A Yogi & a Zen Koan

I have recently fallen for a new yogi, Seane Corn.  It started with listening to her NPR “On Being” interview with Krista Tippet that I heard a few months back. But then I didn’t really think of her again till a week ago when I felt compelled to listen to that same interview a second time.  I do that sometimes.  “The same river twice” I call it to borrow from author Alice Walker.  And this time, the second listen, was such a different experience. So funny how that happens…

Seane Corn actually described a similar experience at the beginning of her own 20+ year yoga journey.  She said she was walking home from a yoga class and she noticed a completely new emotional experience (happiness) that she had never had before. The next day she returned to the exact same yoga class, and for the first time she heard the yoga teacher talking about love and god.  She knew rationally of course that the teacher was not talking about these things for the first time; Ms. Corn just had never heard them before.  It had been that fantastic ability of the brain to filter out what we are not able to understand yet. Until we can.  According to her interview, that unfolding process is actually the very nature of yoga.

After listening to the Seane Corn radio show a second time, I felt moved to read other interviews/articles she has given.  I wanted to learn more about this 40 something year-old yogi who grew up on the same east coast as me.  Sometimes I find myself disconnected to yogis who are male or significantly older or of a different country and/or culture. Probably because these purely superficial demographics is a way to keep the truth at arms-length.  But in this instance, without those surface differences, I think my guard was down enough to listen to the material from a more open and willing position.  For example, I heard Ms. Corn say that she tries to not judge the validity of the yoga that others’ practice.  Whether that be the teenage prostitutes she works with in Los Angeles or the middle aged woman whose sole objective in her yoga is to lose weight.  To paraphrase, she summed it up this way, “that is between them and god. I need to stay on my side of the street.” 

When I heard Ms. Corn say that, I thought to myself, how come I didn’t hear her say that the first time? And more importantly, how can I begin to apply that same nonjudgmental stance in my own life? After I asked this second question, grace showed up.  Because I immediately had an answer.  An answer to a question I’ve been asking myself for nearly 10 years regarding a complicated relationship impasse that I’ve felt so confused and stuck in- seemingly without a solution. 

Now, I know if a trusted and admired individual had said those very same words 10 years ago when this impasse occurred absolutely nothing would have happened. At that time I had no relationship with god, nor any interest to. The statement would have fallen dead flat on me. Yet now, her words felt like a key that has unlocked an impossible to solve puzzle inside of me.  In other words, I had to evolve over the last decade before I'd be able to internalize the solution to my relationship dilemma.

So I began to repeat the words in my own mind: "that is between them and god. I need to stay on my side of the street.” While doing this I imagined this relational impasse, and for the very first time in a decade, I felt a shift inside of me that allowed me to envision a way forward.  The quintessential light at the end of the tunnel was finally in my view. I can’t tell you what a huge release and relief this was for me.

In Buddhism there is something called a koan, sometimes it is called a Zen koan. Think of it as a puzzle that a spiritual teacher might give her student. However, this is not like a New York Times cross word puzzle. As Jack Kornfield says in his book The Wise Heart, ”a genuine koan cannot be solved by the thinking mind.” Thinking. Rationalizing. Using facts and logic. That’s what I had been doing all these years and getting no where with this relationship impasse.  And as the years went by, I actually got more frustrated because I couldn’t figure my way out. My mind was not coming up with solutions. What I had not been using was my heart, let alone my soul.

In the interview Seane Corn added, “when I surrender, I’m in the presence of god,” For me,surrendering to a problem, ceasing my can-do problem-solving cognitive approach to a stressful situation, is the ultimate koan. What I’m learning is, sometimes not forcing and practicing patience is exactly what is needed to make my way through the dark tunnel to get to the other side.  I was trying to find understanding of this impasse in order to reconcile it.  But that left me in a polarized duality: I’m right, He’s wrong. What I needed to practice instead was a non-judgmental middle way: “that is between them and god. I need to stay on my side of the street.”

After this awakening, my interest in Ms. Corn led me to read an O Magazine article by her as well.  In the article she told a humbling story about the origins of her yogic journey and relationship with god.  At the end she said, “god is not something to be discovered, simply uncovered, and the journey of self-awakening will be unique for each soul.” Based on my recent experience, I would have to agree with this.  A spiritual task or koan for me is to surrender to the idea that clinging to my agenda in mytimeframe may not be helpful in matters of the soul.

What spiritual task are you working on?

Spiritual Unfolding in Motherhood

During motherhood I unexpectedly began a spiritual unfolding. It was nothing I planned for, nor sought out.  In fact, you could easily argue the opposite, that it would have taken a bolt of lightning for a secular girl like me to have had a spiritual experience. Before motherhood I had already gone to an ashram in India, traveled from Mexico to the Silk Road of Uzbekistan, volunteered in service in the Peace Corps, taken myself to Kripalu Yoga and Wellness Center for retreats, spent years in a twelve-step program and attended a Unitarian Universalist Church for Sunday sermons, and in none of these experiences was I seeking a spiritual experience nor having a spiritual experience. It was not until I was 6 months pregnant with my son when I joined a church for the first time.  I was 31 years-old.

My experience was not to be an Eat, Pray, Love experience where a woman shares her spiritual awakening while traveling the world. This was not to be a Devotion experience where a mother chronicles her steps towards an authentic spiritual life for her and her son. Mine was, well, rather inconvenient timing to tell you the truth.  I was knee deep in scared-out-of-my-mind first-time (and unexpected!) motherhood.  How the heck was I supposed to fit in a spiritual journey too?

Well, if I’ve learned anything in these last 7 years it is this: I have yet to meet a person, including myself, who was actually able to pick out the day, time and life stage to meet god.  In our overly calculated, strategic and fundamentally control-freaky American society, this is just one life experience that we do not get to schedule in our iPhone.

I’ve been asked if I at least had a tug inside of me.  Some sort of emptiness or void that manifested as a restlessness to be full-filled. No. I’d say, no.  Probably because I had no spiritual or religious life growing up, I had no idea that anything was amiss or absent.  I did not feel judgmental about my secular life. I did not feel sad, angry or fearful about my secular life.  This was my normal.  I had no other reality to compare or contrast it to. I was not even an agnostic or an atheist.  Both of these positions suggest someone has a conviction about god and the spiritual life. I didn’t.  It was just a non-issue for me.

Not that I didn’t have an introspective life or interest.  I did.  I certainly did.  From childhood I always kept a journal and my family and friends would tell you I was often found quiet and reserved, off by myself in deep thought.  I was caught in a paradox though.  I could be contentedly both with myself and by myself for oddly long periods of time--kind of like one of my favorite childhood books Ferdinand the Bull.  At the same time, I was incredibly lonely.  As I got older, one-to-one deep conversations with complex people captivated me, and ultimately led me to my career path as a clinical social worker who practices psychotherapy. 

You could argue, maybe, that these earlier introspective experiences hard-wired me or primed me for what was to come.  But even if someone had fore-told it to me, I wouldn’t have believed them.  I think this is because 1.) I'm stubborn and 2.) You don’t know how rigid your interior life is, even a completely secular one, until it gets torn down.  It is not until you are standing there naked and exposed, when you know going back to how things used to be is not even an option, and yet you have no idea what is next that you catch on to what is unfolding. When you are brought to your knees in vulnerability—my least favorite of the human experiences—that you acknowledge your life is changing in a completely unexpected direction.  Enter, god.

So that is a little piece about the origins of my spiritual awakening.  How about yours? I would love to hear.

Meditative Blogs

If you are like me, and countless others, when you feel lost or restless, you may find yourself surfing the web.  My husband, he likes channel surfing the television with the remote control.  But that is not really my cup of tea.   I prefer to waste countless minutes (hours…) online in a quasi-vegetable-like state going from website to website looking for god-knows-what- please note the sarcasm!

I really don’t do this often.  I don’t have time to do it often.  But, undoubtedly sometimes I do go right down the internet rabbit hole.  This may sound strange coming from someone who writes a blog.  And as I write this, I would have to agree.  Alas, here we are…

But I have found some websites, specifically blog sites, that I can go to if I must be online.  If I must get my fix. In fact, just today I finished a post called “Meditation Yields Joy,” and then turned to Buddhist teacher and writer Jack Kornfield’s blog only to see him write nearly the very same sentiment just this month: “The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything.”

So I picked several blog sites here that you may like too.  All are quality reading material.  Many of them “the greats,” in my humble opinion, who contribute to our meditation community through their wise words put to, not paper anymore, but techno-space.

1.)    Tara Brach: Buddhist teacher, writer, psychotherapist

blog.tarabrach.com

2.)    Stephen Cope: Scholar in Residence at Kripalu, writer, psychotherapist

http://kripalu.org/blog

3.)    Dani Shapiro: Writer

www.danishapiro.com

4.)    Jack Kornfield: Leading western Buddhist teacher and writer

jackkornfield.com/category/blog

5.)    Sharon Salzberg: Leading western Buddhist teacher and writer

sharonsalzberg.com

6.)    Brother David Steindl-Rast: Not a blog, but has many articles and word of the day

gratefulness.org

7.)    On-Being NPR Radio Show: Blogs written by host Krista Tippet and her staff

www.onbeing.org/blog

8.)    Unitarian Universalist Association: a Round-up of UU-friendly bloggers

http://bloguuworld.org/web/

9.)    Sylvia Boorstein: Not a blog, but does have many of her articles on Buddhism

sylviaboorstein.com/articles
10.) Karen Maezen-Miller: Mother, Zen Priest, Author of 3 books
karenmaezenmiller.com/blog/
11.) Kate Braestrup: UU minister and Author
www.katebraestrup.com/blog/

This list is in no particular order, and I’m sure there are many others.  If you have other blog sites you would recommend to me and others, please forward them on!  Some folks use Facebook and Twitter to get some guidance from their favorite gurus, but I find those sites too slippery to navigate, and instead stick to blogs. 

Happy reading!

Meditation Yields Joy

This past week I felt moments of a deep penetrating joy even though I was scouring my house for lice and experiencing holiday blues. How is this possible you ask? I would say, unquestionably, through practicing meditation.

Now you may be thinking, it sounds like this girl has been drinking the cool aid! And maybe I have been.  Maybe I have become a believer of sorts in the benefits of millennia-old practices in meditation. But hey, if it ain’t broke…

Some of you know, I recently went through the Jon Kabat-Zinn, UMASS-based, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction 8-week training this past fall. In the class, the teacher, Kate, said several nuggets of wisdom about meditation practice that are still working their way through me. 

One piece that I was reminded of in these last several days while I had time off from work and was spending time with my children, is that a meditation practice is like weaving a parachute. Each day you sit down and weave for 5 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour.  Any amount of weaving, any amount of meditation, contributes to a larger whole that leads to a greater sense of equanimity. This equanimity, or parachute, allows you to experience joy at times you would otherwise have been distracted by the external minutia that often overwhelms us.  Like, for example, doing loads and loads of laundry, changing bedding and bagging stuffed animals because my 5 year-old somehow got lice the day after Christmas.  Or, moving through the feelings associated with loss that show up each year at the holidays for me.  In the past, I am certain I would have been unable to notice that grounding joy inside me because my focus would have been elsewhere.

I have to say, I find this recent awareness about meditation very encouraging because it helps me increase my motivation and commitment (otherwise known as discipline) to continue a meditation practice even though sometimes it can feel like just one more thing to do in my already very busy schedule as a working mother.

Now for me, meditation practice has two other components: mindfulness and god.  I know it does not for everyone, as there is no one way to meditate.  But for me, this triad creates the whole.  Some people might call this “whole” a contemplative practice.

I first learned about contemplative practice from author Sue Monk Kidd. I was reading her book (one of my favorites!) When the Heart Waits, in which Ms. Kidd shares her earlier spiritual journey based in Christian Mysticism.  Recently, Oprah Winfrey re-aired her interview with Sue Monk Kidd on her show Super Soul Sunday, and she quoted from this same book: 

“There have been moments in my life when I sat in the utter quietness of a deserted room and had the noise of a firework show going on inside me.  And there have been rare times when I stood in a crowd of noisy people and tapped into a deep inner silence.  It is this interior quietness, a silence within us that is a door through which God can come to us.”

The past several days I was certainly not in the “utter quietness of a deserted room.”  My 5 year-old and 1 year-old were loud, my house was a mess from Christmas and lice-decontamination, and we had multiple gatherings to attend with the holidays.  But here’s the miracle, “the miracle of mindfulness” as Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says, at times, I still felt quiet inside.

I have heard Buddhist teacher and nun Pema Chodron use the analogy of leather shoes to describe the benefits of meditation practice.  She says we could choose to try to protect ourselves from the suffering of the world and our own emotions like fear and anger by exerting lots of effort to stay inside our little bubble of comfort as to avoid vulnerability.  Or, through meditation, we can cover our vulnerability, our feet, with leather shoes so that we can go out into the world and embrace our difficult feelings with the knowledge that we can tolerate it. We can handle it.  I’m coming to believe this too.

I’m also coming to believe that joy and happiness are two very different experiences. For me, joy is an ability to hold a deeper connection to what is most true and important in our lives (our children, our earth, our dignity, our own personal ethics, the fact that we are all here in this life for a relatively brief stay) no matter what else is going on around us.  Happiness, on the other hand, is a fleeting emotion.  Like sadness, fear, anger, boredom.  It comes.  It goes.  It comes again.  Meditation has also helped me to distinguish the differences between joy and happiness too.

The goal, then, for me becomes two-fold.  One, continue to meditate. Continue to weave my parachute- with as much frequency and regularity as I can muster.  And two, continue to notice the way mindfulness and god manifest as joy in my everyday comings and goings, whatever they may be.

I will conclude with this quote that sits atop author Dani Shapiro’s blogsite, and seems all together fitting this morning:

“Every day includes much more non-being than being. This is always so. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; washing; cooking dinner. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger.”

– Virginia Woolf