Discipline or Sensitivity

Saturday 23rd May

A quieter non-Ashtanga practice today. Pre-menstrual aches distracted me and sapped my energy a bit.
5As and only 3Bs, standing poses to Utkatasana then I HAD to do a Headstand, the physical urge to invert was strong, a complete reversal of gravity the only remedy available to counter attack the standing pose drain.
Headstand 60 breaths: 8 minutes, then I followed intuitive promptings through a labyrinth of poses.

Which brings up an often pondered issue: when to stick with the sequence and when to deviate…maintain discipline or allow sensitivity?

Ashtanga has a set sequence that is followed without variation (in theory). It is ra elatively rigid and disciplined practice requiring dedication, faith and tenacity. One develops a depth of engagement and intimacy by following the same sequence daily, sometimes for years, and only dedicated Ashtangis get to experience this – nobody else can possibly understand. The practice becomes richer and deeper with time. The backdrop of the sequence forms an expansive arena for endless discoveries.
The Iyengar system is more flexible. Outside of the class sequences directed by a teacher, one practices poses that the body asks for.
Menstruating? Do these pelvic opening poses to bring ease to the organs.
Tired? Do these restorative and inverted poses.
Stressed? Do forward bends to calm the mind.
Depressed? Do a backbend sequence to stimulate the adrenals.
There’s a sequence for every mood and a pose for every ailment. Mix and match according to your body and mind’s needs…all designed to restore balance.

So why do I prefer the intense and fiery Ashtanga system? Because it humbles the ego, and that’s what all authentic spiritual practice should be training us to do – humble the ego and show up its false dominance in our lives.
The ego sits upon a throne and rules our lives, but not with the authority of a true leader. We must expose it as a weak tyrant, humiliate it out of office so the noble and gentle king (our heart) can resume its rightful position and guide our lives in the direction of Truth.
Yes, that’s why I prefer Ashtanga. It demands submission and devotion but through the heat of tapas it purifies the mind and heart.

Still...on those days when my body is not able to comply, I submit to my limitations.
Then I am grateful to have the Iyengar methodology to draw on. I abandon the Ashtanga sequence for the day, release all expectations and choose from the vast smorgasbord of poses in my ‘other repertoire’.
It’s all yoga.

For the final half hour of my 2 hour practice, I sat in meditation today, not something I’d normally do in a Saturday practice at Kosta’s studio.
The sitting re-centred me in my heart and power. Scattered thoughts subside, energy is freed up and channelled into the epicentre, I reconnect with the Divine.
The vibrational charge suffusing my body, though weak, is immediate and I'm glad my body has been prepared for it.

Practice Log

This will end up being a long post, which I’ll add to in increments, to record my current Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga practice. After the damage done to my back over the last couple of years I’ve almost had to rebuild my entire physical yoga practice from scratch, but this has been a beautiful and humbling experience and a journey rich with learning. Poses that came easily a year ago (like Marichy D, Bhujangasana and Garbha Pindasana) I can’t even get close to now.
But with time, patience and compassion, they will return.
This post is just a very personal record of where my physical practice is right now so in a year or so I’ll be able to refer to it for comparison.

Blessings to dear Guruji, Sri K. Patthabi Jois, who passed away on 21st May 2009, for teaching the Ashtanga method to my teachers David and Simi Roche, and to them both for what they have passed on to me. And blessings to all my other wonderful teachers in the yoga and Buddhist traditions (and to my son, my greatest teacher).

Surya Namaskars – 5 As: I step through the first 2 or 3 until I get the breath going and Mula Bandha supporting my back, then I begin to jump all the vinyasas. Starting slow, I pick up speed and intensity as I travel through them. Still not easy to float forward like I used to, as I jump the weight of my airborne legs pulls through my hips and as yet my back hasn’t mended enough to support this weight.
Surya Namaskars – 5 Bs: good to be feel strong enough to be doing 5 again instead of 3 and I’m keeping the back heel grounded as I step forward now. My starting squat is actually quite deep and my arms extend forward (parallel to the floor) before they rise and lead me into Utkatasana. It’s graceful and feels like I’m raising my hands and heart in a prayer to the sky.
Padangusthasana and Pada Hastasana – remembering to widen my elbows and draw my shoulderblades in like flat plates. Simi once watched me working in this pose (a few years ago), smiled sweetly and said, “soft but strong”. I’ve never forgotten that.
Trikonasana – to the right I can still only get my hand to my ankle on a good day because of the restriction in my right hip. Left side is a toe grab. Such a complex pose with so many little parts that can be adjusted.
Parivritta Trikonasana - a good, strong pose, hand to floor, spine straight and hips aligned (I think). It soothes rather than aggravates my hips and lumbar. This is the first standing pose where I fully engage and feel the energetic effects of drawing up the inner legs, an instruction that has a subtle but powerful energetic effect that stimulates mula bandha. Such visualisations prove that we can move energy (prana) with our thoughts.
Parsvakonasana - still troublesome – after bending my right leg I can’t always lean my body weight to the right without supporting the descent. The muscles supporting my right hip must still be in a very weak state. Some days I can only do the modification, supporting my weight with the elbow on the knee; other days are better and I get to the full pose and can gradually work strength into that hip by pressing the right heel firmly into the ground. Left side no problems.
Parivritta Parsvakonasana is also a challenge. I used to love doing this deliciously twisted spinal pose to it’s fullest. Now the modified version (opposite elbow to knee and hands together in prayer) is where I start while I sus out my body’s current state of elasticity (which changes daily). On a good day I can assume a rather weak version of the full pose with the top arm extended and my back heel grounded.
Prasaritta Padottanasana A, B, C and D - all good, crown of head to floor, another pose that comes alive when I draw the inner leg energy up into my pelvic floor. With almost all of the forward bends, both standing and seated, the strong forward tilt of the pelvis (variously instructed by teachers as "lift and pull back the sitting bones", "draw the pubis back between the legs", etc) is enhanced enormously by a little counter movement - drawing the top of the pubic bone slightly INWARDS toward the tailbone.
Parsvottanasana – another favourite (I have many), a very workable pose, it feels almost perfect if there is such a thing as a perfect pose. Nose is close to shin and hips are square (I think). I love the challenge of coming up from this pose in a perfect line from tailbone through crown with a deep core strength in teh lower abdomen. I work my feet strongly into the ground to build leg strength and focus on pulling up quads to safely and fully stretch the hamstrings in preparation for UHP.
Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana – another favourite that always tests my focus. I can hardly believe how well I do this one at the moment, I rarely topple or teeter. Foot is as high as my eyeline to the front and a little lower to the side. On good days the final unsupported hold to the front isn’t drooping with the 5 breaths.
Ardha Baddha Padma Parsvottanasana – this pose gave me a lot of grief during the chronic back injury period but I've got it back again. Although I never really lost the pose on either side, for a couple of months I couldn’t come up from the first side as my right hip wouldn’t support the weight of the movement. I had to unfold my Padmasana leg and put it down before coming up from the forward bend. But this has slowly changed in the last couple of months and it now feels safe to come up correctly…even keeping hold of my big toe until I’m fully up to standing. I love working the “pull up the inner legs” instruction in this pose, especially applying it to the Padmasana leg – little things adjust that take great sensitivity to notice but when my mind watches the subtle internal dynamics that occur within a pose my internal awareness deepens.

Spiritual Vitality

Saturday 16th May 2009

“Spiritualia videri non possunt nisi quis vacet a terrenis.”
trans: Spiritual things cannot be seen, unless one is emptied of worldly things.

“Contemplation will be denied to a man in proportion as he belongs to the world.” St Thomas Aquinas

“A man must withdraw his desires form all the ambitions, the external satisfactions and the temporal interest this world has to offer, for spiritual things cannot be appreciated or understood by the mind that is occupied with superficial and merely external satisfactions.”
Thomas Merton



5 weeks have passed since the self-directed retreat. From past experience I know that the more permanent psychological/spiritual changes that result from a retreat cannot be seen, felt or understood until at least a couple of months after.
Initial feelings of peace, wellbeing and commitment to practice often wear off within a few weeks while deep within the unconscious mind the more permanent changes are being established.

My intensified yoga practice is the most visible outcome of the retreat, but it is simply an external manifestation of an accelerated inner practice. The subtle psychological changes that continue to evolve and shape my inner life since the retreat are difficult to articulate but their effect on my yoga practice is evident.
The retreat must have removed some samskaras and obstacles; it has unleashed an intense wave of desire for liberation.

Most noticeable since the retreat is a profound sincerity and commitment to the spiritual path and an infusion of spiritual vitality, an abundance of energy and joy that is manifesting in this strong desire to practice – not just yoga, but meditation, contemplation, anything that will intensify this presence of God. My eyes and heart are steadfastly fixated on the inner gaze that penetrates Reality.

Every moment of every day is now experienced through a penetrating lens. I am seeing through the thickly encrusted layers and into the heart of everything.

It is scary and beautiful to be this close to the Divine…my own heart and Truth.
There is no compromising, nothing is negotiable. It's all or nothing.
The fire that has been lit in my heart is growing stronger every day, burning away anything irrelevant in my life, anything that doesn’t align with my deepest Truth. I cannot take part in petty conversations with false personas. I want to rip people open and expose their hearts so they can touch the divine source of their being. Only then can we really communicate.
My heart beats faster as it expands, the air is charged with impending contact, transformation, fusion.

I practice yoga almost daily now:
today: Saturday 7am practice with Kosta - over 2 hours
yesterday : Friday 6am Ashtanga Primary practice with Renate in the Gallery - 2 hours
Monday/Tuesday/Thursday: a variety of solo practices both Ashtanga and Iyengar.
Traumatic restrictions in my lower back and hips are loosening, allowing enthusiasm and joy to replace the subconscious resistance to practice that has stifled me for over 2 years.
I have now broken the 2 year habit of hitting the snooze button and sleeping in every morning. My heart is pouring into my practice.
And most evenings I am religiously making the time to sit in meditation/contemplation before bed.

I WANT to get up early and practice daily, I am burning with the desire to practice; the Beloved Creator is drawing me into his centre and the way in is through the elevated mindstate created within practice.

A Self Directed Retreat

Friday 17th April 2009

Image: my front windows

It will take a few days (or possibly weeks) to write up my retreat notes so I’ll just keep adding them to this one post, bit by bit rather than posting them all as separate entries.
The notes got more interesting as the days progressed...


RETREAT DAY 1

My suspicions have been confirmed, this retreat is an extraordinary turning point in my life – the affirmation I needed that my spiritual practice is passionate and alive.

The original schedule that I’d mapped out was revised to incorporate a minimum of 6 hours of meditation and 3 hours of asana each day as well as a 1 hour walk along the river with my dog. As the first day progressed the original timing of these was changed (and this was revised again on DAY 3 as I settled into a more natural retreat mode and found myself engrossed in 4 hours of asana each day).

Sitting for 3 hours this morning was easy in one way, difficult in another: easy because I had no resistance, no pain, no boredom and the 3 hours passed quickly; the difficulty was keeping my mind present on my breath (as usual).
My solution was to set a reminder beep on my mobile phone that went off every 10 minutes, just a little beep. My reverie was caught at 10 minute intervals reminding me to return to my breath.

On Vipassana retreats we are given meditation instructions at the start of each sitting session, then left to work with that instruction uninterrupted for hours on end. If the mind catches a flight to fantasy island it may not return for hours. It's not until the bell rings to end the session that you realise you’ve been somewhere else all that time and have wasted another session.
On the other hand, when I used to go to 1 hour sits at Buddha House (the Tibetan tradition) we'd be expertly led into the meditation and then every now and then during the hour, the meditation leader would quietly drop in the reminder “bring your mind back to your breath”. That was all it took, and was incredibly helpful.

So my 10 minute beep was my wake up reminder, a little assistance until a stable meditation mindstate established itself.

Late afternoon I took a lovely walk along the river with Buffy (my dog) before warming up a tiny dinner portion of aromatic curry and rice.

Evening yoga practice started out with no plan, but as I felt my way in, it sculpted its own shape.
A few standard warm up poses: long Dog Pose, long Uttanasana, long Parsvottanasana with hands on the floor, and a long Prasaritte Padottanasana with hands in reverse namaste. From there I followed the whispers of intuitive guidance into some long, quiet standing balances: Vrksasana, Garudasana (which I hadn’t done for years), Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana and from there moving into a pose I don’t know the name of: standing with one leg in half lotus, you bend the supporting leg and lower your buttocks down until they rest on the back of the supporting foot, then you lift the spine up to vertical and balance on one foot with hands in prayer. Handstand and Pincha Mayurasana at the wall, Supta Virasana to prepare for floor poses, then a series of forward bends and twists. After that I set up a bolster for supported Setu Bandha before moving into a 10 minute Shoulderstand and a 9 minute Headstand.
It resembled one of Darrin’s Iyengar classes and was deeply nourishing so I felt quite grateful to him for instilling in me this method of practicing.

During the asana practice I found myself returning to Samastithi (Tadasana) with hands in prayer between the early standing poses. It was a spontaneous and natural gesture, a sacred pause where my heart relaxed and opened in gratitude, perhaps an unconscious expression of thanks to the universe for bringing together all the right conditions that have led to this retreat. It is the answer to my prayers.
Bringing the hands together in front of the heart both creates and emanates a powerful energy that contains gratitude, equanimity, hope and love, and how much more powerful it felt when my hands came together with the clear and pure intention that was filling me now.

End of DAY 1, my mind is relaxed and settled.
I feel at peace with everything in my life.





RETREAT DAY 2

Image: my kitchen windows

Two days devoted purely to yoga asana, meditation and reflection and I realise I am truly a yogi, living in the middle of a consumer society gone mad. What joy, what relief to remove myself from the rat race and redirect my focus to the things of the heart and spirit.
Devotion and discipline, those two qualities that arise naturally in a heart longing for the Truth, were there all the time. I needn’t have imposed regulations on my daily schedules to try and develop them.
Everyday life, with its responsibilities and commitments to work and family, affords little time for their development and expression. They are quashed into a corner, into a few weekly yoga practices. The poor things wither up and die when they’re not nourished by sadhana.

“The constant practice of all petals of yoga will eventually repair all flaws inherent within the human system. The power we generate through yoga practice must become a coherent and indissoluble whole. Yoga sadhana is meant to knit the fibres to the skin and skin to the fibres so that they coil and interweave the outer kosa into the atma kosa. Only then can the Oneness of the power we create within ourselves be integrated with the universal power that surrounds us.”
BKS Iyengar, Light On Life

I practice yoga asana and I sit in meditation, observing the mindstuff, stilling the waves of my conscious mind...the impurities separate from the mix, rise to the surface and leave me in a sea of calm.

Morning asana practices on DAY 1 and DAY 2 were a little disappointing. The plan was to do a morning Ashtanga practice and an evening restorative Iyengar practice, but the Ashtanga sessions have fizzled out halfway through the standing pose sequence.
My conclusion…that Ashtanga, with its fiery heat-building ujjiya pranayama and sun salutes just doesn’t gel with the delicate mental states sustained in long hours of meditation.
Ashtanga raises my energy and sharpens my mind ready for action; it heats the mind and body, burns impurities and leaves me fired up for the day – very useful when I have to go into the working day battlefield. Not so conducive for meditation.
Likewise my meditative mind/body state is unable to cope with the energy generated by Ashtanga…hence early burn out during standing poses.

So the morning Ashtanga/evening Iyengar plan will be revised. Tomorrow morning I’ll try a different approach to my asana practice.

Evening practices have been strong. Mr Iyengar's classic Light on Yoga provided the basic sequence tonight (Course 2, 31st-35th week) though I reshuffled the sequence a little. Instead of starting with Headstand + variations and Shoulderstand + variations, I moved them to the end of the practice and started with some warm ups (Dog Pose, Uttanasana etc) then Jatara Parivartanasana and Supta Padangusthasana following the sequence only swapping Ustrasana and Paryankasana in order.
My body felt unusually heavy in Headstand as if I’d put on 5 kilos in the last 24 hours – so I only stayed for 20 breaths. The heaviness is probably from the long hours of sitting in meditation.
After practice my spine felt strong and alive, the base was hot, the top was tingly. I wonder if this is how people feel after chiropractic treatment.





RETREAT DAY 3

Image: Buffy at my front door

Morning yoga session – 3 hours – that must be a record for me, where did the time go? Instead of working the internal and energetic dynamics of Headstand I played with correcting the external structure: pressing down the inner wrists, lifting the upper arms and shoulders, drawing in the lower ribcage etc. etc. The additional physical effort shortened my stay in the pose.
Savasana was more active than usual - not content just to lie and rest, I actively swept through my body from toes to head, led by the internal dialogue of my teaching voice telling me to relax each part and tune into the circulating energies. Lightning bolts shot through my lumbar, nerve impulses and electrical sparkles darted like fireflies.

"Savasana is about shedding. We have many skins, sheaths, thoughts, prejudices, preconceptions, ideas, memories and projects for the future. Savasana is a shedding of all these skins, to see how glossy and gorgeous, serene and aware is the beautiful rainbow-coloured snake who lies within."
BKS Iyengar

3 hours of asana was followed with 3 hours of sitting. DAY 3 and immersion in my practice is deepening. Lunch break was short today –eager to get back to the cushion. Lunch was fresh orange juice, vegetable curry and rice again and some thick sweet Greek yoghurt for dessert, all tiny amounts.

I noticed my mind staying with the breath for much longer periods today. What is it that notices and watches the mind…must be pure consciousness…a different faculty to the mind.
As I dropped further into the fully conscious meditation state, I played with letting go of the breath as my anchor.
The trainer wheels drop away and I glide, unsupported in full flight; I am sitting in pure and vibrant awareness, full presence, alert and still.
A voice interrupts: “Why am I doing this, what is the desire that burns such a hole in my heart?”
Pulling back from the edge and catching the in and out breath again, the same voice replied “I want to know God”.
My heart swelled until the vibration of love filled every cell. Recognising the enhanced landscape I thought “This is it”, which of course immediately separated me from the experience and broke the spell.
Over and over I repeated “We are That which we seek”, drinking in the Truth of the statement til my body and mind were soaked in it, the first stage of merging. I have known and experienced this, so WHY DO I FORGET? Why is my daily life lived in such forgetfulness?

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting” said Wordsworth.

We practice to help us wake up.

Which reminds me of a favourite line in a Jackson Browne song… ”to open my eyes and wake up alive in the world…”

“The whole practice of yoga is concerned with exploring the relationship between Prakrti and Purusa, between Nature and Soul. It is about learning to live between the earth and the sky. That is the human predicament, our joy and our woe, our salvation or our downfall. Nature and Soul are mingled together. Some would say they are married. It is through the correct practice of asana and pranayama and the other petals of yoga that the practitioner (sadhaka) experiences the communication and connection between them. To an average person it might seem that the marriage of Nature and Soul is one of strife and mutual incomprehension. But by communing with them both, they come closer to each other for the purpose of a blessed union. That union removes the veil of ignorance that covers our intelligence. To achieve this union, the sadhaka has to look both within as well as looking out to the frame of the soul, the body. He has to grasp an underlying law or else he will remain in Nature’s thrall and Soul will remain merely a concept.”
BKS Iyengar “Light on Life”

Buffy and I walked along the river from 5.30 – 6.30, later than previous evenings. After a warm day the chill of an autumn evening was stirring. As we walked I felt the touch of the air, warm and cool whispery breaths simultaneously dancing upon my skin.

It’s 7pm and I decide to sit for an hour before the evening asana session.

It’s Saturday night. My mind wanders a little. I wonder what my boyfriend is doing, is he alone and forced to watch TV out of boredom and loneliness, or is he wondering what I’m doing. Thoughts coming and going, feelings of guilt for indulging in 5 days of practice, and a sliver of doubt – what am I doing it for…all mixed up and lurking in the shadowy corners. Now and then I enter the clear space of conscious awareness, watching the nuances of the breath, watching the thoughts and feelings arise and pass away.

My back is tender from two strong forward bending sessions, my energy low tonight.
I chose to do a passive, restorative asana session…Supta Everything: bolsters, blocks, straps and chairs – bring them all on.
I laid around in all the restorative, stress-reducing poses I could remember from my years of teaching.
The session finished with Ardha Halasana on the chair then Viparitta Karani (legs up the wall) with my lumbar lifted and supported on a bolster and rolled up blanket. These last two poses did the most to ease my achy back.
I finished at 9.30 then retired early for the night.

After this experimental retreat, I may not do another 10 day Vipassana retreat (Goenka tradition). The need to practice meditation in a group and to someone else’s schedule has been replaced by a need to direct my own.
Vipassana retreats inducted me into the rigorous and austere tradition of authentic meditation practice and gave me a delicious taste of deep Samadhi. That taste lingers forever in my memory.
But in the last two retreats I noticed my concentration slacking off, my motivation had worn thin. With those long hours of sitting, I often procrastinated, not applying my will to follow the meditation instructions until it was too late. Little excuses such as: “Tomorrow will be better when I’m fresher” or “I’ve got plenty of time” etc etc encouraged my lazy mental attitude.
But this self-directed retreat is only 4 days and a sense of urgency has prevailed. I can’t afford to waste a moment of my allocated sitting time and that has helped me to apply my will to the practice, to overcome the laissez-faire attitude, to invigorate it and give it a razor edge.
I am much more alert to the daydreams, the tendency to drift off into imagined conversations and situations, and more strict with myself.
The reward comes in the depth of my meditation, as rapture and bliss subside into deep tranquillity. These states leave permanent imprints on our minds and hearts. Once experienced, our hard wiring is altered. Deep peace becomes an intimate companion, always present in the back cupboard of the mind and becoming more accessible each time we call it forth through meditation.

“There is a great difference between just practicing and sadhana. Sadhana is the way of accomplishing something. That something is – by effective performance and correct execution – the achievement of the real. What is real must be true and so lead us toward purity and emancipation. This is yoga sadhana and not the mechanical repetition merely of yoga practice or yogabhyasa. The end of yoga sadhana is wisdom. You might translate yoga sadhana here as “the yoga pilgrimage” as it is a journey that leads somewhere, not the mere treadmill of thoughtless practice.”
BKS Iyengar – Light on Life.


This is the simple schedule that I settled on from DAY 3:
7.30 – 9.00 breakfast, walk dog, shower, chores
9.00 – 11.00 yoga asana
11.00 – 2.00 meditation
2.00 – 2.30 lunch
2.30 – 5.30 meditation
5.30 – 6.00 cup of tea break
6.00 – 7.30 long walk along river with dog
7.30 – 9.30 yoga asana
9.30 – 10.30 meditation/writing



RETREAT DAY 4

Image: My bedroom window

Three accumulative days of meditation have calmed my mind. It feels cleaner in there, as if the windows through which I see the world have been polished and I can see clearly and objectively what is both inside and outside.

A two and a half hour practice this morning – without forward bends.
Sun salutes meticulously and lovingly performed, then all the standing poses plus Ardha Chandrasana, exploring most of the poses for up to 8 breaths, working the legs, feeling their strength and connecting it to the pelvic floor.
After one and a quarter hours of standing poses I needed to lay in Supta Virasana over a bolster to ease the earthy intensity out of my body. Then to the wall for Handstand and Pincha Mayurasana, my body still feeling heavy but not dull.
There was a version of Pincha Mayurasana that we set up with a chair in a Glenn Ceresoli workshop – I remembered the powerful shoulder opening it provided but after pulling out a chair, I couldn’t recall how to set it up (will have to look that one up in my past blog notes so I can practice it another day).
Janu Sirsasana was the only forward bend for today, a deep and gentle spinal twist.
Then a few repetitions of Salabhasana, Dhanurasana and Parsva Dhanurasana, an oddly fulfilling pose that permits a full bak arch without grounding into the floor through hands or feet. It always feels absurd to flip over onto my side and stretch like a writhing beached whale.
Continuing the backbends I set up a passive one that Kosta had shown me: Place a stool in front of the wall (or a chair side-on), put a bolster on top parallel to the wall, then place a rolled up blanket on top and drape a sticky mat on top of the bolster; lay over the mound with hands into the wall and feet into the floor. Position yourself over the mat so that when you press firmly down into the legs, the traction of the mat under the back body pulls the skin and fascia under the shoulders towards the waist – it’s the traction that makes the preparation worthwhile.
I pushed my heavy body up into one long, deep Urdhva Dhanurasana then settled into the inversions, following the same order of poses as the Ashtanga finishing sequence except that I held a 50 breath (5 minute) Shoulderstand and finished with a 60 breath (8 minute) Headstand – but who’s counting.

How I’m loving my asana practice. It’s simple, strong, connected and deeply nourishing. Physically it’s reconfiguring my body, especially my spine, but it’s also redefining my relationship to my practice. When you take full responsibility and ownership of something, and you love it, you take care of it with all your heart.

I am so grateful to all my past teachers. The methods, techniques and wisdom they have passed on are all coming together in this retreat: Iyengar and Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, Patanjali’s sutras and the Raja Yoga path, Tibetan, Theravadan and Zen Buddhism, the Burmese Vipassana and Anapanasati meditation techniques based on the Sattipathana sutra, the mystical traditions of the Sufis and early Christian mystics…no longer are they a mish-mash of accumulated information competing for my affections – instead they now coalescing into one evolving and coherent body of knowledge and practice that informs and inspires me. They may all represent a different path up the mountain but they all lead towards the liberating experience of our divinity, the realisation that there is ONE primal force of creation and love…and it has been within us all the time.

The retreat has revealed how much I’ve digested and assimilated the essence of all these teachings; they have formed the very bones and flesh in which I live and breathe.
My practice has finally come of age and matured into an intelligent approach to my life.
They no longer conflict with each other because I no longer subscribe to any ONE of them to the exclusion of any other.

What a relief and a revelation.

I’ve come to believe that the old advice not to dig too many holes or you will never find water holds true for the beginner. It is best to explore deeply and thoroughly one system at a time, not mix and match. But after years of exploring deeply and thoroughly many different systems, I’ve come to the conclusion that they can all be used for digging if you know where you’re going.
So at last my practice is my very own. The doubts that undermined my confidence have lost all substance.
I have practiced these last few days with a devotion and JOY that is breathtakingly glorious.

Full time working life is not helpful for the ardent spiritual sadhaka. Hours/days/weeks/months/years can be spent just trying to cope with the barrage of stress inducing situations that keep our crazy lives running on fast and empty. Retreat time is precious.
Removing myself from work and family commitments and reconnecting with the journey of a lifetime has provided a precious opportunity to relocate myself, redefine my priorities, invigorate my dwindling practice, dispel all doubt and place me back on the illuminated path of my heart.
I know that daily life is where we must put our practice into action, where it must manifest to be of any use, but we can’t contribute to uplifting our world when we’ve lost the plot and the higher meaning of it all.
Our ability to see clearly and draw inspiration from the light shining within wears out, and then it’s easy to get completely lost.
A period of retreat provides the physical and mental space to seek out that light once again.

Today I realised that I don’t know ANYONE who is really doing the internal psychological and spiritual transformative work of a true yogi. I know many people who are doing practices that make them feel PHYSICALLY and ENERGETICALLY better, which helps them go out into the world and do good things to make their EGOS feel good (one usually feeds the other). But any activity that strengthens and pampers the ego, or makes us feel ‘special’ is in opposition to the goal of authentic spiritual practice.

“Everyone wants to be special in some way. What if life was fine the way it was. What if there was nothing else?Ego wants some kind of advantage – to be stronger, better than everyone, secure. Ego wants to be protected against death, pain. Yet at the level of Reality, all the differences between us are illusory. You get to see that you’re all right as you are – no problem.Just imagine if, in this moment, who you were right now was all right with you. If everything about you was fine with you – your body, your hair, your personality. What would you do with all the energy that freed up? We devour a tremendous amount of energy being unhappy with how we are in the moment, struggling to be someone else, when we can’t be any other way.”
Lee Lozowick

I am so perfectly content to be just as I am, right now.
To just BE.
Alive in this world.
With whatever is.


Brick Wall
DAY 4 ended on a slightly lower note. Buffy and I explored a new route along the river for our evening walk. We went much further than I’d planned and didn’t get back home until 6.30pm. Physically tired from the walk and 3 days of asana, all my body aches were suddenly magnified. I decided on a trade off: the evening asana session for an hour of sitting. But fifteen minutes into the sitting session, my tired and stubborn mind refused to focus and my will was too weak to overpower it.

If this were a longer retreat, I could have written off the evening, recharged tomorrow, carried on with the rest of the retreat and redeemed myself without too much guilt.
Sadly this was the last night. Skipping the practice resembled a balloon slowly deflating and shrivelling up. ffffffffffffftht.

We can give up on something that’s beyond our capacity and either judge ourselves harshly, beating ourselves up, or we can let it go and cease any further suffering – letting go develops our wisdom and compassion.
So I just let it go.
Yes we must challenge our limitations in order to expand and grow, but we must also acknowledge our fluctuating limitations. There are times when we can rise to meet the challenges presented but there are times when we need to retreat and recharge. Knowing which way to go requires sensitivity and compassion, and by developing these qualities, the heart will grow soft and generous towards all others who are struggling with their own psychological limitations and demons.

I went to bed early, promising myself I’d get up early and use tomorrow morning wisely before finishing the retreat at lunchtime.

DAY 4 of a serious meditation retreat or DAY 4 of a yoga workshop seem to be when many people hit the wall. It’s an inevitable part of the process, a natural reaction to an unrelenting daily practice schedule that we’re not used to.
You hit this mental barrier and block; it’s hiding in a little black spot just after the initial novelty of the first 3 days has subsided but just before the routine of the practice has settled into the body/mind (which tends to kick in around Day 5). In between these two spaces lays DAY 4, and the brick wall.

That was my Sunday night.





RETREAT DAY 5

Asana
Two and a half hours this morning - my final practice of the retreat.
Before starting I chanted the Ashtanga invocation (Vande gurunam caranaravinde…..)
5 As, 1B, Padangusthasana, Pada Hastasana.


I came back to Samastithi and chanted again, this time the Gayatri mantra, 3 times.
The tone of practice changed…my heart opened…practice became a prayer.

Moving in and out of poses, I noticed something different moving through my body. My hands carried and expressed a soft energy, strong but delicate, they opened and closed like flowers, extending out to the tips then returning home to the heart, sealing in the prayer.

I did all the standing poses with great love, and added Ardha Chandrasana again. Parivritta Parsvakonasana finally came together today, a promising sign that perhaps my lower back degeneration is reversing – I couldn’t stay long in the final pose but I held it with great inner core integrity, not just with a superficially flexible body.

Handstand and Pincha Mayurasana, then some seated forward bends and twists.

I’ve discovered Ardha Matsyendrasana, what a great pose, so much to master in this one. I’m nowhere near binding but the journey of discovery presents its own unique gifts – balance of weight, finding a vertical spine, moving attention and prana into the more expanded lung, the stability of mula bandha holding it all together…fun, fun, fun.
(I've been attempting the version where your foot is under the buttocks, not the one where your foot is next to the thigh.)

Then I challenged myself in Shoulderstand – got up to 100 breaths (clocked 10 minutes). I probably could have stayed longer: it got easier after 80 breaths because 100 was in sight and the little crest of excitement carried me there. Hands on bare back was helpful for grip but my belly was uncovered – yuk – I noticed when I lowered into Halasana that my navel was not centred, it was skewed at least one inch to the right - correcting it was interesting - my lumbar protested as I lifted my left sitting bone up and lengthened my left side – it really had been collapsed. How long have I been doing Halasana like this? And how many other poses are equally lopsided?

40 breaths in Headstand (5 minutes).

Noting the time I stay in Shoulderstand and Headstand is of no consequence to me. It’s purely childish entertainment. A little game I play with myself.

Sitting
After asana practice I sat for an hour, the final sit before resuming ‘normal’ life.
I sat like the Buddha in a state and a place that is familiar to all those who have travelled the road to Samadhi. You feel like you’re sitting at the entrance of an enormous mansion.

To get there I had used a technique that helps gather the mind into a single laser beam of pure focus. It goes like this: after watching the incoming and outgoing breath for a while to concentrate the mind, you begin to notice and catch the very beginning and the very end of each breath, observing that split second, that micro moment where each breath action starts. This sharpens the mind like a razor. Then you observe the little u-turn between the in and out breath, until the pause between the breaths lengthens and you sit with that pause between every breath, suspended in absolute stillness.

From there I let myself enter the realm of God as if the source of all life were present in front of me, around me, inside of me. There was no boundary between my skin and everything else, I had no boundary, I had merged. The mind can not interfere with this for any thoughts create instant separation. I oscillated on the brink, one foot immersed in the rapture that filled my sparkling expanded body, the other foot flicking away the stray thoughts that wanted to describe and make sense of the rapture.
I remembered the jhanas – the 8 levels of absorption documented in Buddhist literature. Rapture comes with the second jhana. One must let go of rapture to descent into a deeper but more subtle mindstate. The next stage is contentment and equanimity (not as exciting as rapture).

I remembered Brother Lawrence: wasn’t his entire practice sitting in the presence of God? Buddhists don’t acknowledge the bhakti of devotion, the intense love that springs from union with the Divine. Rapture dissolved, leaving full awareness, a lucid presence in which there was only breath and a transparent body, no I.
nobodhi home

But as usual, it was short lived.

An automatic mechanism short-circuited the experience.
I’m sure I (or no I) could have sat in that state for much longer, the brush with eternity was short but sweet. Who turned it off?

If nothing else has come of these five sacred days on retreat, I know without doubt that my practice is alive, it is grounded and it is honest.
I don’t expect practice to give me the answers, but it must keep prompting me to ask the questions.

“Samadhi is an experience which is worth struggling to reach. It is transformative and utterly purifying. But what then? Samadhi is a state of being in which you cannot do. You cannot catch a bus when in Samadhi. Samadhi leaves the practitioner changed forever, but he still has to get dressed in the morning, eat breakfast and answer his correspondence. Nature does not simply disappear once and for all. It is simply that the realized yogi is never again unaware of the true relationship between Nature and Cosmic Soul. The yogi is aware that it is the Divine Breath that lives us. And he can see that Divine Breath in others. His insight penetrates at all times beneath the surface of appearances. Essence is more real than expression.
The realized yogi continues to function and act in the world but in a way that is free. It is free from the desires of motivation and free from the desire of the fruit or rewards of action. The yogi is utterly disinterested but paradoxically full of the engagement of compassion. He is IN the world but not OF it.
The challenge for the spiritually free man is to live according to five qualities: courage, vitality, right and useful memory, awareness through living in the present moment, and total absorption in his actions.
He lives form his heart in truth and expresses it in words."
BKS Iyengar – Light on Life

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart”
Wordsworth

Lightness and Love

Wednesday 1st April 2009

From one of the pages on Alan Goode's website:

'Practice should be approached in all seriousness, with dedication and commitment
but should be done with lightness and love'.

Just what I needed to hear.

Retreating Thoughts

Monday 30th March 2009

It’s official…I've got 2 extra days off work next week so my Easter break will be 6 full days.
6 days for a self-directed retreat at home.

The retreat is looming as a huge undertaking, not because of the days I’ve allocated for it…more the seriousness of what is at stake…success, failure, disappointment…
Why am I suddenly so nervous about it?
Gee, I need to lighten up a little.

Allocating the full 6 days to the retreat is unrealistic – I’ll have to spend at least half of the first day (Wednesday) shopping and preparing meals for it. And the final half day (Monday) will be split between my son and my boyfriend to bring me back into the world of people.

Which leaves 4 full days for the retreat plus a little bit on either side.

How strict should I be with the schedule?
And will I even be able to stick to a schedule with no-one else watching over me?

The alternative would be to lower the bar – to do a less intense sadhana retreat with the only requirement being solitude and silence. But four days alone to do whatever practice I feel like sounds more like a holiday…not serious practice.
I’d probably end up going for lots of walks.

So after going around in a circle, I’m back to where I started.
This has to be a serious retreat. And it needs to be well planned.

I need to remind myself over and over why I am wanting to do a solo retreat at home. Where is that urge coming from to sit in meditation for hours and days on end?
Grasp that desire, it’s an expression of my highest ideals, don’t let it go.
And don’t bother trying to explain it to anyone else.

“Practice is a form of enlightenment. It is being determined to live the life of a Buddha, of an awakened being, of a person who fundamentally vows not to harm other beings or oneself.

“The notion of considering practice as enlightenment is an uncommon perspective on sadhana. While clearly one isn’t enlightened simply because one practices, a life of practice that is impeccable in it refinement, intentionality, and reliability is an expression of enlightenment.”

“Enlightenment without practice tends to express itself in the world as laziness or indulgence, whereas impeccable practice, even without enlightenment, manifests as humility, intentionality, and an openness to further development.”

Sealing the Practice

Saturday 28th March 2009

At the end of practice this morning I descended from Baddha Padmasana into a very long, deep Yoga Mudra…maybe for a couple of minutes with my eyes open at first, to observe the slow, careful descent towards the earth as my body released into the forward bend...then I closed my eyes.
I love falling into the forward bends with my eyes closed, not rag-doll-falling, but releasing-and-softening-falling - the mind lets go notch by notch and the body follows, until I am gently awakened by my nose touching something, it’s final resting place, and it’s always a sweet surprise to find myself there, humbly bowed forward and kissing the earth.
I opened my eyes while still immersed in the full pose, broomadhya drishti, and I stayed, observing the energetics and subtle inner movements that continued their play in and around my body and energy field. Then consciously engaging the inner core muscles, I rose up, released my bound arms and unfolded them into the lovely, mystical Padmasana, root locked, spinal channel clear, transparent and alive, energy flowing cleanly through all nadis and reflowing around the sealed pathways directed by all three Bandhas and hands in Gyan Mudra.
Ten long, deep Ujjiya breaths.

What a perfect seal to the practice.

Then lift off…Uth Pluthi…I haven’t done this pose for ages. I remembered the visualisation of the five storey building, the pelvic floor being on the ground and then lifting it up to the first floor, then the second, then the third floor etc. You rise higher and lighter off the ground with this internal direction and I’m sure you could actually lift off completely and levitate if you carried it on a little too far…10 breaths in full Uth Pluthi.

Then I lowered. Complete, whole, shining, illuminated.

Longing to melt into Savasana…I spied Kosta’s stack of blankets in the corner of the studio. I fluidly transitioned to Dog Pose then rolled up to standing. Noticing that Kosta was finishing too I quietly asked “Do you want some blankets?”
He looked at me perplexed…it was an odd moment.
“Pancakes????”
No, not pancakes, BLANKETS!!!”

Five minutes later I was still laying in Savasana laughing.