Yes/No-Yin/Yang: Notes from Rochester, NY

Included:
Embodied Conscious Awakening;  Basic Goodness / Bodhicitta / drashtuh svarupe
Using the Micro-cosmic orbit in meditation, breathing and asana.

Saying yes and no at the same time.

Basic Taoist Principles:
Unity of Macro-cosmic and Micro-cosmic levels. As humans we reflect the harmony of the heavenly movements of stars, planets, moon, and weather in the human system. Healing is returning again and again to a state of harmony with the whole of creation.

imgresFrom a spiritual perspective however, we are the “whole” and are never ‘out of balance’. Our basic goodness/bodhicitta/drashtuh svarupe, with its two faces of  ‘radical emptiness and unconditional love, is untouchable by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Thus arises the spiritual paradox everyone on the spiritual path encounters. Not practicing does not affect your basic goodness, nor does practicing. So if how you feel about your self goes up and down like a political poll, based on the quality of your practice, or your life in general, you have drawn a wrong conclusion about yourself, (sutra I-6 viparyaya, sutra I-30 – bhranti darshana). The Atman, True Self, Buddha Nature, or whatever other words we may use to point to our innate perfection, is universal and unassailable. But if we don’t feel this, know this, we create lots of suffering. And, in our non-dual reality, we also still have much to learn and layers and levels of evolution ahead of us. (We’ll pick this idea up again in the Yes/No section that follows.)

Yin and Yang are a unity: never separate from each other, but complementary, not oppositional. (Yin/Yang compared to gunas; (non-dual vs dual). In Samkya, tamas and rajas are seen as separate from each other and undesirable in themselves. Only in the third quality, sattva, do they find a transitory harmony.

When healthy, excess yin transformed into yang, excess yang transformed into yin
Healthy Yang: action flows from clear perception in present moment
Healthy Yin: Receptive, alert, present

When unhealthy, energy gets blocked: deficient yin or yang, excess yin or yang
Unhealthy yin: passive, depressed, unstable, damp/wet/soggy
Unhealthy yang: aggressive, un-co-operative, up-rooted, dissociated

Yin/Yang of Radical Awakening: Emptiness and Love

Love: Heart as portal
Yin/Yang as giving and receiving
Yin Love: Heart receiving love flowing in from the whole
Yang Love: Being a source of Love flowing out to the whole
Yin/Yang Love: allowing both to ‘just be’ as dynamic state

Yin/Yang as Heaven and Earth, crown and root chakras as gates/portals
emergence of center line/median line/chakra line, notocord/primitive streak

Yin/Yang as front and back, endoderm and ectoderm, flexion/extension,
fwd bends/back bends

Yin/Yang as lateral flexion/extension: on side (anantasana), or trikonasana and related poses.

Yin/Yang as right and left, ha and tha, ida and pingala, bilateral symmetry

Yin/Yang as radial expanding/condensing, centripetal/centrifugal forces

Yin/Yang as Emptiness (no, I am not this)  and Love (yes, I am this) saying yes to the most horrible things you can imagine about yourself, not just the good stuff.

YES/no and NO/yes

The non-dual vision of Taoism offers us an infinite number of ways in which the unity of duality can express itself. A very important one is the notion of Yes/No as Yin/Yang, a paradoxical integration of what appear to be opposing perspectives. The two faces of spiritual awakening are radical emptiness ( the path of ‘no’), and unconditional love (the path of yes). Dive deeply into one and you discover the other. they are inseparable.

Saying yes to the inner world is the subject of the famous poem by the Sufi mystic Rumi, ‘The Guest House’, here translated by Coleman Barks.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comesp01xcznd
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Saying yes to our repressed emotions and other scary and unpleasant aspects of the unconscious brings them into the light. Of course, the challenge is then to say ‘no’ to getting entangled in them, feeding them with energy, or actually believing their story. Rumi’s poem is used as a guide in Mindfulness practice, where spacious open attention is held as the mental phenomena are allowed to arise and then dissipate. The deep seated, well entrenched pathologies and traumas will likely need the professional support of a well trained therapist, but the everyday silliness can be worked with on your own.

9781400045372.RH.0.mThe path of ‘Yes/no’ is the ultimate expression of unity and wholeness. To be fully alive, to be fully awake, is to say ‘yes’ to everything and anything life throws our way, whether arising from within or without. Ojai’s own Byron Katie uses this principle as the core her teaching, known as ‘The Work’, and described in her first book, Loving What Is’. As she learned, “when I argue with reality, I lose, 100% of the time!” She is talking about all levels of reality, from politics and weather, to our own mental output.

As this is a non-dual vision, saying yes to all of reality does not preclude saying ‘no’ to specific choices available for our actions. Yes, I want to see my unconscious habits and patterns, as painful as they may be.  Then I can so ‘no’ to any actions that come from those self-centered egoic mind states. Like parenting, we can say yes to the absolute innate divinity of our children, and, at the same time, still say ‘no’ to behavior that is not acceptable.

If you want to try an advanced practice, work with our current president. See his basic goodness. See him as a ‘child of God’ with innate Buddha Nature, as one might say, and simultaneously strongly condemn his words and behavior. Being for Love, Peace, Accountability, Maturity, Compassion, Wisdom is primary. This way we are constantly injecting love and light even as we criticize the pathology. This promotes healing. Being primarily ‘against’ invites dualistic separation and creates an unbridgeable gap in society. Our own anger needs to be transformed into positive social action, not more negativity, and certainly no more whining!

The path of “No’ or neti neti, ( not this, not this) is another vehicle of awakening, used in Vedanta. Here, we develop a ‘witnessing consciousness’ that begins to notice; I can be aware of my body, therefore I am not the body. I can be aware of my thoughts, therefore I cannot be my thoughts. In fact, anything that arises in my awareness cannot be me, because I am the witness to what arises. eventually, even the ‘witness’ drops until just ‘Pure Awareness’, the Seer’ remains. When we ‘See’ this vast, open spaciousness gives birth to all of life and then a resounding ‘yes’ emerges from the depth of no.

Qi gong ImageUsing the Micro-Cosmic Orbit Chart

The chart displays four primary modes of exploration: 1. the specific points listed; 2. the three primary vessels (energy lines) (and there is a fourth we will get to later); 3. the three volumes  (diamond shapes in the diagram) known as ‘dantiens‘: and three regions of the torso, from CV-22 to CV-1, aka the ‘three burners. This framework, a few practices and your own imagination will provide you with homework for the rest of your life, should you be so inclined! Take it one point, one vessel, one volume at a time.

The micro-cosmic orbit completes a circuit, linking the orange illus3and green lines as seen in the next illustration. The green line, known as the Governing Vessel, is the primary Yang channel, emerging from the ectoderm in embryology, and primarily involves interactions with the outer world. (Remember yang always contains yin and vice versa.) It begins at a point between the coccyx and anus, travels up the back, through the crown chakra, (GV-20 above) and ends at the top of the mouth.

The Orange line is the Conception Vessel, primary yin, emerging from the endoderm and involves the inner world, primarily. It begins on the center of the perineum, continues up the front body and ends up under the bottom lip. The two link up to create a single circuit that supports all the other 12 meridian lines in the body. Interestingly enough, the the two points meet and break at the two ends of the gut body, the mouth and anus. At birth, with the respiratory and digestive systems finally open up to the outer world, the vessel becomes constantly challenged to stay connected.

Meditation Practice 1. Sitting in a comfortable position, adjusting front to back and side to side on the sitting bones until you find your center, feel your median line extending through your core connecting the body to heaven and earth through crown (GV-20) and root (CV-1) chakras. This is the ‘Thrusting Vessel’ and creates the blueprint of the body in Chinese Medicine. This comes right from embryology as the primitive streak and notocord. Feel the balance of weight (yin/ground) and lightness (yang/sky). Feel the Yang fire energy from the heavens descending down to meet the yin/water element at CV-1. Feel the water energy arising up from the earth, through CV-1 and ascending to meet the fire energy at GV-20. Feel Yin/water and Yang/fire intermingling as the healthy flow of qi in the entire body. Let this feeling support the pose and rest in the stillness at the core of being.

getPart-3Meditation Practice 2. Same position, visualize the circle. Here we can add that there are three layers of the points: along the field, as shown by the hula hoop; along the surface of the body, where the needles go, and inside the body, where the inner qi is engaged. Our meditation works well on the outer ring.

Bring your attention the the seat of the yin, CV-1, the center of the perineum. (root and crown chakra points will be on the body.) Breathe in and out through this point. Observe how it moves as the inhalation and exhalation come and go. Then choose either CV-6 on the front, or GV-4 at the back, and connect to CV-1. Inhale into the perineum, let the exhalation travel on an arc to the next point. Inhale into that point and let the exhalation travel back along the arc to CV-1. Next breath, repeat with the opposite point, and eventually trace the breath on an arc from from to back always passing through CV1. (like riding the half pipe in snow boarding!) You can also reverse the breath, exhaling into CV-1 and inhaling into the other points. CV-1, the seat of the yin/water is a very important place to establish and stabilize the grounding of the body.

Meditation Practice 3. Same as two only now add new points, one on the front, one on Clock Face--Hoursthe back. You can go right from CV-1 to GV-9 and CV-17, or you can include GV-4 and CV-6 on your travels. No rigid rules, just exploring the points along the circle, until you can also pass though GV 20 at the top. A clock face can be helpful in locating points and spaces. Imagine a pie sliced into 12 sections. Feel the shape of each section. Many will be compressed, collapsed, twisted, etc. Use you imagination to even out the sections. No need to use muscular energy. Just feel expansion and opening (yang) and receiving (yin).

Asana Practice 1: In tadasana, find the micro-cosmic orbit and feel the space between your body and the imaginary circle. Feel the qi in that space. Use the clock to find hours that may be collapsed or over inflated. Be as even as possible in your imagination and allow the breath to support the fullness and evenness. Remember, we are all distorted in our fields, so perfection is not the goal. Just curiosity and playfulness. Feel how the skin, flesh and fluids respond to your imagination and intention.

Now slowly come into uttanasana and notice what happens the the field (the whole volume of space surrounding the body, your breath, the skin, the bones, everything. Reverse back to tadasana observing how the integrity of your field changes.images-3

Asana Practice 2: Lets add K-1. In tadasana, feel the weight of the body engaging K-1 on the soles of your feet. This is the first point on the kidney meridian, known as the bubbling spring, or where the water element begins to rise up from the earth, like a spring in the ground. The kidneys are the most ‘yin’ of the yin organs and govern water, so these points are crucial in awakening the fluid body’s intelligence. Once you can feel them (move around if necessary), connect them to CV-1, the seat of the yin, to link your root to the earth. Walk around some and feel the action of K-1 as you move. Eliminate any tension and just move by sustaining the flowing qi through the earth, the surrounding space and your body.

Now, when you you try uttanasana, sustain the flow through K-1 all the way through. this should help the field (and the body) stay more open.

Asana Practice 3. Let’s add the tail. Our human tail is rooted in the pelvic floor, to keep the organs from falling out in our predominantly upright life style. In your imagination, add an animal tail of any sort and let it extend like a party favor. In tadasana, let it be as long as your legs and feel its presence near the inner heels. (we will use the inner heels later in trikonasana and wide distance poses. When going into uttanasana, retain the micro-cosmic orbit, K-1 on each foot, and now the long tail. (Juggling for yogis!) The field will be stronger and over time more and more effortless. There will be less fighting with tight muscles and more just opening into space.

Asana Practice 4: Trikonasana:fish bodypisayoga We now rotate the micro-cosmic orbit 90 degrees to open the lateral plane. This engages the gall bladder meridian and helps integrate front and back bodies where the meet at the sides of the torso and legs. Add K-1, your imaginary tail, the inner back heel to open the true coccyx, and press the inside edge of the back foot (without collapsing the ankle or arch!!) like a skier carving an edge in a sharp turn. This energy flow will release the spinal energy even further, opening the field. (Same principle for parsvakonasana and ardha chandrasana.) Your torso should feel like a wind sock at an airport with a steady breeze.

Pericardium 8 PointAsana Practice 4. Flipping the dog: (not the same as flipping the bird!) There is a point on the hand that is Unknown-1analagous to K-1 on the feet, known a Pericardium 8 or P-8.We will use these points in dog pose to open and ground the upper limbs and keep the neck and shoulders form tightening up in weight bearing. Establish a strong down dog, and then lift and extend one leg into one legged dog. Fun a fun experience, lift the opposite hand off the floor to come into the contra-lateral dog. Balance is tricky here. To flip the dog, return to the one legged dog, bend the top leg and begin to rotate the pelvis like ardha chandrasana. As the pelvis reaches 90 degrees, anchor your attention in your coccyx to sustain the height of the pelvis as you rotate more and the leg lowers. Lift the arm and float the foot off the floor for a bit for balance and upon landing deeply extend the entire body. Reverse the steps to return to down dog.

IMG_8002Asana Practice 5. Double Action in the Pelvis opening the groins through the sacrum, hips and the CV-1 connections.

Using a block or bolster for support, lightly ground K-1 through the feet and center the pelvis. Try these twoUnknown-2movements; (bottom of the groin is everything below the femur head; top of the groin is everything above the femur head) bottom of the groins dropping to the coccyx side of the block for the forward bending, internally rotating, untucking, CV-6 to CV-1 action; top of the groins dropping on the navel side of the block, for the hip extending, externally rotating, tucking, GV-4 to CV-1 action. Now do both at the same time by using energy and imagination so you feel as if the sacrum is floating in space and the pelvis is floating over the femur heads. Sort of…..

IMG_8006IMG_8003Once you have a feel of the double action, try with one leg extended into the air, and then both. Keep the lower spinal muscles relatively soft, so the energy flow sustains the posture, not tension.

 

Asana Practice 6: Spirals Around the Median Line

SBK_1711254-24We have used three ‘vessels’ so far; the yin conception vessel and the yang governing vessel which comprise the micro-cosmic orbit, and the median line connecting root and crown chakras known as the yin ‘thrusting vessel’. The yin thrusting vessel has a yang Unknowncomplement called the girdling vessel which circles the lower body around the lower dantien perpendicular to the other three. Think of it as a latitude line, or the horizontal component of a gyroscope. Its spreading action parallel to the earth (when sitting or standing) stabilizes the body and we can explore and utilize this girdling action in twisting poses. Most students contract to muscles in a twist, hit a barrier of resistance and then fight against this to push the edges of the pose. What if the action was to move outward from the center in centrifugal expansion so you create more space rather than less. Of course this is a field action, not a structural one, so your imagination needs to invite the energy flow to move this way.

SBK_1711254-4By using a hula hoop for both tactile and visual effects, we can begin to feel some new possibilities in the spiraling field of the twisting poses. The simple standing twist is the easiest place to start. Stay grounded in K-1, both feet, and allow the spiral to rise up as the pelvis begins to receive the action. By holding the hoop this way imagine the body getting wider as the spiral ascends, creating space around and between the bones, muscles and organs. Also, because of the hoop, we are utilizing another double action. We are also activating both directions of rotations at the same time, even as one dominates. In the example above, I am rotating to the right with my gross body (muscles and bones) but the dynamic action of my right arm looping in the opposite direction engages the fluid body to feel both spirals. My limit is when I begin to lose this ‘hidden’ opposite action. I pause and wait for yin and yang to find a new balance point, ‘sustaining’ the pose in a state of vibrant stillness. This is sthira sukham asanam, meditation in action, samyama in asana.

Breathing Explorations:

Lower Dantien Breathing

Lie on the floor with your knees bent and your feet on the floor so you can feel the K-1 connections. Adjust your pelvis and sacrum so they are neutral, as in the above exploration on the block. Slowing allow the breath to fill the lower body, as if the area from the navel to the pelvis is expanding on the in breath and condensing on the out breath. illus3Observe how CV-1 moves with the breath. continue for several minutes, feeling the insides and outsides of the pelvis softening to receive the breath.

Now create a two part breath. Inhale into pelvis as above and when full, pause, and then expand the breath further into the region between the navel and the diaphragm. then soft exhalation. Feel the difference in this part of the body, the upper abdominal versus the lower abdominal. Repeat gently for several cycles or minutes.

Now add the third section, the chest/middle dantien region. Let it expand from the support of the lower two sections. This may feel like a three part Viloma breath, with subtle pauses, but feel how the lower dantien anchors the breath in all three sections. Eventually add the limbs, so they can partake in the oxygenation of the cells.

Blood Breathing:

I made this one up during my swimming somatic meditations. Here, we feel that the blood flow is also aided by our breath. As we inhale, there is an expanding negative pressure that pulls air into the chest and lungs. This negative pressure also draws blood the the heart and lungs. As you inhale, using the lower dantien as the anchor, visualize the blood flowing up into the heart and out into the lungs where it meets the air. As you exhale, visualize the blood flowing back to the heart from above, but also being squeezed by the abdominals from below, traveling up the the heart and out to the lungs. The net result is the sense of sustaining the up flow of the water element, in the form of blood here, as a continuous field of lightness. In TCM, the fire transforms the water to mist so that it rises and cures ‘dampness’.

 

 

 

Yin/Yang and the Olympics

I love the Olympics. As a somatic explorer, I am fascinated by the pursuit of embodied excellence, where humans challenge gravity to explore the myriad possible ways the human body can gracefully move through space. And the addition of danger adds a lot to the ‘wow’ness of the moment. The extraordinary discipline, precision and will power these athletes display raises the bar for all of us in our own personal pursuit of excellence in whatever our passions may be. And, at this level of embodied presence, the Yin/Yang relationship is so clearly obvious that the Olympics are a great teaching tool for us somanauts.

Winter Olympics: Ice, snow, cold, very yin. How to use yang heat to warm up, expand, burst out into space without losing a sense of where you are in relationship to Mother Earth. Gravity is the stage. The powerful attractive pull of Mother Earth, the Yin, is relentless. But so is the attraction of the Father Sky, up into the sun, into the light, into the unknown mystery awaiting us. How do we respond to both of these opposing forces in way that is integrated, creative, artistic, beautiful, elegant and delightful?  When we feel yin/yang as two aspects of a single urge to grow, they nurture and support each other.

When the movement brain, the organizing intelligence of the nervous system that facilitates all movements through space is awake and engaged, there are endless possibilities. As yoga students, we often tend to be unaware of the movement brain and rely on thought and will power to control the body. We have to be able to feel what is already alive and moving inside us, nurturing this flow of sensation/perception and intelligence. B.K.S. Iyengar described this perfectly in his description of samyama in asana, where the organs of action, the yang/karmindryas, have to listen to the organs of perception, the yin/jnanindryas) as the intelligence (buddhi) merges with them to create a single conscious flow of aliveness. (Click on the samyama link and read/listen to this with a yin/yang framework.)

(If you read the rather dense yet simplified description of the movement brain by clicking the link above, amazingly enough, you will discover the brain operates, at its core, within the yin/yang model. Neurons can inhibit/turn off (yin) or activate (turn on) (yang) other neurons to send information through the system. From this binary core, incredible complexity can arise. This is samyama, or Yin/Yang at a cellular level).

Somethings to watch for with a Yin/Yang lens. Activate your mirror neuron system to really feel the energy flow.

Pre-movements: In the intense flow of a race or dynamic performance, subtle adjustments to change directions require pre-movements that come from the subtlety of the flow. We can call this effortless effort. When there is overcompensation, there is a break in the flow, and you lose precious time, or crash. Find the ever-present subtle flow in your own body, even as you are just sitting. In your personal practice, any time you transition in and/or out of a pose, let the effortless flow lead you.

Tail energy: Crucial in balance and landing from jumps and aerials, but in every action you will see. Watch/feel the relationship between the tail enegy (rooting/root chakra/grounding) and the feet, whether on skates, skis or snowboards. Feel it in your own body. Go beyond being a spectator.

In the jumps and aerials: Feel in your own body the Yield (yin) loading, followed by the and Push (Yang) take-off, various upper body/lower body actions, with right/left and head/tail rotations in the air, and then the landing yin yield with a yang fluid flow out. See how the relationship between upper and lower body creates powerful rotations, and how they can rotate around more than one axis at a time while in the air.

When on the ground: Feel the power from the yin lower dantien through the legs into the ground to generate movement. The skiiers, snowboarders and skaters all have strong roots and legs. Feel how the upper yang torso floats lightly, remaining in balance, steering the body with eyes and subtle adjustments of the flow through the feet.

Figure Skating: My wife Kate was a competitive figure skater in her youth, so she can tell the difference between a triple loop and a triple flip. I see the power in the jumps that comes from loading/yielding weight into the skate blade edges, followed by a burst up into a spiraling twist. Feel the effortless transition yin/yang transitions when they switch from moving backward to forward and vice versa. In the spins, feel the center axis ( yin thrusting vessel) and the use of arms and legs to create horizontal stability (yang girdle vessel.)

Skiing: Notice the use of edges and how that grounds the body at steep angles (hopefully). In the wide leg standing poses, the same edge action applies energetically. It is not about the separate parts of the feet, but how the energy flows through the whole body through the feet into the ground.

Luge: going tail first really awakens the root intelligence. Talk about a moving meditation! Very subtle inner adjustments help steer. amazing balance of stability and movement.

Speed Skating: Right/left, up/down, holding the edges on the curves; feel the power, speed and balance in action.

Intense practice (yang) needs to be balanced with rest and recovery (yin.) There are many injuries that accompany such intense practice in pushing the edge of possibility. Finding balance is challenging. The risk/reward ratio changes as we get older. Know where you are on the spectrum and use wisdom as it grows to keep you healthy and creative simultaneously.

A very small percentage of the athletes win a medal. Winning is a transient phenomena, exhilarating for sure. But is the in the act of practicing and participating, in ‘just doing it’ that the embodied learning, the emotional maturing and the life long skills emerge. In the long run, we learn far more from ‘falling down’ and making ‘mistakes’ than we do from our successes. Again, there is a balance. It feels great to ‘get it right’ to ‘nail it’, to accomplish a goal. But life is a continuous flow, and the flow is life. We grow by developing emotional and psychological resilience, not winning or losing, so as we flow through life, life flows through us.

Many of the athletes have described how they were inspired by watching others when they were very young, and deciding to go for it themselves. We all should be so inspired!

Notes from Detroit, 1/ 2018

Yin/Yang and Yoga: On the Nature of Movement and Stillness

“The tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao,
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.”

In the opening lines to the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu immediately points out the impossibility of describing the indescribable. Spiritual revelation is beyond words, ideas and concepts, but is realizable and knowable, through direct experience. But Lao-tzu continues anyway, using poetry to point to mystery, inviting us to jump in and discover the Tao for ourselves. Spiritual practices are like the poetry, inviting us to make the plunge of direct experience of the mysteries of life.

imgresTaoism presents a non-dual model of reality, using the interplay two fundamental and complementary ‘forces’ to create entire universes. By non-dual we the two forces or perspectives, while radically different, are actually mutually inclusive expressions of a singular wholeness. The Taoism uses the terms Yin and Yang, which while very different in nature, are inseparable. There is no pure yin, no pure yang. Distill yin 10,000 fold and still yang will be found. Distill yang 10,000 fold, still there will be yin. Always both in an eternal dance. as shown in the well known image above.  Our journey is to feel, explore and express these fundamental qualities in as many ways and dimensions as possible and discover the nature of love and creativity, of compassion and healing, of wisdom and stillness. Later in this post we will look more deeply at some of the nuances of yin and yang in our embodied asana explorations.

Our Non-Dual Vision: A Context for Practice:
Most spiritual traditions, in their mature phase, have a non-dual vision. The realization is that there are two clearly different but fundamental perspectives on life, that, like yin and yang, may be differentiated, but are innately inseparable. At the most primary level, these two perspectives are: the experience of ‘Stillness’; and the experience of ‘Movement’. Taoism, as noticed by Lao-tzu, doesn’t offer a word for ‘Stillness’. Tao implies ‘Stillness plus yin/yang as Movement. Other traditions have used words to point to “Stillness” and “Movement’ to help us in our own self-realization and these include: Presence and Love, The Seer and The Seen, Pure Awareness and What Arises in Awareness, Luminous Emptiness or Buddha Nature and Impermanence,  Purusha and Prakriiti, Now and ClockTime, Formless and the World of Forms. Beyond words these two Cosmic Views need to be felt, integrated and known intimately to live a fulfilling and spiritual life. For our purposes here, we will call them the masculine, or Presence and the feminine or Love.

From our first perspective, we experience life as continuous change, as non-stop movement. This perspective is the feminine, often called the ‘Seen’, as our sense organs tune into, perceive and respond from this realm. In the Shaiva tradition of India, the goddess Parvati represents this realm as the Divine Mother, the nurturing and loving link that connects all beings and creation through Unconditional Love. All that arises is an expression of Divine Love. Ojai’s own Byron Katie uses this as her primary teaching theme and the title of her first book, “Loving What Is”. When there is harmony and coherence in our lives, this flow is experienced as the infinite expressions of love, including health, well-being, creativity, joy, delight and bliss.

This level is also ‘the flow of time’, of birth and death, of learning and forgetting.  Buddhists call this the experience of impermanence. Our survival instincts demand we pay attention to change, so for most, this is the perspective that dominates our attention. Because of our spiritual immaturity it tends to be driven by fear, anxiety and insecurity, and not love and compassion. Then we over-react to life, endlessly chasing pleasure and desperately trying to avoid pain. The slightest inconvenience can begin a seemingly non-stop cascade of negative thoughts and emotions. This is suffering. When integrated with and grounded in the Divine Masculine “Seer’, the feminine love and compassion flow freely and can heal fear, insecurity and anxiety. We can stop, feel the deep stillness of presence and feel the divine love. We can then realize that each moment offers us exactly what we need to keep growing and healing.

The complementary masculine perspective is Stillness, aka absolute stability or the ‘Seer”. This perspective is often completely missed as it can’t be ‘seen’, just as the eyes cannot see themselves, (except with a mirror, which is the metaphor Vedanta uses for its teaching, helping the ‘Seer to recognize itself.’) Represented by Shiva, sitting alone on a mountain top, absorbed in stillness, this masculine point of view offers wisdom as its gift as well as a stable anchor to support us in navigating the challenges of living in a human body. It is unchanging, unbounded and timeless, holding all in infinite stillness. But without the integration with the feminine love and compassion, the wisdom and stability can be cold, heartless and empty. We always need both. This is the non-dual vision, masculine and feminine in an integral embrace of movement and stillness.

We all need to feel stable to function, but our spiritual vehicle, the body-mind-sense complex is in constant flux. In a spiritually immature, non-integrated state, we try to create stability by trying to freeze or fixate a stable ‘self’ or ‘me’ out of the continuous changing world. We do not recognize that we are also, always, grounded in the Absolute Stability of the ‘Seer’. We get con-fused. We forget. This forgetting is the metaphorical fall from the Garden of Eden, the ‘Original Sin” of the Catholics and is the root of all suffering. Life can be painful. There is sickness, pain and death as part of the spiritual journey, but these are not suffering described by the Buddha. Suffering is the forgetting that, in spite of the challenges, we are infinite light, love, compassion and wisdom. Thus we can say yoga is about ‘remembering’ our ‘true nature’ and reminding ourselves again and again when we forget.

If and when we are not grounded in the Timeless, we create unstable identities/small selves/egoic selves/personalities out of bits and pieces of our experience in the world of changing forms and believe them to be the ‘self’ . That is, we ‘identify with’ our thoughts, our bodies, ideas, and beliefs and spend vast amounts of psychic energy battling to keepunknown these unstable structures solid, defending them against other similar, ego driven structures. This is easy to see in others, not so much in ourselves. (Sutra I-4) The concept of no-self in Buddhism points to the fallacy of believing in a fixed sense of ‘self’ constructed by the mind. Sitting practice opens the door to observing this process of ‘selfing’, so it becomes a living reality and not just an idea. We do it all the time. And we can step outside the process, as a silent witness, and watch the show. And learn. And wake up.

Practicing Stillness: The best and most universally acknowledged way to deeply open and stabilize ourselves in the Timeless is through sitting in silence. My first spiritual practice, from the book “Three Pillars of Zen” by Philip Kapleau, was ‘just sitting’, or shikantaza. Roshi Kapleau introduced me to Zen in a class I was taking at MIT in 1971 and I was inspired to give it a try. I hung with it for as long as possible, but it didn’t really take hold. It wasn’t until I came across the Iyengar style of yoga in 1978 that I developed a disciplined daily practice. There were so many fascinating things in the world of form to discover and explore that ‘just sitting’, with no agenda other than just ‘being’ was put on the back burner of my practice regimen. Now that I am ‘just sitting’ again every day, I have rediscovered how important this is and highly recommend that if you do not already have a sitting practice, jump in and get started.

SBK_17010761-85Although sitting in silence is much more powerful in a group, tremendous insight can come from sitting on your own. Feel free to use a chair if  need be, as there are no bonus points for sitting on the floor. If you do sit on the floor, use a cushion, bolster or something to lift your pelvis up off the floor and help keep your legs and hips from compressing. Space in the hips makes for much easier sitting. An uncomfortable body is a primary distraction. Any seated pose that works for you is fine.

Once the body is comfortable, then the mind needs to be addressed. The mind generates thoughts. That’s what it does and you cannot stop this. What you can do is give it something to do that is both focusing and relaxing and eventually the mind may learn to rest. This of course is to focus your attention on the breath.

In the Vibhuti Pada, (chapter 3) Patanjali describes samyama, the three fold process of bringing the attention to one place, keeping it there with discipline, and then staying there effortlessly, as dharana, dhyana and samadhi, and then acknowledges that you often have to start all over again as the attention will drift away. It’s a game or process. The intention is to sit with awareness, manage the moment as best possible, and be playful with your self. It is very easy to get frustrated when we realize just how restless the mind actually is. You can count the breaths, going to 10 and then starting over. Or, you can let each breath come and go, so every breath is ‘1’. Or you can recite a simple mantra over and over.

In sutras I-33 through I-39, Patanjali lists several other options for developing steadiness of mind. In I-33 Patanjali introduces ‘Loving Kindness’ meditation, known a maitri in Sanskrit, metta in Pali, where we begin to recognize Love and the primary expression of all that arises. One of my favorite sutras is I-39, where he says you can try anything that might work for you.

Just sit. Start with 10 minutes and work you way into longer sessions. You may begin to notice the background stillness, especially at the end of the exhalations, where the breath temporarily rests. As the body relaxes these pauses may get longer. You may also notice a pause between thoughts. As the mind relaxes, it still generates thoughts, just not as many, and they don’t crash into each other. Practice is really a form of impulse control, like you might teach a child. We don’t have to react to every thought or feeling that arises. We can just let them come and go, like clouds floating across the sky. We become an objective witness to them, and then even the witness drops away leaving awareness itself. Presence or Stillness is ‘ever present’, always. We just tend to not notice.

Embodying Impermanence Through Yin and Yang

Along with ‘resting in Stillness’, yoga students and somatic practitioners also explore the world of impermanence as Love, as it is expressed in creation, especially through the living body, in all of its dimensions and modes of expression. What does Love ‘feel’ like? We know, intuitively, but often forget. Freely moving qi can be a great reminder.

The Tao’sts of old were masters of exploring the inner realms of aliveness and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Qi Gong and Tai Qi and explicit examples of their discoveries. As mentioned above, the key principle is that all forms are composed of two fundamental qualities, Yin and Yang, which are different from, but not separate from each other. There is no Pure Yin or Pure Yang. Yin always contains some yang and yang always contains some yin. Refine either 10,000 times and still the same. They are “complementary opposites that combine, interact and mutually transform each other”.

Their relationship is cyclical and spiralic. As yin increases, yang decreases until a natural pause, like in the breathing, arises and the cycle reverses, with yin decreasing as yang increases until it reaches its maximum. Another pause, and the cycle shifts again. Because of time and the dynamic nature of reality, every cycle is unique. As westerners, raised in a strongly dualistic, Judeo-Christian-Islamic world, where there is right and wrong or God and the devil, the inseparable nature of yin and yang  is challenging at first. We want tangible stable ‘truths’ to hold onto, but they can never be found by holding on to anything. But we can find stability by ‘letting go’ and noticing how the universe flows along quite effortlessly without our intervention. Then we allow our selves to flow with the Universe, the Tao, practicing ‘wu wei’ effortless effort, or doing by non-doing. This is “Ishvara Pranidhana of Patanjali’s  Yoga Sutras.

Some Clues to explore Yin and Yang

Yin: water, earth, down, body, blood, emotions, storing, restoring, resting, yielding, receiving, cooling, condensing, centripetal force, introversion/introspection, endoderm, gut body, front body,

Yang: fire, heaven/sky, up, qi, thoughts, using, acting, moving, initiating, heating, expanding, centrifugal force, extroversion, ectoderm, nerves/skin/back body

From Sitting to Standing and the Principle of ‘Pre-Movements’

Sitting is fundamentally yin. It is a ‘grounded’ pose, root chakra planted on the earth, designed to ‘not move’ the physical body, but to help it find stillness. But there is also ‘yang’. The embodied state always has the non-stop movements of circulation, breathing, peristalsis, and muscle tone, but when there is balance, the gross body can sustain a level of stillness that frees the mind to further let go. Yin grounds the body in Mother Earth, and a subtle yang keeps you upright and awake. Not enough yang (or too much yin) and your pose collapses or your mind becomes dull and sleepy. Not enough yin (or too much yang) and the body/mind becomes fidgety and restless.

When transitioning from sitting to standing, a predominantly moving pose, we are shifting from a yin dominant to a yang dominant position and smooth transitions are important for IMG_7947safety as well as staying fluid (sattvic) and light. This is when being able to feel the ‘pre-movement is essential. If I am still and have an intention to move, my body will, usually totally unconsciously, prepare some stabilizing action so that my movements don’t knock me off balance. This is the ‘pre-movement’. If I observe this carefully, I may notice the pre-movement is often a muscular contraction somewhere, a grasping or grabbing on to brace the body. We want to change this pattern by using the flow of qi between yin and yang for all of our pre-movements.

When you are ready to transition from sitting to standing, first feel the yang/uplifting energy already waiting to grow further and allow it to extend it out through your legs to open the knees, ankles and hips. The joints need the space of yang. Awaken the arms in a similar manner and then feel the weight of the pelvis and root of the body. As the weight yields (yin) into the floor, let the responding yang begin to rotate the body, right or left,and then lean over to place the hands on the floor as if you are ready to crawl. There is continuous flow. This is actually the first moving pose after sitting. Grow your hands down into the floor with your hands as the next pre-movement to spiral again to one knee and then finally to standing. Notice the relationship to pushing down and rising up. This is the spiral dance of yin and yang. The Pre-movements are the yielding yin, connecting to gravity as the stabilizing action which leads to an effortless yang movement.

Standing is the beginning of the dominant form of human movement, walking or running. This is easily forgotten in ‘tadasana’ when the tendency is to ‘hold’ the body in place. It is certainly possible to stand in ‘stillness’, as the military often demands, but this is not the body’s first choice from this pose. Sitting is down, grounded and yin, where as standing is up, rising, expanding, moving into the world. However, standing absolutely requires the grounding yin support. Think of this as a continuous pre-movement. You feel this in surfing and skiing, where the body is ‘relatively’ upright, but the yielding to the gravitational glue provides the stability and there is no collapse or unnecessary contraction. (Healthy muscle tone is not contraction, as I use the term. It is vibrant and dynamic. contraction is blocking the flow of qi.)

Yin/yang of Standing

In tadasana, notice the up energy (yang) extends up to the heavens and then re-discover your weight as down/yin and let your ankles, knees and hips yield to gravity by flexing slightly. Yin is flexion, yang is extension. Imagine you are on skis or s surf board, so as you relax down, there is a corresponding release up into slight extension. Let the flexing/extending dance continue as if you are riding a very subtle wave. It is like floating. Notice if you hang out on one side more than the other. Most of us do. Is the down/yin blocked, or is it the up/yang, or both? Because of the uniqueness of the human upright posture, far more yang than other creatures, most of us have lost a lot of grounding/yin. This results in tension in the feet, strain through the knees and a lot of tightness in the hips and lower back. (And most of the rest of the body as well!) All signs of faulty pre-movements.

Walking Meditation as Yoga Practice

IMG_7948To release the yin down, we have to learn how to walk all over again, one step at a time. When the yin is blocked, we lift our leg, drag it forward and then land on it again further compressing or straining the tissue. In the image to the right, I have exaggerated the first step, but the principle is to put the weight on one foot and release down slightly, yielding to the K-1 point (kidneys are the ‘yinnest’ of the organs, governing the movement of water in the body) yin and mother earth. I place the left heel on the floor in front of me before I shift my weight, still yielding (yin).

The weight shift (yang) comes by pressing down and back through K-1, lifting the heel, while simultaneously rolling onto K-1 of the left foot. Remain vertical, gliding forward without leaning forward. (That becomes running.) Back to ‘yin’. With the next step the left foot yields to the weight, right foot lifts effortlessly and heel descends and the cycle repeats.
This “Yield and Push”, pre-movement and action, is a fundamental movement pattern and if you can slow down and really feel the smooth transitions, the whole body softens and opens.

Tadasana is really a ‘yang’ pose for movement, and the standing poses that follow are all images-10poses that enhance and liberate pour capacity to move. If we feel yin as grounding, we can use our work imagining tails as deeper yin. I moving from tadasana to uttanasana, I first feel grounded through root chakra, pelvis, legs and feet (yin/yielding. I then engage the tail to extend back and through the pelvis, without losing the grounding through the legs. This opening and deepening of the ‘yielding to earth’ yin getPart-1is a reflex known as anal rooting, as seen in the baby to the right. The easiest way to feel this is in a chair forward bend.

We take the same action and move back and up (a little yang) to come into uttanasana, the standing forward bend. No need the straighten the legs too quickly. Extension (yang) has to flow from the release of flexion (yin). Keep the spine soft and let the hips and knees extending slowly, when ready. No force, no effort. In a forward bend, the yang back body yields or releases, but the yin front has to expand to receive this. Most students collapse the front and the pose stalls in conflict. Keep the core lengthening to allow the back to release more and more.

We can use the microcosmic orbit to help us feel this process. The back body/yang andgetPart-3 the front body/yin combine in a circle, crown chakra on top (yang), root chakra on the bottom (yin). Tadasana is a neutral pose for the core, neither flexed/yin, or extended/yang.  In either a forward bend or backbend the circle of energy should remain flowing, even as the gross body structures are challenged. In uttanasa, the back opens and yields as the front condenses without contracting. In a backbend, the front opens and yields as the back body condenses, without contracting. Feel this to know the limits of your body. The role of practice is to restore balance and increase vitality, not to aggressively force openings.

pisayogaA similar process is involved in moving into triangle pose. The yang action of moving into the pose engages the yin/tail/pelvis to elongate away from the head. The body flows into the pose because the root is lengthening, through the front hip socket, tail and inner back leg.

fish bodyIn these ‘lateral space creating’ poses such as tikonasana, parsvakonasana, ardha chandrasana, and anantasana we can also visualize rotating our micro-cosmic orbit into the lateral plane to feel our wingsSBK_17010761-8 opening like a bird in flight. This action creates space in the center channel, as right and left sides expand away.


Side Body Interlude: Blood Breathing

This breathing exploration can be done in any comfortable position, sitting or lying supported. I also play with it while doing my swimming meditation. The premise is to imagine the expanding chest cavity is drawing blood into the lungs from the rest of the body, but especially the lower body, below the diaphragm. We know that inhalation draws air into the lungs, but the vaccuum created by expanding the chest volume also helps in circulation. On the inhale, expand the chest slowly and gradually and feel the blood coming from your feet up your core, through your heart and into the lungs. On the slow even exhalation, visualize the blood flowing through the heart and out into the body. Rest between cycles. As the lungs expand sideways, away from the heart, like the branches and leaves of a large oak tree, feel the lateral space and the quiet sensation of the head. Over time allow the expanded chest to stay open during the exhalation as the lungs and diaphragm take care of the out breath.

The Yin/Yang of twisting: Twisting poses rotate around the core axis, an action that helps define human movement. We love spiralic movments and twisting, whether in dance, throwing a frisbee, of swing a bat, golf club or tennis raquet, power is generated in twisting. See it as a coiling (yin) to store SBK_1711254-4energy, and then uncoiling to release the energy (yang). As there are many joints, the movement has to be fluid and sequencial. In this photo, there is abalance of yin and yang which leaves me in a dynamically stable pose. The hoop helps me to keep right and left sides working together. Otherwise, one side will race ahead,leading to a breakdown in the flow of qi. If I were to mimic the throwing of a frisbee, I would trace the yin grounding through K-1, creating a rebounding yang lift spiraling up through legs, hips, spine, ribs, shoulders and flowing out through my throwing hand, at each step on the way the coiled flexors releasing into extension until the frisbee leaves my fingertips.

From lying to standing: the awakening of movement in babies as a spiral

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1.Lying down: very yin. Play here as happy baby/seaweed pose. 2. Using your fluid body only, no limbs, roll over to the reptile pose. Early yang. Use can move about form here, using limbs. Feel the spiral that gets you here. 3. Loading the arms, feel the floor and push to sitting. Another spiral to a yin pose. 4. Reverse the spiral direction to come to the yang crawling position. 5. another reverse spiral to come to this intermediary yin pose. Helpful if you need a chair or desk to help you up to the next step. 6. Load the front leg and push up to walking yang. Youv’e made it! ready to explore the world. 7. Reestablish ground, coming back to tadasana, where yin and yang can rest in balance, until you are ready to move again.

Microcosmic orbit in hip opening poses;

Bony-Surfaces-of-the-Hip-Joint-Head-of-Femur-and-Acetabulum.If we understand the double action of the microcosmic orbit, that is, sending energy in both directions at the same time to open root and crown chakras, we can apply that same principle to challenging hip issues. To truly open the hips, energetically speaking, both directions must be clear. In other words, the femur and pelvis need to move in opposite directions, and when the physicl movement stops, the energetic one has to keep going or else the qi stops. Many students hit a wall in their poses because they do not keep the qi moving when they are at their edge. Slow down, as you near you edge, feel space getPartbetween the bones and the two energies pass through the joint. In the chair forward bend, the pelvis has to lift (yang) and the femurs drop (yin) to sustain space for the qi. If they both lift or both drop, you get stuck. If the chair inhibits the dropping, lift up a tiny bit off the chair and then sit by dropping the femurs onto the chair, not the sitting bones.getPart-1Then extend the dropped femurs out through the heels, lift the pelvis up, and elongate through the body to go deeper.