Happy 2nd Birthday, Urban Flow!!
How blessed we are, indeed.
How blessed we are, indeed.
To open yourself up to need, longing, dependency, and reliance on others means opening yourself to the truth that none of us can do this on our own. We really do need each other, just as we need parents and teachers. We need all those people in our lives who make us feel so uncertain. Our practice is not about finally getting to a place where we are going to escape all that but about creating a container that allows us to be more and more human, to feel more and more. ...A yoga practice teaches us, slowly, over the course of the years, to soften, to unfurl, to open up, without fear. So if yoga is union, and our relationships create our reality, then, dude: get connected. Nothing fancy. It's really just the practice of seeing the humanity, the Krishna, the suffering in the person across the dinner table, or across the road, or across the hall. Pretty simple stuff, if you ask me. No islands necessary.
We learn to keep our relationships and support systems in good repair because we admit to ourselves how much we need them. We take care of others for our own sake as well as theirs. We begin to see that all our relationships are part of a broad spectrum of interconnectedness, and we respect not only the most intimate or most longed-for of our relationships but also all the relationships we have — from the most personal to the most public — which together are always defining who we are and what we need in order to become fully ourselves.
This layover was different. I was tired and just over it. The holiday spirit was all around me, but I was feeling every part of bah humbug. I knew I needed to do something to shake it up and shake myself out of this mood. I needed to move my whole body and I needed to move forwards and backwards and side to side, and, more importantly, I needed to really breathe. I needed to get out of the frenzy of frenetic holiday travelers, to quiet the sharp sounds of overhead announcements and to restore a bit of equanimity to my body and my mind. I needed to hit the reset button.
So, I found a relatively quiet place in the Denver airport, took off my shoes and started to practice. I thought I would just move through a few sun salutations, but the next thing I knew it was 45 minutes later and I had completed a pretty comprehensive practice. I even did bakasana! Did people stare? Indeed, they did. Did moments of insecurity creep in? For sure. Did it really matter? Not at all. Because when I was finished, I felt lighter, yet more grounded and stable. The creakiness and crankiness that can sometimes accompany me in travel were replaced with a sense of fluidity, suppleness and freedom. I was calm, relaxed and actually felt joyful. Simply stated, I felt better.
Simply stated, I was better. I was able to return to the chaos of the world around me a better version of myself.
1. You are not your car. You are not your salary. You are not your clothes. You are not your Hanumanasana.That's yoga. That's anti-establishment. That's rock. So bring your passion and your breath, wear some black sequins, get ready to wave adios to 2011, throw in a little head-banging and a lot of chaturangas, and there you go.
2. Drop the masks. Be dangerously real.
3. Question reality. Question the scripts. Question your patterns. Question your mind.
4. You're brand new in every breath, every day, every practice.
5. Hey, you already have everything you need.
We need to talk about a balance. Frankly, I think Asian monastics probably spend too much time sitting in meditation looking inward, and not enough time outdoors. They have to go out, as Shakyamuni did, and find out how people are living in society. But in the West, it’s the opposite problem. People spend all their time in the outer world. They’ve been successful in business, in their professional lives, but they have no relief from the stress of their lives. They need to sit down and settle the body and mind, instead of always running around feeling agitated inside.Man, do I hear him on the "Westerners needing a bit of inward emphasis" bit. And this contrast behind "high" Buddhism and "folk" Buddhism? Yes. Yes. That's where the craft of living well really comes into play: the being the bodhisattva in the marketplace, on the street corner, in the checkout line at Walgreens, on the bus, as an office drone, at the grocery store.
I think we have to talk in terms of high Buddhism and folk Buddhism. I think we need both. When I say high Buddhism, I mean monastic Buddhism; I mean monks and nuns living a protected life in a monastery so that they can devote themselves entirely to spiritual cultivation in order to ensure dharma transmission. But we need what I would call “folk” Buddhism as well — people who go out, as bodhisattvas, into the marketplace, actively involving themselves with people. Those of us who are doing high Buddhism have to understand that we are not the only ones who are capable of transmitting the dharma. We have to understand the transmission of Buddha-dharma in a wider sense.
Q: I often find that when I am getting ready to meditate or meditating, I feel like it is an “escape” and that I am avoiding “real work.” I suspect this comes from my Midwestern protestant work ethic upbringing. How common is that and what are good ways to let it go?Thanks, Susan.
A: Thank you for this question. I’m sure others can relate to it, myself included. We are all so busy and engaged with important and/or necessary work. It can be tempting to think of meditation as self-indulgent, a waste of time, or escapist.
I could come up with a whole line of reasoning backed up by scientific research to prove that meditation is good for you, good for those around you, and could be more accurately described as the “practice of no-escape” rather than the opposite. But this isn’t really the point. Once we get in a debate with our practice, there will always be a good opposing argument, no matter what side you start out representing. So, rather than trying to establish a fool-proof rationale, you could simply label all of this “thinking” and come back to your breath.
As you know (or will soon discover), meditation is about resting attention on breath and when it strays, bringing it back. Whether it strays into thoughts that are vicious, brilliant, or dull is irrelevant. When you notice that you are caught up in thought while meditating, you simply (and gently) let that thought go and simply (and gently) come back to your breath.
So when you sit down to practice and the thought arises, “I am avoiding my real work right now,” let that thought go and come back to the breath. When the thought arises, “this practice runs counter to my work ethic and is an escape from my real responsibilities” you could let that go too, and come back to breath. Similarly, when the thought arises, “this is great, I am meditating anyway and I really, really see how meditation can support my work ethic” or, “work ethic, shmwork ethic, meditation is good for me and I’m going to do it!” please let those thoughts go as well and come back to breath.
When in doubt, let go. And come back.
A strong core is vital to a healthy body, on and off the mat. Mid-section strength around the spinal column supports long-term, whole-body health, especially as we age.Can you say Tittibhasana?!?
This month, join me for a vigorous vinyasa practice emphasizing a variety of core strengtheners, and watch your practice evolve. We'll play with a few arm balances along the way, and offer tips for building a stronger core, from thigh to shoulder, too.
Lululemon Athletica, the retailer of yoga pants and hoodies, has long decorated shopping bags with slogans that appear to have been lifted from self-help books. But this month its bags have asked a question that some may find more provocative: “Who is John Galt?”As a shameless commie myself, you can imagine how I feel about the whole thing. It's quite troubling. Read up on it here at the NYT and at Yoga Dork, too. I could write a book. I will resist.
The question is the opening line of “Atlas Shrugged,” the novel by Ayn Rand that was published in 1957. Followers of Rand’s free market philosophy, which promotes the idea of individuals living for their self-interest and dismisses altruism, sometimes use the question to signal their allegiance.
I have worked with many wonderful teachers who have opted to stay as far away from YA as possible and they are, in most cases, more qualified to guide a yoga class (or lead a teacher training) than many of the teachers currently listed in the YA registry. Reason being: YA lacks sufficient internal structure to monitor and hold the registered teachers and schools accountable in order to uphold the standards they have allegedly established. Furthermore, these so-called standards do not give any weight or bearing toward the qualifications actually needed to guide a yoga class in a knowledgeable, empowering, safe and ethical manner.Whew. Gotcha.
“This 26-pose sequence already has a copyright....It’s like a series of dance steps; like the choreography in a musical. And musicals are copyrighted."But Greg Gumucio, founder of YTTP, counters that
"This issue is much bigger than Bikram the man, much bigger than Bikram Yoga,” he wrote on his blog YogaTruth.org. “It is much larger than myself or Yoga to the People. This is about whether yoga asanas and the sequencing of asanas that are part of Traditional Knowledge will remain in the public domain for everyone to use, for everyone to teach, and for everyone to practice.”Oy. Money and intellectual property and copyrighting and ancient history and all of it. For a practice that's supposed to be all about cutting out the drama in life, we've sure got a lot of it, eh? I blame the profit factor. Note that common branding/marketing theme in each of the above showdowns.
Other religions suggest there may be a miracle, or you may go to heaven. But it is strangely comforting to hear from Buddha’s teaching that there is no such thing. This is what it is. This is reality. The Buddha’s teaching says that hope is just the flip side of fear, and fear the flip side of hope. The best thing is just to stay awake and watch it, watch yourself, and feel everything as it is right now.
"Raymond was composed strongly. A big-boned, masculine, athletic guy. And when everything else deteriorated, I think his heart kept on pumping. I’d help him put his legs up, and I would touch his belly. I’d help him breathe, help him watch his breath. I would hold his belly and breathe with him. Being aware of breathing had an immediate effect for him, a calming effect. But I would hear my own internal voice say, Am I going to be like this some day? Who is going to take care of me when I get sick? I felt my own fear and terror. But it helped me to see this, to see my own panic rather than be captured by it. I had never watched my breath or his own so intensely before — I don’t think I can reproduce that. That was the deepest meditation I’ve ever experienced."
Fresh fruits for breakfast. Strong coffee (natch). Roasted and sprouted nuts. Olive oil and ginger and garlic. Wok-steamed vegetables with Thai herbal sauces and Indian cabbage and pumpkin curry and zucchini pasta. And on and on and on.Every evening means starting dinner with the kind of excellent freshly-squeezed vegetable juices that I haven't had time to make since grad school, when I spent hours finding reasons not to write my thesis. (I did a lot of juicing then, needless to say. Juicing and playing piano.) Spinach and kale and parsley and red cabbage and beets and carrots and lime and pineapple and broccoli, juiced. Perfection.
Ok. Pranayama. I can do this.The hour that ensued was an hour of tiny micro-movements, the kind of secret stealth killers that look simple and painless and boring and blah until you do them 27 times over and over and keep your legs in the air at 90 degrees for thirty minutes without putting them down. We laid there on our backs, knees in the air (open, close, open, close), over and over, looking like a bunch of dead bugs.
Find the yoga in this, Rach.
It doesn't have to be just a workout.
You can turn this into a meditation.
This (inhale)Core work? Baby steps. We'll get there. I promise, soon we'll be BFFs. Or at least friends with benefits and no awkward breakfasts.