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WHAT’S NEW? Eleven: Eleven
For those of you who love numerology today is 11:11!
Whatever you believe about the day is great – and I hope that it’s an awesome day for you and all good things come your way.
Blessings and love, Sheri Rosenthal xox
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EVENTS, JOURNEYS + WEBINARS!
Mastering the Tao Nature Within: Wudang Mountain, China
Nov 30–Dec 12, 2015 – LAST CALL!
Join Terry Hodgkinson for a very special and unusual journey to China where you will be learning Tai Chi, Qigong and meditation from the Chinese Taoist Masters. Spend your days learning from the most prestigious Chinese Taoists how to attain the perfect balance between yourself and nature, and then put those teachings into practice to feel the most alive you have ever felt.
Wudang is located in Central China’s Hubei Province and this location houses thousands of years of Taoist practice. The atmosphere is ripe with Tao and finding your inner Tao is easily grasped in a place with so much support. The complex was designed to fit the Taoist principle of harmony between man and nature. Magnificent buildings are cited as a museum of ancient Chinese design and thought and are located all over the mountain. There are more than 2,000 Palaces and Temples, making this complex the world’s largest Taoist center.
The trip is all-inclusive, a 13 day adventure to the other side of the world where all accommodations, meals, and inter-Asian travel will be booked for you as you learn from the most prestigious spiritual leaders in the Eastern World. Trip cost: $2697 USD – most meals included.
Details for China on Terry’s website!
SPECIAL BOOK SECTION
Loving-Kindness
an excerpt from “The Places that Scare You” by Pema Chodron
Our personal attempts to live humanely in this world are never wasted. Choosing to cultivate love rather than anger just might be what it takes to save the planet from extinction.
What is it that allows our goodwill to expand and our prejudice and anger to decrease? This is a significant question. Traditionally it is said that the root of aggression and suffering is ignorance. But what is it that we are ignoring? Entrenched in the tunnel vision of our personal concerns, what we ignore is our kinship with others. One reason we train as warrior-bodhisattvas is to recognize our interconnectedness – to grow in understanding that when we harm another, we are harming ourselves. So we train in recognizing our uptightness. We train in seeing that others are not so different from ourselves. We train in opening our hearts and minds in increasingly difficult situations.
For an aspiring bodhisattva, the essential practice is to cultivate maitri. In the Shamhala teachings this is called “placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness.” Another image for maitri or loving-kindness is that of a mother bird who protects and cares for her young until they are strong enough to fly away. People sometimes ask, “Who am I in this image – the mother or the chicks?” The answer is we’re both: both the loving mother and those ugly chicks. It’s easy to identify with the babies – blind, raw, and desperate for attention. We are a poignant mixture of something that isn’t all that beautiful and yet is dearly loved. Whether this is our attitude toward ourselves or toward others, it is the key to learning how to love. We stay with ourselves and others when we’re screaming for food and have no feathers and also when we are more grown up and more cute by worldly standards.
In cultivating loving-kindness, we train first to be honest, loving, and compassionate towards ourselves. Rather than nurturing self-denigration, we begin to cultivate a clear-seeing kindness. Sometimes we feel good and strong. Sometimes we feel inadequate and weak. but like mother love, maitri is unconditional. No matter how we feel, we can aspire to be happy. We can learn to act and think in ways that sow seeds of future well-being, gradually becoming more aware of what causes happiness as well as what causes distress. Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others.
You can pick up a copy of Pema’s book on Amazon here!
~NOURISHING NOVEMBER RETREATS~
Mastering the Tao Nature Within
Wudang Mountain, China
Trip Leader: Terry Hodgkinson
Nov 30–Dec 12, 2015
Want to see our whole line-up for the upcoming year?
Visit our Trips at a Glance page.
