I have been musing on Freedom.
Why? In the words of my teachers, "Yoga is a Liberation Discipline". We practice Yoga in order to liberate our True Selves from the ego, in order to become Free.
What is interesting to me, is that this type of Freedom is Freedom through Discipline. This is not the instant-gratification-or-your-money-back kind of freedom that we in the Western world might grasp at, that "do whatever you want, no consequences" kind of freedom where the individual desire of the customer (your ego) allows you to simply do whatever you want. The message here is that if you are a slave to your impulses, you are not free. If you feel obliged to conform / reform / reject / accept / buy / borrow / steal, then no matter how you justify it to yourself ("cause I'm worth it!"), you are not acting from a place of freedom.
On a physical level, how many of us are aware on a daily basis of what our bodies are doing? Do you control your body, or does it control you? For many people, Yoga provides a therapeutic form of liberation - freedom from pain, freedom from the physical restrictions imposed by a past injury or by an illness. Slowly but surely, yoga helps us move beyond our "I can't"'s. If you had asked me a few years ago if I could possibly one day stand on my hands, I would have told you: " I can't!" Now, I'm not so sure. Yoga makes everything possible.
Possibility is not instant. Possible is made reality through discipline, hard work and dedication. And in order for those to be real to you, you need commitment. Not the "I-will-go-on-a-diet-for-one-week" kind of commitment, but a real, true, heartfelt commitment to change the things in your life that are holding you back.
As with most things, the first steps are the hardest. Sure, we want to lose weight / quit smoking / stop swearing / quit that job / tell that person to treat you right / spend more time with the kids. But saying things and committing to them don't always go hand in hand. Things slip away, intentions remain intentions and not manifestations. Our ego intervenes, providing us with helpful excuses and justifications.
So as we approach the new moon this month, the Equinox, a time of balance and of re-balancing, take time to reflect: what would you like to be liberated from? What are you committed to? What steps have you already taken towards this freedom? What steps remain?
Make a commitment to transformation - make a commitment to be free. As the saying goes, Change Begins Now. ~Namaste.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Edge
What is the edge?
It is the border between what is, and what can be.
It is the place where our strength and our vulnerability meet in equal measure.
It is where you go your farthest, and everything stops.
No walls, no pretenses, no crutches, no disguises
- just you and your breath.
The edge is where you meet yourself.
At the edge, you confront your fears.
At the edge, you learn how to surrender.
At the edge, pain becomes peace,
What was heavy suddenly is light.
The edge teaches you to release your deepest desires.
At the edge you find that love of all things
begins with loving yourself.
At the edge, truth is beauty and free will is fate.
At the edge, none of this even matters.
You shed layers like petals,
What remains, is Truth.
At the edge, we are humbled by ourselves.
Our mortal shell that allows us to fear,
our immortal self that invites us to hope.
At the edge, we experience infinity.
At the edge, we find Grace.
At the edge, we are free.
Dedicated to the Teachers and students of GaiaTree TT 2009. Namaste :)
It is the border between what is, and what can be.
It is the place where our strength and our vulnerability meet in equal measure.
It is where you go your farthest, and everything stops.
No walls, no pretenses, no crutches, no disguises
- just you and your breath.
The edge is where you meet yourself.
At the edge, you confront your fears.
At the edge, you learn how to surrender.
At the edge, pain becomes peace,
What was heavy suddenly is light.
The edge teaches you to release your deepest desires.
At the edge you find that love of all things
begins with loving yourself.
At the edge, truth is beauty and free will is fate.
At the edge, none of this even matters.
You shed layers like petals,
What remains, is Truth.
At the edge, we are humbled by ourselves.
Our mortal shell that allows us to fear,
our immortal self that invites us to hope.
At the edge, we experience infinity.
At the edge, we find Grace.
At the edge, we are free.
Dedicated to the Teachers and students of GaiaTree TT 2009. Namaste :)
The Niyamas - without ethics, "all is just circus"
It's hard to know where to begin this post, having recently come home from a 3 1/2 week teacher training retreat in beautiful Bali. Since the real purpose of Teacher training is to recognise the teacher within, and in Yoga the discipline of looking at oneself is expressed through the Niyamas, I thought I would start with that. The Niyamas are the second of the eight 'limbs' of Yoga, and are key observances or self-practices that are like beacons, lighting the path back to the true self.
Saucha – purity
To live Saucha starts with oneself – taking care of the body, which is our temple, our vehicle through this life, the mind, and the soul. Yoga gives us helpful cleansing techniques, or Kriyas, which are practiced every day to keep the nadis (energy channels) of the body clean and balanced. In a borrowed metaphor, Yoga is like a process of renovating your house (transforming your life). So once you have knocked down walls, broken through barriers, smashed what you no longer want or need, you must sweep away the old to make room for the new. After all, who decorates a dirty house?
Santosha – Contentment / Satisfaction
Santosha is the principle of accepting what we are given in life as enough. But it is more than material contentment or detachment from the material world. Santosha is to realise that all that we need, we already have, within ourselves. All the tools for our liberation are there, waiting for us to remember how to use them. To live Santosha is also to accept your limitations of the present moment. In our daily practice of the Ashtanga primary series at the retreat, each of us has to accept the limitations of our current practice, as we are allowed no further in the series if we cannot perform a pose. It is frustrating because our natural tendency is to look ahead at poses to come, and measure ourselves against them. But by learning to live with our limitations we also learn to be satisfied with our state of being as we are.
Tapas – Effort / Self-Discipline
Tapas is more than just 'effort', it is 'transformative effort'. Tapas is the ability to see the silver lining in your hard work, even when it feels like it is going nowhere. Literally “fire” in Sanskrit, Tapas is the ability to burn through your negative thoughts and make room for the positive. The Ashtanga Primary Series (literally called “Yoga Therapy” in Sanskrit) is the embodiment of this transformative process. It is a rigorous, challenging series that cleanses and balances the body. It requires discipline, commitment, patience and humility, and when practiced thus, it will indeed rouse the fire that can transform you and move you to another level.
Svadhyaya – Self-study
One could say that this principle is the embodiment of Yoga. Whether we know it or not, to practise Yoga is to embark in a journey of self-discovery. As one of my teachers said: “the mat is like your battlefield. Here you confront yourself. And if you can rise to that challenge, do battle with your ego and still maintain a steady breath, what in life can you not do?” Our Svadhyaya on the retreat was further intensified with the observation of Mauna, or “noble silence”, for the first 7 days when not in class. Imagine 25 people walking in silence, eating in silence. It was intense! The Mauna was like a cleansing process – breaking the habit of “chit-chat”, of speaking without thinking, of being on social autopilot. Bringing us to mindfulness, bringing us into ourselves.
Ishvarapranidhana – devotion
Literally this Niyama means “surrender to God”, but for me personally the idea of devotion is not that blind following that I associate with my limited contacts with modern religious institutions. The devotion here is to a higher purpose, yes, but that purpose need not be sought without, for it resides within every one of us. Call it what you will: the soul, the consciousness, our inner light, our divinity, our inner nobility, our True Self. To be devoted to finding this inner light is a lifelong commitment. It requires us to peel away the obstacles of humanity (ignorance, egoism, attachment, hatred, to name a few) in search for that which is already within us. Ishvarapranidhana is the humility to look truly at oneself, the courage to accept change, the discipline to transform our lives so that we can live every moment of every day as our true selves – so we can be free.
And so, those are a few of the lessons I have been learning of late. It is good to remind ourselves of these fundamental principles, which are after all the foundations of all the rest of the limbs of Yoga, with the Yamas. This is crucial because Patanjali is telling us: to achieve liberation, one must live an ethical life. Without this, in the famous words of Pattabhi Jois: “all is just circus.”
Saucha – purity
To live Saucha starts with oneself – taking care of the body, which is our temple, our vehicle through this life, the mind, and the soul. Yoga gives us helpful cleansing techniques, or Kriyas, which are practiced every day to keep the nadis (energy channels) of the body clean and balanced. In a borrowed metaphor, Yoga is like a process of renovating your house (transforming your life). So once you have knocked down walls, broken through barriers, smashed what you no longer want or need, you must sweep away the old to make room for the new. After all, who decorates a dirty house?
Santosha – Contentment / Satisfaction
Santosha is the principle of accepting what we are given in life as enough. But it is more than material contentment or detachment from the material world. Santosha is to realise that all that we need, we already have, within ourselves. All the tools for our liberation are there, waiting for us to remember how to use them. To live Santosha is also to accept your limitations of the present moment. In our daily practice of the Ashtanga primary series at the retreat, each of us has to accept the limitations of our current practice, as we are allowed no further in the series if we cannot perform a pose. It is frustrating because our natural tendency is to look ahead at poses to come, and measure ourselves against them. But by learning to live with our limitations we also learn to be satisfied with our state of being as we are.
Tapas – Effort / Self-Discipline
Tapas is more than just 'effort', it is 'transformative effort'. Tapas is the ability to see the silver lining in your hard work, even when it feels like it is going nowhere. Literally “fire” in Sanskrit, Tapas is the ability to burn through your negative thoughts and make room for the positive. The Ashtanga Primary Series (literally called “Yoga Therapy” in Sanskrit) is the embodiment of this transformative process. It is a rigorous, challenging series that cleanses and balances the body. It requires discipline, commitment, patience and humility, and when practiced thus, it will indeed rouse the fire that can transform you and move you to another level.
Svadhyaya – Self-study
One could say that this principle is the embodiment of Yoga. Whether we know it or not, to practise Yoga is to embark in a journey of self-discovery. As one of my teachers said: “the mat is like your battlefield. Here you confront yourself. And if you can rise to that challenge, do battle with your ego and still maintain a steady breath, what in life can you not do?” Our Svadhyaya on the retreat was further intensified with the observation of Mauna, or “noble silence”, for the first 7 days when not in class. Imagine 25 people walking in silence, eating in silence. It was intense! The Mauna was like a cleansing process – breaking the habit of “chit-chat”, of speaking without thinking, of being on social autopilot. Bringing us to mindfulness, bringing us into ourselves.
Ishvarapranidhana – devotion
Literally this Niyama means “surrender to God”, but for me personally the idea of devotion is not that blind following that I associate with my limited contacts with modern religious institutions. The devotion here is to a higher purpose, yes, but that purpose need not be sought without, for it resides within every one of us. Call it what you will: the soul, the consciousness, our inner light, our divinity, our inner nobility, our True Self. To be devoted to finding this inner light is a lifelong commitment. It requires us to peel away the obstacles of humanity (ignorance, egoism, attachment, hatred, to name a few) in search for that which is already within us. Ishvarapranidhana is the humility to look truly at oneself, the courage to accept change, the discipline to transform our lives so that we can live every moment of every day as our true selves – so we can be free.
And so, those are a few of the lessons I have been learning of late. It is good to remind ourselves of these fundamental principles, which are after all the foundations of all the rest of the limbs of Yoga, with the Yamas. This is crucial because Patanjali is telling us: to achieve liberation, one must live an ethical life. Without this, in the famous words of Pattabhi Jois: “all is just circus.”
Monday, July 27, 2009
Downward-facing Tree
7 months ago I started working on handstand (adho mukha vrksasana - downward facing tree pose. Go figure.) Now, I have never been gymnastically inclined. I could never do a backflip, or a cartwheel (still can't!), or any elegant combination of those things. So given that, I think it would be fair to say that I brought little experience but lots of baggage with me when I began this pose.
Sometimes the hardest part of learning something new is un-learning all the things you learned before.
In my mind, I can feel this pose. I can sense the muscles in my body as I place my palms on the floor, pressing down through the fingertips, and then lift one leg up to the sky and hop ever-so-smoothly and rise up, my lower back curving, my muscles engaged, my feet lifting towards the sky! In my mind.
Back in the real world and firmly rooted in my body, however, it is a whole different experience. My courtship with handstand has been neither graceful nor smooth. It has been a hard, sweaty, teeth-gritting experience. It has been a grueling and inelegant process of throwing myself towards an unforgiving wall and heavily crashing back to earth. There has been sweat. There have been grunting and angry noises. There has been frustration, and oh yes, there have been tears.
There have been sacrifices, many of them on the part of my partner, who time after time has stood behind me and dodged my wildly flinging legs in an attempt to catch me in the pose. She learned handstand at the advanced age of about 7, and used to walk on her hands in the front yard. She, as rational a being as has ever walked on two hands, cannot understand the fear. It goes something like this:
her: "you can totally do this pose!"
me: "I know. but I can't!"
her: "why not?"
me: "I don't know! I don't trust the wall to catch me."
her: "but the wall has to catch you! it can't go anywhere!"
me: "yes. no! I'm afraid."
her: "but you know you can do it, and you know the wall is here!"
me: "yes. but I'm afraid."
At some point in Yoga, we have to confront our fear. It is part of the flow. It is deeply entwined with the journey we are on. It manifests to us in a thousand different variations, each deeply personal to the wide-eyed traveler. It is one of the most daunting things we can do as an adult. Sure, we cope with fear when it comes upon us in extreme situations. That is one thing. But intentionally seeking out your fear and confronting it - that is a whole different experience. At the end of the day, we are alone in our fear. Fear shatters our ego and the delusions we make about ourselves. It is up to us to try, fail, cope with failing, and try again. Until one day, yes, we lift up through the fear, and in spite of the fear, we rise.
So after 7 months, yes, I finally am able to kick up into handstand against a wall. But each time I do it (or, so often, don't) I still have to move through my fear. Each time is as intimidating as the first time I faced that wall. And each time I don't make it (and there are still so many!), I am still deeply confronted by the feeling of failure, and frustration. Even when we are successful, fear is not finished with us. It is a part of life, and it is here to stay.
So, what is a girl to do? Each time, I have to breathe, and keep on breathing and move on, moving either buoyed by my success or depressed my failure, but moving inexorably nonetheless. Leaving it to try another day. Coming back to my centre and remembering that I am not here to measure myself against what I can or cannot do, but what I tried to achieve. Reminding myself that you never know who you truly are until you know yourself in the face of a challenge. That is a tree facing downwards. That is Yoga.
Sometimes the hardest part of learning something new is un-learning all the things you learned before.
In my mind, I can feel this pose. I can sense the muscles in my body as I place my palms on the floor, pressing down through the fingertips, and then lift one leg up to the sky and hop ever-so-smoothly and rise up, my lower back curving, my muscles engaged, my feet lifting towards the sky! In my mind.
Back in the real world and firmly rooted in my body, however, it is a whole different experience. My courtship with handstand has been neither graceful nor smooth. It has been a hard, sweaty, teeth-gritting experience. It has been a grueling and inelegant process of throwing myself towards an unforgiving wall and heavily crashing back to earth. There has been sweat. There have been grunting and angry noises. There has been frustration, and oh yes, there have been tears.
There have been sacrifices, many of them on the part of my partner, who time after time has stood behind me and dodged my wildly flinging legs in an attempt to catch me in the pose. She learned handstand at the advanced age of about 7, and used to walk on her hands in the front yard. She, as rational a being as has ever walked on two hands, cannot understand the fear. It goes something like this:
her: "you can totally do this pose!"
me: "I know. but I can't!"
her: "why not?"
me: "I don't know! I don't trust the wall to catch me."
her: "but the wall has to catch you! it can't go anywhere!"
me: "yes. no! I'm afraid."
her: "but you know you can do it, and you know the wall is here!"
me: "yes. but I'm afraid."
At some point in Yoga, we have to confront our fear. It is part of the flow. It is deeply entwined with the journey we are on. It manifests to us in a thousand different variations, each deeply personal to the wide-eyed traveler. It is one of the most daunting things we can do as an adult. Sure, we cope with fear when it comes upon us in extreme situations. That is one thing. But intentionally seeking out your fear and confronting it - that is a whole different experience. At the end of the day, we are alone in our fear. Fear shatters our ego and the delusions we make about ourselves. It is up to us to try, fail, cope with failing, and try again. Until one day, yes, we lift up through the fear, and in spite of the fear, we rise.
So after 7 months, yes, I finally am able to kick up into handstand against a wall. But each time I do it (or, so often, don't) I still have to move through my fear. Each time is as intimidating as the first time I faced that wall. And each time I don't make it (and there are still so many!), I am still deeply confronted by the feeling of failure, and frustration. Even when we are successful, fear is not finished with us. It is a part of life, and it is here to stay.
So, what is a girl to do? Each time, I have to breathe, and keep on breathing and move on, moving either buoyed by my success or depressed my failure, but moving inexorably nonetheless. Leaving it to try another day. Coming back to my centre and remembering that I am not here to measure myself against what I can or cannot do, but what I tried to achieve. Reminding myself that you never know who you truly are until you know yourself in the face of a challenge. That is a tree facing downwards. That is Yoga.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Present vs. the countdown
Perhaps one of the most challenging mindfulness disciplines of Yoga is summed up by this reminder: "Be Present".
Three little words: Be. Here. Now. Three little words that represent one of the most difficult things a person can do!
I come to this topic because I am counting down until my TT retreat starts. In fact, the first title I typed into this blog post today was "T minus 8 days". And then the more I thought about that, the less Yogic that felt. Because in counting down to the future, you are not living in the present. And not only that, but when we project our expectations onto a future event, aren't we just setting ourselves up to experience that in a certain way, instead of honoring the experience itself?
This of course is familiar to anyone who has ever "set themselves up to be let down". When we allow ourselves to overindulge in our expectations, whether it be about an event, a job, a situation or even a person or a relationship, we open ourselves up to disappointment when the reality is far different from what we expected or hoped. I have known people who seem to live chronically from one dreamy expectation to bitter disappointment, and then onto the next dreamy expectation. One lasting impression that comes from an encounter with such a person is: "s/he must be exhausted!"
The real point here is not whether or not life lives up to our expectations. From a Yoga perspective, by constantly living in expectation of a future event, we are avoiding the present. Which, wait a minute, is exactly what I am doing! At present, I have a week of work left to go, a mountain of things that need doing, people who need direction, documents that sadly will not just write themselves. And yet, here I am dreamily musing about Yoga and looking forward to my teacher training... and writing blogs!
Well, guess I should take my own advice and get back to the present... and do my best to stay focused on the here and now!
Namaste~
Three little words: Be. Here. Now. Three little words that represent one of the most difficult things a person can do!
I come to this topic because I am counting down until my TT retreat starts. In fact, the first title I typed into this blog post today was "T minus 8 days". And then the more I thought about that, the less Yogic that felt. Because in counting down to the future, you are not living in the present. And not only that, but when we project our expectations onto a future event, aren't we just setting ourselves up to experience that in a certain way, instead of honoring the experience itself?
This of course is familiar to anyone who has ever "set themselves up to be let down". When we allow ourselves to overindulge in our expectations, whether it be about an event, a job, a situation or even a person or a relationship, we open ourselves up to disappointment when the reality is far different from what we expected or hoped. I have known people who seem to live chronically from one dreamy expectation to bitter disappointment, and then onto the next dreamy expectation. One lasting impression that comes from an encounter with such a person is: "s/he must be exhausted!"
The real point here is not whether or not life lives up to our expectations. From a Yoga perspective, by constantly living in expectation of a future event, we are avoiding the present. Which, wait a minute, is exactly what I am doing! At present, I have a week of work left to go, a mountain of things that need doing, people who need direction, documents that sadly will not just write themselves. And yet, here I am dreamily musing about Yoga and looking forward to my teacher training... and writing blogs!
Well, guess I should take my own advice and get back to the present... and do my best to stay focused on the here and now!
Namaste~
Thursday, June 25, 2009
5 weeks to go...
In 5 weeks today my teacher training starts!!! It's pretty scary but at the same time I think I will be as ready as I'll ever be. I've been practicing almost every day for the past few months, teaching twice a week, and recently I started taking classes 3x a week at lunchtime.
Taking classes again has been an amazing experience. It was really serendipitous that I found these classes just as I'm preparing for my training. My teacher is a very experienced Yogi, a brand apart from the usual drop-in studio teachers who are not significantly older than I am. This teacher has maturity and many years of a dedicated practice. He pushes us to completely new understandings of poses while making sure that we maintain rigorous attention to the form of poses. He makes us take our time coming in so that we pay in-depth attention to our alignment and muscular activation in each pose - and then once we're there, he helps us to explore each pose deeply.
In English that translates as: "ouch"!! :) In a "oh, I have muscles there I never even knew about until I felt them every time I moved? This had sure better make me grow as a person..." kind of way.
It makes me feel again like I felt when I first came to Yoga, when I'd walk out of pretty much every class with the above sentiments. It also makes me realize the areas in which I've been lenient in my own practice. With a home practice it is so easy to be unaware of the things you're doing wrong or to ignore the poses you aren't as good at. It's easy to get egotistical, thinking "oh, yeah, I've got that pose down". But a good teacher reminds you that you've never "got a pose down". Even in perfect alignment you can always put more energy or effort into a pose, explore it more deeply, feel it more fully, or at the very least, be more connected to your breath.
So, the countdown has really started... Every day I'm trying to be a better teacher, but I'm finding it difficult to strike the right balance between giving good instructions for each pose, and keeping the class moving at a good pace. How do you 'slow down' your teaching enough to really help students get the most out of each pose, without slowing down the class too much? How much instruction is enough?
Taking classes again has been an amazing experience. It was really serendipitous that I found these classes just as I'm preparing for my training. My teacher is a very experienced Yogi, a brand apart from the usual drop-in studio teachers who are not significantly older than I am. This teacher has maturity and many years of a dedicated practice. He pushes us to completely new understandings of poses while making sure that we maintain rigorous attention to the form of poses. He makes us take our time coming in so that we pay in-depth attention to our alignment and muscular activation in each pose - and then once we're there, he helps us to explore each pose deeply.
In English that translates as: "ouch"!! :) In a "oh, I have muscles there I never even knew about until I felt them every time I moved? This had sure better make me grow as a person..." kind of way.
It makes me feel again like I felt when I first came to Yoga, when I'd walk out of pretty much every class with the above sentiments. It also makes me realize the areas in which I've been lenient in my own practice. With a home practice it is so easy to be unaware of the things you're doing wrong or to ignore the poses you aren't as good at. It's easy to get egotistical, thinking "oh, yeah, I've got that pose down". But a good teacher reminds you that you've never "got a pose down". Even in perfect alignment you can always put more energy or effort into a pose, explore it more deeply, feel it more fully, or at the very least, be more connected to your breath.
So, the countdown has really started... Every day I'm trying to be a better teacher, but I'm finding it difficult to strike the right balance between giving good instructions for each pose, and keeping the class moving at a good pace. How do you 'slow down' your teaching enough to really help students get the most out of each pose, without slowing down the class too much? How much instruction is enough?
Friday, June 19, 2009
Practicing yoga is practicing life
Last week I had a lesson in Karma Yoga. I had adopted a stray cat (or rather, she had adopted me), and for almost a year had been feeding her. She was a lovely cat with a sweet disposition, and desperately wanted to be adopted by me (which my actual cat was having NONE of!).
She was always in fragile health but we had fed her up and she was seeming pretty strong and healthy. So last weekend I took her to the vet to be spayed, in hopes that once she had had the operation we could find a family to adopt her. I was a bit worried that she wouldn't be strong enough and I warned the vet about her fragile health. He thought she would be ok - but sadly, she wasn't, and died during the operation. :( Oh, tears!!!!
I felt terrible. I felt like I had betrayed her. I replayed her pitiful meows from inside the cat-box in the car as I was driving her to her doom. I regretted ever taking her to the vet and I wished I had just let her be.
But then I remembered my own post about Karma Yoga - that action is better than inaction. The intentions of my action were good. I did a better thing by trying to do something good for this cat than by doing nothing at all. We can't let our lives be ruled by attachment to consequences - good or bad. The intention is, has to be, the guiding principle that we live by.
Lesson in point - but I will still miss Patches the cat.
She was always in fragile health but we had fed her up and she was seeming pretty strong and healthy. So last weekend I took her to the vet to be spayed, in hopes that once she had had the operation we could find a family to adopt her. I was a bit worried that she wouldn't be strong enough and I warned the vet about her fragile health. He thought she would be ok - but sadly, she wasn't, and died during the operation. :( Oh, tears!!!!
I felt terrible. I felt like I had betrayed her. I replayed her pitiful meows from inside the cat-box in the car as I was driving her to her doom. I regretted ever taking her to the vet and I wished I had just let her be.
But then I remembered my own post about Karma Yoga - that action is better than inaction. The intentions of my action were good. I did a better thing by trying to do something good for this cat than by doing nothing at all. We can't let our lives be ruled by attachment to consequences - good or bad. The intention is, has to be, the guiding principle that we live by.
Lesson in point - but I will still miss Patches the cat.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)