The Trembling Leaf

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

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

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

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

"Mindful" by Mary Oliver (Inspiration as August ends)

Mindful

Every day
  I see or I hear
     something
        that more or less

kills me
   with delight,
       that leaves me
          like a needle

in the haystack
   of light.
      It is what I was born for ---
         to look, to listen,

to lose myself
   inside this soft world ---
     to instruct myself
        over and over

in joy,
   and acclamation.
      Nor am I talking
          about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
  the very extravagant ---
     but of the ordinary,
        the commonplace, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
   Oh, good scholar,
       I say to myself,
          how can you help

but grow wise
   with such teachings
       as these ---
          the untrimmable light

of the world,
   the ocean's shine,
      the prayers that are made
         out of grass?

from Why I Wake Early, Beacon Press, 2004

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!

Finding Child's Pose Any Time

So many times in yoga classes I've heard teachers say, "feel free to take child's pose any time." In the first class I ever took at a yoga studio, the invitation to release and relax in child's pose actually brought up tears. Surprised to find myself sweaty, tired, folded on the floor and crying, I experienced the insight that yoga was a powerful, personal and subtle way in and out of some dark and lonely places I had tucked away. The space was held in safety by the teacher, and I knew I was not alone as I could hear the quiet breathing of other students also folded on the floor. Something about the individuality of my own mat gave me space too, at the same time the commonality of the floor and the breath was deeply comforting.

I had slipped right into that universal quality of "suffering" in my human structure, experiencing the results of the mind grasping and avoiding, the impact of my mind telling its stories and getting trapped in there.  Then, amazingly, in my first child's pose, I was able to see and acknowledge my unexpected emotional reaction, and actually let it go, allowing the specificity of my physical posture of being folded up on the floor to be a relief after the physical and mental struggles to follow the instructions of that first class. This is the magical quality of the practice, that the sequence of poses (the Asana), in the hands of a teacher will take you right into the present moment. In that moment, our vision can be clear and we can be present.  (Child's pose is a bit like prostrating oneself, both legs folded under the body, so that the shins and tops of the feet are against the ground, the knees are deeply bent, hips back towards heels, and the upper body is resting on the thighs, arms extended or folded next to legs.)

This week I was cutting the grass, about a half acre, which is a demanding and tiring physical challenge with our self-propelled push mower. I won't go into the details of the topography of slopes, the finicky areas that require a lot of pushing-pull to negotiate around plantings and objects, nor stories of my joints, suffice it to say that after a while, it is challenging and tiring! At a certain point, I am drenched in sweat, there is much left to do, and I am quite consciously organizing my body weight over my feet, using abdominal muscles to keep my ribs and pelvis aligned as I push up hill or drag back to reposition the machine. This total body consciousness is an indicator of how stressed I feel, no longer a mindless action, I've called in the mindfulness troops. This is when I hear that voice in my head saying, "feel free to take child's pose at any time during the practice."

Child's pose can be there for any situation where it isn't over and you most surely wish it was. It turns out that child's pose is a state of mind and breath awareness that can be brought to bear while waiting for a loved one having surgery, or stuck in a stopped subway car with an important meeting already starting at your destination, (or in the middle of an arduous task). Child's pose is a way of triggering an internal connection, aimed at letting go of tension and effort that is not required in order to provide the space for the mind to let go of its grip on the perception that you are suffering. That tightness of mind's clutch on the what-ifs and anxiety of not knowing, on the stress of over efforting, or fear of an outcome, can be loosened when I draw my focus to my breath.

This re-focused attention helps back me down from the cliff edge. In my case, I could offer myself a break and a glass of water if I want that, but even without taking that break, I can soften the tension in my body. I can bring my awareness to my feet walking on earth behind that lawn mower, re-adjust my bodyweight so that there is less effort, even slow it down and take the pressure of momentum off of myself.  This is removing the fight-or-flight aspect of pushing through discomfort and exhaustion, and leaves the calmness of steadiness and balanced effort to get me though. Child's pose does this in a yoga class context, allows the body to regroup, the mind to refocus on the breath, the bones to find support in their folded form and feel the support of the earth and the breath.

Whether you can fold on the floor or not, or perhaps wouldn't dream of trying that, you can offer yourself the nurturing quiet attention of child's pose when you need it. As for me, I finished my task of cutting the grass, knowing that in another week, I'll be at it again until the weather turns cold.  I'll be back at it in the Spring and glad of it, just like in yoga class when the teacher brings you out of child's pose with an invitation to reach your palms out on the mat and unfold.

Being: Day Lilies for One Day

All day long, from the very start, I consider the lilies and am filled with amazement and wonder. It's not just that they are incredibly beautiful, so many colors, interacting with the light as it changes all day long. No, it's not that really. It is this inevitable truth that they open these insanely perfect blooms for just this day and then, that's it. If it's a rainy day, well, that's their day. If it's burning hot or windy or full of bugs or deer eating lilies for lunch or whatever, that's their day. And they bloom their very best, regardless.

I've tried to capture them with my digital camera but the colors are not right. These lilies are alive and blooming, I mean specifically, these lilies are totally saturated in the very act of blooming all day long. How can any frozen second capture that? Like this breath, or this eye blinking? A living moment.

And in the twilight of their one day, they are luminous. Some of them are already closing their petals having had their full day of possibilities. Some of them are just beginning to peel open that first petal at dusk in preparation for full bloom at sunrise.  Some bloom into the night. When dead-heading lilies early in the morning (breaking off the spent blooms to make more space for the opening ones), one must be very attentive to those that close in the morning.  They can look so much as though they are just opening.

I can only imagine this feeling of being completely in fullness in every moment. That this is the day for me. Yet it is true that this IS the day for me, and for you, and this day and this day. It seems so wildly unbelievable that we can have a chance to really live in every moment, day after day, when these remarkable and unique lilies only get one. Just one day. Live the one you're in.

bud opening, bloom closing

Inner Layers Align, Koshas of an Asymmetrical Body

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

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

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

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

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.

Life is not a Rehearsal: Each Moment is the Performance

Practicing, whether a musical instrument, painting, asana or other activity of mind and body, is a process of building stamina, skill, pattern, awareness, and technique. Yoga is not different in many ways from any of these other pursuits. A spiritual practice or a modality of scientific inquiry both benefit from repeating the walk along the pathways of the mind, in some ways codifying these movements into a chosen range of adaptations. We shape the way we think, our thoughts shape the way we react, act, feel. It is in this inquiry that we discover our selves and the world again and again.

Even in the practicing, though there are imperfections and sometimes struggles, it is not a rehearsal in order to get it right. The practicing is in itself the performance, but with a different audience or outcome. It is the self that performs, and the self who is transformed by the performance.

There is no moment when you are not your self. Even in moments when you might say, "I am not myself today," you are present only in that moment as the self you actually are, feeling off kilter. Our idea can shift about who we think we are, and we construct the ways in which we imagine we are seen by others.  As with playing music, it sounds beautiful to one person, boring to another, intriguing to someone and intolerable to someone else.  It exists only in the moment that you create it, and though you might record it, it lives then as a recording, played in a moment, reacted to in that moment. It is no longer your life, but a product of your life.

So with this in mind, it doesn't take much to see that what you say, the face you make, the food you put in your mouth, the way you touch another, the place you rest your eyes, all make up the life you actually live. There is no moment out-of-mind, even in the flow of ecstatic creativity that might bring out the music or the art, the breath or the dance, this is your moment. It is in this context that I contemplate the principles of right action and right speech.

Once I was in my dad's painting studio looking at some new work and he said, "Oil painting is like a rehearsal where you can keep going back and redo, or undo, or rethink, and remake; where watercolor is a performance with every stroke of the brush, this is it."

Being present in each moment is like living a watercolor, where each movement of the breath is the performance of life.  Is there pressure in this? I don't feel it that way. I see this spreads out any pressure into a general sense of upholding personal responsibility in all things, including sharing responsibilities with everyone else for the world we are making together, and accepting responsibility for the range of feelings that arise. This is not about perfection, or blocking out the "bad," but rather giving up the idea of "good" and "bad" and being here, in it right now as it is.

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.

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.

Seeing Your Inner Gesture: Asking, Offering, Accepting

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Meditation: Hold the Railing in the Bottomless Pool

Right in the middle of dinner, a mood settles in, changing the textures of experience, tamping down on interactions and forming strange silences. There's a deep pool of possible feelings upon which to draw, yet like sipping through a straw, only one small part is sucked up, feeding the whole.  It wasn't like this just moments before, or perhaps yesterday was different. It feels as though a shift, like a tectonic plate, happened, and without knowing how it happened, or making up reasons why it happened, we feel as though standing in a place from which life looks different.  Right in the middle of life, someone we love  leaves us and we are lost in the bottomless pool.

It doesn't seem like a choice, since it is something we feel. Feelings surround us, like an immersion, and we cannot feel the bottom of the pool with our toes any more. Seems like either we drift with it, paddle in it, or drown in it. Is feeling really a matter of mind? a reaction to a condition? Does it help to know that the condition is impermanent, or is this feeling of the impermanence of everything like being in a bottomless pool, hopeless of finding our feet? Forever without the comfort of grounding? This is the wash of grief, the depth of loss, the fear of looking forward or letting go of what is past, unable to see the continuum of events as a constantly shifting mirage without feeling despair and agonizing incompleteness.

How do we live with equanimity if there is no bottom to the pool? Think of the shallow end of a swimming pool. There are stairs to give a gradual way into the water, where one can stay until more at ease with the depth and the shift from dry to wet. Even in the deepest end of the pool there are ladders for one to climb out, or to hold onto for a moment of rest. Understanding that the pool is bottomless does not mean giving up these supports, in fact it helps to see them as exactly that. There is little hope of understanding the sea simply from standing on the shore, we begin by wading in. We cannot know the deepest parts on our own, nor traverse the breadth of the sea as a fish might. Yet we can hold the concept of the mountain ridges beneath the surface, the universe of life and energy cycles playing out throughout. These are like the steps into the pool that we can use in approaching the ocean of our feelings and reactions, the seemingly boundary-less and overwhelming reactions we can have in a moment of loss, disappointment or fear.

Setting aside time from the viewing platform of meditation or a yoga practice can allow us to visualize the stairs, and the vastness of the bottomless pool, without reactivity. We can watch the whole scene play out without immersing ourselves in it. Notice the fear or grief arising, the avoidance or the urge to plunge beyond our depth. This moment of observation can be seen and even felt without being lost in it. We can learn to train our attention to hold the railing of the ladder while we let the mind follow the waves outward into the deep end. Let the breath itself be your railing.

Changes Moment to Moment, Practice & Life

coleus the day before freezing temperatures

Arms swinging softly from side to side as I strode down the street, I was thinking: "hips moving, shoulders moving, how lucky I am." I waited for the light to change, crossed the street, began up the next block and my feet went sliding on a sheet of black ice. My spine twisted one way and the other, my knees bent, and I straightened up to find myself standing solidly on the curb, one hand on a parked car. Wow. The other side of the street was bathed in sunlight, a dry, clear sidewalk waiting. I walked carefully across the street, taking stock of my formerly sprained ankle, scanning interior spaces for pinches, pulls or any other signs of distress.  All in one moment, an injury can change a busy life of teaching yoga into a deep practice in acceptance and letting go.  I had been grateful just a moment ago for the fluidity in my joints, the sweet synchronization of breath and body movements. A moment later, any part of me could have been significantly damaged.

I arrived 20 minutes later to teach a student who had herself had a near miss just before our session. She had been talking with a friend, crossing a street, turned and in a split second was actually hit by a cyclist. Being a cyclist herself, she was utterly astonished that she hadn't seen that coming, nor could the cyclist have predicted her hesitation and uncertainty mid-stream in crossing the street. Again, neither person was injured, though both were rattled by the turbulence in the steady pace of the day.

How many times do we take for granted the moment we are currently experiencing? I would guess most of the time. It doesn't have to be the small stuff, sometimes it is the enormity of life and death that shifts in a moment. From going off to work and handling the myriad aspects of daily family life, to signing one's life partner up for hospice after imagining that the endless uphill struggle would result in a view at the top of that hill, and a vista of an endless life of the quotidien. How on earth can we prepare for this roller coaster drama in which we all live?

In the practice of yoga or sitting for a moment to watch our mind in action in meditation, we can strengthen the muscle of mindfulness, becoming more aware of our way of operating, and more at ease with who we are. That strength of self knowledge helps focus our attention in that slippery moment, when the heart sinks below the horizon and the mind cannot close in around the ramifications.  Watching the moment, just as one watches the mind in meditation or observes the distribution of the breath in an asana, there is a real possibility to remain present, ready to accept and adapt to what is happening.  This is a baseline of practice, standing in a warrior pose (Virabhadrasana I, II or III), or twisted in a revolved triangle pose, or meeting the gaze of a grieving friend, we practice to bring the self fully present in that moment,  not fuzzy, nor lost in projection. It enables us to hold steady,  not confusing presence for control, or judgment for reality.

the mind of not all or nothing: just see what emerges.

Walking in the light powdery snow, I was bewitched by the transformations, leaves became cups and simultaneously appear as knife-like edges in the snow. Distances in the valley are aflutter with white flecks turning air and space into volumes. Definitions disappear. Here the submerged log emerged with its tinge of velvet green moss. What is the truth about the light snow, the maple branch below or the leaf litter? Can the surface be surface, while the depth is a huge mass of fallen tree, and the snow be falling too?

All bound up in thinking, I bind myself up with projections, goals, memories, ideas. Reaching for the shapes that I think, I practically block any sense of the real. I cannot pretend to give up thinking, nor do I want to do that. I am beginning to see that it doesn't take huge complicated tools though to loosen the tightness of the bind of my thinking. It is like the way I learn not to reach too hard to catch my own hand to bind an asana only to give up on my spinal alignment.  It begins with noticing that my thinking is confining me.

More and more I see how selective my letting go has been. I seem to release this grip, but not that grip. I believe this, but not that. I tolerate this, but not that.  Once I see this personal structure, this selective way of grasping at one aspect while avoiding another, I have the opportunity to be more fully. Truth and freedom, equanimity and clarity glimmer in all the levels of letting go. It is not an all or nothing proposition, like light appearing in the dark. It is always light.

In my snowy walk, the most striking thing happened as I turned to return to the house. I felt thrilled and surprised to the core to see the subtle impression of my own tracks:  a slight disturbance in the powdery snow with delicate crushing of the leaf edges into the powder. This evidence of my own steps seems most marvelous of all -- holding for just a moment all the wonder of impermanence and presence.

Anticipation

The plans have changed.
The weather shifted.
The gift did not arrive.
There was no solitary time to organize.
This didn't come out as hoped.

And yet, here it is, another morning.
Sky the color of reflected snow.
Enough water for a shower, and tea.

The guests are still sleeping.
The morning chores are done.
The gift is the moment.
Not waiting any more.

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.

Seeking the Nature of Reactivity: Can I See My Self?

Relationships are complex and intangible. I can stand next to someone and some sort of a relationship forms. We arrange ourselves spatially, use eye contact cues and follow rules of engagement that change constantly.

In one recent class I was teaching, I suddenly proposed: “What if you simply stopped judging the people you love? What if a person who loves you could look you in the eye and say, I completely accept you? What if that person was a co-worker, or a person next to you on the subway, or in this class?” It was shocking to imagine anyone, even a person who loves me, gazing at anyone else, even me, without judgment. In that moment my students’ eyes were fixed on me and their minds were full of reactions to me and my words. Maybe they picked up on the fact that even I, “the teacher,” was shaken awake to imagine this.

Our very nature is a reactive one. Stilling the waves of the mind, as Patanjali states in the second verse of his yoga sutras, means watching that reactive nature with awareness but not being subjected to its every wave. Can we actually function among others, doing our daily tasks without falling victim to our own stories and in essence blinding ourselves to reality? Reality is, in this case, the understanding that we are connected rather than separate in the realm of all living beings. Of course as long as we continue to think of ourselves as separate entities, our functioning will remain judgmental and attached.

I find it very hard not to drop into various definitions, or characters, or roles and react again and again from there. The process seems to form layers of story, and each has its point at the time, but they get heavy to carry around after a while. It is a long-term project to put them down, or perhaps it is very quick but has to happen again and again – maybe for each layer. If I have trouble giving this habit up when living in my own body as my own self, imagine how much harder it is for me to give it up when I have just a moment to consider someone else? The tendency to name, buttonhole, identify, define, attach meanings and judge is a very strong tendency!

I begin with the concept of patterns in my mental attitudes, behaviors, and judgments. Pausing to pay attention is my first line of inquiry; I can start with noticing whether I am inhaling or exhaling and that slows me down before my thoughts get hijacked by their attachment to a pattern. It is only with a pause long enough in which I can see the pattern that I can recognize it and make choices. In conversation I might literally press the tip of my tongue on the roof of my mouth before I speak in order to give myself time to notice what’s going on in my judgmental mind. The action doesn’t stop, but I can stop my reaction, and that makes it possible to imagine/see/choose a different course.

Buddhist teacher and author Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche speaks to seeing authentic emotions in a June 4, 2010 essay in the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com/dzogchen-ponlop-rinpoche/emotional-awareness-buddhism_b_598417.html) “If we're going to understand ourselves, much less another person, we have to look beneath our patterns and face our emotions in their natural, undisguised state. When we're stuck at the level of our habitual dramas, it's like going through the day half awake, barely conscious of the world's brilliance. Some part of us may like this half-asleep state, where nothing is too bright, too energetic, or too unknown. But another part of us can hardly wait to be free, to take a chance, to see what's on the other side of the mountain.”

One of the results of my yoga is that I can no longer see myself as a finite object. It is as though I have been transformed into something much more fluid. I can find old patterns, like the marks left by floods on the walls. There is plenty of evidence there of my past behaviors and reactions. Sometimes I repeat the same knee-jerk behavior, but much more often I see it like that faint stain mark and can let the waters out before they rise to that point again. Every now and then I totally surprise myself with something so wide open that I can hardly find any self there at all, just a sense of space and being. Staying in that essential state takes practice. Usually as soon as I notice it, I am out of it. In fact the separation it takes to see it happening, requires that I return to the witness chair. Asana and meditation, slow walks, silences, all help me with that work of staying comfortable while unattached.

So in starting out to think about seeing myself in order to catch my patterns and see others without judgment, I’ve practiced seeing the patterns and begin to understand that they are not me. Sure there are strings of attachment to the stories I’ve created about my life and the memories and the dreams and the forms of others who were around me, but they are my stories, and not me either. It may be that consciousness is even more vast than self-consciousness. This inquiry absorbs my intense, focused attention and helps me to get out of the picture at the same time.