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 Exploring the Integral World

Combining physical practices with the integral modules of linier development, I find, helps us become at one with our divine nature…

In the integrative world of our post, post modern masters we have learned that the master is in, at home and peaceful in the moment ....

 Speech as a tool for unfolding.

 Announcing, we are divine, helps us to focus and pronounce what is true, beautiful and good. We can feel the result of committing to the sacred as we feel the long breath enter, bringing ease and enjoyment. Love is another truth that is all-pervasive and also likes to be said. The real enjoys our expressing such words as love, happiness, everlasting light. Putting words into motion enlivens the space around us  As we pronounce words like; ever-present oneness, happy days and oh boy, our own awareness can feel the truth of the statements. As we feel love with the one and the many, our internal, contemplative and intuitive world softens with breath. Combining sound while clapping our hands with an uplifted feeling in our heart and you have the mother of all processes, I find.

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Below are some writings of Monica's from her Journal.

10/04/94

YOUNG ANCIENT
Oh now I understand those ancients, now that they are dead!
I wonder if we could be the young ancient without killing it — just be it.

REFLECTION
When you look into the mirror
Do not look into it with the eyes of collected wisdom.
Look into it with young eyes.


FOOL’S GOLD
One has so much vested interest tied up in matter, energy, space and time — so many memories, so many shattered dreams; so much melancholia and cholera, bloodied field and phlegm clogged streams; so many definitions, beliefs, options; so much structured intelligence such as languages, sciences, arts, laws of social and religious origin, philosophies, literature, legends; ceremonies of empowerment bestowed on you by the God of your choice, initiations into cults, clans, sects, secret societies of family creation that pepper the world with the emotionally unstable medicine drawn from the wild seesaw of hopes and fears. Dreaming of another day, we live this one in a craze of pride and panic jumping up and down like a puppet on a string.
Yes, we are tied to both ends of the seesaw of hope and fear, constantly missing this day’s delights with a scornful shrug that casts away the light, claiming it to be just too ordinary, too mundane. So, being soldiers of fortune, we drag ourselves along, burdened down by our armor of dreams, our vision impaired by the clouds of a planned life.
What is there to give up? This is just a practice run. We haven’t even begun to live. We are too ill prepared for flight.

CLARITY
When engaging in the practice of mindfulness many of us tend to confuse clear intention by placing a dichotomic value on the intention, such as: “Intending to be a ‘good’ mindfulness practitioner.”
This ‘good’ brings with it the instability of emotions and actually casts a shadow over clear (or bare) intention. The shadow is belief in a permanent self (or practitioner) who is going to become better and better at the practice. It’s the old habitual encouragement of: “Every day in every way I am getting better and better.” The actual practice is clouded by emotional ambition if one puts a ‘good’ or a ‘better’ with the intention.
Intending to be aware of knowing a long breath in, a long breath out; a short breath in, a short breath out, is bare attention, where if one is intending to be a good boy or girl (or student) being aware of knowing a long breath in, a long breath out, a short breath in, a short breath out, the intention has subtly changed to being good at the practice and receiving accolades or merits for doing it rather than just being in the now movement, such as: “Intending to being aware of the breath entering and leaving the bodily process.” This intention is clear in that it introduces no self who is expecting reward or punishment for the time given to the mindfulness practice. Clear intention (naked) is all that is required — no promises of goodness or threats of badness to throw a cloud over the moment. The dichotomic seesaw only gives rise to unstable emotions.
Clear intention (naked) is all that is required.

GIVE UP
Letting go — out of the ashes of the moment a fresh moment is born.
 

Recognize the divinity in you and share that experience with all. ~~~Baba

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12/5/07

 
  Hiding in this cage

By Kabir
(15th Century)

 English version by Sushil Rao

 
hiding in this cage

of visible matter 
 

is the invisible

lifebird

pay attention

to her

she is singing

your song

-- from "Beloved May I Enter: Kabir Dohas and Other Poems," translations by Sushil Rao

~~~~~~~

"Sing Your Own Song"

"Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable."
-- Brenda Ueland

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   IMMUNE SYSTEM

Our immune system uses the motion of breathing as an exotic detector of Love, the call to home, paradise  and the high lands. We need just breath and the master within moves us towards grace. Identifying with our breath, which has no name, keeps the qualities of grace and dignity as wave lengths of light that flow out. The external sparkle of divinities magic, shows itself and we are amused.

Laughter, certainly is a loved sort of experience when it comes naturally and lightens the burden of all around. We laugh when we see the ironic qualities of belief systems at play. Laughter also moves the whole upper body and can act as an internal massage that releases held energy. Working with our breath also creates motion that both exercises our muscular system and establishes awareness in the immediate.

An informal mindfulness practice can help us develop wisdom and compassion as we grow our understanding of that which is true, good and beautiful. As we ground our experience with formal practices of meditation the every day experience becomes richer. When the formal and the informal merge being awake is ordinary and at the same time extraordinary. The rich quality of what we experience is a constant teacher for our intuitive nature. The complexities of seeing as we work through all the nonsense strengthens our will to be at rest.

 The benefits of feeling the ‘long breath’, as used in the sutras on mindfulness, is that it raises and opens our body from the inside, moving us towards alignment with our 3 in one nature. As we experience a long breath coming in we can feel our upper body expand and fill all around. Then on the out breath there is contraction of our body preparing for the next in breath or long breath. With this repeated cycle we come to appreciate what is given in each moment by the real, rough and rugged, yet gentle and loving are the moment to moment rhythms of nature. We can embrace and adore the external for all its shine. The challenges of the physical are met with love as we see the dream like aspects of the game. As Baba says “Life is a game play it” he encourages us to be uplifted and sharing as we journey with our own intuitive excellences manifesting inner visions.

 "After enough mirror gazing, we all develop our 'cosmic sense of humor.' We no longer try to be perfect, or try to get all our work done in time. We become content with whatever life brings. Just to deal with what comes up without crucifying ourselves or others is enough of a challenge."

-- Paul Ferrini   

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06/01/2007

A plantain tree has a number of uses. The leaf can be used as a dinner plate, the flower is used in some recipes, the outer covering of the trunk can be used a good binding and packing string; but the main use of the tree is the bunch of bananas it yields. All the trouble that is taken for planting and growing the plantain tree is for its bananas, not its leaves, bark or flowers. So too, the main use of the human body is the realization of the Reality.   The rest is all incidental.

         Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 7, pg. 442.

Sai Baba gives us assurance that growing our awareness of the human body is a path factor. As we learn about Breathing and Alignment we are giving our attention to ‘the reality’. The good news is we can do anything physical and expand our awareness of our body, breath and alignment. As breath is brought in to the body it acts as a light, expanding and exposing the internal sore points or areas of conflicting emotions. As we continue to calmly breathe in and expand the body open we create more light and room to accommodate the Real. The real being the domain of love, forgiveness, kindness, and joy, helps us consider our body as sacred and a temple of light. A temple of what is good true and beautiful which thrives in the joy of living.

Realization, recognition, growth are activities we do as we breath in the prana energy that expands and informs us. Living and opening our body, as Sai Baba confirms, becomes our grounding and stabilizing force as we go through the day. Try the session below to examine how directly connected we are with the breath.

BREATHING SESSION

In this session we can feel the breathing action of bringing in breath and expanding our upper body. Space is created and our internal spaces feel fuller. Maintaining fuller breaths aligns our forces of nature. Our awareness expands out and we are cast into the world of the real. In the world of the real, love acts as a salve for our physical experience.  When crunch time comes we need just grab some prana and poof, away flies the dilemma as love fills spaces within.

Nature’s warriors rely on breath for strength, focus, grounding and kosmic energy intunement. Being with the breath as you sing and dance along the great white way, is nature’s way of respectfully evolving.  As a spontaneous child you allow your body to animate as it wishes, this may surprise you as you allow your body to make gestures of excitement and joy or allow energy explosions to arise and shake off doubt. Trust in breath to tell you what is good true and beautiful.  

 LOVE-ALL

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Spiritual endeavour must aim at individual illumination, social betterment and the divinization of the human community. ~~~Sai Baba~~~
 

Individual illumination, how sweet is this nectar from the sweet heart of our being, a request that we center our attention at home where the heart is and surrender to the breath of our being. The big cat purrs and blinks her eyes, in love with the blessings, ever-present shining in our eyes.

Social betterment, where the I becomes we. Happiness for the community can be the highest honor we give to each other as we welcome in the kosmic troubadours.

Divinization of the human community. Wow, the evidence suggests that we are Divine. Languaging divinity is the hearts song, the song we love to sing. Love songs of peace, grace, dignity, ethical outcomes and all the other goodies that makes our ‘eyes light up and our stomachs say howdy’.*

*(from song by the Andrew Sisters, Shoe Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy. 1940’s

02/19/2007
   

Awakening the Inner Child

“Destroy your ego; you have no need to seek liberation; you will be liberation itself”. – Sri Sai Baba
~~~

We can do this process as we read the following session for uncovering the inner child.

As you are sitting, position your self with breath and feel the sitting position that makes you feel erect; sitting on the sit bones, spine erect, and chin relaxed down toward the collar bone. Sitting and breathing this way we can feel the supportive action of the breath as we use breath to expand the rib cage up and open. Do this for 5 minutes or longer if you wish. Allowing all the joints of the body to relax and feel the breath.

After exploring this awareness of the body and breath allow your feet to swing forward off the ground and hang in place. Now allow them to move freely up and down and notice how child like this feels. If we allow the feet to relax, especially in the ankle joint, and shake we are releasing energy that has been constrained by ABS (adult behavior syndrome) or holding our legs still. Allowing your legs to move in anyway they want to move, turn over your body to a higher intelligence; the baby within. Focusing on alignment and relaxation we can surrender to our body and allow it to move as it wishes.

This is something we can play with all day long as we enter in to the body with breath and opening.

Sound

Awakening the child within using sound also works in this discovery process. The baby makes fun sounds as he/she explores all the possibilities. If we combine motion and sound then we have the fast track to resonating with a baby like feeling that arises as motion shakes off ABS. allowing the unfettered sound and motion of being open to what ever comes across the screen of our awareness.

As you are doing the session above allow sound to come out on the exhale. Any sound to start, because repetition will start to produce many sounds that are child like.

Suggested sounds to play with are; Ba-Ba or MaMa, DaDa and the ever popular NoNo. A short story is appropriate for getting an idea of making child like sounds.

I was giving a 45 minute presentation to children involved with acting and singing at Priscilla Beach Theater. The class was informed about what we will be working with for freeing and opening sound. The children’s ages ranged from 11 to around 7 and there were 8 children to participate.

After saying hello and inspecting the very shy children whose bodies for the most part displayed a timidity that was obviously because of the adult (me) in the room. I asked the children to take a deep breath and on the out breath make an ‘ah’ sound. They followed the instructions but all I got was a timed murmur. So we tried again a slight improvement even though I was suggesting louder. The theory here is making any sound to help open sound itself.

After many attempts with different words and sounds I flashed on No-No as a sound that we might explore. I said ok now I would like everybody to say the word No-No and lets see were it goes. They took in a deep breath, and before I had the time to be pleased they start yelling NoNo repetitively without an ounce of hesitation. This opened doors for further sounds and a feeling of playfulness.

Note: There are no wrong or right positions for sitting, how ever knowing the feeling of being aligned with breath will keep us from developing stress and tensions. Sitting in any position accompanied with breath and awareness of the space around the body you will naturally seek what is comfortable while sitting. Adding motion and sound some times brings us to a playful feeling of discovering the ‘Child within’.

“Be your own guru; your own teacher, you have the lamp within you. Light it and march on without fear.” Sri Sai Baba

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February 19, 2007

You are the Body

“To begin philosophy by considering perception makes it seem that living things can contact reality only through perception. But plants are in contact with reality. They are interactions, quite without perception. Our own living bodies also are interactions with their environments, and that is not lost just because ours also have perception. On the contrary, for us that functions in many additional ways. Animal bodies - including ours - sense themselves, and thereby we sense the interactional living we are. In sensing themselves, our bodies sense our physical environment and our human situations. The perception of colors, smells, and sounds is only a small part of this.”
Eugene Gendlin

You are not the body is a phrase I have had a lot of trouble digesting for at least 45 years. The statement; ‘you are not the body’, to my way of thinking, can create separation in our intelligences by suggesting that our soul is ‘more important then our body. I have found within the same field of higher thought the expression of unity with everything is the order of the day, I agree. I like being unified with everything.

The Logic of being and not being the body bumps into the knowledge that you are the everything. This may cause a slight separation of the logical centers where we house a blend of both the intuitive intelligence, as well as our kinetic intelligence. Today we can thank our lucky stars we have arrived with a body that has the wisdom of great minds, both past and present, to bring order to the chaos of human life.

The timely wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh encourages us to breathe and be aware as we animate our form through time and space. Dancing (moving) through time and space is an art form developed by trusting our seven intelligences. We gravitate towards what is music for the soul and resonate with what is good, true and beautiful. In this fashion we cultivate and co-create a future that honors the forms of our multi-dimensional wisdoms. Trusting our internal form and our external world to grow and transform misunderstandings to a perspective of grace, love and kindness. Sounds good to me!

“The body's interactional intentionality must not be read as something only latent, only the prior work of a pre-linguistic, pre-cultural body. Rather, the body's interactional intentionality must be understood as always still with us, now. In sensing itself the body functions as our sense of each situation. It would be a gigantic omission to miss this role of the body's self-sentience, and to try to constitute the world out of percepts of the five senses.”
Ibid.

The state of brilliance, grace and dignity feel phenomenal when they visit and at the same time are familiar and reassuring to us. Obviously, in the past this state was present but somehow we get pulled into states of self isolation. Working with breath, as we access the mental landscape, is helpful because, the body senses what is true, universally good, and beautiful.

Being tuned to how we feel and trusting our senses to direct us in an ascending way, is so useful. I thought how awkward and baffled I was as a result of being schooled in the gibberish of 1940’s monologues that are passed on as the wisdom for getting along in the world. Oh! Were I awakened by an awakened one early, when all the value lines are open for growth, I would have created less samsaric interplay and more value in my sphere of influence. Be that as it may, Now is fine for feeling the gifts of all that awakens ahead.

“Both Heidegger and Sartre follow Kant in saying that, properly speaking there is no knowledge other than intuitive; and I agree”.

 “Unlike the hindus and the Mahayanists, the Pali Suttas teach the variety of the world is neither illusion (maya) nor delusion (avidya) but perfectly real.

Nanavira Thera  --- from ‘The Tragic, The Comic and The Personal. Buddhist Publication Society, Wheel Publication # 339/341. Pg. 78 & 39.

~~~~~~~~~

February 13, 2007

Brilliance

Everything around us is of the brilliance shining all around us 
We are the ongoing brilliance of time and space.
Surrender to the brilliance and shine
a smile of existence.

Self surrenders to the open space of the breath opening doors of perception of the brilliance. Allowing brilliance to perform the very miracle that we are, like a wash of breath, seeking the open spaces inside our body, raising the form of our machinations to lighter wave lengths. ’Spacing out’ as they say back at the club.

Each moment is of the brilliance with body, perception, time and space. Warping space energy, full-filling our mystic body with ice cream. A youthful reference creates a smile as we always smile at the new arrivals. Reminders of purity of spirit without lies, bless the children who bring fresh eyes for us.
 
Brilliance, always brilliant are love waves washing the shores of our soul.
Higher, up further, sky-high, beyond, empty, naked, maxed, expanded, space time continuum, kaleidoscopic spectrums of kosmic energy dancing in the streets.

Love is a mystery arriving as a kosmic infusion of what is true and beautiful.
With each breath it grows by leaps and bounds. Soft warm words spring into action
softening the blows of ignorrence.

Silence is free of words
Pretending to be of importance.
Non-existent existence dances anyway.

Beholding brilliance we come to open in the now
Being non-being, cool, on top of ones game, all important for now,
Or the common, ordinary, plan spectacle flashing with stars coming out of our seams.
A light show of energy able to accommodate the present
Whilst laughing and smiling inwardly at the ‘adult’ story.

Sweet child within; brilliance, I surrender to the bliss of our brilliance.

~~~~~~~~~~

02/13/2007
 

Brilliance

by Scott Williams oil on board 12x14 inches.
~~~

Everything around us is of the brilliance shining all around us
We are the ongoing brilliance of time and space.
Surrender to the brilliance and shine
a smile of existence.

Self surrenders to the open space of the breath
Opening doors of perception of the brilliance.

Allowing brilliance to perform the very miracle that we are.
Like a wash of breath seeking the open internal spaces inside our body.
raising the form of our machinations to lighter wave lengths.
’Spacing out’ as they say back at the club.

Each moment is of the brilliance with body, perception, time, space.
Warping space energy, full-filling our mystic body with ice cream.

A youthful reference creates a smile as we always smile at the new arrivals.
Reminders of purity of spirit without lies, other wise known as ignorance.

Brilliance, always brilliant are love waves washing the shores of our soul.
Higher, up further, sky-high, beyond, empty, naked, maxed, expanded, space time continuum,
Kaleidoscopic spectrums of kosmic energy dancing in the streets.

Love is a mystery arriving as a kosmic infusion of what is true and beautiful.
With each breath it grows by leaps and bounds.
Soft warm words spring into action
softening the blows of humanatation.

Silence is free of words
Pretending to be of importance.
Non-existent existence dances anyway.

Beholding brilliance we come to open in the now
Being non-being, cool, on top of ones game, all important for now,
Or the common, ordinary, plan spectacle flashing with stars coming out of our seams.
A light show of energy able to accommodate humanatation
Whilst laughing and smiling inwardly at the ‘adult’ story.

Sweet child within; brilliance, I surrender to the bliss of our brilliance.

01/25/2007

MANIFESTING INNER GRACE.

 In the Big Mind technique we come to realize the master is in. In a recent audio of Ken Wilber and Carolyn Myss, Carolyn Myss makes reference to the Grace of our inner contemplative world. So I conclude; the master is in, full of Grace. Can we manifest this state of grace with our physical Body without self-consciousness and a light heart?

 The popular phrase in mystic circles ‘you are not the body’ can be a hindrances to manifesting who you ‘really are’, the Master within. Acknowledging we already are big mind and big heart lets us experience oneness with all things. We are, after all, the fabric of the all and the everything, which includes the molecular elements we call ‘my body’. Within this fabric lives intelligences that can function gracefully without conditioned language of one culture or another. Breathing brings us in to the body and love helps us live in the body. As we arrive home inwardly, we feel more at home with the living experience as wisdom helps us operate intuitively and gracefully.

 Bodywork, Yoga, Martial Arts and performance Arts provide venues for becoming ‘at one’ with the body and developing states of grace we can feel in our body. Integrated, with knowledge of our alignment, we appreciate the fruits of whatever activity we are working with. This is the evolving call for the coming millennium. Unfolding physical awareness on the planet, I believe.

 Developmentally we have many needs that are participatory and ascending as we follow our natural intelligences. Dignity and grace become distinguishing characteristics of our (I AM) manifestation. To me this is manifesting grace.

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“You can never tell the mind how the Divine moves.”  Adyashanti

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Breathing

Breathing in the upper body helps us sustain the energies of the higher chakra’s of personal dignity, rational thought and higher consciousness.  A feeling of grace and fearlessness in the body become the keys for awakening our appreciation to breathings gifts.  

Being present and contemplative with the breath as it ‘uplifts’ our upper body dramatizes the dignity of what we truly are. We are the all and the everything, no doubt about it amongst friends, and as such we uplift our body. Structure opens and brings our body and our cells to exist on a higher level as breath comfortably exists in our upper body. Breathing and being with the breath as we move through the events of the day helps us experience/cope with the nuances in all things.  Uplifting the sternum with breath naturally uplifts us, with a gentle strength, for a higher vibration in the space around us. In this sense, the feeling of being uplifted is keyed by breathing fuller and being with the breath and the body at the same time.

    ~~~~~~~~

    From the Daily Guru:

Open your hands

"More than any other part of the body, our hands reveal our inner state."

-- Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Today, be aware of how you hold your hands when you're not actively doing something with them.

With the stress of our daily lives, many of us find our hands typically clenched in fists. This is proof of the tension we hold in our bodies. And ponder this: how can we receive the abundance of life if our hands are not open to receive it?

When you become aware that your hands are closed tight, stretch your fingers and spread them wide in the shape of a starfish. Deep breathing will also help you relax into the moment.

 

"What is always speaking silently is the body."

-- Norman Brown

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01/15/2007

 Genius in Motion

 “Giving birth to bodhicitta in one's heart, buddha in one's heart brings freedom…………….We are talking about freedom from the constriction of our own capabilities. It is as if we were extraordinary children, possessing all sorts of genius, and we were being undermined by the society around us, which was dying to make us normal people………When we see something extraordinary, we are afraid to say so; we are afraid to express ourselves or to relate to such situations. So we put lids on ourselves -- on our potential, our capabilities. But in Buddhism we are liberated from that kind of conventionality....Fundamentally speaking, ladies and gentlemen, here is the really good news, if we may call it that: We are intrinsically buddha and we are intrinsically good.” 

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche**

 I often reflect on the discomfort’ we feel with the body’s display of excitement, enthusiasm, joy as well as being less animated than we actually feel with events of life. Being liberated and feeling liberated in the body begs for gentle, Ti Chi like, graceful expression built on the wisdom of what is good, true and Beautiful.

You could say that we need to trust our genius body that wants us to laugh, sing, dance, and be heart felt, while ringing with love for harmonizing with natures flow. The good news is breathing, being aware of the bodies extremities; the hands, feet, relaxed knees, hips and upper body, helps open our intrinsic, unborn, yet ever existent nature. Feeling our body while aware of breathing also gives us clues of the motions that want to play off the body.

 In opening seasons for alignment, having others relax their fingers and arms while standing or walking brings a lot of energy and motion to play off the body. Often people will wave their hands and arms in jesters of abandon that come from habits of holding still and not making ‘to’ much motion. Our fingers are amazing in the way they want to play, as we see in young children that have a dramatically free relationship with their hands and body.

 Allowing the fingers to move and dance in the space, performing mudras of internal grace, dancing hands that come alive with expressions of internal wealth we liberate the genius potentials.  There are mystics that use their hands as if speaking an ancient tongue. In dance and the arts of acting, singing, comedy, or talking we can bring that ancient tongue to the present moment. Allowing who and what we are to express the genius of our own nature is both the performance and self-confidence we are looking to reconnect with.

 Above Trungpa says; “they are dying to make us normal” ironically expressing how people are literally dying to maintain the status quo, by way of bewildered expressions.  We need be at home when all this bewilderment fills the air and do naught but retreat to the internal silence to cool the soul.

 The freeing up of our senses and genius can also be continued in the sitting positions by allowing our arms and hands to feel the air around them. I often sit at the computer and allow my hands and feet to move freely. This cuts down on the development of tensions that can be accumulated by ‘sitting still’. See Keys for Alignment for a more detailed examination of this idea. I foresee many physical problems for the coming generations because of the poor postural habits developed while playing games on the computer. All of this can be handled and reversed with some simple truths of awareness and physical alignment.

 Walking is so much fun when we allow the freedom of our extremities to wiggle and waggle like a teenager or a runner warming up. We often see Olympic swimmers both before and after competitions shake off and find relaxation in the extremities. This is quite different then manifesting a stoic strut of a stiff businessman, a walk that attempts to display order and ‘being on top of it’ yet misses the magic that lives in the moments of potential immersion.  Like a natural form of body work, athletes look for and find what makes them more relaxed and comfortable; we also need to find our own unique body expression that leads to being comfortable in the body. Walking is a wonderful way to work with the breathing and freeing up of our body form. Having a large open space in your living area to walk around in and allow the body to unravel what ever needs to be let go of is a blessing, however external walks can become sessions for discovery and exploration also.

 Using the book Hathaway Alignment Sessions can be very helpful in bringing more breath and awareness to the living situation.

**To receive weekly wisdom keys of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche the Tibetan teacher who opened up the teachings of Buddhism in America join the Ocean Of Dharma mailing list
 OceanOfDharma@lists.mandala-designs.com

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12/13/06

Mind In Its True State

 When one seeks one's mind in its true state, it is found to be quite intelligible although invisible. In its true state, mind is naked, immaculate; not made of anything, being of the Voidness; clear, vacuous, without duality, transparent, timeless, uncompounded, unimpeded, colorless, not realizable as a separate thing, but as the unity of all things, yet not composed of them; of one taste, and transcendent over all differentiation.   

 From The Great Liberation transmitted by Padma Sambava

12/01/06

Mindfully Sitting

“Combining Full Awareness of Breathing with full awareness of the movements of our body during daily activities—walking, standing, lying, sitting, working—is a basic practice to cultivate concentration and live in an awakened state.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, ,~ Breathe! You Are Alive ~ p43.

  Many people have a basic assumption that time on the job or while sitting is lost time. This assumption pervades work spaces where people may feel that their time is being given up to the job, a sacrifice they make to the system. Very noble but untrue. I feel, since it is a just a matter of placing some attention on our breath and our body this is easy and with out effort and gives us the advantage of using our time throughout the day. Using ‘our time’ or time itself, we develop a momentum with our awareness that will, over time, create changes in our external life that are more in touch with our ‘natural form’ or evolutionary form. This is based on the awareness that is developed over time by us and brings our natural self directed impulses into play.

  Trusting our body and awareness, relaxes the thinking mind, and gives us the freedom to enjoy the moment to moment play of our body-mind. This can be true even in the most “mundane” of activities. Try the process of awareness below at work and at home and make it a part of your awareness on the job or at play. The rewards will be discernable within short order and within a month you will know the power you have when you harness your own attention and time. The biggest plus is that breathing remains a FREE activity, (no charge!) that you can access at any time.

  Any notion that your attention should be on your work exclusively is an over simplification of what is actually going on with our attention and how we perform best. I say; that the more awareness we create in any working sit-uation the better the work we do. Attention can be viewed as open and free where we give attention to what we are doing as well as have attention on the physical movements of the body. Adding open attention, aware of breathing as well as changes that are going on around us helps us experience directly, like the warrior, gentle, graceful and wise.  Thus  ‘attention’ is broad and more useful then many people appreciate. “Whistle while you work” is a fine example of using attention for our benefit.

SITTING

Let's use Sitting at the computer or any desk job, for that matter, as an opportunity to use time for our benefit. The basic description and session type of approach will give you the tools to use for expanding  open our awareness and body. Dr. Deepak Chopra says “When you start to assert control over any bodily process, the effect is holistic. The mind-body system reacts to every single stimulus as a global event; to stimulate one cell is to stimulate all.”

*  A review of Sitting at the computer gives some details of sitting as well as a pictorial description of proper alignment for the body while sitting.

  Any instruction given is not to build a right and wrong modal for working with the body but a way of feeling the position of the body while sitting and making some adjustments that are comfortable for the body. We can feel the bodies’ position at any time and add breathing to the position; this will suggest changes that move towards feeling more open and comfortable while sitting.

  Starting with the feet touching the floor. Having both feet touching the floor with a feeling of an arch in each foot and the weight of the legs going into the ground vie the outside pads of the feet is a good starting point. As we add breathing to the upper body our feet and legs may feel like changing the position and even moving in an un-patterned way. This is often like childs play with the legs, which has its own intuitive side and results in a freeing up of the legs.

  Sitting on the ‘sit’ bones (see illustration) helps us to have the body erect and the upper body in a favorable position to take in a full breath that touches and expands most of our internal area’s. All the cells receive this intake of prana, the muscle cells expand and are exercised, the organs, heart, lungs,  pancreas, intestines, kidneys and liver are grateful for the space expansion provides. All the cells love the food of prana and the space provided for our natural, life-giving, tendencies. Providing ourselves with the food of breath and expansion, we set the body in a positive natural field, which is the bodies resonate potential or true nature. Then the good indicators like laughter, love and playfulness arise, IMHO.  

  The position of the head and neck can also be tweaked by the illustration. That is a feeling of length in the neck and back of the head where the chine comes down towards the coller bone.  The 3^rd corner of the ABC’s triangle ( The Arches, Breath, and Cervical (head and neck) alignment keys). In this way we feel the space at work and play as well as the activity of the mind. Trusting our native 7 fold intelligences,  our interaction will generally be joyful, or as my mentors put it; good, true and beautiful.

*Deepak Chopra M.D. Ageless Body Timeless Mind. Pg. 85  

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9/28/06

Breath Work-out

“Generally in the Buddhist tradition the first step is

working with the breathing -- not concentrating, not contemplating, but

identifying with the breath. You are the technique; there is no difference

between you and the technique at all.”  ~~ Chogyam Trungpa

Lets consider using the activity of breathing as a workout. We know that breathing is good for us and we know that breath has nourishing ingredients for us on many levels and that breathing is a tool used by yogis, athletes, nurses and natural health teachers. So breathing has a lot of good press! We can reason that doing a ½ hour of expansive breathing has inner and outer benefits worthy for us to consider using the activity of breathing as a WORK-OUT.

Breathing as a workout can be taken up any where we wonder. We could go to the beach and watch the waves roll in for an hour and use this time to do expansive breathing. While hearing the beat of the waves and feeling the wind whip past our ears, we can do expansive breathing. Or we can catch the morning train and decide to use this time for a breathing workout. Or we can fix the morning coffee and prepare the children's breakfast and do a breathing workout. Or we can drive to a favorite playstation and use this time for a breathing workout. Or we can write the next great novel and use this time for a breathing workout.

Expansive breathing is a workout of high order that address the spectrum of health for all ages, yet is free of cost.  Giving some attention for improving our overall health, wherever we are, can be as simple as stringing together expansive breathing patterns. Other forms of working out are fine and our breath workout sessions will make other workouts more productive.

In the process of doing expansive breathing we are exercising the smaller muscle groups of the upper body as well as the abdominal wall and lower back. If we ask these muscles to expand and contract for a ½ hour session we are exercising all these upper body muscles. The view that we need some form of apparatus or special space to workout in limits thinking and can create dualistic notions of fitness. The results of expansive breathing sessions generally speak for themselves, we can feel the increases of endurance to the upper body muscles and the releases of stress that may have accumulated to the upper body. We can also feel the composure of our awareness to the present external events.

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Have no other gods before you.

Imaging a better or a highly configured being creates the unobtainable. Now, we don’t want to do that? We are obtainable and at our best much of the time, but because of unobtainable imaging, we stall arriving at home. Home is right now, which houses the simple process of being human while doing the best we can as we grow and strengthen our good traits. Our good traits actually strengthen as we process the weak lines of development since, what is good, true and beautiful are well established in us by natures enfoldment. For this reason I say; relax and be as human as you are.

Give rest to the noble seeker in you, for the near perfection has been found. Answers and questions drop away, stillness has its day, as simple as that.

“In the present, when the mind remains as it is naturally, it is ordinarily comprehended by its own time.”

Padma Sambhava 

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5/13/06