Bhakti-Karma Yoga

I am just returning from a retreat with my Lama in California, and digesting unexpected blessings. I had thought I would go off for a week of immersion in a field of bliss and return basking in the steady glow of rigpa mind. Instead it was more like a chod retreat, and I got to grapple with some of my inner obstacles. Now returning, instead of being "blissed out" I am deeply grounded in a field of devotion.

I have gained an increased clarity and resolve regarding my motivation for my spiritual practice. I have intellectually known for some time that the point of practice is to increase my capacity to assist others. However, there is a difference between intellectualizing an understanding and embodying it. Now it appears that there is really nothing else to do that is worth doing. Everything points to that one thing -- become more so that I can give more.

This next phase of my life I thought was going to be about promoting my book and expanding my healing work along with that. I know the book will help many people and my lama also says that my healing work is an important part of my service to others, that I am deeply helping them. But now I see that the coming phase, while it will include fulfilling my responsibility to promote my own work, will focus on my service to the dharma. In this way I will not only be providing direct service to others, but also purifying my kleshas, particularly those related to self-seeking and self-promotion. This ego purification process is what advances me towards awakening and through that the ability to be of greatest service to others. It is therefore more worthwhile for me to work to promote the teachings of other teachers than to advance my own work, apart from them being more advanced in their wisdom and so already having more to impart to others than I do.

The greatest love is devotion and devotion is about surrendering the self. Karma Yoga is a form of self-surrender that offers a dual blessing -- helping others directly and peeling away the layers of ego so that more help can be given later. So I have agreed to start organizing the presentation of teachings by visiting lamas from Tibet. It is a huge responsibility and will challenge me in many ways. It will also involve numerous sacrifices and a huge investment of time. But the karma I will receive in return will make it more a blessing to me than a gift I give to the lamas I host. It is the opportunity for devotion in action. And I am honored to be chosen for this responsibility.

Enneagram

David Fauvre has been trying to introduce me to the Enneagram system since we studied counseling together in our MA program back in '94. A couple weeks ago I had him over for tea and it turned into a 6 hour personalized Enneagram workshop, running straight through dinner. It was fascinating.

Beyond the requirements of my degree program, I have stayed clear of personality typing systems in general and particularly all things enneagram. Many times people use "self-improvement" as an excuse for self-absorption. They justify endless self-analysis as effort to "be a better person." What is the point in putting so much effort into analyzing a personality you intend to transcend anyway?

However, what I learned was that the Enneagram system was originally a spiritual development tool. Think of the base of a mountain with 9 starting points around it and one summit of complete bliss, compassion, wisdom and unconditional love - the true spiritual self of us all. Each path between the starting point and summit would be different, but the destination is the same. One path is no more right than another, but the question is, which is right for you?

David was able to "type me" and give me the types for a number of well-known spiritual teachers. If you have an interest in this use of the Enneagram see:

http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/spirituality.asp

Also see David's site at http://www.enneagram.net/

Recollections of Connections

Since the London bombing last Thursday I have been having recollections of my experiences in New York 9/11/01. I realized today that since over the last 2 years I have been blogging I have switched my blog from Movable Type, to manual maintenance using html, to Blogger, that means my archives are quite sparse. Mostly I don't mind that, but there was one article I would like to share with you at this time. So I am offering it as a new post below. Those of you who have followed me through all the changes once knew this post as "The Garden You Give." Hope you don't mind seeing it again.

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August 8, 2003

As I sit here looking out at the garden I think of September 2001 when I sat in my living room in New York City trying to think of something I could do to uplift the people around me after the tragedy of the 11th. I thought of giving blood, carrying food or water down to the rescue workers, many things that I knew I could never do. It was all I could manage each day just to show up for work down in Chelsea and be fully present for my clients. They were also under great stress and really needed all the emotional energy I could muster up.

Then I decided to offer the one thing I could create from the safety of my living room. However less it seemed than actually going out into the chaos to reach someone in need, I decided to give what I could. So I wrote an essay called "On Feeling Alive" and distributed color copies to all my co-workers, encouraging them to pass it on to others after they read it if they thought it had helped them. Within the story I inserted a color picture of a beautiful garden.

Not only was the story appreciated, but a year later I was still seeing copies up on people's bulletin boards when I went in their offices. The edges were worn and turning, but that color picture of the garden always popped out at me.

Just the other day it hit me. I now live in a garden that looks just like the one in that picture! That is the first thing I see when I wake up each day, and what I see when I do my writing every day. Last night I was listening to The Moody Blues and there was a line in a song something like, "the love you gave was really meant for you." And I realize the garden I gave was given to the one and received by the one. There is only one of us.
If you want to read "On Feeling Alive" continue reading below.

-- On Feeling Alive --

There is knowing and then there is thinking about knowing. The thing itself can only be lived, experienced. The more full the experiencing, the more fully alive. The looking at, talking about, description, is always one step removed from the actual thing.

Since the attack on my city and nation, I and many others have been in shock. Shock is to be outside one’s body, barely even knowing about the body’s experience. It is to be steeped in even deeper vats of unconsciousness than within normal existence. But this life we call normal here is everyday shock.

That is why when we live someplace where the normal life is not one of shock consciousness, we see travelers appearing to be in shock. They sit in roadside cafes, staring into space, looking so very tired, exhausted. But this appearance is deceiving. Rather than encountering external sources of anguish now, they are actually healing. Their hidden grief rises to the surface and they begin to feel again.

The first thing they feel is the top layer of their experience. Is this the inability to fully respond to the trauma of their existence? Or is it the trauma itself finally being reawakened within experience so that this time a bit more of it can be felt? Bit by bit, more is felt. There remains some numbness that protects which manifests as the dull gaze and inability to move we see on these zombie-like survivors. But there is some feeling beginning to come back. They are no longer able to rush about not feeling anything. They are forced to feel it, forced to be still with the fine layers of pain and the dull coat of self-protecting shock.

Gently their bodies move them back into consciousness. Given enough time and stillness the inner fire is attained and its radiance burns away all clouds. Still witnessing of inner movement naturally gives way to outer movement. Vitality is regained. We are alive again.

This aliveness is something more than our everyday reality. We have become something more than what we were. We have gained knowledge of what we once rejected as “not me.”

Nature is pure presence, pure being. It just can’t seem to lie. If you want to come alive in any moment (and you can’t go to Bali) go out into your backyard garden. If you don’t have a backyard, let alone a garden, go to a park and hug a tree instead. Okay, just sit on its roots and lean your back against its trunk. Make sure the back of your head touches its bark. Drink Nature’s power to be fully present with any magnitude or flavor of experience. Pour out your fatigue, your confusion, your rage, and especially your tears -- especially your tears.

If it’s raining and you don’t want to get wet, enter instead your inner garden. Move within the body of earth you were born into. Move your body. Sway to the sounds of inner music, or if you can’t hear that just yet turn on some music for your outer senses and move to that. Enter into sacred communion with the world of your flesh.

Your body is a part of nature. It cannot help but to be present. Do you wish to be present with it? Are you ready to awaken to your inner dance and radiate your inner fire? Be still and let the body answer when it is ready to move.

Wishing you peace, love, and healing,
Indigo Ocean, MA
Sept. 14, 2001

Celebrating Connection

I am feeling great appreciation for the values of the people in my community. The trip to the grocery store that takes an hour, with only 20 minutes of that spent shopping and the rest spent saying "nice to see you; what's been going on?" to one person after another -- the waves from passersby as I drive down the road -- the phone calls that say, "I'm going here; would you like to come with?" All this adds up to create a sense of being held in a web of connection.

Today I will go to a spiritual singing circle that I haven't attended in almost a year. I called ahead to find out if they were still meeting today with it being a holiday meeting. They say it has moved a bit later now, starting at more like noon than the former 10:00 am, but yes, it's happening. And I will be there. And they are excited to know they will see me there. No matter how long I am away I am welcome whenever I come. There community doesn't require that one pay regular dues with time.

Emails pour in from old friends in CA. I haven't lived there in 6 years and have only been back once since I left. I will be visiting in a few weeks and we are planning to get together while I am there. Our connection is not based on place or time. We are living in community.

For the Dalai Lama's birthday I did an extra mala of Om Mani Padma Hung mantras and reflected on the gift he brings to his community. He is an embodiment of compassion - a reminder of its value and a beacon of its realization. Compassion is the height of community connection. It says, "I am open to you and willing to feel with you. We are connected within our hearts and souls." It is a kind of connection that charges no dues.

Today I celebrate that, and you, and the chance that in this moment you might pause and celebrate the rest of us too. Just close your eyes a moment and become aware of yourself and all those people who populate your world. Feel our presence there within you. Remembrance is all that is required. Namaste.