Ganesha Sharanam

Do you like to sing? Would you like to try Indian-style call-and-response devotional singing, or kirtan? Alicia Patrice and the Sacramento band Radiant Friend would be the ones to search out.

Alicia and another of the band gave us, the yoga teacher trainees, a taste of kirtan recently.  In no time we were immersed in singing, accompanied by harmonium and doumbek.

The chant rang out: "Ganesha Sharanam." We were singing the name of Ganesha -- for which we have no American cultural referent. Alicia read us a charming version of the mythological story of Ganesha, son of Parvati; how he acquired his elephant head; his place in the Hindu pantheon as the remover of obstacles.

So, we'd gotten a bit of orientation as to the meaning of the Sanskrit words. But for us, the meaning really lay in the energy of singing and the subtle, joyful effects it brought.

My first yoga teacher was a great kirtan singer, and obviously considered it to be a part of the curriculum. I had loved to sing in church choirs, being a little Methodist girl and all. More than the Methodist theology, I loved the energy of the hymns. Kirtan multiplied that energy wonderfully. I just felt such pure joy.

Gradually I learned some meanings to the phrases that we sang. Enough to remember that Ganesha Sharanam means "Ganesha, refuge."

Gradually I evolved a cross-cultural approach to kirtan. Certainly in life we all, at some times at least, understand the need for a refuge. Sometimes we literally, desperately need a specific refuge . . . Whether I sang in Sanskrit during a kirtan, or sang in English during a hymn sing, I came to understand that for me, the energy of the singing connects me to my deepest experiences of refuge, of Presence, of The One.

So, with enthusiasm, let the singing ring out, let the kirtan go on. Jai!

Who are your people?

"Who are your people?" was the question put to our trainee class to encourage us to consider who we would like to be teaching / sharing with.

"When you finish your yoga class are you going to open a studio?" asked a friend the other day.

Citing twin lacks, those of experience and of ambition, I told her that my interest is really to share with friends. I've had at least some connection with some aspect of yoga since 1972, so I've experienced for meself that yoga can be mighty positive. What I'm learning in this course gives me confidence that I do have something to share with others.

So, who are my people and who are those friends? Thinking of two groups . . .

For one, I spend a lot of time with my music buddies. We sit and practice both solo and together, we sit in cars driving to rehearsals and gigs, we sometimes lift heavy stuff setting up and taking down at those gigs, and then we sit more driving home. We use lots of repetitive motion playing our instruments. All that adds up to many things that yoga can help with: antidotes to the excessive sitting, to that repetitive motion, and to some under-stress breathing for starters.

I also spend a lot of time with another set of friends -- people that I used to call my students. They were my  students in late 2013 when I first met them as I began tutoring English as a Second Language in the Sacramento Library Literacy Program. And for sure they were beginners with English; all of them had arrived in California earlier that year.

A historical digression. When I first taught ESL, in the 1970s, most of my students were Hispanic, the majority from Mexico. When I next taught, in the 1980s, I specialized in ESL Literacy, because most of the students -- Hmong folks from Laos -- did not read or write in their first language.  Returning to now, my current group of learners (I didn't teach ESL for a couple of decades) arrived from Iraq with official refugee status. 

I used to call them my students; now I call them friends, and it's me that is the student. I'm learning what constitutes the mid East refugee experience. It's a potent mix of relief -- for having made it through the many barriers to settling in a new country -- and super stress -- in the tasks of raising children and finding livelihoods as strangers in a strange land. Adding to the stress are the residual effects of past traumas that began when houses shook as the bombing of Baghdad began on March 19, 2013. Plus the fact that "back home" is a simple cell phone call away -- with all the news of the continuing disintegration of Iraq and the attendant worry about safety of family.

I've starting sharing some yoga with my Iraqi friends,  and although I will probably never be qualified to list all the specific stressors that they are carrying,  I do know that yoga is a powerful stress lessener.

And, bottom line, hanging out with any friends, over a new tune, or over a cup of tea and an ESL textbook, or on a yoga mat -- is just plain fun.

Breathe into [insert body part here]

This post is a follow-up to the one titled Breathe Into Your DNA.

I would like to quote from a wonderful article by Kat Heagberg found at the Yoga International website, titled "Six Things I Don’t Say in Yoga Class Anymore"

I believe that Heagberg has found the golden sweet spot between suggesting distracting visualizations and not suggesting anything at all. 

The instructions she suggests giving are anatomically realistic while serving to direct students' attention.

In other words, she has discovered visualizations which are not distracting, but actually useful.

[Another cue I no long give is:] “Breathe into your right little toe.”

 Or your left hip. Or your lower back. Or anywhere other than your lungs.

As a practitioner, I actually really like cues like this. They help me to bring my attention to (and often release unconsciously held tension from) the parts of my body that could generally use a little more attention. That’s why I used to give them often. But eventually, after receiving some helpful student feedback, I learned that “breathe into [insert body part here]” isn’t a cue that works for everyone.

For one thing, some students will automatically think Oh my God, does she really think you can breathe into your little toe? I’m far from an anatomy expert, but I’d rather my students rest assured that, as their teacher, I at least know enough about the human body to understand that they can’t actually, physically breathe air down into their pinky toes. And even if they’re not scrutinizing my anatomy and physiology credentials, for other students this is simply a confusing, abstract instruction that can be easily misunderstood, ignored, or worse, can make them alienated, like they're "not advanced enough" to be in this yoga class.

If you (like I) really like this cue, you might find that a version that’s slightly less, well, literal-sounding is easier for more students to grasp—like “breathe as though you could breathe right into your right little toe.” Or even “bring your attention to your right little toe."

Breath mechanics aside, perhaps the most important lesson I learned when I discovered that an instruction I often gave was confusing for a lot of my students was this: Just because I enjoy or benefit from a certain cue, it doesn’t mean that everyone else will find that particular cue helpful. 

Notes on hearing an interview with Sharon Salzburg

Here are highlights from notes on this insightful interview. I can see why Sharon Salzburg is a respected teacher; the comments were gentle, compassionate, human. There is a lot to reflect on here. Taking and reporting the notes is a beginning.

• Rather than hate the "bad wolf" aspect of our human nature, be gentle, offer a cup of tea, and gently let go. This is our choice and the power of our choice. Really, how to metaphorically 'offer a cup of tea'? I might couple that with a bit of interrogation: "Ms Wolfie, tell me how you are planning to contribute to the situation?" 
• Loving Kindness in essence is the sense of connectedness between living things. 
• Loving Kindness is also the strength to recognize the connectedness of all beings and to respond from that place. 
• Compassion, the "feeling with" of others' pain, includes discrimination and the ability to set and respect boundaries. 
• "It is never too late to turn on the light." 
• The action of going back to one's intended focus, again and again, to "turn on the light" repeatedly, is the most important training that formal sitting practice provides. Consistent practice trains a person. This is important training because in life, we will have to renew our focus and begin again many times. 
• Use the inquiry, "What do I need in this moment to be happy?" to awaken discrimination and to empower right choice. 
• Tibetan Buddhist philosophy identifies four "enemies" 
• Outer enemies 
• Inner "visitor" enemies of rage and fear, which can become chronic states 
• Secret enemy: the construct of a separate self which is not interdependent. Living from this separated orientation causes great suffering. 
• Most secret enemy: a kind of self-loathing where we don't understand our tremendous capacity for growth, which is a capacity that we retain even when hidden. 
• A key aspect of mindfulness: to turn attention to our motivations. A motivating element continually contours everything we say and everything we do. 
• Action and motivation-for-action are inseparable. The heart space that we come from when we act is inherent in the action. Mindfulness and self-awareness must include awareness of our  motivations. 
• "The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our intention."

Breathe into your DNA

Our yoga teacher trainer had been explaining that the most authentic teaching comes from the teacher's true self and true experience. No need to put on some official yoga-teacher persona or voice. As a case in point, I recounted an experience of my daughter's in a San Francisco yoga class.

"The teacher would say the same thing every class. His voice would get all deep and strange. He would tell us to do various things, and always ended up with the suggestion to 'breathe deep into your DNA.' This whole speech was just so odd, somehow. After several weeks, when I heard it coming again, I just couldn't resist laughing."

We laughed at the story and rolled our eyes a bit, too.

Later, my daughter corrected my report. "Mom, what he actually said was 'send prana into the mitochondria of your deep organs.' Different wording, but still sounded silly."

• • •

Another yoga training day brought an anatomy class with Lisa Biow of Sacramento. Lisa knows her stuff, ranging from deep theoretical knowledge of anatomy to the practical intricacies of Rolfing actual people.

She led us through a partner exercise. One partner extended an arm out to horizontal and by force of muscle tried to keep the other partner from pulling the arm downward. Then we repeated the exercise, with one difference. Rather than using muscular forces, we were to visualize or imagine a line of energy extending from the middle of our bodies out through the extended arm. When our partners pulled down on our extended arms, we were surprised. We were able to resist with much more ease than the first time.

Why? Lisa explained that our amazing nervous systems know how to convert imagery into an action plan. That has big, big implications . . .

• • •

"Imagination is the ability to create an idea, a mental picture, or a feeling sense of something. In creative visualization you use your imagination to create a clear image, idea, or feeling of something you wish to manifest. Then you continue to focus on [it] … until it becomes objective reality… Your goal may be on any level — physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual." — Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain

• • •

On second thought, the suggestion to send prana to the mitochondria was not so silly after all -- given what the nervous-system-body-mind is actually capable of.  Perhaps the yoga teacher just needed to make himself more comfortable with that suggestion, so that his words came from a place of authenticity.

I've thought that somehow our minds, through imagination and visualization, have considerable power. Now that I have a better sense of the mechanisms, I even more than before would like to keep learning, in order to harness that toward my highest and deepest goals.

Dancing with the glowings

During Halloween this year, the Monterey contra dancers put on a spectacular weekend of dance to completely fantastic music. (The bands were Riptide, Barefoot, and Celtic Spring + Larry Unger, for the research-inclined.) I danced and danced and danced some more, with new friends and old. The musicians, too, included new friends and old. So in all, an active, celebratory, very social time.

Yoga. Helped me recover during breaks. Good breathing and healthy joints for dancing. And -- I remembered the glow.

I didn't literally see the glow. But I remembered the feeling of the glow that can happen during an inward āsana practice or an absorbed sitting session. The glow that encompasses the spine and the crown of the head.

So in the midst of the raucous fiddle and mandolin and guitar and drum, whoops and hollers of enthusiasm, dancing together with 150 folks, I remembered the glow. From both outward appearance and fact, I was dancing with friends. The inward view from here: sometimes I was dancing with twirling and sashaying and turning embodied glowings.

Sometimes this yoga stuff will surprise a person.

Defeating Duryodhana

We've been reading the Bhagavad Gita in yoga teacher training, and it's reminded me of some of the tales from the grand Mahābharata, of which the Gita forms a part.

The central plot of the epic is the rivalry and eventual Armageddon level war between two clans, the Pāndavas and the Kauravas. During the long leadup to the war, we get to know the many characters -- their strengths and weaknesses, foibles and virtues. Although not completely black and white, in general the Pāndavas come off as the righteous and principled group, whereas the Kauravas are, um, compromised. 

A high-drama story involves the Kaurava prince Duryodhana, who reveals his vindictive nature when he challenges the five noble Pāndava princes to a game of dice. Duryodhana's equally flawed uncle, Shakhuni, weights and rigs the dice so that the Pāndavas lose every round. They keep losing, hung up as they are on notions of princely honor, until they wager their last "possession," the princess Draupadi, and lose her too. At that point, the wretched Duryodhana is not content to have left the Pāndavas destitute. He must humiliate Draupadi by ripping off her sari in public! Boo, hiss, horrid sneaky guy!

In a development which prefigures the outcome of the epic, Lord Krishna himself responds to Draupadi's pleas for help, and causes her sari to be of infinite length, never to unwind. Duryodhana is forced to give up. Hooray, the bad guy meets a bit of justice!

At the deepest level of interpretation, the Mahābharata epic is seen as a metaphor for the struggle which can occur inside each person. The small and selfish impulses don't always willingly give ground to the larger, expansive, more selfless tendencies. Sometimes it's full-on war, within us humans. 

•   •   •   •   •

Also in yoga teacher training we've each been challenged to fast for one day, giving up something which is both a personal impediment to growth and an activity that we do anyway, impediments or no. 

Damn. I'm looking square at that thing which I know is a super-wise behavioral principle. It's ekagraha, one-pointed focus, one-pointed attention, in which a person only does one thing at a time. It's the opposite of multi-tasking. 

Eknath Easwaran is completely convincing and eloquent on the subject. In fact, ekagraha forms part of Easwaran's Eight Point Program of meditation.

One-Pointed Attention: Giving full concentration to the matter at hand

Everything we do should be worthy of our full attention. Doing more than one thing at a time divides attention and fragments consciousness. When we read and eat at the same time, for example, part of our mind is on what we are reading and part on what we are eating; we are not getting the most from either activity. 

Similarly, when talking with someone, give that person your full attention. These are not little things. Taken together they help to unify consciousness and deepen concentration.

One-pointed attention is a powerful aid to meditation. Though our mind may be three-pointed or four-pointed or a hundred-pointed now, we train it to be one-pointed in meditation. Until it is trained, the mind will continue to go its own way, because it is the nature of an untrained mind to wander. Attention can be trained, and no skill in life is greater than the capacity to direct your attention at will.

The benefits of this are numerous. If you have trained your mind to give full attention to one thing at a time, you can achieve your goal in any walk of life. Whether it is science or the arts or sports or a profession, concentration is a basic requirement in every field.

One-pointed attention is helpful in whatever job you are doing. But perhaps the greatest benefit of a trained mind is the emotional stability it brings. In order to get angry, for example, your concentration must be broken – your mind has to change lanes. In order to get afraid, your mind has to change lanes. In order to get upset, your mind has to change lanes. What we all yearn for is a mind that cannot be upset by anything. And we can achieve it, too; but it calls for a lot of work in the training of attention.

When the mind is one-pointed it will be secure, free from tension, and capable of the concentration that is the mark of genius in any field.

Argh, Easwaran even called out my specific situation. I've had a long, longtime habit of reading and eating -- at the same darn time.

Okay, that is my yoga class project fast. Do. Not. Read. While. Eating. Only I'm not just leaving it off for one day. I've struggled with it before, for sure. But now feels like the time to put forth some energy and leave that habit behind for good.

Speaking of struggle. Is this a Mahābharata-level struggle? Shouldn't be. More like a tempest in a teapot. But truly, I have inside me a wee Duryodhana, with a tiny Shakhuni as accomplice, who are both sneaky and sly and utterly persuasive that morning yogurt and New York Times go well together. That lunch salad and Facebook are dandy fun. And that dinner veggies are better with a gripping historical novel.

So far, I've outsnuck them for a week. Taking off my glasses at mealtimes so far is the best guerrilla warfare tactic. Thinking of this gone-public blog post ought to help, too. 

I'll keep you posted.