Skip to main content

Astau


The journey of slow development is the way of transformation. Quoting Dögen, "It leads everywhere." From duty to freedom, the yamas to samadhi. Eight rungs, like the steps of a ladder; eight limbs, like the branches of a tree: This is raja yoga--the royal path.

There is no difference between cooking and the Buddha's way, says Jeong Kwan, a Zen Korean monk, a nun who is not a chef but prepares her temple meals like one. Her journey of freedom is contagious. Even better, she says it is available to all. Her story is a balm for the seeker's soul. It includes heartache and loss, human labor and boundless creativity. I learn that trust in the universe does not require certainty but presence. Curiosity and a playful awareness are essential to taking ownership of the phenomenal world. Jeong Kwan says this is freedom.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady chores and essential ingredients

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. –Maya Angelou Until very recently, an endearing picture of a smiling Neem Karoli Baba greeted me from my computer’s home page. Every time I logged onto the computer that face was a reminder to me to be courageous and strong and tender. While I never had the good fortune to meet Neem Karoli Baba when he was alive, I have read and heard stories of him from some of his more celebrated Western disciples, including Krishna Das, the kirtan singer; Lama Surya Das, the American lama and author who started out as a Jewish kid from Long Island; and Baba Ram Dass, formerly known as Timothy Leary’s partner in LSD research and experimentation at Harvard, Richard Alpert. To a person, these men speak reverently of Neem Karoli Baba or Maharaji, as they affectionately refer to their teacher. According to them, to be in his presence was to be in the presence of capital “...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yoga and Religion--Time to Weigh In

Robert Mapplethorpe once wrote in a letter to Patti Smith a confession--Smith's word--about what it felt like to create his art. "I stand naked when I draw. God holds my hand and we sing together." You see, to me Mapplethorpe's "confession" sounds like an act of prayer. Drawing was his religion. When the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says that our life is a work of art, I think he is saying what Mapplethorpe saw clearly, that our life--what we do with it--is a never-ending prayer. This is why we try to write poems or paint pictures or take photographs or bake cookies or sew clothing or raise children who then want to create crayon-colored pictures of their own. Every act is an act of prayer because our actions, all of them, if practiced mindfully are that beautiful, that powerful, that divine. "Your daily life is your temple and your religion," said The Prophet to the people of Orphalese in Kahlil Gibran's book by the same title. So says many...
3 comments
Read more

A Course in Obstacles

"Life is all about living with obstacles. Everything's an obstacle."  When your twelve-year-old utters a statement like this, you cannot help but remain quiet for fear the wisdom will fly straight out of the window instead of settling about you like fairy dust, ready to grant you, not necessarily the next desire on your long list of wishes, but a bit of perspective that had momentarily gone missing. Of course, such an utterance makes you speechless as a parent, too, because you suddenly become aware that your child is doing the thing she was meant to do. Not only is she growing up, she is growing beyond you as her parent, and, one day, she really will be living life on her own, which also means on her own terms. It is a brave and foolish thing, raising children. From the get-go, they are both obstacle and source of transformation. (Not so very unlike all those yoga poses you intend to master.) Throughout your lives together, you are engaged in a dance of guilt and fo...
1 comment
Read more