Category Archives: Meditation

Fall 2011 – 40 Days of Sitting, and One More Thing

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Every year I hold a Sit Off. The first Sit-Off was a response to the ferocious debate on the merit of yoga competition. Should we, or should we not? Is it yogic? Is this all that yoga has been reduced to? Just aerobics, just asana? It went on and on.

After a while, I had enough of it. So I said, in my best Cartman impression, “Screw you guys, I’m going to have a meditation competition, no, even better, a Sit-Off, like a Zoolander Walk Off.”

I also made up some ridiculous rules, like you must be able to sit still while PETA releases hoards of bees into the room and Cotton Eyed Joe is playing on repeat on the background. It sounds horrific, but none of that action or irritation compares to the guilt, shame, anger, anxiety, fantasy, excitement, and memories that my mind can conjure up.

It started out as a joke, but I found a nice side effect. When I set a period of time to devote to something, it focuses my actions and it reinvigorates and strengthens my practice. Also, knowing that many others, oh, who am I kidding, a few others, are doing this with me, can give me a sense of accountability when me don’t feel particularly self-disciplined, which is most of the time.

So, I’m hereby announcing the 3rd round of the Sit-Off.

Why now? If you remember, I already ran the 2nd annual Sit-Off in February. (You totally remember, right?) Well, it occurred on me the other day that from Monday October 3, 2011 to November 11, 2011 are exactly 40 days. And I, predictably like most geeks, have a thing for binary dates.

(Proof: my friend Khoi, a computer engineer, told me he decided long ago he’d get married on 10/10/10, and it didn’t matter with whom.)

The number 40 has always been interesting to me because one year, I wanted to know why Lent is 40 days, so I spent several hours reading Wikipedia on it. Here are some things that Wikipedia sayeth on the subject, some more or less well-known, depending on who you are and what part of the world you live in:

  • Moses spent three consecutive periods of “forty days and forty nights” on Mount Sinai
  • Jesus fasted “Forty days and forty nights” in the Judean desert, which is like…
  • The 40 days of fast that Buddha made to the desert before to exert his apostolate.
  • Muhammad was praying and fasting in the cave for 40 days. which is like…
  • The 40 days that the Buddha supposedly sat under the bodhi tree before his enlightenment. (Some accounts say 49, not convenient for my purposes here at all.)
  • It is believed that one who assists a blind man for forty steps becomes worthy of entering heaven.
  • Prophet Yunus was in a whales mouth for 40 days (he was having a whale of a time!)
  • Human pregnancy lasts approximately 40 weeks from the time of the last menstrual cycle and childbirth (38 weeks from fertilization).
  • Symbolize the death with oneself and the spiritual rebirth.
  • Etc.
  • Etc.
  • Etc.

One More Thing
Along with the usual rule, which is that you can sit for any length of time, I’d like to give extra credit for those who’d like to Don’t Break the Chain à la Jerry Seinfeld with any activity that you’d like to start, or stop doing.

In addition to sitting every day, do this just one more thing that you’ve always wanted to do: read that book, write that novel (NanoWriMo is coming), run, work out, floss, etc. The only requirement is you must do it every day. Every. Single. Day. Even just for a minute.

Won’t Power
I read somewhere that if you don’t have will power, have won’t power. I don’t know exactly what that means, having not taken part in any Won’t Power Heart Opening Workshop or Won’t Power Blow Your Mind Tour.

The idea appeals to me in the way a koan does: it turns your head upside down a bit. Does it work? If “I will go to bed early” requires iron will power, and doesn’t always work (usually never), will “I won’t go to bed late” do anything for me?

I don’t know, what say you we find out? As always, let me know you’re in by using the hashtag #openpractice on Twitter, or tagging “openpractice” on your blogs and on Flickr.

Even more extra credit: Start on October 1st instead of October 3rd. 10/01/11 to 11/11/11 make 42 days. And 42, as you know, is The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, at least according to Douglas Adams.

Also, 42 in binary is 00101010, another reason why my friend Khoi wanted to get married on 10/10/10, come hell or high water. Told you us geeks are weird.

But never mind us. Just be where you are, and sit with me.

Street Yoga for You, Me, and All of Us

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So I picked up a paper, it was more bad news
More hearts being broken or people being used
- You Were Meant for Me, Jewel

I’m writing about something that’s probably out of most people’s mind already: the London riot that happened earlier this month. I’m also writing about related events happening in Seattle in September and October for Street Yoga.

In our attention-deficit 24-hour-news world, where the lifetime of a tweet is but a fleeting hour, yesterday’s horrible news needs to be topped with even more horrible, more outrageous, more destructive news today. This morning I saw a funny tweet, and I paraphrase: “The media could hardly contain their disappointment as hurricane Irene has not turned out to be the calamity they had hoped it would be.”

For the most part, this is life as I know it in this early-21st century media, continuous shock and awe of all kinds of titillating and sensational reporting.

The London riot was no exception. It was big news for a few hours. There was finger pointing, there were promises of punishment, there were comedy materials for late night show hosts and Tweeters. (“Did London lose a hockey game or something?”)

Amidst the sound bites, one man wrote a thoughtful piece reflecting on the root causes and proposed a solution, one that could be considered radical in certain circles. This surprised most of us who may be more familiar with him as Mr. Katy Perry, or that crude comedian dude: Russell Brand.

In his heartfelt essay, Big Brother Isn’t Watching You, the most common impression Mr. Brand left seemed to be: “Damn, who knew the Get Him to the Greek dude can write like that!” For me, his essay hit closer to home as someone who’s been involved with Street Yoga and went through their Teacher Training.

At the training, I was exposed to exercises and concepts that clearly demonstrated to me the complex and intertwined social support system (or lack thereof) for the youths in our society: the ones struggling with homelessness, poverty, abuse, addiction, trauma and neurological & psychiatric issues.

These are the people Street Yoga strives to serve. A homeless child grows up to be a homeles adult, and the vicious cycle continues, as homeless adults create homeless children. How do we nip this problem at the buds?

Here’s Russell Brand on the death of Mark Duggan, a young man gunned down by police, spawning a peaceful protest and the ensuing infamous riots.

However “unacceptable” and “unjustifiable” it might be, it has happened so we better accept it and, whilst we can’t justify it, we should kick around a few neurons and work out why so many people feel utterly disconnected from the cities they live in.

Unless on the news tomorrow it’s revealed that there’s been a freaky “criminal creating” chemical leak in London and Manchester and Liverpool and Birmingham that’s causing young people to spontaneously and simultaneously violate their environments – in which case we can park the ol’ brainboxes, stop worrying and get on with the football season, but I suspect there hasn’t – we have, as human beings, got a few things to consider together.

I found those protests exciting, yes, because I was young and a bit of a twerp but also, I suppose, because there was a void in me. A lack of direction, a sense that I was not invested in the dominant culture, that government existed not to look after the interests of the people it was elected to represent but the big businesses that they were in bed with.

Why am I surprised that these young people behave destructively, “mindlessly”, motivated only by self-interest? How should we describe the actions of the city bankers who brought our economy to its knees in 2010? Altruistic? Mindful? Kind? But then again, they do wear suits, so they deserve to be bailed out, perhaps that’s why not one of them has been imprisoned. And they got away with a lot more than a few fucking pairs of trainers.

These young people have no sense of community because they haven’t been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron’s mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there’s no such thing.

If we don’t want our young people to tear apart our communities then don’t let people in power tear apart the values that hold our communities together.

As you have by now surely noticed, I don’t know enough about politics to ponder a solution and my hands are sticky with blood money from representing corporate interests through film, television and commercials, venerating, through my endorsements and celebrity, products and a lifestyle that contributes to the alienation of an increasingly dissatisfied underclass.

But I know, as we all intuitively know, the solution is all around us and it isn’t political, it is spiritual. Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Now, I, like Russell Brand, don’t know enough about politics. Nor do I feel like I know enough about “being spiritual”. To me the word spiritual is quite a slippery slope and it frequently gets thrown around without context or consideration.

When I read that sentence, I stopped momentarily to ponder what Russell was probably thinking in his head when he wrote it. What could he possibly mean?

I don’t know, but here is what I know for sure. My yoga practice, and especially my sitting practice, has offered me benefits which I don’t think I’d be able to get in any other way. What kind of benefits? Flexibility and strength, surely, but I’m not just talking about yogasana only.

If one were simply doing yoga for the physical benefit, they could easily gain it going for a run, bike ride, or lifting weight. No, I’m talking benefits that involve behavioral changes. I’m talking coping mechanisms. I’m talking about a way of being and a way of existing in the world.

Yoga, first of all, gets me into my own body, it gets me to be comfortable in my own skin. This may be automatic and easy for some people, but for me, it’s a learned and acquired taste. It gets me to not only work out and burn a few calories, but it gets me to get to know myself, from a bodily, tangible perspective: here’s my head, here are my toes, here’s the sensation resulting from this movement.

So that’s on a bodily, physical level.

The sitting practice, the meditation practice, is the next level up. Sitting, of course, is not appropriate for everyone at all times. It is not a cure for many psychosis, it’s not a cure-all for all that ails us. It is not a just-add-water solution. It is not a pill.

It is a red pill, in a way, however, in the sense that, as the red pill wakes Neo up to the truth of the Matrix, meditation wakes me up to the real me. That I, too, have those characteristics which I publicly condemn and punish. I’m selfish, I’m spiteful, I’m frightened. I’m generous, I’m loving, I’m fearless.

Seeing everything all mixed up inside makes me realize that I, like others, have the potential to act one way or another, at all times. Sitting reminds me to have compassion for people with their addictions, their trauma, their neurosis, since I, too, have those to varying extent. I, too, see how difficult it is to change, even the most benign of bad habits.

I am not so different, not so separate, not so above from them after all.

What makes me choose not to destroy other people’s properties and set them on fire in most instances? Like Russell Brand, I have a support system. I’ve got a mother and a father who’ve worked tirelessly and unselfishly for my well-being, from my most basic needs to the highest one: Love.

I’ve been privileged to live in a society where I can go to school, get a degree, and have first world problems, like the fact that the internet connection is so slow today in my office building, and the air-conditioning is on too high.

What about the kids without anyone telling them they are alright, they are loved, and they can be musicians, architects, developers, doctors, or whomever their fancy wants to take flight? That they’ve got other options besides agression or submission?

I think most acts of violence can be traced back to a feeling of worthlessness, or feeling rejected, abandoned, unloved, and ultimate, something extra, disposable, replaceable. Who will tell these kids, as my teacher Judith Hanson Lasater told us in a training: “You are not extra. Stand on your mat like you matter”.

Luckily, self-examination and introspection is not only available to the privileged ones. You can have a private jet and a mansion full of designer clothes and cars, and may not ever reflect inward. Or, you can be in a foster home and get to know yourself, one breath at a time.

This is what Street Yoga aims to do. With dedicated social workers, educators, and yoga teachers, Street Yoga seeks to reach out to create a quiet revolution: to encourage people to know themselves rather than be manipulated by others.

“Each one of us struggles daily to maintain our sense of integrity and personal wisdom. Yoga creates a quiet place for people to experience their own bodies, minds, and feelings. They can evaluate what is useful and true.

They are encouraged to deeply listen to themselves. Their independence, creativity, and sincere questioning are encouraged. Yoga, as we present it, is not an ideology, not a cure-all, not another message that we expect people to buy into.

Yoga is a safe space to look for oneself. Yoga is a place to investigate and to make one’s own assessment and choices. It is an offering and a hope for greater independence, empowerment, and self-awareness.”

So, why am I telling you this?

This September, Lululemon Pacific Place will host free in-store yoga classes every Sunday morning to raise awareness for Street Yoga. I’ll be teaching on Sunday September 4, 2011 at 9:30am.

On Saturday October 1st, we’ll have a Fall into Gratitude benefit event: a dinner and dance party at Waid’s Haitian Restaurant at 1212 E Jefferson St. There’ll be a dance performance, an art show, and of course, dinner, all for only $40. It all starts at 6pm.

I hope you’ll come to the free yoga classes and the dinner, and if the spirit moves you, dance. I hope you’ll consider making a contribution to Street Yoga, or similar organizations like Yoga Behind Bars, YogaG, or YogaHOPE. You can encourage educators and your city school boards to look into programs like Mindful Schools.

Most of all, even if you do none of these things, I hope that you, and I, and all of us have the strength and tenacity to continue to learn to work with our bourgeois and non-bourgeois sufferings, and first world or second or third, or universal problems.

And if you don’t do any yoga or meditation or believe in sending your hard-earned money to any organization, I hope you reserve some room for hope in humanity even after watching the 5, 7, 9, and 11 o’clock morning and evening news.

That indeed there are groups of people taking on the crazy and scary work of working on themselves, and in the process mending whatever destruction the Dark Lord or Red Skull instigates. Isn’t that why we cheer for Harry Potter and Captain America?


Don’t take my words for it. Hear the words from the Street on what yoga means.

What It’s Like to Live the Dharma Every Day

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A note: I wrote this as part of Shambhala Publications’s call for personal essays:

This is a call for writings from Buddhist practitioners under the age of 35 on what it’s like to live the dharma every day.

If you are here, please read it. I plan to submit this to Shambhala, and I appreciate your feedback.

Okay, here goes:

It’s like… afternoon. Early afternoon. Saturday, August afternoon. This is a little embarrassing, but I woke up not too long ago. I can only think in fragments at the moment. Or maybe not just at the moment, but perhaps most of the time. I most likely think in 140 characters, given that I’ve been using Twitter since… hold on, I’m going to check.

I flip to Twitter. I flip to articles in my tweet stream. Oh look, something about the ramnification of HP’s move and the effect on the the PC market. Look over here, another piece about how software will eat the world.

Now I’m hungry. I’m tired and groggy. I was out until 2:30am last night at a friend’s birthday party. I’m 29. I’m getting too old for this. No, really, I have been saying that for a couple years now, probably since 25. I’ve been hyper aware that my time is running out ever since I read Auden’s poem:

‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

I fear turning 30. A little. Maybe a little more than a little. I think about how funny it is that I declare frantically: “I don’t want to waste the remaining days of my 20s!”, then I sit around and browse through my Flipboard endlessly, reading tech news and rumors and comments from strangers on TechCrunch. I’m certain people with different opinions from my own are idiots, since they aggravate me with their nonsense.

I go back to Twitter. I read something funny. I watch a funny cat video. I laugh. I retweet it on Twitter. I post it on Facebook. I half-hazardly browse through Facebook. I have one milisecond of realizing I don’t want to be sucked in here. I hit Command + W, closing the tab like a dieter throwing a bag of cookies in the trash (again).

I get up to open the fridge. I peer inside to evaluate my options. After a lengthy debate with myself, I decide to stir fry some vegetables.

I fire up the stove. I glance at my Twitter stream again. Has anyone responded to my funny and witty tweets? And comments? I flip to my email. Just coupons and deals. Has anyone written *me*? I check my mail and Twitter on my iPhone, as if it’d be different somehow.

Oh, right, my food. I pour some frozen vegetables in a pan, thinking about my day, where I need to be, and who I need to see, and email, and text. I think about all the things *I* want to do by myself. All the blogs I want to write, books to read, videos and podcasts to make. The running, the stretching, the sitting, the foam rolling, because I am sore.

Why did I wake up so late? I regret having wasted half the day, so I go back to wasting even more time absentmindedly reading news and commentary, and getting entangled in other people’s drama. I get antsy.

In Pema Chödrön’s lecture on Unconditional Confidence, she talked about a kind of nervousness, a hum that’s always in the background which we’re really good at ignorning. We run away from it the moment we feel it, by reaching for something to do to entertain ourselves.

I’m familiar with this. I work in the Tech industry. I’m always worrying about my inbox. I’m always afraid that I’m missing out on some big important shakeup or new products. The stream of information turns my mind into a hyperactive gerbil on amphetamine. Psychologists even have a name for my condition: FOMO—Fear of Missing Out.

Speaking of my inbox, I open a new tab to see if there’s an important email from work I may have missed since yesterday. Part of me is pulling me back as I type the password to my work email. Noooooo. Don’tttttt doooo itttt. The little voice says, as my fingers, with their amazing muscle memory, breeze through the sign-in.

Where was I again? I’m scattered. I’m looking for ground. I can hear it. I can feel it. The background hum. The nervousness. This raw energy inside me. I’m ambitious. I’m part of the generation that’s making stuff people haven’t seen before. We’re innovative! We’re ground-breaking!

I keep reading about Young Entrepreneurs. The kids creating multi-million dollar startups from their dorm room, or bedroom. What am I doing? I’m browsing memes on the Internet! I’m reading Reddit and Hacker News and Women 2.0. I compare myself. I feel inadequate.

People are out and about, raising funds and making banks. And I’m… What am I doing? I’ve got half written blog posts and a shelf of unfinished books, and a basket of laundry to do, and my bed is still unmade in my non Vastu—, non Feng Shui—compliant room.

My dharma teacher, Shinzen Young, gives the advice in his lectures The Science of Enlightenment, “When you don’t know what to do, just have a complete experience.” Pema Chödrön asks for courage in Don’t Bite the Hook, “Sit with the raw energy of the nervousness.”

I don’t feel so brave to sit right now. So, having a complete experience it is. I walk away from my laptop so I’d stop flipping from browser tab to tab to tab to tab. I walk outside onto my deck. It’s sunny and warm. A rare thing around here in the Pacific Northwest this year.

I stand there looking at Evergreen trees puncturing the sky. I don’t think much of anything. My bare feet start to warm up through the wooden planks that’ve been beaten down by the sun all morning. It feels good. I feel like a cat. Content by the warmth. I would purr and rolled around if I could.

I am still tired. I move slowly. Everything looks like the pictures that my old phone used to take: grainy and pixelated. I could make out the general shape of things, but the details are lost, and it’s annoying, because I want to see more clearly.

My mind does laps again. I have a soccer game coming up soon. It’s so far away, I think. Why does it have to be so far away? Why did I sign up for that? Why am I even going? I feel so tired to be running around in the heat for 90 minutes. I’m going to suck really bad, I predict.

I go through the motion of getting ready. Shorts, shirt, cleats. My eyes feel like what my car windshield would look like after driving through a dirt road and kamakazi bugs. It’s Maya, literally. I think, I need to wake up. No really, I need to wake up.

I’m driving to the game, which seems like going to Middle Earth. There’s an enormous and ridiculous amount of traffic on this nice Saturday summer afternoon. I am surprisingly calm despite this. I notice that I’m noticing myself breathing.

I remember what Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Breathing out, I know I’m breathing out. Breathing in, I know I’m breathing in.” Thank God for that simple instruction, because that’s all I seem to be capable of at this moment to not get caught in road rage. That’s all I can do at this moment to follow the dharma.

What is the dharma? Right now, I don’t even know for sure. But what I want is to not lose it and yell at traffic and call every driver on the road an idiot. What I want is to have *some* control over my deeply ingrained habits that sabotage me. What I want is to focus more and frustrate less and fear less.

By some miracle, I get to the soccer game on time. I play defense. I notice some other people on the opposing team, and I hate them. I know nothing about them, but I hate the way they walk and the way they talk. I think of Jack Kornfield’s lectures when he talked about the “Vipassana Vendatta”.

I laughed then, and I laugh now. I laugh because I see right through myself. I laugh because I can see my own storyline. I remember Joseph Goldstein saying in Abiding in Mindfulness, “The story-making factory is alive and well.” Oh yes, it so is.

The opponent team is very good. They play well. They score often. My emotion runs all over the field, like me. I go from being pissed, to feeling guilty, to self-shaming, to self-congratulating. “I should have been there to block it!” I think when someone scores. “I shouldn’t have done that” when I cause a turnover. “Yeah, take that! Not in my house!” I thump my chest silently when I prevent a goal.

I oscillate through the whole spectrum, but I linger more when I’m getting mad. “We are always working with our potential to be bothered,” Pema Chödrön’s astutely observed. I look at the rolling soccer ball coming towards me on the field. Here comes some bourgeois suffering. Here comes another chance.

The game ends. I get in a boiling car drenched in sweat. Oddly enough, I’m not tired. Oh, sure, I’m exhausted from the physical exertion, but I’m not nervous and anxious. I am in my body. I don’t think about fifty million other things and my mind is not darting around like a crazed drunken squirrel. All I can think is, “I need a shower.”

I sit in front of my steering wheel, thinking about how I’m actually really glad I made it, despite all the resistance, despite all the excuses, despite the less than optimal preparation. I think of what it took for me to get to this point, a moment of stillness.

“And I meditate! And I practice yoga!” a half amused and half confused voice inside me proclaims. I laugh at the naïveté of that, as if that’s a safeguard or guarantee for anything. But, I think, what if I didn’t have a practice? What if I didn’t know the dharma? Would I have blown up in traffic? Would I have blown up on the soccer field? Would I have even shown up?

I put the key in the ignition and drive out of the parking lot, down a dirt road. There’ve been some construction going on, and the whole road is bumpy and dusty. It brings up the image of Joseph Goldstein’s explanation of the word dukha. The suffix du means difficulty and kha is the axle hole of a wheel.

Dukha means the axle of the wheel not fitting well into the hole. This makes for a very bumpy ride. And some other ways to convey bumpy are words we are familiar with: uneasiness, dis-ease, dissatisfaction, stress.

In the lectures on the Sattipatthana Sutta, he goes on to talk about what causes suffering, and how you can have a bumpy ride but not suffer. Let me show you how this happened to me.

Exhibit A: suffering on the bumpy road on my way in. I was a little disoriented, groggy, and grumpy. Part of me hoped the game would be cancelled, in fear of how badly I’d play. Part of me was prepared to be upset if the game did get cancelled, because I had driven so far to get here. I mentally added “stupid bumpy road” to the list of Things I’m Dissatisfied By.

Exhibit B: not suffering on the bumpy road. And now, on my way out, the road is the same. The ride is still rough as before. But I’m not spinning up any story or phantom fear. I’m not talking up or down on myself. I am just a girl with sore thighs and stray hair stuck to a sweaty forehead, with hands firmly on the steering wheel, in a blue car that’s quickly turning brown, bouncing on the gravel.

I know that this will last but a fleeting minute, maybe not even that. Soon enough my mind will be off, thinking about everything under the sun, wanting, wishing, grasping. Pema Chödrön knows this phenomenon, “We are always on the continuum of getting caught and being liberated.” That Pema, she’s onto something.

As a young practitioner, I am always riddled with questions, doubts, confusion, ignorant conviction, expectation, and ambition. I go to workshops, conferences, and retreats. I try to impose my intellectualism on my lack of knowledge. I read. I listen. I talk. I regurgitate. I blog. I tweet. I sit. I stretch. I reach for ground in what’s inherently a groundlessness world.

I have too many things to do, too little sleep, too little time. And sometimes it feels like my effort may be all for naught, since the world seems to be free falling into five or six or seven realms of hell.

In her talks, Pema Chödrön recalled Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche commenting on the world he saw coming:

“I have no doubt that the challenges would be great.”

Yup. Nailed it, Rinpoche.

I can tell you that, with whatever predisposition or karma I’ve got, with over ten years of yogasana and five of sitting meditation, I’m still caught up in my own storyline, I’m still not always kind to myself, my mind is still a wild horse unaware of its own speed and strength.

I don’t remember the exact words, but Pema once posed a question: If this group of people can’t work with our neurosis, then how can we expect anyone to slow down the momentum of our negative energy? Okay. So, like, what are you saying, Pema? It’s up to me?

Since I seem to have chosen to accept that mission, we now come to the million-dollar question: what does it mean to live with the dharma on a daily basis? What comes to mind is a Japanese proverb near and dear to me as a rock climber:

“Fall down seven, get up eight.”

I slide, and slide, and slide on that continuum of getting caught and being liberated. I fall, I snap out of it, and with any luck, I get up.

What also comes to mind is gratitude, respect, and pressing the Like button for myself. This wisdom from Joseph Goldstein speaks to me: there is a blessing of the rarity of connecting with the teachings and the opportunity to practice.

J-Gold (hope he doesn’t mind me calling him that) talked about how we have somehow come into contact with the teachings, or Buddha Dharma. Not only have we had the fortune of doing that, but for some reason, we’re inspired. And not only are we inspired by the teachings, but we’ve also made the effort to practice.

“So when we appreciate that, it leads to great respect for the dharma, our fellow yogi, and respect for ourselves.”

Living with the dharma every day is like when Frodo, lamenting on the difficulty of his task, told Gandalf that he wishes none of this happened, and Gandalf said, “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” You’re quite a dharma teacher, Gandalf.

Sign on the street to the soccer playfield: Rough Road.

Mind and Body, But I Repeat Myself

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Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

Oh, Mark Twain.

I am not here to talk politics. I’m here to talk about something I read in the book Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom.

“Your brain interacts with other systems in your body—which in turn interacts with the world—plus it’s shaped by the mind as well. In the largest sense, your mind is made by your brain, body, natural world, and human culture—as well as by the mind itself (Thompson and Varela 2001). We’re simplifying things when we refer to the brain as the basis of the mind.”

And so, like the koshas, the separation between “mind” and “body” is even more artificial than I thought.

Sitting Can Kill You

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Recently, I’ve seen a flurry of articles, and discussions, about the newfound revelation that, by God, sitting a lot can be fatal!

Inevitably, somewhere in the comments section for these articles, someone will say: well then, so much for meditation! The progression of thought seems to be: if sitting can kill you, it follows that meditation must be equally lethal.

I would love to see studies done on this. My personal hypothesis on this, is that not all sitting is equal. In early yoga texts, there were only a handful of poses, mostly sitting poses. Over time, more poses came about, and my guess is that people figured out that it’s frigging hard to sit with your legs crossed and maintain a certain posture for a long time.

Let’s look at what needs to happen in “Easy” Pose, or Sukasana:

  • The knees need to be below the hips, so your hips need to be adequately open. Otherwise, you need some padding under your butt so that when you sit, your spine can be long and straight and your torso can be vertical.
  • That brings us to the hamstrings, which, if too tight, can pull your pelvis down and out, making it hard for the lumbar spine to come to its neutral position, which curves inward, not poking out.
  • Now we travel up the spine to the midback. If the chest is hunched over, the shoulder blades can’t settle down, the shoulders don’t line up with the hips, the neck gets sore carrying a head that’s not aligned over the spine.
  • Etc, etc.

And I’m not even talking about that crazy sitting posture of Lotus Pose here.

So, in case Fear of Death by Sitting is holding you back from meditation, you can now relax into a comfortable cross-legged position, and see how your mind runs, and flips, and flies. The mind is anything but a couch potato.

“The motions of the average mind… are about as purposeful and orderly as those of a crazed monkey cavorting about his cage. Nay, more; like the prancing of a drunk, crazed monkey. Even so we have not conveyed its full restlessness; The mind is like a drunk, crazed monkey that has St. Vitus’ dance. If we are to be truly accurate as to its frenzy we must go a final step; it is like a drunk, crazed monkey with St. Vitus’ dance who has just been stung by a wasp.” – Huston Smith, The Religions of Man

The Motions of the Average Mind

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I was cleaning around and found an old copy of Expect the Unexpected - A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus. I started leafing through it (you know how it goes, you find something you forget you had and you forget what you were doing), and happened to come across this footnote on page 63:

“The motions of the average mind… are about as purposeful and orderly as those of a crazed monkey cavorting about his cage. Nay, more; like the prancings of a drunk, crazed monkey. Even so we have not conveyed its full restlessness; The mind is like a drunk, crazed monkey that has St. Vitus’ dance. If we are to be truly accurate as to its frenzy we must go a final step; it is like a drunk, crazed monkey with St. Vitus’ dance who has just been stung by a wasp.” – Huston Smith, The Religions of Man

If you’ve ever tried to meditate, I think you’d agree, this is spot on.

Announcing the Second Annual Sit-off – A Meditation Competition

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Last Christmas, you gave me your heart. Oh, wait, wrong holiday.

In November 2009, amidst the hotly intense debate if yoga should be in the Olympics, I announced the first ever Sit-off, a Meditation Competition. It was, frankly, a coping mechanism. There was so much emotion running high about what “real yoga” is, and what’s not, and being one who prefers flip flops year-round, even in the winter, I could see where every side was coming from, but I couldn’t side with anyone. The only posture I could take was taking a seat, on my own cushion.

Then, in February of last year, I asked my blog readers to take a vow to sit for 28 days. This year, I’m doing it again.

The Rules

From Tuesday February 1 to Monday February 28, I’m challenging everyone, including me, to sit every day. Yes, *every* single day. The rules stay the same: for all 28 days of February, 2011, sit. That’s it. No, really, that’s it. Sit for a minute, or 5, or 9. Or, donothingfor2minutes.com.

You Are Not Alone

At the risk of sounding like a Jennifer Aniston or M. Night Shyamalan movie, sitting may seem like a lonely activity, but I assure you it is not. When we sit, we take the same posture that millions of people from all over the world throughout time, have taken. And, as I mentioned last year: Some of us are more private about our work, others benefit well from support, encouragement, and a sense of camaraderie. So, if you’re on Twitter, simply tweet #openpractice.

What Is This All For

My teacher, Judith Lasater, says that “The practice of yoga is fundamentally an act of kindness toward oneself.” And, at the risk of stirring up some bad blood, I believe that yoga without meditation is calisthenics*, so I will go as far as adding to Judith’s statement, that “The practice of meditation is fundamentally an act of kindness toward oneself.”

Not only is meditation something you do for yourself, you can even do it for others, like the meditators of the International Meditation Experiment are doing, for three whole years. If you don’t care for all that hippie peace love shenanigan, consider meditation as a way for you to Train, Exercise, and Better your Brain. The authors of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working also advocates meditation as a way to energize your performance at work.

* There is nothing wrong with calisthenics. Historical documents have shown that modern day yoga postures and sequences were influenced by calisthenics.

Okay, that’s all. Go forth and find that cushion.

What Yoga is Good For

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Needless to say, yoga has been found to be pretty beneficial. Scientists have learned about a great deal about the benefits of yoga, and they’re still discovering new ones everyday. (Here is a list of 54 health conditions benefited by yoga compiled by Dr. Timothy McCall, updated this month-Jan 2011. [PDF])

Different people get different things from their yoga practice, so I can’t speak for them. But for me, one thing, one big thing, that yoga is good for, is that it gives me a process, a technique, to work to cultivate my ability to pay attention.

As part of Generation Y, well known for our ability to talk, roll our eyes, and chew gum at the same time, I grew up honing the craft of multitasking. I do it well, and I like it. I won’t be quick to condemn multitasking. I’m grateful for certain times of multitasking, even, like driving and listening to NPR, or climbing with my headphones on.

The problem with multitasking is that I use it too much, and I single-task too little. It’s like any skill in life, when you don’t use it, you lose it. I’ve been reading the book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, and the author, Dr. Tony Swartz says:

“Because a short attention span and fractured focus are now so widely accepted as the norm, we’ve failed to recognize that attention is a capacity that must be both intentionally trained and regularly renewed.”

So, I would say that my yoga practice helps me sit, and sitting is a way for me to intentionally train and regularly renew my capacity to pay attention for a prolong period. I’ve got a long way to go, and the uphill incline is steep. But, I guess it’s all about taking that proverbial first step.

Recap from Seattle Insight Meditation Society First 2011 Meeting

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I went to the first meeting of 2011 held by the Seattle Insight Meditation Society (SIMS) last week. I typically don’t attend any group sit, with the rationale that inevitably, I wouldn’t be able to make it to the specific time and place, and I would start slacking off.

I’ve been working with two main lectures: The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young for over three years, and Abiding in Mindfulness by Joseph Goldstein for a little over half a year. In Abiding in Mindfulness, Joseph focuses on the Sattipattana Sutta, and I just found out that teacher Rodney Smith at SIMS has been lecturing on it during the weekly group sit meetup.

So, curious about who Rodney is, I went to the meeting to hear his dharma talk, and also to take the Refuges and Precepts.

Here are some notes I scribbled down. I did not get a chance to ask for clarifying questions. I may have misheard and written down some incorrect statements. Please take them for what they’re worth.

  • You can’t come to that resolution by listening to me. You have to investigate that for yourself.
  • We create the pain that we feel in us.
  • Violence is created from internal pain.
  • Until and unless we own our sufferings we will continue to rage at the world.
  • Fundamentalists are riddled with doubt.
  • The rage of the world is from our own viciousness.
  • There’s a lot of work a lot of us need to do.

2) Ethical integrity

  • As we become more conscious and accepting of this process life moves from isolation to integration.
  • when you stay in the practice and if there’s an intention to move towards that integration.
  • It’s a recovery of self not a condemnation.
  • Our ethical behavior will be as strong as our intention to explore our pain.
  • You don’t have to try to be good. You only have to be fed up with the pain you’re in.
  • The precepts are not an absolute. They’re to encourage us to undertake the training.
  • The pause is such an underutilized thing, the take a pause from the conditioning.
  • A conscious intention to harm is almost an oxymoron. How can you have therapy without being unconscious?
  • As resistance fades so does the internal talking.
  • This waking into relationship… relevant to urban people because we are always surrounded by relationship.
  • You can’t come to compassion without vulnerability. Because we’re not willing to be vulnerable that we become rude.
  • Ethical conduct under samadhi is self driven. It takes self will and ambition. The morality of that is surrounded by the self.
  • Ethical conduct under wisdom is seeing the nature of self.
  • Sila means bedrock
  • Parami, nature goodness
  • The path of emptiness is the path of sufficiency.

A Motivational Tip to Meditate (and Do Other Things in Life)

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“If you can’t be disciplined, be clever.” – Shinzen Young, The Science Of Enlightenment.

Motivation and Discipline are in that category of abstract concepts that sells books, DVDs, and seminars, not to mention hopes and dreams that we will be a better person tomorrow than we are today.

It is also elusive to us at one point or another. For me, it’s daily. Everyday, I keep thinking that I will go to bed earlier tomorrow, that I will read more books, that I will organize my closet. But when tomorrow becomes today, I lack the same motivation or inspiration that I had yesterday.

For the longest time, I struggled with the motivation and/or discipline to meditate daily. Then I discovered Shinzen Young and his Science of Enlightenment lectures where he gave one little tip that rocked my world. He was addressing the typical challenge of finding time to meditate and … well, just doing it. “If you can’t be disciplined, be clever”, advised Shinzen. Sign up for a retreat and send in the full amount of money. Put it on your calendar. Buy the plane ticket. Create the conditions where you can’t easily back out.

Following this advice, I went on a 10-day Vipassana retreat to kick off my sitting practice. I figured if I could survive that, I just might pick up the habit. This worked, to some extent. After sitting for 14 hours a day, sitting for 10 or 15 minutes doesn’t seem so bad any more. However, I’ve had much more time to practice *not* meditating daily. 10 days is nothing compared to two decades plus. And because the habit of not meditating is that much more ingrained than the habit of meditating, it’s still a daily conscious act of telling myself: I will meditate today.

Telling myself that I will do something doesn’t always mean that I do do it. More often than not, I find an excuse not to follow through. Having an intention is well and good, but without execution, it’s moot. So, I’ve  devised some clever means to “trick” myself into doing my meditation.

  • First, I put my cushion right by  the side bottom of my bed . I see it every day, and if I don’t do my sitting, it’s there to remind me, or actually, to make me feel guilty. I don’t do well with guilt trips, and I’m using that to my advantage.
  • Second, I have a meditation clock (from Now & Zen) which I place right in the center by my bed. I can’t get in bed without stepping over it. Sometimes I put the clock on my bed before I leave my room in the morning. I can’t get under my covers without touching the clock and putting it elsewhere. That extra little bit also reminds me to do my sitting.
  • Third, I put my yoga mat next to my bed as well, not rolled up, but spread out, basically to block the entrance into my bed. I put it there because I know that I would make excuses that I’m feeling “too tight” to meditate, and that I just need to stretch out a bit, maybe do a down dog or two. If my mat is elsewhere, there’s no chance that I would make the extra effort to go get it, especially if it’s night time and I’ve already changed in my PJs. Since my mat is right there, I have one less excuse.
  • Fourth,  I decided that I would meditate before I go to sleep every day. So, the only time that I don’t meditate would be when I don’t go to sleep. This makes it so that I have to do it every single day, save a few exceptions. Night time also works because, again, I have less excuses. In the morning, I might be running late, I might need to do this and that, etc.

The success of building a habit, any habit, depends on the consistent timing. I know many teachers would tell you to meditate whenever you can. The idea is to just do it, regardless of when. I understand this philosophy. Instead of enforcing a time, which can be rigid, giving yourself the permission to do it any time can increase the probability that you’ll do it. However, for someone like me, who can come up with a really good excuse *not* to do it virtually any time of day, this doesn’t work so well.

In yoga, and in life, having a will, determination, goal, or purpose is often the first step to making some sort of desirable changes. I don’t usually lack motivation. Staying focused on what I’ve resolved to do, though, takes more work, since I’m not always focused :) . To make up for that, I try to be clever and trick myself into doing the things I know I want to do, if only my will weren’t so weak and I had more discipline.

Does my cleverness work perfectly all the time? Not even close. There are times when I’m so tired that I trip over my meditation clock and don’t even think twice about meditation. There are times when I don’t spend the night at home with my clever arrangements. But, most of the time is better than none of the time. As Shinzen Young said, “any number of time is infinitely more than zero.”

I write this post in hope of giving you one way to kick your meditation practice in gear. If it works for other things, so much the better. If you have any tips, for meditation or otherwise, please let me know.