Charity begins at home

Misunderstood, this doesn’t mean padding your own first before you give your shillings away.

A young lady was following me on my way to zen practice when a fairly strong and healthy man appeard at the stop sign with a sign, “broke, please help”. I only had a few quarters which I gave him. Of course mind came in with the usual bs, why doesn't he get a job or mow my lawn for $20, blah blah. Momentary lapse of memory how difficult it is to get a job you can put up with. This hardening of hearts starts early when society teaches us me and you, what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine too if I can get it. In time this training becomes this world.

But not always, kindness is always there wanting to peak through. My friend in the car behind me got out of her car and handed him a five dollar bill. 

I couldn’t contain my tears of joy. This was the best thing I had experienced in days.

Charity does begin at home meaning when you give without strings, you feel joy at your real home, the heart.

Gita Translation

My translation of the famous Gita phrase,

यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत । 

अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम् ॥४-७॥ 

परित्राणाय साधूनां विनाशाय च दुष्कृताम् । 

धर्मसंस्थापनार्थाय सम्भवामि युगे युगे ॥४-८॥

may not be the same as many others

Krishna says:

 whenever one veers far from truth,

 to elevate Dharma( the sattvic evolution)

the atma creates aham (I).

For protection of spirituality and annihilation of evil (thoughts)

I make possible over and over through time.

Loving Kindness

Meta bhavana or loving kindness meditation is ascribed to Buddha. There are many versions of this practice, all leading to awakening within the body mind with pleasant peaceful after effects, sometimes lasting for long and with practice, even longer.

You need to make this practice your own for it to work not simply rote repeat of a mantra or prayer although those are essential starting points to let your body mind get curious and follow through.

My practice begins with first recalling  loving people, things, events in my life not as a daydream but a body scan practice. More recent the event, easier it is to feel the sensations. One way to do this is when you feel loving towards something like my cat for example, scan your body immidiately and look for points of bliss in your body, heart, stomach, tingling in your limbs and all leading to a peaceful stillness in your head. Try to lock in this memeory and recall it when on the cushion. And make that sensation the object of your meditation, bring the attention back to it over and over for at least five minutes. Also keep asking who is feeling this?

Second step is the most difficult as it requires you sharing your bliss with those who have done you wrong or situations that were or are hurtful. This practice for me is best with yoga. As you feel the stress and strain in your body, see the discomfort as the net result of causes and conditions of yoga. See your nemesis going through the same discomfort and even pain in their own body and mind. Now bring back the feeling of step one and see that compassion spill onto this difficult group as well. Keep asking who is feeling this? Now see that bodies are different the feelings are similar. See the unity not separation.

After at least ten minutes of second step, cast your attention to your third eye and visualise the entire creation as a functioning causes and conditions machine all working by itself from ever to forever. If you are mathematically saavy see the creation as fourrier integration of your bliss to all creation. Keep asking who is sending bliss to all?

Never forget to make the body feel gratitude for this practice.

Why Meditate

Is exercise or quitting smoking good?  This is not just a new wave of wellness paradigm but a change that is sweeping the world. Remember this, very few people wake up without an alarm. That alarm clock is ringing all over the world. You can only put it on snooze for so long. Or you can wake up.

A regular meditation practice is the first step in responding to the alarm and waking up. And waking up is not some complicated step, it is letting your true self shine through. I am sure you have come across people who have this ease about them and peace that resonates through. You are witnessing the truth. For some, it comes naturally, for the rest of us we have to do something. That something is not to acquire. You can't get it in a store or read in a book. It is a process of losing a whole lot of stuff. If you carefully look at yourself , you see millions of stories in everything we say or in the ways we act, even in the ways we sit or relax. This all happens because your body mind has picked up habits. Meditation is learning how to relax out of these habits. And just as we picked up these habitual stories that cloud over our true self, a regular mediation practice replaces them with a habit of self abidance, staying as true self, initially for some time and eventually all the time.

I Child

 It is I child
It is I child that suffers
Not the lump of flesh n bones Not the hunk of a frame
Not the calm presence.
It is I child that pines To crawl back home To mother's lap
To love and peace.
It is I child that's abused By loud world
LuringI to fun and frolic, sex and wine
Power and fame Wealth and prosperity
Words and songs, Oh happiness.

It is I child that mimics Images I sees
Suave and expert The cool gang.
It is I child that cries Feeling inadequate Despondent and morose I must end this pain.

It is I child that wants
Desperately to run home
 But there is no one there
Vines of time pervade.

Nothing but memories
Only the sensations
of womb, warm, comfort, love
Yet more fantasies.

It is I child that dies
With each step forward
With each breath of stale air With each drink of putrid wine.

Save this I child
 Before you save the world
Build an empire
Or find happiness.