There are two sides to the metaphor of a razor’s edge. On one side is duality and on the other side is non-duality. When we’re born, we’re in a state of relaxed well-being and can see clearly for a period of time. Then we discover that we can fall off the razor’s edge. This occurs when our attention is taken from us through identification, attachment, comparison, and our stories. Prior to losing our attention, we are thrust into survival and lose trust. We are conditioned not to look at ourselves but are trained to focus on our faults. Self-hatred starts as children when we think we’re the center of the universe and that we're at fault when things go wrong. When our attention is stolen, we cannot access our intuition. But if we begin to look inside ourselves, we see power and clarity. The clearer we see ourselves, the more we can trust ourselves. We can be trustworthy if we know ways that we are untrustworthy. If we know our boundaries and who we are, we know who others are as well and can accept them as they are. There are a lot of reasons why we might feel badly. If we can keep our attention on the sensations of the body, we will get the information we need. To get back on the razor’s edge, we have to relax, let go of what weighs us down, and trust that we will be looked after even if what life provides may not always be what we want. The journey of self-discovery is akin to a razor’s edge. The fact that the razor’s edge is narrow means that we have to pay attention when walking on it. It is dangerous when our attention is taken since then we are not in touch with reality. We need to reclaim our attention which is all we have or the most important thing we have. The distinction between self-observation and self-remembering is explored. Juanita Violini is an artist and writer/producer of interactive mystery entertainment who has been a student of the spiritual path for over 35 years.

This talk emphasizes what we can use from Dune for our own personal evolution or transformation. Science fiction explores archetypes and mythic structures and can help us consider what it means to be human. Twilight language, which permeates Dune, is the way that mystics and shamans speak, which requires a different state of consciousness to understand. Frank Herbert creates a world that leaves out a lot of details so that our imagination is engaged to fill in the gaps in spinning the Dune universe for ourselves. There are major themes threaded through the series of books that can be of spiritual value to reflect upon: the complex relationship we have with human heroes and saviors, how power corrupts and attracts the corruptible, taking what is good in religion but avoiding what is deleterious, being careful when the need for religion becomes fanatical, trusting the guidance of someone who is more advanced without giving over all our critical faculties, differences in human and animal nature, learning how to learn, sacrificing the comfort of the worldview we’ve been given and raised with to enter a path of conscious evolution, the value in training awareness and attention, how the stasis of dogmatic fixed ideas can lead to manipulation and death, respect for resources, gathering energies that can be used for higher purposes and transformation, how self-indulgence is at the core of much evil in the world, restraint as a virtue that is based on self-observation, warriorship as the readiness to respond when necessity arises regardless of mood, the tension between the moral law we live under and the necessity of circumstance, how each experience carries its lesson, the convergence of choice and destiny, and the ultimate responsibility we have for ourselves. Bandhu Dunham is the author of Creative Life and an internationally recognized glass artist and teacher.

Zazen is a practice that involves the body in ways such as working with the breath. Joshu Sasaki Roshi came up with the phrase, “Buddha is the center of gravity.” Rooting ourselves to the earth through the hara, the abdominal area, is an aspect of Chan or Chinese Buddhism that came to be known as Zen in Japan. We unconsciously absorb negativity that denigrates the body in our culture. There is a symbiotic relationship between spirit and the body in ancient systems like yoga, tai chi, and qigong. There is a traditional analogy of a chariot (the body), horses (our will and energy), driver (the ego that is in connection with the world), and passenger (the Self or witness). The ego needs direction from the Self. When we get beyond busy-ness we can hear the messages of the Self and the body. In Buddhism, it is not desire but unexamined desire that is suffering. The vessel has been referred to as the receptacle of the soul. Do we relate to the vessel with tenderness or judgment? Judgment pops up over and over; it is ingrained and patterned in our bodies. With deep meditation experience we understand that we’re not just the human body. In spiritual practice, relationship to the body is often ignored. The Middle Way does not deny or punish the body with ascetic practice and does not indulge the body. This way has got to look different today than when Buddha lived in 500 B.C. The focus on the evolution of consciousness can last right up to the end of our lives. A koan is a practice of a dying activity meant to dissolve the sense of a separate self. When we have compassion for ourselves, it spills out to other people. Myosho Ginny Matthews was a student of Joshu Sasaki Roshi for 40 years. She took lay ordination in 2000, leads retreats on practice, is a dance teacher and choreographer, and is featured in the book, The Unknown She: Eight Faces of an Emerging Consciousness.