Introducing "A Monk in the World,"

A new Substack devoted to integral spirituality and the path of healing, awakening, and awakened living.

On Pilgrimage in South Korea, 1990

I’ve spent a lot of my life looking out of windows. From the windows of my childhood home in Summit, NJ, I looked out on wooded hills and the neighbors’ houses. From the windows of the Zen Buddhist Temple where I lived in the early 90’s, I looked out on Packard Road and dreamt of life outside the confines of my chosen home. These days, I find myself looking out the window of my home office, at the street scene of the Chicago neighborhood that I call home. Looking out, observing, witnessing, be present - this comes naturally to me. I am quiet by nature. Receptive. Open. I take everything in, savoring the beauty and goodness I find and trying to be present to the ugliness. These days, there is a lot of ugliness. It feels like an open wound that is always with me. Thankfully a degree of spiritual awareness allows me to perceive the deep down beauty of this world too. When it all feels like too much, I rest in that beauty and find healing and peace there.

And so I’ve come to Substack – a great place to share my spiritual journey, the occasional insight and stories about spiritual awakening and awakened living. There’s a story about an old monk who lived in a forest hermitage. When he wasn’t meditating or tending the vegetable garden, he enjoyed writing poems on leaves under the moonlight. When a poem was complete, he would gently place the leaf on the mountain stream that ran by his hut, letting it flow out into the world as a kind of artistic offering. That’s one way I think of this forum. It’s an internet stream upon which my posts will float out into the world. I trust that many readers will discover my “leaves” and enjoy what I’ve written.

I’m also looking for engagement and I hope that you will respond to posts. I love to take in new perspectives and to have a good dialogue. It’s important in life to surround yourself with friends who share your same commitment to awakening. This is what Buddhists call Sangha, the community with whom one lives and practices. I hope that we can be Sangha here for each other - exploring the path, swapping stories and stimulating each other to think more deeply and love more whole-heartedly.  

Awakening, healing and awakened life are the three main topics I will be writing about. In my experience, awakening to nondual awareness is a very real and verifiable experience. I want to share my thoughts and experiences with awakening and the path to awakening. Post awakening, a whole new world opens up, one characterized by freedom from habitual patterns and issues. In my case, it was only after awakening that I realized I’d experienced significant childhood trauma. I will be exploring the role of healing before and after awakening, including energy healing as a tool for spiritual seekers.  Central to this consideration will be my explorations of VortexHealing, a powerful form of energy healing which I am studying.

I will say more about the title for this space, A Monk in the World, in an upcoming post. I’ll say now that my choice is an homage to Br Wayne Teasdale’s and his book, A Monk in the World. More about Br Wayne soon. I hope to post weekly as I did for almost two years for my former blog on integralawakenings.com. We’ll see. In time, perhaps there will be both free posts and other posts only for paid subscribers? For now, everything’s free. I hope you will sign up now and join the Sangha of readers that is sure to come.

I welcome you to this Sangha! May it be a good place for you.

May all beings be happy
May their bodies be strong and healthy
May their hearts be full of love, and
May their minds be grounded in spacious awareness

Here's to our journey and our ongoing awakening to ever greater freedom and fulness of being!

Bill Epperly

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