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.
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...
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…..
“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.
“ADMIRING IS EASY, BUT AFFINITY, THAT DOES TAKE SOME TIME.”
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]
I was out walking the other day when I encountered a snake and a stick. Lying just so on the ground. They reminded me of the old Vedanta teaching story about the snake and the rope. This was a snake and a stick but you get the point. A snake is a snake. A rope is a rope. A stick is a stick. We need to see life as it is.
Monday Night Class broke for the summer at the end of June. I’ll post June 19 here. June 26 will follow. And with these two posts, we close out this blog season I’ve titled, “Reading the Bhagavad Gita in the Age of Trump…”
Ironically, today is the six-month mark of the Trump presidency. Where ropes are snakes and snakes are sticks. Dizzying, devastating, dangerous, and exhausting. And what can we do but keep standing up for the truth.
If you’re a fan of Game of Thrones, I’m sure you exulted in Sunday night’s new season premiere when Arya Stark turned to the young woman whose life she spared and said, “When people ask you what happened here, tell them the North remembers.” Yes. The North remembers. It’s a fitting metaphor for our time.
Here’s my dharma talk from June 19:
Here are the readings:
From the Gita:
Sitting down, having chosen a spot that is neither too high nor too low, that is clean and covered with a grass mat, a deerskin, and a cloth,
he should concentrate, with his whole mind, on a single object: if he practices in this way, his mind will soon become pure.
With torso and head held straight, with posture steady and unmoving, gazing at the tip of his nose, not letting his eyes look elsewhere,
he should sit there calm, fearless, firm in his vow to be chaste, his whole mind controlled, directed, focused, absorbed in me. [6. 11-14]
Mature in yoga, impartial everywhere that he looks, he sees himself in all beings and all beings in himself.
The man who sees me in everything and everything within me will not be lost to me, nor will I ever be lost to him.
He who is rooted in oneness realizes that I am in every being: wherever he goes, he remains in me.
When he sees all beings are equal in suffering or in joy because they are like himself, that man has grown perfect in yoga. [6.29-32]
From Mary Oliver’s Blue Horses:
ON MEDITATION, SORT OF
Meditation, so I’ve heard, is best accomplished if you entertain a certain strict posture. Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree. So why should I think I could ever be successful?
Some days I fall asleep, or land in that even better place—half asleep—where the world, spring, summer, autumn, winter— flies through my mind in its hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent.
So I just lie like that, while distance and time reveal their true attitudes: they never heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.
Of course I wake up finally thinking, how wonderful to be who I am, made out of earth and water, my own thoughts, my own fingerprints— all that glorious, temporary stuff.
THE MANGROVES
As I said before, I am living now in a warm place, surrounded by mangroves. Mostly I walk beside them, they discourage entrance. The black oaks and the pines of my northern home are in my heart, even as I hear them whisper, “Listen, we are trees too.” Okay, I’m trying. They certainly put on an endless performance of leaves. Admiring is easy, but affinity, that does take some time. So many and so leggy and all of them rising as if attempting to escape this world which, don’t they know it, can’t be done. “Are you trying to fly or what?” I ask, and they answer back, “We are what we are, you are what you are, love us if you can.”
Here’s audio of class chanting. Daniel Johnson joined us for these last two classes so you will hear his tabla in the music.
“WHEN WE LIVE IN THE QUESTION EVERYTHING WE SAY IS MUSIC.”
Attaining this state, he knows
that there is no higher attainment,
he is rooted there unshaken
even by the deepest sorrow.
This is the true yoga; the unbinding
of the bonds of sorrow. Practice
this yoga with determination
and with a courageous heart. [6.22-23]
This is the week of the Summer Solstice. For those who don’t pay attention to these cosmic moments, it occurred in our Northern Hemisphere at 12:24 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 21. And even the next day’s Senate healthcare debacle could not undermine the wonder of sunlight stretching into the evening. The Summer Solstice is a day I’ve always loved, revered even. But this year, I was strangely out of sorts, a mental state that knocked me from the ground I tend to move from, and, as bad luck would have it, sent me tumbling down a flight of stairs. Well, it wasn’t really bad luck. It was me not paying attention. I tripped on my cat Lily who was sleeping on the top step. I’d seen her there on the way up, but forgot she was there on the way down. And down I went. All the way down. 10 steps down to be exact. It’s a miracle I didn’t sprain, break, or concuss myself. Which is not to say I’m not feeling sore, bruised, and tender. I am. Quite.
Paying attention. One cannot take the practice deep enough. Had you seen me on Wednesday as I headed towards those stairs, you’d have seen a woman who appeared totally focused on what she was doing, who appeared to be paying attention. The problem was, what looked like focus was actually compulsion. Compulsion to complete a task. Compulsion that flung my awareness into a future event that never even happened.
What did happen is I got all banged up and will need at least a week to fully recuperate. But who cares about me. The poor cat was so freaked out, she hid under my bed for hours. My daughter had to sacrifice an evening to take care of me. And I had to cancel a long-planned visit with my niece. That’s a lot of inconvenience to others for my momentary lapse of attention.
Or as our charlatan in the White House would say, “not good.”
We spend so much time in our limited and limiting head space—and I’m not even talking about on our devices—that we miss what’s actually happening. We’re often not really here. Which is such a shame. Because here is so very precious.
Walking seems to help my bruised and battered body so I ambled over to the Farmer’s Market yesterday. Early summer abundance. Heads of lettuce, bags of spinach, boxes of sweet peas, bunches of arugula, turnips, beets, green onions, garlic scapes, herbs, buckets of blueberries, fresh eggs, local cheese. And the flowers. OMG. The flowers were amazing. Walking home I felt so simply happy. It didn’t matter that everything hurt, that I was tired, thirsty, hungry, and needing to lie down. None of that mattered. My joy in the preciousness of life was so much bigger than that temporary discomfort. So much bigger.
Which is what the Bhagavad Gita is all about. Which is why we’ve been reading the Gita as we live through this Trumpian age. Because the awareness and call to right action articulated in this elegant text is the most potent medicine we have to counter the rampant destruction that will characterize this dark and chilling moment in our history.
Here’s the opening dharana and dharma talk from June 12. I usually edit out class banter but thought I’d leave it in for a change…
Here are the Mary Oliver poems we read:
THE MAN WHO HAS MANY ANSWERS
The man who has many answers is often found in the theaters of information where he offers, graciously, his deep findings.
While the man who has only questions, to comfort himself, makes music.
POEM 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.
Here are the Gita verses, [18-23]:
With a mind grown clear and peaceful, freed from selfish desires, absorbed in the Self alone he is called a true man of yoga.
“A lamp sheltered from the wind which does not flicker’ — to this is compared the true man of yoga whose mind has vanished in the Self.
When his mind has become serene by the practice of meditation, he sees the Self through the self and rests in the Self, rejoicing.
He knows the infinite joy that is reached by the understanding beyond the senses; steadfast, he does not fall back from the truth.
Attaining this state, he knows that there is no higher attainment, he is rooted there unshaken even by the deepest sorrow.
This is the true yoga; the unbinding of the bonds of sorrow. Practice this yoga with determination and with a courageous heart.
ANXIETY IS SUCH A WASTE OF VITAL ENERGY. WE NEED THE SELF. WE DON’T NEED ANXIETY.
He looks impartially on all:
those who love him or hate him,
his kinsmen, his enemies, his friends,
the good, and also the wicked. [6.9]
Last week’s high drama was James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. An important inquiry for sure. The danger being that in the current media environment, it becomes a smokescreen for the really damaging stuff the Trump administration and their congressional allies are putting in motion.
Sam Stein’s June 1 piece on the Huffington Post, While You Obsessed Over Trump’s Scandals, He’s Fundamentally Changed The Country, is a chilling accounting of what’s going on beneath the radar.
This is a defining feature of the Trump administration: While scandal and squabble, palace intrigue and provocative tweets suck much of the oxygen out of the room ― and leave the impression of mass government disfunction ― a wide array of fundamentally Trump-minded reform is taking place.
“All of this smoke is missing the steady progress that the modern Republican Party is achieving,” said Grover Norquist, the longtime anti-tax advocate. “The idea that Trump isn’t getting anywhere is wrong. Those free market guys are picking up maybe not all the marbles in the world, but a large quantity of them. And we haven’t thrown away any marbles.”
Click here for the entire article, which as of this writing is nearly two weeks old. In the dizzying chaos of today’s politics, that’s almost obsolete, pre-dating, to name just three, Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement, insulting London’s mayor Sadiq Khan, and undermining his own State Dept. with anti-Qatar bluster, while the Republicans in the House try to turn American into a weird hybrid of 1984, Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Hunger Games.
And then we have the Bhagavad Gita, this steadying, sobering articulation of what is required to become truly human, or, in the language of the Gita, to become “a man of yoga.”
From the Gita’s perspective, it’s actually quite simple. Get real. Get focused on what matters. Which has nothing to do with self-serving action. And everything to do with waking up, paying attention, seeing things as they are, becoming an island of stillness in the world.
In the world.
We homo sapiens have been bumbling across earth’s surface for around 300,000 years. Probably making a mess of things from the very beginning. It’s just that in the early days our footprints were dwarfed by everything else. It’s astonishing really, when you think about it. How it never had to be this way. How we could have lived honorably, in sustaining partnership with the earth. But chose instead to strive blindly into the abyss of progress, belittling the cries of those who saw clearly…
June 5th’s Gita verses offer a mix of hands-on technique for the practice of meditation along with flashes of the insight for which we practice in the first place. At the end of the day it really is about opening into that.
Technique is just technique. And we want to be so very careful to never get stuck there. Lest we fall into a trap I’ve heard referred to as the “stench of enlightenment.” When I was coming up as a young artist woman, there was an astonishing pianist on the scene called Cecil Taylor. Asked about his technical abilities, he said, “technique is weapon to do what must be done.” Yes. This is why I adore Mary Oliver. Her poetry comes directly from that place. Her greatest poems (of which there are many) are portals into that luminous ineffable shimmering (what she calls in one of the following poems “the patience of patience”) that breaks the heart wide open and sets us down exactly where we are…
Here’s my June 5 Dharma Talk, Bhagavad Gita Talk #14:
Here are the Mary Oliver poems that so magnificently parallel the Gita teachings. These are from her 2006 book, Thirst. [Please note this blog template does not hold the proper formatting of the first poem which shapes the lines of each verse like petals.]
THE POET VISITS THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
For a long time I was not even in this world, yet every summer
every rose opened in perfect sweetness and lived in gracious repose,
in its own exotic fragrance, in its huge willingness to give something, from its small self, to the entirety of the world.
I think of them, thousands upon thousands, in may lands, whenever summer came to them, rising
out of the patience of patience to leaf and bud and look up into the blue sky or, with thanks,
into the rain that would feed their thirsty roots latched into the earth—
sandy or hard, Vermont or Arabia, what did it matter, the answer was simply to rise in joyfulness, all their days.
Have I found any better teaching? Not ever, not yet. Last week I saw my first Botticelli and almost fainted,
and if I could I would paint like that but am shelved somewhere below, with a few songs about roses: teachers also, of the ways towards thanks, and praise.
WHEN THE ROSES SPEAK, I PAY ATTENTION
“As long as we are able to be extravagant we will be hugely and damply extravagant. Then we will drop foil by foil to the ground. This is our unalterable task, and we do it joyfully.”
And they went on. “Listen, the heart-shackles are not, as you think, death, illness, pain, unrequited hope, not loneliness, but
Their fragrance all the while rising from their blind bodies, making me spin with joy.
I also read more of Baba Muktananda’s writings on the Self, (aka “patience of patience”) from his 1981 book, Where Are You Going?
The Self is our dearest friend. It exists inside us in its fullness, right within the heart. Though the Self is always with us, it is so subtle that most people cannot see or hear it. The Self is the formless substratum of everything, the foundation of our lives. We cannot see it through the eyes, nor can we attain it through speech. The tongue can speak about it, but the true description of its nature is silence. The Self cannot be attained through the mind or through the senses. Yet when the inner psychic instruments are purified through meditation, it reveals itself on its own. For this reason the sages of India place great emphasis on meditation; in the Bhagavad Gita, the Lord tells Arujuna, Dhyaanen aatmani pashyanti — “The Self is seen through meditation.” Just by meditating peacefully, we can make the Self manifest before us.
And here are the Gita verses, [6.9-15]…
He looks impartially on all: those who love him or hate him, his kinsmen, his enemies, his friends, the good, and also the wicked.
The man of yoga should practice concentration alone, mastering mind and body, free of possessions and desires.
Sitting down, having chosen a spot that is neither too high nor too low, that is clean and covered with a grass mat, a deerskin, and a cloth,
he should concentrate, with his whole mind, on a single object; if he practices in this way, his mind will soon become pure.
With torso and head held straight, with posture steady and unmoving, gazing at the tip of his nose, not letting his eyes look elsewhere,
he should sit there calm, fearless, firm in his vow to be chaste, his whole mind controlled, directed, focused, absorbed in me.
Constantly mastering his mind, the man of yoga grows peaceful, attains supreme liberation, and vanishes into my bliss.
For those who can’t get enough, here are two more audio clips. The first opens with me chanting Om Namah Shivaya before class begins and slowly, as people begin arriving, you can hear their voices join in. The second is the opening dharana on ONS.
We continue chanting the Tara and Kuan Yin mantras as part of this Bhagavad Gita journey. If you’re new to the blog and want to hear audio of these, please scroll down to earlier posts.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION IT’S NOT REALLY ABOUT THE RESULTS, WE JUST THINK IT IS….
The resolute in yoga surrender
results, and gain perfect peace;
the irresolute, attached to results,
are bound by everything they do. [5.12]
The practice of renunciation comes up in every religion and sacred tradition. It’s also an important element in recovery and self-improvement programs. In all these systems, renunciation is a penance, a giving up of something that gives us pleasure, a choosing, in other words, to suffer. And this renouncing is done in order to achieve a certain goal.
The Yoga of Renunciation flips this notion on its head. In Yoga, we renounce not only that which causes suffering, (i.e. attachment and identification with our psycho/emotional narratives.) We also renounce the fruit of our actions, letting go of goal-oriented focus and motivation.
There’s a great deal of paradox here. When I talked about how this work of yogic renunciation may be the hardest thing we ever do, one of my long-time Monday Nighters made a great point. She said from her perspective, not doing it is even harder. Yes and yes. The final irony being that what we’re renouncing doesn’t actually exist. But that’s a topic for another time…
Another bizarre week on the political scene where the Yoga of Not-Renunciation abounds. Here we see everything the Gita warns against. It’s been fascinating to watch this karma playing out. Too soon to know how this scandalous scandal-ridden chapter in American history will end. And they will do a lot of damage before that happens. Still, nonstop leaks, gaffes, and investigations are outing the craven corruption and naked lies that drive Trump and the Republican agenda. And the truth begins to roar.
Here’s May 15’s dharma talk. If you don’t have time to listen, a few short quotes:
“The ego thinks it’s all coming from it. That small sense of “I.” It thinks it’s the doer. It’s not. And that sense of “I’m the doer” creates the sense of isolation and alienation that creates so many of the maladies that plague our culture. We’re not isolated. We’re not alienated. We’re very much part of this ginormous matrix of Creation and that’s what’s carrying us.”
“Who cares about reincarnation. It’s irrelevant. It’s enough that we keep the spaces we move through clear. So we don’t leave a mess we then need to clean up.”
Here are the Gita verses we read:
ARJUNA SAID:
You have praised both renunciation and the yoga of action, Krishna. Tell me now: of these two, which is the better path?
THE BLESSED LORD SAID:
Renunciation and yoga both lead to the ultimate good; but of the two paths, Arjuna, yoga is the more direct.
The true renunciate neither desires things nor avoids them; indifferent to pleasure and pain he is easily freed from all bondage.
Fools say that knowledge and yoga are separate, but the wise do not. When you practice one of them deeply, you gain the rewards of both.
The state reached by true knowledge is reached by yoga as well. Both paths lead to the Self; both lead to selfless action.
It is hard to renounce all action without engaging in action; the sage, wholehearted in the yoga of action, soon attains freedom.
Wholehearted, purified, mastering body and mind, his self becomes the self all beings; he is unstained by anything he does.
The man who has seen the truth thinks, “I am not the doer” at all times—when he sees, hears, touches, when he smells, eats, walks, sleeps, breathes,
when he defecates, talks, or takes hold, when he opens his eyes or shuts them; at all times he thinks, “This is merely sense-objects acting on the senses.”
Offering his actions to God, he is free of all action; sin rolls off him as drops of water roll off a lotus leaf.
Surrendering attachment, the sage performs all actions—with his body, his mind, and his understanding— only to make himself pure.
The resolute in yoga surrender results, and gain perfect peace; the irresolute, attached to results, are bound by everything they do.
Calmly renouncing all actions, the embodied Self dwells at ease as lord of the nine-gated city, not acting, not causing action.
It does not create the means of action, or the action itself, or the union of result and action; all these arise from Nature.
Nor does it partake of anyone’s virtuous or evil actions. When knowledge of the Self is obscured by ignorance, men act badly.
Here are the poems from Rabi’a, the beloved 8th century Sufi mystic, followed by two more from Hadwijch II, the lesser known but quite extraordinary 13th century Christian beguine. Note how both give the same teaching as the Gita with just a few strokes of the pen. Fyi, the images at the top of this post are Hadwijch facing Rabi’a.
1.
I am fully qualified to work as a doorkeeper, and for this reason:
What is inside me, I don’t let out;
What is outside me, I don’t let in.
If someone comes in, he goes right out again—
He has nothing to do with me at all.
I am a Doorkeeper of the Heart, not a lump of wet clay. -Rabi’a (tr. by Charles Upton)
2.
O my Lord,
if I worship you
from fear of hell, burn me in hell.
If I worship you
from hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates.
But if I worship you
for yourself alone, grant me then the beauty of your Face. -Rabi’a (tr. by Jane Hirshfield)
1.
Tighten
to nothing
the circle
that is
the world’s things
Then the Naked
circle
can grow wide,
enlarging,
embracing all -Hadewijch II (tr. by Jane Hirshfield)
2.
You who want
knowledge,
seek the Oneness
within
There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting -Hadewijch II (tr. by Jane Hirshfield)
Finally, here’s audio of opening chanting that includes om tara tuttare ture swaha and om namah shivaya with a short dharana at the end weaving these two beautiful mantras together…
Here’s a short dharana leading into the classic version of om namah shivaya with a short dharana at the endleading into silent meditation:
MAY 8, 2017, BHAGAVAD GITA TALK # 11: STILLNESS, THE MIRACLE CURE
“He who finds peace and joy
and radiance within himself—
that man becomes one with God
and vanishes into God’s bliss.” [5.24]
We’re now about four months into the Trump presidency which is unfolding pretty much exactly as everyone familiar with the ways of Trump predicted. Well maybe not exactly. I mean who could have envisioned the bizarre drama of just these last ten days. I knew chaos, bigotry, nepotism, and greed would reign. But the naked compulsion is dizzying. I keep going back to two lines from this week’s Gita verses: “When knowledge of the Self is obscured by ignorance, men act badly.” Yes and yes.
There’s in interesting piece about Evan Williams, a founder of Twitter, in today’s NY Times. Here’s someone who tragically believed that creating an online platform where people could speak freely and exchange ideas would make the world a better place. But Williams, like so many other utopian entrepreneurs did not understand that until we address much deeper issues of human consciousness, “progress” and power, any good idea, democracy, socialism, capitalism, the internet… will ultimately be co-opted by the patriarchal mindset otherwise known as tyranny….
A few years ago, Twitter was viewed as a tool of liberation. It enabled, some believed, the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East. Twitter, like the internet itself, was putting tyranny on a short leash.
Then the narrative turned darker, with the rise of trolling on the platform.
President Trump has said he believes Twitter put him in the White House. Recently, Mr. Williams heard the claim for the first time….
“It’s a very bad thing, Twitter’s role in that,” he said finally. “If it’s true that he wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for Twitter, then yeah, I’m sorry.”
I’m still behind in my posting here so what follows is audio from May 8th. That class constellated around Chapter Five of the Gita, The Yoga of Renunciation. I think the word “renunciation” has been tainted in patriarchal traditions that equate self-punishing penance with spiritual growth. In my observation, that form of renunciation breeds repression way more than enlightenment.
I am however, a great believer in renouncing the narratives of self that rule our lives. Dropping the story, as we say; getting out from under the pathology of attachment and what we call in Yoga, “wrong identification.” That’s a form of renunciation I fully support. That’s a form of renunciation that if applied worldwide would be the miracle that truly did make the world a better place. A much better place. I know, I know, dream on…
Here’s this week’s talk which I’ve divided into two parts. The first is a rather freewheeling contemplation on Chapter 5 of the Gita as it relates to identity, the finite, the infinite, compassion, and my new green chair. The second is the last five minutes of the talk and focuses exclusively on Kuan Yin and Steady Wisdom.
Here are the verses we read from Chapter Five.
The resolute in yoga surrender results, and gain perfect peace; the irresolute, attached to results, are bound by everything they do.
Calmly renouncing all action, the embodied Self dwells at east as lord of the nine-gated city, not acting, not causing action.
Nor does it partake of anyone’s virtuous or evil actions. When knowledge of the Self is obscured by ignorance, man act badly.
But when ignorance is completely destroyed, then the light of wisdom shines like the midday sun and illumines what is supreme.
Contemplating That, inspired and rooted and absorbed in That, men reach the state of true freedom from which there is no rebirth.
Freed from the endless cycle of birth and death, they can act impartially toward all beings, since to them all beings are the same.
They do not rejoice in good fortune; they do not lament at bad fortune; lucid, with minds and unshaken, they remain within what is real.
A man unattached to sensations, who finds fulfillment in the Self, whose mind has become pure freedom, attains an imperishable joy.
Pleasures from eternal objects are wombs of suffering Arjuna. They have their beginnings and their ends; no wise man seeks joy among them.
He who finds peace and joy and radiance within himself— that man becomes one with God and vanishes into God’s bliss.
The wise man cleansed of his sins, who has cut off all separation, who delights in the welfare of all beings, vanishes into God’s bliss.
Knowing me as the enjoyer of all worship, the Lord of all worlds, the dearest friend of all beings, that man gains perfect peace.
Here are clips of chanting from May 8th. I just got a new microphone which will hopefully make a difference in the sound quality of class recordings from May 22 on. Please bear with the way-too-loud harmonium drone until then.
Here’s the Opening Tara chanting:
Here’s Kuan Yin:
And here’s another clip of my solo chanting before class begins….
MAY 1, 2017: BHAGAVAD GITA TALK #10: BETTER THAN ANY RITUAL IS THE WORSHIP ACHIEVED THROUGH WISDOM; WISDOM IS THE FINAL GOAL OF EVERY ACTION, ARJUNA. [IV, 33] WHEN YOU REALIZE IT, YOU WILL NEVER FALL BACK INTO DELUSION; KNOWING IT, YOU SEE ALL BEINGS IN YOURSELF, AND YOURSELF IN ME. [IV, 35]
Today is Mother’s Day, a day my communist-leaning mother decried as a phony holiday created by merchants to get people shopping. We were not allowed to spend a cent for Mother’s Day. Our gifts and cards had to be made by hand.
My mom was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1916, the first-born child of my Eastern European immigrant grandparents. Then came a brother, later a sister, and then, after a decade or so of prosperity, the Great Depression wiped out everything they had. My grandfather lost his job. My grandmother had to find work as a seamstress. And my mother had to leave school to help support the family. 25 years later, she and my dad owned a successful business and had everything money could buy. She never again wanted for anything and lived deep into her 90’s. But those depression scars never left her. They formed the backdrop of how she moved through life.
She always worked hard and lived a life of the mind. She questioned everything, read voraciously, and never stopped learning. In these things she inspired me to do the same. Although she would not have understood the Bhagavad Gita, were I to explain the underlying meaning, leaving out all the God-talk she so despised, she would have wholeheartedly approved. In her own way she was a woman of wisdom. I think of her today with great love and fondness.
Here’s to you Mom.
Thank you.
I’ve been slammed the last couple of weeks and am running two weeks behind on the blog. I’m posting May 1 here tonight. Will hopefully get May 8 and May 15 up by the end this week.
Here’s the opening dharana:
Here’s my interesting and in some places hilarious talk covering everything from Facebook to White Supremacists and redemption..
Here are the verses we read from the Gita. These are from Chapter IV:
When a man has let go attachments, when his mind is rooted in wisdom, everything he does is worship and his actions all melt away.
God is the offering, God is the offered, poured out by God; God is attained by all those who see God in every action.
Some men of yoga pray to the gods, and make this their worship; some offer worship by worship itself, in the fire of God; [23-25]
….All these understand worship; by worship they are cleansed of sin.
Partaking of the essence of worship, forever they are freed of themselves; but non-worshippers cannot be happy in this world or any other.
Thus, many forms of worship may lead to freedom Arjuna. All these are born of action. When you know this, you will be free.
Better than any ritual is the worship achieved through wisdom; wisdom is the final goal of every action, Arjuna.
Find a wise teacher, honor him, ask him your questions, serve him; someone who has seen the truth will guide you on the path to wisdom.
When you realize it, you will never fall back into delusion; knowing it, you see all beings in yourself, and yourself in me.
Even if you were the most evil of evildoers, Arjuna, wisdom is the boat that would carry you across the sea of all sin.
Just as firewood is turned to ashes in the flames of a fire, all actions are turned to ashes in wisdom’s refining flames.
Nothing in the world can purify as powerfully as wisdom; practiced in yoga, you will find this wisdom within yourself.
Resolute, restraining his senses, the man of faith becomes wise; once he attains true wisdom, he soon attains perfect peace.
Ignorant men without faith are easily mired in doubt; they can never be truly happy in this world or the world beyond.
A man is not bound by action who renounces action through yoga, who concentrates on the Self, and whose doubt is cut off by wisdom.
Therefore, with the sword of wisdom cut off this doubt in your heart; follow the path of selfless action; stand up, Arjuna! [30-42]
Here’s the poem I read from Hakim Sanai, whose full name is Hakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā’ī Ghaznavi. Sanai was a Persian poet who lived in Ghazni between the 11th and 12th century in what is now Afghanistan.
There is no place for place! How can a place house the maker of all space, or the vast sky enclose the maker of heaven?
He told me: “I am a homeless treasure. The world was made to give you a place to stand and see me.”
Tell me, if the one you seek is placeless, why put your shoes on? The real road is found by polishing, polishing the mirror of your heart.
Here’s audio of class chanting. As usual, apologies for the sound quality. New microphone coming soon…
And here’s a short clip I recorded before class. I always arrive early to chant alone in the room, but never bother recording myself. Thought I’d try that so here you go:
The Monday Night Blog 