The Citadel

Stillness

Stillness

Stillness is a refuge I always love to visit. Buts it's an elusive destination belonging to the road less traveled.

It's not physical stillness I mean, but a still mind.

It's not easy to achieve, but it's not impossible. It takes focus and discipline and a great degree of self love, as it's a most loving gift you can give to yourself. 

I've been reading Dr Wayne Dyer's, The Power of Intention, and he writes about the power of being in connection with intention which he gives seven qualities - beauty, love, receptivity, kindness, expansion, creativity and abundance. Whenever I have visited "stillness" I have found these qualities in deep abundance. Dyer equates them to the ever-present face of the Divine, the essence of creation itself. I find that "stillness" is a place of deep nourishment.

Sometime however, I have a complacent relationship with stillness, though I know how to go there. I need a big prod delivered by life to remind me of my destination. Just like skating on thin ice brings a knife like focus, then I go back to find stillness the wonderful refuge in which resolution is meaningless. It reminds me sharply of who I truely am, and what I'm doing in this mystery called life.

I have little signposts all around me at the moment, and all of them are nudging me to get really still. Folded inside the stillness are potent answers, that I need to completely understand. I am feeling the urge to dissolve all my concerns inside it, to let them go inside its loving care.

I know that stillness has a special face. It's beautiful and kind, unlike this world sometimes is. I've forgotten that face a little. But it doesn't mean I can't see it again. It never turns away. 

Much love today, Wendy.

 

The Light of the world is for all

It's a couple of days to Christmas, and it's time to reflect on the year as we move into New Year as well. For me its been an eventful year, almost like three years in one.

This year my world grew larger. The more some things in my life seemed to contract, the more some expanded. Its also a year the meaning of Christmas deepened for me as I studied and embraced some mystical Christian ideas.

It brings me now to contemplate the status of Christianity today, and the rise of the Christian Right. Today fundamentalists are pushing their agenda into civil rights in many parts of the world. In leading free nations like the USA they have succeeded in having constitutional rights stripped from minorities, through ballot measures such as Proposition 8 in California. This measure has stripped the right of marriage from same sex couples, the ability to adoptchildren by unmarried (same sex) couples in other states like Arkansas.

But by what authority do these fundamentalists do these things. Most will say the inerrant
truth of every word of the Bible.

But I view sacred writings - such as the Bible - as initiators of meditation, that connect us to higher energies. The words inspire and uplift us to a higher consciousness, past limiting beliefs into liberation. So for me the reading the Bible is an intuitive process, not a literal one. To see it as a book of regulations alone seems a shallow interpretation of the incredible depth it offers. It's a book to be studied, ingested and tested in real life.

What I have divined from it is an ascending scale of ever refining ideas. I think this makes me a "supercessionist" Biblically. The idea is that the Bible presents themes, even archetypes which evolve and succeed each other. Jesus's life and teaching is considered the penultimate expression of these. And that his penultimate teaching of finding Grace and extending Unconditional Love to all is the fundamental of Christianity. An aim I know meditation supports utterly.

To be active in stripping GLBT's of their right to marry or adopt children is to be heading in a descending direction away from those penultimate teachings towards division and elitism. As a meditator, division and elitism are manifestations of the Ego we seek to subdue. And that's where I'd place the supporters of Prop 8, as creating an elite based on biology. That was an idea we had a world war over. Let's not go there again.

So this Christmas I'll be reflecting that Jesus spent his time amongst lepers, prostitutes, the destitute and the poor - minorities. He was not about marginalizing sections of humanity, but about including all in God's Kingdom, with equal love and dignity.

Much love, Wendy.  

     

Special Announcement!

Wendy will be teaching a special Extension Classes in November!

THE CHAKRAS - A journey in Relaxation, Yoga and Meditation.

For details on this special class click here.

Much love, Wendy.

The Cosmic iphone; already built in....

Imagine that Apple invented a brilliant new iphone. Imagine that this iphone
could receive messages directly from the mind and that these messages
could constantly guide you to a better place.

Consider you have already built in, a way to stream all kinds of info, like your
love horoscope, life coaching, future prediction, market indicators and basically
any kind of relevant stuff you want to know.

All you need to know is how to tune your device to receive that and more.

Revolutionize your thinking with the knowledge that the mind already has
that figured for you. Its already presented you with a tool you've always
had at your finger tips. Its called Svadhyaya, the art of Self- listening. The
minds answer to the cosmic iphone.

To use our cosmic iphone we need to rethink how we receive information.
We have been sold, lock, stock and barrel, that the only way to get any useful
info is from outside ourselves. We hand authority over to "outside" everyday.
In doing this, we seriously undervalue our Self.    

But Svadhyaya is going to hand back the joystick of your life. It will help
you navigate to your maximum potential.

To illustrate how the woo woo of Meditation meets something the world values
highly, namely scientific fact, listen to neuro-anatomist Jill Bolte Taylor explain
how she observed her brain function as she had a stroke. See how she explains
the All Knowing, All Connected function of the right side the of the brain. She is
describing something Meditation has always said - there is a part of our mind
outside time and space. We can experience All Knowing there.

Most of us are locked out of our All Knowing side, but meditation unlocks our
access. Inside, there are unopened messages with answers to the questions
we are asking. Often we need to hear our questions as much as the answers.
Just below the chatter of our mind all these things wait to be heard. As we
silence the chatter by meditating, we open our messages spontaneously.

This is Svadyaya the art of Self-listening; actively listening to our own inner
wisdom through Meditation. Even a little practice reaps huge rewards.   

Much love today, Wendy.

"Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you:
For everyone that asketh receiveth;  and he that seeketh findeth; and to him
that knocketh it shall be opened.
Matthew 7; Chapters 7&8.  

The Attitude of the Allowing

Mountain stream - San Juan Mountains CO- W.Bradtke 2006

Why is it that loving and caring can bring us the most pain?   

It seems a contradiction, that the thing we may need most - a feeling of
loving and being loved - may end up being the root of our worst suffering.
How many of us know this?  A relationship that sours, a project that
becomes a monster, an illness that cripples our work; we begin in joy and
end in misery. Misery seems to follow our joy so consistently we might
conclude it's simply part of our human-ness and throw in the towel. How
many addictions begin with that? How much do we consume to numb our
pain? How many hours do we spend in stressful work and uncongenial
company to fill in that gnawing hole inside?

Its a rat race. Literally. A rat runs around its wheel unaware its own
movement is creating more of the same. Can we break that cycle and find
a true sense of peace? The good news is through Meditation we can begin
to break up that momentum with times of stillness. Plus we can undermine
our own habitual responses through Meditation and find fresh answers to old
problems.

But Meditation practice also offers some specific tools to help us out of our
suffering. To find them we need to go to a source book of Meditation - The
Yogasutras - written by Patanjali, an Indian sage and mystic from 200AD. The
Yogasutras are THE sacred text of Yoga, especially Raja Yoga -the Royal Path.
Patanjali begins his discourse on the path to Samadhi (Enlightenment) with ten
practices called Yama and Niyama, and the ones I am of thinking of here
are Aparigraha and Svadhyaya.

Aparigraha means non-attachment, non -grasping or non- hoarding. 
Maybe its better understood if we look at its opposite Parigraha, which means
"holding jealously". Aparigraha is a delicate practice that hinges on the
significance we give to things and the way we hold them (metaphorically). 
Over the years I have worked with various aspects of Aparigraha and it works
best for me if I keep an attitude of allowing, and of letting life flow, not trying
to overform it. Curiously, by letting the things I love and desire be, and allowing
them to go through their own cycles of ebb and flow without grasping at them
so hard, seems to keep the love flowing more.

But that "allowing things to flow" doesn't mean neglect. Things we neglect
dwindle in energy and dissolve away. This kind of allowing means a light
holding of things in a way that doesn't restrict energy. Its realizing that
over identifying with something often suffocates it completely. Aparigraha
allows spontaneity and creativity. It allows us to navigate change graciously.
It is in fact a great learning in understanding the transience of life. Through
that we remain open to the love and support of a Universe that seeks to
nourish and support us with its constancy and love.

For a simple example of how Aparigraha works, lets consider cream.
Yes, I mean the thing that floats on top of milk, that highly calorific substance
many of us adore. If you don't, then I'm sure you can find you own personal 
equivalent.

"Cream" is both a thing and an idea. The amount of it we eat is often conditioned
by our attachment to it. Many things come into play here, like our attachment to
thinness or health, or how we consider cream to be a luxurious food. If we look
we can see some of our attachments to cream stem from associations through
childhood, all the way to how we are "sold" the idea of cream in the media, things
that have no relation to its actual taste. Even in terms of taste, cream causes
feelings of satisfaction due to its fat content.

A lot of factors may cause us to have a mini addiction to cream. Then when we
can't have cream the lack of it causes us suffering.  An extreme case would be
when an excess of it has clogged our arteries and we can not eat it at all.

Aparigraha asks us to question our relationship to cream.

Its about understanding the power we give to cream, compared to what it
can really give us in return. To build a whole life based on the feeling we get
from cream is foolish, yet many of us do this all the time with other things,
like status, work and relationships.

But when we begin holding cream lightly, we can find a place that allows us to
enjoy it when appropriate and let it go when its not. Denial is not enough,
because denial is the other side of attachment. By considering cream as what
it is, a kind of food, we then allow cream to nourish us according to its true
nature which includes it being delicious, as well as the healthy amount for us.
This example can flow out into your whole life with many things or situations.

Aparigraha is allowing life to nourish us according to its true nature. When
we practice it, it begins to show us the true nature of life is very loving. We
open the door and let love in. Often part of that process involves Svadyaya or
self listening...but thats another practice I'll talk about in my next blog...

Much love today, Wendy.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:
they toil not, neither do they spin..." 
Matthew Ch. 8. 

The floating goldfish was me.

Its not a cheery topic, but I need to talk about death.

Not my maiden aunt kicking the bucket, nor my goldfish floating upside
down in its bowl, not even the cutting my credit card into lots of pieces kind
of death. None of those. Those would be easy to talk about. My own death is
the one I'm talking about, at least in a meditative way.

I'm guessing we all talk to people we know about how we wish to die and when.
I do. I want to drop dead at a ripe old age. I have no desire to linger with illness.
I want some handy illness like a massive stroke and plop, I hit the floor and move
on. Its one of my cherished illusions that I have a say in my mode of exit, so I was
surprised at the sickly feeling I experienced, when I turned the next page of my
Buddhist meditation book at my retreat and read,

"Now meditate on your own death, that maybe you could die today, that you
cannot prevent the eventual decay and death of your body."

In short, the meditation topic made me feel ill. Its not that I am in denial about
my own demise, however I suddenly knew I was carrying some baggage about the
idea. Meditation is a thing imbued with a kind of magic for me; what you visualize
in meditation becomes, I know that in my bones. I didn't want my death becoming.
Plus, I can thank my mother for numerous superstitions for even uttering the word
"death", along with other fate-tempters like the wearing of green (instant bad luck),
opening umbrella's inside (it will rain inside) and leaving shoes on tables (see dead
man's shoes).

So for the first 3 days on my retreat I engaged in a strategy of avoidance. I flipped
past those pages and contemplated other things. That strategy brought me to
my pit of suffering, and my pit of suffering brought me back to the meditation I
didn't want to know about; death and Impermanence, there was no getting around
it. It was in full fearful flight (of meditatively creating my own death) that I opened
the door and let death in. I was not prepared for what happened next, except I
can tell you it blew my mind out of my ears.

Because the meditation taught me death and dying aren't what they seem.

Dying it seems is total bliss.

Now getting this straight, using the word death and bliss in the same sentence
is not my way of advocating anyone take a Thelma and Louise type plunge into
a joyful death experience. Its just my death meditation began with fear, and
moved quickly into a feeling of stripping away all of life's burdens. I was amazed
at the ease at which I peeled my life away because the feeling of lightness was
so delicious I couldn't stop. The reason why the Buddhists want us to let go of
our attachments began to dawn full force. I experienced a lightness of being
so blissful I can't find the right words.

If I was poet and could suspend disbelief, I might also say I floated out of my
body and saw "the other side" for some moments. That's before I slipped back
into this body I call home for this lifetime. Or I could blink and blank out this
paragraph imagining I had a very weird dream. Either way, it changed me,
and I am loathe to use the word, but forever springs to mind.

I came away from the retreat with a completely new sense of self; a self that is
not as attached to my present life. I am able to see myself as a "self" in eternity
not so limited by my present circumstances. I now understand the decisions I make,
the allegiances I form, the way I craft myself NOW, has far reaching implications
beyond my death. Its destroyed for me is any sense I had of death being an ending.
It simply isnt. All that I carry inside, all that I think, will be with me always.
Death in short isn't the convenient "tidyer upper" I thought it was. The stuff I have
to deal with has to be dealt with now , because its not going away.

I have been taught this in theory. Now I know it real-ly. I feel reborn.

Death/Rebirth. Death/Rebirth. Death/Rebirth. Not a beginning, or ending.
A transformation! Its like that old Zen poem.

"Before Enlightenment. Chopping wood, carrying water.
After Enlightenment. Chopping wood, carrying water."

Much love today, Wendy.

Letting go...its not easy...

Some things in life come in three's...

What is it about the third day of a meditation retreat? Each time I've been on
one its the same; the first day is the agony of getting still, then on the third
all the crap comes up, the day of becoming intimately acquainted with all
your toxins. The day you fight running and screaming "I want to leave now!"
The day of you in your car wanting to hurtle back into the real world.
Door slamming..gut wrenching! The horrible muck inside you that needs to be
looked at and released, feels as painful coming out as when it originally
went inside. Body and mind clench tightly against its release. Who wants
to look into a pit of suffering anyway?

Meditation? What's it all about?  All I had in mind on this retreat was five days
peace and quiet, blissfully breathing, isn't that what they tell you it does?  But
sure enough on the third morning I wake up feeling like I drank a whole bottle
of gin the night before, and more agitated than I can believe. The sting of the
third day is in full force. I want to run...I need desperately to stay.

After the two morning sessions I'm beginning to feel my being coming
apart and all the stuff I ever learned about being a spiritual warrior
comes into play. I will have to be very brave and let the poison seep out of
me and to that I will have to feel...it all. After lunch I head off into the trees,
the garden seems to be a private place to let it go. I jam my ear buds in and
turn the mp3's up loud to dull the horrible thoughts churning in my head.
There's a friendly seat under a friendly tree and I plant myself there, breathe
in and out, and let it all flow. What appears is so bad, I can't even cry.
It feels like lifetimes of abuse, wounding's, battering's , worst of all from
those I loved most and its like that for a couple of hours. I feel like an open,
seeping wound.

I have to make a choice. If I give in to my fear and run to my car I'll never get
past this. If I head to the temple I'll have to meditate with the fear. But I know
the temple means safety. I head up the hill, back to my cushion, cross my legs
and almost dare life to heal me!

The next things I experience are life changing....more soon...

Much love, Wendy.   

Take heart, forget mind...

 

"The Golden Gate" Photo: Wendy Bradtke 2004 (C)

As I wrote in my last blog about my retreat in a Buddhist Monastery, I'm finding new
insights keep appearing as I work through my day-to-day. I'm seeing even a short time
spent in silence in a meditative way, makes a real change. Imagine if I spent more? 
Not sure if I can grasp that yet, but given time...who knows...

...anyway...

If I see the retreat, and the changes I went through, like a series of locks - I've
been talking to my friend Jeri who lives in the Cuyahoga Valley about the Erie Canal -
then I understand how mind is like that, it flows, opens up and moves
to a new level all the time  -  especially when we meditate -  we become very 
conscious of that. Its like watching our mind as a river, bubbling
and moving and being aware we are on a boat being carried along. And for me
meditation is how I learn to steer my boat, rather than bobbing all over.

Well, I came to my first lock, a huge stepping up place, on my first day of the retreat.
Until then I had been struggling with a deluge of information, most of it about Buddhism
itself. I have never considered myself a Buddhist and I've really struggled with aspects
of its beliefs for many years.  In fact I'm very shy of becoming attached to any religion
so as I sat cross legged in silence, immersed in a flood of Sanskrit words and Tibetan
deities, I was wondering what the hell I was doing in this place!

But I was there because I had followed my nose, a thing I am very inclined to do. Maybe
my inner voice might throw a few clues my way if I asked nicely. Or was it more that I
yelled for help!

One of my certainties is that a "call for help" will always be answered. I began to notice
shifting currents in my mental continuum as a result of my "call". The answer was so
blindingly simple, and it showed me how dazzlingly dim I can be. I was focusing on
my differences, the loud ego part of me that cries ME! ME!and then THEM! THEM! was
trying to separate ME! from all that was around me. So why wasn't I focusing on what I
have in common with not only Buddhism but with those meditating with me?

• we were all looking for meaningful solutions.
• we were all trying to release our suffering.
• we all had our hearts and minds focused in the same direction.

Those things have weight to me, especially that I value them in others.
I saw that words were just words, terms just terms...and this is where I slipped
through my first lock...I slipped from mind to heart.

I had one of those wonderful moments, when life chucks you a life buoy, and you
climb in and let the rope guide you through the water. I let myself be guided, and the
water turned warm and friendly, and I experienced the joy of letting my mind go.

Over the next week I passed through many locks, and I'll write about them soon. But this
first one was vital. The heart is a GATE to the eternal self we desire, but to enter it we
may need to put aside things we build our life around; the identity we cherish
may need to be cast aside. After this realization my meditations flowed very differently
and that led me to my next lock...

...I had to confront my pit of suffering - more on that soon...

Much love today, Wendy x.

Finding your center

"Stepping stones" Japanese Garden at  Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Wendy Bradtke (C) 2004

Last week I experienced something new, a meditation retreat. 5 days long, each
with 6 hours spent contemplating my navel. My busy teaching schedule has never
allowed this luxury. Meditation time is woven into my daily life, and I have a kind
of pride in that. Ends up I loved the retreat, intense and challenging, resulting in
insights that are maybe life changing.

After my retreat I feel more centered than I've ever felt before. I've dropped down
from the heady high, but the centered feeling remains. And "balance" needs to be
considered here too as balance and being centered are related.
Together both form a interesting riddle to pick through.

For example I'm thinking of the simple act of walking; it needs both balance
and centering in abundance. Walking is a miracle of balance we accomplish
all the time, and thats not even touching running, bending, reaching and other
movements. It's all regulated by a little set of hair cells in our inner ear, if they
go out of alignment so does our balance in devastating ways. We get Vertigo.
Such a finely tuned thing, the body.

So one kind of balance...

Our balance also revolves around a physical center of gravity in our bodies. Dancers,
yogis, gymnasts etc. learn to move around their centers, as a pivot for all movement.

So one kind of center...

It takes that kind of balance and that kind of center to endure hours of sitting in
meditation. But ultimately its the other kind of balance and centering that carry you
through. The kind of balance and centering that exist as ideas. 

This is where it first gets really sticky and then easier in meditation. When you get
still/quiet inside, you naturally balance up and get centered.

Let me explain...

Easing the body into sitting still with cushions and chairs and any-old-anyway you
can make yourself comfortable whilst meditating is the beginning. Then hacking
your way through the sludge of thoughts with either breathing, mantram or good
old prayer, gets you to your inner agenda, the foundation beliefs you build your whole
reality upon. Big STUFF! Thats your center, the one made of ideas, truths and delusions.

I found my inner agenda is full of givens. They involve ideals of perfection, fulfillment
and satisfaction. I like to think that balance will create a buffer zone from all the
bumps, jolts and falls life brings. I want to immerse myself in the calming, quietening
rhythm that balance brings. I've delved into a zillion self help programs designed to
exercise control over outer events. I've learned how to fall and stand up over and over
again.

But this retreat showed me how I've been trying to squeeze blood out of a stone.

I learned through contemplating death - now there's a scary place to go - that life is
about evolution, impermanence and change. So its always going to be about walking,
falling, walking, falling - that's what balance is. It can't be one without the other. My
center has changed because of that.

I now understand its my center that matters most, the stillpoint round which everything
balances. Does the inner agenda at my center encompass things that have the capacity
to bring a lasting sense of fulfillment and satisfaction? Deep reflection going on inside.
Is it fine to occasionally anchor myself on shifting sands, provided I know that they are?
My whole center, deep inside, is being re-oriented to things more lasting. Reflecting on
this has became very meaningful. I gave myself a shovel on retreat and dug up some core
beliefs, some are like diamonds in the rough waiting to be polished into treasures, others
I need to ditch. They are not supporting my quest for fulfillment and satisfaction.

5 days of aching knees, restless legs, churning mind, it was all worth it.   

I'm trying to find words to say how my beliefs are reforming, but its not quite
yet.  All I can say is being that deeply centered is the calmest, most certain I've ever
felt. Its like everything fell into place. As soon as more words appear I'll be writing,
trying to describe more...

So anyone who'd like to share any insightful thoughts on core beliefs they find
helpful or challenging I'd love to see your comments!

Much love today, Wendy.
         

The gift of meaning

"Christmas table" - Photo - Wendy Bradtke (C) 05

Finally arriving at the other side of the holidays, in the beautiful quiet of January,
has me reflecting on the meaning of this Season. I tend to feel Christmas is a time
the modern world has stripped of worthwhile meaning, and I like to spend time trying
to contemplate what the real meaning might be.

This year my Christmas and New Year revolved simply around the idea of what would
bring a sense of real meaning to my celebrations. How I approached that was enriched
by the thoughts of Cheryl Richardson at hayhouse radio - Cheryl is a life coach who has
been a major inspirer for me this year. I listened carefully because in the past I've
always experienced a sense of emptiness at Christmas and New Year.

Now like a Christmas miracle I'm seeing it differently, and I'm feeling this may
carry over into the whole of my life, not only the holidays!

What I did was to look at the emptiness from the other end of the telescope.
Christmas is a time of rituals, traditional and personal, and I examined mine in
detail. Rituals are meant to evoke feeling, and mine were evoking emptiness. During
the holidays I spend nearly all my time socializing in my workplace, even at other
colleagues workplaces. I spend a lot of time with nice people, but I share only work
with them. Then there's my "catch up with once a year" people. I suspect I only keep
in contact with some of them through guilt. In the whirl-wind of this I lose the connections
that mean the most - my close family and my close friends. I need to find some balance.

As a result my holidays become filled with conversations about shared emptiness. Too
many conversations about how crappy the year was, how stressful the holidays are, too
much shared complaining about work. I was daring enough to change the topic over one
lunch with colleagues, instead we talked about the best book we'd read during the year.
It wasn't geeky, it was fascinating. We all deepened our understanding of each other.
It did not feel empty, it felt great!

Years ago, I stopped attending large New Year parties, I'm not party person. I compensate
by sitting up late viewing the fireworks. After the clock chimes midnight, I switch off
the TV and suddenly the New Year becomes a blank TV screen, a sort of void. That's not
a good way to begin anything! As a ritual its about as empty as it gets. Next year I'm   
approaching New Year very differently, not sure how yet, but I'm really thinking it through! 

All of this has shown me great deal about how I live life generally - a new layer of
conditioning has been revealed. Marvelous! Its given me a key to enriching and deepening
my experience. It was the real gift that the holidays brought. The gift of meaning.

Much love on this day, Wendy.