Touching the Earth.

One day Siddhartha, the Buddha-to-be, felt that he was about to have a breakthrough. Meditating under a beautiful pippala tree, he had the sense that sometime that night he would realize full enlightenment and become a Buddha. Suddenly, Mara appeared. Mara sometimes appears as doubt, sometimes as anger, darkness, jealousy, craving, or despair. When we feel doubtful or skeptical, he is there. When we feel angry, irritated, or lacking in self-confidence, that is Mara. Siddhartha had been visited by Mara many times before, and he knew that the best way to treat him was to be very gentle. That day Mara came in the form of skepticism. He said, "Who do you think you are? Do you think you can attain great enlightenment? -- Don't you realize how much darkness, despair, and confusion there is in the world? How can you hope to dissipate all of it?" Siddhartha smiled, expressing great confidence. Mara continued, "I know you have practiced, but have you practiced enough? Who will witness that you have practiced long and hard enough? Who will testify that you can gain enlightenment?" Mara demanded that someone confirm that Siddhartha was going to become a Buddha, a fully awakened person.

- At that moment, Siddhartha touched the Earth with his right hand, very deeply, with all his mindfulness, and said, "The Earth will testify for me." Suddenly, the Earth trembled and appeared as a goddess, offering him flowers, leaves, fruits, and perfumes. After that, Earth looked directly at Mara, and Mara just disappeared.

- Even after the Buddha attained enlightenment, Mara continued to visit him. One time, after he had been teaching for a year and a half, he returned to his hometown, Kapilavastu, to share his insight with his own family and people. One day, sitting alone, he was absorbed in the thought that there must be a nonviolent way to run a country that would avoid the kinds of suffering brought about by prisons, tortures, executions, and war and bring real happiness to people. Suddenly Mara appeared and said, "Lord Buddha, why don't you become a politician? You can apply your wisdom, knowledge, and skills as a politician." The Buddha looked directly at Mara and smiled, "Mara, my old friend, I know you well," and Mara just disappeared.

- The Buddha did not want to be a politician. He only wanted to be a monk, and he knew that it was Mara who was trying to tempt him to become a politician. All he did was recognize Mara and smile at him. When we recognize Mara as Mara, everything is all right. At times we ourselves touch the Earth, but not deeply enough.

- When the Buddha touched the Earth with his hand, he touched it with all his mindfulness. At Plum Village, when we are visited by Mara-when we feel irritated, lacking in self-confidence, angry, or unhappy-we practice walking meditation, touching the Earth deeply with our feet. When we do it mindfully and joyfully, Mara leaves us in less than an hour. The Earth, our mother, has brought us to life many times, and each time she receives us back into her arms. She knows everything about us, and that is why the Buddha invoked her as a witness.

-She appeared as a goddess, offering flowers, leaves, fruits, and perfumes to the Buddha. Then she just looked at Mara and smiled, and Mara disappeared. Mara is not much in the presence of the Earth. Every time you are approached by Mara, if you come to the Earth and ask for help by touching her deeply, the way the Buddha did, you will be offered flowers, fruits, butterflies, and many other gifts of nature, and the Earth will look at Mara in such a way that he will disappear.

--We have so many reasons to be happy. The Earth is filled with love for us, and patience. Whenever she sees us suffering, she will protect us. With the Earth as a refuge, we need not be afraid of anything, even death. Walking mindfully on the Earth, we are nourished by the trees, the bushes, the flowers, and the sunshine.

--Touching the Earth is a very deep practice that can restore our peace and our joy. We are children of the Earth. We rely on the Earth, and the Earth relies on us. Whether the Earth is beautiful, fresh, and green, or parched, depends on our way of walking. Please touch the Earth in mindfulness, with joy and concentration. The Earth will heal you, and you will heal the Earth.

-Thich Nhat Hanh- Touching Peace.

A REALITY MEDITATION

Imagine you hold a banana in your hand. What is the experience? Yellow colour, smooth texture, a fragrant and sweet taste when you peel and bite into it.

What is a real banana?  What is a book, what is a mountain, what is a cup or what is a computer?  

Zen says they are names given by the mind, to a range of sensations and thoughts in response.

Zen says that these forms are empty of independent existence. Meaning they can be traced back through interconnections to a place where we end up saying I don’t know. We experience the apparent final form in our minds.  

Physics also says that dancing and interacting  quantum fields are the only fundamental reality, not the final form of stuff we see, feel or name.

Zen says that thoughts and emotions are similarly empty.  Imagine a suffering thought. Most likely the suffering event is not happening at this moment. Your mind weaves various thoughts into a composite called anger, fear, jealousy, etc. These thoughts and emotions also do not have independent existence, they are built upon other thoughts which in turn are based on nothing, emptiness. 

So at every moment we perceive both nothing or emptiness and what we call the world or creation. HH Dalai Lama has two daily meditation, one called shunyata or emptiness and  the other, Loving Kindness for all.

Our bodies are endowed with senses; vision, touch, taste, smell, and hearing. These five senses report each moment like this moment. Mind weaves these sensations into stories and calls it life.

At the next moment, reports from these senses are different, we call it change. To account for these changes, the mind creates a story of time, past, present and future.

By wandering away from the senses, one by one, by staying still and repeatedly bringing our attention to a meditation object such as the breath, these stories can be transcended. This is the essence of Zen practice, to sit until you experience this emptiness. 

In Zen, we do not look for reality but for what is not real and then wander back to breath. No religion, philosophy, science or spirituality can define what is real, only what is not real. 

This world of “what is not real”, meaning an imagined illusion, begins with movement of senses and thought.

The illusion of life has both pleasant experiences and suffering. Buddha focussed on what all of us want to fix i.e. suffering. He saw that at the root of this illusion is an assumed entity we call “me, mine and I”. Buddha’s logic is simple; if “I” is not real, just an illusion, sufferings must also be so. 

Seeing this, is the breakthrough, a Zen practitioner may experience. Thoughts of fear, anger, hate and love still happen but they are no longer suffering. Unfortunately this is not an instantaneous shift. A change, which is also known as  time, is often needed.

A popular koan captures this well.

“First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain and finally there is mountain again.”

SIT STILL AND….

Shut your eyes and see

Yes, you actually

See and feel

that nothing is really here. 

Even the eyes are not here 

Just darkness of nothing. 

These words aren't here

Not the reader, nor the writer.

One telling the truth isn't here

Truth isn't here

Lies aren't here.

The universe isn't here

Here is not here

There is not here

Nothing!

Imagine the first light

Past the stars

Past the galaxies

Before the universe.

Look back

What do you see?

Nothing?

That's all.

My Journey

What follows is the story of a listless life looking for the next shiny thing. Something has always been missing. I have trouble relating to a particular culture, a country, a colour, finding them restraining. Always had a great deal of sadness about why humanity can’t get it together. The Rolling Stones’ song said it best, “ I can’t get no, satisfaction”. Yep, I grew up in the sixties.

By turn of the last century , I realised that  my life path would never give me that satisfaction.  My children had grown up, were at university,  leaving quite a bit of time with little to do. I was quite involved in their lives, sports, bands, education until high school. Pouring myself more into growing my business, climbing the material ladder just didn’t interest me. At one point I considered changing my career yet again perhaps into Philosophy or Sanskrit. But that idea  seemed fruitless. Fortunately, by then I was financially well enough to “drop out”.  Empty stomach interferes a lot in the spiritual process. I intuited that life was far more than that.   Even sports which I enjoyed lost their attraction as being too competitive and an unfriendly environment. Losing a game was very unpleasant. Emotions associated with failure, in business or sports bothered me quite a bit. Society had wound me up quite tightly to keep fighting for the next win. Whatever was ailing me was not about to disappear by another game.

I was a religious teenager like most in my family and social circles, with good knowledge of Hindu texts like the Ramayana, the Bhagwat Geeta  and the Upanishads. Buddha was kind of a neighbour, having been born in the same foothills of the Himalayas but 2450 years earlier. His influence was ubiquitous. Writing of The Buddha and his disciples can still be found on every corner stalls in Patna, India where I spent much of my early youth.
Their words had more of a romantic place in my heart rather than spiritual. Satsangs were quite frequent in my neck of the woods but most sounded preachy to a young student who was spending most of his time lectured at schools. In my late teens, I  moved to Canada for a Ph.D. in Science. A rigorous research process is the foundation of a serious Ph.D. Program. It usually attracts people who are already so inclined and trains them with the analytical abilities to dig deep. In spirituality, this can be a boon or a curse depending on the path you follow. 

I found that Science and old religions didn’t mix well. Bertrand Russel, Nietzsche and Kant were more congruent. Their words were interesting and in a way an unwinding of my earlier beliefs. My Bhakti (faith) in God which is a central Hindu tenet called by many names, was coming under serious questioning. Faith was getting frayed. I still maintained my daily mantra meditation due to an oath I had taken at my upanayan ( a barmitzvah like event where young boys are given instructions on how to lead a Hindu life). The upanayan or thread ceremony  was quite an elaborate affair well designed to imprint spirituality on young minds. My devout parents instilled into me that regular meditation was an essential practice for a good student.

Did regular meditation make me more focused in my studies? Perhaps, but I know a lot of bright scientists who never meditated. It took nearly thirty years before I really understood the significance of meditation. I was more into regular university student stuff, mostly parties, than Transcendental Meditation which was finding its way into North American university life in the seventies. My view of yogis like Mahesh Yogi, Osho or Yogananada was not the hype that seemed to be floating around here. They were trying to commercialize what are the sacred teachings of revered rishis of the Indian past. Making money by transmitting eternal truth was just not appropriate of a serious guru. I would hear similar words from Richard Rose decades later, a message that resonated well.

I made no attempts to dig deep while growing up in India, even though wisdom was all around me . Ironically, I am grateful to the commercial gurus as their work is directly responsible for a greater awareness of spirituality around the world and was critical in my own spiritual progress. Growing up in India, one gets jaded and sceptical about a million different spiritual practices. As a youth, I routinely saw saffron robed sanyasis, begging for food just like in the days of the Buddha. Not knowing or understanding what they were doing, my young mind simply considered a life style of spirituality rather unacceptable, another suffering not salvation.

I was becoming obsessed with a quest to find something that will alleviate my dukha (dissatisfaction).  As many seekers, my first stop was Krishnamurti. I got involved, translated some of his tapes and read many of his books. But the best thing that happened because of my interest in Krishnamurti is that I showed up on the newly formed spiritual emailing lists. Internet was here. An email from TAT foundation in 2005, about a seminar on “beyond mind, beyond death” got my attention, so my wife and I headed to West Virginia for a weekend. That meeting lit a fire under me and was a turning point.
I am not sure I could see it then but I had just met  people like me who had no idea of what they wanted except they did want something. Also here were real people who said  that this something was available. Their claims were outrageous. Do you not have to seek for so many years or lives to get moksha or nirvana? Here was a group who thought you could do it in this life time like the Buddha. There are  fakirs and sadhus in the Himalayas who claim to touch you for your salvation but a lot of them are hoaxes. I found TAT  and Richard Rose, believable. I never met him but his words and energy were palpable at the old farm house.

 
Satsangs at TAT are pleasant and friendly, like Buddha’s  meta bhaavna, compassion without attachment. After a few years of attending the meetings, my quest got even stronger. I wanted to explore as many spiritual practices as available, all looked enticing and helpful in my quest. After losing the original farmhouse, TAT meetings were a lot farther for me to attend frequently. Instead, I learnt yoga, kundalini, oneness deeksha, Qi gong and even Reiki and zen meditation, went on a few retreats to Chennai, Rishikesh and Viapssana. I became a guide on the forum, liberationunleashed.Com, a site that helped me a great deal in seeing through the veil of individuality.

Moved by yoga teachings like Shiva’s Vigyan Bhairava, the Bhagwat Gita and Patanjali, I started to teach yoga and meditation at local yoga groups. Wisdom of these masters helped me design a meditation course which has helped a few of my friends and yogis. As the pandemic hit and my body got a little older still, my interest in teaching yoga and meditation has started to cool off. I had  nothing new to teach. I started to see very little new in any teaching or wisdom which come to my attention. My social media presence is exclusively in spiritual groups. My interest there has also dropped, I rarely find anything that is worth pursuing. I do keep in touch with my students and am available to them if and when they wish to connect.  I belong to several local meditation groups where I participate to the fullest, sharing whatever I do know. 
Did I fail once again, this time as a spiritual guide or yoga teacher? Curiously of the many hats I have tried, this was the most comfortable.  For many, this is a profession? I have already had a few professions with scars from each. Taking on another seemed fruitless. I felt that would be yet another ego building activity, I am trying to avoid. I could see a desire within me to be seen as a good teacher. 

I wrote a book of spiritual poems, “The dead end up here” but found no enthusiasm in marketing or promoting it. That too felt egotistical.  But sharing what I do know to be true still feels important, we never know which words may strike a bell creating an opening.

 
So, here we are in 2022, nearly two decades after I started a search for satisfaction. Am I still searching? I would say more like browsing to see if there is anything new. Whether that is because of the spiritual work I have done or because I am older and settled into a groove, I do not know. Hindu Vedic scriptures divide life into four quarters, child, student, grihastha or householder and sanyas or renunciation. Whether my ancestors prescribed this or described it, I don’t know. But it does ring true.

Yogis call it pratyahara also known as vairagya and sanyas, meaning desirelessness. My needs are few, getting fewer, ambition much less tormenting as are the worries. Turmoils happen like what we have experienced last year and continuing but I do not fret much. I meditate often now in a way that is more zen than Vedic mantra prayers. Insights bubble up, many I find resonant with what great teachers have said. I write them down in a tweet or Facebook. Sometimes I go back to my earlier scribbles and find my words or views haven’t changed much,  but confidence grows in them. There is the ultimate indescribable but experienceable truth but the process to get it, are many. 

It sounds simple enough but looking within is hard work. Previous programming, heritage and experience all fight to keep you in their fold. This is not weird at all. Most of what we do is based on certain basic assumptions of life we adopt. When we get to the assumptions and challenge them, the house of cards starts to collapse. Some may get it in a flash but that is rare. Evolutionary biology, a fascinating emerging science may have an answer to why it is rare. Yet this special flash is in the back of most seeker’s mind, akin to an Olympic athlete’s desire for a gold medal and a graduate student’s wish to win a Nobel Prize. And this desire is a major hurdle.

The word enlightenment or it’s equivalent appears in most culture and means pretty much what it says, to shine a light on darkness. We can and do argue about the flavours forever. The most popular mantra in Vedic culture is the Gayatri which is essentially a prayer to the Self to enlighten (…prachodayat om). Fourth noble truth of the Buddha is an achievable Nirvana which translates— “blowing out the flame of ignorance”. 

That materiality is totally divorced from spirituality, was one of my first assumptions that fell apart. Giving up a lifestyle so that you can know the secret truth seemed pretty hollow. Patanjali taught that if you follow the first four of his eightfold path, you arrive at a state called pratyahara which is detachment from mental formations: pretty much all your wants and cravings.  This was appealing. This was different from renunciation. After a decade of yoga, pratyahara is something I do understand. In a word it captures what Buddha also describes as cessation of suffering. It is logical and practical. One can indeed let go of not just the desires but even the five sensations in meditation. It is a happy place. By this stage you are indeed ready to go deep. This is Samadhi amidst materiality.

I also did QiGong and found  Falun Dofa which is banned in China useful to train my energy flow. My search for energy (or chakra) work led me to Reiki, the Oneness Deeksha and Kundalini yoga, all aimed at enhancing awareness of a mysterious energy force, the Chinese call “chi” .  After practice, awareness of the internal energy does happen. In some cases the energy manifests in wild physical reaction. I have seen strong men shake like a leaf and rolling in the isles, in complete rapture. This energy meditation is  happening all around the world. There are spiritual energy groups everywhere, enjoying a wonderful healthy and ecstatic experience.

Energy work can also be a distraction. Buddha warned of this as jhanas, or fireworks (my translation) may happen in samadhi. Patanjali followers initiated cults based on what he called vibhuti as yogis practiced walking on water, nails, fire, disappearing and other superhuman feats. You hear such stories in the  forests of Rishikesh, India. I spent some time there also. A Mooji Baba of Portugal has quite a following. There’s a presence of love in these gatherings, energy seems to originate in a mysterious process. I loved my time  but I was accumulating more stuff for the ego.

I was convinced of the validity of both schools I found in spirituality. One is monastic (fully or partially) which is in most religions, yoga, meditation, Buddhism and  zen. Here the key phrase is renunciation of material things, emotions, all. Deeper you go, you are assured peace and joy. 

The other was a model proposed by Vedic teachers and popularised in the Gita. Here actions you take in life, be it as a saint or a sinner, a fakir or a king, need not to be abandoned. Geeta was delivered and enlightened Arjuna while he was preparing to kill thousands and perhaps get himself killed along with his entire family. This was an unlikely environment for spiritual teaching. This was experiencing moksha (liberation) in a battle.

This path appealed to me. Giving up the battles of life is a hard internal battle for the ego. Death is not something one voluntarily accepts in hopes of achieving an unknown source of bliss. Not knowing where you are going, your best guide is yourself. I found yoga and studies of related spiritual texts support this view. It is indeed possible to live a life without attachment. You don’t have to pack your bags and go on a retreat abandoning your career, business or family. You can create the choice less awareness where you are. 
My search ended not because of some fireworks but because I ran out of questions except for one, who am I? The best answer so far is, of course I know who I am, I just have no way to describe it in a form that anyone can understand. Many have tried to explain, model, test and even induce one through mind machines. I think it is inherently impossible, it is beyond description. That isn’t surprising because in life we are unable to truly describe much including the very sensations that is known as living. How do you describe colour or touch, seeing and hearing? How do you describe zero?

To the question have I awakened, the answer comes back, does it matter? Will this change anything? I may see more ignorance within but that’s happening to all of us, we just have to be mindful of them.

Need for enlightenment often is a desire for cessation of suffering. End of the path is recognition that can never be. Ergo, there is no need for enlightenment, never was.

 
Our nature is meta bhaavna, attributed to the Buddha, which literally means  friendly emotions.This is the feeling you get when you see a long lost friend, hear a familiar music or sound. It is the feeling you get when you touch something precious like another life, human or not. Consider yourself lucky if you feel love. Find out urgently why if you do not. 

Much in our routine and the global noise interferes with our ability to experience this love unless you get your house in order. I have a routine of daily yoga, meditation and time for reflection especially on love. It’s a wonderful way to live.