{"id":531,"date":"2009-04-09T16:50:31","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T16:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html"},"modified":"2009-04-09T16:50:31","modified_gmt":"2009-04-09T16:50:31","slug":"hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html","title":{"rendered":"Hardcore Dharma: The 12 Nidanas"},"content":{"rendered":"

TF, good little yupster\/slave to her body that she is, needs her yoga.\u00a0 TF was sick and busy and wasn\u2019t able to get to yoga for about a week and a half, (which, since TF prefers to go 3 to 4 times a week (TF needs her yoga) is a super long time).\u00a0 So TF was thrilled from the point of her head to the tips of her toes that her health and schedule allowed her to attend a Tuesday night class at her neighborhood spot, Greenhouse Holistic, a great place not only because of its two Williamsburg locations and fairly solid roster of teachers, but also because of their best-in-the-city-unlimited-classes-for-75-dollars-a-month deal and no mat rental prices.\u00a0 (Sidebar:\u00a0 Those mat rental prices really kill me.\u00a0 It\u2019s like eating at a restaurant and getting charged for the cutlery.\u00a0 That\u2019s right every single Manhattan yoga studio: I\u2019m talking to you).
\n
\nI\u2019d had a normal day at work, and therefore as I settled onto my completely free mat I felt low-brained, glassy-eyed and shifty with inertia.\u00a0\u00a0 I was eager to push back into downward dog, spin my heart-center to the ceiling in ardha chandrasana, cartwheel my hands into Warrior II, breathe fire in uttkatasana.\u00a0 What I mean is – Momma was ready to move.
\nSo perhaps I reacted more uncharitably (mentally, I did nothing externally other than close my eyes) than I should have when the substitute teacher, during her long opening statement said, \u201cthe people who lost their jobs during this recession \u2013 that\u2019s their karma.\u201d\u00a0 Addressing the unskillful representations of Buddhist concepts (and the common misunderstanding that Yoga and Buddhism are the same) that happen in yogercize classes is worth a whole big post of its own.\u00a0 But, I’ll leave that for another time.\u00a0 The fact \u00a0is, misinterpretations of karma are commoner than advertising\u00a0and karma\u00a0is the\u00a0focus of this spring semester\u00a0of Intermediate Hardcore Dharma.\u00a0\u00a0 We began last\u00a0Saturday with a discussion of the 12 Nidanas.
\nTo paraphrase Wikkipedia (would that be a metaparaphrase?) the 12 Nidanas are the \u201cconditioned causal connections of each state that supports the next in the cycle of our lives as we suffer through Samsara.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 (Additional sidebar: Do you think Buddhists would ever be able to explain anything if they removed the words \u2018causal\u2019, \u2018conditioned\u2019, and \u2018origination\u2019 from their vocabularies?)\u00a0 In class we started with the Nidanas of the past: Ignorance (Avidya) leading to Volitional Actions or mental formations (Samskara) that then lead to our present state: conciousness (Vijnana).\u00a0
\nI think this means that back in the day we started separating ourselves from spaciousness by putting our own separate spin on the present moment, by thinking of reality as \u2018my continuous and solid reality\u2019 and this led to us developing mind patterns so that now we get all hot and bothered when our mother over-pronounces the \u2018d\u2019 in the word sandwich.
\nWhat I\u2019m currently turned on by about these Nidana\u2019s is the idea that they\u2019re a description, not a direction.\u00a0 They\u2019re not saying \u201cdon\u2019t separate yourself from reality\u201d or \u201cdon\u2019t develop habits,\u201d – rather they\u2019re saying that this state is where we live.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing to do, our present consciousness is build by the mortar and brick of ignorance and habit energy.\u00a0 I like Reggie Ray\u2019s example that when we walk into an ice cream store, it is simply an illusion that we have choice about what kind of ice cream we are going to get.\u00a0 Our choice is actually completely dictated<\/span>\u00a0utterly informed by the infinite galaxy of our past.
\nIt could seem like a bummer, but I also tend to think that understanding that we are completely subject to our exhaustively incomprehensible history of causes and effects is liberating.\u00a0 But then again that\u2019s just my completely dependent consciousness talking.\u00a0 How do you interpret these first three steps\/links of the Nidana 12?
\nAlso a disclaimer\/question:\u00a0 I, unfortunately, am not going to be attending the Intermediate Hardcore Dharma sessions in person this semester (although I was there for the first class before I realized I was crazy).\u00a0 I will be listening to the audio, following along in the reading and continuing to post HC Dharma inspired posts, however.\u00a0 Is this fraudulent?\u00a0 Let me know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TF, good little yupster\/slave to her body that she is, needs her yoga.\u00a0 TF was sick and busy and wasn\u2019t able to get to yoga for about a week and a half, (which, since TF prefers to go 3 to 4 times a week (TF needs her yoga) is a super long time).\u00a0 So TF…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"\nHardcore Dharma: The 12 Nidanas - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hardcore Dharma: The 12 Nidanas - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"TF, good little yupster\/slave to her body that she is, needs her yoga.\u00a0 TF was sick and busy and wasn\u2019t able to get to yoga for about a week and a half, (which, since TF prefers to go 3 to 4 times a week (TF needs her yoga) is a super long time).\u00a0 So TF…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-09T16:50:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Julia May Jonas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hardcore Dharma: The 12 Nidanas - One City","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hardcore Dharma: The 12 Nidanas - One City","og_description":"TF, good little yupster\/slave to her body that she is, needs her yoga.\u00a0 TF was sick and busy and wasn\u2019t able to get to yoga for about a week and a half, (which, since TF prefers to go 3 to 4 times a week (TF needs her yoga) is a super long time).\u00a0 So TF…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html","og_site_name":"One City","article_published_time":"2009-04-09T16:50:31+00:00","author":"Julia May Jonas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html","name":"Hardcore Dharma: The 12 Nidanas - One City","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-04-09T16:50:31+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-09T16:50:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/7f24a73cd2ce9fe635a7cf8c04033177"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/04\/hardcore-dharma-the-12-nidanas.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hardcore Dharma: The 12 Nidanas"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/","name":"One City","description":"The Interdependence Project","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/7f24a73cd2ce9fe635a7cf8c04033177","name":"Julia May Jonas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/375\/375c23324f312a347b8095c58e578883x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/375\/375c23324f312a347b8095c58e578883x96.jpg","caption":"Julia May Jonas"},"description":"Julia May Jonas writes, directs and performs throughout New York City and the world wide web under the auspices of her company, Nellie Tinder. Nellie Tinder is Art. Appropriate & Instructive.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/jjonas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}