Hanging out in Clear Deep Heart/Mind…

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

Swirling yoga love

Tags

Depression, gratitude, Healesville, houseguests, kirtan, Linda Blair, loving kindness, Mark Whitwell, motorcycles, non-dual Tantra, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, Retreat, Shadow Yoga, Yoga, yoga teacher training, Zen

Whoosh! See what happens when you put your intentions out there (such as the desire to explore of different yoga styles and teachers) – apparently what happens is that opportunities come and land plum in your lap!

Been feeling a lot of gratitude at the moment. And excitement, nervousness and amazement. We’re already in March and what a rush these months have been! My head is spinning (but not in a Linda Blair kinda way).

In part that’s due to the increased amount of energy I seem to have as I glide ever further from the shores of Depression, out into a world that makes me smile for no good reason with increasing frequency…

Of course, I’m not foolish enough to think I’m “cured” forever. Once depression (and/or other related mental imbalances) have been an unwanted house guest, they tend to hang around and think they have a standing invitation.

So, like others who’ve spent more than enough time with depression, I get it. I know what triggers me and for the most part, I know what helps and heals. And just like my PTSD symptoms, I wait and watch. Will I be haunted by depression again? Possibly… but then maybe not.

For now, I’m feeling pretty darn blessed, really. I have a multitude of teachings from my Guru, and now my yoga teacher training, supplemented by learning Shadow Yoga (it still blows my mind!). I’m getting myself organised to begin teaching classes (YTAA membership, insurance etc). And in the meantime I’ve had two spectacular gifts materialise.

The first of these was Mark Whitwell’s Heart of Yoga weekend workshop in February (Valentine’s Day weekend no less!). Thanks again, to super-woman Nadine for organising everything! I’m yet to write up my experience of Mark’s teachings properly, but it’s a-coming. As are some further notes on my experiences with Shadow Yoga, possibly even in a more coherent form than I’ve managed to date.

Then there’s the kirtan group I’ve been attending for several months now, run by a local yoga teacher/talented singer and musician. The sessions have been awesome, giving me some fantastic insights. And now he’s brought an American Zen Master to Australia – a teacher he respects.

This Zen Master guy sounded really interesting and I wanted to go. But when I looked at my finances (post Mark Whitwell retreat, still paying off my yoga teacher training AND saving for retreat with my Guru in October) I could see it wasn’t going to happen.

So I explained the reasons I couldn’t come very transparently, and in response I was offered a very discounted price. I was also offered a lift there and back (required since I don’t have a car) and if needed, someone to house/cat sit for me.

Every possible reason I could say no was countered with generosity and kindness. And to be honest, I felt just a touch suspicious. Like – why would someone who doesn’t know me very well want to do those things for me?!

Then I snapped out of it and remembered that yeah, y’know there are other people out there who are unfailingly generous by nature. And I had to remind myself that I have no problem with doing something for others without expecting anything in return – I give away money, possessions and just do things for others because I can! But… I still find it hard to accept the odd occasion when people offer me such kindnesses in return. It feels unbalanced somehow (strange logic, I know). But then I figured out a compromise that made me feel better about things – I asked to be #1 helping hand on retreat, doing food preparation or whatever is required to help things run smoothly. My offer to be of service was accepted and so it’s all good.

So yay! This coming long weekend I’ll spend three days in beautiful Healesville (75 minutes out of town) for a yoga and meditation retreat, Zen-style. Which is actually quite closely aligned with non-dual Tantra, just from another perspective.

The weekend after the retreat, I’ll be having interstate houseguests and yessssss, that’ll be the sound of motorcycles parked in my carport! *grins*

And I promise, I will post about my recent wonderful yoga experiences here as soon as I can! 🙂

~Svasti

P.S. Speaking of loving kindness, check out this post on Lily’s Life: Food For Thought. A warning however – might be a good idea to have tissues at the ready while you read it!

Beginnings, middles & ends

Tags

Bushfires, End of the road, Meditation, Road to Nowhere, Talking Heads, Zen

Dad, where do roads end? Is there anywhere that’s really the end of a road?
~Svasti, approx. aged 10

Thus was the nature of my inquiring mind as a child… couldn’t quite conceive of how that all worked, and I guess it’s a rather zen question in some ways, isn’t it?

‘Course, my dad didn’t really have an answer, as it often happens with children and parents, when the child asks just one more question in wonderment of the world we live in and the parent has just absolutely had it… which is why I think all kids should have someone else to ask such questions of, not their parents. Might get better answers that way.

Speaking of things that never end, one of my favourite meditations to do is very simple actually…

Just sitting, watching your breath. Then, asking the following questions (off the top of my head, so not exact) and seeking clarification from within:

Is there an experience of ‘something happening’? Of being somewhere in time and space? Is it something that’s specific to you, or just something that exists? Can you define it? This something that’s happening? Is it personal? Does it have a location? Is it in any way tangible? Meditate on that…

Now, bring your attention to your right hand. Can you feel your skin? Its temperature? Where the air touches your skin? The hairs on the back of your hand? The blood just beneath the surface? The difference in temperature outside, to inside? Do you now feel more sensations in your hand than usual? See if you can spread this up your arm… across your chest… to your other arm… hand… spread it further? Abide in the presence of livingness, and ask yourself, is it limited to just your own skin-bag?

Okay, so that’s kinda paraphrased, but if you give it a go, you’ll get the idea. Its meant to be done without being in a rush, with plenty of time…

So anyway, as an adult (still with child-like questions at times) and a yogini and meditator, I still question the beginnings and the ends of things. And everything in between.

When my last out-breath is mixed with your next in-breath, and the trees inhaling our CO2 and the smoke of recent bushfires and burning houses fill my nostrils… where does one thing end and another begin?

Does it even matter? Perhaps not, but at the very least it matters in the sense of really getting that we’re not alone. That we’re not without. That no road ever really ends…

Well, as long as you’re not dead, that is (and even then, can we say for sure one way or the other, despite what we might believe?). Just take a step in any direction and that’s a new path.

So, tiny version of Svasti from many years ago, the correct answer is… Not really. Roads don’t ever really begin or end.

Neither does anything else. Not really. Things can seem to end, but what is an ending anyway?

We’re on a road to nowhere, come on inside
Taking that ride to nowhere, we’ll take that ride
~Talking Heads, Road to Nowhere

~Svasti