Sit nicely or create a seat as though for someone you love

In the past year I've frequently been asked to teach meditation. At first I balked. I felt unqualified as my own meditation practice is not nearly as consistent as I'd like it to be. But I have a policy: within reason, if asked to offer something then understand that it means that I am ready. This helps me stretch into studying and teaching areas where my knowledge might feel thin. I do have training in teaching meditation, it just doesn't feel like my strongest area. When asked, I decided to do the work and offer up what I could.

The process of teaching meditation has helped me tap into what I've been taught. This is why to be good students, according to yoga theory, we must teach what we know. It pushes us to engage with our learning differently. We have to really internalize the teachings to be able to communicate them to another student.

Recently, whenever I invite students to sit for meditation, I hear the voice of a teacher very dear to me, Lady Ruth. Lady Ruth teaches students to "place nicely" their bodies in yoga practice, their shoes when entering a building, their seat for meditation. I think this is her internalization of her teacher, Sharon Gannon's teaching about the word "asana" or seat of physical posture. Sharon Gannon teaches asana as our connection to the earth. When we stand in tadasana or mountain pose, our feet should be placed and engaged very specifically. Our connection to the earth should be considered, light, and respectful. This extends to every pose or asana. In sirsasana, or headstand, our head and forearms press the earth. They should do so with lightness and ease. Our connection to the earth should be generous and graceful. In Lady Ruth's characterization, it should be done nicely.

When I share this teaching, I hear myself say, "create a seat for yourself that's like what you would prepare for someone you love." It makes me think of my grandmother. If she were still alive I would offer her a very good seat. I would think of a seat that gave her support for her back and a nice cushion. I would want her to feel very comfortable.

There are different attitudes about meditation in regards to the comfort and importance of our seat. These various attitudes often stem from different approaches, and so many access points have great merit. However, for many meditation students the body feels very uncomfortable seated in meditation and this can be a distraction in entering quiet, steadied space. Creating a very good, steady seat can minimize those distractions and help a student on their practice of meditation.

I taught meditation in this way during last weekend's Mythic Beings Retreat. Students responded very well and I was glad. Students created very good seats and entered into meditation gracefully. They took care with themselves in practice. I heard them say or read their words about treating themselves the way they would treat someone they hold very dear. Many of us absolutely do not treat ourselves the way we would someone we love. It can be a powerful transition to offer ourselves that level of care. It informs those around us to treat us with respect as we do them. It sets a beautiful example to those who look to us of how to be honorable with yourself and those around you.

Of course, all of this held in balance. We could sway too far in any direction. The goal is to not become self-centered, only catering to our own perfect throne to meditate all day. The goal is to be in balance. Most of the people I work with, myself included, spend most of our days pulled in many directions. We often overlook our own needs, like good, balanced meals and sufficient sleep. Bringing these needs into focus and meeting them can increase our capacity to be equally attentive to those around us.

If I worked with many people who were very indulged, maybe we would do manual labor together to create balance. Wherever attention is needed, offer it.

It's incredible that such a simple teaching can have profound impact. What if we held ourselves in the world with the care we would offer and hope for the person we loved the most dearly? What if we loved ourselves dearly? What if we inspired those around us to treat us with care and respect? What if we treated others the way we treated ourselves-- with great reverence and consideration?

I think we can see all the good that would stem on a broad scale. But what if we zoom in again? I think of the young women I'm grateful to have in my life. Thanks to their parents and those in their lives, I think they are growing up knowing their worth. I want to affirm that in every step. I want to show them what it's like to be a woman who loves herself. I want them to know how whole and good they are and to walk through the world with that bearing.

And I'm grateful to my teachers for sharing this profound message with so few words.

Change Your Story

Yesterday I wrote about the Facilitators and mentors during my Jivamukti Teacher Training in India. I did not write about the co-founders, Sharon Gannon, who is increasingly being known as Padma-ji, and David Life.

There is so much to say about what they have and continue to teach me. There were a few lessons that landed with greater clarity during this last learning experience.

Padma-ji spoke often of changing our stories. Each of us has a story we know as ourselves. It's comprised of what we've done and what we feel has happened to us. We feel the story and it's repercussions in our bodies, relationships, and perceptions of the world around us. It's the imprint. I actually noticed this clearly last weekend when I was at a birthday party yoga class. The room was lit dimly. The door opened and I saw what I expected to see: a stranger popping in from the street. The reality was it was my friend, who was expected at the party. Because I was looking from my expectation and past experience I was unable to perceive reality and see this person I know. In the same way, most of our experiences are colored by our expectations and past experiences. We don't see reality.

Padma-ji urged us to see reality. She said again and again: you are not a victim. Do not be a victim. Be holy. Be Divine. Perceive reality.

There is a lot to say about this idea. As I write, I'm questioning my own capacity to explore responsibly. Well, as I said yesterday, when we learn we are responsible to share. I should try to share what I'm beginning to internalize.

Most of us feel defined by certain experiences or relationships in our lives. However, there is a truth that runs more deeply than these experiences and that truth is our essential nature. I heard a story that starts to chip away at this idea. A man decides that he wants to know his true nature. Krishna is revealed to him and the man devotes himself to Krishna, living in that consciousness. Krishna says to the man, "Get me a cup of water." The man goes to get the water. While fetching the water he sees a beautiful woman. The two fall in love, marry, and have children. Thirty years later the man is on his deathbed surrounded by his wife and children. He sees Krishna again. Krishna asks, "Where is my water?"

Krishna is the essential truth. The life we lead, or the life that the man in the story lead with his wife and children, is not insignificant, but it's not all. It's not the complete picture. We are meant to engage on this plane, have relationships, and be active. We're simply not meant to identify solely in those roles. If we do, when the roles are lost through death or retirement or any other way, we suffer. It's like we're wearing a costume at Halloween. That's a wonderful thing to do! But if we only know ourselves in the costume then we feel lost when the costume is inevitably shed. We can play in the costume, enjoy it, engage completely, but also unzip and release from the costume with ease. We have that potential.

There is an essential truth that we glimpse at from time to time, often in heightened states when we're aware of the precariousness of our current physical form. We have the ability to not identify solely with the stories of this body but to identify with what's more subtle and essential. We don't have to perceive ourselves as victims. We can perceive ourselves as incarnations of the Divine. Our experiences can be lessons. They can be the impetus we need to evolve. They don't have to stay our scars and limitations.

This is tricky subject matter. It deserves a lot of time and consideration. There's a fine balance between understanding this idea as empowerment or as victim blaming. Obviously, I found the teaching empowering, I believe that to be the purpose of this information. It's a reminder that our experience in this incarnation to can help us work through certain karmas and patterns to continue evolving and no longer feel stuck.

Next, Teacher David and consciousness.

Distill. Enlarge

Where did this begin?  One beginning was the garden.  I wandered there alone, which was a rarity, because there were only minutes before Sharon Gannon would offer a Jivamukti class in her home in Woodstock.  This is her & David Life's garden, entered through a wound wood spiral, drenched in sun, with a path that leads to a screened in garden bedroom.  Sleep, plants, crickets.

We are golden.  Another beginning.  Within the class Sharon invited us to sit for meditation by playing Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock."  Lured in, we stayed.

It kept beginning.  In the studio there was a round window to the meadow behind.  It was so clear.  When meditation felt dense I opened my eyes & could see small insects marching in light, leaves moving.  I saw what I heard: crickets, winds, leaves.  The window offered me a new vision each time my gaze reached up.

It began far earlier.  Kevin & I have an adventure this weekend.  He graduates from Goddard College, a place that has been so dear to him, & for which he already grieves the loss.  My hope is that it's not a loss, just punctuation.  

We knew we were journeying north to Vermont to witness his graduation.  We'd always wanted to join Sharon Gannon & David Life in their Woodstock home for an August Jivamukti vinyasa intensive.  We decided to leave for graduation a day early, take a Woodstock class, & stay the night in Albany with our dear friends Taina, Gaetano, Yabisi, & Caona.

As our eyes hazily opened after meditation we began again.  Began moving.  Sharon kept intoning that words have meaning.  Mean what we say, say what we mean.  She encouraged us to articulate our bodies as precisely.  She loosened instruction: "you know the suryas.  Do them."  Over the stereo came "Here comes the sun."  We all sang (loud!) while lifting to surya.  A gong rang.  A woman in front of me grabbed a book of poetry that Sharon had previously scattered throughout the room.  Clearly, strongly, with the same presence of pinca mayurasana, she shared the poem.  Sharon moved us to standing asana poses.  We sweat, breathed, the gong rang.  Kevin stood up tall & clearly recited Nazim Hikmet's poem, "It is this way."  Sharon looked at him quizzically-- it wasn't from a book.  She nodded as she understood it was memorized-- this is how dearly he (& I) hold this poem.

(We each encountered it in the introduction of David Gilbert's book, "No Surrender," the title taken from Hikmet's poem.  Hikmet, like Gilbert, was a political prisoner.)

We felt seen.  Our voices heard.  We submerged ourselves again in movement.  More readers offered voice when the gong rang.  Our voices quieted as our bodies moved.  Another song we all recognized came over the stereo & we sang.

I felt trembly with energy, sweat, breath, the garden, meditation, the communion in the room.  I reached for a book of poetry.  I remembered seeing a book of Patti Smith that interested me.  It had wandered away.  This was poetry by Julia Butterfly Hill.

Of course.  She sat in "Luna," the giant redwood, to prevent it's destruction.

I opened to a poem on political prisoners.  Sharon rang the gong & I rose.  I used to read poetry all the time.  It's probably been years since I've been vulnerable in this way.  I read Julia's words & they felt like my own. Julia shared her conviction that all political prisoners would come home from jail.  Jails would burn to ashes.  Ashes move to earth.  Over it all we will rise & move.  I felt myself shaking from the energy of my beliefs & the energy in my muscles, my breath, somewhere else.  

Afterwards Sharon opened herself to a Q & A.  I think we were all a little too dazed by the shared experience to be sufficiently forthcoming with questions.  David Life congratulated Sharon on such an artful class.  He asked her to speak more about the connections between yoga & poetry.  Paraphrasing, she responded that yoga asks us to distill our movement & be precise.  We edit our bodies to fill asana.  Poetry asks us to move to that point of clarity-- mean what we say, say what we mean.  Each medium must be intentional, with purpose.  

It began in all those places.  It continued to creep, anew, as Kevin & I wandered down the hill into the tall firs shading our car.  Our cheeks glowed as we both admitted to one another, "I love Sharon Gannon."  "No, me too.  No, I really love her."  We sat down across from one another over lentil soup & iced coffee & found the various pieces assembled so precisely.  Our limbs coordinating.  Our bodies in reference to those around us.  A piece of our spirit enlarged, inflamed.