Act now!

Tapas.
Svadhyaya.
Ishvara pranidhana.

Fire it up.
Observe.
Let go.

The three aspects of any practice, on the mat or in the office or at home.

Read all about these in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, numerous commentaries. So many good translations and explanations and applications...

But then just think about them and apply them in your own practice, moment to moment.

~Passionate self-discipline, driving you to act, even when it is difficult. This gets you up and going, every day, back to your practice. Your work. Your family.
~Calm, steady awareness. Mindfulness. Observing how things are...and also How Things Really Are. This keeps you safe and learning from what you've done, so that your passion doesn't burn you up in your efforts to change things, nor become just a hamster's wheel you step on.
~Giving it up to something bigger than your individual self, or that which you perceive to be an individual self, anyway. This keeps your practice from turning into just another self-improvement project. This can be God, All Other Living Beings, maybe just the one cactus you keep alive on your kitchen shelf. But think about it; as David Foster Wallace reminded us, you'd better choose what you worship, because we all worship something, and the defaults we're offered in this culture today are money, smarts, beauty, sex...things to "get," and can never get enough of to feel truly satisfied, rather than things we already are.

Which ones are you brilliant at? Which do you suck at?

I'm pretty weak in the last one. Don't like to give up control, consider gods and such symbolic of what is true but not credible as literal beings...making it hard to keep in sight what it is that is meaningful. I tend to let tapas (action) get me going and then wait for svadhyaya (study, awareness) to reveal the magic that is buried in the mundane. That can remind me of what it's all for and where to dedicate my practice (ishvara pranidhana).

Bring each of these elements to your mat today. Notice which is hardest for you. Then bring them into the rest of your day...

How do we begin? The specifics.

We often begin and end our time on the mat in a seated position. Today, try siddhasana, the Adept's Posture, to find your seat. Here is what the Hatha Yoga Pradipika has to say about it:

Press the perineum with the heel of one foot; place the other foot on top [heels stacked]. Having done this, rest the chin on the chest [and lift the chest to the chin]. Remaining still and steady, with the senses controlled, gaze steadily into the eyebrow center; it breaks open the door to liberation. This is called siddhasana [adept's posture].

This is a specific way of sitting cross-legged that encourages all three bandhas (energetic gates) by reminding us to engage the pelvic floor (where the heel touches), the lower abdominals (to sit tall), and the upper back (lifting the chest, shoulders back). The eyes rest on a drishti (gazing point) so the senses turn inwards.

Once the hips are flexible enough, the legs will rest on the floor and you can tuck your toes between each calf and foot to further stabilize. If your legs are not yet resting on the floor when you sit like this, put a block or folded blankets under your sitting bones to elevate your pelvis until your legs can slope downward from your hip sockets toward the floor. If this still leaves the legs tensed, then keep the bottom heel where it is, but lift the top heel and put in in front of the bottom one, instead of on top of it. If the eyes are straining when you direct them toward the eyebrows, then rest them just past the tip of your nose.

Just as moderate diet is the most important of the yamas, and nonviolence, of the niyamas, so the siddhas know that siddhasana is the most important of the asanas.

Siddhasana directs the body to be stable and open, the senses to turn inward. Now you can focus on your breath and how things ARE.

At the beginning of your practice, start your ujjayi breath here and sink your attention into it. Then form your intention and begin to move through the other asanas.

At the end of your practice, let go of your ujjayi here and just watch the breath as it is, taking in all that is in this moment.

By special request!

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika (the teachings of hatha yoga compiled around 1400 CE) lists in Chapter 1 the six things that stand in the way of the process of yoga:

overeating
overexertion (making one too tired to practice)
talkativeness
adhering to rules (that are societally based, rather than ethically based--don't just "follow the rules" of our time and do what others do)
being in the company of people who are common (focused on acquiring wealth, bodily pleasures, gossiping, etc.)
an unsteady, wavering mind

And six things that bring success in yoga:

enthusiasm
perseverence
discrimination
unshakeable faith
courage
avoiding the company of common people

So, to let go of what's in the first list and cultivate what is in the second list, we are offered ten rules of conduct (yama):

non-violence
truth-telling
non-stealing
continence (using one's energy wisely, directing it in positive ways)
forgiveness
endurance
compassion
humility
moderate diet
cleanliness

And also ten observances (niyama):

austerity (living simply)
contentment
faith in the Supreme (that which is larger than our individual self)
charity
worship of the Supreme (something larger than our individual self)
listening to the recitations of sacred scriptures (the experiences and advice of the mystics and sages and saints who have come before us)
modesty
discerning intellect
repetition of mantra
sacrifice

Phew! Quite comprehensive, and somewhat overlapping. Choose the one that jumped out at you upon first reading. Take it as your intention as you go about your day and do your practice on the mat. Delve into it more deeply--can look at the roots of why and how you can cultivate this quality in each moment? See what happens.

Remember, however, that these are not meant to be attempted in isolation. Hatha yoga is the tradition of starting with the body--moving in vinyasa (flow), holding the asana (postures), breathing consciously (pranayama), cleansing the body (kriya and shatkarma). These ethical practices and qualities emerge more easily and authentically from us when we regularly tune the body in concert with our efforts to direct our thoughts, words, and actions towards higher ground. Forcing "contentment" or "humility" or "charity" can be just as injurious as forcing Triangle Posture or Bound Lotus. Let the practice unfold in you as it must.

Each of the techniques of yoga--those that seem "physical" and those that seem "spiritual" or "ethical"-- reinforces and clarifies the others.

See Swami Muktibodhananda's commentary in the Bihar School of Yoga version of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika for more insight into each of these elements. We will also continue to work with them in classes this month. And let me know how it unfolds!

What Do You Have to Tell Your Self?

So somebody asked celebrities what advice they'd give to their sixteen-year-old selves. Then they compiled these nuggets of retrospective advice in a book.

I haven't read the book; I just read a few excerpts. Funny, true stuff. But of course we can do this better for ourselves than any famous person can.

So the next time you practice, begin by asking yourself: What would I tell my sixteen-year-old self to make things clearer to them? Think about this; maybe write it down.

Once you've got the ball of self-generated insight and wisdom rolling, ask the more pressing question: In ten/twenty/fifty years, what would you tell your self of today to make things clearer?

That advice is already inside of you. Bring it to the surface and let it guide your practice today, on and off the mat.

Mystery and Knowing

Recently I heard a This American Life segment featuring a man who couldn't decide on a couch.

I related to this "problem." We recently bought our first couch. Not a futon, not a loveseat...a real couch. Much more money than ever before spent on any furnishing. Much more space occupied by this hulking object. A lot of options to consider. I could relate. I wanted something more special for my money than I had ever gotten in any single object before. (Except my iPhone.) I almost got a blue couch, that's how special and unusual I wanted it to be.

But this guy couldn't decide for about fifteen years.

The segment compared his sofa indecision--his endless magazine perusals, specialist referrals, and returns--to his dating indecision. He was a man without a couch and without a significant other, with dreams of the perfect mate and the perfect lounge space, neither of which had come along just yet.

Which made me think about how we each choose any of the people or objects to whom we offer our time and our space. At a certain point in the research and in the dreaming, we may find someone or something that seems absolutely perfect. We must have it, or die trying. Usually these ones feel a little out of reach.

Or we may find someone or something that seems to work well enough, and is within reach. The couch man seemed to fear that anything he could actually have in his living room wouldn't be all that great. He feared "settling."

But regardless--whether we "settle" for what is within reach or "strive" for something a bit beyond--there hopefully comes the point at which we have the person or the couch in our living room. Whether we did or did not think it was possible, it is here, now. The honeymoon commences.

And as the sheen of newness is dulled, as wear and tear accrues, we have a choice. An even more crucial turning point than the original decision!

We can think that we know all there is to know about this loved one, that he/she/it has become familiar.

Or we can choose to stay aware of the mystery that remains. The ways in which the loved one will surprise us and support us in new and unfamiliar ways as they change over time.

This is actually a lot easier to see with a human being than with a couch, if only we open our eyes!

Dedicate a practice to a loved one who surprises you. Or dedicate it to cultivating the ability to SEE how that loved one can surprise you, can still have mysteries hidden within, and aspects you haven't yet noticed.

Sacred

What do you do to make your time on the mat special?

At the very least, you create a space you will practice within: you lay down a mat. You may also light a candle, play music, or scent the room with incense or essential oils. You may begin by settling your body into a particular posture, bringing to mind an intention, chanting a mantra, or starting ujjayi breathing.

Some combination of these elements helps set your yoga practice apart from the rest of the day. These sensory cues and actions allow us to let go of the concerns we've been carrying for hours, weeks, years...and focus on what's right here and now. And that's a lot, but that's not all that these things do. They also remind us that what is happening right here and now, and what we are about to do, is special. Sacred.

So today note the ways you have of centering yourself and initiating your yoga practice. The yogis have handed us a cornucopia of methods for noticing the present moment and realizing how special, how precious it is. Carry that through your entire practice: this down dog--the 24, 297th down dog I have done--is unique and divine. This little shoulder twinge that makes me modify my twists--that too is precious--just as is this feeling of relief and expansive joy that I feel in this chest opener.

Now here's the tricky part: How do we leave our mat, leave the yoga class, and initiate yet another chapter of special and sacred, when we have to do mundane repetitive things like drive home, fold clothes, wait in line, pay bills, attend a meeting? How do we internally light a candle to remind ourselves to continue to realize what is sacred in each and every mundane moment of our lives?

Because that's what the yogis tell us, through the years. There is no real separation of sacred/not sacred. Our perception that some things are sacred and others are profane, ordinary, taboo, or boring is...just not accurate. It's useful, sometimes, to remind ourselves of how sacred things CAN be, even in our limited current perception...but it's not accurate. It's just useful for jump-starting our awareness of how incredibly special everything is.

What reminds YOU? How do you keep the sacred in sight when the mundane overwhelms?

Steady Foundation and Core

Do you feel like you have enough? Do you feel safe?

Chances are, if you are an American, it is difficult to answer a wholehearted and simple YES right now.

And yet, most of us are safer and more prosperous than about 90 percent of the world's people.

It's all relative. If we gauge our security and material status by comparing ourselves to neighbors or television images, we can wind up feeling pretty deficient and anxious.

If, on the other hand, we get our own space in order, making sure that we have nutritious food to eat and a comfortable place to rest, then we can extend ourselves to the more important business of loving and liking and serving others around us. Instead of comparing ourselves to them.

How do we stay happy with the basics, avoiding the temptation to want all the new things available as they dance on screens and jump at us from pages? The yogis said it again and again: turn inward to notice what is most important. Pay attention to what is happening inside, and then when you extend your awareness to others, you get a clearer picture and can think, speak, and act more effectively.

The grasping, coveting, insecurity, anxiety, whatever you call it, will be lessened when you notice the riches that lie within. Even a little bit at a time!

In your yoga practice this week, develop your internal awareness to establish sense of what is already there--it is so much!--inside of you. Some practices that can help:

--Start with trataka, candle gazing. Light a small candle and place it in front of you, preferably just below eye level and without a draft to make it flicker. Sit. Rest your eyes on the flame. Avoid blinking. When the eyes jerk away from the flame, gently bring them back. When you must blink, do so slowly and consciously, and rest the eyes on the dot of light behind the eyelids. Do this for 5-10 minutes before your pranayama (conscious breathing) and asana (posture) practice. Repeat before savasana (final resting posture).

--During asana, do many standing postures and focus on your foundation. Establish a firm footing at the beginning of each standing posture, rooting down through each "corner" of your foot. (Think of each foot as having four corners: inner and outer heel, inner and outer ball. The toes are then free to relax or lift up; no need to grip.) Engage your leg muscles, consciously firing up the areas you use the least.

--Lift your pelvic floor continuously throughout your yoga practice. Make this a focus at the beginning of each breath: Inhale, lift PF. Exhale, lift PF. Inhale, lift...you get the idea. If you don't know what your PF is, try squeezing all the sphincters you would squeeze if you needed a rest stop and you just saw a sign that said None for 40 Miles. Just make sure you are not squeezing the buttocks or inner thighs--just the space between your tailbone (in the back) and your pubic bone (in the front).

That's still a little too much surface area, really, but it's a good start. Over time you can work on relaxing the urinary and anal sphincters and just lifting the space between. Now do this with every breath you take in your yoga practice except savasana (and other reclining restoratives). Plus while you're stuck at red lights. And standing in lines. And whenever else you remember.

Not so tight that you are making a face or turning coal to diamond. Just enough to support your internal organs. These are sometimes known as Kegel exercises, but in yoga we are going for a more subtle action. It is always the start of any safe core work, so that the PF muscles are toned instead of weakened when the abdominals are engaged.

This is the start of mula bandha, the root lock, a physical practice that is intertwined with our sense of safety and security and material prosperity, the issues seated at what the yogis called muladhara chakra, the area at the base of the spine. (One recurring experience that convinces me of this: every time I go shopping for clothes or home goods, I suddenly have to go to the bathroom, regardless of time of day. Even internet shopping! Muladhara chakra activated. Sorry if that's TMI, but it is convincing correlation for me.)

Let me know how it goes!

Another Good Map for Our Territory

I was all set to teach a class about turning expectations into intentions last night, and then someone asked about chakras.

Now, chakras are a topic that can easily veer into Sweeping Generalization territory. They are really just another abstract model, a kind of map or picture of the actual territory of our bodies and minds.

Western culture has many such models already: Freud's id, ego, and superego, and the work that builds from him in psychology; Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in sociology; the endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, muscular, nervous, etc. systems of physiology. All very useful for analyzing, as long as we don't lose sight of the fact that these are just MODELS. Just approximations of how things really are, for instance, how you can't really separate what the heart does from what the lungs do.

Chakras are another useful model, as long as we don't get stuck on actually finding wheels of energy spinning along our spine. Why add them to our conceptual toolbag for understanding ourselves at all, though, if we already have all these other ways of thinking about the body and mind?

The chakra model offers us a way to understand the material of the body--its physiological systems and anatomical parts--as intricately interwoven with our emotional, rational, psychological, spiritual (whatever word you wish to use) issues. And there's not a whole lot in western models that does that (thank you, Descartes, et al).

So over the next few blog entries and classes we'll explore this yogic model and see if it's useful for setting intentions, without clinging to expectations. Because, after all, that's the pitfall of any model, western or eastern: forgetting that it is the map, not the territory.

Some yoga classes have you exploring and reveling in what your body can do, right here and now. Fun! Others reveal to you what you cannot yet do, which can be motivating or discouraging. Yet others wake you up to what you should no longer do, shaking you by the shoulders to release unhelpful habits. A bit sobering, those. 

Still others expose what you might do differently, simply to avoid always relying on those parts of you already strong and letting the weak parts get a free ride. These are exhilarating, to find out you have options! And to find out before you get injured, or overworked, or further imbalanced, that's a gift. 

And these revelations and awakenings are sometimes even more relevant for your mind, not just your body, in yoga class as elsewhere. 

So if you prefer one of these experiences over another, and keep going back to the same type of yoga class, it may be time to make room for the others. Fun has its place...and sometimes it is what we most need. But there are other kinds of joy in the tougher explorations. Time to explore!

Regardless of our other resolutions and intentions for this year, let's form one small and doable and potentially life-changing one:

Every day for the next three weeks, wake up and do ten minutes of sun salutations before anything else.

Make them the same sun salutations every day for these three weeks (then you can change them if you like).

Wake up to ten minutes of music, set a timer, or just estimate it.

No excuses. You don't need contact lenses or yoga clothes or even (gasp!) a mat. Just get yourself breathing deeply and moving mindfully, even if it feels sloppy.

It doesn't matter if you plan to take class that day. Still do it.

Let me know how it goes!