Tag: cultivate equanimity

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Look with new eyes

Unsettled sky

I have a new student who has come to yoga seeking help in managing chronic pain and stress.  We often talk before and after class, and I try to provide a welcoming space where she can share her thoughts and fears, where she can develop and explore a practice that will nourish and support her.  In my years of teaching so far, I have encountered wide ranging stories of what first drew students to the practice of yoga, and I have found that pain and stress management are quite commonly cited.  For those of you who are long-time practitioners, I am certain you can remember a time when your practice was a friend and ally that supported you through challenges with your health, whether it was an injury, an illness, or emotional turbulence that required yoga’s sage and patient guidance.  No matter the reason we first step onto the yogic path, we quickly discover its myriad benefits if we are paying attention, and we learn to weave its lessons into the way we live our lives, and the way we treat ourselves and others.

All of our life experiences inform the way we perceive the world around us.  When we allow ourselves to be open and receptive, when we approach each moment with curiosity, these perceptions can be fluid and flexible; rather than being bound by a rigid set of assumptions and expectations, we are free to experience whatever new possibilities arise, allowing them to enrich and expand our perspectives on the world.  That being said, if you have ever experienced a debilitating chronic condition – depression, anxiety, auto-immune disease, neurological disorder, chronic pain from any number of sources – there might be times when it feels like those assumptions and expectations are what’s keeping you afloat.  With the student I mentioned above, she has become accustomed to describing her condition and symptoms in a particular way, evaluating and rating her pain in a particular way, viewing all aspects of her life through the specific lens of her condition.  She has been practicing mindfulness for many years, since long before her diagnosis, and it has provided a great measure of comfort and ease amidst the pain and uncertainty.  However, like any ritual or routine that we embrace, I believe that even practices that are intended to be mindful can become rote, done on auto-pilot, without truly and fully connecting to the present moment – particularly when that moment includes pain and suffering.

One of the qualities we cultivate through our practice is resilience. We learn to find equanimity and calm amidst a storm of sensation or emotion. We learn to sit with unease and discomfort and accept it as part of our experience. In a recent class I was talking about resilience and how our practice teaches us to distinguish between pain and discomfort – in terms of our asana practice, determining what we can sit with and what might need a modification to ensure we are not heading towards injury. After class, this student asked how we make that determination – she is experiencing some level of pain all the time so how does she differentiate between one pain and another? I suggested that she try changing her vocabulary around pain. She is so used to characterizing pain for her doctors and attaching a numerical value to express its intensity that those labels and judgments could become shackles that prevent her from moving beyond the pain. By releasing the labels, by accepting that all of it is simply sensation, she can then approach whatever she might be feeling with a greater sense of openness and curiosity, observing sensations without judging them, and without tying them to past stories and expectations. The idea of not labelling the pain was a revelation – a new idea that could help release an old pattern no longer serving a useful purpose.

When we meditate, spending time with the natural rise and fall of our breath and body sensations, we can open ourselves to the endless possibilities that exist in each moment. If we keep returning to assumptions and labels we have used in the past, they will limit how and what we perceive, they will limit our ability to grow and flourish, to become resilient and strong. Our practice is one of continuously letting go, placing our full attention on the moment as it arises and then releasing it completely so we have space to invite the next moment into our awareness.

I invite you to observe your own practice and notice what you find. Do you see well-worn patterns, labels and reactions and expectations that arise automatically? What changes could you make, what new ideas could you explore to invite a fresh perspective? As Marcel Proust advised, “The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Look upon yourself and the world around you with new eyes, and see what discoveries await.

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A balance of light & dark

When we assign labels or judgments to our feelings and experiences, we run the risk of diminishing what they have to teach us. Our natural inclination is to crave what feels ‘good’ and is deemed ‘positive’ by those around us, and we avoid what feels ‘bad’ and might be viewed as ‘negative’.  However, by only courting what is good and striving to ignore what is bad, could we not be depriving ourselves of fully half our life experiences? If we shun the dark, can we ever truly appreciate the light?

Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön reminds us that “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” We can try to hide from our fear, bury our anxiety, ignore our distress, but until we have acknowledged their lessons and allowed them to penetrate deep within, we will never be free of them. We will encounter them again and again on our path, sometimes in different shapes, with different faces, yet still they stem from the same roots. To shine a light on them, we must use our mindful awareness to look within, to reach into the darkness of our despair or uncertainty, our anger or fear, and allow ourselves to experience them fully. We open ourselves to the darkness or discomfort without judgment, without attachment, with a deep sense of self-compassion, and we listen to what these experiences are trying to teach us.

There is a reason we begin our meditation studies with awareness of the breath: it is the gateway between our external experience of the world around us and the inner landscape where our true and wisest self lies.  The breath lets us connect to our physical self in a simple, non-threatening way; it connects us to the familiar external world and the way it tastes, smells and feels, moment by moment.  We then begin to follow the breath as it moves within the body and we attune to the physical sensations we encounter there – the lungs, ribs and belly expanding and softening, the way the air feels as it moves through the nostrils and the throat.  Sitting in silent contemplation of the breath, the subtle beauty of the body rising and falling, enables us to connect to the present moment in a tangible way, and it provides an anchor that grounds us in the present and brings us back again and again as our attention drifts.  From this grounded place, we can then choose to open our awareness to the less tangible, to the ever-changing stream of thoughts and emotions that arise in each moment.  It is here that we are often most inclined to judge and label: welcoming happiness and pushing away sorrow, embracing the light as we run from the dark.

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung sagely observed that, “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” What if instead of labeling happiness as good and sadness as bad, we simply accept them for what they are: feelings and experiences, in a lifelong journey of feelings and experiences? Perhaps if we can notice when we label and judge, we can begin to acknowledge that it serves no useful purpose. Perhaps if we let go of labels and judgments when they arise, we can instead choose to sit with experiences exactly as they are, opening up to their lessons as a guiding light from within.

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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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The two arrows

When we welcome mindful practices like yoga and meditation into our lives, we learn about the myriad benefits they can bring.  We might feel them physically: less pain, more energy, softness, strength.  We might feel them on a mental or emotional level: less stress and anxiety, greater ease and calm.  Pay attention to the present moment, and all of these benefits can unfold for us.  It sounds so simple, and yet I am often reminded that ‘simple’ does not make it ‘easy’.

When we practice mindfulness, we seek to pay attention to the present moment in an open and receptive way, without judgment or attachment.  However, as human beings we unconsciously form judgments about all that we experience – good, bad, pleasant, unpleasant, happy, sad, the list goes on.  Mindfulness does not stop the judgments altogether, but it makes us aware of them when they arise, and more importantly, it teaches us to release our attachment to those judgments; we learn to accept what arises just as it is without attaching a story to it, without getting carried away from the present moment in that story.  Again, this sounds simple enough on the surface, but learning to release our attachment to the narratives we create can be very challenging, especially when those narratives come from deep-seated places and experiences within us.

When our attention rests fully in the present, we are witness to all that arises in that moment. For example, when we attend to sensation in the body, we begin to notice that sensations ebb and flow moment by moment – an itchiness here, a tingling there, warmth on my back, coldness in my feet.  When we attend to the breath we might notice that inhales and exhales differ in length and breadth and depth, and the breath moves differently in different areas of the body.  When we attend to our thoughts we might notice more busyness some days than others, or that certain thoughts come back again and again, and others seem to appear out of nowhere.  As we deepen our practice of mindfulness, we notice more and more about each moment’s experience, and we cultivate the ability to do so with less and less attachment.

In the Buddhist tradition, it is said that the root of all suffering is attachment.  We are attached to the desire to have (craving what is good, pleasant, happy) and the desire to not have (aversion to what is bad, unpleasant, sad).  We get attached to our judgments and perceptions of people and places and things.  When something arises in our experience, two things can happen: we can react automatically based on these preconceived notions that we have developed over our lifetime, or we can respond from a different place, a place that is open and receptive, a place of compassion and equanimity.  If we respond from this place, we can view the experience through a different lens and observe its nuances without those old judgments colouring our perception and causing us suffering.

When we sit down to meditate and we open our awareness to the changing experience of each moment, at some point we will inevitably be confronted by the suffering of our judgments and attachments.  We attend to the sensations in our body and a sharp pain arises.  Most of us would naturally feel an aversion to the pain; we might also attach a unique story to this particular pain – a story about an injury or illness, a story about something stressful, a story that makes us feel fearful of this pain.  There is a Buddhist parable about two arrows, and the first arrow is this initial sharp pain.  After we have been struck by this first arrow, would we intentionally shoot ourselves with a second arrow?  Of course not – and yet we do this through our unconscious reaction to the pain and our attachment to the story we create around it.  It is this reaction that is the second arrow of suffering, and while we cannot always control the first arrow, we can definitely work on stopping the second one – or at least reduce its impact.

The first arrow could appear in our practice as a physical sensation, as a mental or emotional sensation, or perhaps as something we perceive as energetic or spiritual.  We practice mindfulness so that we can cultivate resources like compassion, lovingkindness, acceptance, and equanimity.  We often think of directing these resources to our loved ones and those in the world around us, but it is vitally important that we also direct them towards ourselves.  When the first arrow strikes, we call upon these resources to help us respond consciously in a balanced way.  We feel that sharp pain – or deep loss, betrayal, anxiety, humiliation – and we reach into our heart and tap into our compassion and lovingkindness.  We sit with the pain and we accept it as part of this moment’s experience.  We resist the stories that want to attach themselves to the pain and carry us away from the experience of it.

Mindfulness is not an easy practice when we start to peel back the layers of our experience, but it is one that is full of rewards and enduring benefits.  Mindfulness helps us come home to ourselves, to create a place within us that is warm and welcoming and compassionate and accepting of all the many facets of who we are.  Indian spiritual leader Osho reminded us: “Drop the idea of becoming someone because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realise it.” Mindfulness helps us find our way to this realisation, recognising our innate wisdom and beauty and letting it guide us in the way we treat ourselves, others, and the world around us.

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Gratitude

“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” ~Albert Einstein

“Who is rich? Those who are happy with what they have.” ~Jewish scripture

It’s easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day challenges of our life that we forget to open our eyes to the myriad gifts that surround us.  It’s easy to let our attention become so sharply focused on the future and what we want to acquire, achieve, accomplish, that we neglect to look in the periphery of our present and acknowledge what we already have.  At any given time on our path we could be standing triumphantly on a peak, mired in a deep valley, or walking steadily somewhere in between.  No matter where we find ourselves, whether the path seems clear or hazy, it is exactly the right time to practice gratitude.

There is something quite profound in regularly giving thanks for the simple blessings in our life.  The practice of gratitude helps us shift our focus to the unsung heroes that support us on our journey.  We can give thanks for the love of family and friends, for the roof over our heads, for the technology that allows me to share these words with you and enables you to access them from virtually anywhere.  We can give thanks for the gifts of hearing and sight, of taste, touch and smell that allow us to connect to the world around us and marvel at its beauty. Even in the throes of despair or disease, we can give thanks simply for the breath that nourishes us and gives us life in that moment.

Gratitude can offer us a refuge from our inner and outer struggles.  It shifts our gaze away from our challenges and helps us cultivate a sense of contentment, balance and perspective.  We are reminded to appreciate the simple joys of life, the gift of being alive, and we begin to recognise that this too shall pass – whatever ‘this’ may be.  We remember that change is our constant companion and with each moment arrives new possibilities, new opportunities to grow, to learn, to heal, to stand rapt in awe at the simple blessings this moment brings.

Gratitude can be practiced anytime and anywhere, and like any skill, the more often we practice, the more adept we become.  When you awaken each morning, ask yourself: what am I grateful for on this day?  When feelings like frustration, anger, loneliness or pain arise, invite yourself to pause and bring to mind one thing for which you are grateful in that moment.  The more often we pause to wonder and we acknowledge that we are truly rich, the better able we will be to find contentment within ourselves and the world around us.

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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.