Clouds, Rivers, Lakes and Sea
4-Week Course with Henry Shukman
April 30, May 7, 14 & 21
Sundays, 10am – 12pm MT
(Course is Online Only. All sessions are recorded if you’re not able to attend live.)
“During meditation, all kinds of difficult feelings come up: restlessness, anxiety, reluctance, fear, irritation, doubt… what are known as the hindrances. All of these would seem like negatives, but I believe they’re doorways, gateways…
The more we can learn to be with these challenging emotions and experience during meditation, and the more they become OK, then we are truly getting freer. That is truly growing on the path of spiritual development and meditative awareness.
The very person in us who is wanting this and not wanting that… in a way the whole journey of meditation is one of loving and embracing that being inside ourselves – with our warm acceptance and tenderness – so it gets a little less strict, a little softer, looser.
When we learn to accept the things we think we don’t want in meditation, we discover that they can be maybe the most important gateway and opening to new vistas and horizons of what it is to be human.
That is what I hope, above all, to communicate in this course.”
– Henry Shukman
Guest Teacher in the
CLOUDS, RIVERS, LAKES AND SEA Program
Michael W. Taft will be our guest teacher for the May 7 session of Clouds, Rivers, Lakes, and Sea. Michael is a meditation teacher, mindfulness coach, bestselling author, and podcaster. Michael is the author of several books, including the bestselling The Mindful Geek, Nondualism: A Brief History of a Timeless Concept, and Ego (which he co-authored), as well as the editor of such books as Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson and The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young.
FREE 15-MINUTE GUIDED MEDITATION
We're excited to share a new 15-minute guided meditation on sitting with challenging conditions of the mind and heart that Henry has created.
The early Buddhist tradition identifies several states that tend to make it difficult to meditate. But these can be transformed into opportunities for growth. They can come to nourish our practice.
Discover how to transform challenges in meditation in ways that help to break old patterns. Learn to practice acceptance, welcoming, and self-love, by mindfully tending to disruptive thoughts and emotions. By inviting vulnerability, by letting ourselves be the way we are, and even loving the way we are, we can expand our self-acceptance, our self-understanding, and our capacity for love, peace and wonder.
Clouds, Rivers, Lakes and Sea
(Please note, this 4-week course is designed for all levels. We invite you to dive in, whether you’re new to meditation, or many decades down the path…)
Here we will explore how our heartaches and heartbreaks can be turned into nourishment for our practice and life, in a way that opens us to new loving perspectives.
We learn to:
- be mindfully, patiently aware of difficult emotions
- open to a vulnerability that helps us find an intrinsic support
- find expansive awareness that can embrace our pain
- experience tastes of the boundlessness in which experience arises
As we explore this territory of the heart by moving through all four of the Original Love perspectives (Mindfulness, Samadhi, Support, and Awakening), we shift away from self-defensive reactivity toward open-hearted compassionate engagement.
As much as meditation is about developing and uncovering positive states of mind, a critical part of practice is learning to be with challenging emotions. Actually the deepest value of our personal practice may found in coming to terms with all aspects of our psyches, including ones we “don’t like,” and finding the healing power of a radical allowing. This turns our negative feelings and mind-states into gateways to ease and expansiveness.
We hope you’ll join us!
Questions about the course? Please feel free to email Jeremy, the Original Love Program Manager.
Guided Meditations
Henry will be recording 1 guided meditation per week, and each week, we’ll send out that meditation mid-week. These guided meditations can serve as touchstones in your week, helping you deepen your exploration of the themes in the course.
Course information
Schedule:
Sundays April 30, May 7, 14 & 21, 10am – 12pm MT
For those of you in different time zones, or who can’t make the scheduled meeting times – all Sunday sessions will be recorded, and you will have access to recordings shortly after each event.
Original Love is 100% online, there are no in-person events scheduled this year as of yet.
Course components:
1. Sunday Sessions
Live sessions with Henry and Guest speakers include guided meditations, talks and Q&A
2. Guided Meditations
Henry will be recording 1 guided meditation per week, and each week, we’ll send out that meditation mid-week. These guided meditations can serve as touchstones in your week, helping you deepen your exploration of the themes in the course.
3. Daily Teachings (M-F)
To support you in integrating the course experience, we will send you daily emails (Monday-Friday) highlighting key teachings from the week, and offering prompts for your own reflection and practice. We hope this daily “dose” of Original Love helps to bring the learning to life for you.
4. Optional Community Forum
We will facilitate an online forum for those who want to engage with one another in daily check-ins and discussion. The optional online forum has proven to be a vibrant catalyst for connection, sharing, and new learning for those seeking camaraderie along the path of practice.
Cost:
4-Week Course: $175
Scholarships
We have a limited number of scholarships available. We don’t want anybody not to be able to take the program because of financial need. If you need financial assistance, please contact Jeremy, the Original Love Program Manager.
If you have any questions, please contact Jeremy. We’re happy to answer any questions and look forward to having you join us!