There is no way to peace, peace is the way.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Upcoming Events
Tue, 20 JanZoom MeetingChristic Belonging seeks to support diverse peoples in coming to know Jesus, to inquire deeply into a contemplative life where Christ is realized as the ineffable seamless reality of God, cosmos, humanity, and indeed everything.
Date and time is TBDZoom MeetingWe come together as a community of dharma friends to meditate and inquire into the nature of reality for the ultimate wellbeing of all. Informal and relaxed, spontaneous meditations and transmissions naturally unfold.
OUR MISSION
helping co-create all things anew
Awarezen exists to to help co-create all things anew. We do this by inviting awareness and compassion, joy and wisdom to manifest in human consciousness for this planet to become a just and hospitable home for all: saturated with life, love, and light in glorious hope for the new creation. Innovative and unconventional in both its interpretive and expressive aspects, Awarezen values deep critical inquiry over blind dogmatic belief of any persuasion, religious or secular.
Meditation Space
Awarezen is an online meditation space, offering distinctive signature programs free of charge. Individual consultation and mentoring customized to each person is available, for free. We are a community service, not a business. We do not commodify meditation and spirituality for money. We flow in the economy of gifts not profits. This practice is in accord with the ancient hallowed heritage of dana (generosity) found in Buddhist tradition.
Creative Missiology
Awarezen is an expression of "alternative missiological imaginary" (Duerksen 2022) that demonstrates creative "inreligionisation" (Tan 2022) but with a key difference: it is both a place where Dharma seekers belong to Christ and also a common ground where Buddhists and Christians as well as all religious believers, atheists, humanists, and the non-religious can join together in the third space of interspiritual participation. Everything and everyone belongs in this cosmotheandric reality where God, cosmos, and humanity are a seamless whole entwined in creative evolution (DeMoor, 2022). God integrally pervades yet transcends the multiverse.
Contemplative Community
Awarezen is also a contemplative community of grace committed to a culture of awakening and a civilization of love. We transcend divisions and binaries to explore the third space of interspiritual belonging. Multiple ways of belonging are celebrated, not feared and excised. We embrace the idea of an "amipotent" or maximally powerful God of non-controlling love in light of the ubiquitous problem of evil.
Cosmotheandric Vision
We are mindful of our deep participation in the "emerging wholeness of God, world, and humanity through the power of love in our scientific age." (Ilia Delio, Center for Christogenesis). We celebrate a mimetic, open and relational paradigm of creation and humanity woven into in the fabric of the divine (Rene Girard and Thomas Jay Oord). This is the cosmotheandric Christ (Raimon Panikkar) who is mysteriously pan-immanent and meta-transcendent.
Mutual Recursive Fulfilment
We embrace the dialogical space of nondual mutuality between Dharma and Christ. Nonduality here means that both Dharma and Christ share in the one taste of lucid emptiness. Mutuality means that Dharma and Christ are allegorically united in an ecstatic dance of mutual self-emptying love (kenosis). Awarezen enacts the recursive fulfilment of Dharma in Christ and Christ in the Dharma.
Ehipassiko "Come and See"
Even as we take Christ to be a transreligious reality and the highest good, Christ can be realized differently in different contexts: as Brahman or Dharma or Dao. We openly share our vision without any pressure to conform. The process of open inquiry, goodness, and love is what matters most. All can come and see reality for yourselves.
Christ as Guru:
Understanding the Christian Path from a Buddhist Perspective
2019 The Contemplary, Sydney, Australia
Listen here to audio recording of talk
Dr. Eva Natanya is a devout Roman Catholic theologian and dedicated Dzogchen contemplative trained in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist philosophy who engages in nuanced Buddhist-Christian dialogue that invites us beyond our comfort zones. Even as faith seeks understanding, new understandings inform and transform faith in surprising ways. Awarezen celebrates this process.
“In this talk, Dr. Eva Natanya sets a high yet attainable standard for what inter-contemplative dialogue between Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism might, and in her view, must look like. In starting with the question “What if Jesus had been born in India?” (a question she has carried on her contemplative journey for over twenty years), Dr. Natanya dives into the intricacies of how Christian theology developed out of both Hebrew and Greek thought, separating the essential from the provisional along the way. She then explores how the hallmark aspects of Tibetan Buddhism might be infused into Christian contemplative practice in a truly orthodox manner. By exploring the practical and philosophical nuances of both traditions, Dr. Natanya also draws attention to the ways in which these traditions do not easily “match up.” In so doing, she highlights the depth of intellectual and experiential understanding it takes to have a productive inter-contemplative dialogue between these two traditions. Such dialogues have the potential to bring us closer to the fullness of what our own traditions promise."
