Thursday, March 20, 2025

Spring Begins: Vernal Equinox (3/20)

Tibetan Buddhist Goddess White Tara (among other Taras), whose name means "star"
(NBC News) Deadly storms expected across USA as millions brace for tornadoes before spring

Now it's called March equinox in the U.S.
No one seems to have told the rest of the country, but where the sun sets (West Coast), the sun rose this morning to a new spring. Everything is green and sunny, cool and moist, and a person's thoughts lilt towards thoughts of 

The Spring Equinox, also known as the vernal equinox, is one of the four solar festivals of the year. The equinox — which translates roughly in Latin to “equal night” — is when the sun sits vertically above the equator, making day and night equal across the planet.

Persephone, Goddess of Spring (animalia-life)
The Spring Equinox officially marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and there are celebrations around the world to usher in longer days and springtime. [This is the real traditional New Year's Day, when the Earth (Tierra, Gaia, Bhumi) renews herself in preparation for another cycle.]

In some cultures, this day also marks the beginning of the new year, which in Iranian (original Aryan) culture is called Nowruz. The Spring Equinox is a brilliant time for new beginnings [like maybe a nice spring cleaning], no matter how one celebrates on March 20th.

Here are some Spring Equinox Activities...  More
  • This is the best time to begin a regular meditation practice, graduating to walking meditation, mindfulness in nature, and deep stillness to see things as they really are.
An outfit just for practice helps.
Do the basics: Put on all white. Find a quiet spot apart from distractions. Use this spot over and over again. It becomes powerful. Set down a mat and cushion (a bundle of leaves or grass is enough to get the tailbone higher than the knees). Sit. Inhale deeply. Release. Do it again a few times, without forcing the air out. It's just about letting go completely, so completely that the body hangs as if held up by a clothing hanger, not stiff, not slack.

You're a baby in white, so go easy.
Straighter is more comfortable, even though it doesn't seem like it at first. Posture is important to attention. Bring (advert) the attention to the present moment, this moment, and to stay in just this moment, remain aware of the breath. Which breath? This breath, just the one happening now all by itself. Become the watcher (not the commenter, fixer, improver, slowdowner, or anything else), just the watcher. This is mindfulness -- clear awareness of the present without evaluation.

Whoa, what a trip! What was that? I want that again!
Set a time limit in advance and keep it. Even if it would be nice to go longer because it is going so well, know the time of rising. Even if it is going horribly with raving lunatic thoughts of a psychopath with lurid fantasies and wrath, lust and revenge, delusion and a lightshow, know the time of rising. The mind will thank you later.

Ten minutes is a good start time, slowly working up to an hourlong sit. That seems impossible now, but in time, whaddyaknow, it suddenly is possible. What changed? I'dunno. This practice is about persistence. It does itself and then there is no effort. The enemies of that are expectations, unsettled greed or desire for achieving something, and the Five Hindrances. They will come to hinder. They are already present. They can be overcome. But whether or not they have been overcome, persist. This is spring. This is the beginning. Have "beginner's mind" in place of the "monkey mind" that usually rules the cage. Smile. It helps.

Instructions are confusing because it's so simple.
It is easy to say that "meditation is NOT about thinking." That's clear. That's easy to see. Don't indulge thought; just let them be by turning your attention to this subtle breath that keeps changing. What is difficult to grasp is that "meditation is NOT about not-thinking." Not-thinking may happen. It doesn't matter. As that is not the goal, if it doesn't happen, it's okay. Giving attention to one object and bringing attention back and back again and again ("Begin again" as Sharon Salzberg says) is what is important.

Feed me, Phone-Momma! Feed me more!!
The mind like a petulant and insolent child will resist. Let it. Bring it back. Do not scold it or become upset. Let it be. Surrender completely to this moment, whatever is in this moment, not being moved to do anything no matter what the mind says it must do. See what happens. Could the mind be wrong no matter what it feels or demands or insists is true?

How did Siddhartha Gautama do it?
We'll never see things as they really are so long as we keep believing that we already are seeing them that way. We have never been seeing them that way. If we had, we'd awaken. We'd be enlightened, which is to say, Dependent Origination would make sense. And it doesn't, does it? (Hint: It's a practice, not a theory). That's a whole different kind of meditation called insight (vipassana) after getting good at this kind, which is called serenity (samatha). Don't jump ahead. Let it go. (If all else fails, sign up for a free 10-day Goenka retreat. Everyone should do at least one in life).

TODAY IS ALSO
POEM: "Locksley Hall"
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Greco-Roman Cora
Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.—

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. More
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