Reading Yukio Mishima's "Temple of the Golden Pavillion"

"I leaned against the slender railing and looked down absently at the pond, on which the evening sun was shining. The surface of the water looked like a mirror, like an ancient patinated copper mirror; and the shadow of the Golden Temple fell directly on this surface. The evening sky was reflected in the water, far beneath the water plants and the duckweed. This sky was different from the one above our heads. It was clear and filled with a serene light; from underneath and from within, it entirely swallowed up this earthly world of ours, and the Golden Temple sank into it like a great anchor of pure gold that has become entirely black with rust." --Temple of the Golden Pavillion p.26

Do Easy-- the Bullseye of Soul

William S. Burroughs wrote an essay called Do Easy that Gus Van Sant made a short film of.

The premise is how much effort do we have to put into action?

The Do Easy voiceover references the "ease with which an archer can hit the bullseye in darkness", a reference to the early 50s book "Zen and the Art of Archery". In the book learning archery is a tool for learning how to act without trying to act-- to let the bow shoot itself. Herrigel, the author who was one of the first Westerners to study zen in Asia, comes to a point where he is paralyzed, commanded by his master not to make any attempt to shoot the bow. He goes through endless frustration and eventually it loosens and starts to shoot through him, spirit takes over. He has learned the art of Do Easy. He can now apply the ease of just preparing the circumstances and allowing the bow to shoot itself to the rest of his life.

This re-connection with the natural intelligence, the spirit mover is what yoga is all about.

But how to get to Do Easy? We ca try to do things Easy but it takes time to let go of habits we cling to.

By sitting down to be with ourselves we begin to gain clarity. But there is a major transition period not enough literature touches on. The grey area between seeing the state of your life and it naturally settling down is like dusk, its hard to see either way-- are you making progress or not? What is changing? In Zen and the Art of Archery he refers to how hard and long the struggle was, how much resistance he faced, but it is pretty vague. We all meet up with this resistance, do we just have to accept it as paying our dues?

Friends often tell me they try to meditate but they just can't-- their minds are too busy. Another friend leaves yoga classes early because she cant lay down in Svasana, the corpse pose because she is too anxious. It's not like you aren't made for yoga-- that it just isn't for you, it is that you have to realize this is the current forecast of mind and it is ok and it is not uncommon-- you just want to become non-judgmentally aware of it. Space, peace, clarity and openness are cultivated by sitting with what is. The mind by its design is spastic. By meditating we get intimate with this rascal so we aren't so easily duped by it. It is hard to sit with ourselves, but we have to remember our goal, Do Easy, not force it, just trust our natural intelligence and sit.

If I could change one stereotype about yoga it would be the sense that it results in a monotone calm glaze over your life-- that suddenly all problems are smoothed out. It is like sitting own when you realize just how wild your inner processes can be, life can seem more uncontrollable, so raising awareness proportionally requires you to surrender control, to get more and more trusting in DE-- doing it easy. In this way yoga is the art of life-- how to DO . The Bhagavad Gita is all about this, how to perform ACTIONS in the world? It can be so hard to know what's right and wrong and when to act and how to act, but the Gita says to do everything for God, it requires a high level of engagement with life to always be referencing a point of devotion for your actions. But it is asking us to Surrender our actions, to let go, and I think Do Easy puts this quite simply, just do it, with clarity. Its about returning to that natural alignment of action with spirit. Yoga helps because it realigns body, breath, with mind. It's not about controlling the mind, or silencing the mind, or forcing yourself to act a certain way. Its about Doing it Easy, the path of least resistance, getting back in touch, yoga-- re-union with your inner Self.

In my experience with Masters like Amma and Shivarudra Balayogi, I have seen they are so dynamic and alive, they really live with a spark and a spontaneity. So yoga is about letting stuff flow through you, living wide, opening up to what is true, the yoga tradtion believes is Ananda-bliss, and letting go of what is untrue, the false sense of lower self, seperateness.

\The Sufis say the world is a book to learn from. Meditation asks us to engage with what we have, to take a moment to stop and just BE. Our culture is so quick to BECOME and we forget what we have. Yoga says we always have IT, we just don't remember it. The Yoga Sutras talk about returning awareness to Purusha-- our original light, the inner sense of I Am the unique light of you. Meditate to remember this. You will see there is so much in the way- so many weather systems of thought. But the clouds will clear, you start being able to let the thoughts pass y like clouds, letting them settle to the bottom of the lake and then you can feel the reflection of your spirit again. It is a great feeling, so natural, and it is always there.

People don't talk about the hard part, how to get from all our trying and failed attempts and missed oppurtunities. If I could change that stereotype about yoga it would be to let people know it is ok for t to be hard, that is why there are Gods like KALI, the insane Goddess mouth dripping with blood with wild black hair. When we start seeing ourselves it can be frustrating that we arn't at the goal yet, Ananda, but the discomfort of sitting with our minds and feeling what we feel even if it isn't pleasing, that is part of Yoga.

So we want to get back to a simple harmony of just existing, “Do Easy”. But it takes experiencing the ways we do things otherwise-- seeing how we over analyze things or how we prepare too much and don't allow for unexpected possibilities. As we get to know the bow and arrow of our lives through meditative observation we can start to surrender the effort more and test the water of surrender to Do Easy. And through this life blooms anew, the lotus that's always connected with yoga, reminding us that no matter what happens, its always as beautiful as the lotus, and all is headed back to the light of Do Easy and Light. Om Shanti