small change

uh oh

OK, so it is hot out there, but here is something cool: being able to post, through a nice clean interface, from my BlackBerry! And I can upload pics too!

change of wind

Oh yea, here we go again... talking about the weather, as the winds have picked from across the hills, bringing blue skies and heat. Today we had the hottest May 15 ever on record in these neck of the woods. While everyone around me was complaining and fanning themselves and swooning and such, I was lapping it all up. Of course, should this go on for weeks on end, my enthusiasm for it might be wilting, just like the petals of this heat-loving flower:

Sutra Readings - 11

This post is part of a series I am writing as I read the The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. All posts in this series can be found through the "Sutra Readings" category.

The Settled Mind – Chapter 1 (sutras 45-48):

Once – and only that one time in my life – as a child, I had an extraordinary experience. Truly “extra” ordinary. Here is what I remember:

I was sitting somewhere on a rock. I think it was summer, and we must have been on one of our Sunday outings into the oak-studded hills near the town where I grew up. I remember the clear blue sky bound to the earth by the line of the hills. I can still feel the grainy heat of the rock on which I sat. But what I remember the most was a sudden sliding of my childish consciousness into a vast space in which I had this vision of the world (well, the universe,) so utterly independent of me and my understanding that it made me feel, well, I had no words then, but practically one with everything in that universe. And that universe, in my 9-year-old's mind, was infinite, with the one in which I lived a speck on the thumb of someone in a vaster universe, and with that someone on someone else’s thumb in an even vaster universe… and so on.

So, naturally – or maybe with my mind in which the only thing settled so far are the heavy residues of memory – I read the next set of sutras as that progression of awareness from one’s thumb’s through all the thumb’s in the universe in order to arrive to a complete view of the world, and so perceive the only thing that is possible to see from here: the truth.

45. The range of subtle objects includes all the levels of creation, extending the limit of the gunas[1].

46. These levels of samādhi are concerned only with external objects.

47. But on refinement of the fourth stage of absorption, there is the dawning of the spiritual light of the Self.

48. This level is ritambharā, where consciousness perceives only the truth.

In effect, these sutras say that the settling of the mind, as it goes through the four stages, from the world of objects to that of energy, then light, is a process that brings expanded knowledge of both the nature of world and the nature of consciousness. In this, yoga is not about self-absorption through the body, or trough an awareness of self, or even self. Above all, yoga is not about taking that spiritual bypass to avoid congestion and metering lights on the tangle of roads in life.

 

Works Cited

Iyengar, B. (2005). Light on Life. Rodale.

Patanjali. (1982). The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (A. Shearer, Trans.) New York: Bell Tower.

---

[1] The gunas, according to Vedic philosophy, are the three qualities of nature and translate, roughly, as solidity, dynamism, and luminosity

(Iyengar, Light on Life, 2005)

. Or, mass, energy, and light, if you are scientifically inclined….
~ to be continued

Dry spell

A curious thing happened to me on the way to the, well, the electronic forum. I was about to explore contributing a poem or two to qarrtsiluni’s new theme, water, when I came to my own watershed. There ain’t no words left in the reservoir… and what’s left in the shallow pools of old drafts of poems, well, it’s a muddy mess, good for mosquitoes only.

How does this happen? Why does one stop writing poems?

Ah, but the better question – which is likely to be the answer, too – is this: why does one write poetry in the first place?

But enough with the questions on this beautiful Mothers’ Day, which I am spending quietly with, spotted doves, mourning doves, quails, scrub jays, finches, and sparrows  feasting on the deck—and  husband, and second-born son (who flew in from Boston last night) off at the rowing races in Folsom.

Notes from the kitchen

I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately. My laptop is handy at the table, and from where I sit, I can watch the birds come and go. But it's not just the laptop that keeps me in the kitchen. I have been cooking up a storm, ever since we have been getting the weekly deliveries of organic veggies and fruits from local farms.

I like the fact that I am being presented with the raw materials, instead of going to the store and buying on a whim. The challenge is to work with what we have, and this has been working partciularly well for me, because it really seems to suit my culinary style.

And talking of "raw": I am exploring the seemingly impossible task of making "living foods," that is, dishes cooked at really low temperatures in a dehydrator, taste other than, well, like health food. My sweet potato crackers and corn crackers almost pass the taste test, but they need refining. My Portobello mushroom burger, made of the aforementioned mushroom, zucchinis, walnuts, basil, parsley, and other savory spices has an unusual edge that is satisfying -- at least to me, who used to love downing meats of every kind....

Here is what I had for lunch today ( mushroom burger with a dollop of cashew cream [made from soaked cashew], tomato and sunflower crackers [made in the dehydrator], and a salad of sweet corn, arugula, red onions, and tomatoes):

As for dessert, I recommend blending the cashew cream with dates and organic chocolate powder. Serve that with a few sweet strawberries, and you are done for the day!

Sutra Readings - 10

This post is part of a series I am writing as I read the The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. All posts in this series can be found through the "Sutra Readings" category.

The Settled Mind – Chapter 1 (sutras 41-44):

The settled mind, according to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, is like the flawless crystal. Not because it is clear, but because it absorbs what is placed before it, including the process of the “absorption”:

41. As a flawless crystal absorbs what is placed before it, so the settled mind is transparent to whatever it meets – the seer, the process of seeing, or the object seen. This is samāpatti – the state of mental absorption.

This state of “mental absorption” is also the ideal state of scientific inquiry, as posited by Western science, is it not? There is no rapture in this state, no union or even communion with any of the major or minor gods of the pantheon teeming with the products of the human mind’s proclivity to get distracted and taken in by its own image-making capabilities. This is a state in which nothing escapes awareness, not even the process of the awareness itself.

The yoga sutras -- coming as they do from the place that also gave the world the concept of zero -- are the earliest forms of a science of the mind. But more than that, they are deeply concerned with the investigation of the processes of consciousness itself. Steeped as we are in a post-enlightenment view of the self as ego on the one hand and nothing more than just a bunch of neurons firing, on the other, it might be hard for us to appreciate the subtle levels of distinctions the sutras urge us to keep in mind when we are dealing with, well, the mind.

There are steps, or stages, of “mental absorption,” or in the study of the mind’s journey deeper into the vast realm of consciousness;

42. The first stage of absorption is when the object of attention is gross [as in physical, or material … or empirical] and its name and other thoughts are mingled together in the mind.

43. The second stage is when the memory is purified and the mind is quiet enough to be absorbed in the object of attention [as being in the zone, I suppose…]

44. In the same way the third and fourth stages of absorption are explained: these occur when the object of attention is subtle.

So, at the highest level of mental absorption, an object ceases to be the object of the senses, as well of the intellect. I suppose, one can say that it ceases to be an object altogether, at least in the sense in which we understands objects to be the solid contents of the world and of our awareness of them as such.

Many artists (and athletes, and gardeners, and, and … well, the list goes on) know that second stage of mental absorption in which the mind is infused with attention, and in which an object is utterly transformed, though really, it is the mind and awareness that are changed.

All this is very abstract – that is, unsettled in my mind. Outside the window, it is dizzyingly bright with sun. Inside, the dehydrator’s fan is turning and turning, and the kitchen is permeated with the scent of onions and sweet potatoes giving up the water from their cells. As I write this, the phone keeps ringing, with my sons checking in from faraway places… And I can’t seem to untangle my wanting to understand the yoga sutras and all the distractions, small and big, welcome and feared, in the way of my being able to do so. And then, there is the question, too: why bother with this at all? Who cares and how is this of any help when it has been said by so many others so much better … including the poets:

Flying a Kite

It seems to me the kite
Has all the fun,
The view,
The weightlessness,
The wind,
Ecstatic shudders,
Tail streaming out,
The urging higher,
The exhilarating dives,
and me down here,
Left holding the string.

(Elson, 2001)

Works Cited

Elson, R. (2001). A responsibility to Awe. (A. B. Cintio, Ed.) Oxford: Carcanet.

Patanjali. (1982). The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (A. Shearer, Trans.) New York: Bell Tower.

~ to be continued

Guests

I can’t remember when we started feeding the birds, though I know it was years after the last of our cats went to chase winged mice in the lush catnip Elysian Fields of feline heaven.  E ver since I have been tending to the bird bath cum feeder, along with the actual bird bath in an old planter tray, there has been a steady parade of wings, some aflutter with nerves, others barely giving a shrug as they  eye me from barely a few feet away. I have seen bushtits, pinesiskins, warblers, towhees, robins, sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, juncos, finches, hummingbirds, quails, mourning doves, the ever-present  scrub jays, but never birds like this pair, that has been coming a little more often these days:

 

Pica tells me they are spotted doves, a Eurasian species. When they come, all the other birds seem to display what I call, in my antropomorphic way, an avian deference. Normally, the hierarchy works with the scrub jay being in charge and chasing all birds away, including the occasional and hapless crow that tries to snatch a seed or two from our deck. But when these doves come, all is quite out there until they have their fill and disappear from where they hailed. And since, as Pica said, their habitat in the US is in the Los Angeles area, I wonder how they came to be here. 

Sutra Readings - 9

This post is part of a series I am writing as I read the The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. All posts in this series can be found through the "Sutra Readings" category.

The Settled Mind – Chapter 1 (sutras 35-40):

If yoga is about the integration of consciousness, as the Vedic philosophers have said (Easwaran, 2007), then settling the mind becomes the key that opens the door to the path. It’s a key forged from ores that run the deeply veined stratum of what may be the geography of awareness:

35. Experience of the finest levels of the senses establishes the settled mind.

36. So does experience of the inner radiance that is free from sorrow.

37. So does being attuned to another mind that is itself unperturbed by desire.

38. So does witnessing the process of dreaming or dreamless sleep.

39. So does any meditation that is held in high esteem.

40. The sovereignty of the mind that is settled extends from the smallest of the small to the greatest of the great.

(Patanjali, 1982)

The sutras of this section weave back and forth, from here to there, from inside to outside, from I to Thou, from sleep to awake, twisting these seeming dualities into a knotted rope, which is the meditation “that is held in high esteem” -- and which is bound to yoke mind to awareness.

As I write this, my mind is scattered and easily spooked. Contrary to the teachings, but in line with modern life, I am doing three things at once just now: writing this, thinking about new recipes for crackers and flat breads to make in my dehydrator, and catching snippets of the Nova show on PBS, which happens to be about the making of Samurai swords…

A Samurai swordsmith, as I learned just now, is a magician of sorts, and perhaps also a yogi. Through the long arduous process of creating and honing the sword, the master swordsmith changes the atomic structure of the steel in parts of the blade.

Imagine that – changing the atomic structure of steel with nothing more than a slight, but constant and measured, touch of the finger – like a conductor lifting his baton to orchestrate the cacophony of flaws into a soaring symphony. Introducing flaws and weaknesses into the metal to make it, not harder, but tougher!

In this, the Samurai swordsmith knows something about that “sovereignty of the mind” and the way it extends from the smallest of the small, from the atomic structure of steel, to greatest of the great….

 

Works Cited

Patanjali. (1982). The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (A. Shearer, Trans.) New York: Bell Tower.

~ to be continued

Sutra Readings - 8

This post is part of a series I am writing as I read the The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. All posts in this series can be found through the "Sutra Readings" category.

The Settled Mind – Chapter 1 (sutras 32-34):

The next section of chapter of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali in Alistair Shearer’s translation contains only two sutras:

33. The mind becomes clear and serene when the qualities of the heart are cultivated: friendliness toward the joyful, compassion toward the suffering, happiness toward the pure, and impartiality toward the impure.

34. Or through the practice of various breathings exercises.

When I first read these two sutras, having been carried upward as it were, by the first, through considering one’s relation to joy, suffering, happiness, and the considerations of the moral realm in terms of the “pure” and “impure” distinctions, I felt as I had been dropped into a vaudeville act when I read the second sutra… As if Patanjali were channeling Rodney Dangerfield’s “take my wife, please…” into “take my word, please….”

An odd juxtaposition is at work here, obviously. In the first sutra we are given a schema of relations to emotions, and a somewhat puzzling prescription to what some may consider the problem of “evil” inherent in the notions of “impurity.” Just as we – at least I – start to wonder about the way in which “impartiality” can fight the suffering brought on by wars, greed, genocide – and the list goes on – the next sutra pops up like a Gotcha-Joker and says: forget at about it … just breathe!

Well, yes, of course “just breathe.” Without the breath, there is no word. That is, word animated by spirit. Thoughts without spirit – without the human breath – I take from reading this, are cobble the winding paths of mazes taking one here and there within the confines of the labyrinth.

The breath then is more than sustenance for our bodies, or air for the lungs. It is also what allows the “lungs” of our collective consciousness as human beings to expand and shrink, to expand and shrink, and so forth.

Coincidentally, along with the Yoga sutras, I started reading Eknath Easwaram’s translation of and commentaries on “The Dhammapada,” having picked it at the bookstore, thinking that I was reaching for a copy of the Upanishads. Easwaran’s introduction is written in inspired prose and from the vantage point of someone at home, with firm footing, both in the tradition and languages of Indian spirituality and English literature. Before I even got to the chapter that traced the life of Siddhartha’s transformation into the Buddha, I read a quote by Einstein that Easwaram presented to make the case for the scientific approach to psychology and the study of consciousness that Vedic philosophy advocated, and on which it is built:

[T]he separate personality we identify ourselves with is something artificial. Einstein, speaking as a scientist, drew similar conclusions in replying to a stranger who has asked for consolation on the death of his own son:

A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

The sages of the Upanishads would find this an entirely acceptable way of describing both their idea of personality and the goal of life: moksha, freedom from the delusion of separateness; yoga, complete integration of consciousness; nirvana, the extinction of the sense of a separate ego. This state is not the extinction of personality but its fulfillment, and it is not achieved after death but in the midst of life.

(Easwaran, 2007)

Yoga, I am discovering, is not about “doing a pose.” It is about “positing,” or placing consciousness where it belongs, through integrating a settled mind, a breath-filled consciousness, and an ego stripped of the bonds and limits of the delusions of separateness.

A tall order … but even so, the practice of asanas, or the poses, of yoga have changed for me forever. Let’s hope that this new understanding, this tiny step in the mental aspects of yoga, will help change me too, making me less “me” and more myself, so to speak….

 

Works Cited

The Dhammapada (Second Edition ed.). (2007). (E. Easwaran, Trans.) Tomales, CA.

Patanjali. (1982). The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (A. Shearer, Trans.) New York: Bell Tower.

~ to be continued

Sutra Readings - 7

This post is part of a series I am writing as I read the The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. All posts in this series can be found through the "Sutra Readings" category.

The Settled Mind – Chapter 1 (sutras 30-32):

My readings of "The Yoga Sutras of  Patanjali" have been on a hiatus these days,  and so making the point that one of the obstacles along the path of yoga is the "fatigue" that is linked with the various "attachments" I maintain  in my "delusions" about the  world....  I suppose that is one explanation. The other would be that I am too much in the "now" to want to miss it by writing about it as it has passed. Had I been in in front of the computer yesterday morning, I would have missed  this quail looking into our kitchen window, with her mate hovering further in the background, in full sunshine, as if to draw attention to himself in order to protect her while she ate and bathed.

Had I been writing about yoga, I would have also missed the two most arduous yoga classes I have ever taken in my life and not learned that by using my breath I not only had the stamina to last through both classes, but also had no aching muscles the days following the classes.

So I have no commentary on the next three sutras, other than what I already said:

30. [The obstacles that stand int he way of progress on the yoga path] are

illness
fatigue
doubt
carelessness
laziness
attachment
delusion
the failure to achieve samādhi
and the failure to maintain samādhi

They are distractions from the path of yoga.

31. Such distractions make the body restless, the breathing coarse, the mind agitated. They result in suffering.

32. But they can be eliminated if the mind is repeatedly brought to focus.

And yet, here is what I take away, as commentary, from these sutras: the yoga path is not one for the ascetic, the one who thinks that dealing with distractions is about self-denial. The path of yoga is about relieving suffering, with each step you take on it. It is about awareness of the world and the roots of suffering which sprout and grow the bramble of obstacles through which  we hack our way, with the sharp blade of attention and the power of our presence.

Works Cited

Patanjali. (1982). The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (A. Shearer, Trans.) New York: Bell Tower.

~ to be continued