Waking Up In Free-Fall: Bringing Presence, Insight, and Compassion to Everyday Bardos
Schedule
Wed Jan 07 2026 at 06:30 pm to 08:30 pm
UTC-06:00Location
714 37th Street South, Birmingham, AL, United States, Alabama 35222 | Birmingham, AL
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January 7, 14, 21, and February 4 6:30 pm; in-person and on ZoomIn this 4-part course using recorded talks from Susan Chapman, you will explore how the Buddhist teachings on the bardo can be a guide to keeping our hearts open when life seems to fall apart.
The word “bardo” is a Buddhist term often used for the after-death experience. But it also describes the gap triggered by any unexpected crisis. The shock of illness, death, or any kind of loss can be the most brutal of interruptions. Your life’s timeline no longer makes sense. You feel vulnerable and alone. But we’re not truly alone. We’ve just dropped out of everyday life into a new dimension, a bardo-world that appears as if out of nowhere.
–Susan Chapman
The class draws from the book, Which Way is Up?, as a guide for meeting the bardos of everyday life by understanding three different kinds of fear:
Awake Fear: The first kind of fear is disillusionment– waking us up from our illusions like a loving protector. It’s time to face reality and the truth of impermanence. When we meet this fear with lovingkindness, it resolves into mindfulness and the joy of being alive.
Frozen Fear: The second kind of fear happens when the fog returns. It’s a dangerous but familiar habitual pattern that lures us back into our illusions. This is a time when we need to trust a loving friend who can help us unmask our toxic certainties and let go into groundlessness.
Core Fear: The third kind of fear is a background anxiety, the doubt about our basic goodness. We’ve been spinning a defensive cocoon to avoid this fear, without turning around and examining it. The bardo journey gives us a chance to let go of this false identity and come home to our true nature.
We will further explore that to work with these three kinds of fear, we can look at three kinds of love:
Loving Presence: Being willing to be present with whatever experience we’re going through is the way to support Awake Fear.
Compassionate Insight: The way to work with denial, or frozen fear, is with compassion, feeling the pain of shutting down, and insight, being curious about where our ideas and opinions come from.
Mother-Child Reunion: Our core fears go back to the misunderstandings of early childhood when we formed ideas about who we are to stay in relationship with the caring adults in our life. Somewhere along the line we concluded that there was something wrong with who we are, “I’m unworthy, unloveable, unforgivable, unwelcome”. When we discover our basic goodness, it’s as though the loving mother of wisdom brings the lost child home, showing us our true nature.
Join us for these ancient teachings that will feel relevant for everyone who struggles with the groundless and transitory nature of life.
A bardo is an emotional free-fall. We’ve moved into a strange new neighborhood, or we just lost our job. It’s the morning after a painful fight with our lover. It feels like a sinkhole has opened with our past on one side and our future on the other. We are refugees from the life we thought we had. Like refugees, we need to know where to find support, shelter, and nourishment. The path of awakening through fear is with love. Love is stronger than fear. -Susan Chapman
Please register at https://birmingham.shambhala.org/event/829957-waking-up-in-free-fall-bringing-presence-insight-and-compassion-to-everyday-bardos/
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Where is it happening?
714 37th Street South, Birmingham, AL, United States, Alabama 35222Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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