The Yoga of Christ

This has  been a long overdue post. My apologies.  This is part two to Philip G. McLemore’s previous article titled Mormon Mantras: A Journey of Spiritual Transformation from Sunstone Magazine.

Like the last one, this is a long read, about 16 pages, but again, well worth it. In this one he goes more in depth about how the teachings of Christ really are like Yoga, and how you can use Yoga to live the teachings of Christ and to commune with God through them.

As his tagline reads:  “Is it possible that the teachings of Jesus are so comprehensive they encompass the core spiritual principles of both East and West?”

Click the link below to download a PDF copy of the article:

The Yoga of Christ

Blog Action Day 2008: Nourishing Awareness

Nourishing Awareness

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk and poet born in central Vietnam, is a Leader of the social action movement known as Engaged Buddhism. He was nominated for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr. In “Peace Is Every Step,” he presents a meditation which helps North Americans and Europeans to be mindful of Third World children who do not have enough to eat.

We who live in North America and Europe are accustomed to eating grains and other foods imported from the Third Worlds, such as coffee from Colombia, chocolate from Ghana, or fragrant rice from Thailand. We must be aware that children in these countries, except those from rich families, never see such fine products. They eat inferior foods, while the finer products are put aside for export in order to bring in foreign exchange. There are even some parents who, because they do not have the means to feed their children, resort to selling their children to be servants to families who have enough to eat.

Before each meal, we can join our palms in mindfulness and think about the children who do not have enough to eat. Doing so will help us maintain mindfulness of our good fortune, and perhaps one day we will find ways to do something to help change the system of injustice that exists in the world. In many refugee families, before each meal, a child holds up his bowl of rice an says something like this: “Today, on the table, there are many delicious foods. I am grateful to be here with my family enjoying these wonderful dishes. I know there are many children less fortunate, who are very hungry.” Being a refugee he knows, for example, that most Thai children never see the kind of fine rice grown in Thailand that he is about to eat. It is difficult to explain to children in the “overdeveloped” nations that not all children in the world have such beautiful and nourishing food. Awareness of this fact alone can help us overcome many of our own psychological pains. Eventually our contemplation can help us see how to assist those who need our help so much.

Thich Nhat Hanh, excerpt from “Nourishing Awareness” from Peace Is Every Step. Copyright © 1991 by . Reprinted with the permission of Bantam Books, a division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

Zen Meditation Really Does Clear the Mind

Science confirms what Zennists have known all along!

Study (Emory University): Zen Meditation Really Does Clear the Mind

By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
02 September 2008

The seemingly nonsensical Zen practice of “thinking about not thinking” could help free the mind of distractions, new brain scans reveal.

This suggests Zen meditation could help treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (so-called ADD or ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorder, major depression and other disorders marked by distracting thoughts.

In the last decade, there has been a resurgence of scientific research into meditation, due in part to the wide availability and increasing sophistication of brain-scanning techniques. For instance, scientists recently found that months of intense training in meditation can sharpen a person’s brain enough to help them notice details they might otherwise miss.

“It is important that this type of research be conducted with high scientific standards because it carries a long-standing stigma — perhaps well-deserved? — of being wishy-washy,” said researcher Giuseppe Pagnoni, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta. “Constructive skepticism should always be welcomed as a great sparring partner.”

Pagnoni and his colleagues investigated Zen meditation, which Pagnoni himself has practiced while studying for his doctorate in Italy.

The Zen of Zen

Zen meditation vigorously discourages mental withdrawal from the world and dreaminess, and instead asks one to keep fully aware with a vigilant attitude. It typically asks one to silently focus on breathing and one’s posture with eyes open in a quiet place and to calmly dismiss any thoughts as they pop up, essentially “thinking nothing.” One can over time learn how to keep one’s mind from wandering, become aware of otherwise unconscious behaviors and preconceived notions and hopefully gain insights into oneself, others and the world.

To see what effects Zen meditation might have on the brain, scientists compared 12 people from the Atlanta area with more than three years of daily practice in Zen meditation with 12 novices who had never practiced meditation.

The researchers “had to screen — and discard — a number of colorful characters who during the interview declared that they were meditating regularly by screaming in a towel while stomping their feet on the ground, or that they were communicating frequently with beings of other planets,” Pagnoni recalled. “Such are the unexpected joys of this research!”

As the volunteers had their brains scanned, they were asked to focus on their breathing. Every once in a while, they had to distinguish a real word from a nonsense word displayed at random times on a computer screen and, having done that, promptly try and focus on their breathing again.

Their scans revealed that Zen training led to different activity in a set of brain regions known as the “default network,” which is linked with spontaneous bursts of thought and wandering minds. After volunteers experienced in Zen were distracted by the computer, their brains returned faster to how they were before the interruption than novice brains did. This effect was especially striking in the angular gyrus, a brain region important for processing language.

“The regular practice of meditation may enhance the capacity to limit the influence of distracting thoughts,” Pagnoni said.

Posturing the findings

“What I find really interesting in this approach is that it stands to regulate the mind by regulating the body — posture, breathing,” Pagnoni said. The neural circuits for controlling posture are quite distinct from those responsible for higher brain functions, “and perhaps shifting one’s attention to posture or breathing facilitates a temporary quelling of mental chatter.”

By teaching people how to clear their minds of interruptions, Zen meditation could help disorders marked by distracting thoughts, Pagnoni said.

“There is already some evidence that a behavioral therapy incorporating elements of mindfulness training derived from meditation can be beneficial in reducing relapses in major depression,” Pagnoni noted.

Pagnoni added that the default mode network might be especially vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease.

“Although we enter the field of wild speculations here, could the practice of meditation, by providing regular intervals of respite in the incessant working of the default network, have — if mildly — protective effects for Alzheimer disease?” he conjectured.

Pagnoni noted one potential failing of the study was that the volunteers experienced in Zen meditation might have some innate capacity for controlling their thoughts, explaining the differences seen. Ideally, scientists could track novices as they grow experienced in Zen meditation, to see if their brains change or not, he said.

The research, funded by a National Institutes of Health grant, is detailed online Sept. 3 in the journal PLoS ONE.

http://www.livescience.com/health/080902-zen-meditation.html

Read more

Introduction to Mindful Meditation

I started an online meditation course this week.

The course was put together by the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA.  I had come across the website audiodharma.org some time ago and have spent time listening to the various talks available in mp3 on the site.

There was one series in particular that interested me titled “Introduction to Mindful Meditation”.  I downloaded them and began listening, but never became fully engaged, nor tried to use them to start a meditation practice.  I continued to visit the site however and saw a new section mentioning that in the next few months they would begin an online meditation course based on these talks by Gil Fronsdal.  I immediately emailed them requesting my place in the class.

The course began this last Monday, and I can’t say I’ve been doing very well at it so far.  My family life has been hit pretty hard with a few things this week which were taking up my time and mind in many ways.  I know that I allowed these to be a distraction and excuse for me in many ways, but what’s done is done.

I’m getting back on track now and am going to email my support instructor and fill her in on what’s been going on in my life this week, and how my meditation sessions have been thus far.  I also decided that I would add all of the information here for anyone that is interested.   The course may be audited by anyone, you just don’t have the extra benefit of the support from an instructor.

I know many of you practice Vipassana meditation (greenfrog, etc) and so I would love to get your thoughts on the practice and any advice you may have as I begin/continue my journey.

You can access the information by following the meditation link at the top of the page or by following the below link.

Introduction to Mindful Meditation

morphing

This week brought me some new insight. My business partner at the Yoga Studio is both a marriage/family counselor and a Yoga Therapist. The philosophy of Yoga therapy falls right in line with my own experience; that the body speaks to us and that we have everything that we need inside of ourselves for our own healing and understanding. This method of Yoga Therapy as taught through Phoenix Rising consists of the therapist putting the practitioner in yoga postures and holding them physically at their edge while they talk about their experience. The experience consists of moving through the physical body, the prana/subtle body, the mind and the emotions. It is completely self-led, the most the therapist says is: “what’s happening now?” and occasionally repeats the last sentence you say, so you can hear yourself clearly.

I decided it would be a fun thing to try. In the session, I picked an issue I wanted to work on, we set an intention, started with a simple meditation to center ourselves, and then she physically put me into postures. The fascinating thing was that I was bringing up intensely detailed memories of my childhood – things I hadn’t thought about since the time they happened. I didn’t bring up any memories of significant or huge events in my life, more simplicity, like the crazy 1975 wallpaper in my mom’s kitchen and walking home from school with my hair swinging in the wind. Memory after memory came up and they were all nice, warm and fuzzy. There was one key thread that strung all of those fabulous memories together – the Mormon church. Every memory had to do with my Mormon family, my Mormon friends, my Mormon way of life. I was left at the end of the session with a lot of insight – realizing that I often long for my own experience currently in the church to feel as real as it did for me as a child. I also realized how profoundly I love what the church provided for me in my life, and how that translates into the disappointment I feel that the gospel is not what I thought it was while growing up. The session was really positive.

Two days later, I trekked to Santa Cruz with a group of moms from my current ward. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to get to know sisters in this ward because we’ve only been here a year, and I’ve been putting more space between myself and the church. Working full time also puts me in the minority, leaving no time for group park days, etc. There was a nice group there, nice kids, beautiful beach. One of the things I love about the church is that it puts me in contact with people I would normally never be friends with. Such was the case yesterday. The other moms brought doritos, I brought wheat thins. The other mom’s are reading Star Magazine, I’m reading A Path With Heart. One mom was complaining about the weather, I was in the water playing with my kids. They all believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet, I don’t. For the most part it doesn’t bother me. I guess I’m glad for feeling of family I have with them, regardless of our differences. Sometimes, it just feels frustrating.

Backtracking to May when Greenfrog (fellow Mormon/Buddhist/Yogi, only labeled for the sake of the story) came to the yoga studio for a photos shoot. It was a very interesting day for me, being able to instantly talk with Greenfrog without having to interpret vocabulary or explain beliefs. The similarities of our backgrounds within the church, our periods with depression, the experiences with yoga, bhakti, meditation, even the books we’ve read lined up so closely. It seemed that there was this shared understanding – just as I felt with members of the church before my disaffection. He would say something and I would nod my head in understanding and vice versa. During this year due to my unique viewpoints of spirituality, I had come to the conclusion that I was on my own. I felt OK about being alone and that realization brought me a lot of peace along with a lot of inner-strength I didn’t know I had. So it was a real surprise and joy to meet Greenfrog through our blogs, and then again in person. Somehow talking to him was very comforting, confirming my own thoughts that I really am indeed sane. We prefaced the photo shoot with meditation, chanting and a short yoga practice. While sitting in meditation it was still and peaceful and powerful. Toward the end when my mind started becoming active again, two things hit me: #1 – imagine what the church would be like if we all put down our to-do lists and simply sat together in being. I can’t imagine anything more profound, it cuts right through to the heart of spirituality. #2 – this is what the pioneers felt like! How wonderful it is to find somebody who shares your experience in spirituality, and practice together. The Mormon terms of Brother and Sister seemed so easily felt in the simple quiet of doing nothing. No wonder the pioneers wanted to create zion and be around like-minded, like-believing people. It feels good.

I’ve always hated the word maturity. It seems a bit arrogant. As I go through my own practice and path though, that word keeps popping up for me, as if it is morphing into something more palatable for me to digest. I look at these experiences and realize that along with change and acceptance comes a maturity within the spiritual realm. For me, part of that maturity is learning not to resist what is right in front of me. Not to label it away, or disown it because of a simple aversion. Not to think that people should be any different than what they are, or that I should recreate my childhood, or that everyone should understand me. Certainly not that the church should hold everything for me now the way that it did through my 9-year old eyes. Finding acceptance for the way things are is helping me continue to grow and learn. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to put little pieces of myself, where I will invest it and where I won’t. As I accept the idea of spiritual maturity, I’m having an easier time listening to my instincts and deciding where I want to be.

I am left wondering though, will the dust ever settle?

The Way of Unlearning

I read this post awhile ago on the blog “The Zennist” (not the dark zen newsletter by same name), and just came back to it tonight. I really feel that this touches on the point that I’m at right now. I need to unlearn alot of things in order to allow my mind to be open to many of the new concepts I’ve been studying and learning when it comes to Zen and Buddhism in general. My teacup is full so to speak, and I need to empty it.

Here’s a copy of the post…

Mormon Mantras: A Journey of Spiritual Transformation

Sattva brought to my attention a wonderful article that was written for Sunstone magazine titled “Mormon Mantras: A Journey of Spiritual Transformation” by Philip G. McLemore. She wanted me to share it with you all here as she felt that in this article he eloquently explained the differences between spirituality and Mormonism. I would have to agree with her. It was a wonderful read and very well written indeed.

It’s not a short article by any means (12 pages in magazine form) but well worth the read. Although I won’t post the entire article contents here due to it’s length, I will provide a link for you to download it directly from Sunstone. So please take the time, when you can, to give it a read and post your thoughts! Enjoy!

Click the link below to download a PDF copy of the article:

Mormon Mantras: A Journey of Spiritual Transformation

Nothing Holy: A Zen Primer

Nothing Holy: A Zen Primer
By Norman Fischer

Most of us associate Zen with black robes and rock gardens, but do we really know what it is? Norman Fischer takes us through the principles and practices of the major schools of Zen.

1. A Zen Wave

Like ocean waters, intellectual currents are always in motion. They churn up organic matter from below, creating and extending powerful nutritional mixtures. When groups of people at a particular historical moment begin to experience the world in a particular way, naturally they meet and talk, ponder, read and write. They are open to diverse influences. Eventually the energy of their discourse crests and breaks like a sudden wave, and soon people around them find themselves affected. So cultures mix, dissolve and change.

In this way, a Zen wave broke on North American shores in the middle of the twentieth century. It probably didn’t begin as a Zen wave at all, but rather as a reflex to the unprecedented violence the first part of the century had seen. After two devastating world wars, small groups of people here and there in the West were beginning to realize, as if coming out of a daze, that the modernist culture they had depended on to humanize and liberalize the planet wasn’t doing that at all. Instead it was bringing large-scale suffering and dehumanization. What was the alternative?

In the early 1950’s, D.T. Suzuki, the great Japanese Zen scholar and practitioner, arrived at Columbia University in New York to teach some classes on Zen. Suzuki was a magnet for the yearning that was at that time still underground. The people who met him, attended his classes or were otherwise influenced by his visit constitute a Who’s Who of American cultural innovation at that period. Alan Watts, whose popular books on Zen were hugely influential, was there. So was John Cage, who from then on wrote music based on chance operations, on the theory that being open to the present moment, without conscious control, was the essence of Suzuki’s—and Zen’s—message.

Cage influenced Merce Cunningham, the dancer-choreographer, who in turn influenced many others in the performance art field. The Zen-derived notion of spontaneous improvisation became the essence of bebop, the post-war jazz movement. For Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and the other Beat-generation poets, Zen was a primary source, a sharp tool for prying the lid off literary culture as they knew it.

Within ten years, lively Japanese Zen masters who, from their side of the Pacific, had also been dreaming a Zen wave, were coming to America to settle. With the 1960’s and the coming of age of a new generation radicalized by the Vietnam war and psychotropic drugs, what had been churning underneath for decades broke out in a glorious and exhilarating spray. The first Zen centers in America were bursting with students willing to make serious commitments right away. It was an exciting and confusing time, perhaps unprecedented in the history of world religions.

I was part of this Zen wave. The cultural undercurrents I have been describing took place during my formative years. A student of literature and religion, I was sensitive enough to feel the brokenness that lay under the placid social veneer of the American culture I was raised in. So when I discovered Zen in the writings of D.T. Suzuki in the late 1960’s, I was dumbstruck. Here was exactly what I needed, a completely new way of experiencing the world. The compromising, experiential and immediate search for meaning that Zen proposed, without need of doctrine or belief, struck a chord in me. Like so many, I wasn’t looking for a new religion: I wanted a way to blast through the options that seemed available to me. I wanted real freedom. Zen promised this.

Read more

The Zen Mind: A Documentary

I got a copy of this wonderful documentary from EmptyMind Films titled: “The Zend Mind: A Zen Journey Across Japan”. It was a beautifully done film and I recommend you check it out. Here’s a intro for the video from EMF on YouTube.

Zen In Everyday Living

Written by Tu Hoang

I seem to keep a lot of things on my mind. Thinking about work and worrying about my job security, wondering about my relationship with family and friends, trying to figure out where to invest my money, having to buy a new set of tires for the car, engrossed in the war on terrorism, seeing that all my buddies are getting married and a thousand other things that gnaw at me throughout the day.

I am not the only one with a lot on my mind. I have friends who are dissatisfied with their careers but work it so they can afford the house and the baby. I know guys with beautiful girlfriends and nice cars that still seek approval. I know girls with great careers; lots of friends but can not find love.

So it is easy for us all to be stressed. We look forward to ‘going out’, meeting up with friends, shopping, weekends when we can retreat to our homes, spending time with the new baby and all the other little moments that give us pleasure before we re-immerse ourselves into the immense displeasure of the daily drone. Life seems like a cycle of seeking pleasure, in material things, in business success or in personal relationships in order to stem the displeasures of circumstance.

I recently delved into Zen in order to break this cycle and experience life in its entirety; not embracing just the good bits and avoiding the bad bits because there will be times when such things are out of our control. I still maintain my career ambitions, my commitment to family and friends. My rent still has to be paid and my car still needs four new tires. But my day is no longer a daily drone; no longer a struggle and I no longer seek to ‘get away from it all’. I am experiencing things for what they are and not what they should be or aren’t. For a Zen master, who I am not, there is no friction between himself and life and the world. Events and circumstances ebb and flow but he is always centered steering his life wherever he sees fit and acting in a way that is always appropriate to the situation.

So what is Zen and how can it be used. Well, Zen is not a religion. There is Zen Buddhism but there can also be Zen Catholicism as well. There is no morality or ethics in Zen; for morality or ethics you will have to look elsewhere like Buddhism or Catholicism. Zen is a way of looking and confronting events, circumstances and life.

Joseph Campbell said of Zen practice, “It is like an athlete when he’s in the zone, except all of the time.” I thought it would be great to live and handle challenges and interact with people like I was in that zone all of the time. Don’t you?

Here are some techniques for laypeople to obtain the benefits of Zen.

Focused Breathing:

One of the basic ways of clearing your head of distractions so that you can concentrate is focusing on your breathing. Harvard Medical Center researchers can this the relaxation principle. In Zen it is called zazen or sitting meditation but I do this while jogging, reading and working. When you are relaxed you are more focused and effective in the task at hand.

To do this you must relax your diaphragm and be fully conscious of your breathing. This is not easy to do when you are tense. It takes true self-awareness to realize that your body is tense. It takes effort to relax those muscles in your stomach and discipline to breath steadily.

But try to focus on your breathing; here is a long breath in, here is a long breath out, here is a short breath in, here is a short breath out. You will find that you will be more in tune to the present moment. As your mind is focused on your breathing, your senses take in the situation around you unencumbered and unfiltered. You begin to see things as they unfold, hear and listen to sounds as they come, feel and smell aromas as they arise without automatically shutting any of it out or reflexively reacting to them.

Continued practice of focused breathing will help you deal with situations in a more rational and objective manner. It lets you put things in perspective. And it gives you insight into the way your body responds under different situations.

Focused Breathing is the foundation for adopting many of the other techniques of Zen. Practiced on its own it will yield immense benefit to you.

Beginner’s Mind:

Zen is known for some very esoteric notions, ‘No mind’, ‘With-out Thinking’ and a refutation of all concepts in general. This is one reason Zen appears inaccessible and nonsensical to the casual observer.

These notions are meant to encourage us to adopt a basic tenant of Zen, the Beginner’s Mind. When we first learn something we may be anxious, nervous, excited and looking forward to it but we begin without concepts, knowledge or any ideas about the subject. Maintaining a beginner’s mind, even in things that we are already experts, means not to carry any preconceived ideas and beliefs when confronting situations.

His students asked a Zen teacher if he ever got tired of being asked the same question day in and day out. He replied that each student was different and their question, though worded the same, had a different meaning.

A beginner’s mind protects us from over-conceptualizing, over-thinking and over-analyzing a situation. We are better able to think outside of the box because we respond appropriately to the needs of each situation. When we think we already know what is going on or that we are already experts in our field we are trapped in one mode of thinking. Many physicists, scientists, philosophers, economists and corporate leaders practice Zen-like techniques because they are aware of such traps.

The next time you think ‘here comes an annoying co-worker’ or ‘someone has let me down again, they’re always like this’ or ‘how am I ever going to get this done’, go back to focusing on your breathing, take in the situation unencumbered and unfiltered by your knowledge and conditioning and learning. Trust that you have all of the prerequisite abilities that have taken you this far in life to respond to any situation. Once your initial, reflexive thoughts subside you will find that by not categorize situations as they arise you will be open to more alternatives, more opportunities and more ways of responding to the situation appropriately and effectively.

Mindfulness:

It is not easy to let go of our thoughts, feelings and tension as they arise. Commotion, distractions and other people requiring our attention surround us. We cannot always maintain a beginner’s mind and often we cannot afford to focus on our breathing because we are actively responding to something; this is especially true with first applying Zen techniques. But like everything else, continued practice allows us to live these techniques not just merely apply them.

One way to over come the initial hurdles of applying Zen in a busy day is to be Mindful; basically to be self-aware and self-monitoring with the aim of accepting all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in us without judging them or shutting them out.

When you are focused on your breathing, with a Beginner’s Mind you will sense feelings and thoughts arising. Focusing on your breathing will keep you centered, and with a Beginner’s Mind you will observe thoughts and feelings without judging them; rather let thoughts and feelings rise and subside while you pay attention but not cling to them.

In Zen, all that arises within us are natural; they are a result of what we are and how we are connected to the world. Our eyes, ears and nose sense the world; we perceive, conceptualize and feel because that is the expression of our body.

When we are mindful of anger, sadness, nervousness and joy we acknowledge them, welcome them when they appear but we do not cling to them. When we feel love or happiness we welcome these feelings. It should be the same with anger and nervousness. All these feelings are our mind, body and consciousness communicating to us. When we are mindful of them we can only become wiser and more insightful.

I may get nervous before a test. ‘I am nervous. Hello nervousness, how are you today? Glad to feel you again.’ Focused breathing keeps me centered. When the test begins my nervousness naturally subsides. ‘Farewell nervousness,’ and I am completely in tuned with the task at hand.

Do not try to resist or suppress your feelings. That only means you have turned your mind to them and are clinging to them even more. Let your feelings and thoughts. Be mindful of them. I find that as the situation dictates my distracting feelings and thoughts subside allowing me to respond unencumbered by the task at hand.

Focused breathing, Beginner’s Mind and Mindfulness are basic Zen practices. They are almost common sense but often we become mired in the complexities and details of every day living and lose sight of common sense wisdom. Zen is not a monastic way of life. The Zen ideal is to experience and embrace life experiences full on; not editing out the bad bits because there are no bad bits, just things are they are.

Tu Hoang is a business student at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. For comments email: fete@sprint.ca