Mindfulness Meditation Centers Los Angeles

Sacred Sundays: You Are The Light of The World with Lama Michael, Mindfulness Teaching and Meditation

Join us for an illuminating Dharma teaching, guided meditation and Q&A. Lama Michael will offer vivid stories and example of how to bring these teachings into our everyday life and relationships.

8am Pacific/ 11 ESt in person at Quiet Mind Retreat or live on the page of Mindfulness Meditation Centers at 8am Pacific.

There is no fee, classes are offered by dana, or generosity only.

As contemplatives and meditators we are to relax our clinging to the illusion of everyday life and allow the wider perspective of total openness to flood through our crystal eyes and light the world from within.

When we are able to relax like this, the energy invested maintaining a typical life of neurotic busyness is freed and we can release into the already present perfect natural state.

In the process of letting go of our illusions, we can let go of one thing, only to replace it with another. We usually think of experience in dualistic terms: good or bad, enjoyable or painful, dull or enriching, desirable or awful. Even in the spiritual context experiences are evaluated according to how beneficial, transcendent, calming, insightful, or powerful they may be.

Direct yogic perception points us to the experience that is unqualified yet includes and is at the heart of all possible experiences. Many names can be given to this experience. Yet, as language always partakes of dualism, the various names could never be more than partial reflections of something beautiful and beyond words.

Our journey is one only of View and not distance, and will concern itself with the ultimate inner reality of all life - awareness itself. The practices of the most holistic teachings in Buddhism - Mahamudra and Dzogchen, offer an all encompassing vision of reality including the techniques for experiencing this vision, how to sustain this experience in daily life, and make the ongoing experience so vivid and ever present that no fear or doubt could ever overcome it. In the end, no effort and non-meditation in an utterly relaxed natural state is said to be realized and directly experienced.

The actuality of experiencing pure awareness is ephemeral and unlimited and is always available and energetic. The various moment to moment experiences that are perceived are simply the play, the dance of this energy - the awareness of true awakening.

Join tomorrow 8AM on Zoom or Facebook Live, Free Registration:

https://mindfulnessmeditationcenters.com/sacred-sunday-mindfulness-teachings/

Shine☀️ Sacred Sundays: Dharma Talk and Meditation in person at Quiet Mind Mountain Retreat San Diego, or live on the page of Mindfulness Meditation Centers at 8am PST/ 11 EST by donation only.

Wish to neither possess nor be possessed.

Covetousness is not love and attachment to illusion is not loyalty.

Allowing possessions to define you is a tacit admission that you have no idea who you are or what you’re doing with your brief time on this little rock. You have not owned anything, do not own anything and never will.

Since the first moment of this life you have not gained even one materialistic cent. It may appear to you as though you are profiting, but in the end you are only feeding the delusion. If we were honest, we would admit that all of these appearances could be gone in a moment, so just what kind of ownership or investment is this exactly? Don't you think it's time to stop allowing these illusions to consume your remaining time? Transparent and vulnerable self-observation is the first step in awakening inner revelation.

Go a little deeper…

Observe, investigate and discover that experiences do not form you - the opposite is true: egoistic identity is formed by how your mind unconsciously relates, desires and attaches to mere dreamlike experiences.

Just like traveling to a different country isn’t what forms you, otherwise we would all be formed in a similar way by meeting the same people and places - which is exactly what doesn’t happen.

You don’t have possessions, you are possessed by desires for things.

This is how you have become your many identities: through shifting chameleon like cravings and attachments for appearances. How many different personas and narratives are created this way even in a single day? Identity clumsily congeals around ever-changing desires and aversions.

Look to see if it’s true - identities shift only in relationship to how you attach to experiences...but there is no underlying intrinsic experience or identity. There is just a tangled morass of shifting desires and cravings.

Repetitive desiring for similar appearances creates the illusion of a seemingly stable person or archetype for a brief time. Simply remove the desire for any appearance and subtly watch how that identity drifts away until a new desire arises - and another identity quickly forms. This doesn’t have to be the case, you could train the mind to remain at peace between desires...most do not know that they have this option before the boredom sets in and the restlessness for a new craving starts again. Soon desire filled busyness will engulf you and the former identities will no longer be recognizable.

Make an allowance to stop betraying your wisdom. It's quite possible for bare and unadulterated awareness to perceive the numerous identities manifesting in the mind without being involved. Stop troubling your mind - simply let these competing voices come and go without further involvement with these monotonous dramas. This is the beginning of peace within.

When you make peace with desires you'll be at peace with everything.

When we do not realize the formless nature of all things, we cling to these forms, and when these forms change as they inevitably do, we suffer because of our attachments to them as being both temporarily permanent and intrinsically real.

In order to bring light to the world you can't be afraid to shine. To truly shine we must resist clinging to the false promises of materialism and materialistic identity. The greatest beauty lies in the greatest clarity.

"He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at." Epictetus

May you be happy, may you be well, safe, peaceful and at ease.

You may join the live interactive Sacred Sundays Sangha talks on Zoom 8am PST/11ESt

https://mindfulnessmeditationcenters.com/sacred-sunday-mindfulness-teachings/

Please consider donating and supporting the work of Mindfulness Meditation Centers. All donations go directly to our non profit so we may continue to make Dharma available to all.

Join our daily classes, retreats and courses:

https://mindfulnessmeditationcenters.com/contribute/

Join Sacred Sundays: Working With Praise, Blame and Other Illusions 8 AM PST/11 EST

Sacred Sundays: Working With Praise, Blame and Other Illusions 8 AM PST/11 EST

When a simpleton was verbally abusive toward him, the Buddha listened to him in silence, but when the man had finished, the Buddha asked him, "Son, if a man declined to accept a present offered to him, to whom would it belong?"

The man answered, "To him who offered it."

"My son," Buddha said, "I decline to accept your abuse. Keep it for yourself."

~ The Buddha, as told by Will Durant

8am Pacific in person at Quiet Mind Retreat or live on the page of Mindfulness Meditation Centers at 8am Pacific. There is no fee, classes are offered by dana, or generosity only.

You may join the live interactive Sacred Sundays Sangha talks on Zoom 8am PST/11ESt

https://mindfulnessmeditationcenters.com/sacred-sunday-mindfulness-teachings/

Please consider donating and supporting the work of Mindfulness Meditation Centers. All donations go directly to our non profit so we may continue to make Dharma available to all.

Join our daily classes, retreats and courses:

https://mindfulnessmeditationcenters.com/contribute/

Sacred Sundays: The Wisdom of The Ego with Lama Michael Gregory 8AM PST/11 EST

Wisdom, the Buddha says, starts with a simple question: What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?

The wisdom here lies in realizing that your happiness depends on what you do, and that the pursuit of happiness is worthwhile only if it’s long-term. The test of how far your wisdom has matured lies in the strategic skill with which you can keep yourself from doing things that you like to do but that would cause long-term harm, and can talk yourself into doing things that you don’t like to do but that would lead to long-term well-being and happiness. In other words, mature wisdom requires a mature ego.

All are welcome. Facbook live or zoom with Q&A

Join Sacred Sundays on Zoom:

https://mindfulnessmeditationcenters.com/sacred-sunday-mindfulness-teachings/

Become a member and access all our daily classes, retreats and courses:

https://mindfulnessmeditationcenters.com/contribute/

Sacred Sundays: No One Heals Themselves by Hurting Another with Lama Michael Gregory

If by deed, speech, or thought
Foolishly I have done wrong,
May all forgive me honored ones,
I also freely forgive anyone,
Who may have hurt or injured me.
I freely forgive myself.

💎🌹

Mindfulness Teaching, Meditation and Q&A on forgiveness.

Join on Facebook Live or zoom 8am PST/11EST

All are welcome.

Join zoom classroom to participate in live Q&A

https://mindfulnessmeditationcenters.com/sacred-sunday-mindfulness-teachings/

Join Lama Michael Gregory this Sunday, August 14th at 8am PST for Sacred Sundays: open forum, Buddhist meditation, and Question and Answer session.

Classes are led by Buddhist Teacher Lama Michael Gregory, who teaches how to be in this world but not of it, bringing the practices of non duality into vivid life examples of daily life experiences, relationships and the challenges we face.

All are welcome. Join on facebook live or zoom.