Stop scrolling. No really, just right now, be kind to yourself and stop the rushing mind. Read slowly and actually accomplish it. Take a deep breath in and feel the air cooling the back of the throat, filling the chest and bringing fresh air to the body’s extremities. Relax, breath by breath, starting from the toes, and then the lower legs, relaxing the upper legs, relaxing the buttocks and pelvis, don’t feel embarrassed, still minding the breath, relaxing the lower back and abdomen, relaxing the upper back and chest, relaxing the shoulders, arms and hands, relaxing the neck, face and scalp, and before taking three breaths, relax your eyelids, your whole body, before you read any further.
Breathing in
Breathing out
Breathing in
Breathing out
Breathing in
Breathing out
When we encounter difficulty in our lives, we can try to handle things at a spiritual level, or if we fail, an wisdom level, an intellectual, emotional, energetic or bodily level. If we cannot handle difficulty at any level, there is stress, lacking ease, dis-ease. Meditation removes stress by uprooting stress’s cause, ignoring, by attending. What is the elephant in the room and how can we stop trying ignoring it?
When we wash our house, our apartment, there are high spaces, low spaces, indoor spaces, outdoor spaces, spaces which need much muscle, a tight squeeze, and spaces which require a keen eye. Just so, we need tall people, short people, indoor loving people, nature loving people, muscular people, skinny people and detail oriented people to really clean a house well. Every type of human nature has a function which works better in social harmony. Each of us have some similar, some different sufferings and happinesses, some which we understand and transcend easily, some not so easy. We can relate about the primal fact of life, there is suffering, there is happiness and everybody cleaning the house of the mind, outdoors and in, gives the added advantage of a well honed engine, calibrated and oiled adequately, all spark plugs sparking, all pistons pumping, the heart of the vehicle, like the human heart, radiating energy to drive forward on the path, mundane, or worldly, and esoteric, or religio-spiritual.
Then the house begins to be a home, and when we support eachother’s virtue, the body is a temple at which we can arrive. When the house or mind and body or temple are clean, we can see the self, both first person, “I, me, mine, not I, not me, not mine,” and others whom we accept as part of ourself (there should be no omission), which then are “we, us, ours, we are not, not us, not ours.” This is Sangha, Spiritual Family, in the temple, Religious House. We clean the mind together in meditation, we walk together in a peaceful direction, taming anger, desirousness, and looking at the elephant in the room, reading to it, talking about it, not talking about it, just loving, so the white elephant does not become a bull in a China shop, destroying, devouring, throwing itself akimbo.
Actually the elephant can become the bull, but the elephant must demand respect or walk away and the bull must learn: being loving-kind, mindful, about the fine things will not detract from his character or what is fine.
Similarly, meditation can help the rabbit-like mind slow to more clearly see it’s contents and the worker-bee hive mind to see it is more than it’s monotonous, yet soothing and secure, task, but unique in it’s desires and particular in it’s insights. Maybe we can love the peacock enough so it can fold it’s austentatious display, and the groundhog we can be sensitive about and invite to be social. The crowd we can remind of the golden nature of silence and give the turtle a voice. We can take ourselves, each other, the way a delicate grandmother hugs you so carefully so you know how, with utmost care in respecting the precious treasure of warm heartedness in age, to hug back.
you are invited, welcome
golden deer sangha
email vishnudassivananda@gmail.com for details, daily meditation reminders and other events
When we leave the temple or the forest floor, if we continue to practice, to be mindful, to follow the breath, to listen, to love, to eminently replace other’s negativity with compassion and wish for their happiness, the Sangha life reflects in the home life and there is the benefit of peace there. When we practice individually, we can see our practice benefit others and us, but we cannot see the results of mutual family practice meeting outside ourselves in the world echoing back to our meeting at home unless we practice as a family. Individually practicing, there is always a benefit, and then we can find our way back to the Sangha.
Golden Deer Sangha 