24 Oct 2018

Being at Peace….

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There’s been a conversation going on in my life for a while that discusses what it means to be at peace… having peace of mind… a joyful way of being and looking at life… in a state of happiness. This topic has been amplified as I’ve been studying A Course In Miracles (ACIM), making my way to India, into a vipassana course, staying in Swami Rama’s ashram and listening to his dharma, and falling in love with people here.

As I was leaving Sadhana Mandir Ashram this morning I had another brief interlude with the monk that is living there. As I was saying how I my intention was to be at peace when I leave the serenity of the ashram and into the city… she was telling me that the judgment of the city as not being peaceful is a judgment of the mind. If I’m going to see the divinity and peacefulness in everyone and in life… why was I thinking this way?

I’m not talking about the meaning of love here because I have learned love cannot be taught. However, to have some degree of success at loving well, there definitely is some correlation to being at peace inside of ourselves. If this is the case… then what does it mean to be at peace inside of ourselves? What is some of the wisdom we need to learn? And what are some of the practices in life and ways we can attain it? This is not intended to be any sort of preaching or anything that says I know what I’m talking about. This is only something that I’ve been pondering as I try to put life’s puzzle pieces together.

What does it mean to be at peace?

ACIM says that to find peace we have to be in complete forgiveness and no learning is acquired unless we believe that we need it. That there is no lack at all other than what we create in our own minds. Lack implies that we would be better off in a state different than the one we are in. We cannot relate to others in peace from anything external, it only comes from within. Peace is an attribute in us and cannot be found from the outside. Illness is some form of external searching for peace. Health is inner peace. It enables us to remain unshaken by lack of love from the outside and makes us capable of correcting the conditions proceeding from lack of love in others.

We have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from the realization that we are divine creations and in complete acceptance of ourselves and others without judgment. When we recognize this, we will realize that judgment in any way is without meaning. All uncertainty comes from the belief that we are under the coercion of judgment. We do not need judgment to organize our life, and we certainly do not need it to organize ourselves. In the presence of this knowledge and acceptance, all judgment is automatically suspended, and this is the process that enables us to be reminded of the divinity that is us to replace the perception of something different.

Once I experienced the vipassana practice this all changed for me because the bodies sensations are experienced in the practice that allows the past to be released.

In the vipassana meditation practice it is taught that we all are seeking peace and harmony because this is what we lack in our lives. At times it may seem that instead of finding inner peace we find nothing but agitation by meditating. Surprisingly enough, these difficulties pass away. At a certain point we learn to make effortless efforts, to maintain a relaxed alertness, a detached involvement. Instead of struggling, we become engrossed in the practice. This is the beginning to being at peace where the mind becomes calm, clarity comes, and every moment becomes beautiful, full of affirmations and peace.

The vipassana path is also a path of purification. We investigate the truth about ourselves not out of idle intellectual curiosity but rather with a definite purpose. By observing ourselves we become aware for the first time of the conditioned reactions, the prejudices that cloud our mental vision, that hide reality from us and produce suffering. We recognize the accumulated inner tensions that keep us agitated, miserable, and we realize they can be removed. Gradually we learn how to allow them to dissolve, and our minds become pure, peaceful, and happy.

So why don’t we live in a continual state of peace? Because we lack wisdom. A life without wisdom is a life of illusion, which is a state of agitation, of misery. Our first responsibility is to live a healthy, harmonious life, good for ourselves and for all others. To do so, we must learn to use our faculty of self-observation, truth-observation which is the foundation of the vipassana practice. We learn that nobody causes suffering for us. We cause our own suffering by generating tensions in our own mind. If we know how not to do that, it becomes easy to remain peaceful and happy in every situation.

We learn that peace and happiness cannot come at the expense of anyone. And once we experience this kind of peace and happiness we realize we cannot keep it to ourselves and that by giving happiness to others brings happiness to oneself. Therefore, we seek to share whatever good we have with others. Having emerged out of suffering and experiencing the peace of liberation, we realize that this is the greatest good. We wish that others may also experience this good and find their way out of suffering.

The teachings in ACIM in combination with vipassana meditation has been wonderful experience for me. And what I am finding is that ACIM lacked an embodiment practice. A practice that includes the body where emotions and the past are stored to be released. By observing our sensations in the vipassana practice it teaches us that whenever we are overwhelmed by negativity, we suffer. Therefore, whenever we see others reacting negatively, we understand that they are suffering. With this understanding we can feel compassion for them and can act to help them free themselves of misery, not make them more miserable. We remain peaceful and happy and help others to be peaceful and happy.

There is a complimentary similarity between the teachings in ACIM and Vipassana… development of good will toward others. Previously we may have paid lip service to such a sentiment, but deep within the mind the old process of craving and aversion continued. Now to some extent the process of reaction has stopped, the old habit of egoism is gone, and good will naturally flows from the depths of the mind. With the entire force of a pure mind behind it, this good will can be very powerful in creating a peaceful and harmonious atmosphere for the benefit of all.

22 Oct 2018

Meditation and Its Practice – Sadhana Mandir Ashram – October 19-22, 2018

by | posted in: Adventure, Personal Growth, Sabbatical, Spiritual | 0

I arrived here in Rishikesh on October 17, 2018 and made my way to Swami Rama’s Sadhana Mandir Ashram. Why Sadhana Mandir you may ask. I took some classes with Dr. Rudy Ballentine who was Swami Rama’s doctor at his ashram in New York and I wanted to see what his teachings were all about and in order for me to be able to stay here they want people to sign up for classes here. So, what worked timing wise was this course Meditation and Its practice.


Swami Rama – How to Tread the Path of Super-conscious Meditation

Leftover Idols from Durga Puja in the Ganges

I arrived here and was welcomed by taking me into the dining hall for breakfast before checking in. What a nice way to be welcomed. They don’t want to take my money first, they want me to make sure I am comfortable here first and foremost. The grounds have beautiful gardens and are well manicured.

 

I spent my first couple days here exploring Rishikesh and Ram Jhula before the program started. This is a beautiful place nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. I explored the Trivini Ghat, Rishikesh Market, Ram Jhula, Parmath Niketan, got my feet wet in the cold waters of the Ganges and found a coffee shop and my first cup of real coffee in weeks. The children run around with flowers for offerings to the Ganges for the evening rituals. I small girl cornered me and I gave her one dollar and told her that was our secret and that she couldn’t tell her friends… well, that didn’t happen and then I was surrounded by a half dozen children asking for a dollar. So, I stayed through the evening to see another aarti. Those rituals are really beautiful to see. It’s still a bit dusty here but not as much as in Varanasi.

The meditation program I am in is basic introduction to meditation and mostly includes the preparation for meditation… proper body posture, environment, food intake, and calm/restful mind. There hasn’t been much practice other than relaxation, breathing and mantra techniques. After the vipassana course I was just in all of this seems rudimentary. I can find the Buddhist influence in the teachings here and still find the vipassana technique my preferred method due to its heavy embodiment aspect.

We are watching videos of Swami Rama’s lectures that I am finding interesting. He speaks about meditation as a foundation of life’s practices to find the peace and joy in life. He also talks about some other things that I want to jot down before I forget…

  1. You are responsible for your own “enlightenment”. You can read all the books and listen to all the Swami’s you want but you are ultimately responsible for it yourself.
  2. Never condemning yourself and always keeping a pleasant childlike curiosity towards everything that comes up in your thoughts during meditation. Do not get attached to any of the pleasant or unpleasant thoughts of the past or the sensations in the body
  3. People are typically unsatisfied with their lives and spend a lot of time searching the outside world for their happiness. When happiness comes from going inside ourselves and clearing away the past traumas/difficulties which seem to dictate our lives.
  4. What have you done with your life? Marriage… children… a job… money… a house… but what have you done as selfless service to humanity? Which is what truly matters.
  5. Loneliness is a killer
  6. The goal of meditation – letting go of attachment to craving and aversion by finding equanimity… living in the moment
  7. What is enlightenment? – To never let your peace of mind/joy for life be affected by the outside world. Acceptance of what is.
  8. Selflessness is the only way to liberation
  9. The whole body is in the mind, the whole of the mind is not in the body
  10. Physical strength isn’t much use. Strength of the mind is essential
  11. World bliss = Momentary bliss
  12. We are born from the unknown… we die into the unknown… we must embrace and find guidance from the unknown
  13. If your actions and speech are under your control the mind will follow
  14. Spirituality = being aware of absolute reality all the time
  15. We complicate things more than they need to be.

After this program is over I’m meeting a new friend from Lucknow here in Rishikesh at the Omkarananda Gita Sadan for several days to speak about the depths of leading a spiritual life, meditation and traveling around the area to the hot springs and into the Himalayan hills. I’m hoping for more pictures to come.

From here I will be traveling south to Kochi, Kerala on the southern coast to experience the beaches on the Arabian Sea and southern Indian food for a couple weeks. It’s almost hard to believe that I will have been here in India for almost 60 days and will need to make my way out before my visa expires to Nepal before the 15th of November.

 

Click on the pics to enlarge….

Fresh Figs

 

 

 

Rishikesh Produce Market
Shiva at Parmath Niketan Ashram
Omkarananda Ashram
19 Oct 2018

From Varanasi to Rishikesh – October 17, 2018

by | posted in: Adventure, Relationship, Sabbatical, Video Post | 0

After 24 days in Varanasi it was time for me to make my way to Rishikesh for meditation and yoga. I know what you might be thinking, I just finished a 10-day vipassana course and in under a week later I’m taking another course in meditation and yoga. Yup, that’s it.

I arrived to Rishikesh after an 8hr layover overnight in Delhi. Ghandi Airport is like western-like airport with all the fast food like in America. Had an early 6am flight to Rishikesh and a ride to Sadhana Mandir Ashram, Swami Rama’s ashram. I’ve been looking forward to being here and experiencing some of his teachings.

 

It was a bitter sweet departure from Varanasi. Yes, living can be a bit challenging. No real corner market to get things and finding what you need (water, bath soap, etc) takes some searching out. The dust, dirt, and cow dung is everywhere and pervasive on the senses. It is very crowded with lots of traffic. There is such extreme poverty with beggars on the streets and people wanting to sell you things you don’t want or need.

Yet… the people here have a love for life even with such scarcity and poverty and are more than willing to help you out and give of themselves. They don’t think they really lack of anything, except in some cases where mothers are having a hard time feeding their children. (Infant mortality rate is much higher than in other countries). They consider tourists a gift and want to treat them well. Of course, their money is wanted but, that seems almost insignificant to how they want to treat people.

The people have such faith in their tradition and religion and have their daily practices of bathing, praying, offerings to the gods/goddesses and pujas that keep them connected with their beliefs and may I even say their values and morals. They treat people with such loving kindness no matter where they are from. I have not experienced road rage here even with the extreme traffic jams. I even had a fellow smile and say hello to me from another motorized rickshaw when it was taking me nearly double the time to get to where I needed to go. Where the mind adjusts… the body will follow.

I met some really fabulous people during my stay here in Varanasi. My host family from Airbnb turned out to be blessings from the universe. I got to cook and eat with the family, invited to their respective homes for more sharing of meals… they treated me so very well. It was hard sometimes to receive the care and love that was all around me from Reeta and her family. Something I just haven’t been used to very much. Through them I also met some of their friends and some other people from hanging out on Assi Ghat.

It was a bittersweet departure. The love extended to me was at a level that I’m not used to on a regular basis from strangers and all I wanted to do was to receive that love graciously. It was hard to leave that kind of love no matter how hard it was to not feel like I had to reciprocate and didn’t have to… and at the same time it was time for me to leave Varanasi. I fell in love with India here in Varanasi because of all the people I came across and met during my time.

Here’s a few pics of my first day here in Rishikesh

16 Oct 2018

10-day Vipassana Course – Noble Silence – Insight

by | posted in: Personal Growth, Sabbatical, Spiritual | 0

I have wanted to take a 10-day vipassana course since a few friends told me about it a few years ago. Since I was traveling to India and a town called Sarnath, about 14km from Varanasi I found a place called Dhamma Chakka Meditation Center.

Here’s a bit of a description of what the process of Vipassana is like…

Vipassanā means “insight” in the ancient Pāli language of India. It is the essence of the teaching of the Buddha, the actual experience of the truths of which he spoke. The Buddha himself attained that experience by the practice of meditation, and therefore meditation is what he primarily taught. His words are records of his experiences in meditation, as well as detailed instructions on how to practice in order to reach the goal he had attained, the experience of truth.

If a technique exists that has been maintained for unknown generations, that offers the very results described by the Buddha, and if it conforms precisely to his instructions and elucidates points in them that have long seemed obscure, then that technique is surely worth investigating. Vipassana is such a method. It is a technique extraordinary in its simplicity, its lack of all dogma, and above all in the results it offers.

Vipassana meditation is taught in courses of ten days, open to anyone who sincerely wishes to learn the technique and who is fit to do so physically and mentally. During this time, participants remain within the area of the course site, having no contact with the outside world. They refrain from reading and writing, and suspend any religious or other practices, working exactly according to the instructions given. For the entire period of the course they follow a basic code of morality which includes celibacy and abstention from all intoxicants. They also maintain silence among themselves for the first nine days of the course, although they are free to discuss meditation problems with the teacher and material problems with the management.

The experience of ten days is likely to contain a number of surprises for the meditator. The first is that meditation is hard work! The popular idea that it is a kind of inactivity or relaxation is soon found to be a misconception. Continual application is needed to direct the mental processes consciously in a particular way. The instructions are to work with full effort yet without any tension, but until one learns how to do this, the exercise can be frustrating or even exhausting. Another surprise is that, to begin with, the insights gained by self-observation are not likely to be all pleasant and blissful. Normally we are very selective in our view of ourselves. When we look into a mirror we are careful to strike the most flattering pose, the most pleasing expression. In the same way we each have a mental image of ourselves which emphasizes admirable qualities, minimizes defects, and omits some sides of our character altogether. We see the image that we wish to see, not the reality. But Vipassana meditation is a technique for observing reality from every angle. Instead of a carefully edited self-image, the meditator confronts the whole uncensored truth. Certain aspects of it are bound to be hard to accept.

At times it may seem that instead of finding inner peace one has found nothing but agitation by meditating. Everything about the course may seem unworkable, unacceptable: the heavy timetable, the facilities, the discipline, the instructions and advice of the teacher, the technique itself.

Another surprise, however, is that the difficulties pass away. At a certain point meditators learn to make effortless efforts, to maintain a relaxed alertness, a detached involvement. Instead of struggling, they become engrossed in the practice. Now inadequacies of the facilities seem unimportant, the discipline becomes a helpful support, the hours pass quickly, unnoticed. The mind becomes as calm as a mountain lake at dawn, perfectly mirroring its surroundings and at the same time revealing its depths to those who look more closely. When this clarity comes, every moment is full of affirmation, beauty, and peace.

Thus the meditator discovers that the technique actually works. Each step in turn may seem an enormous leap, and yet one finds one can do it. At the end of ten days it becomes clear how long a journey it has been from the beginning of the course. The meditator has undergone a process analogous to a surgical operation, to lancing a pus-filled wound. Cutting open the lesion and pressing on it to remove the pus is painful, but unless this is done the wound can never heal. Once the pus is removed, one is free of it and of the suffering it caused, and can regain full health. Similarly, by passing through a ten-day course, the meditator relieves the mind of some of its tensions, and enjoys greater mental health.

As my Uber takes me through fields and fields of rice patties and I get to witness another way of impoverishment from the city of Varanasi I was coming from. I arrive at the center having no idea what to expect. The center is fenced in by 10ft high brick walls with barbed wire around it. I wasn’t sure if that was to keep me in or others out. <wink> After I get all signed in they show me to my room and I was ordered to surrender all my electronics, books, journal and mobile phone.

I get to my room and it wasn’t very clean and the bed was one step above sleeping on the floor, a thin hard mattress. At least I had clean sheets. I knew the Buddhist practices weren’t at all about comfort, so I made a point to settle in. I surrendered my electronics and all the other material that would distract me from what I’m here to be doing.

 

I take a walk around the place and it’s incredibly beautiful and an oasis compared to the outside world of rice patties and the dirt, dust and poverty of the local area. I’m surrounded by banana, papaya and mango trees, many varieties of huge hibiscus and other incredibly fragrant flowering trees and plants. Brick paved walkways lead to the meditation hall, dining hall and the pagoda. It didn’t register in my mind at the time that the center was intentionally set up this way for our own sensual pleasure because of some of the challenges we would be facing in our meditation.

As the other 60 people arrived and got checked in I realized I was the only person from the USA and one of four white skinned people. I’ve been completely in the minority the whole time I’ve been here in India and have been treated with love and respect.

We are given a little snack at 5pm and then the introduction to the course before we are put to bed to be woken at 4am. Here is the daily schedule….

4am – wakeup
430a-630a – meditation
630a – breakfast
7a-8a – rest/walking
8a-9a – group meditation
9a-11a – teaching and meditation
11a-1130a – lunch
1130a-1p – rest/walking
1p-215p – meditation
230p-330p – group meditation
330p-5pm – meditation
5p-6p – snack/rest/walking
6p-7p – group meditation
7pm – Discourse
830p-9p – meditation
9p – bedtime

I’ve been an avid meditator for years, meditating in the mornings for about an hour using various methods… but nothing like what I’m about to experience. I’ve come this far and made a commitment to do this… so I’m all in. I also know what kind of sitting position I need to be in to be “mostly” comfortable sitting on the floor and how to care for my back after a back injury many years ago. I spoke with the teacher and he gave me some extra cushions and a support seat after my first day was extremely hard for me to try to find a place where I could sit for about 10 hours a day like this. UGH… I know discomfort is supposed to happen, but how much? How am I supposed to care for my lower back after the injury and still be able to do this course?

NOT SAFE FOR WORRYING MOM’S TO READ THE NEXT PARAGRAPH… PLEASE STOP READING HERE…
FUCK! My back is killing me. I’m in tears a couple times and received some guidance from the teacher to continue to work hard. I did eventually find a more comfortable position while still experience the discomfort without compromising my lower back. Plus, when you get 60 people together to do this kind of work… someone has a cold/cough which gets passed around in the group. Especially when everyone’s bodies are in pain and are dealing with their misery. I’m listening to people coughing, sneezing, sniffling and of course I catch it too. I get a sore throat, mild cough/cold. Not bad enough to prevent me from sleeping but, just enough to make things a little more challenging.

After 3-4 days I’m final able to settle in to the technique and the discomfort I’m experiencing in my body becomes more manageable. Am I doing anything different? Not really… it’s just the time and learning the technique that has me become more relaxed in what I’m doing. Thank god… because I had moments the first couple days where I wanted to leave. After all, the past 2500 years when this technique has been taught has left people feeling free of their misery… I had to have some faith in the technique.

After the fourth day where the embodiment piece is introduced it was becoming clearer and clearer to me that this was a meditation technique that seemed to be a missing link in my life that I was looking for. Meditating on the sensations in my body, both the pleasant ones and the gross ones were allowing me to release the echoes from the past and find more peace in my life. I was amazed how the technique was working and was looking forward to the upcoming days of sitting even though it was still experiencing discomfort in my body. I learned that I didn’t have to sit for 2 hours straight and I could take a 5-10 min break each hour. And I had to change positions even though there was an intention that I wouldn’t change positions. I was settling into all of this really well.

As the course went on I experienced some blissful moments as I was feeling some things of my history dissolve in front of my eyes while I was experiencing pleasant and grossly unpleasant sensations in my body. The peacefulness was incredible. We also learned at the end of the course that sharing our peacefulness is another part of the process.

When the 10 days were over they gave us our electronics back and I was one of the last ones to get them. After all I experienced I was ambivalent about getting them back and being introduced into the world again. Since I wasn’t going to become a monk it was best to get myself back into the world.

This experience has been truly wonderful. I would recommend it to everyone. Something I will never forget. Now to keep up the practice even in my travels.

 

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