#ram-dass

#ram-dass

"I want to look back and share two lessons I think others would benefit from hearing: (1) remember that you belong, and (2) embrace the value of philosophy, especially in trying times."

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. It was bracing language for an 8-year-old. Not only was I unclean, but even my best attempt at goodness was filthy.

At the heart of yoga philosophy is the belief that stillness is not simply the absence of movement, but a profound engagement with our inner landscape. Practices such as asana (postures), pranayama (breath control), and meditation serve as gateways to this stillness, allowing us to cultivate awareness amidst chaos. Through these disciplines, we learn to quiet the mind's incessant chatter and tune into our true essence.

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We live in an era saturated with information. In a matter of minutes, we can find answers to both simple questions ("What's a good birthday gift for a 9-year-old boy?") and complex ones ("What's the optimal diet for a 40-year-old woman trying to build muscle?"). While some decisions are in fact deeply nuanced, most of the struggles that undermine our well-being are not caused by a lack of knowledge.

He's straitlaced and inexperienced, reeling from the turbulence of his family life and in search of stability. Why is he so easily pulled out of the existence he's been struggling to establish? It is funny that you say Malcolm is searching for stability, because he does find it with the Rajneesh, who, to many, would probably be judged as unstable. Malcolm is feeling disconnected from his community and his father, and, without being very conscious of it, is searching for meaning.

The word umwelt comes from biology, coined by ethologists studying animals in their natural habitats. It refers to the world as an organism can perceive it, based entirely on its sensory equipment. A bat's umwelt is built from echo. A dog's from scent. A tick's world is dominated by a single chemical cue that tells it when to drop from a branch onto a passing mammal.

Popular definitions of yoga often include terms such as balance, harmony, health, and peace. While these qualities are certainly desirable, and must be created before one can enter the state of fixity, or yoga, they are not included in the definition Patanjali offers us in his Yoga Sutras, the classic second-century B.C. exposition generally accepted as the bible of yoga.

Several years ago, Michael Pollan had a disturbing encounter. The relentlessly curious journalist and author was at a conference on plant behaviour in Vancouver. There, he'd learned that when plants are damaged, they produce an anaesthetising chemical, ethylene. Was this a form of self-soothing, like the release of endorphins after an injury in humans? He asked Frantisek Baluska, a cell biologist, if it meant that plants might feel pain. Baluska paused, before answering: Yes, they should feel pain.

With the passing of the band's rhythm guitarist, Bob Weir, many of us are sitting with yet another quiet, unexpected grief amid a world that seems perpetually heavy. And The Grateful Dead has long been a companion to our shared experiences, and their work continues to resonate in wellness, yoga, and ritual spaces. Because it was never just about music.

They look nervously at the cameras. The prize, they are told, is beyond description, but "it is what everyone wants!" The first question is asked: "Who are you?" The fastest contestant with the buzzer rings in - "Michelle!" they cry out confidently. BUZZ - the sound for the wrong answer rings out loudly. Another contestant seizes the moment and squeezes their buzzer. "A Man!" he states with utmost confidence. BUZZ - wrong again.

The monks are part of a 2,300-mile pilgrimage for peace from a Buddhist temple in Fort Worth, Texas, across nine states to Washington DC. Dressed in vibrant orange robes, they have walked about 20 miles daily, eating one meal a day and practicing loving-kindness a form of mindfulness that can be thought of as a form of non-violent resistance. Their journey is a slow-moving meditation meant to embody peace, rather than argue for it.

The simple feeling of being is the fundamental basis of every momentary perception. What's happening right now is the only starting point there could ever be. The simple feeling of being is without border or boundary. The simple feeling of being is inescapable. It is not something that needs to be created or generated or sustained or practiced. It is what is here already.

Host Michael Taft is interviewed by Pranab Sachidanandan about Michael's Stack Model for deconstructing sensory experience, his "adapter kit" for accessing nondual Vajrayana methods without years of preliminaries, why mantra and visualization are legitimate samadhi tools, how depth of practice maps across the sense gates, a chronic pain patient on a morphine pump who found relief through meditation, the humanities as qualia training, why the "Buddha industrial complex" leaves out people who don't fit a single tradition, and the power of building sangha outside it.

For years, I'd used these journals as a kind of inner courtroom, constantly building a case against myself or others. Every page held evidence of failures, proof of my profoundly advanced ability to gaslight myself. I could shrink or morph into whatever was requested for another person's comfort. Small flowered booklets documenting all the ways I couldn't get "it" right.

A few years ago, I climbed over a gate and found myself gazing down at a valley. After I'd been walking for a few minutes, looking at the fields and the sky, there was a shift in my perception. Everything around me became intensely real. The fields and the bushes and trees and the clouds seemed more vivid, more intricate and beautiful.