October 15-18 2010
15th October, 7 pm: Introductory lecture
16th - 18th January, 9:30 am – 6 pm: Workshop
I invite you to discover or to go deeper into the tradition of the Tantric Shaivism of Kashmir through:
• Tandava (Shiva dance)
• Meditation
• Transmission and practice of verses from the Vijñânabhaïrava Tantra (a fundamental text of the Tantric Shaivism of Kashmir)
• Visualisations of Matsyendranath (tantric master of the 10th century of the Kaula tradition)
• Teachings of this non-dualist tradition
• Q & A sessions
In this workshop I’ll offer transmission of stanzas selected from the 112 in the Vijñanabhaïrava Tantra. Each one gives a simple technique which lets us recognize and feel the supreme principle in all things. The stanzas will be chosen for their ease of transposition into the context of our 21st-century Western lives. This will let us see how incredibly up-to-date this text is, overflowing with creative possibilities for practice in daily life. We’ll find out that being a woman or man fully engaged in a modern social and professional life is a very interesting situation for practice and that we don’t have to live in an isolated Himalayan cave to make progress on the path. The flowering of our essential nature, which is at the heart of all traditional teachings, needs no special circumstances.
The most effective practice uses every single ingredient of our daily life. It makes it possible to develop complete presence, attention and openness in the context of daily life, a life which due to mental habits and beliefs seems unsuited to mystical accomplishment.
The direct experience of the practices of the Vijñanabhaïrava Tantra offers the chance to dive deep within ourselves and rediscover our spatial essence.
The Tantric Shaivism (Shivaism) of Kashmir, and particularly its Pratyabhijñâ School, are living traditions of unbelievable modernity and rare sobriety. This is the lineage of my master, Daniel Odier, from whom I received the transmission. Direct and non-dual, Tantric Shaivism reveals to the intuitive intelligence, and this from the very first contact, its ultimate secret: "You are what you are looking for".
The founders of the Pratyabhijñâ school invite the seeker spontaneously to recognize her or his own pure and free heart, a heart forever perfectly identical in its essence to the supreme principle of the universe. One of the particularities of the tantric teachings, which makes them so contemporary, is their total immersion in reality. In unison with Mazu, a famous Chan master of the 8th century, they declare there is "No trace of the absolute outside of the reality".
These teachings don't propose complex practices of high technicality or formal rituals, but instead a direct and incessant diving into the source of all our emotions and bodily sensations, so we can taste Spanda, the primordial vibration underlying all of our actions. Among the various practices that Kashmirian Tantrism proposes, Tandava, the Shiva Dance of Totality, is an ideal tool for rediscovering the original, primordial energy of the body, pure and vibrating. This dance fine-tunes the body, like a musical instrument, so that it can vibrate in harmony with the pulsations of the universe.
The dance begins with a tactile listening to all the regions of the body and to the rhythm of the breath in a seated position. During this listening, little by little, a soft subtle movement will arise. After this first phase, the arms will begin to participate in the movement and then, in a standing position, a very slow and continuous dance will emerge.
In order for the dance to blossom, you have to totally abandon your will to "do" and surrender without any constraints, to this tactile listening to the body and the breath. The breathing itself will take root very low in the pelvis, and will be like an unending wave which will come to caress and untie our tensions and our restrictions. In this deep and tactile listening to the whole of our being, our fears, doubts and thoughts will softly melt.
This simple practice can be taught in a few hours because it does not require the memorization of sophisticated positions or complex sequences but it does take hours of practice to taste its infinite and subtle variations. Subsequently, over years, the whole of our body and mind gets liberated from their restrictions and pure presence infiltrates all our gestures. Then, liberated from all our references and the entirety of its psychosomatic memories, the mechanism of our body will be in harmony, and coincide with a reality which is perpetually new and vibrant.
The Shiva Dance bring us to a discovery of true spontaneity, and a capacity to surrender deeper into life's continuous multiplicity of movement.
Nathalie
Place
Shambhala Meditation Center-Streetspace
2177 Bancroft Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
Contact - Registration
nathaliedelay.berkeley@gmail.com
Amy: 510-333-5936
Price
Lecture: 20$
Workshop : 320$ - 275$ if registred before the 20th September
Students and unemployed participants please ask for disount
The method of payment is cash. Checks or credit cards are not accepted
Clothing and supplies:
Plan to wear loose and comfortable clothing.
Cushions of meditation and chairs will be provided; if you have your own cushions, you are welcome to bring it.
