I hope all is well and your year is starting out perfectly. Peace and hope to all people, especially to the Haitians at this time.

I am starting out this new year high up in the Himalayas. It’s been a month now that I have been settling into my hillside home. Its a mere 200 steps straight up from the road to my place and my legs are getting strong doing that climb several times a day.  From this height I can see up and down the whole valley: Up towards the snowy peaks of the northern passes that lead into Tibet and south down to the lush Kullu valley of terraced fields of corn and wheat.

I will be here another month, taking time this winter for a long meditation retreat. It’s a miracle that there is internet here, when I lived here 10 years ago, for a decade, we had no internet, or TV, telephones or hot water! The edge of modern technology has finally reached here, although it is still at the edge as everyday the power cuts off at least once and the internet bleeps on & off .

There has been a drought here this year, no winter monsoon. Usually at this time it’s cold  and rainy with no escape from the damp, but this year it is dry and already getting warm during the days. This is nice for comfort, but not good for the crops and food prices this year.

I’ve been reading the Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures and meditating. I manage to attend three or four yoga classes a week as well. Each day is a blessing here and I absolutely adore the ancient magic of India.

This week I hiked up in to a distant valley and found a small hamlet there, still looking like it could be from 500 years ago. They have a wonderful enormous old temple to Brahman, the Creator. No-one knows how old it is! After being allowed to go inside to see the inner chambers, we were asked by a local man over to his place for a cup of good old fahioned mountain chai, tea! We sat peacefully on the family porch with him,  his great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, wife and new little baby boy.  That was the most perfectly made, delicious chai  I have ever drunk!

I will post some photos of my time so far here.

It’s becoming obvious that health and peace are not luxuries but necessities of daily urban life. It is possible to live a dynamic life while maintaining a strong inner peace and clarity. Not only is this possible, but if we combine calmness with activity we discover in ourselves more creativity, energy, and happiness.

Finding balance and clarity takes practice and patience. A healthy diet, sleep, and an exercise program are fundamental to a calm and active life. Next is to learn about the nature of the mind, how it works to bring us happiness or to make us miserable.

This is the focus of Yoga and has been studied for thousands of years. Finally, each one must know what inner peace is and to remember it as often as possible. Yoga is a combination of many practical skills that create clarity in the mind and quiet in the soul.

Whether in business, art, a profession, or managing a family, you will find it is possible to be fully expressive and dynamic while staying gracefully established in peace!

Normally we understand topics using the mind’s thoughts and concepts. We build ideas and then compare these to other’s to develop a view of the world. Self-knowledge usually refers to the collection of ideas we hold about ourselves. Any one set of ideas will inevitably be contrary to another set of ideas, and so go on endless discussions and even fights about which ideas are correct and best.

There is a vast amount of literature and philosophy regarding meditation; you could spend lifetimes analyzing and comparing the various paradigms and details. Thousands of schools of meditation exist all over the planet, including Zen, Hindu and Tibetan, each with countless lineages and teachers. For example, a thousand years ago, two religions in Tibet fought furiously for two hundred years over which of them was correct, until they finally realized they were both Buddhists!

Don’t get me wrong, I do recommend reading as much as possible of as many schools as you can find! These ideas can help to clarify your thinking, but they also often confuse you as well. Study is needed, but more important is the direct experience gained by actually meditating. Also invaluable is a clear-headed meditation teacher who can guide you through your mind’s conceptual mazes.

Information is not the same as the awareness that dawns in you in meditation. Meditation cannot be understood by study alone, since it is not a collection of ideas to learn. Meditation is the intentional practice of seeing beyond your mind’s thought forms into the infinite and formless background space behind all your thoughts.

Start by stilling and strengthening your physical energy with exercises such as in Yoga and Tai Chi. Then, sit quietly and observe the natural activity in your mind as it is. Get to know your own thinking. Eventually, you can practice focusing your attention on one thought: A positive thought is usually preferable! With practice, over time, you will naturally begin to notice that behind this level of thinking in the mind there exists a dark and indescribable spaciousness. Your mind will try to label this with a concept as it always does with everything, but just continue to practice noticing whatever thoughts come along and then look past them again, into the space of no thought. Little by little, you will become more accustomed to this experience. It is not at all the same as sleep or dullness since you remain very alert and present, watching what and who exists. Your mind might resist this formlessness with endless chatter. Accept this as natural, and persevere!

There are also mental exercises we can learn and practice and these fall under the name meditation. It would be natural to think that if you master these mental skills you will be a meditation master.

So lets start with throwing out that idea altogether!

Don’t meditate in order to become a great meditator!

The purpose is not to be the one who sits the most straight-backed for the longest time, or the one who can repeat mantra 1008 times non-stop. The point is also not whether you can keep your attention focused only on your breath for 20 minutes.

Everyday, all day long we are active, doing, doing, doing… with not a moment to rest!

Your attention constantly follows all the activities inside your head and outside in the world. You put your attention on some object or quality of being, or, more often, simply let your attention ramble about in your thoughts and sensations. Even if your body is still, your mind is busy doing.

Meditation should not be another activity to add to your list of activities.

Meditation is some time you set apart every day to “not-do”.

How thoroughly pleasant it is simply to sit and not have to do anything for 20 minutes. Even not to think!

Just purely “to be.”

You already are totally “being” all the time. At every moment of your whole life, you can’t not be!
So, what is meditation?

The time called meditation is when you are allowing your attention to rest in this pure state of being.

Your awareness acknowledges your own still being. This takes no effort at all, rather, the cessation of all effort.
Awareness comes from this still space of being in you, and when all activity ceases, your awareness returns to this pure space.

Allow yourself to be in your own stillness. Allow your mind to be content doing nothing for just 20 minutes.

You will realize your own inner still space is perfect.

And you are that stillness.”

The students said, “Yah, but, when I try to sit still my body hurts and my thoughts won’t stop.”

I said, ” You’re going to be a great meditator!”