Book Club: "The Body of Truth" by Ajahn Amaro Bhikkhu (Part 3)

Whew! It's taken me some time to get back to this! There's much in this chapter worth speaking about, but I'm going to be brief, just jot down some notes, and see if there's any takers wishing to comment and dialogue. Otherwise, next post, I'll begin comments on the final chapter, Michael Stone's concluding essay.

First, the section "Responsiveness Rather Than Reactivity" pretty much sums it all up! I often talk about how practice takes us from the conditioned patterns of reactivity to more creative, wholesome, liberated responsiveness. To be able to respond is to also take responsibility. In the Zen ordination ceremony, the "Gatha of Atonement" (or "Repentance") is chanted three times to emphasize that when we take this path up, we are saying we are no longer viewing ourselves as "victims," and that from now on we take responsibility for our actions. Only in doing so can we ever live as free beings.

In "Mother Nature's Valium," Ajahn Amaro points out a basic physiological fact: when the body is tense, the mind will be tense and active; when the body is relaxed, the mind relaxes. Have you ever noticed, for instance, your hands clutching the steering wheel of your car while you are driving? Next time you do, quickly reflect on what's going on in your mind, and I can bet you will have been lost in thought, either planning or ruminating or fretting.....   Conversely, the next time you find yourself lost in thought, do a quick scan of your body, and I can bet you'll find you are holding tension somewhere!  The good news is that with this awareness, you can use either 'active mind' or 'tense body' as "Bells of Mindfulness," awaking you to "suchness," the topic of the last section of this chapter.

Ajahn Amaro, speaking of the word tathaagata) says: "is that Buddha quality completely transcendent -- utterly gone? Or is it immanent in the physical world -- completely here, present now? The term is perfect in that it carries both these meanings and indicates that the two, embodiment and transcendence, do not exclude each other in any way." I go further in saying that "transcendence" itself is a completely immanent, embodied experience and reality. As a "Zen Naturalist," I do not believe that there is some separate "transcendent realm" outside the physical world. What is transcended is our notions about what that physical world is.


I like how he adds: "This attribute of suchness then carries with it the spirit of inclusivity, being the point of intersection of the embodied and the transcendent, of time with timelessness. It directs us toward finding spiritual fulfillment in the suchness of the embodied mind, here and now, rather than in some abstracted, idealized 'me,' some other place and time, or in some special uber-heavenly state we might reach through withdrawal of senses." This is fabulous writing! And it's important to keep in mind just how tenacious the tendency to seek some such "uber-heavenly state" is in our culture! Religions of all types trade on such promise!

Book Club: "The Body of Truth" by Ajahn Amaro Bhikkhu (Continued)

Whew! Long time between posts about this book, eh?  There’s been a lot going on, what with becoming a granddad and heading off to Hong Kong, having a group of wonderful folks studying the Precepts for Taking Refuge and all!

I've also noticed that there's been not one comment on this month's Daily Practice of karuna-bhavana. I hope at least some of you are joining me in this practice this month! What's up?

Last we left off, we were making our way through Ajahn Amaro’s offering: “The Body of Truth.” As a forest-dwelling monastic, he speaks of “the body of the forest” teaching us. We may wonder what this has to say to us who live in the ‘concrete jungles’ or even just suburbia or the rural countryside. He says “there’s a profound physicality involved in living in a wild environment” and that is true indeed! Yet, living in Brooklyn, the sheer physicality of getting to the Laundromat, the post office and back home in one afternoon was pretty physically demanding!

“The forest,” he writes, “itself is recognized as our body, even the great earth itself,” and I would hope that no matter where we live, we come to recognize that! It’s not so much where we live, but how we live where we are that allows us to see the truth in that statement. The water than flows out of the faucets in our kitchens comes from rivers, mountain snow melt and deep wells. We drink it and it becomes this body here, reading these words. No separation.

Finally, the uncertainty of forest life is not really different from the uncertainty of any life, and we had best, as Ajahn says, “let go, recognizing that that uncertainty is part of the intrinsic nature of all things.” A practice I sometimes offer is “One-Way Practice.” Whenever you go to do something, even simply getting up from your desk to go to the rest room, take a ‘one-way ticket.’ After all, you’ve got absolutely no guarantee that you’ll be coming back to your desk! And yes, Cathy, life is that uncertain!

In the next section, “The Body of Truth and The Body of Fear,” Ajahn Amaro makes the important case that our routine identification with emotional states is a leading cause of duhkha. In the following section, “Embodying the Mind: The Case of Fear,” the practice he is advocating is pretty much what I suggest to those caught in strong emotional storms: drop out of the cognitive aspect of the experience and really turn to what it feels like in the body. Where is the sensation? What are its qualities? In effect, what we are doing is investigating the mental formations as they exist in the body. It can be rather difficult to ‘just see’ emotional states, but the energy of mindfulness can more easily be cultivated to contain the pre-cognitive state of feeling (vedana).

Of course, this requires the persistent, diligent practice of mindfulness so that we ‘build a bigger container,’ or else even the feelings – if they are intense – will seem to overwhelm us. I like that he uses the phrase I first heard from Tara Brach: “radical acceptance.” Such a mental stance strikes directly at the ‘picking and choosing’ that keeps us from true intimacy with life as it is.

metta

Book Club: "The Body of Truth" by Ajahn Amaro Bhikkhu

It’s with the sequencing of this essay, following mine and Jill Satterfield’s, that I believe Michael Stone’s editorial expertise shines. With Jill, we read a personal account of mindfulness practice directed to the body. With my chapter, there’s the explicit tying in of the Buddha’s teachings to the larger Yoga Tradition and the explication of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. Here, in Chapter 12, Ajahn Amaro emphasizes the body as the path of truth – Dharma itself.

First, the Ajahn emphasizes how the body and mind in the Buddha’s teachings are not seen as two radically different phenomena. While they are not generally seen as “identical,” they are seen as completely interdependent (for the most part; traditional Buddhism posits a form of consciousness that can indeed exist independently of the body, and which links one life to another).

In the section “Dimensions of Nature,” Ajahn Amaor explains the concept of namarupa, and its five component khandhas (also known in Sanskrit at skandhas). He then goes on to introduce the other “patterns” or “models” that are used in the Buddhist tradition to describe the human condition: the six senses (ayatana) and the elements (dhatu).

His second section, “Mindfulness of the Body” for the most part, reiterates some of the salient points I make in my essay. What I especially appreciate in Ajahn Amaro’s section is his distinction of the Buddhist emphasis on the body and the ‘mundane’ aspects of life for liberation, in contradistinction to the typically ‘transcendent’ and ‘withdrawal’ understandings of ‘enlightenment.’

In “The Present – Full of Useful Possibilities,” Ajahn Amaro points out how the body is always experienced as ‘present’ while the mind can appear to be caught up in the past and future. It is this very ‘present-oriented’ nature of the body that Buddhist meditation takes as it’s opening to limitless potential for freedom. As he writes, “…since the body is always in the present, the simple recollection of its presence is a surefire method to key the attention into the reality of the way things actually are.” And it is too often forgotten by students seeking some ‘other-worldly’ experience that seeing things as they really are is the door to the wisdom of liberation!

His section on “Walking Meditation,” though short, explains the importance of this practice for the cultivation of mindfulness. By extension, other forms of conscious movement – such as hatha-yoga, Tai Chi and various forms of martial arts and even weight-lifting -- can be developed as forms of mindfulness meditation. This is still something I find many students not fully grasping! They seem to fixate on sitting meditation as the be-all and end-all of meditation practice! Apparently, as the Buddha himself aged, and suffered from various physical ailments, walking meditation became his preferred method of practice.

Finally, for this post, I’ll end with a few words about sila, the ethical teachings of the Buddhist tradition. Ajahn Amaro says about sila that it is the “basis of practice.” I would go as far as saying that sila is the whole of the Dharma. Currently, a group of students I am working with are going through intensive sila study and practice with the ‘goal’ of taking refuge. They are beginning to see sila as real, on-the-ground mindfulness training. They are also seeing sila as more guidelines to freedom than restrictions or prohibitions. As one student said, “When I practice sila, I find myself free of many anxieties, concerns and sufferings I thought were simply part and parcel of life!” Ajahn Amaro refers to the precepts as “rules,” but I think that term misses the living spirit of sila.

I’ll post a concluding post on this chapter later this week, but for now, I’d be happy to hear any comments from those of you who have been reading along. OR, even from those of you who have not read the book, but have been following this blog ‘book club.’

Book Club: A Twisted Story by Jill Satterfield

Obviously, as the nature of this chapter is so personal, and simply put, one person’s story of her yogic path, I am not about to address it as I have the other chapters. There is no ‘agreement’ or ‘disagreement,’ no real comments possible, other than the following.

I had the pleasure and honor of finally meeting Jill (I had had some brief e-mail exchanges back when I lived in NY) during the first Spirit Rock Mindfulness Yoga Teacher Training, where she shared her story with the group. I was moved then, and I was moved once again while reading her story.

I think it should be manifestly clear from her story just how non-dual the body and mind are. My teacher, Samu Sunim, always spoke of mindbody (which more or less translates the Sanskrit term namarupa). Rupa is form, and in particular refers to the body, and nama, from which we get the word, “name,” refers to what in Buddhism would be called the other four aggregates (skandhas): feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness.

Even before I met Jill, we bonded over an e-mail exchange where she wrote me to offer her agreement and gratitude in response to a letter to the editor I had had published in Shambhala Sun. My letter spoke to the point that in the Buddha’s teaching of the First Foundation of Mindfulness, it is eminently clear that all activities of the body, from walking, bending, reaching, and twisting or turning to the side to defecating, urinating, eating and bathing can – and should become – expressions of practice. Jill says the same thing in the section entitled “Sitting Straight” when she writes: “…practicing a Yoga posture became just another shape in which to meditate.” My only comment would be to say, make that ‘hatha-yoga posture’ as Yoga itself is meditation – or perhaps more precisely, the meditative ‘stance’ or attitude of mind.

As she states in the section “Straight To The Heart,” with the awareness a master teacher such as Jill brings to her teaching, the postures of hatha-yoga can indeed become a “doorway into the mind,” and one that may often be more accessible to many folk who would find sitting meditation much too difficult to engage in. Mindfulness of the body “in the body” is the meditative approach to cultivating greater intimacy with the body – and seemingly paradoxical – just what allows one to come to the realization that body is not-Self! In order to touch the water of the ocean, one must penetrate the wave. The wave is the ocean; form is emptiness. Yet, we cannot touch the water without touching the wave; emptiness is form!

Book Club: Brahma Viharas, Emptiness and Ethics: Conclusion by Christopher Key Chapple

Practice

In a way, this penultimate section, being the most personal, is one I feel less inclined to comment upon. After all, each person’s yoga is ultimately uniquely their own. And after all is said, I am moved by the examples Chapple is willing to share in this section.

Interestingly, the first example he gives as an example of the Brahma Viharas, from the more Classical Yoga approach of categorizing questioners leads to a similar response I would tend toward having from the broader understanding of compassion, empathetic joy, friendliness and equanimity. When I find myself confronted with an aggressive questioner (thankfully, relatively infrequently), I remind myself that perhaps the person is venting anger or criticism because they are suffering, perhaps the teaching is hitting them in a tender spot and they are resistant; I try to connect with my wish that the person be happy; I am happy if they are comfortable with their own understanding and/or practice; and finally, I remind myself that whether they are happy or suffering, that ultimately they alone are the heirs of their karma and only they can make themselves happy or unhappy.

Chapple’s example of “emptiness” practice takes it from the rarified heights of philosophy into a very down-to-earth understanding. I appreciate this, but also think it may overly simplify the radical liberating power of this teaching. Seeing emptiness of oneself is an important step; we must then go on to see all beings as empty of self, for it is this that opens the heart to unconditional compassion.

And finally, the ethical teachings are truly best understood as lived experience. This is why I appreciate Thich Nhat Hanh referring to the Five Precepts as “Mindfulness Trainings.” Through keeping them in mind throughout the daily activities we join in, we grow in mindfulness, understanding and compassion. As mindfulness, understanding and compassion grows, our lives become more exemplary of the trainings.

Brahma-Vihara, Emptiness and Ethics by Christopher Key Chapple (Part Three)

In this third section of his essay, Chapple examines the similarities between the Buddhist and Classical Yoga traditions – and points out how these ethical principles are shared with the Jain tradition as well. He argues that the intent of ethical practice is constant across these three yogic cultures: release from suffering. I think this is an important, and often over-looked point. The ethical teachings and practice across the board of all yogic traditions is not about simply being a “good” person; it’s not about following some external code. Rather, all yogic ethical teaching has moksha, freedom as its purpose. In this sense, yogic ethics are ‘transcendental’ and purpose driven; in a sense ‘teleological’ or ‘soteriological.’

An interesting point of distinction between Buddhist Yoga and Classical Yoga and Jainism is the emphasis in Buddhism on “non-intoxication” rather than “nonpossession” or, as I prefer, “non-grasping.” Of course one  can “stretch” the implications of “non-intoxication” to include “non-grasping:” in intoxication, we grasp after another way of perceiving, experiencing and being. However, the purpose of including “non-intoxication” as an ethical principle both high-lights the emphasis on maintaining clarity of mind that is paramount in the Buddhist tradition, as well as the understanding that the other ethical principles are more likely to be broken while in an intoxicated state, so by maintaining sobriety, we are more likely to successfully practice non-harm, non-stealing, sexual responsibility and truthfulness. A final point that is necessary to understand is that we should not fall into the trap of thinking of intoxication as being only about drugs. We can easily – all too easily! – intoxicate ourselves with television, gossip, Facebook, novels, exercise, yoga-practice, and even meditation! As Thich Nhat Hanh says, if we meditate to avoid our suffering, then we are using it like a drug.

I am less interested in Chapple’s attempt to parallel the six paramitas with the niyama. Overall, it seems like a bit of a forced stretch, though I can understand how some might find it interesting.

One of our correspondents commented on her wish for more practical applications of the concepts Chapple writes about in this chapter. The next section of Chapple’s essay is entitled “Practice,” and I will save comment about it till tomorrow.

Book Club: Emptiness: Shunya and Shunyata by Christopher Key Chapple

Forgive me for not getting this out the next day; things got a bit 'hairy' here in Tucson on January 8th.

This is a fairly short section, but we mustn’t take that as indicative of the importance of this subject! The teaching on ‘emptiness’ is arguably the most important among the teachings of the Buddha. Chapple draws the similarities with Patanjali well, though other scholars argue that Patanjali’s use of “empty” is not the same as the Buddha’s meaning.

That aside, I think it important to keep in mind that the word most often used by the Buddha in the Pali Canon is “empty,” and that in time we find the use of the word “emptiness” growing in importance. However, when a word goes from adjective to noun, we can all too easily fall into the error of reification, and indeed this has happened repeatedly in the history of Buddhism.

So, here I’ll take a page from Thich Nhat Hanh. In his commentary on the Heart Sutra, which Chapple quotes in this section, Thay says we should not take the bodhisattva Avolokiteshvara at his word without asking first, “Empty of what?” All phenomena are empty of self-nature is the response. That is, no phenomena exists from it’s own side, independent, autonomous, persistent, unchanging. There is no ‘essence’ behind, above or below phenomena. However, many Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists have reified this description of phenomena as empty into the ‘emptiness’ of phenomena being their essence. So it is important to remember that not only form is empty, but also emptiness is empty!

As Chapple points out toward the end of this section, ultimately there is a major distinction between Patanjali and the Buddha, despite all their similarities. Chapple says Patanjali suggests that the realization of the empty nature of phenomena delivers one to a higher state of awareness, which the Buddha denies. I think this is both unclear and perhaps not fully accurate. The Buddha of the Pali Canon, at least seems to posit some kind of awareness that is present in the state of nibbana, but the Buddha strongly asserts that even nibbana is empty of ‘self.’ That is, while all phenomena are seen as impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self, nibanna is permanent and ultimate satisfaction, but remains ‘not-self.’ The state of liberation for Patanjali, kaivalya is said to be that which occurs when Purusha realizes its ‘self-nature.’

And though this is a small quibble, I do want to make clear that the Buddha did not proclaim that suffering results from desire. The word he used, tanha, meaning ‘thirst’ is more accurately understood to refer to the more urgent grasping and clinging to objects of desire than desire itself. In fact, the Buddha said desire for liberation was necessary for anyone to even consider yoga practice!

Book Club: Brahma Viharas, Emptiness and Ethics by Christopher Key Chapple

“Brahma-Vihara, Emptiness, and Ethics”

by Christopher Key Chapple

Well, the holidays have passed, and I hope those of you who have been reading Michael Stone’s Freeing the Body, Freeing The Mind with me as part of this ‘virtual book club’ are still sticking with me in this new year!

Christopher Key Chapple is a professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and one who has done much wonderful work on Patanjali and other Yogic texts, so again I was looking forward to reading his contribution, especially as just last year I had written over 7,000 words on the Brahma-Viharas for Yoga Journal. As Chapple begins his chapter, he points out that along with the Viharas, emptiness and ethics are “three points of contact between Buddhism and classical Yoga.”

However, I was much surprised – and a bit dismayed – to find that Chapple takes the Classical Yoga approach to the Brahma-Viharas and implies that this is the same understanding in the Buddhist Yoga tradition. The translation from Yoga-Sutra I.33 he uses reads:

Be friendly with the happy, compassionate toward those who suffer. Celebrate the success of the virtuous, be even-minded toward those who lack virtue.

While I was happy to see how he translates upeksha as “even-minded” instead of the (to my mind) awful “disinterest” and “disregard” favored by many other yogis from the (Hindu) Classical Yoga tradition such as B.K.S. Iyengar and Swami Satchidananda, I felt dismay that he takes that tradition’s contextual conditions as crucial and central to the practice of the Four Brahma-Viharas! 

In fact, in the Buddhist Yoga tradition, these four qualities are also often referred to as the Four Immeasurables, and are to be practiced toward all beings, as we see in the translations of people like Georg Feurstein and Chip Hartranft who translate this same sutra thus:

The projection of friendliness, compassion, gladness and equanimity towards all objects -- <be they> joyful, sorrowful, meritorious or demeritorious -- <bring about> the pacification of consciousness.  – Feuerstein

Consciousness settles as one radiates friendliness, compassion, delight, and equanimity toward all things, whether pleasant, or painful, good or bad.  – Hartranft

I hasten to say that I am not saying the classical tradition is ‘wrong.’ For the Classical Yoga emphasis on one’s own ‘inner peace,’ cultivating these states of mind is a way of restraining or reversing what Patanjali calls vikshepa, the tendency of the mind to be distracted and outwardly directed. Patanjali tells us that when we react haphazardly or callously to what people do around us, inner disturbance is the result. These four attitudes combat that disturbance and bring us closer to a state of balanced equilibrium.

When we see happy people, cultivating a friendly attitude toward them will help forestall feelings of jealousy and envy. When we encounter those who are suffering, we should compassionately do what we can to help—for our own sake as much as for the person who is suffering. "Our goal is to keep the serenity of our minds. Whether our mercy will help that person or not, by our own feeling of mercy, at least we are helped," Satchidananda says.

Appreciating and delighting in the qualities of virtuous people will inspire us to cultivate such virtues ourselves. And finally, when we are faced with those we deem nonvirtuous, the classical yoga tradition teaches that we should strive to have an indifferent attitude toward them. Often, we indulge in judging and criticizing those who we feel are misguided. This hardly helps us maintain a serene state of mind! Commentators in the classical yoga tradition point out that the yogi should not divert attention from his or her own practice in order to try to reform those who are unlikely to heed advice. As Satchidananda points out, "If you try to advise them, you will lose your peace."

However, the broader view is the one emphasized in the Buddhist tradition, where the brahmaviharas, as I mentioned above, are also known as "the Four Limitless Ones" and "the Four Immeasurables," reflecting Buddhist yoga's emphasis on social relationships and the interdependent nature of all beings. Both of these perspectives are valuable; reflecting on the intention and purpose behind each gives greater depth to our own practice. I only wish that in the desire to emphasize the similarities between the two Yoga traditions of Classical Yoga and Buddhist Yoga, we don’t blur, bury or soft-pedal the real differences.

Other than this, I do find Chapple’s emphasis on the significance that the terms for each of these qualities have a feminine ending very interesting! Patanjali is often criticized (most often correctly, in my view) as being male-centric, so it is helpful to see a way in which the importance of the feminine principle can be found in the practices Patanjali offers.

Tomorrow I will post on the section on “emptiness,” but for now, I’d love to hear from those of you who have been reading along any thoughts you have about the Four Brahma-Viharas. For those of you who are interested in reading my articles on them from Yoga Journal, here are the links:

Maitri/Karuna: “Love In Full Bloom”

Mudita: “I’m So Happy For You”

Upeksha: “Calm Within”

Book Club: Joining With Naturalness by Ari Goldfield and Rose Taylor

I was looking forward to reading this chapter as it deals with Tibetan Buddhist Yoga, which is one Buddhist tradition I know relatively little about, and I was not disappointed at all! I was glad to see how in their opening paragraphs, Goldfield and Taylor acknowledge that there is indeed a wide variety of “Buddhist Yogas,” and so they take some time to define the terms as they will be using them! This is an important step that I also attempt whenever I teach, but one that many others do not take, and which leads to needless confusion and debate among practitioners.

What Does ‘Buddhist Yoga’ Mean?

I was very much taken by their explication of the Tibetan terms for Buddhist and Yoga. I like the idea of the “insider” as someone who looks and explores ‘inside’ one’s experience. This reminds me of Georg Feuerstein’s referring to yogis as being “psychonauts.” I also found it interesting that sang jeh, the Tibetan term for “Buddha” literally means “awaken” and “expand,” pointing to the fact that the qualities we associate with being a buddha are inherent within us, and that awakening is a kind of expansion of that innate nature. The understanding of nal-jor for “Yoga,” meaning “to join with naturalness” adds an interesting take to the oft-said definition as simply “to join.” It reminds us that ultimately, we are not joining two things that have separated but joining with what is always ‘naturally’ present!

In their discussion of what it means to “join with naturalness,” I like their emphasis on the non-separability of mind and body: the importance of involving mind when working with body and involving body when we work with mind. I think this is an important point, which when forgotten, leads to the mistaken notion that meditation is about the mind and hatha-yogasana is about the body. As I often remind students, when you are sitting in meditation, much of the experience is dealing with bodily issues: tickling, aches, numbness, tightness etc. and how to relate to them. And when practicing hatha, often we are taken up with recognizing the constant commentary the mind produces as we move through our sequence of postures: “I can’t stay here another moment!” “Darn, this side is soooo tight! I can’t get as deep into the posture as the guy next to me and this is his first class!” etc.

I don’t want this to go on too long, so I’ll comment on their main points regarding the Foundations of Buddhist Yoga tomorrow or the next day. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear from any of you who are following along your thoughts about this piece so far.

Book Club: "Body and Mind Dropped Away" Roshi O'Hara

The opening paragraphs of Roshi O’Hara’s essay articulates the primary place so many meditators get stuck: thinking meditation is merely about the mind! Joko Beck once described zazen as “exquisitely physical,” and Dogen’s emphasis on posture in the Fukanzazengi, the root manual of Soto Zen meditation makes this clear!

Roshi speaks about feeling/thinking of her mind as some kind of balloon floating over the body. Years ago, I used to think that most of the students coming to my classes lived from the neck up. Nowadays, I think it’s more accurate to say that most of us living today live from our eyebrows up!

The phrase, “body and mind dropped away” can be confusing to those new to “Zen speak.” I remember when I first heard the phrase, I interpreted it to be a reference to some trance-out state of numbness with no sensation of the body and no mental activity. This is why I am grateful that Roshi provides a clear example of what she means by “body and mind dropped away” at the bottom of page 32 into the top of page 33: “The dropping away of all concept of body and mind is like a distorting lens falling away and what is left is a realization that I am the snow, the ice, the earth and sky, while I have not stopped being myself.” I offer a similar example of this in my book, Mindfulness Yoga, where I describe the “dropping away of body and mind” in a hatha-class, where I was the sound of the teacher’s instructions, the music she was playing, the audible ujjayi breath of us students, etc. This experience is most certainly not the blocking or suppression of body and mind.

We all use words, concepts, and there is nothing inherently ‘wrong’ with words and concepts. Our error is in forgetting that we are using them, and so they begin to ‘use’ us. Contemplate any weather related sentence: “It’s raining today,” “It’s really windy,” “It looks like it’ll be a sunny day,” etc. What exactly is the “It” that we are talking about? Is there really a subject separate from the rain, the wind, the sunshine? This is no different from the situation of using words such as “I,” “Me,” and “mine.” All serious practice comes down to “What is this ‘you?’”

The Korean Seon (Zen) Master, Chinul, would often exhort his students to ‘trace the radiance back.’ Illuminate the self to become clear about the nature of this ‘self.’ When you go beyond the labels you use to identify ‘yourself,’ (man or woman, teacher, poet, carpenter, liberal, conservative, white, black, yellow, Buddhist, Christian, atheist etc. etc.) what is left?

At the bottom of page 36, Roshi speaks of jijuyu samadhi, the samadhi of union. Many practitioners seek such a state, and don’t realize that striving for it can keep it from arising. But then, as she writes, “there is often an odd and surprisingly pleasant, joyful, and energetic feeling that arises. It is likely that in several tiny time spaces between effort and distraction there were moments of dropping away. The effort and distraction were never necessary, only the willingness to practice as it is.” These “drops of emptiness,” as Thich Nhat Hanh calls them, are indeed blissful moments of clarity, energy and joy. Over time, “we” find ourselves ‘dropping into’ such a natural state with greater ease and frequency.

Not to seem a killjoy, but the danger here is in becoming attached to this state of bliss; this state where body and mind drop into pure play. There are spiritual traditions that more or less drop us here and leave it at that. Roshi speaks for the Zen tradition in saying that this is not yet full freedom. As Chinul said, “It is not enough to be awakened; we must live an awakening life.” From here, we must step out and manifest the Body of Peace in all ten directions and nine times. The image Zen presents is the yogi who comes down from the mountain peak and enters fully into the market place. And goodness knows, the market place needs those who, having dropped body and mind, have seen through the delusion of separateness, and understand that we are all in this together! There is no way that your practice can be for yourself alone. Thinking that possible is itself based upon thinking you are encapsulated in the fathom-long skin bag.

So, thank you for your practice.

Metta,

Poep Sa Frank Jude

Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind Book Club: "The Introduction" by Michael Stone

Michael lays out his purpose in conceiving and editing this book in his very first sentence where he says that it is written for those who find themselves “compelled by the teachings and practices of both Yoga and Buddhism” who are “moved to better understand the porous border between them.” He goes on to affirm their “interdependent history,” and their shared goal of “recognizing suffering and bringing it to an end.”

Before going any further, we again need to clarify what it is that we are referring to by the term “Yoga” in this passage. If one is referring to what I call the “ocean” of teachings and practices originating in the sub-continent of India, I’d say to speak of “Yoga and Buddhism” is already inaccurate as Buddhism is a form of Yoga. If, however, one is referring to the so-called “Classical Yoga” of Patanjali, then we can most certainly compare these two Yoga traditions, but for accuracy, I’d write “Classical Yoga and Buddhism” for greater clarity. And, from this perspective, it is certainly true that the Yoga teachings of the Buddha and of Patanjali share both an interdependent history AND are their respective traditions are incredibly porous!

Michael makes a point that I find both important, and personally frustrating at times in its having to be necessary at all: Yoga has been reduced in the contemporary mind to being all about body practice, and Buddhism has been equally restricted to being an exclusively mental practice! Nothing could be further from the truth!

Michael makes an interesting analogy with trees, comparing (Classical) Yoga and Buddhism to an oak and a maple tree. They share many commonalities, and of course have many differences. He takes it through three levels of comparison. I too often make use of the tree analogy, but I have one tree: the Tree of Yoga. And one branch of this tree is Buddhist Yoga, and another is Classical Yoga (and others include Vedanta, Tantra and from that in turn Hatha.

What do you think? Does either of these models seem more relevant to your own understanding?

What may come as a surprise to many readers is just how little we know of the Buddha and Patanjali as individuals. Do you think this makes any difference as to how we should receive their teachings?

Finally, I would love to hear from any of you regarding what may be the most pertinent issue raised in the Introduction: Michael asserts a “fundamental affinity between mind practices and body practices.” What do you think of this statement? How does it relate to your own experience of meditation and/or sitting meditation? Is it accurate to conceive of meditation as being about the mind and hatha-yoga-asana to be about the body? Or do you agree that this is a simplistic reduction at best, and perhaps a broad misperception?

Mindfulness Yoga Book Club: "Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind"

The "Foreward" by Robert Tenzin Thurman 

I’d like to ‘ease’ into our reading and discussion of this anthology, edited by Michael Stone, first so that we can enter into the spirit of the book and to encourage (hopefully) thoughtful dialogue. Second, I’d like to give people a few days to get the book – if they haven’t already – and to begin reading. Third, it’s good to access where we are before beginning and to orient how we’d like to proceed.

Robert Thurman’s “Foreward,” sets out the topic of the book as being “Yoga and Buddhism.” We might want to take a moment and ask ourselves just what we are referring to by these two terms. From my side, Yoga (with the capital “Y” and which I sometimes refer to as ‘the Yoga tradition’ is the large body of teachings and practices – with an emphasis on practices – coming from the various cultures of the  Indian sub-continent. The practices are what Georg Feurstein calls “psycho-physical technologies’ designed to transform one’s bodymind in a radical way such that one transcends the ‘typical’ human existential situation, from one of duhkha to one of freedom (moksha).

This leads to the further inquiry as to how does this definition differ from what we may say of Buddhism? I would argue, ‘not at all!’ Where things get interesting is when we speak of the various ‘yogas’ and then there are many differences to be uncovered. But, as I hope we shall see, there can be larger differences between two Hindu yogas then between some Hindu and Buddhist yogas!

Thurman has often insisted that Buddhism must cease to function as “Buddhism” for its various methods to have the biggest impact on modern (western) culture, and in many respects I agree with him. As Thich Nhat Hanh has said, the west is not in need of another religion! Thay has said that Buddhism can have its biggest influence on modern culture through psychology, ecology, and feminism. I would simply add that it is as a form of yoga, that Buddhist practice can perhaps influence and permeate all the other areas.

An important point Thurman makes is the necessity for one’s “taking responsibility for one’s own health, cultivating a stronger sense of meaning in one’s life, finding the inner strength to express joyful altruism, and developing artful connoisseurship toward enjoying every minute as if it is the ultimate in every sense.”

Our culture tends to support a rampant sense of ‘victimization,’ whereby we seek to blame others for our situation. This is most absurdly evidenced by a case I’ve read about where a burglar sued a homeowner for an injury the burglar sustained while attempting to break into the man’s home!

But the Dharma teaches us that we create our life’s meaning; that our response in the world determines our happiness; and that each moment is indeed ‘absolute.’ Right here and now, we can choose the actions that will determine whether we live as free people or as victims. In Zen, we chant the Gatha of Atonement (at-one-ment) as a practice of remembering (mindfulness) of this fact:

All unwholesome karma ever committed by me since of old,

Because of my beginningless greed, anger, and ignorance,

Born of my body, mouth, and thought,

Now I atone for it all.

With this expression, we take back any power we have given over to others to determine our happiness and freedom. With this expression of strength, we assert that we will not be victims; that we acknowledge that no one can, for instance, ‘make’ us angry.

Thurman ends his “Foreward” by speaking a bit about how during the fifty years of his teaching and practice of the Dharma, “it seemed that Americans were intently preoccupied with the pursuit of money, status, possessions, and experiences of pleasure, and unrelentingly unconscious of the impact of their lifestyle on the world around them.” He speaks of how little training in ethical consideration, and in the mind’s higher faculties of concentration, mindfulness and wisdom’s critical insight we are given. This truth points again how truly 'counter-cultural' authentic yoga is -- or 'should' be!

Thus, he says, books such as this are essential to the curriculum of ‘hopefully ever greater numbers of students’ in order for them (us) to be prepared to live meaningful, productive, self-less, satisfying lives, and in so doing, to enter fully into a positive, contributive relationship to our globalizing society.

It is my hope that this blog, and our joint investigation and discussion (of this book, specifically, and of our Daily Practice, generally) can help us all to cultivate such meaning, joy, compassion and wisdom!

Svaha!

Poep Sa

Introduction

Welcome!  I envision this blog to be a conduit to discuss the practices of Mindfulness Yoga. What, you may ask, are the practices of Mindfulness Yoga. Good question! Yoga is the 'yoking' of the body and mind through the steady, consistent stance of mindful awareness. That is, a mental stance that is open, non-judgmental, non-reactive, and compassionate.

If you are cutting carrots, or changing a diaper, practicing Warrior Two, or sitting in silent meditation, swimming, or making love with such a mental stance, you are practicing Mindfulness Yoga.

I am creating and offering this blog in particular for those who are members of the Mindfulness Yoga sangha of teachers and practitioners who have taken the Mindfulness Yoga Teacher Training, as well as for the Tucson Mindfulness Practice Community, but it is offered as an open vehicle for my musings on the full gamut of Buddhadharma and the Yoga tradition, with the invitation for all who join me in commenting in mindful dialogue.

Our first offerings, coming later this week, will be the first Monthly Daily Practice as well as our first Book Club offering, the new anthology edited by Michael Stone, published by Shambhala, called Freeing The Body, Freeing The Mind. I hope you will join us for any or all of our discussions.

May you be happy,
May you dwell in peace....

Poep Sa Frank Jude