The Citadel

The Attitude of the Allowing

Mountain stream - San Juan Mountains CO- W.Bradtke 2006

Why is it that loving and caring can bring us the most pain?   

It seems a contradiction, that the thing we may need most - a feeling of
loving and being loved - may end up being the root of our worst suffering.
How many of us know this?  A relationship that sours, a project that
becomes a monster, an illness that cripples our work; we begin in joy and
end in misery. Misery seems to follow our joy so consistently we might
conclude it's simply part of our human-ness and throw in the towel. How
many addictions begin with that? How much do we consume to numb our
pain? How many hours do we spend in stressful work and uncongenial
company to fill in that gnawing hole inside?

Its a rat race. Literally. A rat runs around its wheel unaware its own
movement is creating more of the same. Can we break that cycle and find
a true sense of peace? The good news is through Meditation we can begin
to break up that momentum with times of stillness. Plus we can undermine
our own habitual responses through Meditation and find fresh answers to old
problems.

But Meditation practice also offers some specific tools to help us out of our
suffering. To find them we need to go to a source book of Meditation - The
Yogasutras - written by Patanjali, an Indian sage and mystic from 200AD. The
Yogasutras are THE sacred text of Yoga, especially Raja Yoga -the Royal Path.
Patanjali begins his discourse on the path to Samadhi (Enlightenment) with ten
practices called Yama and Niyama, and the ones I am of thinking of here
are Aparigraha and Svadhyaya.

Aparigraha means non-attachment, non -grasping or non- hoarding. 
Maybe its better understood if we look at its opposite Parigraha, which means
"holding jealously". Aparigraha is a delicate practice that hinges on the
significance we give to things and the way we hold them (metaphorically). 
Over the years I have worked with various aspects of Aparigraha and it works
best for me if I keep an attitude of allowing, and of letting life flow, not trying
to overform it. Curiously, by letting the things I love and desire be, and allowing
them to go through their own cycles of ebb and flow without grasping at them
so hard, seems to keep the love flowing more.

But that "allowing things to flow" doesn't mean neglect. Things we neglect
dwindle in energy and dissolve away. This kind of allowing means a light
holding of things in a way that doesn't restrict energy. Its realizing that
over identifying with something often suffocates it completely. Aparigraha
allows spontaneity and creativity. It allows us to navigate change graciously.
It is in fact a great learning in understanding the transience of life. Through
that we remain open to the love and support of a Universe that seeks to
nourish and support us with its constancy and love.

For a simple example of how Aparigraha works, lets consider cream.
Yes, I mean the thing that floats on top of milk, that highly calorific substance
many of us adore. If you don't, then I'm sure you can find you own personal 
equivalent.

"Cream" is both a thing and an idea. The amount of it we eat is often conditioned
by our attachment to it. Many things come into play here, like our attachment to
thinness or health, or how we consider cream to be a luxurious food. If we look
we can see some of our attachments to cream stem from associations through
childhood, all the way to how we are "sold" the idea of cream in the media, things
that have no relation to its actual taste. Even in terms of taste, cream causes
feelings of satisfaction due to its fat content.

A lot of factors may cause us to have a mini addiction to cream. Then when we
can't have cream the lack of it causes us suffering.  An extreme case would be
when an excess of it has clogged our arteries and we can not eat it at all.

Aparigraha asks us to question our relationship to cream.

Its about understanding the power we give to cream, compared to what it
can really give us in return. To build a whole life based on the feeling we get
from cream is foolish, yet many of us do this all the time with other things,
like status, work and relationships.

But when we begin holding cream lightly, we can find a place that allows us to
enjoy it when appropriate and let it go when its not. Denial is not enough,
because denial is the other side of attachment. By considering cream as what
it is, a kind of food, we then allow cream to nourish us according to its true
nature which includes it being delicious, as well as the healthy amount for us.
This example can flow out into your whole life with many things or situations.

Aparigraha is allowing life to nourish us according to its true nature. When
we practice it, it begins to show us the true nature of life is very loving. We
open the door and let love in. Often part of that process involves Svadyaya or
self listening...but thats another practice I'll talk about in my next blog...

Much love today, Wendy.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:
they toil not, neither do they spin..." 
Matthew Ch. 8. 

The floating goldfish was me.

Its not a cheery topic, but I need to talk about death.

Not my maiden aunt kicking the bucket, nor my goldfish floating upside
down in its bowl, not even the cutting my credit card into lots of pieces kind
of death. None of those. Those would be easy to talk about. My own death is
the one I'm talking about, at least in a meditative way.

I'm guessing we all talk to people we know about how we wish to die and when.
I do. I want to drop dead at a ripe old age. I have no desire to linger with illness.
I want some handy illness like a massive stroke and plop, I hit the floor and move
on. Its one of my cherished illusions that I have a say in my mode of exit, so I was
surprised at the sickly feeling I experienced, when I turned the next page of my
Buddhist meditation book at my retreat and read,

"Now meditate on your own death, that maybe you could die today, that you
cannot prevent the eventual decay and death of your body."

In short, the meditation topic made me feel ill. Its not that I am in denial about
my own demise, however I suddenly knew I was carrying some baggage about the
idea. Meditation is a thing imbued with a kind of magic for me; what you visualize
in meditation becomes, I know that in my bones. I didn't want my death becoming.
Plus, I can thank my mother for numerous superstitions for even uttering the word
"death", along with other fate-tempters like the wearing of green (instant bad luck),
opening umbrella's inside (it will rain inside) and leaving shoes on tables (see dead
man's shoes).

So for the first 3 days on my retreat I engaged in a strategy of avoidance. I flipped
past those pages and contemplated other things. That strategy brought me to
my pit of suffering, and my pit of suffering brought me back to the meditation I
didn't want to know about; death and Impermanence, there was no getting around
it. It was in full fearful flight (of meditatively creating my own death) that I opened
the door and let death in. I was not prepared for what happened next, except I
can tell you it blew my mind out of my ears.

Because the meditation taught me death and dying aren't what they seem.

Dying it seems is total bliss.

Now getting this straight, using the word death and bliss in the same sentence
is not my way of advocating anyone take a Thelma and Louise type plunge into
a joyful death experience. Its just my death meditation began with fear, and
moved quickly into a feeling of stripping away all of life's burdens. I was amazed
at the ease at which I peeled my life away because the feeling of lightness was
so delicious I couldn't stop. The reason why the Buddhists want us to let go of
our attachments began to dawn full force. I experienced a lightness of being
so blissful I can't find the right words.

If I was poet and could suspend disbelief, I might also say I floated out of my
body and saw "the other side" for some moments. That's before I slipped back
into this body I call home for this lifetime. Or I could blink and blank out this
paragraph imagining I had a very weird dream. Either way, it changed me,
and I am loathe to use the word, but forever springs to mind.

I came away from the retreat with a completely new sense of self; a self that is
not as attached to my present life. I am able to see myself as a "self" in eternity
not so limited by my present circumstances. I now understand the decisions I make,
the allegiances I form, the way I craft myself NOW, has far reaching implications
beyond my death. Its destroyed for me is any sense I had of death being an ending.
It simply isnt. All that I carry inside, all that I think, will be with me always.
Death in short isn't the convenient "tidyer upper" I thought it was. The stuff I have
to deal with has to be dealt with now , because its not going away.

I have been taught this in theory. Now I know it real-ly. I feel reborn.

Death/Rebirth. Death/Rebirth. Death/Rebirth. Not a beginning, or ending.
A transformation! Its like that old Zen poem.

"Before Enlightenment. Chopping wood, carrying water.
After Enlightenment. Chopping wood, carrying water."

Much love today, Wendy.

Letting go...its not easy...

Some things in life come in three's...

What is it about the third day of a meditation retreat? Each time I've been on
one its the same; the first day is the agony of getting still, then on the third
all the crap comes up, the day of becoming intimately acquainted with all
your toxins. The day you fight running and screaming "I want to leave now!"
The day of you in your car wanting to hurtle back into the real world.
Door slamming..gut wrenching! The horrible muck inside you that needs to be
looked at and released, feels as painful coming out as when it originally
went inside. Body and mind clench tightly against its release. Who wants
to look into a pit of suffering anyway?

Meditation? What's it all about?  All I had in mind on this retreat was five days
peace and quiet, blissfully breathing, isn't that what they tell you it does?  But
sure enough on the third morning I wake up feeling like I drank a whole bottle
of gin the night before, and more agitated than I can believe. The sting of the
third day is in full force. I want to run...I need desperately to stay.

After the two morning sessions I'm beginning to feel my being coming
apart and all the stuff I ever learned about being a spiritual warrior
comes into play. I will have to be very brave and let the poison seep out of
me and to that I will have to feel...it all. After lunch I head off into the trees,
the garden seems to be a private place to let it go. I jam my ear buds in and
turn the mp3's up loud to dull the horrible thoughts churning in my head.
There's a friendly seat under a friendly tree and I plant myself there, breathe
in and out, and let it all flow. What appears is so bad, I can't even cry.
It feels like lifetimes of abuse, wounding's, battering's , worst of all from
those I loved most and its like that for a couple of hours. I feel like an open,
seeping wound.

I have to make a choice. If I give in to my fear and run to my car I'll never get
past this. If I head to the temple I'll have to meditate with the fear. But I know
the temple means safety. I head up the hill, back to my cushion, cross my legs
and almost dare life to heal me!

The next things I experience are life changing....more soon...

Much love, Wendy.