Shyamatara Das

Learning Green Tara Practice

March 14, 2022 By Brian

When I was younger, one of the first mantras I ever learned was “Om Mani Padme Hum.” I knew that the literal translation was something along the lines of “I bow to the jewel in the lotus blossom.” I also knew that the mantra was especially sacred to Tibetan Buddhists. Other than that, I was entirely ignorant, but I liked the sound and I liked the idea of doing something that was unusual and exotic, so I got a mala made of Bodhi seeds, and I would sometimes chant with it. I had the Tibetan characters for the mantra tattooed on my upper arm. At that time, the practice of daily chanting and devotion did not become a habit, but as you’ll see if you read on, apparently somehow the Dharma had been planted in my heart and mind.

In 2001, Claudia and I travelled to the Twin Cities for darshan from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. I’m not sure what first sparked our interest in the trip, but it was a profound experience to be in the presence of the living Buddha.

Profound as it was, when we returned home, I resumed my “normal” activities as a greying American white guy, attending Mass on weekends, doing my best to lead a more or less respectable life, yet drinking every evening and not paying much attention to spiritual development or anything approaching a path toward awakening.

When I finally began to wake up in 2019, my mala was there, the mantra was there, and I began to use them in what eventually became a daily meditation practice. I was still relatively ignorant about the deeper meaning of the mantra and practice, but I knew that it was good for me, and trusted that it would bring me to understanding of some sort if I just kept practicing.

In May of 2020, I watched a benefit concert for Saving Wild Tigers that featured dozens of Bhakti artists, including Deva Premal and Miten. I became spellbound as they sang the Green Tara Mantra, Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā.

Over the next few weeks, casually at first, I began to research and study.

At last I ran across the story of the Compassionate Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara (who is believed to be incarnate in this world now in the person of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama). The Bodhisattva was near to enlightenment, ready to escape Saṃsāra – the cycle of births and deaths – and step through the threshold to freedom. At that moment, out of deep compassion, he chose to remain in the world to help and guide and light the way until all beings are free from suffering and delusion.

It is said that a single tear from the eye of the Avalokiteshvara created a pond, and in that pond a lotus sprang up, and from its blossom arose Tara, the Mother of all Buddhas.

“I bow to the Jewel in the lotus blossom.” As if in the flash of a thunderbolt, the mantra’s true meaning became clear, tears rolled down, and I felt a connection of the deepest sort.

On July 8, 2020, I pulled The Star in my daily card draw, and wrote these words in my journal.

It is said that one does not find their guru. The guru finds them. I believe that she has, at long last, found me, and gathered me into the fold.

I take the devotional name Shyamatara Das – Servant of the Holy Mother.

Guiding Star, nurture us and lead us to freedom.

Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā!

Recently I completed a course of study on Green Tara Vajrayana Sadhana from Tara Mandala Center, and have begun a daily practice. Although my pronunciation is still developing, and I have not yet begun to incorporate the mudras, I suspect that it will eventually become my most essential daily personal devotional practice.

If you’d like to learn more about Tara, there is an excellent article at the World History Encyclopedia written by Joshua Mark. You can also read about the 21 Taras at the Tara Mandala site.

It is worth noting that in Tibetan Buddhism, “deity” means something a bit different than what we take it to mean in the West. Tara is the personification of qualities that we should all desire to emulate, and is, in fact, already not separate from us. In Vajrayana Practice, we seek to experience and recognize more fully that unity which already exists, and to grow in the habits of compassion and service as a result.

This seems to me to be a worthwhile thing to do.

What is Japa, and Why Should You Do It?

March 10, 2022 By Brian Leave a Comment

“Ram naam karne se sab pura hojata hai.”
“Repeat the Name of God, and everything else is accomplished.”
– Neem Karoli Baba

What Is Japa?

Japa is a word that comes to us from Sanskrit, meaning “to mutter repetitions.” In early Vedic holy books, it was used in reference to repeating scripture verses, or incantations or the name of a deity.

When we do silent mantra meditation, that is essentially a sort of japa practice, as we repeat the mantra to ourselves silently. But most of the time, when someone uses the term nowadays, especially in the West, we mean repetition of a sound, either aloud or silently, while counting the number of repetitions on a japamala (mala, for short). A mala is a string of (usually 108) beads, with a larger centerpiece bead in the middle called the Guru Bead. Sometimes this centerpiece bead will have a tassel or other ornamentation.

Malas (much like Catholic Rosaries) can be made of a wide variety of materials. Some are wooden, some made from seeds or stones or even gems, and some truly beautiful ones are made with no beads at all, using knots in the twine or cord instead of beads. One of the pleasures of practice is to find a mala that suits one’s own temperament, and complements the mantra or name that is being repeated. For instance, I have a Tibetan Bodhi Seed mala that I use when chanting Om Mani Padme Hum. I have a green malachite mala for Green Tara practice. And for the Mahamantra (Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare) I use a Tulasi Wood mala and bead bag from the ISKCON store. The range of styles and materials available is truly astounding.

How To Do Japa

Japa practice is relatively simple. We start with the bead next to the Guru Bead between thumb and finger, and say the mantra (either aloud or silently). Then we move to the next bead, proceeding all the way around the mala repeating the mantra until we reach the last bead next to the Guru Bead. That is considered one round of japa.

As you’ll see in the video toward the end of this post, some japa practitioners have more elaborate rules for their practice than others. I try to be respectful of the traditions from whence I received a particular mantra or practice, but there are two rules of thumb that seem to follow across most of the traditions, whether Buddhist or Hindu or sectarian within Buddhism or Hinduism. First of all, it is considered best to keep each mala for its own mantra or practice. Although I admit that early on when I only had one mala I did not observe this rule – and sometimes still, when using a little wrist mala on the go I will chant whatever strikes my fancy that day – I agree that it’s a better practice to have a specific mala for a specific mantra or practice if you can. The energy of the repetitions seems to accumulate, and when you pick up that mala, it puts you in a unique headspace for that practice. Do the best you can with this, though, and don’t beat yourself up if you only have one mala and want to practice a lot of different mantras.

The other rule is one that is easy to follow, and really ought to be followed by everyone, regardless of tradition. Out of respect for God and Guru, we never pass over the Guru Bead. Once we reach that special bead, if we’re going to continue japa we turn the mala and begin counting again in the other direction.

As to what sound you should use as a mantra, I would recommend trying a few different ones to see what resonates most with you. There’s an excellent book on the subject by Lily Cushman called A Little Bit of Mantras. The Hanuman Maui store has it bundled with a small wrist mala for practice. You can also do a Web search for something like “list of mantras” and will find more than enough information to get you started.

If you don’t have a mala, you can still do a simple japa practice. Each of your fingers has three bones in it. Begin by placing your thumb on the bone closest to your hand on your little finger. With each repetition, move past the joint to the next bone, then the next finger, etc. By the time you reach the tip of your index finger, that is twelve repetitions. Nine rounds of that (you can keep track of them with your thumb on three fingers on your other hand) is 108. Prety neat, yeah?

Whatever you use to count, remember that this is a devotional practice. If we just repeat the mantra mechanically to rack up numbers, there may still be something positive to come from our practice. If nothing else, at least we’re not out somewhere misbehaving for a little while. 🙂 But if we try as best we can to turn our attention toward the divine while practicing, to “Remember God” as Neem Karoli Baba put it, then the benefits (to ourselves and our world) will increase many times over.

Why Do Japa?

I put it this way in a recent post about my own daily spiritual practice. Silent mantra meditation (in the style of TM) gets us in touch with the unified field of consciousness from which everything in the universe springs. Devotional chanting (such as Kirtan or Japa) gives us a better sense of our own place in that universe.

TM-style meditation practice is valuable almost beyond estimation in terms of benefits to our health and well being. For me, though, without some sort of devotional practice to compliment it, it misses the larger point. Just as the practice of yoga asanas merely for health benefits ignores (and perhaps distorts) the devotion which is at the heart of the Yoga Sutras, using a mantra merely for benefits such as stress management and enhanced creativity ignores the larger purpose for which we ought to be getting calm and clear in the first place. Surely, we want to be more than just fit and less stressed. At least, I believe that we ought to.

For me, devotional chanting brought my life to an entirely different level of clarity and purpose. Perhaps that would have come in the long run with just the standard twenty minutes twice a day of TM-style meditation anyway, but somehow I don’t think so. Look out there at some of the high-functioning, creative powerhouses who tout TM as a key to their success, and you’ll find at least a few folks who have been practicing for decades, whose lives one might not want to emulate.

Part of the appeal of yoga and TM in the West has been the non-religious, non-sectarian nature of the practices as they are often presented here. That’s fine, as far as it goes, but there is a larger, richer, more beautiful context from which these practices have been ripped. Devotional practices such as japa can help us restore that context, and with it, the wonder and joy and love and healing that our lives and our planet so desperately need.

“The Lord is Awaiting on You All to Awaken and See
By Chanting the Names of the Lord, and You’ll be Free”
– George Harrison

Here’s the video I promised, demonstrating how to chant “Hare Krishna” ISKCON style, from our friends at Hare Krishna TV.

Note: On malas from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the centerpiece (Guru Bead) is called the Krishna Bead, and there is also a stray bit of string between the 100th and 101st beads to let you know when you are nearing the end of the round of japa, approaching the last eight beads. According to one of the kind folks at the ISKCON store in the U.S., the last eight beads on such a mala also represent the eight “confidential, principal Gopi (cowherd girl friend) servants of Srimati Radharani” as described in the Srimad Bhagavatam.

हरी ॐ

Do you chant with a japamala? What’s your favorite mantra? New to the practice and have questions? Hit me with a comment!

Daily Sadhana March 2022

March 9, 2022 By Brian

It’s been more than a year since I last wrote a summary of my daily spiritual practices, and they have evolved a bit, so I thought I would post a quick update.

Meditation and Scripture

I still begin the morning with a card draw, which gives me a suggestion concerning the energy patterns afoot for the day. Currently, I’m using the Thoth Deck, and finding it to be especially helpful in navigating life’s schedules, encounters and activities.

A morning silent mantra meditation is next. Of late I have been using an alpha wave audio from BrainSync along with repetition of the mantra for twenty minutes each morning and evening. I have also been doing some pranayama at the beginning of each session (usually four rounds of box breathing and a couple minutes of breath of fire). The morning meditation helps to clear my mind and calm my spirit for the day to come, and the evening meditation acts as a “reset” from the stresses of the work day, helping me to be more present for study or time with family.

Next is scripture reading and reflection. It is now a firm daily practice for several years to pray with the Catholic Office of Readings and Lauds in the morning, and Vespers in the evenings. I also read Unity’s Daily Word each morning, and take a few moments to reflect and make an entry into my gratitude journal.

Chants

Nearly every morning I still tune in to Devadas with his Kirtans from Brooklyn. I have also taken up the habit of chanting a round of Mahamantra japa in the morning, and one in the afternoon or evening. Lately, I’ve been using a Tulsi Mala and bead bag that I received from the ISKCON store in Florida.

It might be good to include a quick mention here of something I have found to be true, at least for me, at least at this time. Although all of the practices that I keep each day are important to me, there are only two that I would consider to be absolutely essential. I would find it hard to function without the silent mantra meditation and some sort of devotional chanting (either Kirtan or japa). If I did no other spiritual practice, I would hope to at least practice these every day, and preferably at the beginning of the day. Meditation gets us in touch with the unified field of consciousness from which everything in the universe springs. Devotional chanting gives us a better sense of our own place in that universe.

I think that a good “starter program” of spiritual practice for anyone would be five or ten minutes of meditation and one round of japa of some sort. If using a small wrist mala of 27 beads, these two practices would only take about fifteen minutes a day, and the positive changes that can be brought into one’s life with the investment of those fifteen minutes are inestimable.

Reading and Satsang

Throughout the day, I find it helpful to keep in touch with others who are on a spiritual path. This can be through inspirational music, or the vast array of websites and social media groups focused on religion, philosophy and spiritual practice. One of the most beautiful online communities is Deva and Miten’s Gayatri Sangha. There are lots of sweet souls, inspiration, mutual support and virtual gatherings to be found there.

I also enjoy the online Satsang of Krishna Das, and his Yoga Radio station on SiriusXM.

Reading spiritual classics and wisdom literature is also an important part of my own spiritual development. If you’re interested in what I’m reading and studying, I post occasional reviews or updates here.

Do you have thoughts or questions? Would you like to share your own favorite practices or daily routines? I’d love to read your comments.

The Tulsidas Ramayan

March 8, 2022 By Brian Leave a Comment

Goswami Tulsidas was an Indian saint and poet who lived in the 16th Century CE. His Ramcharitmanas (the Holy-Lake of the enactments of Lord God Rama) is a retelling of the Ramayana in Awadhi. Through this, which would become one of the great works of world literature, he brought the story from Sanskrit into the vernacular of the people for the very first time.

I had previously read William Buck’s excellent translation of the Valmiki Ramayan (which predated Tulsidas by many centuries), but since Tulsidas is the author of one of my favorite prayers, the Hanuman Chalisa, I had long wanted to explore his Ramayan as well.

I found a very nice hardbound version, with transliteration and translation by Baldev Prasad Saxena, nearly two years ago, and began to read it at that time, but made little progress before shelving it for another day, overwhelmed. When I came back to it this January, I was determined to work my way through, slowly but surely, committing to reading ten pages each day – no more and no less. I completed it on February 26th.

What I liked most about this book was the ready availability of the original text and transliteration above the English. I also loved the way the story was presented, as a series of conversations (between Lord Shiva and Parvati, Bharadwaj and Yajnavalkya, and Kakbhushundi and Garuda) where one person is relating the tale to another. The invocations which commence each canto are also lovely.

Tulsidas was a devotee of Hanuman, and founded the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple on the spot where he is purported to have received darshan from the great monkey hero. That spirit of devotion shines through in every passage of this book.

I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to read this great work, and would recommend it to any serious anglophone student or devotee. I would also recommend the William Buck Ramayana translation as perhaps a bit more accessible (and no less beautiful).

राम राम

Vegan Pad Thai

February 15, 2022 By Brian Leave a Comment

I’ve been wanting to try cooking Pad Thai for a long time, and finally got around to it last week. I had already researched recipes, but when I told my wife I was planning to make it, she scared up one more that was helpful in pulling together the dish.

Since my version does not include the shrimp and the fish sauce that are typical in Thailand, it’s not “authentic” Pad Thai, so I’m going to call it “Pad Bri.” 🙂

If you want, you could leave out the tofu. You could also add whatever other veggies you would like for the sauté. For a gluten-free version, use Tamari in place of the soy sauce.

For the Sauce

Combine these ingredients slowly one at a time, and when fully combined boil together for three or four minutes.

4 T tamarind paste
4T soy sauce
3 T garlic chili sauce
2 T maple syrup
1/4 c powdered peanuts
maybe some peanut butter
1 c veggie stock

Prepare the Tofu

Saute tofu cubes in a little sesame oil, then add soy sauce, some spoons of peanut butter, and a little of the garlic chili sauce. Reserve this.

For the Veggie Sauté

Cook the onion first, then add the garlic and ginger until fragrant, then the other veggies of your choosing. Finally. add the bean sprouts and a squeeze of lime. I used sesame oil in the wok for this.

1 chopped onion
3 cloves of garlic, pressed
some grated fresh ginger
chopped red and yellow bell peppers
1 can of bean sprouts, drained
a squeeze or two of lime

Once these items are done, add a little peanut butter and soy sauce, the white part of some scallions, and then the sauce and prepared tofu. Finally, add a package of Thai rice noodles that you have already prepared by soaking in a bowl of hot (fresh from boiling) water for five minutes or so.

Toss all of this around in the wok to warm through, and serve with cilantro, scallions, crushed peanuts, lime wedges and Sriracha or other hot sauce.

This served our family of three, and there was enough left over for a nice lunch for one of us later in the week.

Potato Curry

November 17, 2021 By Brian Leave a Comment

This makes a tasty and hearty weeknight meal, with lots of nutrition and not a lot of fuss. I use a 5 quart stockpot from beginning to end, so there’s not a lot to cleanup. The most time consuming part is peeling and chopping the potatoes.

Here’s the recipe.

Sauté two big onions, rough chopped, in olive oil with salt and pepper.

Add several cloves of garlic and a couple pieces of fresh ginger, minced, and cook until fragrant.

Add these spices and toast until fragrant and well distributed.

2 t Garam Masala
2 t Curry Powder
1 t Mustard Seed
1 t Ground Coriander
1/2 t Chili Powder
1/2 t Turmeric
1/2 t Paprika
Red Pepper Flakes (go easy – you can always add more at table)

Add 1 Can diced tomatoes.

Add 1 package frozen mixed vegetables (this is optional, but adds some color and nutrition).

Add 2-3 pounds of potatoes, peeled and cubed.

Add 2 cups of vegetable stock.

Cover and cook on low simmer until potatoes are tender.

Make a slurry with one can of coconut milk and 3 T cornstarch, add it to the pot and cook uncovered until the curry thickens.

I made some rice to go under this. You could also make puris, or serve with naan bread, or even biscuits out of a can, if you’d like. Tonight this served four of us, and there was plenty leftover for lunches the rest of the week.

Spiced Chai

November 9, 2021 By Brian Leave a Comment

This is a delicious and healthy tea, based on the spiced chai that Yogi Bhajan encouraged his students to drink. It has excellent detox and anti-inflammatory properties, and is refreshing and reinvigorating, served hot or cold.

Ingredients:
15 whole cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
20 black peppercorns
20 green cardamom pods, cracked with the flat side of a knife
a 3 inch length of fresh ginger (or two) cubed
2 black tea bags
2 quarts filtered water

Bring the water to a boil and toss in the cloves while you gather and prepare the other ingredients. There’s no need to peel the ginger, just chop it up into little chunks about the size of dice or smaller. The more ginger you add, the spicier the concoction will be.

Add all of the ingredients except the tea bags, and simmer, covered, for thirty minutes. Remove from heat and add the tea bags (which are optional).

Let this steep, covered, for about six hours, then strain through a wire mesh. It will keep nicely in the refrigerator for a couple weeks. To serve, I like to cut it with water (about half and half) for serving cold, or with (about 1/3) oat milk if warming it up. You can add raw sugar, honey, or whatever other sweetener you would like.

When I quit drinking alcohol, this beverage became my daily choice for “cocktail hour” at the end of the work day. It’s a healthy alternative to frothy coffee drinks, or heavily caffeinated teas. It’s good for digestion, and helps to bring balance to the nervous system as well. At least that has been my experience.

Let me know what you think if you try it!

Chili Con Tres Frijoles

November 9, 2021 By Brian Leave a Comment

I found this recipe somewhere online years ago, and it’s become one of our very favorites. We still eat some dairy in our household, so as pictured here it’s not a vegan dish, but you could certainly use plant based cheese crumbles and cashew nut sour cream (or just leave those toppings off altogether) if you wish to forego the dairy.

Ingredients:
2 coarsely chopped large onions
several cloves minced garlic
vegetable oil

2 15oz cans dark red kidney beans
1 15oz can black beans
1 15oz can pinto beans
2 28 oz cans diced tomatoes
1 large green pepper, coarsely chopped
1 cup picante sauce
2 T unsweetened cocoa
1 package chili seasoning (we use the ones from Aldi)
1 can beer
a couple of dried Cayennes, or some red pepper flakes
kosher salt
ground black pepper
liquid smoke seasoning
1/2 cup old fashioned oats

Start by cooking the onions and garlic in oil, with a little salt and pepper. Deglaze the pan with a little beer, and put it all in a slow cooker with all of the other ingredients except the oats. I drain the pinto beans and one of the cans of red beans, but usually add the liquid from the rest.

After it cooks for three or four hours, check for seasoning and doneness and adjust as needed. I will sometimes move the setting on the cooker to low if it’s roiling too vigorously. Sometimes I’ll add Crystal or Tabasco sauce to kick up the flavor a little if it needs it. You could also include Habanero peppers or whatever else you would like instead of the Cayennes if you prefer.

About half an hour or so before you’re ready to serve, stir in the oats.

We usually serve this over cornbread, with some cheese shreds, cilantro, avocado chunks, sour cream and such for toppings. I like to make a double batch, so we have plenty of leftovers for chili mac, chili cheese fries (or our favorite chili cheeseburgers – we love to use Field Roast veggie burgers for that).

The longer this chili cooks, the better it seems to taste. Rich, savory, hearty and healthy, we actually find it tastier and more satisfying than the greasy ground beef variety. Long before I became a more conscious eater, this was my favorite chili. I prepare it several times a year, and we always look forward to it whenever “chili weekend” rolls around.

What to Expect from Meditation (and How it Works)

October 26, 2021 By Brian

Meditation, at least the way I practice it, is a simple proposition. We try to sit upright and still, and we bring our attention to the breath and mantra. When our attention wanders off, we do our best to notice, and to bring it back to breath and to mantra. That is all.

It seems odd that such a simple practice can offer such incredible benefits, physiologically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually – but research shows that it does.

Based on my own experience and study on the matter, here’s how I think meditation works, and the stages that we progress through as we become more experienced meditators.

Frustration and Perseverance

Early on, it is often a struggle to keep our attention where it is placed, or even to notice when it wanders off. We spend most of our time during practice with our thoughts wandering here and there, and may come to the end of the session feeling frustrated (and even ashamed). Our minds seem unruly, and turbulent, and we may wonder if we are wasting our time.

Fortunately, even during this early stage, there are significant benefits to the daily practice, and as we glimpse even brief small moments of stillness and clarity, we begin to sense that the pursuit may be worthwhile if we can just stick with it.

Learning to Pay Attention

Eventually, if we practice every day for awhile (and it doesn’t take hours every day, only twenty minutes a day or maybe twenty minutes twice a day) we begin to find it a little easier to notice when our mind goes off track. At this stage we still wander off quite a bit, but we “catch ourselves” more often and more quickly. We wander off. We come back. We wander off, we come back. Believe it or not, this is significant progress. We may find ourselves feeling even more frustrated at times, but that is only because we have learned how to better pay attention.

At some point (it may take weeks, or months, or even years, so hang in there) it begins to get easier to stay on track for a larger portion of the time we spend in practice. Most of the time we notice pretty quickly when our mind begins to wander, and we begin to learn how it feels to stay with breath and mantra for several minutes at a time. This stage of practice opens the gate to a truly amazing, exponentially powerful stage.

The Space Between: Truth and Joy in the Great Ocean of Consciousness

Once we are able, more and more of the time, to keep our attention on breath and mantra, we begin to experience the moments between the breaths, between the mantras, in a new way. It is difficult to describe, because what we experience is a profound sense of stillness, or emptiness, or perhaps nothingness. Our mind collapses into a quiet place where we are not experiencing thoughts, we are not experiencing emotions, we are not experiencing sensory information. We are experiencing only the sense that we are awake, alert, and alive as part of what Tony Nader calls “one unbounded ocean of consciousness.”

Such moments may be fleeting, but when we drop into them even briefly, they are moments filled with truth, beauty, wholeness and great joy. We begin to understand, in a direct firsthand way, that the consciousness at the core of our being is an expression of the source of everything that exists. We are not our bodies. We are not our thoughts. We are not our feelings. We are light. We are love. We are eternal. All is well.

It should be noted that this experience is not something reserved for hermits or nuns or monks or gurus or lamas or other spiritual masters. It is a fairly common experience reported by legions of ordinary household folks who develop the habit of meditating daily.

Real Liberation

As amazing an experience as that may be, there is yet more. If we continue to practice each day, we begin to notice moments throughout the day apart from practice when we drop into something akin to that same stillness. We may find ourselves in a tense situation where we would normally display a knee-jerk tendency toward anger or lashing out, and realize that we don’t want to feel that way, and don’t want to act that way. It begins to seem that we actually have a choice. The spaces between stimulus and response expand, and we begin, at least some of the time, to enjoy real freedom. We are liberated to behave as we would truly wish to behave. We are at last free to be our very best selves.

These moments may be rare at first, as well, but with continued practice, day in, day out, they too become more common. We begin to spend less time in negative states of mind, and more time as a living presence of peace and lovingkindness.

The great masters tell us (and demonstrate) that eventually, after a lifetime (or perhaps many lifetimes) of practice, we can rest in that space filled with light and love during each and every moment of the day, without regard to what may be going on in the world around us, without regard to whether life offers hardship or ease. We can live a life filled with that truth, beauty, wholeness, and joy – and compassion toward all beings – come what may.

Wouldn’t that be something?

What I’m Reading: Dr. Tony Nader

October 4, 2021 By Brian

Dr. Tony Nader is a Medical Doctor (he has an M.D. in internal medicine and psychiatry and also a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the field of Brain and Cognitive Science). He was a Harvard Medical School Fellow at Massachusetts General teaching hospital.

In his book One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness, he challenges the assumption that human consciousness is merely a function of biology, that our thoughts and emotions are nothing more than the consequences of physiological processes. He has come to believe that consciousness did not arise from the evolution of life on our planet, as is often implicit in any discussion of the subject – but that it is the cause of that life, and, in fact, the cause and essence of everything that exists.

This idea is startling enough, but Nader goes on to make the case that in meditation, we can experience this field of consciousness directly, and, further, that this experience can help us to lead fuller, happier, more productive and more peaceful lives.

I have experienced for myself fleeting moments of the sort of light and clarity that he describes, and was tempted toward some of these same conclusions, but had only an intuitive sense of the truth to lean on. With a precise and detailed analysis based both on science and on the wisdom of the ages, this book is an affirmation that I’m on the right track, and it offers an opportunity to learn more. For those who have yet to explore these vistas of consciousness, or for those who still hold to a strictly materialistic view of our lives and our universe, I would highly recommend this well reasoned and compelling book.