Full panel discussion at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2011 featuring Jeannie Zandi, Bentinho Massaro, and Kenny Johnson:
Posts Tagged ‘Science and Nonduality’
My Experience at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2011
October 26, 2011I spent four days at the Science and Nonduality Conference (SAND) in San Rafael, California. Flying back to Nova Scotia on WestJet, the view offers crisp constellations, the northern lights, and rare shooting stars. I don’t know the names of the constellations, and the northern lights are carrying on for so many hours I’ve lost interest. But a shooting star means there’s nothing to forget when there’s only the surprise of the moment.
SAND is a conference of constellations, lights, and shooting stars. That’s the stuff we’re made of. That means SAND is also a community.
When people ask me about the Conference I tell them I’m interested in the sense of community that is generated, because I feel that that is how the teaching of nonduality is honed, made available, and disseminates.
Early in the life of the email forum Nonduality Salon, I guess it was the late 90s, I proposed the concept of the hologuru: the community as guru, teacher, guide, friend, source, muse; container of lights northern, southern, eastern and western.
This, the third SAND, was the best one. It’s hard to pinpoint why it was so good this year. It felt “rounded out” somehow. Peter Fenner used the word “mellow”. It’s one thing to create that feeling with a dozen people, but to generate it with 500 is a different level of achievement.
James Traverse describes it this way: “The blessing of SAND is that there is an endless number of beautiful people to meet and experience and each is a fascinating jewel of Indra’s Net – it was a truly breath-taking privilege to be in the presence of such beauty, integrity, honesty, humility, dedication, truth, joy and uninhibited Love.”
James Traverse is my neighbour and friend. We flew together, both gave talks, and shared cabs and a room. What we didn’t share was the same experience at SAND. If you talked to each of us separately, you might think we attended different gatherings. That speaks to the Conference’s complexity and richness. We agreed we’ll be back next year.
Besides James, I spent quality time with a few other people whom I wish to acknowledge and thank:
Maurizio and Zaya whose love energy drives everything.
Closer-than-close friend, former editor of the Highlights, and main nondual squeeze Christiana Duranczyk.
Long time Nonduality Salon and Advaita Academy contributor Dhanya for bringing me into her fresh and beautiful home in San Rafael and preparing perhaps the best meal I ever ate while bringing me up to date on her travels, adventures, and the world of traditional Vedanta.
My publisher Connie Shaw from Sentient Publications.
Kathy Berndt from our Nova Scotia Nonduality Satsang Meetup group.
Puppetji, whom I met at the elevator and even got mentioned in his appearance.
Chuck Hillig and Jeff Foster.
Author Sam Avery (we sat on the bench outside and smoked cigars together, therefore we are bonded for life).
Prema Akasha (who also did a delightful job emceeing my panel discussion and other sessions. Too bad she doesn’t smoke cigars.)
The people who graciously agreed to appear on my panel: Jeannie Zandi, Bentinho Massaro, and Kenny Johnson. Benjamin Smythe also agreed to participate but he got sick and couldn’t make it.
Rick Archer from Buddha at the Gas Pump.
Rob Schwartz from East Bay Open Circle.
Jonathan Tayler
Jonathan Bricklin
Jonah Mark Bekerman.
Chuck (darn it, last name I can’t remember, but I enjoyed meeting you a couple times).
Nick Day
Robert Waggoner
Scott Kiloby, Peter Fenner, John Prendergast, Unmani, David Loy
East West bookstore, which runs the SAND bookstore with great care and knowledge.
the artist Prasanna.
the volunteers, the technical people.
the small audience that saw my stand-up comedy act on open mic night.
I met lots of other people including several readers of the Highlights: Hi and thank you.
The biggest thanks goes to each one of you who attended my talk on Albert Blackburn and the panel discussion that I put together. Deep bow to each one of you. I also thank those who wanted to attend but could not due to conflicts as there were several concurrent talks and other obligations people had.
I also want to thank the young people I talked to, the college and high school kids. I’d love to see a big gang of young people next year. They’d have a ball and add a whole different kind of energy to the conference.
I saw many talks and loved to see the interest and passion of the speakers. I can’t say one stands out over the others as I appreciated each speaker for what he or she offered.
There’s so much I didn’t do and so much I didn’t see and so many people I didn’t talk to that it’s ridiculous. However, I have always felt that abundance is its own message. There should be even greater abundance, like a city that cannot be fully explored in many lifetimes because there is so much happening and change constantly happening.
Also at my age I tend to forget, so if we had a conversation and I forgot to mention you, please remind me so that I can acknowledge you. Fact is, with some people you connect with their eyes and spirit and not their name tag and there were many people I met in that category and you know who you are.
The SAND is as intriguing as the northern lights, as eternally wondrous as constellations, and as rare and startling as a shooting star.
In the next entry I’m going to publish James Traverse’s impassioned description of the Conference. I’ll gladly publish notes on your experience if you’ll send it to me.
Last note: SAND Europe is happening at the end of May 2012 in Amsterdam. I’ll post details as I receive them.
Thank you for your interest.
-Jerry Katz
A Report from the Science and Nonduality Conference 2010
October 27, 2010I spent four days at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2010 (SAND). You have no idea how good that feels when three people in one day tell you — in person — how much they love the Nonduality Highlights. It’s surreal because all our nonduality work in online. Thank you to those who took the time to express appreciation for the Highlights and to those who stopped to talk about other things. I value the presence of everyone. Please look me up at next year’s conference and stop to talk.
Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo pulled it together again. There was a great diversity of speakers and topics: Jeff Foster (a nice guy whose hair and wife I hope to steal some day), Scott Kiloby (so generous with his time), Rupert Spira (a man whose charm and talent are surpassed by only two people: his wife Ellen and mother Meriel, who were both present), Francis Lucille, Adyashanti, Robert Lanza, Larry Dossey, Drew Dellinger, Nassim Haramein.
Jay Michaelson (named by Forward as one of the 50 most influential Jews in America; I was named number 51, having just missed the cut. In any case, between the two us we couldn’t get the guy at the raw food concession to give us extra salsa, so to heck with being influential), Stanley Sobottka (who revealed for the first time in public his spiritual “story”), Peter Fenner (another guy with a beautiful wife; what’s that all about? I asked his wife if Peter uses his tremendous deconstructive skills to get out of doing the dishes. She said no.)
Zoran Josipovic, Peter Russell, Peter Baumann, A.H. Almaas, Puppetji (who is a youngish, good looking, funny guy), Jerry Katz (who is old, blah looking, and not funny), Jonathan Bricklin (the William James expert who has a cousin who once built a car in New Brunswick, Canada), Sheikha Ayshegul Ashki (who gave a stunning talk on Sufism seen by only a handful. What a woman. Look her up.)
Florian Schlosser, Prema Akasha (a cool woman, a fine performer, and creative director for Adyashanti.), Natalie Geld (see, I remembered you!), Ravi Ravindra (a world teacher who lives here in Halifax, Nova Scotia), Stephen LaBerge (the lucid dreaming guy; he was good), Chuck Hillig (long time partner in nondual crime and brilliant explicator of the nondual; fun sitting with Chuck and chatting; Chuck’s one of my peep).
Kenneth D. Johnson (a former bank robber and pimp sentenced to forty years in jail and awakened by Gangaji following initial contact with a supportive prison guard; Kenny received a standing ovation; great speaker.), Loibon Le Baaba (a man who has been initiated into 16 Shamanic traditions and who wears gigantic piercings, traditional clothing and goes barefoot; a man whose love fills the conference venue).
I also want to mention James Hebert whose film Awakening Itself was shown as the last event of the conference. It was very well received. After I send this email, I’ll think of other people, like Jon Bernie, who drives a hell of a Porsche, Peter Dziuban, Pamela Wilson, who is so entrancing I just wanted to sit there and watch her all day; primarily though she’s one heck of a smart nondualist. And Tami Simon who owns a small publishing company called Sounds True. What a gang! Add several hundred attendees who are just as interesting, and you have a rare gathering in which anything could happen. Oh yeah, Mark Scorelle who we’re always ripping off for Highlights material. It was great meeting you, Mark. And here I thought you were just a name in Gloria’s Highlights. Also Kurt Schmidt, David Kindschi, Sam Saddigh, John Troy and Trip. I can’t remember everyone. And of course Patrick Manigault.
Many attendees were very, very pleased with their experience. Some wanted a better organized experience. What is needed, it has become clear, is better organization, along with an orientation to the conference. The buzz is that the organization of next year’s SAND will be different. Details are being worked on right now.
Oh, I didn’t mention the experiential rooms, the music, the entertainment, the films, the raw food concession, the tea nooks where anyone could sit and enjoy free tea from a local tea shop. Those were teas rich, thick, and hearty. Or Prema Akasha’s mandala to which anyone could add a line, a squiggle, a circle, etc., until a beautiful mandala emerged, little by little. What did I forget?
There were many others. I haven’t mentioned everyone I met and spoke to, so I’m sorry if I missed you. Be assured that you made my day, every day. Again, thanks to Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo for putting together the conference. They are all about the love.
Go to http://scienceandnonduality.com for more info.
–Jerry Katz
Here are excerpts from Rupert Spira’s talk at the SAND 2010:
All we know is experience. Check that that is true for you. Have you ever known, do you know, or could you know anything other than experience? And whatever it is that knows experience intimately, utterly, pervades all experience equally. No part of experience is further from or closer to myself, whatever my self is, than any other part. In fact we don’t really know experience, we just know experiencing. And if we stay close to experiencing, we never find a separate self, object, other, or entity. We just find the pure intimacy of experiencing. There is no inside of experiencing, there is no outside of experiencing. … All experience takes place now. Check that for yourself. Can you move just a second away from now? … The past and the future are never experiences, they are concepts. That is, time is never an experience. Now is not a moment in time but is truly timeless or eternal. Experience takes place here. … Try to move just one millimeter away from here. … All experience is here. We never experience distance or space. … This locationless dimension which has no finite qualities (is) called here. … It is known by all of us. It is what we refer to when we speak of love. Love is absolute intimacy, immediacy, innocense of experience. It is not just the condition of our relationship with one or two special friends. It is the name we give to the fundamental condition of all experience. … The moon is only ever the sight of the moon. The sight of the moon is made only of seeing, as seeing takes place here, not there. The American poet e.e. cummings tried to describe this in this poem:
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
So how is it that this absolute intimacy of experience, the lack of any distance, otherness, separation, or objectness of experience, which is the fundamental quality of all experience, how is it that it sometimes seems to be missing? … How does thought veil love? …
…
The separate entity never finds love; it dissolves, or dies, in love. This is in fact the only thing the separate entity ever truly seeks: it’s own death or disappearance. When the mind re-emerges again after this timeless experience of love about which it knows nothing, it recreates again the separate self in here and the separate other out there. And as we all know, before long the experience of love seems to be lost again, so again we go out in search of an object or an other that will deliver the experience of love.
What Is Nonduality? Responses from the Science and Nonduality Conference 2009. Part Two.
March 15, 2010
3-DVD set, 21 interviews, 600 minutes
The following are excerpts from responses to the question, What is nonduality? They are found on Volume 2 of the DVD set:
What Is Nonduality?
Francis Lucille, nonduality teacher
The definition for nonduailty would be that there is one single reality. We all have the knowledge that we are conscious and that consciousness is real. That which hears the words is consciousness. That is beyond a shadow of a doubt. …The world is only a concept which is inferred from perceptions. Perceptions are mind stuff. … Consciousness is the reality of our experience. If there is only one reality … the reality of all minds must be the same. That is the fundamental understanding of nonduality.
Robert Dittler, Abbot/Bishop, White Robed Monks of St. Benedict
[Silence. The video shows him smiling, shrugging, nodding, being.]
Jeremy Hayward, teacher of meditation, science, and Buddhism with Shambhala Buddhism
Literally what we’re talking about is the non-distinction of nonduality of I and other primarily … distinctions come from the conceptual mind that divides the world into this and that and the primary one is the distinction between me and you, me and that, me, me. That’s duality. It becomes a problem when we forget there is no me. … There’s just a flow of energy and awareness and then something pops up and says, “ME” and that’s starts duality. But duality and nonduality are two sides of the same coin. You can’t separate one from the other, you have to see the whole thing, which is duality and nonduality together.
Jeff Foster, nonduality teacher
I really don’t know what nonduality is anymore. Years ago I could have told you a lot about nonduality. The word nonduality is just a pointer. It points to life as it’s happening and the possibility that we’re not separate from life. The moment you talk about nonduality you kind of missed the point. … The moment you talk about it you’ve made it into something separate from something else … which is completely dualistic. So what is nonduality. I guess the answer is there when the question isn’t, somehow.
Nahid Angha, Co-director of the International Association of Sufism
The question of nonduality has been the concern of human beings since the beginning of civilization, because we want to see if there is any essence to all that there is. … What is nonduality when we see around ourselves duality? Is there any essence to [duality]? … In Sufism we come to the metaphor of raindrop and ocean. When it falls into the ocean it realizes that it is the ocean. So unless we find that reality within our own selves, then duality remains.
Bernard Baars, The Neurosciences Institute of San Diego
Nonduality in Sanskrit … is the theory that one can perceive the world in a completely unified fashion. … Nondualism is said to be the ultimate state that one may arrive at, after many years or perhaps very quickly.
3-DVD set, 21 interviews, 600 minutes
Science and Nonduality Anthology: Loibon Le Baaba
March 9, 2010
Science and Nonduality Anthology, Volume 1
Interviews of participants at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2009.
3-DVD set, 21 interviews, 600 minutes
These are crystal clear nuggets of essential nondual teachings relevant to each speaker’s background. The responses to the question, What is nonduality? are alone worth the price.
There are 21 interviews. Here are notes from the interview with Loibon Le Baaba
Loibon brings you literally to the bone of death via the cycle of life, oneness, ecology, inseparateness of I, me, you, yours. Headhunting and murder in tribal warfare are discussed intelligently and as part of the cycle of life. Are you or are you not expendable? Find out. Loibon is a powerful and challenging teacher.
Introduction: Loibon is a title meaning shaman, teacher, or medicine keeper. It refers to a fount of consciousness from the ancestor, or God. Loibon tries to help people see things from a primitive tribal way of thinking, which incorporates every possible way of thinking, yet transcends doctrine or dogma.
What is nonduality? There is no difference that’s real. There is a difference that’s relative. One is not to avoid being attached. The problem is being attached to an attachment.
What is the tribal perspective of nonduality? Everything is alive, intelligent, and sentient, for everything is part of what is. There is no time of creation or destruction; there are cycles, hence peace, no death, only change, no birth, only change.
I am the carrier of what has come before me; the ego is necessary but is not our being. There is no sense of equality or inequality in tribal culture. The sense of balance includes imbalance.
You are I are different as day and night but our life is one, our soul is one. Is there enlightenment? In the true sense of being in the light, all there is, is the light, which is not separate from darkness, so nothing to achieve or accomplish, we are that.
The only process is to be aware of that, to accept it, and to live it. Those that refuse to live or learn or be it, they’re expendable. “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,” said Malcolm X, who also said, “If you are to liberate you need to educate.”
What is the context of headhunting in tribal society? In tribal culture the way of thinking is very primal. The survival of the whole is most important and every individual is a potential sacrifice for the well being and health of the whole. In tribal conflicts they go into conflict without trying to avoid death, but for the purpose of killing. If they are killed the exhilaration of acceptance is greater than doing the killing because when they are killed they are sacrificing individuality to become one with the ancestor which sustains everything. It’s an honor to join the ancestors. The head is taken back to the village of the taker and is decorated and kept in the main living space of the family of the taker. The head elder may sleep on the skull as a pillow to absorb the life energy. The liver and heart is also eaten to carry on the strength of the great warrior who sacrifices his physical being. Loibon: “It’s an honor, whatever we do to each other. It’s a privilege. Totally different way of thinking.”
Science and Nonduality Anthology, Volume 1
Interviews of participants at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2009
DVD: Science and Nonduality Anthology
January 8, 2010New DVD:
SCIENCE AND NONDUALITY ANTHOLOGY
Volume 1
What is nonduality? How does the “I” arise? Who is the doer? If everything is truly nothing, why do we perceive so much complexity? If everything is unfolding as it should, can we have free will? Is nondual awareness the end point for the evolution of consciousness?
Take twenty one of the finest thinkers in the fields of neuroscience, quantum physics, psychotherapy, art, Vedanta, Sufism, Judaism, and Buddhism and ask them some of the toughest questions known to humankind and this is what you get: A groundbreaking anthology of interviews that illuminate the deepest and most compelling mysteries of the human experience.
This DVD is the first of its kind to explore the convergence between science and nonduality. Rather than being heavily edited to direct the viewer according to a particular opinion, each of the interviews is a stand alone piece that allows us to fully experience the depth of the speaker. Each interview is a unique journey that ultimately brings us back to the source of all, beyond concepts and words. Enjoy!
View clips from the interviews:
3 DVDs, 21 interviews, 600 minutes, 0 All codes (playable worldwide), NTSC Video
The DVDs contain interviews with: Stuart Hameroff, Stephen Wolinksy, Peter Fenner Loibon Le Baaba, Rupert Spira, Jeremy Hayward, Rabbi Hoffman, Amit Goswami, Francis Lucille, Robert Dittler, Henry Stapp, Nahid Angha, Jeff Foster, Kebir Helminski, Peter Russell, John Prendergast, Bernie Baars, Olga Louchakova, Vijai Kapoor, Thomas Ray, Tim Freke
Here are a few clips:
Notes on the Science and Nonduality Conference 2009, Part 6: Gary Weber
December 20, 2009Gary Weber – You Are Not in Control
Segment of talk entitled “Ramana Maharshi and Einstein on Free Will” given at Science and NonDuality Conference in San Rafael, CA in October 2009. Employs Bhagavad Gita, thought experiments, gedanken, and examples from everyday life to demonstrate that it is impossible to be in control of what happens in your life and that concepts like sin and karma have no real validity.
Here is the link to the YouTube video of the talk. (WordPress or YouTube is not allowing the embedding of the video within this blog entry.)
Notes on the Science and Nonduality Conference: Part Three
November 6, 2009The following are not my notes, but those of Robert Wallace, reprinted with permission. Visit his blog!
Science and Nonduality: The Many and the “One”
by Robert Wallace
from robertmwallace.com
Last weekend (Oct. 22-25, 2009), my wife Kathy and I participated in the first international Science and Nonduality Conference, in San Rafael, California. “Nonduality” is an English word deriving from the Sanskrit “advaita,” which is the distinctive concept of the most influential school of spiritual thought and practice in India, Advaita Vedanta. Originating with Shankara and others around 800AD, Advaita’s central doctrine is that Brahman (or “God”) and Atman (“Soul”) are not, as we might think, two things, but one. This idea has been generalized to apply to numerous prevalent dualities in present-day thinking, such as mind/body, matter/energy, and so forth. So the conference sought to bridge also the duality of science and spirituality, bringing together prominent writers and researchers from both “sides.”
The conference was organized by Maurizio Benazzo, of Neti Neti Media, and (on the science side) Prof. Stuart Hameroff of U. of Arizona (Tucson). Prof. Hameroff is also the organizer of an ongoing biannual series of conferences at U. of Arizona on “Consciousness,” which attracts leading neuroscience researchers, philosophers, etc. Hameroff’s two talks at this conference were probably its most ambitious attempts to synthesize nonduality and science, the latter extending down to the quantum level. Hameroff collaborates with Roger Penrose, an Oxford University physicist whose The Emperor’s New Mind and other books have drawn connections between consciousness and quantum phenomena.
Penrose and Hameroff suggest that the quantum level may be where “Platonic Forms,” both mathematical and ethical, most directly affect the physical universe. As an admirer of Plato, I’m naturally quite interested in this proposal. I’ll have to learn a good deal more about quantum physics and physiology before I’ll be in a position to evaluate it.
I feel better equipped to assess some of the philosophical or religious ideas that were laid out at the conference. There was a good deal of inspirational invocation of the idea that “we are all one,” through the non-dual Brahman/Atman. As I’ve indicated in this blog and other writings, I have a lot of sympathy with this idea. I’m glad to see it being taken seriously in public venues like this conference. However, I want to emphasize that it’s an idea that needs to be handled carefully. If we assert it as a blanket truth that simply has to be “accepted,” rather than understood, we may erase crucial differences that I think should be respected and preserved, and are respected and preserved within the true “One.”
More than one person at the conference reported having heard people say that they sometimes feel guilty about insisting on their personal needs, in negotiating with others—in view of the supposed fact that the difference between them and the others is really just an illusion!
The difference between you and me is not, I think, a mere illusion. On one level it’s perfectly real, so that I shouldn’t suppose (for example) that your experiencing pleasure or convenience compensates for my experiencing pain or inconvenience. In this sort of context, it’s perfectly appropriate to raise issues about justice and fairness.
The metaphysical truth (as I think I’ve learned from Plato and Hegel) isn’t that the boundaries between us are simply unreal, illusory, but that they aren’t features of the fullest reality, what’s “most real.” Because the One is completely self-determining, it’s real as itself; whereas we, who are only partially self-determining, aren’t fully real as ourselves. But whatever degree of self-determination we do have, contributes to or derives from the complete self-determination of the One, and thus it’s preserved, rather than erased, in the One’s fullest reality.
So it’s important for us to preserve our sense of how “the world” of distinct people and things functions and ought to function, at the same time that we love and orient ourselves towards the ultimate, most real One. If distinct things were insignificant, why would the saints and mystics report that the One loves everything? In my own life, my newfound (in recent years) consciousness of the One, powerful as it is, doesn’t erase my consciousness of my individual past and future, and my particular responsibilities and decisions. If anything, it intensifies and deepens that consciousness—and makes it manageable, by putting it within a universal context of love and forgiveness.
As Rumi says, “there’s no need to go outside.” The Atman/Brahman, the Soul/God, is in every one of us, insofar as each of us has some capacity for self-determination. Since my finite self-determination is infinitely far from infinite self-determination, my awareness of infinite self-determination, or the One, does reduce the finite me to nothing, in comparison. (This is what the Sufis call “fana,” annihilation in God.) But at the same time, the fact that I have this awareness, that I have some self-determination, gives me infinite importance, as it gives infinite importance to all of us. (This is what the Sufis call “baqa,” dwelling in God.) So we nothings must love and nurture ourselves and each other, as the One loves and nurtures all of us. But in order to love and nurture each of us effectively, we must preserve a sense of how each of us is a “something,” distinct from the others. Even though, unlike the One, these “somethings” aren’t fully real.
I think this sort of “down-to-earth” recognition of our partial distinctness is found in every spiritual tradition that endures. Sufi sheikhs have families and jobs. Hinduism makes provision for love and raising a family, as well as for monastic life. Taoism makes fun of exalted pretensions. Christian monks pay their bills by making and selling wine. Plato and Hegel, both of them mystics, develop complex theories of love, ethics, and society. A person doesn’t pass directly from childhood and youth to spiritual maturity—there are intervening stages to pass through, having to do with learning the ways of the world, learning to think for oneself, and developing one’s capacities for love and for nurturing (and thus resolving any inherited “issues” one may have). If a metaphysics or a religious world-view neglects any of these stages on the way, it won’t really satisfy its followers. (Nor, probably, will it integrate well with the sciences.)
Notes on My Experience at The Science and Nonduality Conference 2009: Part One
October 31, 2009Here are a few excerpts from my notebook kept at the Science and Nonduality Conference:
“The no state stateless state. Notice it. … Notice the stateless state of not depending upon thoughts, memories, associations, perceptions…
Notice how the stillness appears to go on forever. … Realize you are conscious of that stillness … just be the consciousness. … What would you have to unpack if there was no purpose?”
Wolinsky said the his teacher, Nisargadatta Maharaj, was a Zen master of the highest order. Nisargadatta said that spirituality is about realizing who you are not. Through neti-neti you realize who you are. He also said that everything Nisargadatta gave was a thorn, a thorn that would pluck out the thorn causing suffering and pain.
Amit Goswami
His turning point in life was when he was suffering and suddenly asked himself, “Why do I live this way?” In that instant he knew he was changed.
“Do you see anything that separates seeing from you? … There are no “sides” just open presence. … No containment going on in our experience. … Thoughts that say there are borders have no borders, no containment. … The notion of containment arises in the sea of the uncontained. … Are you perceiving me as though I’m a container?
“Anything you think about nondual realization is wrong. … Everyone is in nondual awareness right now. … You’re never closer to or further away from nondual realization. … Images of nonduality are the biggest occlusion. … The actual is always present as pure awareness. … Grace is how the recognition happens. … Give up the search, not the practice. … Cognitive neuroscience is the most important field right now. … Reason is a veneer and a crude tool.”
~ ~ ~
CDs and DVDs of speaker sessions from The Science and Nonduality Conference 2009 are available here.
~ ~ ~
The Conference was not only about speakers. “Heather Munro Pierce leads her signature modality in the Experiential Room hosted by Conscious Dancer Magazine, Oct. 25, 2009.”
Preparing a Talk for the Science and Nonduality Conference
August 11, 2009I’m scheduled to speak at the upcoming Science and Nonduality Conference, October 22-25 in San Rafael (Marin County), California.
The title of my talk is Stumbling into Nonduality. What I want to emphasize is that you stumble into nonduality or truth or a realization of what reality is.
That stumbling takes different forms and occurs more than once for a person, each time revealing a refinement of your realization.
The stumbling isn’t worth much, however, unless its meaningful. Then, if it’s meaningful it has to be valued. If it is valued, it has to be pursued, studied, gone deeply into.
Realization, then, may lead to a life in which nondual expression is obvious in the work you do. In that case, a “nondual perspective” may be identified.
That outlines what I’m going to talk about:
Stumbling into nonduality: fresh examples.
Valuing the stumbling: what does that mean to you?
Pursuing nonduality: new subtleties in the pursuit.
Nondual perspectives: 2 or 3 newly emerging perspectives, depending on time and what I discover up to the last minute.
The Conference is an opportunity to sample tastes from the buffet table of nonduality. I’m offering only one dish. Others will say there is no one to stumble into nonduality. Since that too is the case, the conference will be an opportunity to face and enjoy paradox. Be hungry!
