♦ DIRECTIONS + --- First Time ?

♦ DIRECTIONS +  --- First Time ?

“ HOW TO BECOME

THE CLARITY OF YOUR

YOUR OWN CHOOSING.

Maybe It’s Time You

Became A Disciple

of Your Own Awareness,”

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

Buddhism's all about experiential,
natural, uncompromised truth ---

Buddhism is so much closer to
'science' than it is to 'theology'

To be 'Buddhist' is to be
both delightfully perplexed,

awakened and sweetened

by the strangely sane,

refreshingly 'rational'
path Buddha created."

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

‘All-the-time-Awareness’

 Beginners Very Welcome !

Coming for the First Time ? 
Please double check your

own arrangements carefully

RSVP Ahead Phone/Email
Space does get limited. !    Thanks.

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

SMART PHONE-size

DIRECTIONS

AkasaLeviZZ@msn.com 

1-310-450-2268

Laughing Buddha Sangha

2046 14th Street, unit # 4 

Santa Monica, CA 90405

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

10 Fwy West - to 26th Street  

Cloverfield Exit - top of ramp

Go LEFT then go RIGHT -

Go down Pico towards beach.

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

At 14th Street - just past

Santa Monica College,

turn Left onto 14th Street

(going SOUTH of Pico) 

Go only about 1/2 block 

near Bay Street
------------------------------

2032-2046 is a long

white building complex 

on west side of street - 

across from YWCA. 

Unit # 4 is on LEFT side

of courtyard

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

Hi and Welcome and Nama’ste !
The LAUGHING  BUDDHA  SANGHA:
Therapy -- When you really should
go see somebody, you could go see him
- as one of your options

____________________
 

WHAT IS THERAPY ? Therapy is where

two people sit down
and empathically

work on one of them

-- Together

And, PLEASE,

please do not expect only

a few sessions to be sufficient:

Betrayed Expectation is partly how you got here...

Self-healing' your difficult issues and wounded feelings

One of the most classic therapy-gained Truths --

comes as a deep personal realization and

a sharp pointed reminder of time fleeting

--when asking how long does therapy take ?

Working on yourself, your difficult issues,
bruised, wounded feelings, damage ---

FEELINGS that took your
whole Life-time to develop,

-- will certainly take some time
.... to turn around.

 

” Whatever the Question,

'Kindness' is the Answer.”

~ The Dalai Lama

_____________________ 

............._/\_

with palms joined together

The Laughing Buddha Sangha - Santa Monica
encourages a Maverick Spirited Inner-Quest

thru a "Mindfulness-Awakening" Meditation that Nourishes an Iconoclast Intelligence and
cultivates a Big Good-Hearted Mind –
Eventually 'Me' discovering my own 'Buddha-Nature'
by Awakening the Compassionate Healing Awareness
-- a Wise Empathy Naturally Deep Within Us All.

Ready to be worked with ---
so we work with just That...

For What ? Just the natural emergence of your own

individual True 'Knowing’ and personal excellence.

It's taken you a long time to become your very own

 "Bodhisattva" - a sort of "Buddha-in-the-making".

And here you are Becoming Happy as the True You.

The Spirituality of contemporary Buddhism
is so flexibly open and universal ( and agnostic ) 
that it can always be expressed in your own way.
Right at start, it's all about you. No programs, no complex goal setting -- let's just start with Silence. 

THERAPY for MAVERICKS -
THERAPY for SMART PEOPLE

THERAPY for THOSE
WHO ARE CONCERNED

 
" The Greatest Risk
Is Not Taking One "

Here Rilke says --

"LOVE THE 'QUESTIONS' INSTEAD"

♦ " 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

--------------------------------
 

 ".... ever noticed,

that it's Always NOW " ~ Alan Watts  

THERAPY here with me, is an interactive Buddhist-based teachingof more self-compassion and certainly less clinical protocol-- a more 'alternative' approach to relating with Your True Self.

 
• One-to-One individual therapy or relationship counseling - all kinds of stressful partnering issues: couples, genders, family. Difficult to communicate or resolve feelings. Existential Angst is alive and suffering terribly well within all of us. Bewilderment follows on their coat tails continually asking "Why".

• Therapy for "Creatives" -- Counseling for Smart People: Often Lost, often quite gifted, sensitive, artistic, intellectual, funny, outsiders, outlaws, intuitives and lovable fugitives --gifted yet domestically or 'existentially' unhappy people.

 
• Maybe a more Maverick Spirited deeper inner-quest o nourish an iconoclast intelligence and

a Big Good-Hearted Mind can actually ‘work’ for you !

 • 'Theravada' Mindfulness ~ the original, earliest 'Path of The Elders'-- an India, Buddhist South Asia  Sri Lanka Lineage-based Practice
of traditional Vipassana Satpatthana Mindfulness Meditation – alongside
a skillful, eclectic-mix of other world-wide Buddhist psychology teachings.

♦ The Main COREPURPOSE of Vipassana Insight MINDFULNESS Meditation Practice Veh.poss.ana in the Pali-language of the original Buddha's teachings, is the simple and direct practice of ‘moment-to-moment’ mindfulness.

Through careful 'sustained observation', we experience directly for ourselves

the ever-changing flow of the mind/body process. This keen awareness leads us to accept more fully the pleasure and pain, fear and joy, sadness and happiness that life inevitably brings to all our ‘experiences’. As Insight-Awareness deepens, we develop greater equanimity and peace - in the face of Change--.Mindfulness, Wisdom and Compassion increasingly become the major Dharma guiding-principles ‘informing’ our lives.. ~ Joseph Goldstein

 

" The Greatest Risk Is Not Taking One "  


• GUIDANCE: Mentoring, Direction and Pointing

That's why I offer a lengthy FREE phone consultation -
First - before coming in here for the first time. Inner-Healing MUST be a very, very 'Human' thing. A 'therapist' or a 'counselor' is a special new 'human'
in your life. Beginning to go to  'therapy' is sort of

a professional Blind-Date. Do you two

even 'Like' each other ? 
Maybe, maybe not. 

• So go easy on the immediate impulse to judge

or evaluate these first few session impressions.

So give a fresh new experience a fresh new chance

Therapy takes time and takes work. And, please,

do not expect only a few sessions to be sufficient ---

Self-healing' your difficult issues and wounded feelings -

FEELINGS that took your whole life-time to develop -

will certainly take some time to turn around.

• There are NO silver bullets, no magic pills

or divine interventions. No 'spiritual' fantasies.

There IS a lot of 'resistance'. Of course there is,

that's how you muscled-up and survived so far...

It's You and me, your counselor, are going to
have to work, walk and talk in each other’s
one-to-one presence -- that could seem
 intimidating and  kinda ‘creepy’ intimate – 
be truthful, trusting and honest. Not sabotage.

Change takes a willingness to work and give time

-- and to begin to responsibly really KNOW that….
 

“ If Nothing Changes,

Nothing Changes ! “

And at times you will experience painful,

awful sobbing moments, even days -

and even 'scrape bottom' --where

hopelessness lies...don't sabotage, be brave.

After a short time gradually - you will begin

to consciously 'process' --as you progress

in your 'mindfulness meditation' - towards

a healthy noticeable 'shift' in your very

own 'experience' of yourself.

Yet, it's gonna take some TIME.

“ Small victories, and
self realized baby-steps
give definite, authentic,
realistic motivation
and momentum
to the journey.
I will promise you
some small

 Victories ! “ 

_________________________________

" While one person hesitates because they
'feel' inferior and 'think' insecure thoughts –
The other is just busy making mistakes aplenty
and becoming quite superior."....~ The Tao

. ‘Mindfulness - the ‘All-the-time-Awareness’ We’re looking for home-made beginning Buddhas…

One of the Buddha’s classic therapy-gained Truths

comes as a deep personal realization and a pointed

reminder ( or wrong end of a pointed stick )... that

working on yourself, your difficult issues and bruised

wounded feelings - FEELINGS that took your whole

life-time to develop - will certainly take some time

to turn you around to  the natural emergence of your
own individual True 'Knowing’ and personal excellence.

IIt's taken you a long time to become your very own

 "Bodhisattva" - a sort of "Buddha-in-the-making".

And here you are Becoming Happy as the True You.

The Spirituality of contemporary Buddhism is so flexibly
open and universal ( and agnostic ) - that it can always be
expressed in your own way. Right at start, it's all about you.

‘Mindfulness - the ‘All-the-time-Awareness’
We’re looking for some home-grown Buddhas…

One of the Buddha’s classic therapy-gained Truths

comes as a deep personal realization and a pointed

reminder ( or wrong end of a pointed stick )... that

working on yourself, your difficult issues and bruised

wounded feelings - FEELINGS that took your whole

life-time to develop - will certainly take some time

to turn around... we just have to work with that...

For What ?

Just the natural emergence of your own

 individual True 'Knowing’ and personal excellence.

!It's taken you a long time to become your very own

 "Bodhisattva" - a sort of "Buddha-in-the-making".

An here you are Becoming Happy as the True You.

The Spirituality of contemporary Buddhism
is so flexibly open and universal
( and agnostic ) - that it can always be
expressed in your own way.
Right at start, it's all about you.
AND that's a good thing...

Hidden in these wonderful, 'vague' poetic teaching- quotes

are some sincere responses to this quite ancient Question:
How Long ? --- Therapy takes time and therapy takes work.

Good therapy ...

is not just in your therapist’s  office -- but what you put into it

in your day to day -- call it ‘All-the-time-Awareness’ towards

a spacious, clear and richer mindfulness that opens you for

a much more aware, alive Living Experience of Living.  

 -----------------------------------

"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."

 ~ T.S. Eliot

 
AKASA LEVI .q(~?~)p. Counseling
Awakening Mindfulness Meditation
The LAUGHING BUDDHA SANGHA
Santa Monica CA 90405 -- 1-310-450-2268
MINDFULNESS sessions  --  akasalevizz@msn.com www.buddhistcounselingmindfulnesstherapy.blogspot.com
Individual work ongoing. New Site still jumbled up, plz read anyway
" WE Must Be The Change We Wish To See In The World " - Gandhi

" Buddhism's all about experiential, natural,
uncompromised truth

Buddhism is so much closer to 'science'
than it is to 'theology'

To be 'Buddhist' is to be
both delightfully perplexed,

awakened and sweetened
by the strangely sane,

refreshingly 'rational'
path Buddha created."

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 "  

 
Beginners Very Welcome !

Coming for the First Time ? 

Please double check your current

appointment arrangements carefully

RSVP Ahead by Phone or Email
Space does get limited. ! 

Thank You

 

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.