Tag Archives: Spiritual Practice

A Good Question

23 January, 2012 By in Local Faire Tags: , , , 2 Comments

A few days ago while driving around Toronto with a friend, we started a conversation about what books we’ve been reading lately. I remarked that the current theme of Parabola’s Winter issue: Many Paths, One Truth, has led me to an inquiry into the point of view of writers of the “Perennial Philosophy”—a perspective shared by René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon, Huston Smith, and many others that embodies the timeless and universal principles underlying all the doctrines, symbols, sacred art, and spiritual practices of the world’s religions.

“What’s that all about?” he asked.

“Well, imagine you have a prism,” I tried to explain “and when you hold it in your hand it is clear and uncolored, but when you hold it up to the light, it’s refracted. Suddenly you see all these colors. So the idea is that Divine Truth is one, both timeless and universal, and all the different religions are like different languages expressing that one Truth.”

“That sounds accurate to me,” he said.

“I’ve just started reading into it so I can’t say that I have gotten really in depth on it, but it just seems like such a simple idea. Maybe too simple,” I said.

“Why does it have to be difficult? What’s wrong with simplicity?” he asked.

It was a good question. I had nothing to say, and we started talking about other things. Yet, I have continually returned to that question this week.

From Parabola Magazine’s Weekly Newsletter, January 20th, 2012.

A Thousand Secrets

17 January, 2012 By in Local Faire Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

“A thousand secrets are hidden in simply sitting still.” — Karlfried Graf Dürckheim

A few weeks ago, my good friend Walt recommended Hara: The Vital Center of Man by the German diplomat, psychotherapist, and Zen master, Karlfried Graf Dürckheim on this post. For anyone interested in practices for developing attention through body awareness it is essential reading. I couldn’t praise the book highly enough.  Not only is it clear and practical, it opens up a way of practice that I find initiatory and life affirming.

Dürckheim offers a bold and vital introduction on how to work with hara,  but before he begins he offers this important distinction about spiritual practice in general:

“…practice does not generate the experience of Being but only prepares the way for it. The grace which may flower from this experience is not the product of a doing but of a permitting of what fundamentally is, of what the aspirant himself is by reason of his participation in the Great Being within his own being. Practice therefore means ultimately just this: learning to let the in-dwelling reality of Being emerge.”

A pioneer in this field of integrating the body, mind and feeling, Dürckheim does an exceptional job in making the ancient zen practices of hara accessible. He urges us to avoid clinging to the partial that only upsets the whole. He shows us how to put our trust  in the fundamental rhythms of life, and to let go of fears that prevent us from allowing “it” to breathe. Our tensions, he observes “are caused by nothing but I and its fears for its Own existence,” and warns that the “practice of deep relaxation can be significant and efficacious only when it is carried out in full awareness of its inner meaning and not merely for the relief of bodily symptoms.”

Nope, it’s not a self-help program. Studying and practicing the ideas in this book doesn’t lend itself well to finding solid answers but leads to a deeper questioning, a revitalization of one’s practice, and hopefully under-standing.

I don’t want to give too much of the book’s contents away, but I will share one of many instructions Dürckheim suggests for reintegrating one’s compartmentalized being into a simple, coordinated and unified whole. Over the last few weeks, the following excerpt has served as a a kind of revelation for me, a gentle reminder to try to have contact with the inner life that continually calls to  from the center of our being:

“…drop the shoulders, release the lower belly and put some strength in it. For this it is sufficient to say “I am, I feel myself down here, a little below the navel.” It would seem so easy to follow these instructions, but not only is it far more difficult than we suppose to effect a change in the bodily center of gravity but long practice is needed before it becomes habitual. Indeed to learn to feel oneself constantly down there is tantamount to overcoming the unconscious dominance of the I, and to feel oneself permanently rooted in a much deep region. This new placing of the whole center of gravity comes to full fruition only after years of practice. Yet, as with all spiritual exercises, everything is contained in the very first lesson. But the beginner cannot realize this.”

Autumn

5 September, 2011 By in Local Faire Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

The sun returns, pushing away the grey sky in forgiveness painted blue. Long shadows appear over the deck and the green of a small ficus tree is illuminated. The wind that rattled the stray beer cans is quiet now; leaving the neighborhood eerily silent and waiting. She gives herself to the television in the next room. He sits on a once white plastic deck chair. He stops, smokes, takes a long sip of coffee—a break from the stream of words. It’s a late Sunday afternoon near the end of summer. He can smell the sourness in the air of autumn approaching. He can taste the acridness, the oranges, the reds, and the rusty browns. He feels the warmth on his skin, tickling the hairs, now golden on his arms. Looking up, he sees the birds dart among the rooftops, gathering together, and a moment later, dispersing again. The sun light settles gently over the trees. He asks himself if he has ever truly seen his backyard before—to have this direct impression of it, without his luggage of words. Has he ever listened to its orchestra of wind and trees? It is as though, behind all the seemingly ordinariness, something struggles to shine through.

From Parabola Magazine’s Weekly Newsletter, September 2nd, 2011. Painting by Andrew Wyeth, “Off at Sea,” 1972.

Thoughts and Plans

12 August, 2011 By in Local Faire Tags: , , , , 11 Comments

“It’s a lovely morning.”

Her breath escaped from her lips carrying the scent of a half forgotten dream.
I opened my eyes and took in the sunlight that softened the walls of the bedroom.
“It is,” I said, putting my arm around her waist, and pulling her closer.

We lay there together. I stared into the curve of her back. She stared into the whiteness of the wall. Both of us focused.

“What would you like to do today?” I asked. She released a soft sigh that hung in the air like a question.

Silence.

“How about I go get us some coffee?” I said.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“A little after ten.”

Still sleepy, I stumbled out of bed and reached for my glasses. My jeans and t-shirt lay stale and abandoned on the floor.
“Hurry back love.”
“I will,” I said, putting on my jeans.

With my head muddled and confused, I stepped out into the new morning. I listened to the soft murmur of a city still asleep and to the churning of my thoughts that bubbled up from mysterious places.

The air was cool and quiet, embracing the backyard in a cloak of mist and fog. It was like a dance, this new day arising. It felt as if all the possibilities, if I could entertain them just for a moment, would swell up and blow me over like wind and waves. I would even say it was peaceful.

I was in the narrow alley behind our house when I had an indescribable feeling that somehow something was missing. Instinctively I felt my back pocket for my wallet. “No, it’s there.”

Just as the light poked through a patch of fog and illuminated the grey stones of the building that faced the alley, I suddenly sensed something of another quality, like a breeze from nowhere. It felt like an invitation to just settle into the moment, into things just as they are. Everything was more vibrant and alive. Then a car door slammed, just once, and this small opening in this new day closed. I was overtaken by thoughts. By plans.  I tried to find that moment again, groping after it like a fat man in a marathon.

“I’m going to try to remember myself. I’m going to try to be here now, in this moment.”

I took a thoughtful, but exaggerated breath, and tried to bring my sleep soaked body into my feeble awareness.

“I have feet, legs and hands,” I said to myself as I tried to become aware of them.

I watched my thoughts appear and then, receiving no attention, drop away, back to their mysterious origin. I felt like a boat wandering aimlessly, tossing and turning over dark deep waters. For a moment, I realized that this is probably how I am most mornings, running through the random and the ridiculous.

A few moments later, I found myself at the local coffee shop, transfixed in front of several shelves of delicious looking pastries. The caramel covered chocolate brownies in particular, drew out a weakness in me.

Then in the low hum of morning conversations, soft jazz music and the clinking and clattering of cups, I remembered that I had forgotten all about trying to remember myself; to be here now.
”Maybe I should skip the brownies for today as a punishment,” I thought.

“Can I help you?” the young woman behind the counter asked
“Yeah, can I have two medium coffees and two of those amazing chocolate brownies?”
“Sure,” she said smiling gently.
She turned to get the coffee as I stood there fumbling over my wallet.
“Excuse me,” I said.

The woman placed the paper cups of steaming fresh black coffee in front of me.
“Yes?” she asked, picking up silver tongs and approaching the pastry case.
“Do you have any bad habits?” I asked.
She looked thoughtful for a moment and then she let out a quiet laugh, her face flushed.
“Umm, yeah I do,” she said, “I never live my life in the moment, y’know, like right now even though I try really hard to.”

A few seconds passed between us. It felt as though a door had opened, like an invitation to a deeper mystery. We stood there in the silence, simply looking into each others eyes. We were relating to each other, somehow. There was no need for words.

Then, a door slammed, and I returned to the white noise, the fluorescent lights, and to my thoughts, and plans.

“Yeah, I have that habit too,” I said finally, smiling with her.

I walked out of the coffee shop with the sounds of soft jazz music, the morning conversations and the clinking and clattering of cups fading behind me.

It was just before eleven.

PHOTOGRAPH: Holly Lynton | “Mean Ceiling,” May 2004. C-print 17″x23″