On Balance...

A friend of mine just had her first baby and emailed that she is trying to find the balance between taking care of herself, the dog, and the new baby. My first thought was, “welcome to the club, this will be happening for years”, and secondly, I thought about yoga.

All yoga poses are dynamic and in constant motion. There is no way to hold a body still. Even if we hold our breath and stop the flow in and out of the nose or mouth (not recommended), the heart continues to pump and blood continues to flow. This movement of internal respiration is constantly bringing fresh oxygen and to the cells, and removing toxins. If this process stops the body will die.

When we “hold” a pose, we are not holding the body, but holding attention on all of the different moving parts of the body and breath. B.K.S Iyengar defined concentration as the process of holding attention on one thing, and meditation as the process of holding attention on all things. Hatha yoga offers the opportunity to focus the mind, and strengthen the power of this focus.

Lately I’ve been interested in the process of balancing different foci. Lets take the downward facing dog, and look at it in terms of height, width and depth. When we attend to rooting the hands into the earth and reaching the tail up to the sky, we are stretching the spine and working on height. Now lets focus on the second part of the yogic 3 part breath, and breath into the side of the rib cage, inviting the body to expand laterally and stretching the width of the body. Pressing the shoulder blades into the heart and lifting up the forearms deepens the depth of the body.

If we simply try to achieve what was just mentioned, we will end up looking like a Saturday Night Live skit. It is not about trying to achieve each one of these to the exclusion of everything else. It is about being aware –in this case – of the body as existing in three dimensions. That awareness alone can wake up worlds. Next we notice where the focus habitually goes, and acknowledge that we are stretching the focus. Then we begin to play, first playing with length and seeing what is here, while also keeping an eye on the other two dimensions. This process continues, as we dance between these three foci. The concentration is stretched, until an awareness of the body as a whole becomes known. We train the mind, and then go beyond mind, to a state of witnessing what is without being identified with it. This is what Mr. Iyengar means when he says that focusing on all points is meditation. From this state of wholeness, the specifics are known, but there is no effort to remember to know them. We move to a state of ease and knowing.

This state also, can not be held on to. If we get excited that we “got it” and try to hold on, it will go away. What we must do is be present in the state, and understand that it will change.

Non-Violence and Acceptance

What does it mean to treat oneself with nonviolence, or to adapt an attitude of nonviolence? The yogic texts speak of the importance of this principle of ahimsa: it is the first of the 5 yamas, or behaviors of restraint necessary for yogic study and living. I find that most students think of violence in terms of violent crime, and will initially assume that they are fine in this area. Let’s look more closely.

We often come to class wanting to feel better, wanting to look better, wanting to be better. We come in wanting to be opened and expanded; this will be a me that I can more easily love and unconditionally accept.. let me just stretch a relax a bit first. The only problem with this outlook, is that it neglects to acknowledge what is here, right now. We must start with where and who we are. We must start with treating ourselves as we would treat someone we love: by listening and accepting, and letting ourselves be our imperfect and natural self.

Acting nonviolently means that we begin a yoga pose by turning the senses inward: by carefully looking, feeling, and listening. We begin by gaining more awareness of the situation, rather than by immediately looking for a solution. A beginners mind makes no assumptions. A beginners mind approaches a pose as if it is the very first time. Instead of applying judgements and expectations onto the body, we will instead look to see how the body is in this moment. Hatha yoga offers a wonderful opportunity to witness the subtle ways we try to force ourselves to be who and what we are not.

The amazing aspect of a nonviolent attitude towards the self is that you never know what will happen. Some days you will work less deeply than usual, and then there will be the day when the body will all of a sudden open more that you ever thought possible. Our ideas about what the body can do are just ideas: the reality of the moment is larger and infinitely more satisfying.

Amrit Desai, the founder of Kripalu Yoga, used to talk about what he called the “Three A’s”: awareness, acceptance, adjustment. What you will find as you work with this map is that the adjustment happens on its own: it is not rooted in our ideas of ourselves, which are inherently limited. Working like this makes practice easier and injury free, but also makes the yogic path a constant journey of exploration. Enjoy, and Namaste!