Offering

At the end of a painful retreat (about which, click here), Laurie came to pick me up.

She brought Echo, a rambunctious Samoyed, who, she informed me, was disappointingly not named Moksha.

We walked the dog around the outer grounds of Spirit Rock. Up the hills, through the winter-brown weeds and grasses. She tugged and jumped and played. She started at a tall, white marble Buddha standing in a grove of trees, was only wary of a small seated Buddha halfway up the hill, and by the time we encountered another figurine at the foot of the hill, she was
unimpressed, sniffing along the fringes of the dirt footpath.

Coming off this retreat, my heart was a bit raw, but relievedly open.

* * *

The first several days had been a painful, pain-filled retreat for me. The only relief I found was in walking meditations – under the overhanging eaves during heavy rains, under the bay laurel and live oak forest when the rains lightened. On one of the most difficult days, I found a stretch of forest trail to serve as my walking path. Fifteen slow steps from a young fir tree to a huge, head-level oak branch, covered in bright green moss and grey lichens. Then back. Then back. Then back. Then back.

The deep sound of the far-off courtyard bell signaled the return to seated meditation and the pain I was unsuccessfully struggling to overcome. I paused at the overhanging oak limb. Pressed my face against the cold, rough, damp moss. Inhaled the scent of cold, wet life. I turned my head toward the trunk, pressing my cheek against the moss. Deep in the moss-lined niche where the limb joined the trunk, sat a two-inch statue. But unlike the blissful, peaceful icons of Buddha-nature that dot the grounds of Spirit Rock, this one is rendered inexpertly in clay. Its face is more of suggestion than a rendering – eye sockets and a closed mouth. The effect is a gaunt and troubling figure.

That isn’t the Buddha. It’s a starved yogi.

* * *

I heed the bell and return to the meditation hall, rotely bow to the standing Buddha at the front of the room to acknowledge my effectless resolve to seek liberation, and resume my pain-filled and increasingly desperate sitting.

* * *

The next time the rains lighten, I return to the bit of trail for walking meditation. At the end of the slow slow slow walking, I look again at the clay statute. It is still gaunt. It still seems to say more of warning than of enlightenment. I walk. The distant bell sounds. I approach the tree limb end to my path.

I turn to walk away. Then I feel a slight desire well up. In the quiet, the mind turns toward the desire, and I see a want to offer something. “No. Foolishness.” my mind says. I turn to follow the bell’s call back to the meditation hall. The same up-welling arises. I look to the forest floor and find a bit of oak branch with tiny, ungrown acorns barely emerging from scaled caps. I place it before the gaunt little statue.

* * *

On our walk, Laurie and Echo and I approach the last statue of the Buddha from behind. As we near, we see strands of weathered mala beads hanging from the statue’s neck. We round it and stand, looking. Someone has clipped a barrette to a strand of mala beads. Someone else has hung a pendant around the statue’s neck. In the statue’s mudra-nestled hands someone has put a piece of flint, several have put coins, another has placed a smooth, red stone. At the base of the statue are arrayed impromptu offerings – more coins, a house key, a cracked nerf football, stones, bracelets, a corroding piece of folded paper clipped with a wooden clothespin, an earring. I bow toward the statue, feeling this time in my raw, open heart, the acknowledgement of the path, of the pain I’ve stopped resisting. I let go of the form, and gratitude wells up. The bow offers my complete awareness.

* * *

Fetters of I, me, and mine fall away, veils of time and place pull open and the gratitude of the mala-bead offeror is present. The gratitude of the house-key offeror is present. The gratitude of the barrette offeror is present. The gratitude of the bead-purse-offeror, and rock-offerors, and the feather-offeror, and the coin-offerors, and the football offeror is present. And the gratitude of countless people who have bowed before the statue is present. And all of us in that moment without ourselves are realized in one offering, one gratitude, one bowing.

And as I’ve done countless times on this retreat, I weep.

Laurie unclips a tag from Echo’s collar and places it gently beside someone’s house key.

(Cross-posted at dovesandserpents.com, which has some of Laurie's pictures from that day)

Off the mat -- Self-ness, the Yamas, and the Niyamas

Off the mat – Self-ness, the Yamas and Niyamas

Once our minds have constructed the notion of "I," it becomes our central reference point. We attach to it and identify with it totally. We attempt to advance what appears to be its interests, to defend it against real or apparent threats and menaces. And we look for ego-affirmation at every turn: confirmation that we exist and are valued. The Gordian Knot of preoccupations arising from all this absorbs us exclusively, at times to the point of obsession. This is, however, a narrow and constricted way of being. Though we cannot see it when caught in the convolutions of ego, there is something in us that is larger and deeper: a wholly other way of being.(1)

***

We started our conversation about the eight limbs of the practice of Yoga with the discussion of the yamas, or ethical practices, first, and the niyamas, or self-discipline, second. Though they may seem pretty familiar to folk who have been taught to live ethical, responsible lives, deeply integrating them into our lives is a powerful way to begin maturing and developing both the discipline and the insight needed for liberation.

As a reminder, the yamas:

Ahimsa – non-harming
Satya – truthfulness
Asteya – non-stealing
Brahmacharya – avoiding sexual misconduct
Aparigraha – non-grasping

The niyamas:

Saucha – purity
Santosha – contentment
Tapas – intensity or fire
Svadhyaya – self-study
Ishvara pranidhana – alignment with existence


Before moving to the third limb of the path of Yoga – pranayama, or energy control – I wanted to pause to talk about a particular practice I’ve recently learned that provides an effective way of integrating the yamas and niyamas in daily life. I have a tendency to think of all kinds of instructions like them as “shoulds” or “oughts” or (worse) “have to”s. I was raised in a relatively strict religious tradition that entailed (with a lot of very important benefits) lots of emphasis on commandments. But when I start thinking of the yamas and niyamas as commandments, I fall back into my traditional understanding of myself separate and apart from the commandment-giver, and – further – separate and apart from the action itself.

Patanjali and others (the Buddha, in particular) help us to see that viewing the individual as separate from the actions of the is an artificial convention – not that it’s not useful in some regards – just that it’s no more “natural” or “right” or “complete” or accurate a picture than a variety of other ways of seeing and conceiving. The convention may be useful for some purposes, but mistaking the conventional perspective for something permanent and inalterable and “right” really limits our ability to see and understand clearly.

So if we don’t think of them as commandments of one sort or another, how should we approach the yamas and niyamas in life off the mat?

Here’s the practice – I first found it in The Diamond Cutter(2), a book by Geshe Michael Roach – and it comes in three steps, each one building on the previous one:

1. Close observation. Though the practice works with regard to any relationship, I found it easiest to start the practice by picking someone I interact with frequently. So the next time you interact with the person, make an effort to really observe the person closely. Notice what she says, what he is wearing, how she holds her body as she stands or sits, the ways he speaks and pauses, everything you can. After that interaction is done, take a minute or two to make some notes of your observations to help cement the perceptions in your mind. Approach the exercise as if you were going to become that person’s personal assistant, and wanted to know everything that you could to facilitate interacting with the person professionally and usefully going forward.

2. Go inside. The next part of the practice requires a bit more effort, a bit of laying aside your own thoughts, needs, wants, etc., but if your experience is like mine, it’s really interesting mental shift. After the first encounter with the person, and after the note-taking, the next time you interact with the person, try to imagine how that person is experiencing the interaction with you. Imagine what the interaction with you is like from her side; what he is expecting, thinking, needing, wanting, hoping for; how she perceives your words and actions; and what you can do to be of use to the person in that situation. For me, the first time I tried this, it was like pulling back a curtain and finding a window I had forgotten was there. I could suddenly see how much of my interaction with that person before then had been a stumbling combination of projecting my own wants and desires, thinking about my concerns, and unconsciously assuming that the other person was getting what I thought needed to be understood.

3. Expand your view of “me.” The third step is the natural extension of the second, though you don’t need to be in a hurry to finish with the second step. My experience is that practicing the second on different occasions with different people can reveal more than just a single insight or understanding. But once you’re ready to move along to the next step, here’s the exercise: Go through the second step again to get as clear a sense as you can of how the situation feels and what it looks like from the other person’s perspective, then imagine a bubble big enough to hold both you and the other person inside. And instead of thinking about “me” and the “other person,” think about each as a part of something composed of both of you.

From that expanded perspective, review your expectations, wants, needs, concerns, not as the limited you before the bubble occurred, but the expanded you. You now have two concentrations of matter and form, rather than just one. You now look out on the world through four eyes, rather than two. You now have two perspectives on every situation, rather than one. You now have two bodies to care for and protect, rather than one. In some ways, your connection to the new “part” of “you” isn’t as strong as your connections to the narrower self you started with before the exercise.

Those connections and interactions will take time to stabilize and deepen. Remember the first time that you tried Natarajasana (Dancer’s Pose)? The connection between your vision and the standing leg and the balancing sense took a while to “see” one another clearly enough to hold the pose comfortably. My experience with this third practice stage has taken a while to stabilize. In some ways, I still haven’t fulfilled my original expectations. But in other ways, I’ve discovered things that I never even guessed at.

Over time, you may find that for you, too, the connections between what you previously thought of as your self and the other person will strengthen. You may find yourself thinking of your skin as not the outer boundary of “your self,” but rather an interface – a sensing organ – that connects parts of you to other parts of you. And you may find that you interact more gracefully with the other parts of you than you did before.

But back to the original topic – with this practice, you’re likely to find that the more you live with this expanded understanding of “you,” living the yamas goes from a “should” or an “ought to” to something as practical as pulling your hand out of a flame. Living the niyamas will feel as normal as avoiding something you discover you’re allergic to.

One evening, my wife and I attended a reception with several friends and acquaintances. When we got to a buffet table, one friend turned to me and asked if a particular dish had shrimp in it. I’d tasted it already, and said, yes, it did. He looked carefully and seriously at it, then he shook his head sadly and said, “It just doesn’t look good enough.” I told him it was pretty good, and he went through the same actions, and said the same thing. Then after playing with me a little longer, he added with a grin, “I’m allergic. My doctor told me that if I ever ate shellfish again, I’d die, and that just doesn’t look good enough to be worth it.” He chuckled to himself and headed for the guacamole.

My friend's diet choice was a niyama – a recognition that his life would be better (or in his case, “possible”) only by choosing to forego something that might have looked just fine from the perspective of someone else. As you practice your yoga on and off the mat, you needn’t contrive to practice the yamas and niyamas. Life seems to have lots of ways to present us with opportunities to be contented or perturbed, to do harm or not, to be disciplined or lackadaisical, to speak truth or spin lies. When life gives you such a chance, just notice what happens. Notice what you do, notice how the expanded you responds. Notice everything. And then consider whether a different approach might yield even better outcomes.

What has been your experience with the various yamas and niyamas?
_________________
1John Snelling, Elements of Buddhism; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

2 Geshe Michael Roach, The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life, Doubleday Books: NY, 2000, pp. 210-218.

Off the Mat -- Aparigraha

Aparigraha – Non-grasping

The fifth and last of the yamas that Patanjali lists as ethical disciplines for interacting with others is aparigraha – non-grasping. Written in positive terms, aparigraha is “letting go.” It’s not always easy for me to consider letting go as a way of interacting with others. To be sure, it’s central to much of yoga, asana practice, and 12-step programs everywhere, but in those contexts, it’s easier to think of as a way of steering ourselves away from self-destructive behaviors rather than a way of interacting with others.

So how can letting go affect interactions with others?

One teacher I practice with regularly likes to repeat the phrase “everything you need is already inside of you.” That belief, I think, is at the center of aparigraha, precisely because grasping and clinging – aka “covetousness” – are fed by a deep sense of lacking. If you watch commercial television for fifteen minutes this evening, you’ll see at least a dozen displays intended to convince you that what you need for happiness is, in fact, not inside you, but can be readily found inside a car dealership, a fat retirement account, a can of beer, a promotion, a lipstick tube, whiter teeth, a Quarter Pounder, or, possibly, a weekend in Las Vegas. Aparigraha teaches us otherwise.

When it comes to material possessions, letting go is the beginning of generosity, and the beginning of the end of the “I don’t have enough to…” or the “all I need is…” thought processes. When I experience those desires, whether they’re conjured by advertising or whether they come from my own desires for something external to change me internally, I’ve noticed a couple of things. First, I tend to contract around the perceived need/want/desire. My attention narrows, my awareness of broader experience dims, and I start to focus, instead, on all the reasons I’m not complete without whatever it is. In short: I start, and then continue, suffering. But the experience doesn’t usually stop there. Next, I start devising ways to solve my problem, whatever it may be. Sometimes the fix is as easy (and dangerous) as heading down to the fridge late at night, or running up a tab on my credit card, or popping a pill to get to sleep. Sometimes it’s as complicated as lying to get someone to think something good about me falsely. At other times, it’s as life-consuming as devoting my life to accumulating a particular amount of money. But whatever the specific application, every one of those cases defines me by what I lack and focuses me on getting something to make myself more complete.

And all of it focuses my attention – and, for that matter, my life, my very being – on “I,” “me,” and “mine.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote this:

The Buddha once said that the core message of all his teachings – he taught continually for 45 years – could be summed up in one sentence. On the off chance that that might be the case, it might not be a bad idea to commit that sentence to memory. You never know when it might come in handy, when it might make sense to you even though in the moment before, it really didn’t. That sentence is:

“Nothing is to be clung to as ‘I,’ ‘me,’ or ‘mine.’”

In other words, no attachments. Especially to fixed ideas of yourself and who you are.

It is a hard message to swallow at first blush because it brings into question everything that we think we are, which for the most part seems to come from what we identify with, our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, our values, our work, our expectations of what is “supposed” to happen and how things are “supposed” to work out for me in order for me to be happy, our stories of where we came from and where we are going and of who we are.

But let’s not react quite so quickly, even though at first blush the Buddha’s counsel may feel more than a little scary or even stupid or irrelevant. For the operative word here is “clinging.”

p. 53, Coming to our Senses, Kabat-Zinn

For a long time, I really resisted this teaching myself. It sounded to me too much like some kind of self-destructive notion, the sort of thing someone with no self-respect or self-worth might accept. But, like a few other teachings I’ve received in my life, this was one that has grown on me with time. In part, because of what Kabat-Zinn points out – the operative instruction is “don’t cling,” not “reject yourself.” Realizing that opened the door a tiny crack, and let in some light.

A dear yoga teacher frequently reminded me during practice, “let go of what you don’t need right now.” And every so often, maybe one time out of fifty that she gave that instruction, I realized that, in fact, I was clinging to something that I really didn’t need at that moment. And when I relaxed that grip, the yoga practice improved. Realizing that nudged the door a bit further, widening the crack. And a little more light came in.

Then I read a book by a sensible author who pointed out that the instruction to not grasp or cling could easily be mistaken for an instruction to reject, to stand apart, to avoid engaging with the world. In fact, he described such an attitude as the “near enemy” of non-grasping – something that looks more than a little bit like the practice, but in fact embodies the exact opposite of it. That idea took me a bit to digest. How was avoiding entanglement with something the opposite of non-grasping? It sure seemed similar.

I think it works like this: grasping/clinging is really rooted in exactly the same internal state as aversion and avoidance. Aversion is simply the way that internal mind state manifests when we experience the opposite of what we cling to. If I cling to the pleasure of a full feeling in my belly, I avoid being hungry and feel an aversion to the experience of hunger. If I cling to a belief that I’m more important than others, I may avoid letting myself perceive ways that other people are important. And I may feel aversion toward the people who threaten my notions of my own importance. If I cling to a belief that no longer serves me, I may feel aversion toward the situations or persons who show me how the belief is incorrect. Each of those situations, and the gazillion more that we could probably come up with if we started listing all of those we’ve experienced ourselves – we’re just clinging to something, whether a feeling, a view of one’s Self, or even something as abstract as a belief. And the clinging manifests as aversion.

When I read that author and realized that aversion and clinging are the same thing, a lot of light suddenly made it through the door. In response, I formulated this as a way to try to live aparigraha in many, many settings:

First Receive.
Then Embrace.
Then Honor.
Then Release.

And the “it” can be almost anything -- whether a feeling, a yoga pose, a headache, a beloved friend, a belief, a thought about myself, a threat to my safety, a work opportunity, a dollar bill.

Refusing to receive something present before me is simply aversion. Allow it in, no matter what it is – good, bad, pleasant, uncomfortable, quiet, loud, delicious, disgusting. And then take it a step further: embrace it, seek to fully engage with it, whatever it may be. Once you have experienced it, honor it: acknowledge its being, exactly as it is. Then, no matter how wonderful it may be, release it. Allow it to be exactly what it may be. Allow it to change in whatever manner it changes. And then apply the same practice to yourself, after you have released whatever “it” might have been.

Aparigraha – non-grasping – absolutely does not mean never to embrace. Rather, it reminds us that we should embrace, and then release. This doesn’t mean that we should bounce from one relationship to another, unstable and flitting. That, itself, can be a kind of grasping/aversion. Applying aparigraha to a long term relationship can be very salutary. Are there ways that we are clutching to a prior version of our companion, one that really isn’t there any more? Fear works against this kind of practice. What might happen if we release the first embrace? Will s/he still care for me? If I cling tightly enough, can’t I prevent that risk from ever arising? Yoga challenges us to live with both our eyes and our arms open. Sometimes, we’ll have the opportunity to embrace a new version of the old person, one that has changed and developed, grown into something more amazing than s/he was before. But sometimes there won’t be such an opportunity. Can we risk it? If I cling tightly enough to what I want so desperately, can I keep it from changing?

* * *

Practicing yoga allows us to perceive the energy that flows through us. The asana and breath practices enable that energy to move more smoothly and freely. That much of the experience of yoga is available to anyone who is willing to practice consistently and with a mind open enough to feel what we feel when we practice. Aparigraha reminds us that if we are willing to open our minds and hearts, to release the various clutches we hold, there are many, many more ways that we can allow energy to move through us as we interact with others.

There is more – so much more – to say about ways to apply the yama of non-grasping in our lives, on and off the yoga mat. But it’s probably best to end here:

I like to think of rivers.

You never see a river clutching the water that flows through it.

Perhaps the river knows that it is the flowing water.