A Tribute to Ajahn Kalyano's mother. Vocals by: Bee Price Music and editing by: Gordon Oaks Yoga and ch’i kung and other associated body work or therapies are examples of bodily practices that were originally spiritual in nature and purpose. Both however have become materialised, or 'physicalised' in their move to the West. Because there was no cultural understanding of the phenomenon of samādhi – the phenomenon of chakras or of ch’i – the brightness within the body was taken to be some kind of energy rather than a manifestation of emptiness. This is a natural enough mistake to make when we associate physical exercise with the generation of energy of some kind. It is a mistake that will be reinforced over and over if the people coming to learn these skills are looking for energy. This mistake can end up leading us in completely the wrong direction. It is not that we do not find energy through our practice, but that this is a phenomenon of mind rather than a physical energy. Instead of trying to find this emptiness and to keep the emptiness empty we try to create something. We do not see that the emptiness is filled by, obstructed by, our desire – even this desire to create energy. Or usually we do not see the emptiness at all but associate spiritual energy with more mundane feelings that are, after all, experienced in the body too. The same mistake is thankfully true of dark, negative energy as well. Interestingly people can see that this is associated with a negative state of mind (perhaps what is obviously negative is clearer than that which is truly positive) but again it is 'physicalised' so that people become afraid of being effected by the negative thoughts of others. The darkness of others' minds is not a threat, it cannot effect us directly but only if we share the unwholesome ideas or perceptions that are at its source. Yet on this basis people are excluded from meditation retreats if they are not vegan or eat garlic and on it goes to the point where anyone with a problem could find themselves excluded until they can sort themselves out. So much for compassion. Where this leads us internally is no less scary. We can be led into a never-ending effort to purify ourselves of something that is not really there – through a deep confusion between the physical purity of diet or exercise and the purity of the mind. People also run away from all this to seek spiritual seclusion, but this is supposed to be aimed at getting us away from our desires and calming the mind toward Nibbāna; it is not a way to get away from everything we don't like, away from bad old saṃsāra. This is just following our desire in the opposite direction. This is wrongly blaming the world for the suffering that comes ultimately from our own desire and craving. Let us consider also the example of sexual, tantric practice. Here there can be a confusion between the rapture of orgasm which arises out of the body and the rapture of samādhi. It is tempting to say that this confusion has been exploited by gurus since time immemorial. These kinds of rapture are, however, of a completely different nature. The rapture of samādhi is an explosive opening, a feeling that opens the mind free of attachment and desire. But they are both rapturous so again an easy mistake to make and yet again a mistake that, this time so very obviously, takes us in a completely different direction. It is true also that the heart chakra is the most powerful of all, but this is not associated with our romantic feelings of love but with a higher kind of love, an unconditional love in which we let go of our attachment to one individual and love all beings the same – and it is the letting go of the first that gains us the second form of love. Moreover, sexual exploitation is not the only kind of exploitation in quasi-spiritual circles. In modern consumer spirituality a lot of money can be made from making people's relatively ordinary experiences seem more special. In this way there is no need to do all the hard work of the spiritual life but just to do the nice exercises and then form a nice and spiritual view of ourselves. The reality is that nobody gets samādhi easily, but also that this experience is far more marvellous than anyone can imagine. So spiritual life above all is the one that requires the most dedication in order to break through, otherwise it will not be so special, yet people with real faith can be prepared to practice for life-times, through all kind of hardships, to finally get there. One tiny glimpse of samādhi sets a seed so deep that it is enough for someone never to look back. However, someone who has not experienced this should be careful to criticise lesser pleasures or they risk just entering into a dry idealism; so many monks and nuns do this and become gradually more and more miserable. The clever ones make do with a walk on the beach. A further mistake of the same we can make is to think that highly spiritual beings have limitless physical energy or resources, they can even mistakenly think this themselves or that their selflessness can end up taking them beyond their physical limits. We should not be disappointed by our limits. If we had no such limit as spiritual practitioners would we not eventually find ourselves with an indestructible mind in a worn out body unable to escape? Doesn't sound good. The Buddha himself relinquished his old body when it wore out. But lets not fall into seeing such considerations as negative. All of this kind of thinking is neither placing some kind of limit on our spiritual endeavour. Nor is such discrimination just a dry intellectual exercise. It is rather wrong understanding that limits us. Confining ourselves to an energy or bodily feeling is what is limiting us in time or space. Perhaps we can need to recognise how our spiritual practise can become tainted by the desire for power or to be something special in the world. Or maybe our hope is for a physical healing beyond the limits of our minds. In contrast if we can humbly bow and let go then we can have found something real that we can come to realise is everlasting. Something within the world that is also beyond the world. We have found freedom and true spirituality, not just another kind of slavery in spiritual materialism and it will not be hard to let go of a lesser happiness for a far greater one. I offer this for your reflection Ajahn Kalyāno http://www.openthesky.co.uk/ Just as it is possible for hedonism to lead us out and away from the spiritual path, it is possible to get lost in a kind of intellectual craving. At its height such a craving can turn in a spiritual direction. We can imagine, for example, that there was once a perfect idea and ideal, an all powerful, universal principle that has been lost but shall be found again and become the source of a new utopia. This makes the mind entangled in its own creation – to look for the great truth and building our ivory towers, when the truth is very simple and right in front of our eyes for the heart that is peaceful enough, big enough to accept it. I offer this for your reflection Ajahn Kalyāno http://www.openthesky.co.uk/ The shrouded smile Sylvia Plath is reborn to be free she shut her eyes and all the world dropped dead; so she had to make it up inside her head all the lies galloped in she saw the mind go as black as sin and she knew, she said that she was already dead when she shut her eyes all the world dropped dead 'must have just been my eyes filling my head' she thought she opened her eyes and stepped out of bed... would you have me sleep to dream of you? she said this is not true love for unless persuaded by my madness I am alone in my dreams and lost to the living and the dead before I marry a dream I would run from the church and escape a life of sugar-lump sleep and I would keep running for I would rather with lemon sharp eyes wake again even from the wakened state into the formless and what would this mean for us? that you must die to join me in this heaven? we need not die I do not doubt or fear heaven is here one day we will die this I must whisper to my deeper self I forever forget dying because forgetting is itself like dying but to be at One I must love the sky from the freedom of my dust until the shrouded smile of myself fades into the sunrise she thought she thought until she found herself worried about the words then the spell of the sounds broken the half-understood half awake, awoken the cosy cover lifted silence ruled at last before and after and she could be the truth and not the thought a truth we could share forever more such is true love she said To perceive an object in the space of awareness is sati. The mind aware of itself as that space is the deathless. But we do not stay in the space of mindfulness. We give the first space for the second of samādhi; this mind at one with the object is samādhi.
We close the space until there is no gap between seer and seen. Then, in the seeing of insight we see the space inside things. Seeing with insight is then like a light touch that generates this space. We see right there at the object. So this is a letting go of self, of the watcher until there is just the seen. The deathless is a space that emerges out of things, not a space in which they are held - a space created by the object rather than an object by the space. It is a light shining out of things, a mind naturally created by things rather than things being created by the mind. Nibbāna is abiding in this particular space even in the absence of things. It can be counter intuitive to go looking for Nibbāna in things if we see Nibbāna as getting away from things. But the only way out is in and through things. Space emerging from the object is a sign of wisdom. The space of wisdom independent of the object is Nibbāna. There is a common way of depicting the story of the Buddha's moment of enlightenment where the Earth Deva wrings out her hair, full of tears, and washes away the hosts of Māra. This is the Deva letting go of its grieving for the earth. To my mind this is also like the mysterious phrase in the suttas of 'the body realising the deathless' because at this moment the samādhi of the Buddha was brought down to earth through mindfulness of the body. This is how the Buddha let go of the world and grief for the world together (having previously let go of covetousness when leaving the palace). Letting go of attachment through seeing suffering is all that is needed for the mind to go beyond the elements. This is letting go of the world.
And, if we like a good fairy tale, we can understand this literally or as a way of depicting the dynamics by which the power of samādhi takes the mind to liberation. The Buddha could thus be the connection between the power of the Devas and the earth. The Deva channelled by the mind of a man may reach back from their abiding beyond to ‘save the world’ with pure emptiness. I offer this for your reflection Ajahn Kalyāno http://www.openthesky.co.uk Time Answered lost and lost in each other shadows mourn they dance their darkness in their own little world of cast down chiaroscuro raised above wrapped in ribbons dance the free light and colour of heaven between lies calm, priestly presence and the sermon is ready already in the heart of man seen and unseen felt between and between lies this ambiguous body rhythm of blood and breath seasons of life and death within this life the body has its own rule we must respect we shall sharpen it as our tool and expect as we might and towards what end my friend shall we fight? does the matter really matter? the blood shall one day splatter don't tell the wife yet the senses may learn and win a truth that may turn us back to life... time questions the world turns in perpetual doubt not taking its time but taken by time the world quakes time takes this is the truth yet time takes not this truth the inner light speaks and casts no shadow and the words have the sound of words that are heard taken within, between between there in the empty alley time is answered light of heart and heart of light before the word is spoken and after celebrating the life that lies forever in the silence and the lost shall be found found where they are most lost cast adrift pilgrims in hope of freedom in the sea or on the islands in the hope of freedom shall speak the clear horizon where the prayer falls the truth calls there where the grey light ripples and shimmers there where the silence glimmers the humble heart shall hear the call never to part never to fall for life is encoded in the fertile seed there is the ultimate cause and there in between and between the between on the horizon of the space and the pause is eternity written between and between between the lines of a life a life of truth a true life freed there too in the fertile seed and at the source of the river unseen, between the between in the trickle in the mud there where the air is green there at the first blood there begins the search for us all to stem the mighty flood there where nature will reach us there where nature will teach us straight from heart to heart
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When I was eighteen I took a gap year before going to University. I knew I would be studying psychology so I decided to get some work experience and got a job as a nursing assistant in a large hospital for people with mental handicaps. On my first day I was given a list of patients to help with their bath. I went to find the first one and helped him to wash himself as best I could. When I stepped out of the bathroom to take a towel I found that all the other patients on the list were standing naked outside the bathroom, all with their towels neatly folded over their arms and I realised how institutionalised life here really was.
My duties were simple and routine. Bathing, dressing, shaving, serving food and calling for a nurse if anything happened I couldn't handle. The job was like looking after big babies, having to try to see what they were asking for when they were upset. I had to put myself in their simple shoes and keep my eyes on just the basic necessities of life. I came to love them. I was amazed how content they could be with so little in life. The experience was an immensely earthing one and I began to realise just how simple life could be if you did not think about it too much. I could see the suffering of all my intellectual craving. Perhaps you can too if you have the same craving, reading this article in its deliberately simple style!
As for me, going on to college I was left with a nagging doubt about all the thinking. I wanted to try to help in what seemed like bigger ways and thought to use my brain, but in my vacations I would go straight back to simple nursing with a sense of relief.
As a monk, thankfully, I have rediscovered the simple life. Now, however, this simplicity covers even my thinking. Even though the deeper realities that emerge out of the contemplative life can be hard to describe, as an experience they are completely simple and clarifying of all our life experience.
I offer this for your reflection
Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk
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