The Gift of Freedom…

You may have experienced, as I have, that sometimes we scare away the very thing we seek – simply by the desperation or clinging in our longing, or perhaps because it's obvious we're only giving in order to receive.

But the greatest gift we can give one another is Freedom. The practice of Anapanasati (mindfulness with breathing, as taught by the Buddha), leads us here, as it culminates in "letting go." As we arrive, finally, in surrender, there arises great joy.

It is immediately apparent how much joy this letting go gives others. When we release our clinging, allowing others and life to be simply as it is, they unfold like a flower blossom – breathing freely in the space we have given them, and joy awakens in them also.

Awakening joy in others through letting them go – what could bring me greater joy?! Once we see the true nature of clinging and release, letting go becomes easy, natural, and liberating to all.

This is where Love lives.

Birthday Resolutions...

I wrote this list of resolutions in the midst of a meditation on my birthday...

• Purify the ego, releasing attachment and aversion - leaving more room for receiving, and for selfless giving ~ a softening of the heart...

• Practice ardently, letting go, surrendering to Dharma (rightness, goodness...)

• Remember "first things first" - what's really important?! - and weed out the distractions...

• Give more, Fearlessly!!

• Experience Abundance within, remembering how blessed I am - with humility and gratitude for all those who have given to this abundance ~ my friends and family, clients, this sweet earth...

• Honor and tend to my inner innocence when I have trouble believing in all these good things, with trusting. May I treat myself with tenderness, allowing a gentle humbleness to be alright.

• Practice opening the shy parts of myself to others!!

• May my ego trust in the joy, connection (to others, to Source), inherent goodness, fullness and peace that is the essence of life.

• May I live in Love - and when I forget, may that forgetful part of me be flooded with Love!

• May my life be a blessing ~ for the Earth, for all beings.

Summer so Full!!...

Because I'm so busy traveling and performing, I'm not sure how much I'll be writing this summer (though I love to, so we'll just see ;-)

In the meantime, visit my website and catch me out singing...

www.arianasaraha.com

xoxo ~ A

Uncanny Evidence...

(a testament to the uncanny nature of the I Ching)

So out of the blue last night I was called to do an I Ching reading. I've been using the I Ching for a long time now, with always surprisingly accurate results. I can't honestly say I understand why it is so astoundingly accurate, for just an oracular "game" of coin toss. Of course, I can't say why the universe in general makes so much sense in its seemingly innate and intuitive intelligence... (I didn't say "intelligent design" - I mean really, can I know if there's a designer - no way! - but I can see there is an innate intelligence, or sensibility - so to speak - that keeps everything from falling to pieces...)

Anyways, maybe it's that same "intelligence" that underlies why the heck this silly coin-toss called the I Ching (Chinese "Book of Changes") actually works. Anyway, this wasn't a particularly deep reading, but I found it uncanny anyway...

Just asking for a general reading, I tossed the coins (6 times) and received hexagram 36, "Darkening of the Light." Hmm, I wonder what that could be referring to, I mused. I tossed one more round, inquiring for elaboration. I receive the 1st line of hexagram 63, "After Completion." The line specifically advises to stop pressing forward, and that in this stopping/drawing-back, one "may ... not remain altogether untouched by the disastrous consequences..., but is hit only from behind like a fox that, having crossed the water, at the last minute gets its tail wet."

I had been in the middle of rehearsing/practicing music, when I received this reading. It was Friday night, 11pm, and I could easily have stayed up for an hour or 2 longer, singing, drumming... But instead I stopped, at the suggestion of the I Ching, and asked my body what it felt. Indeed, I was tired! Ready for bed...

At 4 in the morning, I awoke with a distinct flushing going thru my system - a little achey, almost feverish. Wow, the tail of my fox is indeed a touch wet!, I thought. But I was able to sleep it off, whatever was passing thru, and felt mostly better by morning. Had I stayed up late, however, my immune system would have been more compromised, and I might have woke up totally sick today.

Uncanny advice from a strange, ancient and exotic oracle... A fluke? After almost 17 years of working with the I Ching I would have to say this has happened far too often to be considered a "fluke." Indeed, this simple game of tossing coins appears to be tapping into the same innate intelligence that connects the whole universe in this web woven by no hands... ...making all the sense in the world, yet delightfully beyond the reach of my mental explanations...

The Journey Home (through the veils...)

Today, practicing Anapanasati again, I found myself in the feelings more than ever - generally I move through this part fast because on the surface, my emotions feel rather smooth, peaceful... Today I stopped and saw that on such a subtle level so many feelings are alive in me! So many feelings rooted in the innocent mistaking of the impermanent for the permanent - and the subsequent longing/grasping/attachment/anger/push/pull/raga/dvesha... that follows.

So many subtle feelings, breathing through, letting them soften...

From the emotions I am drawn to skip ahead, past the mind (I spend enough time there usually :-) and onto the 13th and 14th practice, "I observe impermanence in all things," and "I release my desires for these impermanent things." Meditating on impermanence, on how all things are always changing - being born, growing, becoming, decaying, dying... This garden I am just planting will in the fall bloom and die. Friends will pass in and out of my life, eventually passing away entirely. Watching even as my own body would decay and become dust someday...

And in this meditation, as I saw my skin and muscles and bones become earth again, I remembered one of the most powerful visions ever while journeying with the Grandmother medicine - when my body became the earth, and then became the worms crawling through me... And then this same, changing body became birds and rabbits - flying, bounding through. All just passing through, becoming and unbecoming this body of earth that I am.

So today, I let my impermanence meditation become that, feeling my body become birds and animals, becoming the rain and the soil of the garden that is watered by it, the plants growing out of it. My bones, some became dust and dirt, some became food for mountain lions, as I became the lion, and the warm stone it lays upon...

And as I let myself become all these things, letting go, letting go..., I find an emotion arises - sadness. Sadness as I release the separate-self, dissolving and becoming everything.

It is this deep sadness of being-human, of just-passing-through. There must be something more, something more...

There is Love, and this precious sharing of each moment as it passes on by. But still, something more, something that doesn't fade...

So I sit, waiting. Dissolving, unbecoming...

Time doesn't stop, but "I" will, someday. Or will I? Will something remain? A perceiver, a witness? A Love?? Perhaps a Love remains - whole, complete unto itself, living in all things. Yet where will I be?... All things passing, there must be something more!

The Mother ("matre," matter), the body of existence, "she" is used to all this coming and going. All things grow and dissolve and change within "her" body.

And I see and feel her body now - black and still. All "things" are just play of light and shadow upon and within this vast, still blackness. I sit here, now absorbed in this blackness. This is cessation, the 15th breath practice.

There is a sense of density here, of thickness of this black, vast, (infinite?) body. It's not exciting or euphoric. It's still, peaceful, but almost boring. But perfectly fine. It's nice to be home, to rest in the source, seeking nothing. Here in the body of the black mother I see nothing is missing - all things exist here, whole and complete. There is a sense of unchanging. And the play of light and shadow I came from? - beautiful, sweet, but just a play...

Then from this death-black-stillness suddenly I feel/see a lily budding from my heart. I can't help but laugh out loud! The absurd, ecstatic beauty of it.

Oh, let us celebrate, dance together in this absurd garden of fleeting dreams. Laughing, letting go, I am Free.

Flowers bloom in me. From the deathless void, all things come to being...

I am Aware...

Practicing Anapanasati (mindfulness with breathing) today, I got to the portion about "breathing in, I am aware of my mind..." when it started getting a little sticky (heck, sometimes I don't get nearly that far - yesterday I was fighting off such a crud I didn't get past the body - "breathing in, I feel my whole body, breathing out I calm my whole body. Breathing in, I am aware of the crud in my lungs, breathing out I purify the crud in my lungs...."

But today I made it all the way to the Mind - whoopeee!!...

As I practiced, "breathing in I am aware of my mind... breathing out I make my mind happy... breathing in I concentrate my mind...." It was the concentrate part that caught me - my mind was so bizzy bizzy - endlessly creating, even when I was wishing to calm it for the time being.

Then I became aware of two aspects of the mind - the part that runs on and on, and the intentional mind that I am using in this meditation practice to bring conscious control to how the mind is used. It's this intentional mind that focuses the awareness on the wild mind, that asks it to come home - uniting the two minds as one.

...something so precious in this simple Awareness. So often the thoughts of the wild mind are indeed beautiful, creative, clever and useful. But now I simply wish to bring consciousness - to know when I am thinking these thoughts, and to choose when to think them. So often we swim through life without really knowing what we are doing, feeling, thinking...

But now I choose conscious, ever-present Awareness. It all begins with this simple practice: "breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in...."

Anapanasati Rocks!!

I'm not usually one to promote stuff, especially spiritual practices! But this deceptively simple little practice that the Buddha taught is so profound (and even quite fun, for those of us who like to breathe... :-) that I had to pass this recommendation along...

Available at Amazon, yo. (I always like to peruse the list of options and find some small reseller to buy my books from if I use Amazon. Last time I ordered a book, it was from only a state away, and got here in only 2 days. But heck, if you live here in Boulder, may as well just go to the Boulder Bookstore...

Silence falling...

Snowflakes are falling on my skin

Refreshing and cold

As I draw within

To the center of the fire

The heartbeat in the storm

The new moon draws near

I am still, quiet, and warm.

Dreaming Bear...

It's that time of year, and even though we've had an unseasonably warm [global warming?] winter, I have still felt the depths of hibernation pulling me deep into myself. I've been dreaming a lot – sometimes every night I have a dream to write down in the morning. Always I sit with them, distilling meaning – or at least feeling – from what visions I’ve been given. I continue hibernating, dreaming...

Still in the depths of this dreaming, I know not what this coming year holds. I wish, as ever, for more music. I also delight in the many friendships I am blessed with, and look forward to cultivating these connections more. And most importantly, wishing to be of service-to, and in integrity-with this precious earth and her many children... But for now, it is still about the dreaming - allowing myself these still moments of rest. Living peacefully in the unknowing - swimming deliciously in the great void of the unknown, the birthplace of all creation...

My friend Shawna shared a similar sentiment in her winter newsletter, and I wish to pass it on...

I still want to rest, hibernate, rejuvenate, take it slow and refill with the sacred energy and light that flows from deep within during these sacred months of winter. I feel grateful for winter as it calls me to a deeper quieter place inside, where I can relax & ground deep inside myself & listen to the inner guidance to begin planting the seeds of what i want to cultivate in the garden of my heart and life in this coming year. In some esoteric spiritual traditions, the time between winter solstice and spring equinox is the time to contemplate the challenges and victories of the previous year and cultivate a new vision, and new intentions for our inner and outer lives for the year ahead, and sow these new seeds born out of the wisdom and clarity of the heart. So I will continue to savor the sacred silence of winter, and head the call to those deeper places of light, and listen and take notes and re-envision. May you have a blessed winter as well, in all the ways you celebrate it and soak it up.

Still making friends with the bear...

(art by Susan Seddon Boulet, all rights reserved)

Bear Dreamer...

I have often told this story of a dream I had as a small child of 3 or 4...

I am in the kitchen with my mom. We are baking. Suddenly, a big bear comes in and swallows us up!!

I awake, and shaken, tell my mom about this dream. Being a dream analyst herself, she advises me, "go back into the dream - and since we're in the kitchen, perhaps you had some scissors in your hand - so cut our way out..."

Back in the dream, I do as she says, and we come out into the daylight of our kitchen. Then I sew up the wound on the bear and hug it, making friends.

(art by Susan Seddon Boulet, all rights reserved)