Inner Layers Align, Koshas of an Asymmetrical Body

I'm standing in my kitchen thrilled by the quintessential integrity and alignment in this little teapot by Hsin-Chuen Lin on my shelf. How can an object be so beautiful, proportioned perfectly, balanced in every way in form and function and not be symmetrical? In my own daily life, I see so many moments when my inner dialogue seems designed to keep me off balance. I think of how my mind offers me criticism, praise, observations, excuses, prompts, and shifting values in every moment, all of which push and pull me around. I'm learning that my sense of inner alignment comes from some where else, some where other than all that ongoing mental activity.  I think this little tea pot reflects inner alignment and more than just the physical skill of the potter who made it.

In my first yoga training, I was introduced to ideas about the Vedantic and yogic concept of Koshas, the layers, conceptualized as sheaths or "bodies," in which we function and experience awareness. There are said to be five of them, the physical body (Anamaya kosha), the breath body (Pranamaya kosha), the energy body (Manomaya kosha), the mental or wisdom body (Vijanamaya kosha), and the bliss body (Anandamaya kosha). Of course they have names in a number of ancient languages, but for my purposes they are layers of living awareness, each rooted in some aspect of my concept of self, and expansive in ways that are becoming more accessible to me through daily life by way of my yoga and meditation practices, and my growing mindfulness. I don't have to separate them, or define them by anyone else's terms, though sometimes what others say or experience does shed light in places where I'm not so clear. There is a delicate balance between allowing myself to let go of defining elements in order to experience reality without distortion or projection.

It is as simple as being fully present, a practice that takes everything I've got. I can allow this in anything I'm doing -- a level of cultivated awareness from which I slip in and out. In my yoga practice I take a standing pose of warrior one (Virabhadrasana I). This is similar to a standing lunge with the back leg at more of an angle and the back foot fully down on the floor so that each hip is rotating a little differently from the other. To start with, I am probably full of technical check points, sensing the difference when my left ankle is the rear support or my right ankle takes that role. My awareness scans my body - so much variation day to day, moment to moment, in this hip or those quadriceps or shoulder. First layer, Anamaya kosha indeed, full of recorded experience as well as sensations in this moment. I notice that my breath inhabits my form, operating on another level. I notice the slight twist in my ribs as I breathe, feel expansion inward and outward throughout my body, and feel that I am gaining access to my energy body, flowing inward from earth and air and outward into earth and air. I can sense dull places where there are less open channels, and vivid places that are like energy centers. In all of this my mind is awake (at least some of the time). This is not the judgmental, critical, assessing mind, but a spacious, curious mind. Beyond these sensory, physical, intellectual or emotional facets arises a inclusive connectivity, that in some inexplicable way accepts the space where I stand, the air I breathe, other living beings and myself in this without distinguishing hierarchies or values, offering a sense of total being.

All this happens with continuing messages from my stiff left ankle, knowing that my right shoulder is not level with my left, and listening for that wasp dive-buzzing the corners of the window nearby. I'm not driven towards perfection, not expecting my physical form to be symmetrical or to accomplish some kind of measurable feats in order to be worthy of my respect. My body is not unlike the little teapot, a graceful offering of internal alignment, within its functional range of motion.

Body as Home, Breath as Being

Sometimes when you've been out on your feet for many hours, getting into the car feels like home. I've seen  people pick their noses in their cars as though there were curtains through which no one could see. The car is a vehicle, a vehicle that moves through space giving a sense of enclosure and perhaps even a sense of security. Out in the world it is our own body that provides us with that home (complete with a fabricated sense of security) but on the body we actually do place curtains in a way: our clothing, styles, habits, the stuff of appearances. We dress ourselves as we hope to be seen, within the limitations of our ideas about our self and our willingness to put time and resources into the project. This physical vehicle in which we experience life does not really have an external life of its own. We can surely be judged by others based upon it, but if you judge me by my shoes, I become invisible as a living being. It is our breath that animates us. Awareness of  our self as a living being can shift us away from this false sense of privacy or security into the truth of being fully alive in the world. The breath can help us feel and fill that space where we are authentic, alive and at home. No curtains needed. 

So often it is the metaphorical curtains that seem to fascinate us, about ourselves and on others. We use the outer shapes and decoration to tell one story after another. Our mala beads,  turban,  yarmulkas,  or veil all speak of the culture of our spiritual practices,  reveal a bit about our desires and self concept. Our fashions show our grasping at affinity groups, and hint at our philosophy to avert the worst of our fears.  We imagine physical condition as a reflection of character. All of this, like a silk wrap, falls away when we cultivate our focus on the breath itself.  There is no strategy about being who we are when we are simply being a living being. There is no style or design to it, other than the human form that uses this continuous influx and outflow. Stories we have been told, and the ones we tell ourselves or another, can also be seen as shifting reflections in the windows.

The human form has a shape and that shape has its effects. Like any point of origin, it's influence is both subtle and deep. If we find ourselves living in a female or male body, or with chronic illness, or with acute  sensitivities, it can shape us invisibly and visibly. Seems to me, though, that even these attributes are window dressing  rather than the core of the living self.  We can continue to see each other as these external forms, and ourselves as well, or we can begin to cherish these forms as expressions, and see beyond the curtains. 

The mind is like a vast loom, constantly weaving all available strands into patterns. Each strand, if pulled,  unravels only one part of this constantly shifting design. It is being, the presence of mind without attaching to the distractions of the curtains or the shifting designs, that unifies all of our life experiences into this life we live.  It unifies this life into a much larger fabric comprised of all the lives around us, known or unknown to us, and in fact to those who came before us and will follow us. We do not make that happen by fingering our prayer beads, or covering our faces, but by breathing in and breathing out. It is part of the yogic path to draw awareness within, to cultivate a single-pointed focus, and to observe the workings of the mind itself. The breath is the constant, regardless of the strands, the patterns, or the curtains we use to cover to the changing reflections.

When a thread is pulled and parts begin unraveling, we are willing to take that which remains as though it were whole. This distortion is what we think we know. Operating from this is like imagining that the window is  in fact the self,  with or without curtains. It is easy then to ignore the space within the vehicle, shaped by the breath, that offers authentic wholeness, regardless of  curtains  open, closed, threadbare or missing.  Standing on the subway underneath NYC, it is not my shoes, or my hair or skin color, or my language that define my life. I am using all of that to decorate, and perhaps convey that I am a person in a community with a task and appetites. it is my breath that defines me as a living being, something I share inarguably and intimately with every other living being on the train. It is the awareness and acceptance of this energy exchange that keeps my heart open, my mind alert, and gives me a place in which to be truly home anywhere.

Body as Vehicle for Experiencing Life in the Mind

Looking at this image of a pie is a way in to the way my mind works. Even if I didn't have associations with the experience in time and space of being served this pie (which I do), I react with admiration, appetite, and curiosity. This image sparks my body into hungry messages, and my feelings about diet, body image, flavors, my own pie making, and on and on.  This image of a pie is a way of triggering all kinds of information about how my body and mind work.

The physical practices of yoga are just like this pie, offering unlimited ways of revealing our selves to our selves through the experiences we remember, project or have in the moment, including feelings and all kinds of associations. The body postures (asana) and breath practices (pranayama) are available to us now in so many ways, styles, places, and tempos.  Each time we approach the yoga mat, no matter where or with whom, there is an invitation to combine the mind's attention with the body's experiences.  Teachers ask students to direct their attention to this through instructions about dropping shoulders down the back, or feeling the weight in the outer edge of the foot, or lifting the Mula Bandha to engage the deep abdominal muscles.  This is mind seeking out the communication channels in the body, literally making the connections. So many of us confuse our right arm with our left as we process verbal instructions, but that is not a problem really.  Some of us can't lift and lower only our big toe, but that is not a problem either. Yoga opens these lines of communication and invites us to let go of the judging of what happens or doesn't.

It is not for the physical experience alone that we come to the practice, and the practice will not leave us alone at that level of engagement.  Finding that we don't know how to lift those deep muscles of the Mula Bandha from the base of the perineum, we wonder how to activate this area? Or perhaps we do know how to lift the Mula Bandha but only in association with moments of sexual involvement and find ourselves embarrassed and inept at making that deeply personal connection in the context of a yoga class. This is invisible, as is the sensation of weight in different parts of our feet -- or so we think.

The physical practice of yoga is deeply personal. It allows an intimacy with oneself physically that draws out the mind, engages the emotions, and may trigger many unexpected experiences. In the classic yoga structure, Asana and Pranayama are but two of the eight limbs of yogic practice, the rest are philosophical and relate to energies and attention,  dealing directly with mind in all its aspects and attributes.  It is the physical practices that reveal to us that the body is the vehicle for experience that the mind can use to discover itself.

Seeing Your Inner Gesture: Asking, Offering, Accepting

Reaching an arm outward is a physical action. If feelings are allowed to arise, they will. It is a trick of the mind to attach meaning to everything, meaning that triggers feelings, and feelings that in their responsive nature give us the next wave of action and reaction.

Just sitting in a chair and gently reaching a hand outward, extending your arm in front of you ... to the side ... above your head ... You can turn on the switch of being present with how you feel in the action. Are you holding a soft handful of air? Are you striving to extend back muscles and lengthen finger joints? What are you doing?

Each time you open your awareness to this, you will find something new. You, in this moment, and how you feel, can become more familiar and visible in your conscious view of yourself. That outstretched arm can introduce you to yourself. This is how the physical practice of yoga opens into a deeper understanding of the self, a path to acceptance of the range of feelings that are already there in you, a way to tolerate and release even painful emotions stored from past events, or to acknowledge and adapt in spite of fears of future events.

That elegant arm reaching out, the incredible hand extended... are you asking? are you offering? are you accepting?

If you drop your wrist and relax your fingers, your arm will still express your deeper feelings. You can release your hand to be the simple extension of this, allowing the unfolding from your heart. With the eyes of a warrior, soft, open, and ready for anything that might appear, let your yoga practice allow you to begin cultivating your view, your drishti, to accept what is already before you.

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.

Warrior Walking

This morning after teaching, I experienced a remarkable synthesis of yoga and the moment in daily life. Walking home there was a saturated feeling of soft support of my bones through my contact with the earth, spaciousness in the joints of my hips and shoulders as I moved, a wide open quality in my view of the urban scene around me. There was joyousness balanced with stillness in my thoughts. I recognized this sensation as that of Virabhadrasana, the warrior, in my yoga practice. I was startled to find myself a walking warrior on the streets of Brooklyn!

What really awakens in the warrior poses? Can the gaze be soft and inclusive? Does the support felt in the foundation of the earth allow a subtle rising energy that is alert and poised? Where does the breath expand, what is releasing? Where does the mind grasp, find clarity? Can there be spaciousness in the joints and a balance of effort and ease that prepares you for whatever is around you? All of this can be going on at the same time in all of the three traditional standing warrior poses, Virabhadrasana I, II, and III.

The subtleties are in the cultivating of your awareness to enable you to take in the muscular work, the alignment of the structural elements, the softening of the edges and the gaze, the placement of the breath as a buoyant support for staying in the present moment. This allow you to stay present, not blanking out or fading away. Often in classes students are led through a vinyasa that takes them through one warrior into and out of another. In that experience there can be a collaboration of stillness and movement if the student can let go of gripping, yet hold steady to alignment and ease throughout the muscular and joint shifts. This is really not a simple endeavor, and often I see students physically muscling their way from here to there and back again. Of course a yoga practice often begins right there, at the junction of the physical and the alert awareness that effort can spark.

Experiment with remaining in the asana, exploring your own experiences in the moment, and see if you can struggle less, effort less, and notice more. Take out an element, perhaps the uplifted arms, and discover what is happening with your bones and breath. Acknowledge the emotions and the patterns that effort and resistance might bring up. See if you can soften more by attending to the quality of your breath. Then, perhaps add the arms back into your pose. Can you express the open gaze and steady heart of the warrior through the soft expansion of your collarbones from the soft center at the base of your throat all the way out to your fingertips?

No Goal + Open Outcome = Experience

I set myself tasks, getting groceries, showing up for practice or for teaching. It is easy to put objects on the calendar and begin investing in how all that comes to pass, whether it does, and with what efficiency. The checking off of the list becomes another layer of goal. It is strange that I can so easily rely upon all of this to define myself. I can identify with having the capacity or not to do these things. But using this to define myself is as though assigning myself a meditation practice and putting my body on the cushion is the same as meditating. Looking at that straight on, it is so clearly not so. The setting of a goal may well influence the formation of an intention, but is not the act itself of doing and being.

The action of being present is not the same as aligning the spine. Aligning the spine can help with many layers of awareness, to be sure, and that’s where some confusion might enter the picture about yoga and the practice of yoga. A recent article in the NY Times about yoga and injury brought up questions among students and teachers these past few weeks. The article clearly describes the negative physiological effects in specific cases of repetitive overdoing or predisposition to injury in asana practice. It can happen even in meditation if a person insists on sitting motionless for many hours a day, disregarding physical best practices. These are distortions of what the practices demand, in my opinion, since yoga and meditation actually do make demands but more squarely in the areas of commitment, cultivating attention, and willingness to see patterns of behavior and reactivity and bring intelligent awareness to these patterns.

I have no intention of mimicking the life and practice of spiritual renunciates from previous centuries or even current times. Neither is yoga a weight loss program or a new age form of aerobic workout. Teachers who teach this way are grossly misrepresenting the depth and range of the practices in order to serve a client base who want this from them. So everyone takes some risks along with that approach.

Any body can benefit from connecting to their physical body, and from initiating a conscious practice of cultivating awareness, deepen the understanding of the interactions of breath and energy and apply some yogic principles and philosophy to their way of being and doing. Students of yoga can be young or old, able bodied or disabled. There is no requirement to achieve specific asana or lengths of meditative sessions. Asana practice certainly can develop strength, flexibility and stamina, body awareness and cultivation of energy use without participating in a sport. Meditation practice does enable the loosening of constraints of habitual ego patterns developed over years of responding and reacting, and gives insight into seeing conditions that continuously change with more clarity.

Perhaps seeing one’s own drive and emotional baggage when doing yoga is one of the first and greatest benefits of the practice. Learning to step back from the pressure we put on ourselves can help us see that there can be a less encumbered flow of energy for us to use. This is truly a saving grace. Good teachers are on this path, and can help students discover their own feet there too.

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.

Finding What Supports You

When I say, "allow your feet to soften into the earth," it might sound like gobble-de-gook or hocus pocus until we begin playing with the way we actually use our feet. This shift in attention brings a level of understanding that can help with balance, with organizing your bones above the earth in ways that help transfer weight without stressing joints, and also lightens the load even in an emotional sense. First we try the communication system between the feet and the brain. Are the signals getting through in both directions? It's good to let yourself laugh when that little toe just doesn't hear you, or when the ball of the foot rises instead of the toes. As with any relationship, humor can help a lot as we gain an appreciation of the other's point of view.

In any posture, whether doing yoga or not, you can explore the grounding of your body. It isn't always your feet either, sometimes it's your sitting bones below you, or the angle of your pelvis that help settle you so that your spine can follow its natural rise. Investigate the way the bones rest on the earth -- exploring while laying down on your back for example, you can just notice the way your breath lifts and releases you and discover exactly which parts of you are touching the surface below you. Cherish this discovery of how your spine works, and allow your attention to follow the breath as it gradually releases tensions and more of your body can relax into the support below.

Standing you can do the same thing while gently leaning your weight into the inner edges of your feet and then the outer edges. What does that mean? Well, can you feel any weight in the inner side of your heel, or do you tend to feel yourself resting on the outer edge? Perhaps more of this than that in one or the other foot? Just find out. Try bending your knees slightly and feel the weight naturally seep into the heels, stretching the front thigh into the hip socket a little can do the same thing -- draw your attention to this and play with it. It may feel like you will fall over, but relax into it with a little shake, a little boogie woogie, and then settle back into it.

Once your communication lines are open, you can really draw energy up the legs from the earth; you can relax into your seat and feel an energetic lift in the deep core muscles; you can ease the shoulders down your back upper rib cage and feel your ribs freely floating over your hips.

If you find the support below you, you can rise lightly and feel freedom in the joints as well as the mind. Give it a try. Focus on it for a moment, whatever posture you're in! The deeper support will become evident once you allow the exploration to begin with the surfaces of things.

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.

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!

Walking Is Walking

Here it is - When I walk to the store, I am walking. When I walk to teach, I am walking. When I walk to the creek, I am walking.
Here it is - When I practice 15 minutes, I am practicing. When I practice an hour, I am practicing. When I practice 2 hours, I am practicing.

So don't tell me that you don't have time to breathe, or that you can't take ten minutes for yoga in 24 hours each day. Everyone gets the same number of minutes in a day... and we make so many choices about how we are going to spend them. In fact we spend way too much time on the planning, thinking, rationalizing, explaining, etc. side of things. It's the way our minds work, so that's fine, just accept it. But put the practice in the day. I am suspending all the rules for you about time of day and routines.

Today it hit me as I ate my morning melon: Listen. Loosen. Open. Relax. That's the practice. You can add challenges, you can work on specifics of anything within that framework. Try chanting. Use Ujjayi breath or Bandha locks. Balance. Twist. Invert. Let the mind go beyond and look back at itself. Send yourself or someone else compassionate acceptance.




LISTEN: Let the breath take over the whole system. Allow your interest to connect to being present. Find what your own wisdom has to offer you. Take the risks, find the sources. If this is all you do, it is your practice.

LOOSEN: Warm the joints, be merciful and compassionate towards your soft side, your weak limb, your striving nature. Allow your body to come to the breath for support and nurturing. Find where the catches are and let them go. If this is all you do, it is your practice.

OPEN: Explore where you actually are. Allow temptation to flow through you and open your question marks into movements and shapes, forms and breath. Find what leads to what and let the energy find you right there. If this is all you do, it is your practice.

RELAX: Take it in and let it go. Close your eyes in recognition that you have all you need within you, the earth below you, the breath -- the very air itself -- moving you as it will. If this is all you do, it is your practice.

So you have a lot to do today, or you did a lot today. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Listen. Loosen. Open. Relax.

Bones

Walking, feeling the swing in the joints, realizing that the skeleton is the frame, bound together by its fittings and tendons, by its uses and spaces.

Thinking about moving in the world. Sensing that being in the world relies upon this spaciousness and the tensions of tissues that hold me together, keep me flexible enough to move.

Distributing my weight throughout my body, my bones hold this human form. For now.

Some of the most beautiful moments of breath come when I see the dry arch of my ribcage like an ancestral skeleton on the earth bleached by the sun. I call this the cathedral of my ribs, and fill it with light and breath.

Walking, passing a front stoop piled with flowers in honor of someone who died, and later, passing the small neighhborhood church where a hearse stood out front. Feeling joy and wonder. The bones, resting without the tensions in the flesh or muscles, without the breath. Is there sorrow in the bones? I don't feel it.

Heat washing the outside of me, heat washing the inside of me. Letting go of the pressure to hold on to my body, I can allow my bones to move with the movement of the breath. Still breathing. For now.

Walking, part of me is contained in this container of bone and breath. Some of me is an electrical impulse or a chemical reaction. When my bones rest, where do I go then? Savasana. Corpse pose. The idea of letting go, allowing the bones to hold my form, my spirit free, my breath easy. For now.