Pure Awareness
Listening to the Whole
While I was living in an ashram in Southern India, I spent much of my time sitting cross-legged: practicing pranayama, inmeditation, listening to lectures on Indian Philosophy and to Swamiji’s talks, and eating meals. When I wasn’t sitting I was practicing asana, hiking the mountains of upper Kodaikanal, or foraging for fruit, though the monkeys always seemed to get there before I did. One day while coming down the mountain, I lowered my left foot to meet the earth and with no apparent misstep, twist, or torque, I felt an excruciating pain in my left knee. I couldn’t bend it and was forced to hobble down the rest of the way with what felt like a pegleg. I had to walk like that for days afterward. Eventually the severity of the pain began to dissolve, but it never completely went away.
Living With Pain
When I returned to the states, I didn’t have health insurance, and when it became mandatory to get insurance, I had the catastrophic kind. Definitely not one with benefits to see a physical therapist. I haven’t been able to hike with any amount of elevation gain because on the descent it was always trouble, and I’d be laid up not being able to walk properly for a couple of days or more. Over the last few years, I’ve seen a handful of different types of practitioners: a chiropractor, a physical therapist, and an acupuncturist who specialized in sports medicine. I did all of my homework, trying this, trouble shooting that:
Was it my vastus medialis (one of the quadriceps muscles) not firing properly?
Was it weakness in my gluteus medius?
Tight tensor fascia latae?
At the end of an intense year, finally my physical therapist (whom I adore) recommended I get an MRI. There I was a couple weeks later, laying as still as possible, getting my knee scanned. If you’ve never gotten imaging like that, let me tell you, it’s really challenging to lay still, even for someone with a lot of mindfulness practice like myself!
When the results came back, everyone was surprised to see that I had fluid in my anterior tibia marrow. This can happen when there’s injury to the bone, but typically the body reabsorbs this fluid over the course of several months. Why hadn’t mine? Well, we weren’t sure. The following months were spent doing lymph massage, elevation, castor oil and essential oils, with alternating hot and cold applications. Every night, including almost every night while I was traveling and teaching in Thailand, I would spend a half hour or more with these therapies. I also did fascia massages one to two times a day while my students were practicing savasana. Now you know what I was up to at the end of class! After a couple of months, my knee had recovered. I sat cross-legged for much of three days while I was in a yoga therapy training without pain. While I need to condition my body to do big hikes, I’m now able to go down stairs and down hill without discomfort. I’m over the moon!
Our Body Knows
The reason I’m writing isn’t to detail the history of my left knee, though I wanted you to know the significance of this injury in my life. I’m writing because of something my physical therapist and I talked about, that helped me to shift my relationship with chronic injuries.
She told me that we all have our “spots” that flare up when there’s some sort of imbalance in the physical body, mentally or emotionally, and often these spots have been injured in the past.
But when they flare up, it doesn’t always equate with being re-injured. It could be that when there’s emotional stress or upset, we’ll experience pain in that all too familiar area. And what’s going on during these times is communication.
Our body is saying:
“Hey, there’s something important to pay attention to!”, or
“Something’s not quite right, it’s time to slow down and feel.”, or
“We’re doing all we can, but we got a cold, and sensation is more present right now.”
Rather than viewing the discomfort as an annoyance, we can learn to listen with appreciation for what our body’s trying to say to us.
I seem to learn this lesson over and over again.
Listening More
The inner voice that tells me to check in on a friend, only to learn that they’ve just gotten dumped. That gut feeling to slow down as I’m approaching an intersection, right before a racing truck blows his stop sign, nearly hitting me. The way that my heart feels when I just had a disagreement with my partner, which, I failed to navigate gracefully.
I know that my body and my heart are communicating with me all the time. And yours is as well.
I’m learning to listen more and more, and to allow myself to be guided by the wisdom that’s coursing throughout me. The more I listen, the more clearly I can hear. As guest posted on everydayintegrity.com, a lifestyle blog about personal spirituality founded by my yoga student, Jules Williams.
Ritual
When I woke up last Monday, I was not in the mood to meditate. Sometimes, I’m excited for my sitting practice, and some mornings–like this one–enthusiasm for practice stands at odds with the desire for a different kind of practice: snuggling with my sweetheart in bed.
These mornings are a reminder that my practice really begins way before I sit down on my cushion. Often, the biggest hurdle to clear is that first step–in this case, just getting out of bed. The vast majority of effort we put forth in any practice is the effort needed simply to begin. And to repeat. This is where the power of ritual comes into play.
Ritual is a part of all spiritual paths, all religions, and every culture from around the world. Ritual is something I’ve been drawn to my entire life, and yet I didn’t grow up in a family who had rituals, nor was I handed down ritual traditions or customs. Still, there was something so deep, so primal that arose in the midst of this ritual desert, that, as a child, I started to seek guidance from others to create my own rituals.
The first place I looked to was witchcraft. Celebration of the natural world, the seasons, the sun and the moon seemed quite natural to me. Harnessing the power of the elements and paying respect to that which is bigger than the individual was soothing to my existentially troubled self. So at 11 years old, I got a few books, set up camp in my closet, and started studying. My folks soon found the books and, in a flash, they were taken away. It wasn't because my family is religious and thought it was ungodly to worship anything other than the big G. Instead, they took the books away because they knew how powerful witchcraft could be, and they were worried for my safety. But they didn’t recognize the reason I'd reached for that practice in the first place, and they didn’t offer me another way to feed this hunger. So I was back at square one, making it up myself.
The power of ritual is its ability to create a mental state that is fertile for practice, and a heart open to our innate wholeness.
Over years of searching, I’ve learned that ritual doesn’t have to be fancy. It can be as simple as praying before a meal, lighting incense, or practicing japa (the repetition of mantra). Ritual functions as a form to rest into. It’s a structure that prepares one’s mind and one’s heart to wake up. When done absent-mindedly, ritual is simply an action. But when performed with intention, ritual holds incredible power. The power doesn’t lie within the ritual tools, gods or goddesses. The power of ritual is its ability to create a mental state that is fertile for practice, and a heart open to our innate wholeness.
These days, I sit six days a week, taking one day off as Swamiji taught me. When I was living at his ashram in the mountains of Kodaikanal (Kodai), we would practice and study six days a week. On the seventh day–Friday–all of the ashram students (anywhere from two to ten of us) would take a frightening taxi ride down to the quaint city of lower Kodai to stock up on supplies (like toilet paper and notebooks) and luxuriate in coffee and chocolate. (I should note that, while Swamiji instructed us to take a day off from formal practice, he didn't encourage jumping head-first into indulgence. This was a habit we developed all on our own.) After the day in town, we would endure another taxi ride up the mountain to the ashram, our senses overstimulated from the bustling shops, sweet treats, and talkative city folks.
When I was at the ashram, my practice was very rigid, and I didn’t yet understand the significance of Swamiji's six-day practice rhythm. So on Friday mornings before the taxi arrived, I would sneak up to the roof of the ashram and practice asana and pranayama. To my type-A personality, a day of rest from formal practice seemed like a waste of time. I wanted a calm mind and a peaceful heart, and I wanted it now! As the years went on, I shed layers of perfectionist striving and angst, and in alignment with a sweeter relationship with myself, my practice evolved to be gentler and more spacious. It was six years after the ashram that I finally had the courage to take my teacher’s advice and started taking a day of rest from practice. On my days of rest, I feel steeped in gentleness and flexibility, and know that these attitudes are as important to my practice as the six days of consistent sits.
However, last Monday was not my scheduled day off. So, I did what I always do and dove into my sitting ritual:
I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and washed my hands. I walked into my studio (a beautiful room in my home dedicated to practice), and quietly closed the door. I grabbed a striped blanket and a purple bolster. I opened the blanket, placed it on the wooden floor in front of the altar, and laid the bolster on top. Then I walked towards the back of the studio where I keep my practice shawl. Swamiji gave me a lime green shawl for Christmas when I was at the ashram, which we celebrated with a group sing-along of American pop songs. He told me that every time I practice with this shawl, it gets juiced up and infused with practice goodness - I’m paraphrasing here. When I didn’t feel well, he told me to wear the practice shawl, and it would help.I draped the airy shawl around my shoulders and walked back to stand between the altar and my cushion. I leaned down and quietly flipped the hourglass (which is really a half-hour glass, as it takes just over 30 minutes for the last grain of sand to descend to the bottom), picked up the candle in its ceramic dish, lit the wick, and gently set it back down. I lifted my mala up off of the altar and hung it around my neck. I stood upright and drew my palms together in anjali mudra (prayer), and pressed my thumbs into my heart center. I took a deep inhale and as my body began to exhale, I hinged at my hips, and lowered my head in a deep bow to the altar. I stood upright once again, turned a half circle to my right, looked at my cushion and bowed again. I stood up, completed the circle, released my hands and took my seat. I wiggled in my seat for a few moments to settle, placed my left hand in my right palm, and quieted my eyes. After all of that, I felt a little better.
The form keeps us on our toes and shows us instantly when we’re not present.
A couple days ago, while I was bowing to my cushion, my mind wandered right in the middle of my bow. Instead of carrying on and plopping down on my cushion, I stood up and turned back to my altar. In small moments like these lie the teaching and support of ritual. The practice of bowing had offered me a form that highlighted my distraction immediately, instead of my distraction turning into a rampant snowball of mental fabrications. This is actually the reason another teacher of mine, Michael Stone, explains why Zazen practice incorporates so many bows. Okay, well one of the reasons, anyway! The form keeps us on our toes and shows us instantly when we’re not present.
So, turning back to my altar, I stilled my gaze, now a tad crisper in support of my concentration. I exhaled and bowed deeply, lingering at the bottom of my bow in reverence to the part of me that is peaceful and awake, and to all of the others who have also bowed as practice. Then I stood tall, turned to my right and bowed again to my cushion, my concentration steady.
When I’m engaging in ritual, whether it’s in my studio, or at the dinner table, I feel all of the people before me who have also put flame to a wick as prayer, and all of those seen and unseen who have joined their palms together in gratitude. With this attitude of interconnectedness, I feel the support of our larger community of practitioners. When I don’t really feel like practicing one day, I garner the strength and steadiness I need to sit or get on my mat from our collective sangha (community). And on the days I feel focus and ease in my practice, I know that spills over to others, too. For me, ritual weaves us together and is a blessed companion on my journey of waking up over and over again.
Splitting Wood
Hello Friends! I've just returned from a five day silent retreat with my teacher, Michael Stone. This was a Zen meditation retreat in snowy, snowy Ontario, Canada. I rang in the New Year by sitting in stillness. It was the third New Year that I celebrated this transition in silence, and by far the most powerful.
During the retreat, each student had a working meditation task. Mine was chopping wood and tending to the indoor fire. I was a little anxious of being responsible for this job, because I had never chopped wood before. Despite the fact that I grew up in Wisconsin with a wood burning stove in my parents house, I always had other things to tend to. Thankfully I was paired with Doug, my wood splitting, fire tending guru, who became a dear friend to me.
Chopping wood isn’t actually difficult. It’s quite simple really. It’s all about proper form and right effort: a good solid stance, a smooth arc of the axe, a focused mind paired with a relaxed manner, and the element of surrender.
At first I tried to use my strength to make the axe blade pierce the seemingly impenetrable log. Wrong effort. Then Doug taught me how to let gravity do the work. When a proper swing is infused with a sense of letting go, the result is a beautiful and effective strike. You can’t over think it, and you can’t hold back in doubt.
I began thinking of my experience chopping wood as a metaphor for life. When we stay rooted, pay attention and tap into the flow, then we don’t need to put forth so much effort. It’s when we become hindered in fear, we over analyze, or try to muscle our way through life, that we get into trouble. When I sense that I'm going against the grain, I think of my time in the snow, splitting wood. I take a step back, assess my footing and approach, and then connect with my inherent and abundant trust that life will unfold as it's intended.
Cooperating with Reality
I just returned from a vacation to visit a dear friend who’s in the Peace Corps in Paraguay, South America. Whenever I travel, and especially when I’m exploring a foreign place, I’m reminded of the importance of surrendering into the flow of life. We can call it the way, the Tao, effortlessness, or cooperating with reality. I really like that last term. I was introduced to this way of describing acceptance by a Zen teacher named Adyashanti, through his book on awakening called, The End of Your World.
Towards the beginning of our trip, my friend and I made our way to the terminal in Asuncion, Paraguay, to catch a bus that we would be on for 4 hours, to go to Oviedo. We approached the terminal and saw that a bus heading that way was just leaving. We flagged the bus down, threw our big packs underneath, and hopped on board. We walked up the stairs to see that the bus was overpacked, and there was standing room only. STANDING ROOM ONLY ON A 4 HOUR BUS TREK! I looked at my friend and said, “Oh no, we can’t do this,” and he replied, “It’s happening!”. That much was true, the bus was already speeding away.
For a minute (or two) I was resisting the experience, AKA freaking out. I desperately wanted the moment to be different than it was, and I was suffering because of it. I was regretful, anxious, angry, and fearful. And then there was my friend’s reaction…while this awasn’t his ideal experience, he was accepting the situation. While he wasn’t comfortable, he wasn’t suffering as I was. And as soon as I exhaled and settled into standing, a young girl sitting on a seat next to me climbed on her mother’s lap, opening up her seat for me to take. And then 30 minutes later, the mother and the girl got to their stop, and another seat opened up for my friend.
When we let go of resisting reality, the more we open up to the potential space all around us. When you feel resistance, first, notice it without judgement or criticism. Feel the anger, frustration, or fear. It’s not bad or wrong to experience these sorts of feelings. In fact, it’s quite important to really feel them if that’s what’s surfacing in your awareness. And after feeling the feelings, make a conscious decision to cooperate with the reality of the situation. How can you participate in creating your experience? Soften where you feel constriction. Breathe space into rigidity, and notice what happens…. This is the practice.
Whether the trek is across the globe or across town, many blessings to you on your journey of acceptance!