Beginning again and again

Yoga is repetitious, like exercises, or practicing a musical instrument, or learning a new language. Each engagement with the practice posits questions familiar and unknown. The body responds to repetition. It builds muscle, it builds strength, it gets sore, it inflames, it stretches. The mind responds to repetition too, creating patterns, offering resistance, placing goal posts, questioning, criticizing and comparing. When approaching the yoga mat, or turning attention to the breath, or trying to speak in a new language, the possibilities are endless for how this combination of body and mind will coalesce in the moment. Yoga as a practice offers truthful, skillful means to combine these possibilities.

Even as I gain knowledge, I forget something. Even as I gain physical competency, I find pieces of the posture missing, or parts of the body unwilling. This is where the practice of yoga asks to put yoga philosophy into action: to take a light grip on what must be and adopt an ever widening view of what is possible; allow a truthful vision of what is actually so and develop a warm hearted acceptance without judging that vision.

It is nine years since I certified as a Registered Yoga Teacher with the Yoga Alliance, after 8 years of classes and my own practice. I've racked up nearly 1,000 hours of teaching, and many different types of trainings pertaining to the body, the mind, the breath, conditions, and even trends in practice. Yet, each time I approach the mat, I am a simple practitioner, like my students, like immigrants learning English, like children starting the school year in a new class. I notice the jumble in my mind, and scan the open and closed spaces in my body. Like looking for familiar faces in a community meeting, I hope to find aspects of my self that I can rely upon as familiar, and yet, as I begin my centering breath and movement, in a most essential way I am meeting my self as for the first time. Who is this? What is this? How is this? Feeling this, being present.

I can only start from where I actually am, with honesty, with generosity of spirit, without judgment, without defined goal or limitation. When I have conversations in Spanish with my teacher in Oaxaca via Skype, the first series of "¡Hola! ¡Hola!" (hello, hello) in which we see and hear each other across so many miles, brings such joy to us. We begin each class with boundaryless smiles, with rising heart energy, and joy in the moment. Ready to communicate, to listen, to share who we are and exchange what we know and what we don't know. So it is also with my yoga practices, with my yoga teaching. I can accept my always aging and changing physical body, my always remembering and forgetting mind, my always opening and closing energy. Truth is not as complicated as the grasping hold on a fictional certainty or judgment we have told ourselves. Starting with truth in this moment opens possibilities, no matter what the truth in this moment may be.

I propose allowing energy to fill you as you breathe in, and to relax your body as you breathe out. Let go of the tight grip on what you expect, or fear, or want, or hate, or need, or have lost. Breathing in what is so, breathing out possibility. Whatever the reality is, you are here, now, breathing. Practicing this form of breathing gives you a beginning in this moment. Your breath and awareness combined in this way offers continuous support for being, allowing some freedom from the inner structures from which comes so much suffering. There is no exemption from this suffering. I recommend beginning in this yogic journey, again and again.

Sharing this inhale with all living beings. Honoring the possibilities for all living beings with this exhale. May all beings displaced from their familiar and beloved people and places take solace in the breath we all share.

Experiments Fail, This Moment Never Does

Since January 2013 I've been vegan minus oils and wheat gluten. This has enlivened my creativity in the kitchen, since I love to eat and the possibilities with these ingredients seem endless. The hard part is trying to make something that I used to eat full of things I no longer eat. This seems to encapsulate so many of the problems we make for ourselves.

This may sound like a kitchen story but it is a yoga story. Everything I do is an experiment, if an experiment is an action within the context of the known and the unknown. In any given moment, all I have is what my mind tells me. Like walking in a maze, the more familiar  I can be with the false turns and the dead ends, the more quickly and smoothly I can adjust my path to keep the path opening up ahead. Otherwise I can spend half the day, or the whole day, stuck in a cul-de-sac of judgment and that feeling of unworthiness will color all else. Without willingness to see the truth, there will be no growth or improvement next time, no way to duplicate a success, or avoid the same cause of a disappointment.  The easiest way to do this is to know my own tendencies and understand the conditional nature of my own reactions.

This really came in to focus with my blueberry muffin project one morning, which led directly to a blueberry scone project to change things for the better, both of which failed to produce anything resembling a baked blueberry treat I would have made in the past. Not only did the project not satisfy that goal, but eating the results gave me a stomach ache. On top of that, it was the first time I put together a blog post for my eat2thrive blog and literally deleted it after posting it. The muffins, my breakfast, and the blog post were all failures. It was no surprise that this put a damper on my mood, yet that's just where the surprise came. I could see the mood happen and let it come, and then let it go, without taking it personally.

In a yoga practice there are times when what went fine yesterday does not go well today. Our mind sets us up with hopes and expectations, with fears and roadblocks. It helps when we see this and acknowledge it. It's not enough to say, "I don't know how it will come out." It is important to fully see that it is fine to try and not know, and that this not knowing might mean something delicious or something disappointing on the road to figuring out how to make something delicious. It is the steps and stages necessary in an experiment to see what results are produced by which actions. In this way the moment is always fulfilling its best potential. Engrossed in the choices, awaiting the outcome, tasting the results, and revising the plans, all of these are complete, each in their own moment. The cloud of disappointment may come and go as the first muffin is eaten. The choice to let the inner critic have a field day, that's another matter. To see how we twist that outcome into more than the sum of its parts, is to see how we subject ourselves to our own patterns of judgment and expectation.

That turned out to be the most rewarding result of the whole blueberry muffin project. This ability to observe the mind, the mood, the pattern, and the escape from the traps, gave me a lovely day even with a triple strike out to start.  I am already scheming on the next variations to try in the puzzle of an oil-less, egg-less, gluten-free blueberry muffin.

Growing Solo: Skills in Class, Explored in Private

Yoga classes are where I learned to see myself through the actual experience of being myself. I felt my resistance to external direction; I recognized deep inner sorrows; I discovered flexibility and habitual patterns. Over time, every bit of this moved off the mat into my daily life, relationships, self definitions.  On a grand scale of patterning I was shifting and changing, but the minutia upon which the patterns all relied was discovered only in my personal practice. Allowing the experiences on the mat to go where they led themselves, taking on the challenges of body and mind that arose from my own body and mind.  Classes will give you the tools for this, but only the personal practice gives you the opportunity.

An example of this might be a reluctance to kick up into handstand with "the other leg." It is one of those moments in private when you face your drive, your judgment, your fear of failure and the pain of that. You can seek out the mechanisms by which the body can actually support the move, rather than throw the body into the panic again and again until it somehow "works." You can deconstruct and reinvent the pattern in the movement, and without a care about the handstand, discover the rising into it. Feeling pain in class in a joint or in a movement, you will quite simply try to avoid it the next time. In private practice you can explore the sources to support safe movement, or to genuinely protect the point in jeopardy.  You can evolve the practice from the foundation into the pose or movement, building the resilience and awareness that bring you fully into the pose rather than aiming for the shape of the asana. Strength and stamina can be built, and the self defined differently.

Meditation practice requires a most intimate connection to solitary practice. In a group of people, meditation puts you directly in touch with your own mind and habits of mind.  The group can support you with community, scheduling, breath around you, and a little pressure to keep your seat out of shame or anxiety.  A group can even offer you material to work with in the form of distraction and dharma themes upon which to focus your thinking.  It is in your own practice where you find the threads with which you have been spinning the stories, and where you can stop that spinning and can observe the threads, and the stories, without having to give over to watching them.

Focus Right Where You Are

Focus on your breathing. Not changing anything. Where do you feel it most? Don't get lost trying to quantify more and most, or choosing here or there. Try to simplify and feel wherever you are feeling the sensations of your inhale and exhale just now.

Stick with that for a few breaths.

Notice where you are finding the breath to feel more vivid in your body, and if you've already wandered, come back to the inhale and focus on where you sense breath more fully in your body. Just for now, just right there. Allow your mind to quiet down a little bit.

Begin to find the three-dimensional quality in your breath, just as it is, just where you feel it most now.

Notice how it describes your internal spaces from front to back of you. Spend several breaths on this.
Notice how it finds a way to describe the top and bottom lengths of you. Spend several breaths on this too.

Just come back to where you feel it most. Perhaps that has changed. Don't think your way into this, just notice that you are thinking about where you feel the breath, and come right back to feeling the breath.

Continue to allow your attention to notice the way your breath describes you. I know you cannot notice everything, but imagine that you could! Follow your curiosity into your hip joints, along the back of your rib cage, into the subtle tilting of your pelvis with every breath. Is your inhale grainy or smooth, is the exhale noisy or soft? Are there qualities in this breath, now? coolness or heat, jaggedness or elasticity? Don't worry about using words to describe qualities. Notice what you can and come back to noticing without getting lost in cataloging. If you do get lost in words and trying to find language, just come back to focus your attention on the breath. No big deal. One great aspect of this is that there is another breath right after this one, so nothing is lost. Just come back to your focus.

Seek out any dull areas in your body, where you don't seem to feel any connection to your breath. Pay attention to that space for a few breaths, allowing your awareness of the breath sensations elsewhere to soften, like a gaze that is unfocused.

Restart if you got lost, and notice where you feel the breath now. Perhaps you can move around a little, do a few yoga postures (asana), or walk around a bit for a few breaths. See if the focus of your attention can keep coming back to find where you feel your breath and where you don't so much. After a little moving about, return to a position you can hold for a few minutes, sitting comfortably, or perhaps laying your body flat on the floor. Bring your attention back to where you feel the breath in your body, continuing to explore its three-dimensional qualities, seeking out any areas that feel dull or unmoving.

Even a few minutes of this every day helps support you in physical, emotional, and psychological ways! There is no "goal" or "end" to this; just set aside a little time to get interested first in what you notice, and then in how that changes.

This is one way of meditating. It offers a way to begin cultivating awareness, increase your ability to focus attention even with all the distractions in the mind, and to strengthen the connections between your mind and your body. This definitely helps me to be right where I am, wherever that is.

All that is solid melts into breath

The breath has a way of discovering space, just as the air itself seems to find the smallest crack or most enormous canyon. It has been seeming to me lately that my practice and my teaching are growing from this discovery. Directly. My ability to notice the breath, or be aware of it, has encouraged an internal investigation among all my own cells... and this branches out into everything I do.

So when I take a yoga class, I follow directions, just like my students do in my classes. Yet what I experience is my breath slipping under my shoulder blades, no matter whether the teacher says "lift your breastbone" or "press into your heels" or "reach for the ceiling." In some cases there are other sensations, the pulling and twisting, the pressures, and collapses of interior spaces or bones, or muscles, or ideas. I walk on the sidewalk feeling signals from all the points of the body, full of reactive chatter, and the breath quietly expands beneath my ribs, swinging my pelvis just a little this way, and releases my throat as my pelvis quietly swings just a little that way on the exhale...

I am beginning to understand something.
It starts with noticing.
Expands into observing and alertness around what I notice.
Then I sort and contemplate the rising ideas and reactions, eventually letting them all slip out on the exhale.

And I begin to notice that I am understanding something.
This expands into examination and inquiry into what I notice.
Eventually I release what I think I understand and experience my breath quietly slipping between the hairs in my nostrils.

When I can no longer enable my breath to investigate and expand my awareness, I believe I'll be ready to leave this body and try something else.

And so, as usual, I bow to that which sustains me. Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya.

Winds of March

Walking on two feet, my sprained ankle gently seeping deep gratitude with each movement. I was able to return to teaching at the Shelter this week, adding in this piece I had cut away to make space for my healing. Now the students bring their joy and sorrow to me, quizzically and laughing out loud, eyes closing, sighing and silently.

I pass through the seasons as I walk from shade and wind into sun and warmth, remembering the tornado that ripped through the neighborhood and took down big old trees. One huge sycamore trunk stands truncated with one large limb reaching out askew - a remnant still enormous. The piles of snow, gone.

I've been substitute teaching for a fellow teacher who went to India for 6 weeks, and her delicate aged student has offered me an open well from which to draw, dipping the bucket, winding and unwinding the rope. These days I feel the energy pulse from my palms when I am near her, and can feel her breath moving towards me.

My mother is dying. She is saturated with happiness to know that the path is now clear and no one is pretending anything about what kind of living she will do. Criticized all her life for not carrying a tune, she now hums to herself. When asked what she is humming she grins, yes, grins, and says "Why, I don't know!" Delightful. No need, no need to know, to hang on, to grip and clench, to explain, to ask, to argue or deny. No need, no need to put up with, or put down, to reach in or pull away.

This is a most remarkable time. I revel in it even as I careen a bit wildly on the road, as though a powerful wind is blowing and I'm giving in, just a little.

This Asana is Contraindicated for ...

me, and yet I practice. Listening to my own arguments, I hear fear and I hear determination. There is goal setting and there is wishful thinking. There is regret and self-doubt, and there is hopefulness and curiosity.

When I began practicing yoga I took any class that fit in my schedule. I was approaching 50 years old and I knew less than nothing about the lineage, names of luminaries, history, even potential health benefits. I didn't even know what shape I was aiming for in the Asana of the moment. I listened deeply, worried on the surface about mixing up my right from my left, and began breathing into a new space of awareness inside.

This fall my practice will be much the same as it was 10 years ago... I will be discovering that I can change the angle of my lower spine by remembering my big toe, and I will use the wall to prepare for Ustrasana (camel pose) just to see how much energy I can raise from my Tadasana (mountain pose) knees. There are many Asana I can explore in my practice, and of course, my practice does now include teaching which is a magnitude of exploration I could not have imagined in those first few experiences.

Every Asana has benefits that reach into the basic functioning of the body -- circulation, nervous system, muscular strength and flexibility; and the mind -- judgment, intention, challenge, determination, curiosity, resilience and focus; and the organs -- etc. Every asana has contraindicated conditions, for example shoulder or ankle injury, stages of pregnancy, frailty of bone, uncontrolled high blood pressure, etc.

As a teacher I may mention a few of the "if you have this, modify in this way" instructions, but I find it hard to say, "just don't do this." I find it especially hard to say it to myself. At the moment, I have two physical variables that would contraindicate nearly everything I do in my yoga Asana practice -- including what might seem simple like sitting in a cross-legged position.

So here is the secret: Do not hurt yourself. Follow the path of the breath and prepare your physical body for practice with an open mental attitude of exploration rather than goals and end results. Use props and find out what is actually happening in as full a way as you can in that moment. It is not getting into the full pose of Ustrasana that will help you if you have low back issues or rotator cuff problems. Yet many of the steps along the way will be exactly what your body can best use to mobilize, stabilize and strengthen, stretch and explore.

It is the mind that wants to take the full expression of Urdhva Dhanurasana (Wheel). Deepening and exploring a supported heart opener over a bolster or block, or using blocks to support your sacrum and your upper back in Setu Bhandhasana (Bridge pose) will give you more possibilities to experience your life than you could imagine.

So it can really help to find a teacher who can help guide your practice into the deepest places you can explore, and slow things down, rather than attending classes that continually show you what you can do to hurt yourself. It helps when you don't believe that everything rests in the final pose, and keep an open mind about what might open your practice.

Teaching with Myself as the Unknown

I am very curious to discover my teaching this week, since my own inner balance has shifted to be ever more obviously unknowable. I twisted my ankle a week ago as I walked on slippery sidewalks. The process of recovery has been revelatory so far. Aside from the literal experience of sensation and changing forms, of course I have had to change my behavior and expectations. I've chucked normal patterns and am observing how I react. It is using a lot more energy than I thought it would, just to watch all this, and be in it.

The coming week I have shaved off a few classes and obligations, canceled a couple appointments and spread a few things out over the week. The plan is designed to give me more time between everything to elevate the foot, to recharge my energy, to take the time I will need to travel slowly from place to place. Even with these changes I am going to negotiate carefully as I go teach this and that class. The getting to and from the teaching will be as much to learn for me as the teaching itself.

There is no way for me to know what will happen, how it will feel or what the progression of events might include. It amuses me that my mind keeps asking how I might find a solution in the form of someone else who might take away the uncertainty or the discomfort. I know that fundamentally it is my own body that will heal itself if I can stay out of its way. Exploring what helps that healing and what subtracts or detracts from that healing is really at the center of my attention.

I'm struck by how this is yoga practice as everything. Tenderly, non-judgmentally I am exploring the range of motion of the rest of my body, and consciously relaxing my mind in its tendencies to grip and attach, to project and to figure. I practice as I knit. Practice as I wait for help with something, practice as I step down each stair, practice as I move in my sleep. It is a fascinating process of integrating and experiencing. The shift in my view is what changes this injury from a deficit to a gift.

Knitting a Yoga Practice

Yoga can seem endlessly repetitious, or perhaps infinitely new, simple and complicated all at the same time. On our own, we fall into patterns, push and pull at them and sometimes get tangled so that we have to put the whole thing down for a while. Or daunted, puzzled, blocked or frightened by what we find, or what we cannot find, we seek a teacher or other resources. Sometimes we just walk away from practice for a while.

I have recently found myself to be knitting. It is many years since I made my last sweater. Since then, I have forgotten even how to start the yarn on the needle (called casting on) or how to read the directions of a pattern or to see from the yarn on the needle what stitch it is. In the beginning I had to scrounge for yarn and make up a project out of my head in order to get going. Then I searched for my stash of yarn from years ago, discovered two projects abandoned mid-stream, and both leftovers of yarn and new batches ready for a project.

Surrounded and encouraged by the help of friends (who are also my neighbors --one of the blessings of a cooperative way of life), I am relearning how to knit. It is as a true beginner I approach each aspect of the task, yet as my hands begin to move there is a deep familiarity. As one of my teachers put it, I already have experienced hands. Even so, each stitch requires real attention of a specific kind, while also keeping in mind a pattern within the row, and a pattern beyond the row to include a part of the project or the whole piece. Yet my hands and eyes must attend to this stitch being formed on the needles and must not wander too far into the realm of patterns and projects else I'll drop a stitch, split the yarn with my needle or do the wrong stitch all together. I have had to tear out and start again several times on the simplest of stitches simply because I could not keep my mind focused enough to count the stitches as required. With some humor and acceptance, even this superficially frustrating task was deeply satisfying. Not giving up, holding to a real standard, knowing that in some way my life is held and unfolding in each impermanent and purposeful stitch.

While making something for someone specific, suddenly I want to give it to several people. Ah, I can observe my way of operating... I would like one too, I would like each of these people to have one, I would like to be the person who can make something for everyone... all of that. Out it comes, quietly while I work on this stitch. My hands get tired, my fingers ache. I change my posture to make myself more comfortable. Just til the end of this row, I think, and then turn and start the next row. Well, I'll just do this last side. Watching myself strive to get more done, while at the same time enjoying the feeling of the yarn in my hand, noticing the ache in that finger, taking deep pleasure at the beauty of the methodically twisted yarn in its emerging form as something else. Knowing that even the end of this row is not the end, nor will the end of this scarf be the end. I feel connected to centuries of hands making warm things from spun fibers.

At this moment I truly can no longer see the difference between knitting and yoga. Staying here precisely with this stitch, profoundly understanding that the stitch is nothing and everything, just yarn yet already a scarf, part of a sheep yet wrapped around my aunt's neck, while really still moving in my fingers between the knitting needles. My yearning to be productive remains held stitch by stitch in reality, just as easily pulled back into a thin line of yarn or an elaborate design. This is like the singularity of the breath totally entwined in every cell of me, the movement and wear of the body with all my intentions and inattention, the tangle and deep peace of the mind and that which eludes the mind's grasp.

At the Beginning, Give It a Minute

Vinyasa is great fun and good to get energy circulating. You can work through the breath, move in the flow of energy, stretch and build muscles, surprise yourself and find yourself moved by the sequence of events. Vinyasa in sanskrit, means "to place in a special way." It combines movement, energy flow, and placement. Lots of yoga studios offer Vinyasa flow as a way to release from the constraints of the judging mind and the stagnation of personal patterns, as well as to unblock the lines of energy so that the final cool down and relaxation are that much deeper.

Vinyasa is hard on a body with physical constraints (think Carpal Tunnel issues, tight hamstrings, back trouble or knee replacements), and especially for people who are new to a yoga practice. It can be a struggle to keep up, to find your way, even to get the breath going in and out as instructed. Not knowing what is coming next or how to align oneself can make it impossible to use the prop that protects or enables. That initial scramble can sort out quickly for some, and be a source of serious injury for others. It can feel 'hard" in a way that is not inherently part of yoga. "Hard" in a learning curve kind of way. "Hard" in the "I am not good at doing this" kind of way. The newness of the postures and the constant movement can make modifications tough to figure out, adjustments hard to fit in between the instructions, and understanding of the basic principles a little vague. Of course a good teacher helps with all of this to some degree. For more experienced practitioners, Vinyasa can ratchet up into more and more physical challenges integrated into the flow, pressure to keep up, try the "harder" variations and, occasionally, emphasizes personal expression in the flow that can be more involved with ego than with cultivating nonjudgmental awareness and the foundational breath. Again, good teaching can help draw a student's attention back to the practice and out of the performance of Asana.

Figuring out a posture from the inside takes time. It is very different than learning a series of dance steps. One doesn't always need to be negotiating all the details, yet there are depths of understanding that only come with time, time in the pose. Take a simple pose, like Balasana (Child's Pose). This is very often offered as a "resting" pose, yet is difficult for many people and as with so many Asana, offers a very deep practice. The hip creases are drawing back, pelvis lifting, spine curving; knees are deeply bent, tops of feet press into the floor, while the shoulders are spreading open, the heart widens as it sinks, the ribs center pulling back towards the spine, and the third eye rests on the earth. Breath is into oneself. What's so simple about this? For some, the bend is beyond their capacity in the knee or spine. For others it is the internal quality of breath in the ribs against the thighs, the leaning of the heart inward that brings the emotions forward. Perhaps it is the openness in the back ribs, the breath ballooning over the kidneys that shifts the attention, or it could be simply feeling the earth below you, supporting your shins that lets the tension release from the back of your neck. Where does the mind go? Perhaps it begins with making all the little tweaky adjustments of ankles or shoulders, but if you stay there a minute other experiences begin, and perhaps your attention will shift.

Passing through Balansana for a moment to catch your breath is a wonderful thing too, like that moment when you take your shoes off after being in them all day. But in every Asana there are hidden treasures, secrets about yourself, illuminations about existence itself that come with time, time in the pose. So if you feel you are struggling and thrashing about in Vinyasa classes, give yourself a minute in your own practice or find a class that can slow it down for you. Spend a few breaths -- perhaps starting with 3 -- in each aspect of exploring Asana and your strength, flexibility, awareness and inner sense of alignment will catch up to you. Take that sense of balance back to Vinyasa class and see what a different experience it can be.

As a student once said to me, "There is just so much to think about all at once, including wondering what I am thinking about!" Letting this go, allowing the experience to get beyond thinking into experiencing the moment itself, is possible in one Asana or flowing through a Vinyasa. Try different approaches until you find the one that gives you the time you need to integrate and align yourself safely.

Beginning Yoga: Isn't So Simple

Yoga is supposed to simplify everything -- isn't it? We practice and feel profound peace, self acceptance and joy. Suddenly our confusions and pain are absorbed into the greater wholeness of the universe and we are just fine being who we are -- isn't that it? Or perhaps it is more like working out at a gym and we just come to do the same things enough times that it gets easier? And once it's easier, we find profound peace, self acceptance and joy and our confusions and pain are absorbed into the greater wholeness of the universe...no?

For so many that first yoga class is a huge up hill struggle with the boulder. Right from the start it's sitting on the mat: what the heck is a "comfortable cross-legged position" with tight hamstrings, low back pain, screaming knees, tight groin muscles and crushed ankle bones ...? Then there's standing in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) otherwise known as standing up straight, right?, only every muscle is quaking or aching and nothing feels normal at all, while the mind is zooming all over the place checking on this and that only to discover that there is no communication at all with the toes or the inner thighs (inner thighs?). Have we really been functional human beings all this time, yet we can hardly sit or stand once we're in a yoga class??

My heart is so full when I teach beginners. It must seem that I take the simplest most natural thing and it turns into a puzzle that cannot be solved. There is never enough brain power to focus on the breathing while melting the center of the heel (center of the heel?) down and lifting the inner arches, while relaxing the shoulders and finding space in the .... well, it could go on and on.

In fact it does go on and on. That is the practice itself: Learning how to train the mind to be attentive, yet let the brain go; learning how to open those pathways of energy in the feet and through the legs so that one really can relax the spine around the muscular effort being made; learning to accept that which is so in this very moment and leave the judgments and know-it-all/know-nothing dualism of the self behind. All this is in fact happening right from the start in a beginning yoga class, just by focusing attention on what is actually being experienced.

The overlay on all of this is that there is no right way or wrong way in it. That's often a revelation. And discovering what makes things happen, what becomes possible, what the mind asks for, what the body says about that, all of this happens constantly on the mat, just as it does off the mat. So it doesn't matter how much yoga a person has already done in their lives (I was recently in a class where the teacher said, "so forget about all the 1,239 times you've 'done' down dog...") it is this particular moment you are using for your investigation of what being you, being human, and just being really is. Notice I did not say, "could be."

So far, it seems to me that nothing in yoga is hypothetical. The ability to be aware simply expands as we let go of the boundaries we have set, consciously or unconsciously. If we clutch at getting there, instead of marvel at being here, we will miss some of the salient features of being here that make all the difference in understanding being. The unfolding nature of asana leads the body into openness by following the breath and accepting and exploring what the bones and muscles can do, that's where the details stop being separate. In the beginning, though, it sure does feel as though the devil is in the details!

I offer my beginning class (or any class) as a safe place for bringing all of this into the moment. We can watch our own mind telling the story of the moment, feel our own feelings opening and closing in response to what we are actually doing or what we think we are doing. There is a sacredness in honoring our own breath and it naturally includes and absorbs everyone else's breath too. The air itself holds out a strangely pervasive and deeply compassionate acceptance of who we are and who everybody else is. The first person to fall out of Vrksasana (tree pose) has the hearts of everyone in the room. Then the laughter comes as we sink to the mat, or the sighs reduce every body to its fullest exhale. Perhaps it is that moment we feel the universal aspect of the "union" that is yoga, and let go of our own details.

No Posturing - Just Experiences

Anything we try to do every day can turn into a routine. I remember going to an aerobics class for a few weeks many years ago and how the experience went from unfamiliar and clumsy to feeling on top of the game. My sense of familiarity helped me feel the fluidity of the movements, and I anticipated and enjoyed the shift from one rhythmic sequence to the next. I loved the rest at the end even then. But it was not something that brought my awareness into focus, nor was it something that I could do for myself. The whole thing rested on someone telling me what to do and with getting myself into the stream of motion in that room full of other people. The injuries, though commonplace for aerobics classes, have haunted my feet and knees ever since.

Yoga can be much the same if it is approached as a series of physical postures. In fact people can find some of the same unifying principles from any athletic training program, physical work or dance where there is commitment and regularity, and a sense of giving over to the natural rhythm of the breath. Unlike these other pursuits, it is interesting to me that with mindfulness, one can actually include everything in life as part of the practice. Like Thich Nhat Hahn's comment "do the dishes to do the dishes," there is a way of being in which everything becomes the yoga practice. This has little to do with whether you can hold Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog) with an inner rotation in your thighs or if you are breathing with the sound of the ocean from gently constricting your throat in Ujjayi breath. It is a collaboration of mind and body, held non-judgmentally in the compassionate heart that allows for the freedom to just do the dishes to do the dishes.

What yoga postures do, when explored over time and in a variety of sequences, is open the inner and relational communication channels, refresh or even build a network of "power lines" through which the currents flow through a person. These are physical and measurable, such as circulatory or neurological or glandular for example, and they are non physical in the sense that vitality and energy have emotional and spiritual aspects. You can be in great health and feel terrible. You can have serious physical "deficiencies" and feel alive and engaged. A yoga practice combines the integration of the entire physical self, as "flawed" or inexperienced as one might feel from living in such a judgmental and critical world, with the sense of possibilities and deeper realities of the human capacity to fully be present. Each moment can become a bead of freedom and gratitude in a chain of events that do not have an end goal or purpose beyond the moment.

In classes focused on alignment and the details of how this or that muscle or bone operates within the pose, it is the subtle cultivation of awareness and the focusing of attention that have the deepest impact. The qualities of mind experienced throughout this process may fluctuate between curious, judgmental, attached to outcome and detached from outcome, aware of others with critical mind and aware of others with a compassionate heart. The first step is to welcome curiosity and allow nonjudgmental acceptance of all the discoveries in the moment. This has nothing really to do with taking a specific asana shape, or whether you can now or ever will do this or that asana. It is not the posturing that builds the practice, the asana postures simply provide a systematic array of switches and conduits that open up the energy and awareness already within each one of us. This is why, unlike so many other physical practices, in yoga there are infinite varieties of asana postures and modifications that can be made to enhance the personal experience whether the shape can be "achieved" or not in that moment. Truly experiencing the moment is more to the point than posturing through the practice.

Bring Body & Mind to Class & Find Your Practice

detail Seurat painting, Chicago Art Institute

When a student comes to a class, they sit on the mat, arrange their body, prepare to take directions from the teacher and assume in all good faith that this will be a satisfying yoga practice. There is a sense of relief that someone else will be in charge. There is sometimes a little anxiety, could it even be performance anxiety, about what will be asked and how it will go. Usually there is craving too, desire to feel or be or experience something beyond the day-to-day of work, household, relationships etc. Sometimes it is just yearning for healing that brings the body to the mat.

But what brings the mind to the practice? Why separate out the mind, as though it was the evil twin? We do not need to silence the mind, nor perfect the body in order to deeply explore yoga. It seems to me that we learn though yoga to unify that which is the experience of this life in this body/mind with a greater sense of listening to a larger way of being, tapping into something universal about living.

What if attending class was all about exploring who you are in such a way that it enabled you to continue exploring who you are when you are not in class and feel okay about what you find? That means accepting the anxiety or relief, acknowledging the cravings and desires, allowing the sorrow and the joy to percolate and not judging them as "good" or "bad" nor giving up on what might seem "hard" or taking too much for granted in what comes "easy."

So many students now take yoga for exercise, for a "sense of wellbeing," some for healing, and some for community. Ideally the class is a springboard to making yoga your own practice. Bring your self into the communal setting to share breath, to learn about the exploration in a safe way, and what you take away will be an ongoing support for your own practice.

One thing is for sure: the mind can help the body understand and sustain challenges and openings by focusing attention in specific ways and the body can help the mind let go of judgments and be open to possibilities through alignment and the breath. Yoga is an adventure along a path that combines the body's movements, breathing, alignments, challenges, and attitudes, with the mind's posturing, undulations, shifts, information and inspiration. So where is the heart in all of this? That steadfast organ, pumping away, circulating fresh energy and removing obstacles and toxins? Well, that's not what we think of really, is it? We think of that open warmth and spaciousness, that deep longing and giving, the rising joys and sorrows, the tenderness and fierceness, in essence the compassion of acceptance and gratitude that is shared with other living beings. So applying heart energy becomes part of the yoga practice too, the turning of compassion towards oneself may be the revelation of a class, and turning compassion towards others may transform your life.

I've been taking classes lately that focus on many different variables of the yoga spectrum. It has been mighty interesting from my teacher-viewpoint and my own body/mind assembly. The strongest feeling so far for me has been that all of this experience I am gaining through my own body and mind feeds my yoga practice and my teaching practice. Not a picking and choosing of this and that, or judging this better than or less than, but assimilating the on-the-mat-waiting-for-class experience opens my heart wide to my students, and introduces new elements into my personal practice.

Take your classes out of the studio and into your heart and see what happens!

The Big and The Little Things

There is such a succulent quality in the opening up of a pose in yoga. It is the same deeply aware and blossoming feeling when you take a bite of something totally delicious, or feel your child's heart beating next to your own. Getting there is a series of steps and stages, no matter what condition your body or your mind might be in at the moment. Of course there are those incredible suddenly-you-are-totally-there moments in life, but mostly life is spent in the steps and stages. These are precious to me, and each one is like a strong light beam on the moment, on the truth, and is embedded in trust that this is, in and of itself, the practice.


For each and every person there are poses that seem totally out of reach at first. It might be that forward bending is always a struggle, or that back bends are frightening and painful, or that even lifting an arm a certain height seems to be the boundary layer of what you will ever be able to do. To each and every person I say, let it be what it is, and keep exploring what it is. If we can let go of the definitions that make this "the limit" or "the unattainable" or the "problem with me" then the possibilities will open. Perhaps that forward bend just needs something to stand on that elevates your heels... and liberates your lower back or your hamstrings. Perhaps seated hip and shoulder opening sequences will help release the tension that has historically prevented back bends from reaching out of your core and put all the stress on your back. Perhaps relaxing your neck and opening your heart will allow grace to rotate your shoulders at a lower level and the gradual strengthening that will find your arm moving with your breath. In each case, you need not aim for the most advanced posture first, which is what many people seem to do.

When I begin going to yoga classes, I used to present myself with the idea that Ustrasana (Camel pose) was what I had to do to be "doing a backbend." In the beginning of my practice I couldn't do them at all and who knows but that I may end up not "doing" them as time goes by. Thank you to all my teachers who helped me understand all the little things about opening the spaces, and lifting from the root, and relaxing the unnecessary effort, and taking the small stages that make the "big thing" appear like just another small step in a process of exploration. Ustrasana has led me into other places that I didn't think I would ever go. And even in the course of my exploring, I've had injuries from other things that brought me new layers and stages of awareness. These also open into the "big things" about the body and its strengths and weaknesses, about the mind and its judgments and expectations.

Each part of the path is the path. Understanding this is one of the most marvelous ways of learning how to let go of the hierarchies I impose on seemingly everything. It is obvious to me now that this level of awareness continues to open not only in spite of all the particulars of my specific body and mind, but because of those particulars -- and that is true for each person and all their "big" and "little" things.

Beginning, and Beginning and Beginning

Like this very moment, each moment is simply this. As you read these words your eyes and mind follow along with whatever is evoked. That was the moment of that idea. This is the moment of this idea. In yoga practice on the mat, it is possible to experience each moment with more and more awareness. Becoming fully engaged in the moment does not require giving over entirely to purely sensory stimula nor to blocking out thoughts. Being present is an opening to what exists in the moment, and that experience is what it is, without any particular meaning or value.

Each step we take, we are standing on one foot for a moment.
Each breath we take, we are engaging our bodies in the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Each moment we are fully aware, we are living our authentic lives.

So when we approach the yoga mat, letting go of all the clutter that gets in our way, or that attaches us to memory or projection, to assigning meanings and clinging to definitions, is really the first process. Following the breath is a good beginning. Settling the body so that you can be aware of your foundation, of transferring your weight to the earth, is a good beginning. Allowing your motion to be inspired by your breath, like a tree whose limbs do not move without the wind, is a good beginning.


In the midst of a twisted, balancing extension like revolved Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon pose) you can still begin with following the breath. You can layer in Ujjayi (ocean sounding) breath to help draw your attention. You can be in the middle of holding Utkatasana (chair or fierce pose) and begin softening your toes and the soles of your feet and feel the earth cupping your heels... yes, finding your foundation. Perhaps you are throwing yourself through a Surya Namaskar series (sun salutations) discovering your strength or lack thereof as you lower and lift, as you curve and rise, and can still simply begin by allowing the breath to be the engine that moves you rather than pushing your muscular energy without support.

In every part of practice we can begin. As with the breath itself, we forget and remember, each time remembering to begin with the breath.

Beginning, Middle & End - All Part of Practice

Lately I've taught a classes with a different shape to them. One was part of a menopause group's activities. One was part of a teen health awareness program. One was an early afternoon chair yoga class. As strikingly different as these groups might seem on the surface, they are beginning in the same place, the present moment, this inhale. Throughout the practice attention wanders and returns to the breath, students sometimes watching me, sometimes turning totally inward, sometimes gazing at each other. And by the end, all in the same place, releasing the grip on the body and the mind, finding that the breath can take them into a place of peace, acceptance, ease.

As the teacher I lead them, I join them, I follow them. This is my practice. My practice carries me into and out of each day with an awareness of the way the heart moves the breath and the breath moves the heart and investigates all the spaces in which that might happen. I ask my students what they are doing here, and admit that we don't have the answer to that question except to say, "being present." I urge my students to accept that this is the body in which they will be living their life and that the exploration, celebration and joy of that unfolding experience can continue as long as there is breath.

Sometimes when I teach mat-based classes my students fall asleep in Savasana. How could I love them any more than I already do? Feeling the gentle breathing all around in my crowded chair sessions, I keep my eyes closed and lean my own breath across the room to hold all the sweet drifting hearts above the water level, until awareness returns to the fingers and toes and they can swim on their own.

A Foundation in the Breath

Sometimes we lean too hard where we think the support is and throw ourselves off balance entirely. This kind of interaction wastes energy, and ruins relationships. No one else can give you the map, but teachers (and fellow beings) can help you with your map reading skills. I believe the map actually begins to draw itself as we as make our own inquiries. It is convenient to begin with the body, since we each live in one through which we accumulate experiences. I have taken plenty of yoga classes that felt like they were all about the body.

When I started going to yoga classes, I had trouble communicating with my toes. I'd ask them to leave the floor and spread wide and they just looked back at me until I laughed. The same thing happened when I wanted to move my rib cage in small circles, or lift my legs in anything resembling Navasana (boat pose). I could make a long list of what wasn't happening and what was happening. The mind woke up to the shock that I was living in a body I really didn't know, even after all this time and all we'd been through together. There were flexibilities I never realized, and abilities to match the inabilities. There are ways of hearing that internal voice that wants to share who I really am, and allowing stillness, along with unifying movements helps develop the level of consciousness where the inner voice can speak.

In my own practice a shift began as I realized that it is not strength or will that lifts the body, but the ability to allow energy to rise from a foundation of support. It may seem hokey, but even holding oneself on hands and knees and lifting one hand will help inform the body about where the support is really coming from -- the core and the breath. As awareness turns the light on, the body can release and relax all the other clenching muscles and allow the core to use the breath. This lift makes the weight resting on the knees and hands actually lighter. Yes, lighter. So it is not always a matter of pressing down into the earth with one or another body part. I suggest softening the foot into the floor and drawing core energy up the body as you lift the other leg into Vrksasana (tree) or fly a bit in a elementary standing version of Balikakasana (crane) and you may find that balance is no longer a struggle.

There is a significant athletic aspect to yoga in this day and age, in this place, and among many students, but really in my view that is not even half the practice. I, too, admire strong, lithe bodies that can achieve amazing things, seem easy and fluid, and exude grace. I have not felt that I lived in one of those, but I am coming to find those attributes exist even in my aging, asymmetrical lived-in-half-century body. I attribute this to my explorations of yoga, which have definitely not been approached as any kind of physical training in any athletic sense, but truly is a methodical opening of the communication and energy channels inside me. The practice helps me learn theinner languages and more fully understand the messages.

Three Ideas+One: Let Go, Observe, Breathe -- Then Soften

I think we often work too hard at the things we are focused on, enough so that we are unproductive and our senses dulled. When I begin teaching, I start with awareness. Even with the first breaths I can feel how some of my students zoom into this muscling and posturing all around even the inhale, for example, making it into something rather than experiencing what it is. Big, serious, straining, forced inhales get stuck in people's throats and under their ribs. Even the exhales can choke off the ability to notice the subtleties of the moment, or observe what the breath is in the body.

It struck me recently that leading students in each aspect of something is like leaving them abandoned in a boat where they would be floating helplessly the next day. I asked a few of my beginning students how they would start their own practice on the mat, and found them frightened and puzzled -- "I don't know what to do!!" I remember feeling this way too. Of course I can direct them, but that is not my way of teaching beginners. How to help them take on that internal communication - the dialogue of inquiry, with directions that come from outside of them? Sometimes, I rely on my own integrated experiences to lead my "languaging" as it is called in the yoga training. (I scoffed and laughed out loud when I first saw that word, but I really get it now.) I scan my breath sensors under my own ribs to see where the catch might be, suggesting to my students "notice what you notice, perhaps the back of your rib cage, perhaps a texture in your throat..." etc. Not trying to tell them what to feel or what to notice... but aren't I really doing just that by leading with suggestive language?

So I isolated three primary questions my students can ask themselves at any time in a practice: What can I let go -- or where can I release; What do I notice; and Where is my breath? This worked well for beginning students, and I've tried it now with my more intermediate group and my more mature students too. I can remind them of variants of these questions throughout the course of events in our practice, and I feel them beginning to internalize it, discovering a path of their own no matter what is going on.

The next stage I ask is for softness. Taking on the working-too-hard-at-this, I have begun exaggerating fierceness of energy flow in a movement and then say, "Now softly" or "Soften" and repeat whatever it is ... it is so much easier for students to find a sense of relaxing into the breath, asana or effort, rather than pushing further and further. This is remarkable in utkatasana, especially for beginners to discover that they can continuously find more to release even as they are making such an effort.

"Finding one's edge," or "practicing at one's edge" seems misleading terminology for my students. I don't use it. I would rather speak of finding more space, exploring with the breath, softening within the form, and observing. We can witness the deep desire we have to go farther, as if there was a way to measure where we are, and realize that we can release that judgmental attitude, that attachment to the external.

After a deep forward bend at the pinnacle of my chair session this afternoon, I quietly asked, "Shall we do that again?" and a soft chorus of voices said, "yes, yes." The exploration had begun, though this asana was complex and challenging for each individual in the room, they had found the breath in it, had discovered freedoms in themselves, had softened into the support of the earth and were ready to release into the uniqueness of their own body experiences. At the end of our session, we turned our radiant open hearts towards each other. There is no energy more fierce, nor faces any softer, than that.

The Flow in Practice

Yoga practice starts with intentions. Just taking mat in hand is the beginning. Next, I find a spot to lay the mat out, a cushion or a block nearby, and put myself down on the mat. Whether sitting, standing or lying down, it is my breath in my body that brings me into the present moment. I feel the movement of my skin as I breathe, notice the texture of my throat and the softness inside my belly and ribs. I let my joints open and my bones settle into gravity. This is the path, to open what can be released and be with whatever sensations come. The movements stretch and challenge, bringing awareness to feelings and the spaces beyond feelings.

The plan unfolds from the breath. I move the places that are motivated by the breath, and pay special attention to those joints and muscles that feel especially tight or fragile. I make my movements such my body is fully drawn into the breath. Gently loosening with movements that are charged with the inhale and released by the exhale, I can explore whatever is brought up. Learning to attend to what actually is so, I can choose to hold a posture or a sequence of movements and extend the breath or undulate in and out using the breath to energize.

Releasing a stiff joint takes time, takes movement, takes heart. Compassion towards myself means being attentive to the muscle that is tight without force or goal setting. Moderating the urgency to move or push, and allowing myself to breathe through the challenges that arise, using strength and patience, and humor. I don't really ever doubt whether I will live through this moment! Why make it into something so dramatic? What if my balance is terrible on one side? I reinvent my foothold on the earth and build that foundation all the way up my spine until I can breath the extension. I laugh when I fall out of a posture, marveling. I take the stiff side twice, noticing aspects that are different the second time, not judging a level of accomplishment, just noticing the effects of practice.

So one day or series of days I might spend more time with twists or standing postures, with inversions or back bends. Perhaps this day, this moment calls for sensing the balance in every asana, or drawing awareness into the back of my ribcage no matter what else is going on. Slow breathing or rapid Kapalabhati, these choices are drawn from the inside with a conscious mind as a witness not the director of the flow. This openness to possibility and non judgment, breaks out of a pattern of set events and lets the design on the mat flow from my own breath. This combination of attention and kindness, effort and exploration, is what seems to build my ability to be more fully myself. When I take classes I give over the flow to the teacher, and usually discover all kinds of things about myself and about the student experience of yoga teaching.

Even if I try to do the same sequence every day, my practice is never the same.

A Night at the Opera

Yesterday a friend asked if I would accompany her to the Opera, since her original companion's plans had fallen through and there was an extra ticket. It has been years since I've been to an opera at the Met, and it was to be Carmen by Bizet, an opera in which I actually participated years ago as a child in the chorus. So I said yes, informed my family, shifted out of the plan to have dinner together, scavenged my closet and headed out just as everyone else was coming home.

As disruptive as this was, it was a joyful change in my day. I rarely get out for entertainment of an evening, as a fair amount of my work takes place then, and I've cultivated a pattern of family dinners since I first had children (24 years ago!). As my friend spoke to me on the phone, I felt a moment of hesitation, as my mind scanned how I felt about disappointing other people, adding to their responsibilities and burdens, and missing out on an opportunity for closeness before heading out of town for a few days. Discarding these projections only took a few seconds. I was totally open to the idea of dropping everything and heading out for the unknown in the form of an experience with the Metropolitan Opera.

Shunryu Suzuki, a revered Zen master and teacher who came to the United States in the late 1950's, put beginner's mind at the core of practice. It may seem strange to equate this profound concept with my decision to go to the opera, but my choice came out of the understanding that the mind contains everything. Beginner's mind is an empty mind, an open mind, a mind that holds all the possibilities. He described that "If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. ... If you discriminate too much, you limit yourself. If you are too demanding or too greedy, your mind is not rich and self-sufficient. If we lose our original self-sufficient mind, we will lose all precepts. When your mind becomes demanding, when you long for something, you will end up violating your own precepts: not to tell lies, not to steal, not to kill, not to be immoral, and so forth. If you keep your original mind, the precepts will keep themselves."

My scan of false concepts and my acceptance of a new path took place in a space of non-judgment and non-attachment. I could have been happy or resentful having dinner with my family and catching the news analysis of the day, thrilled or guilty sitting high above the beautiful set designs, peering into the orchestra pit and floating on the vibrations of the human voices filling the hall. Neither of these experiences could actually be predicted. Both offered the full range of possibilities. The open space of an empty mind gave me room to be fully in that moment of choice-making. I was able to eliminate the "should" and "shouldn't" from the equation, and by letting go of my "if-this-then-that mind," the dualistic mind, I was free to make a real choice, to act honestly. My early morning obligations did not cost me any more dearly for having rolled in late the night before, since I was not weighting them down with that mental/emotional baggage. I did not have to charge myself something in exchange for my choices.

When Suzuki-roshi spoke of lies and stealing, at first I thought, "I don't do that." But in the act of choosing the opera, I noticed that flashing impulse to support saying no by making an excuse to my friend. I sensed a desire to feel important in my family structure, as if I was critical to the evening. In this way, I felt myself denying my family members respect for their three-dimensional selves, in essence stealing their freedom to be whole and self-determining and binding them into the falseness of my own projections, just as I was inflating my own sense of self by making myself indispensable. In a matter of seconds, beginner's mind released me from those patterns that limit my own life, and deny others' their possibilities as well.

I have learned this from my yoga on the mat, where there is always this possibility of beginner's mind. The clarity that comes from not assigning value has given me freedom to be more fully myself. I urge my students to eliminate "hard" and "easy," "good" and "bad" from their way of thinking about asana and themselves, and give themselves the space for the inquiry "what is this?" and "who is this?" I rarely second guess my choices anymore, perhaps because I am free now to take responsibility for them. Just as I place my foot in alignment with my knee in an asana, the emptiness of non-attachment/non-judgment supports my mental clarity.

It is no small consequence that I had a great time at the opera, enjoying the late night trains coming home and walking under the waning moon, sneaking into my apartment of sleeping people, and sleeping with a heart full of song.