Yoga with Whitney: October 2010

28 October 2010

Letting Go.

A yoga teacher I enjoy taking from, Julie Marx, instructs her students frequently to “undo” in her classes. This instruction always makes me smile and feel more at ease during the practice of asana and I appreciate the permission to surrender to the inner self in a moment of reflection at what can be undone in the posture. Many times, this is to release tension in the face or the neck or perhaps to do less of one action to benefit more deeply from the aggregate of actions that make-up a single pose. When I first heard Julie instruct this way, it gave me pause to reflect on what could be undone in my specific posture and then on what I could be doing less of in my day-to-day practice of yoga off of the mat. Letting-go or non-attachment is fundamental to the practice of yoga.

Sutra 1.12 of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras reads: “These mental modifications [chitta vritti] are restrained by practice and non-attachment.”[1] Remembering that according to Sutra 1.2, “the restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga,”[2] we can understand yoga to be practice and non-attachment, abhyasa and vairagyabhyam, to contain and diminish the mental chatter that we all have. The remaining of Patanjali’s sutras goes into more detail as to how this can be achieved. The Bhagavad Gita also lays out means of achieving the “undoing” that is yoga:

You have a right to your actions,
But never to your actions’ fruits.
Act for the actions’ sake.
And do not be attached to inaction.

Self-possessed, resolute, act
without any thought of results,
open to success or failure.
This equanimity is yoga.

Action is far inferior
to the yoga of insight, Arjuna.
Pitiful are those who, acting,
are attached to their actions’ fruits.[3]

In this passage, Krishna instructs Arjuna to live without seeking specific goals. Living for the sake of each moment, each action, is the goal. I find these words very beautiful and instructive for how one can live a yogic life. Letting go, undoing, renunciation are each and all means of practicing yoga. Just as it is important when practicing asana or instructing asana to remind oneself or one’s students to let go a little bit in each posture, it is important for each of us to undo a little bit in our lives so that we find ourselves doing less, contemplating more.

This practice of letting go may be uncomfortable for many of us as we are so used to tying ourselves to goals and expectations. We stick to tight deadlines and challenge ourselves to always be doing. The more time we have, the more we do. I am very guilty of this. I feel the need to constantly fill in the blanks in my schedule, even if filling in that blank is setting aside time to sit and read for an hour: the block of time must not go to waste!

As I attempt to step outside of my comfort zone and undo some of my expectations for my actions, I challenge you to as well. Step away from yourself for a moment and consider what can be undone. Try to let go of one thing and be OK with whatever outcome may thus arise. We are so used to attaching ourselves to people, things, institutions, situations, self-descriptors, that it is very unsettling to step away from those attachments and be true to the true inner self that each of us actually is. We are not these bodies and these jobs, we are so much more and yet less than that. An attempt to live in this way is a giant leap forward to quieting the mind, which is yoga.

Let go of who you know yourself to be.

Namaste.

[1] Patanjali. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Translation and Commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda. Yogaville, Virginia: Integral Yoga Publications, 2008.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Bhagavad Gita. Translation by Stephen Mitchell, 2.47 – 2.49. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000.

21 October 2010

Escaping Inwards.

We are always so focused on the external. Our sensory perceptions take us captive as we walk with our eyes downward gazing ever always to read an email, watch a video, or flip through our vast collections of short songs on our mobile devices. Living in New York City, this hazard of being pulled outwards at every moment by a sound, a sight, a smell or perhaps even by a pull or a push has fascinated me of late as it increasingly takes me away from introspection. Sutra 35 from the Samadhi Pada reads: “Or the concentration on subtle sense perceptions can cause steadiness of mind.[1]” This sutra is perhaps best suited for those of us living in such sensory dominant worlds. We must always be efforting to stay inward focused as we are pulled in various directions by the world we inhabit.

One of the early challenges I faced when beginning to practice yoga in New York City years ago was that there was never really a quiet moment in the studio. My first favorite place to practice, on the upper Upper West Side above a bakery, offered many enticing distractions as I challenged myself into an asana practice. The smells from downstairs prompted me often to ponder as to what I would next taste to sate the hunger that was sensate and not sustenant. I would get distracted by lights from police cars, fire trucks and ambulances that would shimmer into the windows, especially in the evenings as dusk was setting. The sirens from those vehicles posed a similar and amplified response by me. Even within the classroom, I was able to direct my attention outwards to the student who came in late or left early or to that negligent yoga sinner who left their cell-phone turned on. I thought myself superior in a way to those noises. Could the world just not quiet down as I was attempting to do?

As I advanced in my practice, my strength and flexibility improved tremendously so that my asana practice now resembles nothing close to what it was when I smelled those fresh baguettes. However, I have achieved something even more valuable for myself: the ability to turn inwards. I now smile at the buzzing cell-phone and regard all of those smells, noises and sights that tempt me during practice – on and off of the mat – as indicators of a lively world of which I am a part. But, I also have the self-awareness and the steadiness of mind to stay inward focused and escape into myself to find a moment of peace on a crowded subway or a moment of quiet when a neighbor turns up the bass a little more than I might have.

I am more guilty than many at keeping my attention downwards as I walk along sidewalks and climb up and down subway stairs; however, I effort for a level of concentration on those sensory perceptions that I choose to find important at any one moment in order to live an enriched practice of yoga. Now, as I go along in rush-hour on crowded trains listening to my music, I do it less to drown out all that is going on around me than to illuminate that outside world as a place very separate from my inward escape as I choose to take part in the mad rush to get somewhere I like to be, most often a yoga class.

[1] Patanjali. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Translation and Commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda. Yogaville, Virginia: Integral Yoga Publications, 2008.

14 October 2010

Why Yoga?

The ancient yoga system is made up of 8 limbs: yama (abstinence), niyama (observance), asana (posture), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (sense withdrawal), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (contemplation, absorption or super-conscious state)[1]. No one limb should take precedence over another in the practice of yoga for those who attempt to live yoga. However, what many think of when they think “yoga” is not this complex approach to achieving inner peace.

I recently began assist teaching yoga to New York City public school children. On the first day of class, the lead teacher asked the first group of 1^st graders what they thought yoga was. The responses varied from energetic little bodies performing certain asana with names like “turtle” and “rocking horse” to assertions that yoga was stretching. Some of these hyper-mobile youth also answered that yoga was about relaxing. The second group of students was slightly older: 2^nd and 3^rd graders. While certain of them still resorted to demonstrating the poses they had previously been taught, “saddle” being a favorite, more in the group responded with answers such as “begin calm,” “meditation,” and “relaxation.” The lead teacher then went on to instruct that yoga was a mixture of most of their answers and was about connecting the body and mind through breath control. I bring up this experience because it is indicative of the constant question I am asked when I say that I teach yoga: “why yoga?”

Ultimately, I like to think that people ask this question to learn more about what yoga means to me and why I choose now to dedicate my days to teaching yoga to others, practicing yoga for myself and finding new opportunities to share yoga with my community. Still, I know behind each of these questions lies a more cynical mind that wants to analyze what type of “yoga” you teach: “Do you use incense?” “Do you chant?” “Are you a vegetarian?” While none of these questions bothers me, there is that constant sense behind each inquiry as to why one would choose the path of yoga. Thus, each inquiry makes me reflect on my own choice.

Quite simply, yoga brings a sense of purpose and happiness to my life that I have not experienced without the constant practice of asana, the attention to my breath and the inspirational words of many great teachers that I attempt to take class from daily. While I am honest enough to admit that I have not perfected any of the limbs nor do I live each of them with equal attentiveness and practice, I am trying to live yoga as I am able. This question of “why yoga?” also ventures as to what type of teacher of yoga I am and will be. We teach what we know and we teach what we practice. So, I am able to measure where I am in my own living of yoga by what I am comfortable sharing with others now.

So, why yoga and not stretching? Apart from the fact that the practice of yoga asana builds considerable strength and stamina, yoga provides a rubric upon which a practitioner can make changes to his or her every day living patterns. While I happily answer that “yes, I can teach 30 minutes of stretching” in interviews for yoga teaching jobs, I also will willingly bring in the wise words written by yogis past and present when teaching those who seek muscular flexibility and then chant “Om” when closing a class. Because, once we start opening up our body anew, our minds and spirits awaken to the possibilities of change.

Namaste.

[1] The translation for each limb was taken from Sri Swami Satchidananda’s translation of Sutra 2.29 (Patanjali. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Translation and Commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda. Yogaville, Virginia: Integral Yoga Publications, 2008).

07 October 2010

Starting Down That Yogic Path

The first limb of Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga is yama, translated by Sri Swami Satchidananda as abstinence. Patanjali elaborates upon this limb in Sutra 2.30 and Sri Swami Satchidananda translates it as such: “Yama consists of non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, and non-greed.” [1] These precepts are external in nature and direct the practitioner embarking upon the yogic path to begin with cleaning up his or her karma by observing ascetic guidelines that determine actions and relationships.

Interpretations of these guidelines can vary dramatically and can steer practitioners down a myriad of paths, each one led by the same purpose of living yoga. As with any observation of rules, it is less how the rules are simply observed than with what intention those observations are made. In a recent article by Evan Osnos on the Dalai Lama[2], I read that the Dalai Lama is not a vegetarian. Having not known of this before, I was slightly shocked and also comforted. You see, while I am attempting to practice living yoga in my day-to-day existence, I eat meat regularly. I have given up eating meat on occasion. Only one of those times being for more moral reasons, the others for concern over my cholesterol. However, I came to realize that my giving up eating meat was not a genuine act of non-violence. I was not observing the second yama of truthfulness. I enjoy eating meat and I crave meat when I have not eaten it at length. While the practice of not eating meat is one followed by many who observe the practice of non-violence, the Dalai Lama has said that having been a vegetarian, he realized that his health had suffered and thus he was harming himself in order to not do harm to animals. So, he lives more in the spirit of the observation of non-violence by eating a diet inclusive of meat so as to maintain his health. It is with this attitude and intention that each yama should be observed.

Not equating myself in any way with the Dalai Lama, I respect his decision about observing the precept of non-violence and am able to better understand more so why I was not comfortable with giving up certain practices. I did not feel honest in my attempt to give up certain habits and things. If you begin any practice with a dishonest intention, then you are acting from a place of selfishness, dishonesty and greed. The self-righteous ascetic who wastes away in a desert does little for his or herself. By taking the extreme measures of abstinence offered in Sutra 2.30, one may live a sincere and purposeful life. But, if one is not at a place where the intention is pure and the expectation is none, then the result will likely bear a resentful creature whose attempt at super-evolution devolves its being karmically.

Each of our souls is at a different stage of progression with regard to our karma and thus the means by which we experience this life is particular to our present incarnation. In this way, our individual practice of living each yama will be specific and distinct. The gross understandings of “non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, and non-greed” can perhaps be universally accepted; however, the nuance and implications of how each interacts with another should always be kept in mind and no judgment should be meted out to those whose intentions are pure in living each yama to the best of his or her own ability.