One World Dharma

Words of Wisdom: Black Elk

2010-06-28T02:03:00.002-04:00

"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us." ~ Black Elk

Travel Journals: On the Way to Yellowstone

2010-06-11T01:26:00.007-04:00

Journal Date: June 8th, 2010

The great Western voyage has begun! Currently en route to St. Louis from Nashville. Spent the last 24 hours visiting with my dad, Uncle Ted, and Aunt Janet in Nashville. Some highlights & ruminations:

~ Ted & Janet's house is filled with all the things that Jaime & I say we would buy if we actually had money: Turkish rugs, Japanese tea sets, old instruments, artwork from around the world from all of their travels, and my personal favorite, a Buddhist temple bell from Burma that produces (in my opinion) the very sound of enlightenment. Of all the people I know with money, they have by far done some of the coolest shit with their money... including taking me to Turkey with them & their 3 sons back when I was in high school. Lots of love & gratitude to them for their generosity and givings us a roof over our heads for the night.

~ Wandered around downtown Nashville last night w/ Jaime, then received an official tour from my dad this morning. The town took a while to grow on me, just not being the being used to the cowboy hats and country music vibe, but there are definitely some cool parts of Nashville. We took a little tour of the Ryman Theater, whose stage was graced by many of the old school country legends like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. You could feel a lot of history in the place.

~ Interesting aspect of traveling so far has been establishing new routines and setting aside some moments of the day for quiet and meditation. As much as I love adventure and new experiences, I know I also need a certain amount of quiet time each day, which is sometimes hard to come by when traveling. It's even harder to make time for even a small yoga practice or meditation session. So I'm adapting my practice in some interesting ways, turning my morning shower into a sadhana, taking deep breathes and clearing my mind. Traveling itself, however, is such a profound practice itself of learning to let things flow, be present in the moment, and not get caught up in the momentary worries and frustrations that travel inevitably brings.

We'll be passing through Boulder and plan to stay for a few days, so I'm hoping to catch some good yoga classes there. I think our bodies will really need it after all this car travel. That's about all for now. Passing through Kentucky right now and should be in St. Louis in a few hours.

Journal Date: June 10th, 2010

Driving through the immense landscapes of rural Kansas, as farmland stretches out as far as the eye can see. And seeming contradictions: fields of giant white wind-power generators and countless signs on the roadside about Jesus & abortion. It's a fascinating backdrop, however, for the book I'm reading right now: Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. The book is an in-depth exploration of the politics, economy, and ecology of our food. Kansas, along with Iowa and its corn fields, is really ground zero of our modern day food & farming system. A sign we passed on our way through reminded us: 1 Kansas Farmer Feeds 128 People + YOU! So much of the food I haven eaten in my lifetime has its origin in these heartland fields, yet this is the very first time I have seen it with my own two eyes.

It' all interesting food for thought on the new writing project I'm contemplating right now and which I haven't really written about until now. I have this idea called the "Ji-Ji-Mu-Ge Project". Ji-ji-mu-ge is a Zen term which literally means thing-thing-no-barrier, or "Between two things there is no barrier or wall." It is an ancient vision of life's interdependence that has spiritual as well as political and ecological consequences.

The reason I feel inspired to explore this concept of ji-ji-mu-ge is that I believe that we live in deeply disconnected times - both personally and globally. Whether one is talking about food, spirituality, politics, relationships, or just about anything in life, the problems and solutions usually revolve around how connected we are. I'm envisioning a writing & living project over the next year or so where I explore our disconnection (as well as the avenues to reconnection) to our naturally interdependent and interconnected world. This is also the basic philosophy behind One World Dharma (beginning as a blog but hopefully one day expanding into a non-profit). The vision of One World Dharma is reconnecting to our natural selves and the natural world through meditative practices, natural & simple living, creativity, and service. I'm envisioning this whole upcoming year as a time for dreaming big dreams and focusing myself on bringing into reality these callings I feel to reconnect to nature and spiritual truth.

That's all for now. About 3 more hours until we reach Boulder. We'll be staying there for 2 nights and I'm really expecting to have a blast there.

Peace.

Words of Wisdom

2010-05-19T14:16:00.003-04:00

"What we vividly imagine,
ardently desire,
and enthusiastically act upon
must inevitably come to pass."
~ Collin P. Sisson

Green Tea & Zazen: More Haiku

2010-05-11T19:56:00.006-04:00

Steam rises off the tea,
aromas of jasmine and flowers -
my morning meditation.

Sitting in the doorsill,
the trees wave hello to me -
the white clouds wink blue.

In no hurry,
I pass my pipe
to the Moon.

Rubbing his belly,
the cat makes biscuits in the sky -
he clearly sees the point!

Room full of God,
a vision of the Heavenly light -
all in this buzzing moment.

Through the holes of the net
I used to try to catch myself -
I learned to love.

An old blanket hangs
upon the creaky wooden bench -
the garden Buddha just laughs.

Pen across paper -
this is my meditation,
my poetic peace.

The trees sway as one
as the breeze rustles through -
what a wiggly world!
(for Alan Watts)

Inspiration:
The Half-Dipper
Alan Watts ~ Zen Bones

A Taste of Zen

2010-05-10T09:44:00.003-04:00

Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.
~ Ryōkan

At the ancient pond
a frog plunges into
the sound of water.
~ Basho

Aloeswood and a flame,
Green tea and a cup,
Water and the sound of a shakuhachi -
Where did I disappear to?
~ Matthew Foley

A Love Like That

2010-05-05T11:05:00.002-04:00

New Poem: Rainbow

2010-05-04T22:29:00.004-04:00

My dear,
how I wish I could pluck
from your troubled mind
all the doubts and fears that
haunt you so.

If I could,
I would take you by the hand
and seek out a rainbow to show you.
Without saying a word,
we could simply breathe together,
we could simply be together.

If I could,
I would walk with you
to every last mountaintop,
and let you sit until all the chaos
had settled within your heart,
so that you could again stand
and see this world with the eyes
of a newborn baby.

My dear,
how I wish you could
do the same for me,
showing me, again and again,
that all my cages were built
with my own two hands,
and the key is in my own pocket,
waiting for me to unlock the door.

~ Matthew Foley

The Heart of Yoga: A Young Yogi’s Perspective

2010-05-04T12:20:00.005-04:00

As I’ve begun my journey as a new yoga teacher over the past year, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the essence or heart of yoga. What is it exactly about yoga that makes me passionate both as a student and now a teacher?

It’s difficult of course to talk about the heart of yoga, since yoga means many different things to many different people. One of the most noticeable aspects of the modern-day yoga community here in the States is the incredible diversity of reasons why people come to a yoga class. If you were to conduct a poll of people entering any given yoga studio and ask “Why did you come today?”, I think you would be amazed at the variety of responses.

Some are coming simply for a good workout. Some are coming for a personal oasis during the day – a chance to get away from the job, the to do list, the day-to-day grind. Some are coming to recover from injuries and wounds, both physical and psychological. And some come seeking the more spiritual aspects of the yoga tradition – to discover their true selves and perhaps find a little bliss along the way.

I think it’s quite a positive thing that many people are coming to a yoga practice from so many different perspectives. I think it actually speaks to (if you will excuse the pun) the flexibility of yoga in meeting a wide-range of needs of the modern person. Not bad for a tradition that’s been around for several millennia.

As I go into this question of the heart of a yoga practice, I realize that I can only really speak for myself and from my own experiences along the path. I am also a firm believer in the maxim “One Truth, Many Paths” - that there is a multitude of ways to express the same perennial truth. I realize that my words are, at best , mere fingers pointing at the moon.

Even though I can only speak of the heart of my yoga practice, I still think these thoughts may be helpful to someone at the beginning of their yoga path or someone interested in seeing things from a different perspective.

So, I come to this question: when I am teaching a yoga class to a group of students, what am I really trying to get across, what am I really hoping to share with them?

The heart of what I hope to cultivate in a yoga class – whether as teacher or student – is essentially an inner experience. It isn’t so important to me that I or anyone else perfects any one particular posture. I don’t think there is anything magical about an asana in and of itself – as if doing a perfect Virabhadrasana II is the mysterious ticket to everlasting nirvana. I think some people were born to do the uber-flexible advanced postures of yoga – but many of us aren’t.

I’m also not particularly interested in advancing a particular belief system. I think yoga’s current appeal in the West in terms of spiritual matters is that it offers a way of relating to spirituality – of connecting to the sacred, to the divine, to God – that isn’t about believing one particular way or subscribing to a specific dogma.

I believe yoga’s true gift (though it obviously doesn’t belong exclusively to yoga) is an inner experience of transformed awareness. In other words, yoga provides a radically new way of feeling our connection to the world and a transformed way of experiencing ourselves.

As we relax, expand, and open both the body and mind throughout the course of a yoga class, we clear a space within ourselves that is ordinarily cluttered by all the anxieties, fears, tensions, and doubts of our fast-paced lives. Within this cleared, open space, something else, something deeper, something more profound finally has the chance to speak.

If we are bold enough to listen, we find that it is our true selves – a self not exclusively rooted, however, to the narrow confines of me and mine, my story and my wants. This open, expanded self doesn’t necessarily reject what we feel we need and want in life, but it puts it all in a fresh, expanded perspective. I personally don’t subscribe to the notion that a spiritual practice is meant to help us transcend our earthly existence, as if there is something wrong with being a living, breathing human being on planet earth. In fact, my experience has been that a yoga practice helps us reconnect to the splendor of just being who we are, in a gorgeously interdependent world of plants, animals, sunshine, mountains, and all the wonders of life.

This newfound connection to life, brought about by the transformation of our consciousness, offers not just a solution to our modern sense of alienation and dissatisfaction, but also offers a blueprint for relating in a more ethical and responsible way to our fellow human beings and our ecological environment.

At this point, you may be asking: isn’t this a tall order for an hour-long asana class, often scheduled between one student’s business meeting and another’s commute to pick the kids up from school? Well, in my opinion, the heart of yoga doesn’t reside within the walls of any one yoga studio, nor does it always involve a yoga mat. Yoga is a transformative way of living one’s life, right here and now, whether you are attempting a headstand or folding the laundry, whether in deep meditation or looking into the eyes of your loved one.

I hope these thoughts bring some new inspiration and insight to your practice, whether you are just beginning or have been at it for many, many years. Yoga can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, so I share this not to convince you of the “right” way to do yoga, but to hopefully inspire you to find the heart of your yoga practice.

~ Matthew Foley

Upcoming Yoga Class: "From EGO to ECO"

2010-04-22T09:31:00.005-04:00

From EGO to ECO

In honor of Earth Day on April 22nd, I'll be doing a special ecologically-themed yoga class this Sunday @ the Sutra Shack. We'll discuss how spiritual practices such as yoga or meditation can lead us to a deeper and more harmonious connection to the natural world, followed by a vigorous asana practice. This will be a perfect class for the green-minded yogis out there.

The Sutra Shack is a neighborhood yoga studio, tucked in a corner of Riverland Terrace off Maybank Highway, where they teach yoga, art, and organic gardening. For more information on the Sutra Shack and the other classes they offer, check out their Facebook page.

If you have any questions about the class, feel free to contact me at oneworlddharma@gmail.com or 803.361.3842.

Thanks for the support!

Namaste,
Matt

Song of the Day: "Just Breathe" by Pearl Jam

2010-04-20T10:36:00.003-04:00

I've been a huge Pearl Jam fan since the age of 16. In my high school days, ten years after grunge music was the big fad, I was walking in flannel shirts and Doc Marten boots in honor of Eddie Vedder and the other Seattle rock heroes. Much of my musical taste of those days, thankfully, has fallen by the wayside over the years... but Pearl Jam has really stuck with me. In my mind, they always had deeper message and a more engaged conscience than some of their more narcissistic 90's rock peers. Their later albums, including their newest one Backspacer, have showcased a group of maturing and conscientious musicians concerned with the state of our world and the state of our souls. I particularly love one song off of Backspacer, entitled "Just Breathe." It speaks of appreciating what we have, of the importance of love and connection to others in the face of our earthly mortality. And, of course, as a practitioner of yoga and meditation, I like Eddie's advice to "just breathe". Hope you enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Just Breathe"

Yes, I understand
That every life must end, uh huh
As we sit alone
I know someday we must go, on home
I'm a lucky man,
To count on both hands
The ones I love
Some folks they have one,
Others, they've got none, uh huh

Stay with me
Let's just breathe

Practiced are my sins
never gonna let me win, uh huh
Under everything,
Just another human being, uh huh
I don't wanna hurt
There's so much in this world
To make me bleed

Stay with me
You're all I see

Did I say that I need you?
Did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see,..
No one knows this more than me.
As I come clean.

I wonder everyday
as I look upon your face, uh huh
Everything you gave
And nothing you would take, uh huh
Nothing you would take
Everything you gave

Did I say that I need you?
Oh, did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me.
As I come clean, uh huh

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave
Hold me till I die
Meet you on the other side

The Sound of One Note: A Musical Satori

2010-04-16T07:48:00.005-04:00

I’ve always had a very complicated relationship with music.

Since I first started to fall in love with music around the age of 16, my life has been powerfully shaped by music. It is, after all, the soundtrack to our lives. Almost every era of my life - from the grumpy, bad-hair days of high school, to the fiery political action of college, to the maturing (I hope) young man of his middle twenties - has been heavily defined by the music I was listening to.

Music is a big deal in my life. I own a record player because I believe vinyl sounds better. For a semester, I hosted an alternative hip hop radio show at the College of Charleston. I have a particular friend, a good buddy of mine named Anwar, that I can spend literally hours talking to about obscure jazz bands from the late 60’s and early 70’s. There’s a chance I could be described by some people as a music geek.

And yet, up until very recently, I couldn’t play a single instrument. In fact, I got down right terrified any time someone handed me a guitar, a drum, even a tambourine and asked me to join in making music. I was terrified of singing in public (with the obviously exception of my car, windows rolled up, volume turn to 11). And believe me, it took a fair amount of alcohol and quite a few hip hop house parties to finally teach this awkward white boy how to dance.

What a predicament. I loved music, but I was terrified of playing it, or singing it, or stomping it. Scared shitless of dancing to it, moving to it, grooving to it.

Why? Well, I had plenty of reasons why. My parents never encouraged me to pick up an instrument. I never listened to anything but pappy Christian music until the age of 13 (no offense to Jesus, but some people sure make some corny music in His name). I never did band or orchestra in school. I had plenty of reasons why I can’t, why I couldn’t, why I shouldn’t.

Somewhere down the line, I had gotten convinced that music was a complicated arrangement of notes on a page. It was years of training and countless hours with a tutor. It was being up on stage, totally cool and confident, getting all the girls. I had all these ideas in my head about what music is and why I could love it, but not make it.

All of my ideas of music, however, lacked one, interesting thing: the actual sound of music.

Something utterly mysterious happened when I heard a saying of Ali Akbar Khan, the famous Indian sarod player, quoted by Alan Watts, a teacher of Eastern philosophy: “All music is in the understanding of one note.”

One note?

That’s it?

Just one little note?

Thankfully, when I heard this quote, I was conveniently in a room with a guitar – one I had owned for years and attempted many times to learn to play, not so successfully. I grabbed it, placed it on my lap, and…. hit one note. And listened. I hit another note. And listened. I tried this several more times, until it dawned on me that in all my years of listening to music, I had never stopped to listen to just one sound. I had heard songs and albums, all of which seemed far too complex for me to ever participate it, poor me of little talent. But in the sound of one note, that story I had been telling myself for so long just melted away.

I started playing the guitar in my free time. My girlfriend got me a wooden flute from Nepal for Christmas, and I bought myself a didgeridoo from a local store. I started to play music. I have no idea whether it was any “good” – I really wasn’t thinking about that much. I just tried to enjoy the sound I was making. There is almost a stupid simplicity in this, but some of the most beautiful things in life are staggeringly simple.

There is something magic about music in the way that it has been present in almost every single human culture on this planet. It is an almost universal way of expression. Even the birds, the whales, and the oceans are singing. Making music is an act where we lose ourselves a little and fill that opening with a connection to the cosmos, to the heavens, to the soul.

This is why Hindus chant Om, why Buddhist chant the sutras, and why Christians sing Hallelujah. The message isn’t so much in words, but in the sound. There is something sacred to sound, for it represents the primordial vibration at the core of life. When our connection to the heart of life is active and joyous, some beautiful things can happen.

Like making music.

I don’t know if I’ll ever perform music in public and I’m still fairly confident that I’ll never land on the cover of Rolling Stone in this lifetime, but I like to consider myself now both an admirer and a maker of music. Whether you are playing Beethoven on a violin or plucking just one string on a guitar, you are making music. Whether you are playing syncopated rhythms on a drum or humming in the shower, you are participating in beauty.

Greatness can appear in things that are small. The profound can be discovered in the simple. Joy can be found in finally hearing one note.

~ Matthew Foley

A Tale of Two Mountains

2010-04-09T16:09:00.007-04:00

I wanted to share two poems I've written in the last year, one last December while staying in North Carolina and the other while traveling in the Pacific Northwest this past week. These two poems came out of the incredible natural beauty of these areas, particularly the mountain ranges. I've always drawn such spiritual sustenance from being in the mountains and these two poems are attempts to capture that feeling. Hope you enjoy, Matt.

Blue Ridge Mountains

The misty blue mountains sing
their mystic blues songs

As I sit by the flowing creek,
wailing on my wooden flute,
playing what I see:

The dance of water over rocks,
the white rush of its fall.

The cat and I watch the sun
Coming up over the ridge line.

My heart, my mind, my spirit –
All f the same flow as the water,
the wind, and the whistle in the trees.

My soul feels so loose,
I may take off and join the clouds
above the blue mystical mountains.

Mt. Rainier

I felt your hand take mine
and lead me down the worn forest trail
our fingers like the branches above,
intertwined, not knowing where one tree began
and another ended.
I ran my hands up the lengths
of their ancient trunks
and the dampness of this green world
seeped into my pores.

I heard the rhythm the world played
going thub thub on its heart drum:
living and dying, laughing and crying,
the pleasure and pain, the sunshine and rain
giving and receiving, knowing and believing
and upon this rhythm we danced
our dance of freedom.

I listened to the symphony of bird calls,
the love songs echoing among the leaves.
You whispered in my ear,
and I was helpless to do a thing
but surrender to the sweet vibration.
I followed the trails of a luminous Om
and fell into the silence of a blissful blue sky.

I saw the mist above the tree line
and my eyes lost the edge between
heaven and earth, earth and heaven.
I said “Let’s disappear into the fading fog.
We won’t know if we’re riding the wind,
or if the wind is riding us.”
The rain clouds were rolling in, heavy and dark,
yet the sun was rising in our hearts.

I smelled the musk of fallen bark
merging with the soil of old,
life returning and returning again
back into itself, nothing wasted, nothing lost.
The perfume of the earth brought me back
to the beauty of your eyes
and I knew there was nowhere to be but home.

New Intentions, New Paths

2010-04-01T18:34:00.003-04:00

I am at a very exciting crossroads of my life right now. In exactly two months, I will be leaving my job of the last two years with the College of Charleston Upward Bound program. I will also be leaving the city I’ve called home for the past seven years – the place where I’ve established so many great friendships and created so many memories. Over the next year, I will be delightfully rootless – travelling with my sweetheart Jaime first to Yellowstone National Park, where we will spend the summer months, then taking off in October for Thailand, where we will teach English for a semester. Then… well, we’ll just have to wait and see. We’ve talked about living on the West Coast, in the San Francisco Bay Area, or in some progressive place like Boulder, Colorado or Asheville, North Carolina. Above all, we want to be in a place more supportive of our views and lifestyles than what South Carolina has had to offer us.

I’ve grown so much over the past two years and I just honestly feel that South Carolina is no longer a place I can live. I’ve always felt that way to a certain extent. I’ve always been a person who marched to the beat of his own drum, and whether it be my views on politics, religion, love, equality, or just about anything you can think of – I’ve never really fit in here. But after all the inner change I’ve been through in the past year or two, I particularly feel now like new wine in an old wineskin.

I’ve worn out my welcome here and I need some new intentions, some new paths. I’m looking for some soil that is ready for the seeds I want to plant. South Carolina, despite all the things I do in fact love about the place, is simply not the soil I’m looking for. There are just too many dreams I’ve had to hold back in this place for fear that they would never be accepted in such a politically and spiritually conservative place. I’m ready to set some new intentions in life, particularly in the realm of my professional life.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about where I want to go next and what I really want to do with my life over the next few years. I wanted to share some of the key areas I want to focus on.

1. I want to keep developing as a teacher of yoga & meditation. The ability to take part in Blue Turtle’s Yoga Teacher Training program last fall was on of the most incredible blessings I’ve experienced over the past year or so, and I will be eternally grateful to Kelly and my fellow students for such an awesome experience. Every chance I get to lead an asana class is such a rich opportunity to express myself, to connect with other people, to share my true heart. It is something that simply makes my soul sing – and there is nothing in life sweeter than that. Wherever I end up over the next year, I plan on teaching yoga class and connecting with local yoga communities.

2. I want to deepen my connection with nature and find employment that involves being outside more often. One of the most stifling things about my current job is the fact that I sit behind a desk 8 hours a day, staring at a computer, in a room with no windows. I know this is becoming more and more standard for American workers, but I think it is slow soul suicide. No joke. I’m trying to learn as much as I can about work in the fields of outdoor education and nature therapy. I am fascinated by the idea of using natural surroundings to help people find healing and reconnect to their true selves. If I could also connect this work with my yoga teaching, I think I would be in heaven.

3. I also want to sharpen my skills as a teacher and mentor for young people. I’m really looking forward to teaching English in Thailand and for the opportunity to get back in the classroom. I really hesitated about teaching in the public schools here in South Carolina for fear that I wouldn’t have the freedom to teach the way I wanted to. If I were living in a more open-minded place, I could definitely see myself getting involved with classroom teaching again.

So, I’m really setting some intentions to cultivate opportunities in these three fields over the next year so I can find something that really makes me happy. If I can find a way to somehow combine all three interests, that would be even better.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is… does anybody know of a job teaching yoga to young people in a outdoor setting, preferably in a part of the country supportive of vegetarians, progressives, and the spiritually open-minded? If so, please give me a call ASAP!

Song of the Day: Ravi Shankar

2010-03-18T11:52:00.002-04:00

As you've probably noticed from most of my recent music posts, I've been on a big Classical Indian music kick... particularly the work of sitar master Ravi Shankar. It reminds me of when I first discovered jazz, around the age of 16 and 17. Jazz was such an unfamiliar world of music, with an incredible depth of variety, diversity, and style... I barely knew where to begin. But I just kept listening and listening and listening... until I finally began to understand and be greatly moved by an incredible form of music. I'm on a similar journey right now with Indian music. I'm still quite an amateur listener, but I'm quickly falling under the spell of this peaceful yet ecstatic music.

The clip below is of Ravi Shankar playing "Raag Bihag" back in 1971. One of the Youtube comments (so take this with a grain of salt) notes that "Raag Bihag is a night raag that inspires the mood of shringar raas (loving affairs between Lord Krishna and Shri Radha). So, this is a good one to play with some lit candles and incense, some delicious wine or tea, and someone special to hold close.

Enjoy.

Words of Wisdom: Osho

2010-03-17T15:18:00.003-04:00

"When you become deeply engrossed in something, all of a sudden you will hear a sort of music ringing within you. This is the music of peace. At times when you are listening to good music this absorption can happen. You forget yourself for a moment; for a moment the past and future disappear and you are drowned in the sweet sound of music. Live in the present and you will experience that moment of peace all around you: at times such a moment comes in love, at times in the beauty of nature. These are the moments you experience peace." ~ Osho

Personal Update

2010-03-15T22:05:00.007-04:00

First of all, much gratitude to my friend Joe Orr who created the “One World Dharma” logo for me that now sits at the top of the page. The logo is of the Earth surrounded by an enso: a Japanese Zen symbol for freedom and enlightenment. The Wikipedia entry notes: “In Zen Buddhist painting, ensō symbolizes a moment when the mind is free to simply let the body/spirit create.” I think the new logo sums up the various threads that run through this blog: spirituality, concern for our globe, creativity, having an open-mind, etc. So, lots of thanks to Joe for the awesome artwork.

This time in my life has been filled with many personal highs and there is so much I feel grateful for. This past Sunday was the start of a 10-week yoga teaching gig at a local, grassroots yoga studio called the Sutra Shack. The Shack is the brainchild of Doug, a local yogi, who created an awesome yoga space in his backyard. All the classes are donation-based and the teachers get 100% of the profits. On top of that, he’s also got a vibrant organic garden happening in the backyard. I’m really excited about being part of a yoga community that is about making classes more affordable to the average person and giving brand-new teachers like myself a place to get their feet wet.

The class went really well! There were only two students – but they were fantastic students, believe me. All a new yoga teacher could ask for. One of the students was Emily, an awesome woman who does massage and bodywork, who had been coming to my friend’s Aaron free class at the same time. My other wonderful student was my intrepid girlfriend Jaime, who had also come out to a class with me at the Shack on Saturday.

This has also been a lovely time for Jaime and I. Right now we are both busy getting our applications done for our next two jobs in life: working at Yellowstone National Park this summer, then teaching English as a Second Language in Thailand come October. Needless to say, it is both exciting and scary to make such big moves… but mostly exciting! I’m excited about traveling the world with my sweetheart, as well as being in places of such natural beauty. In the case of Thailand, I’m also particularly thrilled about being in a place with such rich Buddhist roots. I think that, among other things, will create a very healthy culture shock in comparison with living in South Carolina.

But there a few more important things to experience and accomplish before leaving Charleston for good. I’m looking forward to joining forces with the awesome ladies of Charleston Karma Yoga to create another benefit yoga class for a worthy cause. Right now we’re thinking about doing a class for Thornhill Farms, an organic farm that offers therapeutic gardening experiences for students will special needs. Jaime has actually been there with her students (she teaches students with emotional disabilities) and had a great time planting seeds and working in the earth.

Above all, I’m looking forward to connecting with all my friends and loved ones here in Charleston over the next few months before we take off. There are a lot of people very close to me that I haven't seen much over the last year and I definitely want to amend that before leaving.

Well, that’s all for now. My next yoga class will be Sunday at 1 PM at the Sutra Shack. It’s free to all and will be a great time, I promise. The focus will be on twists and keeping our body/mind/spirit clear and open so that life can more easily flow through us. Hope to see some of you there!

Peace,
Matt

Song of the Day: Anoushka Shankar

2010-03-12T12:05:00.003-05:00

Continuing with the theme of Indian music, I bring you the sitar sounds of the beautiful and talented Anoushka Shankar, daughter of the legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar. Along with being an incredible musician, she is also active as a campaigner for human and animal rights. This song is entitled "Naked" from her album Rise. For more information on this amazing woman and her music, check out her website.

"Compassion"

2010-03-10T15:45:00.009-05:00

The artist Shep Fairey, well-known for his Obama "Hope" poster and the Obey Giant street-art campaign, has released a new portrait of the Dalai Lama entitled "Compassion." The work is in honor of Tibetan Independence Day (March 10th) as well as the Dalai Lama's upcoming 75th birthday.

Shepard has this to say about His Holiness the Dalai Lama: “I’ve always had great admiration for His Holiness and his non-violent approach to the plight of the Tibetan people. When I was approached with the opportunity to work with this beautiful image as a sanctioned source and create a work that evokes the Dalai Lama’s presence as I feel it, I was thrilled. I hope His Holiness remains a presence of compassion in the world for many birthdays to come!”

Please give a few moments of your time today to send loving thoughts to the people of Tibet and to the peaceful solution of the Tibetan-Chinese conflict. If you want to get further involved, Students for a Free Tibet is an excellent place to start.

Song of the Day: Miles from India

2010-03-09T14:17:00.004-05:00

I know it's a bit of a stereotype of yoga teachers... but I'm a sucker for Classical Indian music. Sitars, tablas, and tamburas just warm my soul. I'm also a sucker for Jazz music, especially the legendary Miles Davis. So when I heard a group of Jazz & Indian musicians had gathered together to re-create the music of Miles with Indian musical styles and instruments... I had to give it a listen. Here's the Miles classic "Ife" from the Miles from India album...

Interesting Read: Do Dishes, Rake Leaves (And Don't Forget the Endless Loads of Laundry)

2010-03-09T12:11:00.014-05:00

Blogger Note: This article from Shambhala Sun magazine, written by Zen practitioner Karen Maezen Miller, is a down to earth exploration of mindfulness in everyday life. She says some things that really resonated with me. In years past, I think I often fell in the habit of viewing day-to-day tasks like washing the dishes, working in the yard, and doing the laundry as a distraction from more meaningful or "spiritual" activities like practicing yoga, meditating, writing, creating art, etc. As I've matured a little bit and entered into a living situation with my girlfriend Jaime, I've grown to see that there is actually a lot of joy to be found in simple, household tasks and that there doesn't need to be a line drawn between the "spiritual life" and the "ordinary life". I guess I'll get an even better opportunity to put this idea to the test when Jaime & I stay in Yellowstone this summer and work in the kitchen. Maybe I'll write a book on the subject someday... The Tao of Dishwashing :) ~ Matt

*************************************************
Do Dishes, Rake Leaves (And Don't Forget the Endless Loads of Laundry)

Karen Maezen Miller on how the domestic practice of ancient Zen masters can lead us to intimate encounters with our own lives.

I have a garden in my backyard, and even if you don’t call it a garden, you do too. In the fall, the broad canopy of giant sycamores in my backyard turns faintly yellow and the leaves sail down. First by ones, and then by tons. A part of every autumn day finds me fuming at the sight of falling leaves. Then, I pick up a rake.

Tell me, while I’m sweeping leaves till kingdom come, is it getting in the way of my life? Is it interfering with my life? Keeping me from my life? Only my imaginary life, that life of what-ifs and how-comes: the life I’m dreaming of.

At the moment that I’m raking leaves, at the moment I’m doing anything, it is my life, it is all of time, and it is all of me.

In the spring, the garden bursts to life and once again I see what time it is. It is time to weed. When I look up across the endless stretch of the job before me, I surely want to quit. But if I manage to regain my focus on what’s at hand I realize it’s just one weed. There’s always just one weed to do next. I do it weed by weed, and the weeds always show me how. I never finish.

Looking for greater meaning in life, some people think that housework is beneath them. Cooking and cleaning are beneath them. I know that feeling well. Sometimes they seem so far beneath me that I can’t see the bottom. I can’t see the beginning or the end. Is there a point to doing the work that seems pointless? The work with no visible end, no redeeming value, and no apparent urgency? Yes. It’s the wisdom of the ancient homemakers.

After Buddhism came to China, the Chan school replaced the tradition of itinerant alms-begging with communal living. It was practical, for one thing. And it was practice. Monastic training came to encompass all the work essential to everyday life—cleaning, cooking, and gardening—as well as meditation. For that reason we could well view the great Chinese masters as our progenitors in mindful homemaking, since many of their teachings point directly to the everyday chores we might rather high-mindedly neglect.

A monk asked Joshu, “All dharmas are reduced to oneness, but what is oneness reduced to?” Joshu said, “When I was in Seishu I made a hempen shirt. It weighed seven pounds.”

More than a thousand years have passed since Joshu gave that response, originating one of the many classic koans that recount his provocative teachings. To this day seekers are still struggling to find a way out of the shirt. What does it mean? What is he getting at? I don’t understand!

We don’t just struggle with a shirt in a Zen koan. We struggle with the shirts in our hampers. With the pants, the blouses, the sheets, and the underwear. Laundry presents a mountainous practice opportunity because it provokes a never-ending pile of egocentric resistance.

It’s not important to me. It’s tedious. I don’t like to do it!

The monk in this story is like the rest of us, seeking wisdom through intellectual inquiry. If we’re not careful, this is how we approach mindfulness: as an idea, one we rather like, to elevate our lives with special contemplative consideration, a method for making smarter choices and thereby assuring better outcomes. The problem is that the life before us is the only life we have. The search for meaning robs our life of meaning, sending us back into our discursive minds while right in front of us the laundry piles up.

In his commentary on this koan, the late teacher and translator Katsuki Sekida rinsed Joshu’s shirt clear of obfuscation. “Joshu’s words remind us of the keen sensibilities of people who lived in the days when things were made by hand. The seven pounds of hemp was woven into cloth and cut and sewn into a shirt. When Joshu put on his hempen shirt, he experienced a sensation that was the direct recognition of the shirt for what it was.”

The shirt, you see, is just a shirt. Feel the fabric, the weave, and the weight of seven pounds in your hands. The laundry is just the laundry. Pull it out of the hamper, sort by color and fabric, read the care instructions, and get on it with it. Transcending obstacles and overcoming preferences, we have an intimate encounter with our lives every time we do the wash. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but no one turns their nose up at a clean pair of socks.

With only a change in perspective, the most ordinary things take on inexpressible beauty. When we don’t know, we don’t judge. And when we don’t judge, we see things in a different light. That is the light of our awareness, unfiltered by intellectual understanding, rumination, or evaluation. When we cultivate nondistracted awareness as a formal practice, we call it mindfulness meditation. When we cultivate it in our home life, we call it the laundry, the kitchen, or the yard—all the places and the ways to live mindfully by attending without distraction to whatever appears before us. But it’s hard for mus to believe that attention is all there is to it, and so we complicate things with our judgment—debasing the ordinary as insignificant and idealizing the spiritual as unattainable—never seeing that the two are one.

A monk said to Joshu, “I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me.” “Have you eaten your rice porridge?” asked Joshu. “Yes, I have,” replied the monk. “Then you had better wash your bowl,” said Joshu.

This famous koan is easy to view as a metaphor. Empty your mind and get rid of your notions of spiritual attainment. But suppose you don’t view the bowl as a metaphor? That might change the way you look at the dishes in your kitchen sink and instruct you just as thoroughly.

The kitchen is not only the heart of a home, it can also be the heart of our mindfulness practice. In cooking and cleaning, we move beyond ourselves and into compassionate care of everything and everyone around us.

Eating is our sole essential consumption and cooking is our one common charity, so you’d think its purpose would be obvious. Yet with a critical eye to the value of time and what we judge to be our higher talents, meal preparation may seldom seem worth it. Cooking for two? Not worth it. Filling the fridge? Not worth it. Sitting to dine? Not worth it. Cleaning up after? Not worth it.

Nothing is worth the measure we give it, because worth doesn’t really exist. It is a figment of our judging minds, an imaginary yardstick to measure the imaginary value of imaginary distinctions, and one more way we withhold ourselves from the whole enchilada of life that lies before us.

If nothing is worth it, why cook? Why shop and chop, boil and toil and clean up after? To engage yourself in the marvel of your own being. To see the priceless in the worthless. To find complete fulfillment in being unfilled. And to eat something other than your own inflated self-importance. That’s what we empty when we empty the bowl, and a busy kitchen gives us the chance to empty ourselves many times a day.

A monk asked Joshu, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming to China?” Joshu said, “The oak tree in the garden.”

Enough about laundry and dishes, you might be thinking, what about the deep spiritual questions? Why do the great mystics strive so diligently for enlightenment if it has no more depth than what’s found in ordinary housework?

See beyond your house, Joshu answers, beyond the delusion of a separate self trapped by the false perception of what is inside and what is outside. This is true mindfulness: not the narrow boundaries of our conceptual abode, but the phenomenal world of the awakened mind. Joshu tells us to open our eyes and awaken in our own backyard.

Once again, Sekida prunes the intellectual interpretation that can obscure our clear sight. “There were many giant oaks in the garden of Joshu’s temple. We can well imagine that Joshu himself was personally familiar with every tree, stone, flower, weed, and clump of moss—as intimately acquainted as if they were his own relatives.”

Where is the place you know as well as your own family? Indeed, that is as proximate as yourself? It is the place where where you are at ease with a full load, fulfilled by an empty sink, telling time by the leaves and weeds: making yourself mindfully at home in the home you never leave.

From the March 2010 issue of the Shambhala Sun.

Karen Maezen Miller is a priest at the Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles and the author of Momma Zen. Her next book, Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life, will be published this spring. She also blogs for the Shambhala Sun.

Poem: What I Know To Be True

2010-03-09T09:48:00.002-05:00

What I Know To Be True:

This desk was once a tree,
wild and unpolished.

This body was once a mountain range,
a drop in the ocean,
a whisper in the wind.

This heart was once the sky.

This consciousness was once you,
once me,
once we.

So it is,
a love without end,
a life without walls.

~ Matthew Foley

Song of the Day: Flamenco Sketches

2010-03-04T16:25:00.004-05:00

Ease your mind with the meditative jazz brilliance of "Flamenco Sketches" from Kind of Blue. Featuring Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (saxophone), Julian "Cannonball" Adderely (saxophone), Paul Chambers (bass), and Bill Evans (piano). Easily one of the most beautiful musical recordings ever made by human beings.

Interesting Read: "Do Kinder People Have an Evolutionary Advantage?"

2010-03-04T09:33:00.005-05:00

Blogger Note: A very interesting article from Alternet.org about the nature of human kindness. It is based on the research of UC Berkley professor Dacher Keltner. I read his book "Born to Be Good" about a month ago and really enjoyed it. Turns out it may actually pay to be kind and loving. Go figure... ~ Matt

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.

In contrast to "every man for himself" interpretations of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of "Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life," and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.

They call it "survival of the kindest."

"Because of our very vulnerable offspring, the fundamental task for human survival and gene replication is to take care of others," said Keltner, co-director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. "Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate. As Darwin long ago surmised, sympathy is our strongest instinct."

Empathy in our genes

Keltner's team is looking into how the human capacity to care and cooperate is wired into particular regions of the brain and nervous system. One recent study found compelling evidence that many of us are genetically predisposed to be empathetic.

The study, led by UC Berkeley graduate student Laura Saslow and Sarina Rodrigues of Oregon State University, found that people with a particular variation of the oxytocin gene receptor are more adept at reading the emotional state of others, and get less stressed out under tense circumstances.

Informally known as the "cuddle hormone," oxytocin is secreted into the bloodstream and the brain, where it promotes social interaction, nurturing and romantic love, among other functions.

"The tendency to be more empathetic may be influenced by a single gene," Rodrigues said.

The more you give, the more respect you get

While studies show that bonding and making social connections can make for a healthier, more meaningful life, the larger question some UC Berkeley researchers are asking is, "How do these traits ensure our survival and raise our status among our peers?"

One answer, according to UC Berkeley social psychologist and sociologist Robb Willer is that the more generous we are, the more respect and influence we wield. In one recent study, Willer and his team gave participants each a modest amount of cash and directed them to play games of varying complexity that would benefit the "public good." The results, published in the journal American Sociological Review, showed that participants who acted more generously received more gifts, respect and cooperation from their peers and wielded more influence over them.

"The findings suggest that anyone who acts only in his or her narrow self-interest will be shunned, disrespected, even hated," Willer said. "But those who behave generously with others are held in high esteem by their peers and thus rise in status."

"Given how much is to be gained through generosity, social scientists increasingly wonder less why people are ever generous and more why they are ever selfish," he added.

Cultivating the greater good

Such results validate the findings of such "positive psychology" pioneers as Martin Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose research in the early 1990s shifted away from mental illness and dysfunction, delving instead into the mysteries of human resilience and optimism.

While much of the positive psychology being studied around the nation is focused on personal fulfillment and happiness, UC Berkeley researchers have narrowed their investigation into how it contributes to the greater societal good.

One outcome is the campus's Greater Good Science Center, a West Coast magnet for research on gratitude, compassion, altruism, awe and positive parenting, whose benefactors include the Metanexus Institute, Tom and Ruth Ann Hornaday and the Quality of Life Foundation.

Christine Carter, executive director of the Greater Good Science Center, is creator of the "Science for Raising Happy Kids" Web site, whose goal, among other things, is to assist in and promote the rearing of "emotionally literate" children. Carter translates rigorous research into practical parenting advice. She says many parents are turning away from materialistic or competitive activities, and rethinking what will bring their families true happiness and well-being.

"I've found that parents who start consciously cultivating gratitude and generosity in their children quickly see how much happier and more resilient their children become," said Carter, author of "Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents" which will be in bookstores in February 2010. "What is often surprising to parents is how much happier they themselves also become."

The sympathetic touch

As for college-goers, UC Berkeley psychologist Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton has found that cross-racial and cross-ethnic friendships can improve the social and academic experience on campuses. In one set of findings, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, he found that the cortisol levels of both white and Latino students dropped as they got to know each over a series of one-on-one get-togethers. Cortisol is a hormone triggered by stress and anxiety.

Meanwhile, in their investigation of the neurobiological roots of positive emotions, Keltner and his team are zeroing in on the aforementioned oxytocin as well as the vagus nerve, a uniquely mammalian system that connects to all the body's organs and regulates heart rate and breathing.

Both the vagus nerve and oxytocin play a role in communicating and calming. In one UC Berkeley study, for example, two people separated by a barrier took turns trying to communicate emotions to one another by touching one other through a hole in the barrier. For the most part, participants were able to successfully communicate sympathy, love and gratitude and even assuage major anxiety.

Researchers were able to see from activity in the threat response region of the brain that many of the female participants grew anxious as they waited to be touched. However, as soon as they felt a sympathetic touch, the vagus nerve was activated and oxytocin was released, calming them immediately.

"Sympathy is indeed wired into our brains and bodies; and it spreads from one person to another through touch," Keltner said.

The same goes for smaller mammals. UC Berkeley psychologist Darlene Francis and Michael Meaney, a professor of biological psychiatry and neurology at McGill University, found that rat pups whose mothers licked, groomed and generally nurtured them showed reduced levels of stress hormones, including cortisol, and had generally more robust immune systems.

Overall, these and other findings at UC Berkeley challenge the assumption that nice guys finish last, and instead support the hypothesis that humans, if adequately nurtured and supported, tend to err on the side of compassion.

"This new science of altruism and the physiological underpinnings of compassion is finally catching up with Darwin's observations nearly 130 years ago, that sympathy is our strongest instinct," Keltner said.

By Yasmin Anwar @ Alternet.org

Song of the Day: War/No More Trouble

2010-03-03T15:19:00.010-05:00

Shared an awesome evening of yoga last night with the students of the Bonner Leaders Program at the College of Charleston, a group dedicated to community service and civic engagement. The first song on my playlist for the yoga class was this Bob Marley original, recorded by musicians all across the world as a part of the Playing for Change project. Be the change you wish to see in the world!

War/No More Trouble | Playing For Change
Uploaded by playingforchange. - See the latest featured music videos.

Song of the Day: Sea Shell Jazz

2010-03-01T13:38:00.006-05:00

One of the themes explored on this blog is creating a more harmonious relationship between human beings and nature. Here is one man, Steve Turre, literally creating harmony with nature: playing Miles Davis' classic "All Blues" with sea shells! Give it a listen.

Mind/Body Harmony

2010-03-01T09:40:00.009-05:00

I had a really phenomenal experience this past Sunday morning teaching a yoga class to a dance group at the College of Charleston. About a dozen people showed up for the class, which took place in a beautiful dance room located inside the brand new Cato Arts Center on the CofC campus. In preparing for the class, I did a lot of thinking about what a yoga practice might offer people who are passionate about dance and creative movement.

One of the central aspects of yoga is cultivating a harmonious relationship between mind and body. Such harmony is of course essential to creating beautiful and graceful movement in dance. In many Eastern spiritual paths, the mind and the body are seen as equal halves of an integral whole. This is the philosophy of yin and yang: things that appear to be opposites – light and dark, tall and short, earth and sky, spirit and flesh – are in fact inseparably connected with one another.

In Western culture, however, there is a very rigid division between mind and body. In the last year, I’ve stumbled upon a number of brilliant Western thinkers who have addressed this division and the disharmony is creates in individuals.

The first is Sir Ken Robinson, an expert on human creativity, who gave a brilliant address at the 2006 TED Conference on creativity in children and whether or not educational systems around the world do an adequate job of fostering that creativity. (The whole talk is worth watching, but the part I'll be focusing on begins around the 9:00 minute mark).

During his talk, he spoke about the fact that almost all schools around the world tend to place a great emphasis on language and mathematics over the arts, particularly drama and dance. He says: “As children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist-up. Then we focus on their heads – and slightly to one side.”

He goes on to describe what type of person this emphasis on head-only education creates, particularly in the form of the stereotypical academic professor: “They live in their heads. They live up there – and slightly to one side. They’re disembodied, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads. It’s a way of getting their heads to meetings.”

Another brilliant thinker I’ve come across in the past year is Alan Watts, who came to popular attention during the 1960’s as an interpreter of Eastern spiritual traditions (especially Zen Buddhism) for Western audiences. In one of his talks featured on YouTube, delightfully illustrated by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, he addresses this split between mind and body that exists in the West and how it shapes our sense of self.

“I’ve always been tremendously interested in what people mean by the word “I” – because it comes out in curious lapses of speech. We don’t say: “I am a body.” We say: “I have a body.” Somehow we don’t seem to identify ourselves with all of ourselves. We say “my feet,” “my hands,” “my teeth,” as if they were something outside me. As far as I can make out, most people feel that they are something or other about halfway between the ears and a little ways behind the eyes, inside the head. That’s what you call the “ego.” That’s not what you are at all, because it gives you the idea that you are a chauffeur inside your own body – as if you your body were an automobile and you are the chauffeur principle inside it.”

The point that both Robinson and Watts are making is that when we identify primarily with our mind and our thoughts, we disconnect ourselves from our bodily existence. The results are usually disastrous, particularly in our modern culture. We stuff food into our mouths that are deeply gratifying to the mind (products high in fat and processed sugar) but which are nutritionally disastrous to the body. On the opposite extreme, we flock to gyms in order to sculpt our bodies into an idealized mental image of what we should like like - usually based on digitalized media images of the super skinny or ultra buff.

What is lacking is a deep listening to the wisdom of the body. Oftentimes, we only start to listen when we are forced to, usually as a result of an illness or life-threatening condition. Many people then realize that they must flip their entire life-style upside down and start living from a more holistic understanding of themselves.

Many of these people, of course, find their way to yoga classes and meditation retreats. A great deal of the popularity of such practices as yoga, tai chi, and seated meditation are found in the fact that they help cultivate a holistic way of looking at the world and our place in it. These practices are based on the realization that the mind and body form an inseparable wholeness – just as each individual human being, animal, or plant is an integral part of the interdependent environment in which they live. The process of yoga, in my mind, is a process of extending the feeling of identity outwards, away from the narrow confines of our egos, and connecting with our bodies, our communities, the planet, and the universe.

In the yoga class I taught to the dance group, I continually encouraged the participants to focus on their breath. The breath is an incredible tool for helping us cultivate mind/body harmony. Mindful breathing helps us turn down the volume on our mental noise so that the wisdom of the body may begin to be heard. A yogi or dancer can then begin to truly feel his or her body. They can begin to discover where they are tight or sore, where they hold anxiety or stress, in what movements they feel confident or terrified. This deep listening to the body can give us insight into the ways we live and in what ways we may need to change.

When the body and mind begin to move and function as one, we become more effective in what we do, we become more graceful and effortless in our actions, we become less worried and anxious in our inner lives. This is obviously helpful not just on the yoga mat or on the dance stage, but in all aspects of our lives.

So the question is... What might your body be trying to tell you? And if you start to really listen, what changes would begin to happen in your life?

~ Matthew Foley

Yoga & The Art of Listening

2010-02-12T18:51:00.009-05:00

One of the classic texts of the Yoga tradition, along with the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Within these teachings, Patanjali lays down a quintessential definition of “yoga” that has become a bedrock of modern Yoga practice. In Verse 2, the Sutras read:

YOGAS CITTA VRTTI NIRODHAH

Which can translated in various ways:
“Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuation of consciousness”
“Yoga is the restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff.”
“Yoga is the stopping of the turnings of the mind.”

Well, what on earth are the “fluctuations of consciousness,” “modifications of the mind-stuff,” or “turnings of the mind”? And why should we be concerned with them coming to an end?

The turnings of the mind are our habitual mental chatter, the interior monologue running through our brains almost every moment of every day. It is the voice that constantly proclaims its like, its dislikes, its judgments, and its comparisons. It is what carries on our inner autobiography; our feelings of being a good or a bad person, beautiful or ugly, a success or failure, worthy of love or deserving of contempt. It is what worries and obsesses about the future, as well as lives in pride or shame over the past.

Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with this mental chatter. But it tends to create a problem when we habitually identity ourselves with this stream of thought.

Ask yourself this question: where do you most strongly experience your sense of “I”? If you were to say “I exist”, where do you most feel that coming from? Your big toe? Your arteries? Or perhaps your spleen? No, most people (at least in our culture) would answer that “I” is most strongly located somewhere behind the eyes and between the ears. Located ourselves primarily in the head, we connect our identity with the stream of thoughts passing through the mind. This forms our most basic sense of who we are.

From the time of some of our earliest records of human history, human beings have sought through various contemplative practices to bring this mental stream to a stop. Meditation, yoga, tai chi, breathing exercises, ascetic practices, drumming, dancing, and singing can all become paths towards turning down the volume of our inner chatter so that something else, something deeper, might be heard. Why? Is it a form of intellectual suicide? Does it mean becoming a mindless bump on a log? No, not at all. By such an attempt, human beings have sought a way to peace, profound happiness, and liberation from suffering.

They realized that the reflective nature of our thoughts – our ability to think about our thinking, and even think about our thinking about our thinking – leaves us in perpetual anxiety about our lives and actually creates an illusory barrier between ourselves and the world around us.

When we give all our attention to this constantly critiquing voice in the head, we subtly disconnect ourselves from what is happening right in front of us. If you are in the midst of an experience and are busy the entire time judging and commenting to yourself on everything – the warmth or coldness of the room, the quality of the company around you, other things you could be doing at this moment – then you aren’t really living in that present moment. You are “stuck up in the head,” too self-conscious to fully be engaged with the experience you are having. It is a little like constantly checking your phone for missed calls or texts while on a first date – it shows you aren’t really interested.

There are days when, feeling a little blue or tired, I can walk through the entire day in a sort of “blah” feeling, wrapped up in whatever crummy feelings I’m going through. If someone were to ask me later how my day went or what I did or saw, I might draw a blank on the contents of the day. I was so wrapped up in my mental “stuff” that I didn’t really notice the beautiful park I drove by on my way to work, or the smell of the rain during the afternoon, or the way my cat stretched himself as I opened the door coming home. This mental chatter keeps us from, in the words of Ram Dass, “being here now.”

Awakening to life therefore involves turning down the volume on this inner noise and instead listening more deeply to what is really going on.

For instance, if you are in a conversation with someone and you’re the one doing all the talking, you aren’t really connecting at all with the other person. You aren’t really having a conversation; you are having a monologue in someone else’s presence. It also means that you probably won’t learn or grow much from that conversation, because you’re just repeating what you already know. But when you become silent and listen, allowing the other person to speak, you expose yourself to new perspective and points of view. You grow, you evolve, you expand.

Well, life is the same way. We could think of our every day lives as a conversation with the world. If we are the ones doing all the talking, by means of our constant internal judgments, comparison, and commentary, then we aren’t really listening to what life may be trying to tell us. Even in prayer, when we are supposed to be seeking answers from God, most people in our culture pray by talking the whole time. Thus it has been said that whereas prayer is talking to God, meditation is listening to God.

So, let us try a meditation of deep listening. You may want to read this first and then go and experiment.

Find a comfortable seat, whether in a chair or sitting in meditation on the floor. Close your eyes and place your hands comfortably in the lap or on the knees.

Bring all of your attention to your sense of hearing. Imagine that you are one giant ear and your only purpose is to hear. Listen to the sounds around you. Maybe you hear a bird chirping outside, or cars driving some distance away, or the sound of faint music in the background.

Whatever it is, just listen, with no judgment, commentary, or interpretation. As Alan Watts once said, “The sound of the rain needs no translation.”

When thoughts begin to arise in the mind, treat them as just another thing to listen to. There is just a deep listening.

What you may begin to notice is that within the quietness of mind, the most ordinary sounds of every day life take on a staggering quality of beauty. The sound of the wind becomes a music just as beautiful as those played by orchestras. The flowing sounds of ocean waves become poems for the ear.

If you listen deeply enough, you may notice that in the midst of such beautiful sound, there is no sound of one listening. That is because there is no real separation between the knower and the known, the experience and the one having the experience. This lack of separation, which was only an illusion in the first place, is the experience of “yoga,” which literally means “yoke” or “union.”

Yoga is a practice of deep listening, turning down the volume of our mental noise, so that we may hear the wisdom of the Universe more clearly.

~ Matthew Foley