Practice for the life you want

Practice for the life you want.

 

I think a lot about what makes yoga different from other forms of physical fitness. My gym routines, daily dog walks and hiking also incorporate mind, body & breath and have tremendous benefits to my overall life & health. A well-timed walk can change my whole perspective.

 

So how is yoga different?  Yoga is a practice. And it’s not practicing for more yoga. Today’s yoga practice isn’t about tomorrow’s time on the mat. It’s about everything I do, because more than whether I bring my nose to my shins any time soon, more than whether I can clasp my hands behind my back, my time on the mat is about the present moment.

 

And that’s why yoga is different: while I can be present-moment in any or all of my activities, every part of yoga has as its aim this paradoxical state of being, which is itself beyond means & end thinking. The present moment is both every moment – and so different across time and people – and it is one moment, so it is the stable core of our being to which we can always return.

 

This is the paradox of eternity & the infinite: it is not a moment repeated forever, or a series of discrete moments following one another without end. It is a way of being from which we can see time. It is the way of being which allows us to take us a stand, or remain above the fray. And while walking and lifting and hiking bring me joy, connect me to my breath and occasionally bring me into the flow, Yoga is all about this. Yoga is preparation for meditation, which is to say it is a meditation on meditation from a beginners point of view – the very point of view to which most meditators are trying to return.

 

Yoga is a practice, and as such has profound consequences off the mat – not just on my ability to sustain a heart rate or walk a set of stairs, or even let a feeling go. My time on the mat is where I explore and create the structure of my life.  I investigate my mind while I hold poses, feel emotions, strive for goals. The poses, emotions and goals are but tools for the point of the practice which supercedes them all.

 

So what are you building and cultivating with your time on the mat? Where do you practice? Do you practice in a place & manner that reflects the life you are crafting? Are you fitting practice in or intentionally carving out the minutes for your mat time? 5 minutes on purpose without stealing from your other priorities is better than an hour and a half stolen from your sleep or other needs.

 

Knowing which is which takes a great deal of compassion and care in watching your own mind. Your mind is not only your thoughts but your emotions and what you might call your “almost thoughts”… the ones that flit beneath the radar. And of course this takes – you guessed it – practice: mat time.

 

So consider where & how you practice and the kind of relation with your mind that it cultivates. Plant the seeds of your best life on your mat, nurture them with your presence and a little bit of sweat and maybe even tears. And watch your mat – and your practice – grow into your best life.

Re-Imagining

Yoga allowed me to re-imagine myself.

I realized this today practicing with one of my old faves, Shiva Rae’s Solar Practice CD from 1999. It was one of my first home practice guides, and even today when I need another voice in my head, someone else’s metaphors and images to bring freshness to my Warrior, I slide this one into the player.

And I realized, her metaphors became my own. Her voice helped me re-imagine my body and re-connect to the way I related to my body when I was a girl. I remember squinting my eyes to make haloes and fireworks as I balanced my arm, perpendicular to the earth in its socket, so perfectly that I could imagine it wasn’t mine. It stood there on its own. And I was the earth.

And when Shiva Rae used the metaphor of “wings” for the shoulder blades today (well, the recorded sound of her voice…) I realized, that was the first time I re-imagined my body as an adult. Imagined it wasn’t set in stone as it sometimes felt, or in mud or even bound in cotton as it sometimes felt I was insulated from the world. That my body could become a conduit for energy and images and power. That I could live differently.

I had just delivered my last academic paper about a year before when I was practicing with this CD for the first time: Metaphor as the structure of Truth. Having received much interest, many plaudits and requests for reprints and further investigation, I vanished to the desert. My name had changed (returned to home), my profession, my location, my possessions (mostly left behind), and I had some radical re-imagining to do. I didn’t know it at the time (I had come here to be a Paramedic) but yoga would be the vehicle for my to realize the deep truth of that last talk. And Shiva Rea’s voice would plant a seed in my heart, a seed of wings and of roots.

The structure of metaphor is a container and yoga helps us explore how we contain our breath, and so how we express our meanings and truths. I still believe the basic tenants of that last talk, that sentences are derivatively true, that when we seek truth we are never ultimately looking for statements and that what makes statements true are neither facts nor objects nor worlds but states of consciousness.  Yoga helped me not only realize the truth of what I discovered, but to re-imagine it and myself in ever more revealing ways. That’s why I practice yoga. Every Day.

Intention

Intent. It changes everything.

But what is it? It’s not a thing, not something added on at the beginning or end. It’s an underpinning, a condition of the act being at all. Intent, or lack thereof, is constitutive.

Intention and Attention are related, but not identical.  Attention is the conscious presence that maintains the space for things & relationships to reveal themselves. In my view, this makes it sacred: it is an ontological, or constitutive, condition for other things, relations and conditions.

Intention is specific attention. Focused Attention. Focused attention, or the lack thereof, is how we create meaning and the lack thereof. There are many different levels on which to focus your attention, and it is characteristically Western to focus it on a thing or an event: a goal.

Often, I think, we think “goal” when a teacher asks us to “set an intention”. Open hamstrings, clear heart chakra, world peace, love in my life.

When we create intention at the beginning of yoga class, we are invoking sankalpa. The usual translation is merely “intention” or “resolve”, but we are really invoking a second order of intent: conscious intention, or intention about intention. What do we want to want?

I suggest we think of intention as a clear, quiet, neutral place to stand. Imagine a platform in the deep, deep forest. Like that from which a biologist might watch. But we are scientists of ourselves. We need a clear, quiet place from which to watch the thoughts frollick. Our sankalpa is an expression of why we practice,  a touchstone to which we can return when we get lost among our thoughts and desires.

But how to find our Sankalpa? How to set an appropriate intention? Well, think of what you’d like to have. Even an old fashioned goal or egocentric desire. Be really honest. Good. Now, what conditions have to be present for this gift to manifest? And what quality would you ascribe to these conditions? It’ll take a few moments to let the mist settle and see what emerges like an island from the surf.  But that quality, the quality of the conditions which enable the manifestation of your deepest desire, that’s a good candidate for your Sankalpa.

Now that’s an intention worth your attention.

energy, doing, service & mudras

Yes, it’s true. Sometimes the yoga teacher feels too tired to teach.

Feels. But here’s what I’ve learned: If I’m blessed to have people to teach, I will also feel better when I’m done. When I’ve dug in, scooped up and given what I thought I didn’t have and needed.

How does that work? Well, for one, what I give isn’t mine in the first place. It’s just hard to remember that when I’d rather draw a bath than get in my car & drive cross town, open the studio, set the mood and invite the magic. But it’s true & it’s real: it isn’t mine & giving it doesn’t diminish me. It feeds me. As long as I’m taking care of the pathways that allow energy to flow into and through me. Which sounds really woo-woo. It’s really about laying the foundation: enough sleep, enough greens, enough gym time (yes, I still love my gym time!).

The other thing is to love, passionately, fervently and without reserve love what you’re doing. I giggle internally whenever a student asks if I would teach a class if only one person showed up. Ok, externally. YES!  In the past when I found myself showing up to a job that seemed to do nothing but rob my energy, you know what the problem was? It was a job I thought I should love, but – you guessed it – didn’t. Prestigious in the field, well-rewarded, feather in the cap. Didn’t love it.

And when I’ve had too little sleep, too few greens and not enough time in the gym and I’m wondering how I can shed my thoughts to welcome my people to their practice (because it’s theirs, not mine) sometimes I call on mudra. Today it’s a dharma mudra. Now, I try these things out quite a bit before I recommend them, because I’m a bit skeptical by nature. I won’t claim to know for certain how they work, but I bet it’s at least two fold: I think they probably do connect up pathways in the body, because the ones I keep change how I feel within moments of first use. Also, after using them in related situations over time, I know I associate taking them with focusing on an intent, and this is powerful.

The one I used today was featured in a Yoga Journal article this month. Join the thumbs to the pointer fingers of each hand. Left palm toward heart, Right turned out, tip of middle finger of Left hand touching thumb of right. With this, I ask myself (as suggested in the YJ piece!) “What is next?”, “How may I be of service?” Words may not appear (or they might!), but mental dust settles and clarity dawns.

From there, anything is possible.

Brahmacharya as Energy Independence

Brahmacharya is one of the Yamas, or Suggestions for a firm foundation for practice. Brahmacharya means conserving your life force. As I was listening to folks discussing our current gas prices and “Energy Independence” on the radio, I realized that this is another application of Brahmacharya. 
When we are aware of where and how we expend our life force – our precious time, energy and resources – we can make choices that reflect our deepest values.
Energy Independence begins with not using our life force carelessly. So if we’re sitting in front of the TV it’s because we mean to, and we’ve chosen the images we’re taking in. Or, if we realize mid-activity we are involved in something that doesn’t reflect our deepest truth, knowing we can choose differently any time.
The other part of Energy Independence is choosing the most efficient methods for moving through the world. On the mat this might mean being aware of whether we’re gripping in a pose, and releasing areas of unnecessary effort. A good rule of thumb is not to reach out further or with more vigor than we are reaching in.
In relationships, everyday interactions and helping others, our practice on the mat is really practice for respecting our own life force and the energy of everyone we meet. That’s why, though yoga makes us more flexible, healthier, thinner and happier, we have so many more reasons to find our feet on the mat.

Roam the Hub of All Sacred Places….

“The light which shines above this heaven, above all the worlds, above everything, in the highest worlds not excelled by any other worlds, that’s the same light  which is in you.” ~Chhandogya Upanishad

What if all the thinking, all the words, ideas aren’t our minds? What if they’re the covering over our minds? Don’t get me wrong – they’re great tools. But what’s overseeing the job site? They’re not the tools you’ll need if you’re looking for your true self or for a steady place to stand.

Science tells us our minds are decentralized in the body. Yoga helps us settle into our heart, where wisdom and intelligence reside. Of course when we talk about heart in yoga, we’re not just talking about the juicy pumping muscle to the left of center in our ribcages. There are a lot of bits housed around there – chemoreceptors, baraoreceptors, lungs, thymus, arteries, lymph nodes, spine, circulating blood and air, esophagus, diaphragm. When we bring our attention to this area, when we just feel what comes up, we are contacting the heart of yoga. Our yoga.

Bringing ease to the muscles and joints around this area can be the beginning or development of this process. This is where many of us Western Yogis start, with asana. Maybe a little breathing practice. Then we might start calling that pranayama. Maybe we meditate for stress reduction. Somewhere along the way we realize these pesky emotions are less pesky, the aches are less achey, the mind is less muddled.

“The heart is the resting place of the pranas, the senses and the mind. It’s your true self, which is identified with intelligence and which finds repose in the space within your heart.” ~Nikhilananada’s Intro to The Principal Upanishads

So then we explore pratyahara – sense withdrawal. But then, where do the senses go? Niky above, says to the space within your heart, your true self. Makes some sense – it’s quieter there than the head or stomach. The feelings come up, but maybe we’re in a place where we can uncouple them enough from the words and judgments to just let them be a bit.

Now we’re practicing saucha in our hearts. Saucha – cleanliness, purity. We don’t often think of it in regard to our hearts, but after we’ve gotten glimpses of the Love that lives there, it makes sense not to store our crap on the porch. If we keep the windows clean maybe it will shine more brightly. The Sanskrit word for this place – Anahata – can be translated “unstruck”. “The space within your heart  is omnipresent and unchanging.” (~Chhandogya Upanishad ) Always with us, always available for us to touch and feel is a place that is unstruck by the blows of life, unmoved by the compliments and criticisms, the lost jobs and the awards. It is always what it is. We are always who we are. Sometimes we just cover it up with judgments, which are really old experiences in new clothes. Film on our windows.

Maybe this is the impetus to poke our noses into the pesky ethical side of yoga.  But if you’ve been cleaning your windows all by yourself, and someone gives you a step ladder and an extension for your sponge, you’ll be pretty glad to pay attention. And they’re pretty simple, deceptively so. Love, Truth, Conserve your energy, Be quiet, Be fierce, Stay Open, Be present, Learn you’re not in control, Study your experience, Respect Others’ Boundaries. But Wow! try to practice ’em all at once! That’ll give any college Ethics Professor a run for her money.

So you keep coming back to the place of quiet stillness to which your mat has become the doorway. “The heart is the hub of all sacred places; go there and roam.” ~Bhagavan Nityananda 

Yoga IS Love, Truth, Beauty: Here, Now.

As I was building my website over at yogaeveryday.org and typing my slogan, I was struck by how it read differently in that commercial setting. True, it’s also a yoga website. And it’s my business, how I let people know what I have to offer. And in that context, it suddenly struck me: am I pimping yoga?

Will yoga give you love? will it make your words true? and will it make you beautiful? and what’s this “Here, Now” stuff? What am I, a three year old? Immediate results?

And the answers are no, yoga will not give you anything. Because anything that can be given is a) not already present in the receiver, and b) an object. That’s the “Yoga IS…” part. Yoga isn’t a plan or program and it’s not a way to find love or beautify your body (though these things happen along the way). Yoga is the space between awareness and thought that Eckhart Tolle spent 10 weeks pointing toward and getting us interested in. Yoga is the silent space where what is has room to breathe and reveal itself. Yoga is the shadow under which we find shade for rest and contemplation of the deeper grains of our existence.

Love, Truth, Beauty: Here, Now. It’s my way of pointing with words to that expansiveness of mind we’re all seeking, the eternal Now in which the chatter vanishes or becomes so remote as to be inconsequential. The eternal Here in which we realize the rock bottom truth of our oneness with all beings. It is not a love we are given, it is The Love we Are. It is not the truth of argumentation or description – those all rely on dualism and leaving something out, the something that would shift the gestalt onto a tangent – it is the Truth we are under all the masks, and to which we return, and – when we are acting from this Truth – from which we proceed with certainty. Yoga is Beauty, not the one you’ll become, but the revelation that you already ARE.

The week of the Camel… will you join me?

Why isn’t there a groundhog pose in yoga?

I’m feeling like groundhog emerging and realizing Spring. Of course Spring is putting on Summer clothes just now, but the flowery, rainy wardrobe of emergence is not yet shed, and is suiting me just fine.

Coincidences intrigue me, especially as I don’t believe in them ;> so I was intrigued to find that it was just about a year ago that I was playing with Camel and the emotions that it offers up. I wrote a series of blogs over about six months and recently had an interesting comment from Patrick on one of them that beckoned I return to this most inciting asana.

Additionally, many of you have written to me of your own emotional releases and offerings in this asana, and I’ve found other blogs make mention – notably, NiceMarmot (I love that name! and the blog…) Yoga aids us in digesting not only our food, but our spiritual food – our experience. And sometimes digesting, in breaking down the substance of a thing and absorbing what’s nurturing or nutritious and flushing the unnecessary generates heat, discomfort and intensity. It depends on what you’ve been eating. And daily life puts much on our plate that we might not choose all on our own. That’s its offering to us. Nurturing is not always warm and fuzzy.

And here I am again, with you Gentle Reader, on the precipice of Summer. I celebrated Spring with Twists (see the May 2nd blog on yogaeveryday.org) and I’m baring my heart to Summer with Camel this week. I invite you to join me in making camel part of your practice this week, and if you haven’t started a home yoga practice, to start with this asana. Abide in your awareness of your heartful center, know that whatever comes up is not you, it is a residue of experience, and experience of its own, connecting us to the world of other experienciers. In the posts above is a class with Ustrasana as its pinnacle pose, or you might dive in with these videos below. They are different in approach, but each offer valuable instruction.

How does it feel to remain vulnerable in your life? Does it seem a worthy spiritual quest? What are you offering today? As always, I love hearing about your experience on and off the mat. Leave a comment or email me privately. Either way, find your yoga today and dive in, heart and all.

 

Inner Purpose: aligning with the present moment

Chapter 9 of a A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle is entitled “Inner Purpose”.  We’ve brought our reflection on pain bodies and time and flowers and ego and roles to this chapter . Our inner purpose is all the same, according to Tolle:  “to align to the present moment”, “say yes to life”, “say yes to now.” How has your awareness changed with your reflections? Do you find more moments of presence among your everydayness? Has the process been gradual or startling for you?

“You can only be successful.” (270) How does it feel to read this?

What do you know when you are still?

Do you have an outer purpose? Does it bring you joy? How aligned are your outer purpose and inner purpose? What do you do to bring inner purpose into everything you do?

“Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciusness is primary, all else is secondary” (p. 266). What do you do that reminds you that you are awareness, to “say yes to now” and align to the present moment?

How does it feel when you give people your 100 percent full attention? “Am I total in what I do?” Eckhart urges us to ask. Do you notice the activity – the buying or selling or caretaking – takes a secondary seat? Do you enjoy surrendering yourself to each interaction?

“…the most significant thing that can happen to a human being has already happened within you: the beginning of the separation process of thinking and awareness.” (p. 262)

Join us at ANewEarth.Gather.com at 7pm EDT (that’s 5 MDT) for discussion!

Meditation: The Anti-Bedtime Story

Around our hose we’re re-vamping ritual and routine as I settle into my daytime schedule and more yoga teaching and trekking. Last night we meditated together for 20 minutes right before crawling into the sack and I realized it was the ultimate anti-bedtime story.

Now, you may have children or remember your own bedtime story experiences fondly – I know I do. It seemed stories were a ticket to dreamland back then. But I was a much less accomplished multi-tasker back then, and the stories seemed somehow closer to my normal life. My imagination was so free and so rich and I had so little figured out about how the physical world worked that stories almost felt like an escape: everything got explained, everything had a trajectory and a place, everyone had a character – someone to be. It was comforting, and my Dad’s voice made it seem so stable and real.

The stories I tell my grownup self are not so comforting, and reading a book doesn’t interrupt them as completely – probably because my stories are about the details of my everyday life, and I think I have so much figured out about its underpinnings – certainly more than a 8 year old girl who still wonders who decides on floor tile patterns and if they mean anything and whether I can decode it by squinting my eyes just right.

Or do I? Meditation was the perfect anti-bedtime story. I didn’t have to listen to anyone else’s voice (NPR podcasts are a favorite of mine for being lulled to sleep. Not because I find them boring, but like my childhood stories they are neat and delivered in soothing voices…) or to my own endless internal chatter.

While meditation is a bit strenuous on its own, all that awareness and breathing can wear a girl out!, I snuggled into bed, the stream already diverted, the feeling of sheets on my body and feet on my feet absorbing my being. The anti-story: Meditation. Try it… and let me know what you find.