Unhooking

Have you ever noticed that emotional turmoil often starts with a tiny spark? It could be a fleeting thought, a sound, or a sight that makes us feel either comfortable or uncomfortable. This is what is referred to as shenpa—the gentle hook that pulls us in.

Think of it like this: it's akin to wanting to scratch an itch. There's a pull, an energetic nudge, that immediately prompts a reaction. And the magic is, we don’t need to be seasoned meditators to catch this initial tug of "for" or "against." The key here is to remain as steady as a log when feeling that initial pull. Just be with the feeling, experience it fully, and resist the urge to feed that spark with more thoughts. It's all about embracing the restlessness of that energy without getting caught up in it.

By staying present with the rawness of our direct experience, emotional energy can flow without taking us over.

Remaining steady is not a walk in the park—it takes practice. But with time and dedication, we can become more adept at weathering mental and emotional storms.

So, the next time that initial tug is felt, remember to breathe, relax, and embrace the rawness. Because it’s in those moments of stillness and presence that true strength and resilience are found.

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regrets and apologies

Ever come across a person who claims to have no regrets or doesn't believe it's necessary to apologise for the harm they have caused?

An egotistical delusional attachment to a sense of self or ideas about how things should be can put us in this problematic mind state. A state in which we’re likely to shirk responsibility and attribute blame to others or situational factors to protect our narrow viewpoint.

As we grow up and move through relationships causing some upset is likely, but rather than seeing this as something that is okay and the people we hurt as collateral damage, we should always do our best to make amends and, whenever possible, apologise.

An apology shows that we have considered the person and the situation and have recognised and taken responsibility for the part we played. This attention and desire to communicate remorse can heal us and the others involved.

Our regrets become the fuel which, when ignited, moves us to become better, to see that our thoughts, words and actions impact others and have consequences. With understanding, we can behave compassionately.

I have many regrets relating to poor choices I have made; most of these were due to ego, misunderstanding and delusional ideas - I have regularly behaved selfishly and carelessly.

I am so sorry to all the people I have caused upset to, knowingly and unknowingly, and I am doing my best to behave with mindful awareness, compassion and kindness to limit the harm I do as I continue to live.

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Why doesn’t Nick Cave eat animals?

Not only has Nick Cave produced some musical masterpieces and beautifully healing letters for readers of The Red Hand Files he also has a vegan cookbook! But why did Nick stop eating animals? In this moving letter, he explains.

Dear Samuel, Elena, Lars, Florian, Mel and Liii,

It was about eight months after our son had died. Susie and I had barely left the house. Susie decided it would be a good idea if we went somewhere for a few days to just get away from it all. Often times you think a change in location might put things right, but, of course, in the end, you take yourself with you and the thing you are running from ultimately finds you. So it was with us. We flew to Marrakesh and checked into a hotel next to the central square.

That evening, Susie and I walked through the main market place of Marrakesh. It is difficult to exaggerate the suffering of the animals that we saw there – ancient donkeys and workhorses being flogged, monkeys on chains, dozens of chickens stuffed into small cages, emaciated street dogs, skinned carcasses hanging on hooks. Death and suffering and cruelty were everywhere and I felt overwhelmed by a dark energy. How much of this energy existed within Marrakesh itself or how much I was carrying with me was difficult to say, but everywhere I looked I saw existential anguish. I was, in part, seeing this remarkable city through my own cultural prejudices, of course, and it was not lost on me that industrial farming in the West, in terms of net suffering, was on a vastly greater scale than what I was witnessing here on the streets of Marrakesh. However, it was the seeing, the close proximity to the cruelty, that made all the difference.

Susie had met a man on the plane, an English guy, who had set up a rescue centre for ancient workhorses in Marrakesh and Susie wanted to visit it, so the next day we caught a cab and drove there.

On the way to the rescue centre, we entered a busy roundabout and saw, in the middle of the road, a cat that had been run over. Its back was broken and it was arched horribly, spraying blood and literally screaming in pain. It was a deeply upsetting sight and one that instantly attached itself to the most vulnerable and traumatic images that lived in my mind. At that moment, something ruptured. I had had enough. Life was too much. It was literally impossible to bear. My son was gone. I would never see him again. In the back of the cab, in Marrakesh, I broke down.

The next morning, we decided to return to the UK. But, sitting on the plane, something had changed in me. I felt different. I felt that if I were to continue to live in this world I had to do what I could to reduce the existential suffering around me, or at the very least, not to add to it. It felt like a way forward. I felt that our collective unhappiness was brimming at its maximum capacity. There was no room for any more. I felt a sense of duty to do whatever I could, in my own way, to minimise sentient suffering. That call to action extended in many directions, and has stayed with me since, but one of the consequences of it was that I gave up eating meat. I have not eaten it since.

As we go through our lives we take on the expanding burden of our own distress – as we are abandoned, broken apart, betrayed, isolated, lost and hurt. This is essentially part of what it is to live. This despair will overwhelm us and turn inward into bitterness, resentment and hatred – worse, we will take it out upon the ones closest to us if we do not actively live our lives in the service of others and use what power we have to reduce each other’s suffering. This, in my opinion, is essentially the key to living. This is the remedy to our own suffering; our own feelings of separateness and of disconnectedness. And it is the essential antidote for loneliness.

We must live our lives in such a way as to make better, even in the smallest way, the situation that we are currently experiencing. This is what it means to ‘take on the suffering of the world’ – that we each act in accordance with the limits of our own personal capacity for good. By doing this, the lives around us will become incrementally better and therefore, so will our own lives, and the life of the world itself.

In the Philip Larkin poem ‘The Mower’, Larkin runs over a hedgehog while he is mowing the lawn. As he removes the body of the hedgehog from the blades of the mower, he muses on the nature of death and ends the poem with these words.

We should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time

The urgency of these words came to me on that flight back from Marrakesh. The vision of the dying cat wrenched me from my own self-absorption and bitterness and isolation and loneliness and showed me that the world, in all its terrible wounded beauty, was in need of our urgent attention.

Much love, Nick

Check out Nick Cave’s vegan cookbook Comfort Eating with Nick Cave - https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/4692

Here’s the link to this letter and others.

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Climate change - Act now

The teachings of Yoga are practical tools we can use to behave better as global citizens. They point us in the direction of union, being able to understand that we’re interconnected and dependent on everything else and that our actions have consequences that reach far and wide. They’re explicitly clear that we should be non-violent, truthful, not take more than we need and relate to others with honesty and kindness.

Our world is on fire. If we're scared about what's to come, we should act. Our choices today affect the future for all life on Earth.

What can we do right now?

1. Fly and drive fossil fuel-powered vehicles less; instead, walk, ride a bike, or take public transport

2. Switch to a renewable energy supplier - ditch fossil fuels from your home or business

3. Go vegan - animal agriculture is a leading cause of the climate crisis and the leading cause of species extinction, habitat destruction, ocean dead zones and rainforest deforestation. If we all ate plants, we would reduce the land used for crop production by 75%.

One vegan person saves approximately 829,000 litres of water a year. It takes 4,500 litres of water to produce just 4.5 litres of milk, and beef has an overall water footprint of roughly 15 million litres per tonne.

We'll need that water during drought and to fight fires

4. Only support politicians that recognise the climate crisis as the biggest challenge facing life on Earth

5. Air dry clothes

6. Whenever possible, share things; and reduce consumption, re-use, and recycle

7. If you need to use heat or a/c, insulate your home and your windows, and only use heat or a/c when you need to; dress appropriately for the temperature

8. If you own a home; add solar panels

9. Plant trees (we need a few trillion more) and stop mowing the grass in our gardens - we're destroying the habitat of insects and small creatures by cutting our lawns

10. Support companies working towards environmentally friendly solutions like carbon sequestration, sustainable energy, plant-based foods, etc. Stop investing in or working with fossil fuel companies.

If we stop using oil & coal, stop using animals for food, build a few million carbon sequestration units, and plant a trillion trees, we may avoid complete catastrophe.

We know better; we must do better.

#BeTheChange #SaveTheFuture #SmallIsBeautiful #Ahimsa

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The Four Reminders

It’s handy to have a reminder from time to time, listen, be kind, don’t break the speed limit, etc. But what if there were Four Reminders that could fundametally change how we experience our lives, making us more appreciative and grateful for everything we go through?

Here are those reminders.

We are fortunate to have a Precious Human Existence. Considering just how massive the universe, or potential multiverse, is, it’s miraculous that we’re even here on Earth experiencing a human life. Therefore we might want to make the most of it.

Everything in the known universe, at least as I write this, is changing. Scientists so far haven’t identified a single thing with any lasting permanent state. Impermanence means that anything, at any time, could cease to exist or change beyond recognition. Perhaps we should value the time we have and not waste it.

What we think, say and do impacts the world around us. The reminder of Karma tells us that our actions have consequences, and our lives result from how we relate to what we experience. In creating our reality, it might be worth paying close attention to what we’re thinking, saying and doing so we truly understand the impact we’re having on the world around us, near and far.

Finally, it is possible to get caught up in the cyclical suffering of Samsara. Whether it be destructive thought patterns or behaviours, it’s easy to learn or adopt ways of being that aren’t conducive to our happiness or the happiness of others. We inherit many traits from our parents or the people we grew up with, our friends and societies. We should seek to recognise harmful patterns so that instead of going round in circles, we can move forward and away from whatever might be holding us back.

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‘Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow.’

If you’ve not yet seen Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar acceptance speech for Joker in 2020 look it up! I think it contains everything we should be focusing on at this moment and in every moment that follows. Here’s the transcript:

“God, I’m full of so much gratitude right now. And I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees or anyone in this room because we share the same love, the love of film. And this form of expression has given me the most extraordinary life. I don’t know what I’d be without it. But I think the greatest gift that it’s given me, and many of us in this room, is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless.

I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the distressing issues that we are facing collectively. I think at times we feel, or we’re made to feel, that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality. I think, whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender or one species has the right to dominate, control and use and exploit another with impunity.

I think that we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world, and many of us, what we’re guilty of is an egocentric world view — the belief that we’re the center of the universe. We go into the natural world, and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf, and we put it in our coffee and our cereal. 

And I think we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something, to give something up, but human beings, at our best, are so inventive and creative and ingenious. And I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.

Now, I have been, I have been a scoundrel in my life. I’ve been selfish. I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and I’m grateful that so many of you in this room have given me a second chance. And I think that’s when we’re at our best, when we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other toward redemption. That is the best of humanity.

When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric. He said, ‘Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow.'”

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True Peace

Below are three paragraphs about peace from Thich Nhat Hanh. I am encouraged that every moment offers a new opportunity to bring more peace into the world. We don't need to wait to change any of our behaviours that may be causing harm to others. Change requires awareness and courage, and it's always possible for us to do better.

True Peace.

True peace is always possible. Yet it requires strength and practice, particularly in times of great difficulty. To some, peace and nonviolence are synonymous with passivity and weakness. In truth, practicing peace and nonviolence is far from passive. To practice peace, to make peace alive in us, is to actively cultivate understanding, love, and compassion, even in the face of misperception and conflict. Practicing peace, especially in times of war, requires courage. 

All of us can practice nonviolence. We begin by recognizing that, in the depths of our consciousness, we have both the seeds of compassion and the seeds of violence. We become aware that our mind is like a garden that contains all kinds of seeds: seeds of understanding, seeds of forgiveness, seeds of mindfulness, and also seeds of ignorance, fear, and hatred. We realize that, at any given moment, we can behave with either violence or compassion, depending on the strength of these seeds within us. 

When the seeds of anger, violence, and fear are watered in us several times a day, they will grow stronger. Then we are unable to be happy, unable to accept ourselves; we suffer and we make those around us suffer. Yet when we know how to cultivate the seeds of love, compassion, and understanding in us every day, those seeds will become stronger, and the seeds of violence and hatred will become weaker and weaker. We know that if we water the seeds of anger, violence, and fear in us, we will lose our peace and our stability. We will suffer and we will make those around us suffer. But if we cultivate the seeds of compassion, we nourish peace within us and around us. With this understanding, we are already on the path of creating peace. 

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Got the poison or the remedy? The Three Poisons or Kleshas.

As human beings, we all experience three primary afflictive mental states; in Tibetan Buddhism, these are known as the Kleshas, or 'Three Poisons'.

The first is delusion or ignorance, more softly described as misunderstanding. Our misunderstanding comes in the form of dualistic ways of observing the world around us. We can quickly categorise things as good or bad, black or white, square or circular. When this happens, we overlook the intricacies and complexities of whatever we are observing. We may fail to see that all phenomena comprise a wide range of different attributes that are constantly changing. This delusional way of seeing things puts us in a fixed or rigid mind state, one that's closed to the vast array of factors that make up every single moment.

Secondly, we have attachment, also referred to as greed or grasping. In this state we may try to obtain or hold on to what we desire or have categorised as being good or valuable. Our grasping to gather these things can become a struggle, and we feel disappointed and suffer when we can't get what we want. We get stressed trying to hold on to what we like, and when we lose what we love, we experience suffering.

The third poison is aversion, also referred to as anger or hatred. It can cause us to attempt to manage or get rid of what we dislike. Some of us try very hard to create a life that avoids everything we despise, find difficult, unpleasant or challenging. Our aversion again causes us to struggle because, of course, not everything in our external environment can be managed and is constantly changing. The nature of our existence is that we are interconnected. Humans attempt to create separation by building social and physical constructions, like walls and borders, to keep out the people we feel afraid of or dislike. These mental or physical barriers represent our fear and ignorance and our inner struggle with aversion/hatred.

Now we know what these poisons are, we can seek to recognise them when they pop up in our thinking. Some of them may be heavily ingrained; our ignorance, attachment or aversion may lead us to respond habitually at times before we even realise what's happening. Under examination, we might find that some of our behaviour is not just making us feel bad; it may harm other beings and our environment. Perhaps we’re hasty to make superficial judgements, want more than we need or harbour prejudices.

Albert Einstein said, 'the measure of intelligence is the ability to change'. No matter how deeply ingrained our thinking and behaviour is, change is always possible. We can build a relationship with our minds that gives us more control over our responses to thoughts and emotions. When we become more capable, we can pause and then respond more peacefully, rationally, and logically, carefully choosing our words and actions.

Try regularly asking yourself, 'why am I thinking this? What am I feeling? and how will I respond?' Maybe try to identify if your thinking relates to one of these poisons. We are not our thoughts nor do we need to react to them.

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Dhyana - meditation

In Tibetan Buddhism, Dhyana, the meditation practice, is the fifth in a series of 'Six Perfections' or Paramitas. These perfections or 'noble behaviours' allow us to move from a place where we struggle through misunderstanding, attachment and aversion, to another location in which we're aware, free from the suffering caused by these three poisonous states. The literal translation of Paramita is to cross over to the other shore.

Much mysticism surrounds meditation, and it can appear inaccessible. It shouldn't be; everyone can meditate. There are three elementary stages to use while meditating:

Stage 1: focusing on something - for example, the breath

Stage 2: noticing when the mind wanders - without criticism or judgment, this stage provides us with the opportunity to meditate

Stage 3: returning - to our initial focus point.

When we repeat these stages, consistently starting over each time, we notice the mind spreading out, telling stories, judging and creating narrative - we reinforce our ability to gently bring the mind back from its wandering. We develop the habit of seeing each moment clearly without the extra layers our minds tend to add - preconceived ideas, judgements and prejudices.

A commonly discussed meditation aspect is vipashyana, or vipassana, as we often hear it referred to in the west. Vipashyana, or 'looking deeply', is vital as it allows us to develop insight into our afflictions. But shamatha, the aspect of 'pausing' is critical. We need to pause, step back from being swept along by our thoughts and feelings, to experience insight with clarity.

The Yoga practice is moving meditation. Its postures (the strange shapes we make) challenge our bodies and minds and give us a rich opportunity to experience some of our embedded patterns of thought and behaviour. During practice the mind chatters away, we might hear a critical inner voice, doubt, fears, and pride. We can also experience bliss, focused attention and greater awareness, moments of space between the thoughts, and ability not to react when things are tough, and insight into impermanence.

We don't need to sit for hours at a time to begin developing the ability to pause and find insight. Starting by simply checking in with where thoughts are taking us a few times a day and merely returning to our initial point of focus is a significant first step. Another is to pay attention to the words we use when describing what we're experiencing; words are our mantras 'mind tools', shaping our experiences. 

Perhaps the best way to start bringing meditation into our lives is to acknowledge that we can always begin again. Every moment is another opportunity to start over, to try again.

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Awareness and liberation

The purpose of Yoga is to liberate ourselves from suffering. Liberation from our inner struggles with pride, attachment, hatred, jealousy and ignorance through awareness of the power of our thoughts, words and actions. Awareness enables us to relate to everything around us in a healthier manner, we become less likely to engage in harmful behaviours.

Without awareness we’re blind to the ways we might be contributing to oppression and abuse. We may unknowingly be participating in ingrained behaviours and highly developed systems of oppression - domestic abuse, racism, classism, sexism, animal exploitation, bullying, conflict and environmental devastation.

How we relate on a individual level impacts how we behave as groups and nations. 

How do we treat the most vulnerable? How do we treat those without a voice? If we could see ourselves in others would we relate to them in the ways we do? If we can live without hurting others why wouldn’t we choose to do so?

Below is the introduction from the film Earthlings narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. It shows ways we currently treat other sentient beings, which many of us are unaware of, and it might just be the most important film ever.

THE THREE STAGES OF TRUTH:

1. RIDICULE

2. VIOLENT OPPOSITION

3. ACCEPTANCE

earth’ling: n. One who inhabits of the earth.

Since we all inhabit the earth, all of us are considered earthlings. There is no sexism, no racism or speciesism in the term earthling. It encompasses each and every one of us: warm or cold blooded, mammal, vertebrate or invertebrate, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, and human alike.

Humans, therefore, being not the only species on the planet, share this world with millions of other living creatures, as we all evolve here together. 

However, it is the human earthling who tends to dominate the earth, often times treating other fellow earthlings and living beings as mere objects. This is what is meant by speciesism.

By analogy with racism and sexism, the term “speciesism” is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favour of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.

If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that one’s suffering can be counted equally with the like suffering of any other being.

Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater right to the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race.

Sexists violate the principle of equality by favouring the interests of their own sex.

Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species.

In each case, the pattern is identical. Though among the members of the human family we recognise the moral imperative of respect (every human is a somebody, not a something), morally disrespectful treatment occurs when those who stand at the power end of a power relationship treat the less powerful as if they were mere objects.

• The rapist does this to the victim of rape

• The child molester to the child molested

• The master to the slave.

In each and all such cases, humans who have power exploit those who lack it.

Might the same be true of how humans treat other animals, or other earthlings?

Undoubtedly there are differences, since humans and animals are not the same in all respects. But the question of sameness wears another face.

Granted, these animals do not have all the desires we humans have; granted, they do not comprehend everything we humans comprehend; nevertheless, we and they do have some of the same desires and do comprehend some of the same things.

The desires for food and water, shelter and companionship, freedom of movement and avoidance of pain? These desires are shared by nonhuman animals and human beings.

As for comprehension: like humans, many nonhuman animals understand the world in which they live and move. Otherwise, they could not survive.

So beneath the many differences, there is sameness.

Like us, these animals embody the mystery and wonder of consciousness.

Like us, they are not only in the world, they are aware of it.

Like us they are the psychological centres of a life that is uniquely their own.

In these fundamental respects humans stand “on all fours”, so to speak, with hogs and cows, chickens and turkeys.

What these animals are due from us, how we morally ought to treat them, are questions whose answer begins with the recognition of our psychological kinship with them.

Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote in his bestselling novel Enemies, A Love Story’ the following:

“As often has Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right”.

The comparison here to the holocaust is both intentional and obvious: one group of living beings anguishes beneath the hands of another.

Though some will argue the suffering of animals cannot possibly compare with that of former Jews or slaves, there is, in fact, a parallel.

And for the prisoners and victims of this mass murder, their holocaust is far from over.

In his book ‘The Outermost House’ author Henry Beston wrote: 

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilisation surveys the creatures through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion.

“We patronise them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man.

“In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.

They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth”.

Click here for a link to the film.

#Earthlings #Ahimsa #Peace #Liberation #Kindness

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Generosity the ultimate act of letting go - Dana paramita

We all tend to do things that are selfish and destructive, even persons walking a mindful path of awareness can get tripped up by desire. The current economic and political systems we’ve created reward those who are self-interested, trying to ‘better themselves’.

2020’s Covid-19 fallout has rocked the planet. Many people in positions of power have seen their wealth explode. We’ve witnessed panic buying, isolation and division, and disagreement over how we should be behaving.

The system is stretching its far-reaching tentacles - some media, marketing and advertising messaging designed to create feelings of separation and lack, intended to create consumers who driven by misery and loneliness seek satisfaction through buying things.

But we can resist. Though competition is rife and encouraged, though it drives much of our ideology, we can opt-out. We can take actions that benefit others, rather than seeing everyone else as a rival. We can care.

We get caught up in self-importance, self-protection and self-consciousness because of the stress we face from grasping. We generally grasp in four ways; when we don’t get what we want, when we get what we don’t want, when we try to protect what we have and we lose what we loved.

Generosity is the antidote to the tendency to grasp, it is the essence of letting go. When we can renounce and let go our ability to give generously will grow immeasurably. 

In Tibetan Buddhism generosity, Dana, is the first in a series of six paramitas or ‘perfections’. The word paramita can be translated as ‘crossing over to the other shore’. Through developing these noble qualities we travel from a shore of suffering, through misunderstanding, attachment and aversion, to a shore where we are liberated from this suffering, able to mindfully understand and be aware. 

The Buddha’s first training was the practice of giving. Practising generosity is the most basic way to experience freedom. Happiness, stability and ease grow through generous acts. 

Think for a moment about a time in which you were generous - how did you feel? Now consider a moment when you tried to protect or serve yourself - how was that experience? 

While some are building walls and trying to protect what they have, or make gains, others are doing a great deal of good with creative initiatives that benefit those in real need. 

Our smallest actions can make the biggest difference. 

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Separation and duality or connection and oneness?

So many of us are terrified of those different to ourselves, we get all bent out of shape when people change; because we expected them to remain as they were.

The suffering we all endure is rooted in misunderstanding, fear of losing what we have and fear of letting things we don’t like happen to us.

The more fixed our mindset is about the way we expect others to behave, and things to be done, the more prone we are to ignorance, attachment and aversion. The more we’ll drag ourselves down when our ideal conditions aren’t met, and we’ll take others down with us into the quagmire of complaint and discontent.

Each day we have an opportunity to see and do things differently, it doesn’t matter who we’ve been, where we’ve come from or what we’ve done before.

Each day we could wake up and ask ourselves, “am I going to embrace all situations and all people equally, am I going to cultivate the openness to accept and understand, or I am going to keep fighting against everything I dislike.”

Acceptance, understanding and happiness or grasping, ignorance and war?

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#poison #peace #kleshas #ignorance #attachment #aversion #love #happiness #stability #nonjudgement #xenophobia #yoga #separation #interdependence #impermenence

Prajñāpāramitā - perfection of wisdom

We’ve probably heard or used phrases like, “that’s just who they are, it’s their personality”. As if personality were some kind of fixed package of behavioural traits we were born with. What if we did the same for ourselves? “I’m British, French, American, Latino, Mediterranean, a man, a woman, tall, short; it’s just how we all behave”. 

It’s an easy trap to fall into and behavioural patterns can become deeply ingrained as we go through life. However, under close examination, it becomes apparent that our traits are not a set menu we will repeatedly act out during for our entire existence. We certainly adopt many traits from the people we spend time with; our parents, friends, social groups and even nations but we’re under no obligation to behave as others around us do. 

Awakening the understanding that all phenomena are in fact empty of any solidity or everlasting nature is the essence of Prajñāpāramitā, the ‘perfection of wisdom’ in Mahayana Buddhism. This emptiness or ‘sunyata’, doesn’t mean that nothing exists but that no ‘thing’ has any kind of fixed essence or unchanging self-nature. Looking deeply we see that in fact, everything in the universe is interdependent - things come together and things fall apart, again and again, and again.

A sign that we’re cultivating prajna (wisdom) and understanding is a decrease in the frequency of our afflictive emotions and misperceptions and the power they have over us. We become more able to respond positively to challenging or stressful situations and will feel more in control and peaceful. If we choose to we can certainly change our traits and the way we respond to what’s going on around us - in their book The Science of Meditation: How to Change Your Brain, Mind and Body, Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson explain how this happens. 

It takes effort and concentration but when it comes to the nature of our minds, like everything else, nothing is fixed or unchangeable.

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Virya Paramita - gardening the mind with diligence, perseverance and energetic joy

Not everyone is into gardening, nor is everyone fortunate enough to have a garden. But, we humans have consciousness - and if we choose to we can practise cultivating a beautiful mind with the same enthusiastic joy we might invest in our garden.

Like a gardener’s seed store, in the depths of our store consciousness we have a whole array of wonderful seeds, waiting to be sown. But this selection doesn’t just include lovely looking examples of fauna - there are also a whole selection of nasty weeds, if allowed to grow the type that could give us backache after hours spent pulling them out only to watch them re-grow.

These seeds in our store consciousness are a mixture of negative mind activity - fear, anger and ignorance and positive mental activity - understanding, compassion and forgiveness. Many of the seeds that exist in our store consciousness have been handed down from our parents, guardians, society and ancestors. 

To ensure our mind doesn’t end up as a garden of weeds, one whose angry stinging nettles hurt others we need to practice the same diligence as an expert gardener. We need to cultivate and water the positive ones so we can bring happiness to the upper levels of consciousness, as we strengthen these positive seeds we can bring more joy to those around us. The negative seeds must be watched carefully, if we see them starting to grow we must avoid watering them so they wilt and don’t take hold of us.

In relating to others we can take the same approach - we can notice when negativity starts to arise and do our best to prevent it. We can also encourage positivity and seek to provide the conditions for it to arise and remain.

The best opportunity to practise diligence is perhaps when conditions are particularly challenging and we’re faced with the frequent arising of our negative thought patterns and emotions. We can learn to be grateful for testing times and the opportunity to practise that they present.

This gardening of the mind should be carried out with energetic joy, diligence and perseverance. The seeds are there - it’s our job to cultivate those that will lead to happiness.

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Kshanti paramita - Patience/inclusivity

Just imagine if only moments after waking and feeling happy our mood immediately switched because someone we live with said or did something we didn’t like. Toilet seat up/down, wrong music playing, tea too hot or cereal not milky enough. 

What if all our interactions with the world around us were only a whisker away from setting us off, making us frustrated or angry. Perhaps we find ourselves saying our pet hates are slow walkers, drivers that don’t indicate or aren’t keeping to the speed limit. Maybe we even retaliate - raising our voice, dishing out insults and beeping our horns.

Is this behaviour necessary? Perhaps it’s ‘just who we are’, part of our personality, constantly saying things like, “I just don’t have the patience for this”, or, “that person is so frustrating”.

Patience can be considered to be inclusivity. The more inclusive we are, the more understanding of all the funny things that can happen to us and all the strange ways that other people behave, the greater our capacity will be to be patient with everything that goes on around us. When we’re open to all experiences without forcefully imposing our own desires on them we may very quickly find that our own state of mind is peaceful and steady and that this inner state transforms the outer situations we face.

The analogy of a cup of salty water sums up inclusivity or patience pretty well. The cup represents our capacity to love others. The salt, all the stuff that causes us to get irritated. If we have a small cup it won’t take long before we’re screwing up our faces and spitting out the salty water. However, if we have a massive body of fresh water, like one of the Great Lakes in Canada, we can chuck a load of salt in but because of the enormous capacity, we’re unlikely to even notice the saltiness.

Expand the heart, expand the mind, be open, be kind, love unconditionally.

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Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra Book 2 Verse 36: “Satya Pratisthayam Kriya Phala Ashrayatvam.”

I wrote the essay below as part of my teacher training in 2017 at Sangyé Yoga School. It's been slightly updated and is a bit longer than a regular blog, maybe.

Can the truth 'set you free' if it's also said that 'truth hurts'? What's the deal with truth, and why is it crucial to the Yoga practice? 

Both phrases might resonate – perhaps we've experienced a sense of freedom that truthfulness awards us when we have been honest after a period of concealing something, even a 'little white lie'. In moments like this, when the truth is told, people often experience relief, a lightness of conscience, mind and body, as the heavy burden of their deceitfulness lifts. 

'Truth hurts' most when we cling to the self-identity, emotions, and mental habits generated by our ego. As we journey through moksha-shāstra, the 'liberation teaching' of yoga, pain becomes manageable as we become more adept at questioning the notions of body, mind, emotions, possessions, status, achievements and other mental constructs and labels we might be clinging to.

Our path to living an awakened or enlightened life becomes more direct and easier to travel once we fully embrace Satya, 'truth' – embedding it in our thoughts, words, and every action we take.

Patanjali explains that 'actions and their results become subservient' for those well established in truthfulness. All of nature loves honest souls, and things come to honest people easily.   

Without a deep awareness, we may find ourselves avoiding the truth or adjusting our perception and description to suit our view of how things should be. This may temporarily make us feel more comfortable, but comfort is likely to be fleeting.

As children, we perhaps begin to lie to avoid the 'telling off' that we expect when we know we have done something that adults wouldn't be pleased about. 

We often lie to protect ourselves or others from a reality we dislike or would prefer wasn't a reality, 'the truth is too hard to handle'. Once we tell a lie, we may feel that we need to continue lying to maintain our story. This can go on for some time as lie upon lie pile up – lies can snowball out of control as more people become involved, and the original untruth spreads and becomes adjusted even further as people add their assumptions and emotional narrative to the story.

Living with dishonesty may be stressful and demanding work emotionally, but it can also become satisfying, even compulsive – riding our emotions can make us feel alive; they fuel conversations with others and allow us to wallow in pity for ourselves and our misfortune for experiencing suffering. People often say they love to complain.

We may keep falling into the trap of defining ourselves by our emotional responses to events rather than seeing things as they are. We blame situations and relationships we have experienced for our behaviour – "you did this, or that wrong"… or, "so and so made me angry", "I will never forget this", "more bad luck for me". This reliance on emotional responses to define situations and ourselves can become addictive, and fear leads us to anger and hate; frustration leads us to sadness and depression. We can become deeply affected, our bodies and minds becoming consumed and controlled by these damaging behaviour patterns. 

The perceived solidity of our ego and perceptions we hold about ourselves and situations hold us back. Allowing emotions to dictate our behaviour can mean we cultivate negative responses to situations that become patterns. As time goes by, these patterns become who we are, and they become more challenging to break, yet like everything, they are not permanent.

The way we cling to emotions and emotional responses is in part due to the emotional aspects of our minds evolving before the 'thinking' parts. If we always respond based on the predominant immediate emotion in each moment, we will rarely see things as they are. This misknowing or avoidance of the truth prevents us from reaching an enlightened state; it leads to more separation and moves us away from oneness. Instead, we become more disconnected.

We don't have to live like this; we can escape this disconnectedness. Our path to awareness requires us to accept and embrace truth. When we begin to surrender to reality, even if it's hard to accept, we will move towards a relaxed state of oneness in which we will feel unburdened, calm and free. 

So how can we embed Satya into our thoughts, speech and actions? 

To begin, we must allow ourselves some space and time. We need to create a stillness in our minds or slow them down momentarily to avoid knee-jerk emotional responses. As we've discussed, by reacting to situations that can cause us suffering instantly at a primal and emotional level, we may not see things as they are, and our fear or conditioning will drive our behaviour. 

Those far down the road toward inner freedom can slow down the response to stimuli within the primitive brain and allow themselves more time to process situations. Despite their challenges, they remain calm in equanimity, controlling their body, breathing, and maintaining unclouded thoughts. This self-control allows them to respond in a measured conscious way. Before an emotional response kicks in, they can rationalise the situation, then respond reasonably and peacefully, having seen things clearly, rather than acting with raw emotion and remaining blind to reality.

We should approach all situations in our lives with the same concentration and dedication that we bring to our yoga mats as we practice Āsana. When we mindfully apply ourselves to watching our thoughts, we can begin to recognise undesirable or irrational ones. We should consider thoughts and emotions, observing them but letting them pass without holding on to any feelings connected to them. We will learn that we are not our ego, nor emotions, and the false reality that these may create. We will then begin to see that nothing has eternal existence, and because of the nature of impermanence, things will continue to change. Once we accept this, we'll grasp less at things we're attached to or averse to, and a state of steadiness and ease will be cultivated. 

The practice of observing our thoughts may not be easy. The transient nature of the universe means that situations like our emotions come and go. We should accept this impermanence, and in doing so, we will realise that life is, in fact, less complicated, and we can choose how much we suffer.

When we practise yoga, we will experience both mental and physical challenges. Rather than getting hung up on asanas, we think we cannot do or find very difficult; we could acknowledge our thinking and let it pass, returning to focus on our breath. If we decide to see something as 'too hard or bad' because we dislike it or the way it makes us feel, we do not see the truth, we have failed to recognise impermanence and have attached a negative view to it that will prevent our progression.

Accepting how things are in any given moment is also key to becoming more precise about the situation we are in and how to progress positively. We should accept, understand, and not hide from what we know nor create an attachment to our views. 

Satya can and should be applied to the other moral principles of yoga – we may find that we are untruthful and selective in our application of the yamas and niyamas. If we are not truthful, we will not progress in a life guided by the principle of dharma, 'morality'.

We will all face difficult times, even in everyday challenges – managing a household, conflict with colleagues, disagreements with family members or others. In practising patience with a focus on Satya, we will continue to move towards a position where we understand that we are not what we appear to be; we are not born with a fixed personality or set of traits. Though certain behaviours may represent our current personality, we can change and constantly evolve.

When truthfulness becomes firmly ingrained, how to live well will become clear. We will be more faithful to ourselves and others, making our decisions from a state of equanimity. Our behaviour will manifest in kindness and compassion and be based on logic and reason. Others will feel comfortable and calm in our presence – they'll be open and honest and reflect the goodness we demonstrate. Our interactions with others will be easy. 

We will also be less likely to follow society's harmful conventions and traditions. We'll have the strength and resolve to move away from these calmly and continue forward with understanding. 

All beings desire to be happy, well and free from suffering, regardless of the species whose physical body they assume. Through Satya, we realise this truth and will develop greater tolerance, patience and understanding. We will be truthful about how our actions affect others and more likely to behave in ways that benefit others.

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Happy New Year!

Was 2019 our ‘best year ever’ in which we got everything we wanted, or was it ‘the worst’, just a series of ‘terrible’ events for us to struggle through?

It’s easy to get caught up in viewing moments and events as being positive or negative; ones that we should be proud of, excited by, or jealous of (if others are having the fun), even frustrated or angry about - because it’s ‘normal’ to behave this way, ‘it’s just my personality’.

Perhaps we’re planning for 2020 to be the year in which everything goes according to our plan and we get what we want, and deserve; a year in which we’re really #livingmybestlife.

If we continue to look to extraneous events for happiness we might be on the road to disappointment. Instead we could ask ourselves, ‘despite the challenges I face am I able to think, speak and act in ways that contribute to a greater sense of ease and steadiness for myself and others?’ If we can do even a tiny bit of this we’re already ‘winning at life’.

Nothing is lasting and most things are outside of our control. But however 2020 pans out, moment by moment, we all have the capacity as human beings to cultivate more loving kindness, more compassion, more joy and also a state of equanimity. 

As we bring these positive behaviours into our relationships with others we might just find that we’re creating a more peaceful and happy experience, for not only ourselves, but everyone and everything around us.

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Is Yoga political?

When we practise Yoga we interrogate the mind and our experience of what’s happening to develop an awareness of our thoughts, feelings and behavioural tendencies. What we may discover is that much of what we think and many of the things we say and do have been learned from our ancestors, families and friends and society. This adoption of behaviours and traditions, without questioning their impact, can lead us to do things that may not only be damaging to ourselves but also to others. We may also find ourselves denying that our actions cause harm or even seeking to justify our behaviour, just because we deem it to be ‘normal, natural or necessary’. We might even seek to defend societal norms, perhaps because they offer us benefits, privilege or just align with our preferences - i.e. the gender pay gap, not allowing homosexual couples to adopt children or the right to exploit certain animals. 

As insight and awareness develop we may begin to see that we are not isolated from the world around us, in fact, we’re very much connected with everything else - we are political because our words and actions affect. When mindful of the impact we have on the world we can begin to behave in ways that contribute to the building of a more peaceful environment for everyone that lives here. We may see that it simply isn’t in our interest to think, say or do things that cause others to experience suffering.

Throughout the world, humans and other sentient beings are being exploited and oppressed. This oppression can go completely unnoticed as it is so ingrained in our belief systems. Invisible moral hierarchies permit the exploitation of some animals for transport, others for experimentation, entertainment or for food. In different countries, the acceptable species to exploit varies, but the same belief system of oppression remains the same. 

In some areas of the world social progress has led to the dismantling of some oppressive political systems and legislation that restricted the freedom of choice of certain people. In other areas, however, oppression remains or is being exacerbated by those that currently wield power. Oppression shows that there is a dysfunction in our relationships, not just as individuals but also as social groups, or as nations. When we find ourselves wedded to a mentality that permits oppression we will not only continue to harm humans and nonhuman animals but we will perpetuate the environmental devastation of planet Earth, the place we depend on for life. 

As Yogis, if we wish to work towards awareness and liberation from suffering we must see that our thoughts, words and actions are part of the bigger picture. In 1950 a father whose young son had died wrote to Albert Einstein asking for some comforting words. An excerpt from Einstein’s reply is below - it sums up very well the challenge we face as humans and how we should approach it.

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

The letter was quoted in the New York Times on 29 March 1972 and the New York Post on 28 November 1972.

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Ahimsa today

In today’s society it can seem that we’re constantly being encouraged to forge a path of radical self expression, individualism and to become our ‘true’ selves. We’re observing ourselves constantly through the filtered lens of social media, personalising our belongings and engaging in all sorts of activities that are tailored to our needs. But perhaps the more we seek to carve out a lifestyle that represents ‘me’, the greater the risk of becoming dualistic in the way we see our experience as human beings. Are we seeing ourselves as different and separate from others, perhaps even better than others, or more deserving of what we consider we have ‘earned’. 

Ahimsa, non-harming, like all of the Yamas, is from a code of conduct, or set of rules, on how we should interact with everything around us. Rules and restraints aren’t appealing for everyone, especially in a world where we’re encouraged to succeed by accumulating material wealth and symbols that represent status at any cost. Even in a world of ‘woke’ yogis, Ahimsa runs the risk of being overlooked or having its true purpose adjusted to suit the needs of whoever is interpreting it. Talk of ‘Ahimsa for the self’ seems common among some today, it can be used to justify doing some harm if it means temporary happiness for the individual self. But when this happens suffering to the whole, the universe, increases; even when we look away.

If we wish to truly nourish ourselves and set out on a path toward liberation from suffering, the more deeply we can understand and abide by the Yamas, the better. None of us exist in isolation. Our interdependent relationship with everything in the world around us can be used as a powerful motivation to encourage us to think, speak and act in ways which will bring greater harmony to the world. Every action leads to a chain of reactions and when we can begin to look further down the chain we may come to understand that none of our small acts of kindness are wasted, even if it feels like we’re being stingy or repressing our desires when we want something that we know may cause harm to others. We will also see that even small negative actions may have been born out of a chain of suffering or are perpetuating it. 

Nonviolence does not mean that we become passive or indifferent to the problems that we see in the world. We can be fully aware and fully engaged, in fact in order to truly live in alignment with Ahimsa we must become fully mindful of the consequences of everything we choose to do. We must behave in ways that do not only benefit ourselves in any given moment. We become compassionate and understanding in order to contribute positively to the world around us and reduce suffering. Until we begin to respect and help reduce the suffering of others we cannot hope to become truly loving and kind and to contribute to their happiness.

What can we do today? We can work on opening our minds to see beyond the labels that we use to make sense of the world around us, ‘self’, ‘other’, ‘them’, ‘us, ‘English’, ‘French’, ‘male’, ‘female’, ‘gay’, ‘straight’, ‘dog’, ‘cow’. We can expand our viewpoints, considering those of others and being open to these. We can seek to recognise the root cause of suffering and identify actions we might take to alleviate it.

We must play our part in the society of the universe and play it well in order to create an environment in which all can be happy and free. Being serious about the rules or Yamas doesn’t mean we need to stop having fun, it just means we start being less harmful. The sooner we become less harmful and more disciplined the less likely we are to perpetuate violence and harm already taking place in the world.

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Santosha - 'renounce and enjoy'

When Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Mahatma Gandhi, was asked if he could sum up the secret of his life in three words, he quoted from the Isha Upanishad, ‘Tena tyaktena bhunjithah’ - ‘Renounce and enjoy!’. If asked to do this in two words he may well have said, ‘let go’.

This simple mantra stated by Gandhi sums up ‘santosha’, the inner expression of contentment or acceptance, the second of the Niyamas.

Like all the other Yamas and Niyamas developing and embodying santosha on its own will be beneficial but there is a powerful interplay with the others. In the case of santosha, much like loving kindness or ‘maitri’, when we are able to accept without preference and be content with the experiences we face, we will be able to enjoy these for what they are and do so with a state of equanimity.

As human beings we have a tendency to allow our minds to race forward to events that we’re looking forward to, or are worried about, or back, reliving past memories, often wishing things had gone differently. Less frequently do we spend time considering how the present moment may indeed offer everything we need. 

Grasping at our preferences restricts our ability to be open and unbiased, the more preferences we have the more likely we are to complain, the more we complain the greater our sense of dissatisfaction with our experience of life. Some of our habitual patterns are inherited, passed down from ancestors and society. For example - we may wake on a rainy, windy and cold day and describe the weather as horrendous, terrible or bad. Neither rain, nor wind, nor cold are bad or whatever negative word we use to describe them - it’s our preferences that create this viewpoint.

Santosha offers us an opportunity to see and experience life differently, rather than constantly being tripped up by obstacles we may begin to embrace opportunities. Opportunities that allow us to let go and to stop trying to control everything around us. When we are able to continuously let go, truly renounce, we will begin to embody santosha and the contentment, steadiness and ease it offers.

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