Off the Mat 1

I am learning in yoga class how easily I can get "offended" by others actions. I take things too personally. It can be crowded in class and hard to find a space enough to stretch myself into position. Lines can form as students grab extra blankets, chairs, and bolsters. Props can run out leaving me feeling quite perturbed, left out, and neglected.

"Take responsibility for yourself and others," our teacher tells us in class. Which means, take up only the space you need, make room for others, help your neighbor put away props, and watch where you put your foot. Being very attentive to where your body is in space is part of our practice. Through this I see how difficult it is for me to translate an instruction into action, "I though I was lifting my chin, straightening my arm, twisting at the ribs, making space for my neighbor."

In taking responsibility for myself and others in class, I see how many times I, in contrast, expect others to care for me. How I can feel offended when someone "takes up too much of my space", puts a foot too close to my chin, grabs the blanket I took down from the shelf. I do these things as well when I am tired, frustrated, angry, off-centered and without care to how it makes my neighbors feels. When my first reaction is to grasp at things, space, attention more tight in class, I am trying now to practice more graciousness and in this way find more ease and compassion, lightness in my body, in my life.

It is a practice I am learning to bring to my life off the mat. I try to leave early for appointments so I don't have to hurry in the car and feel the need to drive through the crosswalk, to let another car pass, to slow down when approaching a light. I notice more now how others make my way easier as well, slowing down when I am wanting to cross, letting me take a parking space, holding a door. It is a way to care for ourselves and others, to not interpret others actions as a personal affront, to find a way towards kindness to myself, to others.

I practice yoga

This has been my mantra lately.

When the dark pull of longing might take me away from myself I remember, "I practice yoga."

When I feel lost, numb, afraid, I tell myself, "This is my yoga practice."

When waves of sadness wash over me, "This to is my yoga."

I am breaking open to something new in my life and it can hurt. My practice offers me a way into the pain, the emptiness whose contours I touch, gently with compassion and in this way find spaciousness, freedom, choices.

In our backbend practice this week (up again and again and again our teacher urges us) I found a wide bright expansive landscape inside. Like the view from a mountain top on a clear day, all before me appeared with clarity, equanimity, poise.

"This is my practice," to remember this spaciousness even as storm clouds gather, the horizons thicken, to welcome the heavy rain into my dry soil.

My practice is yoga.

Why We Practice?

My teacher asks this of us from time to time.

Lois Steinberg, a Senior Iyengar teacher answered this way, "For joy and presence."

Here are some responses from others in my class:

For...Inner peace, Quiet, the Soul, Flexibility, Strength, Compassion, Self-reflection, Equanimity.

I am trying to practice every morning, with devotion, with focus (dhayana). It is a commitment I have long sought but which has eluded me. Over the years I have had a home practice; sometimes with the radio on, sometimes just a dog pose and one leg stretch. Over the past two years, now that my child is older and I have time in the morning, I have begun a more regular practice. But it has still been one that can lack devotion, focus, my loving attention. It has gotten repetitive.

But, now, I am letting go of thinking about having a more focus, engaging, concentrated practice and I am doing. Having an intention to practice is a first step but I find I need something to fuel that intention; especially on cold winter mornings when it is still dark when I rise!

Something more to get me up and to the mat, more than strength, a body that looks and feels "good", a nimble back; all things that may or may not be depending on the day. Something that is unchanging, dependable, reliable.

That something more I have found to fuel my intention, at least for now, is myself, quiet, calm, penetrated by a warm clear inner light; my soulself who is inside waiting for the muddy waters to settle with as much yearning to meet me as I have to meet her.

How to Stop Thinking

The stress that saturates the brain is decreased through asana (yoga poses) and pranayama (breath), so the brain is rested, and there is a release from strain....Not only do they (asana and pranayama) prepare our bodies, spine, and breath for the challenge of inner serenity....they bestow the firmness to live with equanimity in the vicissitudes of the world's hurly-burly. from Light on Life, BKS Iyengar

That the body needs preparation for serenity is a new idea for me. For most of my life, in contrast, I have attempted to use my mind to sooth my anxieties, worries, fears. I have sought comfort, pleasure, and the avoidance of pain through thought, endless ruminations, doing rather than being, and failed attempts to figure things out.

Pema Chodron writes that, "Wanting to find a place where everything's okay is just what keeps us miserable." But this is what my mind has craved; ease, rest, serenity.

What I am finding new through asana and pranayama are just these things; ease, rest, serenity, but through the body not the mind. The mind is quieted as my lungs are irrigated with deep breath, the spine loosened from thick plack, the hips and throat oxygenated with fresh blood. The body in this way prepares the mind to rest, to let go of doing, to rest in the full heart. Dualities of pain/pleasure, ease/struggle, calm/confusion dissolve into just what is; an ache in the chest, a tightness in the jaw, the release of heat in the sore hamstring. In this way, the body prepares the mind to find respite in paradox, unknowing, humility, compassion.

In Silence

This ability to still and gently silence the mind is essential not only for meditation and the inward journey but also so that the intuitive intelligence can function usefully and in a worthwhile manner in the external world.BKS Iyengar, Light on Life

In that silence, what does my intuitive intelligence tell me? That it is good to take time for myself, to be alone, quiet, and with nothing to do. That all feelings and experiences are worthwhile. That love and attention, to one another, to ourselves, not only envelops but penetrates, softens, and opens our hearts. To let go, let go, let go again of fear.

My Loneliness

Here is what Pema Chodron says about Loneliness: Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. It's restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we rest in the middle of it, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a cooling loneliness that turns our usual fearful patterns upside down.

Almost every day, I seek escape, consolation, protection from my loneliness. I feel it approaching even before it is in sight, like the hot tendrils of headache before the pain. Daily, I seek a savior to rescue me from this dark hole. To my savior I say, “This is your fault that I am lonely. If only you could provide me with “enough” then I would not hunger so.”

Tuesday I found myself in a hotel lobby after the conference with that familiar smell of loneliness in the air. My loneliness likes to visit me when I am alone in hotels. I had been inside a windowless space for hours so went for a walk in the warm sun by the river. A short ways down the trail there was a playground and a sandy place where children and their caregivers feed bread to geese, ducks and gulls. I sat in the bright warm sun so unusual for mid October and remembered feeding ducks with my father, my grandmother. How fascinated I was by their squawking, their fast gobbling of the bread, their displeasure from greedy companions. All of a sudden, my beloved yoga teacher walked by! What a surprise. She lives near that path. I would see her in a few hours for class. She smiled at me, “This is one of my most favorite places to walk.” A gift sent by the universe, I thought, so that I might know I am not alone.

After, I was tired and hungry, for real, I realized this now. So ate a banana, drank sweet tea, sat in a large leather chair and let the loneliness engulf me. Despite the ducks and children, the warm sun, my teacher the loneliness was still in front of me. I entered the loneliness as fully as possible, felt with my hands the wet stone walls of this cave, the dripping mosses, the slippery planks. I sensed a spaciousness there and surprising room to breath. For a time the physical sensations and emotional sensations were so strong that I could not feel anything else. Only a part of me was still in the hotel so much of my gaze captivated by the inner otherworldly darkness, the rough stone walls, the damp air. I kept having to let go of wanting to be rescued by my saviors; desire, ruminations, thinking, doing. The pull of longing was so very strong until it wasn’t.

This journey ended well although this was not inevitable. I had yoga, afterall, and knew that the yoga would show me a way back to a warmer place, the inner path of connection. I don’t think I would have dared to go so fully into loneliness without this stop gap.

On Desire

The capacity to stay awake when gripped by desire is one of the great gifts that yoga can offer us. Sally Klempton

My mind flings me wildly and consistently from one desire to the next towards all the things I think I need to be okay. Whether that is a new pair of shoes, a nicer car, a better job, or a sweeter dessert, my needs can feel endless, infinite, never-ending. What I am discovering through yoga, however, is the existence of a desire underneath the desire for things, one that longs for love, the unconditional kind, that is unwavering, always available, not stingy, enough.

Moving towards this inner love is a creative process. In creativity, there is a merging of oneself to the unknown, the unexpected, the mystery. It is a beautiful dance between the deepest self and the universe. Everything seen, touched, and tasted becomes a colorful oil for your palette.

Still, I can forget all of this when I am lonely, tired, feeling forgotten. Coming into contact with my superficial desires, I can be propelled into fast action; to taste NOW the crispy donut skin, allow NOW the chocolate to melt in my mouth, to bow NOW on the stage before the applauding fans. My mind seeks refuge in a full bank account, a refrigerator stocked with food, a full gas tank, a healthy mother.

The practice of yoga helps me to cultivate the alternative; an unflinching mind that can watch desires come and go without reacting. I feel my spine in a pose, see the unbalance in the lungs, feel a heaviness in one thigh bone but not another. In redirecting the mind to the body, my mind pauses just enough to see the wave like flow of desire as it grows to a tremulous peak before falling apart. In yoga, I learn to surrender to the breaking waters rather than struggling to make them go away. In surrender, there is grief in the loss of what I had hoped would be as I turn to a recognition of what is.

Grief like a tap root the source of growth, creativity, union with the Soul.