♦ MINDFULNESS Meditation with Buddhist Insight, Changes Our Whole Relationship to "Reality" Itself

♦ A Therapy for Maverick Minds - offers compassionate relief thru "Mindfulness" as an alternative • One-to-one Individual Counseling for Non-Ordinary Gifted people • Rebels, Artists, Activists, Atheists, Intuitives, Fugitives, Creatives • smart, savvy, cerebral, verbal, quiet, funny, sincere people --yet so Unhappy • Difficult to Communicate Feelings • Stress Wounded Spirit • "Mindfulness" cultivates a cure-able, stable, calm, kind, kewl, loving, fearless, insightful Big Good-Hearted Mind

Wednesday

110 fro 108 AKASA LEVI ♦ PROFILE / SITE INTRO ♦ Akasa Levi ♦ S.R.Levy

_/!\_

with

palms joined

Nama'ste

-:¦:- Prosaic P R O F I L E
AKASA MAITREYA LEVI, DhMA
• The Laughing Buddha Sangha Meditation
• The Seasoned Wisdom Old Timer's Sangha

• 1-on-1 Counseling and Mindfulness Therapy
• guides "Mind-FULLY" and the ZEN•MEN
Santa Monica CA 90405 • 1-310-450-2268
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AKASA MAITREYA LEV- DhMA ( D.Min )

♦ About this Home-made Blog-site collection:
I promised I'd make some more empirical, more tangible 'Works in Progress' in my own progress.
I've never done this 'memoir' thing before ~
So here goes... plz read patiently.
Concern carries me forward as I know Time
is fleeting-- this thrown about tale, this loose
exploration , an awkward accounting of an
investigation -- but it's dear to me, my personal story, so I''ll top it off with really bad grammar --it jumps tense recklessly, irresponsibly.
Worst of all, it's all about me. Solipsistic as self-obsessed you can get --especially when others say-- "Here, please read my work..." --- Oiy !

Apologia --
I Give Thanks and Grateful Appreciation
to several friends - and of course, myself,
that this Journal of my journey even got
assembled -- as I've got more pressing
considerations, so they say, to give my
attention to at 76 -- like the # 1 item in
our home is composing my Advance
Health Directive, Living Trust and other
grown-up gravitas stuff like that to do --
maybe 'cause I'm still in Stage One
foot dragging in Denial / Anger about
my recently diagnosed Parkinson's Dis-at-ease.
~ Surprise, Blindsided, I didn't see it coming !

It's brought the whole felt-notion of 'Death' so truly close as a 'supreme inevitability' that in of itself , it pales in it's very own presence.

"Existential" metaphorical metaphysical experimental experiences seek n' find me --and ask. I did mention that it was all Metaphorical. Business machinations never were my forte'-- yet the 'creatives' find me and ask. Deep inquiry into the Unfamiliar does provide sustenance for the Non-ordinary, Uncommon person. Literally, it's been a wonder-filled esoteric Life gone by --right here in amongst the ordinary dharma of the everyday world shopping mall as it's always been. "Buy Low, Resale Higher, Feed Your Family, Then Feed Your Mind," feeling Asian textures, pondering long visual contemplations on the details of thought Sutrastories and folk-tales seories craft Buddhist art, academics and the sacred words of the Heart. Like the Tarot's Fool card true to the role of a Dharma Bum -- just an Old Hippie and kinda' loving it ! Nowadays I meet with new people drawn here by their own soul-felt needs. I am Poor yet Blessed. Odd, Huh...
Akasa Maitreya Levi
My Big Bro Bio • To Go

Akasa Levi’s original motivated intention to visit with a passing, endangered 'spiritual species'-- a sincere aspiration was to be Directly With the Last Living Asian Buddhist Meditation Teachers of the Pre-Global Era. Off he went in '68...

Influenced by the 'Search' explored in Gurdjief's "Meetings with Remarkable Men" 1927, and Paul Brunton's "Search In Secret India" 1931 -- innocently and romantically motivated Akasa’s sincere aspiration in going to get caught up in Indra's Net in the first place...
To Be Directly With the Last Living

Buddhist Meditation Teachers
of the Pre-Global Era !
------------------------------

Given Akasa's atill
askew True Being:
A Bogus n' Rogue
Buddha Nature for
Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Big Bio is
supposed to be banal,
slightly self-effacing,
affected and funny.
So it is.

-------------------------

:¦:- P R O F I L E
AKASA MAITREYA LEVI, DhMA
• The Laughing Buddha Sangha Meditation
• The Seasoned Wisdom Old Timer's Sangha

• 1-on-1 Counseling and Mindfulness Therapy
• guides "Mind-FULLY" and the ZEN•MEN
Santa Monica CA 90405 • 1-310-450-2268

Big Bro • Bio Profile • To Go
--------------------------------------------------------------

PROFILE • AKASA LEVI ......... page copy
Akasa Maitreya Levi
My Big Bro Bio • To Go

-------------------------------------------

-:¦:- guides "Mind-FULLY" and the ZEN•MEN
• The Laughing Buddha Sangha Meditation
• The Seasoned Wisdom Old Timer's Sangha

• 1-on-1 Counseling and Mindfulness Therapy
• Santa Monica CA 90405 • 1-310-450-2268

-:¦:- AKASA MAITREYA LEVI - DhMA ( D.Min )

Akasa Levi guides a ZEN•MEN peer group
• The Laughing Buddha Sangha -- 1-on-1
• The Seasoned Wisdom Old Timer's Sangha
• Dharma Counseling and Mindfulness Therapy
• Santa Monica CA 90405 • 1-310-450-2268

---------------------------------------------------------

♦ About MY "SELF"

I'm A Construction,

Fabricated
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'

of A "Self"
---------------------
-----------------------

" I Didn’t Get

Enough Love

As A Child "

---------------------
How Come ?
---------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
---------------------
Knows About
Certain Dreadful Things
of
"The Undesirable Deficit"
Everyone Else Knows That
To Be Undesirable is
Not Desirable.
Not Lovable.
------------------------
Actually, Maybe
Wanted A Little Bit --
Just 'Not Enough'.
And That Left Me
A Very Needy
Little Kid....
---------------------
The Curse of
'Rejection' and
'Not Enough',
-- It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday

Any Damn Way,
ANYWAY -- Needy,
Angry and Confused.
Loba, Dosa, Moha
--- Sad, Huh ?

--------------------------
'Cept If You Teach

Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
But Buddha said:
" t's Gotta Be
YOU First ! "

---------------

So I asked --

"Which way
is The Way ?
The Way
Outta' Here ?"
You Mean
The Real Deal--
Self-Realization.

------------------------

Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
---------------------

NOTE ---WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW is UNFINISHED notes, sketchy IMPRESSIONS, and SCRAPS etc... enjoy other tab reading sections, or be welcome to continue to read here too...

Phenomena Come and Go and Ebb and Flow
as Centuries of sometime Time Lines pass
-- and Monks with Exotic Spiritual Names
having honest to God ancient mystical
incarnation lineages that never ever died---
as I deeply soak into kind, loving eye contact
with a smiling little nut brown forest dweller
who's been happy almost for ever -- and
that's the Way in some Pacifica place
they're monastery-made in a gracious
silent flurry of a hurry as they scurry
like a happy house full of enabling
Bubbies and Aunties.
----------------------------

-- then I was stuck on the freezing Beach 34th Street boardwalk with a hot potato k'nish in what's now become greasy cotton gloves solidifying in the bitter cold bite of a Far Rockaway NY snowy winter....

--as I write this Leonard Cohen just died today at 86 -- Thank You so much, Sensei. Nov 2016

Kubler-Ross's 5 Stages...

( please see the readings tabs on either side-bar columns for Journal Notes of an American Buddhist Monk )

the living spark, weaving eternally integral

" Profile / Sch'mo-file,
I told you to tell 'em
Absolutely Everything

-- and did you ?...
Now you go back
in there and...."

------------------------

NOTE ---WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW is UNFINISHED notes, sketchy IMPRESSIONS, and SCRAPS etc... enjoy other tab reading sections, or be welcome to continue to read here too...

-- and did you ?...
Now you go back
in there and...."

NOTE ---WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW is UNFINISHED notes, sketchy IMPRESSIONS, and SCRAPS etc... enjoy other tab reading sections, or be welcome to continue to read here too...

111111

♦ Once upon a time, long, long ago, even before digital time you were again reconsidering some kind of exasperating reincarnation -- back in the great unrest feral state of the late 60’s ♦ Akasa Levi ( a nice Jewish mensch of a man from Far Rockaway NY ) was in the U.S.Army 63-to-65 -- and full of Sixty's protest anger, he abandoned 'Madison Avenue' for Asia - and by 1975, he became an officially ordained Buddhist Bhikkhu Monk, six years a mendicant Sadhu in “beggar-man’s” orange robes with an alms bowl in mid-70's back-country rural Asia • Trained and ordained into the Buddhist Theravada senior monastic Amarapura Order of The Triple Gem by the beloved and revered Bhante NyakaThera Balangoda Ananda Maitreya and Kassapa MahaThera in Kandy, Sri Lanka's lush Bamboo Forests. My novice robes were given under the Bodhitree in Bodhgaya India itself. (ordination story)
♦ At the precise moment of ordination -- in the most sacred Buddhist vortex on Earth -- I was so Here ! -- At-one-ment for a timeless moment amidst a 25 hundred year old back-story running in tandem with Them for a moment, alongside all the Buddhas that have ever been -- as the karmic parallels just keep eternally narrowing and narrowing -- I was so There... I almost wasn't anywhere. I almost didn't exist ! Yup, So here I was... (more ordination story)
• Previous to this final 'anointing' ( only two tiers - novice junior and bhikkhu senior ) which all monks enter into with the Maha-Sangha only on the basis of Seva/service 'time' in sangha, not with 'attainment'. Akasa Levi was a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • "Big Love" - Digging holes with Lama, urinating on tomato plants with Lama, moving giant rocks with Lama • Much later on, a sabbatical resident Vipassana student to learn Mindfulness practice directly from the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching-master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving Refuge to all newbie Bodhisattvas to come • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of non-duality practice in satsang under the wild and notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums in Old Bombay.

• The Bhikkhu monks and lay teachers of Sri Lanka were very, very good to Akasa-- Nyanaponika, Kassapa, Godwin, Lilly -- and the precocious Henri Van Zeyst up in Kandy's Bamboo Forest.• Bhante Piyadassi gave him lots of singing lessons • Back then, practice--sojourns with teachers took the gift of long stays of Time at the right time - mid 70's • BTW, all these special teachings may take several lifetimes to comprehend --and one can still be a jerk • Akasa’s sincere aspiration: To Be Directly With the Last Living Buddhist Meditation Teachers of the Pre-Global Era --most passed on now. "That's the last of 'em, Luke -- Yoda was for real.

• For his BA, Akasa attended SUNY Harpur College, State University of New York, Binghamton University • Returning from a whole 70’s decade abroad, Akasa studied 'Why' and 'How' -- Who's on first, What's on second - through the overly aloof, intellectual intricacies of Western psycho-dynamic analytic intersubjective therapy at UCLA, yearning for something simpler • He currently guides Insight Awareness Mindfulness Meditation at The Laughing Buddha Sangha on 14th Street's Zafu Row • Coaches a ZEN•MEN peer group • and offers Buddhist-based Individual counseling and Insight therapy • Akasa's Sri Lanka affiliate in LA is Dharma Vijaya Buddha Vihara under his decades long old friend from Calcutta, Bhante NyakaThera Walpola Piyananda.

• Akasa now a feisty 76 - finds himself just not a proper academic, but more of an out on a limb improper 'experience provider' -- he has an odd, sort of awry, happy Doubter's Joy in his altruistic, aesthetic, atheistic approach to the Dharma. At heart, Akasa is a vulnerable old school Bohemian from a NYC art-based family, that can be a perpetual nud'nik to the gravitas of established Buddhist composure. At times, truly without a clue about his own genuineness, a fragile identity, an authentic 'Not knowing' What he is, maybe play acting the curmudgeon, or maybe the Fool card - in that he didn't like the other lay-life choices offered anyway. Maybe he was the original Zelig.
• To counter his delusive Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva ( service ) by creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in pain. He’s really funny, an eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue, he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.

• Seriously: Akasa is into nourishing the many 'contemplative' vocal aspects of the emerging 'heart-wisdom' poetry revealed in a student's use of developing dharma vocabulary words -- mentoring a maverick “iconoclast intelligence” in the students and people he treats, teaches, counsels at his little meditation shrine room near the beach, filled with Dharma books, tribal masks and ritual objects, and cool calm statues of the ancient Buddha.

• Akasa Levi, an emeritus-level senior meditation teacher in the Theravada lineage, guides us into the cognitive/empirical Felt Sense Awareness of a Sati-awakening present moment -- fully self-caring, fully self-aware training in his mindFULLY approach. Akasa knows that by building on Self-inquiry and meditation practice skills, you can effect a calm, fearless and loving, meaningful, noticeable difference in yourself. Akasa is known for his spontaneity, wise ready warmth, and wry unpredictable humor.

-----------------------------------------

" Kindness " is more
important than ' Wisdom ' -
and the clear recognition of this -
IS the beginning of Wisdom "
~ Theodore Issac Rubin

----------------------------------------

" You don't get enlightened --
it is 'enlightenment' itself
that gets enlightened."

---end---

_________________________♦ Once upon a time, long, long ago, even before digital time you were again reconsidering some kind of exasperating reincarnation -- back in the great unrest feral state of the late 60’s ♦ Akasa Levi ( a nice Jewish mensch of a man from Far Rockaway NY ) was in the U.S.Army 63-to-65 -- and full of Sixty's protest anger, he abandoned 'Madison Avenue' for Asia - and by 1975, he became an officially ordained Buddhist Bhikkhu Monk, six years a mendicant Sadhu in “beggar-man’s” orange robes with an alms bowl in mid-70's back-country rural Asia • Trained and ordained into the Buddhist Theravada senior monastic Amarapura Order of The Triple Gem by the beloved and revered Bhante NyakaThera Balangoda Ananda Maitreya and Kassapa MahaThera in Kandy, Sri Lanka's lush Bamboo Forests. My novice robes were given under the Bodhitree in Bodhgaya India itself. (ordination story)
♦ At the precise moment of ordination -- in the most sacred Buddhist vortex on Earth -- I was so Here ! -- At-one-ment for a timeless moment amidst a 25 hundred year old back-story running in tandem with Them for a moment, alongside all the Buddhas that have ever been -- as the karmic parallels just keep eternally narrowing and narrowing -- I was so There... I almost wasn't anywhere. I almost didn't exist ! Yup, So here I was... (more ordination story)• Previous to this final 'anointing' ( only two tiers - novice junior and bhikkhu senior ) which all monks enter into with the Maha-Sangha only on the basis of Seva/service 'time' in sangha, not with 'attainment'. Akasa Levi was a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • "Big Love" - Digging holes with Lama, urinating on tomato plants with Lama, moving giant rocks with Lama • Much later on, a sabbatical resident Vipassana student to learn Mindfulness practice directly from the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching-master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving Refuge to all newbie Bodhisattvas to come • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of non-duality practice in satsang under the wild and notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums in Old Bombay.

" Kindness " is more
important than ' Wisdom ' -
and the clear recognition of this -
IS the beginning of Wisdom "
~ Theodore Issac Rubin

----------------------------------------

" You don't get enlightened --
it is 'enlightenment' itself
that gets enlightened."

-------------------------------------------

♦ Once upon a time, long, long ago ~ before a time when you were again reconsidering some kind of exasperating reincarnation -- back in the unrest feral state of the late 60’s ♦ Akasa Levi ( a nice Jewish mensch of a man from Far Rockaway NY ) was in the U.S.Army 63-to-65 -- and full of Sixty's protest anger, he abandoned 'Madison Avenue' for Asia - and by 1975, he became an officially ordained Buddhist Bhikkhu Monk, six years a mendicant Sadhu in “beggar-man’s” orange robes with an alms bowl in mid-70's back country rural Asia ♦ Trained and ordained into the Buddhist Theravada monastic Amarapura Order of The Triple Gem by the beloved head of the sect, the revered Bhante NyakaThera Balangoda Ananda Maitreya and Kassapa MahaThera, monks who lived in Sri Lanka's elephant forests and magnificent caves. ♦ FYI: There are "Point Men" ( sorry, actually both genders ) very remarkable special 'strangers' often called Angels in the bygone days of Mythos, who 'find us' bewildered at the Crossroads and they simply do just that: They Point towards ... The Way knowing that you almost know what that means, and almost missed it anyway. Yet, you will recognize them and them you - Thank You Barry Plunkett and Rainbow Tribe people for the sacred pointing. I have continually walked in at the right time and at the right place almost ready - possibly pre-maturely - to hear a 25 hundred year unbroken remembered back-story running in the vast background of Humanity, behind all the currently playing NOWness.
----------------------------------------------

-- Please see the readings tabs
for "Journal NOTES of an
American Buddhist Monk"
----------------------------------
To Continue and Go On ~
• Previous to Theravada monkhood, Akasa Levi was originally a Gelugpa Vajrayana initiate and temple gardener to Geshe Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Gompa Monastery, Kathmandu in Nepal during the early 70's • 'Big Love' was digging holes with Lama • Much later on as a matter of ritual colors, Akasa gave back the burgundy red cloth for the plain white cotton - becoming a resident Vipassana student of the renown Anagarika Munindra Barua, the leading teaching master of Satipatthana Mindfulness in Bodhgaya, India where the ancient Bodhi Tree still stands giving shade to refuge-building to all bodhisattvas who come nere • Akasa relished his annual monsoon seasons of Non-duality practice in satsang dialogue with the notorious ‘Bede Baba’ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in India's Mumbai slums of Old Bombay • Maharaj made you fight for the clarity of your inquiry !
• The Bhikkhu monks and lay teachers of Sri Lanka were very, very good to Bhante Akasa-- Nyanaponika, Kassapa, Godwin, Lilly -- and the precocious Henri Van Zeyst, all up in Kandy's Bamboo Forest.• Bhante Piyadassi gave him lots of singing lessons • Back then, practice sojourns with teachers took the gift of long stays of Time, at the right time - mid 70's • BTW, all these teachings take several lifetimes to comprehend --and one can still be a jerk • Akasa’s sincere aspiration: To Be Directly With the Last Living Buddhist Meditation Teachers of the Pre-Global Era --most passed on now. That's the last of 'em. Yoda was for real. Shuk'crea.

• For his BA, Akasa attended SUNY Harpur College, State University of New York, Binghamton University • Returning from a whole 70’s decade abroad, Akasa studied 'Why' and 'How' and the 'intersubjective' through the aloof intricacies of Western psycho-dynamic analytic therapy at UCLA • All human interaction is transference. He currently guides Insight Awareness Mindfulness Meditation at The Laughing Buddha Sangha in Santa Monica on 14th Street's Zafu Row • He coaches a ZEN•MEN peer group • and offers Buddhist-based Individual counseling and Insight therapy • Akasa's Sri Lanka affiliate in Los Angeles is Dharma Vijaya Buddha Vihara under his decades long old friend Bhante NyakaThera Walpola Piyananda.
• Akasa now a feisty 76 - a mindfulness 'experience provider' who has an odd, sort of awry, happy doubter's joy in his altruistic, aesthetic, atheistic approach to the sturdy, soul-less Dharma. At heart, Akasa is a tender, sentimental yet cool old school Bohemian from a NYC art-based family. He can be a perpetual nud'nik to the gravitas of established Buddhist composure. At times he too is without a clue, not knowing 'What' he is amidst the 'What is',,, maybe play acting the curmudgeon, or maybe the Fool card - in that he didn't like the other lay-life choices offered anyway • To counter his chronic Identity Bewilderment, he's continually serving up generous Seva and creating lots of pro-bono available time for basic heart to heart and hand holding of people in suffering pain. He’s a really funny, eccentric Grandpa Dharma - and a respected BuJu tribal elder. K'vetchy by genetics, but not too creepy, a flamboyant old rogue-- he's definitely an acquired taste like Thai shrimp paste.
• "Don't even bother trying to shape yourself into being anything at like me-- it would be a waste to create a double identity... you yourself is enough of a distortion to have to work with-
• Seriously: Akasa is into nourishing the many 'contemplative' vocal aspects of the emerging 'heart-wisdom' poetry in a student's developing own dharma words -- mentoring a maverick “iconoclast intelligence” in the students and people he treats, teaches, counsels at his little meditation shrine room near the beach, filled with Dharma books, tribal masks and ritual objects, and cool calm statues of the ancient Buddha.
• Akasa Levi, an emeritus-level senior meditation teacher in the Theravada lineage, helps guide us into the cognitive empirical Felt Sense Awareness of a Sati-awakened present moment -- fully self-caring, fully self-aware training in his mindFULLY approach. Akasa knows that by building on inquiry and meditation practice skills, you can effect a calm, fearless and loving, meaningful, noticeable difference in yourself. Akasa is known for his spontaneity, wise ready warmth, and wry unpredictable humor.

( ♦ Smart-phone me, let's make a time
and have some tea -- no fee, simply
the pleasure of a visit with a
semi-retired Old Pointer thas' all )

--------------------------------------------

" Kindness " is more important than ' Wisdom ' -
and the clear recognition of this -
IS the beginning of Wisdom " ~ Theodore Issac Rubin

-----------------------------------------------------------------

" You don't get enlightened ---
it is 'enlightenment' itself
that gets enlightened."

Rilke's -- "LOVE THE QUESTIONS INSTEAD"....
Dicken's -- "BEST of TIMES, WORST of TIMES"

♦ " Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.
Try to love the 'Questions' Themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a foreign language. Do not, just right now, seek for the Answers. The 'Answers' which cannot now be given to you - because you would not be able to actually ‘Live’ them. And the point is to ‘Live’ everything - experiencing everything. At present, you need to Live the Questions Themselves. Perhaps you will then gradually, without even noticing it, live along some day into the True Answer."
.( Your Own Answer )

Rainer Maria Rilke's
"Letters To a Young Poet"
~ Paris 1908

-----------------

I was told to wait-- I was nine, my dad was 'on the job' as he'd remind us-- so then I was stuck on the freezing Beach 34th Street boardwalk with a hot potato k'nish in what's now become greasy cotton gloves solidifying in the bitter cold bite of a Far Rockaway New York snowy slushy winter....
---------------------------------------------------------------------

As I write this, Leonard Cohen just died today at 86 --
Thank You so much, Sensei. _ / \_ with palms joined, Gassho

BTW: Leonard did Dee when she went down to his room in the Chelsea to use the bathtub and play flute of which she was so good -- that afternoon we stayed there fixing up the place on Avenue A before we went up to New Paltz and Woodstock again...

# 1. AKASA LEVI • PROFILE • Akasa Levi • page copy

_/!\_

with

palms joined

Nama'ste

PROFILE • AKASA LEVI ......... page copy
Akasa Maitreya Levi
My Big Bro Bio • To Go

-------------------------------------------

AKASA   MAITREYA   LEVI - DhMA (D.Min)
-:¦:- guides "Mind-FULLY" and the ZEN•MEN
• The Laughing Buddha Sangha Meditation
• The Seasoned Wisdom Old Timer's Sangha

• Counseling and Mindfulness Therapy 1-on-1
• Santa Monica CA 90405 • 1-310-450-2268

____________________________

Akasa’s original motivated intention to visit with a passing, endangered 'spiritual species'-- a sincere aspiration was to be Directly With the Last Living Asian Buddhist Meditation Teachers of the Pre-Global Era. Off he went in '68...

_______________________________________

Buddhist Meditation Teachers
of the Pre-Global Era
------------------------------

Given Akasa's atill
askew True Being:
A Bogus n' Sketchy
Buddha Nature for
Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Big Bio is
supposed to be banal,
slightly self-effacing,
affected and funny.
So it is.

-----------------------------

♦ About MY "SELF"

I'm A Construction,

Fabricated
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'

of A "Self"
---------------------
-----------------------

" I Didn’t Get

Enough Love

As A Child "

---------------------
How Come ?
---------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
---------------------
Knows About That
Undesirable Deficit
About Everyone Else.
To Be Undesirable is
Not Desirable.
Not Lovable.
------------------------
Maybe
Wanted A Bit --
Just 'Not Enough'.
That Left Me
A Very Needy
Little Child
---------------------
The Curse of
'Rejection' and
'Not Enough',
-- It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday

Any Damn Way,
ANYWAY -- Needy,
Angry and Confused.
Loba, Dosa, Moha
--- Sad, Huh ?

----------------------
Well, Some How

It Felt Like That -
---------------------

'Cept If You Teach
Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
Buddha said:
It's Gotta Be
YOU First !

---------------

So I asked --

"Which way
is the Way ?
The Way
Outta' Here ?"

------------------------

Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
---------------------

111111

" Kindness " is more
A Bogus n' Sketchy
Buddha Nature for

Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Bio is
supposed to be
slightly self-effacing
and funny. So it is.

--------------------------

♦ About MY "SELF"

I'm A Construction,

Fabricated
Out of My Own
Wounded 'Idea'

of A "Self"
-------------------------
------------------------

" I Didn’t Get

Enough Love

As A Child "

---------------------
How Come ?
---------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
---------------------
Knows That
Deficit About
Everyone Else.
------------------------
Just 'Not Enough'.
That Left Me
A Very Needy
Little Child
---------------------
The Curse of
'Not Enough',
-- It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday

Any Damn Way,
ANYWAY...
-- Sad, Huh ?

----------------------
Well, Some How

It Felt Like That -
---------------------

'Cept If You Teach
Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
Buddha said:
It's Gotta Be
You First !

-------------------

So I asked --

"Which way
is the Way ? "

------------------------
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
----------------------

______________

....-:¦:-
.Akasa Levi
• PROFILE •

---------------------------

WHAT is THERAPY ? Two People Sit Down and Empathicaly Work On One of Them ---Together

It is all about
EXPLOR--
ATION
------------
"We shall not cease
from exploration
And the end of
all our exploring
will be to arrive
where we started
And know the place
for the very first time" ~ TS. Eliot 1927
-----------------

♦ MINDFULNESS
INSIGHT PRACTICE
Theravada Buddhist
Satipatthana Insight
Meditation Tradition
-------------------------------
Beginner's Instruction
Guided Meditations to
AWAKEN AWARENESS
♦ Mentored Dharma Study
- with a Senior Practitioner
-------------------------------

Cultivating
The Forgiving-mind

“Sure,
FORGIVENESS Hurts”
often RAW --Yet here's
Wise Forgiving Words
of Skillful Caring Words
reflecting The Dharma
-------------
Towards
FORGIVING the
Unconscious in "Him"
or "Her" or "Them"
or several Others,
or All of Humanity
_________________

"NON-ATTACHMENT"
The BUDDHIST IDEAL
Absence of 'Attachment'
is NOT necessarily
in any way whatsoever --
the absence of a profound,
profound Loving."
________________
Bhante Ananda Maitreya
Sri Lanka Sangha Nyake
__________________

" WHY ARE You
SO UNHAPPY ? "
...........................
Because 99.9 per cent
of Everything you think,
and of Everything you do,
is for yourSelf –-
and There Isn't One"

~ Wei Wu Wei ~
-------------------------

"FORGIVING ALL
OUR FATHERS" --
Buddha was No Patriarch
He was an Early Feminist
------------------------------

MINDFULNESS
is ” Mind-FULLY "
Living Your Mind
Fully Present --
in The Present
------------------

"FORGIVING
OUR FATHERS --
Who Didn't Forgive
His Father - Because
He Didn't Forgive
His Father - And
Who Didn't Forgive
His Father...
-------------------------

But- Did WE Have
'GOOD ENOUGH
FATHERING' ? ? ?
--------------------------

We've ALL had to have
biological Fathers, or
else we just wouldn't
be here: Question Is ?
Did we actually have
ONLY GOOD ENOUGH
PARENTING
FATHERING ?
-------------------------------------
ONLY JUST 'WHAT IS' --
GOOD ENOUGH - Accept
---------------------------------
ONLY"GOOD ENOUGH
FATHERING" --
"GOOD ENOUGH
MOTHERING" --
"GOOD ENOUGH
FAMILIES" --
"GOOD ENOUGH
MEDITATIONS ?"
"GOOD ENOUGH
ANYTHING"? --
But Not Great

Actually, 'Good Enough'
Can Be a Better Bet than
PERFECT -- Voltaire said:
"Do Not Make Perfection
the Enemy of The Good".
-------------------------------

How's About
JUST "GOOD ENOUGH
MEDITATIONS" - they
can be easy going, so give
u Judging-mind a break...

Silent Meditation offers
the very necessary deeper
"immersion-time
experiences" so often
missing in shorter
daily meditations..

You gradually build-in
a Consistent, Ongoing
"Working-Relationship"
with meditation practice
itself- becoming Friends

So you can strengthen,
cultivate and stabilize
an aware, sweet, street
wise, Dharma-informed
intellect, a peaceful
body-stillness, and
a compassionate,
calm equilibrium and
emotional renewal,
in a supportive space --

To continually Re-awaken
Yourself to being present:
"Present in THIS moment"
Be Silent - Allow a gentle
Inner Sanctuary of simple
sustained mindfulness
and deeper inner-inquiry.
-----------------------------------
Good Enough Forgiveness
Meditations CAN work for
us, our Fathers, our Family,
Mates can be Numberless -
with Self Compassion for
One's Self given necessary
Attentive support FIRST
-- For many of us this could
be the first, SANE, positive
beginning, and as ongoing
deep inner work - to give
ourselves adequate time
to practice Forgiveness
techniques on our own
at home....
-------------------
INSTRUCTION
( Start with 3 short sitting
of 5 min. - then go to a sit

of 15 min after short ones.
--then increase meditation
over time to 25 minutes.

Do 30 minutes for a Year !

Find a Basic Happiness

in Peace and Quiet )
---------------------------
Using Gentle Observation
approaches learned here,
will lead us confidently to
any Present Moment is

a Mindfulness Big Day,
whether or not we make
the trip Home -- actually
or just in memory.
----------------------

FORGIVENESS
has been around...
FORGIVENESS
is aged, sagely
and wise.

"Forgiveness is giving up
all hope for a better past.
There is no future
without forgiveness."
~ Desmond Tutu
-----------------------
"Forgiveness is Possible –
How we can start using
this timeless Forgiveness
practice to transform
emotional wounds into
an authentic healing,
a way out of our pain.
-----------------------------
As Compassion arises
More Naturally, we see
how Forgiveness can
be practiced as a 'Gift'
we give -not only to others,
but ultimately to ourselves.
-------------------------------
Forgiveness has the
Awesome Power to
ripen forces of purity
such as Love.
-----------------------
Forgiveness creates the
space for a Life-Renewal,
--- a life now free from
bondage to the past.
--------------------------
Forgiveness dissolves
separation, relieves us
of the twin burdens of
lacerating guilt and
perpetually unresolved
outrage or numbing...

It is not so easy to access
that hurt-place inside of us
that can truly forgive,
that can love again.

Remember, it is much
more difficult to forgive,
than NOT to forgive !

We are held prisoner
by the 'resentment',
the pain, the shame,
the anger, confusion,
doubt, overwhelming
sense of betrayal --
our present life just
cannot be fully lived.

Unwelcome Inheritances
we carry in from the past--
functions to close my heart
thereby narrows my world.
Yet 'Forgiveness' does not
mean condoning a harmful
action, or denying an
injustice done.

Forgiveness should never
be confused with being
passive toward violation
or abuse.
-----------------------------
"The CORE-intention
of true 'Forgiveness’
arises directly out of
the Greatest of Practices -
Compassion for Ourselves
– so that we can create
the spacious, wide open ,
contributing conditions
for an unobstructed love."
~ JackKornfield / Akasa Levi
---------------------------------

Forgive
and be free.
Forget that
you have forgiven --
and be even freer !

~ The Buddha
----------------------

A cultivatable ‘capacity’
for Forgiveness needs
to be available in order
for us to truly Love.
And there's certainly
an endless abundance
of authentic every-day
‘Practice Opportunities’
when ‘working’ on real
Forgiveness that Forgives
----------------------------------

"A Change of Heart
Changes Everything"

~Lucado
-----------------------

Tightly Holding

onto Resentment is

letting someone else
punish us.

-----------------------------

The “Act of Forgiveness”
is an act of
mercy to yourself !"

-------------------------

METTA ~
Metta Bhavana
The Relationship
Your Heart Longs For...
Already Exists within You !

---------------------

In the Stillness –
SPACE
for a rebellious spirit.
~ Noah Levine

---------------------------

Why are you so Unhappy ?
Because 99.9 per cent
of everything you think,
and of everything you do,
is for yourSelf –
and there isn't one.
~ Wei Wu Wei ~
----------------------

" Buddhist practice literally
has 'Nothing' to offer you –
other than WHAT IS HERE
in THIS very moment.
That’s all. 'Accompli'
God(s), Goddesses,
religion, entities
and the ego-self
can certainly
attract you with so,
so, so much more! "

~ Henri Van Zeyst
------------------------
----------------------

Remember ~
Whatever 'IT' is –
IT's just a “Thought”

-----------------------

Love exists only
in the True Friendship
Love is True Friendship
set on Fire !
~ Jeremy Taylor - 1657 ~
------------------------------

Wisdom-Dharma guides us
in the practical necessity
of creating our uniquely,
clearly spoken relationship
'The Language of Kindness
and Skillful Actions' arising
from a Compassionate ---
and yet - a Complete-view
of 'What Is' --and How to
do this in a warm, natural,
flexible yet uncontrived,
uncompromised way?
---------------------------

The Way You Do
One Thing --
is more than likely
The Way You Do
Everything !
------------------
How do we DO a Thing ?
"Do" Relationship in Life ?
-- with a Satisfied feeling of
Good integrity, while at the
same time do a Buddhist
Practice of cultivating an
Awakened Non-Attachment
---------------------------------

"NON-ATTACHMENT"
The BUDDHIST IDEAL
Absence of 'Attachment'
is NOT necessarily at all --
in any way whatsoever the

the absence of a profound,
profound Loving."

Bhante Ananda Maitreya
The Balangoda Sri Lanka
~----------------------------

"Mind-FULLY"
Mindfulness Meditation
is coming soon to a
Ready Mind near you !
------------------------------

The Most common
Attachment-Mistake
in creating one's own
personal suffering
is to take the
Impermanent
for Permanent."

~ Buddha
-------------------

Did I Know Yet,
At Any Time ---
That IT is ALL
Just a Made Up 'Story'
--- Made Up ---
in Someone's Herd
Just Like My Father
Told Me It Was --
When I was Seven 7.
--------------------------

Rilke's -- "LOVE THE QUESTIONS INSTEAD--. Dicken's "BEST of TIMES, WORST of TIMES"

♦ " Be Patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.
Try to love the 'Questions' Themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a foreign language. Do not, just right now, seek for the Answers.

The 'Answers' which cannot now be given to you - because you would not be able to actually ‘Live’ them.

And the point is to ‘Live’ everything - experiencing everything.

At present, you need to Live the Questions Themselves. Perhaps you will then gradually, without even noticing it, live along some day into the True Answer."....
( Your Own Answer )

Rainer Maria Rilke's
"Letters To a Young Poet"
~ Paris 1908

---------------------------

These Alarming UNCERTAIN TIMES---------------------------------Charles Dickens wrote in 1859 ~ "We Live in The Most Alarming of UNCERTAIN TIMES"------------------------------MINDFULNESS CANHAVE YOUR BACK-------------------------- • It Was The Best of Times It Was The Worst of Times • It Was The Age of Wisdom It Was The Age of Foolishness• It Was The Epoch of Belief It Was The Epoch of Incredulity • It Was The Season of Light It Was The Season of Darkness• It Was The Spring of Hope It Was The Winter of Despair,• We Had Everything Before Us We Had Nothing Before Us• We Were All Going Direct To HeavenWe Were All Going Direct The Other Way • In Short, That Period Was Just LikeThe Present Period. ------------------------------Sir Charles DickensA Tale of Two Cities a British novel (1859)----------------------------

The Gift of Wiise Words - PONDER - CONTEMPLATE - QUESTION

Wednesday

110 fro 108 AKASA LEVI ♦ PROFILE / SITE INTRO ♦ Akasa Levi ♦ S.R.Levy

Rilke's -- "LOVE THE QUESTIONS INSTEAD".... Dicken's -- "BEST of TIMES, WORST of TIMES"

Rilke's -- "LOVE THE QUESTIONS INSTEAD"....
Dicken's -- "BEST of TIMES, WORST of TIMES"