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Revisioning the Old in Order to Begin the New
 As we start a new year, we have an important opportunity to jump-start our spiritual lives with a sense of renewed commitment and hope. The tradition on New Year's to make resolutions for the upcoming year is a very good one. To live a happy life we need to cultivate the confidence and optimism about the future that comes from a strong resolve and determination to live a good and beneficial life in the present.
But in order to really begin anew we must first review. We can't look positively to the future with paralyzing regret about the past. We can't move expeditiously ahead if we are trailing too much encumbering baggage behind.
Robert G. Menzies declares, "It is a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness." As we review the past year, we must do two things in order to enter the new year free of the fetters that bind us. We must be grateful and forgiving.
The first way to liberate ourselves from our debilitating "retrospective bitterness" is to cultivate gratitude - the recollection and appreciation of all that has gone right for us over the past year. Gratitude regarding the past is an essential component of happiness in the present and optimistic resolve regarding the future. It acts as a counter-weight to resentment, discouragement, and sadness. It is impossible to simultaneously feel grateful and depressed.
It is not happiness that makes us grateful but rather gratitude that makes us happy. Richard Carlson, one of the founders of a new branch of modern psychology called "Happiness Studies," observes that "Throughout history wise men and women have encouraged us to feel grateful for what we have. Why? Very simply because gratitude makes us feel good."
If you have problems remembering what to be grateful for, you're probably not trying very hard. At the very least, recall all the bad things that didn't happen to you last year! The following is attributed to the Buddha: "Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful."
As the new year begins, it would be good to spend some time thinking about all the things and people you have to be grateful for. Go through the following steps in a meditation:
· Review all the problems you are having now, or have had during the year - all the difficulties and complaints you have about your life.
· Now think about the problems others are having that you're not having: living in extreme poverty; suffering from debilitating illness; living in the middle of a war zone; being unable to read and write; in the depths of despair and depression; lonely, without friends and family; ignorant about the true nature of things and cut off from any spiritual refuge and help; suffering old age or in the process of dying.
· Return now to your own problems and relativize them. In relation to the problems others are facing, how important and troubling are your own, really? Resolve to stop exaggerating your own difficulties and spacing out on the problems others are experiencing.
· Review the things that are or have been going right for you this year: successful relationships, career advancement; completion of major projects; spiritual advances; etc. Feel gratitude and try to see how blessed your life really is.
· Contemplate the things that others did for you this year: the ways others helped you, supported you, comforted you, taught you. Make a list of specific people who did these things for you this year.
· Visualize each one of these people and, one by one, say "thank you" to them. Resolve to find ways to thank each one of these people during the course of the upcoming year.
In addition to cultivating gratitude, we must also practice forgiveness if we are to be free of the "retrospective bitterness" about the past that precludes our present happiness and hobbles our resolution regarding the future. Forgiveness is, of course, a virtue universally commended by the world's greatest spiritual teachers - and just as universally almost always left unpracticed. Jesus famously taught, "You have heard that it was said, "Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
Because turning the other cheek and forgiving are so difficult for us, we must be very clear about what forgiveness really is and why it is in our own self-interest to do it. The definition given by the Forgiveness Institute on their web site sums up real forgiveness nicely:
Forgiveness is not done for the offender; it is in the interest of the offended. "I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him," said Booker T. Washington. If we don't forgive - preemptively and unilaterally - we will remain unhappy, burdened with resentment.
While forgiveness does not depend on the whether or not the offender deserves to be forgiven, or whether they have first apologized to you, it is certainly not just forgetting that the offense happened. As Thomas Szasz once remarked, "The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
Nor is forgiveness an act of capitulation. It is not "losing" but rather a triumph over the negative tendencies in ourselves that prevent our own well-being. Who's the real "loser" if we don't forgive? "Holding a grudge takes mental, emotional, and physical energy. It makes you obsessive, angry, and depressed," writes Barry Lubetkin, a psychologist and director of the Institute for Behavior Therapy. "There's a strong connection between anger and a wide spectrum of health miseries - chronic stomach upset, heart problems, and skin conditions among them. Without question, the more anger we experience within, the more stress we're under."
Finally, forgiveness is not an act of weakness but rather of strength. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
If you don't believe that it takes great strength to forgive, just try to do it. You'll quickly find out how hard it is.
So in addition to your new year's gratitude meditations, don't forget to complement them with forgiveness contemplations:
· Think about wrongs committed against you. Be specific about who, what, when, etc. and make a list. Feel the resentment, anger, and hurt that you are carrying about these people and incidents.
· Contemplate how important forgiveness is for you. Think about the disadvantages of not forgiving and the advantages of forgiving.
· Review what real forgiveness is and isn't.
· Go through your list and unilaterally and preemptively forgive those who have harmed you. Say to yourself, for each one, "I forgive you, so and so, for what you did that hurt me. I let go now of any and all resentment, anger, and hurt I feel about it. I forgive you, unconditionally and totally."
· Resolve to make forgiveness a daily part of your spiritual practice until you have really forgiven each and every one of these people who have hurt you.
Letting go of past resentments, together with developing genuine gratitude for the many blessings that inundate our lives, are the preconditions for a better 2008. Start this new year right. Clear away the weeds of the past that choke off your present happiness and besmirch your view of the future.
Resolve to do something good for yourself and for others this month and this year: be grateful and be forgiving.
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Sankrit Word of the Month
Yoga
Maybe one of your resolutions this year was to join the estimated 20 million or so North Americans who claim to be regularly doing yoga. But how many of these know what the Sanskrit term "yoga" really means?
The word derives from the Sanskrit verbal root yuj- which means "to join." The English words "yoke," "join," and "jugular" are all cognates of "yoga." There are many kinds of yoga mentioned in Indian texts, all of which entail some sort of discipline or "joining" of oneself to a practice. In Buddhism, for example, one of the highest and most important of all practices is "guru yoga" where one tries to yoke oneself to, and eventually wholly unite with, one's Teacher (who is also understood to be an fully Enlightened Being).
Yoga of all sorts often combines an "outer" practice (like putting oneself into a particular posture, or disciplining one's body to act ethically or devotionally) with an "inner" practice such as meditation or the cultivation of wisdom. Yoga thus joins external and internal methods and harnesses them into a powerful team.
Finally, the ultimate goal of yoga is also a kind of union or yoking - the joining together of a perfect, immortal body of light with an omniscient and all-compassionate mind.
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Quotations of the Month
Franklin and Chesterton
 "Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man." - Benjamin Franklin
"The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective." - G.K. Chesterton |
Karmic Correlation of the Month
Idle Speech
While many of the correlations between karmic causes and effects are fairly straightforward, not all are always so immediately apparent. For example, people are sometimes surprised to learn that according to Je Tsongkapa's Lam Rim Chenmo and other texts, the cause of depression and low self-esteem is said to be "idle speech."
Idle speech includes meaningless chatter, bickering with others, whining and complaining, and gossiping. One especially virulent form of idle speech is mindlessly repeating prayers or mantras without thinking about what one is saying.
Another very bad form of this misdeed is saying that you will do something and then not doing it. Making promises you don't keep - i.e., hearing yourself say things that are meaningless or have no value - comes back at you in the perception that you are of little value. Because you didn't take your words seriously, you are forced to have the feeling that you are the kind of person who is not worth taking seriously.
And, as usual, the karmic effect is also that you are more likely to habitually engage in such idle speech in the future. As it says in the Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life,
This habit (of not doing what you say you will)
Extends into future lives;
And because of this vice, one's suffering increases.
And another timely opportunity to act is wasted,
And what needs to be done is left unaccomplished. (7.48)
This correlation is very important to remember as we make our New Year's resolutions. If we wish to avoid low self-esteem and the unhappiness it brings, we must try to keep our promises to ourselves and to others.
This year, don't write no checks with your mouth that your body can't cash! Be judicious about what resolutions you make (only make the ones you really intend to keep) and then keep track of and do your best to fulfill them.
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New Video and Audio Teachings
Available On-line
Benjamin Worden once again has kindly filmed and uploaded two talks I gave last month in New York City. The first is on the three yogas in the Bhagavad Gita, given at The Shala yoga studio:
Three Yogas of the Bhagavad Gita Video
Audio only for the talk is posted here:
Three Yogas of the Bhagavad Gita Audio
The second video is a brief talk entitled "No Dharma, No Fun" presented at a fundraiser for the Three Jewels:
No Dharma, No Fun Video
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Video and Audio Podcasts
We've continued to upload new video podcasts, the most recent of which have been extracted from a talk given at the Tibetan Heart Yoga, Series 6, course last September in Tucson, and from last term's Diamond Mountain University course on "karma yoga" in the Bhagavad Gita:
New Video Podcasts
The audio podcasts posted last month conclude the series on the six "flavors" of emptiness ("mahamudra"), including a guided meditation. We also have begun a new series of podcasts on the Four Arya Truths taken from last summer's annual retreat at the Windhover Performing Arts Center in Rockport, Massachusetts. The audio podcasts can be found here:
New Audio Podcasts
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Complete Audio Downloads
Complete audio of teachings last month's teachings in Los Angeles and in New York City (including a "Yoga Essentials" course given as part of Kelly Morris's yoga teacher training program) can be found by following these links:
Explorations in Emptiness
Learning Forgiveness ("How to Be Happy, Part One: Cultivating Forgiveness and Gratitude")
Dharma Essentials IX ("The Ethical Life)
Yoga Essentials
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Upcoming Teachings in January
ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS
ACI Formal Study Course XVI: Review of Courses 1-5
Jan. 15th - Jan. 18th, 12 - 4:30 p.m.
Location: Community House, Rockport, MA
Contact: Phil Salzman: cape_ann_sangha@yahoo.com
Teachings on Emptiness (mahamudra)
Jan. 15th - Jan. 18th, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.
Location: Rockport High School Auditorium, Rockport, MA
Contact: Phil Salzman: cape_ann_sangha@yahoo.com
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TUCSON, ARIZONA
Diamond Mountain University Winter Term
Jan. 28 - March 2
The Yoga of Wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8-10 PM
Location: The Yoga Practice, 2207 N.Bell, Tucson, AZ
Contact: Diamond Mountain University to register for courses
Readings in Sanskrit
Thursdays, 1-4 PM
Location: The Yoga Practice, 2207 N.Bell, Tucson, AZ
Contact: Diamond Mountain University to register for courses
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