#123 John J. Prendergast
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Michael Reiley: Welcome back to the show. This is Michael Reiley. Before we begin today's episode, I want to take a moment to say that if you would like to support this podcast and the mission of Science and Nonduality, please consider becoming a SAND member. In addition to supporting this podcast and the production of films like The Wisdom of Trauma and Where Olive Trees Weep and our monthly community gatherings.
You'll gain access to our SAND member library with hundreds of videos from SAND's 15 year history of conferences, webinars, and courses. Visit scienceandnonduality. com slash join or find a link in the show notes. Today, I'm in conversation with frequent SANS speaker and contributor, John J. Prendergast.
John J. Prendergast, PhD, is a spiritual teacher, author, and retired psychotherapist. And he's a retired adjunct professor of psychology who has taught at Esalen, and Kripalu, and also online. He studied many years with the sage Dr. Jean Klein and with spiritual teacher Adyashanti. He's the author of books such as Touch, The Deep Heart, and Your Deepest Ground, a guide to embodied spirituality.
His new book, which we discuss at length in this episode, touching into the themes of the art of listening, The path of the heart, embodiment, spiritual transformation, waking down, Jung and collective unconsciousness, spiritual bypassing, and engaged, embodied nonduality. All today on the Sounds of SAND podcast presented by Science and Nonduality.
I'm here with John Prendergrast on the Sounds of SAND podcast Thanks for being With us today, John.
John J. Prendergast: It's a pleasure.
Michael Reiley: As I was saying before we pressed record, I just read your new book and I'm really happy to get into that.
But one thing I wanted to ask about, which I was really struck by is the name of your website. listening from silence. So I was wondering where that title came from and how that kind of encapsulates your work.
John J. Prendergast: Good question. No one's ever asked me that. Probably, I created the website probably 15 years ago before I did any books and really was doing any teaching at that time. I was doing academic teaching. I was an adjunct faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies, teaching on the master's level counseling students.
And I was working as a depth psychotherapist, and so I was teaching a class called The Art of Listening. And I found in my many decades of work as a depth psychotherapist, I'm retired now, that really the essential quality of these meetings was the ability to listen from silence. In other words so often we come in with preconceived ideas of what needs attention and how to respond and and some need to perform.
And really the essence is openness. Complete openness and willing to a willingness to listen and listening has many different levels to it. We can listen on a mental or cognitive level. We can listen on an emotional level. We can listen on a subtle somatic. At an energetic level and we can listen from being itself or from the most profound silence.
And so in my course called the art of listening we explored that really what that art is of being really fully available and available in a multidimensional way that would bring forward the experience of the person that you're listening to. And so that was the origin of the website name.
There was something, it was much more about the principle and the process of openness and listening that I wanted to accent much more than this particular person. So that was another aspect why I didn't use my name in particular.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Beautiful. All of that resonates deeply with me. And I love that title too, because it leaves so much space for the person coming to the website because it's an invitation for listening. And so you have the new book Your Deepest Ground, but I was wondering, because I know in the introduction to the book, you talk about this sort of map of these last three books that you've written. Could you mind outlining these three books and how this path presented itself for this most recent book?
John J. Prendergast: Yeah. My first book is called In Touch. All the books are by Sounds True and the first book came out in 2015. And that was actually a book that had been gestating for almost a decade because I was trying to, I was having this experience sitting with people of having a felt sense, a whole body sense of shifts and openings that were happening that I couldn't quite articulate what it was that I was experiencing.
And what I came and that's why it took so long actually to write the book is because I actually needed to come to the understanding that I was having a felt sense of what I would call our deepest knowing or true nature beginning to unfold. And Eugene Gendelin, who had developed felt sensing as an approach and focusing had talked about felt sensing in terms of sensing particular subjects, particular moods, but he hadn't talked about the sensing of openness itself.
The sensing of true nature. And I realized, this is what I was experiencing. And the first book in touch is really about the sense of inner knowing. And in it I talk about four main experiential categories that happen as people begin to open to true nature. And one of them is an openness of the heart.
They begin as they become more authentic, more attuned, more intimate with themselves, just very naturally the heart area opens and it's felt as warmth or radiance in the center of the chance chest and the central qualities of the heart, such as generosity, Gratitude, appreciation, compassion, these would just start, upwelling and flowering.
So that was one quality. Another quality was a feeling of spaciousness, openness. People would just feel themselves as if surrounded by and in. Another was a sense of inner alignment and align, aliveness. People would just sit up naturally and feel a sense. They would speak of a sense of being aligned within themselves and more alive.
At the same time, so alignment and aliveness were core qualities and finally a sense of settling very deeply, a very deep relaxation and a sense of more and more intimacy with the ground. So those were the four elements that I articulated in the first book, In Touch. And once I finished that, I realized I wanted to write a book more specifically about several of these qualities.
One was of the heart and one was of the ground. And I thought I would do a book on both. heart in the ground. But I had a very interesting conversation with Tammy Simon, who's the publisher of Sounds True. And she was interviewing me about another series that they were doing on awakening. And at the, before we began the formal interview, she said, Oh, John, you've got a couple of books in you, don't you?
She was keenly attuned that way. And I realized that's true. It's not one book. It's two. And so I emailed her and I presented this idea of two books, the first being the Deep Heart. So that book came out at the end of 2019. And that's really about the heart center as a portal. to our true nature as a multi dimensional portal, one that has personal egoic levels very early childhood levels of conditioning around worthiness and lovability and self esteem, soulful levels which are more archetypal and essential qualities of being, some of which I enumerated.
And this quality of universal which is not personal, but comes through a particular individual. So the heart center is a portal to this deep knowing and sense of feeling. So that was the second book, The Deep Heart. And then I knew after writing that, okay, there's one more here. And about the ground.
But the ground is, I would say, the subtlest of subjects. And the reason being is because it's largely unconscious. And very instinctual. And very few spiritual traditions are specifically describe it in a way I think that Westerners and I think all people really can relate to. You'll see, you'll find generalized descriptions, ground of being, or depth, or something like that.
But there's a whole energetic component, the lower half of the body, the hara, the lower three energy centers, the sense of feeling connected to the body and to the earth and even something deeper which I call the ground of being or the groundless ground, which I felt hadn't been well articulated and which I found in a way was the most important subject.
In my work with people. So I've worked, I've worked as a depth psychotherapist, as I mentioned, now retired. So I've worked for four decades with people and doing very deep work. And what I had discovered was that in the process of really embodying awakening, Not just in the mind, not just in the heart, but in the full body, really landing here.
This area was least developed and it creates a kind of instability. So the essential quality of opening to the ground is that of stability, a spacious stability, and it provides a foundation for the heart to flower. And for the mind to retain its clarity. Otherwise, we get hijacked by instinctual energies.
And often in relationship, these get, these get activated. And people lose touch. With the depths of the heart. The third book, Your Deepest Ground, is about this process of awakening down. Really allowing attention and awareness to fully move down through the whole body. So that we feel we're deeply inhabiting the body.
We're not, it's not about transcending, it's not about going somewhere else, it's not about avoiding it's not about bypassing, it's about fully landing here, in the center of our human life, as open, loving awareness. So this is what the third book is about, and so it's like a trilogy. For me, it's, it feels like my life offering I don't feel any movement to write after this.
I think, other subjects are well covered by other authors, but this one feels, has a groundbreaking quality and I think, and the reason I did it is to be of service to others to share the insights that I've had working individually, in small groups, and now in large groups.
Michael Reiley: Sometimes, I meet online with hundreds of people and we'll do very brief, but very deep explorations about the nature of the ground. So that's an overarching. view of this unfolding.
Yeah. It strikes me that there's a trajectory there, as you described chronologically, but it's like once one awakens to the embodied sense of the ground, then you can retake that path back up and feel into the heart and what you're talking about in touch. No,
John J. Prendergast: it stabilizes and supports the flowering and the unfolding of the heart and the mind. I will add one other point, which is that yes, this work is based, has been based on my work with others, but it also reflects my own journey of discovery. And so this has been the last area to, I would say, awaken in my case.
And I wasn't, I was only dimly aware of the importance. Of the Hara meaning belly in Japanese until about 20 years ago. And I was on retreat with Adyashanti. And he was talking about the Hara and and just a light went on. It's oh, this is the next journey, next step and stage of the journey.
And that catalyzed this whole process of opening to the ground. And I'll mention one other thing here but what I realized there was a point I wanted to touch on in writing this third book. So I began to write it about four years ago. Three, four years ago, and I was writing an introduction.
It got longer and longer. It was getting unwieldy. And and I started chapter one. And I wrote one page and I couldn't write anymore. It was like an inner voice just said, stop. And I listened to that, and it's that's interesting. And it's stopping itself, the whole process.
And it's what is this about? And what I realized is. There was an area of the ground that I needed to know better within myself and in order to write about it and sharing with others. And that was actually the archetypal level. And I realized I needed to go back to Carl Jung's work and his work with the underground, which had struck me very deeply when I was in graduate school.
I'd read his his memoir Memory Streams Reflections and been very touched by it. And so I stopped writing for a year and I dove into Jung, and into his memoir, into his Red Book, into other of his writings about other authors.
And it filled out an understanding experientially here. In myself, but also in a way it felt there was this intermediate archetypal realm that I needed to better understand viscerally and in order to share with readers as well. So I have a particular chapter on Carl Jung and also his meeting or avoidance of a meeting with Ramana Maharshi in India in the 1930s, as you read. just recently. So that was a new, really a new addition to this.
Michael Reiley: It seems like such a daunting task to write about something as subtle as the ground and the subconscious. Once you start to name things and codify it, it's, it feels very ephemeral. So how was that process for you? What was the writing process of becoming embodied and really grounding in as you would write?
John J. Prendergast: Once this piece was resolved, that I just described, it was actually quite fluent and easy. It was, there was, when I write, it's it's a pretty effortless process. It's not as if, I'm channeling anything and it all comes out perfectly, but there's the sense of just openness and fluidity.
And so the book came, it unfolds itself and it's a process of discovery. I have a general idea of the outline and, of course, I had sent it to Sounds True to get their approval. So I had, I enunciated themes. I had chapter outlines, but the book will take shape of its own. It's very interesting.
It's a living thing. And as I'm writing the book, I'm also feeling the book writing me in a way, and particularly, in this way of dealing with archetypes. So it's a process of discovery and refinement. And it's actually for me quite enjoyable. There's something not, there's something about writing that is it's important to be clear, but also important to be, to can I say to have it infused with beauty,
To have to find a metaphor that sings, that, and of course metaphor is when we're dealing with, when we're dealing with the unconscious are a much better mode.
much more evocative and sensitive mode to communicate with. And so it's interesting to wait for the right metaphor, or at least the right metaphor for me in that moment to arise. And I've learned to trust that in the process of writing these books. The first book I in touch, I was learning how to write for a popular readership rather than an academic one.
I'd done some academic writing before. So I was learning. But after that, learning how to write in that style, it's been quite fluid and fluent. In a way, very satisfying. There's a sense of completion, a sense of being well used. I would say
Michael Reiley: And this opening to the unconscious, and you mentioned Jung a few minutes ago. So I'm curious to what extent is the ground transpersonal how much of it is our collective unconscious and patterns of our family and our society that are here in this thing we refer to as the self as a separate individual self, but it's really this interconnected web.
John J. Prendergast: very much an interconnected web and how much of it this is the interesting thing. I found that they're like the heart. The ground is multi dimensional. So there is a level that is personal has to do with our own particular conditioning. In our family of origin and in our culture, ways that we've internalized a view of ourself and others and very specifically impacts, particularly around survival issues.
So it could be trauma or attachment related issues, whether we felt safe and secure and loved. That kind of early attachment material or whether there have been significant traumas. And those traumas can be cultural, of course, people in Gaza, for instance, there's just, this is going to be generations of trauma for them as well.
And of course, Jewish people before them were traumatized. So we see these cycles of reactivity getting played out. So what I have found in my work with people. is there is a kind of descent and the descent is same with the heart. It's like level one, if we could say and this is rather artificial because they interact with each other.
They're not that discreet, but for the sake of some clarity of teaching, we can say that there are three fundamental levels. The first is personal conditioning. And there is then collective levels that you were alluding to. And it's very interesting as the personal, it's not a hard and fast rule, but very often as there's a significant resolution of personal issues, then the transpersonal material begins to appear, the collective, the ancestral.
It's not unusual as people really go dive deeply that they begin to tap into these lineages. Very often of trauma, not just trauma, of course, but a lot of pain and suffering from our ancestors and from whatever racial and ethnic and gender related groups we may affiliate with. And those can, come up in a very powerful way.
And they need to be received with loving awareness. And in that mode of welcoming into presence, there is an, and just taking careful note as that arises, there's a natural release process that is supported and engendered. And it's very beautiful to see what feels like a rippling effect backwards through the ancestors.
It's almost like the ancestors are waiting for us to resolve these traumas. Because we, they've been handed down these kind of psychic heirlooms, these, and they are like compact or like in these, chests, old drawers and chests and, or comp, compartmentalized aspects of the psyche.
tightly held in the right atmosphere with the right quality of attention and awareness, they begin to unpack themselves. That's true on a personal level. That's true on a transpersonal and collective level. And we realize, as you were suggesting, Michael, we are so interconnected, with our ancestors in particular, but more broadly with the human experience and also with all living beings. And so our sensitivity opens. We feel the impact on the planet of this, utterly unsustainable way of living and the degradation of, species and, diversity. And all of that starts to come into conscious awareness more clearly. So that's that's that kind of transpersonal level.
And as you, you experience there are these elements that arise. that I associate with essential qualities of being also. That is to say and some are very specific to our personality. So as this archetypal level begins to emerge, our sense of direction in life, It feels like it's coming from a much deeper underground sense rather than some, cultural, mental ideal.
So we may be moved to follow a stream as an artist or as a healer or as a leader as a nurturer, whatever these kind of deep movements are. We feel part of something much greater and we feel qualities of being, love, wisdom, courage much more accessible as well. So we understand why there is, a fascination with the transpersonal level as well, and we see that in shamanic people who are interested in shamanic traditions and so on.
There is then a deeper level yet, and that is what I would call the ground of being, and it's almost like. There's no longer any form, any definition any identifiable quality or quantity, but there's simply pure existence, pure being, if you will. And that feels like our deepest ground. And as that opens, And as I speak, I'm speaking not just about this, but from this.
I can, I just mentioned that now because I can feel this descent of awareness as I described with you. And you may feel it too.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. I do.
John J. Prendergast: sometimes it's resonant. It's like there's this, ooooh, like dropping. All the way down and it's not like we land on something, but it's like we know ourselves as this openness at first.
It has a a vertical dimension to it as if beneath the body as if it's a space below the body. And then as we acclimate, we feel it globally. It's 360 all around. And we and it's very paradoxical, to talk about it as ground even so that you have, phrases like groundless ground, what could that be grounded being, it sounds very abstract, but it is directly experiential and what it brings as this opens.
And this has been the last to open for me. It's a sense of all is well, no matter what. And it's not in denial of, the tremendous suffering that we individually and collectively experience as human beings. But it's some foundational sense of being that we feel holds it all. It's equivalent to what I talk about as the deep heart in my prior book.
There's a universal loving awareness. That is, everything is an expression of, more or less consciously. But it's a deep sense of stability and spaciousness and sense of well being. And that holds and supports everything. So those are the dimensions of that I'm talking about. And yes, it's subtle.
For some people it's like, what is he talking about? I have no idea. And probably 20 years ago or 30 years ago, I would have been pretty clueless about this. But for others, particularly, I think, for people either who have a deep love. of true nature and that precedes any particular practice.
It's intuitive. They just, there's something like wanting to know the depths of their being or people who've been on the path and done a lot of work on themselves. This this domain will be will be palpable and visceral. Now one of the things in the book is because I know this is the hardest and subtlest area to contact.
I, I do offer a lot of questions to sit with and meditations, to actually have a more intimate exploration of this domain.
Michael Reiley: Mhm. Yes. Oh, wow. There was a lot there.
John J. Prendergast: Indeed.
Michael Reiley: yeah because I was feeling it, I would like to maybe return to what you conceptually you would feel like, okay, that this will be the end of the conversation. We'll talk about the groundless ground. But when you talked about. the felt sense of the, of below the body dropping out.
It was really, it was a, it was a exciting and exhilarating. And I often think of the universe as, the current creation myth, the big bang, and there's like this explosion and all of reality. continuous reality started there, as far as we know, in our current model. And we're at the edge of that, we're like on the edge of this expanding sphere of space time.
And somehow that felt reversed when you were talking about that that we're at this, leading edge of what's unfolding, and we can turn it back around and see it all. And that's our deepest connection, this isness, the suchness of our shared reality.
John J. Prendergast: It's a beautiful metaphor. Very apt. So we're retracing our steps, in a way, to the primal creation. And so it's very, for me, that's a very resonant metaphor that you're sharing. The kind of retracing the Big Bang. Deeper and deeper to the primal formlessness from which it arose.
And as our investigation gets very subtle, we can begin to sense a tremendous aliveness. And I think that's the excitement that you're feeling. It's like bottom falls out. Whoa, there's a lot of energy here, a lot of energy. And this is a very interesting phenomena. Energetically, what's happening?
Is like the energy center at the base of the spine, the root chakra, is opening. And it, and, which is all around survival fear. And as it opens, we move out of our conventional understanding of what's safe and what's unsafe. Belonging and not belonging. And we open to a universal dimension. And of formlessness.
Which is pure potentiality. Pure potentiality. Everything is there prior to form, about to manifest. And so we feel, as this opens, as the body, the human body system, the subtle system opens, we're tapping into what I call the current of life. A very primal current that's not personal. We have the sense, and I can't prove this, that we're tapping into a life current that's shared by all living beings.
And it has tremendous creative power to it. And it's a power that's not personal. It comes through us, and It has the, it has, unlike willful power, which is egoic and individual it's not interested in outcomes. It's not, it's interested, but not attached to outcomes. It has a quality of spontaneity, of flow of creativity of love to it and a very deep sense of aliveness that's not dependent on circumstances.
And normally as human beings, we love to be, interact with other people and go to beautiful places and have pleasant and stimulating experiences, all of which is very human and normal, but this is like not dependent on anything. This feels like it's in the core of our being and we're tapping into something shared by everyone.
So it has a universality to it. And interestingly, as this opens within us, we feel it. We recognize it in others and it invites itself forward in the same way that it's happening in this conversation right now.
Michael Reiley: And I'm just zooming out or zooming to a different perspective, because I worry that people might hear this and perceive some form of spiritual bypassing, that it will say, okay, these guys are just talking about energy and meditation. And, what about you alluded to this earlier.
It's not to negate. All of this idea that everything will be okay in the longer trans personal existence realm. But there is so much grief and sadness and things that are happening,
John J. Prendergast: Absolutely. Tremendous suffering. Tremendous suffering. I think I think it's the opposite of bypassing, actually. It's really about as I was suggesting earlier, Michael, it's really about landing here fully. And that receptivity, that sense of openness to things as they are, is foundational for actually a creative response to that suffering. In other words, it's not about, being out of here and being a distant witness or saying that's all illusion or maya and don't get involved. It's not that at all. It's no, this is me. It's all me, and how do I want to read? First, I opened to how it is rather than arguing with it.
And then secondly, how do I respond? What is, how do I respond with wisdom and love that actually is transformative and maybe whatever the scale is, if it's on a personal scale, it's a conflict with someone we love. a friend or a lover, how do I respond in a way that's actually facilitative and creative rather than in a cycle of reaction? If it's on a group level, if it's on a level of a nation of conflict, how can I be available? How can I support? And, as one individual, we have limited capacity. What group can I join that shares these qualities? Of, say, encouraging understanding, empathy, dialogue forgiveness that's redemptive in its approach to life.
So it's not a stepping away from life, it's a stepping right into the heart of life. And I'm very interested, this is, I'm describing an embodied non dual approach to life. But I would add another adjective, which would be an engaged, embodied, non dual approach. Because the engagement has been a missing part in non dual teachings, because traditionally they've been more renunciate, more, a distant witness and in that sense they've been only partially true, and I think incomplete.
And for me, my work, because I have worked with tremendous amounts of suffering, individual suffering, but suffering from the collective. From ancestral, so it feels like I've gone to hell again and again with people, visited them in their darkest places, the greatest suffering.
And if those places can be received from open, loving awareness, they can transform. It's the more ignorant we are, the more suffering we generate. The more awake we are, the more loving, love and wisdom we share spontaneously in the world.
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So for me, this is this is a very grounded, intimate approach to spirituality, not up and out.
I was very much an up and out guy originally, I didn't when I first got started, I'm in my mid seventies now. So when my, when I started meditating 55 years ago, I didn't quite know what I was after, but some idea of freedom and well being, and I could feel immediately a sense of spaciousness.
That was great. And I do long retreats. I became a meditation teacher. But I didn't do so well in relationships. And I realized there was an anxiety here. There was a sense of insecurity and I was fine on retreat. I was fine on my Zafu, but put me in a intimate human relationship. And it's Ooh, I don't, I was anxious.
And so I realized I asked, I need to look at myself here. I need to exempt, which brought me into the field of psychology, psychotherapy, and so for me, it's about the embrace of everything and not separating divine from human spirit from matter. But it's like seeing how it's all an expression of that and intimate expression and embrace and bringing that into presence.
Michael Reiley: Yes. Very well said. And yeah very important. There's engaged Buddhism and compassionate Christianity. And I think at SAND we've been feeling into this and through the films that Zaya and Maurizio are producing this this importance of, yeah, being a part of the world and opening that ear of the heart to be able to really hear all the cries of the suffering of the world and not turn away and go inward or check out, like you
John J. Prendergast: Absolutely. It's like heartbreak is inevitable. If we're a human being.
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We will be heartbroken. And the breaking of the heart is an interesting theme because as we open up, we actually experience we're more sensitive, as I was suggesting earlier we feel the suffering of others individually and collectively.
And and it is heartbreaking. And in that sense, our hearts need to break open again and again. And there is a depth of the heart that is unbreakable. There is a depth of the heart that is profoundly resilient. It's not personal, but it's beyond the personal, has a universal quality and that holds it all, and I think of the image of the Pieta of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, it's just like in arms of compassion, Michelangelo's incredible sculpture, it's like that, the evocation of the divine mother.
It has that feel, just to put an image to it doesn't require that you believe in the divine mother.
Michael Reiley: No, we had an episode with Mirabai Starr maybe a year and a half ago, and that same metaphor came up. We were talking about the same exact thing and that
John J. Prendergast: Yeah.
Michael Reiley: Finding the connection of whatever it is in our lives that we feel can hold it all, whether that's nature, sometimes we get overwhelmed with imagery on our computers And phones or whatever and news of the world, it feels so overwhelming, but then you can go for a walk in the forest and have that feeling that you were alluding to earlier that everything's going to be okay.
Whatever happens to the species that we are and all of the wars and things that are happening, somehow it'll, it will go on what we're connected to. Yeah.
John J. Prendergast: There is that sense of underlying continuity and we do our best, it's like that doesn't mean that we sit back and do nothing, but we find our own creative contribution, find the group, find the particular cause that really speaks to us and wholeheartedly.
invest in that too. Yeah. Both are important. Both are important.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. I think your book and the whole importance of embodied spirituality is a perfect anecdote to what, is loosely referred to as mindfulness, that sort of Western mindfulness practice, which is very much a neck up practice. For people that, are not familiar with embodied spirituality.
What are some techniques or what's a good entryway doorway to realize the power of embodiment?
John J. Prendergast: Beautiful question. Very interesting. First I would say mindfulness, I think as it's conventionally maybe practiced and maybe understood does tend to be more on the mental level. In terms of gaining clarity, being able to witness thoughts and observe ones, scan the body and be aware of sensations and so on as it deepens, and I think there's been an evolution in this field as well, there's been more accenting.
compassion, the importance of compassion and heartfelt qualities. And it's the deepest level. If you go to some mindfulness practitioners, it is deeply embodied. So I would just add that I want to respect that tradition and the depths that it's capable of. That said is there.
Is there a distinctive methodology associated with a more embodied approach? Probably one of the most important things is to is to first question who is it that's trying to get somewhere and where is it we're trying to get? In other words, the presumption of the seeker. And in the awakening, embodied awakening approach, the first step is more accenting the awakening.
It's like the inquiry who do I really need to change anything? Do I really need to go anywhere? That's so much the seeking strategic mind, trying to attain something, trying to go somewhere because the foundational teaching is it's here. It's all here now. There is a, you are whole and complete as you are.
Yes, you're conditioned. Yes, you're wounded. We all are, myself included. And there is an intrinsic implicit wholeness. Okay. And so relax. We relax the seeking mode. We relax the trying to get somewhere mode. And it's more of a resting back in and as awareness. Now that first step has a way of unhooking from our thoughts. And so it does have, it's more, it is more on a mental level. But what that allows as we begin to see all the seeking, modality of the strategic mind and no longer identify with it, there's more and more a sense of freedom and attention actually can naturally drop down and in, and will tend to drop next into the heart area. And so I talk about this in the deep heart, and so there's I think an embodied approach. Investigates our core limiting beliefs, and that's not unique, that in many traditions, but very often our separate sense of self is constructed around the self worldview around core limiting beliefs and their attendant reactive feelings and somatic contractions.
So there's a whole process, deep process of self inquiry here about recognizing and seeing through core limiting beliefs. and accepting our feelings and our sensations just as they are. So now that there's a sense of more just recognition, presence is always here. Awareness is always here. We can rest back, attune with this.
We can welcome feelings and sensations into that without an agenda to fix or change them. This is very important because usually, with psychological approaches and even in mindfulness approaches, there are subtle agendas to fix or change our experience. And in this approach, it's like presence itself has no agenda to fix or change anything. However, it is implicitly a kind of transformative field. And so by welcoming whatever feelings, whatever sensations, shame, rage, guilt feelings of deficiency terror into this, they naturally begin to transform. So we're not trying to manipulate our experience, we're not trying to get somewhere, we're actually fully receiving and allowing our experience.
And in that allowing, there's a natural unfolding. And that supports the embodiment. process. Depending on our conditioning, it takes more or less time for that process to happen. And there's just a natural deepening through the heart area, in the center of worthiness and lovability, and then down into the guts, into the belly, into the pelvic bowl all this, more instinctual areas of power and sexuality and survival.
Same process of welcoming. Our conditioned experience and with curiosity and affection without an agenda for it to change. So this, I would say to summarize and this, I'm describing my own approach here. So it's not exhaustive or by any means, but to recognize our core limiting beliefs, see and see through them, our core limiting beliefs using our deepest knowing, our heartfelt wisdom.
What is my deepest knowing about this? It's not as a question for the mind. really, but a question for our deepest knowing. What is the truth? And then being quiet, and this is for listeners, maybe as a, just introduction. It's okay, I am, I'm a worthless human being, or I'm not enough.
What's my deepest knowing about that? Be quiet. And you'll notice a felt sense emerging. It may be a slight opening, a warmth, some shift or radiance, an image, a word. It's very important to let that in, and what happens is the system begins to trans transform. There's an influx of information and energy that, in the meeting of the con unconditioned with the conditioned, a transformational process happens, a re a natural release.
And so that's on a cognitive level and conscious and subconscious working with core limiting beliefs. And then working sometimes our experience, particularly when it's very deeply embedded from early childhood is not localized so much cognitively, but more somatically, energetically and in the body and emotionally.
And that's simply about, welcoming that into presence and being with that. And sometimes we need another person there to help support that process because it was overwhelming and chaotic. early on. It was too much to deal with. There's a role really for attuned presence of another person, interpersonal work here, either with a counselor or therapist or some supportive friend who can hold space.
So I find these are the important ingredients. And then, and again, resting in and out of awareness, like that's foundational. And that sense of awareness, Sense of presence deepens and steadies in this process of embodiment.
Michael Reiley: . I feel the presence you're describing and the openness as being of presence circles back to what we talked about in the beginning of listening from silence.
John J. Prendergast: It does. That's right.
Michael Reiley: it's like the metaphor of listening to music in a noisy classroom. club maybe where people are drinking and everyone's walking around and talking and music's happening in the background or being in, where everyone's completely in silence and everyone's really attuned to the music that's happening.
Just how much more rich of a sonic experience that is when we're listening in that way.
John J. Prendergast: Exactly. Yeah. It's a, again, a beautiful metaphor, Michael. It's very much like that. It's an attunement, really. This is a path of, not a path of effort not a path of attainment. It's a path of deep listening. and attuning. And yes, a little bit of effort just in terms of an initial focus, but primarily not.
Much more of an orienting, attuning, listening, opening, receiving. The receiving is very important. This is where transformation happens. We're opening to another, deeper dimensions of our being. And it's like we're letting in, a much deeper dimension of understanding and of feeling. And it's as if the conditioned body mind starts to become infused with that.
And that's where the transformation is. It's like the light of awareness. Imbues or penetrates the conditioned body mind. This is big picture and in, in the same way we're at a beautiful concert where everyone's attuned and we re, receive the beauty of the music and we feel ourselves moved in a deep way or touched in a deep way that we can't, specifically articulate, but we can sense.
It's a very parallel process. So the difference is rather than letting in, the music, we're actually letting in presence and the implicit intelligence the loving awareness, the kindness that is, is an awareness itself or foundational nature.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. And the way your book is framed it's very much, obviously it's a book, so it's something someone's doing by themselves. They're reading it and practicing the meditations and all, but how important do you think it is when we talk about this collective healing and this reopening, this reawakening to presence to do this in community in a sangha or, some kind of group.
John J. Prendergast: Yeah, another. That's another important question. It's quite helpful, I would say, and it accelerates the process. So I've noticed, for instance, when I do online teaching or in person residential courses, I teach with my wife also in the residential courses. There's a very catalytic effect of having a group together.
Yeah. Yeah. particularly when there's an accent on authenticity and vulnerability. It's okay, we're not here to what compete.
We're here to be real, and if you're interested in really deepening in your self intimacy, that's going to require authenticity and vulnerability.
And sometimes that may look pretty raw. In the process of opening, not that you have to, there's no like demand, you have to show up in any particular way, but it's an invitation just to be real. And to trust yourself as your experience emerges. It's an incredible how quickly that creates a sense of safety in the field.
And so for instance, if as a group, we sit with a question like what happens if you let go very simple, or what is the deepest nature of your heart, or what is the deepest nature of the ground or who are you really? Don't think about it. Be quiet. Let it come to you. These kinds of essential questions.
It's when you're in a field of other people and someone says, Oh my God, I discovered I'm not who I think I am. Or it's like something happened in my heart and this terror or the ground and a terror emerged and yet somehow it was okay. Or, I felt this tremendous shame and then realized who I am is prior to that.
It just like ripples through the whole group. And it's like popcorn. It's like someone else's me too. I felt like I was just listening to myself. So on different, we know that within psychotherapy groups, when you have a group that's oriented towards deepest nature and embodiment, it includes that dimension too.
And coming together as a group, and it was true for me, I would say the most powerful catalytic experiences I had were always on retreat. When I was with one of my teachers, Jean Klein or Ajay Shanti. Yes, sitting on my own was useful, and a regular practice for most people is quite useful. But being on retreat together, I found was just exponentially more powerful.
And then at a certain point, it's not needed. It's interesting. There was a phase, I was a retreat hound. I probably, I've lost count how many retreats I went on over the years. And then at a certain point, I was done. It's you're not going back. It had served its purpose, just as being with a teacher has its value, a facilitative value.
That's the value of a teacher. It's catalytic. It's a particular role. It's very provisional. It's impersonal and then when it's done. It's you don't need to, you don't need to idealize a teacher. Teacher's a human being like everyone else, but their function is fulfilled. And you can be friends or not.
And, but you move on. You don't need that anymore. Yeah, the role of the teacher, the role of Sangha, generally for most people, is quite helpful.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. That's important too, that the dynamism and how it is a dynamic relationship and not to get stuck, like you said, with the, like the guru model or dependency on sangha or,
John J. Prendergast: Exactly. And that happens a lot, which is why a lot of people are, concerned about that. But, it's, there's, there are some old forms, of spiritual teaching that can be seductive and counterproductive. They're unnecessary, which is why if you are interested in working with someone that they really working with a teacher or working with a particular song or a satsang it's good to go in with eyes open and to be skeptical.
And to really that whatever, that teacher approaches that it's really supporting your autonomy, your self trust, your self knowing. That's what it's all about. It's all about pointing us back to our inner authority so that we are trusting it, attuned with it, living from it more and more.
Michael Reiley: And as that maturity is enhanced, we feel less and less need and dependency for group or a teacher. And that's quite natural and appropriate.
Nice. So we'll have links to the new book in the show notes. And are there other online community events coming up that you want us to be aware of?
John J. Prendergast: I would just say go to my website listening from silence. com, go to the public events page because the book is coming out mid March so I do have a lot of events and retreats and so on.
We do retreats my wife and I on the East Coast, West Coast, and also one in Germany. Okay. Now so if there are listeners in Europe who are interested they can get information that way.
Michael Reiley: . This has been really a joy for me and it felt very fluid and organic. Thank you for this book and all of your work and this trilogy of books and for being a part of the SAND community as a speaker and teacher.
John J. Prendergast: Oh, you're very welcome. Nice to meet you and I very much enjoyed the fluency of this conversation.
