Clear Water Sangha

  • What’s In the Way of Just Being?

    “Ultimately, freedom is the absence of any condition. And yet, freedom means we can return to this moment, whatever may be facing us right now, no matter how difficult, and bring our whole self to it, meet it completely with love, and compassion, and tenderness.” Recorded 7/9/2012 in San Francisco.

  • The Opportunity Each Moment

    “When we become free of who we think we are, we no longer live in the enclosure of the story we’ve told ourselves, but rather are freshly in this moment, alive, innocent, like a child.” Recorded 6/25/2012 in San Francisco.

  • Constant Discovery

    “This unknowable life is a mirror that allows us to discover the truth — not by beliefs, or concepts, or dogma, but by constant discovery.” Recorded 6/18/2012 in San Francisco.

  • Profound Acceptance

    In our gatherings, we have the opportunity to look at what is — what’s present, what’s happening, what’s coming up. Not because we want to figure it out, but simply because it is what’s coming up. It doesn’t need to be understood, or figured out — it is what it is, whether or not we understand it.…

  • Listen from the Heart

    “Awakening is the discovery of your true nature. It may just be a flash; it may just be a glimpse, or a taste, or a sense. It could be fleeting. But it’s the beginning of the possibility of full aliveness, of really living from the heart.” Recorded 6/9/2012 in Santa Cruz.

  • One Continuous Mistake

    You can’t really follow someone else; ultimately it’s not even possible. A good teacher helps you to find your own way, and supports you in simply living your own life, with all its challenges and pitfalls, while allowing yourself to deepen into the mystery and the insecurity of not knowing. Naturally you want to get it right, you…

  • Born Every Moment

    “When awakening has shown itself, you realize you are not the crazy mind, even though that may still be operating, doing its dance. But you are not that! You are this aliveness, this attention, this presence; this life force that animates this amazing form called the body. And everything gets rebalanced, everything gets reorganized… Each…

  • The Dirt on Spiritual Teachers

    “Enlightened” teachers are perfect, right? You must be kidding! Do you believe that awakening to your true nature will somehow perfect your human nature? That awakening is like some kind of magic trick? Presto change-o and voila: parking is automatically available, even on Russian Hill in San Francisco; you are instantly floating in financial abundance;…

    The Dirt on Spiritual Teachers

  • Reclaiming the Human Dynamic

    “Why is it that we have moments of awakening, of really seeing or sensing or recognzing oneness, but then pull back into separation, resistance, avoidance; or longing, or analyzing? What is it that pulls us back into identity, the identity of the separate drama of who we are?” Recorded 5/14/2012 in San Francisco.

  • The Pathless Path

    “Awakening — discovering your true nature, really intimately merging with it, even for just a flash — is the beginning of the pathless path. And that realization can set all kinds of things in motion.” Recorded 5/12/2012 in Santa Cruz.