Rox Does Yoga

Yoga, Wellness, and Life

The Four Duties of a Yogi August 1, 2011

Filed under: yoga,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 8:23 am
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At our last teacher training session, we talked about the four duties of a yogi. These duties are not for renunciates or monks but for householder yogis, yogis in the world like us. Here they are, in order:

  1. Yourself.
  2. Family.
  3. Work.
  4. Community/society/nation.

What do you think about that order? Does it seem selfish to put yourself first? This is something that many people struggle with. “My family has to come first in everything,” someone might say. But really think about it. Putting others first is a concept that many of us, especially women, have taken to heart as our duty. We’re constantly giving everything we’ve got – driving kids to soccer practice, staying late at the office, making time to help your husband with a project or to visit your in-laws, but never making time for yourself. And when you don’t make time to take care of yourself, you can get burnt out or even sick. It doesn’t have to be a lot of time. It can be something as simple as making sure you get to yoga class once a week, getting up early for some private time in the morning, getting to bed early to get a good night’s sleep, or treating yourself to a pedicure or a bubble bath. It could be scheduling that long overdue doctor’s appointment, getting your teeth cleaned, going for a massage: taking care of your own health so you don’t get sick or hurt. Whatever it is for you, it will help you to relax, recharge, and stay healthy. And when you’re healthy and you have a lot of energy, you have so much more to give to your family, work, church or community. If you take care of yourself first, you’ll be able to serve others with more energy and joy.

Compare that to when you’re feeling burnt out – how long does it take you to get back on an even keel? We can rarely give up our duties entirely for a vacation (and even a vacation away from home involves making travel plans, caring for the kids, worrying over the budget, etc). Sometimes, when we keep on putting others before ourselves, we get so run down that we become sick, our bodies forcing us to take a break, and even then we’ll still keep pushing on, going to the office instead of getting the rest we need. And really, what’s so important at the office? Things at the office will go on without you just fine, or things will wait until you’re feeling better. There are few things so important that you need to attend to them while you’re sick. Give both your body and your ego a rest and take care of yourself.

By caring for ourselves first, we can stay healthier, avoiding getting sick and rundown in the first place. By taking care of ourselves, we have more energy, more balance, and are happier and fuller in ourselves, meaning we have more to give to the people we love. The ancient yogis realized that when you take care of yourself first, everybody wins.

 

Yardwork Meditation July 21, 2011

Filed under: meditation,reflections — R. H. Ward @ 2:20 pm
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When F and I were first talking about buying a house, doing yardwork was one of the things I was least looking forward to. I’d never mowed a lawn in my life – my parents’ next door neighbor when I was a kid was an old guy who just liked to mow, so they let him have at it. Ever since moving out of my parents’ house for college, my idea of yardwork has been repotting a houseplant. Then we bought a house with a big backyard – a house that hadn’t been lived in for over a year, and before that had been owned by an older man in poor health. To say that the yard was in need of attention was an understatement: the lawn hadn’t been mowed in weeks, the bushes were determinedly trying to take over the front walk, the rose bushes had been engulfed by weeds for so long that the weeds had grown into 15-foot weed trees, and the ivy was everywhere. As a housewarming gift, my parents bought us a lawn mower and a weedwacker (among other things) and lent us their hedge trimmers, and… we got to work.

My first try at mowing the lawn was surprisingly satisfying: getting all the little clumps, making the lines straight and even, mowing around all the obstacles. Going after the weed trees was even better – clipping and chopping and hacking until we found the fence under there! (It’s a six foot fence. I’m serious, weed trees.) I spent close to two hours on Sunday turning the huge bushes out front into smooth, neat hedges again, even though my arms hurt from the vibrations of the hedge trimmers. And after each yardwork session, we bag up all the clippings and take them out to the curb.

It struck me that meditation is a lot like yardwork, and yardwork can be a form of meditation. When I’m doing yardwork, I’m completely focused on the task in front of me – the sort of one-pointed concentration I strive for in my meditation practice. In yardwork, you can see immediate results – the weeds are gone, the lawn mowed – similar to the calm feeling you may get at the end of a meditation practice, but the real satisfaction, I imagine, comes in taking good care of your lawn in the long term, planting your garden and watching it grow. This too is like meditation, where the practice we do now sets the stage for future growth. Maybe in meditation you discover something unexpected, like the wasps’ nest I found under the second hedge on the right. (I’m not dealing with the wasps’ nest yet, but it’s sure good to know it’s there!) And, finally, you don’t have to be particularly good at yardwork to be successful, just like in meditation. Whether you’re a professional lawn care expert or a newbie like me, at the end of the day, the grass is shorter. All you have to do is show up and do the work.

 

Meditation Round-Up July 15, 2011

Filed under: checking in,meditation — R. H. Ward @ 1:32 pm
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This month has been incredibly challenging on a personal level. Two days after our last teacher training weekend ended, my husband and I bought our first house, and since then, we’ve either been packing, moving, arranging for repairs, spending hours looking for tools we never needed before at Lowe’s, learning how to do yard work, and just plain settling in. I haven’t had any time for reading other than when I’m on the train to and from the office, and my personal yoga practice has suffered too. Add to that the fact that this was a short yoga month with just three weeks between teacher training weekend sessions, so it’s been difficult for me to complete all my homework this month, and with all the chaos, difficult to see whether the meditation was having any effect in my life.

However, I do feel like I’ve made some progress with meditation this month. I have meditated every single day: even if I was just sitting down for four minutes in a room full of boxes, I still did it. Most days, I was able to do a little yoga or basic stretching before meditation, and every day I’ve done some sort of pranayama before meditation. I feel really glad that I’ve been able to make this a priority.

During this month, I’ve practiced either counting meditation or passage meditation. When I know I only have a few minutes, counting meditation has been a good option because it only takes a few minutes to count down from fifty; it’s like a built-in timer. For the most part, I have been able to keep my mind relatively on track during counting meditation; I’ve had some distractions, but never so much that I lose my place in the count. I’ve become amazed by how many thoughts I’m able to have between exhales! Staying focused on the breath and the count is difficult, especially with so many tasks on my mind this month, but I’ve mostly been able to stick with it.

I’ve also practiced passage meditation. With so little time available to read spiritual books or to meditate at all, I chose a line from a Rumi poem as my passage and have just stuck with that – it’s short enough that I feel like I can get somewhere with it in the few minutes I have available to meditate, but long enough that there’s good spiritual content to get somewhere with. Meditating on the passage has been interesting in different ways. Occasionally I’ve caught myself daydreaming in the background while the words of the passage float on the surface; once I found myself getting sleepy and substituting in other words and images that weren’t part of the passage. Overall, though, I find the passage technique to be really helpful for me in relaxing my mind and having something to focus on. The passage technique has also led me to consider different interpretations of my passage. For example, it occurred to me that one phrase that I had thought was about worship could just as easily be about service; I realized that another phrase that I’d thought was about natural physical beauty could also be interpreted as being about kindness. These realizations have carried beyond my meditation practice and led me to consider how I practice service and kindness in my life.

I’ve also found myself thinking about more spiritual topics this month. Usually when I’m moving, I get very caught up in the physical tasks that need to be done, and I have been caught up in those things, but I’ve also been thinking about more spiritual concepts. For example, I reflected on patience: how slowing down is mentioned in almost every text we’ve read, and how slowing down and being patient can help us in our daily lives. I also did some thinking about striving for excellence, and reflecting on how teacher training has influenced my thoughts, opinions, and actions in this realm. My reading in the yoga sutras this month has also affected my spiritual reflections. I’ve also been thinking a lot about practicing non-attachment (especially as I pack all my worldly possessions into boxes and carry them around).

Overall, in spite of all the personal challenges in my life this month, I feel good about the time I was able to create in my schedule for meditation practice, and I’m happy about the progress I’ve made. I look forward to continuing the journey.

 

Yoga philosophy in practice: dealing with shadows of the past July 14, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 1:32 pm
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The other day I was confronted by a photo of an old boyfriend/crush. One of my Facebook friends still keeps in touch with this guy, and had posted a group picture from a recent event. I have to tell you, he looked good. He got taller since high school, for one thing, and he’s obviously been working out (it’s summer, so no shirt in the photo). He grew into a nice-looking man. I found myself feeling a little regretful and wanting to post a comment on the picture where he would see it.

This sort of thing happens to us all the time, whether it’s somebody popping up online or whether you run into him at the grocery store (of course while wearing your grungiest sweatpants and with spinach in your teeth). Or maybe it’s not an old flame but a former friend who did you wrong, or that girl who always beat you at everything from classroom grades to homecoming court. When people we had strong feelings about in the past resurface in our lives, it can bring up a lot of those old feelings. How do we respond when these situations arise?

First, I try to practice satya, or truthfulness. When I saw that photo, why did I feel regretful? Where did the impulse to contact him come from? Well, thinking back, he was the one who broke things off with me. Part of me wants him to see how well I’m doing, see how great I look, maybe feel a little regretful himself. See what you missed, Mr. Blast-from-the-Past! But that’s kind of vengeful, isn’t it? And when I examine that impulse to get in touch with him, I have to question what the motivation is. Hello, happily married now! I obviously don’t want to date him again. From what I’ve seen, it looks like he grew up into a genuinely interesting person, someone I would have liked to have had as a friend, but if I try to think about it realistically, that would be pretty weird. There are plenty of other genuinely interesting people out there whom I’m also not friends with, and it would probably be better all the way around if I tried to meet some of them if I want a new friend. Plus, I mean, I really like my life. My life isn’t missing anything by the lack of this person’s presence.

Now I’ve examined my feelings and I see that, although the feelings themselves are a valid response to the situation, there’s no need to act on them or reach out to this person. The next step is to practice non-attachment. I’ve recognized that I still have some feelings bound up in my past relationship with this person, and maybe it’s time to let that go. I’ll never truly know how he felt about me back in the day or what, if anything, he thinks of me now. That’s okay. I might selfishly wish to know that, but I accept that I never will. I need to try to let go of my attachment to the things that occurred in the past. At the time, I wasn’t happy with the outcome, and I would have liked to change it, but looking back, the things that happened all those years ago led me to becoming who I am today. If things had gone differently in the past, I might not have ended up where I am now, and that would truly be something to regret.

Once we let go of the past, we can try to let go of our attachment to results as well. For me, I don’t ever expect to contact this guy or to hear from him. That’s a part of my life that’s over, and I do wish him well. Instead of feeling regretful when I see a picture of him on Facebook, instead I can decide that I’ll be glad to see him looking happy and enjoying his own life. Namaste, dude. Maybe you’re in a similar situation, but after examining things you decide you will reach out and contact the person. At that point, you can let go of the results too. Maybe he or she will write you back, and maybe they won’t, but you did what you needed to do and now you can move on. Employing some yogic philosophy can help us deal with these situations more maturely and come away feeling more satisfied, not just with the situation itself, but with our own behavior too.

 

Letting the beauty we love be what we do July 11, 2011

Filed under: meditation,reflections — R. H. Ward @ 2:04 pm
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My meditation practice this morning reminded me always to act with love and kindness no matter what’s going on. I’ve been practicing the “passage meditation” technique that Eknath Easwaran describes in his book; the passage I’m working on right now is a line from a Rumi poem. The passage reads:

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

I chose this passage because for some reason it moved me very deeply, and meditating on the passage has been both pleasant and instructive. Until this morning, I had been thinking about “the beauty we love” as external sensory beauty, like a song or a sunset, and I’d been interpreting the poem as saying that we should try to incorporate the feeling of that beauty into our daily lives. Today, repeating the line to myself, I realized that “the beauty we love” can also mean simply kindness, gentleness, and peacefulness, and that when we love these things, they can become a part of “what we do”.

F and I have been in the middle of moving for the past two weeks; it has been grueling and stressful and messy, and exhausting both physically and mentally. In the midst of all that, it’s easy for me to become grumpy, but instead I want to try to cultivate gratitude: gratitude that we were able to buy a nice house, gratitude that we had a beautiful apartment for the past two years and the means to fill it with so much cool stuff, gratitude that I’m doing this with an amazingly wonderful partner, gratitude for the good friends who carried heavy boxes when they were expressly told they wouldn’t have to carry heavy boxes, and gratitude for our parents, who take us shopping at Lowe’s for home improvement materials and freely give their time and energy to help us.

When I am tired and sweaty and filthy, and itchy from my dozen bug bites and the thick layer of bug repellent chemicals on my skin, and annoyed at the fact that the seller didn’t disclose that our yard is apparently some sort of wildlife sanctuary for virulent nasty little bastard insects, I can work on being grateful to have a big yard and strong arms to work with. (I’m working on practicing ahimsa towards the bugs, but that’s a little harder.) When I can’t stop thinking about the million things I need to do this week, at home and at the office and to prepare for my upcoming yoga weekend, I need to practice acceptance of the fact that the train broke down and there’s nothing I can do about it but sit there on the broken train and wait, and practice non-attachment to the results. It doesn’t do any good to blame myself for not getting ready in time for the early train, or for not planning better or packing better; I am where I am right now, and blaming and whining won’t do me any good, but making the best of things will make me more content with the situation. In all of this, I’ll get there when I get there. In the meantime, I can try to make my chaotic, messy life into something beautiful by my actions.

 

Pratyahara and Non-Attachment July 3, 2011

Filed under: reflections,yoga lifestyle,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 1:39 pm
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One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is pratyahara, the drawing-in of the senses. When we practice pratyahara, we refuse to let our senses make our decisions for us. So often, our senses will identify something they like and want more of it. That pizza tastes good! I like watching this show! It’s comfortable to relax on the couch! and so we eat more pizza, we watch two more episodes of Doctor Who, and we curl up on the couch for four hours. The problem is not in any one of those things in themselves. It’s fine to eat pizza sometimes, and Doctor Who is probably my favorite show. The issue arises when I’m not making my decision for myself but rather letting my senses make the decision. Two or three slices of pizza is great, but I don’t need to eat the whole pie, and I don’t need to order another pizza tomorrow. When I let myself binge out on something, I’m not consciously making that decision but rather allowing my senses to overdose on things that I like. Practicing pratyahara means that maybe I have some pizza today, but not every day, and I have a side salad or maybe go jogging afterwards; it means that I watch one episode of Doctor Who, but then I get up off the couch and start my evening routine so I can be in bed on time and get a good night’s sleep. If I make decisions consciously, then I will be taking better care of myself.

Non-attachment goes hand in hand with pratyahara. When our senses get used to having their way all the time, they begin to crave the things they like. When I haven’t had any pizza for a few days, I start to feel it. I WANT pizza. If somebody in my office gets pizza for lunch, the smell wafts over and I get all jittery and want it so badly. If I let my senses be in charge, I’d be running for the elevator, walking down to my favorite pizza shop, and trying to justify it because after all I did get the veggie slice. Practicing non-attachment, though, allows me to separate myself from that craving. I take a minute and think, do I really need pizza today? The craving doesn’t run my life, I do not NEED a slice of pizza right now, and I have a perfectly good lunch in the fridge waiting for me.

When we practice non-attachment with the objects in our lives, we can still enjoy things, still go shopping, still have stuff, but all those things don’t run our lives. We’re able to clean out our closets and take the old clothes to Goodwill. We’re able to lend out our books without stressing out about when or if we’ll get them back. If a vase gets broken, oh well, there are plenty more vases. If your husband eats the ice cream you were saving for Saturday, it’s not a big deal. Any one of those things could be upsetting or frustrating, but if you’re practicing non-attachment, you can come at the situation more calmly, with a little bit of distance that allows you to see things more clearly. Your husband didn’t know you were saving that ice cream; whoever broke the vase feels terribly about it. Having a little distance allows you to choose how you’ll react, so that rather than just yelling, you can choose to treat the other person with kindness and make a bad situation better instead of worse.

What are some ways you know to take control of your senses, rather than letting them rule over you? How do you cultivate non-attachment in your daily life?

 

Meditation progress: five days July 1, 2011

Filed under: meditation,reflections — R. H. Ward @ 9:12 am
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For all of May and a lot of June, things were really up in the air in my life. All the upheaval affected my home practice of yoga in a big way. Even once things began to calm down, I think I still used it as an excuse, a little bit. Also, I typically used to practice yoga at home in the morning before work; now that I’m doing the teacher training program, I have to go to the studio at least once a week, which means skipping my morning practice and going to work early so I can leave the office early and get to the studio. Doing that throws my schedule off for the day, but I’ve also been letting it throw my whole week off.

Last month, I managed to do my pranayama breathing practice almost every day, but I could never get into a rhythm with it; I kept realizing at the very end of the day that I hadn’t done my pranayama yet. At least I was doing it, but I always felt like things would go better if I could have a regular schedule.

For the past five days, I have practiced my pranayama and meditation every morning. I also practiced yoga on four of those mornings. I started the week feeling really pumped up and excited about my commitment to my new schedule. Today I feel less like that.

On Monday, I had taken a personal day from work, so I had a 40 minute yoga asana practice. I worked on some savasana relaxation techniques, did all my pranayama breathing, and meditated for four minutes. Really felt calm and content afterwards.

On Tuesday I squeezed in a 20 minute yoga asana practice, which is better than nothing, did an abbreviated version of my pranayama breathing, practiced yoni mudra (which is a pratyahara thing I’ll post more about later), and meditated for 4:30. I felt distracted during the meditation, like my mind was drifting a lot. I think I might have been trying to shove too many activities into one practice.

On Wednesday I skipped yoga asana because I had to get to work early. Did an abbreviated version of pranayama breathing, practiced yoni mudra, and found that meditation is more difficult without some yoga stretching first, because my back hurt all through my meditation practice.

Thursday, I did 20 minutes of yoga asana, all my pranayama breathing, and tried passage meditation for the first time (based on the book I’m currently reading: basically, you meditate on a brief passage from inspirational literature). I loved it and the time went by really quickly.

Today, I had time to practice, but I only did 30 minutes of yoga asana and an abbreviated pranayama breathing practice. I started off strongly with meditation, but when my alarm went off at the end of 5:30 minutes, I realized I had dozed off. I was still saying my passage in my head, but I was mixing it up with other things and all kind of dreamy stuff was drifting in. I got up from meditation feeling sleepy and heavy and unrefreshed.

This morning, I staggered back to the bedroom after my sleepy meditation, feeling bad and upset and like I would never be able to succeed at this thing. Looking back over my journal and typing it all up now, though, I can see that I had a mostly successful week of meditation: a lot of good experiences.

I think that this week has just caught up with me today. The reason I took a personal day on Monday is because we bought a house and we had our settlement on Monday; we’ve been either been packing or over at the house every night this week. I have slept really well all week, but I don’t know if that’s being tired or if it’s the meditation helping me calm my mind. Maybe a little of both?

My hope for this month is that I can keep up with the good habits I started this week. Mr. Easwaran writes in Passage Meditation that when you are the busiest, you need meditation the most, to help you deal with all the things in your life. He also writes that missing even one day of meditation can really set you back, and that you should persevere and keep at it no matter what happens. So that’s what I’m going to try to do this month. We will be moving into our new house, dealing with repairs and settling in and tons and tons of yardwork, so we’ll see if meditation can carry me through all that.

 

Pranayama Round-up, part 2 June 23, 2011

Filed under: breath,reflections — R. H. Ward @ 1:50 pm
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Seated Meditation

Back to pranayama: the continuation of my post from Tuesday.

Alternate nostril breathing: I found this breathing technique to be the most difficult and the one I least wanted to practice. Now that I use Flonase spray and a Neti pot regularly, I get more and better airflow through my nostrils than I ever have before in my life, but alternate nostril breathing still somehow made me feel like a stuffed-up kid with a cold. One nostril almost always felt very clogged, and practicing the breathing technique never seemed to help; it usually seemed to make the clog more pronounced. Usually by the end of nine rounds of alternate nostril breathing, I feel like I’m gasping through my clogged nostril, and it’s always a relief to breathe normally again. This technique was not enjoyable to practice and never really got better over the course of the month. On a practical level, I often found it difficult to remember where I was in my breath count, too, which of course is a sign that my mind isn’t quiet enough, but I still found it hard to count the rounds of breath accurately until I started counting on my fingers. I know that I should persevere and continue practicing alternate nostril breathing, but without it being an actual assignment, I’m not sure that I will.

Summary: Overall, I did enjoy the pranayama exercises this month. Some of the techniques were physically difficult, and as always I had trouble calming my mind and keeping it calm, but I did enjoy the practice and often found time to incorporate it naturally into my day (although pranayama is much harder to do in tight jeans). Practicing before bed seemed to help me to sleep better, or at least it helped me fall asleep more quickly. Also, and most importantly, I think the pranayama practice improved my overall mood this month. A lot of good things have happened in my personal life this month, but also some stressful things (like buying a house) and not-so-good things (like a car accident and my husband being injured after a fall). I think ordinarily under such circumstances I would be more stressed out, more worried, and more tense, but this month I’ve mostly been pretty serene, and I’ve been able to be a good support to my husband. In the kitchen the other day, he told me that I seemed really happy and together lately. The cause of that positive energy could be the many good things that have happened counter-balancing the stressful things; it could also be the warm weather, since I know I am always happier in summer and sunshine; but it could also be the pranayama practice. It might be a combination of all of these, which seems most likely. Since it’s very possible that the pranayama is helping me to be a calmer, happier person, I don’t really want to take a chance and stop doing it! I’m glad to have one more tool in my arsenal to help me deal with stress (and with cold and bad weather when the time comes again). I will do my best to keep finding time for pranayama practice, even alternate nostril breathing.

 

Ayurveda: what’s it all about? June 14, 2011

Filed under: yoga lifestyle — R. H. Ward @ 1:49 pm
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One of my assignments this month was to complete an ayurvedic questionnaire and explore the results. My first response was, wait, back up, what’s ayurveda?

Ayurveda is an alternative form of medicine traditional in India, with a history going back thousands of years. It’s a system of healthful, mindful living based on the concept of balancing three elemental energies called doshas: vata (air/wind), pitta (fire/water), and kapha (water/earth). Ayurveda holds that each person has different levels of these three doshas, and poor health comes from an imbalance in the doshas. Balancing the doshas, in a unique way for each individual, will lead to better health. This balance can be accomplished by focusing on diet (to improve metabolic system, digestion, and excretion), exercise, yoga, meditation, and even massage. In balancing the doshas and living in moderation, it’s thought that the body, mind, and spirit will also come into balance, improving the health of the whole person.

Each person has a unique distribution of the three doshas. Each person has some of each, but often one or two doshas are more abundant; by examining your physical attributes and personality (for example, in a quiz like this one), you can find out which is your dominant dosha. Your dosha levels can fluctuate, affecting mood and health, which is why it can be helpful to bring them back into alignment and balance! I took N’s ayurvedic questionnaire and came up almost equal in vata and pitta, with a very low level of kapha by comparison.

Vata, the air or wind element, is characterized physically by a thin, delicate body type with low body fat. A vata person is sensitive, jumpy or unable to sit still, easily overwhelmed, flighty, often runs late, easily confused. A vata dominant person who is well-balanced will demonstrate the most positive traits of this type: sharp, quick thinking, creative, while an unbalanced vata person could experience gas, bloating, lack of focus, spaciness, dry skin, nervousness, sleeplessness, and worry. A vata should avoid low-fat, raw, or cold foods in favor of warm, heavier foods.

The pitta element combines fire and water. Physically, a pitta type is medium-framed and well-proportioned; personality traits include being focused, organized, “type A”, workaholic. A pitta person tends to need to eat regularly and gets cranky when she misses a meal. When balanced, pittas are productive, organized, energetic, enthusiastic; unbalanced, pittas become agitated, irritable, and overly competitive and may experience diarrhea, rashes, and perspiration. Pittas should avoid overly spicy foods and red meat, choosing sweeter foods.

Finally, kaphas are earth and water types: physically larger or big-boned, not necessarily overweight but able to gain weight easily, and can be powerful athletes when in shape. Kaphas are grounded, stable, solid, slower moving, sensual. Balanced kaphas are reliable, dependable, calm, even-tempered, and peacemakers, while unbalanced kaphas can be lethargic, depressed, dull and sluggish, congested, and overweight. Kaphas should avoid fatty and heavy foods, dairy, and red meat, and choose lighter grains and proteins.

I think my results are pretty accurate. There were a few questions I could have answered differently, but doing so wouldn’t have changed the overall balance. I have a lot of vata and pitta characteristics. At my best I have the quickness and creativity of vata and the focus, organization, and productivity of the pitta. At my worst, I get the vata’s spaciness, dry skin, nervousness, lack of focus, and worry, and the pitta’s irritability and rashes. I definitely have the pitta need to eat regular meals (as F’s family can attest; I’ve started packing snacks for myself when we visit because they just don’t seem to eat on a schedule!). The food recommendations for vata and pitta are a little contradictory (the above is just a summary) but on both lists I see things that really appeal to me and that I’ve been naturally drawn to: lighter proteins, creamy soups, mashed sweet potatoes (vata), and fresh lime, dark leafy greens, sweet vegetables (pitta). My yoga teacher N is an ayurvedic practitioner, and I’m considering having a session with her to look at these things more closely.

Interestingly, I made F take the questionnaire with me, and he came up almost completely balanced among the three doshas. Looking at the descriptions, F has many characteristics of each dosha: he’s stronger in vata and kapha than pitta, but all three were within four points of each other. I’m not entirely sure what to make of that. Apparently I have a well-balanced husband.

 

Soaring on Two Wings June 13, 2011

Filed under: books,reflections,yoga philosophy — R. H. Ward @ 2:27 pm
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A few months back, I was doing some yoga reading and came across the idea of having “two wings” to support you in your practice. In the February 2011 issue of Yoga Journal, Stacey Mietus writes about re-learning yoga after a serious injury (page 20). Mietus had been practicing yoga in a competitive way, always trying aggressively to improve her postures, but after hurting her neck she had to find a new approach. She quotes as an inspiration B.K.S. Iyengar, who wrote, “A bird cannot fly with one wing. In the same way, we need the two wings of practice and renunciation to soar.” Mietus had been practicing hard, but to keep herself healthy, she had to learn to balance with renunciation: not comparing herself with others, not judging herself when her body needed to rest. Her injury forced her to back off and take a new, gentler approach; now she strives to practice with both wings to stay balanced.

I read Mietus’s story in Yoga Journal while riding the train home from work. Later that same day, I settled down with the book The Joy of Living by Tibetan Buddhist monk Yongey Mingur Rinpoche for a little bedtime reading, and I was surprised to see Rinpoche bring up the very same idea of flying on two wings! He uses the concept in relation to Buddhist practice and study. The teachings of Buddha are often grouped into two categories: teachings on wisdom, and teachings on practice. Rinpoche tells us that Buddha himself compared these two categories to the wings of a bird, because you need both in order to fly.  Without wisdom, you can’t practice properly; without practice, you may be wise but the wisdom does you no good.

Although yoga isn’t a Buddhist practice, Rinpoche’s description of the two wings in Buddhism has much in common with Mietus’s experience with yoga. Rather than putting all her energy into simply practicing hard, she needed to examine her yoga practice and approach it with more wisdom to avoid hurting herself.

Reading about the two wings in two disparate books on the same day really struck me – clearly this is something I ought to be thinking about! I like to practice yoga in a physically challenging way, but unless I am mindful in my practice, my yoga becomes only a workout without satisfying me in a spiritual way. On the other hand, right now my life is so busy that I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about yoga but don’t have much time to actually practice yoga on my mat. I crave both the mindfulness and knowledge as well as the physical practice, and I’m happiest when I have these in balance. Similarly, I often read books like Rinpoche’s about Buddhism, but until I sit down and practice meditation, the knowledge I gain from the book won’t do me any good. The practice and the knowledge go hand in hand.

In our busy world, it’s often difficult to strike a balance. What are the two wings that sustain you, and how do you keep them balanced?