Fall Retreat with Todd at Collins Retreat Center

Seated, left to right: Mary Moffat, Mora Fields, Jay McCandless, Todd Corbett, Jude Kieda, Laura Betty, Sophia Malkasian. Standing, left to right: Barbara Goldberg, Jim Zajac, Robin Bundy, Ray Blalock, Marijke McCandless, Liz Blalock, David Mason, Rick Ahrens, Jack Yousey, Matthew Lowes, Mark Hurwit, David Chiller. Not pictured: Vip Short

From November 10-17, 2024, Todd Corbett led a CSS residential retreat on the theme "Know Thyself." In addition to being the first CSS residential retreat since 2019, this was also the first CSS retreat held at Alton L. Collins Retreat Center in Eagle Creek, Oregon. The lush evergreen forest surrounding Collins, and the outstanding hospitality of the staff, proved to be a wonderful venue for the retreat. CSS plans to return again to Collins for the Fall 2025 retreat, which is scheduled for September 12-19, 2025. (There are also plans for a Spring non-residential retreat, to be held in the CSS meeting hall from May 5-10, 2025.)

Fall 2024 Retreat Recap, by Jude Kieda

During this seven day silent retreat, Todd began by teaching some fundamentals of spiritual practice. Over the course of extended sitting and walking meditation sessions, Todd led retreatants to generate and practice such forms of meditation as concentration on a meditation object, choiceless awareness, spacious awareness, and return to the source. By leading us through direct inquiry practices, we saw that the sense of self is an imagination of the moment, constantly dissolving through our selective inattention and conditioning, leading us to ignore impermanence and to take things for granted.

Todd had us look in depth at four beliefs of what we are: my body-mind, my emotions, my thoughts, and my volition. We examined each belief in detail, seeing that all we experience is transient and passing. We pursued the delusion of time passing although everything is happening just now. We saw that thoughts self liberate.

Retreatants could spend time walking in the wooded forest which purposefully is kept wild around the retreat center. Trails were often covered by fallen wet leaves due to the time of year. Everyone on the retreat had their own room with a private bathroom and balcony. There were few yogi chores, other than ringing the morning wake up bell for all, ringing the retreat bell to call us to meditation and teaching sessions, and seeing to it that there always was hot water for tea. Optional yoga and qigong periods also were kindly offered by retreatants.

Retreatants worked on being mindful throughout the day, including when eating at mealtime, which were deemed delicious according to evaluations at the end of the retreat. As part of the retreat registration process, Collins solicited information about each person’s dietary preferences and the head chef onsite worked to accommodate them via various buffet-style choices.

Todd enjoined us to make a commitment to reserve space to practice after the retreat ended. I felt very fortunate to have been a participant.

Retreat Report, by Laura Betty

We sat in the Chapel at Collins for teachings by Todd and meditations. There was a grand window behind Todd and the view was exquisite - a forest of trees!

Todd spent a whole day on concentration practice and another on choiceless awareness that gave us a foundation to move into spacious awareness.

Watch the endings - pay attention to endings of thoughts, thought stories, to sensations. Pay attention to what is really happening! I think that was the core of Todd's teachings. Pay attention to what is reality. We only notice we have a body or even certain parts of the body when our awareness/attention is directed there.

How we only know, what we call a "stone" is by what our sensations reveal to us. And how impermanent those sensations are. Giving a name/label to perceived objects tend to give us a sense of implied permanence.

The teachings were welcomed by us! Some experienced a clarity and a move from intellectual understanding to a felt oneness.

Thank you Todd for your passion and dedication!

Another delightful reason to attend next year's retreat in September at Collin's would be the accommodations. Every room had a private bath and shower. Plus a private balcony facing the forest. The food was fantastic. There were trails through the woods, down to Deep Creek. Yoga and Qi Gong had a huge room with floor to ceiling windows. There was an elevator available to the second floor and a covered walk way to the resident building. The staff was kind and helpful. Collins is a very beautiful place for a CSS retreat!

Retreat Report and Poem, by Mary Moffat

Well, Todd did it again, another masterful, skillful, retreat at Collins Retreat Center. He just gets better and better. I had many helpful dreams, and deepened and refined my practice in a profound way, discovering with Todd’s help antidotes to my 40 years of laxity. I had many insights including noticing how, when thoughts brought up emotions, I pushed them away with positive, self-talk, (i.e., another thought) and for the first time was able to sit with the emotion and allow it, to be curious about it, feel how it manifested in my body, and let it to move through me. Powerful.

I loved having my own bathroom and shower, and the spacious facilities, and enough nature for some lovely forest bathing between the relentless rain. And of course being fed 3 meals a day, is always wonderful and with no chores, I was able to take many naps and I think this also helped me relax at a deep level and I saw how much efforting I had been doing just in the concentration on my breath. We missed dear Vip on the second day of the retreat when he was spirited away to deal with his own retreat with appendicitis and we sent him our love many times.

Here’s a poem I wrote one evening echoing Todd’s teachings:

THERE IS JUST...NOW
Nowhere to go
Nothing to get
Just, NOW
This Present Moment
Right Now
Awareness Itself
Pretending to be me
Pretending to be you
Always new
In every moment
Just, Now

You are not the you
You were even a Minute ago
Let alone yesterday
Or last year

I am not the I
I was even a minute ago
Let alone yesterday
Or last year

I don’t really know you
I can never really know you
The YOU underneath my thoughts About you
The YOU underneath all my memories of you
For they are in the small me
How can they be YOU for
You are Awareness itself
Just, Now

I don’t really know Me
The ME underneath my thoughts about me
The Me underneath my memories of me
They are in the small me
For how can they be me
For I am Awareness itself
Just, Now

But I have forgotten this
So I need to be kind and gentle with the small me
I need to be kind and gentle with the small you
As we grasp for the next happy moment or thing, and the next
And the next, and the next
Until, if we are lucky
We will know our real self
Our true self
Awareness
Awareness exuberantly loving, glorying in, exulting in its
Multidimensional Self
In this
Precious
Present
Moment
Just, Now

Retreat Haikus by Liz Blalock

Arising just now
a cascade of forms and names
Just a passing show.

Liking, not liking
Creating time with longing
the final gong sounds.

I surrender to Death
Put me out of my distress
Yes! I am that tired!

Sinking moon, first sight
Awe struck, my sleepy eyes blink
Morning star appeared.

Retreat Poem by Marijke McCandless

We come from a loud, distracted world,
addicted to thoughts, ruled by time,
informed by statistics, always striving.

We arrive here in a silent laboratory
of sacred science—a school of mystical arts—to examine
What is.

Here.
Now.
Truth faintly whispers, yet its impact yields
inviolable knowing
Not 99.9%

Night two, I wake and wonder
“Is it the middle of the night?”
“Now. Now,” is the whispered reply.

On break, I paint. I write.
Who paints? Who writes?
Not i
painting, painting, writing, writing

A thought arises.
I watch attentively as it fades away…and away…and away.

I appreciate that the Body/Mind is a useful vehicle for directing attention.
But,
“Who am I?”
I wonder.

Aha!
I am an ADV—an Attention Directing Vehicle—
I think cleverly.
Then, I hear Teacher Todd:
“Even attention becomes inseparable from the Sea of Awareness”

We study the impermanence of everything.
I used to love noticing how life was constantly becoming.
On this retreat my favorite new practice?
Noticing the endings of things, like steps.
I practice.
I discover that attention is reluctant,
not habituated to notice
endings.

In spacious awareness, Time slows, attention widens.
I glimpse the gap between breaths, which is not a “pause” as I thought
—rather timeless, emptiness

Insight!
Every life-giving breath is a mini-death.

It all comes back to the stone,
appearing real, solid, and “not me”

Yet, here, now in this school of mystical arts,
we watch objects
disappear!


In our laboratory of sacred science,
we examine our stone deeply,
carefully.

I pick up my stone.
I look.
I touch.
I tap and listen.

I know the stone only through my senses,
and each of these arise only
within me…

For a flash, the stone is me.
Everything. Everyone is me.

I am all, not separate.

I momentarily quake.
Am I alone?
Wait!
No Beloved?

The gong sounds and at once
I am the gong
Through and through

I am Here. Now. Timeless
I am the Beloved too
I am Naked
in the Now
One, not two

The end.
(Notice it!)

Zoom Awakening Group (ZAG) with Merry Song

CSS teacher, Merry Song, is leading an ongoing course called ZAG—Zoom Awakening Group. For five sessions in October, the group met to discuss the value of tracking dreams, the unfolding of the First Precept of Responsiblity, and how to use creative writing as a tool for illumination.  This same group will deepen their dream work for five sessions in January, 2025.

ZAG Members

Merry Song often begins each session with a famous poem or an original poem.  “Searching” is a poem by Merry Song.  After presenting it, she gave the group members the beginning words:  “Have you recognized yourself in a mirror...” and also dropped in halfway with the words: “Every time it is the same...”  Participants had only 3 minutes to freewrite their own illuminating poem.  Below you will see Merry Song’s poem followed by the responses of 6 participants. 

For more information about joining ZAG with Merry Song in the future, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

photo by Merry Song

Merry Song:

Searching

Have you recognized yourself in the mirror
when everyone was sleeping and you,
the only prowler of the night, got up
to search for something, anything, to call yourself?

There you stood, your face lit up by candlelight,
and your eyes, unconditioned, looked upon the strange
face and thought you saw a child in an old woman's
body, a young woman with a horse's tail, a
meek man with the mane of a lion.

What you saw and what you recognized are two
different things: one the depth of shape and color;
the other, the roiling tumbling of your mind with
its myriad images that pour out into the darkness.

Every time it is the same:  you prowl for the substance,
you search for yourself in every corner, every
drawer, and then you are drawn to a reflection 
that has nothing more to tell you beyond
what you already know.

What you know is not what you search for—
it is what you don't know that you desperately seek
even though you know you will never find it;
you can never know it; it is dissolved into everything there is.

HeartSong:

Have you recognized yourself in the mirror?  That one, with the blond hair and a kind of crooked smile?  Have you seen her before?  You look more closely to see your reflection in her eyes and the smile crease below her nose.

Every time it is the same—the knowing and the unknown—the light beaming back to you from the mirror, and the details that seem alive—or is it real at all?  What is it?  Such a puzzle of maybe real, maybe unreal.  It pushes you toward a dream state, toward something deeper and bigger.  So real and so unreal.

Laura:

Have you recognized yourself in the mirror? Surprised actually, more than once to see this old face looking back at me...the physical world.

And then, looking within, there is the same energy/being within.

Every time it is the same ageless "being" inside: without form, a dark spaciousness, vibrant with pure knowing, without judgements, just curious, experiencing being.

Wesley:

Have you recognized yourself in the mirror? Have you let all the clothing fall away so that you and others can see who is there without disguise? Every time it is the same. Your self does not change. The mirror shows either the true Self, unadorned, or the little self—preening to look their best. When you let go of all the pretense, you find the true.

Donnalee:

Have you recognized yourself in the mirror? Do you see your face as a nose, eyes, mouth or is it a blank sheet of flesh color on an animate object?  Every time it is the same until when you look at the reflection that reflects back onto other reflections, and finally you unveil the conditioning that deterred your visions, dreams, recognition of yourself, who you truly are, the sauce that brings life into clear focus and meaning.  One day, you look in the mirror and truly see the beauty and wisdom of you, your spirit, your soul with a nose, mouth, eyes, and gentle kind smile radiating love reflected back.

photo by Merry Song

Shani:

HAVE YOU RECOGNIZED YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR?

Your beauty is sweet and plain

You keep looking

Something comes more into focus

Unsure you stand back

Wanting to behold with empty mind

EVERY TIME IT IS THE SAME

The depth penetrates the veil

Like an image melting

Washing away with misty water

Each time you come closer

SHE comes closer

To reveal her essence

Beyond form

Only diffuse

That cannot be named

What is seen is not

Yourself

You look no longer

But only Be

Now a (blossoming) flower

Now a (scampering) bunny

Now a (shooting) star

photo by Merry Song

Jude:

Have you recognized yourself in the mirror?

No, that woman can’t be me!  She has lines in her face, blemishes on her skin.  Her hair is tending to gray.  And yet, that is me!  When I wasn’t noticing, this is who I became.

Every time it is the same.  I didn’t notice what was happening.  I wasn’t paying attention and so reality passed me by.  Now can I try to pay attention?  Now is the moment to seize!  So who is that woman in the mirror?  Can I accept her just as she is, just as she has become?  I can throw a blanket over the mirror to cover it but she remains inside the glass.  Let her go!

Niraja:

Have you recognized yourself in the mirror? Have you really understood that the image you see  of a 70-year-old woman is the one who you still imagine is young? Have you understood that all the images you have of yourself are just dreams?

Every time it is the same, the child, the teen, the young woman—it is the same consciousness. Can you ever really understand? Can you ever really recognize they are all you and none of them are you? The mirror reflects all your conditioned beliefs.

Vip:

Have you recognized yourself in the mirror? Who is that? Does someone — anyone — hide just beyond that layer of scruffy mercurized/mercurial image? Check out the eyes: every time it is the same, those deep black pupils like little infinity pools, cleverly dodging with their is-ness any possible appending of verifiable identity; no usable ID provided here. “I can’t serve you,” says the mirror-tender, slapping the proffered image back down onto the bathroom countertop. 

Remembering Deanna Cordes

Deanna Cordes (1946-2024)

Deanna Cordes, a member of the Center community for many years, died on July 19th, 2024, just shy of her 78th birthday. Deanna was born on July 25, 1946 and lived her life as a mother, grandmother, adventurer, dancer, drummer, skier, spiritual practitioner, activist, and loving, thoughtful friend. Deanna's family held a memorial service for Deanna at CSS on Saturday 19 October 2024, drawing many members of the CSS community, past and present, to share heartfelt stories and reflections about her life.

Unretreated, Undefeated: A Tale of Two Hospitals

by Vip "long story" Short

      “I specialize in accidents, myself.” I was responding to a patient who had been sharing her struggle with a series of metabolic and degenerative disease conditions, and had wondered if I had any personal life experience with such things.

      At the time, I was citing my own medical history as I thought of it, because although I had endured several long-term hospitalizations, brain surgery, and various extensive rehabilitation procedures throughout this life, almost all had been the result of an unexpected traumatic collision with my external environment: a fall off a mountain, a few vehicular accidents as a passenger, and so forth. I viewed all these as “accidents”— unforeseen developments that took me by surprise.

      This conversation with my patient took place almost exactly a week before one morning in May when I looked up from my reading and realized that I could not see half of the living room: just, blackness. I gradually realized I had suffered a silent and painless brain injury: commonly called a stroke. Later in the hospital, after various scans confirmed the ischemic damage to the visual cortex, I laughed to myself upon remembering that the common medical parlance for what I had experienced that morning is CVA: “cerebrovascular accident.”  

There Are No Accidents

       I find the Hindu/Buddhist concepts of karma and dharma — construed as personal-level phenomena — to be helpful when grappling with the “whys” (the “whys-dom”) of what befalls me. Whereas “karma” is the term for the accumulation of cause/effect energy driving the unfolding of life events, “dharma,” when applied on the individual level, has more the sense of a destiny template, an overall life plan that may gradually come to fruition. The two notions are necessarily and inextricably related, intertwined. 

      I’ve certainly done my share of “why-ning” — which is the polar opposite of the “no preferences” wisdom offered up by the Zen patriarch Huineng! Or, to quote a lyric from a dark Door of the ‘60s, Jim Morrison: “Oh, don’t ask why ….” Yes, there’s really very little point in questioning the timing or necessity of the blind-siding events that befall us. The better question for us is: Can I see the gift? 

“Be Grateful for Everything”

      Last summer, a few months following my hospitalization for the brain “accident” (which by the way occurred as I sat reading a spiritually-themed book), I sought out Joel over the phone during some desperate moments. Although I had made an excellent, near-full recovery, I was feeling challenged unfairly and unreasonably by a close family member who couldn’t at the time muster any softness in my direction— and here I was, having been smacked down: where was the love? Joel made space for my outpouring of angsty self-pity— just a little!— and then cut through my weepiness by issuing two pith teachings: ones I had never considered as relevant for my particular samsaric dilemmas. 

      Number one: Be grateful for everything.

      It took me a while, despite several readings of Joel’s book The Way of Selflessness, to recognize this directive as being the title for an entire chapter in the book! When we say a directive or instruction seems counterintuitive, often this is because it makes zero sense to the ego-self. WHAT? I’m being told to be thankful that this catastrophe has befallen me?? Get real!

      Number two: “Drop the story.” But, but  — who would I BE, without my story? The immediate answer to that, I knew, was: “UFO — you find out!” [This is a directive that Joel first issued during a retreat many years ago at Cloud Mountain. Its implication is clear: it won’t help you for me to give you a pat answer; go to work on the problem you raise, investigate unceasingly in your own way; seek, and ye shall find.]

      “Why” is a word that we learn to use around age 2 or 3, as a means of demanding answers, trying to get a reasonable-to-our mind and acceptable answer as to the reason for some unanticipated event, development or existing situation. The word, spoken as an earnest and demanding query, sounds at first like the English term “whine.” [And many a sharp teacher will skillfully point this out— if subtly, so as not to further raise the hackles of the fragile and not-even-existent ego!]

      The joke is that reasons don’t really matter.

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over”  (—a great Yogi)

      Forward into the next learning-year at CSS: beginning this Fall, I was ready to be back in the saddle, or on the path, and signed up for classes with both Merry Song and Todd. In addition, I made plans to attend the residential retreat— first since 2019, due to the pandemic— that would be led by Todd. I plunked down some big money and arranged for more than a week’s time off in November. (Years ago during a walk with a lovely Center member who had befriended me, she shared a cautionary piece of advice attributed to her one-time teacher Gangaji: “You know how to make God laugh? Tell her your plans.”)

      Having been ferried up to said retreat by another new friend, we were greatly impressed by the beauty and easy accommodations of the place that had been selected. My room turned out to be the farthest from the meditation hall, but the closest to the dining hall: room number 1! But by the second day of the retreat, I was unable to eat. What I had first thought were the usual first-days signs of adaptive bumpiness seemed to be taking a serious turn. I hadn’t slept much and couldn’t imagine looking at food. So I slept through lunch and, opening my door a few minutes before the afternoon session, here was teacher Todd just walking by. I spoke, telling him something was wrong. And wise former ER Nurse Corbett encouraged me to do what I already had planned: get a ride from one of the retreat center’s personnel to an emergency medical setting. Several hours later I found myself admitted to an acute care bed on the operating room floor, awaiting surgery for a ruptured appendix. (This had to be postponed for a couple of days, due to blood-thinning medications I had been prescribed after the stroke: the effects needed to clear my system prior to my being cut into. So I was carefully monitored and treated with a constant intravenous cocktail of painkillers and antibiotics in the meantime.) The interesting thing about all these unexpected developments was that — perhaps because I had already dedicated myself to “retreat mode” — I felt entirely at peace with it all. Acceptance and surrender came easily.

      I was not retreated after all, but instead very skillfully treated. The surgeon and all the care staff were angels. (If you are ever in need of a hospital near Mt. Hood, I have a glowing recommendation!) And I have been told by my fellow retreatants that much metta was sent my way during the rest of the sessions I had to miss. 

      Let’s keep making plans, and remember that despite perceived gloomy weather on the horizon, we always have the profound power of Community — and in our case, a most-wonderful special version we call sangha — to bring us through the perennially-uncharted waters. 

      Since entering my first hospital setting back in May, I have eschewed all inebrients: one major lifestyle shift. But I can promise you that on this coming New Year’s Eve, I will be raising my glass of sparkly water to enthusiastically toast  the close of this past unexpectedly interesting year— with gratitude! 

"Beautiful Dreamer" talk by Merry Song

Merry Song

What does it serve to remember dreams when you wake up from a night's sleep? Is there any spiritual value in tuning into what some call The Cosmic Dreamer? Have you had significant dreams that seem to guide you? On Sunday 27 October 2024, Merry Song gave a talk and led a discussion on cultivating dreams on the spiritual path and on noticing how the mind dreams night and day. Click here to watch the "Beautiful Dreamer" video.

A New Sound System

We are pleased to announce that there is a new professional sound system installed in the Center for Sacred Sciences meeting room, including new wireless microphones, speakers, and sophisticated audio processing. This system provides superior amplified sound in the room as well as over Zoom (as long as speakers hold the mic sufficiently close to their mouth).