Mario’s Question from Another Angle

Thibet Buddha with Kuba-tatoos
Originally uploaded by olivier gilet

When the Dalai Lama came to Emory last October he met with researchers and held a conference on depression. Scientists here at Emory have been working with people whose depression has been unresponsive to all other conventional treatments: antidepressant medication, psychotherapy, and electroconvulsive therapy.
What they’ve shown is that intractable depression is immediately relieved when an electrode is used for deep brain stimulation of a very specific region of the brain.

The patients’ responses, so very striking, have made it into the research literature:

All patients spontaneously reported acute effects including “sudden calmness or lightness,” “disappearance of the void,” a sense of heightened awareness, increased interest, “connectedness,” and sudden brightening of the room, sharpening of visual details and intensification of colors in response to electrical stimulation.

These changes occured so quickly, literally at the flicking of a switch, that scientists believe that the response by-passed both chemical (neurotransmitters, stress and the hormonal HPA axis) and cognitive (such as the voice internalized critical parent) patterns.
This was an electrically mediated event that suddenly made the brain function in a different manner.
A different neural circuit had been turned on and that changed everything.

All this brings to mind Eckart Tolle’s description of the morning he awoke:

I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that…

I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window… I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains…I knew that there was infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself… I recognized the room, and yet I knew I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence.

Let this be then, introduction to yet another way of answering Mario’s second question which I have paraphrased as:
Why does negativity keep arising in us?

It seems to me that spiritual seekers are somewhat analogous to depressed patients.

What the scientists found was that after the deep brain stimulation lifted the crushing darkness, patients still had to work their way back to lasting health via the usual and slower modalities of medication and talk therapy.
As dramatic a shift the deep brain stimulation provided, lasting change required the depression be “worked through” on the chemical and cognitive levels also.

There in lies the parallel.
That flicking of the electrical switch is like the “freebie” of awakening.
For even after awakening there is more work to be done:

Realizing who you are is a piece of cake compared to living it.
It is a freebie.
You don’t have to do anything for it. You don’t have to change…
All you have to do is stop trying… for just one second.

Realization is a freebie, even if you are holding on to regret, blame, and judgment.
But you’re going to have a hard time living that realization because the nature of truth itself is something without a past, without fixed points of view, and therefore, without blame…

When you awaken, those remaining personality traits, ego traits, and hidden places within you come to the surface one by one in the clear light of awakeness.
As each arises it offers you an opportunity to see through it.
But you cannot see through anything that you do not allow to arise.
Each time you allow this arising, you feel a deepening in the sense of spaciousness, presence, and openness.
You have the sense of a causeless love, a causeless happiness.
Adyashanti

Or, as Maharishi (and others) would remind us:
The world is as we are.

And how are we?
Even the Awakened are like little ponds of muddy water. The mud makes it impossible for the water to reflect the true brilliance of the sun. Our job is to quietly filter out all the muck and debris.

Maharishi called the muck “Stress” – abnormalities in the nervous system caused by either an overwhelming positive or negative experience. Regular meditation would un-stress the stress creating a normally function nervous system.
Then, you would see your true self and infinite nature, but ego would remain.
More meditation and normal functioning of a stress-free the body would lead to further refinement, a fuller awareness of God and one’s ultimate Unity with creation.

Tolle seems to suggest that the muck can be understood as the pain-body.
He explains that until Presence is fully maintained, we will from time to time slip back into “unconsciousness” and experience the pain-body once again as the ego thrashes about trying to maintain the illusion of its individuality.
Presence as it fully ripens will transmute the energy trapped within the pain-body into Consciousness.

And Adyashanti, in yet another terminology, speaks of what the Buddhists have traditionally called “conditionings” – all those negative (and positive) ego traits that persist like “grooves in a record” even after an awakening.

So Mario, Negativity continues to arise from within us – not because we harbor some inherent evil – but because the body has not yet finished the internal alchemy that purifies every single cell within our body after awakening.
Awakening can be thought of as that electrical switch, the deep brain stimulation that establishes a newly functional neuro-circuitry.

In an instant, the depression lifts.
“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” (as the Bible says* and Handel composed in Messiah) - We see the Light.
And then, we are left with the rest of the process.
We have to rebalance chemicals and hormones, and even subtler energies, flushing out all the acupuncture meridians.

Or, at least, that is how I picture it.

*1Corinthians 15: 51-54

Tibetan Culture

Tibetan culture
Originally uploaded by Nathanael.Archer

This is a photo posted today from France, by one of my Flickr contacts, Nathanael Archer.

Nathaneal and I share an interest in calligraphy... and now, I find, Tibet and the Dalai Lama.

I wanted to draw your attention to his suggestion that we educate ourselves about the Tibetan culture. What a good suggestion and positive action.

Sadly too, his image and suggestion brought to mind the situation in Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451. Faced with a society that banned and burned all books, people saved them by committing them to memory...

Taking them to heart.
Seems we are being called to many lessons: non-violence, diversity, and love.

Thank you, Nathanael.

Non-violence and the Small Voice of Truth

Hole II. Rameswaram
Originally uploaded by entrelec

That still small voice said, “Don’t do it. It’s not for you.”
Did you listen?
You didn’t know that was the wisdom of the universe, did you?
You didn’t know that was the enlightened Buddha nature (prajna) giving you a gift of grace, right?

The beauty of truth is that truth never insists.

The truth that comes to you from the inside is known, but does not insist.
This is why it can be thrown away so easily and effortlessly.
You don’t have to listen to it.
Adyashanti

You don’t have to listen, because Love is patient and this Truth speaks of the eternal.

Yesterday, I asked how it could possibly be that the non-violence of the Dalai Lama could ever win out over the guns and tanks of Chinese brutality.
Here-in lies the answer: The Dalai Lama is following the small voice of the truth that never insists, the wisdom of the Universe.
Because of this, Truth is irresistible in its non-resistance.

This Truth expresses itself through all the laws of Nature.
And Nature dwarfs anything that man can come up with.
Nuclear Winter? The Universe says, “Alright.”
Let’s have 10,000 years without sunshine and then gradually a new balance will arise. Yang will come from Yin… invariably, in time.

The Universe doesn’t insist that we master our lessons at any particular pace, in any particular manner.
Seems to me it just nudges us along, setting up the consequence, which is actually the counter-balance to whatever choice we make.

Adya puts a sign on the door of his retreats: “Resistance is Futile.”
It prompts an explanation once again, so perhaps this time we’ll get it.
“That which we resist persists.”
We draw to us that which we push away.

I was in a taxi once, on the back roads of India, when the driver suddenly pulled over and announced he was stopping for a rest.
There was a tree, a shack, and a yard of grassless dirt - hardly an oasis – but then, this country that was showing me bone crushing poverty. This land had had the life sucked from its soil to an extent I had never seen.

I didn’t want to stop.
The shack was dark, the whole place, suspect.
I didn’t want beggars coming up to me, as they inevitably would, the moment I got out of the car.
I wasn’t leaving my protection, the means of my escape.
I folded my arms and grimaced silently to Becky, “Don’t leave me here alone.”

She jumped out with the driver eager to have a look-see.
They enjoyed a cold soda, a little chit-chat, and good leg stretch before
returning to the car,
which to my utter horror had become engulfed - windows, hood, windshield – by small children pressing against every inch of glass.
Hugh brown eyes and soft red lips were eagerly chanting a surreal lesson, “Pen? Pen? Pen?”

Sometimes, the Universe isn’t the least bit subtle in its delivery.

After what seemed an eternity, Becky climbed back in and started laughing.
The driver took us to our destination… an ashram where we hoped to find the Avatar.
And I now think the car ride was every bit as enlightening as our planned itinerary.

“Accept everything, as if you had requested it,” is how Eckhart Tolle puts it.

Adya has redressed any misconceptions, “Accepting does mean condone.”
And neither does Non-violence…
Accepting means you do not resist that which the Universe presents to you.
This is what you get. Now embrace it.

It’s a subtle, high stakes teaching.
I think it takes a Buddha or a Dalai Lama to really live it well.

I think this is our invitation from the Universe.

The Dalai Lama and Peace

Dalai Lama in Chile
Originally uploaded by Gabriel Ortega Berger

I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness… His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama has his own web pages here at Emory University.
A few years ago he spoke at graduation.
Last October, he came for several days to accept a professorship.
The Drepung Loseling Monastery’s North American seat is an affiliate of Emory University and here in Atlanta.

So, I was not surprised when I received this email yesterday:

At 5 pm today through Friday on the Quad, Tibetan monks will be holding prayer vigils for peace and for their fellow monks in Tibet during this turbulent time.

This past week Tibetan monks and citizens protested the continuing oppressive rule China holds over Tibetan religious rights. The demonstrations quickly escalated as Chinese military police quelled the protesters. Violence ensued. Some reports claim 80 Tibetans died in the turmoil.

Each vigil will last about 20 minutes. All are invited to attend, observe, and respectfully offer support. Thank you!

No, I was not surprised. I turned and looked out my window at the steady rain, the cold gray day, and was sad.
I pictured the monks in their bright ochre robes, standing with bowed heads, and a wet dispirited turn-out of a few students.
I forwarded the email to a friend with the comment that it made me sad.

Morning Edition, March 18, 2008:
The Dalai Lama made a startling threat Tuesday, saying he would step down as the leader of a Tibetan government in exile if protesters in Tibet continued their violent protests.
Later, one of his top aides clarified the Dalai Lama's comments…
Tenzin Taklha said, "He would resign as the political leader and head of state, but not as the Dalai Lama. He will always be the Dalai Lama."

I had heard this sound bite as I did my morning asanas.
The Dalai Lama would step down? How could that be?
And then those words, almost sounding childlike in the trust they held, “He will always be the Dalai Lama.”

Of course! The Dalai Lama is too sweet to be other than who and what he is… at least to me.
Then this morning, as once again I did my asanas, came the next sound bite:


Morning Edition, March 20, 2008:
Chinese officials are ignoring calls for a dialog with protesters in Tibet.
Instead, they have labeled the Dalai Lama a "wolf in monk's clothes" and a "monster with a human face and an animal's heart."

Monster, wolf, animal?

How long does it takes for non-violence to win out?
How can it ever be?
It seems almost a logical impossibility.
And yet, sometimes it does.

My friend emailed me back today.
She had heard from a friend she trusted.
He added this bit of news and a suggestion:

Dear Friends,
On a personal note, my daughter Julie is married to a Tibetan refugee and is now living in Dharmsala, India, residence of the Dalai Lama.
In a call two days ago, she told me that they are getting what seems to be reliable information through family networks about Chinese atrocities that are far worse than what is being reported in the media.
I encourage you to sign this petition and share it with others.
Thanks.

There was this logic offered:
China does care about its international reputation.
Its economy is totally dependent on "Made in China" exports …
it is keen to make the Olympics in Beijing this summer a celebration of a new China…

So, I signed.
And I am sharing the petition.
They hope to raise a million voices in unison for peace.