the mind

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April 16, 2017: Reading the Bhagavad Gita in the Age of Trump

He Qi, Easter Morning, painting

MARCH 27, 2017, BHAGAVAD GITA TALK #7: TRAVELING FROM THE OUTER LIMITS OF THE THINKING MIND INTO THE DEPTH OF INNER STILLNESS.  “PERFORMING ALL ACTIONS FOR MY SAKE, DESIRELESS, ABSORBED IN THE SELF, INDIFFERENT TO “I” AND “MINE,” LET GO OF YOUR GRIEF, AND FIGHT!

Easter Sunday. Ironic that this day of rebirth and resurrection ends another bizarre week in the Age of Trump. Bombs, bombs, and more bombs. I did wonder if the bombing spree was an attempt to distract us from the Russia-connection arrests rumored to be coming this week. Probably so. This is from the 4/13 Palmer Report...

Donald Trump dropped the “Mother of all Bombs” today in Afghanistan, but it appears to have been a mere attempt at distracting from the mother of all bombshells. Reliable sources, who have proven themselves correct in the past, are now pointing to U.S. intel agencies working with the Attorney General of New York to begin imminently dismantling Trump’s inner circle. In fact the big major arrests may come as soon as next week.

(Click here for the entire article.)

Let us hope the dismantling has begun. And that the Democratic Party can actually get its act together, win the next round of elections, and bring some semblance of sanity and humanity back to governing. In the meantime, can I just say that nicknaming a bomb “mother” is really sick. Especially one that resembles a ginormous phallus. And the acronym MOAB. Seriously? It makes this hideously destructive bomb sound like a pet guppy.

The Bhagavad Gita maintains that desire drives the psycho-pathology of men and women like Donald Trump. In the more integrative perspective of Tantra, we would say that it’s actually attachment to and/or identification with desire. But we need not bog down in philosophical hair-splitting. The bottom line is, desire, its near relative greed, and their offsprings—displaced anger, cruelty, and the need to dominate and control—have wreaked havoc on this planet for thousands of years…

Although we didn’t read these verses at the March 27 class, they’re so relevant to this moment, I thought I’d include them.

ARJUNA SAID:
 
What it is that drives a man to evil action, Krishna,
even against his will,
as if some force made him do it.
 
THE BLESSED LORD SAID:

That force is desire, it is anger,
arising from the guna called rajas;
deadly and all-devouring,
that is the enemy here.
 
As a fire is obscured by smoke,
as a mirror is covered by dust,
as a fetus is wrapped in its membrane,
so wisdom is obscured by desire.
 
Wisdom is destroyed, Arjuna,
by the constant enemy of the wise,
which, flaring up as desire,
blazes with insatiable flames.
 
Desire dwells in the senses,
the mind, and the understanding;
in all these it obscures wisdom
and perplexes the embodied Self.
 
Therefore you must first control
your senses, Arjuna; then
destroy this evil that prevents you
from ever knowing the truth.
 
Men say that the senses are strong.
But the mind is stronger than the senses;
the understanding is stronger
than the mind; and the strongest is the Self.
 
Knowing the Self, sustaining
the self by the Self, Arjuna,
kill the difficult-to-conquer
enemy called desire. [3.36-43]

 

Here’s my dharma talk from March 27th.

 

I read only two verses from the Gita during this talk. We’ve read these before but they’re well worth repeating…

The wise man does not unsettle
the minds of the ignorant; quietly
acting in the spirit of yoga,
he inspires them to do the same. [3.26]

It is better to do your own duty
badly, than to perfectly do
another’s; you are safe from harm
when you do what you should be doing. [3.35]

Here are the Mary Oliver poems that, as always, beautifully and ecstatically mirror what the Gita is teaching. The first we also read last week. Like the Gita verses above, it too bears repeating…

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.

GREEN, GREEN IS MY SISTER’S HOUSE

Don’t you dare climb that tree
or even try, they said, or you will be
sent away to the hospital of the
very foolish, if not the other one.
And I suppose, considering my age,
it was fair advice.

But the tree is a sister to me, she
lives alone in a green cottage
high in the air and I know what
would happen, she’d clap her green hands,
she’d shake her green hair, she’d
welcome me. Truly 

I try to be good but sometimes
a person just has to break out and
act like the wild and springy thing
one used to be. It’s impossible not
to remember wild and want it back. So

if someday you can’t find me, you might
look into that tree—of course
it’s possible—or under it.

 

I’m including two audio clips of class chanting, with apologies for less than stellar sound quality. During this Bhagavad Gita in the Age of Trump cycle of class, we’ve been chanting Tara and Kuan Yin mantras. I’ll write more about why I chose these mantras (or more accurately, why these mantras chose me) within the next few weeks. For now, suffice to say they are excellent medicine for moving through these times. They foster the ability to  hold the nightmare of the Trump regime without getting lost in our outrage, disgust, revulsion, fear, even hatred. And in that holding, we can channel these powerful energies into the fierce determination and wisdom necessary to keep fighting for truth and loving kindness to the world.

Here is the Tara mantra we chant at the opening of class.
OM TARA TUTTARE TURE SWAHA

Here is the Kuan Yin mantra which resolves into Om Namah Shivaya
NAMO KUAN SHIH YIN PU’SA 

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Monday, November 7, 2016

I cannot believe it is already November. And thank goddess the presidential campaign is over tomorrow.Or let us hope it ends tomorrow with no re-count challenges…

At class last week, we were contemplating the five koshas as described in the Taittiriya Upanishad. A fancy way to articulate the various levels (aka bodies) that weave through the ultimate oneness of our human being-ness. The more I think about it, the more I think that while this way of breaking it down into categories has its place in the work of developing mastery, I do believe Mary Oliver says it all way more beautifully….

WHAT CAN I SAY
-Mary Oliver

What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
  and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
   chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you 
   were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.

When I was meditating this morning, I found my mind contemplating the question, “Why?” Why do I meditate?  Why have I been doing this practice now for nearly forty years? What have I received? Have I done it to receive anything? What’s the bloody point of it all? Why do I teach it to others?

And I remembered, being in high school, maybe my junior year. 1964 or 1965. I was reading Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha. I can still feel myself lying on the living room couch in my family’s home absorbed in that narrow paperback. And I came to the end of the story, where he has attained something wonderful. He has attained stillness. And every cell in my being started to pulsate. I didn’t know how to find what he found, but in that moment, my quest began…

So why do I meditate? All those years in Siddha Yoga formed a habit. What began as a quest and became a rigid following of  ashram discipline — (really rather fear-based if I speak the truth to you now) — just became something I do.

Like breathing. Or sleeping. Or drinking chai.

And at this point in my life, to borrow a phrase from Mary Oliver, I am of years lived, so far, sixty-eight… And find I don’t need a reason. In fact, I question if having a reason is actually counter to the practice.

Meditating may contribute to my health and vitality —
may help to anchor my insight and intuition —
may foster an inner glow —
but I realized this morning that I don’t do it for any of those reasons.

I just meditate to meditate.

If I have a reason, it’s something like for the sheer joy of being alive and experiencing the sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrible, sometimes wonder-filled, sometimes terrifying life/death dance of life.

Which is more than enough reason for me.

* * * *

Tomorrow is Election Day in the USA. If you’re a US citizen, please vote!!! Because even though it seems like it barely makes a difference. That the status quo remains the status quo. That our so-called leaders remain in the pockets of corporate lobbyists. Still, somehow, in the big picture, it does matter. If only to elect someone who understands the climate crisis is here and it is real. And that is Hillary Clinton. Whether she’ll be able to do anything about it, probably only those incremental steps she’s famous for. And whether incremental steps are enough… I don’t think so. Nevertheless, I’m voting for Hillary. Not because she’s inspired me as a candidate. (She has not.) Not because she’s a woman. (To me it’s less about gender and more about consciousness.) Not because I particularly want to see Bill Clinton back in the White House. (It actually kind of creeps me out.) I’m voting for Hillary Clinton because I think she is far and away the best choice we have. And while I don’t agree with all her policies. And have concerns about how enmeshed she is in politics as usual. Still, I have real respect for her intelligence, wonkiness, and discipline. And suspect that although she doesn’t often show it in her public persona, I think she actually cares. And while I don’t think that’s enough. I do think it’s a starting point. We just need to ensure she is elected. And then keep pushing her to govern from that sense of care. Not from fear. Not from greed. Not from a need to dominate. To govern with care for everything that lives and breathes and is of this Earth we all call home…

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Communication, Communion, and the Mind According to Yoga…

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I think a lot about listening. What it means to really listen to oneself. What it means to listen to another. What is means to listen to the world. How do we cultivate ears that truly hear. How do we foster a communication between ourselves and everything of our world that makes communion happen. So much gets in the way of that. So much mucks up the clear space within and around us. So that rather than communion, we often end up with separation. We cling to our belief systems. We cling to our stories. We cling to our idea of being right. Which doesn’t let in much space for listening. We’re too busy telling…

Here’s a talk about listening that weaves in yogic teachings on the mind, aka, the Four-Part Psychic Instrument or antahkarana. Like so much passed down through the Hindu Yogic system, this perspective on the mind is quite simple and profound. I unpack it in the talk, but here are the technical terms spelled out.

The four levels of antahkarana or the Four-Part Psychic Instrument

Manas: often translated as mind-stuff. From our western perspective, think of it as your conscious mind.

Chitta: translated in a myriad of ways. From our western perspective, think of it as the unconscious.

Ahamhara: in the yogic system, this is the sense of “I.” Often referred to as the ego.

Buddhi: the discriminating faculty.

Here’s the talk:

And here is a wonderful poem from Mary Oliver who is perhaps one of the greatest listeners we have.

 

The Fist
Mary Oliver
 
There are days
when the sun goes down
like a fist,
though of course

if you see anything
in the heavens
in this way
you had better get

your eyes checked
or, better still,
your diminished spirit.
The heavens

have no fist,
or wouldn’t they have been
shaking it
for a thousand years now,

and even
longer than that,
at the dull, brutish
ways of mankind—

heaven’s own
creation?
Instead: such patience!
Such willingness

to let us continue!
To hear
little by little,
the voices—

only, so far, in
pockets of the world—
suggesting
the possibilities

of peace?
Keep looking.
Behold, how the fist opens
with invitation.

from Thirst, Beacon Press, 2006.