Week Seven on the Bhakti Path: You Are a Ripple in Water

I can't tell you how many people influence my life in ways they would never imagine. In random thoughts, I think of them. Their shared moments, their stories stay with me. Without each of them, I would be a different person. Today, I thought of a friend who met her husband in college. He had feelings for her. She moved away. They both had separate lives. Decades later, they met once again, married, and now live in the love they started as kids. That story folded my lips into a smile that lasted for a good few minutes.

We have a tendency to forget how precious life is. We are living it each day, caught up in the ups and downs of our experiences, taking little time to reflect. When we do reflect, we are usually caught up in the negative emotions and experiences of our day.

I once heard how we have this internal piggy bank. When something negative happens, let's say a dollar in change is removed from the bank. When something good happens, a nickel is put in. We have a tendency to allow those negative moments to take more than we allow the good to give.

There are over seven billion people living on this planet. It may seem like there are so many of us, that we should not matter. We do. Each person is built from their own unique strands of DNA, with each having a thumb print like no other. We are the summation of our experiences-or upbringing, our everyday encounters, and our perspective on each individual experience. How would the world not miss each and every one of us?

There are over one hundred billion galaxies in the universe that we can see. And there are other universes that we cannot see. In the vastness of space, we are insignificant and amazingly rare at the same time. When an animal's species is on the decline due to habitat loss, disaster, or over-hunting, we place them on the endangered species list to protect the population. We look at them as precious beings, part of the cycle of nature for their area or the world. Each one places a role that without them, would change the rest of the cycle. So, why would we feel any different about ourselves?

Sometimes at my day job, I do see the oddness of human beings. I laugh telling my husband that working there sometimes makes me lose hope in the human race. However, at the same time, there are many beautiful people that come through those doors with warm hearts, and amazing life stories.

I am obsessed with people's stories. We all share common themes, but common experiences? No. Each of us has an individual perspective that changes any given experience. And when you listen to someones story, you can be amazed at all they have experienced, survived, and seen. Without them, the world would have been different.

Think about the chain reaction of encounters alone. Let's say you work in a store and a customer comes in, is rude to you and when they leave, perhaps your depressed or angry. Without them, you would not have experienced that moment. Now on the flip side, someone smiles at you in passing. You were perhaps sad or preoccupied with something going on in your personal life. Suddenly you smile in return and your heart feels full. As you see the next person, you smile easily. They in turn smile back feeling that swell in their heart. And so on. Each of us creates a ripple in the world.

And perhaps you're thinking about that cranky person that put you in a bad mood. Without them, you could not appreciate what you have. Without them, you would not be challenged to find happiness despite their unhappiness. Without them, you could not practice compassion. Without them, you could not revel in the people that are joyous. Without them, you did not have the reminder how being kind to others matter.

Each of us are like a pebble thrown into water. Inevitably, we will make a ripple. Without us, what happens next could not occur.

Scratching the Surface of Possibilities: Life Beyond Death

Tonight I had a visitor. It wasn't someone I was close to. She wasn't a member of my family or a dear friend. She was someone I would see at work. Boy did I love her sweet smile.

Let me call her “R” to protect her privacy. R did not visit in person. She passed away just a short time ago. To my surprise, my mind wandered to her. A split second later, she came through and said hello. That's the way it sometimes works as an intuitive. It's as if a thought creates an opportunity.

She shared with me her gratitude for where I work. In death, she was as happy and gracious as she appeared in life. Small, frail, but always humble. Quiet, kind, and if you had passed her, you wouldn't have noticed her. If you saw her, her smile and generous words would light up your soul.

That's the way it is sometimes with people. They pop into our lives for only a moment. Like two people getting on and off a subway together without much consideration. Perhaps they held the door open for you as you tried to squeeze in. Perhaps they gave you their seat. Perhaps they smiled at you.

Many people ask how I have this gift. I don't know how. I always have. I think we are all able to have the ability to do this. We are all born with this ability to see past our three dimensional world. We just forget how to.

Trust your instincts. That's usually your first entrance way into communicating with the other side. If you think you feel something or someones presence, you probably do. We are just so used to shrugging it off because we cannot see it with our own two eyes and feel it with our hands. Our minds are too logical. We question our own sanity in whether or not we just had a magical moment.

I do believe that one day science will identify what we call “heaven” or the “other side.” I believe it is just another dimensional reality. Until the most recent discoveries in the past month (where scientists saw a a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second before the Big Bang), scientists had realized between ten to eleven dimensions. The “String Theory” hypothesized ten dimensions, while the “M Theory” said eleven. Our first four are length, width, depth, and time. The fifth and sixth dimension deals with possibilities, like other potential futures based on decisions. The remaining deal with the universe, their own realities and futures, along with all of them together.

Now, the number of dimensions could be dramatically higher with this recent discovery. We cannot see them because we can only see three dimensions. It doesn't however, mean it doesn't exist.

We know radio waves exist because we hear the music in our car. We know oxygen flows through the air because we are alive. Our world already provides us everyday magic and miracles that we cannot see, but know exist. So, why do we deny that when our loved ones die that we cannot see them or communicate with them? It's not easy. It requires training. But isn't that just like anything we do? We have to learn how to do it before we can do it. Not many of us could hop onto a bike and ride it without practice and understanding how our feet need to move the peddles, how to steer and how to break.

So, wander around in the vast wilderness of your imagination. Let your mind take a walk while your body reaches a level of peace. Let your intuitive sense take over. Then, allow someone who you care for and has passed away, to pop into your mind. Think of them gently for a few minutes and see what happens. Perhaps you will need to practice a few times. Perhaps your mind will invent beautiful images. Or maybe, you might just get something for a fleeting moment. 

Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change form. So, who's to say that we are not energy-not just our body, but our soul, our essence. There is always "magic" around us awaiting to be discovered. Mostly, trying to communicate with the other side takes courage. It can be a scary thought that our discoveries will change our perception of the world. However, there can be comfort in knowing that we are never alone. 

A Happy Life: An Evening with Bhante Sujatha

So, now it's time to write and sometimes your mind is so full of beautiful moments it can be a feat to put them all down on paper. Bhante Sujatha visited my studio this evening. Our lovely monk visits this area one to two times a year and makes his rounds to many amazing places. All I can say for where I live is - we love Bhante!

From Illinois, he travels the country (globe, really) raising funds for the Blue Lotus Temple, donations for the Peradeniya Teaching Hospital in Sri Lanka (his hometown where he raises money for incubators and equipment for mothers and babies), and teaching meditation. For this evenings class, the discussion was "How to Find Peace & Happiness in Everyday Life." Like always, Bhante gives everyday practical advice, leads a discussion and infuses the time with humor. Tonight we learned, Bhante used to be a horn honker. (He is no longer unless needed for safety.)

Bhante arrived with a friend early, gave me big smiles and a big hug, and then sat to eat dinner quietly. AS people arrived, he sat in silence in my white wicker chair in our classroom, still holding that loving smile.

I looked around the room witnessing beautiful faces filled with willingness to listen. I saw yoga students, friends, family, and some people I could not recognize. In that moment, however, we were all united in our practice of finding happiness everyday.

"Life is short," Bhante said. He continued to say how we choose to "come here." Here meaning earth, incarnate at this time. He advised that we make the most of it, appreciating and being present in every moment we are given as we do not know what tomorrow brings.

He also discussed how human beings are born with suffering. He himself is not exempt. "I realized one day I had nothing to worry about. And then I started trying to find what could I worry about." He said our human minds are conditioned to suffer. We worry about everything! And apparently, if we have nothing to worry about, we find something to worry about to fill that space in our minds. The Buddha said, "life is suffering." It doesn't mean though that we are destined to be trapped in this cyclical nature. Instead, as Bhante said, we use our meditation practice.

We can sit on a cushion, breathe, bring attention to our breath. We use this tool as our training. And then, in the real everyday world, that is when we bring it into practice. That is the test. Do we become more tolerant of others? Do we feel compassion for those suffering around us even the one person in the world who drives us the most crazy?

One of the most powerful comments he made tonight was about forgiveness and suffering. He once had someone ask him about forgiveness. He said, there is no such thing in the way he was raised/taught. He had to do extensive research to find the answer to this. What it boils down to is, can we let it go? What was done to us is not right or condoned. However, the person we hold anger towards does not feel our anger necessarily. It does not really affect their daily life. It does, however, affect ours. It is the root of our suffering. It is our feeling to hold onto or to let go.

As a group, we went through a loving kindness meditation. In that moment, we loved everyone. We loved ourselves, our families, our friends and neighbors. We loved the people in our town, and we sent love around the room to each other. Tomorrow, when we awaken and start our day, perhaps we can use this tool to bring us towards a happy life.

“In the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?” 
- Buddha

Feelings as Part of the Human Experience

My daughter makes me feel smart. What is interesting is that is is not about anything big. Rather, things I feel are small things. Like how to deal with emotions.

We had a two hour talk that ranged from relationships to car insurance to college to human psychology. We dove head first into how we can move past anger and sadness. Feeling emotions is a human experience. We will never get away from feeling anger, sadness, jealousy, or hate. Ask Pema Chodron or the Dalai Lama if they have never felt these emotions and they will say no. We cannot escape our human nature. However, we do have choices. 

Many times people believe a zen person lives in complete joy and peace 24/7. Unfortunately that is not the case. Sweeping things under a rug pretending that we don't feel a certain way and projecting a false image doesn't help us deal with it long-term, either. Instead, approaching difficult emotions head on is truly the only way to make progress. 

We live in a culture in this country where we expect everything to be as fast as our drive through lunch. And like our drive through lunch, it's not good for us. Would we look at a baby and say "OK, walk now!" No. The baby needs to learn to perhaps crawl first, then gain muscle strength, learn how to stand up, discover balance, and then start taking those first few wobbly steps before they are walking like a pro. We cannot expect someone who is illiterate to pick up a pen and start writing or someone with no exposure to a computer or smart phone to just know how to use it. Skills need to be learned and developed. And we all get there at our own pace. 

So, why would we feel that healing our emotions would be an instantaneously mastered experience? We are all made up of experiences that impact our personalities and reactions. We have genes that also dictate our personalities. If I grew up in a foster environment with parents who abandoned me and then foster parents that did not nurture or love me, why would I naturally be able to trust people. One wouldn't. 

My husband has always said he doesn't like psychology. Not because he doesn't believe in it, but that it takes the mystery of things away. However, even though we know how a plane can fly, doesn't make it any less amazing.

Here's what I shared with my daughter: you need to train your mind to start to look at emotions differently. First you are in the emotion, say, anger. Then eventually with practice when you feel angry, you realize you feel anger. You have labeled it. 

Next you start to sit with that anger forgetting about who caused it and where it happened. You just sit with anger. At that point, because humans are amazingly curious, you will probably start to think about where did you develop this anger, why it cuts so deeply and find through psychological analysis things that stemmed back from your childhood. And then you have your "why" answer. You don't need this part, but many people have a "need to know." 

Photo courtesy of yourcourageouslife.com

From there, you make a choice. I choose to either remain angry or I choose to look at it objectively and not act angry. Perhaps you yell. Perhaps you punch a wall normally. But now, you choose not to. You labeled it anger. You know its anger. And then you breathe through the anger until either it passes or you look at it like you'd look at a cookie or the color orange. It's now something tangible happening that you may not feel as intensely anymore. 

It's like you smell cinnamon and you immediately think of a streusel, and Starbucks. You start to let go of the idea of Starbucks. Let go of the streusel. And you are sitting with cinnamon. You think about cinnamon and then it perhaps becomes the cinnamon stick or spice and you see it in a jar, in your cupboard. By the end, you may be no longer thinking about cinnamon because you've started objectively thinking about cinnamon as a thing, rather than as a longing. A monk doesn't escape feeling these human emotions. They just have more time practicing than most of us do.

I'm not saying it's easy. It takes practice. And you learn step by step. But eventually, each step gets a little easier. Kind of like walking.

In 2010, Time Magazine interviews His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Below is a quote from the article.

"Question: Do you ever feel angry or outraged? 

His Holiness: Oh, yes, of course. I'm a human being. Generally speaking, if a human being never shows anger, then I think something's wrong. He's not right in the brain. [Laughs.]"

Week Six on the Bhakti Path: Skittles, Flaws and All

This week was certainly not a Bhakti week. I found myself completely forgetting about the path and was not patient. Instead of seeing myself and others through the eyes of love, I was lost in my daily activities. (Although, I am happy to report that I did remember to chant Hari Krishna several times on two days this week which helped still me and made me swell with joy).

Since my path for six months is devoted to myself, I tried not to be upset or inpatient with myself for having a forgetful week (since that would defeat the entire purpose of this activity).

Instead, I found comfort in a story posted on Facebook. A fellow teacher mentioned how he committed to not eat Skittles recently. However, he found himself in a position where he forgot and did so. Upon remembering, he started again and was later able to pull himself away successfully from a candy dispenser full of them. I loved this story.

It reminds us that we are all human. We forget. We break our promises to ourselves. We fall. But then, we get back up again. In Little Women, Jo says, "I think I am hopelessly flawed." Friedrich responds, with my favorite line from the film, "I think we are all hopelessly flawed."

At the end of the day, we are human beings with human emotions and tendencies. I believe we should strive always to better ourselves, to cultivate our minds, become aware of our negative tendencies and curb them as we can, but also to learn to love ourselves despite our many flaws. After all, it is sometimes our flaws that remind us we are not perfect. That there is something more to learn.

Planting a Seed

"Welcome to the new age, to the new age," lyrics from the song Radioactive by Imagine Dragons played on the radio this morning as I drove to teach my Saturday morning class. "I raise my flags, don my clothes, It's a revolution, I suppose, We'll paint it red to fit right in, Whoa." 

And then my mind-blowing moment for the day arrived - we are planting seeds from our subconscious mind. 

A few days ago a fellow teacher mentioned the book, Divergent, to me. My husband referred to it as another Hunger Games type of story. I downloaded the book on my tablet and started reading it Friday evening. As a Hunger Games fan, I was sure to like the book.

What occurred to me along my short eight minute drive to my studio was what if we are reflecting what is in our minds and planting seeds in our children's. Art is a response to current socioeconomic and political issues in our society. 

During the Baby Boomer generation, dealing with racial issues, a cold war and the Vietnam War, their generation rebelled through song and music (along with protests and other forms of rebelling). Bridge Over Troubled Water, Imagine, Blowing in the Wind, The Unknown Soldier were some of the anti-war songs reflected during the Vietnam War. Movies like Star Wars and Superman reflected the need for hope while battling evil. And then the war was over leading to the eighties. 

Goodbye to bra burnings, long hippie hair, tie dye shirts and bell-bottom jeans. In came days of growing up and starting a family while creating a career. Suits were now the go-to dress code and women entered the work force in staggering numbers. TV shows were now about power, and money - Dallas, Dynasty, LA Law .

Flash forward to the 1990's and soap operas became the evening entertainment with 90210, and Melrose Place, along with dramas like Sex in the City, Seinfeld, and Dawson's Creek that reflected us Generation X's growing up into adults. We were young and living our own personal and safe soap operas and wanted to see them reflected back to ourselves. 

In the 2000's we suddenly needed more of a microscope to examine our own idiosyncrasies. Suddenly reality T.V. documented everything.

And now? We are now making those shows, those movies and songs that reflect where our generation is and where we want it to go. We are calling for a revolution.

In current pop culture songs like Radioactive, in television shows like Revolution and Walking Dead, in books and movies like Hunger Games, 28 Days, World War Z, and Divergent, we are calling out the injustices in the world and talking about the aftermath of an apocalypse. We are facing global warming, an economic imbalance between the rich and the poor, a two-party system that is so much alike you could not tell one from another and yet there is no mutual cooperation, and a social upheaval in trying to balance a mutual respect for every human being, regardless of race, socioeconomic background, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Have we, Gen X, been privileged? Yes. We did not have a war like the Vietnam War or a World War. We did not have racial segregation. We did not fight for peace, protest or burn bras. But we watched. We saw how easily we could forget a state of peace and equality. And we threw our tantrums with our need to focus on ourselves as our parents took over the world. Our 1990's and 2000's shows were our toddler "Me! Me! Me!" phase. And now, instead of saying "Me!" we are planting seeds in our children.

We are telling them the story of living in a box created by humans. A box that is represented in films as literal - caged into towns due to the aftermath of wars in an effort to create peace. We are watching television shows about everything being torn apart and starting all over again. We are singing about revolutions. We have apocalypse stored in our subconscious mind.

Revolutions do not have to be a blood bath. An apocalypse doesn't have to happen to change the world. Instead, we can have social change, a personal change. Many different New Age authors, intuitives and indigenous cultures talk about a great awakening and change occurring now. Sri Yogananda said  “I prophesize you will see a new world! a world of peace, harmony, and prosperity. The earth will know no wars for hundreds of years, so tired will they be of violence of all kinds.” This occurs during our current age, Dwapara Yuga (age) where progress in science and technology is at the forefront and we begin to use "mind power" (intuition). We have also heard of this referred to as the Aquarian Age.

Sometimes we are unaware of our own subconscious messages. Do we feel like an empty generation, one that did not have any hard-fought times like the Greatest Generation or the Baby Boomers that we feel we cannot make this change ourselves? Or maybe we are starting with making the change within ourselves and reminding our children to expect more. 

During the Industrial Revolution (both the first and second), people were thrown into a new age of machinery. Inventions like the steam engine, the car, the telephone, and canals changed our world. With it came overworked and underpaid people, child labor, malnutrition, poverty, unsafe work environments. The people cried out and from it we modified child labor laws and formed unions to protect workers.

Today, in the middle of the Digital Age, in the past twenty five years we have gone from door-to-do encyclopedia sales and calling our friends on a land line to mobile phones that can access the Internet, tablets to watch any show we want to and read any book we like on the go, a work environment so heavily reliant on digital technology that we can no longer do math in our head, and telescopic lenses so strong we can see back to a moment before the Big Bang, 

Photo from James Dean (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ospale/3205097784/)

And like in the Industrial Revolution, for all of our progress, we see the sting of unfair labor practices and compensation while the cost of living rises. We see a shift in business practices as we become a global economy. We see pockets of the ocean where no fish can live safely and others filled with garbage so wide it almost looks like another country emerging from the water. We see a world where, while we adjust to rise to this digital age, there is part of us still living in the Industrial Revolution pumping our water, air, earth, and food with chemicals.

Maybe, with the help of our children, we will start again. We will touch the earth with our bare hands growing our own food. We will once again make something we can point to using our creativity. We will come into our breath and move our bodies in asana practice until we remember we are more than our ego. We will become selfless, honest and brave. And we will do it all in loving kindness, and together. 

Equanimity

Last night I was sitting on my back porch for awhile. On Tuesday evenings, I gift myself with a yoga class and rest, as my husband and daughter generally have their own activities that night. My yoga class was canceled and I was delighted to get a head start on relaxing, catching up on Lost Girl and The Blacklist since those are the two shows on television I love watching, but can never stay up late enough to watch them. 

I found myself feeling sad instead of feeling blissful for having "me time." Sad turned to fear. I started to feel a deep sense of fear of failure and fear of success simultaneously. As I sat, my heart ached with these contradictory feelings. 

After a good fifteen minute pity party, I brought myself back together by practicing my simple steps to mental freedom. First I dug deep to find the root of what caused my sadness. It was my fear of failure and success. Next I dug deeper to find where this fear stemmed from. I connected it to feeling a lack of acceptance from my parents during my childhood. And then I did what Pema Chodren often suggests - I peeled away the layers of the onion until I felt just the emotion. I let go of the who, when, where and why. I became the observer of the emotion of fear rather than being in the middle of it. 

Photo courtesy of luminousmind.net

What was remarkable was that after a few minutes of feeling sad, I started to hear this voice in my head continuously repeat a one word mantra - Equanimity. While I know I had heard the word before, I could not recall what it meant. I kept ignoring it while I worked through my steps until I was at the observation phase. I couldn't take not knowing anymore and since the mantra would not stop (like a song you can't get out of your head and you forgot the words), I looked it up online.

Wikipedia says "Equanimity (Latin: æquanimitas having an even mind; aequus even animus mind/soul) is a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind. The virtue and value of equanimity is extolled and advocated by a number of major religions and ancient philosophies."

As I read more, Wiki went on to talk about this state in Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoga and other spiritual beliefs. What it boils down to was to achieve equanimity one must start to witness your emotions rather than live in them realizing you are part of something larger. 

The word became a reminder from my subconscious, from God, from my guides, from somewhere on how to process emotions. Not knowing what it meant, I still somehow managed to act on the word.


As always, nothing is coincidental. Today's Pema Chodren "Heart Advice," an email from Shambhala said 
"March 19, 2014, PAYING ATTENTION TO ALL THE DETAILS

With the commitment to not cause harm, we move away from reacting in ways that cause us to suffer, but we haven’t yet arrived at a place that feels entirely relaxed and free. We first have to go through a growing-up process, a getting-used-to process. That process, that transition, is one of becoming comfortable with exactly what we’re feeling as we feel it. The key practice to support us in this is mindfulness—being fully present right here, right now. Meditation is one form of mindfulness, but mindfulness is called by many names: attentiveness, nowness, and presence are just a few. Essentially, mindfulness means wakefulness—fully present wakefulness. Chögyam Trungpa called it paying attention to all the details of your life."

Mindfulness is being aware of those sounds around you, the wind, the birds chirping, cars driving down the road. It is also being aware of the emotions that arise from you and rather than burying them deep down where they won't bother you for the moment, observing them instead. 

In the Therigatha, a Buddhist poem says (of equanimity):

If your mind becomes firm like a rock
and no longer shakes
In a world where everything is shaking
Your mind will be your greatest friend
and suffering will not come your way.

Week Five on the Bhakti Path: She Let Go

For the past three weeks, I have neglected to write about my path. So much has happened, but I couldn't find myself sharing. Sometimes, we need to internalize changes within ourselves before we are able to express them. Even now, I am short on words. 

Nursing a sinus infection and other cold we were passing around a work, made me go inside. My natural state when I get sick is to first get cranky, then feel sick and then be so lethargic it's hard to do anything. During this time, I was forced to see the side of me that was "still," and unable to find the love, the God in everything.

As my body grew sick, so did my mind. Negative thoughts about myself crept in. Inability to find patience with others colored my mind. And my thoughts about the winter that seemed would never end, wasn't happy either.

So, I accepted it. Instead of criticizing myself for not doing a better job, I let go. I let go of the intolerance I had for my own thoughts. I let go of needing to have energy to do everything. I let go of my conflicts. I just let go. And then, in a yoga teacher training last weekend, I heard the following poem:

‘She Let Go’ a Poem by Rev. Safire Rose

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.  She let go of the judgments.  She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.  She let go of the committee of indecision within her.  She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

Photo courtesy of reloveplanet.com

She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go.  She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go.  She let go of all of the memories that held her back.  She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.  She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

And sometimes, that's just what you have to do.