Yin and the Art of Enthusiasm Maintenance

Painting by William Bouguerau

The first time I ever went to see an Ayurvedic doctor, he told me two important things. One, he looked at me when I first walked in and said, "You know what you are, don't you? I don't even need to take your pulse."

I did know. In the Ayurvedic constitutional matrix, I am made of two things. Fire and Air. Pitta and Vata. Either burning up or drifting off into the cosmos. Surprised?

He took one look at me, and he knew.

The other thing he told me was that I should be avoiding caffeine (what?!) and that--and here's the part that, at the time, I just couldn't swallow, even more than the no caffeine--that I should mellow out my yoga practice. "You should not be doing a bunch of handstands and backbends," he said (my two favorite things).  "You should be meditating. You should be getting close to the ground. You should be spending a long time in savasana."

At the time I smiled and nodded, yes of course, with absolutely NO intention of following this advice.  Was this guy joking? He wants me to lay on the ground and call that a yoga practice? Maybe after I bunny-hop like a mad-woman up and down into handstand a dozen times and do something ridiculous on one leg and heat up my breath to within an inch of my life...maybe then I'll lay on the ground.

I suppose I knew, empirically, that he was right. Of course, it wouldn't hurt for me to spend a little more time rooting and a little less time...expanding.  But I really felt, at the time, that there was no way something that felt so good, could ever be bad for me.

Have you ever heard it said that people tend to go in the direction of their imbalances? In the same way that someone with a sweet-tooth craves sugar, I have discovered that a yogi who is revved up will want more rev, and a yogi who is slowed down, even if nearly to stuck-ness...will yearn for more slow.

Such is the way with me.

Until recently.  It has been years since that Ayurvedic prescription was handed to me and summarily torn up and thrown in the trash (by me), but recently, I have found myself digging it out and pasting it back together.  Maybe my body has hit some kind of tipping point.  Maybe I've just been practicing yoga long enough now that I can finally feel the signals coming from a subtler layer of the ol' body/machine.

For a long time, a yoga practice is just about the poses. And the breath. And the philosophy. It's just about the style you love and the teacher you love and the time of day you love to practice. It's about struggling with something new and mastering it (or not).  And it can be just that, for a long time. Which is plenty. And plenty deep.

But, then...then something starts to happen.

Because maybe you want to start reaping the larger benefits of yoga. Maybe you want to learn how to find the state of yoga in other areas of your life. Maybe you start to realize that you are different than every other body that has ever practiced or ever will practice, and therefore you have to bend the yoga to fit YOU. Maybe you realize that even though handstands seem more productive, that for you to really begin to touch the center of YOU...that you need to just lay on the ground.

The impulse I used to label as "laziness," this little call from my body to just hang out and open, I have finally begun to let express itself.  And, yeesh, okay doctor...maybe you were right.  Because, I have to say, for my body, which begins to rev up and pump and think and desire and long and all sorts of other various and wild and electrical things, from the moment I wake up in the morning, for this often over-taxed body of mine, in order for this body to get to the real yoga, that blissed-out oneness-with-the-world state...it needs to slow down. And ground. And relax.

Your prescription may be entirely different. Your prescription might be more fluidity. Or more fire. Or maybe more lightness and air.  For you to find the yoga in your life it might mean more time to yourself, or less. It might mean more investigation, or less. Whatever it is, though, most likely the answer is already right in front of you. And if that's the case, then all I have to say to you this morning is...

"You know what you are, don't you?"

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

In The Chair

You'll be pleased to know, after my last missive about this, that I do not have any sort of condition that's going to make all of my teeth fall out.  Phew!

What I did have, it turns out, is a loose crown.

Can I just put it out there, first of all, that I take really good care of my teeth?  I do.  It just so happens that I have been blessed with an "unbalanced PH" in my mouth (this is what my mother tells me.  Though she is also the person who assured me as a teenager that I would eventually be tall, like all the other women in my family).  Anyhooo...I get cavities really easily, is what I'm saying.  Thankfully not in years have I had a full-fledged cavity (though that's also how long its been since I last went to the dentist), but the last round of work I had done involved several (yes, several) root canals and crowns.  One of which, lovely bugger, had come loose.

After letting it sort of wiggle around in my mouth the last couple weeks, the pain and annoyance got to be too much to bear, so I moved my dentist appointment up a couple weeks and was in the chair this Tuesday for the big event.

This dentist I found, as I said in my last post, is lovely.  He's this sweet young Indian guy, who works there dentist-ing away with his dad, who has had the business for years.  He's friendly, he remembers my name and my teeth, and he makes me feel like he knows what he's doing.  His assistant, who looks like she's about 17 and who kept grimmacing every time she put the little suction thing-y in my mouth because she kept suctioning my lips and cheek...did not make me feel so much that way.  But, okay.

We had decided, my lovely dentist and I, that "while we were in there" (ugh) he would not only replace the crown, but go ahead and replace some old fillings as well.  Why not?  It'll be a little party right there in my upper right mouth.  Hooray!

Have I mentioned that I hate having dental work done?  Have I mentioned that I had to take a few deep breaths in the car before I could even make myself take the long walk across the parking lot into the office?  Have I mentioned that my mouth doesn't open very wide so going to the dentist always makes my jaw ache?  Have I mentioned that the whole thing, the weird horror-movie chair and the terrible music and the smell of, uh, sickly sweet something and the office-park blinds on the windows, how it all makes me feel vaguely ill?  And how the fact that I usually know enough about what they're doing in my mouth to be very nervous, but not actually enough to keep my imagination from running wild?

Right, there's that.

So, needless to say, I had to institute some serious deep-breathing for my little dental adventure.  I believe the dentist, who knows I'm a yoga teacher, actually said as we were getting ready to begin, "Alright, time to get your meditation on."

So I focused on the slats of trees through the blinds, and not the nervous hovering assistant.  I focused on relaxing my hands every time I felt them clenching up into little balls of "god please let this novocaine be good" terror.  And I tried to breathe.  And then tried to breathe again.  And so on.

And as I was laying there, my mouth achingly open, just trying with all my might to stay present to the whole room, and not just to my upsetting narrative about my buzzing teeth, I thought about how life can feel this way sometimes.   How there are these moments in life when there is nothing to be done...where you've let the problem, the little nagging ache get big enough that now there's no choice but to turn it over to a professional...and so what do you do?  Life is just like, open your mouth please, and keep it open until I'm done.  I'm going to be sticking some saws and drills and stuff in there, and you can either sit still and make it easy, or you can freak out, and make it a lot worse.

And I thought about how often, in those times when I am being drilled or cut open or forced to sit with something uncomfortable in my day to day life, how I just (I mean let's just call a spade a spade) freak the fuck out.  And that if I handled the dentist the way I handled those things...my god, he would have to strap me down.

So why is it that in the dentist chair I know?  Why is it that there I can say, alright sweetie...just breathe.  It will pass.  And I listen to myself.  And maybe I come in and I come out, but I know, somewhere somehow, that this uncomfortable (painful) experience is an opportunity for me to sit with.  To breathe in the face of.  To open, to stretch just a little bit wider.

But be it a nagging THOUGHT, instead of a trip to the dentist, and this same, alright sweetie...just breathe, it will pass, gets met with a big ol' NO IT WILL NOT!! I am never going to feel better and I need to fix this right now, I need to get myself the hell out of this chair!!

Imagine if you went to the dentist and had a hysterical meltdown because some part of you actually thought you were going to be in the dentist's chair FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.  That would, I think, make you a crazy person.  But this happens with emotions, with thoughts, all the time.

(Please tell me I'm not alone in this...)

But here's what I learned, Shanti-towners...I went to the dentist on Tuesday, I left that same day, and while my gums are still recovering from all the action they got, by and large, the experience is over.  Done.  Better.   Fixed.  And I'm sort of thinking, next time I'm faced with something I like about as much as I like my teeth getting drilled, I'm going to try--in the words of my lovely dentist--to get my meditation on.

Ch-ch-cha-changes...

Okay, I have a bit of a confession to make...

My practice, as of late, has been a bit, um...oh my god, I can't even say it...my practice these days has been very...quiet.

Now, let me just say this, in my own defense...I have been teaching A LOT, I have been studying a BIT (not as much as I should), and I have been meditating A LOT...but the moving and the stretching and upside-down-ing...not so much.  I just haven't really been able to get it up (pun intended) for my physical practice the last couple weeks.

Now if you are very wise you might be thinking something like, "well, Lia...asana is only one of the eight limbs of ha-tha yo-ga" (and in this scenario you would be pronouncing "hatha" like "hot-ta", because you are fancy and you have learned your Sanskrit pronunciation properly).  But eight limbs ain't going to get me any awesomeness points on the handstand meter, okay my little blogosphere swamis! 

Part of this slowed-down-ness is due to being in the midst of wedding planning, which is at once stressful and amazingly sweet, but which requires large swaths of energy.  So most often these days when I have carved out time to practice, all I want to do is close my eyes and sit in the center of my own chest.

Which brings me to the other culprit, this...this love-affair I'm having lately with meditation.  Talking endlessly about yoga is obnoxious enough, so I'm really going to hold myself back from talking about meditation, but I swear I seemed to have cracked some kind of code--the how the hell do I do this code of meditation.  And it's nice.  And I want to do it more.  (For now.  Please, god knows, don't hold me to this). 

And lastly...and this is the thing that is maybe hardest to admit...my practice is (gulp) changing.

Right now that means it feels like it's not as "cool" as it used to be.

Right now I feel like a practitioner without a home team...not quite doing it like them, and not quite doing it like them, either.

Right now I feel like my initial ancient impulse to just move, move, move, express, express, express, achieve, achieve, achieve...has, without my say-so, been replaced.  And it's been replaced by this pesky desire to get quiet.  To feel every little microscopic nanosecondish flutter of my insides.  (though the desire currently stands solo on one side, while the ABILITY still lags pretty far a-field).  But, still.

And I have to admit, I'm a little confused by it.

I'm confused that I am so resistant to letting my practice change.  I'm confused that I still apparently have "cool kid" and "not cool kid" divisions in my head when it comes to what people are doing and why.  And I'm confused to find myself in this place, where my physical goals seem to be taking a back seat to some other things.

So I try to remember that change is important.  I try to remember, in some kind of larger way, how easy it is, even with the things that by their very nature encourage change and fluidity--how easy it is to get stuck in a certain WAY of doing things.  And to decide, just by the very fact that you have done it this way 1,000 times before, that it is the best way.  And to remember that that might not be correct.

And then I think...may I BE so lucky.  May I be so blessed to have my practice change like this, again and again, as I continue down this road.  May it bend with my life, and be quiet when there is too much noise, and be exuberant when there has been too much dullness...because this, I have to remember, is one of the great gifts of yoga.  It will take you as you are, no exceptions.  And no matter how bumpy or smooth your heart, or your mind, or the shell of your body, it will fold around you...and fill in all your empty spots.

A Guest Blog! On Awesomeness!!

It is my pleasure, ladies and gentlemen of the academy, to present for your consideration...oh, wait.  Sorry.  It is my pleasure to present to you, Shanti-towners, for your daily dose of thoughtful awesomeness consumption...Mr. Peter Fernando.  Guest Blogger.  Thass right folks, this is Shanti Town's first-ever foray into the world of "guest blogging".  First podcasting, now this...it's like a regular ol' Huffington Post over here in Shanti Town!  Peter was introduced to me via my friends over at The Yoga Lunchbox.  He is a super-star meditation teacher and I am so excited to have him contributing a piece for Shanti Town!  So, read on, and enjoy!!

Opening the Heart
by Peter Fernando

As is the case with most things in life and practice, my first real taste of the open heart came in a very unexpected way. When I had initially caught the spiritual bug, in my late teens, I had visions of open-heartedness as some kind of far off, lofty plane of existence, where I'd walk around being sublimely compassionate and detached from all the mortals around me. It was a two-dimensional image I'd picked up somewhere of what it means to be 'spiritual'. Oh dear! Luckily for me it didn't take long to see through that narcissistic fantasy, as when I came to commiting to a sitting practice my experience was far from lofty.

My formal practice began in the contained setting of a Buddhist monastery, where there are set times to sit, eat and work, and there's very little opportunity to escape from oneself. After a few weeks of getting high on the intesified energy of this container, some cracks began to show. Well, initially I saw them as cracks, but in hindsight it was the artificial self image I was fixated upon that was cracking, and in fact reality was beginning to shine through. It wasn't the grandiose idea of reality I conceived of from my naive adolescent mind, rather it was the reality of being fully human. For years I had succesfully (so I thought) avoided feeling what was waiting for me in the depths of my being – sadness from childhood, residues of the pain of rejection, and subterranean feelings of worthlessness and not being liked. It was these locked away areas of the heart that were beginning to peek through.

In the container of a regular sitting practice, and the safe space of a supportive community, I began to notice an underlying sense of tightness in my chest. It wasn't the tightness of say, a medical emergency, but a subtler feeling that became clearer when I stopped and sat in silence. After holding the physical sensations for a week or so, this feeling began to break open, and for the first time in my life I found was feeling my emotions, my 'heart' as a full bodied experience. What was experienced wasn't pleasant - it began with a sadness that I kind of knew was there, but had never allowed into consciousness – but curiously enough the very experience of holding it gently and feeling it fully in a space free from deflection and judgment, was... blissful. It wasn't the bliss of floating above the clouds on a giant lotus, rather it was the bliss of allowing myself to be just as I was. This, as I see it, was the real beginning of the path of awakening.

Interestingly, at this time, I also noticed that with the willingness to be totally vulnerable to my own heart-pain, free of judgment, a sense of compassion began to emerge. It was a quiet, empathetic trembling with the fact of being human. This sense began to suffuse my inner experience, and opened a center of presence in my being that could stay with it, feel it, and deepen into the feeling. One evening as the community sat having tea together, a few visitors who were being greeted by the Abbott began to share their own experiences of suffering and distress. Quite spontaneously this feeling of compassion began to resonate with their experience as if it was my own and a space of - 'love' you could call it - emerged in this attention. It wasn't an experience of overwhelm, nor was it my previous, 'normal' mode of feeling like I didn't wan't to hear about suffering and 'why couldn't they just get over it?'. No it was a cool, but tender place where I felt, for the first time in a long long time, a sense of real connection with another as if they were myself. I was both stunned and delighted by this shift.

The compassion that I thought would come through being in some elevated realm had actually arrived in a more humble form, out of the new way I was beginning to relate to myself. It was a wonderful discovery. Much later I realized that this is what the Buddha meant when he emphasized that genuine love for others can only blossom when it comes 'as to myself'.

After this initial opening, I gradually discovered another kind of closed-ness in the heart and mind. In keeping with the initial revelation of full feeling in the body, the discovery of this other kind of contraction also came in an unexpected way. Having regained some of my life force, a sense of connection to others, and a new sense of being fully human, the old habits of closing the heart found new terrain in which to perform their devious work. After a few years had gone by, I began to notice a similar kind of pain manifesting in the center of my chest, and a sense of getting more and more tight, to the point where it became quite physical. Initially this was confusing, and I thought, 'Hey, I've been here before, haven't I?'. But alas, no I hadn't.

What I began to see, murkily at first, was that my entire practice had unconsciously been taken over by a sense of self-judgment. Although I was now more familiar with the kind of non-judgmental awareness that could hold a feeling as a feeling, and connect to it in the body, this other kind of judgment was operating in the realm of self-identity, and configuring the overall view of who I took myself to be, particularly in relation to others. I noticed that underlying most of my interactions with the others in the community was a sense of comparison, measuring, and 'being-seen-as', which had a flavour of wrongness, not good-enough-ness, or being downright bad. When I began to unhook from the trance of this particular story, something I hadn't seen became clear: this is not the open heart!

Like many others on a spiritual path, I had subtly co-opted my wish to be better, to manifest beautiful qualities, to deepen into being, with it's very opposite energy - with the energy of harmfulness. But it wasn't an overt harmfulness; rather it was an insidious quiet harmfulness towards my very self-sense that came disguised as the wish to do better, to be better, because... YOU'RE NO GOOD!

In a way it was relief to begin to see it as it actually was. Self-harm, pure and simple. But the seeing of it was only the beginning, as this flavour of closed-heartedness has deep roots, and many tricky ways of weaseling itself into existence. However, the way into its transformation has been, as with the initial feelings of sadness in the heart, to see it directly and feel it in the body as it actually is. As pain. As violence towards oneself. And to resonate with that phenomenon in a tender, compassionate way.

As I began to commit to this new way of holding my inner selves, and the particular energies that drive them, the sense of intimate connection with others also increased. There began to be less of a sense that others have to change, to work on themselves (to be who I want them to be), or to fit into some spiritual ideal. My teachers and my friends began to seem perfect, just as they were. And a new sense of gratitude for what was already here began to emerge. It was kind of a sense of, 'If I no longer have to measure up to some ideal of perfection, then hey, they don't either!'. And the releasing from that sense was felt as love. It wasn't a 'whoo-hoo' kind of love, but rather the love that is the result of a freedom from measuring, from projection, and from the endless comparisons and ideals the mind can come up with. The release from those is a sense of spaciousness and openness. It is the natural loving of the open heart itself.

This didn't mean that there was no more exploration and cultivation to be done – far from it! But it was a shift in terms of where that very cultivation was coming from in the heart. If my practices and efforts are coming from a place of subtly beating myself up, or being divided from myself in pursuit of a 'perfect me', I have found that the results are never peaceful. There is always a sense of 'more to do', 'can't rest now', 'get to work' etc... Interestingly the Buddha said that there are four qualities or attributes of the open heart that need to compliment each other to ensure our spiritual health – kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. The last quality refers to the ability to not react, to rest, and to let go. It is that which prevents the longing for love from being taken over by the energy of compulsion and ideals of 'who I should be'. It is also that in the heart which can be still enough to recognize the subtle kind of closing and harming that can be going on behind the scenes. And that stillness can allow them to bubble up, say what they want to say, and then gently be released.

The result of that release is openness itself.


* * *

Peter trained as a Buddhist monk in the Theravada tradition for 7 years. Upon returning to lay life he was invited to teach in Wellington by New Zealand meditation teacher Stephen Archer, and was one of the founders of Original Nature Meditation Centre in 2009. He finds a lot of joy in exploring ways of translating the Buddha’s early teachings in an urban, lay context, and supporting others in the practice of awakening.

He is currently running a monthly online course, A Month of Mindfulness (www.monthofmindfulness.info). The intention of this course is to create an environment of committed daily practice, supported by personal guidance, audio and written resources, and a community of like-hearted individuals.

Serious Practice

 There are days when I wake up in the morning and my first thought is, "Oh my God, I wanna be with you."  And without fail, those are the mornings that end with me throwing up my hands in defeat...

Okay, alright, I surrender!

Is this because God is cruel?  (And let me just interject, for those of you who find yourself recoiling at the G-o-d word, that I'm not talking about a man-in-the-sky kind of God...I'm not really talking about a man (or woman) at all...what I'm talking about is the Divine, and that whisper of bliss that comes when you find the grace to sit in her lap, even for a moment.) Is it some awful jack-ass style joke that the more I want the more I NEED the affection of that whatever-you-want-to-name-it connection, the more separate I feel?

No, Shanti-towners, the Divine is not cruel.  But, as it turns out, the Divine (just like us mortals) isn't so easily wooed by desperation.

Isn't it the case that the most beautiful works of art, the greatest performances, the most charismatic people, and the most breath-taking of sights...aren't they so, in part, because of their effortlessness?  Isn't it their ease that draws you to them?  The uncomplicated beauty, their raw-ness, their total lack of need for your approval?  Isn't that the thing that makes you want to just melt into them, to hang on their every word, to spend hours drinking them in?

Well, it's how the Divine feels about you, too.  It's not your struggle.  It's not your effort.  It's not your need, your necessary wounds, or your muscular attempt to Get Things Right that brings the Divine nearer.  Because, do you know what happens when you start to want something a little too much?  Your MIND jumps in.  The little siren in the firehouse of your brain goes off, and a hundred men in hazard suits go sliding down a pole to the rescue.

Move aside!  We'll handle this!

And suddenly the Divine (that inexpressible, irreduceable, unbelievably beautiful force) gets reduced to a series of ideas about who you are, who you have been, who you will one day be and in what way your connection to that which is greater than you might help you (finally) get there.

And the Divine, it turns out, isn't really interested in your ideas of what he-she-it is.

The Divine, she is sweet, and soft, and made of things like velvet and honey and things that shimmer.  She's drawn to that which is also sweet and soft and honey-ey and velvet and shimmer-ed.  She is lulled by your grace. When a muscle relaxes, she rushes in to fill the space that was once taken by tension.  When you take a morning to do nothing but drink tea and stare into the tops of trees, she orchestrates only the best birds to alight there for you.  And, when you are silly and you laugh and you say f*$% it, I don't care anymore how this looks or where this gets me or who says what about it, she puts on her dancing shoes and comes to join you at the party.

So, Shanti-towners, if you feel in the grip of a mind that has a serious need to connect, that has a lot of serious solid ideas about what that connection means, and that is quick to call frivolous the only things that make you soften, just think about your serious self as an old grizzled man nestled up to a bar, waiting for someone to come and cheer him up.  And think of the Divine as a silk-clad red-lipsticked goddess who has just wafted through the door, and ask yourself if there might not be another version of you she might be drawn to more than this old man self.  Say that cowboy with the look of mischief in his eye, or the bearded poet all choked up with beauty...even, say, that little petticoat-clad child, darting between the dangling legs of every patron, searching for some trinket.

Remember who you are, and then remember who she is, and remember, especially, that you don't need to take any of it all that seriously.


Wishing you a day of play, and wonder, and deep companionship with that sexy dame, Divinity.

Keeping It Alive...

First of all, I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings! Mine was pretty awesome--my brother and sister-in-law and my two (ferociously fast-growing) nephews came for a visit, which made me feel like the coolest aunt in town.  The picture above is of the two of them, and has nothing to do with this post, but has everything to do with how ADORABLE they both are.

Okay, that's my proud aunt plug. On now to other matters...

So, I'm teaching...have I mentioned that I'm teaching? And I'm teaching more and more...everytime I get a phone-call to teach a class I feel like I've been sprinkled with confetti (p.s. if you're in the LA area and you want to come to class, I've put a little schedule widget on the ol' blog-o-saurus, just look down and to your right.)  Anyhow, it's pretty awesome, taking that seat at the front of the class and just trying to blast off in the hopes that I actually have something useful to offer.

And one of the unexpected side-effects is the way in which my focus has shifted, as this practice that has for so long been purely for pleasure becomes attached to more things...to money and to schedule and to some question about larger purpose...I have quickly become faced with questions about how it is that we keep things interesting for ourselves?  In particular, how do we keep things interesting for ourselves when that demon RESPONSIBILITY newly becomes attached to what we are doing?

Now, let me just preface this by saying that I am not at the moment having any trouble with lack of interest...everything is too new and too much like living in a brand new house for that to be a problem.  HOWEVER, what I have noticed, even in these first few months of teaching, is that my newfound sense of accountability in a world where once there was none, can impact the JOY of my practice, if I'm not careful.

What I mean by that is, I find myself forgetting and then remembering that I am ONLY doing this because I love it.  And if the "love it" quotient gets overrun by results-driven thinking (hello, acting career)...well, excuse my language but it just wouldn't be f-ing worth it.  For whatever reason in this field of doing yoga and writing about yoga and now teaching yoga, I am unwilling to give up the joy of the practice.  Just...totally unwilling.  I have never been that wise as an actor...joy has been often the first thing sacrificed on the altar of "I. Want. This." So, BECAUSE I feel a bit wiser about all this (I did just turn 30, you know), and because more and more work seems to be showing up, and probably also because there is a deeply personal component to my practice, this idea--this question of how it is we keep things fresh and alive is one that's been on my mind lately.

And in all my thinking, the thing I've realized, and the thing which has been reflected back to me over and over again is this:  (It's so simple.  Why is it always so simple?!)

1. In order for anything to have any lasting impact in my life, it has to have consistency.

2. In order for there to be consistency, there has to be (gulp) discipline.

3. If I don't like doing something, I'm going to quit doing it eventually.  Therefore:

4. My JOY will, without effort, equal discipline. (I.e., if I like it, I won't quit.)

This has been the case with my yoga practice, with my eating habits, with my relationships...with my burgeoning meditation practice.  I mean, seriously, I have been trying to start a meditation practice for YEARS, and always I've quit.  Over and over and over again I've quit.  Do you know whyyyyyyy? Because I've been trying to do it right, and I've found it totally and utterly SUCKY because of that.  Finally, finally, finally I have what I can call a meditation practice--at least the beginnings of one--and do you know whyyyyyyy? Because I finally decided that if I wasn't enjoying the actual act of sitting on my cushion for those 15 minutes in the morning, as it occurred, then what in the world was the point? So I found a way in that actually made me FEEL GOOD while I was doing it. 

And, voila!  Not only do I have a practice, but I miss it when I don't do it.  I find myself actually looking forward to it on a daily basis.  Which is...new.

This is one of those secrets, it seems, that some people just know intuitively (you know who you are) and others of us have to learn by repeatedly making ourselves miserable with trying and not making any headway until finally we just toss our hands in the air and say "I give up! I just want a little happy mojo in my life!" and Blammo! Forward movement.

Because, in the joy of doing there is openness...there is curiousity...there is relaxation.  There are all of the things that we label as attributes of successful work and living.  But most of all, there is just a deep steady sense of being alive.  Of having purpose.  And THAT is the thing we're hoping all the hours of sitting or moving or loving or chowing down are going to get us anyway, isn't it?
There is just this fundamental practicality which is: enjoyment (true, deep, skin-tingling enjoyment) is the best recipe for not quitting.  I think it must be the food that will power feeds on.

That's a t-shirt saying if I ever heard one: "Joy.  It's the food that Will Power feeds on."

Oh my god, I will give a million dollars to anyone who makes that a t-shirt and sends it to me.*



* not really.

ContentWHAT?!

 No, this is not going to be a Thanksgiving post...(not yet! I'm saving all the give-thanks-love-your-family goodness for later in the week...)! Though I suppose what I want to talk about here is not completely unrelated to gratitude...or perhaps it's at least a stepping stone...

What I want to talk about is contentment.


Contentment.

It's not the most GLAMOROUS of all the states of being.  In the same world where Katy Perry's chest explodes in fireworks in music videos...it's difficult to make contentment sound appealing.  It's hard to make it sound like anything less than a snooze-fest, actually.  And if you check out the dictionary, it is full of definitions like:

1.	mentally or emotionally satisfied with things as they are
2.	assenting to or willing to accept circumstances, a proposed course of action, etc

Blech! Booo! Satisfied with the way things are?! Um, I'm sorry, I am a child of the 21st Century, I do not ACCEPT things as they are, I MAKE things happen!  And if I don't, well, that means that I'm a looooooooooooosah.  And I'll just keep that to myself whilst bemoaning all the not-the-way-I-want them things that surround me and furiously making vision boards and lists of affirmations.

Right!?

But, the dictionary definition of contentment is not the contentment I'm talking about.

The contentment I'm talking about is santosha.  Yes, it's a yoga word.  (You knew it was coming.)  It's actually one of the edicts of one of the 8 limbs of yoga.  It's like...one of the yoga commandments.  Thou shalt be content.

Now, I have never been a girl who really trucked in contentment (see above for examples), but I don't know...maybe it's that I've finally started meditating, maybe it's because I'm about to become an old married lady, maybe it's just because most of my life goals other than "find more joy" seem to have fallen by the wayside, but lately I've been thinking a lot more about this contentment, this santosha.

So, this morning I cracked open my old friend Patanjali (he wrote the Yoga Sutras which are, in my opinion, just a bunch of books full of jewels) to see what he had to say about contentment, and of course, in much fewer words and with much more stinging accuracy than I, he is able to identify the who-what-where of santosha.  He says this:

"As a result of contentment, one gains supreme joy."

Hmm...still sounds a little boooooooring.  But, okay, go on...

"Here we should understand the difference between contentment and satisfaction."

Alright.  I'm listening.

"Contentment means just to be as we are without going to outside things for our happiness.  If something comes, we let it come.  If not, it doesn't matter.  Contentment means neither to like or dislike."

Wait, I'm sorry...repeat that first part?

"Contentment means just to be as we are without going to outside things for happiness."

Alright, thank you P-jolls, let me see if I've got this.  Contentment means just to BE as we are without going to OUTSIDE THINGS for happiness.  Not, "contentment means just give up" or "contentment means just resign yourself to the fact that you'll never get what you want."  He's including happiness as part of this definition, right?  And if he's saying that it's not on the OUTSIDE than it must be...that's right...on the INSIDE.

So, if I may take the liberty, Mr. Patanjali...?

Contentment means just BE happy.

Not because the stuff you want is on its way.  Not because you've rejected stuff entirely and feel that you are now a purist.  Not because you think if you play content all the stuff you want will be given to you.  Not because you're just an unlucky one and you better get used to it, but because it IS possible to be content.

It IS possible to be happy, JOYFUL even, regardless of circumstance.

Because, and I think this is the whole lesson-plan of yoga, of meditation, of any spiritual practice...there is this little seed-self, hanging out inside you, who is blissed out, all the time.  No matter what.  She's in there.  She's quiet and she's crinkle-eyed smiling and she's like that ALL THE TIME and is just waiting for you to get quiet enough yourself to feel that.  To be able to touch that joy that is regard-less. And that's the whole enchilada.  All these practices are just inventive routes into that center place of...smiling santosha.

And, I love this week of the year because I think that Thanksgiving is a very santosh-ic holiday.  You're with your family, and even if they get on your nerves or push your buttons, there is (can be) a sweetness being with them, touching those roots that you have grown from.  And there is all this "what are you thankful for" influence everywhere, which is of course about contentment--how can I look at my life and see what there is in it to be grateful for? Where is the happiness that exists without anything external changing?  And the eating, of course.  The eating.  Talk about happiness from the inside out!

The whole holiday is built around turning inward, settling in, and appreciating what and who is around us.

So this year, yes, can we be grateful but ALSO can we be...content?  Can it all just be exactly enough--the right place, the right people, the right food, the right weather--can we sit with that crinkle-eyed version of ourselves in the center and just eat it all up? (Um...so I guess I lied about this not being a Thanksgiving post...)

Gobble, gobble, Shanti-towners!!

That Window Ain't Open, Fool!

I got interrupted by a bee during my meditation this morning.

If you know me at all you know that, while not usually the type to get squeamish, if a bee comes into my personal space while I'm doing ANYTHING I get a little...idiotic.

Usually I just sort of squeal and run away...

Which is exactly what happened during my meditation...I heard his foul buzzing and, without even taking a moment to think about it, I leapt off of my cushion and ran across the room.  Once safely the requisite 10 feet away, heart pounding, I watched the little bugger banging into the window and thought about how probably at some point I should actually just, um, try to sit through the bee in my space if it happens again during meditation.  Seeing as how, I don't know, that's the POINT of meditation.

And then I thought about how often I react to uncomfortable thoughts or feelings in this same way..."Eeek! Get it away from me!" (scramble, scramble, scramble).

And with bees I have this great excuse...about how my brother and I were attacked by a nest of hornets or wasps or something when we were kids and we both got stung many many times and it was very traumatic, blah blah blah...but don't I have those same stories for upsetting emotions?  And thoughts?  Don't I have my traumatic childhood story that justifies WHY I don't want to deal?  Why I can't just sit while it buzzes around me?  What do I think is going to happen? Worst case scenario, right, I get stung (be it bee or thought).

Ouch.

Yes, ouch...for like 15 seconds, ouch.  And maybe a sore spot.  And then?  Done.  Over.  And the poor bee...the poor bee is DEAD.  I'm definitely the winner in that situation.

So, I'm thinking about all this, and I'm watching the bee, and I'm watching him do the thing that a lot of bees do in our apartment, which is:  they fly in an open window, they land on a closed window, and they repeatedly buzz-bump into the window pane of the closed window, over and over and over again.  And the whole time I'm watching and I'm thinking, dude...the open window is right over there.  You just flew through it.  Can't you feel the breeze?  Can't you hear the noises from outside coming in from over there?

The smarter bees only get stuck like this for 30 seconds or so, but some of the younger and/or stupider ones can do that for a really long time.  I've seen some of them DIE doing it.  (I don't actually see them die, but I see their little carcasses on the ground next to the window later in the day).  And, I don't know if it was because I'd already sort of made this bee into a symbol for my inner-workings, but I watched him doing this little window-dance and I thought, oh my god, that is just so perfect.

How many times does the mind make a decision based on faulty information, that we then just blindly follow?  Because the mind is like, nooooo, no no, this leads outside.  It has to lead outside, because I can SEE outside.  So, yes, I know there's some sort of invisible barrier preventing us from getting there, but I'm certain this is the right way, so if you'll just bear with me a little longer, let's just keep ramming our heads into this glass until we finally get free.  And all the while this other voice (our intuition, our other senses, our body) is like DUDE...can't you feel the breeze? 

Because what we're supposed to be looking for is the FEELING of the BREEZE.  The feeling of freedom.  The feeling of sunshine on our skin.  That's the input we're supposed to be using as our little guidance system.  No matter what looks like it might lead the way...if it feels like repeatedly ramming into an invisible wall, probably it's not the best plan of action.

So, for all the bad things I've said about bees, I'm issuing an official apology here and now, because it seems like they might actually have a thing or two to teach me...

Sleeping and Waking...

So, I'm trying to start a meditation practice.

Again.

But this time, I'm being smart.  I have set what I feel like is an ACCOMPLISHABLE goal.  15 minutes, once a day.  I'm trying for everyday, but satisfied with as many days as I remember to do it.  In the past I have always shot for loftier...once I tried an hour a day (yeah. need i say more?)...once I tried 20 minutes 2x a day, and then once per day and even that became, I don't know...unmanageable.  And so, pride gritting its teeth all the way, I have decided to aim for a modest and meager 15 minutes.  15 minutes is doable.  For now, it's doable.

I could say much more on the foggy definition (for me) of a seated practice, what I think it means and definitely doesn't mean, and what kind of discipline in combination with vision I feel I need to have in order to even begin to feel that SOMETHING is being accomplished.  But that's not what I want to talk about.  I want to talk about my legs.  Well, my one leg.  Well...my foot really.  Because, no matter how I practice, or for how long...

My one foot always (ALWAYS) falls asleep.

And last time it happened, I had a small realization:

I was meditating in a tiny little phone-booth like room (don't ask)...doing my diligent 15 minutes, and for whatever reason the foot falling-asleep-ness was particularly severe, so much so that upon rising I had to lean against a wall, both palms pressed flat to it, the frozen foot hovering in the air, just waiting for the awakening to begin. 

First the foot is like a dummy...it looks as it is: fast asleep.  Held next to my other bare foot it truly does look...dormant...somehow.  And then, the waves of pressure begin--deep wide crests of tingles, spreading across the foot and up the leg.  It's unbearable (but also pleasureable, oddly), and the feeling is so intense I can't do anything but let my eyes close and my mouth hang open and wait.  These are the nerves waking up.  This is the foot coming back to life, and it is shocking to me how much sensation floods across the sole, arch, ankle, calve...just to bring this one little appendage to alertness.  And then, just as it comes, it subsides, the tingles dissipating, the foot returning to "normal".  Able to be walked on, matched up now with its twin other foot. 

And as I began to walk--to leave the little room and head back into my day--I thought about what it means to Wake Up.

I thought that my foot, were it a life, it's own little consciousness, well maybe it has just emerged from what could be called a dark night of the soul.  It was sleeping deeply...but did not know it was asleep...it was deadened, numb,  not feeling pleasant or unpleasant, just...asleep.  And then it was asked to move, to venture forth, but could not possibly do so in it's sleeping state, and so it was forced to wake.  But the waking wasn't easy, I thought, and maybe it never is.  It is unbearable--it is an unbearable intense deep sensation--but it is not a PROBLEM...it is just nerves, waking up.  But the pain of it, the pain and pleasure and strangeness of it is enough to leave one breathless...speechless...only able to lean against a solid surface and wait it out.  It is unbearable...to feel again...to feel each nerve as it comes back to life.  Who knew there were so many nerves and endings in that one little space of flesh. 

This must always be what it is to wake up:

Unbearable sensation...so intense it leaves you palms flat against a wall--you can do nothing but watch, feel it all ripple through you, wait for it to pass, and be flabbergasted by how much you have been asleep to all those firings of all those nerves.

And then, when it's over, there is nothing to gawk at...just a setting down of the next foot and the next, with nothing else but the knowledge that you were just asleep...and are now awake.

Learning to Sit...

I got up today determined to meditate...just like so many other days. I gave myself a pep talk in the shower about how important it is to start a mediation practice, about how I can't expect it to change my life instantly or anything (unfortunately) , but that it will be very good for me and that it will be a life-long practice and if nothing else it will help me get more open instead of more closed as I get older. My automatic internal rebuffs to this went as follows: I want radical change! There are plenty of people who meditate all their damn lives and are still just as messed up and neurotic as they ever were. I don't know how to do it right anyhow. I need a guru. How many times have I tried this and failed. Etc., etc., etc.

But I was good and strong and I ignored this whisper-voice and went ahead...

I pulled out my meditation cushions and lit my favorite jasmine-scented incense and my altar-candle and I looked at my little postcard with the pictures of Krishna and Shiva on it and I set my cellphone alarm to ring in 20 minutes and I sat my butt down. And, just like every other time, I got up from my cushion before the alarm rang, frustrated and tied up in knots. Ah, how relaxing!

Here now, I shall try to dissect why my meditation practice is, ahem, faulty.

1. Often I decide to sit while in the throws of some worry or another, thus using the meditation as an excuse to sit down and worry some more. But just to worry in spiritual language.

2. If I'm not in the throes of worry when I sit down, I tend to think that I'm supposed to solve some great bothersome woe while meditating--since my plan in the meditation is to become one with God, at which point I will reach enlightenment, at which point I will solve the great struggles of my life--which often leads me to skip the enlightenment part and head right to the problem-solving. See item #1.

3. I tell myself I don't have to follow any "structure", that my meditation is about freedom, man, and therefore I am really going to just sit and Be. However, since I am a person prone to worry (yes, I am, I admit it), and I don't actually have a lot of experience meditating (or just being, for that matter), I often slide quickly into neurosis, without any kind of structure to serve as safety-net. Again, see item #1.

4. As much as everything I've read tells me not to do this, I really want to have a big awakening experience while meditating. This is born of my very first few months meditating (lo, these many years ago), when I did feel like I was having a kind of enlightened experience every time I sat down to meditate. I attribute this to a kind of "beginner's mind"--not knowing what I was getting into, just falling into meditation, la-dee-da--but now the memory of this and the desire to return to it plagues me and makes my meditation a muscular experience, to say the least.

5. I am a big fan of things you can do every day, ritualistically, preferably ones that will make instantaneous changes in your life. I tend to read about things like this. I tend to have an on-going mental collection of things like this. Which makes it very hard to (a) choose which magic 10-minute a day miracle I'm going to devote myself to and (b) meditate.

6. I lack discipline. I do NOT lack discipline as a person. In fact, when I set my mind to something I can be incredibly focused and diligent. Take my yoga practice, for example: sure, I'll miss a few days here and there, but for the most part, I am on my mat. And I can feel and see on a daily basis, the benefits of that kind of discipline. However, I am most disciplined when either (a) there is great desperate survival-type need for discipline or (b) somebody else tells me what to do. Meaning: I am really good with "plans". I love plans. I want there to be a specially designed plan for me called "the 10 things to do everyday which, if I do them, will make me a happy and balanced and grateful person all day, every day". Where the hell is that plan? (Unfortunately, that plan is published in a million different forms in a million different sources in a million different ways, and I am overwhelmed by all the options.)

However, I do know that when it comes to something like meditating, discipline is key. I just have to make up my mind that getting into that seat for 10, 15, 20 minutes everyday is important to me, is something I want...and probably it wouldn't hurt if I made it a little easier on myself by not making it such a momentous thing every time I pulled out those cushions.

Time Out for Hip Flexors

My left hip flexor is sore like a you-know-what.

I've been trying to take it a bit easy this week, only going to class every other day, and that seems to have helped a bit, but it is becoming clear to me that I need to have someone I can go to with my various yogic aches and pains (the physical ones. the spiritual ones I'm gonna have to work out myself...). Acupuncture? Updates to come!

As for classes this week, I have the following brief insights to share:

1. Good yoga class = good music, OR, good music = good yoga class. It works both ways. But, likewise, sucky music = sucky yoga class, OR, sucky yoga class = sucky music. I found myself very aggravated halfway through a class the other day and having trouble concentrating, when I suddenly realized that while the music was tinny and schmaltzy and barely audible, the sequencing, was fast and rigid and challenging, and I was experiencing the dissonance of those two things in my body as "oh my god, I hate you!" (directed at both teacher and music). Realization: I need good tunage.

2. Poses spread like a virus. Hanuman is everywhere! Every class with every teacher, Hanuman is being thrown around like Halloween candy in Fall! Now, it could very well be that Hanuman is a good pose for Spring and so it is popping up (springing!) in all my classes, but I have a hunch that it is also something else...I think poses and sequences enter some kind of yoga studio collective unconscious, and suddenly all the teachers are unwittingly compelled to make us do the splits. Hanuman-arama, no joke.

3. Teachers make a BIG difference. I have made a command decision, that I am no longer going to go to classes taught by teachers who I KNOW do not jive with my style. This is not to put anyone down, as I would say that all of the teachers at Laughing Lotus are well-trained and talented, but there is a particularity to the teachers who I connect with, and it makes a gigantic difference in class for me--I have found that not only do I have more fun, in classes with teachers I love, I am also so much more willing to push myself and really BE in the room.

and,

4. It's time to get serious. About what? You ask. Good freakin' question. Well, it has come to my attention that, while I have a solid and steady yoga practice, I do not have even a semblance of a disciplined spiritual practice, and that concerns me a bit. It does not concern me because of some moral imperative, but instead, because I--it is quite clear--have a desire to, shall we say, "wake up" at least a bit more, and I am not backing that shit up. To be frank. Every time I go to a class and a teacher talks about her meditation practice, every time I read a book or listen to a lecture by a spiritual teacher I am shame-facedly aware of my own fickle grasping for this or that quick-fix and my absolute lack of regular, disciplined practice. And I know, from concrete physical experience that "showing up" is 90% of any kind of growth.

I'm going to start showing up.