Quest Magazine

By Fritz Kunz

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Kunz, Fritz. "Something About Annie Besant." Quest  94.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006):190-191.

The typescript for this article—three pages of onionskin joined with a tiny straight pin—arrived in the Theosophical Society Archives with decades of papers from the Kunz family. This particular article was composed between 1914 and 1917, when Fritz Kunz began a three-year term as principal of Ananda College, the Buddhist boys' school in Ceylon founded by H. S. Olcott. His friend, Basil Hodgson-Smith, was serving then as a lieutenant in the trenches of France. Kunz was frequently asked to contribute to and The Theosophist, writing on topics as perse as Shakespeare, the South Seas, Atlantis, and trade unionism. He knew Annie Besant very well, so it is natural that he was invited to write of her. In a footnote, he explained his choice of title: "I like to try to follow editorial desires; and this is exactly what I was asked to write about."

The teenaged Fritz first met Annie Besant at Adyar in 1903, when he and his English friend, Basil, worked as secretaries for C. W. Leadbeater on a world lecture tour. While at the Theosophical Society headquarters in Adyar from 1917 to 1922, Kunz served Mrs. Besant on the staff of her newspaper, New India, and assisted in her efforts for educational reform and Indian independence. Throughout his long career as a Theosophical lecturer and writer, Kunz related admiring affectionate accounts of "the Chief" describing her brilliance, her kindness, and her leadership. This article provides a glimpse of how he viewed her in the early days.

It is well known that when Alexander the Great visited Diogenes he asked that worthy philosopher what he, the conqueror of the world, might do to please Diogenes. Whereupon the tub philosopher replied gruffly, without even looking up at the great Alexander: "Stand from between me and the sun!" One who writes about Mrs. Besant should feel as insignificant as Alexander must have felt on that occasion, for the best way to convey some understanding of Mrs. Besant is to remove one's little person from the scene and let the sun shine for itself. And of those who wish to gaze upon the light as it is I cheerfully relinquish any pretense holding the attention. But it sometimes happens that one likes to study the light after it has passed through some medium which analyses it into itself components, even if that medium happens to be. a very imperfect refractor; it is for them I write.

A disingenuous youthful admirer of Mrs. Besant—I should more properly use the Greek term, lover—once innocently revealed in one sentence a most significant fact with regard to her. He was to consult her upon some points which, to his young mind, seemed weighty. When he returned from the interview he said in effect: "Before I come into in the presence of the President I am filled with ideas that seem to me most important, and when I find myself before her these things dwindle into nothing and I see them to be of no moment; and then I think that I have a petty mind."

Now I do not quote this lad to be patronizing, for I find the same thing within myself! Our minds, I have no doubt, are charged with notions that are galvanized into a semblance of vastness and importance by a considerable contribution of egotism and self-importance. We think our ideas are great because we conceived them; we bustle with mental importance; we think that we must lay these great conceptions before someone able to appreciate them; we— I might say here "I"—have a lurking idea somewhere in a dark corner of what I am pleased to call my intellect that Mrs. Besant will be interested in my ideas. And then, in the mere presence of that kind lady these splendid ideas shrivel away, crumble into dust; and there I stand, denuded of that glorious fabric of intellections, insignificant, and wondering at my satisfaction with what I now see to be inventions that were one half pompous self-esteem. My only consolation is that I have got so far as to be able to recognize the truth even at that late stage!

I say "kind lady" with great deliberation, because I want to make emphatic the point that this curious mental denudation has no connection with fear. The young man I mention is as her son in her affections and, for myself, I try to be not far behind him. It is merely that in the presence of a mind that is ablaze with Truth our half-dark minds are momentarily searchingly. illuminated, and we see that what we thought fine, scintillating fabrics are, after all, only dusty cobwebs.

Now and then it happens, however, that one does bring to her an admirable idea in embryo. And then the result. is equally sure and the effect quite as instructive in a different manner. For she throws upon the point the same torrent of true thinking; and the idea suddenly glitters forth in one's mind like a star, and throws off all sorts of new lights from unsuspected facets, as a diamond that is drawn from a dark box out into the light. And then one feels rather pleased with himself—until he carries his diamond away from the sunlight and finds that it does not glow so brilliantly, and that, after all, it was the sunlight that flashed and not the diamond!

When I was very much younger, and before I had come to India, I had a sort of ide fixe that Mrs. Besant exaggerated the importance of India in the scheme of things—(I claim a lenient judgment for myself on the ground of my extreme youth; at any rate, so I thought). And then, about ten years ago, on a certain memorable day I saw Mrs. Besant for the first time—and in India. It was in the octagonal room at Adyar, where I. was with Mr. Leadbeater and Mr. (now Lieutenant) Basil Hodgson-Smith. Mrs. Besant came over to see them there for a moment about some arrangements in our tour. We had all seated ourselves again after her appearance; behind her chair stood one or two Indian gentlemen— I forget who they were and it doesn't matter. I had a very excusable curiosity as to that great person which was before me; I fear that I stared rather rudely. There was mention of my name—that I would make out the timetable for the tour, I believe—and suddenly I found myself looking, not upon Mrs. Besant, that celebrated and interesting lady, but upon an old, old friend. I remember a sudden, radiant smile, incredibly seeing eyes—it was as if, upon the heels of a long and torrential rain there had suddenly blazed out the whole light of the sun as when one sees far, far into the sky and feels for a time, uplifted, freed. And in a moment—I quite understand that this is not logical; but I'm not talking about logic or anything so merely Aristotelian—I understood the inner truth about India; and in ratio to my understanding I saw my old notions as absurd. And as intuitions are only good when put into action, I too do my little mite with my little might for that India that she sees, not alone the "historical" India of parched or steaming plains or fertile river valleys, the India of the millions; but that other India of the Rishi of green hills, that supra-historic India that sings its way through the Himalayas, that India of far off days and forgotten Powers that now, once more, springs into new being.

At this stage I am reminded that my subject is Mrs. Besant, and not myself and not India. The point is well taken, although we should remember that, for the time at least, India and Mrs. Besant are elements that cannot be considered separately. However, let me heed the interruption to this extent; we shall look a little into the second half of our subject, P. T. S.

I have a conceit that T. S. means not only Theosophical Society but also The Service, and, more specifically, Their Service; that we are the body of picked people who serve men and Supermen; that just as the Indian Civil Service is a body of picked men whose business is to be the servants of India, both the lowly and the lordly, so it is our business to serve humanity, those men beneath us and those above us. Truly performed, this is a grand and an arduous task. In simple physical terms it means toil, in the psychic world it means stress; but in the spiritual and super-spiritual worlds it means unfoldment and abiding joy. For in the labour and the strain that comes to those who serve lesser men is at the same time the source of inspiration from the greatest Men; to serve the one is to serve the Other.

And from this it follows that the President of the Theosophical Society is the Head of The Service which labours for men and under the direction of the Masters of men. And we Fellows of The Service recognize, even if we cannot fully comprehend, the burden that this post brings with it, the duty of being Perfectly Their Servant, the hidden meaning in the letters P. T. S. On one day at least in the year we weigh this fact; we take stock of ourselves; we try to see how we can measure a little more closely to the stature of our Chief. And this, I think, is the opportunity that the first day of October brings to us.

F.K.

By Margaret McKenzie

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: McKenzie, Margaret."Everyday Enlightenment." Quest  94.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006):171-173, 196.

When I first heard of the idea of enlightenment, I thought it was some mysterious unusual state; something like levitating or being out of the body, and available only to a select few. In studying and practicing Zen, I have come to see that enlightenment means something else.

When the Buddha sat under the tree and saw the first star in the early morning, he did not see anything extraordinary. He saw the star complete as it was and observed:"How remarkable; everything already has it." We are all already enlightened, but we fail to see it, because we are caught in desire.

The second noble truth says that it is my attachment, or desire, to having things be a particular way that causes my suffering, not the events themselves. It is my identification with my opinions, my ideas, my likes and dislikes that are the cause of my misery. Sitting one hundred days in the woods provided me with an opportunity to watch events unfold very completely; to let me see things simply as they are—not as I want them to be.

In the fall of 2004, I spent one hundred days in a hermitage in northern Wisconsin and did a silent Zen retreat. The external frame of my days was structured with each day just the same as the day before. I did a three-hour block of bowing, chanting, sitting, walking, and a physical practice like yoga. I repeated this block four times a day. In between practices I cooked, ate, cleaned, and slept.

I brought four books with me. I read from one of them each morning, another each night. I took a walk everyday; the same walk of about a mile and a half down to the main road and back again. Everyday I ate the same meals of oatmeal, rice, carrots, squash, dried fruit, protein powder, and peanut butter. By removing so very many of the choices that enchanted, bewildered, perplexed, and confused me on a daily basis, I gradually cleared away the clutter and opened a welcoming place in my heart. It was a space where everything in the world, outside and inside, could receive my full attention.

Narrowing the field of one's attention and then dwelling within that space through the turning of two seasons, permits the very smallest aspects of the place to be revealed. All that surrounded me were a few acres, two ponds, a few buildings, the woods, a meadow, and a road. This allowed me to dwell in the landscape, perceive impermanence, the shifting of the seasons, the variety in the day, and to observe all of this with all of my senses.

I arrived in the last week in August. It was still hot, with the temperature in the eighties. The trees were green and full. In contrast, I was overweight and out of shape. I sweated until my clothes were soaked and my body throbbed. At night I fell into bed like someone who had been mining coal all day. I have never in my life slept with the deep unconsciousness that I did in those first few weeks. However, in the months between my arrival August and my departure in December, my habitual mind began to wear away and by the time I left, I felt empty within my clothes and rarely slept past three in the morning.

The routine of practice gradually sharpened my attention, allowing awareness of my environment to become more and more acute. I seemed to understand the way that my senses had been developed to let me live within a landscape. I named parts of the road where I walked by events that occurred there: the stream where I saw the muskrat, the tree where the pileated woodpecker sat, the patch of milkweed that changed from green to bright gold in a single night.

In October, as the leaves changed, I was able to identify the leaves that were different from the day before. In my daily rounds, I encountered new companions: the two cats that periodically accompanied me on my walks; the cows I heard every morning from a mile away, but never saw; the coyotes that howled in the middle of the night, and the deer.

There were about fifteen deer living on the land. When I arrived in August, there were several family groups; fawns with spotted pale patches on their coats, half the size of the adults, standing near their mothers. Besides the fawns and mothers, a third group looked to be gangly yearlings. The deer were around my cabin everyday. In the very early morning I would encounter them, strewn throughout the woods in groups of five or six.

At first I would know they were there because my heavy footsteps would spook them and they appeared to me as flipped tails and feet, racing off through the woods. As time went by though, we tamed each other. In learning to be more aware of my walk, I skillfully and quietly became a regular part of their landscape. By the end of September, I regularly walked within a few feet of them as they grazed around the land. They would lift their heads, gaze at me with their beautiful almond eyes, and go back to eating.

I began to talk to them, calling them the"dear deer" and"little friends." Since I was keeping such a regular schedule, the shifting of the season was apparent by my morning encounters with them. They entered the property on the east end and browsed their way through, exiting into the woods to the west. As the days shortened, I encountered them at different points in the landscape.

The deer appeared in the evenings as well. My hermitage was across from a small pond. Often, just at sundown, they would materialize out of the woods, drinking from the pond, making their way across the meadow into the space around the hermitage. Sometimes they came so close I could hear them eating.

All through October, I dwelt in a golden, sunlit land, pillared about with maple, oak, and aspen trees. I settled in, with my body settling, my mind slowing, and my heart opening. A crop of golden mushrooms appeared in the front of the cabin. Every evening three teenaged deer would come and eat them. They loved them so much that I could pass right by them into my cabin and they would stay still, mushroom crumbs falling from their mouths.

One day, as I sat to eat my lunch, I looked out the back window and noticed two deer that were sleeping. Curled up a few feet apart, each kept one funnel shaped ear erect, turning it constantly, scanning the land for change. I learned so much about attention from that half hour of watching them. They knew exactly how much attention to pay, when to stir, when to lift a head and look, and when to think about moving on. When they got up, they stood close together and groomed each other like cats.

Golden days do not last forever, though. The weather turned, and the leaves began to fall; slowly at first, and then it seemed all at once the trees were bare. The sky turned gray and the first of a month of rainy days arrived.

Life shifted in the deer herd, too. The groups were smaller, the teenagers sprouted antlers almost overnight. The herd seemed restlessness and jumpy. Males with full racks of antlers often came crashing through the woods. The days grew shorter and I came upon the deer less and less often while walking.

Then one day in early November, I was taking my walk to the main road when two men in a truck stopped me. They wanted to know who owned the woods and if the land was posted. I said I did not know and kept walking. When I looked for signs, I saw only one side of the road was posted"no hunting," while the other was not.

The next day I got a message from the woman who managed the hermitage saying that it was hunting season. She sent me some orange clothing with instructions to wear it whenever I walked off the property. Hunting season opened with bow hunting. It would continue for one month with firearms allowed during the last two weeks.

The first moment I fully absorbed the news about the hunting season, my mind began to go a hundred miles an hour. My mind became a trapped animal as I considered options: I would leave; or I would go into the woods and make a lot of noise; or I would confront the hunters and try to reason with them. A million ideas arose, but I actually did nothing except what I had been doing for the last sixty-five days: bowing, chanting, sitting, walking, and eating.

All that day I practiced, while crying and thinking,"I have to leave. No one would expect me to stay here while my beloved deer are being killed. I will call my teacher, she will understand. I have done my best. I must go."

For much of my life, I have been a leaver. When I had unpleasant neighbors, I moved out. When I had a difficult boss, I got a different job. When my marriage ran into rough waters, I departed. It became a style of mine: When problems appeared, I departed.

One of the first lessons of Zen meditation is about staying put. At a retreat during a sitting period, you do not just get up and leave. When you show up for a weekend retreat, you are expected to stay the whole time. During my years of practice, I learned something about staying. Whether sitting with uncomfortable physical sensations, sitting with unpleasant memories, different agitations, grudges, or itches, the practice is to just stay put and watch the parade come and go. Now, even though I felt like leaving, I knew I would not do so. I thought, planned, raged, but I did not go anywhere. I just kept on bowing, sitting, chanting, eating, walking, and sleeping. Things shifted.

First, I decided that what I could do was chant. There is a chant with the purpose of sending energy and healing. I started to do that chant for the deer on my walk each day. The second day, I decided to chant for the hunters, too. The weeks of bow and arrow season passed. I saw few hunters, encountered no killed deer. Then it was the opening day for gun season.

I was sitting on my cushion when dawn—or whatever the signal to begin hunting season was—arrived. The air filled with gunshots and it did not stop for two hours.

I sat on the cushion, got up, made my breakfast, and had a cup of tea. In all that time, the guns never stopped and I did not stop crying. Again, the same flood of thoughts broke over me:"I will call my teacher; I must get out of here; no one would blame me for leaving early."

And then a different thought appeared:"This is what a war is like." All over the world, there are people who live with this every day—except they are not safely tucked away in a hermitage with a choice about staying or going. The guns are outside their windows, in their houses. It is not deer that are getting killed; it is their families, friends, and neighbors. I had a rush of understanding about the privilege of my whole life: How blessed I had been to have never been in a war and how incredibly fortunate I was to be on this retreat.

I remembered a practice called tonglen. In it, you breathe in the suffering you are experiencing on behalf of everyone who is suffering and when you breath out, you send them peace and calm. It was easy and also a great relief to breathe in the suffering of all who hear gunshots and grieve, and to send them the peace I had known in the golden light of October.

Over the last weeks of hunting season, things gradually began to shift around inside of me. I did not leave. After that first day, I never thought about leaving again. I did my practice everyday and tried to bring the practice and the situation of sitting in the midst of shooting, together. I kept asking,"What is this?" Different answers appeared out of my practice. I sat at times full of compassion for all those who sit in the midst of shooting: people in Iraq, in Palestine, and the people who live in cities where there are gangs. I thought of my own"shooting," judging, condemning, and writing off different people, and I sent loving kindness and compassion to those memories and the places in my mind from where they arose.

I continued to encounter hunters when I walked at noon. I worked at keeping my heart open to them, acknowledged that I did not know what hunting meant to them, and sent them loving kindness when I walked by them. I fell into the rhythm of hunting— hearing the shooting at dawn and dusk, while noticing the quieter moments in between.

One day, toward the end of the two-week season, I got up from my cushion and walked to the window. It was sundown, but there was still a lot of shooting going on down the hill. I looked out the window; there were six deer out at the pond. They were drinking and grazing, and began walking uphill toward my cabin.

Bang, bang!—there went the guns—quite loud. The deer did not do anything. They did not lift their heads or even look toward from where the sound was coming. They did not have a conversation with each other about how awful the shooting was. They ate and drank and walked up the hill.

I started laughing just then and woke up to something: I saw the truth about the suffering of those two weeks. I recognized how my suffering arose from my ideas about how my retreat should be, about the lives of deer, about the character of the hunters, and not from the facts of the deer.

The deer just lived their lives, eating, drinking, walking, and when they were shot, dying. They did not spend any time beforehand thinking about dying. The cause of suffering was not the event itself, but my attachment to having the world run a particular way.

The hunting season ended, much as it began, with a two-hour barrage of shooting at the end of the day. Then quiet returned and continued through the last week of the retreat. One morning I went out to walk before breakfast. The sun was just coming up. I walked up to the big meadow. The sun was just rising and all the clouds were streaming from behind me toward the rising sun. The clouds all looked like rows of tiny square pillows; the wind was behind them and they were racing toward the sun. I had this complete sense of the world turning quickly toward the sun. I stood transfixed.

As the clouds moved and the sun rose, different parts of the clouds became illuminated in pink, rose, peach, coral, gold, and yellow as though someone was turning lights off and on, illuminating first one pillow and then another. I must have stood for ten minutes, unable to move.

Suddenly a door slammed. Hearing a rustle behind me, I turned to see a whole herd of deer barely ten feet from me. They turned, flipped up their wonderful white tails and were gone. Following their spontaneous retreat, I watched intently as they sped away, moving smoothly, effortlessly across the meadow and through the filigree of clean, bare, open woods beyond.

Margaret McKenzie is a social worker in Du Page County, Illinois. She is a Senior Dharma Teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen where she has been a student of Zen Master Barbara Rhodes for thirteen years. Margaret has been a member of the Theosophical Society since 1995.

By Lilia Molina 

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Molina, Lilia. "Solitary Retreat Musings of Ani Kunzang." Quest  94.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006):194-196.

In November of 2005, my friend Ani Kunzang Drolma, a Buddhist nun of the Tibetan Kagyu Lineage, went into silent retreat which she will complete in 2009. The retreat was preceded by a program at Far Horizons Theosophical Camp with Anton Lysy. She sent the following letter to those she met at this wonderful Theosophical Camp:

February 2006

It has been six months since we were together at Far Horizons. I hope that your lives have been prosperous, healthy and filled with humor, curiosity and compassion. I also hope the time we have spent . . . contemplating various wisdom teachings have helped us all face life's challenges with loving kindness and equanimity. The door of my retreat has been closed for three months. I receive mail but only see my teachers and support person. I have been engaged in what are called "preliminary practices" [which] purify and stabilize the mind so that later meditation will be more fruitful. Solitude has been both challenging and rewarding. During these last few months as my mind has settled, I have realized how incredibly precious we all are. Once concerns with everyday "hustle and bustle" subside, our inherent loving kindness can begin to be expressed.

Here follows some of her thoughts during her silent retreat and comments on practical matters regarding her situation. Ani's retreat is located in the Kagyu Droden Kunchab retreat near Laytonville, California. Her teacher and mentor is the Venerable Lama Lodru Rimpoche. Her cabin has no electricity, but she is otherwise self-sufficient with the help of a staff person hired to help all the retreat participants. She is the only woman on retreat at this time, and shares her time with her cat, Bangkok. Here is a glimpse of her silent retreat which continues to 2009.

December 1, 2005

I was thinking today about our whole mind/body continuum—specifically, I was thinking of my body. It certainly seems an expression of me—to be mine—but then I think about the intestinal bacteria that must be present for me to keep living. I don't think about them as me and I'm sure they, at whatever level, are conscious do not think they are me. They think they are themselves. My blood, once again essential to my life, can live outside of me. And every little muscle cell is doing its best to keep alive all on its own. And there are all those other symbiotic and parasitic beings that have a different DNA sequence, that are part of what I think as my body. It truly is hard to find the "my" part of this body.

December 9, 2005 

Yesterday I had a thought as I was saying many refuge prayers. I thought that if we could see clearly—see our own lives with the Buddha's eyes—then perhaps we would see that absolutely everything that arises from our lives is a display of total absolute compassion. Through our samsaric eyes we see the field of karma—through Buddha's eyes there is only ceaseless compassion. Well perhaps when people treat us in unkind ways—on some level—without their being aware at all, Buddha's compassion is manifesting. Now I don't think this means we become doormats, don't protect and defend ourselves, but inwardly, in our hearts, our attitude should at least be open to the possibility that what is happening is medicine [and] will eventually in this life or another lead to the cessation of suffering. With this attitude we might not develop such strong thoughts of revenge, might not say and do actions which would perpetuate the painful confusion we all live in.

December 23, 2005 

Today so far has been a wonderful day. Yesterday afternoon I realized I was reaping some of the effects of solitude. I am so aware of the wide range of moods that I go through each day. I think that I am getting quiet enough to notice how incredibly . . . my mind/mood/emotions [vacillate]. I always took these changes to be caused by various "external" situations [but] I no longer have these distractions. The changing moods emerge all on their own—they are part of the landscape of my own internal processes—they always were. I have learned to trust these moods will pass. I just practice and read, do daily living chores, but I am very aware of my internal state and its constant flux. I think this awareness has been heightened due to my solitude and my practice.

February 10, 2006 

Ani writes about a poem written by Buddhist monks and nuns. She had copied them from www.accesstoinsight.org . The poem was written by Ubbiri and was deeply grieved when she wrote it about her daughter's death. She subsequently became a nun. The poem, Ani says, put it in perspective for her: I remember on a deep level why I am here. For a while I was just trying to "cope" with the solitude, . . .strange language, etc. Now I am back on the trail. I have glimpsed a footprint and will follow. This is the poem:

Jiva, my daughter,

You cry in the woods.

Come to your senses, Ubbiri.

84,000 all named Jiva have

Been burned in that charred ground. 

For which of them do you grieve? 

Pulling out—completely out—

The arrow so hard to see

Embedded in my heart,

He expelled from me,

Overcome with grief,

The grief over my daughter.

Today, with arrow removed,

Without hunger, entirely unbound- 

To the Buddha, Dhamma and

Sangha I go for refuge to

The Sage

It came to me in Tara [practice] this morning that we should all be praying for and dedicating merit to all those people in the world who are truly working for peace. I often pray for peace, but I realized that peace is not something separate from sentient beings. We don't get peace like we get a new set of clothes. We get peace by being peaceful and usually we become peaceful when a peace maker shows us the way. So I am dedicating to all the peace makers regardless of belief or non belief. And those who espouse violence and hatred will be ignored.

Practical Matters August 2, 2005 

She begins by explaining that the participants all have a set of texts of the Shangpa Kagyu from India, divided into 11 volumes in Tibetan. These will be the basis of her practices.

October 8, 2005 

I continue to be getting ready for the doors to close . . . [as] I had a propane heater installed this week. My auxiliary water tank is here . . .[and] unexpectedly I had to buy new batteries for my solar system.

November 3, 2005 

The fence/canvas went up on Tuesday [2 days before the note] Yesterday, I chain sawed wood. It took a lot of energy—more than I anticipated, but it was fun . . .

November 5, 2005 

With the sun so far south and low in the sky and with limited amount of daylight, my solar batteries are struggling.

November 20, 2005 

I have planted bulbs and transplanted some iris from outside my fence. All is ready outside. The wood pile is tidy and covered, the yard is raked, a juniper and honeysuckle are planted, the Guardian Dieties are in place above my gate . . .

November 23, 2005 

The closing of the gate to Ani's cabin closed at about 11:15 am on this day. She says:

I hadn't been given any instructions, so I didn't know what to expect. Lama Lodru, Lama Namse and a young Tibetan monk named Tenzin [came into] my cabin and specifically to my practice room to be blessed by Lama Namse. Then everyone left and my retreat officially began. My schedule:

4:00-6:00 am First session (different pujas, prayers and main practice) 6:00-6:30 am Break

6:30-8:00 am Green Tara Practice

8:00-9:00 am Breakfast

9:00-11:30 am 2nd Session: main practice only

11:30- 1:00pm Lunch break

1:00-3:00 pm 3rd Session: main practice only

3:00-5:00 pm Mahakala Practice

6:00-8:00 pm 4th Session: main practice

8:00-9:00 pm Chod and later on Vajakilaya Practice

February 28, 2006

I have . . . learned some very practical lessons. Solar lights only work when the sun shines. Adult children are unfamiliar with "snail mail" and must be encouraged to locate their local post office. Huge wood piles can be consumed in a very short time. Ravens prefer suet above any other human provided food.

And so it goes during this Solitary Meditation—until 2009.

Correspondence by Ani Kunzang, P.O. Box 43, Laytonville, CA 95454

By Kay Mouradian 

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Mouradian, Kay. “Silence is the Garden of Meditation.” Quest  94.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006):167-169. 

May the outward and inward man be at one.

—Plato

Movement is inherent in humans, but its impact is as subtle as the earth’s movement around the sun. Everything is dependent upon movement, including the physical body as our hearts beat and circulate blood without our awareness. Another unnoticed movement comes into play when the physical body is silent and still—the movement of thought. But it is so faint that it is usually unobserved. 

Most of us have never investigated where our thoughts originate. Where is that place in and around our minds? The key that opens the door lies in learning how to sit in active silence, but for many of us silence is a stranger.

Silence is a skill that can be likened to the skills developed in sports or the arts. Some individuals respond more quickly than others, while others spend hours practicing to become better. Developing the skill of silence needed in meditation demands the same quality of attention, desire, and dedication practiced by all outstanding performers. The skill of silence requires even more.

Silence is probably the highest refinement of sound. Sounds carry vibrations, and some are very heavy. Our world is not quiet and we tend to associate things with sounds; associations that often are not accurate. For example, a car just sped by and, in a flash; I saw ocean waves in my mind. Engine sounds remind me of the ocean. As I continued to write, I heard another car speed by and a red car flashed in my mind. How accurate are those pictures? Would I have seen those pictures in my mind if I had not been aware of the impact of sound on my thought process? Perhaps those pictures would have flashed through my mind, but I would not have noticed them.

How much more am I unaware of? What activity is taking place in my mind when the radio or television is blasting away, but I am not really listening? I have wondered if such unnoticed sounds play havoc with our minds and create confusion and stress in our lives. And are those heavy sounds playing a role and undermining our consciousness? Is this what H. P. Blavatsky meant in "The Seven Portals" of The Voice of the Silence when she said, "Thou shall not let thy senses make a playground of thy mind."

We passively accept noise as a way of life. For many, it conveniently drowns out the inner clamor that affects and confuses our thinking. I first became aware of the effects of noise when I started to meditate some thirty years ago. It was an uncomfortable experience. Not seeing what was around me and not being the center of my environment, I could no longer make judgments, even for something as simple as not seeing what in the room needed dusting. I had to learn to move away from the outside world and its effect upon me. It was my first encounter with silence, and it was a struggle.

I was told to "look within," but I found the phrase confusing. At the time, I thought: Looking denotes eyes and if I close my eyes, how can I see? Is there another dimension of seeing within? Does it really mean listening within, or is there another kind of sight and sound? My curiosity was aroused and as my scientific mind began to investigate, I sensed the opening of a fascinating new world.

I was a proponent of the "think positively" ideas, but to my surprise I found I had never before really understood thought. I began to see a different meaning of the term "think positively" as I explored the deeper part of my mind. I could hear myself think! I had never before experienced this, and I found it exhilarating!

Interesting questions began to surface: Could I really hear my thoughts? Does thought carry a tonal vibration? Does my sense of sight, even with my eyes closed, affect the depth of this new listening? Does the intensity of quiet affect this inner sight?

I learned to center my attention in the middle of my forehead at that space called the "mind’s eye." It was there that I discovered an interesting facet of the thought process. Thoughts originate in several places and many thoughts are active simultaneously. I realized how easy it was to be oblivious to all of them, because they tended to be floating around and feeble. They were just there.

Then I realized I could strengthen a thought, one thought, by focusing it at the mind’s eye and giving it full attention. The other thoughts then lost whatever force they carried. I would sit for hours just watching the activity in my mind. It was a fascinating experience, and I began to understand the expression "the monkey mind" and the understanding that the highest yoga is the control of the mind. More questions surfaced: Could I rid myself of what I call "my junk thoughts," such as anger or its close relation, self-pity, by watching them form? I practiced focusing attention on my mind’s eye, and one day I saw a strong angry thought-form surface. I watched it intently, without confrontation or fear, and it dissipated. Anger, which had been a bane in my life, has never plagued me since. What a gift!

I now keep my thoughts focused at my mind’s eye and so I’m aware of what thought activity is continually playing in my mind. Thoughts rule my consciousness, and just as junk foods pollute my body, I know that junk thoughts pollute my mind.

Becoming curious about how others perceived this concept, I experimented with the community college students enrolled in my yoga class. I discovered most of them had a difficult time focusing at the mind’s eye. Those students able to consciously bring thoughts to this space said those thoughts tended to be positive, while negative thoughts seemed to emanate from elsewhere. Some complained of the onset of a headache. I wondered if a possible explanation was that these frontal brain cells had never been stimulated with conscious use, therefore the intense concentration may have caused tension.

Our educational system has trained us to assimilate knowledge passively, and if we change from that passive pattern to an active effort to investigate, the brain cells have to be reeducated, which may be possible through active silence. Mouni Sadhu in his book Meditation gives an interesting explanation of this concept, as he says:

would like you to know the difference between ordinary school and university studies that we pass through, and the study of meditation. From the beginning, with the former, we will fill our memory with appropriate material and gradually extend our abilities of understanding, combining and judgment, all of which affect the brain cells comparatively gently and indirectly. I say indirectly because memorizing the alphabet touches only one side of the working brain, while leaving others at their ease. When we pass on to say, mathematics, then another part is affected, and so on. Moreover, our brains are accustomed to working this way, not only during our present childhood, but because of our mentally educated brains from former lives, although we may not realize this or recognize this, but the fact remains.

However when we commence meditation, it is no longer a swallowing of information, or standard activities. For then we begin to impose vibrations on the whole of our thinking apparatus, to compel it in a way that is new and unusual for it, to create vibrations along a specially chosen line, under the strict control of awareness, while using the power of concentration.

Then the cells have quite a different matter with which to deal. All of this produces tension in them, which parallels the same in your consciousness. So that is why we should be careful, and not overcharge our mental vehicle.<70-1)

Years of hard meditative work helped me become aware that I could rid my consciousness of anger, fear, greed, unkindness, harmfulness, and love of power before those junk qualities became encrusted. So for those of us who care about reeducating and or retraining our brain cells to clear our consciousness of these kinds of "junk thoughts" by focusing at the mind’s eye, we may want to consider an Edgar Cayce reading that says,

For the mind is both spiritual and physical in its attributes to the human body, and if ye feed thy body-mind upon worldly things, ye become worldly. If ye feed thy mind upon those things that are His, ye become His indeed. (Reading 1992-1)

Descartes’ famous quote "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) carries deep significance, but most of us have no idea what thoughts are floating in and around our heads. For those students at Mouni Sadhu’s "university level" who have developed their ability to concentrate and activate deep silence in meditation, it is possible to discover what thoughts cause disruption in our lives and then, with intense concentration and without fear, watch them dissipate in nothingness. It can be a promising gift. But remember Mouni Sadhu’s warning that this kind of intense meditation could be harmful to those who are not ready.

References:

Blavastksy, H.P. The Voice of Silence. Wheaton, IL; Theosophical Publishing House, 1973.

Sadhu, Mouni. Meditation. North Hollywood, CA; Wilshire Book Company, 1978.

Cayce, Edgar Reading. 1992-1. The Association for Reasearch and Enlightenment. www.edgarcayce.org.

Author’s Biography

Kay Mouradian, Ed.D., is a retired professor of health and physical education from the Los Angeles Community Colleges. A long-time student of Theosophy, she is author of Reflective Meditation(Quest Books, 1982) and her first novel, A Gift in the Sunlight: An Armenian Story is available from amazon.com . She can be reached at cmouradian@earthlink.net.