A Quiet Mind

A quiet mind:

these quiet moments lead to life outside the meditation bench and sacred space of my creation - there's an extended silence now, deep, internal, and one that guides and benefits in ways not imagined long before. I'm often asked of this, what I've gained from my twice daily sittings, some often long periods of simply allowing myself the thinking of a mantra until it drops all together to a quiet mind. I wish I had an easy answer to this, a concise reply that would satisfy the question. But honestly I don't have one, not really, at least not a list that actually answers why I wake so early and welcome the morning with quietness and ease, and then later in the day I sit and match myself again to silence, a ritual of so many years, decades now, that still feels fresh and true. If asked now my answer is most often a smile and a short reply, yes, I could name the many benefits current research states, and how meditation has led me to a creative life of sobriety, living with more empathy and care for others - yet none of that would ever answer why my life is based on the simply, easy joy of sitting with a quiet mind.

my honest answer is for the pleasure of the sitting.

nothing more. 

any benefit is an added bonus to my sitting, this isn't about health reasons, stress reduction, or even a matter of spiritual awakening - all of which meditation may well indeed address. But I sit to enjoy the silence, it's an internal pleasure, independent of the world at large, and yet also leaves me so seamlessly connected as well. The benefits of a quiet mind is a quiet mind. That's it really, I enjoy my own silence, and by this I don't necessarily mean the absence of thought, at least not always and not completely - but that thoughts are allowed to caress this natural, spaciousness of mind, leaving nothing in their wake, not even the smallest of disturbance. I can't weigh the benefits of this, it's incalculable and immeasurable, and really can't be truly described. 

but it's here, always, natural, available.

my reason to sit is because it feels right to do so, ingrained, and yet free and so very spontaneous. If it ever changes from this I would completely let it go. The great discovery of a quiet mind is that it's unattached even to the quality of its own stillness. I return to this, and although it's never really absent. But I enjoy the pleasure of that reminder, the continuous rediscovery of my own quiet mind. 

with every single sitting. 

~

Peace, Eric 

The Body Is Yoga

The body is yoga:

the body is yoga, already divine in the sense of its cooperation, every seeming part devoted to the whole and without any true sense of separation from their larger world. This is the yoga of ever smaller things in process of becoming another aspect of ourselves - of a singular vibration from an infinite field of stillness all the way to the purpose of cell as it performs its vital function. Our origin is of both stillness and the motion of particles becoming the very fabric of our existence, from nothingness and its arrangement now as form. Somehow there is the yoga of the body, such an intricate affair traced to those origins, the asana of a particular self held for the measure of a lifetime. 

the body is yoga.

imagine any posture and its difficulties, first imagined in the mind and then every fiber of the body working for the possibility of holding the posture for just the moment of a single breath. Now imagine the posture of our bodies for an entire lifetime, the asana of our being - is it even possible that we could exist without the cooperation of the universe at large?  That we first weren't imagined in the very mind of God and that everything works through some divine order? In no sense am I implying a singular deity responsible for our creation, nor even the theory of intelligent design. This isn't at all about theories of religion and no attempt to make science fit within a spiritual system of belief. This is simply the imagery of the body as yoga, of how a creative, responsive energy somehow lent itself to our existence, a posture of self, mind and body belonging as the whole. 

it's simple, the body is yoga, a temporary asana held for the lifetime of a breath, and once released we relax again into the creative origin of the pose. Yoga is energy displayed by posture, breath, and motion. It's what we are, a possibility imagined now as form, and there is no separate source that holds this imagination, it's all energy in flux of posture and release, divine, creative, and exactly, always, what we are...

the body is yoga. 

everything is. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Bhakti Yogi

Bhakti yogi: 

it's my consideration is that I'm a bhakti yogi, devotional by nature, and that my every cause is of eventual surrender to the divine. By this I don't mean surrendering to the concept of a deity that appears distant and separate from me at any point, my devotion isn't to a personal god at all, but to the intimacy of the impersonal ground of all existence, life, and every detail that it offers. My devotion is to my own state of being, through every aspect of its support and pleasure. God is sustaining me through air and the ability of taking breath, that my heartbeat is a devotional song in praise of my own existence, and that my every sense is an instrument of God's measure. I am devoted to all that's given to me, everything that's gifted to sustain me, and this leaves absolutely nothing from my worship. 

life itself urges my devotion.

a bhakti yogi is one who is aware of divine relationships, and the deeper appreciation of this is found when all of life appears holy, everything being an aspect of self and God, one thing really, and the world exists to offer distinction of this wonder, awe, and beauty. To be a bhakti yogi is self surrender to the appearance of something other, a reflection only, devotion to their own capacity to hold the world. Nothing is worshiped that isn't of their own becoming. It's all God. It's all self. Everything. Truly a relationship of one thing only, divided for the sake of its devotion. 

and this is why my very end path is one of surrender, devotional to the point of disappearance within the whole, a bhakti yogi in worship of his own self reflection appearing as the details of the world. It's a continuous surrender of this small drop of self knowledge into the larger waters of an ocean's depth - and always again I seem to crest in self awareness, ready once more to give myself away. I'm a bhakti yogi for love of this existence, my own surrender and rebirth, continuous and at once, worshiping life through every aspect of its divine play. 

devotional by nature. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Already Yoga

Already yoga:

really, it's already yoga, lived and experienced by the body as a whole, each cell in individual purpose and yet expressed completely as the world. Life is yoga, undivided in this sense, the union of seeming parts that actually reflect the function of something greater than themselves alone. This is our practice too, that we are individual cells of godhood, aspects of life joined as something far larger than we know. By practice I mean dharma, our purpose of truly being alive and aware. Yoga expresses it with such beautiful simplicity - we are here to breathe, to allow our heart to beat as the rhythm of the world, our bodies given in performance with every cell in dharma practice of their own. 

it's already yoga...everything.

and so we are each yogis, performing our practice through simply being alive, with no need to seek any greater purpose or meaning than what we're doing right now. No cell wishes to be anything other than its own function of life, completely at ease in it's dharma purpose. There is no desire to trade its place for what seems a higher order of expression, for a cell within the tissue of a leaf to someday manifest itself on the fingertip of some distinguished person. There is no greater purpose, nothing more beautifully expressed than a leaf through every season. To be part of this is a noble cause indeed. 

with this in mind we are free in our own expression, assured by both purpose and our beauty - we can never express ourselves wrongly, that are serving our own true and noble cause by virtue and simplicity of our being. It's already yoga, we are practicing it now with each breath taken, our every movement an expression of the divine. There is never a cause for us to doubt ourselves, to not take our form and beauty, our very lives, as functions of this greater yoga. 

we're yogis of a higher order.

already.

~

Peace, Eric 

Six Months

Six months;

yesterday marked six months since my father passed away, half a year measured by his absence - and yet his presence still fills my days in so many obvious and often deeply subtle ways. From the casual pass of happy memories, all the way to the more haunting days of his final care, I am shaped by every moment, that the person I am now is largely made of his influence and love. In the six months since his death I've reflected mostly on our last few months together, of the lessons he taught me through courage and example, most especially of the grace he showed by letting go of each physical loss without complaint, and yet demonstrating too the importance of being engaged and active with the time and people still present in his life. His was not a passive surrender, it was indeed the grace and courage of quiet acceptance through every circumstance that his final days offered, and all without sacrificing his deep appreciation of simply being alive, present, of being loved, and always giving love in return. 

six months sometimes doesn't feel like very long, not always, but sometimes it seems like forever since I had that purpose of caring so deeply for another, involved in the rituals of maintaining his well-being and waning strength, and being concerned with the daily affairs of health, needs, and comfort. I miss every aspect of my father, from the strength of his years throughout my childhood to the last few days of his surrender. He always taught me through fine example. And I am fortunate to have learned the lessons that he offered, and how they still continue even now, six months after.

and I find myself in a time of my own surrender, letting go of  layers of a self that no longer serve in my best interest, embracing each moment through its every perceived loss with hopefully equal grace to what my father showed me. Six months, and now a day, soon stretched to my own remaining years, a lifetime ahead - and still his presence guides me, urging my surrender, as well as a commitment to be engaged, active, fulfilled through my involvement with every available moment, to be present, appreciative of all the love that's given, and offering my own love always in return. 

six months...and still I'm learning. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Best Answer

Best answer: 

it's the best answer that I know, at least for right now, and for me that's the nature of every insight, not that a truth has been given, but that just a bit of mystery has been revealed and offered for my translation and description. Any answer that I seem to have is for myself alone, an insight for and of my own unique perspective, and if shared at all should always be viewed as such. The universe is simply too vast to hold a single answer, mystery far too deep to ever be fully revealed. My honest best answer to any question concerning of matters of our true nature is always...

I don't know.

what I have, what we all have, from scientist to mystic, are temporary best answers, information gathered from inquiry and research, insights given from the keen edge of thought and silence. There is no final report on the nature of the universe, of how the world relates to the conscious mind, or even what it means to be alive, aware and why it's even so. They'll only by further speculation based upon a glimmer of the whole, a partial revelation that we're fortunate to somehow be given. But nothing that can be spoken of as a final truth, no ultimate understanding of ourselves, or the universe, as they seem a single mystery that continuously unfolds. 

and that's really my only understanding, my best answer, at least for right now, that mystery itself is awakening, expanding, and always coming to new terms within its own potentiality. They'll always be mystery, and as we're part of the very fabric of it's structure, we'll never completely know ourselves as anything but a mystery too. 

yet, we  now have an infinite nature to explore.

so nothing should be mistaken as final truth or understanding, no insight provides an end to mystery, nor unravels the secrets of a universal mind. Our every understanding is temporary, fragile in its explanation. There is always further to exploration, more secrets to be reveled, insights to be known and then surrendered. Our every best answer is simply, always...

we don't know.

~

Peace, Eric 

Aliveness

Aliveness: 

and right now I'm no longer really sure of any certain insight, revelation, or idea that at one time opened me to an entirely new understanding of who and what I really am - it's not that I dismiss any previous insight as being false and leading me astray from what seems true to me now, but that life doesn't hold any concept as a certainty, nothing is absolutely so from the point of mystery, and all I can ever truly know is my own sense of aliveness, of being aware for just this moment alone, with nothing sure and certain beyond this. I think this is why I'm drawn to early morning meditation, as well as to the inquiry of my own spacious nature that seems to happen spontaneously through the day. These moments of clear meditation and inquiry hold no philosophies for me to understand, there are no concepts of duality, nor beliefs of anything being separate and apart from me.

there's just life, happening.

aliveness.

of course this is always so, independent of a moments inquiry or mediation - yet I enjoy both for what they offer, and how it seems that this quiet acceptance of life spreads from that singular point of my attention to an underlying awareness that's existing all the time, always available, only waiting for my notice. It's all part of this aliveness, ordinary and at once miraculous, everything belonging precisely so, perfect, and that life could never be other than it is right now. Until it is, and then this too, whatever it is the moment now holds, is simply part of this aliveness. 

that's how life happens.

or so it seems to me, and my every previous insight and belief fits in perfectly with the moment of its revelation, a truth for that point alone and not meant to be anything other. There is no need to make a philosophy of any of this, to make any idea permanent in belief, certain. There is only this aliveness, dynamic, ongoing in mystery and its revelation. Even these words seek to turn it into an experience, something to be described and not absolutely lived right now. 

there is only, always, this aliveness.

~

Peace, Eric