I. Let’s jump right in.
Wise, caring, real, hilarious, Susan Piver clarifies crucial aspects of practice here. Welcome into an engaging conversation with a wise teacher whom I’ve known for twenty-plus years.
Context first. Studying our conditioning is the activity of practice; we sit, open, attune, examine gently (and with kindness) today’s delusions and opinions. Allow them to move through. Illuminate and shed them.
And we practice because we LOVE, as my teacher reminds, because when delusions disappear, the natural mind reveals itself (1). The book at the heart of our conversation strikes this same chord; seeing our habit energies with compassion, growing that compassion until it suffuses how we see everything, both within and around us.
This conversation grew from that same ground.
II. The Book.
The Buddhist Enneagram brings together two fields of deep wisdom, inviting us to shake off complacency and loosen the grip of our opinions, delusions, misperceptions. Studying this book, I find myself locating my dearest humans and my own confusion with a heart-mind of compassion, care.
Learning the points on the circle is helping me to embrace past errors, missteps, choices. I’m just a human with tendencies, and with this body of work from Susan, I’m invited to relax into the truth of things, to see each one of those moments and choices as doorways, and walk right through.
Loved this conversation, honored to share it with you.
III. From Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, on putting our ear to the moment. With thanks to my teacher for her words and sharing of this poem in a recent dharma talk (note, talks begin with sitting for fifteen minutes. Talk begins at 28:00), worth watching, free on YouTube through Upaya’s channel.
Even now, imagine, we could step through
one of the infinite doors of the moment
and find ourselves in another life—
repairing a net on the banks of a vast river
or herding cattle down a two-lane highway.
Standing in line a block from a soup kitchen
or guarding the entrance to the Forbidden City.
Instead, we are here in the lives we inhabit
But press your ear to the other doors. Hear
the traffic. The sobbing. A swelling of symphony.
Gunshot. Thunder of feet. The whimper of an infant.
The world enters us in waves, waves that seep
through the doors and we wade in them.
Wading, we come to know there is no way
to not be touched by every other life,
no matter how distant. If you put your ear
to the moment, sometimes you can hear
every other ear listening for what you will do next. (2)
A live course with Susan, supplemented by the material in the book, incorporate eight nurturing, supportive LIVE hours with her on each of the facets of the enneagram, at this link.
Code ELENAENNEAGRAM means 20% off the course.
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Thank you Kemi Nekvapil, Megan Youngmee, Katharine Beckett Winship, Florence Acosta, Claire Machado, and others for tuning into our live video. Thank you Susan Piver for your trust and skillfulness.
Join me for my next live video in the app.
References
(1) Song of the Jewel Mirror Awareness.
(2) Soundbath, by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
