Thought

Well it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe ~ Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, Bob Dylan

I started practicing yoga for my body, but I think it’s also been helping my brain.

I wish I had the kind of brain that didn’t think so much, but that’s a thought that’s hard to fathom. I’m jealous of the people who don’t know how to dwell.

At yoga there is no time to dwell, and that’s a good thing. On the mat there just is no room in my head for anything other than what the instructor has said. We are always moving, even when we are still, and if I'm not paying close attention, then I’ll find myself moving in the wrong direction.

At the beginning of the practice we’re told to set an intention. And for all the thinking I usually do, it’s often hard for me to think of one. I think the reason for this is that once I've stepped to the top of the mat I’ve already handed over the keys to the car.  

“Let’s come to Samasthiti,” the instructor says as she opens the class. “Stand tall and set an intention.”

I step to the top of my mat and stand in Samasthiti, or Mountain pose. It’s a stance of stillness where we collect our thoughts before turning on the ignition.

“Surya Namaskar A!” the instructor calls. “Reach up. Press palms. Look up!”

And so begins the 75-minute ride. The music starts, and I lift my arms to the sky and look to my palms pressed over my head.

“Uttanasana. Ardha Uttanasana. Chaturanga Dandasana!”

I fold on an exhale and lift on an inhale. With another long exhale, I press my palms to the mat and jump back to a low push-up.

The music keeps playing and the instructions keep coming.

“Urdva Mukha!” I move into Upward Facing Dog. “Adho Mukha!” I roll over my toes and press back into Downward Facing Dog.

We hold here for five breaths, and by this time whatever my day has been is gone. I’m here on my mat and moving along, and my mind is clearing with each passing song.  

It’s said that a person has between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts per day. That’s almost 40 thoughts per minute! That’s a lot of thinking! Maybe that explains the buzz in the air after the holidays when the studios get so crowded. With all the yogis coming and going, the number of thoughts in the space is multiplied, and the surrounding energy gets amplified.

We move into the Surya Namaskar B’s, which take a lot more energy than the A’s. And in between each we’re instructed to work on our Fire Jumps.

I tend to land these mostly by accident. I press into my hands and crouch back, trying not to think. Springing forward, I tuck my body into a ball. Without too much thought, I float up on my hands, stacking my hips over my shoulders and extending my legs up high.

I try this several times. It might make sense that each attempt would be easier, but for me it’s actually the opposite. It doesn’t take long before my thoughts get in the way, and I stop trying after a few floats. I think that my arms won’t hold me. I think that I’ll go overboard with too much momentum. By the time we’re called again to Downward Facing Dog, I am already there, suffering my fears!

There is a Buddhist theory on suffering, and it has to do with our thoughts. It defines suffering as the mental attachments we create regarding the pain we’ve experienced. If we’re hurt, mentally or physically, less pain is experienced if we don’t mind so much, and more pain is experienced if we do.

This theory is actually supported by modern science. Today the experience of pain is measured by several regions in the brain, as opposed to what had previously been thought of as one particular pain center. There’s the part of the brain that lets us know that we are hurt, another that lets us know where we’re hurt, and a complex region that determines how we’ll actually react to that hurt.

Surprisingly, there’s also a part of the brain that makes up our minds as to whether or not we will suffer over our hurts. It’s the conscious part. When we experience emotional or physical trauma, the conscious part of our brain gets to think about it, and we actually get to decide whether or not we will suffer!

The instructor takes us through the rest of our Sun B’s, with another chance at the Fire Jumps in between. And each time I set up to jump, I say to myself, “Don’t think! Don’t think! Don’t think!”

We flow from one pose and into the next, moving on from the Fire Jumps to Warrior IIs, Reverse Warriors, Half Moons and more. And when we land in our forward folds, there’s still no time to think. There’s always more to do and always more to listen to. The instructions keep coming.

“Press your big toe mounds into the floor and fold yourself over. Grab opposite elbows and lift your toes to your nose. Lean forward and pull in your belly.”

When I started writing this, my intention was to write about pain. I wanted to do what Ernest Hemingway once said: “Write hard and clear about what hurts.”

But writing for me is like practicing. I set an intention when I can, and then I gather my thoughts, and I listen. Next I wait for my mind to clear, so that I can hear whatever it is inside that brings forth the words. And the words might not always be what I thought, but at the end when I read them I get to see what I've learned.

And here in my effort to write about pain, I’ve wound up with an essay on the brain! And what I’ve learned is that there is an intricate link between what hurts and how we think, and between the power of thought and whether we suffer for naught. 

The practice ends and we are asked to come to a seat with our eyes closed and our hands in prayer. I am in the middle row, in the middle of the room, and I sit with my hands at my heart.

It’s quiet and I sneak a peek around the room. The lights are low, and I can see the silhouettes of all the yogis in front of me framed against the room’s front windows. And I know that if I turned around and looked behind me, I'd see many more of the same. 

I am surrounded by dozens of quiet minds, safely tucked in the center of silence.  

“Bring your thumb knuckles to your Third Eye center,” the instructor says, “and honor the intention that you set at the beginning of your practice.”

I raise my prayer palms to my forehead and realize that I never set an intention! But my body feels strong and my mind is clear and I'm so grateful that I’m here. And so with a heart as full as the room, I close my eyes and bow my head and bask in the absence of thought instead.

Anne is the author of Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself. Connect with her on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Sound & Silence

Cory Bryant, Jivamukti Yoga Instructor

Created in this image so God live[s] through us … only love, love, love can reboot us. ~ Wake Up Everybody, Common, Melanie Fiona, John Legend, The Roots

I’ve written a lot about my love of power vinyasa and Rocket yoga, but I haven’t written too much about another kind of yoga I’ve only recently discovered. It’s called Jivamukti.

A Jivamukti instructor subbed our Rocket class, and I found myself with my fellow rocketeers stumbling over his opening chants. I’d never chanted before.

The instructor took us through all the familiar poses, but in a quieter and more deliberate way. His voice was soothing and so was his music. It was a practice that was intense yet gently settling, and I found it to be the perfect complement to the rest of my yoga regimen.

So I went looking for more.

And now I’ve started to attend some Jivamukti classes. And, sure enough, at the beginning of each there is chanting. All of us sit up straight in a comfortable seated position, and cheat sheets are passed around for those like me who may be unfamiliar with the words.

The chanting only lasts a few minutes, but it helps me settle in and makes for a quick connection with those around me. It reminds me of the days when I used to go to synagogue. It’s in another language and sung in unison.  

And I like the sound. It’s calming, and it makes me feel good.

Sound has always been important to me. I start every day with music, and I never drive without it. I even rate movies and television shows by the way they sound. There can be a certain rhythm to the dialogue, and I like those with the most appealing pace.

Even the sound of someone’s voice can mean a lot to me.

I’ve often been drawn to a practice by the sound of an instructor’s voice, and I can honestly say that all of those who have inspired me have done so first with their voices. It’s something I can’t really further explain. I even once hired an attorney based on the sound of his voice!

And once there was live music at yoga. A guitar player sang to us for 75 minutes as we practiced, and I couldn’t help but think there was a hidden microphone somewhere in the room. His music and his voice seemed to wrap around us as we flowed through the practice. And afterward I threw my arms around him and jokingly asked if I could take him home, so he could keep singing to me.

The Jivamukti instructor has written about why we chant.

Sound is God, he writes. Chanting the names of God creates the resonance of God, which exists in you.

He writes that chanting raises our vibration, which is something that exists in all of us. He says this vibration is God, and the effort to tap into it is what marks the yoga practice.

I think there can be as many different reasons for embarking on this practice as there are beliefs in God, but, ultimately, something does happen in this endeavor. Perhaps it’s that we become aware of something greater than ourselves, something inside that we may have forgotten was there in the first place.

And once this awareness strikes, it’s impossible not to want more, no matter what our beliefs.

And so we become seekers. Suddenly, this is why we practice. It’s how I wound up in the Jivamukti class. I liked the idea of using sound as a way to tap into whatever it is that’s inside, because I do think something’s in there!

A while back, a rabbi paid a visit to the yoga center as part of a meditation workshop. His synagogue has a mindfulness center, and he spoke at length about the greatness that exists in each of us. He called it The Source. But instead of accessing it through sound, he taught us how to access it through silence.

In magic marker, he wrote the Hebrew name of God, יהוה, on a piece of paper and passed it around so all could see. There are many names for God in the Jewish religion, but this one is actually never spoken, as it’s considered too holy to speak.

He explained how the letters could be used to meditate. From right to left as Hebrew is written, he said the first letter, Yud, represents the bottom of the exhale, as it’s so little as to almost not be there at all. The second letter, Hey, represents the breath by the very nature of its sound. It’s the inhale. The third letter, Vav, represents the top of the inhale, because it’s long enough to fill the space in which it’s written. And the last letter, another Hey, represents the next breath. It’s the exhale. 

To meditate, the Hebrew letters are silently chanted, over and over with the breath.

Surprisingly, after our short, silent meditations, he softly chanted aloud a little ditty to signal that it was time to open our eyes. 

I think the Jivamukti instructor and the rabbi are both on to the same thing. Both share in the belief that inside all of us is indeed something bigger than ourselves. And whether it’s through sound or silence, both are seeking a means to access it.

And this search appeals to me, even though I find the means to be a bit of a challenge. It’s not easy to sit in silent meditation, a practice I must confess I’ve only just begun. And the chanting is still foreign to me, even though something about it feels very familiar.

Set aside your ego and your judgment, the Jivamukti instructor writes in further explanation for why we chant. Let the rhythm of life move up and through you.

I believe he is teaching what the rabbi taught, because when we fill our lungs with air until we are as full as the letter Vav, isn’t it the same as letting the rhythm of life move up and through us, too? And surely that would leave no room for ego or judgment, by any means.

All that it leaves room for, really, is what has been there all along. It’s what’s deep inside the sound and deep inside the silence and, ultimately, deep inside us all.

It’s that which was always there, and that which we forever seek.

Nighttime

You know the nighttime, darling (night and day) is the right time (night and day) to be (night and day) with the one you love, now (night and day) … ~ (Nighttime Is) The Right Time, Ray Charles

Lay down. Take Savasana.

The practice had been hot and strenuous, and at its end the instructor turned off the lights and with these words put us in Savasana, the final resting pose.

I should know by now not to be surprised at the end. I’m aware by now what happens as we draw to a close, how we move from abdominal work to backbends, from folds to twists and, finally, to Savasana.

But on this night, as on so many others, I’m as surprised as ever. Before I know it, it’s over, and I’m startled to hear the instructions to take rest.

But I listen and lie back. I pull the bobby pins from my hair and dismantle my ponytail. I lay out my arms and my legs. I open my hands, palms up on the mat, and I splay out my feet.

You don’t have to do anything now, he said. Nothing else is happening. Nighttime is starting.

It’s only recently that I stopped dreading the night. I would assume most people start sleeping well once they begin practicing yoga, if only from sheer exhaustion. But my practice seems to wake me up, which is great if it’s morning, but not so great if it’s evening.

All the thoughts I thought I never had have seemingly appeared, and I think it’s my practice that’s brought them forth. On the one hand, yoga has made me calmer; but, on the other, I haven’t really been able to sleep. At night when I get into bed, it’s as if I need to hear again the instructor say that nothing’s happening and there’s nothing more to do.

And so I started to take something to help me sleep, just a half of a half of what was prescribed. And that helped me get some shut-eye, even if my sleep was not so deep and was often without dreams. Even so, it helped to know there’d be some help when the nighttime arrived.

Especially helpful were my evening hot yoga practices. It would be late, and I’d watch the nighttime cover the windows as the practice closed. The heat would melt me into a puddle, flat on my mat. And I’d straggle out as the studio closed, too, picking up my bobby pins and packing up my mat while wondering how it was that everyone could change and leave so quickly.

I’d arrive home, grab something to eat and draw a bath with water as hot as the practice. I’d lay back and dunk my head in my own version of Savasana, doing my best to rest.

I’d do all this just to get to the morning, just to get past the point when nighttime was starting.

But, really, I don’t think the point of the night is only to get to the next morning. I think we’re supposed to live the night as much as we do the day, to fall asleep as easily as we awaken.

In fact, research shows that sleep is vital to our well-being. Sleep mimics the yoga practice. When we practice, the poses clear our bodies’ energy channels to wash away any toxic karma, and when we sleep, fluid flushes our brains’ microscopic channels to wash away any toxic buildup from the day.

Sleep is how we refresh. It’s when we recover, so the nighttime really shouldn’t be anything to dread.

It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally started to fall asleep without any extra help, and I’m trying to figure out what’s made that happen. It’s springtime now, but I think I turned the corner last fall.

What was it that finally made it okay to take rest? Could it be that I updated our television sets, which prompted a clean-up in the house? I finally cleared out some furniture and made some space. Or maybe it was the fact that I wound the clocks again? I even moved one into the kitchen where I could see it every day. I hear the tick tock as I write, and the soothing chimes tuck me in as they echo up the stairwell. Or was it my wintertime cleanse? I think I cleared out my body in much the same way as I cleared out my house.

Maybe it’s that all of these efforts balanced the space around me and then balanced me, too. Maybe that’s how I’m finally able to sleep.

Or maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the yoga. Perhaps the practice not only awakened my thoughts but also made it okay to have them.

Maybe that was okay, so I was okay, and so I could sleep again.

We had a substitute the other night at yoga. He teaches a style called Jivamukti and asked us to chant at the opening. He played the harmonium and sang out some words, but we stumbled and mumbled along.

Really? He stopped playing and looked around, disappointed with our meek response. And then he explained the purpose of chanting.

We chant to remember who we are, he said. He further explained that we chant to remember who we were before we learned to define who we’d otherwise be.

Throughout the practice, he assisted us in our poses, while speaking of this remembering.

The class was twisted into Reverse Side Angle, and he helped a yogi twist some more. And he spoke more about our thoughts, and how when we meditate we’re supposed to just watch those thoughts go by.

I don’t really meditate, for the very reason of my busy thoughts, but this much I knew.

Well, who is it that does the watching? he asked.

This I didn’t know! He says it’s our soul. He says we’re trying to reveal our soul when we practice.

That’s why we do yoga, he said. We do the poses to release the karma so we can remember who we are.

It was a lot to think about.

After, I decided to do some reading about this remembering. I visited the Jivamukti website and, interestingly enough, the first paragraph referenced our sleep.

I read that when we sleep deeply, we can access our original natures, what the instructor was calling our souls.

We can remember who we are in our sleep! So I have to remember to sleep, because I have to sleep to remember!

And now I think that’s the real reason why I’m sleeping again. It’s not so much the furniture or the clocks or the cleanse, although I think all of that did help.

Instead, I think it’s just me trying. I’m trying to remember who I am, and in my search, I sleep. 

Stillness

How can I possibly be inconspicuous when my flow is so ridiculous? ~ I’ll Be Around, Cee-lo Green

I was at an evening yoga class with a guest instructor who arrived with a great big welcome, his greeting warming the room, and his smile inviting many in return.

This is a Level Two class, he announced. So, what would you like to work on?

With each answer, he jokingly upped the ante, saying, Oh, hips? That’s a 3.23 class!. Inversions? That’s a 5.67 class! Backbends? That’s a 10.789 class!

He asked us what we wanted and got us laughing when we answered, promising us a high energy class and lifting us with that of his own before landing the room in a quiet meditation with a poem and a chant. 

I was happy to be there, sitting next to a friend who was leaving town and among others I knew as well. I felt cozy as evening fell outside the windows, darkening the room in a stillness filled with the rhythmic voice of the instructor.

I didn’t really take in any of the poem or understand the chant; rather, it was as if the sound of his words blanketed my busy thoughts, tucking them away for the night and settling me into a stillness usually found in the final resting pose of Savasana.

It was as though we were starting at the end, and then what followed was the middle!

The instructor popped up from his seated position, turned on the music and moved us directly into Boat Pose, a pose that works on the abs and is usually found halfway through the class. After more ab work, we moved into an early Crow, balancing on our hands with our knees tucked as high above the backs of our arms as possible.

And then we started to flow, and he even threw in a few handstands between warrior poses. He danced to the music and bounced around the room, adjusting us here and there and singing along, too, as his energy lifted us again before landing the room in the quiet of Warrior Two.

And there we held the pose.

With the others, I settled again into stillness, but this time with much more effort as he implored us to take the pose even deeper. He ran through a checklist, asking us to see every part of our bodies as he outlined the view of our arms, our legs, our bellies, our muscles and more.

I even want you to see the back of your knee, he said. I want you to see your blind spots.

There is something about expending lots of energy while being still. Somehow, everything seems to make sense in the stillness, like understanding the words to a chant with no knowledge of the language.

And it’s in this way that I saw myself as instructed, and I at once remembered an astrologer telling me the stars were such that I should walk the King’s Highway. When I asked for an explanation, I was told that I was not to sit on the side, that I was meant to be seen.

My muscles were working hard, and I felt so alert that it seemed as if I could see out of every pore. And I was so still that I found myself strong enough to look at my blind spots and to understand that it’s okay to be seen. I even pictured the back of my knee.

We held the pose still longer, and the energy was as high as we had been in our handstands earlier in the practice. 

I want you to do this pose as if it’s the last yoga pose you’ll ever do, he said.

This brought some giggles to the room, but he held his ground in much the same way as we held the pose.

Seriously, he said, countering with his smile. This could be the last time you’ll ever do yoga. There is no tomorrow.

And so there I was, standing still in what turned out to be the Just Now, where nothing is hidden if you are brave enough to look. It was a liberating place to be, among my fellow warriors with no tomorrow, doing all that mattered in the moment, and seeing all of myself from the inside out.

We broke the pose and flowed once more, the music never having stopped, and the instructor continuing his beat around the room, singing and dancing and asking us to see ourselves, and somehow getting us to do just that by sending us from stillness to flow and stillness to flow.

Soon after, we moved into reverse side angle. I stepped one foot in front of the other and twisted to my left, placing my right hand to the mat and reaching the other to the ceiling. And as I turned my torso to the side, my eyes passed the window, and I saw a single star, like an eye in the sky blinking back at me.

I gazed at the star, and it stared back, both of us seeing the other in the clarity of the stillness that was the Just Now.

But before I knew it, the flow was upon us again, and I averted my eyes, flowing all the way to the end of the class, until the room finally settled into its sweat and its breath and another poem and another chant.

And I lay there in stillness against the rhythm of the words, and I felt free in the bravery of being bare enough to be seen by even me.

And so when I left the class, I thanked the instructor and, although I know he knows there’s no tomorrow, I asked him to please come back again as if there was.

Sisters

Sisters Ida Phillips Alpher and Katherine Phillips Horenstein

"Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies." ~ Aristotle

The other night at yoga, we practiced with our eyes shut.

We moved without seeing for 75 minutes. Apparently, it was the night to focus on our Third Eye, the body’s energy center for insight and intuition.

I, myself, am more focused on not falling. And, I have to admit that I open my eyes a few times.

The first time is to make sure I’m not the only one with eyes closed, which, of course, makes me the only one with eyes open. The second time is to check the pose. And a couple more times, I have to say, is because I just can’t help it!

Aside from that, I move deliberately through darkness with those around me, listening to the matching melodies of the instructor’s voice and the music. Periodically, we sit back on our heels and bring our hands to forehead center for a look inside.

I wonder if anyone else has more than just themselves inside. Because inside me, I’ve got some company!

My grandmother, Kate, and her sister, Ida, were thick as thieves. Two sisters, one soul, their mother would say.

From the very beginning of their lives, they were on a journey together. Born in Russia, their father emigrated to the United States and sent for them with the rest of the family when they were only a few years old.

And, although my grandmother outlived her sister by many years, they paced the days of their lives alongside one another, always together.

When it was time for Ida to go to kindergarten, she refused, saying she would wait until the next year when her sister Kate would be old enough to join her. And when it was time for Ida to get married, she refused, saying she would wait until the time when her sister Kate would find someone, too.

So Kate and Ida, two best friends, married another set of two best friends, Max and Duvid (Do). They had matching engagement rings, a double wedding and a shared honeymoon.

My mother remembers my Aunt Ida and Uncle Do coming over every Sunday during her growing up years. The sisters would put dinner in the oven and climb into bed for a lazy afternoon, talking until it was time to eat.

During the rest of the week, the two spoke every day.

For some reason, since I’ve started practicing yoga, I’ve been thinking about these two sisters. I feel a kinship with them and, when I look inside, I feel their presence.

When I was little, we saw them every Sunday. They were in charge of my siblings and me when my parents traveled, and they patiently watched the many shows my sister and I would perform. We sang songs and played four square. And, best of all, my Aunt Ida let us toss knaidles, the Jewish version of dumplings, clear across the kitchen and into the pot.

And now as an adult, these sisters are back with me again, even recently appearing at one of the few meditation classes I’ve attended.

I was seated in a circle at a session led by a rabbi who’s established a mindfulness center at his synagogue. The rabbi related a story from the week’s Torah portion and discussed its mystical meanings that so closely relate to the Buddhist teachings of yoga, and then we closed our eyes for a few minutes’ meditation.

Afterwards, people volunteered the thoughts they had behind their eyes.

I listened but didn’t speak because what had appeared behind my eyes was more of an image than a thought. What I saw inside was my Aunt Ida and my Bubba Kate.

Somehow, I didn’t think it strange but, at the time, I wondered why they had appeared.

Now, though, as I write this, I realize that I was sitting in that circle because I was seeking something soothing at a tumultuous time. And, sitting there with my eyes closed seemed to help me find just that. In the connection behind my eyes, the image of these sisters passed along some peace.

A while ago, to celebrate a milestone birthday, I received from my parents my mother’s necklace, embedded with the matching diamonds from Ida and Kate’s engagement rings. With permission, I dismantled the necklace into a pair of earrings to be shared among the generations in the family; the diamonds, like the sisters, a complete set.

My Aunt Ida was my mother’s confidant, a strong woman who lived her life outwards, making many connections and sharing in her sister’s family when she herself could not have children. It’s my guess that my Aunt Ida may have been my Bubba Kate’s safety net.

Kate lost her husband and later lost her sister Ida. And then she stayed on her own, living in a much more isolated way.

And now, these days, when I sit back for a look inside, I see in myself the opposite sides of each sister. I see the one who connects so easily with others, and I see the one who remains more so on her own.

I’ve been battling to reconcile these two opposite ends, but now I’m thinking that maybe it’s okay they’re both there, like two sisters with one soul. Maybe, having both is like matching up two diamonds for a beautiful set of heirloom earrings.

The class is over sooner than I realize. Practicing like this has taken all my concentration, and it takes a moment to reorient myself. I wrap up my mat and thank the instructor, grateful for the chance to have closed my eyes and seen so much.