Author: suzingreen

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November 20 & 27, 2017 Monday Night Classes: “She Who Is Tranquility Itself…”

SeatedKYSeated Kuan Yin from the Princeton University Art Museum’s permanent collection.

Life’s been so sped up these last few months, it’s been impossible to keep this blog current. My heartfelt apologies to everyone who looks forward to new content.  This post should fill some of that long gap. I’m including audio from the last two classes of November.

Class on November 20th was a rather free-wheeling journey that wove the Tao Te Ching, Sri Lalita Sahasranama, and a Mary Oliver poem. It’s all there in the talk. Text of readings below. And scroll down below that for audio of mantra chanting…

11.20.17 OPENING DHARANA AND DHARMA TALK

 

READINGS FROM DHARMA TALK

 

From the Tao Te Ching

73.
The Tao is always at ease.
It overcomes without competing,
answers without speaking a word,
arrives without being summoned,
accomplishes without a plan.

Its net covers the whole universe,

And though its meshes are wide,
it doesn’t let a thing slip through.

* * * *

From the Sri Lalita Sahasranama

447.
Shanti
She who is tranquility itself.

Shanti is evenness of mind in happiness and in sorrow, in profit and in loss, in victory and in defeat.

According to Shaivagam, Shanti is… that kala which dispels the three major types of impurities, anava, maya, and karma… It shows the way for those who are struggling in the illusion of maya and in actions contrary to one’s karma, forsaking one’s own dharma and embracing that of someone else.

Slipping away from one’s own dharma will not bring prosperity; it causes loss of shanti. The declaration in the Gita that “better is death following one’s own dharma; following another’s dharma leads to fear” is indeed a cornerstone for building a righteous life.

* * * *

from Mary Oliver’s A Thousand Mornings

HUM, HUM

1.

One summer afternoon I heard
a looming, mysterious hum
high in the air; then came something

like a small planet flying past –
something

not at all interested in me but on its own
way somewhere, all anointed with excitement:
bees, swarming,

not to be held back.

Nothing could hold them back.

2.

Gannets diving.
Black snake wrapped in a tree, our eyes
meeting.
The grass singing
as it sipped up the summer rain.
The owl in the darkness, that good darkness
under the stars.

The child that was myself, that kept running away
to the also running creek,
to colt’s foot and trilliams,
to the effortless prattle of the birds.

3.  SAID THE MOTHER

You are going to grow up
and in order for that to happen
I am going to have to grow old
and then I will die, and the blame
will be yours.

4.  OF THE FATHER

He wanted a body
so he took mine.
Some wounds never vanish.

Yet little by little

I learned to love my life.

Though sometimes I had to run hard –
especially from melancholy –

not to be held back.

5.

I think there ought to be
a little music here:
hum, hum.

6.

The resurrection of the morning.
The mystery of the night.
The hummingbird’s wings.
The excitement of thunder.
The rainbow in the waterfall.
Wild mustard, that rough blaze of the fields.

The mockingbird, replaying the songs of his
neighbors.
The bluebird with its unambitious warble
simple yet sufficient.

The shining fish. The beak of the crow.
The new colt who came to me and leaned
against the fence
that I might put my hands upon his warm body
and know no fear.

Also the words of poets
a hundred or hundreds of years dead —
their words that would not be held back.

7.

Oh the house of denial has thick walls
and very small windows
and whoever lives there, little by little,
will turn to stone.

In those years I did everything I could do
and I did it in the dark –
I mean, without understanding.

I ran away.
I ran away again.
Then, again, I ran away.

They were awfully little, those bees,
and maybe frightened,
yet unstoppably they flew on, somewhere,
to live their life.

Hum, hum, hum.

[Please note I’m unable to input proper transliteration of Sanskrit and formatting of Oliver’s poem.]

 

AUDIO OF CLASS CHANTING SARASWATI AND OM NAMAH SHIVAYA MANTRAS

 

AUDIO OF CLASS CHANTING GAYATRI MANTRA WITH CLOSING DHARANA 

 

AUDIO OF SG SOLO CHANTING BEFORE CLASS

 

11.27.17 AUDIO OF ENTIRE CLASS

November 27 was an all-chant class. Here’s the live recording from that. If you’ve never been to Monday Night Class, this will give you a sense of what it’s like to be in the room. This is very low-tech recording for music so do listen with gentle ears…

 

Finally, although I’ve stopped writing political commentary here, the age of Trump continues. Wreaking havoc on our democracy, international relations, the planet, and even outer space. If you want to embody Kuan Yin, whose name means, She Who Hears the Cries of the World, do click here to read Nicholas Kristof’s recent piece in the New York Times, and if you can, please make a donation to the Jamal family.  Along with that, if you’ve not seen Ai Weiwei’s extraordinary film, Human Flow, it’s essential education for anyone who cares about life on this amazing extraordinary planet we all call home…

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November 13, 2017 Monday Night Class: Being in Reality as Opposed to Being in Whatever We Think Reality Is…

Winter_Light_Burst_by_AngelzTears

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there…” 
                                                                                                              –Rumi

It’s been quite a month and I am way behind posting classes here. Fortunately the wisdom teachings have no expiration date…

November 13’s Monday Night Class continued our immersion in the deity field personified as the goddess Saraswati, who in “her” most sublime possibility might be understood as that field of which Rumi sings.

This is a field we all do well to live in….

The Tao Te Ching verses for this week were 75 and 74. However, since neither struck me as being rooted in that field, I found I could not speak about them with integrity or authenticity. Two more qualities we can associate with Saraswati. Rather than go against the dharma of speech, I spoke instead about why I could not speak about them…

DHARMA TALK

SARASWATI AND OM NAMAH SHIVAYA MANTRAS

SG SOLO SARASWATI AND ONS MANTRAS BEFORE CLASS

Here are the Mary Oliver poems I read.
These are from her collection, Blue Horses.

SUCH SILENCE

As deep as I ever went into the forest
I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old,
and around it a clearing, and beyond that
trees taller and older than I had ever seen.

Such silence!
It really wasn’t so far from a town, but it seemed
all the clocks in the world had stopped counting.
So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied.

Sometimes there’s only a hint, a possibility.
What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots
than reason.
I hope everyone knows that.

I sat on the bench, waiting for something.
An angel perhaps.
Or dancers with the legs of goats.

No, I didn’t see either. But only, I think, because
I didn’t stay long enough.

WATERING THE STONES

Every summer I gather a few stones from
the beach and keep them in a glass bowl.
Now and again I cover them with water,
and they drink. There’s not questions about
this; I put tinfoil over the bowl, tightly,
yet the water disappears. This doesn’t
mean we ever have a conversation, or that
they have the kind of feelings we do, yet
it might mean something. Whatever the
stones are, they don’t lie in the water
and do nothing.

Some of my friends refuse too believe it
happens, even though they’ve seen it. But
a few others—I’ve seen them walking down
the beach holding a few stones, and they
look at them rather more closely now.
Once in a while, I swear, I’ve even heard
one or two of them saying, “Hello.”
Which, I think, does not harm to anyone or
anything, does it?

FRANZ MARC’S BLUE HORSES

I step into the painting o the four blue horses.
I am not even surprised that I can do this.

One of the horses walks toward me.
His blue nose noses me lightly. I put my arm
over his blue man, not holding on, just
   commingling.
He allows me my pleasure.
Franz Marc died a young man, shrapnel in his brain.
I would rather die than try to explain to the blue horses
   what war is.
They would either faint in horror, or simply
   find it impossible to believe.
I do not know how to thank you, Franz Marc.
Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually.
Maybe the desire to make something beautiful
   is the piece of God that is inside each of us.
Now all four horses have come closer,
   are bending their faces toward me,
      as if the have secrets to tell.
I don’t expect them to speak, and they don’t.
If being so beautiful isn’t enough, what
   could possible say?

New visitors to this blog wanting to read more about Saraswati, please scroll down to the previous post. And, if you’re curious to read the verses I did not read 😉 here they are…

75.
When taxes are too high,
people go hungry.
When the government is too intrusive,
people lose their spirit.
Act for the people’s benefit.
Trust them; leave them alone.
74.
If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren’t afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can’t achieve.
Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place.
When you handle the master carpenter’s tools,
chances are that you’ll cut your hand.
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November 6, 2017 Monday Night Class: Do you want to be a disciple of death or a disciple of life…

badavagni_saraswati

The messaging in this week’s verse does not hold back, proclaiming loud and clear, do you want to be a disciple of death or of life…

 

76.
Men are born soft and supple;
dead, they are stiff and hard.

Plants are born tender and pliant,
dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.

 

It’s an important question. Not just for those on a wisdom path. It’s a question the entire world would do well to consider.

I was at a meditation retreat a zillion years ago and the practice was simple and shocking. Contemplate your death. It’s a great practice. It puts everything into perspective.

Is it Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan who says we should live with the awareness that death is sitting on our left shoulder. I might not have the exact words or correct source, but the teaching is vast and deep. Death accompanies us through every moment of life. Easy to forget as we trudge through the hours. But remembering is such a gift. Steadfast contemplation of death is the surest way to become a disciple of life…..

This week’s class weaves the wisdom of the above verse with contemplation of the goddess Saraswati. For visitors to this blog unfamiliar with this sublime deity field, let me simply say, Saraswati lives inside of us as  the river of insight and inspiration. My favorite epithet for “her” is, She Who Lives on the Tongues of Poets.

Click here to read more about Saraswati.

SARASWATI MANTRAS

DHARMA TALK

LAKSMI DHUMAVATI MANTRAS

 

Here are the Mary Oliver poems I read in this week’s dharma talk. These are from her collection, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems. [With apologies to MO for my inability to tweak the program here so it keeps the subtleties of her formatting.]

 

Percy Wakes Me (Fourteen)

Percy wakes me and I am not ready.
He has slept all night under the covers.
Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.
So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter
where he is not supposed to be.
How wonderful you are, I say.  How clever, if you
needed me,
to wake me.
He thought he would hear a lecture and deeply
his eyes begin to shine.
He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.
He squirms and squeals; he has done something
that he needed
and now he hears that it is okay.
I scratch his ears, I turn him over
and touch him everywhere.   He is
wild with the okayness of it.  Then we walk, then
he has breakfast, and he is happy.
This is a poem about Percy.
This is a poem about more than Percy.
Think about it.

 

I Worried

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not, how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I ever be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning.
and sang.

 

More Evidence.

4.
Let laughter come to you now and again, that
sturdy friend.

The impulse to leap off the cliff, when the
body falsely imagines it might fly, may be
restrained by reason, also by modesty. Of the
two possibilities, take your choice, and live.

Refuse all cooperation with the heart’s death.

 

Whispered Poem

I have been risky in my endeavors,
I have been steadfast in my loves;

Oh Lord, consider these when you judge me.

 

Don’t Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

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October 30 Monday Night Class: “When there is a great task ahead, one should befriend even enemies…”

Beginning this month, we’re having an all-chant class on the fourth (non-holiday) Monday  of each month. Daniel Johnson will be accompanying chanting on tabla. These evenings will not be recorded. You simply have to be there ❤️ The first class of this new offering was on October 23. Which is why there is no blog post for that week.

the-vehicle-of-goddess-lakshmi-goddess-of-wealth-monnar-baldemor

OCTOBER 30 MONDAY NIGHT CLASS

77.
As it acts in the world, the Tao
is like the bending of a bow.
The top is bent downward;
the bottom is bent up.
It adjusts excess and deficiency
so that there is perfect balance.
It takes from what is too much
and gives to what isn’t enough.

Those who try to control,
who use force to protect their power,
go against the direction of the Tao.
They take from those who don’t have enough
and give to those who have far too much.

The Master can keep giving
because there is no end to her wealth.
She acts without expectation,
succeeds without taking credit,
and doesn’t think that she is better
than anyone else.

This week’s class wove the above verse with my telling of the Hindu myth of the birth of Laksmi.  Both are profoundly relevant for us 21st century moderns. And together they pack quite a punch.

No poetry this week but here’s an essential quote from the Laksmi story:

“Go and make peace with your enemies the demons,” he told them. “When there is a great task ahead, one should befriend even enemies. Cast into the Milky Sea potent herbs, then take Mount Mandara for a churning-stick, the serpent Vasuki for a rope, and churn the ocean for the dew of life. For this you need the demon’s aid; make alliance with them, therefore, and engage to share with them the fruit of your combined labor.”

Opening chanting for this week’s class combined Laksmi and Tara mantras. Alas, a technical glitch so no audio. I do however have the dharana. Which offers a lovely way of holding these two mantra/deity fields. A small note on the goddess Laksmi, who, because of “her” association with material abundance is looked down on in some ascetic yogic circles. From my perspective this is really really really wrong understanding.

Dharana on Laksmi and Tara

Dharma Talk

Laksmi Murti and Dhumavati Bija

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October 16, 2017 Monday Night Class: “Therefore the Master remains serene in the midst of sorrow…. Because he has given up helping, he is people’s great help.”

cropped-016879561fe725dc3bb68f32adf5b1405648b47a16.jpg

78.
Nothing in the world
is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
nothing can surpass it. 

The soft overcomes the hard;
the gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true,
but few can put it into practice.

Therefore the Master remains
serene in the midst of sorrow.
Evil cannot enter his heart.
Because he has given up helping,
he is people’s great help.
 
True words seem paradoxical.

This is such a great verse we stayed with it for two weeks. As I wrote in my last post, it’s an elegant articulation of the Sacred Feminine. For visitors to this blog who are unclear about what exactly is the Sacred Feminine, the simplest way to get this is to think of the feminine as the realm of being and masculine as the realm of doing.

While we can work with the personifications articulated as gods and goddesses, I think it’s way more helpful and relevant to understand that these are energies of consciousness within ourselves.

Think of the Goddess, aka Devi, aka the Sacred Feminine as the great interior well of being, ocean of the unconscious, ground of being, source of everything we are. It’s the mysterious inside of us. That which we don’t see. It’s what we sense and feel and intuit. And it is the content, to put it in more modern language contained within the vehicles, (which are of the masculine), of our actions and words…

So again: feminine = realm of being; masculine = realm of doing…

It’s helpful to think of the masculine as the bridge function; that which carries the energy of being into manifestation. For instance: creative inspiration arises from the feminine and is interpreted and developed (or denied and ignored) through the masculine faculty of thinking and creating. Great things happen when masculine and feminine work in loving harmony. The masculine stays connected to the feminine, understanding that this is its ground. Problems arise when the masculine (doing/thinking/individuating) function dissociates from its feminine source. The story I tell in this week’s dharma talk is a lovely illustration of this….

Here’s that talk.  It’s a good one 😉
Enjoy.

 

Here’s the story:

“Once Vishnu was riding through the air on the sunbird Garuda. Both of them, filled with their sense of self, saw in Vishnu the highest most irresistible and universal being. They flew past the throne of the Great Goddess but gave her no heed. “Fly on, fly on,” said Vishnu to Garuda. Then the Great Goddess poured rigidity upon them, and they could not stir from the spot. Vishnu in his rage shook her seat with both hands but could not move. Instead he fell and sank to the bottom of the world ocean. Unable to stir, he lost consciousness and became rigid, defenseless, and lifeless. Brahma went in search of him and tried to lift him, but he also fell under the same enchantment and grew rigid. The same fate befell all the other gods who tried to raise them from the bottom of the sea. Only Shiva understood what had happened and led them back to do homage to Her and obtain her grace… Then as they worshipped her, the Goddess revealed herself in the flesh and bade all gods drink of the waters of her womb and bathe therein. ‘Then you will be free of imprisonment in your ego…’ ”

 

Here are the two quotes, both cited in Edward C. Whitmont’s 1986 book, Return to the Goddess. The first is from Elucidations, Prologue to Chretien de Troyes’ Percival. The second is the verse I often recite from John C. We’s 1962 version of the Tao Te Ching. The above story is also told by Whitmont…

1.
The land was dead and desert
So that they lost the voices of the wells
And the maidens who were in them.  

2.
The spirit of the fountain never dies.
It is called the mysterious feminine.
The entrance to the mysterious feminine
Is the root of all heaven and earth.
Frail, frail it is, hardly existing.
But touch it; it will never run dry.

 

Here is this week’s chanting:

 

Here’s the opening chant and dharana:

 

And the final word goes to Mary Oliver. This is from her 2006 collection, Thirst. This is the poem I did not have time to read!

 

Messenger
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth, with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

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October 9, 2017 Monday Night Class: When we realize that we are the flow, everything is possible…

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This week’s verse from the Tao Te Ching is a beautiful articulation of feminine wisdom; of the understanding that softening and yielding, of embracing rather than turning away, is a powerful stance for living.

78.
Nothing in the world
is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
nothing can surpass it. 
The soft overcomes the hard;
the gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true,
but few can put it into practice.
Therefore the Master remains
serene in the midst of sorrow.
Evil cannot enter his heart.
Because he has given up helping,
he is people’s great help.
 
True words seem paradoxical.

It’s a deep and important lesson, especially in a culture that venerates doing over being. Which from the perspective of feminine wisdom has it upside down. Put being first. Let doing serve being. That’s the understanding referenced in the title of this post. When we realize that we are the flow, everything is possible…

And the thing is, we really are the flow. We are not separate from it. Much as the mind and our wounding try to convince (and dissociate) us otherwise. Which is why every time we allow ourselves to breathe deeply, stretch into the moment, stop rushing, start listening, make friends with silence, and simply be with what is, we discover more space inside. And that spaciousness is the secret of possibility.

Here’s this week’s dharma talk:

 

Here are the poems I read. These three are Robert Bly’s versions of Kabir.

5.
Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine
mountains, and the maker of canyons and pine
mountains! 

All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions
of stars.
The acid that tests gold is there, and the one who
judges jewels.
And the music from the strings no one touches, and
the source of all water.

If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.

24.
Let’s leave for the country where the Guest lives!
There the water jar is filling with water
even though there is no rope to lower it.
There the skies are always blue,
and yet rain falls on the earth.
Do you have a body? Don’t sit on the porch!
Go out and walk in the rain!
The fall moon rides the sky all month there,
and it would sound silly to mention only one sun —
the light there comes from a number of them.

26.
The darkness of night is coming along fast, and
the shadows of love close in the body and
the mind.
Open the window to the west, and disappear into the
air inside you.

Near your breastbone there is an open flower.
Drink the honey that is all around that flower.
Waves are coming in:
there is so much magnificence near the ocean!
Listen: Sound of bells! Sound of immense seashells!

Kabir says: Friend, listen, this is what I have to say:
The One I love is inside of me!

 

Here’s the Mary Oliver from A Thousand Mornings.

LINES WRITTEN IN THE DAYS OF GROWING DARKNESS 

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do 

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?

So let us go on cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

 

Here’s music audio. The first clip is opening chanting of Om Namah Shivaya and Namo Kuan Shih Yin P’u-Sa.

 

This clip is the Laksmi Murti Mantra with Dhumavati Bija leading into slow Om Namah Shivaya.  There is also a bit of commentary at the beginning and a dharana at the end…

_________________________________

Finally, if you’re interested in my thinking about the relevance of the Sacred Feminine and why I believe it’s crucial to do the internal work of balancing, you might like to read this piece I wrote in 2009.  This link will take you there.

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October 2, 2017 Monday Night Class: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be liberated?

NicholasRoerich

This week’s verse from the Tao Te Ching offers an exquisite teaching on the ripple effects of blame. If you pay attention to your own blame response, you’ll discover a many-headed demon masquerading as self-righteousness and truth. Insidious really. And hiding in the unconscious.

Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
there is no end to the blame. 

Therefore the Master
fulfills her own obligations
and corrects her own mistakes.
She does what she needs to do
and demands nothing of others.

The blame response goes deep. And its ripple effect always ends in pain. It often starts with expectation. Which then morphs into blame. Blaming gives rise to shame, hurt, and anger. This separates the blamer and the blamed, creating a sense of isolation and alienation so that connection and the possibility of empathy are destroyed. And since underneath the dramas of daily life, a sense of connection and empathy are what we most long for, one can see how the blame project takes us nowhere we really want to go.

And then of course, there is self-blame. Which is often at the bottom of the whole mess. When we really examine our blaming response, we discover it is fueled by projection. I blame you for what I refuse to see in myself. My own laziness, indulgence, self-absorption, bad habits, arrogance, bullying, forgetfulness, etc.

79.
Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
there is no end to the blame.

Therefore the Master
fulfills her own obligations
and corrects her own mistakes.
She does what she needs to do
and demands nothing of others.

The answer of course is simple: fulfill our obligations, correct our own mistakes, do what we need to do and demand nothing of others. This doesn’t mean we roll over and play dead. This verse is telling us to wake up, to pay attention, to live in the space beyond right and wrong. Do we want to be right? Or do we want to be liberated…

Here’s my dharma talk from 10.2:

 

Here are the two poems I read.
From Mary Oliver’s, A Thousand Mornings.

POET OF THE ONE WORLD

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to 

where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.

GOOD-BYE FOX

He was lying under a tree, licking up the shade.
Hello again, Fox, I said. 

And hello to you too, said Fox, looking up and
not bounding away. 

You’re not running away? I said. 

Well, I’ve heard of your conversations about us. News
travels even among foxes, as you might know or not know.

What conversations do you mean? 

Some lady said to you, “The hunt is good for the fox.”
And you said, “Which fox?”

Yes, I remember. She was huffed.

So you’re okay in my book. 

Your book! That was in my book, that’s the difference
between us.

Yes, I agree. You fuss over life with your clever
words, mulling and chewing on its meaning while
we just live it.

Oh! 

Could anyone figure it out, to a finality. So
why spend so much time trying. You fuss, we live.

And he stood, slowly, for he was old now, and
ambled away.

We chanted the Gayatri Mantra to open this class. There’s no audio of the chanting, but here’s the short dharana I gave on the mantra.

 

Finally, class chanting of Om Namah Shivaya with closing dharana.

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September 25, 2017 Monday Night Class: When we practice contentment, we experience that which we truly are…

Abstract shiva

While a literal reading of this week’s verse from the Tao Te Ching offers a potent packet of wisdom, I find it more interesting to read with the awareness that the “country” is our own individual self and “wise governance” comes when we live from and of the Self…

Tao Te Ching
Verse 80

If a country is governed wisely,
its inhabitants will be content.
They enjoy the labor of their hands
and don’t waste time inventing
labor-saving machines.
Since they dearly love their homes,
they aren’t interested in travel.
There may be a few wagons and boats,
but these don’t go anywhere.
There may be an arsenal of weapons,
but nobody ever uses them.
People enjoy their food,
take pleasure in being with their families,
spend weekends working in their gardens,
delight in the doings of the neighborhood.
And even though the next country is so close
that people can hear its roosters crowing and its dogs
barking,
they are content to die of old age
without ever having gone to see it.

I found this verse such a beautiful evocation of the yogic practice of contentment, aka santosha, I also brought in Edwin Bryant, Chip Hartranft and Mukunda Stiles’ versions of Patanjali-Yoga-Sutra, II:42. I didn’t have time to read EB in class but will include that here.

II, 42.

Contentment brings unsurpassed joy.   (CH)

From contentment one gains supreme happiness.   (MS)

From contentment, the highest happiness is attained.   (EB)

[santoshad anuttamaha sukha-laabhaha]

 

Here’s this week’s dharma talk which unpacks all of the above. Ordinarily I would write more but am feeling under the weather so will let my dharma talk do the talking for this post…

 

I’ll leave the final word to Mary Oliver…

 

TODAY

Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. 

The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance. 

Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple. 

VARANASI

Early in the morning we crossed the ghat,
where fires were still smoldering,
and gazed with our Western minds, into the Ganges.
A woman was standing in the river up to her waist;
she was lifting handfuls of water and spilling it
over her body, slowly and many times,
as if until there came some moment
of inner satisfaction between her own life and the river’s.
Then she dipped a vessel she had brought with her
and carried it filled with water back across the ghat,
no doubt to refresh some shrine near where she lives,
for this is the holy city of Shiva, maker
of the world, and this is his river.
I can’t say much more, except that it all happened
in silence and peaceful simplicity, and something that felt
like the bliss of a certainty and a life lived
in accordance with that certainty.
I must remember this, I thought, as we fly back
to America.
Pray God I remember this.

Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings

And close with class chanting of Om Namah Shivaya and final dharana...

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September 18, 2017 Monday Night Class: Welcome to the New Fall Season of Monday Night Class

Laksmi abstract

Class resumed last week after our summer break. And for this next teachings cycle, we’re going back to Stephen Mitchell’s version of the Tao Te Ching. Those of you who’ve been around for awhile will remember I started writing this blog in 2010 when we were reading this very same text. I thought, this time round, let us begin at the end and move towards the beginning. Time and duality being so illusory, why give into their status quo…

So we begin with Verse 81:

Tao Te Ching
Verse 81

True words aren’t eloquent;
eloquent words aren’t true.
Wise men don’t need to prove their point;
men who need to prove their point aren’t wise.

The Master has no possessions.
The more he does for others,
the happier he is.
The more he gives to others,
the wealthier he is.

The Tao nourishes by not forcing.
By not dominating, the Master leads.

Needless to say, this verse encapsulates everything one ever needs to know. And makes therefore a perfect partner to one of the core mantras of Monday Night Class, Om Namah Shivaya…

Here’s the opening dharana and my dharma talk, which runs around 20 minutes. I usually, edit out everything extraneous from these talks. Road noise, coughing, banter, etc. But the banter on this recording so captures the joyous spirit of Monday Night Class, I’m leaving it all there.

For visitors to this blog who’ve never attended the live class, enjoy. For everyone who does, you may find yourself LOL. And fyi, this talk is unpacking more of the above re the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching and how that wisdom and the wisdom/consciousness embedded in ONS are one and the same…

 

DanielJ and his miraculous tabla were at this class so we mostly chanted. Which was a glorious way to begin the new fall season. For that however, you had to be there 😉  No recording…..

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August 5, 2017: Reading the Bhagavad Gita in the Age of Trump, Part II

NicholasRoerich
JUNE 26, 2017: BHAGAVAD GITA TALK #17
CHAPTER SIX: THE YOGA OF MEDITATION

“When he sees all beings are equal
in suffering or in joy
because they are like himself,
that man has grown perfect in yoga. [6.32]

This will be the final post re Reading the Bhagavad Gita in the Age of Trump. The above-quoted verse truly encapsulates the wisdom of Chapter Six, the wisdom, in fact, of all the wisdom traditions. When we see all beings as equal in suffering or in joy because they are like ourselves, we have become fully human… 

It’s over a month since our last June class. And what a month in the Age of Trump. With each passing day our ill-equipped president becomes more like the Game of Thrones‘ Mad King. How this all plays out is anybody’s guess. In the meantime, good to do whatever we can to help our political leaders understand how important it is to make policy from the awareness that all beings are equal in suffering and in joy, because they are like ourselves…

And speaking of politics, a small aside:

I recently saw Michael Moore’s new Broadway show, The Terms of My Surrender.  It’s a wonderful piece of political theater that along with being tremendously entertaining, demolishes the notion that one person’s action can’t make a difference. We may not all have his courage and fortitude. On the other hand, the story he tells about a librarian from Englewood, NJ is an astonishing example of what one individual can do…

 

Here’s my dharma talk from June 26. Which will more than likely be my final talk on the Bhagavad Gita. Enjoy…

 

Here are the poems. The first is from Mary Oliver, Blue Horses
The second is from Robert Bly’s versions of Kabir.

1.
FORGIVE ME

Angels are wonderful but they are so, well, aloof.
It’s what I sense in the mud and the roots of the
trees, or the well, or the barn, or the rock with
its citron map of lichen that halts my feet and
makes my eyes flare, feeling the presence of some
spirit, some small god, who abides there. 

If I were a perfect person, I would be bowing
continuously.
I’m not, though I pause wherever I feel this
holiness, which is why I’m often so late coming
back from wherever I went.

Forgive me.

2.
Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!

Think…and think…while you are alive.

What you call “salvations” belongs to the time before
death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after? 

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten—
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will end up with an apartment in the City
of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire. 

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

I also re-read some favorite lines from Stephen Mitchell’s Introduction to the Gita.

The Gita is usually thought of as a great philosophical poem. It is that, of course. It is also an instruction manual for spiritual practice and a guide to peace of heart. But essentially, it is, as the title implies, a love song to God. However powerful its thinking, its intention is not to be a treatise but a psalm. The Gita is a love song to reality, a hymn in praise of everything excellent and beautiful and brave. It is a love song to both the darkness and the light, to our own true Self in the depths of being, the core from which all the glories and horrors of the universe unfold…..

The healthiest way to begin reading and absorbing a text like the Bhagavad Gita is to understand that ultimately it has nothing to teach. Everything essential that it points to—what we call wisdom or radiance or peace—is already present inside us. Once we have practiced meditation sincerely and seen layer after layer of the inauthentic fall away, we come to a place where dualities such as sacred and profane, spiritual and unspiritual, fall away as well…

In that place, God is the ground we walk on, the food we eat, and the gratitude we express to no one in particular, as natural as breathing.

And here are audio clips of chanting. The first two clips each end with a dharana. The great Daniel Johnson was at this class so you’ll hear his superb tabla accompanying the chanting. A small caveat to new visitors to this blog. These are very basic low tech recordings. Please listen with gentle ears…

Opening Mantras and Closing Dharana

Om Namah Shivaya with a closing dharana

Sri Krsna Chaitana 

This quote from my May 22 dharma talk seems a perfect ending to this teaching cycle of Reading the Bhagavad Gita in the Age of Trump. 

Let all these teachings from the Gita keep entering into you and awaken what you already know. That’s all the Gita is doing. It’s telling us what we already know when we really stop to listen. Rest in your own experience. Rest in the experience of the Self, of your own presence, of that in you which sees, of that in you which knows, of that in you which has always been looking out through your eyes, listening through your ears. If the mind wanders, remind it to rest in the Self, which is the source of the mind. Allow your mind to dissolve into this infinite presence so very alive within us. This is all we need to do.