washing and drying

19/04/2016

Here in India I often wash my clothes in a bucket, by hand. It takes some effort – rubbing and squeezing and seemingly endless wringing. Sometimes my hands feel sore by the time the clothes are clean. In contrast, the drying of the clothes couldn’t be more effortless. Hung up in the Indian sun, often with a breeze to assist, the clothes simply dry themselves.

It strikes me that this washing and drying of clothes is an analogy for stages on the spiritual journey. To begin with, we need to make a huge effort, throwing all our energy into the endeavour, reading, listening to teachings, contemplating, meditating: we need to use discipline. During this stage, even if we don’t realise it, there is a cleansing happening, a cleansing of our soul. At some point though, we reach a point of no return. And from there, we can simply relax into the flow, allowing the sun and the wind to carry us the rest of the way, effortlessly.

where is the focus?

15/04/2016

I was sitting on the terrace of the guest house a little earlier, drinking a chai. At one point I noticed that I had drunk half the glass rather habitually, without really tasting it. Of course, I had been tasting it to some extent but not fully savouring the flavour. My focus had been elsewhere, mostly on the enchanting view down the valley. However, as usual, my attention had also been seduced by thoughts, rather inconsequential thoughts at that.

All this reminded me of photography. When composing an image, there is usually a focal point that the attention is naturally drawn to. The rest of the composition is important, yet is mostly forming a backdrop to that focal point, giving it a context.

So it is with our mind. Our awareness, at any given moment, is drawn to one of our senses or to our thoughts. The other senses are there in the background, influencing our experience in a secondary role. The bizarre thing is that thoughts, more often than not, claim to be the focal point. Now it is true that, occasionally, a thought can be exciting, significant, worthy of that dominant position in the composition of our mind. The vast majority of thoughts, though, are uninspiring and of no real value. Yet we keep allowing our attention to focus on them. It is as if we keep focussing the camera on rather boring grey clouds, even when a majestic eagle is in the foreground of the photo. So let’s try refocussing our awareness more to our juicy senses and less on those boring thoughts.

I really enjoyed the rest of that chai!

the magic of satsang

04/04/2016

Here in the foothills of the Himalaya I am once again holding satsangs. (You can read more about it on the satsang page.) In these satsangs I answer people’s questions relating to spirituality, personal growth, psychology, meditation, relationship – really anything in life that is important to those present, in the moment. In case you have never attended a satsang, though, I want to try to convey something of the hidden element, the mystical element of what is going on in these meetings.

Many of us live with words in our heads almost all our waking hours. Without necessarily being very conscious of it, this stream of thoughts has become our primary experience in life. Meditation is the practice which attempts to undo this dominance of thoughts. And through meditation, if we are lucky, we begin to taste the vast, silent, still spaciousness which is our underlying consciousness, when the mind is not busy.

Now to the magic. During satsang, we combine the awareness of this silent space with the use of words to discuss whatever questions are arising. The whole conversation is taking place within a field of meditation, where the small, personal self has been set aside. Effectively, the responses to questions are coming directly from that silent place, without being filtered by the personality. I call this the magic of satsang. Of course, it is not really so surprising. The silence and stillness and spaciousness are ever-present in each of us. When we are experiencing this space directly, we have returned to our essence. Everything else that we experience, including our thoughts, are arising within this space, from this stillness and silence. With practice, we can stay in touch with our essence even whilst attending to our sensations and thoughts.

we are all pagans

23/03/2016

The Dalai Lama has come to town. This morning he was giving a teaching in the big temple in McLeod Ganj and also performing a puja (ritual ceremony), I am told, to celebrate the full moon.

At the same time, the Hindu festival of Holi is taking place across India. This festival of colour sees exuberant men and women playing like children, throwing coloured paint over each other. Luckily I was spared the full experience this year. Instead a small child gave me a bindi – a spot of paint on the third eye – and wished me ‘Happy Holi!’

This full moon, coming as it does after the spring equinox, also means that Christians will be celebrating Easter this weekend – the passion of Christ and his resurrection.

It strikes me that all of these religions are celebrating this spring full moon. And even those of us who do not follow any particular religion cannot help being moved by the majestic moon rising as the sun sets. Underneath it all, we are all pagans!

hell and heaven

21/03/2016

It is the spring equinox, today or tomorrow, I am not sure which. And today the weather has changed for the better. For two weeks, the dominant weather was cloudy and stormy, with heavy, persistent rain. At such times, this place, at quite high altitude, becomes miserably cold. The tiny monk’s room where I stay has no heating and its big windows allow what heat my body generates to rapidly disperse. At times, it feels like a wet, cold version of hell.

Today though, the temperature has risen significantly and the sun has been shining all day. I have been out walking amongst the wooded hillsides and visiting the nearby waterfall. With its innumerable cascades, cool pools to dip in and big boulders to scramble about upon, it is a playground for someone like me. And now, returning to my little room, those same big windows offer stunning vistas of the mountains and valleys. So today, I find myself in heaven.

Sometimes a small change can make the difference between hell and heaven – be it in a mountain environment, a job, a relationship or any other aspect of life.

another fruit salad

14/03/2016

I’ve just finished preparing and eating a fruit salad. I had cut the fruit into sizeable chunks, so that I could taste one piece at a time. As I ate, I was reminded of an analogy made by a Buddhist meditation teacher.

In Buddhism, thinking is regarded as a sixth sense, along with the usual five: tasting, touching, smelling, hearing and seeing. Our awareness moves between these senses, resting on one at a time. For most of us, thinking tends to capture our attention much more than the others. The teacher I referred to compared the mind to the process of eating a fruit salad which is dominated by one particular fruit. In my case, I had cut rather a lot of papaya, which was accompanied by segments of an orange, a sliced banana and some grapes. So I would have a brief taste of banana, say, then several chunks of papaya; then a grape and more papaya; and so on. This is how our mind tends to move: a brief awareness of what we are seeing, say, then we are thinking about it; a brief awareness of hearing, then back to thinking again.

Unfortunately, my papaya was disappointing, being rather tasteless. This made me smile, as so many of our thoughts are also rather tasteless. Perhaps we should spend less time thinking and more time with our awareness on our other fruity senses, which are so much more juicy and tasty!

washing the outer or the inner

12/03/2016

The other day, I was hand washing some clothes here in India. I noticed that with many of the clothes, I was more concerned that the inside of the items should be clean and less concerned about the outside. This seemed to me to reflect an attitude about myself.

Do we emphasise our outer image, how we present ourselves to other people? Or do we give priority to our inner state? Do we merely wash our exterior, superficial layer of skin? Or do we take the time to clean our inner world – our beliefs, prejudices and emotional spaces?