“Iowa Bird Story”
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The “Iowa Bird Story” is an extraordinary meditation on connection, living, leaving the body, and expression through art.
The Four Agreements
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Several years ago, I was introduced to Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements in a yoga book group. I come back to them periodically. I am not usually one for self-help books, but I think the agreements are a wonderful teaching.
I have them taped to the bottom of my computer monitor at the office because I find them especially useful in the office setting. In particular, they are helpful in my relations with a co-worker senior to me in the chain of authority who tends to be very critical or speak in a strained or loud voice when anxious about work. As it involves my projects (or we wouldn’t be talking in the first place), it is hard not to react and take it as personal criticism. Today, I found myself in two different discussions about them. First, I found myself reading them aloud to someone who called me to talk about a painful situation through which he is living. The response was “thank you” and, in particular for Agreement 2, “amen.” In the second situation, I was talking to two co-workers. One was describing a work situation, and she said she had found it very helpful to come back to her desk and read “agreement number two.”
The Four Agreements are (I found them on the Facebook page for The Four Agreements, so I feel OK printing them in full here; you can also see them on the “inside flap” view on Amazon.com (I have honored copyright by buying the book long ago for the book club meeting):
Agreement 1: Be impeccable with your word – Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
Agreement 2: Don’t take anything personally – Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
Agreement 3: Don’t make assumptions – Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
Agreement 4: Always do your best – Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
I find Agreement 1 the most challenging. When I am under stress, I tend to fall back into the ways in which I was raised and use “the word” to diss myself pretty fiercely, though I am getting better at not doing so persistently. With Agreement 2, the tricky thing is simultaneously not to take things personally and keep perspective, but still to listen openly for ways in which one might still want to seek to grow and shift in response to what is said.
Are you familiar with The Four Agreements? How have they assisted you in giving perspective in your relationships and life?
The Nyaya of the Cat and the Bunny
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A nyaya is literally a recursion, something which leads back to an essential principle. In my recent studies of meditation, we have been taught various nyayas that help to explicate the experience of meditation and the whys and benefits of steady practice.
At the place where we have been staying for our meditation and study retreats with Paul Muller-Ortega, there is a wonderful cat named Oberon. I first met him last summer when I was walking the labyrinth just before dawn. I’d heard a meow off in the distance. Lonely for cat company since my Becky had so recently left her body, I called to the cat. He came running to me and walked the labyrinth with me. Each time I have visited, I have had some special moments with Oberon, who lives fully up to his name — Oberon being the King of the Faeries.
Oberon loves the meditation hall and often tries to get in. He also brings offerings. Last winter, he brought us a mostly dead bird. As well intended as it might have been on Oberon’s part, it was not particularly welcomed in the meditation hall. On the final night of our retreat this time, we were reveling in the good fortune of having fellow students (and my sometimes teachers and the creators of many CDs in my music collection) Heather and Benjy Wertheimer lead us in kirtan. At one point, I left my place to go to the facilities. A fellow student, stopped me, “Elizabeth, the cat has a really big mouse.” I went to look. Oberon did not have a mouse; he had a young bunny. “It’s a bunny I said.” The other students who were outside were horrified.
Without thinking, I went to him, “Oberon, drop it!” I said, as if it were appropriate to speak to the King of the Faeries as if he were an obedient dog. He listened though and dropped the bunny, which remained frozen. I held Oberon by the scruff of the neck. “Go bunny; bunny run,” I said, but the bunny did not move. I then tapped the bunny on his back at the tail. The bunny remained frozen, though it did not appear yet to be injured. I let go of Oberon and went to get a towel or something to pick up the bunny. Then Oberon tapped the bunny just where I had touched it. Off ran the bunny through the shoes neatly piled outside the meditation hall. I caught Oberon and picked him up. The bunny again froze, looking back at us. At this point I was completely oblivious to anything other than the cat and the bunny. “Bunny run; go now.” Oberon squirmed, but did not scratch me, letting me continue to hold him. Finally, the bunny ran off into the scrub and disappeared. I put down Oberon. He sniffed the trail, but then came back to me for a petting when I called. “Thank you for the offering Oberon; I know it was well intentioned, but we are not so keen on bringing dead baby animals into the meditation hall.” He sniffed, lifted his regal head, and sat down to wash.
Leaving aside what my actions may have done to the fabric of the world order and the pondering I could do about the interrelationship between destiny and free will, I felt that I had been given a wonderful lesson about life and practice. Practice can bring us great freedom if we stay steady on the path. Like the bunny, though, we can stay frozen in fear and old patterns, even when we are given a glimpse of the freedom of self we can get from practice. As dire as things may be (or perhaps even when they are at their worst), we return to the familiar, regardless of whether we are unhappy with it, regardless of how old patterns are limiting our ability to grow. Sometimes it is dissatisfaction with and pain from the old patterns themselves (revealed more clearly by practice already begun) that push us to go further, just as it took Oberon getting the bunny to run again for me to realize he was sufficiently healthy to be able to run off. And just as I stayed with Oberon and the bunny until the bunny finally took his chance at freedom, the practice and the truths and freedom practice can reveal will always be there. No matter how many times we forget or return to the stuck and the familiar, the opportunity for growth and freedom continues to await.
When I am feeling stuck, when I am finding myself returning to patterns that do not serve, I will think about my own personal nyaya of the cat and the bunny. I hope it will serve to keep me moving forward, less stuck, less attached to the familiar that no longer serves.
May News (Web Version of E-Newsletter)
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Dear Friends,
What a glorious Spring we’re having! I’ve just returned from an expanding, nurturing, and deepening time of study in Sedona with meditation teacher Paul Muller-Ortega. Later in May, I will join fellow certified Anusara yoga teachers in North Carolina to be with John Friend. Making sure to continue to study and gather with fellow yogis provides ever increasing appreciation of the benefits of practice and enhanced delight for the community.
May Day (May 1) is the first day for my Spring Session classes at Willow Street: Level 2 @ 8:30 am and Gentle/Therapeutics @ noon. Both are in the Takoma Park studio. While session registration is optimal, you are always welcome to drop in, whether you want to rock out in level 2 or get some healing and nurturing energy in Gentle/Therapeutics.
The William Penn House class continues to have the special $12 offering for public interest workers (broadly inclusive), students, seniors, and those in-between gigs ($15 for those who can afford it). Come join this collegial group 6:30 pm every Tuesday evening. A portion of the proceeds goes to benefit the work of William Penn House.
Looking to strengthen your practice: join me for Standing Steady in the Light: A Standing Balance Workshop, Sat May 8, 2:30-5pm, Willow Street Yoga Center, Takoma Park, $35. Find a place of deeper steadiness and balance in your own light and worthiness. Learn how to use the Anusara principles to enhance your ability to stand or your own two feet or on just one foot at a time. After we playfully explore a progressively expansive array of standing poses, we’ll finish with a few upside-down restorative postures to let our legs and feet feel the bright light created by the practice. Whether you find standing poses a challenge or revel in the dance, this workshop will illuminate your practice. Everybody welcome. To register, please visit www.willowstreetyoga.com.
As always, please take the time to enjoy and comment on the blog and if you haven’t already done so, friend me on Facebook for the latest news, photos, and quotes.
Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
More Interesting Reading
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about religion and yoga — what’s the same, what’s different, what’s important.
Thanks to Dan for bringing the Boston Globe article to my attention.
Coming Home from Retreat (and Savasana)
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How do you plan your return home from a retreat or vacation? Do you come home at the very last minute, so that the travel is exhausting and the first day back at work is a struggle? Or do you plan to have a day — or at least several hours — to unpack, make sure you have fresh food to eat, and have brought the feeling of vacation back into your home life before getting back to work?
When I was studying on retreat in Arizona, Paul Muller-Ortega took particular pains to emphasize the importance of doing savasana for at least a few minutes after sitting for meditation for a “slow re-entry.” Without the resting time in between practicing/adventuring/celebrating/retreating and working, it is like eating a loaf of bread right out of the oven, rather than giving it at least 10-15 minutes to rest. Right out of the oven, the is too hot and the texture is not right, and we cannot taste how good it is. Give it a chance to rest, and it is exquisitely hot and fresh and perfect.
We need to rest, to reintegrate, to settle or we can feel like there is no point in going on vacation. How many people do you know (perhaps you have said this yourself) who say there is no point in going on vacation because it just makes work harder on return? When I take a shorter vacation/rest/retreat to account for reintegration time, and then fully reintegrate, the rejuvenating properties of getting away definitely last longer.
I returned very late Sunday night. Yesterday I practiced at home, did my laundry, cleaned the yoga room, petted the cats, had a massage, did a little reading, cooked delicious food (homemade granola, kitcheree, greens from the garden), and went to sleep early. Now I am off to work, seeking to bring what I learned into my day.
High Desert Light
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One of the things I like best about going west for a retreat is being able to relish with ease the time before and at sunrise. At home, I sometimes sleep through dawn once the days get long. The light is just extraordinary at the ending and the beginning of the day, revealing the openings in space and time.
Off to Sedona for the Weekend
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To study with Paul Muller-Ortega, to gather with fellow students, to meditate, and to chant (with reverence, sensitivity, and honor) the names of Shiva.
When was the last time you noticed a “Hare Krishna?”
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Yesterday morning, before I read the article in the Washington Post I discussed in yesterday’s post, a memory of an acquaintance from Quaker youth camp entered my seated meditation. I had not thought about C in at least 30 years. He was a couple of years older than me, and all the parents were a buzz with talk and worry when C decided that instead of going to college, he wanted to give away his possessions, live in a community devoted to simple living, a vegetarian diet, daily worship, a like-minded community, and spreading what they believe is the word of God. Nowadays, many of the people who are in my broad social network would have nothing but admiration for someone who lived by and practiced such tenets, including the daily chanting of the name of Krishna (or some other deity). In the late 70s, the parents were deeply concerned: “He is in a cult, he is brainwashed, we need to get him back.” “Back to what?” I remember thinking at the time.
I have not seen a member of ISKON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) in years. Why not? Not because the “cult” has disbanded. Rather, it has grown substantially and become part of the fabric of our global religious society. Now, by virtue of its longstanding existence, its members blend in with accepted norms of social and religious behavior.
What makes a cult? What makes a religion? How do cults and religions foster, spread, or interfere with our own relationship to spirit and our recognition of spirit in others. What is the difference between ritual and religion? Ritual and spiritual belief and practice?
ps Craig made a good point yesterday about being sensitive to the practicing Hindus when we take part in some of their practices, but not in the context of the Hindu religion. He also noted a number of rituals that have morphed and shifted with changing religious groupings in society. ISKON “took” something that was part of the Hindu religious practice and opened it to the masses (proselytizing with enthusiasm). Is that not analogous to the development of any religious sect? Think about the meaning of the word “protestant.” When is an off-shoot of a religion a cult, a “legitimate” religious group, or an offense to the group from which it parted in terms of stated belief or practice? Does it matter that some take offense? What if offense is taking because of a disturbance of a status quo that diminishes and constrains large elements of society (such as women or people of certain classes)? What about practicing a ritual to honor members of another religion — I am thinking, in this regard, of the recent example of the White House seder?
pps. How is this relevant to our yoga practice in the United States? Many of us listen to and practice our asana to the music of “chant.” Krishna Das has a CD called “All One” that has nothing on it but variations of the maha mantra “Hare Krishna” that became so notorious when ISKON was just being known here. What does it mean when we listen to such music, buy such music, share such music, chant these words?
“Taking Back” Yoga
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I read today a piece in the Washington Post about Hindus needing to “take back” yoga. I read the article and the comments with great interest because it has been a matter of much discussion with those in my meditation and philosophy course as to the extent to which the practices we are learning are “religious” practices and whether they can be practiced consistently with other religions. There is much difference of opinion and strongly heated and held positions.
What I think is missing from the article is the question of distinctions between “spiritual” and “religious” practices. It is a simple fact that practicing yoga with depth and sincerity entails learning practices that are observed by Hindus. Does that make one a Hindu? Does it mean that one is “dissing” Hinduism if one learns and benefits from the practices, but does not self-identify as a Hindu.
What about Jews who have trees at the Christmas holidays (a tradition co-opted from the pagans in any event)? Is it OK that I have a mezuzuh even though my parents (who were born Jews) raised me in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and I continue to be a member of a Quaker meeting, and observe no other Jewish laws or practices.
Is it OK for me to chant “Hindu” chants if I do not identify myself as a Hindu or attend Hindu temple? If it is not OK, for whom is it not OK? Quakers? Hindus? Jews? Me? Who is to decide or judge?
It seems to me that “religion” (as specific sects, identities, and strict rules) tends to highlight difference and disunity, but sincere spiritual practice — whether or not done in a religious context and observance — should be unifying because all religions at their highest and most universal, call upon us to recognize the unity of spirit in ourselves and in all beings.
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