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.”

 

 

Hers: First Day of Metta

First days are always exciting….first day of school, first day of a new job, first day of a yoga training, first day of sitting down with my husband to review his first self-created yoga sequence (still waiting on that one, but I know it’s coming and I hear it’s fantastic)...

...first day of metta practice.

My normal meditation practice is a solid and consistent 10 minutes, which I recently increased to 15. I’ve been a bit concerned about adding another 5 minutes. Not because of the actual sitting, but the time it will take from all my other morning activities: the all so important reviewing of email, catching up on the night’s Facebook events, looking at my cat, wandering about the house, you know – important stuff. But being the exciting first day of metta practice, I was able to let all that other stuff go and begin this adventure.

The mind is so incredibly amazing at its ability to multi-task…

I eagerly take my seat and begin to recite my metta phrases, synchronizing them to my breath. Not more than 10 repetitions in I start to simultaneously contemplate what I might write about in my next blog entry, wonder if anyone has read it yet, or even better – commented. Then I move onto planning my next workshop, wondering what it will be like sharing my knowledge of class preparation with Gary only to return to exploring how my metta practice will manifest off the cushion. And on it goes….When I become conscious of my wandering mind, I turn to the practice of “muttering” – softly repeating my phrases aloud. It helps me to refocus. And then, I’ve come to the last bead, 108 repetitions done. Asana (yoga posture) practice to follow, reviewing what I’ll teach in my morning class.

And then off to work I go…

My classes go smoothly and as happens in most classes, I adjust what I teach to fit the students that arrive. This is always a practice in compassion, empathy, and patience. I offer modifications and adjustments to hopefully meet the needs of the injuries and limitations that abound in the room. As we come to our final posture, Savasana, I see that for some, the discomforts are still there, preventing the release that Savasana brings. I offer as much support as I can and then let them go to find their own way.

Once I sit, I find myself wondering what more I could do or could have done. It’s then that my metta phrases come to mind. I close my eyes and try to envision all of the bodies before me and silently repeat to myself, “May you be filled with loving- kindness. May you be well. May you be peaceful and at ease. May you be happy.” I repeat it maybe 5 – 6 times. I open my eyes and see all of these bodies lying on the ground, still, relaxed, at ease….

Hers: The Project

Not too long ago, my teacher gave a talk on that website, Yoga U. I was excited to listen to it, so excited that I upgraded my data plan to a 5G plan with a personal hotspot (no cable, so no Internet access at our house) just so I could listen to it.

It was a good talk, exploring the connection between the subtle and physical bodies. I think. Truth is, even though I took notes, there’s only one thing that I remember clearly from that talk. He said, “20% of the time that a person comes to sitting meditation practice should be dedicated to Metta.” 

I liked that. I can work with that. It gives me and my mind something to do. 2 out of 10 times on the cushion: Metta.

Metta, a Pali word that translates to loving-kindness, is a traditional, Buddhist based practice. It’s used to cultivate loving-kindness both inward and outward, toward ourselves and others. It consists of repeating a number of phrases meant to bring peace, ease, and well being in body, mind, and spirit. I first came across the word and practice in a book written by Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart. I was moved by the concept and brought it into my own meditation practice. To this day, I use the phrases offered by Kornfield, “May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.” 

My first experiences with Metta practice were quite powerful. As Kornfield suggested it might be, it was a bit awkward directing these sentiments toward myself. I remember the first time I sat reciting my phrases; there was such a resistance - like a wall between myself and what I was saying. Finally I gave into it; it was then that my breath caught, my stomach tightened, and tears began to push themselves out of my closed eyes. But I kept with it and, over time, was soon able to turn my attention to others: family, friends, acquaintances, even people who challenged me (read annoyed the h&%* out of me). As a result, a lightness began to fill me. Not just in sitting practice, but for hours after. I began to see people in a new and different way. A knowledge and understanding came from a place deep within me. A direct perception. We all suffer. We are all trying. We all matter. We all deserve wellness in body, peace in mind and heart, safety, happiness.

And then my practice began to wane. I moved on to new ideas, new ways of exploring my sitting practice: watching my breath, regulating my breath, focusing my attention on sounds or sensations. These were subtle changes, but changes nonetheless.

I think of my first experiences with Metta practice and its effects with fondness, and even a bit of wistfulness. I remember the feelings of compassion and empathy that seemed to so easily flow from within me. (And my husband can tell you that compassion is a trait that I could definitely work on…)

I now return to this practice. I return to it not with the idea of recreating my first experiences, as we all know first experiences happen only once. But, I’d like to do a little research, an experiment. Dr. Carrie Demers, medical director of the Himalayan Institute, has said that that’s all we are ever doing – experimenting, collecting new or more data and hopefully making wise decisions with the information we collect.

So here’s my experiment: 54 days straight of Metta meditation.  I know from past experience that if I use a full mala – 108 beads – and repeat two phrases on my inhale and two on my exhale with one bead counted per breath, my meditation will be approximately 18 minutes long. So that means 54 days of 18 minute Metta meditation. My data will be collected on and off the cushion throughout my days. My findings will be published here, perhaps just as an exercise for my fingers or maybe for some random eyes that cross this page. This is my Svadhayaya project. Well, part of it.......