Experiencing Emptiness in Everyday Life

Experiencing  Emptiness in Everyday Life

In Buddhism, realizing the emptiness (shunyata) of the self and of all things is one of the keys to ending one's suffering.  Even though emptiness is of paramount importance, it is often challenging to find ways to investigate, experience, and realize emptiness in day-to-day life.  The student is often left with the question,

"How do I apply the transformational insights of the emptiness teachings to those everyday situations that I really care about?"

This all-day course from Greg Goode and Tomas Sander will offer practical examples, tools and meditations that can be used to address the issues that may arise on a daily basis.  Besides traditional Eastern sources, the course will also utilize insights from Western philosophy and psychology, as they can be particularly helpful for today's students.  Students are encouraged to bring examples from their own lives to the class to serve as examples.

For instance,

•  An aversive life event happens, such as a dear friend losing her job. Empathizing with her, you are deeply unsettled. You wonder:  "What does this really mean? For her life? For life in general?" Understanding the emptiness of meaning can help resolve this unsettling feeling.
• You receive an insult or suffer some sort of social persecution.  What is the basis for this insult?  Realizing its empty, open nature can start to bring peace.
• You notice that you do not look like the photographs of models in ads and commercials.  These images seem portrayed with such certainty!  Understanding the emptiness of beauty and representation can help prevent you from feeling perhaps marginalized.
• You witness a fender-bender and are asked to give eyewitness testimony.  You overhear the testimony of others standing right next to you.  You may say to yourself, "Their accounts differ so much from mine!"  Understanding the emptiness of perception and memory can help this make sense. This understanding can also easily be applied to other areas where people "see" things in strikingly different ways. 
• When you recognize the open texture of your ideas about yourself, especially any limiting assumptions you may have, you experience a freeing openness.  In this openness, you may feel an artistic inspiration to paint and create yourself anew.
• You feel a creative impulse to do something very different in your life, but you are not sure about pursuing it.  You wonder, "Would that really be me?  Would it be OK?"  How can understanding the insubstantiality of the self give you the confidence and energy to pursue this new direction?

The class will be highly interactive, experiential and fun, taught with lecture, meditation, group discussion, audio, video, photography, and art. 

As an attendee, you can expect:

• To learn more about emptiness;
• To experience a variety of practical emptiness meditations;
• To take away tools and techniques that allow you to explore everyday life in emptiness meditation. 

The class has no prerequisites and is open to Buddhist and non-Buddhist students alike. 

About Greg Goode:

Greg has been interested in philosophical investigation for most of his life.  He studied Psychology at California State University and Philosophy at the Universität zu Köln in Cologne, Germany, before receiving his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Rochester.  He's studied Advaita-Vedanta through the Chinmaya Mission and with Francis Lucille.  He studied Mahayana Buddhism through Jodo-Shinshu Minister Rev. Kenjutsu Nakagaki and with the Ven. Wen Zhu, dharma sister to Master Yin-Shun of Taiwan, P.R.C., author of The Way to Buddhahood.  Greg is the author of many articles, and his books include Nondualism in Western Philosophy, Standing as Awareness, and The Direct Path: A User Guide (forthcoming, March 2012 from Nonduality Press), and with co-author Tomas Sander, the forthcoming Emptiness and Joyful Freedom.

About Tomas Sander:

Tomas Sander is a Buddhist practitioner and teacher. He has studied mostly in the Tibetan tradition and received teachings from Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and other Tibetan masters. He studied Buddhist philosophy and its soteriological applications with Greg Goode and they are collaborating on the forthcoming book Emptiness and Joyful Freedom. Tomas grew up in Germany, holds a doctoral degree in mathematics, and works as a research scientist in the computer industry. He has studied Positive Psychology for a number of years and was instrumental in starting a new research area called "Positive Computing" which explores how to utilize technology in order to raise people's psychological well-being in a scalable fashion.