Stillness, the Relational Field, and Collective Awakening

Posted on July 8, 2019 by admin

As I write this in early July, I am now back in Ojai, trying to rebuild my core essence (Jing), getting ready for the challenges of the chemotherapy series I will begin in the fall. I was surprised at how subtly exhausting the radiation treatments were. On one level I feel fine, but at a deeper level somewhat empty. I’ve just gotten back in the pool which is helping, as is the assistance of my expanding body work team, and the integration and refinement of the three Taoist treasures, jing, qi and shen through work with the microcosmic orbit, fish body orbit, and the thrusting vessel.

Of course the ultimate resource is resting in the unfathomable, mysterious Tao, or, to simplify, ‘Stillness’. ‘Remembering’, re-minding myself to return my attention here, moment to moment is the core practice. And, the first evolute of ‘creation emerging from mystery’, the relational unifying field of unconditional love, may be even more important in healing as it permeates all forms at all levels.

What was extraordinary about Hope Lodge, my home in Boston during the radiation, was the concentrated strength of the relational field spontaneously channeled by the residents. With forty cancer patients, with differing levels of health and intensity of treatment, and an almost equal number of caregivers living in a small community, there was a lot of emotional energy. But universally acknowledged by all was how powerful the field of unconditional love was. There was a lot of turnover of the residents, but the field was amazingly self sustaining. New residents were embraced, and almost everyone who could, participated, in both large and small ways, in the building and sustaining of the field. Hope Lodge, the building and staff was the constant container, throwing us all together for various meals, movies, Bruins games and other events.

Much greater then the sum of the parts, the collective experience touched everyone. It wasn’t something the be figured out. It was a flow of energy that was just there, touching you deeply. Cancer puts you right in touch with the ultimate questions of life and death and opens the portals to unconditional love. And now after being away for over a month, I miss it. It was a truly unique environment. My lesson is to create that relational field within myself, so each of my ‘parts’ contributes unconditional love to the whole, and especially to the skeptical and wounded parts who may not have a clue. And also find ways to awaken this out in the world as well.

In a similar way, over the last year, and especially after the word about the prostate cancer got out, another, less physically contained relational field emerged with me at the center. Friends from my neighborhood growing up in Braintree, MA, from high school and college, from the yoga world, from Ojai, relatives, even people I barely knew, all reached out to me in differing ways, letting me know I was on their heart radar. My name was brought up in churches around the country! It has been great reminder how we all are unconditional love at the core of Being. This is easy to forget when living in a world driven by greed, fear and ignorance, but in spite of the insanity of the world, all of creation is fundamentally unconditional love, including the aberrant aspects that keep showing up in the news.

It is through the Stillness of Being and the relational field of unconditional love that the collective awakening is proceeding and evolving. If you look closely, you will find that all spiritual teachers are channeling the same insights. The language maybe slightly different, and the ‘techniques’ used in the different traditions to get you started may vary. But ultimately, ‘Resting in Stillness’ and tapping into the unbounded spring of unconditional love are the yang and yin, the masculine and feminine sides of the collective awakening.

What is awakening? All of Creation is awakening. Wholeness is Awakening. And we are all embedded in the multi layered fields of this on-going process. And the human mind, individually and collectively as a macro-field effect, is constantly sending up smokescreens of distraction to keep us from realizing what is happening right under our noses, so to speak. Illusion, delusion, confusion, ignorance, and any others words we may find to describe this, all point back to how unhealthy skandhas, arising as a reaction to the terrifying shock of emerging into form, are at the center of the on going delusion.

My favorite spiritual teacher and go-to guy for insight into the cutting edge of the collective awakening, Adyashanti, addresses this directly in a chapter in his latest book, ‘the most important thing’. The chapter is entitled ” The Dirty Little Secret of Spiritual Practice”, and begins this way.

“The dirty little secret of spiritual practice is that confronting the true nature of our self can be terrifying. For those of us who engage in spiritual practice, it is common to struggle with facing our existential fear. This is not the kind of fear that is necessarily derived from the past or from a traumatic event; it comes from a place inside of us. It is that sense that within consciousness that we have met an immensity of the unknown or the infinite, and in our fear we grasp onto our egos.”

Adya goes on the describe the three general manifestions of ego-grasping, which interestingly enough, correspond to the three dantiens as well as the skandhas. The first is conceptual, where our self sense is composed of images and ideas, beliefs and judgments. This ‘me’ that lives in our heads roughly corresponds to skandhas three, four and five.

The second, (Adya calls it more interior) is the emotional, centered in the chest. Here, our self sense comes from our feelings and the whole spectrum of emotions: positive, negative and neutral. As these are embodied in a way that the abstract conceptual level is not, that is, in a more interior and older region of the brain, this level can seem real, even if we have awakened from the conceptual level of ego. Skandha 2, known as vedana or feelings in engaged here.

The inner most ego center, associated with the primal terror of skandha 1, is according to Adya, centered in the lower dantien. “At the gut level, this ego is the experience of a contracted void, or a contracted state of emptiness. For this contraction to give way, so that we may be free and know God, we must access something deeper and more fundamental than instinct. In Zen, this is called “the gateless gate that we must pass through as we reach spiritual milestones or shifts. It is “gateless” because all that is happening is that contractions are released, as there was never anything there to begin with – we created the gate in our minds – and we will be annihilated, but not in the way we fear we might. Once we have passed through the gateless gate, once we have unclenched the fist of rudimentary ego, we can access something deeper than instinct and go beyond existential fear.” There is a lot more form Adya on this but you’ll have to get the book!

Those familiar with Patanjali may recognize this as abhinivesha, the last of the five kleshas described in the Sadhana Pada: (Vyasa, in his commentary to II-9, offers that abhinivesha infers previous deaths and reincarnation.)

II-9 svarasa-vaahii vidusho ‘ pi tathaaruudho ‘bhiniveshah
Fear of death affects even the wise; it is an inherent tendency.

Whether wise or foolish, we all begin at skandha 1 and have to navigate the ‘gateless gate’. Because we are all going through this simultaneously (the collective awakening), we call all support each other in this process on unclenching. As somatic practitioners, we are already familiar with how tissues hold patterns of tension and how we can use breathing, subtle micro-movements and leverage to help let go. A good body worker can also disentangle regions hard to find on our own.

And often life provides its own surprises. Hospitals have always given me the heebie-jeebies, possibly as part of my pre-natal ptsd, also now amplified by the cancer. So of course I had to go to Brigham and Womens Hospital on a daily basis for nine weeks. Great meditations and observations on the nature of belief systems and fear, and on how, in spite of the seemingly chaotic nature of the place, the underlying energy everyone working there was love. My skeptical cells began to soften a bit. Still a long way to go, but a good start.

Speaking of a long way to go, the day after I returned to Ojai, my neck went into acute spasm and stayed out for a week and a half. But, this mini crisis led to more new revelations and a new friend. I was able to discover a wonderful upper cervical chiropractor in Ventura who has opened new perceptions on the skull – C-1 region which as expanded my sense of how the Governing and Conception vessels interact at the floor of the skull. Funny how the collective awakening process works in real time!! Wow!

In the next post I will go into some ‘yoga nerd’ detailed notes on ways to dive more deeply into some of the points along the micro-cosmic orbit. Keep resting in stillness. Keeping bringing love into the world. Be aware of what is happening collectively and do what you can to make the world a better place, one breath at a time. The whole Universe is supporting you!

Speaking of the Universe, this is ngc.6946, also known as the ‘Fireworks Galaxy, part of the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies, a mere 22.5 million light years away. The name “Fireworks comes from the fact that this galaxy produces an unusually large number of supernovae. Apropos, a belated happy 4th of July to you all.

The Body-Mind Continuum

Posted on December 28, 2018 by admin

There are two books on my mind as of late: “The Network of Thought” by Krishnamurti, and ‘The Body Bears the Burden” by Robert Scaer, M.D..

Krishnamurti was the consummate jnana yogi whose engaging dialogues with his students/audience are well documented in many of his books. The basic premise of ‘The Network of Thought” is that ‘thought’ or thinking is like the limited programming of a computer, and throughout history, humans have been programmed to create a self sense through thought. I am a Hindu, I am a Buddhist, I am an atheist, I am a liberal … whatever flavor the culture of your time and place may provide, an identity is created and sustained.

If we look more deeply, as Krishnamurti would advise, we can see that thought creates all of what passes for ‘reality’ in our experience. Words, the language of thought, are abstractions that are highly limited at best. When reality ‘rooted in abstraction’ is mistaken for the ‘Ultimate Mystery’ of Reality, fear, anxiety and conflict inevitably arise, within oneself, and within the larger communities we find ourselves. “I am inadequate/flawed/unworthy/fill in your favorite inner commentary” always sit in the background, conscious or non-conscious, driving the bus of our lives.

From the perspective of the skandhas, words and abstraction are the foundations of skandha number 2. Here, when the small self glimpses the infinite and the recognizes that it too is impermanent, it spins a web of delusion known as likes and dislikes, or raga and dvesa as they are called in the Yoga Sutras. Life then becomes an endless pursuit to escape difficulty and acquire pleasure. On the surface, avoiding unpleasantness and finding pleasure make all kinds of sense. The problem is that if this is the whole story of your life, then there is no escape from the deep sense of unease that stems from the reduction of your infinite potential to an endless series of abstractions. To open to Ultimate Mystery, to open to an infinite ocean of creativity, love and wisdom, you have to change your fundamental orientation to impermanence.

The Zen Poem, Hsin Hsin Ming, (read the whole poem here), attributed to the Chinese Zen Master Seng T’san and written somewhere in the 6th – 8th centuries CE, is an exquisite unfolding of this insight. This translation of the first few verses is from Elliott Teters, and I prefer this one because many translators use ‘love and hate’ in line two instead of longing and desire. From my perspective, love is a word pointing to non-dual wholeness and completeness and is not the opposite of hatred or aversion. Longing or grasping capture the essence more accurately.

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
Let go of longing and aversion and it reveals itself.
Make the smallest distinction, however and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth.
If you want to realize the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything.
Like and dislike is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning (of the Way) is not understood
the intrinsic peace of mind is disturbed.

As vast as infinite space it is perfect and lacks nothing.
Indeed, it is due to your grasping and repelling
That you do not see things as they are.
Do not get entangled in things;
Do not get lost in emptiness.
Be still in the oneness of things and dualism vanishes by itself.

The Great Way, Ultimate Mystery, or Truth, is uncapturable in words, imagery, ideas or beliefs, but can be seen directly in the silence of meditation when thought, temporarily, pauses. Pause – Relax – Open – Allow.

The last few verses from Seng T’san:

Emptiness here, Emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and Non-Being.

Don’t waste time with doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this.
One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction.
To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with trusting mind.

Words! Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.

“The Body Bears the Burden” is about trauma and its effects on psychology, physiology and brain function. As a neurologist, Robert Scaer ties together the research done by trauma pioneers like Peter Levine and Bessel Van de Kolk and others with his own clinical experience to unfold the hidden side of trauma in all of its many manifestations. And there is always a ‘story’ entangled in the trauma, usually one filled with self-recrimination and shame, as well as fear. Words entangled in the trauma!

What is fascinating to me is that my own personal experience with PTSD, triggered by the Thomas Fire which surrounded Ojai last December, is being re-triggered by my various encounters with the medical world, and this began before the cancer diagnosis. I had a challenging childbirth, in a hospital, with some medical intervention to the natural process, so it is not surprising that I have some issues to work through here. When my PTSD is activated, the physiological ‘freeze’ response, where the accelerator and brake of my autonomic nervous system are being activated simultaneously, is also accompanied by a ‘network of thought’ layered with meaning making interpretations.

Fear, anxiety and shame are my three big ones and they are entangled in this body/mind web of physiology and thought. So I have to dis-entangle the physiological energy trapped in a holding pattern from the story attached to it for true healing to take place. This is not pleasant or easy and my first response is always ‘take this away .. get me out of here’. This only makes it worse.

One of the challenges of a somatic meditation practice is that the body stores trauma, large and small, as as you move into more and more openness, you are liable to uncover some un-resolved or blocked energy. When the story is activated, it tends to re-stimulate the trauma, creating a self-perpetuating feed back loop. Often the response oscillates between hyper arousal/fear and dissociation, dissociation being the ‘escape’.

In ‘Somatic Experiencing’, the trauma resolution therapies based on Peter Levine’s study of mammals in the wild, healing requires the building of somatic resources that can contain, process and integrate the bound energy without the activation of the self-perpetuating loop. Titrating, or taking one or two drops of trauma energy at a time to resolve, while sustaining an energetically stable and flexible state (sthira and sukham) is done with the help of a trained SE practitioner who helps hold the fluid/stable space.

Meditation practice allows one to be both the therapist and the client, as the spaciousness is a primary resource. It begins as a ‘witnessing’ of what is arising, which is all well and good if random thoughts are all that arise. But when you open to a traumatic energy pattern, your sthira and sukham are seriously challenged. Gravity and coming into the felt sense of weight in the body is another resource, the yin to the spacious yang. Does the energy want to descend into the earth and discharge there? Are your bones alive and vital? Mother Earth’s energy field can handle our physiological energy easily if we can learn to drop into her. Does the energy want to expand up and out, into the sky, the heavens, the sun, moon, stars and planets? All can offer healing to us. The Qi wants to move, in harmony with heaven and earth. We are heaven and earth.

At some point, heaven and earth, yin and yang, weight and lightness dissolve into wholeness, not two-ness. And then the terrifying abyss of impermanence also dissolves, for the time being. Until the next trauma is triggered. We all need trigger warnings! The abyss of impermanence is terrifying. Only the strategy is not to avoid facing it, but to see it is ultimately based on being afraid of our own mental creations, our own abstractions.

The body bears the burden of our confusion by locking down energy, but it also offers a way to freedom. The body is an expression of Divine wholeness, even as it flows through and as continuous impermanence. It thrives on impermanence, which allows the organismic intelligence to grow and relate and evolve. Falling down is OK. Being lost and confused is OK. The depths of love, wisdom and creativity are always present, in all situations. We just have to remember. Being without anxiety about imperfection! Impermanence as a path to healing. Wow. How delightful. What a great story! How challenging!

One thing, all things: move among and intermingle, without distinction.
To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with trusting mind.

100 years of Gratitude

Posted on December 14, 2018 by admin

I was hoping he would make it to today and beyond. Surpassing his guru/brother-in-law Krishnamacharya in time spent on our planet would have pleased him no end, but 95 plus years would have to do. Happy 100, B.K.S. Iyengar, wherever in the cosmos you may be!

I was blessed to have been able to not only study with him, but to have a deeply personal/cosmic connection that existed on a multiplicity of planes. Relationships with spiritual teachers are always simultaneously simple and complex. Simplicity is the common ‘Ground of Being’ where you meet as fellow humans in love and mutual respect. Complexity is the interaction of the personal karma you both bring to the table that is rarely clear but always educational.

B.K.S Iyengar defies categorizing. Sui generis all the way. His fiery genius has spawned a world wide following in exploring embodied spiritual wisdom. His deep insecurities, stemming I am sure from a very challenging and often abusive childhood, kept getting in the way of his finding a lasting deep inner peace. But that edge fueled his relentless desire to explore. Genius often carries that paradox. Navigating his energy field was challenging for me, and my own personal spiritual growth eventually required me to step back from the unresolved shadows of the community arising around him. But he gave me three great gifts, unsurpassable spiritual treasures, that remain with me moment to moment and nurture me.

The first gift was how to practice. Within the first few days of my meeting him in Pune in January of 1982, he came up to me while I was struggling in trikonasana. He puts his foot directly toes to toes with mine and says ” why is this skin pink and this skin white? Why is this turning in, but this out? He was asking me to feel, directly in the moment, what was arising. There was no ‘right or wrong’ action. Just, are you fully present? Of course I was trying to ‘think’ my way into the answers and was totally flummoxed, but he was amazingly patient.

The second gift was validating my own practice. This was a real gift as he told his assistants to ‘leave me alone’ during the classes in Pune. There were often a handful of Iyengar wannabes roaming the classes looking to ‘adjust’ students so they would get the ‘right’ pose, but he kept them away from me. My body is quirky and he let me explore his teachings without outside interference. That was huge for me.

The third gift was the heart to heart connection that came outside of the classroom setting. In the previous post, we looked at the Brahma Viharas, the profoundly healing and heart opening practices passed down from Vedic times, of great importance to the Buddhists and yogis as well. As an example of ‘it is always the present moment, this reminds me of one of the more extraordinary moments in our complicated relationship. In the summer of 1987, the second Iyengar National convention was to be held in Cambridge MA. As the president of the BKSIYANC, the sponsors of the 1984 convention in San Francisco, I was asked by Patricia Walden, one of the local organizers, to address the teachers gathering the evening before the official opening. I was to speak just before Iyengar who would say some words to complete the evening.

For the previous months I had been studying and working with the Brahma Viharas as I was writing an article on them for the Iyengar Yoga Institute Review, our tri-annual journal published in San Francisco. I was clear that the message of ‘citta prasadana’ , Patanjali’s description in I-33 of the result of practicing the Brahma Viharas, was of great importance to the yoga community, as some stresses and strains had appeared over the three previous years since the first convention in 1984. I had it all planned in my head, as I didn’t use notes.

When the time came to speak, I got somehow became sidetracked by something, or many things and just as I was finishing I realized that I had totally spaced out and forgot all about Patanjali and Sutra I-33. It was so disappointing, but all in my head, or so I thought.

B.K.S is next and as he comes up to the microphone, he looks right in my eyes. He then addresses the group: ” I had prepared to say some words to you tonight, but something has just come to me now so I will change.” And he then proceeds to base his whole talk on sutra I-33, explaining the Brahma Viharas and their importance. It was a serious OMG moment for me.I not mentioned my topic to anyone, but he somehow he tuned into me and the whole field and joined me in the teaching. The heart to heart, being truly ‘seen’ and validated by your teacher, on the spiritual plane, in the moment, was a gift that keeps giving.

One of the many aspects of Iyengar that I truly loved was his total lack of pretension. He did not pretend to be holy, or above the messiness of the human condition. If he was in a bad mood, everyone could feel it. He could be embarrassingly obnoxious when his anger got the better of him, and in a split second switch to being overwhelmingly generous and loving. He also had a great sense of humor. There was the time in Pune when he came up to me while we (the class) were in uttanasana. He bends down and sort of whispers to me “do you mind if I use you to make a joke?”. Caught a bit by surprise, I said of course. He stops the class and has everyone come over to watch me and my hamstrings. “Look at this man. He is a mule.” He then proceeds to adjust here, slap there, touch here. Energy moves and the pose changes. “See now? This man was a mule and now I have turned him into a racehorse.” And then he starts giggling.

I’m still a mule, but one very grateful for having been blessed by his presence. Happy Birthday B.K.S!!! See you on the cosmic planes.

Also a Happy Birthday shout out to my son, S.B.K., Sean Bishop Kilmurray, turning 22 today.