Removing Trauma from the Physical Body

 

Removing Trauma from

the Physical Body

Kim: It also makes sense how the scratches get into the physical cells there in the first place, from stress, trauma and all kinds of scary and anxious situations.

I was just wondering about the very first traumatic situations from early childhood, how they plant the very first seeds of painful selfing and how it builds up from there over time. Then a bit farther down the line comes tensing of the belly, shaky legs and panic attacks and so the energy system goes upside down in stressful situations. And then you start avoiding the stressful situations and the stress itself by various coping mechanisms. You just try to survive, scared of the world, scared of people. Or maybe you feel numb. Maybe you're not having panic attacks everyday and they may be mild when you have them but you have them nevertheless and they mess up your energy system everytime it happens. You just want to have a happy life and cannot understand why you feel anxious and scared so often because you've forgotten the early experiences and you have no idea what's going on in your psyche because you haven't learned even the most basic ways of keeping your mind healthy with various types of meditation.

In Pemako method we have different tools and practices to remove the self-based pain from both the mind and the body. Together with the deity practices of mahasiddha bhumi deities (list on the website), there is tapping of the body with mantras (very effective!) and these female deity practices called Dasha Mahavidya, that I borrow from hindu tantra. All in all, it looks like this formula works very well in the case of students like you who has already purified the 10 bhumis but is working on perfecting the ms bhumis.

Something that I've wondered recently is that I could give Dasha Mahavidya to the whole sangha, as I know there are people who have all the above issues and problems of trauma that affect them physically. I use hindu deities for this purpose together with buddhist ones because it makes the progress much faster than buddhist deities alone.

Shane:>I know I would have benefited a lot from having these mantras earlier on.

Kim: -Aa-ha! Well that is another interesting point that takes us all the way to the beginning of buddhism, and the reason why buddhism exists.

There is no end to methods that make people go round and round in meditative states and momentary experiences. Buddhadharma began because that had to stop because there is no other solution to solve self-based existence except to release self-based states, including those that make self-formations subside, into the body of reality (dharmakaya). But damn it, even in buddhist tradition those enticing states of gross bliss and vast planes of expanded consciousness crept right back in(!) and ever since until today a lot of buddhists are not actually practicing buddhism in the sense of liberating beings to dharmakaya but practice momentary states in samadhi, shamatha and jhana meditations. Too bad.

I don't blame anyone who wants to take a break of the mental wheel of repeated confusion (samsara) but it needs to be crystal clear that states of meditation are momentary experiences exactly like states of negative emotion. People are mislead to think that samadhi, shamatha or jhana meditations would solve existential issues. They can't and they don't so if you ask me, if you are in this for "real" and you wish to really know yourself as a living and breathing buddha, forget all practices that are based on gentle one-pointed concentration. I doubt that buddhism as a whole will ever be able to shake off this basic confusion that in my view ruins the tradition that started as a splendid system of diamond clear recognition, and keep wasting the time people put into these practices. This is madness and buddhism as a whole is definitely corrupt.

So, this is a long and winding introduction to your comment, "I know I would have benefited a lot from having these (hindu tantric Dasha Mahavidya) mantras earlier on".

Yes but hear me out... The reason why buddhism was started and grew out from hinduism is because there was a serious need for a method that would remove dualistic ignorance or selfing. The reason why gross bliss and those states of expanded awareness happen in samadhi, shamatha and jhana meditations, as they do in the vast majority of hindu methods, is because when self-based ignorance is still there in the bodymind, very charming states of bliss arise, and bliss like you know from getting high, drinking and having sex, is a trap. There is nothing wrong with sense pleasures but states of gross bliss are states of delusion made of gold! People think they practice the "dharma" but they are actually just rolling in their own shit, just like pigs do. Rusty chains, golden chains, you know.

So, the reason why I haven't given empowerments of hindu deities to my students is what I have explained above. Ignorance needs to be removed first so that you don't get trapped to self-based states in the form of gross bliss, and that is a task that takes ones time for few years at leastor more. But... if my students promise to practice both buddhist and hindu tantra, then I can consider giving shakti empowerments. But if I see anyone in Pemako sangha getting high on deities, I'll come back to haunt you even after I am dead!  

Kim, 11.10.2021

How to Help Children with Panic Attacks and Scary Situations

 

How to Help Children with

Panic Attacks and Scary Situations

OK, gotcha. This is nothing unusual, though I'm sure it is troubling and concerning to see it in a young boy. You should surround him with guru's blessings, and/or the blessings of the refuge jewels. Ask blessings from GR and YT to him, also mother should ask. And you chant on his behalf. He is a small child and cannot chant in the way an adult can, so you two chant for him. As you chant guru mantras, NGR or NYT or both at the same time, imagine that the blessings surround and engulf him. This can also be done by combing, where you chant and with your hands put the charge into his body and aura. Having guru's presence in his bodymind, he will be able to relax and let go for a moment but it might only last for a short time. Then you do it again, and again, whenever necessary.

You should also play mantra music at your house or where the boy lives. Dosn't matter which mantras, whether Deva Premal or artists like that, Hare Krishna, hindu deities (there are relly good musical recordings of those) or buddhist mantras. The idea is to fill the atmosphere with pure energy and blessings.

You should also bless his food by asking guru's blessing and/or chanting few mantras for his food.

Fill him and his life with pure and safe energy. You simply pray for him and wish him good. That will check all the boxes and you will see a change in him. The important thing is to keep doing it. He will also learn many things from this as he sees and feels the effects of these practices. Maybe he starts chanting himself.

You can and should tell him about gurus who he can always invite to him to feel safe and comfortable. Children in general are very open and pure so they can actually see GR or YT coming to them. He will see and feel the light radiating from the guru so he will feel good about it in an instant.

You can also explain him about basic emotions of fear, panic, anger etc. in a manner that a child can understand it so that he can use the knowledge when he experiences it. Teach him how to see these scary experiences and visions in a down-to-earth manner. Tell him that he need not be afraid and that many people experience same things. It is important for him not to feel abnormal about strange experiences.

Finally, it is as important for you two adults to understand that these things happen and they are not uncommon. Children, like many adults, see these things. It will be easier for you to approach this situation and the child when you establish guru's presence in yourself, when you discuss these things with him. In other words, when you don't know what to do or are lost, call the guru to yourself, everytime, over and over again.

You'll be alright and can grow together three of you. It'll be alright :)

 

Kim, 28.3.2021

Going Back To The Source Of Looking

Going Back To The Source Of Looking

Dr. Jordan Peterson,

”Our eyes are always pointing at things we are interested in approaching, or investigating, or looking for, or having. We must see, but to see, we must aim, so we are always aiming. Our minds are built on the hunting-and-gathering platforms of our bodies. To hunt is to specify a target, track it, and throw at it. To gather is to specify and to grasp. We fling stones, and spears, and boomerangs. We toss balls through hoops, and hit pucks into nets, and curl carved granite rocks down the ice onto horizontal bull’s-eyes. We launch projectiles at targets with bows, guns, rifles, and rockets. We hurl insults, launch plans, and pitch ideas. We succeed when we score a goal or hit a target. We fail, or sin, when we do not (as the word "sin" means to miss the mark). We cannot navigate without something to aim at, and while we are in this world, we must always navigate.”

Dr. Jordan Peterson

Animals, most of them anyway, remain attentive of their surroundings. They do this to know whether they are safe or not. Human beings also go into this primitive mode, for example in stressful situations. Soldiers of special forces, such as SEALs, are taught how to disengage from tunnel vision caused by fearful reaction by returning peripheral vision by looking left and right, which is a classic meditation exercise in the buddhist tradition. Our gaze reveals and reflects our mental state, whether instinctual, habitual or meditative.

Seeking from Outside

In the above quote, Dr. Peterson describes what in yogic teachings is called seeking from outside. Yogic tradition says that unsatisfied beings seek pleasures and relief to their existential confusion outside of themselves, rather than from within. It is an instinctual habit for humans to seek happiness and acceptance from outside. We try to fill the void within with foods, drinks, love, sex, money, possessions or by asking affirmative responses from our boss or parents. We go about our life by trying to fill the void within. However, the nature of all experiences, pleasant or unpleasant, is that they pass and therefore cannot make us permanently content.

The tragedy of habitual seeking is that it takes a lot of repetition and a solid belief in the material world, until people begin to realise that pleasures are fleeting. A new car or an amazing orgasm won't keep us happy for long. When relief and satisfaction vane, again, we begin to seek from outside and so it continues. We blindly follow our wants and desires. This is cyclical existence, going around in circles, bumping our head to the same wall again and again. This is ignorance of our true condition.

Becoming Aware of the Origin of Looking

Teachings of yogic meditation are primarily interested in breaking the vicious cycle of seeking. It is unsatisfactory so why keep repeating it? When we manage to do that, stop seeking from outside, our mind comes to rest in its natural condition. When that happens a recognition of our natural state takes place. At that moment, our mind meets and merges with its source. This source is called by many names in religious and philosophical traditions. The name for it is irrelevant, may those so inclined debate on that. However, the actual experience of it changes lives and liberates. There is nothing more satisfactory than knowing oneself without a narrow identity and a storyline. The thought of this experience might be scary but the actual experience is very pleasant, imbued with freedom, clearmindedness and creativity.

So, we aim our attention to our externals. We project our gaze to things. We looks at things, one after the other, we seek, we seek, we seek... When we do this from morning until night, we become tired because our vital energy gets scattered. What happens here can be compared to beacon that projects its beam of light outwards. As mentioned, this is seeking from outside that can never make us happy.

A simple way to stop looking outside is to bring our attention back to the physical eyes and the area behind the eyes inside our head. When we become aware that we have gone into the searching mode, looking at things external to us, we simply bring our attention back into the head or back to the source of beacon's light. This can be learned after a little bit of experimenting.

What happens with this is that becoming aware of the source of looking, interrupts seeking (1) and makes us aware of our natural mind (2) that is effortlessly aware and knows things, experiences and events appearing in the mind.

Fulfillment

Tradition of yoga is very old. It has specialized in solving existential problems caused by the sense of us having a self or me within us, in our thoughts, ideas and emotional reactions. Through the valuable teachings and meditative exercises such as the one above, it offers to solve our internal conflicts by making us aware of our liberated condition. Numerous generations of female and male practitioners have verified, that such methods are effective in solving neurotic and deluded behaviour. By becoming aware of our instinctual and habitual human animal behaviour, yogic practice helps us become clearminded, satisfied and realistic human beings, not by adding anything to us but by recognising what we already are.

Thank you for reading,

-Kim Katami, 29.6.2019
Open Heart Sangha,

www.en.openheart.fi

What Is Depression And How To Heal It?

What Is Depression And

How To Heal It?

By Kim Katami

Open Heart, www.en.openheart.fi

This short article views depression and ways of healing it from yogic or meditational, as well as existential perspective.

What Is Depression?

Depression, like all other forms of mental illness, is a vicious impediment and many in the modern societies suffer from it. Western psychology and modern medicine offers aids in the healing of it as do various methods of yogic meditation.

Depression is a state of mind that causes partial or complete paralysis of one's mental and emotional functions. Severe depression makes one unable to exercise one's own will power. In cases of lesser depression, one is still capable of momentary exercise of will which makes the healing of the illness quicker.

To someone depressed, distraction due to great volume of thoughts or out of proportion emotions are not a problem. In fact, a depressed person has few thoughts and emotions. Depressed person is not restless.

According to yogic psychology, depression is caused by something called substrate consciousness or simply, subconscious mind. Typical for this aspect of the human mind is emotional flatness and dullness from lesser to greater degree. Normal functions of thinking, feeling, enthusiasm and happiness are clouded by grey veils of the subconscious mind. These mind-fogs put the concerned person into a state of paralysis and meaninglessness.

The psychological anatomy of man can be categorized in the following way(*):

1. Subject-self. Me, I.

2. Object-selves. Thoughts and emotions.

3. Substrate consciousness. The basis of all phenomena.

4. Awareness. Buddha-nature.

(*) from What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice

Before discussing ways of healing depression, I'd like to consider the cause of depression from the existential perspective.

Why Am I Here? Life Without Deeper Meaning

Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist and author, from Advice for People With Depression,

”People who don't have enough order in their life tend to get overwhelmed. If someone comes to see me and says they're depressed, I always ask them a standard set of questions. Do you have a job? If you don't have a job you are really in trouble in our society. First of all, your biological rhythms tend to go off the rail because there is no reason to go to bed at any particular time and there is no reason to get up... They also don't have a purpose. People aren't good without a purpose... We absolutely understand the circuitry that underlies positive emotion, we know how it works. Almost all the positive emotions that any of you are likely to experience in your life will not be a consequence of attaining things. It will be a consequence to see that things are working, as you proceed towards a goal you value. That's completely different and you need to know this because people are often stunned... So if you don't have a job, you don't have structure. That's not good, plus you tend not to have a point, so you are overwhelmed by chaotic lack of structure and you don't have any positive emotion... Sometimes you see people who are depressed who have no job, no friends, no intimate relationships, they have an additional health problem and they have an alcohol-drug problem. My experience has been that if you have three of those problems, it's almost impossible to help you. You're so deeply mired in chaos that you can't get out... One of the things I tell people who are depressed is to get a job. You need a job, find some friends, get out in the dating circuit, see if you can establish an intimate relationship. Put together some foundational pillars that your life rests on. That's the practical thing to do.”

Dr. Peterson also mentions the helpfulness of anti-depressants for those severely depressed.

What I would like to add to this rather typical, and I am sure often helpful set of practical advice, is to consider whether the depressed person is miserable due to existential reasons.

Personally, I suffered from depression for many years in my youth. It wasn't diagnosed, and therefore not correctly understood by people around me, which is why I often got the same advice as Dr. Peterson offers above: just get a job, get friends, just do this, just do that and if you can't do that, start taking drugs and then do it. By this statement I do not mean to misinterpret Dr. Peterson who I greatly admire. I am simply formulating the way depression is typically viewed.

Problem with this advice is this.

What if the person in question finds no value in getting up in the morning to get to a meaningless job? What if she or he finds no value in pursuing the common options of education, career or intimate relationships, that others do? What if these things mean nothing to her? What if her problem is more foundational than that?

Having been a professional meditation teacher for over 10 years, I have met hundreds of people who, like me, suffered of depression, had no meaning in life and were existentially lost. If this is the cause of depression, then the only way to become healed of it, is to recognise oneself not as the human storyline with its successes and failures, but as boundless freedom, devoid of the sense of me-ness. It is deeply unfulfilling and unsatisfactory to only know oneself as an entity tied into one's physical body and whatever culture and people we are surrounded with. This existential crisis cannot be fixed with common worldly solutions, for the only way to solve it is to go beyond time, place and the personal storyline, and access the ground of being that is nameless, ageless, timeless and groundless, ever fresh, brimming with liveliness and common to all living beings. Different main streams or vehicles (skt. yana) of buddhism look at this task from their own perspectives but common to all of them is to offer ways to quench this fundamental existential hunger. This is what dharma is for, to give experiential answers to existential questions.

How To Heal Depression?

Substrate consciousness, that part of the human psychology that causes depression, is not at all foreign to yogis, professionals and masters of meditation. It has been discussed by adepts and practitioners for many hundreds of years and therefore yogic traditions have ways of dealing with it, in other words, they have ways of dealing with the part of mind that causes depression.

Here, I would like to present one and very effective way for healing depression by recognition of the natural state, one's natural innate stress-free condition. It is called Dynamic Concentration, which is an uncommon form of concentration practice.

Concentration practices are commonly taught with low intensity. For example, when mindfulness of the movement of the breath (p. anapanasati, skt. prana apana smriti) is taught, the student is instructed to keep his attention gently on the breath and return the attention back to the object when distracted. In a similar way, when mantras are recited, they are always recited with gentle concentration, never with high intensity, with stronger or even explosive focus.

This light or gentle focus can be compared to a volume knob of a stereo system. In this example light focus is analoguous to low level which produces low but still audible volume of music. This would equal perhaps 5-10% of the total volume output. However, the volume knob can be turned higher. It goes up to 30%, 60%, 90% and with each level we hear a corresponding change in the volume. Turning the volume high has an immediate effect. In this analogy, zero would equal not having concentration at all, yet not being distracted either, i.e. the natural state. 90% would already be very loud and not very enjoyable for an extended period of time. However we all have times in our lives when for a moment we want to turn up the music. And how wonderful it is! The neighbours maybe don't like it but it is fun nevertheless.

Regardless whether we follow the breath or chant mantras, the same can be done in yogic practice. Dynamic focus greatly changes the effect of the concentration practice. With light focus, as in commonly known shamatha, with constant distractions it takes time to calm the monkey mind. Whether an exercise of light focus ever cuts through the layers of the subconscious and substrate minds is rightly questionable. It takes years of long hours of daily training to build the muscle of concentration to get the benefits of shamatha meditation (tib. shine). This approach is followed by a large number of Buddhist methods. I think that there are better and more effective ways of doing the training, especially for householders whose daily time for practice is limited.

Concentration can be momentarily heigthened, like turning the volume knob high suddenly to create a short (0.3-2 seconds) explosion-like, momentary peak. This creates a quick punch of sorts, like an explosion that can be controlled. This punch hits through all of samsaric mind and reveals the natural state in a very short period of time. We are discussing an exercise that indirectly has been used in Buddhism and many other yoga and dharma teachings for centuries through meditation, recitation, religious art and yogic exercise and yet very few schools have realised the immense value of dynamic concentration to give it a central place in their teachings...

Dynamic concentration can be adapted to fit the view and practices of any yogic approach... It is very easy for anyone to test whether dynamic concentration really works. All you need is a few minutes of time and a comfortable place to try it(*).

(*) from What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice

The Effect of Dynamic Concentration In Pictures

From these pictures you can observe what Dynamic Concentration, sharp use of focus, actually does in one's mind and how the explosive power disperses the greyness and foggyness of mind that the substrate produces, to reveal the natural clarity of the normal state.

Bird seen naturally, without depression or other forms of distraction.

From left to right: 1. Bird seen naturally. 2. Bird seen during mild depression. 3. Bird seen during strong depression. 4. Bird seen during very strong depression.

From left to right: 1. Bird seen partially naturally after some Dynamic Concentration practice. 2. Bird seen even more naturally after more Dynamic Concentration practice. 3. Bird seen almost completely naturally, without the grey layers of substrate mind, after a proper and decisive use of Dynamic Concentration.

Conclusion

I guess all humans question their existence at some degree in some stage of their lives. For some, it passes quickly and doesn't grow to become a great issue or even the most important issue in one's whole life, while it does for some. Whether one considers her- or himself to be on the spiritual path or not, one can have illnesses and ailments, both physical and psychological, according to one's karma and genetics. 

In this short article I have tried to convey the basic understanding of depression and the structure of the human mind, and described a simple exercise how depression or many other types of mental obscurations can be dealt with.

Thank you for reading,

-Kim Katami, 27.6.2019

Open Heart Sangha,

www.en.openheart.fi

Read more about Dynamic Concentration from What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice and watch video examples of this exercise on this playlist at YouTube.

What to do when the world goes down hill

What to do when the 
 world goes down hill

An answer to an email.

P. had a similar peak of anguish because of the Paris attacks which is interesting from the viewpoint of "collective" subconsciousness (krishna yoni), which is your main job now. Of course, this kind of worried or frustrated reactions are nothing new to spiritually inclined people who often since childhood feel the pain that humanity inflicts on itself and on other beings. I know it too. This might sound a bit indifferent but I think that even us who are empathetic and try to be compassionate towards other beings, shoud not be too concerned about what is going on in the samsaric world. I think it is not good to be too bothered, troubled or burdened of what is going on. This planet with human beings in the lead is largely a place of blind action. That is how it is. I doubt, and I am not saying this negatively or cynically, that it will ever change from being like that. I hope it would change but at this point I am not too troubled about it or loosing my night's sleep because existentially blind people keep doing what they have done for ages and what they no doubt will keep doing in the future. I am saying this from a practical point of view. It doesn't mean I am indifferent to the pain and suffering of so many innocent victims of all these violent terrorist acts out there, I am not. But let's be smart about this and look at the core issue of it.

We who are on the yogic path, we try to understand our minds with the help of some meditation and mind training practices. We who have the possibility and circumstances to do this, are in a unique position because it is the ultimate way to eradicate that very existential blindness which causes hate, intolerance, fundamentalism and violence. I think it is the responsibility of us meditating yogis to practice what we have been taught, which is a priviledge that most people of the world do not have, and actualise the teachings. A politician will do his job, a police officer his, a soldier his, a doctor his and a lawyer his. Us yogis should do ours. Why? Because it is in the mind of ours where the causes of these terrible actions lie at. If you are just a bit angry  with some strong religious views in this life, maybe it doesn't seem so bad now but what will happen to this seed of anger and sectarianism in the next life or the life after that? Floods are created by small drops of water. We might end up like religious terrorists doing terrible things to others, violating our very own nature of wise compassion because of taking thoughts too seriously. We really should realise the dharma teaching. This is important. The matter of samsara and nirvana is serious for people who understand this because they realise that actions have consequences. But for others, it may not be so serious, they just act after their thoughts and ideas whatever they may be. Only person him- or herself knows what is best to him because it is all relative. From the absolute point of view, a yogi should be able to say what is wise and what is unwise, what is helpful and what is harmful, but we cannot make anyone accept our views because ours is the "right view" or the "only view". Earth as a realm is like that and human beings, often within their worlds of limited options, can and should be allowed to do what they want. It is like a big samsaric pot of many sorts of ingredients affecting each other. Life on Earth can be heavenly or hellish to people depending on their karma. Initially, it all comes from former tendencies and as we make further use of options available to us, we stir the pot, each in a way that we see as best. We all try to get to permanent happiness. I don't think anyone really attempts to lengthen their confusion, pain and suffering. No, we all try to get to happiness. But we are confused and do not know what happiness really is. There are so weird conceptions of what it is. What is crazy about humans is that you can take basically any weird thought-pattern and create a religion out of it. And get many followers! That is how poorly humans at large know themselves.

I think it is logical to think that planet Earth is not the only place where dharma-teachings are available. Surely not. We are not that special, although us humans would like that thought a lot, wouldn't we. Ha! No, I don't think we are that special. Human life is special because it has enormous spiritual capacity, enormous potential. But to tap it one needs to have liberating karma which means connections to teachings and teachers, plus circumstances to practice in order to release and make use of that potential. How many people in the world or in your city do practice meditation daily? It's a tiny portion of the whole population. Tiny. It may not have a great instant impact on the world or our city but it makes all the difference to ourselves, doesn't it? And when the karmic weather and the factors are there, yes, it is possible to tap all of that spiritual potential and become buddhas and christs.

We are human beings now so let's make the best of our lives and the circumstances we are in now. However, being human is just a temporary condition we are in at the moment. None of us is going to remain as a human for ever. None of us is going to be here in these same bodies after 100 years (or maybe few newborns will). To be a human now, with a human body and a human mind, with human circumstances and human friends is temporary. We have not always been humans and will not always remain as humans. At some instant, we will shed our bodies. As children we might be able to remember past lives as humans or in other forms, such as animals or in subtle form as spirit beings. But when we grow up, we usually forget about all this and become identified, locked, to being a human. However, this is just a temporary condition and if our minds becomes locked to believing that all we are are these bodies with four limbs, walking on two feet with an erect spine, talking and thinking about whatever it is that humans talk and think about, well, that's just another way of locking ourselves in a cage. An actor rehearses and acts different roles. Sometimes a master actor may have difficulty in shaking off of a role but in general actors know that they are acting a role, they do not really believe them being the acted character. I assume Sylvester Stallone always knew that he was acting Rocky Balboa and he didn't continue to talk and behave as Rocky when the film was done. However, us people do really come to believe all kinds of things, including that we are essentially human beings with 70 kg and 170 cm bodies doing all the stuff we do. But it's just a momentary role. How seriously you want to take that? Essentially, in the most profound meaning of the word, we are not limited to human body or the human mind. Essentially, we are colourless, shapeless, centerless, perfectly pure, transparent and selfless awareness. We are buddha nature. We are clarity itself. We are love itself. We are kindness itself. We are connectedness. We are not merely the relative condition we are in as human being with physical bodies, thoughts and ideas. We should know who we really are. That is what you should do, if that is something you want to do.

When we mature in this view, we should make this knowhow available to others. Share and guide others who have recognised the same problem. That's the way to go about it.

- Kim Katami, 18.7.2016

Open Heart, 
www.openheart.fi