Paths are new, ways are old,
sundry things, never really told.
For what are words, for experience,
- only glow worms in darkness dense.
Step by step, it all makes sense,
if I live past the experience.
Love, passion or the angry me,
I can hold on to it, or be free!
Sometimes I regret, sometimes I burn,
(if) deluded by these, I keep taking the wrong turn.
Given into love, trapped by hate,
wanting the heaven, opens hell’s gate.
Love can’t be panacea unless it is pure,
love impure only ‘wants’ more and more.
And what is business, dealing with tradesmen,
if you leave honesty in deep dark den.
Perhaps this is a new world, new rules apply …
~Secrets of success are old, they will never really die!
:)
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Empty Talk
I was sitting in meditative reflection on the terrace, basking in the sun, it is around midday. Quite Empty of fears or desires*.
With the neem tree gently blowing in the wind and open sky above, I closed my eyes. When I reopened my eyes, the feeling of impermanence was so strong that I could sense the space around me break into tiny atoms, small globules visibly arising and passing**. Oh! Everything is Impermanent, this mind state, that mind state …
Evidently, this understanding had come without trying too hard/ without going into extremes. Over the last eleven years, I have worked enough to survive, rest of the time has gone into meditation. I switched jobs, spaced out the gap in between jobs and meditated for months/weeks before taking up a new project. Learning, earning and growing I was switching gently between duties and responsibilities and exclusive time to meditation and theoretical learning. This might change though!
Now, as I grow in meditation, I feel I am growing in my capacity to take more work/responsibilities without feeling any weight. Normally, work tires you out, however, if done with understanding and calm, work gives joy. One has to understand clearly, and experientially what is calm, what is wholesome and skilful – much like the Zen tradition. Work becomes joy.
Not good at meditation earlier, with great dedication to learn well over the last decade, meditation gained priority even over demanding daily tasks. It was much like tending to a small infant, you would leave the cooking unfinished and postpone even important, urgent tasks to care for the young crying child.
Honestly, I did not take up very responsible positions at work - I had an infant meditative mind to constantly take care of! It felt more comfortable and honest to earn much much less doing day to day freelance work, or contract projects for work. I also thought I would never outgrow this state of constant learning/giving attention to meditation, that I will always need more time to meditate and compromise on hours that I can keep aside for work. More and more I was preparing myself for simpler, contractual work (though somewhere deep down I knew I wanted to help use this deep understanding am gaining for larger purpose).
I see I was not alone, many serious meditators take up freelance, or try to keep work very light, if not completely give up work if they can afford to live like monks. (They feel it is important to give more time and effort in meditation, but some take advantage of this common understanding just to act lazy!!)
I had the same conflict, sometimes had to let go of work to look inside and learn with opportunities when they arose, to gain empirical insights. To learn how to handle subtle, not so subtle and gross sankharas* as they came up undergoing long hours of sitting practice and meditative absorption. Not only discover learning routes to overcome, but to actually walk to overcome unwholesome tendencies to the extent the opportunity and my personal capacity for insight gave way. Takes time!
For many people this is a very long phase, this initial phase of forsaking work to some extent to make time for meditation. (It is always good to learn meditation at a very young age, and grow with it!)
Learning becomes more important, and even if it is going to demand everything from you, even if it is going to take years, you have decided/resolved that you are ready to do it!
So, the infant meditative mind needed a lot of time and attention from me. And I gave way.
Now, as I sat upstairs witnessing the familiar impermanence, I decided to come downstairs to finish some pending chores I had planned for the day. As I open the door to the study room the old familiar conflict arose, drawing me towards meditation and bring attention inside, towards inner restlessness and to resolve it before 'work'. I felt habitually drawn to leave the tasks and give attention to the mind, to meditate. And then something new happens - for the first time I feel that I no longer have an infant mind! I no longer have to set aside work to meditate.
It is like my mind telling me, “Mother I am old enough now! You can please carry on with your work and I will take care of myself!”
Mind is growing stronger!
I know now, for the first time in many years, that I can work, and work better, without compromising on my meditation. Against my own expectation, I can prepare myself to take up a competent work profile and do justice to it. Even as I meditate.
A new phase has opened up for me. Beginning
*One has to be careful with such mind states, because as long as you are not a monk certain responsibilities rest on you, and such mind states can trigger something that might be of benefit for you but great inconvenience for others … or even for you such mind states might direct you towards some drastic step for which you might physically may not be prepared, even though mentally so! Also, these mind states of fearlessness and detachment are not really pure for beginning and middle level meditators (where I am situated). These mind states are also not permanent, so if you make a decision based on detachment, and then get back to old habit patterns, you may find these decision more inconvenient than you may be able to handle - so, just be careful and bite what you can chew :)
**Whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, gross or subtle, every bodily/physical sensation shares the same characteristic: it arises and passes away, arises and passes away. It is this arising and passing that we have to experience through practice, not just accept as truth because Buddha said so, not just accept because intellectually it seems logical enough to us. We must experience sensation’s nature, understand its flux, and learn not to react to it.
With the neem tree gently blowing in the wind and open sky above, I closed my eyes. When I reopened my eyes, the feeling of impermanence was so strong that I could sense the space around me break into tiny atoms, small globules visibly arising and passing**. Oh! Everything is Impermanent, this mind state, that mind state …
Evidently, this understanding had come without trying too hard/ without going into extremes. Over the last eleven years, I have worked enough to survive, rest of the time has gone into meditation. I switched jobs, spaced out the gap in between jobs and meditated for months/weeks before taking up a new project. Learning, earning and growing I was switching gently between duties and responsibilities and exclusive time to meditation and theoretical learning. This might change though!
Now, as I grow in meditation, I feel I am growing in my capacity to take more work/responsibilities without feeling any weight. Normally, work tires you out, however, if done with understanding and calm, work gives joy. One has to understand clearly, and experientially what is calm, what is wholesome and skilful – much like the Zen tradition. Work becomes joy.
Not good at meditation earlier, with great dedication to learn well over the last decade, meditation gained priority even over demanding daily tasks. It was much like tending to a small infant, you would leave the cooking unfinished and postpone even important, urgent tasks to care for the young crying child.
Honestly, I did not take up very responsible positions at work - I had an infant meditative mind to constantly take care of! It felt more comfortable and honest to earn much much less doing day to day freelance work, or contract projects for work. I also thought I would never outgrow this state of constant learning/giving attention to meditation, that I will always need more time to meditate and compromise on hours that I can keep aside for work. More and more I was preparing myself for simpler, contractual work (though somewhere deep down I knew I wanted to help use this deep understanding am gaining for larger purpose).
I see I was not alone, many serious meditators take up freelance, or try to keep work very light, if not completely give up work if they can afford to live like monks. (They feel it is important to give more time and effort in meditation, but some take advantage of this common understanding just to act lazy!!)
I had the same conflict, sometimes had to let go of work to look inside and learn with opportunities when they arose, to gain empirical insights. To learn how to handle subtle, not so subtle and gross sankharas* as they came up undergoing long hours of sitting practice and meditative absorption. Not only discover learning routes to overcome, but to actually walk to overcome unwholesome tendencies to the extent the opportunity and my personal capacity for insight gave way. Takes time!
For many people this is a very long phase, this initial phase of forsaking work to some extent to make time for meditation. (It is always good to learn meditation at a very young age, and grow with it!)
Learning becomes more important, and even if it is going to demand everything from you, even if it is going to take years, you have decided/resolved that you are ready to do it!
So, the infant meditative mind needed a lot of time and attention from me. And I gave way.
Now, as I sat upstairs witnessing the familiar impermanence, I decided to come downstairs to finish some pending chores I had planned for the day. As I open the door to the study room the old familiar conflict arose, drawing me towards meditation and bring attention inside, towards inner restlessness and to resolve it before 'work'. I felt habitually drawn to leave the tasks and give attention to the mind, to meditate. And then something new happens - for the first time I feel that I no longer have an infant mind! I no longer have to set aside work to meditate.
It is like my mind telling me, “Mother I am old enough now! You can please carry on with your work and I will take care of myself!”
Mind is growing stronger!
I know now, for the first time in many years, that I can work, and work better, without compromising on my meditation. Against my own expectation, I can prepare myself to take up a competent work profile and do justice to it. Even as I meditate.
A new phase has opened up for me. Beginning
*One has to be careful with such mind states, because as long as you are not a monk certain responsibilities rest on you, and such mind states can trigger something that might be of benefit for you but great inconvenience for others … or even for you such mind states might direct you towards some drastic step for which you might physically may not be prepared, even though mentally so! Also, these mind states of fearlessness and detachment are not really pure for beginning and middle level meditators (where I am situated). These mind states are also not permanent, so if you make a decision based on detachment, and then get back to old habit patterns, you may find these decision more inconvenient than you may be able to handle - so, just be careful and bite what you can chew :)
**Whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, gross or subtle, every bodily/physical sensation shares the same characteristic: it arises and passes away, arises and passes away. It is this arising and passing that we have to experience through practice, not just accept as truth because Buddha said so, not just accept because intellectually it seems logical enough to us. We must experience sensation’s nature, understand its flux, and learn not to react to it.
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