Congratulations to my wife Kate for making the cover of the most recent edition of Real Simple, one of the top women’s interest magazines in the country.
Her handweaving in the lower left of the cover is a real work of Art (hur). (see below)
She has items in over 40 stores across the country as well as in Denmark, Canada and Japan, as well as her ‘Weaving as Meditation’ classes.
You can follow her on instagram to see and learn more about her story.
Life has existed and thrived on our planet for four billion years because somehow, embedded in the intelligence of the Universe, is the survival instinct. Whatever it takes, keep the evolutionary journey alive and moving towards more and more complexity. The Universe Story, a mind expanding book by two of my mentors, Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, offers many examples of how threats to the continuation of life on Mother Earth were met with a tremendous burst of cosmic creativity and a leap in evolution. This is survival instinct acting as a collective intelligence, but each individual also has a biological survival instinct that manifests as both “I need to survive” and ‘the species needs to survive’.
This survival instinct has served life well until the arrival of the human. Because evolution has provided humans with a whole new series of brain cells, leading to an emerging capacity for abstract thinking, we now can imagine and feel threats to our survival that are not based on real time physical ones. There are many ways this manifests. Unresolved stored trauma from the past can be triggered. A conceptual ‘me’, a self sense based totally on thought, can feel threatened by ‘them’ who disagree with my beliefs, or dress and talk differently, or whatever threats our imaginations can conger up. Or perhaps ‘they’ have something we think we need for our survival and we will do anything to get it. It gets even crazier when the collective human, expressed in culture, takes on this threat. Wars emerge.
The Universe, in its evolutionary wisdom, has provided an antidote to this pathological twist to the survival instinct by giving the human another instinct, the spiritual instinct. I first came across this, in different terminology and perspective, from B.K.S. Iyengar when he described the two traditional spiritual paths of Indian or Vedic culture. The first, the nivritti marga is the path of the sunnyasin or renunciate who chooses to leave the outer world 
and devote their lives to the inner journey of transcendence. We might also call this the path of wisdom which is depicted in India by the image of Shiva sitting alone on a mountain top. In masculine dominant cultures, this is the only spiritual path. In traditional Vedic Culture, householders, after raising a family and participating in the community, often spend the last years of their lives as sunnyasin.
The second, the pravritti marga or path of the householder, who remains engaged in the world of time and space, can be called the path of the heart. It’s Vedic representation is Parvati, Shiva’s wife and the Divine Mother. Iyengar, a married man with six children, was on the pravrtti marga his entire life, and did not always receive respect as a spiritual teacher from the Indian 
culture because he was not a sunnyasin. There has always been confusion about the spiritual validity of the householders path, and this is directly addressed in the definitive guide to yogic and Vedic wisdom, the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna, the warrior, wants to walk away from the responsibilities life events have presented him and become a sunnyasin, as he feel that this is the true path to enlightenment. Krishna, both kindly and sternly points out that karma yoga, the yoga of action in the world, the pravritti marga, can very much be a Divine practice. For Arjuna, because he has karmic responsibilities to maintain dharma, (the spiritual integrity of Vedic culture), this is the only path for him. Iyengar knew this intuitively and poured his lifes’ energy into his practice and teaching.
In esoteric Christianity, the pravritti marga is also the Jesus Story. In the Gospel of John, I-14, it is said ‘ and Spirit became flesh and dwelt among us.” Unfortunately the subtlety that we are all spirit made flesh and Jesus was only trying to point this out was totally missed by egoic consciousness. Exploring the Ultimate Mystery of incarnation is far more important to us than re-incarnation.
Lately, my spiritual mentor, Adyashanti, has been using the term ‘spiritual instinct’ to describe the same two paths, only he is really refining their meaning and application for our times. As Adya describes, our True Nature is the source of our spiritual instinct and it comes in two forms. The first is similar to the nivrtti marga, but instead of being a life style choice, like the sunnyasin, Adya calls this instinct a universal desire of True Nature to know itself, for the Ground of Being to become conscious of itself, through the human’s awakening. Another of my mentors, Thomas Berry, describes this his Twelve Principles of the Universe: “The human is that being in whom Universe attains reflexive consciousness of itself.” It is the human’s calling to journey inwards to the depths of Being.
The second expression of the spiritual instinct is for True Nature to continuously express its divinity and wholeness through action in the world of forms. This is an outward journey, from the depths of Being into creation, the Divine world of forms. We see this in the billions of years of amazing fecundity of the natural world and in the dazzling displays of the heavens, recently expanded to us with modern telescopes and space probes. In the human, it is similar to the pravrtti marga, where, as Krishna teaches Arjuna, action in the world can flow directly from the spiritual instinct of True Nature and thus be a spiritual path. Our lives are an expression of True Nature. However, as we all know, human action in the world usually flows from the survival instinct driven by the greed and ignorance of egoic consciousness. The path of yoga is designed to transform our lives back into harmony with our True Nature.
Because egoic consciousness’s can and will co-opt the spiritual instinct for its own purposes, it can and will use a spiritual practice such as yoga or meditation as a means to either gain something; freedom perhaps, but more often recognition, fame or power. Ego driven spiritual practice also usually wants to or to get rid unpleasant things so it can be comfortable. Arising from the ego’s sense of incompleteness that desperately and impossibly needs filling, these forms of ‘spiritual practice’ can have you spinning your wheels for years and decades.
A more subtle egoic intrusion is the judging of the quality of your meditation. Beginners really struggle with this, but it happens to all. From the ego’s perspective, there are good and bad days of practice. When relaxation and stillness seems to come easily, that is ‘good’ When your whole sitting practice is consumed with distraction or agitation, that is ‘bad’. The spiritual instinct has no judgment. Whatever arises is what arises. It is open to every possibility. Developing discrimination and knowing your underlying motivations is the key. Ask yourself, what are the yearnings that come from the deepest part of my Being? If there is judging, or wanting to acquire or avoid something, the ego is driving the bus.
In meditation we are called to listen deeply to our inner world, way down below the surface flow of thoughts, desires, emotions and images, and wait for our True Nature, through the spiritual instinct, to begin to reveal itself. Although ultimately totally mysterious, unbounded and ungraspable, we can feel its calling. It cannot be reached through will power or thought, but by letting go, moment by moment, until letting go becomes natural. Feel your heart softening and opening in this letting go. Impermanence is the natural state of the world of form. Allow it to be, without grasping or avoiding, and the deeper dimensions of stillness will begin to reveal themselves. Let your meditation be the natural expression of True Nature, not something you have to do.
When you are out in the world, see Divinity everywhere and feel you own moment to moment alive as Divinity expressing itself through you. Allow both aspects of your spiritual instinct flower. Let the survival instinct remain in the background, until life calls it forward. Then let your actions flow from both wisdom and love.
For some further insight, check out the Voices of Awakening Page on this website.
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