Thanksgiving weekend

Latest artwork shared:

Thanksgiving in America is a great holiday. I love it. Shams was busy in Iran with work, so we didn't connect, and I decided after 50 minutes, I was too impatient for 60 minutes. I wanted to see family, my little nephew, who is really a cousin. I'm on the road with family in a different city so it's fun traveling for me. Looking back, I'm not traveling as much an I went to a family reunion, my cousin's wedding and this Thanksgiving, all the travel to see that half of my family, those parts of that half. So glorious to be included. 

My favorite part of the visit was Rock Creek Park, one of the oldest parks in America. 

Shams is going on a retreat in Türkiye, hopefully. He was going to go and then then the troubles in Israel grounded all flights and he didn't get to go. I'm sure that was crushing. He's going to try again and go on a retreat with Omid Safi.

He sent a video of Sharon Salzberg and Omid Safi. And here's another one of Omid Safi.

Shams corrected me. He's going on retreat with Amir Imani, who was also on the videos, who seems to be a Canadian MBSR teacher. 

The retreat is in Konya, Turkiye, where Rumi died. Rumi was born in Balkh Afghanistan, which is present day Tajikistan, and died in Konya Turkiye, which can be considered part of Greater Iran, when their empire was at it's peak. There's a Rumi festival in Konya. 

Shams found an shrine of Imam Reza video on YouTube. I like the kid singing. I asked Shams about women and he said they can go into the other side, they're separate but they have facilities. 

That got me thinking about Sangharakshita's seminar on Ihyā of Imām Al-Ghazāli (1058 – 1111) by Muhtar Holland. I like this quote, "as Buddhists we've been quite exasperated by non-Buddhists telling us what Buddhism really is." He is talking about reading Islam by insiders, presented by people who really delve into it. 

He seems to know a little about Islam: "Very broadly speaking, the Sunnis regard the Caliphs as inheriting the secular authority of Muhammad. They don't regard anyone as inheriting his spiritual authority. But the Shi'as regard Ali and his successors as having inherited the spiritual authority - the continuing spiritual authority - of Muhammad through his daughter Fatima. So the spiritual heirs of Ali are called Imams, though the Shi'as use the word Imam in a different sense from the Sunnis. In the Sunni tradition Imam means the prayer leader - the leader of the congregational prayer, but in the Shi'a school Imam means a spiritual successor of the Prophet. Then there are Twelve-Imamas, that is to say followers of Twelve-Imam Shi'a tradition, followers of Seven-Imam Shi'a tradition, and so on. Different schools have branched off depending on the number of successors they recognise."

Reading Al-Ghazali's wikipedia page there is an interesting incident:

"Much of Al-Ghazali's work stemmed around his spiritual crises following his appointment as the head of the Nizzamiyya University in Baghdad - which was the most prestigious academic position in the Muslim world at the time. This led to his eventual disappearance from the Muslim world for over 10 years, realising he chose the path of status and ego over God."

I love reading about things like this where people realize, and are not too ashamed to admit what they see. I think in modern times the struggle to attain positions are so hard that resigning would betray all your effort, why not have a crisis while in the job?

I skim about 20 pages of the seminar and then realize it's 120 pages, and I haven't read the text. If I ever read the text and seminar I will write more about it. 

By the way, Al-Ghazali was born near Mashhad in Tus, or Tous, which is north of Mashhad, about a third of the way to Golbahar where my friend Shams lives. 

Washington DC

Seen outside Philadelphia:

I read a lot of Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism by Govinda on the train. 

When I'm around little children I think about Becoming Attached by Karen.

I mentioned 6 Persimmons, when my cousin was feeding one to his son. (Tricycle on Archive). Here's a lecture by Professor James Cahill on YouTube.

Shams is into boxing. It's mostly exercize. My cousin is going out to run a 5 miler. I ran a race with him when he was in high school, and he went out for track because of it. 

I meditated before and with Shams for 40 minutes today. I'm away from my home field, I had to use the bed and pillows, and I used the back of the bed as back support. I like it that I adapted to new circumstances. 

I'm going to go walk Ziti, their dog now. I surprised Ziti because I came down early in the morning. Ziti is a good dog.

Travel day!

Funky dream where I relapsed, and woke up grateful that it was just a dream. My cousins aren't on drugs, so I'm safe, but family get togethers are always stressful, even if I'm really excited and I'm the elder. I know from reading on line that some people get scared they will do what happened in their dream, and I know recovery is a constant vigilance, and I can make my choices and live with the consequences, I think it through. 

I saw this graphic and liked it.

Didn't connect

My mind is filled with anticipation for a trip down to Washington DC. I'm taking the train to visit my cousin who has a 1 year old, and his twin has a 1 year old, and I'm going to be meeting these fellows for the first time, and I'm very excited. 

I've been living like a monk, and I don't travel much because I'm poor, so I'm excited to travel. I've been to London, Paris, Madrid, Moscow, Mexico City, been to Dominican Republic, Ecuador. I've led a bless life of travel. I think travel is really important in terms of feeling with your body how big and different the world is. 

Going from NYC to DC isn't that big a shift but I'm additionally excited because I'm taking the train. I love the train. Such a glorious way to travel. 

When I was younger I didn't worry too much, mostly excitement. I've develop awareness of anxiety. A journey is uncertain and there are inflection points where things can go wrong. I've been lucky that I haven't had many problems traveling. It's always gone smoothly, so my anxiety isn't trauma based. I have been in a car that rolled over in the ditch, but I hardly remember that. My father thought my mother was drifting into the other lane, and yanked the wheel over. Those were the days when seat belts weren't used. My G.I. Joe was all twisted up but luckily nobody was hurt. 

I think about Ajahn Mun who got enlightened on a train ride. I got past 2 hours yesterday and hope to today and the day of the travel, but I don't think I'm quite there yet. In fact there's a funny cartoon about Thanksgiving:

My cousins are quite centered men with good wives, so I'm expecting it to be a lovely family holiday. It's hard to see where the challenges will come from. Someone won't be swiftly empathetic as hoped for, probably. 

Shams missed the informal 6 AM meeting, and rescheduled for 7:30 AM, but wasn't there either. Connecting with someone on the other end of the world is surprisingly easy and I'm really amazed at my improbable friendship with someone in Iran considering how the world is these days. But he wanted meditation support, and I wanted to give it. Never even taught them meditation. 

In articles about Iran, I saw they think it was in Iran that humans mated with Neanderthals (big think). Today's humans have 1-4% Neanderthal genes. This popular article as based on an article from Nature.

ethics post

I'm thinking about the 5 precepts.

The first precept is to not take life. How easily everyone breaks that. I kill the fly infestation inside my house. Israel kills Gaza, Hamas killed Israeli. Russians kill Ukrainians. Ukrainians kill Russians in defense against the aggression. There are many stories, but we find ways around the absolute to not kill.

Trump killed many by his anaction around Covid, a metaphysic maybe only one side of the political perspective believe, maybe more.

I mostly eat vegan, but I make exceptions for the occasional kefir for gut health, and the occasional meal when a guest at others houses. But I choose more meat by myself than I have to. I'm not quite there yet.

Humans are hugely selfish. Men create war to protect women, because women don't need men, except once, or twice if the first doesn't hold. War is violence so women feel unsafe.

We could tighten things up and at least not kill any more, other humans, and then spread it out to mammals. For me the last step would be insects.

No stealing. That means cooperatives, profit sharing, no stealing of the earth's legacy, dumping poison into the river, not more chopping down the rainforest. No more punching down at minorities.

No more sexual abuse or rape. Crystal clear on consent.

No more lying. Stealing others power. There are degrees of truth and having the deepest truths. 

No more substance abuse, internalized hatred, trying to blot out experience.

So to me the question becomes how do you operate in a system that doesn't believe this ethic?

Ethics support meditation, relationships, simplifying life.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Saw the sun go down in Iran, Shams says it wasn't the first time. Sepehr was at Sham's place in Golbahar.

Blown away by the movie The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) yesterday, so I wanted to ask Shams if he thinks about Zhina Mahsa Amini. He sent me this artwork which was a response:

He said he thinks about a lot of things. A plane was blown up with a lot of children on it. 

I couldn't find it, but I saw there was a drone strike on a factory by Israel January 29 2023. They were on an ammunition factory. (Wikipedia, New York Times). But I digress.

Watched The Seed of the Sacred Fig yesterday because of an amazing article in the New York Times about how the director Mohammad Rasoulof had to sneak out of Iran, spent years in jail prior to that. The making of the film was quite complicated. That story is amazing, the movie was amazing. 

First time I've meditated over 100 minutes, I feel good.

Be Scofield wrote an article on Reginald Ray and Dharma Ocean.

She was associated with the documentary Love Has Won, intense looking trailer to the documentary.

Grand Canyon, USA

Shams appreciates how I find joy in Iranian poetry and literature. He feels oppression when he starts to read, and hasn't shucked off the put upon reading in school. There's a kind of strictness in Iran, that would put off many learners--I imagine. I'm conscious of projections and stories preloaded in my head.

Turns out he lives north west of Mashhad in Golbahar. It's interesting the Iranian Wikipedia has more information than the English Wikipedia. It's 53km from downtown Mashhad. 

We looked at Imam Reza Shrine, I'm learning how to present my laptop on Google meet. It costs $10.88/month to get the ability to have more than one person and to go past an hour. 

We meditated for an hour. I'm restless from a soccer hangover. My team lost, and their season is done. Three months without my team playing.

Soccer is my worldly tether, watch sober now, but still get very excited, and excitement hangover the next day. Feel like rewatching The Cup (1999)

He likes The Office, I'm going to have to give it another try. 

Malek garden

Shams showed me Malek Abad Garden in Mashhad, where he was today. There is nothing greater than developing a friendship with someone you can share the phenomenology of your meditation experience. The intimacy of this act is partly at the heart of great spiritual friendship, kalyana mitra.

They meditated for 20 minutes, and then showed me the park. I kept meditating after they said goodbye and had a pleasant meditation. I was thinking that every time you go a level down, or you level up, it can be disorienting, but that's a good thing because often times meditation can feel stale and boring. Of course you have to make friends with boredom, one of the great treasures of the experience, but took much excitement is also possible, and you have to learn how to stabilize yourself. In the end, the breath is your constant companion and it can have many purposes, and stabilizing can be one.

Somehow I found out about David Viafora, his article in Lion's Roar and MorningSun.

Leonardo wrote backwards, mirror writing, because he was left handed, and didn't want to smudge the ink.

He is notable in his notebooks for asking questions. I think his open hearted searching is his greatest traits.

He did a practice that Buddhist do, and that's buying birds and liberating them from their cages.

One of his great paintings is Lady with an Ermine.

His apprentice and later assistant and friend becomes indispensable. 

He studied anatomy, physics, engineering, painting, light, perception and on and on. I feel like he was the last person to be able to study things without feeling swamped by what is already known. He could be a generalist in a way it's hard to be nowadays. 

Leonardo imagined the senso communis, the center of the brain that processes everything, and where the soul resides or senso comune. Every time I google the terms, it leads me to "common sense". 

He takes his mother in, at the end of her life. He records the cost of burring her later, in her notebook. 

War breaks out and they take the bronze he's going to cast an amazing horse sculpture.

The Last Supper comes next. He worked dusk to dawn on the work, forgetting to eat.

17 years in Milan he heads to Venice. Next episode. 

Jame is Friday in Farsi

1. Infrared

2. Visible

3. Ultraviolet

Change is afoot, I hope the load of not too heavy. I meditated on equanimity today and really got aware of what is pulling me away from it. I'm anticipating a soccer game tomorrow. Shams has started a new job, so we didn't connect early. I'm anticipating traveling to DC for a visit with family. 

I was thinking about Leonardo da Vinci because I'm watching the PBS show by Ken Burns. He's working with Verrocchio to start out and he does his feet in The Baptism of Christ. He doesn't finish the Adoration of the Magi.

In a way you can be friends with all the greats. Learn about their life and circumstances. 

I used to read the Dharma when I woke up and then meditated, and that was very complimentary and I read a lot of Dharam. Unfortunately I've changed to the degenerate habit of reading the news first. 

Mojave Kingcup Cactus

Amir and Sepehr were there too today. They're both programmers. Amir is younger. He wore a yellow shirt and they said he looked like Pat a Mat, a Czech and Slovakian kids show I've never seen. 

I woke up early and did 40 minutes for connecting with them. In between I watched the latest episode of Lower Decks an animation spin off of Star Trek that I really like, and they're trying to broker peace between the cubes and the spheres. It made me cry to think that is what it was all about. They were both pure energy beings. And they drain them of energy and so they don't really have the energy to fight. I think giving weapons to Israel is misguided, though obviously we're living in an era where the oligarchy has taken over, and they're just milking the human populace for money, and the war industry is happy to slide over their obsolete weapons to Ukraine and Israel, and try out new technology. They have to be careful because Russia started talking about nuclear weapons after Ukraine launched some long range bombs into Russia. People worry world war 3 is going to break out or nuclear war. It's about as stupid as the cubes against the spheres. 

Reminds me of the Rick and Morty where a planet was turned into a hive mind, and when it was withdrawn, it was the cone nipples against the swirly nipples. 

Shams is really into Solar Opposites. He doesn't like it when Justin Roiland leaves.

I laid down after 35 minutes on the second sit. It feels like I'm going to deeper, but I'm really just falling asleep. 

Simplify

For me instincts simplify. There are 100 toothpaste on offer, which one? I pick the second cheapest one. Supposedly a scientist picked one icecream the rest of his life, to simplify the choice, let his mind be reserved for what he wanted to think about. Supposedly a fellow had a hunting accident that disconnected his emotions from his mind. Didn't seem to be a problem except when he had to make a choice, emotions and feelings help narrow down our choices so we don't get lost in possibilities. 

I think about what book to read. I'm really enjoying this novelization of the life of Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad (Wikipedia, my post). I have to return my history of Iran soon. I'm into a book on the 5 aggregates. I really enjoyed reading The Life of the Buddha the day before yesterday (In Iran, in Farsi, they have a word for that). I could list all the other books at my bedside tempting me, but hopefully you get the point that I'm bewildered by my choices in learning and reading. What should I be learning?!

Shams does a similar thing with what should I be focused on in mindfulness. He wants to meditate more, and he really feels supported by me joining him.

The above photo is before and after in Afghanistan. 

I'm thinking about Ahoo, who's gotten out alive, many people thought she would just be killed.

I've been fascinated by this tweet:

"Met a longtime meditator today who told me his inner monologue vanished and he missed it and regretted losing it. Also that he missed having some anxiety/neuroticism because it’s a useful source of fuel/drive. Meditation is great, but should come with a warning label."

For sure meditation isn't a panacea, and there are negative results. I think, and I'm speculating based on my experience in life, that some people have trauma they're having difficult keeping a lid on. That is also associated with obsessions, which is another way to keep a lid on trauma. Also if you have psychosis, and you're not very objective that you don't have to listen to a voice coming from inside that you don't identify as you, that could be a problem. I'm sure there might be other scenarios. When I had my workers meditate together for 10 minutes, I allowed people not to do it. 

Having said that, I think it's a horrible tweet because first off nobody loses that inner voice, they lost the neurotic chatter. That's what you want to lose. 

I've been spilling my coffee, it's happened twice in the past few weeks and it's in my head, and that caused me to knock it over this time. I have a lot of ambivalence about coffee, been addicted since I started college.

Still continuing to process piti. Talk by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Intense experience

So yesterday I had an intense meditative experience. There's a tendency to not share such deep personal experiences except with your close friends. I was with Shams, and he supported me through it. He could see I was crying a lot if he opened his eyes, and he meditated an extra 5 minutes with me. 

I have felt an overwhelming crush of love that just erased all the quibbling. I have felt one with the wind in the tree, the three and all the elements. I consider that a kensho experience.

The language I use is deep meditative experience, I don't make claims of attainment, just deep meditative experiences. 

I've had to wait a day to find all the words about it, and I have to say I don't think there are enough words to describe it. I'm a firm believer in speaking about unformulated experience.

So to outline my practice:

I have a 12 day cycle where I do the 4 brahma viharas. One day of metta (universal lovingkindness), karuna (compassion), Mudita (sympathetic joy) and upeksha (equanimity). My second and third meditations are just sitting or pure awareness. 

Then I do anapanasati with the full 16 stages. Two stages of tuning into the breath, then breath plus body, relaxing body, listen for rapture, happiness, feelings and perceptions, relaxing feelings, mind, gladdening the mind, steadying the mind, liberating the mind, impermanence, disentangling, cessation of suffering and relinquishing samsara. If I do 64 minutes, that's 4 minutes per stage. 

Sometimes I do a free flowing and just do them till I stop somehow and then change. I focus on ones struggle with, like I'm not sure what I'm doing when I liberate myself, but I learn more and more how to somehow work towards things. At Shams' suggestion I focused on restlessness the other day. Meditating for 2 hours, it's harder for me to tell myself I have to relax and settle down now, there's plenty of time. 

I do that for 4 days, and then the last 4 days are spiritual death and rebirth. I do 2 days of 6 element meditation where I dismantle myself. I used to freak out a little bit with that one, but if I do, I just shift into building myself up as the Buddha. Two days I do Buddhanasati, which is mindfulness of the Buddha. I chant the mantra 108 times in my head, and try to visualize the Buddha. I imagine I approach him and ask permission to sit with him and join him on the path. I imagine his warmth and permission, and the influence of meditating next to him.

Yesterday I was just chanting silently in my head, Oṃ muni muni mahāmuni śākyamuni svāhā for 32 minutes, and I felt energy building up in me. Then I imagined the Buddha inviting me to meditate with him, giving me permission to join him on the path. And I just felt so much energy. I was crying a lot. Sometimes I hyperventilate when I feel trapped not moving when I have so much energy, a sort of panic attack, but it's just me feeling good.

Many times, I've felt piti just downshift into sukha. Sukha has a calm feeling to it, it's a big sky mind time often for me, not a lot of thoughts. I can't really control the downshift, but there were times when I would invite it, and it seemed to happen and there was a downshift to more calm happiness. I invited it to resolve into sukha but it didn't, and I've felt it after I settled, today.

Sometimes I suggest to go down the chakras, lower down the head and into the throat and chest. It stayed up in the head.

Sometimes when I have energy like this I radiate metta, karuna, mudita and upkesha with my infinite mind into infinite space. I wasn't sure if that was really doing it, but I looked up the other two arupa dhyanas, and they were sunyata and neither perception nor non-perception, but I wasn't sure how to radiate those things. 

When I looked at the Buddha I was ashamed for some of the negative things I'd done and I cried and cried and cried. 

Shams said he'd done mushroom a few times and that twice he's had similar experience, where there's a catharsis of sorts. 

All day I felt oddly positive and focused. I went to the circus with my daughter and a birthday party. It was pretty intense. Other parents were a little cranky, but I was oddly positive. 

I meditated again, hoping to maybe slip into that mode and learn to control it more, but I couldn't. 

Today I tried to get there too, but I couldn't. I just felt the sukha today, I felt really happy, but simple and calm. My phone died, and the usual castigating myself for not checking was further in the background. I really just want to make sure I don't make Shams meditate for more than an hour, so I got up and charged my phone. I used to get really upset when I broke meditation position, but I meditate so much now, I'm almost too lenient about breaking position. In fact that was an insight I had about my restlessness, I actually need to try harder to focus on the object or lack of object and hold myself as still as possible for the whole thing. I think a lull and breaks in practice helped me to get to this place. I may just have reached a summit like you do sometimes hiking, and then you realize there are other peaks and high points further on, there's more hiking to do. 

I almost feel like it was a manic episode but there were no drug or sexual images, if anything it was more filled with apatrapia and hri associating with the merger with the Buddha.

Butterfly effect

I had by far the most intense meditation I've ever had, crying quite a lot. 

They have a word for two days in the past and two days in the future in Farsi. 

When I talked about my exhaustion with the family life, she said Goldstein talked about Dipa Ma would rest for the first week on retreat. 

Shams is tempted to an activist. I've read a lot about journalists and women who don't wear their hijab correctly are executed. I applaud his desire not to be a martyr.

I talked about how I respect Greta Thunberg. She's a modern Joan d'Arc. I learned about Onna-musha, the female samurai. 

I had some food and calmed down, but I don't think I'm calmed down actually, and I'm going to meditate again soon.

Blackout

 

I had terrible nightmares, but the agility of mind that meditation has given me, I rewrote the narrative and empowered myself this morning, when I woke up and broke the spell of difficult nightmares. 

Shams warned me about possible outages of electricity. We didn't meet at 6 AM. He's gotten 2 guys to come along and I've failed so far to get any of my friends to join us. 

We ended up connecting and talking a lot about adult animation, the Buddha, and anxiety. Great conversations. We ended up not even meditating because we ran out of time. 

I'm reading about Thich Minh Tue, a wildly popular Buddhist in Vietnam, had to ask people to leave him alone, kindly. Imagine being so popular as a Buddhist monk that you have to tell people to go away.

Ferdowsi wrote an epic I'm reading a section of, and I came across Gordafarid, a female warrior. Turns out there's an Iranian storyteller who has adopted that name. My list of female warriors is growing: Boudica, Mulan, Grace O'Malley, Joan d'Arc. This list didn't include Gordafarid, but maybe she's fictional. 

Gordafarid is listed in mythical female warriors on wikipedia. And presently there is Ahoo Daryaei, a symbol of resistance in Iran.

For me also Greta Thunberg is a young warrior. 

I'm listening to THANISSARO BHIKKHU on the 5 aggregates. Shams sent me this series and I picked this one out because I've been focusing on the aggregates lately. 

Changing patterns

My daughter slept over and we fell asleep to a Tara Brach talk. But I actually laughed and woke her up. I rarely laugh with a Dharma talk, I laughed twice! 

We talked about it on the walk to school, and she really listened to the talk, I love it when I can get my daughter to share in with my spiritual path. She usually rejects my efforts to educate her. She wants to learn in her own way, in her own time. I like that actually. 

We had to do one quick 40 minute meditation, and then we're going to meet again later. We met later, and I was so tired, I did a lying down meditation. The problem with laying down meditation is that I fall asleep and sloth and torpor are serious hindrances. I still think it's useful when you're tired of sitting to lay down. Walking is the other direction, it's more vigorous. You have lots of options if you're interested in finding them. 

ekañ-ca jeyya attānaṁ, sa ve saṅgāmajuttamo

 Yo sahassaṁ sahassena saṅgāme mānuse jine,

One may conquer a thousand men a thousand times in a battle,

ekañ-ca jeyya attānaṁ, sa ve saṅgāmajuttamo.

but having conquered one’s own self, one would surely be supreme in battle.

(source)

Today I meditated on the 6 elements, and I had a positive deep meditation that my restlessness took me out of some.

I sent Shams these links:

Wildmind

Free Buddhist Audio

I'm trying so hard not to send him links.

We talked about it. The six elements are earth, water, fire, air, space and consciousness. Earth comes into, is inside of me, flows out of me, it's not me, it's not mine. Same for all them. I see fire as energy. I tend to drift in consciousness to buddha-nature. 

I learned this practice on Triratna ordination retreats, and there's a handoff to a sadhana practice. A sadhana practice is a visualization of a bodhisattva. 

I didn't get ordained, but I gave myself a sadhana practice, Buddhanasati. 

One time I did the 6 element after a retreat, at home, and it kind of freaked me out. Someone suggested I only do the practice on retreat. But I've really gained a lot of confidence doing the anapanasati practice, and I gave myself a sadhana practice, so there's a handoff that wasn't present in the past, so I do the 6 element practice. 

At the moment, and it's oddly always changing, I do the brahma viharas 4 days, anapanasati 4 days, 6 element 2 days, Buddhanasati 2 days. It's a 12 day cycle through. My second sit every day is just sitting. And any subsequent sittings are just sitting. I try to meditate 2 hours every day, but I'm pretty sure my average is below that amount. I do go over sometimes, but I'm more under than over. 

I've also done the 32 body parts meditation. You take your body apart, you can put it back together. I watched the lead through and explanations, but I never did it on retreat, so I just tried it for variety, in the end I felt I was doing OK with 6 element practice. 

I've also done corpse meditation. I went to a Bodies Exhibit event organized by Tricycle, and there were talks and such, and then we meditated in front of the rubberized sliced up Chinese prisoners on display. They say not to do that one too much either, Sangharakshita did it a few times, and that was enough, but he went to charnel grounds where they were burning bodies in India. We don't really have charnel grounds in New York City. There's also the sky burial, where you put a body on the top of a mountain and birds pick it apart, and eat it. 

Anyway, I am fond of the 6 element meditation because one time, after lots of meditation in the shrine room at Aryaloka I walked out and I was looking at a tree. I felt like I was the wind in the tree, I was the tree, the water in it, the energy in it, the space, the consciousness.

At the time I thought not to brag about what I considered a crazy experience, it's derealization, you're not perceiving yourself in the normal way. I didn't really feel close enough to anyone to talk about it. I realize now I made some good friendships, but there was something lacking in depth of those friendships. They were nice, they were cordial, they attempted to be positive, but I was sort of reserved. I try very hard to get to know people and in the car ride and back from the retreat, I really talk a lot with people. Nagabodhi said he experienced me almost as like a different person on the car ride.

Vajramatti was my closest friend, we were going to go visit Sangharakshita, and then he changed his mind, he didn't want to do that. That sort of ends my story with Triratna. 

Simurgh

I was reading Forough Farrokhzad, an amazing Iranian poet who writes about sexuality, among other things, in a strict fundamentalist country. You can draw a direct line from Forough Farrokhzad to Ahoo Daryaei.

Forough Farrokhzad mentions Simurgh, which is a mythical Persian bird. I get excited about discoveries like these. I'm always sending Shams lots of links to Dharma talks or books I think will help with psychology or culture. But he's going to know more about Simurgh than me, me sending him the link to the Wikipedia article was acknowledgement that his country has a deep and interesting mythology.

"Most characters in Persian mythology are either good, or they are evil. The resultant discord mirrors the nationalistic ideals of the early Islamic era as well as the moral and ethical perceptions of the Zoroastrian period, in which the world was perceived to be locked in a battle between the destructive Ahriman and his hordes of demonic Divs and their Aneran supporters, versus the Creator Ahura Mazda, who although not participating in the day-to-day affairs of mankind, was represented in the world by the izads and the righteous ahlav Iranians. The only written texts relating to religious come from prophet Zoroaster, initiated the reforms which would become Zoroastrianism." (Persian Mythology)

The Simurgh is depicted in Iranian art as a winged creature in the shape of a bird, gigantic enough to carry off an elephant or a whale. It appears as a peacock with the head of a dog and the claws of a lion – sometimes, however, also with a human face. The Simurgh is inherently benevolent. Being part mammal, they suckle their young. The Simurgh has an enmity towards snakes, and its natural habitat is a place with plenty of water. Its feathers are said to be the colour of copper in some versions, and though it was originally described as being a dog-bird, later it was shown with either the head of a man or a dog.

The simurgh was considered to purify the land and waters and hence bestow fertility. The creature represented the union between the Earth and the sky, serving as mediator and messenger between the two.

I believe very strongly in not trying to separate the material and the spiritual, and that the duality is a mistake that creates difficulties in the spiritual life, it creates an unnaturalness. Buddhism is weird, trying hard is complicated, because sometimes it doesn't pay off, relaxing into mindfulness is one of the things you learn.

Where Simurgh could come into play is with the Trikaya. There's the mundane world, the Nirmāṇakāya, then the pure Dharma world, the Dharmakāya, and then between those two is the Saṃbhogakāya. Simurgh can be a bird communicating between the two realms in the Saṃbhogakāya.

I want to give Shams all my knowledge. Some of it's jazz. There's a great BBC radio segment on Bud Powell. This is only available for 29 days from Nov 11th 2024, unfortunately. 

Here's a Lion's Roar article about Buddhism's influence on jazz.

Shams had a job interview today and we didn't connect. 

Restlessness

Shams suggests I work on restlessness hinderance. He suggests I devote some meditations to exploring it, understanding it, conquering it. 

I'm going to listen to Joseph Goldstein: Working with Thought and Emotion:

He says you don't stop thinking, you investigate the quality of the thing, is it something you want to encourage or is it something you don't want to act on? Notice the judgements around the thinking and the desire to silence or stop the kind of thinking.

Goldstein: Overcoming Restlessness: Analysis of the practice might contribute, just do it. Reflect positively on sila. You can zoom out, and see it as one thing in the container of mindfulness. Or zoom in, what is the restlessness? One time a teacher told him to be more mindful, and he felt it was kind of silly, but he tried it, and there was some gain. He has a variety of "powerful teachings" like letting go of trying too hard with various witty teachings. Great Poem

LIVE, YOU SAY, IN THE PRESENT by Fernando Pessoa

Live, you say, in the present;

Live only in the present.

But I do not want the present, I want the reality;

I want the things that exist, not the time that measures them.

What is the present?

It is a thing about the past and the future.

It is something that exists because other things exist.

I just want reality, things without a present.

I do not want to include time in my schema.

I do not want to think of things as gifts; I want to think of them as things.

I do not want to separate them from themselves, treating them as gifts.

I should not even treat them as real.

I should not treat them as anything.

I should see them, just watch them;

To see them until I can not think of them,

See them without time, or space,

Seeing can dispense with anything but what you see.

This is the seeing science, but she is no science.

Shams sent these

Insight Hour Podcast

Tara Brach

Shams suggests reduce input. "Get friends with boredom."

To me that means don't watch TV, read more. Stop drinking coffee, or cut down.

For Shams that means drinking calming teas, and get rid of girlfriend.

I realized the other day that I get into flow meditating, just like the flow of running and my thoughts seem better than they actually are, they're a challenge to calm down and redirect to my breath. I've never really felt like I can stop my thinking but there are times in deep meditation when I can nearly stop my thoughts, and the ones who do peak over the wall are easy to ignore. 

My restlessness is about energy welling up.

My restlessness is about guilt and shame for past misdeeds. 

My restlessness is about wanting sense pleasure. In fact I think all the hindrances are sense pleasure. I indulge in doubt or anger or sensual thinking or thinking, or tiredness. Tiredness is unique in that it's a sense pleasure I want to avoid, I think doubt and anger are more pleasurable. 

I like the aura the camera puts around me, I like that they notice, and that it gives me a kind of specialness. It's OK to have narcissism, everyone has it. I read a wonderful book about personality disorders, which tried to normalize it. In Buddhism it's a mental state you don't want to encourage, but it's also something you don't want to pretend you don't have or disown. Meditation to me is about gathering all of yourself up together, and you really begin to sort yourself out, work on developing a vision of moving forward and gathering all your resources. 

11/12/24. There's a power outage in Mashhad (city name changed to protect anonymity) and I go on line anyway just in case someone shows up. People have threatened to come, but haven't and some people could show up if the power goes on.

And indeed Shams shows up, and then after 8 minutes power comes back on. I've meditated 15 minutes, 8 minutes, and ... chaotic meditation, but I love meditating with others. Others are messy but bring on the mess, the bodhisattva says.

I notice some mania when I summon rapture. Can I summon non-mania rapture, is it it inherent. I have sexual images, and the desire for stimulation. "Stillness, simplicity and contentment." is my mantra. I drank less coffee yesterday, but did not control input.  

11/13, I read about blackouts to conserve energy in Iran International. 

Quality of relationships

I was explaining how when I hear attachment in Dharma talk, I think of the positive sense of the word in modern psychology. Shams wondered if we needed more than the Dharma. I was putting forward the healthy attachment sense of modern psychology and how I want him to read Becoming Attached by Karen. To me this is a really interesting article, maybe one of the best out of all I read in graduate social work masters degree. How we relate to each other is the most important thing, maybe,

Turns out Shams doesn't like it when people just want to win an argument. I think of it more as sharing our minds. 

Reading 1984 in high school made me dislike authoritarianism. 

My grandparents wanted the other one to get their point and do things their way, there was a kind of struggle for dominance and control in conversations, and they would really but heads. I honestly don't watch this soccer podcast because these two podcasters clash like my grandparents, it's a struggle for dominance, and they both have good things to say, it's just a podcast for goodness sake. 

The quality of the relationship is almost as important as the content trying to come across in the relationship. I'm twice as old as him, and I've read too many books, and I'm so tempted to send him link after link of books to read to help understand what I'm saying. 

I read Melanie Klein's account of a child's psychoanalysis, and then I heard the interviewed the boy later as an adult. He said she had some strange ideas, but she was quite kind. I think having warmth towards someone is more important than the actual ideas. 

Shams was saying family doesn't have spiritual ideals. I just watched Little Women (2019) and that family had some spiritual ideals. What a great movie!

I was talking about my feeling in The 100, a TV show, that is really interesting to me. It's a great story. Earth had nuclear holocaust, and humans went into satellites. Hundreds of years later, they want to see if the earth is habitable. So they send down 100 imprisoned teenagers. The 100. 

One of the themes of the show is that leader hatch plans where everyone has to believe for the plan to work, but someone else subverts it with another plan where if everyone believed the plan it would work. So what you get is episodic and ununified visions leading herky jerky all over the place. Are they hawks or doves? Are they kind or cruel? Are they imperialistic or isolationist? These are the questions humanity is always asking and there's never one answer, it's the pragmatists who aren't ideological who end up being the consistent leaders. 

Today references:

Article: Becoming Attached

Movie: Little Women (2019)

TV Show: The 100

Novel: 1984 by George Orwell

Book: Learned Optimism by Seligman

Statue Union Turnpike: Gandhi

consciousness

Shams is so sweet, he let me ventilate about the election. He's a true kalyana mitra. 

He's obsessed with right view. I told him you don't have right view until you're enlightened, and I'm not enlightened, so I don't know right view exactly. He's curious about the difference between intention and motivation.

In my mind intention is something you're really trying to stick to the fixing point, something really important, and what bosses always try to co-opt. Motivation is why you do what, and that's always shifting. I lose energy and my motivation goes down, it's energy dependent I think. Intention isn't. I log into meditate with Shams every day at 6AM now. Used to be 7AM but time changed here, but not there, and he prefers to keep it the way it was. 

I realized I'm taking the superficial absorption as boring. Deep absorption isn't boring, it feels good. I've been struggling with superficial and restless meditations. I think I had what I've heard called beginners luck, but it's a year on and my mind/body have adjusted. Sometimes I get caught in negative trains of thought, and I caught this one yesterday, and noticing just stops it. 

"We'd like insight into dukkha without the dukkha." I'm listening to Joseph Goldstein. I usually like to read but Shams listens to talk and really likes him, so I'm connecting with him by listening to Goldstein. 

He has a fun story about trying to sleep in Central Park. He didn't last more than 30 minutes because every noise caused him anxiety and he couldn't fall asleep. Later after lots of practice, he fell asleep at a park in California by controlling his mind and relaxing. I think he was with people too. 

He talks about Dipa Ma. I read a book on her, she seemed cool. 

USA Election

The sunrise put pink hightlings into the clouds and made me think of the Odyssey, "dawn with it's rosey fingers."

Shams pointed out to me that I was clinging to an outcome in the U.S.A. election. 

Rebecca Solnit: “They want you to feel powerless and surrender and let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.”

“yes, i know.... it is hard to grasp that it has come to this. and it is like a catastrophic diagnosis: this is what we have been given to work with. and we will....” Joan Halifax. 

She has lots of consoling words. "In ancient times, pilgrims walking El Camino greeted each other in Latin with this salutation:  Ulteria, meaning, ‘keep going, more the beyond.’  The reply in Latin was Et Suseia, meaning, go higher…. This is our path forward... Ulteria, Et Suseia..." tweet

I tried to convince people to vote, and New York voted for Harris. One of the few presidents who doesn't win his home state, even Mondale won his home state. 

I put too much energy into my political fantasy world, I need to touch grass, and hug my daughter. It's painful lesson. 

In my cycle of meditation, this morning is karuna, compassion. Needed now more than ever. Can't get attached to election results. Just do you part and let the chips fall where they may. Keep live and do the next right thing. 

Time change

 I can see how the monks talked all night when they would gather every full moon.

We talked about a lot things this morning. With the time change we're meeting at 6AM instead of 7 AM. You can still join us. Support my friend in meditation with your presence. 

I thought he was out protesting the assault on Ahoo Daryaei that led to her protest of stripping down to her underwear. Nope. He says protesting really just leads to suffering. All the youth he knows are filled with hopelessness and use drugs. Nobody can imagine building a family, a life. 

The morality police assaulted Ms. Daryaei. They ripped her clothes and in the struggle she just let go of her top. They will cast her as mentally unstable, for what they provoked.

We talked about pushy religions and others assuming everyone is the same religion. I talked about Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism without Belief and Living With The Devil. 

And Great Faith, Great Wisdom by Ratnaguna. I don't really imagine saying Namo Amifou at death gets you into the pure land, but I really like listening to the pure land sutras. 

I asked him if they set a small sangha if he would be persecuted. If I came over and meditated with him and friends would the morality police break the door down and stop us? He said no. Probably couldn't advertize, but other than that, they could kind of do it on the down low. Shams doesn't think he's ready yet for that. I'm kind of hoping the online sangha grows and at some point the Mashhad people want live group meditation. 

Thinking about going to the Queens IMS meeting tonight, saw the teacher had this quote on her bio:

“You must have shadow and light source both. Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.” Rumi

I’ve evolved to the place where I read mostly poetry. I’m really enjoying Sohrab Sepheri’s poems:

I have spoken to my neighbors through the wide-open window but don't understand what they are talking about.
None of them glanced down with love to look at the flowers.
None became ecstatic looking at an orchard.
None noticed the magpie.

My heart constricts like a storm cloud when I see my neighbor Houri
seated beneath the most beautiful and rarest sort of elm with her nose buried in a textbook of jurisprudence.

Shams says he sees the mind as a landscape. Clouds are thoughts, waves are emotions.

I see the mind as a rag and bone shop. A disorganized and overflowing file cabinet.

There are two birds out my window. House sparrows and fish crows. I’ve seen the occasional bald eagles, Cooper Hawk, herons. Mostly it’s pigeons I see.

He sent me this article:

Out of the house

Missed meditating with Shams, broke an 8 day streak. 

This blog is written with the spirit of communicating with my spiritual friend, Shams, Suvidya and others. 

Yesterday there was some upheaval in Iran. A woman was hassled and roughed up, her clothes ripped because someone thought they could tell her she wasn't covering her hair right, and she had enough and just took off her clothes.  Hard to see what is going on the world and not be sidetracked by it. Upcoming election is of concern, I hope everyone votes in the USA. Good tests for equanimity, and I think I would like to pull back from paying attention to politics. 

My meditation practice has evolved to this. 4 days of Brahma-viharas, 4 days anapanasati, 2 days 6 element practice, 2 days Budhanasati. It's a 12 day cycle. I try to meditate 3 times 40 or 2x 60 minutes every day, often I don't, but I aspire to minimally meditate 2 hours every day. After the focused meditation, I just sit. 

I mentioned Non-Violent Communication to Shams the other day. I should reread the book. It really helped me realize needs are emotional and relational, not material really, though of course we all need food, warmth and shelter. 

Thinking about my riff to Suvidya, I think we need to develop ethically