Michael Stone is a psychotherapist in private practice, lecturer, yoga teacher and author. He co-leads the Centre of Gravity Sangha, a community of Yoga & Buddhist practitioners in Toronto and travels internationally, teaching in academic, yoga studio and conference settings. Michael offers courses and retreats that focus on integrating yoga postures, breathing practices, meditation and textual study. His research and teaching explore the intersection of committed spiritual practice and social action. Read his complete bio here.

Michael will be coming to Portland in late September to give a 3-day workshop hosted by The Yoga Space. In preparation for his upcoming visit I had the good fortune to chat with him the other day about his work, his philosophy and what ‘the intersection of committed spiritual practice and social action‘ really is.

3/3/10 Interview with Michael Stone

RS: What does it mean to have a yoga practice that includes all aspects of daily life and how does one go about making that happen or being mindful of that?

MS: So many people define yoga as a verb. It derives from the root ‘yug‘ which means to unite or to connect one thing or yoke one thing with another; the breath with the body, the mind and the spirit, the soul and god or whatever your vocabulary is. But actually the term ‘yug‘ is taken out of its verb form when it becomes ‘yoga‘ which literally means that everything is already inherently united. You don’t need to unite one thing with another because, in fact, everything is already inter-permeating everything else.

I like to translate the word yoga as intimacy, literally being one with everything. But I think that sometimes we get a little bit inflated about what our ideas of intimacy or oneness might be. Maybe we want to be one with pleasure or what we think is beautiful, but do we really want to be one with loneliness or one with pain or one with war… And really do we want to open up and be one with everything? So the core of the practice of yoga or the heart of yoga is really opening up to the reality of how life really happens, not the way we want it to happen or the way we think it should happen. And to recognize that underneath all of our ideas about how we think life should go, everything is inherently intimate. We are connected with water and with plants, with culture, with great art, and with friends in ways that are bottomless. What interests me about yoga practice is how the various limbs or practices of yoga can wake us up to that level of intimacy.

RS: Please explain what you mean by various limbs.

MS: Well, for Patanjali there were eight limbs of practice and I like that model. Especially for us westerners who I think live lives that are very compartmentalized. We can think that one part of our life is spiritual and another part of our life is more material, but actually that’s just semantics. Our lives are psychosomatic; they’re emotional, they’re spiritual, they’re political, they’re economic. You can’t separate any of those spheres. Everything you do is emotional, spiritual and political. If we think about the mind, the body, and the body politic as interconnected, then the eight limbs that Patanjali outlines really makes sense. Starting with ethics, including taking care of and waking up the body, releasing the internal patterns of breathing and then also moving into deeper states of meditation that help us see though the self image that we’re totally addicted to.

Having a path that makes us look at all aspects of our lives really makes a difference. Some people ask what the difference is between yoga and western psychology, and I actually think one of the biggest differences that Patanjali seems to suggest is that if you really want to change, the first thing you should look at is ethics. The first thing you should look at is the quality of your role in your relationships. In western psychology, maybe because of the Victorian times, we are afraid of talking about ethics. We tend to think of ethics as rules, rather than as suggestions for how to give attention to the quality of our relationships. It is quite fascinating to think that if you really want to change your life, to become more altruistic and creative, and less concerned with yourself, then you can start by paying attention to ethical practice like nonviolence, honesty, not taking what’s not given freely and so on…

RS: What you’re saying makes me think of a conflict between some approaches to yoga and spirituality where it seems that many emphasize the idea of ‘detachment’ from life and what I hear you saying is that it’s not at all detachment, but actually some kind of extreme merging, and as you say, intimacy with what life is, or happens to be doing.

MS: In the yoga tradition there are two words that are used that like twins and they’re never separated, one is abhyasa and one is vairagya, meaning practice and non-attachment. The core of our practice is non-attachment. Actually I would go further and say that for mature practitioners we practice non-attachment to our practice as well. But to begin with, what we mean by non-attachment is that what we cling to the most when we really give attention to the way that we create suffering in our lives is the fact that we are always compulsively fixated on ourselves. When we dream, we are always the main character. When we think almost all of our thoughts are stories about ourselves. Even when we create enemies or project nations to be our enemies, that is all to secure our own view of how we think things are. So what non-attachment means is not clinging to self image. It’s easy to practice non-attachment to your bicycle or your apartment or maybe even to some of your possessions but internal renunciation means not being attached to your view, not being attached to your self image.

That’s wonderful philosophy but what that actually looks like is engagement. The definition of non-attachment is engagement because when I’m not attached to how I think things should go then suddenly I’m open, I’m free and I’m engaged with how things actually are…So you and I don’t know each other, but I know a few things about you. The more that I learn about you the more it can also shut down an experience of really getting to know you because I might have some preconceptions of who you are and what you are like. That’s an example of non-attachment. If I can notice how my ideas about you and my ideas about me actually get in the way, then I can be open to seeing beyond those ideas.

So again, non-attachment actually means engagement. The more that I can learn how to not cling to how I think of myself and how I think of others, the more I can open to the interconnectivity that’s possible when I’m fully present. It’s really important to understand this point because yoga is about engagement in the world, it’s about action and it’s not about passivity. The teaching of karma reminds us that everything we do has an effect, so it’s really important to understand that you can’t be free of action. Every time you have an action, there’s an effect.

RS: One of the preconditions to the practice of abhyasa and vairagya is the release of raga (attachment) and dwesha (aversion), that you have to release your mind from the polarity of like and the dislike… How does that affect one’s actions?

MS: Raga and dwesha are both forms of clinging. It’s not so much about feeling bad or feeling good, but rather our attachment to feeling good and our tendency to lean away from what doesn’t feel good. When we learn how to work with our patterns of reactivity which are raga (attachment) and dwesha (aversion), then we can start to see how they operate in each moment of our lives.

The heart of the practice is being able to reduce our reactivity. We live right now in an attention deficit society where people are highly reactive. It takes its toll on our bodies and it takes its toll on our relationships because in highly reactive modes we can’t recognize intimacy when it shows up. Maybe I would even go so far as to say that the thing most of us fear the most is intimacy, because intimacy threatens our reactivity and most of us hold on to our reactivity because that’s the way we know ourselves.

It’s a funny paradox I think… I don’t want to say that you get rid of your reactivity because as human beings we’re always going to have reactive patterns. I think it would be naive to think that you can get rid of attachment and aversion. Rather, you can just see them operating, and seeing them operating you can get enough distance from reactivity that you can watch it operate instead of being hooked into it.

RS: So you’re saying that the practice is first developing the ability to see our own patterns of reactivity and then being able to observe them, and then perhaps we can become less reactive in how we act?

MS: Yes. You talked earlier about western psychology and some things you’ve read and I think that this is a good time to pick up on that. What’s so brilliant about western psychology is that it helps to really recognize our patterns of reactivity and it helps us to see how our patterns of reactivity are chronic, historical, and relational. What yoga really teaches us is how to see those patterns and notice how they’re impermanent, how they’re empty of self and how they’re malleable. That way when we see our patterns we can learn how to let them go and we don’t get as hooked into them and I think that’s really the heart of the yoga practice.

RS: In your interview in Ascent you talked about a moral obligation to practice. Is that what you meant?

MS: Exactly. When I see my capacity for anger and my capacity for greed, hatred, confusion and envy, and when I learn how to work on the yoga mat, or on the meditation cushion, or in relationships with my particular patterns of strong emotions, then because I see those potentials in myself, my practice becomes a profound form of social action because I’m not planting those seeds in my mind, but I’m also not planting those seeds in my body or in the body politic.

Every individual is a corner of culture. If we see that, then working with our patterns of reactivity is also working on a small corner of culture. By not contributing those negative patterns our practice becomes a practice of social morality in some way. When I said we had a moral obligation to practice it might sound like an overstatement, but what we see is that most of the problems in our families and in our communities are not separate from us. We have the capacity for all of the negative states that we perceive outside of ourself and we have to learn how to work with those states if we don’t want to contribute them to the culture.

RS: In your bio it says that your research and teaching explore the intersection of committed spiritual practice and social action. I often wonder about this fine line of taking action in the world and being aware enough to notice whether or not the action that we’re taking is helpful or needed or even wanted, in the case of trying to help other people. What is the intersection of social action and committed spiritual practice and how does one keep the other grounded in reality?

MS: Well the intersection has some history behind it. Traditionally, one of the models for spirituality in the Abrahamic religions, but also even in the yoga practice in early Buddhism is a model of ‘vertical transcendence‘, which means, “If I can wake up then I can be free of suffering and I do a practice so that I can become enlightened.” What’s really interesting about Patanjali is that he gets rid of the word ‘moksha‘ or gets rid of the word ‘enlightenment‘ and he doesn’t use it. I like to call his model ‘horizontal transcendence‘, which means that the purpose of my practice is not for me to wake up but the purpose of a practice is for all of us to wake up together. That way my practice includes plants and animals and other people, architecture, city planning and good food. That way we practice cultural awakening.

We don’t have time to go practice in caves or inner sanctums, in fact I don’t think there are even that many caves or forests left where you can go move and practice. I think instead we need to use the conditions of our life as the vehicle for waking up. If the conditions are your particular city with all its imperfections, then that city becomes what you use to practice. I think that in our secular age it’s really important to focus on practicing in a way that deals with the imbalances of the entire world rather than just our internal imbalances, because the fish really need us, and the frogs and the rivers need us and they need us now! They don’t have time for us to get enlightened, and maybe enlightenment is a holdover from another age and doesn’t really apply to us anymore.

RS: It sounds like what you’re saying is that there’s a difference in ideas about enlightenment. At one point enlightenment was perceived as something that was “beyond all of this” and what I hear you saying is that enlightenment is a connection and deep involvement with “all of this”.

MS: My understanding of enlightenment is that it’s waking up to the inherent interconnection of everything. I think every human culture throughout history has needed to find a way to reach the transcendent. Sometimes the transcendent was imagined as something beyond the body or something beyond the self, culture or the material plane. But actually, what if we push further and see that the transcendent actually means connecting with something that’s bigger than the stories you tell about yourself and your life? Then we see that we can have that experience with other people, we can have that experience in the natural world. You can have that experience eating an apple. To really drop in to the experience of eating an apple is to recognize your interconnectivity and your place in the world.

What I’m arguing for, if you will, in my recent book “Yoga For a World Out of Balance” is to see that we need to become more material… People say that we’re materialistic but we’re not really. We don’t love the material. I think we need to learn to love the material and then as we care for the material we see that the material is spiritual and there is no separation.

RS: One of the cornerstones of western psychology is the the development of the ‘ego’ or the sense of self, and this sense of self is critical to being functional in the world. Yet we also have to get beyond it if we want to engage in intimacy like you’re saying. How do we maintain enough of it so that we don’t end up institutionalized?

MS: So many people talk about the self as the ego, or they say that the goal of spiritual practice is to get rid of the ego or kill the ego or get beyond the ego. Well, the only people I’ve ever met who actually have no ego are institutionalized. We need an ego. An ego is really healthy and it’s sacred. The purpose of practice is to cultivate an awareness that allows the ego to be flexible and porous, not fixed and rigid or stuck in historical patterns of reactivity, and also not inflated or deflated,and not propped up and also not judged. The self is not something to get rid of, the self is just a conglomeration of stories that we tell ourselves or that have been told to us. But seeing the self as just an encyclopedia or an anthology of stories helps unfix those stories so that the self becomes more of a process rather than a structure. The self does exist and it does function but it’s not hard and it doesn’t have a “core” that is eternal or fixed. The self is plastic, or to use a new term in neuropsychology the self is ‘elastic‘, and that is wonderful to know.

Your identity is not fixed. Who you think you are is not fixed. Your sexuality is not fixed. Your career is not fixed. Your relationships are not fixed… It’s all flow. Within that flow there’s great freedom, but from the perspective of the ego it’s scary because we want to fix ourselves and define ourselves. How many young people learn that they’re attracted to someone of the same sex and then they do a lot of work to define themselves as a dyke or a queer and for a while that’s so helpful because you can say what you are. But then maybe once in a while you’re attracted to someone of the opposite sex and then it screws up your definition of yourself as queer. That’s such a common story and I use it because it reminds us that the self flows in ways that are more like water than structured. We’re a lot more like trees than cars.

RS: How does that relate to the “anarchy of the gaps”- two systems that meet to point out the shadow of the other system? It sounds like in order to allow something to be elastic you do in fact need to see it in its function as a system, which include the gaps inherent in the structure of a system.

MS: Every system has a shadow or gaps. Nothing can be organized into a system, life just doesn’t work that way. Stephen Bachelor has a wonderful term that he uses in a book called “Living With the Devil“, and the term he uses is called ‘anarchy of the gaps’. The reason why I like that term is because anarchy refers to the fact that all systems are resilient and they self-organize. For example, a computer is not a good example of a self-organizing system. When it breaks it’s broken, and only now are we learning how to recycle them. But a forest is a good example of a resilient system. When there’s a forest fire and you go walk out into the black charcoal several months after the fire, that’s usually the time in the forest when there are the best wildflowers, because the forest is resilient.

We need to be resilient; we need to get depressed, we need to stay in bed sometimes for a month. We need our relationships to fall apart because we need to fall apart and regroup, and this is part of the healthy resilience of a person. I call that anarchy because it’s an example of how human beings internally and also culturally know how to self-organize in order to create balance. That’s something that I trust in ecologically, spiritually and politically and it’s something which is far more interesting than hierarchy. Two systems never quite fit together because each one has a shadow. And that’s why you need different systems to point out the shadow of other systems. Where systems don’t fit together, there’s so much vitality there… and that’s the anarchy of the gaps. I think that western psychology and yoga philosophy don’t totally fit together, but the places where they don’t fit together is way more interesting that where they do fit together.

RS: When a system collapses in on itself; when the forest burns or the relationship falls apart… Is that the self-reference point where we can meet up with our own shadow? Do we have to totally fall apart and then regroup to see it?

MS: There’s a good story about Charles Darwin, where after he finished “The Theory of Evolution” he experienced a deep depression. He noticed how when people become depressed they stop going out, they stare at the ceiling, they stay in bed and they don’t have sex. Darwin’s whole theory is based on the fact that we are driven to reproduce… But a person who is depressed is not thinking too much about that. After a few years of contemplating depression he realized that maybe depression had a purpose, and maybe it was an evolutionary purpose which was to slow us down and to make us look inward and see what’s valuable and what’s important in our lives.

I think that’s a good example of what you brought up because a lot of our symptoms have a purpose. You know this as a yoga teacher, you see people fall apart and they do everything they can to try and get back together and get back to work and to get their hamstrings working again. But you can also see how when people fall apart and their lives start to unravel, there can be something so creative and magnificent in that process if we’re patient and open enough to really see our lives that way.

RS: That brings us back to what we started with today talking about the attachment to pleasure and pain and learning to open and be with the experience that’s happening right now.

MS: If you go deep into your yoga asana practice and you really practice in a way that includes drishti, which is gazing, and bandhas, which are the bonding of breathing and our attention span, and pranayama, which is the un-restriction or the un-restraint of internal energetic pathways in the body… Then our practice becomes very psychological. Within a focused and concentrated asana practice we start to work not just with feeling good in our practice, but we move deeper into the realms where we learn how to really be present with strong emotions and turbulent thoughts and then that becomes a very deep form of meditation so that when we’re off the yoga mat we can use that kind of patience and attentiveness to serve others and to take care of ourselves.

RS: If you could put a message on a T-shirt, what would it say?

MS:  emptiness:compassion

Michael Stone is the author of three books, as well as other writing and articles. He is based on Toronto where he runs the Centre of Gravity Sangha and he travels and teaches internationally.
Michael will in Portland the weekend of September 24, 2010! This is what he has to say about that weekend’s offering:

“I feel inspired offering a workshop in Portland because in my imagination Portland, as a city, is an experiment that seeks to integrate urban life with creative ways of addressing social, ecological, transportation and economic issues. And the land along the coast is beautiful. Friday evening I will give a talk about the ways in which Yoga can be brought to life in this culture at this time without needing to escape our lives. We will explore the way yoga postures, meditation, ethics and art, all form a well-rounded path that allows us to practice deeply and then express our practice in everything we do.

On Saturday and Sunday we will look at yoga postures in subtle ways that focus on the internal pathways of the breath, proper gazing, and alignment techniques that allow us to turn the postures in vehicles of concentration. From there we will slow down asana sequences and see how practice matures not by adding more and more poses but by tuning into the psychological as well as physical patterns in mind and body. And we will do all this while having fun!”

For more information in registration for this workshop please visit The Yoga Space.

Happy Valentines Day!

Regardless of the plethora of possible associations you might have to this particular holiday, it’s never a bad excuse to explore the essence of the day… The heart.

In western society yoga and meditation have started to receive recognition from the medical community as to their value for cardiovascular health and aiding in the prevention of circulatory and heart-related illness.

In yogic and tantric traditions the organ of the heart and the energetic heart or the ability to love and feel emotion is located in the fourth chakra, named Anahata Chakra. Chakras are described as discs or wheels of energy radiating through the body, that govern certain principles. When they are balanced and healthy a person is unified in their ascending and descending qualities (heaven and earth, grounding and inspiration). If chakras are out of balance or disturbed they can cause physical, mental and emotional illnesses as well as inabilities to function in certain ways.

Anahata Chakra is located behind the thoracic spine in the region of the heart and is related to the thymus, located in the chest. The thymus is an element of the immune system and the endocrine system. It is the site of maturation of T-cells which are responsible for fending off disease. The thymus is adversely affected by stress.
The Anahata Chakra is the fourth of the seven major chakras of the spinal column or central channel. Key issues involving the heart chakra involve complex emotions, compassion, tenderness, unconditional love, equilibrium, rejection and well-being. Physically Anahata governs circulation, emotionally it governs unconditional love for the self and others, mentally it governs passion, and spiritually it governs devotion

The middle chakra is the meeting point of heaven and earth, Anahata means “unstruck sound” this is the place where ether becomes matter through the vibration of sound or speech. To locate the chakra press one hand into the center of your sternum or breastbone and the other hand at the corresponding point in your back, between your two hands is the energetic heart chakra. You can visualize the shape of the chakra as two triangles, one pointing upwards to symbolize the masculine/ yang/ ascending energy and one pointing downwards to symbolize the feminine/yin/ rooting or descending energy. The two triangles overlap and at the center is twelve pointing lotus radiating light into the body.

If you dig the new age vibes, check out this psychedelic youtube heart chakra meditation! Congratulations if you’re celebrating the more enjoyable and pleasant aspects of the heart chakra today, if, however this day is inspiring you to feel blue instead of red, you may appreciate The Heart Sutra which reminds us that as delightful as some forms (of people or chocolate) may be, all form is ultimately empty.

xoxo- Love Renee

Born in the eastern region of Kham, Tibet, Urgyen Trinley Dorje was recognised as the 17th Karmapa by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in June, 1992. An emanation of the Buddha of  compassion, the Gyalwa Karmapa engages in all the enlightened activities of the Buddha.

Learn more about the 17th Karmapa here and here.

Feel the breath coming in and out through the nostrils. When you breath in feel yourself expanding to fullness and when you breath out feel yourself becoming empty. Enjoy the sensations of each.

Meditation:
Find an object of gratitude, something that makes you feel grateful. It can be a person or loved one, a memory you cherish, an activity you enjoy. It doesn’t matter what it is. Think of this and feel the physical sensation of gratitude, let it expand into your whole body.
Slowly begin to let go of the object of your gratitude and just maintain the physical feeling, the residue or essence.
If you have any aches and pains send this feeling there. If you carry critical judgements of yourself or others, extend the feeling of gratitude there.
See if you can imagine the physical sense of gratitude taking on a color or texture, perhaps a kind of light. Imagine this quality being in your body and heart and then practice extending it outwards. First to the air around your body, then to your friends and loved ones, then to people that you don’t know, then to relationships who are challenging in your life. Imagine this lights filling all beings and coming back to surround you. Breath in let yourself receive, breath out to strengthen your visualization of gratitude.

Also known as the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah is an eight-day Jewish holiday From the Hebrew word for “dedication” or “consecration”. Hanukkah marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration by the forces of the King of Syria Antiochus IV Epiphanes and commemorates the “miracle of the container of oil”. According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated olive oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days, which was the length of time it took to press, prepare and consecrate fresh olive oil.

Hanukkah is observed for eight nights by the kindling of the lights of a special candelabra, the nine-branched Menorah , one additional light on each night of the holiday, progressing to eight on the final night. An extra light called a shamash (Hebrew: “guard” or “servant”) is also lit each night for the purpose of lighting the others, and is given a distinct location, usually above or below the rest. The “shamash” symbolically supplies light that may be used for some secular purpose.

Hanukkah is also a time to enjoy amazingly delicious traditional Jewish foods. Mmmm….

Siddhartha Gautama was a prince who left his home in Nepal at the age of 29 to search for the meaning of life. He came from a privileged family and had grown up sheltered from the outside world. Siddhartha was curious though and left his privilege to travel the world. As he traveled, he saw the misery of the human existence, old age, suffering and sickness. Siddhartha was profoundly affected by this suffering and chose to leave the life of privilege and seek meaning.

Siddhartha spent six years as an aesthetic and served under six teachers but did not find the answer he was looking for. He tried various disciplines such as surviving by eating only one grain of rice per day, but realized this was also not the answer. Finally he vowed to sit under the Bodhi tree until he had his answers. Sitting under the tree Siddhartha fasted and meditated for a week and on the morning of the eighth day as the morning star rose in the sky, awoke to several realizations and became enlightened and experienced Nirvana (bliss). Having done so, Siddhartha became a Buddha or “Awakened One”.

The understandings Siddhartha came to were to become the principles of Buddhism. In The Longer Discourse to Saccaka, the Buddha describes his Enlightenment in three stages:

During the first watch of the night, the Buddha discovered all of his past lives in the cycle of rebirth, realizing that he had been born and reborn countless times before.

During the second watch, the Buddha discovered the Law of Karma, and the importance of living by the Eightfold Path.

During the third watch, the Buddha discovered the Four Noble Truths, finally reaching Nirvana. In his words:

“My heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, was released from the fermentation of sensuality, released from the fermentation of becoming, released from the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there was the knowledge, ‘Released.’ I discerned that ‘Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.”

]]> http://feedtheyogi.com/archives/831/feed 0 http://feedtheyogi.com/archives/774 http://feedtheyogi.com/archives/774#comments Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:21:05 +0000 Renee http://feedtheyogi.com/?p=774 I just found out about the PBS series that started airing this week “Secrets of Shangri-La: Quest For Sacred Caves“. Thus far I’ve only watched one of the youtube trailers, but it looks like a pretty amazing series. According to some, this corner of the Himayalas is not only the birthplace of what is now the yogic tradition, but it may also be the kingdom of Shambhala which “is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia. It is mentioned in various ancient texts, including the Kalachakra Tantra and the ancient texts of the Zhang Zhung culture which predated Tibetan Buddhism in western Tibet. The Bön scriptures speak of a closely related land called Olmolungring.

Whatever its historical basis, Shambhala gradually came to be seen as a Buddhist Pure Land, a fabulous kingdom whose reality is visionary or spiritual as much as physical or geographic. It was in this form that the Shambhala myth reached the West, where it influenced non-Buddhist as well as Buddhist spiritual seekers — and, to some extent, popular culture in general.” (Excerpt from this wiki article)

Wow. This show definitely takes precedence over Dancing With The Stars.

It’s Halloween! Though it might seem that this modern version of the Pagan Holiday bears no connection to the practice of yoga or the eating of food (other than candy)… Think again. In the ancient yogic texts “The Upanishads” there are multiple references and stories about ceremonial and ritual enactments that utilized mask, masquerade, costume, and the parade or organized wandering of those participating in the ceremony to the dwellings of citizens to request food or offerings of some sort. Kind of like trick-or-treating but with a (known and acknowledged) ceremonial intent. And in South American cultures November 1st, Dia de los muertos or Day of the dead is an important ceremony that is prepared for year long. Families prepare food and offerings to their departed friends and ancestors and join them in the cemetery on the night  of the year that, energetically,  is supposed be the easiest to commune with realm of the afterlife.

The Gaelic holiday Samhain is similar to Dia de los muertos, in that the Gaels believed that the night between October 31st and November 1st, the veils between the worlds became thinner and this symbolized the transition from the lightest part of the year to the darkest. This tradition of acknowledging the natural decline or death of crops, the inward turning of the earth gave way to the Christian All Saints or All Souls day celebrations. Somewhere along the way American culture figured out how to market the holiday and it became Halloween.

Festival of the Dead is held by many cultures throughout the world in honor or recognition of deceased members of the community, generally occurring after the harvest in August, September, October, or November. Most of these celebrations feature masquerade or masked and costumed enactments symbolizing the entities of the next world. Food and the offering of food is seen as a gesture of matter or earthly material that is given as sacrament, offering the physical body to be consumed and transformed.

So what are you doing tonight? Whether it’s masked revelry, the doling out of sweets, or a quiet and inward moment of reflection on that which has passed, consider the fact that all over the world this time of year connects those of us living now, with those who have moved on. Our society of spectacle manifests this energy as frightening, aggressive and horrid, but perhaps that’s simply a reflection on a fear of the unknown. It’s interesting to note that cultures still practicing traditions that speak openly of death and dying, honoring this transition rather than fearing it, have less need to dramatize the frightening aspects of death and decay.

Mark Dyczkowski is one of the world’s foremost western scholars on Tantra and the spiritual lineage of Kashmir Shaivism. Read a wonderful interview he did for Himalayan Institute on Tantra, Yoga, Practice and the potential for us westerners to understand these things. If you don’t know much about Tantra or if the first thing that comes to mind is Kama Sutra. This article is a must read.

Hallelujah! Amen!

Perhaps it’s the woes of the western world that are consuming my objective attention now. The escalating global crises that is not just about economy, nor just about climate, or war, or health-care, homelessness,  famine, flood, drought, tsunami, the list goes on and does not seem to stop. Despite my attempts to live in balance, to practice meditation and mindfulness, to be objective and calm and remember “perspective”… Despite all this, I’m feeling quite stressed out by the state of things these days. How about you?

Over here in the “civilized world” we’re grasping blindly at short-term solutions and despairing out loud about what to do. Is there any way to go back, to reverse, to make things better? It’s amazing to me to remember that a good portion of the world is not as out of balance as we are here with all of our advancements. Living here in urban North America, surrounded by the accoutrements of modern necessity I forget most of the time that not everyone lives like this. The stress that I feel over urban situations and the industrialized job markets are not stresses that everyone on earth is feeling (though they have their own and most are intricately intertwined.)

Desperation and feelings of cluelessness aside, it’s amazing to consider that there are still tribal people here on Earth. Living close to the land, living in harmony. Many of these people’s lands, homes and livelihoods are at risk due to the imbalances of modernity and industrialized society. These people have been living for ages without creating destruction of their lands, desecration of their animals, women or children.

In fact, if modern governments and corporations were to leave them alone and their land wasn’t subjected to the environmental degradation that is caused by said governments and industry, chances are these people would go on living simply, healthfully and happily for ages to come. What can we learn from them?

*All pictures are from Survival International

140 years ago today a soul was born into the body that was known as Mahatma Gandhi:

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi (Sanskrit: महात्मा mahātmā or ‘Great Soul’, an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore), and in India also as Bapu (Gujarati: Gujarati: બાપુ, bāpu or ‘Father’). He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

(excerpt from Wikipedia)

In remembrance of Gandhi and many others who have shared in his teachings of non-violence and activism let us practice on this day, and let us strive to practice every day the observances of yoga: Nonviolence and compassion, commitment to truthfulness, non-stealing, control of the senses that we may not be driven by fleeting and sensory desires, non-hoarding of wealth.

Gratitude for the gift that Gandhi gave of his life and teachings! Namasté

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

“All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.”

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

“Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up.”

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”

“Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.”

“I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.”

“Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.”

“Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.”

“Be the change that you want to see in the world.”

Yesterday marked 8 years since the tragedy of 9/11. I hope that we (as a world full of beings) have grown, at least in some small way, in our understanding and acceptance of other cultures and faiths. I’m not a political scientist or historian, I don’t know enough facts or statistics to speak about them with any kind of authority. In my experience as a citizen of earth it seems that there is always the element of humanity that is extreme in its identity and willing to fight, kill and destroy for that identity. Belief is such a powerful thing. When we truly believe that we ARE something, there are usually things we truly believe we ARE NOT. Surely most of our beliefs have their roots in good intentions, often those intentions are forgotten amidst the struggle to prove we are right.

It’s easy for most of us (myself included) to say this about other beings; politicians, fundamentalists, dictators, family members… But usually it’s not so easy to say these things to ourselves, to reflect on our tendencies to extremism, irrational belief, and attachment to our ideas of who we are. It’s not easy to actually observe the smallest acts of violence that we may commit on a daily basis, in effort “to prove a point”.

One of the (many) gifts of yoga as a practice is that it teaches us to find balance between extremes. As we work the balance of our bodies; leaning a little this way, a little that way; adjusting this, relaxing that; exhaling, inhaling… We learn also to work the balance of our mind. As our practice evolves we have to consistently let go of what we thought it was, and in that process re-examine who we are in relation to it.

Ultimately, hopefully, we learn to do this with other beings and the world in general by developing the capacity to examine and observe our tendencies to identify either in relation or in opposition to “the other”. Developing this capacity to observe, we will eventually develop the capacity to discern, and choose our actions accordingly without acting in blind faith as a slave to our ideas of “who we are”.

Richard Freeman says, “When two things meet it’s right there at their conjunction that yoga occurs; when day meets night, when inhale meets exhale. In that initial communication, in that process, each system has to get off of its identifications, off if its baggage, off of its techniques… All those temporary things, those limited things it has identified its essence with. It has to drop back to its true nature in order to experience the other. Through connection or through yoga (union) with the other, we find ourselves.”

As we commemorate an event that was born from and bred further extremism and violent identification, lets find our own revolutionary act in observing and changing these tendencies in ourselves. From one to all, all is one.

Here are a few more thoughts worth pondering in the quiet of your soul today.

“Lord make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness; joy.” – St. Francis of Assisi

“Be not overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” – Romans 12:21

“The seed of God is in us. If the seed had a good, wise and industrious cultivator, it would grow up to God whose seed it is, and the fruit would be equal to the nature of God. Now the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree, a hazel seed into a hazel tree, and the seed of God into God.” – Meister Eckhart

“Conquer the angry man by love. Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness. Conquer the miser with generosity. Conquer the liar with truth.” – The Dhammapada

“Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” – Mark 12:29

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely be it. I died as a mineral and became a plant; I died as a plant and rose to animal; I died as animal and was a man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as man and soar with angels blest. But even if an angel I must pass on: all except God perish. When I have sacrificed my angel soul, I shall become what no mind has concieved.” – Rumi

“When one looks past our human skin we find the essence of God that dwells within.” – Anonymous

The Dalai Lama—a living member of the ahimsa/non-violence lineage that includes Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, MLK Jr., Thich Nhat Hanh, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and many others, was born 74 years ago today. He’s worked hard and long for world peace under near hopeless conditions—let’s thank this living legend by taking a moment, today, to appreciate his smiling, truly humble leadership.

NEW DELHI (AP) — The Dalai Lama is 74 today, and hundreds of his followers in exile with him in India celebrated in New Delhi and Dharmsala, where he’s lived the past 50 years. The Dalai Lama joked that so many people are praying for him that he may live to at least 100.

This beautiful and eloquent Long Life Prayer for Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama, may be recited on his Birthday—July 6, 2009—or any other auspicious time.

OM SVASTI

To the assembly of most kind teachers, both present and past -
the miraculous dance of the body, speech and mind of innumerable Buddhas
manifesting in accord with aspirants’ spiritual capacities,
the wish-granting jewel, the source of all virtue and goodness -
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons.
Shower on him your blessings so that his aspirations are fulfilled
without hindrance.

To the assembly of all meditational deities
manifesting as countless mandalas and divinities -
the magical clouds of immaculate, transcendent wisdom
reaching to the farthest expanse of the space of ultimate reality -
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons.
Shower on him your blessings so that his aspirations are fulfilled
without hindrance.

To all the victorious Buddhas of the three times
endowed with ten powers and who are even masters of the gods,
and whose attributes of perfection are the source of all compassionate deeds
benefiting the vast ocean-like realm of sentient beings,
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons.
Shower on him your blessings so that his aspirations are fulfilled
without hindrance.

To the assembly of sacred doctrine embodied in the Three Vehicles,
supremely serene, a jewel-treasure of enlightenment,
stainless, unchanging, eternally good, and the glory of all virtues,
which actually liberates beings from the sufferings of the three worlds,
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons.
Shower on him your blessings so that his aspirations are fulfilled
without hindrance.

To all members of the enlightening, noble spiritual community,
who never stray from the thoroughly liberating adamantine city,
who possess the wisdom eye that directly sees the profound truth
and the highest valour to destroy all machinations of cyclic existence,
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons.
Shower on him your blessings so that his aspirations are fulfilled
without hindrance.

To the assembly of heroes and dakinis, heavenly beings of the three worlds,
who appear in the highest paradises, in the sacred places, and in the
cremation grounds, and who, through creative play in the hundred-fold
experiences of bliss and emptiness, support practitioners in their
meditation on the excellent path, to you, we offer our prayers
with fervent devotion:

That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons.
Shower on him your blessings so that his aspirations are fulfilled
without hindrance.

To the ocean of protectors endowed with eyes of transcendent wisdom -
the powerful guardians and upholders of the teaching
who wear inseparably on their matted locks
the knot symbolising their pledge to the Vajra Holder -
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons. Shower on him your blessings
so that his aspirations are fulfilled without hindrance.

Thus to this congregation of excellent, undeceiving refuge,
we pray that by the power of this prayer
expressed from a heart filled with fervent devotion and humility,
may the body, speech and mind of the sole of the Land of Snows,
the supreme Ngawang Lobsang Tenzin Gyatso,
be indestructible, unfluctuating and unceasing;
may he live immutable for a hundred aeons,
seated on a diamond throne, transcending decay and destruction.

You are the jewel-heart embodying all compassionate, beneficial deeds;
O most courageous one, you carry upon your shoulders
the burden of all the Buddhas of the infinite realms.
May all your noble aspirations be fulfilled as intended.

By virtue of this may the heavenly doors of the fortunate era open
eternally as a source of relief and respite for all beings;
And may the auspicious signs reach the apex of existence and release,
as the sacred teachings flourish through all times and in all realms.

May the nectar-stream of the blessings of the Lotus Holder
always enter our hearts and nourish it with strength.
May we please you with our offerings of dedicated practice,
And may we reach beyond the shores of perfect, compassionate deeds.

Through the blessings of the wondrous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,
by the infallible truth of the laws of dependent origination,
and by the purity of our fervent aspirations,
may the aims of my prayer be fulfilled without hindrance.

Sarva Mangalm!

A short film by Christine Rabette. Pass it on.

Merci!

A solstice is an astronomical event that occurs twice each year, when the tilt of the Earth’s axis is most inclined toward or away from the Sun, causing the Sun’s apparent position in the sky to reach its northernmost or southernmost extreme. The term solstice can also be used in a wider sense, as the date (day) when this occurs. The solstices, together with the equinoxes, are connected with the seasons. In some cultures they are considered to start or separate the seasons while in others they fall in the middle. The English expressions “midwinter” (winter solstice) and “midsummer” (summer solstice) may derive from a tradition according to which there were only two seasons: winter and summer. (Kind of like how it feels in Montreal… Only there it’s winter and construction season)

“Solstice” is derived from two Latin words: “sol” meaning sun, and “sistere,” to cause to stand still. This is because, as the summer solstice approaches, the noonday sun rises higher and higher in the sky on each successive day. On the day of the solstice, it rises an imperceptible amount, compared to the day before. In this sense, it “stands still.”

(In the southern hemisphere, the summer solstice is celebrated in December, also when the night time is at a minimum and the daytime is at a maximum. I’ll assume that the readers live in the Northern hemisphere for the rest of this post.)

Significance of the summer solstice:

In pre-historic times, summer was a joyous time of the year for those Aboriginal people who lived in the northern latitudes. The snow had disappeared; the ground had thawed out; warm temperatures had returned; flowers were blooming; leaves had returned to the deciduous trees. Some herbs could be harvested, for medicinal and other uses. Food was easier to find. The crops had already been planted and would be harvested in the months to come. Although many months of warm/hot weather remained before the fall, they noticed that the days were beginning to shorten, so that the return of the cold season was inevitable.

The first (or only) full moon in June is called the Honey Moon. Tradition holds that this is the best time to harvest honey from the hives. This time of year, between the planting and harvesting of the crops, was the traditional month for weddings. This is because many ancient peoples believed that the “grand [sexual] union” of the Goddess and God occurred in early May at Beltaine. Since it was unlucky to compete with the deities, many couples delayed their weddings until June. June remains a favorite month for marriage today. In some traditions, “newly wed couples were fed dishes and beverages that featured honey for the first month of their married life to encourage love and fertility. The surviving vestige of this tradition lives on in the name given to the holiday immediately after the ceremony: The Honeymoon.”

The two solstices and the equinoxes of the year are celebrated in most cultures and world traditions in some form or the other. A key idea behind the cause for these celebrations could be looked at like this: The solstices are the time of absolute, the MOST of the essence of the season. In the winter it is the darkest time, summer the lightest. The equinoxes are a time of shifting, of moving from one phase into the next. The spring is the time to celebrate the returning of sun and the fertility of the land. The autumn is a time to harvest what was planted in the spring, fed by the sun and also to store and preserve one’s resources, preparing for the cold and inwardness of winter. You can do your own research into different celebrations and rituals for this time of year. You might be surprised to learn that many of the Christian holidays have their roots in Pagan observances. I find that these points of the year are a good time to reflect on the meaning of the season for me and what I want to manifest or focus on while this element is strong.

Some good resources just to learn about the seasons and their passing are the Wikipedia Solstice entry and this entry from Religious Tolerance.

Summer Solstice- Painting by Mark Garro

http://www.markgarro.com/

A beautiful online, member supported project to collect and disseminate the works of Chögyam Trungpa. Including a radio program, writing and links from various members of the Shambhala community worldwide and a wealth of resources.

http://chronicleproject.com/index.html

Two years ago my dear friend Ryan from One Yoga in Saskatoon brought me to a 3-day workshop with Reverend Father Joe Pereira while he was visiting Toronto. To this day that workshop is one of the most vivid examples I have ever had of the true transformative peace that can come from a yoga practice. Fr. Joe is a senior Iyengar teacher and a good friend and colleague of Mr. Iyengar and he worked alongside Mother Teresa for many years in India. Fr. Joe is the founder of the Kripa Foundation where he works to treat HIV patients and people recovering from chemical dependencies.

Kripa Foundation is the largest NGO in India, affiliated with the Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, working among people afflicted with chemical dependency & HIV Infection. Kripa Foundation has become a module of non-discriminating, supportive community living, empowering people to introspect and bring about a change in lifestyle. Kripa’s strength lies in the eastern disciplines and facilitating lifestyle change, which it propagates in all its centers as Basic Therapy to cope with life’s stresses including addiction, which is an outward manifestation of the turmoil within an individual.  It is this inner healing which is enabling Kripa to realize its dream of becoming a global presence.