• ABOUT ADYA
    ABOUT ADYA

    ABOUT ADYA

    Adyashanti (whose name means “primordial peace”) is an American-born spiritual teacher who has been teaching for 26 years. His teachings include evening meetings, weekend intensives, silent retreats, live internet broadcasts, and online courses. He has taught throughout the US and also in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, and Australia. More than 30,000 people in 120 countries are connected to his website through free email subscription. He is the author of eleven books.

    Born Stephen Gray in 1962 in Cupertino, California, Adyashanti grew up as an athlete and competitive bicycle racer. At age 19, he became interested in enlightenment, began to meditate, and became fully absorbed in a quest for ultimate truth. . . .

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  • SUNDAY COMMUNITY PRACTICE
    SUNDAY COMMUNITY PRACTICE

    Sunday Community Practice meets live online twice a month for deep spiritual practice and inquiry. Each practice is two hours and includes meditation and a talk by Mukti. Check our program calendar to see future session dates and which teacher will be leading.

    Time: 9:00–11:00 am PT. (Preprogram meditation at 8:00 am PT)

    We offer two options for participation:

    Monthly Subscription ($25/month) which includes:

    • Access to two live Sunday online practices each month.
    • Replay video or download audio of any Sunday practice that airs during or after the month you joined. (Note: replays are available within one week of each Sunday practice, and expire after three months.)
    • Monthly subscription is recurring and will be charged on the 2nd day of each month.
    • Cancel subscription for future months at any time by logging in to your account. (Current month is not refunded.)
    • Scholarship applications accepted.

    Single Practice Registration ($15) which includes:

    • Access to one live Sunday practice, to be viewed at the time of the broadcast. (Note: replays are NOT included with this option.)

    REGISTER NOW

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  • SUBSCRIBE
    SUBSCRIBE

    Subscribe to Our Programs

    THE STREAM

    Stream eight AUDIO recordings each month from Adya’s media area and access your selected recordings as often as you like in the same month!

    • Purchase and download audio recordings from your current monthly selections for 50% off.
    • Stream either single talks or broadcasts.
    • $15/month

    READ DETAILS & JOIN HERE

    YOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP

    Membership Programs on Adya’s YouTube channel allow us to make available a selection of full-length video teachings not previously accessible other than by purchasing them in our online store.

    • Basic Membership: $4.99/month
    • Membership Plus: $9.99/month

    LEARN MORE & SUBSCRIBE

    RECEIVE OUR NEWSLETTER & EMAIL UPDATES

    SIGN UP

    Please note: If you already have an account, see “Stay Connected” in your account area to update.

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FEATURED WRITING

Return

Winter has come to the Sierra Nevada Mountain range where Mukti and I live, bringing with it snow, cold temperatures, and the unadorned beauty of nature shedding its spring and summer blooms and returning to its winter roots. The aspen trees in the canyon are bare now, having lost all of their yellow and golden fall leaves weeks ago, and the pines in the high country are heavy with glittering cotton candy snow, clutching to the branches and outstretched pine needles. The bears have all gone into hibernation by now, and the deer are quietly making their way down from the high meadows and streams to lower slopes in search of food. And as I shoveled a few feet of newly fallen snow from the steps leading to the front door, I was pulled into the spirit of nature’s winter return all around me.

Each one of us is as much a part of nature and the natural world as hibernating bears, deer on the move, or a cold winter...

Winter has come to the Sierra Nevada Mountain range where Mukti and I live, bringing with it snow, cold temperatures, and the unadorned beauty of nature shedding its spring and summer blooms and returning to its winter roots. The aspen trees in the canyon are bare now, having lost all of their yellow and golden fall leaves weeks ago, and the pines in the high country are heavy with glittering cotton candy snow, clutching to the branches and outstretched pine needles. The bears have all gone into hibernation by now, and the deer are quietly making their way down from the high meadows and streams to lower slopes in search of food. And as I shoveled a few feet of newly fallen snow from the steps leading to the front door, I was pulled into the spirit of nature’s winter return all around me.

Each one of us is as much a part of nature and the natural world as hibernating bears, deer on the move, or a cold winter storm moving in over the horizon. And yet even though we insulate ourselves from so many of the ways of nature, we ourselves are nature, and we reflect, in our consciousness, the same rhythms and patterns as the natural world all around us. If you are paying attention, you can feel the pattern of return and restoration during these winter months. You can also feel the natural movement of falling away and surrender that happens each and every winter, as the leaves fall from the trees and the blooms relinquish their petals to the forest floor to become nutrients for the re-emergence of new blooms in the spring. We are of course conditioned to look at new and pretty things, but all of life’s beauty arises from the primordial ground beyond all names and forms. If nothing falls away, there will be no room or energy for the new, the transformational, the life-giving renewal of spirit deep in the heart of everything.

This new year, I will be returning to teaching after a year-long sabbatical. My sabbatical has been a year of continuous return, of withering down to the essential. There is an old Zen saying that goes, “on the withered branch, a flower blooms.” Like all things Zen, great insight is conveyed in the most simple and natural forms of expression and with the minimum of explanation. We all like beautiful flowers, but conveniently dismiss the withered branches from which they arise and express.

The western mind is allured and attached to all things spring and summer, but the roots of wisdom and insight are forged in the withering and return of winter. The sun gods of various religions have always been popular throughout history; they are the charismatic superstars of mythology. But every sun god arises from the primordial ground, where, as Meister Eckhart said, “distinction never gazed.” Winter is itself a metaphor for “where distinction never gazed.” But winter is more than a metaphor, it is a material living expression of life’s return. Winter is the process of life casting off what is no longer essential or life-sustaining, renewing itself by a return to the essential, the core, the root of all that we are.

By joining with the natural movement of winter, and allowing the return of our consciousness to its roots in the primordial, the essential, the unconscious ground of all being, we not only awaken but we also nurture the dynamic and creative aspect of spirit by plunging it into its silent source. A source that can be realized but never turned into the known. So, let us embrace the wintertime of spirituality, and the great return to the essential, and to a mind that is not stuck in its own imagined knowing, thereby always being open to reality as reality.

© Adyashanti 2022

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FEATURED PROGRAM
Sunday Community Practice& Holiday Celebration
Online with Mukti and Adya

Sunday, December 15, 2024

9:00-11:30 am PT

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FEATURED PROGRAM

Join Us for Our Sunday Community Practice and Holiday Celebration!

This holiday-themed celebration will begin with a greeting from Mukti and Adya, followed by a guided meditation led by Adya. The program will also include separate talks by both Mukti and Adya, two brief musical interludes, and some caroling.