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So after my recent struggles with the more mystical components of Tibetan Buddhism and Shambhala Training - which is the mind training techniques of Tibetan Buddhism extracted into a secular western style course of study - I was talking about the shamanic influence in various Buddhist traditions with my friend Barnaby. He is quite the scholar, and he holds the opinion that it’s not shamanic influence at all. He feels that the superstitious quality that we perceive as westerners is in fact core to Buddhism. All traditions he notes have some component of spirits or energy work or viewing the world as not quite entirely logical. I’ve always passed that off as just Buddhism melding with the indigenous culture, but at the same time wondered how something that can seem so logical allow the irrational view to persist.
That was perhaps just my western arrogance assuming all things with merit would be logical and not mystical. But I am starting to appreciate how though mystical language might not describe reality from a science view very well, it is sometimes a better way to describe the subconscious mind and this experience that I actually live in day to day. Moreover, as a language to enact change or to embody a principle in my life, logic isn’t always that great. I logically know I shouldn’t eat that brownie, but the tides of emotion which I live in while experiencing the brownie and my relationship to the brownie might be better described in other language. Especially if it’s a chocolate brownie.
More instruction in groundlessness and a wider view; thanks Barnaby.
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this poem by Hafiz does a good job of summarizing my weekend. though replace “God” here with the “Reality” or whatever fits your view:
You could become a great horseman
And help to free yourself and this world
Though only if you and prayer become sweet Lovers.
It is a naive man who thinks we are not
Engaged in a fierce battle,
For I see and hear brave foot soldiers
All around me going mad,
Falling on the ground in excruciating pain
You could become a victorious horseman
And carry your heart through this world
Like a life-giving sun
Though only if you and God become sweet
Lovers!
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i’m glad i was open with folks about my trouble with the previous retreat, just talking about it with everyone felt good and it got me a private audience with the director. i felt i had done a good amount of homework on the subject before coming, but just that chat helped me feel more supported and validated. then after the final talk, i got to sit with him again for awhile and talk about the upcoming 10 day retreat he’s leading. i held off buying my plane ticket to that retreat until yesterday. i thought it would be wise to see how well we clicked and if i could overcome my concerns. now i’m psyched; a little nervous still, but generally ready for it. may sixth i’m flying to denver for my longest retreat yet.
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still plugging away at my windhorse retreat, and i’m much happier about the series of retreats again. one of the things i liked about the first five weekends was the experiential emphasis. no one was trying to feed me anything, i was just given meditation instruction sometimes with slight variation in the technique and told to have at it. my confidence in the practice was increased when the talks that came with the weekends would match my own experience while meditating. so i started to trust the teachings.
before the drala weekend, i had experiences of open perception and experiencing the world more directly and vividly without conceptualization. it was just part of my meditation practice. but the way my drala weekend was presented, i didn’t connect those teachings with what i was experiencing. i think that’s what they were supposed to do. but they just came from a different enough angle and that freaked me out. the program wasn’t experiential for me.
well, this weekend i feel back on track because my experiences of being in “the zone” from meditation really match what has been presented here. and the director’s comments on drala match my previous experience as well.
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i’m in alabama.
this weekend i’m studying the concept of windhorse, which are the funny little horses depicted on many Tibetan prayer flags. That wasn’t part of the talk or this weekend, I just wanted to point that out. One might describe windhorse as the energy and focus we have when we’re in “the zone” or in “the flow”. this weekend is about cultivating that.
Anyway, tonight’s talk however was all about the subject of the last retreat that I had such a problem with, called drala.
luckily, the director for this weekend presents drala from a much more open perspective and clearly has room for my personal take on it. so i’m feeling more supported. still a little edgy, but more supported.
Read more »
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i haven’t written about my experience at my last meditation retreat because honestly i’m still processing it. the director has a very new age view for the material and that shook my confidence in this set of retreats and my commitment to them. i’m not a huge fan of new age conceptualization basically.
well tomorrow i’m going to the next weekend retreat, and this has the potential to bother me further or maybe clarify the things that are troubling me. so i’m really nervous. the meditation practices that i’ve learned over the last year have been incredibly useful to me; much better than the practice i had before. i was hoping these retreats would also propel my practice as fruitfully as the last set did. but now i’m not sure.
the last retreat bothered me so much in fact that i haven’t had a personal practice since. i still sit twice a week with my groups, but my daily practice has been something i’m not sure i want to do until my confidence is restored or i decide this is not the right path for me. it’s all very shocking to my system.
i don’t want any comments about this post that are encouraging, honestly. this is something i’ll have to figure out on my own. but i did want to say where i was at in at least vague terms.
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wow, see who your neighbors support in the election:
http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php
i’m a little freaked in general by the amount of information which is available on each of us. it unexpected nakedness. i can see how this kind of information should be made public, but the accessibility is shocking to me at the same time.
what do you think?
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ok, my blog entries lately have probably gotten less and less accessible. so here’s a more pedestrian post. my focus at work right now is completing a user interface spec for our next product. the high level approach to all the new features is pretty much worked out and negotiated with engineering and marketing (i’m doing a much better job than the last release making sure everyone is involved) but the level of small detail is taking forever to flush out. i want the spec to cover every last detail, just so we don’t miss something, and it’s a huge pile of random but specific points to include.
one of the more difficult aspects with interface design i’ve found is conveying the issues or pitfalls that users run into to the engineering team. the engineers tend to be really astounding analytic and conceptual people, and they lean toward interface solutions which are conceptual and elegant. but they don’t always realize that they have that bias. i think that’s the core reason why interface design by engineers fails. it’s not because of the bias toward conceptual designs, but the lack of awareness around that bias to counteract it. so my job is mostly to be that awareness around our bias.
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the outer meaning of this metaphor:
great - vast, open, spacious
eastern - we face forward, we look straight ahead. curiosity, willingness to appreciate and not just criticize.
sun - illuminating the way and radiating out, with a sense of warmth, energy, and appreciation for richness. illuminating the path. the light of awareness. also seeing unconditional energy that is available to us, which is not conditional on a source like getting enough sleep or food. the idea that we can access that unconditional energy at any time.
the purpose of my meditation retreat this weekend and path in general: to try to incorporate that vision and manifest it more personally. to find the inner and secret meanings of the metaphor for myself. leaves me with some things to think about over the next week between now and my next meditation retreat - which i think will focus even more on the idea of unconditional energy.
monkey see, monkey do serves as a personal blog and creative outlet for