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Samskara (and the awesome and the awful)
Those of you who have been attending my classes for the past couple of weeks already know that my overall theme for the fall session is cultivating a sense of wonder (abhuta). Feeling wonder is one aspect of the Anusara principle of “opening to grace.” It is seeing who we are and what we are within space and time with a sense of amazement at the limitations and the foibles, as well as the strengths and delights.
This week I was thinking about abhuta in the context of samskara — the markings or grooves or scars in our being from how we have lived our lives (and perhaps past lives, if those were also lived by us — personally not sure about that). I had a dialogue earlier this week that resulted from over 110 years of combined history that was not optimal. Reflecting on the precipitating factors, though, and marveling at the web of history, environment, education, and action that combined to give rise to the conversation led me to a sense of wonder indeed. It is by cultivating the ability to step back and appreciate the wondrousness of the dance that we learn from a steady practice that, I think, can help make it possible to shift in how we behave and react to things.
From a physical perspective, most of our challenges and difficulties are based on what we have done with and in our bodies over the course of our lives. We use the yoga alignment principles to create new grooves and to shift from the old repetitive patterns, so that we can not only alleviate pain and misalignment, but to expand the possibility of discovering ever more joy and wonder in and through our bodies and senses. Both the physical and meditation practices help us shift similar patterns (dissolve and transform samscaras and their impact), so that instead of deepening old grooves, we erase or dissolve them and create new life-enhancing ones.
It may seem odd to marvel at our stuff, especially when it does not appear to be serving us, but keep in mind that both the awesome and the awful, being both all about awe, can give rise to a recognition of the great and exquisite mysteries of being.
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Tropical Storm
We’ve had many inches of rain today, strong winds, and tornado warnings. This morning I got a call from my handy man that the drain under my back porch was stopped up and the basement was about to flood. He should not have been at the house. The work was supposed to have been done a couple of weeks ago, but a host of different occurrences got in the way. He only checked the back patio (he was working on something in the upstairs bathroom) because he had installed my rain barrel and wanted to make sure it was working properly (a story goes with that too). I left the office so I could go home and bail and monitor. The handy man wasn’t able to clear the drain with a snake, but bailing it out and then using the handle end of a rake cleared it out.
It is almost midnight and another band of heavy rain has been moving slowly through the area. I’ve gone outside a few times, but it all now seems fine. I’m hoping it will stay ok so that I can go to bed without worry.
I said to the hany man that his having been here today was part of the mysterious workings of the goddess of sequencing; it saved me from a flood in the tenant’s apartment. He said, that’s great, but it does not justify my procrastination. My point to him is that we never know when something that seems like a problem may turn into a blessing. His point to me is that just because things turned out for the best does not mean we can abdicate our personal responsibility for our own actions.
As I listen to a month’s worth of rain coming down in a few hours, I am reminded how lucky I am to have such things be my challenges, when so many are suffering.
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Carbon-Free Website
For those of us living fully in our modern material world, as I am, it is important to think not so much about denying ourselves things or giving them up, but rather, seeing how we can make shifts to living more lightly. One of my heavy impacts on the environment is computer usage. Right now, I have on my work computer, my home laptop, and my Blackberry.
All of you who are reading this blog are doing so via computer or by a personal device with web access that requires battery charging. I’d hazard a guess that most of these portable computers are not being powered by sun and wind. I am still waiting for Pepco to come and change the meter to hook up my newly installed rooftop solar panels to the grid, and I don’t have a solar charger for the Blackberry.
One thing I thought I could do to help make enjoying this way of connecting have less impact on the environment would be to go carbon-neutral. In the world of plastic, the ideal is don’t use, reuse, repurpose, recycle. In the world of electricity, it is don’t use, use from better sources, off-set. With respect to my blog, I am choosing to use the necessary electricity, but go solar with my house, buy electricity from a source that uses offsets (Clean Currents) for that electricity that is in excess of what the solar panels will provide, and I’m choosing to offset this blog’s impact based on readership through the Carbon Fund.
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Last Night I Slept At My Parents House (and akrama)
I slept last night in the room that I slept in as a child. My mother now uses the room to store some of the vestiges of her old antiquing business. The carpet, wallpaper, and curtains from the 1960’s are gone, but the bed is the same one in which I had slept. The picture on the wall is a kit for making a stuffed animal that my Grandma Rose had bought me (probably when I was about 8) at the Brooklyn Museum of Art that my mother decided would be better as framed art than a sewing project for me.
The neighborhood looks different–it is far more developed as is everywhere near a big city–but the bones are the same.
It is a challenge not to feel the weight of my history and ancestry when I return. Taking the time to meditate when I woke helped me stay fully in my adult self.
When we meditate, we ideally dissolve our individual consciousness into the luminous spaciouness of universal consciousness. In that space, where we are temporarily not experiencing ourselves as an individual, we are also not experiencing our individual self in the sequence (krama) of time. The luminous spaciousness of meditative consciousness is sequenceless (akrama) and, as universal consciousness, is the place in which the sequences of being in time and space arise.
What I experienced this morning when I meditated was that I did not have to be flooded with the emotions of my, to try to graciously describe, emotionally challenging childhood. In the space of meditation I could bring to my day an acceptance of all of my life and be where I am at present, coming to a place of recognition that although I lived all of my history, it neither defines me nor binds me from expanding into a space of growing love and light.
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Green Festival DC–October 23 -24
Green Festival is coming to DC again on October 23-24. If you’ve never been (and are in town), it is always enjoyable, if only for the snacks and the comaraderie (odds are high you will bump into people you know). What I find is that I either learn something new about how to live in a more ecologically sustainable way or I get the affirmation that I’m already making a decent effort. Join in the fun if you can.
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A Correspondence on Charitable Contribution to Aids Walk DC
I print the correspondence below not so much to ask you to give, nor to let you know that I made a donation, but to initiate a discussion on what motivates you to make a donation of money? What about of time? They have different practical calculations, depending on whether time or money is of more relative importance or shortage (real or apparent) at the time of the giving? Does it make you more likely to give if you have a personal connection to the cause? Does getting personal satisfaction from giving make it somehow not a fully spiritual act? [I’ll try and blog on the last in future posts].Dear Friends,On Friday, Sept. 17, 2010 I thought I sent 30 targeted e-mails from my AIDSWALK webpage to former and potential donors to this annual fundraising event. Unfortunately, I did something wrong and the messages were never sent. With time very short, I’m sending this “broadcast” message to the listserve in the hope that some of you who have not already sent a donation from my initial appeal will do so now. For those of you who have already donated now is the time to delete this message.IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A DONATION DIRECTLY TO MY AIDSWALK WEBPAGE, PLEASE OPEN THE ATTACHED APPEAL LETTER AND FIND “FOLLOW THIS LINK” WHICH WILL TAKE YOU DIRECTLY TO THE SITE SO YOU CAN MAKE A DONATION.This year’s walk is benefiting about 15 different organizations that assist people with HIV/AIDS, in addition to Whitman-Walker Clinic.Thanks for all the support you’ve given in the past,Joe IzzoHelp us fight the epidemic! REGISTER for AIDS Walk TODAY! We look forward to seeing you on October 2nd! www.aidswalkwashington.orgJoseph
In response to this plea, I clicked on the link to make a donation to the AIDs Walk. Joe graciously sent me a thank you note, and I responded as follows:E to JoeThank you Joe. I have been giving to WWC since the late 1980s. When I was in my 20s and 30s I had close friends die of AIDs or go through the tribulations of the early drug trials for HIV. I like that I can now give in a more personal way.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth -
Remembrance
I woke up this morning remembering. How could I not? People all over the world are remembering and thinking about the events of 9/11 and how they changed the course of global society.
And yesterday morning I woke up at my friend’s house in the East Bay to the news of the explosion in San Bruno. Even as we enjoyed the city and got together with another friend, the frightening and intense tragedy going on just a few miles away was not far from my mind. How is it that but for having read the news, we would not even have known?
This morning we will be going to hike in Muir Woods. I will be embracing nature and friendship, but still remembering. It is, I think, by loving and embracing life to the fullest that we can remember and have the most strength and will to offer of ourselves and move towards a more compassionate existence, and I think that is the true teaching of the tantric yoga.
What are you doing today? How are you sharing your memories and your dreams? What are you doing to help make the changes you wish to see in the world? I am asking myself these questions even as I am sharing them.
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Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation
Bhakti
Please read this beautiful article by Natalie Miller on bhakti — the path and practice of devotion.
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Did You Do Anything Fun for the Labor Day Weekend?
When I go back to work tomorrow, people will ask me whether I did anything “fun” over the Labor Day Weekend, just as before the weekend I was asked it I had anything “fun” planned. At recent gatherings where I have bumped into people I haven’t seen in a while, all the questions have been about whether I did anything exciting this summer. I have been pondering these questions and what they say about how we structure our lives. For me, the seasons change based on what I cook and eat, how I dress, and to some degree, when I sleep (more at night when it is cold and dark; more afternoon naps when it is overly hot and bright), but I both work and take breaks throughout the year, so summer did not bring anything more or less exciting than usual.
I am acutely aware that part of the reason I have the luxury to live in accordance with the seasons is that I am not on a school schedule, and I have a job that allows me a little flexibility in terms on when to take breaks and when I come and go on any given day. I also realize that I have blurred the difference between work and “fun.” I have had a most enjoyable Labor Day weekend, but some would think much of it has been work: I taught two classes; I gardened; I cooked; I’ve done some housecleaning; I am writing this blog entry, etc. As I took pleasure in all of these activities, I think of it as having had fun, even though everything I did was something someone could have been doing as “work.” I think that when we take pleasure in our work, we are less in need of grasping at “fun” and can find more joy in the leisure activities that are more usually labeled as “fun.”
I hope whatever you have been doing, whether working or playing, you are enjoying the day, and can take a few moments to reflect on those who fought long and hard for ordinary workers to be able to have the time to play in between working.