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Ritual as part of a spiritual practice: Tibetan Buddhism

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:58:58 +0000

Over the past year I’ve gained some experience at (Gelugpa Tibetan) Buddhist ritual. As a born agnostic from a protestant background rituals don’t sit very well with me. In fact, before hand I was planning to select the Buddhist lineage in part on the amount of ritual it involved.

Funnily enough I ended up with one of the lineages of Buddhism that has exported it’s rituals wholesale to the West, along with it’s texts and meditation practices. That is: prayers, prostrations, ritual offerings, etc. play a huge part in the practice of FPMT members and retreats. We should not make too much of this: members are free to ‘take home’ none or a lot of ritual trappings.

The upside is that studying texts is as much a part of their practice as ritual is, and meditation also plays a huge part. Since I am suited to studying and am trying to incorporate meditation into my life, I guess it’s 2 out of 3 for me.

My realistic side tells me I can’t expect the world to just supply me with a tradition that suits me precisely.

That said, I have started realizing that ritual really does have a part to play in spiritual practice, even my own.

From the perspective of the anthropology of religion ritual is an essential part of all religion. The Protestant Sunday Service is as much a ritual as the Catholic devotion to Mary. Personal meditation practices are rituals as much as saying “hail mary’s”. In fact, soccer matches and presidential elections also have ritualistic (even religious) aspects to them, if you look at them from a anthropological perspective.

What ritual does, in our individual spiritual practice, is integrate our ideals into our emotional lives. I find I like singing (Buddhist) prayers to go along with my morning meditation. It lifts me up. Don’t get me wrong: visualizing Buddha (my primary practice is based on that) is a joyful experience in itself, most of the time, but there is something peaceful about voicing one’s devotion in chant.

There, I said it: devotion. I’ve wanted to write about devotion for months now. I still don’t feel quite qualified to do so, but it’s one of those things that Western culture (especially Dutch culture) is most suspicious about. Yet devotion works.

Devotion works- that’s a very utilitarian way of looking at the sacred of course, but it does express my experience of devotion very well.
The thing is: devotion is taking an emotional risk. Devotion to a spouse means that they’re capable of hurting you, but the other side of the coin is that love is impossible without devotion.

In my daily meditation practice I visualize (and try to feel) devotion to the Buddha. Buddha is pretty safe: since he’s there through my visualization, he won’t be hurting me, he can’t run away like a man can, he’s merely there as an extension of my ideals – though of course I hope he’s also a reflection of the universal Buddha Nature as well as ‘my’ Buddha nature.

The thing is: as far as the experience goes it’s not really relevant whether he’s ‘really’ there. As Dumbledore says to Harry Potter in ‘The Deathly Hallows’: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”

But the question then becomes: how do we define real?

I think in our culture at this juncture we’re collectively trying to find rituals that fit your changed social and spiritual realities.

Someone mailed me this week with the question of how to dispose of a pack of tarot cards that that the dog had chewed on. I told her that in Tibetan Buddhism Dharma texts are disposed of by burning them and saying prayers over them. I advised her to translate that into burning the tarot cards and saying whatever prayer or chant she thought applicable.

Rituals don’t have to be an expression of an oppressive authoritarian religious structure, they can be taken on in our personal lives to express respect, devotion, moving on and whatever occasion we feel needs ritual to mark it.

On how to stay celibate

Katinka - Spirituality — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:11:38 +0000

As a life long celibate (by most definitions) I thought it might interest some of you to get a few tips Yes, this is largely a tongue in cheek post, as I’m sure most of you are NOT celibate. Celibacy has a respected history in both Buddhism and Roman Catholicism. Like most people today I have mixed feelings about the institution.

On the one hand I feel the best spiritual teachers are celibate: I have trouble taking Stephen Batchelor and his wife (both former monastics) seriously for instance. On the other: staying away from the issues of relationships, kids and all that does leave more room for ‘spiritual development’ (whatever that means).(#)

For me personally: I stayed celibate to avoid bad relationships, but it has left me lonely. [And no, that is not an invitation... So far men who try to pick me up online are not the kind I'd want to see in real life.]

I’ve heard of celibacy as the cure for sexual addiction too, for instance. It makes sense: nobody expects alcoholics to get cured without staying off alcohol completely either.

On the other hand: as a method for teens to avoid teen-pregnancy I’m not a fan. I think it’s better to educate them and give them condoms.

Without further ado, or those who choose to stay celibate, here are a few pointers:

Well, first of all it helps if you’re simply not attracted to anybody. This is obvious perhaps, but the main issue here isn’t your own attraction, but the mutual attraction that builds up… Nothing more attractive to woman than a man who is attracted to her. This goes both ways of course.

If you ARE attracted to someone it becomes tricky. Monastic robes will keep some women (and men) off, so it diminishes the problem. Still, as the example of the Batchelor’s shows, that won’t kill it off completely.

The first instinct of anybody who has been in this situation will be to ignore the person they’re attracted to. This will work in a bar or in the train station. It will not work if you have to face that person on a regular basis. They will notice that they’re being ignored, start to guess at the causes etc. Still, as a first precaution it is not a bad idea: the other person may simply decide it’s not worth the hassle and lose interest. This will in turn make it easier on you to forget about them.

How tricky ignoring is as a strategy is shown by the fact that one young man of my acquaintance bragged that he used it as a pick up tactic. I won’t go into details, but it worked.

On the other hand: going into a single-sex monastic institution works too of course. Avoiding temptation will keep you safe. However, most monastic institutions I’ve heard of these days do allow women in as students so even that’s no guarantee.

Back to normal life scenario’s: it’s much more effective to just treat that other person as though you really don’t care that much. Greet them casually, talk to them normally, but never let a hint of sexual attraction into your demeanor. Don’t look into their eyes longer than you would anybody else, but don’t avoid their eyes either. Don’t seek them out, but don’t avoid them either.

Again: It’s easier if you really don’t care.

One thing to absolutely avoid is intimacy of any kind. It is not for nothing that Buddhist monks are not allowed to be in a room alone with a woman. Emotional intimacy with the sex you’re attracted to is equally tricky – best avoid it altogether. Emotional intimacy leads to more if both of you are available and the attraction is mutual as well.

This isn’t to say you can’t be casually friendly. Just never cross that line.

It’s not for nothing that facebook is now THE way people become unfaithful to their partners. It starts with a quarrel of course. One of the partners chooses to not talk it through, but grumble to a (single) ex. That leads to emotional intimacy. They decide to meet over coffee and next thing you know, they’re in bed together.

Because the hard part is not being attracted to anybody there are all kinds of meditations in Buddhist texts designed to do just that. Such texts were written by monks for monks avoiding being attracted to women. In the famous Bodhicaryavatara(*) for instance it’s recommended viewing women as consisting of piss and pus and all things vile. Obviously the advice can be adapted to women by recommending they see men that way, gays will also know what to do with this I’m sure.

This is actually a recommended meditation topic! It’s a way of turning sexual energy into meditative energy, but personally I would not go that far. After all (and this is part of the trouble in today’s world) men and women have to work together and it doesn’t help if each side is imagining the other side as consisting of piss and pus etc.

In short – staying celibate is only going to be easy for those few of us who really aren’t attracted to anybody sexually. Yes, I’m told such people exist. For the rest of us: I guess just dealing with that energy as honestly as we can, without hurting anybody, is the best we can do. Celibate or not. Also – but this is off topic – I’m told that an emotionally healthy relationship will help people avoid straying…

#) As I’ve now come to experience Buddhism first hand, I can’t help have a renewed respect for Stephen Batchelor: he deals with the challenges of Buddhism in modernity in a way that’s both honest and well founded.

*) ‘A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life‘ (Bodhicaryavatara) by Santideva. Translated from the Sanskrit and Tibetan by Vesna A. Wallace and B. Alan Wallace, Snow Lion Publications, Ithica, New York USA. This is otherwise a very inspiring text on the Bodhisattva Path. For the scholarly among you: the notes in this edition are great.

[edit Jan. 8th 2012] Since writing the above I was sent “A Couple’s Guide to Sexual Addiction: A Step-by-Step Plan to Rebuild Trust and Restore Intimacy“ for review. Which really is a great book that will help couples deal with sexual addiction. My Review.[/edit]

What we say, do, think and feel – why action matters

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:03:19 +0000

“Good intentions aren’t enough. It’s not what we want, say, or think that makes things happen; it’s what we do.” Michael Josephson

I remember a friend who promised to visit me time and again – yet never made it to my door. There was always some reason not to make it. This was before mobile phones were everywhere, so the excuse ‘I can’t find it’ made some sense. Still, if she’d wanted to come, we could have figured something out. Needless to say: that wasn’t a friendship that lasted.

I’ve been fooled by good intentions more than once. I don’t mean my own good intentions, I mean other people’s. Whether it’s unkept promises or a friend that’s simply never on time. Whether it’s a sensitive person who never manages to visit that sick person, or never pays for a group birthday present. An organisation that shall remain nameless that has great ideals it doesn’t live up to also comes to mind.

We fall for charm, every time. Yes, me too. Research shows that the people who we think are great on a first date or interview are likely to be more selfish than the ones we thought were boring. The boring ones will generally have far more going for them long term.

Isn’t that sad? Makes you look at ‘Pride and Prejudice’ or ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’ with new eyes.

Unfortunately our culture stresses the superficial way more than it used to. The follow through remains invisible: the donation for charity, the real helping hand. What’s visible is our tweets, our facebook shares, our words for the right cause.

Hat tip to @freeyourspirit for the quote.

Paradoxes of Giving

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:28:47 +0000

I’ve pondered for a while the psychological paradox that democrats give less to charity than republicans, that those who eat environmentally friendly food are similarly ungenerous, on average.

I’ve not written about this issue before, because it’s so easy to be judgmental about it … Those goody two shoes people aren’t so good after all…

However the basic issue here is something else: it seems each of us has a baseline: this is how much we will give. Some give more, some less, but changing a habit in this regard will only detract from giving in some other way.

One of my friends is very environmentally conscious, despite being a poor college student. I felt very uncomfortable telling him I had just bought the iPad on which I’m typing this. I felt I had good reason, but nothing undid the fact that I’d just bought another electric appliance that uses rare natural resources.

I’m not suggesting that he should not have judged me, or that I should have refrained from buying this thing. It’s about the process of judging itself…

It’s the judging and labeling that turns a simple purchase into an ethical dilemma, which of course it is. However, it’s also judging that limits our generosity because we’ve done good in other area’s of our lives.

So how do we get out of this paradox?

The answer may be loving kindness meditation practice: it may be able to help us stop the labeling, of ourselves and others. And if the labels are gone, or less strong, we may be able to give ‘more’, or if we don’t, at least stop beating ourselves and others up about it.

[all this as a response to 'Beyond Happiness: The Zen Way to True Contentment' a book I'm reviewing]

Detox week experiment, the evaluation

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:21:06 +0000

I’ve been absent here, due to a variety of reasons. One was simply an unusual busy week. My youngest brother had a performance, I had a theosophical study group to lead, there was a meeting with my grandmother’s care givers to go to and an outing with her and the whole section of Alzheimer patients…

Another reason was that I simply did not know how to report on this week long experiment of mine. I guess some of you were taken aback by the experiment. Loyal reader Frank Dyer thought it was just too much. Even Annie Besant (an English woman) drank tea after all! Sure she did.

But not everything I do should be seen in a classical theosophical context. True: by theosophical standards this week long detox was off. Instead I should have become a vegan for a week, and kept with the tea. In fact, why not light a cigarette? Blavatsky smoked after all, and de Purucker thought that chased away bad spirits just like incense did.

I think however, that trying out a different lifestyle for a week is very healthy. It fits in the exercises on mindfulness I put up last year rather well. Food is one of the hardest and easiest habits to break. It’s hardest, because eating is hardwired into us the way no addiction is. It’s no wonder that sugar is considered by some a hard drug. Ever seen an overweight person put sugar in their tea: that’s why. Compassion is in order.

However, it’s way easier than to try and put on a different shoe first. Why? Because I don’t know about you, but I really have no idea which shoe I put on my feet first. And once you start paying attention, how can you tell whether you’re still in your conditioning? The very observing of it changes the whole process of putting on shoes.

Food is, for those of us who buy our food ourselves (aka single people, and half the married ones), something we have to do consciously. So when you decide to eat more fruit, not to eat a frozen pizza, etc. It’s simply a matter of buying those foods in the shop that fit the routine. Anyhow – for evaluation sake – let’s put up the list of what I promised myself I’d do:

No English tea for a week (probably longer). I’ll be going back to my old preference: herbal teas. I don’t drink coffee, so I don’t have to cut back on that.
No chocolate for a week. I’m a bit of a chocoholic in recovery: but recently I’d been slipping into eating two candy bars a week. Well, not this week. Same thing here: I might manage to stick to this one longer, though honestly I don’t think there’s anything wrong with one bar of chocolate a week. However, no excuses: not this week.
A focus on fruits and vegetables. Fresh fruit juices (from the supermarket) in my fridge, fruit salads, other salads – all ready made from the supermarket. It’s a lot of work to make fruit juices yourself, and on a single person’s budget – the salads I can buy are just way better than what I could gather together.
Nuts and dried fruit in the salads. This is not really a change: I’ve been adding nuts to my salads for years. I’ve also been eating nuts as an after dinner snack. You know: the unsalted kind. Nice and healthy: the right kinds of oils, a variety of protein and of course fiber.
My breakfasts and lunches are going to be what they were: whole-wheat bread with toppings. The only change: fruit on the side.
Every detox program includes another don’t: no alcohol or mind altering drugs. However, I haven’t done the second ever, and it’s been decades since I last had any alcoholic beverage.
Vegetarian food. I’m already a vegetarian. If I wanted to go all out, I’d become a vegan for a week. However, I’m not convinced that will do me any good, so I’m sticking to my cheese and occasional egg.

1) No English tea, only herbal tea. This was a success. I probably had a detox-headache for a few hours, but after that it was great. In fact, I’m going to avoid English tea as much as possible again. English tea has, on me, the effect of making it easier to ignore the signals my body gives on where I’m at. And as a person living of her creativity, I just can’t have that.

2) No chocolate for a week. I lasted in fact for 10 days. It was easier than I would have thought. Once I’d made up my mind not to eat chocolate, not buying it was a walk in the park. However, this one is now on the backburner. I’m back on one bar of chocolate a week and think that’s just fine. I don’t have to be ascetic about it.

3) Fruits and vegetables all round. I’ve always had trouble reminding myself to eat fruit twice a day. Somehow my body doesn’t seem to crave it, or call for it. In fact, forcing it on my body had me feeling great, but also often hungry in the morning. As though my body had an easier time digesting the foods I put in it. On the other hand, I think it probably missed some of the oils and fats I normally eat. I’m not going to continue this as vigorously as I have that week. However, grapefruits are now a staple in my home.

4-7) Those are merely mentions of what I already did, that I’m obviously going to continue.

The other points on my regimen were: more spirituality, and a daily walk.

Well, I simply did not succeed on the more spirituality part. It turns out that I’m in a mental groove of sorts about the topics I put online – and therefore in my head- and I was not able to pull the switch on half of those. However that may be, it was a good attempt and I have put prioritizing what I put online on my long term list. Since I’m now able to keep afloat on my online income (yeah!), there’s no reason to ADD topics/niches to what I already put up online. Keeping up with the ones I have is enough work.

I did do the daily walk. I found that there is usually a lull in my creativity around 11, which is a good moment to take the air. You guessed it: I’m going to try to keep that one in. Sitting in front of a monitor all day just is not healthy, and when I go to India, I ought to have some physical stamina.

As for the main question, ‘Did it work?’ – well, it certainly helped me re-prioritize. There’s something about change of this sort that helps clear the fog in the brain. However, the main reason I’m less stressed than two weeks ago is that the web design gig I’ve been working on for months now is finally coming to a close. Also, not having to worry about money as much, because my online income is doing so well, is also a help in de-stressing.

Day two of my detox / cleanse week

Katinka - Spirituality — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 13:30:13 +0000

Well, things started out well. I woke up on Thursday morning with a very happy, relaxed feeling. Nice preview, but of course the detox hadn’t really started. Friday morning too: I woke up relaxed and happy. I’d gone to bed early – a by effect of the lack of tea perhaps? And the result was that I felt very much rested.

However, as I write this, it’s 19.30 / 7.30 Friday night and I’ve had a headache for several hours now. I guess I am having withdrawal symptoms. Tea contains caffeine, so drinking it is as problematic as drinking coffee, though the dosage is less.

Detox cleanse: about addiction and superstition

Katinka - Spirituality — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:40:52 +0000

A reader asked:

I’m a freelance web developer, meaning I get minimal sleep and live a very stressful lifestyle.
I work on average 14hours per day, drink tons of coffee and red wine to keep me sane.
I just finished a project and thought I might go a 1 week detox to get myself back on track.
What do you think, are these on/off detox cycles good or bad?

I answered on that post that I don’t think this on/off detox cycle is a good thing, however I do think that the respite from alcohol will do his body good.

There is something to alcohol in our culture that not many people are aware of. Did you know that the alcohol consumption has increased about 200% in the West over the past century? This has partly to do with increased wealth of course. The hardest hit are not the factory workers, but upper class, highly educated people.

My reader fits the profile precisely: with a high stress job he feels alcohol helps him survive mentally and emotionally. Addicts always justify their addiction – I don’t know if my reader is an alcoholic (the definition includes the question: does it disrupt your life?) – but then my chocolate addiction never made it to chocoholics anonymous either. Even if it’s not technically an addiction, it’s still unhealthy to use alcohol as a relaxant daily.

I really have trouble with the rationalization though: it’s well known that alcohol is a dis-inhibitor, it helps people relax. It is not known to help people think more clearly though, which the job of web developer DOES require.

My reader’s story reminds me of my dad, except that my dad has my mom to remind him to stop working after 9 (or something) at night. And he does, because he knows that the mind needs a break in order to function well. As a computer scientist creative solutions to math-like problems are what make his articles publishable. And it’s on down time that those creative solutions come up. When the conscious brain is doing something else there’s room for what the unconscious has been putting together.

Back to addiction. I started on chocolate in my late teens as a help in dealing with the issues I had to deal with. The usual teenage angst. I felt entitled to it as a solution.
And, being a teenager, I felt that whatever it was my body needed, I ought to give it. This lead me straight down the path of addiction, till I ate a bar of chocolate daily.

I learned the hard way that the body can be trained to want the wrong things.

What does all this have to do with superstition? Well, research shows that superstition works.

In other words, the lucky charms appeared to be giving people the confidence to aim higher and keep trying. The belief, however tenuous, that there may be something to a particular superstition could help release nervous tension.

This may be because superstitions allow us the illusion of control in what is a scary, random world. Perhaps that’s why superstitious behaviours to bring good luck are so common: they can sometimes work.

I fear that this often combines with addiction: when alcohol has been used as a talisman for success in the past, it’s harder to quit when it starts disrupting our lives. I can empathize with the stress of a freelancer: I am a freelancer too. You never know when your next job is coming, where from or even whether you’re going to get a next job at all. This stress likely makes dependence on superstition more likely, even more necessary. However, there are more harmless superstitions to choose from than alcohol as a booster of performance. Wearing a ring or pendant with your birthstone for instance.

Conflict resolution and controversy

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:41:34 +0000

I remember my grandfather (J.M.S. Baljon) as the keeper of his study, as a gardener who taught me the basics of that craft – and as an ambitious chess and bridge player. When I went to study religion studies at Leiden University, I knew I’d be meeting some of his old students and colleagues. He had been a professor of Islamic theology there, and I made sure I did not mention him to my teachers. I did not want his shadow on my own relationship with the teachers.

However, one day I mentioned it to one of my favourite professors. He told me that my grandfather had been a controversial person in the faculty, because he always had an outspoken opinion, but that he had also been universally respected because he could deal with conflict so well. That is: he spoke his mind, but respected whatever decision was made.

I like that. I admire that. And, being outspoken myself, I hope to emulate that.

In fact there are few things that tick me off more than issues being ignored. When Henk Spierenburg was still alive, he gave me lots of books. Through the grapevine I know there was a lot of gossip about this. Nobody talked to me about it to confirm or deny the accusations. Instead… there was just gossip. Had they confronted me with it, I might have told them that I was not interested (not like THAT anyhow) in a man older than my father. I could have told them that we never met outside the lecture room – we communicated solely by email. I could have told them that there was never a more disinterested spiritual teacher. He didn’t tell me what to think. He didn’t tell me what to do. He just gave me books. Lots of books.

The fact is, partly, that I’m just too insecure to want to have to guess at what people think of the weird things I come up with. I know it’s a strange combination: insecurity and living the independent life I lead. But it’s a fact, and I am really grateful to people who come out and say to me: I did not like you doing that. Or just: I totally disagree with you on that. In fact – some theosophists telling me just that today – had me smiling my biggest smile this week. The smile is there not because I enjoy being at odds with people, but because it breaks a pattern: they’re saying it out loud, to my face, instead of behind my back, through the grapevine.

So – I’ll ask you all a question I discussed with friends in high school: would you rather have criticism behind your back, or straight to your face? And my answer is: when it comes to essentials, please tell it to my face, which is probably (but I don’t remember) just what I said in high school.

Do gemstones correlating to the zodiac offer protection?

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:17:09 +0000

I just started a website devoted to astrological jewelry. Though obviously related to my spiritual interests, this is a commercial project: everything that someone buys on that site earns me a percentage. (my disclaimer)

One of the things I present there are amulets made of semi-precious gemstones. This reminded me of something I used to do in my early twenties. When a girlfriend of mine had a birthday, I would go to the market, to the alternative booth, and close my eyes to pick out a stone for her. It was both a test of my sensitivity and of the lists they keep at such places that correlate birthdays with semi precious gems.

The weird thing was: each stone I picked out ended up being on the list precisely where it ought: corresponding to my friend’s star-sign. I tried this three or four times and each time it worked.

So I do believe there is something to those lists. I don’t think they just piled all the affordable stones and randomly selected which would go with which star-sign. If they had, I would not have been able to replicate their results. And no, I did not look at the lists before hand. In fact, I knew nothing at all about such things at the time. I’m still hardly an expert, because spiritual protection is not really that big a deal for me.

That in itself is probably weird. After all, I was responsible for a morning filling lecture on the subject for the Dutch Theosophical Society this summer, and held a workshop about it that same afternoon. Not spiritual protection through stones btw, but through color.

I have mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand I do believe such things make a difference. I wear a yellow stone on my ring. The color was chosen based on the method described in the article linked above, but citrine is also a stone that corresponds to Gemini, my sun-sign. So yes, I do use this knowledge. On the other hand, I don’t believe they protect against anything major like say health, success, happiness or anything like that. In fact, I believe reliance on such things can be counter productive. I’m skeptical that way.

On the other hand, I’ve felt the difference too strongly myself to deny there’s something there. It’s just less important that working (to get ahead), eating right (to stay healthy), listening to your emotions and your body, and having friends (to be happy). For instance, I read a story recently of someone who has nickel allergy. She’d walked around for weeks with a body piercing that was red and itchy. For weeks. Knowing that allergies get worse with continued contact, she should have gotten rid of that ring the moment she noticed the itch. But since she didn’t, she can now hardly touch nickel containing coins.

No amount of ‘spiritual protection’ can protect against those things that we do without thought, without having a sense about what works for us.

This may seem like a tangent, but I do think sensitivity to precious stones is something most people have. It’s just not something we’ve learned to listen to. I mean, if you’ve not learned to listen enough to your body to get rid of a body piercing that itches, you’re going to have trouble listening enough to yourself to notice the difference between wearing two different color rings, or a new amulet.

What I do believe is this: finding out what works for you, what resonates with your own ‘system’, helps a person stay balanced. It helps us stay close to our ‘center’ and not get too caught up in what other people throw at us. That is: it helps us stay connected with ourselves. That’s the main reason I wear that ring with a yellow stone, and that’s also the reason I would advise anybody to buy one of those amulets corresponding to their star sign.

Is spirituality a lifestyle or a quest?

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:45:15 +0000

I have been pondering recently the difference between spirituality as a life style and spirituality as a quest. Consider the following Blavatsky quote (the modernized English is mine) from The Voice of the Silence, The Seven Portals:

Before you stand on the threshold of the path; before you cross the foremost Gate, you have to merge the two in the One and sacrifice the personal to SELF impersonal, and thus destroy the ‘path’ between the two – antaskarana.

You have to be prepared to answer Dharma, the stern law, whose voice will ask you at your first, your initial step:

“Have you complied with all the rules, you with your lofty hopes?”

“Have you attuned your heart and mind to the great mind and heart of mankind? For as the sacred River’s roaring voice whereby all Nature-sounds are echoed back, so must the heart of him ‘who in the stream would enter,’ thrill in response to every sigh and thought of all that lives and breathes.”

Compare such stern words with those who treat astrology or tarot as fun amusements – not to get to know themselves better, to become better people, to find their way in life.

On the other hand when such sentiments as the above are repeated too often, as they are in theosophical circles, what happens is the opposite. So much energy goes into talking about self sacrifice, in denying self, that sometimes something of normal liveliness is lost. Something dries out, because there is no step that can be ignored on the path.

And one of those steps is precisely the second half of this quote: a felt connection with humanity as a whole. That doesn’t start with knowing how badly many people in Africa need food, medicine and education. The real connection with humanity starts at home: the natural relationships we are in. Family, friends, colleagues… Ignoring your own and their humanness is the first step towards a kind cruelty. I say ‘kind cruelty’ because sometimes the smile is there, the words are right, but the essence has somehow fled.

As I’m pondering this, not at all sure I live up to the ideals I sketch here, I come back to the basic insight that is the conclusion of many of my ponderings: While on the path extremes are often found, they have to go, because in the end there’s a balance between the impersonal and the personal. There’s a balance to be found between feeling the needs of humanity as a whole and being there facing your own and others’ real needs in day to day life.

All Considering » Life style

Ritual as part of a spiritual practice: Tibetan Buddhism

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