Posts Tagged ‘yoga’

Yoga … Sangha … Business? - Thoughts for Twitter

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
(find me on twitter at http://twitter.com/presentjoyoga)

I’ve gotten called a “guru” on twitter. *runs and hides*.. I’ve been referenced online as one of the top ten in the yoga community on Twitter

On Following

1. Don’t follow back everyone. Some disagree with this. But see #5.
2. Follow back yogis who tweet valuable stuff - community leaders, teachers, studios in various areas, etc. There aren’t competitors on twitter, as far as I’m concerned, although there can be dissension and disagreement amongst yogis.The studio down the street? Not sure. But Twitter is a public forum, and I believe the possible best course of action is to follow, follow away! Even RT some of their stuff, if it’s valuable quotes or their own charity endeavours (of course you don’t want to tweet their marketing stuff)… if you’re uncomfortable with this idea (um, it is a BUSINESS after all), then create a personal account that is somewhat anonymous, and follow them through there, to keep tabs on how they’re using twitter.
3. Follow back “event broadcasters” and other leaders in the toronto area.
4. Wherever possible follow back actual clients/members of the studio, to develop an online personal relationship with them.
5. Cull your followers — as much as possible remove the spam accounts. There’s a fine line and sometimes it’s hard to tell. Some people will look at a person’s follows as a measure of whether to follow back; some people will look at a person’s follower count (ie the popularity contest — even better, is the following:follower ratio. If you are followed more than you follow, you evoke a different thing than if you follow hundreds more than who follows you..). It can be different for a business (not sure how), but in general I would say that it’s better to keep your news feed to two groups: those you want to follow because they interest you, regardless of whether they follow back. For example, an account that broadcasts Buddha quotes. You may wish to RT them a lot. Second, those who interact with you. This can be difficult, but try to follow whoever sends an @reply, if they are genuinely interacting with you.

Oh, the Automation

Please don’t automate anything about twitter. Instead, use a client like TweetDeck. Manage followers manually. Some “twitter marketers” will tell you how to get thousands of followers, and often recommend certain applications (not affiliated with twitter in any way). Beware. The people who actually use twitter, especially those in the yoga/spiritual community do NOT like these techniques, and smell them from miles away.

On @replies

Don’t underestimate the value of tweeting yogic messages that are very very very simple — Breathe. Bring awareness to the feeling of gravity in your body. Or quote patanjali. But also don’t neglect interacting. Respond to what interests you. Answer someone’s question, or ask your own, and be prepared to respond to most if not all replies to you. Try to reply to ALL @replies or mentions. Some people thank every person who RTed them. People like to get mail (except bills or junk mail — equivalent of spam!), and they like to get mentions. I don’t tend to reply to every single RT but maybe I should. It comes down for me to time.

On Retweets (RTs)

The more you reference other yogis, the more they will be likely to reference you — RTing is therefore valuable in the sense that you are not only spreading information that will give other users a better picture of who YOU are, you are also “recommending” them in a very real sense, and you are letting that person you RTed know that you are following them and value their tweets. Also RT the people who RT you, IF that person is tweeting stuff of value. You want to follow them to do that.

BE PERSONAL

This is a point of interest for ANYONE who uses twitter as a business identity. What do you actually do? How do you sell? How can you make money on twitter?

OK. Breathe.

Tweet about your challenges. Tweet generically about your challenges! That’s right! People RELATE to that. Tweet about goings on, to an extent. Big events? Sure! Tweet that you’re getting married, or going on a cruise, or to India, or about how there’s a GIANT weed in your backyard that you might need to just appreciate because it’s too big and prickly to remove. Tweet about your personal choices for being ecologically minded — and do these things without tying into your business. In other words, there is a place for saying “my studio/business is eco” - but if that’s all you’re doing then you’ve just bought into “green marketing”.. which yogis and others in the know will smell as simple self-serving marketing jibber jabber.

OK What About Business?

Now, being personal is trickier if you actually have more than one person updating twitter for your business. I actually do NOT like “we”.. it kind of reeks of groupthink. Either refer to yourself in the third person — “Studio Y is excited to announce Jerry as a new addition to the team” or, simply just get one person to tweet. Or get multiple people to tweet “for” the business, but under different names. Let them engage in the yoga community as themselves. You can choose to make your business a broadcast business, and then have your “reps” RT important things. I don’t think this model would be as effective.

People have sent business my way because of twitter, but I believe this is because of my personal relationship with them. And I give things for free, I mean knowledge and stuff. Some businesses do the occasional product giveaway, if that works - it could be a free complimentary pass for one class. it could be random or could be “the best response” kind of thing. But this can be excessive. Continuous self-promotion is not effective in this community.

In other words, be a yogic entity first, and a business second. Be ethical. Avoid direct PMs or unsolicited @replies that are just sales pitches — like if you sought out users by their location and then tweeted to them “come check out our studio/my website!” - that is so close to spam, if not spam. it can depend on how it’s approached. if someone tweeted, for instance “i’m really struggling with my yoga practice” you could tweet back, “what do you think is a barrier to getting deeper into your practice?” and engage in a conversation with them. they can organically look at the fact you are a local studio by checking out your profile. or you can eventually gently say “noticed you’re in our area, we’d love for you to come in for a class on us; finding a “home” to do your yoga can raelly help with a regular practice. ”

Finally

What is your approach to yoga? Frame yourself not just from a branding point of view, but convey why you personally are running a yoga business, and what makes you passionate about it. the more personal the better. Use twitpic to post pictures of yourself, if you choose to have a company logo as your avatar.. keeping in mind that a company logo as avatar casts you as a business with less of a face attached to it. I’d say this is somewhat a personal preference and a business decision that is ultimately your judgment call.

And enjoy! Enjoy interacting. Support others. Support them freely! Without condition! You’ll be amazed at the energy created through that.

Feel free to add anything I’ve missed, plus opinions, in the comments. I’m interested to build on these ideas. Also, I’m not really trying to cast myself as someone who is hocking that “how to make money through yoga on twitter!” but to try and bring yoga businesses to the realization that they actually have to be part of the community first, and a business second. this is not specific to yoga, except I think the community here is far more sensitive to when it happens the other way around (business first, yoga - yamas and niyamas? second).

Namaste

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yoga of driving

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

polluting the atmosphere isn’t really very yogic, is it.. well that’s not what im aiming to talk about here. im thinking more about how driving, at least in big cities like toronto, is really stressful.

vrooom!

i am on a campaign to reduce my own stress driving. i work at a yoga studio and i see so many people come in, and they are so tense, possibly from rushing through traffic to get there. i live in a neighbourhood that is rife with giant SUVs weaving at 20 km over the speed limit. if i drive 5 or 10 km over, i am deemed to be going too slow, and so i often stare at the grilles of other massive luxury vehicles in my rearview. i often get cut off. i often observe such idiocy and danger on the road and i feel my low blood pressure rising

so i have a few practices that i keep. The practices fall in the realm of actions while driving, and then mindset while driving. i’ll talk about the actions first:

1. breathe

oh how obvious this is… but yes. if you feel pissed off, just breathe. take a breath.

2. drive the speed limit

and so this means, don’t rush anywhere. oh boy. i try to leave an extra 15 min to get wherever i’m going. and if i am late, i dont sweat it. literally, i am better off getting there late, than getting there later because of a speeding ticket, or not at all because of an accident.

3. get tailgaters off your rear

oh, but how?? aha. this is where my driver training came in. duno if you all got the same training… basically, do not hit the brake. slow down, just a little. if you do this, you will likely ‘wake them up’ — most aren’t doing it to be aggressive, they are doing it because they are not paying attention. slowing down a bit, but not so drastically that they rear-end you, nudges them back to consciousness. they usually pass. if they pass angrily, don’t get upset, just smile. wow, they must be in a rush. good thing you aren’t.

4. leave lots of space.

keep the space in front of you big. avoid hitting your brakes, almost at all costs, especially in stop and go traffic. this will prevent you from wasting gas, or hitting someone in front of you, and you will literally get there at the same time as anyone else rushing up to the car in front and slamming their brakes.

i couldn’t find the video i wanted, but this is a good demo of what i’m talking about: u-n-l-o-c-k gridlock

vrrrooohhhhhmmmm.

let go.

is it your road? do you own it? share. let a person in if they want to get in. let go of getting there first.

lose the ego

you aren’t more important than anyone else on the road. but they think they are more important than you are. does that make you angry?
let them be more important. interestingly, they are the ones who are stressed out, not you.

consciousness.

be conscious of your own emotions on the road. if someone instigates road rage toward you because you aren’t “playing the game” of stress on the road, can you be aware of what that feels like, without reacting to it?

ahimsa

don’t retaliate. be gracious, let it go. sing in the car, smile at another driver. wave someone on. protect yourself, and otherwise, to quote the lovely Kate Bornstein, don’t be mean.

finally, i will take the opportunity to insert a little rant: DO NOT INTIMIDATE PEDESTRIANS, OK?? I see so many people try to turn right or left at an intersection, and a pedestrian is walking in the cross walk, and the car is edging… slowly… forward… as if to make the pedestrian walk faster? and then they turn, not two feet from the person’s legs! i really have to exhale when i see that happen.

drive safe, be kind, share the road, leave lots of time and lots of space. listen to nice music, and sing along. save gas, use the brake as little as possible. don’t be afraid of other drivers, but don’t try to intimidate them either. and please, let someone in with a grin!

namaste

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escaping sensation

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

in yoga, it’s best to avoid pain, and i advise students to find the edge where they can be comfortable but with just enough effort.

The posture should be comfortable and easy.
~ Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

yoga is not static. even when “holding” postures, there is movement in the body. energy flows from the ground up, from the crown down to the feet, and through outstretched arms. as the body finds alignment, sensations change. as the posture is held muscles feel different, strength waxes and wanes, the breath may become shallow, and then on reminder, become deep again.

it’s fun to explore postures. in a high lunge, wiggling the hips from side to side opens up the joints, and provides stretches in different places. find the sensation, and stay in it, holding, breathing into it. create space with your breath.

are you escaping?

yet it is also possible to “wiggle” enough to escape sensation. possible to arrange the posture “just so”, in a way perhaps that looks nice, or gets deeper, but doesn’t stretch the muscles evenly, or doesn’t stretch them at all. sometimes it is about relaxation. sometimes the skeleton finds itself compressed in a joint, and a person’s unique skeleton requires a shift, perhaps not in ideal alignment to ‘get by the bone’. people’s shoulders can be this way. some people can’t lift their arms up over their head from the front - they get to shoulder height and have to come out to the side. it can be like this in different places in the body.

becoming more aware of the difference between healthy sensation and pain, and sensation and escape from sensation, are useful inquiries.

try this at home

come into a forward bend: exhale, hinge at the hips, and instead of rounding the back to get as close to your knees as possible, keep the back straight. one way to try this is to place hands on hips as you come down. exhale on the way down, draw your belly in, and your hips will have more room to fold over. breathe. feel the stretch in your hamstrings, all the way up your legs. move your hips slightly. draw your tailbone down towards ground. don’t not drop your hands just yet.. keep your back straight.

if you can’t reach the floor, you may want props. it might be blocks, or if you don’t have those, try anything else that’s stable enough. thick books, a bench/low stool, or even a chair. bend one knee and straighten the other knee. alternate back and forth, releasing the tension in one leg and increasing sensation in the other. hold on one side. even out the hips. extend out of your waist. keep a straight back. hold on the other side. come back into a full forward bend with both knees straight.

then come into the forward bend you may be used to doing, the one that gets you closer to your knees. do you notice a difference in sensation? do you feel your lower back more now? do you feel less of a stretch in your hamstrings? is the sensation lower or higher up your legs? both may give you a stretching sensation, but notice the difference. try the first one again. is it more intense?

ego? comfort? go inside and look

think about whether you are striving to get your head to your knees when you are at your regular yoga class. notice if you feel reluctant to back off and go for the bigger stretch because it doesn’t look as impressive, or make you feel as flexible (if you feel strongly that your striving is for your own personal challenge only).

both forward bends are okay, though if you have problems with your lower back you want to try and keep a straight back. if you have osteopenia or osteoporosis, be careful with forward bends, especially coming back up to standing.

explore sensation, find the edge, and honour your body — where it is at today, right now. you’ll get “further” in the long run, i promise.

namaste

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when i speak from my experience

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

the language of i

many of us have heard of i statements.

for instance, instead of “you are annoying,” it’s less harmful to say “i am feeling very annoyed with you right now.”

this is advice often given to parents, i suppose to try and avoid equating child with behaviour and casting certain individuals to lifelong identities of crime and misdemeanor.

in other words, “i statement” means no name calling.

the practice of ahimsa means to cultivate non-violence. violence can be with words, not just actions, like bopping someone over the head with a gopher because they’re being annoying. name calling is a kind of violence.

but there’s more..

there’s another (lack of) use of ‘i’ statements that i really want to talk about here. it’s pervasive, and i don’t know how far back this useage goes.

i’ll lay a (fictional-but-based-on-real-life) scene out for you. it’s between an unnamed but very successful talk show host, and her interviewee.

Host: “so tell me, ivan, what were you feeling leading up to the moment you killed your wife?”

ivan: “well, you know. hmm. you know you feel like you’ve been managing for a lot of years, and you even convince yourself you’re happy sometimes, you know? and then, like, one day, you don’t know if there’s any point in trying anymore, you don’t believe it’s going to change. and then you, like, you just start having thoughts, and at first you can dismiss them but they just build and build until you can’t put them out of your mind, and it seems the only way to get rid of them is for you to do something…”

wait. what? i’m ivan, and i’m a killer? is famous host a killer? who is the “you” he is referring to?

a couple things about this:

  • ivan didn’t answer the question, at least linguistically. he didn’t say “*i* was feeling this, that and the other, and then *i* felt this way.”
  • he wasn’t in the past tense, he was in the present tense. grammatically then, he was decoupling the situation from its moment in time.
  • by using ‘you’ instead of ‘i’, ivan was disavowing his experience. meaning, when he said “you feel this” he disidentified with his words. he placed them on his listener. perhaps this was a way of subconsciously trying to gain identification from his listeners, so that he himself didn’t feel like a monster. i mean, anyone can kill their wife, right? what he described is common enough experience so “you could be feeling this too”… right?

this is an extreme example of “you” language. it should be acknowledged, though i’m not grammatician, that the use of ‘proverbial you’ i believe is useful and needed at times. but i think it’s overused to the point of being a sign — a symptom if you will, of how alienated people are from themselves.

ok, but i’m not a psychopathic killer

compare these two passages, an example of a mundane situation that is more relatable (perhaps):

when you approach the speaker at the drive thru, sometimes they answer right away but sometimes you can wait forever for someone to come. you can’t always hear them well, and they usually mess up your order. then, they don’t always tell you what window to pull up to, so you take a slow.. pass by the first window and if there’s no one there, you assume it’s the second window. when they hand you the change, it’s always coins on top of bills which you can’t understand, because change in the hand first is a lot more secure.

i find that when i go to a drive thru, there are times when i have to wait a while before someone serves me. i have a hard time hearing the person through the intercom. i find they often get my order incorrect, but that may be because i always take cheese and lettuce off my order, so it’s a special case. i’m often also not really sure where to pay, and i find the transfer of money is awkward because a lot of cashiers like to put the change on top of the bills and receipts, which seems very unstable to me.

i think it’s palpable, the difference between these two passages, which are essentially saying the same thing.

the second is grounded in one person’s — the speaker’s — experience.

it communicates the specificity of their account, but doesn’t exclude the possibility of someone identifying with some or all of it.

they aren’t imposing the experience on the listener, they are owning their own perspective and voice.

a meditation on this concept

i bring this to my awareness. i notice how others are speaking about their experiences. i notice if i am using “you” language when i speak. i notice how it feels to use “i” language.

namaste

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witness consciousness

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

some core benefits of yoga and meditation are the very things that are most difficult for practitioners, especially when they are starting out. in the beginning, meditation, relaxation and breathing exercises where the mind is “supposed” to focus on the breath, or ideally be “empty of all thoughts” are especially difficult. the goal of an empty mind seems like a distant and ridiculous goal for so many people.

but we want peace, right? so we need to try and empty the mind, try and not have all those thoughts, try and focus and find the pure state of nothingness that is the buddha. right?

i wonder how many people give up. i wonder how many people hear “let your mind rest, become peaceful, put the world and your worries away,” and never come back to a class because they can’t do it? how many people sit in class and hold in their urge to squirm and shift, and berate themselves for not being able to clear their mind and become one with their mat? that’s far from relaxing, isn’t it?

oh, the noise!

a partial journey out of this struggle involves learning about monkey mind, and picking apart the myth of silent mind.


monkey mind is the constant chatter the mind does. thinking about the past, the future, problems, plans, desires, feelings, resentments, questions, fears. all amount of effort to silence this seems to make it worse!

i’ve done it myself - i’ve sat in meditation, and become more and more upset because i just couldn’t find a stillness. my body wants to move, my mind is chattering away, and as soon as i’ve brought it back to watch the breath, i’m back thinking about what i’ll need to get at the hardware store later.

while long-term practitioners of meditation and yoga may find moments of “silent mind”, most likely don’t experience pristine silence throughout practice. when they do find peaceful quiet from monkey mind, they didn’t get there by forcing their full weight on the monkey to silence him. pushing the monkey and telling him to “shaddup” is only going to make him yell louder. so how in the world can you tame monkey mind?

becoming “one”

some people will suggest that it’s a matter of “becoming one with”. the idea of moving like water. instead of resisting, go with it. ahhh. well this does feel easier. just let it happen, man! just sit in meditation and think about your shopping list! it’s just fine, really. the mind does what it wants to do. become one with your mind, become one with your body, the planet, the universe!

geeks letting go

yeah, that’s the idea… but perhaps it’s missing a step to suggest this first. i’ve talked to students who are incredibly confused by this, or simply unable to do it. so am i. how do i become one with my anger when everything i’ve ever learned is telling me that it’s wrong?? now should i be telling myself it’s the opposite of wrong? should i be telling myself that it’s wrong to have the aversions i have to anger? if my anger is telling me to go smash something, are you telling me that is not wrong? no that has to be wrong! ok i’m confused about what is right and wrong. what am i supposed to tell myself?

witness consciousness

kripalu yoga in stage II involves cultivating witness consciousness. this is a sort of non-judgmental awareness which begins (and ends) with noticing. witness consciousness is applicable to yoga practice and meditation and then can become an awareness that filters into every aspect of life.

non-judgemental awareness is a very different way of engaging with the spiral that happens in the mind. the spiral goes something like this:

  1. i have a thought
  2. i am aware of that thought and i don’t like it (because i’m supposed to be meditating?)
  3. try to put it out of my mind
  4. berate myself for having the thought
  5. i am not able to get rid of the thought
  6. i berate myself for not being able to get rid of the thought
  7. i berate myself for berating myself
  8. etc.

the spiral can get quickly out of control. it’s as if, i think that by yelling at myself, i can whip myself into submission. oh, no it doesn’t work that way. self-immolation is a chinese finger trap. chinese finger trap the harder i try to resist and force my way out of the unpleasantness of my mind, the harder my mind squeezes me.

the practice of witness consciousness can effectively short circuit the spiral that happens with the mind. where do i get attached? in becoming “one” with my thoughts and emotions am i not attaching to them, seeing them as part of me, and thus unable to let them come and go?

begin with yoga. i do a forward bend. oh, my hamstrings are tight today. ok i can notice that. then i notice that i am beginning to have feelings about that. perhaps feelings of inadequacy, or frustration about it. i wasn’t this tight yesterday! perhaps i notice myself striving to go further, and ignoring the threshold where i am pushing too far. just noticing. hm. interesting how my mind is behaving. let’s watch this some more.

practicing witness consciousness has helped me see where i move from being aware of a particular thought or feeling or state, into making *meaning* out of it. i become aware of how i’m taking thoughts and running with them (or allowing them to run me).

mandala

letting go?

witnessing means that i am, in a way, a bystander to my mind. i am not my mind, i am watching my mind. therefore, even as i experience myself as a constant in the universe, i can realize that my mind is not constant. it becomes possible to let a thought come, and let it go.

the last sentence offers an interesting “out” to the problem of monkey mind: “let it come”. we focus so much on letting go. but in order to let it go we have to let it come.

so if you feel a cry coming on in a yoga class, what do you do with it? stuff it inside? what if you let it come?

if you are laying in bed and can’t stop thinking about what you have to do tomorrow, why stop? perhaps the lack of sleep will give you something you need. can you be open to that?

if you are sick, and your body needs rest, are you stuffing more cold medicine into you and ignoring the pain, or can you listen and let yourself rest and the cold work itself out?

let it come. notice it. then you can see if you are able it go.

jai bhagwan

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yogatree

Friday, February 6th, 2009
February 10, 2009
1:30 pmto3:00 pm
February 15, 2009
10:00 amto11:30 am
March 13, 2009
6:00 pmto7:15 pm
March 14, 2009
2:00 pmto3:30 pm

great news!

i’ll be teaching more classes at yogatree in thornhill and richmond hill!

at the time of this post:

  • feb 10th @ 1:30pm yogatree thornhill
  • feb 15th @ 10am yogatree thornhill

more dates to come in late march. check the calendar!

you can also find my teaching schedule online at yogatag.com

i know there is more than one yogatree. i’m talking about the one in north toronto, canada.

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openings

Friday, February 6th, 2009

i want to put aside the law of attraction and any motivational shtuff for a moment. okay.

the ideas coming out of western adoption of “yogic hinduism”, buddhism, i ching, well, they’re very interesting and creative, current, timely and perhaps more palatable versions of the deep wellspring that is ancient wisdom.

i’m new at this, but i’ve been doing it for thousands of years. i’m a ‘budding buddhist’; i am only beginning to realize the extent of my suffering; i am only beginning to tease out the illusions and attachments i have suffered under

so, i’m riding the wave of life as a fledgling. i’m stumbling, withdrawing, protesting, posturing, and striving my way to some sort of greater awareness. yoga has helped me. judaism has helped me. buddhism has helped me. so have yoga teacher training, psychotherapy, anthropology graduate school, my lovers, my failures, and everything in between.

i graduated as a certified kripalu yoga teacher in august 2008. it was an incredible experience, and it showed me pieces of myself i had thought disappeared. my lover, who had ended things a short time before my training, saw me in this new state and in a way realized that i was deeper and stronger than i’d seemed. he opened, as i began to open.

pain

like many souls - if not all souls - on the journey, my heart has known great pain. i think it’s because of this pain that i’ve grown a compassionate heart. my challenges are mental and physical. sometimes i feel as though i am the finest seismograph to the emotional landscape.

i spent a lot of years closed off — or trying to close off — the intensity of emotion that i experience. looking into people’s eyes sometimes hurts. physical proximity stirs up a lot, and i draw back. the presence of my own self has been too much to bear, at times. “i” needed to disappear. depression and anxiety have been almost lifelong.

opening

the world has been opening, as i have been opening. it seems, actually, that these two things are not different, because i-being is not separate from world-being. there is no “out there” that isn’t a reflection of what is “in here”.

that is what i am learning from my current journey. as i open my heart, physically through yoga, emotionally through yoga, and even more through teaching yoga, i am becoming more connected with my suffering. i learned about witness consciousness, which is a way to observe the self, non-judgmentally. bring kind to myself has meant that i am doing less of that closing off. being kind to myself has made it possible for me to learn how to ask and receive kindness from others.

witnessing the ways i am being in the world has opened up realms of possibility. i see things i have to offer people, and i have opened enough to share some of them.

teaching yoga is one of those things. i was so afraid, i had no idea why anyone would want *me* to teach them yoga! however i have received such blessings from teaching. i continue to find a world open to me, as i open to myself.

attraction

what about attraction, then? i am sensing that i am not attracting things too me, as if they were being manifested by me — they were always already there.

so opening is a process of discovery. a treasure hunt!

in JOY,
namaste

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injury and yoga

Friday, January 30th, 2009

today i am in pain. yesterday, i went to a yoga with a teacher i’m subbinng for next week. i wanted to experience her class to get a sense of how she teaches, thus what her students might expect, and how i can address what might be some expectations they’ll have.

attending classes as a teacher (known as such to the teacher) is a very particular and interesting experience. maybe i’ll discuss in another post.

this post is about pain. yes, pain. at ytt (yoga teacher training) i recall someone pointing out that there is a difference between pain and sensation. that it’s important to learn this, and teach students about this. the thing is, i’m having trouble with it.

i can tell when my joints are in pain. they’re either in pain, or not in pain. the joints get stressed - there is either ligament or tendon overstretch, or there is joint compression. ouch. many yoga teachers have trouble with knees, especially at first. so i’ve heard.

sensation and pain

tension and sensation vs. pain is a trickier one for me. when have i crossed that line? a few thoughts:

  • often crossing the edge means the breath has become constricted.
  • there is tension in other places in the body
  • the mind is striving, wanting to get further
  • um.

the thing is, all of these things kind of “surround” instead of describing the pain itself. they are byproducts, if you will. like, when it rains, there are generally clouds in the sky, or it is overcast; but that is a more distant feature or way of describing rain; being overcast is not sufficient or necessary to describe rain. what about saying that droplets of water hitting the ground and my face? that perhaps captures the direct experience of rain a bit more?

same with pain. however pain is not necessary to addressing the above list. for instance, striving. we need not cross into pain in order to examine how we are striving, and why. this is a worthy inquiry in itself.

a way out?

still, what to do with pain? it is necessary to protect the body, honour it, listen to what it is saying. pain is also a way of exploring suffering. chronic pain is one example of that. sometimes, pain manifests in ways that don’t come out of agency-based action (at least in a clear way).

so, what does the mind do with suffering? what is keeping me from causing myself more suffering? the path out of ignorance. this is what the seeker is seeking.

namaste, jai bhagwan


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