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.

Holiday Greetings

Posted on December 24, 2019 by admin

Happy Solstice, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.

As we flow along with the transition from waning yang to maximum yin and then yin transforming to new born yang, the time is ripe for deep introspection and dissolving into Presence. As such, I offer you some holiday gifts for your practice in the form of some wisdom from three of my favorite teachers, Adyashanti, Jeffrey Yuen and Frank Ostaseski.

We begin with Adyanshanti’s clear and concise description of what he calls True meditation. By the way, as I discussed in the previous post, I find this process very difficult. I have become quite seduced by the subtle levels of form, with all the insights and traumas that arise with there. This is a universal story, as the experiences of Buddha and Jesus have pointed out. The egoic structures cannot survive in Timeless Presence, so they will become more and more subtle in their ways of preventing us from dropping into our True Nature.

For me, refined focal attention (samadhi) in the energy fields of the body has become places of egoic stuckness. The pleasurable ones are the infinite nuances of the energy patterns. I can follow them forever and never arrive in stillness. My yang attentional field wants to keep ‘doing’. I am, very slowly, learning to have a yin attentional field, where my attention moves to a place in the body, and then I ‘get out of the way’ and allow the energy to do its own thing. Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, my somatic guru is helping me with this. And then, with some grace, my attention can dissolve into Presence.

The unpleasant places of stuckness are the granthis mentioned in the previous post. Here, fear and armoring against the fear create a loop on tightening and constriction. As with the fun stuff, maintaining a ‘yin’ attentional field is the key to help resolve/dissolve these energetic habits. Occasionally, True Nature, drashtuh svarupe, appears from behind the attachments as open, spacious, effortless resting and knowing. I find that opening to spaciousness is helpful, but this is still operating in the world of form. And Presence is open to everything, including stuckness, so ultimately I just laugh at my own foolishness. Adya offers similar advice, in his own unique and simple way.

“True meditation has no direction or goal. It is pure wordless surrender, pure silent prayer. All methods aiming at achieving a certain state of mind are limited, impermanent, and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only to bondage and dependency. True meditation is abidance as primordial awareness.

True meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when awareness is not being manipulated or controlled. When you first start to meditate, you notice that attention is often being held captive by focus on some object: on thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, memories, sounds, etc. This is because the mind is conditioned to focus and contract upon objects. Then the mind compulsively interprets and tries to control what it is aware of (the object) in a mechanical and distorted way. It begins to draw conclusions and make assumptions according to past conditioning.

In true meditation all objects (thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, etc.) are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to focus on, manipulate, control, or suppress any object of awareness. In true meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness is the source in which all objects arise and subside.

As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind’s compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Silence of being will come more clearly into consciousness as a welcoming to rest and abide. An attitude of open receptivity, free of any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of silence and stillness to be revealed as your natural condition.

As you rest into stillness more profoundly, awareness becomes free of the mind’s compulsive control, contractions, and identifications. Awareness naturally returns to its non-state of absolute unmanifest potential, the silent abyss beyond all knowing.

SOME COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT MEDITATION

Q. It seems that the central instruction in True Meditation is simply to abide as silent, still awareness. However, I often find that I am caught in my mind. Is it OK to use a more directed meditation like following my breath, so that I have something to focus on that will help me to not get lost in my mind?

A. It is perfectly OK to use a more directed technique such as following your breath, or using a simple mantra or centering prayer, if you find that it helps you to not get lost in thought. But always be inclined toward less and less technique. Make time during each meditation period to simply rest as silent, still awareness. True Meditation is progressively letting go of the meditator without getting lost in thought.

Q. What should I do if an old painful memory arises during meditation?

A. Simply allow it to arise without resisting it or indulging in analyzing, judging, or denying it.

Q. When I meditate I sometimes experience a lot of fear. Sometimes it overwhelms me and I don’t know what to do.

A. It is useful when experiencing fear in meditation to anchor your attention in something very grounding, such as your breath or even the bottoms of your feet. But don’t fight against the fear because this will only increase it. Imagine that you are the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, or Christ in the desert, remaining perfectly still and unmoved by the body-mind’s nightmare. It may feel very real but it is really nothing more than a convincing illusion.

Q. What should I do when I get an insight or sudden understanding of a situation during meditation?

A. Simply receive what is given with gratitude, without holding onto anything. Trust that it will still be there when you need it.

Q. I find that my mind is spontaneously forming images, almost like a waking dream. Some of them I like, while others are just random and annoying. What should I do?

A. Focus attention on your breathing down in your belly. This will help you to not get lost in the images of the mind. Hold the simple intention to rest in the imageless, silent source prior to all images, thoughts, and ideas.”

The following interview with Jeffrey comes from the website of the Academy of Classical Chinese Medicine, in Ireland, a great resource for Jeffrey’s wisdom. In this Q and A, he is describing why he is going to be teaching a program on Shamanism. Many of his observations are almost word for word parallels to Adyashantis comments on his own approach to spiritual healing he offered in a recent 5 day silent retreat attended by Kate and Sean. As we have been focusing on Daoist imagery in our classes, hopefully we can begin to see that our somatic yoga prectice can be personal shamanic journeys for our own healing. I’ve put in bold face type some of the key principles Jeffrey mentions.

Q. Could you begin by giving us the background to this class, and why you decided to teach it?

“I have to say that it was not something I had intended to do. What I was planning to do this past year was to teach one of my normal one-year programme classes on healing with stones and things like that. The previous year we did a one-year programme on classical Chinese herbal medicine, and I touched on shamanism and herbal medicine. A lot of the students were really thrilled with that segment of the class and wanted me to continue teaching it – but I was somewhat ambivalent because I didn’t know how seriously people would be taking it.

“If you’re going to teach a class like this, you’re going to do exercises with the students, and a lot of those exercises really involve altering one’s state of consciousness. And there are a lot of ramifications when you change the reality of how you’re seeing the world, and yourself. Without proper grounding you can get into a lot of trouble. So I thought, well, maybe I’ll do that in the future. And I was set on teaching a class on healing with stones. But in a dream, it was told to me that I should teach this particular class.”

Q. When you say a dream, Jeffrey, do you mean literally a dream?

“Yes, in a dream an older gentleman came and told me I should teach this class. And so I made the decision.”

Q. Can you explain what you mean by shamanism?

“Shamanism, in my opinion, is the root of both religion and medicine. It’s inseparable. Both religion and medicine are supposed to offer some sense of salvation, or redemption – be it of the physical body, be it of the soul. If we look at the historical figures within Daoism and early Chinese medicine, a lot of these were shamans. Many are depicted wearing what we would consider a shamanistic outfit. They might be wearing feathers around their bodies. They might be wearing a mask – which would symbolise the idea that they’re becoming someone different.

“In Daoism the early connections were always with nature. These early shamans took time to be in silence, in stillness, which awoke them to another level of reality. At 20 years of age the founder of my Daoist tradition – her name is Lady Wei – would go into the woods and collect plants. Not because she was being a naturalist, but because she was being at one with the plants. And the plants that she collected became the path to healing for her.

“When you get to that level of serenity, the plant spirits – or what they call ‘plant songs’ – create an intimate connection with the person. It’s almost like the plant functions based on its interaction with the healer, rather than on a more objective list of classifications where you say, ‘Well, this is what that plant does’. Once you become intimate with the plant it’s almost like the spirit of the plant talks to you – and it then becomes part of who you are. So that plant works for you because it’s being activated, or invoked, by who you are.”

Q. So shamanism always involves connection with the spirit world, in one form or another?

“I would say there are many levels by which one might practice shamanism. People work at the level they’re most comfortable with, or the level that their own cultivation has evolved into. There are a bunch of students in my class in New York who who already consider themselves to be shamans. They’ve undergone training in the Amazon, in Peru; there’s one person who’s an African shaman and there are a number of Native American shamans.

“In the Daoist tradition which I belong to, the Shang Qing school, we do a lot of meditation. In the course of that meditation we enter into what I guess, in the West, you would call ‘an altered state of consciousness’. We call it ‘entering into another reality’. And in that reality you get to learn from those things that you make contact with. You basically allow your consciousness to go into different realms, and at the same time you become another consciousness. You don’t try to control anything, you try to be open to everything. There’s a sense in which you lose who you are when you’re in that meditative state – and then you return back to how you basically believe you ‘are’. It’s almost like schizophrenia.”

Q. Which is why you have to be so well grounded in your own reality to begin with?

“Right. So you can see why I was ambivalent about wanting to teach something like that to a group of students – a lot of whom I don’t know individually. At the beginning we did a lot of grounding exercises, and I tried to emphasise that when you go into one of these states there’s a lot of things you need to do to return to physical reality- such as put your attention to parts of your body. So your body becomes like a grounding tool which helps you to stay anchored.”

Q. For you, Jeffrey, is the shamanistic approach an important tool in a healer’s repertoire?

“I think it’s probably the most important tool. About six years ago I went into semi-retirement. I didn’t want to practice Chinese medicine for a period of time, and it was because I wanted to take time to contemplate the essence of healing. To me, that was not what I was practicing. There was something I believed was still missing, in terms of working with individuals to seek healing based on the individual, rather than just giving herbs or giving acupuncture or other healing modalities. A lot of it was really asking, what is the underlying spirit of healing? And taking time to contemplate and reflect on that. And I can’t say I’ve found the answer! But I have definitely come to a greater realization of what it is that I believe needs to occur in the process of healing – and that is, that the consciousness that brings on disease cannot be the consciousness that brings on healing.”

Q. This is something you’ve spoken about before, Jeffrey: could you sum up why you feel it’s so important?

“I believe that to heal a person has to shift their consciousness.

In Western medicine there’s this sense of objectivity – of not allowing the transference of the patient into the clinician, and vice versa. But I believe that’s not appropriate. I believe that I have to be in the consciousness of my patient so that I can alter that consciousness, and then bring that consciousness back to the patient to see if they can alter it. So it was really for me to become more aware of how my patients were seeing themselves – almost like a form of therapy. I had to take ownership of their consciousness, to see how they would think in various circumstances. And maybe give them different ways of looking at it, or seeing it, in order to provoke them to change their perception.”

Q. As you’ve said, however, entering into an altered state of consciousness can be dangerous – if it’s done without sufficient preparation and grounding. What are the potential dangers of a shamanistic approach, and can you give some examples of the grounding exercises you used with your students?

“Well, the dangers might involve you summoning up or generating images – or, for lack of a better word, entities – that potentially can be harmful to yourself. If you start meditation and you believe in, say, ghosts, then you may enter a dimension where there are ghosts. Because if I say ‘I’m afraid of ghosts’, the hair on the back of my neck starts to rise, and the fear can build into a state of panic. That state of panic is going to sabotage your ability to go further.

“That’s why one of the early lectures that we had on the shamanism course was all about how not to be afraid of death and dying. The most that anything can do to you is to cause you to die – and if you’re not afraid of death and dying, then you’ve overcome one obstacle to shamanism already. That’s why, in some religious traditions, people sometimes meditate in cemeteries or get buried underneath the ground. They’re doing things to stimulate fear. The ultimate fear is the fear of annihilation – that you’ll no longer be who you are. So if you can overcome that fear in a mental, emotional and ultimately physical way, that’s one of the grounding techniques.

“One of the things the students had to do was learn to be comfortable in total darkness. When I was young, I grew up in New York city – so my meditation room was the closet. I would be locked up in the closet, and it would be totally dark! Some people would find that really uncomfortable. But the idea is that in total darkness you can generate light. The Daoist master Chuang Tzu writes that with day comes night, with life comes death. Night returns to day and death returns to life. The idea is to provide a beacon of light, to provide guidance to those who are stuck in that state of consciousness. Because if a healer is stuck there, then they can’t really offer their patient much resolution – outside the comfort of compassion. That’s very important. But it may not just be enough for healing to take place.”

Q. To sum up, then, a shamanistic approach to healing is not really about externals – feathers, masks and so on – but has more to do with internal change?

“The ultimate thing to realise is that there are no tools in shamanism. Although people use feathers, or they use chanting, or drumming, those are just crutches – just as in healing we use herbs and needles and all of that. But the healing comes from within. What we do is, basically, we are touching the person with our spirit. Anyone who is a healer in the truest sense just heals with their presence. We can feel that energy, and if we’re receptive to it it opens us up to the endless wonder of human possibility.”

I met Frank Ostaseski last November at a ‘Love, Death and Dying’ workshop at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, and wrote about it here. Frank is one of the most open, clear and heart centered people I have ever met. So there was with shock and sadness when I heard that he had suffered a major stroke last summer, and then a series of smaller ones afterward. I have been following his healing story through a blog series posted by his wife. Last week, he made his first public appearance at the end of major conference on end of life care sponsored by EndWell. A video was posted by his wife, Vanda, and can be seen by clicking on this link. It is quite powerful and extraordinary to hear his story about how he is being present to what life is giving him.

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.