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.

Nowhere To Go But Here: Building the Mindfulness Muscle

Waiting for the light to change, I stand at a busy intersection. My eyes take in the moving vehicles, but not with any great detail. The wind blows and I notice my right eye waters as I see a person crossing the other street. My backpack is empty on my back and my grocery list is tucked in my wallet. I am on my way to get fresh vegetables and walk a little.  Where am I? Nowhere. My attention drifts to whatever caught it, my mind runs a disjoint movie without even bothering with subtitles. My body sends messages like, "wind on spot of neck by left ear" and "right eye running," provoking little habitual behaviors of scarf tucking and cheek wiping.   Is this the way I am to live my life?

Can I be fully present in the world without adding more stress and assignments, more to-do lists and self recriminations? Can I shift my way of operating out of automatic without wearing myself out? Can I cultivate awareness even in the middle of  the patterns and routines that naturally fill a good bit of my time? Can I be here without being swept away in mindless flow of reactivity?

Definitely. I may be nowhere, but I can still exist fully.  This includes finding that level equality in my hips, or allowing the weight to fall on the outer and inner heel more evenly. This may mean returning again and again to the sensation of my breath to remind me that I am exchanging energy with a much larger universe every second of my life. It involves building the muscles in my mind as well as enabling the body to find its balance. Emotional equilibrium can grow naturally out of accepting the ever present continuous support for being who we actually are, once we let go of judging and manipulating our ideas of who we are supposed to be, based on some fixed experience in the past or anxiety over some potential hypothetical outcome.

How much of my time I will spend in this suspended reactive condition is directly related to how much attention I give to cultivating my awareness.  It can so easily begin with noticing my breath as I wake up, even before I open my eyes, allowing the breath to shape the inner spaces of my rib cage, and sensing that this energy moves into my hips and legs, before I begin moving. I can savor the resistant texture of the strawberry as I cut it into bits that drop into my morning oatmeal.

What purpose is there in losing this moment and the next moment until I stumble on something and wake up to the fact that I've walked half a block without seeing anything or being anywhere? I'm not seeking a hyper-vigilance, or high intensity. Gradually, over time, this cultivating of awareness brings more and more of life into the normal routine, so that I can accommodate loss and exhilaration with the same foundation under me,  landmarks to orient me, and an attitude of acceptance and openness.

This is where the practice takes us when we commit to building the muscles of mindfulness. Just like in  a physical asana practice, the stronger we become, the deeper we can go -- holding an asana longer and allowing the strength and stretch, the energy movement to flow more openly and inner spaces to accommodate more freedom with less effort.  If we set the goal to get to a certain shape or heal a certain wounded place, we can work up to that and then get stuck all over again in judgment and mindlessness.  We have no choice but to deal with the moment. This one. There is nothing to wait for, nowhere to go but here. Getting here is the journey, being here is the deepest benefit.

It's fairly easy to feel the shaking of the soles of your feet as you struggle to resist falling out of balance and be filled with anxiety about falling, judging yourself, clenching the breath, tightening myriad muscles of neck, shoulder, and throat in fear. It is just as easy to feel that same shaking as finding your balance, liberating your breath, softening your shoulders, stacking your bones to more efficiently transfer weight and explore how to let go of judgment in order to lessen your load and feel weightless and free. Whether making the routine motions of daily life, crossing streets, making oatmeal, sitting at work, interacting with others, or sitting on a meditation cushion or shaking in a balancing pose on a yoga mat, you can gently encourage your mindfulness muscle, when you remember it. That's why the breath is so useful... it is always there to remind you that you are right here, already.

Not Knowing What Matters: And It Doesn't

A state of mind can color everything it sees. The same is true for a yoga practice. When I study a particular sutra, or focus in on one of the eight limbs, let's say picking a Yama or Niyama, or work my way through time with a particular breathing practice, it changes so many other experiences. The value of doing this mindfully is just like any study, or evaluative process: it enables a deeper view that can reveal more than the superficial experience.

At the same time, my asana practice has its own trajectory that combines some unforeseeable physical imperative with whatever is in my mind. Even if I start out thinking that I am going to focus on a particular asana, as I did with triangle pose, Trkonasana, the practice takes me in and out of a folding and unfolding and turns out to be an insightful play of how the limbs support the spine. Oh sure, I did some Trkonasana too, and certainly found it integrated into this profound inquiry, but this was part of the unfolding line built on a foundation that revealed itself as I practiced. Perhaps the idea of Trkonasana was the spark that evoked the fire of this inquiry. The intention created the exploration and led into the unknown.  Perhaps if I had simply explored Trkonasana, I would have met all my foregone conclusions, confirming some settings that I had already put in place.

So here I am, looking at intention and the mind, watching experience and integration of meaning, and wondering why it would make any difference which comes first. Is this just another chicken and the egg question?

There is a formal quality to an inquiry premised on a particular aspect of mind. There is a deeply spiritual quality in an inquiry that is rooted in the unforeseen.  I make no pretense of knowing what matters here, and feel more and more strongly that it doesn't matter at all what anyone "thinks" is important.  It turns out to be just thinking after all.  The experience of being present, learning how to open awareness, accepting whatever is so, and letting go of the judging of every little thing only deepens.  But one moment it is the methodical and intellectual inquiry that draws us and another it is the movement of the beating heart that shifts the mind. Can I say definitively that it was my intention to investigate Trkonasana that provoked the inquiry that actually happened in my practice? I cannot, yet I also feel the sweet yoking of intention and inquiry, even if I have no way to substantiate it.

Present Moment: abiding with uncertainty

Each moment crosses all the boundaries of time and space. It's a little bit like stage fright, this feeling of not knowing what will happen and caring very much about doing my best. Living with that can heighten anxiety, complacency, hyperactivity; creating a spiral of uselessness and unworthiness. In any moment, what have you done? what have you done? (How will you be measured? valued? seen?)

Acknowledging this anxiety allows me to unravel how much I worry about what others think of me, trace my need for usefulness, and at the same time see how constantly I judge myself. It is not that hard, once opening that up, to begin simplifying. Literally,  I return my energy to the universe like a borrowed library book. This reinforces my responsibility to fully engage and use that energy, knowing it is endless and recycled.

My deepest happiness comes from drawing on the authentic in myself, and when that is my source of action, I feel that I do less harm. Not waiting for anything, just being in it thoroughly, whatever it is, in this moment -  a definition of effortless being, even with physical or mental effort in the action itself. (There is a moment at waking from sleep as the mind and body reintroduce themselves, yet all the while "being" is ceaseless, and seamless. This is not a mechanical arrangement of breath and heart beat, but a deeper cultivation of awareness.)

This authenticity comes from a well of basic goodness in me, and serves as a protection even with my pockets of ignorance. (Ignorance is like a blind spot where I have yet to learn to see, from which I operate on assumptions and projections, creating illusion and taking it as truth. It seems a certain amount of this is inevitable, yet I keep working on finding the edge of it.)

Uncertainty is possibility. Uncertainty is acknowledging fear of the unknown. Uncertainty is curiosity writ large. Uncertainty is not ignorance. Uncertainty is balancing in the moment, abiding.

Satisfaction seems to imply judgment, as in being enough, measured against something else and easily deflated.  It is contentment (Santosha) that implies acceptance with gratitude of whatever we have or do not have. This is not mere semantics, it is the practice of abiding with uncertainty.

These tools remain accessible.

Where there is meaning, there is silence.


Sounds causing waves of reaction, interaction, conditions.

Words sink in so deep, all I hear is the space over them.

That rolling movie of my mind remains projecting on the wall of the skull, a light show.

The feeling of warm hand on thigh completes my form.

Exhales join the inhales in the air around me, no questions asked or answered.

Even the music of my heart runs into itself like water into water, indivisible.

This open to being, being opens,  understanding without tricks and illusions.

The candle flame consumed in continuous transformation.

Freedom is Beyond the Mind's Construction Zone

A year or so ago a friend of mine posted this on Facebook: "There is always unconditional happiness present when one is going through personal suffering. You just have to awaken to it. Feel inspired..."

To me, this was a neat way of expressing the idea that most of our suffering is directly related to what we think, or more precisely, what we think we are experiencing. It was especially poignant to me at that time, since I had just lost my parents to conditions of aging beyond their control.

If pain or loss in the moment overwhelms our sense of being, then all we have in that moment to experience is the misery of pain or loss. If we can remain present, the suffering becomes one level of our experience but not all of it. This leaves that little bit of leeway, or breathing room, to feel alive beyond the pain or the loss, and become aware of other options.  Sounds a little other worldly, but it can be quite a surprise to find that there is still a layer of being that is not consumed with the conditional and reactive part of life.

We excel at constructing a mental world in which to live, each of us serving the continuously running mind. It is a bit as though our lives are all about walking our heads around, or even just sitting on the couch swimming in mind soup.  Sometimes watching TV or engaging with the computer can really bring this out: the body sits for hours and hours, but the mind is running along with whatever is in front of it on the screen.

Stubbing a toe brings up the immediacy of reactive nature, yet we continue standing on the other leg (there's hope for life beyond the sheer pain of the moment).  Perhaps there is a thought strand about "what should I do for this toe right now?" and also perhaps a strand that triggered an emotional line of "stupid idiot" thinking aimed towards the self or the leg of the chair or the person who left that rock in the path.  Meanwhile, the body goes on standing or hopping, and the digestion creates an appetite for lunch, and part of the mind is remembering why one was walking in this direction anyway.


All of this can simply be left to happen on its own, and there we are, a constant construction site with louder aggressive moments when the jack hammers or circular saws are going, as well as quieter ones more like plastering or even laying cement for the brick or tile work. All active, some by choice others by condition, yet our awareness and possibilities go far beyond all that. Even with jackhammer in hand we can feel temperature on the skin, smell the blooming clover wafting in from the empty lot next door, and even softly hum a song remembered, or a rhythm that supports our activity.

Past all that is equilibrium, the part of the self that knows even in the moment of loss that we will keep breathing when our loved one stops breathing. We can strengthen our ability to tune in this way, to get past the construction zone into that more open space of mind. With practice through meditation, and yoga,  we can learn to allow ourselves to detach from reactivity while still reacting; we can create a structure of acceptance that is not judgmental so that we are free from the good-bad aspect of the situation and can actually just feel fully; and we can lean in towards the deeper understanding that we exist beyond just feeling the intensity of this particular moment. Just as with the stubbed toe, or the dying parent, that moment will be intense, but freedom seems to come from being present fully in that moment, not clutching at nor shying away from what is happening.

The Source: Attentiveness or Suffering?

I've heard writers and artists say that the source of their creative energy often seems to come from their anxieties or pain, that they feel driven to mine their demons and express what they find there. This isn't true for all creative people, but when I think about the times that I have thrown myself on the yoga mat or the meditation cushion in desperation... well, it gets me there, doesn't it?

It certainly isn't odd that people need motivation to do something active rather than remain passive. Students, myself included, often come to yoga class for a purpose, to solve something, or to get to a place that feels better in one way or another. This kind of assumes that they begin in a different place than that, one where something needs solving or improvement or perhaps there is a long term goal in mind. I go to classes to spice up my own practice or teaching, to learn something from someone else's sequence or perspective, to experience yoga in a communal context,  all of which is hard to do by myself. I do have sources for adding into my practice from reading, from observations of my own teaching experiences, even from using music to accompany practice or not, or to practice in different contexts with and without the usual props. But injury or anxiety will get me to the mat or cushion fast!

What if our practice brings us to a place of equanimity? Does it then become hard to continue the practice unless we routinize it? Doesn't a routine dull the senses? Lull the mind into complacency? Or set us up for judgment and comparison? Where does the urge for inquiry come from? Must it be suffering, or dissatisfaction, or making a goal?

If we take the moment and tune in, just this moment, I think the experience itself actually is the motivation. Attentiveness is the source of inspiration. Even the most beginning student who arrives in class feeling poor self image or damaged in a shoulder joint can very quickly become entirely consumed with remembering to align their knee over their ankle, or finding the neck adjustment that brings the weight of their head above their heart. What they derive from this is intrinsic: alignment of the self and noticing the difference in their normal patterns. The original motives vanish with rewards that are embedded in the experience. Not just savasana, but even in the moments of rolling up the mats, the sense of integrity and integration of mind/body/spirit, of wonder and peace, combine into a feeling of wellbeing.

Can we get there without the pain or dissatisfaction that drives us in the first place to get to the mat? Perhaps not. Rarely is it joy that brings us to that first meditation experience.  It is one of the truths of human experience that this layer of irritation (judgment or separation from seeing and accepting the self as we truly are) can motivate the deepest search. Is this what provokes all spiritual study, the yearning to understand and explain, integrate and absorb beyond the small self, its conditional, impermanent and frail nature?

These motivations can be called suffering or misery. In Patanjali's terms they are the kleshas, those 5 aspects which doom us to the never-ending cycle of suffering, separating us from our true nature and the bliss and equanimity of that nature. These five aspects are Avidya - ignorance of the true self (not recognizing who we are), Asmita - egoism (seeing the separate self  as all important), Raga - attachment (things, definitions, judgments, others), Dvesha - aversion (avoidance, pushing away, judging), Abhimivesa - fear of loss (fear of death, of losing our self).

The crazy thing is that with practice (paying attention) we can see our own suffering as the source for profound inquiry, even a challenge to rise to our full stature and cultivate greater awareness of the breadth of our own experiences. Even suffering is a transitory experience, a result of conditions, and with practice that, too, can be experienced with something like equanimity.

Relaxed Awareness

Right this moment, I see that the limbs of the trees are dark and bare against a bright gray morning sky, yet I can dwell among the jeweled leaves in this photograph. My heart can open to the beauty and sensation of the curving canopy arching over the street, and revel in a sense of wonder and gratitude. Yet I am actually sitting at a computer, typing, aren't I? Feeling the starkness now of damp tree limbs silhouetted against the clouds, I begin to crave a hot cup of tea. These feelings, reactions and observations are the product of mind, my own mind! Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutras, speaks of the constant fluctuations of mind and offers a systematic study of human experience through yogic practices that can see beyond these radiating fluctuating waves into the core substance of being.

I live in this contemporary world, that of alternate side parking and washing machines, store bought packaged products of every kind and instant messaging. Yet my goal in this moment, and in my life it seems, is to seek out this substance of being. Sounds completely impossible but in any given moment my own breath can make this available to me. I have to pay attention. The kind of attention is something that I am actively evolving, honing, enabling. Whether through physical yoga practice, or meditation, or deciding what will be dinner, or noticing my husband's breath in the middle of the night, this kind of attention can open the possibility of relaxed awareness and access to being fully present.

Relaxed awareness falls into place naturally when the grip of judgment is loosened, so I am not attaching to outcome or object, and my mind can observe the widest range of details and all my reactions to the details freely. I see the glorious canopy above me, and the stark limbs; I feel the rising spring sap and the cold chill of snow on the branches. Do I attach to meaning? Do I hold tight to a preference of one over another? Must I put values on the sentimental qualities of longing and loss, of joy and rejuvenation? I can feel anything and all of that, yet still be free. This freedom doesn't inhibit commitment, since even that is conditional and within the context arises naturally too. It seems that commitment relates to where I turn my attention (as in a yoga posture I can focus on my ribcage or my feet and change the whole experience). Does this make me dull and monotone, without intensity or specificity? I think not. The water of the self remains responsive to the wildest sea, the choppy whitecaps, the smallest waves, the subtlest ripples in the pond; and with all of this available my experience of life is enormous!

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.

Separately We Seek & Seek What Exactly?

We meditate and struggle to find awareness. In fact what is being asked or sought? Aren’t we simply asking to open the mind; making the time, taking the time, to cultivate focus in order to cultivate open mind? Perhaps not knowing anything about what that is, and that, in and of itself, doesn't matter.

I think meditation is this gift of time to watch oneself be. To experience being, to find out something about awareness and see reactive mind in action. To see our own habitual postures, attitudes, judgments. To notice and drop the frantic (and constant) grip on thinking, judging, making oneself into something. So scary, and full of judgment cycles, to drop that grip -- until it happens and the world does not collapse.

Why do it? Approach this question of cultivating awareness in order to do or gain what? For a while we imagine there is a goal or specific benefit. Do we want to target and pin down the self as someone or something? To allow for self acceptance and find peace from the constraints of judgment? And just how does that result from this gift of just sitting and observing the self, of training the mind to focus?

Perhaps the simple act of consciously sitting the self down, or walking or laying the self down, with all it's burdens and stories, is enough. This is already the success being sought. The step is the goal.

So maybe by breathing in and saying "breathing in, I am breathing in" we allow space for a subtle structure in which we discover in ourselves that we can cultivate awareness without gripping.

Ordinary & Extraordinary

The string of tensions and joy that make up life are patterned like beads, yet one moment is mindless and routine and the next extraordinary. Whether sitting zazen or flying through movement on a yoga mat, sitting at a desk or waking from sleep on the couch, it is only this moment that we experience.

Mind chemistry has its hold on all the rest of it. What is remembered, what is expected, what is felt, what is responded? This moment, possibly the only action is this breath, this glance, this touch. The practice is so simple: Let go of the patterns that attach this moment to what was or will be and fully experience being.

No, it isn't a state of bump on a log, where everything must fade into nothingness. And it doesn't require a thousand years of training to control every aspect of the physical body. This moment may hold every emotion, not reserved for only one or another. In fact, it is the vastness of this moment that turns the routine into the extraordinary.

In my Tai Chi for Arthritis classes, I say again and again, "Focus, and Relax." Training the mind to be useful with its powerhouse of possibilities, while allowing the physical and emotional self to dwell in spaciousness with communication lines open, well, there you are. Being present. The good and bad of it all becomes a pattern like slides projected on the walls around you, and can be seen for the illusions that they are, as reactions, as conditions, as patterns.

Wake to it, and awareness saturates the dark and the light, opening the moment and illuminating it.

Winds of March

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

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

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

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

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

Moving from the heart

The practice of supporting the heart is a practice of using the heart for support.

When Things Seem So Much Farther Away

Halfway into the last snowstorm I noticed how all my normal errands seemed so much farther away. My yoga practice has seemed a bit like this too, since I sprained my ankle.

Turns out it is not really my body that puts long distance in my yoga practice, nor the snow piled on all sides that makes the local food co-op any farther away. It is all in my mind.

Making adjustments in yoga practice is a natural part of practice, and comes with the territory if you are going to practice on your own or in a class. Just because the teacher or the person next to you can lean on their wrist does not necessarily mean that you can... or put your heel down when squatting or lift your arm next to your ear. Each body comes with its own patterns and structures and it is more than half the amazement of a yoga practice to discover all this about the body you actually live in.

The same is true when injured or not feeling well, or under special natural conditions. A dear friend of mine is very near to the end of her pregnancy and just this last week ran into three specific movements in her yoga practice that had been fine last week but her body just said, "nope, skip that one this time." This indicator is helping her understand the deep changes taking place as her child prepares to emerge. My ankle tells me many stories even as I work into a seat for meditation! In this way, my teacher is always with me, drawing my attention to sensation, to the shift in the breath, to my own wandering awareness.

And of course my food co-op is right where it has always been, but the journey there and back has been brought sharply into focus as a moment-by-moment experience. I am making constant adjustments for my ankle, for the ice, for other passersby, for the beauty of the nearby fence all decorated in snow. How wonderful to be aware and alive! Of course I will be happy when the pain subsides even further, but do hope I can remember to notice when my attention shifts and many things seem closer while others move farther away.

Inquiry & Acceptance

Prodding, poking, pushing at the self, at others, at conditions, into what seems so: this is reactive nature at work. Curiosity sometimes masquerades as the motive for questioning things, for aggressive inquiry. Fear may be hiding at the core in some of the pulling, pushing at and away; flowing under both timidity and boldness. How can we practice yoga, or meditation for that matter, as an essential inquiry and accept the inquiry without all this manipulation?

Deep in this tangle of branches the sun simply shines on the snow. It doesn't matter if the snow is covering old pine needles or is clinging to the branches of the wintry tree. The sun simply filters through anything it finds and interacts without hesitation in its specific seasonal angle, heat, duration -- all of which are conditional upon where on this earth's sphere we are observing that it is shining.

This is the magic of awareness and acceptance. With a focus of attention, and deep openness to whatever the attention finds, like the sun's light our attention can continue to shift and reach anything in its path. So with attention, and the key is acceptance. If we must control, name, categorize, and react to what we find, we are lost in the constant push-pull interaction of the surfaces, forever entangled.

The inquiry can be the beginning of noticing how "I," the person I have built out of experiences and meanings, with materials like conditions and reactions, respond to the inquiry itself. Do I resist? Do I tense up? Do I weep? Do I compete with myself? What is the pattern I have already created for this category of "inquiry?" Once seen, let the reactions rise and fall. Allow the light of your awareness to filter as does the light of the sun, reaching whatever it finds in its rays. The ability to witness the rising of responses, like feelings and thoughts, tensions and spaces, comes as you accept that you can continue observing without getting lost in the tangle.

So we practice. "Practice" implies that it is an ongoing experience, not a once-and-done kind of knowledge. Each moment that I inquire and accept is a living present moment, connecting to something far more universal and open than the reactive nature I observe.

My sprained ankle is healing, gradually giving me insights and experiences of myself functioning in the world. With each step I find I am inquiring as to the balance between the constant friction of judgment and testing and the open space of acceptance.

treasuring the unknown

It is unfamiliar for me to walk in a Southwestern desert landscape. The forms and contortions that vegetation make to adapt in the severe and extreme climate astonishes me. I find the utter newness keeps me vibrating with joy and alertness. It is so natural to resist change or the unfamiliar, yet I have chosen to put myself in a context where I do not have the usual clues and continuity. What remains steady is my attention.

I know that one foot steps and the weight shifts. There is red rock dust and gravel beneath my feet, the air smells sweet and there is no wind. Everywhere my eye turns I am seeing the possible and the impossible. My own interpretations cease to carry much meaning. There is such grace even in the harshness. So much life even in these adverse conditions. It is easy to watch my own patterns here, in this wide earthly ocean. I see my attempts to categorize, to combine what I know with what I do not know. I feel the open spaces where the unknown beckons my mind even as it is easier to leave the mind resting, an observer.

Aging is the Path Deepening

So many people around me seem to use their age as a measure of themselves, useful to their critic and judge. Age also seems to play a big role in the way we all pity ourselves or worry about "the future." Our view of the past is totally washed by the waters of age bracketing.

My parents are old. Their children are old too. My children are young yet, but they are old compared to how I can remember them.


My body does not function exactly the same way as it did yesterday, or three years ago, or 40 years ago for that matter.

In my practice I teach people of all ages, with bodies that have lived through many different experiences and registered them in various ways. Their minds took all that in as well. My own practice began as an exploration of who I might actually be, an effort to discover whatever I could about living this life in this body as this person, and searching for a way to at least limit the pain involved in that process. I've learned about all these matters, and opened doors and windows that I did not know were there before my practice of yoga, and some that I could see vaguely in the distance have become more familiar to me.

Age is for me now a natural reminder to deepen the practice. Continuously letting go, finding new layers and ways of understanding acceptance, gratitude, and joy. Each creaky joint, each little bit of energy opening up, the requirement that I check in with reality and not make up anything about what is, these are just a few gifts of my aging.

I observe my parents, one in a wheelchair with dementia, one fully in charge of a dependent household, and contemplate the number 90. Imagine living ninety years? Imagine memories of being my own age of 56 as so very much younger than the present moment. Nearly half a life ago. What difference does it make that I was more or less flexible a decade ago? How is that knee right now? What can I do to relax that shoulder a little more and draw my energy through my core instead? Can I listen to this conversation in this moment without laying judgment upon every one and every word? Have I seen this before, been here before, heard this before, felt this before? Really? I take a step back to see, think, feel, breathe, observe myself in my patterns and shepherd my feelings like a little flock, safely into the gated pasture where they can be free, and I can be free of them enough to be here now.

The gift of openness, of letting go, gives freedom and truth the chance to take hold in this moment. Just being is the only being there can be, at whatever age. And adding years in and of itself means little. For me, the moment now is the only opportunity offered.

Simplifying Even the Moon

I woke up this morning to a thick fog all around the house in upstate New York. Water droplets on the screens and windows full of white glare. The view held no trees, no hills, no valley, and gave no sense of what else might be out there. What is transformation if not new understanding? As in the discovery of sub-atomic and nuclear physics, the old ideas of Newtonian principles no longer applied to everything, yet had their sway over the mechanical world we can see. Beyond that, with high power microscopes and telescopes, the view of the world became so much larger and new "rules" seemed to make things work. And there is so much we cannot see if we must take everything as it appears. As with the clearing of the fog this morning, gradually the stone wall emerged, and a height of tree beyond, and eventually the valley with streaks of hill behind it. Now the sun shines bright and I can pretend that all is revealed to me. Let's not even begin to consider the insect life, or the microbes in the soil that are nurturing and attacking the roots of everything in the garden. Just that I know this is all going on out there is like the discovery of the atom!

It helps to simplify to the core of being. I watch my blind cat function in the world with remarkable stability and happiness, or what passes for that on the scale of human emotions. He doesn't see but can hunt, he doesn't see but can jump into the chair. He will run to the sound of my voice across an ocean of not knowing, and seems secure, purring and finding my leg to rub against. He is functioning in the deepest sense. It is this that I seek on my yoga mat as well. Can I approach the moon itself, or take in the energy of a star? Can I place my weight in my foot, feeling the energy align up through my leg into my pelvis, forces of gravity holding me securely while I extend in a most natural way through my spine, letting go of the weight of my head, and supporting a lifted arm and lifted leg for Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose)? It doesn't work if I start by taking my body in parts, aim for a shape, or present myself with the struggle of "balancing on one leg." I will not get there by pushing my leg into the air and reaching for an external shape. Yet by finding the root of my soft foot resting on the earth - deeply connected to the balance in my pelvis as the foundation - and then release the energy from in the core of my body - of my being - I feel the flying moon taking form in me. The moon does not balance in the sky, nor hang. Remember, it's visible presence is a reflection of light from the sun. Perhaps I'll use a block under my hand or place my hand on a wall to enable a natural extension in my spine, with energy connecting my heel to my fingers along both flying halves. Reducing fear helps my breath and my breathing helps reduce fear. Maybe I will elongate into this flying feeling on my way in and out of Trkonasana (Triangle Pose), playful, and without goals. Like the fog, the efforting and judging can easily obscure this shining moon from sight.

I think of the people around me with their heads full of ideas, goals, and desires. I love them and wish them well. May they find ways to release these desires and find joy in what they are actually doing (not wishing for summer when it is winter and wanting the sun when there is fog)! May they allow themselves the freedom from the external goals long enough to discover what they love to do (letting the passage or ride be as much for them as the getting where they are going)! May they see in the swirl of ideas an ocean of possibility in which they breathe each breath and explore their authentic self, coming, as they eventually will, into the brilliant light of the sun once the fog clears (just being their self). I cannot make this happen, nor will all my words or yogic teachings make this available to them. Only in their own explorations will their path emerge. As their foot steps in the fog the earth rises to meet it. I see my little cat leap onto the front step, my voice being the open door. People can also find that their breath and their foundation on the earth support their wildest adventures and the softest of moments. I would invite you all to fly as the moon itself.

Beginning, and Beginning and Beginning

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

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

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


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

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

Yoga Using the Body

Two days ago I stubbed my toe and it drew my attention like a rocket exploding across the sky. I could almost say it shook me to my foundation and took my breath away at the same time! From that instant this simple change in the way my foot reacted to everything has served as such a deep reminder that everything is subject to change and that the feelings and meanings, stories and responses are not who I am, they are just conditions. At this point my toe only speaks when I push on it, but it has helped remind me to soften my feet in every Asana, and highlights how my balance and my movement are related to breath and a rising core energy, and my relationship to the earth whether I am noticing that or not. The toe made sure I was noticing. What a gift!

Yoga practice is not a routine. Pratapana (preparatory movements) and Asana (postures) can be repeated daily and even in the same sequence (though that is not my style), yet the practice is unique to the moment. Each day that I open my eyes, the light astonishes me. Even thinking that I know which hip will be creaky, what is actually happening in the moment is something specific and can only be experienced with awareness in that moment. The instant I stubbed my toe, my body reacted and my mind reacted; my breath reacted (that sharp intake!) and my feelings both physical and emotional jumped in. Each time I settle on the mat, my body sensations and my inhale/exhale can take just as much attention. Can an ordinary moment, of transition from inhaling to exhaling, of resting in Virabhadrasana I (Warrior I standing posture), be as fully engaging as the moment I stubbed my toe? Yes, it can if I allow myself to choose to focus fully upon it. Through the body and its senses and reactions to conditions, the reactions of voluntary and involuntary muscles and nerves to the mind's directions, and within the patterns learned, I can literally find myself intensely and completely sitting on the mat breathing in and breathing out. My body gives me a laboratory in which to experience my self and the world, both internal and external.

What is the point of this intense presence? Is it some release into higher consciousness or trance-like tranquility? Well, not really for me at this point, though it may sometimes go through a stage like that. I think of the Asana practice, the practice of yoga through the body, as a stage in waking up. Allowing myself to observe so closely, to experience more fully without attaching to the experience, brings me to a new level of equanimity, while simultaneously integrating my energy into my entire being. I am at whatever level of practice this is, that I can more easily be clear and awake through the yoga practice, even while withdrawing from my sensations and becoming more and more of an observer, using experience and reactivity to help me see and be my self.

The ache in my toe brings my inner awareness to what I can release more fully into the experience. Releasing into the experience demands letting go more fully of the "idea" of the experience. Sitting or walking meditation starts in the same way for me it seems, using the breath or awareness of gravity or light. I guess this is just where I am on the continuum of cultivating consciousness, that I use my body as a prop, a processing plant, a playing field upon which to see and play the game of being who I am. After all, I am experiencing this life in this body, so I might as well use it with gratitude for all that it gives me!