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.