5/22/16

the cruelest month(s)





Manjusri, the Boddhisattva of Wisdom from Rubin Museum. 
He is supposed to be gentle - so this must his wrathful aspect. Perfect. 
He is cutting through the baloney of our/my illusions. The path to truth is not always easy.




The Wasteland (opening verse)


April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing 

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain. 

Winter kept us warm, covering 

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding 
A little life with dried tubers. 

- T.S. Eliot


How perfectly the Manjusri and TS Eliot express my experience! But where to take it from here? Usually in these vignette-like posts (blogs, as it were), there is a general direction. Much like riding a horse (at which I was never good), the writer leads and restrains an episode.



Not I. Not a clue.
Dull roots and dried tubers.
No horse.

In the Future
they shall be called
the atavistic months when
memory, desire, and despair were
awkwardly twined, and talk between
the coupled body-soul shouted
and whispered
Insidiously


"As we go through our trials and tribulations, outer circumstances seem to be exquisitely put together specifically to test each part of our realization. These trials and tribulations will also occur from the inside. Your unconscious at some point will start to reveal itself...


shoulder pain can't sleep
diminished yoga practice
fear 

sorrow
rawness
despair
shame


hello past heartache
years since feeling that
what is happening
thought this self was long gone
nope
ice packs

....with awakening our means of suppression and denial are either torn apart completely or wounded so severely that we can’t repress as much. The unconscious elements of our mind come into conscious awareness, and that is another kind of trial...

This week I had an x-ray physically and emotionally. The view of my shoulder bones indicates calcific tendonitis—finally an explanation for the pain and a possible solution! An unkindness from a volunteer yogi led me to realize (and feel) many things. Then all the other stuff (including a persistently obsessing ego) faded in dukkha dominance.


So I am left with what? Gratitude for the support I received—unknowingly from friends, teachers (see quotes!) and my physical therapist, a true healer. Even if yours truly is headed for more grit, she is buoyed by the loving energy of many.

...What’s being asked of you is to meet all of that inner material from the standpoint of divine being, from the standpoint of eternity - to meet it, to understand it, to resolve it. That may sound quite easy, but when it’s actually happening it’s a little more gritty and real than the description suggests." ~ Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus


And this too is yoga.
Metta, metta metta!

Yoga was created to free people
in all ways—from the limitations
of our minds and bodies,
from teachers, teachings, attachments,
expectations, from dependency
on any person or thing.
It is a personal, private journey to liberation

- Danny Paradise

No matter what spiritual path you’ve walked or what teachings you’ve followed, they must lead you back to no path and no teaching. A true teaching is like a blazing fire that consumes itself. The teaching must not only consume you, but consume itself as well. All must be burned to ash, and then the ash must be burned. Then, and only then, is the Ultimate realized.
~ Adyashanti, The Impact of Awakening


Give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared, and your life will have meaning, and your heart will have peace.
- Kent Nerbern, Letters To My Son - (via Lewis Rothlein's Ashtanga led primary class)