Testimony

“By knowing how to relate fully with whatever tension occurs in your life, you learn to achieve relaxation. What a surprise!”

Meditation-in-Action

students practice in a 30-day deep retreat (2004)

I expect to contemplate Mudra Slogans and principles to my worldly experiences for the rest of my life.

Few programs have offered such a practical, grounded, step-by-step and usable tools for post-meditation.

Mudra showed me how to reorient me to each action of my life. I’m inspired now to look at each activity and become totally with it before going onto the next action.

Words cannot explain Mudra. But I learned to “lean in” to each moment, rather than pull back.

The Mudra approach to walking meditation will totally change the way I walk for the rest of my life.

I look forward to deepening my understand of Mudra tools and am curious to see how they can be applied.

Mudra’s approach to meditation-in-action is immediate, helpful and inspiring.

Mudra and Shambhala Buddhism


The Mudra experiences made me feel that I had a personal experience with Chogyam Trungpa and the outrageous, intense environments that he created.

Sensory Acuity Training

The sense perception exercises in our Mudra Clinics helped me to understand that I had never in my life made a direct relationship to any of my senses. But now I see that before I die a big challenge of my life is to get my ego out of the way of each of my senses, allowing me to experience it directly. I could never have imagined this without Mudra. Mudra taught me to listen.

The “Mudra Clinics” in which we explored how to relate with our senses, were potent, personal and pithy.

Sitting Meditation


After five years of meditation practice, I finally feel that I received from Mudra teachings the instructions needed to develop a strong and sustained sitting meditation practice.

Shamatha meditation and Mudra were perfect complements. Together, they made my shamatha more profound and accessible.

It has always been my understanding that thoughts and emotions can be worked with, not denied or rejected but actively brought into sitting meditation practice. It took Mudra to understand exactly how to bring this so called “confused mind” directly into my practice.

Finally, thanks to this program, “emptiness” and “nonself” have become experiences, not just something to read about. Mudra is a serious kick in the pants for Shamatha meditation Mudra taught me to “lean in” to my sitting meditation, to make it a more complete experience

Mudra combined with sitting meditation created a life-changing experience. Until I did this program, I realized that I have not been meditating but practicing meditation.

Community


Mudra is a group experience. It allows true bonds and trust to develop between meditators.

The Physical Training Aspect of Mudra


The “intensifications” were difficult at first but soon showed their value and created a bodily imprint that I will take into my life.

Mudra intensification exercises were my first experience in mixing a physical activity, like tensing the muscles, with an emotional activity, like expressing anger. It turns out that the combination of emotion and body training was very powerful and empowering. I want more!

Mudra intensifications helped fulfill my quest for greater discipline in my life. It wasn’t because I learned to crank up and grit my teeth and do something I didn’t like. But I learn to simply lean in to whatever I was avoiding.

At first I was intimidated by the intensification exercises, then resigned to them, then leaned in to them, then looked forward to what reaction I would have. Finally, they tought me how to be a warrior. Now want never to be without them.

Principles

This program gave me the understanding of how to pour everything into a moment. I knew that already but only conceptually.

Mudra taught me that I cannot progress in my meditation without also making a totally new relationship with space. My meditation should open up space, not close it down. I now know how to make that happen.

I now understand how gentleness and fearlessness are not just intellectual concepts but two aspects that are imbedded into my perceptions, the way I see and hear and experience my body. By separating out these two qualities and recombining them, I found these qualities in what I saw, heard and touched.

I hated the intensifications and I loved the intensifications and want to do them for the rest of my life.Although I’m not a tantic student, the intensifications gave me an glimpse of the energy of tantra. I’m now so curious and eager to press further into this realm.

The intensifications pushed my practice by teaching me how to hold my awareness even when I entered a raw and vulnerable space.

I was amazed at the visual exercises. I want to see like that all the time. The program was tightly packed between vigorous physical exercises, sitting, lectures and sensory exercises. Good rigor!

I learned that “compassion” and “emptiness” are not just abstract concepts but experiences that can arise in meditation-in-action.

Mudra allows people to find their edges and meet them.

Mudra gave me to confidence to “lean in” to my sitting meditation.

Mudra is directly related to the idea of “perceiving reality directly,” a concept that rings my bell every time I run across it. It seems we are talking about a whole other way of being in the world at a simple perceptual level and beyond. Wow!