In the Heart Sutra of the Prajna Paramita tradition, one of Buddhism’s most renowned teachings, the great bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara says to Shariputra:
Jennifer WelwoodForm is emptiness;
Emptiness itself is form;
Emptiness is no other than form;
Form is no other than emptiness.
Jennifer Welwood, MA, MFT, has been a spiritual practitioner since 1970, and a psychotherapist since 1987 (currently inactive). She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University, and her graduate degree from the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Jennifer’s first spiritual tradition was Kriya Yoga, a path of nondual tantric Shaivism in the lineage of Babaji Nagaraj and the 18 Tamil Yoga Siddhas. Her primary tradition since 1986 has been Vajrayana, or tantric Buddhism, and her teachers include Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. She also feels a deep affinity with the evolutionary perspective of Sri Aurobindo, and with the esoteric heart of all traditions.
Jennifer was propelled onto the spiritual path at the age of 15 by the sudden and unexpected death of a close friend, which catalyzed a profound recognition of impermanence and a yearning for that which cannot be lost. She became a psychotherapist after repeatedly experiencing, in both teachers and students, a lack of integration that often seemed to accompany even genuine spiritual development, and the harm that such lack of integration could cause.
Her life purpose since then has been to bring together psychological and spiritual work in the service of realizing and embodying our essential nature––finding our intrinsic nature while unwinding our conditioned patterning––and she has been leading retreats, seminars, and ongoing groups dedicated to this work since 1988.
http://jenniferwelwood.com/biography/
Unconditional
Opening to my loss,
Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game;
To play it is purest delight;
To honor it’s form – true devotion.
On Meeting Death
Tonight, Pluto, with the crescent moon as my witness,
I welcome you as my lover.
If you have come to break down my door,
See, I have opened it,
And wait here for you at its threshold.
If you have come to tear off my clothes,
I have flung them aside already,
And stand naked, shivering gladly.
If you have come to hurl me into the abyss,
Watch now, as I release all false supports, one by one,
And fall toward you in ecstasy.
Hear this, Pluto, lord of transformative fire:
What you have come to take from me, I offer you.
Transformative Fire
Jennifer WelwoodThere is a great fire that longs to burn you —
Don’t let fear imagine a separation.
It is only yourself, burning for the truth,
The truth burning for itself.
Knowing this, give yourself, without reservation:
In ecstasy the fire burns.
http://jenniferwelwood.com/poetry/
Stephanie Doty
Women’s Issues Matter
July 26, 2014
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
