Category Archives: Pema Chodron

The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits

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One of my favorite movies of all time is Before Sunrise, which I have seen so many times the disc is completely scratched up. One of the memorable scenes that seems to be permanently stuck in my mind is when Ethan Hawke’s character recites the poem As I Walked out One Evening by W.H. Auden.

‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

These last days, as the calendar says it’s time for Spring, though the weather in Seattle today violent disagrees (heavy rain and 30mph wind), these lines remind me: ‘O let not Time deceive you. You cannot conquer Time.

Time goes fast, we keep hearing that. We keep hearing these clichéd phrases until they become tired like that proverbial broken record, but there are moments when they hit home so close that you finally get what they are all about, then they become true on a cellular, experiential level.

This month marks exactly one year since I finished my 200-hour training from Pacific Yoga, a 9-month program that sent me deep into the woods of yogic studies. It left me bewildered, confused, amazed, and humbled. Next month this time, I’ll be graduating from the 500-hour teacher training, a program that I started a year ago.

This morning when I was gathering my training attendance records, I went over the schedule of each session with mixed emotions. I was proud that I had been exposed to so much material, and I was a bit nervous because I don’t think I remember every single thing I’ve learned. But that anxiety did not last very long. I was immediately reminded of how I’m still going over the material that I learned in the 200-hour training, how everything I learned continues to emerge for me to grasp, understand, and learn them again.

I’m comforted by Yoga Sutra I.14, which is something of a personal mantra as of late. I learned this sutra in my 200-hour training, and it’s taken over a year for me to get it.

Satu dirgha kala nairantarya satkara asevitah dridha bhumih – YS 1.14

This sutra roughly says that there are three things that make a practice is firmly rooted and becomes stable:

  • dirgha kala: a long time
  • nairantarya: without interruption
  • satkara: devotion

I’m comforted by knowing that when May rolls around and Graduation day comes, and it will be here soon enough, I won’t really have to be “done”. I’ll still have some time to continue to do whatever work is left to do, which is endless, really. “Your certificate is a certificate to begin your studies,” Judith Hanson Lasater said once.

Having said that, I also know that I don’t really have *that* much time. Recently, a family friend passed away completely unexpectedly, and her untimely death shocked all of us to the core. My mom celebrated her 60th birthday yesterday. We were sitting at the kitchen table talking about it last week when she looked at me tenderly and said, “You’re 28, you turn around, and you’re 60. Time goes so much faster than you think.” I nodded and looked at my mom, I mean really looked at her, trying to capture what she looked like, because I’ll want to remember that exact moment when I turn 60.

In one of her talks, Pema Chodron cited Suzuki Roshi: “Knowing life is short, enjoy it day after day, moment after moment.” Sure, it’s easy for *them* to say that, but what about me? Me who’s got enough Vata to bottle energy drinks for an army? Me who’s constantly distracted and checking my iPhone and the latest tweet and blog and facebook status and what’s hot, what’s new, what’s latest, everything but what’s here and what’s now?

I’m practically a lost cause, running after anything that’s shiny, promising instant gratification and an escape from this mundane moment. My saving grace is yoga. Over these past two years of immersing myself in the teacher trainings, attending workshops, and committing to a daily meditation practice, I have occasionally caught glimpses of what it might be all about, that, “enjoy it moment after moment” thing. You cannot conquer time, but you can learn to be its companion.

To me, that’s what the practice is about, and it’ll take a long time, being consistent, and lots of dedication.  I will not let Time deceive me, and I will not deceive it. I’m humbled by Time, and I will let it run its course. In the meanwhile, all I can do is continue to practice with what I’ve got, one day at a time.

To all you guys reading this, kudos to you for committing yourself to this practice, or any practice for that matter. Kudos to you for showing up, and committing your mind, and body, and time, to whatever it is that floats your boat: climbing, painting, singing, writing, dancing, etc. All I can say is, if that’s your thing, and it’s doing you good, as long as it feeds you, it doesn’t matter where you are in the process, just keep going.

When I’m 60, or 70, or 80, if I will have learned to sit or lie down in Savasana and not think of a million and one things having nothing to do with that current moment, I will probably tell W.H. Auden, “Ha! See? I *can* conquer time.” At which point I’ll remember the movie Before Sunrise and think of all my favorite scenes, and poof, there will go my mind again.

Color-coordinated mother and daughter. With my beautiful mom on her 60th birthday.

Color-coordinated mother and daughter. With my beautiful mom on her 60th birthday.

Four by Four, Sit by Sit

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Alright, it’s March! That means the First Nikki Challenge 28-Day Sit-off Meditation Competition is ovar! How’d it go for you? As you recall the rules were minimal. All I asked was for you to sit. That’s it! 60 seconds, 60 minutes, it didn’t matter. The goal was to create a habit, and as all of us know, if the goal is too lofty, we won’t even get started at all.

Kudos to you if you took it the challenge. And a HUGE THANK YOU to our Sit-off sponsors: The awesome people who gave us a little incentive to do our work. Okay, now what, you’re off the hook, right? Actually, no one was ever really “on the hook” with anyone in the first place, really, except with ourself. And that’s the hardest person to hold accountable with, eh?

If you’ve enjoyed sitting, and enjoyed the “sitoff” spirit, fret not, here comes the iEvolve 90 day Meditation Challenge. Yes, that’s a whole whopping *ninety* days, not 28 puny days. Also, this challenge asks that you sit for an hour a day. From their website:

THE CHALLENGE:

Meditate 1 hour everyday for 90 days in a row. You can sit for 60-minutes straight, two 30- minute periods, or 4 15-minute periods. Whatever works for you. Either way, that’s 90 hours of meditation under your belt! Start Spring 2010 off right and re-energize your practice and your life with our 90 day meditation challenge.

As you know, I’m a huge believer of doing things in an easy, steady, sustainable way. So, I’ve decided to tweak the rules a little bit (“they’re more like guidelines anyway”). I’ve decided to use the divide and conquer strategy. I’ve also included Pranayama as part of the sit. Let’s call it MPx4, Meditation and Pranayama by Four sittings a day. An hour seems like a lot, but 15 minutes? We all have 15 minutes here and there to spare.

Every Day Is A Winding Road

The Challenge calls for 90 hours of sitting, that’s 5400 minutes. My take is you ought to account for mishaps in life, and you ought to be able to make up for them.

If you miss a day, add another day to the challenge. For example, it’s March 1, 2010 as I’m writing this, but you’re reading about this on March 2, or 3. Who says you have to finish May 28, 2010? Why not May 29, or 30? This can go too far, however. You might say to yourself, “I’m putting it off until January 1, 2011, yeah, that’ll be my New Year Resolution!”

So, why not set a deadline of the last day of Spring, which is June 20, 2010? It’s like those punch cards where you get a limited time to use. That adds a whole whopping 23 days to the 90-day sit, that’s like 25% more for the same price!

If you miss 15 minutes, add another 15 minutes. If you’ve only done 15 minutes today, add 45 minutes to your “Credit” column, and save it for a make-up day. DO NOT binge and purge. Well, do it if you want to, but I strongly advise against the dieter’s mentality of having “cheat days” where you go berserk with everything in sight. Don’t think, oh, I’m not gonna sit today, but I’ll sit for five hours this weekend. It doesn’t work in the long run. It’s unsustainable.

The exception, of course, is if you’ve signed up for a sit where you really will sit for five hours, then I think it’s cool. What doesn’t work is the old college habit of cramming. It’s 10pm and that 50-page paper is due at 8am tomorrow morning? No problems, I have a whole *twelve* hours to write. Yeah, that rarely ends well.

Okay, here’s a recap:

  • The challenge is to complete 5400 minutes of sitting, a combination of Pranayama and Meditation.
  • You must do each session for at least 15 minutes.
  • You’re strongly encouraged to sit for an hour a day.
  • You have from March 1, 2010 to June 20, 2010 to complete.

Bonus:

Are you a math/stat geek? Keep tabs and quantify on your effort. For example, you can record when you sit, and do a tally on whether you do more Pranayama or Meditation in the morning, or at night.

Any time's a good time for a spreadsheet!

Any time's a good time for a spreadsheet!

What do you think? Are you in?

When we take the meditation posture, we’re developing a posture and attitude of attentive openness to whatever arises, and this is actually a very brave thing to do. I think maybe we wouldn’t actually even begin on this journey if we knew how brave that is, to just sit, and open our minds, open our whole being, with attentive openness to whatever might arise.

Because in so doing, we’re actually opening ourselves beyond our usual habitual view of ourself and of reality. We actually don’t know what we’re going to see, and one of the first things that one gradually begins to perceive is that perhaps we aren’t quite who we thought we were.

…

We sit, and we just look, with an openness, as much openness as we can, and in so doing, we’re opening ourselves to letting go, or seeing through, or at least seeing exactly who we are and what we do. We’re setting ourselves up, you could say, for some of the ways, and eventually all of the ways in which we conventionally and habitually view reality, to let those fall apart, so it’s very brave. And this path, is considered the Path of the Brave Ones, which doesn’t mean we *are* brave, but it means we begin to cultivate our fearlessness.

- Pema Chodron, From Fear to Fearlessness, Session 1, Beginning the Path of the Brave Ones.

Those rules, they're more like guidelines anyway

Those rules, they're more like guidelines anyway

Feel All Emotions

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I have been reading A Year of Living Your Yoga: Daily Practices to Shape Your Life by Judith Lasater since December 2007 (thank you, Amazon Orders History). Every time I read the daily entry, I get a new perspective and insight.

Today, February 27, the entry reads:

If you want to embrace the light, you must also embrace the darkness.

LIVING YOUR YOGA: We all long for love, peace, and ease. But in order to fully experience them, we must also be willing to embrace our hatred, anger, and agitation. Today when you feel any strong negative emotions, really feel them. Cutting off negative feelings cuts off our ability to feel all emotions.

I especially enjoy this, because reading it feels like a long relieved exhalation. It’s given me permission to acknowledge emotions that I once thought were “off-limit”.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

One thing about the yoga and meditation world that I think “hooks” people in is the promise of bliss, and not just any kind of bliss, eternal bliss, ecstatic bliss, (uh, not to mention, yoga bliss hips). If you’re not happy, practice it. If you’re currently happy, you could be happier, all the time. My god, even the mat wash oughta be happy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for happy, love, bliss, and more happy. Nope, nothing against that at all.

What I’ve learned though, that when we talk about abstract concepts like love, compassion, happy, spiritual, bliss, without setting any context, without any preconditions, we can run into all sorts of troubles when we’re not experiencing any of those emotions.

For example, let’s say something has gone very wrong, everything has hit the fan. My uncensored reaction might go something like this, “I’m so pissed! No, I’m fucking pissed! I HATE HATE HATE.” Or, perhaps something milder happened. Maybe I’m slightly offended by something. I might run off, get on my high horse and judge, roll my eyes and get all worked up. You know the drill.

Uh oh, but, I’m a yoga teacher! I’m not supposed to get upset! I’m not supposed to get livid! Quelle horreur! Seeing this, I might tell myself, “Oh, it’s okay. I’m fine. I’m supposed to be happy, and loving. Yes, I love everyone. And we’re all one. Ommm.”

If this is my approach to every crummy moment in life, I’ll end up with a lot of repression, won’t I?

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I’m learning that in the context of yoga, things like love and happiness aren’t what we think they are. They’re not the–”I’m so happy it’s sunny out”, or, “I love this present you gave me”–kind of emotions.

Once, when my boyfriend was waiting to hear back from a prospective employer and getting worried and anxious, I told him to be happy and just enjoy the moment. He looked at me like I was out of my mind. “Be happy? How could I be happy when I may not get the job?”. “Is everybody who has a job happy? And all the unemployed people are swimming in giant seas of unhappiness?” I asked him. “Well, yeah. How could you be happy if you don’t make any money?”

I knew then that we weren’t talking about the same kind of happiness. My teacher Shinzen Young often talks about a kind of happiness that’s independent of any conditions. That’s probably the happiness and bliss that yoga teachers and magazines often talk about. But I’m not convinced that it’s clearly explained enough, especially in mainstream yoga. Or, perhaps the ambiguity is intentional. After all, my guess is “Practice Feeling Completely Rotten” doesn’t sell as many magazine copies.

All Fall Down

I’m finding out that taking the role of the Witness, the Observer (or Ishvara) means that I’ve got to call an Ace an Ace. Whatever emotion that’s passing by, no matter how dark, should be recognized. Oh look, there’s anxiety. There’s jealousy. There’s selfishness. There’s self-righteousness.

And the trick is to do so with a kind of tenderness, a kind of… well, love; love for my humanness. How human of me to be scared, to be hurt, to project. Practicing this way, for me, creates a kind of happiness that’s really sweet, and so hard to describe. “I’m happy that I can see how awful this experience is.” I know, it doesn’t make any friggin’ sense, does it?

Well, I can say more, but Pema Chodron has eloquently and concisely put it in one sentence as she talked about Maitri, the practice of loving-kindness.

“Maitri is not about feeling good, it’s about feeling whatever you feel with a compassionate attitude and with extreme honesty” – Pema Chodron, Awakening Compassion Lectures.

Have you ever felt like you were “supposed” to feel anything different than what you’re currently feeling? How do you work with that?

Perhaps you need a copy of Yoga Journal, kitteh?

Perhaps you need a copy of Yoga Journal, kitteh?