Ouroboros (part one)

I almost conclude three rough training weeks with shaky limbs and a stiff/sore ilium-sacrum-lumbar complex. With Kungfu and jiujitsu still ahead (dread).  This morning in Ashtanga Yoga I focused on the breath like never before. Came to rely on it. As far as it was willing to take me. For, I am struck by a sticky sense of exhaustion. I focused on making the breath calm and even. Four counts exhale, concentrating on the lower body, the abdomen, the soft torso (few bones, but big ones). Four counts inhale, concentrating on the upper bony torso (ribcage etc.) Faced with the repercussions of the torso on the limbs, hips to legs, shoulder complex to arms. Eight counts per two asanas plus transition while breathing slowly in or out. Movement riding on the breath. Body moving to the rhythm of the breath. Or attempting to. I was stuck many times in Chaturanga (low plank) on the floor or in Downward Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana) recovering a calming, soothing, balanced breath. The hardest was by far inhaling in Upward Facing Dog (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana), chest pressing forward, pulling spine-to-toes, head curling back, compressing the front of the body as it is stretched apart. Even breathing into the thoracic area has its limitations. I found the inhale generally helpful in lifting the winged cage with air balloons. Moving the upper torso forward with air power is different than moving it up. Going up, it tends to float, which is quite soothing. Going forward the thoracic spine appears to press on the fleshy air balloon (diaphragmatic radius). Do the arms’ efforts (serratus) to hold the body up as it pulls forwards restrict upper torso inflation? What makes it more difficult to calming-soothing-breathe four gentle counts?

All of the torso inflates. It takes great focus to hold the bottom of the exhale while inhaling in a manner that accentuates the expansion of the upper torso, preferably in the back. Can the chest muscles, too, restrict the breath expansion in the front? Which is why breathing into the back is significant. The aim is, of course, to expand the whole thing, like a balanced balloon. Shaping the balloon consciously (evolution). Muscles are pliable. Bones are not. Joints help bone pliability, giving some flexibility. Ribs can expand. Vertebra can bend. Breath with a muscular embrace (biological balloon).* Bones can comply to some extent. Awareness is crucial. Proceed with conscious care and curiosity. With great awareness of breath. As it is. And as it can be.

I shall focus on the breath in a similar way in my other trainings and see what happens. There is no other way, tired as I am. Go only as far as a balanced breath will take me. This is so much easier said than done! It takes great focus. Fatigue makes it harder to focus. But what focusability is left, let it be primarily on the breath. And see what happens.

Image: Internet Circulation

 

*biological balloon: breath with a muscular embrace
globo biologico: aliento con un abrazo muscular
Bioballon: Atem mit Muskelumarmung 

Worn Warriors

A group of philosophers assembled around a large table. Secretly keeping tabs of “won” arguments in the exchange of ideas. Overtly engaged in discussion. But why?

Heard, compatibilism is popular in current academic circles. The idea that free will and determinism are compatible. I believe, continental and analytic philosophy are compatible. Nexistentialism is willing to look at everything, and employ a mathematical, linguistic approach, amongst other things.

Am I too old for this, I wonder. All this training and seeking with physical gusto. I mean, ancestors died at this age quite naturally. After decades of hard physical labour on the fields between stones. And now, in my early forties, I decide to pursue ACTIVE enlightenment!? It’s a paradox. I am a living, training, dying paradox.

I do like to explore moves my ancestors may have made, in exploring their potential body as it exists within mine. And the body begins to tell stories of times immemorial. Stories language can’t capture. Or can it?

Another philosopher, who is taller than me, stared at the top of my head as we stood face to face, making a last comment before leaving the “small meeting room” of the public library.

Surprisingly, it didn’t bother me. Despite my thinning hair complex. I lost most of it after my second child, who I breastfed for five years. Why would it grow back after making a third? After a cumulative nine years plus of producing milk. I know a genuine philosopher is naturally curious. I had gazed at his receding hairline earlier. Identifying him as a middle-aged man. There is a fancy name for hair loss: alopecia. I learned it years ago when a Black Congress Woman came clean about wearing wigs. She dropped them and confidently sports a bald head now instead. I’ve asked my lover many times when he’ll buy me a wig. He always says never. That I’m beautiful just as I am. He is kinder than what society’s beauty standards have imposed on my mind. All the pretty, sexy, gorgeous, alluring, attractive, noteworthy, normal people have plenty of hair according to these standards. And they’re young, slim, curvy in specific places, wrinkle free, spotless, tight, and and and. As a triple postpartum mother, I don’t correspond to current society's vain expectations. Sometimes I felt genuinely embarrassed about my condition, deficient. Like motherhood and aging are bad things? What can I do? Not look the part? It is the wiser route to accept myself as I am “naturally.” I still struggle with it, unfree from social conditioning as I am. And yet, my homeliness is a protest against the limiting beauty standards of the times. Which are always changing anyway. My ugliness is a rebellion against the idiocy of vanity.

What a horrible thought to be without questions, the philosopher said as he walked away. Indeed.

Thank God for Philosophy!

Image: A.I. @NightCafe

Circustantial

 I had wanted to write something down.
But I didn’t do it.
Was too tired.
Then,
I forgot.

“Not to desire is another way to desire,” an old Alan Watts recording pronounced on the 99.9 community radio station as I started the car. “The student eventually finds that there is no way not to desire,” the 20^th century male voice declared, as I ventured into a brand-new season at 5:30 a.m. on the first Monday of June. First stop: Mysore Yoga. Last month feels like years ago, even though it’s only been days. A new chapter has clearly begun. I hope.

Time seemed eternal in May. Maybe because of the many experiences. Loads of work and commitments, international travel, all tomorrow’s parties, much training then none, illness, and and and… At the half-month mark, I noted:

“Flying back to my city after spending a week in Mexico with my [deceased] mother’s family. It feels like I have been gone for ages to another time, to another place, far away from what I’ve come to call home. Subconscious tensions resurfaced demanding unexpected amounts of energy. I hoped to spend time making my missing yoga videos. But my yoga mat just went along for the ride and never left its bag. It felt so good to travel with it on the way there. Now my stiff back and body have more of a “yoga? what is it?” vibe. How will I reassemble myself after this intense run-in with a very complex present past? A lot of emotions and other stuck phenomena have reared their troubled heads. Occurrences that must be digested and dealt with. Life, as I dream of it, is full of interruptions. God help me! For now, I am happy to settle back into a day to day of familiarity, training, comfort. To find myself again, whatever that means. Thank God there was also a lot of fun. Mexican human warmth and joy for life remain unrivaled. That I will miss. Sure, I carry the tensions and blessings with me. But it’s not the same being removed from the cultural and familial contexts that evoke unforeseen sensations, as it is to be smack in the middle of it all. Smack in the middle of a giant wedding hall with hundreds of people. Dancing, laughing, sweating, loving, and failing.” (May, 15^th)

Book Club Book May 2024

In the month of many months, I came to dream. I dreamt my period wouldn’t come. Menopause? Random irregularity? Pregnancy?! But how if he’s vasectomized? Until I finally cherished the condition of never bleeding again. Only a calendar-month later though, right on time, I did again bleed.

I was suddenly overcome by waves of lust. It was circustantial. I remembered the woman in the book club who still experiences hormonal changes despite having had both ovaries removed. 
I guess my biological beast is still active, I thought. I came deliciously several times. Then, thanks to his cock, I received confirmation of the oncoming bleeding. It was the second day of the month. The new season appears to be but a continuation of previous cycles after all. I cannot hide my disappointment about not being fully period-free yet. About the inescapable cyclical circus called life. And yet, nature’s female human bloody cleansing might be just what I need right now.

On the will to let go. On the release of phenomena.

What is it, the will to let go? What does it look like? How does it work? What kind of process is it? And why is it all?
Forgetting can’t be all that bad, can it? To the contrary, forgetting seems quite natural, even necessary. The question is, what is forgotten?
Is forgetting a way of letting go? Can it happen consciously? Is it active when a meditator becomes witness to the arising and passing of changing phenomena? Can releasing, if it is going to happen either way, at least, be accompanied by consciousness? Where does this lead? Is this how Buddhist, Vipassana, Yoga, Zen and Samadhi masters die?
How is consciousness changed by the process of forgetting and letting go?

Thus, rendering forgetting, letting go, and releasing as a change in perception, as opposed to a loss per se? Until death do us part from the body, of course! Death an act which separates “consciousness” from the physical universe as it was experienced through the physical body. So, death is not the end of consciousness per se, is it?

Buddhist philosophy speaks of a subtle consciousness, which is said to transcend the physical world. A subtle consciousness, spiritual in nature. What is spiritual? That which lies beyond the physical universe? Is there a spiritual universe? What is it like? One can hardly exist without the other, can it? I think of the Samkhya philosophy Purusha-Prakriti axis, the perceiver-perceived dynamic. It would follow that, if universes are entwined, a physical world would be sufficient proof of a spiritual one. Even a non-universe is a universe in so far as it exists as the negation (absent?) of the affirmation (present). Where phenomena inter-are, separation seems futile.

However, the release of phenomena (i.e. feelings, sensations, emotions, ideas, thoughts, experiences, juices, subjects, objects, time, et cetera…) is inevitable. It’s natural. The brain has not the cognitive capacity to store each and every impression. Nor does the body. It is biologically impossible to hold on to every instant lived. Life needs to be processed, and part of this process is releasing, letting go, and forgetting. But then, how did we evolve with such precision? Well, not precise enough to avoid self-extinction. The good must be remembered and reinforced. Thus, the search for wisdom. Thus, tradition and scripture. Thus, transmission and repetition.

Buddhism talks about the longevity of impressions upon the mind (which I consider to be very much physical, and thus, subject to limitations). Buddhism talks about a subtle mind that transcends physicality, taking consciousness beyond the embodied. I struggle making sense of this from an inescapably incarnate perspective.

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso*: “The mind is neither physical, nor a by-product of physical processes, but is a formless continuum that is a separate entity from the body.”

The Nexistentialist: “Is the mind manifested in the nervous system? Why would mind not be physical when incarnate? Even if mind is not-physical per se, it appears to have manifested a physical version of itself, has it not? At this time, we are bodies perceiving ourselves and the world. Is this mind?” (May 28^th, 2024)

G.K.G.: “When the body disintegrates at death, the mind does not cease. Although our superficial conscious mind ceases, it does so by dissolving into a deeper level of consciousness, the very subtle mind.” (May 29^th)

“The continuum of the very subtle mind has no beginning and no end. It is this mind that, when thoroughly purified, transforms into the omniscient mind of a Buddha.”

T. Nex: “Is the subtle mind collective consciousness? Is it a quantum phenomenon? How can it be non-physical at all in a physical universe?” (May, 30^th)

The questions remain open. G.K.G. went on to speak of the seeds sewn in the mind and their germination, ripening and effects over the course of several lifetimes.

Why do I entertain all these foolish notions? Because I can’t help myself. I must philosophize. I don’t know why. It’s like being in love. In love with wisdom? A philosopher who seeks the wise in awe with life. Who plays in the realm of beyond, searching for what’s good and true.

As I float along, lost in an abstract carnival of thought waves. Some concrete. Others vague. Feelings, not thoughts. As the waves of perception vary. Vrittis**. As I seek a way out of my nexistential chaos, I look to a deity for escape.

Maybe Hanuman. Maybe Saint Solitaire – or is he a devil? Who turns me into a gambling beast! Has he been able to tame addiction? Or maybe the Black Window Goddess, a dark and mysterious, colourful and entertaining dancer of delight and sorrow. What deity is on the menu today? Who knows? Somebody to take me out of my misery. Or at least distract me from it. What misery? The inherent misery of being. A peculiar bedfellow who coexists with joy. Like darkness, which inter-is with light.

I made it every dawn, except during the darkness of the New Moon, to Mysore Yoga. As I practice, I gaze at him from time to time. Wilfully unaware, ignorant of what I feel. He looks another way. And yet, I feel like Hanuman is calling me. Will I heed the call? Or pretend like I’m not falling in love . . .

Monterrey Monkey, Mexico, May 10th

Hanuman in colourful, two-dimensional threads hangs above me as I gaze seduced by curiosity and ignited by yogic desire. But the turn-of-the-twenty-first-century Yoga Elder on YouTube*** warned that the desire to master yoga is “a very dangerous desire”. I wonder why, if yoga represents a toolkit towards liberation? And what does it mean to master yoga? I am not sure what I desire. All I know is that desires drive me enigmatically. Of course, I would love the monkey-man-deity. My relatives used to call me “little Swiss monkey” as a child, because I climbed up everything from trees to ropes and poles. Besides, I am fascinated by human evolution. 

How does one synthesize the yogic practice of millions of seekers? Through yoga sutras and asana systems, through traditions, rituals and techniques containing universal knowledge turned into specific methods of transmission? Which, when repeated faithfully, will bring forth individual wisdom. And when shared, will continue to transmit and evoke wisdom in populations for generations to come. Wisdom about the bodies we are and the truths these inhabit.

In the backyard, I gazed at a black spider while I squatted and allowed my traumatized hip to relax slowly and hesitantly onto the cold concrete. Opening the hips holds a painful association. Giving birth to a giant is an excruciating task, which leaves marks.  Its repercussions, amongst other things, have become especially clear to me through yoga study and practice. The longer I do it, the deeper I dive, the more my initial intuition is confirmed. Yoga heals the very real and very physical trauma of biological motherhood (i.e. growing a full physical body within and pushing it out into the world). And yoga helps to awaken all the parts that have become uncomfrotably numb. 

They say spiders are blessings for writers. Good fortune. Yoga writes divinity onto the body. Through effort, consciousness and care.

May Good Spirit manifest through the ancient transmissions of wisdom embedded in the script we call body!

May only the best be awakened in the natural beasts that we are, bound by the biology of a finite planet in an ever-changing universe!

And thank God for Philosophy Sunday!

* Buddhist monk on social media platform “x.com”
** vrtti => waves, movements, changes, functions, operations, conditions of action or conduct in consciousness (Iyengar, 2002. Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali)
  “presentations of the mind, mental processes” (Freeman, 2010)  
*** “Dristi: Internal Gaze and Visualization” @ FreemanTaylor Yoga, May 15^th, 2024.
“…when we see that all things are temporary… we are actually able to initiate a genuine inquiry into the practice of yoga, and more importantly, into a direct experience of the present moment.” (Freeman, Richard. 2010. The Mirror of Yoga – Awakening the Intelligence of Body and Mind)
T. Nex: A direct experience of the present moment might reveal the present moment extends to the past and the future as well. 

Lost Philosophress

 

The Great Carnival II by EricTonArts

“The world is full of princesses dreaming of love. The world is full of searching for communion beyond self.”

Thank God for Philosophy Sunday!

I float in my own personal chaos. Tired. Very much alive. Every day closer to death.
Of course, my life unfolds in this way, or I perceive it as such, because I’m a Nexistentialist.
Life is an existential carnival. I am a fool and a priestess. I am performer and audience zugleich. I am visitor and resident. I am dead and alive. Lost am I, amidst fractal, material, organic, physical, and… spiritual?... realities.

What on Earth is spiritual anyway!? Physical-I, I-human have no sense of it. And yet, spirituality is talked about by many others. It appears in ancient and contemporary scriptures, as well as cultural collections of scriptures, such as the Bible or the Upanishads, compiled by people coinciding and clashing at certain times in space. Spiritual, they say.

Most importantly, spirituality is actually lived by people, or so they claim. What does it mean to live a spiritual life? True, in communion with God, I feel the happiest. Trust in God gives me solace. But I don’t know how to explain those moments of serenity and bliss, when they are only fleeting.

Fleeting faith exhibits in the human species. Fleeting moments of faith arising and passing in a carnival of fleeting phenomena. Countless, uncategorizable, fleeting phenomena. We can certainly try to categorize, as our organisms do this naturally, cognitively. However, life is impermanent and cyclical. Innumerable occurrences, experiences, and momentary manifestations of the mind remain indescribable. Every instant cannot be remembered. It is logistically impossible. History is selective memory. Scriptures consist of literary choices. The question is: What is to be stored in memory, what is to be discarded into the unknown? 

Recently, I came across the most beautiful opening line to a book I have ever read:

“Human nature is not altogether unchanging but it does remain sufficiently constant to justify the study of ancient classics.” (S. Radhakrishnan, 1951) *

What lies beyond cognition (i.e. the (organic) brain and its functions (i.e. nature, Prakrti)? What lies beyond the perceptive sensory world? What lies beyond these words?

Something certainly does. As is evident by how many of us organic creatures (terrestrials) coexist. Organized, complex and simple systems; material phenomena including microorganisms, macrocosms, elements, the physical, nature… Prakrti **. We represent tangible expressions of a force*** that transcends us as particular manifestations. Are we but temporary formulations of something immaterial which transcends it all? What lies beyond embodiment?

Forces, such as systems, cycles, mathematics, physics, magic (i.e. animism), all form part of materialization, even if they transcend individual phenomena. For instance, my body is idiosyncratic, but it is articulated by systems (nervous, skeletal, muscular etc.) that reoccur in uncountable organisms. Thus, these systems transcend my particular body. Life is itself a transcendental force. Cells die, organisms die, stars die, but life goes on in other cells, bodies, and suns.

Does a force beyond all always flow, creating a transcendental reality? Or is there a phenomenon which does not flow at all? Then, can “it” be called anything at all?

Samkhya I

Is dristi Purusha?
Is gazing spirit?
¿Es la mirada espiritu?
Ist der Blick Geist?

_______________________________________________

* The Principal Upanishads. S. Radhakrishnan, 1953. 39^th impression 2023.
** Samkhya philosophy. Concept encompassing all that is, nature, the material universe etc.
*** or forces?

Physical Scholarship* and Sleepy Glutes

Life’s circumstances provided two unexpected opportunities this week, which furthered my physical-philosophical study in significant ways. A study which appears to move slowly, as I let life take over daily. But, I also ask God to help me advance.

I woke up randomly at one in the morning on Tuesday and grabbed my phone. I saw a new job had been posted. It was at my son’s high school, so I immediately accepted it, even though I usually don’t work on Tuesdays because of ballet class, unless it is a half-day affair. I sacrificed ballet class to be at my son’s school all day. There was a student teacher in the class, so I didn’t have to do anything except to be there, for legality’s sake. I used the school hours to finish the online anatomy lesson I had been stuck on since last year. It felt like a divine gift along the path of getting my first yoga teaching certificate. I am beginning to feel more ready than I’ve felt the previous three years. My body is transforming rather slowly, as are my perception and understanding thereof. Then again, I am but a product of millions of years of evolution. Anyway, finishing the anatomy lesson on the spine has me emphasizing the strengths of each section in the execution of different movements. For example, exploring the extent of the thoracic spine’s ability to twist and bend laterally, and how it can affect movement of the other parts of the body.

On Thursday morning, an a.m.-job popped up, and I immediately took it. I wasn’t going to miss ballet class at 12:30 p.m. again. The job was only until noon. I was covering for a para-educator at an elementary school. Another para-educator in the class turned out to be a physical scholar, who I had a sporadic but meaningful exchange with.

Mikhail Baryshnikov, New York City, 1977

“The glutes pull in,” he said. I’d wanted to know the opinion on human posture from this consciously built man before me, who had studied the human form with evident devotion. He mentioned a phenomenon called “sleepy glutes”. Immediately, images of ballet-butt popped into my mind’s eye, like Mikhail Baryshnikov’s magnificent jumping, nay, flying mechanism. 
I realized, indeed, my glutes are asleep! Now I’ve been mentally mapping my glutes from within, and pulling them in. I seek to activate them for every movement, no matter how removed from the ass. For example, while writing pen on paper, sitting propped forward on the garden chaise lounge, legs bent, one pushy arm stretched out with fingers spread apart, while the other, holding a stylograph, subtly swings in tiny twisting motions.

I noticed that the pelvic floor is a crucial consequence in the conscious mental effort of awakening the gluteal area. The pelvic floor responds in interesting ways when playing with glute awakening. Glutes that drape the back of the pelvic bones (left and right Ilium), Ilyopsoas draping the front, connecting to the lower spine (lumbar), I imagined. The physical scholar also mentioned the hamstrings and hip flexors. He showed some moves, like bending over, and I exclaimed three times: “That’s yoga!”

I wonder, is there a practice more (physically, anatomically) specific than Ashtanga Yoga? What about ballet (as an evolved human movement art form)? What about Win Chung, and countless other human body/mind-maintenance traditions?

As I jumpy danced around in the kitchen – I did NOT burn rice nor beans this time, I noticed that the more I lifted the legs and feet quickly off the floor with the effort of the glutes “pulling in”, the more the core awakened. The very core area (between the front ribs and hip bones, approximately, a kind of diagonal (from below the tits to the ass)), the physical scholar had described with his hands, when I asked him about forward head carriage and rounded shoulders. It’s all connected, of course. I did notice, while playing around with dancey jumping (i.e. Irish-river-dance-like steps, quick waltzy stuff, indigenous tribal vibe moves, Indian Shiva limb lifting, Mexican ranchero hops, etc), that awakened glutes made all movements more precise, stable and powerful, including those of the arms. I guess awakening can flow through the entire body. Sleepy glutes appear to affect a lot of phenomena up and down the body’s fault lines (fascia trains). While lying in the bathtub, I noticed that when I “pull in” the glutes, I sense a lifting of the sacrum/lumbar (lower spine) creating a subtle back bend. I suddenly felt like awareness of my sleepy glutes was the missing link in my hips, between my lower back (QL, etc) and legs, and in activating the front with hip flexor sensations shooting out in up and down directions.

It occurred to me that I had misunderstood the glutes in yogasanas to be optional, while I realize now that they are vital to any body position. Then again, what isn’t? Thus, awakening of the body at large is vital. Hence, techniques such as yoga, and other traditions and practices, develop as a matter of human health, as mechanisms for the realization of full consciousness through studied awareness of self. Pulling in the glutes also awakened in me the sensation of body spirals running from the feet up the legs through the hips, crossing to the front and back again around the ribs to the arms…

Can I repeat these realizations beyond meditation? How do I make them part of my daily (unavoidable) movements? What is it like to achieve a holistic, awakened state of the body, its structure and movements?

Before the brief time of our meeting was over, before our paths would indefinitely part, I asked the physical scholar: “Is it possible for afflictions to occur in isolation?” Despite the holistic fascia connecting everything (which nonetheless, or precisely therefore, is very adaptable while also becoming stubborn, affected by the constant push and pull of a material universe). “Can the shoulders and head drop forward without it coming from sleepy glutes?”
“Perhaps,” he uttered pensively. Then he explained how runners can suffer from stiffness in the top of the body due to shortened pectoral muscles. Yes, I responded, the clavicles become diagonal. I’ve observed this in my son.

Philosophers can be anything: scholars, physicians, inventors, engineers, cooks, artists, parents, teachers, caretakers, food makers, farmers, gardeners, construction workers, messengers, drivers, representatives, bearers, sex workers, spiritual practitioners, masters, mistresses, leaders, et cetera… Philosophy is everywhere, characterized by the constant search for life to thrive, through curiosity, adaptation, variation, and evolution.

“The asymmetry sometimes drives me insane,” I confessed to him. And quickly gestured my hands together in front of my heart and bowed my head, twice, exclaiming discretely, “Acceptance, acceptance!” Saying it to myself more than him. He remained stoic. There was little time and many duties. Later, he asked me what my deal was, given my curiosity about the human body. I had sat in lotus on the bench and walked mindfully around the class room while the students worked on their chrome books, the way I, as a substitute teacher, always do.

“I’m studying yoga.”
“Yes, I noticed you sitting cross-legged.”
“Really, I consider myself to be a philosopher. What I like about yoga is the philosophy. And, I believe the body is scripture.”
He nodded.
I felt he knew exactly what I was talking about.

I think about my sleepy glutes and off-hips after giving birth to a giant baby. I think about all the has affected the body’s condition. My limb-related asymmetry makes me wonder, what makes the left (post disc hernia (L5)) side from the hip (post partum trauma) down the leg feel number (more sensationless) than the right side? After all the glute-intensive movement experimentation, the top of my right foot was screaming with exhaustion. Why doesn’t the left side feel the same? To what extent does being right handed play into it all?

Anyway, if the nervous system (sensation generator and suppressor) is intricately linked with the omnipresent fascia, can the nervous perception equipment be reactivated through fascial treatment through movement techniques, such as yoga? To what extent have we always known about the body’s mechanisms? If it is all written in the body scriptum. Why do we fall asleep ((Buddhist) ignorance) and generate phenomena such as “sleepy glutes”?

 

*Study of body scripture, study of the self, of the human form (through maps, movement and complete absorption (i.e. yoga, et cetera))

Burnt Basmati and Blutlappen*

 Thank you, Sun, for philosophy Sunday! Contemplative bathing, Sanskrit chanting, Mysore yoga, friendship, family, stillness, moving freely, writing...

I burn the rice from becoming lost in philosophy (physical and written). So that’s what’s for dinner. Burnt sometimes is good and healthy. Fire is my favourite element. Fire gives life flavour.
I wander away from kitchen engagements pulled by music to pursue philosophical reverie (physical** exploration through movement and dance) of a human nature (creative exploration and expression, art). Until I get pulled out of dreaming by other engagements. One of my children calls, interrupting the music that was playing from the smartphone. Some engagements I will never be able to turn my back to, such as motherly engagements, which have bound me in inescapable ways through unconditional love.

At night in bed on Monday, I tell my lover all about the physical lessons of the day. About the new revelations in yoga class and how these translate to my martial arts training. He smiles with glowy eyes. I ask him why. He says he loves to see me so happy and passionate. It’s true, I’m often gloomy and moody, but never when I talk about the study of human body movement. He knows, if I don’t get my daily dose of philosophy I get bitchy.

Movements that transcend the body fascinate me, too. What happens beyond individual perception? What moves collective existence? How is it that I receive answers to questions I never uttered aloud? I do ask “God” (to be defined) things all the time. For example, I intended to ask the yoga teacher why the quadratus lumborum (QL) muscles are so hyperactive, as I continue to notice lower back pain after intensive training. And because I was curious about the particular view of this teacher at this point in time, regarding a question I have asked before and might very well ask again. Questions are asked like mantras sung into the world repeatedly, and the universe sings back in chorus, and information is passed on along an ambiguous chord (time), which twists through a mysterious material universe (space) of unknown proportions, ceaselessly sought by the senses.

I’m not sure how much of the lower back pain occurrences might be related to the psoas muscles, too. My anatomical sensitivity remains unpolished. But I’ve noticed what I believe to be the psoas area firing in stressful situations, in which I exhibit impulsive fight or flight responses. For example, when I substitute at the special education school, where students of all ages with severe behavioural, neurological and physical issues, even medically fragile students receive attention, care and an education. Sometimes a student’s aggressive behaviour escalates and becomes dangerous. Worst case scenario: get hit, bitten bloody, or be struck by a random flying object. I understand, as a mother of three children, I’ve experienced my share of escalations. We must protect ourselves and those around us. Sometimes the classroom needs to be cleared in a hurry while a student is having a serious escalation. I’ve noticed that even though I stay calm on the outside and carry out my duty to protect the child I’m in charge of, my body appears to have a strong response in the psoas area towards the low back, which exhibits as tense pain. As the perception of danger subsides, so does the physical tension. I think about four-legged creatures that also have psoas muscles, like donkeys, horses, cows and goats, who kick their hind legs when they feel scared, and wonder, to what extent is fear/stress exhibited in the psoas? What is an instinctive human response to threats? To run, jump, climb, swim the hell away, or fight.

The yoga teacher explained how the back of the body is supported by the bony structure of the spine, whereas the front of the body is soft. The bony sternum (breast plate) and rib cage float atop organs and soft tissue. It’s true, gravity is always pulling me down towards the front (breasts LOVE gravity). To counteract this, he focused our training on the activation, strengthening and stretching of the clavicular joints where the arms attach to the torso. He explained how the top of the arm and shoulder connect diagonally to the opposing hip through the serratus anterior muscle (hugging the shoulder and ribcage) and the oblique all the way down and across to the hip. I’ll have to map this out with the Anatomy Atlas. But, I felt it physically. And, I played with this awareness all week in kung fu, ballet and the kitchen. I noticed particularly a heightened stability and ease while doing round-house kicks and while turning slowly on one leg in arabesque, as I imagined holding up and swinging the legs from across the chest. The teacher’s larger point was related to breathing. By expanding the chest area at the sterno-clavicular junctions, breathing stamina would not have to diminish in advanced age due to the downward pull of gravity, ultimately crushing breath space through the collapse of the body onto itself. I noticed that this approach to breathing allowed for mor ease in moving. It also pulled me away from diaphragmatic incarceration***, the horrible habit of holding my breath when concentrating on unfamiliar movements in a foolish (momentarily unconscious) attempt to recruit the diaphragm as a muscle for stability.

How I think about the limbs, arms and legs alike, relating to the torso, shifts again. I begin to think of myself as a four-legged creature, as opposed to a bipedal beast. And it troubles me. But not for long. The diagonal-frontal connective body consciousness also changed the behaviour of the head in ballet, in surprising ways demanding further exploration. I must learn to turn on the connective consciousness in complete absorption in order to seek the serious study therof.

Another interesting philosophical exchange took place this week on social media (on X formerly known as Twitter) with Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. Perhaps he is my first great master (except for my mother, of course, who is my most significant teacher of philosophy, who taught me how to think, in ways no book, no class ever could). I read his work “Modern Buddhism” several years ago and it was life changing. The latest exchange stands roughly as follows. I would respond to a post. There would be no direct response but a series of posts, which I have compounded. It began with him stating:

- Things do not exist from their own side. There are no inherently existent I, mine and other phenomena; all phenomena exist as mere imputations. Things are imputed upon their basis of imputation by thought.

- What is the basis of things upon which thought imputes?, I asked.

- What does ‘basis of imputation’ mean? For example, the parts of a car are the basis of imputation for the car. The parts of a car are not the car, but there is no car other then its parts. Car is imputed upon its parts by thought. How? Through perceiving any of the parts of the car we naturally develop the thought ‘This is the car’.
Similarly, our body and mind are not our I or self but are the basis of imputation for I or self. Our I is imputed upon our body or mind by thought. Through perceiving our body or mind we naturally develop the thought ‘I’ or ‘mine’.
Without a basis of imputation things cannot exist. Everything depends upon its basis of imputation.
Why is it necessary to change the basis of imputation for our I? Since beginningless time in life after life until now, the basis of imputation for out I has only been contaminated aggregates of body and mind.
Because the basis of imputation for our I is contaminated by the poison of self-grasping ignorance, we experience the endless cycle of suffering.

- So the basis of imputation are parts and form? Who or what creates thought? What is the basis of thought? Is ignorance thought? Has it the power to affect the very basis it imputes upon? Then, is it both basis and imputation, thus accounting for the cyclical nature of existence?
Cycles that can be changed by transforming either the basis or the imputation? Rendering the notion of self open to idiosyncratic interpretation to serve as a tool in the evolution of phenomena?

- To free ourself from suffering permanently we therefore need to change our basis of imputation from contaminated aggregates to uncontaminated aggregates.

- How?

- Anyone who does not wish to experience suffering needs to change their basis of imputation.

I thought about Startrek and beaming. Will beaming actually be possible thanks to the whole imputation upon parts relationship? I wonder about the body and how its various parts can be imputed upon in different ways. To perceive specific relationships, alignments and geometries of the physical human form influences its ability to create movement. Thanks to the awakening, or imputation of the arm-clavicle-serratus anterior-oblique-to hip diagonal connection in yoga class, my round-house kicks in Kungfu class, and arabesque turns in ballet improved. Enhanced stability allowed for more range of movement and control, as I imagined engaging the sterno-clavicular area in the lifting of the opposite leg and turning of the hips.

I end the week with very active bleeding on a rainy spring Sunday morning, one which celebrates resurrection, victory over death. Life goes on, they say. Embedded in human tradition is the phenomenon of arising and passing. Amen.

Can I commit great lessons from distinctive masters to memory? I don’t know. What I do know, is that every lesson co-writes the script that I call self (idiosyncratic, world-digesting mind body Nexistentialist phenomenon).

 

* blood rag
**I continue to believe that mind, too, as part of the body is physical. I am not sure how to make a distinction between mental and/or spiritual and physical. Thoughts and feelings also exist within the confines of a physical universe.
***Trapped in the diaphragm: using it for concentrating on movement by holding it instead of breathing. Breath perception limited through notion of abdominal breathing. Clavicular breathing liberates movement through expansion of breath flow within the ribcage, which is pulled by gravity without bone support in the front, self-collapsing, crushing breath. Weak abdomen equals even less support. Abdominal breathing enough to sustain a strong structure? Or, does breathing always happen everywhere, but perception becomes inhibited or physical scope limited? When breath is held, does movement cease? Or, can the flow of breath be guided from within? Of course, only temporarily, but through training can the time be prolonged?

Unbecoming 1

While bathing, suddenly, I realized,
As I contemplated my physical body present and past,
I mistook sensationlessness for stability.
Now I see,
Sensationlessness exhibits compensatory patterns.

What repercussions for the body's movements has mistaken perception?
If at all.

For, if (micro) movement is always happening in the body,
Regardles of sensory perception,
What does it matter what one feels?
Indeed, what is the consciousness of "feeling"?

Then, why awaken at all?
What awakens anyway?
And, awaken to what?

Sun in Piscis

“I have stories to write. They are told in my head. But I must get ready. Must work today. It makes me want to cry. When will I be able to just write all that wants and needs to be written?”

Life’s circumstances clearly determined that it is time to write today by gallantly erasing all distractions from this fateful morning. I’ve been postponing the silly desire to write for too long. What about philosophy? asks a little voice. What about Nexistentialist writing?

Well, life had a lot of other demands lately. I started a new job as a substitute teacher. Got bills to pay. And this winter, illnesses hit the home hard. Flu virus variations, contagious as they are, made their way through the entire family.  

Can an ordinary middle-aged, turn-of-the-twenty-first-century woman, a mother, wife, caretaker, and general laborer really be a philosopher?

What it actually means to be a philosopher remains unclear to me at the moment. Despite the fact that philosophy is the foundation for all human activity. However, exploring how philosophy is the foundation for all human activity, means embarking on a journey millions of years in the making. This complex matter must be postponed for another day, when I ‘m not pressed for time thanks to the boundless duties and demands of living in a comfort-oriented society stooped in capitalistic consumer conceptions at the tail end of a patriarchal era with scarce femme philosophers to be found in the bookstore. 

This winter I’ve felt like a working, training, studying, praying, caretaking nun. I thought about God a lot. I searched “it” in a dream at night, calling out Hail Marys in Spanish and the Lord’s prayer in German, the only language I know each prayer in by heart. The former, a gift from my Catholic Mexican grandmother, and the latter thanks to my Rhinelandish Catholic identity crisis in grade school while living in Bonn, former capital of Western Germany. Yes, every once in a while, I wrap myself in rosary beads to dance to the beats of existential desperation.

Then, two yoga teachers showed up in my dream. I believe my subconscious is urging me to conclude my basic yoga studies at the online school. My progress has been internal instead. The body is achieving fundamental changes. The more I am aware of my physical existence in more detail though, the more annoying I find the idiosyncratic asymmetries of the human body. Sometimes it nearly drives me insane. I know I will never “fix” the odd pair of breasts bestowed upon me, one clearly larger than the other. This must impact the body’s overall sense of balance and movement. I tried to influence the size of the smaller breast while nursing my first baby by using it more often, so it would swell up with milk way more. Of course, it didn’t work. The larger breast needed release just the same. I gave up on the breast-equalizing project, and let the body do whatever it needed to do. Vipassana Yoga is helping me to accept the body as it is, to work with it as it is, and to be curious about its condition without judging it. But there is so much I notice that is off from all the experiences I’ve had like injuries, bad posture, habits, pregnancy, birthing, aging etc. I also notice the recalibrating and transformative effects conscious training has on the body’s structure. A pandora’s box of questions* opens and distracts me from the serious study of what has been presented by previous scholars. I lose myself in the spontaneity of being, rolling with the changing cycles of my feminine fate, becoming self-absorbed and weary of external scripts, while at the same time craving answers from beyond my own perception.

Truth be told, I ultimately seek liberation from becoming. But in the meantime, I am stuck in a karmic-dharmic wheel of being human in a very biological, socio-cultural, idiosyncratically terrestrial, and even cosmic way. Like, am I ready to give up sex? Hell no! At least when ovulation energy takes over it becomes inescapable. Plus, cumming has a lot of power. But it does take energy, strength and endurance to explore the full extent of this fascinating female human visionary superpower. Does it suck to constantly bleed and suffer the lows of the female cycle? Hell yes! And yet, there also lies power in that. The power to rest and release, not only on an individual level, but in terms of collective consciousness healing as well. Great forces can be channeled through the female menstrual cycle. This also takes practice and training. How can I become a renunciate? I am too much of a woman to forego the intense physical impulses that drive my reasons for being. Reasons for being that are millions of years old.

Do not be fooled by the false notion that suffering will indeed cease. Suffering is an inevitable part of life. It is the first noble truth, according to Siddhartha Gotama Buddha.

1.       Life = Suffering

Oh, how I hate this statement. Not only because life is not merely suffering. We live in a world where pleasure abounds. According to Gotama Buddha’s third noble truth, the cessation of suffering is possible through the invalidation of desire. Is this true for pleasure, too?

3.       Ø [desire] => Ø suffering

However, there will be suffering.

What I found most astonishing in revisiting Siddhartha Gotama Buddha’s journey, is that he continued to face suffering until the day he died, liberation and all. Like when his disciples were fighting and it stressed him out so much that he fled into the forest to distance himself from the quarrel in peace. Or the pain he experienced before dying, though he remained stoic, or rather, equanimous. Equanimity was the Buddhas’s true superpower. Did equanimity trump suffering? Perhaps. Did suffering disappear altogether? Unlikely.

Thus, let’s not make the reality of suffering any worse than it needs to be. There’s no need for war, addiction, greed, and destruction. Your conventional heartache, monthly bleeding, illness, unfulfilled desire, or fatigue are daily suffering enough. The Buddha taught how to live despite the suffering in a state of equanimity while faced with life’s changing facets.

*Is there Nexistentialism without self? Or, as philosophy leaves the mind, does it mutate an I to the stratosphere of non-being? How can non-self even be, if it is simply not selfed? For, self is ethereal being manifest, one of many (atoms etc).

In philosophizing, in scientific inquiry, in art … to what extent is imagining and imaging, making images with human genius (and stupidity), creating collective realities?

Body-form sensation. Is it because I can feel it? Or, if I can't feel it, it's really not? Or, is it whether I feel or not? Sensation is a broad concept. Experiencing sensations is not just feeling, but includes the acitivity of all senses (sesnsual, sentient, sensible, perceptive systems), consciously and unconsciously so. 

Is awakening the process of becoming ever more conscious of the subletest and gorssest aspects of material (manifested) reality (physis, psychis etc)? But what about the realm of the unmanifest, the potential, the apparently immaterial (because in a physical, biological universe everyting is expressed in matter)?

Does an immaterial reality actually exist? In a physical universe, can there be such a thing as immaterial phenomena? Just because it can't be sensed or perceived, it does not mean it isn't physically present, does it?

Is sensation (physical perception/ physikalische Wahrnehmung) different from form (physical phenomenon)? How can the (body) sensation be the only thing that changes if it also form? Unless form is relative to sensation (inclduing sight etc) ... Because sensations seem to change faster than form. But is it actually so? Thus, sensation and form are intricately, inescapably linked. Can I change the sensations by moving form? Even if the form isn't fundamentally changed. To what extent does movement change form?

HIp HIgh WAys

 Spontaneous meditation 1

 For A glimpse into the inner hip high ways

As my perception awakens 

To the full presence of my body

An anatomical landscape emerges

It look-feels like 

Samskarized, sticky webs of mysterious matter

Lit up by currents of je ne sais quois

Spontanmeditation 1

Für einen Einblick in die inneren Hüftbahnen

Meine Wahrnehmung erwacht

Zur vollkommenen Gegenwart meines Körpers

Eine anatomische Landschaft wird sichtbar

Sie wirkt wie

Samskarazierte, klebrige Netze geheimnisvoller Materie

Erleuchtet durch Flüsse von je ne sais quois

Meditación espontánea 1 -

Para mirar las carreteras de la cadera

Despierta la percepción interna

Siente la plena presencia del cuerpo

Surge un paisaje anatómico

Miro y siento

Redes pegajosas y samskarisadas de una materia misteriosa

Encendidas por corrientes de je ne sais quois

Schweiz, 2007

((Non)Self)

I am barely beginning to understand a lesson from several weeks ago. There has been a long digestive break during which I chewed on, and exploratorily moved to, the notion of:

 Voluminous hip joints vs. delicate Kreutzbein (German “crossleg”) joint (at the intersection of back (up/down spinal river) and cadera (Spanish “hips”; horizontal and circling springs (of movement, energy, flow etc.). Both elements are crucial to a body’s centreline (i.e. balance). I continue to awaken to the acetabulum-ilium-ischium-pubo-sacral complex in new ways, thus triggering transformational body-consciousness and self-awareness. Of course, this is true of other areas of the body constantly on my mind as well. However, I’m not, at the moment, chasing those notions with the same devotion. I am clearly preoccupied with the whole body* all the time.

*I wanted to include the word mind. But I’ve come to the following conclusion:
Given that even the elusive mind must have a biological, a physical manifestation (the nervous system perhaps? though this is a perceptive system not entirely unlike other anatomical phenomena), the mind is body.

Am contemplating so many things, all the time. Thank God for Philosophy Sunday! I guard everyone’s sleep while I think in peace. Joy overcomes my wretched spirit. I listen to music and move words and body. Today I rest gratefully on my bed as I write. Had a bad night. The 48 hours of strong non-stop bleeding, the height of the bloody period, are upon me. This means probably two nights of interrupted sleep due to getting up every couple of hours to empty my menstrual cup, or change the tampon, pad, or rag.

I hate it when two notions cross like rivers confusing the mental landscape. It happens to me with languages, too. I get stuck searching for a word, an expression, a thought. Sometimes it is lost forever. Brain technology, what can I say? Totally organic. Thus, orgasmic. Thus, unpredictable and fleeting… There I go again losing track.

1. Surely bleeding females have had interesting ways of dealing with the moonthly flow of death all across herstory dating back eons. Before all the industry we know today there was fur. A useful piece of absorbent, washable animal fur cut small between the legs or larger underneath the hips overnight, or while sitting cutting stones; or, grass bound together, biodegradable; an other plants and natural fabrics assisted in cathing the unstoppable flow of female blood.

2. Sunday, Sabbath. A day of doing nothing.  On the seventh day: rest. A day for contemplation, for God to go beyond the binds of physics. Some believe that even flipping a light switch is too much work for a Sunday. Pray to God in darkness instead! A day to rest. Resting is a basic human necessity. This, humans have known for eons. Embedded even in patriarchal old testaments is wisdom true. Women must have come up with that. Anyone who cares for the young knows that hunger and fatigue greatly affect a child’s mood. It’s true for gown-ups, too. Nurture and rest are inescapable terrestrial necessities. It’s also what every woman requires at least once a month during the days of dying.

Two thoughts that now flow together separately.

At the same time that Father Richard (Rohr) was sending reflections about living with paradox, I was experiencing a lot of paradox of my own. Many more rivers of contemplation flow through my being simultaneously. I’ve been preoccupied with Siddhartha Gotama Buddha again, for example. A German book** which revisits the Buddha’s story as it’s told, makes it clear that Siddhartha had a singular goal of becoming enlightened. A singular goal of shedding, of overcoming all the suffering in the world, of living lightly*** to never incarnate again. But Buddha my love, you live on incarnate in me! And in the next flesh who thinks about you, too. Will you help us not suffer? Except, I know that he can’t. I must do it all by myself with my own pained effort, until it pains no more. Siddhartha took the physically hard paths of yoga and ascetism. He acquired countless techniques in terms of taming or regulating the body, nearly killing himself through starvation. And yet, all that rigor and near-death did prepare him for the sitting of his lifetime. He was able to endure the Asana that freed him. His body, breath, and endurance were trained. He performed the greatest art of perception ever. He attained something that is attainable to all. At what cost? At the cost of suffering.

On the dawn of my birthday, while being in a state between asleep and awake, I had the most singular sensation of non-self. I felt fully (my) non-selfness. It was the most beautiful, peaceful and happy (non)sensation I’ve ever felt. It was fleeting. It was a gift. And all I desire is to experience it again. But how? Following the Buddha’s searching path? 

Thus, I’ve been preoccupied with the notions of self and/or non-self. I am curious about the nature of a human species self. An individual self, or a singular creature, is already so very complex. But it is as complex as other individuals, or creatures, like it. And it is complex in very similar ways to yet other creatures that seem different. Thus, a collective kind of self must exist beyond the individual self, which is rendered non-self by that larger reality.

There is an idiosyncratic self (i.e. genetic body variation; individual experience; and so on). There is also a non-self, the reality of non-idiosyncratic biological (and particular) collective existence (species, material universe, and so on). What lies beyond that?

I’ve experienced another kind of non-self as a mother. I’m not sure what to call it. Co-self? Double-self?

Perhaps the self and non-self are kind of the same. There can only be a non-self (or any other variation thereof) given a self. For, what is not, cannot be denied. What can be transcended must exist. In this sense, to what extent can the idiosyncratic self transcend a collective, or species self, or a beyond or non-self? To what extent does non-self transcend idiosyncrasies?

Indeed, what is the nature of our shared humanity embedded in the biological and technological connections of a material universe? Who are we humans as a species?

Philosophy Sunday has run out for now. Worldly duties and other desires abound. There was more I wanted to write. Of course, hundreds of pages of notes hang in the making. My philosophical compulsions never cease. I’ll end with a note of gratitude. 

God bless the living! For, Nexistentialism enjoys great company. I get to experience some of my favourite contemporary philosophers live, for they are my teachers! The beautiful, intelligent, experienced, independent, and compassionate minds of great thinkers with loving hearts. Yes, philosophy is alive and well in the world. Of course it is! It always was. But more on that another time.

Image: "Calavera cósmica en el espacio exterior"
 de warzinx

** "Ein Mann Namens Buddha - Sein Weg und Seine Lehre" von Samuel Bercholz und Sherab Chödin (1994).

***to not suffer, for suffering is heavy and hard

Nexistentielle Krise / Nexistential Crisis / Crisis Nexistencial 1

Apheida: Ich zweifle an der Philosophie.
Ruphus: Wie?

Apheida: Auch sie kann nicht DIE Antwort, DIE Wahrheit sein. Gibt es das überhaupt, eine Wahrheit?

Ruphus: Die Philosophie ist nicht die Antwort auf eine Frage, sondern die Erforschung von mehreren Antworten auf die gleiche Frage.

______________________

Apheida: I have my doubts about philosophy.
Ruphus: Why?
Apheida: Because neither can it be THE answer, THE truth. Does that even exist, one truth?

Ruphus: Philosophy is not the answer to a question, but the exploration of several answers to the same question.

______________________

Afeida: Dudo de la filosofía.

Rufo: ¿Porqué?

Afeida: Porque tampoco ella no puede tener LA respuesta, LA verdad. ¿Acaso existe una verdad?

Rufo: La filosofía no trata la respuesta a una pregunta, más bien trata la exploración de varias respuestas a la misma pregunta.