Don't go back to sleep

Sudden awakening,

Gradual cultivation.

-- Chinul

I heard this on a podcast I was listening to on the way home from class today. It's a description of a particular school of Buddhist thought I believe. I didn't really research it anymore than it took to attribute it to the correct teacher. But as soon as I heard the words, I just kept repeating them over and over in my mind. I was driving on the freeway with no way to make a note. I wanted to remember them.

This is how it has always been for me. There are moments where you feel like you really "get" something. It's so easy to feel like that's all it takes...a sudden jolt of the intellect...and that's enough. But it never is, is it? We find ourselves slogging through the poppy fields like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, getting drowsy. It would be so easy to just go back to sleep.

Freedom

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds." - Bob Marley

A meditation on hope

When I was listening to this in my car yesterday, I didn't realize that it was a TED Talk from 2003. It seemed to be speaking to our current state of affairs. I find myself listening to the news of members of the House and Senate still bickering away as usual and wish that they could each give a little talk about what it is that they are doing to bring hope to a struggling nation.

Unleashing Creativity

It seems that everyone is feeling an urge toward creativity that is not only about "Art". This is from another wonderful teacher, Edward Espe Brown. He is describing an upcoming retreat. It's another one of those bits that I didn't want to get lost. I'm not going to the retreat so I'd normally just delete the email but there was something about the language that made me want to bring it here.

UNLEASHING CREATIVITY

From Beyond Creation A Guest Appears

A moment arises—not previously

revealed! never before happened!—

Still we aim to get it right,

so we look good.

Or...

could something appear

from beyond creation?

(Wind high in the pines)

Creativity weaves through the fabric

of consciousness—the gateway opens

and closes—we'll look at some of the

pivotal elements which inhabit or invite

the guest to appear.

Doing the same old same old,

Doing what we already know,

Or...

choosing to welcome the

inconceivable, to move past

the familiar to finding out how.

(whose hands are these)

Can we make things behave

the way they should? Come

out the way we want?

Or...

is there picking up what

comes to hand? And

using it? imaginatively...

(soft light through the curtain)

We'll study what awakens our

creative vitality.

(with sitting, talk, walking...)

The weekend retreat is at Green Gulch Farm in California. If you want to be spontaneous, drop everything and go...here's a link.

The next step

Sometimes I put things here so I won't lose them in the clutter of information that flows through everyday. This is from an email newsletter from Saul David Raye. Saul teaches yoga, meditation and thai massage (probably among other things). I wanted to remember this and sit with it awhile. I thought maybe others would like to as well.

Saul said, "I recently read somehwere a wonderful quote that really touched me. I have tried to relocate the source but have not been able to as of yet. It was something like this "sometimes the only next possible step is a leap of faith !" In my own life this seems to be all that is happening; whatever I know, whatever I have believed to be true is no longer working. When I make choices from my heart, from the inner wisdom and creativity that is in each of us at every moment, the results are amazing. The energy we set in motion when we are resonating at the frequency of our hearts is truly miraculous. Blessings along the path you walk...and to the leap of faith that you are being asked to make in your life right now !"

Yoga for the dictionary addict

As you know, if you've been in my class, I often ask you to "stretch like you just got out of bed in the morning". Well...who knew? There's a word for that. A friend just sent me this "word for the day" definition.

pandiculation \pan-dik-yuh-LEY-shuhn\, noun:
an instinctive stretching, as on awakening or while yawning

I love it!

The Greater Tradition of Yoga

"Yoga encourages you to 'take the path that most directly leads you to experience the inner truth of your own nature'. Yoga is a universal teaching, conveying that the entire universe dwells within us. The entire universe -- all time, space and existence -- dwells in the small space within our hearts. Becoming that is Yoga."

David Frawley - "Yoga - The Greater Tradition"