Late Spring Session:

May 1 to June 5

Our Taoist tradition considers Compassion, Universal Love, and qualities such as Kindness and Caring to be naturally occurring energies found throughout the universe.  

Through the practice of Dragon & Tiger we can learn to perceive, generate, give and receive these energies. Eventually we can learn to pull them into and infuse every cell of our bodies, and from our bodies send them out to every corner of the universe.

DRAGON & TIGER’S SOURCE IN TAOISM AND BUDDHISM

Although Dragon & Tiger is most commonly practiced today for health and relaxation, it has deep roots in the spiritual traditions of both Taoism and Buddhism.

Dragon & Tiger’s kinesthetic orientation to bringing the body and its energies into balance indicates that it was developed by Taoists. Yet the oral history of our tradition says that for 1500 years it was held and practiced in China’s Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of Chan Buddhism. 

Only in the 1940s did a Shaolin monk teach the system to someone outside the Temple. A woman practitioner of Chinese Medicine named Zhang Jia Hua received it from her uncle. She then taught it publicly in China, including to our teacher Bruce Frantzis.

To bring things full circle, Bruce and his Taoist teacher Liu Hung Chieh - who was also a highly accomplished practitioner of Buddhism - then integrated it into our Taoist Water Tradition of qigong and meditation.

Cultivation of Compassion and Loving Kindness with the wish that all sentient beings benefit is central to Buddhist meditation. Many practices exist for sending and receiving Compassion, sometimes using the medium of the breath, sometimes using visualization or imagination, and always training the mind toward it.

The practice of sending and receiving Compassion through Dragon & Tiger as taught to us by Bruce follows the Taoist principle of making the body itself conscious. While we begin with an intention to feel, send and receive Compassion, we ultimately develop a felt experience of it deeper and deeper within the body itself until we literally embody its energy. In each move of Dragon & Tiger we continuously exchange it, first with our immediate surroundings, and ultimately with the whole universe.

WHAT WE WILL EXPLORE IN THIS SERIES

In this series you will learn how to practice Dragon & Tiger as a means of embodying Compassion, Kindness, Caring, or Love. We will learn how to use conscious intent to feel for these energies, both in our bodies and all around us. Each session we may choose a different energy to work with as well as explore a different facet of this practice.

Subjects may include:

• Absorbing and releasing Compassion or related energies through the breath, hands, feet, eyes, and lower dantian
  

• Pushing and pulling these energies along the pathways
  

• Exchanging these energies with Earth

When we practice Dragon & Tiger or any form of qigong, we always do so with some intent. Some of our intent may be conscious, e.g. to become healthier, or to feel and have more chi. Some may be unconscious, e.g. to boost our ego or to reinforce our emotional patterning or belief systems.

If we can learn to become more conscious of our underlying intent for our Dragon & Tiger practice, we can make choices to develop and embody those energies and qualities such as Compassion that we wish to manifest in our daily lives.

Bruce’s teacher Liu taught, “You become what you practice”.

LATE SPRING SESSION - May 1 to June 5

Format: In-person.

Prerequisites

To enroll you must have studied the Dragon & Tiger Refinements Series 2, 3, or 4 material.  We will be drawing on the skills learned and practiced in these courses.

Instructor

Kathryn Komidar

Class time

Thursdays 1:45 - 3 p.m.

Dates

6 weeks, May 1 to June 5.

Cost

There is no fee for the Embodying Compassion Through D&T Class.

You may choose to offer a sliding scale donation of any amount for Kathryn’s time and teachings.

The suggested donation is $130 - $160. ($160 is the normal cost for a 6-week course. $130 is the normal cost with a multiple course discount). But please donate more or less as you like or can afford.

All donations will go to The Four Corners Foundation, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization founded in 1976 to preserve the Vajrayana lineage traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and to support the health, education, and welfare of Tibetan children, nuns, monks and lay people in need.

Specifically, the Holy Caves of Padmasambhava Fund supports the community of the late Lama Wangdor Rinpoche in Tso Pema, northern India, including practitioners doing retreat in the caves above Lotus Lake, and children and nuns who have fled Tibet.

Kathryn is a student of this tradition as well as of the Taoist Water Tradition. In 2013-14 she spent 2 months in Tso Pema studying with Wangdor Rinpoche and Lama Lena and living with and learning from the Tibetan Buddhist community in exile there.

It is a place of great spiritual wealth, of incredible fortitude, kindness, generosity, and acceptance that all that life presents is an opportunity for waking up spiritually. It is also a place of great challenge - poverty, malnutrition, illness, and loss of homeland.

Kathryn is honored to be able to give something back to Lama Wangdor’s community in Tso Pema which lives and breathes Compassion.

Signing Up for the Course and Donations:

Once we are sure that we are running the course, we will provide information about how to sign up for it and make a donation if you wish.