“Election Retreat” hosted by Berkeley Zen Center students in Reno/Carson City for campaign
September 21, 2008
It looks like the Zen practitioners (from the Berkeley Zen Center’s “socially engaged dharma group”) who will be in this area to canvass for Obama, from October 21st to November 4, will be staying at a private Carson City residence where there’s a meditation hall! And, they are hosting an “election retreat” that incorporates meditation, mindfulness, and loving-kindness in their campaign activities:
http://www.nevadadharma.net/renospks.html#election
Sadly, I won’t be in Reno throughout most of that time period. (Back in Point Arena, the last week plus in October.) But, this is so interesting to see happening in our area, reportedly one of only several counties and regions that will “decide” who becomes President (according to recent punditry).
Overflow crowd at UNR hears out Lama Sumati Marut
September 9, 2008
I attended last night an enjoyable, and easy to follow, talk on Guru Yoga: The Most Secret Practice of the Bhagavad Gita. The talk was given not by a Hindu or Vedantist (despite the key spiritual reference used for the talk) but an ordained Tibetan Buddhist Lama named Sumati Marut. See: http://lamamarut.org
I think the Lama was expressively very effective in addressing something very controversial (“Guru Yoga”) and also very unfamiliar and alien to most of us. His humorous and animated delivery kept the overflow crowd, gathered in rm 324 at the Joe Crowley Student Union Center, not only very focused but amused throughout the whole of his presentation.
“Maybe what drew you here was the ‘most secret practice’ part in the talk title!”
It was my impression that most of the over 75 attending (some in chairs out in the hallway) were likely part of the local Buddhist and Yoga scene. Speaking of which, here’s a resource a friend (also there) gave me: http://www.nevadadharma.net
The Lama (a white American, btw) observed that with all the bad experiences people had with Gurus in the 1970s and 1980s that people might think that his advice for a spiritual practice (he said the most “esoteric” of them all), “to find and serve a Guru”, might entail (among other things) having to buy the Guru a new Rolls-Royce.
He also noted that a long time ago there were no “isms”, only teachers and their lineages. For those of us today, he urged everyone to “rediscover the sacred in your daily life” and even go so far as to “insinuate yourself as much as possible in the daily life of the Guru”.
Given most everyone’s negative perspective nowadays related to the notion of Gurus, he promised to “help you find a Guru in a painless way” (and, he added, who won’t want a Rolls-Royce from you). First, we need to understand who or what the Guru really is. (At the end of the talk, he of course identified—correctly, lol—that the Guru was one’s own innermost essence. “The Guru is YOU!”) Guru Yoga, he said, involves the understanding that the Divine is fully present (and immanent) in life and is not divorced or apart from life. The Guru then is, he insisted, a special being (“from Angel HQ”) who is aligned with the ordinary human form (which we can all easily relate to).
The Lama suggested that everyone begin their hunt, and adoption of, a Guru with the folks closest to them: Mom, Dad, husband, wife, etc. Adopt and serve them as Guru. But, with the understanding that our feelings that arise in relation to Mom/Guru (or whoever is chosen) are merely our projections upon them and they are not ultimately the cause of the feeling. Now, he laughed, your Mom/Guru might not seem special to him, but certainly She should be to you, the disciple.
What we will have a tendency to do in this relationship is to project our images, feelings, ideas, etc onto the Guru, who is in fact (if truely awakened and realized) empty and a blank screen. Therefore, part of Guru Yoga involves the Guru serving as a mirror for the student.
The Lama went through various verses (we all had a nice printout of them) from the Bhagavad Gita to describe in more detail the nature of Guru Yoga. 7.16 9.14 9.27 12.6 12.7 6.29 6.30 6.31 6.32 18.61 18.62 18.63 18.64 18.65 18.66 18.67 18.68 18.69
Essentially, the Guru is not a “someone” outside of us. In fact, the Lama pointed to one of the verses, wherer it’s reported that “one who is fully perfected in yoga sees oneself in all beings and all beings in oneself, [that such a one) sees everything as coming from the same source”. A Buddha, he said, sees all as Divine and inherently perfect.
Still, Guru Yoga is a “hard practice”, which is why (according to the Lama) it’s the most esoteric of all practices. He quoted the late (and controversial Tibetan Rinpoche) Chogyam Trungpa: “the guru serves to insult the ego”. Central to Buddhist teaching, along with the notion of an endless chain of cause and effect (interdependent arising or dependent origination are some Buddhist terms associated with that), is the proposition that the “ego” or sense of a seperate and permanent self located in our heads is an illusion. The Lama described this “mini-me” as like Captain Kirk sitting in his command chair, in control of everything. So, it seems that the intent of Guru Yoga involves serving to help awaken others from this illusion, a key factor it would seem in keeping us distressed. And, it seems that the process of Guru Yoga requires a union with a seemingly ordinary human (who is in fact “special”, he asserted–direct from Angel HQ!) who can help untie the knots of suffering.
Many Yoga centers here in Reno, Nevada
July 2, 2008
During the nearly three years that I have lived in Reno, I have encountered many yoga centers in my wanderings and more through internet searches. Some of these schools have created interesting forms of practice that are elaborations on the basic or “Classical” system of yoga that was described around 2000 years ago in a work called The Yoga Sutra by Patanjali (a man about whom not much, if anything, is known). Over time, my plan is to visit some of these local centers and describe what happens at them.
Rajan Zed, a Hindu chaplain from Reno, describes the “East” Indian scene here:
