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?