In the Beginning

Beginner's mind is a term that is often thrown around yoga/meditation/Buddhist circles and I've been thinking about it a lot lately in relation to what I've been writing here. For all the years that I've taken yoga classes, and despite the fact that I now teach it, I always took beginning yoga classes. I never really had a goal around yoga; I just liked how it made me feel. One year my teacher asked me why I wasn't signing up for the more advanced classes. She said she thought I'd fit in fine with them and encouraged me to move up. I signed up for two sessions and hated them. All of a sudden yoga wasn't giving me that special feeling I associated with it; it was making me feel yucky. Handstand without support? No thank you...it just made me feel bad that I couldn't do it. I went right back to beginning classes after that. I had realized that I didn't want to do my yoga practice to work my way through levels, or to please or impress anyone else. The levels, I saw, were an illusion and a distraction. I was happy to be a beginner forever.

My teacher's training actually carried me into a different level of ability just because of the sheer volume of hours spent doing it. This time, my beginner's mind manifested as an ability to play and have fun with the poses. The ability to do them wasn't the point; the point was the sheer joy in trying. However, I did notice that my emotional state went up and down, up and down, just like always. My improved ability really didn't substantially change my feeling about myself or my body. My self was still there, just as it had been in the beginning.

If that's the case, then why bother? Now I think that beginner's mind is something that you can learn to carry with you into any situation, and doing yoga helps me learn how to do that. Traveling alone helped me do that, too. In both cases I have the opportunity to watch my thoughts and emotions rise and fall, every time it's new, each ecstatic rise, each depressing drop–it always feels important! If I ride that wave too completely I can lose my sense of direction. But if I hold the waves in my beginner's mind, I can feel that my true being, filled with curiosity and wonder, is a still point. Every wave is new, but it has echoes of past waves, and I know there will be more waves in the future. I can be really interested in the waves but my real self is re-created whole and complete in every moment, full of every possibility, safe from any storm. I know that I'm not actually going anywhere at all: I AM everywhere.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Letting go, Starting over

This weekend I was putting the finishing touches on a gift for the young son of a close friend who died about a year and a half ago. I thought my grieving for her was pretty much done, but, as I worked, I found myself weeping. And since I was hormonal and thus prone to excess, I allowed my grief to extend out and encompass EVERYONE I've ever lost. At first, I was focused on those I've lost to death, then I realized I was also grieving for people I've lost in other ways but who are still around, still breathing and living their lives, some of them in fairly close proximity to me. Letting go is clearly something I need to work on right now.

In recent months Buddha's Five Remembrances have been popping up in various ways for me, and after this weekend I thought, well, maybe I need to take a look at those. The Five Remembrances are basically: 1)Getting old is my nature and can't be escaped, 2)Getting sick is my nature and can't be escaped, 3)Dying is my nature and can't be escaped, 4)Change and loss in those I love and care for is the nature of things and can't be escaped, and 5)I have only my actions to stand on. So this morning I meditated on that for a while before moving on to my lovingkindness meditation. And the words of a teacher came to me in meditation, "If you find your mind wandering, bring it back lovingly and know that this is the heart of meditation–the practice of letting go and starting over."

I've heard that a hundred times (maybe more but my mind was wandering at the time so I don't remember) but this was the first time I really heard it, and realized that yoga and meditation are actually a way of consciously practicing being alive. Of course, we ARE being alive in every moment, but by rehearsing for it, we can get better at doing it in real life. In every breath we let go of the old air and start over with a new breath. With every step we let go of the earth beneath us and reach through the unknown to find it again.

It's almost impossible to stay that focused for very long on such tiny endings and beginnings, but we have them on a grander scale as well. From pre-school to my last year of high school, I attended 8 different schools and learned a lot about letting go and starting over, and got pretty good at it. My track record isn't so great when it comes to letting go of people and relationships; once you're in my life I want you there FOREVER. Sort of like the Hotel California... In running my own business, I've discovered that I have to be very nimble on my feet to be ready to let go of something that isn't working and start over with something else. My partner and I had one summer when we got to experience lots of letting go when raw sewage spewed over everything in our basement; suddenly, the question of whether to let something go became a lot clearer. Practice, practice, practice...

The other thing that I realized is that you can't have much of a gap between letting go and starting over in meditation. When your mind wanders, you bring it back. If you spend time beating yourself up over wandering, guess what? You're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. If you start thinking about why your mind wandered in the first place, you're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. If you start thinking about how much better you're going to be at this tomorrow, you're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. Now this can sound like some kind of crazy-making version of hell, but the miracle part of this process is realizing that you actually have an infinite number of chances to start over. Nothing you've done before and nothing you're going to do later takes that away from you. Those opportunities are always there and they never go away. In life as in meditation. You know how to let go and start over; you've done it already so many times, if you're breathing, you're an expert. Every moment is your opportunity to do it again.

So, when I think of my dead friend, I breathe in, I breathe out, I miss her, I remember her, I let her go and I start over with my living in the next moment.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Where is the Edge of Possibility?

I have a little card I got from a co-worker years ago. It says, "It is not the easy or convenient life for which I seek, but the life lived to the edge of all my possibility." Not sure who wrote it but the card is up on my mantle now. It makes me kind of nervous.

I remember when I first got it I thought, wow, what a great thought...and yet, do I really want to live life to the edge of all my possibility? That sounds kinda hard. And maybe like a lot of work. And an easy and convenient life sounds really...well, nice.

I've kept the card for all these years, and, for all these years, it's always made me nervous. Sort of like it's looking at me, expectantly. And I always look back at it and say, no way, not yet anyway. I find it kind of interesting that I've actually kept the thing, given how uncomfortable I am with it.

I remember when I graduated from college I basically spent all my time when I wasn't working holed up in my apartment reading voraciously. All those books that I craved during school but didn't have time for because I was too busy reading the required books and writing papers and doing projects and angsting with my friends. I felt a little guilty but frankly that's all I wanted to do. I felt resentful when something from outside intruded into my little nest and took me away from my reading. It took me a while (umm, years really) to feel like I had read my fill and was willing to give up some of my reading time for other pleasures. Honestly, at the time, given a choice between reading and sex, reading would win hands down.

When I think about that time now, it seems to me that it was a reasonable reaction to the transition from childhood to adulthood. The childhood had its own fairly large set of pressures and stresses and really seemed to involve a lot of effort. And I think that I just wanted to take a little vacation from working so hard for so long. I don't think it was such a terrible thing; after all, I managed to work 2 jobs, pay the rent, cook food, clean up after myself and all that stuff.

Once past that stage, I led a very active and rewarding and interesting adult life. To many people I know it has looked adventurous. But I've always had this awareness that I still wasn't really filling up all the space available to me; I wasn't living to the edge of all my possibility. It's been a very happy life and I have no complaints, but I do think there's more there to be squeezed out. And in a way I've been living an extension of that earlier time.

I turned 40 last fall, and just lately as we've approached, and then passed, Beltaine I keep looking at that damn card, and it's like there's a voice in my head saying, "now". Of course, I'm freaking out a little bit but I also finally feel ready. And I think yes, that's right; everything has to be in its own proper time and that is different for everyone. It's beginning to make sense to me that finding your way into your full self really is a journey, complete with struggle and beautiful sights and surprises and meeting people and little vacations from the work of finding the next place to go until you're ready to go on.

I often use the concept with my students of arriving for practice, acknowledging that there may be aspects of yourself that simply can't arrive at the beginning, but leaving a door open for them when they do show up. When they show up, there's no shame or blame in the late arrival. I think similarly different parts of us are always showing up for our lives and then leaving again. So maybe the edge of possibility is the space that happens within when our whole self really does arrive.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Power Yoga

"Can you add some more challenging poses into the class?" This was a request from one of my private classes, a mixed level group that met for an hour weekly, with a primary goal of stretching and restoration after a busy work day.

Now, this is always an interesting question for me for many reasons, but what I've been focused on this week is, what makes a challenging pose? Obviously (or maybe not?) we're talking about yoga poses here. And I guess what I find so interesting about the question is that we all think we know what that means–after all, how else do you determine if you're in yoga level 1, 2, or 3? And how else would I know what they were asking for?–but is it really possible to answer that question in a general way?

On a purely physical level, most people are predisposed, either by body type and natural talents or by other activities they do, to ease in some poses and challenge in others in a way that can't be generalized. On a different level, many people find savasana, corpse pose, challenging because they find it hard to be still, relax and let go of their thoughts.

But there's also something else going on here. Nowhere is it more true than in a yoga class that you are creating your own experience and then observing yourself in that experience. It can be argued that that's really the whole point of yoga. You are giving yourself something to do which engages you completely–body, mind, emotions, breath and energy–in order to allow your inner witness to observe the truth of your being. So, if a class isn't challenging, what does that actually mean? Are you engaging everything you can in each pose? Do you want something physically difficult given to you so that the work of the pose quiets your mind? What would you need to give yourself permission to challenge yourself? Does the challenge need to come from outside yourself?

There's also a question of how you approach the pose. If Tadasana, the mountain, is just like standing at the bus stop thinking about what you'll have for lunch then it won't engage you. However, there are thousands of potential focal points in Tadasana if you look for them. This is true for every pose...including standing at the bus stop!

Some poses will awaken an emotional response unrelated to the physical difficulty of the pose. A pose which feels restful and soothing to one person, will feel stressful and difficult to another. A challenging pose can feel frustrating or hilarious depending on what it awakens in you. For me, Pigeon used to be a horribly stressful pose even though I knew many people who found it deeply relaxing. On the other hand, I can't even come close to Tortoise, but I've often used it as a focus pose for my practice because it's entertaining for me to struggle with it. In one situation, the struggle is stressful; in the other, the struggle is funny–the only real difference is how I'm perceiving it.

Maybe a challenging practice would be to do only easy poses, but do them fully. Or maybe it would be to do only difficult poses, but release attachment to outcome. Maybe it would be to dare to come into class and do only Savasana for the whole class, while everyone around you is bending and twisting. Maybe it would be to just breathe.

In my dream, this is what Power Yoga would be. Not a fast-paced aerobic workout, but a place to claim and explore your own power, and your own experience to create exactly as you need it to be.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Are we there yet?

Something the other day sent me down memory road, visiting times I've been badly lost, and thinking about what it means to define myself in those terms. It's hard to pick just one time when I felt lost, alone and frightened. It's happened so many times...

There was the time when I had just moved to Edinburgh as a new University student. I took a tour of the college campus, chatted on the tour with a couple of new buddies, and, when they decided to bow out of the tour to stop at a pub, I went with them. We had a quick bite together, they went off their way and I went mine. Only, which way was mine? I had no idea and no map.

Or the time I wandered happily in Venice, finding my way easily through the little alleys and canals until it was time to head back to the train station. Now it was dark, the fog settled in, and the map that had seemed quaint because it was so badly wrong now led me completely astray.

Or the time I took a tai chi class in the depths of winter in Massachusetts. The class was a bus ride away and it was easy enough to get there coming from in town. But class ended in the darkness of night, I wasn't yet a savvy bus rider and didn't really know the schedule or where I had to stand to catch the bus. I had a few nights of either watching my bus glide right past me (because I stood in the wrong place) or missing it entirely and being faced with the decision of either standing out in the snow for an hour or so and hoping for the best or trying to find my way home in the dark and cold.

Or the many, many times I've walked into a building from one direction, walked out in another without realizing it, and have strode off confidently in completely the wrong direction, realizing it only when I'm hopelessly lost, or so off track as to be almost the same thing.

Sometimes I wasn't alone, like the time a friend's father was driving me home from her house and I just blanked on what street we were supposed to take. After half an hour of driving around, he took me back to my friend's house to call my parents and ask directions. Then I didn't feel so much frightened as stupid.

But still frightened a little because I knew even as a child this failing of mine didn't seem to bode well for my ability to survive. For a while, out of fear, I tried to reclaim my weakness as a strength. I boasted of being able to be lost within a block of my house, and challenged anyone to get a solid set of directions out of me. I actually worked at having less of a sense of direction.

Over time, I've learned two things: One, getting lost has never killed me, and it has always felt worse than it actually is. The thing is, whether you're lost or not the only thing to do is the next thing...and then the next thing...and then the next thing, and unless you're dead there's always a next thing to do. If you're lost, you just tend to have bad feelings about it. And two, everyone gets lost. And if you've been lost, truly or metaphorically, you now have the experience which allows you compassion towards all those who are lost.

I recently read a description of what it's like to walk a labyrinth (a labyrinth being a maze with only one path in and out, so there's no getting lost). The author described the feeling of seeing the center in sight as she walked along, then suddenly feeling the path turn under her and send her back out away from the center. In order to keep her equanimity she had to drop her focus on getting to the center and just walk the path as it was laid out. And, of course, she eventually found herself in the center anyway. Alive, in ourselves, in our bodies, present in the moment and walking the path–how can we ever be lost?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Does the Inner Witness Ever Take a Vacation?

I've been wondering about this lately, mostly in sort of half-joking, half-desperate emails to friends. Here's the deal: During my time in Costa Rica for my yoga teacher training, I focused really strongly on awakening the inner witness consciousness, that part of the self which simply observes with benevolent curiosity and who brings attentiveness and awareness to every activity. Do you see what I'm getting at here? Read that line again:"...brings attentiveness and awareness to every activity."

Here's a little example from my day. I know that sugar is bad for me, and not bad for me in that sense that everyone says, oh yes, sugar's so bad for me but doesn't really mean it, but bad for me in the sense that my body really struggles with it in a truly bad for me way. And I mostly steer clear of it for that reason. But today I took a long walk with not enough food in me, got home and thought, wow, I'd really like some cookies. Not only did my inner witness attend to the issue, but she had actually FORESEEN this very dilemma. So, here's my inner witness observing me objectively, with compassion, wondering how I'm going to respond.

I responded by eating the cookies. And the funny part is that when I do something idiotic like that (oh...I'm sorry! No judgment...) I can feel the "so there!" inherent in the action, like I'm thumbing my nose at the inner witness. Which is truly idiotic because I also know beyond any shadow of a doubt that my inner witness is only my deepest, truest self speaking to me of my real desires, which exist down under all the needy "I want I want I want" kind of desires.

This is a fairly tiny, unimportant example but it is really interesting in my every day life to see how often what I want–because it's fun, because I just don't want to think, because I want people to like me, because I want to fit in, because I want to feel free, because I think it's what I ought to do, because I'm scared, because fill in the blank–runs up against what this deepest, truest voice is telling me. What I want runs up against what my SELF wants for me. And what my SELF wants for me is for me to be true to my nature, surrender to the sacred being within me.

And the irony is that it's not hard to surrender because the right choices for me feel right. What's hard is to struggle against that voice and make the choice that isn't in alignment with my true self. So why on earth do I struggle?

And meanwhile my inner witness just keeps watching and waiting and loving me....Isn't that interesting?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Meditation Revisited

I thought I'd use the space this time around, not to tell a story, but to talk a little more about meditation. My meditation practice continues to be a really interesting exploration for me. If you remember my last post about it (Watch the Monkeys), you know it was hugely challenging to add meditation to my regular practice. Since I know it is also a difficult practice for many other folks, I thought I'd give some ideas of what has helped me keep it going.

Watching your breath or using the "So-Hum" mantra are common ways suggested to start practicing. However, I actually found watching my breath gave me way too much time to sit and think between breaths, and then I would find myself changing my breathing rhythm to give me more time to think. Bad news for meditation. And for some reason, "so-hum" just doesn't work for me. I did find that the mantra "om namah shivaya" worked better for me, or just saying to myself, "breathe in....breathe out".

So far though my favorite methods don't use mantra or breathing. One old stand-by for me was to clearly visualize a particular scene–for me it is a red flag against a blue sky. I allow myself to see it really clearly, and I can usually even hear the metal connectors clanking against the flagpole, feel the wind on my face, and smell the dry dusty air. If I wandered, I would say to myself the words "red flag, blue sky" and pop back to my scene. When I use this method, I can feel myself instantly drop and relax.

Another method that works well for me is to listen very carefully, just open to any sounds around me, not labeling them, but just allowing them to move through me. For some reason, opening my hearing shuts down my thinking.

And last is a method that I thought sounded odd when I read about it. In this method, I simply smile from my whole physical being. When I use this method, I literally imagine the skin on my body smiling, all my organs smiling, everything smiling out at the world. Strangely enough, I easily drop into a meditative state and this particular method brings me a great deal of happiness. Go figure.

If you struggle with meditation, don't give up on it. It is profoundly rewarding.