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