BREAKFAST FOR THE MIND: GUEST BLOGGER MARA CAMPBELL
OCTOBER 21, 2009: I am pretty good at eating a good breakfast each morning as I know it sets the stage for the day for me as nutrition for my body. But what am I feeding my mind each morning? Well I began to think about this last night as I am rereading, Peace is Every Step, by Thich Nhat Hanh, one of my all time favorite books. He encourages us to wake up each morning excited that we have the gift of a new day. Now I know this in my head and I do try to say a prayer and tap into my blessings each morning, but by nature, I am just not a morning person. I do not wake up feeling refreshed, limber or ready to bring peace and joy into the world. In fact, I can be a bit of a grump....can any of you relate?! So how do I cultivate that peaceful gratitude that Thich Nhat Hanh says is imperative to start our day with? Well, yoga has taught me we have choices, options and the ability to create the life we desire. Or as Thich Nhat Hanh writes, "We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others."
NEW BEGINNINGS
AUGUST 9TH, 2009:
“The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing” (By
I always keep close to my heart the words of Thich Nhat Hanh who says “each minute of our life is a work of art.” Through yoga and daily time spent on the mat this is exactly how I came to see my life as this beautiful canvas, each pose and each life experience: good, difficult, interesting, all adding colors to the artwork of my story. If you say to yourself the first two lines of this poem you get that same feeling or as Roger Housden puts it “you may find, as I have, that they give you the feeling of wanting to live large again on the canvas of your life. For we, too, are buds, you and I, full of life unfolding into flower.”
We all have this amazing opportunity in each minute to step onto our own spiritual path moved by an inner sense to find greatness of heart to choose our own path, or as Robert Frost says “take the road less traveled”. I also really love how this poem speaks to everyone no matter what, “even those that don’t flower externally can do so from within.” We all want to endeavor to fill the canvas of our lives with bold colors, the way is to look at our own hearts and see that everything we need to make a new beginning to give birth to some new venture lies within us already. Housden says ‘the flower of our life is already in bud even now.” Yes it is. Join me on the mat tomorrow at 7:45am Level 1-2 or 9:15am Level 1 or 4:30pm Level 1-2 to as Swami Vivekananda says to experience that “we are responsible for what we are and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves!”
See you in the flow! Love in all ways, Silvia
CARING FOR OUR FEELINGS
It’s good to leave each day behind,
like flowing water, free of sadness.
Yesterday is gone and its tale told.
Today new seeds are growing.
~Rumi
This practice of poses and breath brings about an awareness of what we are feeling. For most of us when we start yoga we haven’t made time to even ask ourselves this simple question. We’re either too busy going faster and faster or really good at avoiding what we are feeling. Denial or argument with our feelings has become a way of life. But also a formula for suffering.
Tantric practice encourages us to embrace all of who we are. The sadness and the joy, the tiredness and the vigor, the fear and the love. This is a nondualistic approach to see that there is not a winner/loser or bad/good that we don’t have to battle our emotions, thoughts or feelings any longer. Running away from what we feel will only prolong it. And all of our feelings can be put into 3 buckets: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. So as hard as it might be to heal and remain in a state of being healed we are taught through yoga to embrace your feelings, care for them like you would look after a younger sibling.
A great meditation from Thich Nhat Hanh suggest we take a feeling, let’s say sadness, and talk to your feeling: say to your sadness “breathe – I am taking care of you now.” Acknowledge this feeling is you and as you breath out, let it go. Then allow for the next moment to unfold and the next feeling. Breath into that one. Take one at a time and stay with the flow.
Most importantly know that whatever you’re feeling is part of your humanness, love and hurt co-exist, one is the compliment to the other so to prevent staying in a state of suffering it helps to embrace all you feel and care for yourself. This practice of being human is put into poetry by the poet Kahlil Gibran who wrote, “all these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart.” We literally learn about ourselves as we experience emotion, feeling and thought. We also become expert through this in the human experience. We can by caring for our own feelings learn how to care and offer compassion towards how others feel.
“In that calmness we begin to understand that peace is not the opposite of challenge and hardship. We understand that the presence of light is not a result of darkness ending. Peace is found not in the absence of challenge but in our own capacity to be with hardship without judgment, prejudice, and resistance. We discover that we have the energy and the faith to heal ourselves, and the world, through openheartedness.” (From book All About Love) So may you all take away from your time on the mat the courage to “CARE FOR YOUR FEELINGS” as they arise, holding them gently and then surrendering them to the next moment. Love in all ways, Silvia
THERE IS A LIGHT
ANCORA IMPARO – These are the words of Michaelangelo when he was 76 years old. The translation is “I am still learning.” We are all students and as Anna Quindlen writes in “A short guide to a peaceful life” we are still learning every day how to be human. The learning is offering us a way to see the light!
Here is a writing by Thich Nhat Hanh titled Twenty Four Brand-New Hours from his book Peace in Every Step:
Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty four brand new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy and happiness to ourselves and others.
Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don’t have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky. Even the air we breath can be a source of joy.
We can smile, breath, walk and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment. This is an invitation to come back to the present moment and find peace and joy. Peace is every step.
So we keep learning. Even from simple stories like this one about 3 bowls of water:
Imagine there are 3 bowls of water. One is really cold on the left, one is normal in the middle, and one is really hot on the right. When you take your hand out of the really cold water and place it in the normal water in the middle, the normal water feels really warm. However, when you take your hand out of the really hot water and place it in the normal water in the middle, the normal water feels really cool. In both cases, one's perspective of "normal" is skewed by their own reality. Such is life. When we take our hands out of the madness, we recognize the normal temperature, the underlying reality. Love, light and peace.
So as we learn from the challenges of our life (the darkness) we are making progress towards our dreams, the light. The Alchemist answered “What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream.” So as we journey forwards towards the light of love we learn many lessons. But the point is to be so interested in our lives we want to keep learning! Love yourself, love your day, Silvia
KEEPING YOUR APPOINTMENT WITH LIFE
If we view our lives not as this experience of obligation (not so much I should do this which feels like we’re in trouble for not doing it already) but instead what appointments are you keeping for your life that are the most valuable and life affirming it makes it all easier. All hard edges seem to soften.
Thich Nhat Hanh says it like this: “We have an appointment with life, and that appointment takes place in the present moment. If we miss the present moment, we miss our appointment with life, which is serious.”
While we’re busy coming up with reasons not to keep our appointments, spin your perspective and make real (realize) that they are moving you in the direction of your best life. So time on the mat gives us that opportunity to check in with ourselves and take stock of how we’re doing for the sake of our health and over all well-being. But it begins by acknowledging which Life Appointments are the most vital. What are they for you? How are you doing keeping your appointments? Is YOGA a life appointment you want to keep? If yes, then join me on the mat. I will always support you! Love and light, Silvia
BE PRESENT: BE MORE THAN OK
FEBRUARY 5TH, 2009: It is easy to see everything as flat and "ok" but that means we really aren't paying attention. This is when we aren’t really awake for if we were living in the moment (where true happiness lies) then we'd see the depth, like the mountain ranges I experienced last weekend. It really is just that SIMPLE. As is written in the Alchemist, “It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.”
When we are present, our minds become clear and still. This is a fundamental truth from the ancient writings of yoga. From the Bhagavad Gita 6:19-22, translated by Eknath Easwaran: The mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. In the still mind, the Self reveals itself. Beholding the Self by means of the Self, we know the joy and peace of complete fulfillment. Having attained that abiding joy beyond the senses, revealed in the stilled mind, he never swerves from the eternal truth. He desires nothing else, and cannot be shaken by the heaviest burden. Two of my favorite writings about being present are offered below. Enjoy! BE PRESENT. LOVE LIFE. PEACE TO YOU, Silvia
Look to this Day! - an inspirational poem -
Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth;
The glory of action;
The splendor of achievement;
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow only a vision;
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream
of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day! - Kalidasa - 5th century Sanskrit Poet
By Thich Nhat Hanh titled Twenty Four Brand-New Hours from Peace in Every Step:
"Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty four brand new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy and happiness to ourselves and others.
Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don’t have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky. Even the air we breath can be a source of joy.
We can smile, breath, walk and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment. This is an invitation to come back to the present moment and find peace and joy. Peace is every step. We shall walk hand in hand. Bon voyage."
MEDITATION MADE LESS SCARY
· Walking meditation
· Moving meditation: Hasta Vinyasa, Classical Salutation
· Supine Meditation: 3 Part Breath Pranayama
· What is Meditation – Everything
· Asana Refinement as Meditation: Basic Vinyasa Techniques, why this is meditation
· Seated Meditation: Count fingers, Breathing (pranayama) as meditation
· Savasana as Meditation: Not sleep - peace meditation by Deepak Chopra
Also I promised to send a daily meditation for a week to anyone who attended class or if you are reading this and want to be included just let me know. “When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. In the still mind, in the depths of meditation, the Self reveals itself.” Bhagavad Gita 6:19-22 Excerpted and translated by Eknath Easwaran
I hope that through yoga, which is a form of meditation, that you begin to reveal yourself more fully. This is the way to living the life you truly deserve. Peace in thought, word and action, Silvia
WALKING MEDITATION POEM
Take my hand.
We will walk.
We will only walk.
We will enjoy our walk
without thinking of arriving anywhere.
Walk peacefully.
Walk happily.
Our walk is a peace walk.
Our walk is a happiness walk.
Then we learn
that there is no peace walk;
that peace is the walk;
that there is no happiness walk;
that happiness is the walk.
We walk for ourselves.
We walk for everyone
always hand in hand.
Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Print on Earth your love and happiness.
Earth will be safe
when we feel in us enough safety.
Thich Nhat Hanh,Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh, Parallax Press,