The Yoga of Compassion

Yesterday, one of my students was chatting with me on Facebook and asked me whether I thought it was necessary for him to begin practicing hatha yoga or kali natha yoga (the yoga style developed by and based on the teachings of Ven. Tenzin Yangchen (Ma), one of the teachers who had the most profound impact on my life.

In response, I told them that for the student of the Dharma, these forms of physical yoga are fine, as means of training and conditioning one’s self to better hold the energy of the practice itself. But I do not believe they are necessary, or even the most effective means of spiritual attainment.

Physical yoga is a very difficult means of raising kundalini energy.

My root guru always taught, as did the Buddha and the Christ, that the more perfect way of raising spiritual awareness and attaining liberation is by serving others: feeding the poor, caring for the sick, providing for those who are in need or hurting. This raises kundalini in a way that no asana can accomplish alone.

Compassion is the highest form of yoga.

From the Dharma talks of Dharmacharya Gurudas Sunyatananda, O.C. – spiritual director of the Contemplative Monks of the Eightfold Path, and founder of The Spiritus Project. He is the author of several books on the Crazy Wisdom tradition of Buddhist dharma, including: The Dharma of Compassion and Awakening (available from Lojong Press).

BEYOND SINGING…

“The affairs of the entire world,” His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama reminds us, “are now internal affairs.”

This was the prevalent thought that returned to me again, and again as I had the privilege of listening to Beyond – Buddhist and Christian Prayers – an album featuring a spiritual message from the legendary Tina Turner, and the vocal talents of Dechen Shak-Dagsay and Regula Curti.

Inspired by the admonitions of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Swiss-Benedictine Abbot Martin Welin, these amazing women bring to music the potent reminder that interreligious and interspiritual dialogue can deepen our individual spiritual quest, by cultivating a more mindful awareness of the shared values across all cultural and belief systems worldwide.

Regula Curti (a Christian) and Dechen Shak-Dagsay (a Buddhist) began to understand their own spiritual journeys, and recognised a desire to find the commonality between their seemingly different paths, much in the same way that pioneers in the field of interreligious dialogue -- Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh -- did decades earlier.

Of course, for me, as a non-sectarian, post-denominational contemplative monk, whose spiritual path is heavily-influenced by my own Buddhist-Camaldolese-Benedictine heritage, I found myself sitting in a pool of grateful tears, as I listened to the interwoven prayers from the Buddhist and Christian traditions -- in a music that transcends the traditions themselves and cuts to the core of the Dharma of the Christ and the Buddha Dharma perfectly... and the deepest (non-academic) levels.

Tina Turner, another of my personal inspirations, sets the tone for the work of these amazing women, with a spiritual message that says it all. Drawing inspiration from the work of Deepak Chopra, the ancient spiritual texts and masters from many different cultures and traditions, and interwoven with her own deep, raw and encouraging spiritual experience and wisdom, Tina Turner bowls us over with the reminder:

Nothing lasts forever, no one lives forever, the flower that fades and dies, winter passes and spring comes, embrace the cycle of life: that is the greatest love. GO BEYOND FEAR Beyond fear takes you into the place where love grows, when you refuse to follow the impulses of fear, anger and revenge.

BEYOND MEANS TO FEEL YOURSELF Start every day singing like the birds – singing takes you beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training to let go our old habits of mind and to find and sustain a new way of seeing...

...Sing – singing takes you beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond TAKE THE JOURNEY INSIDE OF YOU.

I heartily recommend adding this amazing work to your personal collection, and encourage you to share in supporting the work of these dedicated and beautiful women.

For more information, visit them at: http://beyondsinging.com

Namasté!

-- dharmacharya gurudas sunyatananda

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Shaking my head… and going off to camp!

It is, at best, tiresome. These so-called “learned men” from the Catholic Church and other Christian cults have little or no problem recognising that the ancient myths of the Persians, the Greeks, the Celts and the Romans were all just that – primitive stories, created by an ancient people to explain various phenomena, of which they were largely ignorant scientifically-speaking.

Yet somehow, when these same “learned ones” are presented with the simple, historic and irrefutable facts:

• That the legends and myths found in their scriptures are simply thinly-disguised plagiarisms of earlier mythos, gleaned from Persian, Egyptian, Celtic and other “pagan” sources – particularly the myths and legends surrounding Moses and Rabbi Jesus the Nazarene.
  
• That attempting to justify their religion, by ascribing superstitious and spurious “divine attributes” to scientific findings is a sign of serious lack of scholarship.
  
• That recent studies across the United States demonstrates that our prisons are made up of 65 percent Catholics, 26 percent Protestants, 4 percent Muslin, 2 percent Jewish, 2 percent “pagans” and 1 percent “irreligious” (with 1/2 of 1 percent claiming to be atheists). Therefore, there is clear and empirical evidence that “religion” does not improve morality at all, and may, in fact, contribute to the detriment of society.
  

Put succinctly by one colleague, attempting to base morality on religion is like using a cap-gun to shoot foxes molesting chickens! All you do is ultimately scare the chickens more, and little is done to effectively stop the problem.

Prejudice and intolerance are two of the organic diseases of the religious – particularly those of the self-described Catholic and Christian cults. By allowing for the increased inculcation of superstition as a substitution for reasoning, these individuals will ignore the simple historical facts and resort to such petty and sophomoric rants as claiming that because someone like me doesn’t subscribe to their immature ideologies, I must be “an immoral, baby-killing, derisive scourge on humanity”.

Interestingly, I cannot recall one time in the history of the world, when an atheist group started a war to prove their spiritual superiority. Yet I have no problem listing hundreds of wars, resulting in millions of deaths, caused by the Catholic Church and other “spin-off” Christian sects, Muslims, and Jews.

Interestingly, I don’t recall a single instance of an atheist blowing up the offices of Pro-Life or Right to Life doctors, and yet can recall dozens of murders of that very nature, done by “Christians”.

My suggestion to those compelled to thump their bibles and rely on their mystical super-heroes as a mainstay of their spiritual lives do so privately and communally, among those inclined to share such beliefs. But don’t imagine for a moment that you can invite me to read your blogs, your articles, and your diatribes, and then expect me not to respond.

And expect, even less likely, that your petty name-calling will result in my backing down from your mindless accusations.

One really does have to get up much earlier than that to fuck with me.

I have no problem respecting and even embracing the spiritual traditions of others. In fact, I celebrate the traditions of the Catholic, Anglican, Quaker, LDS, Unitarian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh traditions particularly, while actively practicing many of the traditions of the Celtic and Romany esoteric traditions, and living a spirituality that is deeply based on the Buddhist, Native American and Esoteric Catholic mystical traditions.

I do not believe in or recommend the belief in literal “gods” or “demons” – and I never have. I don’t pretend to imagine that such myths as the virgin birth, trinity, or other such nonsense is anything other than the primitive ramblings of an ancient and ignorant people, adopted from older and equally ignorant myths and legends.

One need not accept these ideologies to embrace compassion, and for me, that is what my work as a successor to the apostles and successor to the lineage of lamas is all about.

Before attacking me, however, I would recommend that these ill-formed clerics take a few minutes to read about the work I’ve done for 29 years, while they played church and dress-up. That can be done at: http://dharmadudeunplugged.com

Namaste!