Theorists and experimentalists

More than 20 years ago, I worked as an administrative assistant at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara.  I loved working there.  It was the first job in my working life where I was actually excited to go to work each day (for accuracy, I should inject "most of the time").  I loved being around people who were curious and intelligent and coming up with new ideas about the way things are in the world.  I didn't come into contact much with the experimentalists. They were the ones who took the theory and brought it into application. 

With that background I realize all these years later that, as a yoga teacher, I am more of the experimentalist variety.  I still love those theorists, now yogis instead of physicists.  But my practice, my art, is to pick up those innovations and play with them, study them, and let them evolve until they apply to my life, my practice, my teaching.  What a wonderful and exhilarating partnership.

Pain relief

I'm reading "Yoga for Pain Relief" by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.  Kelly teaches yoga, meditation and psychology at Stanford University.  I first came in contact with her through Erich Schiffmann's discussion board years ago.  She's written an informative and helpful book for people dealing with chronic pain.  She begins with a chapter on the science behind chronic pain, which I found to be enlightening.  Then she introduces the reader to yoga and how it can help to "calm your mind and heal your chronic pain".

Kelly writes, "While neuroscience, psychology, and medicine are getting better at explaining why and how pain persists, they do not yet have satisfying solutions.  Pain medications fail over the long term more often than not.  Pain management programs often focus on coping with pain rather than transforming the pain experience."

"That is where yoga comes in.  The yoga tradition has evolved as a system to end unnecessary suffering.  This promise was described as far back as two thousand years ago in the Yoga Sutras, one of the first guides to the purpose and practice of yoga."


"Yoga philosophy offers hope for freedom from suffering, and its practices provide the tools for healing."

The book includes breath awareness practices, gentle yoga, meditation, all geared to those who suffer chronic pain.  I've already recommended it to several students who live with pain on a daily basis.  It's a gem.

Lost in the details?

I'm currently reading (among other things) Buddha's Brain - the practical neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom by Rick Hanson PhD. with Richard Mendius, M.D.  It's geeky enough about the neuroscience without being sleep inducing.  Just my speed.   It has a lot of meditation practices to try out in the process of understanding the points being made about the brain. One piece really caught me and I've been using it in my own practice and also exploring it as a teaching tool in my yoga classes.

From the book:
"The methods here focus on stilling the clamor of verbal thought - that endlessly nattering voice in the back of the head.
Be Aware of the Body as a Whole
Some parts of the brain are linked  by reciprocal inhibition: when one part activates, it suppresses another one.  To some extent, the left and right hemispheres have this relationship; thus, when you stimulate the right hemisphere by engaging the activities it specializes in, the verbal centers of the left hemisphere are effectively shushed.
The right visual-spatial hemisphere has the greater responsibility for representing the state of your body, so awareness of the body can help supress left-brain verbal chatter.  Right hemisphere activation increases further when you sense the body as a whole, which draws upon the the global, gestalt processing of that hemisphere.
To practice awareness of the whole body, start with the breath as a whole;  rather than allow attention to move as it normally does, from sensation to sensation, try to experience your breath as a single, unified gestalt of sensations in your belly, chest, throat, and nose.  It's normal for this unified gestalt sensing to crumble after a second or two; when it does, just try to recreate it.  Then expand  awareness to include the body as a whole, sensed as a single perception, as one whole thing.  This sense of the body as a whole will also tend to crumble quickly, especially in the beginning; when it does, simply restore it again, if only for a few seconds....
Besides its benefits for quieting the verbal mind, whole body awareness supports singleness of mind.  This is a meditative state in which all aspectes of experience come together as a whole and attention is very steady."

What I've been practicing with is finding this whole body awareness, not only as a 'formal' meditation technique, but adding it to asana work.   The anatomical details for a yoga posture are important to be sure.  And there's a certain quality of attention and concentration involved. But to take some time in the posture to go global allows in a different understanding of the physical practice of yoga and yokes it to the meditative side.  It is very easy to get lost in the details, endlessly fussing and fixing.  So I do the details and then let them go for a bit and rest in the whole.  As Dr. Hanson says, the attention crumbles, but you can rebuild it and rebuild it.  The experience of the whole of the posture contains, I think, the essence of the practice...not the details.  I think the details are there to find a safe structure on which to hang our awareness. That's my theory.  I'm testing it out.

The photo reference, if you didn't catch it, is are you seeing the forest or the trees? (No value judgment implied).

Like right now

I've read this poem before but it showed up the other day in an email from Ed Brown. I read it in class this morning and a couple of people asked for it...

Yes
By William Stafford, The Way it Is: Selected Poems, 1998.

It could happen any time, tornado,

earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.

Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That's why we wake

and look out -- no guarantees

in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,

like right now, like noon,

like evening.

****

Here's a link to Charity Navigator for info on what a variety of charities are doing in Haiti.

Reading

In case you're interested, I've added a few books to my random reading list on my website.

If you've got any to share back...please do!

A State of Union

"Yoga is a state of being in which all apparent opposites, distinctions, and states are reconciled. Yoga means "union," not only union of the parts with each other, but also union with the whole. From this state of union we live without fragmentation or inner conflict. We are able to embrace our whole being from the surface to the depths, encompassing both our transient limitations and our perennial limitlessness. We express through our individuality the wholeness of which we are a fleeting expression. We honor and live from, by, and within our true nature. This is the key to a life of peace and contentment.

Hatha yoga affects the mind as much as the body. It improves concentration, increases alertness, precipitates perceptual and rational clarity, cultivates calmness, develops equanimity, instills confidence, and nourishes contentment. These benefits all depend on the presence of mind during practice.

But hatha yoga does deeper than the mind, penetrating to the core of our being. It is a soul-food of unparalleled value. If approached openly, without ambition and pride, specific objectives, predetermined ideals, or wishful thinking, it will foster profound self-knowledge. It will also inspire deep self-acceptance, and provide continuous self-validation and self-empowerment. In short: self-love -- a love that spills out into a genuine compassion for and interest in all beings. This compassion expresses itself in a natural and spontaneous generosity, and an easy, sympathetic humor.

More fertile soil for the flowering of happiness could hardly be found." -- Godfrey Devereux.

photo of Erich Schiffmann by Barbra Brady

Quietly, Heart to Heart

There is a lovely practice in the Buddhist tradition called Metta. It is a meditation practice of a lifetime. Whole retreats are built around it. Basically, one offers best wishes in the form of a few phrases to oneself, to someone you love, to someone you feel neutral towards, to a difficult person, and to everyone everywhere. The phrases vary but could be something like...

May you be filled with compassion

May you be well

Maybe you be peaceful and at ease

Maybe you be happy in this life just as it is.

I'd like to offer a "take anywhere" version of this practice. I sometimes this use this practice after I turn out the light and get ready for sleep, or at the end of my meditation practice, before I move into the rest of my day.

I take an in-breath and who ever appears in my mind's eye (no editing) gets a wish for well being on the exhale. I usually shorten the phrase to "May you be at peace" but you can choose whatever you like. Next inhale, next person that arises. The same person may come up multiple times, you may come up yourself. Inhale, let the person arise, exhale, offer your wishes.

Try it for a minute, for 5 minutes, whatever time you have. The practice is ultimately an offering to your own true heart. As the old year rolls over into the new...may we cultivate compassion together, may we be well, may we be peaceful and at ease, and may we recognize the seeds of happiness in this life just as it is.