Posts filed under ‘Thoughts’
A SPIRITUAL ALMANAC – JANUARY: SILENCE
I am the secret of silence and the wisdom of the wise. Bhagavad Gita, Ch.10
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Hexagram 24: RETURN (FU)
Earth
over
Thunder
Short days; long nights;
The earth is silent;
Rest in the darkness.
At this time of year the yang energy is renewing itself; it is fragile and needs rest, nurturing and protection. This is a time to examine yourself, refine yourself, cultivate your virtue and master your mind, waiting for the right time to act in the days to come.
Lao Tzu said,
Attain utter emptiness;
Maintain the deepest stillness,
While all creatures rise and fall,
I silently watch their return.
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Silence is sacred; silence is our refuge; silence is our peace. Modern life is an assault of sound, a blast of brute noise designed to grab our attention and hold it entranced by sound so that we can be sold things we don’t need. TV commercials, muzak, the constant background hum of cars, trains and planes all distract us away from our inner peace.
Remember that the core of yoga is silence. When you can find that silent space within and stay in it, then you are in tune with yourself and the world: safe, secure and at home within your own skin. In this state you have no need to worry about the quality of your asana positions, or to wonder how someone else is getting along, or to fret about your work or other activities. You merely are. Existence itself is knowledge and bliss wrapped up in one, and you are that – you are one with all.
The earth, too, is silent in January, the generative power sunk deep within the ground. No birds sing, no insects buzz, and life sleeps in hibernation.
In Taoist alchemy this dead of winter represents the utmost quiescence, when real knowledge can emerge from primal emptiness. The alchemists call this the Living Midnight or Lead meets Winter, since winter followed by spring is like midnight followed by dawn, when the culmination of the cold dark yin energy is followed by the rising of the hot light yang energy. Slowly the yang energy emerges from its long winter sleep resting in the ground, and the potential for new life begins again.
It is a turning point in the year’s cycle. When things proceed to the extreme of the deepest darkness, they naturally alternate to the opposite: the dimmest light returns. This is a law of Nature. The time of darkness passes. The winter solstice brings back the banished light. And just as light returns, so we too must also return to our inner light. In the depths of our being we must seek the self, the one, our essence or origin- that ascending force of life.
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Prime Minister Pei Hsiu brought his written interpretation of Chan Buddhism for his master Huang Po to read. Huang Po accepted the text but put it aside without opening it, and remained silent. Pei Hsiu waited patiently for the words of his master, but Huang Po stayed silent. His silence lasted for a very long time. It filled the space between the two men and began to fill the entire hall. When the silence seemed loud enough to burst, Huang Po leaned towards the Prime Minister and said sofly, “Understand?”
Consider the meaning of this silence against the words rumbling on this page.
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When practicing asanas, or doing Tai Chi Chuan, we enter this meditative state of silence and in that quietness we are able to find our true selves, the inner essence, the kernel of who we really are.
The Person who in movement finds rest, and who understands that movement grows from stillness and rest, sees the light, and finds peace in all his actions. Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 4.
In Chinese the word for mind is hsin, which means the mind/heart. It can literally mean kernel or essence. Mind in a state of quiescence is similar to Christian innocence, the primal mind of humanity before the fruit of knowledge was eaten. To find this mind is to see your original face before you were born.
One secret of a successful life is to find a way to extend this silence into the other parts of life, into the busyness of life away from the yoga mat , where the stresses and conflicts of mundane existence can easily drag us away from our inner peace. Finding inner peace and maintaining inner peace are two separate practices.
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Silence is a place of great power. When we find those fleeting moments of silence our meditation can then undo our bodies from the inside, in subtle ways that the asanas cannot reach. The silent state of meditation is a healing state, providing a balance and harmony to all of our existence.
Periods of silence within a relationship indicate trust, love and peace – those moments when we have no need to talk, and are just able to accept the other person as they are – without criticism, judgement or withdrawal.
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In silent meditation, we put to rest our worries and cares, but meditation is not the ultimate answer. It is only a raft to get us to the distant shore:
The Master Huai-Jang asked Ma-Tsu, “Why do you sit all day in meditation?” Ma-Tsu answered, “I want to become a Buddha.” Hearing this, the Master picked up a brick and started rubbing it on a stone. “What are you doing?” asked Ma-Tsu. “I am polishing this brick to make a mirror.” “How can you make a mirror by rubbing a brick?” Ma-Tsu asked. “How can you become a Buddha by sitting in meditation?”
In the end we must return to the activity of life, to the crossroads and the marketplace, and share with others the insights and power we have discovered in meditation:
Barechested and barefooted he comes into the marketplace.
Muddy and covered in dust – how broadly he grins!
Without resorting to magical powers,
Withered trees begin to bloom.
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In the end silence brings us closer to our true nature and to God. It is in that silence that we can be present in the moment.
When we observe our breath we can find silence and stillness at that lovely pause at the end of the in-breath and before the breath turns at the end of the out-breath. These pauses, if we let them, can be our entry into the eternal.
My ‘vote’ for Jeremy Corbyn
I’m not a member of the Labour Party and I missed the voting Deadline, but I’d like to cast my ‘vote’ for Jeremy Corbyn. Why?
Like many people I’m not happy with the way this country is going. It has lost some of its soul. We are no longer the more caring and compassionate society we once were. Today we are not too concerned that our fellow citizens are going to food banks to feed themselves, or that parents are missing meals so at least their children can eat. If this is the way we treat our neighbours (who are in reality our friends) then how do we treat our enemies? David Cameron says let’s promote British values to the world. What values are we to promote? Inequality, Greed, Indifference? These are not values that will convince anyone, let alone Isis.
And they don’t convince all Brits either. People want change, they believe the current economic and social model is life-negating and not life enhancing. They want change and no politician is offering it – except for Jeremy Corbyn. He terrifies the Labour establishment because they think electing Corbyn will plunge the party back into its 1980s internecine conflicts. They believe he is unelectable. But 1980 was 35 years ago. It is a different world now, and a different world needs a different approach. Only Corbyn is expressing this, and this is why people are flocking to him. This is the first true grassroots movement that the party has seen for many years. The last time people were energized like this was the march against the Iraq war in 2003.Then over a million people took to the streets to say no to the war, but a Labour government went ahead with it anyway, lying to the people. So when Tony Blair gets up to diss Corbyn what do you think those millions will say: if Blair’s against Corbin, then he must be good.
Politicians are like heads of film studios. The studios keep producing versions of whatever movies are successful now. They always miss what is new and upcoming, like sleeper movie hits which the studios would never make. The studios only copy fresh ideas when they are proved successful in the market place. Politicians do the same. They all repeat (with minor variations) the policies that they see as viable in the marketplace of voters. Since Cameron and Osborne were so successful in winning the last election with their austere and damaging policies, politicians from the other big parties believe that surely it would be mad to go too far against these policies, because of their great electoral success. They don’t understand that in the marketplace of voters there are millions of people who want to see a change. These people are appalled at the hidden suffering they see around them, and they (like millions of others) are also suffering reduced living standards. They demand a different approach, and their numbers will grow. The sooner Labour politicians realise this, the better it will be for the Labour Party and for the country. Inequality will kill us unless it is stopped.
This is why I am ‘voting’ for Jeremy Corbyn.
The Real Deal- Why Exercise is Good For You
Exercise is good for you because it makes you feel good.
How does it do this?
1. Open Air – It gets you outside rather than in a gym
2. Movement – Your body likes to move, your body wants to move
3. Pulse Rate – Movement increases your heart rate
4. Blood Flow – Your heart pumps more blood
5. Circulation – The blood flows all over the body, into the extremities (for males, the penis is an extremity)
6. Oxygen – The blood carries oxygen into your cells, nourishing them
7. Alive – You feel alive, vibrant
8. Good – You feel good
And it costs nothing
Yang Chu’s The Vanity Of Celebrity
When he was young, Yang Chu lived only for pleasure.
Once he was travelling in the state of Lu and stayed at the house of Mr. Meng. Meng asked him, “A person is just a person. Why do people strive for fame?”
Yang Chu replied, “If they do, it’s because they want to become rich.”
Meng said, “But when they’ve become rich, why don’t they stop?”
Y: Then they are after high status.
M: Why don’t they stop once they are honoured?
Y: It will help when they are dead.
M: But what good is fame when they are dead?
Y: It will help their descendants.
M: What good is fame to their descendants?
Y: For fame’s sake they have endured all kinds of hardship and pain. But one person’s fame can benefit their family, and even their fellow citizens. Their descendants will benefit even more.
However it’s better for those who desire real fame to be disinterested in becoming famous. But to be disinterested in fame means you live in poverty. And to be disinterested means you have to show restraint, and this is equivalent to being humble.
Meng was puzzled, and asked, “How can one be disinterested in fame, and yet fame arrives by itself?”
Yang Chu replied, “The ignorant strive so hard to maintain their fame, that they sacrifice reality. Doing this they eventually regret that nothing can rescue them from illness and death. They also regret not knowing the difference between ease and pleasure and sorrow and grief.
From: The Spiritual Teachings of the Tao – Part 2
Qualities Of The Sage
The ancient teaching says, “The sage is entirely peaceful, so his mind is evenly balanced and at ease. This even balance and ease appears in his serenity and de-tachment. In this state of balance and ease, of serenity and detachment, anxieties and anguish don’t affect him, and no harmful influences assault him. His Te, or power, is complete, and his spirit continues undiminished.
The life of the sage can be compared to the action of heaven, and his death is the transformation common to all things. In his stillness his power is the same as the Yin, and in movement his actions are like the Yang. He takes no initiative in producing either happiness or calamity.
The sage responds to the influences acting on him, and moves only when he feels the pressure. He acts only when he has no other choice. He discards knowledge and memories, and merely follows the pattern of his heaven-given nature. Therefore he suffers no calamity from Heaven, no attachment to things, no blame from people, and no disapproval from the spirits of the dead.
The sage’s life seems to just drift along;
his death seems to be a resting;
he doesn’t have anxious thoughts;
he doesn’t make plans;
his enlightenment is hidden;
his good faith isn’t contrived;
he sleeps untroubled by dreams;
he wakes untroubled by cares;
his spirit is simple and pure;
his soul is never weary.
Empty and selfless, calm and detached, the sage is in harmony with the qualities of Heaven.”
Therefore the teaching says, “Sorrow and joy are distortions of virtue; goodness and evil are transgressions of virtue; likes and dislikes show a failure of the mind. So for the mind to be free from sorrow and joy is to have perfected virtue. For the mind to be unified and unchanging is the perfection of stillness. To be conscious of no opposition is the perfection of emptiness. To have no attachment to external things is the perfection of indifference. And to have no feelings of dissatisfaction is the perfection of purity.
If the body is overworked and not rested, it becomes worn out. If the spirit is used ceaselessly, it becomes weary, and when weary, it becomes exhausted.
It’s the nature of water, when not mixed with other things, to be clear, and if not disturbed, to be level. But if it’s blocked and can’t flow, it won’t preserve its clarity. This is an image of the virtue of Heaven.”
To be innocent and pure, free from all contamination;
to be still and uniform, never changing;
to be detached and do nothing:
this is to move like Heaven and nourish the spirit.
Now the person who possesses the finest sword preserves it carefully in a box, and doesn’t dare to use it, because it’s considered the peak of perfection. But the subtle human spirit is even more perfect, and it radiates in all directions, flowing on without limit, rising to heaven above, and circling round the earth beneath. It transforms and sustains all things, and cannot be represented by any form. We call it the Supreme Harmony.
It’s only the Tao of pure simplicity which guards and preserves the Spirit. When this Tao is preserved and not lost, you become one with the Spirit and in this ethereal communion, you’re in harmony with the orderly operation of Heaven.
There is a proverb which says, “People consider gain to be the most important thing. Scholars – fame. Those who are wise and able value ambition. But the sage prizes essential purity.’
Therefore simplicity implies no mixing. Purity means the spirit is not impaired. It’s the one who can embody simplicity and purity whom we call the Real Person.”
(15.2)
From: The Spiritual Teachings of The Tao
The Guru and His Disciples
Lieh Tzu went on a journey to Chi, but after travelling only halfway he came back. On his return he met the teacher Po Hun Wu Shan who wondered why he had come back so suddenly.
Lieh Tzu said, “I was frightened.”
“What scared you?”
“On the way there I went into ten soup shops, and in five of them the soup was set down in front of me before anyone else.”
“But why should that frighten you?”
Lieh Tzu said, “Although the inner quality of a person can be hidden, the body, like a traitor, lets it shine through. This display awes people, who then treat you as noble or a sage, and from this treatment problems arise.
You see, soup sellers sell food simply as a matter of business, and however much they sell, their profit is small, and their power nil. So if they treated me as someone special, think how a king would view me! His body worn out with the cares of ruling, his knowledge overwhelmed by his affairs, he would want to hand these affairs to me, and expect me to successfully conduct his government. This is what frightened me.”
Po Hun Wu Shan replied, “Very perceptive! But if you persist in carrying yourself as you do, people will come to you as disciples.”
Not long after, Po Hun Wu Shan went to visit Lieh Tzu, and found his doorway full of visitors’ shoes. He stood there, holding his staff upright, leaning his chin on it until his skin puckered. After standing like this for awhile, he went away without saying a word.
The doorman went in and told Lieh Tzu, who immediately grabbed his shoes, and ran barefoot after the visitor.
When he overtook him at the outer gate, he said, “Since you’ve come for a visit, won’t you give me some good advice?”
Po Hun Wu Shan replied, “It’s too late. I told you that people would flock to you, and so they have. It’s not that you cause them to gather, they simply can’t stop coming. What good did my warning do? What attracts them and makes them pleased is your extraordinary qualities. But you, in turn, will be influenced by this crowd, your inner nature will be disturbed, and nothing can be done about it.
These people will not tell you this. The small words they speak are like poison to you. They don’t perceive this, nor do they understand it. How will you separate yourself from them?
My Glorious Publishing Career- Pt 2- Mark meets Marcus Aurelius
Following the success of the Tao te Ching audio, Rupert Lancaster – my editor at Hodder and Stoughton – commissioned me to produce an audio version of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. These short ‘meditations’ were spiritual exercises that Marcus wrote for himself while attending to his day job – Emperor of Rome. He would have preferred to be a stoic philosopher, but Hadrian picked him as his successor and this forced him to keep his philosophy as a private self-help guide. The meditations were a way of reminding himself how to respond to people and events.
Marcus was a Roman but he wrote in Greek, the ancient language of philosophy. Since I don’t know classical Greek (being mono English), I needed to find a translation to work from. I started to read the various translations then in print but didn’t find one that really spoke to me. Some were a bit dated in language, while others were seeped in Christianity, not suitable for a pagan Roman. I saw a reference to a Victorian translation by George Long that was said to be completely literal, and since it was out of copyright, I set about re-writing this archaic language into the kind of contemporary language that I thought reflected Marcus’ vision of life. At the same time I did not want to lose the sense of his second-century mind, so I tried to evolve a style that gave meaning to the text, in a way that would read to a contemporary audience, but which still sounded like the words of a Roman Emperor.
Once I began, I could see that Marcus had a holistic, cosmic view of life resembling the ancient Indian and Chinese philosophers. His ability to look objectively at the world and to penetrate deeply into his own mind seemed similar to Buddhist psychology. I was also impressed that Marcus’ perspective of the world was an ecological one, very close to our own view of the link between humanity and the environment.
Once I had re-written some 10 of the meditations, I realised I was creating a new copyright, and thought perhaps these could serve as a book as well as an audio. I wrote to a handful of New York literary agents to see if there was any interest. One large agency immediately turned me down, but a smaller agent- Liv Blumer-responded almost immediately. When we spoke, I was surprised to hear that Liv had never heard of Marcus Aurelius or his Meditations. The next day she went to a branch of Barnes and Noble and asked the salesperson if they had a copy. The saleswoman responded by telling Liv that it was the best book ever written, that she kept it by her bedside and read a meditation before going to sleep. Serendipity.
Once she understood what I was working on, Liv said she thought a book could get published, but I would have to write the introduction. What! I had never written anything longer than two pages since leaving university, and the thought of writing an introduction to a philosopher filled me with dread.
My Glorious Publishing Career Part 1
I have now made all of my books into ebooks, so it’s a good time to look back and reflect on my illustrious publishing career. It’s been an interesting ride so far, and I hope it continues. Book six is about to come out, and I think it’s going to be a bit of a breakthrough.
For the record, my first 5 books are: The Spiritual Teachings of Marcus Aurelius, The Spiritual Teachings of Seneca, The Spiritual Teachings of the Tao, The Spiritual Teachings of Yoga and The Living Wisdom of Socrates. The new one is called I Survived a Secret Nazi Extermination Camp and is coming out in September.
I started writing by accident. In 1997 I thought it would be a great thing to make an audio of The Tao Te Ching, the 2300 year old Chinese Taoist classic. And one day it just happened. I visited Martin Palmer in Manchester and told him this was a book I would love to record. He told me that he made religious programmes for the BBC and maybe he could arrange a recording studio. But who would read it? I hadn’t thought that far ahead, so I needed to think about good actors who could handle the text. Ideally I hoped to find someone who knew the book, but failing that, I needed someone sensitive to ideas and feelings. I settled on the late Nigel Hawthorne, who didn’t know the work but threw himself into the project with great enthusiasm. He did a remarkable job, responding very well to Martin’s directions regarding the meaning of the sometimes inscrutable text. Once we added music to Nigel’s voice, we had a very fine recording of the classic.
I now needed distribution to get the audio (it was a cassette at that time) into shops. Someone introduced me to Rupert Lancaster at Hodder and Stoughton and after he listened to the tape he offered me a deal. A year later, he rang to ask if I had any other audio ideas. It just so happened I did (or at least I did once he put the idea into my mind). I gave Rupert four ideas and he responded best to the notion of recording The Meditations Of Marcus Aurelius.
To be continued (possibly).
The Mystery Of Buddhism
I am an admirer of Master Nan Huai-Chin, whose books Working Toward Enlightenment and To Realize Enlightenment I have always found difficult but helpful. They are not easy-going, but Master Nan is so knowledgeable and his experience so vast and wide-ranging that he is always insightful. According to Master Nan I cannot realise enlightenment because I am not celibate, but in many other respects I try to live by the Buddhist precepts he advocates. I will have to leave enlightenment for another lifetime.
The first volume Working Toward Enlightenment starts with an interesting conversation and question, leading to one of his characteristic insights. He writes,
There is a story behind this book. An old friend, Mr. Xiao, came to see me. As he was about to leave. he asked me a question: “Shakyamuni Buddha left home when he was 18, and finally – much later, after years of effort- lifted his head, saw a bright star, and was enlightened. What was it that he was enlightened to? “
Master Nan explains that he answered his friend by saying that the Buddha was enlightened to interdependent causation and inherent emptiness. Mr. Xiao said ” Oh… right”, pushed the door open , and left. This exit left Master Nan disturbed. Mr Xiao was a serious student of Buddhism. “If someone else asked this question, it wouldn’t matter much, but since he was asking this question, it was very serious. In other words, when he asked this question, it had extraordinary depth.”
So what was it that the Buddha was enlightened to? Master Nan confirms that he awakened to inherently empty interdependent origination. But the point is that the Buddha awakened to it after 12 years of practicing all sorts of techniques and studying with a number of teachers. It took him years of effort to bring himself to the point where just stopping his meditation for a moment and looking up into the night sky to see a bright star brought him to enlightenment. It was a matter of an experience, a truth discovered through practice, whereas Master Nan points out that you and I can open up any book on Buddhism and we can read about these principles and truths that we have not experienced, except through reading them.
Master Nan says that we are “inverting cause and effect”, taking the truths and principles that the Buddha discovered and adding them intellectually to our lives, without going through the experience that would really make them truths for ourselves, real lived experience. I have an idea of what the Buddha was enlightened to when he looked at that star, but it’s still more intellectual speculation- words. I won’t bother putting it down here, since this question – What was it the Buddha was enlightened to? – is a kind of Koan, a question to mull over and penetrate, until finally the answer (if there is one) comes out of your practice.
My New Film: How Sigmund Freud escaped from the Nazis
The Escape Of Sigmund Freud
A film by David Cohen
I’m preparing a new film which tells the story of how the world-famous creator of psychoanalysis managed to leave Nazi-occupied Vienna protected and helped by the Nazi who was meant to make his life a misery. Anton Sauerwald ignored Berlin’s orders and gave Freud and his family assistance, much to their relief and amazement.
This is a true story based on a book by David Cohen (The Escape Of Sigmund Freud) published in the UK, US, Japan, Brazil and other countries.
Freud managed to leave Vienna with sixteen members of his family, and his overseer, Sauerwald, arranged to sell some of Freud’s art collection to pay for the extortionate exit visas. He then sent Freud’s possessions to England by lorry, and later visited him in London (1938). On that visit Freud asked Sauerwald if he could drive his Viennese surgeon to London to operate on Freud’s cancer of the jaw. But the most striking part of this strange relationship between the second most famous Jew in the world (Einstein was the first) and Sauerwald, a committed Nazi, is the fact that Sauerwald found the Freud family’s hidden foreign bank books. If his superiors knew they existed, Freud would have been immediately arrested.
Sauerwald kept the bank books to himself, never reported them, and gave them back to Freud, without asking for a penny for himself.
After the war Sauerwald was arrested and tried for stealing from the Freuds. He asked Anna Freud to write a letter explaining what had happened. Perhaps influenced by the fact that her four aunts (Freud’s elderly sisters) all died in concentration camps, Anna hesitated for some time before finally writing a letter which declared Sauerwald’s innocence.
The events the Freud family endured are alarming and terrifying, yet strange and surprising twists of character and fate take place, leading almost to a sense of disbelief. Could this really have happened? Did a deep-dyed Nazi actually help Freud escape? Many Holocaust stories defy belief, but this one is different. It exposes the contradictory nature of the human mind, and it seems in keeping for this to happen to Freud, whose fame derived from studying the mind.
David Suchet is attached to play Freud, and there are other great parts. If we succeed, The Escape of Sigmund Freud could become one of the great Shoah films of our time, showing the horrific change that fell upon the Jews of Europe once the Nazis took control of their homelands. This is a sad, terrifying and moving story, but it still has moments of dry humour, since it was Freud’s sense of gallows humour which kept him sane.
Freud’s escape shows how complicated relations between Jews and Nazis could become. Who could imagine that a strange friendship like this could develop? Although Freud was world famous for understanding the human mind, he was at a loss to explain why Sauerwald helped him, and Sauerwald too could not understand it.
The film will be shot largely hand-held, so that the sense of actuality will be preserved. The intention is to help the audience see the events unfolding in front of their eyes as events happening to the Freud family, and not as an ‘historical’ film.
It is really an amazing story and I am looking forward to making it.
Mark Forstater's Blog 