Ashes and Fire
Ash Wednesday updates:
1. Remembered I had to teach until 7 on Wednesdays; to avoid eating dinner at 4 PM or not at all, I opted to let Wednesday be the exception to the 7pm rule, with the idea that I still won’t mindlessly eat after my evening meal.
2. Watched “Lost” with Aaron, and then ended up staying up until after Midnight doing lesson plans. Remembering the words of someone I greatly admire, that’s it’s better to at least walk up to my meditation cushion and at least touch it than to do nothing (even if that’s all one does), I opt to sit for about 5 minutes. Best 5 minutes of the day. I discover how much more still my mind is when I sit in the evening. Yoga (Sutra 1.2: yoga chitta vrittis nirodha. Yes, this please.)
3.I’m then inspired to take out my Gita (which appears a lot larger and longer than it probably would if it weren’t 12:30 at night.)
Read verse 1 and discover this gem in Swami Rama’s commentary:
“The central theme of life is to awake, arise, and gain knowledge. If that is not constantly remembered, one becomes lost in the jungle of the external world.”
Wow. This sentence was a wake up call. What was that about desiring a life that supports my dharma? What IS is that I desire? Not celebrity gossip, not ungodly amounts of coffee, not even reveling in the adventures of the Oceanic 6 (it’s 6 right? I forget.)
Not that I can’t do those things (though some I probably shouldn’t… Good old St. Paul, misogynist that he was, had a point when he said there’s some things you CAN do, but maybe you shouldn’t [paraphrasing obviously].) but they shouldn’t rule my life. There’s so much more to life than the barrage of information I’m constantly being fed via my senses (this must be where I give a shout out to pratyahara.)
There’s this really angsty song they used to play on the radio that I suspect is by a Christain-band-in-disguise (a’la Creed) that I used to promptly turn off as soon as I heard it, but I would usually catch this verse:
“We were meant to live for so much more…”
Well yeah, we sort of were I guess.
So there’s a choice. I can sit. I can meditate. I can study the teachings of the great saints, sages and seers. I can even sit at the feet of great masters. I can do my practice. I can do what supports my practice. I can remember that I am not “the doer”. I can observe, and I can know that there’s more to life than external pleasures, but that I can enjoy those pleasures with abundance, without guilt shame or fear if I remember who I am.
What good is it to gain the whole world if one loses ones soul–forgets who one is–in the process? Not I’m not talking about some mythological firey Hell, but forgetting, or never learning one’s purpose.
The Sutras say, the universe exists so that the experiencer may experience it and thus, become liberated.
I say A. Freaking. Men.
Lenten Intentions
I’m sort of looking forward to lent. Yes lent, in all it’s hot cross bun eatn’, Sunday cheatn’, fish-fryn’ glory.
I realize that’s a puzzling sentence, especially coming from someone who is not exactly the most observant Catholic (lets just say that when I hear someone refer to “Christmas and Easter Catholics” I’m actually sort of impressed by their piety–I mean, Christmas AND Easter? Are they going for saint-hood?), but none the less, I am eagerly anticipating this 40 (really 46) day period of sacrifice (surely a form of tapas–often translated as austerity, though the definition that I’ve heard recently that really resonates with me is “Having enough respect foryourself to do what you know is best for you”.), contemplation (dharana) and meditation (dhyana.)
And if I’m being honest with myself, I appreciate lent because it’s convenient. I don’t have to choose a particular day to start (or put off choosing a start day) to begin a 40 (6!) day practice. Ash Wednesday. Boom. Done.
It’s also easy to explain to people. If I’m omitting a certain type of food during this time, it’s easy to say “Oh, I gave it up for lent.” No more explanation necessary.
There’s also a certain sense of solidarity. Because Christianity is so widely practiced in the US many Christian traditions embedded in our collective consciousness, so it seems like a lot of Americans do something for lent. So many people embarking on a spiritual practice at once seems sort of auspicious; right(even if they might seem sort of arbitrary, like that one year I gave up coffee, and had a venti green tea latte from Starbucks every day)?
So, I’m going to blog (not exclusively, but every now and then) about lent.
I firmly believe in the value of not discussing one’s spiritual practices, but I also know that I’m a lot more likely to do something and stick with it if I have some sort of accountability, and I”ve decided to let that accountability take blog-form.
I’ve been thinking about what it is exactly that I want to do, and I keep coming back to Tapas–that which builds heat; that which leads to tejas–brilliant, lusterous fire, and as I mentioned earlier, doing what’s best for me, doing the practices that support my dharma….And just after I began this blog entry I was able to attend class with my teacher, who reminded me of another definition–”something that rubs you the wrong way–but then you grow, you learn something.” Yes. This.
And just like anything, I want my Lenten intentions to be intentions that support my dharma.What does support my dharma? What supports my practice? My life? My physical, mental and spiritual health? Asking myself these questions, here’s a small list of realistic practices I’ve decided to incorporate into my daily life:
1. Not eating after 7 pm
2. Meditation in the evening, before bed (currently, I meditate only in the mornings, and I’ve found that while I start my day feeling woderful, my day often ends with feelings of stress and sluggishness.)
3. Daily Scripture reading (there’s a translation of the Bhagavad Gita that I would really like to read, so I’m committing to a few verses each day.)
So that’s 3, for now, simple, but significant I think.
Now that they’ve been blogged-about (even if no one reads them but me); I feel more of a sense of commitment and more of a sense of excitement.
And maybe, my practice will support my blogging too..maybe I’ll have a thought about something I read in the Gita that I just have to blog about; maybe I’ll blog around 8pm to distract myself from the chocolate Aaron will inevitably have lying around. Oh the possibilities…
