Conversations on the Path
In line with the value the CCE places on one-to-one interactions, this book is based on lengthy extracts transcribed from live dialogues during meditation coaching calls. Countless seekers on myriad paths of self-discovery have benefited from listening to or reading accounts of others’ questions and teachers’ answers to those questions. We find, as practitioners have throughout time, that our growth need not be limited by our own first-hand experience and ideas. We can gain inspiration, encouragement, and insight when we have the opportunity to learn from the navigation of challenges and joys that other practitioners and teachers have put into words before us – words that we may not have yet imagined, but nonetheless resonate as something we would have somehow asked or said in time.
When we noticed patterns emerging in Marcy’s own teaching with individual practitioners, we realized there was an opportunity to compile some of these conversations into groups according to common themes that come up consistently with meditators. Some of these topics have been arising in individuals for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It is our sincere hope that, in reading this book, many practitioners will find and take refuge. The tentative topics organized by chapters are:
- Stabilizing Practice: Restlessness, Doubt, Perfectionism, Fear
- Concentration and Stillness: Spaciousness and Deep Rest States
- Positivity Approaches: Metta and Self-Care
- Teaching, Teachers, and Need for Community
- The Role of Psychedelics
- Working with Unpleasantness: Perspective Shifts
- Working with Unpleasantness: Valence and Letting Go of Fear
- Letting Go of Analyzing and Thinking
- Tastes of Liberation: Freedom from Fear, Transcendent Moments