Art and Culture

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    “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?
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    What Difference Does Lobbying Make (and Svatantriya)

    ByElizabeth

    The tantric yoga philosophy ascribes the characteristic of svatantriya or ultimate freedom to the energy that infuses all of us.  We all want to be free, but when we get stuck in our embodiment, forgetting that we ourselves are manifestations of spirit, then we lose sight of our true freedom.  To find our own freedom of spirit, we need to be disciplined, to practice, to study, to live in a way that brings us into better alignment with ourselves and world with which we are inextricably interconnected.

    In this country, one of our principle ideals and buzz words in dialogue about how we should live is freedom.  What can so often be forgotten in this dialogue, though, is that freedom is a contract.  To be in a society where all have the opportunity to experience freedom, we need to agree, with discrimination (viveka) to certain limitations (for example, we agree to stop for red lights so that we can be free to drive and walk without a constant risk of being hit in crowded city).

    Granted, I am grossly oversimplifying here, but part of the great losses of freedom we are currently experiencing is the abdication by individuals of the responsibility to shape the agreement to maximize our collective freedoms.  Like the agreement with ourselves to practice steadily to experience inner freedom, we need to stay engaged, even when it seems impossible or deeply frustrating, in order not to lose sight of the ideal entirely.  Here’s some information from FCNL on why it is important to lobby despite how fruitless an act it may appear to be.

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    Spam, Praise, Criticism, and the Pairs of Opposites

    ByElizabeth

    The yoga teachings say that we need to be unattached to the pairs of opposites–pleasure (sukha) and pain (dukha).  When all of our motivations come from seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, we suffer.  Even the tantric yogis, who invite us to fully engage in the vast array of experience that is being human, say we need to  turn to the auspicious and recognize the divine play in all experience and not get entangled in thinking what we desire is all that is.

    Today’s spam is a nice illustration of why taking any praise or criticism as a reflection of how one should feel about one’s creative output is a recipe for suffering:

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    Day Trip to the Beach (and My Teaching Theme for the Week)

    ByElizabeth

    “Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.”  Neal Stephenson, Anathem

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    It’s About the Money (and Solar or Wind Power for Home and/or Business)

    ByElizabeth

    This anecdote is a powerful incentive for those who could not care less about consequences of fossil fuel consumption.

    Total electric  bill this late spring/summer by month so far:

    May 2011:  $6.92 (PEPCO carrying charge); solar output exceeded usage

    June 2011:   $6.92 (PEPCO carrying charge); solar output exceeded usage

    July 2011:  $6.92 (PEPCO carrying charge); usage exceeded solar output, but by less than the extra output in May and June

    Wow!  How much was your monthly electric  bill in the Southern and drought states?  Do you know any one who would be persuaded only by the money?  Tell them what a great investment it is, and they will start thinking seriously about it.  Putting a dollar value on social good is the way to get through to those who only look at the numbers and do not see how budget numbers relate to real living beings and honoring the beauty of the web of creation (this would not be a veiled reference to something going on in that big domed building down the street; definitely, not).

    It may not always work, but putting what you want in the language of those whose actions and beliefs are not in synch with yours is the beginning of communication and change.   These cost savings say, in the language of those who care most about the money, that alternative energies are worth considering.