| | | | |

“Meeting for Discernment for Peace,” Bhavana, and Heart-Oriented Posturing Language

ByElizabeth

On the Friends Meeting of Washington list serve this week, there has been a fair amount of email exchanged about an upcoming “meeting for discernment for peace.”  Very roughly described, a meeting for discernment begins with a period of silent worship in which those present settle into the silence and surrender thought to allow the light of spirit to illuminate a specific subject of contemplation.  The subject of the meeting serves to enlighten both the individuals participating and to further both the business and spiritual state of the meeting as a whole.

As I read the emails and invited myself to contemplate the questions offered for the meeting (I will not be able to attend because I had previously committed to volunteer work), it led me to think not only about the topic under discernment, but about how similar it seems to me to the yoga practice of bhavana and how bhavana supports the Anusara teaching method of “heart-oriented posturing language.”

When we practice bhavana ,we invite the fullness of consciousness to illuminate ever deeper levels of understanding of particular teachings from the yoga texts or similar ideas.  It is similar to meditation in that we don’t try to think our way through the concept, but rest with it.  Bhavana  differs from meditation exactly because it is focused on the deepening of a particular concept rather than simply going into the space of meditation as an end in itself.

Although a meeting for discernment is practiced as a form of collective worship rather than an individual practice, it is much like bhavana, and I brought the Quaker method of resting in the light to reveal deeper insight regarding a concept when I first starting teaching Anusara yoga with its emphasis on having a class theme and using heart-oriented language to invite myself and students to experience a heart quality through asana practice.

The queries for contemplation at the meeting for discernment for peace, include the following:

What does it mean to “live in the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all war?”
How am I deepening my understanding of peace?
How am I living into this understanding?
How do I support others in following peace?
 
What can be most powerful about our practice on the mat is bringing what we learn in relationship to our body, mind, and emotions in attempting and achieving poses, off the mat.   As I will be doing myself this week in my own practice in support of my friends who will be attending the meeting for discernment, I invite you, as you are practicing at home after reading this, to observe with love, spaciousness, and humor how you react to certain classes of poses, efforts you make, moves you are able to do or not do with ease.  Where are you in conflict with yourself?  What are you doing to deepen your understanding of how to be at peace with your strengths and shortcomings?  How are you taking the observations on the mat into your daily life?  How do you and how can you better use what you learn to support others, to eliminate the causes of war, and to foster peace?

Similar Posts

  • | | |

    Books on My Trip to California

    ByElizabeth

    The two books I read while I was traveling to California  (San Francisco for the delight of it and Lucerne Valley to study with Paul Muller-Ortega):  Home of the Dancing Sivan, India in Mind.

    The first I picked to bring because it was one on the bibliography Paul has given us to read that I had not yet read and was also something that I wanted to read in anticipation for my planned trip to to Chidambaram in December.  By coincidence, while we were on this intensive, Paul showed us a video of a ceremony at Chidambaram, so I was glad to have read the book on the way there.  The second, I picked up recently at the Bryn Mawr Lantern Bookshop, where I do regular volunteer work.  India in Mind is an interesting collection–well-known Western voices writing about India, but collected by Pankaj Mishra, an Indian author who lives part of the time in London.  Much in the collection I have read before, but the editing gives a very interesting perspective on how we in the West have related to and imagined  India.  More reading in preparation for my upcoming trip and for my continuing exploration of what has drawn me to the yoga over these many decades.

    The five books I bought while in San Francisco (the first three from my every year or three pilgrimage to City Lights Bookstore; the last two from a used bookshop in Hayes Valley near Yoga Tree’s Hayes studio):

    The Essential Tagore (a large and beautiful collection), Great Tales of Jewish Fantasy and the Occult (fantasy and magic from my ethnic heritage–why just concentrate on other cultures such as India?),  White Hand Society (more on Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, which ties in at a deep level to my Westerner’s understanding of Eastern mysticism); Wintering (I was captivated by Sylvia Plath in my teens and 20s; it looked like a nice book), The Violent Foam (wonderful and profoundly important poetry).

     

  • | |

    Sprouts, Orchids, and Arctic Winds

    ByElizabeth

    This morning I misted the orchids.  None are blooming right now, but an orange catteleya I received as a gift several years ago is budding, as is my favorite epidendrum, which offers up a host of delicate, greenish, spidery blooms every February. It brightens my day to spend a little time tending the house plants when it is most wintry outside.

    I rinsed sprouts.  I have both bean sprouts and a salad mixture going.  I started new batches of sprouts as soon as I returned from NYC.  I was grateful for the offerings at the grocery store, but pine for at least a little something truly fresh.  I’d had a little chard, parsley, and chives that made it through the snow storm.  Much to my surprise, I even managed to salvage enough from the garden to include in an omelet after the ice storm the other morning, but the day-time subfreezing temperatures and icy winds have finished off the outdoor garden until March.  I think I am going to get some burlap and start some micro-greens in addition to salad and bean sprouts.

  • |

    Dreams (and Maya)

    ByElizabeth

    In classical yoga systems, we are taught that all the world is an illusion (maya) and the only thing that is “real” is Atman (spirit, the One).  I do not subscribe to that belief, but I do believe in the principle that is espoused in the Bhagavad Gita of actionless action — working because it is my nature to work, but accepting that I ultimately am not in charge of the results.  I thus can be fully engaged in my work, but be freer of anxiety, disappointment, and frustration or overcharged attachment to pleasure and success.  From a tantric perspective, I believe it is all real and full and something to be experienced as part of the marvelous complexity of being.

    This principle carries over into my relationship to my dreams.  I have always had extremely vivid and present dreams most nights.  Sometimes, like last night, my dreams are full of convoluted challenges and difficulties that could be filled with anxiety.  I used to chew on dreams like that through the day.  Now I wake up and think:  what an amazingly inventive mind I have.  Isn’t the subconscious fascinating?  I pay attention to what lessons might be in the dream  and let them release the dreams from holding on to my day.  As I get more skilled with meditation and yoga, I often can find this place of simultaneous engagement/non-engagement even while I am still dreaming.  This makes it so the dreams have no more hold on my ability to sleep or act than would watching a movie that raises challenging issues.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.