Linda is passionate about distilling the implications of modern brain science, Western psychology and Buddhist contemplative practices into skillful high-leverage guidance. She helps people find the openings that allow them to shift out of old patterns of response to life events – what she calls neural “swamp” or neural “cement” – to more flexible, adaptive patterns that lead to more authentic resilience and well-being.

Linda defines “resilience” as the inner capacity we cultivate to meet the flux of external events, whether the external events are good news or bad news.  Our ability to access the inner resources we need to respond skillfully—with consciousness and compassion, a moral compass, and flexibility of action—is what determines how resilient we’ll be when we get “hit” by life events, and how effective our actions will be in the world.

Many of the recent discoveries of modern neuroscience illuminate how neurological capacities for resilience—our ability to navigate the twists and turns of our personal and collective lives, to cope with everyday disappointments and extraordinary disasters, to bounce back from the terrible—develop in the first place. And that illuminates how those capacities can become derailed by stress or trauma, and what practices we can use to rewire our brains to cope more resiliently again, and even strengthen the structures of the brain that do that rewiring.

During our dialog, we’ll make inventive and elegant use of one of the most useful neuroscientific discoveries of the last ten years: the empirical validation that neuroplasticity—the capacity of the brain to grow new neurons and to create new connections among those neurons—is lifelong. Because it is experience that kindles the brain’s neuroplasticity, when we know which experiences will best catalyze the growth of new more resilient patterns of response flexibility in our turbulent times, we can use self-directed neuroplasticity to rewire our brains for more skillful coping, more well-being, more flourishing, for ourselves and others.

This is the foundation of all work that “uses the mind to change the brain to change the mind”. What’s unique about Linda’s approach is her precise, gentle, skillful way of making these principles vivid and experiential. 

Modern neuroscience has shown that mindfulness practice and empathic resonant relationships are two of the most powerful agents of brain change known to mankind.  When we intentionally cultivate our capacities to pause, notice and accept our experience with compassion rather than judgments, see clearly our experiences and our reactions to our experience, and dis-entangle our “self” from our experience, we can shift perspectives, discern options, and choose new options wisely, while strengthening the structures of the brain that allow us to do so.

When we attune to, empathize with, and have compassion for the pain and suffering inherent in the human condition, in times of turbulence or relative peace, we create a neural receptivity in the brain that allows us to reach more collaborative solutions to the problems of our times.

Linda’s resiliency work uses an integration of tools and techniques drawn from Eastern wisdom traditions and from Western psychology, summarized in the 6 C’s of coping: calm, compassion, clarity, connections to resources, competence, and courage.  All 6 C’s are the essential platform to move our resilience beyond our personal self to become effective agents of change in the world.

About Linda Graham

Linda Graham, MFT, has been an ardent practitioner and facilitator of personal growth and transformation for more than 20 years.  As an experienced psychotherapist-consultant-trainer and meditation teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area, she integrates the teachings of modern neuroscience, mindfulness practices, and contemporary Western psychology into her nationwide trainings and workshops and into her monthly e-newsletters Healing and Awakening into Aliveness and Wholeness, archived at www.lindagraham-mft.net.

Linda’s passion for integrating the paradigms of modern brain science, Western psychology and Eastern contemplative practices is distilled into skillful guidance that helps people shift out of old patterns of response to life events – neural “swamp” or neural “cement” – to more flexible, adaptive patterns that lead to more authentic resilience and well-being.

Her book, Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being (New World Library, 2013) offers dozens of experiential exercises that lead readers into the six C’s of coping: calm, compassion, clarity, connection to resources, competence, and courage.  Readers learn to navigate the storms and struggles of life more quickly, more adaptively, more effectively, especially in turbulent times.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

Monday, June 17th @ 5:00pm Pacific*; 6:00pm Mountain; 7:00pm Central; 8:00pm Eastern 

*Find Your Local Time

Please Note: There will be a limited number of lines available on the live conference call, so we encourage you to listen online if possible. To make sure you can get through by phone, we encourage you to dial in early.

ACCESS INSTRUCTIONS

• To listen live by phone, dial:  206-402-0100  (alternate #: 501-707-0312)
• Then, enter Access Code: 272072#
• To listen live online go to:  http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=42500964
• To download the audio after the teleseminar is complete go to the Beyond Awakening Audio Page

Join the Dialogue: About one hour into the dialogue, we’ll open up the lines and you’ll have the opportunity to interact with us directly over the phone or via instant message. Here’s what to do:

To interact live by voice, dial into the conference line number and wait until we ask for a question from someone in your region, or

Send us your question via instant message in the teleseminar window on your computer

Send us your questions and comments before or during the live dialogue by posting them on our Beyond Awakening Community Facebook page

We look forward to your attendance!

Sincerely,
The Beyond Awakening Team

Our dialog was profound for being tremendously hopeful and deeply confronting as we faced the existential core of our world crisis, and of how and why we change (and don’t).

One of the things I most appreciate about David is the intelligence and sensitivity with which he flows when working with people who don’t share worldviews or vocabularies. We’re both members of the Evolutionary Leaders group founded by Deepak Chopra and I have seen this skill in action. It is no wonder David has been described as a “graceful revolutionary” and has been able to facilitate sustainable change at all levels of society, between individuals and groups and within communities and governments across the globe.

But perhaps most impressive is the rigor of his thought. David’s book, Social Change 2.0 which I highly recommend, is a detailed blueprint of the lessons he has learned over his many decades as a change-agent, broken down into practical principles. It is a step-by-step guide in virtually every stage of world-changing. It is consistently insightful, compassionate, visionary and street-savvy, and truly breathtaking in both its granularity and in its scope. It puts the power (and accountability) to change in the hands of change agents, calling for change agents to “upgrade our skillset.” Rather than blaming failure to change on the apathy or self-interest of others, David focuses on creating a “pull” in the system, as opposed to a “push.”

During our dialog, David offered a clear articulation of a topic very dear to me—the weaving together of the inner and outer work we do, the spiritual underpinning of activism. David sees the inner work of awakening as necessary for expanding our identity beyond narrow self-interest and limiting patterns. The inner work inspires us to greater levels of impact, skill, and effectiveness.

However, there is a limit to only doing “inner” work. Our outer work in the world and with others means growing beyond just the ability to envision change, to actually making it happen in the world, on larger and larger scales. Becoming effective change-agents requires another level of inner transformation.

We also looked at why so many well-intentioned efforts at change fail and whether or not the kind of 2^nd order change we need is even possible. David referred to the last page of Social Change 2.0, where he answers a question he is often asked- Do you feel hopeful about the future of humanity? Is it possible for us to really change?

What David said gives him hope is that every single person on the planet wants to have a better life. This is a motivation that spans cultures and communities across the globe. David says, “If they can see how to do that while also improving the larger conditions above them, piggybacking on their own self-improvement motivations, they will act. If we can help somebody see a possibility, a vision, we have the means to move things to a new place.” Vision and motivation is the true lever of change and the organizing principle of Social Change 2.0 and all of David’s work.

I was also curious to hear David’s thoughts on what I call “existential disorientation”, or the challenge of holding onto the profound inquiry of our global crises with a beginners mind and gratitude for life. Even in the moment shortly before a catastrophe, it is possible—and appropriate—to enjoy the sunrise anyway. We can hold onto the wonder of life and evolution. And yet we must also think meta-systemically, which means facing overwhelming challenges, but it’s best to do it with a light heart.

David summarized this paradox in a neat phrase, “savoring life and existence while saving life and existence.” He pointed to Paul Hawken’s book Blessed Unrest which suggests that we can either see this moment as the worst possible scenario, leading to a dystopian future, or as an extraordinary time for those of us who are transformationally oriented change agents to change the world. This is an unprecedented time to step in and be a part of the solution.

I agree with David that a transformational moment of truth is upon all awake people. It is not possible to be neutral anymore. We can no longer just rant at the corruptions of business or government, and feel that we are contributing that way. If we understand the influence and metaphysics of thought, we will realize that this only diffuses despair and contributes to the contraction of the species.

We are now called to be part of the solution.

I invite you to listen to the full dialog here, which one of our listeners called “a powerful spiritual experience of being present in a global, even Kosmic, evolutionary sangha.”

David has been described by the United Nations as a “graceful revolutionary.” He has worked with world leaders like Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbechev, China’s president, Li Xiannian and Al Gore—as well as millions of ordinary people who have been impacted by his work at the personal, community and organizational level. He is the author of eleven books including Social Change 2.0 and The Low Carbon Diet.

He has conducted extensive, cutting edge research over 25 years on systems change; observing ecologies, neighborhoods, emergency preparedness models, and corporations struggling with change. He was asking some key questions: How can we empower people to voluntarily adopt new behaviors that benefit them, their communities, and their organizations? How can we sustainably operate at higher levels of social value and realize more of our potential as a human species?

David’s answer is Social Change 2.0, a new social change formula based on the idea that people are willing to change if they have a compelling vision and are provided tools to help them bring it into being.  Social Change 2.0 can fundamentally alter they way we go about creating lasting change.

He contrasts Social Change 2.0 to Social Change 1.0, which is best suited for slow-moving, incremental change.The “blunt instruments” of Social Change 1.0 are legislation, financial incentives, and social protest—none of which are up to the task of creating the kind of transformational, 2^nd order change which our current global crises call for.

David says one way to interpret our current climate, financial, and societal breakdowns is that we are doomed, victims of our own behavior and inability to change. Another way is to recognize this as the opportunity we’ve been looking for! Breakdowns of necessity create vibrant receptivity for new systems.

In David’s recent book, Social Change 2.0, a Blueprint for Reinventing Our World, he lays out the five design principles and practices of Social Change 2.0:

1. Empowering people to voluntarily adopt new behaviors beneficial to themselves and society

2. Transforming dysfunctional or marginally effective social systems so they can achieve a higher level of performance and social value

3. Inventing and implementing transformative social innovations

4. Building a more collaborative playing field to maximize the potential of a social system or social innovation

5. Leveraging and disseminating social innovations at larger levels of scale

I’m excited dig deeper into the implications of Social Change 2.0 on Sunday with David and even take away some tools for change in my own life. I hope you will be able to join us!

About David Gershon

David Gershon, co-founder and CEO of Empowerment Institute, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on behavior-change, community empowerment and large-system transformation, and applies this expertise to issues requiring community, organizational, and societal change. His clients include cities, large organizations, government agencies, and social entrepreneurs. He has addressed a wide diversity of issues ranging from low carbon lifestyles, livable neighborhoods, and sustainable communities to organizational talent development, corporate social engagement, and cultural transformation. Over the past thirty years the empowerment programs he has designed have won many awards, and a major academic research study described them as “unsurpassed in changing behavior.”

David used this empowerment proficiency to conceive and organize at the height of the cold war, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund and ABC Television, one of the planet’s first major global consciousness-raising initiatives—the First Earth Run. Building on his background as the Director of the Lake Placid Olympic Torch Relay, he used the mythic power of relaying a torch of peace around the world to engage the participation of twenty-five million people in sixty-two countries, the world’s political leadership and, through the media, an estimated 20 percent of the planet’s population in an act of global unity. Millions of dollars were also raised as part of this event to help UNICEF provide care for the neediest children of the world.

David is the author of eleven books, including the award-winning Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World, and best-sellers Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5,000 Pounds and, with his wife Gail Straub, Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It. He co-directs Empowerment Institute’s School for Transformative Social Change which empowers change agents from around the world to design and implement cutting edge social innovations. He has lectured at Harvard, MIT, and Johns Hopkins and served as an advisor to the Clinton White House and the United Nations on behavior change and community empowerment issues.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

Sunday, May 26th @ 11:00am Pacific*; 12:00pm Mountain; 1:00pm Central; 2:00pm Eastern 

*Find Your Local Time

Please Note: There will be a limited number of lines available on the live conference call, so we encourage you to listen online if possible. To make sure you can get through by phone, we encourage you to dial in early.

ACCESS INSTRUCTIONS

• To listen live by phone, dial:  206-402-0100  (alternate #: 501-707-0312)
• Then, enter Access Code: 272072#
• To listen live online go to: http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventID=40928169
• To download the audio after the teleseminar is complete go to the Beyond Awakening Audio Page

Join the Dialogue: About one hour into the dialogue, we’ll open up the lines and you’ll have the opportunity to interact with us directly over the phone or via instant message. Here’s what to do:

To interact live by voice, dial into the conference line number and wait until we ask for a question from someone in your region, or

Send us your question via instant message in the teleseminar window on your computer

Send us your questions and comments before or during the live dialogue by posting them on our Beyond Awakening Community Facebook page

We look forward to your attendance!

Sincerely,
The Beyond Awakening Team

“The Path to Everything Good” is a riveting transmission of practical spiritual instruction, woven together with scientific and psychological insights, and grounded practical advice. Several listeners wrote to me that they plan to listen to this recording again and again. It’s that rich.

Dan speaks clearly and with great specificity and detail. In the process he does something I’ve never seen done quite so well. High Tibetan Buddhist “Mahamudra” practice (instead of seeming ornate and esoteric and complex) comes across clearly, simply, powerfully, and experientially. Listening to this conversation you may discover a Tibetan Buddhism you’ve never seen before.

In Tibetan Buddhism there’s a cultural convention against describing meditative attainments, but there’s an obscure tradition of “pointing out” instruction that speaks very specifically and in detail about what each stage of the practice is really like, and which offers very practical advice about how to progress, stage by stage, all the way to awakening.

Dan illuminated crucial aspects of the “three maps to awakening” of Tibetan Buddhist “Mahamudra”: 1) the process of building steadiness of concentration, 2) the practice of emptiness until there is stabilization of awakening, and 3) the practice of realizing full Buddhahood—“everything good”.

Dan pointed out that that there are 80 positive qualities of Buddha Mind, and that they can be consciously cultivated. This evolution of awakening practices (going from merely ending suffering to cultivating positivity) can be traced to the “second turning of the wheel of Dharma”—the evolution of Mahayana Buddhism. He likened each turning to a scientific revolution, bearing innovations, discoveries and insights that were absent from the prior stage. He outlined them for those unfamiliar with Buddhism

The First Turning concerns the Four Noble Truths, and liberation from suffering. Dukkha (the mind’s tendency to make more of what it wants and less of what it doesn’t want), Impermanence, and Anatta (no self) are the three insights to awakening on this path.

The Second Turning concerns Emptiness practice. After 500 years of the First Turning, a new insight sprung up —Emptiness, or “just a construction of mind.” Relative truth was distinguished, and the realization that to touch ultimate truth, you have to see beyond the reification of constructs, such as time.

The Third Turning, concerns the essence traditions and the idea that we are always, already awake as part of our hardwiring. The sun (awakening) always shines, but habits cloud over our Buddha nature. The practice is to clear up the clouds.

Dan points out that Westerners, so prone to distraction, need the “elephant path” (so called because training concentration is like training an elephant). He distinguished concentration from the practice of mindfulness, which is marked by a continuity of non-reactive awareness and no intensification. Dan called ADD “a metaphor for modern culture”. Even though highly skilled concentrators from the Tibetan tradition can do 7 things at once, most of us only think that we are “multitasking”. In reality, we are being distracted by each new task or stimulus and eroding the efficiency of our engagement with all of them.

But despite the fact that we are a highly distractible species, “the elephant can learn to settle down.” The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the part of the brain that’s activated in concentration. Because of the neuroplasticity of the brain, practicing the elephant path, increases the strength and volume of the ACC. Eventually with practice, you can stabilize concentration and sustain a capacity to pay careful attention, even in our ADD culture.

Dan discussed the sense of self too. It’s necessary and healthy as a central organizing principle, for coherence and continuity across time, space and state. The problem is that we forget that it’s a representation. There are two consequences to this forgetting:

1. “Grab” — we get severely attached to both negative and positive experiences which leads to suffering.

2. “Obscuration” — The structure of the mind, the self, becomes a cloud over the true nature of awareness. This obscures the “sun” of our primordial awareness and freedom, the most primary dimension of existence that exists beyond time.

Buddhist “Emptiness” practice is to stop thinking of these structures of the mind as independently existing. Then, you see something about the nature of awareness. He described a “high- speed awareness practice of unfindability” where we target the self, emotion, or time and roam the body and being in search of it, until it recedes from awareness. What’s left is the field of awareness itself.

When the Nagarjuna came along and turned the Dharma wheel, he took Emptiness one step further, with the insight that things seem to come and go because of time, which is a construct of mind. This insight means that if something arises, I take the view that it was already here. And if it goes, I take the view that it never leaves. Thus, everything is interconnected because it doesn’t operate temporally in time.

This “all-at-onceness” is the gateway to Mahayana, the Great Vehicle. And this will change your ethics because you become aware that everything you think and do affects everything in the field. All is interconnected. This is a profoundly different view of the universe than what came before.

Dan acknowledged that any experience of awakening is accompanied by deep compassion and spontaneous gratitude and devotion. However, he pointed out that it is not stable. One must engage in practices to nurture and stabilize it. So there’s another world of practices to bring that awakening to full Buddhahood. Still, for all of us, what’s built into the hard wiring of awakening is compassion and service for others. That is “the path to everything good.”

Toward the end of the dialog, a caller asked Dan to further elucidate the high speed awareness practice of, “Emptiness of Emotions”.  He responded by taking us through a powerful exercise of roaming through the body-mind for the underlying emotion. Following fear, we can come to the realization that fear is actually alertness.

The high point of the conversation for me came at the end, when Dan gave a gorgeous explication of the mantra of the Heart Sutra, wherein he outlined the whole path to awakening, hidden in plain sight, by the few poetic words of the mantra: “Gaté, Gaté, Paragaté, Parasamgaté. Bodhi! Svaha!”

I invite you to listen to the full dialog here.

Join us on Monday, May 6th at 5pm Pacific for a dialog with Daniel P. Brown entitled “The Path to Everything Good”.

I highly recommend you tune in to this dialog, for two important reasons:

First, Dan Brown is a remarkably erudite, compassionate, and articulate psychologist, Buddhist scholar, and meditation teacher, who very rarely gives public interviews. I’m excited and honored to invite you to encounter him.

Second, I’m confident you’ll gain valuable, deep insights from Dan’s discussion of the nitty-gritty step-by-step process of awakening as set forth in the Indo-Tibetan mediation tradition and rendered accessible in his precise, easy-to-understand language.

I had the opportunity to meet and to practice with Dan this past January when I participated in an extraordinary 8-day retreat he led with John Churchill in Boston, focused on the unique “Pointing Out Way” through which he introduces students to the high Tibetan pure consciousness practice called “Mahamudra”.

In addition to his illuminating lectures and guidance, I had several personal and wide-ranging conversations with Dan. We talked about many things, including the animating question of this series, “How can higher consciousness and spiritual practice enable human beings to rise to meet the unprecedented challenges of our time?”

Dan points out that each of the four primary levels of the Mahamudra path has something useful to say on this topic. His way of talking about it expresses his unique gift. Although he knows the ancient Tibetan teachings in detail (having translated many of the source texts) and he cleaves very closely to the tradition, he describes them in very clear, direct, no-nonsense language. He is an Irish working-class son turned world-class Harvard psychologist and sports fan, not an exotic person from a distant culture, so he is able to bring the precious gem of these teachings alive in a remarkably accessible way.

Here’s the essence of how Dan lays it out:

The first stage of the path is concentration, which is an antidote for the distractability that is epidemic in our lives now. We have become a culture of distractability. We multitask which creates the illusion of doing more but it costs us in terms of awareness, clarity, awakening and even ordinary productivity.

The second stage is basic emptiness training. Recognizing the emptiness of self and all that is arising helps us recognize and free ourselves from all the thoughts, feelings and experiences in everyday life that have “grab”, which is the cause of suffering in everyday life.

The third stage is understanding our profound interconnectedness with all of life. This is the basis of ethics, the transformation of competitiveness and aggression. When it truly shifts our perception, it’s an antidote for selfishness— the worldwide epidemic lack of consideration for others and the environment.

The fourth and ultimate stage is the fluorishing of everything good. This is “Buddha training”, the level of practice where you systematically release all negative karmic impressions from the “storehouse mind” until there are none left. That is “Dharmadhatu” or exhaustion, also called “the stainless mind”. It matures into a clean experience of life in which there are no more negative states at all, just the 80 positive qualities of a Buddha mind.

You’ll discover that there’s a whole path to Awakening available in the tradition of Buddhist meditation, much more deep and profound than many people realize. It goes far beyond just being less reactive and more calm and present. Mindfulness is important, but awakening and enlightenment are what changes everything.

About Dan Brown

Daniel Brown is the Director of The Center for Integrative Psychotherapy in Newton MA, an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and the author of 14 books including Transformations of Consciousness (with Ken Wilber & Jack Engler), a new book on Mahamudra,  Pointing Out the Great Way:, and two books of public dialogues with H.H. The Dalai Lama.

He has done extensive study in the Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan languages and has spent many years translating numerous important Tibetan meditation texts. He has studied meditation practice for 38 years, beginning with reading Patanjali’s Yogasutras and its main commentaries in the original Sanskrit, then studying Burmese Theravadin Buddhist mindfulness meditation, and then deepening via many practices across over three decades of dedicated practice in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

As a Western psychologist he spent 10 years translating conducting outcomes research on beginning and advanced meditators. He has taught meditation retreats for 20 years. He is also an internationally recognized expert on attachment, trauma, memory, and hypnosis.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

Monday, May 6th @ 5:00 PM Pacific*; 6:00pm Mountain; 7:00pm Central; 8:00pm Eastern

*Find Your Local Time

Please Note: There will be a limited number of lines available on the live conference call, so we encourage you to listen online if possible. To make sure you can get through by phone, we encourage you to dial in early.

ACCESS INSTRUCTIONS

• To listen live by phone, dial:  206-402-0100  (alternate #: 501-707-0312)
• Then, enter Access Code: 272072#
• To listen live online go to: http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventID=40742823
• To download the audio after the teleseminar is complete go to the Beyond Awakening Audio Page

Join the Dialogue: About one hour into the dialogue, we’ll open up the lines and you’ll have the opportunity to interact with us directly over the phone or via instant message. Here’s what to do:

To interact live by voice, dial into the conference line number and wait until we ask for a question from someone in your region, or

Send us your question via instant message in the teleseminar window on your computer

Send us your questions and comments before or during the live dialogue by posting them on our Beyond Awakening Community Facebook page

We look forward to your attendance!

Sincerely,
The Beyond Awakening Team