Category: Sunday Sutra

The Upanishads and the Book of John

“Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the entrance. She went running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

Then Peter and the other disciple went to the tomb. The two of them were running, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and saw the linen cloths, but he did not go in. Behind him came Simon Peter, and he went straight into the tomb. He saw the cloth which had been around Jesus’ head. It was not lying with the linen cloths but was rolled up by itself. Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first, also went in; he saw and believed.

From the Gospel According to John, Holy Bible, 20:1-16 

“But all those we love, alive or departed, and all things we desire but do not have, are found when we enter that space within the heart.” 

From the Changdogya Upanishad, 3:2

Our word for Easter comes from the pagan festival Ostara, a celebration of rebirth and renewal at the coming of spring. This isn’t an etymology blog, though, as wonderful as that would be. This is a personal reflection on Easter’s themes.

The springtime ideas of resurrection, reincarnation, and rebirth are kin in my mind. The Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada, and the Bible all heed the cosmic seasons of birth, death, and renewal. And all these philosophies speak of liberation from this cycle, either through moksha, enlightenment, or through salvation via Jesus Christ. 

Who is “the other disciple, the one who Jesus loves?” I remember being asked this at the start of many an Easter sermon. In all historical likelihood, John’s spiritual heirs were referring to John himself as “the other disciple” and the “disciple who Jesus loved.” But I prefer the way my grandad saw it— the other disciple is you and me. We come to the tomb of death and find it empty. Death is not a permanent condition, but a fundamental part of the process of reality. Yogic philosophy calls this the “Wheel of Samsara,” or reincarnation. 

I don’t take that to mean that my individual soul packs up and moves to a new apartment of atoms in each lifetime, but that I am but a part of the great I AM, and always will be, as it manifests in living beings throughout the ages. This makes death but the dissolving of the habitual boundaries between I am and you are, they are and it is. Indeed, death is a returning to the whole to be reborn, and this is as joyous the women and the disciples at seeing Jesus again.

There is more, of course, to the story of Jesus’ resurrection than just new life, spring, rebirth. Forgiveness is there also, a washing clean. The yogic principle of Karma, which predates Christ by millennia, stipulates that as we move through lifetimes we learn to address the seeds of cause and effect planted in our consciousness by previous actions. I understand Christ-consciousness as redemptive of that cycle, or in yogic terms, transcending the Wheel of Samsara. I see enlightenment as releasing attachment to only the birth and life parts of the birth-life-death cycle inherent in reality.

“Do not cling to me,” Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, “For I have not yet been to my father in heaven.”

The Gospel According to John 20:17

Personally, celebrating Easter beneath the shadow of the Covid-19 Pandemic is… weird. Dana and I drive up to the Adirondacks to hike to a comely view and scout out some summer climbing goals. On the way we listen wistfully to a church service, wishing we could be bored in the pews beside our families. I tear up at a fuzzy recording of a church choir singing a familiar off-key, too-slow-to-actually-sound-victorious rendition of “Christ the Lord is risen to-DAAY-HAAAY, Aha-AH-la-HA-lehe-YOOO-HOO-yaaaaaaa…” 

Because this Easter is weird.

It is the first Easter without my Grandad, who was a pastor. I sang him “Amazing Grace” as he lay dying in the hospital last July. I watched his last breath, watched his last heartbeat pulse through his veins. It was the first death I have witnessed, and it was a mercy after the pain he had endured. This is the first Easter that I have known even a little bit, really, about death.

And this Easter is weird because the world passes this day sheltering while death passes over, as though Passover has not yet ended in triumph. We cannot gather to worship, or eat too many deviled eggs, to hold our nieces on their first Easter, to watch them giggle at crocuses in the new light of spring. We hunker down to minimize death, a death that comes as it has always come, as an act of nature, an act of God. And we should, so that we preserve the lives of dear ones who need not go yet, otherwise.

I look out the window and think about the message of Jesus. I feel forgiven, and I feel forgiving. Forgiveness is salvation.

If I can forgive the universe for the cosmic cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth, I am free. Jesus dies upon the cross and rises again, to show that there is no final triumph of death, decay, winter, sin, call it what you will. The cycle goes on. I can be present with it.

Jesus’ message is one of forgiveness, but not just receiving forgiveness for my own faults. I also must forgive, not only other people, but a universe that kills. If I can forgive reality for the pain it causes and accept it, I can enter the salvation of living in the present. Which, as my teacher Sean Murphy Sensei says, is the only place that our lives (and death) actually happen.

Atha yoga anushasanam. Now, the teachings of yoga.

Yoga Sutra 1.1, Patajali

Now the teachings of yoga… or How I meditate with a busy mind

“I tried meditating, but I was terrible at it. I just sat and thought about all the things I have to do.”

“I have to do guided meditations, otherwise my brain just keeps getting distracted.”

“I meditate by running. I have to move.”

Heck yes, meditation can be a struggle. Those are all real quotes from people I know and love. So my first post on what is intended to be a yoga blog, based on the very first line of the first yoga sutra, is, in fact, about sitting meditation.

Most of us who are interested in yoga have heard of the benefits of being present, and that yoga and meditation can help us be that way. But they are just techniques, and if techniques don’t work to help us be present, then they can do more harm than good, by making us believe more in our limitations than possibilities.

This year marks a decade of meditating faithfully, nearly every day. I do often become preoccupied with thoughts, and doing or not doing something with them. I’m not going to lie, this creates a tedious feedback loop. The thought emerges, walks in wearing a business suit or with a surfer-dude swagger. When I notice it, another thought rushes in, dressed in the loincloth of an OG Yogi or the flame-hued robes of a Tibetan monk or the spandex leggings of a yoga teacher and scolds, “Hey, remember we aren’t entertaining thoughts right now? Come back later!” 

That first thought might cooperate, or it might start to argue, or get its friends involved, or maybe even your mother! It might invite in the latest list of techniques from Yoga Journal or a report from Newsweek, and soon I’ve got a mind full of jabbering thoughts. An NBA player, some saxophonists, a mouse reminding me that I was supposed to seal that hole in the garage yesterday and, ooooh look! The dragon from the fantasy novel I have been reading!

Meanwhile my inner yogis and buddhas are weaving through the crowd, trying to insert a word edgeways, whispering with increasing levels of impatience, until one of them breaks and screams,

I AM TERRIBLE AT MEDITATING! 

I need to do a more active practice, run or vinyasa, this stillness is just a chance for my brain to go crazy!

Almost every day, I practice Zazen. Zen meditation. Not metta lovingkindness or shamanic journey or pranayama (though I love those too), but the most bare-bones, no-nonsense, just sit there and feel your breath and, no, you don’t get any fancy mantras or flames or visualizations kind of meditation. 

It’s a huge part of my life – its integral to my yoga practice. The confluence of rivers of insight is always a good place to draw water. We sustain ourselves by breath and gravity. I return often to this notion during my yoga practice. Am I aware of my feet, the earth beneath me, and am I feeling my breath, not distantly, but from within? Sometimes I can feel the life pulse initiating, inspiring the breath. It is an exquisite joy. As my zen teacher, Sean Murphy Sensei, calls it, “Like sinking into a warm bath.”

But sometimes, the cacophonic party of thoughts seems about as far from a warm, solitary, contented bath as it is possible to be. So what’s the trick? Why are so many initial meditations much more like the party of all our inner voices than the surrender promised by seasoned meditators?

Thoughts are born of neural networks, and as their name denotes, neural networks are built to connect. The thought about the mouse is supposed to remind me that I need to seal up that hole in the garage. In the wild, in evolutionary terms, seeing the tree where the lion hid last time or the bush that bore such sweet berries last season were vital connections to make, reminders of information and strategies critical for survival. But in a world with fewer survivally (that is a word now, m’kay?) important stimuli, this same neural interconnectedness becomes a burden that can completely obscure the present moment — which is the only place that our life actually happens.

But neurons are not only in our minds, not only the stuff of memory and linguistic thought. The whole body is abuzz, awash with sensations of our present reality. The nerves in my belly, my feet, my lower back are just as active as those firing as thoughts in my brain. I just have to choose to pay attention to them. So this is what I do when I notice myself following a web of thoughts in meditation— I shift my attention back to my belly button. I don’t think about the thoughts (that leads to the thought party, remember?). I just try to feel the (usually quieter) sensations in my pelvis, my feet. I focus on the “still small voice” of those nerves. 

It is possibly to get as absorbed in the sensations of the body as we are in a train of thought. If I can keep my attention in a body part, it does start to feel comfortable, usually, rather like a warm bath. Even when the body is in pain, there are almost always places that feel neutral, and funnily, when I focus on neutral sensations long enough, it does become pleasant. Rather like a warm bath. 

In the beginning of my sit, I take a few deep, loose breaths to release surface tension, then I gradually draw my attention to a very specific place in my body, far from my head— “Time and space matter in magic, Potter.” If I focus on my nostrils as I breathe, that is just too close to my brain, and I will end up thinking more. If I focus on my belly button or my feet, somehow that draws the energy, my focus, to nerves that are far, far away from the to-do list triggered by the neurons in my head. Maybe I am playing a bit fast and loose with the science here, but it’s a working theory, okay?

Eventually, if I focus my attention on a specific part for long enough, it spreads to the rest of my body, and this can lead to the body highs that are Samadhi, gateways to enlightenment. More often, it’s just a sensation of simple presence.

After all, as Sensei Sean says, that is where our life happens.