Heartwork Institute, Inc.

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2012-01-27T14:40:00.000-08:00

THE WAVE

"We may be through with the past,

but the past is not through with us."

Today I wake and wander,

from sweaty bed to kitchen door

Shuffling round to find

some tiny thing,

Some thing I do not know.

And oh

my friend, my body,

he finds for me the way,

he knows what soon will waken

this thing I cannot say.

(And I, the sleeper watching,

as hands select

with little thought,

first one round disc,

then two, then three.

I slide them in the slot.)

Sweet music slowly fills the air-

This doorway found,

I know goes down.

I turn,

and in my hands can see:

that thing I lost,

my grief, my me.

Why is this so?

Why do I care?

the wail and sobs

for love long gone

for sins and crimes

and broken hearts'

for children standing

in the rain

for need that ate me

to my bones

for hands held tight

that could not hold.

The wave rose high above it all,

a towering froth

of blood and bone

It churned, immense,

each painful point

of days, and years,

and lives, ill-spent

IN IGNORANCE OF HOW IT GROWS

this wave of grief,

this mass of woes.

Can I now see

just as it strikes?

My past calls out-

it grabs my sight

LOOK NOW

it says, it shakes, it fights.

ALL THAT YOU WERE,

ALL PAINS YOU MADE,

LET LOOSE,

Your heart's un-made.

The dark wave passes over me.

I'm tumbled, torn,

but now feel free.

I climb the rock

I sit

I stare.

The sun breaks through

One Word:

AWARE

Richard Wehrman

10/31/2000

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2012-01-21T17:16:00.000-08:00

NIGHTTIME OF THE SOUL

Gently pull in the night

Cloak yourself in its velvety darkness

Let thoughts of the day

Dance like fireflies

On a meadow

Of yesterday

Feel the kiss

Of tomorrow's promises

On closed eyelids

Make no room

For decision making

In this sacred place

Breathe into the

Stillness

Breathe into

The promise

Blanket your soul

In peace.

Tomorrow will come

On its own

The day has

Blessed you.

THIS quiet moment

Is your gift

Accept it!

-Marcie 6/6/05

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2012-01-12T02:27:00.000-08:00

"The only way to get what you really want
is to let go of what you don't want."

Iyanla VanZant
(source unknown)

Heartwork focus "Letting Go" with Awareness

2012-01-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Just a glimpse...

white light rains down upon me

bathing this heart in his own tears

dissolving the stains that hide in my brain

washing the wounds, hydrating my fears

luring me into the shiny abyss

nothing to see, just emptiness

spiraling, spinning

closer and faster

water funneling

draining

down

Valerie Siciliano

Heartwork focus "Letting Go" with Awareness

2012-01-01T13:33:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,
Dale

Observe the wonders as they occur around you.

Do not claim them. Feel the artistry

moving through, and be silent.

-Rumi (Source unknown)

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-12-23T02:21:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on

"Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore."

by André Gide from Les faux-monnayeurs [The Counterfeiters] (1925) http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/André_Gide

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-12-16T02:41:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

We are so blind and deaf. The world is transparent. God is everywhere whispering to us, talking to us, shouting at us. Usually we do not hear. Sometimes we do. Then we know that everything is grace.

~ Andrew Greeley

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-12-09T20:28:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

And I was having to bear the unbearable.

If I must bear it, I would bear it -

find the whole meaning of it,

taste the whole of it,

I would not run away from grief;

I would not try to hold on to it when -

if unbelievably -

it passed .

Sheldon Vanauken (source unknown)

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-12-01T02:12:00.000-08:00

IT'S SO RIVERY, THE WORLD, by Laurie Sheck (Source Unknown)

It's so rivery, the world. For a long time I couldn't feel it,

watching from my fierce concealment.

Then my freeze-framed skin grew slowly restless, and I moved

at first like the figures on the TV screen, back and forth,

back and forth,

as if a channel could click me into place at any moment

even as I slipped away.

And then I moved differently and more,

I saw that hope is simply astonishment awake, and I

heard the dispersion

whispering to come closer,

and I heard also its soft sisters, how they are always with us,

their restless scannings, their boundaryless enchantment,

so wild, so attendant, so alert.

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-11-17T15:46:00.001-08:00

ARE YOU HERE? A.H. Almaas

"Are you here?" Are you really here in this room? I don't mean is your body here, because that is obviously the case. But are you here? Do you feel that you are here in the room? Are you aware ofbeing present here, and ofyour actual experience in this moment? Or are you lost in thoughts, fantasies, plans, emotional reactions? Are you here, or are you busy liking and disliking? Are you here, or are you busy judging yourself and everything else?

Are you here now, or are you trying to be here, making a token effort because this is what we are talking about? Are you aware ofeverything and everyone around you? Are you aware ofyour surroundings, or are you lost in a whirlwind ofthoughts? When you hear the question, "Are you here?" it's not important in answering that you try to be good or correct. It's important only to sincerely explore for yourself, are you here or not? Are you in your body or oblivious, or only aware ofparts ofit? When I say, "Are you in your body?" I mean, "Are you completely filling your body?" I want to know whether you are in your feet, or just have feet. Do you live in them, or are they just things you use when you walk? Are you in your belly, or do you just know vaguely that you have a belly? Or is it just for food? Are you really in your hands, or do you move them from a distance? Are you present in your cells, inhabiting and filling your body? If you aren't in your body, what significance is there in your experience this moment? Are you preparing, so that you can be here in the future? Are you setting up conditions by saying to yourself, "When such and such happens I'll have time, I'll be here"? If you are not here, what are you saving yourself for? Regardless of the stories you tell yourself, at this moment, this very moment, there is only this moment, here, now. Nothing else exists. For your direct experience, only the here and now is relevant. Only nowis real. And it is always like that. At each moment, only that moment exists. So we need to ask why we put ourselves on hold, waiting for the right time, waiting for the right circumstances to arise in the future. Maybe the right time will never come. Maybe the conditions you have in mind will never come together for you. When will you begin to exist then? When will you begin to be here, to live? Regardless of the ideas about past and future that dominate your experience, right at this moment only this moment exists, and only this moment has any significance for you. The most direct and obvious fact of experience is that the moment, the here and now, is all that exists. This is all there is for this moment. Whatever is happening at this moment, that is your life. The future is not your life; it never arrives. What is actually here is always only this moment.

So can you let yourself be? I am not suggesting that you let yourself be to get anything or do anything, even to understand anything. I mean just to be. Are you giving yourself the simple privilege of being, of existence? Why do you think that what you do, what you have, what you get or don't get are more important than just being here? Why are you always wanting to get something or go somewhere? Why not just relax and be here, simply existing in all your cells, inhabiting all your body? When are you going to let yourselfdescend from your lofty preoccupations, and simply land where you are?

Stop striving after all kinds of things; stop dreaming, scheming, planning, working, achieving, attempting, moving, manipulating, trying to be something, trying to get some- where. You forget the simplest, most obvious thing, which is to be here. If you are not in your body, you miss the source of all significance, meaning, and satisfaction. How can you feel the satisfaction, if you aren't here? We miss who we are, which is fundamentally beingness, existence. If we are not here, we exist only on the fringes of reality. We don't sufficiently value simply being. Instead, we value what we want to accomplish, or what we want to possess. It is our biggest mistake. It is called the "great betrayal."

We are always looking for pleasure, frantically seeking happiness in many ways, and totally missing the simplest, most fundamental pleasure, which actually is also the greatest pleasure: just being here. When we are really present, the presence itself is made out of fullness, contentment, and blissful pleasure.

Our habits and conditioning lead us to forget the greatest treasure we have, our birthright - the pleasure and lightness of existence. We think that we will have pleasure or delight if we fulfill a certain plan, if a certain dream comes true, if someone we care for likes us, if we take a wonderful trip. This attitude is an insult to who we are. We are the pleasure, we are the joy, we are the most profound significance and the highest value. When we understand this, we see that it's ridiculous to think that we will get pleasure and joy through these external things - by doing this or that, or receiving approval or love from this or that person. We see then that we have been misinformed; we have been barking up the wrong tree.

Happiness, value, and pleasure are not the result of anything. These qualities are part of our fundamental nature. If we simply allow ourselves to be, this is our natural experience. You are the most precious thing in the universe, but you behave as if you are the poorest, most trivial thing there is. It doesn't really take much to see this. Just stop the whirlwind that goes on. Let yourself relax and be there. You can allow yourself to do it wherever you are. You don't have to be in the Canary Islands to be happy. You don't have to be with someone you are in love with, and who loves you, to be happy. Putting these conditions on your happiness is a degrading way of looking at yourself. Sure, you can be happy in the Canaries or with someone you love, but how about the rest of the time?

You abandon yourself, then start looking for satisfaction. You feel that something's missing, so you are always searching, becoming more and more frantic as all the things you acquire or accomplish don't fill you. This whole pattern occurs because you have stopped being. If you just let yourself be there, there is nowhere to go, nothing to look for, because it's all there. It is not that some people are satisfied by being and others not; no, we all feel satisfied when we are ourselves. It is a quality of our human nature. It is our natural endowment. It is the meaning of being a human being. The only thing we need do is to let ourselves be.

If you simply feel yourself at this moment, even if you don't feel your being in a full, satisfying way, you will naturally become aware of what is blocking your being. What is stopping me from being at this moment? Why do I want to go somewhere else? Why am I always thinking about what's going to make me happy? We can become naturally curious, and begin to unravel the beliefs, hopes and fears that create the blocks to being aware of our being.

When we stop to consider, we recognize that happiness is not something we're going to get somewhere, nor is it the result of some action we take. The very fabric of our beingness is itself what we are always actually looking for. We seek pleasure, joy, happiness, peace, strength, power. But these are simply aspects of our existence. Our nature, our origin is the most precious thing there is. The existence itself, is a delight. This existence, this delight, is the very center of reality, all the time.

Because we forget our origin and our true nature, we tend to stay on the fringes of existence and never let ourselves live in and from the center of ourselves. It's quite a tragic story. When teachers tell you that you are asleep, or have gone astray, they mean that you have gone astray from your existence. You are asleep to your beingness. But it's not exactly that you have gone astray in the sense that you were somewhere else, lost, and now you're here. Actually, you were here all the time. You have actually always been here, but you kept looking elsewhere. Your beingness is what senses, what looks, what feels.

We are a beingness, not a thought following another thought. We are something much more fundamental, more substantial than that. We are a beingness, an existence, a presence that impregnates the present and fills our body. We go so far away from ourselves, but what we are looking for is so near. We constantly put our attention on whether the situation is what we want or don't want. Is it good or bad? But the significance of any experience is our mere presence, nothing else. The content of any experience is simply an external manifestation of that central presence.

So what is the point of waiting? What exactly are you waiting for? Is somebody going to give you what you always wanted? Will a train come from Heaven bringing you goodies? But nothing that could ever happen could be as good, as precious, as who you are.

What stops you from being, from being present, is nothing but your hope for the future. Hoping for something to be different keeps you looking for some future fantasy. But it is a mirage; you'll never get there. The mirage stops you from seeing the obvious, the preciousness of Being. It is a great distortion, a great misunderstanding of what will fulfill you. When you follow the mirage you are rejecting yourself. Of course, when you let yourself be, as you let yourself sink into reality, you might experience unpleasant things; but these are simply the barriers that stop you from being.

In time, with presence, they will dissolve. You might experience discomfort, fear, hurt, various negative feelings. Theseare the things that you're trying to avoid by not being here. But they are just accumulations of what has been swept under the rug of unconsciousness; they are not you. They are what you confront on the way to beingness. When we acknowledge and understand these feelings while being present, they dissolve, because the idea of ourselves that they are based on is not real.

When the illusions dissolve, what is real, your nature, will surface and remain. You go through a process of purification, not because Being itself is sullied, but because you have so many accumulated assumptions and beliefs about reality. If you continue to hope, and tell yourself stories, you will remain asleep, because reality is still the way it is whether you like it or not. The mirage hasn't worked for you yet and it will not work with more persistence. Would you want it any other way? Would you want your happiness to depend on something other than your nature?

Our work is not to get somewhere or to accomplish something, but to allow our Being to emerge. Just inhabit your body. We're not talking about something you do once in a while, when you meditate, and the rest of the time you do the important things in your life. That's how we think: "I'll meditate now, and then get on with my day, get on with my important agenda." What's important? You're important. You don't need to do anything important to be important. You don't have to achieve enlightenment or accomplish any noble action to give importance to your life. You are. That is the most important thing there is. You're very special, always. You are not important because someone thinks you're special, nor because of any unusual capacities or accomplishments. You are important because of your nature; you cannot help being important and precious. Nothing can prove it or disprove it.

You are important because without your actual presence, there is no significance in life, no value in life. When you are conscious of your existence the experience is unmitigated pleasure. This pleasure is there regardless of what you're doing - scrubbing floors, going to the bathroom, creating something wonderful. Every moment is precious, and lived to the fullest. You are not the feelings or the thoughts or the content of your awareness. None of these are who you are. You are the fullness of your Being, the substance of your presence.

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-10-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

Where there is great love, there are always miracles. Miracles rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming to us from far off, but on our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always. - Willa Cather

2011-10-06T02:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

THE NEW SILENCE

There are times

when the heart closes down,

the metal grate drawn

and padlocked,

the owner's footprints covered by snow.

Someone may come to peer through the glass,

but soon leaves.

Someone may come to clean, but turns away.

What is still inside

settles down for the darkness: clock stop,

newspapers pass out of date.

The new silence goes unheard

under so many grindings of engines,

so many sounds of construction.

Only the three pigeons,

refusing to eat,

lower their heads and grieve.

For the raindrop joy is in entering the river...

Travel far enough into the sorrow,

tears turn into sighing

When after heavy rain

the storm clouds disperse,

Is it not that they've wept themselves

clear to the end?

Ghaleb

2011-09-29T02:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

There are Fools who dance,

and Fools who watch the dance.

If I must be a Fool,

Then let me be

A Dancing Fool!

Goethe

2011-09-22T02:23:00.000-07:00

What we want

is never simple.

We move among the things

we thought we wanted:

a face, a room, an open book

and these things bear our names -

now they want us.

But what we want appears

in dreams, wearing disguises.

We fall past,

holding out our arms

and in the morning

our arms ache.

We don't remember the dream,

but the dream remembers us.

It is there all day

as an animal is there

under the table,

as the stars are there

even in full sun.

Linda Pastan

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-09-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-09-08T04:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

Eye

From every

tiny fraction

of his Face is seen

the whole

of all creation:

from every leaf

his Eye,

from every drop of dew

his whole Sun

shines;

a spider's web,

a thistle down,

ring, the world is winded

by the monarch's

wing-

beauty blazes out

what no cup can

contain-

the furnace rages full,

the glory incandescent,

that He is,

We are!

Richard Wehrman 8/15/08

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-09-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

COMING HOME TO THE BODY

Denise Taylor

In teaching movement and improvisation, I have found that when the mind is fully present with an activity, a radiance, a visually perceptible authenticity emerges. I call it "the authentic moment." In this moment the ordinary is experienced as remarkable.

Such moments come naturally to the untrained mover, who isn't sure what to do; since there are no familiar reference points, the mind is forced to stay in the immediate vicinity -- which is the present moment. This naturalness can also be refined and developed. The practice of mindfulness -- learning to discern sensations in the body in stillness and movement -- can help us learn to be in our body in a more natural, spontaneous way.

To turn our attention to the movement of our bodies is an act of love, in the sense of self-regard. When people used to say, "You have to love yourself first," I was never sure what this meant. I needed a tangible method. Techniques like visualization or writing affirmations never worked for me. But feeling my feet on the ground, the heat in my chest, the constriction in my head when I'm angry, the air over my bare feet as I walk, the sensation of my body turning in water- these all give me a sense that I am here, like it or not. There's no mistaking what is happening and there's no way to do it wrong. I am moving through the world with a sense of watching sweetly over it all. I am actually with myself, like a good friend, as I walk, run, dance, or sit down.

Of course, this doesn't work if we are trying to sit in the chair with perfect posture, to dance artfully, or to run faster than the day before. Trained performers often struggle to reenact a genuineness they once felt, to relive a moment of past inspiration, instead of opening themselves to the rawness and vulnerability of the unknown present. To be at home in our body, it is important to open to the sensations of our movement without a lot of comment, without trying to live up to an image or to engage in a self-improvement campaign.

Letting things unfold in this way is at the heart of all improvisation that is fresh and alive. There is no one self-consciously doing it. It is as though we had just entered a theater and come upon a rehearsal in progress. It has a magical, one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-seen-again quality. Even if someone had a video camera and shot the scene for later viewing, it wouldn't capture that authentic moment, which arose spontaneously out of our state of mind, the time of day, our receptivity to what we saw and felt - a thousand elements, none of which can be grasped or held onto.

Authentic expression often begins with quirky, jagged edges. When we are grappling to express some profound truth in ourselves, our speech often becomes faltering, full of holes. Similarly, spontaneous movement can have a craggy quality, and is often a bit messy. We must give up the struggle to maintain our composure, to look good, and to cover up our moments of being at a loss. This requires a willingness to surrender and fall into the next movement, without preconceptions about how we will look. Falling requires letting go, as when we fall asleep or fall in love. If we refuse to fall, our body becomes rigid and our movements become premeditated.

Mindfulness practice trains us to drop into the body again and again. What we find when we look around in the body are sensations. All the drama of our thought, feeling, and action begins with sensations. Through mindfulness we train ourselves to be in the body to receive them. To be present with the sensations in our body is not an act of will. It is a kind of equanimity or grace. In such moments we feel our activity belonging to life. We wash the dishes as a holy act. We turn the key in the lock and know what the wrist is doing. Feeling our body turn away from the cold weather, we catch ourselves and consciously rise up to meet it. The choice to be aware is often an act of courage.

The essential practice here is to return to whatever presents itself in our experience from moment to moment, to feel the actual physical sensation of our aliveness. Movement invites attention, asks us to practice devotion to ourselves, not in a self-centered way, but as an act of loyalty. Instead of abandoning ourselves, we can learn to inhabit ourselves. The body is tremendously homesick for us, and it waits patiently for our return. Though we have ignored its invitations for years and years, when we do say yes, now, it bounds forward with great exuberance and know-how. We find that we need no training in being fully alive, that we only lacked the determination to feel our aliveness. And here it is.

Heartwork focus "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-08-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

POETRY by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age...poetry arrived

in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where

it came from, from winter or a river.

I don't know how or when,

no, they were not voices, they were not

words, not silence,

but from a street it called me,

from the branches of night,

abruptly from the others,

among raging fires

or returning alone,

there it was, without a face,

and it touched me.

I didn't know what to say, my mouth

had no way

with names,

my eyes were blind.

Something knocked in my soul,

fever or forgotten wings,

and I made my own way,

deciphering

that fire,

and I wrote the first, faint line,

faint, without substance, pure

nonsense,

pure wisdom

of someone who knows nothing;

palpitating plantations,

the darkness perforated,

riddled

with arrows, fire, and flowers,

the overpowering night, the universe.

And I, tiny being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery ,

felt myself a pure part

of the abyss.

I wheeled with the stars.

My heart broke loose with the wind.

taken from Isla Negra, a notebook

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-08-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of this year's heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,
Dale

IN BLACKWATER WOODS

Look, the trees

are turning,

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now,

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my li£etime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able to do three things;

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it:

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

--Mary Oliver

2011-08-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

By leaving behind the "chest out-belly in" posture and attitude and adopting the belly-centered posture and attitude of Hara, individuals can live a calm, grounded, and more balanced life.

During the course of the day on August 14th , Dale will teach, and you will practice, a number of tools that will help you access and establish the Hara as a base for meditation and inquiry practice as you continue to learn how to "Let go into the Truth of your Being-in-the-moment" .

The fee is $99 per person.

email awakentheheart@gmail.com or call 888-340-9865

2011-08-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

The Fire Of Attention

Charlotte Joko Beck

Back in the 1920's, when I was maybe eight or ten years old, and living in New Jersey where the winters are cold, we had a furnace in our house that burned coal. It was a big event on the block when the coal truck rolled up and all this stuff poured down the coal shute into the coal bin. I learned that there were two kinds of coal: one was called anthracite or hard coal, and the other was lignite, soft coal. My father told me about the difference in the way those two kinds of coals burned. Anthracite burns cleanly, leaving little ash. Lignite leaves lots of ash. When we burned lignite, the cellar became covered with soot and some of it got upstairs into the living room.

What does this have to do with our practice? Practice is about breaking our exclusive identification with ourselves. This process has sometimes been called purifying the mind. To "purify the mind" doesn't mean that you become holy or other than you are; it means to strip away that which keeps a person - or a furnace - from functioning best. The furnace functions best with hard coal. But unfortunately what we're full of is soft coal. There's a saying in the Bible: "He is like a refiner's fire." It's a common analogy, found in other religions as well. To sit in meditation is to be in the middle of a refining fire. Eido Roshi said once, "This meditation hall is not a peaceful haven, but a furnace room for the combustion of our egoistic delusions." A meditation hall is not a place for bliss and relaxation, but a furnace room for the combustion of our egoistic delusions. What tools do we need to use? Only one. We've all heard of it, yet we use it very seldom. It's called attention.

Attention is the cutting, burning sword, and our practice is to use that sword as much as we can. None of us is very willing to use it; but when we do - even for a few minutes - some cutting and burning takes place. All practice aims to increase our ability to be attentive, not just in meditation but in every moment of our life.

There is no special time or place for great realization. As Master Huang Po said, "On no account make a distinction between the Absolute and the sentient world." It's nothing more than parking your car, putting on your clothes, taking a walk. But if soft coal is what we're burning, we're not going to realize that. Soft coal simply means that the burning in our life is not clean. We are unable to burn up each circumstance as we encounter it. And the culprit is always our emotional attachment to the circumstance. For example, perhaps your boss asks you to do something unreasonable. At that moment what is the difference between burning soft coal and hard coal? Or suppose we are looking for employment - but the only work we can find is something we dislike. Or our child gets into trouble at school. In dealing with those, what is the difference between soft coal and hard coal? If there isn't some comprehension of the difference, we have wasted our hours in meditation. Most Zen students are chasing after Buddhahood. Yet Buddhahood is how you deal with your boss or your child, your lover or your partner, whoever. Our life is always absolute: that's all there is. The truth is not somewhere else. But we have minds that are trying to burn the past or the future. The living present - Buddhahood - is rarely encountered.

When the fire in the furnace is banked, and you want a brightly burning fire, what do you do? You increase the air intake. We are fires too. When the mind quiets down we can breathe more deeply and the oxygen intake goes up.

The mind quiets down because we observe it instead of getting lost in it. Then the breathing deepens and, when the fire really burns, there's nothing it can't consume. When the fire gets hot enough, there is no self, because now the fire is consuming everything; there is no separation between self and other.

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-07-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

STARS, by Pablo Neruda

Over there, over there, the bell ringer pointed:

and in that direction the crowd beheld

the usual thing, the blue evening of Chile,

a pulsing of pale stars.

More people came, those who had never seen

never until now that which holds up

the sky every day and every night,

and more, many more, so many who were amazed, and they were all asking, where, where?

And the bell ringer, with grave patience,

was pointing to the starry night,

a night the same as all other nights.

Letting Go Retreat - begins on September 23rd

2011-07-25T02:11:00.000-07:00

The "Letting Go III Retreat" will be held September 23-30, 2011 at Chapin Mill, the magnificent retreat site of the Rochester Zen Center, located on 135 acres of beautiful land, just 35 minutes from the Rochester airport.

The Retreat will begin at 7:00 p.m. on September 23, 2011 and end at 1:00 p.m. on the 27th through the 30th, depending on the number of days one chooses to participate in.

The Retreat will be facilitated by Dale Goldstein, LCSW, Director of the Heartwork Institute in Rochester, NY, a licensed psychotherapist who has been actively exploring, since 1966, the uses of meditative, healing, and psychotherapeutic tools in the process of opening the heart/mind

Retreat Brochure:

http://www.awakentheheart.org/files/web%20letting%20go%20brochure.pdf

Please email awakentheheart@gmail.com or call 888-340-9865 for more registration information

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-07-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

FREE AND EASY:

A SPONTANEOUS VAJRA SONG

By Ven. Lama Gendun Rinpoche

Happiness cannot be found

through great effort and willpower,

but is already present,

in open relaxation and letting go.

Don't strain yourself;

there is nothing to do nor undo.

Whatever momentarily arises in the body mind

has no real importance at all,

has little reality whatsoever.

Why identify with, and become attached to it,

passing judgment upon it and ourselves?

Far better to simply

let the entire game happen on its own,

springing up and falling back like waves -

without changing or manipulating anything -

and notice how everything vanishes and reappears,

magically, again and again,

time without end.

Only our searching for happiness,

prevents us from seeing it.

It's like a vivid rainbow which you pursue

without ever catching,

or a dog chasing its own tail.

Although peace and happiness do not exist

as an actual thing or place,

it is always available

and accompanies you every instant.

Don't believe in the reality

of good and bad experiences;

they are like today's ephemeral weather,

like rainbows in the sky.

Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,

you exhaust yourself in vain.

As soon as you open

and relax this tight fist of grasping,

infinite space is there-open, inviting and comfortable.

Make use of this spaciousness,

this freedom and natural ease.

Don't search any further.

Don't go into the tangled jungle

looking for the great awakened elephant

who is already resting quietly at home

in front of your own hearth.

Nothing to do or undo,

Nothing to force,

nothing to want

and nothing missing -

Emaho! Marvelous!

Everything happens by itself.

Dzogchen Foundation

Vol, Ill. Winter 94/95

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-07-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

Forget about enlightenment.

Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins.

Feel the love, the longing and the fear in your bones.

Open your heart to who you are, right now, not who you would like to be.

Not the saint you're striving to become, but the being right here before you, inside you, around you -

All of you is holy. You're already more and less than whatever you can know.

Breath out, look in, let go.

John Welwood

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-07-07T02:05:00.000-07:00

There was a child made all of salt who very

much wanted to know where he had come from.

So he set out on a long journey and

traveled to many lands in pursuit of this understanding.

Finally he came to the shore of the great ocean.

How marvelous, he cried, and stuck one foot in the water.

The ocean beckoned him in further saying

"If you wish to know who you are, do not be afraid.

The salt child walked further and further into the water

dissolving with each step, and at the end exclaimed,

"Ah, now I know who I am."

- Author unknown

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

BACKSTROKE

Why should I

solve all the problems of the world?

the rim of the waterfall,

on your back...

dazzled by the sunlight,

soaked by the

roaring spray!

Richard Wehrman

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

My daily activities are not unusual,

I'm just naturally in harmony with them.

Grasping nothing, discarding nothing...

Supernatural power and marvelous activity -

Drawing water and carrying firewood.

~Layman Pang-yun (740-808)

September 2011 Retreat "Letting Go"

2011-06-14T05:18:00.000-07:00

The Letting Go III Retreat is the last in the series of Letting Go Retreats, which began in 2005. As “The end of one thing is the beginning of another,” this retreat marks the end of the first 30 years of Heartwork, and the beginning of the next 30! It is a turning – inward – point in the development of Heartwork; actually, to be most accurate, a return to it’s roots. To quote T. S. Eliot, “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Heartwork is a process of "letting go with awareness into the Truth of one's Being-in-the-moment." This process is the essential foundation of Heartwork, through which Heartwork came into existence and continues to evolve. In this retreat, you will be taught the Heartwork tools for letting go, and then you will be given wide open space to find your own way using these tools. The two fundamental instructions for this retreat are: 1. “Watch increasingly closely to see if you are pushing away, fighting against, or running away from anything that is happening in your being in-the-moment, and when you find yourself doing any of these things, stop and let go,” and; 2. “Ask yourself, ‘What do I really need right now?’ And then give it to yourself.” These two processes, combined, allow one to go very deeply into one’s True Nature – that which is not separate from others, nature, God.

Each day, there will be structured opportunities that you are free to take advantage of - or not - depending on what you’re needing at the time:

Three 1-hour meditation periods in the meditation hall
“Unwinding”
Individual guidance sessions with dale
Large group discussion

Inner work in small groups

One 50-minute private session with Dale on days 5, 6, or 7

Evening dance and/or listening to music.

The "Letting Go III Retreat" will be held September 23-30, 2011 at Chapin Mill, the magnificent country retreat site of the Rochester Zen Center, located on 135 acres of beautiful, isolated land, just 35 minutes from the Rochester airport.

To register, or for more information, please email us at AWAKENTHEHEART@GMAIL.COM

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

"Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,

Break all our teacup talk of God."

If you had the courage and

Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,

He would just drag you around the room

By your hair,

Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world

That bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly

And wants to rip to shreds

All your erroneous notions of truth

That make you fight within yourself, dear one,

And with others,

Causing the world to weep

On too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,

Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself

And practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants

To do us a great favor:

Hold us upside down

and shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear

He is in such a "playful drunken mood"

Most everyone I know

Quickly packs their bags and hightails it

Out of town.

-Hafiz

Heartwork focus "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

IN SILENCE, by Thomas Merton

Be still

Listen to the stones of the wall.

Are you (as these stones

Are quiet). Do not

Think of what you are

Still less of

What you may one day be.

Rather

Be what you are (but who?) be

And all things live around you

Speaking (I do not hear)

To your own being,

Speaking by the Unknown

That is in you and in themselves.

"I will try, like them

To be my own silence:

And this is difficult. The whole

World is secretly on fire. The stones

Burn, even the stones

They burn me. How can a man be still or

Listen to all things burning? How can he dare

To sit with them when

All their silence

Is on fire?"

Heartwork focus "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

Not the real gold

The day comes

when the bodies prayers

are answered;

Holding the coins

in your hands,

you suddenly know that

this is not the gold

you have been

praying for.

Security in this world

puts you to sleep

in the real world.

How can you

hear the bells

of your true desire

when you are so warm

and cozy here?

You don't want to hear this;

Your bed is so warm

and the morning air

so cold.

Yet your soul knows

it is being called

to Annihilation.

Holding on and letting go

have been dancing

together for years now;

Soon exhaustion

will kiss you both.

The cymbal and drum

will crash their great ending.

Now, at last,

You can all fall down.

Richard Wehrman

Heartwork focus "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

through the emotions...

touching walls of the past

the beautiful emptiness.

Heartwork focus "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

Since all things are naked, clear and free from obscurations, there is nothing to attain or realize. The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions. And to all people -- experiencing everything totally without reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes onto oneself.

Excerpted from a Maha Ati text, translated by Trungpa Rinpoche

Heartwork focus "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

I took the lamp and, leaving the zone of everyday occupations and relationships where everything seems clear, I went down into my innermost self, to the deep abyss whence I feel dimly that my power of action emanates.

But as I moved further and further away from the conventional certainties by which social life is superficially illuminated, I became aware that I was losing contact with myself. At each step of the descent a new person was disclosed within me of whose name I was no longer sure, and

who no longer obeyed me.

And when I had to stop my exploration because the path had faded from beneath my steps, I found a bottomless abyss at my feet, and out of it came - arising I know not from where - the current which I dare to call my life.

- Teilhard de Chardin

Heartwork focus "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T11:42:00.001-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

Priceless Gifts

An empty day without events.

And that is why

it grew immense

as space. And suddenly

happiness of being

entered me.

I heard

in my heartbeat

the birth of time

and each instant of life

one after the other

came rushing in

like priceless gifts.

Anna Swir

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T11:38:00.001-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

Kindness

by: Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

UNHOLDABLE

Time flowed

into the cup, the bowl,

It was the joy of morning,

of life's promise,

of possibility;

it rose and flowed over,

still perfect, as new

and my hands were wet

Heartwork focus on "Letting Go" with Awareness

2011-06-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

Renewal

The old skin,

back where we started,

is eaten away.

Every day newness arrives:

we open upward,

fresh and re-newed.

Down below,

looking backward,

something we needed then

dries and dissolves.

Wind moves through.

Outside, we grow stronger.

Inside, we rise and brighten.

Morning after morning,

we open

brand new eyes.

Richard Wehrman 8/15/08

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go,"

2011-06-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,

Dale

As from the distance, leaves are falling,

Fall as if the far-off gardens fade into the sky;

They fall with gestures of relinquishing.

And through the night there falls the pressing earth

Down past the stars in lonesomeness.

We are falling. There, this hand falls too,

Occurring to us all: just look around you.

Still there is one who holds us tenderly

As in his hands we fall, fall endlessly.

Rilke, rendered by Jonathan Cott

2011-04-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

"It is the instruction of a teacher that will readily help: at first to realize the view of the Great Perfection; secondly, to achieve skill and perfect it; and thirdly, to achieve perfect stability in this realization. We should not expect instant realization." - Nyoshul Khenpo from Natural Great Perfection

Many have asked me.. When is the next, Heartwork Residential event ?
The answer: Heartwork Basic Intensive - June 22-25 or 27 www.awakentheheart.org/events

Be content with what you have...

2011-03-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

Fame or integrity: which is more important?

Money or happiness: which is more valuable?

Success or failure: which is more destructive?

If you look to others for fulfillment,

You will never truly be fulfilled.

If your happiness depends on money,

You will never be happy with yourself.

Be content with what you have,

Rejoice in the way things are.

When you realize there is nothing lacking,

The whole world belongs to you.

“Tao Te Ching,” ed. By Stephen Mitchell

Many have asked me.. When is the next, Heartwork Residential event ?

The answer: Heartwork Basic Intensive - June 22-25 or 27 www.awakentheheart.org/events

2011-03-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

Fruition

Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife

and it will blunt,

and your heart will never unclench,

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.

“Tao Te Ching,” ed. By Stephen Mitchell

Many have asked me.. When is the next, Heartwork Residential event ?

The answer: Heartwork Basic Intensive - June 22-25 or 27 www.awakentheheart.org/events

Basic Intensive

2011-03-11T06:25:00.000-08:00

The Heartwork Basic Intensive is a breakthrough experience-for most people, a life-changing experience. If there's something about yourself or your life that you sincerely want to change, and are willing to do whatever you have to in order to bring about that change, the Basic Intensive provides you with a unique opportunity to turn your life around.

The Weekend of Heartwork will being on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. and end at noon on Saturday, June 25, 2011. People who wish to stay on for the Basic Intensive will continue on until Monday at noon. (For further descriptions of the Weekend of Heartwork and the Basic Intensive, please visit our website at www.AwakenTheHeart.org/events ).

In Silence

2011-02-19T05:14:00.000-08:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,
Dale

IN SILENCE, by Thomas Merton

Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your
Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
Silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet). Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of
What you may one day be.
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know.

O be still, while
You are still alive,
And all things live around you
Speaking (I do not hear)
To your own being,
Speaking by the Unknown
That is in you and in themselves.

"I will try, like them
To be my own silence:
And this is difficult. The whole
World is secretly on fire. The stones
Burn, even the stones
They burn me. How can a man be still or
Listen to all things burning? How can he dare
To sit with them when
All their silence
Is on fire?"

"Letting Go"

2011-02-10T11:00:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way. - DG

Tenderly, I now touch all things,
Knowing one day we will part.
St. John of the Cross

Letting Go

2011-02-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

Dear Friend of Heartwork,

In the spirit of this year's Heartwork focus on "Letting Go," I am sending out weekly quotes that relate to the topic. I hope that you will be touched by them in some significant way.

Blessings on your journey,
Dale

Facing Death (by Greg Mayers, Zen Teacher and Catholic Priest)

The big problem we can't get around is death. No matter how we think about it, it remains unsolvable; causing us anxiety, stealing creativity, depressing our enthusiasm for living. No matter what we do in life, death finally grins at us in the end.

But death is not as unfamiliar as we think. We die all the time. Each night when we fall asleep, we loose all the familiar details of our daily living and enter into a deep dreamless sleep where there is... nothing. Not only this, but each moment slips away from us and all its little details with it.

So, the "Heart Sutra" a Zen text, says that there is "...no ending of old age and death." This moment grows old and dies. This day grows old and dies. And we sleep at night. But the next moment comes with all its details, and the next day comes with its particulars, and we awaken in the morning... So, the same sutra says that "in emptiness there is... no old age and death."

Everything changes all the time, but "one thing" never, ever changes for it is not in time. And you are essentially, fundamentally, irrevocably that. And "that" as the sutra says is "not born, not destroyed... transforming all suffering and distress."

Our practice is a practice of dying moment to moment, of letting go moment to moment until we discover that which we can never let go of, because we never hold on to it. We discover what never, ever ends, because it never, ever begins. Thus we are free to live life with "no hindrance... and therefore no fear."

24 Hour Mini-Retreat: Establishing the Foundation for LOVE to Flourish in Relationship

2010-11-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

This Mini-Retreat provides you with an opportunity to experience the dynamic inner-work that Heartwork offers, with a minimal expenditure of time and money - AND you can do it from your own home or at any location with a friend.

During the course of the day, I will teach, and you will practice, a number of tools that will give the opportunity to look together at the possibilities that exist within relationship for personal growth and ever-deepening intimacy with another human being. Through brief talks, experiential exercises, and group discussions, we will explore what creates and sustains intimacy in relationships, how it is lost, and how it can be renewed. You will learn how to work with the tools that are GUARANTEED - if both parties love each other and are willing to do their own work, in and through the relationship - not only to take a relationship through any possible difficulty, but to transform the very nature of the relationship itself and create the most loving, intimate relationship one has known. The mini-retreat is open to singles as well as those in relationships.

Freeze Frame

Freeze Frame is a tool that allows one to make conscious the unconscious causes of our actions that create ongoing suffering in our relationships. By replaying an incident where one hurt - or was hurt by – another, slowing down the “movie,” and freezing the frame just before (in the case of one’s creating the pain) or in-the-moment of the wounding (in the case of one’s receiving the blow), one can see/feel exactly what was going on that was unconscious in the original event. In this mini-retreat, we will then use the tools of Guided Heartwork and Just Listening to explore deeply what got triggered in the unconscious, so that it may become conscious, and one may have the possibility of catching the trigger before it gets activated in the future.

Partnering for this event is recommended; if you choose to partner you will want to find one partner for this event. Everyone is encouraged to join with others in their city if this is an option in your area. There is much to be gained by working in a group – an energy gathers that all can use that is not accessible when working in separate locations. Please make your arrangements prior to the call.

Devoted to... by Dale Goldstein

2010-09-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I went to meet with a Tibetan Lama (monk), Garchen Rimpoche. When I walked into the meeting room, he was sitting on the floor in front of a little prayer table, spinning the prayer wheel that his students had made for him. While his back was turned to me, I could see that he was giving the totality of his being to the prayer. And when he heard me enter the room, he turned to face me, and now he was giving the totality of his being to me. I had to come to ask his advice on what I should do in terms of spiritual practice. Before I could say a word, he said to me, “Just keep doing what you’re already doing.”

How did this little man, who had spent 25 years of his life in a Chinese prison camp, know my mind? I believe that, by giving all of his self to me – by being selfless – he could see, know and understand who I was in that moment and what I needed. In that moment, he was completely devoted to me.

We’re all devoted to something. In the world of opposites, this means we’re either devoted to love or fear (and/or the hatred that is bred by fear), honesty or dishonesty, life or death (intellectual, emotional or spiritual), peace or conflict, joy or sorrow, freedom or restriction, union or separation, and so on.

If you want to know what you’re devoted to, simply look at your life. Whatever you’re truly devoted to shows up in your life. For example, you may think you’re devoted to peace, but if you keep getting in fights with your spouse or a co-worker, you may be attached to the conflict in some way. External realities are reflections of our internal condition. They often show us the ways in which we’re not really at peace in ourselves, and in which we play out our inner, unresolved conflicts in our relationships with others. (We do this so that we can see, sooner or later, that we have these unresolved issues that need our attention).

For myself, I like to think that I’m devoted to the truth – Ultimate Truth (Who/What I am and the Universe is), to be precise. But am I really? Let me give you an idea of how difficult it is to live devoted to the truth. A friend of mine, a Tuscarora medicine man named Tah-weh-dah-qui, once told me that of all the spiritual practices he has undertaken (and he has done some very difficult ones), and of all the practices his teachers – the medicine men and elders of many tribes around the world – have undertaken, the most difficult of all, by far, is the practice of honesty. And living a life of impeccable honesty is what is required to arrive at Ultimate Truth.

Living in impeccable honesty means sharing with those people most important to you whatever is in the way of your sharing love with them, and then resolving the issue that separates you from them. It means returning the ten extra cents you were mistakenly given in change for an item you purchased – and reporting every penny you earned on your income tax form. It means telling your boss what you don’t like about the way s/he manages you. It even means answering your telephone when it rings, instead of checking your caller ID to see who it is, and telling that person if you don’t want to talk with them exactly why you don’t want to. And it means doing all of these things with compassion for yourself and the other person at the same time.

A dozen or so years ago, a woman named Alexandra was doing some work on herself in a Heartwork Basic Intensive, a workshop where people come for four days and nights intent on getting something for themselves that they really want, or on getting rid of something they really don’t want. All of a sudden, one by one, the rest of the participants (who had gathered around her to support her work) turned their backs and walked away from Alexandra. I was as surprised as she was, but the message they were sending to her was loud and clear: that her behavior – which was very self-centered, especially in that moment – was obnoxious and offensive.

Six months later, I ran into Alexandra on the street, and she was a transformed being. She was pleasant and friendly, and not at all self-centered in the way she had been at the Intensive. I asked her what she had been doing for herself that had made such a difference and she told me that in the moment in the Intensive when everyone turned their backs on her, she realized what a negative effect she had on people. No one had ever told her that before, and she always wondered why people moved away from her in her life. Alexandra didn’t want people to leave her, and so she changed how she acted with people from that point on. This transformation of a person’s life was the direct result of the Intensive participants’ honest feedback about how Alexandra’s was affecting them. Had they not been devoted to being impeccably honest with each other, this transformation would not have occurred.

Life is the great teacher for us all. Life will eventually show us whatever ways that we are not living in accord with the deepest truth of our being. In fact, it is showing each of us in every moment. Everything we do that is out of harmony with the truth of our being causes suffering in our lives. The only real question is whether we are willing to look – openly and honestly – at ourselves. What are we really devoted to? What are we creating in our lives? Are we willing to see it? If we can hear or see the messages that are coming to us through our suffering, we can live increasingly in accord with our deepest truth.

Until we are conscious of what we do – and why – we are victims to our own unconscious motivations, and others may be our victims as well. As Alexandra learned, we can help each other become conscious. What could be better than that?

So, I invite you to take an honest look at your own life. What are you really devoted to: honesty or dishonesty, love or fear, life or death, peace or conflict, joy or sorrow, freedom or restriction, union or separation, etc.? And what are you going to do about what you discover to be your truth?

--Join me for the Heartwork Relationship Retreat - October 20-24 - www.awakentheheart.com/events email awakentheheart@gmail.com for more info..

Karlfried Gras von Durkheim : The Way of Transformation

2010-08-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

The man who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive.

Rather, he will seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it, thus making of it a "raft that leads to the far shore."

Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within him. In this lies the dignity of daring. Thus, the aim of (spiritual) practice is not to develop an attitude which allows a man to acquire a state of harmony and peace wherein nothing can ever trouble him. On the contrary, practice should teach him to let himself be assaulted, perturbed, moved, insulted, broken and battered - that is to say, it should enable him to dare to let go his futile hankering after harmony, surcease from pain, and a comfortable life in order that he may discover, in doing battle with the forces that oppose him, that which awaits him beyond the world of opposites.

The first necessity is that we should have the courage to face life, and to encounter all that is most perilous in the world. When this is possible, meditation itself becomes the means by which we accept and welcome the demons which arise from the unconscious, a process very different from the practice of concentration on some object as a protection against such forces.

Only if we venture repeatedly through zones of annihilation can our contact with Divine Being, which is beyond annihilation, become firm and stable. The more a man learns whole-heartedly to confront the world that threatens him with isolation, the more are the depths of the Ground of Being revealed and the possibilities of New Life and Becoming opened.

Honor the Truth

2010-08-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

I honor the Truth.
I honor my deep desire to Know the Truth.
I honor the deep desire in all beings to Know the Truth.
Honoring these truths, I know I am on my way Home.

The truth is that I am the truth, and so are you and so are all beings, everywhere. What is this truth of which I speak?

The truth is what is – purely and simply what is in this very moment. The truth is what we experience when we are not separating ourselves from what is by thinking about what should be, was, or will be. It is our habitual tendency to superimpose ideas, beliefs, concepts and images on top of what is that separates us from the truth. We spend our whole lives searching for the truth somewhere outside ourselves when what we have always been looking for is right here, right now.

When the honoring of truth is diminished in the slightest way, our life is in pieces – a story here, a secret there, friends with whom we share and others whom we fear. To learn how to consciously stop (conceptualizing), to look and listen to what is always right here with us now, and to honor the simple truth of life in each moment will awaken a latent personal power and wisdom that is the birthright of all.

The truth is always here and now. In fact the truth of which I speak does not have to be studied, learned or analyzed. It is simply the “here-and-now” – what is. Some call it “presence” or “Tao” or “the eternal now” or “God.” Because it is an eternal present empty of past or future, it is filled with possibility, hope (real hope, without any particular thing to be hopeful of), aliveness, freedom, peace, joy and love. Being in this eternal present is our true nature – who we are when we let go of all external pre-conceived ideas/images/beliefs about who we are and what the world is.

People naturally experience truth in moments of extreme danger or in moments of deep connection with another human being or nature. Because this truth is this moment, it is always available to us every moment! It is always here -- only we aren’t! Our thoughts are mostly lost in the past or dreaming in the future. To honor the truth is to make a conscious effort – prayer, meditation practice, conscious attention to everyday work, affirmations and other forms of willing oneself into presence.

Carol Swiedler, author of Letters From The Cosmos, writes: Seek the truth, and the truth shall set you free. But what is this truth of which I speak? It is not factual, although you must strive, scrupulously, and relentlessly, for subjective honesty. It is not knowledge or wisdom, although you will acquire both along the way. It is not a philosophy or a religion, although it is profoundly spiritual, and you will develop a personal ethic of great power and substance. But rather it is a state of being, where, suddenly, self-deception is swept away, and you are left with the essence of who you really are. In that moment, you are filled with power and glory, and you are at one with the universe. All fear and judgment disappear. And what remains is strength, beauty, and joy, empathy and compassion, understanding and acceptance, and unconditional love for all of creation. And you will forever long to return to this wondrous place.

All other life forms on this beautiful planet Earth live in the truth. Only human beings have the ability and freedom to create a “reality” separate from the true moment. Because we have become separated from the truth and consequently lost our connection with and honoring of all life, including our own and that of our brothers and sisters everywhere, we experience a world of suffering and destruction.

Contrasted to how separated we have become, note the words of the great Native American Chief Seattle: Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing, and humming insect is holy.… We are part of the earth and it is part of us…. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices of the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man - all belong to the same family…. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man does not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

I honor this truth because it is the truth. In the truth I am connected to all life, and I honor all life because I am not separate from anything. Honoring is a natural part of being in the truth. The truth, itself, honors all. When I am living in the truth, I honor everything.

To focus you own intention to honor being in truth, ask yourself the following question: “Who am I?” Repeat this question throughout the day, in every circumstance and situation until your heart/mind begins to open to the truth of being present in the here and now. Allow the question to take you beyond any personality role and identification, beyond all concepts and judgments. “Who am I, really?”

If you look deeply enough into this question, you will get a glimpse of the truth of which I speak, the truth which I honor. May you discover this incredible Truth, and may the truth light your way.

I & Thou Retreat - Creating Healing Relationships

2010-08-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

October 20-24 Relationship Retreat - I &Thou Retreat in Austin
Early Registration...savings for registrants till September 20, 2010

Imagine for a moment how your life and relationships with those you love could shift, if a lightened perspective found it’s way to your heart.

Heartwork is offering an amazing opportunity to crack the walls that keep you (and/or someone you love) isolated in a brittle, crusty, rusty shell of a body and disconnected from all the sweet, juicy love that is always all around us!!!

The Heartwork I & Thou Retreat is certain to bring all this and more to the registrants who attend. October 20-24 will give registrants 4 days of retreat. .. see the brochure for details and determine what best fits your need for healing. http://www.awakentheheart.org/events

Every financial situation is up for discussion. Heartwork Institute offers Scholarship, Work- study, and special plans to all who have the need.
Discounts are provided to those who refer friends/family – the discounts can be passed on to the registrant or used to help the referrer reduce their fee…

Contact HWI for information and registration information… awakentheheart@gmail.com
Or call 888-340-9865

INQUIRY - the process of exploring "with-in" ......... Join the Journey

2010-08-13T13:19:00.000-07:00

Inquiry is a dynamic, open-ended exploration into the immediacy of our experience to more deeply understand the mystery of who and what we truly are. The practice is based on a simple but profound principle: Being freely reveals itself to anyone who loves to know the truth of reality and is willing to wholeheartedly surrender to not-knowing and remain open to and curious about truth. To paraphrase George Washington Carver's reply upon being asked how he discovered the thousands of uses for the lowly peanut, "If you love something deeply enough, it will reveal all its secrets to you."

We will meet for three hours once-a-month for six months.

Dates and times will be determined by the availability of the group members.
Fee: $300 for 6 sessions. HTP participants receive a 25% discount.

Register by emailing awakentheheart@gmail.com

Heartwork and Letting GO with Awareness

2010-08-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

Heartwork IS a process of "letting go with awareness into the Truth of one's Being-in-the-moment." The year will be a journey into The Mystery, letting go progressively into the unknown in order to know and understand Who and What we really are - what Reality is.

This is the essential foundation of Heartwork, the process through which Heartwork came into being and continues to evolve. The time has finally arrived to take the dive with those of you who wish to join in this ultimate Great Adventure.

The HTP Retreat next year will be the first four days of the 7-day "Letting Go III Retreat" - the last in the series of Letting Go Retreats that began in 2005. In this retreat, you will simply pay attention to your habitual pushing away of, running away from, and/or fighting against what IS, and, whenever you catch yourself doing one of these Reality-avoiding strategies, you will surrender into what is Real-in the-moment. This process becomes increasingly refined until, ultimately, having let go and let go and let go, you let go of the letting go and enter into Reality - simply what is Real-in-the-moment, without the commentaries, judgements, avoidances, etc. that are our usual way of being. In addition, you will be asking yourself continually, "What do I need right now?" (in order to let go), and will give that to yourself moment-after-moment. This is a very direct path to realizing your True Nature, the experiencing of which will transform your being forever.

for more information on HWI Events go to: www.awakentheheart.org/events
or email awakentheheart@gmail.com for more info and to register for events.

Meditation Group 8/8/2010

2010-08-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

$20.00 per individual

This is a great opportunity to introduce your friends and acquaintances to Heartwork in a gentle way.

8-8-2010: 9pm-11pm eastern time (Soft Body Meditation)

The Meditation Group will help provide you with the basis of allowing daily meditation into your life, with a minimal expenditure of time and money - AND you can do it from your own home or at any location with a friend.

I know you will have a wonderful opportunity to deepen your inner work.

The Meditation Group session on August 8th will focus on the Soft Body Meditation. Prior to the Group Meditation call, you will need to have made yourself thoroughly familiar with Soft Belly Meditation and the Soft Body Meditation. This will maximize your participation during the brief time we will have together.

Rumi

2010-08-01T06:07:00.000-07:00

I am Only the House of your Beloved - Rumi

"I am only the house of your beloved,

not the beloved herself:

true love is for the treasure,

not for the coffer that contains it."

The real beloved is that one who is unique,

who is your beginning and your end.

When you find that one,

you'll no longer expect anything else:

that is both the manifest and the mystery.

That one is the lord of states of feeling,

dependent on none;

month and year are slaves to that moon.

When he bids the "state,"

it does His bidding;

when that one wills, bodies become spirit.

Rumi was born on 30 September 1207 in greater Balkh, which is in present day Afghanistan. He died on 17 December 1273 in Konya in present day Turkey. He was laid to rest beside his father, and over his remains a splendid shrine was erected. The 13th century Mevlana Mausoleum, with its mosque, dance hall, dervish living quarters, school and tombs of some leaders of the Mevlevi Order, continues to this day to draw pilgrims from all parts of the Muslim and non-Muslim world. Jalal al-Din who is also known as Rumi, was a philosopher and mystic of Islam, but not a Muslim of the orthodox type. His doctrine advocates unlimited tolerance, positive reasoning, goodness, charity and awareness through love. To him and to his disciples all religions are more or less truth. Looking with the same eye on Muslim, Jew and Christian alike, his peaceful and tolerant teaching has appealed to men of all sects and creeds.

I & Thou Retreat - Creating Healing Relationships

2010-07-31T14:19:00.000-07:00

Retreat Date:
October 20-24, 2010

In this retreat, we will look at how our relationships serve as vehicles for personal and spiritual growth. We will look deeply into the issues we have with others, and see, mirrored back to us, aspects of our own being that we have rejected. We can then embrace and reincorporate those aspects back into our being, becoming whole again in the places where we have split off from ourselves. By opening fully to our deep yearnings for what we don’t have in relationship, we can access the deep wounds in our soul and heal them at their core.

In this retreat, you will learn and master all the tools you will need to have happy and fulfilling intimate relationships for the rest of your life. Through partner work, group discussion, and optional (for fee) private interview time, we will look deeply together into the specific relationship patterns that prevent you from sharing love. We will begin the process of uprooting these patterns at their source and regaining our birthright of peace, happiness, and love.

This is a 4-day residential workshop being held at a beautiful
Commanders Pointe Estate in Austin, Texas. The retreat begins on
Wednesday, October 20th at 7:00 p.m. and ends on Sunday,
October 24th at 1:00 p.m.

Body/Energy work will be offered by JoAnn Gorka and Margie
Mensik. The fee for this service is in addition to tuition fees.

The workshop is facilitated by Dale Goldstein,
LCSW, co-founder/director of the Heartwork
Institute, Inc. in Rochester, NY, and author of
award-winning Heartwork: How To Get What
You Really, REALLY Want. Since 1966, Dale
has been actively exploring the uses of meditative,
healing, and psychotherapeutic tools in the
process of opening the heart/mind, individually
and in relationship.

Tuition fees are:

$850 per individual, if received by the early registration date
September 20, 2010. $950 per individual, if received after that
date. Food and lodging is an additional $280.00 per person.

A two-some (2 people who are in an ongoing, committed
relationship – can be spouse, relative or close friend) receive
$200 off the second person’s tuition, and may also qualify
for additional discounts below, if they apply.

Discounts for Referrals – $200 discount for each new
participant enrolled, up to the full tuition fee of the enroller,
excluding food and lodging.

HTP members receive a 25% discount after the above
discounts have been applied, excluding food and lodging.
Scholarships and work-study stipends are available.

email : Awakentheheart@gmail.com

or Call: 585-340-9865

to initiate the Registration process

2010-07-30T17:39:00.000-07:00

Two things that attracted me to Zen practice were the enlightenment stories and the death stories of the masters.

These relatively recent photos are of Zen Master Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen. When he was ready to die, he sat in full lotus for three days without moving. His head disciple came into his room periodically and held a mirror under his nose to see if there was still breath coming and going out of his nostrils. When there was no longer any breath, his monks unrobed and lacquered his body, which continues to sit in full lotus posture to this day, 1300 years later!

Forgiveness - by Dale Goldstein, LCSW

2010-07-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

Reminding us all ... what Forgiveness really is...
Forgiveness is a combination of acceptance and compassion. Compassion helps us remain open to pain; acceptance has to do with allowing identities and beliefs to relax. Forgiveness is necessary to stop living in the past – no longer identified as the one who is hurt. A vicious cycle is established: first, one is hurt; then, to protect oneself from feeling the hurt, one creates self-identities and beliefs about others that create the limited reality in which one lives; this self/world view then creates more suffering of the same kind, and the repetition of the pattern gives one ongoing opportunities to heal the original pain. Inquiry (wanting to know the truth) at any point breaks the cycle. For forgiveness to be complete, one needs to be open to fully experiencing the pain, and be able to discriminate the pain from the story about the pain and the identity that has formed around the pain. Ultimately, the only real way out of this cycle is to see that who we really are can’t be hurt.

Litany

2010-07-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Billy Collins

Hermann Hesse was a German poet

2010-07-27T06:07:00.001-07:00

Hermann Hesse was a German poet, novelist, and painter. He was born in the small town of Calw on the edge of the Black Forest in Germany, in 1877. Both his mother and father had served at the Basel Mission in India, and his mother was actually born in a mission like it in 1847. His father, Johannes Hesse was the son of a doctor, with a strong Baltic German heritage. The household was an odd mix of scholarly achievement and extreme religious ardor, due to his father's tales from Estonia that painted a sunny, cheerful picture of life and religion very different from their reality.

From very early on, Hesse was fiercely independent, strong, and intelligent beyond his years. His maternal grandfather, Hermann Gundert, was a Pietist Missionary and Indologist, and young Hermann devoured the books in his collection. Hesse's early life consisted of transfers from school to school, due to his precociousness and "bad behavior" which lasted until around 1895, during which time Hermann had developed some bad habits: smoking, drinking, running up excessive debts, and even contemplated suicide a number of times.

Hesse's books don't have strong plots, but instead are in the most part autobiographical in nature and they revolve around "Weltanschauung", or a philosophy of life. Hesse frequently used the plots of his stories to present his thoughts, and his near constant struggle to understand life and the great problems in it. Most of this works, most notably Siddhartha, seem to be seeking a message from his "God" as to how he should live. Hesse himself called his novels "biographies of the soul."

Hesse conceived the idea for Siddhartha in 1911, following a long visit to India looking for the fulfillment that he thought Oriental philosophies could give him. Siddhartha is an exceptionally intelligent Brahman, which is the highest caste in the Hindu religion. Siddhartha feels hollow, despite what seems to be a good life existing around him. He sets off on his journey of self-discovery. This journey to "find himself" leads him through several different types of lives: a period of asceticism and self-denial, though he eventually turns his back on these paths as he realizes they disrupt life by denying a part of it, the physical body. After this realization, Siddhartha decides to pursue physical pleasures and material success. After becoming a great lover and businessman, he eventually realizes that these pleasures too are superficial and don't satisfy his deeper spiritual side.

A meeting with Buddha leaves him intellectually stimulated, but not spiritually affected, and Siddhartha continues along his own journey. Even meeting the Buddha could not convince him that salvation comes from suffering. Siddhartha even reminds Buddha of his own journey to enlightenment, pointing out that nobody finds salvation through someone else's teaching, and that communicating enlightenment cannot be done through mere words. Because we know of the struggles Hesse has survived during the period just before writing this piece, we know that he is laying himself bare for our review, so that we might decide what these ultimate meanings are on our own.

Disillusioned that so many varied paths had failed, Siddhartha nonetheless doesn't stop looking for the true meaning of life and his existence. Ultimately, Siddhartha finds his peace by the river. While repeatedly crossing the river and relentless soul searching, he finally reaches his own "hour of enlightenment." In this third phase, Siddhartha finally is able to reconcile the physical and spiritual parts of himself by becoming closer to nature and simple work as a ferryman. His search for identity and truth, or the "inward journey" that Hesse referred to consistently as a recurring theme in all his work, is very much reflective of the introspective nature of Hesse's writing.

Academically unsound though the historical and spiritual stories in Siddhartha may be, they are most often viewed in light of Hesse's confession that Siddhartha's pilgrimage mirrored his own. Each of the stages in Hesse's evolution of consciousness is spelled out in Siddhartha. Many critics even today maintain that this book was Hesse's statement of "liberation from Brahmanisn, Buddhism, and Hinduism."

To Siddhartha, the river symbolized the teacher he had been missing up to that point. Vasudeva, who was the ferryman, teaches Siddhartha what he had learned about the river and finding peace within oneself. "The river knows everything; one can learn everything from it" Siddhartha took this to heart and soon began to learn from the river. He learns that there is in reality no such thing as time, and begins to see his life as the river and what it teaches him. "Siddhartha the young boy, Siddhartha the mature man, Siddhartha the old man were only separated by shadows, not through reality." This teaches him that all things in his life will remain a part of him- knowledge and memories remain with him always.

After Peter Camenzind was published in 1904, Hermann Hesse maintained a great following, and with each subsequent publication his popularity rose dramatically. German readers liked his poetry and stories about traditional ways in the old country, and he was well entrenched in the libraries of most households by the time of the First World War in 1914. As Hesse began writing disparaging works about nationalism and the military, his reputation quickly became one of a traitor and draft dodger, even though he had volunteered for military service. (He was deemed physically unable for combat and was sent to care for the injured.) This public debate was raging when several much deeper calamities came upon Hesse- his father's death in March, 1916, the serious illness of his son Martin, and the corresponding schizophrenia of his wife. Forced to leave military service, he also began receiving psychotherapy, which began a long He was forced to leave his military service and begin receiving psychotherapy. This began for Hesse a long fixation with psychoanalysis, and he would eventually come to know Carl Jung personally, and it is said that Jung spurred him to new creative heights.

During a three-week period in September and October 1917, Hesse penned his novel Demian, which was published after the armistice in 1919 under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair. After the war, with the chaos and social and political upheaval, his reputation turned back to the point where self-knowledge and self-realization presented in Demian, which was published in 1919 resounded with German youth. Hesse became their idol and Demian their bible. By this time, Hesse's marriage had shattered following his wife's psychosis and recovery. Their house was divided, and Hesse settled alone in the small town of Montagnola and lived in four unheated little rooms in a castle-type building, the Casa Camuzzi.

Alone with his solitude, he explored further writing projects, painted, and published Klingsor's Last Summer in 1920. Finally, after many years of being immersed in Indian culture and Buddhist philosophy that he'd developed at an early age, he published Siddhartha in 1922. Even Hesse's characterization of Siddhartha's evolving ideology make a lot more sense when viewed through the light of Carl Jung's psychology of the unconscious. Jung's psychology insisted on also "acknowledging the dark side" of human nature and allowing for its manifestations along your life path. Sex, gambling, and greed possessed Siddhartha for a while but still never completely fulfilled him.

A new dimension that we find in the novel Siddhartha is his smile. Siddhartha is a similar story as that which was written in Demian: the search for self through all the stages of despair, alienation, guilt, and on to the experience of fulfilling the whole. In this new story, Hesse insists upon using love as the creator of this fulfillment, and he regards this component as "natural growth and development" out of earlier beliefs. In his essay "My Faith", which he wrote in 1931, he clarified "that my Siddhartha puts not cognition, but love in first place: that it disdains dogma and makes the experience of unity the central point...."

Hesse's works are challenging and unlike almost any other works of Western writers, and he's had periods of great fame, and also periods of scorn and neglect. Upon his receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, a great flurry of translations of his works was begun, including a 1951 English translation of Siddhartha. His books did not get much attention in the English-speaking world until the political and social upheaval in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. Because he excelled in depicting personal crisis's and private agonies, and this type of literature also seems to be remarkably popular during dark periods in culture, which also accounts for Hesse's large-scale adoration in Germany during both devastating wars.

Translations

Several American publishers have recently had translations of Hesse's work commissioned, including Siddhartha, which previously were not possible due to copyright restrictions. In addition to the following newer translations, many publishers are still selling the original 1951 translation done by Hilda Rosner and being sold in reprint editions.
Newer translations include:

• Modern Library, translated by Susan Bernofsky, with a foreword by Tom Robbins, translator's preface (2006). An elegant translation, true to the original writing.
• Penguin, a translation by Joachim Neugroschel, introduction by Ralph Freedman, translator's note (2002). This version is very short and concise, and critics argue it does not do the story justice.
• Barnes & Noble, a translation by Rika Lesser, introduction by Robert A. Thurman (2007). Part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality works at affordable prices
• Shambhala Classics, a translation by Sherab Chödzin Kohn, introduction by Paul W. Morris, translator's preface (1998). A good translation with relevant quotes by Hesse.
• The Gutenberg Project, translated by Gunther Olesch, Anke Dreher, Stefan Langer, Amy Coulter, and Semyon Chaichenets. Available for online reading and in eBook formats. (2001)

This is widely viewed as the most literal and accurate translation of Siddhartha.

The Author of this article operates a Publishing label called Ancient Wisdom Publications, he recently reprinted Siddhartha based on the best available translation. The book is hard-cover with large font available via the publisher's website or in any major bookstore worldwide.

http://www.andras-nagy.com/newbooks.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andras_Nagy

Heartwork Mini-Retreat July 30-31 by: Dale Goldstein

2010-07-26T05:33:00.000-07:00

The Heartwork Mini-Retreat provides individuals with an opportunity to experience the dynamic inner-work that Heartwork offers, with a minimal expenditure of time - the event can be done at home or from any location with a friend.

This is wonderful opportunity to deepen one's inner work.

During the course of the day, I teach, and participants practice, a number of tools that give the opportunity to look at the possibilities that exist within relationship for personal growth and ever-deepening intimacy with another human being. Through brief talks, experiential exercises, and group discussions, we will explore what creates and sustains intimacy in relationships, how it is lost, and how it can be renewed. You will learn how to work with the “Relationship Transformers” (download the .pdf file at http://www.awakentheheart.org/files/relationship%20transformers%202008.pdf ), tools that are GUARANTEED - if both parties love each other and are willing to do their own work, in and through the relationship - not only to take a relationship through any possible difficulty, but to transform the very nature of the relationship itself and create the most loving, intimate relationship one has known.

The mini-retreat is open to singles as well as those in relationships.

July 30-31, 2010
begins 9pm Eastern/ 8pm Central on July 30
ends 9pm Eastern/ 8pm Central on July 31

Email: awakentheheart@gmail.com with your registration request or questions around participation.

NEW Heartwork Transformation Group - Dale Goldstein Teacher

2010-07-25T08:06:00.001-07:00

I really, REALLY want to work with a small, intimate group of people who want to explore, as profoundly as possible, the depth and breadth of Being - all aspects of it: the spiritual, the personal, and the interpersonal (as one of my good friends put it: "The Death March!"). This decision has been greatly influenced by the death of my beloved teacher of the last ten years, and the re-realization of how preciously brief our time is here on earth.

In addition participating in the 4-Day Death March Retreat, The Death March will meet for 2 hours twice-a-month via conference call and/or videoconferencing, at a time when all participants are available to meet, The meetings will include individual and group work, and group discussion, using the Heartwork tools, and with a group and individual (including my own) commitment to not hold back! The goal for each meeting will be to look as deeply as we possibly can, minute-after-minute, hour-after-hour, meeting after-meeting, month-after-month, using the of energy our own and the group’s intention as a powerful support for our inquiry into Who and What we really are, and What this is all about.

The Death March is not for the faint-of-heart!!!

http://hwimarch.blogspot.com/p/call-schedule.html

With Much Love and Deep Respect for each of your paths,
Dale

Letting Go is the purest, simplest aspect of the Heartwork experience

2010-07-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

It is so simple that, really, ANYONE can do it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnPZ3J8X0vs

Letting go is the "way" that underlies all of Heartwork.

The Heartwork tools that best facilitate this process: Soft Belly, Soft Body, Awareness, Do Nothing Meditations

Visit www.awakentheheart.org/events to discover upcoming Heartwork Events that will bring benefit to your life.

emai: awakentheheart@gmail.com
phone: 888-340-9865

aliveness, awareness, joyfulness, playfulness - Cultivating these aspects of BEing at Heartwork Institute

2010-07-22T04:24:00.000-07:00

www.awakentheheart.org
email: awakentheheart@gmail.com
ALWAYs let us know if you have an INQUIRY...
we are here to assist you on your Journey.

The Heartwork Institute offers 2 annual Transformational Programs:

Dmarch and HTP, both offering an extended, intensified immersion into the Heartwork process. All are designed to assist you in bringing the power of Heartwork into your daily life with teachings and guidance from Dale Goldstein, the creator of Heartwork. You will join an interactive and supportive community of individuals from across the globe in
learning and practicing this contemporary healing work on an ongoing basis.

The DMarch includes 2 hours twice-a-month via conference call and/or videoconferencing, and a 4 day DMarch Retreat scheduled for Fall/Winter 2010. The meetings will include individual work, group work, and discussion, with a commitment to not hold back! Our goal will be to look as deeply as we possibly can: minute-after-minute, hour-after-hour, meeting-after-meeting, month-after-month, using the of energy our collective intention as a powerful support for our inquiry into Who and What we really are, and What this is all about.

Currently the DMarch group is reading Meetings At the Edge, by Stephen Levine.

Meetings at the Edge: Dialogues with the Grieving and the Dying, the Healing and the Healed by Stephen Levine
Excerpt: " ... say that it is the "braille method" -feeling our way along from moment to moment in uncharted territory, meeting the next unknown moment with a sense of wonder and trust in the shared exploration. ... "

This year’s HTP will explore “Relationship.” Specifically, we will look at the factors that create intimacy and healing in relationships. We will also explore and gain insight into those factors that create separation and dis-ease. The HTP will work with the “Relationship Transformers” in greater depth than is possible in a
Relationship Retreat.

Currently the HTP group is reading Love and Awakening by: John Welwood

"A soul connection is a resonance between two people who see each other's essential beauty, behind their facades, and who connect on this deeper level. This kind of mutual recognition provides the catalyst for a potent alchemy, a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners realize their deepest potentials."