Awakened Mind at Burning Man

Hi Everyone!

We are organizing an Awakened Mind camp for Burning Man this year! We will be having multiple meditation classes every day and fun activities at night including dancing, music, and happy video projections! Come visit us at 4:30 and Fairlane!

Free Meditation Classes!

Meditation is the pathway to Enlightenment, the complete awareness of life without any mental modifications. Through meditation practice you cultivate power, balance, wisdom and happiness by getting in touch with the deepest and brightest part of yourself, the most radiant dimensions of mind.

Classes include introductory instruction and guidelines for ongoing practice.

On-going classes are held every Monday at 7pm at the Moksha Life Center (mokshalifecenter.com) at 405 Sansome on the 3rd floor in Downtown San Francisco.

Beginners are most welcome!

For more info, visit www.sfawakenedmind.org or email awakened.mind.sf@gmail.com

Free Meditation Classes (UPDATE)

I will be offering a weekly free meditation class starting this Monday, May 26th (Memorial Day) at 7:00PM. Classes will take place at the Moksha Life Center (www.mokshalifecenter.com) at 405 Sansome on the 3rd floor in downtown San Francisco.

Many thanks to everyone at the Moksha Life Center, especially Cyrus and Sid, for extending this fantastic space to us!

The Golden Dragon

A long time ago there was a very wise Sifu.

He had many students and he worked tirelessly for their benefit, never withholding any of his knowledge and always doing whatever he could to convey the essence of Kung Fu to them.

One day he announced to his students,

"Today I am going to teach you the Golden Dragon technique. It is the most powerful Kung Fu technique and when I was a student we each had to make an offering to our Sifu of fifteen-thousand gold-pieces, just to show us the technique. Since none of you have fifteen-thousand gold pieces, you may offer whatever you feel appropriate."

With this announcement, he began to slowly illustrate the steps of the Golden Dragon, gracefully and without any interruption. His students followed, step by step, and although they had been practicing Kung Fu for a long time, they fumbled and made mistakes. He patiently corrected his students each mistake they made, reillustrating the technique several times before the session was over. Again, the Sifu addressed his students,

"Now you all have learned the Golden Dragon, the most powerful of Kung Fu techniques. You must practice it and master it to know the essence of Kung Fu."

But his students did not value the teachings and made minimal effort to preserve and practice the Golden Dragon technique. They indulged and fell into degredation, bickering among eachother and troubling themselves with petty, worldly issues.

One day the Sifu announced to his students that they would all be making a long journey from which some or all of them may not return. As the students scrambled to prepare for their journey, one of them, a woman, had a realization that while their Sifu had been teaching the most powerful of Kung Fu techniques, the students, herself included had not honored them properly and she realized that the techniques had not even been preserved or practiced appropriately by the group. She began to fear that the techniques could be lost forever, and their great lineage of Kung Fu with them, no one in the future benefitting from the wisdom and patience their Sifu had shown them.

So instead of preparing her own things for the journey the next day, she spent the whole night recording the Golden Dragon technique as best as she could rememeber on all of the surfaces of a hidden room in the Monastary, along with this story to remind any who might come across it to value and practice and pass on the Wisdom that they had learned.

Free Meditation Classes

Hi!

My name is Ajna and I am a Buddhist monk living in the bay area. I have been practicing meditation for much of my life and was initiated as a monk in an Indo-Tibetan Vajrayana lineage in 2001. Since that time I have learned of and experienced the fantastic benefits of many different meditation techniques and practices, which I would now like to pass on to you! If you are interested in learning more about Buddhism and meditation, I will be starting a weekly Introduction to Meditation class in San Francisco at an as yet undetermined location. The focus of these classes will be the practical application of meditation techniques that you can use to bring peace, happiness and success into your life. For more info, please visit our website www.sfawakenedmind.org, leave a comment here, or email my directly at awakened.mind.sf@gmail.com.