Yoga from the Neck Down
 
Sensations speaking, 
not caring if I injure myself 
or look like an expert yogini to others.
Pleasant, unpleasant, neutral
like relatives knocking on the door.
Let me in or I’ll blow your house down!
Tensing against or bowing,
allowing in each asana,
opening the door to the heart
knowing I can always say
no thank you
when it doesn’t feel safe,
when metta for the one who is breathing
is yet to be known and named.

 
In yoga class we welcomed parts of ourselves that felt separate, unwanted, like an orphan abandoned by disturbed parents. I embraced Sadness, a child left behind by circumstances and raised with the South Asian conditioning of honoring family over the individual. Add on a chatty Buddhist inner critic, and I was sure to blame myself when things went ‘wrong’ with others.
 
In Parami, Ways to Cross Life’s Floods, Ajahn Sucitto asks, “Does your energy come from interest and aspiration, from willingness of heart? Or is it caught up with trying to climb the wrong mountain?” When thoughts and feelings are directing an unpleasant interaction, it’s tempting to believe the story movie mind is projecting. I can’t tell you how often I’ve replayed scenarios, wasting precious energy and time trying to create Leave It to Beaver, Brady Bunch, Family Ties episodes or Facebook videos to replace the ones that are actually happening. How can this being (who is a mindfulness ‘expert’) fail so royally at fixing things. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough.
 
I decided to try something different in class today, to practice yoga from the neck down. If unpleasant sensations arose, I didn’t jump to the conclusion that an irreparable injury was imminent. When feeling strong and grounded in a pose, I didn’t assume the pose was perfect and everlasting. If nothing was calling for immediate attention, then a river of breath became the object of awareness as it meandered though the body and surrounding landscape.
 
These sensations felt like relatives, sometimes perceived as The Big Bad Wolf, physically and energetically knocking on the door to this body and heart. My tendency has been one of two extremes: barricading the door with everything I’ve got or opening wide and completely losing balance. What would it mean to fully appreciate the tensing against or bowing and allowing in each asana (pose)?
 
Sucitto writes, “We can never arrive at the imagined perception, but we always experience the results of our intentions. So the important thing is to examine, clarify and stay in touch with our intentions — not our imagined goals.” I can now make space for Sadness in my life, showering her with loving presence and the promise that I will never abandon her. She is key to understanding life’s sinusoidal pattern, that the distance between peak and trough is shorter when intentions are known and implemented.
 
May I be patient and kind.
May I listen to understand.
I have the right to retreat from unpleasant conversation when I don’t feel safe.
 
At first glance, these intentions may sound like they are for others. But when I read them again and listen internally, I can sense what is needed externally, knowing I can always say, “No thank you” when it doesn’t feel safe, when metta for the one who is breathing is yet to be known and named.
​
This isn’t Leave It to Beaver, Brady Bunch, Family Ties episodes or Facebook videos. It’s Real Life, and I want to participate fully, asking, investigating. What happens when I try to control things? What happens when I let go?
 
What happens when the energy of wise intention and discernment is implemented?

In mindfulness practice, I’m invited to fully embody the moment, to move from a thought-based to a sense-based experience. Present moment, wonderful moment. It’s where ultimate peace, freedom, and contentment reside. It’s easy, right?

Wrong! Over the years, I’m humbled by the pitfalls of practice, the holes I still fall into despite a clear cognitive understanding. Maybe the problem is thinking too much.

When things are pleasant, I want to grasp. “It’s mine! Get your own moment.” I try to memorize exactly what was said and done to create the perfect experience. If I can write a wise blog post or meaningful poem, if I can remember that enlightening conversation, I won’t fall into the same hole again. I won’t suffer. I forget how holding on to anyone or anything is like trying to hold water with a sieve or capture a moment in the wild on camera when nature’s flora and fauna refuse to keep still.

When things are unpleasant, I want to escape. “It’s not mine. Get away!” I’ll start to fix the situation with judgments, as if I can correct what’s wrong by erasing a little bit of this person’s character, embellishing the scene to my liking, or adding to my own character that’s flawed. After a few years of practice, I might sugarcoat uncomfortable thoughts and feelings with metta or blanket them in wisdom disguised as delusion, aka spiritually bypassing what truly needs to be felt.

When things are neutral, I want to check out. “It’s too boring. Where’s the remote to change channels?” Fantasy becomes an alternate dimension where I feel more alive. The only problem is nothing is tangible enough to last, and I always have to wake up. If I’ve missed large chunks of reality, it takes more time and energy to catch up, fill in, and make sense of the missing parts.

So how can I train the senses and mind to stay with pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experiences skillfully without repeating the same, habitual patterns of pulling, pushing away, or projecting?

With grasping, I feel the tension of a tight fist mudra, how the contraction transmits through the forearms, arms, up the neck and forms a viselike band around the cranium, spotlighting the desired object, shrouding signs of impermanence all around me. It’s painful to hold on so tightly. Opening the hand allows fingers to trace the contours of change – rough, smooth, and in between textures without sustaining rope burn. Joyful moments take on a more vivid quality because they are not pressed flowers trapped between the pages of one story, but blooming, dying, and seeding the soil for new stories to emerge.

With aversion, the belly churns acid as volcanic eruptions of undigested contents voice the discontent of anger and fear. The chin and the heart feel heavy with embarrassed hurt. Demons from the past haunt the present and direct an uncertain future.  It’s helpful to welcome all thoughts and feelings as honored guests, bow to them, and recognize that what I am filtering through the sense doors is all conditioned. This is most evident when I am with someone who does not perceive an occurrence the same way. Like a Rorschach ink blot, we see two different things. Acknowledging my ego and views, a window can open between this heart-mind and the outside world to let other realities in.  

This process takes time and can’t be rushed. Honesty means naming what I’m feeling without denial, without spiritually bypassing the alchemical process for fool’s gold. Like a savory dish I’m hungry to eat, it also needs to be seasoned with self-compassion and common humanity, the remembrance that others experience challenges, too. It’s soothing any physical manifestation of discontent in the body with a kind breath, bathing it in loving awareness. It’s understanding that life is not just targeting and making an example out of me.

Another helpful ingredient is patience, not forcing its presence, but reflecting on those who have been patient or things that took a long time to create. Speeding up the lifecycles of certain processes could damage the beauty waiting to be born. Patience walks hand in hand with energy and wisdom, knowing where I can positively shape and influence an outcome, and where I’m building sandcastles, crossing my fingers and holding my breath that the next wave won’t demolish futile efforts. These aren’t innate virtues, but ingredients I’m experimenting with to find what’s flavorful enough to satiate, and what’s bitter to perpetuate craving.

Poet, philosopher, and cancer survivor Mark Nepo says, “To be broken is no reason to see all things as broken.” Joy is a beautiful heart quality when I’m perceiving the glass as half empty. When I sense joy is missing, I picture children on a treasure hunt or playing hide and seek. Their sheer curiosity and effervescent enthusiasm inspire me to intentionally look for connection, what is strong enough to penetrate parts of me that still feel broken, as if to say, “Here’s a sprinkle of stars connecting the dots to a constellation of healing you cannot see, but feel. Don’t give up just yet.”
With neutral moments, it’s helpful to notice when I’m checking out. What am I wanting from an alternate reality that isn’t here? Why? How is this reality providing the sustenance I seek? If not, am I seeing clearly?

Perhaps the greatest ally on this path is faith asking me to ground in the groundless, knowing that the tectonic plates beneath my feet are always shifting. Sometimes it feels like I’m walking on solid ground or sinking in quicksand. Both are illusions created by the magic show of wanting this and not liking that. When I am less hypnotized by what’s pleasant, recognizing the unwrapped potential gift in what’s unpleasant, and doing my best to stay awake in what’s neutral, the present moment is not only acceptable, but preferred.

It’s where I will meditate and make love, practice medicine and maternal presence for all, embody and exchange elemental energy in hiking, yoga, and Qigong, sensing stagnation and free flow. It’s where I’ll write with invisible ink because I don’t own the words I’ll soon forget, where I’ll sing for all those who can’t hear the music. I’ll embrace this design, knowing that a kaleidoscope turn will reconfigure the pattern into something I no longer recognize, starting again with the question, “Is this pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral?”.
 
Present moment, wonderful moment. It’s where ultimate peace, freedom, and contentment reside. May this practice, understanding, and reflection be of service to all those who have influenced this journey and beyond…

Unanswered, Unfinished

Hip rotations in one direction and then the other
The sacrum suspended between two sides
What will promote healing and connection?
What will strain the sacroiliac ligaments
Gluteal muscles contracting in anger, fear, sadness
Delusion, disappointment, desperation?
Will forgiveness be enough
To bridge the gap of misunderstanding 
Support spinal alignment
To walk away from the past
Give spacious birth to this moment 
Trust in the blessings and benevolence
Of a bright future?
 
Questions unanswered, the poem unfinished 
And I still practice
Through electric shocks and tears
Sounding the Lion’s Roar from within
This heart is wide open
This heart is ready for anything 
 
 
Dori Langevin invites the Kairos House Sangha to engage in gentle hip rotations during Qigong practice. My hips sway from one side to the other, allowing the sacrum suspended between two iliac bones to trace concentric circles in the horizontal plane. After fourteen years, the sacroiliac ligaments and gluteal muscles release tightly held questions and emotions.

This moment is never enough. There’s always something wrong with others, myself, the time, the place, the weather. I’m even trouble shooting a future I cannot control. But maybe it’s better than here, now, this.

I sense that the lower left back and gluteal muscles send electric shocks through the body from time to time as a wake-up call. “This is your life, your family, your work. Will you keep focusing on what’s missing, or relax into who and what is here?”

Will forgiveness be enough to bridge the gap of misunderstanding with my family, myself? Will it support spinal alignment to walk away from past patterns? Will it give spacious birth to this moment, and stop comparing it with a contracted, unconscious birth fourteen years ago? Will it trust in the blessings and benevolence of a bright future?

I’m more comfortable with leaving this post untitled, the questions unanswered, the poem unfinished than I’ve ever been before. Even through the electric shocks and tears of discomfort, I know I will never stop practicing, sounding the Lion’s Roar from within. As long as this heart is open, it is ready for anything.

 
The Heart’s Radiance

Open a window, let the air in
The shadow side to the heart 
Has been closed for too long
Bow to the cold weather 
Invite the chill in
You can still bundle up
Removing one layer at a time
When you are warm enough
And can feel the sun
 
Practicing forgiveness and gratitude through a body scan in seated meditation posture, I notice tight sensations in the midback. It’s asking me to stay a while and listen.

I’m not fond of the cold weather here in Spokane. It’s mostly cloudy with a mix of rain and sun, not warm enough to open a window and let the air in. But the midback, the shadow side of the heart has been closed for too long.

What if I metaphorically bowed to the cold weather and invited the chill in? I always have the choice to bundle up, removing one layer at a time when I am warm enough to feel the sun.
 
*****
 
It’s cold outside, but I bundle up and commit to each morning walking meditation period. I’m not going anywhere, getting anything done, which is frustrating. This isn’t even ‘real’ exercise! But I stay, noticing footsteps over soft pine needles and damp earth, the sounds of birdcall or the bell, subtle variations of cold sensations, and many thoughts with a common theme, “Why the hell am I out here when it’s so warm indoors?”.

One day while wearily pacing back and forth approximately ten to twelve feet between two ponderosa trunks like a caged animal, I pause to feel the sun peeking through the clouds and winking down at me. “I’m still here. You can’t always see or feel me, but I’m there.”

Later in the day during a brisk walk after lunch, the sun’s radiance is palpable. I remove my raincoat, gloves, and unzip a fleece. It’s easier to shed the outer layers of vulnerability when it’s warm outside, and much harder when it’s cold inside the heart.

May the heart’s furnace be fueled with helpful resources, not only for my own repletion, but for the repletion of others, all beings, this Earth.
 
 
Going Home
 
Watching the sunset from the plane back to SFO:
 
a scoop of rainbow 
sherbet ice cream 
melting over the horizon
good night sweet sun!
now a red streak
between day and night
wakefulness and dreams 
the taste of something solid 
soaked up by a sponge moon
sentinel stars keeping watch
while the sun sleeps
till it rises as honeycomb
and the sweetness begins again

Expectations. Many of us have them. They aren’t bad or wrong. And, like weeds disguised as flowers, they can proliferate in the mind with false promises of beauty and permanence.

Have you ever wanted someone, yourself, or a situation to be different, directing the show and dumbfounded when life plays out a script you haven’t written? Are you tired of trying to control each scene like I am? Do the actors listen? Are the props and artwork of each backdrop good enough? Are they even real?

If you resonate with any the above inquires, please know you are not alone. I’d like to share some ways I’ve been practicing with expectations to cultivate contentment.

1. Acknowledge, name the expectation. Once known, it can lose it's automatic pilot power over you.
2. Breathe with what is happening internally, bow to it as a divine messenger of wisdom not yet recognized. When there is internal space, other possibilities can be seen/heard/felt.
3. Get curious about the need beneath the expectation. Do you really want safety, connection, love, acceptance, peace? Ask the question gently; the answer will not come before it's ripe and ready.
4. Deepen the attention with compassion- an ally, word, image or phrase that feels comforting. (For some, humor, gratitude, etc. may be more accessible than compassion to deepen attention.)

This process is not cognitive gymnastics. You don’t get an Olympic gold medal for overthinking. If you find the mind or body are contracted, try softer, not harder. Let go of words, the need to know, getting it right. Let go of the practice itself. 

It’s common for fear and doubt to arise. If you let go, what’s left? Do you lose others? Do you lose yourself? When you are fully inhabiting this moment as best as you possibly can, there is nothing left but space for seeds of love (or whatever wholesome word fits here for you) to grow, for silence to give birth to the answers you seek.

This process is also not linear. Though I’ve chosen ABCD as acronyms for ease of remembrance, A doesn’t necessarily lead to B, C, and D.

It’s helpful to think of this as a template, a skeleton. How you fill in the missing parts and embody them is up to you. What feels true in your experience? What feels like home?

May this post inspire a contentment far beyond the false facade of happiness advertised in comparing mind, on Facebook, and many other modes of media.

May we find peace and let go, knowing we will forget, trust, and confidently find peace again.​

​stitched into the fabric of life
some of us towards the center
while others are at the periphery
does placement even matter

intricate patterns woven
from colorful threads
with large swaths of
dull gray in between
​
i am cold without this quilt
without all beings
believing they belong
regardless of perception
 
Stitched into the fabric of life, I believe I am at the center when a lecture, talk, or class goes well. When I’m healthy and can breathe, talk, sing for long periods of time. When I can do all the poses in yoga class. When my hair is newly cut and colored. When I’m dressed a certain way. When I have the perfect answer for patients and friends struggling. When my daughter is open to affection and animated in conversation. When my partner understands and applauds my spiritual practice and professional life. When I feel closely connected to Mummy and less irritated. When I write a meaningful poem and blog post. And so much more.

Anything short of this is failure, unpleasant, unacceptable, a problem that triggers banishment from the center to the periphery. Does placement even matter?

Sometimes I see myself in intricate patterns woven from colorful threads. Sometimes I’m surrounded by large swaths of dull gray, an island far away from any vibrancy. Comparing mind also stiches others into fixed positions on this quilt.

As hard as these last few weeks have felt with unwelcome physical symptoms, fear of permanence is worse. A self who will not channel talks with any compassionate healing or creativity. A self who will not survive and enjoy a women’s retreat on the ecstasy of sound and silence.  A self who will not sing and sound a certain way again. A self who will not enjoy and embody yoga. I feel a gentle warmth blanketing body and breath with mettā (lovingkindness), karuṇā (compassion), khanti (patience), paññā (wisdom), and saddhā (faith).

i am cold without this quilt, without all beings believing they belong regardless of perception.

Meditative, Qigong Healing
 
Sitting upright, supported by Earth
Warm breath of compassion
Forgiveness, wisdom
Releasing holding patterns of dis-ease
Permanence, a self in control
Clear recognition only gentleness heals


Then standing, feeling the exchange
Of energy between this body
And its surroundings
Invisibly connected to all life
The possibility of universal benevolence
Always a choice despite chaotic patterns
 
The last week and a half were challenging. From viral gastroenteritis to a cough and cold, from asthma like symptoms to worsening muscle strains, from irritation, impatience, disappointment, and exhaustion, it felt like illness was taking up permanent residence in the body. There was so much self-identification with dis-ease states and the mental formations they invoked. There was also a frantic rush to swat the emergence of each new symptom with a medication as if it were an annoying fly that would never go away. Killing it was the only choice.

​Or was it?

As I start to regain some mental clarity and physical strength, it feels important to reflect on what created more suffering, and what eased the suffering. (The word choice of suffering is very personal. If it rubs you the wrong way because you may have a heavier, incurable illness or stress that feels more significant than what I am sharing, feel free to substitute suffering with another word.) Identifying with any symptom, dis-ease or mind state was painful. Trying to overcome it with wholesome mind states like kindness, compassion, even joy was also deceptive, because I wasn’t allowing true feelings like irritation, impatience, and disappointment to throw big tantrums. I wasn’t allowing the fear to be felt, the dark cloud of doubt to be seen and known. The choice to reach for certain medications for relief was wholesome, but there was a subtle aggression against the body for misbehaving and falling apart. The belief in permanence of it all was so strong, that the urge to control the situation felt paramount.

When I chose to feel the cough and compromised breathing with gentle compassion, surrendered to supine meditation posture and gravity, released a known timeline for healing, and reached out to others for loving, healing energy, something changed. There was less identification with an invincible or dysfunctional, in control or chaotic, mindful or mindless, compassionate or critical being. Most days there was a certain percentage of each one.

We live as if everything is black and white, a dualistic mentality that does not allow for shades of gray or degrees of uncertainty. We are healthy or sick, balanced or crazy, paying attention or clueless, kind or vengeful. Is it possible most of us might just live in between the two extremes, always trying to build a reliable house on one side so as not to fall into the abyss between two cliffs of ego?

The need to know, to have things planned and figured out is strong in me. It’s a survival mechanism based on causes and conditions. Now there is recognition, compassion, forgiveness, wisdom to cushion each fall into the abyss of becoming.

The karma of now always offers two choices, suffering and the end of suffering. Robert Frost wrote that two roads diverged in a yellow wood. If you are anything like me, you might see trails in the wood well-trodden in the past from deeply ingrained patterns. There aren’t just two roads, but many paths.
​
Through meditation, Qigong, wise friends, writing, or whatever your support systems might be, may you feel connected to all life, the possibility of universal benevolence always a choice despite chaotic patterns.