Category: meditation

New Song of Mahamudra 2.0

Published on by Tilopa 2.0Leave a comment

A poem that emerged when I awoke on the 7th of April 2016

Mahamudra’s Sweet Sound
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in Mahamudra, am i inside or outside?
is it past that i return to,
or is it something new emerging and forming in the future?

time is a slave of the universe,
not its master
like water chases after the moon;
my shirt is made of clouds,
the sun is just a speckle
overstating its brilliance

dogs howl at the sky
their noise a whimper against the backdrop of eternity
they cannot bite me where i wander

the song wont leave me alone
even when my ears are covered
it is louder than thunder
and sweeter than the honey

the melody wraps itself around me
holds me in its spell
i fall deeper and deeper
the silence is roaring

like my beloved’s eyes
the touch of her hands
the warmth of her nearness
i can’t run, the beauty is unbearable

Mahamudra i found you
i just forgot where you were

tilopa 2.0

The Yoga of Being Gentle on Ourselves

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It’s a Crazy Mixed Up World of Men
There is madness in the world of men; economic growth, a push for getting from point A to B at a faster rate; okay, so what to do when we get there?  Making more money by giving less to the community; buying houses for babies so they will be ‘set up’ for the future, but forgetting the people around us are homeless…. what if the children become gypsies, nomads with invisible camels, wanderers and wayfarers, roaming Buddhas?   There are guys in suits, and stern looking power dressing women who model themselves on the worst of men, they struggle to get ahead in an insensitive arena of male mini tyrants; the cold stark air conditioned buildings with plastic plants, people shuffling papers and balancing numbers, lots of ‘doing’; children in daycare with strangers while their parents micro empires rise, and so often it falls in chaos as the family members don’t get to experience each other, overworked and too busy to appreciate the extraordinary meeting place called intimacy.

AS A SPECIES, WE MAY HAVE LOST OUR WAY.

The Spin dryer of Thought
Yesterday I hit the edge of despair.  This is not really a big  problem for me as my ‘Future Yogi’ (the part of me that lives outside time) looks at the experience and reminds me to change my point of perception, to stop and watch the play of life.  What was troubling me was, I am under pressure to deliver the fine details in a written testimony to my solicitor regarding crimes against humanity that happened to me as a child.  As I need to enter the memory of the experience so the legal team can proceed with my case, I got the wobbles, for a brief moment I was lost in the space-time tunnel.  It felt like I was in the spin dryer, trying to stop the emotions from jumping out and flying across the room.  My son was beautiful at this moment, and I understand why we chose each other as parent and child, he just said, ‘dad, is there anything I can do to help?’,  I said, ‘no, just saying that is enough’.  And I know from experience, I can usually sort things myself, nobody needs to do anything, it is knowing there is someone there that really counts.  So I decided to be gentle on myself.

The Warriors of Thought
I was too serious to do my usual therapy, the fine art of holding up my left arm and tickling my underarm with my right hand; this often works.  But these things I am dealing with are crimes against humanity, abuses of human rights that I have experienced.  For most people the heavy artillery would need to be called in, psychiatrists, meds, medical teams, guys in white coats with expressions of concern embedded into their wrinkled foreheads . Being the ninja that I am, I understand that there is always a point that holds everything in balance, there is a centre point at the heart of things.  If we can locate and manipulate that very fine whatever-thing that everything depends on,  the most powerful enemy can be defeated with a minimum of ease.   I know the greatest enemy of man is ‘thought’, knowing this gives me a starting point, I have an advantage, all enemies are already defeated.  If my problem is thought, there is no need go into battle and create more turmoil, things will just get broken.  A true warrior brings about peace with the least harm possible.   The dull, the bold, the buffoons will destroy the landscape, there will be carnage, collateral damage, everything gets stuffed over…. a wise warrior enters and leaves without anyone even knowing, while the villagers are sleeping, we come and go adjusting things to bring harmony, I took this path as there is no other one worth contemplating. And here is that path…..

The Ever Changing and Emerging Unborn
I love learning; the new, the fresh, the potential unborn, that’s where all the possibilities are. I am a musician and was gifted with the greatest teachers, masters of their craft.  One thing that these brilliant beings reminded me of was, we can always go into new territory, even if the terrain looks familiar we can take it out further, there is something we can extract and use.  I decided to learn a simple raga and play it on one of my beautiful guitars, (a raga is the underlying foundation of classical Indian music tunes), the guitar was in an irregular tuning, this requires additional thought and focus, and I was also playing in a different key, another set of notes than the original.  What this meant was I had to translate everything I was doing.  Although what I mentioned may sound irrelevant , or out of context, the underlying idea was to keep my mind active, to distract and create some new neural pathways instead of digging deeper into the ones that no longer serve me, those old ones were hurting, they were smothering me with emotions.  These ‘new pathways’ is where we can disable some things, ward off those arrows of life that seem like they will destroy us. If we want change and healing, we must take charge of the process, else we will always be a slave to things that no longer exist.  Things happened, true, they are in our past, they will have an affect…WE DO NOT HAVE TO LET THEM DEFINE US, to derail us and steal the joy from our life.

Healing is an Inbuilt Thing
I am confident that healing can come about naturally, this may be contrary to the ideas of many health practitioners, honestly I am not sure how others feel about this. From experience I know to ‘back myself’ to trust what works for me, regardless if someone says it’s impossible.  As musicians we get to play with many different people of various skill levels, and lots of things are not said at times.  I will use the example of everyone in a band being told before a music session starts that a piece of music has been changed, except one person was not informed.   The tune starts,  everybody else ‘in the know’ starts playing; the musician who hasn’t been informed looks momentarily puzzled, he has a number of choices: get upset and walk out, play the wrong music just to be annoying, or just listen and feel what is going on and call on the skills in the musical toolbox and adapt. Life is a lot like this; if every time something happens, we respond in a manner that is against the flow of what is going on, we will always be running, missing life; if we decide to struggle against what is going on and do something that is ‘never going to work’, we will suffer.  But if we are sensitive enough and trust the inbuilt wisdom we have developed in our lives, it will be less painful, we can navigate safely, slay the paper tigers and imaginary dragons who roam around in our thoughts.
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I say what I say from experience. I have learnt to be gentle on myself, to face what in many cases probably should have broken me, but I treasure my life, an adventure not to be missed or treated with disrespect.  We are creative beings, the past is gone, never to return.  By ever seeking the new, the past recedes in the rear-view mirror of life.
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When I struggle, all I need to do is to think ‘be gentle on myself’, the world around me softens.
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Tilopa 2.0

Silent Love, Meditative Bliss

Published on by Arizona2 Comments

Thoughts on what keeps us connected, yet keeps us from connection; experiencing love in silence and in the silence, as the goal, focus or locus of meditation.

Silent Love, Meditative Bliss is a very thought provoking article by a guest writer

“A meditative mind is silent. It is not the silence which thought can conceive of; it is not the silence of a still evening; it is the silence when thought – with all its images, its words and perceptions – has entirely ceased. This meditative mind is the religious mind – the religion that is not touched by the church, the temples or by chants.
“The religious mind is the explosion of love. It is this love that knows no separation. To it, far is near. It is not the one or the many, but rather that state of love in which all division ceased. Like beauty, it is not of the measure of words. From this silence alone the meditative mind acts.”
– Meditations, 1979
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Meditation is love
At that point, two worlds collided. Bliss as the love goal, silence as the meditation goal. I had not connected meditation to love, as love, connectedness, silence. If there is no separation, there is no need to speak – to whom are you speaking? In moments of bliss, there is no need to speak – what needs to be said? In moments of connectedness, the mind is still – what more do you seek? When the mind is still, there is no need to speak – what words can form in stillness? In moments of bliss, there is connectedness.
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The Obstacle of Disconnection
The many tools of meditation are a menu for the individual to choose from, flip through them until one resonates and you make a little progress, see a glimpse of what is possible or frighten yourself and move on or retreat. Some days might be days to count your breath, others might be days where the ringing sound is so loud that you can’t not focus on it. What I’ve seen is the obstacle to many people to exploring meditation or even stillness is the thought of being alone in it. It’s the prospect of realising that we are each ultimately utterly alone in this world, endlessly separated by the fact of being the only inhabitant of one’s assigned human body. Many people cannot bear silence, cannot sit still without fidgeting, cannot be comfortable with the thought of not having their comfort-phone-of-connection in their hand. Stimuli simulates connectedness, and we’re all addicts.
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Love as Silence
But in this thought – the explosion of love as silence, no separation and meditation – is a precious key. It’s utterly motivational – who doesn’t want to feel connected? And if, in that connectedness, stillness of the mind is possible, the rest for the mind can arrive, the brainwaves relax which is so healing for the whole being. Who doesn’t want to experience healing? And if, through that healing, more experience of connection in possible and love arises, or perhaps the experience of love that is essential human nature is revealed to you. Who doesn’t want love?
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The Obstacle of Possession
Love is often misunderstood, mistaken as possession which is not love, opposite to it perhaps. A bad experience or two with this unfortunate impostor and many swear off love forever, closing the heart. And thus arises the obstacle to connectedness. It hurts to think about being connected, because the pathway to love requires each obstacle to be examined and gently placed aside as irrelevant. The prospect of sitting still and examining each obstacle is frightening, particularly if one believes that the goal of stillness, of meditation, is an endpoint in which we are each utterly alone. The motivation for such thinkers is to retain each and every obstacle because the perception is that these obstacles are the safe walls that keep us close to our experience of what we thought was love, the experiences wherein the hurt arose that created these obstacles. But that’s a mistaken belief. In fact the ultimate goal is love, is connectedness, to know what that truly is, and it resides on the other side of any thought that creates space or distance between you and any other.
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Love is the goal. Love is all you need. What is keeping you from it?

By Guest Blogger – Arizona