Equanimity as a Method of Problem Solving

My personal problems are so insignificant in the scheme of things, and yet my reactivity can completely consume my energy.  The facts are clear that if I am kind, the world around me is a better place for other beings. The facts are clear that if I am not gripping one opinion above all others, there is more room for change and possibility. The facts are clear that there is enough misery and desperation in the world without my petty emotional attachments and rationalizations.  But even so, I am a human being and my basic design puts me and my emotional upheavals at the center of my universe, until I learn how to see that pattern and shift my weight towards equanimity.

I saw a portion of a PBS Newshour program in which children of displaced families were being treated for the most severe life-threatening conditions of malnutrition, basically babies and children spending their earliest time here on earth starving instead of growing.  One doctor was asked, "who does she blame, or what is the primary cause of this terrible situation?' She answered, "the war." What I saw in a matter of a few moments on television is just the surface of a very deep and deadly problem my species seems to have... the inability to embrace each other with compassion and acceptance. War is the expression of conflict -- acts of war are horrific destructive behaviors towards our own human family, and the very world in which we all live.  The doctor, in spite of the unbearable sadness, devastating cruelty, and endlessness of the situation, is dealing with families, the dying, her co-workers, her community with compassion and acceptance; working flat out to ease the suffering for those for whom nothing can be expected to change for the better, and somehow being an island of equanimity in the sea of chaos.

Every mouthful since that program aired has brought me gratitude, sadness, and confusion. I walked to my local food co-op to buy groceries, passing a flattened baby bird on the sidewalk with a sparrow on a wire above me singing ceaselessly. This little bird baby, like the little human baby who weighs 7 pounds at 11 months old, had a beginning with possibilities. What can I do to change these outcomes?

I can walk more slowly, make eye contact, listen more and speak less, offer more and take less, support those who are in positions to take actions that I cannot take to directly assist others who are suffering, prioritize generosity, do my utmost to do no harm, and most importantly see my own reactivity and self-importance more honestly as distractions.

It hurts so much that communities and governments do not open their borders and coffers and food supplies to their own citizens in need, nor to other people from or in other places, without asking for some kind of power or control in return. What if that power and control is useless in the face of the loss we are living with as a species, as a family? So I will continue to build myself as a safer place for others, developing my practice as a person of no importance who is changing the world by observing my own gyrations as gyrations, and growing compassion and acceptance in every way I can.

A life could be spent making pilgrimages to places where human beings have been unspeakably cruel to each other, but perhaps more can be done by making every place I go part of a path that offers equanimity, compassion and acceptance. And so I will continue being joyful, even as the weight of sorrow becomes part of my normal weight.  Perhaps I can make space for others to find these two parts of the same possibility and act from a state of balance. The image in this post is a painting my father did in a food court in suburban Maryland. He looked for beauty and love in relational spaces. Even though he has been gone 7 years, his vision still comforts me.

The Trembling Leaf

Is it just fine to spend this moment focused on the trembling leaf outside my window? I can see the wind in its effects.  I see the terrible cold that stunted the earlier leaf buds on the ginko tree, yet I see the juicy green of the leaves that have unfolded at the very tips of the branches. So I consider Syrian refugees, and families that have been washed away by floods in East Texas, and I think of my students and am amazed at the level of focus as I say, "notice..." and "feel..."

I listen for their breathing and I can feel the way they share their energy, whether they mean to do it or not.

My heart has so few protective layers when I teach. I feel this time of year like the growth of new skin on my finger tips. I am like the cucumber seedlings on my windowsill.  Each tendril on the cucumber plants seeks something to support it -- wrapping around the stem of its neighbor, or the stick nearby, or simply reaching out into the unknown to see what it touches, not caring too much if it is a fence, a stick or a weed. Aren't we just like that too, until we curl back towards ourselves in protection or just stick with what we know?

Can't we simply sit in the fading evening light and take both delight and sorrow in the trembling leaf? Of course we can. And it helps to know that others can give themselves permission to do this too. I can say in this blog, however public that may or may not be, that it is fine with me if you do likewise. No matter who you are, where you live, who you love, what you are fleeing, or how you dream.

When Hauling the Heavy Stuff, Give Yourself a Breather

Here I am, hauling pain, anger, disappointment, sorrow, worry ... so I seek out that space where there's love. I can turn away from the bitter taste, or savor it; wash it away with a sweet Manhattan (cherry at the bottom of the cup), or paint it on both sides of the tee-shirt I'm wearing, my anguish doesn't stop. My mind is a generator that keeps on going but I have a way to unplug it.  There's only one thing I can count on for that space in which I can tolerate myself and even love being alive, no matter what crushing weight I am hauling.  I take my focus to my breath for several minutes. One or five minutes aren't enough in bad times, but 20 minutes gives me a literal breather.

Taking the load away from the center of my focus offers me a real rest that impacts on my whole body and shifts my mind too. I can see the bigger scene, and can find my place in that scene without the same piercing pain of it.

So much of the anger, agony, sorrow comes from wishful thinking. We rerun or grab for all the scenarios we want to change, or want to banish, or where we wish we could change the script. Even physical discomfort gets worse when all we can think about is getting rid of it.  Sometimes finding a way to live with it, accommodating the situation, actually lessens or even alleviates the stress around it, and just through that mechanism, the pain itself lessens.

Diet Change, The Moment is Now

So after months of hearing about the film Forks Over Knives, my husband and I watched it. The next morning, as I was making our oatmeal, he told me that he was going to give up meat, dairy, oils, empty grain and sweetened products.  He didn't want to wait until his cholesterol was too high and his arthritis more painful. He just wanted to treat himself by eliminating potential causes of his health problems.

Honestly, we've eaten a vegetable centric diet for the last 10 years. We grill a lot in the summer; love yogurt, good olive oil, and cheeses of all nations.  And we cook every day.

Even so, this shift feels true and transformative. It is simply what it is. We eat our home made vegetable sushi rolls, fava bean parsley salad with lemon and olive bits, rye crisp sesame crackers with humus and a piece of red pepper, and don't miss a thing. I roasted our oyster mushrooms in the oven, and cooked the herbed shallots and zucchini in a smidgen of water. 

Did we go over and over this decision? No. Had we quietly been preparing for this over the last several years? Probably. Are we vegan? Not really.  I think we are living truthfully. Making our own inquiry, seeing where it leads.  I wonder if I will use up the turkey soup stock in my freezer? 

This feels very much like my yoga practice. Many familiar elements, always under analytical scrutiny but also flowing with the wind.  Evolution is not a plan, it is a way of being alive. So we lighten our footprints, honor the vast array of amazing nutrients out there, and feel delighted to be able to share the adventure.  Who knows what the next moment brings? (My husband offers me a handful of peanuts!)

I've never done a "cleanse" but I have a feeling I just signed up for the longer term clean up.

A Pledge to Live with Paradox

I am living in a layered world of paradox. Without goal, without limiting myself to definitive closed-end attitudes, how can I act with quiet certainty and follow a path in any direction at all? It is absolutely required of me that I let go of grasping onto my life as a product to be produced in a certain way, or as a specific thing, in order to experience the true possibilities I might have. The only thing that protects me from feeling myself to be continuously on the edge of the abyss of meaninglessness is to accept that meaninglessness is an idea, like any other goal or product of the mind.

So I come to weightlessness, a weird sensation where there is no gripping at all. It disappears in an instant of panic, or certainty. As soon as I allow myself to attach to a feeling -- any feeling -- I am on the ground again. Feeling every bone, missing those I've lost, wondering who I am. This state of illusion is not comfortable either, seems so heavy, never resolves, though sometimes settles into a groove that I feel as familiar. That's when the old tapes begin playing all my stories; the criticisms and praises, sorrows and joys line themselves up.  This is of no use to me at all.

The important part for me now is to also let go of this paralysis, a sensation easily confused with not knowing, or uncertainty.  No amount of thinking is going to create certainty, the more I close in and nail down the structure around an idea, the less likely it is that it will lead to my liberation. The clarity and depth of inquiry provide the path, not so much the bits that turn up as I dig.

A neighbor of mine in upstate New York handed me a long list of ignorant unfounded sound bites as a rationale for his political negligence, social belligerence and protectionist gun-toting perspectives. I felt myself circle the bait, mouth open, but I closed my lips and smiled instead. "Then shoot me first," I said, smiling. I didn't have the will to say, "you must be terribly afraid and disappointed in your life,  your community, the choices we have all made together," or even "then I must be the enemy since I do vote, feel responsible for others and I do believe in peace."  I felt that he did not want to talk about that, he just wanted to bluster his way through this moment and go home. It is a role that he often plays. Part of me couldn't wait for him to leave, but part of me wished I could hold on long enough to reflect his anguish and let him know that I am not dismissing him, blind to his painful condition. We all make misinformed or fear-based choices sometimes, ones that endanger ourselves or others. I am no better than he.

How do we live side by side, with ourselves and each other? Tolerating the paradoxes, accepting the gripping and the weightlessness, until we get used to it. This is what takes practice. Months and years  of daily, weekly practice, over time we learn to change our own shape and accommodate all the thinking in order to operate directly from our energy source.  I can see the abyss, I can see the snow flakes filling the space between the hill on which I sit and the ridge across from me.  Like a blind cat, I step and explore, seeking information from outside my body in order to live in my fullest form in my body as it changes constantly.

What kind of resolution can I make to encourage myself in the coming days and months? Perhaps it all comes down to allowing myself the space to practice. Can I do that? Can you? Yes we can.

internal discipline: not a routine matter

Every day I brush my teeth twice. I've done this for at least 50 years, not able to account for the first 8 in which I bet I only brushed in the morning since dental hygiene didn't have the ubiquitous commercial value it has since accrued. In a way, teeth brushing is part of the routine of my days no matter where I am, or what is on my schedule, both of which fluctuate regularly.  I'm present when I'm brushing, noticing what's going on, but for the most part I'm just getting it done before heading off into the day or off to bed.  This is not a matter of internal discipline, but of external routine put into place for my dental health and sense of wellbeing... I am not a hermit after all, and my mouth has a part in my social behavior.

Meditation is not the same as brushing teeth, though I've had lots of people give advice to set a specific time of day and to routinize the behavior of taking the seat of mindfulness.  I know others for whom this is a way of life, but for me at this stage anyway, the routinizing of time of day isn't happening. Surely I could schedule meditation like tooth brushing and just get it done, but it isn't in my life as a daily obligation.

Meditation is, for me, an exquisite exercise in internal discipline, a matter of choice. I do not sit in order to say, "check, done that." I do not sit in order to see how long I can sit today as opposed to how long I sat yesterday or last week or last month. There is no measure for me, no goal, no established procedure.  There is no amount of sitting that gets me where I have to go.  Many might argue that mine is not a discipline at all, being so open ended, so haphazard. Separating routine from discipline seems to be part of my practice.

Unpredictability, curiosity and the swinging pendulum of joy and sorrow all drive my practice into its daily form. Taking the time when it presents itself, and organizing my days so that that time does present itself are tandem skill sets that are always in development. Failure in either of these is deeply felt and motivates me more. Like bringing yoga off the mat, this brings meditation off the cushion for me.

My practice is fueled by unpredictability, curiosity and that swinging pendulum. It is not a book that I pick up and find my bookmark and begin from where I left off.  All I ever have is this very moment. My tight left quadriceps might rule the world one morning, or my reactivity to the daily news, or the catching of my breath in my mid lungs, or the expansion of my energy beyond my skin. There is no way to predict the multiplex of movies that will be running in my mind, or the syncopated rhythms of the world around me. I have no interest in avoiding those elements, but rather seek it all out of a deep curiosity for the entirety of being present.

I am not attempting to psychoanalyze myself for 30 minutes,  to placate my emotions for 20 minutes, neutralize my political leanings in 10 minutes, nor solve my schedule conflicts in 5 minutes of silent sitting.  I never hold still in my seat; awareness of my breath moves me, continuously reminding me that I am alive in this very moment.

Developing this level of internal discipline is a great challenge, but that is what calls me to my practice. I don't expect to be a better person, or even a calmer person, as I have set aside these along with other expectations as my practice develops. My most cherished moments are the ones with no expectations and no boundaries, no interpretations of what arises, no way to leave off and bookmark it.  Success for me in this expenditure of time and energy is, I suppose, how I continue living my life fueled by just this unpredictability, curiosity and my own swinging on the pendulum of joy and sorrow. Meditation has intensified my awareness, eliminating many lines I had thought were boundary lines, as they either vanished into the mist, or emerged as entirely different structural elements.

My little local yoga studio, Shambhala Yoga & Dance Center, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, (where I lead a 20 minute meditation from 5-5:20pm on Tuesdays before teaching a beginners yoga class) is planning to embark on its first meditation intensive experience. Several of us who teach at the Center are considering this and preparing ourselves to help structure and support a month of days of meditation practice among our fellow teachers and students. This preparation has me looking at my own practice from a more structural point of view, and thinking about how to share this ever-beginning again practice with others.  I am grateful for the spotlight on this in my own life, and am interested to see what turns up!

Energy, Choices & Self Interest

Goals, action and intention all use our energy and help us fill our days, along with their shadows of anxiety, confusion and judgment.  Every time we do anything, from putting butter on toast to signing a contract for a job, we choose how we will spend this moment and many to come, knowingly or innocent of our motives. Usually there are some indicators that help us act in what we believe to be our self interest, to take on work that is worthwhile because of our training, or the paycheck or other benefit, whatever it may be that we think we want or need.  Perhaps it is the choice for taste over cholesterol level (butter on toast), or it can be social connection over isolation, or cleanliness over dirtiness, going to class or watching TV, there are many moments of choice that involve our energy and our identity and self concept in subtle and obvious ways.

It is hard to get away from the fact that self interest can be at the core of spiritual practice. In some ways it is an act on behalf of the self that drives a person towards some understanding greater than that of the first layer of self interest: those actions that take care of the basics of food, shelter, perhaps on behalf family and a wider layer of friends. Perhaps a connection to spiritual ideas can help further these more practical concerns, once a person believes that there may be something beyond the small isolated self to be considered. Self interest is definitely part of praying for a particular outcome or even giving donations of time or money to help promote the community in which one lives or to help lessen the suffering of those around us. We can use our energy to feel better about ourselves through helping others, and to feel better on behalf of others for having used our energy this way.

The next level of spiritual action could be turning one's life more fully over to spiritual practices from a deep desire to improve one's future condition as in "going to heaven" or improving "karma" for the next life. Some would say this is self-less behavior, but I see self-interest here too. Even in this matter it is a choice of how one uses the energy of this moment, and what manner of reward or outcome one expects or seeks. This seems to me to be connected to one's self concept as much as whether to eat toast or raw whole grains. We operate based on what we think is best or right or meets our criteria for usefulness, or offers us part of a goal we seek. This goal might be the betterment of living conditions for other living beings, or equitable means of resolving conflicts, or ensuring nutrition for malnourished infants, or helping a random passerby cross the street safely, or ending one's class on time. There is no hierarchy that makes one choice "better" other than how we see the choice and that, I think, is deeply colored by self interest and our ability to perceive who we are.

Spending one's life truly doing and being on behalf of others rather than just for one's self has a totally different impact in the world in the moment,  and in its consequences. This might be more obvious in one endeavor than another, say changing laws or governments versus nurturing a student's meditation practice. Yet the expenditure of energy that helps one's own child with homework or a co-worker resolve a moral dilemma, or in cooking one's own food from unprocessed local foods rather than buying a processed cheese food product,  is of the same temperament. Each of these small uses of energy serves the purpose of giving the self a clarity of purpose beyond selfishness even though the motive may be self interest. Perhaps it is a question of seeing the self in others, of recognizing that the self has an interest in the benefit to others.

Some people believe in heaven and hell, some believe in karma and the endless cycles of samskara; while some believe that all we have is this moment with no deeper consequence than that of this moment.  In any of these belief systems, it makes sense to me to use the energy we have to actively take on self interest, while at the same time developing our ability to be aware of what we do and why we do it. This cultivation of awareness, developing the ability to perceive our self and our patterns, is the basic nature of yogic practice and meditation experiences. This is the path towards recognizing the self and its interests in the welfare and conditional nature impacting other living beings.

Yoga does not make me a better person nor put me in a realm outside of self interest. It is as if yoga gives me the purest intelligence, like that of a bee: honing in on the pollen, using everything I have in me to collect from this one and that one until I must rest in the coolness of the evening. The bee in me is  doing what I have within me to do with all my energy, unflinchingly and without concern for the potential consequences of pollination and flowering, fruiting and feeding others. The bee in me is on the path, fully realizing my potential in the moment, doing what I can do in my present form.

So when I think about my teaching and find myself searching for motives, arranging and planning outcomes, I laugh and shrug it off. It is the energy of the bloom itself that draws the bee, the energy of the bee that brings the bloom. Letting go and seeing the dualities, I can feel my self interest in the benefits to my students -- whatever they are, and remain grateful to my students for my own practice. Will this get me points on the karmic scale? Who is doing the counting?

Weed Control or Right Action?

Every time I weed or water, I take stock of how things are going. I've made decisions to push back the wild field growth and plant specific flowers or edible fruits, roots or leaves. This gives me responsibilities but doesn't really put me in charge. When it doesn't rain for days on end, I feel the urge to provide water, since I'm the one who asked this plant to grow in this place soaked in sun and dried by wind. If it rains too much, I am the one who puts boards, or rings of salty or sharp materials out to attract the slugs from the plants that get besieged the most. I know that deer will prune my cherry tomatoes and lily buds, some woodchuck may eliminate my zinnias or half a cucumber plant, the birds and chipmunks will some of the blueberries. I understand that all my effort to weed in any one place will be repeated again and again and grow over if I neglect that task.

Today, after many sunny days, there is a drift of cloud cover and I know that means today's task will be transplanting. There are just a few plants that are not thriving as they could. In a couple cases, I attribute this to wrong placement: planted where once they had dappled shade and now have too much sun because of the loss of a nearby bush or tree or the opposite case, planted once in sun and now because of the growth of nearby trees, not enough sun to flourish.

For me it is intuition more than garden design that brings the shovel to hand. I know that where I plan to put that astilbe it will have a good mix of what it needs, but I also know that to make even a small hole for it, I will be excavating rocks and filling in with soil from somewhere else. I cannot control what will happen. Sometimes moles will eat the roots of a healthy happy plant and it withers and dies. Sometimes for two years in a row I don't see a plant bloom because the deer have chomped the buds and then there is a spectacular Spring show, unlike any I've ever seen because somehow the deer passed it by that season.

Yet I do feel the weight of my actions, playing with the lives of plants, even if for my own good purposes or their better cultivation. I carefully cut the chard leaves that we will eat, leaving the plant's newest growth to continue. I cut the lettuce, or broccoli rabe in the coolness of morning, water in the coolness of evening, and do that which I know to do in ways that I hope disturb the natural cycles the least. I see the wilting leaves in the hot sun, and think about the evening's watering to sustain them. I know that the buds that open in the morning care nothing for me or my appreciative gaze.

I have taken it on to grow these beautiful and edible plants where there were once different beautiful and edible plants (though perhaps not edible for me), leaving many wild patches of raspberries and blackberries, roses and barbary, gooseberries and elderberries, along with the field full of grasses and thistles, milkweed, joe pye weed, yarrow, vetch and so many others whose names I may never know or cannot remember. As soon as I turn my back, the plants I have planted here will struggle to keep their footing as the wild ones return. Each seeding for its own survival, spreading roots, and seeking out the moist earth.

Today, after I moved an echinacea from deep shade into a sunnier spot, the sun came out. That poor plant drooped, even with the good soil and water I had given it. I put a wire cage around it and draped a white tee shirt over it for protection. Half an hour later, the clouds came in seriously and sporadic rain drops began to fall. The tee shirt came off, the droopy stalks still sagged, but perhaps tomorrow will straighten them up. The coral bells, astilbe, heliobore, and goatsbeard have all settled down as though they were just waiting for this moment. Today the gray sky brings me joy.

Learning the Lyrics by Singing Along

Repetition and patterns are powerful ways of teaching ourselves, so it is no surprise that when we have the same reaction again and again, we learn to cement that response. Perhaps it is laughing at jokes that are not funny, perhaps it is swatting the fly that buzzes nearby, perhaps it is resenting another day on the job.

Think of how much easier it is to sing along with the song on the radio, or the ipod, then it is to remember the lyrics on your own. We sing along and sing along and with the support of the music we begin to remember those lyrics, hum-humming where we don't quite remember the words.

It may sound like a plan of positive thinking, but allowing yourself to experience the possibilities of reacting differently, and practicing that, can have the same impact as humming along until you get most of the words. You can learn a new song and enjoy even humming along til you know it better. Maybe stuffing envelopes feels demeaning or is boring or obviously doesn't use so many of your other positive attributes and skills. You can try stuffing envelopes with an awareness of this attitude, and open yourself to enjoying even this job more. Perhaps you will come up with ways to improve the work itself, offering to translate the mailing into a series of pre-printed postcards or emails, making those envelopes unnecessary. Perhaps you will come to appreciate the reaching out that each envelope represents.

Give yourself the freedom to choose, separating from a repeated negative pattern.

There are so many more songs that you can sing.

Deconstructing a Flood of Words: Using the Yamas

Imagine meeting a friend and as you are standing there, the friend begins handing you one thing after another. The first thing you take with one hand and keep making eye contact with your friend. You can hold this thing easily in one hand. The friend immediately hands you something else, a handful of small things. You put the other object in the crook of your elbow and take the handful carefully in one hand. The friend then hands you a large awkward object and places it across your outstretched forearms. Another object follows immediately that is sloshing in a container. You stand still while your friend continues to pack every possible crack and balance point with one after another thing.

How many times have you had a "conversation" that felt like this?

Words are mental objects. They represent ideas, carry the kernel of reactive emotions. Words can literally transform the inner landscape with visual information, and can reconfigure a thought process by eliminating or adding elements.

Speech is a powerful way to communicate, yet words are often used without any idea of their actual impact.

There are moments when each of us suddenly feels the weight of our words. Awareness is intense in those moments when the call for clarity is great, or when the emotional impact of each word is evident. We feel it when each word is painful; we feel it when words reassure. Words can bring fear, excitement, calm, joy, anger, confusion, clarity.

Teaching yoga requires specificity in language when directing other bodies, when inviting the minds of others to focus, when suggesting visual or emotional constructs. It is one sided, directive-suggestive-instructive talk. This is a collectively agreed upon inequality. When this kind of inequality occurs among people in typical conversations, it implies the same tacit agreement, and can be very uncomfortable for the listener, and sometimes leaves an unpleasant feeling afterward for the talker too. For some, this kind of one-sided hand-over-the-stuff talking is a challenge to compete, or sets up a verbal jousting match. The listener might make an effort to break the cycle or show equal fortitude, or feel a need to claim some equal worthiness for attention. The deep need to be "right" or "have the last word" can easily arise.

The person who storms you with object after object probably does not realize that you cannot hold on to all of it. It is likely they cannot see that this transfer doesn't afford you any opportunity to make any use of the objects. It may be that the intent is not to gain your understanding, but simply a desire that you take all this stuff to lighten their load. The odd part is that the objects actually remain in the custody of the person who gave them, even as they weigh you down. It seems those same objects can be handed over again and again. Perhaps they are not the actual load, but simply represent the burden being felt.

Taking stock of the deeper layer of communication can help slow this flood and might actually help shift that burden through awareness. If the friend (or you) are lonely, it may be a desire to feel a shared experience of life that provokes the stream of words in one direction. Perhaps a sense of isolation creates an urgency in having another person confirm the stream of experiences or reactions. Perhaps it is uncertainty that pushes a person (or you) to such an effort to be convincing, taking each point and covering every detail of the subject just to be sure and reinforce this version of them. Sometimes it is a deep need to be appreciated, or acknowledged, that prompts a person to disclose too much of what they know, or how they feel or how they arrived at their conclusion.

Kindness and respect can stem this flood. Allowing the undercurrent to rise to the top can be as simple as saying, "It must be hard to go through all this on your own," or "It is interesting to hear how you think about this, and I can tell you have thought a lot about it;" "There are many who would react the way you reacted." This stops the flow of details and returns to the core of the communication. It is also sometimes useful to simply say,"I am interested in what you are saying, but cannot absorb all these details. Can you tell me the part you really want me to know?" You can even ask, "Do you want me to respond to this, or are you simply telling me so that I will know about this too?"

These kinds of responses come directly from an investigation of the yogic principles of the Yamas (one of the eight limbs of yoga as outlined by Patanjali from centuries ago).

The Yamas are yogic principles of outward and inward behaviors. Each of the outward principles relate to the concepts of how we function, and interact. Taking on any one of these will lead to the others. Ahimsa - non-violence - applies to being kind, refraining from the domination games, being patient with yourself and others, and practicing compassion in speech as well as action. Satya - truth - again relates to the deepest awareness rather than the surface feedback. Being kind in the truth you express will enliven and enrich, rather than dominate and degrade others. Asteya - non-stealing - is a practice of respecting the energy and time of others as well as your own, not simply refraining from taking objects, but also making unnecessary demands of others. Brahmacharya - restraint - the source of celibacy practices and also of relinquishing overindulgence and repression, embracing moderation and respecting the divine in all beings. Aparigraha - non-possessiveness - is the cultivation of non-attachment, honoring of the many strands that weave the fabric of life without dictating or grasping, making space for the self and others to simplify rather than vie for control.

Starting with any one of the Yamas as an investigation is like having a walking stick for uneven terrain. Everywhere you go, whatever you may do or experience, let the Yama you choose help you feel the structure below that supports you on the path.