White Robed Monks of St. Benedict

Pre-Conference Workshops

MISSING 01 to 07 and 09 Getting into How the Trick is Done: For Time Magicians Only, Fred Alan Wolf
In this workshop we will look at how our understanding of the nature of mind, time, space, and matter have changed—even what we mean by these terms—in just the last few decades. It will take us into the world of fundamental particles and how they are actually made from light. We will see how they can appear and disappear, move and form loops going forward and backward in time, and twist in space resulting in the appearance of the everyday world of matter and energy. Included in this grand show is something perhaps even more mysterious—a Mind that perceives and appears to be vital in making these "particles" show up. In brief the universe is a light show on a grand scale and God's opening command, "Let there be light" now takes on a new meaning: Let there be light and let me see it. Everything is literally made of light and we'll see how and why it is so. And we will look at how I believe this same light can be viewed to have what I see as a mental quality—literally the Mind of God.

The Unified Nature of All Experiences, Bentinho Massaro
Awakening to nonduality in every-day life is fat simpler than often suggested. Through a simple change in how we understand experiences, the freedom and indivisibility of everything becomes naturally obvious to us!
We all have countless experiences each day. They all look and feel different from other experiences. They include thoughts, emotions, sensations, insights, circumstances, other people, places, things, and much more we could describe. So by looking at experiences through the lens of definition, all we perceive is separation and conflict.
In this pre-conference workshop, we will skillfully investigate and apply a single technique that can change the way you perceive the world in a totally natural and liberating way. I call this technique: "From Experiences to Experiencing."

Undivided and Inseparable—The Nonduality of Relationship, Peter Fenner
This workshop explores different manifestations of nondual, liberating awareness. You will experience how the ultimate state of pristine awareness arises in the silence of smooth, high-quality, inner contemplation: and how centerless awareness is equally available in the richness of our relationships with others.
This retreat gives you an opportunity to re-discover a profound, irrevocable intimacy with every facet and dimension of being as you become one with reality—beyond separation of self and other, and dissolving the boundary between inside and outside.
You will experience non-manipulative, universal, unaffected love that naturally flows when we are genuinely fulfilled by awareness itself; free of attachment and aversion—no longer using others to gratify our needs, or seeing them as threats to our own wellbeing.
This workshop reveals the essenceless essence within which every conceivable reality arises as the sphere of a harmoniously integrated mind-body mandala. You will rest in your natural state—free of the dissipating energies of pride, fear, anger and ambition; and beyond distorting concepts based on appearance, and ideas of failure, success, performance or effort. Join Peter in a contemplative dialogue that moves organically and naturally between incisive conversation, deep silence and group interaction. The process he uses has been described as "group dokusan" and "free-form, continuous, pointing out instructions." We gently enter a state where all concerns and vulnerabilities dissolve. Together we will experience the inseparable union of pure awareness with the field of experience that constitutes our life and relationships.

You Are Peace Itself, Rupert Spira
You are present as the knower of your experience. You know your thoughts, feelings, images, sensations and perceptions but you are not made out of any of these. You - this open, transparent, aware presence - are inherently free of any resistance just as the room in which your body is now sitting is inherently free of any resistance to whatever may or may not be taking place within it. This absence of resistance is known as peace. It is inherent in your self. It is your self. It is your natural and ever-present condition. For you nothing is ever lacking. You, aware presence, have already said 'yes' to the current situation, otherwise it would not be appearing. This absence of lack is known as happiness. It is inherent in you and has nothing to do with the particular characteristics of the current experience. Happiness is causeless, independent of circumstances. It is your essential nature but is sometimes veiled by the thought that resists the current situation and seeks to replace it by one of its own imagining. This happiness is not a state of the body or mind, although it affects them. It resides at the heart of all experience.
You intimately pervade all appearances just as a screen intimately pervades all the documents and images that appear on it. There is no distance or separation between you and any appearance nor any motive to move away from it. All motives to move away are for thinking, not for you. This unconditional intimacy is known as love. It is the natural condition of all experience, not the condition of just one or two special relationships.
All that the imaginary self has ever truly longed for — peace, happiness and love - is present right now, here, shining at the heart of this and every experience, simply waiting to be recognized - it is your very own being. It is you.
With the dissolution of the belief that what we are is a separate, limited, located Consciousness and of the feelings in the body with which it is substantiated, the imaginary separate entity comes to an end and happiness, peace and love are re-established.

Quantum Consciousness and an Integrative Psychology, Amit Goswami
In this workshop, quantum physicist Amit Goswami uses recent advances in our understanding of quantum physics to elucidate the nature of spiritual enlightenment and guide people to pursue enlightened living. According to Goswami, all objects of our experience begin as quantum possibilities for consciousness to choose from . The question of enlightened living is then one of how best to make our choices. Through both intellectual and experiential sessions, Goswami takes you through exercises of how to make creative choices that can transform us along with our societies. You will come away with a clear notion of how to overcome the barriers to creative choice and how to align yourself with the evolutionary movement of consciousness.

Think Not-thinking: Dogen's Style of Zen Meditation, Zoketsu Norman Fischer In this workshop we will study, practice, and dialog about the Zen meditation style of Dogen Kigen (1200-1254), the Japanese founder of Soto Zen, and one of the great religious thinkers of all time. Dogen's Zen emphasizes "effort without desire," that is, sitting intensely in the present moment of experience, whatever it is, without trying to reach beyond it. in our time together we'll do sitting and walking meditation, contemplate a short Dogen text, and discuss the teachings and the method. There will be plenty of time for dialog.

Higher States: Harnessing the Power of Consciousness to Fulfill Your Desires and Change the World, John Hagelin
A Scientific Breakthrough
Renowned quantum physicist, educator, and brain researcher John Hagelin presents the landmark discovery of higher states of consciousness—beyond waking, dreaming and sleeping—that display expanded mental capabilities and enhanced power to fulfill one's desires.
This scientific discovery of higher states of consciousness—and their universal accessibility through specific meditative practices—radically changes our understanding of the limits of human potential and has far-reaching implications for the transformation of society.
Dr. Hagelin unites cutting-edge discoveries in quantum physics and neuroscience to forge a new understanding of consciousness and the physical universe—mind and matter—revealing a profound connection between our inner and outer realities. This emerging paradigm provides a "theory of everything" in which the individual is truly cosmic. Throughout time, the wise have extolled the power of thought: "With a mustard seed of faith, you can move mountains." Now science has revealed that the power of your thought is intimately connected to your state of consciousness. Join Dr. Hagelin for a fascinating exploration of the vast range of human potential— an all-encompassing perspective of humanity that is both visionary and practical.

Unmani
Unmani points very directly to who you really are beyond all the words and concepts. If there is a readiness to hear this, then there is a possibility to investigate the reality of everything rhat you have ever believed in. Realizing more and more that your whole life is based on an assumption of who you think you are, there is a total freefall into not knowing. Unmani travels around the world offering spontaneous and uncompromising nondual Meetings and Retreats in 'Not-Knowing'. These Retreats have an intensely intimate flavor as Unmani invites you to wake up to the way it actually is beyond all your hopes and fears. In having a dialogue with Unmani there is no escape from the unknowable reality of life.

Menas Kafatos, Fletcher Jones Professor of Computational Physics, Vice Chancellor for Special Projects, Chapman University
There are compelling reasons to pursue a new, integrative science. According ro Draganescu and Kafatos (2000), "The inability of physical science to solve problems concerning the nature of ultimate reality and also to contribute to an understanding of the nature of life and of consciousness, may be indicative that, rather than pursuing different paths in trying to understand them, that these realities ought to be considered together, an undividued whole." The approach taht will be discussed in detail is to look for common, underlying principles, which apply to all realms of relaity. There are a number of observational and theoretical reasons in spport of the viwe that fundamental principles su as non-locality and complementarity may be unerlying both the physical and mental worlds. We first discuss evidence from quamtum experimentals that reveal spatial and temporal non-localities and from the cosmological realm, involding relationshps of objects in the universe revealed by the so-called Universal Diagrams. We show that qyamtum-like effects are pervasive in the cosmos.
A new scaling for physical parameters in the universe is proposed which reveals new results about the nature of time. This allows us to develop an axiomatic approach towards the linkage between microscopic and macroscopic quantities.
These developments make it plausible that such fundamental principles cut across different fields of natural sciences and can be considered to hold universal validity. We will discuss in detail these principles. It is likely that quantum-like effects may be pervasive at all scales in the universe. If true, these principles apply to other fields such as brain dynamics and open new ways of study. In the same way, one can search for analogous universal principles that hold in realms beyond the physical. If consciousness is the foundational substratum of the universe, principles developed in perennial philosophical systems, or metaphysics, should be even more universally applicable and cut across all levels of the cosmos, "internal" (e.g. individual mental and psychic, etc.) as well as "external" e.g. collective unconsciousnes, physical, etc.). We sketch here a possible new prescription for a unified "science", which I term integrative sceince that will encompass ordinary natural science and will extend it to new realms. We also discuss the ground state of consciousness, non-objective awareness. The prescription will be discussed of philosophical traditions quite seriously.