Mindfulness Yoga
Page 23
From here, lengthen out over your legs into a forward bend. Maintain the length of the spine, even though there will be some gentle bending in the midback.
Resting here, staying with the breath, notice the quality of the mind. How does it reflect what is going on in the body? If the sensations of the stretch in the inner thighs feels intense, notice if the mind is quick to label that unpleasant and how that conditions tension in the mind, breath, and body. Yet, if you can use the breath to embrace the sensations and let go of the mental formations, you may find yourself surprised to see that the sensations may not be unpleasant so much as “different.” This is the same habit energy that pulls away from people and situations that the mind perceives as different.
Coming up from here, lift up and out, keeping the length in the spine, and then release to straight.
23. Wide-Angle Forward Bend
6-20 BREATHS
Sit with your legs open wide, keeping your knees and toes pointing directly upward. Don’t let them drop out or in. Put your hands behind you as you gently draw the lower back and sacrum into the torso, avoiding the pelvis tilting back into a posterior tilt. Press the backs of your legs into the ground, keeping your heels on the ground, while reaching out along the length of your leg bones from your sitting bones toward your heels.
Slowly bend forward, bringing your hands to the floor in front of you or taking hold of your big toes, keeping your knees and toes pointing directly upward. Keep the length in your back as far as you can into the forward bend.
Keep the breath flowing naturally as you observe the sensations. Where do you feel the sensations? What is the quality of the “mind space” in response to the feelings in the body?
When coming up, again lengthen up as if you were leading from the heart and release back to the starting posture.
Modification:
Those of us who have tightness in the hamstrings and feel the lower back rounding out, or have tightness in the inner thighs, can do this posture while sitting on a blanket or two. Extending the spine, come forward and rest the torso on a bolster or a stack of blankets. Make sure you keep the entire length of the legs actively pressing down into the ground.
24. One-Legged Forward Bend
10-25 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Starting from STAFF POSE, bend your right knee upward, sliding your right heel in toward your right sitting bone. Then open your right leg out to the side.
Reaching up through your arms and lifting in your torso, ease forward and reach out for your left shin or foot. As you ground down through your legs, lift your chest forward and out over the left leg. Tilting the pelvis forward, hinging from the hips, let your sitting bones spread back and apart. Don’t pull, but go to your edge and notice any resistance you may feel in the back of the straight leg. You don’t need to get anywhere; relax the resistance to being here. As we begin to settle down in the seated forward bends, the mind can either drift off in fantasy or begin to really spin out commentary. Just see what is happening. If you can stay aware, and with the breath as your home base, does the mind just naturally begin to release or let go?
When coming up from this forward bend, keep lengthening up and out as you inhale, then exhaling, release the posture.
Repeat on the other side.
Modification:
If you are coming into this forward bend primarily from bending in the lower back and not from the hips, sit up on a blanket or two and keep extending the torso out over your straight leg. Stop when you feel the pelvis start to roll backward and round your lower back. You can support yourself here with your hands gently pressing into your shins.
25. Lord-of-the-Fishes Pose
10-15 BREATHS EACH SIDE
Bring your left leg into a simple crossed-leg position, sliding it under your right thigh so that your left heel will come to rest outside your right hip. Then, cross your right foot over your left thigh so that the sole of your right foot is firmly on the ground. Hug your right leg with your left arm just below the knee, and use your right hand to press into the ground behind your back so that you can extend your spine up as you ground your legs. Begin to twist to the right, using your left hand to aid the left side of your body in coming around to the right.
You can take your left arm to the outside of your right leg and press into the leg for added leverage, but let the twist rise naturally from the base of the spine upward. Let your head turn to the right at the end of the torso’s movement, and keep the neck relaxed. Don’t lead with your chin.
Stay present with your breath guiding you in your exploration of your feelings. What is the mental reflection of the physical experience of the compression of this twist?
Release as you exhale and gently untwist.
Repeat on the other side.
Modification:
If your hips are tight, you may find that your pelvis and back are collapsed back as you cross your legs to set up for this twist. Try sitting up on several blankets so that you can establish the natural curvature of your spine in the starting position for this posture.
Then keep a sense of lifting up from the pelvis as you twist from the base of your spine upward. Using a block for your back hand will also help you from collapsing in this posture.
26. Seated Forward Bend
10-20 BREATHS
From STAFF POSE, reach out and grasp your feet or your shins. Soften your groins as your thighs roll slightly inward, sitting bones moving back and apart. Think more of lifting the torso out and over your legs and not so much about how far you get in the pose. The back will round, but let it round evenly, and not until you’ve folded from the hips first. Move the chest out over your legs by using the strength of your arms, bending your elbows up and out to the sides. Gaze toward your toes, until the chin comes to rest on the shin. Then turn the gaze within or onto your “third eye.”
As you surrender into the posture, keep your focus on the breath. Here, especially, let yourself find that balance between working in a posture and giving yourself up to it. Don’t strain. Stay present with the feelings arising without adding anything by way of interpretation, projection, or identification.
Coming out of this forward bend, inhale as you lift the heart up and out and then exhale as you release to the starting position.
Modification:
We want to initiate this posture from being firmly grounded at the sitting bones and folding forward from the hips. If in STAFF POSE you cannot maintain the natural curvature of your lower back and feel it rounding out, then sit up on a blanket or two.
Keep the back lengthened and don’t worry about getting your head to your leg, but stay at your edge and allow the stretch to come from the back of your legs and your hips.
2 7 . Reverse Plank
4-8 BREATHS
From STAFF POSE, place your hands on the floor behind your hips with the fingers pointing toward or away from your toes (alternating, as both positions have their merits). Inhaling, lift the pelvis up toward the ceiling as you point the toes toward the floor. Keep the tailbone reaching toward your feet. Make sure your wrists are directly below your shoulders with your arms straight. Either keep your chin on your chest, or let the head release all the way back, supported by your upper back muscles. This posture can often be the cause of much resistance. Keep your focus on the breath, while observing any mental resistance to staying in this posture, and when you’re ready, exhale back down into the starting position.
28. Corpse Pose
5-15 MINUTES
Lie in CORPSE POSE, with your legs about 12-18 inches apart and your toes turned out. Your arms are at your sides, at least a few inches from the torso with your palms turned upward.
First, just let your awareness rest wherever in your body you experience the breath. Remember, let go of the tendency to control or manipulate and just see for yourself what is happening now. Wherever you feel it, rest your attention there.
Stay with the sensations of the breath, the subtle increase of tension as
you inhale, and then the release of the exhalation. After awhile, let your awareness expand to include your whole body. Let yourself open to and embrace all the sensations that may arise as you lie here. Look to see if the feeling tone is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Notice any tendency to hold on to pleasant experience, reject what may be unpleasant, or zone out in the absence of any particularly strong sensations.
Then, let awareness turn in upon itself. What mental states are present? Remember that mental formations include what we normally think of as emotions, as well as fantasy, drowsiness, mindfulness, reasoning, judging. Noticing what is there, with no aversion or clinging, is our practice. Looking deeply into the mental formations, they liberate themselves as long as we do not feed them with our clinging and pushing away.
29. Seated Meditation
5-40 MINUTES
Sit in any of the crossed-leg asanas. Find your center and extend your torso from your hips up into your armpits. Make sure your shoulder blades are firmly supporting your upper back and that your lower back has its natural lumbar curve.
When the yogi breathes in or out with the awareness of the mind, or to make the mind happy, to collect the mind in concentration, or to free and liberate the mind, he abides peacefully in the observation of the mind in the mind, persevering, fully awake, clearly understanding his state, gone beyond all attachment and aversion to this life. These exercises of breathing with Full Awareness belong to the third establishment of mindfulness, the mind. Without Full Awareness of Breathing, there can be no development of meditative stability and understanding.
INTERLUDE
LEARNING DHARMA FROM A TREE
There are a great number of balancing postures. Some have you balancing on one leg while twisting and turning and wrapping your body into a huge variety of shapes. With others, you balance on your arms or head, and then add variations by twisting and turning and wrapping your body into all sorts of shapes.
But I have chosen to include just this one simple, basic balancing posture because it has an elegance that allows us to look deeply into our mind. Its simplicity of line can also allow us to stay in it with somewhat less effort than more elaborate balancing postures.
When we stand in TREE POSE and practice mindfully, we may see the subtle tendency to hold the breath—as if our very breath may topple us over. With this holding of the breath, we may see that we are holding a lot of tension in the body, resisting swaying. And yet, trees sway! This physical tension—clenching the jaw, sticking our tongues up into the roof of our mouth, holding the ribs tight and oftentimes scowling—is all reflected in the corresponding restriction of the mind. The inner monologue is literally written on one’s face: Shit! I’m gonna fall! Why can’t I keep my balance? I did it okay yesterday? I just can’t do this! I’m not good at balancing! Focus!
In every class I teach, I remind my students to keep breathing and curl the corners of their mouths up. Not just to make them look better, but because it frees up a lot of facial tension. When the face is relaxed, the mind also softens. One lightens up. I also encourage them to remember that if they lose their balance, they can just begin again. Patanjali defines asana as “that posture that is stable and easeful.” But for me, the deepest import of that definition refers to the quality of our mind. So you lose your (physical) balance in TREE and you wobble and your leg comes down. Can your mind be stable and at ease? Then you’re practicing yoga.
Much of the drama around balancing postures is that rather than opening to reality, we attempt to live out some ideal. Most of us think of balance as some state of being. We think it is something static; once we achieve it, we have it and all will be well. This manifests in thoughts such as “Once I get that degree, then I’ll feel authenticated,” “Once I get that job/raise, then I’ll be able to do what I want,” “Once I get married/partnered, then I’ll live happily ever after,” “Once I’m enlightened, then I’ll be free.”
I am only being a little facetious here. This concept of balance as a state of being is one of our most destructive myths. And practicing TREE is the antidote. Balance is a process. No matter how long and how still you can be in TREE, perhaps with no wobbling of your upper body at all, just look at how much work your standing foot (and the muscles of your leg) is doing! Your foot is constantly making micro-adjustments in order to maintain your balance. And yet we use the mental concept of balance to judge against our lived experience, and then find our lived experience (our life) not up to par!
Another lesson is provided when we release from TREE back into MOUNTAIN. Invariably, when I teach a new group of students, almost all of them will wiggle their toes and rotate their ankles of what had been the standing (balancing) foot. This is because, after standing with all our weight supported on one foot, when we release, sensations arise. These sensations can best be described as a kind of pins and needles.
But most beginners don’t allow themselves to feel these sensations, and immediately attempt to “get rid of them.” This is a barely conscious act. In fact, it is often a purely unconscious reaction. So I point this out to them as an example of how automatic our aversion is. When we do the other leg, I encourage them to simply observe the sensations that arise when we release and see what happens.
Many are surprised to see how strong the tendency is to move away from the sensations. They are even more surprised to see that often they do not really find the sensations painful or all that uncomfortable. One student realized that she was shaking out her foot simply because the feelings were unfamiliar, strange. This habit energy to move away from the unfamiliar and different sensations is ultimately no different from the tendency to move away from people, emotions, relationships, and environments simply because they are different or unfamiliar. By working with these patterns on our mats, our very lives are opened, becoming more spacious and welcoming.
TREE is one of my favorite meditative asanas. It has taught me so much about myself. May it help you to stay with your experiencing, accepting what is, and holding on to nothing.
CHAPTER TEN
AWARENESS OF OBJECTS OF MIND: DHARMAS IN THE DHARMAS
Breathing in, aware of the impermanent nature of all dharmas.
Breathing out, aware of the impermanent nature of all dharmas.
Breathing in, aware of the disappearance of clinging.
Breathing out, aware of the disappearance of clinging
Breathing in, observing cessation.
Breathing out, observing cessation.
Breathing in, observing letting go.
Breathing out, observing letting go.
AS WE HAVE SEEN ALL ALONG, none of these exercises is the culmination of any others because we have in fact been practicing them all from the beginning. This mind cannot be separated from its object. As we saw with the Third Establishment of Mindfulness, mind is consciousness, feeling, and mental formations (such as aversion and attachment). If we are feeling, we are feeling something, and this something is the object of mind. Mind and its object “inter-are.” In the practice of mindfulness we come to see that mind itself is both the subject and the object of consciousness. When subject and object are one, this is samadhi. This is yoga.
All physiological phenomena (the body and all its processes, including the breath), all psychological phenomena (the mind and all its processes, including feelings, thoughts, and consciousness), and all physical phenomena (the earth itself, including the elements and natural phenomena) are objects of mind. They are all mind, they are all body, and they are all dharmas. And as you can see, we have been working with these “objects” from the very first exercise, when we began to deeply observe the breath coming in and coming out.
When we come to the first exercise of the fourth tetrad, all that really shifts is our emphasis. Now when we observe the breath, for instance, we reflect on its impermanent nature. We can go through each of the previous twelve exercises and rest our attention on the impermanent nature of its object. We can contemplate and see the impermanence of
the body, the impermanence and constant flux of our feelings and our thoughts. We can see the impermanence and constant changing nature of the mental formations.
This exercise of conscious breathing sheds light on the constantly changing, impermanent nature of all that exists. This isn’t meant to be just some philosophical reflection, but a genuine seeing and experiencing. We have to practice with impermanence. Deep seeing, or insight (prajna) into impermanence is one dharma gate into the understanding of the interdependent, conditioned, and selfless nature of all that exists. In practicing the thirteenth exercise, we come to see that it contains within it the final three exercises found in this last group of four. In fact, just as from the beginning there has been a natural evolution in our practice, each exercise developing out of the preceding one, here in the last group there can ultimately be no true “letting go” without the deep insight into impermanence. This is why I will be emphasizing this aspect of the Fourth Establishment of Mindfulness.