A yogini at large

THE POWER OF SPEECH

“In yoga, speech is a feminine force called the Devi or Goddess. Speech is seen as feminine in acknowledgement of its ability to bring things to life. We constantly use the power of speech to create the world we live in – it can be boring, full of anxiety and disasters, or it can be full of joy and positive experiences. How you describe your life is how it will be. We are responsible for our speech and the effect these words have on others.” (Swami Radhananda’s Living the Practice)

In a previous blog I described the habit I was cultivating in order to counteract the running commentary of my inner (maniac) roommate. I took my spiritual practice to the pool and focused mind, breath and physical activity on positive messages like peace, joy and calm, which then expanded to include words such as hope, faith, love, tolerance, empathy, healing, forgiveness, compassion and countless other inspiring words.

This was so salutary that I took it out of the pool and into the car, and then it progressed into my day in general, repeating any such words as seemed to counteract my automatic inner speech. When I saw somebody or something which I was tempted to judge, I overrode that tendency with words like “tolerance, acceptance, humility”. In cases when I was inclined to make a snarky remark, say, about the way someone was doing something differently from me, I ran words like “patience, appreciation, trust”, in my head instead.

This morning, feeling down a quart energetically, the words I repeated en route to and from my swim were “positive, upbeat, optimistic, healing, adventurous”, and, finally, “wish-fulfilling”. The impetus to do this mental reprogramming-by-repetition came, in large part, from reading Swami Rahdhananda’s chapter on the Power of Speech:

“This life is the opportunity to practise. By repeating sacred words the mind and heart become filled with mantra and even your everyday speech begins to hold power. Then you have a connection to the Devi in her mantric form; she is always there encouraging and helping you. If you repeat the mantra, drawing on all your emotional force, you will passionately engage in the practice of life.”

I initially understood that by “sacred words” Swami Radhananda meant mantras contained in wisdom texts such as the Vedas, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavad Gita, and sung by their adherents for hundreds of years, theoretically accumulating strength as they went, and bequeathing that power on sincere devotees. Having chanted a healing mantra consistently for over two decades has given me a reliable way to dispel strong emotions and set intentions for the day, including the goal of sending healing vibrations to anyone I know to be suffering. Because of this desire to mitigate others’ suffering it was natural to use “peace, calm, joy, empathy, strength, courage, patience, etc.” whenever I thought of a particular person or situation that I hoped to alleviate in some way.

That the words I was using to direct energy or override any negative inner speech could be considered sacred didn’t immediately occur to me. But why wouldn’t they be? While studying and teaching the ancient yoga texts I often balked at the use of unfamiliar words like Surya Namascar, Uttanasana, and (the mouthful) Virabhadrasana while introducing a pose, and often didn’t bother. Saying “sun salutation, forward fold or warrior one, two or three” gave the same message in a more accessible way. In like mien, is saying “strength, courage, or perseverance” any different than saying “Aum Namah Sivayah”, a powerful mantra for overcoming obstacles? Which is my way of saying that you don’t have to have a regular mantra practice (but it helps) or maintain any consistent spiritual practice (but really, it helps) or tracking your footprints in a spiritual journal (but it really, really helps), so long as you can make an ally of your speech. And here’s why:

“Speech has a tremendous effect on the direction of our mind and the evolution of our life. We must respect and take responsibility for what we say audibly and inaudibly. By refining our speech we can also open to a sacred potential beyond speech, the gift of the Devi, the knowing of the heart.”

To me the “knowing of the heart” is the Holy Grail, the summa cum laude (to use other obscure words) of all personal growth. The layer upon layer of misconceptions and conditionings and general misdirections need to be patiently, conscientiously and relentlessly peeled away from the essence that is common to us all, were we but free to see it.

And a latecomer to the game, which occcurred to me while in the passenger seat as our vehicle crawled in the six-lane-bumper-to-bumper traffic on Georgia this mid-afternoon:

SILENCE IS GOLDEN.

PEACE, PEACE, PEACE

“The most powerful love is to support and encourage others toward their highest potential. When there is an imbalance in the world, and we want to take the steps to move forward, it is love that will protect us. There is nothing so powerful as being able to see the Divine in everyone you meet, to offer love and Light, to envision people living in peace within themselves and with their neighbours, to send out loving-kindness to all.” (Swami Radhananda Living the Practice)

Not long ago an eighteen year old band-mate of my grandson was killed in a motorbike accident. The fact that the deceased was more of a passing acquaintance initially gave my grandson a degree of immunity to the sense of grief and loss being experienced by those closer to the young man. This immunity was breached when my grandson went to the celebration of life and witnessed the collective mourning of the large gathering of his friends and family. Being involved in many activities, the loss of this young man brought together a broad swath of the population, and, even now, as white ribbons flutter along the railing of the Stanley Park Causeway where the accident took place, few motorists could be oblivious to the somber warning that life can change in a heartbeat.

From the remove of merely being a fellow West Vancouverite, home of the grieving family, I yet have no sense of immunity from my own feelings — the intense heartbreak I know I would feel if I were to lose one of my own — and needing no imagination whatsoever to guess what this young man’s friends and family are suffering. Not having attended the funeral but feeling a great deal of empathy, it’s been a challenge to find positive or appropriate ways to channel that grief-freighted energy.

How to offer care and encouragement to people so far out of my reach? How to respond to what Chuang Tzu called the 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows without spiraling down a rabbit hole? Swami Radhananda has this to offer:

“When we look outward at situations in the world, we often feel that we have no control, no ability to effect change. But we can go back to changing our world within – where we do have the ability to change. We can change how we use our intellect and emotions so that we are not swept up by outside forces. When we harness the emotions and intellect, we can gather facts and mobilize ourselves to actions rather than getting stuck in reactions.”

So the other morning I decided to take my spiritual practices to the pool. I harnessed my emotions by coordinating these with my breath and the physical action of swimming. With each inhalation I mentally said the word peace, figuratively drawing peace into my entire being, and then exhaling peace, peace, peace to the area around me. After a time I switched the repetition to calm, calm, calm, then joy, joy, joy, and followed with what other healing words came to mind. Swami Radhananda calls this the ripple effect:

“It is essential to take the time to have a spiritual practice. Through devotion to your inner life you will find that your awareness and caring will naturally expand and ripple out toward others in your community. It is important to take time to be grateful for the relationships and communities we are part of.”

Even something so simple as coordinating my intentions with my breath with my physical actions has had a tangible effect on my psyche. As I go about my day I think of small ways to pay forward the peace and harmony and ease of well-being that I generated while swimming. One can do the same with many other daily routines that are often performed mechanically or half-heartedly. One can clean a drawer or sweep a floor with the intention of ridding the mind of unwanted clutter and negative impressions. One can clean glasses, windows, phone or computer screens with the intention of increasing insight and cultivating clear-eyed thinking.

And in all things a reverence for this precious life and gratitude for the people who have supported and encouraged me is bound to ripple positivity into my surroundings.

Aum Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

LIVE AND LEARN

“The stuff of the mind is so subtle compared to concrete items that are easily given away. When I follow the memories back, I realize the mind holds the even subtler substance of learnings from those experiences. Through reflection and spiritual practice, the learnings of life can be extracted.” (Swami Radhananda, Living the Practice)

I woke this morning to the raucous cries of seagulls wheeling in a sky saturated with fog and rain. The semi-opaque mist rendered invisible the dozen or so freighters anchored in the bay; nothing distinguishing the ocean from the horizon from the sky. But the outside temperature was mild and the staccato tapping of raindrops on the deck brought back memories of rainy days looking after our four young children at Alberta’s Pigeon Lake.

On the one hand a rainy summer day gave us a break from the dawn-to-dusk activity of a growing family, while on the other, the effort required to entertain restless toddlers in a too-confined space was the price I paid. This is not unlike the effort required to reel in a restless mind when confined to an in-need-of-recovery body.

As I write my body is covered in “swimmers’ itch-type hives, and my baby finger is swollen like a sausage from some kind of insect bite. So much so that I took a baking soda-infused bath at 4:00 this morning, and thereafter a Benadryl that knocked me out until moments ago, while I try to rouse myself for my online yoga class.

These minor discomforts can all too often degenerate into a woe-is-me melancholy such that flashbacks to our Pigeon Lake days take on the golden glow of the good old days, (where I’m pretty sure we also got swimmers’ itch) and throws a dark cast over the present moment.

In Living the Practice, Swami Radhananda offers an antidote to getting lost in lugubrious (such a fabulous onomatopoeic word) thoughts:

“There is no need to carry a trunkload of stuff into each relationship or each action. Instead, focus the mind on the moment. Cut the ties of old hurts and memories and images and see the situation you are working with now. The challenge is to continue to create new memories, not be bound by old ones.”

By way of following her advice, I started to watch my thoughts as I went about my Tuesday. Not surprisingly, much of the time I found myself carrying on an inner dialogue that distracted me from truly engaging with the people and activities at hand. This raised the question: “Who is doing the inner talking and who is doing the inner listening?” This brought to mind Michael Singer’s “maniacal inner room mate” in Untethered Soul:

“There are two distinct aspects of your inner being. The first is you, the awareness, the witness, the center of your willful intentions; and the other is that which you watch. The problem is, the part that you watch never shuts up. If you could get rid of that part, even for a moment, the peace and serenity would be the nicest vacation you ever had.”

Swami Radhananda calls that peace and serenity the Divine Moment, a moment when one’s experience is not biased by the inner dialogue, and instead is open to a fresh, open-hearted engagement with life. All of the wisdom teachings I have studied say the same thing in their own way: Sharon Salzberg calls it equanimity. Pema Chödrön talks in terms of having no reference point. Ram Das sums it up with “Be. Here. Now.” And Hindu Vedanta named it Satchitananda, the “Ultimate Reality” or “being, consciousness, bliss”. Clear as mud? I know I seem to have lost the plot.

But what I do know for sure is that I have a ways to go before I am adept at taming my monkey mind. But from the rare divine moments that I’ve experienced, I know it’s worth a try. It requires nothing less than a commitment to “getting over” myself and shutting up my inner roommate’s constant commentary. No wonder Swami Radha calls it the pearl of great price!

Now to create some new memories by heading over to the Harmony Arts Festival for a tribute to CCR’s John Fogerty, and some old time rock and roll. Fortunate me.

July 23, 2024

L’Chaim!
To Life!

“In your time of reflection, you have to clarify constantly, even if it’s only intellectually: “Why was I born? Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life?” Then keep on asking, “Am I pursuing that purpose? And how am I pursuing it? Is this the best way to pursue it?” If you need help, have the humility to ask for it. Resort to prayer, worship, meditation – whatever will help.” (Swami Sivananda Radha Time to be Holy)

While the Lahaina fire stirred up a wave of worry and sympathy for that storied town, it was but a ripple compared to the waves of emotion and nostalgia that assailed me when our beloved town of Jasper suffered a similar fate in recent days. Looking online for news of the Alberta fires, I instead encountered images of other global disasters; earthquakes, floods, landslides and wildfires that I never knew were happening (in what one son calls “my room of ignorance”) but which are in fact equal or greater tragedies effecting hundreds or thousands of people unknown to me. How to integrate this ever shifting tableau of disaster into the world as I know it? How to reconcile these images and scenes into my sense of reality?

As I write, I’m surrounded by the vibrant greens and burgundies of alpine shrubs and trees, not to mention the riot of colorful flowers and herbs in the planters that mark the periphery of my outdoor “room”. Its impossible to concieve of this scene reduced to blackness and ash, not to mention the structural log cabin that has housed our busy family since long before any of our grandchildren were born. It’s impossible to imagine all of it being “never more”. Impossible to imagine me being never more. But that is reality.

Likewise, l’chaim, a Jewish toast to life carries with it the implicit “l’mitah” or “to death” that some say harks back to the Garden of Eden:

“According to one opinion, the Tree of Knowledge was actually a grapevine. Accordingly, Adam and Eve’s imbibing of grapes (or perhaps wine) brought death into the world.”

In whatever context we place them, life and death are two sides of the same coin; both inescable facts with which we wrestle more urgently when witnessing the destruction of what we hold familiar and dear, or when threatened with the loss of our own precarious existence. At such times Swami Radha’s questions become that much more pertinent. In fact her entire approach to personal growth is to ask question after question, each one aimed at loosening the ties that bind us to inherited or acquired — but ultimately inhibiting — beliefs. The Buddha held a similar approach: “Deliberate and analyze, and when it agrees with reason and conduces to the good of one and all, believe it and live up to it.” Socrates, too, held this view when he said “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us”.

And of course this brings us to the ego, the part of us that thinks it knows, the part of us that identifies with our bodies and the constructs we have built around the physical aspects of existence – life as we know it through our sense perceptions and the state of mind that interprets them. But what do I really know of life? Or my purpose in living it?

In a practical sense, I know that life animates all the growth I witness around me. Life struggles for a place in the light, or sun from which important nutrients come. This is seen in the way flowers turn their faces toward the sun, and in the contortions a tree makes to escape the shade of its towering neighbours.

It’s also true that some seeds will only germinate in the wake of a fire. Called pyrophytics, “Some plants, such as the lodgepole pine, Eucalyptus, and Banksia, have serotinous cones or fruits that are completely sealed with resin. These cones/fruits can only open to release their seeds after the heat of a fire has physically melted the resin.” (Britannica)

Such is the case for humans, too. As part of satsang (worship) at Yasodhara Ashram those present would pass their hands over a small flame and recite: “When the oil of ignorance is destroyed in the fire of wisdom, may we know our oneness with the Light”. We cannot know this oneness unless the hard shell of our constructs is broken open and admits the light of a higher wisdom. And that wisdom can only be accessed when we’re willing to un-know what we think we know.

And that’s all I know about that!

PS Cuticle cream makes terrible lip balm…

Animal, Vegetable, Human?

“We create our mental afflictions by creating these narratives—comparing ourselves with others or comparing our performance with what we think it should be. The Buddhists believe a comparing mind is one of the greatest sources of suffering. An animal doesn’t do this. When a beaver builds a dam, he doesn’t think about whether it’s as great as the other dams. He just keeps building.” (Martha Beck)

I’m going out on a limb here, for lack of internet access/confirmation, to reminisce about a guessing game I used to play called animal, vegetable, human.

Ok. Internet is back up. It’s actually animal, vegetable, mineral, and sometimes human. Apparently there are variations, but the game is the same. One person in the game chooses an object and tells the other players if it is an animal, a vegetable or a mineral (or human). All other players ask questions to help determine what the object is.

What interests me today relative to this game is a minor epiphany I had about human nature: according to life coach Martha Beck, we’re a small part rational, thinking human and a large part instinct-driven animals. The main thing that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom is the neo-cortex. According to Beck, “This amazing structure allows us to speak, imagine, calculate—and lie. Humans are better at lying than any other creature on earth. And I don’t just mean deliberate, conscious lying. Our brains are so tuned into social expectations that we often lie to ourselves without even knowing it.”

Why would we do that? Why be so concerned with meeting external standards and expectations that we ignore and even betray our true nature? The answer seems simple enough. Because we are essentially pack animals, and because our sense of security/belonging is based on remaining in said pack or tribe, we often — albeit unconsciously — override our own intuition, feelings and needs. The pack mentality can be found in religions, politics, educational institutions and especially shaped in families. If you are born into a family of athletes you might feel vulnerable or even censored for wanting to pursue stamp collecting or building popsicle stick villages. Depending on where and how you are raised, what transpersonal anthropologist Hillevi Ruumet calls “the social matrix in which we are born”, you may never be exposed to other options than those being pursued around you.

If nothing else, the evolution of consciousness depends on your being able to question the concepts and beliefs upon which you have been operating. Or on which you have based your sense of reality.

In her chapter on Evolution and Maya [illusion], in Time to be Holy Swami Radha writes:

“We evolve through these various kingdoms – mineral, plant, animal, human. It takes billions of years, probably, and millions of births. Even at the human level, we see many people who are closer often to the animal kingdom than to what we normally call human. We can only assume that consciousness came into existence somewhere, and then evolved through individuals who were willing to take a chance. We can only speculate that life has some sort of meaning within which we can make our own individual lives as meaningful as possible.”

That is a question I have been pursuing throughout my years of spiritual discipline and practice, how to make my life as meaningful as possible. I often despair at what I observe in magazines or on tv, and even moreso by the casual cruelties I witness closer to home — kids being bullied at camp or on the playground. counselors or coaches being oblivious or favoring their own. At times like these I go back to “mineral, vegetable, animal” and ground myself in the natural world. I haven’t come across any beaver dams lately, but doing my mantra practice outdoors at a cabin in the mountains does me a world of good.

I watch tiny birds flit from branch to branch. Squirrels chasing one another up tree trunks, and bees buzzing industriously in the flowers beside me. Minding their own beeswax, as the saying goes. While observing them, I remember reading about how bee “dances”, are important forms of communication:

“By performing this dance, successful foragers can share information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new nest-site locations with other members of the colony.”

All of these natural scenes calm my mind as I ask myself “what is my own bees’ wax? What is mine to mind?” Swami Radha wrote about making a positive contribution to the world through selfless service, service offered without thought to personal glory or reward:

“Selfless service is also your protection in these times when the obstacles to Higher Consciousness can have a devastating dimension. Krishna in his last message to the world says, “Whenever people suffer at the hands of others, I will destroy evil.” To the evildoers, he says, “If you remain hard-hearted, I will destroy you.” Today there are millions of people suffering at the hands of others. How do you protect yourself in such times? By practising selfless service, for that is what will make you divine. It is the road to return to the Light, to your inner being.”

As the bees remind me: “Just do what I can with what I have where I am”.

And dance, dance, dance.

SELF-ACCEPTANCE

“Maya is a very complicated thing, and it is maya that prevents evolution. Whether you can accept yourself or whether you feel you have to do certain things in order to survive in the world – these are two quite different ways of thinking. Sit down and think them over. Find out where you are. Do it again six months from now, and next year. Find out again and again how much your thinking has advanced, how much stronger and more courageous you have become about accepting where you are, what you are.”

As I cleared the dinner dishes from the outside patio to the kitchen this evening, I was greeted by the pungent smell of fresh rosemary that I pruned from my herb garden late this afternoon. Having just returned from three weeks away, I’m grateful that our container garden (thanks to irrigation) survived the two plus weeks’ heat wave in B.C. As I drove to the pool today I noted the yellowed leaves falling from boulevard trees, and the bone dry grasses that lent an autumnal note to my first morning back home.

Grateful that we live in a condo and that our planters are well-irrigated, (I must confess that we never adhered to Vancouver’s water restrictions while living in our single family residence) I noted a lack of colour and lustre . As it happens, we had no grass on our former property, so, but for a suspiciously green boulevard that nobody commented on, we were able, during the occasional heat wave, to enjoy the shade of trees that had been planted some twenty plus years prior. No longer a rare occurrence, a series of hot, dry summers have seen forest fires raging across British Columbia from June to October. So far that is not the case in 2024, but the summer is still young.

I am not.

This fact occurs to me as I try to stay awake until after 8 p.m., notably because I’m far from finishing today’s blog. Which is why self-acceptance comes to mind. One of the hardest things to accept is how a mere five and a half hour plane flight and three hours’ time change wreaks havoc on mind and body. I woke this morning disoriented and unmotivated, stuffy-nosed and sneezy. As is my habit, I began with my spiritual practices — mantra chanting, journaling and any inspirational readings that seemed relevant to how I was feeling.

I gravitated to Martha Beck’s blog on the “Best Strategy for Self Motivation”:

“Martha began by advising her new client to get in touch with her gut—literally—by breathing deeply and focusing on physical sensations. “If you pay attention to your body, you will feel physically pulled toward what’s right for you,” she said. “What would make you feel joyful and relaxed?””

This is not too different from what a favorite yoga instructor asks her students during quiet intervals: “What do you sense? What do you feel?”

All of these ideas lean to an acceptance of ‘what is’, in contrast to the tendency to compare and compete with a younger version of me. My decision to head to the pool, despite feeling sluggish, was motivated by knowing what brings me both relaxation and joy. One might not think plunging into a chilly ocean for half an hour or so would be relaxing, but it always clears the cobwebs and leaves me feeling invigorated and alive. Quite the contrast to how I woke up! The relaxation comes during coffee with fellow swimmers and friends, and joy comes from having transcended my inclination to stay in bed. Which is where I am now headed.

Sweet dreams everybody. 😇😴🧚🏼‍♀️

July 8, 2024

WAX ON: WAX OFF

“A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by a force”.
(Newton’s First Law of Motion: Wikipedia)

This past week the expression “wax on/wax off” kept popping into mind as I pondered topics for my next blog. Having given myself permission to write only ”if the spirit moved me”, I was inclined to ignore the message entirely and stick to a series of mindless beach reads, the nemesis to any productive activity. Stirred out of my stupor by a restless eight year old asking to go to the beach, I brought my iPad along and reflected on how unlikely it was that the spirit would ever actually move me. And, voila, I had an example of wax on/wax off.

Reading several blogs and other commentary on the meaning of wax on/wax off, I came up with my own clever catchphrase: preparation (waxing on) is the gateway to inspiration (waxing off). Several times in the last week I have had interesting ideas come to mind, always thinking I’d remember them when I had time to write, only to have the ideas dissipate in the minutea of my day. Waiting for inspiration to come knocking was and is a surefire way to remain in that unproductive, semi-inert state. Hence why Newton’s law, roughly stated, that objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects at rest tend to stay at rest, unless and until some force acts upon them, comes to mind. In my case, rest begat more rest begat a general physical and mental torpor. Easy enough to achieve in the summer’s heat and humidity. The force that broke my inertia was a combination of guilt that I’d whiled away my writing time, and empathy for an eight year old waiting on us big people to grant his wish to go to the beach. What does this have to do with wax on/wax off?

In the popular 1980’s film Karate Kid, Master Miyagi “begins Daniel’s training by having him perform laborious chores such as waxing cars, sanding a wooden floor, refinishing a fence, and painting Miyagi’s house. Each chore is accompanied with a specific movement, such as clockwise/counter-clockwise hand motions.

“Daniel fails to see any connection to his training from these hard chores and eventually feels frustrated, believing he has learned nothing of karate. When he expresses his frustration, Miyagi reveals that Daniel has been learning defensive blocks through muscle memory learned by performing the chores.”

For me the chores are more arbitrary (and not defensive in the least) but it is through performing small, everyday tasks, paying attention to detail, and doing the best I can with what I have where I am, that I develop positive habits that effect everything I do in life, including writing.

As I see it, inspiration will only come when I lay this groundwork of self-discipline, consistency (which is why I vowed to post a blog once a week) and impeccability that I apply to small tasks like making beds, doing dishes, washing clothes, and other chores that are entropic and potentially boring.

It may seem beside the point to organize drawers and pick stuff up off the floor (with five grandkids visiting that’s an endless chore) instead of concentrating on my blog, but it applies metaphorically to how I sort and organize the thoughts, and particularly emotions in my mind. If my living space is cluttered and disorderly, my thoughts and actions tend to fall into those same categories. Thus it’s very effective to align my intentions for writing with my actions in “real time”. If literally ironing or waxing, I can add the suggestion of smoothing out convoluted thinking, or polishing my written or spoken speech. For ideas to go from fleeting insights to coherent writing I exercise the discipline of sitting down with a blank “page” and allowing my intuition to express itself (without the interference of ego) just as “grasshopper” learns the karate skills he needs through an entirely different — and what his ego considers irrelevant — medium.

So it is that, after a trip to the beach, a rousing game of Marco Polo and collecting more wet towels than I thought we owned, I have carried this momentum into today’s blog on objects in motion tending to stay in motion. And how it vaguely relates to waxing on and waxing off.

Now to go feed my inner grasshopper a bowl of popcorn.

(Or 105 depending on who’s counting)

STAY IN YOUR OWN LANE

“To know the universe as a road, as many roads, as roads for travelling souls,

“If the terminus of all roads be God, then what matter what road we take?

“But hail your fellow travelers from a distance. Don’t try to catch up and keep step.

“Yell Cheerio across the fields but stick to your own particular path…

“Be it paved or grass or just plain old dirt, it’s your path and it suits your make of boot.” (Walt Whitman)

I think two weeks is a long enough break from blogging, and I find myself with a five hour plane ride in which to concentrate on the next installment of leading an examined life (with a healthy dose of curiosity), so here I go.

I figure curiosity will give me the objectivity I need to sustain me through an uncertain and sometimes frightening future, which is why I was drawn to the phrase “stay in your own lane”. That and the fact that, en route across town to swim the other morning, I was almost run off Lions Gate bridge by a fellow motorist who decisively did not stay in his own lane. By decisively I mean he didn’t hesitate for a second as he drove straight into the curb lane in which I had the right of way. Having already been in that lane (but apparently demanifestly — something I’ve been trying to achieve in my spiritual journey) I had no other option but to jam on the brakes and vent my irritation with colorful language and expressive hand gestures. Since that day I’ve been cautious when approaching what is sometimes a merge (when we are down to one lane southbound) and sometimes a right-of-way (when we have two southbound lanes).

The metaphorical take-away from that near-accident was realizing how necessary it is to stay true, as Walt Whitman wrote, to my own particular path. What has caused me an unnecessary amount of pain is a tendency to compare and compete with my former self, moreso even than with the other “motorists” around me. The person I see in the mirror is seldom the one I see in my mind’s eye. The person I see in my mind’s eye is one who continues to do and be what I have always done and been. When I don’t like what I see in the mirror, am I saying I don’t like who I really am, and will this not manifest in a future me that I don’t want to see or be seen? How to mitigate this self-deprecating tendency?

In June of 2011 I attended a school reunion in New York City, the second since we all met at “finishing school” in the late sixties (don’t judge me…). In a journal entry written on June 19, 2011, I wrote:

“I hoped the reunion would allow us each to see ourselves in the mirror of the other attendees, to see who we used to be [in our late teens] and reclaim that which we’d forgotten about ourselves but which will serve us well on our journey, our next steps.”

I then proceeded to record the minor epiphanies I had gleaned from the feedback of my fellow alumni, all of whom saw each other differently, and much more favorably, that we saw ourselves. At the time of this reunion I’d been married for forty years, our four children had moved out, and in some cases moved away, to pursue their independent futures, and, I suspect, I was experiencing a time of transition not unlike the one I’m now in.

To better locate myself in this transition I turn to the four life stages or asramas in Ayurveda that I described in an earlier blog:

“Brahmacharya (student, ages 1-25), Gṛhastha (householder, 25-50 years), Vanaprastha (forest walker/forest dweller 50-75 years), and Sanyasa (renunciate, 75+).

Approaching my seventy-fourth birthday in a couple of weeks, I’m well on my way through the stage Ayurveda describes as Vanaprastha, or that of the forest dweller:

“The retirement stage, where a person handed over household responsibilities to the next generation, took an advisory role, and gradually withdrew from the world. Vanaprastha stage was a transition phase from a householder’s life with its greater emphasis on Artha and Kama (wealth, security, pleasure and desires) to one with greater emphasis on Moksha (spiritual liberation)”.

From there, I’m meant to be moving into Sanyasa:

“The stage marked by renunciation of material desires and prejudices, represented by a state of disinterest and detachment from material life, generally without any meaningful property or home (ascetic), and focused on moksha, peace and simple spiritual life. Anyone could enter this stage after completing the Brahmacharya stage of life.”

While I have a healthy skepticism regarding the Eastern (indeed all) teachings that I have explored over the past few decades, I do draw some encouragement from the Ayurvedic approach because they assign different growth tasks for this age than those of our western culture and education. Whereas most of my adult life was focused on maintaining a home and raising a family, I consider myself lucky to have encountered writings that lent depth and purpose to life beyond the obvious markers of success to which we subscribe (for lack of anything different, or better) in the West.

I’d like nothing better than to tie up this blog with a bow and advocate Ayurveda as the way to navigate any life stage. But personal growth, spiritual life and/or the evolution of consciousness are not one-size-fits-all. Within your own heart and soul are the steps you need to take, the directions you need to go. You can follow the Buddha’s advice to “deliberate and analyze and if it agrees with reason and conduces to the good of one and all, believe it and live up to it.”

But be sure to stick to your own particular path…

June 10, 2024

SMALL CHANGE

“When we draw a line down the center of a page, we know who we are if we’re on the right side and who we are if we’re on the left side. But we don’t know who we are when we don’t put ourselves on either side. Then we just don’t know what to do. We just don’t know. We have no reference point, no hand to hold. At that point we can either freak out or settle in.” (Pema Chödrön Six Kinds of Loneliness)

One thing about reaching an unprecedented situation or life stage is that, by virtue of its being unprecedented, one is at a loss for signposts or reference points from which to get one’s bearings in this unfamiliar territory. As Pema Chödrön well knows, this lack of signposts or certainty can be deeply disorienting. And frightening. I don’t like being disoriented any more than the next person, provided they’re anything like me and don’t go in for change in a big way, but I am seeing a path through this disorientation that offers encouragement and even novelty versus the urge to crawl under a rock until it blows over. The latter might’ve been an option if I thought this aging thing would blow over, but I’m afraid the only way that is apt to happen is one that I’m not too keen to contemplate.

So, on to my novel new idea about embracing versus avoiding change, aging, uncertainty, unpredictability, general unpleasantness etc etc. I’ve decided to let curiosity be my approach, or guide. I suggested to myself that I could start by trying one new thing a day. Not sky-diving or rock climbing, but any small thing that takes me out of my routine. For instance, the other day I wandered down aisles in the grocery store that normally never interest me. I’m an around-the-edges sort of shopper, the produce section, cheese and deli display, the flowers, and occasional chips or dairy forays. While looking for puff pastry from which to make pizza to use up the pesto sauce I made the other day (a first), I spied frozen butter chicken and other Indian dishes that I’ve become more interested in since attending a Sikh wedding, and reading a trilogy of Alka Joshi’s books on the lives of some feisty Indian women. Even this recent reading marks a departure from my usual authors, folks like Alexander McCall Smith or Amor Towles, Elin Hilderbrand and several nonfiction writers . My “curiosity move” of that day was to take home the frozen butter chicken with the intention of finding a recipe for jasmine rice, such as we enjoyed at the wedding, with the addition of a few more green things to complement all the red sauce.

Today’s departure from the norm was learning how to let myself into our condo building using my phone instead of my keys. It worked very well, but the feedback screeching caused by holding my phone too close to the intercom compels me to keep using my keys in future. At least I now know how to remotely admit visitors to our building!

The interesting discovery is how the least shift in my perspective or routine tends to give rise to more and more discoveries; just by doing things that I’d put off indefinitely, like buying better fins to aid me in the ocean swims that are infinitely more rewarding than endless laps of a too-crowded or always-booked pool, net gained energy. (Today I was actually daring to go in the ocean alone, so out of synch was my timing with my usual buddies, but luckily I met up with three other swimmers who, after our swim, even offered to share the lane they’d booked to finish up their distance.

In the process I made two new swimming acquaintances and learned about an event taking place in Kelowna this summer. It would take a great leap of courage for me to swim across Lake Okanagan, (no doubt at its narrowest point) but it’s something to which I will now give careful consideration, versus my tendency to summarily dismiss it as unrealistic: too much training, too many logistics, or too great a leap of faith. That I would even contemplate such a commitment has me wondering what has become of me, and in what other ways am I apt to roam beyond my comfort zone. For leaving my comfort zone is the only way out of what Pema Chödrön calls “samsara”.

“We hear a lot about the pain of samsara, and we also hear about liberation. But we don’t hear much about how painful it is to go from being completely stuck to becoming unstuck. The process of becoming unstuck requires tremendous bravery, because basically we are completely changing our way of perceiving reality, like changing our DNA. We are undoing a pattern that is not just our pattern. It’s the human pattern: we project onto the world a zillion possibilities of attaining resolution. We can have whiter teeth, a weed-free lawn, a strife-free life, a world without embarrassment. We can live happily every after. This pattern keeps us dissatisfied and causes us a lot of suffering.”

Making small consistent changes is one way to overcome the attachment to creature comforts (otherwise defined as the devil I know) and limiting beliefs (or fear of the unknown). Besides, who knows what I’ll find on the rest of those mystery grocery aisles?

June 3, 2024

VATA TIME

“You may find it challenging to avoid giving in to the temptation to rush, particularly if you have acclimated to a world of split-second communication with cell phones, emails, and overflowing agendas. Yet, the sense of continuous accomplishment you lose when you slow down will quickly be replaced by feelings of magnificent contentment. Your relaxed tempo will open your mind and heart to deeper levels of awareness that help you discover the true gloriousness of being alive.” (Daily Om, 03/07/24)

En route to the pool shortly after dawn the other morning, I slowed to let a couple of adult geese amble across the road to join what looked like a gosling nursery. At a quick glance there appeared to be over two dozen goslings, just starting to feather out, while a much smaller number of adult birds circulated among them. These I designated the parental geese, still supervising their rapidly growing youths. On the opposite side of the road were what I deemed the slower, senior geese, content to leave “child-rearing” to the younger, more agile birds who could, in a pinch, get out of the way of less mindful motorists. I noticed that this phenomenon only takes place at dawn; later on, as traffic builds the geese wisely head for the beach. Of course, this anthropomorphizing is my way of placing my own “seniority” in the context of another facet of the natural order.

In Ayurveda (think India’s version of Traditional Chinese Medicine) the lifespan of a human being is roughly divided into three stages, or doshas, that are named kapha dosha, or youth; pitta dosha, or middle age; and vata dosha, or old age. (Incidentally, Vedanta philosophy, also from India, divides the human lifespan into four stages: youth or student stage; householder or career stage; retirement or spiritual seeker; and, in ideal cases, the sage or enlightened stage.) Having been steeped in these eastern teachings for close to four decades, I’ve lately been drawn to the latter in search of a context for, and road map through, the unprecedented time of life that I am now experiencing.

Since getting my hip replaced in January (if not before, during the months that I couldn’t bike, hike, do yoga, etcetera) I have had rude awakening upon physical rude awakening. My orthopaedic surgeon’s glib remark that I could expect to resume my previous level — or at least variety — of physical activity at around three months post-surgery, set a bar that I’m not even close to achieving. In fact, rather than the steady improvement I anticipated, I’ve hit one figurative speed bump after another.

I need not elaborate on what are, at best, minor blips on the scale of world problems, yet these setbacks have effected my general outlook to what I deem an unhealthy degree. As I observe the senior citizens (my contemporaries) who populate much of West Vancouver, I register with some chagrin the varying degrees of disability that seem to presage my imminent future. This in turn threatens a mental slide into an “Is this all there is?” defeatism that is potentially more crippling than any physical difficulties.

A first step in getting my mind off this negative trajectory is to simply be curious. In my journal I note what’s happening physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Curiosity gives me the count-to-ten objectivity that I need to calm any “catastrophic thinking” I might be doing. Using a few key words that I remember from Ayurveda in an internet search, I find a wealth of information on the Vata time of life. I realize that few people of my acquaintance have heard of Vedanta philosophy or Ayurveda, but I’m in no doubt that many of us at this age and stage are struggling with similarly discouraging infirmities, and are vulnerable to the negative thinking that we build around these. One pundit calls this double suffering: we have the physical pain of, say, a sore hip, and the mental pain of imagining it never getting better! My particular narrative goes something like: “Will I ever be able to bike again? Should I just sell my bike and take up monopoly? Dominoes? Mah jongg? I don’t have the concentration required for playing bridge, or the New York Times crosswords. Whatever am I going to do?”

This is why it was so encouraging to read the positive spin that Ayurveda puts on Vata time. In Ayurveda, this stage of life sees a silver lining in the physical decline and even decrease in cognitive abilities. Instead of climbing new external mountains and seeking ever greater external achievements, the individual is encouraged to step back from worldly concerns and learn to savour “the true gloriousness of being alive”.

This is not as easy as it sounds, but I am learning to adopt a gentler, more introspective pace. Hopefully more purposefully than those seagulls who go nowhere, slowly. More like the geese who stay on the beach-side of the street!