Alone but Not

Practice was precluded a little while back, for the first time in eight  years, two weeks of zero asana practice.  Not by choice. Am fine now.  But wasn't.  I made the most of a dreary situation, and actually it was quite nice.  Physical practice was out, but mental practice was abundant..  I let go.  I read, drank tea, and for once just took it easy.

Back on form now, and just spent a while catching up on some blog reading, was thinking to let this blog go, but I feel that it keeps me in the cyber shala, even if no-one reads it that's fine. Was wondering why I do this,  I don't have too much to say, and the more I practice the less and less I have to say.  No that's not true, I have lots to say, just don't feel the need to share right now.  Maybe selfish, lazy, not sure.  Perhaps, and this is how it feels, I am in a time of, so to say, digestion, quiet time.  I like it.  But I like the cyber-shala too, so shall dip a toe in from time to time.  Of all things in Yoga I do feel community of every kind is one of the most important things.

In fact a while back, a teacher I like very much said the ingredients we need for an effective yoga practice are:
1. Teacher
2. Community (Sangha - Spiritual Community)
3. Study and Effort
4. Time (I took this as in making time in the day, but apparently he meant accumulated time, either way)

Of course there is much more, but this simple little list helped me a lot.  I used to feel a little envious of those who have a shala they can go to, a teacher in whose hands they can trust.  I teach, and I sometimes wished I were in the students place instead.  But I do feel, that because I teach, and because people come, we have a community, albeit small, that does help keep me going in my home practice. As time goes on, my desire to visit, and travel to see teachers becomes less and less. Knowing the really important work is always done alone, in the daily practice.  I have met so many wonderful teachers who always show the way a little further.  However, right now, I feel I am at a point where I need to walk alone for a little while. It's a nice place to be, and the shala-envy I once felt has gone.

These days, as it slowly gets colder and colder I find myself feeling very calm and content.  Staying home, practicing yoga, reading, drinking tea, listening to music and sewing.  Sewing, sewing, sewing, sewing.  Just love every aspect of it, from choosing combinations of colours, to shopping for threads and zippers, learning how to do it better, all the preparation, cutting, ironing, finally to the meditative tat tat tat of the machine as the needle goes in and out. Solitude.  My work takes me out, and in the midst of many people, it's the perfect balance. Sociable work, for a recluse.

Dreams and Hormones

My dreams have been so realistic I am confusing them with reality.  My reality, my waking, hours have been spent with Satan in Moscow in the depths of the novel 'The Master and Margarita'. All the while my hormones are raging and I try to keep a lid on what's bubbling away inside.  Why can't hormones make me happy, peaceful, kind and patient?

Yoga practice does ease the pressure.  But it is the practice off the mat that I'm working on.  To smile when I don't feel like it, and to be patient when I'm in a rush.  To nurture calmness in a storm.  Accept all as it is.

Enlightenment

Anyone out there read it?  What do you think?

Knew it was gonna be a bit of a mess-with-my-mind, rattle-my-insecure-ego, kind of a book when I read the first page.  Still unsure how I feel about it, I felt it spoke some truth and yet continuously contradicted itself.  I gleamed many gems and also became rather insecure, an enlightenment being  in Jed's terms can appear very much like a sociopath. 

This is a no messing around, very un-flowery version of what it is to be enlightened.   Am still very much mulching over what this means to my practice right now.  I lent it to a friend so I would have a partner to discuss things over with.  

Generally it all rang so very very true, shattering the popular version of what an enlightened being 'should' be.  Once in India I went to listen to someone everyone said had achieved full Samadhi.  One of my more interesting experiences.  When she entered the room one could tell she was different.  But the surprise came when she acted like a total bitch. In this book Jed explains that before enlightenment you are your ego, during you destroy and shed your ego, after you don your ego like clothes to enable you to function in the world again.  So do we tell if a person is enlightened or not just insane?

One simple line that has stayed with me and seems relevant to where I'm at in my practice right now is:

"In the process of waking yourself up, you quickly realize that there's no outside authority. You have to verify everything yourself"

Yes, that's it.

Basho

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise.

Seek what they sought.

Obon - Death Beliefs

Incense has been drifting through the air this past week, along with the occasional sound of bells or chants.  People dashing here and there, to and fro, from relatives houses, to temples, to bar-b-ques.  Typical three day Obon in Japan.

Obon is a time when families gather at the ancestral home and go to the family grave to pray. The ancestral spirites are visiting.  Incense, food and flowers are offered. It's a time that always raises questions for me.  As I go with my husband to pray at his family grave, I'm instructed to hold the Buddhist rosary, place my hands together, bow, pray, perhaps light incense, depends on whose grave and the timing.  I do as I am told.  But no one has ever told me what to pray for.  I just prayed that they found peace wherever they may be.

This is the confusion.  They are dead.  They have been dead for a long time.  If it's someone who just died I hope that they have found rest, and are on their way.  But these ancestors, I just pray that all is good with them.  What to do?  Am I supposed to be making requests?  I don't get it.  I always thought Buddhism entailed reincarnation, which would mean these ancestors are no longer our ancestors, but into the big melting pot and onto the next incarnation.  I have a feeling this pray to the ancesters predates Buddhism.

Some of my students told me it's not for them, but for us, to remember where we came from, to give thanks and remember our lineage. That makes sense.

A while back I joined a 49th day Buddhist Funeral Service which was a very interesting and touching experience. A very hot and sultry summer day, gathered in our black formal attire, we went and sat in the shady ornate temple. It was 49 days after this lady had passed on.  According to Buddhist belife her, she has gone on her tour of the seven hells and seven heavens and is in the stage of transmigration.  Our job, the purpose of the ceremony, is to offer support and prayer to help her secure a good position in the after life.  Although the Pure Land Buddhists say this isn't really necessary, as ascension is assured This has us chanting Namu Amida Butsu and banging on the most beautiful items of ceremonial percussion.  It was a beautiful gathering and I sincerely hope it helped.

However, I have great difficulty in believing in the rituals created by man. I was raised Christian, had a depressive atheist episode, which developed into a hopeful agnostic view, then on to Tibetan Buddhism, which led to Zen, brief episode of forgetting with alcohol and such, another awakening and a slow path to the more spiritual  yogic view.  Which resonates very deeply with me....on one level.  I mean my experiences to date are affirmed by what the Yogi's have passed down, but I still have that drop of existentialist cynicism. I've been told it's good to question, not to have blind faith.  But these slumps of belief or rather conviction, in this yoga and what is slowly becoming my all religion encompassing world view, get me down.  Old beliefs rear up and ridicule me. I studied psychology which had us believe we are a production of neurotransmitters, chemical reactions in our supercomputer brain giving us the impression of something other than this flesh we inhabit.  Anything  experienced to the contrary can be explained away by the unfathomable brain's workings. Is the idea of an eternal being, a soul, purusha, just one thought up by men to provide comfort whilst facing our own mortality.  A feat which seems to make us human.  Other animals, though how we know this I don't know, cannot conceive of their own end. Contemplation continues. Reincarnation, move on to the next level, spirit merged with the universe, recycled, the void....should probably just get on and enjoy where I am right now. Not concern my mass of tangled cells and chemicals with the ultimate in unknowness. That's where it's at right. Now.  Back to Zen.

Thoughts anyone?

* Five minutes after publishing I step out of my house to watch an absolutely amazing display of lightening, flashes, sparks, multi-colours electrical show.  Got that feeling of beauty and awe, puts my soul at rest in a very primal way *