Wednesday, 28 July 2010 18:25 Written by Lezlie Laws

Lezlie Laws

Summary of Sabbatical Activities

May 2009-July 2010

MAY 2009-JULY 2010 > Intensive immersion in classical ashtanga yoga (the eight-limbed path).  Time requirement for this training is a minimum of 25 hours a week and includes:

- daily study of the sutras & wisdom traditions

- daily meditation

- asana practice 5-6 times/week

- teacher-training 6-8 hours/week

- teaching class 2 times/week

JUNE

New website established and blog up and running.

(www.lezlielaws.com)

The experiences of the sabbatical will be chronicled in this site.

AUGUST

August 18 > Begin 12 week meditation workshop with Peter Carlson of Orlando

Insight Meditation Society.

Began teaching yoga classes at College Park Yoga.

SEPTEMBER

September 19 > Conducted all-day workshop with Phil Deaver for MAD about

Words:  the Galloway Room on the Rollins campus. 

“Seven Challenges to the Writer’s Practice.”

OCTOBER

October 24-25 Attended Wellness and Writing Conference in Atlanta

                              Presented 90-minute workshop on RCC study.

October 31 > Attended an all-day workshop given by author Richard Goodman on

writing memoir.  Sponsored by MAD about Words.

NOVEMBER

November 12-14 > Took a three-day teacher-training workshop with Beryl Bender Birch.

November 18-21 > Integral Life Practice Retreat.

Facilitated a 4-day retreat on meditation and the work of Andrew Cohen, spiritual teacher and leading voice in the subject of the evolution of consciousness.  Kissimmee, Florida.

DECEMBER           

December pretty much wiped out with health issues.  I have been diagnosed with ductal carcinoma and will have surgery on Jan. 14, 2010.

Things fall apart.

December 12 > Attended day-long meditation retreat at Insight Orlando.

JANUARY 2010

Jan 2-9, 2010 Attended meditation retreat led by Peter Carlson of Orlando Insight Meditation Group.  Ithiel, Florida.

Jan 13, submitted Individual Development Grant to attend Yoga As Muse Facilitator Training in August 2010.  (Denied.)

January pretty much wiped out with health issues.  Surgery for breast cancer on January 14.  The rest of the month spent recovering.  Not a fun month—nor a productive one.

FEBRUARY

Feb. 6 – April 3, 2010   Began a nine week tele-course on “Awakening to an Evolutionary Relationship to Life,” produced by Integral Enlightenment and facilitated by Craig Hamilton.  Sessions every Saturday, followed by Q&A every Sunday.

Feb. 27, 2010  Began conducting monthly meetings of Integral Life Practice, Orlando Tribe. 

MARCH

March 3-April 6   Participated in month-long teacher-training in yoga and nutrition at College Park Yoga.

March 8, 15, 22, 29  Took course on Buddhist Meditation:  The Noble Eightfold Path.

            Peter Carlson of Orlando Insight Meditation

March 14-20, 2010   Attended Yoga as Muse Writing Retreat in Taos, NM

APRIL

April 9, Fell down the stairs spraining my right ankle and breaking my foot.  April a challenging month. 

MAY

May 1 Facilitated monthly discussion group of the Orlando Integral Life Practice Group.

May 4   World Spirituality:  Spirit’s Next Move, a 14 week Tele-seminar Series

May 14-18  Attended five-day yoga teacher-training workshop with Beryl Bender Birch, College Park Yoga, Orlando

May 21-24 Attended 4-day workshop on QI Revolution (qigong), Orlando Convention Center

JUNE

Edited the manuscript of Twelve Doors.

June 14 - July 19  The Evolutionary’s Guide to Changing the World:  Applying the Principles of an Evolutionary Worldview.

 A 6-week Virtual Course offered through EnlightenNext.org. 

Facilitator:  Andrew Cohen.

JULY

Copy editing and working on layout of Twelve Doors.

Writing Annual Faculty Report.

AUGUST

August 16  Return to regular duties.

Friday, 07 May 2010 13:54 Written by Lezlie Laws

I know of no single thing more conducive to great harm than the unrestrained mind.   – the Buddha

I’m wondering if I need to stop reading for a while.  Every day for the last twenty years or so, I have spent the first two hours of my morning reading widely in the wisdom traditions.  I have immersed myself primarily in Buddhism, Buddhist thought, and transpersonal psychology.  I gobble up the texts, trying to find peace, understanding, contentment.  I’m greedy to know.  No, I’m almost frantic to know.  And recently, a sense of urgency has pervaded my mind and my body.  When am I going to get what I’ve been reading?  When does understanding descend?   It does not feel good. All this advice has my head spinning, my heart pulled in all directions.  Is this a message?  Does my body know something that my mind can’t fathom?

     At the root of all this reading is the sense that somewhere out there I’m going to get the Big Secret.  I’m going to find the methods that will release me from feeling lost, or lonely, or unworthy.  And today marks a full year of intense study.  Am I any closer to where I want to be?  Or to where I thought I should be?  Or, as I fear, am I schizophrenic?  One day I’m calm, accepting, happy even.  The next day I’m anxious, confused, directionless, filled with doubts.  Everyone has a solution.  Who to believe?  What is right?

    So after a year (a life time) of trudging down paths lined with the wisdom of others, maybe it’s time to trust my own connection to wisdom.  This might be May’s lesson: put your books aside.  Zen monk and poet Seido Ray Ronci says, “It’s only when you realize that language is secondary, a step removed, that you begin to make poems.”  Maybe this is true of making peace too.  Language can only take us so far, right?  Have I been seeking in words what words cannot offer?  Ronci says, “To use words, you have to live life beyond words, before words, without words.”   

      It’s May.  I flip another page of the perpetual calendar.  The days keep coming.  How are you doing with your days, I ask?  The pendulum swings.  I step out of my head and decide it’s time to be in experience instead of thinking about experience.  Lay bricks.  Dig dirt.  Bake bread.  Dip into water.   Ronci says, “Truth is not to be found in words.”

Saturday, 01 May 2010 13:59 Written by Lezlie Laws

Last may, when I started fifteen months of sabbatical, one of my primary objectives was to dispatch Twelve Doors as quickly as possible.  The manuscript was roughed out—or so I thought.  I wanted to spiff it up and mark a thick, black line through it on the sabbatical “to do” list.  I wanted to move on to the next project. A couple of months of work, I thought.  No problem. 

      And now, here I am one full year later, still working on it, still troubled by it.  It will not be dispatched.  It is with me all the time. It pops itself rudely into conversations with mere acquaintances.  It leers over my shoulder every time I sit at the computer.  It sleeps with me nuzzling itself into the small of my back, and enters even my pleasant dreams. And when I meditate, it chatters and taunts me relentlessly. 

     I'm paying attention.  There are issues in life—our life lessons—that simply will not be dispatched.  Pema Chodron says, “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”  And so I ask Twelve Doors, “What do I need to know?  What are you here to teach me?"

     And this too:   in what other areas of my life does something refuse to be dispatched? A leak in the roof.  A hostile former lover.  A broken foot.  A broken heart.  Where is there work to be done before I clear something out of the way? 

Sunday, 18 April 2010 19:15 Written by Lezlie Laws

What is an “evolutionary teacher”?  She believes that all human beings, no matter what age, have a deep yearning to rise up out of their currant state of awareness, especially if that state is marked by conditioning that causes suffering, to a higher level marked by authenticity and freedom. An evolutionary teacher is primarily concerned with the state of a person’s awareness.  At what level of awareness and responsibility is this student conscious?  Because she believes profoundly in the possibility of transformation, her role is to create conditions whereby awareness can rise. There are many ways in which this might happen, but the evolutionary teacher believes the following principles are vital.

1.  We are all connected to everything.

2.  Human consciousness plays a causal role in the unfolding of reality.

3.  Loving someone changes their ability and willingness to grow.

4.  The intention or expectation of one person can affect another person without any conscious mediation between them.

5.  Humans grow, develop, and evolve through a collective and collaborative effort.

6.  Successful, expansive, satisfying lives are built upon attention to something greater than a small “me” story.

7.  The earlier a person can discover and become committed to “significance” (rather than success) the better.  An evolutionary teacher wants to help students cultivate an awareness of something significant in life so that they have a broader and more enduring impact on material success.

8.  Students learn more from observing the qualities and focus of a teacher’s life than from the content of a teacher’s knowledge.

9.  Every human being is passionately interested in answering the big questions:  Who am I?  Why am I here? What am I to do with my life?

10.  We can help answer these questions by exploring our culturally conditioned ways of relating to life, self, world, culture, and cosmos.

11.  Our goal is to first help ourselves then our students transform from whatever structure or state we’re at to the next higher, wider, deeper state or stage.

12.  Such transformation happens through dynamic, creative friction, or as Andrew Cohen says, “creative conflict and positive friction.”