Spelunking

In yoga class, you’ll often be told to “go deeper” while you’re holding a pose. It’s a yoga cliché, a lesson that’s lost its power. It can be taken literally, but that’s not always the best idea. So what exactly does it mean?

Read the whole entry on the Huffington Post

I’m reading The Feminine Mystique right now, one of those books you always hear about but never get around to reading. A pithy quote from Betty Friedan finally got me to the library. It was written in 1963, but it’s kind of blowing my mind. I’m not much of a history buff, so to read her analysis of WHY these liberated career women of the 20′s and 30′s CHOSE to become the polished, yet depressed, housewives of the 50′s, is staggering. (Short answer: WWII veterans filling the media w/domestic nostalgia, Freud’s “penis envy” equating female achievement with sublimated jealousy, and the 50′s daughters rejecting their mothers as role models in the typical pendulum of generations.)

The book is especially interesting to read now, with all the Martha Stewart, Mad Men, and back-to-the-farm nostalgia going around. One passage in particular made me think:

The uncritical acceptance of Freudian doctrine in America was caused, at least in part, by the very relief it provided from uncomfortable questions about objective realities. After the depression, after the war, Freudian psychology became much more than a science of human behavior, a therapy for the suffering. It became an all-embracing American ideology, a new religion. It filled the vacuum of thought and purpose that existed for many for whom God, or flag, or bank account were no longer sufficient—and yet who were tired of feeling responsible for lynchings and concentration camps and the starving children of India and Africa. It provided a convenient escape from the atom bomb, McCarthy, all the disconcerting problems that might spoil the taste of steaks, and cars and color television and backyard swimming pools. It gave us permission to suppress the troubling questions of the larger world and pursue our own personal pleasures. And if the new psychological religion — which made a virtue of sex, removed all sin from private vice, and cast suspicion on high aspirations of the mind and spirit — had a more devastating personal effect on women than men, nobody planned it that way.

Wow. We’re in similar predicaments today, right? But we’re choosing other philosophies at the moment. So let’s play Madlibs and insert some more modern topics.

The uncritical acceptance of yoga in America was caused, at least in part, by the very relief it provided from uncomfortable questions about objective realities. After the recession, throughout the Iraq war, yoga became much more than a workout for hippies, a therapy for the suffering. It became an all-embracing American ideology, a new religion. It filled the vacuum of thought and purpose that existed for many for whom God, or job title, or bank account were no longer sufficient—and yet who were tired of feeling responsible for global warming and Guantánamo Bay and the military-industrial complex. It provided a convenient escape from the oil spill, Fox News, all the disconcerting problems that might spoil the taste of organic food and iPhones and HDTV and luxury travel. It gave us permission to suppress the troubling questions of the larger world and pursue our own personal pleasures. And if the new psychological religion — which made a virtue of physical fitness, removed all sin from self-absorption, and cast suspicion on material well-being — had a somewhat devastating personal effect on our joints, nobody planned it that way.

[Last bit referencing http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/24stretch/ and other updates on the increasing injuries due to yoga.]

What do you think? Am I off my rocker? There’s a bit of escapism needed right now, and I think that’s part of yoga’s popularity.

Image courtesy of Flickr

It’s sometimes hard to justify a yoga class. The day-to-day challenges of life in NYC are pretty time-consuming, and the bigger picture is full of oil spills and underprivileged children and other important causes that need help. How is a full two-hour practice, or even a five-minute routine, really going to make the world a better place?

Tina Fey, for example, has “thought about yoga, even done it a couple times” but says “While it would be great to work out an hour a day, there is something inherently sort of selfish about it. I can’t do it.” [quoted on YogaDork]

On the other end of the extreme, we have Michael Stone. He pursued a scholar’s path with full dedication. But that route still exposed the conflict with daily life.

Michael Stone

When I began practicing yoga my primary focus was the physical practice of yoga postures and every morning for the first six years, I woke up to practice at five o’clock, six days a week. I sat in meditation for an hour, followed by standing postures, twists, forward bends, an hour of back bending and inversions and finally breakfast. When I had any free time, I attended academic lectures on Indian philosophy, completed two degrees in psychology and religion and studied Sanskrit; but the formality of my practice began to feel separate from the world I moved through and I felt that formal practice and daily life had little in common. The connection between meditation, the physical practice of yoga, and the spiritual discipline to which it belonged became ambiguous and vague and though I could intellectually grasp the connection between waking up the body and stilling the mind, I didn’t understand how to put these practices into action in everyday life. While I was having significant insights in meditative practices, I felt formal practice and daily life were not seamlessly woven.

This is true for many contemporary yoga practitioners, and as I now teach extensively, the most common question I hear is how to integrate philosophy, body practices, meditation and daily life together with one’s role in relationships, concerns about the world around us, and the desire to take action in a world out of balance. Even when students begin having genuine experiences of insight or meditative quietude, I always ask them how they are going to incorporate these experiences into their daily activities. How does spiritual practice support and motivate our choices and ambitions? How can my personal enlightenment be the goal of practice if there is so much suffering around me? If the domain of any spiritual tradition is the relief and transformation of suffering, what does yoga, one of the great spiritual traditions, have to say about contemporary forms of suffering and existential disorientation?

If you’re interested in these questions, Michael is giving a lecture this Friday at The Shala, and teaching two classes the next day.

yoga for a world out of balance: teachings on ethics, art and social action
public talk with michael stone, author, teacher, psychotherapist and activist
friday, may 7
6 to 8 pm
$15 suggested donation

drawing on his latest book, michael will offer practical suggestions for bringing yoga into our personal, social and ecological lives and how we can share the core teachings of yoga with our friends and students without imposing a belief system. drawing on patanjali’s teachings on ethics michael will talk about how to integrate ethics into our lives internally (like working with self-judgement patterns), in relationships (flexibility and withdrawing projections) and in community (taking action) so that our spiritual practice is fully engaged with the world. this is the heart of yoga: non-separation and action.

asana is pranayama: maturing yoga postures in depth with michael stone
saturday, may 8
9:15 to 11:45 am and 2 to 4 pm
$35 per class or $55 for both (class cards accepted)

yoga postures don’t mature by adding more spectacular “moves,” but rather through tuning into the subtle movements of the breath, attention and bandhas. in this detailed class we will slow down some familiar sequences to learn how asana can become a practice of pranayama leading to deep meditative insight and ease and teaching us how to approach yoga practice psychologically. if you do not have a pranayama practice or if you are learning how to teach pranayama in an asana class, or if you’re interested in applied yoga psychology, this should be an excellent class.

More info and registration here: http://theshala.com/workshops.html

Book 1, Sutra 30: Disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sensuality, false perception, failure to reach firm ground and slipping from the ground gained – these distractions of the mind-stuff are the obstacles.

I’ve been thinking about obstacles. New York is full of them. About a month ago I went to the kirtan at Sonic and one of the song we did was a chant to Ganesha. One of the cantors talked about Ganesha as the remover of obstacles, or the one who carefully places obstacles in our way when we need them. I didn’t understand this later explanation and it’s been nagging at the back of my mind.

In Book 1, Sutra 30, Patanjali talks about the nature of obstacles, and their residence in the mind. Despite that I consider my biggest obstacles to live outside of my own body, Patanjali reminds me that the true obstacles are within, in the mind. Linking this to Book 1, Sutra 4, I realized that the most effective way to remove obstacles, internal or external, is to change my mind about them.

I thought some more about the cantor’s description of Ganesha. The Prana has a sense of humor and a sense of deep compassion. There are obstacles within me that I have been turning away from for too long. I deal with them by avoiding them. So Ganesha, in his wisdom, forces me to deal with my obstacles by placing other obstacles in my way that I must respond to, ones that I cannot turn away from. And in dealing with those obstacles, I am being forced to deal with the bigger obstacles within.

I need to slow down, to learn how to make and stick to boundaries, to find my edge and live there – mentally and physically – so he handed me a yoga practice so intense that I have a sore bum and the need for far more sleep than usual. I have no choice but to slow down and consider what it is that I’m really trying to do with this life. For too long, I’ve been so worried that if I slow down, I’ll miss out. I’ll lose an opportunity or a lucky break.

Since I was a child, I have struggled with insomnia. My mind and my body literally couldn’t calm down and go to sleep. Now almost 2/3 of the way through this yoga teacher training, I am sleeping better than I ever have in my life. For 18 minutes a day, I think about these two Sutras. I think about changing my mind, and I wait. And the opportunities, better than ever, are showing up. I don’t need to keep looking around for a better life. The one I have is amazing; now’s the time to slow down and appreciate every moment.

“As a man adorns worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.” ~ 2:22

On Labor Day weekend in 2009, my apartment building caught fire. I was almost trapped inside and only by following my intuition was I able to get out in time. Almost all of my belongings were lost to extensive smoke damage. September 5, 2009 was a kind of death date for me; a date when stripped of almost all my material possessions, I realized that none of it mattered at all. I stood outside in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, holding nothing but my keys, watching my apartment building burn. Looking back, I think of that day as a day when I stepped out of my old, worn-out Self, and into a new frame. I still don’t know what the art inside this new frame will look like just yet. I’m a work-in-progress.

Verse 2:22 in the Bhagavad Gita, one of the texts I had to read for my yoga teacher training, resonated with me, as does that image of Shiva, the Destroyer, dancing in a ring of fire. Sometimes we get in the way of our own personal development. We get bogged down with belongings, material and emotional. We need not stand on a burning platform, literally nor figuratively, to recognize that change is needed. Yoga can be the practice that helps us recognize our truth, our purpose, our dharma.

Verse 3:19 speaks directly to the danger that surfaces when we get lost in the demands of our society, demands that others put upon us that do not align with our own personal truths. “The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. The wise…have abandoned all external supports.” After my fire and after studying these simple words laid down in the Bhagavad Gita, I’ve come to believe that being “resulted-oriented” and “goal-driven” cause us to miss so much of life. To be shooting for the result while remaining blind to every step leading to that result denies us the beauty of practicing the yama asteya, nonstealing. Yes, where we’re going is important, and it is equally, if not more important, to be mindful of how we’re getting there. If we miss the journey, we deny ourselves the wonder of discovery.

Bearing this sentiment in mind, I read the Bhagavad Gita as if it were a map, laying out a method of living whose goal is boundless freedom. And from that freedom all good things come – kindness toward others because we no longer see them as competitors but partners; justice because we recognize in realizing our own freedom that all people everywhere have the right to be free; peace because all we’re really fighting for is our own self-discovery which doesn’t involve any type of harm to another.

Several years ago, I read a book called Women Who Run with the Wolves. Although the actual words and anecdotes are different, the message is the same as the one delivered to us by the Bhagavad Gita around the question “How do we acquire freedom and mastery of the mind?” The answer: “crawl through the window of a dream.” The window may be small. Undoubtedly, we will have to leave things behind in order to continue our journey through it. We may wonder why on earth we have to struggle so much, why we should even try at all when the big room full of our belongings is really just fine.

That window will not be ignored. It will continue to stare at us until we take up the challenge of crossing over. Through that tiny little frame, lies samadhi, enlightenment. The only thing stopping us from getting there is our courage, our own belief in our abilities to make the journey at all. Arjuna struggled with this same quest, just as we struggle with it. We’re all in this together, across the globe, across the centuries. The struggle does not change; we have to change. The only way forward is through.

Which way the wind is blowing...

Where do you find answers to your major life decisions? Hopefully you have a few trusted friends. Maybe your family still gives good advice. Obviously you have Google. But at some point aren’t you tired of digesting everyone else’s advice? Where’s your intuition?

Once I started listening, I found answers everywhere. Some are quiet, some are loud. Here are five clear flags I learned to trust.

Read the whole thing on the Huffington Post: 5 Clear Flags of Hidden Intuition

“The eight limbs of yoga are: respect toward others, self-restraint, posture, breath control, detaching at will from the senses, concentration, meditation, and contemplation.”

[Bernard Bouanchaud's translation of Sutra II.29 in The Essence of Yoga]

That’s where you get the benefits beyond a gym workout. Postures are only step three. Do we want to be in third grade forever? Did we even DO first grade?

But still, once we study and (somewhat) understand these tips that Patanjali gives us, it’s really interesting to circle back around and apply each of these steps to our roots, for example our asana practice.

1. Are you respecting your teachers, fellow students, and studio staff?
2. Are you applying self-restraint in asana practice, or always going for the most advanced variation?
3. Do you understand the definition of a yoga pose — hard yet soft?
4. Are you breathing comfortably in your practice, or holding / controlling / ignoring the breath?
5. Are you able to detach from the sensations — or appearance — of your body?
6. Are you really concentrating on the present moment as you practice?
7. Are you able to prolong your focus and receive insight?
8. Are you able to leave “you” behind and become just insight?

I’ll be on retreat for the next 8 days, so think about these 8 limbs for now. We’ll have some special guest posts, too, so keep dropping in. Take a look at some of the archives. Or, you know, actually get off the computer and practice ;)

“Minds are very hard things to open, and the best way to open the mind is through the heart,” Professor Haidt says. “Our minds were not designed by evolution to discover the truth; they were designed to play social games.”

Beautifully put. Understanding is much more easily achieved by traveling, by spending time in another community, by getting to know and care about another person. Our monkey minds, our left brains, are doing their jobs well when they debate and dance around issues — if we want to get to the heart of things, let’s use the right tool!

At Schunemunk Mountain

I went hiking this weekend, in the hills across the Hudson from Beacon, with three yoga friends. We started late and stayed late but managed to make it back to the car three hours after sunset. Aka in the dark.

In the last hour or two, when we were really struggling to see the trail markers with our flashlights (and iPhone lamps!), and making frequent backtracks to regain the zig zag ridge trail, my friend G commented, “You know, I get so happy each time I see a marker — too bad there’s no markers in real life! Like, good job, you’re going the right way!” We all agreed, and then I realized, “You know, there’s not really markers in nature, either. Some guide figured out a path and put these here for others.”

It made me think about the importance of people on any path. We learn a lot from those just a little bit ahead of us — not always some grand guru. It’s rare to find someone you respect, trust, and want to follow one hundred percent. (Plus, that’s kind of dangerous.) But there are many friends with mini lessons.

I had a pen pal ask me who my teacher was. I haven’t answered yet; I have many that I love, and I’m searching more for a solo practice than an instructor right now, but I do feel weird that I haven’t picked a particular lineage. I’m not really shopping around, like I did in the first months and years, but I’ve always had a critical eye for gurus, like “who is this guy talking at me now, and why would I want to be like him?” No more student-teacher / child-parent patterns. I’m not making myself into the likeness of anyone, I’m finding my inner intuition and self. My current hatha / meditation teacher Steve Prestianni leads hour-long silent meditations with no instruction, because he says the path of meditation is an internal, individual one, and for him to direct that would just be sharing his inner experience, not helping anyone else to find their own. It’s a strong, if frustrating, push in the inward direction.

But just thinking about the markers makes me feel a little more open, and thankful for all my random teachers. A solo practice is still an expression of or against tradition. Like the statement, “You have to know the rules in order to break them.”

On the trail we would get bored, and find a side path, or split up a bit, or rest for a while. It was a fluid, spontaneous day. Our personalities combined well enough to make things easy, but the brisk air kept us moving.

We stopped on the west side of the ridge to build a fire, and watch the sunset, and share food. Earlier, G mentioned how he wanted to do some kind of puja, or ceremony of reverence, in his life, but nothing felt right. When we set out the food — bread, crackers, hummus, arugula, tomatoes, apples, oranges, bananas, almonds, dates, raisins, and an assortment of cooked grains and beans — V suggested a 15-minute meditation on the food, before we ate. The spread, on a bright orange blanket, is still crystal clear in my mind. It took on the significance of ritual, or holiday, to just sit in silence and appreciation. I realized how little appreciation I had for the meals in my life, how much I expected, planned, managed, rushed, restricted my sustenance. How beautiful is even a little grape tomato! Silly V roasted the bananas in the fire, and then it was time to move on. (Chilly Scout is a bit too Vata to sit in the shade at 40º F.)

Halfway back I realized I’d relaxed enough to have faith in these friends through a tricky situation. We were never in serious danger, but we could have ended up miles from the car, or hiking all night, so the sense of relief was high for each little marker and landmark. But comedy reigned; at the most nerve-wracking part (step-stones through a murky swamp that risked soaked shoes for us all), we held tense hands as G lit the dim path with his penlight. It felt like a Grimm Brothers’ escape scene — and then his cell phone rang. He took the call.

As we slipped and slid through leaves or on rocks, G said, “Take care of each other.” I am very grateful this was taken literally, as I was also loaned hat and long gloves for the decreasing temperatures. (I dressed for a day hike! I had no idea they planned fire-building and sunsets. I call that camping.) New York can be so hard, competitive, and demanding, that a break from selfish self-fulfillment is amazing. Less thinking about myself, more joy for us all. We took turns leading, and lighting the path, and I am still amazed people can be such good leaders with so little ego.

And of course the trail took us right back where we started.

I vont to be on Facebook

Beautiful essay by William Deresiewicz:

As we all seek more connectivity, we lose our sense of a private self. We no longer hear the still, small voice that speaks only in silence.

It feels somehow wrong to blog about this essay — in fact I interrupted my own reading three times to post it on Facebook, Google Reader and Yogoer — but I’d be an ostrich to think Thoreau’s state of mind might return. No matter how much the Brooklyn flannel/beard trend would like to convince me. We can’t find peace on the farm; it’s been spiked by cell phone towers. I went hiking in a state park, and could not escape views of suburbia. But I’d never really acknowledged that when we make it home to our sanctuaries, we are still not alone. The television is there as background noise or escape route. The internet offers infinite answers to questions we have only to think up. And the cell phone never stops buzzing.

So, what’s a girl to do? I can dream that this evolution of society might follow the path of meditation: from individual consciousness, to group consciousness, to universal consciousness. Yogi Bhajan emphasizes that we must pass through the second stage to get to the third (which is why he emphasizes group practices), but can you really envision our entire world in the third stage? With everyone, from reality show rejects to peace prize winners, in six degrees of congregation? And with technology as the route to get us there?

Sorry for the Carrie Bradshaw ending, but it’s time for bed.