Dear Dream Tending Community,
Engagement and activism are the pulse moving through the collective field. If you are feeling a sense of inner movement, we are too. In the Dream Tending Method, we use discomfort to find the inner resource.
When I was traveling in Bangkok, Thailand, I went to visit a Buddha. This Buddha is 9’8” tall and had been covered in mud and plaster. As the story goes, in 1957 a group of monks were moving their monastery and with it, the Buddha statue. As they were moving the statue, they noticed cracks in the Buddha. Through the cracks, gold shone through. As they started to chip away at the mud and plaster coating, what they discovered was a brilliant, luminous 5.5-ton Golden Buddha worth approximately 250 million in gold.
The statue was thought to have been built in 1403 and was much revered. In 1757 the Burmese Army invaded. Before the monks were killed by the Burmese Army, they covered the Golden Buddha in mud and plaster to create what appeared to be of lesser value so that it would not be stolen.
The story of the Golden Buddha reminds us that under the mud there are cracks through which our brilliant, golden inner essence shines. When we tap into engagement and activism, we emerge and find inner empowerment.
Coming Into Awareness of Your Inner Gold Exercise:
1) Sit in a quiet place.
2) Close your eyes or look down over your nose.
3) Take a few deep breaths. Perhaps place your hands over your heart.
4) As you exhale, feel the layers of mud or muck leave your body. As you inhale, let a beautiful golden light populate around your heart space. Feel the temperature of this light; notice the body sensation as the light grows around your heart.
5) Notice and stay with the breath and bathe in the golden light of your being’s most pure essence.
Warmly,
Alia Aizenstat, LMFT
Executive Director, Dream Tending
Volume XXXXI – Emergence and Empowerment
Inside The Curious Mind
This is a quote that resonated with me this week…
Learn the Power, Purpose and Intelligence of Dreams
Unleash your creativity and innate genius
Stephen Aizenstat
Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D., is the founder of Dream Tending, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and the Academy of Imaginal Arts and Sciences. He is a world-renowned professor of depth psychology, an imagination specialist, and an innovator. He has served as an organizational consultant to major companies and institutions, and as a depth psychological content advisor to Hollywood film makers. He has lectured extensively in the U.S., Asia, and Europe. He is affiliated with the Earth Charter International project through the United Nations, where he has spoken. Professor Aizenstat is the Chancellor Emeritus and Founding President of Pacifica Graduate Institute. He has collaborated with many notable masters in the field including Joseph Campbell, James Hillman, Marion Woodman, and Robert Johnson.
