Category Archives: advanced

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Five Remembrances

After my latest trip to my oncologist (blood work came back with good news), I was reminded again that all my hidden fears, very somatic in nature, are still lurking in the background/unconscious. My personal story includes a bit too much attachment to the body entwined with the habit of interpreting health challenges as an indication of something fundamentally ‘wrong’ with ‘me’, triggering anxiety, shame and fear.

If I take this back further in time, it feels as though there is an infancy-based somatic belief that to be loved, I need to have it all together, and if I don’t, I’m in trouble, which has led to an excess ‘armoring’ (hello pericardium!) of my heart center. (There is a lot more background to this story which I will save for another time.) Observing this whole show in meditation practice allows some space and perspective, but viscerally the reactivity is still easily triggered. Aging is not a simple process!

To help, I am engaging in more ‘heart-opening’ practices such as ‘metta’, and some somatic ancestral healing with my mother and father as well as grand mothers and great grandmothers. There is a lot of fear, emotional inhibition and confusion in my mostly Irish lineage.

But there is another approach, which I have been neglecting, that I learned at a ‘Death and Dying’ workshop I did with Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Ostaseski back in the fall of 2018, and It is time for me to jump back in. The practice involves speaking, repeating, remembering and diving into the deep meaning of the following five statements as articulated by the Buddha in his discourse, the Upajjhatthana Sutta. The following is a translation by Thich Nhat Hanh. Have ‘fun’ with these!

Five Remembrances

I am of the nature to grow old.
There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature of ill health.
There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die.
There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me, and everyone that I love are of the nature to change.
There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings.
I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.
My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

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Sadhana Part 2:

Kriya and Ashtanga Yoga

If there is a universal teaching about discovering what is Real and True, it is that to ‘Know’ the True Self is to know Stillness or Silence. Our personal identity has to land here and then ‘let go’. Books by contemporary spiritual teachers Eckhart Tolle, ‘Stillness Speaks’; and Adyashanti: “My Secret is Silence’, attest to this. Father Thomas Keating, a modern contemplative Christian has observed: “God’s first language is Silence. Everything else is a bad translation.” Taoist master LaoTzu, implies ‘Silence’ when he begins the Tao Te Ching with the line “the Tao that can be spoken is not the True Tao.” Patanjali defines ‘yoga’ in two sutras: I-2: ‘yoga is bringing the mind to Stillness’ and I-3: ‘the Seer (then) stably abides in its True Nature.

To put it another way, Spiritual Awakening arises in and as Silence or Stillness. In sutra I-2 Patanjali points out that the innate busyness of the mind is a major impediment to both the first glimpses of awakening and also remaining stable there. In fact he completes his definition of ‘yoga’ by adding sutra I-4: (at other times …ie… when not in the state of yoga) mental activity is mistaken identification for the Self. This brings us back to our original statement that Awakening involves a shift in personal identity.

The inquiry into Silence and our own true Self-Identity is a crucial component in Spiritual Awakening, but because we begin with a self identity composed of mental activity, this process can often careen into more conceptualization and imagination. It is extremely easy to just change the mental activity so that if feels and sounds more spiritual, but that is essentially putting a halo on our still diminished self. Changing our behavior, however, from self-centric activities to life-centric ones is very important.

Fortunately, there is a very tangible and palpable embodied clue that can help take Spiritual Awakening from theory and concept to experiential realization, and that is the human heart, our heart, and the boundaryless field of energy emanating from it. By relaxing our attention into the heart and resting there, the depths of Silence and the seeds of infinite peace and Awakening to deep wisdom and compassion begin to sprout. The heart can be felt physically, physiologically, emotionally and spiritually.

Stably remaining in the heart is anything but easy as mental habits that avoid depths of the heart, created over years and lifetimes, do not dissipate easily or quickly. From this perspective we can see sadhana as a process of opening and awakening our hearts and discovering the infinite depths of wisdom, love and compassion emanating from the Silence there. Sounds easy, but the reality is that very few even begin the journey and even fewer Awaken. To understand why the spiritual path is incredibly difficult to live and embody requires an understanding of not only what we are awakening to (Silence)but we are awakening from.

As mentioned in the previous post, at the beginning of our lives we are helpless infants totally dependent upon others to care for us, and we develop powerful emotional bonds with our care givers. But over the years, with luck and support, we gradually develop more and more skills and strategies for taking care of our physical, emotional and psychological needs. This constellation of emotionally charged skills and strategies known as the ‘ego’ contains concepts, ideas memories and beliefs that emerge from an on-going ‘self-sense’ based upon feelings of separateness, inadequacy that are inevitable and quite natural for both infants and unsteady and ungrounded toddlers.

As we move through childhood and adolescence, these egoic energy patterns also accumulate various wounds and traumas from our interactions and relationships with others. As we mature into adulthood, these wounded structures often stop evolving and healing, remain unconscious, and yet continue to strongly influence our relationship to ourselves and the world around us. These wounds and traumas in turn lead to the relentless pursuit of activities that attempt to mask or repress these tortured feelings but never resolve them. This is the wheel of samsara and suffering, for ourselves and those around us.

Only when we make a conscious choice to stop and examine our own behaviors, habits and decision making can the resolution and healing begin. This is sadhana, which begins with recognizing these mental patterns and determining how they motivate our behavior. Why do we do what we do? What impels us to act, or not act in the world? Do our choices in life, large and small, help lead us to Awakening, or keep us trapped in a never ending spiral of suffering and confusion (samsara)?

This is true for individuals, but even more importantly for society. In our historical moment of extremes and rapid change, we need to understand what forces and factors motivate society as a whole to make decisions. The first seeds of awakening is the motivation to take up a spiritual practice, to walk a spiritual path, and Patanjali, like the Buddha, offers a very clear path to get us started. The Sadhana Pada, the second chapter of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, (the first chapter, the Samadhi Pada, actually offers more advanced variations) begins with the three practices of Kriya Yoga:

Tapas or discipline; don’t wait to begin practicing; the time is Now! and stay with it, with patience and devotion. Abhyasa (investing energy in developing mental and emotional stability) and vairagya (letting go of behaviors that perpetuate suffering/ being objective about the reality of forms) are two disciplines previously mentioned in the Samadhi Pada.

Svadhyaya or self study: What motivates me? What are the underlying or even unconscious forces that move me to act? Also, what motivates an Enlightened Being? The conversations between Arjuna and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita dive deeply into this process. Study of writings by those on the spiritual path are also part of ‘self study’.

Ishvara pranidhana or ‘dissolving into the Infinite’. Here, for short periods of time in the beginning, and later for longer, we discover the stillness of an open heart where our sense of separateness dissolves, and our actions flow from wholeness. A wise and infinitely spacious mind is discovered. Our choices and actions are temporarily not motivated by ‘small self interest’ but a desire to nurture the innate Buddha Nature of all of creation. *Interestingly enough, ‘Ishvara Pranidhana‘ first appears in the more advanced teachings of the Samadhi Pada, and also as one of the Niyamas introduced later in the Sadhana Pada. There is a lot to unfold in these two words!

After introducing the practices of Kriya Yoga, Patanjali then addresses the two goals of these practices: the development of meditative absorption, (a more advanced practice known as samadhi, described in detail in both the Samadhi and Vibhuti Padas); and the ‘attenuation’ of the primary impediments to awakening known as the five Kleshas. “If the goal is Awakening, what gets in the way of our realization’? These five impediments are:

Avidya: fundamental ignorance; confusing delusion for reality: literally ‘not seeing.’
Asmita: confusing mental activity and/or any of the five koshas for the Self. (see sutra I-4)
Raga: unquenchable desire for pleasure; for something to make me feel whole. I want – I need – I have to have
Dvesa: unquenchable desire to avoid pain: to immediately get rid of anything that makes me feel uncomfortable
Abhinivesha: the inherent fear of dying

We now circle back to our practices and consider how they can help overcome these very challenging obstacles. We take time to examine our behavioral patterns and look for ways in which the kleshas are active. We can do this ‘off the mat’ by just holding the question, why am I doing this?, as we go about our day. On the mat or meditation cushion, we can observe more deeply the flow of mental activity. Most of our dysfunctional behavior comes from unconscious forces, so slowing down and paying more attention to our thoughts and actions will begin this process. But to do this, we need the discipline that leads us to a stability in our meditation.

Later on in the chapter, Patanjali introduces a set of eight practices, Ashtanga (eight limbs)Yoga to help us in developing self discipline, uncovering our unconscious patterns of thought and action and healing them. The first five are the final sutras of the Sadhana Pada and are considered to be more external, or preparatory for meditation. The last three limbs begin the Vibhuti Pada and are considered to be more internal or meditative.
The eight limbs are:

Yama: five guidelines for interpersonal relationships, offered as ‘what not to do’
Niyama: five guidelines for more personal elements of personal practice, offered as ‘what to do’.
Asana: Exploring the more tangible self-organizing capacities of the human body
Pranayama: Exploring the more subtle energy body
Pratyahara: Exploring the role of the sense organs in creating ‘raga and dvesa‘

Dharana: the act of bringing ones attention to a single place, again and again, amidst the distractions.
Dhyana: meditation; sustaining attention, with will power, to help resolve the distractions.
Samadhi: meditative absorption, where sense of self and time disappear


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Embodying Presence:

Winter Series Mid-Term Notes

Being: Living in Presence: Three Commitments (from Adyashanti)

Commitment to Stillness as the root of Presence
Commitment to resting in the breathing flow, as both portal and anchor
Commitment to compassion for our humanity and the challenges of the commitments

Becoming: Three Principles of Embodying

Finding and feeling the dynamic field of aliveness as vibration and tone
Discovering/feeling/exploring the Yin and Yang poles of tone as:
weight/lightness, condensing/expanding, flexion tone/extension tone etc.
Finding and resting in balanced tone as a portal to Stillness

Belonging: Living/practicing the four Brahma Viharas in all of our relationships in the world
Loving-kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, Equanimity

Discover and explore how these three link together in our daily lives. As a personal example, it is an act of loving kindness to myself to do my practice every morning. Part of that practice involves invoking compassion as a way of opening my heart. The breathing is essential in both Embodying and Presence practices. I feel my aliveness being more juicy in the presence of joy. My heart opens more when I can feel others distress and suffering.

Embodying Presence as
a vibrational field, embracing all, from atoms to cells, organs, tissues and the world around us

Becoming as awakening to, and exploring the feeling of, the living, breathing, bio-dynamic presence of the body’s energy field. We will call this organizing field as ‘primary tone‘ as it has a vibrational quality, as in music.

Explore primary tone beginning in the feet at K-1. Climbing the wall, walking, dancing, any way to engage your feet. In skiers tadasana, find the flexion/extension balance through feet, ankles, knees and hips, keeping the pelvis vertical, neither ‘tucking’ nor ‘untucking’, as the body bobs up and down. Let your tail hang freely, like a dog, bird or reptile. Feel the support of Mother Earth as yin/grounding/flexion/condensing, as well as the support of Father Sky as yang/ space / extension/ expansion. Here primary tone connects to the Cosmic support of gravity and boundary-less space.

Explore going in and out of the simple standing forward bend, uttanasana, maintaining the flexion/extension tone balance in the legs and notice how the spine responds. Feel the flexion / extension through the joints as an expanding / condensing throughout the whole body.

Connect K-1 to the pubic bones and then sternum, feeling a lift and support to the yin front body and organs, and repeat the above two explorations.

Explore primary tone as a living, dynamic three dimensional volume, surrounding the three dantien spaces, and linked with the Microcosmic Orbit. Dantien means ‘exlixir field’ and thus implies an energetic vibrancy. Our entry points to the volumes are the three bony cavities, the pelvis, ribs and skull.

In general the tone of the Yin/ front body/ gut body/ torso flexion/ condensing Conception Vessel tends to be to low and the tone of the yang/back body/spinal column/ torso extension/ expanding Governing Vessel, tends to be too high. This may be a pattern that begins in utero (premature birth doesn’t allow the compressive forces that build yin flexor tone) or just from a sedentary lifestyle. Our intention is to explore the state of balance between yin/yang and adjust accordingly.


Our starting points to awaken/strengthen yin front body tone are: The pubic symphysis for the lower dantien, the sternum for the middle, and the birthing crown* at the back of the skull near where the upper occipital bone meets the two parietal bones.

(* This is a term Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen uses. First to differentiate it from the crown chakra at the top of the skull, and also as the point of initiation of the birthing impulse of extension, when the baby begins to emerge from the deep torso flexion of the late womb state.

Ideally for labor, the baby is positioned head-down, facing your back, with the chin tucked to its chest and the back of the head ready to enter the pelvis. This is called cephalic presentation. Most babies settle into this position with the 32nd and 36th week of pregnancy. Other fetal positions for birth include different types of breech (feet down) and occiput posterior position (face up).)

Awakening primary tone through hands, feet and mouth.

While sitting, feel your hands gently and slowly opening and closing around a center point (Pericardium 8), like a bird about to clasp a branch. Feel you whole body responding. With your feet on the floor, feel them creating (yang) that same flexing/condensing and extending/expanding from the soles of the Feet (K-1), and feel the whole body joining in. You can have in dog pose with this, engaging all four limbs. Feel the body receiving the action (Yin) and then feel the hands and feet receiving the action (yin) from the action (yang) of the body (diaphragm, ribs, lungs, abdominal wall etc).

Now find you soft palate at the back of the mouth (you can use your tongue if necessary). Gently open and close your mouth in an expanding/condensing action similar to hands and feet. Relax you jaws and facial muscles to allow this some ease. Now imagine a gentle suckling action at the soft palate with the tongue, like in nursing. Feel you whole gut body responding, feeling the gentle movement. Relax and feel the primary tome throughout the entire body, from head to toes and skin to organs and bone marrow.

Now place your hands on the back of your skull, like in sirsasana (head balance), and as the mouth slowly opens , lift the back of the skull very gently opening the top front of the spine at Skull – C-1. Feel that as the mouth closes, the upper back of the neck releases as the skull bone oscillates back over C-1. By learning to feel the back of the skull as a source point of initiating extension/ expansion, as at birth igniting, many/most neck issues can be resolved.

Working with Trauma

Embedded in the primary tonal field of the body are pockets of resistance and holding. These come from psychological and emotional traumas, large and small, as well as injuries. Large traumas usually need the help and support of professionals in the world of psychotherapy, as when the trapped energy is triggered, it can often overwhelm the capacity to stay stable amidst the storm. A trained therapist with a grounded nervous system and stable primary tone can act as an anchor and stabilizer as we learn to navigate out own inner world. this is analogous to a parent helping to stabilize a young child when in a state of overwhelm/meltdown. This is why having a deep connection to Mother Earth and Father Sky is important for adults. We all need support for our challenges.

In working with smaller traumas, we can take support from the Stillness awakened in our meditation practice and the linking our our priamry tome to the Cosmic Fields of Mother Earth/Gravity and Father Sky/Spaciousness . the organism inherently moves toward healing and wholeness, but sometimes this process becomes stuck (dukkha). this is why continous practice is essential in the awakening process