Re-Awaken To Your True Self

06.12.2020 RE-AWAKEN TO YOUR TRUE SELF Are you anxious? Grieving? Suffering from the weight of financial worries? Or stressed in general by what you hear on the news? If you are, you are not alone in these uncertain times. Uncertain times, however, can be seen as opportunities — opportunities to reflect on the state of the world and how each of us engages with it. Instead of burrowing deeper into self-isolation, consider emerging — re-awakening — to a chance to skillfully work with difficult feelings and learn to use your kindness, courage, and compassion to build a better world. From June 24 through June 28, Lion’s Roar is hosting Re-Awaken, a free virtual summit featuring an inspirational panel of 15 spiritual teachers and activists applying timeless wisdom to modern challenges to inspire and reinvigorate us. Thousands have already signed up for this important event. Join us. This Weekend Reader features teachings from three of the summit presenters. Cyndi Lee is one of the most influential yoga teachers in the U.S. In her piece, she writes about taking “refuge in our body as a friend, as opposed to taking refuge in eating, drinking” and other habits likely to form during a crisis. Guo Gu is a Zen teacher and scholar. He is the founder and teacher of the Tallahassee Chan Center while also leading retreats around the world. In his essay, he illuminates a Zen meditation that will guide us in offering “ourselves to everyone like a lighthouse, helping all those who come our way, responding to their needs with­out contrivance.” Ray Buckner is a Buddhist practitioner who has worked for organizations committed to racial, religious, and gender justice. Ray is a frequent contributor to Lion’s Roar. Through their writing and public scholarship, they explore subjects of sexual trauma, queer and transgender desire, and racial injustice. In their article, Ray unpacks what it means to confront one’s “fear and self-hate with honesty, clarity, and compassion.”

Take Refuge In Your Body When the storms of life hit, your body can be a place of refuge and healing. Cyndi Lee says it starts with making friends with your body. Taking refuge in your body is self-care with a spiritual twist that recognizes we cannot become enlightened without our body. We must love our body and take care of it just as we care for our friends. Then when something frightening or destabilizing happens, we can take refuge in our body as a friend, as opposed to taking refuge in eating, drinking, shopping, or any other avoidance technique. We can learn to trust the refuge of our own body as a place of intimacy, and this allows us to be alive right now, available for whatever is needed in the moment.

You Are Already Enlightened Guo Gu, a longtime student of the late Master Sheng Yen, presents an experiential look at the Chan practice of silent illumination. When you are wakeful and clear in each moment and not caught up with wandering thoughts, they subside of their own accord. They subside because your discriminating mind, which is tied to self-grasping, lessens. Your discriminating mind lessens because you’re aware of the totality of the body as you are sitting. Without wandering thoughts, you are not grasping at this and that, nor attracted to or repulsed by particu­lar sensations. The concentration developed in the first stage of silent illumination is not a one-pointed focus of mind but an open, natural, and clear presence. It is concentration accompanied by wisdom.

Finding Refuge in the Scary Places Inside Us Ray Buckner shares how Buddhist practice can help us diminish fear by facing it directly with honesty, clarity, and compassion. The more I meditate, the clearer I can see how my present doubts stem from life-long struggles with traumatic, fundamental beliefs about my basic goodness, or lack thereof. Listening to my body and thoughts with a raw, kind attention, I can see with clearer precision the hatred toward who I am; the anger and judgement toward my body and mind; regret about the life I’ve lived and doubt about my capacity to embody a confident and full heart in the future.

JOIN THE RE-AWAKEN SUMMIT