Wholistic Fitness

Puggy One (left) and Puggy Two… One year ago, i ushered my dying father into the Bardo…pic by Ananda, Red River, NM, 2009

though yogis are not trained to Attachment of Gregorian Calendar days,  May 23rd will forever remain etched my feeble mind.  more sooner to forget my own birthday than i will the date of my Father’s Bardo Entry…  a year ago,  i sat in padmasana for several hours,  my Mala a whir in the sterile, machine-and-tubed canopy hung over my dying dad like a high-tech monster from the movies the kids watch these days.  i was flying through consecutively linked Bardo Entry mantras and prayers on spiritual behalf for my father’s entry into the Bardo Realm…a Realm which makes all of us – you, me, the criminal, the politician, the elder, the toddler, the Democrat, the Republican, the pot smoker, the lawyer, the star athlete, the homeless person – brothers and sisters.    for we will all – no matter how fit, how rich, how educated – we are or are not…we will all bec(om)e brother and sister again as we must share one c(om)mon condition of our presently wild, turbulent, absurdly precious incarnation:  it’s the m(om)ent when you and i will be unable to take that next inhale….

“…without too much Attachment

or too much Aversion…”

those treasured words which i – and my local yogis – recite each time before we begin our yoga Practice during our Opening Prayer (the most Ancient Prayer of the Dhyani Buddha’s) are monuments within my mind…

“…without too much Attachment

or too much Aversion…”

how do i let go of a man – my father – who so subtly supported my every need, who opened unseen doors for me, and allowed the very breath of my spiritual and physical life to take root even if that support, openness, and breadth was graced to me through unconscious parameters?

“…without too much Attachment

or too much Aversion…”

they say a man dies, yet the yogis know the Soul – the Atman – lives on…
if you’ve followed this blog,  you’ll know quite well the Auspiciousness of my father’s passing made manifest through the SwallowTail Butterfly vehicle…and then you may recall earlier this week, a picture of Dewachen holding a SwallowTail Butterfly (Puggy) which allowed Itself to be caught by his grand-daughter, Dewa.  as fate would have it,  the poor SwallowTail Butterfly’s wings were ripped and torn from a combination of our kitten, Trevor and of Dewa’s loving infatuation with all creatures great and small.   recognizing that this ButterFly was an emanation of my father’s Atman, and knowing by Direct Experience the non-conditional dance of Lila, Karma, and Samskaric reverberations…i prayed to the poor ButterFly as i did one year ago for my dying father’s Soul…Dewa put my Dad/Butterfly Being into a cardboard box filled with grasses, rock pieces, and chicken scratch presumably to provide a nifty living space for the crucified Butterfly…i recall giving up on the poor thing as it quivered the remnants of his once beautiful, majestic crayola wings…

“oh well,” i thought to myself, “at least Dewa will have a valuable learning experience in impermanence…” as i walked away from the box.   before leaving the box-surely-turned-coffin, i whispered the Tribal Mantra into the Butterfly Being as i all-Ways do for any passing Animal Being.  the Masters say, “if a sincere yogi so much as whispers the Blessed Mantra to an Animal Being,  that Animal Being shall take a Human Incarnation in its next life.”

“Om Mani Padme Hung…Puggy One!” i whispered to the horribly torn-apart once-Butterfly Being as i carefully set the coffin box where no cat nor chi-ld could harm him.  he couldn’t fly…so i turned my attention back to the 10,000 Things of life…

when i returned to put the surely dead Butterfly into the chicken coop for at least a tasty morsel for our Chicken Beings…

Puggy One – the Butterfly Being – had once again…s(om)ehow
taken Flight…

“…without too much Attachment

or too much Aversion…”

Blessed be your Practice
and prepare wisely for (y)our Bardo Entry…
what else is more important?

head bowed,

ec