Watering the seeds: suffering or equanimity?

The magnolia tree does not consider its fallen petals, and the tulip does not anticipate its moment of perfect bloom. We humans seem to live so much in just those moments -- stuck in our sorrows and waiting and reaching for that something that may or may not bring all we want. I saw the litter of magnolia petals carpeting the sidewalk and was struck with their beauty, knowing full well that they were on the road to decomposition and disappearance. It felt similar to the last stages of my mother's life, when she was on hospice and functioning at the most concentrated and essential level of her character. How beautiful she seemed to me, no longer controlling or grasping, no longer measuring or despairing! There was a complete quality in her pleasure in holding a cup of tea, in her sensation of the texture of her own throat with her wandering fingers.

I planted onions a year after her death, scattering the fertilizer four inches below where the roots would grow, as I pushed the tips of the slightly thickened grass-like seedlings just under the surface of the warm earth. A cold wind was blowing, and the sun sparkled literally on the new green in the field grass. In that moment I could be complete, doing this action in this moment, knowing that some of these little onions will thrive and others may not, that there are responsibilities of watering and weeding, harvesting, and curing, eating, and savoring -- yet with no thinking about that. Each of those aspects will follow in their time if I nurture the seed of the moment. In my planting I chose to experience growth and possibility rather than loss and sorrow.

So oddly enough in grieving my mother's death, I found myself watering the seeds of being. This was one of her dearest gifts to me, showing me that the blooms do not grieve their petals as they fall to the earth.

Aligning beyond the body

I am constantly shifting myself when I notice that I am in my habitual chin tilting posture, or hip cocked stance or sitting unevenly always left leg crossed. It reminds me a bit of trying to balance on one foot beyond just a few seconds. There is a constant negotiating in order to find that alignment; and with these habitual patterns in my body, I am noticing and adjusting in much the same way. Just as with seeking my balance, in these other habits it is my practice of cultivating awareness that brings me the possibility of aligning in spite of my life long patterns. I cannot change the asymmetrical nature of the body I live in, but I can definitely line things up in a way that liberates my movement, and makes much less trouble for my spine, joints, and muscles. Yes, I can lower the level of my own suffering.

This has a huge effect on my life, as the level of awareness that I now bring, not just to my "posture" you might call it, can and does apply to my feelings, my reactions, my way of operating in the world. That I can now even notice that my chin is tilting habitually, or that sadness is arising in a triggered response, is the result of cultivating mindfulness and allowing awareness to guide my actions and behaviors. I will be the first to admit that I have not been disciplined in my meditation practice for years and years, not at all. I have slowly and gradually been evolving into a more mindful person through my asana practice, and with what might be seen as a mild case of meditation until recent years when a nearly daily practice became more integrated.

The body is the vehicle for most beginning yoga practitioners. In fact most people think of yoga solely as the physical practice. Lots of yoga classes start and finish without the subtle secret remembering of the breath or the softening of the soles of the feet to sense the complex and delicate balance of energy and ease. And then the practice begins to take on that shape, when it is no longer about what it looks like on the outside even if there is a lot of attention paid verbally and physically to alignment and the principles of how muscles and bones work together. It is in the specificity of your own body, the very precise capabilities and inadequacies in that physical self and the way your own mind reacts and relates to all of this -- the instructions, the feelings, the physical risk taking and resting -- that the core of the work is revealed that the muscles you are truly developing are those of mindfulness and awareness.

Sitting in meditation, or walking or laying in meditation for that matter, can open your inner eye, so to speak, to the vastness of your energy beyond all the constant flow of thinking that keeps us occupied most of the time. The asana practice and developing the alignment of the poses is another way, that can augment or even introduce this process of cultivation. Noticing that there is a waste of energy in your arms in your warrior pose can lead to understanding that you waste energy in trying to control how other people do things. Noticing that you have once again fallen into the habit of turning the toes of your left foot in and are stressing your knee more than necessary can lead to noticing that you are putting too much on your calendar for one morning and are creating your own condition of frantic urgency.

Revelation and understanding are not predictable events, but through cultivating your awareness in asana alignment, you can illuminate and align the way you stand at the sink doing dishes. In this way you can cultivate being more aware of how you stand in the larger context of the life you live as well.

Rumi "Two Wings"

Observe the qualities of expansion and contraction
in the fingers of your hand:
surely after the closing of the fist comes the opening.
If the fingers were always closed or always open,
the owner would be crippled.
Your movement is governed by these two qualities:
they are as necessary to you
as two wings are to a bird.

from the Mathnawi III, 3762-66
edited by Kabir & Camille Helminski

Consider the Pearl, A Meditation

Swaying between the pulling tides of hope and fear,
we balance.
Our weight on the earth,
sitting bones softening deep into the support beneath
the spine, spacious and rising into the endless sky.

Allowing the jaw to loosen, even
the muscles in the shins go slack.
We balance the weight of the head
over the beating heart.

Consider yourself a pearl lost in the grass.
You sitting here.
Your skin a container for your inhale,
your shape ever changing.

Consider the pearl lost in the grass.
Like the dew drop resting on a leaf,
its membrane like a skin,
its clarity and translucence, ever reflecting.

We balance between hope and fear,
between the earth
and the endless sky.
Between the pearl's luminous solidity
and iridescent illusion of the dew.

starting here, being here

It really is all about cultivating the ability to be aware, and I don't mean hyper vigilant or super sensitive, just aware. The first growth of moss after a cold winter is so vivid, so green, so alive in its context of dry decay. Yet it is also the fallen leaf that draws my eye, the sense of total equanimity in its fall and landing, no judgment, no grief over its new curling, decaying form. That, juxtaposed with the intensity of the moss, stops me in my tracks. And it is my tracks that keep me going like a treadmill made of desires, away away away from the present moment and lost to my self. Even with the errand of walking the bucket of kitchen scraps to the compost bin I was like a mist without present form, drifting until that moss and resting leaves caught my eye.

So how to start here, no matter where "here" might be? I know that I cannot rely on external impulses that really just spark my reactive nature. It has become clearer and clearer that I must seek from within to find that sense of being that can focus my attention. Each breath is ripe with possibility when it comes to inviting focus, and cultivating the ability to be aware and stay present here and now.

Exhale without changing anything about the way you exhale. Allow the breath to slip back in without making any changes in the efforts or the action. Where are you now? Okay so there's a bit of self-absorption in this attentiveness, but keep your eyes open, with a soft focus. Keep your ears open allowing sound to find you from near and far. Keep your attention on the incredible but effortless inhale arising from each exhale.

Just stay here if you can as you walk slowly, mindfully. Notice the expansion of your inner spaces on the inhale and the lengthening and spaciousness of your exhale. When your mind has wandered off to watch a movie in your head, or begins blurring the present in order to see the future, just bring your attention back to the exhale and observe the arising inhale. Creating the seeds of mindfulness, you may find this present moment is fuller than you could ever have imagined with your mind.

It's All About "Me," Yoga Is Seeing the Self

After the Super Bowl football match, a TV show aired called "The Voice" in which talented singers are sought to compete for judges who go on to create teams and eventually whittle them down to what they deem to be "the voice" deserving their promotion. Well, that's the gist of it anyway. It is wonderful to hear people singing. Yet I continue to be bothered by the idea that our culture emphasizes the individual to such a degree, pressuring each person into a life-long battle to create themselves in comparison with others, without ever learning the importance of looking into the strategies and techniques of that construction project. Many people feel isolated and under siege for a good part of their lives in this endless struggle, with a few finding a path to peaceful acceptance of their own structures, and an ease of being among others who differ in some ways and are similar in so many ways.

Yoga could be taken as being all about "me" but in the sense of developing a keen level of awareness in an individual to see their own construction and understand the ebb and flow of the reality show we continuously play for ourselves. Our projections in to the next moment, as well as our carefully designed memories and dreams, begin to train us to follow our thoughts like a dog chasing a car down the road. When we attempt to hold our mind to a single point without giving way to this impulse, we begin a new intimacy with the way our mind works, and glimpse beyond the stories to a supported, open ended sense of self. A yoga practice can take a person beyond that series of stories and reactions into a way of being that Buddhists might call "peaceful abiding." I might also call it equanimity, or freedom from the daily traps I set for myself.

There are moments when the great success is simply noticing that the mind is dragging me off someplace away from the moment I am actually living. This is the dawning of awareness! When that awareness can turn my attention back to this moment, this is mindfulness! It would be an understatement to acknowledge that I spend a good bit of time on the seesaw between awareness and what I could call mind-chasing, yet even a few moments when awareness enables me to be fully engaged, mindfully aware, have changed the way I operate in the world, and respond to the circumstances and events around me.

The practice of yoga includes the asana, those physical forms that awaken the body and are so helpful in leading the mind to awaken. Asana practice is one of the "eight limbs" of yoga, the others include practices of restraints and observances that help guide our relationship to our self and to others (representing 2 of the 8 limbs), a similar practice related to cultivating awareness of the breath and its properties (one of the 8), the cultivating of awareness through mindfulness and the practices of withdrawing from the reactivity of the sensory perceptions (2 more), studying the mind through meditation (another 1), and finding just that equanimity and freedom in the process (the bliss of the 8th limb).

Focus Right Where You Are

Focus on your breathing. Not changing anything. Where do you feel it most? Don't get lost trying to quantify more and most, or choosing here or there. Try to simplify and feel wherever you are feeling the sensations of your inhale and exhale just now.

Stick with that for a few breaths.

Notice where you are finding the breath to feel more vivid in your body, and if you've already wandered, come back to the inhale and focus on where you sense breath more fully in your body. Just for now, just right there. Allow your mind to quiet down a little bit.

Begin to find the three-dimensional quality in your breath, just as it is, just where you feel it most now.

Notice how it describes your internal spaces from front to back of you. Spend several breaths on this.
Notice how it finds a way to describe the top and bottom lengths of you. Spend several breaths on this too.

Just come back to where you feel it most. Perhaps that has changed. Don't think your way into this, just notice that you are thinking about where you feel the breath, and come right back to feeling the breath.

Continue to allow your attention to notice the way your breath describes you. I know you cannot notice everything, but imagine that you could! Follow your curiosity into your hip joints, along the back of your rib cage, into the subtle tilting of your pelvis with every breath. Is your inhale grainy or smooth, is the exhale noisy or soft? Are there qualities in this breath, now? coolness or heat, jaggedness or elasticity? Don't worry about using words to describe qualities. Notice what you can and come back to noticing without getting lost in cataloging. If you do get lost in words and trying to find language, just come back to focus your attention on the breath. No big deal. One great aspect of this is that there is another breath right after this one, so nothing is lost. Just come back to your focus.

Seek out any dull areas in your body, where you don't seem to feel any connection to your breath. Pay attention to that space for a few breaths, allowing your awareness of the breath sensations elsewhere to soften, like a gaze that is unfocused.

Restart if you got lost, and notice where you feel the breath now. Perhaps you can move around a little, do a few yoga postures (asana), or walk around a bit for a few breaths. See if the focus of your attention can keep coming back to find where you feel your breath and where you don't so much. After a little moving about, return to a position you can hold for a few minutes, sitting comfortably, or perhaps laying your body flat on the floor. Bring your attention back to where you feel the breath in your body, continuing to explore its three-dimensional qualities, seeking out any areas that feel dull or unmoving.

Even a few minutes of this every day helps support you in physical, emotional, and psychological ways! There is no "goal" or "end" to this; just set aside a little time to get interested first in what you notice, and then in how that changes.

This is one way of meditating. It offers a way to begin cultivating awareness, increase your ability to focus attention even with all the distractions in the mind, and to strengthen the connections between your mind and your body. This definitely helps me to be right where I am, wherever that is.