Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue  

July 15, 2023   

Johnny is traveling and sends his joy and news below.  

And so dear friends, thank you for carrying on with your reflections and poems and stories for this edition of the Meditation and Mindfulness newsletter.   

Thanks to Andy for his gorgeous contribution from his newly finished collected visions of the Hundred Verses of Self Instruction. Here is his commentary on cover image:   

Verse 9  

The Atmopadesha Satakam (Hundred Verses of Self Instruction) of Narayana Guru 

Growing on both sides, in a blossoming state, 

is the one vine which has come, spread out and risen to the top of a tree; 

remember that hell does not come  

to the man dwelling in contemplation beneath it. 

The image of a contemplative seated beneath a flowering tree is practically universal in world religious art. Narayana Guru’s use of the image contains several details that tie it to the Indian tradition of Advaita Vedanta, and that would have been familiar to his original Indian audience. The tree is covered by a creeper that is two-sided, with roots that are concealed from view. The invisible origin of the creeper, with its attractive flowers hiding the supporting tree, is actually a metaphor for the structure of human consciousness, as outlined in greater detail in Vedantic writings such as the Mandukya Upanishad. There, wakeful experience is explained as a complex interaction of perceived form and conceptual name, with both name and form springing from a common hidden source of seeded memory. This structural picture is a fundamental understanding that underlies much of the Atmopadesha Satakam.  

Narayana Guru was not interested in philosophy for its own sake; he was instead concerned with helping his fellow beings find their own way to lasting happiness. His use of the ideogram of the tree and the meditating being provides profound clues about how the moment-to-moment flow of our experience assembles itself, how we can be caught by that flow, and about how a dimension of our innermost Being remains free from bondage. 

We seldom question the validity of the ongoing flow of our experiences, with their sensory richness, or their linear organization in time. The birth of a child, or the death of a loved one can suddenly expose the unconscious nature of our routine forms of understanding. Our experiences can be afflicted in countless ways, through the thwarting of our exaggerated sense of personal control, through our habits of desire or aversion or the rigidities of habitual thinking. In the terms of the verse, the experiential world of names and forms, and the afflicted states that accompany them, are nurtured from sources that are invisible to us. Name, form and memory function collectively to conceal a deeper reality. 

The emphasis of this verse is on noticing. The man dwelling in contemplation beneath the tree has discovered something priceless. He has learned that his own pure awareness permeates the entire field of the germination, growth and dissolution of phenomenal experience, and yet stands apart from it. 

-Andy Larkin 

 *** 

Ah, Summer . . . . . The soft polka dot flowers of Spring have passed. Summer blossoms are exploding. Red dahlias with fiery petals, huge blue hydrangeas that droop with such languor. They make me as sleepy as Dorothy in the field of poppies. I pick them, arrange them in bouquets, give them as gifts. I like to drive with jars of flowers in the coffee cup holders. Their fading nature reminds me that beauty is constantly changing and reemerging in new forms. Life is short. “But here we are again,” say these same but different flowers that come in summertime. 

In the summer, I like to get out the book The Immense Journey (from 1957!), by Loren Eiseley, and reread his essay, “How Flowers Changed the World.” Eiseley describes what he calls “a soundless, violent explosion” of seed-born plant life millions of years ago, just as the Dinosaurs started to pass out and mammals arrived. At the heart of the explosion was a new kind of flora with magic seeds. 

“Flowers changed the face of the planet. Without them, the world we know would never have existed. Today we know that the appearance of the flowers contained also the equally mystifying emergence of human life. Borne on the wind or attached to animal hides, the new plant life spread all over the world. 

The fantastic seeds skipping and hopping and flying about the woods and valleys brought with them an amazing adaptability. . . . If our whole lives had not been spent in the midst of it, it would astound us. The old, stiff, sky-reaching wooden world changed into something that glowed here and there with strange colors, put out queer, unheard of fruits and little intricately carved seed cases, and, most important of all, produced concentrated foods in a way that the land had never seen before. 

If it wasn’t for the high energy content of seeds produced by flowers humanity wouldn’t have flourished. 

“If it should turn out that we have mishandled our own lives as several civilizations before us have done, it seems a pity that we should involve the violet and the tree frog in our departure.” 

– from Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey 

–Katie Radditz 

*** 

Greetings from Lebanon!   

Johnny writes: I’m on the Open Road–visiting with my good friend Zeina Daccache in Lebanon. Some of you will remember when she came to see our production of “Twelve Angry Men” at Two Rivers prison in 2012. She had directed a production of the play at Roumieh prison in Lebanon and made a wonderful documentary about it: “Twelve Angry Lebanese.” We will be showing Bushra Azzouz’s film “A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Prison” here on Saturday, July 15. 

I’ve been reading John Moriarty’s amazing book Dreamtime and studying clown philosophy from Slava Polunin. Here’s an excerpt from his book, The Sixth Door: 

Feelings and Emotions 

There is one door that ought to be kept shut. Or so we’re told. Even Pushkin taught us, “You shall be lord and master of your heart.” Behind this door live our FEELINGS and EMOTIONS, which must never be given free reign, if we are to believe the poet. There is a life of suppressed emotions, a rational, regular life, led by persons of good breeding, one that offers the most direct path to one’s goals. But it turns out that what we give up on this path is our own vitality: we become mere cogs in some sort of a giant mechanism. Only emotions can give us life in all its fullness. Just as in a child’s mind, any little thing can assume tremendous importance and take you on a wild ride at the slightest pretext. Passion, emotion, excitement, obsession with the least trifle—these are the things that make for a full life, because they demand utmost commitment and openness to the whole world around you. Such emotional perception of reality is fundamental to a human being, and theatre has the ability to inspire it. 

To be honest, though, not every kind of emotion appeals to me in equal measure. I suspect this is true of most people. 

I happen to like positive emotions. The more positive, the better. 

Because a positive attitude actually makes the world a better place. 

There is nothing mystical about this. Simply put, kindness and joy radiate a kind of energy that goes out into the world and has the ability to change it. 

–from Alchemy of Snowness by Slava Polunin,  

pp. 76-77 

-Johnny Stallings 

*** 

The Garden   

All this time I have been standing here   

I’ve never seen these trees before.   

All this time I have been living here   

I’ve always thought to go out.   

Out to find love, beauty, out to find   

passion, the wisdom of the ages.   

Out to feel, out to see, the wide sweep,   

the hand of God.   

Out to the woods, to the city,   

messy, vibrant, all the hues, full of life.   

Now I find standing here   

looking at this garden,   

it has everything.   

Everything I have been longing for,   

unfinished,   

perfect.   

-Elizabeth Domike   

*** 

The Hammock   

When I lay my head in my mother’s lap   

I think how day hides the stars,   

the way I lay hidden once, waiting   

inside my mother’s singing to herself. And I remember   

how she carried me on her back   

between home and the kindergarten,   

once each morning and once each afternoon.   

I don’t know what my mother’s thinking.   

When my son lays his head in my lap, I wonder:   

Do his father’s kisses keep his father’s worries   

from becoming his? I think, Dear God, and remember   

there are stars we haven’t heard from yet:   

They have so far to arrive. Amen,   

I think, and I feel almost comforted.   

I’ve no idea what my child is thinking.   

Between two unknowns, I live my life.   

Between my mother’s hopes, older than I am   

by coming before me, and my child’s wishes, older than I am   

by outliving me. And what’s it like?   

Is it a door, and good-bye on either side?   

A window, and eternity on either side?   

Yes, and a little singing between two great rests.   

-Li-Young Lee  

“The Hammock” from Book of My Nights   

*** 
Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day’s performance of the meanest [most menial] duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant? Pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all. 

– Margaret Fuller 

*** 

Following Navajo Songs 

Beauty all around me   

Beauty in front   

Beauty behind   

Beauty above, wind rustling the leaves   

Beauty below, hard ground   

Beauty in the air, soft, soft   

Beauty in my eyes, tears   

Beauty in my hands   

fingers trailing pollen   

Beauty in my footsteps   

blossoms spring from the earth   

Beauty in my heart   

dark as thunder   

Beauty in my heart   

quiet as the last birds   

in evening trees,   

Beauty   

Beauty   

Beauty   

-Deborah Buchanan   

*** 

 Yogi tea tag says today: “Uncage your heart, free your heart, let it be wild.”   

East Side Footsteps (Sierra Nevada) 

On those wild wide sandbars at Walker River,   

we put toes into warm sand so fine   

our feet sank to ankles   

at each step. Summer’s end, September,   

celebrating birthdays,   

convening halfway between   

my life in the Bay Area   

and yours in Lone Pine.   

Your great curly dog loped ahead.   

Our toes caught split straws of earlier grasses   

until they rounded over river rocks   

so hot under foot,   

we scurried and stumbled across them   

to keep our feet from burning.   

Then reached the cool mud at water’s edge,   

where tiny frogs leapt from sedges,   

alarmed by our thudding presence.   

Rocks in that river were slippery with algae.   

It took determination to find a level spot,   

an eddy, where stones could not lurch us   

to our knees, nor current upend us.   

The air wafted sagebrush and river. Untamed.   

Invigorating and peaceful, all at once.   

Two friends’ brief pause   

before ascending Sonora Pass.   

-Gail Lester, (after William Stafford’s poem “Tamarisk”) 

Desert Poem 

Desert paintbrush shows no mercy 

ravishing, red smoldering your eyes.  

Come to your knees to receive it. See 

how stems peg color to earth, where 

prairie flowers wild in their differences 

are loyal in their fit: lupine crazy blue,  

yarrow dusky, shy pink on scattered  

farewell-to-spring. Each flower whispers  

fragrance to court small wings, tiny tongues.  

From every twig, leaves offer gestures  

of forgiveness to this wounded world.  

Plants gather strands for our basket,  

and prairie hills weave them all together.  

In this place, each pilgrim’s goal  

is to be lost in wonder, and  

with all flowers softly howl. 

– Kim Stafford 

Extract from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Understanding Our Mind  

Mind Consciousness gives rise to actions that lead to ripening.  The mind consciousness plays the role of  gardener, the one who sows, waters, and takes care of the earth.  The store consciousness is often described as the earth—the garden where the seeds that give rise to flowers and fruits are sown. Because mind consciousness can initiate an action that leads to the ripening of seeds in our store consciousness, it is important that we learn about, train, and transform our mind consciousness. We act and speak on the basis of our thinking, our cognition. Any action of body, speech, and mind that we take based on mind consciousness, waters either positive or negative seeds within us. If we water negative seeds, the result will be suffering. If we know how to water positive seeds, there will be more understanding, love, and happiness. If mind consciousness learns to see in terms of impermanence, nonself, and interbeing, it will help the seed of enlightenment to grow and bloom like a flower. 

One Hundred Percent Your True Home   -Thich Nhat Hanh 

“Be there truly. Be there with 100% of yourself. In every moment of your daily life. That is the essence of true Buddhist meditation. Each of us knows that we can do that, so let us train to live each moment of our daily life deeply. That is why I like to define mindfulness as the energy that helps us to be there 100 percent. It is the energy of your true presence.”   

Well. “…live each moment of our daily life deeply.” “…the energy of our true presence.”   

It is about that time of year again. Every year, right around the middle of July, my senses are heightened to an acute level of awareness. Everything tingles. The morning sunlight is slightly different, its angle more oblique, its color more amber-toned. The word ‘mellow’ comes to mind. The early mornings cooler and darker. The evening stars winking around 9:07pm, then 9:04pm…then 8:56pm. Right around Bastille Day, July 14th, I send a text to sisters, daughter and close friends who understand what’s coming, every year…”Hey! Have you noticed how the sun is slanting differently? The mornings are a little cooler, and darker? Do you think it feels a little…like…Fall???” Oh, the roar of negation that follows: “Nooooo!!! No way! Stop it! Be quiet!!!”   

I love Fall. l adore Fall. I am thinking and feeling and savoring Fall right now —on July 14th. I am in the moment but not in the moment.   

Deep in the moment anticipation, deep in the moment change. In the mountains, August brings on the Fireweed and Gentians, saying goodbye to Lupine and Avalanche lilies. Huckleberry leaves stain the slopes burgundy red. I tingle and savor with love the utter feel of change in all the senses—smell, sight, feel/touch, hearing…taste? Sure! Who hasn’t bit into a warm peach, apple, or pear from an orchard and felt Fall in their bones?!   

So right now I’m in the future, but more deeply in the present than at any other time of the year. Does that count as mindfulness? I hope you’ll say yes!   

-Jude Russel