Expanded Bio: AKASA LEVI, (DhMA) (D.Min) - our counseling therapist, facilitator, friend

A Big Welcome . . . . 
BUT Google gottcha' to the wrong 1st page . . .

*Please Pardon the Inconvenience ~
This Laughing Buddha Counseling site 
and The Spiritual Adulthood Project site
are UNDER RE-CONSTRUCTION

On left side of screen is
a Table of Contents
Click on # 1 and please start there . . . . .

~or~

Please Re-Direct Yourself Now To: http://buddhistcounselingtherapy.blogspot.com/

~ and thanks for your continued patience




COUNSELING & THERAPY PROJECT"
_______________________________________________

Santa Monica - CA 90405 near SM College
AkasaLeviZZ@msn.com ~ 310-450-2268
Best 'live' phone times, Noon to 6pm, Mon-Fri
Free initial phone consultation

♦ Buddhist-based Wisdom Therapy
offers highly effective, compassionate,
yet realistic 'Alternative Approaches'
to healthy Relating with Your 'Self'
and All Other Feeling, Living Beings.
___________________________________
____________________________________


" What is accepted by the majority of people

....does not mean it is Real " ~ The Buddha 500 BC

Part of all this inner 'work' is 'Spiritual',
Yet, NONE of this is 'religious'
NONE of this is God-oriented
This Way is Not The Only Way.
Traditional Buddhism is
secular-humanistic -
and it is Non-Theistic.
It is Human to Human.
__________________

( ALSO: For Weekly Buddhist Meditation Class & Dharma Study,
please visit us at http://buddhistmeditationsantamonica.blogspot.com/ )
_______________________________ ________________________________
.
.Expanded Bio: AKASA LEVI (DhMA) (D.Min) -
our counseling therapist/facilitator/mentor/friend

"This well seasoned, friendly old ‘tribal elder’ and funny
'witch-doctor' just loves being referred to as a 'Shrink'.
When you're looking for a 'shrink' – long experience
and sweetening that can come with age
is a definite plus plus thing." ~ J.K.

♦ Akasa-Maitreya Levi, DhMA ( D.Min ) ~

SUNY Harpur College & Binghamton University - New York.
An ex-pat American of the Sixty's Counter-Culture generation
that went to live in Asia for the full decade of the 1970's
to be with the last living spiritual teachers of the pre-global era.
Arriving in India over-land in 1972 as a filmmaker & student
of the Gurdjieff 'Work' - he became a Vajrayana initiate of
Lama Thubten Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan,
Nepal & Dharamsala, India ( the Gelugpa monk founders of
Wisdom Publications in Boston ) Akasa Levi is now 69." The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery "

Later, Akasa was a personal pupil of both Subhuti Shibuya
Zen-Sensei and Sri Anagarika Munindra, the renown Bengali
Vipassana Mindfulness teacher, both in the remote little holy
village of Bodhgaya, India – sort of the historical Jerusalem
to Buddhists, where the famed sacred Bodhi Tree stands
that the Buddha sat under ( 528 BC ).
Akasa was an early Vipassana Insight student of SN Goenka
when he gave all the teachings in person. "Don't believe your
own mind" Goenka-ji so firmly said. He became an ordained
'Bhikkhu' Vipassana forest sadhu-monk for 6 years in cotton
robes in Sri Lanka - trained and ordained into the Theravada
Monastic Order by the revered Venerable Balangoda Ananda
Maitreya, the late Maha Nayake Thera of the Amarapura
Nikaya Lineage. He came August 24, 1896 ~ he went July 18,
1998, at 102 years of age. Whew!
------------------------------------------------------------
Akasa's major scholastic influences came thru his mentor
Venerable Ananda Maitreya & Nilambe's Acharya Godwin
Samararatne; and The Buddhist Publication Society's late
Nyanaponika Mahathera and Bhante Piyadassi Mahathera;
& especially thru the controversial teacher Henri Van Zeyst
- all in upcountry, Kandy, Sri Lanka. Later, he was Western
teacher-in-residence at the forest-yogi Bhante Polpitiya
Kassapa's Rockhill Hermitage. Akasa practiced Non-Duality
Advaita in satsang with the wonderfully notorious Bede Baba,
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in Bombay ( there are some books
on his teachings "I AM THAT" ) – Maharaj certainly was THAT!
And of course, there was Shibuya-San and Munindraji nearby,
keeping Akasa on a daily dosage of their gracious tutoring.
"Everything we've ever, ever learned -
we've learned somehow from somebody else."
After returning to the USA in 1980, to be with Zen-master
Thich Tien-An at The University of Oriental Studies and
The International Buddhist Meditation Center in LA's
Koreatown. Akasa then developed an enduring friendship
with pioneering woman movement & mindfulness teacher
Madharma Ruth Denison at her Dhamma-Dena Vipassana
Retreat Center in Joshua Tree, California. For years, The
Laughing Buddha Sangha's monastic-affiliation has been
with The Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara ( Sri Lanka Temple
& Monastery in Los Angeles ) and it's Abbot, The Sangha-
Nayake 'Bhante' Walpola Piyananda.

Akasa Levi is now a Bodhi-Acharya 'lineage-holder' of the
Theravada teaching-transmission. As a Dharma 'mentor'
he is simply 'available' - serving as a Kalyana Mitta:
a guiding 'spiritual-friend' to Dharma students.
No gurus here.
------------------------------------------------------------
Akasa Levi studied Western psycho-dynamic analytic theory
and it's applied therapy at UCLA Westwood. He offers an
actively facilitated Buddhist-based individual therapy and
relationship counseling as a possibly effective spiritual
'complementary medicine' or as a mindfulness based
'alternative' to the standard secular, non-spiritual-based
Western therapies – for women, men, couples & marriages.
But - there are no promises, no guarantees – each individual
situation is different and effectiveness may vary widely.
Akasa's therapy practice is in Santa Monica California.
------------------------------------------------------------
After a strenuous early life on the road, Akasa is now
quite travel-saturated, and rarely teaches outside California.
This ole' tribal sage is simply content to grow exotic plants
in his garden and 'work' with people close to home. Akasa
is known for his spontaneity and wry, unpredictable humor
in his approach to the Buddha’s valuable teachings.
Testimonial: Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield refers
to Akasa as ‘The Old Rogue’ – which is an archetype
form of The Angelic Troublemaker Trickster.
------------------------------------------------------------.
To Quiet the 'Self' ~ there are MEDITATION Classes
through The Laughing Buddha Sangha – where Akasa
teaches a 'non-religious' style of Insight Meditation, a
Non-Duality 'Inquiry Into Self' Practice, and advanced
Dharma Theory Study Classes – and guides the all male
ZEN MEN's Growth Groups thru The L.A. Medicine Men’s
Lodge he co-founded with attorney Ron Hoffman.
• "Good Men Becoming Even Better Men"
• "Every Guy Could Use Being in a Men's Group....
at some time in his life". Men's groups Work !____________________________________.

."Our 'Life-Fears' are educated into us –
and can be educated out."~ Karl Menninger

One of a Buddhist Teacher's Primary Purposes
is to responsibly, intentionally pass along what they know
to another generation of Dharma-students – possibly
even encouraging future teachers. It keeps the Buddha's
brilliant teachings alive & fresh through application –
so crucially important in this indifferent world of so rapidly
‘vanishing traditions’ of live, hands-on, ethnic or native
indigenous, cultural, healing and spiritual compassion
& wisdom 'knowledges'. Fortunately, there are now
accredited institutions that offer exemplary training. Ask !
Teacher-succession, along-side with scholarship, is key
to the preservation of All the world's Great Teachings.
------------------------------------------------------------.
"The yin and yang of life is that we grow wiser
as we get older. We have less & less time to use
that wisdom to enrich our own lives – so we pass it
along to others, enriching the world in the process."
~ The Tao

Please be courageous enough to inquire about
‘teaching-assistant’ training here or elsewhere.
We will gladly help you carry or pass the torch.
.

"In the end we will conserve only what we love –
We will love only what we understand –
And we will understand only what we have been taught."
~ Baba Dioum, African ecologist.
__________________________



"If you think education is expensive,
try ignorance." ~ Andy McIntyre's bumper sticker

“No 'failure' – we are all learning.
The real failure is giving up learning.” ~ Shi'an



"The whole purpose of education
is to turn mirrors into windows."
~ Sydney J. Harris

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of that candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared." ~ The Buddha

"And if we do act - in however small a way ...
We don't have to wait for some Grand Utopian Future.
The 'future' is an infinite succession of 'presents'.
And to live now as we think human beings should live,
In defiance of all that is bad around us,
Is itself a marvelous victory in itself !"
~ Howard Zinn - ‘The Optimism of Uncertainty’

“The real accomplishment in life –
is the Art of Being a ‘Spiritual Warrior’.
A ‘spiritual warrior’ is the only way
to balance the terror of being Human
with the wonder of being Human.” ~ Carlos Castaneda

_______________________________________.


Akasa always gives a FREELY offered
Phone Consultation – Let's find out a bit more
about what's going on with you. No obligation!
– or to arrange & set up an actual interview.

• 310-450-2268 ~ Please Use The PHONE–
as there is NOT much else we can tell you
by your asking your questions by email...

“Take the first step in faith.
You don’t have to see the whole staircase
– just take the first step.” ~ Martin Luther King

______________________________________
_____________________________________
____________________________________



"SPIRITUAL ADULTHOOD, Oiy !"