Teacher: Christopher Ash

Weekly Conversations

When a specific course is not happening, I open up our Zoom venue each Sunday at 4:00 PM, Sydney-Melbourne time, for conversation. These weekly Kalyanamitta meetings are open to those who have done my courses or have made an arrangement with me personally.

If there is a topic designated for the Sunday meeting, it will be listed below in the events.

Courses

Any courses will be on Zoom; and all are held on Sundays at 4:00 PM, Sydney-Melbourne time. In between courses we enjoy our regular conversations.

Individual Sessions with Christopher

If you have any questions about the approach to the Dharma, or feel in need of support, I’m available for one-on-one sessions.

In case there is extra content, click on the heading-link for the particular course.

  • Sat
    21
    Jan
    2023

    2023 Kalyanamitta Group Program

    4:00: pmNone
    2023 FIRST SEMESTER PROGRAM
    In the first half of 2023, I plan to teach A 'Dependent Arising Course,' for which we'll use the 'Wheel of Becoming' (Bhavacakka) and the Upanisa Sutta.  We'll study the unhealthy patterns of the 12-links, and also the Buddha's suggestions of a different, healthy dependent arising arising cycle.
    I want to also teach five-week course on 'Love in Buddhist Practice,' which I'll call Love and Awakening.
    For those who missed out on the 'Headless' course, and others who might want to repeat it, we'll have another, after these two courses.
    So, dates are. tentatively....
    1) Dependent Arising - unhealthy mind, and healthy mind versions. Starts, 5th February 2023, a five-week course.
    2) Love and Awakening. Starts 16th April, a four-week course.
    3) Headlessness. (Subtitled: Saving Bhavari and Yajnadatta). Starts  18th June 2023, a six-week course.
    I imagine these three courses as a integrated offering, but any of them can be taken singly.
    PUBLIC HOLIDAYS & MOTHERS DAY
    In 2023, there'll be no Kalyanamitta Group on:
    Easter Sunday - Sunday 9th April 2023
    Mothers' Day:  Sunday 14th May 2023
    Labour Day Weekend:  Sunday1st October 2023
    King's Birthday: At this stage it's not clear when the King's birthday holiday weekend will be. A NSW planning calendar suggests Monday 10 June, so probably no Kalyanamitta Group on 11 June 2023.
  • Sun
    22
    Jan
    2023

    Kalyanamitta Group

    4:00 pmOnline

    Our first conversation for the year. We'll have two open conversation meetings, and then we'll start the Dependent Arising Course. (See the preceding events entry, for a little information. More later.)

  • Sun
    05
    Feb
    2023

    Dependent Arising Cycles

    4:00 pmOnline

    Starts, 5th February 2023, a five-week course. This will be a 'Dependent Arising Course,' using the 'Wheel of Becoming' (Bhavacakka) and the Upanisa Sutta.  We'll study the unhealthy patterns of the 12-links, and also the Buddha's suggestions of a different, healthy dependent arising cycle.

  • Sun
    12
    Mar
    2023

    Experiencing Felt Meaning

    4:00 pmOnline

    The Buddhadharma is organised around the principle that experiencing is central to the 'wakeful' life. ("Buddha" means 'awake.)

    All the familiar Buddhist terms - mindfulness, situational awareness (clear comprehension), meditation, grounded attention (yonisomanasikara), wisdom, and so on - are experiential terms. That is, they are about intimate knowledge of the life of the body.

    This 'knowledge' is, however, not intellectual. We know the body from within the body, the feeling-tones from within the feeling-tones, the perceptions from within the perceptions, the intentional (shaping) processes from within those processes, and consciousness from within consciousness.

    Felt meaning plays a fundamental role in this self-knowledge. How is this so?

  • Sun
    08
    Oct
    2023

    The Experiencing Heart

    4:00 pmZoom

    Eight weeks of exploring Buddhism as a path of heart.

    This course began on 13 August, 2023 (Eastern Australia). Each week, there will be a short talk on the topic of the week, and then there will be group conversation about the practice of the topic. The topics will be sufficiently independent for you to attend all, or any number of the sessions that you wish. On the other hand, there's a design in the sequence which will benefit whoever attends all the sessions. In the weeks between 13 August and 1 October 2023. we will explore the following topics:

    13th August. Topic: Personal Experience.
    The centrality of the felt body in experiencing. The centrality of personal experience in Buddhadharma.

    20th August. Topic: Personal Experience. The experience of 'darkness'; the experience of the cessation of 'darkness.' Enlightenment.

    27th August. Topic: Concepts, Reality, and Experiencing. Care in conducting experience in accordance with Reality; and the meanings of 'Buddha.' Taking personal responsibility for knowing yourself and Reality.

    3rd September. Topic: Life’s implying and carrying forward; and our wanting. The practice of mindfulness in Buddhism. Five primary sentient (that is, felt) processes. Intimacy with sentient these processes as the Way of Mindfulness.
    How misperception of self brings blocked bodily-felt processes (particularly, greed, ill-will, and ignorance).

    10th September. Topic: Meaning-making. Meaning in nature, in human life, and in Buddhadharma.

    17th September. Topic: Cancelled due to illness.

    24th September. Topic: Care, altruism, compassion, responsiveness. The nature of being human, in Shakespeare’s mirror: ‘Most ignorant of what we are most assur’d – our glassy essence.’ To what kind of process does the word ‘mind’ refer? What does ‘heart-mind’ imply?

    1st October. Topic: The Meaning and Activity of Generosity

    8th October. Topic Dependent Arising, Experiencing, Heart, and Gratitude.

    __________________

    In the context of dependent arising, the Buddha said:
    "Practitioners, don't you only speak about that which is known, seen, and found by yourselves?"
    "That's so, Bhante"
    "Good, Practitioners! You have been guided by me, by means of this teaching [on dependent arising], which about this life. It is timeless; a 'come and see' teaching which is effective in leading to nibbana, and which should be felt individually by the wise."
    - The Buddha, from Mahātaṇhāsankhaya Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya I 265.

     

  • Sat
    21
    Oct
    2023

    Changes (Focusing) Group

    1:00 pmZoom
    Saturday 21st October a number of focusers are coming together in the Kalyanamitta Zoom meeting room, for the kind of informal gathering known in the Focusing world as a 'Changes Group.' The meeting starts at: 1:00 PM, Sydney time. The group plans to meet monthly.  (There's no obligation to come every month, though.)​
    What happens in a Changes Group? We chat for a short time, then we break into pairs to do Focusing for an hour (twenty minutes to half an hour each). On Zoom, this means going into 'breakout rooms.' Then, after that, we return to the whole group, where we have a conversation about how our Focusing process went. We do that for another twenty minutes or so.
    All who are using Focusing are welcome, whether you're formally trained or not. One can learn Focusing many ways, without having had formal training in the six steps. And the changes group is one way of learning.
    (If you are a self-taught focuser, I'll figure out a way of introducing you to the nature of Focusing partnerships. For example, we could have a mini workshop for newcomers during the Focusing hour.)
  • Sun
    22
    Oct
    2023

    Experiential Inquiry

    4:00 pmZoom

    On Sunday, if there are volunteers, we'll do the thing we are known for in our group - direct experiential learning through mindful, focusing-oriented, phenomenological inquiry. If there are no volunteers, I'll undertake my own short inquiry into some aspect of Dharma (which can be on a topic of your choosing), and a conversation can follow about the universal aspects of that process.