Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha"

I love allegories and symbols and there are plenty of them to be found in Hesses' books. Of the ones I read by this author, Siddhartha is my favourite.

The beginning of Hesse's story is similar to the legend of Buddha, but without any suggestion that  Siddhartha is of godly descent or even royal. He is a brahman's son, growing up in a comfortable home, taught by learned brahmans. He is a very gifted pupil, but the truth he is seeking is not to be found in the teachings of the brahmans. So Siddhartha decides to leave his father's house and become an itinerant ascetic. He spends the next few years learning concentration and meditation, practising self-denial, learning to conquer pain, hunger, thirst and fatigue - all in an effort to transcend his ego and discover the innermost part of his being, that reflection of the divine, the ultimate reality.

These many years of asceticism have not brought Siddhartha any closer to the the truth he seeks. (This is the point where the story departs from the legend altogether and Hesse's originality begins to shine). As Siddhartha realises asceticism is not the path, he hears rumours about Gautama the Sublime, the Buddha. He leaves the ascetics and goes to meet the Buddha and hear his teachings.

Seeing and listening to the Buddha convinces Siddhartha that “this man was filled with truth down to the least movement of his smallest finger”. Yet Siddhartha resolves that he will not become Buddha's disciple. Having met the wisest teacher, having heard the best possible doctrine, he realises wisdom cannot be taught. The only way to find wisdom is through his own experience, following his own path. A path which he begins to shape as he understands that his past attempts to destroy his self through asceticism and self-mortification were a futile effort, a self-deceit. Instead, from that day on, he would seek to know himself. "No longer shall I mortify and dismember myself in order to find a mystery behind the ruins." Equally, he will stop treating reality as an illusion, "the veil of Maya". The essence is not separate from the world around us, hidden behind things, but manifest in every thing.

His new path takes him further and further away from yoga and any form of self-discipline. He even seems to have forgotten his spiritual journey. As the brahman and the yogi fade away, so does the arrogance that shadowed these identities. As Siddhartha's weaknesses become apparent, so does his humanity - that which he has in common with all other human beings. The wisdom that has eluded the gifted pupil of both the brahmans and the ascetics, finally begins to dawn on him. Very slowly, his years of youth behind him, Siddhartha eventually becomes a sage - someone who has found contentment, who is at peace with the world and with himself.

My Latest Cooking Experiment - Vegan Aubergine Pasta

I do enjoy my dairy and eggs, and even the very occasional fish and chicken, but I also like to eat vegan foods only for a week or two at a time. It makes me more alert and boosts my energy levels.

This is a vegan recipe I tried recently. The aubergines make it quite meaty and filling. 

Ingredients - Serves 2

200 g pasta
1 small courgette
1 onion
2 celery sticks
1 small aubergine or 1/2 of a large one
3 heaped spoonfuls of frozen petits poids
4 spoons of olive oil
3-4 spoonfuls of tomato passata
1-2 tomatoes
salt
fresh parsley or thyme to season

Method

 

Slice the onion and celery sticks and boil them for 3-5 minutes. Top up the water in the saucepan, bring to boil again, then add the pasta and chopped courgette.

Gently heat 4 spoonfuls of olive oil in a non-stick pan and add the chopped aubergine. Cover with a lid and cook for a few minutes till the aubergines start to golden, then add two spoonfuls of water and continue cooking with the lid on, till the aubergines have softened throughout.

Defrost the petits poids in a cupful of hot water.

Drain the pasta, add the petits poids, the aubergines, the tomato passata and chopped tomatos. Add the herbs and salt to taste.

It is nice eaten warm, but it works well as a cold pasta salad too – not bad at all for the lunch box.



Garden Guests

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Build it and they will come.
This has certainly been true for our solitary bee hotel. It went up in spring and it's proven very popular. The first kind of bees to visit it were mason bees - a species I hadn't even known existed. They seal their holes with earth – hence their name. I counted eleven holes already sealed up and yet more are being colonised. I looked up mason bee and found out that the female lays one egg at a time, deposits pollen and nectar with it, then seals up the cavity. Then lays another egg and repeats the process till the hole is filled up. The young bees will emerge next spring - the next generation pollinators for our apple trees!



 

Today's Indulgence - A Bit of Sliding on the Rainbow

“Sometimes it's important
to work for that pot of gold.
But other times
it's essential
to take time off
and to make sure
that your most important decision in the day
simply consists of choosing which color to slide down
on the rainbow.”
Douglas Pagels

A Peek at Taoist Breathing Practices

I find it interesting and sometimes useful to look at disciplines similar to yoga, like chi gung and tai chi. I have recently read through “Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body” by Bruce Frantzis, a Western Taoist master who spent over a decade training In China. His book does a great job of explaining Taiosm to the Western reader.

In the “Breath and Chi” chapter I found a set of exercises for increasing the efficiency of your breathing. What I like about this technique is that it works directly on the normal, day-to day breathing. The aim to increase lung capacity by training the muscles of the abdomen and thorax in order to make the in-breath fuller and the out-breath more complete. The exercise can be practised pretty much anywhere, unlike Pranayama techniques, which you can't really practise in public, at least not without drawing attention to your humming or Darth Vader-like noises.

Here is a very brief summary of the exercises involved. They are practised lying on your back or in a comfortable sitting position.
 
1 . Expanding your abdomen forward
Place both hands on your belly. As you breath in, observe which part of it of it – lower, middle or upper belly – expands the most. Focus on the area (or one of the areas) where there is less movement and try to make it expand as far as the most mobile part of your abdomen. Practise this one exercise till you master it. It could take several weeks – the approach is 'it takes as long as it takes'. Then move on to the next stage:

2. Expanding your abdomen sideways
Place your hands or lightly closed fists on the sides of your abdomen. Notice if your abdomen expands sideways when breathing in. The aim of this exercise is to bring movement into the sides of your abdomen, so that they expand with each in-breath.

3. Breathing into the back of your abdomen (or Breathing into the kidneys)
This is a very important exercise from the Taoist point of view, as the kidneys are considered the source of vitality. It helps to lie on the floor with  your knees bent and the soles of your feet on the ground, at least at the early stages of this exercise. In this  position it will be easier to gain awareness of your back's movement.

4. The complete abdominal breathing
Once you have mastered each of the three exercise above, the next step is to put them all together – on each in-breath, the abdomen expands on all four directions.

5. Breathing into your upper back
Taoist practice does not advocate breathing into the chest – an important difference from what yoga considers to be good breathing. When expanding the thorax on the in-breath, it is therefore the back that expands to accommodate more air. When practising this exercise, the shoulders should be relaxed. Feel the shoulder blades spread away from the spine on each in-breath.

A couple of points to bear in mind during all the exercises:

• In Taoist spirit, the breathing should be a continuous flow (no holding your breath at any point).
• Any strain should be avoided. In fact the author emphasises the 70% rule  - breath at 70% of your capacity throughout these exercises. When breathing into your kidneys even more care should be taken – start at 40-50% capacity and gradually build up to 70%.

There are of course a lot more detailed instructions in the book and they are worth a good read. This book has made me reconsider my idea of complete breathing. I especially like the lower and upper back breathing and I have started incorporating them into my yoga practice.

Breathing Through Bending Poses – A Very Useful Tip

This is gem I picked up from one of my yoga teachers over the years. I've not heard it talked of anywhere else. Even this one teacher mentioned it just once, in passing. I think it is a brilliant idea and it  deservers to be better known and put to use.

I find it useful for developing all bending poses, backwards or forwards, seated or standing. And it is wonderfully simple:

1. Elongate the spine on the in-breath
2. Deepen the bend on the out-breadth

These are a few advantages of this technique:

• It helps me keep my body relaxed and fluid while working though poses.
• It keeps the breathing deep and easy – holding the pose no longer risks to strain the breathing. Instead, the breading becomes a tool for developing the pose.
• It focuses the mind on one point – the breathing, and really helps me fend off  stray thought about work deadlines and everything else I really don't need to think about during my yoga practice.
• I don't need to worry about how far I'm able to bend when I get into a pose. Instead, the initiation of a posture is more about achieving the correct alignment of the body and remembering all those do's and don't. Deepening the pose is something to work on while executing it.

All in all, a very useful simple technique. Have I convinced you yet?

May Blossom

"And the day came

when the risk to remain tight in the bud
was more painful
than the risk it took to blossom."
Anais Nin