Mindfulness and Guided Meditation
It has been a little while since my last post. I was very busy with my retreat last week–it went swimmingly! Here is a video that I just made with my colleague and friend Robin which has has simple meditation sequence. You can skip to 3:07 if you would like to start with the practice. I will leave this in the guided practices tab for easy access in the future.
Dripping high gloss
liberties in home spun lines,
becoming mental floss
barbed with cosmic rhyme.
There’s a new word for high –
Elevatastical.
Sounds ridiculous, I know.
But go ahead save it in your phone,
let it infiltrate your auto correct.
Accidentally send it to your best friend
in a message trying to describe it –
Elevatastical.
It’ll sneak in and interject.
Don’t blame me, blame the sentiment
as it loops around to circumvent
a crash landing, saving your life
popping your cockpit so you can eject –
Elevatastical!
Embrace the delight
you’ve come to expect
from the previous lines
that flowed from the mind
of a gifted astronaut –
Elevatastical!
No, not Buzz Aldrin.
We left him on the moon because
he was holding us back from resonance.
He ignored the bell that sounded –
ringing Elevatastical!!
Warning us of our fleeting chance
to ride into energy surrounded
by a symphony of the intertwined –
radiantly Elevatastical!!!
Vibrating in a trance,
that stillness designed
finally realized in these
heavenly bodies, embracing the rise.
With pure hearts free,
we’ll make our way outside –
and together we’ll get so Elevatastical!!!!
Circling
Frenzy
without
can only
steal me
Stillness
within
can only
give me
everything
I’d like to talk to you
about a lucrative career opportunity!
It offers fulfillment through good work
and can provide the raise you’ve been waiting for.
It requires no experience, but is quite life changing.
It’s impossible to be overlooked for promotion,
you are your own boss, and everyday feels like a vacation.
The meetings are spectacular.
It’s a new and different endeavor with each breath.
It’s exactly what you’ve dreamed of, been searching for,
and the answer to the questions that keep you up at night.
First off, you’re hired!
Just keep doing what you’re doing –
but fight hard to hold it all in a place of pure love.
Let negativity go and hold each moment
in a bright clear light.
You may not notice anything at first.
But, give it a year of sincere effort
and you will have the wealth of life you knew you deserved.
This work will reward you with perfect happiness.
If you make this career change for entirely selfish reasons –
it doesn’t really matter.
The benefits are universal and undeniable.
Love and let love be our future.
Do it for you!
Do it for me!
Let’s watch our children flourish
in the indigo of our perpetual prosperity,
an ever-glowing example of a lovely life’s work
that endures and continues to elevate.
One day while walking along the Ganges, my teacher was told, specifically, by his Guru , “Witness Everything“. He knew that Swami Rama did not incline towards repeating himself; so, he grunted to acknowledge that he heard the instruction. But, the sound also signified he needed to digest this morsel a bit longer.
“Witness Everything”, what a specific, yet, elusive instruction. As my teacher paradoxically says, “it is simple; but, not easy.”
Often, during the opening of an asana (yoga posture) class, when we begin to focus on the breath, I remind my students we take about 20,000 breaths a day–but, most of them come and go unconsciously. Yet, it is the most essential of all our bodily functions. If we were forcibly made to stop breathing, for even a few seconds, we would suddenly become very grateful for our lifeline!
Why on earth would we want to cultivate this state of detached observation? Witnessing is the essence of mindfulness–the practice of paying attention to and seeing clearly what is happening in our lives.
If we always act from the perspective of the self, life happens to us–it is very personal and selfish. The person that cuts us off is doing that to us personally. The traffic is affecting us personally. When we begin to witness we are able to “see” the person cutting us off is actually thinking about themselves. Maybe they were rushing to an emergency! We begin to see all of the people stuck in traffic–we may even develop compassion for so many frustrated individuals.
But, on a deeper level, when, in our meditation practice, we bear witness to our thoughts (remember, this is done with non-attachment or non-judgment), we begin to notice the patterns, trends, and colors of our thoughts. We begin, without necessarily having to analyze the source of our tendencies, to have more space from the fluctuations in our mind-field. We begin to see the mind as it is, an infinitely creative tool that is a blessing and a necessity to navigate this earth-plane–instead of seeing the mind as a source of our frustration.
Wake up, or do whatever you will…
Discipline is ready to love you.
It is a cool, uplifting wind
enlightening this life’s path,
putting one foot mindfully
before the other,
giving faith in each step.
This intricate dance, practiced
will one day be as tight as the drum
producing the rhythm
compelling your advancing feet.
This song of the divine
is only possible
with hard work and cultivation.
This watered and tended
garden gifts us
an abundance of nourishing food.
Since we are what we eat,
our discipline leaves us
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
at our little corner markets,
offering freely from
baskets of leftovers
even after we’ve had
more than enough.
Embrace the discipline!
Roll up your sleeves and endeavor
to meet the very best you.
With dedication we can feed the world.
I try to avoid reminiscing–not reflecting–on the past. Reminiscing means that I there is a longing, a desire for what cannot be, a nostalgia (the root word of which is pain). During reflection, I deliberately consider a past experience, asses if I chose the best course of action, and affirm to continue or discontinue what I was doing.
It is not a lack of sentimentality, rather, I believe (and have been taught), to fully experience one’s life, you have to be awake in the moment–right now.
The highest consciousness is expressing as all of us–right now. During the state of samadhi we are able to realize this consciousness manifesting as us. However, it is not something we can do yesterday, it is a level we awaken to in the present.
My teacher eloquently expressed, you are already in samadhi right now; however, that samadhi is on this human incarnation.
The yoga sutras prescribe five efforts and commitments aspirants should cultivate to assist them in remaining fully, nondually, in the present moment: shraddha (faith), virya (positive energy), smriti (mindfulness or remembering), samadhi (seeking sustained meditation), and prajna (pursuing the highest wisdom).
Smriti is not an obsessive needling, it is a gentle determination to perform one’s actions in a way that holds to attention on the highest goal–assuming that is your goal. Smriti does not pertain to only renunciate, a layperson can practice smriti through their everyday actions. One classic way is offering all actions to where they came from–the highest source.
The Unity Offering Prayer encompasses this concept (there are many variations available):
“Divine Love as me,
blesses and multiplies.
All that I have, all that I give,
all that I receive”.
When we are in our everyday life, there is a perceived duality. Our locus of operation and the Other. Simply, consistently, “seeing” our actions as service to the Highest is a way to remind us of Our True Nature. If we really believe that there is only One, all actions come from the One. Therefore, offer cleaning the car, mowing the lawn, preparing a meal as seva–selfless service.
P.S. As usual, click the links–the one on the five efforts has an exquisite meditation practice on it!
One
Looking for love
from all of the wrong
corporations
when I should be looking above.
Looking for love from the
administration,
when I should be looking within.
Falling out of love with my
fellow man
when I should be falling in.
Shouldn’t be asking so many questions.
I don’t need suggestions!
I know love’s going to win.
Stopped, dropped, surrendered,
And I’ll never stop giving in.
Already knew, just had to remember.
All is well under this powerful spell.
A perfect life for me,
conflict is done.
The truth is and always will be
that love’s already won.
Smash the glass chains of negativity
They shatter so beautiful, so easily
under the hammer of your positivity
and as the negative blood spatters
in a Pollock on the walls of possibility
Take your seat with the Mad Hatter,
Partake in his intoxicating tea
Get caught in a whirlwind of creativity
And wake up to a wonderland born
from a happy authenticity
It would be ludicrous to think that as a practitioner of yoga meditation I don’t get angry. In fact, my inclination toward getting annoyed is one of the reasons I am so dutiful with my practice. If we follow the DISC personality typing, I am an “I”–which means Influence–but, it can also mean Impulsive! However, the same energy that is the source of my strengths is also the source of my lesser strengths.
This morning I got angry with my son–the people that we are closest to can be the source of our greatest joy. Paradoxically, they can be the catalyst of our greatest frustration! I have a lot invested in my son–he is after all, my son. With an investment comes an expectation. When the investment does not yield a return it is a disappointment. This investment is an attraction and the disappointment is an aversion.
According to the Yoga Sutras, both attraction (raga) and aversion (dvesha) are two faces of the same coin–attachment. Both of these stem from a lack of knowledge of our true nature (avidya)–our true nature is perennial, not ephemeral. However, the nature of the physical world is transient. We cling to the things and experiences of the physical world that we love. We push away the things and experiences that we abhor. But, both the pushing and pulling cause us suffering (dukha or dukkha).
I am attracted to my son doing what I believe is best for me, he does something other than that, my attraction to my expectation is not met, I experience disappointment, my disappointment is a form of suffering. To the unmastered mind, all worldly experiences yield suffering because they are impermanent. However, this does not have to be the case.
When we are rooted in our true nature from earnest abhyasa and vairagya (practice and non-attachment) then we are aware of the fleeting nature of our experiences and we can be released from the suffering of attraction and aversion. It does not mean we are apathetic or ambivalent–I am still going to parent my child–with the hope that he leads a skillful and happy life. But, I am working on not expecting him to do what I want. We still have rules. If he breaks them, he is punished. But, now it’s not a big emotional tirade–because I didn’t get what I want.
Today I got angry, I felt the blood pump and my temperature rise. But, I was very aware that this was a bodily experience and not who I am at the core; moreover, not an emotion I have to act on. I didn’t resist the anger–that is aversion–I just let it come. I went for a drive and returned as the person I want to be.
From the Gross to the Subtle 