Ondrea Levine – A Year to Live

My first audiodharma teaching from any Buddhist teacher at all was from a workshop of Stephen’s. I heard it forty years ago on a set of cassette tapes. Stephen was supporting people who were confronting death, and people suffering grief and loss.

There were people who were living with terminal diagnoses; and, people grieving the loss of loved ones. There were people supporting those who had such a diagnoses; or who were in pain about their loved one’s diagnosis.

I could hear his compassion and his courage. His solicitous voice is still in my memory. His teachings penetrated my armour. He brought me to tears. Even though I wasn’t faced, at that time, with a life-threatening situation, even so, he brought me home to my own battered heart.

I, too, was one intensely in need of healing – of wounds of which I was at this stage barely aware. So, Stephen’s voice on those tapes held me, too. Even the silent, witnessing presence in those workshops of his wife Ondrea was a support.

On those tapes I heard him supporting people to stay for ‘what is’; to stay for their pain – their physical, mental, emotional distress. It was a revelation to me, to think that turning toward such unbearable pain, would be freeing.

He encouraged us to have faith in the more that we are, to have faith in what holds us from within; even as we hold others in the human pains of sickness, mental affliction, old age and death. Over the years thereafter I used his meditations (published in several books) for my own contemplation, and to guide others in theirs.

(Also, I credit the wisdom which I manage to bring to my marriage to the fact that I read his Embracing the Beloved. I believe it contributed to my finally being able to turn toward the suffering of intimate relationship, to stay and learn the lessons which marriage can teach; particularly, to embrace meeting my narcissism. “Narcissus,” he wrote, “is the perfect analogy for the imagined self that each brings painfully to relationship.”)

Decades later I still regularly “soften the belly,” as he used to advise. There’s hardly a month go by, without I encourage another to invite “a soft belly.” I still touch “a heart big enough to hold it all,” in the ways he taught.

Then, in 1999, I began using his book A Year to Live. So, a practice of getting ready for the inevitable. The book gives us guidelines for a year-long practice of bringing death into our lives – of squarely facing mortality, of taking it to heart.

I did my first ‘Year to Live’ throughout 1999, and ‘died’ as the year 2000 rang in. Allowing for a ‘’year off’ here and there (as if one could have a year off from death!) I’ve practiced it for at least twelve of the last eighteen years.

Stephen Levine, teacher, visionary and healer, died, with family around him, in his home in New Mexico, U.S.A, on 17th January, 2016. Thank you, Stephen. May all the Stephen elements in the universe, and those elements in all of us, flourish in wisdom and love.

Stephen Levine, teacher, visionary and healer, died, with family around him, in his home in New Mexico, U.S.A, on 17th January, 2016.

My first audio dharma teaching from any teacher was a set of duplicated cassette tapes, forty years ago, with Stephen Levine giving a workshop. There was no digital, then. It was Stephen’s voice on tapes, supporting people who had lost loved ones; people who were living with a terminal diagnoses; people who were participating in those workshops to support others who had such a diagnoses; and many others whose hearts were breaking.

His teachings penetrated my armour. He brought me to tears; brought me home to my own battered heart. There was no doubt in my mind about his compassion and his courage. His solicitous voice is still in my memory.

In those workshops he was supporting people to stay for their pain – physical, mental, emotional – to stay for what is. He encouraged us all to have faith in the more that we are, to have faith in what holds us, even as we hold others in the human pains of sickness, mental affliction, old age and death.

I was one of those desperately in need of healing, then, too; and Stephen’s voice on those tapes encouraged me, too, though I was oceans away from where he lived and taught. Even the silent presence of his wife Ondrea in those workshops was a great support.

Of course, over the years thereafter I used his meditations (published in several books) for my own contemplation, and to guide others in theirs. Also, I credit the wisdom which I manage to bring to my marriage to the fact that I read his Embracing the Beloved. I believe it contributed to finally being able to ‘stay’ and learn the lessons which marriage can teach; particularly, to embrace the dissolution of narcissism.

Decades later I still regularly “soften the belly.” There’s hardly a month go by, without I encourage another with Stephen’s phrase, “a soft belly.” I still touch “a heart big enough to hold it all,” in the ways he taught. Deep bows to someone whom I never met personally, but I must count as important among my teachers. Deep bows, too, to his beloved partner in the work Ondrea.
Then, in 1999, I began using his book A Year to Live. The book gave guidelines for a year-long practice of bringing death into our lives – a facing up to the fact; a taking it to heart; and, a getting ready for the inevitable.

I did my first ‘Year to Live’ throughout 1999. I ‘died’ as the year 2000 rang in. Allowing for a ‘’year off’ here and there (as if one could have a year off from death!) I’ve practiced it for at least ten of the last sixteen years.
Thank you Stephen. May all the Stephen elements in the universe, and those elements in all of us, flourish in wisdom and love.

This project is an edited version of a year’s reflections inspired by the practice of A Year to Live, and inspired by the Buddha’s teaching of ‘the deathless.’

Everfresh in the Changing

Tag: Ondrea Levine

Gratitude to Stephen

Gratitude to Stephen Levine