sahasrara. inner voice.

lately i have been studying the thousand petal lotus. sahasrara. because i want to self-realize and i want to know what the place is like. anyway my study buddy says, let's find an image of it. right away a tiny wisp of voice goes through me. sacred power. a little book. a dense book packed with profoundly esoteric knowledge and graphics of all the chakras. yet i didn't go with what this voice is telling me because my attention habitually goes with the tendency that goes like this, there is something better than this out there, what i know is not good enough. what happens next is i email several people whom i know are knowledgeable about such things. meanwhile that same small voice keeps coming back. so i dig out that little book, open it. sure enough an exquisite illustration of the sahasrara appears before me. i examine it closely. i've looked at this image before, several times over a span of years. still i look at it like i am seeing it the first time. i feel i know it better. before it felt like something so far away, so unattainable. now i have this sense that, yeah, it is in me. i suppose this is recognition, realizing this is part of me. as a matter of fact, it feels more like all that i can see that is me is manifestation of this subtle wonder. there is a tibetan mantra that goes like this. om mane padme hung. translated literally it means 'the jewel is in the lotus.' i am truly fortunate to be on a path that empowers me to experience that lotus right inside me.

since then it has been so easy to guide attention to the depths in the head where this sublime lotus dwells.

 i didn't feel surprised when i received a response from an expert in response to my question. the book 'sacred power' has what you need, go there. i realize this is such a powerful affirmation of my inner voice. this experience strengthens my connection with my own inner self that much more.

somehow all this brings to mind a metaphor from hindu scriptures. this human world is a five colored lake. stalks spring out of the muddy waters. at the end of each stalk is a lotus bud. each bud has the potential to blossom into a thousand petal lotus. very few do so. 

life path. stamps. detergents. inner self covers them all.

it never ceases to amaze me how my highest and innermost self watches out for me and guides me. lofty. nothing is too lofty. minutiae. nothing is too minutiae. so what about minutiae? there i am walking to the laundromat to do the down coat. a few houses down i get this inner prompting. go back. why would i turn around? there's got to be a reason, right? o, the cell. i left the house without the cell. but do i need the cell? not that i am aware of. but what if hwubby calls me. just in case. okay, okay. so i turn back reluctantly. i'm not kidding. no sooner than one foot of mine is over the threshold does it dawn on me that i left the house without the little tub of detergent. so that's the real reason that i have to turn back. of course this is not a life-or-death situation. here the worst case scenario is i have to purchase soap in the laundromat. but that's not the point. this is about learning to listen to the inner voice that guides me moment to moment. my innermost self doesn't wait until i am about to step off a cliff before telling me to back off. by the way if i say, let me wait until that moment, i sure will hear such thunder call, it's like the child saying i'm not learning read and write and i'll know how to write a book when i have to write a book. where am i? o yes, the inner self is speaking directly to me from the get go. it goes way back to when i take the first step onto the path that leads to the cliff edge. a whisper. don't go there. or the opposite. go.


speaking of 'to go or  not to go' i get a earful of it in the morning on the same day. i need to purchase some priority stamps. at the post office counter the worker says, we are out of them. so i leave. i am no further  than rounding the corner of the post office when i feel i have to go back. i say, suk wah, you are nuts. but that nudging sense just wouldn't go away. in fact it keeps gripping me stronger and stronger by the breath. so the mind starts trying to make up a rationale. o, yes, i forgot to pick up priority mail labels. never mind that it doesn't make sense when i have to come back to get the stamps anyway. so i actually feel a little stupid to push open that glass door. i kind of sneak in, turn my back sort of to the counters and head straight to the supplies section. i look up and down and back. i don't see the label that i think i have come back for. suddenly i hear a cry from behind me. hey, we found some stamps. 


the manager and the worker both can't get over it. how do you know to come back? i say, i just know.

indeed. the voice of my innermost and highest self shows me my life path and takes care of priority stamps and detergent as well. how cool is that.

entrenched attachment to a warm bed

breakthrough this night. mind coming out of a nice dream which dissipates moments upon awake. body relaxed and still. a soundless voice appears. without words it is the distillation of why it's such a seemingly endless struggle to get up before early. i see my childhood and teenage years, all the way into young adulthood, encapsulated in one image. sleeping on coarse, cold concrete. walls are pieces of aluminum sloppily held together with holes everywhere. no roof. just another piece of odd shaped aluminum precariously sitting on some thin wood bars. mice scratch wood and aluminum, whatever they could lay their sharp claws on. cockroaches and centipedes roam like they are in the wild. come to think of it i was hospitalized for a week because of a poisonous bite from a centipede in a ear. the child can't wait to get up out of fear, anxiety and over-the-top worry. and so it strikes me crystal clear. of course there is an entrenched attachment of a warm, comfy bed in a safe and quiet place. in fact, that week in the hospital was the happiest days of my childhood. i had my own bed. night nurse fed me milk and cookie. anyway the body is not of a child anymore. but the trauma is lodged in the firmament of being.

so how come i have no trouble getting up super early for retreats? because the allure of immersing in the sublime inner peace and security is irresistible. it's the real thing. it overrides the mental circuitry. but for the allure to become permanent it takes sustained spiritual work over a long period of time with full faith and surrender. and so i get out of bed very encouraged. it's just another residual tendency. i am the supreme, sublime self and that's that. i sit for an hour in the sweetness of the self. i have a deep sense that something heavy has been lifted. i feel that much lighter. if i didn't have things to take care of i could just sit and sit and sit.

even tripping up is grace.

no two meditations are the same. this much i know. but i don't know it can be this dramatic from one day to the next. yesterday was all sweet peace. here's how this morning goes. in the beginning it all seems to go as i have been doing the action sequence day in and day out. look. i get up, have my drink of chlorophyll, aloe, a little apple juice and psyllium, poop, - i cannot overstate what a huge difference pooping before meditation makes to the quality of meditation, but i'd better get back to the real drama of the day before i get carried away with pooping - where am i? o, right, then i wash the mouth and teeth and face. some gentle stretches. bow to four directions. bow to my meditation seat. so far, nothing is off track. yet somewhere around i put the earplugs and eyewraps in place i begin to sense something is off within. a little bit. very subtle. it's like the camera lens is slightly, very slightly, out of focus. so slightly that i just dismiss it.

i proceed to rigorously rub my hands to give a little tai chi bath to the eyes, face, head, neck and chest. as i am about to begin reciting 'a thousand mirrors,' the poem that i have been letting off my lips daily for one and a half years i hear a tiny whisper. you'll trip. i thought i knew what it meant. i'll trip over the poem 'breakthrough' which i am about halfway through memorizing. but as i type this now i realize that is the beginning of me getting out of the present moment. the onset of getting off center.

anyway words stream out of me swimmingly. in another corner of the mind the worry that i'll forget some part of 'breakthrough' loops like a stuck record. not loud. but enough to suck my attention out of the present moment. until suddenly i realize words stop flowing out of the vocal cord like a river's flow is obstructed by an unexpected boulder. my attention goes into shock. panic jams awareness. disbelief shakes up the mind. thought waves strike. negative thoughts. heavy thoughts. this can't be. it's impossible. so i try to gather myself, squeeze the scattered attention into the line. 'the reality of my existence is...is...is...' what is the word after 'is?' nothing comes. the brain jumps up and down and all around inside the skull. banggg. wangg. nothing comes. after a while and i don't know how long in terms of the linear passing of time i drag myself to the next verse. obviously i am still not totally in the present. because after 'each mirror was broken into thousands of fragments' i go right back to 'the reality of my existence is...' i struggle some more and go nowhere but round and round like a scared mouse. meanwhile negative emotions take this opportunity and make their appearance. discouraged is the main one. and exasperated too. i won't go into their extended family.

i begin to notice the breath is out of whack. so i do the only thing i know how to do in such dire circumstance. i turn attention to the breath. in a few rounds i watch the edginess in the breathing movement smooth out. then i hear this. relax. i take a deep breath in, a long breath out. a couple of more rounds later, conviction arises from deep within. i can't recall whether it comes with the inbreath or the outbreath. doesn't matter. they all come from the same place. anyway the message i get is this. i haven't forgotten the poem. really, i haven't. why would i even doubt that. scrap it.

with that i see what i need to do. move on to the next verse. and so i do. as i let the rest of 'a thousand mirrors' flow out of me i feel a refreshed, renewed resonance. 'destruction took its time. while grace was penetrating deeply i said to myself, people say grace is a shelter, why, then, am i losing all i have?'
indeed. 'all the reflections are grace. all the mirrors are grace. grace had revealed that everything is grace.' yes, even tripping up like this is grace.

as i step off the meditation mat i hear the inner self say, write with one voice.  'the power of grace takes me across,' ain't it the truth. ain't it the truth.

duck under. ride it out.

it is magical to meditate predawn. yet it still is not always easy to get up predawn after all these years. no wonder mahatma gandhi says as much, it is easier to endure a bullet in the chest than to do the same thing day after day over a long period of time. something as simple as get out of bed. just when i am congratulating myself and say, suk wah, you've arrived, you have no problem getting up three am, and then, boom, in recent weeks i have been coming to awake only to find this pull to hold the body hostage in the warm and snug cocoon under the quilt. the mind is adrift. randomly crisscrossing mental currents collide with each other generating splashes in awareness, shaking up focus, tearing at the will to stay connected with the voice from the inner self. but, at the same time, i can clearly see that's all these mental swirls and twirls no longer cripple me the way they used to be able to. i am now better at gauging their momentum and be smart about picking a fight. sometimes, as sun tzu, our chinese military strategist, says, retreat is advance. and this is how i assess these mental tornadoes. sure they are weather. nonetheless they are ferocious. so i keep surrendering to the inner message that says, duck under into the breath, ride it out.

we almost can't make it

should have listened to that inner voice. case in point. no sooner than i begin to lift the wheelchair in preparation of taking hwubby to a haircut i feel a little something in the lower back. i go ahead with lifting the wheelchair out of the door and carry it through the front porch and walkway navigating the seven and two steps on a slope and place the wheelchair on the sidewalk. at that point i feel discomforts in the lower back. i can't tell whether it's pain or because it's the usual tightness in the mornings. i have never had back problem before. and so i get on with it while being careful about my postures. between the wheelchair, walker and cane a walk to the hair cut place that normally would take a few minutes end up...forty-five minutes. every move is super slow. never before are hwubby and i so keenly aware of the unevenness in the pavement. all in all, it takes half a day to get our hair cut. and my back is officially hurting. there are moments when i see the thought, i don't know if we are going to make it to the haircut. and now i must listen to this inner message. take care of it before it gets worse.

off to the chiropractor we go tomorrow.

milk spill shows how farsighted inner self is

i'm definitely more anchored in the inner self. having said that there's still work to do. case in point. i'm having the spiced milk warming up while preparing for chai spices. not once, not twice, not thrice but several times i have the hunch, the intuition, the inner prompting, whatever you call it, that finish with the milk before doing chai spices. i don't listen to it. i say to myself, no, i'm watching it, i won't let it boil over. so there i am, just as i am about to crush the cardamom pods i see, out of the corner of my eye, a golden yellow cloud brimming over the pot in a flash. i don''t have time for any thought. i see my hand reach out and take the pot off the stove. hwubby says, a disaster? i say, an incident. i go through the clean-up with total inner quiet. now, as i reflect on it sipping chai i realize there was not one sliver of thought of beating myself up or dramatizing the situation. i take care of it as it is: a milk spill. having said that, next time i ought to listen to the inner voice sooner. and it never ceases to amaze me how far-sighted the inner self is.

inner self spared me from bear scare

last day in tahoe. awake at 2.59am. part of me says, go back to sleep. another part of me says, get up, meditate and go back to sleep. i follow the latter voice because it is way stronger. the meditation is fine, complete with earplugs.

a few hours later. my fellow yogi who hosts my stay says, we had a pack of bears last night. i say, what? when? she says, first i heard coyote, then there was this rumbling that went around your side of the house before coming to outside my bedroom. i peeked. six of them. a really huge one, another big room and four cubs. i prayed they wouldn't come up the deck. they didn't and trudged to the next house. the guy next door turned on the lights, came out and shooshed them away. i say, i heard nothing. when did all this happen? she says, after 3. ahhh. i had earplugs on all that time. i was spared the scare. thanks so much, my inner self. how intelligent you are. truly awesome.

universal self has other plans

awake i am 3.30am when i go to bed almost 11.30pm. i can feel part of the body and mind saying, we are tired. but there is a stronger pull, much stronger, saying, get up, meditate, you can always go back to sleep. so i do. the posture feels so comfortable that i end up sitting more than two hours. amidst long, deep breathing i hear the inner voice saying, go home sunday. it feels right. what happens is the plan to return from tahoe today, monday, fell through sunday afternoon. meanwhile i have been getting writing done in a steady fashion. as a matter of fact hwubby said it right from the get go, why don't you stay the whole time. but i really didn't feel like away from him so long. well, as it turns out, the universal self has other plans. hwubby is missing me terribly while being totally supportve and says, yeah, you should definitely stay, i'll arrange to send you what you need for food. how lucky i am.

i don't care if i could get enlightened as long as i keep meditating

in those days and years when i couldn't even sit still for 5 min i felt this sense of desperation, like, when would i get self-realized? i would never get liberated? by the way i didn't even really know what that meant. but this much i did know for sure. i wanted perfection.

so chasing perfection outside became my life. if only i got this or that i would feel perfect, my life would  be perfect. unfailingly it didn't. in fact in the midst of feverish pursuits i would hear, periodically, an inner voice that said, no, this is not it. did i ever listen? no.

i digress.

now i meditate 2 hr a day. i even do 1 hr on sunday. not that some drill sargeant drags me out of bed. i want to do it. saturday evening i tell the mind, we are going to sleep in tomorrow, isn't that great? come sunday predawn i find myself coming awake, the mind clearly filled with the thought, i want to meditate.

but i am still digressing.

what i really want to note is i am just thrilled to be able to be with my inner self. will i ever get fully, totally, absolutely, irrevocably enlightened this lifetime? that is not a burning question anymore. as a matter of fact i would be so happy if i could just keep my meditation practice going strong. little by little i realize that there is so much perfection within me, the resources of all that i need to take care of anything are within me. hey, and so much laughter too.