the place where potentiality reigns.

what a meditation roller coaster ride eight thousand feet can make. from the first night, up in tahoe, i am awake after a couple of hours of sleep. i meditate two hours deep in the quiet and scent of russell pines. easy. now i've been home for several days. i'm still struggling with getting up before dawn. the mind seems to be tumbling into a rough terrain that straddles between waking, dreaming and sleeping. the state of awareness is like going through one of those amusement rides some times and tossing through tumultuous ocean other times. brutal currents of thoughts and feelings strike, collide, splash and merge. i see them but no desire to hold onto any of them. i know it's one of those times when i just have to duck, watch them roar and recede, roar and recede.

nevertheless, once i get my butt settled onto the meditation mat the power of the breath movement quickly takes over. it pulls my attention into the steady rhythm of the incomings and outgoings. actually they are come from the same place and go into the same place. where potentiality reigns in pulsing quiet.

pure pasta. pure practices.

these days the only pasta i eat is uncle vito's. let me explain why. first of all it's after doing spiritual practices together. we sing vedic hymns and om and meditate. by the way we are now singing om on a deeper level. we focus on the nasal resonance. the result speaks for itself. we glide into this meditation that, in shivaa's words, quick and still. half an hour go by in no time. i am deeply absorbed in the subtle throb. i am all full in this gentle and rich pulsation.

then, pasta. the pasta sauce is a recipe from vito's fellow italian, lydia mastianich. mushroom, garlic, parsley. how can it be not terrific, right? and then vito throws in his own touches. sage. a cheese that is not reggiano. i can't remember the name. but what it does is not drowning out the delicate mushroom flavor but enhancing it. you can't taste the sage but the whole thing is that much more interesting and richer. i scrape off every drop of it.

this is pure pasta. perfect complement to the pure practices.

ear of my heart

meditation is such a mystical process. how do i explain on the days when nothing much happens if i do not embrace this enveloping stillness that throb soundlessly. it is not a dead quiet. it is so alive. indeed it is this that i am irresistibly drawn to meditating day after day. it is this state that i strive to return to as i go about the worldly activity. and this is on days when nothing happens. what about today? wow. soon after i find myself immersed in the rich and full pulsation that ripple through my entire awareness i see these dancing lights. right away i relate to them. they remind me of the northern lights going wild over the pitch black sky above the swathe of penguins which are huddling together tightly. i watch molten streams of emeralds and jades shifting through patterns and formations in my own inner sky. after a while i hear this from the ear of my heart. take your time to come out. with that i embark on the journey of emerging from the depths of the field of my own true nature. it is kind of like coming up from the ocean deep. all in all i meditate one and a half hour today according to the clock and it doesn't feel long at all. i could have easily roamed some more in the pulsation of the moving breath if i were not also aware of the tasks ahead.