Hello and welcome to the September 2010 Newsletter.
Here in Cairns, Australia we are still busy with Teacher Training. Having completed the Discovery/Foundation Level in July, the Intermediate Level in August, we are now working with the Advanced/Master Level.
10 yoga teachers have graduated from the Intermediate Level – see their smiling faces in the article below!
The higher you climb a mountain, the less people you are likely to encounter and the same applies to yoga. In the Foundation Course there were 16 students, 10 in the Intermediate and now only 6 in the Advanced/Master. To even get to this level takes years of dedication, effort and a positive attitude – it is more like getting a Black Belt in martial arts – strong work!
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” Vincent van Gogh
We are thrilled to have two great articles from Cairns yoga teachers, Martha Goldman and Tomoko Gregory. Their stories show a deep understanding and appreciation of the journey of yoga. This month the Yoga Pose under the spotlight is Warrior 1 and then there are another two insightful articles, “Violence Against Self” and Yoga Unlocks Beauty, You Hold the Key”
There are only two places left on the Bali Yoga Retreat, so if you would like to join our group, please contact Janka asap: janka@knoffyoga.com. This Retreat has been very popular and we do intend to return to Bali in 2011, so if you have not been able to attend this year, go ahead and start planning for next year!
The Knoff Yoga School in Cairns is running very successfully with up to 50 students attending a Level 1 class. If you have been coming to Level 1 and feel confident with the material, and would like to move up to Level 2, then please have a talk with your teacher. You will find a lot less students in a Level 2 class!
“In all human affairs there are efforts and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result”.
James Allen
See you on the yoga mat!
Namaste,
Nicky Knoff.
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“How you are on the mat is how you are in life”
By Martha Goldman
Having just completed Intermediate level teacher training with Nicky Knoff and a wonderful group of dedicated students, I would like to share some thoughts.
First of all, I want to express my ever deepening appreciation of how beautifully Nicky and James have distilled their combined strengths and their considerable experience and knowledge of the practice and theory of yoga, into a teacher training program that is comprehensive, holistic, systematic and responsive to the needs of individual students. I am sure that each student in our group would have many stories to share of what they gained from the experience: improvements in asana practice ranging from subtle to dramatic; enhanced skills in teaching and the art and science of adjustments, including therapy and pregnancy yoga; knowledge of anatomy and physiology and a deeper understanding of yoga philosophy and morality. Not to mention great friendships and a lot of fun.
At our end of course break-up celebration hosted by the delightful Janka and Tommy, Nicky gave a speech in which she said, “how you are on the mat is how you are in life”. I think that is very true and I’ve been reflecting on it in relation to my experience of Salamba Sirsasana (Headstand), a pose that has been challenging for me for a very long time.
Until the beginning of 2009 for some years I was attending a different yoga school. While other students in the class would be standing on their heads in the middle of the room I would be struggling to come up, not really sure of the technique and basically quite fearful of being upside down. With just a hint of exasperation, the teacher would say to me “Go to the wall”. It was a bit like being sent to my room! I generally felt left out, inadequate and unsure how I would ever master the pose.
In January 2009 I began attending classes with Nicky and James and soon learned Nicky won’t let students come up into Headstand until we can do all three Advadanta Sirsasana (Dolphin) poses – the three positions on the floor, then the wall, then the chair – without having to rest in between. Hard work! But it certainly builds upper body strength and neural pathways required for Headstand.
I practised diligently for six months and during the Foundation level teacher training last year was finally ready to come into Salamba Sirsasana. I would like to tell you that I had a miraculous breakthrough and performed the pose perfectly, but sadly no – my fear and resistance to the pose kept sabotaging my attempts. I persisted; I made headway, though progress was slow. Nicky’s instructions on the fine points of technique helped – powerpoints (wrists) down on the floor, lift your shoulders, collarbones forward, thumbs towards you, little fingers away, work your buttocks, lift your pelvis, “commit, commit!” Her patience and kind encouragement also helped – each small improvement greeted warmly and enthusiastically. But ultimately of course my Headstand is my responsibility. Just as in much of my life, my (irrational and self-limiting) fear and lack of confidence have been holding me back.
Again, I would like to say that in the Intermediate teacher training I had a miraculous breakthrough and can now do Headstand perfectly. Sadly, no – I have made progress and can hold the pose for five minutes or more. I still struggle with the variations and I still resist the pose through irrational fear, holding back just that little bit meaning it takes more effort than necessary. Sometimes though, I get to that sweet spot where as Nicky says, I feel like a rocket about to take off. I don’t always get there, but the more I practise, the more I’m able to find that spot. Just as in life, the more I practise yoga, the more my life improves: better relationships, a more positive outlook more of the time, more confidence and consequently participation in a broader range of activities. I’m making up for time lost and opportunities missed because of lack of confidence and some unwise choices in my younger years. Life is more to my liking now than it was in the past! And that’s not due to any sudden breakthrough but rather to incremental changes, cultivating a positive attitude, and above all, daily time spent on my mat. As Nicky says, “it’s a work in progress” – and my Salamba Sirsasana is getting better every day!
===========================
Quote
"The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”
Lao Tzu
===========================
Yoga Pose of the Month - "VIRABHADRASANA 1"
WARRIOR 1
Quote
"The best way out is through.”
Robert Frost
===========================
A MESSAGE FROM MY BROKEN TOE!
by Tomoko Gregory
"The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”
Lao Tzu
===========================
Yoga Pose of the Month - "VIRABHADRASANA 1"
WARRIOR 1
Warrior 1 is a great yoga pose, not only because of it's many benefits, but also because it is accessible to beginners (anyone can attempt it without risk), but even an advanced practitioner can still find heaps to work on for yet more improvement.
There are three Warrior Poses, 1, 2, & 3 and we will look at 2, & 3 later in this series of 'Yoga Pose of the Month'.
Warrior 1 initially seems like it is harder to perform than Warrior 2 and you could ask, why do we teach it first? The reason is the knees! It is so important for you to learn how to maintain knee integrity and not injure yourself by putting torsion or twisting through these joints.
The knee is a hinge joint and does not have the range of movement of a hip or shoulder joint. Just like a door hinge, you want to keep it straight – vertical for the door and horizontal for the knee.
When you bend the front knee in Warrior 1, it is vital to keep it level, that is the inside (medial) and outside (lateral) stay balanced while you are bend (flex) the knee over the heel.
First lets get into the pose... From Mountain Pose (Tadasana) jump out to the right or left depending what day of practice it is for you. This week at the Knoff Yoga School it is a 'left' week'.
Having stepped or jumped to the left, lift up your right heel and kick it out 65 degrees and place it down exactly through the centre of your yoga mat. At the Knoff Yoga School all of our mats have a centre line to help you with this!
Once the right heel is turned out at a 65 degree angle, then lift up the left heel and bring it onto the centre line, then lift up the left toes and place them on the centre line so the front foot is at a 90 degree angle. Looking down at your feet, both are now placed so the centre line is running through the middle of each foot.
Turn your hips and upper body in the same direction as the left foot.
At this moment I am not going to worry about getting the back heel down, but will focus first on getting the left foot and it's knee in the proper relationship.
The left foot should be balanced so there is matching weight on the big toe and little toe side of the foot, plus matching weight on the inner and out edge of the heel. Once this is established, then check to see that your ankle joint is also level. This is easy for a teacher to see as your shin bone should be placed exactly in line with the center of the foot.
Once the left foot is in place, then apply Pada Bandha. This means spreading out the toes so you can clearly see space in between all five toes. Then place the toes down and get a light grip on the mat. At the same time lift up through the arch of the foot to increase it's height, making a slight doming effect. Pada Bandha is an activation and will not happen unless you actively perform it! It makes the ankle stronger and will give you a more stable platform for balance.
Then bending the left knee, take it over the heel, so the shin bone is vertical. Do not allow the knee to go over the toes – this will stress your knee and potentially be the source of future knee problems!
As you bend the knee, make sure to keep it level – do not allow it to drop inside or drift outside of the foot. For clarity's sake, the lower leg is straight up and down, with the knee placed over the heel. Again this is easy for a teacher to see and if you cannot see the alignment, then practice this knee placement in front of a mirror.
Now to work on the upper leg! Ideally the thigh bone should be horizontal, i.e. level to the floor. Most students will need to move the back foot away more (wider distance between both feet) to make room for the hips to release down more. The shin and upper leg should be at a 90 degree angle.
It will be tempting not to move the upper leg to the horizontal, but this is where the benefit comes from, so 'bite the bullet' and get down there!
Do check again to see that your knee is over the heel and has not moved in or out. Also check to see that ankle, knee and hip joint are all in one plane or line.
Let's address the back leg! For most student's it is challenging to turn the back foot out to a 65 degree angle and get heel on the floor. Of course we are working towards this, but the front knee is top priority. Do not loose the alignment on the front knee in order to get the back heel down – not good technique.
If the back heel is in the air for the time being, then so be it. Keep in mind that is it ultimately supposed to be down and grounded, but this is secondary to the integrity and health of the front knee!
Having turned the hips and upper body over the front leg. Inhale and lift the arms overhead, just as you would in a Sun Salutation. Bring the palms together and as it is a left day, place the left thumb on top of the right, keep both index fingers fully extended pointing upwards, and interlace the remaining three fingers. This hand grip will help you to lift out of the hips and lengthen the spine.
If your shoulders are tight so your overhead arms are not vertical, then release the hand grip and widen your hands out to shoulder width apart – palms facing inwards.
With the front leg bent at a 90 degree angle and the arms reaching towards the sky, deliberate sink down into the hips in order to maintain the pose. As the hips descend, ascend the trunk and arms, creating dynamic tension between these two actions.
You have a choice with the Drishti – eye placement. Either look straight ahead, or if you have stable balance, then you can look upwards along the thumbs to the ceiling. When looking up, it is important for you to lift from the chest and not kink your neck. If you feel discomfort in the neck, then bring your gaze back to the horizontal and focus on the wall in front of you.
Hold the pose for a minimum of 30 seconds (5 Ujjayi Pranayama breaths) per side and build up to holding for 1 minute (10 Ujjayi breaths). Come up on an inhalation and turn to perform the other side for the same period of time.
Please note the back leg is meant to be energized. Apply Co-contraction (hugging the muscles onto the bones), apply Spiralic action, so the upper leg is turning inwards (medially) and the lower leg is turning outwards (laterally). This action is designed to maintain the back leg in one straight piece – just as if you were again standing in Mountain Pose.
Standing Poses not only build great vitality, but teach us proprioception – where our body is in space. This learning is vital to more advanced poses. Another great thing about Standing Poses is that in the worst case scenario, you might fall over, but it is almost impossible for you to hurt yourself. In some of the advanced poses, this is not the case and if you perform them incorrectly you definitely can get injured!
Next month we will look at the next sibling in this group of warriors – Warrior 2!
Namaste
James E. Bryan E.R.Y.T. 500
===========================
There are three Warrior Poses, 1, 2, & 3 and we will look at 2, & 3 later in this series of 'Yoga Pose of the Month'.
Warrior 1 initially seems like it is harder to perform than Warrior 2 and you could ask, why do we teach it first? The reason is the knees! It is so important for you to learn how to maintain knee integrity and not injure yourself by putting torsion or twisting through these joints.
The knee is a hinge joint and does not have the range of movement of a hip or shoulder joint. Just like a door hinge, you want to keep it straight – vertical for the door and horizontal for the knee.
When you bend the front knee in Warrior 1, it is vital to keep it level, that is the inside (medial) and outside (lateral) stay balanced while you are bend (flex) the knee over the heel.
First lets get into the pose... From Mountain Pose (Tadasana) jump out to the right or left depending what day of practice it is for you. This week at the Knoff Yoga School it is a 'left' week'.
Having stepped or jumped to the left, lift up your right heel and kick it out 65 degrees and place it down exactly through the centre of your yoga mat. At the Knoff Yoga School all of our mats have a centre line to help you with this!
Once the right heel is turned out at a 65 degree angle, then lift up the left heel and bring it onto the centre line, then lift up the left toes and place them on the centre line so the front foot is at a 90 degree angle. Looking down at your feet, both are now placed so the centre line is running through the middle of each foot.
Turn your hips and upper body in the same direction as the left foot.
At this moment I am not going to worry about getting the back heel down, but will focus first on getting the left foot and it's knee in the proper relationship.
The left foot should be balanced so there is matching weight on the big toe and little toe side of the foot, plus matching weight on the inner and out edge of the heel. Once this is established, then check to see that your ankle joint is also level. This is easy for a teacher to see as your shin bone should be placed exactly in line with the center of the foot.
Once the left foot is in place, then apply Pada Bandha. This means spreading out the toes so you can clearly see space in between all five toes. Then place the toes down and get a light grip on the mat. At the same time lift up through the arch of the foot to increase it's height, making a slight doming effect. Pada Bandha is an activation and will not happen unless you actively perform it! It makes the ankle stronger and will give you a more stable platform for balance.
Then bending the left knee, take it over the heel, so the shin bone is vertical. Do not allow the knee to go over the toes – this will stress your knee and potentially be the source of future knee problems!
As you bend the knee, make sure to keep it level – do not allow it to drop inside or drift outside of the foot. For clarity's sake, the lower leg is straight up and down, with the knee placed over the heel. Again this is easy for a teacher to see and if you cannot see the alignment, then practice this knee placement in front of a mirror.
Now to work on the upper leg! Ideally the thigh bone should be horizontal, i.e. level to the floor. Most students will need to move the back foot away more (wider distance between both feet) to make room for the hips to release down more. The shin and upper leg should be at a 90 degree angle.
It will be tempting not to move the upper leg to the horizontal, but this is where the benefit comes from, so 'bite the bullet' and get down there!
Do check again to see that your knee is over the heel and has not moved in or out. Also check to see that ankle, knee and hip joint are all in one plane or line.
Let's address the back leg! For most student's it is challenging to turn the back foot out to a 65 degree angle and get heel on the floor. Of course we are working towards this, but the front knee is top priority. Do not loose the alignment on the front knee in order to get the back heel down – not good technique.
If the back heel is in the air for the time being, then so be it. Keep in mind that is it ultimately supposed to be down and grounded, but this is secondary to the integrity and health of the front knee!
Having turned the hips and upper body over the front leg. Inhale and lift the arms overhead, just as you would in a Sun Salutation. Bring the palms together and as it is a left day, place the left thumb on top of the right, keep both index fingers fully extended pointing upwards, and interlace the remaining three fingers. This hand grip will help you to lift out of the hips and lengthen the spine.
If your shoulders are tight so your overhead arms are not vertical, then release the hand grip and widen your hands out to shoulder width apart – palms facing inwards.
With the front leg bent at a 90 degree angle and the arms reaching towards the sky, deliberate sink down into the hips in order to maintain the pose. As the hips descend, ascend the trunk and arms, creating dynamic tension between these two actions.
You have a choice with the Drishti – eye placement. Either look straight ahead, or if you have stable balance, then you can look upwards along the thumbs to the ceiling. When looking up, it is important for you to lift from the chest and not kink your neck. If you feel discomfort in the neck, then bring your gaze back to the horizontal and focus on the wall in front of you.
Hold the pose for a minimum of 30 seconds (5 Ujjayi Pranayama breaths) per side and build up to holding for 1 minute (10 Ujjayi breaths). Come up on an inhalation and turn to perform the other side for the same period of time.
Please note the back leg is meant to be energized. Apply Co-contraction (hugging the muscles onto the bones), apply Spiralic action, so the upper leg is turning inwards (medially) and the lower leg is turning outwards (laterally). This action is designed to maintain the back leg in one straight piece – just as if you were again standing in Mountain Pose.
Standing Poses not only build great vitality, but teach us proprioception – where our body is in space. This learning is vital to more advanced poses. Another great thing about Standing Poses is that in the worst case scenario, you might fall over, but it is almost impossible for you to hurt yourself. In some of the advanced poses, this is not the case and if you perform them incorrectly you definitely can get injured!
Next month we will look at the next sibling in this group of warriors – Warrior 2!
Namaste
James E. Bryan E.R.Y.T. 500
===========================
Quote
"The best way out is through.”
Robert Frost
===========================
A MESSAGE FROM MY BROKEN TOE!
by Tomoko Gregory
Friday is one of my busiest days. Straight after I drop my kids to school I go to Rusty’s market to buy vegetables and fruits for the week. I come back home, unpack the shopping and then start preparing for dinner as I have to take the kids to dancing after school. Soon afterwards, I have to leave home at around 1:30 pm to be a reading volunteer for my son’s class…I think you’re getting the picture!
One Friday, I came back home from Rusty’s market. I grabbed an apple from the fridge and started eating it for my lunch while I was walking down the stairs on the way to get the shopping from my car. All of a sudden, I had stepped awkwardly and twisted the outer edge of my right foot underneath the inner side which resulted in a broken metatarsal.
I always think that everything that happens around us carries a very important message for us - especially accidents, sickness or injuries. I was wondering what kind of message I would get from my broken toe.
Just 2 or 3 days after I had the accident I received a book from my mother. That book explained the simple way of Vipassana meditation. For some reason that I don’t understand, I always seem to get an inspirational book just at the time that I really need it. The book that I received from my mother said that we should imagine that there is a live commentary running inside our heads which informs us of every action that we take. For example, when we walk, we should talk to ourselves; first step, right heel, instep and toe; next step, left heel, instep and toe…
When I read that book I got a flash back of my accident. I didn’t do that at all. I was eating and walking at the same time and my mind was probably thinking of something else - such as what I should make for dinner for that night. I didn’t concentrate on what I was doing. I was doing everything without consciousness. I wasn’t living in the present. I knew that we have to do every single thing as if in meditation. When we walk, we just walk. When we eat, we just eat. I knew that. But I didn’t do it.
When I practise yoga I am learning to spread my consciousness throughout my whole body. But, very obviously, I was not practising that in my normal life. I do many things unconsciously. For example, when I change gears while I am driving, I do it even without thinking.
The first message from my broken toe was that I should be living in the present and that I should spread my consciousness throughout my whole body, regardless of what I am doing and whenever and wherever I am doing it. Our modern lifestyle is so often very busy. This is the reason why we should be doing this.
Four to five days after my accident I began to get pain in my left groin, the outside of my calf muscles and in my back. This pain was much worse than the pain in my toe. This happened because I could not walk properly and was limping all the time, so the rest of body was trying to compensate. I was always conscious about my posture. I always stand in Mountain Pose – when I am in the kitchen, cooking, or even when I am waiting in a shopping queue - so my body started screaming. I did some therapy yoga for that pain and it really helped me a lot. I realise now how important it is to have proper posture and to always walk properly. That was the second message from my broken toe.
Only 2 weeks have passed since my accident. I am still looking forward to receiving more messages from my broken toe...
One Friday, I came back home from Rusty’s market. I grabbed an apple from the fridge and started eating it for my lunch while I was walking down the stairs on the way to get the shopping from my car. All of a sudden, I had stepped awkwardly and twisted the outer edge of my right foot underneath the inner side which resulted in a broken metatarsal.
I always think that everything that happens around us carries a very important message for us - especially accidents, sickness or injuries. I was wondering what kind of message I would get from my broken toe.
Just 2 or 3 days after I had the accident I received a book from my mother. That book explained the simple way of Vipassana meditation. For some reason that I don’t understand, I always seem to get an inspirational book just at the time that I really need it. The book that I received from my mother said that we should imagine that there is a live commentary running inside our heads which informs us of every action that we take. For example, when we walk, we should talk to ourselves; first step, right heel, instep and toe; next step, left heel, instep and toe…
When I read that book I got a flash back of my accident. I didn’t do that at all. I was eating and walking at the same time and my mind was probably thinking of something else - such as what I should make for dinner for that night. I didn’t concentrate on what I was doing. I was doing everything without consciousness. I wasn’t living in the present. I knew that we have to do every single thing as if in meditation. When we walk, we just walk. When we eat, we just eat. I knew that. But I didn’t do it.
When I practise yoga I am learning to spread my consciousness throughout my whole body. But, very obviously, I was not practising that in my normal life. I do many things unconsciously. For example, when I change gears while I am driving, I do it even without thinking.
The first message from my broken toe was that I should be living in the present and that I should spread my consciousness throughout my whole body, regardless of what I am doing and whenever and wherever I am doing it. Our modern lifestyle is so often very busy. This is the reason why we should be doing this.
Four to five days after my accident I began to get pain in my left groin, the outside of my calf muscles and in my back. This pain was much worse than the pain in my toe. This happened because I could not walk properly and was limping all the time, so the rest of body was trying to compensate. I was always conscious about my posture. I always stand in Mountain Pose – when I am in the kitchen, cooking, or even when I am waiting in a shopping queue - so my body started screaming. I did some therapy yoga for that pain and it really helped me a lot. I realise now how important it is to have proper posture and to always walk properly. That was the second message from my broken toe.
Only 2 weeks have passed since my accident. I am still looking forward to receiving more messages from my broken toe...
===========================
VIOLENCE AGAINST SELF
by Phillip Moffitt from Yoga Journal
Are you relating to yourself in a manner that results in your life being more emotionally or physically violent than it need be?
Some years ago people used to wear a T-shirt printed with the slogan, "Life is difficult, and then you die." I once asked a group of people at a yoga retreat what they thought when they read those words. One person found it funny a way to laugh at the hard truth of life rather than be overwhelmed by it. Another read it as justification for taking what pleasure you could out of life, while still another saw it as cynical and nihilistic, an excuse to give up. Someone who was active in a spiritual group said it was a call to action much like the Buddha's teaching of suffering contained in the Four Noble Truths.
I asked for their thoughts because I wanted to see if anyone would say it wasn't true, which no one did. My own experience was that the slogan is composed of a half truth and also a full truth, but one that obscures rather than clarifies. The half truth is that indeed "life is difficult," but it is not just difficult, it is also incredibly wonderful, puzzling, and routine, all in an ever-changing cycle.
"Then we die" is also true, but stating the truth in this manner implies that death is simply a personal failure. To me death is not a failure but rather a necessary part of the life cycle of being incarnate. Imagine if plants didn't die, or if the note of a piano didn't fade into oblivion, or if a thought didn't arise and pass. Life would come to a standstill; it would drown in its own accumulation. Therefore, rather than viewing life and death as separate, I see them as part of one continuous, mysterious experience of redemption and renewal. Spiritual practices provide a means to relate to this experience in its mystery and vastness.
Still, there remained in my mind the all-important issue that the words on the T-shirt implied: If life is difficult and brief, how do we cope? How do we find meaning or happiness? I had already repeatedly explored these questions using different spiritual traditions and later came to devote my life full-time to this inquiry. Though not always finding answers, my explorations slowly led to certain discoveries about what makes life a struggle.
One of these discoveries is the degree to which we make life difficult for ourselves by being violent or violating to the body and the mind in the routine of our daily lives. Through the way in which we schedule our time, push our bodies, and compare and judge ourselves against others, we repeatedly create an inner environment that is filled with violence. If you can understand that this is so, it may have a profound impact on your experience of life being difficult.
Initially, you may not identify some of your daily thoughts and decisions as moments of violence to self, but most likely they are. If someone was hitting you in your stomach, squeezing your neck, or not letting you breathe, you'd quickly call such behavior violent. Yet when these same painful sensory experiences arise in reaction to your own thoughts or actions, you fail to recognize your behavior as violent. In your daily life, have you not repeatedly experienced these bodily sensations or others like them?
Understanding Violence
Whenever I introduce the topic of violence against self in a Dharma talk, almost everyone squirms. No one wants to hear it. I will directly ask the question: Are you, in an obvious manner or in a series of subtle, covert actions, being violent with yourself? Usually people want to assure me that while they may work too hard at times, stay in an unhealthy relationship, eat too much, or sleep too little, they would not characterize their behavior as violent toward themselves. Yet, person after person, once they've closely examined their lives, experiences a moment of self-recognition that at first can be painful and embarrassing. This initial discomfort is often followed by a sense of liberation as new possibilities arise in their imaginations for how to live more peacefully.
Most people perpetrate this violence against self through mistakenly identifying with various thoughts that arise due to impersonal conditions coming together. The body and mind's well-being are the innocent victims. Each individual has a unique pattern, but the common ground is that you relate to yourself in a manner that results in your life being more emotionally or physically violent than it need be.
You may have limited your understanding of self-violence to physical abuse or other blatant self-destructive behavior that calls for a 12-step program. The word "violence" may sound too harsh to you, but its dictionary meaning is "an exertion of extreme force to cause injury or abuse in the form of distortion or infringement." The extreme force can be a mental act that then shows up in the body or an act that is done repeatedly to an extreme.
You can think of violence as any highly energetic form of relating to a person, including yourself, that is jarring, turbulent, and distorting. Can you identify any times in the last few days in which you treated yourself in a discordant, abrupt, or distorting manner?
The Trappist monk and spiritual author Thomas Merton once said, "To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times." Obviously Merton wasn't speaking about pathologically self-destructive behavior. Instead he was drawing our attention to the shadow side of normative, even seemingly positive, culturally approved behavior. He was referring to how we do great violence to ourselves simply in the manner in which we go about arranging our lives.
Practicing Ahimsa
Gradually I've come to realize that violence against oneself is one of the great denials of our time. People are very willing to talk about the violence that the world does to them, but they're much less willing to own the violence that they do to themselves. Violence against self can most easily be recognized in your experience of the body in daily life. You already know the general health problems that come about because of stress, sleep deprivation, and constant strain. You may not identify them as examples of violence to self, but anytime you make yourself sick or dysfunctional, it is an act of violence for which you need to take responsibility. We all know people who are overworked or have too much stress, which causes problems with the digestive system, heart, or other parts of the body, but who never label their behavior as violence to the self. But is there any description that is more apt?
One of the yamas, or moral restraints, in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra is ahimsa, the practice of nonviolence, and this includes nonviolence toward yourself. Of course, you may well want something in your life so much that you are willing to take a chance of hurting your body by driving it too hard. But usually a conscious, short-term exertion to reach a goal is not what causes violence to self. More often it is a matter of long-term disregard of the signals of imbalance. This disregard comes from repeatedly getting so caught in wanting or fearful mind-states that you're unable to reflect on your own behavior. You may have a surface-level awareness of the distress you are feeling in your body, but you don't sincerely respond to the discomfort. In such instances you are in a driven state, controlled by your mind's imaginary creations rather than your inner values.
Inner development and maturity come from acknowledging to yourself that you are being violent with a human being; the fact that you happen to be the human being who is being hurt does not change the truth of the violence. From a spiritual perspective, it is never right to hurt any human being including yourself for selfish reasons or because of sloppy attention to the consequences of your actions. Understanding this is your first step in practicing ahimsa toward yourself.
It is often hard to make the distinction between the mind-states of fear and wanting and your inner values because there is such a strong tendency to identify these mind-states as "you." But if you observe yourself, you will see that an endless number of mind-states arise each day independent of any intention on your part. The way to freedom from self-violence is to separate from these thoughts by getting to know your mind. This is the underlying purpose of yoga, mindfulness meditation, and selfless service, called karma yoga or seva.
Violence against self through the body can also occur in situations where you are ostensibly taking deliberate care of your body, such as in doing yoga. How many times in a yoga class do you get lost in your willfulness to get a pose right and actually add tension and strain to the body rather than freeing the tissue for movement? It is good to hold a pose longer or to work to get more lift in a backbend, but not if you tense or harden the body as part of the effort. The skin should stay soft even when the muscles underneath a particular area are engaged, the face should stay relaxed, and the breath be free of any holding. Even more importantly, the mind needs to stay soft and gentle; my teacher describes it as the "mind staying cool." Practicing yoga in this manner can help you learn how to release the tendency toward violence to yourself in the rest of your life.
When you go to a hatha yoga class, if you don't observe and work with all of the emotions and moods that arise, you are missing half the value. Watch yourself the next time you go to class: Do you get angry at your body? Do you load it with the frustrations of your day and then expect it to do what you want? See for yourself how every strong emotion from frustration and fear to longing is felt in the body as tension, pressure, heat, tingling, and so on. In turn, each of these bodily sensations can be released through the yoga, which will free the body from violence and usually quiets the mind. Once you learn to do this in yoga class you can utilize this awareness at work, driving in traffic, or in difficult home situations to release the body when the mind starts to feel pressure or anxiety. Moreover, the cultivation of a soft spaciousness of body and mind points to the true intention of yoga, which is liberation from our separateness. It is this fear of separateness that leads to self-violence.
Taking Time Out
As the Thomas Merton quote points out, if you abuse your time, you are participating in violence against self. This may be in the form of over-scheduling to the point that you rob yourself of the experience of being alive. Or it may be in the form of allocating your time in a manner that doesn't reflect your inner priorities. Both create a distortion or infringement of self through strain and turbulence. When you treat your time as though you are a machine a doing machine you are committing violence against the sacredness of life itself. Whenever I do Life Balance work with organizational leaders, I have them make a list of their values and prioritize them, then compare their priorities with how they actually spend their time. The disparity is usually shocking.
Another abuse of time that disturbs your well-being occurs if you succumb to the modern-day compulsion to avoid boredom at all costs. In our stimulation-based culture, there is near hysteria around constantly seeking fulfillment through activity, which leaves no time for the quietness of simply being present with yourself. Do you allow yourself time each day, or even weekly, to exist without an external purpose and without even background music or television? Empty time is vital to your well-being, and to deny yourself this nourishment is an act of violence.
You may ask why you continue to abuse your time and your body when you have the option to live more peacefully. Or you may say that you feel as though you have no choice but to be harsh toward yourself because your life situation is such a struggle. Under either circumstance you push the body and strain the mind violently because you are filled with the tension that comes with the feeling that there's not enough of something in your life, whether it's money, love, adventure, or confidence.
Feelings of inadequacy, vulnerability, longing, or not having enough are an inevitable part of the human experience. If you, like most people, have not found spiritual freedom, you cannot stop them from arising. But you can stop such feelings from controlling your life by changing how you perceive them. If you refuse to identify with these feelings, disown them as being neither you nor yours, thus seeing them simply as emotional states of mind that come and go, you will discover there is the possibility for some inner harmony even under difficult circumstances.
For instance, let's assume you cannot change your work schedule, and it seems so overwhelming to you that you regularly get very tense and anxious about it. You can experience the schedule as much less violent by not thinking about it in its entirety except when you are in planning mode. The rest of the time you just do what the plan calls for, concentrating on the task in front of you without adding the thought, "Here I am with all this work and so much more to do this week."
Said another way, don't make a panoramic movie out of your difficult schedule such that you are constantly seeing yourself doing all that has to be done, as if it were going to be done all at once. Instead just do what has to be done right now, for that's all you can do. It may sound like a simple thing to do, but it is very subtle and difficult, yet so liberating!
Another method you can use to cope with over-scheduling is to notice each time you experience fear or wanting while thinking about all you have to do. Consciously label these feelings as fear and wanting in your mind and then see for yourself that they originate as impersonal mind-states, the way a storm forms due to weather conditions. The land that receives the storm does not own it, and the storm is not the land; it's just a storm, which due to its own characteristics can cause damage. So it is with the stormy situations in your life where there is a tendency to both deny and take ownership of fear or wanting. This misperception leads you to believe you should be able to control them, which in turn causes the physical contractions and the mental anguish that constitute violence to self.
Stopping the Violence
In seeking freedom from violence to self, practice noticing over and over again that you are constantly, and usually unconsciously, wanting things to be different than the way they are. You become a little dictator to yourself, sitting on a throne, arms crossed, pouting and demanding that things you like should stay the way they are forever and what you do not like should disappear immediately. This craving to hold on to what you like and to get rid of what you find difficult is considered the source of suffering in life and the origin of violence against self. By practicing living with things as they are, you will discover that while life may not be less painful, your experience of it is immeasurably better. Also, fully accepting what is true in the moment is the only firm place to begin to make changes in your life. Living in the moment is not a one-time commitment but something that has to be done again and again.
Nonviolence to self is a lifetime practice of which there are ever more subtle levels to discover. The more you are able to be with yourself in a nonviolent way, the less harm you will do to another. Be gentle with the body and mind; refuse to get caught in believing that things have to be a certain way in order for you to be happy.
At some point each day, softly close your eyes, relax your shoulders, let your mind settle on the breath without trying to control it. In the ensuing quietness, see for yourself how mysterious life is. Maybe we should create a new T-shirt, one that reads: "Life is interesting, and then I'm not sure what happens!"
Quote
"Out of clutter find simplicity; from discord find harmony; in the middle of difficulty - lies opportunity."
Albert Einstein
===========================
Guest Authors
Do you want to contribute an article about Yoga for today's world?
To submit an article for review, attach it to your e-mail and send it to: james@knoffyoga.com
Feel free to pass this newsletter on to your friends
===========================
Knoff Yoga ©
VIOLENCE AGAINST SELF
by Phillip Moffitt from Yoga Journal
Are you relating to yourself in a manner that results in your life being more emotionally or physically violent than it need be?
Some years ago people used to wear a T-shirt printed with the slogan, "Life is difficult, and then you die." I once asked a group of people at a yoga retreat what they thought when they read those words. One person found it funny a way to laugh at the hard truth of life rather than be overwhelmed by it. Another read it as justification for taking what pleasure you could out of life, while still another saw it as cynical and nihilistic, an excuse to give up. Someone who was active in a spiritual group said it was a call to action much like the Buddha's teaching of suffering contained in the Four Noble Truths.
I asked for their thoughts because I wanted to see if anyone would say it wasn't true, which no one did. My own experience was that the slogan is composed of a half truth and also a full truth, but one that obscures rather than clarifies. The half truth is that indeed "life is difficult," but it is not just difficult, it is also incredibly wonderful, puzzling, and routine, all in an ever-changing cycle.
"Then we die" is also true, but stating the truth in this manner implies that death is simply a personal failure. To me death is not a failure but rather a necessary part of the life cycle of being incarnate. Imagine if plants didn't die, or if the note of a piano didn't fade into oblivion, or if a thought didn't arise and pass. Life would come to a standstill; it would drown in its own accumulation. Therefore, rather than viewing life and death as separate, I see them as part of one continuous, mysterious experience of redemption and renewal. Spiritual practices provide a means to relate to this experience in its mystery and vastness.
Still, there remained in my mind the all-important issue that the words on the T-shirt implied: If life is difficult and brief, how do we cope? How do we find meaning or happiness? I had already repeatedly explored these questions using different spiritual traditions and later came to devote my life full-time to this inquiry. Though not always finding answers, my explorations slowly led to certain discoveries about what makes life a struggle.
One of these discoveries is the degree to which we make life difficult for ourselves by being violent or violating to the body and the mind in the routine of our daily lives. Through the way in which we schedule our time, push our bodies, and compare and judge ourselves against others, we repeatedly create an inner environment that is filled with violence. If you can understand that this is so, it may have a profound impact on your experience of life being difficult.
Initially, you may not identify some of your daily thoughts and decisions as moments of violence to self, but most likely they are. If someone was hitting you in your stomach, squeezing your neck, or not letting you breathe, you'd quickly call such behavior violent. Yet when these same painful sensory experiences arise in reaction to your own thoughts or actions, you fail to recognize your behavior as violent. In your daily life, have you not repeatedly experienced these bodily sensations or others like them?
Understanding Violence
Whenever I introduce the topic of violence against self in a Dharma talk, almost everyone squirms. No one wants to hear it. I will directly ask the question: Are you, in an obvious manner or in a series of subtle, covert actions, being violent with yourself? Usually people want to assure me that while they may work too hard at times, stay in an unhealthy relationship, eat too much, or sleep too little, they would not characterize their behavior as violent toward themselves. Yet, person after person, once they've closely examined their lives, experiences a moment of self-recognition that at first can be painful and embarrassing. This initial discomfort is often followed by a sense of liberation as new possibilities arise in their imaginations for how to live more peacefully.
Most people perpetrate this violence against self through mistakenly identifying with various thoughts that arise due to impersonal conditions coming together. The body and mind's well-being are the innocent victims. Each individual has a unique pattern, but the common ground is that you relate to yourself in a manner that results in your life being more emotionally or physically violent than it need be.
You may have limited your understanding of self-violence to physical abuse or other blatant self-destructive behavior that calls for a 12-step program. The word "violence" may sound too harsh to you, but its dictionary meaning is "an exertion of extreme force to cause injury or abuse in the form of distortion or infringement." The extreme force can be a mental act that then shows up in the body or an act that is done repeatedly to an extreme.
You can think of violence as any highly energetic form of relating to a person, including yourself, that is jarring, turbulent, and distorting. Can you identify any times in the last few days in which you treated yourself in a discordant, abrupt, or distorting manner?
The Trappist monk and spiritual author Thomas Merton once said, "To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times." Obviously Merton wasn't speaking about pathologically self-destructive behavior. Instead he was drawing our attention to the shadow side of normative, even seemingly positive, culturally approved behavior. He was referring to how we do great violence to ourselves simply in the manner in which we go about arranging our lives.
Practicing Ahimsa
Gradually I've come to realize that violence against oneself is one of the great denials of our time. People are very willing to talk about the violence that the world does to them, but they're much less willing to own the violence that they do to themselves. Violence against self can most easily be recognized in your experience of the body in daily life. You already know the general health problems that come about because of stress, sleep deprivation, and constant strain. You may not identify them as examples of violence to self, but anytime you make yourself sick or dysfunctional, it is an act of violence for which you need to take responsibility. We all know people who are overworked or have too much stress, which causes problems with the digestive system, heart, or other parts of the body, but who never label their behavior as violence to the self. But is there any description that is more apt?
One of the yamas, or moral restraints, in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra is ahimsa, the practice of nonviolence, and this includes nonviolence toward yourself. Of course, you may well want something in your life so much that you are willing to take a chance of hurting your body by driving it too hard. But usually a conscious, short-term exertion to reach a goal is not what causes violence to self. More often it is a matter of long-term disregard of the signals of imbalance. This disregard comes from repeatedly getting so caught in wanting or fearful mind-states that you're unable to reflect on your own behavior. You may have a surface-level awareness of the distress you are feeling in your body, but you don't sincerely respond to the discomfort. In such instances you are in a driven state, controlled by your mind's imaginary creations rather than your inner values.
Inner development and maturity come from acknowledging to yourself that you are being violent with a human being; the fact that you happen to be the human being who is being hurt does not change the truth of the violence. From a spiritual perspective, it is never right to hurt any human being including yourself for selfish reasons or because of sloppy attention to the consequences of your actions. Understanding this is your first step in practicing ahimsa toward yourself.
It is often hard to make the distinction between the mind-states of fear and wanting and your inner values because there is such a strong tendency to identify these mind-states as "you." But if you observe yourself, you will see that an endless number of mind-states arise each day independent of any intention on your part. The way to freedom from self-violence is to separate from these thoughts by getting to know your mind. This is the underlying purpose of yoga, mindfulness meditation, and selfless service, called karma yoga or seva.
Violence against self through the body can also occur in situations where you are ostensibly taking deliberate care of your body, such as in doing yoga. How many times in a yoga class do you get lost in your willfulness to get a pose right and actually add tension and strain to the body rather than freeing the tissue for movement? It is good to hold a pose longer or to work to get more lift in a backbend, but not if you tense or harden the body as part of the effort. The skin should stay soft even when the muscles underneath a particular area are engaged, the face should stay relaxed, and the breath be free of any holding. Even more importantly, the mind needs to stay soft and gentle; my teacher describes it as the "mind staying cool." Practicing yoga in this manner can help you learn how to release the tendency toward violence to yourself in the rest of your life.
When you go to a hatha yoga class, if you don't observe and work with all of the emotions and moods that arise, you are missing half the value. Watch yourself the next time you go to class: Do you get angry at your body? Do you load it with the frustrations of your day and then expect it to do what you want? See for yourself how every strong emotion from frustration and fear to longing is felt in the body as tension, pressure, heat, tingling, and so on. In turn, each of these bodily sensations can be released through the yoga, which will free the body from violence and usually quiets the mind. Once you learn to do this in yoga class you can utilize this awareness at work, driving in traffic, or in difficult home situations to release the body when the mind starts to feel pressure or anxiety. Moreover, the cultivation of a soft spaciousness of body and mind points to the true intention of yoga, which is liberation from our separateness. It is this fear of separateness that leads to self-violence.
Taking Time Out
As the Thomas Merton quote points out, if you abuse your time, you are participating in violence against self. This may be in the form of over-scheduling to the point that you rob yourself of the experience of being alive. Or it may be in the form of allocating your time in a manner that doesn't reflect your inner priorities. Both create a distortion or infringement of self through strain and turbulence. When you treat your time as though you are a machine a doing machine you are committing violence against the sacredness of life itself. Whenever I do Life Balance work with organizational leaders, I have them make a list of their values and prioritize them, then compare their priorities with how they actually spend their time. The disparity is usually shocking.
Another abuse of time that disturbs your well-being occurs if you succumb to the modern-day compulsion to avoid boredom at all costs. In our stimulation-based culture, there is near hysteria around constantly seeking fulfillment through activity, which leaves no time for the quietness of simply being present with yourself. Do you allow yourself time each day, or even weekly, to exist without an external purpose and without even background music or television? Empty time is vital to your well-being, and to deny yourself this nourishment is an act of violence.
You may ask why you continue to abuse your time and your body when you have the option to live more peacefully. Or you may say that you feel as though you have no choice but to be harsh toward yourself because your life situation is such a struggle. Under either circumstance you push the body and strain the mind violently because you are filled with the tension that comes with the feeling that there's not enough of something in your life, whether it's money, love, adventure, or confidence.
Feelings of inadequacy, vulnerability, longing, or not having enough are an inevitable part of the human experience. If you, like most people, have not found spiritual freedom, you cannot stop them from arising. But you can stop such feelings from controlling your life by changing how you perceive them. If you refuse to identify with these feelings, disown them as being neither you nor yours, thus seeing them simply as emotional states of mind that come and go, you will discover there is the possibility for some inner harmony even under difficult circumstances.
For instance, let's assume you cannot change your work schedule, and it seems so overwhelming to you that you regularly get very tense and anxious about it. You can experience the schedule as much less violent by not thinking about it in its entirety except when you are in planning mode. The rest of the time you just do what the plan calls for, concentrating on the task in front of you without adding the thought, "Here I am with all this work and so much more to do this week."
Said another way, don't make a panoramic movie out of your difficult schedule such that you are constantly seeing yourself doing all that has to be done, as if it were going to be done all at once. Instead just do what has to be done right now, for that's all you can do. It may sound like a simple thing to do, but it is very subtle and difficult, yet so liberating!
Another method you can use to cope with over-scheduling is to notice each time you experience fear or wanting while thinking about all you have to do. Consciously label these feelings as fear and wanting in your mind and then see for yourself that they originate as impersonal mind-states, the way a storm forms due to weather conditions. The land that receives the storm does not own it, and the storm is not the land; it's just a storm, which due to its own characteristics can cause damage. So it is with the stormy situations in your life where there is a tendency to both deny and take ownership of fear or wanting. This misperception leads you to believe you should be able to control them, which in turn causes the physical contractions and the mental anguish that constitute violence to self.
Stopping the Violence
In seeking freedom from violence to self, practice noticing over and over again that you are constantly, and usually unconsciously, wanting things to be different than the way they are. You become a little dictator to yourself, sitting on a throne, arms crossed, pouting and demanding that things you like should stay the way they are forever and what you do not like should disappear immediately. This craving to hold on to what you like and to get rid of what you find difficult is considered the source of suffering in life and the origin of violence against self. By practicing living with things as they are, you will discover that while life may not be less painful, your experience of it is immeasurably better. Also, fully accepting what is true in the moment is the only firm place to begin to make changes in your life. Living in the moment is not a one-time commitment but something that has to be done again and again.
Nonviolence to self is a lifetime practice of which there are ever more subtle levels to discover. The more you are able to be with yourself in a nonviolent way, the less harm you will do to another. Be gentle with the body and mind; refuse to get caught in believing that things have to be a certain way in order for you to be happy.
At some point each day, softly close your eyes, relax your shoulders, let your mind settle on the breath without trying to control it. In the ensuing quietness, see for yourself how mysterious life is. Maybe we should create a new T-shirt, one that reads: "Life is interesting, and then I'm not sure what happens!"
===========================
Quote
"Out of clutter find simplicity; from discord find harmony; in the middle of difficulty - lies opportunity."
Albert Einstein
===========================
Guest Authors
Do you want to contribute an article about Yoga for today's world?
To submit an article for review, attach it to your e-mail and send it to: james@knoffyoga.com
Feel free to pass this newsletter on to your friends
===========================
Knoff Yoga ©
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