Essays
Florida Gym Yoga
I walked into the Florida health club yoga class just before 7 am. There's a good crowd for early morning. The teacher has yet to arrive. There's a lot of friendly chatter. I settle in and notice the florescent lights. Ugh.
A few minutes later, the teacher arrives and turns off the lights. This is a good sign. He speaks with an accent ? French, I think. He puts on a CD. Deva Premal chanting. Another good sign.
We sit for centering. I look up and he looks like the poster
child for advanced yoga. Full lotus pose that's so deep his big toes are up around his naval.
This is gym yoga?
The class begins with sun salutations. We flow. We breathe. Deva sings. He doesn't give much in the way of alignment instruction.
It is the day before Thanksgiving and at some point he gets
us seated again, giving pranayama instructions, and begins to talk about eating
turkey. Even though he's a vegan, he says he eats turkey every Thanksgiving.
Why? Because, he says, his 10 years in the ashram taught him that yogis are not dogmatic. Their only dogma is love. And he feels the Thanksgiving meal is a symbolic sharing of love.
This is gym yoga?
He told another story of when he was studying yoga in the West
Indies. After a long workshop, his guru was gnawing on a chicken bone. He was a little appalled and asked him, ?guru, what are you doing?? His guru replied, ?I'm eating food that was prepared for me with love.?
This is gym yoga?
He then wove this into a discussion of Shiva and Shakti and how they respectively represent formlessness and form, stillness and motion. Yoga
means accepting, acknowledging and taking in full awareness of both, he said.
Being attached to anything ? including the orthodoxy of veganism or our form -
only creates suffering. He said one of his teachers used to wonder why we're
all so fixated on death and birth ? because neither are permanent markers. This
body, he said, is like a rental car ? we pick it up, we use it, and then we
turn it in. That's it. Before advanced yogis die, he said, they have a ritual
of release from and thanksgiving for their body. They release their spirit from
their temporary form.
As the class progressed and finally laying in Savasana, I realized I had come to class with a set of expectations, at least subconsciously, that this wouldn't be a very ?yogic?class. I made an assumption this would be ?gym yoga?, with an emphasis on the physical. I didn't enter with beginner's mind: open, porous, and experiencing the present moment in actuality.
This is, of course, one of the many great things about yoga ? and life: that you can never really know and can never accurately assess what you'll find in the next class or around the next corner. We can only open up and surrender to the present moment.
Vacation Special!
Beautiful Marin County, California.
Wake up in the middle of the night!
Meditate for long hours! Remain Silent!
Am I crazy? Spending a
vacation weekend at a Zen retreat center? For two days this August I was a
guest practitioner at Green Gultch Farm (http://www.sfzc.org/ggf/),
part of the San Francisco Zen Center. Lying in bed in the guest house the first
morning, I heard the gong go off at 4:30 am. Then, a kind of ritual clacking
began. Getting up and out and walking toward the Zendo (Japanese for meditation
hall), I saw a person standing very still on the front porch, intermittently
banging what I found out later was a Han, a thick piece of wood hanging by a
rope that's struck with a mallet. Later in the day, when I had a chance to investigate the Han, I noticed an inscription on the face of it - although one of the words in the center has been rubbed away from years of being struck by a mattet:
Life is (almost) Gone
Awake, Awake Everyone
Don't Waste This Life!
The Han calls
practitioners to meditation and to remember not to sleep our lives away but to
wake up to the ever present moment of now.
I nervously walked into
the building and was instructed by a nun where to sit ? back left corner of the
meditation hall, facing the wall. The hall is tiered with some practitioners
sitting on the floor and some on an elevated platform that runs around the
exterior of the room. I walked down to find my seat and climbed up on a cushion
to settle in. Seated meditation ? called Zazen - began at 5:00 am. Many bells
and gongs rang at various times during the first, 40-minute session. The bells
were beautiful and calming. Then walking meditation (Kinhin) for 10 minutes - a
slow-motion kind of walking. Then another session of Zazen until the ritual
liturgy at 6:30. Prayer books were distributed and we chanted. Some of the male
monks had those deliciously deep voices that cause chants to sound like an
otherworldly dirge. There was a special service for a departing student, during
which the female abbot suddenly and unexpectedly ROARED at the top of her lungs
like a lion, demonstrating that the student would need courage in the world.
After the service, we were assigned some morning chores ? visitors clean the
meditation hall, sweeping off cushions. One of the young men in our group was
assigned to clean the statutes of Buddha with a big Swiffer duster. A Japanese
nun followed him around, barking instructions, worried I think that he might
unintentionally topple over one of the statues. It was oddly reminiscent of
Catholic School!
At breakfast (by this
time, I felt I'd been up for half a day!), a ritual prayer is chanted that
honors various facets of Buddhism. There are the Three Treasures - The
Buddha, Dharma (our path) and Sangha (our spiritual community); the Four
Benefactors - our parents, the Three Treasures, the environment and all
sentient beings, and the Six Realms - these are complicated ? but let's just
say there are three realms up and three down and it's a better to be up than
down!
After scooping oatmeal
out of the big pot, I sat down to eat next to a woman I had asked for some
basic instructions in the guest house. After a few minutes, I made a comment
about the weather and she and the two men at the table pointed to a sign on the
table: SILENT TABLE. Oh dear. My bad. However, over the course of the weekend,
I found myself gravitating toward the silent table. It was such a new
experience to savor the food and open up to the sounds around the dining room
without participating in them.
Some of the food served
at Green Gultch Farm is grown there. The original gardener was the very famous
Alan Chadwick, an English master gardener and a leading innovator of organic
farming techniques. The gardens are beautiful and the real estate is prime -
just north of San Francisco and close to Muir Woods, home to the fabulous
Redwoods. In the afternoon, I hiked up the back hill and down the front, ending
up at the shoreline, looping back around through the gardens. At the end of the
walk, I met a middle-aged man shooting hoops, wearing a bandana and looking
very Californian. I started throwing the basketball around with him and we began to
talk ? the only real conversation I had with anyone at the farm, due to the
general silent nature of the place. After explaining my bad karma of being a
basketball fan from Cleveland, I asked if he was a Buddhist. He said he was and
that he comes to Green Gultch most weekends. He said he loves the people, the
beauty of the place, the basketball hoop and the swimming hole. I asked if he
found Buddhism exacting or difficult. He said he didn't, but he added that he
feels Buddhism is just one spoke in the wheel of religions ? and while it's his
religion, he feels we need them all. That we need each and every religion to
create a composite whole.
The second day I almost
didn't get up to do it all again. Laying in bed at 4:30 and facing a long
period of meditation, one's ego is not the best of motivators. ?No one knows
you here,? it told me. ?No one will notice if you don't go. And besides, you're
tired. After all, you're on vacation!?
Realizing that I'd flown
all the way across the country to have this kind of experience, I got up and
did it again. Throughout the weekend, one meditation session was physically
uncomfortable; one was transcendent; but most were just ?middle of the road?
events, trying not to swallow too loudly to disturb the robed monks flanking
me. All in all, it kept me wanting more. On my way back to San Francisco,
driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, I noticed that I wasn't anxious as I usually am driving over a bridge I was perfectly calm. Hours of
meditation and quiet had done that. I wonder what else they could do?
The weekend deepened my
practice and while I have great respect for Buddhism, I don't feel inclined to
follow that specific path. After all, even the Dalai Lama recommends staying
within our own traditions. To a man who asked to become a Buddhist, he replied,
?Please don?t. Stay in your own religion, and meditate.*? Notice he did say to
meditate. Because getting still is the only way to hear the divine ? whether
it's Buddha, Jesus, Jehovah, Allah or Krishna ? we can't hear the wisdom if we're
submerged in a world of chatter.
*http://www.artofdharma.org/archives/stay-in-your-own-religion-and-meditate-dalai-lama.html
If It Feels Weird, It's Probably Right
After a class where we'd done a lot of alignment work, a student told me ?...if it feels weird, it's probably right.?
She makes a good point. What feels normal is ? well ? our normal, which is probably a little ? or possibly a lot ? skewed. So if we are by definition a bit skewed, how do we feel what is true? How do we correct for our own misalignment in our hips and in our hearts?
Maybe it's by being willing to feel weird. In a workshop with Judith Hansen Lasater, she told us ?don't confuse the familiar with the healthy.? Those words have rung in my ears ever since. Confusing the familiar with the healthy is why women who have been abused as children grow up to marry abusers; why children raised by alcoholics marry alcoholics. Because it doesn't feel weird. It probably doesn't feel good, either. But it feels familiar. And we all like familiar way more than is healthy for any of us.
The familiar gives us the illusion that everything will remain the same. We succumb to the illusion of stability. Of staying in place. But the reality is there is no stability, or staying in place. Nothing but change is constant. Being able to step into the flow of change without resisting is what the practice of yoga is all about.
In meditation, this approach to staying open is called adopting ?Beginner's Mind.? Coming to every moment with an open mind and stance. Krishnamurti said that the real sign of enlightenment is the ability to observe without evaluating. Just observing. Watching a cloud as a cloud; watching the drops of rain on the windowpane in all their singular and unique beauty.
Meditation is what helps us most readily prepare for this task. Through meditation and learning to be present, we learn to open up to the magic of life. We really observe our world in it's fragile and absolute beauty. We smell the smells. We taste the tastes. We experience the richness of life that is all around us if we can let the scales of expectation and our own sense of certainty fall from our eyes.
A recent newspaper story told the tale of a suburban couple from outside Cleveland who were mistakenly arrested by police, who barged into their home, dragged them downtown and threw them in jail for 20 hours for an altercation with a police officer in which they were not involved in any way. It was basically a case of mistaken identity. The couple were fortunate enough to have lawyers who forced the police to look at the actual evidence of the case. Not what the officer involved thought he knew or saw, but what actually took place. It behooves all of us to do the same in our lives ? not jumping to conclusions or making assumptions but actually looking ? with that open Beginner's Mind ? at the situation at hand.
Our challenge is to remain as unprejudiced by past experience as possible. To see with fresh eyes. To come to both our practice and our life with this unbiased and humble interest in things and with a genuine curiosity ? about how our hip works and how our heart works too. And being willing to let it feel, well, weird.
Savasana and the Riding Mower
I watched as the tall man walked across Rebecca's lovely beige, jute yoga mat with his big black work boots. Step, step, step. Rebecca had just finished instructing a class for a teacher's wellness day at a local high school and she had moved forward to talk to some of the teachers who were in the class. The man ? a staffer at the high school - entered the gym, as he continued to do off an on during the six classes taught that day, and walked through the mats and ON the mats, en route across the gym. There seemed to be no awareness that he might consider walking AROUND the mats to get to his destination.
During a class I taught there that day, a delivery man appeared from another entrance, propped open a large door to the outside, and pulled a cartload of supplies back a forth a few times. In addition to the sound of the rolling cart with squeaky wheels, the gym got colder and colder from the open door.
Have you taken a yoga class in a less than sterling setting where people enter like bulls in china shops? At a chair yoga class in a senior center recently with six ?mature? adults laying on the floor in Savasana, two older women entered the room to view a display of donated canned goods that had been stacked in the corner in the shape of a rocket. One asked loudly "Is everybody in here dead? Should we call 911??" The women proceeded to climb over the students on their way to the display, which they observed with more loud comments, before exiting the room. This really was so over the top that the class turned into laughter yoga. One said the incident kept her chuckling most of the week. Can you guess the theme for that day's class? Awareness, but of course.
This same group of students has had their focus challenged on other occasions as well. During the summer we practice outside in a pavilion surrounded by grass. A young man arrives almost without fail around Savasana on a riding mower. That's an interesting Savasana!
In a new book called Yoga in America, a compilation of essays by yoga teachers from around the country, teacher Richard Wall pens and article titled Boiler Room Yoga. He reflects on what it's like to teach to the accompaniment of droning treadmills, in the flight path of low flying aircraft, on questionable carpet and uneven floors. I often wonder about that perfect studio,? he says. Yet, I notice something about Boiler Room Yoga. My students must truly learn to acknowledge but not react to distractions. They perform postures under far from perfect conditions, learning to practice whenever and wherever...not waiting for the perfect moment in time. After a while, most learn to relax and meditate, even though there is sound and fury just around the corner. (pg. 17, Yoga in America)
The amazing thing last week in that school gymnasium was the teachers practicing yoga were not distracted in the least. They were settled into their practice in a powerful way. I think teachers are pretty used to dealing with distractions. They were not going to miss a minute of centering and relaxation. After all, the kids would be back with a litany of new distractions the very next day. Your life is the sum of what you focus on,? says Winifred Gallagher in Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life. So let those distractions roll over you like so much cascading water and focus on the now of the experience. You might be surprised how much you enjoy the ride.
Before Yoga & After Yoga
My husband and I recently visited our son at college. We stayed in a hotel that was in the midst of youth hockey weekend. Apparently, our hotel was conveniently located right across the street from the ice hockey arena where kids 10 and under were playing tournament hockey. I now know that checking is not allowed until age 11 in the US, much to the chagrin of one parent who complained to me that in Canada, they can check apparently from the crib on up. This, he claimed, is why Canadian players reign supreme.
But I digress. While on the treadmill in the exercise room Sunday morning, watching Meet the Press and keeping track of my mileage scrolling along the front of the machine, the door opens and a mass of kids, hockey players I guessed, flood into the room. They were jumping on the other treadmills and steppers, picking up weights and being, well, kids.
Now, Before Yoga, I would have marched to the front desk, complained, and had the kids summarily dismissed so I could finish my all-important workout and feel suitably outraged that parents of said children had left them unsupervised ('can you imagine...' I can hear myself saying). Instead, I thought I'd just wait and listen for what to do. I was just about done with the treadmill. I had brought my mat and had intended to do some sun salutations. I waited for a moment and felt that this is what I should still do. So, I got off the treadmill, made some space for my mat between the masses of children took off my shoes and socks and started to practice.
After a few poses, the kids started watching me. Then they started talking to me. Several of them at once. 'What are you doing?' 'Is that yoga?'
'I'm a yoga teacher,' I told them. 'Do you want to do some yoga?'
I got a resounding affirmation. So I just sort of followed their lead. Tree pose seemed the obvious jumping off point. We talked about balance which they told me is all important in hockey. After that, the kids started doing what they thought were postures and then I'd suggest ways to refine the pose. Dancer. One boy did a Headstand. Downward Facing Dog. None of them were racing on the treadmills anymore. They were relatively quiet. After a bit they thanked me and left. I knew I'd certainly had fun.
Before yoga, I probably wouldn't have gone to the front desk but I would have thought about it. Most likely I would have just left and felt inconvenienced. I might have made the day worse for these children, by sending some negative energy their way. Instead, After Yoga, I'd like to think I helped make their day just a little better. I was able to not react but just respond, gently and with awareness, to the situation like carefully selecting a piece of ripe fruit and enjoying it. As TKV Desikachar said, The Mastery of Yoga must not be measured simply by the ability to master the techniques of yoga...but how it influences our day-to-day living, how it enhances our relationship and how it promotes clarity and peace of mind.
After Yoga, I was able to savor the energy and enthusiasm of these children which Before Yoga I would have found annoying and inconvenient.
So, the moral of this story is as the Dalai Lama says - "If you don't like what is happening in your life, change your mind."