The art of bowing

[Guest guest]

"R Varghese"

>"Vrn Davan"

>CC: "ganapa vijai"

>The art of bowing

>Mon, 3 Jun 2002 01:14:25 -0700

>

>A lesson in surrender - Citta 101

>Jack Kornfield who is an amazing Vipassana teacher and one of my

beginning teachers. He also is a co-founder of the Insight

Meditation Society in Barre, Mass. where I've done several retreats

years and years ago.

>on bowing…

>â€â€¦I was taught it was proper for a monk to kneel

>and bow three times when he encounters a monk who is senior to him.

Being

>newly ordained this meant bowing to every monk I met. At first this

was

>difficult. There were monks I respected and honored who were easy

to bow to,

>but at other times I found myself kneeling and bowing to monks I

thought

>ignorant, proud, or unworthy. To bow to some of these fellows

simply because

>they had been ordained a month or two before me rubbed my pride the

wrong

>way. However, I continued to bow in the temple, in my hut, and to

all the

>monks who presented themselves to me. After some time I felt the

pain of my

>own criticism and how it kept me from them….†p.336

>

>Thomas Merton, Christian mystic, refers to a similar struggle in

his effort

>to learn and understand obedience. He would repeatedly remind

himself that

>the choice to obey was one he was freely making in each

circumstance.

>Freedom was in knowing that he could always refuse, but saying yes

>frequently brought powerful understandings. He repeatedly found

that it was

>worth the effort to try saying Yes.

>

>Can we bow to everything in our experience? Is there space and

allowance for

>all that comes before us, all which arises?

>

>In being fully with our experience, listening to ourselves and then

other,

>wisdom and compassion can flower.

>

>Reactivity is unskillful and usually counterproductive. Suppressing

or

>quickly capping uncomfortable sensations, feelings or emotions

forces them

>underground or to manifest in ways we don’t recognize. We need to

be open

>enough to listen, to hear what is trying to speak, open to the

possibility

>that our perception is skewed, including judgment against

ourselves.

>

>I recently a heard a Jungian analyst speak on the topic of

violence, Ronald

>Schenk. He suggested that our response to violence, particularly

9/11, after

>allowing ourselves space to feel and absorb our pain, is to ask

what is

>trying to be expressed â€" not necessarily by the perpetrators, but

by the

>universe. Our next step is then, not to heal, but to walk into

tomorrow

>through what has been torn apart, remaining soft and open like a

baby.

>

>Consider this week to silently, invisibly, bow to everything.

>

>JK “When we have become intimate with ourselves, we are able to

bow and to

>bless all that surrounds us.†p.337Get more from the Web. FREE

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