Hers: With My Feet in the Air and My Head on the Ground

Just a few days ago I took my first Kundalini Yoga class. Wow. What an experience. Very different from what I know yoga to be. I had little idea of what to expect, just the usual and general understanding that a yogi might have of other traditions - which can be no understanding at all. My expectation included a lot of intense breath work and arm flapping, but other than that...I didn't know what was coming.

One of my ongoing moment to moment goals is to experience life as it happens, with no expectations and preconceived ideas of how things should be. I sometimes talk about this in class - can we (can I) take a pose like it's the first time ever taking that pose. Can I feel it new with each new approach? Can I maintain what the Zen masters refer to as "beginners mind?" For me, this allows an open curiosity to life, a beautiful naivete that keeps the cynical and judgemental side of myself quieter. It's not always easy, especially when I know about something, as in: I know about yoga, I've been teaching it for many years. This is how it should be done...Luckily, I have a fairly loud voice somewhere within that REGULARLY lets me know that I don't know much at all. So with this new Kundalini experience, I was able to just let myself go, listen to what the teacher told me to do, and be with whatever happened.

This captures how I felt in class...on a path,
a magical path, upward, elevation 9,900 ft
and climbing, explosive,
right out the top of my head...

At first I felt weird, like - what the heck's going on - everyone's probably watching me and I look like a total dork, I have no idea what I'm doing. (Welcome back to being a new student Jennifer; this is how each new student taking their first class feels!) But soon, I forgot about everyone around me. I started to feel my breath and then my body and its movement, at first controlled and a bit stiff, slowly becoming more fluid. I felt the movement of breath moving body moving energy, all synchronized;  the strong and forceful beat of my arms generating heat and more energy. Eyes closed - keep the eyes closed she said. Lift your inner gaze, upward, upward with the gaze. Repeating the mantra SAT NAM, SAT NAM, SAT NAM. Each breath faster, then slower, hold, release...on  it went, arms up, arms down, crossing arms overhead, tiger claw hands, lifting hips, lowering hips, folding over leg, lifting, lowering, breathing, holding, SAT NAM, SAT NAM........and away I went. Up, up, and away. Rising, rising...I was air rising, helium; spacey and ethereal, I was on my way to the heavens and the elusive higher realms of existence.

I can definitely see how one can get swept away with the practice. It was something else.

Like I said, it was very different, yet... at the same time, somewhere within all that breathing and movement, it was very much the same. Chanting, breath work, posture work, more breath work, more chanting… all in a day’s yoga class. It’s all the same, just mixed together in a different way with a little more focus on some things rather than others. It's like sitting down with a map in front of you deciding which road to take to where ever you are going...Kundalini Yoga is just one road of many.

It was a fun road that night, but for me, that upward movement physically and energetically - I have lots of that naturally. I can easily pass a day dreaming, lost in thought, lost is space. In fact, it wouldn't be unusual for me to stop and spin and flap my arms around just because. Not that we were spinning in class, but sometimes it felt like we were. I know my understanding of the practice is still very limited and I could have it all wrong; but I also know I need ground. I need earth. I need to root down into some solid standing postures and hold them for awhile. But I’m glad it’s there – Kundalini Yoga and its approach – for those times I just want to be up in my head, in the clouds, in the heavens…

 

Hers: Beyond 54 Days

One of the many wonderful uses
for my very smart phone.

The last days of my metta practice included glimpses of desire; the desire to finish this project, the desire to stop repeating the same phrases over and over, the desire to return to my breath, the desire to just breathe...

Well, here I am, just breathing. I woke a few days ago with an excitement. Last days always bring first days. And I was excited about my first day of returning to simple breath awareness. A sitting practice focused only on the breath, nothing else. Without my beads, I use a timer. I sit for 15 minutes, 5 less than my metta practice consisted of. Why? I don’t know. I just do. Another habit maybe?

Watching my breath...it was nice...this subtle movement, in and out, sort of...

 

In my asana (yoga posture) practice I often use a soft and steady yogic breath called ujjayi. It has a way of settling and focusing my mind as I move. It also allows me to gage where I am in my practice; as my breath changes, it also teaches. Strained breathing might mean I’m pushing too hard. But this breath is light and gentle, not forced in its control. As my teacher writes, “Do not overly control the breath. Breathe through your nose with a light ujjayi pranayama breath. Not every breath is the same; allow the breath to be organic. By overly controlling the breath we become fixated on control and mastery of the body.” So I breathe soft, easy ujjayi breaths, until I don’t and then I do and then I don’t and on it goes.



About 2.5 minutes left...

And on it went in my sitting practice. Without even realizing it, I begin to develop this subtle breath control. Until it’s not so subtle and I notice my groins are tight and my legs rigid, as though I'm trying to hold my body just slightly above the ground. And the soft whisper-like sound of my breath, audible only to me is now like a roiling ocean heard a mile away. What’s happening here?

...We become fixated on control.

 

My days with the metta practice gave me something to do. Something constant, maybe a way to control my sitting practice. Over and over. May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy. There was a focus; yes, thoughts came and went, but there was clearly things to focus on, images, words. Now, just the breath.

 

If you sit and watch your breath for any length of time without controlling it in any way, you might notice that there are spaces between the breaths, little pauses before the next breath begins. I’ve noticed in these pauses that I often feel a sense of timelessness, a space being created that has the potential to hold all things, all possibilities. It’s a silence that is more than silence. It’s a space that allows for hearing, listening. That space then grows and extends into the movement of the breath. It’s here that “things arise," (said in a deep and authoritative voice). Habits and tendencies, deep and not so deep understandings, answers to questions I may be mulling over, a growing self-knowledge, an ability to see things with a bit more objectivity...

Yet, it seems I'm a little lost without my metta phrases, I'm having a hard time finding this silence. Instead, I'm forcing things, exerting my control over something that will only flourish if I let go of control. I see it in my breath, I feel it in my body. I'm reminded of a trip I took by myself many years ago. I drove from Rochester, NY to the west coast by myself. I took 6 weeks and stopped to visit a number of friends along the way. Before I left, I was so excited to set out on my own with no one to comprise with, no one else to focus on. Still each time I moved on from a stop I found myself feeling so alone, scared, and a bit sad. I had no one but myself. I feel that now without my metta phrases, alone, scared, and a bit sad. But as I learned on that trip, feelings pass and the silence of being alone becomes comforting and calming, a place of refuge, a place where I can listen to whatever arises....it just takes a little bit.

Hers: Reflections on Last Days

One of the last photos taken on our trip out west this summer...
the end of one adventure brining us into the beginning of another.

First days are exciting and last days are bittersweet…the last day of school, the last day of a job, the last day of a yoga training, the last day of sitting down with my husband to review his last self-created yoga sequence (we’re not quite there yet, but we will be some day!), the last day of my metta practice experiment…

 

...Today’s practice began like any other in these past 54 days. I woke, I flossed and brushed my teeth, I made my way into our yoga room, and I took my seat...

My metta phrases flow easily. I sync them with my breath. Inhale. (May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well.) Exhale. (May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.) Over these days what began as about an 18 minute meditation has turned into about 23 minutes. My breathe has grown longer, my phrases drawn out. Often, Gary joins me. He sets a timer for 20 minutes. We begin our practice with three short bells; he ends his practice with two short bells. But I continued on, repeating my phrases until I come to my last bead.

From what I understand, there is a Zen tradition where a firm slap on the shoulder with a long, flat, wooden stick is used to bring the meditator back to the present moment. These bells that signal the end of sitting practice for Gary have become my sharp slap bringing me back to the moment for the last few repetitions of my metta phrases. I’d like to say that I don’t need them, that I am able to stay present with each phrase, but alas, I cannot.

Today though, on this last day, with my phrases and breath flowing easily and my focus single-pointed, I finish before the bells. I sit in total stillness, total silence, and feel the effects of my practice. I feel the calm, I feel the openness of heart, I feel glad to have completed my goal.

Has it changed me, these days of metta practice? Am I different from when I started 54 days ago? I don’t know. I’ve had some amazing experiences, some small insights. But they are so fleeting…I learn something and then it’s gone. I have some small realization, surely meant to change my life forever and then it slips away. What if everything we learned was like that?! As in, yesterday I learned how to tie my shoes; today I forget how. But, I suppose that's the way it is for a small child. And perhaps that is what we, who are on this path, are like, small children – learning more and more each day, yet repeating the same mistakes over and over, until one day, finally, what we learn sticks and our lives change just a little bit; we grow just a little bit. And so the adventure continues...

Today is the last day of this designated experiment, but not really. It's also the beginning of the next. Each day a first day, each day a last day.
 

His: Still Flowing Stream

9/20/13

Every year I assign my middle school students to write for five minutes without stopping; it’s a way to free up their thoughts, letting them know that whatever topic their brains are thinking about is okay to write about. The mind works easily, nonstop, and the job of the writer is simply to record what the mind is thinking. The only rule of the assignment is to keep their pencil or pen moving. I will attempt to do a similar writing here, but on the typewriter—I mean computer.

Yesterday, I felt the pressure to get a sequence done.  It turned into a chore; something I had to do. The resistance was centered in my stomach, and I felt like a high school student who didn’t want to do their homework. I kept telling myself it’s not supposed to be like this. This should be something that you love. Yet, yesterday, I hated sequencing.

I see no point in it. Why should a beginning teacher have to design these steps for their students to follow?  It should be the job of the advanced teachers to come up with the subtle, beautiful, free-flowing, rejuvenating, and, especially, safe sequences. New teachers aren’t capable of coming up with sequences.

As I write this, I realize I am avoiding the responsibility of a teacher, even a beginning teacher who is learning. How does one become an advanced teacher? Capable teachers all begin somewhere. And the best way to learn is to make mistakes. Jump in, childlike, and have fun. Who cares? Enjoy. This is the attitude that I am striving for anyway.

9/22/13

After I finished my third sequence, Virabhadrasana II, Warrior Pose, Jen reviewed it with me.  And I feel like I’m making some progress:

 

Hers: Challenging Adventures and Realizations

New Adventure #1:
I woke lazily today. No alarm, no set plan for the first few hours of my day. I languidly slid out of bed at 7:30 to brush my teeth. Gary and I decided to walk downtown and check out the farmer’s market. Ahh, but no. “I can’t leave yet. Let’s sit first. Let’s not disrupt this newly formed habit.” Gary often sits with me, but not today. He took a pass. With my jeans and t-shirt on, I went into the yoga room, pulled out my beads and took my seat. I truly believe this is the first time I’ve ever sat in jeans. I’m usually in what I consider my pajamas or maybe yoga pants, or sometimes even a lounge-about skirt, but never jeans.

New Realization #1:
I started just as I usually do – directing loving-kindness thoughts toward myself. It’s almost like warming-up before a good run. I start slowly, focusing on myself, sensation, breath. So many days into my practice, almost near the end of my experiment, I’ve come to realize the importance of starting with myself. I’m not only wishing thoughts of love and kindness toward myself – that I may feel love, that I may feel kindness, but, and maybe more importantly, I’m cultivating the open-heartedness to direct these thoughts toward others, to behave with loving-kindness in all my relations. May I be filled with loving-kindness has become May I be filled with loving-kindness toward others.

New Adventure #2:
I mentioned to someone recently, “It’s been too easy.” I’ve learned over the years and through experience that as I set out to “work on” something, the universe has a wonderful way of presenting opportunities for me to practice whatever it is I’m working on. And it’s been too easy. Until this past week that is. Nothing crazy, nothing life threatening, but challenging experiences nonetheless. No need to go into detail, but suffice it to say, the universe has come through.  And more than once. Lucky me, I got to practice over and over until I got it (almost) right.

New Realization #2:
Each challenge that presented itself made its way into my practice. Really, it’s the presenter of the challenge who's been getting my attention. After warming up by directing loving-kindness toward myself, I bring to mind the image of my challenger. (I think of two opponents stepping into an Ultimate Fighting cage!) I then direct and direct and direct: May they be filled with loving-kindness. May they be well. May they be peaceful and at ease. May they be happy. Over and over. Minutes pass, the image fades, but on I go. When I really feel as though I’ve lost connection to my intention, I return to myself. Then back to my challenger, and on it goes until I finish. And I think it’s over. A day goes by, another, and then a new challenge…The entire process begins again. The thing to know is that these experiences, these challenges, they stay with me. There’s a reason they even make their way into my practice. It’s because I have yet to let them go. I feel bad. I am directly loving-kindness toward another in order to make myself feel better. 

New Adventure and Realization #3:
My most recent challenge occurred only just yesterday. And I think I'm getting the message. Loving-kindness doesn't just happen on the cushion in meditation practice. It happens, must happen, ALL THE TIME. In each moment and with every opportunity that is presented to us. It makes no sense to continually react to situations from a place of fear (read anger, defensiveness, antagonism) and then go home, meditate, and some send loving-kindness thoughts to someone after the fact, expecting never to be challenged again by them or anyone else. We've all heard the cliched definition of insanity....The only way I'm going to get different results is by behaving differently in the moment. And the only way I can behave differently in the moment is to actually be present in that moment. Present and available to whatever challenge is set before me. Present with each challenge or challenging person that is sent my way. Can I treat them with the spirit of loving-kindness in that moment? When I do, there's nothing to feel better about later. Can I see their suffering and respond with love? When I do, I can then direct loving-kindness thoughts and energy with ease and from a place of truth. I've had many opportunities this past week to do just that. Some of the times I failed, some of the times I didn't. But with these new realizations, I'm looking forward to my next adventures....

Hers: 40 days in...

Me waiting...
(In Ouray, Colorado: Bear Creek Trail)

40 days ago, I sat on my mat and began a 54 day metta practice. In the beginning, most mornings, some part of what's usually a 20 to 25 minute sit would be spent contemplating what I might write about and how that particular morning’s practice might translate nicely into a blog post. After shaking that thought from my mind (over and over and over), I'd find myself wondering if anyone read what I already wrote. Or wondering about what my day would be like and what I had to do. Or analyzing, analyzing conversations and experiences; deconstructing and reconstructing. Finally, I’d find myself waiting. Waiting for something that might translate nicely into a blog post. Or else just waiting, waiting for something interesting, maybe even spectacular.

Now 40 days into this experiment, I find myself just sitting down and repeating my phrases.
  May I be filled with loving-kindness.
  May I be well.
  May I be peaceful and at ease.
  May I be happy.
The blog is there, but it can wait. Work is there, but it too can wait. All of the things that hammer away on the door of my mind, they’re still there, but they can all wait.

 

Instead, as I sit and repeat my phrases, I’ve grown to know the feel of my beads. I know the feel of the spaces between them. I know for about how long I’ve been sitting by that feel. I know that only a few more repetitions are left when my right foot begins to tingle slightly. I know I’m about half way through when I have a single moment, perhaps a breath’s length of time, when I feel as though I could sit in this spot for eternity. In truth - it’s just after that moment escapes me and I reflect on it that the knowledge comes. And I mindfully return to my phrases. Drawn away from them only by the sensation of and in the moment, a growing intimacy with myself, my beads, my phrases. It's not exciting in the ways I thought it might be. It's not spectacular like the mountains of Colorado in July. But there's a deep calmness, a comfort.




Birdy taking her place on my computer,
although she generally prefers Gary's chest.
 

It reminds me of that sweet heavy feeling I have on those days I wake early, early, and roll over to find Gary and Birdy. Pile on, I say, pile on; Birdy on half of Gary's chest and my head on the other. All of it a miracle, an infinite wonder, like the feel of small, carved sandlewood beads between my fingers.



His: Sequence #2

Jen writes every evening. Tap, tap, tap-tap, tap, taptaptap, tap. I hear those keys. I better get writing. Good motivation.

A friend visited this weekend. We taught middle school together for 6 years, rooms side by side, until he retired to The Villages last year. We play golf. Then drink and eat, and drink a little more. 

I wondered how this partaking in sake and beer will affect me. I had stopped the alcohol and caffeine. The accumulative effect of these pleasures tends to fatigue the mind and body, especially during the school year.

But I woke up at 4:30 AM and practiced for a couple of hours and feel grateful for the practice. It centers, relaxes, rejuvenates, and restores. When I practice on Monday morning, I know it will be a good week.

Today’s practice encourages me to teach yoga—maybe sooner rather than later. Here is my second corrected sequence with notes:

 

 

Before practice, I read. This quote jumps at me: “The problem with desire is that you do not desire deeply enough! Why not desire it all? You don’t like what you have and want what you don’t have simply reverse this. Want what you have and don’t want what you don’t have. Here you will find true fulfillment.” The answer.

Hers: It's Your Practice



Me in a three-legged Dog Pose taken at Bandeliar National Monument
(Which, after seeing, I made Gary take another picture of another pose because I didn't like what I saw.)

I've been lax.

I haven't published a post in a week and a half.

My metta practice, thankfully, is solid. Each day, I wake, I floss and brush my teeth, I find my way into our yoga room, and I sit for my morning metta practice. It's now part my routine.

But still, I've been lax. My daily writing practice has waned. I've only jotted a few ideas, a few notes, bullet points of experience...

My practice has been weak. And I'm not too happy about it. Just like the picture above that I made Gary retake, I want to see something different than what is.

However......

Even though you say your practice is not good enough, there is no other practice for you right now. Good or bad, it is your practice.             Shunryu Suzuki, Not Always So

Hers: BatGrrl and Day 21 of Metta

 

When I was younger, I used to write. Lots. Journaling, poetry, prose, unfinished short stories, nonsensical musings, and all kinds of whatever flowed easily from my pencil. I never did much with it. I’d get ideas about doing “readings” or putting together performance pieces. But nothing ever really came from those ideas. That is until I met BatGrrl (name changed to protect identity). BatGrrl was a writer – what I considered a Real Writer. She’d published a couple of things and even put out her very own zine that was sold at the local hipster thrift-and-not shop. She wrote every day and always had something new to share, something fabulously funny or culturally relevant. She was smart, informed, creative, hysterical, and spontaneous. But best of all, she read my writing and liked it. She liked it enough that she put some of my pieces in her zine. She liked it enough that she encouraged me to keep writing, encouraged me to read what I’d written to others, to share it. More than she probably ever knew, BatGrrl was my greatest support. If she thought I could, then I could.

Until, one day…

We unintentionally yet explosively broke each other’s hearts, ending a friendship that maybe did, maybe didn’t need to end…A few years went by and those years seemed to heal the pain. We came back together only to break each other’s hearts again in a much more subtle way. Or maybe they never really healed. The how’s and why’s of that first heartbreak are irrelevant now. We were both doing what we thought we had to do.

It’s the second heartbreak that interests me today. Mostly because I don’t even think we knew it happened. It showed up in the time that passed. In the life changes, the moves, the loves, the loss, all unshared. For me – it showed up in the writing that stopped coming. And the irrational fear of reaching out. It’s been more than 9 years since BatGrrl and I first reconnected – a connection maintained only through the modern miracle of Facebook - more than 9 years since we’ve spoken. Almost as many years since I’ve written with any seriousness.

And then, day 21 of my metta practice comes along...

Everyday I’ve been sitting; I’ve been cultivating and realizing the open heart and compassion of loving-kindness. Almost every day, I’ve been writing, writing about my experience with the metta practice, writing about my relationship with my husband, writing about whatever comes to mind.

When we practice metta, we are open to the truth of our actual experience, changing our relationship to life. Metta – the sense of love that is not bound to desire, that does not have to pretend that things are other than the way they are – overcomes the illusion of separateness, of not being part of the whole. – Sharon Salzberg, Loving-Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

And here on day 21, open to the truth of my actual experience, open to the truth of life, I receive a message from a dear old friend. A hand reaching out from years gone past. A hand seeking and offering forgiveness. It seems to me that loving-kindness and compassion are the seeds from which forgiveness grows, forgiveness toward others and forgiveness toward ourselves. Someone somewhere and everyone everywhere once said there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that on day 21 of my metta practice, day 21 of a newly rediscovered and loved writing practice that BatGrrl reaches out of the darkness of our past and says hello and I say hello back...

Hers: Machine Thinking on Day 18

Day 18 of my 54 day metta practice. I recently came across this passage. It's been at the forefront of my mind the last few days each time I come to sit...

When you are walking along a path leading into a village, you can practice mindfulness. Walking along a dirt path, surrounded by patches of green grass, if you practice mindfulness you will experience that path, the path leading into the village. You practice by keeping this one thought alive: "I'm walking along the path leading into the village." Whether it's sunny or rainy, whether the path is dry or wet, you keep that one though, but not just repeating it like a machine, over and over again. Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness. If we're really engaged in mindfulness while walking along the path to the village, then we will consider the act of each step we take as an infinite wonder, and a joy will open our hearts like a flower, enabling us to enter the world of reality. -  Thich Nhat Hanh; The Art of Mindfulness

Machine thinking...

Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness.
Machine thinking is mindlessness.

 

Too often I practice this machine thinking. Machine thinking, doing, and speaking. I do it when I wash the dishes, when I do the laundry; I do it when I'm tired, when I'm irritable; I do it when I'm driving and when I have other things that I need or want to do. I see now, most clearly, that I even do it in my meditation practice, my metta practice. My multi-taking mind can easily have three or more thoughts moving along as I mechanically repeat my metta phrases, phrases that become something like soft music playing in the background. But am I really multi-tasking? Of course not. That implies that I'm actually getting something done as I'm doing it. My scattered mind, my machine thinking and doing mind, in the end, gets nothing done at all, nothing besides having sat in physical stillness for 20 minutes.

 

The purpose of metta practice is to cultivate the spirit of loving-kindness and compassion toward one's self and others. I need to be present in that process for that process to ever occur. Simply reciting the phrases, I'm coming to believe, doesn't really mean a thing. Just like the path leading into the village, to really experience the intention behind my metta phrases I must practice mindfully. I need to pay attention to these phrases as they pass through my mind. I must let all other thoughts come and go, not jump into the cab of whatever thought arises and take off.

Might I then consider each phrase as an infinite wonder?

(May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well.)

Might a joy open my heart like a flower as I enter the world of reality?

(May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.)

 

I guess I'll try again tomorrow.

Hers: Reflections on Days of Metta

On a Monday:
I walked up the stairs at the studio and felt light, light in spirit – a deep inner peace, joy.
Did it last? Do moments like these ever?
Well, I suppose if they did we could, as my teacher has said, roll up our mats and go home.

The day was lovely, classes went smoothly, time with my private students rewarding, but these glimpses of what can only be called perfection are as brief as a breath.

And like the breath, we must notice them.


On a Wednesday:
Gary’s brother stopped by this morning at 6:20am. He was hoping that Gary would be awake and go golfing with him. Of course Gary was awake and of course he went golfing. These two things are givens. I came out of our room with a smile and an unlit candle, looking for a lighter.

“Helllloooo Brother.”

“Hellloooo Sister. Whatcha doin’? Meditatin’?”

“Yup.”

And off I go into the yoga room. I start my metta practice. It becomes a morning of men….Gary’s image appears. I direct to him. Then his brother, their dad, my dad, my stepdad, my brother, men that come to the studio, friends, more family….they come and go. I keep returning to Gary. His image fills my heart and I send that love to him.


On a Sunday: 
Some days, today, I feel strange directing these sentiments toward myself. I thought I had long gotten over that, back when I first explored metta work. But as I sit each morning, as I begin my sitting practice with "May I, may I, may I..," it seems so self-centric. Some days, I try to bring someone to mind, someone I love or someone who challenges me. But I regularly return to "may I."

Jack Kornfield suggests that we spend months focusing our metta toward ourselves. Months taking care of our selves before we turn our attention to others. Yet still...it sometimes feels strange.  

Hers: UPDATE: Regarding His and Teacher's Voice

So there we were, sitting at our dining room table with this printed sequence in front of us…

I'd been looking forward to going over Gary’s sequence. Been waiting days really. I was a bit nervous, a bit excited. You see, Gary and I learn from each other every day, but we never really sat down in such a formal way. Except maybe when we were learning to sail – and that didn’t always go over too well. I seem to remember myself threatening to take sailing lessons from a sailing school on more than one occasion… But sail we did, and create a safe and intelligent sequence we will.

Now, I do this kind of thing all the time. It’s part of my role at the studio, The Yoga Sanctuary. As Director of Teacher Development, I mentor new yoga teachers: review their sequences, go to their classes, and give them feedback. So, this is like any other day…except…this is my husband…and I pretty much think he's the smartest guy in the world and that everything he does is stupendous.

But what if this isn't? Would I be able to tell him?

So there we were…

"Okay, what’s your intention here?" I ask, "What’s your focus?”

"Trikonasana, triangle pose."

"Great, you're starting in a cross-legged seat. Perfect. Then you're moving into Virasana. Okay...Why? And how do you plan to do that?

"Why are you talking like that?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're using teacher's voice."

"Ummmm, I'm not sure how else I'm supposed to talk. I guess I'm being a teacher right now."

"It sounds like you're talking down to me."

"Oh. I don't mean to."

Teacher’s voice…We stopped there, stopped reviewing the sequence that is, and instead reviewed this idea of teacher’s voice. For Gary it was all about the tone, the way I was saying what I was saying, it had an affectation. I was taking on a role; telling, not showing, as he would say. For me, after some thought, I realize that this teacher's voice comes from a place of insecurity and self-doubt.

[UPDATE: As I re-read this, I see something is missing....What is this insecurity and self-doubt? What was happening that made me take on the big-serious-all-knowing-teacher's-voice? Well, as I said, I generally think Gary is the smartest guy in the world - read: smarter than me. Now, this is NOT to say that  I don't think I'm smart. I am. But as my good and sweet friend Christina (of we are revival and more) has said, "I always knew you needed someone smarter than you." So with that...I'm sitting down with this guy who I think is super smart...
And then there's the yoga practice. This is a centuries old tradition; knowledge passed from teacher to student, teacher to student, teacher to student ad infinitum. The great yogis practice(d) in ways that are beyond my understanding. Who am I? Who am I, as I sit here with a Sam Adams Porch Rocker, to say what is a balanced, safe, and intelligent asana (yoga posture) sequence? Granted, I didn't have the Porch Rocker then....but still. Forty-five to sixty minutes of meditation and asana practice a day a great yogi does not make me. I mean we were in the same training together...
So there I go, with the self-doubt. This isn't the first time it's come up and it won't be the last. Part of me even thinks it's one of the things that keeps me on my game. It keeps me real, knowing that I have so much more to learn, I've barely begun.....]

The Yoga Sutras refer to this as one of the nine antarayas or obstacles that distract. These obstacles distract us from our practice – which in this situation we'll call life. My self-doubt was not allowing me to be truly present or authentic in my interaction with Gary. Instead, I was telling him that I am “teacher.”

In our summer Prajna training we received a handout with excerpts from Parker J Palmer’s The Courage to Teach. Palmer writes:

In a culture of technique, we often confuse authority with power, but the two are not the same. Power works from the outside in, but authority works from the inside out….Authority is granted to people who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts.

This is my practice, my svadhyaya or self-study practice. With Gary as my mirror, I'm able to see myself more clearly.

In every class I teach, my ability to connect with my students, and to connect them with the subject, depends less on the methods I use than on the degree to which I know and trust my selfhood – am willing to make it available and vulnerable in the service of learning.

Do I know and trust my selfhood?  

Gary and I made it back to the sequence, as can be seen by the notes and scribbles. (Quick FYI: most of those are his!) And like any other practice, asana, meditation, once I let go of my idea of what should, could, or would be, it just flowed spontaneously - question, answer, thought, idea, give, take, all of it merging into one. That's when I know that I know and trust my selfhood.  

I'm sure that self-doubt isn't gone for good, the sutras say it takes time and diligence, but it's not a bad start.

His: Project

My goalless goal in this Svadhyaya project is to create a set of 10 yoga sequences. My first sequence, based on trikonasana, or triangle pose, took about 2 hours to complete, and I was fairly confident that  Jen would, with some minor adjustments, approve it. The following is the sequence with notes after Jen went through it with me:

 

 

Now onward to sequence #2.

His: The Preciousness of Life

Sometimes it takes a long trip to realize the value of what we have:

Buddhist tradition teaches its followers to regard all life as precious. The astronauts who leave the earth have also rediscovered this truth. One set of Russian cosmonauts described it in this way: “We brought up small fish to the space station for certain investigations. We were to be there three months. After about three weeks the fish began to die. How sorry we felt for them! What we didn’t do to try to save them! On earth we take great pleasure in fishing, but when you are alone and far away from anything terrestrial, any appearance of life is especially welcome. You see just how precious life is.” In this same spirit, one astronaut, when his capsule landed, opened the hatch to smell the moist air of earth. “I actually got down and put it to my cheek. I got down and kissed the earth.”

--Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart

 

Hers: Metta for Us All (In Honor of Sergeant Mike Wilson)

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal a couple years ago. It was an article about the grand scale installation artist, Christo and his life after the passing of his wife and collaborator, Jeanne-Claude. While reading, I came across a line so poignant and beautiful that I copied it into my journal so as not to forget it. It seemed then and still does now an important idea to contemplate.

One of the less-spoken truths about grief is that you don't just lose the deceased person; you lose the person you got to be when you were with him or her.

....Today our community is in the midst of a small tragedy. Only days ago, Charlotte County Sergeant Mike Wilson was killed in the line of duty. The first officer to be killed by gunfire and only the second to have fallen in our county's history. Our small little city has been spending the last couple of days preparing for his memorial, our streets and trees decorated in blue ribbons to honor Sergeant Wilson's service and sacrifice. My own Thursday afternoon was spent wrapping the trees outside of the yoga studio. It's a strange thing - decorating a building, wrapping trees in ribbon, knowing that a family has been torn apart...because a family has been torn apart. I can only hope that our compassion somehow makes it to their hearts.

People die. Sometimes horribly, sometime peacefully. All that gets taken from them at death is probably of no consequence to them now. But what of those left behind? What becomes of them? Who do we become once they're gone?

You lose the person you got to be when you were with him or her.

I woke up the morning after decorating the studio trees and, as is becoming my habit, went into our yoga room for sitting practice. I took out my mala, took my seat, and after a few deep exhalations,  started reciting my metta phrases. As is also becoming my habit, I began my practice directing the phrases toward myself.

 

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. - Jack Kornfield

Soon, 10 - 15 repetitions in, Sergeant Wilson came to mind. I don't know that I've ever met him and the only image I have is what's being used in the papers and news feeds. His image made just a fleeting appearance. It was his family, his wife and children, that truly came to settle into my heart. I've no idea what they look like, no idea their age, hair color, no idea even if his kids are boys or girls. But I continued, "May they be filled with loving-kindness. May they be well..." What could they be going through? What are they doing right now? Who will they become?

You lose the person you got to be when you were with him or her.

The consummate multi-tasker, my mind repeated my phrases while simultaneously exploring those questions and then creating a story for a woman and family I've never even met. I began to answer my questions through this story. I answered them by putting myself into their place. What might I be doing?

Oh.... A deep sense of grief began to fill me, sadness.

I tried to focus harder on my metta phrases, pushing them out in their direction, whatever direction that may be. And then more broadly toward his extended family and friends, and then to all those whose lives he may have touched, and then to our entire community and all those who have experienced the loss of someone important in their lives. ALL of us. We all have, or no doubt will, experience that loss.

Who do we then become?

I'd love to end this post with some kind of answer, some kind of idea. But I don't know. I only suspect we're constantly finding out, constantly becoming who we will become.

His: THERE IS NO TIME TO RUSH

Gary's Yoga Log

7/15/13

After a wonderful beginning to my summer, a 200 hour yoga teacher training at Prajna and the week I spent with Jen traveling through Southwest Colorado that included Durango, Mesa Verde, and the very beautiful Ouray where we took an all-day hike into the mountains and soaked in the hot mineral springs…After a wonderful beginning, reentry to my life in Florida has been a little difficult. I need to design a good habit of practice that incorporates what I have learned at Prajna.

Here is one of the practices that I created with the help of my in-home guru:

 

 

7/16/13

Heart, equanimity, and…there was one other—the three things that were obvious five minutes ago, the three things I would focus on for the final month of my summer vacation. Maybe it will come as I write my journal entry.

Ah yes! Now I remember—effort without strain.

Heart, equanimity, and effort without strain.

 

Tias, Surya, Jen, and me

7/17 – 29/13

Secret to practice

• Observe the body w/compassion

• Constant nonjudgmental scanning

• In any mind-state the movements becoming centering and nourishing

• If struggling, start and end with breath—always go back to the breath

 

Radical Acceptance of the body

• It is what it is.

• No wish for it to be other than it is.

7/30/13

The slower and more mindfully I practice, the faster it appears to go by. Practiced for 2 ½ hours with increased nonjudgmental awareness on the subtleties of the body and on the “who that is observing.”

Felt a deep sense of gratefulness for this summer’s Prajna yoga training, for Tias and Surya, because the space of the sacred has come back into my life. To enter this realm is to be washed by the surf of a forgotten ocean; it envelopes the true soul with an encompassing security.

The hip injury from March is improving oh so slowly. Yet today I remembered what Surya had told me this summer. The hips tend to hold a lot of psychic trauma.

Instead of fighting against the pain or developing a working toleration of the pain, today’s grace-filled insight is a deep gratitude for both the injury and the pain. With tenderness and compassion, I relaxed into meditation and encouraged these old psychic wounds to release, to let go. Instead of the gnawing near intolerable pain, the wounds felt as if they were warmly bleeding out from the hip crease. Perhaps I had become psychically ready for both the injury and the healing.

My wife’s hands

8/1/13

Continued my daily practice, which went for 1 ¾ hours. Then while swimming a wisdom-nugget appeared in my head: protect the moment, guard the now.

Protect and guard against what? Against anything that threatens the full participation in the moment.

How long is a moment? About 3 seconds.

How do I protect it? With a compassionate heart.

8/4/13

Today the goal is to finish my first of the ten sequences that I need to complete for this project. Jen will be evaluating each sequence to make recommendations for improvement. This sequence was actually due yesterday. I am definitely feeling a bit less overwhelmed, partly because Jen recommended some good resources to use: Judith Lasater’s 30 Essential Yoga Poses, David Swenson’s Ashtanga Yoga, and Miriam Austin’s Cool Yoga Tricks. The last title sounds less reputable, but information is helpful, especially for designing sequences.

8/5/13

I reread the article by Swami Rama on the Joy of Meditation and felt inspired. One idea particularly interested me: Freedom comes from within. It begins when we become more aware of our habitual reactions to thoughts, sensations, and outside events.

I then settled into my “Closed Hip” yoga practice with no thought on how long it would take. I simply guarded the moment and observed my body with compassion. My practice lasted 2 ½ hours but seemed timeless.

8/6/13

Yesterday’s practice appears to have been a good one. The pain in my hips and lower back appear to have subsided today. I worry after longer practices whether I have subtly injured my body. As I age, not only does the healing take longer but injuries sometimes seem to hide for a couple of days.

It becomes a constant search for just the right amount of work. Right effort: not too much and not too little. I can still hear Tias’s voice, “Effort without strain,” which has become one of my mantras. “Loosen the muscles in your face; relax the jaw.”