Earth Is Your Home &
Home Is Your Body
Welcome!
Earth is your body.
You have eyes to see. Ears to hear. Nose to smell. Mouth to speak. You have feelings, sensations and narratives (those tapes in your head). You have intuition.
As a being on this planet, you are here to work with all these facets of your body's sensorium. These facets of your body (six senses) are reflected in the natural forces that surround you. Nature herself has six senses.
In Japanese Vajrayana Buddhism these six senses of the cosmos are called the Six Elements 六大:
Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space & Consciousness.
Dragons Work is the making conscious of natural forces that constitute both you and the cosmos. At bottom (often imaged as Kundalini energy) you are one and the same. This realization enables vitality and joy through your on-going awareness of connectivity and belonging.
We begin with Earth.
Earth is your body. Earth is your sense of touch - of feeling. How do you feel in your own presence? How shall you inhabit this body?
You are alive and a being on this planet because you have chosen to learn.
So let us begin with Earth; our earth, our body. How shall you live in your body? How shall you live on this planet - with your earth body?
We begin with the cultivation of presence - conscious presence.
Use this free offering to begin to consider your presence on earth and to engage with your own body presence through your being body.
Dragons Work
Earth Element
For now - so long as you are in this body – this is how you encounter world. You feel for yourself and you engage with others through the medium of your body. There is no other way.
Old modalities of thinking/feeling and being have been telling us to overcome our bodies and to use our bodies in ways that reify ourselves - as if our bodies are machines, tools to be used - by others. By ourselves.
Yet our bodies are living beings. Our bodies live us. And more importantly - our bodies, however provisionally, are our homes.
If you are concerned for the planet - your home - start with your body. If you are concerned for your family - start with your body. If you are concerned for your community - start wth your body. For the purposes of realization, your body is constituted by the same forces that constitute the cosmos; Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space, and Consciousness.
Here at Dragons Nest we practice being whole and being vital through the Six Element Family - the natural forces that animate all of existence - yours included.
We may have been told that others know better what to do with our bodies (and our earth) than we do. Yet we can - and must - know this for ourselves.
The great lie is over.
If we treat our own bodies (as well as the bodies of others) with disrespect, anger, suspicion, alienation and hatred – if we are locked into a war with our bodies (overeating, overwork, fear, denial, anxiety, chemicals, additives, pollution, plastics, misplaced expectations) we are also locked into a war with our planet (agri-business, plundering resources, climate change, denial, deforestation, water supply, plastics, pollution).
Our bodies find their home on earth. Earth is our body, and our body is also my home.
My body/my home: Our body/our planet.
As we go - so it goes - the state of the planet, the state of our bodies.
How can we take care of our home/our body/my home/my body? The question is extraordinarily complex yet stunningly simple.
The answer begins and ends with awareness. In order to act is ways that benefit ourselves and the planet we must practice being aware; aware of what is happening inside of us (my body/my home), as well as being aware of what is happening outside of us (our bodies/our community/our planet) with grace, compassion, kindness, vitality and joy.
Start where you are. Start here. Start now.
Earth is both our teacher and our refuge. With an awareness of earth energies our practice becomes a means of suppport, of developing and engaging ourselves with presence, dignity and graciousness whether we are alone or in a crowded room (32).
Begin to understand how your mind works and how the narratives you create and sustain serve to construct - and perhaps constrict - the ground of this world you inhabit (24).
Six Element Practice
Is not my idea!
Six Element Practice was born through the works of Kôbô Daishi - a brilliant scholar, statesman, artist and monk who lived in the ninth century in Japan.
Also known as Kûkai, he has been referred to by scholars as the Leonardo DeVinci of Japan.
It was during my practice at Yôchi-in Temple on Mt. Kôya from 2016 - 2018 that I underwent a series of experiences that taught me the value of evidence-based spirituality.
Our realized connection with the universe and with the unseen forces that constitute the cosmos is real and available to each and everyone of us at each and every moment.
My teachers at Yôchi-in enabled me to practice while I maintained my position as a university professor. Because of their graciousness I have been blessed with the ability to bring my profound revelations off Mt. Kôya and into the world at large.
As a species, we are currently experiencing profound changes in our relationship to nature and to ourselves. Six Element Practice is but one of the great wisdom traditions that calls on us to evolve - and to involve - our consciousness in living happier, more balanced and integrated lives on this planet.
