Vulnerably Grounded in Spaciousness

Posted on March 25, 2020 by admin

Patanjali’s definition of posture, sthira sukham (asanam) desribes the embodied state of being in harmony with both the force of gravity and the natural spaciousness of the Universe. The feeling is that you are floating, which in many ways is true. Internally, there is a release of compression in the blood vessels and nerves, allowing the blood and qi to circulate and flow more freely. This is more easily felt in movement, where the ‘sukham’ or fluid flow through spaciousness is more obvious. In the non-movement of a yoga pose, the sukham is felt as the harmonious flow of blood and qi, even as the outer body remains still. In referring to meditation, Adyashanti describes stillness as the complete absence of resistance to the flow of life. This is another way to describe sthira sukham.

On a cosmic level, all forms in the Universe floating. This NASA photo taken from a million miles away shows our moon gliding past Mother Earth, a big blue ball floating in space. If we look deeply, we can see that not only are we floating, but we are very vulnerable. To us tiny beings on the planet, the earth seems immense. But in a more cosmically oriented reality, it is tiny. Life, and the conditions that allow life are rare, precious and vulnerable in the vast Universe. Covid-19 is here to remind the whole planet of this reality and to encourage us to open our hearts, which know vulnerability intimately, more completely.

Vulnerability can lead to deeper opening through an embodied sense of compassion and tenderness. But is also can create the contracting effects of fear and anxiety. This is true both personally and collectively, as we can see in our personal and collective responses to the covid-19 virus. Our responsibility, that is, our ability to respond, to this amazing historical moment, needs to honor the fear appropriately, (social distancing and rigorous hand washing everyone). But we also need to be present to all that arises in the collective field, with compassion and tenderness, to ourselves and others. This is where our practice can hopefully pay off. I remember Iyengar, many years ago, both playfully and seriously describe the need to practice even more diligently when things are going well, quoting the old proverb “make hay while the sun shines”. We’ve been training for this for a while, and now is time to really bring our ‘sthira sukaham‘ vulnerability out into the world, in whatever way we can.

For those new to meditation, ‘vulnerable grounded spaciousness’ is not an easily accessible state of embodiment, as the energetic field holding together the fluids, fibers, organs and tissues of the body carries unresolved and unprocessed wounds and traumas, embedded as patterns of holding and tension. Humans, being expressions of the vulnerability of life, have had to develop survival strategies to remain alive. Implicit in ‘I am vulnerable’ is ‘the world is dangerous’ and ‘I need to defend myself against ‘other”.

Our life experiences, beginning soon after conception, are inevitably filled with moments of pre-verbal fear and anxiety. Continuing through infancy and childhood and on into adulthood, these experiences have the possibility of being resolved and dissolving back into the infinite. However, when very young, even small traumas can overwhelm the immature nervous system and become repressed before they can be resolved. They embed themselves in the tissues as patterns of tension, and remain in the background, unconscious, but influencing our behavior. Over the years, more and more wounds and traumas can accumulate, some being of major intensity.

The ideas and beliefs that evolve along with this survival process create a set of mental processes we call the ego and these become the dominant on-going story of our inner world. (The skandhas are a useful model to describe aspects of this development.) Our innate sense of Wholeness is repressed into the deep unconscious. In the Christian world, this repression is referred to as the “Fall from Grace” or original sin. We all know the feeling of separation and alienation from ourselves, and we are all on the journey back home, awakening to our always and already present Wholeness or True Nature.

Depending on the quality of our parenting, our capacity to self-regulate, and eventually resolve, these internalized states and energetic threats to our vulnerability can range for pretty good to very poor. We all enter adulthood with a some layers of unconsciousness, undigested trauma. Important to note is that the unconscious holds not only our own personal wounds, but also those of our ancestors, passed down through parental patterning, our cultural collective field, and the collective wounds and traumas embedded in the whole human collective unconscious. Meditation practice brings attention to the these unconscious patterns as they arise in the mind field. Awakening, or bringing the light of loving compassionate attention to these layers of the psyche, is what expanding consciousness means. As these traumas arise in our field of awareness, we need skillful means to manage, transform and heal them.

In meditation, when our attention is hijacked by our thoughts, there is usually not a large energetic charge to the process, and we can settle back into some level of stillness relatively easily. However, it is a different story when the hijacking involves trauma. Even outside of mediation, in daily life, we have all had the experience of our attention being hikjacked by some anxiety or fear and feeling the fight or flight mode of survival kick in. Because Covid-19 is activating everyone on the planet and triggering their unconscious, unresolved issues, this is a great time to work on healing both our individual and collective traumas. These powerful energetic states are looking for resolution or transformation, but without conscious skill and attention, we can end up feeding them with more fear energy.

The process of training the nervous system to handle emotional overwhelm is known as self-regulation, and is a primary aspect of parenting, psychotherapy and meditation. A grounded, spacious and loving nervous system can hold the field for another so they can learn to sensibly monitor and modulate their own their own nervous system responses to the moment. A child feels afraid and the parent holds and soothes, allowing her calmness to permeate the nervous system of the child. A therapist remains grounded and calm in their own heart and nervous system, guiding the client to become present, to navigate their inner feelings without being overwhelmed. In meditation, we become a parent to our traumatized inner child, healing ourselves from our own connection to unconditional love.

This is the healing power of the relational field and we can take it out into the world. Not by imposing anything, but by just remaining vulnerable, grounded and spacious as life unfolds around and through us, the collective field is soothed. Of course, the more of us soothing, the more powerful the effect.

The relational field flows both ways of course. Anxiety and fear in the parents also imprint on their children. Demagogues prey upon the fear and anxiety in others to whip up a frenzy of paranoia that they use to further their own ego-driven need for power. This is why we humans, individually and collectively are so emotionally complicated. We often cannot tell where the fear is actually coming from, and thus cannot heal it.

Fear is a healthy expression of our survival instinct. Without it, animal life would not have survived. (Plants do not have nervous systems, so I’m not sure how they internally deal with vulnerability.) Vulnerability is the ultimate expression of life. In the non human world, fear arises in response to a real threat, the nervous system shifts gears and the organism flees, fights or freezes.

Evolution has presented a challenge with the human because we have a nervous system that has evolved to respond to the reality of the present moment. But we have also added new neuronal circuits that can jump back and forth in time, totally losing track of the present moment, and confusing the older structures. The human mind can conjure up fear when there is no danger at all in the present and the flight or flight response triggers. We can project an imaginary scary future and get all contracted inside, now. Or something triggers a chunk of stored, undigested fear or anxiety, stored in the body, and we feel terrified as if there is a real threat happening now. When a real threat like covid-19 appears, we often over-react because the unresolved fears of the past also flood the system, and it is unclear what responses are appropriate and which ones are not. We can act ir-response-ibly when emotionally confused.

Practice

In your sitting practice, or even when standing and walking, take time to trace the flow of gravity downward, allowing your attention/imagination to travel all the way through, to the other side of the earth and beyond. Notice that you end up moving into space. If you really allow the earth to hold you, spaciousness spontaneously arises as a natural expression of the cosmic order. This is sthira sukham, or grounded spaciousness. Begin to notice that all the non-human beings on our planet are continuously expressing sthira sukham. Time for us to join the party.

However, as wonderful and important as this is, this is still a grounded-ness in the world of form. It leads to a relaxing and opening in the nervous system and this can be a portal to true stability, or should I write True Stability, which is Self Realization, or total identification with the Ground of Being, or True Nature. Nothing more stable than the ‘unchanging unbounded Presence. This is why True Meditation is so important.

True Nature, ever-present and yet hidden, cannot not be discovered through thought. We have to feel our way down and in, through the layers of our psyche, into the unknown. Thought can only regurgitate what it already knows. It knows not of the unknown. When we can create some level of outer silence, to eliminate distraction, and our attention can turn inward, thoughts and emotions throw up more distractions. They are neither good nor bad, just distractions. Practice is patiently allow these distractions to come and go without reacting.

The habitual grasping and avoiding really want to do their thing, but we can develop patience by training the mind to stabilize on a seed form, (see previous post). As the seed matures and takes on a life of its own, holding the energy field of the body/mind in a state of integrated coherence, we can feel/listen even more deeply and allow True Nature to reveal itself. Awakening cannot be willed, but received, as Divine Grace. As Richard Baker Roshi, one time head of the San Francisco Zen Center once said, ‘Awakening is an accident, but practice makes you accident prone.”

Keep practicing !

Addendum to the previous post: More Japa:

OM
the ultimate mantra

Pause – Relax – Open – Allow
From Frank Ostaseski. any and/or all of the words work

Metta Phrases: Feel free to use ones that have the most meaning for you.
May I (We) be safe.
May we be healthy.
May we be happy.
May we be filled with loving kindness

Sthira Sukham Asanam

Posted on March 20, 2020 by admin

What a way to welcome the Vernal Equinox! The Biosphere speaks. How deeply will humans listen to Mother Earth? This is the great question of our historical moment. We knew it would come. Maybe not when or exactly how, but the day of reckoning of human culture with the multi-layered realities of global inter-being has begun, in a major election year, for us Americans, no less.

Words are totally inadequate to describe the immensity of what is happening. I am sending prayers to you all, and all beings, so we all may find inner strength, flexibility, stability and compassion to navigate these turbulent waters. We are all a collective Odysseus on a wild journey through uncharted seas.

One key message from our True Nature, relevant for all, is that we are always Home, and Never Alone. Our True Nature is the heart of the Universe and Ultimate Mystery that gives birth to us all, moment to moment. This is why our meditation practice is so important, so fundamental, to our personal and collective well being. When we begin to realize that meditation is not something we do, but rather the natural embodied expression, in space and time, of our True Nature, there is a major inner shift. We begin to trust our spiritual instinct, the guidance of our soul, to offer wisdom continuously, as needed. We see with wisdom, feel with love and compassion, and act from our awakened intelligence, the buddhi in harmony with the cosmic intelligence, Mahat.

Our True Nature is always and already present, can never be taken away, cannot be given to us by any outside agent or guru. It only awaits our awakening. It is important to note that Self-Realization, (Awakening) is totally different from self-consciousness. In self-consciousness, our self sense, (ahamkara in Sanskrit, from Samkhya philosophy, the foundation of the Yoga Sutras), is hijacked by the ego, whose perspective is limited and separate from wholeness. Self consciousness is constantly turning on itself, spinning laong blindly. This hijacking begins in the first skandha (I highly recommend a review of the series of posts on the skandhas following the linked one, as a map for navigating the mind field in meditation.)

The journey to Self-Realization can be said to involve the tracing of our moment to moment awareness back, from beliefs ideas and concepts, through impulsive reactions, to direct bodily sensation before words appear, before impulse, to skandha 1. Here we begin realizing or recognizing, that all forms/sensations arise out of the Ultimate Mystery of our True Nature. What we encounter in meditation practice is that our ‘attention’ is what has been hi-jacked by the ego, and attention has become addicted to endlessly and uselessly seeking some sense of ground through grasping and avoiding everything and anything that arises. (See the kleshas, PYS II-3 to II-11). When attention truly ‘relaxes’ because it feels safe’, it lets go and Pure Awareness alone remains. Bingo. Recognition — Realization. However, the power of habit is very strong (Hebbs Axiom… all together now …neurons that fire together wire together!), and attention is soon back in the monkey mind of the disfunctional skandhas, running in circles while holding on for dear life.

Navigating the skandhas is not easy, especially in the beginning, but we have some tools that we can use to help us steady the mental ship. The primary tools are what Patanjail calls abhyasa and vairagyam, discipline and dispassion.(PYS I-12 – I-16). These lead to Samyama, or the simultaneous cycling between dharana, dhyana and samadhi. Dharana means to bring our attention to a chosen ‘seed’, which, for our intents and purposes, can be the breath, a mantra, or aspects of the micro-cosmic orbit. Dhyana is to remain there, albeit with some effort or discipline resisting the habit of the attention to wander. Samadhi is when attention becomes effortlessly absorbed in the seed. Time and self sense disappear. This eventually breaks down, the mind again wanders away and the cycle begins again.

It is the nature of the mind to wander. Resisting this reality creates and even busier mind. First and foremost is the need to accept this fact. The first principle in True Meditation, introduced in the last post, is acceptance of what is, moment to moment. This is actually the stance of True Nature, open and non-judgmental, to everything, including the judgmental thoughts that inevitably arise. Letting them be does not mean getting lost in them, feeding them with more energy, or repressing them. This is a stance of stability and equanimity, but it is also the starting point. Our True Nature, always and already is, so we start there.

As yogi-somanauts engaged in an on-going exploration in embodied sensation and intelligence, we can recognize that Samyama leads to ‘sthira sukham asanam’. Our pose of choice, along with our ‘seed’ of choice, (Patanjali refers to this in PYS I-46 as sabija samadhi, or samadhi with a bija/seed), becomes balanced, centered and still. When to pose really stabilizes, we can drop the seed and the pose just is, carrying on like the digestive system, or endocrine system, without any attention, action or effort from us. Here attention can let go, dissolving into awareness. It is a feeling or intuition that allows us to first sense and then land in the Self. Like strengthening a muscle, we can slowly learn to remain landed and grounded. Patanjali describes this in PYS – I-3, tada drashtuh svarupe avasthanam …then True Nature ‘abides stably’ in itself.

In a recent 5 day silent retreat Kate, Sean and I did with Adyashanti, I got to see what this looks like. Adya sat in a chair, nothing fancy, but in watching and feeling his presence during the many meditation sessions, I was moved by the stillness in his body/mind. He is an athlete, for many years training in competitive distance cycling, a rock climber, hiker etc. He embodies the practice of sthira and sukham. Total effortless stillness and radiance. Now he will be the first to tell you that this has come after years of practice, but also that this is available to all who have sincerity and a serious commitment to Awakening.

(A note on the language of Awakening: The following terms are synonymous: True Nature, the Tao, Ground of Being, Presence, The Great Perfection, Buddha Nature, Godhead, Pure Awareness, Brahman/Atman, Drashtuh Svarupe, and more. As Lao T’zu clearly states in the first sentence of the Tao Te Ching, ‘The tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.’ All of these terms point to what can be directly realized but never adequately explained or described.)

Practice: Meditation

Silence: Find as much outer silence as possible. There will be plenty of inner distractions, so minimize the outer ones. The inner silence is Absolute Silence, that is, independent of any and all movements of the mind. It can be noticed or felt in the beginning, as perhaps a vast spaciousness in which sensations arise. The more you can ‘be still’ in the body/mind, the easier it is to notice what is always and already present. Sthira sukham asanam is a gateway!

Take your seat… aka assume your posture of choice. Restorative poses of all sorts are great for meditation, as well as any of the classical sitting poses. I am sitting in a chair because of my cranky hip and it is wonderful.

Balance the energy by aligning your core line, head to tail, and feeling weight and lightness, heaven and earth sustaining you. Balance front/back and right/left as best possible with the help of the breathing, to find your center, in this moment.

Check in. If there is an inner stillness, just rest there, moment to moment. Even if thoughts or sensations arise, let them be as you rest. Know your Ground of Being is infinite and mysteriously alive. In Tibetan Dzogchen this is called ‘luminous emptiness’. If your attention is wandering, choose a seed.

These seed practices are part of abhyaasa, practices of stabilizing the mind. Abhyaasa and vairagyam, dispassion( essentially not being seduced by your minds neediness) are the first practices Patanjali lists in sutras I-12 – 1-16, as an introduction to samadhi that begins in I-17. Abhyaasa and vairagyam are also the practices given by Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita in Chapter 6, verse 35:

“sribhagavaanuvaaca
asamshyammahabaaho mano durnigraham calam
abhyaasena tu kaunteya vairaagyena ca grhyate”
Sri Bhagavan (Krishna) said:
No doubt, O Mighty-armed (Arjuna the warrior), the agitated mind is very difficult to control.
But, O Son of Kunti (Arjuna), by practice and objectivity, it is mastered.

(From Swami Dayananda’s translation) If you have a copy of the Gita, I highly recommend a re-reading of Chapter 6. It was my intro to the Gita almost 50 years ago and the verses are more alive and relevant than ever to me.

Choosing a Seed:
1.Breathing: Let your attention move to the breathing, allowing it to drop down into the lower belly, the lower dantien, softening and awakening the pelvis, legs and tail. As the breath softens, begin to notice the pauses in the cycle, especially after the exhalation. In this gap, feel or intuit the infinite stillness, ever present and much much deeper inward than the surface movements of the breath. Every breath returns here. Rest when you can, and return to the breath when the attention wanders.

2. Japa: Japa is the silent repetition of a mantra. This sustains the attention while the words clear the mind field. I’ve been using this a lot lately and I’ve found japa is like cleaning the dust and dirt of the windshield of your car. A squirt of window cleaner, a few strokes of the wipers, and you have clear vision again. Repeating the mantra inwardly is powerful. It is helpful if you have recited these out loud and can hear in your inner ear the sound as the sounds of Sanskrit mantras create very specific coherent energetic patterns in the whole body mind. You can find audio files on most of these on line, if they are not famiIiar. I will include some of my favorite mantras below.

Swami Dayananda says is his commentary to Chapter 6, verse 35: “the mental repetition of a given mantra, a meaningful name, word or sentence, is a must and is never given up, even by a sannyaasi.”

3. Mico-cosmic Orbit: We have been exploring various point and circuits from Taoist practice that bring balance and harmony to the human bio-energetic field. Use ones you have found helpful to harness attention, open and relax the body/mind. Build flow, and then step back and feel the results, as in the other seed practices.

As Adyashanti mentions, we can use the seed practices, but eventually we want to spend more and more of our practice time just resting in Presence. Otherwise, the seeds become an another addiction co=opted by the ego, which is really good at doing so! And as Swami Dayananda points out in his commentary to verse 33, chapter 4 of the Gita, ‘Disciplines are only a means, not an end.”

Remember, any pose works, not just sitting, if you can relax into it.

Mantras: (remember ‘ah’ is the heart opening sound. The letter A in all Sanskrit mantras sounds as ‘ah’, as in pahk ya cah in Hahvahd Yahd.

From the Heart Sutra:

Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svahah
“Gone gone totally gone totally gone over the top, wakened mind, So, ah!”
(Allen Ginsberg translation) We did this every morning with Adya. Love it.

Gayatri Mantra: One of the oldest and well known Vedic prayers:

Om bhoor bhuvah svahah
Tat savitur varenyam
Bhargo devasya dhimahi
Dhiyo yonah prachodayat

“OM Absolute Existence, Creator of the three dimensions, we contemplate upon thy divine light. May our intellects be stimulated and knowledge of our True Nature be bestowed upon us.

Purna: from the Upanishads: One of Swami Dayananda’s favorites on non-duality:
Om puurnamadah puurnamidam puurnatpuurnam udacyate
puurnasya puurnamaadaaya puurnamevaa vashisyate
Om shaantih shaanti shaantih

That is fullness ( formlessness), this is fullness (creation)
From that fullness (formlessness) this fullness (creation) has come
When this fullness (creation) is removed from that fullness, fullness alone remains.

The Great Death Conquering Mantra (very relevant for our times) We’ll meet Tryambakam again in our last mantra.

Om tryambakam yajamahe; Sugundhim pushti vardhanam;
Urvarukam iva bandhanan; Mrityor mokshiya mamrutat

We meditate on Shiva as the three eyed one, present in all of us like a fragrance
May we be released from our attachments, like a cucumber drops from the vine.

From Chapter 4, verse 24 of the Gita. This mantra is often used before meals, as the food is an offering. Our poses are also offerings, so this is a good one for any pose.

Brahmaarpanam, brahma havir, brahmaagnau, brahmanaa hutam
Brahmaiva tena gantavyam, brahmakarma samaadhina

The means of offering are Brahman, the offering is Brahman, offered into the fire which is Brahman, to Brahman. Self-Realization is reached by those who see all as Brahman

And finally one given to me by Swami Dayananda, from the Sri Rudram, a series of devotional prayers to the Divine as Shiva.

Om namaste astu bhagavan, vishveshvaraaya, mahaadevaaya, tryambakaaya
tripuraantakaaya, trikaalaagnikaalaaya, kaalaagnirudraaya, niilakanthaaya, mrtyunjayaaya, sarveshvaraaya, sadaashivaaya, shriiman mahaadevaaya namah

Namste to the Divinity, who rules over the universe, the great God, the three eyed one (the third eye of omniscience), destroyer of the demon tripura (who keeps us trapped in the 3 worlds of form), who conquers time like fire destroys past present and future, the one who will eventually consume the whole universe, the blue throated one, the conqueror of death, the ruler of all, the ever auspicious one, salutations.

Use these, or any of your own that work for you.

Practice: Movement: Keep the qi/prana moving freely, whether through yoga vinyasa, qi gong, swimming, dancing, walking, hiking or any other fun way to engage in embodied movement. This becomes moving meditation, or to paraphrase the title of one of Adya’s books, “Emptiness Moving”.

Editorial:

Our embodied link is Gravity, the cosmic expression of love, the mystery glue that binds the universe together. As somanauts, we have a direct link to this integration, through our engaged meditation and movement practices, through our bodies feeling Mother Earth and expanding into the vast spaciousness of creation. When our hearts recognize that they’re the organizing centers that can link Heaven and Earth, we can relax into our own innate openness and stillness, and awaken to the always and already present ‘Ground of Being’.

And remember: spiritual practice is the embodied expression of our True Nature (Ground of Being, aka the Tao), awakening to itself. It is not about trying to get from here to enlightenment, as if enlightenment were somewhere other than here, at some time other than now. In spite of most outer appearances, freedom is right here, right now, already and always.

Personal News: Last round of Chemo was in December, so I am three months out from that. The toll of chemo and radiation and other related stresses of the last 2 years, knocked me back quite a ways and I am still slowly rebuilding my resources/qi. My reserve tank is no longer empty, but a long way from being full again. I just had my 3 month check-in with my oncologist and my labs are good. I was planning to teach in Rochester, Boston and Berkeley this Spring, but with the lock down of the country, that is not going to happen. As soon as possible I will reschedule, but who knows when that will be. Kate is suggesting some Zoom on-line classes, but I am not a modern guy yet. It may come to that though. Sending love to you all. Be strong, stay grounded, be kind, keep up your practice and remember we are always together and connected through the heart channel, Mother Earth and the Cosmos as a whole.

Seeing Through the Eyes of Stillness

Posted on November 27, 2019 by admin

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

I just had my fifth chemo infusion yesterday. One more to go on December 17th. Its been a slog through fatigue, digestive challenges and weird taste buds, with lots of sports watching and crossword puzzles to keep me going when I am too tired to move. My plunge down the rabbit hole of this round will begin in a day or two, so I am trying to take advantage of some moments of clarity.

There has been a major bonus to this adventure and that has been the leap in my practice. Nothing like depleted yang energy to slow you down and help awaken to the ever-present stillness, or as Adyashanti is currently calling it, the Ground of Being. Patanjali, in sutra I-3, refers to this as ‘drashtu svarupe‘, the True Nature of the Seer, with the lovely addition ‘avasthanam’, from the Sanskrit root ‘stha’ meaning stable, also seen in II-46, sthira sukham asanam. In other words, Patanjali’s definition of Yoga requires your ‘self-sense’, an emergent expression of the ahamkara, the ‘I maker’ in Samkhya philosophy, to be stably grounded in Being. For most of us, the grounding is unstable for some time as we occcasionally/peridoically/often slip back into inhabiting the patterns, beliefs, concepts and stories of the egoic ‘self-sense’. ( See previous posts on the Skandhas.)

We all have glimpses of the awakened state, even those without a spiritual practice. Our ever-present ‘True Nature’, is always luminating our lives. We just do not see this, thus the term ‘avidya’, translated as ignorance, but which literally means ‘not seeing’. When our hearts are open in our relationships, or when Mother Nature awakens our innate sense of awe and wonder at her immense power, elegance and beauty, we are there. We tend not to realize what is happening in the moment, which is usually a good thing, because when the ego does the recognizing, the spell is broken. We are all very familiar with that pattern. And this is why we practice.

The challenge is to create a practice specifically for grounding the self sense in the infinite. (We can also use the synonymous terms: Ground of Being, True Nature, Buddha Nature, Brahman, Presence, Pure Awareness, Stillness or Ultimate Mystery as pointers.) Of course, in trying to do so, what we encounter immediately is the seemingly random nature of our ‘attentional faculties. What does it mean to ‘pay attention’ and to sustain that attention in a specific direction?

In Patanjali’s third chapter, the Vibhuti Pada, he completes and integrates the last three limbs of the eight practice Ashtanga yoga. Number six is ‘dharana’, bringing your attention to a one point focus. This is often the breath, but can be the sound-scape surrounding you, a mantra, sensations of the body, etc. Limb seven is ‘dhyana‘ or sustaining your attention through an act of will power. (Dhyana became “Chan’ when the teaching moved into China, and Chan morphed into Zen when itreached Japan.) Will power is needed because the deeply embedded habits of attention are to restlessly jump around, creating the aptly described ‘monkey mind’.

Progressing from dharana to dhyana is not a simple path. Patanjali, in sutra I- 14 states
sa tu dirgha-kala-nairantarya-satkarasevito drdha-bhumih
Stability of mind requires continuous practice, over a long period of time, without interruption, and with an attitude of devotion and love.

‘Long period of time’ strongly implies patience, persistence, self compassion and a sense of humor. When the egoic mind is driving the bus, it is not a fun ride, because this transition to stabilizing the attention can unfold over your whole lifetime. The great wonder and delight is that the awakening mind is ever-present offering clues and advice and we can nurture our connection there through the setting of intentions. Awakening does not take place in time!

When our sustained attention no longer requires will power and becomes natural and effortless, we call it Samadhi. In this state of absorption both time and self sense drop away. Now to be clear, samadhi is not necessarily awakening, although it is a powerful preparation. Because the absorption is still engaged in the world of form and impermanence, there is still something missing. The leap comes in being able to stay absorbed focally, and then allow the attention dissolve into spacious awareness.

As an example, I have chosen to sit for 5 minutes and follow my breath. Maybe by counting, or tracking sensation in the body, but I know that my mind will drift away. So my intention, set at the beginning is to, when ever I notice that the mind has drifted, to gently, lightly and humorously bring it back. This may happen five times, ten times, doesn’t matter. It’s a game with only winning.

Another intention is to just see the whole process with a sense of wonder. My mind is wandering, and “I know’ the mind is wandering’. Wow, this is cool! When the ‘I’ drops away and only ‘knowing’ remains, this is Pure Awareness. The judgment, criticism, boredom and frustration that inevitably arise are all expressions of the egoic mind states, but I can also notice them with a sense of lightness and wonder. Wow! ‘I See’ these egoic mind states as they appear. They are not me, but mental phenomenon arising I can notice and observe. When the I drops away, again, this “Seeing” is “Pure Awareness.

If the I does not drop away, we have what is often called the ‘witness’ or witnessing consciousness. We all begin here and it is a helpful step in dropping identification with thoughts. As Patanjali says, in completing the trilogy on yoga in I-4,
vrrti svarupyam itaratra. (At other times, that is, when not in the state of yoga), there is identification with mental patterns, leading to the dysfunctional mind states that then predominate.

The ‘I am witnessing’, or ‘I see’, or ‘I know’ is still dualistic. There is the observer, me, and what is being observed. The witness has been called the last refuge of the ego and dissolving the ‘I’ is one of the more challenging aspects to practice. In the last sutra in the Samadhi Pada, Patanjali describes this:

I-51 tasyaapi nirodhe sarva-nirodhaan nir-biijah samaadhih
Upon the cessation of even those (truth-bearing samskaras) seedless samadhi is attained.

Recognizing that I am not my body, not my thoughts or memories, etc is crucial. These are some of the ‘truth bearing ideas’ Patanjali is referring to. But they are still thoughts.

To return to the more beginning aspects of our practice, the mental arisings/thoughts/beliefs and ideas are the citta vrtttis mentioned by Patanjali in the oft quoted Sutra I-2, yogash citta vrtti nirodha. The term ‘nirodha‘ is a key one to understand because it is easily misunderstood, by the egoic mind of course, which cleverly uses it to keep itself alive and well. “Oh, I have to get rid of my thoughts, or stop thinking”. Or maybe it appears in one of it’s more virulent strains “I have to get rid of my ego!” Only the egoic mind could come up with that one. Fast lane to suffering there!

Meditation practice is in many ways about impulse control. As described in the third skandha, perception/impulse, the egoic structures essentially begin to coalesce here, so here we can begin to transform them. We need the skandhas. It is important to have strong stabilizing structures to help organize the potentially chaotic flow of energy and information our organism needs for surviving and thriving. If I were a reptile, my whole life would be based on perception and impulse. My development stops here. Survival, food and sex. The right information comes in, a reflex is activated, action happens. Otherwise, not much happening. No contemplation of the world around me. No analysis.

As a human, information comes in, and I can pause before I act. Do I really want to do/say that? I check my memory. Haven’t I been down this road before? My higher cortical funtions can be brought to bear on the situation. This is known as mindfulness, or the high road, integrating the uniquely human pre-frontal cortex. Or, if there has been trauma of some other form of pain associated the situation, the low road, amygdala/fear impulsive reaction happens suddenly.

In a meditation practice, our impulsive nature is often trivial, but none-the -less actively engaged. By knowing ahead of time that this is coming, I can set my intentions to stay mindful, using compassion, patience and humor, to slowly develop the capacity for nirodha, impulse control. The thoughts will come. Pleasant and unpleasant, klishta/aklisha, spiritual or downright embarrassing. They will come. Our humanness has thousands of generations of momentum moving through us so self compassion is very important. But with patience, and understanding we are not trying to stop the thoughts from coming, but only to inhibit our need to react, we begin to discover the natural spaciousness of the mind field, its innate intelligence, and its unconditional love. And when we ‘see’ what is arising this way, we are seeing through the eyes of stillness, and strengthening our capacity to remain here, where ever we are, under whatever circumstances my be arising.

The other side of practice, especially one that has been proceeding for many years, is that egoic habits can be ingrained unconsciously. I have discovered that I am highly over-attached to bodily sensations. I have spent untold hours and years staying engaged and swimming in the inner ocean. With a nudge from the ego, focal attention becoame a form of obsession. I have an old karmic ‘granthi’ or energetic knot, in my third chakra area. It shows up in the spinal column at T-12, and in the surrounding tissues, tendons, organs etc. Many incarnations of fears seem to be stored here, and the last two years have pushed me right up against this. My habit, now that this is no longer unconscious, is to get stuck there, constrict and panic, a classic low road amygdala loop. The egoic belief translates this as ‘there is something seriously wrong with me and there is no escape. Body constricts, blood pressure rises, I feel my BP rising and go ‘oh no, and then it spikes some more. I’ve developed ‘blood pressure phobia’. Doctors, hospitals and a cancer diagnosis have been a perfect petri dish to grow this.

My stored trauma has become a major source of practice and learning. Fear can be amusing in an odd spiritual kind of way. It was also very reassuring to see that in Adyashanti’s latest book, “The Most Important Thing”, he devotes a whole chapter, “The Dirty Little Secret of Spiritual Practice” to this very same knot. Fortunately, my practice has also given me some skills to play with this fun experience. About 8 years ago I stated to my inner self, ‘bring on whatever I need to wake up”. I’m ready. No idea what would happen, but now I am beginning to “See” what this is all about. Knowing it intellectually is not enough. Even having glimpses of the infinite aren’t enough. Stabilizing this requires embodying the awakening, in the cells and organs. This arises when we can see our deepest fears and traumas through the eyes of stillness. Healing arises when the trauma is held, through attention, within the open spaciousness of the Ground of Being. The body is a short term rental anyway, but while it is our home, it can serve as a tremendous source of creativity and healing energy that we can contribute to the planetary awakening emerging fitfully in our historical moment.

As Mr. Iyengar laughingly stated in a class many years ago, “make hay while the sun shines”. He was referring to our personal practice, meaning when you are feeling good is the best time to go deeper, to invest more time. Don’t wait until trouble arises. It is like building a savings account of karma that will serve you when the inevitable challenges come along. The Ground of Being is the ultimate refuge, the ultimate root of all healing and transformation. It is ever-present. Realize this, allow it to just be, and your life will unfold exactly as it needs to.