Spirituality | Why spirituality (sometimes) fails
You live within an amazing transformative machine. It’s called the body. It has two very different functions. I would guess that 99 percent of people use it only for the first, which is to eat, sleep, excrete, reproduce, have a variety of pleasant, painful, and interesting experiences, and die. The second function usually remains as a hidden potential, not secreted away by any particular rule of law, but put out of sight through culture, time, and humanity’s intense predilection for fixating on the external phantasmagoria that fills our stumbling consciousness. Side by side with the intricate machinery of sinews, molecular reactions, nerve transmission, miles of circulatory tubing, and cellular biochemistry, lies an alternative, even more complex system of bioenergy.
Like the creatures great and small that share this planet, our form is primarily designed for the first function, mundane living. Then our extremely busy and full lives take pretty much every ounce of the biological and bioenergetics forces that we manufacture day to day. Every spiritual path has techniques to generate, condense, gather, and store energy within the body-mind. But that is a story for another day. Here we will first observe the mountainous landscape of life force wasted on purposeless or meaningless activity.
Body
It is safe to say that the average person never relaxes their body fully, completely. It is an art that must be cultivated. We won’t acquire it by modeling parents, teachers, celebrities, or even athletes. You may see it in skilled martial artists or long-time meditators or experienced body-workers, dancers, or actors, who have made it part of their craft. There is a fluidity, balance, yet economy of movement in such individuals, who are “cat-like” in their grace.
Just stop what you are doing at any point in the day and observe how tight various areas of “resting” muscles are. Or watch almost anyone walking or jogging.
Speech
It is a tough contest between who is the greatest energy and time waster in our lives. In terms of the body and voice, it is a close race. Of the 10 traditional negative actions of Buddhist philosophy, four are attributed to speech. So while we are busy with the karma that arises from slander, lying, idle talk, and harsh words, we are also looking at energy inadvertently spilling out of the storage tanks. Excess and dysfunctional use of the voice apparatus siphons off valuable resources that can be used for spiritual breath work, mantras, and the demanding internal sequence of light body transformation.
Mind
Naturally, the mind is at the center of energy conservation. We must decide to use speech wisely and to break the cycle of body tension and to apportion our limited energy. Even before that, we have to accept the reality of our situation. And while we said that energy maintenance was the first major problem, there is yet an additional obstacle that we face. Automatic light bodies, automatic ascension, and automatic enlightenment are not new ideas as humans have been looking for salvation from above for a very long time. Order persists and there is nothing in nature or in our daily experience that mirrors this wishful thinking.
Social
We are social animals, more or less. Being with compatible others can be uplifting, educational, fun, nourishing, and relaxing. We can be much more precise and proactive if we act in line with our understanding of energetics. Will this situation demand a lot of my (limited) energy? Will it leave me exhausted for the day? Simply, is it worth it to be here and with these people for what I wish to give and what they may wish to share? It is a dance to be sure, especially for those in the helping profession, or with family or friends who need our assistance in a variety of ways. Keeping energy in mind, and the fact that emotions are energy, will give us better tools to work with.
Guarding the core
We have touched on some key ways that we lose or waste energy, priceless energy that we need for inner transformation. But we have not said much about the solutions to these thorny issues. The transformation process is not mandatory, not a given, and is, in fact, the rare—the very rare—exception. Our lives are driven by careers, family, hopes and dreams, ambitions and fears. For most, the inner call is a very distant one, an echo heard in silence. Our internal transformational system is also hidden in the recesses of normal body function, a potential waiting to be realized. And so it is only appropriate that our practice be kept in a safe place.
Spirituality | Trauma Dharma
The greatest obstacle to spiritual development is… not what you might think. Various religions and spiritual pathways talk about our disturbed emotions, our anger, our anxieties, and our past actions. Others dwell on our persistent clinging or attachment to various aspects of our outer world and inner experiences. Still others cite our self-centeredness, our grasping at a self or so-called “ego-clinging.” Each of these is valid in relation to different stages and aspects of the path. And in every case we could also debate their value or relevance, or the misunderstandings that arise with regard to any of these complex issues. Before we can either reject or accept such a notion, we need to define what trauma is, beyond the concepts offered by either the popular press or clinical psychotherapy.
Trauma effects
Trauma can have a wide range of effects and symptoms, as well as extensive metabolic, neurological, immunological, and psychological effects. However, none of these are specific to trauma alone and so the real key is understanding what trauma means for the bioenergetics body, for the intricate web of electrical, magnetic, and photonic forces and fields that make up our subtle body.
Our physical form itself functions as a liquid-crystal matrix, with the fourth, magnetic stage of water being an important part of our composition. Our connective tissue matrix and PVS (primary vascular system) is interwoven through every organ and tissue. Beyond this exquisite network of minute vessels and microscopic collagen, we also have an energy body. Just as there is a network of ever-finer arteries and capillaries, and ever-more-subtle branches of nerve fibers, there is a highly structured energy field. Imagine a polished diamond or some other magnificent gem with billions of facets, intersecting and overlapping in perfect symmetry, reflecting photons carrying complex qualia of information. This network is the formative pattern upon which our physical organism is built. All structure and all function follows these invisible lines of force.
Traumatic channels
Trauma exists within our body, tissues, cells, and molecules. On a physical level there is now tremendous information about what happens within the vascular system and how blockages and distortion, or a lack or excess of angiogenesis (blood vessel building capacity) accompanies or causes disease. Such disruptions also occur within the complex web of energies, the vibrating strings of light and organized fields that belong to each unique organ and tissue. These take the form of weakened or broken lines of forces, distorted or expanded “bubbles” within the body field, or thickened, tangled, or blocked energetic channels. The perfect symmetry and organization of our bioenergetics structure becomes a tangled skein. To make matters worse, these areas, large and small, then form a defensive field, not unlike the physical scabs and scars with which we are so familiar. They become walled off and inaccessible, “safely” stowed away but also becoming a ticking time bomb.
Trauma defense
While we are clearing up past impacts of every description, we may also be busy accumulating fresh trauma! The solution seems straightforward: protect oneself. But how to most effectively ward off these attacks, large and small? Fortunately Vajrayana again is replete with defensive methods and, in fact, a good deal of the daily practice of a tantric Buddhist adept is spent in this way. Daily water offerings, smoke offerings, morning Tara practice and evening protector practice are largely dedicated to preventing harm to one’s health, possessions, sangha, spiritual practice, and the Buddhadharma in general. Also, the extensive and widespread practice of Chöd is a penultimate way of clearing “incoming karma” before it manifests in serious obstacles and difficulties. Then again, merely holding to the identity of the yidam or meditational deity archetype provides ongoing protection, as we discard our habitual identity, the proverbial “magnet of suffering.”
The trauma-resistant form
Inner work of another sort is also necessary and highly effective. That takes the form of building up one’s Five-Element structure, area by area, noting where there are weaknesses and filling in the gaps. The integrity of our five-element matrix is our greatest asset and greatest bulwark against forces of entropy and decay. They are formative patterns of meaning and intelligence that provide a scaffold for bio-photonic light, electricity, magnetism, and eventually a vibrating container built of molecules, cells, and sinews. The Elements should be our first concern in the morning and our last thought at night, providing diurnal protection. If one can achieve full Mahamudra pure light states, do that. But the Elements will still be our guide through the mundane world of apparitions and confused and wandering sentient beings.
