My First Noble Truth

I remember reading Pema Chodren’s book When Things Fall Apart when I was 19. I was heavy into my Buddhist studies and practices, and at that time her book was at the top of the must read list. At 19 what did I know about things falling apart? As children and young adults we are so overly egocentric that everything happening seems larger than it is, or that we are the only ones who’ve ever had any of this happen to. So, I can’t say that at 19 things didn’t seem to be falling apart, it’s just now when I look back at then and I look at now, the notion of falling apart seems worlds apart.

Life is great (that’s the first Noble Truth for me). As a great life we don’t have to fix anything. If life is inherently suffering, well then, you’ve got to relieve that suffering. Otherwise you will always be suffering. If life’s an error, an illusion or a mistake then you have to transcend, escape or transmute the state your in, in order to achieve liberation. You have to be liberated from something into something. Which leaves the question, where do you go when you achieve this liberation? This is why life is not the problem. Life is great.

So when I look at things falling apart, and my tendency is to fix them, I’m beginning to wonder whether that’s what I’m supposed to do? If I’m here to fix life then I have to understand what’s broken and look at repairing that. If life is great, then I have to see how I’m not being myself and then shift myself back into the optimal me. But it still seems like I’m always trying to make something better. When Things Fall Apart is actually not describing life, but prescribing life in its title. A Buddhist believes that life is impermanent and everything is in a constant play of joining and parting. When you understand that things “fall apart” you see life’s impermanence, and therefore cease clinging to these things. Really, it’s not bad advice. There is a time in our lives when we need to loosen the grip, expand our perspective, and stop dwelling in the predicament.

Yet, at the same time those things rejoin, right? The yoga is in the rejoining, not just that things fall apart and rejoin, but in how you make the relationship between them. All of a sudden, I realize that my life is always falling apart. It’s a hard life. It’s a challenging life. But at the same time, it is always joining together. It’s a simple, enjoyable life too. Instead of spending my time trying to fix what’s falling apart, which is impossible, I just remember to be me. In fact, our lives’ fall apart when we forget who we are and act in that forgetfulness. Many times things fall apart because we are so busy trying to keep things together. Kind of ironic, huh.

My life is no more or less challenging than yours. In fact, I am sure we all live under the same normal amount of stresses that comes in waves. My life may appear more or less stressful than yours right now, but I am sure that will switch at some point and balance out. So, we’re all in the same boat, which is happening to be falling apart right now, but let’s make the choice together to see the falling apart as just as great as the joining together. Your life is great not because you achieve a state, but because you can always be yourself in whatever event is happening.

Forgive me Internet, it has been 1 year since my last blog

Okay, okay, I know it has been far too long. I don’t know if I’m lazy or that November is my month to write. I think it is November. I realize that it is this time of the year when I transition the most. Is it the impending winter season? Am I like an animal that is gathering all my thoughts like food to store and go into hibernation? A year of hibernating…now that’s an idea! Is it the election and all the excitement of change in the air? Perhaps I connect to the traditions around the world where this time symbolizes the New Year. I don’t know, but it was last year at this time that I resigned from Anusara. It was last year at this time that I had all these grandiose ideas and was inspired to produce them all. Then the year happened and what a year it was. Now, it is this time of the year again and I sit here thinking I’m lost.

Now, I’m not interested in retelling my year to you. As interesting as I find my own life, I am sure you find yours more interesting. Yet, how could I write or share anything if it wasn’t about me? A year ago at this time, I sat with the world of opportunity in front of me. I had spent the betterment of 2 years struggling to make a very hard choice whether to leave Anusara or not. After making that choice, it was like I had found myself – the clarity and honesty were so raw and I had all the energy and enthusiasm to mold those opportunities. In that great spiritual dilemma, I thought I had found myself.

I remembered yesterday a critical turning point in the Ramayana. Right after Rama loses Sita, and the Kishkindya Kanda begins, Rama is cursing the forest, its creatures and the whole world. He becomes the Howler, a name of Shiva, and therefore loses himself or becomes something else. It’s the turning point of the book because a new journey must begin, the one of re-connection to what he has already known because yoga is always a journey to connect with what is already possible. Rama’s journey is our journey through the forest of thoughts and emotions, in a world of the familiar yet unknown, in a world where success is your privilege, but fulfillment is not your guarantee. Rama’s journey through the forest is our own turning inwards to reflect and learn about whom we are and what we can do. Rama’s return from the forest, with Sita and Hanuman and the fulfillment of his yoga is the turning from the density of uncertainty to the clear light of the City where a world looks to embrace and share with him and he can embrace it back.

The funny thing is, I thought in these last two years that it has been at this time where I have felt lost, and in all the uncertainty that makes my life I found myself sharing my thoughts, like mythic stories. Only now, I realize that it is this time each year that I return home after another long year and journey into losing myself. It is in my year that happens between these blogs where I have been losing myself, wondering through my own forest, encountering interesting characters, being seduced, angry, in love and in awe, yet not fulfilled. For what ever reasons the Universe seems to steer me in, each year I return to see myself whole, even if it is just for a moment. Well, my goal is to lose myself again, after all that is where the power of transformation begins, but this year I hope to not forget myself in that process. In other words, I’ll be back before next November!

Call It What You Want

Call It What You Want

Everyone keeps asking me, “What is your yoga called?” Honestly, I didn’t leave Anusara to create my own style. It’s not my desire, but sometimes things can’t be avoided, no matter what you truly want. At a party in Tucson, a friend said to me, “Call it what you want,” in reference to Miles Davis’ famous 1970 set at the Isle of Wight concert (which, ironically, happened to be on my birthday, August 29th). At this concert, Davis and his band played a set of totally new sounds,¬ an electric jazz/rock fusion. About 25 minutes into the set, Davis leaned over to the mic and said, “Call it anything.” (watch the video on youtube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfHDQ1GffRQ&eurl=http://surrealdocuments.blogspot.com/2007/08/miles-davis-isle-of-wight-1970.html

I have always been someone who seeks out identity. To what lineage do I belong? As I began my search, I hoped to be connected to the oldest lineages – antiquity definitely seemed more authentic. Maybe that was originally due to my deep interest in Chinese thought, but as my discipline manifested into yoga and Indian arts, I sought the “old stuff,”¬ the things that would say I was directly connected to something thousands of years old. Of course, being the young enthusiast I was, it never dawned on me that, even if the connections were to a lineage from a place far away and a time long ago, the practices we were doing looked nothing like what they did back then. I always had that romantic notion in my mind of finding the Ancient One and being part of the tradition, like a Kwai Chang Caine character from the television show Kung Fu.

I moved away from the old lineages. I saw my practices for what they were: new, or maybe more accurately, evolved, innovative, and refined. It didn’t bother me, but when you see something for what it is, you can make better decisions regarding what it actually does for you. When I found Anusara, it was new, it was exciting, and ironically, I found my romantic version of the Old Ancient in a not-so-ancient American from the Midwest and Texas. I learned more from John than from any hatha yoga teacher I ever met, and I learned more than just hatha yoga. But as time went on and Anusara grew, I had trouble maintaining my identity with it. Maybe I was growing so much (and had grown so much), that I could now form my own notions of how I identify life. What is life if you don’t make connections, but does what you name yourself limit you?

I think you have to make an identity out of yourself, but are you solely marked by the one identity you make? We want to be remembered for our great contribution in life; that is, after all, our immortality. Unfortunately, people come to expect that one gift of you and end up fixing you (limiting you) as a person to just that one dimension. There is no space for exceptions. The problem is that there are always exceptions. Why can’t we have multiple dimensions without that being a problem, even if some seem to counter each other? I want people to make identities ¬to name their experiences, develop their ideas, and make their lives expressions of what they are thinking, feeling, acting, and so on. I want them to learn to call it what they want, not what someone else wants them to call it. But, most importantly, “it” is not fixed. ¬ “It” is not one thing, but anything. So, call your yoga what you want, because everyday your wants are changing. Everyday, your experiences are not the same and what you call them will be different. I want to teach you my experiences, but I want you to call them yours,¬ with a variety of differing names.

Assets and Liabilities

My teacher likes to say, “Your assets are your liabilities.” I use that line a lot. In fact, my teacher trainings center around that principle - everything has an advantage and a disadvantage. Recently, I was in a situation where for the first time I found myself truly deferring to others and listening to their expertise. I began thinking to myself - why haven’t I been able to do this before?

My strength has always been in doing things. I am fast study. I remember things instantly. What I don’t know, I can quickly figure out on my own. This is my strength. I know more than enough in many fields, and I want to do the job. I want to be the caregiver. I want to take the credit (or be at fault). Simply, when it comes down to it, I am going to do the job, whether that is renovating my house (carpentry, plumbing, electricity, and so forth), designing a website, logo, or other graphics, to teaching, bookkeeping, cooking, laundry (okay I don’t do yard work), I won’t ask for assistance. Owning a number of different businesses over the years, I have always relied on my skills to get the job done. Whether that was due to not enough money to hire someone to do it, or because I didn’t think the job would get done as good unless I did it. Regardless, I ended up burning the wick from both ends, for good or bad. Sometimes it worked, but in my last business it did not. The fact was I needed people, but didn’t know how to defer. My asset became my liability and it hindered me. I couldn’t receive what others had to offer.

As I consider these implications on my life I am reminded of how yoga was and continues to be transmitted. While my heart and teaching falls into a certain lineage, my actions seemed to be mirroring another. Maybe I want to be the guru, but in some regard who doesn’t? Isn’t it tantalizing to have all that respect from so many people all looking to you? Certainly, I can see how easy it would be to get caught up in wanting and having all that power. In the modern yoga era, these guru lineages, where one person is in control and people submit to his or her power is the more common image of yoga. Maybe it is for all the ways it is not our culture - to have the foreign looking, all-knowing sage, whose sole job is to bestow grace in our lives. Who wouldn’t want that, especially in our difficult, over-worked, busy lives?

But the more unknown transmission of yoga was the one that I really found myself getting this week. These other guru traditions are called Kula-Yoga. These traditions don’t look to one seat or person to hold all the authority, but rather authority shifts depending on what’s needed. Everyone is the guru, and everyone has a legitimate say when it is his or her expertise. As I sat around the conference table, I was inspired by the contributions of everyone there. Each person was guru when they spoke. Being able to defer tasks and roles all of a sudden made my whole body and mind lighter. I had created more space to be myself, rather than creating another burden that I have to do. Respecting others only makes people respect me more. Not thinking I had to do or know everything was a relief.

When it comes down to it yoga wants us to learn to truly defer and let other’s greatness be our experiences. To be great means you have to learn to keep the company of greatness. That means you have to be willing to allow other’s a chance to share it.