Counting in Three

"The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature."
- Joseph Campbell

Three is a magic number for understanding what is important in life. Most religions have trinities.

In local Balinese communities, I found that life is supported by beliefs that are surprisingly straightforward and relevant for the world today. In popular terms, the Balinese trinity, or Tri Hita Karana, goes as follows.

First, to live in harmony with God or "the most supreme". Second, to cultivate mutual understanding and help each other. Third, to care for the environment, recognizing that the same life force is present in all beings.

Each of these three life supports are connected and follows from the others. Together, they become like a circle, without end or beginning.

Seen by Balinese people as a holistic foundation for everyday life and celebrated in numerous community festivities throughout the year, the application of this trinity seems as profound as Bhutan's concept of pursuing gross national happiness.

In these two places, matching the beat of one's nature with Nature is both a commitment and a daily opportunity.

Photograph: To the cremation, Ubud, Bali.

Touched in Bali

"Life is entertained only through the phenomena that constitute our experience."
- Roger Ames and David Hall

My forehead rested on the wooden plank as the sun shone intensely warm into the upper floor of the bale.

I could feel a trickle of sweat gliding down to the floor, like children on a slide in slow motion. My arms resting behind me, palms open, I surrendered to the moment.

Feeling directly intimate with one's experience, the teacher from New Zealand said, is the heart of yoga. No need for seeking of some-thing, no need for traveling to reach some-where, no need for depending on some-future, but to enjoy what is already manifest in our unique self.

Wizened yet flexible and full of vitality, Mark Whitwell captured our attention and intent as if he held us all in the palm of his hand. There is a yoga practice for everyone in this room, he promised us, telling us not to adapt any commercialized yoga style. In stead, let yoga adapt to you. Find the yoga that is for you, he said, and do your yoga, every day. Do your yoga…

And I did, this morning, merged with my Dao practice. I look forward to another yoga class on Wednesday. As I rediscover myself in Ubud this week, my senses are alert to find out what is waiting to touch me as I walk the next steps on my path. I am tapping my creative universe.

According to Roger Ames and David Hall, creativity is always reflexive and is exercised over and with respect to "self." In their magnificent interpretation of Daodejing entitled Making This Life Significant, they explain that in the cosmology of Dao, people who tap into creativity and "have their stuff together" change the world around them. In the Dao, developing integrity "is a co-creative process in which one shapes and is shaped by one's environing circumstances."

This is what I set myself to experience now, to shape and be shaped by the influences from my environment, with heightened awareness.

From opening my body in sweaty stretches to enjoying delightful meals and taking in the cool breeze and verdant greens surrounding me, I learn to entertain life through these phenomena here and now.

Photograph: Verdant green in Ubud.