Quaker Pathways Forward and Inner landscapes communities of practice participants have self-selected and sought out the practices. Enthusiastic practitioners are drawn to, or feel passionately compelled to dive into self-transformation …
Evolutionary Culture-building spiritual deepeningCommunity Self-selection & Glass Brimming over (GBS) Syndrome
Brain function Buddhism Buddhist Practice Cognitive Restructuring community of practice digital physics Mysticism Neural plasticity Quaker Clearness Self-guided Neural Plasticity spiritual deepening VisualizationPractice Outcomes & Self-pacing: Diffuse glow? OR, Laser beam transformative accuracy?
Introspection and observation of our internal landscapes in any form is generally helpful. However the highest quality practice outcomes are a function of: 1) sustained intent, 2) focus, and 3) …
Brain function Buddhism Buddhist Practice Cognitive Restructuring contemplative practice digital physics Mysticism Neural plasticity Neurolinguistics Quaker Clearness Quakerism Self-guided Neural Plasticity spiritual deepening VisualizationThere is Nothing New Under the Sun: May we Transcend the Sun
At the “micro,” nuts and bolts level, our practices offer nothing that hasn’t already been brought forward 5000 years ago by seers and sages, and more recently by scores of …
Brain function Buddhism Buddhist Practice Mysticism VisualizationSelf-Observing: Daily Life AS Meditation
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Renee Descartes’ declaration in 1637, “I think, therefore I am,” powerfully aligned Western thought with the form-identified “avatar* ego” for the centuries that would follow. Yet we are fundamentally NOT the ego which is an amalgam of meticulously maintained, habitual thoughts ruled by fear. We are the awareness — the vast consciousness which is one with the larger field of universal intelligence behind the avatar-ego.
We think approximately 70,000 thoughts per day. We can choose to let these thoughts ride roughshod over us and align us with the limited ego. Or we can come to understand our minds and consciously, intentionally train it to serve our own growth and the evolution of our society.
Most people don’t understand the purpose of the human mind as a tool. Like Descartes we deify the mind with its limited reality-frame, and indulge its incessant fear-driven discursive thought. We thereby inadvertently cause ourselves and others a great deal of unnecessary suffering.
Brain function Cognitive Restructuring contemplative practice Evolutionary Culture-building Neural plasticity Neurolinguistics Self-guided Neural Plasticity VisualizationNeuroscience Context for Practice I.
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Mastery of our minds is essential to living in alignment with our highest, selves, i.e. with Love. Such mastery involves working intentionally, creatively, and consistently with our brains.
We can train our minds to change the physical structure and the function(s) of the brain. If we continually pay attention to, and purposefully direct our thought processes we can gain tremendous self-knowledge. Until we begin to consistently work with the dynamics of our longstanding habits, belief systems, points of reference, and patterns, these processes run us. The brain defaults to what is familiar, not necessarily to what is healthy and growth producing.
We can shape, reshape, and mold our malleable brains like modeling clay to deliberately foster optimal growth and transformation. The terrain of the brain stands at the ready. We just need to pick up the tools and work methodically.
Brain function Buddhism Buddhist Practice Climate Change Cognitive Restructuring Evolutionary Culture-building Mysticism Neural plasticity Neurolinguistics Quaker Clearness Quantum science Self-guided Neural Plasticity spiritual deepening VisualizationCommunity-of-Practice Democratizes “Esoteric” Quaker Mysticism
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Quaker Friends speak of a state of “unity.” Mystics worldwide describe resting in and obtaining guidance from undifferentiated consciousness as the ultimate state of bliss.
The Quaker Pathways Forward community-of-practice takes the mystery [but not the awe] out of “mystical.” We usher the mystical experience out of the esoteric closets of the few by participating together in practices which democratize the opportunity for ALL interested Friends to co-create with spirit. The community-of-practice cultivates Friends’direct, frequent, and sustained experience of the light —the undifferentiated field.
A “Mystical experience” is where deep contemplative practice melds with reality as a probability distribution as explained by quantum science, digital physics, and neurobiology.
In community, Friends foster and hone ongoing, conscious alignment with universal intelligence lived daily, for their evolution, and that of society.
Buddhism Buddhist Practice Climate Change Engaged Buddhism Environmental resilience Evolutionary Culture-building Quaker Clearness Quaker Discernment Quaker Revitalization, Renewal & Revival spiritual deepeningThe Fire of Fox in You
By Marisol Cortez
Cross-posted from Deceleration
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We had gotten wind of this talk at a meeting on climate organizing in San Antonio, where we had picked up a flyer describing Boyce Simms as “an engaged Eco-Buddhist” who “works to transform anger and despair into compassion toward neighbors, communities, and the environment.” Given Deceleration‘s concern not just with questions of climate justice but with the affective (or inner/emotional) work required to sustain effective action in the face of mounting climate and social crises, we were intrigued.
Quaker Clearness Quaker Discernment spiritual deepening UncategorizedQuaker Pathways Forward Ministry
By Pamela Boyce Simms
Quaker Pathways Forward
Seminal, Henry Cadbury
FELLOWSHIP PAPER
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Friends it’s time to shed the vestiges of outworn caterpillar thinking. Our planet faces an existential crisis. Climate change, resource depletion, and income disparity are now hastened by an unhinged political landscape, and we are racing toward the edge of a cliff!
Throughout history Quakers have repeatedly held and activated the equivalent of transformational “imaginal cells” which have triggered metamorphoses in American social norms and behavior.