Category: Yamas & Niyamas

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The best way out is always through

Resilient tree growing through a fence
A resilient tree shows us the way through

Resilience. That’s what comes to mind each day as I pass this tree on my walks around the neighbourhood. Resilience in the face of suffering. Perseverance in the midst of pain. 

You might have seen this unusual tree in the photos I shared on Instagram last week as we saw yet another stay-at-home order announced. I offered it as a reminder that we have within us the strength to overcome whatever challenges stand in our way, to make it through to the other side – we need only find a way to connect to it.

Sometimes the challenges we encounter are of our own making, and sometimes they’re beyond our control, arriving seemingly out of nowhere – like this fence. We could be going about our business, this tree was simply growing in the forest, and suddenly something stops us in our tracks. To be honest, I’ve found myself in that very situation in recent months: stopped in my tracks by unexpected health problems. In the face of challenge, in the face of pain and suffering, how do we connect with our inner strength and resilience and harness its power to guide us safely through?

For me, this connection comes through mindfulness, which of course, can take many shapes and forms. Asana and pranayama, the postures and breathwork of yoga, help me release tension and create space in body and mind so that I can open my awareness to signals arising within. Meditation deepens my practice of svadhyaya (self-study) and santosha (contentment) as I observe, notice, embrace my experience without judgment or attachment, with lovingkindness and compassion. I invite mindfulness into my favourite everyday activities – gardening, baking, walking in nature. I give thanks for the many blessings in my life, without glossing over the fact that I’ve lost my job, that I’m struggling with health issues, that I’m tired of being stuck at home in lockdown. I remind myself of the vital importance of self-love, self-care, self-compassion, and self-acceptance. Connecting to the present moment through these practices fosters in me a deeper connection to myself, a greater awareness of who I am beneath all the mental busyness, beneath the self-doubt, the pain, the expectations and uncertainties.

In his poem A Servant to Servants, Robert Frost wrote that “the best way out is always through” and I believe that’s just what mindfulness teaches us. We learn to welcome the present moment exactly as it is – its joy and its pain, its triumph and its sorrow. We learn to practice acceptance of what is rather than fear of what might be or regret for what was. We take it day by day, moment by moment, breath by breath. We make our way through the challenges, fueled by strength and resilience we’ve cultivated within, and like this extraordinary tree, we keep reaching our branches to the sky.

Tree branches reaching to the sky
Branches reaching to the sky
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Pulling weeds & planting flowers

Spring blossoms

There is a Sufi story I have shared in class several times over the years, its author unknown. It’s called Mullah Nasrin and the Dandelions, and it goes like this:

One day a man named Mullah Nasrin decided to take up gardening. He loved flowers and vegetables and he became an adept gardener. But when his garden became plagued with dandelions, Mullah became more and more upset. Finally he couldn’t take it anymore. He travelled to the palace of the king and consulted the king’s own personal gardener. The royal gardener gave Mullah instructions on how to get rid of the dandelions. Mullah returned home full of enthusiasm and followed the instructions perfectly. But still the dandelions returned. Really angry now, Mullah returned to the king’s palace and found the royal gardener. “You’re a fraud!” he hollered. “Your remedy was no better than the rest! What else can I do about these dandelions?” The royal gardener looked thoughtful and stroked his chin. Finally he said softly, “Mullah Nasrin, there’s only one thing to do. You must learn to love dandelions.“

In mindfulness practice, we are constant gardeners, tending the landscapes of mind, body and spirit. Yoga teaches us the merits of self-study, Svadhyaya, deepening our awareness to reveal the nature of our true Self. When we take the time to observe things like physical, mental and emotional patterns in daily life, we might notice habits, biases, judgments, or assumptions that are shaped by past experience but no longer reflect who we are in this moment. Once we become aware of these old patterns that no longer serve us, we can choose to release them – to pull these weeds from our garden and make space for new plants to flourish.

Neuropsychologist and meditation teacher Rick Hanson speaks often of our ability to change the way our minds work by attending to our thoughts and experiences (check out his fascinating book, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom). As human beings, we have a negativity bias that is built into us as a survival mechanism. We learn from our past experiences, and those that caused us physical or emotional harm influence the way we perceive and respond to similar situations in the future. To balance this negativity bias and give positivity a chance to take root, Dr. Hanson advises us to take the time to fully embrace positive experiences, allowing them to be absorbed into our awareness to create a lasting effect over time. In an excellent TEDx talk several years ago, he offered a simple exercise to illustrate this practice: recall a positive experience (e.g., the love of a friend/partner/child/pet), sit with that experience for a short time to enhance its effects (e.g., the warm glow you feel inside as you think about the person), and let those effects be absorbed by the mind and body. The more we allow ourselves to fully experience positive thoughts and emotions, the less room there is in our mental chatter for negativity and distress.

Now, what about Mullah Nasrin and his dandelions? Dr. Hanson might say that Mullah could call upon the warm glow he feels when he looks at his beautiful garden and try to associate that same warm feeling with the dandelions. When negativity arises, this technique does not ask us to push it away or deny it; rather, we infuse the negative with positive, we use the positive experience as an antidote to help release us from the suffering caused by the negative one. This could be an effective tool for addressing difficult or traumatic experiences from the past that are creating unhealthy or unhelpful patterns in our thoughts and actions today.

On the other hand, yoga has another teaching that Mullah Nasrin might find helpful: Santosha. Through the practice of Santosha we find contentment and acceptance, embracing whatever arises in our experience. Struggling against the reality of our experience can only lead to suffering – so instead let’s swim with the tide, let’s welcome each moment, each thought, each emotion and sensation as if we had invited it. Open your heart and your mind. Be curious. Explore. Take the time to notice the blessings and simple pleasures in your life and let the joy they bring you fill your vessel to overflowing. Maybe the joy will displace some deeply rooted weeds in your garden, making space for beautiful new flowers to grow. Or maybe, you’ll simply learn to love your dandelions.

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The student’s journey

Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar

During seventy-three years of teaching and practising, I have observed that some students pay attention only to the physical aspect of yoga. Their practice is like a fast-flowing stream, tumbling and falling, which lacks depth and direction. By attending to the mental and spiritual side, a sincere student of yoga becomes like a smoothly flowing river which helps to irrigate and fertilize the land around it. Just as one cannot dip into the same river twice, so each and every asana refreshes your life force with new energy.

~BKS Iyengar, in Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health


I recently had the good fortune to attend a screening of a documentary entitled Iyengar: The Man, Yoga, and The Student’s Journey. Filmed before his passing in 2014, its release last year honoured the 100th anniversary of his birth. The film was inspiring on so many levels, and though it provided less insight into Mr. Iyengar’s early years than I had hoped for, it more than made up for it through stories of the profound effects his teachings have had on so many lives. I was particularly pleased to see Father Joe Pereira featured with his Kripa Foundation work that brings the healing benefits of Iyengar yoga to those suffering from addiction and HIV/AIDS (you may recall an earlier post I wrote about Father Joe and what an extraordinary experience it is to study with him). For me, some of the most memorable scenes in the film involve Mr. Iyengar’s granddaughter, Abhijata. We see her practicing asana intensely, with strict guidance and adjustments from her grandfather and other teachers, and she tells us, “It appears my grandfather teaches me asanas, but if I had to sum it up now, he is teaching me how to search for meaning in anything I do. He is teaching me huge concepts.” This is the true essence of yoga.

Most often we come to yoga through asana, the postures, and we arrive on our mat expecting a purely physical practice. However, if we are paying attention, we realise that the postures are merely a gateway, leading to a vast expanse of knowledge and exploration and connection. We begin a journey that lasts a lifetime, slowly peeling back the layers to reveal our innermost self, to attain what Mr. Iyengar called true alignment: “Yoga helps to integrate the mental and physical plane, bringing about a sense of inner and outer balance, or what I term alignment. True alignment means that the inner mind reaches every cell and fibre of the body.” This journey towards true alignment begins on our mat, but it does not remain there – the lessons we learn in each and every practice, through each and every asana, begin to colour and shape how we view and interact with the world around us.

Mr. Iyengar defined yoga as “the union of the individual self with the universal self.” His teachings embodied the eight-limbed path set out in the Yoga Sutra by the sage Patanjali: Yama (ethical behaviour), Niyama (restraint/discipline), Asana (posture), Pranayama (expansion of vital energy, the breath), Pratyahara (detachment of the senses), Dharana (focused attention), Dhyana (prolonged concentration, meditation), Samadhi (“when the knower, the knowable, and the known become one”). Deep exploration of this eight-limbed path takes a lifetime (or many lifetimes), but I believe that we can be forever changed even by taking the first step on this path: by embracing the first Yama, Ahimsa. Ahimsa translates as non-violence – toward ourselves, others, the world around us, non-violence in our thoughts, words and deeds. To me, an equally apt definition of Ahimsa would be compassion. When we practice yoga, we learn to be compassionate toward ourselves, and as we direct compassion inward, we begin to radiate it outward to all those we encounter. As Abhijata said, yoga is teaching us huge concepts – we need only open and awaken to these lessons and let them unite us with something greater than our individual self.

If you have the opportunity to see this documentary, I highly recommend it. In the meantime, I share with you the trailer for a glimpse of the film’s wisdom and insight.


Iyengar: The Man, Yoga & The Student’s Journey
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Explore. Dream. Discover.

Supertree Grove, Singapore

In my last post I touched on the benefits of exploring new places and perspectives and, as if on cue, an article arrived in my inbox about novelty and the importance of getting out of our ruts. According to the University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter, studies have shown that novelty may enhance memory and learning, it is associated with happiness and well-being, it may enhance creativity, and it can help slow down our perception of time. What more could we need to convince us!

For most, our tendency is to gravitate toward the familiar – what is safe, comfortable, known to us. We surround ourselves with familiar people, places, and things to cultivate a sense of security and to create a system of support and reassurance for when the path ahead is unclear. Some of our routines give necessary structure to our life – without them we would neglect our jobs, our responsibilities at home, our commitments to friends and family and community. However, I think it is worthwhile to examine our routines periodically and decide which ones continue to serve us, and which do not – which ones support us and help us move forward on our path, and which might be limiting our potential to grow and change.

It can be daunting to step outside our comfort zone. Yet, if we do not muster the courage to explore beyond what we know, we cannot reap the potential rewards. In A Book That Takes Its Time – An Unhurried Adventure in Creative Mindfulness, there is a wonderful graphic illustrating what lies beyond our comfort zone:

From: A Book That Takes Its Time, by Irene Smit and Astrid van der Hulst

When we look at it this way, how can we not give in to wanderlust and allow ourselves to explore the possibilities of discovery, adventure, reflection, and wisdom?

On the yogic path, we practice svadhyaya, self-study. We reflect upon who we really are – our truest self beyond ego, beyond the expectations and constructs of society. In mindfulness meditation we seek to release attachment to our preconceptions and judgments and look with a beginner’s mind at what arises moment by moment. These practices can help us to open our hearts and minds and give us the courage to explore beyond what is comfortable and known. When we take a step away from the familiar and we observe with fresh eyes what lies before us, the possibilities are endless.

What opportunities await beyond your comfort zone? Take the first step and see where it leads. Follow a new route on your evening walk. Learn a new language or skill. Play with a new pose, or an old pose in a new way, in your yoga practice. Travel to a distant land and explore a new culture. In the sage words of Mark Twain: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.“

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The unsung hero

“I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.” ~Joshua Graham

When we hear about mindfulness, its many virtues are extolled.  We are told that practicing mindfulness will make us more productive at work, improve our memory, help us sleep better, reduce our levels of stress and anxiety.  All of these things are true, and there are so many more benefits to bringing mindfulness into our daily life.  However, at the root of it all is one important benefit that I do not think gets enough mention: resilience.

When we come to our meditation practice, we sit with our present moment experience exactly as it unfolds.  That experience might include pain, anguish, sorrow, frustration, or anger.  Our mind might throw up defenses against these feelings, try to divert our attention, carry us away into dreams of the past or future, but despite its best efforts, we must eventually return to the present and whatever that moment holds for us.  The more time we spend sitting with experiences we label as unpleasant, the more familiar they become.  Rather than seeing them as something to fear and avoid, we recognise that they are part of us, part of our journey, part of the natural ebb and flow of our daily life and experience.

In the yogic tradition, resilience is embodied in the practice of Santosha, contentment.  Through Santosha we learn to accept whatever comes and whatever goes; we cultivate a sense of equanimity and seek to respond to challenges from that balanced place within us.  We grow stronger, building up our resources so that when storms lash at us from all sides, when the waves are so high we cannot see the shore, there is a well of strength deep within that keeps us buoyed until the weather clears.

Looking back at our life, we see grief and loss, joy and triumph, we climbed tall mountains and traversed dark valleys, and we survived through it all by drawing on the strength within us.  On the days when you feel the weather turning, when the skies are dark and the seas are churning, dive deep inside and ignite the fire within, let it burn brightly and guide your way through the storm.

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A lifetime of learning

This weekend I had the extraordinary privilege of studying with Father Joe Pereira. A Catholic priest for 51 years, Father Joe also studied closely with B.K.S. Iyengar for more than 40 years. He has been sharing the wisdom and healing power of Iyengar yoga around the world, while harnessing its therapeutic benefits to treat addiction and manage HIV/AIDS at the 69 treatment centres run by Kripa Foundation, which he founded in 1981 (http://www.kripafoundation.org/).

For those who are unfamiliar, B.K.S. Iyengar is widely known in the West as the father of modern yoga. The form of Hatha yoga he introduced is firmly rooted in the eight-limbed path set out for us by the sage Patanjali around 400 CE.  Iyengar yoga is often thought of as alignment-based asana, but it is so much more than a physical alignment practice – guided by the moral and ethical compass of the Yamas and Niyamas, it seeks to align the external body with the internal environment; it enables us to forge a union of body, mind and spirit, and from that place of union we can discover our connection to the Universe, to the God of our understanding, to that which is greater than ourselves.  We come to realise that we are not separate from one another; this existence is shared, and we must live it together with compassion and lovingkindness.

To me, the importance of lifelong learning cannot be overstated.  Our minds and bodies thrive when we are learning something new.  Though I am a teacher of yoga and meditation, I will always be first and foremost a student.  I try to approach each day with an open heart and an open mind, receptive to whatever lessons that day may bring.  When I take a class, a workshop, or training, I invite a beginner’s mind as I explore with wonder all that is being shared.  In the presence of someone with such depth and breadth of knowledge like Father Joe, who is extraordinarily wise, compassionate, humble, and kind, I am filled with gratitude for his teachings; like a sponge I absorb all of the wisdom he shares and welcome it deep within my bones, deep into my heart so that it may infuse and inform my practice and my daily life on and off the mat.

There are lessons to be learned in every moment – we need only pay attention and open ourselves to the wisdom in the world around us.  When we learn something new it changes our perspective; we look at our life, or aspects of it, in a different way.  These teachings can come to us in myriad forms, through myriad channels, anytime and anywhere.  Though we can have powerful learning experiences in formal settings like courses and workshops, some of the most profound lessons come when we least expect them – in our encounters with friends and loved ones, with unfamiliar people and places, when we are communing with nature.  The common denominator between all of these learning opportunities is that we have opened ourselves to possibility, and we have done so with presence, with mindful awareness, with a willingness to release our attachment to what was and welcome something new.

For these latest teachings from Father Joe, I am deeply grateful.  When you look back upon your life, at the important lessons you have learned, who are the teachers and what are the experiences that taught you most?  For even the seemingly small lessons we can give humble thanks, for every lesson we learn informs our journey, shapes who we are, and helps us determine the next step along our path.

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Be bodacious

Each of us has the right, the possibility to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. Be bodacious enough to invent yourself.  ~Maya Angelou

A dear friend shared this quote with me recently.  The words of Maya Angelou never cease to inspire and amaze me with their insight and wisdom.  With each day comes new possibilities, new opportunities. And yet, how often do we truly explore them?  How often do we have the courage and audacity to fully embrace change, to evolve, to invent ourselves daily? I suspect that for most of us, the hurdle that lies between us and invention is our own inner critic, the judgments we lay upon ourselves over and over that limit our ability to love and accept who we are in each and every moment.

The first step on the eight-limbed yogic path is Ahimsa, non-violence.  To practice Ahimsa means to do no harm in thought, word or deed – no harm to ourselves, to others, to the world around us.  To practice Ahimsa we must truly embody compassion and lovingkindness, and this begins with ourselves.  The Dalai Lama asks: “What is love? Love is the absence of judgment.”  Through mindfulness we seek to observe each moment, each thought, emotion, and sensation, without judgment or attachment.  Our mindful awareness shines a light on our inner critic and when these judgments are exposed and identified, they begin to lose their power over us.

In my classes I often invite students to turn their gaze inward, to reflect within. Both yoga and meditation are internal practices that enable us to know our true selves, to connect with the innate wisdom and beauty that lies deep within us.  The trouble is that to reach this inner sanctum, we must slay dragons like self-doubt and fear, we must awaken from what author / meditation teacher Tara Brach calls the trance of unworthiness and fill ourselves to the brim with compassion, with lovingkindness, with acceptance of all that we are and all that we can be.  Armed with the power of self-love and true acceptance, we can connect to our intuition and plumb the depths of our wisdom to guide us on our journey, our evolution, the bodacious invention of ourselves daily.

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The nature of change

Change is inevitable. Deep down we know this to be true. Why, then, do we so often fear change, struggle against it, fight to maintain the status quo? Perhaps it’s because we are creatures of habit. We take comfort in our routines, we feel safe and secure when we are surrounded by what we know. However, when we look within, I doubt there is anyone who cannot recall a time when their routine was shattered, when the best laid plans were completely, perhaps tragically, derailed. No matter how well we plan, how far we try to gaze into the future, we will never be able to see clearly beyond the present moment, and we will never truly know what changes the next moment might bring.

When we resist change, we are grasping at threads, as what we know unravels to reveal something unfamiliar. What if rather than viewing this new tapestry with fear and suspicion, we instead explore its unfamiliar patterns, seek out the beauty in its texture and colour, weave its threads into the fabric of our life. If this life is an ever-changing and evolving tapestry, we must acknowledge that there will at times be changes that challenge even the most masterful tailor.

BKS Iyengar wisely noted, “Change is not something that we should fear. Rather it is something that we should welcome. For without change, nothing in this world would ever grow or blossom and no one in this world would ever move forward to become the person they are meant to be.” To welcome change, we need to open our hearts and minds and learn how to accept whatever comes with grace and equanimity. This is the practice of Santosha. Through Santosha we find contentment with ourselves and the world around us, exactly as they are. We cultivate a place of balance, equanimity, and acceptance within us, and we begin to view all that arises in our life through this lens. When we can live from this balanced place within, the dizzying peaks and deep valleys along our path may seem less dramatic in their contrast, in the way they affect our daily life, and the terrain becomes easier to navigate. If we begin to acknowledge the inevitability of change and we release our fear of it, perhaps we truly can welcome change and all the possibility it brings.