Tags
Big Things, Clear Deep Heart/Mind, Essence Nature, flooding, hail, Healesville, koan, Melbourne, Motorbikes, non-conceptual meditation, Queenstown, Retreat, storms, Zen
Somewhere near Queenstown, New Zealand August 2004
Things are shifting rapidly for me once again. Or they are not.
I’m back from retreat of course, got back on Monday night and apparently missed a huge weekend of outrageously extreme storms here in Melbourne. So extreme that a friend in Sydney sent me a text to ask if I was okay. We’re talking massive floods only a ten minute cycle from my home, hail stones the size of your fist, thunder and lightning! You can check out some photos at this link…
Out in Healesville, we had storms but nothing severe and when I got home there was no damage to report.
I desperately need some time to sit down and write, but there’s not gonna be a lot of spare time til the weekend I suspect. And even then, I’ll have some house guests – one of my best friends is arriving Friday night (in his 4WD with motorbikes on the trailer!) and two of his friends will be staying for a couple of nights, arriving late Saturday night. I’ll need to shop and make sure everything is clean and comfortable etc… and then hopefully there’ll be time to put a little more of my recent adventures into words.
For now I’m just hanging out in Clear Deep Heart/Mind and chuckling at myself and recent revelations. My friend who made it possible for me to go on this three day Zen retreat? I owe him A LOT! I just thought I was going to a beautiful location to meditate and do yoga. I had no idea what else was gonna happen! For now, let me just say it falls under the heading of Big Things.
But it’s all a bit like that right now. I think I started to catch on last year and now, here I am… some of the stuff I’ve learned with my Guru over the past seven years is starting to come home in a big way. In part, that’s due to last year’s hard work and then my recent encounters with other wonderful yoga/meditation teachers who’ve reflected and magnified certain key points for me.
You could say there’s been a lot of Ah-Ha’s going on here and I suspect I haven’t seen the last of them.
As a bit of a teaser, here’s a few observations that’ll point you to where I’m at (kinda):
- Sitting for non-conceptual meditation is one of the best and worst things in the world
- If you do this for any length of time, everything hurts but never for the reasons you think it does
- Just when you tell yourself “I’m so freakin’ screwed”, the bell rings and the world shifts all over again
- The human condition of suffering, which is caused by our fight-or-flight reaction, wants us to turn away from pain of any kind whenever we can
- Learning not to run from pain is desperately challenging but rewarding
- Anger needs to be separated out in the mind from violent actions, thoughts and deeds against ourself or others – it shouldn’t be equated with violence because anger is a feeling, where violence is a response
- Every single one of us can be an asshole (to ourselves and/or others) every day of the week if we don’t make this distinction for ourselves
- Not being an asshole affords a capacity to laugh at ourself and fills the heart with boundless compassion
- Awakenings to our true Essence Nature are closer than we can imagine – and there are many to be had!
- You can never do enough yoga!
And finally a Zen koan: Nothing is as it seems, nor is it otherwise…
There’s so much more to say, but for now that’s gonna have to do. Because there’s so much re-stacking going on, and the above-mentioned busy-ness. And I really need to find a way to explain myself better than a handful of cryptic bullet points. 😉
~Svasti
Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness 
Can’t wait to hear more. But don’t let that become a pressure in itself. I hope you’ll feel comfortable enough to just start writing and involve us in your seeking. I’m already intrigued by all the above.
Bob Weisenberg
http://YogaDemystified.com
Ah, yes, the anger and violence delineation. It took me a long time to figure that out for myself. Being raised by people who always crossed that line, I (wrongly) saw anger as the real problem.
But it’s not, of course.
Now I find myself explaining that to other people…when they ask or bring it up. And I have found that MOST of us are confused by the feeling/response delineation in general.
I think this is, in a very real way, associated with our DISassociation from our bodies, so that we perceive just about any emotions as uncomfortable and then we box those feelings as “good” and “bad” rather than as sensation.
I clearly have a lot of catch up reading to do here 🙂
Looks like your retreat was just the thing you needed judging by all the dropping pennies you’ve been blessed with! Taking serious time out from routine to explore inner stuff is so important, I’m glad you had a chance to do it and got so much from it.
The one meditation retreat I ever did was priceless, so much stuff came to the surface, became obvious, got unblocked for me. I’m still benefiting from it a year on and feel that the effect will continue to grow.
BTW I just checked out the footage and pictures of that storm – terrifying! I’m glad you didn’t get caught in it.
@Bob – It’s more about finding some time to write, but certainly I will when I can. And no, no pressure is being felt 😉
@Christine – Me too. And I agree, I think most people have no idea about the difference between the two. Anger is not mean or nasty. That part is violence. Anger is “You have my full attention right now”. One other bullet point I should’ve added here is: “Feelings are information, in the same way that taste and smell are”. They inform us if we let them, they aren’t enemies to be suppressed!
@Bird – The retreat was brilliant and perfect timing for me right now. I’ve actually been going on retreat every year for 7-8 years now. But this one was unexpected and certainly the learnings I received were VERY unexpected! We should all take time out from ‘normal’ life regularly in order to get in touch with who we really are. As you say, it provides so many benefits.
I loved the photo–it reminded me so much of Montana, where I grew up. The photos from the storms were also powerful.
I really loved this entire post but I loved the list of ‘human reminders’ at the end best of all. I think we all need reminders that in order to feel pleasure, we have to feel pain sometimes–and that none of us are above being an asshole and when we are, it is best to acknowledge it, learn from it–and hopefully laugh at ourseles before we move on. None of us should ever take ourselves all that seriously!
You’ve come a long way, my friend!
Melinda
I love these thoughts so far and can’t wait to hear more.
I’ve too been working on some of these same things, specifically:
‘# The human condition of suffering, which is caused by our fight-or-flight reaction, wants us to turn away from pain of any kind whenever we can
# Learning not to run from pain is desperately challenging but rewarding’
Thanks for the reinforcement. Lately I’ve been having the ‘lessons’ above show up everywhere–like your blog, for example. Someone must be trying to tell me something!! : )
I’m finding that just realizing my tendency to avoid uncomfortable feelings has opened up possibility for a powerful shift. I’m not sure how to bridge the gap between knowing I’m doing it- to going into the uncomfortable feelings when they arise, but things are simmering.
Much love,
Kate
Hey, thanks for stopping by my blog. 🙂
What you say here: “anger is a feeling, where violence is a response” TOTAL CLICK for me. Wow. Thanks.
~Namaste!
@Melinda – Ah, so maybe you should try to make it to New Zealand some time, and Australia at the same time? Australia doesn’t have anything like New Zealand’s alps but there’s still plenty of beautiful scenery. 😉
Human reminders is a good way to describe my little list! We’ve all come a long way, haven’t we? And it’s good to be able to see that. Also, it’s definitely good to be out of the darkness. Whew!
@Kate – Funny isn’t it, how the same message gets repeated until we take it on board? I like to think that sometimes we just need a little more help recognising those messages than others. Best of luck to you with your own lessons and I hope you share them with us on your blog 😀
@LaGitane – You are welcome. Actually, your blog is in my RSS reader, like many others. So I do read, even if I don’t comment. Glad you found this post useful 🙂
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