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What does it mean to know ourselves deeply? It is true that gaining a psychological understanding of our patterns and conditioning can provide relief, more agency in our actions and reactions in life, and a certain healing and freedom. But there is a layer beyond this, a deeper insight into the true nature of things, where what has held the heart in bondage is revealed and released.
While it is inevitable that we will encounter story and content as we sit in the stillness of presence, and it is important to be able to contend with these at times, there is a risk of staying in the psychological realm in an attempt to “solve” our suffering. We know that we have exhausted our psychological insights when deep wounds, which we have addressed and looked at from every direction, resurface yet again and all our skills, techniques, etc., are simply no longer effective.
Knowing ourselves deeply goes beyond our stories. It goes to the root of all operations of existence. It is knowing (in the heart) the essence of what drives all human hearts, and what causes a pervasive inner suffering. It is knowing intimately, through our own experience, the nature of all things. It is going beyond the superficial realities that seemingly provide safety, and dropping below that to touch what is unfailingly reliable. This dawning of wisdom is revealed through a committed awareness that “strongly knows” what is happening in all aspects of our being.
Rather than getting wrapped up in our mental stories, we watch the nature of our thoughts - simply knowing that they arise, what they cause in our body, and how they change.
We maintain a relentless, gentle awareness in the body, allowing physical sensations, energetic and emotional movement, thoughts, and senses to be known, without abandoning ourselves, without being lured away into compelling stories, reasoning and evaluation, without obsessive noodling with how to be present.
It is a commitment to knowing our inner experience strongly, clearly and continually throughout all states and situations. It is a commitment to seeing the mundane realities of life as path. It is a commitment to seeing everyday mind and conduct as the absolute core of the path to liberation. There is no other place where freedom can actually occur!
Through this process of continual clear witnessing and radical honesty over the course of many years, we develop a kind of sacred transparency with everything that happens in our mind (as well as “downstream” in our speech and conduct).
This is the undefended self. The self that doesn’t hide or compartmentalize. The self that can take complete responsibility for what arises without any trace of self-judgment.
This class in an invitation into developing this kind of transparency and the radical, unshakable freedom that comes with it. We will be referencing traditional Theravada Buddhism more explicitly than previous classes. Traditional mindful-awareness is the beginning, middle and end of practice! It is both basic and advanced. Theravada Buddhism does a beautiful job at framing all the views and behaviors that support this strong knowing of our experiences.
It is a 10-week commitment to paying much, much closer attention to what is happening in our mental, emotional, energetic and physical bodies than we usually do.
In addition to listening to the weekly sessions and reading course writings, this course will be greatly enhanced through making the time for some light note-taking, journaling and mapping of inner-experience during the week.
The course will also benefit from taking on the overall attitude that you are on a 10-week intensive retreat. This means that - despite the fact that you are not leaving or changing the external conditions of your life - you make strongly knowing your inner and outer experience your number one priority.
Megan Cowan & Chris McKenna
This 10-session class was originally offered September - November 2019.
It contains over 15 hours of video & audio teachings and 80 pages of written supporting material.
This course benefits from some intensity of commitment to awareness practice. It is an excellent resource for creating a space (a few weeks to a few months) in which we can really pay attention to our experience more closely.
We offer you several forms of support as you progress through the material.
First, Megan & Chris offer optional 15-minute sessions over Zoom at different time slots each week to anyone enrolled in this course. Instructions for signing up for these will be included in the course orientation email you receive after registering.
Second, you can also communicate with us over email as you progress through the material, either with questions or simply with reports about your experience working with the material. We love to receive these and will usually try to respond to them within a few days.
“Awareness is your refuge. Awareness of the changingness of feelings, of attitudes, of moods, of material change and emotional change. Stay with that, because it’s a refuge that is indestructible. It’s not something that changes. It’s a refuge you can trust in. This refuge is not something that you create. It’s not a creation. It’s not an ideal. It’s very practical and very simple, but easily overlooked or not noticed. When you’re mindful, you’re beginning to notice, it’s like this.”
“The degree to which we cannot deeply feel our body’s interior is the degree to which we crave excessive external stimulation.”
