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Purrfect Presence: The Trikaya on a Balcony

Purrfect Presence: The Trikaya on a Balcony

by | Mar 20, 2026 | Life, RElationship, Trust, Zen

Eckhart Tolle said: “I know many Zen Masters… all of them Cats.”

And here, three ZenCats listening to a teisho have arranged themselves with such impeccable dharmic precision that one suspects the whole scene was choreographed by something beyond mere kittenhood. 🙂

But first — what the photograph doesn’t show. These three had known loss. A sibling, gone. And with it, a wariness that only grief can plant in those small bodies. They had reason to stay back, stay wary. It took a long time — quiet sitting, no agenda, no forcing — before they would come close at all. That patience, that slow and gentle rebuilding of trust, is not the backstory to this photograph. It is the teaching.

In Mahayana Buddhism, the doctrine of Trikaya (Sanskrit for “three bodies”) describes the three manifestations of Buddhahood:

Dharmakaya (Truth Body): the formless, unmanifested absolute — ultimate reality, emptiness, Buddha-nature itself.

Sambhogakaya (Enjoyment Body): the luminous “reward” body, radiant presence experienced in deep meditative states.

Nirmanakaya (Transformation Body): the physical manifestation that appears in the world to teach and guide beings.

The balcony photograph is nothing less than Trikaya in fur.

One eager beaver kitten leaning forward with attention. Shoshin in fur form. Beginner’s mind, ardent faith, great doubt — personified in a tiny body. Not striving, just interested. Pure attention meeting the moment. This is the Nirmanakaya: the Buddha who enters the world, who takes form, makes eye contact, leans in. Shakyamuni under the Bodhi tree had this same quality — fully landed in form, fully present.

The one bang on the Middle Way. Not meditating — just being the meditation. The very picture of shikantaza (just sitting). Half-lidded eyes, no goal, no attainment, nothing to reject. Sitting is sitting. Cat is cat. This is the Sambhogakaya: luminous enjoyment body, radiating without broadcasting, bliss without agenda. Amitabha’s infinite light simply shining.

One lounging in the back row. Stretched out, utterly unbothered. Upekkha so complete it naps through the teisho — which is itself the teisho. “The sound of the talk is the sound of the breeze. The breeze is nice. I shall nap.” This is the Dharmakaya: the unborn, unmanifest ground of all three. Not sleeping, not waking — prior to both. The Dharmakaya doesn’t meditate. It is what meditation is.

Eagerness, detachment, equanimity — all expressed in fur and whiskers. One cat-nature. Three expressions. The form that engages. The presence that radiates. The ground that holds it all.

The balcony is the zendo. The morning light is the dharma. The railing is the boundary between samsara’s hillside busyness and this small square of equipoise. No separation between practice and life. No special posture required. Just this — fur, light, hillside humming in the distance — already complete.

They lost a sibling. They had every reason to remain closed, remain wary. And yet here they are — one leaning in with trust, one sitting in luminous presence, one resting into the ground of being. That journey — from grief and wariness to this open, sunlit arrangement — is perhaps the deepest teaching of all.

Cats don’t try to be enlightened. They simply are what they are, completely. Which, as this photograph shows, turns out to be the three bodies of Buddhahood — arranged casually on a balcony, waiting for breakfast.

Who still doubts that a cat cannot be a Zen Master?

The answer, as always, comes in purrfect silence. 🐾

Preparing with Care, Trusting in Execution… Reading the First Half, Living the Second

Preparing with Care, Trusting in Execution… Reading the First Half, Living the Second

by | Jan 19, 2026 | Change, Communication, Compassion, Harmony, Life, Meaning, RElationship, Trust, Zen

My better half’s family was into Krishnamurti and she got out of a well-paying IT job to be a teacher in a. Krishnamurti school and Manu and Rishi too had their entire school education there. Though, it is an alternative education, it did give me some anxious moments, especially when i got to read about the competitive landscape of higher education and career building and livelihood earning outside that protected cocoon. They did end up in really good universities for their UG. But , the elder one, did face the challenged due to changed environment. Someone who was never part of dumb bell curve or exams for most of his life, but who pursued knowledge and wisdom for its own sake, was thrown into the high seas of surprise tests, CGPA and dumbbell curve etc without any life jacket. And it did reflect on his performance for the first two sems… There were O+ with 0 ( Not present). As someone who skipped my final year Engineering exam , for watching World cup football, in spite of my late Father's concerned advice of a lengthy 5 page letter, i knew i did not have the moral capital to advise him. Though indirectly , i tried to share some pointers and nothing much. There was some subaltern tension and concern nevertheless.

But one thing good about him was his zeal of reading and ability to observe. As a very young child, he was into ornithology and could recognize almost all kinds of birds in the Valley school campus. Their daily routing in school, even for 1st std starts with early morning Nature walking. And the first gift i had given was a book by Salim Ali and a Bushnell binocular bought in Johannesburg. And he is one of those who read much more than i do. So in the breaks between semesters, while at home, he started reading the books in my bookshelf and also started buying a lot of books chosen by him. Me and Thara had also kind of stopped asking him about his results. We just used to say in a good way that he got to prepare himself to make a living as there is no inheritance as such.

So i was quite surprised, when he walked in and showed me his Semester marks card last month. It was all O+ and A+. I asked him how did he turn himself around and he talked about Frankl's paradoxical intention and Huxely's law of reversed effort. As someone who was trained in NLP ,Counselling, and did MA in Psychology and got trained in Coaching and read a bit, i was familiar with most of such stuff. But not this. And when i asked about it, he showed it in the book ( my old book of Man's Search for Meaning). I had read the first part and just skimmed thru the second half. 🙁 .. Below is his full note on that. When your own son self-coaches himself, out of trouble into some success and teaches you about it, may be one can’t be more happier than that ... Here is his note in full:

"The law of Reversed Effect

The law of reversed effect can be viewed as a psychological boomerang. When you attempt to wilfully dictate an experience, the harder you try, the more that experience will slip away from you. It’s like trying to hold a feather steady in a gust by grasping it tightly in your hand. Examples of this principle are found in all areas of human experience. The more you attempt to force sleep to occur, the more alert and reactive your brain will become; likewise, if you tell yourself to “stay calm,” all of a sudden, you’ll feel more anxious. The conscious mind, when in a state of contraction, creates a resistance to the natural rhythms required by the unconscious mind to perform its job effectively.

This law points out that the mind is likely going to produce better results through relaxation than through strain. All aspects of performance, confidence, creativity, and memory are likely to grow, develop, and improve when there is less pressure and strain associated with them. Athletes enter into flow states by not trying hard enough, but rather by getting out of their own way. As soon as an athlete stops worrying about the results of a competition and focuses only on the performance, their body takes over and performs at its best.

The law of reversed effect does not imply to “never try.” It means to use intention rather than effort and precision over strain. For instance, aim like an archer: identify the target, align your shot, and release without forcing the bow. In many cases, the most successful result comes from creating a time period of rest and relaxation in between two actions, during which you lead, rather than restrain, your movement toward your desired outcome. Sometimes the best way to make progress toward a goal is to stop chasing after it and allow it to come to you.

Rather than mandating performance, the conditions can be established which will allow the output to develop itself, which means So, you relax the inner grip. You don’t quit, you just change the aim of your effort. Just move your effort from trying to control the end result and start focusing it on the process. When the anxiety pulls you into "I must do this right," you pull back and say, "I'll make the space for good execution."

In a way, this is line with. Viktor Frankl’s Paradoxical intention. Paradoxical intention is a psychotherapeutic technique developed by Viktor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy. It is designed to break the "vicious cycle" of anticipatory anxiety—the fear of a symptom (like insomnia or stuttering) which, through the very effort to avoid it, makes the symptom worse. This directly mirrors the "Law of Reversed Effort". Many who read Frankl’s “Man Search for Meaning”, though it is a small book, reads the first part where he narrated his experiences and let go the second part in which describes the second part of Logotherapy. ( Like my Papa!) . And they don’t realise that , Man’s search for meaning is meaningful, only if you stay with it rather than let go in the middle. 🙂

Coming back to exams, it involves studying for them and going to them trusting what one has prepared for rather than going for what one has not perfected. With anxiety, it involves recognizing the sensations one feels without trying to struggle against them. With skills, it involves practicing them in a structured manner and executing them by breathing into them instead of straining them.

The core is:
Let’s put the effort into preparation rather than execution. Let the trust go into execution. You're not letting go of control; you're choosing the right kind of control: conditions, not grip. The effect appears like a cat; pounce too hard and it runs off; just be still, and it curls up in your lap."

What he has written is not just a psychological principle, but a Dharma gate. The law of reversed effect is nothing but the Zen koan of “trying not to try.” The feather in the gust, the archer’s release, the cat curling up in the lap—these are not metaphors alone, they are lived gestures of life teaching us that control is often the enemy of presence.

I see in his words the same paradox that Krishnamurti pointed to when he said, “The more you pursue pleasure, the more pain you invite.” Or in Zen, when Master Dōgen reminds us that practice is enlightenment itself, not a means to it. The reversal is the teaching: when you grip, it slips; when you soften, it arrives.

And perhaps this is the most ordinary miracle—that a boy who once walked the Valley campus identifying birds by their calls, now identifies the subtle calls of the mind itself. He has moved from Salim Ali’s field guide to Frankl’s logotherapy, but the movement is the same: attention, observation, and trust in what reveals itself when you stop forcing.
For me, reading his note was like being shown my own bookshelf anew. I had skimmed, he had stayed. I had read the first half, he had lived into the second. And in that reversal, the son became the teacher, the father became the student. That is lineage too—not only bloodline, but wisdom line, where insight flows back and forth, unowned, ungrasped.
So I take his words as a reminder: prepare with care, execute with trust. Grip less, condition more. Let the cat curl up. Let the arrow fly. Let the feather dance. And let the law of reversed effect be not just psychology, but practice—practice of living, practice of dying, practice of being.

And perhaps, this is where the circle of education and life shows its hidden symmetry. What began as a child’s morning nature walk in Valley School, listening to bird calls, has now become a young man’s walk through the inner valley of mind, listening to the calls of anxiety and learning to let them perch and fly away. The binoculars of Salim Ali have turned into the lens of Frankl, but the act is the same: seeing clearly, without grasping.

It reminds me that the true inheritance we give our children is not wealth or security, but the courage to observe, the patience to stay, and the humility to learn from reversals. My father’s five-page letter was one kind of inheritance; my silence with my son was another. Both carried concern, but only one gave space. And in that space, he found his own way.

This reversal is not a defeat of the parent, but the flowering of lineage. The son teaches the father and  the feather teaches the hand. And life, in its ordinary rhythm, teaches us again and again that the way forward is sometimes to soften, to trust, to let go.

So I bow to this teaching—not as a principle in a book, but as a lived koan in my own home. The law of reversed effect is not only his discovery; it is now mine too.

The Pied Piper’s Tune: On Spiritual Gurus, Corporate Leaders, and the Surrender of Our Critical Mind

The Pied Piper’s Tune: On Spiritual Gurus, Corporate Leaders, and the Surrender of Our Critical Mind

by | Dec 12, 2025 | Friendship, Integrity, RElationship, Transformation, Trust

My concerns about the modern “guru”—a title that now stretches from ashrams to boardrooms—are simple and twofold.

First, does the person on the stage actually know what they’re talking about? Have they genuinely walked the path they’re selling, or is it just polished rhetoric? Second, and more dangerously, what do they do with the authority they gather? Too often, the answer points toward the oldest temptations: power, privilege, and personal gratification.

The mechanism for gathering this authority is often the same: the demand for total surrender. It’s a call to “have complete faith in me, my way, and what I say.” It’s the subtle (or not-so-subtle) instruction to park your critical thinking at the door, to keep your questions in abeyance, and to simply follow. This isn’t a relic of medieval spirituality; it’s the bedrock of modern influence.

I saw this play out in real-time recently. A venerated corporate leader was interviewed live by a famous media personality. Before a large, attentive audience, he staked a controversial claim. He leaned in and declared, with absolute conviction, that he was stating a “FACT.” Not an opinion, not a perspective—a fact. The crowd, a sea of people nearly all holding smartphones—literal fact-checking libraries in their pockets—nodded and absorbed it as sacrosanct truth.

A simple check proved his “fact” was wrong. I even shared the details beneath the video later in Linkedin. Yet, the reluctance to accept the correction was palpable. The spell of the moment, the aura of the speaker, was more powerful than a verifiable truth.

And this game doesn’t only play out on spiritual or corporate stages. Think about it: a person in deep distress, seeking a therapist’s help; a coaching client investing in their potential; a young child looking up to their teacher; a fan pouring admiration into a celebrity. In each of these relationships, a natural power differential exists, built on a legitimate need—for healing, growth, knowledge, or belonging. This is precisely where the Piper’s tune finds its most vulnerable listeners. The dynamic can morph, subtly or overtly, from guidance into control, where the healer, coach, teacher, or star becomes the sole, unquestionable source of what the seeker desperately needs.

This is the essence of the Pied Piper’s power. It doesn’t work through logic, but through a magnetism that asks for our trust in exchange for our discernment. As sociologist Paul Heelas observed in studies of modern spirituality, people often reject traditional authority only to surrender to new, charismatic forms of it. We exchange one piper for another.

Mariana Caplan, in her book Halfway Up the Mountain: The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment, diagnosed this same malaise in contemporary spirituality. She warned that seekers and teachers alike often mistake charisma, altered states, or partial insights for full realization—and then prematurely claim enlightenment. The danger, she argued, is not only in the teacher’s illusion but in the seeker’s surrender of discernment. When we hand over our authority too quickly, we become vulnerable to fraud, confusion, and exploitation. Caplan’s critique echoes the Pied Piper metaphor: the tune is seductive, but it leads us away from freedom into dependency.

And this is not new. History is littered with such tunes—whether in medieval cults, fascist rallies, or corporate “visionary” speeches. The melody changes, but the mechanism remains: charisma eclipses scrutiny, and authority bias blinds us to fact. Even today, with confirmation at our fingertips, the enchantment of certainty often outweighs the quiet labor of verification. Psychologists call this authority bias: the tendency to accept statements from perceived experts without question. Add confirmation bias—the desire to hear what fits our worldview—and the Piper’s tune becomes nearly irresistible.

The true guide, then, is not the one who demands we stop thinking for our journey. It is the Kalyan Mitra—the “good friend” or fellow traveler—who walks beside us. This is the therapist who empowers your inner authority, the coach who mirrors your own wisdom back to you, the teacher who ignites your curiosity beyond their own knowledge. This guide doesn’t ask for surrender; they empower our scrutiny. They don’t offer a tune to follow blindly, but a mirror to see our own path clearly. Where the Piper plays louder, the friend invites silence. Where the Piper demands obedience, the friend cultivates discernment.

John O’Donohue, in his Celtic meditation Anam Cara, speaks of the soul friend in precisely this way: as one who dissolves masks, who sees you as you truly are, and who walks with you in intimacy and authenticity. The anam cara is not a master but a companion, not a Piper but a mirror. In such friendship, the soul finds recognition and freedom.

The Buddha, too, told Ānanda that spiritual friendship is not half the holy life but the whole of it. In the Samyutta Nikāya (SN 45.2), he declared that with admirable friendship, companionship, and camaraderie, the Noble Eightfold Path unfolds. The radical claim here is that awakening is not built on surrender to authority but on the wonder of camaraderie—walking together, questioning together, supporting each other.

In a world full of Pied Pipers claiming to have the only map, the most radical act is to hold on to your own compass. To listen, but also to verify. To respect, but also to question. Because the tune that leads you to surrender your critical mind never leads to freedom; it only leads to the next cliff edge, with someone else in control of the music.

Freedom is not found in the tune that enchants us, but in the pause that lets us listen. The true guide is not the one who plays louder, but the one who helps us hear our own music. To walk with such a friend—whether as anam cara or kalyāṇamitra—is to keep our compass alive, even in a world of pipers. Better than following a tune is learning to hear the rhythm of your own footsteps. It is my lived experience that, transformative growth happens in the soil of egalitarian, trusting relationship, not in the shadow of unquestioned authority.

Reclaiming the Temple of Sleep: The Lotus Pond and Night stars.

Reclaiming the Temple of Sleep: The Lotus Pond and Night stars.

by | Nov 18, 2025 | Harmony, Life, Meditation, Peace, Trust, Zen

Sometime back, I asked Fr. AMA what the mark of a spiritually evolved person is. He replied, "They may have reconciled their relationship with money, power, sex, and hunger." Later, when I read Buddha's five Nīvaraṇa (hindrances), when I saw sloth and sleepiness (Thīna-middha) as one of the Nīvaraṇa, I added one more of my own: a sound, deep sleep.  Not as a hindrance but, essential for spiritual evolvement.  If one can’t sleep well, may be how can one be awake well and live well.

Though I don't know where I stand on that list of hindrances, one thing I can say is I am not much bothered about it anymore. But one box I can tick is sound, deep sleep. May be that is why I added it to that list.  Those holy books and enlightenment literature always talk about enlightenment as awakening from sleep. But they hardly realise that one awakens well only when one sleeps well and deep. Our own life is nothing but a spark of light between two eternal sleeps. And without that eternal sleep, before the beginning and after the end, there is no spark of light and life. Similarly, ever good day lived in wakefulness, is between two deep good sleeps.

Animals remind us that sleep is never uniform but always adapted to survival. Bears and bats hibernate, entering long torpor where metabolism slows and hunger waits at the edge of waking. Dolphins and whales sleep with one half of the brain at a time, keeping one eye open to guard against predators. Birds too drift in unihemispheric rest, balancing vigilance with renewal. Even creatures like giraffes or certain fish seem to sleep with eyes open, conserving energy while remaining alert. Evolution teaches that sleep is not a luxury but a covenant, reshaped by environment and necessity.

Humans, by nature, are diurnal beings. Our bodies are tuned to the rhythm of sun and shadow, waking with light and surrendering to darkness. Yet the Industrial Revolution, with its artificial light and endless productivity, compelled many into nocturnal patterns. Factories and electric lamps broke the covenant, forcing us to live against our biology. In this dissonance, sleep disorders multiplied, and the ritual of trust was forgotten. To reclaim sleep is to reclaim our natural rhythm, to remember that we are not nocturnal hunters but beings of day and night, of surrender and renewal.

Mythology too circles around sleep, magnifying its power and paradox. In the Ramayana, Kumbhakarna is cursed to sleep for six months and wake for only one day, a cycle that mirrors the hibernation of bears. His story is both comic and tragic — sleep as abundance, sleep as curse. In Greek myth, Endymion is granted eternal sleep by Zeus, a timeless rest that suspends vitality. Hypnos, the god of sleep, is brother to Thanatos, death itself, reminding us that sleep and mortality are kin. In Hindu and Buddhist lore, sages and enlightened beings are said to transcend ordinary sleep, resting in awareness beyond waking and dreaming. Myth remembers sleep as both vulnerability and power, both surrender and transcendence.

Even gods and animals remind us: sleep is not absence, but renewal. Whether in the hibernation of bears, the one-eyed vigilance of dolphins, or the enchanted slumber of Kumbhakarna, sleep remains the covenant between body, mind, and cosmos. To sleep deeply is to trust — to let problems sink into the lotus pond, to let blessings rise and dance in the night breeze, and to awaken renewed at dawn.

During modern times, especially after the advent of scientific management, sleep was looked down upon with contempt. Productivity and efficiency became the new gods, and those who needed more sleep — even the average quota required by the body — were branded lazy, not up to the corporate mark. Higher education institutions, preparing students as future cogs in the corporate machine, began loading them with assignments and work, training them to wear sleeplessness as a badge of honour. To survive on a few hours of rest became a symbol of toughness, a distorted virtue. In the era of social media, even political leaders project this image — sleepless nights as proof of dedication.

Of course, there were exceptions. Winston Churchill was said to take long afternoon naps and then return to work with renewed vigour. And I remember my own corporate days at Wipro in 1995, working on the fourth floor of S.B. Towers, MG Road. The top floor housed the management. Once, passing the narrow corridor that divided the open office from the cabins, I saw Ashok Soota, then our CEO, sleeping on a mat on the floor. A colleague later told me he did this regularly, and everyone knew not to disturb him. Much later, when I tried the same in our EC office, my annual 360-degree feedback carried two criticisms about it. When I shared this with my then boss during appraisal, he laughed and said, “In corporate, the top fellas can do anything. Those who are bonded labourers are not supposed to. And remember, it is not the results, but the perception that matters.”

In essence having a good relationship with one of important needs for our life is as difficult as any other instincts.  Most of the tradition and rituals are developed by societies to take care of those nivarans or to ensure a smooth societal living. Tradition are rituals based on wisdom, and wisdom is always derivative of the knowledge in one particular time. Rituals are not timeless—they carry the imprint of the knowledge available in that moment. When knowledge evolves, rituals must evolve too, or else they become hollow forms. Two points about the wild animals in nature remind us of this evolutionary wisdom. First, they are not programmed for a deep sleep. That is evolutionary. If someone is lost in deep sleep, one may end up as a lunch or breakfast for another. Second, most of the hunting animals, which require speed and faster response, have a higher breathing rate. And they also have a lesser living age. Speed and responsiveness come at the cost of longevity. Evolution balances survival strategies differently depending on ecological niche. Most of the human being problems stem from the fact that though our environment has changed, we have not bothered to reprogram our rituals. Most important of all the rituals is the ritual of sleeping. We all need a long deep sleep to rejuvenate and rebuild our body. Yet we cling to outdated patterns—late-night meals, overstimulation, artificial light—while ignoring the wisdom of renewal. In effect, we have broken the covenant between body and environment.

After we started living in better protected shelters than in open spaces and caves, human beings started evolving their sleep habits and used to follow nature's rhythm. Last meals of the day were before the sun set. And though people used fire as light, since those resources were scarce, it was put out well before our ancestors hit the bed. Darkness itself became the cue for sleep. The body’s rhythm was perfectly attuned to the cycle of sun and shadow.

Today, artificial light tricks our bodies into believing it is still day. Screens and productivity rituals have replaced the ancient ritual of surrender. We have forgotten that sleep is not just biological—it is a ritual of trust. Trust in the shelter to protect. Trust in the rhythm of nature to guide. Trust in darkness to renew.

Our body starts sleeping only when our mind starts sleeping and is still. In modern times, with all those electric lights (white) and blue lights of the screen, music, food eaten closer to the sleep time even after birds have rested and sun had set—all cause our mind unrest. The body cannot rebuild if the mind refuses to yield. To sleep deeply is to allow the mind to bow, to let silence and darkness become the true temple.

In Zen practice, breathing is the most important ritual. One Zen quote says: “You can’t wipe away blood with more blood.” Similarly, you cannot wipe out thoughts with more thoughts. Breath is what unites body and mind. Zen emphasizes focusing the breath into the hara (tanden, lower abdomen), rather than at the nostrils as in Vipassana or at the third eye in other traditions. This shift of attention is a way of stilling the mind. At the end of the day, we often take the brain as the seat of all thoughts. But in Zen, the hara becomes the true seat of awareness—breath anchoring us away from the turbulence of thought into the stillness of being. And moving that focus even from hara to heel is even more effective. Sooner, one will know that the mind is still, all our problems, pains, suffering and challenges of the day have been written, cast away, and sunk deep into the lotus pond. And those blessings of the day will start floating on the surface, dancing in the night breeze. And soon, we would have slept.

First, I became  aware of the sleep rituals when I was deprived of it. I was in deep depression due to tinnitus peaking, and at first another doctor, when my Doctor, Dr. Raja Hiremani was away, prescribed a medicine named Olanzapine in a higher dose and another medicine for sleeping. Before that, for days together, sleep left me. It was a very difficult time. I hardly ate. But there was no hunger. No sleep too. Though I used to feel the effects of sleep deprivation. But after those medicines, though I used to fall asleep, suddenly my legs or hands used to jerk so violently during sleep as if they belonged to another soul beyond my mind's control. And I used to be so startled and scared of that.

So I wrote a lengthy email to Fr. AMA. At that point of time, he had moved out of Bodhi Zendo and was living in a small room in Little Flower School. One of those days I called my family friend, Dr. Radhakrishnan. He was undergoing some procedure in a hospital in Coimbatore and his spouse Usha Aunty took the call. Maybe by listening to my sad tone of voice, she handed over the phone to Dr. He did listen for a few minutes and told me that no one really knows how those neurological medicines act on the human body unlike other normal medicines. Since I am into meditation etc., why don’t I try that out.

And on the same day I got a reply from Fr. AMA saying, though it will take some time to build the new Zendo, there is going to be a two-week Koan Seminar in the school. Till then just do Zazen and focus on my tinnitus at home. Maybe I was on the edge between life and death. And one morning, I just threw away those sleeping tablets into the dust bin though Dr. Raja Hiremani advised me to taper it down rather than stopping it at once. I started sleeping well. Maybe my body was getting back all those deprived sleep. There were days when I woke up during the lunch time. But I never had to go back to those medicines or even supplements for sleep. And that is when my own learning and experimentation with sleep rituals started.

Now I can sleep even on a noisy railway platform in a moment. Some time back, when I shared that in my WhatsApp group, a good friend and ex-Wipro colleague Mukesh wrote back that he could sleep even standing in a moving bus. But then Mukesh was one of the coolest persons I had met in my life.

Last meal of the day at the Zendo is at 6:00 pm. Fr. AMA has his light supper a bit earlier than that. Music meditation ends at 8:00 pm and then it lights out. I do check my emails for 10 minutes and write down the day review. Then laptop and phone are out.

My most important learning was: as times change, we need to gain new knowledge about the environment, revise our wisdom and rituals. This reprogramming became my nightly practice, a three-part ritual to close the day.

First comes the Emotional Catharsis—the Problem Sink. I write a day review, beginning with the most problematic event of the day. The first version is an emotional outburst, pure feeling onto the page. This is the act of "casting away." Then, after a few deep chiposoku breaths, I write it again, this time as a clean, objective problem statement. This is the "sinking." I am telling my mind, "It is noted. It is stored. We will address it in the light of tomorrow." This, I realize, is the modern equivalent of our ancestors putting out the fire for the night—a ritual act of closure, trusting that the shelter will hold until dawn.

Next is the Gratitude Journal—the Blessings Dance. Here, I look for the silver linings, even on days of the darkest clouds. A good message from my better half, a show of affection from Zendog Bhim. This conscious cultivation of trust is the active reprogramming of the mind from turbulence to peace. These are not just words; they are the most potent nutrients for the soul. Truly, this practice has become the best sleeping pill, melatonin, and magnesium supplement, all combined into one.

Finally, I engage the Physical Anchors—the path from Hara to Heel. The last read is the Four Great Vows. Then, on the bed, I begin chiposoku breathing. But now, the journey of attention deepens. I let my tongue touch the upper palate, a subtle Tai Chi cue to connect the body's energy and promote stillness. Then, I move my focus from the breath in the hara, down, all the way to the heels. This is the ultimate act of grounding. By rooting my awareness there, I am no longer in the thinking brain. I am planting myself into the earth, into the primal trust of simply being. I become as solid and unmoving as a mountain, ready for the final surrender.

This embodied practice is the synthesis; it is the theory made truth.

That my Garmin notes a sleep score of 80-90, even on short nights, proves a vital point: sleep is not an absence, but a quality of renewal. The ritual itself is what matters. And the ability to sleep on a noisy platform? That is the ultimate proof that the covenant of trust has been rebuilt. The shelter is no longer just four walls; I carry it within me. The chiposoku breath is no longer just a technique; it is the living bridge that unites my body and mind, moment by moment, breath by breath. When the hara steadies, the heel roots. Problems sink into the lotus pond, blessings rise and dance in the night breeze. Ritual is wisdom reprogrammed, and dawn is the seal of trust.

Vedanta speaks of four states of consciousness: waking (jagrat), dreaming (Svapna), deep sleep (sushupti), and the fourth, turiya—pure awareness beyond them all. Though this suggests metaphorical sleep  (ignorance, delusion)  and separate it from the biological, restorative sleep (renewal, trust). In my lived experience biological restorative sleep is not an obstacle to the former but is , in fact it’s essential prerequisite.  To me, my nightly ritual feels like a conscious reprogramming of these very states. The Emotional Catharsis clears the residues of the waking world. The Problem Sink dissolves the forming fragments of dream. The Gratitude Dance prepares the mind for the pristine stillness of deep sleep. And in the Hara-to-Heel grounding, there is a hint of turiya—that steady, unwavering awareness which remains, whether awake, dreaming, or asleep. In this way, the ritual is not merely about sleep, but about touching the very substratum of consciousness itself, where renewal and awakening are one and the same. Moving on to other  spiritual traditions, including the Buddhist nīvaraṇas and certain strands of Christian asceticism, sleep/sloth is framed as a hindrance. The goal is to overcome it, to reduce attachment to the body's need for rest to pursue higher states. The metaphor of "awakening from the sleep of ignorance" is ubiquitous.

Conventional wisdom often places "spiritual practice" (meditation, prayer, study) above "biological maintenance" (sleep, diet).  Zen reframes and  flips this hierarchy. Hakuin Ekaku, one of the most radical and influential Zen Master ever lived, in his song of Zazen says “At this moment , what are you seeking ? Nirvana is right here before youer eyes: This very place is the lotus land ! and This very body, the Buddha!”

I reckon  that deep, ritualized sleep is itself a high form of spiritual practice—a "ritual of trust" and "surrender." It is not the lowly ground crew that enables the spiritual rocket to launch; it is part of the rocket's fundamental engineering. By making sleep a conscious ritual, we can elevate it from a passive state to an active one, from a biological necessity to a spiritual discipline.

 

The Sutra of Wings …a single wing that carries all the flights.  

The Sutra of Wings …a single wing that carries all the flights.  

by | Jul 27, 2025 | Change, Harmony, Peace, Transformation, Trust, Zen

16 May 2025. Early morning at Namma Bangaluru.

 In many many years, I woke up as an absolute master of my time.  May be 3/4 Master as I had to still drive all the way back to Republic of Sarjapur or Republic of Kodathy to return the “mainframe” computer, through which my “employer” controlled my life. Though at a price.  A handsome one that.

Modern work systems are the most sophisticated prisons crafted by the ingenuity of human beings. A paycheck can be both a lifeline and a leash are a paradox that many of us to live with. On one hand, it provides security, stability, and the means to survive (or even thrive). On the other, it can trap you in a cycle of dependency, where your time, energy, and identity become tied to a system that may not align with your deeper values or aspirations.

Still the crimson Sunshine rays was on the horizon.  And I thought II saw an Eagle flying in the far east.  Though umpteen times, Manu and Thara had told me that, the ones we get to see in the skies of Bangalore are Brahmani kites and not real eagles, I still called them eagles.

Human world is constituted by linguistic and symbolic images and concepts.

Don’t remember, when Eagle seeped into my heartmind as an osmosis of a metaphor. May be after I read and reread Jiddu Krishna murti’s “The Flight of the Eagle”. That was the second book of Krishnamurti I had read after “Freedom from the known”. The metaphor of the eagle in flight represents absolute freedom—soaring beyond limitations, seeing with clarity. Krishnamurti uses this imagery to emphasize the importance of awareness and living without fear.  Much later though I read Richard Bach classic “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”.  Eagle remained.  As my metaphor for thriving in life.

It won’t be an overstatement to say analogies and metaphors run our life… They shape how we think, communicate, and even perceive reality. 

It took some effort to return the official company laptop.  On 15 May I walked out of office not with a severance package but with a corporate corpse in my bag- A laptop cold and closed. The persons in charge, insisted that as per their Asset Management Database, that computer is still in their stock and not allocated to me. When I started working in the ancestorial version of the same company some 30 years back, there were no personal computers allotted to anyone.  There were no emails leave alone other fancy systems.

The person with whom I spoke to told me, he will be there at the office only at 11:00 am. Yesterday 15 May 2025 was my curtain raiser day for the next act of my life after a livelihood mission spanning 3 decades. Almost 11,000 days.  1500+ weeks, 262980 hours and 15778800 minutes!!!!  March 1995- 15 May 2025 will be marked on the tombstone of that.  I considered making a French exit on my last day at work.  (Ironically French calls it English exit!).  But Rajdev and Wipro Travel team and my team had other ideas. May be born out of sheer compassion for me.  Travel team organized a warm sendoff full nice words, tasty cakes, crispy samosas and sandwiches with Amul cheese slices.  When I used to visit office on Thursdays, almost always I used to carry some eatables to be shared.  That good habit (though did not make it to the Covey list) was imbibed in me by my first boss R Bala. (& currently my Advaita teacher and a CEO of IT company based in London). Bala used to keep a jar of chocolates at his desk.  May be that act, helped me to one of the Travel team members.  They did consider me as one.  Even when they went to Pondichéry for team building, Rajdev ensured I was there for that trip.   It was one of the best team I had worked for in my career.

  As I looked at the flower arrangement for one last time (may be that is one of the things I am going to miss other than the monthly transfer to my parched and dry bank account.)  Komal Jain had called me. I knew he was on a pilgrimage to Kailash Manasarovar.  I thought he is back at Delhi. HE told me for some reason; he is not able to do a video call and asked me to call back.  I parked just outside Wipro SJP Corporate office gate and called back. On the small iPhone screen, Komal appeared.  He looks so serene and peaceful.  HE sidestepped and pointed to the majestic ice clad trapezoidal rock.  Kailash Manasarovar was absolutely glistening like a piece of 24 carat Gold in the evening sun.   A few seconds would have passed without me realizing it.  Unaccounted for. When he said, he got to go to the camp woke me up from my reverie.  My parents belong to Lingayat Community. So they named my elder brother Sasidharan, one of the names of Shiva. And me as Viswanathan after Kasi Viswanathan. Along time after that once I went to Varanasi for a Krishnamurti Foundation India annual get-together and seminars.  Prof Krishnanath told me I got to go and visit Sarnath. Instead of attending those “dialogues”, I used to French exit  to visit various places. Sarnath, Kabir etc.   The closest I went to Kasi temple was when I searched for a good silk saree for Thara.

  And when I saw Kailash in that iPhone screen it was as if, if you don’t go to see the God, he comes to you by himself. In the form of pixels across vast emptiness.

The laptop handover ceremony is at 11:00 am. Then Mankeerat, Kedar and Neha told me they are buying me to beer and chicken wings. Vijay won’t be able to join today.

Instead of the usual breakfast at The Rameshwaram Café, I chose Café Amudham in Koramangala.  Usually, I drive very early to beat the traffic.  And it was important to be on the other side of Bangalore separated by the great Gulf of  Silk Board junction. After the breakfast I walked across and sat on that stone bench in that park adrift between identities.  Suddenly I became aware of the swarm of butterflies... All of them had a blue and back tinge on their wings. And there they were… like a river of blue butterflies. An elderly morning walker told me that they are known as blue tiger butterflies and they are escaping monsoon – western ghats to eastern ghats.  I felt they are not fleeing rain, but dancing with it.  Not lost but on pilgrimage.  In that moment the Eagle in me - the old symbol of solitary power, talons clenched against the sky- fell like a stone. Here was a truer teaching: fragile wings moving with the storm, not against it.  A surrender that was not defeat, but sacred alignment. 

Later, I learned: Tirumala limniace. Blue tigers. Every year, millions lift off from the Western Ghats just before monsoon hits. Not fleeing rain—but riding a current older than concrete, older than corporations. They fly east, 400 kilometers or more, to the drier Eastern Ghats. No leader. No map. Just pure, soft-bodied instinct. Think of it: wings thinner than a corporate promise, carrying them across highways, cities, and droughts. They rest on wet roads. They drink from mud puddles. Some die. Most push on. Not as individuals—as a river of blue. When they arrive, they wait out the rains. Then, when the wind turns, they fly back west. A round-trip pilgrimage few ever see. Fewer still understand. That day on the bench, with a dead laptop in my bag, I didn’t just see them. I felt it in my ribs: This is how you move when you trust the body of truth more than the mind of fear.

May be a sheer coincidence as i reached back at Kanzeon Zendo on 17 May Saturday morning, was climbing down the stairs toward my room, i saw a huge butterfly... A yellow golden one with intricate design on its wings... I shared it and my spouse Thara told me it is a moth. and Google told me it is a Golden emperor.   Thara called it ‘just a moth.’ Google called it ‘emperor.’ I call it a confirmation.: When you finally lay down Christ’s thorn crown— the one you wore through exiles, firings, and the desert of dead dogma— the true kingdom appears on the step beneath your foot. So instead of rushing to have my breakfast, I was googling on what else butterflies... IT was so fascinating.  There was a great documentary on Monster Butterflies.  They migrate all the way from Canada, across Trump’s America, without passport of visa to Mexico and then back.  I chose that documentary for our Sunday evening movie at Zendo.  Everyone seems to have so much into this.

Then I thought all my exiles -from jobs, gurus and tribes- and realized. I was never cast out. Rather I was migrating. Transforming on the way like those butterflies.  We, butterflies, move when the ground drowns. We trust the inner compass that knows storm will end. New blossoms wait. So now when I think, I no longer visualize eagles – I become one of the millions of butterflies.  Vulnerable, persistent, carried by the greater than “I”. Power is not in the fist. It is the wings that bend, body that trembles but still fly.  So celebrate butterflies over eagles.  Because the world already worships force. The butterfly teaches us that resilience is softer, stranger, and more miraculous—a dance of patience and trust in unseen currents. 

The eagle rules the sky.  The butterfly enchants it. 

Eagles see from above. Butterflies feel the storm in their bones.

This time, no French exit. I stay. With wings.

Would you rather be the storm… or the wing that rides it ??

T(w)o-Gether-Ness !…!

by | Oct 20, 2024 | Change, Compassion, Empathy, Gratitude, Harmony, Joy, Trust

 

 

A few weeks ago, after morning Zazen, the below quote popped up in my InsightTimer meditation app. A famous quote attributed to Rumi, it said "Tie two birds together. They will not be able to fly, even though they now have four wings. "

 

Gether, is a dialectical variant of the word gather.

Oxford dictionary says, last recorded usage of that word, "Gether", dates back to 1500s. Now it is absolutely obsolete. At least as a standalone free bird word. It often tries valiantly to stick its neck out from its , buried alive / incarcerated state, among other words, when we play a game of Scrabble.

I had quite forgotten about it altogether. At least Consciously. But only when i started getting similar insights from everywhere, i realised it got etched in my brain. That is the way ,our minds work. We don't see the word as it is. Rather we see the world as we are. IT Cortex , a brain part decides what we got to see. That is why u notice all the grey Suzuki Swifts on the road, if you had recently bought a new Suzuki Swifts car . Grey coloured. Again i ended up reading Gibran's The Prophet. The Nth time...

I had read it first , before i got married. And i used a pale take off from a passage from that book to sweep Thara off the feet, when i went to see her first time in Mysore. "You can have as much freedom as i have in my own life. I can give only what i have. And if you want more freedom than that, you got take it yourself." When i finished , by that 100 W bright shine and effervescent smile in her eyes, i knew it is a YES. 🙂 . And that was the only time i was a successful salesman. I should hasten to add , at that point i was not aware that , though she was born with a silver spoon and brought up in a well to do business family, her life was like that of a parrot in a gilded cage. Her father, though a loving, generous to a fault, over-caring and well-meaning person, was as conservative as a conservative can be, in body, mind and soul. After our marriage, on our way to Kumarakom, we landed at Kottayam railway station a bit late in the morning. As i was thinking about, where to have breakfast, Thara noticed a salon just across the Kottayam railway station and got cut her hair short then and there, while our cab driver to the Kumarakom resort waited. and Me too waited with an hungry and growling stomach.

That was her way of reclaiming her freedom, her life and herself .

,After that i would have shared the passage on Marriage from that book at least with 50 people as a wedding gift wish. Just a few weeks back, i shared that passage to my Wipro colleague Hema's Daughter as a wedding gift. I think , i remember the last para of that page as vividly as Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra. It sings like this,

" Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.    For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts . And stand together yet not too near together, For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. "

But even then,those scattered sprinkler thoughts never penned itself into a blog. Blogs gets written not by ink or pixels, but blood from the wounds of one's heart. And this got written in my mindscape, as i drove to Bangalore from Ramapura, a small village near.Kollelgal, while my mother narrated her life story for some 4 hours, last Saturday 30 June 2024. Ramapura was the place where she was born and brought up until she got married to my father and moved to Kerala. She chose to return to Ramapura and live there , alone all by herself, after my father had passed away, all of a sudden in 2006.

Again, that was her way of reclaiming her freedom, her life and herself .

Have heard those stories, in bits and pieces , many a times from many people who are dear and near to Amma. By any yardstick, she did have a tough life.She might have carried more crosses than even Jesus Christ.

My late father too had many crosses to carry in his eventful life. May be slightly less in number than that of Amma and Jesus. He grew up quite poor and had to start working at the age of 15 to take care of his siblings. He was honest, very generous and caring to all. And very courageous too. He fought many a battles for the people around him regardless of who is on the other side. Whether it was a local liquor baron or a cabinet minister.

One of my vivid memory about him was when we were staying in a village named Thenkara which was around 6- 7 km away from the small town and high school. There were just 2 -3 private transport buses passing through our village in the morning school time and there were many a students who was commuting to the town school for their education. The buses wont stop for us. And many a times, my father used to stand in the middle of the road , get the bus stopped and ensure all the children are taken care. I remember when once someone asking him, “Sankara, are you not scared ??”. And he was not. He did earn a good name for himself and the crowd which came home when he had passed away was a testimony to the kind of life he led.

But Amma had a different perspective about it now. She was telling me that when some one tries to be too good for others, some people around the dogooder got to sacrifice a lot and suffer. And She suffered in that.

And the clarity with which she conveyed that me, just pierced into my heart.

Though Amma does not read my blogs, she know from my sister about my penchant for being a scribe of life stories that’s come my way. So when i had shared with her that i am writing a blog , she had put her foot down and said clearly and sternly that i am not allowed to write the stories she shared with me.

Again, that was Amma exercising her new found freedom…

I left this blog incomplete, till a conversation i had with a friend last week triggered it again. When i shared my plans of moving to Zendo, he asked me , whether Thara too is joining me. I tried to explain, Thara is not into Zen and she makes her own choices in her life.

23 years later after we “tied the knot”, we are still in love and deeply care for each other. Like two circles (enso ?!) in a Venn diagram, though there are many things in common in our likes and dislikes, we also have many things not so common. We respect that space of each other and strive to ensure that space does not shrink in anyway. Marriage is a clever institution foisted upon the fairer sex by a patriarchal society. And often it ends up a gilded cage for a woman.

Even the word “tying the knot” signifies it. As Rumi had asked, if we tie two birds together, they will not able to fly, even though they have four wings.

I dont know how successful i was on the promise i gave to Thara, “You can have as much freedom as i have in my own life. I can give only what i have. And if you want more freedom than that, you got take it yourself.” As in any other life, we too had our lows and highs, ebbs and flows.

May be she will share and write her side of the story, like my mother did !

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