In last week’s love note, I mentioned the ancient text called The Yoga Sutras, written by a figure (shrouded in some mystery) known as Patanjali. The text is comprised of 196 short, pithy sutras. These 196 enigmatic gems of wisdom present the great teachings of yoga on the nature of consciousness as well as the 8-limbed path that leads to the state of yoga. The “state of yoga” is something ineffable, but attempts describe it make use of words like: union with the True Self; a certain stillness of non-reactivity and ethical action; freedom from conditioned habitual patterns of being; peace; the realization of our highest essence; bliss.

One of the 8 limbs outlined in the Yoga Sutras is asana, the physical posture practice of yoga. In modern Western culture, the limb of asana is often removed from its tree of origin and presented in isolation as if it were yoga entire. The practices we will share together this session will emphasize asana, I do my best to offer asana in a way that I hope begins to re-graft the limb. These weekly love notes and conversations we may share will help us understand asana as more than exercise, but as a movement practice that grounds spirituality in the body.

A few thoughts about asana today.

The Sanskrit word asana literally means “to sit.” Most commentators suggest that asana practice was classically intended to prepare the body to sit for long periods of time in a meditative position such as Lotus pose.

The term asana also may be used in a more figurative sense, meaning not just "to sit," but “to sit with.” Every yoga shape we embody, whether we be standing on our hands or our feet, reclined, or prone, offers us the opportunity to “sit with” what arises from moment to moment…. the pleasant and challenging physical sensations… changes to our breath patterns… the rise and fall of emotions… the movement of energy... and of course, an endless stream of thoughts that may be helpful and kind, or unhelpful and unkind. Asana challenges us develop the capacity to sit, in steadiness and ease, with all of this stuff.

Respected and beloved international yoga teacher Donna Farhi, writes:

Through exploring both familiar and unfamiliar postures, we are also expanding our consciousness, so that regardless of the [yoga] form or [daily life] situation we find ourselves in, we can remain “comfortably seated,” in our centre.

Here Donna is pointing to one of the many fruits of asana: we may begin to notice, on our yoga mats and in our lives, that we can be more often “comfortably seated” even in moments when it feels like a big boot is kicking our sweet yoga butt.

For most of us humans, this takes a lot of practice over time. We might approach our asana as a practice in getting comfortable with discomfort. To remain always inside the comfort zone (physically, mentally, emotionally) in our asana practice would be to minimize not only the vast potential of this practice, but also to minimize our own vast potential.

Please understand that I’m not talking about blowing through the warning signs. Asana does not ask us, ever, to jeopardize our safety or to distress our nervous system. It does ask us to be willing to get uncomfortable enough to stimulate change, growth, development, progress, learning, and healing. Finding the sweet spot at the edge of comfort requires focussed awareness of body, breath and mind, keen discernment, bright curiosity, and oodles plus oodles more kindness and compassion directed inward.

And so. We stretch and reach our good selves just to the edge of our comfort zone.

And right there, right at that rich and fertile edge, we do our best to embody sthira sukha, steadiness and ease. As we do, we teach ourselves (and our nervous systems) that we are okay with being stretched a bit.

Every time we find a way to soften and smooth a breath that may otherwise become tight or jagged, we are communicating okay-ness with this place of growth.

Every time, at the edge of our comfort zone, we find a way to release habitual patterns of gripping and clinging; every time we soften needless tension; every time we emphatically engage and awaken those aspects of ourselves that may be numb, weak, under-utilized, or just tuned out; every time, we are showing ourselves—I’m okay. I can be okay with this thing that is stretching me, challenging me, asking me to grow in new directions.

Every time we choose to sit with the challenges rather than running away...

Every time we notice racing thoughts of judgment and negativity, deliberately disengage, and intentionally let them go...

Every time—and it may be dozens or hundreds of times in a single class—we are sending ourselves a message. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.

Asana asks us to be always curious, aware, and kind. To be continually honing our capacity for discernment. To be ever listening inwardly, making adjustments to our physical and energetic expression, inquiring again, tinkering some more with finer and ever finer tuning until we become the embodiment of steadiness and ease in mind, body, and breath.

And here, in this asana practice of yoga, we may approach the state of yoga: union with our Higher Self. Perhaps even sensing a place where the concepts of “me” and “my body” and “everything else” dissolve, and to use the words of Michael Stone:

a place where everything is like the twilight time when the coming night and the conclusion of the day collapse into one another, and one feels no separation.

Wholeness.

Bliss.

It’s the path of a lifetime, friends. Let’s go!

As always in asana, please modify the invitations I offer to suit your constitution and individual needs of the day. If you get confused or are unsure of yourself in any movement, pause, breathe out, relax. Sit with it. Find your roots, find your star, and wait for the inner guidance that will come when you are grounded and uplifted, steady and at ease.

I’m here to help.

more on asana

As we play around the edges of our comfort zone in our physical yoga practice, asana grows our capacity for equanimity (“I’m okay”) in life’s unpredictable circumstances. It is important to note that this equanimity comes not from performing increasingly impressive feats of stretching, twisting and balancing in asana, but from the quality of awareness and the angle of approach with which we are meeting whatever posture we practice.

Deepening our asana does not necessarily mean that our bodies move more fully into the formal pose. Deepening may be more about continually relaxing into the asana as it is, as we hone our curiosity and kindness towards what it is we are finding.

Alignment in asana ultimately is not about creating the perfect external shape—whatever “perfect” might mean. It may be more helpful to think of alignment cues as invitations for greater awareness and novel ways of moving… as guide maps by which we might safely take the body outside of its habitual ways of moving. Continually testing alignment cues and refining them in a way that works for our own unique present-moment physicality will keep us in integrity with our bodies and with the yoga forms themselves.

More subtly, alignment in asana is about optimizing the conditions for the smooth, generous, unimpeded flow of prana through the network of energetic pathways in our subtle body.

Ultimately, asana is a practice of meeting ourselves, of placing our self back in our body and learning to perceive clearly through it.

We live in a time of extreme dissociation from bodily experience. When we are not embodied, we are distanced and dissociated from our instincts, intuitions, feelings and insights. The insidious ways in which we become numb to our bodily experience and the feelings and perceptions that arise from them leave us powerless to know who we are, what we believe in, and what kind of world we wish to create. Every violent impulse begins in a body filled with tension; every failure to reach out to someone in need begins in a body that has forgotten how to feel.

Asana reattaches us to our body. In reattaching ourselves to our bodies, we reattach ourselves to the responsibility of living a life guided by the undeniable wisdom of the body. (from Lauren Walker)

Let’s carry these thoughts with us as we continue to explore asana together. For the remainder of this session, we will weave in teachings from the first two limbs of classical yoga, the Yamas and Niyamas, which outline the ten ethical precepts of the Yogic lifestyle.

introducing the yamas and niyamas

Together the Yamas and Niyamas outline the ten ethical precepts of the Yogic lifestyle. Just as with asana, the Yamas and Niyamas are not ends in themselves, but vehicles that help us feel better inside our own skin, and bridges that can connect us to the essence of who we really are. So rather than a list of the Top Ten Do's and Don’ts of the Yogi, we might think of the Yamas and Niyamas as shining light on our fundamental inherent goodness, bringing out the goodness that is already alive inside of us. The degree to which these observances are easy (or difficult) for us shows us how close to our essence (or how distant from it) we may be at any moment. When we are living these teachings well, we may notice that we have greater equanimity, more ease, peace, freedom, and joy in our lives; and we kinda just like ourselves more 🙂

We are not tasked with learning these ethics, but with un-learning all of that which distances us from our natural built-in inclinations to observe them.

The Yamas are:

Ahimsa: peacefulness
Satya: truthfulness
Asteya: generosity or non-stealing
Brahmacharya: balance and moderation in the application of our energies
Aparigraha: greedlessness

The Niyamas are:

Saucha: cleanliness, purity
Santosha: peacefulness
Tapas: zeal, fervency
Svadhyaya: self-study
Isvara Pranidhana: surrender, faith

Acharya Shunya describes the ten Yamas and Niyamas collectively as “dharma values."

“Dharma” is a word that can mean different things in different contexts and traditions. Drawing on the ancient texts of yoga, Shunya defines dharma as an essentially secular and universal ethical code of conduct. Dharma is universal and secular, she writes, because it is innate in every human.

It is the natural and rarefied expression of our highest Self, expressed through emotionally mature and self-responsible human-hood…

Dharma is never externally imposed (yoga is not about policing and condemning). It is an internally-experienced urge to align with a greater ethical principle, heard as the voice of our own conscience. In this sense, everything we need to know really is already inside of us. As we begin to consciously live in accord with the Yamas and Niyamas, we may find ourselves with an odd feeling of familiarity—that we know this stuff already. It’s because we do! As dharma values, the Yamas and Niyamas are simply shining light on our innate understanding, our inherent sense of right and wrong that is at the core of humanity.

I’ve heard it said that humans seem to be the only species that “forgets our original instructions” for qualities such as honesty, non-violence, accountability. We know when we’ve strayed from the dharma when we feel the pinch of our own conscience, and we notice our inner peace and freedom disturbed. It’s okay. Personal integrity allows for mistakes, embraces forgiveness, and humbly makes self-directed corrections towards dharma thoughts and action. As we make amends, as we do better, we begin to feel better.

(And isn’t this why we come to yoga? To feel better inside?)

The Yamas and Niyamas are in a way protecting us with an armour of values that act as an internal check, a preventative against peace and freedom-destroying actions in favour of a life of more refined consciousness. A life which upholds and reinforces our inner peace and joy even as it brightens the world around us.

And this, of course, is the over-arching purpose of the entire system and all of the practices of yoga.

It is for peace and harmony in our own minds, bodies and energy systems that we practice, for peace and harmony in the natural environment, the social environment. These are the fruits borne from the branches of Yama and Niyama, and there they are, already lodged within each human heart, and so ripe for the picking. To discover them, cherish and value their nourishment, and ultimately to live by their guidance is the task of each embodied soul.

In the remainder of this session, we will delve into each of the 5 Yamas, one by one. May these classes help us to relate to our yoga practice as much more than exercise, more even than "mindful movement." Yoga is a way of life. Living yoga puts us in right relation to ourselves and the world.

ahimsa

Storms rage about me. I calm my heart and send out ribbons of peace.

Deborah Adele

The yamas are a practice of ethical observances. As with our movement practice of asana, the internal shifts we feel when we explore the yamas become more profound the more deeply we engage. Jack Kornfield writes:

At first, these precepts are a practice. Then they become a necessity. Finally, they become a joy, shining virtues that spontaneously illuminate our way in the world.

During class these next several weeks, I’ll invite us to explore the yamas as we relate to ourselves in asana. For homework, (should you choose to accept ;), I also invite you bring the yamas to life in your world of relations with others, practicing all of these ethics in thought, speech, and action.

As we practice, it is good to be reminded that the yamas are not limiting and rigid dogmatic codes to be followed mechanically. Rather, they are movable, breathable, dynamic guidances that honour both the wisdom tradition of yoga and, more deeply, the truth of our essential being. We are to let them guide our decisions, and to reflect upon the consequences. Approached this way, the yamas are not crusty dry moralistic concepts, but vibrant, exciting, transformative forces that can lead to greater wisdom, and fundamentally alter our experience of life.

The first yama is ahimsa: “himsa” meaning harm; and “a” meaning not. So ahimsa can be translated as non-harming, non-violence or simply peace.

Ahimsa is so valued that it stands as the very core of all yoga philosophy and practice. We yogis are asked to observe non-violence as the foundation for our lives. And although the tradition of yoga teaches that ahimsa is who we are - you, me, everybody - our peaceful nature very often gets obscured. As we live, we get “lifed.” Yogis take very seriously their responsibility to locate and peel back layer after crusty layer of life's deposits in order to unearth the ahimsa that is in fact there, shining, waiting, ready, in the core of our being. Yours. Mine. Everybody’s.

Our movement practice is a beautiful ground for us to practice and cultivate ahimsa. Every posture we move our bodies into can come from a place of harming or non-harming; from a place of subtle self-aggression, or a place of peace and self-love.

With the cultivation of ahimsa as our guiding intention in asana, we are curious and keyed throughout our practice to notice when there may be agitation and struggle in our minds, breath, or bodies. We respond with kindness, doing our best to make the adjustments to mind, body, and breath that will ease tension, agitation and struggle, and open our access to peace.

Remember Lauren Walker’s observation:

Every violent impulse begins in a body filled with tension.

Asana can help us release tension and ground ahimsa in our bodies.

In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, it is written that “when one is firmly grounded in the virtue of non-harming, all enmity is abandoned in their presence.” In other words, when we observe and embody ahimsa, others drop their defensive strategies and hostility, their animosity and intolerance. Peace spreads like a wave. Our personal practice of ahimsa becomes a gift to self and to others.

Here’s a quote I’ve seen attributed to Holocaust survivor Ellie Hillesum:

Ultimately we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

Note her use of the word reclaim. We are not claiming or learning ahimsa for the first time. We are unlearning hostile and violent conditioning, and reclaiming what is already ours: peacefulness.

And (phew!) yet another powerful quote, Frederick Buechner:

The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.

There is power in this practice, friends. When, through our yoga practice or otherwise, we can catch glimpses of ahimsa within ourselves, we begin to believe in it, to act in accord. And we begin to recognize the ever-peaceful place in others around us too. We can see it shining like the moon there beneath the layers of cloud, and we can choose to reflect that peace back upon the world, so that others might begin to believe in its ever-presence too.

And then, well, as Frederick says, who knows where the trembling stops, or in what far place our peaceful touch may be felt.

Friends, let’s practice.

satya

Last week we began exploring the five yamas by considering the first—ahimsa (non-violence, non-harming, peacefulness). I wonder how the invitation to explore and embody the energy of ahimsa may have impacted the way you met yourself during class last week? I wonder if you may have found opportunity since then to bring your yoga to life, contemplating ahimsa in the complex context of our world?

This week we consider the second yama, satya. Satya is truthfulness. Satya means being committed to seeking our truth and expressing it in thought, word, and deed. It is, as Nischala Joy Devi reminds us, a practice of dedication to the truth that nestles in our hearts.

A dedication to living satya means showing people the truth of who we really are without the need to fudge or stretch, hide or deceive. This is not always (ever?) easy. Whether we’ve been living white lies or telling them, a commitment to satya can at first be disruptive, messy, and sometimes tremendously unpopular amongst those around us. Perhaps our dedication to satya becomes easier as we grow in our trust that although satya is often inconvenient, satya is beautiful, and it is always enough.

Deborah Adele ain’t pulling any punches when she says this about Truth:

Perhaps you have read the Chronicles of Narnia… In a passage from the first book in the series… four children are about to be introduced to the mighty King Aslan by Mr and Mrs Beaver. Mr Beaver lets them know that Aslan can right wrongs, banish sorrow, drive out winter, and bring spring to the land. When asked if Aslan is a man, Mr Beaver sternly declares that Aslan is definitely not a man - he is the King of Beasts and anyone who approaches him should go with their knees knocking. The children are afraid that Aslan isn’t safe, and their fears are confirmed by Mr Beaver. But he also assures them that although the King of Beasts isn’t safe, he is good.

[stick with me, coming to the point now…]

Like Aslan the lion king, the jewel of Satya, or truthfulness, isn’t safe, but it is good. Truth has the power to right wrongs and end sorrows. It is fierce in its demands and magnanimous in its offerings. It invites us to places we rarely frequent and where we seldom know what the outcome will be. If we don’t approach truth “with our knees knocking” we haven’t really understood the profoundness of this guideline… truth demands integrity to life and to our own self that is more than simply not telling a lie.

When we strive to be real rather than just “nice," when we choose self-expression over self-indulgence, and personal growth over the need to belong, we begin to understand the deeper dynamics of satya, and we begin to taste the freedom and goodness of truthfulness.

Satya builds bonds of trust. When folks practice truthfulness with you, you trust them. Just so, practicing satya-with-self in asana will build bonds of trust between you and your body, and that’s a beautiful thing. So how might we practice satya on the mat?

One way is to continually question whether the poses and postural cues our instructor offers are actually true for us. Perhaps some are, and certainly a whole bunch won’t be. This isn’t a bad thing—it doesn’t mean we don’t belong and it doesn’t make it a bad practice. It is instead an opportunity to practice satya.

Our first and foremost consideration in asana is to be true to our own bodies as they are showing up in the moment—finding our own “just right” balance of steadiness and ease, trusting the enough-ness of it, and letting go of bullying, pushing and pulling our selves beyond our own truth into somebody else’s version of a form or flow. There is so much room for self expression in asana practice. So much room for us all to be true to who we are just exactly as we are showing up, even if that may be something different from what the instructor is suggesting. As long as the ways we are choosing to move our body are safe expressions of our truth and do not detract from the group energy, it’s game on.

The challenge is to feel and express satya in every breath and every shape. Anything else, frankly, is an application of energy that isn’t really yoga.

Expressing truth is a challenge that requires first knowing our truth. This simple awareness can be tricky business too. Often we mistake what we have been conditioned to believe about ourselves for the truth of our heart. Sometimes our satya gets squashed and distorted beyond recognition beneath the weight of who we think we should be and various other heavinesses we tell ourselves about ourselves. And the danger is that we just keep on truckin’ through our practice—or our life—thinking, speaking and acting somebody else’s version of us without ever slowing down to inquire Who am I?

What is my Truth?

Yoga reminds us that sincere asking (inward) followed by quiet, intent listening (inward) opens the way to satya. The awareness we develop in our yoga practices can only help us find it.

I’d like to share one more quote with you. Here’s what Donna Farhi has to say about Satya:

…even when we become clear enough to recognize what truth means for us, we may lack the courage and conviction to live our truth. Following what we know to be essential for our growth may mean... making choices that are not supported by consensual reality or ratified by the outer culture. The truth is rarely convenient. One way we can know we are living the truth is that while our choices may not be easy, at the end of the day we feel at peace with ourselves.

And that’s really the point of it all, right? More and more peace. And more peace inside of us translates directly to more peace in this troubled world.

May the observance of Satya help move us all towards Ahimsa.

asteya

The yamas are the very first branch of classical yoga. They are five ethical precepts that, when dynamically observed, promise to leave us feeling more spacious, at ease, and content inside of ourselves, just like yoga’s physical forms and breath practices do.

The guidance of the yamas is not intended to make us feel as if we are the subject of somebody’s finger-wagging. Yoga lays out these ethics for us not because we need to learn to behave in a way that overrides some fundamental badness. Just the opposite! The whole point of yoga is to lead us into union with our inherent fundamental goodness, and the yamas are like a mirror that reflects to us our True Nature. If we may have lost our sight of that place, observance of the yamas brings us home, and also may help us to find—and unwaveringly believe in—the fundamental goodness of all others. Every single one.

We have already touched on the first two yamas, ahimsa (peacefulness) and satya (truthfulness). Onwards to the third yama, asteya. In the simplest most literal translation, asteya is “non-stealing.” Asteya asks that we take only what is freely given, and that we use only what we need.

Most of us are uncomfortably familiar with that prickly impulse to grab for more than our share, or to take what is not rightly ours, and then… to hold on tight and keep it all for ourselves. Unless we are amongst the populations of humans truly existing without the basic necessities of life (which is another conversation), we recognize that the impulses to steal and hoard are the products of an unsatisfied mind. Stealing always springs from a place of perceived lack, a sense that we don’t have enough or that we’re somehow not enough as we are—moments when we are blind to our own abundance.

And so, in the perpetual quest for something that might finally feel like “enoughness,” we take what isn’t rightfully ours. We may not be guilty of stealing material stuff and money, but we might consider how our habit of chronic lateness might be robbing folks of their time; or how our distracted nature and barely-there presence may rob others of their excitement, their sense of worth, their joy; or all of the ways our energy of negativity steals hope from everybody around us. How much do we grab and hoard every day from the Earth in our desire for more ease and comfort? In our quest for the supersized, what security are we stealing from future generations?

Tough questions, indeed.

Gandhi is even more blunt in his challenge to look at our wants in the light of asteya:

We are not always aware of our real needs, and most of us improperly multiply our wants, and then unconsciously make thieves of ourselves… One who follows the observance of non-stealing will bring a progressive reduction of [their] wants. Much of the distressing poverty of this world has arisen out of the breaches of the principle of non-stealing.

Asteya asks us to remember that when we steal from others, not only are we doing violence to them, but we are also robbing ourselves of our own inner peace. Our ahimsa. It’s what the whole practice of living yoga keeps circling back to: peace, peace, peace.

Hopeful words from Deborah Adele bring the concept of reciprocity to this difficult discussion:

The ancient vedic scriptures speak of taking nothing without giving something back. Imagine what would happen if each time we took something, we gave something back? If we lived with an inherent sense of reciprocity?

As we open to the deep spirit of asteya, we can hear it calling out to us to live with a sense of reciprocity—not simply to refrain from taking, but also to ground ourselves in our own abundance, cultivate generosity of heart, and grow our capacity to give.

It is through giving, writes Nischala Joy Devi, that “asteya has the power to initiate us into material and spiritual prosperity beyond our greatest expectations.”

How might we embody asteya in asana practice?

And, more importantly, in what ways might we live asteya, bringing our yoga to life?

brahmacharya

Perhaps this journey through the yamas is reminding us of Who We Are, and also, perhaps, of how far and in how many ways we may have strayed from our True Nature. And maybe we are reminded that yoga is so much more than a thing to do in stretchy clothes for an hour here and there. Yoga is a way of living.

The 4th yama is Brahmacharya.

Amongst Westerners, Brahmacharya may be the least understood of yoga’s ethical precepts, and the one most likely to be looked upon with dismay and wrinkled noses. Brahmacharya is most commonly interpreted as the call to celibacy or sexual abstinence.

Wait!

Before you close the book, let’s put the call to Brahmacharya in context.

Thousands of years ago, yogis went to great lengths to observe and experiment with the use and application of sexual energy to deepen their spiritual connection. This may seem bizarre to many folks today, and so modern commentators on the ancient yogic texts give the teaching of Brahmacharya greater currency and relevance. Brahmacharya can be understood as a call for the proper application of energy in all of its forms—not just sexual energy, but also creative energy, social, emotional, mental, and physical energies. The modern teaching is that we accrue strength and vitality through the observance of temperance and moderation in the usage of all of our energies.

In this light, Brahmacharya becomes about boundaries, balance, self-regulation and non-excess.

I can practically see the eye rolls and hear the sarcastic chorus of your fun-loving inner voices: Wahoo! Those yogis really knew how to live!

Here’s the question, my fine fun-loving friends: what if they did?! Perhaps those wise sages really knew something about fun that we in the modern Western world struggle mightily with. Brahmacharya asks us to consider whether the qualities of temperence, moderation and non-excess may not add up to non-enjoyment, and might just be the antithesis of dull and boring. Brahmacharya is about enjoyment and pleasure at its fullest, richest, ripest and most delicious.

In yogic thought—and we all know this from experience—there is a moment when we reach the perfect limit of whatever it is that we are engaged in. If we take food, for instance, we get pleasure and energy and vitality from the tastiness we are eating… up to a perfect point of just enough. If we continue to eat even the tastiest of tasties past that perfect point, there is inevitably a downward turn into lethargy and discomfort. Yes? Yes. However, to practice Brahmacharya is to eat with awareness, finding a point that sits perfectly on the line of “just enough,” and then to stop, linger, and really savour that place. It is this Goldilocks "just enough" moment that is the height of pleasure. Brahmacharya teaches that anything beyond that point is a descent into excess and the dulling of energy that inevitably follows.

Here’s the flipside: stopping short of “just enough” is a missed opportunity. Shying away from the sweet spot, we deprive ourselves of the joy and pleasure and the life force that floods us when we dare to search for it and find it.

This same is true for any activity that we are engaged in, including our physical posture practice. Asana can bring us to life, or it can drain, deplete and deaden us. Everything rides on our intention and our capacity to guide ourselves into our sweet spot, sit with it, and savour it. Everything depends upon the proper application of our energies to the Goldilocks point of just enough. That’s the observance of Bramacharya, the art of living a life in balance, over time.

The invitation for today’s practice will sound familiar, we’ve talked about it in many classes before (it’s “practice” remember?!). Pay exquisite attention as you continually inquire into what application of your precious physical energy will allow you to feel most renewed, vibrant and alive by the end of practice. You are here to build your batteries, not drain them. Use your life force wisely and with discernment. Let your intention be for moderation, remembering that too little of something is just as immoderate as too much.

If you would like to experiment with Brahmacharya outside of class, you might think about how to achieve greater temperance and balance in your life. Consider whether the ways in which you use your energy take you closer to or further away from your best, most vibrant, most vital self. How might you eat, work, move, socialize, play, find creative expression and sleep to the point of increased energy, and stop before the lethargy of too much weighs you down? With this intention, all of life becomes yoga.

Practice knowing your own enough. Practice enjoyment without excess. It’s true, some days the business of life/work/family/friends will demand too much of our energies. Our job is to ensure that we build in time and ways to re-source ourselves, to bring ourselves back to balance.

Moving just enough, resting just enough. And drawing pleasure from enough. Enjoying “just enough” to the absolute max.

The observance of Brahmacharya may be especially important in the year of the Fire Horse, just now upon us. In my small understanding, Fire Horse symbolizes intense energy and bold momentum. Horse’s natural traits of freedom, speed, and perseverance combined with Fire’s passion and urgency, promise a year of emotional intensity and a faster pace. May we run with the Fire Horse! Yes! …and let’s not forget that balance, temperance, and restraint will be especially critical if we are to avoid conflict and burn-out this year.

Brahmacharya. Savouring life at it’s sustainable sweetest.

Let’s do it!

aparigraha

Growing out of the earth

of my own detritus,

this new self...

shedding and emerging,

equally alive with loss

and becoming.

~ Rosemerry Trommer

This week we move to the fifth and final Yama, Aparigraha.

Try it out loud: a-par-i-gra-ha. And let it flow: aparigraha. A gorgeous word, a beautiful observance. Aparigraha is all about letting go.

Contrary to the great American dream many of us grew up believing, yoga teaches that freedom does not come from acquiring stuff and hanging on. Holding on and being free are mutually exclusive—a bird cannot both hold its perch and fly. True freedom is to be found in the letting go.

Underlying this teaching is the recognition of change as the only constant.

Life changes, continuously. It moves with an ebb and a flow that brings things, people, circumstance, and energies into our life… and then sweeps them back out again. Whoosh. The teachings of yoga remind us that as we live, we will be asked again and over again to let go of everything, including the everythings that once made us comfortable and contented, the everythings we once loved. Change is simply all there is. By loosening our attachments and letting go, we make room in our lives for the great mystery of the next thing. Holding on impedes the universal flow, and in the end, will always prove futile.

You can fight the current all you want; you know it will still have its way with you. Or you can try swimming along with it, and grow amazed by your own power—until you … realize that you aren't just moving, but being moved. ~ Martha Beck

Aparigraha and its call to non-attachment does not mean that we are not to deeply engage and enjoy life, or that we ought to close ourselves to pleasures and joys when they come across our paths. Quite to the contrary. Actively practicing Aparigraha looks like full intimate contact with Life. It is about loving and living the present moment to the fullest of your capacity… and then, when the tides turn, letting it go with gratitude and without regret. It’s the desperate clinging, the futile attempts to fight the current and hang on in the face of inevitable change that can amplify the natural pain of loss into greater suffering.

Human beings tend to grow in two ways: by willfully shedding, or by being broken open. If you don’t want to willfully shed to grow, don’t worry! You will be broken open. ~ Mark Nepo

The more freely we learn to let go, the more space we make for whatever wants to come next.

And, my friends, yoga teaches that what Life wants to bring to us is so great.

While what we hold on to is often so small.

Aparigraha is the siren call to trust Life, and let go.

Which makes me think of a few stanzas from Mary Oliver, In Blackwater Woods:

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones

knowing your whole life depends on it

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go.

Asana is a safe and wonderful small stakes place to practice letting go. Friends, let’s practice.

mudita for a joyful state of heart.

Happiness is available. Please help yourself to it.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Mudita is a Sanskrit and Pali word for the pleasurable feeling we get when we can take delight and actively rejoice in the good fortune, accomplishments, or luck of others, even when those things don’t seem to be of any direct benefit to us. A sort of vicarious joy, Mudita is the opposite of envy and the icky feeling of schadenfreude (taking pleasure in others' misfortune).

In Buddhism, Mudita is the third of the four brahma viharas (“divine abodes”). The brahma viharas are qualities of the heart that bring happiness to ourselves and others. We can practice these qualities so that over time, they become comfortable and familiar like home—the places where we come from in our relationships with ourselves and with others.

While Mudita often bubbles up liberally and with ease for close friends and family, Buddhist teachings encourage us to extend this feeling to all beings, even those we don't know, and yes, even to those who may challenge us a great deal.

Perhaps it is no surprise that there is no word for Mudita in English. To be sincerely happy for someone else’s success is just not that common in our hyper-competitive Western culture. Many of us go around living out the fiction that there is somewhere hidden a finite cache of happiness, and when someone else draws from the limited supply, it leaves less for us. Shall we challenge that story? Is that is really how happiness works?

What if we could rewrite the prevailing happiness narrative in a way that reflects the truth of our interdependence with the world around us.

Isn’t it true that the more happiness we can muster for the happiness of others, the more joyful we become? And that the joy we cultivate within ourselves contributes to the endless bubbling well of joy available to everyone?

Joyful people make more joy.

Besides, Mudita feels good. In contrast to gut-twisting feelings of judgment and comparison, and the choke holds of avarice and jealousy, Mudita feels clean, bright, and boundless.

The Buddha called Mudita a “rare and beautiful state.” Beautiful because it un-selfs us. And rare, because it is difficult to develop. Rare because it takes us to the uncomfortable place of judgment and comparison, the place where we think we know if they have joy, we don't. Mudita can be especially challenging to feel for people who have harmed us or our beloveds. It can also be tough to feel joy for the happiness of those who have made life choices different from our own. Can you be happy for a person who chooses to live lavishly when you’ve chosen a simple life, and may be feeling the pinch of it?

Joy is a practice, and cultivating Mudita for others with whom we have difficulty can help uproot resentment, and in its place grow us into deeper peace and higher happiness.

There's enough happiness for everybody. And Mudita helps us find a free joy ride. Friends, let’s practice.

metta for a kind state of heart.

To begin, a quick recap of last week’s reflections on the heart quality of Mudita.

Remember Mudita means delighting in the positive experiences of others—finding inner joy in for the joy out there—untainted by jealousy or envy. It is one of the four Buddhist Brahma-viharas, the pure and precious qualities of heart that promote inner joy, well-being, and spiritual growth.

The term Brahma-vihara is composed of two Pali words. First, Brahma. In the Buddha’s time, a brahma was a deity who lived in a heavenly realm. The word vihara means abode or dwelling. Brahma vihara can be directly translated as “abode of the divine”— and (this is beautiful!) it points toward the heart of one who has fully cultivated these qualities.

The other three brahma viharas are metta (lovingkindness), karuna (compassion) and upekha (equanimity).

But before we dive in to these, there’s one thing more from Buddhist teaching I’d like to highlight for now: each of these qualities of heart has one or more opposite qualities known as its "enemy.” The enemies of Mudita are envy, greed, schadenfreude. When we work to cultivate the Brahma-viharas, we are in effect sheltering, defending, or freeing our own hearts from the grasp of the “enemies” and the pain and discomfort they inflict.

About Metta. Put most simply, metta is wishing well for others. Often referred to as lovingkindness, metta is a friendly, gentle quality of heart that we are asked to offer all sentient beings, including ourselves. The Buddha taught thousands of years ago, and modern studies are confirming, that practicing lovingkindnes towards self and others is one of the most direct routes to happiness: it helps us feel more content in our relationships and enjoy better health. While we all have a natural capacity for kindness, sometimes we don’t take steps to nurture and express this capacity as much as we could, and that’s where practices such as the metta meditation we will explore in class this week can help.

Some look at Metta as the foundation for the other three Brahma-viharas. When Metta in our heart comes into contact with joy in the world, it becomes Mudita. This makes sense, right? When we are able to truly open our hearts to care for the wellbeing of another, it follows naturally that we will rejoice in their joy and the happiness they experience.

According to Buddhist teachings, the "far enemies” of lovingkindness are hatred, ill will and resentment. There is also a “near enemy” of Metta—love that is clingy and conditional. While this sort of attached love may share some of the beautiful qualities of lovingkindness, it is not the same as wishing someone well just for the sake of wishing them well (because our egos are wrapped up in this conditional love that is coloured by grasping and partiality).

To stoke us for this week’s Metta classes, let’s close with some teachings directly from the Buddha:

Monks, when the liberation of mind through lovingkindness is practiced, developed, resorted to, used as one’s vehicle, made one’s foundation, steadied, consolidated, and perfected, eleven benefits can be expected. Which eleven?

One sleeps happily.

One wakes happily.

One has no bad dreams.

One is loved by others.

One is loved by non-humans.

One is guarded by devas.

Fire, poison, or sword won’t touch one.

One’s mind becomes concentrated quickly.

One’s complexion becomes clear.

One dies with a mind free from confusion.

If no higher attainment is reached, one is reborn in the Brahma realms.

Wow. What good good things may be in store for us! Friends, let’s practice.

karuna for a compassionate state of heart.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV

In the last couple of classes, we’ve met Metta (lovingkindness) and Mudita (taking joy in the joy of another). As you may remember, these are two of the four Brahma-viharas, or divine states of heart that the Buddha points us to as being the surest way to find our innate sense of joy. Another of the Brahma-viharas is called Karuna in Pali, and in English, compassion.

Just as Mudita can be understood as the state of heart that arises when Metta/lovingkindness faces joy, Karuna/compassion is the quivering and soft expansion of heart that happens when Metta/lovingkindness faces suffering. Compassion is caring about all of the pain we are faced with, be it our own, or that of another.

Witnessing the suffering of others can be difficult, and a common reaction is to look away. Buddhists call this look-away tendency “aversion,” and recognize it to be a self-centred perspective that ultimately keeps the heart closed and hardened. Aversion is said to be the “far enemy of compassion.” The Buddhist teaching is that true joy requires an open heart, and so to the degree that aversion keeps our hearts closed, it will also diminish our joy.

Buddhism offers many Karuna/compassion meditations with which to cultivate the compassionate heart. The essence of these practices has us setting intention to open our hearts to suffering, rather than pushing it away. This may seem counter-intuitive. How, we may ask, could opening my heart to suffering make me a more joyful person? The teaching as I understand it is that the opening of heart is not circumstantial—the more it opens to suffering, the more open to joy it also becomes.

This said, opening to the suffering of others doesn’t mean we make their pain our own. The compassionate heart requires us to be present for suffering whenever, however and wherever it may come, and then simply to meet it with love, to offer care to the being experiencing the pain.

Sometimes the being experiencing the pain is ourself! And then the work becomes self-compassion! Treating ourselves with compassion involves accepting that there are parts of our personality and our lives that we may not be satisfied with, but we do not berate ourselves as we try to address them. It means that we are caring and kind to ourselves when we go through a difficult time, as we would be to a friend. When we are feeling down, it may help to recognize that we are not alone in the muck—all people have, have had, or will have such feelings—and with this sense of shared humanity, we may feel better able to meet our own challenges with curiosity and acceptance rather than rejection or self-judgment.

Most of us need so much help with self-compassion that it has become a science unto itself. If you are curious, I encourage you to listen to any of the talks or meditations of psychologist Kristin Neff, the leading expert on self-compassion.

Friends, let’s be kind to one another. Let’s be kind to ourselves.

uppekha for a equanimous state of being.

This week we meet the final of the four Brahma-viharas: Upekkha, even-mindedness or equanimity.

Equanimity might be felt as a soft but solid container of sorts, one that holds us steady as we pursue the heart-opening practices and open-hearted states of the other Brahma-viharas: lovingkindness (Metta), compassion (Karuna), and sympathetic joy (Mudita).

Equanimity may be understood as the quality of remaining grounded and in balance in the midst of the swirling everything.

It may be described with a collection of words that include acceptance, patience, and trust. With acceptance, we are able to separate our wishes for ourselves and others from what is reality in every moment. With patience, we do not trouble ourselves by clinging to stories about how somebody else should act or what life should be offering us. With trust, we are able to face with courage the challenges we are faced with.

Moving towards greater states of equanimity in our lives takes us closer to an abiding sense of joy, and also takes a great deal of practice. Pema Chodron writes:

To cultivate equanimity, we practice catching ourselves before feelings of attraction or aversion harden into the kind of grasping or negativity that compromises our stability.

Formal equanimity meditation is one way to practice. The practice involves maintaining a steady, non-reactive awareness of thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they arise and pass, without clinging to pleasant ones or rejecting unpleasant ones, and recognizing that both pleasant and unpleasant experiences are impermanent.

Time in Upekkha meditation may help us face the great and mundane encounters of our everyday lives with the awareness Pema Chodron is pointing to. With that awareness may come a letting go of the impossible need for control, and the ability to meet all experiences, whether pleasant or painful, with a calmly balanced attitude and a sense of ease.

An equanimous open heart that is present and accepting of life as it is, is not the same as an apathetic heart. With Upekkha we can care deeply and passionately, but even in the throes of those feelings, still be steady and non-reactive. Non-reactive does not mean non-responsive. We tend to react when we are ungrounded. From a state of Upekkha, we are able to respond well. Do you feel the difference?

One of the common phrases used in formal Buddhist equanimity meditation is “all beings are in charge of their own karma.” Although we may have compassion or wish well for somebody else, we recognize that the happiness and suffering of that other somebody is ultimately up to them. The corollary is also true: rather than recklessly letting our precious happiness ride on the actions and feelings of others, as a quality of heart, equanimity helps us to take our joy into our own capable hands. Understanding that each of us is responsible for our own actions and the results that follow may help us to foster a deeper sense of peace and non-judgment.

As we come nearer to this state of Upekkha, we may begin to wonder: what if happiness isn’t an emotion that bursts and flares like fireworks, and then just as quickly evaporates? What if happiness is in fact our most natural abiding expression? What if happiness isn’t waiting out there for life to fall perfectly into place, for me finally get whatever it is that I have been chasing? What if happiness is already here? Already and ever alive inside of me? What if just this, is enough for happiness?

What if just this, is enough?

Friends, let’s inquire!

mantra: say what?!

At the very outset of this current session on joy, we identified (and maybe even felt) joy to be an open quality that both begins with and sustains an open heart. We’ve since been looking to Buddhist teachings about the expansive states of heart called Brahma-viharis, and with our Brahma-vihari practices, inviting mantra into our physical yoga sequences. I’ve been fielding many questions about mantra, so I offer here a few words about mantra and why it may be worth practicing.

Unlike a prayer—which channels a hope at some entity that may be capable of interceding in favour of that hope—a mantra is not addressed at anything or anyone external. Mantra is entirely devoted to distilling one’s own hope to its clearest essence. Over practice with time, this distillation has the effect of transforming hope into intent, making it actionable.

A mantra is not a form of magical thinking. While there is often a tingling sense of magic to how hope-distilled-to-words often seems shift a situation by its very utterance, it is an entirely practical sort of magic. A mantra simply clarifies, concentrates, and consecrates intent. And all meaningful transformation springs from purposeful, devoted intent.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes about mantra:

A mantra is a kind of magic formula that, once uttered, can entirely change a situation. It can change us, and it can change others. But this magic formula must be spoken in concentration, with body and mind focused as one. What you say in this state of being becomes a mantra.

Friends, shall we speak the words and be curious?

the kleshas

avidya

We’ve worked through the Brahma-viharas, four states of heart that Buddhist traditions teach will bring enduring joy.

Let’s move on to consider yoga’s teachings on five states of being that make enduring joy impossible—the kleshas.

The word “klesha” is often translated from Sanskrit to mean “poison,” but softer touch commentators talk about the kleshas instead as “veils”— which I take to mean layers of gauzy acculturation that prevent us from seeing clearly the light at the very core of us all.

The age-old teaching from the sages of yoga is that in spite of all the shiny things we might accumulate in this life, when the kleshas have us several layers removed from our own inherent shininess, we will suffer. There’s a corollary: more clearly we see our inner light and the nearer we hold to it, even painful or dull outer circumstances might seem brighter.

Either way, it’s about parting the veils—or dissolving them completely—so that we might align ourselves with the light that is true, unchanging, and ever-present within us. And to act in accord.

We’ll explore each of the 5 kleshas over the next weeks. And as we do, we may discover how very very often our clear seeing may be clouded by these veils. And yet there’s good news, friends! Yoga does not abandon us in the deep darkness. Yoga gives us theory as well as practical tools we might use to find our way back to the light.

Let’s look at the first klesha, avidya. Many texts describe avidya as the trunk of the tree of suffering, with the other kleshas pretty much branching off of it. It’s a biggie.

The Sanskrit word vidya means true knowledge, a deep inner knowing and higher wisdom. The prefix ‘a-’ essentially negates that which follows, so in this sense we can understand that “a-vidya” refers to a lack of knowledge, lack of insight, or simple misunderstanding.

Yoga teaches that when the veil of avidya is before us, we don’t see reality, we see what we think is reality. The “reality” we think is made up of our past experiences, expectations, and what we have been taught to believe. Here, we become stuck at the frothy surface of our existence—believing that our thoughts are always true, certain that our perceptions reflect what is actual, and pulled here and there by our erroneous thoughts and perceptions. This wrong-seeing is difficult to overcome not because there’s so much to learn, but because there’s so much past conditioning to un-learn.

Yoga reminds us that our true nature is goodness, whole and complete. When we mistake ourselves for the part of us that is changing (our body, mind, emotions, thoughts, and sensations), we forget the eternal truth each one of us harbours. In our forgetfulness, enduring joy is elusive.

All practices of yoga are intended to lead us to clear seeing. Yoga’s most fundamental purpose is to lift the veil of ignorance or forgetfulness of our true nature. The very point of yoga is to reconnect those who practice with their original goodness and that same light in others.

Friends, let’s practice.

the kleshas

asmita

Last week we met to the first of yoga’s 5 kleshas, avidya. Remember that avidya refers to a lack of wisdom or insight, or general “wrong-seeing” and is the trunk from which the other 4 kleshas sprout like branches.

Today we meet the second klesha, a particular kind of wrong-seeing, called asmita. Just like the other kleshas, asmita blocks our joy.

Let’s look at the word: a-smita. The prefix a- negates that which follows. So asmita literally means not “smita".

What’s smita?

In very ancient Hindu mythology the word smita is used to describe “smiling.” In later texts the word smita develops to mean something like “expanding” or “blossoming.” To consider these descriptions of smita helps us understand its flip side, and how the veil of asmita obscures joyful living.

Commentators describe the state of asmita as “over-identification with self.” It’s the egoism that keeps us small—neither expanding, blossoming, nor really smiling. Asmita is the pinchy-faced way we get when we are shrink-wrapped up in I-ME-MINE-MINE-MINE; when we pin ourselves as the epicentre of an infinite and expanding Universe, and live as if it all revolves around us. We might recognize ourselves caught up in asmita when a disproportionate number of our sentences begin with the word “I,” and the only perspective we have to offer is how whatever topic at hand affects “me.”

Often, this is our ego talking. Ego is the voice that would have us elevate our own desires and struggles over and above the desires and struggles of others. It’s the bossy, stubborn part that also tends to resist change, heightens our fears, and declares the obstacles in our way to be insurmountable (all of which, of course, prevents our expanding, our blossoming, our smita).

The yogic teachings on asmita don’t ask that we somehow evaporate our ego, only that we recognize it for what it is—one limited source of information—and resist over-identifying with ego to the detriment of other inherent ways of knowing.

Yoga teaches that to over-identify with our ego is to suffer. Suffering comes since the ego always needs (and goes relentlessly seeking for) external approval that isn’t always there. And the suffering continues as long as the veil of asmita separates us from a sense of interconnectedness with everything outside of us—humanity and all of life in the cosmos. And we keep on in this lousy pinchy-faced state of suffering because asmita also separates us from the light of our True Nature. Over attachment to the ego-self keeps us from the goodness at our core.

I imagine we’ve all been caught up in asmita at one time or another, and so we may be able to remember how asmita feels in our body. Not smiling, not blossoming, not expanding. We know how closed and tight we hold ourselves when we are in a very selfish way over something; how chronically on guard our bodies become. As we become more seasoned yogis with increased body awareness, we get more skillful at noticing and deciphering these physical tensions, and hopefully, releasing them (with a smile).

What is one way to release those tensions and dissolve the veil of asmita? The practice of lovingkindness, or Metta.

Yes, back we come again to this simple (but not always easy) practice of well-wishing for others. We come back again and again because it is a practice that grows richer the more we invest. And a practice that contemporary Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzburg says may fundamentally change our very relationship to life. Practicing Metta, we overcome the ego’s selfishness and illusions of separateness, and replace that stuff with tremendous compassion and a sense of connection that has the power to dispel the wrong-seeing of asmita.

We have practiced Metta a couple of times in the last couple of sessions. Many find it to be sweetly calming and settling in the moment. Goodwill feels good, and extending it to others spontaneously generates more goodwill. Yes, and (big AND) it’s worth noting that many of us become surprisingly ruffled, unsettled or completely blocked when asked to send lovingkindness to people that challenge us a great deal. That’s good to notice, eh? Please remember that if you meet resistance or feel blocked in this practice, it’s not the end of Metta. To the contrary, it’s the beginning. Pema Chodron teaches that what feels like a blockage of lovingkindness is the very seed of blossoming in our hearts. Go there.

Go there and don’t be afraid to bring with you all of the tools you have learned from yoga. Slow, intentional breathing and easeful movement are ways to support you in clearing emotional blockages and getting unstuck from the vice grip of our own egos so that we may expand in new and astonishing directions.

Friends, let’s go see.

the kleshas

raga

We are moving on with the kleshas today. Remember that yoga identifies five kleshas—ways of seeing and being that get stuck between us and the enduring joy that yoga points to as already ours, and waiting to be claimed.

On to the third klesha: raga.

Raga is the energy that fills us with selfish desire for things that make us feel swell and comfortable.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with preferences for comfort and swell. The trouble comes when these preferences consume us. Raga makes us feel unduly angry, frustrated, or sorry for ourselves because (bad news flash!) we can’t always have the comfort and swell we crave and have become attached to. When raga has us hooked real good, it keeps us miserable even when, although we may be surrounded by the objects of our desire, we’re not enjoying the swellness of the moment because we are too busy anticipating the discomfort should it disappear.

Which, naturally, it will.

It will go, it will change. Yoga reminds us that everything of this world is in continual flux. Life is change. And as we live, we will be asked again and again to let go of everything that once made us comfortable, every darn swell thing we once revelled in, or loved.

The change is not a mistake, it is all there is.

The mistake is our reaction to change.

The mistake is the raga, the mighty but futile hanging on that steals so much of our life force—for nothing.

Rather than dreading or fearing change, Thich Nhat Hanh challenges us to dissolve raga by fostering a sort of appreciation for impermanence:

We are often sad and suffer a lot when things change, but change and impermanence have a positive side. Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible.

If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat.

If your daughter is not impermanent, she cannot grow up to become a woman. Then your grandchildren would never manifest.

So instead of complaining about impermanence, we should say, "Warm welcome and long live impermanence."

Wow. He makes it sound easy. May we meet him one day in that place of gracious praise for impermanence!

Until then, we can minimize the suffering of raga and move towards enduring joy with a conscious practice of non-attachment.

Yogis have a word for non-attachment: aparigraha. Gorgeous word, gorgeous concept. The non-attachment of aparigraha does not mean that we stand on life’s sidelines, dis-engaged. Aparigraha calls us to let go of the clinging to things, not the deep and fulsome enjoyment of the things themselves. Actively practicing aparigraha looks like finding great joy in present moment circumstances, without becoming attached. Aparigraha is loving and living with full intimate contact, and then, having lived and loved, when it’s time to let go, to let go with grace and gratitude and without regret.

The more freely we are able to let go, the more space we make for whatever wants to come to us next.

What we hang on to is often so small.

And the promise of what wants to come is so great.

Yoga teaches that what wants to come is nothing less than the joy of the fullness of being.

And so, Yoga asks us to trust life, and loosen our grip. To give thanks for things that once may have been very swell, to exhale, let go, and let change, change us. Again and again, as long as we live. That’s aparigraha in action. And it’s how we can dissolve the veil of raga/attachment and put an end to the suffering that comes from clinging to that which we cannot keep.

Mary Oliver nails it, as usual. From In Blackwater Woods

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go.

Friends, let’s practice.

the kleshas

dvesha

On to dvesha, the fourth klesha.

Dvesha is the flip-side of raga. Remember that raga is excessive attachment to fleeting pleasures. Dvesha is an excessive aversion for all that we deem unpleasant.

Forgive me while I rewind to raga for one long paragraph. Remember the primary teaching on raga is that by releasing our clinging and desperate grasping on to the objects of our desire, we avoid the suffering that comes when those things inevitably go away. This is the difficult “letting go” that we talked about last week. There’s another way to consider raga, and it asks us to become really, acutely aware of what it is we are desirous of. All of us have trivial desires for things that we don't really need, aren’t really good for us, and really enslave us when we become too needy of them. We need not disparage ourselves for having these small “d” desires, nor should we conclude that every desire starts with a small “d”. Rather, we could think of these little desires as misguided, bumbling longings, amateur expressions of a faculty for longing that might become far more expert! We have become the expert of desire when we notice that our longings are for things that are really very good for us, for all beings, for the Earth. It takes a lot of self awareness and practice to “educate” the faculty of our longing this way, but when we notice ourselves fervently wanting for the Good, the True, the Holy, the Just, and the Beautiful, we know we have liberated our longings from the constraints of our selfish ego. Our desires have become Desires. Clinging to these Desires and in fact aiming our very lives in their direction is not raga. It is living into our purest expression. May we all cling to these Desires like our deepest, most enduring joy depends on them (it does).

Now to dvesha. The opposite of clinging, it’s excessive avoidance.

No one likes to put their face up to the face of that which they experience as unpleasant, and most of us have whole big bunches of things, people, tasks, and other sundry unpleasantries that we go around avoiding at all costs. Avoidance of discomfort is normal. Aversion is in fact a deeply ingrained survival mechanism.

And yet yoga challenges us to develop enough self-awareness to challenge our aversions. In my current understanding of the teaching of dvesha, it is often our very aversion to (normal and inevitable) discomforts that causes us to suffer even more than the dreaded things themselves—should they ever even come to fruition.

We drain so much energy in conscious and unconscious mental and physical gymnastics to avoid that which is often unavoidable. Our aversions push and pull us in all directions, meaning we’re forever at the mercy of what we find unpleasant. How much energy might we liberate if we stood strong, tall, and easy in the pose of the Mountain and chose to squarely face the discomfort, rather than tying ourselves up in knots of fear, dread and avoidance? And how much present moment pleasure, joy, and ease are we missing in our desperate striving to avoid anticipated displeasure, unhappiness and dis-ease?

Have you ever experienced how dvesha works to magnify the unsavoury into something far more monstrous in our imaginations than it actually is in real life? Oh! the nose-wrinkling and repulsion! Oh! the apprehension and foreboding! Oh! don’t make me don’t make me… until ding ding ding…

Oh.

Gee.

That wasn’t so bad. Actually.

And I feel kinda better now???

Paradoxically, in the act of doing rather than avoiding the hard thing, we liberate a bunch of energy that had been stuck in the vortex of dvesha.

It can be a fruitful reflection: am I suffering by hiding from what is? Is my worry and dread causing me additional suffering beyond that which the thing itself might bring?

There will always be unwelcome situations that we can’t change just now. Life brings it all: losses, illnesses, and failures; injustices, upheavals, and catastrophes of all geometries. Yoga offers tools to help us accept the present moment just as it is, to ground into our feet, drop our shoulders, and turn to face the thing. To get uncomfortable, and then, quite to our surprise, to find some comfort there.

Friends, wanna get uncomfortable? :)

the kleshas

abinivesah

A wee review of the kleshas to begin.

Remember, according to yogic thought, the kleshas are ways of being that rob us of enduring joy. They are the causes of suffering. Let’s pause here a sec.

Dukkha is a word often used in Yoga and Buddhist texts that usually gets translated as “suffering.” It’s a Pali word, and most commentators trace its origin to a term describing a wagon wheel that doesn’t fit very well on its axle. Note that the yogis and Buddhists didn’t choose a word that means something like “intense pain” to describe the human experience of suffering. They chose a word that might be equivalent to “having a bumpy ride.”

What do most of us most often do on bumpy rides? Turn up the music, of course. Masters of distraction! We distract ourselves from our suffering because to lean in to what is unpleasant can be… unpleasant. However, if we don’t want to keep being hijacked by our suffering, we need to start by recognizing it.

Most of us don’t notice when we may be angry, sad, or scared until the intensity of the feeling is, like, an 8 out on 10. By that time, our suffering has completely taken over. However, it’s possible to learn how to tune in to our suffering when it’s just a little bump, and deal with it before we are thrown right off the wagon.

There’s another good reason to practice noticing the little bumps rather than turning a blind eye, and this circles us back to the teachings on the kleshas.

The kleshas are described in the ancient texts as five veils that cover the light of the divinity (within self and others), obscuring it from recognition. When we are disconnected from this essential goodness within and around us, we are in for a bumpy ride.

The word “yoga” means connection. The most foundational reason for the teachings and practices of yoga is help us to yoke our everyday selves with our higher Self. Friends, this is what yoga invites us to reach for while we twist and stretch and breathe. We could choose to refuse the invitation, turn up the music, and continue on the bumpy ride. Disconnected.

And what keeps us in this state of disconnect? The kleshas! Those dang veils hanging out between us and our True Selves. The barriers that prevent us from seeing clearly, from touching what is the highest Truth, and in that way opening the path to enduring joy.

Remember these veils are:

Avidya: ignorance of our true nature as whole, complete, eternal, and identifying instead with the ever-changing imperfect mind and body. Avidya creates a fertile field where the dormant seeds of the other four kleshas sprout and take root.

Asmita: over identification with ego/small self

Raga: excessive attachment to pleasures that are fleeting

Dvesha: excessive avoidance of that which we judge to be unpleasant

Abhinivesah: the final of the kleshas is excessive fear—most often translated as fear of death.

Abinivesah, the fifth klesha

Fear of death is a rather unsurprising fear, right? After all, our most fundamental instinct is to stay alive. The irony is that an over-attachment to staying alive (or to life as it is now) can really get in the way of whole-hearted living. Shrouded in the veils of Abhinivesah, we live half-hearted, small, caged, wings clipped by our fears.

In yoga, a life of half-hearted living induced by fear, is a life of suffering. The teachings and practices invite us to move into whole-hearted freedom, and we are free to the extent that we can accept that everything will change and life must end.

In The Inner Life of Asanas, Swami Lalitananda writes:

Our culture keeps death at a distance, fights it, tries to avoid it. It is shrouded in fear and locked away… buried deep.

But death is a gift that is born with life. In yoga, we don’t ignore the fact, but invite it in to help us live life with awareness. You know how working with a deadline can result in productivity and creativity? Life comes with one of those deadlines. Dare we forget?

Abhinivesah includes not just excessive fear of the death at the end of the road, but fear of everything that feels like mini-death along the way—the failures, changes, losses, embarrassments, and all of the little mortifications.

As a very persistent YouTube ad relentlessly keeps asking me:

Do you sometimes find that the fear of what could happen is making nothing happen in your life?

Ooph. It’s a challenging question, right?

Dissolving the veils

From the ancient Yoga Sutras:

II.10 With keen observation and discretion, these kleshas become translucent.

In other words, noticing the presence of the veils can enable us to dissolve them.

So… this week’s class is about spot the klesha! Let’s try to notice how thoughts of attachment, aversion, fear, egoism or ignorance might be making for a bumpy ride. It happens to all of us during our practice. We try to come home to our bodies and find ease and peace, only to get carried off by the commentary in our minds.

Do any of the following examples sound familiar? What klesha may be present in each one?

This is ridiculous, I don’t want to do this.

How embarrassing!

I love the way this feels. I wish it could last forever.

Ooooooh look at me! I’m the best in the room!

I’m terrible at this. I’m terrible, period.

Remember to buy dish soap.

I should be better than I am.

Some thoughts might fall into more than one category. Some thoughts may fall into none. Let’s notice them all as they pass, and then just keep on coming back, a neutral observer, testing a theory.

Remember the theory:

II.10 With keen observation and discretion, these kleshas become translucent.

If the veils are present in feeling and thought, keen observation is enough to enable us to disperse them.

It sounds to me like something a friend was talking about the other day: the observer effect.

Sourcing Wikipedia on this: in physics, the observer effect is the disturbance of an observed system by the act of observation. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner. A common example is checking the pressure in an automobile tire; this is difficult to do without letting out some of the air, thus changing the pressure. Similarly, it is not possible to see any object without light hitting the object, and causing it to reflect that light. While the effects of observation are often negligible, the object still experiences a change.

When we touch the light of our awareness to the veil, it cannot help but change. We simply observe the veils in our minds. And they change. All we have to do is become aware. This is exciting! Our awareness is a superpower! With our keen observation and discretion, we don’t leap tall buildings or eject tensile webbing from a portal on our wrists (yet), but we can do something even more fundamental in support of the power of good. We can dissolve the veils that obscure divine light.

!!!

If we are to benefit from these teachings, we can’t leave them in our yoga class. Remember that yoga is a way of life. What we practice grows stronger. Take yoga into your day. Be a super veil-dissolver and see whose suffering you might ease, whose aliveness you might save, whose essential goodness you might recognize and honour, whose joy you might spark.

(It might be your own.)

Namaste, friends.

abhyasa and vairagya

Bravo for bringing yoga into your New Year. Dive in with enthusiasm, whole-hearted curiosity, and bunches of self-kindness, and not only will yoga be one of the happinesses of 2026, but will contribute to a deeper sense of joy that endures long after the year turns again. I feel sure enough about this to promise it.

We each have our own reasons for coming to yoga, for continuing with this practice. I’m guessing these reasons might include:

more aliveness, ease and strength in the physical body
greater emotional equanimity and clarity of mind
deepened sense of connection with the mysteries of the soul
increased capacity to meet life with freedom and flexibility
community with like-minded others
a bit of relief from the hold of stress and anxiety
joy!

Yes! to each of these reasons. Whatever has prompted you to come to yoga, please honour that motivation and feel the forward-moving energy in it. Let it nudge you on, grateful it has led you here, to a doorway that opens to a world of so much more than you may have as yet imagined.

Yoga has big things in mind for us, friends.

For certain, yoga has the capacity to contribute to the aliveness, equanimity, community, etc you seek, but the true raison d’être of this ancient tradition—all of it’s teachings and practices—is nothing less than to lead us back to the innate light of our true being, to a recognition and honouring of that same light in all others, and ultimately to a life illumined and guided by that supreme brightness within. We are that light, yoga reminds us again and again. The word yoga means “union.” There is no separation.

The teachings of yoga were first compiled more than 2000 years ago in a treatise called The Yoga Sutras. As we’ve talked about before, the physical postures are but one limb of the classical 8-limbed tree of yoga, which also includes breath practices, meditation, and ethics. I look forward to exploring each branch with you over our next weeks and months of learning and practicing together.

Let’s begin today with two first steps from an opening Sutra: the dual concepts of abhyasa and vairagya.

Abhyasa refers to the persistent effort, determined action, or diligent practice required of us to move forward along the path of yoga (or any other path).

Vairagya describes a state of non-attachment to a preconceived outcome of our efforts. It’s about letting go of our desires for a specific destination, and walking the path anyway.

We are tasked with holding what sometimes feels like contradiction.

Doing and allowing.
Effort and ease.
Making and letting go.
Both. At the same time.

When we let go of our attachment to preconceived and preferred outcomes, we don’t just throw up our hands, but we hold focus as we continue the work, watchful and receptive to what Life will surely bring. Rather than pushing or forcing our desire, we allow for new things to take form. Exciting things. Things that may be far beyond what we could have foreseen or dared to dream on our own.

Here are a few illustrations of abhyasa and vairagya in action:

We take up a dedicated movement practice to help in our efforts to achieve a healthy weight. And then, throwing our whole selves into the practice, we throw away the scale. We remain open to weight loss and/or whatever other lightness of being will surely come with this new physical endeavour.
We release our paralyzing desire to make it to the best seller list, and we just write the darn book. Even if nobody except our neighbour reads it, we revel in the creative energy and sense of purpose we are delighted to feel just in the act of writing.
We give gifts and we drop any expectation of returns. We receive with wonder the sense of kindness and generosity that floods us in the act of giving anyway.
We forgive someone—unconditionally. We may not get an apology, but oh! we are filled with the grace of the forgiving.

It’s discipline without rigidity and freedom without aimlessness.

Effort, with ease.

How might the opposing yet intertwining twins of abhyasa and vairagya be playing out in your life? Does it help to consider these concepts at the outset of this new year? Of this new yoga session?

Let’s practice and explore!

traceycook.shinrin-yoku@shaw.ca