A Message from Adyashanti

Dear Friends,

As many of you know I am taking a break from teaching for the entire year of 2022 in order to rest and refresh from 26 years of intensive teaching and the traveling that it requires. It just happened that having a break from teaching this year allowed me (and Mukti) to be with, and care for, my mother Carol over the last three months of her life. She passed from this earth about six weeks ago, and the feeling of having completely given every last ounce of our energy into caring for her over the last months of her life felt incredibly meaningful and profound. I feel so grateful for having had the time available to dedicate to her care. She will forever be remembered by this sangha for the phrase that she often repeated to me in childhood, which I’ve shared many times in teaching, “Weird is wonderful!” It was her way of telling me that “you are completely loved and accepted just the way you are.” May you all receive her “Weird is wonderful” blessing of love and acceptance and take it into your heart as I took it into mine.

Bonnie Greenwell, whom I asked to teach many years ago, also passed earlier this year. She and her husband Bill started to come see me in the early years of my teaching work and have been great friends to Mukti and I over the years. I spoke to Bonnie just a few days before she passed and was graced to be instantly swept up into the immense love and utter amazement that she experienced over those last few weeks of her life. Bonnie was a wonderful being, completely dedicated to the dharma and helping her students along the way. May her husband Bill, and their children and grandchildren, be comforted in their loss by the everlasting gift of love that she left with them all.

And so, during this time away from teaching, the immensity of life moves on and continues to reveal the endless opportunities, and the necessity of loving and caring for one another in the myriad ways that life presents. It’s as if, in every moment, life is asking us, “are you willing to be awake and present for this moment? And what are you going to value and uphold here and now?” This is essentially our practice, to be conscious and awake moment to moment, and to embody the enlightened values of love, wisdom, and compassion to whatever degree we are capable and willing.

I plan on returning to teaching in 2023. As some of you know I have been present during the meditation periods of the Sunday Community Practice, not only because I enjoy meditating with the greater Open Gate Sangha community, but also because I want to emphasize the importance of ongoing practice in spiritual life. All my teachings over these years have been deeply grounded in the silence of being still. From this stillness arises the greatest activity, where body, mind and spirit express themselves not as fractured parts but as an embodied whole.

Lastly, I want to thank all of you who wrote in expressing your condolences for my mother’s passing. Your kind words and loving hearts touched me deeply. Although her human and embodied form is no longer with us, I find that her love, humor, and generosity are as present with me now as they ever were. Her influence lives on in the hearts and minds of those that she touched. What is everlasting in each of us can neither be grasped nor lost.

May we meet in the silence of the heart, may our practice be committed and joyful, and may we encourage the light and goodness in others whenever and wherever we encounter them.

Blessings,

Adya

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