Buddhas in Action: Karma Yoga
In this new Planet Dharma episode, Achariya Doug Duncan and Catherine Pawasarat Sensei shine light on the principle that “buddhas in action” (spiritual explorers waking up and growing through the path of selfless service) continually explore the question “What is this?”
During this in-depth talk from the “Buddha’s in Action Retreat 2017,” the teachers discuss the questions “What is yoga?” and specifically, “What is karma yoga?”
“Asking the question “what” drives you to awakening,” mention Achariya Doug Duncan & Catherine Pawasarat Sensei. “When it comes to meditation the self-referencing occurs in relationship to the arisings in the mind, or in the body; in karma yoga it arises in relationship to your task.” Karma yoga helps us to train ourselves to be mindful and aware of the states we are in while doing something and introducing the technology to change that state if it isn`t clear, wholesome, blissful, spacious & awake.
“As easily as you can get lost into the phenomena of your mind, you can get lost into the phenomena of your work.” The practice of karma yoga helps us not get lost, and instead brings awareness of body, speech and mind. This leads us into more compassion in our career and daily lives.
This talk was from the “Buddha’s in Action” Retreat 2017 at Clear Sky Retreat Center in B.C., Canada. To register for our mailing list or to attend any upcoming events, please visit us at Planet Dharma. To register for the upcoming “Buddha`s in Action” Retreat for summer 2018, please visit us at Planet Dharma Buddhas in Action retreat
Podcast Transcription:
[Qapel] Ask the question: what is this? What is this “self” I’m referencing to? What is this thing? What is it, where is it? How is it? Can I find it? You won’t find it by the way? Well, you can try. But we want you to look. So when it comes to meditation, the “self” referencing occurs in relationship to the arisings in the mind or in the body, and in karma yoga, it arises in relation to your task. So as easily as you can get lost in the phenomena of your mind, you can get lost into the phenomena of your work. And insofar as getting absorbed, you have those factors of concentration, calm and so on. That’s fine, right? But what you get where you get into trouble is when it gets interrupted and how you respond to the interruption. That’s when the self feels challenged.
And so when we do a karma yoga practice, we want to watch the nature of the disruptions and the disturbances and how that becomes pleasant or unpleasant based on some unknown measurement system. So we just look at the unknown measurement system and go “what is going on here?”
[Sensei] We just need to keep looking. Okay, so I want to be in control when I’m being silly. Well, that’s not really true. Like if you really think that okay, Peter, you can be in control all the time. That’s actually exhausting and that’s not very fun, right? And then it implies if you’re in control of yourself all the time, you kind of have to be in control of everybody else as well, which is even more exhausting.
[Qapel] So remember that one person that we’re trying to control perpetually and continuously and uninterruptedly that we never ever, ever, ever, ever could control is “mommy.” So the ego is born from the breast of the mommy separation and we’re always fighting that battle, always, with no chances of success because the echo is that which separates. So we’re trying to get, actually, what we’re trying to do in life is get back to unity. We’re trying to get back to the unitive of state, and we make the mistake of associating it with mother rather than with surrender into the transcendental which is the “big mother” in the sky, metaphorically speaking.
[Sensei] And the joy and the relaxation that’s available to us in that letting go.
[Qapel] Super cool. So when you’re practicing whether you like it, whether you don’t like it, whether you’re happy or sad (it sounds like a song: whether you’re glad or mad) what are you doing? Simply observing and letting it go. Okay – karma yoga.
[Sensei] Okay, so when we think of yoga, we usually think of hatha yoga, that’s the body, the body yoga and there’s at least six different kinds of yoga. Are there more? It depends who you’re referencing.
[Qapel] What measure measures. And just in case you don’t know yoga means to “yoke” like oxen, to join. Also, “hatha” is “sun-moon.” So you’re getting the idea is balancing the energy, sun energy, moon energy, so male and female energy.
[Sensei] So “yolk” is like the body and mind working together, right? That kind of yoke. Also the discipline. This is the cart I’m pulling, I guess. The ox is in front of the cart.
[Qapel] We hope. So there are six.
[Sensei] So bhakti yoga.
[Qapel] Love devotion.
[Sensei] This is devotion. It’s interesting – this one is not very popular in North America right now. Although every once in a while there’s these huge exceptions like Amma Ji. And westerners love to photograph bhakti yoga – like all those photos of people in Thailand offering flowers and incense at the shrine. That’s bhakti yoga. And so it’s important to note that those people give those offerings every day, probably several times a day, and that’s their discipline.
[Qapel] The root is “bha” which means to be, it’s also womb, “bhaga.” “Bhaga” means womb. So it’s a kind of the “being” yoga. I’m really in love with living.
[Sensei] Yeah. So that discipline of giving offerings, they’ve got all the same ups and downs that we do. I’m sure sometimes, you know, the monk at the temple pisses them off and they’re still giving their offerings. So just emphasizing the path aspect of that. So hatha yoga, everybody’s familiar with? Jnana yoga, that’s the path of scholarship.
[Qapel] From the root “jna,” to know. That’s how we get “jna”in English becomes knowledge, knowing the edges, knowledge. So it’s scholarship.
[Sensei] Isn’t it considered the most dangerous path?
[Qapel] Anyway “jna,” by the way, is the root for natal or birth. So remember, English is an Indo European language, so the connections are really quite pervasive. So Jnana is the knowing of birth, knowing how things arise and passed away. Sorry, what was your question?
[Sensei] Considered the most dangerous path? Dangerous in the sense that we can fool the mind, the mind is so tricky. So if we use the mind as a path and especially if it’s me and my books, right, I can go down some unwholesome wormholes by myself.
[Qapel] Somebody said that the person most susceptible to manipulation and being fooled is the educated person.
[Sensei] Right. Our mental acrobatics, like we get enamored with our own mental agility.
[Qapel] Subject to propaganda, that was it. The person most subject to propaganda is the educated person.
[Sensei] And that’s why in this path we have placed so much value on having a teacher is to prevent that from happening. The teachers like the, helps us to course-correct. Okay, then Dhyana yoga, that’s meditation.
[Qapel] “Dya” from foundation. So by Dya is, the root is “foundation of our being.” So “nja” again is birth, so Dyajna, the foundation of our being is meditative. There is no moment in life when you’re not meditating. Every moment is a meditation. Whether it’s focused meditation or not, well, that’s a different question.
[Sensei] And Karma yoga.
[Qapel] Karma yoga, that’s this one.
[Sensei] Which we’ll be talking about more.
[Qapel] And “kar’ is the root for activity, or a car, a vehicle. So “kar” becomes ”vehicle” in English, like “car.” And “ma” – “mum.” So “karma” is the vehicle that carries you forward. It’s a transport.
[Sensei] And then raja yoga includes all the other five.
[Qapel] And of course, “raja” means royal or king. Ronnie raja. And the root of that is “ra” and “ja.” So “ra” is birth, and “ja” is fire. So it’s the birth of fire, raja. So when they say raja, they’re talking about the totality of things, the energy body.
[Sensei] Yeah, and I’d say that everybody benefits from elements of all of them, for sure.
[Qapel] Which is why they’re six. You know, we’re multifaceted beings. So we need little platforms for each of these aspects of our being. So we have body, speech for communication and emotion, and mind (which is in the heart in the east) for understanding.
[Sensei] And then we’re gonna have personal predominances.
[Qapel] You betcha.
[Sensei] One thing that’s become apparent over the years since we’ve had a lot of students who were yoga students and just became excellent at hatha yoga and still felt that something was missing. So I guess maybe the stream they got into didn’t offer the others as part of the path maybe.
[Qapel] Mostly.
[Sensei] So they come you know, they’d say “I know there’s something missing – what is that?”
[Qapel] Curiously, that question is what drives your awakening. If you want to know what drives your awakening, it’s simply one word. “What.” “What, what, what, what.” That’s the word that drives the awakening? What is this? What’s going on? What’s happening? Why am I doing this? What’s this about? Who are you? That’s a “what.” “What, what, what. what, what, what.”
[Participant] What is an example of raja yoga?
[Qapel] Well, it’s a bit like this. You know tantric practice is an integration of all the seven meditations, all the classic seven meditations. It’s visualization, it’s the mantra, it’s movement, it’s breathing, it’s devotion, it’s whatever I’m missing, right? It’s all seven in one. So this is a raja yoga. As an example. Multitasking, insofar as anyone can multitask, is kind of raja yoga. Being able to get your passport out, handle your baggage, get through the security line, answer the questions, get your bags back, get money back in your pocket, get your plane and get your boarding pass – raja yoga.
[Sensei] Be nice.
[Qapel] Be nice to the person hassling you, and not start to get irritated by the guy behind you who’s yelling into a cell phone about his bad teeth or something. Alright karma yoga – spiritual path of action. It’s the path of action – doing, doing, doing. We are doers, we westerners are doers. So this is why we feel that karma yoga is the primordial, primary or principle path for the modern age. We’re doers. People don’t like sitting around so much except to watch movies which is “doing” at a different level, I guess.
[Sensei] And there’s practical exigencies also, exigencies, which is where most, most people work eight or nine hours a day? Right? So that can make it challenging to practice meditation as our central path for example. However, if karma yoga is your central path and it is possible to transform our day job into karma yoga.
[Qapel] Curiously enough, you’re not really transforming your day job into karma yoga, you’re transferring you, in your day job, into karma. The job is neutral, right? It’s like guns, the job is neutral. You’re transforming your attitude about what you do, your involvement in what you do from doing to meditating through doing.
[Sensei] And most people who are on the spiritual path are already doing this instinctively, right? We’re doing something that we love, we do something we’re passionate about that we believe in. And so this is what we’re doing is helping flesh this out so that it’s very much a practical spiritual path.
[Qapel] And one of the central things to awakening is a decision, it’s a decision. You make a decision to wake up. You’re born asleep, as it were, in the human condition. I know we think we’re awake but relatively we’re walking, we’re kind of sleepwalking through habitual programming of just what you get,right? It’s kind of the base model. But awakening is a decision, you make the decision that you’re going to wake up. And so karma, “kar,” activity, is a decision, so it means it’s intentional. So when we talk about mindfulness there’s kind of an assumed intention to be more mindful. But meditation is one step further. It’s mindful about being mindful, which is the next layer down or the next movement in. So the decision is really important. In Sanskrit, they say “cetanā,” will, or decision, equals karma. So your karma is your decision. And if you haven’t made the decision, then your karma is whatever results from the decision you didn’t make.
[Sensei] We don’t really identify what our path is, and then therefore it’s challenging for us to really work that path.
[Qapel] That’s a very important point.
[Sensei] So we’re highlighting this path because it’s basically what we see most people gravitating towards.
[Qapel] Look at, here you are, look at your life, your ….
[Sensei] So more power to you. So, with karma yoga, it’s really about how we do things, not about doing them, not about getting them done, not about results. This is one of my issues with the mindfulness for productivity movement that’s getting so strong. That’s kind of missing the point. It’s our state of awareness and our state of loving kindness and compassion as we do things. Which does lead to greater productivity, but if we put the productivity first, loving kindness and compassion don’t necessarily go with that.
[Qapel] So, one of the things about karma yoga training is that people tend to think it’s like volunteerism. I’m volunteering to help out, or I’m volunteering at my church, but that’s not really karma yoga. The purpose of karma yoga isn’t volunteerism, it’s about training yourself to be mindful and aware of the state you’re in while you’re doing something and introducing the technology to change that state if it isn’t clear, wholesome, blissful, spacious, and awake. Right? So people often do volunteerism with a certain kind of “holier than thou” attitude or resentment or kind of like, “I don’t have to do a good job because I’m not getting paid for it.” All of these are big mistakes when it comes to karma yoga. “I’m helping you” is kind of the first error of ego, right? No matter what you do, you’re helping each other and so you need to think that way. I’m helping myself by helping you and I’m helping you by helping you and you’re helping me by letting me help you, and so on. So, karma yoga is taking work, which you’re just doing, compress, getting it done, and creating the space to observe and watch and engage and how you’re getting it done, who you’re getting it done with, and so on. To give you the space to get some insight into how the ego basically leads you around in circles when in fact there is really no such ego to be found. All you’re going to find when you find the ego is the patterning of sleep. You’re not gonna find you, you’re gonna find the patterning of sleep. Huh? Yeah.
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