Atmopadesha Satakam of Narayana Guru

Verse 5

 

Worldly people, having slept, 

wake and think many thoughts,

Ever wakefully witnessing all this shines an unlit lamp,

Precious beyond words, that never fades;

Ever seeing this, one should go forward.

 

Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

 

November 15, 2022

 

Johnny and Nancy are taking a break in their Guanajuato casita, so I am writing to you today from home in Portland.  I love how your contributions of stories and poems have many creatures trotting  through them.  I have just returned from a drive through the middle of Oregon – walking in the Painted Hills, looking for the Honey Mushroom, learning some of our devastating past history and how small towns are redeeming some of it by what they save. People were kind, helpful, available all along the way.  We waved and sent best wishes as we stopped on the Columbia banks near Two Rivers on the way home.  

 

Rose this morning, to such a gorgeous day, leaves drifting down in a breeze like dry rain drops.  The trees are trying to turn gold and red, but most are hanging onto summer greens. Even though it was freezing this morning! On my early morning walk, the lawns and meadows were bright white with frost.   Still in the magic of it, I sense a sigh of relief in the air too now that voting is over and we are finding a new path forward.   

 

Thay would have loved to read our newsletter too! Thank you for sharing your practice. In gratitude, Katie

 

A Brief Comment on This Month’s Cover

Atmopadesha Satakam, Verse 5

 

(Atmopadesha Satakam or “One Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction” is a wisdom text composed in the late 19th century by Narayana Guru, a contemplative master of the Advaita Vedanta tradition.)

 

Worldly people, having slept, wake and think many thoughts;

Ever wakefully witnessing all this shines an unlit lamp,

Precious beyond words, that never fades;

Ever seeing this, one should go forward.

 

This is a verse of practical instruction about the rhythm of psychological transformations that all people undergo on a daily basis. Emerging from a deep slumber, where there is no thought, we find ourselves either in a dream state, with its fantastic contents, or we wake up and encounter a physical world, one which triggers a stream of related thoughts, imaginations and memories. Our thoughts come in an endless, seemingly irresistible flow, one after the other, sometimes through association with other thoughts, and sometimes just “out of the blue”. Our thoughts are pleasurable or painful or neutral, and they shape our lives for good or ill, seemingly often without our consent or control. As the Buddha noticed centuries ago in the Dhammapada: “what we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday…our life is the creation of our mind.”  We experience our thoughts sequentially, but if we could somehow step back and visualize an entire day’s worth of thoughts, they might collectively resemble a cloud of birds or school of fish, with individual perceptions, conceptions and imaginations sometimes strongly but often barely related with one another. After a period of busy mental activity, our energy is spent, sleep eventually returns and the cloud of thoughts subsides.

 

Narayana Guru doesn’t say that we should manage or suppress our thoughts or aim to improve them; instead he makes a simple observation: thoughts are objects of a pre-existing self-founded awareness, without which they could never arise. Here he paints the metaphoric picture of a lamp, perhaps the kind of hanging oil lamp with cotton wicks familiar to people in South India. The lamp is unlit, and “never shall go out again”. Interestingly, light itself is invisible, as is awareness. The Guru identifies this light, this awareness, as the very basis of thought and our fundamental nature.

 

This basic observation can help us recognize that we contain what the Buddhist meditation teacher Chogyam Trungpa called “a source of tremendous sanity”. “Ever seeing this”, becoming familiar with this truth and cultivating an identity with this simple awareness, can place our thoughts, whatever they may be, in an entirely new and peaceful context. It’s a powerful mode of practice.

 

– Andy Larkin

 

The Moth Vote

 

No more streetlights! (Let them all go dark).

We will have the moon. The minnow vote:

No more herons! We will glitter free.

Rivers agree: Go around the opposition.

Butterflies in solidarity: Don’t pin us down. 

Skunk’s campaign slogan: It makes scents.

The race for top turtle got off to a slow start: 

Easy does it. In the possum campaign, scandal

got no traction: We all sleep around. Nail-biter?

Cliff-hanger, dead-heat, re-count, run-off?

That’s the law of tooth and claw. But in 

the end, mud won by a landslide.

 

– Kim Stafford

 

The World Calls to Us

 

An owl cuts wild ascents and swoops against the dusk

as plaintive hooting rises out of the surrounding woods—

night’s denizens alive on our hillside.

One evening with light shadowing the Coast Range

a great horned owl stood at the top of a Douglas Fir,

commanding the view—still, so still—staring at us.

No other sounds, no other birds on the currents, simply the one owl,

an envoy of import speaking clearly. He rose and left, stately

and languidly, only to come later in the same tree with the same call.

Another time we heard wings glide through the air,

angle lower, fly closely overhead, soft underside

gleaming white, and disappear silently into the twilight.

Owls are Athena’s animal, symbol of haughty wisdom

like the goddess herself, fierce raptors bringing insight

and the gift of clarity, however mysterious.

They come to warn of deception or lies, they come

to prepare us for death, the great departure, they come

as a call to our quickening pulse, our bowed heads.

 

– Debbie Buchanan

 

Field Notes on Owls

 

We hear the owl call every night – sometimes the Great Horned sometimes the Barred Owl (I like to think of her as the Bard of our neighborhood.) Their hoots are distinctive and it feels like they call good night to us as well as to the creatures they may be hunting.   Because I don’t have a church nearby or a land line phone, I don’t have a  bell sounding randomly near by. I now like to think of the Owl as the bell, reminding me to breathe, to inter-be with all that is inside and out, and be present to the wonder of being alive in this cosmos.  

 

We also hear the geese day and night calling to one another, or calling for us to look up, as they migrate. It makes me wonder about the owls who seem to stay.  Do they migrate? Do they hibernate? What happens to them during the winter? Amazed that I know so little about my neighbors, I looked up these questions. So a bit of fascinating science:  Owls basically do neither.  Owls have no need to hibernate. Their bodies are uniquely adapted to survive harsh temperatures, making it easier for them to deal with the cold and even hunt down prey when there’s snow. For the most part, owls do not have a need to migrate either. They also don’t have the innate instinct to migrate that several bird species have. However, some species of owls do engage in movement during the winter.

 

When owls move, they are moving due to a lack of food in the area and are hunting for more accessible and abundant prey to catch. This behavior is known as irruption.  A new word to me!  I hope you can hear owls where you are and will stop to listen and breathe and be filled with wonder for being alive.

 

– Katie Radditz

 

Perceiving the Presence:

 

This may be a practice for me to work on, being open to become aware of the presence of another. The idea expands to develop awareness of the Source of Life in Nature around me, a more general awareness, I suspect. . . . .Why or how could any of us human beings, or any beings anywhere merit the attention, let alone the presence of the Source of Life; why should any of us “blips” matter?  Yet, I hope that I, we – all of us, do some how, that it is possible to stand in the Presence.

 

(to Michael,   question of the ages, contemplation of the sages.  And yet, here we are ALIVE and co-creating together, conscious and mindful.  Per haps we are experiencing this presence right now. Thank you for the ques tion and for your generous letter from which I could only take a portion for this week. -Katie)

 

Up Against the Wall

 

We all hit walls in our lives. Sometimes they seem to rise out of nowhere, catching us by surprise. And others we “saw” them coming and still ran flat-faced into another wall.  . . . When we stop running we have time to look up and see how vast the starry sky, the galaxy, even the universe. Until we do there’s just forward and back, lost in the darkness, running. It’s in the stop where all comes clear. It’s in the stop we connect with NOW. It’s in the stop we pause to breathe. . . Look up! Revel in your place. Smile. Be aware. You’re here NOW. Exactly where you need to be. Be here, now, fully your self, in this moment.  

 

– Michel Deforge

 

Sonoran Desert

 

Little lizard curves left,

eyes leading as he leans

into the air,

smells caught

on flickering tongue,

toes twitching.

Movement ripples

through the ground,

little lizard,

denizen of desert and stone,

hot sand and red cliffs

stops a moment, shudders

and disappears into the chaparral.

 

– Debbie Buchanan

 

Johnny Writes:

 

We all use the first person pronoun “I” every day. What does it refer to? 

 

The first answer that comes to mind is: “The guy sitting here typing this: Johnny Stallings.” But who or what is Johnny Stallings? And can the “I” refer to something bigger? Here are two entries from Encyclopædia Jonnica:

 

Johnny Stallings. A fictional character. As Shakespeare said: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” I spend a certain amount of time pretending to be Johnny Stallings. If I don’t, who will? A lot of the time, though, I feel no such responsibility or obligation.

 

Stillness. Awake and alert, when thought and language fall away, a lovely state of serenity ensues, to which there is no boundary. Indescribable.

 

Advaita Vedantins speak of a universal Self that is the self of everyone. Buddhists say there is no self. Growing up, as we learn language and create an identity, we construct a self. Actors mysteriously become all kinds of people from play to play. How do they do that? Does the “I” of “I had an idea” refer to the same thing as the “I” of “I mowed the lawn”?

Walt Whitman has inspired me to imagine what “I” might mean in more fluid ways. Who or what exactly is the self of his great poem “Song of Myself”? Here are some lines to ponder from his poem:

 

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. [1]

 

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise….

Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,

A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,

Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

I resist any thing better than my own diversity,   [16]

 

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less….

I know I am deathless….

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself  [20]

 

Walt Whitman, a kosmos….

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from…

This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds….

Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy  [24]

 

Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,

If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me….

Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me  [25]

 

All truths wait in all things….

I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,    [30]

 

I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains, esculent roots,

And am stuccoed with quadrupeds and birds all over….

In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes     [31]

 

Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with the rest….

I am the hounded slave….

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person….

I take part, I see and hear the whole    [33]

 

I….Embody all presences outlaw’d or suffering,

See myself in prison shaped like another man….

Not a youngster is taken in larceny but I go up too, and am tried and sentenced.

Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp   [37]

 

Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,

When I give I give myself.   [40]

 

Immense have been the preparations for me….

Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen,

For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings….

My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.

For it the nebula cohered to an orb     [44]

 

And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is….

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass   [48]

 

There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me….

I do not know it—it is without name—it is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.   [50]

 

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)   [51]

 

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,

I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.”   [52]

 

If Walt Whitman’s I is so variegated and vast—what about yours and mine?

 

-“Johnny Stallings”

 

A Lion’s Pride

 

The lion asked the leopard, “May I have a spot?” But the leopard sneered and scoffed, “Surely I think not!”

So the lion went on his way, his head held high in pride, looking for acceptance, with purpose in his stride.

The lion then asked Cheetah, “may I borrow some of your speed?” But the cheetah sped into the distance and ignored the lion’s need.

The lion asked Hyena, “Will you teach me any tricks?” But the hyena only laughed and giggled while licking at his lips. So the lion went on his way again, his head held high in pride, looking for acceptance, with purpose in his stride.

The Lion then came to a pool where the other lions drank; he sat down most unhappy to think upon the bank.

He looked around while waiting for his anger to subside, and saw each and every lion brimming full of pride.

It was then that Lion rose in the epiphany of thought, and sped his way through the other lions at a slow but steady trot.

He licked his lips and giggled, while letting out a roar, for in his pride he found acceptance and was wanting of no more.  

 

– Joshua Barnes

(I wrote my story of the lion to my baby niece and nephew. My first short story poem. Let me know what you think; I’d love the feedback.)

 

The Order of Interbeing

 

Thich Nhat Hanh’s largest sangha, that includes all of us practitioners, is called the Order of Interbeing.   He would like to include the verb Inter-Be into the dictionary so that we can refer to ourselves as interbeings.  We inter-are with everything that is, a huge but subtle difference from “we are all connected.” It’s expansive and freeing – like a response to Walt Whitman. When I grasp this, it opens my heart to the beings around me – the lion, the owl, the hummer, the lizard, the moth.   It can move me from awareness to compassion, beyond the I that is doing anything.   The following is my favorite writing by Thay, especially nice to read when you are holding and looking at a piece of paper.  I am picturing you, poets all, now wherever you are reading. 

 

–  Katie

  

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be.

 

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

 

Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

 

Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.”

 

– Thích Nhất Hạnh

 

Look Deeply into Your Perceptions

 

#154 Thich Nhat Hanh, Your True Home

 

“In most cases, our perceptions are inaccurate, and we suffer because we are too sure of them. Look at your perceptions and smile to them. Breathe, look deeply into their nature, and you will see that there are many errors in them. For example, that person you are thinking about has no desire to harm you, but you think that he does. It is important not to be a victim of your false perceptions. If you are a victim of your false perceptions, you will suffer a lot. You have to sit down and look at perceptions very calmly. You have to look into the deepest part of their nature in order to detect what is false about them.”

 

I must realize that this is a difficult one for me, because I see that just one or two months ago I wrote about Learning to Release our own Views. Ummm Hmmm.

 

Do I ever ‘sit down and look at perceptions very calmly’? Do I ever ‘look into the deepest part of their nature’? The more accurate question would be ‘Do I Listen to and Look more deeply into my (right wing/conservative) neighbor’s perceptions in order to discover flaws in my own perceptions? HOW CAN I? I ask you, when his comments are constantly peppered with ‘facts’ about 2000 mules, and massive voter fraud, and Democratic pedophilia…what does looking deeply into inaccuracies in my own perceptions accomplish? I’m looking squarely at the ‘inaccuracies’ in his perceptions. Sorry, but that’s the way I see it, at least in terms of politics.

 

Fortunately, I can leave that on the doorstep and appreciate him for being the friendly, helpful neighbor that he is. We share vegetables and garden tools and advice; he helps us with our interminable irrigation problems; and, most importantly, without our feeble requesting, he regularly clears our driveway of mounds of snow with his massive snowplowing vehicle.

 

So when I look deeply into my perceptions, I have to admit that my neighbor is a pretty fine person…and that my perceptions are inaccurate.

 

– Jude Russell