“A center of stillness surrounded by silence” July 29, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Uncategorized.Tags: 90 seconds, asana, Dag Hammerskjöld, Mahāsī Sayādaw, Markings, meditation, Nobel Peace Prize, Pauline Frederick, Philosophy, Religion, satipatthana, Theraveda Buddhism, United Nations, Värmärken, Vipassana, Waymarks, yoga
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“The more faithfully you listen to the voices within you, the better you will hear what is sounding inside.”
– quoted from Markings by Dag Hammerskjöld
Come into a comfortable seated position. You can sit on the floor, your bed, a chair, or a cushion. You can sit on a bench, a stool, or a rock. You can kneel on the floor, a cushion, or a prie-dieu. You can lie down if you must, but make sure you are in a comfortable and stable position, with your back long and your jaw and shoulders relaxed. Let one or both hands rest so that your belly can soften into your hands. Close your eyes, if that is comfortable to you, and do that 90-second thing.
Today, really pay attention to how the soft belly rises and falls and the breath enters and leaves your body. Today, notice the temporal nature of things – how, like your breath, everything begins and ends; changes. Notice how the inhale causes the exhale and how the exhale causes the inhale. Notice any suffering, discomfort, or dis-ease you may be experiencing; and note or name your mental, physical, and emotional experiences, but without commenting or creating a story around the experiences.
Just breathe, with awareness.
This is a specific kind of meditation, meditation that arouses mindfulness.
Vipassanā literally means “to see in a special way” and is often translated into English as “insight.” It is a meditation style/technique, within Theraveda Buddhism, that has also become a tradition (meaning there are people who practice vipassanā, but no other aspects of Buddhism). The original practice, which includes the practice of satipaţţhāna (which is often translated as the “foundation of mindfulness”) was popularized by Mahāsī Sayādaw, a Burmese Theraveda Buddhist monk born today in 1904.
Mahāsī Sayādaw became a novice at 12 years old, was ordained at age twenty, and earned his degree as a teacher of dhamma in 1941. Upon his ordination, he assumed the name Mahāsī Sayādaw U Sobhana. In his mid-30s, he began teaching the technique of vipassanā in his home village, which was named for a massive drum (known as Mahāsī). He was eventually asked, by the Prime Minister of Burma (in what is now Myanmar), to be a resident teacher in the capital and then to help establish meditation centers throughout Burma (Myanmar), Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand. By his late 60’s, Mahāsī Sayādaw had trained over 700,000 meditators and by his mid-70’s he was traveling to the West to lead meditation retreats. One of the places where he led retreats was the Insight Meditation Society (IMS), which is now one of the leading meditation centers in the United States.
“We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.”
– quoted from Markings by Dag Hammerskjöld
One of the great things about practicing vipassanā is that you can practice it anywhere. (You can even practice it standing or walking, even thought I didn’t include those options at the beginning.) You can even practice at the United Nations Headquarters in “A Room of Quiet” that was established and designed by a team lead by Dag Hammerskjöld (b. 1905).
“Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.”
– quoted from Markings by Dag Hammerskjöld
Born today in Sweden, exactly a year after Mahāsī Sayādaw, Hammerskjöld was the second Secretary General of the United Nations and the youngest person to ever hold the position. His second term was cut short when he was killed in an airplane as he traveled to the Congo to broker peace during the Congo Crisis. President John F. Kennedy called him “the greatest statesman of our century” and, he was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, he is the only person to be posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His journal, discovered after his death, was published as Värmärken (Markings, or Waymarks in English). The journal starts when Hammerskjöld was 20 years old and continues up until the month before his death.
Even though he thought the journalist who called him for a comment about his appointment to the UN was actually part of an April Fool’s joke, Hammerskjöld was pretty serious about peace. Peace on the inside and peace on the outside. That is why he was so dedicated the UN’s Meditation Room being “a room of quiet” for all, without the trappings or outward appearance of any particular faith, creed, or religious belief. He led an interfaith group of Christians, Jews, and Muslims who combined their physical and mental efforts as well as financial resources – and he was very hands on. He not only had a hand in the painting, sculpture, and architecture of the room, but also in the fact that there are benches instead of chairs. He even, quite literally, had a hand in the carpet that was laid on the floor and the color that was painted on the walls. He wrote in a letters and is quoted in interviews as saying that “This House” (which is how he referenced the UN) “should have one room dedicated to silence in the outward sense and stillness in the inner sense.” He indicated that this silence and stillness was something everyone carried within them and that his aim was “to create in this small room a place where the doors may be open to the infinite lands of thought and prayer.”
Go back to the beginning and do that 90-minute thing. This time, as you sit here and breathe here, noting your experience here, consider that all over the world there are people sitting and breathing, meditating and praying, opening to that same “center of stillness surrounded by silence” that you are opening to within yourself.
“The longest journey is the journey inwards.”
– quoted from Markings by Dag Hammerskjöld
“‘We want to bring back, in this room, the stillness which we have lost in our streets, and in our conference rooms, and to bring it back in a setting in which no noise would impinge on our imagination.’”
– Journalist Pauline Frederick quoting Dag Hammerskjöld (in an interview for the UN Oral History Collection dated June 20, 1986)
Please join me today (Wednesday, July 29th) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a meditative yoga practice on Zoom. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You will need to register for the 7:15 PM class if you have not already done so. Give yourself extra time to log in if you have not upgraded to Zoom 5.0. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below.
Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.
“Thou who art over us,
Thou who art one of us,
Thou who art –
Also within us,
May all see Thee – in me also,
May I prepare the way for Thee,
May I thank Thee for all that shall fall to my lot,
May I also not forget the needs of others,
Keep me in Thy love
As Thou wouldst that all should be kept in mine.
May everything in this my being be directed to Thy glory
And may I never despair.
For I am under Thy hand,
And in Thee is all power and goodness.
Give me a pure heart – that I may see Thee,
A humble heart – that I may hear Thee,
A heart of love – that I may serve Thee,
A heart of faith – that I may abide in Thee. Amen”
– prayer/meditation/poem from Markings by Dag Hammerskjöld
### PEACE IN, PEACE OUT ###
Deep Listening July 28, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Uncategorized.Tags: asana, Buddhism, Gina Sharpe, Guru Nanak, Japa-Ajapa, Japji Sahib, Kaur Khalsa, Macbeth, mantra, meditation, Psalms, Sikhism, Song of the Sould, stillness, Tehillim, truth, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare, yoga philosophy, yoga practice, Yoga Sutra
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“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
– Macbeth in Act V, Scene V of Macbeth by William Shakespeare
There is so much disinformation, misinformation, manipulated information, lack of information, and fakery in the world that it can seem hard sometimes to know the truth. We can spend an extraordinary amount of time sifting and searching through all the disinformation, misinformation, manipulated information, lack of information, and fakery in the world and, in the end, feel like the aforementioned Scottish king and the inspiration for a novel by William Faulkner. It’s frustrating. We may settle down for a moment and give up or we may rest awhile only to dive back in. But, really, those are two bad choices.
A third option is the oft overlooked option of being still, being quite, and turning inward instead of outward. Yes, every philosophy and major religion in the world emphasizes the importance of being dedicated to the truth. (This is the yamā or external restraint / universal commandment of satya in the 8-limb philosophy of yoga.) Every philosophy and major religion in the world also emphasizes that we carry the truth with us; it is inside of us. So, the key to seeking the truth isn’t turning outward, it is turning inward.
“Be still and know that I am God.”
– Tehillim – Psalms (46:11, in some Hebrew texts; 46:10 in Christian texts)
“…really pay attention to what’s happening internally…. Meditation is learning how to get so still, and so calm, tranquil, through the directing of the attention, to this present moment, that we begin to see really deeply…. And so we go more and more and more deeply into the nature of things, and when that happens, and reactivity ceases, then responsiveness arises.”
– Gina Sharpe, Suffering and the End of Suffering
Japji Sahib, known in English as The Song of the Soul, is an ancient Sikh text composed by Guru Nanak, the 15th Century founder of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. The text was originally published in 1604 and, as indicated by the name is intended to be chanted. Remember, when we do the 108 Sun Salutations I refer to it as japa-ajapa, which is “repeat and repeat” or “repeat and remember.” Jap also means “understand.” This is a form of meditation which is also recommended in the Yoga Sūtra (1:27 – 1:28) and it allows the mind to use the repetition as a path and gateway into stillness.
I say “a path and gateway” because there are steps. One doesn’t just mumble a few words a few times and find themselves instantly still and quiet. You first have to get through the place where your mind is trying to wrap itself around the fact that you are repeating the same thing, over and over. It has to sift through the object that is the word, the meaning of the word, and the fact that you are focused on the object and the meaning of the word. Then, you start to internalize the word and let go of some of the outside distractions. Finally, you reach a state of pure cognition where, possibly, you and the word are absorbed into each other – in other words, you are the word. A dedicated, uninterrupted practice (also recommended by Patanjali) is helpful in this practice; however, the most important element is trusting and listening.
“By trusting
What you hear
When you listen,
The Truth
Of your Inner
Consciousness
Will saturate your psyche
With wisdom
And deep understanding.
By trusting
What you hear
When you listen,
You shall dwell
In all mansions
Of learning.”
– quoted from Japji Sahib: The Song of the Soul by Guru Nanak (Translated by Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa)
“If you
Trust what you hear
When you listen,
Then you will know
What you see,
How to understand
And act.”
– quoted from Japji Sahib: The Song of the Soul by Guru Nanak (Translated by Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa)
Please join me today (Tuesday, July 28th) at 12 Noon or 7:15 PM for a virtual yoga practice on Zoom where we will listen deeply. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. Give yourself extra time to log in if you have not upgraded to Zoom 5.0. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below.
Tuesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. (Since the mantras that I typically use in class are not available, this is an instant replay of the playlist dated 04192020. It is actually two playlists and, if you can handle it, I recommend the “Music for 18 Musicians” – which can also be found without interruptions. Another option is to practice without music, which I also highly recommend.)
### LISTEN ###
Are You Sleeping? (Part I) July 27, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Uncategorized.Tags: asana, Christianity, Dana, faith, Finland, Islam, Naantali, National Sleepy Head Day, Savasana, Seven Sleepers, yoga practice
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“Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormezvous? Dormezvous? Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines! Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.”
– French nursery rhyme about a sleeping monk (“Brother John”)
“The great error in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor.”
– quoted from “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just want to go to sleep and wake up to find that all my work has been done. I especially feel that way when I am facing a massive amount of work, or a massive amount of mess. Yes, yes, sometimes I am ready to dig in, get to work, and do whatever needs to be done. Sometimes, I look forward to that feeling of accomplishment that comes with being able to check something off my list and see the direct results of my actions. But, sometimes, I want instant gratification. Sometimes, I don’t know where to begin; I just want it done.
The problem with that attitude, is that even when we are faced with a giant mess, there is something we a can (and must) do. We all have a role, a purpose, in cleaning up the giant mess. The only problem is that we may be overwhelmed by the mess. We may also be overwhelmed by the pressure to do something someone else has been charged to do. So, sometimes it is good to pause, breathe, and consider the one thing we can do? Even if it seems like a little inconsequential thing, once we identify it, we can consider how long we can do that thing and start doing it. We do “what we can, as much as we can, for as long as we can” – and we start to see change.
Or, we can go back to being a sleepyhead. Pretending that there’s not a mess or that it’s someone else’s responsibility to clean it up. The thing is things are still going to change. They just may or may not change in a way that is beneficial to us and our neighbors.
“And you would think them awake, while they were asleep. And We turned them to the right and to the left, while their dog stretched his forelegs at the entrance.”
– Sūrah Al-Kahf (18:18)
Being “sleepy” or being a sleepyhead gets a bad rap in the United States. It has been used a derogatory nickname and it makes us think of someone who is lazy and unproductive, someone who won’t get the job done. We think of Brother John, from the nursery rhyme, who overslept when he was supposed to ring the bell for people to pray. We think of Rip Van Winkle or “Sleepy” from the “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” We may even think about H. G. Wells’s The Sleeper Awakens. What we don’t think about is that when people in Naantali, Finland pick a “sleepyhead” today they usually pick someone whose work has benefited the city.
Today (July 27th) is National Sleepy Head Day in Finland. It’s a tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages and includes the belief that the person who sleeps the latest on this day will be lazy and unproductive throughout the year. At one time, the last person asleep would be awakened by someone throwing water on them or by throwing them into the lake or sea. Now, in Naantali, the person honored as the official “sleepyhead” gets carried on a gurney during an early morning parade and (very ceremoniously) dumped in the sea. People then spend the whole day and evening with music, food, and boats on the water. The next year, they will be at the head of the parade as someone else is dumped in the water. (As Finland has been able to reopen most businesses and has reopened to leisure travelers from certain areas, festivities are just winding down as I post and people will (eventually) be heading to bed for a good night sleep.)
Even though National Sleep Head Day is a public celebration, it has its roots in a religious story, the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
“Until today, we still read about the story of these young men. These young men weren’t prophets of Allah. They weren’t messengers of Allah. They didn’t receive revelation. No angels came to them with an army. These were a group of young men, simply by the strength of their [faith in the six articles of faith] and [God-consciousness] Allah [glorified and exalted be He] gave them an amazing miracle.”
– commentary on Sūrah Al-Kahf (19:9 – 26) quoted from “The People of the Cave”
God only knows how many sleepers there were or how long they slept – the Qur’an literally states that we can argue about the numbers, but only God knows – however, the basic story that is found in over 200 manuscripts, written in at least 9 medieval languages, dating between the 9th and 13 centuries is the same. Around 25 CE, a group of men, strangers bound only by their Christian faith, are faced with religious persecution or forced conversion under the rule of the Roman emperor Decius. They are given the opportunity to recant their faith and bow down to the Roman idols. Most versions of the story agree that even though they were wealthy and educated men, who would have retained some public power had they converted, the men decided they would rather give up all their worldly possessions and live in a cave than live under a pagan ruler. When the emperor realized that living in the cave wasn’t a deterrent, he ordered the cave sealed up.
The emperor died in 251 CE and things changed. Centuries passed, and more things changed. All the while, the sleepers slept. Oh, sure, people thought they were dead and they were the stuff of legends, but one day the cave was opened, the sun shone in, and they were awakened. The sleepers thought they had slept a day or half a day, but most version of the stories state that they had slept for 309 years. So much had changed that when one stepped out of the cave (to buy food for the group) he found that instead of living in a pagan land they were now living in a Christian land.
“I’m just here for Savasana.”
– t-shirts, hats, mugs, posters, etc.
Please join me on the virtual mat today (Monday, July 27th) at 5:30 PM for a 75-minute virtual yoga practice (which will end with Savasana).
This is a 75-minute Common Ground Meditation Center practice that, in the spirit of generosity (dana), is freely given and freely received. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below.
If you are able to support the center and its teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” my other practices, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible, class purchases are not necessarily.)
There is no playlist for the Common Ground practices.
### No Zzzzzs ###
Where the practice begins (and ends) July 25, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Uncategorized.Tags: Al-Qur'an, asana, Eithics of the Fathers, Pirkei Avot, Surah Al-Baqarah, Tao Te Ching, The Kite Runner, yamas, yoga philosophy, yoga practice, Yoga Sutra, Yoga Sutra 2.30
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“Theft is the one unforgivable sin, the one common denominator of all sins. When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no act more wretched then stealing.”
– Amir, remembering the lessons of his father, in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
“They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, ‘In them is great sin and [yet, some] benefit for people. But their sin is greater than their benefit.’ And they ask you what they should spend. Say, ‘The excess [beyond needs].’ Thus Allah makes clear to you the verses [of revelation] that you might give thought.”
– quoted from Surah Al-Baqarah (2:219), Al-Qur’an al-Kareem
We all have a moral code, an ethical compass, something that helps us navigate through life – ostensibly creating as little harm as possible. The vast majority of people are born with an instinctual “true north,” just like every other creature in the natural world, and it’s calibrated based on the ethical lessons we are given early in our lives. We are given these lessons – about right and wrong and about how to conduct ourselves in the world – at a very early age, regardless of who we are, where we were born and raised, what language we speak, and/or which aspects of the Divine we may or may not honor. We can call them lessons of the father and the mothers, but they are also lessons of the sisters and brothers, lessons of the elders, lessons of the peers. Sometimes we are given explicit instructions, other times we watch the way people conduct themselves around us. Eventually, we recognize them as laws. And, just like Amir in The Kite Runner, there are times when we check in our moral compass and think, “Yes, this makes sense, this feels right” or, “Ooo, wow, this doesn’t make sense, this feels off.”
If you grow up in a society associated with one of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islām) then you may think in terms of the commandments (10 or 613) or you think in terms of what is of benefit and what is forbidden (harām). If you grow up in a culturally Buddhist society, you may view things through the precepts. Still, when we get to a certain age, these lessons have been instilled in us and we take them with us wherever we go – even on the yoga mat.
Yoga Sūtra 2.30: ahimsāsatyāsteyabrahmcaryāparigrahā yamāh
– “Non-violence (or non-harming), truthfulness, non-stealing, walking in awareness of the highest reality, and non-possessiveness (or non-hording) are the restraints (or universal commandments).”
Even if you have never heard of or explored the 8-limb philosophy of yoga, even if you have never been taught that the practice begins with an ethical component, the five yamās, or external restraints, will sound familiar. Along with the five niyamās, or internal observations, the yamās provide a rubric for the practice – that is to say, they give the practitioner direction about how to conduct themselves and how to move through the practice. Even when they are not the explicit focus of the practice, the yamās and niyamās make up the foundation of the practice. If you are not practicing them, or not practicing some form of them, while you are practicing āsanas (poses), you are not practicing yoga. One can also say that if you are practicing them while engaged in something other than āsana, then you are practicing yoga.
“Rabbi [Judah HaNassi] would say: Which is the right path for man to choose for himself? Whatever is harmonious for the one who does it, and harmonious for mankind.
Be as careful with a minor mitzvah as with a major one, for you do not know the rewards of the mitzvot. Consider the cost of a mitzvah against its rewards, and the rewards of a transgression against its cost.
Contemplate three things, and you will not come to the hands of transgression: Know what is above from you: a seeing eye, a listening ear, and all your deeds being inscribed in a book.”
– quoted from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 2:1
Please join me for a 90-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Saturday, July 25th) at 12:00 PM. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. Give yourself extra time to log in if you have not upgraded to Zoom 5.0. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below.
Today’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. (This is the “Hays Code 2020” playlist dated March 31.)
“Talking about a path is not walking that path. Thinking about life is not living.”
– quoted from Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu (translation from A Path and a Practice: Using Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching as a Guide to an Awakened Spiritual Life by William Martin)
### WHAT ARE YOU PRACTICING? ###
Good advice July 22, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Uncategorized.add a comment
You know how you step on the mat (or sit on the cushion), all the distractions drop away, and you realize you forgot to “turn off the kettle?” Well, that just happened to me. I forgot to include my favorite Jitterbug Perfume quote, which is perfect advice for yogis! I’ve updated the original post, but here it is for all the email subscribers:
“Breathe properly. Stay curious. And eat your beets.”
— quoted from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
###
If only it was Taco Tuesday… July 22, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Uncategorized.Tags: Alex Guarnaschelli, Alex Trebek, asana, Bryan Kest, chalupa, David Chang, Duchess of Sussex, Edward Hopper, Emma Lazarus, Jitterbug Perfume, Meghan Markle, Seane Corn, taco, the perfect taco, Tom Robbins, tostado, yoga philosophy, yoga practice
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“I like it when a man puts thought into the kind of restaurant we’re going to. That doesn’t mean it needs to be fancy – some of the best meals of my life have been having a taco on a street corner.”
– Meghan Markle (now, Duchess of Sussex) quoted in an Esquire Magazine article dated Dec. 15, 2016
“I like to take a day off and enjoy fast food for what it is. I have to say that in New York I’m really partial about taco trucks. I mean I really can’t handle it. There is something about catching all those ingredients piled on top of each other it puts me in a tizzy. I love it. I’m kind of a taco truck junkie.”
– Alex Guarnaschelli (when asked if she eats fast food, TooFab 03/01/2011)
Imagine the perfect taco. “‘What is “The perfect taco?” Alex.’” What makes it perfect? Is it the outside? I mean, I know people who will throw down over hard shells versus soft. (And, just for the record, there’s no such thing as an “open-faced taco” – that’s a chalupa or a tostado, for goodness sake!)
So, maybe, what makes your perfect taco is what’s on the inside. Hmmm… given that everyone has different tastes, different needs, and desires, it seems that there could be a different taco for every person in the world (and two tacos per person on Tuesdays). The poet Emma Lazarus was born today in 1849, so think about what “all your huddled masses” have been seeking over the years. I once heard Bryan Kest say that there’s at least one version of a pose for every person in the world; he estimated 8 billion ways to do every pose. And, it turns out that practicing yoga is a lot like searching for “the perfect taco.”
“Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.”
– quoted from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
I’m not much for beer, but I’m a huge fan of a well-made taco and I’m a huge fan of Tom Robbins’s fourth novel, Jitterbug Perfume. Born today in 1932, in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, Robbins is a self-described “hillbilly” who grew up in a Baptist household, went to a military college prep school, studied journalism in college, enlisted in the Air Force, and spent a year as a meteorologist in Korea and two years in Nebraska before being discharged. He returned to Richmond, Virginia (where his family had moved during his early childhood) and started reading poetry in a coffee shop.
Robbins returned to school and also put his journalism degree to good use, while (occasionally) hitchhiking, researching a book on Jackson Pollack, and (eventually) hosting a weekly alternative radio show for KRAB-FM, Seattle. All the while, Tom Robbins was writing – searching for his perfect writing style, his voice. He found it and used it to write Another Roadside Attraction, a novel that you could theoretically say is “just” about a kind of wacky couple who open a hot dog stand. His first novel had all the elements you will find in most of his novels: wacky, bohemian characters; strong-willed women; animals; religion; existential philosophical musings; science; food (always food); and the occasional mythical character.
Jitterbug Perfume definitely has all of the elements described above and, to me, it is one the most visceral novels by Robbins. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and yet, when I look at “Nighthawks” by Edward Hooper (who was born today in 1882), I may feel a lot, but I smell very little. On the flip side, I can’t even think about Jitterbug Perfume without smelling it. I know, I know, you’re thinking well, of course, the word “perfume” is in the title and it’s all about perfumers trying to capture this magical essence. That’s the way the brain works.
Yeah, no. When I think of this particular novel, I’m thinking about another element that shows up in all of Tom Robbins’s work: s-e-x. And Pan.
“The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary.”
– quoted from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
As we’ve discussed before, suffering is a part of the human condition. We can say, as the Buddhist and Yoga philosophies instruct us, that suffering comes from attachment; however, what we are really saying is that suffering comes from desires. There are lots of different kind of desire, and they can lead to all different kinds of attachment (rooted in pleasure or rooted in pain); but Robbins suggests in Jitterbug Perfume that the desire itself isn’t the problem. Robbins suggests that maybe we suffer because “we do not desire wisely.” It’s an interesting thought – especially if you consider that we are psychologically and physiologically wired to desire, to want certain things and to not want other things.
Considering that there may be a better way to desire, makes me think of certain Buddhist and/or Yoga practices. For instance, shoshin is the Zen Buddhist practice of “beginners mind” and I often liken it to the niyama (internal observation in Yoga) santosha, which is the practice of contentment. Just as Robbins says (above) the practice focuses not on the idea that we are missing out on something but focuses instead on the fact that in this moment there is something, something extraordinary, something… perfect. In Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki explains that “in the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the experts mind there are few.” When we show up and practice shoshin and/or santosha we open ourselves up to find something perfect in the moment, be it the perfect scent, the perfect quantum physics equation, the perfect taco… or the perfect pose.
“If you lack the iron and the fuzz to take control of your own life, if you insist on leaving your fate to the gods, then the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don’t be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked. The dull and prosaic will be granted adventures that will dice their central nervous systems like an onion, romantic dreamers will end up in the rope yard. You may protest that it is too much to ask of an uneducated fifteen-year-old girl that she defy her family, her society, her weighty cultural and religious heritage in order to pursue a dream that she doesn’t really understand. Of course it is asking too much. The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.”
– quoted from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
Go back to the questions at the beginning of this post and think about them in terms of the “perfect” yoga pose. Even better, think about your pursuit of the perfect expression. Do you think about the inside first, or is your primary focus on the outside? Do you recognize that there are hundreds of thousands of elements, which translate into millions and billions of expressions? Do you recognize that there is no one way to do something and so, therefore, there can be billions of perfect poses? There is, however, an even more important question (inspired by one of my yoga teachers). Seane Corn said, “It’s not about the pose. It’s about the purpose. Be In Yours.” So, the better question as you seek your so-called perfect pose, is “What’s the purpose?”
When we get around to asking that question, we find that sometimes the perfect pose isn’t a taco at all… It’s a chalupa (or a tostado).
“When we accept small wonders, we qualify ourselves to imagine great wonders.”
– quoted from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
As a former meteorologist, Tom Robbins would be familiar with chaos theory (the idea that small changes in initial conditions can translate into big outcomes) and it’s those little things that make a difference, unexpected differences, in his stories. Those little changes can also make a difference in your yoga practice…and in your meal preparation.
In the TV show Ugly Delicious, David Chang says, “The dishes that we’re making… it’s about telling a story.” The practicing yoga is also about telling stories, it’s about your body and mind telling your story. It’s about finding your voice, your themes your ingredients, as Tom Robbins has done all his life, and then putting it out there. It is, also, about listening – really, truly, deeply listening to your own heart, your own soul, and your own story. If you really listen, you can also hear the stories around you. And, it is delicious (even when it smells a little ripe).
“He was becoming unstuck, he was sure of that – his bones were no longer wrapped in flesh but in clouds of dust, in hummingbirds, dragonflies, and luminous moths – but so perfect was his equilibrium that he felt no fear. He was vast, he was many, he was dynamic, he was eternal.”
– quoted from Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
Please join me today (Wednesday, July 22nd) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom, where will find your “breathe properly, stay curious, and [afterwards] eat your beets.” Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You will need to register for the 7:15 PM class if you have not already done so. Give yourself extra time to log in if you have not upgraded to Zoom 5.0. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below.
Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.
In case you were confused or missed it (above), only one of the Alex’s mentioned above is celebrating an 80th birthday today!
### WHAT’S YOUR PERFECT TACO? ###
“it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair” July 21, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Uncategorized.Tags: Books, Buchi Emecheta, Changing Perspectives, Dr. Lucille P. Fultz, Ernest Hemingway, Google Doodle, iceberg theory, inspiration, literature, theory of omission, Toni Morrison, truth, yoga practice
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“… she has, over time, changed her politics about race and gender differences. This Emersonian political shift — ‘Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again’ (McQuade 1 : 1148 ) – is one measure Morrison ‘ s developing sensibility as a woman and as an artist. Two examples immediately come to mind. In 1974, Morrison cautiously spoke of what she considered to be ‘a male consciousness’ and ‘a female consciousness’ as totally separate spheres. She then stated, ‘Black men – and this may be way off the wall because I haven’t had time to fully reflect about this – frequently are reacting to a lot more external pressures than Black women are. For one thing they have an enormous responsibility to be men.’ Morrison went on to reinforce her conviction: ‘All I am saying is that the root of a man’s sensibilities [is] different from a woman’s’ (Taylor-Guthrie 7). Morrison slightly modified this view when she spoke of her construction of Sula as a rebel, as a masculinized figure, and an equal partner in sexual relations in the 1920’s and 1930’s. She stated that Sula did not depict ‘as typical black woman at all’ (Septo, “Intimate Things” 219).”
– quoted from Toni Morrison: Playing with Difference by Lucille P. Fultz
This is a tale of two writers. Both born today – one in 1899, the other in 1944 – one was male, the other was female. One was White, the other was Black. We can get into nationalities later, but…. One won a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and a Nobel Prize in Literature, while the other was designated OBE. Both have foundations named after them. One you have studied, probably in high school, maybe in college (even if you weren’t a literature major) and one you may have never read (let alone studied – even if you studied literature). She was born on his 45th birthday, when he was in Germany (curiously attached to an infantry regiment and doing things that would eventually bring up charges against him by the Geneva Convention). Both are recognized as successful authors and both wrote from their own experiences. However, so far as I can tell, only one of them has (as of today) ever been featured as a Google Doodle. (Spoiler Alert: It’s not the one you’ll be thinking when their identities are revealed.)
Let’s start with the man – one, because he was born first and second, because he is considered to be the model of a man’s man. In fact, he made his living as an author writing about characters who are considered to be the epitome of masculinity (even when, as it sometimes was, very obviously toxic masculinity). He went to a public high school, in a major U. S. city, but did not attend college. He was married four times, traveled the world, fathered three children (all boys), and spent his 26th birthday starting his first novel – which would also be one of his most famous works. (I think) he smoked and he (definitely) drank for most of his life; however, his drinking became excessively excessive after a couple of plane crashes in Africa. He was devastated when his first wife lost a suitcase full of manuscripts and (towards the end of his life) super paranoid that the American government was keeping tabs on him. They were; the FBI had a file on him – in part because of his ties to Cuba. He received electroshock treatments/therapy at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and committed suicide, just like his father, sister, and brother (as well as one of his father-in-laws). He was 61. It’s possible that his paranoia and suicide were (in part) caused by the same thing that caused his father’s paranoia and suicide; they bother suffered from hereditary hemochromatosis, which causes the body to absorb too much iron and leads to physical as well as mental deterioration. He is often quoted as saying that in a man must do four things in his life (in order to be a man): plant a tree, fight a bull, write a novel, and father a son (although some have said “raise a son”).
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because this first author is Ernest “Papa” Hemingway. (He has not been featured as a Google Doodle – but he has been quoted in reference to Google Doodles for Josephine Baker and René Maran.) Hemingway started off as a journalist, who served in World War I (as a Red Cross ambulance driver, because the U. S. Army diagnosed him with bad eyesight), and somehow (see “curiously” note above) attached himself to a U. S. army infantry regiment during World War II. His work includes novels, novellas, short stories, non-fiction, articles, and published letters. He referred to his minimalist style of writing as “the iceberg theory” or “the theory of omission.”
“If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.”
– quoted from Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway
As I mentioned before, the woman also wrote about what she knew – of course, what she knew was very different. She wrote, for example, that “you are simply not allowed to commit suicide in peace, because everyone is responsible for the other person.” Her gender initially meant that she would be kept at home; however, she convinced her parents that there was a benefit to her going to school. She attended private primary school, earned a scholarship to a private secondary school, and eventually attended the University of London. However, she was also engaged by age 11, married and pregnant at 16 years old, and separated and pregnant with her fifth child by the age of 22. By all accounts, she not only gave birth, she also raised her children and managed to earn a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in Sociology by age 28 and a PhD by the time she was 47 years old. She received a second, honorary, doctorate from a second University a year later. Her marriage was unhappy, violent, and punctuated by her husband’s paranoia about her writing. He burned her first manuscript. She rewrote it, but five years passed in the interim. She worked as a library officer for the British Museum in London, as a youth worker and sociologist, and as a community worker – all while writing, publishing, and raising her children. Her writing eventually enabled her to travel around the world (including to the U. S.) as a guest professor and visiting lecturer. In addition to working a variety of cultural and literary organizations, she and one of her sons ran a publishing company (that printed some of her own work under her own imprint). She was made an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in 2005. She suffered a stroke in 2010 and died 7 years later. She was 72. She once said, “I work toward the liberation of women, but I’m not a feminist. I’m just a woman. My books are about survival, just like my own life.”
If none of this sounds familiar, you might be surprised that Buchi Emecheta was celebrated with a Google Doodle a year ago today (on what would have been her 75th birthday). She reportedly started writing as a way to deal with the troubles in her marriage and went on to write novels, children/YA books, plays, articles, and an autobiography. Her son Sylvester, who established a publishing company to ensure his mother’s work stays in print, said that Emecheta was the descendant of storytellers who passed down to him and his siblings the “Moonlight tales” that she learned from her aunts and father.
“Living entirely off writing is a precarious existence and money is always short, but with careful management and planning I found I could keep my head and those of my family, through God’s grace, above water.”
– Head Above Water by Buchi Emecheta
Ultimately, we are taught what someone has decided it is important for us to learn. We may not have any reason to question why we are taught one thing and not another, one author and not another. And, if we are not big readers, we are unlikely to read outside of our primary society’s canon. Maybe, as we get older, we turn to mass market fiction (or non-fiction) as a form of escapism. Maybe we turn to award winning literature – but we don’t really question why one author gets published but not the other, why one book makes the short list but not the other. Since many of us have grown up in society where we were encouraged to learn/do/teach (or see/do/teach) this means that we teach what we were taught – even if we are not teachers. Furthermore, as has happened recently, when we start to question and explore… we start with what (and who) we know – even if the authors we know are not experts in our latest field of study.
This paradox reminds me of Newton’s Laws of Motion (particularly, the law of inertia: an object in motion remains in motion, an object at rest remains at rest – unless something disrupts its condition). It also reminds me of college.
I studied English Literature at a major U. S. university. There had previously been some pretty prestigious guest professors over the years; however, when I started, in the late 1980’s, there were no African, African-American, Black British, or Black anything modules in literature. You might read a writer here or there in a 20th Century survey class, but you couldn’t (as I did with Russian literature) sit in what was essentially an oversized closet with a professor and three or four other students and learn about literature written from the perspective of the African diaspora. (Honestly, in college, I probably didn’t even know how to write a sentence like that – that’s how far African-American literature was outside of my wheelhouse!)
Dr. Lucille P. Fultz joined the faculty my senior year and, with some new awareness, I decided to take one of her classes. She had graduated from Spellman College (a historically black university for women) and completed her graduate degrees at the University of Iowa (which is known for its writers) and Emory University (which is just known). I remember her as my own personal stereotype of a Spellman woman: mature, petite, dark-skinned, natural, knowledgeable (in a seriously erudite way), well-spoken (but also soft-spoken), and dressed to the nines. In my head, she wore white gloves – but honestly, I think I made that up. I may also have made up the idea that she did not original study literature with the intention of teaching African-American literature. I say “I may have made up the idea” because she is now recognized as an authority on Toni Morrison (whose history as a writer/mom/publisher in some ways mirrors Emecheta’s history as a writer/mom/publisher) and she got me to read The Bluest Eye, which was quite possibly the only Toni Morrison book I had not read on my own.
My alma mater now has a history department with “a strong team dedicated to the history of Africa, the African diaspora, and African-American Studies” and a newly established Center for African and African American Studies. Curiously (and going back to the idea that we learn what we are taught and teach what we learn), two of the six members of that dedicated team are easily recognizable as people of color – and they are the only ones on the team who graduated (as undergrads) from the school where they now teach; one graduated just before me, the other attended after Dr. Fultz was firmly established at the university.
“Everyone’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”
– Ernest Hemingway
“[I write] stories of the world…[where]… women face the universal problems of poverty and oppression, and the longer they stay, no matter where they have come from originally, the more the problems become identical.”
– Buchi Emecheta
Hemingway wrote about war, sex, love, loyalty, fishing, bullfighting, and the feeling of being lost in the middle of an adventure. Emecheta wrote about sexual discrimination, racial prejudice, sex, love, changing nappies, being a single parent, and religion. They both wrote about culture clashes, their experiences in Africa, as well as about the roles and relationships between men and women, but much of what they wrote looks and feels very different – even when, occasionally, the wrote about the same situations. Take Africa, for instance. To Hemingway, the continent of Africa was an exotic land of (physical) danger and adventure. To Emecheta, Africa (and specifically Nigeria) was home and a land (socially and physically) dangerous in the way it marginalized women.
As I mentioned above, they had different ideas on suicide (even different ideas about why one might consider suicide) and they had very different ideas about education. In her autobiography, Emecheta wrote, “An uneducated person has little chance of happiness. He cannot enjoy reading, he cannot understand any complicated music, he does not know what to do with himself if he has no job. How many times have I heard my friends say, ‘ I want to leave my boring job because I want to write, because I want to catch up with goings on in the theatre, because I want to travel and because I want to be with my family.’ The uneducated man has no such choices. Once he has lost his boring job, he feels he’s lost his life. That is unfair.” On the flip side, Hemingway had significantly less (formal) education than Emecheta, struggled with depression, and stated that when he started writing his first novel, “Everybody my age had written a novel and I was still having a difficult time writing a paragraph.”
“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
– A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
“She, who only a few months previously would have accepted nothing but the best, had by now been conditioned to expect inferior things. She was now learning to suspect anything beautiful and pure. Those things were for the whites, not the blacks.”
– Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta
Please join me today (Tuesday, July 21st) at 12 Noon or 7:15 PM for a virtual yoga practice on Zoom featuring two different perspectives. Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. Give yourself extra time to log in if you have not upgraded to Zoom 5.0. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below.
Tuesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.
“If every one said orders were impossible to carry out when they were received where would you be? Where would we all be if you just said, ‘Impossible,’ when orders came?”
– For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
“Just keep trying and trying. If you have the determination and commitment, you will succeed.”
– Buchi Emecheta
### Everybody: PLANT A TREE ###
Compassion and Peace (when I Accuse You!) July 19, 2020
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Uncategorized.Tags: Alfred Dreyfus, Andrea M. Bain, anti-Semitism, avidya, compassion, compassionate abiding, Emile Zola, J'Accuse!, L'Affaire, loving-kindness, Nelson Mandela, Pema Chodron, Racism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Shenpa & The Practice of Getting Unhooked, Suffering, truth, yoga philosophy, yoga practice
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“And now the image of [our country] is sullied by this filth, and history shall record that it was under your presidency that this crime against society was committed.
At the root of it all is one evil man. … Nobody would ever believe the experiments to which he subjected the unfortunate….
… what a cesspool of folly and foolishness, what preposterous fantasies, what corrupt police tactics, what inquisitorial, tyrannical practices! What petty whims of a few higher-ups trampling the nation under their boots, ramming back down their throats the people’s cries for truth and justice, with the travesty of state security as a pretext.”
– from “J’Accuse” by Emile Zola, published in L’Aurore on January 13, 1898
J’Accuse! I accuse you! Yes, you! This is all your fault!!!
Loudly, publicly, and bluntly, I accuse you of doing something heinous. Before we get into the details of the accusation, pause for a moment. Consider how you are feeling. Don’t be surprised if you are feeling a tightening; maybe an immediate impulse to do something to defend yourself; maybe – before we even get into the details – you are already spinning the story, as if you know what I’m going to say. Even though this is a safe place (and you probably do know what I’m doing here: i.e., giving you a container in which to practice), you may already be feeling the bite of the hook. Shenpa; it’s the Tibetan word that American Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön translates as hook, urge, impulse, charge, or attachment. She points out that while it is usually involuntary “it gets right to the root of why we suffer.”
When you feel it, even a little bit, you are feeling the “urge” or “impulse” to do something to defend/protect yourself… or, at least, defend/protect the afflicted thought that is your false sense of self. Remember, that while this may feel, physiologically, as if someone is threatening you with bodily harm – and while your body will react accordingly – shenpa in this context is not related to physical harm. It is related to suffering and, therefore, Recognizing what you are feeling (and why you are feeling it) is the first “R” in the practice of getting “unhooked.”
“At the subtlest level, we feel a tightening, a tensing, a sense of closing down. Then we feel a sense of withdrawing, not wanting to be where we are. That’s the hooked quality. That tight feeling has the power to hook us into self-denigration, blame, anger, jealousy and other emotions which lead to words and actions that end up poisoning us.”
– quoted from “How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked” by Pema Chödön (published by Lion’s Roar, 12/26/2017)
“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
– Nelson Mandela
We are living in a time when a lot of people are getting “hooked” by a large number of things. One thing in particular that stands out is people experiencing shenpa because of loud, public, and blunt accusations. The accusations are all related to what in the yoga philosophy would be called avidyā (ignorance) and all four of the other afflicted or dysfunctional thought patterns. The loudest of the accusations comes in the form of one of several words: racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamaphobic, or xenophobic. And, let’s be honest, if someone uses the right “mean” word, they don’t have to do it loudly (or publicly) for the accused to feel the bite of the hook. Furthermore, this shenpa-related reaction is so prevalent right now that we don’t have to turn on the news, read about it, or look online to see someone experiencing this particular form of suffering: all we have to do is look in the mirror.
Just to clarify, the suffering to which I refer – the suffering that comes from this particular type of ignorance – is not the suffering of the person who is doing the accusing. Yes, there is suffering when someone is subjected to another person’s hatred and small thinking (and yes, it is related to this same kind of dysfunctional/afflicted thinking), but that’s not the point of today’s practice. Today is more about the suffering of the accused.
Wait, what?
I know, I know, some of you are thinking I’m sleep deprived again – but stick with me.
“Shenpa thrives on the underlying insecurity of living in a world that is always changing.”
– quoted from “How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked” by Pema Chödön (published by Lion’s Roar, 12/26/2017)
For further clarification, let’s talk about a former housemate of mine. This person is a person of color (really, a member of more than one ethnic minority group) and held a position of power within a certain organization. They are also male-presenting and, let’s get real, there’s some power in that. At one point while we were living together, my former housemate was accused of being racist and sexist. Now, he was troubled by this for a number of reasons – not the least of which was that (a) as a minority he felt like he couldn’t be racist, (b) he adored and respected women, and (c) he had personally been the victim of a lot of different kinds of racism. Being accused of such a thing is hard on its on, it’s harder when you know how it feels to have that hatred directed at you.
Part of what makes it hard to be accused of being {fill in the blank} is that for many of us the idea of holding a negative and/or stereotypical view of someone because of something they can’t change goes against who we think we are at our core. We reject the very notion that we could hold views that have been described as “unmitigated evil.” Additionally, even if we think there’s nothing wrong with our view, we recognize that such views and the behavior associated with them are not socially acceptable. So, even if we think we’re right, it’s embarrassing to be accused of something that the populace views as wrong.
It all comes down to perception. As I told my housemate at the time, as soon as someone says something is racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamaphobic, or xenophobic – it is. Full stop. The urge to argue about it is coming from being “hooked” and generates an endless (and, I’d argue, useless) cycle of suffering. Practice the second and third “R’s”: Refrain, Relax. We don’t solve anything by denying what is real in the moment. Our denial, however, is part of what is real and may prevent us from getting to the root of the problem: avidyā.
“I call it, it’s ‘dog-whistle racism.’ It’s something that, everybody could be in the same room as you, but you’re the only person who’s hearing it. And it’s loud and clear to you, as to the reason why you’re being treated this way or not allowed to come here; or being asked for your ID, several times; asked why you’re here; told to go sit somewhere else, even though you’re with a group of people – they don’t see you as part of that group. It happens a lot.”
– Canadian author and CTV news anchor Andrea M. Bain, appearing on ET Canada (07/16/2020)
There are very few, if any, modern (First World) societies that were not built on a foundation of ignorance. Here in the United States, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are – in many ways – the very bedrock of our civilization. (Are you tightening up over these statements? Take a deep breath. Sigh it out. Repeat and then read on.)
To me, a woman of color (from the South, no less), everyone in this country has been socialized to be have ignorant thoughts (be they racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamaphobic, xenophobic, ageist, and/or ableist. Yes, everyone! To turn away from this is to turn away from the opportunity to fix the problems that result in racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamaphobic, xenophobic, ageist, and/or ableist behavior. Let’s be clear here, we may not (at this stage) be able to change our thoughts, but we can in this moment change our words and deeds/actions by paying attention to our thoughts. An accusation brings awareness to what’s real in this moment. It’s an engraved invitation to practice. Yes, it is a really stressful, awkward, and horrible invitation, but it’s still an invitation.
By accepting the invitation, we accept the opportunity to make real change. Bringing awareness to what’s going on in our minds (consciously, unconsciously, and subconsciously) gives us the opportunity to decide how we want to engage the world and the people in the world. In other words, pausing for a moment to recognize what is happening in this moment allows us to move forward with the final “R,” Resolve. It gives us the opportunity to internally declare, “I just had a racist thought, but I’m not going to follow that up with straight-up racist behavior. I’m not going to be racist today. I’m going to be {fill in the blank}.”
Here’s the thing though: You only get to fill in the blank if you let go of the impulse to defend yourself against the accusation. You only get to fill in the blank if you let go of the attachment you have to believing you are something you like when someone is accusing you of being something you dislike. You only get to fill in the blank if you allow your “false sense of ego” to die. Yes, you have to let go of you think you are. All of that is to say, you only get to fill in the blank if you let go of your avidyā.
“If we can see shenpa just as we’re starting to close down, when we feel the tightening, there’s the possibility of catching the urge to do the habitual thing, and not doing it. Without meditation practice, this is almost impossible to do. Generally speaking, we don’t catch the tightening until we’ve indulged the urge to scratch our itch in some habitual way. And unless we equate refraining with loving-kindness and friendliness towards ourselves, refraining feels like putting on a straitjacket. We struggle against it. The Tibetan word for renunciation is shenlok, which means turning shenpa upside-down, shaking it up. When we feel the tightening, somehow we have to know how to open up the space without getting hooked into our habitual pattern.”
– quoted from “How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked” by Pema Chödön (published by Lion’s Roar, 12/26/2017)
“As they have dared, so shall I dare. Dare to tell the truth, as I have pledged to tell it, in full, since the normal channels of justice have failed to do so. My duty is to speak out; I do not wish to be an accomplice in this travesty. My nights would otherwise be haunted by the spectre of the innocent man, far away, suffering the most horrible of tortures for a crime he did not commit.”
– from “J’Accuse” by Emile Zola, published in L’Aurore on January 13, 1898
Today in 1898, the novelist and essayist Emile Zola fled France after being found guilty of libel in a case associated with the “Dreyfus Affair.” The libel case and subsequent conviction were based on an open letter in which Zola accused the army, the government, and even the court system of illegally arresting and convicting Captain Alfred Dreyfus of espionage and treason. Dreyfus was a French artillery officer, who was also Jewish, and there was no indication (or evidence) that he committed the crimes in question. In fact, two years after Dreyfus was court martialed and imprisoned for crimes he did not commit, evidence proved that the real culprit was a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. Esterhazy was tried, found “not guilty” of conspiring with the Germans, and allowed to retire in 1898, with the rank of Major. Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, who brought forward the evidence against Esterhazy, was transferred to Tunisia. Once he was out of the country, military officials portrayed Picquart as anti-Semitic. Meanwhile, military officials manufactured evidence against Dreyfus (and convicted him a second time) – and all of this was leaked to the press.
While historians still debate why Dreyfus was arrested, framed, and convicted, everyone agrees that he was innocent. This is not revisionist history. His innocence was firmly established at the time – which is why Zola, a noted writer of the time, was so outraged. Knowing the power of his words and the power of his reputation, Zola penned a 4,500-word article which was published on the front page of L’Aurore. The headline, above the fold, read “J’Accuse…!” and almost 300,000 copies were distributed (on January 13, 1898). That was 10x the normal distribution. The open letter was a detailed timeline of “L’Affaire.” It included names of officials, accused them of anti-Semitism, and provided explicit details to back up the accusations. Zola wanted to “hook” the government and force them to sue him for libel so that all of the evidence from the secret court martial cases would be made public. Additionally, Zola’s letter further incensed the French public, which became even more outraged by Zola’s trial and conviction. His sentencing did not go well, as it turned the already volatile populace further against the military. As Zola fled, more publications took up the fight, the world started watching, and the citizens of France began what many consider major social reformation. They took a look at themselves and the reality of what they were versus what they professed to be: a Catholic nation or a republic where all citizens had equal rights regardless of religion.
“The government of the Republic has given me back my freedom. It is nothing for me without my honor.”
– Alfred Dreyfus, after accepting a Presidential pardon
Dreyfus was offered a Presidential pardon in 1899, which he accepted; however, he was still considered a traitor to France and spent several years under house-arrest. It would be 1906 before he was officially exonerated by a military commission, readmitted to the army and promoted to major, and then named to Knight of the Legion of Honor. He retired within a year, but returned to the army at the beginning of World War I. He would eventually be promoted to lieutenant colonel and be awarded the rank of “Officer” within the Legion of Honor. When he died in 1935, he was given full military honors – plus a little extra pomp and circumstance since his funeral procession occurred during Bastille Day. His tombstone inscription is in Hebrew and English, and only refers to his unfaltering service to France.
Zola returned to France after the French government collapsed, but would die of carbon monoxide poisoning in 1902. In 1908, during a ceremony to honor Zola by interring his ashes at the Panthéon, a right-wing reporter would attempt to assassinate Dreyfus. In 1953, a roofer admitted, in a death-bed confession, that he had murdered Zola by initially blocking the chimney. Years after the fact, there were still people getting “hooked.”
“Working with shenpa softens us up. Once we see how we get hooked and how we get swept along by the momentum, there’s no way to be arrogant. The trick is to keep seeing. Don’t let the softening and humility turn into self-denigration. That’s just another hook. Because we’ve been strengthening the whole habituated situation for a long, long time, we can’t expect to undo it overnight. It’s not a one-shot deal. It takes loving-kindness to recognize; it takes practice to refrain; it takes willingness to relax; it takes determination to keep training this way. It helps to remember that we may experience two billion kinds of itches and seven quadrillion types of scratching, but there is really only one root shenpa—ego-clinging. We experience it as tightening and self-absorption. It has degrees of intensity. The branch shenpas are all our different styles of scratching that itch.”
– quoted from “How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked” by Pema Chödön (published by Lion’s Roar, 12/26/2017)
Please join me for a compassionate 65-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Sunday, July 19th) at 2:30 PM. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. PLEASE NOTE: Zoom 5.0 is in effect. If you have not upgraded, you will need to give yourself extra time to log into Zoom. You can always request an audio recording of this practice (or any practice) via email or a comment below.
Today’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify.
“Your actions speak so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
A Joyful Practice 