Author: bondjanet

Before enlightenment — chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment — chop wood, carry water.” Zen Buddhist proverb

Yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that I undertook to deconstruct three large, dried-out Christmas wreaths. I felt noble. All the plant materials were compostable…in theory, and I was determined to see them “re-used”. On day two, after nearly filling my new tumbler-composter with bucketsful of evergreen twigs and needles, eucalyptus leaves, wilted flowers and the straw “donut” bases of two wreaths, I checked the internet to see in what time these clippings would break down into the rich loam of my gardening hopes:

Short answer. “A very long time.”

Long answer, “A very, very long time. Don’t even try.”

But in spite of this discouraging internet knowledge, I stubbornly persisted in deconstructing the third wreath. Perhaps the whole bio-scientific universe would miraculously shift, and render useful this regrettable batch of post-holiday “trash”?

At first I thought it was my determination to compost the wreaths that meant nothing was going to stop me. Laterally I realized that it was the soothing, therapeutic quality that kept me at this relatively futile task. Pulling out florist’s staples, wilted flowers and tufts of dried greenery, stripping the straw donut of plastic wrap and fishing line, separating out the re-usable straw flowers from the garbage, and the garbage from the compostables, cutting the compost into more digestible pieces——all left me with a sense of peace, harmony and ease of well-being.

This seemingly mindless manual labor led my thoughts to what anthropologist Gregory Bateson called “entropic work”. The kind of repetitive work that is done in homes all over the world. Over and over and over again. Cleaning house, washing cloths, procuring, preparing and serving food; clearing up today’s messes only to be thinking about tomorrow’s meals, chores, clean-ups and errands in a seemingly endless loop. Often thankless, these domestic duties fall to someone (often low on the totem pole) in almost every household. Without that our homes, and our planet, would descend into chaos. (Go to Cairo if you want a glimpse of that).

As with home maintenance, personal growth can be mind-numbingly boring, lending credence to the John Lennon quote: “My life is what’s happening while I’m making other plans.” One to-do-list item after another gets in the way of a more exciting, care-free, (albeit imaginary) life. Hardly the stuff of our daydreams, inner transformation can be painfully slow. Like turning clippings to compost, change can take a very long time.

But what if these seemingly insignificant, recurring activities were to serve a “higher” purpose? What if all the minutia I attend to on a daily basis were performed mindfully, purposefully? What if it were symbolic of the personal growth work that, while being done internally, invisibly, profoundly effects not only myself, but people and things around me?

With these thoughts in mind, I set about the task of deconstructing the third wreath. Thinking of it as pulling out the attachments (florist tacks), the outmoded beliefs (dead wood); separating what to keep (red straw-flowers) from what no longer serves me (plastic wrap), and cutting the mental or emotional ties-that-bind (fishing line) had a powerfully clarifying effect on my mind! Carrying the experiment further, I applied this same mindfulness to other household chores. Washing dishes (scrubbing away impurities), drying glasses (clarity, transparency), ironing (smoothing out convoluted thinking) and so on throughout the day.

Reframing my attitude to all the mundane things I have to do is a way of applying the Zen proverb: “chop wood, carry water”. Chopping wood and carrying water are hardly glorious activities, nor is pulling apart old Christmas wreaths. But, in what I consider a minor epiphany, I realized I had persisted with the third wreath not because of composting, but because focusing on the task at hand came as a great relief from all the could, should, and ought-to-do thoughts that assail an idle mind. A mind scattered and distracted by worries for the future or laments from the past. Controlling my thoughts and directing my imagination are of great benefit towards making present ideals real.

Layman Pang, (740-808) a celebrated Buddhist monk from the Zen tradition wrote: “My daily activities are not unusual, I’m just naturally in harmony with them.” Perhaps enlightenment means just that, being in harmony, being fully present and engaged in the day-to-day.

Next time you’re faced with a tedious task, how about giving it a try?

What’s it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live?”
(Dionne Warwick)

I belong to a first rate fitness club. And I’ve learned that first rate fitness clubs attract first rate athletes, and first rate athletes are a great inspiration for people of all ages to stretch past self-imposed limits and – if not compete in the Iron Man – then simply be the best physical specimens they can be. But also, at age seventy, the fitness levels of the top athletes around me can be a little daunting. An unchecked competitive streak compels me to overachieve, and occasionally, even leads to injury. Gimped up with a sore foot, tight calf and aching hip, I am forced to be still. Observe. Reflect on the choices that brought me here, and register a need for balance, healing.

Through this unanticipated time out, I am reminded that the physical “me” is only one facet of my “full specific life” as Laurens van der Post would call it. I am compelled to address the possible neglect of other facets of “me”, such as my emotional or intellectual, spiritual or creative, social or relationship well-being. If I am to be a proponent for living an examined life, I must have the willingness to ask, and honestly answer the questions that will lead to a deeper understanding of who and what I am, how I think, what I think, and why I do what I do. As the biblical quote goes: “ye shall know the truth [about yourself] and the truth shall make you free.” Or, as Gloria Steinem famously quipped: “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

With the goal of freeing myself from unconscious patterns or conditioned beliefs that can be maddeningly misguided, I do what is called a “life pie” exercise, one that I was assigned annually as a Masters candidate at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. I draw a circle and intuitively divide it into six – usually uneven – pieces. Also intuitively, I label each piece of the pie according to what best represents the time, energy and/or resources I expend on that particular aspect. Through this process I can better see if, for example, my emotional or intellectual well-being has been sacrificed to an egoistic drive to triumph on my road bike! To clarify the kind of person I want to be, and the quality of life I want to lead, I ask questions such as, “What does it mean to live life to the full? What is a 360 degree life? What do catch-phrases like “be the best you can be” actually mean?”

These questions and reflections help generate a vision of who – or what – I believe I have the potential to be. Hence the title of this blog: A Yogini at Large. By some definitions, a yogini is a female yoga master, adept, and teacher. That would wrongfully imply that I have “arrived”. Another definition better represents what I intended by the term: “Yogi or Yogini refers to someone who follows or practices yoga philosophy with high levels of commitment.”

This blog is an example of such a commitment; a process of understanding and articulating what has heart and meaning for me, and then sharing it with other people. In that way it meets both an intellectual and a spiritual goal. Possibly also a social (reaching out), creative (writing and visualizing), and even emotional goal (connecting with others on a more profound level). In some dimly understood way I trust that what I imagine as possible can, through persistence and practice, become probable, and then actual.

I also know that I am solely responsible for, and stand to benefit most from, this process of self-evaluation, goal-setting and self-actualisation. I would not do this if I thought, as Alfie did in the 1966 film by that name, that the purpose of life was entirely for selfish gain and instant gratification — a kind of living in the moment that might not have been what Ram Dass had in mind when he advised us to “Be Here Now”!

As always, whether Ram Dass or Alfie (or some other role model) is your “guiding light”, the consequences of whatever path you take or choices you make, land squarely on your own psychological and spiritual, even social, emotional, physical and creative plate. I am the sum of my choices, and only I can change my trajectory. The life pie exercise is a good way to assess the “what is” in my life at any given time, and discern the steps necessary to shift into a sense of possibility, of what “could be”.

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist urges his followers to start where they are: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”

What might be your next step or steps?

“You must do the one thing you think you cannot do.” Eleanor Roosevelt

At the moment, the one thing I think I cannot do is write this blog. What is holding me back? New Year’s resolutions. New Year’s blessings, prayers, videos and messages from all corners of the globe. By great writers and leaders, actors and teachers. Wisdom circulating through my email, my WhatsApp, in text trails and snail mail. Taunting me with wit and wisdom and techno-dexterity that date me back to the Stone Age. So I ask myself: “What can I possibly add to all that?” Better yet: “What can I subtract?”

Me. Myself. I.

Amazing, serendipitous, unbelievable things happen when I get out of my own way. For example, as of this moment, I don’t know what I’m next going to say. And that’s OK. Because something will bubble up from my subconscious that will guide my thoughts and writing. And, just in time, a quote accredited to Goethe floats into mind:

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it,
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated, —
Begin it, and the work will be completed!”

That would be a good quote on which to end this posting, but, alas, I have more to say. As New Year’s resolutions go, beginning anything is a good way, indeed the only way, to make manifest the dreams that Goethe refers to. As for resolutions, a friend asked me on New Year’s Eve if I had made any for 2021. I said that I had not.

Yet.

In return, I asked what hers were.

“Just one”, she said: “Get. It. Done”.

And so, in the spirit of getting it done, on Friday, the first day of January, I am getting my weekly blog done for the seventh time in a row. And you will be the first hundred or so people to know that I intend to write one blog a week for the next twelve months. All of 2021. I’ve said it here. Now I’m committed. I have witnesses. I have friends who will say: “It’s Monday…”, with arched eyebrows and a challenging glint in their erstwhile non-judgmental eyes. I can’t face saying: “Sorry. Not today”.

But beyond wanting to save face, what is my motivation to keep blogging? It is to continue the meaningful dialogues that Thomas Merton claimed are “absolutely essential if one is to remain human”.

COVID has taken much from us. In the macrocosm it has taken lives and livelihoods, devastated industries and brought humanity to its knees. In the microcosm of my small life, it has snatched away blessings and joys that I had long taken for granted: “breaking bread” with friends and family. Shopping maskless-ly for groceries. Strolling, even lingering, in now-verboten public places.

It seems that a reasonable way to compensate for what COVID has taken away is to reach out via the very technology that first intimidated me, and which now allows me to participate in the great global information exchange. And, more importantly, it enables me to do what I set out to do. Continue the conversations I have had — or would like to have — face to face with many of you.

So in the spirit of carrying on where some of us left off, I share my New Year’s dream/wish/hope:

May we all find the fortitude to undertake – and in so doing complete – whatever it is we think we cannot do.

(And that you’ll let me know how it’s going.)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. (Anaïs Nin)

The other day I walked past a darling little sprout; some unidentified seed had landed in a hole the size of a quarter in the driveway, and there this minuscule speck of potentiality pushed forth three or four bright green leaves that caught my eye via their sharp contrast with the surrounding hardscape. (In all honesty, I can’t imagine it having much of a future.) But the point is, it followed an ancient and irrepressible mandate to bloom where it was planted, or, more aptly, had randomly landed. It did not decide to wait for a better location; more sun, perhaps, or better soil. It grew because that’s what it was programmed in its DNA to do.

As a rule, we humans have more choice about where and how to put down roots. But what are we programmed, in our DNA, to grow into? How do we choose the terrain? If our ideas of who and what we are here to achieve, or be, are seeds, what seeds do we want to cultivate? What ideas of success, achievement, worth and value do we subscribe to? I imagine the latter are arbitrary; different strokes — or seeds, to continue the analogy — for different folks. But I wonder how much thought we really put into what we are doing, where we are going, and why. What influences do conditioning, peer pressure, media and other outside factors have on the roles we are enacting? And if we’re not the authors of the script we are following, who or what is really in control of our lives? Which choices are “freely” made and which are driven by unconscious programs, mechanical habits and unexamined beliefs? What is authentic to me and what is a product of FOMO-esque conformity?

You’ve heard it said (as I quoted a couple of blogs ago) that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Think about it. Is that true? Is it possible that we have spiritual DNA, too? And if we do, how does that factor into the terrain in which we choose, or are chosen, to “bloom”? How do we know if we have other, soul or spiritual growth goals? Even imperatives? Is it sufficient to have even a vague sense of something greater, higher, deeper or simply “other” than the success stories that we have subscribed to? And what would it mean to commit oneself to this “other” agenda?

I think of the Goethe poem about commitment, in which the famous sage writes that: “the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too”. What does he mean by Providence? If I commit myself to cooperating with my soul journey or purpose, am I in a dance with an invisible partner that some call God, Allah, Jehovah, Zoroaster or a host of other names for “that which goes by no name”? Let’s face it, it’s complicated!

From experience, though, what I know for sure is that when I seek, I find. When I ask, I receive. And when I knock, Providence or whatever you want to call it, responds. And that dialogue, that call-and-response, is what I am drawn, by my soul DNA, to follow.

And you? What are you drawn to? And what’s stopping you from blooming?

“Wherever you go, there you are.” (John Kabat-Zinn)

We had a series of several small earthquakes on Hawaïi island early this morning. Yes, I know. I’m in Hawaïi. Don’t judge me. The quakes were the second set of tremors in less than a week. The newsflash I read, alerted via a text from a friend, said that Kilauea volcano was erupting, yet again. This was accompanied by what could have been stock footage showing fire and brimstone (whatever brimstone is — molten lava perhaps?) and great plumes of smoke billowing into the atmosphere.

Without really thinking about it, I let the next news item load onto my screen and observed scenes of the great white blizzard that has descended on New York City. Two extremes: hot and cold, lava and snow. Both events are apt to cause damage and loss to persons and property. And add two more calamities to the hot mess that is 2020.

But neither of these events are impacting me personally, at least not yet. Certainly I’m not planning to visit the Big Apple any time soon. But it remains to be seen if the VOG that blanketed Hawaïi for months in 2018 will descend on our side of the island once again. Perhaps reversing the exodus of mainlanders intent on evading COVID 19 by making their new home on Hawaïi Island.

In short, there is really nowhere to go that isn’t visited with its own particular problems. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. That is as true of humans as it is of places. Notwithstanding global events of great significance, each of us are confronted with more mundane challenges, inconveniences, difficulties and exasperations on a daily basis. Which is why, when I read the latest updates on Kilauea, the phrase that came to mind was “the wisdom of no escape.”

What IS the wisdom of no escape? What would it be like not to avoid or anesthetize myself from what is coming down the pipe of “everyday life”?

My first thought is to “Be Here Now” as Ram Das would say; anchor myself in the present moment and simply observe the thoughts and sensations passing through my conscious awareness. Where and how can I reasonably hope to contribute? In all honesty, if it weren’t for technology I wouldn’t have a clue about a blizzard inundating New York State. I wouldn’t even know about a volcanoe erupting across the island from me. Do I want to be oblivious to these and other disturbing happenings? No. But do I want to obsess about such uncertainties and inevitabilities? No again.

Where I DO want to focus my attention is on the places and activities in which I, personally, am apt to make the greatest difference. There’s no end of opportunity to improve, or exacerbate the situation in which I find myself. The choice to be part of the problem, or part of the solution, is mine alone. Recently our community chose to hold a Christmas toy drive for under-privileged children living on the island. The response was robust and heartwarming. Seeing the success of this endeavor, a group of teens started a food drive for items that could be funneled to the same, or other families in need. The old adage to “do what you can, with what you have, where you are” is alive and well in my corner of Hawaïi. And this ability to respond to an immediate need is a more powerful agent for change than lamenting how “nothing will ever be the same”, giving up, and citing something “out there” to blame.

So it behooves me to ask: “What can I do to ameliorate or improve the situation in which I find myself?” If each of us were to ask ourselves that, I can imagine an inexorable wave of change gaining momentum day by day by day, making us, and the world we live in, a better place in small but significant ways.

As Gandhi would say: how can I BE the change I wish to see in the world today?

How can you?

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line?”
(Barbra Streisand: “The Way We Were”)

Candy-floss clouds float across the sky, as I gather my thoughts for today’s blog. From where I sit I can only see bits and pieces of what looks to be a glorious sunrise. Seeing bits and pieces of the “big picture” is the nature of my existence. As I understand it, my five senses provide input about my surroundings, and my brain asembles these into a more complete picture. My actions and reactions are then based on the latter.

Is that all there is to it?

Does my companion see exactly what I see when we look at a sunrise, or a tree? Do they see the same colors and shapes, feel the same textures, taste the same tastes, hear what is said and what is meant in the same way that I process information?

Not at all.

So what’s going on? Why is it that my “big picture” is different than that of the people around me? Why do versions of events witnessed by more than one person vary so widely? Upon reflection, I now realize that mine is more of a “bias picture” than the “big picture”, the actual reality.

Especially when recalling events from the past, emotions and imagination and a host of other “inner traffic” can steer my interpretation down a figurative blind alley. I become hostage to old conditioning and coping mechanisms that operate unconsciously and distort my perception of and responses to what is actually happening. Taking a back seat in my own life is no way to navigate. As James Hollis would say, at some point “we are all asked to re-vision our journey, to reframe our understanding of self and world.”

In sum, if I want to consciously steer my own course, take control over the trajectory of my life, I have to somehow look back, see where my choices (unconscious or otherwise) have led to where I am today, and commit to making different choices based on a vision of who I might become.

And so, with a vision of becoming a more conscious, self-determined and responsible human being, I ask myself: “Who or what is steering my life?”

Or yours?

Swami Vivekananda wrote: “Rise up, Oh lions, and know that you are not sheep. You are souls immortal, spirits free, blessed and eternal.”

What was he smoking???

Several times at the ashram we did an exercise called “Who am I?”, in which two people sat facing each other and one person repeated the question: “Who are you?” for fifteen minutes. No other words or cues. Just: “Who are you?” Their partner then wracked their brain to come up with fifteen minutes-worth of relevant answers. Normally I don’t mind talking about myself non-stop, but the first time I did this exercise the fifteen minutes, or even two or three, felt interminable. I quickly ran out of familiar identifiers: “female, wife, mother, sister, friend, seeker, writer, landscape tinkerer” (I was getting desperate) and then a kind of panic set in. My partner’s implacable expression and relentless: “Who are you?” questions were deeply disconcerting.

Ultimately I exhausted all my options and settled into a sense of simply being “conscious”, being “an observer”, “experiencing” sensations and scenes unfolding around me. Pure consciousness.

The fact is, life is full of fleeting sensations and subtle changes that mostly go unnoticed. Even the more noticeable shifts — day to night, season to season, year to year — follow such predictable patterns that I take them for granted. And their rhythms to be everlasting. With or without me, the “show” must – and does – go on. So what could Swami Vivekananda have meant by “souls immortal, spirits free, blessed and eternal”?

You’ve probably heard the expression: “We are souls (or spiritual beings) having a human experience”. I googled that expression to see to whom I should credit it, and came across many entries saying the same thing in a slightly different way. If it weren’t for the fact that I wanted to finish this blog for my self-imposed Monday deadline, I’d have gone on a tangent reading about all the ways people have interpreted this statement. But alas, Monday is only hours away and the unsolved mystery, or unanswered question remains: “Who am I, really?” Who are you?

What if I am a soul? On a soul journey? And – the kicker – what difference would it make to know that in my bones?

As you’ve probably guessed by now, I don’t have a definitive answer to the “Who am I”, or many other pressing questions. But I know that by simply asking, by writing them in my journal, exploring them with friends – or via the internet – I am expanding my awareness and enriching my life. Maybe I’ll never plumb the depths of my psyche, (if I’m even meant to) but the journey has given me a sense of purpose and meaning, and of adventure. There’s always more to explore.

Anyway, Who wants to be a sheep?

“Ask yourself these simple questions: Where do I need to grow up, step into my life? What fear will I need to confront in doing so? Is that fear realistic or from an earlier time in my development? And, given that heavy feeling I have carried for so long already, what is the price I have to pay for not growing up?”

James Hollis wrote the above in his book “Living an Examined Life”, which is described as “an invitation to your soul’s calling”. I gravitated to the title because it echoed my goal for this blog, and for my life. Entering my seventh decade compelled me to ask similar questions of myself. I wanted to fulfill any untapped potential. Understand the purpose of my life. Make the most of the time left to me. Contrary to what Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes cartoon fame, would say: “Short-term stupid self-interest” is not the secret to happiness. So I search for purpose and meaning. Something more nourishing. More satisfying and long-lasting than the shiny objects that our consumer culture promises.

There is always debate about whether humans have a “higher” purpose than, say, getting through life in the safest, most comfortable way. The debate goes something like “Life is hard enough. Why go looking for trouble?” “Because I’m restless and unsatisfied.” “Why?.” “Because I’ve got a sense that there’s something more, or better, or entirely different than what I’m “buying”. “Why?” “Oh, never mind…”

“Just.Do.It!” I admonish myself, because there’s nobody else to put me to bed on time, force me to go out for a bike ride or maintain a healthy diet. I have to strap on my big girl shoes and follow through with what I said I intended to do. Even if I’ve only a vague idea what I want, or what I’m trying to achieve. So, with no indisputable proof that I have a higher purpose, a soul journey or particular destiny, I decided I’d just have to follow my own “road-less-traveled” and see where it leads.

Like travelers and explorers of old, I keep a journal to chart where I’ve been (in case I happen to be going in circles and might, by retracing my footprints, escape this Minotaur’s maze of my own making. How’s that for alliteration?!).

Who does not know what it feels like to be going in circles? Lewis Carroll wisely observed: “If you don’t know where you want to go, then it doesn’t really matter what road you take.” Going in circles is pretty much the same as spinning my wheels, taking no road at all, or any road, by default. So perhaps it’s time to ask “Where do I need to grow up, step into my life?” What would that look like? What Minotaurs are blocking my path?”

Your questions, goals and growth opportunities may be different than my own, but to pursue them in my journal with self-honesty and humility is the beginning of my soul’s journey. Rather than getting caught in circular debates about the meaning of life, how much better to make a decision – by my own volition – of where I want to go, what I want to do, and who I want to be? I want to plot and follow my own particular path. My soul’s journey.

Are you with me?

“Am I willing to travel uncharted seas of the mind?”

With these words Swami Sivananda Radha closes the chapter on “Powers of the Cakras” in Kundalini Yoga for the West (Timeless Books 1978). Having reached somewhat of a turning point in my life, aka turning seventy, I found myself looking to Swami Radha (who initiated me into her lineage in 1995) for inspiration to carry me through however many years I have left on planet Earth. Not just carry me through the way drugs and alcohol might do. (Though with COVID it’s tempting to go that road.) Or more tame pursuits that are a repeat of where I’ve already been. Something of more substance and intrigue, as the study of Kundalini yoga has been for the past quarter century. In fact it’s no exaggeration to say that the Kundalini book, and the teachings I received at Yasodhara Yoga have got me where I am today. Along the way I have earned a Masters Degree in Transpersonal Studies (more on that later) from Sophia University in Palo Alto, California, which taught me, among many other things, that there are as many paths to fulfilling one’s human potential as there are people to tread them.

Walt Whitman wrote: “To know the universe as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls…” so too I believe myself to be on a soul road or journey, and one that goes, by necessity, through the uncharted territory of my mind. Whitman’s poem closes with these lines: “But hail your fellow travelers from a distance. Don’t try to catch up and keep step. Yell ‘cheerio’ across the fields but stick to your own particular path. Be it paved, or grass, or just plain old dirt. It’s your path, and it suits your make of boot.” (End quote) So, for the past half dozen years I have been a yogini at large, one who has diverged from my “spiritual birthplace” in Yasodhara Yoga, and stuck to my own particular path of family life as a spiritual discipline and practice.

The pilgrim’s path, implied by Whitman, is seen as a solitary one, and indeed there’s nobody who can tread my path but me. That said, perhaps because I am a wife and mother whose role as matriarch (aka Air-Traffic-Controller) of a multi-generational family is fast becoming redundant, I am starting this blog in hopes of sharing my journey with other seekers of meaning and purpose. Thomas Merton wrote: “To live in communion, in genuine dialogue with others, is absolutely necessary if one is to remain human. But to live in the midst of others, sharing nothing with them but the constant noise and the general distraction, isolates a [person] in the worst way, separates [him or her] from reality in a way that is almost painless.”

Until it isn’t painless. Until it throbs like a primitive drum beat at the core of one’s being. Demanding more than a bridge or golf score, a high net worth statement, PhD or trip to Tahiti. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as materially-minded as the next guy. (Or gal, but “guy” rhymed with “minded”). It’s just that achieving some degree of the “success” that is vaunted in the west has not brought me the peace, harmony and ease of well-being that my inner drummer is seeking.

So, am I willing to travel uncharted seas of the mind, with humility and curiosity? Yes, yes, and yes again.

Are you?