Only Dogs Can Hear

Improving upon silence

The most important step in developing skillful speech is to think before speaking (or writing). This is called mindfulness of speech. Few things can improve the nature of our relationships as much as the development of skillful speech. Silence offers us, and those around us, the spaciousness we need to speak more skillfully. When we speak with greater skill, our true self—our compassionate, loving self—emerges with gentle ease. So before you speak, stop, breathe, and consider if what you are about to say will improve upon the silence.
- Allan Lokos, from “Skillful Speech,” Tricycle, Winter 2008

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.  Thinking rather than talking or writing much.  Contemplating improving upon silence.  I'll be working more on that here again starting now. 

From an email I recently wrote to my fellow yogis in my very recently former home entitled, "kula withdrawal"

So this Iyengar teacher I found seems pretty good.  We'll call him T.  Although I can definitely see why John Friend thought there was joy missing from the practice, it's very business-like. 

At the end of class on Saturday T said, "Each and every one of you would benefit from re-visiting the Yoga Fundamentals class.  That's not an insult people, it's just the gods' honest truth."  Seemed like an insult.  I'll admit that everyone was a little off.  Like people weren't listening to him.  Myself included. 

I thought he said, "Take your mat to the wall and practice forearm balance."  I did.  He came over a minute later, "Are your wrists bothering you?"  "No," I said.  He said, "Why are you doing forearm balance?"  "That's what you said to do," I said, thinking, like, duh man.  "No, I said FULL arm balance."  Now you ladies tell me, have you ever heard handstand called 'full arm balance'? 

Then I suddenly felt like I was back in class with all of you when he told this one woman, "When I say come out of the pose that means right now!"  Sound familiar?  Awesome.  Even better was this, "People, if you're confused ask me for clarification, DO NOT look at your neighbor to see what they are doing.  That's not very clever." 

Maybe we were all just really, extremely, indescribably tired from the four variatings of vashistasana and the ten rounds of urdva danurasana.  T was apparently trying to destroy us.

But anxiety has been a life-long friend

We should remember that if a situation cannot be changed, there is no point in worrying about it. If it can be changed, then there is no need to worry about it either, we should simply go about changing it.

–His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, from The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Inner Peace (Element)

Metta

I'm planning to use this metta (loving kindness) meditation for my daily routine while K is gone.  When he gets back I'll reintegrate vipassana.  I haven't stopped using yoga as a meditational tool.  That's my constant, and I believe everyone deserves a little bit of familiarity.

May *** be free from inner and outer harm.

May *** be safe and protected.

May *** be free of mental distress and suffering.

May *** be happy.

May *** be free of physical pain and suffering.

May *** be healthy and strong.

May *** live in this world happily, peacefully, joyfully, with ease.

Today I focused on people that I already have loving feelings towards.  That's the easy part I suppose.  Tomorrow I think I'll spice it up with someone evoking more difficult feelings.  Should be an interesting couple of months.

Emotional energy

Emotions color how we see the world around us, they affect how we are in any given moment and how we behave, and ultimately they serve as the motivating forces for how we humans transform the world around us. If we spend time dwelling on our desire, we gradually cocreate a world driven by greed, advertising, and compulsive consumerism. When we dwell in anger and fear, we cocreate a world filled with weapons, conflicts, and wars. To the extent that we dwell in love and compassion, we cocreate a world characterized by peace, mercy, safety and inspiring beauty. We need not believe in paradise to see how compassion makes our homes, our towns, and our world better places in which to live.
–Lorne Ladner, from The Lost Art of Compassion

 

Psychological revolution

I was ruminating over the lyrics in the Indigo Girls song Perfect World on the treadmill today.  I kept repeating the line, 'can we learn to live another way', over and over again in my head.  I get all discouraged about that, and sometimes I think the answer is yes, most of the time no.  Then I found this while I was reading Krishnamurti this afternoon:

As one travels over the world and observes the appalling conditions of poverty and the ugliness of man's relationship to man, it becomes obvious that there must be a total revolution.  A different kind of culture must come into being.  The old culture is almost dead and yet we are clinging to it.  Those who are young revolt against it, but unfortunately have not found a way, or a means, of transforming the essential quality of the human being, which is the mind.  Unless there is a deep psychological revolution, mere reformation on the periphery will have little effect.  This psychological revolution--which I think is the only revolution--is possible through meditation.

I'm just not sure how we get to that point.  When does the revolutionary movement gain enough momentum? 

Thoughts of separation

My yoga teacher brought in a friend of hers to do part of our required hours (by Yoga Alliance) on philosophy and meditation.  His explanation of the non-duality of Buddhist philosophy and how it plays out in the 'eightfold path' (right speech, right livelihood, right intention, right action, etc.) was very different than I've heard before.  He said, basically, that we should not do, say, think anything that increases separation in any way.  Instead of separation I've always thought of the path in terms suffering.  I shouldn't do, say or think anything that increases the suffering of any other sentient being.  But maybe the term separation goes even further. 

We see ourselves as divided and separated from experience. We see ourselves as experiencers of “that, out there.” And when that, out there, seems to please or protect us, we call it good. Similarly, when it appears threatening or strange or terrifying, we call it evil. Thus our feeling of separateness is precisely what creates notions of good and evil in the first place.
–Steve Hagen, from Buddhism: It’s Not What You Think

Keeping this in mind

I'm on another whirlwind trip to the east coast.  I'm feeling exhausted and really looking forward to getting back to K and a routine that includes yoga instead of being so sick.  In the meantime, I'm trying to be mindful.  Even if I'm failing to sit 20 minutes everyday.

“Live your daily life in a way that you never lose yourself. When you are carried away with your worries, fears, cravings, anger, and desire, you run away from yourself and you lose yourself. The practice is always to go back to oneself.”

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddhist humor

Seung Sahn would say, "When you eat, just eat. When you read the newspaper, just read the newspaper. Don't do anything other than what you are doing."
One day a student saw him reading the newspaper while he was eating. The student asked if this did not contradict his teaching. Seung Sahn said, "When you eat and read the newspaper, just eat and read the newspaper."
–From Essential Zen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tensho David Schneider (HarperSanFrancisco)

The second training

Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing and oppression, I vow to cultivate loving kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants and minerals. I vow to practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on earth.

~from the Five Mindfulness Trainings