Marilyn, David, and Me...and You

"This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self." (John Watson, pseudonym Ian MacLaren, 1903)

I went to see My Week with Marilyn not knowing why I, like so many others, are still interested in her life--both her internal distress and her external success.

The external persona is now so coagulated, so concretized, with distinct physical landmarks and gestures of speech and body that a woman--or a man--can easily pass for "Marilyn" if she or he studies and mimics those landmarks and gestures. No actual physical resemblance is required: hair and makeup, speech and movement, these will suffice. It's entertaining to see people, from drag queens on P-Town streets, to celebrities in Vogue print layouts, to folks at costume parties, take on this costume of 50s woman-girl-ness. We know what it is as soon as we see it, and we mostly enjoy it. It is spectacle, something to marvel at--recreating those curves, the red mouth, the white hair and dress, the wide eyes and wispy voice. Finding just the right balance of knowing sexuality and innocent fun.

The movie, set while Monroe was already a movie star, but not quite yet at the peak of her stardom, reminded me that she had to put together those particular landmarks. Not quite from scratch--lots of female movie stars had already done a variation, falling on various points on the sex/fun continuum. And not alone--heaven knows several industries invested in this one femininity project, from the film industry to the cosmetics industry to the fashion industry. But still, she had to practice what to do with her eyes and lips and hair in front of a mirror. She had to develop that walk. She had to refine the balance of sex and fun, smart and dumb, in what she said and how she said it. You can see even the practiced movements and positions of her hands on herself, to move the viewer's attention this way and that. Before anyone could copy it, she had to (with much invested assistance) make it up, try it out, and refine it.

This transition has been much written about, from "Norma Jeane" to "Marilyn." It was a transition over years, but some say it was also done each work day, as she put on full makeup and costume.

Why does it still fascinate? I don't think it mesmerizes men solely because they want her. And I don't think it intrigues women solely because they want to be wanted like that.

I think it fascinates us simply because it is a huge, movie-screen version of the more modest project each of us engage in every day. Even if you're not female.

It is the huge project of creating a persona to present to the world. Trying out different clothing, ways of speaking, ways of moving and holding still. It is time consuming. Especially because most of us don't even have stylists. And we get invested in it. For some it is clothing and makeup and how to move; for others it is academic knowledge and how to write; for still others it is amassing money and the appearance of financial clout.

That said, some of us keep our persona as close to what we actually feel and know inside as we can. I think this is what is currently called "living authentically." But still--that sense of an individual self, and ego, a personality, is there, and the choices we have made in the past tend to cut us off from the full range of possibility in the present. So as authentic as we strive to be--to make the inside and the outside match--there is just too much inside to ever be fully represented on the outside.

My Interior: infinity. My Exterior: infinity limited by my filters of presentation, further constrained by your filters of perception.

Ditto for Your Interior and Your Exterior.

Of course, most of what we see on movie screens and in magazines is this kind of persona-writ-HUGE. It all fascinates, with its spectacle and the way it does the same job that we have to do every time we wake up, but on a much more detailed and careful scale. Because we don't admit that it's part of our job, part of our lives, but we pretty well all acknowledge that it's the whole point of the entertainment industries--carefully constructed fantasies, make-believes that we temporarily agree to believe. (It's this "temporary" that is sticky. For them and for us.)

Why does this one persona continue to shimmer, when many other personas that have been carefully developed have dimmed?

I think it is the way that the story keeps getting told of Norma Jeane being "under" the Marilyn persona, always feeling insecure, not good enough, unlovable, in need of protection, in danger of being abandoned...and wanting to be loved "for herself" rather than for her persona.

I think that's a pretty common thing. One of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace, seemed to be haunted by similar demons. His persona was of the rational, intellectual, brilliant young man. His fear that he wasn't really brilliant seems to have kept him (I say this based on reading his fiction and nonfiction, as well as what other people have written about him) in a similar state of anxiety and depression.

Now, both these people had underlying mental illnesses that made them less stable and more prone to get stuck in the rut of continuing to develop and defend the persona even after recognizing that they want people to find out the "truth" about them and love them for that which is hidden rather than that which is put on display.

But that sounds pretty familiar to me, although it has never driven me to booze or pills. We all have to build a persona to present, even when we say we are not going to engage in that business (think teenage rebellion...yet the gaggles of teens rebelling at any given time wind up dressing and talking alike anyway...humans are such incorrigible imitators). And most of us, at one time or another, in modern life, start to fear that "the real me" is not being seen or loved, because all anyone bothers to see is the surface we have arranged for them.

This is where a crucial decision is made.

What do we do when we realize that there is a "gap" between how we feel inside and what we are presenting to others on the outside?

Do we tenaciously grip the persona, afraid of what will happen if we change it? This tends to lead to various dysfunctional behaviors, as the strain of defending and shoring up the persona gets more intense.

Or do we loosen our grip on who we think we are, how we show ourselves to the world, and take a chance at letting the Exterior more accurately reflect the Interior? (Or maybe sometimes the opposite--we may be able to "fake it 'til we make it," and work to grow the parts of the Interior that are emphasized in the Exterior, though I think this only works in small ways, when the two do not feel so very far apart.)

This is the work of yoga techniques: to recognize the ways in which the Interior is a bit different from the Exterior persona. It differs from most western psychological techniques in a few ways:
1. We may start with My Interior, but we soon realize it is Every Interior. That's why it's infinite. My Interior Is Not Actually Separate From Your Interior! (Is that terrifying or soothing right now?)
2. We work with both the body and the mind, and come to see these things as fully unified, regardless of which we started with--in hatha yoga, jnana yoga, raja yoga, bhakti yoga...and eventually we actually realize that the illusion (maya, samsara) IS the reality (Brahman, nirvana)
3. We don't believe the infinity of the Interior can ever be fully captured by the perception of the Exterior...unless perhaps this is what happens when we become Enlightened or fully Realized or Awakened, whatever you want to call it, but then it still depends upon everyone else becoming Enlightened, which is where the gurus and the bodhisattvas come in.
4. Thus, the Interior and the Exterior do not have to be fully reconciled--for they cannot be, until we are all more awake--but we do have to cultivate a constant awareness of the infinity of the Interior in order to not get caught up in the game of developing and defending the Exterior persona. (That game will continue, but we will always see it as a game, and rather than try to manipulate people into thinking it is not a game, we will encourage them to play, and remind them that it is play, even when the stakes seem serious.)

This last point is why I woke up and had to write about this. There are many scenes in the movie that show how an experienced, aging actor, Laurence Olivier, is angered and frustrated by Monroe showing up hours late, balking at his directorial suggestions, and flubbing lines continually. The movie suggests that her behavior is mostly due to her insecurity--it would take her hours to "prepare" the persona with the makeup, costumes, and gestures ready to execute, and even after all that she sometimes did not think she could do it. (The movie also intimates that some of this insecurity had already become a manipulative tool on her part--incorporating the fragility of "Norma Jeane" into the fixed, secure persona of "Marilyn" for sympathy.)

But we also see how Olivier fights his own demons of Exteriority-- he does not like how old he looks on the screen, particularly next to this spectacle of bubbly youth.

Yet instead of relating his own internal troubles to those of the woman he is frothing at the mouth about, he is further angered. If he can overcome his insecurities and show up on time with his lines, even though he is always afraid he will not live up to his persona in how he looks or how he performs, then she should, too, dang it. (Or bloody whatever.)

Sometimes we are hardest on those whose Exteriors are so shiny and bright, when we suspect that their Interiors are too much like our own.

Watch for this the next time you are in a yoga class. Or a grocery store. Or anywhere, really. Watch the way the mind takes in other people's Exteriors and "temporarily" believes they represent the whole Interior. And then decides that Interior/Exterior would just be so much better to live in than our own. Lucky dog.

Or so much worse. Poor thing.

That Interior already is you. Remember. Remember. Even as you play the game.

Tat tvam asi. Thou art that. You are That. See yourself in others, and others in you. Whether it's a glossy bubbly sexpot or a rapacious businessperson or a brilliant writer or an enlightened saint.

"This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self." (John Watson, pseudonym Ian MacLaren, 1903)

Visitors in the guest house; spokes on the Wheel of Life

The Wheel of Life (Bhavachakra) is a diagram that portrays the six realms of being. Here, the realm of the Devas is shown at the top, followed clockwise by the realms of the Asuras, the Pretas, Naraka, Animals, and Humans. Note that the Buddha is present in every one of these realms.

Buddhist cosmology posits these six realms as worlds that we are born into. As in many eastern worldviews, there is an essential element of each of us that travels from body to body, transmigrating or reincarnating through many lifetimes. Each time we take on a new body, we are born into one of these six worlds, and when we die, we are reborn into the same or a different world, depending on how much good and bad we have wrought through our actions, words, and thoughts.

Stay with me here, because I am not a believer in reincarnation, but there’s something really useful buried in this model of the Wheel of Life…so first, a brief description of each realm on the Wheel.

The Six Realms
Deva-gati
Asura-gati
Preta-gati
Naraka-gati
Tiryagyoni-gati
Manusya-gati

Deva-gati: realm of blissful beings
These beings are godlike, with wealth, power, long life, and happiness. But they are full of pride and self-satisfaction, and they are blind to the suffering of others, so no compassion or wisdom develops, and thus they do not extend themselves to others. They will be reborn to another realm. Doing good got them to this pleasant place, but they cannot free themselves from the wheel because they are no longer doing good for others.

Asura-gati: realm of the fallen gods
These demi-gods are full of envy and jealousy, because they can see the devas and wish to be in that realm. Since they want to be superior, they belittle others. They live in a more pleasurable situation than humans, but their envy and jealousy keeps them riled up. They got here by intending to do good in the past, but winding up doing harm to others.

Preta-gati: realm of hungry ghosts
These beings are depicted with huge empty stomachs, but pinhole mouths and skinny necks. They are perpetually hungry and thirsty, but cannot ever satisfy those cravings. This is the realm of craving, hunger, addiction, obsession, compulsion.

Naraka-gati: Hell realm
This is the most terrible of the realms. These creatures are angry, aggressive, driving away any who show love or compassion, seeking only other hell beings’ company. The only way out is time—they have planted karmic seeds by hurting others, and those seeds must bear terrible fruit for them to experience, and then they can be reborn to another realm.

Tiryagyoni-gati: animal realm
These creatures are ignorant, prejudiced, and complacent. It is not that they do not know, it is that they mis-know, they are incorrect in their thinking and content to remain that way. They are mostly concerned with avoiding discomfort and have no interest in understanding better, seeing more clearly, or doing good.

Manusya-gati: human realm
This is the only realm from which escape from the wheel of samsara is possible. Enlightenment is at hand…but only a few awaken to it. It is characterized by doubt, desire, but also inquiry and reflection. YOU SEE YOU ARE IMPERFECT, YET YOU DO THE RIGHT THING ANYWAY. You can see others’ suffering and respond with compassion, accruing great karma—which takes so long in any other realm. It is from this realm that you have a chance to jump off the wheel of habit, of doing the same thing over and over, of creating suffering in yourself.

Imagine you grow up hearing of these realms as worlds you inhabit over lifetimes. At the end of each life, your karmic accounting is done and according to its results, you are kicked into one of these realms to work out some more of your s**t. Very useful story for your society, which keeps you working to do good, yes? Pretty useful for you, too, as doing good will help you in the present moment, anyway.

Now imagine you find a teacher who tells you that, in fact, in each moment we are in one of these realms, and in fact, the wheel is constantly turning. These realms are a model for our emotional states as they shift and change over minutes and hours. And we put ourselves there, no one else does it for us. Moment by moment, we make ourselves blissful, envious, endlessly craving, angry, ignorant, doubtful. We do it in the way that we react to what is happening here and now. And in this moment—not in our next lifetime—we have opportunities to transmigrate into a different realm, by changing our response to how things are.

It is hard, to be sure, because our conditioning keeps us doing/saying/thinking the same things. But we always have a chance to change the realm we are in…and when we are in the human realm, of doubt, desire, inquiry, reflection…that is when we have a chance to let go of the whole darn cycle altogether. A chance to stop reacting and just stay aware. Each time we loosen the grip of samsara (conditioning) on our thoughts/words/actions, and perceive a new way of being, we are closer to freedom. It doesn’t take lifetimes. The moment is now.

I love this esoteric interpretation of the Wheel of Life. It doesn’t discount that it may, in fact, take more than one lifetime to really do this work (which I also agree with; I’m just not sure that we’ll get that next lifetime), yet it emphasizes that it starts right NOW. And big things can happen right now.

When the person at work or at home does something that arouses anger, or prompts a feeling of superiority, or even makes me feel happy because of my external circumstances...that's not a bad thing. (Remember, the Buddha is present in each realm!) But can I see that I have put myself into this realm of Hell, or of the Asuras, or of the Devas? Can the dramatization of the Wheel of Life help me find a little distance from the play of emotions on this stage?

We can change the ruts that our wheels have gotten stuck in, gradually creating new paths, and eventually roaming free of roads, paths, and ruts at all. And sometimes our wheels take a big jump off the beaten track! But most often, we have to work at moving this way and that, slowly nudging ourselves into new territory. New ways of moving the body, softening the heart, opening the mind.

Krishnamurti reminds us: “Enlightenment is an accident. But we can do certain things to make ourselves accident-prone.”

You know what those things are. Back to the mat.

(And doesn’t this kind of interpretation make you wonder about western cosmologies and metaphysical stories? The ones with equally unlikely chances at being literally correct, yet ripe with metaphorical possibilities?)

The Guest House

Being human is like a guest house.
Each morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness
comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for
some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame,
the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

--Rumi

When you practice today, watch each thought and feeling. Invite it in. It may be clearing you out for some new delight.

When you interact with clients or customers at work, when you clean the house, when you bump into your neighbor, when you talk to your sibling, when you lie in bed awaiting sleep. Invite it in. Then watch it depart.

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.