ONLINE: The Ground of Ignoring and the Path of Emotional Energy

With: Ashe Acharya John Rockwell, Acharya Barbara Märtens
14 June 2020 (17:30 – 19:00)

Five dharma gatherings with Acharya Barbara Märtens and Acharya John Rockwell. All levels of practice are welcome.

Talks 1 and 2

Acharya Rockwell

Sundays, May 24 and May 31: 17:30 – 19:00 pm CET

Uncovering Our Ignorance on the Spot

Ignoring is the root of confusion, and we are doing it now. We are so accustomed to ignoring that we are blind to it. Yet in our heart, we know what we are doing. Uncovering ignoring is the path of mindfulness, awareness, and opening the heart of prajna and compassion. Trungpa Rinpoche taught explicitly and experientially about the three aspects of ignoring and the birth of ego. He also showed the path to uncover and unravel this deep-rooted process. In these confusing times, it is helpful to take these teachings to heart and tune into our own ignoring and awareness on the spot.

Suggested Reading: Chögyam Trungpa, The Future is Open: Good Karma, Bad Karma, and Beyond Karma, Chapter 3, “Volitional Action,” pp. 31-41.

Talks 3 & 4:

Acharya Märtens

Sundays, June 7 & June 14: 17:30 – 19:00 pm CET

Understanding and Liberating Emotional Energy

Reactive emotions arise out of deep-rooted confusion and play a big part in how we experience life. As habituated actions and reactions, they create suffering for us and others. They challenge how we think of ourselves and haunt our meditation practice more and more. How do we work with emotions? How can we use meditation practice to understand and befriend emotions on our path to wakefulness and open heart?

Trungpa Rinpoche suggests that “the intelligent way of working with emotions is to try to relate with their basic substance, the abstract quality of emotions, so to speak. The basic ‘isness’ quality of the emotions, the fundamental nature of the emotions, is just energy. And if one is able to relate with energy, then the energies have no conflict with you. They become a natural process.”

In this moment of great challenge and pain for the world, we could take his advice to heart. Let us look deeper into our experience of emotional energy. Instead of letting fear, anger, and sadness drive us deeper into panic, aggression, and depression, let us discover how these powerful energies provide an opportunity for wonder, wisdom and compassion.

Suggested Reading: Trungpa Rinpoche, The Myth of Freedom, Chapter IV, “The Lion’s Roar,” pp. 69-73.