Colleen Leonardi

Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa

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"The inspiration to find the truth, to see what is real, and to lead a genuine life - the culmination of which can be enlightenment - is what underlies every spiritual journey."

This is how the book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialsm by Chögyam Trungpa begins, with these words from an introduction by Sakyong Mipham. I am one of those people who longs to find the truth, who wants to engage with what is real and, yes, lead a genuine life. But I am not someone who considers myself to be on a spiritual journey, or even someone who is spiritual. I've always considered myself an artist in search of the truth by way of the creative process. 

These worlds, though, between art and Buddhism, spirituality and a search for the truth in things, are not so different. And that is part of why I enjoyed this book so much. Despite what the icon and colors on the cover of the book might evoke in you about Buddhism, the book itself has far more general applications. You do not have to be a Buddhist to read this book and benefit from its wisdom. 

I picked it up because I am at a point in my yoga studies where I am considering pursuing a 500-hour teacher training program. The physical practice of yoga is still incredibly valuable to me, but I'm wanting to steep myself even more in the philosophy and literature of yoga and Buddhism, and weave all of my studies in dance together with my work in yoga.

Within this desire, I can feel the need in me to know more and want more knowledge the way one wants more shoes. I can feel a part of myself wanting to collect wisdom. I can feel how this is a dangerous, dishonest place to be. 

So materialism in spirituality - yes, this is perhaps some of what I'm reckoning with each morning as I meditate and read the yoga sutras and think I'm doing the good work of the yogi. Trungpa says it is not simply in the practice and study of a philosophy, religion or tradition, and in the self-study you have to cultivate when committing to a practice, that leads one towards a true spiritual journey. In fact, he writes: "To be completely open, to have that kind of absolute trust in yourself is the real meaning of compassion and love." And later in the book he writes about how being truthful is about being 100% open to ourselves, our failures and successes, both. It's not about the solitary, learned, isolated study. "The more we open to ourselves, completely and fully, then that much more openness radiates to others." 

The book takes the reader through the stages of spiritual materialism, from surrendering to finding a guru to being initiated to self-deception to the ego and more. Each chapter starts with an essay written by Trungpa and then a Q&A to help clarify and elaborate on what he is getting at. 

Trungpa comes back, again and again, to the paradox of trying to pursue the truth. He writes about how the minute you set out to search for what is real your search has ended. It's similiar to how the Buddha is said to have said the man who thinks he is enlightened is not. The minute we think we know the truth we do not. 

I have experienced this paradox so many times when making dances. The minute I find the thing I think is the thing that will make the dance complete it eludes me, leaves me, never to return in exactly that way ever again. Impermanence? Yes. But something else happens when working in these ways when I allow the dance to emerge on its on. Some other wisdom is operating. 

One of the clearest passages on what I think is happening when I work in these ways in dance I found in this book, and was so thrilled to have found it in a completely different context.

Trungpa is asked a question about what happens when you're not as advanced as others when embarking on the search for truth: 

"But if you are not at that point of true compassion and wisdom?"

And Trungpa answers: 

"You do not question or worry about your wisdom. You just do whatever is required. The situation you are facing is itself profound enough to be regarded as knowledge. You do not need secondary resources of information. You do not need reinforcement or guidelines for action. Reinforcement is provided by the situation automatically. When things must be conducted in a tough manner, you just do it because the situation demands your response. You do not impose toughness; you are an instrument of the situation." 

You are an instrument of the situation. Yes! Making dances using an emergent premise approach reminds me of this again and again. (Perhaps that is why I love to make dances. They remind me of the truth.) What this passage says to me is you observe, question and then act. You act at every opportunity. For it's in the openness, in the engagement, that the search is truly a search. 

What happens when we replace the word situation with the word dance in this passage? 

"You do not question or worry about your wisdom. You just do whatever is required. The dance you are facing is itself profound enough to be regarded as knowledge. You do not need secondary resources of information. You do not need reinforcement or guidelines for action. Reinforcement is provided by the dance automatically. When things must be conducted in a tough manner, you just do it because the dance demands your response. You do not impose toughness; you are an instrument of the dance." 

Exactly. 

A Field Guide to Now by Christina Rosalie

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A Field Guide to Now: notes on mindfulness and the present tense by Christina Rosalie requires a field. When reading it I highly recommend positioning yourself close to nature. Go to the park or your local forest preserve. Take a day trip to a nearby lake or the ocean. Walk in the woods. Hike along a mountain trail. Find yourself closer to nature with the book in hand, and some time to ponder while you wander. Get some good distance on the thing you call your life. 

I like mindfulness. I really do. As a concept and a state, although I don't think I get to it as a state very much. I try. And so does Christina. And that's what I so like about her book and her blog. It's honest. And artful. And so, so thoughtful without being full of too many thoughts.

Each chapter of her book reveals itself like a day, with an even mix of the ordinary and extraordinary. She shares details from her life, using them as opportunities to explore and practice different ways of being mindful, like bravery, fervor, hunger, prayer and more. I particularly like the chapter on becoming. She writes: 

"And what occurs to me now is this: No one talks about the moments in between. The moments of treading water, of moving slowly, of waiting to become. The times in between are eclipsed in the stories we tell, by the triumph and magnitude of the way things turn out or begin. But I can feel it - how the slowness of right now is creating the secret yolk of who I will become. ... This work of becoming can happen at any time, right here, in the middle of your life, with the subtlest internal shift - with acknowledging your potential." (pg. 27) 

And I like what she writes about the emergence of ideas in the chapter "Encountering Possibility: Prototype":

"New ideas always find me this way, ramshackle, delightful, and unexpected. And I am convinced that ideas are everywhere, like wild daisies, for the picking. We all have access. Anyone can snag the corner of an idea and give it a tug, pulling down from the firmament some fragment of greatness. It's not lack of ideas that stops us from creating great work; it's that we make too many excuses and lack the courage to dream things real." (pg. 160) 

The book is handsome. My funky photo up top doesn't do it justice. It's hardbound and slim and peppered with textured, poetic illustrations by Christina. 

I read this book in two days, so hungry for inspiration I was. I was also secluded in the woods when I read it, and that helped. I was able to listen, hear and turn the reading of the book into a retreat for myself. That's part of what seems most magical about A Field Guide to Now. While Christina reveals aspects of her life it become less and less about her and more about you and your experience of that thing you call your life.

Christina coaxes your heart to come out and play. And that's why you need a field or a forest or a tree or at least a view. You need some space to get wild, in your thinking and your seeing, and really rest in that wildness. Distance creates a container for reflection, I find. And seeing is becoming. 

Find a field. Find this book. And start to see your life. 

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"I have always felt like words make a home for my ideas, and that images create a road map for my heart. In a field guide, both are necessary."~~Christina Rosalie 

Dancing Across the Page

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I found Dancing Across the Page: Narrative and Embodied Ways of Knowing by Karen Barbour during a moment of uncertainty in one of my favorite bookstores. Now still present in me as I write, the uncertainty makes my head feel full of questions. I don't necessary want the quick fix of an answer, but something more like an answering, taking me somewhere beyond right and wrong, yes and no.

A dangerous state to be in while in a bookstore. It's like being hungry when you go grocery shopping.

So, Dancing Across the Page found its way into my life and became part of this ongoing answering. Karen Barbour is a senior lecturer in the faculty of education at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. In her book, she writes about being a choreographer, dance teacher, improviser, writer, mother and feminist, and how all of these roles become fodder for her continued explorations in dance and in living the creative life. By telling her story about embodied ways of knowing, she seeks to, "...inspire you to affirm the values of your embodied ways of knowing as a basis from which to undertake creative action in the world."

I breathed a little deeper reading these words. And I found more moments of recognition throughout her book. Her endeavor to map out her research as she moves between dance academia, life and the spirit of dance gives rise to phrases and language that I've found myself saying, wondering, Is anyone else thinking about these things?

Like these passages:

"While I am, to some extent, culturally and socially constructed, and of course I am very specifically embodied, there are still some possibilities for me to re-create myself. And I see potential for such re-creation in dance making. I find this perspective empowering." (pg. 29)

"Now as a dance academic, my teaching and writing opportunities provide a context to reflect and to story, or re-story, my life and to help me make sense of my experiences. Like dancing, writing has become a passion for me, and I see both as different but complimentary ways of knowing." (pg. 42)

"...as I breathe deeply I reaffirm to myself that writing with an engaging, embodied voice is equally as important as experiencing embodiment in my dance research." (pg. 69)

I feel a sincerity in Barbour's writing, a genuine desire to stand firmly in her search. And it is not a solitary search. It includes others as she talks to colleagues and friends, teaches students and asks them about what they think and spends time with her sister and family, enjoying the seaside and good food. All of her questioning and articulations are folded into her life. Her life is a part of her research into embodied ways of knowing. The two seem inseparable for her. 

This model and way of being resonates with me. As a dancer, I know things - about the technology of the body, the world of movement and how people work together - and yet these things, this knowledge, is not valued in the working world. As a dancer you are made to feel other instead of celebrated for all you know and can offer to others. As Barbour writes, "As a dancer, I attempt to understand my world through embodied exploration, but I have often felt like what I 'know' as a dancer does not count."

I know this feeling deeply, in my bones.

What strikes me most, though, about her book is how she moves beyond the exploration of embodiment into the work of writing and finding language for the embodied experience. She speaks, at times, with an eloquence about how writing is a practice in embodiment as much as dance is.

And I may write that with some bias, because I believe it to be true. After reading Writing Begins With the Breath by Laraine Herring I felt like I had found a writer who knew this to be true. And it is nice to find a dance writer and artist articulating it from the other end.

And I have a new question, now, after reading the book. Barbour writes about autoenthography as a preferred form of research for her work. Autoenthography is a form of qualitative research and defined as: "...an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze personal experience in order to understand cultural experience." (Carolyn Ellis, Tony E. Adams & Arthur P. Bochner, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Volume 12, No. 1, Art. 10 – January 2011)

The way she described it made me think of blogging and all of the many women who are keeping blogs, writing about their experience, challenging the status quo, and not necessarily in the name of academic research but because they find fulfillment and connection in it.

So I wonder: Is blogging a form of autoenthography, however divergent?

For those who practice it, they might not consider it research. But living the creative life and asking questions as you go is creative research, in my mind. And it's way of living, too, that can have an immediate social, sometimes subversive, impact.

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