♦ AKASA LEVI - 108 PROFILE - 1.page BEST 2/17 - Akasa Levi and S.R.Levy

♦  AKASA  LEVI - 108 PROFILE - 1. page BEST 2/17 - Akasa Levi and S.R.Levy
Intro --

_/!\_

with

palms joined

Nama'ste

 A Poetry Influenced Profile

• ♦ Akasa  Maitreya  Levi

Laughing Buddha Sangha Meditation 

The First Wave Meditators • 1970's    

♦ Come Study with the Old Timer's Sangha

that Studied Mindfulness Meditation in India

Back in The Day Before You Were Born ! 

Now Guiding "Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN 

  Santa Monica CA 90405 • 1-310-450-2268

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

.-:¦:-   Big Bro • Bio Profile • To Go

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

According to
Sir Charles...
We’re Living In
a Most Alarming
“UNCERTAINTY
of TIMES” ~
MINDFULNESS
Awakening-Practice
Has Your Back !
-----------------------------

page 1

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 Heaven -
We Were All Going
Direct The Other Way.

In Short, That Period
Was Just Like
The Present Period.

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

Sir Charles Dickens
 "A Tale of Two Cities"

a British novel (1859)
---------------------------------------------

 

" Ma -- They Vetted Me " !
--------------------------------------------------
" Profile / Sch'mo-file,  
I told you to tell 'em
Absolutely Everything

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

 

♦ An INTRODUCTION: "Pointing Towards"...
About this Home-made Blog-site collection:
I promised I'd make it a more accessible, tangible 'Work in Progress' of my own novice writing progress. I've never done this 'memoir' thing before ~ So here goes... plz read patiently and tolerantly. 

WHY ? and HOW COME ? I became a Buddhist Monk ? 
'How' did this great and persistent 'intellectual' inquiry of mine re-create itself into a high functioning 'intuitive awareness' ? Where 'intellect' morphed into almost becoming 'indigenous' by me going 'native' -- 'How' did that 'come' to be ? -- to just disappear from my former life, friends, parents knew not where - vanished into the misty forests and mountains of Asia ? ( this was the top of the line of running away from home - I always wanted to do that to them -- Hostile, Huh ?)  How did you get interested in things Buddhist ? "Interest" is a prime motivating 'conditioning factor' here - Interest like a lover must be ardent-- and very curious. It's  in the web pages here enclosed. How come you became a Buddhist --and a Monk yet ! Why'dya do that ? --for the backstage pass to it all, really. But you were still so Jewish !!! How could ya' switch over ? --Well, there's a lot of identity issues involved here as you can see: go to the page titled "The Self" -- People always want to know what motivated you -- to see how that fits into their head -- well, at first when I was living in Israel I wanted to study to become a Rabbi and Schlomo told me to go to India first and loosen up my Soul. Could I really do that ?? Nah... But I did.

A somewhat tone of Urgent Concern -Sam'vega carries me forward now as I know the Body of Time and the Body of Flesh is fleeting-- so this thrown about tale, this loose, non-academic exploration, almost an awkward schoolboy's account of an off the wall investigation that led me to an organically deeper truth-inquiry within -- and a maturing of my odd, little kid size anomaly of a quirky peculiar personal story.
'Peculiar' it is: so I'll apologize first in these first few messy in-work paragraphs that'll top this thing off with really bad grammar and a biased point of view -- as it jumps the fence of first second third-person tense - recklessly, irresponsibly: as you read, who's talking ? It's ALL me talking, or you on about me, or there's also a name dropping narrator out here somewhere. 

Best of all, Worst of all -- it's all about Me. I'm here in sunny Solipsistic Town as self-obsessed and self-involved as anyone can get -- actually Not True. Which begins to lead me again with a sincere gravitas -- to the serious purpose of this whole loose bag of a blog---  this site is meant to be a sort of mystical Pass of the hands, or a Mudra, a teaching Gesture of the fingers like those bronze Buddha statues that are "Pointing Towards"something ---and this is my initial intent for being here on your screen, to make these Great Road Trips within easier reach for you to eat Saag n' Subgee at my favorite Indian rest stop on the Benares Trunk Road while hitch-hiking to Calcutta on 18 wheelers. ( 1972 )

If you ask "Which Way ?" -- hopefully you get answers  that include a "Pointing Towards" -- But Firstly, Why was I even Here - back There - back Then ? -- When I was smaller. I was fascinated with objects Asian since a child quietly drawing while sitting on my Granpa Max's library floor on a little red Tibetan saddle rug on top of the last of the old Chinese medallion rugs, on top of a vast and never ending Persian carpet that could almost fly. In a pixelated Universe I thought visually and remembered life in textures. My , Dad was a big time big brass and copper pot collector. To me, he cautiously claimed to be an agnostic when I was eight, but by the time I was approaching the 13th Year Hebrew boy to adult male right of passage -- I knew that he knew, that I knew that he was an atheist -- and that I was confused.

To get right to it: I had to know, I didn't like not knowing. I started off with a simple but seminal question: Is there an authentic, wholesome, sound and stable, true, benevolent and universal spirituality 'element' that coalesces into the various individual, indigenous culture based Religions. And, of course, is there a God. By now I am a professional Seeker. I am doing a Spiritual Inquiry: I want to know things. It visibly began when I was eight and I asked "Could I See It ?"  Could I plumb the depths, the density of it ?" Simply put: is Religion and Spirituality and even God -- is it all Real ?  -- you see, there's a PURPOSE to this shaggy dog story, which is Oiy ! OK here's a Hint - It's the Original One that got me out the door and on my way. Actually I should say The Way !  

Apologia --
I Give Thanks and Grateful Appreciation to several friends - and of course, myself, that this old Notebook 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 Disease ( Dis-at-ease.)
~ Surprise, Blindsided, I didn't see it coming ! 

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

 
I just don't have the time left to tell it:
So I'll give you Links
-----------------------------------------------

"To Me, It is ALL Metaphorical ! 
Metaphorical is Metaphysical:
It's all the same. Humans dream...

Metaphorical ~ The Stories Prevailed
The Stories prevailed. The Healing stories, the Hunting and Battle stories, the Tribal Family stories, the Mystical and the Spirit stories of real Seasons and those now gone. The stories come with pictures and Dance called Ritual. Stories are powerful. Some tribals have lost their people's stories. Often they Suffer. Did I mention that, to me, it was/is ALL Metaphorical. Metaphors were created in the indigenous Human mind for their own wellbeing. The "Existential" metaphorical metaphysical experimental experiences seek n' find me and what I 'know'. Yes, It's ALL Metaphorical -- it all started with a story about an Empty place.  Math and Business machinations never were my forte'-- yet the 'Creatives' find me and ask me. Deep inquiry into the Unfamiliar does provide $ustenance for the Non-ordinary, Uncommon person. Literally, it's been a wonder-filled esoteric Life streaming by --right here in amongst the ordinary dharma of the everyday world's massive consuming mall, as it's always been. "Buy Low, Resell Higher, Feed Your Family, Then Feed Your Mind," pondering body/mind contemplations on the details of good thought and appreciative actions. Sutra stories and folk tale scenarios crafted in Buddhist art, confusing conundrums, and the poetic sacred words of the Heart. Like the Tarot's Fool card true to the role of a Yogi Poet Dharma Bum -- I'm just an Old Hippie (1941) and always kinda' loving it ! Nowadays I meet with new people drawn here by their own soul-felt needs. And the Chakra of Life eternallly turns. "I am Poor yet Blessed" -- Odd, Huh... • Akasa Levi    

'Search' -- James Hilton's 1939 film "Lost Horizon", an Indiana Jones of it's day strongly influenced Akasa by the repeatedly persistent presence of 'The Search' for Wisdom Elders, sacred 'power objects' and human liberation from suffering.  'Search' as an umbrella theme explored in G.I.Gurdjief's "Meetings with Remarkable Men" 1927, and Paul Brunton's "Search In Secret India" 1931 -- these innocent and romantic pulp non-fiction adventure stories motivated Akasa’s sincere aspiration in going into the uncharted --and be willing to get entangled in the fascinations of Indra's Net in the first place... So Where did he go and what did he do ? --- there is more to come, but with the Answering process - just like the Questioning process - is up to the reader, adventurer, seeker -- facilitated by the Search.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Akasa Levi’s original motivated intention was to visit with a very special, now extremely endangered, almost extinct 'spiritual species'-- and a sincere and developing heart-felt aspiration of his was:
To Be Directly With the Last Living
Asian Buddhist Meditation Teachers
of the Pre-Global Era (most passed on)
Akasa's 'actual' Meetings with these 
Remarkable Holy Men face-to-face -- 
was still a relative subjective Reality
that was seemingly totally Real
for that moment of experiencing.
The proof is I still posses intact, 
my well worn and road weary
old-style passport stamped
into story time oblivion.
That was 'Real' Enough for him.
Off he went on his way --
a solo Traveler all on HIS very own
improvised way towards 'The Way
( 1968 Europe/Mideast somewhere
-- The Big Bippy was yet to come ) 
------------------------------------------ 

 

Caveat Emptor
Given Akasa's Way -
an askew True Being:
A Bogus Rogue in
Buddha's Nature for 
Fraudulent Tricksters.
So someone thought
this cheeky Big Bio is 
rumored to be snarky,
affected, self-effacing,
flamboyant and funny.
So it is.

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

 

 Big Bro • Poetry • To Go
 Mentors Mindfulness Therapy
 "Mind-FULLY" and ZEN•MEN 
 ------------------------------------------------------------

 

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 "   

-------------------------
I Became
a Famished
Mad Poet
How Come ?
-------------------------
Everybody
Elsewhere,
Everyone
Everywhere,
------------------------------
Knows About Certain
Dreadful Things called
"Undesirable Deficit"
Everyone Else Knows
That To Be Undesirable
is Not Desirable.
is Not Lovable.
------------------------
Actually,
Maybe Desirable, 
Maybe Wanted
Just a Little Bit -- 
Just 'Not Enough'
Bodies Laughing
Touch Warm Skin
but Me Not Held -  
And That Left Me
A Very Needy
Grumpy Little Kid. 
-------------------------
The Curse of 
'Rejection' and 
'Just Not Enough'
Karma: Genetically,
Purely Choiceless,
It Strikes
Any One
Any Body
Any Where  
Any Which Way
Six Ways to Sunday

Any Damn Way,
ANYWAY -- Needy,
Angry and Confused.
The Loba, Dosa, Moha
Dark Mother Mantra cries
--- Sad n' Scary, Huh ?

--------------------------------
'Cept If You Teach 
Yourself To Love
Yourself, First --
Compassionately 

and Buddha roared 
" Hey You -- 
It's Gotta Be
YOU First ! " 

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

So I asked -- 

"Which way
is The Way ?
The Way
Outta' Here ?"
You Mean
The Real Deal--
The Big Bippy--
Self-Realization to
the Emptiness of Self

------------------------------ 

"So Which Way
is The Way ?
Someone Pointed
n' said confidently
"That-a-Way" and
He Pointed East.
-------------------------

 

"Which way
is The Way ?

 

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 eyes merge
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
with big soup spoons 
----------------------------

‘All-the-time-Awareness’

-- 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... Uncle Carl's up in Woodstock in all that snow wasn't that cold like this...

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


The Lotus has its roots in the dank dark mud,

Grows up through the cloudy deep water,

And finally rises to the surface.

It blooms into perfect beauty and purity in the sunlight.

It is like the mind unfolding to perfect joy and wisdom.

~ Lotus Sutra

" What is accepted by the majority of people ~

 does not mean it is Real " ............................ ~ Buddha

" One common mistake

is to think that 'your' reality is THE reality.

You must always be prepared to leave

'your' reality for a greater one." ............ ~ Meeraji 

 

" Only in quiet waters

do things mirror themselves undistorted.

Only in a quiet mind

is there a more complete perception of the world " . ~ Hans Margolius

 

" Good timber does not grow with ease.

The stronger the wind ~ the stronger the trees." .. ~ Willard Marriot

 

" The Greatest Risk Is Not Taking One "  

~ end ~








NOTE ---  WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW / OR NOT ...
 is usually way UNFINISHED notes, sketchy IMPRESSIONS, site SCRAPS and SNIPPETS etc... enjoy other tabs up top here, reading those  sections FIRST.... or be welcome to continue to read here too...

♦ BACKUP Once upon a time, long, long ago, even before a man from Far Rockaway NY ) was in the , practice--sojourns with teachers • 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.

• the overly aloof, intellectual intricacies of Western psycho-dynamic analytic intersubjective therapy at UCLA, yearning for something simpler • The Laughing Buddha Sangha on 14th Street's Zafu Row • Coaches a ZEN•MEN peer group •

• Akasa now a feisty 76 - finds himself  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 Mind-FULLY 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. 

 --------------------------

 

-- 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....

 _________________________♦ 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. 

 --------------------------

 

♦ POINTMAN Once upon a time, long, long ago ~ before a time when you were again reconsidering some kind of exasperating reincarnation -- back in the unrest 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"

• Prior to Akasa Levi’s partial retirement from group meditation teaching in 2014 with a Parkinson’ diagnosis - he Creatively-minded Corporate/Business Consultation: Human Resource Resolution
and 'Spirit In The Workplace' development. Very way out of the box stuff. We also consult
on the American 'spiritual mind-set', 'The Crisis In Faith', 'Loss of Classical Mythologies
to Technology', 'What's Wrong With Our Minds and Culture?' and current 'religious trends'
(trends that are quite unconscious, un self-identified & dreadfully naive within the
contemporary American/Western cultural praadigm as a whole.
• We Counsel all manifestations of alternative & emerging life-styles: mixed racial/religious
partnerings & marriages; gay & bi curious, str8 still exploring. It's the 21st Century:
It's a big wide open world out there now... We offer bridge-building between communities:
people of all colors, religions, diverse cultures & ethnic origins. A pluralistic society brings
so many awesome enrichments as well as struggles of balance & new found respect ...
"If you do not see God
in the next person you meet,
you need look no further." ~ Gandhi
__________________________________________

“La vraie générosité envers l'avenir consiste à tout donner au présent.”
“True generosity towards the future is to give everything to the present.” ~ Albert Camus

" THE GREATEST RISK IS NOT TAKING ONE! "
___________________________________

QUOTES ~ The Gift of Wise Words
To measure you by your smallest deed
is to judge the ocean by the frailty of it's foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame
upon the seasons for their inconsistencies   ~ Kahlil Gibran

What good you do is of little significance,
But it is very important that you do it.
WE must be the change you want
to see in the world " ~ Mahatma Gandhi

"If we have no peace,
it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other."  ~ Mother Teresa

"You yourself,
as much as anyone in the entire Universe,
deserves your OWN affection, care and love.
You can explore the whole universe looking
for someone who is more deserving of your
love and affection than you are yourself...
and you will not find that person anywhere.
To be maximum effective -
the Practice of Loving-Kindness
must absolutely begin with yourself!"   ~ The Buddha
________________________________________

 “Who was born first, 'You' or 'The World'?
As long as you give first place to ‘The World’
-- you are bound by it.
Once you realize, beyond all trace of doubt,
that the ‘world’ is in you --
-- and not 'you' in the world,
right then and there, you are out of it.
Of course, your body remains in the world
and 'of' the world,
but YOU are not  d-e-l-u-d-e-d by it.”
 ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

They drew a circle that shut me out --
Calling me a heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win --
We drew a circle that took them in.
~ Edwin Markham "Outwitted"

"Do not look back in Anger,
or forward in Fear,
but around in Awareness"  ~ James Thurber

"At night make me fearlessly one
with the Darkness ~
In the morning make me
optimistically one with the Light" ~ Wendell Berry

You may want to hi-lite, copy and send
the quote below to people you know...
some of the wisest guidance you will
ever read, put to personal use or offer.
Here it is ~
"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 answer."
~ Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" (1903-1908)
__________________________________________

We are non-denominational and definitely non-religious and
welcome all journeyers of all Ways or even none.


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'----------------------------------

To Continue and Go On ~
• Previous to Theravada monkhood, Akasa Levi was originally aof 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 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 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 at The Laughing Buddha Sangha in Santa Monica on 14th Street's Zafu Row • He coaches a ZENPiyananda.
• 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.


Psychological Inflexibility: an A.C.T View of Suffering
The core conception of ACT is that psychological suffering is usually caused by the interface between human language and cognition, and the control of human behavior by previous direct experience. And failure. ‘Psychological inflexibility’ is then to emerge from experiential avoidance, cognitive entanglement, attachment of a conceptualized ‘self’, loss of contact with the present, and the resulting failure to take needed behavioral steps in accord with core values. An extensive research program on a theory of convoluted language and cognition, contemporary Relational Frame Theory (RFT / ACT ) takes the view that trying to change difficult thoughts and feelings as a means of coping can be counter productive, but new, powerful alternatives are available - including ACT: acceptance, mindfulness, cognitive defusion, values, and committed action therapies..
Cognitive fusion -- the domination of stimulus functions based on literal language even when that process is a harmful, experiential avoidance -- the phenomenon that occurs when a person is unwilling to remain in contact with particular private experiences and takes steps to alter the form or frequency of these events and the contexts that occasion them, even when doing so causes psychological harm the domination of a conceptualized self over the "self as context" that emerges from perspective taking and relational frames lack of values, confusion of goals with values, and other values problems that can underlie the failure to build broad and flexible repertoires and an inability to build a larger unit of behavior through commitment to behavior that moves in the direction of chosen values
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 ! - or call to set up an actual appointment • 310-450-2268
The phone is much more personal - and some quality 'personal attention'
is probably what you need for yourself right now -- more 'closeness'
rather than distance... We do know that when you're feeling vulnerable, skittish or just plain bad and sad -- sometimes 'reaching out' is hard -- please, do take up the challenge!
"Take the first step in faith.
You don't have to see the whole staircase
-- just take the first step." ~ Martin Luther King
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