Tag Archives: mindfulness

Practice Notes – Simplicity

Posted on by Addie at Bodhi Tree Pose

I am always looking for ways to create more continuity between my meditation practice and my asana practice. One way I do this is by trying to include both asana and seated meditation in the same session, so they flow into each other as naturally as possible. Yet, I find that I often get distracted during the active asana part – thinking about how best to sequence a set of poses for myself, or unintentionally turning my practice into a planning session for the next class I’m going to teach. So, today was all about simplicity.

I decided to simplify the asana practice by narrowing it down to two or three main poses, along with a couple of warm ups and release poses. Without pre-planning the routine, I just picked Downward Facing Dog and Warrior 2, following an instinct for what would feel good today, while sticking with basic poses that don’t require a lot of thoughtful warm up and preparation. I circled back to the main two poses several times, and made a point of noticing specific aspects of the pose or physical sensations each time. I also held them for a long time (maybe 10-12 breaths, but I wasn’t counting) to give the space for really being in the shape mindfully. The asana part was sandwiched in between walking meditation and seated meditation to emphasize the intention of continuity.

Here’s what it ended up being:

  • Walking Meditation with noting (10 mins) – I do this inside, making a “walking lane” just a little longer than my mat.
  • Half Sun Salutations, noting the movements (similar to the noting in the walking meditation)
  • Cat/Cow, noting the sensations
  • Downward Facing Dog – mostly noticing the feet and legs
  • Lunge – mostly noticing the foot’s contact with the floor and the sensation in the hip
  • Downward Facing Dog – more attention on the hands and shoulders
  • Child’s Pose
  • Downward Facing Dog – refining the alignment in the shoulders and arms, mindfully noticing the details and sensations
  • Warrior 2 – most attention in the back leg and foot, feeling how the muscles engage, direction of energy
  • Wide-Legged Forward Fold (Prasartia Padottanasana)
  • Warrior 2 – engaging the legs by isometrically drawing them in toward each other, feeling the sensation of this
  • Standing Forward Fold (Uttanasana)
  • Warrior 2 – engaging the legs by isometrically reaching them away from each other, feeling the sensation of that
  • Downward Facing Dog
  • Legs Up the Wall Pose
  • Eye of the Needle with foot on wall (hip stretch)
  • Seated Meditation (30 minutes)
  • Savasana (10 minutes)

That’s it! This worked well for me today, so I’ll be playing around more with the simplicity of looking more deeply at just a few poses. Try it and let me know if it helps you to sustain your mindfulness a little better!

More Mindfulness, Less Meditation?

Posted on by Addie at Bodhi Tree Pose

There was an article by Tony Schwartz (in a business section!) of the New York Times a few weeks ago entitled, “More Mindfulness, Less Meditation.”

What do you all think of this?  I know…I’m in a phase lately of writing responses to articles, and making a big deal out of other people’s opinions.  There’s definitely an element of this to it all:

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And, I wouldn’t even presume to say these authors are wrong – we all share what we know based on our own experiences. However, it does help me to clarify my own thinking when I rub up against something that challenges my views.  And, this is the New York Times.  It is interesting, to say the least, to watch the public beginning to grapple with practices like meditation as they start to become part of mainstream culture.

This article begins by listing several famous and/or successful people who have been known to meditate – Steve Jobs, 50 Cent, and Rupert Murdoch.  After describing his own history with meditation, he states, “But the more time I spent meditating, the less value I derived from it…Meditation – in the right doses — is also valuable as a means to relax the body, quiet the emotions and refresh one’s energy. There is growing evidence that meditation has some health benefits. What I haven’t seen is much evidence that meditating leads people to behave better, improves their relationships or makes them happier.”  So, he concludes by recommending that you might want to dabble in meditation for 2 minutes at a time throughout the day, or just be mindful during daily life.  (I won’t even get into whether the individuals above are the best examples of the potential of meditation.)

carnegie-hallHis suggestions are all well and good, and I certainly support the idea that we should start with what we can do.  But, isn’t it a bit like telling a young piano student to spend less practicing scales, and more time performing at Carnegie Hall?

Mindfulness is a natural state, and anyone can do it. But, the capacity to actually be mindful throughout the day with any kind of consistency or continuity, and especially in demanding situations – that requires practice. Only consistency and repetition can create new habits.

For every example he gives of a meditator that did not become a better or happier person, we could easily produce many more who have seen positive changes as a result of practicing. Most meditators I know are pretty enthusiastic about that!

In fact, getting attached to those wonderful results can become its own obstacle in meditation (or yoga, or music, for that matter).  Here’s the thing: meditation is a process-oriented activity, rather than a product-oriented activity.  It’s worth doing because sitting with ourselves is inherently worthwhile. Process-oriented activities can be rather mysterious – you don’t think you’re getting anywhere, and then a huge insight arrives, seemingly out of nowhere. But it’s not out of nowhere – it was percolating all of that time when you thought your practice was stuck in neutral.

Recently, one of my dedicated yoga students asked out loud (jokingly) during class, “When are my hamstrings ever going to get more flexible?”  I said (jokingly), “April 23rd.”  Because no one knows!  It’s a process.  We may have things we’d like to have happen, good intentions, and aspirations, but getting hung up on them is a distraction that creates doubt and frustration, which can impede progress.

A product-oriented mindset needs to see results. That is fine for many activities, and can help us be successful in life. However, it doesn’t always apply well to the work we want to do with our body/mind.

I recently listened to a talk by the well-known meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, who explained that the word that we translate as “meditation” is “bhavana” in Pali (the language of the early Buddhist writings).  Bhavana means “cultivation,” and was a deliberate reference to sowing seeds and waiting for them to grow that would have been meaningful in the agrarian society of the time. Notice the difference between “cultivation” and “acquisition.” Most of us modern urbanites go out and purchase our food and essential items, acquiring what we need by using the funds we acquired from the ATM, where we deposited the money we acquired from our employer for the work they acquired from us.  So, no wonder asking us to slowly cultivate something is a tall order – it’s a little foreign to our time and place.

Still, we all do have the capacity to experience mindfulness and savor our moments. Countless practitioners before us have found that we can be a lot happier if we learn to enjoy the process and take a break from the pressures of delivering a good ROI (Return On Investment)…at least when it comes to time spent in meditation.

The unconscious IS the body

Posted on by Addie at Bodhi Tree Pose

“The great error of modern psychology has been to speak of the unconscious as though it were some kind of unknowable…But insofar as the unconscious is the body…the unconscious can be known and studied…And insofar as it is a timeless principle, the unconscious can be finally realized in an act of unitive knowledge.” – Aldous Huxley

Continuity of Meditation & Asana on Retreat

Posted on by Addie at Bodhi Tree Pose

I’ve been back from my retreat at Spirit Rock for a week now, and I’m finally finding some time to share my experiences. One of my main interests in blogging is to talk about the continuum between mindful movement (yoga) and mindful stillness (seated meditation) in my practice. I don’t always find it easy to identify that continuum, but I want to make it stronger so that my yoga and meditation practices can support each other better.

spiritrock_bell

The bell at Spirit Rock that calls retreatants to sitting sessions.

Not surprisingly, this is all a lot easier on retreat! While it was mostly a meditation retreat, alternating between 45 minutes of sitting meditation and 45 minutes of walking meditation for most of the day, we also had the opportunity to attend yoga classes at least once a day.

These yoga classes were an absolute life saver.  Whoa. Let me tell you…when you do that much sitting day after day, the yoga is huge in relieving the tensions, aches, and pains that accumulate in the body. My achiness peaked on the third day, but after that, I actually felt MORE open and comfortable in sitting.

I also found the yoga supported my sitting practice in a second major way: it built up my energy. I have the tendency when I start to get calm and concentrated, to go too far in that direction, and I fall asleep. This didn’t happen when I first started meditating, because I had all that restless agitation to keep me awake! I have been working on balancing the energy level in sitting, so that I can be calm and concentrated, but also vibrant and alert. Each time I took a yoga class on the retreat, I felt energized for the next sitting session. Much like the disappearance of my achiness, over the course of the retreat, I found I was struggling less with sleepiness.

One of the Buddhas at Spirit Rock

One of the Buddhas at Spirit Rock

The yoga practice itself felt more mindful – like a logical extension of the sitting and walking we’d been doing. I think there are a several reasons for this:

  • Continuity is supported by the retreat itself – not just concerning the yoga, but through all activities (eating, walking from one place to another, taking a shower). Everything is part of the practice.
  • Being surrounded by dozens of other students doing the same practice you are, with the same (or at least similar) intentions. This feels different from going to a public yoga class where people are gathering from all kinds of different places, each bringing in their own busy energy, and each with their own goals for the practice, ranging from the sublime to the superficial.
  • The silence of the retreat helps you to get out of your head. When you’re a yoga teacher and you attend another teacher’s class, it’s hard not to go into an analytical space as you experience their style, cues you like/dislike, etc. In a silent retreat, the students don’t speak, but the teacher does – but her words were chosen carefully, and she wasn’t just speaking to fill the space. And, probably it goes without saying, but these yoga classes were done without music. No distractions.
  • The presence of the teacher herself. The yoga teacher participated in most of the seated meditation with us, came to the nightly talks, and was really integrated into the retreat. She was operating at the same speed as us.
  • The yoga was simple.  No elaborate or super challenging poses, and the poses were given without an abundance of technical alignment cues. Normally, I teach a very alignment-based form of Hatha Yoga, but it’s always a fine line to teach with precision without making the practice too cerebral. The simplicity of this practice on retreat allowed us to just stay present with the body.
  • And, the yoga was just what we needed. The focus of the yoga was on reinforcing the themes of the retreat, and preparing the body for sitting. We were opening the hips, releasing the shoulders, and turning towards the body with kindness, rather than emphasizing fitness, technique, or the attainment of particular poses. Not that these goals are always a problem, but they can actually compete with the intention to make the asana a meditative experience.
  • The asana practice didn’t overuse one’s physical energy to the point where you collapse into savasana at the end. When I go to a more vigorous class, sometimes I leave feeling drained rather than relaxed. That’s a sign of overusing energy. I know some students are so wound up, they feel like exhaustion is the only way to actually relax in savasana at the end. But, ideally, yoga balances the energy rather than draining it. True relaxation is not the same as exhaustion or dullness.