Change Your Mind to Change Your World with Stephen Fulder

Illumination and Compassion as Default When Everything Seems to be Going to Pieces

When things get really difficult, whether personally, such as sickness, or socially, such as violent conflict, it can feel hard to engage in normal psychospiritual development practice. We may feel too exhausted, agitated or disturbed to sit in meditation, or we may feel numb, reactive and overwhelmed. In such situations, the dharma is actually needed more than ever. It can be lifesaving. But it is not practice as usual. Compassion can kick in when everything else doesn't work. We can feel compassion for our numb, dried-out and contracted heart and soul, and for all others caught in the same situation. We can radiate healing for ourselves and all others. We can go into the shelter when the rockets are falling with deep compassion and kindness for ourselves and others there, and for all caught up in it, on all sides. Illumination is simply the ability to see things clearly as they arise, even if difficult and disturbed, as a changing field of sensations and awareness, that doesn't need us to construct summaries, narratives and views. Something breaks through, and we can feel the sadness and the richness of these moments, however troubling they are. It takes us to a bigger place, and we can look at things both from above and below.

Non-Dual Guided Meditation 1. Shining the Light on Our Experience. Dropping into Being.

This non-dual guided meditation is bilingual - English with some Hebrew. It is a reminder that if we drop completely into this spontaneous moment, we discover a completeness and a total presence. We see how we shine the light on everything that arises. We can get closer to the light itself. This is bodhicitta, awakened awareness.

Non-dual Guided Meditation 2. Resting in Awareness. Surrender to What Arises. Welcome Everything As It Is. מדיטציה מונחית לא־דואלית 2: מנוחה במודעות. התמסרות למה שעולה. קבלת הכול כפי שהוא.

This guided non-dual meditation is in Hebrew and English. It emphasises deep resting in the primal awareness and presence that holds us. It guides us to trust and explore the nature of presence and awareness itself, not just what the awareness knows. In the well-known language of Krishnamurti, we can go beyond the duality of the observer and the observed and be within observation itself. This is a pure, open and free movement of knowing itself.

Non-Dual Guided Meditation 3. מדיטציה מונחית לא־דואלית 3: נוכחות, מחסה ונינוחות בתרגול חיי היומיום. הקשבה לחייםPresence, Refuge and Ease in Daily Life Practice. Listening to Life

This guided meditation is mostly in Hebrew. It is designed to help us practice open non-dual awareness at home and in daily life. We can start with refuge and coming home to presence. We practice welcoming and allowing the richness of this moment, and let go of struggle to practice in a certain way or to fight distraction. We rest in is-ness, in the kaleidoscope of experiences that come and go, and we remain at ease and open and letting go into this boundless life.

Shit Happens! Coping With Unexpected Difficulty

We are not in charge of things. We can live a peaceful, kind and aware life, and we get an unexpected beating from karma: whether from conflict, disease, relationships, and a host of conditions which can turn against us. We need to develop an internal protection, an internal steadiness, with which to meet uncontrollable life. We do this by a sense of inner freedom to dance with circumstances, like the Taoist image of grasses which are bent by the wind but cannot be broken. We develop a sense of being part of the universe, and a deep letting go into the big picture. We do this by deep meditative stillness and a steadiness that stays with us, whatever the challenges. We do this by love and compassion for whatever arises in this world.