Ashtanga Mind, Beginner's Mind
Some of the clearest and most open people I come across within the practice of Ashtanga tend to be new students. They're filled with the excitement and possibility that the practice engenders in them. These newer students are ripe with what Patanjali, the author of yoga's source text, The Yoga Sutras, calls vidya. Vidya is a lot like what the Zen monk, Shunryu Suzuki, called the beginner's mind. A beginner's mind is clear, open, alert, receptive and without limits. A beginner's mind isn't fixed in opinions, judgements, or beliefs. Instead, it's like an empty vessel for spirit to move through. It sees from perspectives but isn't fixed in one as if it's "the right" perspective. In the beginning, the practice itself and the experience of what we discover on the mat can be exciting. When I first began the practice, I was amazed by my capacity to respond to situations that previously might have appeared paralyzing with great calm and clarity. Just showing up on that mat on a day-in-and-day-out basis began a clearing away of what had been blocking me for years. I'd been living in an experience of post-traumatic stress for a few years after my brother's suicide without any effective means of working through the painful emotions. Showing up on that mat everyday forced me to face what I'd been frightened of facing, but once I did, it somehow alleviated the suffering I'd been living with, and I was able to start to feel alive, again. The practice gave me this direct experience that it was possible to transform avidya to vidya, by learning to be with and not be afraid of painful emotions.
Knowing and Understanding are Booby Prizes
Eventually, though, a sort of pride started to appear because I started to "know" something. I'd learned and, thus, thought I knew that there was a process to transforming painful emotions. Knowing anything is a booby prize within yoga. Knowing is not what we're after. Whatever we know creates a kind of fixity, and it removes us from the direct experience of discovery. The experience of yoga is about evoking a profound curiosity to what is right in front of us. We're awakening the capacity to meet mystery rather than trying to pack it neatly into a box of comprehension.
And when we've dedicated years to the practice, we can't help but understand a lot of things. That's natural, but being an authority has the potential to steer us away from the experience we had when we first discovered the practice. So when we start to "know more," we tend to end up boxing ourselves into fixed perspectives, beliefs, opinions, and judgements. When we already know everything there is to know about something, we end up strengthening muscles that we came to practice to let go of.
And so it's critical for all of us who stay with the practice--or any practice for that matter-- over a sustained period of time to be aware of how our approach to it is supporting our evolution or engendering structures of rigidity. This inflexibility is a natural byproduct of anything we do repeatedly and yet is something we have to be constantly aware of so that it doesn't halt our transformation. Below are some questions that we might employ to prevent this form of mental tightness from taking form in our practice:
- How is my practice either growing me
- How is it keeping me narrow?
- Where am I caught in being right in my relationships with others? Where have I shut down?
- What situations in my life could use my curiosity?
- What's the feedback the people around me are giving me on a regular basis? What's the feedback I could take in that would benefit my evolution?
The longer we've been in any tradition the less others will question our authority. And that can be a pitfall for any progress we hope to make on the path from avidya to vidya. That's why it is critical for each of us to continue to seek wise counsel and to surround ourselves with people who trust enough to question us, no matter how much we know. It's also important not to forget that whatever we know, whatever sidhis (powers) we've accrued in and through our practice, that that's not it. What we're after is not the acquisition of more power or attainment but, instead, letting go, not grasping at anything, and opening so that we, too, can show up on the mat and into our lives as beginners do, with a mind that is limitless, boundless, and clear.
The "GET OUT OF JAIL, FREE" Card
In my previous blog post, I described the fact that last Wednesday, I'd completed a project I'd co-run for the last six years, an Ashtanga Yoga program called Mission Ashtanga. I did so in order to create the space needed to be able to spawn new projects. I am trying out the perspective that in order for something new to enter, you have to create space for it. They tell you that when you're dating someone who isn't quite the right fit that it's probably a good idea to let that relationship go, so the right one can enter. Most of us are reluctant to do so because we wonder what it'd be like to be single, again. Will we feel lonely? Who will we go to dinners with, now, or spend our weekends with? Most of us can't imagine what the experience of life would be like if we didn't keep filling it.
Future F*cking
This morning, I feel like I am on the other side of that. I'd had so much anticipation about what this moment would feel like. Most of the anticipatory images that ran through my mind were pretty dark over the last few months. Mainly they consisted of groundless feelings, the sense that all of my passion, creativity, and skill set would find no new outlets; that my urge for change would land me in a morass of deep grief; or, even worse, that I would have discovered that those urges were the result of some temporary delusion, some early hint of an impending mid-life crisis. It's amazing how paralyzing my "future f*cker" voices can be. On the other side of having made the leap, this morning, I don't feel any of the ways that I'd anticipated feeling. What do I feel? Two things:
Fragile and Hopeful
I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit that this move out of something that's given me a kind of daily structure and, more importantly, an identity for the last six years of my life doesn't feel vulnerable. Who am I if I am not co-running this project? Once again, I can feel this propensity to want to find my identity, my sense of self in the things that I do. This is what the source text of yoga, The Yoga Sutras, calls avidya, which is loosely translated as a form of misapprehension or delusion. It is looking for a sense of self in things that are transitory. Letting go like this has me recognizing how safe it feels to have a work-based identity but, ultimately, how tenuous that identity is. As soon as the title is gone, it can feel a little like having pulled off a scab, a little raw and vulnerable.
At the same time, I have this overarching sense of possibility. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I have this very morning to myself, to think, to write, and to create. I am no longer bound by the routines of my previous work. It's not that I won't be practicing yoga this morning or maintaining a quality of discipline, but that I can choose, instead, to write before practicing. It feels almost luxurious to have this very moment to form words that frame my experience, to not be bound by the have-to's and can'ts that came with co-running Mission Ashtanga: "have-to be in bed by 9PM in order to wake at 4:30;" "can't go on vacation too much;" etc. In removing the stricture of the structure, I can feel this deep, deep appreciation for the choice I made to let go. I can feel space, again. The juxtaposition of the way I felt to the way I feel, now, is pretty dramatic. I feel like I got the "GET OUT OF JAIL FREE" card.
The Love You Take Is Equal to the Love You Make
What I will eventually be doing with that card isn't altogether clear. I'd previously wished that I had clear plans before I left. That way I could just end one thing and pick up another. But I can't help but feel how important it is not to do that, not to just fill or stay in motion. I can feel this strong urge to revel in the stillness of completion; to appreciate the bounty that Mission Ashtanga provided for me; and to feel the relief that comes now that an ending has occurred. This moment reminds me of the lyrics of a song I love on The Beatles' Abbey Road Album, "And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make." It feels like this is the moment to slow down enough to take in the creation, to breathe it in. To run would be to miss this.
Fifteen minutes with one moment of your own.
Living with Doubt
There's an inner process to change. In the outer sense, all that's required is that we leave a job; start a new relationship; tidy up our resumes; or enroll in a class. But what gets us to the threshold of outer change is a subtle, mysterious process that requires a capacity to track our inner lives. So much of what we read in the self-help world is the "just-do-it!" methodology. Just go to a Landmark Forum or Tony Robbins' Unleash the Power Within, and by the end of the weekend, you'll be walking on hot coals and doing your best to get all your friends to enroll in the same program you got snookered into yourself. While these trainings offer powerful reminders that we're much more capable than we give ourselves credit for, they tend to give lip services to but undermine our relationship to our inner lives. Even worse, after we've shelled out hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for these trainings, we're often left feeling even more stuck than when we began because on top of feeling unsure about our next steps, we, now, feel weak or inferior because taking those steps isn't as easy for us as The Landmark Forum Leader or Tony purports them to be. Maybe that's why we sign up for the Level 2 course. Real and substantive change doesn't happen in a weekend. What's required aren't quick fixes, new tricks, or gimmicks. What's needed are two things we already have: attention to our interior lives and the capacity to live with confusion. I personally am in the middle of what I consider to be a major work transition that I think is demonstrative of this notion that substantive change is 80% an inner job/ 20% outer. About a year ago, I started to feel a dimming of interest in one of my current work projects. I've been co-running an Ashtanga Yoga program in San Francisco with a friend of mine for five years, and I stopped feeling that magical feeling I'd previously felt about running a Mysore Style Ashtanga Yoga program. While each student always brought something new and alive to the class, I kept bumping into a kind of been-there-done-that, burned out feeling along with the sense that there was something "out there", something unclear waiting for me. I'd had these sort of feelings before. I'd been running these programs, for a little more than fifteen years, so aversion isn't new hat. Like all feelings, this one would previously come and go. But in this case, these feelings were persistent.
Distinguishing Reactions from Callings
It's often hard to detect when a feeling is just a passing reaction or when it's a message from the deeper interior. We all have periods of time when our jobs or our relationships don't satisfy us. That's normal. The notion that we're always supposed to be happy all the time is a myth. Even the best of job or relationships can go stale on us or just irritate us to the core. That's normal. But when that difficulty is prolonged, it's often an inner message that it's time to slow down and reflect on what we're bumping into. Often times, we get busy trying to alter our lives or situations to make our discomfort go away only to discover that we're in a new relationship or new job meeting the same feelings again. Sometimes the message from the interior is that, in fact, it is time for a change. Deciphering the inner codes can be quite difficult. It can be immensely helpful to have wise counsel as well as a community of friends on the path with us that we trust enough to help us distinguish the wisdom of our inner callings from the voices that deceive us.
So I shared the experience with my coach, my wife, and my partner in the project. I said, "Okay, I'm feeling burned out. I'm starting to wonder if co-running this program is coming to an end for me. I want to give voice to this experience, but I don't want to make a decision. I want to wait and see if, in fact, I am done, or I am just a little burnt out. I'd like to revisit this conversation in two months." In the meantime, it was important for me to test my hypothesis. Was I really done? Or was I just experiencing a message from the interior saying, "Slow down. Stop giving your energy. Find a new way to work."
Sure enough, after two months, the feelings had passed. I felt reinvigorated by some responses I'd had to some blog writing I was doing about the intersections of yoga and life coaching and started to see that the project I was in was a great platform for the expression of this cross-breeding. But then a friend contacted me and said, "I'd like to partner with you to do some coach-consulting work in corporations." And my response was, "Yes!!! I'd love to do this!" But with a little deeper reflection, I came to the sad conclusion that I was still teetering on burnout. There was no way I could take on another project. I just didn't have the energy reserves to take something like that on. My days were too filled with teaching classes, seeing clients, and treating patients, that I couldn't possibly give this new project the attention it needed. This recognition had me feeling extremely frustrated . And so, here I was, once again, thinking that it was time for a change, but somehow I wasn't quite ready.
Are We Really Meaning Making Machines?
This is where I imagine most coaches and self-help workshops would throw me off of the cliff. They'd tell me, "Just do it!" All change has the tendency to be dummied down by these so-called change-agent experts:
No action = No change
No change = Procrastination
Procrastination = Bad/Unhappy
Action = Good/ Happy
And while this perspective, no doubt, gets people into powerful action, it's the kind action that makes them feel cut off from their interiors, which, by the way, deliver messages slowly and subtly and require not so much boldness but softness, receptivity, and awareness to detect and decipher their messages. Many self-help programs regard humans as machines that misinterpret everything and, thus, need reprogramming so they can function as better machines. Disregarding all of the self-help jargon I'd acquired over the years, I thankfully held off from making a decision for another few more months. And then I had this experience that absolutely changed me forever.
The Teacher Appears When the Student is Ready
After an arduous bike ride to the top of Mt. Tamalpais, I stood on a hillock overlooking the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Bay, The City of San Francisco, and the East Bay. As I stood there taking in the scenery, I felt a sense of gratitude for the beauty that surrounded me, and so I started to do a little, improvised gratitude jig, somewhere between a yoga sun salutation and a dance. As I did my gratitude dance, I started to hear a clicking noise behind me that kept the rhythm. And when I turned around, I saw this raven standing only a few feet from me with a seed of sorts in its beak. The clicking was coming from the raven's beak making contact with the seed, and I had this clear sense that the raven was relating to my movements by keeping the rhythm. I continued to dance my gratitude dance around the hillock. Each movement I made to the left, the raven moved to the right. Each movement I made to the right, the raven moved to the left. We were in a dance together, and the raven was keeping the rhythm. At the same time this dance was taking place, I'd had this intuitive sense that the raven had a message for me. Who knows whether I was making it up or not, but it was a message that moved me:
"It's time to let go, to stop dancing someone else's dance, to dance you're own steps, and to trust them."
For me this was code for the fact that I'd spent the last 20 years faithfully following a tradition. I'd been a student and teacher of a deep and old tradition of yoga, but, nevertheless, someone else's interpretation, someone else's ideas, and it was time for me to learn to trust a deeper and more personal wisdom, the one that was moving through me. Gulp. I'd been a student of and run these sorts of programs for so many years because they had given me access to deep teachings, the security of a teacher a community, a sort of authority to back up my own teachings, and an identity. Now, the raven-teacher was giving me the the sage advice, "Let go!"
One might read this as a sort of self-aggrandized interpretation of an experience, a sort of glorification of narcissistic tendencies, but the inner sense of clarity the experience evoked in me was profound and true. I realized, in that moment, that my need for change wasn't so much about leaving the program or about being burnt out. Rather, it was about making room for something more personally truer to enter. I realized that I had to make space for that to come about. And for that brief moment, I felt released. Released from the burden that by leaving, I was betraying my students, my partner, or the tradition. It was a visceral experience, this clear sense that not only was it okay to make a change, but I was being called forth to make it. And while I'd been preparing for this moment for the nine months of back-and-forth, the inner teacher's message had clearly arrived.
Holding the Tension
Within a week of this experience, my partner and I met. I shared my decision, and we both wrote a public announcement about that decision. By the way, this doing, this action required little to no effort. Even though most self-help programs focus on action, that wasn't the challenge. The challenge was living with the uncertainty for almost nine months. One of my teachers used to call this form of waiting, "holding the tension." Holding the tension is another way of saying, living with uncertainty. It's called holding the tension because it feels uncomfortable to live between a question, to live in ambiguity. Each of us has a propensity to try to get ground underneath our feet by wanting certainty or clarity. That's why we turn to self-help programs, gurus, yoga traditions, techniques, methods, and philosophies. But if we're following our inner guidance, the messages come in only when we're really ready. Sometimes we must undergo a trial by fire before the message is clear. You can't coax the interior into a "yes or no decision" in a weekend. It is much more subtle than that. But when the message is announced, it comes in declarative tones from that still small voice within: "Call her." "Go to New York." "It's time." "Let go!" And when we disregard these messages because they're inconvenient, we sometimes find ourselves in the throws of depression.
And Continuing to Live With Uncertainty
Tomorrow is the last day I will be teaching at Mission Ashtanga. I can't say that I am not sad or even that I don't regret my decision. I can't tell you how many times my doubting voice has entered. Right after I made the decision to leave, I started to like teaching, again. All of the previous feelings of burn out have completely gone away. In fact, some aspects of my teaching, which previously had been driven by a proving energy, are gone. I don't have to prove anything to anyone anymore. And as that's gone away, I am just enjoying the process, which has me thinking, at moments, "Why the f-ck am I doing this?"
But I know, within a much deeper place of my being why I am doing this. This decision is not whimsy. I had to struggle valiantly with the decision. I had to endure lots of back and forth while continuing to live with uncertainty. And since that certainty came, I have to be willing to trust it in spite of the fact that I want to second-guess my decision. I get that my ride is unique to me, but I think that the essence of my experience is universal, that if we want real and substantive change, we have to be willing live for sustained periods with the discomfort of ambiguity and doubt. In fact, one might say that most of life requires us to get accustomed to uncertainty. The sooner we get that message, the less we'll fall prey to quick fixes and the more authentic our lives will be.
So as I enter the next step of this journey, I have some more ambiguity I have to live with: What is my next step? What is the deeper and more personally authentic expression I am being called forth to bring about? To be honest, I have no f-cking clue. I've made several stabs at it over the last few months since making my decision. Every time I start to get something down, I feel like I am met with more confusion and uncertainty. I've tried to put deadlines and timelines on the process. I've spent hours trying to distill a message. All of my efforts have been in vain. In spite of my frustration with this process, I'm pretty clear that if I am patient and am willing to live with the uncertainty and a low-level of frustration, the next step will clarify itself. Who knows, maybe I'll crumble and send away for Tony's Power Talk CD's.
How do we get to belief: Is it through faith or practice?
I just came across this TED Talk by Karen Armstrong, author on comparative religions, that I think is particularly important because it points to the difference between spiritual practice and modern, religious expressions of faith. While this talk is about the Golden Rule--'don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to you.'-- what I found of particular interest was her commentary on the etymology of the word, belief. We have an awkward relationship with the world, belief today. Before reading on, consider the way this word, belief, makes you feel or what it makes you think of.
Belief, in its original, 17th century sense meant, "an intellectual ascent to a set of propositions; I commit myself, I engage myself." In other words, trust in God was not something that one simply decided. It was through committed action that rendered one's relationship to God. In other words, belief was something that was discovered through practice. It wasn't just something you just swallowed down while ignoring common sense. You engaged in a set of disciplines on a day-in and day-out basis that gave you access to the deeper mysteries that lie at the heart of the teachings. As Armstrong says, "Religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action. You only understand them when you put them into practice."
The source text of yoga, The Yoga Sutras, which is dated to the first century, around the time of Jesus, describes the results of all spiritual practice--higher powers, subtle states of awareness, and, clarity-- but the bulk of the text is organized around the practical application, "the doing," how we attain these experiences of yoga. While there is a sort of worldview that The Sutras hinge on, it's never explicitly described, nor does it particularly matter whether the yogi believes in it or not. Following the practice is enough, not because it leads one to being a good, moral yogi. Morality--good versus bad--isn't the game of Eastern spiritual practices. Instead, through commitment to practice, a sort of wisdom or insight is gained, the sort of insight that one can trust. By the way, that's the same thing as belief as Merrian-Webster describes it, "a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing."
In a way, I can't help but see that our attraction to the East stems from our modern religions having lost their way. Instead of providing us with a path, as they used to, many expressions of modern religion ask us to adhere to a comprehensive understanding of the world that divorces us from our common sense. At one point several years ago, I tried to evoke a debate with an orthodox Jewish friend's interpretation of the Torah. His response was that we couldn't carry on a discussion because he understood the Torah to be written by God, whereas I understood it to be written by men. In other words, in order to carry forward a good discussion, I'd have to disbelieve what I knew to be true. Bummer. What makes this even more of a bummer is that modern religions sanction this sort of divide. Some even sanctify wars.
I am not suggesting that all Eastern spiritual practice is perfect or that all religions promote xenophobia. The problem isn't the religions, it's the people that practice them, the one's that bring a sort of rigidity and orthodoxy to them. I've seen yoga teachers who's whole lives are dedicated to adhering to and promoting a severe approach to tradition, even when it creates injury, both to themselves and others. These people may be adept at contorting their bodies, but they never really grow. Practice, like religion, has the potential to be a trap, as well.
The role of discipline is to enlighten us, to awaken us to that which isn't obvious. It's designed not to be an end unto itself but to allow us to comprehend mysteries. A mystery is a religious truth that's hidden. It's only through practice that it becomes obvious. Once obvious, we can trust in it. To get there is a journey. In a way, each of our lives is a journey that's revealing one great mystery. And for each of us, that mystery is very individual. To take a set of propositions on faith is a sort of bypass of that journey. Blind faith is like claiming to know a subject we never studied before. Our job, as I see it, is to be willing to take that journey. It can help to have signposts of those who have come before us--whether they come from spiritual or religious traditions--to guide us on that journey. Ultimately, though, that journey is very individual. But if it is taken, wholeheartedly and with courage, the result is a sort of belief that is different from that of blind faith because it's the sort of thing that you know in your bones, even in those moments when you've lost your way.
How to Make Profound, Lasting Change
When we lose a job, get a bad review, experience burn out, or our heart is broken, we often can’t help but experience a sense of groundlessness and paralysis. We struggle with meaning and end up feeling stuck. Who am I, now? How do I recover from the sense of frustration, overwhelm, or loss? In this post, I am going to suggest that what stops us is not the situations themselves. It’s never fun to lose a job or have our hearts broken, but there’s no inherent meaning in these losses. In other words, the circumstances of our lives don’t make us unhappy. Rather, our experience of them depends entirely on the meaning we bring to them. Some perspectives empower us when faced with even the most difficult of situations and some render us incapacitated. How we hold the circumstances of our lives can either grow us or take us down.
Part 1: Uncover your interpretations of the situations you find ourselves in.
If we observe ourselves over a few days, we’ll notice an automatic, unconscious propensity to see that we’re always adding meaning to the experiences of our lives. We have the tendency to fit each experience that shows up into an ongoing story we have about our lives and who we are. In fact, rarely do we regard ourselves in relationship to the immediate circumstances we find ourselves in. Instead of relating directly to our experiences, we often just relate to our beliefs, opinions, and judgments about the experiences. And so when things fall apart, and we lose meaning in life, it can be incredibly helpful to reassess how we make meaning of our lives.
A 48-year old client, Mary, had been driven her whole life to make it big in the corporate world. A year ago she arrived at my office and declared: “I am totally burnt out and am just going through the motions of my life.” She didn’t sleep well; she’d gained ten pounds over the last few years; and her relationship with her girlfriend was suffering from her tendency to what she called “workaholic tendencies.” She’d been to a psychologist already, and while that work had clued her into why she felt stuck, it still didn’t propel the change she desperately needed.
When I asked Mary why she didn’t leave or alter her situation in her job, she responded that to do so felt like torture. Mary’s sense of purpose in life, up until that moment, revolved entirely around her work. Her sense of self and the qualities of her relationships went down when her work went down. Likewise, they went up when her work went well, not to mention the fact that she’d spent her whole life working her way to the top. Now that she’d finally made it to the “big time,” she couldn’t help but look around and scratch her head, asking, “Is this as good as it gets.” Her health and her personal relationships were suffering, and she found her colleagues, in fact, intolerable.
While Mary felt that to make a change would put her family in financial jeopardy, she knew, rationally speaking, that they’d do fine if she took a pay cut. She, like most of my clients use the “financial card,” as an excuse not to make a change. But when she looked closely, she was really afraid to upset her relationship with her girlfriend. As a child, her alcoholic mother had been inconsistent, sometimes present and sometimes altogether absent. When we looked at her “life’s story” it was obvious that she’d done everything in her power to give herself the security and safety that her mother constantly took away from her. She’d lived her life in service to accruing professional accolades so she wouldn’t feel the way she felt as a little girl, scared and destitute.
Part 2: Meet the feelings you’re avoiding.
To make profound, lasting change not only must we uncover the background stories that help us make meaning of our experiences, but we also must meet the nervous system’s response to the experiences. Embedded within each of our narratives is a statement like, “I never want to feel "x" again.” "X" might be loneliness, sadness, anger or fear. The narratives that live in the subtle background of our lives help us not only to succeed but also to avoid certain feelings. If we’re ever going to really transform, we have to be willing to meet the feelings we’ve spent a lifetime avoiding. In Mary’s case, her workaholism protected her from the fear of being destitute. As Mary examined her life’s narrative and discovered her propensity to be risk averse, she started to confront bodily feelings of terror: fluttering feelings in the chest, queasiness in the stomach, and a knot in the throat.
This part of the journey can be very uncomfortable and equally counterintuitive. Each of us spends a whole lifetime avoiding these feelings. Turning around and looking at them can be like turning around and facing the demon we swore off almost a lifetime ago. It takes incredible courage, even-mindedness, tenacity and compassion to ride the waves of emotional pain. And to do so can feel like this:
Heavy-heartedness… irritation in the chest… boredom… really heavy heartedness… tightness in the ribs…. burning rage…heat in the face…tight throat… boredom… fatigue… numbness… impatience and boredom…. nothing… nothing…nothing…hurt
Often times my clients will ask, “Why would I want to be with this shit?” Often my response is that to meet it is to transform it. To avoid it is to let it rule you.” If we don’t meet the body’s response, we miss a deep learning that our suffering has to show us. So as Mary met the fluttering, queasiness, and knots in one of our meetings, her “fear of change” lost its hold on her.
Part 3: Reinterpret the experience in such a way that it leaves you powerful.
At that point, she was no longer afraid to feel her terror. She could see that she didn’t need to be a workaholic her whole life in order to avoid “ending up broke, homeless, and alone.” Instead, she was at choice to create a new narrative, one that created possibility and that empowered her. When Mary tapped into the wiser and more intuitive parts of her being she could see that instead of her burn out being an obstacle, that it could be seen as an omen for change. “I could work less, maybe even go to yoga class, and have time to eat a meal with Donna [her girlfriend].” Instead of creating less safety, this crossroads might give her an opportunity to explore a new way of being in the world, one in which work wasn’t the only focus, but, instead, included family and intimacy.
Part 4: Make the insight real through action that leads to specific and measurable outcomes.
All it takes is a moment to see our situations in a light that renders us free, powerful, or expressed. But to make the changes necessary to fulfill this recognition a clear set of goals accompanied by practice. Once Mary committed to a change in her work, she started to look for new work opportunities, both within her corporation and outside. She made a point of meeting colleagues within her network. It took time and a lot of what I call “t.s.o.-ing”—trying shit out--to stumble upon an opportunity that excited her and gave her the flexibility she needed. She knew that she’d have to surrender some of the clout of her previous job, and so she also established some practices that made this transition easier on her nervous system.
Part 5: Practice mind-body techniques that support the nervous system and facilitate the change.
Mary and I co-created a morning ritual. Each morning she did some movement, whether it was yoga I taught her or taking a walk with her girlfriend. I also taught her a few simple meditations, which she could practice for 5-15 minutes. Finally she wrote in her journal on an inquiry I’d assign her each week. An inquiry is an open-ended question that can be answered from many different sides that gives new insights each way we look at it. One inquiry that uncovered a landmine of insight for her was, “What must I drop in order to gain something new?” This question helped her discover the confidence that she wasn’t just dropping off altogether but that her change would put her in touch with something new.
Slowly, over a six-month period, Mary discovered the right fit she’d been looking for in a new company. To an outsider, that move might have been seen as a demotion, but to her the move enhanced the quality of her life immensely. She worked less; had more time to explore new ways of relating and playing with her girlfriend; and found time for herself. Essentially, this move provided the breathing room Mary needed to replenish the well that had dried up inside of her.
Exercise
- Very briefly, write an account of your life and conclude with the situation you currently find yourself in. Keep the writing to a minimum of one page.
- Reread your brief account once.
- Notice how your life’s story influences the current circumstances you’re in. Does it empower or disempower your circumstances?
- Review your brief account, again, this time, reading your account out loud.
- Notice how it makes you feel in your head, throat, heart, belly, and genitals once you’ve completed the account. Do you notice any emotion, sensation, or charge in these areas of the body?
- If you notice that you do, read the account out loud, once again.
- Repeat steps 5 and 6 until any feeling of constraint has altogether gone away.
- Notice if there’s a new meaning you start to derive from the circumstances you find yourself in accompanied by new possibilities for yourself and your life.
- Write them down on a piece of paper.
- Hire a coach. A coach will hold you accountable to making the changes in life you sense you need to make. Don’t bother trying to do this part alone. Creating something new can be incredibly daunting. A good coach is really a skilled change agent. He or she will collaborate with you in designing practices that will make the process of change easier, fun, and intelligent, too.
What Are We Really Afraid Of?
Franklin Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." If I'm really honest with myself, the only thing that holds me back is my fear. When I think of somewhat risky things that might enliven my life, often the first thing that comes over me are subtle bodily warnings with anticipatory images, either of failure or mediocrity. So much of what stops me and my clients from risk-taking, trying out something new or making creative mistakes is a fear of something unknown.
My friend and coaching peer, Peter Bostelmann, and I were discussing this very topic over lunch today. I was describing this urge to take on a new project, one that would challenge me to give my gifts and, at the same time, would be an expression of what I sense my life purpose is all about. As I attempted to share the details of that project, being the good listener that he is, he noticed that I was holding back, even being a bit shy about it. When we looked closely together, I could see that much of what held me back was a part of me I'd rejected, a younger part of me that felt ashamed for wanting to share myself for fear of being dismissed or disregarded as frivolous.
He helped me identify that part of me that doesn't want to feel old childhood feelings again. That fear of really taking a risk and following my heart, he posited, might just be the avoidance of feeling those feelings again. I believe what he's saying is true. When I look at different aspects of my childhood, I can see that a lot of what stops me is that I was either taught or I decided that certain parts of me were whole and others were broken, incomplete, or misaligned. A lot of the work I've done, either in coaching, in therapy, on the yoga mat, or on the meditation cushion has been in service to healing those parts that feel fragmented. And yet, I also recognize that not everything gets healed and even when there is some healing, those fears that stop us are still present. Why?
Morbidity
Maybe our fear isn't run exclusively by our avoidance of certain past experiences and wounds. Maybe, in addition, what stops us is our inability to anticipate our future. All that we're capable of knowing with certainty is that we will die, that at some point we will have to say goodbye to our loved ones, let go of all that we have created, and surrender to the great mystery called death. I wonder if what's stopping me isn't just that my dad didn't tuck me in one night when I was seven years old. I know that had an impact on me. But maybe what stops me is that I know that one day it will all go.
I've been facing that recognition more and more, the idea that at some point we all are forced to let go of what we love. As I continue to open my heart ever more to my wife, Melissa, I keep running painfully into the fear, that at some point either she will die or I will die. It's a horribly morbid thought, but one can't help but notice it when intimate ties grow stronger. I wonder if that's what makes vulnerability so challenging with those we are most intimately connected to, like our significant others, our parents, and our siblings. We rarely consciously face the thought that eventually we will have to say, "Goodbye," but I wonder whether somewhere in the back of our minds, we sense or even premeditate that loss and, as a result, guard our hearts, so we won't have to face the intensity of the pain once it actually occurs.
Hindsight and Foresight
Does our aversion to past experiences create this low-grade, unknown fear? Or do we fear and thus protect ourselves from the fact that some day it will all go? Either way, we, unlike any other species in the world are cursed and/or blessed with hindsight and foresight. These two perspectives do funny things to our nervous systems. They're not always the most empowering. In fact, they're often paralyzing. Is it my past that's holding me back? Is it my fear of eventual success, failure, or mediocrity and eventual death that stops me from taking the great leap into the unknown?
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter. All that matters is that I find the place inside that doesn't fear the fear and, at the same time, hold a healthy regard for it, too. I suppose that's the learning in all of this meandering for me. That's where I have to look. Courage, then, is the willingness not to take on the anticipated journey all at once but to just take the step that's presented here and now, the one that's right in front of me, the one that I fear but also the one I know is where I am called.
SF Street Coaches Featured in Leiweb an Italian Periodical
Ashtang-ulous!
Earlier this week, I noticed that a bunch of my yoga friends on Facebook were commenting on some notes from a conference led by Sharath Jois. Sharath was giving a talk partly on sirsana (headstand). According to the notes that were so generously shared with all of us by Megan Riley, sirsana not only benefits circulation, but it "help[s] to draw our Amrita Bindu, these golden drops of nectar that, over time, fall down into our digestive fire, back to the head. [Amrita Bindu] drops as we age, and keeping it from burning away will keep us looking youthful and bright." When I read this, my first reaction was, "Come on? A golden nectar that keeps us looking youthful and bright? What's this? Sounds superstitious to me." I could understand how a headstand could alter circulation, facilitating the return of pooled blood into the heart, but no science books that I'd come across had located or described golden drops of nectar within the head that when preserved through inversions keep us young, if not immortal, and radiant.
And yet, over the years of being a student of this tradition, I've come to realize that it might not be useful to just blatantly disregard the teaching just because it doesn't fit within my immediate understanding of reality. I've grown so much over the years as a human being and yoga student by grappling with concepts within the tradition that initially seemed foreign, otherworldly, and, at times, magical. When I've applied a practice of openness, curiosity, and experimentation to the teachings, I've tended to learn more and, at the same time, grow more. This isn't always easy for me to do. In fact, this notion of Amrita Bindu is part and parcel of various aspects within the tradition that, even to this day, still trip me up. Examples include:
- Ashtanga comes from an ancient text, The Yoga Korunta, written by Vamana Rishi, and is 5000 years old.
- It is 'incorrect method' to alter sequencing, modify the poses, or include props into The Practice other than adjustments.
- Do not practice on moon days because injuries on these days take twice as long to heal.
- When taking padmasana (lotus posture), the left leg should always be on top of the right. This clears the liver and spleen, straightens the spinal column, and helps the aspirant to maintain strength.
- Yoga students should eat primarily milk, ghee, and chapatis in order to develop strength because they promote a sattvic (clear) mind and strong body. Avoid eating many vegetables. Do not eat garlic, onions, tomatoes, or any meat.
- Drink coffee before practicing yoga because coffee is prana (life force).
- Don’t wash or wipe your sweat off but massage it into the body after practice in order to make the body strong and light.
- Men and women should only have sex:1) at night 2) when the man's left nostril is open 3) when the woman is between the fourth and sixteenth days of her menstrual cycle 4) only for the sake of having children 5) only when lawfully wedded.
- Never breathe through the mouth because it creates heart troubles.
- When you make the Darth Vader sound associated with Ashtanga breathing--also known as ujayi pranayama, but technically within the Ashtanga tradition, the term ujayi is restricted to a form of pranayama practiced separately from asana practice-- you increase internal heat, which thins the blood and purifies it.
- Mula bandha should not be restricted to asana (posture) practice alone but should be practiced while walking, talking, sleeping, and eating in order to maintain mind control.
Not Saying, "Yes" But Not Saying, "No," Either
On first blush, a lot of the rules mentioned above seem a little dogmatic; at times, occult; and, in almost all cases, exotic. I want to suggest that as Western educated yogis that we both refrain from blatantly disregarding them, and at the same time, not thoughtlessly absorbing them. Instead, I think it's important that we learn to develop the practice of applying critical thinking.
While there's no doubt that The Practice is powerfully life-changing, it does not mean that as practitioners of this method that we completely surrender our capacity to discriminate. It's important to be able to question what we're told. As far as I am concerned, I think it's a sign of a mature practitioner that uses her hesitancy as a tool to learn. Without it, we run the risk of being pollyanna-ish about everything that's presented to us. If we don't simultaneously apply the qualities of openness and curiosity, however, we run the risk of never growing out of our small bubble, of being arrogant, and of being lazy. Being stuck on being right and knowing it all is a form of laziness. The student never has to discover her misconceptions, nor does she have to struggle to learn.
And learning is rarely a passive phenomena. From where I stand, I can see that it would take me several lifetimes to learn all that this practice has to impart. Guruji's knowledge was vast and his teachings, which, on the surface, sometimes seem simple, are, in fact, quite deep. I have no doubt that to grasp the depth of the wisdom he imparted would take me many lifetimes. And because I don't come from his or Sharath's culture, I have to struggle to put their words and experience into my life and into terms that make sense for me. I can't just take them at face value. I have to try to make sense of them on my terms.
I think that that's part of what makes this practice so challenging for us Westerners. Terms, concepts, and world views are, at times, diametrically different in India than they are in the West. There's no doubt that we're all after the same things: peace, wisdom, compassion, and happiness, but how we express the path can be quite different. What's required as Western students of this tradition is the work of bridging the cultural divide by translating The Practice into terms that are both culturally and individually relevant so that they simultaneously breathe new life into our practices and perspectives on life.
Santa Claus Isn't Coming Down the Chimney Anymore
I sometimes wish that I could just have faith in someone else's words and let that be enough. I don't think I am alone in my longing. Having faith doesn't necessarily come easy to a lot of us in the West. For a lot of us, faith is like still believing in Santa Claus. At some point we all discover that he doesn't necessarily come down the chimney, that that's just something someone told us. And when we're old enough to discover this, it can be heartbreaking, but that experience awakens us to something else, the capacity to question what we're told. And this questioning can be very useful in the times we're living in, especially when our advertisers or our politicians are trying to get us to buy or vote for things that don't serve us.
But at the same time, in spite of our capacity to apply critical thinking, we in the West aren't, on the whole, necessarily a happy culture. We may be rational, but we're missing a sense of meaning, a sense of order to life. A lot of what we face in the West is a sort of spiritual wasteland. So when we look to lineage-based traditions from another culture, like Ashtanga, that are rooted in the wisdom of antiquity, we can't help but want to find the magic, again.
I remember when I used to think that if I did my asana practice six days a week for the rest of my life, "All was coming." At some point along the way, though, I discovered that Santa wasn't coming down the chimney of my practice, either. There is no doubt that the practice is an immensely helpful force in my life and has been over the last twenty years, but it's not perfect. It has helped me overcome the trauma of my brother's suicide; it introduced me to an international family of like-minded people; and it has created a lot of meaning and order to my life. But it doesn't and can't solve all the woes that ail me.
I completely understand the urge to want to buy the system and everything about it as perfect. It's so tempting to do. And over the years, I've seen lots of my yoga friends initially do this but eventually, something snaps. I can't tell you how many former vegetarians I've known in The Practice, or people who were incessantly talking about postures and what pose they were on in Mysore, and then, at some point, drop the thing altogether.
One friend of mine had spent a few years living and studying in Mysore. Like me and like so many others I know, he came to Ashtanga, initially, to heal old wounds. Early on in his studies, he spoke about, practiced, and taught Ashtanga Yoga with the fervor of a "true believer." Every other sentence out of his mouth would be a quote from Guruji: "Slowly, slowy, you take." "In-correct!!!" "Yes, yes, you come!" Eventually, this parroting became a little creepy to me, and I kind of wanted to tell him to cut the crap, but eventually, he got injured. And while he struggled to continue to practice and teach, at some point the message and the method stopped making sense to him. His conscience would no longer allow him to teach or practice what he eventually saw as "a bunch of bullshit." This is just one story of many more stories I could recount of friends who started gung-ho, but eventually recognizing that something was askew.
Having Faith in Skepticism
From my perspective, what was askew was not necessarily the teaching, but that my friend didn't maintain his healthy skepticism. When we surrender our capacity to discriminate, we actually end up suppressing a significant part of our identities, something that we need in order to both get through life, but also to maintain our sanity within the confines of groupthink. In short, it's really a significantly important part of The Practice to question and struggle with the discrepancies between what's taught and what we, in fact, experience. One of my favorite quotes on this matter comes from one of the most renowned Indian yoga gurus in history, Siddhattha Gotama Buddha. He said,
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations."
To me, the Buddha is saying that part of our job as yogis on the path is to use the practice as the vehicle to work with the teachings. We don't just buy whatever we're told. We use our practice as the testing grounds to experiment with the hypotheses presented to us.
Making Sense of Apparent Nonsense
If we're truly on the path, not only do we not have the luxury of taking things at face value, but we also don't get to blatantly put everything that doesn't fit into our worldview into the categories, "false," "wrong," or "superstitious." A former student of ours used to come to samasthiti (even standing posture) each morning to chant the opening prayer, but he refused to join in with the other voices. When I asked him why he didn't, he said indignantly, "I am not a Hindu. I don't want to say something that I don't believe in." So I decided to share an English translation of the prayer with him.
When I asked him what he thought of the opening prayer after reading the translation, he said, "Yeah, like I said, I don't want to chant a Hindu prayer." So instead of leaving it there, I suggested that we go over the translation of the prayer together. Instead of leaving the prayer in the category of "someone else's sentiments," I wanted him to see where, in fact, the words might actually mean something to him.
So we spoke about the first verse of the invocation, which is about having gratitude for the teacher that helps us overcome samsara. Samsara is often translated as conditioned existence. It's this idea that we keep being reborn from one lifetime to the next until we've conquered our misapprehension. Once we've done so, we've attained suahavabodhe (happiness in the purity of mind). He liked the idea of overcoming delusion and uncovering happiness, but he couldn't get his head around reincarnation.
So, I suggested that he not get stuck on lifetimes, either before or after his current life, but that he see that within this very lifetime he was in, he'd already experienced numerous iterations of himself. While something of him had always remained the same, he'd also been a child, a teenager, and a young adult. As a result of these changes, he'd experienced several lifetimes within this very lifetime, and he was bound to experience more. He liked that notion that within the various stages of life he had left, that he could intend to overcome the delusions of samsara.
He had a hard time with the notion of bowing down to a guru, though. "I don't want to give anyone else that much power." So I suggested a few other ways of holding this notion of the guru, either the guru could be an inner part of his psyche that was innately wise, resourceful, and powerful. I also suggested that the practice, itself could be seen as the guru, that through the practice, itself, confusions, doubts, and suffering could be overcome. "Yes, he said, that's true. I feel so much calmer on the days I practice. It's on these days that I make better decisions. Yeah, the practice is my guru!"
That was the first verse.
When we took on the second verse, he had a lot more difficulty. The second verse of the Ashtanga invocation is about prostrating to the author of the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali, and visualizing him as a serpent with a thousand heads with arms holding a conch, a wheel, and a sword. On first blush, he said, "This reminds me of pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses with multiple arms. I am spiritual, but I am not religious, and I don't want to pray to a god, certainly not someone else's."
I explained that the verse is an homage to the author of The Yoga Sutras, Patanjali, and is suggesting that the philosophical backdrop of The Practice rests in The Sutras. Patanjali is mythologically considered to be a serpent that serves as the asana (seat or yoga posture) of Vishnu, the god of infinity. As the serpent, he's holding a conch, a wheel, and a weapon or sword. The conch is symbolic of the music of the cosmos that calls yogis to live noble lives; the wheel represents the wheel of dharma, or the order of life (as opposed to the randomness); the weapon or sword represents the power of discriminating good from bad, right from wrong, and truth from fiction.
I suggested that he hold the image of the serpent with multiple arms as representative of various values. First, that our practice is rooted in a system of thought that is deep, profound, and life enhancing, that it's not just another form of calisthenics or aerobics. Second, the symbol of Patanjali as a serpent that acts as the seat of Vishnu might mean that by sitting or abiding in the wisdom of this philosophy, that we have access to our infinite nature. The symbols that the serpent holds call us forth to make life enhancing choices, ones that are noble, moral, and truthful.
My student liked my translation, but to him the Hindu iconography was just "too Indian." And, he didn't, in fact, know anything about Patanjali. He'd heard of The Yoga Sutras, but hadn't read them or studied them, so he couldn't see the significance of venerating someone or the words of someone that didn't mean anything to him. So, he agreed to chant the first verse of the invocation and refrain from speaking the second verse. As far as I was concerned, I could completely appreciate his decision. I also asked him if he'd be up to studying the Yoga Sutras, which he said he'd consider. I appreciated that he'd walked through this process with me. He didn't just throw the whole thing out as, "Hindu mumbo-jumbo." He actually did the work. And in doing so, he could start to chant the first verse of the invocation without feeling like a fake.
For many of us, we need to do this. It's important to parse out what is, in fact, meant by the teachings. We need them translated in terms that make sense to our lives. It isn't in anyway shameful to not understand the teachings. It's only shameful to simply pass them off as nonsense without making any effort, without seeking to meet the essence of the teachings and to allow them to grow us.
I realize that the list that I made at the beginning of this blog is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we as Western Ashtanga yogis must struggle with if we are to continue to use our discriminative minds within The Practice. It takes a sort of courage to give up the magical notion that Ashtanga is some divine sequence of movements and postures passed down to us from time immemorial by a saintly being who lived in a time and a place when everything and everyone was perfect and wise. That'd be nice if that were the case, but it's unlikely that that's true. But that doesn't mean that The Practice is all hooey, either. It just means that we get to and, in fact, have to do our work, including practice and study, to find a way in that makes sense and, at the same time makes our lives and the lives of those around us better.
The Power of 1%
- I prostrate before the sage Patanjali who has thousands of radiant, white heads (as the divine serpent, Ananta) and who has, as far as his arms, assumed the form of a man holding a conch shell (divine sound), a wheel (discus of light or infinite time) and a sword (discrimination) OM
Most of us come to Yoga looking for something. Initially we come to get in shape or to calm down. With time, however, we start to experience something blossoming within us that is powerful and we start to wonder what it is all about. That’s where studying texts can often come in handy. Unfortunately, Yoga philosophy is given tacit mention in many Yoga rooms around the world. Classes, teachers, and methods are often so preoccupied with teaching physical techniques that the deeper philosophy of Yoga often gets sidelined. My teacher often used to say: “Yoga is 99% practice and 1% theory.” What he was implying was that you could read all sorts of books about Yoga, but until you actually put it into practice, you could not know what Yoga was. Unfortunately my teacher’s statement has been taken too literally in most Ashtanga schools. Instead, mastery of asanas has become overemphasized. Not many teachers encourage us to stop and ask ourselves what Yoga is all about.
Translations that Don't Make Sense
Admittedly, I fell into the same trap. Up until a few years ago, I ignored those peers of mine who raved about studying Yoga philosophy. I stuck hard to my 99% practice and gave little to no thought to that 1% theory. I was too busy trying to perform advanced asana sequences to have time for high philosophy. To me it seemed like my friends interested in sutras and Sanskrit were all too proud of their knowledge. I never knew much about Yoga philosophy beside the bits and pieces I would hear from teachers or need to parrot off in Yoga classes, like the names of the eight limbs of Yoga.
One thing always sort of plagued me about Yoga philosophy. It was the definition of Yoga I'd heard from my first teacher:
Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind stuff.
That definition is one of many interpretations of the second verse of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Yoga’s seminal text.[1] The problem I had with the above translation was that in the many years I had been practicing yoga, I had never achieved an ounce of the definition. No matter how far I had advanced in my asana practice, I never stopped thinking altogether. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get rid of that little voice inside that yammers away at me.
I used to test myself to see how long I could go without thinking a thought. As soon as the test began, I had already failed. It was like trying not to think of the pink elephant in the room. Using this interpretation as a benchmark for my success on the path of Yoga doomed me to utter failure, so I simply chose to ignore it and keep plugging away at my practice in hopes that one day, maybe in a very advanced posture, I would get it.
The Importance of Translation that Do
Only a few years ago, I found an access to Yoga philosophy. As I was preparing for a workshop, I ran across a translation of The Yoga Sutras that not only seemed somewhat manageable for me to achieve, but it illuminated a vision of the practice that reached far beyond the mat and into my life. It came from T.K.V. Desikachar’s The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice (Inner Traditions; Revised Edition. March 1, 1999). Desikachar interpreted the second verse of The Yoga Sutras as: “Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively toward an object and sustain that direction without any distractions.” In other words, Yoga is the ability to concentrate.
What a relief! Instead of ceasing to think, Desikachar's definition of Yoga was something I knew. Granted, it wasn't always easy to focus for a sustained period of time, but it was possible and something I was familiar with. I'd had the experience of being focused on something before. I hadn't had the experience in which I stopped thinking altogether. But I’d had the experience in which ancillary thoughts sort of diminished the more I focused on one thing. In short, Desikachar's interpretation personally helped me find a human, down-to-earth way of relating to the philosophy of The Practice.
A Definition of Yoga That's Wide Enough to Include All of Life
What also fascinated me was that this translation did not say, “Yoga means doing a yoga posture with mastery." In fact, I’ve never come across a translation of The Sutras that says this. The Sutras, in fact, say very little about yoga postures. Instead, it said that Yoga is concentrating on an object. The object could be anything. One could perform Yoga on something as simple as the breath, a sound, or an image. The object could be a concept, like love, change, or life.
It is so easy to get stuck in the perspective that one life exists in Yoga class and another exists while having a drink with a friend, behind the desk at work, or while taking out the trash. According to this definition, they are all opportunities to achieve Yoga. We misunderstand when we think that we are better yogis if we can teach a Yoga class or perform advanced asanas. If that were the case, then all Yoga gurus would be great circus performers. How come we do not tend to consider mechanics, musicians, or designers yogis? By this definition, the work they do, if concentrated, is, indeed, Yoga.
Seeing Things As They Are, Not As We Hope, Wish, or Imagine
What is the benefit of concentration, anyway? The next two verses of The Yoga Sutras clarify this. Once we have achieved concentration on a particular object, we come to know the object as it is. When we don’t concentrate, when we are not really present with what we're doing, we see what we want to see, hope to see, or think we should see. In the end, we don't really see. We project something from our imagination, and as a result misinterpret what we see.
Romantic relationships are a great and probably the most challenging example of this. The moment of falling in love is a beautiful experience. All too often the experience causes us to imagine that our beloved is the answer to all our suffering. Such a projection is disastrous for any relationship. It puts undo pressure on the other and the relationship. But if we stay present to what the true experience is and not the Cinderella story, falling in love can be extremely transformative.
The point of practice is to get the hang of seeing clearly. If we narrow the definition of Yoga to a set of exercises that when achieved masterfully will somehow bring about tranquility, we totally miss the point. The exercises practiced on the mat are simply metaphors for our lives. We come to the mat to develop the skill of seeing, feeling, and sensing ourselves from moment-to-moment, breath-to-breath, vinyasa-to-vinyasa, asana-to-asana. We’re often confronted by the fact that we’re stiffer than we were the day before. That’s a great opportunity to just see this without guilt, fear, or judgment. Using our practice as a discipline for getting the hang of things as they are on a bodily, kinesthetic level can have vast ramifications throughout our lives.
Certainly, asanas practiced with the correct attitude can teach us a lot about ourselves; however, if we do not find an access to the rich philosophical framework on which the practice rests, we risk getting caught in learning a bunch of circus tricks that only prevent us from seeing things as they are. One of the reasons we come to the mat is to learn how to wake up. Source texts are an integral part of that awakening process. They must speak to us, though, on our terms so that we can derive meaning that makes sense in our own lives. Sometimes we have to struggle with those texts in order to get at that meaning. But once we do, getting on the mat has the potential to be an enlightening experience.
[1] Essentially The Yoga Sutras are an ancient practitioner’s manual for Yoga practice and philosophy. They were written as a grouping of 195 brief statements, or sutras, that express a principal. The brevity of the each sutra, lends it to being interpreted in a wide variety of ways.
The Missing Ingredient
Most people approach spiritual practices the same way they do everything else in their lives; they wait and hope that one day it will all turn out. "If I can just hold a headstand for three minutes then…” or, “If I am really consistent then…” or, “If I just lose 5 pounds, then…” Rarely do we stop to recognize that on the other side of accomplishment and of doing that we often find ourselves in the same place. We might be a little stronger, more disciplined, or thinner, but who we are hasn’t fundamentally shifted. And yet we’ve all been told that spiritual practices like yoga can offer a transformative shift in our experience of our relationship to others, our worlds, and ourselves. What’s the missing ingredient that can create that metamorphosis?
We won’t find that extra bit in a different practice, a better teacher, or the more so-called ‘traditional’ approach. All of these are the trappings of form. What we are after is something that is beyond form. We are after a shift in our being that creates certain qualities, like openness, wisdom, loving kindness, authenticity. These are ways of being in the world, but access to them seems mysterious and elusive. And yet, to one degree or another, this is what draws us to spiritual practice.
We do it in the hopes that ‘one-day’ it will all turn out. Consider that it already has turned out. You are sitting down reading this. You have a computer, or you have the time to ponder such things. You even have time for spiritual practice, for contemplating what it is to be a human. You are in the top 99.99999% of the population in terms of survival. At this very moment, most people in the world are struggling to get their very survival needs met, while you read this. And if you stop to consider that, indeed, it has turned out, you may wonder why you still feel that fundamental angst, that uncomfortable feeling that propels you toward the ‘things’-- like the new car, the latest hairstyle, or even the spiritual practice--that hopefully will remove the discomfort that something isn’t quite right in our world, the feeling that something is missing.
Doing It Correctly Doesn't Necessarily Make You Happier
The missing ingredient is that we have thrown the cart before the horse. In other words we hope that if we do a particular spiritual practice, that it will result in a shift in consciousness. However, the doing of spiritual practice, does not result in a shift in consciousness. We also hope that having certain things will result in a sense of satisfaction. Doing and having, however, do not beget being. Being is a choice we make that informs what we do. In other words: be first, do second.
We’ve all been sold the line that if we do a particular job for a certain amount of time, and earn a certain income, that at the end of the day, we get to be happy. We all know, however, that that isn’t necessarily the case. Hard work and having money do not necessarily result in peace, happiness, or wholeness. I am not suggesting that they take away these qualities. They simply do not create these qualities. Human happiness does not increase a whole lot as wealth increases. In other words, wealth and happiness are not a corollary.
Spiritual practice is all about having a say about our lives. But you and I do not have a whole lot of say about what we do or have in our lives. We have some say, but not a lot. We can try to get that job or earn that income, but there are a myriad of factors that can get in the way. While we may not have a lot of say about what we do or what we have, we are always at choice—whether we wish to acknowledge it or not-- about who we are being. I am not suggesting that we have a say about our moods, which are also the circumstances of our lives. Moods are not an aspect of being. They are what we notice when we will be. Being is almost like a perspective or an ever-shifting set of perspectives that either give us power or undermine us. And here is where we are at choice in the matter.
Choosing What Empowers
We can choose ways of being each moment. We don’t need to perform outlandish postures or learn spiritual practices from a guru in India in order to choose being. I am not suggesting that we do away with spiritual practice or great teachers. Both are useful ingredients in the meal of transformation, but they aren’t the secret ingredients. The secret ingredient is being, and it is the recognition that we are at choice with who we are being on a moment-to-moment basis.
So, instead of starting our spiritual practice from the perspective that we hope to get something out of it, why not start it from a particular way of being or perspective, one that empowers us in our relationship with ourselves, our community, and our world? Most importantly, why not start practice from ways of being that give us a sense of resourcefulness, authenticity, wholeness, ways like aliveness, wisdom, compassion, love, power, etc.?
That way our spiritual practice becomes an expression of that way(s) of being, like a dance that expresses grace. The grace is already there within the dancer. Otherwise the dancer wouldn’t know how to express it. It isn’t as if she hopes to experience it after she has done the dance. And her years of practice, development, and technique that the dancer brings to the expression of grace adds depth and nuance to the expression of grace.
So when we start practice from the place that we are this quality or this way of being, the various aspects of spiritual practice—like the breath, the posture, and the attention--naturally coalesce together in order to express it. Spiritual practice then transforms from a game of waiting and hoping that one day if I practice for many, may years or many, many lifetimes, I will do it in just the right manner. And when I do, I will find my happiness, my peace, and my completion.
The transformation occurs in the recognition that we have access to our wholeness all the time, including, now. Spiritual practice then becomes the time and space where we consciously honor, reside in, and express that knowing. We don’t do it in order to squeeze wholeness from it. Unfortunately, that is not what practice provides. It is simply choreographed dance without emotion or expression. And it is up to us to fill it in so that it can become an expression of what is already and always present, true, and accessible.
The Practice You Can't See on the Outside
What I am describing is truly the inner practice within the practice. This is something that cannot be seen by the teacher or by an audience. In yoga, in particular, it is what is at the heart of the practice. Often times teachers will say, “Yoga is what you cannot see from the outside.” And then they will point to things like the breath and bandhas. But the being part of yoga predicates how we breathe, how we engage the bandhas. Too often, we all get caught in the act of wanting to do it right, to look good on the outside, to impress either our teacher or those around us.
Admittedly, I believe I spent maybe more than half of my life in the practice of yoga, hoping to impress others. I knew deep down inside that this was a no-no, but I couldn’t help it because I didn’t really understand where else to put my attention. I’d spent years studying with well-known teachers and life-long practitioners who imparted a certain “way” to practice yoga. Some emphasized the breath. Others emphasized alignment. Often I experienced an amalgamation of both with the addition of some other techniques. At some point, I started to recognize that all I knew about yoga was what my teachers wanted for me. I had to make the pose look a particular way if I was going to do it ‘traditionally’ or ‘correctly.’ At some point, I began to experiment outside the boundaries my teachers described.
What I came to realize was that, indeed, the boundaries my teachers created were artificial. It’s my sense that yoga postures, like the ones we practice in yoga studios throughout the world, are not timeless or eternal. In all likelihood, they are an amalgamation of a variety of movements designed to support health and spiritual insight. The postures themselves are like empty vessels. The attitude we bring to these postures is what gives them their mythical, eternal quality. If we were to perform these postures at a circus, they’d have no more affect on the psyche than jumping rope or a run through the park. No doubt, they’d increase endorphins and work out some of the kinks in the body. The mythical quality is the attitude or the being that we bring to it.
Setting Intentions
What I began to notice a few years ago was that a lot of the attitude that I brought to my practice was the attitude of ‘doing it right.’ That attitude left me practicing from the outside in. I was always noticing whether my limbs where aligned, whether the movement was graceful or not, whether my breath appeared smooth and fluid. The result is that I had a practice that might have impressed a few people but left me wondering why I got more good from a sitting meditation than I did from yogic postures. I always appreciated the feeling of ease that yoga practice left in my body and being, but I couldn’t get at the meditative aspects of yoga.
So I started setting an intention before I practiced each day. I would set intentions, like “harmony,” “gratitude,” “ease,” “intensity,” and “power.” What I came to discover was that the techniques I’d spent so many years hoping to master, like the bandhas, were my tools. I could use them in service to the intention. I started to use the various tools we learn in yoga practice--including alignment, ujayi pranayama, mula bandha, uddiyana bandha, hasta bandha, pada bandha, etc—in service to the intention and not the other way around. What I found, for example was that the breath altered significantly when my intention was “grace” versus when my intention was “sass.”
Yes, I do sometimes practice with sass. It is my sense, now, that the practice is an opportunity for me to express the infinite possibility that I am as a human being. I liken it to a painting. If I want to paint a blue mood or a tone, I am going to use one particular set of paints versus a tone that is dynamic will use a different set of paints. Each of the tools we learn can be used in service to the expression of the painting. However, if we get stuck thinking that there is only one ‘correct’ way of painting, one proper, one traditional way, we miss the opportunity that yoga has to offer us. And often, we will get stuck trying to fit ourselves into a box that doesn’t fit us. And we will often get stuck practicing from the outside in.
Practice as Art
While I am describing the inner expressing the outer, I am not denigrating the importance of learning technique. We all need to learn technique. If you’re a piano player, it’s critical to learn the scales. And if you want to be a great piano player, you need to continue to play the scales. But if you want to be a virtuoso, you don’t play the scales exclusively. And you don’t just play the music on the score the way you’d play the scales. You play with your heart and soul. The same is true of yoga practice. Breath, bandhas, drishti, alignment are all forms of the scales we play. A master doesn’t just repeat the technique over and over in hopes that he will get to the heart of the matter. A master moves from his or her heart or soul.
The problem with thinking of practice from the perspective of a pianist or a dancer is that these art forms are external expressions. They are designed to please an audience. In the practice of yoga, we often turn our teacher or other practitioners in the yoga room into our audience. However, if the practice will have transformative affects on our being, we must become the audience. We must learn how to direct our awareness inward toward our intention, toward the expression of the intention, and to continue to shift and adjust technique so that the intention is expressed to ourselves, not anyone else. I recognize that this is a very different experience of yoga because we are all so used to receiving correction and attention from a teacher. In the beginning such correction and attention is critical to learning the basics. Eventually, it becomes a hindrance because it directs our minds outside of ourselves.
I speak about the intention or the being that we bring to each practice. However, intention can have much more far reaching affects. We can set intentions for our year, for a relationship, for the work we do, and really for our lives. Our practice can be used as an opportunity to develop those intentions. It can become a sort of laboratory in which we explore them, tease them out a little further, and develop some muscle of awareness around those intentions. Most importantly, a yoga practice can be the place in which we learn to embody those intentions. This is what is unique about yoga postures. They are an embodied expression of our being. They ground out the experience of an idea or a notion into form. They help us to actualize what is simply an idea or an intention in physical form. Once embodied, we have a much clearer, intuitive sense of how to actualize them in our relationships, our work life, our health, our home life, etc.
Exercise for Setting Intentions
Peak moments can be very instructive. Often in moments when we experience the fullness of life, we're connected to a way of being in the world, one that is authentic, present, and resonant. If we can start our practice focused on a particular being that evokes one or more of these qualities, our practices will start to sing. So in this exercise, I am going to ask you to draw your mind back to a peak moment in which you felt authentic, present, and/or resonantly alive.
- Conjure up a memory or two where you feel one of these three qualities: a)authentic/honest/real b) present/conscious/awake c)alive/connected/expressed
- See if you can see what was going on at that moment that makes that moment so significant. Notice who was present; what was happening; and how were you feeling in that moment.
- If you feel authentic, present, and/or alive, notice who were being in that moment. What perspective were you in? What did you see, believe, or think about the situation you were in in that moment?
- Note with pen and paper who you were BEING in that moment? Possible ways of being, include: joyful, centered, clear, playful, sexy, alive, connected, loving, passionate, driven, focused, detail oriented, peaceful. In fact, there are a myriad of ways of being.
- When you go on the mat tomorrow, connect with that way of being before each Sun Salutation. Notice how it affects the way you move and what you focus on as you go through your A's and B's.
- It may also be helpful to have your teacher or a friend give you some outside feedback about the way your movement appears, both connected to an intention and without an intention. You'll find that to an outside observer the distinction is often subtle but clear, nevertheless.
Serving Our Students
Yoga teachers constantly must ask themselves how the practices they teach serve and support their students and the lives they lead today. So much of what we see in the marketplace of Yoga is a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. This is really a shame. Yoga was not intended to be taught in classrooms to large swathes of people sweating and grooving to the latest hits. I am not saying that there is anything particularly wrong with de-stressing or feeling good. These are definite side effects of doing Yoga, but if we stop there, our students will never get to experience the promise of Yoga’s complete transformation. The way we discover whether a practice serves and supports our students is to first maintain our own personal practice. Simply put, we must practice what we preach. Yoga learned in teachers’ trainings does not replace that which is cultivated in self-study and on the mat. When we put our time into something, we begin to know it. It’s only through understanding something in our own body, mind, and spirit that we have the ability to impart something of its flavor and nature.
Likewise, done with heartfelt yearning for personal transformation, our practice can teach us who we are: our strengths, our biases, and the things that fluster our beings. Without taking steps on the path of self-discovery teachers run the risk of manipulating their students; of creating messes in the classroom; or of being taken advantage of. All of these experiences are natural for a young teacher, however, if they go undetected below the radar of our awareness, they take over, leaving our students lead in wayward directions.
A similar trap many young teachers fall into is teaching a standardized approach to Yoga. The young teacher fails to recognize that each of her students is unique. Some are relatively more flexible than others. Many come to class with acute and chronic injuries that must be tended to. In general, each body is peculiar. Likewise, the stages of life our students are in need to be recognized. A teenager or someone in her early twenties, for example, might benefit from an active and dynamic practice to mimic that stage of development. Likewise, as our students age, household and career responsibilities may preclude them from vigorous practices. Aging students might benefit from a more static, less active approach to postures and increased focus on the internal aspects of Yoga: breath, meditation, and study.
A great teacher not only recognizes the impact of age and the capacities of her students, but she will also recognize the effect of the seasons on her students’ beings. Winter, for example, is a time of hibernation. Forward bends, long exhales, long holds in postures, and slow transitions from one posture to the next tend to bring forth an introverted state of mind. We might choose to emphasize these aspects in order to help our students harmonize with the season. Or, if we notice that a particular student experiences depression at this season, we might reverse the tendency and emphasize the opposite: backbends, longer inhales than exhales, and a more staccato transition from one asana to the next. In order to find out what is absolutely appropriate for our students, a great teacher will recognize her students as individuals.
The spirit of an individual can only be discovered in a one-to-one relationship of student to teacher. This is a relationship that develops over weeks, months, and years. When a teacher can watch a student over a great span of time, she has the ability to recognize when to push, when to hold back, when to cradle and support, and when to take away. This is a dialogue that takes place over time. And the dialogue is not geared solely around postures and practices. These merely serve as the medium through which some of the dialogue takes place. The relationship is a human one-to-one relationship[1].
Some teachers are particularly gifted at recognizing and working with the spirit of a student and understanding his or her needs, while others are particularly fixated on the dogma of their respective lineage or tradition. Tradition provides us with insight and guidelines, but the past has no monopoly on wisdom. Practices and beliefs that were applicable only a few hundred years ago might no longer hold sway in the lives of students today. What applied to young forest dwelling, sexually abstinent, Indian boys and men one hundred years ago may not apply in the same way today. We have been influenced by the internet, the nuclear bomb, Starbucks, and global warming. The challenge for most teachers is not to throw the whole thing out, to just turn the music on full blast in order to teach “Hot Sexy Yoga.” Likewise, because something has been done in a certain fashion for hundreds, if not thousands of years, does not make it divinely inspired.
This point is illustrated by an old, Indian story about a man who owned a precious gem that he kept hidden in his closet. Toward the end of his life, he gave the gem to his son and told him to wear it daily and pass it on to his oldest child. Being an obedient son, he did as he was told and handed it on to his son. The son, wanting to honor his grandfather, decided to bury it in the backyard and marked the spot with a stone so future generations would be able to honor their ancestors. When he grew old, he showed his son the spot. When that son grew old, he forgot what was buried there. He had never seen the gem, but he told his daughter to mark the spot with a stone because it was very important. She did as she was told. Her daughter and her grandson and her great-grandson and so on and so forth for countless generations also added stones. After a time, an enormous pile had accumulated, and no one knew there was a gem buried underneath.
A great teacher must have enough of a discerning mind to recognize what is dogma and what is essence. She should take tradition seriously enough to challenge it, wrestle with it, and help it evolve. To do so it helps to steep oneself in the tradition from which she teaches. It is critical to understand the sources of our teaching, to comprehend the spirit of the tradition, and to differentiate dogma from truth, cultural biases from fundamental truths. Without this foundation we flounder between self-doubt and hubris.
Also, if we stop only at the doorway of our tradition without understanding or respect for other traditions, we can become chauvinistic and small-minded. Different methodologies and vantage points can enhance our teachings incredibly. The Ashtanga system, from which I teach, does not emphasize anatomical alignment, but I have found that some of the methods espoused by Iyengar Yoga teachers can both prevent and treat repetitive strain injuries that come about in the classroom. We live in a time when we have access to a myriad of ideas. The point is not to close them out and pretend that they do not exist. This is an oversimplified method to dealing with the complexity of life today. Likewise, if we merge it all, we run the risk of watering something down to the point where the essence of age-old traditions is lost.
Each of us who practices and teaches Yoga today has the responsibility to bring it forth from the past and make it as true and applicable today as it was hundreds, if not, thousands of years ago. To do so, it is important to have a healthy respect for the traditions from which they spring, but if we stop there and don’t make the practices applicable for our students and the lives they lead, Yoga will not survive. And if we turn it into another form of calisthenics with a pseudo-spiritual overlay, Yoga will become just another sport or feel-good activity. Our role as teachers is not just to disseminate directions, but we are the current lineage holders, to one degree or another. We cannot take this challenge lightly. Each of us must struggle to bring forth a Yoga that not only is applicable for our students today, but that will set the stage for their students tomorrow.
[1] The most accessible method of finding one to one relations is a Mysore-style Ashtanga class or through private yoga instruction. Mysore-style classes are unique within the Ashtanga Yoga tradition. Each student receives individual instruction, practices at their own pace, and develops a practice that suits his or her own needs. The teacher's role is that of facilitator, helping each student via verbal and physical adjustments. The Mysore approach allows the student the benefit of an individually-adapted practice while benefiting from the energy and support of the group setting.
Staying Open is a Choice No Matter the Circumstance
A few weeks ago one of my most favorite aunts passed away. Jeannde was one of those very special souls who embraced life with joy, openness, and wonder no matter the circumstances. She had a way of bringing light wherever she went. Melissa, my wife, and I had the gift to say goodbye to her a few days before her passing.
The evening when we walked into her room, I could feel a profound peace, beauty, and light. At the time, she was in limbo, not quite in this life but not quite in another. She wasn't scared but, in fact, at peace. She was clearly in a lot of bodily discomfort, but her spirit was palpably in total acceptance. We managed to exchange a few powerful words, letting each other know how much we meant to one another; saying, "I love you"; and then, eventually, saying, "Goodbye."
I left that night with a deep peace that still reverberates in my heart as I write this two-weeks later. Jeannde showed me that it is possible to continue to stay curious, not only in the twilight years but even up to the moment of death. I always like to tell others that at the ripe age of 87, she was coming to my yoga classes, bending, twisting, and breathing, just like every other 20/30/40-something student in the room. I once told her that a few of my students were inspired by her presence in the room. She couldn't understand why. Age meant nothing to her except for the fact that her body was quite a bit less responsive than it had been in her younger years as a dancer.
I share Jeannde's story here because she taught me that circumstances don't make the light dim within us. At each threshold, no matter what we face, we are at choice to stay open. And it is a choice. Literally, on her deathbed, on the threshold of the great unknown, in agonizing physical discomfort, she was sharing her heart, expressing her love, and accepting the calling that it was time for her to go. Not only did the circumstances she was in not dim her. They only seemed to add to her luminescence and magical capacity to stay in awe.
Five Element Series Part 5: Air Element
The air element is the source of all mobility. It feels light and clear. It is the place of spirit and of spirituality, the place where the yogis and saints reach for. It is also the place of unconditional love, unconditional compassion, unconditional friendliness, equanimity, and well-being. It is the place we get to when we can finally take a breath of fresh air. It can feel like coming out of hibernation to something fresh, clean, bright, and alive. It is also the place of humor because humor acts like a breath of fresh air within the space or ether. People who know how to move space, know how to breathe light and life into it.
Exercise
In a moment, I am going to ask you to stand up and away from your computer. You're going to click on this link: Air Element Music. Allow your body to move to the sounds that you hear while simultaneously noticing what you feel.
What did you notice in your body? What was the movement like? This is the air element, mobile, cool, subtle, flowing, of a higher plane of consciousness.
Diagnosing the Air Element in Ourselves and Our Practice
Air is the element representative of the movement, change, and shifting we experience in our body, mind, and spirit. We feel the air element in our bodies when we sense things moving. The air element has multiple directions. In hatha yoga, we're primarily concerned with the ascending quality of the air element in the upper body that allows us to breathe and expand, called prana vayu and the descending quality, apana vayu, that allows us to root and stabilize. The air element is present when we describe the things of life as: "buoyant," "uplifting," "inspiring," and "exhilarating."
The Personality of the Fire Element
People with a lot of air element in their personality exude the following positive attributes:
Funny
Light
Mentally Agile
Intellectual
Logical
Objective
Spiritual
Godly
They can also exude the following attributes that can be both challenging to themselves and others:
Unemotional
Heady
Impractical
Ungrounded
Untrustworthy
Ditzy
Floaty
Examples of people who exude the positive qualities of the fire element include: Shirley MacLean, Lucille Ball, Goldie Hawn, Chris Rock, Bob Marley, Barack Obama, Mahatma Gandhi, George Harrison, Joan Baez, Spok (Star Trek), Richard Freeman.
What Air Element Feels Like in the Body: Deficiency and Excess
A deficiency of air element produces sluggishness and dullness in the body. When the air element is deficient, we tend to feel like everything is stagnant, stuck, and not moving. This lack of movement can be extremely frustrating, so we also feel gloomy and experience frequent mood swings and irritability, sometimes even chronic depression. Because things aren't moving properly and are staying stuck, we also experience pain in the body. Either the pain moves from place to place or, if the air element is really deficient, the pain can be boring, fixed, and stabbing.
When the air element is deficient, we feel:
pain that moves from place to place
mental depression
gloomy feelings
frequent mood swings
frequent sighing
When the air element is extremely deficient we can feel:
pain that is fixed in location
pain that is boring and stabbing
abdominal masses that do no move
chronic depression
When the air element is excessive, we experience a quality of nervousness, hyper-excitability, and agitation in our bodies. It's like our nervous system is always turned on. In those moments, when the air element is excessive, we can feel ungrounded, nervous, agitated, and sometimes even frightened.
When the air element is in excess, we feel:
dizziness
fidgeting
uneasiness
vague anxiety
twitching
spasming
tremors
Antidote for Deficient Air Element in Yoga Practice
Increase the ratio of inhale to exhale in ujayi pranayama as well and/or take an inhale retention. Inhalations are expansive, while exhalations create contraction. Air element is all about expansion, movement, and mobility. Creating space through breath increases the air element and gets things moving, again.
Emphasize sukha over sthira, the pleasant nature of the asana over its firmness. Patanjali describes two qualities of asanas in 2.46 of The Yoga Sutras: sthira sukham asanam. Sthira means firm, fixed, or steady. Sukham is happiness and delight. In Ashtanga, we tend to emphasize the firmness of the posture through contracting various muscles within it. So, for example, in forward bends, we tend to contract the biceps, the quadriceps, and the pelvic floor (mula bandha). By deemphasizing the engagement of these muscles, we back off of postures, creating more space and spaciousness within them.
Find a fluidity of movement, both in and out of the poses that feels light, buoyant, and airy. Try a full-vinyasa practice.
Emphasize uddiyana bandha, which means upward flying. It tends to send the life force (prana) upward, creating a sense of buoyancy within the movement.
Increase the amount of time spent in backbends. Backbends expand and open the fronts of the chest and increase our lung capacity. Backbends that increase the air element include: Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-Facing Dog), Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow or Wheel Pose), Matsyasana (Fish Pose), Dhanurasana (bow pose), Ustrasana (Camel Pose), and Kapotasana (King Pigeon Pose).
While in forward bends, emphasize lengthening of the spine out of the pelvic girdle...
...rather than contracting and laying down on the outstretched leg(s). Lengthening the spine out of the pelvic girdle creates a quality of openness, extroversion and expansion, while contracting tends to do just the opposite.
Put yourself in contact with people, places, and things that revive and inspire you. It can help to have books by your mat that you can return to that remind you of what's encouraging, positive and uplifting. It can also help to keep a journal there, too, so you can write down any insights that inspire you as your practicing.
It can be helpful to reduce certain foods that obstruct movement, foods high in saturated fats (lard, mammal meats, cream, cheese, and eggs), hydrogenated and poor quality fats (such as shortening, margarine, refined and rancid oils), excess nuts and seeds, chemicals in food and water, prescription drugs, all intoxicants, and highly processed, refined foods. And, instead, increase foods and spices which stimulate movement:
beets
strawberry
peach
cherry
vegetables of the Brassica genus: cabbage, turnip root, kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussel sprouts
mustard greens
turmeric
basil
cardamom
cumin
fennel
ginger
rosemary
mint
Antidote for Excess Air Element in Yoga Practice
Emphasize grounding by keeping the awareness at the mula dhara chakra and performing mula bandha, since the muladhara chakra is the residence of the earth element. Placing our attention here has the tendency to root us. It also allows us to connect to our physical seat, which grounds and centers us.
In standing poses, place the awareness at the soles of the feet by grounding the base of the big toe, the base of the small toe and the inner and outer edges of the heel. This grounding is called pada bandha and creates stability in the body and mind.
In arm balances, chaturanga dandasana, jump backs, jump throughs, and any time you have your hands on the floor, place the awareness at the contact the four corners of the hand—the bases of the index and small fingers, the base of the thumb, as well as the heel of the palm—make with the ground.
Increase the ratio of exhaling compared to inhaling. Try a 1:2 ratio; so, for example, you might inhale for 5 counts and exhale for 10. Or maybe that's too time consuming, so you inhale for 4 and exhale for 8. When we increase the ratio of exhale to inhale, we have the capacity to calm our nervous system. If, for example, you notice you're agitated, take time aside from your asana practice to just try the 1:2 ratio of inhale to exhale, and you'll notice that your mind will naturally find more stability. Additionally, you'll notice that at the end of an exhalation, you naturally engage mula bandha. In other words the pelvic floor naturally contracts; thus, exhaling is a natural way to engage mula bandha.
Put an exhale retention into the breath sequence. By doing so, you will be emphasizing the exhalation and its capacity to calm and stabilize the nervous system.
Increase the time you spend in forward bends over back bends. Forward bends have a more sedating effect on the nervous system than backbends. That's one reason why primary series is so powerful when us Westerners first learn it. We're so used to being amped up that when we take all of those forward bends, we start to find an access point toward introversion.
Aasnas that decrease the air element include: Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog), Padangusthasana (Big Toe Pose), Prasarita Padottanasana A, B, C, & D (Wide-Legged Forward Bend), Parsvottanasana (Intense Side Stretch Pose), Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend), Janu Sirsasana (Head-to-Knee Forward Bend), Marichyasana A & B (Pose Dedicated to the Sage Marichi), Upavistha Konasana (Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend)
While in forward bends emphasize the bend at the waist rather than the extension out of the pelvic girdle. By emphasizing flexion rather than extension, we create more introversion, grounding and sedation.
In forward bends, bring some awareness and a slight increase in effort on the exhalation and relax on the inhalation.
Do less asanas. Excessive movement can agitate the air element more. Don’t feel obligated to do the complete series of postures you've been taught each. Know when enough is enough. It might be beneficial not to jump back or jump through between asanas or sides of asanas.
When we're hyper-exitable with excess air element, it can be helpful to get out of our heads, to get into our bodies, and to create some action rather than analysis.
It can help to decrease the time we spend in front of the computer and television; and to eat nourishing foods, especially root vegetables and whole grains.
Foods which treat excess air element include:
millet
barley
tofu
most beans: black, mung, and kidney
watermelon and other melons
seaweeds
algae: spiraluna, chlorella
eggs
cheese
warm milk
Avoid
coffee
alcohol
chocolate
sugar
I wrote a book about that. I’m Chad Herst, a coach and licensed acupuncturist (LAc) in San Francisco. The first chapter is twenty-eight minutes, read in my own voice. Enter your name and email and I'll send it to you.
Five Elements Series Part 4: The Ether Element and Curiosity
Ether has no form. Its essence is emptiness. It is the space the other four elements arise in and pass away in.
That makes it hard to write about, and it also makes it the element most of us are avoiding. Ether represents the void, the emptiness we all run into at moments. And we mostly have one strategy for the void: fill it. More activity, more plans, more work. Some of us meet it right after a big push, when the thing we were chasing is done and the quiet underneath it is still there. The void doesn't fill through more activity. It fills through quiet and retreat. For many of us, practice is the place we go to empty out instead.
Ether is also the element of the mind. Thoughts and emotions ride on it. In the Yoga Sutras this shows up as chit: noticing what is. Looking, listening, feeling, without stories, dramas, or interpretation. Just noticing. When we can know something without immediately deciding what it means, we come to know it as it is.
Which is why the ether element runs on curiosity. Curiosity is open, available, full of wonder. It doesn't assume, and it doesn't need to make anything happen. Watch a three-year-old. They walk around amazed at what's in front of them. They never stop and decide they've got it all figured out.
Most of us start practice that way. Then we begin to think we know it. We have the posture pegged, labeled, understood, and we start interacting with the practice from history instead of from what's here. Then we're bored. Nothing happened to the practice. We stopped being curious. When was the last time something you've done a thousand times tore you open a little? That's where curiosity lives, and assuming we know is how we lose it.
Two ways to get acquainted with ether.
Next time you're in a crowded space, spend a few minutes moving through it while trying to avoid everyone. Notice what that's like. Then spend a few minutes stepping into the empty spaces instead. Most of us spend our lives defensively managing whatever comes at us. Stepping into the space is a different life, in miniature.
And in practice, put your attention on the spaces: between the inhale and the exhale, in the body after you come out of a posture, between your hands and the floor, behind you and in front of you. Notice what placing attention on space does to the practice. Notice what opens.
I wrote a book about that. I’m Chad Herst, a coach and licensed acupuncturist (LAc) in San Francisco. The first chapter is twenty-eight minutes, read in my own voice. Enter your name and email and I'll send it to you.
Fifteen minutes with one moment of your own.
Five Elements Series Part 3: The Five Elements in History
Many societies and cultures previously embraced the five elements as a mode or model of categorizing what they saw, both out in the world and within their own psyches. They named their experiences of life in terms related to nature. This helped to understand them, to make sense of them, and to heal imbalances and effect change: medically, psychically, relationally, and architecturally. In fact, all aspects of life were subject to the categorization of and the harmonization with the elements. The elemental worldview, which saw humanity as an expression of nature, primarily came from the East, although, we do see elemental aspects in Ancient Greek medicine, with its four humors: blood, the air element; phlegm, water element; yellow bile, fire element; and black bile, earth element. But there is some speculation that even the Greeks were influenced by India, possibly as a result of the intellectual trade that took place after Alexander the Great conquered portions of it in the third century, B.C.E.
The Worldview of Domination
The Judeo-Christian perspective that has been passed on to us from the Middle East, on the other hand, saw man at the center of the cosmos. His role was to conquer and subdue nature. This perspective lives on today as modern science continues to ‘fight disease’ and ambitious investors attempt ‘make a killing’ in the stock market. We don’t always realize it, but our perspectives have been heavily influenced by the Genesis story in which God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (Genesis 1:26, New International Version, 1984) Placing man at the center of the cosmos created an ethos of dominance rather than harmonization.
The Worldview of Harmonization
Asian classical cultures did not see themselves as rulers of the earth but, instead, considered themselves members. Disease and strife were representative of the disharmony they’d unknowingly created with nature. It was their role, as humans, to continuously put themselves in accord with nature, to attune to it, to learn how to flow with and manipulate the elements in order to maintain a sense of harmony.
India and the Five Elements
The five element theory that comes from India is rooted in, Samkhya Philosophy, which is considered to be the antecedent of the Classical Yoga expounded by Patanjali in The Yoga Sutras. In Samkhya, the five elements are represented by the first five chakras: earth, the first chakra; water the second; fire, the third; air, the fourth; and ether, the fifth. The elements represent the constituent parts and qualities that make up the prakriti (nature). They are considered the most basic building blocks, much like atoms, that make up the world of matter.
The basic theme of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is on how to work with the mind as a way to experience the ultimate nature. Patanjali saw the elements as the basic building blocks that constituted various qualities (gunas) of the mind. So when the mind was satvic, or clear and lucid, ether and air elements predominated. When the mind was agitated, or rajasic, the fire element predominated. A tamasic, or inert, mind corresponded to to the earth and water elements. The work of Patanjali's yoga was (and still is) to see through the transitory qualities of form, both gross and subtle. As a result of this discrimination (viveka), the yogi saw that which was ultimate and beyond matter, namely the purusa or pure spirit.
The purusa is different from the Western concept of the spirit, since there is no form or substance to the purusa. In the West, we tend to think of the spirit or soul as having some subtle or etheric form. From the standpoint of Samkhya Philosophy, nothing can actually be said about this ultimate reality, except in terms of what it is not. It has no qualities, no matter, and no motion. It is timeless, so it was never born, nor does it ever die. It isn't affected by moods, thoughts, or sensations. It is often described as a mirror that reflects nothing or a seer who sees nothing. The perfect knowledge of the yogi is the identification with the ultimate nature (purusa) rather than the relative nature (prakriti) comprised of the five elements.
So the yogi meditated on the various sensations in the form of the elements as a tool to experience the eternal and absolute as opposed to the temporal and relative. If the yogi could recognize that temperature was sourced by the fire element, mass by the earth element, cohesion by the water element, and movement by the air element, he or she would cease to cling or avoid whatever arose and, ultimately, see through the veil of illusion of matter (maya) and into the ultimate reality.
Five Element Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores the five elements and its application to yoga practice. Be sure to check out the other posts!
- Part 1—Intro
- Part 2—Getting Unstuck
- Part 3—The Five Elements in History
- Part 4—The Ether Element
- Part 5—The Air Element
- Part 6—The Fire Element
- Part 7—The Water Element
- Part 8—The Earth Element
- Part 9-Transformational Breakthroughs
Five Elements Series Part 2: Getting Unstuck
We all face discomfort on the mat, whether in the body, emotionally, or in the mind. As soon as we have the sense that something is askew, we can’t help but say, "I don't like this feeling.” Or, “I don't want to have this feeling.” And it is so subtle when it happens. It is usually just a split second. There's a very subtle part of our awareness that is constantly asking, "Is this pleasure? Or is this discomfort?" And if it's discomfort, then we immediately need to do something about it. The time between noticing pleasure and discomfort is so subtle and elusive that we are rarely responsive. Mainly we are reactive to these sensations, especially those that do not feel good. There's a saying in yoga that suffering can be the doorway to wisdom. And so our discomfort, pain, hurt, and, even anger can be used as an access point into truth. If we will stay with the experience--not necessarily the thoughts about the experience, but the direct experience of what's occurring--then what tends to unfold is deeper insight and learning. But the lessons won't emerge until we apply a quality of curiosity and presence to whatever is arising, from moment to moment.
Getting Unstuck
And I say, moment-to-moment, because what happens is that all experience is constantly in a flux. It's constantly changing. There isn't one fixed experience we have. While some feeling states last for extended periods of time, if we apply consciousness, we'll notice that they're constantly shifting. That is, they're not fixed. Even in this moment, what you felt 30 seconds ago doesn't correspond to what's occurring, now. And so by being in the now, we end up noticing a constant flux, a constant change. Applying this quality of present moment consciousness unsticks us. What keeps us stuck is that we identify ourselves in fixed modes, like "I am an intense person;" or "I'm a Capricorn;" or "I'm a materialist;" or "I am a vegetarian."
When we begin to notice the qualities of the five elements that arise in the body and throughout our experience of life, we start to develop the visceral experience that nothing we experience out in the world is, in fact, is fixed, static, or eternal. So, for example, we may experience a lot of fire in one moment. In that moment we might feel anger, frustration, and warm, hot, or burning sensations in the body. Many of us have a hard time being with these feelings. They're uncomfortable. But if we apply a quality of curiosity to them, if we stay with our experience long enough without looking to express or repress the feelings that come up, we'll notice them morph into another element. Maybe we'll experience some water element; we may be become sad, weepy, heavy, and maybe even tearful. It isn't that the elements follow an orderliness, but they do shift from moment-to-moment.
Asmita
The elemental approach is useful in that when we get a feeling we are either uncomfortable with or simply cannot be with, we can disentangle ourselves from the "I don't want" response, which leads to more "I don't want." Patanjali's notion of asmita, which is commonly translated as ego, is really an excessive sense of I or me. Two things comprise this false and excessive sense of I or me: the parts that cling to pleasure (raga) and the parts that avoid pain or discomfort (dvesa). Instead of being led around by the asmita, the five elements give a different lens to simply see what it is that we experience. While all personal experience can never be truly objective, the elements do give a quality of neutrality. As a result, they take us out of the propensity to think that whatever we are experiencing is either right or wrong. They take us out of the land of raga, dvesa, and asmmita and, instead, put us in touch with curiosity, openness, and discrimation (viveka).
So when we're awake to our discomfort, instead of seeking solutions, we can immediately start to ask, "What am I feeling here?" "Where is it?" "Is there a metaphor in nature I might use to describe it? Is it hot or cold? Heavy or light? Moving or fixed? Wet or dry?" "What is the primary element here?" "Are there any other elements present?" And then we can stay with the feelings as they shift by asking, "What am I noticing, now?" And then after a few moments, we can ask the same question, "What's happening, now?" Throughout the process if we remain open and curious to whatever shows up, we can begin to unravel and awaken to a deeper experience of wisdom.
Five Element Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores the five elements and its application to yoga practice. Be sure to check out the other posts!
- Part 1—Intro
- Part 2—Getting Unstuck
- Part 3—The Five Elements in History
- Part 4—The Ether Element
- Part 5—The Air Element
- Part 6—The Fire Element
- Part 7—The Water Element
- Part 8—The Earth Element
- Part 9-Transformational Breakthroughs
Five Elements Series Part 1: Intro
In this blog, I am offering up the five elements as a lens to explore our yoga practices. I practice and teach Ashtanga Yoga, and while I realize that the five elements is not necessarily associated with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois’ expression of the method, I’ve found it quite a useful tool for staying open and curious, especially in those places where I tend to check out and where I get uncomfortable. A lot of the work of growth and transformation associated with our yoga practices is about developing the capacity to turn and look at what it is that is coming up.
Abhyasa and Vairagya
This turning and looking is described-- in the twelfth verse of the first chapter of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the source text of yoga-- as abhyasa, which means 'to sit facing' something. In yoga, we face whatever comes up on a moment-to-moment basis, thoughts, sensations, emotions, etc. Along with abhyasa, the Sutras suggest that the yogi apply vairagya, which is often translated as non-attachment, but is better understood as not getting stirred up, freaked out or shut down. So abhyasa and vairagya are two polarities that the yogi cultivates: looking at something without freaking out. In yoga, that's particularly important because we're trying to unravel the avidya (misunderstanding or misapprehension) that permeates our lives. Without staying present, we can't see what we do, what we feel, or who we are. And there are a lot of experiences where we go unconscious, especially those that evoke feelings of discomfort, whether we feel pain, fatigue, fear, or sadness.
I find the five elements a particularly useful lens to use because they help me worry less when I don't feel good, when I am scared, or when I am tired. They help me just experience the sensations that come up in my body without reacting to them. I simply identify them as heat, cold (fire element); numb, heavy (earth element); deep and sad (water element); or moving, tingling, light, clear (air element). Instead of getting locked into trying to understand what they mean, why they're there or how to fix them, I just notice the qualities and elements that are coming up. As a result sensations and experiences that are uncomfortable tend to shift a lot quicker. So, for me, the most useful part of the tool is that it helps me not to get glued in some sort of analysis paralysis.
Recreating Balance
The other part I find useful is that the five elements can be an intuitive tool to use in order to recreate balance or harmony. So, if there's too much earth element and I am sleepy, I can apply the air element through deep breathing, to wake myself up. Or, if there's too much fire in the system, I might want to add both water and something to cool me down, kind of like putting cream in coffee. Coffee is really hot and bitter. Cream is cool and heavy. When we want to treat, heal, or rebalance ourselves on and off of the mat, the five elements can be a useful and intuitive tool that can help us understand and work with what comes up.
Using Language to Describe and Create
The five elements give us access to the language of the body and are a form of dharana and dhyana (concentration and meditation, the sixth and seventh limbs), themselves. In the inner work associated with yoga, it's important to develop a language that gives us access to our inner lives. Our work-a-day-world language does a decent job of describing the objective reality, but it doesn't do as well at describing the subjective worlds we simultaneously cohabit. So while it's easy to describe where I am sitting, who's sitting next to me, and what color the sky is, it isn't as easy to describe the feelings I have inside as I sit here writing this blog. That's why music and poetry touch each of us. While great poets and musicians can describe experiences, they are also capable of capturing qualities of the inner experiences, which touch us. As yogis, the nature-based metaphors associated with the five elements can be useful in distinguishing inner states of consciousness.
The elements are like a metaphorical language map that gives form to internal states. First of all, they can help us define qualities of consciousness, feeling states, emotions, and sensations. Additionally they are an intuitive categorization that can point out when we're close to the experience of yoga and when we're far away. And when we're off, we can use the five elements as a tool to harmonize or to create transformational breakthroughs.
So, for example, this morning, I got on the mat feeling fatigued and uninspired. My diagnosis: lack of fire and air and too much earth element. Fire--along with earth-- is a necessary ingredient to evoke the combustion for transformation. If there's too much earth in the form of fatigue and heaviness relative to fire, the fire of passion will feel like a spark instead of a standing or moving fire. The word inspiration comes from the same root, to inspire, or to breathe in. And what do we breathe in? Air. So when the air element is lacking, so is the spirit of inspiration, insight, and levity. The air helps us float along from one vinyasa to the next. Like fire, it is constantly in balance and interplay with the earth element. When there's not enough air, there's almost always too much earth. And so we experience a heaviness, lethargy, or fixity in our bodies.
Diagnosis and Treatment
This diagnosis is extremely helpful because it informs the way I move, what I highlight in my practice, and what I shift to the periphery. In my case this morning, I chose to focus on the deficiencies. I asked myself, "How do I increase fire?" One way that I know is to move more rapidly through the vinyasas. Additionally, I can either take five breaths per posture very rapidly, or I can take two, three or four breaths per asana, hopping and bopping from one asana to the next. In order to increase the air element I decided to emphasize the inhale over the exhale. And to even emphasize the point more, I chose to take an ever-so-short inhale retention.
I realize that some of the shifts I've made are a bit "non-traditional." This isn't what is being taught in Mysore, now. But its what I learned from Guruji. When I first went to Mysore in 1994, I was extremely stiff. I was one of those guys who couldn't touch his toes in a forward bend. And so when I asked him about working with my stiffness, he had me moving faster and making louder sounds on my exhale than my inhale. This rapid movement increased the fire that was needed to dissolve the earth element that was keeping my body stiff and stuck. Essentially, what I am saying is that historically, this was a practice of self-healing. Guruji had an incredible eye for noticing what was out of balance, whether it was your spine being off or your spirit. And he had a knack for giving us just the medicine we needed.
Likewise, each of us needs to learn to use the practice to treat ourselves medicinally. If we practice the same way, day-in-and-day-out, we'll bore ourselves out of the practice. Chit, consciousness, is the first thing that goes when we've lost interest. When that happens, we end up practicing on "auto-pilot." And when we've gone there, we're lost. It's also important to be able to tailor the practice to our individual body, mind, and spirit. Each of these aspects of our being needs to be honored by our practice, and each changes from day-to-day, moment-to-moment. We need to find and maintain a flexibility of approach such that our practices not only meet us where we are, but they heal us and lead us back to our truth, consciousness, and joy.
Five Element Series
This is one part in a nine-part series that explores the five elements and its application to yoga practice. Be sure to check out the other posts!
The Age of the Guru is Over…Now What?- Part 3
'The Age of the Guru is Over…Now What?' Series
This is the third part in a three-part series. In the first post, we explored the traditional relationship of the guru and disciple. In the second post, I made the argument that this relationship is no longer valid in this day and age. In this final posting, I will posit some ideas of what I think might replace it.
I've taken quite awhile to post this, partly because I wanted some feedback from friends. Thank you Brook, Lauren, Peter, Karen, and Norman for all of your insight and depth. Much of what is written below is the result of ongoing conversations that Devorah and I have had about the student-teacher relationship. It is the result of our collaboration and an elucidation on our mission at Mission Ashtanga, to create a safe space for transformation. So while I have written it, I want to give credit where credit is due.
Also, some of the ideas I am using, especially the idea of relationship design, has been drawn from the Co-Active Model designed by Henry-Kimsey House, Karen Kimsey-House, and Laura Whitworth, the founders of Coaches Training Institute. Whatever the reader’s preconceived opinions of coaching, I encourage him or her to put them on hold and be curious. I have found aspects of this model to be a useful tool in creating intimacy, connection, and trust with my students and wanted to present it in a way that applied to the teacher-student relationship in yoga.
I have been reticent to post this because I know that whatever I posit here is totally incomplete. This is a complex relationship and for every teacher-student relationship, there must be a unique form of relating. Likewise, there's just no way to sum up how a modern student-teacher relationship could possibly take the place of the guru-disciple relationship. It can't. That relationship is a unique one, a style of relating and relationship that is thousands and thousands of years old, and the tradition of it is a rich one. But at the same time, I think it's important to recognize, as I've said previously, that our modern Western, egalitarian culture doesn't condition us for such a relationship. Instead of growing and evolving through it, many of us have a propensity to abdicate our power in it.
So what I am hoping to provide below is a barebones framework that is loose enough so as not to stifle the relationship but not so loose as to be without structure. If the framework is too loose, both students and teachers run the risk of crossing boundaries, manipulating one another, projecting, and miscommunicating. The structure is designed to ward off some of these pitfalls. At the same time, I intend for the structure to be loose enough to accommodate the nuances that occur in any relationship, and to provide space for spontaneity, creativity, and intimacy to show up. That way the relationship can remain fluid, dynamic, and transformative.
Why It’s Important to Have a Teacher on the Path of Yoga
Not everyone who comes to yoga class is looking for the full-promise of yoga. Many students just want to get stronger, feel better, or have a positive group experience. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these approaches to yoga. Yoga is for everyone no matter where they are or what they want from the practice. However, I am starting with a little bit of theory to point out the fact that the work of yoga can be very, very deep. And, in this case, it can be extremely helpful to have a teacher. Not everyone wants to go there, and that’s perfectly fine. The description below is what’s possible from the practice of yoga, as described by Patanjali in The Yoga Sutras, a text dated sometime between the 2d centuries B.C. and A.D. and considered by many to be the authoritative source text that describes the path of yoga.
Historically the role of the guru was to help the disciple to distinguish (viveka) temporal from eternal, relative from absolute, truth from fiction, and light from dark. The tricky part of this work is that asmita, the excessive sense of I or me, often wants to assert itself. And the truth of the matter is that the asmita is not particularly adept at distinguishing truth, eternality, or the absolute. The asmita is in a sort of hell realm, constantly grasping to what gives pleasure and trying to avoid that which is uncomfortable. This hell realm is known in yoga as avidya, which can be translated as misunderstanding. A lot of the work of yoga is a slow, gentle a dismantling of this misunderstanding associated with this excessive 'I-clinging.' One might argue that the role of the guru was to make sure that this 'I-clinging' didn’t get in the way of the process of realization.
That’s why most traditional schools of yoga or Buddhism emphasized the teacher-student relationship and not the practice of postures or meditation, alone. Without a teacher the aspirant risked misleading him or herself. He or she risked being led around by a craving for pleasure (raga) and a repulsion of discomfort (dvesa). For Patanjali, yoga wasn't about feeling good, nor was it about feeling bad, either. It was a game of noticing that which was beyond pleasure and pain, clinging and aversion. It was a game of noticing essence, truth, and the absolute through a long, steady process of discernment. According to Patanjali, this process takes continuous practice (abhyasa) and the skill of non-clinging to pleasure or aversion to discomfort (vairagya) to be able to see clearly (1.12).
Very few of us naturally have this discipline. It's not easy to be with discomfort. Many of us can be with some discomfort. Few of us can be with it for extended periods of time. Nor are we apt to give up our 'I-clinging.' The process of letting go of what we cling to and being with what we’re averse to is counterintuitive. Additionally, the role of the guru presupposes that no matter how earnest we are, we can all get pretty slippery from time to time, and this can take us off of the path, even when we think we're on it. In other words, it can be pretty useful to have a relationship with someone who is committed to our growth and transformation, someone who can offer an honest reflection and guidance, too.
What Qualifies a Teacher?
And yet, we're living in a time when none of our teachers are fully illuminated. So what kind of criteria do we employ to choose someone to teach us? Do we choose a teacher because he or she has been on the path longer than we have? I don’t think that this is a valid reason to study with someone. Length of time does not qualify someone to be a teacher. I can't tell you how often I run into ‘20-somethings’ who are so darn wise these days. I don’t know what’s happening to our gene pool, but I am excited by the generation that’s in their 20’s these days.
So what standards shall we use to determine the qualification of a teacher?
▪ Years on the mat?
▪ Years spent with the leader of the tradition?
▪ Displays of mastery?
▪ 200 hours of teacher training?
▪ 400 hours of teacher training?
What determines a qualified teacher? How the heck are we going to experience the full promise of yoga without someone who's qualified? And how are we to determine those qualifications?
Above is a rough outline of the teaching model I describe below. At the heart of the model is the student's evolution. That should be at the heart of the teacher-student relationship. The spokes around the central wheel represent the qualities of relating that the teacher provides. The relationship is wrapped in the 'designed relationship,' which is essentially a spoken agreement that the teacher and student make with each other in service to the student's evolution. The foundational blocks at the bottom of the model represent presuppositions and prerequisites within that relationship that create clarity, safety, honesty while at the same time empower the relationship.
Collaborative Relationship Designing
The problem is that it is impossible to be qualified to be a guru in this day and age. Gurus are 'fully-cooked,' so to speak. And most yoga teachers aren’t even close. We all have some clarity and a lot is still obscure. And while some of the prerequisites I list above can be helpful, I don’t think that any one of them can prepare a teacher to support a student on their path.
So I am starting with a basic premise: no one is perfectly qualified for the role of a teacher. Everyone in that role will be imperfect, flawed, and will make mistakes. It can be extremely helpful to start from the most basic recognition that our teachers will be and are human, people with good intentions who might fail us, nonetheless. Given that, how do we find ourselves in loving, trusting relationships with a teacher that can support us in our evolution along the path of yoga?
It starts with an agreement that I call relationship design. In relationship design, the context for a relationship is spelled out. In other words, it is a conscious contract that provides clear boundaries and a sense of direction for both teacher and student. When the agreement isn’t clear boundaries are crossed that can do damage. I once had a really bad experience with a teacher in which I abdicated my own common sense in favor of my teacher’s common sense, thinking that her’s was ‘more enlightened’ than mine. By doing so, I made a decision that went totally against my own code of ethics. As a result, it kind of ruined me for a period and destroyed some significant relationships that meant a lot to me. Had we designed clearer boundaries along with the space where I could struggle with decisions myself, I might not have had to experience that suffering. As a result of that experience, I am acutely aware that as a teacher, I cannot presuppose anything about my students wants or needs. In other words, I don’t know what’s best for my students. I am constantly asking my students to design with me what they need.
So when it comes to the relationship of teacher and student, it can help the process immensely for that relationship to be crystal clear. When it’s clear, both student and teacher can feel confident in their respective roles. The more committed student and teacher are to staying in communication, even and especially when the going gets rough, the more powerful that relationship can be. The more communication around the structure of that relationship, the safer it is for the student to delve inward and to know that he or she is supported. Additionally, it is critical that the relationship be continually tended to and be kept tidy. At the end of this piece, I give an example of how to start the conscious design of a student-teacher relationship. Have a look. Give it a try.
Humanity as the Doorway to a Sacred Friendship
Given the premise stated above, that no teacher is perfectly qualified to teach, it can be immensely helpful if both teacher and student start by recognizing the sanctity of the relationship. This relationship has the potential to be a form of yoga itself. It has the potential to be something quite unusual. As you read on, you’ll see that what makes it unusual is that it is one rooted in collaboration and based as much as possible in agreement, transparency, and intimacy. When both teacher and student fathom the honor of the relationship, both naturally hold one another to a particularly high standard.
In the few times that I taught classes for a friend in Tokyo, I have been struck by the way Japanese students regarded the sensei. As the teacher, I sensed the students’ reverence in a way that we in the West have difficulty comprehending. Given the level of surrender these students demonstrated, it would have been quite possible for me to take advantage of the situation, but I personally found it the case that I couldn’t help but step up in a way that I’d never stepped up as a teacher before. It was a great honor to be held as an authority, one that I couldn’t help but want to meet.
Likewise, I’ve experienced students walking into my classes with a sort of disregard for the role of the teacher. That’s perfectly fine. Not everyone would like a teacher, and many of us have experienced wounds at the hands of teachers. At the same time, without a regard for the sacredness of the roles, the teacher-student relationship takes on the quality of being a financial transaction, “payment for poses,” kind of a boring way of relating.
So honoring the sacredness is one part to this premise. Another part is that because the teacher is never perfectly qualified to teach, he or she can be regarded as human, warts and all. Some of us want our teachers to be extraordinary, but they're not. This is a real set up for failure, the teacher failing the student and visa versa. But when the student can recognize and interact with the teacher’s humanity, a true connection can start to be established, one that encourages a quality of human-centered friendship. It is rare to have a relationship where one’s humanity is honored. Very few of us experience relationships where we have permission to share all of ourselves and all parts are welcome.
Another boon associated with recognizing the teacher’s humanity is that it allows for both the teacher and the student to make mistakes. Relationships where mistakes are valued are dynamic and creative. Both people aren’t afraid to try things, to mess up, and to have breakthroughs. If the teacher has to play-it-safe for the sake of not upsetting the relationship, the relationship lacks a sort of dynamism that’s necessary to face the tough stuff that comes up on and off the mat.
The Shadow: Trust and Transparency
Both students and teachers have their limits of what they’re capable of working with in the shadow-work that shows up on the mat and in the relationship. Playing with this edge can be very useful. For the teacher to take the student past the student’s edge, he or she must be confident in that territory him or herself. The teacher has no business shoving students into areas that are unfamiliar to the teacher. Below, I describe the prerequisites of teachers: self-study, peer feedback, and mentor feedback. All of these ensure that the teacher is doing the inner work necessary to support their students when they enter unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory.
Because the work of yoga confronts some of our most intimate spots, the student must be able to trust the teacher as much as possible. And so there has to be agreement between the teacher and student such that the student grants the teacher permission to head into a particular area, especially areas that feel vulnerable or scary. All it takes is a simple request, like “Is it okay if we go here?” Sometimes it can be helpful to create more dialogue before entering in.
In my first year as a teacher, I ran into a situation that I am not proud of but feel that it’s pertinent to share. I had a student who was very, very proficient at Ashtanga Yoga. I thought, “This guy is good. Let’s keep him going!” So I kept giving him pose after pose. Eventually he started to say stuff like, “I’m good. I don’t need any more, now.” But I kept adding poses on. At some point, he stopped coming to class, and I found out through the grapevine that he’d had a psychotic break that he considered a ‘kundalini rising.’ While I don’t take full-responsibility for what happened, I had a part, a big one. I was pushing, thinking that I knew best, when, in fact, he knew better. That experience taught me a lot about both trusting the wisdom of my students and keeping the conversation clear.
Throughout that work, it can be helpful to be transparent. Transparency isn’t just in the hands of the student. It can be extremely helpful and useful for the teacher to share when they’re confused, concerned or scared in relationship to what’s happening with a student. If the teacher has to pretend to be okay when he or she is not okay, it creates a low-level of distrust in the relationship. Transparency feels counterintuitive, but it’s honest. And being honest is an incredible gift that the teacher grants the relationship. It creates trust. When there is trust in the relationship, students and teachers enter into an intimate dialogue that is not misconstrued or taken advantage of by one or both parties. When there’s a lot of trust in a relationship, there is no telling what's possible for the student.
Selfless Service
The role of the teacher can be tricky. Occasionally students adore their teachers. Sometimes they loathe them. If the teacher is caught in the ‘popularity game,’ he or she will end up being manipulative. I've been caught in it, myself, from time-to-time. Occasionally, I will notice myself trying to use my charm to get students to like me. Once again, I am not proud of this, but it happens, and I don’t think I am the only teacher that’s fallen prey to wanting to be liked.
My proudest moments, though, have been when I've seen a student uncover something she or he'd been confused about or struggling with; when I've seen him or her diligently stick with something even when it was really uncomfortable; and in those moments when his or her wisdom, brilliance, and insight emerged with more clarity than that of a diamond.
In these moments my focus was not on me but on my students and their discovery process. That doesn't mean that I was perfectly objective, neutral, or impersonal. It just meant that my stance was first and foremost about my students, not about getting my personal wants and needs gratified. In short, the role of the teacher is one of self-less service for the sake of evoking the student’s evolution.
In Service to Evolution/ Granting the Respect of Autonomy
Part of the challenge this relationship faces is the fact that the student is paying the teacher to provide a service. In most service positions, the role of the server is to provide both care and comfort. While care and comfort may be useful qualities to cultivate in a teacher-student relationship, they cannot be the only qualities. If the student expects to experience the full promise of yoga, then the relationship has to have room to be edgy and uncomfortable, as well. Without that, the yoga room becomes a ‘feel-good space,’ and this doesn’t really have anything to do with this path of distinguishing (vivieka) misunderstanding (avidya).
The teacher’s primary responsibility, then, is to the evolution of his or her students, not to the perpetuation avidya. This is where the role of the teacher can get tenuous. Manipulative teachers have been known to take advantage of this aspect to the role of the teacher. They’ve justified narcissistic behavior as something that’s “best for the student” when, in fact, it’s actually best for the teacher.
Being in service to the student’s evolution means that the teacher isn’t always in agreement with the student and is granted enough trust by the student to assert what needs to be asserted for the student’s growth. At the same time, the teacher grants the student the respect for their capacity to make decisions. Decisions of the student are of their own choosing and those decisions have to be respected.
Presupposing Our Students are Whole Rather Than Broken
Early in this discussion, I was speaking of the basic premise that no one is perfectly qualified for the role of a teacher. Similarly, it might also be useful to start from another premise, that students are whole and complete. They’re not broken. They don’t need to be fixed. In fact, the role of the teacher is to empower the student to trust him or herself, especially those parts that are innately wise, compassionate, and clear. This is a very unusual premise.
In most teacher-student relationships, the role of the teacher is to presuppose that the student has something wrong that needs to be altered, changed, or reworked. Rarely is this, in fact, the case. In the years that I have been teaching, I have rarely come across someone looking to be put back together again. When this is the case, psychiatry and psychotherapy can be extremely useful adjuncts to yoga therapy. But more often than not, students that have shown up to my classes are resourceful enough to make good decisions. Sometimes, it can be helpful for me to offer my expertise or to ask questions. Ultimately, I leave the decision in the hands of my students. If I regard my student either as broken, confused, or lost, it can be nearly impossible for him or her to access his or her own clarity. If the student cannot trust that something within is innately wise, then he or she will remain lost at sea.
I personally have had mentors and friends that have wanted to fix me at certain low-points in my life, people who had very good intentions, in fact. The problem with those relationships was that I would often abdicate my will to them, and while they may have steered me away from dangerous rapids, I never learned to either ride the rapids or to identify them in the distance.
When I can cultivate my students' confidence in their decision-making capacity, magic begins to happen for them. They begin to trust the wise parts of themselves to lead with clarity. So much of the baggage my students come in with is not from being egotistical. They don’t need to be knocked down and then eventually rebuilt. On the contrary, most of my students struggle with a degree of self-doubt, lacking the confidence that they know how to make good, sound decisions. When a teacher can cultivate a student’s innate strength, the process of clarifying (viveka) can take place.
Prerequisite: Svadhyaya: Continuously Growing and Evolving
If a teacher is not actually walking the path, he or she probably shouldn't be teaching it. Now, there's a lot of wiggle room in terms of what that means. If, for example, a teacher has a knee injury and doesn't practice various asanas, it doesn't mean that he or she is not qualified to teach. That's too literal a translation. The essence of what I am suggesting is that a teacher needs to be growing and evolving and in self-study (svadhyaya) in order to be able to help his or her students sort out their struggles. That really must be a prerequisite to teaching.
Prerequisite: Peer and Teacher/ Mentor Feedback
Another prerequisite must be that a teacher has a teacher or mentor of their own and a peer body to get honest feedback from. If the only people a teacher receives feedback from are his or her students, he or she risks becoming narcissistic or bipolar. Sometimes students love the teacher. Sometimes they don’t. And student feedback is biased, by nature. Peer and mentor feedback is not.
I've been very lucky in my years of teaching. I have had some smart teachers that I've partnered with who I've given permission to give it to me straight. It doesn't always feel so good to know when I am off base in a particular situation, either with a student or in the classroom, but with that feedback, I've learned a lot.
Having peers also gives one a sense of camaraderie, the sense that while the experiences of teaching are different, the essence of it is the same. I often find it comforting to have a space in my peer relationships where we can commiserate about the ups and downs of teaching. It normalizes experiences and situations where I do not feel confident.
Finally, having a teacher or mentor is critical for most teachers. It can be extremely useful to have someone to share confusions with, to seek clarification from, and to learn the art of deeper inquiry. Teachers need teachers and peers! These simple measures ward off the possibility of vainglory, a common pitfall associated with being in any role of authority.
A New Conversation
We’re living in different times, spiritually speaking, now that the age of the guru is over, but that does not mean we cannot experience the promise of yoga. It just means that we have to get a little creative. What I’ve presented above is very preliminary. I welcome all of your feedback. I have no intention of this being a ‘final statement,’ but, instead, something to evoke a conversation, something that we as a community have the courage to struggle with.
The Sangha May Be the Next Guru...
Before I end, I want to share a suggestion that Ken Wilbur posited, that the new guru is the sangha or community of like-minded individuals on the spiritual path together. I have actually had several experiences of living in and amongst communities. More often than not, there is no uniform agreement within it to use it as a tool for transformation. When there is, however, the experience can be absolutely brilliant and searing, at the same time.
I notice that we’re in a time when we long for community and yet we’re all frightened of it, of exposing ourselves and of being exposed. Likewise, many of our most painful moments have been in community, so we all have a lot of wounding around community, as well. But we’re also lonely, disconnected, and disjointed. And community can be a powerful place to reconnect, again. That’s why I think Wilbur might just be right. It might just be the perfect opportunity to wake us up to our true nature. Your thoughts?
Exercise: Designing a Relationship With Your Teacher
It may seem a bit artificial, at first, to have a ‘sit down’ with your teacher, especially if you have an ongoing relationship with him or her, however, the results can be very powerful and pivotal for you, him or her, and your practice. By the way, the design doesn’t end after the first conversation. It is constantly being re-negotiated. That way, the relationship remains both flexible and tidy. Below are just a few pondering questions that may give you a sense of what might be shared in such a conversation.
- What exactly do you need and want from your teacher? From your practice? For yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc.? If your relationship with him or her were to have a huge impact in your life what would it look like?
- What’s your sense of what will really support your growth in the practice?
- How do you want your teacher to handle you around risk taking? Does it help to push you, to be gentle with you, or to be somewhere in between?
- When and how do you tend to get evasive? Do you stop coming to practice? Do you get angry? Do you shut down? How do you want your teacher to be with you when you do?
- Where do you usually get stuck, either in your practice or in relationship? When you are stuck, what can he or she say that will bring you back to the present moment?
What does your teacher need from you in order to support your evolution?
The Age of the Guru is Over…Now What?- Part 2
'The Age of the Guru is Over…Now What?' Series
This is second part in a three-part series. In the previous posting, we explored what the traditional relationship of guru and disciple was like. In this postings, we'll examine how this relationship may not apply to this day-and-age. In our final posting, I posit some ideas of what I think might replace it.
Guru Projections
We in the West have an awkward relationship with this sort of authority. We tend to think of the guru-shishya relationship as one of projection. The shishya abdicates power to the guru by projecting all things parental onto him. I saw this, and even experienced it, first hand when I studied at Pattabhi Jois’ Ashtanga Yoga Nilayam throughout the 90s. Guruji could play the face of our good father quite well. He could also be the fierce father, the tender father, the wise grandpa, and many, many more. Much of the relationship we shared with our guru depended on our unfinished business. In a lot of ways, many of us were working out our daddy stuff with him, whether we wanted to admit it or not.
Today, I have little doubt that most of the projection I had with him had almost nothing to do with who he actually was, but being a great teacher, he willingly took on the various fatherly roles and allowed us to act them out with him in order to move through some of the leftover childhood stuff. While a lot of us got great benefit from this form of relating, I saw some of my fellow guru bhai (disciple brothers and sisters) leave the practice altogether because they could never separate the projection from the man that he was. And some left because when they did, they were sorely disappointed.
Guru or Snake Oil Salesman?
But unlike an authentic guru, who is regarded with great respect in his culture, our teachers in the West are looked upon with a degree of skepticism. We do not have the same opinion of the spiritual dimension that Asian cultures do. In the audio CD, The Roots of Buddhist Psychology, Jack Kornfield describes the experience of being a monk in Thailand and accepting alms from people who could barely feed themselves. The work of the monks was so important and valued, that the lay community would starve to feed them.
We, in the West tend to hold people of spiritual authority, with doubt and distrust. Fundamentally we resist being conned. It is not uncommon to see leaders of spiritual movements initially elevated by their followers and eventually disgraced by those same people. Just look at the recent John Friend-Anusara Yoga and Diamond Mountain University scandals. I don’t know the inside scoop, but what’s clear is that students revere their teachers as if they were gods and then they, somehow, fall off the pedestal. They're human.
But we as a society tend to hold people who run or lead spiritual movements to a higher standard than we hold even our politicians. Because they’re leading us into spiritual practice, they have to be unblemished by any one of the seven deadly sins; in fact, in some way or another they need to be perfect.
However, when you look closely at the lives of some of the great teachers from the East, the so-called illuminated gurus, what we’ll find is nothing but humans, people steeped in tradition and teaching and, at the same time, riddled with human foibles. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the Tibetan spiritual leader that founded Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, had the reputation of drinking beer all day long and had quite an appetite for young women. Osho, also known as Bhagawan Shree Rajneesh, the founder of Osho Ashram and Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, was addicted to nitrous oxide and also was known for his affairs with his female disciples. Amrit Desai, the yoga master who founded Kripalu Institute, had to resign as director after his multiple extramarital affairs were exposed.
Does that make these men any less spiritually advanced? We in the West would like to think so. It’s quite possible that we want to believe that our spiritual leaders represent the perfect parent, the one we didn’t grow up with. The truth of the matter is that we all make mistakes, sometimes even very big ones, ones that hurt others badly. I am thinking, at this moment, of the priests who mistreat(ed) children. Without a doubt, this behavior is inexcusable; however, it demonstrates that we can no longer afford to completely relinquish our power to the charismatic individuals that lead our spiritual movements.
God is Dead
These people are human, just like you and me. Perhaps there was a time when there were gurus who were truly unblemished, but we’re living in a very different period, historically speaking. When Nietzsche said, “God is dead,” what he meant was that we can no longer rely on the church, the mosque, the monastery, the lama, the guru, or even a philosophy for our salvation. For him, these forms of authority had become completely discredited. As a result, it was up to each of us to find our way.
I am not suggesting that we do it alone. We need others to support our growth and development, but when we are always looking for the wisdom, the compassion, and the answers outside of ourselves, we forget that we're just projecting. It can help immensely to love and revere our teachers while simultaneously never forgetting that that which we love and revere is The Self. Essentially, what I am arguing is that when we take the projections back, when we take responsibility for our own transformation, we stop the game of elevating teachers or the spiritual lineages we come from in a way that does not serve us. Likewise, we also stop being disappointed when our gurus turn out to be human, just like you and me.
In the next post, I will offer an alternative to this traditional guru-disciple relationship. Be sure to check in early next week. You can also subscribing to our blog on the upper left corner of this page or returning to our site in the next few days.
The Age of the Guru is Over…Now What?- Part 1
This afternoon I’ve been perusing various Youtube videos on Ashtanga Yoga looking for inspiration when all of a sudden I got what I was looking for. I came across this video in which Richard Freeman, a well-known Ashtanga Yoga teacher, is speaking on a panel at the Urban Zen Well Being 2007 Forum. What struck me about that clip was that he was making the point that “it’s no longer the age of the guru;” in fact, a new model is being born in the West in which the relationship of student to teacher is one of “equal partnership on both sides.” In this article, I intend to explore what the traditional guru-disciple relationship was like; how it is no longer valid in this day and age; and what we might replace it with.
The Guru-Disciple Relationship
The role of the guru dates back to the period of the Upanishads, around 1000 B.C.E. Prior to this period, Hindu spirituality was expressed in the act of sacrifice to the gods. The gods were thought to be outside forces that needed to be manipulated in order to maintain order. The Brahmans (priestly caste) were in charge of maintaining the spiritual order in the form of sacrifice.
But by the ninth century, a new revelation began to be expressed. Instead of gods, like Shiva or Brahma, dwelling outside, the gods were considered inner experiences, inner energies that could be met and used for personal transformation. Anyone could, now, have a direct access to the gods. It wasn’t just the Brahmans (priestly caste). The term "Upanishad" derives from the Sanskrit words upa (near), ni (down) and şa (to sit) — so it means to "sit down near" a spiritual teacher to receive instruction in discovering these powers within.
The role of the guru was to illuminate the shishya (disciple) from the darkness of illusion through esoteric knowledge. Gu means to dispel. Ru is the darkness of ignorance. In order for this new revelation to be expressed, the guru’s knowledge needed to be vast. He needed to have been someone who had already awoken from the dream of maya (illusion), awake to the direct experience of the purusa (indweller, soul). Additionally he needed to have been a shishya of a guru, himself and to have received his guru’s blessing to impart the wisdom.
Hierarchical Roles
The role of the shishya’s was primarily devotion, commitment, and obedience. In exchange, the guru taught through discourse, through silence, through medicine, and through imparting esoteric practices. The guru offered what he could to illuminate his disciples into the truth, knowledge, and experience within. But the role was hierarchical. The shishya was in the hands of his guru. If the guru took advantage of his position, then that was the risk the disciple took.
In Aṣṭadaḷa Yogamālā: Articles, Lectures, Messages by B. K. S. Iyengar, the author describes the brutality, at times, of his guru, T.K.V. Krishmacharya, how “his moods and modes were very difficult to comprehend and always unpredictable. Hence, we were always alert in his presence. He was like a great Zen master in the art of teaching. He would hit us hard on our backs as if with iron rods. We were unable to forget the severity of his actions for a long time.” (Iyengar, B.K.S. Aṣṭadaḷa Yogamālā: Articles, Lectures, Messages. Mumbai: Allied Publishers Private Limited, 2006. Print. p. 53)
And in an interview I dug up in my files dating back to 1993, Pattabhi Jois says this about his guru:
My guru was a very difficult man…One example of his callousness, which I tell about is this: on the Sanskrit College’s anniversary day a large celebration was staged which the Maharaja attended. We were to give a demonstration on the ground…There was no podium so my guru told me to do kapotasana (an extreme backbend) and stood on top of me for 10-15 minutes giving a lecture. There was a small tree coming out of the ground that had been haphazardly cut several inches from the ground. The sharp end of the stick stabbed into my shoulder and stayed there, penetrating more and more deeply as the lecture went on…After the lecture I stood up and was covered with blood…For 15 days I could not move my arm. ~Pattabhi Jois
Imagine the lawsuits that might have taken place had Krishnamacharya been teaching at the local Yoga studio these days? Clearly, times have changed.
'The Age of the Guru is Over…Now What?' Series
This is one part in a three-part series. In the next posting, we will explore how this relationship is no longer valid in this day and age. In our final posting, I will posit some ideas of what I think might replace it. Be sure to check out these other posts over the next few days, either by returning to this blog or by subscribing to our blog on the upper left corner of this page.