This awesome land assists spiritual pratice. The feng shui (energy) of the retreat is itself a meditation. The meditative spirit is unbroken throughout the activities of the day. The peace and quiet of the environment reflects into your spirit, calling forth the inner quiet and peace. Nature leads you to the Natural Way.
***
Three OnenessesKabbalah, Zen and Yoga all have Oneness as their goal:
The chief kabbalistic mantra requests that our prayers and actions be "For the sake of the Union of the Holy One Blessed Be He and His Shechinah," that is, for the unity of this world with the higher worlds. This is the "redemption from exile," so much a part of Jewish liturgy.
Zen considers subject object dualism as the prime error of mind, and holds the loss of self, and the consequent unity of experience to be enlightenment.
The word "yoga" is related to the words "yoke" and "unity." Yogic practice seeks to render the physical (body and lifestyle) a vehicle fit to wed the cosmic.
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Kabbalah-
Towards the end of his life Moses tells the Children of Israel that the Torah (the Way, Tao...) is not far from them. Kabbalah is at once an occult study of a select group of orthodox rabbinic initiates and a force revealed in the workings of our daily lives. The spiritual principles it describes and defines are at work in the highest heavens and in the simplest things of this earth. The microcosm (man, psychology) reflects the macrocosm (the universe.) Just so the workings of our daily lives reflect reflect kabbalistic principles. Perhaps it is not possible for us to fly on esoteric winds, but we can at least feel the breeze on our face.
The light of Kabbalah provides insight into the complexities of our psychospiritual lives. Kabbalah is the means by which we, who are created in the Divine kabbalistic "image" may begin to know the Unknowable, to have a direct experience of G-d.
(Read more at Kabbalah Primer and Kabbalah Healing.)
Zen-
"Buddha exclaimed on achieving enlightenment, "How wonderful! All beings are already enlightened, just as they are!"
"If what is fundamental exists within you, how can you say that you have not obtained it?" Wen-i
"The Way is like the bright sun in the clear blue sky. Yet, people ask, "Where is it?"
The only thing possibly "wrong" is our belief that there is something "wrong," and even that is not "wrong." Change your attitude. Lose your self. Free of expectations, spontaneous creativity becomes possible. This is the Zen state of "no-mind." Unencumbered by preconceptions and prejudice response is natural and fitting. This is "no-action." Enlightenment is perceiving and reacting to experience without the bias of self; "Ordinary mind is enlightenment." It is our pre-existing attitude which obscures the way.
With two friends I visited the western seat of the Karmapa (Tibetan spiritual leader) at Mount Tremper Monastery in Woodstock, New York. I was immediately attracted to the beautiful temple building and its highly symbolic architecture, banners and reliquaries. Later, touring the grounds I wandered throught the dining hall where a worried woman was asking others if they knew the whereabouts of the next tour group which she was scheduled to lead. I suggested, "Why don't you have a cup of tea?" "Do I look like I need a cup of tea," she replied. "These things have a way of sorting themselves out if you have a cup of tea. I'll go look for the group." She did and I did and later back in the temple she, shepherding her group, came upon me showing one of my friends the space. Just before starting her talk on the mystical symbolism of the decor she asked me, "Do you have anything you would like to say? You probably know more than I do." Quite impressed with the impression a cup of tea can make, I nevertheless humbly declined. The answer lies outside of your constructs. "Enlightenment is the easy way." The next time you experience unpleasantness why don't you have a cup of tea?
(For more see Zen Quotes
and
The Poetry of Disease.)
Yoga-
There is a point in performing a yoga posture (asana) where balance is reached. Standing on one foot, there is no longer any shifting or tilting. Then you are not so much "doing" the asana as "being" the asana. There is no you. There is only the asana. It's like learning to ride a bicycle versus actually riding it; the learning, the trying to ride is much more difficult than the riding. The momentum balances and carries you along. Then the effort of doing the asana disappears and the energies flow through the subtle yogic channels (ida and pingala.) As the Zen masters assert, "enlightenment is the easy way."
Through the use of supports and assists (for example, walls, chairs and pillows) it is possible to simulate the balance that may presently elude you without them. As some who is able to self-adjust every segment of his spine, Dr Dave can show you how to release tensions in specific areas of your body and improve your yoga practice and well-being.
East Meets West?
Spiritual practice does not translate easily from east to west. The western mind only difficultly adapts to eastern ideas. The western inclination towards belief and theological speculation contrasts with the direct experience of the east.
Similarly, the western psyche (heart and mind) is not easily understood by eastern masters. Almost thirty years ago I heard the Dali Lama speak. I had just finished helping a friend pack his San Francisco apartment into a moving truck which we drove across the Bay Bridge to the Oakland Coliseum. In that huge room, filled to capacity, I listened drowsily, fatigued by my labor, to His Holiness speak through an interpreter. The last thing I remember was His Holiness repeating an old Buddhist adage (new to me at the time), "If there's a problem and there's something you can do about it, then there is no need to worry. And if there's a problem and there's nothing you can do about it, then there is also no need to worry." Right before falling asleep I thought, "This guy has been on the mountaintop too long. If there's a problem and there is something you can do, you don't worry, you do it. And if there's a problem and there's nothing you can do, that's sad, that's failure, but still you don't worry. You worry when there's a problem and you don't know what to do about it or if there's anything that can be done.
It seems difficult for masters, east or west, born into spirituality to appreciate the difficulties posed for us by our materialistic, godless western culture. Can the Dali Lama, treated like a god from the time he was a toddler, appreciate what it was like being raised in my family? How can we approach the damage done by the inadequacies of the nuclear family in a decayed secular culture?
There is a different yoga for the west. It is one that takes into account the negative experiences of the damaged western persona. It may be easy enough to meditate on compassion, if you're not already wrestling with the demons of psychological abuse and spiritual abandonment. Tantra affirms that our outer experience is identical with, is an expression of the spiritual essence of existence. So our traumas and our western obsession with self are spiritually essential. Their spiritual essence is revealed when we exchange the above-mentioned western proclivity for belief and speculation for the eastern reliance on direct experience. Respecting one's incarnation, having compassion on one's wounds and weaknesses is the necessary prerequisite for any transcendent experience. As the masters say, "Be here now." Consciousness, acceptance and creativity are the antidote for western fixing, conquering and conversion. Compassionate demon confrontation brings about a coming to terms, the remembering (putting the fragments together) that is necessary for forgiveness; you can't forgive what you don't remember. (More about this can be found in The Poetry of Disease
.) "Paradoxically, then, it is my own wounds and weaknesses and the relationship I have established with them that best qualifies me to guide those challenged by their own darknesses. As James Hillman wrote, 'You find that what you've been running away from turns out to be your authentic being.'"
Rebbe Dave
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