The Berkeley Buddhist Examiner recently had the opportunity to interview Rob Schwartz, co-founder and co-director of the East Bay Open Circle. Along with Kent Welsh, Rob has devoted himself to bringing an impressive line-up of nondual and other teachers to a growing spiritual community in the East Bay for the past 5 years.
Although the Open Circle is commonly thought of as a nondual community, this was not part of its original mission. Rob describes his inspiration for the Open Circle beginning with his studies of Buddhism at UC Berkeley. He found that Buddhism had a “ring of truth” to it, and appreciated the emphasis on direct experience and the lack of dogma associated with the Buddha Dharma. As he discovered other growth-oriented traditions, he began to sense that Buddhism didn’t have the market cornered on awakening, seeing similarities in techniques in other spiritual traditions as well as in psychotherapy. Rob saw that, “People seem to approach waking up either through a wisdom gate or a heart gate . . . but both of those gates seem to bring people to meeting things as they are in a way which is radically open and receptive.”
Schwartz describes the Open Circle as ". . . a community which supports the practices of wisdom and compassion, however they are found"
Five years ago, Berkeley and the Bay Area had an abundance of Buddhist communities, yet few communities offering nondual and advaita teachings. Thus, although Rob “like[d] to think of the Open Circle as a community which supports the practices of wisdom and compassion, however they are found,” the Open Circle found itself becoming the epicenter of advaita and other so-called nondual teachings, filling this particular gap of spirituality for the Bay Area.
And that gap has been thoroughly filled. Dozens of nondual speakers considered to be highly realized from around the world have given talks and workshops at the various church halls rented by the Open Circle around North Berkeley. Rob and Kent have created a vibrant community where none existed before. Rob describes its growth as such: “Part of the success of Open Circle is that we've been fortunate enough to provide really marvelous speakers and the quality of the speakers has determined the quality of the community.”
“Part of the success of Open Circle is that we've been fortunate enough to provide really marvelous speakers and the quality of the speakers has determined the quality of the community.”
But now, Rob looks to address another need. His experience with nondual teachings is that they can often lead to deeply profound insights. However, he has found that this approach is often associated with a belief that there is little to no need to engage in regular spiritual practice for integrating such insights into one’s day-to-day life, as is emphasized in the Buddhist meditation tradition.
Therefore, beginning on March 6th, the Open Circle will begin offering a “Meditation and Awareness Series.” This series will bring in Buddhist teachers such as Cheri Huber, Norman Fischer, Spring Washam, James Baraz, and others, as well as a variety of nondual teachers, and will feature structured meditation instructions along with talks and Q & A. Rob hopes that the introduction of these classically Buddhist teachers will promote dialogue between nondual and more practice-oriented approaches to spiritual realization.
“The differences between traditions are beautiful and important; however, I feel there is so much benefit being missed and so much confusion and conflict perpetuated by not fully identifying the essential common practices.” - Schwartz on his vision of promoting dialogue and cross-fertilization among various growth traditions and practices.
When asked about the future plans of the Open Circle, Rob speaks of his hope to see an underlying unity of wisdom and love acknowledged and celebrated among the world’s great spiritual growth traditions. To this end, he would like to expand the dialogue between the nondual and classic Buddhist traditions to include other experiential wisdom traditions, including earth-based spiritualities, western psychology, and the great monotheistic religions, all of which contain, Rob suggests, powerful healing practices and teachings based on direct experience. “The differences between traditions are beautiful and important; however, I feel there is so much benefit being missed and so much confusion and conflict perpetuated by not fully identifying the essential common practices.”
In describing the secret to cultivating a successful community, Schwartz believes it to be "a matter of allowing what is of most benefit to flourish naturally; if it’s truly helpful, it seems to flourish.”
At the same time, Rob and Kent intend on continuing to nurture the modest core intention, which is largely responsible for the unplanned burgeoning of the local nondual community that is central to the Open Circle, In Rob’s words, this intention is simply “a matter of allowing what is of most benefit to flourish naturally; if it’s truly helpful, it seems to flourish.”
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