2024 April, 20. Awakening to the Dharma, Joseph Goldstein. In this essay, Goldstein explores the transformative impact of mindfulness and meditation. He emphasizes the Buddhist concept of Dhamma, relating it to truth and reality. He discusses the practice of Dhamma as a path to directly experiencing reality, without the filter of conceptual thinking. This leads […]
Category: UU SpiritLife Conversations
Resurrection and Renewal
2024 March, 16. Resurrection and Renewal. As we approach Easter and the Spring Equinox, we will explore how the topics of renewal, resurrection, and the cycle of seasons relate to our spiritual journeys. We will use as our source material a chapter from Adyashanti’s book Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic. This […]
God as Essence
2024 February, 17. God as Essence, A. H. Almaas. Almaas describes his direct experience of a living presence, a palpable feeling of a living living self-aware truth. This was experienced first as differentiated spiritual qualities and then as pure Being. Have we experienced the Presence that he describes? Do these experiences invite us into a […]
What Personal Life?
2024 January, 20. What Personal Life? Michael Beckwith. As a free, liberal religion with no dogma, UUism encourages us to build our own theology. One of the best ways to do this is to open our minds w-i-d-e and listen carefully to a variety of people as they outline their beliefs. This month’s article invites […]
SpiritLife Conversations Year In Review
2024 May, 18. SpiritLife Conversations Year In Review. This year, Handbook for the Spirit, a book of essays by a diverse group of spiritual teachers, served as our resource. Each month we read an article and met for our discussion. Many of the articles encouraged us to consider aspects of God even as we may […]
The Peace of the Divine Reality
2023 December, 16. The Peace of the Divine Reality, Thích Nhất Hạnh. In his article, “The Peace of the Divine Reality,” Thích Nhất Hạnh, describes being fully alive to the peace and joy of each moment as living in the divine and earthly realities simultaneously. Nhất Hạnh was a Buddhist monk (he died on January […]
Who Speaks
2023 November 18. Who Speaks, Marsha Sinetar. Marsha discusses secular solitude as her dwelling place, in which she connects with the source of creation and spirit of life, which “speaks to her” as she discusses in this chapter. Her spirituality is very grounded, ordinary, and relational; her website pictures her in a cow pasture. We’ll explore […]
Leaning Into the Light
2023 October 21. Leaning Into the Light, Stephen Levine. The late Stephen Levine was a spiritual teacher and writer. Many of us have read and re-read “A Gradual Awakening,” “Who Dies?,” “Healing into Life and Death,” and others. His article “Leaning Toward the Light,” picks up familiar spiritual themes. To paraphrase Levine: “I find myself […]
Tending to the Inner Spark of Radiance
2023 May 20. Tending to the Inner Spark of Radiance. The linked reading from John Prendergast is introduced by Adyashanti: “The spiritual task we are given is a simple one: to attend to that inner spark of radiance, to hold vigil over it until we realize it to be our self, and to dig […]
The Sacred Art of Listening
2023 April 29. The Sacred Art of Listening. We live in busy times. Are we always present for the people in our lives who mean the most to us? Our discussion on Listening will help provide the most important gift we can give, Sacred Listening.