Pramada, Po-tah-to...

New York has had its way with me this Christmas.

I'm not sure I deserved this kind of glove-less treatment from a city I have spent so much time mentally romancing over the past many months, but that's fine, NYC...I can take it.  So, here follows:

A Short List of Things Which Happened On Our New York Christmas Vacation:

1. On our first night in town, my husband's IPhone got stolen.  He left it on a table in a restaurant in our beloved Brooklyn, discovered it's absence maybe 20 minutes later, ran back to the restaurant...and it was gone.  This was no tragedy, I'll admit, but it was an immediate snag in our settling-in, and required lots of internet time, and a $450 gift to our local ATT store for a replacement phone.

2. My tooth fell out while eating a piece of ginger candy.  (Okay, it wasn't actually my tooth...it was a crown, but still!) We were sitting in our apartment, having just finished a meal from one of our favorite local take-out places, I took a hearty bite of a piece of ginger candy, felt a less-than-delicate pulling in one of my molars and then, like a tiny little canon ball, my crown rocketed across the living room.  "My tooth fell out!" I cried, horrified. "That's your TOOTH?!" Cried Paul, even more horrified.  This was remedied by some phone-calls to dentists, and a trip to a drugstore to buy some temporary cement.

3. Our washing machine exploded.  Apparently someone (me) didn't close the door to the washing machine hard enough (but the little light was on that said it was locked!), and so when I went back to check the progress of the clothes, what I found instead was a bathroom covered in suds.  Covered.  The bright side was, as we were mopping and toweling and bucketing water and foam off the bathroom floor I did think, well, at least now I KNOW the floor is clean.

4. Paul burned his finger badly on a kettle of water, causing some angry little blisters to rise up on his thumb.  I think this may have happened simultaneous to the washing machine exploding.

5. For Christmas...I got pick-pocketed. Eight years I lived in New York, people, and never, not a once, did a single thing get stolen. Ever! And perhaps it's because of that, that I felt okay carrying my BRIGHT yellow wallet in a BIG open bag....  Ah, sigh.  While going to see our traditional Christmas Day movie, someone decided to lighten my load, taking my wallet from my bag, and promptly spending $150 from my credit cards on subway passes.  Again, not a tragedy...just a lot of calling and cancelling and lamenting...but by this point in the trip we were both starting to feel that New York had it out for us this holiday season.

6.  Oh, this one is the worst.  Worse than having an IPhone and a wallet stolen in the same week?  Yes, I'm afraid so. Existentially worse, at least.  While we were wandering around our neighborhood, a couple days after Christmas, looking for some levity, we ran into one of our neighbors, who was walking his very sweet and very old dog.  And while we were talking, right there on the sidewalk, the dog started to have a massive seizure.  The dog's owner knew what to do, as the dog had been having seizures recently...they think he may have a brain tumor...and so he just held him sweetly, trying to soothe the poor little guy as his body rocked and quaked.  Paul and I, not knowing what else to do, just stood there quietly with them until the seizure passed.  It was rough.  More so, of course, for the dog's owner, who has had him for thirteen years and who neither Paul nor I have ever seen without the dog in question.  They are best friends, without question.

Through all of the other minor aggravations and irritations and snags and snafus, we had been holding ourselves steady...just dealing and recovering and moving forward, but there was something about that dog and his seizure and the weight in his owner's eyes that really sent the LIST into sharp focus.  What, we both wondered, is going on here?

I have been pondering it for days.

Paul has suggested that it's all just about the two of us being out of shape for New York--that the city is just trying to remind us that it's not all hotdogs and art galleries--which seems right, but not exactly it.  And for awhile I freaked myself out thinking it has something to do with being LOST or, worse, being STOLEN.  With what being lost or stolen?  Our souls, of course!  Or...our Self.  Or...ugh.  Just fodder for my in-house fear-monster.

But today...today, I think I have happened upon it.  If not the "why" then at least a lesson in how to think about two-weeks full of craziness.

There is a sanskrit word, Pramada, which means, essentially...negligence.  Or, carelessness.

(Need I say more?)

It's talked about in the Yoga Sutras, and it is listed as one of nine distractions that become obstacles on the path to practice.  Now, I really thought when I started investigating this morning, that I was just going to end up reading about elephant-headed Ganesha (remover of obstacles), and that I was just going to have to do some deep-hearted praying to that little dude.  But, when I came upon this word, pramada, I realized that ALL of the things listed above (save the dog, which I'll get to later), came about as a result of negligence or carelessness on our part:  the phone left on the table, the ginger candy eaten (even though my dentist told me to avoid such things), the washer not closed properly, the hot kettle mis-handled, the bag left open...all of these all of these ALL of these...are (gulp) a result of carelessness.

What the Sutras say is that, whether it's negligence or laziness or instability or whatever, these nine distractions are, well...distractions.  To growth.  To practice.  And WORSE, once the mind gets focused on the distraction in question, it quickly gets promoted from distraction to full-blown obstacle.  And when it's an obstacle, you'll know, because that's when you start freaking out or shutting down or doing whatever it is that is your particular "something's wrong and I'm upset about it" reaction pattern.  Example:  I am not paying attention (distraction)...wallet gets stolen...I discover stolen wallet...I freak the f- out (obstacle).

And so...what are we supposed to do?  Because all of these distractions, it also says right there in the Sutras, are common.  They happen to everyone.  So...I'm supposed to, what, keep a manic eye on my purse?  That does not paint a very yogic picture.  And that's not it, of course...the distractions are not symbolic, in and of themselves.  My wallet didn't get stolen in order to teach me to be less trusting in crowds or more fretful about my belongings. The distractions point to something larger.  They point, in this case, to a distracted mind.  Numbers 1-5 listed above, all of these could have been avoided.  Every single one.  And they could have been avoided with the simple act of attention.

Ah yes.  Paying Attention.  That thing.  I've heard of that.

Well, what about the dog, you ask?  How did that little guy's distress have anything to do with your negligence?

Well, as I review my little list of New York foibles, all I keep thinking is that, the moment of standing there on the sidewalk, waiting out that little dog's seizure with his owner...it was, however upsetting, still a moment of deep and singular attention.  It was, I think, a very stark reminder.  Because, I know from experience that the universe will keep bringing you things to get your attention back into the present.  It will start with something small (lost things, exploding appliances, burned fingers), and then make the signals bigger and bigger (and often worse and worse), until finally you have no choice but to focus.

So the generous universe, it has given me a very clear, and very long-winded edict to pay attention.  To pay better attention.  And, in honor of that sweet doggy and my dear husband and my deep wishes for 2012...I am going to do my best to follow it.

Here's wishing you a very joyful, and very present New Year

This Hamster is FOCUSED...

First of all, Shanti-towners, thank you!  Because, Shanti Town has now hit 100 followers!  Small potatoes in the blog-o-sphere at large, but a big deal for this lady, so thank you, very much!  I'm so happy to have you all here!

Ahem.  On with the show.

The other day, in the midst of my third wedding-related melt-down in as many days, whilst trying to explain my deep state of overwhelm to my very amazing soon-to-be husband, he gently (as is his way) pointed out to me that perhaps part of the problem wasn't the amount of work to be done, but the way in which I was trying to go about doing it.  He reminded me that often it is my habit to try and carry around and accomplish all things at all times, instead of setting out to do just one thing in an allotted amount of time.

The problem, in other words, was focus.

(And just for clarity's sake, let me just say...we are BOTH very involved in the wed-planning.  This is not one of those bride doing all the work until she makes herself crazy, situations.  Just so ya know.  I'm just more prone to, um...crying.)

Okay, so...where was I?

Oh, right.  Focus.

Sooooooo...my wise mister suggests it might be about focus.  And as soon as he says it, I think back to an interview I had been (re)listening to the day before, with these two writers/parents of an autistic child, about autism.  And in the interview at one point the dad talks about how one of the traits common in people with autism is the ability to focus really deeply on something, to the exclusion of all other things.  He talked about how this was also a notable trait in most people we consider masters or geniuses, and I remember thinking, even at the time...argh! I'm doomed!!  

Not because I don't know how to focus, I do...but because I forget, so often, the importance of focus and instead let the guise of obsessive productivity take it's place.

And I thought about what it's like, you know, to really focus on something...the way that the whole world can just drop away and time sort of fans out, like it might just go on forever.  You know that feeling?

So, with all this on my mind and in preparation for classes, I took it to the books...specifically to The Heart of Yoga by Mr. TKV Desikachar (a famous yogi dude), to get a refresher course on the last three limbs of yoga:  Dhāraṇā, Dhyāna, and Samādhi.

Okay, brief primer: Dhāraṇā is the sixth limb of yoga (of the famed eight limbs that make up the backbone of the yoga philosophy) and it is, essentially, concentration.

Dhyāna, is the seventh limb, otherwise known as, meditation, and;

Samādhi, the eighth limb, which is bliss...absorption...the big tamale, the grand prize at the end of it all: enlightenment, yo.

Okay, so, these last three limbs...they're my favorite (philosophically), because of how beautifully they work together and what a smooth final progression they form to lead a body to bliss.  Basically it works like this:

In Dhāraṇā, when you're focused on a singular object (or person or idea, or whatever)...your mind is quiet and moving in just one direction, toward the object of your focus.  You're checking it out, you're learning about it, you're mind is on it, and only on it.  You're focused.

And if you keep doing this for awhile, you get to move up a level, to Dhyāna...meditation.  When you're in Dhyāna, you've still got this movement of your mind and your attention in the direction of your chosen object, but NOW, you've also got stuff coming back at you, from said object.  It's vibing you back.  And so inspirations are arising in you from the object, insights come seemingly out of nowhere...but it's not nowhere, it's just that the lines of communication have been opened (thanks to your dutiful focus) and now energy is moving in two directions, back and forth.  This is Dhyāna.

And last but not least...if you can hang with your meditation, this deepened state of focus, something amazing might just happen...instead of you just sending your attention out to the object or it sending something back at you...now you and the object become one and the same.  There is no more you.  There is no more object of attention.  You are subsumed, consumed, by one another.  And this is Samādhi.  This is bliss.

And isn't it, though?  Isn't that bliss?  To be so deeply involved in what you're doing, in what's right in front of you that the whole world, and you, and it...just disappear?  I think this is just the most perfect description what deep focus is.

But the magic...the amazing part of this whole process, is that you can't just sit down and DO it.  You can't sit down and say, now I'm going to be in Samādhi, or even, now I'm going to focus, because if your mind is wild or distracted or upset, well...good f-ing luck.   These are organic states, that arise organically, so the only thing you can do to practice them, is to cultivate an environment that might just have fertile ground from which they can grow.

And that's why we practice.
And that's why we breathe.

And that's why, when we get overwhelmed, it might behoove us just to go for a walk, or read some lovely something, or just sit on our little porch and drink some tea and let the wind brush against us.

Like I am going to go and do...right. now.