meditation

listening to stillness

I hope you are well and stopping ever so often to ground and breathe.  Listen to the songs and calls of birds.  Or watch a cloud for awhile.  Hug a tree.  Feel the interconnectedness of us all as we face our uncertainty.  My old climbing buddy used to say, "Hard tellin not knowin."  We are together in the times of not knowing.

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Patty is a lifelong spiritual practitioner.  At a young age, trees and candles provided her first concentration objects. She moved on to study of The Tibetan Book of the Dead in the '60s.  Then she discovered Suzuki Roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and began to sit more formally on a cushion.  She attended Sunday sits at Green Gulch Zen Center north of San Francisco in the 1970s.

Her study and practice of Vipassana meditation began in the 1980's upon reading Stephen Levine's book, Who Dies? after a series of personal losses.  Since then she has meditated with Burmese, Thai, Vietnamese, and American teachers.  Rodney Smith of Seattle has been her primary teacher for over the last 20 years.

  Another important influence on Patty's path has been the non-dual teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and others. One of the present-day personifications of these is the teacher, Adyashanti, and another non-dual teacher is Miranda MacPherson, https://www.mirandamacpherson.com/.
And as well, the Yoga Sutra of Pantanjali provides guidance on the spiritual path.  Nature and wilderness have offered some of her most profound insights into the terrible beauty of impermanence.