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​Morality at the Foot of the Mystic Mountain

8/13/2016

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PictureDharma Wheel on the Konark Sun Temple in Odisha, India
If we start with the idea that all mystical paths lead up the same mountain, it can be a useful exercise to compare the scenery on the different paths, to get an idea of the terrain they all share.

Morality is a prominent feature at the base of the mountain of mysticism, like mesquite trees before moving up in elevation to manzanita and oak here in the desert. Every mystical path begins in the mesquite morality forest. Getting our ethical existence in order is primary, before practice, before higher states, before experiencing the great indiscriminate Absolute.

The eight limbs of Yoga put the yama and niyama (the moral restraints and observances) squarely first. And the noble eightfold path of the Buddha puts right speech, right action, and right livelihood before mindfulness and concentration.

These Eastern schools tell us there is a practical reason for this. We have to get our moral lives tidied up before we can make real progress toward liberation. Otherwise, when we sit to meditate, the inner landscape is cluttered with emotion and thoughts about things left undone.

What I want to explore here is the same idea in Christianity, especially through the perspective of the anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing. This little text is a window onto the Christian monastic mysticism of the Middle Ages. Reading this book for the first time, I was surprised at the familiarity of his message. Contemplative prayer has a lot in common with the meditative practices of Yoga, with the goal being to settle the mind on one focal point in order to pierce the Cloud of Unknowing and, eventually, experience Ultimate Reality.

A little background: I was raised in the Catholic Church. It felt very unmystical to me. To my child mind, it appeared to be rule-based and cold—a land of authoritarian priests and nuns; pompous, empty rituals; and an outdated morality shot through with gender inequality. I quit the church in my early teens, rejecting the beliefs of my parents, as we do, in order to become an autonomous young adult with ideas of my own.

In college I studied the Tanakh / Old Testament and the New Testament. I learned the history of Christianity and even some theology. I read the medieval women mystics. But I was always wary. Christianity never attracted me the way Hinduism and Buddhism did.   
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But that was all a long time ago now, and I was hopeful that I could approach The Cloud in the same way I would any other mystical text—with respect for its parent tradition and seeking what benefit it holds.

All was going well, even delightfully, until our anonymous author started to talk about sin. And not just sinful acts but our “sinful nature.” Call it a stumbling block, a button pusher, a trigger—I had a visceral reaction, my gut and shoulders tightened up, one eye brow raised, and mentally I kept trying to check out, reading without really processing.

Instead of letting myself of the hook, I decided to ask, Where does this come from? What does it mean to the writer and does it mean something different to me? And of course, that’s exactly what was going on.

Sin as Avidya / Ignorance

As kids, moral teachings come across as “This is a sin. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.” It’s just a list of rules and proscriptions. This was my experience with Catholicism, because I was a kid.

As adults we can understand that “sin” is anything that moves us away from the Truth, away from the experience of union with God.

(I gotta say, I still don’t have the same experience of the word God that I do with Brahman, the Tao, or the Sacred, though I understand intellectually that they are all referring to the same Ultimate, the Absolute.)

In Yoga, sin is the equivalent of ignorance, avidya. Because we misunderstand the Truth about the sacredness of the world, we act according to our own selfish desires, seeking to affirm our attachment and avoidance preferences. To make progress toward spiritual liberation, we have to learn how to let go of our self-centered and self-constructed desires. Therefore “bad” thoughts, words, and deeds are those that are unwise, that move us away from Truth, and “good” thoughts, words, and deeds are those that are wise and move us closer to it.

In The Cloud of Unknowing, our unknown author tells us that sin is the result of “weakness and lack of understanding.”  Lack of understanding causes misperception, and this faulty perception in turn creates errors in thought and false judgments. The misperception, he says, is cleared up through humility, through selflessness.

He advocates using the word “sin” as the focus of contemplation, not as a reminder of individual acts, the memory of which he says will only distract from contemplation, but as a reminder of the evil that is to be overcome, the ignorance that creates distance from God.


“Sin,” he says, “is an indefinable lump that is nothing other than yourself.” This might seem startling to some, but is this idea so different from the yogic principle that the ego personality, your self, is not your real Self? I proposed it could make sense to think of it in such terms.

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake"

PicturePositivity! (At quotesgram.com, this is labeled as an advertisement.)
But equating the self with "sin," with ignorance and misperception, is difficult for many of us to do for at least two reasons: (1) the baggage of our childhood experiences with Christianity. And (2) 100 years of our culture being imbued with the positivity-at-all-cost model, starting with New Thought, then New Age and the self-esteem movement. We’re so afloat on the power of positive thinking that we shrink back from or rise against anybody who tries to point out our faults.

​We are good. We are worthy. We “deserve the best.” We have been sold the idea that everything ought to make us feel good about ourselves, especially spirituality.

PictureBy SanDorfALot
But go deep enough into any religion, and you’ll be told the opposite. Not only are you not, by default, good and worthy. You are not, as Chuck Palahniuk has Tyler Durden remind us, “a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying matter as everything else.”

There comes a time when we have to learn that we are nothing; we are less than the shit in a fly on the windshield of the Universe. Compared to the vastness of the Absolute; to the eternal nature of the Sacred; and to the inevitability of death, we are terrifyingly meaningless. Our existence is a flash in the pan; we are tiny, fragile, limited, and finite. In fact, a central theme of mysticism is that “you” aren’t even real. You have to let go entirely of any sense of “you” to meet what is Really Real.

This experience of our utter insignificance, trembling before the Ultimate, brought low by the realization of Truth—this is the dark night of the soul. This is the “perfect humility” The Cloud
 talks about. And out the other side of it is the way to knowledge, understanding, and the experience of union.

To tie this with the topic of morality, the author tells us, "Strive for perfect humility. When you have it, you will not commit sin. Once you have experienced a moment of perfect humility, you will remain less susceptible to temptation."

It is these instances of selflessness that change us at the core.

Moving up the Mountain

It’s a long and treacherous path up the mystic mountain, and we prepare for it with morality. “The first step toward contemplation involves cleansing your conscience from sins you know you have committed, following the regular practices of the Holy Church. This will destroy the root and ground of sin in the soul,” says The Cloud.

Just like with the yama and niyama or any seemingly proscriptive list of rules, at first they are external, then with their internalization and with progress on the path, the principles on which those rules are based emerge as part of our perspective, the lens through which we see the word and act within it. With these principles in place, actions in accord with the “rules” spontaneously flow from the movement closer to the Sacred.

Then, with the inner landscape tranquil, we can head up the mystic mountain in earnest.

Now, with this more tolerant and perhaps more mature understanding of sin, God, and humility, I turn back to read The Cloud of Unknowing
 again, to find what waits on this new plateau.
Picture
Table Mountain Contour Path, By Abu Shawka CC0
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Stages of Faith

8/5/2016

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Preparing for a lecture and discussion on the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Bhagavad Gita, I decided to throw in this information about the stages of faith. As I constructed my notes, it occurred to me that this is really super important stuff. It's a map of where we've been and where we're going, and it's a useful tool for understanding others on the journey. So, I decided to share it here. 
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As we grow, so does our mental capacity. As this happens, we go through various stages of development - cognitive, moral, social, and otherwise.

James Fowler put forward this model of the stages of spiritual development across the lifespan. What follows is an extreme simplification of his ideas. If you find yourself interested, please check out his book, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning.

Stage 0: Undifferentiated faith
  • Infancy
  • Learning to trust or fear the important adults in our life and also to trust or fear the environment. We come to believe that either the world will take care of us or that it won’t.
  • This sense of trust or fear will become foundational in our later sense of faith in the Divine.

Stage 1: Intuitive-projective faith
  • Early childhood (3 – 7)
  • Cognitively, this stage is fantasy-filled. It’s all about imitation and imagination.
  • Fantasy and reality are the same.
  • In this stage, development of spiritual understanding is based on interactions with important adults and the stories they tell.
  • In order to progress, we must develop concrete operational thinking; i.e., we must be able to use concrete concepts (concepts with a physical referent)

Stage 2: Mythic-literal faith
  • Middle/late childhood (7 – 15), this is the first stage that some people never move beyond
  • Here there is a literal interpretation of mythology and religious stories.
  • God is seen as a parent figure
  • To move on from this stage, we must develop abstract thinking

Stage 3: Synthetic-conventional faith
  • Early adolescence (15 – 21), can last into and through adulthood
  • This stage is characterized by conformity to the beliefs of others and integrating the faith of one’s culture
  • It is the beginning of creating a personal identity and shaping a personal definition of faith
  • To move on from this stage, we must experience internal conflict between personal beliefs and social expectations

Stage 4: Individuative-reflective faith
  • Late adolescence/early adulthood
  • Independent critical thinking leads to unique, individualistic worldview
  • This is where we begin to balance our view of self, other, and Sacred
  • To move on, we must desire to integrate the way we see the world with the worldview of others
  • (We have to want to get over “I’m right and you’re wrong” thinking.)

Stage 5: Conjunctive faith
  • Middle adulthood and beyond
  • Awareness of our finiteness and limitations leads to becoming more open to paradox and opposing viewpoints
  • (We know that we don’t really know. We are always open to the possibility that we could be wrong and someone else might have something valuable to say.)
  • There is an increasing appreciation of symbols and myths
  • We value our own direct experience as well as affirm other people’s beliefs
  • To move on, we must desire to reconcile our personally developed transforming vision with the world as it is
  • (We’ve changed but our world hasn’t. And that has to be ok.)

​Stage 6: Universalizing faith
  • Middle and late adulthood
  • Few ever reach this stage
  • Awareness of complex universal issues and loss of egocentric focus leads to transcending belief systems and realizing a sense of oneness with all beings
  • Conflicting events are no longer viewed as paradoxes
  • Often manifests as disciplined activism toward transforming the social order

So, to simplify it even further, when it comes to stories like those we’re going to talk about,
Stage 1 would say, “Neat!”
Stage 2 would say, “It’s not mythology; it’s history.”
Stage 3 would say, “This is a blueprint for how I ought to live.”
Stage 4 would say, “I call bullshit!”
Stage 5 would say, “Fascinating. What can I learn from this?”
Stage 6 would say, “How can I implement these lessons to make a world a better place?”

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Embodying the Tao

7/19/2016

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PictureChinese bone oracle script for "de" or virtue. From the 2nd millennium BCE.
A companion piece to Finding the Tao Within

People who embody the Tao are called by different names in different translations of the Tao Te Ching - sages, masters, holy men, wise men (though the original text doesn't distinguish gender). And these are the people we are called on to emulate. Throughout the text, their virtues are listed and praised.

What follows is my attempt to create a complete and yet succinct list of the characteristics of those who embody the Tao. I suppose I do so in hopes that in remembering to practice these virtues I too might come to embody the Tao, even if only for small moments here and there.

Contentment

Those who embody the Tao
  • Practice contentment; they are free from desire and unaffected by temptations and distraction. They accept what arises and are content and accepting of themselves
  • Do not strive and do not seek success
  • Let go of plans and concepts; they do not set goals
  • Do not chase after what is difficult to obtain
  • Do not wish to stand out but prefer to blend in
  • And they are accepting of death​​

Wu-wei (non-doing)

Those who embody the Tao
  • Practice not-doing; they are unmoving and do not seek
  • Act without action; work without effort; teach without words
  • Let actions come spontaneously
  • Have learned to stop thinking and stop learning; they do not look to others to tell them what to value
  • Practice non-interference and do not meddle; they stay uninvolved

Detachment

Those who embody the Tao
  • Are detached from their actions
  • Don’t try to control things or impose their will on others
  • Have no expectations; they act without agenda
  • Do not cling to the outcome of their work
  • Don’t shy away from something because they may have to give up comfort, because they are not attached to comfort.

Simplicity

Those who embody the Tao
  • Practice simplicity; they conserve time and energy
  • Practice moderation; they eliminate extremes and avoid complexity
  • Focus on basic needs and live simply
  • Stay composed; they don’t become restless; they don’t rush or scurry
  • Do only what needs to be done, and they ask for nothing in return

Non-competitiveness

Those who embody the Tao
  • Manage the ego
  • Are humble and selfless
  • Are unconcerned about ego-gratification; they don’t seek approval or become arrogant or self-satisfied
  • Are not greedy
  • Do not try to put themselves ahead or above anyone
  • Do not seek faults in others
  • Don’t compare or compete; they do not rejoice or gloat in defeating an enemy

Silence, solitude, peace

Those who embody the Tao
  • Practice quietude; they do not talk more than is necessary
  • Practice serenity and tranquility
  • Value peace
  • Embrace solitude

Impartiality & Compassion

Those who embody the Tao
  • Are kind
  • Are impartial they treat everyone and everything as equally valuable; they don’t close their minds with judgments
  • Practice compassion, even toward the ignorant, the bad, or an enemy; they care for all things and people; they are available to all people
  • Are tolerant and amused

Integrity

Those who embody the Tao
  • Are forthright; they do not use cunning or contrivance
  • Have integrity; they are genuine and incorruptible
  • Are dignified and courteous; they respect themselves and others
  • Don’t practice superficial virtues to look good to others
  • Abide in the depth of substance, in what is real
  • Are aware when things are out of balance; they assess situations without becoming part of them
  • Maintain awareness of what is essential, the heart of each matter; they are able to read situations and respond appropriately without ever leaving their calm center
  • Are circumspect and serious when it is called for
  • Do not forget their humanness
  • Understand the whole and view the parts with compassion
  • Admit to faults and to not knowing; they know that they do not know
  • Are careful and alert; they are as careful at the end as at the beginning
  • Fulfill obligations and correct their mistakes

Patience and acceptance

Those who embody the Tao
  • Are patient; they allow things to unfold, to take their natural course, to come and go; they have faith in the way things are
  • Keep their hearts open
  • Trust their inner vision; they remain open so they can listen to their intuition
  • Are loose and fluid; they are receptive, supple, yielding, weak, bending, flexible
  • Do not become defensive
  • Embrace paradox; they understand they must let go to receive; be weak to find strength; be soft to endure; They recognize that the Tao/true virtue may appear otherwise from outside: great integrity can appear like disgrace; perfection can seem flawed; fullness can seem empty
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Finding the Tao Within

7/18/2016

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PictureDetail from Celtic Horse Gear, Santon, Norfolk. Mid-first Century AD. Photo by Gun Powder Ma. CC BY-SA 3.0
Like the philosophy it espouses, the Tao Te Ching is a fluid text. It meanders this way and that, whirls in gentle circles, and burbles along contentedly. Reading it is like sitting by a quietly flowing stream.

After working with various versions of the Tao these past few weeks, I found myself seeking straightforward answers. What exactly should I be doing? How can I turn this babbling brook into a directed stream?

The irony! I get it. Studying the Tao Te Ching is a practice in itself. In its roundabout way, it plants the seeds of patience and contentment and then nourishes them. Wanting to streamline the Tao is like wanting to hurry along the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. It will take its time.

Be that as it may, I did find the following exercise useful in digging deep into the text and to settling my mind. What I did was this, I sat with two versions, Derek Lin's and Stephen Mitchell's, and went through chapter by chapter writing out every piece of advice, every line that gave a command (do this/be this), and every example of what sages and masters do or are. Then I organized them by theme, while putting them in my own much less formal language. 

These ideas, it turned out, could be separated into two categories: (1) finding the Tao within and (2) virtues of the person who is at one with the Tao. Here I'll post the former, with the latter to follow soon.

How to Find the Tao

The Practices
  • The Tao is within. There is no reason to seek it outside of yourself.
  • In order to tune in to the Tao, practice
    • Relaxation
    • Observation
    • Quiet introspection
    • Concentration
  • Work at understanding yourself.
  • Step back from your own mind. Do not cling to ideas. Know that names and institutions are provisional, not the Tao. Empty your mind of what you think you know about the world.
  • Realize all things change and don’t hold on to them.
  • Cultivate the Tao quietly.

About the Practices
  • Through these practices, develop emptiness, non-being, space within.
  • Keep to the discipline and don’t be lured by shortcuts.
  • The process is gradual and steady.
  • When you identify with the Tao
    • You will stay centered in oneness and let things take their course.
    • You will see the world as yourself.
    • You will be at ease.
    • There will be no need to practice individual virtues; virtue arises spontaneously.
Next time, the spontaneously arising virtues . . . 
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Laozi. Photo by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra. CC BY 2.0
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Brahman, the Tao, and the Ground of Being

7/9/2016

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​Before they reach it, words turn back
together with the mind;
One who knows that bliss of brahman,
he is never afraid.

Taittiriya Upanishad, 2.9.1

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name than can be named is not the eternal name

Tao Te Ching, 1

​The crux of the issue in talking about mystical experiences is that they are beyond words. Luckily, this hasn’t kept mystics from attempting to describe their experiences, mostly at the request of others. But their descriptions are littered with paradox and negatives; for example, ultimate reality, it is said, is both immanent and transcendent, and yet neither of these nor both together adequately captures it.

And yet we must persist for several reasons:
  • to keep the highest goal ever present in our awareness
  • to filter into our lives what truths we can
  • to make space for those pauses while reading or writing, contemplating or meditating, when we settle into stillness and the ultimate manifests within
  • to remind ourselves to listen closely so that we might hear the gentle or cataclysmic guidance it offers
  • and to let it quietly color our perspective, transforming how we experience and interact with the world.

​Brahman and the Tao

PictureNaturally Grown Wood by Ewig Lernender, CC BY-SA 3.0
Brahman and the Tao are both mystical ontological concepts that attempt to convey what cannot be conveyed in words or even completely comprehended by the rational mind. They may, and I like to think they do, symbolize the same subject, which is whatever we are experiencing when we have that feeling, that numinous sense, that we’ve tapped into the very structure of existence.

Brahman, in Upanishadic and Vedantic philosophy, is the all-encompassing whole. It is being and consciousness. It is all matter and energy. Brahman is everything and everything is Brahman. Many of its descriptors make it sound like something static, but Brahman is also process. It is the living breath of the universe.

The Tao, the ancient Chinese philosophical concept on which Taoism is based, is described in much more fluid terms. It is the principle by which all of nature unfolds. The Tao is the balance of opposites. It is the deep, immovable way of the world that, if we can reconnect to it and live in accord with it, produces harmony in our lives.

These words, the Tao and Brahman, are meant to express the all-embracing principle, process, and spirit of both what is and what is always becoming. Neither seeks to posit something separate from us. We are always part of the whole that is Being. We just fail to remember it.

Sages in both traditions recommend similar practices to help us tune in to this ultimate essence: observation and awareness of self, other, and nature, exemplary ethics, compassion, silence, meditation—all methods of loosening the grip of the ego personality and overcoming our perceived separateness.
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And eventually they say, with enough dedication and practice, we can become living representations of the Tao, of Brahman. We can relax, having no fear, because there is nothing separate from Being and therefore nothing to fear. We don’t have to act, because it is the process that acts, not us. Wisdom arises spontaneously.

Ground of Being

PictureGod Blessing the Seventh Day by William Blake c. 1805
To me, the idea behind Brahman and the Tao isn’t really conveyed in the word “God.” As for many others, God for me is too anthropomorphized. It is reified into a separate thing. Maybe this is because God is a He. Both the Tao and Brahman are genderless. And while you may seek union with Brahman and the Tao, as you would with God, you would never pray to them. They are perfectly impersonal and cannot be supplicated to.

This is not to say that all three aren’t pointing toward the same idea, just that our (okay, my) personal experience with the God symbol has too much baggage. I get it that it’s this bigger (biggest) concept being referred to throughout much of the Western monotheisms. This is what Paul Tillich was trying to pull into language when he suggested using “ground of being” to expand the God-concept out of our culturally conditioned notions.

I am reminded here of one of the earliest findings in the scientific study of the efficacy of prayer. It turns out that prayer is most effective when we pray for “God’s will” to be done, that is to say, for the best overall outcome rather than our preferred outcome. In a way, this ties together the traditions. When we let go of the enculturated wants of the ego personality, let go of our separateness from the Whole, and step into the flow of the Tao, the consciousness of Brahman, and/or the hand of God, life moves harmoniously.
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In the end, all of these ideas point toward the experience of stepping into union with Being. The Ultimate, the Universe, the Really Real, the Sacred, God, Brahman, the Tao, the ground of being—all are signs we put up along the road and tack to trees along the path. All are signs to point the way home.

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Babia Gora National Park by Andrzej Otrebski CC BY-SA 3.0
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What is Mysticism?

7/2/2016

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PictureHildegard von Bingen, 14th cent. manuscript illustration. Public domain.
With the beginning of the Modern Mystic Book Club, I’ve been thinking a lot about this question, What is mysticism? Since I was young—middle school young, maybe even before—I’ve been fascinated by mysticism. To me, mystics were the people who won at life. That was who I wanted to be.
 
So, what is mysticism? That’s a tough one to take straight on. Allow me to come at it from the side: Who is a mystic? Ah, much easier. A mystic is someone who seeks union with the Ultimate . . . .  At least, that is how it is currently defined.
 
In every religion, every spiritual path, there are people who seek firsthand experience of the Absolute, the Sacred, God, Goddess, the Tao, perfect Being, nonbeing, Brahman, nirvana—the Ultimate however their path defines it. These are the mystics, variously called ecstatics, seers, prophets, yogis, fakirs, saints, and more.
 
Mysticism, then, covers everything about their journey. It’s the methods they follow: ethical purity, study, silence, dance, fasting, prayer, meditation, and so on, many of which serve to hollow us out, to empty us of the ego personality.
 
It’s all the results of those practices: the psychological maturity; the compassion and wisdom; the altered states of consciousness, the visions, trances, intuitions; and the union they experience.
 
It’s the descriptions of the Ultimate the mystics return with, as they attempt to put into words what is patently beyond words, relying on paradox to describe the hard won truths they have gathered. And it’s their resignation and admonitions that we must put in the work and see for ourselves.
 
All of this is mysticism, and more.

PictureDervish, 1870s Persia. Public domain.
When I studied comparative mysticism in college, as an undergrad and grad student, the raging debate was between the essentialists and constructivists. (The constructivists also called themselves contextualists and empiricists).

The essentialists claimed some substance to the perennial philosophy, to the idea that all mystics are touching the same Source, even if that similarity was based in the biology of the human brain.
 
The constructivists stood firm in the perspective that all experience is mediated through enculturation and language-based expectations, even mystical experience. And to claim that all mystics are having the same experience is at best wishful thinking. At worst it’s the product of cultural hegemony, erasing difference and replacing it with our own constructs of what we think the mystical experience should be.
 
Twenty-plus years later, the academic study of mysticism appears to have gone full tilt for the latter.
 
I believe both sides have merit. And honestly, I don’t really care if one side is more right than the other. I’m after my own experience. I want to live this life as deeply and as well as I can. I want to know for myself that peace, joy, and assuredness of the mystics. So it occurs to me to return to the sources to find the Source; to seek the advice of others who sought to experience the Ultimate, who touched the godhead and let it transform them. And to let them be my models for how to live.
 
At least very few of them were dicks. ​

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The Tao Te Ching (Modern Mystic Book Club #1)

7/1/2016

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PictureDrawing of Laozi, 1920s. (Public domain)
The Tao Te Ching, or Daodejing in pinyin, is such a fantastic book to begin with! It’s at least 2500 years old, is a foundational text of Taoism, and has been influential in every major religious school in China, including Confucianism and the various incarnations of Chinese Buddhism.

Any verifiable facts about its author Lao Tzu (Loazi) have been lost to history.

The title refers to the fact that there are really two books here: The Tao Ching, which is the first half of the text (chapters 1-37) and the Te Ching (chapters 38-81). If this is your first experience with the Tao Te Ching, don’t worry. The 81 chapters are brief collections of verses.

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Many of us are familiar with the translation of “Tao” as “the Way,” and this is usable if we keep in mind that we are referring to much more than just a path but the all-encompassing, mysterious process of the universe. “Te” means virtue. Ching means something like “important book.” So Classic Texts of the Way and Virtue might be a passable translation of the title.
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I recommend that we read Derek Lin’s translation. It’s a nice balance of accuracy and fluidity. You can find it free here: http://www.taoism.net/ttc/complete.htm. If you are moved to go deeper, his annotated book is available for around $11 online.

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​A close second recommendation would be Stephen Mitchell’s version, which is not a translation but an interpretation. It is truly beautiful and has been a great comfort to me over the last two dozen years. Comparing translations can be helpful in understanding a text. I also find I learn a lot about myself through my reactions to different versions. Mitchell’s Tao Te Ching has been posted online in a few different places. Only Lin’s translation will be “required reading.” You can find Mitchell’s here:
 http://www.with.org/tao_te_ching_en.pdf.
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I look forward to the ongoing discussion on the Facebook group page and to our eventual meeting on August 1st.

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Facing Criticism with Anxiety

6/19/2016

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I take criticism hard. I automatically assume they are right and I am wrong for even trying. I think I have to be all the way right or I shouldn’t even open my mouth. That's perfectionism and all or nothing thinking, two symptoms of anxiety. Add paranoia to the mix and the merest inclination that I could have done better means jumping to the conclusion that everyone will see I'm a total fraud.
 
It's like a punch to the gut. One negative comment washes away years of positivity and sets off roiling doubt, inducing a self-reflective funk that makes me a drain to be around. That is how anxiety becomes depression.
 
I am not writing this for kudos or comfort, but to let others know, if they react (overreact) this way, they are not alone.
 
It's embarrassing. I'm supposed to be able to handle this kind of thing. I mean, I know that when someone offers a critique or constructive criticism the thing to do is rationally evaluate it on its merits and progress from there, incorporating or disregarding as appropriate.
 
But it can take me days to get to that point, depending on what the topic is, depending on how sore the sore spot is that they touched. And why am I covered in sore spots?
 

Fear. Some days I am made out of fear.
 
Anxiety is a maladaptive expression of our response to threats. I experience a knee-jerk reaction to protect my sense of self-worth, when really I should wait until my amygdala is done hijacking me and I can think more clearly to respond.
 
Instead, I end up reconsidering my entire purpose in life and wishing I could just fade away, back into the oblivion where I used to live. Agoraphobia was in no small way a reaction to this fear—I was hiding from the possibility of being wrong.
 
And this reaction is set off not necessarily from someone actively trying to tear me down. Just pointing out a misstatement or a nuance I neglected is enough.
 
Some people can brush off criticism. Maybe I should have gotten used to it in academe, where people build careers off of falsifying and criticizing what came before. I hid from that too, writing on obscure topics no one would see, or that were so divisive it was easy to set any criticism into the "skeptic" category—the equivalent of saying "haters gonna hate" and walking away.
 
But now what I write is relatively mainstream, at least it's for a much wider audience than the metaphysical and ethical consequences of parapsychology or the relationship between Kohlberg's stages of moral development and the emergence of wisdom. What I write now is like standing naked in the town square compared to being covered in the armor of other people's theories and the multisyllabic pomposity of the ivory tower.
 
It's my heart bared to the world every time.
 
To disregard criticism out of hand, to go to the other extreme and say "I can't be wrong; therefore, you must be," is narcissism. We see this a lot online and maybe it's a viable defense against the propensity for anonymity to lead to indiscriminate asshole-ishness. But I can’t seem to just blow it off.
 
I want to find balance between RuPaul's admonition that "What other people think of me is none of my damn business" and falling apart every time. I’m getting there. At least now I can keep functioning. Thanks to years of treatment—cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga, meditation, medication, and self-compassion—the episodes of extreme self-doubt pass more quickly, and I know better than to make irreversible decisions while in the midst of them.
 
Until this balance comes naturally, all I can do is keep showing up, take my time, and make the best decision in each case regarding when to engage for my own growth and the benefit of my work and when not to engage because there is nothing to gain from the dialogue.
 
But how do you know which is which? What if I’m wrong? 

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The Sacred Biochemistry of Self-acceptance

6/8/2016

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​“Integrated inner work does not seek to overcome or perfect the body. It does not cultivate an aversion to any aspect of our humanity, nor is it about trying to get somewhere other than in our bodies. Rather it seeks to become more self-aware, self-accepting and compassionate within the lived experience of our bodies.”  
​​A few years ago, I fell in love with Julian Walker’s little book Awakened Heart, Embodied Mind: A Modern Yoga Philosophy Infused with Somatic Psychology & Neuroscience. Given this week to considering the Yoga of Darkness, I come back to it here, seeking refuge and rootedness in the biology of transformation. All quotations in this piece are from Walker. I hope you find as much hope in the process as I do.
Picture
​There are certain stages along the path to growth. Georg Feuerstein labeled these as
  • ​Self-observation
  • Self-acceptance
  • Self-understanding
  • Self-discipline
  • Self-actualization
  • Self-transcendence
  • & Self-transformation

And while we progress along these in a somewhat linear way, until we come to the end we don’t outgrow any of them. We begin at the beginning, with observation and acceptance, and continue observing and accepting as long as we want to keep on the path.

Call it mindfulness, call it witness-consciousness — self-observation is the act of becoming aware of our thoughts and processes, our drives and hang ups.

And when we start to really see what’s inside, it can be pretty damn uncomfortable. It might be disappointing, disheartening, or downright scary. You may, as I did, realize a depth of mental illness that seems unrecoverable. You may find violence and dread; antipathy, weakness, disease; resentment, jealousy, or maybe systemic resignation.

Regardless of what you find, the next step is acceptance. 

​No matter what we find when we turn within, that is where we are. To deny it or berate ourselves because of it is not the way forward; acceptance and compassion are. 

​“Compassion is an attitude of empathy toward the reality of human suffering. On the mat this means turning toward yourself with the same level of kindness and care you would offer a very close friend or dearly beloved.” 
​The work is to simply be present with what we find. 
​“Being present is an open attitude to what arises in awareness as the breath moves in and out.”
​
“Authentic presence is the greatest gift we can give ourselves and one another. It becomes the hallmark of a more integrated person who can be with self and other, shadow and light, struggle and grace authentically.”
And this is the beginning of change, a real and lasting and biologically based change:
​“In neuroscience terms, we train the brain to be in a state of mindfulness when we choose again and again to stay present with sensations. We are being mindful of our bodies and breath and the moment to moment unfolding of the experience of sensations. This mindfulness state has been shown to activate neuroplasticity—our brain’s ability to transform not only function but also structure in response to experience.
​
“We literally enter a zone of transformational possibility at the level of the brain when we are in meditative states. We can be mindful in many different ways, but being mindful in relations to our bodies brings together a set of brain functions that make insight, compassion and integration possible in powerful ways.”
By simply experiencing our embodiment, staying connected to our breath, observing and accepting what arises with compassion, we allow our brains to rewire toward peace.
“We think of these three principles [breath, presence, and compassion] of transformational neuroplasticity as a doorway into the ‘sacred biochemistry’ of yoga practice. They represent both a poetic and science-informed way of seeking to frame the experiential processes of self-transformation through yoga and meditation.”
​To put this together with Feuerstein's stages: through the discipline of embodiment, we observe, accept and come to understand ourselves. We heal; we grow. Our brains heal, and our brains grow. We blossom, actualizing into our best selves. Eventually, we have transcendent experiences of union. We transform into beings of sacred radiance.

And it begins with compassionate acceptance of the darkness within.
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Update: Neat Stuff Happening Soon

4/23/2016

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PictureTamara Lee Standard teaching Yoga on the streets in San Francisco
Dear friends in Yoga,
 
Hope all is well! There are a few cool things going on in the next few weeks I’d like to share with you.
 
First of all, I know it’s short notice, but there’s a Yogi Potluck Picnic in the Park this evening 23 April, 5 – 7, at Reid Park. I’m co-hosting this along with my friend Sunanda Bruno. No yoga, just people who love yoga getting together to enjoy each other’s company and have some scheduled R & R. I'd love to see you there! 
 
Secondly, I’m offering the Yoga to Ease Anxiety Workshop on Sunday 15 May. If you benefited from the book or could just use a reset, this workshop can help you put some easy, stress-relieving principles into practice. 
 
Thirdly, I’ve been working hard to coordinate what I think could be a very important event. It’s called Teaching Yoga for the Homeless: A Panel Presentation & Discussion. Please join us as we get to the nuts and bolts of how to best help the homeless through Yoga. We will have multiple presentations and a discussion of lessons learned in the field for the benefit of those who would like to volunteer with this population. Questions are encouraged! Presenter will be Tamara Lee Standard, Pam Ronstadt, Tzadik Rosenberg-Greenberg, and myself.

As always, I love to see old friends and new faces in my weekly classes. The 9:30 a.m. Gentle Yoga for EveryBody classes Tuesday and Thursday at MMYA are small and sweet. Wednesday evening at 5:30 is Yoga to Ease Anxiety at MMYA. And the Bookmans Sports classes are just as fun as ever, Monday at 10 a.m. and Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
 
And finally, my new book From the Vedas to Vinyasa: An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Yoga is getting closer to being released. The illustrations by Eric York are almost finished and look amazing! And my dear, hardworking editor Susan Lantz is making sure the end product is fleshed out and refined. I'm hoping for an early summer book release party/class/signing!
 
I wish you all well and hope to see you soon!
 
In Yoga,

Amy

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