On Vacation What Are We Seeking?

I find it ironic that we spend the entire year looking forward to traveling for a week or two to some other place that we hope will bring us enough pleasure to make all our work worthwhile.  Or perhaps we need a rest after working so hard and just want to go somewhere and take it easy.  Or maybe we have a genuine interest in something that really makes us feel alive and we travel to participate with others in something that adds meaning.  But, what is this pleasure, this rest, this meaning that we seek if only for 1/52nd or 1/26th of our year?  Wouldn't it be nice to just naturally experience this pleasure, ease, and meaning the other 51 or 52 weeks a year?  What are we seeking and how can we live it?

I like to travel.  I like spiritual journeys. Pilgrimages.  I want to experience something that is irrevocably life changing in the most positive way.  I want to be completely and forever transformed by my journey. But, no matter where I have ever been, after returning, slowly but surely life returns to the way it was before the journey.  I've traveled to famous churches, to monasteries, to temples in several countries.  But the effect was short lived.  I've been to wonderful resorts.  I've laid out all night on beaches and backpacked to high mountain lakes.  Some of these trips made a deeper impression than others, but none transformed me the way I was wanting to be transformed.  When I returned, the same problems I had left were still there.  I still had the same cravings and aversions, though they may have been diminished for a time.  I was no kinder, no more virtuous, no more wise a few weeks after I returned than I was before I left.  What I was seeking was so incredibly short lived!

A few years ago, I decided to start going on retreats again after not being on one for many years.  Chan  retreats. Vipassana retreats.  These are silent retreats.  You aren't allowed to use a computer, use a cell phone, or talk to anyone for the entire time you are there.  But, they are life transforming.  Once the chatter and commentary in your head stops, you can see clearer than you might have known was possible! This is the ultimate vacation!  There is nothing like journeying to a state of equanimity and experiencing life millisecond by millisecond. How rich the world is if we have eyes to see and ears to hear! At such times, there is no inner or outer.  There is only perfection, suchness, in every passing second.

Where is there to go when right here right now is perfect in every respect?  What could be more pleasurable, restful, or meaningful that being fully awake in this very moment?  Once the chattering stops, the music begins. The grand symphony of life. Everything sings in response to everything else, infinitely correlated, infinitely inter-responding in a perfectly frictionless, fluid, natural harmony.  Isn't this what we were always seeking, to be fully awake, at ease in body and mind, and perfectly content to just experience things just as they are without judgment, commentary, or any associations?  Just bare, clear awareness of what really is?  Having experienced this, we may wonder how it is that this was ever hidden from us.

We just have such a long ingrained habit of stirring things up!  We stir up our thoughts.  We stir up our emotions.  By doing so, we miss what is already naturally there. There never was a time when it wasn't there, like the moon that is reflected perfectly once the waters become placid!  We miss what we would experience if we would just let go, be still, and let everything flow naturally.  Then, our environment is no longer separate from us and we are no longer pinched off in our own little neurotic worlds.  It's only our grasping and pushing away that hides the real state of the world from us. Our cravings, lusts, aversions, hatreds dim our perception until we are truly in darkness, barely living, like automatons or zombies pulled onward by hunger and thirst.  Or driven by fear.

What if we could go on vacation and come back more alive than we ever previously imagined possible?  What if when we returned, we were more in touch with our thoughts and feelings than ever before?  What if we, having learned to rest in every breath, in every moment, could easily regenerate energy and move through the day with grace and ease?  What if we had the luxury of time to really feel and really think before we speak?  How many hurtful things would go unsaid! How many kindnesses would be shared!  How valuable such a vacation would be for us individually, but also for our families and for the world!  Terrorism and war would be an absurdity in such a world.

The next time you think about going on a vacation, take time to consider what you are truly seeking. Consider whether going to Disneyland, Las Vegas or to the beach compares favorably to taking time out to be completely silent and let everything settle completely.  When the mind is completely settled, awareness is sharpest, most expansive, most penetrating.  When the mind is completely content, does not grasp or push away, perception is pure and insight naturally occurs.  This kind of perception and insight can be life transforming.  If enough people have this kind of vacation, we would all live in paradise.

Vinyasa Krama Class

Just got through leading my first Vinyasa Krama yoga class.  I hope it was as fun for the people in the class as it was for me!  I emphasized mindfulness of breathing throughout the class as a preparation for meditation.  The class meditated after 1 1/2 hours of asanas and 15 minutes of pranayama.  The room was almost completely still and was very quiet during the 15 minute meditation period.

 It's great how yoga reduces restlessness and how pranayama prevents drowsiness at 8:30 at night! The perfect complements to Chan meditation!

Several people came over and told me they really enjoyed it.  While I've taught meditation for a few years, this is the first time I taught it integrated with yoga asanas.  Great fun!

More information at Bodhisattva Path Buddhist Meditation Fellowship or at Sacramento True Yoga.

Yoga at University Falls - Sunday August 29th, 2010

My son demonstrating his trikonasana

Here's a great hike not far from Auburn.  You pass through Cool, California (what a great name, but there's not much of a town there) and then through Georgetown.

My son helping with a posture

For directions, check out the University Falls event posting for August 29th, 2010 on the Sacramento Trail Mix site.

The trail is all down hill to the falls.   You follow a fire road and then head down a dusty, fairly steep trail for the last quarter mile.

Their are several levels to the falls and you can hike down to the lower level for a great area to relax, have lunch or even do a bit of yoga.  The area is so conducive to practicing yoga, my son spontaneously decided to practice his table pose and help a yoga-buddy into a posture.

Son practicing his Table posture

For more pictures, see my Picasa album.

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Home as Sanctuary: A Place to Practice

We really only need a small corner of a room to practice meditation.  The instructions Master Sheng-yen gave were quite simple.  It should be quite, clean, well-ordered, draft free but adequately ventilated.  He added that we should consider this space special. To be use for practice.

Meditation room almost finished (needs baseboard)

Perhaps this is very materialistic of me, but I've always felt the ideal is to have a room set aside for practice. Some people have large rooms dedicated for watching TV or entire rooms for other hobbies.  The way people use their space is reflective of their values, or at least, what they've been conditioned to believe their values must be.  If you spend an hour or more a day doing something, it's nice to have a special space set up for doing just that.  This is a luxury and not necessary, but if you have the space, why not use it for what you really value?  When it comes to the practice of meditation, I think this is especially true.

Living rooms are for living!

This is the first time that I've actually had a room dedicated for meditation and it is a blessing!  When I enter this room, I know it is for the purpose of meditating and when I'm there, my son also knows and respects the time and space as my meditation time out.  He doesn't interrupt me while I'm sitting.  

As time goes on, I seem less and less enamored with furniture and other clutter.  I used to have a hobbit's taste for making a home homey.  There's nothing like a couple moves to make you loose your attachment for furniture and other possessions.  Now, less is definitely more.

It would definitely be more difficult for me to practice yoga if my living room was furnished.  My home may seem a bit empty and a bit eccentric for most people's tastes, but for me it is becoming much closer to what I need it to be: a sanctuary.  Shouldn't a home be just that?  All the magic happens in the here and now.  A home should naturally help us let go of all regrets of the past and apprehensions of the future.  A home should invite living in the present moment at ease in body and mind.

Calaveras Big Trees State Park

Went to Calaveras Big Trees State Park with the Sacramento Trail Mix meetup group today.  Checkout the event posting on the Trail Mix site.  The South Grove is particularly nice.  The North Grove is closer to the park entrance and is more touristy.

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Photos from my Picasa site.

Bikram vs. Tony

Today was my seventh day of a 30 day trial period at the local Elk Grove Bikram Yoga studio. At first, I was pretty put off by the steady cadence of shouted commands, comparatively speaking -- I've gotten used to Srivatsa Ramaswami's gentle, encouraging manner. Ramaswami's "Bandhas please" is forever engrained in my memory.

But I have to say, the heat and the more forceful style of the Bikram teachers has made a difference. I had hurt my neck, left shoulder and arm several weeks ago and although the pain gradually subsided, it felt as though a muscle in my upper arm was missing. I could barely lift my arm with downward-facing palms. Then, a few weeks ago, my right knee was giving me a sharp pain when I walked unless I kept it partly bent. It was getting progressively worse until last Sunday when I started at the Bikram studio. After the very first 90 minute session, my knee felt better and after a week of sweating and a hot, stinky room for 90 minutes each day, my left arm is slowly getting stronger without a reoccurrence of pain. Better yet, both knees are getting stronger in balancing postures with the knees locked and the pain has almost entirely subsided. Of course, it is much easier to stretch in a room that is that hot and finally I feel my hips are starting to open up more after a seeming impasse.

I have to thank my Yoga teacher training classmate, Wyatt, for his suggestion to give Bikram a try. It definitely has helped though Vinyasa Krama is more where my heart is. Thanks, Wyatt!  And special thanks to Ramaswami for his excellent teaching, incredible patience, and warm manner, even if the dance studio room at LMU was too cold for my old bones.



Every time I feel my ego start puffing up, I go to another classmate's blog to deflate and enjoy his wonderful progress. Check out Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama Yoga at Home for a joyfully humbling experience. Thank you Tony!

When Herons Leave the Lake

New post about the passing of Robert Aitken Roshi and other Zen masters this past year at Way of Chan.

From here on out, most of my Chan-related "stray thoughts" will be posted at http://WayOfChan.blogspot.com, leaving http://barryawadsworth.blogspot.com for stray thoughts of a more general nature.