January | 2018 | Contemplative Inquiry

January 30, 2018

WHAT MATTERS?

“People and relationships matter. The earth matters. Life, yours and mine, matters. Art, music, culture, science, justice, knowledge, history, peace and any other similar thing that enriches your experience of life and your relations with the world, also matter. The extent to which life is worth living matters. Death matters. And thinking about these things matters, too.” (1,2)

These words, from Pagan philosopher Brendan Myers’ Reclaiming Civilization, resonate for me. After some years of inquiry, I feel grounded in a version of non-dualism that maintains a primary focus on being human in this world. This is a world of multiplicity and interconnectedness, and of opportunity for I-Thou relationships. It is where things happen.

In an early post for this blog (3) I discussed Satish Kumar’s recollection of his mother’s walks around their family farm in India. “For mother, walking was much more than a physical exercise, it was a meditation. Touching the earth, being connected to the soil and taking every step consciously and mindfully, was supremely conducive to contemplation.” She was not setting up special walks for meditation. She walked a good deal during the working day and could be meditative in her walking. She was being mindful to self and world and their interdependence. It was less a practice than a way of life.

As the distinction between ‘practice’ and ‘life’ continues to blur, with contemplation and inquiry as aspects of living rather than a defined project, I feel very open about the future of this blog. Rather than planning a new direction, I will let it evolve in its own way.

(1) Brendan Myers Reclaiming Civilization: a case for optimism for the future of humanity Winchester, UK & Washington, USA: Moon Books, 2017

(2) https://contemplativeinquiry.wordpress.com/2017/08/24/book-review-reclaiming-civilization/

(3) Satish Kumar You Are therefore I Am: A Declaration of Dependence Totnes: Green Books, 2002

(4) https://contemplativeinquiry.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/outdoor-walking-meditation/

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January 24, 2018

RESTING IN BEING

Last autumn I worked with two on-line resources developed by Peter Russell (1). The first was a brief meditation course, which nudged me into a particularly easeful and surrendered meditative style. The second was a webinar series under the Science and Nonduality umbrella (2), Resting in Being. From this I picked up a helpful definition of nonduality (a translation of Sanskrit advaita). Going back to the time of the Upanishads (3), it invites us to think of ourselves as clay pots. If we look at two pots together (or any number) we find only one clay. Peter Russell describes the clay as ‘mind stuff’. Older Vedantic tradition uses the language of divinity, whilst Tantric Buddhists speak of ‘primordial nature’ (4). Russell is careful to distinguish nonduality from union, unity, or complete identity. My human relationship to the clay (mind stuff, primordial nature) is one of ‘not I not other than I’ (5). I am distinct but not separate.

This ground reality is ever-present and pervasive, yet oddly hard to recognize. No recognition is necessary for a successful human life, yet without it many people experience a sense of loss and alienation or intuit that something of consequence is missing. We invent grail quests and ladders to heaven, strategies for enlightenment or redemption, to address the perceived deficit. These in turn tend to become displacement mechanisms, deflecting us from the very goal we seek. The direct approach points us back to our immediate experience. Peter Russell uses words like ‘being’ and ‘awareness’ – suggesting indeed that that latter might also be turned into a doing word: ‘awareing’. Process terms better express both the movement of experience and the stillness within it. Ursula Le Guin does the same with ‘Taoing’ (6).

As a term, I find ‘resting in being’ useful in guiding me into contemplative awareing. I feel opened, energized and expanded. My centre of gravity shifts. I feel porous, spacious, held within the whole: here, now and home. The years of contemplative inquiry have boiled down to this. It is the stance I am taking away. My remaining sense of inquiry concerns the influence of this stance on the rest of my life and I will look at this in another post.

(1) Spirit of Now website peterrussell.com

(2) https://www.scienceandnonduality.com

(3) The Upanishads Introduced and translated by Eknath Easwaran Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, CA: Niligri Press, 2007 (2^nded.)

(4) https://www.dharmaocean.org/

(5) https://contemplativeinquiry.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/book-review-not-i-not-other-than-i/

(6) Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching: A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way Boston & London: Shambhala, 1998 (New English version by Ursula K. LeGuin with the collaboration of J. P. Seaton)

January 19, 2018

IMBOLC ADVENT

Erin nighean Brighde* has recently written about ‘Imbolc Advent’. I like this term. Where I live, mid-January could feel cold and dull and flat. It could be a time of post-festive blues, and a very long way from spring. My cure, from the early 1990’s, has been the eight-fold wheel of the year, now lived by many groups within and beyond the modern Pagan community. It has enriched me enormously.

For the last week or so I have been leaning in to Imbolc, the festival that, at the beginning of February (Northern hemisphere), celebrates the return of the light, the appearance of early flowers and traditionally also the birth of lambs. In Druidry, it is strongly linked to the Goddess Brigid. My leaning in to Imbolc this year has been interwoven with the transformation of three initially parched hyacinth bulbs (a late seasonal gift) in a pot of dry earth. The change began when I saw them draw water from a saucer. Its rapid disappearance was like watching a speeded-up film. Within a couple of days, stalks had burst almost alarmingly out of the bulbs, and it was not long before the scented bell-like lavender blue flowers emerged from the spikes. I realize that this was a contrived indoor event, but I have experienced it over the last week as a stunning display of life and growth, and hence an image of Imbolc Advent.

During the life-time of the Druid contemplative group, we tended to meet outside the festival times, partly to avoid clashes with other commitments, and partly to practice tuning into the year at other times. We could do this by taking the previous or following festival as a reference point and notice the mid-term difference, or we could more simply pay attention to the world we were in at the time of meeting. Over time, we developed a greater sensitivity to the rhythms and tides in the year as nature’s unfolding processes, since we were not focusing on the festivals themselves as events. Nonetheless, they remained important markers for our experience. They helped to provide us with a common language and orientation. That being said, I remember something special around Imbolc, out of all the eight festivals. The fire in the hearth, the arrangement and decoration of the space (snowdrops in particular) gave us a powerful experience of Brigid as a presiding energy, making Imbolc one of our most resonant times.

*Erin nighean Brighde https://hereternalflame.wordpress.com/2018/01/14/imbolc-advent-2018/

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January 7, 2018

CONTEMPLATION AS SACRAMENT

Everything is sacred, but dedicated time and space provide a focus. They deepen our recognition of what is already true. Sacrare in Latin means ‘to hallow’ and I feel hallowing to be mostly about my quality of attentiveness. Although, subjectively, I am always here and always now, I can be here and now, and relate here and now, in a more conscious and loving way, when the time and space are dedicated.

Since beginning contemplative inquiry in November 2011, I have had a morning practice that has been structurally constant whilst varying in specifics. It is framed by a minimalist Druid liturgy to establish and hold the nemeton, the dedicated sacred space. It includes exercise and energy work, walking and sitting meditations, and a brief loving-kindness meditation. These activities have referenced different traditions at different times, whilst preserving a consistent outline and intent.

This practice is the heart of what I do in formal contemplative practice. Since I draw on diverse traditions, this solo practice has developed within an overall context and narrative determined by and for me. I have never worked through a simple adoption of ‘teachings’, to me a somewhat infantilising term, and a residue of authoritarian spirituality. I have always maintained an independent approach, which I find necessary to a critical and creative culture of inquiry. It necessarily includes a meta level of evaluating traditions as well as a normative one of learning their views and practices.

I will continue with the same practice structure post-inquiry. Fundamentally (in I hope a good sense) I understand my practice as a sacrament, celebrating ordinary incarnation in this world. It works on two levels. The first is the dedication and framing of the whole practice. The second, more intensive level, is within my sitting meditation. This now uses a Shaivite Tantric rather than Buddhist form. It is an eyes closed meditation, aligning the breath to a mantra – which is something I’ve quite often done over the years, including the use of the Druid ‘awen’*. Here I use ham-saa. Traditionally this invokes Shiva as the empty awareness of the Cosmos and Shakti as its energy and form. My own sense is of deepened appreciation of the miracle of being and becoming, and a sense of how this is at once personal and universal.

I sometimes find that all my attention dissolves into the mantra. Its pulse and vibration become all that exists in my awareness. The meditative disidentification from world and perception, body and sensation, feeling and thought, leaves this one reality. The experience here is of existence acknowledging itself, in a way that doesn’t seem to be about me, as such, or in any sense a personal possession. Whether or not the experience happens in full, or whether the practice simply points to it, this mantra meditation hallows my contemplative practice. It is the heart of its heart.

Paradoxically, as this practice deepens, my ‘inquiry’ energy begins to fall away. Where I am now feels like a destination. Though I still have work to do in the integration of experience and understanding, I am no longer looking for new frameworks or resources. On completion of the inquiry, my contemplative life will continue, but it will have a different note.

https://contemplativeinquiry.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/awen-mantra-meditation/

Month: January, 2018