The Gradual Path Blog
 
Keep the Coherence debate developmental trauma misogny moral justice negative emotion polarization racism shame social media thought police trauma informed dharma triggered Jan 12, 2021

We all agreed in the workshop that we are living in a time where there is tremendous polarization and a tremendous upsurge of negative emotion.

People's hostilities are on a scale unprecedented. I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook, but all you have to say is one word and people are ready to...

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Free Astrology Workshop 2021 astrology free workshop praxis Jan 04, 2021

The cosmos and the psyche mirror each other, as above, so below, thus humankind has long looked to the stars for greater meaning and clearer direction on our collective journey of awakening.

2020 saw the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter that spelled the dissolution of old structures,...

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Year's End Reflection 2020 astrology atisha contemplative studies program dalai lama dorje zong nunnery geshe tenzin zopa karma lineage merit pandemic service project shadow tsongkhapa Dec 31, 2020

My dear friends,

As the new year dawns I offer my reflections on this year we will never forget. 

Despite challenges unseen in a hundred years we remained steadfast together on the gradual path and never faltered a single step. We made no excuses. Wasted no time. We forged ahead in the face...

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Juice Press Meditation heal juice press lam rim meditation rick hanson tsongkhapa Oct 11, 2020

I'm calling this 'Juice Press'. You haven't heard me say this yet but this is where it fits...

Take an orange in the juice press. You lay it up in the capsule. You lay a theme up on the 'squeezer'. Your theme will be the preciousness of human life.

How many of you are musically inclined? You have...

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The Two Causes of Refuge confidence faith fear infinite life lam rim rebirth refuge samsara Oct 10, 2020

Think about the worldly refuges first. The worldly things that we take as our refuge, as our sources of comfort, our sources of guidance. 

The iPhone... food... the doctor... Netflix... friends and family... fishing... leisure activities...

How well a source are they for the ultimate or...

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View & Virtue enlightenment ethics gelugpa meditation mindfulness right view tsongkhapa virtue Oct 06, 2020

One of Tsongkhapa's big critiques is that you cannot arrive at enlightenment without a good start. Don't throw out your conceptual knowledge. Don't throw out your ability to reason your way to enlightenment.

Go back for a second to the image of meditation in our culture. What does it look like?...

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Trauma is Invisible emotions four features of trauma trauma informed dharma Oct 03, 2020

The four features of trauma are rubrics to help you frame your own personal experience. If you start thinking about them very deeply, they will also lend themselves to antidotes or remedies. If you know these four features you also know what the antidotes are, the remedies. The hallmarks of...

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Shadow Work bodhichitta freud jung purification shadow shadow work spiritual bypass vajrasattva Aug 01, 2020

The spiritual seeker sees our oneness with all and interconnectivity but it's only the true student of the mind that understands that if we're all one, we're also one with the ugly bits. Dr. Miles Neale explains in this clip from Return with Elixir.


We said that for each of the preliminary...

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The Departure | Return with Elixir carl jung dreams freud hero's journey mentor monomyth Jul 31, 2020

The Hero needs to a find a mentor but they also need to know when to leave the mentor. In this clip from Return with Elixir, using the example of Jung's departure from Freud, Dr. Miles Neale discuss what that might look like.


This class is on the Departure. This dream I raise because it is a...

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Return with Elixir contemplative studies program hero with a thousand faces hero's journey joseph campbell monomyth return with elixir shadow trauma Jul 31, 2020

In this excerpt from Return with Elixir, Dr. Miles Neale introduces Joseph Cambell's monomyth, how it can be applied in our own lives and what to expect from the course.


It became clear that another level was necessary the progression to rise above the personal and enter the transpersonal...

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Paradigm Shift ayahuasca dalai lama gradual awakening hero's journey rupert sheldrake science tantra visualization Jul 30, 2020

When we add this visualization system to the hero's roadmap that we'll unpack in the course, the two coming together is articulating the roadmap of your own development. You have to remember wherever you are right now, as an ordinary person, you and I, we both feel very stuck. To really get the...

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Curriculum of Compassion bodhichitta compassion emptiness guide to the bodhisattva's way of life pandemic shantideva Jul 28, 2020

What are the main building blocks of Buddhahood? There is both the body and the mind of the Buddha. The mind of the Buddha is the mind that realizes complete and utter interdependence or emptiness and the body of the Buddha is of a compassionate, sensitive, capable, skillful agent of change or...

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