Category Archives: articles

Allowing the inner Buddha to walk, working with Fran Bell, emergent knowledge

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I’m sharing a beautiful article from Tricycle magazine, Walk Like a Buddha, written by Buddhist monk, teacher, and activist Thich Nhat Hanh about walking meditation.

For many of us, the idea of practice without effort, of the relaxed pleasure of mindfulness, seems very difficult. That is because we don’t walk with our feet. Of course, physically our feet are doing the walking, but because our minds are elsewhere, we are not walking with our full body and our full consciousness. We see our minds and our bodies as two separate things. While our bodies are walking one way, our consciousness is tugging us in a different direction.

For the Buddha, mind and the body are two aspects of the same thing. Walking is as simple as putting one foot in front of the other. But we often find it difficult or tedious. We drive a few blocks rather than walk in order to “save time.” When we understand the interconnectedness of our bodies and our minds, the simple act of walking like the Buddha can feel supremely easy and pleasurable.

What this brings up for me is noticing where my attention is. When do I pay attention to my body? My answer has been: not often enough. It’s there all the time, so easy to take for granted. The external world seems so much more engaging because it’s constantly changing.

I walked habitually, without paying much attention (or rather with more attention on my destination than the journey), and as a result, I acquired some mindless movement patterns that actually created stress and tension in my body.

Fran Bell is helping me with that. She shows me there’s an alternative, and it feels so relaxed and healthy! I feel totally in my body. I enjoy it.

But I only see her for an hour a week, and although I retain some of what she shows me, I also become mindless again, some of the time.

The real learning is up to me. Influenced also by the book Effortless Wellbeing, I’ve been paying attention to my body when I lie down, when I sit (at my computer and in the car), when I stand, and when I walk.

Where do I feel tightest, most constrained? Can I just let go of that? Well, yeah!

Here are some of my new awarenesses:

  • Walking as a unit rather than as an assemblage of parts.
  • Feeling the left-right symmetry of my moving body.
  • Feeling the rhythm of walking.
  • Balancing my head easily atop my neck with minimal strain.
  • Balancing my rib cage easily above my hips with minimal strain.
  • Ankles, knees, and hips.
  • Feeling the natural springiness in my walk.
  • Feeling the side-to-side sway of my body.
  • Feeling the relationship between my hip and the opposite shoulder.
  • Letting my arms swing from my dropped shoulders.
  • Keeping my sternum in an easy natural place.
  • Keeping my eyes in a soft gaze.
  • Finding the most ease.

Walking meditation is really to enjoy the walking—walking not in order to arrive, just for walking, to be in the present moment, and to enjoy each step. 

I notice that walking with mindfulness adds presence and pleasure to my life.

He goes on to include some instruction about adding breath awareness to walking medication. Here’s an excerpt I liked:

After you have been practicing for a few days, try adding one more step to your exhalation. For example, if your normal breathing is 2-2, without walking any faster, lengthen your exhalation and practice 2-3 for four or five times. Then go back to 2-2. In normal breathing, we never expel all the air from our lungs. There is always some left. By adding another step to your exhalation, you will push out more of this stale air. Don’t overdo it. Four or five times are enough. More can make you tired. After breathing this way four or five times, let your breath return to normal. Then, five or ten minutes later, you can repeat the process. Remember to add a step to the exhalation, not the inhalation.

Buddhism, neurology, and the self

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Thanks, Katie Raver, for seeing this article, thinking of me, and posting the link on my Facebook wall, and thanks to Tom Dotz of NLP Comprehensive for sharing it where Katie found it.

Buddhism and the Brainis an opinion piece published in new-to-me Seed Magazine.

There is usually a vast gulf between how someone perceives their self, say in seated meditation, and their beliefs about their self. The meditating self is often a constant fragmented stream of thoughts, sensations, memories, naming, internal dialogue, sometimes interrupted by calm.

Anatta is not a unified, unchanging self. It is more like a concert, constantly changing emotions, perceptions, and thoughts. Our minds are fragmented and impermanent…. Both Buddhism and neuroscience converge on a similar point of view: The way it feels isn’t how it is. There is no permanent, constant soul in the background.

The author asks how Buddhism got it right and brings up the paradox of reincarnation. (If there is no self, what continues to be reincarneted?) He also wonders about the Western view of the self:

When Judeo-Christian belief conflicts with science, it nearly always concerns science removing humans from a putative pedestal, a central place in creation. Yet science has shown us that we reside on the fringes of our galaxy, which itself doesn’t seem to hold a particularly precious location in the universe. Our species came from common ape-like ancestors, many of which in all likelihood possessed brains capable of experiencing and manifesting some of our most precious “human” sentiments and traits. Our own brains produce the thing we call a mind, which is not a soul. Human exceptionalism increasingly seems a vain fantasy. In its modest rejection of that vanity, Buddhism exhibits less error and less original sin, this one of pride.

Click the link above to read the whole article.

New mind-body research finding; living in a toxic world

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I came across this New York Times article, Rejection May Hurt More than Feelings.

The study found that an unwanted breakup affects the brain the same way as having hot coffee spilled on your skin.

In other words, emotional pain is like, or the same as, physical pain.

Also, the New York Times Sunday Book Review features a review, Making Sense of a Toxic World, of a new book, What’s Gotten Into Us?: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World, that looks at the difficulty of proving there’s a clear cause-and-effect of our chemical-laden bodies with rising rates of autoimmune disease, some cancers, autism, reproductive problems, and so on.

It’s not a rave review by any means, but it does have this to say:

The more interesting parts here concern the chemical industry and the free rein it’s had to market scores of thousands of underscrutinized compounds. But it isn’t just chemicals that have gotten into us, Jenkins astutely notes: it’s also culture. “We are saturated with products, and marketing, and advertising,” he writes. “Our ignorance is not an accident.” Manufacturers fight labeling laws, and the federal government doesn’t adequately support independent research into the environmental and health impacts of even the most commonly used chemicals. Regulatory agencies are underfunded and understaffed, even as consumption of manufactured goods (and goods imported from countries with even less regulation than ours) continues to rise.

The reviewer concludes:

… it’s a fine, user-friendly introduction to avoiding environmental hazards in the home, and an even better catalyst to questioning how we got to this point and transcending our unthinking reliance on chemicals that — at certain levels, in certain circumstances, at certain times in our lives — definitely do more harm than good.

Looking for a reason to quit your job?

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Found this article — 10 More Reasons You Need to Quit Your Job Right Now! — in, you guessed it, Elephant Journal, and have been reading and clicking all the links. Very amusing, fresh, and insightful, James Altucher!

He busts the mortgage excuse, the I’ve-got-to-send-my-kids-to-college myth, and asks you to consider your boss, your coworkers, the actual work, the economy, fear, what-am-I-doing-with-my-life?, and the loss of creativity from sticking to a job you don’t really, really love for too long.

Everybody does what they need to do. I’m just sayin’, sometimes it’s time to leave. The life you save may be your own.

Excerpts from some of the links in the article follow. This one is about why owning your own home might not be so great:

Let’s spell out very clearly why the myth of homeownership became religion in the United States. It’s because corporations didn’t want their employees to have many job choices. So they encouraged them to own homes. So they can’t move away and get new jobs.

On how to be lucky:

All you need to do, minimally, is exercise enough to break a sweat for 10 minutes. So about 20-30 minutes worth of exercise a day. This is not to get “ripped” or “shredded”. But just to be healthy. You can’t be happy if you aren’t healthy. Also, spending this time helps your mind better deal with its daily anxieties. If you can breathe easy when your body is in pain then its easier to breathe during difficult situations.

If someone is a drag on me, I cut them out. If someone lifts me up, I bring them closer. Nobody is sacred here. When the plane is going down, put the oxygen mask on your face first. Family, friends, people I love – I always try to be there for them and help. But I don’t get close to anyone bringing me down. This rule can’t be broken. Energy leaks out of you if someone is draining you. And I never owe anyone an explanation. Explaining is draining.

I feel that most people don’t like the word “spiritual”. They think it means “god”. Or “religion”. But it doesn’t.  I don’t know what it means actually. But I feel like I have a spiritual practice when I do one of the following: [pray, meditate, be grateful, forgive, and study].

What to do if you get fired:

Find your “customers.” Treat yourself like a one-man business. Make a list of customers (i.e. places or people you might want to work with). Then come up with a list of 10 ideas for each customer/place you might want to work. Ideas that can make them money. This way you keep your idea muscle intact.  Don’t let your idea muscle atrophy! Pitch your ideas to that customer if you can. If you can’t, move onto the next customer.

Make a list of the people you’ve worked with over the past ten years that you are grateful you worked with. Email them and tell them why you were grateful you worked with them. Ask them sincerely how they are doing.

About being an entrepreneur:

 For me, being an “entrepreneur” doesn’t mean starting the next “Facebook”. Or even starting any business at all. It means finding the challenges you have in your life, and determining creative ways to overcome those challenges.

If you are offering a service, call it a product. Oracle did it. They claimed they had a database. But if you “bought” their database they would send in a team of consultants to help you “install” the database to fit your needs. In other words, for the first several years of their existence, they claimed to have a product but they really were a consulting company. Don’t forget this story. Products are valued higher than services.

Don’t listen to the doom and gloomers that are hogging the TV screen trying to tell you the world is over. They just want you to be scared so they can scoop up all the money.

Prison yoga: stories and photos, and local prison work

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I read this Elephant Journal article, Yoga at San Quentin: Prisoner Interviews and Photos, liked it, discovered it had a Part 1 (Do Prisoners Deserve Yoga?) and a Part 2 (Know about yoga & meditation for at-risk and incarcerated youth? Serving where it matters most), and liked those articles as well.

At its best, prison is a place that transforms lives.

I’ve had an opportunity several times to go into the state prison at Lockhart and take part in the graduation ceremonies of Truth Be Told, which works with women behind and beyond bars. They have been the most moving, heart-opening, compassion-building experiences I’ve ever had. 

Please note on Truth Be Told’s website that a couple of upcoming opportunities to witness graduation ceremonies in both Lockhart and Gatesville are happening later this month. Respond quickly if you’re interested. I just got confirmation for attending the May 26 graduation in Gatesville’s Hilltop unit, my first time there.

I don’t know if there’s still space or if the deadline has passed. You have to be pre-approved by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

If you are interested in waking up to more of the world we live in, being moved, and finding a way to be of service (even if just witnessing), I recommend connecting with Truth Be Told and attending one of these ceremonies.

If you can’t go, at least get on their mailing list and make a contribution however you can.

Does anyone know if yoga is being taught in the Travis County State Jail, the GEO prison in Lockhart, the prison in Burnet, or in any of the Gatesville prisons? I’d love to know.

Interview with yoga crone Cora Wen

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I only got connected with Cora Wen through Facebook. I forget exactly how. I’ve come to love her posts and her take on yoga.

Now The Magazine of Yoga has published a two-part interview with Cora. This link is to Part 1, where Cora discusses being a yoga crone (along with Angela Farmer, Indra Devi, and other older female yoga teachers), and how they’ve served as role models for how to age well.

As well as race/ethnicity and gender and body differences.

In Part 2 of the interview, Cora talks about being a yoga teacher, chi, and living a life touched by yoga.

Love this quote:

That seems to be the thing my students always say: “You’re just so you.” Well, I want you to be you. I want you to disagree with me. I don’t want you to do what I say. I want you to think for yourself. I want you to be curious. I want you to be playful. I don’t want you just to listen to me. I don’t want you to repeat what I say. I want you to be you. Maybe I can help you see that. Being you is okay.

Read on for Cora’s take on the most important of the Yoga Sutras, and why.

Serotonin: the “don’t panic yet” neurotransmitter

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Here’s a New York Times article, Job Description Grows for Our Utility Hormone, on the neurotransmitter serotonin.

New findings: it’s manufactured prenatally by the placenta and stimulates the growth of new neural connections in the forebrain, and it plays a role in bone health.

Excerpts:

The molecule was first detected in 1948, in blood serum, and it was shown be a vascular toning agent that causes blood vessels to constrict — hence its name, a conjoinment of “serum” and “tone.” Five years later, scientists found serotonin in brain extracts as well, and they soon learned that the recently invented hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide worked by tapping into the brain’s serotonin system and that if you took too much LSD you might end up wearing hair garlands and overusing the word “wow.”

For all the intricacy, serotonin in the brain has a basic personality. “It’s a molecule involved in helping people cope with adversity, to not lose it, to keep going and try to sort everything out,” said Philip J. Cowen, a serotonin expert at Oxford University and the Medical Research Council. In the fine phrase of his Manchester University colleague Bill Deakin, “it’s the ‘Don’t panic yet’ neurotransmitter,” said Dr. Cowen.
Given serotonin’s job description, disturbances in the system can contribute to depression, anxiety, panic attacks and mental calcification, an inability to see the world anew — at least in otherwise vulnerable people.

Neuronal serotonin may be better known, but as it happens the vast bulk of the body’s serotonin supply, better than 95 percent, is synthesized outside the brain, mostly by the gut. The two serotonin stocks are kept strictly segregated by the blood-brain barrier, however, and are able to perform on entirely independent pathways.

Pratyahara starts with unnaming and having a fresh mind

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I came across this article, 10 Things About Pratyahara: The Pivotal Moment in a Yogi’s Path, a few weeks ago on pratyahara and found it too good not to share.

Pratyahara, for the uninitiated, is one of the eight “limbs” of yoga, according to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. It’s often translated from Sanskrit into English as “withdrawal of the senses.”

That description may not make much sense to those of us who are aware that our senses — when not engaged externally in seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching — are often engaged internally, when we experience internal dialogue or visions, imagination, and memories.

When does it stop? And is pratyahara really about what the senses are engaged or not engaged in? I think it’s more about the direction and freshness of your awareness.

This article points out B.K.S. Iyengar’s belief that when we internally name things we see, such as “tree,” “slugbug,” “cloud,” we are not practicing pratyahara. We do this all the time but may not be conscious of it.

Pratyahara occurs when the naming ends. We are so wedded to knowing. “That is a woman.” “That is a car.” “I am [insert your name or job or sound bite here].” There’s a feeling of triumph — you know! There’s certainty! And once known, it becomes stale.

Pratyahara is fresh.

Pratyahara is like Zen beginner’s mind.

It’s awareness of the samskara of the mind, creating a new direction for awareness. Rather than focusing outward while internally naming, change your mind’s direction and practice unnaming. It’s another awareness practice, another presence practice.

One exercise you can do to begin to practice pratyahara is to go for a walk and deliberately name everything you see. For five minutes, look at it and label it!

Then stop. Just listen for a couple of minutes, listening in an unfiltered way, letting all the sounds come in. You may still notice yourself labeling sounds at first. Go ahead. After you label it, really listen. Notice the gestalt of sound coming into your ears. Hear all the sounds at once!

Then continue walking, but this time walk as if you were seeing for the first time. Notice patterns of light and dark, notice shapes, contrast in colors and textures.

Do sirsasana and view the world upside down. Unname it.

You begin to loosen the grip of knowing.

You begin rewiring.

You begin pratyahara.

Antidotes for sedentary jobs: getting more life in your life

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NPR is carrying a story about the health risks of a sedentary life, covered last week in the New York Times. (I blogged about it here.)

This story, Sitting All Day Is Worse For You Than You Might Think, is available for reading and listening by clicking the link.

This article recommends sitting on a stability ball (aka exercise ball) and taking frequent mini-breaks.

I’ve worked at sedentary jobs for many years. At my last job, after a period of not working and living an active life (walking, swimming, biking a lot), I took lunch-time yoga classes and brought in an exercise ball to sit on instead of using my office chair.

Many people, one at a time, asked me about it when they came by my office on another matter. I let them try mine if they liked. I believe one or two may have even got one for themselves.

(You know, I think I was kind of a pioneer, ahead of my time in that workplace. They probably saw me as being too “out there.” I don’t know, and actually it’s none of my business. My business is taking care of me. And now I’m moving away from sedentary work. My body just needs to move. I’m much happier and healthier.)

When you sit on an exercise ball, you use your leg muscles. It’s also easier to roll, bounce, sway, and otherwise get more movement into your day at a desk.

Also, without a back to lean against, using an exercise ball for a chair really works your core muscles. You have to hold your torso up with your muscles. That may be a little fatiguing at first. It took me a week to get used to it. I was never sore, though, just tired from the extra work until my body accommodated it.

I think I got my exercise ball at Target for $12.99. I’m not very tall, but the largest size worked for me. I think it was 75 mm.

They come with a foot pump. You fill it with enough air so that it’s firm. Every six months or so, you need to put more air in because either the rubber has stretched or it has leaked a tiny amount.

I used a large bent paper clip to pull the “nail” out of the air hole, pumped more air in, and replaced the nail.

You could put a square of duct tape over the nail if you’re worried about it popping or leaking.

I’m not sure how much weight they can hold. You can spend more for a burst-resistant ball.

If an exercise ball is not an option, the next best thing is to sit on the edge of your office chair rather than leaning against the back. At least you’ll strengthen your core muscles.

I like the idea of mini-breaks. Walk to the water fountain or restroom, or just take a walk around your workplace. As you walk past offices, listen to the sounds of people at work, catch snatches of phone conversations, hear how fast people type, smell various aromas, see how people personalize their office space, let your eyes rest from computer work by looking down the long hallways. Stretch, dance, do a minute of yoga.

It’s all good and puts more life in your life!

Restorative yoga: good for athletes and for healing

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Happy Easter! This year I’m enjoying thinking of Jesus as a revolutionary corruption-fighter who also taught peace and love. Christ is risen!

I just came across this article, Yoga minus all that pesky effort, on restorative yoga for athletic recovery.

Legs up the wall is great for resting the legs after a run. Passive backbend opens the chest so you can breathe more deeply.

And every active person needs more rest.

Teaching my restorative class, Unwinding, tonight, 7-8:30, at Oak Hill Healing Arts, 7413 Bee Caves Road. I bring the props, you bring your mat and yourself, ready to enjoy some deep relaxation.

Namaste, y’all!