Personal Vehicle: Dharma Foundations in the Nine Stages

Over this first year of coursework Dr. Churchill, and special guests will guide you through a systematic presentation of the Nine Stages of Maitreya, integrating Buddhist contemplative science with contemporary perspectives from psychology, tantric psycho-energetics, peak performance, neuroscience, and trauma research.

What are the Nine Stages of Maitreya?

According to tradition 1600 years ago the meditation adept Asanga travelled through the dimensions of our planet to Tushita, a heavenly realm, and developed an ongoing relationship with Maitreya, the advanced Bodhisattva, and future World Teacher. Maitreya transmitted a body of teachings to Asanga who taught them and integrated them into the Mahayana, the Buddhist universal teaching. The nine stages form a part of an untranslated text called the Yogacarabhumi. 

The nine stages are an educational journey in understanding, relating to, and taming the mind. The journey is both a meditative journey, and an initiatory journey into the path of the awakening hero; the Bodhisattva. By learning to let go of distractions in our lives we can begin to calmly stay on what is most meaningful to us. The nine stages are the training par excellence in peak performance supporting our personal, interpersonal, cultural and systemic engagement. As we become more unified within we are able to bring about unification in the world.

Universal Vehicle: Insight, Compassion, and The Field of InterBeing

The Planetary Tradition of the Christ-Bodhisattva recognizes that our struggle with complex relationall lives as the strongest influence on our health and happiness. Our continued alienation from each other, competitive behavior and interpersonal distrust makes deep heartfelt transformation challenging. Throughout the year we will together explore the transformative mind training practices of actualizing the bodhisattva way: generosity, ethics, patience, effort, meditation, wisdom, skillful means, higher accomplishments and awakened awareness itself.

Drawing upon the insight practices from the Theravada, Mahayana, Great Seal and Great Perfection traditions this year’s meditative curriculum reveals the wisdom heart of non-dual being and its relationship with the our development and maturity as soul. We will come to understand soul as the bodhisattva intermediary between our personality structures and non-dual awareness. This understanding of the importance of soul as an aggregate vehicle of expression integrates Developmental Psychology, and Western esoteric knowledge to complement Buddhist Contemplative Psychology.

There are two cycles of meditative training: the Mind Cycle and Open Ground Cycle. In the Mind Cycle insight practices into the fundamental openness of experience addresses the cognitive reification caused by language, somatic experience, self-structure, perceptual-duality, space-time, and the individual subjectivity of the attentional system. The Open Ground cycle that follows is a somatic approach to stabilizing the non-dual essence of mind. Through addressing the traumatic separation between the mind, body, and the world this more receptive feminine approach reveals the profound loving support of the fundamental ground of experience (the mother consciousness). As we surrender into the larger field of sacred life the recognition of Christ-consciousness/Buddha-nature becomes stable and simple.

Mind: MahaKriya Father Tantra: The Inspirational Transformation of Self through Heroic Journeying

As we continue the heroic journey together we integrate the practices learnt in the first two years, but now the emphasis is on the process of transforming the self from our conventional personality structure to the bodhisattva-warrior avatar. This phase works particularly with creation stage of envisioning, and the purification and development of the pranic-nadi (energy channel) system. This outer phase of process practice (tantra) works particularly with the transformation of aversion, the fight/flight system, the transmutation of the traumatic victim-perpetrator bond in the psyche, and the freeing up of the outer body armor that maintains the neurotic personality structure. Through theoretically and experientially understanding the value of the neurobiology of anger the path of post-traumatic growth is catalyzed through the discovery of wrathful compassion and its passion and focused dedication.

This integration of the psychological shadow r­­elated to the Dark Masculine and its violence, sublimates and integrates sub-minds that have unable to be integrated through more peaceful practices. The Planetary Dharma approach integrates the Hindu yogic insight into the subtle energy chakra system, with the alchemical understanding of the Indo-Tibetan Father & Maha Tantras, and the Kriya yoga practice approach of the Sikh Kundalini Tradition.

A foundation in alchemical theory and method will be taught so the student learns the right use of diet, fasting, herbal supplementation, breathing, exercise and life style through which they can individualize the practice curriculum.

This level of training includes working with mudra, the energetic and symbolic use of posture and gestures designed for psychological transformation through channeling pranic energy, and intention. The training also includes working with the power of sound through chants, tones and vocal harmonics designed for transformational and curative purposes.

Through integrating our inner shadow the bodhisattva is now able to awaken to the planetary shadow and can participate more consciously in activism in the physical and subtle realms. As such, the bodhisattva is awakening as a heroic altruist with a mission of cultural contribution, and as a magician with the authentic expression of fierce compassion and the capacity to evoke synchronicity in the service of the Whole. As community we continue to develop and practice working together as a group and developing the coherent group intelligence and new communication styles characteristic of the metaware bodhisattva collective.

For those interested a supplemental Psychedelic Dharma track will be offered. This track teaches the student the skillful use of legal plant medicines to deepen personal healing, flourishing and growth.

Bliss: Anu Yoga Mother Tantra: The Depth of Human Happiness

Our practice is now supported by calm-staying, devotion to the bodhisattva code, recognition of non-dual awareness, the awakening of the sacred warrior archetype and the transformation of traumatic fight-flight conditioning into vitality. As such, we are now ready to enter the alchemical vessel of Dark Mother process practice, the transformation of erotic desire into the primordial and blissfully compassionate openness of experience. Here we journey with the great love realizers such as Rumi, Jesus, and Mirabai learning to take the world as a beloved.

Cultivating the devotional wisdom-fire (kundalini) is the foundational process practice of the Dark Mother. It gives us: the strength to remove the outer obstacles in our life, reduces the causes of bodily sickness by strengthening our energy (prana), digestive fire (tejas) and hormonal potency (ojas), burns up obscuring negative emotions, and generates blissful states that can support non-conceptual stillness of mind conducive to deep meditation on the clear light openness of our essential nature. Through the alchemical art of sublimation that we begin in Year 3 our stress is transformed through working with the physical body, subtle body, breath, and visualization. In doing so we learn to access the nervous system’s blissful network, discovering that our body is a source of clean energy, pure chemistry, and inspiration. Through learning to evoke the blissful chemistry of the Mother’s mammalian diving reflex, and orgasmic release we will become stronger and more empowered to step further forward in service to our planet as bodhisattva heroic altruists.