OK, Rumi, let's dance.

Photo Credit: Jean-Pierre Dalbera/ Flickr Creative Commons

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.
~Japanese proverb

Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.
~ Rumi

Nathan over at Dangerous Harvests just made his second anniversary post. Happy blogiversary, Nathan! To celebrate, he posted his first post from the blog. It isn't my anniversary, but I thought I'd go back and look at my first post anyway. Here's a piece of it (from November 2, 2008):

If yogis discovered the secret of happiness thousands of years ago, why do we now still live in a culture of so much suffering?! And to put it more personally, since this is to be my personal journey, why do I still suffer so much? Why do I forget to practice in my daily life, when I know that it will not only make me happier and healthier, but also decrease suffering in the lives of those around me?

In June, I started a Masters in International Education at the SIT Graduate Institute in Vermont. I chose the school because I believe the SIT philosophy is highly compatible with my attempts to increase the practice of yoga in my daily life. In formulating my learning plan, I stated as my second learning objective "Explore ways to bring my career into harmony with my yoga practice." In fact, this is one of the key reasons why I am doing this degree - to give myself the training and the tools to adjust my working life to facilitate my practice - and yes, cheesy cheesy, to do more good in the world.

It's interesting to look back on because I don't feel that way any more. It's not that I don't suffer, but that the quality of my suffering has changed. Back then, I was suffering in the dark. Now, I feel like I can at least suffer with the light on. I have a consistent daily practice, not only of yoga and meditation on the mat or cushion, but also taking these practices into my life and applying them to running, eating, working, and personal relationships. Through this, I've not only physically transformed but I've begun to shine the flashlight of mindfulness into all sorts of dark corners.

In the beginning, this blog was about bringing my career into alignment with my yoga practice. I had forgotten that. Back then, I was working a challenging administrative job and struggling to practice yoga in the workplace. I was reluctant to admit that I was struggling so much because it wasn't the right place for me to be. It was a job that worked with my strengths and which brought out all the worst in me, too. I suffered in many ways at that time: emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. The suffering had to get really bad before I was really willing to look at the forces that were holding me there and ask myself: Why? Why fight? Why not just let go?


I was clearly looking for the light switch, even then. I'd started my Masters program because I was already seeking. I wrote those things in my learning plan and started this blog for a good reason. I've even had a Rumi quote up on my computer sidebar, probably since before I started this blog: Let the beauty you love be what you do. It took me all this time to really see it, to look Rumi in the eyes and reply, Yes. OK. I know why you are here. Let's dance.

When I started shining that flashlight around, mostly what I saw was fear. When I looked more closely, I realized that fear is always worse than the thing I fear.  I know this is not a new concept, but the more I sit on my cushion in silence with my eyes closed, the more I have to make friends with it. I began to wonder if I ever had any other motivation for action in my life besides avoiding fear. I began to wonder what would happen if I did something for love. Would the world end? Would the boogieman in the corner come out and get me? Did it matter?

There's never any map for these journeys we take, or rather, I'd say there are many maps - the experiences of others who have taken their own journeys and lived to tell the tale - but they're cryptic and incomplete, and sometimes we flat out refuse to believe that they could really be telling us to leap off that cliff into the darkness. Over the past three years, I've been evolving. I feel like the same person, but when I look back to that first post, I know I am not. I'm teaching at Community College now, and it's scary and difficult and fulfilling. I just started Yoga Teacher Training this past weekend. I'm finally ready to take the necessary risks in order to make sure all the pieces of my life really fit. I've learned to feel gratitude for the fear and suffering, because I've realized that they were the map and directions. They were the flashlight. I'm ready, finally, to really love what I do.

Reflections of our true nature

Photo credit: Bryan Ray (black_listed/ Flickr Creative Commons)

"While we practice conscious breathing, our thinking will slow down, and we can give ourselves a real rest. Most of the time, we think too much, and mindful breathing helps us to be calm, relaxed and peaceful. It helps us stop thinking so much and stop being possessed by sorrows of the past and worries about the future. It enables us to be in touch with life, which is wonderful in the present moment."
- "Peace is Every Step" by Thich Nhat Hanh

As I mentioned in a post last month, I've been following Tricycle Magazine's Commit to Sit challenge for the past 27 days. As it draws to a close, I've been reflecting on the experience. I did my full-day meditation challenge yesterday and am finishing the experience with two days of the regular Week 4 program. The full day of meditation was... well, challenging for me. I've never meditated for longer than an hour at a time before. The experience ranged from pain, frustration and self-hatred to bliss, gratitude and insight. Towards the end of the second two-hour block, I rose to do walking meditation and I felt like I was gliding through each step in pure awareness.

In that moment, I had a new understanding of the ethical components of yogic and Buddhist practice. During the Commit to Sit program, I committed to the Five Precepts as best I could. These practices were familiar to me as they share a lot in common with the five yamas of yoga. I've always struggled to follow the yamas, feeling some of them were almost unattainable. The yamas are often translated as "restraints" or "abstinences" or even commandments or "thou shalt nots" (ugh!). I recently encountered an alternate translation in Nischala Joy Devi's The Secret Power of Yoga book, which is subtitled A woman's guide to the heart and spirit of the Yoga Sutras. Whether or not you agree that a heart-centered perspective is a purely feminine construct, it is interesting to read this refreshing and positive take on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras text.

Many traditional translations of this part of the sutras (II29-39) think about the yamas as restrictions to our behavior towards others (ahimsa = non-violence or non-harming; satya = truthfulness; asteya = non-stealing; brahmacharya = well, we can't agree on a translation for this one because we're afraid it might mean no sex! but commonly continence, sense-control, celibacy, or the like; aparigraha = non-hoarding, non-stealing, non-greed). Nischala Devi has a different take (p.p. 168-169):

"Often, to simplify the enormous breadth and depth of the Yamas and Niyamas, they are called the "Do's and Don'ts of Yoga" [sic] or sometimes the "Ten Commandments of Yoga." This is taking a highly refined and virtuous way of living expressed throughout the millennia and reducing it to a finger-shaking image... When observed on a subtler level, the Yamas and Niyamas seem to be more of a tribute to being, affirming our already Divine nature..."

"Knowing the importance of repeating a statement in the affirmative, I have chosen to translate (as much as I possibly could) using positive, life-affirming language... When words or phrases evoke fear, punishment, or denial of pleasure, they encroach on our spiritual practices and diminish rather than enhance the glory of our true nature."

 Her translation of the yamas (reflections of our true nature) is:

1. Ahimsa: reverence, love, compassion for all
2. Satya: truthfulness, integrity
3. Astheya: generosity, honesty
4. Brahmacharya: balance and moderation of the vital life force
5. Aparigraha: awareness of abundance, fulfillment.

Doesn't that feel different?

Anyway, whatever translation you use, it seems clear enough that it's desirable to achieve compassion and reverence for all life, integrity, generosity, and a sense of fulfillment. But then you're going about your day and you yell at the driver in front of you, and then you gossip about someone at work, and then you decide not to share part of your lunch with a coworker who doesn't have any because you want it all for yourself.

So, how in the world do you achieve this stuff? What occurred to me yesterday in meditation is maybe you just slow down. We go through our lives so fast, we can barely see them happening to us, just like we walk so fast, we can't feel how our body is moving through the steps. Maybe you just slow down enough that you can see and feel what is happening. In that walking meditation yesterday, I felt that, at my core, I was calm and peaceful. Each step was smooth and steady and careful. From that place, I think the yamas would arise naturally and with ease. "Reflections of our true nature."

I know that this isn't a new concept, but experiencing it the way I did was new to me. Of course, slowing down that much is easier said than done. But it's a start. It's a piece of the puzzle, something concrete to move towards. It sounds easier than just love everyone and everything. I'll give it a try.

Chain reaction: Continuing to focus back

Photo credit: Soham Basoham (soham_pablo/ Flickr Creative Commons)

I have a confession to make.  For the first time in my life, I've had terrible back pain since some time last month. As a yogi, I couldn't help thinking This shouldn't be happening to me. I kept hoping it would just stop, but it didn't. In fact, as you might have guessed, it got worse until it was really affecting my quality of life and severely impeding my ability to sit in meditation. I couldn't figure out what was triggering it. I'd been traveling a lot during December and the first part of January, and the pain started some time after I returned home. I feared it was my return to running after taking some time off, or maybe it was my bed? I did more yoga, hoping I could work out the kinks, but my back continued to get worse. I deepened my inquiry into the back body. And then, I wrote my last blog post.

After reading my post, Kit Spahr, who blogs at Sometimes It's Art, wrote to tell me she's been engaged in a similar exploration of the back body. She turned me on to this post by Katy Bowman. I tried the suggested exercise and discovered, of course, that I'm a rib thruster. Katy provides some useful tips for correcting this alignment problem, and I started to consider these.

Then I started catching up on my Yoga Journals that had come around the holidays when I'd been too busy to read them. In the December 2010 magazine, the Anatomy column is by Roger Cole and is called "Easy Seat" (unfortunately not available online, but if you have the magazine, it starts on pg. 75). Cole talks about contracting the lower erector spinae muscles to correct misalignment and eliminate back pain in Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose). When I read it, I had a sudden realization. Far from keeping my back healthy, my yoga was causing my back pain - and it had been exacerbated to its current level by poor alignment in seated meditation during my Commit to Sit program.

The next time I sat, I was able to follow the whole chain reaction in my spine. My hamstrings are tight from running, so it's hard for me to achieve the correct pelvic position in a crosslegged seated position (the top of my pelvis is tilted back). I've been adjusting for this by sitting up on blankets or a meditation cushion, which allows me me to tilt my pelvic into a neutral position, but it takes effort to hold it there so as I focus on relaxation or on the breath, I tend to slip and round the lower back again.

Very often in yoga class, an instruction is given in a crosslegged seated pose to "roll the shoulders up, back, and down." When I was less flexible in the upper body, this had the intended result of opening my chest and relaxing the shoulders down, but as my chest, back and shoulders became more flexible and my shoulder blades became more mobile, I began performing this action by thrusting my thoracic spine far forward and pushing the shoulder blades deep into the back.

Another common instruction is to "lift the chest/ sternum" (I mentioned this in my last post), which I achieved by thrusting my ribs forward. Add this to my sometimes rounded lumbar spine, and I've been putting a huge amount of stress on my thoracic spine to curve in ways it was never meant to. (Cole's article is really excellent and has a helpful way to explore the curves of the spine and the use of the erector spinae muscles using cat/ cow which I highly recommend.)

One way I can tell when I'm doing this is that belly breathing is difficult, even painful. For years, I've been having occasional difficulty with the three-part yogic breath; I now realize it is often hard when sitting but always easy when lying on my back. I'm not sure of the anatomical explanation for this, but sitting the way I have been (slightly rounding my lumbar spine and pushing the thoracic spine forward to compensate while thrusting the lower ribs out), breathing into the belly is painful. When I contract the muscles along the lumbar spine and pull my lower ribs back while focusing on flattening my shoulder blades onto the back instead of thrusting them into the back, I can suddenly breathe into the belly with ease.

Another instruction I've misunderstood is one often given in seated forward bends: lead with your chest. The idea of this instruction is to have students bend at the hips instead of rounding the spine to get further down. However, because I don't have the mobility in my pelvis but I do have a lot of flexibility in my upper back, I realize that I've been backbending in my forward bends, thrusting the chest way out and the ribs way forward. Focusing on keeping the lower ribs in as Cole describes in his article allows me to work on bending forward from the pelvis instead of pushing the chest forward.

I guess part of the problem is that instructions that were appropriate for me as an asana beginner became harmful to me as I developed more flexibility in my upper body while remaining relatively tight in my lower body. I had a complete misunderstanding of how good spinal alignment should feel in my body and had no idea that I was having any of these problems until my back started hurting. Now that I've recognized the problem, I can begin working to correct it but my muscles need to get used to working in these new ways and I get tired easily. My back is improving - but slowly. In the meantime, seated meditation is painful - unless I sit in Virasana, elevated on a block or cushion to protect my knees, in which case I can easily achieve the appropriate alignment of my pelvis (and therefore my back) and alleviate pain.

If you're a yoga teacher, do you give these types of instructions to your students? It might be useful to find out if any of them are having midback pain or struggling with belly breathing, and to explore whether this is a cause. Perhaps meditators with midback pain could benefit from the suggestion to try (modified) Virasana for meditation, as well as working on flexibility in the hamstrings and working with the alignment of the pelvis and thoracic spine. If anyone out there is having similar problems, I hope this helps you with your own exploration.

The best time to practice is right now

Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are. ~ Jason Crandell

For those wounded by civilization, yoga is the most healing salve. ~ Terri Guillemets

The deeper I go into practice, the more I become aware of how complicated I make life sometimes. There are all these layers of the mind that peel away. It reminds me of the way the experience of the asanas changes on a physical level. For the first few dozen or even hundred downward facing dogs, the experience is pretty much holding your breath and looking forward to coming down. And then suddenly, one day you actually feel what it means to inwardly rotate the thighs and spread the hip bones and all this space opens up in the pose. And it will change your world, that feeling. See if it doesn't.

Like this, too, in the mind. At first, learning to breathe through and experience difficult emotions without acting, I thought I was learning to deal with the present. (Side note: when I say that it sounds as if I have already learned to breathe through and experience difficult emotions without acting. I can assure you, I haven't. That's why they call it "practice.") Anyhow, I'm starting to realize that a strong emotional reaction is almost never about the present. It's a sure sign that I'm holding a past wound up as evidence in a present situation - probably holding it against someone who had nothing to do with the original pain in the first place. Take a close look and see if this isn't true. And it will change your world, that understanding.

I started this post out thinking that I was going to write about breathing through reactions in the present and then boom! Insight. Look out - you never know when it's coming. Originally, I was going to explore my reaction to a harassing comment left here, but now I see I don't have to. That comment, in the present, means nothing. Who knows why people do these things? His problem is not my problem. The pain and uncertainty and anger it triggered - that's old stuff, really old stuff. And the illusion of ego. Right now, in the present, there's just clarity and a sense of compassion.

The content of this post may have evolved, but I can keep the title because the time is now. Peel away all those layers of history, and inside is the jewel. It is all these illusions that are complicated. The present is incredibly simple. I wonder what is behind the next layer?

Commit

"Each moment is a chance for us to make peace with the world, to make peace possible for the world, to make happiness possible for the world."
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Photo credit: Lisa Stout (kspsycho83 - Flickr Creative Commons)

I've decided to greet 2011 by making a commitment I've been considering for a long time. (No, I'm not getting married! But I am making a promise that may just change my life.) I'm undertaking Tricycle Magazine's 28-day meditation challenge known as "Commit to Sit." Starting January 17th, for 28 days I'm commiting to the Five Precepts and following Tricycle's meditation program.

There are a lot of paths on the journey of yoga. There are the four paths (or six paths, or even more, depending on how you look at it), and there's the eight-fold path of Patanjali (or the eight limbs of yoga, as they are sometimes called). There are many ways to practice, and different practices appeal to different people - but the more yoga I do, the more convinced I become that the meditation piece is key. At least, for my journey.

So I'm making a commitment. Given, it's kind of a baby commitment - just 28 days - but my commitment to practice is much deeper than that. I practice for life - and because one should never commit to anything without careful thought, I've been considering what it means to "commit to sit". Princeton University's WordNet links these ideas (among others) with the word commit:

• give, dedicate, consecrate, devote (give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause)
• entrust, trust, confide (confer a trust upon)
• invest (make an investment)
• practice (engage in or perform)
  

When I commit to sit, I do all these things. I consistently and fully engage in the practice I've chosen. I make an investment - of my time, of my energy, of my Self. In doing so, I'm putting my trust in the practice - not only that I will benefit but that we will all benefit, that this practice can help bring peace and happiness to our world. I dedicate myself to it completely. I like the word devote here because of its double meaning. Not only devote yourself to practice but practice with devotion.

Devotion. Because in the end, it's all about love.

Being present on the journey, releasing the destination

Today it became obvious that someone has a problem with me. Now I think most people encounter difficult relationships (or difficult patches in good relationships) from time to time. My self-talk in these moments tends to oscillate between, This is totally not my fault. There's nothing I can do. This person has her own issues, and, I'm a horrible person. I've ruined another relationship. It's all my fault. If only I'd..., I could have prevented this. Most of the time (and probably in this case), it's somewhere in between the two extremes. But also, placing blame is beside the point.

"To practice is to use all that arises within us for the growth of understanding, compassion, and freedom."
~ Jack Kornfield

So there is the difficulty itself, and then there is my response to the difficulty. I sat this afternoon in meditation, watching the thoughts surrounding this relationship swirl around and recognizing that they resemble other thoughts that often come up for me in meditation. I'm reading A Path With Heart, and I tried to follow some of Kornfield's suggestions for exploring what he calls insistent visitors. Kornfield explains, "When any experience of body, heart or mind keeps repeating in consciousness, it is a signal that this visitor is asking for a deeper and fuller attention... We must recognize that this is its way of asking us to give it more attention, to understand it more clearly. This process involves investigation, acceptance, understanding, and forgiveness."

So that is the journey. I started to explore the physical sensations, feelings, etc. associated with these thoughts. I sat there, trying to experience all of this, trying to understand it further. And suddenly, I heard this little voice under all that practice. It said, Do you understand it yet? If you can just understand it, you can fix this... and then you won't have these problems any more."

That kind of stopped me in my tracks. Wow. Is that where I think I'm going? Is that what I've been practicing for all this time? So I won't have any more difficulties? So people will love me? I asked myself these questions, and whatever had spoken inside me shrugged and said, Yep.

OK then. Now we have a problem. Even going as far as enlightenment, assuming this state exists, is no guarantee of being loved by all beings. It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It does not exempt one from all future hardships. It certainly doesn't pay the rent. But more importantly, here is a deeper, more insidious version of the story "It's all my fault. If only I'd..., I could have prevented this."

So I guess now my practice is to learn to be present on the path, not to arrive at what I perceive to be the destination, but to truly experience what the path is. To fully experience what surprises I might encounter along the way. To truly seek understanding, compassion, and freedom as they exist everywhere on the journey and not just at the destination. To go deeper down the rabbit hole and see what illusions and attachments are hiding in the next layer down.

Darn it, says that little voice. I really thought we were getting somewhere. I was sure that universal admiration was just around the corner. That would have been way easier.

All I can do is shrug and say, Yep.

Permanent Changes

I just finished presenting my Masters project at our final seminar. My project involved designing an innovative pre-college program for adult international students, based at an ESL school. I won't go into all the details, but I will say that it involves using yoga, meditation, breath awareness, and mindfulness to combat stress related to school and culture shock. Wow. When I thought of it, I thought someone should be doing this. Suddenly I am the one doing this. I am the perfect person to be doing this. My whole life has led me to it. Exciting, scary, amazing, surreal.

I was not nervous during the presentation. I felt mindful. After, many of the comments said that I had both a calm and engaging presence. I was deliberate and authentic. I spoke from the heart.

Recently, I heard my classroom presence described as "zen". Calm, soothing, zen. I've been hearing this a lot lately.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure I didn't hear these words being used to describe me a few short years ago. I'm pretty sure then it was things like intense and emotional and passionate that came out. OK, I guess I still am those things but also I have this new dimension, this calm woman with the soothing voice and the poise and the precise speech. Where did she come from?

What has changed? I meditate twice a day now. And so ~ she was in there all along.

Deep changes. Now I stay more connected to what is, cling a little less to myself. I am afraid less. I am upset less by change than I used to be. Not all the time, I am not saying I am anywhere yet, I am not saying I have this down. I am just saying ~ people seem to describe me differently than they used to.

As part of my research, I looked at Transformative Learning Theory, originally described by Jack Mezirow in 1978 (coincidentally the year of my birth) and which has been studied extensively ever since. This theory suggests that when we encounter a situation that does not fit with what we believe about the world, we are disoriented. This may inspire us to make a permanent and irreversible change in the way we see things, and this in turn will change our actions, our words, our relationships with others. This is not a surface change - it is a change to our beliefs, our values, our worldview at the deepest level.

And isn't this what happens on the yoga mat, on the meditation cushion, when we take our practice out into the world? Disorientation... and then maybe, something shifting inside. Something moving over and permanently making room. Making the heart a little more expansive.

I am told that for academic work, we must connect theory to practice and practice to theory. Practice. I once understood the practice of education and the practice of yoga to be different. Now I think I understand - it is all the same practice. My heart smiles.

What does it mean to "do yoga"?

You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.
~ Sharon Gannon


In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice they are not.
~Yogi Berra

Recently I was reading Lulu's post entitled "Can Anyone Really Say What Spirituality Is?" over at her Oceans and Avocados blog, and then I surfed over (as one tends to do these days) to the Eco Yogini post that inspired it. They got me to thinking about how my own view of yoga is similar and different to theirs, and also a little bit about both my practice and my research of late. Eco Yogini describes the point of yoga as being spirituality and discusses the differences she feels between her spirituality and what is traditionally taught in yoga. I guess I am coming to see the point as Sharon Gannon describes it in the quote at the beginning of this post. Yoga is a set of tools that we can use to reveal something about ourselves and how we relate to the world. That can be spiritual - it is for me - but it is also deeply personal, emotional, and it can be both a mental and physical journey too.

Lulu poses the questions: Who decides what spirituality/ zen/ yoga are? and What if the definitions don't work for you? These are important questions. There is a vast range of beliefs and practices that have sprung up out of every spiritual tradition, including yoga, and I think this is indicative of the fact that every set of tools does not lead every person to the same destination. What makes intuitive sense to one person, another person may be unable to connect to. When one person follows the practices of her teacher, she may discover an entirely new insight and there we have another school of practice. I am amused to be quoting Yogi Berra here but he makes an excellent point here in a way only he could: theory and practice are not the same thing, and one never replaces the other. The Buddha said this in another way: Doubt everything. Find your own light. He didn't want anyone to take his teachings as the Gospel, but rather for each to do his own practice and figure out what it is that he has inside.

Many people think of yoga as the practice of asana or postures, as a way to lose weight and stay in shape, or as a way to reduce stress. Patanjali said that Yoga is to still the patterns of consciousness [so that] pure awareness can abide in its very nature. The full system of yoga has eight limbs and is a fully formed way of living including both ethics and lifestyle practices that go far beyond asana. For my personal practice, this is very important. In the past two years, I have had periods of time where I've focused intensely on asana and this has had tremendous physical, emotional, mental and spiritual benefits. However, I have also had periods where I've focused more intensely on pranayama (controlling the breath) or meditation or various ethical principles. Each of these practices has also had intense physical, emotional, mental and spiritual outcomes for me. I very passionately would defend the idea that these are no less "doing yoga" than asana practice is, and in fact simply doing asana does not equal "doing yoga" for me.

However, right now I'm doing research and designing curriculum to bring some of these yogic practices - asana, pranayama, meditation - into educational programs to help international students manage stress related to studying in a foreign country. Through this work - and through reading about people's experiences in blogs such as those I've mentioned here - I am slowly becoming less of a purist. To me, the benefits of any one of these practices are so profound that to do it, even in isolation, can deeply transform a person's experience of a difficult situation. So who am I to look down on someone who doesn't follow the "whole system"? If a person won't do yoga because their religious beliefs prohibit it, who am I to withhold the secret of the three part breath from them? If someone goes to yoga class to work out and it makes them feel better, who am I to insist that they get spiritual? Meditation by any other name is still meditation. If I don't formally sit in meditation but I do take a moment on the bus to let my thoughts settle and follow my breath, who are you to judge my practice?

I know that not everyone will agree with me. There was a time when I might not have agreed. But these days, I'm thinking of ways to bring the benefits of yoga to more people. And if that involves teaching "stress management" or "deep breathing" or "quiet time" then so be it. The world will be a better place if more people connect with their breath.

Namaste.

All phenomena proceed from the mind

I'm currently reading The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. (Thanks Stephanie. xx)

Here is a video of Mingyur Rinpoche teaching. The analogy of the watch is one he talks about in the book.


Today I was struck by his description of one of the Buddha's teachings. In it, a young man comes to a great master seeking a profound teaching. The master agrees to share one - after the young man has a cup of tea. As he's about to drink, the tea transforms into a beautiful lake. The young man stands looking at the lake, and a girl appears. They fall in love at first sight and he goes home with her. Her parents also like him, and the two get married and have two children.

In his teens, their son falls ill and dies, and their daughter is killed by a tiger shortly thereafter. Overcome with grief, the man's wife drowns herself in the lake. Her mourning parents stop eating and starve to death. Having lost everything, the young man goes to the lake to drown himself. As he's about to throw himself in, he suddenly finds himself back in the master's house, holding the cup of tea.

Though he had lived an entire lifetime, harly an instant had passed; the cup was still warm in his hands and the tea was still hot.

He looked across the table at the teacher, who nodded, saying, "Now you see. All phenomena proceed from the mind, which is emptiness. They do not truly exist except in the mind, but they are not nothingness. There is your profound teaching."

As I read the teacher's words, I felt a kind of liberation as a whole lot of fear fell away. I'm still not entirely sure that I know why, but as someone who has despaired after loss, this story gave me an incredible feeling of space and hope. Doesn't this story speak to something we all fear - losing everyone we love? This unspeakable pain... it is definitely not nothingness. But our experience of it arises in the mind, sinks back into the mind. And most dangerous of all is the fear of pain that has not happened. Sometimes we make that into something so solid, so real.

All phenomena proceed from the mind, which is emptiness.

Meditation teachers often use the analogy of the mind as the sky, and thoughts as clouds that arise from it and pass through it but are not permanent. (I've also heard the analogy of leaves on a stream, and I particularly like the sense of movement I get from that image.) You can sit and watch those thoughts arise, drift across your mind, and float away without attaching to them. Sit and watch the fear of incredible loss with identifying with it.


All phenomena proceed from the mind, which is emptiness.
Happiness is our birthright.
We all have monkey mind. Watch it chatter. Let it go on and on.
Let the big sky of the Self be still.

Sipping the rainwater

Just because you can’t drink all that falls
doesn’t mean you give up taking sips
of rainwater. If the nut
of the mystery can’t be held,
at least let me touch the shell.
-- Rumi

Today is a rare misty day in San Diego. This almost-rain makes me nostalgic for the forests of the Pacific Northwest. I want to put on some gortex and go sit under a big fir and look at the ocean. Thinking about rain led me to this Rumi poem. This life is such a mystery, but one we should dive into with our entire beings, even though we cannot see or comprehend all that there is. We don't have much choice, really. We are part of it all. We can close our eyes and our ears and our minds to the unknown, or we can open our hearts and try to hold a sense of it: Life! Without fear, try to taste what you can.

Rumi also wrote:

Do you pay regular visits to yourself?
Don't argue or answer rationally.
Let us die,
and dying, reply.

The mystery is within us as well as outside. I'm not even sure there is an inside and an outside. Yoga and meditation take me to that place where the two meet. So do the tops of mountains, and the forest, and the ocean. So does wild weather: the wind and the rain. Poetry. Music. That moment on a run where thoughts end and you become part of the trail, part of the world.

I think that Rumi means that in the moment of death, if we have regularly lived life from the heart, we will accept this too. The final mystery. The last merge. And that our readiness to connect cannot be argued rationally but can only be known in that moment. I have no idea what it means to die, but maybe I am starting to understand what it means to live. To feel the nutshell, rough under my hand. To turn my face to the sky and taste the rain.

Bus meditations

I stubbornly continue to ride public transportation rather than buying a car. I am repeatedly told that it is not possible to survive in Southern California without a car. What people mean when they say this is: It's not easy to live in Southern California without a car. We are so used to hyperbole in our culture, so used to hearing anything that requires the slightest effort or patience referred to as impossible, we have begun to believe it.

It is ABSOLUTELY possibly to live in San Diego without a car. That's not to say it's easy, but I believe that we can only change the world through our own actions. We cannot be responsible for the actions of others, but by acting with integrity ourselves, we can inspire others to follow suit, we can create movements of many individuals acting with integrity. Peace is possible only through enough individuals acting peacefully. We cannot change someone into a peaceful person, we can only change ourselves. The April page of my 2009 Thich Nhat Hanh calendar bears this quote:

My actions are the ground on which I stand.

So I choose not to eat meat most of the time because I do not wish to support financially to the evils of the American meat industry, and I choose not to own a car largely because I see many benefits to choosing public transportation including:

• Reduced cost to me
• Reduced cost to the environment
• Reduced traffic
• More exercise (I walk a lot)
• Controlled consumption (I think twice before going to the store and I only buy what I can carry)
• Opportunities to engage with the realities of my community, to practice yoga on a daily basis out in the world

To be completely honest, there are other factors which speak less to my good moral character such as the fact that I am totally intimidated by the whole car shopping experience.

Call me crazy, but I am getting along fine without a car. Given, the public transportation system in San Diego is appalling and getting worse, carrying on a fine California tradition of overreliance on private motor vehicles. However, if everyone keeps driving cars rather than riding transit, there will be no motivation to change the system - so I have persisted over nearly five years. It does limit where I can live and where I can shop, but not necessarily in a bad way. There are a few things that I regret not being able to do, but every few months I rent a car and take care of a lot of these chores. I rely on friends for rides and sometimes I feel guilty about that.

Anyway, I wanted to address my last point in the above list (opportunities to engage with the realities of my community, to practice yoga on a daily basis out in the world) because I think it's an aspect of riding public transportation which is not usually discussed. A friend recently reminded me about the red light meditation, which got me thinking about bus meditations. For example:

• The waiting for the bus meditation - see the red light meditation (link above). Unlike the red light meditation, though, the waiting for the bus meditation is tricky because it can go on for a pretty long time and you never know when the bus is going to arrive. By nature, monkey mind wants to go back to thoughts of When is the bus coming? Where is the bus? Why is it late? I'm so hot/ cold/ tired/ bored. My feet hurt. etc. What a gift, to have a built-in exercise of bringing yourself back to the body, the breath, the present moment. (By the way, when will the bus come? When you are ready for it!) I also like to do tadasana and pranayama at the bus stop.

  
  

• Slowing down - In our world, we are always going, going, going nowhere fast. What a gift, to have pauses built into your day! When you are waiting for a bus, there is nothing to do that will make the bus come faster. There is nothing to do but exist at the bus stop. When you are on the bus, there is nothing you can do to arrive at your destination faster. (By the way, there is really nothing you can do when you're driving either - but people usually try and it's usually dangerous!) So you can experience complete freedom to allow things to unfold as they must and there is this amazing opportunity to just sit, open the heart, slow the mind, focus on the breath. You also have an opportunity to just experience how you are feeling going into your day, or in the evening, how your day has affected you. So often we don't give ourselves a chance to connect.

  
  

• Loving kindness meditation and/or compassion - On public transportation, you are in the midst of humanity. You see a lot of suffering. People cry on the bus - I have cried on the bus. People laugh, people sleep, people stare blankly out the window. People hobble in physical pain, they are destitute, they are ill, they are drunk or high. People suffer from mental illness, and people are angry, with or without good reason. People criticize strangers. People are selfish and they are generous. People express sympathy, they reach out to help others for no particular reason other than that it is right. Sometimes, particularly if one is fortunate, there is a tendancy to isolate oneself from those who are less fortunate, from how things are in the world. (Is this, in fact, the reason why many people are so glued to their cars? Avoidance?) On the bus, you see it all. Sometimes, it is all I can do to open my heart to it all and keep breathing. What better place to experience the same-ness of all people, to practice loving the world?

Leave the car at home. What practices do you come up with? Ride the bus. Open your heart.

Impermanence

If we are not empty, we become a block of matter. We cannot breathe, we cannot think. To be empty means to be alive, to breathe in and to breathe out. We cannot be alive if we are not empty. Emptiness is impermanence, it is change. We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

The Buddha's Five Remembrances

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Oddly enough, watching Planet Earth makes me think about impermanence. The life that animals live on this earth can be brutal, and yet they seem peaceful. For us humans, living so close to death is terrifying. We spend our lives trying to deny change, illness and death. For many animals, brushes with death are a daily occurrence and yet they seem to accept them in a way we have not. Perhaps in distancing ourselves from death, we have done the human race a disservice. I'm not sure. It is difficult to judge without being able to get inside an animal's head somehow.

Talking with a friend recently about the death of someone she knew, I thought of the five remembrances (above). We spend much of our time putting these five things out of our mind. This is the root of all of our grief, the realization that our illusion of permanence is just that, an illusion, a mere fairy tale. I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to come to terms with these five things. This is heavy stuff. You can't just snap your fingers and be OK with it.

Shortly after my long-term relationship ended last fall, I took a workshop with Laura Tyree at the Ojai Yoga Crib. The theme of last year's Crib was the Queen of Hearts "GROW". How appropriate for me. The Crib is always appropriate, always exactly what I need. The universe is an amazing place.

Laura asked me two questions about my break-up: (1) What good has come of it, what have I learned from it? It has deepened my practice, and (2) What do I fear? Loneliness. Then she said, "When you feel that loneliness, turn into it. It is a divine loneliness. We are all seeking God."

Hmmm... I take "God" in a non-denominational way here to mean universality, the interconnectedness of all beings in this universe. And indeed, perhaps this is what we are all seeking. I have been thinking about Laura's words a lot, about how if you sink into the loneliness and stay present in it, you might find what it is that connects all of us. You might find the essence of what it means to be truly alive.

As I am making my way towards the other side of grief, it occurs to me that Thich Nhat Hanh is right (as usual), in his gently humorous way. I love this line: "We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible." Without old age, illness, death, loss and change, nothing is possible. I am trying to sit with this knowledge, over and over. I am considering seeking out the loneliness and dancing with it, just to see what happens.

Aparigraha/ balance the two efforts

Aparigraha, often translated as non-grasping, is the fifth of the yamas (ethical practices listed by Patanjali). "Grasping" here refers to clinging or attachment: to people, possessions, dreams, ideas, expectations. You can read an interesting perspective on the practice of aparigraha here. The trick, as described by this writer, is not to reject yourself or others, but rather to experience fully without clinging to your experiences or your perceptions of them.

Those who know me personally know that I have suffered some loss recently, including the death of my grandmother, the departure of friends, and the end of a long-term relationship. Grief and sadness are pretty normal in these situations. Grief and sadness pass with time; however, I think that loss can be a gateway to long-term suffering if we choose to cling too much to the past or to our expectations of the future. The ability to let go and trust the flow of life is essential to happiness and inner peace. Clinging to the way things were could make you miss a beautiful future opportunity. The same goes for clinging to the way things "are supposed to be".

This is always a difficult precept to apply. "Letting go" is different from not caring or pushing away. In Awake at Work, Michael Carroll introduces a slogan that he calls "balance the two efforts". This means to balance "the effort to get somewhere with that of being where we are completely," which he suggests makes up "the core competency of being awake at work" (p. 31). This seems to me to be closely tied to the practice of aparigraha. By letting go, we are suspending our self-talk and personal stories to simply observe what is happening, allowing us to be "available to our immediate circumstances" (p. 28). This gives us the alertness and access to our own instincts which is essential to optimal job performance. This concept of letting go of thoughts and opening to grace and awareness is probably very familiar to performers and Olympic athletes, but maybe less familiar to the average working person. Nonetheless, it is an essential skill for all of us.

In my own work, I definitely struggle with this concept on a daily basis. I am responsible for so many different things, and the day sometimes flies by as a serious of crises and loose ends. When I have a student in tears at my desk, angry letters from agents in my email, piles of documents demanding attention in my inbox, a deadline for exam entries looming, missing paperwork, and a pile of school assignments waiting for me at home, it is extremely difficult to let go and just be. I often find that an entire day has passed without me taking the time to quiet my thoughts and observe my instincts before taking action.

Carroll suggests that when we let go, "irritations that we may easily dismiss - the predictably late report, the sullen receptionist, the unresponsive customer - become reminders to pay attention" (p. 30). Indeed, I find that the times that I do remember to let go and give something my full attention, I am usually invited to do so because someone else's crisis is greater than my own. Sometimes, another person's pain or frustration jolts me out of my thoughts to a place where I can listen to them, observe, and react from a place of compassion. At these moments, I find that I have the skill to deal with incredibly difficult situations with finesse ~ and it is almost like another force is steering me, choosing the words to say and the actions to take. At these moments, I love what I do.

I would like to learn to respond to my own crises with equal compassion. Again, Carroll suggests sitting meditation. My own practice made it two days after my last post before it got buried in the rush to do, do, do. I need to begin again today.

It seems like the International Education field is in need of people who know how to let go and pay attention. When working with other cultures and language barriers, instinct and compassion are essential to diffuse tension and avoid conflict and misunderstanding. We need to develop a sixth sense and look below the surface of our daily interactions. Maybe everyone does. When I take the time to slow down, I communicate better and I attain better results.

I have also noticed that I have a tendency to cling to my past experiences with people, and respond to them from a place where assumptions are made according to past baggage. The worst is when I judge an interaction based on previous experiences with other people from the same culture. Sometimes I am surprised to find that a person is not speaking from the point of view I expected. I would like to work on letting go of conflicts, insults and misunderstandings that occur in the workplace, and allowing each individual situation and interaction to unfold independently of past experience.

Balance the two efforts. Let go. Meditate. Just be.

Practicing at work

Awake at Work by Michael Carroll offers, as its subtitle puts it, "35 practical Buddhist principles for discovering clarity and balance in the midst of work's chaos". Sounds pretty good, right? Of all the things that go on in my life, work is when I feel the least yogic. So often at work, I find myself goaded into gossip and malice. I become frustrated and lose track of my center. I speak without thinking.

Carroll suggests that this is precisely the reason why work is the perfect environment to cultivate one's practice. Of his own working life, he says "The daily grind, the successes and failures, the hard work and stress, all gradually unfolded as a profound teaching. And central to that teaching was the realization that the spiritual path is nothing other than living our very life, fully and confidently, in the immediate moment... Work becomes our spiritual journey when our destination is no longer just becoming more successful or more wealthy or getting a paycheck, promotion, or job security, but when we also work to resolve a most fundamental question: Can we be at home in our lives - can we be open, honest, and at ease under all circumstances, moment by moment?" He goes on to acknowledge that work is frustrating for many people because it is something that we cannot control, that inevitably unfolds in its own way, messy and complicated. However, he suggests that if we stop treating work's problems as obstacles, but rather as invitations to wake up and pay attention, we can find "a profound sense of freedom and fulfillment in our jobs." I want that!

Carroll proposes a couple of practices for cultivating mindfulness at work. The first is to develop a regular mindfulness practice; he suggests daily sitting meditation practice. I have always had good intentions regarding the development of meditation practice; however, this hasn't ever turned into an actual practice for me. Life ~ as it likes to do ~ keeps reminding me. In my last post, I talked about how every moment is a good moment to begin again. It is clear to me that a regular meditation practice will help me to move forward with my practice at work. I even wrote it into my learning plan for school. I guess now's the time! We'll see how that goes.

The second practice is the contemplation of slogans, adapted by Carroll for the modern workplace from those used in lojong, a Tibetan Buddhist spiritual practice. I'll be referencing Carroll's slogans as I explore them in this blog and in my own life.

Again, we'll see how that goes... :-)

On and off the mat

Some of you may be familiar with The Holographic Universe in which Michael Talbot asserts that the Universe could be a hologram. Whether or not you buy into that idea, the ideas laid out in this book are engaging. One of the features of a hologram is that the entire image can be reconstructed from a fragment. Talbot gives examples of this in the real world; for example, the concept in acupuncture that the entire body can be mapped on the human ear.

I think that asana practice is holographic in this sense. From any moment of her practice on the mat, a yogi can reconstruct all the processes that take place in her daily life off the mat: all the patterns of self-talk, of holding and letting go, of ego, of resistance, of pushing too far, of denial, of connection, etc., etc. Not only that, but a breakthrough on the mat can translate into a breakthrough off the mat.

Like anything else in life, one can practice asana without being present. One can work without being present, eat without being present, talk without being present. The effects of this lack of mindfulness in asana practice can range from injury to simply not experiencing the maximum benefits of the poses. The same goes for not being present in life. Sometimes the effect is simply less joy, less appreciation, less benefit. Other times, you end up hurting yourself or someone else.
The effects of being present can be astounding. On the mat, the yogi can discover endless variations and directions in which to take the pose. There is always another level, a new discovery. Sometimes, on or off the mat, being present can result in absolute joy and peace where before there was discomfort.

Lately, with everything going on in my life, I've been finding it hard to be present. This morning, I brought my lack of mindfulness onto my yoga mat with me. It was hard to focus, hard to find the right alignment in poses I practice all the time with ease. It was time to back off and treat myself gently and kindly. This week too, I want to maintain this patience with myself. This has not been an easy fall for me, and sometimes I deserve not to push so hard. Today was a day for child's pose instead of the 100th downward facing dog. Today is also a day to nap a little and blog a little, even though my schoolwork needs to get done.

The beautiful thing about a yoga or meditation practice is that it is so incredibly forgiving and compassionate. In meditation or asana practice, the mind wanders and wanders and wanders. And yet, any moment is a good moment to begin again, fresh, from the beginning. In yoga and meditation and life, one is always beginning again. And that's OK. When you are present, the focus is not on the past, how you failed to hold attention, nor is it on the future, whether you will fail again. In fact, infinitely holding your attention is not the practice. Beginning again is the practice. We all begin again and again: it's never too late.

Tomorrow is Monday and at work, I will forget to be present. I can pretty much guarantee it. What a glorious opportunity to practice!

Everything is connected

If you've heard Erich Schiffmann speak recently, you know about the Internet of the Mind analogy. If not, you can listen to him here. (Erich is awesome!) To summarize, Erich talks about the idea of our mind as being like a personal computer, with limited capacity. However by "getting online" we can open to what he calls the "Internet of Infinite Mind".

I find this is easiest to do through asana practice (physical poses). Asana was originally developed to prepare the mind for meditation, and however it works - it does work! Walking home from class tonight after a particularly good asana class where we focused on the concept of "rooting to rise", I was suddenly aware of everything and totally dialed in to whatever it is that connects us... I suddenly remembered the first time I came to San Diego, over 5 years ago, with my boyfriend at the time; we drove down the 805 freeway and came off the off-ramp right next to the apartment where I now live. I probably looked right out the passenger window at the building I now call home - my first real glimpse of a San Diego neighborhood. At the time, of course, I had no idea that I would ever live in that apartment by myself - but here I am. I am who I am and where I am because that moment happened, and all the moments in between happened. And standing outside my building in the dark like an idiot, I felt the concrete reality of this moment and that moment both occurring. Back then, I had no idea I would stand here now... but the moments are connected, inevitably, and somehow I can feel the Infinite holds both these experiences, and more, simultaneous and equal. And somehow I can feel how powerful the flow of life is, and in this moment, surrender. Every moment exists, and doesn't exist, like a drop of water merging into a lake. Every moment is a chance to connect and begin again. Just like on the mat, I root to rise. (I think this concept needs a whole separate post. It was an amazing class and I'm still processing it.)

The question is how to hold this sense of connection after stepping off the mat. I think the answer is: practice. If I can train myself more often during my day to breathe deep and open my mind, it will get easier to operate from this place of connection. And in International Education, where we operate often from different cultures, different sets of communicative norms and expectations, we need this. We need to dial in to the Infinite that connects all of us so that it is harder for us to create the Other - and harder for us to obsess about the Self.

Last time I heard him speak, Erich suggested that if you connect to the Infinite, you will discover for yourself all the teachings of yoga. For him, the main practice should be this connection. The other precepts, the ethical behavior and the guides to practice will rise from it. As my teacher Nikole humorously put it, there's more than one way to skin a cat in yoga. :-) I like thinking about yoga philosophy. But I also think it's true that the Universe is its own guide.

This week at work, my practice will be connection. Making decisions from that place where the Infinite runs through me. Especially, speaking and reacting from that place. These days, I'm so busy that I forget to really connect with the people who sit at my desk or talk to me on the phone. This week, I will try to Google the Internet of Mind as much as I Google the Internet. I am amused to realize that part of my mind wants to reject Erich's talks when I hear him - oh, I've heard this before, say something new. But then I realize I haven't been doing it.

Thank you, Infinite Internet of Mind, for letting Erich know I need to hear it again. Thank you Erich, for listening. :-)