SuZen YinZen

Sunday Spirituality | . sublimity . Voice of Suzen zen poetry

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To be

seen

uplifts you

To be

remembered

and

validated

as important

builds

a new

structure

within you

Your

being

nature

grows

To be

told

that

Existence

herself

needs you,

to be

told

that

life

itself

sees you

and

considers

you

important

To be

told,

and

honoured

as,

the centre

existence

sublime

Zen

sublime

healing.

– – – – –

To be

told

that

you

are

a buddha

immeasurable

The

sublimity

zen’s

healing

immeasurable

– – – – –

You

are

your

own buddha

suzen

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Friday Tea-time . . . the zen destressing art and our teas | Rooibos or Red Bush

It’s Friday again – it’s tea time and time to take time out for our tea-way ritual. This week the focus is on Red Bush, the African herbal tea known as Rooibos, a herbal tea that de-stresses due to its caffeine-free nature: this gives it a tradition of being a base for other herbal teas: as it’s a bush it has an earthy connection low-down with the earth, and I think the red bush’s “red” in its energy connects us at our root chakra, giving us a culture of connectedness with Planet and Nature.

African Red Bush, Rooibos Herbal Tea

Rooibos tea is an herbal tea that comes from the leaves of the red bush plant. This plant grows exclusively in the Cederberg Mountains of South Africa. Rooibos tea is naturally caffeine-free, making it a great choice for a base tea in herbal blends.

Types and Characteristics

There are actually two types of Rooibos tea: green as well as red. Red Rooibos tea is considered the original variety and is lighter in flavor compared to green blends. Red Rooibos tea offers an earthy flavor similar to Yerba Mate with floral hints that are reminiscent of Hibiscus Tea.

Green Rooibos tea is rarer and slightly more expensive than Red Rooibos, with its taste being more similar to Green Tea and features delightful notes of grass: it is more malty than Red Rooibos.

Health Benefits

Rooibos tea (pronounced ROY-boss) is less well known than its green, black and oolong alternatives, but it has excellent health benefits and a delicate flavor that is sweet and aromatic. Rooibos tea contains antioxidants, enzymes, and chemical compounds that help skin look youthful, reduce inflammation that causes pain, and prevent serious illness.

Rooibos tea, also known as red tea, is unique in that it is grown mainly on the African continent and contains polyphenols such as aspalathin that are not found in any other foods. With powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, drinking a cuppa rooibos tea every day can help you stay healthy.

Health benefits of Red Bush tea are in its powerful ingredients: Rooibos tea contains vital minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and alpha hydroxyl acid. As with most true teas and herbal teas, it also contains high levels of vitamin C along with powerful antioxidants such as aspalathin that offer extensive health benefits. Rooibos tea contains polyphenols that help to fight free radicals, keeping your body healthy and ready to tackle the day: and giving it the power to aid weight loss, help skin health, alleviate pain [from inflammation] and . . . give relief from allergies!

As usual, I encourage you to inform yourself and if you’re instinctively drawn to a tea like Red Bush, Rooibos tea for your mind-body-spirit then gen up as much as you can with self-education. Learn more about our Zen Tea-way in my blog.

Enjoy! suzen

With Gratitude to Cup and Leaf: we’ve partnered up with these lovely people – and when you buy your teas from them, we get a little bit of commission which helps to support the zen.vegan.thrive Newspaper every week! Check out their own amazing Tea Bundles in their shop.

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zen of tomorrow . . . the culture, or “the Way”

If the global consciousness is going to make a leap shortly, we as teachers are here to say you will be making quantum leaps forward in your own consciousness and we are also here to say: “ . . . cope with it by doing this and this and this . . . “

This blog is part of my continual teaching on the roots of Zen and Yoga: both growing from the same source of ancient teachings in India: Tantra – and part of my initiating you into an understanding of how zen has always changed with the culture, because culture changes zen. “Culture” is Dharma, or the Way . . . it is both what culture needs of us, and what uncovering our true selves brings to the Way.

At a time when the world seems to be at a loss, rejecting past values
without being able to establish new ones, Yoga is the most valuable
inheritance of the present. It is the essential need of today…..and
the culture of tomorrow…..

Swami Satyananda

We can each one of us only ever be of the generation we’re born into. The culture of tomorrow in our world will be experienced by each generation differently. For myself, I see this experience of tomorrow in helping shaping the new culture, the new values. Practice for many years has proved to me and other teachers, that the values of practice, time and dedication work for us very beneficially.

Lao Tzu said: “I have only 3 things to teach: simplicity, patience and compassion – and with these 3 you can go a long way.” As a teacher, I think I too have only 3 things to teach: meditate, exercise the body-mind, live simply.

My own appreciation of the qualities of my own generation and the teacher I’ve become as a result, has brought me to conclude that a quantum leap in our consciousness as human beings is probably more imminent than we think; and it will change our thinking entirely. However, the generation that will change this world vastly for the future will not be mine, nor the parents of the present, but the children. Only they have the minds that are capable of evolving to be able to think of new solutions for our future.

Personally, I’m shaping my values for the culture of tomorrow by believing that I’m here as a teacher to teach the children well, and to teach their parents and assorted grown-ups in awareness to guide them. And of course, as ever, here for the new wave of aspirants and hungry seekers of consciousness.

I hope the following will uplift and inspire you on your path:

When asked by Alan Watts what his Yoga was, Joseph Campbell replied: “My Yoga is underlining sentences in books!”

Sheldon Kopp: “We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge of life . . . but every so often it all seems so worth it.”

I like this from one of the astrologers I’ve followed since the ’80’s, Jonathan Cainer: “ ‘The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not live for itself; it gives life to others as it transforms.’ So said philosopher Lao Tzu, who lived a long time ago by our standards. But by the standards of the Universe, he was here just a moment ago. Time takes on a very different meaning if we stop to think about our existence in relationship with the Universe as a whole. So does hope. And happiness. “

I’m precis-ing Deepak Chopra here: . . . countless generations have cared deeply for the future of the world that you now experience, and it’s now up to us in turn to care for the future of humanity.

And, Dainin Katagiri says: “Zazen is to realise exactly who you are. This is all you have to do. You will know true peace and tranquillity. This helps not just you but others as well. Just experience zazen as perfect harmony – harmony that must be shared with all beings.”

And finally, the Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he replied: “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Oh God

I have discovered love!

How marvelous, how good, how beautiful it is! . . .

I offer my salutation

To the spirit of passion that aroused and excited this whole universe

And all it contains.

Rumi

Susan’s note: Sources: Swami Satyananda Saraswati: Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha; Sheldon B. Kopp: If you meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!; C. Alexander and Annellen Simpkins: Simple Zen; Dainin Katagiri: You have to Say Something; Deepak Chopra: How to Know God.

My teaching, writing, and Spoken Word anthems as the artist SuZen, is about dedication to practice of Zen, Meditation and Yoga: it stands for spirituality, understanding, Zen, energy and nutrition through practices.

“As founder of SuZenYoga, I’m delighted to be your teacher and guide during these exciting times in human existence: a time when we are so close to a new dawn of re-balancing our world – and I aim to teach simply and with inspiration and hope. Practice may not be easy, but it’s the only Way for some of us.”

Meet The Teacher | Susan Ni Rahilly | SuZen

Wednesday Wisdoms | Voice of Men | wisdoms . . . for our growth: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

I left the Wednesday slot on the Blog free purposefully, intuitively wanting to know what would “flow in”. Wisdom is what seems to want to flow . . . but maybe not every Wednesday, so maybe there’ll be a blog or post of some kind, and maybe not. As long as the inspiration keeps coming, I’ll keep going with it. What we’re flowing with by way of inspiration is a new way of distilling wisdom and passing it onto you . . . “Voice of Men”.

Today: Gil Scott-Heron. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised [1971] : inspired me with the incredible power of people to choose poetry over patriarchy – when I really needed that injection of revolutionary energy.

Wisdom inspiration for your day : The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Gil Scott-Heron

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“Gil Scott-Heron released poems as songs, recorded songs that were based on his earliest poems and writings, wrote novels and became a hero to many for his music, activism and his anger. There is always the anger – an often beautiful, passionate anger. An often awkward anger. A very soulful anger. And often it is a very sad anger. But it is the pervasive mood, theme and feeling within his work – and around his work, hovering, piercing, occasionally weighing down; often lifting the work up, helping to place it in your face. And for all the preaching and warning signs in his work, the last two decades of Gil Scott-Heron’s life to date have seen him succumb to the pressures and demons he has so often warned others about.”

– Fairfax New Zealand, [Stuff Limited] February 2010

And here’s Gil Scott-Heron talking about what the lyrics meant: you can’t change anything until someone has changed in their mind:

[ Wikipedia: Gil Scott-Heron]

[Image: New York City artist Chico painted this commemorative on the side of a building]

Balance is what happens when you know in your heart something is right.

Enjoy! suzen

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Tuesday Teachings – thrive | Rest and Relaxation #1 : this teaching never changes!

When you think “thrive”, think of all the seemingly small, but necessary daily elements of life as the miraculous organ you are as a human being. At our essence we are a living organism, on a living Planet, in a living Universe. So, I’ve been teaching this for over 20 years : the teaching never changes, results of practice are always the same . . .

All we are on a physical level as a human being is air, water and food. And physically, our body’s 10-13 trillion cells replace themselves every 100 days [just over 3 months]. How about that for a “slow flow”? And what does rest and relaxation do for our organism?

I’m a teacher, so repeating myself goes with the job! Small steps, small changes . . . one day at a time: in 100 days from now you’ll be a new you! I’ve said this to you before, I’m sure there’ll be many tellings again. And, so, let’s talk about repetition and commitment as well as practicalities and practices: we could take the attitude of “What’s the point in showering we’re only going to get dirty again?” or “Why bother washing up when we’re only going have to redo it when we reuse the dishes.” Come to think of it, what’s the point in eating, when we’ll be hungry in a few hours time?

And of course, sleeping’s unnecessary, too . . . we just always end up feeling tired again, don’t we? I don’t think I need to say anymore, do I? Some things in life just need to be repeated: and diligently. A single change doesn’t always effect a permanent transformation. But taking things one step at a time in your day eventually leads to trillions of new cells of “you-ness”. Proper Relaxation is one of the yogic principles for health and a healthy life: the way we thrive.

Here’s the Story:

32 years ago I bought an expensive leg cream – one of the really good quality, big name French manufacturers. I read the leaflet about using the cream, massaging it in, how often to do it etc. I was totally surprised to read that the instructions told me that if I was on a reducing diet and toning up programme (I was) I should get plenty of rest.

Rest? To get rid of my thighs?

This was revolutionary news to me. And I wrote about it in my first published book – a feminist approach to the body-issue of Cellulite which plagues so many women, because it is symptomatic of body imbalance. I wrote it in the winter of 1998/99 and published in Ireland summer of 1999: Don’t Howl for the Moon | Susan Ni Rahilly

I was used to meditating, doing relaxation for visualization – but putting my feet up? I couldn’t figure out the reason for lying around doing nothing – surely that would pile the inches on?

Well, I’ve come a long way since then – and thankfully my awareness about my body has come a long way too. (And generally an overall raising in women’s knowledge about our health and bodies and lifestyles, thankfully.)

So, this is what I found out and what I know now and what I’m passing on to you about Rest and Relaxation.

As simply as I can possibly say it, Rest and Relaxation are needed for 2 very important reasons.

Firstly, when your body is doing it’s job of clearing out old rubbish, it is working hard. If you don’t rest enough while this is going on, you are putting your body under tremendous strain and expecting it to do too much at once – using what little energy you will have at this time both to keep your body going in activity and to clear out. It’s like expecting your washing machine to wash and spin at the same time – two different jobs, 2 different energies.

Secondly, and very importantly, you need to rest so that your body can use its energy for cell renewal. And where this is concerned, time is the great healer especially as we get older when the rate of cell renewal slows down. So we need to give our body the best chance to make new cells, to rejuvenate itself.

Along with rest and relaxation comes rejuvenation: You get new, young, healthy cells to replace damaged, toxic, fat-laden old cells. Does that sound like a good enough reason to rest?

Golden Rules for the “Golden-ness” of zen

Some of the golden rules for relaxation and rest are:

Don’t use anything stimulating late in the day – caffeine, tobacco, loud music, horror films.
Make your bedroom restful – take the TV and devices out so you’re not watching upsetting world news late at night or catching up on your social media.
Make your environment peaceful, with mood lighting, candles, burning oil and incense, restful colours, soothing music.
Build relaxing herb teas, warm baths and soothing massage oils into your routine.
Give yourself space to relax.

I actually never thought I would need to still be teaching this 20 years later . . . but, we never stop learning. And as zen says, “expect the unexpected” . . . Learn about relaxation. And yes, it is something some of us have to learn. I did.

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Enjoy! suzen

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