Hello and welcome to the December 2010 Newsletter.
A lot has happened in the past month, with our wonderful Bali Yoga Retreat. With 2 yoga classes each day, 3 delicious Indonesian meals and a massage spa on the premises, everyone left feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. The retreat went so well, that we already have over 20 people on the list for 2011, so if you would like to join us next year, please contact Janka Aksamitova (tour director) as soon as possible – janka@knoffyoga.com.
I was delayed returning from Bali by volcanic activity and almost missed my connecting flight to New Zealand where I am currently running the Discovery/Foundation Level Teacher Training in Wellington. I will be back in Cairns mid-December and will teach public classes for two weeks before we close for the Christmas and New Year holidays.
This is our last Newsletter for 2010! Another year will have soon passed and it is a good discipline to take stock of your results – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Yoga Philosophy teaches that this world is a 'school' and that we are meant to willingly and enthusiastically participate to the best of our abilities. Regardless of the individual lessons we learn along the path of life, the ultimate lesson is to open our hearts in order to experience the oneness of all life.
The tools of yoga (yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyhara, dharana and dhyana) are meant to be used to re-discover 'oneness' or samadhi. On a physical level, the goal of yoga is mastery of principle and technique. On a spiritual level, the goal is cultivating a profound sense of belonging in the universe, of oneness with the life-force.
“Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, and integrated wholeness.” Stephen R. Covey
Christmas is an excellent time to be inspired by the lives of saints, sages and holy people throughout history. These inspired lives shine a light on the path so we can better see where we are going.
A normal person has a heart open wide enough to fit in family members and some friends and maybe a pet or two. A saint or sage has worked on their awareness and compassion sufficiently to open their hearts to include the miracle of all creation.
“A miracle is nothing more or less than this. Anyone who has come into a knowledge of his true identity, of his oneness with the all-pervading wisdom and power, this makes it possible for laws higher than the ordinary mind knows of to be revealed to him.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Actively cultivating a sense light-heartedness or humour helps with the discovery of joy in the midst of the sometimes painful lessons of life. To live life fully, follow your passion, but to en-lighten the path, also look for the joy!
“To discover joy is to return to a state of oneness with the universe.”
I have a really full 2011 beckoning and hope to see you in one of my many workshops, retreats and teaching trainings around the world!
Namaste,
Nicky Knoff.
I was delayed returning from Bali by volcanic activity and almost missed my connecting flight to New Zealand where I am currently running the Discovery/Foundation Level Teacher Training in Wellington. I will be back in Cairns mid-December and will teach public classes for two weeks before we close for the Christmas and New Year holidays.
This is our last Newsletter for 2010! Another year will have soon passed and it is a good discipline to take stock of your results – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Yoga Philosophy teaches that this world is a 'school' and that we are meant to willingly and enthusiastically participate to the best of our abilities. Regardless of the individual lessons we learn along the path of life, the ultimate lesson is to open our hearts in order to experience the oneness of all life.
The tools of yoga (yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyhara, dharana and dhyana) are meant to be used to re-discover 'oneness' or samadhi. On a physical level, the goal of yoga is mastery of principle and technique. On a spiritual level, the goal is cultivating a profound sense of belonging in the universe, of oneness with the life-force.
“Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, and integrated wholeness.” Stephen R. Covey
Christmas is an excellent time to be inspired by the lives of saints, sages and holy people throughout history. These inspired lives shine a light on the path so we can better see where we are going.
A normal person has a heart open wide enough to fit in family members and some friends and maybe a pet or two. A saint or sage has worked on their awareness and compassion sufficiently to open their hearts to include the miracle of all creation.
“A miracle is nothing more or less than this. Anyone who has come into a knowledge of his true identity, of his oneness with the all-pervading wisdom and power, this makes it possible for laws higher than the ordinary mind knows of to be revealed to him.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Actively cultivating a sense light-heartedness or humour helps with the discovery of joy in the midst of the sometimes painful lessons of life. To live life fully, follow your passion, but to en-lighten the path, also look for the joy!
“To discover joy is to return to a state of oneness with the universe.”
I have a really full 2011 beckoning and hope to see you in one of my many workshops, retreats and teaching trainings around the world!
Namaste,
Nicky Knoff.
===========================
Christmas Holiday Break
Dear Yogis,
The Knoff Yoga School will be closed from Saturday, 25th December 2010 and will re-open on Monday, 10th January 2011.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We hope to see you back on your mat in 2011.
Namaste,
Nicky & James
The Knoff Yoga School will be closed from Saturday, 25th December 2010 and will re-open on Monday, 10th January 2011.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We hope to see you back on your mat in 2011.
Namaste,
Nicky & James
===========================
NEW YOGA STUDIO IN TOWNSVILLE - EMBODY YOGA
Congratulations to our Knoff Yoga certified teacher Steven Golding on opening his own yoga studio in Townsville. Steven completed his internationally recognised Advanced Teacher training specialising in Yoga Therapy at the Knoff Yoga School in 2009 and is currently developing his practice to attain the highest level of certification Knoff Yoga offer – the master level. Steven regularly returns to Cairns to continue learning and working with Knoff Yoga School.
Embody Yoga, is a cosy yoga studio nestled away in the Bowen Road Plaza on Bowen Road, Townsville. Embody Yoga specialises in the Knoff Yoga system.
If you find yourself in Townsville and in search of the yoga class - come to visit Steven for another great yoga experience.
To see Embody yoga website go to www.embodyyoga.com.au.
Embody Yoga, is a cosy yoga studio nestled away in the Bowen Road Plaza on Bowen Road, Townsville. Embody Yoga specialises in the Knoff Yoga system.
If you find yourself in Townsville and in search of the yoga class - come to visit Steven for another great yoga experience.
To see Embody yoga website go to www.embodyyoga.com.au.
===========================
Quote
"Use your imagination, not to scare yourself to death, but to inspire yourself to live."
Adele Brookman
===========================
Yoga Pose of the Month - "PRASARITA PADOTTANASANA 2"
WIDE LEG 2
Last month we looked at Wide Leg 1 Pose (Prasarita Padottanasana 1) and this month we are on to it's fraternal twin – Wide Leg 2. It is not identical, but the only difference is in the upper body as the legs and their placement/action remain the same.
If you have not read last month's article, it is now available in our newsletter archive (click here). Our fabulous newsletter editor, Janka Aksamitova, has put in considerable effort in making this service available to our readers.
Having come up on a inhalation from Wide Leg 1 (arms in line with the shoulders), on the exhalation take the hands behind the back and interlace the fingers. Right or left index finger on top depending upon which Right/Left day/week it is for you. This Right/Left principle of balance is important, so don't neglect it!
With the next inhalation, lift the chest (with strongly scissoring legs) and direct your gaze (Drishti) over the forehead as you look up and behind you – hands reaching towards the floor. On the exhalation, fold at the hips and guide your trunk towards the floor, with your hands moving initially towards the ceiling and then eventually touching the floor.
When I say to my students, “take your hands to the floor”, they often think I am joking, that is, until I demonstrate the full classical pose. The key is to have flexible hamstrings and open shoulder joints – which is what performing this pose will eventually do for you!
With your head lower than your hips, it provides a great opportunity to see if your knee caps are pulled up, indicating that your quadriceps are contracted to support your knee joints. Hyper-extension is a real problem for some students (knee joint being backwards) and if you suffer from this, being able to visually check your leg action and alignment is very helpful.
The basic rule in yoga postures (Asana) is to keep your eyes open, so that you can see what is going on – the same as when you are driving your car!
If you do hyper-extend (either knees or elbows) you cannot rely upon the locking feeling in your joints, but must be diligent in looking and retraining yourself to maintain proper alignment – that is, the upper bone (femur/humerus) stacked directly over the lower bones (tibia & fibula/radius & ulna). This means that the legs/arms are in a straight line with no backward bend at the knee/elbows joints.
I have a yoga anatomy DVD where the teacher says it is fine to hyper-extend if this is the persons natural movement. I strongly disagree! Imagine a gun barrel with a kink in it and you fire a bullet – bang! The barrel is going to explode and cause you harm. For the energy to flow safely and fully, it needs clean lines – just like a straight gun barrel.
Remember you are not just hanging upside down and counting your breath. You are working to deepen the pose – expand on the inhalation and release on the exhalation. Expand into your chest and along your arms up to your hands, taking them as far away from you as comfortably possible. On the exhalations, release any part of your body offering resistance – most likely your hamstrings and shoulders.
Eventually your head will touch the floor. When this happens, simply perform a chin lock (Jalandhara Bandha) and bring your head further under – just like a shoulder stand. The further under you are, the easier it will be to get your hands on the floor. When your head touches the floor and you can then look upwards, it is easy to see if your shorts need mending!
Once the hands touch the floor you then have another tool to work with. By actively pressing the hands into the floor you can articulate back into your shoulders and chest to deepen the pose even more!
Hold the pose for a minimum of 5 breaths, eventually building up to 10 breaths (30 seconds to 60 seconds). When coming out, inhale, expand your chest and reaching through your arms, lift your chest and bring your arms out to the side, in line with your shoulders and exhale. Then on the next inhalation, jump back to the front of your mat to Mountain Pose (Tadasana), ready for the next Standing Pose.
If you have back issues, always substitute the word 'jump' for 'step'. Anytime you are jumping, it is essential to have both root lock (Mula Bandha) and abdominal lock (Uddiyana Bandha) applied to give you internal support. If you have forgotten, remember that we practice yoga postures (Asana) with the Victorious Expansion Breath (Ujjayi Pranayama).
Next month we will look at Fierce Pose (Utkatasana). Often this is called the Imaginary Chair Pose, but this name does not explain the intense burning in your legs when doing it properly!
See you on the mat!
Namaste
James E. Bryan E.R.Y.T. 500
===========================
Quote
"All glory comes from daring to begin.”
William Shakespeare
===========================
"Use your imagination, not to scare yourself to death, but to inspire yourself to live."
Adele Brookman
===========================
Yoga Pose of the Month - "PRASARITA PADOTTANASANA 2"
WIDE LEG 2
If you have not read last month's article, it is now available in our newsletter archive (click here). Our fabulous newsletter editor, Janka Aksamitova, has put in considerable effort in making this service available to our readers.
Having come up on a inhalation from Wide Leg 1 (arms in line with the shoulders), on the exhalation take the hands behind the back and interlace the fingers. Right or left index finger on top depending upon which Right/Left day/week it is for you. This Right/Left principle of balance is important, so don't neglect it!
With the next inhalation, lift the chest (with strongly scissoring legs) and direct your gaze (Drishti) over the forehead as you look up and behind you – hands reaching towards the floor. On the exhalation, fold at the hips and guide your trunk towards the floor, with your hands moving initially towards the ceiling and then eventually touching the floor.
When I say to my students, “take your hands to the floor”, they often think I am joking, that is, until I demonstrate the full classical pose. The key is to have flexible hamstrings and open shoulder joints – which is what performing this pose will eventually do for you!
With your head lower than your hips, it provides a great opportunity to see if your knee caps are pulled up, indicating that your quadriceps are contracted to support your knee joints. Hyper-extension is a real problem for some students (knee joint being backwards) and if you suffer from this, being able to visually check your leg action and alignment is very helpful.
The basic rule in yoga postures (Asana) is to keep your eyes open, so that you can see what is going on – the same as when you are driving your car!
If you do hyper-extend (either knees or elbows) you cannot rely upon the locking feeling in your joints, but must be diligent in looking and retraining yourself to maintain proper alignment – that is, the upper bone (femur/humerus) stacked directly over the lower bones (tibia & fibula/radius & ulna). This means that the legs/arms are in a straight line with no backward bend at the knee/elbows joints.
I have a yoga anatomy DVD where the teacher says it is fine to hyper-extend if this is the persons natural movement. I strongly disagree! Imagine a gun barrel with a kink in it and you fire a bullet – bang! The barrel is going to explode and cause you harm. For the energy to flow safely and fully, it needs clean lines – just like a straight gun barrel.
Remember you are not just hanging upside down and counting your breath. You are working to deepen the pose – expand on the inhalation and release on the exhalation. Expand into your chest and along your arms up to your hands, taking them as far away from you as comfortably possible. On the exhalations, release any part of your body offering resistance – most likely your hamstrings and shoulders.
Eventually your head will touch the floor. When this happens, simply perform a chin lock (Jalandhara Bandha) and bring your head further under – just like a shoulder stand. The further under you are, the easier it will be to get your hands on the floor. When your head touches the floor and you can then look upwards, it is easy to see if your shorts need mending!
Once the hands touch the floor you then have another tool to work with. By actively pressing the hands into the floor you can articulate back into your shoulders and chest to deepen the pose even more!
Hold the pose for a minimum of 5 breaths, eventually building up to 10 breaths (30 seconds to 60 seconds). When coming out, inhale, expand your chest and reaching through your arms, lift your chest and bring your arms out to the side, in line with your shoulders and exhale. Then on the next inhalation, jump back to the front of your mat to Mountain Pose (Tadasana), ready for the next Standing Pose.
If you have back issues, always substitute the word 'jump' for 'step'. Anytime you are jumping, it is essential to have both root lock (Mula Bandha) and abdominal lock (Uddiyana Bandha) applied to give you internal support. If you have forgotten, remember that we practice yoga postures (Asana) with the Victorious Expansion Breath (Ujjayi Pranayama).
Next month we will look at Fierce Pose (Utkatasana). Often this is called the Imaginary Chair Pose, but this name does not explain the intense burning in your legs when doing it properly!
See you on the mat!
Namaste
James E. Bryan E.R.Y.T. 500
===========================
Quote
"All glory comes from daring to begin.”
William Shakespeare
===========================
===========================
YOUR BRAIN ON MEDITATION
by Kelly McCoginal
Nothing is quite as satisfying as a yoga practice that's filled with movement. Whether you prefer an intense and sweaty vinyasa practice, a gentle yoga practice, both provide a contented afterglow for the same reason: You sync your movement with your breath. When you do, your mind stops its obsessive churning and begins to slow down. Your attention turns from your endless to-do list toward the rhythm of your breath, and you feel more peaceful than you did before you began your practice.
For many of us, accessing that same settled, contented state is more difficult to do in meditation. It's not easy to watch the mind reveal its worries, its self-criticism, or its old memories. Meditation requires patience and—even more challenging for most Westerners—time. So, why would you put yourself through the struggle?
Quite simply, meditation can profoundly alter your experience of life. Thousands of years ago the sage Patanjali, who compiled the Yoga Sutra, and the Buddha both promised that meditation could eliminate the suffering caused by an untamed mind. They taught their students to cultivate focused attention, compassion, and joy. And they believed that it was possible to change one's mental powers and emotional patterns by regularly experiencing meditative states. Those are hefty promises.
But these days, you don't have to take their word for it. Western scientists are testing the wisdom of the masters, using new technology that allows researchers to study how meditation influences the brain.
The current findings are exciting enough to encourage even the most resistant yogis to sit down on the cushion: They suggest that meditation—even in small doses—can profoundly influence your experience of the world by remodeling the physical structure of your brain.
Using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, Eileen Luders, a re-searcher in the Department of Neurology at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, looks for evidence that meditation changes the physical structure of the brain. Until recently, this idea would have seemed absurd. "Scientists used to believe that the brain reaches its peak in adulthood and doesn't change—until it starts to decrease in late adulthood," Luders says. "Today we know that everything we do, and every experience we have, actually changes the brain." Indeed, Luders finds several differences between the brains of meditators and nonmeditators.
Luders and her colleagues compared the brains of 22 meditators and 22 age-matched nonmeditators and found that the meditators (who practiced a wide range of traditions and had between 5 and 46 years of meditation experience) had more gray matter in re-gions of the brain that are important for attention, emotion regulation, and mental flexibility. Increased gray matter typically makes an area of the brain more efficient or powerful at processing information. Luders believes that the increased gray matter in the meditators' brains should make them better at controlling their attention, managing their emotions, and making mindful choices.
Why are there differences between the brains of meditators and nonmeditators? It's a simple matter of training. Neuroscientists now know that the brain you have today is, in part, a reflection of the demands you have placed on it. People learning to juggle, for example, develop more connections in areas of the brain that anticipate moving objects. Medical students undergoing periods of intense learning show similar changes in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for memory. And mathematicians have more gray matter in regions important for arithmetic and spatial reasoning.
More and more neuroscientists, like Luders, have started to think that learning to meditate is no different from learning mental skills such as music or math. Like anything else that requires practice, meditation is a training program for the brain. "Regular use may strengthen the connections between neurons and can also make new connections," Luders explains. "These tiny changes, in thousands of connections, can lead to visible changes in the structure of the brain." Those structural changes, in turn, create a brain that is better at doing whatever you've asked it to do. Musicians' brains could get better at analyzing and creating music. Mathematicians' brains may get better at solving problems. What do meditators' brains get better at doing? This is where it gets interesting: It depends on what kind of meditation they do.
If you practice calm acceptance during meditation, you will develop a brain that is more resilient to stress. And if you meditate while cultivating feelings of love and compassion, your brain will develop in such a way that you spontaneously feel more connected to others.
===========================
Quote
"Security isn't what the wise person looks for - it's opportunity.”
Earl Nightingale
===========================
BRAVE HEART
By Sally Kempton from Yoga Journal
===========================
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 ©
YOUR BRAIN ON MEDITATION
by Kelly McCoginal
Nothing is quite as satisfying as a yoga practice that's filled with movement. Whether you prefer an intense and sweaty vinyasa practice, a gentle yoga practice, both provide a contented afterglow for the same reason: You sync your movement with your breath. When you do, your mind stops its obsessive churning and begins to slow down. Your attention turns from your endless to-do list toward the rhythm of your breath, and you feel more peaceful than you did before you began your practice.
For many of us, accessing that same settled, contented state is more difficult to do in meditation. It's not easy to watch the mind reveal its worries, its self-criticism, or its old memories. Meditation requires patience and—even more challenging for most Westerners—time. So, why would you put yourself through the struggle?
Quite simply, meditation can profoundly alter your experience of life. Thousands of years ago the sage Patanjali, who compiled the Yoga Sutra, and the Buddha both promised that meditation could eliminate the suffering caused by an untamed mind. They taught their students to cultivate focused attention, compassion, and joy. And they believed that it was possible to change one's mental powers and emotional patterns by regularly experiencing meditative states. Those are hefty promises.
But these days, you don't have to take their word for it. Western scientists are testing the wisdom of the masters, using new technology that allows researchers to study how meditation influences the brain.
The current findings are exciting enough to encourage even the most resistant yogis to sit down on the cushion: They suggest that meditation—even in small doses—can profoundly influence your experience of the world by remodeling the physical structure of your brain.
How Meditation 
Trains Your Brain
Using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, Eileen Luders, a re-searcher in the Department of Neurology at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, looks for evidence that meditation changes the physical structure of the brain. Until recently, this idea would have seemed absurd. "Scientists used to believe that the brain reaches its peak in adulthood and doesn't change—until it starts to decrease in late adulthood," Luders says. "Today we know that everything we do, and every experience we have, actually changes the brain." Indeed, Luders finds several differences between the brains of meditators and nonmeditators.
Luders and her colleagues compared the brains of 22 meditators and 22 age-matched nonmeditators and found that the meditators (who practiced a wide range of traditions and had between 5 and 46 years of meditation experience) had more gray matter in re-gions of the brain that are important for attention, emotion regulation, and mental flexibility. Increased gray matter typically makes an area of the brain more efficient or powerful at processing information. Luders believes that the increased gray matter in the meditators' brains should make them better at controlling their attention, managing their emotions, and making mindful choices.
Why are there differences between the brains of meditators and nonmeditators? It's a simple matter of training. Neuroscientists now know that the brain you have today is, in part, a reflection of the demands you have placed on it. People learning to juggle, for example, develop more connections in areas of the brain that anticipate moving objects. Medical students undergoing periods of intense learning show similar changes in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for memory. And mathematicians have more gray matter in regions important for arithmetic and spatial reasoning.
More and more neuroscientists, like Luders, have started to think that learning to meditate is no different from learning mental skills such as music or math. Like anything else that requires practice, meditation is a training program for the brain. "Regular use may strengthen the connections between neurons and can also make new connections," Luders explains. "These tiny changes, in thousands of connections, can lead to visible changes in the structure of the brain." Those structural changes, in turn, create a brain that is better at doing whatever you've asked it to do. Musicians' brains could get better at analyzing and creating music. Mathematicians' brains may get better at solving problems. What do meditators' brains get better at doing? This is where it gets interesting: It depends on what kind of meditation they do.
If you practice calm acceptance during meditation, you will develop a brain that is more resilient to stress. And if you meditate while cultivating feelings of love and compassion, your brain will develop in such a way that you spontaneously feel more connected to others.
===========================
Quote
"Security isn't what the wise person looks for - it's opportunity.”
Earl Nightingale
===========================
BRAVE HEART
By Sally Kempton from Yoga Journal
I'd always thought of courage as synonymous with what hard-boiled novelists used to call "guts." I'd assumed that if you were unafraid of physical harm, you were, basically, unafraid. But courage and fearlessness are not the same-in fact, if we didn't have fears, we wouldn't need courage. Courage implies moving through fear.
An act that takes tremendous courage for one person might be someone else's "no big deal," or even their day job. For me, doing an unsupported Handstand is an act of courage, yet I'm unfazed by stuff that terrifies others-speaking in front of a thousand people without notes, for instance, or facing my own anger. And, of course, each of us has a different edge, a psychological precipice beyond which lies a personal abyss. Your edge could be the 500-foot drop below a mountain footbridge. It may be the fear of career suicide that keeps you from speaking out about corporate wrongdoing, or the fear of losing your partner's love that paralyzes you when you try to convey certain truths about yourself. Your edge might be very subtle indeed-it might be, for instance, the moment your boundaries dissolve in meditation. The point is that each of us, sometime, will be asked to step past the borders of the known world and do something that scares us. Courage is that quality of heart that lets us do it.
Like the heart itself, courage is a lotus with many petals, all of them associated with qualities that even the most sardonic of us celebrate: bravery, strength, steadiness, trust, self-reliance, integrity, love. And also, let's be honest, recklessness. In my teens, when I thought the way to conquer fear was to plunge headlong into whatever I was scared to do, I often found myself in dicey situations. Now, though I shake my head at some of the decisions I made, I see that the recklessness I once indulged in had that heart full quality that marks courageous behavior. At the very least, it developed some courage muscles, some habits of acting in the face of fear that would later enable me to hold steady through some difficult life choices.
Nonetheless, there's a difference between that impulsive courage, the kind that leads people to charge into battle without a plan or to have unprotected sex with people who don't love them and the courage of a Martin Luther King Jr. or an Aung San Suu Kyi (the Burmese champion of democracy who has lived under house arrest for years). Or, for that matter, the courage of an ordinary person who lives with hard choices without flinching.
So, what does courage tempered by wisdom look like? How is it different from the kind of courage that prompts our friends to say "You're so brave!" when what they're really thinking is "You're so out of your mind!"
The Raw and the Cooked
Basically, we're talking about the difference between the raw and the cooked, the green and the ripened. Between the two lies a world of discipline, surrender, and experience.
Raw courage, for one thing, is based on emotion, fueled by anger and desire. It often acts out of noble motives, the civil rights workers of the 1960s, who were my first models of courage, were driven by the most intense idealism. Yet raw courage can also operate without morals or ethics; it can work in the service of aims that are unconscious, deluded, or even sleazy. The real mark of uncooked courage is the trail it leaves often, a karmic minefield of misunderstanding, pain, and enmity that can injure us if it isn't cleared.
Cooked or ripe courage, on the other hand, contains discipline, wisdom, and, especially, a quality of presence. Skill has something to do with it, of course. It's much easier to act bravely when we know how to do what we're doing, like the well-trained soldier who goes into battle with a clear strategy. Ultimately, though, ripened courage rests on a profound trust in something greater than your own abilities, it lies in trusting the Self, the Divine, the stability of one's own center.
That level of trust comes only from inner experience, from spiritual maturity. Out of that trust, a person with ripe courage can often surrender both the fear of losing and the desire to win, and act for the sake of action, even for the sake of love. A famous Zen story tells of a monk whose temple is invaded by an enemy warrior. "Do you know that I have the power to kill you with this sword?" the warrior says. The monk replies, "Do you know that I have the power to let you?"
Ripe courage arises from that stillness. In the budo martial arts tradition, it's said that the source of courage is a willingness to die, to lose everything, not because we don't value life but because we've entered so fully into our own center that we know it will hold through death. In such a state, they say, a samurai can pacify an enemy without picking up a sword, because the stillness is contagious. The samurai's courage is based on Zen practice, a continuous emptying of the mind in meditation, a settling into inwardness, and finally a surrender into egoless awareness that is, to the small self, like literally dying.
There's more than one way to get to the source of courage, of course. The grace-based path to inner courage comes from opening into love, through prayer as well as contemplation, and from trust in the power of a divine source. One of my teachers said that the great question to contemplate in any situation is, In what do you place your trust? He would say that if your trust is in something truly great, your sense of being will expand into that greatness. If your trust is in something limited, even in your own strength of body, mind, or will, it eventually lets you down. Fear, after all, is based on the feeling of separation and smallness. Where there's an experience of your deeper being, there's also an experience of profound strength, because you sense your connection to everything and therefore find nothing to fear.
Whether we approach the truth of our being through the emptying of Self, like the great martial artists, or through a devotional opening to grace, like Gandhi or King, we always seem to go through the doors of stillness, centering, and surrender. The more we are in touch with the center and the source beyond it, the more we are able to touch the courage that doesn't rise only during a crisis but also enables us to keep getting up in the morning and face our interior darkness or buried grief, to hang in through the slogging grind of transformative practice, to stand up for what is right again and again, without bitterness, or at least only a little.
A young woman recently told me how she found that place of courage. Joan (not her real name) had volunteered to teach yoga in a probation program for adolescent girls. She realizes now that she expected the teenagers to understand yoga and her own good intentions immediately. Instead, they made fun of the poses and of her. Soon she was dreading the classes and seeing them as a test of strength.
"I felt that I had to win them over," Joan said. "Not just so I'd know I was a real teacher but also out of this old high school need to be accepted. Of course, the more I tried, the worse it got. The girls would mimic me, laugh at me, roll their eyes at my increasingly lame attempts at humor."
One day, the class got so out of control that she found herself screaming instructions into a sea of noise. All her fears seemed to rise up at the same time: the fear of inadequacy, the physical fear of violence, but especially the fear of losing control, of having to reveal her complete inability to cope with the situation.
She felt paralyzed. For five minutes she stood silently, taking in the chaotic scene. Then, she began to ask internally, "What should I do?" Nothing arose. Then, it was as if time stopped. She heard a sound forming at the back of her mouth. She opened her mouth, and "Ahhhhhh" began to come out. She heard her voice getting louder and louder, an overtone in the room. The girls began looking around for the source of the sound. Then she heard herself say, "Stop. Listen. Hear the echo of your own voices."
As she said that, for just a moment, she could feel herself standing in the heart of the universe. Nothing was outside her. The girls stopped. They listened. Then, in tones of wonder, they began to share what they'd heard: silence in between sounds, the sound of Om, a bell-like ringing, a sound like the beating of a heart.
It wasn't the last time Joan lost control of her class. But by stopping and stepping into the unknown, she had somehow made contact with her own source, with inspiration, and with the simple beingness of the girls in her class.
I believe that this state is what the Zen masters are talking about when they speak of dying into the ground of being. A Tantric text called the Stanzas on Vibration says in a famous verse that the heart of the universe, the pulsation of divine power, is fully present in moments of terror, intense anger, or absolute impasse. The secret of discovering that power is to turn inward, toward the center of your fear or confusion, to let go of your thoughts and emotions about the situation, and allow the energy at the heart to expand. That's where superhuman strength comes from. It just takes courage.
In What Do You Trust?
Sit quietly and contemplate your own style of courage. What do you think were your most courageous acts? Remember that they may not look like classic acts of heroism; any moment when you stand up to your own fear counts. Where was your edge in those moments? What did you gain from going beyond it?
Now, ask yourself, "At this time in my life, what is my edge? What's the biggest thing I'm confronting? Where do I need to exercise courage?"
Now breathe in and out of the heart and imagine the presence of a radiant sun in the center of your chest. When you feel connected inwardly, ask your heart, "In what can I place my trust?" Then begin to write, without thought, whatever arises. After you've written everything that comes up, you may want to stop and ask again. You can keep asking the question, with the intent to get deeper and deeper. Don't worry if tears arise, or old memories. Keep asking the question until you get a sense of a deeper center. The answer may come immediately, or over the next few hours or days.
An act that takes tremendous courage for one person might be someone else's "no big deal," or even their day job. For me, doing an unsupported Handstand is an act of courage, yet I'm unfazed by stuff that terrifies others-speaking in front of a thousand people without notes, for instance, or facing my own anger. And, of course, each of us has a different edge, a psychological precipice beyond which lies a personal abyss. Your edge could be the 500-foot drop below a mountain footbridge. It may be the fear of career suicide that keeps you from speaking out about corporate wrongdoing, or the fear of losing your partner's love that paralyzes you when you try to convey certain truths about yourself. Your edge might be very subtle indeed-it might be, for instance, the moment your boundaries dissolve in meditation. The point is that each of us, sometime, will be asked to step past the borders of the known world and do something that scares us. Courage is that quality of heart that lets us do it.
Home of the Brave
Anyone who reads inspirational literature knows that the English word "courage" comes from the French coeur, meaning heart. One Sanskrit word for courage is saurya, which has the same root as the Sanskrit word for sun. In fact, many ancient systems associate the sun-heart of the solar system with the pulsing, radiant muscle at the center of our circulatory system. I like the heart image, with its implication that courage comes from the center of being, from the organ that most directly resounds with the pulsation of life.
Like the heart itself, courage is a lotus with many petals, all of them associated with qualities that even the most sardonic of us celebrate: bravery, strength, steadiness, trust, self-reliance, integrity, love. And also, let's be honest, recklessness. In my teens, when I thought the way to conquer fear was to plunge headlong into whatever I was scared to do, I often found myself in dicey situations. Now, though I shake my head at some of the decisions I made, I see that the recklessness I once indulged in had that heart full quality that marks courageous behavior. At the very least, it developed some courage muscles, some habits of acting in the face of fear that would later enable me to hold steady through some difficult life choices.
Nonetheless, there's a difference between that impulsive courage, the kind that leads people to charge into battle without a plan or to have unprotected sex with people who don't love them and the courage of a Martin Luther King Jr. or an Aung San Suu Kyi (the Burmese champion of democracy who has lived under house arrest for years). Or, for that matter, the courage of an ordinary person who lives with hard choices without flinching.
So, what does courage tempered by wisdom look like? How is it different from the kind of courage that prompts our friends to say "You're so brave!" when what they're really thinking is "You're so out of your mind!"
The Raw and the Cooked
Basically, we're talking about the difference between the raw and the cooked, the green and the ripened. Between the two lies a world of discipline, surrender, and experience.
Raw courage, for one thing, is based on emotion, fueled by anger and desire. It often acts out of noble motives, the civil rights workers of the 1960s, who were my first models of courage, were driven by the most intense idealism. Yet raw courage can also operate without morals or ethics; it can work in the service of aims that are unconscious, deluded, or even sleazy. The real mark of uncooked courage is the trail it leaves often, a karmic minefield of misunderstanding, pain, and enmity that can injure us if it isn't cleared.
Cooked or ripe courage, on the other hand, contains discipline, wisdom, and, especially, a quality of presence. Skill has something to do with it, of course. It's much easier to act bravely when we know how to do what we're doing, like the well-trained soldier who goes into battle with a clear strategy. Ultimately, though, ripened courage rests on a profound trust in something greater than your own abilities, it lies in trusting the Self, the Divine, the stability of one's own center.
That level of trust comes only from inner experience, from spiritual maturity. Out of that trust, a person with ripe courage can often surrender both the fear of losing and the desire to win, and act for the sake of action, even for the sake of love. A famous Zen story tells of a monk whose temple is invaded by an enemy warrior. "Do you know that I have the power to kill you with this sword?" the warrior says. The monk replies, "Do you know that I have the power to let you?"
Ripe courage arises from that stillness. In the budo martial arts tradition, it's said that the source of courage is a willingness to die, to lose everything, not because we don't value life but because we've entered so fully into our own center that we know it will hold through death. In such a state, they say, a samurai can pacify an enemy without picking up a sword, because the stillness is contagious. The samurai's courage is based on Zen practice, a continuous emptying of the mind in meditation, a settling into inwardness, and finally a surrender into egoless awareness that is, to the small self, like literally dying.
There's more than one way to get to the source of courage, of course. The grace-based path to inner courage comes from opening into love, through prayer as well as contemplation, and from trust in the power of a divine source. One of my teachers said that the great question to contemplate in any situation is, In what do you place your trust? He would say that if your trust is in something truly great, your sense of being will expand into that greatness. If your trust is in something limited, even in your own strength of body, mind, or will, it eventually lets you down. Fear, after all, is based on the feeling of separation and smallness. Where there's an experience of your deeper being, there's also an experience of profound strength, because you sense your connection to everything and therefore find nothing to fear.
Whether we approach the truth of our being through the emptying of Self, like the great martial artists, or through a devotional opening to grace, like Gandhi or King, we always seem to go through the doors of stillness, centering, and surrender. The more we are in touch with the center and the source beyond it, the more we are able to touch the courage that doesn't rise only during a crisis but also enables us to keep getting up in the morning and face our interior darkness or buried grief, to hang in through the slogging grind of transformative practice, to stand up for what is right again and again, without bitterness, or at least only a little.
Strength Training
A young woman recently told me how she found that place of courage. Joan (not her real name) had volunteered to teach yoga in a probation program for adolescent girls. She realizes now that she expected the teenagers to understand yoga and her own good intentions immediately. Instead, they made fun of the poses and of her. Soon she was dreading the classes and seeing them as a test of strength.
"I felt that I had to win them over," Joan said. "Not just so I'd know I was a real teacher but also out of this old high school need to be accepted. Of course, the more I tried, the worse it got. The girls would mimic me, laugh at me, roll their eyes at my increasingly lame attempts at humor."
One day, the class got so out of control that she found herself screaming instructions into a sea of noise. All her fears seemed to rise up at the same time: the fear of inadequacy, the physical fear of violence, but especially the fear of losing control, of having to reveal her complete inability to cope with the situation.
She felt paralyzed. For five minutes she stood silently, taking in the chaotic scene. Then, she began to ask internally, "What should I do?" Nothing arose. Then, it was as if time stopped. She heard a sound forming at the back of her mouth. She opened her mouth, and "Ahhhhhh" began to come out. She heard her voice getting louder and louder, an overtone in the room. The girls began looking around for the source of the sound. Then she heard herself say, "Stop. Listen. Hear the echo of your own voices."
As she said that, for just a moment, she could feel herself standing in the heart of the universe. Nothing was outside her. The girls stopped. They listened. Then, in tones of wonder, they began to share what they'd heard: silence in between sounds, the sound of Om, a bell-like ringing, a sound like the beating of a heart.
It wasn't the last time Joan lost control of her class. But by stopping and stepping into the unknown, she had somehow made contact with her own source, with inspiration, and with the simple beingness of the girls in her class.
I believe that this state is what the Zen masters are talking about when they speak of dying into the ground of being. A Tantric text called the Stanzas on Vibration says in a famous verse that the heart of the universe, the pulsation of divine power, is fully present in moments of terror, intense anger, or absolute impasse. The secret of discovering that power is to turn inward, toward the center of your fear or confusion, to let go of your thoughts and emotions about the situation, and allow the energy at the heart to expand. That's where superhuman strength comes from. It just takes courage.
In What Do You Trust?
Sit quietly and contemplate your own style of courage. What do you think were your most courageous acts? Remember that they may not look like classic acts of heroism; any moment when you stand up to your own fear counts. Where was your edge in those moments? What did you gain from going beyond it?
Now, ask yourself, "At this time in my life, what is my edge? What's the biggest thing I'm confronting? Where do I need to exercise courage?"
Now breathe in and out of the heart and imagine the presence of a radiant sun in the center of your chest. When you feel connected inwardly, ask your heart, "In what can I place my trust?" Then begin to write, without thought, whatever arises. After you've written everything that comes up, you may want to stop and ask again. You can keep asking the question, with the intent to get deeper and deeper. Don't worry if tears arise, or old memories. Keep asking the question until you get a sense of a deeper center. The answer may come immediately, or over the next few hours or days.
Guest Authors
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