We began this session with a Chakra Breath Meditation. This is breathing into and out of each Chakra. Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, without any gap between the in breath and the out breath. As you breathe in, you breathe in any energy lost to issues related that particular Chakra (see below); as you breathe out you release all that no longer serves you. When you breathe in you are retrieving lost energy. You are recapitulating your energy lost to negative interactions and agreements. This is cleansing and waking up the potentialities within these energy centers of the body (yogic medicine) is regenerative. Give yourself about ten minutes (a couple minutes or so on each Chakra), and then go right into twenty minutes of mindfulness meditation sitting practice (see last weeks Blog for mindfulness sitting practice).
I like to use drumming as a background to this Breathwork.
Remember to breathe for about two minutes on each Chakra.
Breathe into the first Chakra located at the base of your spine, breathe in energy lost to feeling isolated or alone, and breathe out all that no longer serves you. Wake up the energy of belonging and unity.
Breathe into the second Chakra located below the belly button. Breathe in energy lost to any physical abuses to the body. Breathe in energy lost to times you didn’t listen to your body’s wisdom; breathe out all that no longer serves you. Wake up the intuitive, creative energy body.
Breathe into your third Chakra located at your solar plexus. Breathe in energy lost to not exercising your free will. Breathe out all that no longer serves you. Breathe energy lost to lack of independence. Wake up your free will and inner independence.
Breathe into your fourth Chakra, your heart center, which is in the center of your chest. Nice deep breathes in and out. Breathe in all the energy lost to a lack of love or compassion for yourself or others; breathe out all that no longer serves you. Breathe in times you lost energy to resentment, anger and fear; breathe out all that no longer serves you. Wake up the love inside of you.
Breathe into your fifth Chakra, the throat Chakra. Breathe in energy lost to not hearing or speaking your truth. Breathe out all that no longer serves you. Breathe in energy lost to resistance. Wake up your ability to hear and speak your truth. Make a sound on the exhale, if you like.
Breathe into your sixth Chakra, your third eye, breathe in all the energy lost to not trusting your intuition, and breathe out all that no longer serves you. Wake up your intuitive and psychic gifts. Wake up your ability to know your truth, which is beyond words.
Then pull in the breath from above your seven Chakra, your crown Chakra that is located at the top of your head. Breathe in all the energy lost to feeling separate from life; breathe out all that no longer serves you. Bring down that energy waking up your connection to all of life. Breathe that energy down into all your Chakras, following the path of the spine. Wake up the entire energy body with the wisdom breath.
Then take a nice deep breath and begin the mindfulness practice (see last week’s Blog). Sit and meditate for twenty minutes.
We ended this session with Lama Surya Das’s: Seeing Through: Trekcho meditation. Breaking through the illusions of our mind. See his book and CD Natural Radiance. Go to his website to order the book and to receive weekly words of inspiration.
This Evenings Lesson: The Root of Suffering
In Buddhist psychology we understand that the root causes of all our suffering are either through our attachments or aversions. Suffering is understood as that which surrounds pain—not the pain itself. There is inevitability of pain in our life. Difficulties arise. But it is our response to what arises that causes us to suffer or to be content. This is where thought transformation comes in – changing our responses to our life’s circumstances.
So, when we are suffering we can ask ourselves, “What am I attached to here or what am I avoiding/averting?”
We have the initial trigger of difficulty or pain but then we add to it with our anger, or frustration or impatience or fear. We then add to it more by getting caught up in the story-lines of our emotions and suffering – “this always happens,” “I deserve to feel this bad,” or, “I don’t deserve this!” So whereas the initial difficulty is already present, we can be come conscious of our responses and even have difficulty and pain without suffering. After all, we learn through various Buddhist techniques that we are not our experiences (I am not my pain). We learn and practice a compassionate detachment and presence to all of our experiences. This allows us to feel and experience our pain without adding to it. It allows us to observe and feel various emotional states without adding suffering and drama to them.
Attachments – Our greatest attachment (even our biggest addiction) is to our thoughts and beliefs. We are very attached to having our thoughts, following our thoughts and then believing what we think. Then we are attached further to the belief itself with the need to be right about what we believe. Wars of course are fought based on what we are attached to and our need to be right and have everyone in agreement with our view. All of our internal wars are based on our own attachments to our beliefs and perceptions.
We typically move toward what we want and away from what we don’t. “Don’t be so predictable,” this slogan within the Mahayana tradition of Lojong training points to this. We want more of what we are attached to and less of what we don’t like. Mind transformation is about not being so habitually driven. It is about undermining our patterns of suffering.
Aversion is basically an aversion to experiencing life, averting our pain but also averting our direct experiences with our luminous body. We avert the moment by ruminating over the past or planning for the future. We avert pain by overeating or drinking alcohol, watching too much TV, playing video games or abusing drugs.
And this aversion and attachment only perpetuates the suffering. If instead we could take a conscious look at our suffering and ask ourselves compassionately, “What might I be avoiding or what might I be attached to here?” we will move through the pain and open to the beauty of presence. When we don’t get attached we find ourselves assessing the three inherent qualities of compassion, wisdom and presence.
“The point here is to not mistake our relative reactions for absolute truth. If the sight blood upsets us, we can’t really blame the blood. It isn’t what happens to us that makes us happy or unhappy; it is how the mind is set. What makes us suffer is the way we think about what’s happening. This is another crucial message: our story lines aggravate our troubles.” Pema Chodron, “No Time To Lose.”
Sakay Pandita, a Tibetan teacher of the 12th century, the bodhisattva of awakened intelligence said,
“When you attach to this life, you do not practice the way.
When you attach to habituated patterns, you are not free.
When you attach to your own welfare, you don’t have awakening mind.
When you attach to a fixed position, you don not see how things are.”
Attachment
To life: you do not practice meditation or on the realization of impermanence (that everything changes, everything is let go of, everything passes) even the pain passes.
To habituated patterns: You do not challenge your way of being in the world through meditation and through thought transformation practices. You do not learn how or apply the means to transform reactive patterns. Remember wherever there is SUFFERING – look for reactive patterns of attachment or aversion.
To own Welfare: you are unable to truly connect with others and life. You feel and believe we are all separate. You don’t realize how we belong to one another and that all experiences are dependent upon other circumstances (dependent arising), so you focus on yourself.
To fixed positions: you do not practice truly seeing through and penetrating habitual ways to experience presence. You are unable to witness the interdependence of all of life.
Buddhist psychology and philosophy help us live more in the present moment by means of not being so easily swayed by our attachments or aversions. Breathwork (yogic, Bindu, Holotrophic) helps us release the energy pattern’s involved in our attachments and aversions as well as give us insights to these patterns. It also helps us to get beyond the thinking mind and experience our luminous bodies and feel our connection to all of life. (To experience Bindu breath or other transformational Breathwork find a skillful facilitator).
Practice this:
Use this practice to challenge such strong reactive emotions that dominate our life such as anger, depression, neediness or fear. Instead of adding suffering to the emotional state become conscious, and whenever you notice that you are caught up in the emotion say to yourself “The cause of my suffering is that I believe my emotions.” This will remind you that both the emotional reactions and your current perception of the world are the products of reactive patterns and CONDITIONING. You have been conditioned (in a sense set up) to react in this way. This reaction is the suffering that surrounds the initial difficulty, not the difficulty itself. This statement and awareness will help to shift at least temporarily the pattern and you will experience a release from the suffering. Cut into the emotion again and again by bringing this awareness to it: “The cause of my suffering is that I believe my emotions.” (And that I need to be right about what I believe.)
Recent research shows that getting angry doesn’t free you from the anger but only strengthens the anger (strengthens the pathway in the brain). So we either strengthen the habitual pattern or we weaken it through awareness and mind transformation. This and other mind training techniques help put a gap between you and the reactive tendencies, this way you get to experience some perspective, freedom and presence. Through this gap you can learn and experience new ways of being and further access the three inherent qualities of compassion, wisdom and presence.
Emaho!
To further your practice –
Even when we have physical pain – reactive patterns can only increase the suffering. Consider how this is true over the next week. How does our reaction to emotional and physical pain increase our suffering?
Notice where the pain ends and the reactive pattern (suffering) begin. Become mindful of the difference between pain and suffering when you experience something painful and notice the reactive pattern to it.
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