We spent the first half of August immersed in the world of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy. I (Nick) had the chance to assist a Level 1 and 2 training in Northbrook, and then attend the first-ever Phoenix Rising Conference. It was a rich, inspiring soup of experiences. What stands out the most is a new respect for the power of modeling as an educational technique.
During the Level 1 and 2 trainings, I was there as an apprentice to Elissa Cobb, one of the directors of the Phoenix Rising organization. At first I was taking notes like crazy, trying to write down everything that Elissa said in order to reproduce it one day when I lead the training myself. Indeed, there are many important details that need to be communicated. Yet Elissa herself uses just two pages of brief notes for the whole four-day training! Eventually, it dawned on me that Elissa was generating the training from intention rather than a strict set of rules. Her fine-tuned words and actions arose from her deep understanding of the Phoenix Rising work. At that point, I started to pay more attention to the essence of the training process, and my notes dwindled.
Again and again, I was reminded of this quote by Carl Rogers:
Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me.
The primacy of experience is a central tenet of Phoenix Rising work, and this carries through in the practitioner training process. Elissa taught mainly through demonstration and leading experiences, along with some technical instruction. She would freely answer questions, but it struck me that her way of answering the questions was more important than the words she spoke. She was careful in her words, always speaking from “my experience” rather than declarations of the “truth”. She gave examples rather than definite rules. She asked for the questioner’s thoughts before giving her own. She often said “I don’t know” or “It depends”. In all she said, she was modeling a deep respect for experience as the highest authority.
Recent neuroscience has discovered “mirror neurons” in the human brain that appear to synchronize our internal state with whomever we’re observing. Much research remains, but it appears to be a hardwired mechanism for empathy – literally “feeling with” another person. Mirror neurons may offer an explanation for the pedagogical power of role modeling. When we witness another person existing in a remarkable way, our brain takes on those same qualities. We experience life, if just briefly, through the cognitive lens of another.
This is experiential learning at a profound level, and it reminds me of the yogic concept of transmission. Many yogic teachings are considered inert unless they are directly passed from teacher to student. I have found this to be true in my own experience. My thinking mind can always question whether a particular meditation is working or not. But in the presence of someone who has mastered it themselves, I absorb their confidence and understanding, and doubt dissolves.
Finally, I am reminded of the power of sangha or spiritual fellowship. The Buddha emphasized that who we associate with is more influential than ethical behavior or meditation. We have evolved to be social beings. Regardless of our conscious intent, our companions can either uplift us or drag us down to their level. I think this is one reason it’s easier to practice yoga or meditate in a class, rather than solo. Moving and breathing as one, each person positively reinforces the collective mind of the group.
For these reasons, my Calm Within Chaos stress-relief program ends each session with a group speaking circle, where each participant has a chance to speak about their experience, and everyone else listens. It’s that simple. Not only is there power in speaking your own experience out loud, but the chance to witness other people as they work on themselves is deeply inspiring. Through the power of modeling, when one person discovers something true about themselves, the whole group benefits.
For example, I can write, “To truly take care of others, I must also take care of myself.” You may agree intellectually. But to be in my presence as I experience this truth is to receive a transmission beyond the mere words. In some way, you experience the truth of it, rather than just agree or disagree. When a group of people shares in the process of growth, we all go farther on the journey.
My next expedition into self-inquiry and stress transformation begins Monday, September 20, 7-9:30pm, and runs for 8 consecutive Mondays, plus a full day of practice on Sunday, October 17. See our website for details and registration. If you pay in full by September 1, you save $25.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Why Go on a Silent Retreat?
“I don’t know if I could go a whole day without talking!”
That’s a common response I hear when I tell people about my experience with silent retreats. I’ve mostly done 10-day retreats without speaking – and loved it (mostly) - but even the suggestion of 1 day spent in silence can be intimidating. Yogis and meditators have praised the benefits of silence for millennia. What’s so great about not talking?
It’s fairly obvious that air comes out of our mouths when we speak, but less apparent that we are also expending prana (life force). Think of how exhausted you feel after a party where you’ve been talking constantly for hours. It is not that speaking takes great muscular effort, but it excites the nervous system and often activates stressful mental patterns (“Does this person agree with me? Should I say something different? How could they say that!”) So when we deliberate restrain our speech, we are conserving energy. In a retreat, we use this conserved energy to deepen our practice.
As I discussed in my last post, one of the purposes of going on retreat is to change momentum. Consider a river – the water has considerable momentum as it flows downstream, but it’s not apparent when viewed from afar. The best way to discover the power of a river is to try to stop the flow. Place your hand into a stream - suddenly the momentum of the water is very apparent as it pushes strongly against your hand.
For most of our days, words flow out continually and unconsciously as speech, email, status updates, etc. The strength of this river of speech is only apparent when we place a barrier across it – the practice of silence (called mauna in Sanskrit). Then our words build up like water behind a dam, and we can see the contents of the river much more clearly. For this reason, practicing silence can actually get very noisy – all the words we would typically speak get “backed up” and swim through our minds.
At first, it may seem like our minds are actually getting more active and restless than usual. In fact, we are simply seeing what is usually unconscious. That’s a good thing! We must first see our habits clearly before we can change them. But it isn’t always pretty. Without the escape valve of speech, all our petty resentments and irrational fears are exposed. It’s like cleaning out a dank basement. The techniques of yoga will help us clear the air as quickly as possible, but we still have to sort through all the old stuff. This is one of the central practices of yoga – swadhyaya, the study of the self.
In mindful silence, the Witness emerges – that part of us that is pure awareness, without preferences or plans, yet full of loving-kindness. The more we learn to rest as the Witness of our experience, the more space we have to make clear choices, rather than be swept along in the current of habit. A retreat reconnects us to what is really true, and helps us cultivate the skill to put that truth into action in our lives.
Finally, a silent retreat gives us permission to step out of all our roles – parent, child, spouse, friend, employee – and just be natural, as we are. What a relief! To drop all responsibility and artifice is to rest deeply, to soothe and heal the body-mind. No amount of vacation on a tropical beach can do this.
For more details on our upcoming retreat on Sunday, July 11, please visit our website. Conveniently located in Northbrook, you can give this whole retreat thing a try before you head off for your cave in the Himalayas…
That’s a common response I hear when I tell people about my experience with silent retreats. I’ve mostly done 10-day retreats without speaking – and loved it (mostly) - but even the suggestion of 1 day spent in silence can be intimidating. Yogis and meditators have praised the benefits of silence for millennia. What’s so great about not talking?
It’s fairly obvious that air comes out of our mouths when we speak, but less apparent that we are also expending prana (life force). Think of how exhausted you feel after a party where you’ve been talking constantly for hours. It is not that speaking takes great muscular effort, but it excites the nervous system and often activates stressful mental patterns (“Does this person agree with me? Should I say something different? How could they say that!”) So when we deliberate restrain our speech, we are conserving energy. In a retreat, we use this conserved energy to deepen our practice.
As I discussed in my last post, one of the purposes of going on retreat is to change momentum. Consider a river – the water has considerable momentum as it flows downstream, but it’s not apparent when viewed from afar. The best way to discover the power of a river is to try to stop the flow. Place your hand into a stream - suddenly the momentum of the water is very apparent as it pushes strongly against your hand.
For most of our days, words flow out continually and unconsciously as speech, email, status updates, etc. The strength of this river of speech is only apparent when we place a barrier across it – the practice of silence (called mauna in Sanskrit). Then our words build up like water behind a dam, and we can see the contents of the river much more clearly. For this reason, practicing silence can actually get very noisy – all the words we would typically speak get “backed up” and swim through our minds.
At first, it may seem like our minds are actually getting more active and restless than usual. In fact, we are simply seeing what is usually unconscious. That’s a good thing! We must first see our habits clearly before we can change them. But it isn’t always pretty. Without the escape valve of speech, all our petty resentments and irrational fears are exposed. It’s like cleaning out a dank basement. The techniques of yoga will help us clear the air as quickly as possible, but we still have to sort through all the old stuff. This is one of the central practices of yoga – swadhyaya, the study of the self.
In mindful silence, the Witness emerges – that part of us that is pure awareness, without preferences or plans, yet full of loving-kindness. The more we learn to rest as the Witness of our experience, the more space we have to make clear choices, rather than be swept along in the current of habit. A retreat reconnects us to what is really true, and helps us cultivate the skill to put that truth into action in our lives.
Finally, a silent retreat gives us permission to step out of all our roles – parent, child, spouse, friend, employee – and just be natural, as we are. What a relief! To drop all responsibility and artifice is to rest deeply, to soothe and heal the body-mind. No amount of vacation on a tropical beach can do this.
For more details on our upcoming retreat on Sunday, July 11, please visit our website. Conveniently located in Northbrook, you can give this whole retreat thing a try before you head off for your cave in the Himalayas…
Monday, June 14, 2010
How to Take a Day Off
Nothing sets the heart soaring like the idea of having “time off”. Whether we spend our days making money, volunteering, raising children or all of the above, we often spend spare moments contemplating how great it will be once the weekend arrives. “I can't wait to have some time off! Then I'll be happy!” Even yoga teachers think this from time to time.
Yet a truly restorative weekend is hard to find. Often, we schedule our weekends just as densely as our work week, and end up just running from place to place. Monday arrives and we're still tired. Or, we don't plan anything, but we end up feeling restless and fritter away our time on diversions. We get anxious as Sunday ends, unsatisfied, reluctant to return to work.
How many times do you come to Sunday and feel truly rested and rejuvenated for the coming week? Why is it so difficult to allow ourselves relax and “do nothing”?
Consider an insight from physics. Newton's first law describes the truth of momentum: an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will remain in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. The same principle is at work in humans. We tend to repeat the same behaviors and attitudes unless an outside influence forces us to change. It's the natural result of neuroplasticity, our brain's ability to rewire itself according to patterns of usage. If we do the same thing enough times, that habit sinks into our brain structure, and it becomes harder to change.
From this perspective, we spend 5 days building up a momentum of busyness and stress. This momentum carries into the weekend, and so we stay busy – if just mentally - unless something intervenes. Two days off allows us to slow things down a little bit, but then it's Monday, and we're building speed again. Even a whole week of vacation will barely make a dent, especially if we fill it with sightseeing and activities.
We need a direct and sustained intervention if we want to truly slow down and create a new, conscious direction in our lives. Yoga offers time-tested methods for doing exactly that. Yoga class is helpful, especially if it is designed to change our energetic momentum*. But 90 minutes of yoga once or twice a week can only redirect our momentum slightly. How long does that post-yoga bliss really last? How long before our shoulder tense up again, or we find ourselves stressing out over trivial things?
In order to really STOP, we need to separate ourselves from our normal routine for an extended period of time. This the purpose of a yoga retreat. Over a whole day (or week... or month...), in the supportive structure of retreat, we have time and space to 1) see our momentum for what it is – usually a collection of habits we've picked up unconsciously from parents/friends/society - and 2) consciously redirect our life though the skillful application of yoga.
Going on a retreat is a way to truly take time “off”. Stepping away from our daily life, we dive deep into our practice, and reconnect to what truly nurtures and motivates us.
Lucky for you, dear reader, my wife Lela and I are offering our first-ever yoga retreat on Sunday, July 11 in Northbrook, IL at the Techny Towers retreat center. Our dear friend and ParaYogi extraordinaire Courtney Riley is collaborating with us to create a deeply restorative and transformational day of yoga asana, pranayama, meditation and self-discovery. You can learn more and sign up on our website.
My next post will discuss how the elements of retreat – yoga, silence, mindfulness – work together to change our momentum in a positive way.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sense and Sensibility of Effort
I was teaching a private lesson this week and my student commented that once he really understood the alignments of Mountain Pose, it felt like the effort needed to sustain the posture decreased. This comment made me reflect on the way my yoga practice evolved.
When I started yoga, I put all my effort into each pose - especially the standing poses. This was an important stage of learning: how to engage my muscles fully, how to overcome sluggishness and blockages in my nervous system. It was very satisfying to feel so much power flowing through me. I came to think that doing a pose correctly meant having the feeling of vigorous effort.
But as my body opened and my sensitivity to alignment grew, I no longer needed such great force to create the postures. I could be more discerning about which muscles to engage and which to release. I could align my bones more efficiently. Yet I still carried the expectation that when I was doing a pose "right" that it should feel really intense. So I pushed farther and farther in the poses, seeking the same feeling of effort as when I first began.
It was at my Kripalu teacher training where I realized that ever-greater effort was unnecessary; in fact, it can be an impediment, and in the long run it can lead to injury. One purposes of Kripalu yoga is to attune to prana - the life-force of the body. I found that if I was always pushing deeper into a pose, the sensations would overwhelm my awareness and drown out the more subtle experiences of prana. In the course of twice-daily practice, I also realized that day after day of intense effort was not sustainable if I wanted to keep my body happy.
These days, I enjoy a vigorous practice every now and then, just as I enjoy an occasional action movie or gourmet meal. Most of the time, I use postures to balance my body and prepare for my meditation practice.
Patanjali's classic definition of yoga posture is "steady and comfortable". The effort we make in postures is not an end in itself, but a means to create the stability and ease which open us to the more subtle realms of pranayama and meditation. I'm afraid that much modern yoga misses this point, and the "yogic high" has become another addiction that requires ever-greater doses (of vinyasas, of difficulty, of heat) to sustain. However, of all the addictions available to the modern consumer, yoga is a pretty good one to have...
When I started yoga, I put all my effort into each pose - especially the standing poses. This was an important stage of learning: how to engage my muscles fully, how to overcome sluggishness and blockages in my nervous system. It was very satisfying to feel so much power flowing through me. I came to think that doing a pose correctly meant having the feeling of vigorous effort.
But as my body opened and my sensitivity to alignment grew, I no longer needed such great force to create the postures. I could be more discerning about which muscles to engage and which to release. I could align my bones more efficiently. Yet I still carried the expectation that when I was doing a pose "right" that it should feel really intense. So I pushed farther and farther in the poses, seeking the same feeling of effort as when I first began.
It was at my Kripalu teacher training where I realized that ever-greater effort was unnecessary; in fact, it can be an impediment, and in the long run it can lead to injury. One purposes of Kripalu yoga is to attune to prana - the life-force of the body. I found that if I was always pushing deeper into a pose, the sensations would overwhelm my awareness and drown out the more subtle experiences of prana. In the course of twice-daily practice, I also realized that day after day of intense effort was not sustainable if I wanted to keep my body happy.
These days, I enjoy a vigorous practice every now and then, just as I enjoy an occasional action movie or gourmet meal. Most of the time, I use postures to balance my body and prepare for my meditation practice.
Patanjali's classic definition of yoga posture is "steady and comfortable". The effort we make in postures is not an end in itself, but a means to create the stability and ease which open us to the more subtle realms of pranayama and meditation. I'm afraid that much modern yoga misses this point, and the "yogic high" has become another addiction that requires ever-greater doses (of vinyasas, of difficulty, of heat) to sustain. However, of all the addictions available to the modern consumer, yoga is a pretty good one to have...
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Self Study
Our theme in class this month is svadhyaya, the practice of self-study. This is not narcissism, but a curious exploration of the elements of our moment-to-moment experience that make up that mysterious phenomenon we label "myself".
Svadhyaya arises in our yoga practice out of necessity, but we can accelerate our growth if we take up this study of Self consciously. For example, to refine my postures, I must learn how my bones and muscles work together. I must discover how my breath interacts with my physical effort. To remain steady and comfortable in my postures, I must examine how my mind works - either to assist me or hinder me. And then sometimes in the final relaxation, I end up in a place where my body seems to disappear and my thoughts subside. What is left? Who am I now?
Buddhism is also devoted to self-study. The enigmatic 13th century Zen master Dogen wrote:
The word dharma has a lot of meanings, depending on who you ask. To the Buddhists, "ten thousand dharmas" refers to the many objects and experiences we encounter in the world and in our minds. Dharma with a capital "d" refers to both the Buddha's teachings and the ultimate, wordless reality that his teachings lead us to discover.
"To be awakened by the ten thousand dharmas" is to receive every experience - a sip of tea, a traffic jam, an aching shoulder - as a Dharma teaching. From this perspective, life is a boundless university. Every moment of our life is a chance to practice svadhyaya, an opportunity to find out who we really are.
Join us this month, and we'll listen for the wisdom that the world (in the form of body and mind) is constantly offering to us.
Svadhyaya arises in our yoga practice out of necessity, but we can accelerate our growth if we take up this study of Self consciously. For example, to refine my postures, I must learn how my bones and muscles work together. I must discover how my breath interacts with my physical effort. To remain steady and comfortable in my postures, I must examine how my mind works - either to assist me or hinder me. And then sometimes in the final relaxation, I end up in a place where my body seems to disappear and my thoughts subside. What is left? Who am I now?
Buddhism is also devoted to self-study. The enigmatic 13th century Zen master Dogen wrote:
To study the Buddha Way is to study the self.
To study the self is to drop the self.
To drop the self is to be awakened by the ten thousand dharmas.
To be awakened by the ten thousand dharmas is to free one’s body/mind and those of others.
No trace of attachment to the awakening remains, and this non-attachment to awakening continues forever.
The word dharma has a lot of meanings, depending on who you ask. To the Buddhists, "ten thousand dharmas" refers to the many objects and experiences we encounter in the world and in our minds. Dharma with a capital "d" refers to both the Buddha's teachings and the ultimate, wordless reality that his teachings lead us to discover.
"To be awakened by the ten thousand dharmas" is to receive every experience - a sip of tea, a traffic jam, an aching shoulder - as a Dharma teaching. From this perspective, life is a boundless university. Every moment of our life is a chance to practice svadhyaya, an opportunity to find out who we really are.
Join us this month, and we'll listen for the wisdom that the world (in the form of body and mind) is constantly offering to us.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Stem Cells and Stress
I recently heard an amazing interview with Doris Taylor, a biologist who has developed a way to grow functioning hearts using stem cells. She washes the dead cells out of a rat heart so only the connective tissue scaffolding remains. Then new stem cells are piped into the structure, and slowly, gradually, they multiply and fill out the tissue, and it starts beating! This work is the precursor to regrowing human organs - custom made from your own stem cells.
SoundSeen: Bioreactors + Building Hope from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.
The power of stem cells is that they can differentiate into any kind of tissue, depending on what the body needs. They play a central role in healing and regeneration. In Taylor's view:
If our behavior can negatively affect the functioning of stem cells, it can also enhance it. Small studies have shown that meditation can vastly increase the number of stem cells in the blood stream. Surely yoga does the same thing - especially during the relaxation practice at the end of class. The ageless look of long-time yogis makes this clear.
Most fundamentally, yoga and meditation give us tools to avoid the stem-cell-aging effects of stress in the first place. It is ultimately our mind that determines how we react to the ups and down of life. My 8-week Calm Within Chaos program is designed to explore and transform how you relate to stress - and perhaps make you younger in the process! I have just two spots left, and it begins Monday, March 1. Learn more on my website.
Footnote: The bones contain big reserves of stem cells. It turns out bone marrow transplants are really stem cell transplants. Here I see a congruence between the scientific understanding of stem cells and the Traditional Chinese Medicine concept of jing, the vital fluid that supports all growth, development, sexual maturation, and reproduction. In particular, jing is considered the source of bone marrrow!
SoundSeen: Bioreactors + Building Hope from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.
The power of stem cells is that they can differentiate into any kind of tissue, depending on what the body needs. They play a central role in healing and regeneration. In Taylor's view:
[A]ging is really a failure of stem cells. For most of our lives, we have stem cells in all of our organs or tissues that can heal them. And they do so by taking care of that normal wear and tear. But as you get to be 52, 62, 72 and you fall down and you scrape your knee, you may have a scar for the rest of your life because as we age the number of stem cells we have goes down and the function of the ones that we have decreases.Taylor cites research that shows that stress ages stem cells. An "old" stem cells will not be able to divide many more times. As the body's stem cells age, there are fewer in circulation, and our ability to heal and rejuvenate diminishes. From this perspective, aging and chronic disease are the same thing, and both are exacerbated by stress.
If our behavior can negatively affect the functioning of stem cells, it can also enhance it. Small studies have shown that meditation can vastly increase the number of stem cells in the blood stream. Surely yoga does the same thing - especially during the relaxation practice at the end of class. The ageless look of long-time yogis makes this clear.
Most fundamentally, yoga and meditation give us tools to avoid the stem-cell-aging effects of stress in the first place. It is ultimately our mind that determines how we react to the ups and down of life. My 8-week Calm Within Chaos program is designed to explore and transform how you relate to stress - and perhaps make you younger in the process! I have just two spots left, and it begins Monday, March 1. Learn more on my website.
Footnote: The bones contain big reserves of stem cells. It turns out bone marrow transplants are really stem cell transplants. Here I see a congruence between the scientific understanding of stem cells and the Traditional Chinese Medicine concept of jing, the vital fluid that supports all growth, development, sexual maturation, and reproduction. In particular, jing is considered the source of bone marrrow!
Friday, January 22, 2010
Sweeten The World Up
Passing along a nice quote from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche which seems especially relevant right now (courtesy of the Dharma Ocean daily quote mailing list):
There are many international problems, and throughout the world chaos is taking place all the time -- which is obviously far from the expression of enlightened society. In the past, various disciplines or faiths, such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, had great dignity. There were extraordinarily sane people among the ancients who worked to make the world worthwhile and passed down their wisdom generation by generation. But there has been a problem of corruption. The world has been seduced by physical materialism as well as by psychological materialism, let alone spiritual materialism! The world is beginning to turn sour. Our measures may be small at this point, but we're trying to sweeten the world up. In the long run, we want to offer something beyond a token. We want to make a real contribution to the development of enlightened society. That begins right here. As they say, charity begins at home.When we sweeten ourselves - through yoga, meditation, walking in Nature, loving each other - the global broth gets just that much sweeter, too.
From "Working with Early Morning Depression," in
GREAT EASTERN SUN:THE WISDOM OF SHAMBHALA, pages 26 to 27.
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