Mindfulness Yoga
Page 21
But I stayed and breathed. I embraced it all, while feeling fearful all the while. And then, finally, all the energy of the anxiety storm seemed to dissolve and I felt myself plummet until I felt I had come to rest in my deepest core. In a physical sense, this seemed to be in the lower abdomen and pelvis. Psychologically, it was warm, and felt soft and welcoming. And it was a deep sadness, which brought tears to my eyes. What I found most amazing was how loving it all felt. Somehow, I felt the spaciousness and lightness of love and happiness in the midst of deep sorrow.
When I share this story with students, they want to hear me say that the sadness went away. But it didn’t. What was liberated was the suffering, the suffering that I later realized I was adding to the pure experience of sadness. The anger and betrayal, even the fear and anxiety, I now know were ways my mind attempted to keep me from feeling the truth of the sadness. And this wasn’t merely the sadness of my breakup. It wasn’t merely “my sadness.” What I felt was an intimate connection with all who suffer and all who have ever felt this sadness—and with those who have not allowed themselves to feel it yet. This was the existential sadness of life, duhkha. And in fully opening to it, I found an unconditional love and compassion—an unconditional happiness. I could indeed just feel sad, and it was liberating. All the energy that went into attempting not to feel what was true was now free, free to flow through me. And this energy was not mine, yet it had something to do with who or what I really am. It was the energy of life.
Now, this most certainly does not mean that I am free from unwholesome mental formations. Frustration, fear, anger, and sadness are all still there and occasionally arise. But ever since that long night on the zafu, mindfulness is also there, and I am no longer dominated and buffeted by these mental formations. I am no longer as enslaved by them as I once was, and so they do not dominate and overwhelm. I have learned—and continue to learn through this practice—to make peace with it all, to become intimate with what is, when it is, and just how it is. Whatever arises in the flow of experiencing, whatever mental states may arise, I no longer see them as the enemy. They are the teachers of liberation. As Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck points out, after years of practice we come to see that what we thought were the sharp and rough rocks on the road of life are actually precious jewels—diamonds—that support and make our life of practice possible.
MINDFULNESS YOGA: SEQUENCE THREE
IN THIS SEQUENCE, we introduce the remaining postures that together with what we have already practiced, make up the classic vinyasa or uninterrupted connecting flow of postures: the SUN SALUTATIONS (Surya Namaskara). We build slowly into the vinyasa, and then move at a more vigorous clip. When moving quickly, the mind can easily go on vacation as we automatically move through the various postures. Another possibility is that the mind will tend to lean forward into the next posture without being fully present in the posture we are in and completely absent from the connecting movement.
The vinyasa is the flowing movement in its entirety. It is every bit as important to stay present throughout the movement as it is to stay present in the individual asanas. Notice the mind’s tendency to isolate bits from the vinyasa, privileging the asanas and downplaying the connecting movements, and how it grasps after and clings to what it prefers and pushes away and resists what it doesn’t like. Moving with awareness of your breathing will help you to stay present and aware throughout the whole practice. This is moving meditation.
Again, beginners may wish to skip the asterisked sequences until they grow stronger and more familiar with the postures.
1. Simple Cross-Legged Sitting Pose
3-10 MINUTES
Sit with your legs crossed, with your feet underneath your knees. Sit on the forward points of your sitting bones (avoid rolling the pelvis backward and rounding the lower back). With your hands beside your hips, feel the sitting bones grounding down as the crown of your head rises up, lengthening the spine. Feel where in your body you sense your weight as it presses down into the earth.
Now place your hands on your knees, and with your eyes closed, open to the feeling tone of “just sitting.” Then slowly lean over to the left as far as you can, and watch how the feeling tone changes across the range of motion. Then begin to rock side to side in ever smaller movements, letting the quality of your breath show you where center is. The breath will grow more relaxed, smoother, and the feeling tone will be one of ease. You may feel the tension in your upper back and shoulders melt. Without needing any external reference, your body and breath will guide you to your center. Let your breath teach you.
Spend several minutes simply sitting in awareness of the breath, the sensations throughout your body, and the quality of your mental state. Is the mind active or relatively restful? Is there happiness, sadness, or some other emotion? Remember, awareness does not choose what to be aware of. It remains present and all-inclusive of whatever is there, in the moment. Let go of judging, let go of resisting, and simply stay present with what is.
2. Cat/Cow Pose
6-10 REPETITIONS WITH YOUR BREATH
Position your hands straight down from your shoulders and your knees straight down from your hips. On the exhalation, round your back like an angry cat, tilting the pelvis backward and tucking the tailbone between your legs. Let your head hang down as you gaze back toward your pelvis. On the inhalation, tilt your pelvis forward, dropping your belly toward the floor as the crown of your head and your sitting bones reach up toward the ceiling, your back moving into a soft backbend. Here your back has a gentle backbend, as it takes the line of a cow’s back.
Let your natural breath determine the duration and rhythm of your movement. Begin the movement with the tilting of your pelvis, and let the movement generated by this action flow up your back like a wave moving through water. Pay attention to the body of the breath as well as all that arises as you move from one position to the other.
3. Downward-Facing Dog
10-30 BREATHS
From COW POSE, tuck your toes under and, reaching your sitting bones up and back, straighten your legs into DOWNWARD-FACING DOG. Keep the sitting bones lifting and let go of the notion that you need to have your heels come to the floor, yet do keep them moving toward the floor, but not at the expense of the elongation of your back. As you stay here breathing, notice if the mind leans away out of boredom or aversion. What happens if you stay five breaths longer than you would prefer?
Modification:
With tight hamstrings, the lower back will round and compress. Simply bend your knees until you can feel the back lengthen and the lower back regains its natural (inward moving) lumbar curve. If the backs of your legs are really tight, besides bending your knees, you may want to experiment with stepping your feet a bit wider than hip width.
4. Lunge
3-6 BREATHS EACH SIDE
From DOWNWARD-FACING DOG, step your right foot forward between your hands, keeping the back leg straight and extending out through your back heel. Make sure the bent knee is not coming forward of your toes. The front knee should be bent at a 90-degree angle with the shin perpendicular and the thigh parallel to the floor. Come up onto your fingertips and roll the shoulders down your back while opening the heart as you gaze forward.
Without straining or becoming rigid, keep making the effort to lengthen out through the back heel while keeping the chest lifted. Let the breath move freely through the body.
Step the right leg back into DOWNWARD-FACING DOG and repeat with the left leg. After doing the LUNGE with the left leg forward, step back again into DOWNWARD-FACING DOG.
See if your mind “leans” from where you are to the next place you are going or if you can stay fully present throughout this short vinyasa. You are cultivating the constant practice needed for the later vinyasas.
5. Lunge into Standing Lunge (Warrior One Variation)
10-25 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Step your right foot forward between your hands into LUNGE but this time, from here, come up into the STA
NDING LUNGE, which is a variant form of WARRIOR ONE. Keep actively reaching out through your back foot and let your tailbone descend away from your lower back as your arms reach up toward the ceiling. Prevent the shoulders from creeping up to your ears and stretch up from the side body.
As you breathe here, notice the sensations that arise. Notice how, the longer you stay here and the more intense the sensations grow, resistance to the sensations also grows. Notice how the mind may want to “lean forward” away from the posture. Keep connecting with your breath and see if you can smile to the sensations. Notice too how as the sensations arise and perhaps increase, the mind begins to generate a story line; “Why is this damn teacher so mean! How long is he going to keep us here?!” Using the breath as your anchor, see if you can just see the mental activity without having to identify with it.
Come out of the STANDING LUNGE back into DOWNWARD-FACING DOG. If you are alert, you may catch yourself grasping for the sensation of relief, but after one or two breaths in DOWNWARD-FACING DOG step forward with the left foot and repeat the LUNGE and STANDING LUNGE on that side. Again, notice all that arises as you stand in the LUNGE.
And when you release back into DOWNWARD-FACING DOG again, see if that grasping for relief arises again. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the relief, but what would happen if we now stayed in DOWNWARD-FACING DOG for twenty or thirty or maybe forty breaths? You’d probably look forward to getting out of that experience even if it meant going back into the STANDING LUNGE! Again, this is the apparently endless cycle of “push-me/pull-me” we put ourselves through. But staying with the sensations, staying in the place of awareness and letting the breath be the undercurrent of our awareness, we can begin to see the conditioning and let it go.
From DOWNWARD-FACING DOG, taking small steps and pressing your heels into the floor walk forward into HANGING FORWARD BEND.
Modification:
If it’s too challenging at this point to raise your arms over your head, keep your hands gently pressing into the thigh of the front leg to help roll the shoulders back and lift and open the chest.
6. Hanging Forward Bend
8-15 BREATHS
Have your feet about a fist-width apart and lift your sitting bones up as you drape your torso over your legs. If there is tension felt in the lower back, soften and bend the knees. Cross your arms, interlocking them at the elbows, and just hang. Breathing naturally, stay awake to what is happening throughout your body and mind.
Modification:
Those with tight hamstrings will find that they will round in the lower back, eventually causing tension there. Bend your knees to release the back tension and let your torso be supported by your thighs. This action stabilizes the lower back and sacrum and allows you to bend from your hip joint rather than from the back. Keep the sitting bones lifting, while simultaneously pressing down through your feet.
7. Spinal Roll
20-45 SECONDS
Release your arms and let them dangle freely. Don’t hold them in any particular place. With your knees softly bent, draw your navel back toward your spine and roll up one vertebra at a time. See how little or how much of your spine you can actually experience as you do this. Let the breath be natural.
Keep your eyes open, and if you see your arms coming in toward your legs, or reaching out away from you, see if you can consciously let go and surrender them to gravity. As you slowly rise up into MOUNTAIN, notice where in your body feelings predominate. How do they shift and change as you slowly rise up? Let yourself be aware of any tendency the mind has to choose, judge, and compare.
Modification:
If there is pain in the lower back, even with bent knees, then use your hands on your thighs for added support.
8. Mountain/Balanced Standing Pose
2-5 MINUTES
Stand with your feet hip-width apart and parallel along the midline of the foot (roughly straight back from the second toe). Your big toes will be slightly closer to each other than your heels when lined up along the midline of the foot. Feel the weight of your body descend down through your legs and into the earth just in front of your heels. Let your spine rise up out of the basin of your pelvis, upper chest lifted, and shoulders relaxed and slightly back.
Often in most classes, MOUNTAIN is practiced as a posture one just passes through on the way to a more interesting posture, so stay here at least for the two minutes suggested and see what mental formations arise. Practice standing meditation and “just stand.”
9. Crescent Moon Pose
3-8 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Inhale, reaching your arms up overhead, and press your palms together. As you exhale, bend to your left and move your hips to the right. As you breathe in the posture, see if you can continue to extend through your fingers on the inhalations, and move your hips more to the side as you exhale.
Breathing here, notice the quality of the breath, where you feel it most, and how it differs from the right side to the left side of your body. Here, and throughout the practice, when you notice the mind judging and categorizing one side of the body against the other, see if you can let it go and just remain with the experience in the present moment. When ready to come back to straight, inhale up and reach up through your fingers to the ceiling.
Repeat onto the other side.
Modification:
If there is tightness in the shoulders, you can place a block between your hands and press into the block while pressing up to the ceiling. Let this action maximize the broadness of your open back muscles. Maintain this openness even while bending to the side.
10. Sail Pose
3-8 BREATHS
From the starting position of CRESCENT MOON, clasp all but your index fingers, roll your eyes up in your head, and then raise your chin only enough to see your pinkies. Don’t drop your head all the way back. Then, as you continue to reach up through your index fingers, move your hips forward as your heart opens up to the sky. This is a standing backbend, but the action is actually up through your arms and forward from your center.
Breathing here, notice the quality of the breath, the quality of your posture and balance, and the quality of your effort. Are you straining at all? If so, back out a bit. Let go of thinking you need to attain some abstract idea of perfection. When ready to come out from this posture, inhale as you reach up through your index fingers straight up to the sky. Exhale, lowering your arms to your sides.
11. Swan Dive into Standing Forward Bend
6-12 BREATHS
Inhale, extending your arms up overhead. Then, exhaling, roll your thighs in as you lean into the back of your legs, pouring your torso out over your thighs as you fold from your hips. Hold your arms out at about a 45-degree angle as you do, minimizing any possible strain in your back.
Breathe in the STANDING FORWARD BEND. Continue to see if you can stay present throughout the duration of the breath and if there is any subtle choosing and judging going on in the mind.
Modification:
If tightness in the hamstrings or hips prevents keeping a flat back in SWAN DIVE, keep your knees bent as much as needed to release the strain in the lower back.
12. Extended Standing Forward Bend
3-5 BREATHS
Inhale and lift the torso from your thighs, extending and lengthening the back, creating a backbend as you did when you inhaled into the Cow Pose. Lift the chest and open the heart as you gaze toward the horizon. Don’t strain in the neck. Simply raise your head, continuing the graceful arc of the backbend and gaze over the tops of your eyes.
You can come up onto your fingertips to increase the opening of the heart by rolling your shoulders back and away from your ears. Keep the sitting bones lifting toward the ceiling and back away from your head as you press your feet into the floor.
From here, exhale and deepen into the STANDING FORWARD BEND.