August in Amonines
Asharum Amonines Journal September
Building the new and rebuilding the old
If you look at the cycle of beginnings and endings, birth and death, literally and in terms of energy one sees Nijar and Amonines both mirroring different stadia in this cycle.
A garden bursting into life, new rooms coming into existence, a growing community of people living in Nijar exploring what that means, mirrors the excitement of new beginnings. On the other side Amonines has developed into a stronghold, a place always available to stay with the opportunity to retreat and meditate. A growing group of people feel the comfort to just be without further expectations. Belonging to this part of the cycle there is also decay on the material level, in short a need for renovation and August was the month for it…
One part of the outer stone wall was falling apart and has been repaired. Our neighbour Guy, who never misses an opportunity to lend a hand on his lawnmower machine, cleared the area in front of the wall.
A long standing problem with the leakage destroying the wall of the meditation room has been solved by rerouting the downspout, which will then be connected to the sewer. The wall itself has been newly grouted.
Another long-running story was the leakage in the glass extension and the maintenance of the wood to prevent it from being destroyed by the weather. Henny hardly finished repairing the damage when a newly arrived guest joined him who got involved before I could even show him his room. As a professional handyman he was happy to join the maintenance team. A beautiful example of what in Nâm is called Asha. Asha can be seen as a kind of natural regularity, outside of experience, that cannot be known. There is nothing in life that is not Asha, but this situation specifically seems to point to a regularity beyond our comprehension.
The wood of the glass extension has a new coat of varnish, the front door has been sanded and painted and the front balcony has been prepared so it just needs a lick of paint.
Building the new and rebuilding the old in human relationships
Asharum Amonines is one of the centers expressing community living of Living Nâm. As in all places where people come or live together it is a place where you meet yourself and the other in working together, but the likelihood of themes surfacing in Amonines is considerably higher, since the place invites that. It offers the possibility of mirrors that highlight personal issues. How do you deal with that in Living Nâm and thus in Amonines?
Community living is always an imagined community, but to imagine a community you need something that binds in the imagination and in the expression of it. As I understand it, in the case of Living Nâm one of the things is the understanding that you áre experience and that that living experience is a sharing and not a living that one individually does. One of the instruments and at the same time an expression of being a community is giving service, because it is in this active service that we meet. The fact that you do this service as a way of Attuning is the key to how you deal with each other, when personal issues are being triggered. With Attuning you try to lift the situation above the personal level, not blaming the other for how you feel, left only with the option to take the responsibility for your own feelings and let the occasion reflect back to you what you need to see and possibly transform. This makes a Living Nâm community different from regular communities where you normally converse about a situation expecting the other to take responsibility for his part in your pain.
Truly living the sharing is a constant learning process, because as far as I can see it means there is no escape. Where in other communities there is a selection process of who can come and live there and most of the time a clear definition of the place and role you have, in the Asharum people are brought together not on personal grounds but because in some way they are ready to live in an Asharum, this being Asha. This requires you to build a new relationship with the new person, but it also requires you to rebuild already existing relationships, as no one is being added to the team, it is a creation of a new team.
Another important feature of living in an Asharum is that your place and your role can change daily which makes it difficult to fall back on the security of the tasks that you have. Encountering daily issues, sensitivities, triggers, moods and having no specific place or role to identify with and retreat into, staying available for people visiting the Asharum and for each other sometimes makes the ground disappear from under your feet.
This brings me back where I started, realising that the living experience is not something you do individually, but a sharing in something that cannot be captured in words makes that, through Attunement, the service you give is not in order to gain anything from it, you do it for what is beyond words and is at the same time what you are sharing in, in Living Nâm called Abbah. Personally I might say that every time I remember to Attune the personal dialogue can stop, the weight lifts, hopefully opening my world for the possibility to transform.
For reading about Living Nâm and the instruments available for living in Attunement I happily refer to The Book of Nâm by Yoginâm.
Active service during events
Next to helping with renovations there is always the possibility to do active service in Amonines during events. The following dates are available:
Oktober 10-13 - Chi-Kung event
November 3-9 - Nâm Retreat of Silence
November 29 - December 1 - Nâm Weekend of Silence
December 12-15 - The Essence of Meditation
If you are interested please send an e-mail to asharum@amonines.com
A preview of next month's newsletter
On the threshold of September, we had the 5-day intensive Meaningful Living. One of the participants wrote a beautiful review, which is already available on this blog.
