Words, Meanings & Silence - Pause Mode/Talk Mode

I grew up in a place where there was a lot of masterful verbal jousting that was all tangled up with identity and self worth. Being smart meant being verbal, and proficient at defending a point of view. Sometimes it even seemed that defending a point of view meant more than the point of view itself. It was deemed of some value to interject a challenge point, just for the sake of argument. I recognize this now, after years of feeling inadequate to the task, and then slowly realizing that even my clumsy forays into this behavior were felt by others to be aggressive, or insensitive, even self-aggrandizing with a hurtful net result all around. Even in a court of law where stringent argument is the norm, it is intensely important to listen, to know the larger purpose of what you argue, and to register and monitor the impact of your words.

One of the first tactics to turn this behavior around might be to pause even a few seconds before responding to what someone else says, or, perhaps more importantly, before saying what occurs to you. Give yourself time to remember that every time you speak, you are asking someone else to turn their attention to you. This comes up a lot in my daily life now that everyone has laptops and ipods, whose ubiquitous qualities can make it seem that people are sitting around and available when in fact, they cannot hear you without specifically attending to you. It is a bit like being around people who are hard of hearing; it seems they are present but their attention is actually elsewhere. They must be focused on the interaction or they remain out of the communicating loop. Every comment can have the irritating impact of an interruption unless the receiver is already attentive. It is unrealistic to expect others to be in a constant state of readiness to listen to you.

There is a technique of listening that can help each of us be more sensitive to our own verbal behaviors and our own and the emotional needs of others. This is a form of what is known as "co-listening." It can be quite revealing to take turns listening between friends or lovers without constant reactions. Why do we say "uh hunh" or "word" or "hmmm" in response to another person? Do they need us agreeing, encouraging, sympathizing, corroborating? What if we simply listen reserving our opinion, our assurance, our involvement until we listen to the whole thing they want to say? What if we ask them to clarify if we didn't quite understand what they meant? What if we give our self the time to understand their meanings?

One way of making sure you are actually communicating is to agree that you will interrupt after a couple minutes and say, "Let me see if I am understanding you. I hear you saying...." and repeat to them what you have actually understood them to say. Let them agree that you got it, or correct your understanding, either because they did not say what they meant to say (helping them to clarify their own thoughts), or because you are not quite understanding what they meant (helping you hear them more fully). Then they can proceed. Set a limit, like 10 minutes each. And after listening and getting the message from one side, change roles. You may find that you subtly or dramatically begin to shift towards clarity, simplicity, and purposefulness, internally and externally!


Another amazing way to experience the meaning and value of words, and the emotional load we associate with verbal interaction, is to experiment with silence. It is important to understand that you are trying this in order to be more open and aware of your own inner voice, as well as deepen your understanding of how you use your external voice to communicate to others. In order to really experience silence, pick a day when you will able to choose not to do a lot of interacting rather than simply switching to writing notes or hand gestures as a way of playing at being a mime. Let the day be a quiet one. Let all your loved ones and apartment mates know ahead of time. Choose a day when you do not have to go to work. Preparing and eating breakfast in silence, experience and savor your food. Think your way through your choices in the day, allow yourself to hear the commentary your mind will forward. Watch the parade of feelings that arise, about being silent, about your experiences, about the beauty of the world. Notice what you want to communicate, where the impulses come from, and to whom you would direct your words. Set a time limit to do some journaling, but keep that, too, within strict limits, say half an hour or so. You may find that moving the car or walking the dog, picking up a child from school, listening to music or doing laundry present totally new information.

Keep the whole experience short the first time. You might make yourself a little badge to wear that identifies you with the words "Day of Silence" or some other phrase when you go out in the world, so that others will better understand why you are not responding verbally. I recommend no longer than a 24 hour period for the first time. Silence is a deep experience. Give yourself time to absorb and integrate this before plunging in again. You may well find you hear yourself differently, and that others hear you more clearly as well. You will definitely notice how much the world expects you to interact, and much about your own impulse to jump in.

This is part of who you already are. Paying attention to your way of being in the world can deepen in stages by listening without commentary, pausing before speaking, taking the time to be clear, and learning to hear and understand your own inner voice.

Everything Co-Arising In This Moment

Every single thing is inter-related. Accepting that is like entering a vast open space at once filled with all that exists at the same moment that it is eternally empty and pure. I remember feeling completely elated after watching an investigation on public television that traced the branching bloodlines of humans back to specific individuals and then further back to indeed one genetic place. One genetic human place at the core of all of us, and over all time, I'm convinced we could trace that back to one genetic living organism. It felt so validating! No wonder we can feel so connected to people anywhere, no matter what might seem different among us.

Explaining this idea that everything is co-arising, in other words, nothing is separate from anything else, may seem easier in more concrete terms.

I can look at the grocery list as a dream of the future -- what we need around here to eat and to clean up and to sustain ourselves and to entertain ourselves. The grocery list is also a commitment to future action, that I will go and I will get these things. The grocery list reflects my ideas about nutrition and my upcoming schedule and the time I will have to cook. It anticipates what I imagine about where my family members will be, in fact, where I will be, sharing food. The grocery list also reflects all my hard work over the past few days, cooking and using up all the edible resources around here. It also anticipates the combined work of my husband and me, having trading our time and energy for the cash resources I will use to buy the food for our future meals. The grocery list is a vast concept, containing all of this: what has been done and what is projected. It cannot exist in the present tense without all of these aspects embedded in its evolution.

Looking at ordinary circumstances or conditions in this way allows me to see the tip of the iceberg in the concept of co-arising. Perhaps you have read or heard about how everything is part of everything... People used to be fond of saying "you are what you eat" as a way of describing this to some degree. The paper you write upon can also lead you on this journey through the sun and the leaves, the rain and the paper pulp, among the hands of the people operating the machines and the machine itself that cut down the tree or re-cycled the cardboard that was again transformed that into the paper before you.

This can seem hard to follow, but just think about any one thing for a moment. Allow your mind to open and begin including all that you know about this one thing. Try it with the oatmeal in the bowl before you in the morning. How many hands have helped get this to you? Of course the cooking and such is part of that (what went into the cooking... gas from the earth that came to you through the pipes...stored where? pulled out how exactly? where? when? by whom? in what weather? stored deep since it was produced by what?...when?...). Okay, you can do this yourself until your head spins... the pot it cooked in, the utensils used, the packing of the oats and their transport, the harvesting, the birds plucking at bits of dry oat shells, the rain water, the plants breathing into the very air itself blown from where? And of course the people who did the planting and harvesting, plowing and weeding, investing their energy into your bowl of cereal with so many mornings of early rising, their feet on the earth, breath in the late afternoon, feeding the animals the dried oats that didn't make it to your bowl... Not to mention all that you are, your hand on the spoon.

Seeing the world as co-arising leads me directly to gratitude for everything, and can also help me when I feel that strange dualistic idea that I am separate and on my own.

All of this can exist in one moment as you feel the warmth of your oatmeal, smell that aroma, notice your stomach grumbling. Enjoy your decisions about brown sugar or walnuts, yogurt or wheat germ, maple syrup or blueberries, knowing that your existence and that of your oatmeal are intimately connected, so much so that one cannot exist without all the other conditions co-arising.

Watching the spinning mind, going over this material, I am amazed at how I can also feel the air on my skin in this moment. My inhale reminds me that my oatmeal and I exist. My exhale brings a smile, that I can release into being here, and eat.

Paying Attention to Suffering

Daily life is a balancing act of attention to the ordinary and the extraordinary. It seems to me that whether we take the attitude to suffer in ordinary life or to reject suffering even under the most extreme circumstances is a choice of awareness or consciousness. I look at how easy it can be to turn missing the bus into a disaster. In this crisis moment in Haiti, we see people who in the face of a natural and overwhelming disaster can turn open-heartedly towards one another with goodwill and compassionate effort. If death is seen as disaster, we must all face it. Knowing that, we can also observe that in dying one can attach to the suffering more or less. In letting go of the attachment to suffering, death might be transformative. People can go on living after great suffering and find joy and gratitude, even though they bear the scars of the pain they sustain.

Many of my students experience physical or emotional impediments in their daily lives. Some are obvious, some invisible. That metal plate in the body pretty much guarantees that the leg will not flex, or the mechanics of missing fingers changes the balance in a hand mudra not to mention in down dog. Yet this does not stop their yoga practice, nor necessarily predetermine suffering. Adjustments and letting go of the definitions of "wholeness" or "flexibility" can enable deep experiences, and the struggle to accept that which is present in the moment often seems to liberate people who make the adjustments. The release of judgment and letting go of the attachment to one's impediment as a deficit are keys to this freedom. So many times I have seen courage, openness, curiosity, and humor in reaction to this struggle. Frustration sometimes dominates, and watching that conflict, I see human nature in action. It seems that we are offered constant choices as to attachment, judgment, and awareness. That's actually the good part! In every moment we have the opportunity to choose.

I don't feel it is true that my situation is better because someone else is in a worse situation. It certainly doesn't make me feel better to think about someone else's suffering! Time and time again I have seen that it is whether I attach to my suffering that makes it hard on me. It is all about the level of awareness I bring to the moment that will color that moment.

Waiting for surgery is scary! Even imagining that I might require surgery brings up many emotions. I can feel the fear. I can review my many references from earlier experiences that compound my anxieties. I also know that I am here today after those experiences, and that I am living in this moment. If I run from this moment into the past or the future, my suffering increases enormously. Staying with my breath, I am fully present, already full of life energy and awake. In that condition, even being on the edge of fear is not a "bad" place to be. I can draw my attention to the suffering itself, my own attachment to my own conditioning. I am simply being, and in that way, with my ever present breath, I am in balance.

Sending Metta to Haiti

The earth cannot help the way it shudders. The people cannot help the way they suffer. Yet we hope for the possible, do what we can, open our hearts to peace. May they who no longer breathe be at peace. May those who breathe in fear be at peace. May brothers and sisters around the world share their hearts with Haiti. This is a form of Metta meditation.

The practice of sending compassion (Metta) to others is a powerful way to open your heart and share your energy even from a distance. Begin with acknowledging that suffering is the human condition, and that the recognition of the causes of suffering (the fear caused by grasping and attachment... even to life itself but certainly to outcomes and conditions) is the fundamental path towards the cessation of suffering. In this way you can begin to approach the pain of the situation.

Sitting in stillness, walking with single-pointed focus, laying down with deeply alert consciousness are all ways in which you can allow your focus to open out and send compassion beyond your physical self. Start with yourself. Then open to others, beginning with those you love, then a neutral person about whom you have neither strong positive nor negative feelings, then someone about whom you have negative feelings. At this point in your practice the depth of your compassion and awareness will open to include all other beings. You can use words similar to the ones at the beginning of this blog, or a more traditional sequence such as the one here.

May I (you, all beings, people) be free from pain
May I (....) be free from fear
May I (....) be free from suffering
May I (....) be at peace
May I (you, all beings, people) be free

Releasing My Aching Heart

I often turn to the natural world for information about myself. Watching the light shift among the naked branches in winter, I see my own fluctuations. There is nothing good or bad in the way leaves dance in the light, or the stark outlines of branches hold their form reaching into the sky. So too is there nothing good or bad in the way my mind moves. I can watch it in much the same way.

Irises have taught me so much about judgment as I observe their stages and know that each is in its own way exactly as it needs to be and there really is no comparison of one stage to another in beauty or grace. I say iris, but could just as easily say roses. Plants and animals generally all offer this in wildly different ways. The first growth - so intense and exciting poking through the recently frozen earth - promising what might come. The courageous stand of the tender leaves through all the vagaries of early spring weather, the beginnings of that growth that promises lushness, quiet elongation of what will be buds... well, the whole formation and opening of the amazing blooms, one and then another, the browning and curling of the petals, the remarkable remains of what will be the seed pod, and then that ultimately gorgeous pod hardening and protecting and then scattering the seed.

I cherish the brown and green grass, the flying twisting maple seed, the curled darkened leaves among the drooping blooms of peonies. How can the dry and brittle winter mode of a field of brush not zing my heart?

So when my heart is aching, for others who suffer, for my own fears about those I love, for an opportunity lost or an obvious painful set of conditions, I turn to those same natural stages to help me remain open to possibilities. The pain is still there, but gathers hope and options along with it. Roots still deep, air still providing oxygen, sunlight in abundance even on a cloudy day. And then with a deep sense of comfort, I realize that my troubles, my moments, my life itself is transitory like the leaf buds and flowering glories. I feel protected and infinite in that I, myself, am simply a part of the natural cycles as are the birds, lizards, roses, willows and ocean waves.

My bones, my breath, my steps and my aching heart are as natural as the way I smile at the puffed up bird bodies holding their own in the cold.

Retreats: "Wherever You Go There You Are"

I love the title of Jon Kabat-Zinn's book about mindfulness meditation in everyday life. As I consider various ideas about offering a yoga retreat, investigating retreats that are already out there, I keep coming back to this idea. "Wherever you go there you are."

Old world sites offer deep art and culture, vineyards and romantic literary references. Air fare is terribly expensive. Exotic tropical places are beautiful, exuberant and usually cheaper. Various resorts or conference centers in the US have the attractions of local cities, easier transport, familiar styles of accommodations.

What does all this have to do with my yoga practice and the sharing of practice? Wherever I go I am sharing that which I am. I've learned that over the course of a lifetime. My impulse is to invite people into my life and offer to guide their meditation and practice for a few days, providing light and fresh foods, opportunities for walks, weather-appropriate activities like biking or swimming, gardening or snowshoeing, community service or other choices (did I hear bowling?). I would like to give others a few days in a rhythm that more easily includes the mindfulness and physical practices that mean so much to me.

Yes, I can see that the vacation aspect is an important draw - the relief from the daily hassles. But working together to make meals, to garden and harvest the food, to watch the sun set as the vegetables cook on the grill, even hanging the laundry on the line in the breeze can be part of daily life that includes morning and evening meditation and journaling, energetic and restorative yoga practice, and many moments wide open to just being. Seems that this approach would much more easily translate into meaningful understandings as part of daily lives.

The exotic and cultured retreat sites attract me too, wishfully imagining life as others live it in places that have an aura different than my own quotidien existence. But does this separation from my normal illusion of reality encourage deeper insights or just shift the illusion to include the idea that if only I were somewhere else I would be more insightful?

Actually, in my "retreat" I think I would offer time set aside for cell phones and internet... so people could experience not being where they are too. Let's acknowledge who we really are, and see what might happen if we take that person on retreat.

Setting The Whirlwind Aside

At the start of every yoga class I teach, I take a few minutes to encourage my students to become present. How funny that sounds! As if we weren't present to begin with! Yet it is clear to every one of us that doing nothing but sitting with our attention focused on breath and physical alignment is an intense and real change from simply plopping down on the mat. There is certainly an illusion that we are in the room, as we fuss over the padding under us, listen to conversations of others, wonder about the class to come, go over the details of earlier activities or worry about what will come after class. Once the breathing settles, the rush of interpretations continue inside each of us. Feelings and judgments about even the smallest things can demand attention for a bit until we regain our awareness of the breath. How many times does the mind wander to analyze something, explain something, or make judgments or tell a story? We can learn to let all that go; not necessarily stop it, but stop feeling the urgency of it, and exist in a fuller sense that is not ruled by the whirlwind of the mind.

Meditation may seem strange at first. A friend of mine once expressed this as, "I really am supposed to just sit and do nothing, think nothing? And this is supposed to make me feel good?" One of the keys to freedom from suffering is basically to stop defining our self, and let go of the misunderstanding that constant input and output equates to being present. It can be startling how much concentration it takes at first to stay with a focus on the breath. One practice is to count ten inhales, and if the mind wanders at all, start over. You can feel the mind like a dog on a leash, trying to dash here and there, restrained by the leash, until it learns, like the dog, that it is okay to just be right there. At that point, you don't need the leash to hold the mind still through 10 breaths. If numbers don't work for you, just think "In" as you inhale, and "Out" as you exhale. You might try letting the dog off the leash and see if you can maintain your focus on the breath while also being aware of the mind dashing this way and that. A practice that can help here is that of naming or labeling the thoughts and feelings that come up. We can use our mind's powerful observational skills to help release the hold that mind's urgent activity has on our sense of self.

So long as our sense of self is attached to the way our mind runs, our concept of our self clings to this and that, and we are unable to feel authentic. Activities are not in and of themselves bad for us, it is the mindless quality with which we do them, and our inability to set them aside, their urgency that essentially denies us openness to our self. We block out, we fill up, we manipulate and we unconsciously turn our selves off, using ever more frantic and constant messaging, e-chat, emails, meetings, news outlets, gossip, earphones, cable stations and yes, even blogging. It may seem that this protects us from something. Perhaps these mechanisms help us stave off the risks of feelings or circumstances, yet keep us unaware and disengaged from directly experiencing our self.

This is a typical human trap. We can chase happiness by ignoring who we really are, imagine we avoid risks by ignoring our own patterns and behaviors, and continue to overwhelm our senses, stimulating a hollow feeling of self-importance and deep doubts about the reality of our self. Our certainties and self definitions can be undone in a half second, we can feel our very self is undermined, and spiral into despair.

When I wake up in the morning, I give myself a few minutes. The first thing I do is notice that I am breathing. My awareness simply finds my breath. I allow myself to notice the quality of air on my skin, the warmth of the blankets, anything at all. I encourage myself to be vivid, even if it means noticing that my eyes are glued shut with sleepiness and one hip is uncomfortable. I do not judge my condition, just take it in. I have learned that I do not need to have judgmental feelings about myself or the day or my condition. This has been liberating, regardless of whether I'm well or fighting a cold, sleeping late or getting up very early.

In meditation the same quality of noticing is my starting place. Allowing my mind to find its focus on the breath: its texture, depth, all the little effects on the rest of my body. In a way this is a profoundly comforting way of accepting who I actually am in that moment. I also allow my thoughts to come and go. Sometimes I get lost in a sequence of thinking, surprising myself as I return to awareness of the breath, and realize that I was gone for a while. It is this that offers the opportunity to see who I am, what distracts me, perhaps exposing my anxieties and interpretations, and really getting to know myself as the operator I am in the world. Sometimes insights arise that my thinking mind could not configure without this open space.

Being present in the moment is the first effect of meditation. This has a ripple effect of giving me the chance to find real balance, ease, and openness with the person I am, making choices about where I turn my attention and use my energies. It is a bit like being in the eye of the hurricane where there is great stillness and you can observe and even appreciate the whirling chaos and power of the winds around you, yet not be swept away.