much concentration as possible for 15 minutes, while you experience the outdoors. Keep the mantram at the forefront of your mind.
Please also feel free to take some dedicated time to repeat the mantram while taking exercise outdoors, while walking, for example. Please share what you do!
