Enjoy the Illusion, Return to the Truth

This weekend not only do many of us put on costumes and play at being other-than-normal, but we change the clocks -- "falling back" an hour. Such a good opportunity for seeing the way we use the mind to organize the world around us! Seeing the world from behind a mask, makes us feel so different. Clearly the sun rises and sets at its own intervals based on relationships of rotation of sun and earth, yet we call some hours day or night, make these longer or shorter based on hours we assign, and our work schedules. For example, "my day at work" could mean an all night shift, or a morning of teaching.

The truth is one of construction by the mind to help us be organized, and yet we attach so much more to create the illusory world we live in. What am I talking about? For example, we have feelings about getting up "early" to go to work. We attach meanings to staying "late" or "finishing early." We feel "pretty" in our silks,  "fierce" in our claws, and hidden with just a simple mask. 

We attach meaning through judgments and associations to just about everything. This makes life rich like a multi-layered embroidery. It can also fill us with anxiety, frustration, lethargy and even feelings of entrapment and oppression, even as it can liberate the dancer, the lion, the mysterious being behind the mask.

Here's the thing -- just a few moments of stopping the cycle of attachments and judgments can help loosen the grip of illusion! It won't make it harder to do what you do or take away the fun of the costume when you want it. It can reduce the way these unseen patterns of attachment and illusion chafe, worry, stress and oppress you.  

Return to the truth.   Let go of the good-bad/early-late attachments even for THREE BREATHS every so often during your waking hours, and you will feel the shift back into your own vital energies, no longer pushed and pulled entirely by the mind's gripping. See the darkness and enjoy the shadow shapes and twinkling lights. See the sunrise and revel in the turning of these astrological bodies that give us that which sustains all life on earth! Find the grace of your inner dancer, the power and ease of your big cat, the deeply mysterious nature of your own being without the masks and costumes. 

The best part of this interruptive breath focus is the way it helps to re-align you with your life energy and gives you the space to see the mind's gripping, being alert to your reactions and patterns. Some of these ways are traps, and some are facilitations. Once you see them, you can begin to use the facilitations and step away from the traps. You will have choices about the mind patterns that otherwise run your world.

Breathing is with you throughout every moment of your life. LOL! but true! That is why it is such a natural place to turn your attention, again and again. What else could be so stalwart, steadfast and supportive??

Building Meanings Again

Loss of a steady gaze coming back at me

And subtle knowledge that a conscious mind was observing

Recognizing that no arms could hold the child as the heart now yearns

Understanding that those soft voices no longer attend my sleep.

So I begin again, not as though newly begun.

As with memory, there are confusions.

Even my own role has slid quietly into a slow single step

And another. Who to tell of the ripening raspberries?

I don’t want to tell their stories that change the shapes to fit

Nor do I want to sing the songs that erase that phantom cadence

With my own voice.

Some lilies bloom on a rainy day.

Some of the birds eggs are found broken in the grass.

Yet clover blooms and gravel washes in rivulets.

These are the meanings I collect.

Of clouds moving in a backlit sky,

And sounds of poplars whispering of winds and hidden nests.

When I draw breath there is movement throughout my being,

Whether I am really here, understanding, or not.

Ironing: Present but not Perfect

The season of ironing has returned. The school year has begun, the temperatures have dropped slightly and it is time for me to catch up with the ironing pile of my husband's shirts that has waited through the summer, growing slowly. He has always worn cotton shirts, and somehow over the past 25-30 years, I've taken on the task of keeping them somewhat free of wrinkles.

It was with some surprise that having started ironing the back of the fifth shirt, I could not remember if I had completely ironed the back of the previous shirt. Stunned for a moment, I stood, wracking my brain and then I actually went over and looked at it.  I had indeed ironed it. Where the heck was I when that happened that I couldn't remember doing it? Was I on automatic pilot?

No, not on automatic, but more present in the moment than in recording the results and committing my actions to memory. As I am ironing, I am acutely aware of the texture of the fabric under my hand and the weight of the iron, feeling the heat of the steam rising, the breeze from the window. My eyes, hands and mind are synchronized with my breath and my attention is fully on what I am doing. Or so I thought. In fact, my heart is also holding the person for whom I am smoothing out the wrinkles, in some ways encircling the shoulders upon which this placate will rest, envisioning the arms and hands that will emerge from this sleeve, once it is rolled up, as it always is when my husband is in action.

So how can it be that I am so present, yet I've finished one shirt and begun another without memory and certainty?  Perhaps it is not the goal of my action to remember ironing the back of each shirt. The goal of my action is to act in the moment, transmitting my love for my husband, and this is what engages me. My physical attention is fully in the present moment, observing the weave of the fabric beneath my hand and the implications of the back pleat for my task. Will the shirt be perfectly ironed because of my full attention? Perhaps not, especially since there is quite a pile and I have evolved a speedy treatment! If I wanted perfectly ironed shirts, I would ask my husband to do it as he is the one who attachs to the specificity of physical results. This is part of what makes his woodwork and sculpture so beautifully crafted. Yet even without attachment to perfection, the task is accomplished, and my goal satisfied.

In the moment of ironing, I am accomplishing a repetitive quotidien task, acting out of love, savoring textures and sensations of being and doing, and relaxing my grip on perfection and judgment.  For me this is yoga off the mat, and I am grateful that my attention was called into question by my thinking mind so that I could see my action for what it truly is. How many times in a seated meditation does the mind ask, "what are you doing? where are you?" and answers itself, "I've taken my seat and I am meditating."  This is harder to count than even counting the breath itself!

Transition is a State of Mind

So much emphasis is placed on college applications that the whole last half of high school is colored by this. Once accepted, there is another phase of accommodating all the changes taking place in moving to a new way of operating, often in an entirely different location. Once there's a rhythm established, many people start taking semesters abroad or as interns, getting part time jobs and turn their face towards what happens after graduation. Even semesters starting and ending, summer sessions and work study jobs coming and going, all of this seems like an enormous sequence of change upon change upon change.

It is much the same as a child learns to move in the world from sitting, crawling, standing, that hand-over-hand cruising, to walking, running, climbing (not always in that order!). To children, adults seem complete and finished as though all the pieces are set and the patterns established. To some degree this is a way of operating that many people try to adopt, sticking to their patterns, hanging on tight to who they think they are, or want to be.

But life is entirely transitional. Right down to the cells in the body, we are an ever shifting, changing organization of bits and systems. We live only in this moment, and whether we call it transitional or not, this is that moment.

When we tell ourselves we are in transition, or classify someone else as in a "transitional stage," we are emphasizing our idea that they are developing something and will not remain the way they are now.  This reflects our opinion or impression that perhaps that what is happening now is not sustainable, or that it is only a temporary way of operating or feeling. Certainly we comfort ourselves by saying that the deepest moments of intense grief are temporary, and we warn each other to enjoy the early days of childrearing as they "go so fast." What happens in the mind when we accept that every moment is such a moment, that we are constantly developing and can not remain the way we are now?

I stopped my class in mid stream in their sun salutations (Surya Namaskar), a series of yoga asana that are strung together in a fairly routinized way, though in my class you can never figure what I'm going to suggest. Each student realized that they had not placed their body as carefully as they would have if they had known they would have to stay there ... they had defined this sequence of postures as a flow of transitional movements, and discovered that this had occurred without much intelligence, relying predominantly on pattern and habit.  Yoga is a practice fundamentally of unifying, "yoking," awareness with the actions of being.

Waking up awareness is one of the darts that I throw at the balloon of habit in the mind. Cultivating conscious attention to include even the most mundane, momentary bits of life is where the vibrancy and depth of being resides. The yoga asana practice is a mechanism that can awaken an alert body and  mind, and help develop and train this level of consciousness and awareness without efforting. It takes focused attention to see that "transition" includes every moment, and that in every moment we can be completely present in the experience. We may never visit this place again, or be 19 years old, or feel confused about this particular thing, or be as broken hearted, or as proud and happy, or whatever it is. Those living with cancer know this feeling of uncertainty as a constant, rejecting or accepting the moment in all its fullness, again and again.  Being fully present in this moment is a state of mind, and thinking that this moment is just on its way to some other moment is also a state of mind, that leaches some of the potential from "now" and projects it onto "then."

Convenient to explain uncertainty and the unknown as a transition if we are not sure of what is happening and want to grasp at the next moment (or the remembered moment) as more settled or resolved or successful, etc.  This, too, is the mind setting a scene for the story we tell ourselves. It is still only in this moment that we are here, living. Impermanence is  the way of all living beings. Just look around you.

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.

If you crave certainty let death be that, for now.

If you crave certainty let death be that for now, for once you achieve that you will see that it is not the goal you imagined but just another moment passing.

Finding the middle path is not a grip on everything. It is like walking with open palms while you feel the gentle swinging of your hips. Pile up desires like clean laundry, used and cleaned for reuse. Then hang them on the line in the sun. Feel the wood of the clothespin. The tree roots, the hand on the machine spitting out little springs, the pleasure of the grip of pin to line that will hold desire as it flaps in the wind, changing colors.

How does it feel to see them there? Beautiful as they hang and flap. Separate from you. All lined up for you to continue in the endless cycle of craving.

Where are your feet, your hands, your hips now? Undressed from the layers of desire. Weightlessness of the middle path poses a paradox. How can you clutch at your foundation and reach outwardly when there is only this shimmering self, naked and aglow?

I like to use the words "find" and "allow" when I teach yoga.   I invite students to come with curiosity and acceptance. I know how hard this is and that we would rather wrap ourselves in the beautiful desires that mark us and make us resemble our expectations.  Freedom doesn't wear such specificity nor can it. As I see my outer self flapping in the sun, making its own shadows, I can feel the sweetness of being without all that.

Death can be seen as the ultimate degradation or the sublime elevation, the cause of suffering or the release from suffering. Perhaps it is a mirage we can use to teach us about the nature of impermanence and the clutching for certainty that so often run our emotional and psychological programs. Steve Jobs spoke eloquently about his own mortality as the predominant inspiration to make the most of his life.

What good does it do to accept impermanence? Well as long as we resist this idea that the moment is the truth of our life, we clutch at something else. We look back, we worry about what is to come, we contort ourselves and others with judgments based on what we think of this or that. 


Accepting impermanence softens the fear of loss, the fear of illness and eventual death. This is fundamentally where suffering comes from, according to yogic and Buddhist philosophies. If I need to be certain of something, let it be death for now. This will give me enough desire and craving to pin on the line and I will not care much whether the pins come loose in the wind.

Doing What You Are Doing, Step Into Being Who You Are

Acting with clarity and without judgment reflects a constancy of self, an acceptance of best intention, an ability to engage with what is right there to be done with good will. Even unpleasant tasks or what might seem insignificant situations are sustaining if we are not jamming our own switchboards the whole time with judgments and confusion.

When turning clear energy toward a task, there is a sense of flow to it. This could be organizing a meeting, in a cooking or writing project, teaching or taking a yoga class, working through a tax filing, accompanying someone on a task they must do, anything really. This attribute of engagement is not judgmental, this is not a conflicted state.

If I am not resisting what I am doing, there is very little separation between what I am doing and who I am. Quite a difference when there is resistance. The mind chatters about all that is not as it should be, makes constant recommendations about this task, other tasks, other people's actions or choices, what else I could be doing, should be doing, cannot be doing, and generally gets in the way of feeling satisfied with how the time was spent or with the task itself. This takes energy too, and just like physical friction from resistance, it burns up some of the energy turned toward the task itself. Wastes energy. Pulls the action in other directions, and in a very real way separates you from who you are by spinning a web of illusion around your action.

"I did the best I could," is a statement that reflects whatever judgment is in your mind about the task. It can be said with derision, with humility, with sorrow, with pride, with any kind of emotion, really.  The statement is infused with judgment. There could be an unspoken sense of "under the circumstances" that holds a form of apology, or excuse, or blame, or self-judgment. There might be a subtext that describes a wish to have accomplished more, or the idea that someone else would have done more or better.

When you put your undivided attention into a task it isn't about "best" of anything, it is what it is. It can be a big shift to be comfortable with doing what you are doing, and not ranking what you are doing.
This is authentic action, what could be called, "right action." Full on engagement with an open mind, not a judging mind. The way this feels is not compromised by mixed internal messages and scattered judgments of the self or others now or in the past tense. This is being present in the moment, as Thich Nhat Hahn says so simply, "wash the dishes to wash the dishes."

Doing what you are doing without internal conflict releases energy towards the task that otherwise gets subverted into judgments and resistance. Doing what you are doing builds the muscles of mindfulness that keep you present in the moment in which you are actually living. Doing what you are doing literally turns everyday life into a moving meditation, of focused attention and open possibilities of being who you are.

Fearing the unknown Self

I remember years ago wondering what would happen to me, to my life, to the people around me, if I acted on the deepest impulses of my heart. I felt a yearning and the impossibility of giving it all up. I was presenting myself with a false choice at that point, that I would have to renounce all my ongoing connections and commitments in order to meet my heart's urge to be of service. This was a perversion of a romantic ideal of giving up everything to offer oneself to the greater good.

Meditation can feel like this too in the beginning. There is an idea that we must somehow give up our thoughts, our patterns of mind and habits in order to open this other mode that will be pure and somehow better. If that were the case no one could meditate. It is actually through quieting the reactive mind that we can see our mind work, find the patterns that support us and the ones that thwart us. Finding the self already operating and being curious about that is one of the richest parts of meditation or asana practice.

Meditation and yoga can offer an open hearted approach to oneself. These are not fundamentally problem solving strategies, not memory aids. There are possibilities for seeing personality in its ongoing negotiations. When we avoid a few minutes of putting the self at the center of our own attention we might be reflecting our fear- what will happen if what I experience changes the way I see myself? What if I am revealed as a fake? What if I can no longer rely on the patterns that have held me together?

Well, it's just like that idea that you have to leave everything behind in order to be true and good. Your experiences in yoga and meditation will add to the toolbox you can use to do what matters to you, and allow you to see the patterns that support you as well as the ones that subvert your energy.

You are not a fake. Even if you feel mixed feelings or conflicts, even if you don't always tell the truth or know what you actually feel, you are not fake. All this is the surface where winds stir the water with mud, or build up momentum with wave action. What is beneath all of that is basic goodness. Nothing fake about it. Experiences have taught you this and that, circumstances confront you and you respond, based on reactive patterns of mind and emotional histories. Doesn't it add more to life to see this, accept it, and go on with a greater awareness of your choices?

In meditation and yoga practice we have a chance to see this as a built structure. we can keep building, remodel, admire, and understand. We don't tear it all down, nor do we judge what we find. It is scary to imagine that we don't really know ourself, or that what we do know will turn out to be terrible. What happens is quite different than that. There is a basic strength in your good heart from which internal shame, fear or pain,  physical ineptitude or habits can be held with grace and possibly even good humor.

If one leg is shorter than the other, perhaps investigation can reveal how to stabilize the pelvis and spine given that truth. This is not "correcting" oneself but supporting and nurturing the self as it actually is. See what is so right now, and use that to offer freedom from struggle, increase possibility rather than define your limitations.

We can fear our self as an unknown, as the undiscovered fake, or a fragile construction ready to fall apart. The first most remarkable experiment in the practice is to stay with this moment, this one moment, and in that monent experience that you are intact with everything you need.

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.