Rox Does Yoga

Yoga, Wellness, and Life

Practical Experiments in Asteya April 15, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 6:53 pm
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I’ve been thinking a lot about asteya lately. With writing this blog, attending yoga class frequently, and completing my other teacher training work, plus house-hunting, spare time is really at a premium, and it’s hard to find time both to unwind and to spend just relaxing with my husband, F. We try to cook dinner together 2-3 nights a week, and after dinner cleanup we’ll often head to the computer room to try to get work done on our various projects. No matter what, we always try to wrap things up around 9 o’clock so we can watch a little TV together before bed.

Except that, as I found out the other night, F and I appear to have very different definitions of what “around 9 o’clock” means. For F, when we say “around 9 o’clock”, that means that he starts keeping an eye on the time at 8:57 and finishes typing at 9:00 so he can be out on the couch before 9:01. I have a much looser definition of “around 9 o’clock”; my version includes the ten minutes before and after 9, and usually I don’t get moving till after. Then I use the bathroom, refill my water glass, maybe get a snack together, so that by the time my butt hits the couch, F’s been sitting there seething with the video on pause for a full ten minutes. This is clearly something we have to work out.

Yes, F could use a dose of santosha at times like this – he could approach the evening with a more relaxed attitude and more acceptance of his wife’s flakiness. But really, I’m kind of the one causing the problem. I find myself doing the exact thing that Devi described in her commentary on asteya: thinking to myself, “Oh, I can get one more thing done before 9”, and then thinking, “Really, I’m not THAT late!” Ultimately, I know that when I’m late, it upsets my husband who I love. It’s such a little thing, and should be so easy to fix, but time and again I find myself running around and yelling “Sorry, I’ll be there in a sec!” over my shoulder to the living room.

I need to practice some asteya here, because what I’m doing at times like this is stealing F’s time, not to mention his energy and good humor. He paid attention to the clock and wrapped things up on time; I should be considerate of him and do the same. Plus, the later we start watching our show, the later we’ll finish it and the later we get to bed, and with such a crazy schedule lately, I need my sleep! And of course it’s harder to fall asleep when we’re both tense because I was late. When I behave this way, I’m also stealing sleep time from both of us.

So what am I doing on the computer that’s so important? Usually it’s something minor: writing one more sentence of a blog post, or dropping a quick email to a friend, or (and usually this is what it is) checking Facebook for the 85th time. F understands about the blog and the yoga homework, but he points out, quite rightly, that with such a busy schedule lately, if I’m wasting time on Facebook, then that’s time we don’t get to spend together. When you put it that way, it feels like I’m choosing Facebook over my husband, and that’s a pretty sucky way for my husband to feel. It’s not an active choice, because Facebook-time creeps in so insidiously; if I were making an active choice, I’d be choosing to spend time with F, but I’m not choosing actively. This is something I want to change.

Still, a part of me is crying out for just some “stupid time”, some non-scheduled time when I can zone out and relax and not have to be smart or motivated, time when no one expects anything of me. Facebook definitely fulfills that for me, but there are plenty of other things (like watching TV with my loving husband) that can fulfill it too. I hope that in the future, I’m able to act with more consideration and kindness, because that will make both F and me happier.

 

Ahimsa and food April 14, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:33 pm
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For some yogis, practicing ahimsa (non-violence) means being vegetarian or even vegan. If you’re practicing ahimsa, then you don’t want to cause harm to anyone or anything; that goes for causing the harm personally or having it done on your behalf. They believe that, by eating meat, they are taking in and nourishing themselves on the animal’s pain and suffering. If “you are what you eat”, why would you want to be pain and suffering?

The counter-argument can be made that human beings are omnivores. We’ve been eating both plants and meat for thousands of years, and that’s what our bodies are designed to do. But humans haven’t been raising animals in factory farms for thousands of years, so there are different ways to look at this. How much suffering do my diet choices cause? As I understand it, chickens and cows in large factories are kept in small cages, fed food that is unnatural for them to eat, and are pumped full of hormones and drugs to make them fatter and their meat tastier. This seems to me to constitute a suffering overload. Also, I am lucky enough to live in a country where we have access to a huge variety of foods. In the past, humans had to eat whatever they could to survive, but our modern society allows for different choices than previous generations could even imagine. We have the luxury of not eating meat if we don’t want to. And… I don’t want to.

For a while now, F and I have been trying to buy our animal products organic, because the animals are humanely treated and allowed to live with a cow’s or a chicken’s natural dignity before they become our meal. We don’t buy beef anyway, but we’ve been buying organic hormone-free milk for a few years now, and we prefer organic chicken meat and eggs from free range, cage free chickens. It’s hard to make this kind of change on everything, though: we buy organic milk, and we’ve started buying organic yogurt, but I like Activia yogurts too – what kind of milk do they use? What kind of milk is used to produce the cheese at the deli counter? And (and this is huge) I rarely pay attention to this issue when we go out for dinner, and we eat out often. I doubt Panera is using free range chicken breasts or organic cream in their sauce. We should be thoughtful about what we eat; it’s not just food, it’s your lifestyle. If I’m going to make a lifestyle choice, I ought to be making it across the board, no matter where I’m eating.

We’ve also been working to add more vegetarian options to our daily meal plans – originally with the idea that we wanted more variety in our meals, but then more and more with the idea of trying to phase out meat. Our honeymoon in Belize was a huge eye-opener for me on beans, because people there eat beans with EVERYTHING, and the beans were always delicious. We haven’t managed to recreate Belizean rice and beans here at home yet, but we do a lot more with black beans and refried beans. I’m also in love with edamame, and F discovered this terrific chickpea salad recipe last week. There’s so much more out there than meat and potatoes.

All of this combined so that I had a revelation at dinner one night two weeks ago: I feel really passionately about this issue, and I am already ideologically a vegetarian. I was so surprised, but it’s true! I just haven’t totally stopped eating meat yet. In a typical week of meals, I was only eating meat maybe 1-2 nights, so I was already almost there. I’ve been paying attention since my first teacher training weekend, and I’ve been a practicing vegetarian all month now, even while traveling last week. With beans and soups and salads, and oatmeal with pecans and raisins and cranberries (yum), I’m already doing pretty well on the nutrition front, and that’s without even really trying. All I need to do is take the next natural step.

So I’m going to finish phasing meat out of my diet. I’m going to eat the last of the meat that’s in our freezer (because it seems worse and more disrespectful if I throw out the meat than if I eat it), and then that’s it. We have a free range bison chuck roast in there, and that will probably be Easter dinner, and then I’ll be done with meat. I’ll still eat seafood, dairy products, and eggs (I don’t want to try to make too big of a change, plus I can’t imagine life without cheese), and will try to eat these organic when I can, but no more meat.

Will there be challenges? Of course. I keep coming up with new difficulties: Bacon. KFC. Hot dogs. These are things I adore, and so I may slip from time to time. But overall this is a new adventure that I’m excited about. I’m finally going to find out what lentils are for! Think of all the kale and spinach in my future! Maybe I’ll try beets! (Okay, not as excited about beets.) But being vegetarian just feels right. That was the biggest surprise in my realization the other night, that this is absolutely the right path for me.

 

Niyamas: Saucha April 5, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 7:47 pm
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Today we move from the five yamas (restrictions or restraints) to the five niyamas (observances).  (I’m hoping that when I’ve finished with the niyamas, I will have formed Voltron.)

The first niyama is saucha: “purity” or “simplicity”. Saucha involves keeping the body clean, because that’s important for keeping both body and mind healthy. One shouldn’t be prideful about her appearance, but paying attention to cleanliness and hygiene is part of life. We should also practice mindfulness about what we put into our bodies (for example, choosing an apple over a Big Mac), since the food we put into our bodies affects our internal cleanliness. Saucha is also about purity of mind. We need to make mindful and discriminating choices about everything we take in: not only food, but also books, TV, movies, and the company we keep, because these things have an affect on the purity of our minds. For example, I decided a long time ago that I can’t watch horror movies. Although horror movies are exciting in the short term, the bloody violent images get emblazoned on my brain and I have nightmares for days – but horror movies are cool and lots of people like them, so I kept watching them and kept having nightmares. Finally I decided it wasn’t worth it and said goodbye to Freddy and Jason. I’ll still freak myself out over things I saw a long time ago, because I can’t erase those pictures from my mind, but I’m much happier not adding new horrible things to the gallery.

Satchidananda and Devi have pretty different translations of the sutras on saucha (2.40-2.41):

Satchidananda: By purification arises disgust for one’s own body and for contact with other bodies.  Moreover, one gains purity of sattva, cheerfulness of mind, one-pointedness, mastery over the senses, and fitness for Self-realization. (142, 145)

Devi: Through simplicity and continual refinement (Saucha), the body, thoughts, and emotions become clear reflections of the Self within. Saucha reveals our joyful nature, and the yearning for knowing the Self blossoms. (206)

Satchidananda’s version sounds a little crazy. He states that our bodies are dirty: always excreting waste, even through our pores, and never truly being clean no matter how often we wash. He says that when we realize this, we lose our attachment to the body and our desire to join our dirty bodies with other people’s dirty bodies (see, I knew Voltron had a place in this post somewhere) and we are able to focus more closely on spiritual practice. Satchidananda then goes on to say that once you understand the body, the heart and mind become purified as well, making us ready for meditation and Self-realization. For this one, I’m glad that I’m also reading Devi, since her commentary really provides a nice counterpoint to Satchidananda’s and helps me make sense of what he says.

For Devi, saucha is about simplicity as well as purity. When we eliminate needless complication from our lives, we can distill down to the pure essence of who we are, who and what we love, and what we want to do. Devi also talks about purity of heart. She notes that nurses kindly take care of sick people, no matter what bodily discharges are involved, because they have the purity of heart to serve others with patience. This is such an interesting counterpoint to what Satchidananda says about bodies being dirty. People like Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, and the nurses at your local hospital know exactly how disgusting the body can be, but they’re able to rise above it with compassion. Satchidananda’s description makes me think of an OCD monk, so I find Devi’s real-world example very moving. Of course that’s what purity is really about! I think too of a mother with a young child: whether it’s a baby with a dirty diaper or an older child with a stomach bug, the mother cleans up the mess. It’s simple because it’s really about love.

 

The Yamas: Aparigraha April 4, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 12:38 pm
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The last of the yamas is aparigraha: non-greed, non-possessiveness. Devi defines aparigraha as “acknowledging abundance”. Especially here in the US, we have an abundance of material goods, and they’re nice to have. When we take what we have for granted, then we just get caught up in getting more and more things. I know that for myself, it’s sometimes really useful to look around my closet and say, “I do not need those cute green shoes I saw in the sale flier. Look at all the super-cute shoes I already own! Hey, I haven’t worn these in a while.” And then I plan an outfit around those shoes instead and I get excited to wear them. And because I didn’t buy shoes I didn’t need, I have some extra cash to spend on a date night with my husband, or on giving to charity, or something else nice.

When I do buy more shoes, even if they’re shoes that are practical and that I will wear for a long time (for example, I recently bought plain nude-colored heels that I can wear with my brown business suit and also with a lot of my office clothes), I still feel a little guilty over the expense, and then there’s yet another box of shoes in my closet, causing clutter, which I find very stressful when it gets out of hand. There’s all this great stuff in my closet, stuff that I “loved” when I bought it, but now it’s taking up space and it’s all jammed together and I can’t find anything. Time to clean house and practice non-attachment: keep the things I love and wear often, and get rid of the things I don’t so that someone else can use them.

Both Satchidananda and Devi mention fear and anxiety if you’re not practicing aparigraha. When we hoard things away, just the sheer weight of all our stuff becomes stressful. We have all these gadgets and closets full of clothes and fancy cars and computers, but do they really add joy to our lives? Often having so many things just adds anxiety: more to do just to maintain the stuff, more to worry about (Did I leave the GPS in the car? Where did I put my iPod?). And there are always more things out there to acquire. On the other hand, if we strive to live more simply, to be not attached to our stuff, then when the stuff goes away we don’t get upset. Devi writes:

Life’s ebb and flow brings things into our life and then out again. Even the slightest hesitation of holding impedes the flow. Our belief system has the ability to hinder or expand this flow of abundance. If you believe that material and spiritual blessings are infinite, a cornucopia awaits you. (202)

The danger doesn’t lie in having possessions, but in our attachment to them. We need to remember that we already have everything we need right now.

I lost some weight recently, and it’s been on my mind that I need to get some new clothes that fit me better. To an extent, this is a good thing: I only have two pairs of business pants that I can wear, and they’re both black, so I could use some khakis. But then I get caught up in it, and start worrying about when I can go to the mall, and do I have this or that coupon and when does the coupon expire, and it’s just stressful. Hey: I’ve got some pants. I have two pairs! And I can wear jeans to work, too. I already went through the “I lost weight and oh noes none of my jeans fit” marathon shopping trip last fall so I have two excellent pairs of jeans. And soon it will be warm enough outside to wear skirts all the time! I don’t have to stress about finding a new pair of khakis. At some point, I’ll be out with a friend and we’ll go past a store and oh hey, let’s try some stuff on, and the khakis will come to me.

I also get possessive about books and DVDs. I’ve gotten better about books – borrowing from friends or going to the library – but it’s been a struggle the whole time because I REALLY like books. I still feel pangs when I think about a certain book or series of books that I loved but oh, I can’t go over to my shelf and pick it up right now because I got it from the library. Boohoo. I can go back to the library and get it again if I really want to reread it or reference it. I like to own my favorite movies, too, but now we have Netflix – we can get DVDs or do the streaming thing – and we also have On Demand, and so I can watch my favorite movies pretty much anytime even without owning a physical object. This is taking some getting used to. I still kind of want the Back to the Future trilogy on DVD, and I have a strong aversion to getting rid of my Indiana Jones set. But what Indiana Jones and Marty McFly gave me as a kid – that sense of adventure, that curiosity and excitement – is always going to be mine, whether or not there’s a little box gathering dust on a shelf to remind me about it.

 

The Yamas: Brahmacharya April 3, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 8:44 pm
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The fourth yama, brahmacharya, means to have control of your sensual cravings. Yep, this is the one about sex. (So far, this is the most difficult yama for me to write about. Interesting.)

Satchidananda translates the sutra like this: “By one established in continence, vigor is gained.” (137)
Devi’s version is a little different: “Devoted to living a balanced and moderate life, the scope of one’s life force becomes boundless.” (193)

In the past, brahmacharya was interpreted as necessitating celibacy. Satchidananda talks about continence, meaning “self-restraint or abstinence”, and tells us that our sexual energy can give us great power to use in our meditation (i.e., “vigor”), which is why monks practice a celibate lifestyle. However, he states that each person should practice brahmacharya as best suits his or her stage in life. Over time, each person passes through different stages: being young and a student; becoming an adult and perhaps marrying and supporting a family; eventually growing more interested in spiritual pursuits as age comes. Most of us are in that second stage – we’re adults, householder yogis, yogis who live in the world, and so for us, brahmacharya isn’t about abstinence, but about spending sexual energy in an appropriate manner.

Devi talks about brahmacharya in terms of moderation and balance. These are important words to keep in mind. We should try to practice moderation with all things that give us pleasure – not just sex, but food and drink, going to the gym, watching TV, everything. When we go overboard with these activities, we tire ourselves out, maybe make ourselves sick. That disturbs our mood and makes it harder to do our work or be kind to others. If we’re being moderate in our activities, then they fill us with energy, not the opposite.

I think for me, it’s very easy to binge out on things I like. If one cookie is good, ten cookies will be better; if one episode of Buffy was pretty awesome, then clearly I should spend all day Sunday watching seven more episodes. This is something I do struggle with. Instead of packing the whole bag of chocolates to take to work, I will pack five chocolates in my lunch – if I brought the whole bag, I’d eat ’em all, arguing with myself with every bite, causing a great deal of stress, plus guilt and shame once the bag was empty (and probably an upset stomach and a headache). So I’ll just bring a few, and then they’re a nice treat, not something that weighs me down. A day of marathon TV watching can be fun, but you can’t do it every weekend. Go hiking, visit your mom, go to a museum, cook a new recipe, and when that rainy day comes around, you can enjoy all the Lord of the Rings extended edition movies back to back, guilt free.

But back to the sex, because I know that’s what you’re really interested in. Satchidananda argues that making love should be saved for one’s marital partner. Don’t be out there sharing your sweet energy with anyone who wanders by – save it for someone special, and when you release your energy together, it’ll be a celebration of everything that’s great in your relationship. Satchidananda notes there there are many different kinds of love, not just sexual love; he says, “If people want to know each other before marriage, they can become friends. That is how our ancestors lived” (140). Even from my modern feminist perspective, I have to admit he has a point there.

On the topic of sex, Devi recommends the following approach: “Your only desire is to pleasure the other person, and their only desire is to pleasure you. Each is fulfilled and satisfied, and when we are satisfied, we are moderate and balanced” (200). I think this links back to asteya, too – if you’re all “me, me, me” when making love, aren’t you taking the other person’s energy and love without giving back? I like her idea of approaching the act with generosity, not demanding gratification. If you go into the bedroom just wanting your own pleasure, nothing will ever be enough to satisfy you, but if both partners come together just wanting to be generous to each other, they’ll both be happy afterward.

 

The yamas: Asteya April 1, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 3:27 pm
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The third yama is asteya, or non-stealing. This yama encompasses every sort of theft: taking someone else’s possessions, but also stealing their ideas, claiming another person’s work as your own, or accepting bribes and inappropriate gifts. Swami Satchidananda says that just by breathing, we are stealing: the air we breathe belongs to nature, so we should accept each breath with reverence and use it to serve others. The implication is that we should do the same with any wealth or money or goods that come to us: don’t take it for granted, and don’t hoard it away just for yourself, but be grateful for it and then use it for the good of other people. Patanjali writes, “To one established in non-stealing, all wealth comes.” If you use what wealth you have so kindly, it’s understandable that others will return your kindness and wealth will come back to you.

Similarly, Devi defines asteya not as “non-stealing” but as “generosity”. Devi says, “When we don the attitude of caretakers instead of owners, we enjoy things when they come and let them go with ease. It is nature’s rhythm: all things come and all things go” (189).When we can be generous, with our possessions, our money, and our time, then others are more likely to be generous to us in return, but more importantly, we feel happier.

Satchidananda talks about being greedy, wanting to do a little and get a lot. He says, “Many people go to the office and just sit around, use the phone to make their own appointments all day, take free supplies from the supply room, and accept their paycheck at the end of the week. Aren’t they stealing that money?” (133).  Having worked as a summer office temp, I’m not quite ready to give that one a whole-hearted yes – sometimes there just isn’t that much to do at your job. But I see his point: you should do the work that’s given to you to do, do your best to help others in the workplace, find work to keep yourself busy. There’s always something that needs to be done even if it’s not your favorite sort of work to do.

Devi talks about taking someone’s time. If you schedule an appointment with someone, you should arrive in a timely way. Being late steals the other person’s time – you don’t know what she needed to do to rearrange her schedule to meet you here.

I think the time issue is probably where asteya hits closest to home for me. I am not careful enough with my time: I dawdle along too much, try to get one more thing done before I leave, and then I need to rush to get out the door. I almost miss my train, or I drive too fast to make it to my appointment on time. It doesn’t do me any good to get all stressed and flustered, frustrated by the traffic, worried that I’ll be late. It doesn’t do the person I’m meeting any good, either, when I arrive in that state. It’s better for both of us if I can take my time and arrive in a pleasant mood. I want to be more generous with my time for the other person’s sake, and more importantly for my own sake.

Satchidananda also talks about the idea of stealing resources, stealing from the environment. This is something I’ve been trying to work on as well. In our culture, we throw so much away, and I think in this context, creating waste is tantamount to stealing from the earth. Good things have been taken from the earth, and we’re putting back junk. Nobody can fix this problem on her own, but we can all do things to try and make it a little better. My apartment complex doesn’t participate in a recycling program, but rather than saying “oh well”, I save all my recyclables anyway and lug them to my mother’s house a few times a month. I don’t buy bottled water; I have a metal canteen that I refill from the tap. That saves a lot of waste, and it’s healthier for me (I used to refill the plastic bottles, but after a while chemicals leach out of the plastic into the water I’m drinking, which doesn’t happen with a clean metal or glass bottle).

A few years ago, I decided I wasn’t doing enough and made a new year’s resolution to give $25 to charity every month. I could always afford $25, right? It went brilliantly. I never ran out of charities where I could give a meaningful gift: when you’re paying attention, things just suggest themselves. A friend is running in a 5K to benefit cancer research, or another friend mentions how hard it is when her father is ill, or how much she loves the dog she rescued from the shelter. Ding! There’s one more place doing good work that I can help. And during the past few years, sadly, there’s always been an earthquake or natural disaster happening somewhere, and even when there’s no current disaster, Doctors Without Borders is ready to go whenever something happens. That first year, giving just $25 a month was so easy that I usually gave more, so the second year I started giving $50. And my company has a matching gift policy, too, so every single gift I made was doubled. I started to love filling out the matching gift form every month! Instead of getting spent on a latte or a shirt, my money has been out there saving whales, books, arboretums, historic preservation, little children with cleft palates, poetry, the right to choose, and the right to marry; it’s been funding breast cancer research, MS research, Crohn’s and colitis research, leukemia research, AIDS research, and probably some other research too. Taking part in this practice has really made me feel better about my lifestyle and the energy I’m putting back into the world, which seems like what asteya and generosity are all about.

 

Let’s explore that annoyance March 28, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 9:38 pm
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So, the carpet + dog hair + sticky mat issue at the yoga studio (which I mentioned last week) really is driving me nuts.  In the interest of exploring my reactions, getting to know my brain better, and nurturing my yoga lifestyle, I thought to myself, what exactly is it about this situation that’s so maddening? Well, first, I just got this nice new yoga mat, and it happens to be super sticky, so it’s getting all gunked up with hair and crud. Now I cannot use my nice new yoga mat at home, because my father in law is deathly allergic to dogs and we try not to bring animal hair into our home, plus I don’t want to transport this gunk to my floors at home, so I am still using my old mat at home and I only get to use the nice new mat at the studio, where I look at it and don’t feel excited about my nice mat, only annoyed about the ick issue.  I tried the lint roller but it’s just not sufficient for the level of stickiness combined with the level of gunk. So I feel annoyed, and further, I feel indignant – like, why can’t you have hardwood instead of carpet, how often do you vacuum this carpet anyway, why do bring your stupid dogs to the studio – at which point I get derailed, because that isn’t fair, they are nice dogs, N & J are entitled to run their business however they want, there may be any number of reasons why the studio is carpeted, and everyone leaves their shoes by the door so they are at least trying to keep the floor clean. So really what I am feeling is helpless, because I am experiencing a problem and I have no way to resolve that problem (the mat is gross, I can’t effectively clean it, and I can’t change the place where I bring the mat).

But, you know, that’s not really true either. I could vacuum the heck out of the mat when I got it home. I could take that sucker in the shower and hose it off. That would just involve a lot more time than I’m willing to invest in bi-weekly mat care. OK, then, if I cleaned it really well once then I could switch and take the old mat to the studio and use the nice one at home. Which I don’t really want to do either, because (1) the time to spend to get the thing actually clean, and (2) I don’t want to be limited to not using my good mat for the majority of my yoga practice. But I do have options – I just don’t want to explore any of these options. So now I am at the point where I need to either find another option (like buying a second nice mat to use at home) or accepting that the current situation is not going to change for the duration of this program. This should make me feel better: at least now I have considered all my options and concluded that I am not helpless, it is my choice to perpetuate the current situation, and there is a specific time when the problem will end.  But if I choose this last option, that of acceptance, then I need to be at peace about the cleanliness of the mat. Period. I’ll lint-roll it periodically to keep from getting gunk on my feet, but other than that, peace. So why does that seem like the hardest option of all?

 

I’m having an Ahimsa Moment

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 9:35 pm
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Today I had a lot of “Ahimsa Moments.”  Here are some examples:

I hate this stupid weather, it’s too cold out – Ahimsa.
Why is the train so crowded? Oh no, don’t sit next to me… – Ahimsa.
Great, every person on this elevator needs to stop on a different floor, we’re getting a grand freakin’ tour of the building – Ahimsa.
Man, why is it so cold in here today? – Ahimsa.
Yes, Figure 1 is on the first page, but if you’d looked at pages 2 and 3 you’d have found Figures 2 and 3 and not had to ask me this stupid question – Ahimsa.
I’m sending you the art to review. Not like I think you’ll actually review it any time this week. – Ahimsa.
WHY is it so COLD in here?! – Ahimsa.
All these emails, I never get anything done! – Ahimsa.
We’re all here waiting for the train, you don’t need to push – hey, watch it, jerkface – Ahimsa!
Yes, I’m eating pizza for dinner, so there. – Ahimsa.
ACK, I always leave everything to the last minute! – Ahimsa.
I hate getting stuck behind a bus, I’m going to be late! – Ahiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimsa.
I HATE this stupid carpet, it’s like a dog hair magnet, why can’t they have hardwood floors like any other yoga studio – Ahimsa.
Thanks, dude, if you’re going to come in late to class at least shut the door behind you – Ahimsa, ahimsa, ahimsa.

And that’s just a quick survey.  I got cheesed off by so many more trivial things today I can’t even count them all.  And now that I’m trying to pay more attention to my thought patterns, it seems like I’m getting annoyed or frustrated or mad even more than usual.  I know that’s not true (it’s just that noticing it calls more attention to it), but it’s actually still a little scary: this is how my brain usually works, and I experience this level of frustration on a daily basis. I’m not sure how to effect a change. I want to change. I’m hoping that for now, noticing the pattern and calling myself on it will be enough to start.

 

Practical Experiments in Ahimsa and Satya

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 12:58 pm
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Nischala Devi writes the following:

We may stubbornly hold the belief that others cause our problems and inconveniences.  In those situations we may appoint ourselves as their teachers to show them the correct way to act. From that attitude our egos enlarge, leaving us with less room for insight.  If you routinely feel it is the other person’s fault, take another look, this time from a different perspective.  (171)

Reading this really hit home for me because I had a difficult situation last week in my job. Because of all the thinking I’ve been doing on ahimsa and satya, this situation really stuck out to me as an example of how I can change my thinking, how consciously practicing satya and ahimsa (truthfulness and non-violence) can help me to be a calmer person (and a better colleague!).

I work as an editor and project manager, compiling large complex medical books.  I received the page proofs of a chapter that had been very difficult to assemble: the author constantly changing the artwork, which had an adverse affect on the artist’s time to draw the rest of the book; the book’s editor hiring a photographer to reshoot all the surgical images without telling me, sending me many new photos to process after I thought the chapter was done.  Now all that was over and the chapter was in proofs, but because of this history, I already had a negative feeling when I approached the proof.  It wasn’t the proof’s fault, but I still felt negative.

My colleague on this book project, a production manager I’ll call Ed, had sent a note the day before explaining that the author had cut one of the photos from the chapter, causing the rest of the figures to be renumbered.  I thought, Oh, this chapter, always troublesome! So when I opened up the proof, I was ready to find something wrong, and of course I did.  The renumbered figures didn’t match up.  I pulled out the original chapter text and photos and drawings, and went through one by one, double-checking everything and working myself up.  Doesn’t Ed know how to renumber figures?  What kind of production manager is he? I worked for an hour, discovered the problem, wrote a bunch of notes on how to correct it, and then sent it off to Ed and our page designer.

Only then did I notice that Ed had sent an email 20 minutes earlier.  He explained that he’d forgotten to mention that the author had moved a few other figures around.  Of course that accounted for the problem I’d discovered.  Then I got  angry at Ed – if he hadn’t been so neglectful, I wouldn’t have wasted an hour of my time!  I was so angry!  Then I took a closer look at the email he sent the previous day, where he told us about the first figure being renumbered.  He had attached a document showing the new figure numbers for all the images; like Ed had said, he’d neglected to mark on the cover sheet about these other figures being moved, but he’d  numbered all the images themselves in their new order, showing all the changes from the author including the other figures that were moved.  If I had looked at this document, instead of going back to my originals, I would have seen the change, but it never even occurred to me to look at Ed’s document.  He knows how to do his job – why didn’t I trust him?  I’d been too caught up in my own story about how this chapter was troublesome and I was the only organized person in the world.  I had been too focused on being right, being righteous, being in control.  I wasn’t looking at the truth, just making up a story about what I thought the truth would be.

Then, if I hadn’t gotten so worked up about solving the problem, I would have seen Ed’s email before I sent off my own email.  I acted hastily, and then looked like a dummy in front of both Ed and the page designer, because here I was, acting like a savior, going into detail about a problem that Ed had already noticed and pointed out.  I think this had a lot to do with why I got so very angry: my own behavior made me look silly.  Then too, I didn’t have any real reason to be angry with Ed.  He forgot to mention something.  Who doesn’t do that sometimes?  As soon as he noticed the problem, he let us know.  It wasn’t his fault I’d gotten worked up and spent an hour analyzing things.  There was nothing wrong with Ed’s behavior, only with mine.  Which just made me angrier.

I left work for the day and went to the train station.  I was standing there, feeling tense, feeling angry, when up comes my friend Sue.  She’s taking a painting class, and she told me about the project she assigned herself, to go paint her son’s boat once a month for practice.  At the end of this year she’ll have 12 paintings, all of the same boat, but all different because of the seasons, the light, different angles of viewing the boat, and Sue’s own improving technique.  So we talked about painting, and about boats, and Sue is such a sweet gentle person that I couldn’t stay angry while I was talking to her.  So I let the anger go, and listened to my friend.

 

Ahimsa and Satya, part 2 March 27, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 7:05 pm
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I want to reflect a little bit on how I practice (or fail to practice!) satya and ahimsa in myself.

Sometimes in the past I’ve found it difficult to be honest with myself.  Maybe I know deep down that things aren’t going the way I want them to, but I tell myself that everything’s fine and press on.  If I keep working at it, the results I want will happen eventually, right?  But maybe it would be better to take an honest look at the situation and make another choice.  By telling myself that everything’s fine, I deprive myself of the opportunity to change things, and potentially put myself deeper in a bad situation.

Or maybe I’ve made a mistake, broken something or forgotten something or said something I shouldn’t have.  Then I tell myself what a bad mistake it was, I always do these things and that’s why I’ll never be able to succeed.  Then I start on a downward spiral: clearly this mistake means that I’m a bad person.  Clearly I’m overweight, I’m lazy, I’ll never get things right.  Ten minutes later I’m ready to cry and can’t imagine why anyone would want to spend time with me.  (This whole thing really perplexes my husband: he asks what I want for dinner and I burst into tears, because he’s always so nice and asks what I want, and a terrible person like me doesn’t deserve such a wonderful husband!)

Now, maybe some of the things I’ve told myself are true, but certainly not all of them, and even though I did make a mistake, I don’t deserve to be punished like that by anyone, especially myself.  I find it hardest to be forgiving to myself – I can always forgive a friend, and when I’m the one who’s messed up, my friends and family never fail to forgive me and reassure me.  Yet I’ll worry over this mistake, which my friends already forgave me for, and be unable to let it go.  Why can’t I treat myself like my own friend?

When I get into patterns like this, I’m not acting with either satya or ahimsa, and I’m hoping that practicing the yamas will help me deal with this bad habit. While it may be true that I did something wrong, satya doesn’t demand that I reprimand myself repeatedly.  Satya demands only that I recognize and acknowledge the error.  If I’m practicing satya, then I should keep the error in perspective: I only forgot to throw in the laundry, for goodness sake, it’s not the end of the world.  Blowing things up out of proportion and taking them out of context is dishonest.  Then, once I practice satya and acknowledge that I was wrong, ahimsa tells me to let it go.  Hanging onto it does violence to my spirit, and I hurt myself over and over.  Making one mistake does not make me a bad person, or an undesirable or unlovable person.  Dwelling on these things, spiraling down until I feel like I am unlovable: that’s harmful to me.

So what can I do to change this habit?  First, I need to recognize what’s happening while it’s happening.  I need to say to myself, hey, I made a mistake.  I admit I shouldn’t have played video games all night, I should have called my mother, I should have cleaned the bathroom, I forgot to stop at the store.  I was wrong.  People make mistakes sometimes, but that’s okay.  Sometimes it helps me to make a new plan to make up for the mistake: it’s late at night now so I can’t fix it today, but I’ll stop at the store during my lunch break tomorrow.  And then – it’s over!  I need to stop thinking about it at this point.  Go for a walk, do some yoga, wash some dishes, bake some cookies, complete another task that needs to get done that I can accomplish today.  Or even just find a funny show to watch on TV.  Take my mind away from the pattern, and move on to something else.  Although it may be hard to act with love toward myself in that moment, I can step away from that moment and try to find a new moment when caring for myself is more possible.