Erin: I have never felt at home in society’s binaries. The either/or categories of existence (gender, sexuality, beliefs, affiliations…) don’t ring true in my experience and seem designed to promote surface judgements and sow division. F that noise. We’re all more beautifully complex creatures, embodied contradictions of both/and. Tonight we’ll practice being this and that, and … Continued
Kalen: Heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism, Gestalt therapy holds holism as a central tenet. Holism, and Gestalt, are all about radical inclusion. There is no meaningful separation of a person from their cultural or familial context, of the flower from the field, of the “therapist” from the “client”. Rather, life (and death, to be inclusive) are … Continued
Laurie: Most people identify strongly with their thoughts, feelings and body. As mindfulness practitioners, we look more deeply. We recognize their ever-changing nature. And we know that whenever we experience a thought, feeling or bodily sensation, there’s the experience, and there’s also the one who perceives it, the awareness. We can focus on the experience, on … Continued
Kevin: In a dharma talk series, Dzogchen teacher James Low offered one of my favourite meditation cues ever: What’s my experience before I tell myself about my experience? And while the story of experience can lead us to believe that we live in a world made of solid and separate things, prior to the story, we … Continued
Jude: Many great spiritual teachers claim we are all one. That is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense at all. Like, how could that even work? Well, my Taoist friend eventually explained to me that both duality and non-duality are true. That we are in fact … Continued