Spirituality is kind of banal... and TNH on knots

It's funny, almost no matter what hobby or passion you have you will find that someone has written an article of how [insert your passion or hobby here] is spiritual. Usually these kind of articles, books and blog entries flourish when said hobby or passion is trendy. I remember seeing articles on golf being spiritual and all the reasons it was like meditation, as well as fishing, knitting, washing dishes and other extreme sports... Another rash of more recent articles have been written on spirituality and surfing. How it is about being one with nature, putting your ego aside, operating in the present, being in the here and now, et cetera et cetera. Soon maybe we will see articles that suggest that spirituality is like... spirituality : )

Some of these articles are stretching it a bit but I guess the point is that spirituality can show up anywhere you look for it. As Nisargadatta Maharaj said (or said something like) you won't find what you are looking for by digging shallow holes all over the place; instead pick a spot, any spot, and dig deep.

Still and always reading Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh (I'm taking peace slowly in small steps : ))...

A great chapter in this little book, which strangely enough seems a lot bigger than it actually is (which is probably a good sign, although I am not sure of what), is called "Internal Formations" (page 64 in my paperback version). In it he speaks about the formation of "knots". Basically, every trauma, no matter how big or little can create a knot. If you are insulted, or feel slighted or hurt, or embarassed by someone's behavior ... (you get the point) he suggests that this creates a small knot. By not being aware of the knot, by not immediately working to untie it, it becomes tighter and tighter until it can become impossible to untie. The idea being, for couples especially but also for friends and in working relationships to 1/be aware of the formation of the knot and 2/work to untie it sooner rather than later. This can be done by talking about it with the person in question or through meditation.

In his words, "the absence of clear understanding is the basis for every knot." The knots need "our full attention as soon as they form, while they are still weak, so that the work of transformation is easy."

The work of 'knot awareness' (my phrase not his) means being aware of small knots that form. Some clues to this can be found by pursuing the following questions (or similar questions):

• why did I feel uncomfortable when I heard him say ...?
• why did I say ... to him?
• why didn't I like that character in the movie?
• why do I always think of ... when I meet ...?

Obviously, I guess, although TNH does not mention this specifically, the objective is to attain some form of spiritual progress in which you stop making knots or, maybe, in which you tease those two little strings apart before they actually get intertwined. Personally, I have had the feeling that the truly spiritual are not only impervious to insults (i.e. masters of knot avoidance) but are also indifferent to compliments (step 2 in spiritual mastery?) as the ego knows what it is worth (or not) by then... Tout un programme (~quite the program) as the French would say...

This idea of knot formation reminds me a lot of bioenergetics and somatics (among others), i.e. disciplines of psychotherapy that believe in the body-mind connection in the sense that the body harbors all of our 'emotional traumas' real and imagined in the body, like a squirrel gathering acorns. These emotional hurts go somewhere, can build up into real blockages and until they are released (worked on) it affects both the body and the mind. But that is well beyond the scope of this little blog, so I will end on that aside.

Have a wonderful weekend.