Signs Around Town
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“Meeting for Discernment for Peace,” Bhavana, and Heart-Oriented Posturing Language
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? Signs Around Town (Mixed Message)
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Found Exhortation
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Signs Around Town
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Moksha
I have a set of cards that I keep on my altar that are designed to be used for contemplation. There are about fifty cards, each of which has a sanskrit word and its meaning. Just as one gets a fortune cookie randomly or picks a tarot card from a deck, but the message often seems right on point, the word that arises from the card picked from the stack often seems uncannily timely. Early Saturday morning, after not having used the cards in a few months, I picked a card from the middle of the stack to see if it would help guide my contemplation and meditations as I was getting ready to say good-bye to Becky. The word on the card I picked blind from the middle of the stack was “moksha” or liberation. In classical yoga, moksha does carry with it the implication of being liberated by transcending body and mind.
Later on Saturday, when I was on my way home from teaching for the appointment with the vet, I stopped at the metaphysical supply shop for a piece of rose quartz (to use in a ritual to assist with the transition and loss that a friend taught me). At the check out were “dolphin saying cards.” There was a sign next to the cards inviting customers to take one for free. The sign also said that it was not necessary to take the one at the top. The cards were face down; I did not look for a particular saying. I dug a few cards down, and the one I selected read: “freedom has its roots within yourself.” In other words, “moksha” for the second time on this day, when I was facing with Becky her transition of the spirit from the body.
Was it a message? Was it a coincidence? I do know that I knew when it was time, as I did with Henrietta. Becky just did not want to be embodied anymore. When I held her in her arms after she stopped breathing, she was released and relaxed in a way she had not been in months. That the signs were saying “moksha” resonated with Becky’s power and connectedness. I hope that when I am ready to go, I will truly understand moksha, that I will be released. It is so resonant of Becky’s life, for all her quirks, that she was still teaching me even as she was dying.
