Chop Wood, Carry Water

by Jamie Shane

  Theoretically.

  But sometimes it is quite apparent that while the body may relax, that noisome mind is still chugging away at a million miles an hour. I fancy that I can hear grocery lists being made, dinner menus being planned, or chequebooks being balanced. And, at other times, I can all but feel that one student whose mind is busily sorting out some major issue that is clouding their life at the moment. It is a palpable cloud in the room, a thunderhead darkening the clear sky. In an effort to soothe these thoughts—from petty to serious-- I often offer this reflection:

  All is well. All will continue to be well. Everything is perfect just as it is. It is completely safe to rest and relax and trust that the Universe is unfolding precisely as it should.

  It works. If you let it. In the class and out of it, this simple affirmation is immensely liberating. It removes some of the larger burdens of life and lays them squarely at the feet of a higher power. You are not responsible for the crafting of the Universe. Your life does not have to be managed every millisecond of every day. Sometimes we just have to give it over. Otherwise we unproductively waste time lamenting that which is beyond our control, swimming furiously against a stronger current. You just can’t live this way.

  Believing that all is as it should be allows one to come to the resolution that life is not a bowl of cherries. It is not supposed to be a bowl of cherries. And when those cherries invariably turn into sour lemons, one can accept that without bitterness. Believing that all is continually well creates a perspective of equanimity that allows one to navigate the ups and downs of life without the emotional highs and lows.

  This attitude is usually challenged by those who can’t reconcile with the fact that bad things can and will happen to good people. Bad things happen randomly all the time and it is very easy to believe that they have no positive value. Disasters, accidents, random acts of violence all inspire this feeling within us. Why did Katrina need to happen? In what way is this horrific event positive? I can’t tell you that. The positive results of this event have yet to unfold. But they will—they must. For all we know the Universe has a grand plan for New Orleans and all those who suffered within it. The difference is perspective. The benefits of such a disaster may take a lifetime to unfold. But it is up to you whether that lifetime is spent in negative reflection or positive momentum.

  Our lives are but a blip in the Universe’s timeline. And it is arrogance in the extreme to believe that it owes us a happy, happy, joy, joy experience every instant that we travel within it. It is our perspective that creates happiness and joy, our belief that all is as it should be no matter how bad it may be. As long as you wake up on the right side of the grass, your life is full of positive potential.

  So rest for a moment and relax. Breathe. It will all work out just fine.

  12

  I find that I must make a confession: I have absolutely nothing for you at this moment. No words of wisdom. No ideas about the nature of life and living. Not even anything interesting to say about one of my great loves, yoga. Perhaps it is the head cold. Perhaps it is just a case of the summertime lazies, I surely don’t know. But what I do know is that my creative juices feel about as dried up as Lake Okeechobee in March.

  I have decided not to let it upset me. This is just the nature of things: Some days you’ve got it, some days you don’t. Right now, I don’t got it. I got nothing. And that’s okay.

  Like a wheel, one’s life goes up and down. Sometimes that cycle is daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes it shows little rhythm at all. But you can certainly count on it to show you high points of brilliance with an equal measure of stunning dullness. Nobody is Einstein all the days of their life—not even Einstein himself. As a genius, I’m sure he recognized this and let the field of his mind lay fallow for a bit, perhaps abandoning the chalkboard for times to do absolutely nothing.

  Yet, even being aware of this, I find all too often that the concept of doing nothing is a particularly difficult one for people to swallow. Somehow we must have the answers all the time. We must have something to do all of the time. Just sitting still and experiencing that strange space of nothingness, makes most people twitch. Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop, don’t you know. (No, I don’t, thank you very much.)

  This act of doing nothing can be extremely valuable. Just think of all the times you took action when you shouldn’t have and just made things worse. Or when you voiced an opinion that you weren’t entirely sure of and found yourself in hot water. The practice of doing nothing or saying nothing could have benefited you had you only allowed it to be of value. The belief that something is always better than nothing is a fallacy.

  Nothing is worthy all on its own and nothing to be afraid of. Perhaps this aversion to nothingness is why many people have such a hard time practicing meditation. It is an exercise in courting nothingness. Just sit still, breathe and be present. That’s right. Do nothing. Say nothing.

  Think nothing. Just be.

  What happens when we accept nothingness is that we find everything. We find a remarkable freedom and a surprising expansiveness. The Universe sprang from nothingness and can be experienced within that same field of emptiness. If you allow yourself to be still and open to the opportunities of doing nothing, you may just discover the richness of that particular ‘empty’ space. Cultivating the art of nothingness allows one to slow down and recognize the vivid contrast between something for something’s sake and an action, thought or deed that really matters. If you’ve never accepted the value of nothing, then you can’t really know what is the right something. It dispels illusion. It is part of the unique balancing act that is a healthy life.

  Repeat after me, “It’s okay not to have all the answers all the time. It’s perfectly fine to do nothing or say nothing when I don’t know what to do or say. I will accept the moments of idle nothingness as an opportunity to be.” Good. Now go watch the waves roll in. Get lost in the clouds—literally. Take this opportunity to use nothing for your greatest benefit.

  I just did.

  13

  It is remarkably easy to stay busy. In this era of cell phones and television, multi-tasking and appointment setting, it is not difficult at all to find our days crammed to the brink with things that must get done. And it seems that for every second of every day there is someone, somewhere, telling us that we could be doing more. We often oblige, packing one more task into the day regardless of how it affects us.

  We simply accept the premise that doing is being. And if, heaven forbid, we stop doing, we cease being valuable. Any number of health problems can be assigned to this kind of thinking. We've even named it: Stress. Yet still we simply shrug and sigh. "Oh, well, that's life. I'll relax when I can find the time."

  No, no, no. Relaxing is not something one tasks. Relaxation is a state of mind. This is a hard lesson for many Westerners to swallow, and one reason, I believe, that yoga often finds itself dismissed.

  The practice of yoga demands that, at the very least, for one and a half hours a week you let go of all the things that identify you. That you abandon that which allows your mind—and your life—to remain incessantly busy. The mind attaches itself to these things. It adores being busy because then it doesn't have to think. It doesn't have to spend any time with itself or the "real questions." Now maybe that sounds odd. How can the mind be working but not thinking? Well, take 10 minutes and put that theory to the test. Set a timer, turn off the cell, unplug the phone. Cover the TV with a sheet. Sit in a room completely alone and try to separate your awareness from your thoughts. I know, easier said than done, but try. For me.

  What you will find is a constant barrage of chatter coming from your mind. With nothing to keep it occupied, it will run around like a pack of monkeys let loose in a Kmart. It will jump from "I gotta do" to "I need to go" to "I should've ...". Your mind will make never-ending grocery lists of things to do. But never once will it really settle or relax. Nor will it ask the Self, "Am I happy?" "Who am I?" "Why am I here?" Now that's
thinking, and thinking takes discipline. Why would a busy mind want discipline when it can run around free and loose, wreaking havoc on the hapless individual?

  It is not life that makes the mind busy; it is the mind that makes life busy. And it is this very busy-ness that creates the stress we all desperately try to ignore. Now, there is a solution, and you've probably already guessed what it is. Oh, yes, that's right: Yoga. More than just a series of exercises that allow the body to loosen and stretch, the simple practice of yoga can help organize the mind to distinguish between being and doing.

  This thought shift inspires a calmness that lasts longer than the time you spend in class. Yoga will teach you the tools needed to tame the "monkey-mind" and set about finding more relaxed and focused days. And, when that happens, those external voices screaming about the value of busy-ness sound just like what they are: ridiculous monkeys beating the drum of nonsense. You are not what you do. You are what you are, and no amount of running around can change it.

  So make some peace with that. Because relaxation is just a state of mind.

  14

  There is a bedrock concept in yoga that Spock would call “illogical”. But the great lesson within it is that it doesn’t have to be logical. Reasonable or not, it simply is.

  We call this active surrender. It is the point within a posture where you are fully engaged, but the tight reins of control have been released. You tap into experiential awareness, breaking the pose down to its most elemental presence. You are quite simply there. You’ve got it. You don’t have to drive it. You can just feel and be and enjoy. When you reach that point of active surrender, the mind truly understands that there is nothing for it to do. There is nothing more to think about because you trust completely that you have come to where you need to be. The posture, then, becomes an experience of perfect stillness. Even if the legs are trembling and beads of sweat are rolling off your brow. The core of you is entirely still.

  You are fully present and not thinking about it. It’s a tough balance. Your mind is engaged enough to get you where you need to be: Shoulders open, spine long, focused breath. It is to help you determine if you are out of place: My knees hurt; My neck is crunched up. The mind helps sort out if you are resisting the posture anywhere: I’m clenching in the thighs. My jaw is locked. Release, relax. And that’s it. It is not involved in continued interpretation, analyses or management. The wise mind is like really good jockey. Get ‘er out of the gate and keep ‘er on the course. Then shut up and ride. Trust that the work has been done and the self knows where it is going.

  All too often the mind is incessantly engaged, convinced it must control all the minutiae. That still core gets bombarded with irrelevant mental dominance. Not just in yoga, but all of life. It prevents us from operating out of that still place where real understanding and experience live. But if you master the concept of active surrender, you begin to understand how to find that place at will. On or off the mat.

  Because sometimes, the very best thing you can do is absolutely nothing at all. Sometimes you need to stand silently still and just be present where ever you are. If something needs to happen you should trust that it will. If it doesn’t than it wasn’t meant to be. Constantly pushing, scheming, managing will only make you tired. And busy. There comes a point when it has all been reasoned out, it has all been set to motion, and you have to let go of it. You have to take the experience, take the ride and surrender yourself over.

  Everything has its place. Everything has its part to play. The trick is in the discernment, the act of knowing when one aspect or another is meddling in things that are none of its affair. Logic and spirit speak different languages. You can speak with each of them, but rarely can they speak to each other. There is no point in letting one nag away at your experience while the other, as is its nature, sits still in the center.

  The mind is an objective tool. It has great value and purpose. And one purpose is to take you to the appropriate point where you can move into the subjective experience. Where you can leave the mind at the gate and move on. You can then cross the border, so to say, into intuition, faith and patience knowing full well that all that has to be done has been done.

  Then you will have met Active Surrender. An illogical and tricky bloke, but definitely one worth knowing.

  15

  Challenge is the fertilizer of life.

  We all know what fertilizer is, right? And sometimes that is exactly what it feels like. Despite that, fertilizer is what makes things grow, just as challenge is what makes you grow. It is an inescapable fact of life.

  In yoga we flirt with the edges of challenge, pushing our comfort zones right to the brink. To practice yoga is to push your limits of physical, mental and spiritual understanding. We ask our Selves to go boldly where they have never gone before, to seek out new life and new civilizations. (Oh, wait, that’s something else…)

  This expansion is not always pleasant. And, if practiced without awareness of our primary boundaries, it can be overwhelming. Discovering exactly where these original thresholds lie is a challenge unto itself. But it is critical—critical—that we know where we are: My body’s limit is this; My mind understands this; My life is here. This is primary awareness. Once you have achieved primary awareness, it becomes time to push, ever so gently, out towards the unexplored. You may be pleasantly surprised by how much you have underestimated yourself. You may be shocked at your levels of resistance.

  Enter Challenge. Challenge arrives when you least expect it, and usually when you’re certain you don’t want it. It could be your yoga instructor taking you somewhere you never thought to go. It could be a posture easily managed last week, but completely unmanageable today. It could be non-yoga entirely: a stolen car or phone call from the doctor. You never know what form challenge takes, be it delightful mulch or stinky manure, but, be assured, when it is time for you to grow challenge will be there.

  The trick becomes to look challenge in the eye and say, “I accept.” “I see you, Challenge. And I call.” No matter how mundane or how esoteric, it behooves you to be aware that challenge has a valuable purpose. Within challenge lies lessons and opportunities. In them lie answers to unrealized questions or damaging patterns. This is an opportunity to expand your boundaries. Look deep and wake up. It’s time to grow, little spirit, time to move on.

  For beyond the face of challenge lies a bald truth: why? Why did this challenge choose me? Why did I choose it? A simple physical challenge could have an equally simple answer. Why can’t I touch my toes in a forward fold? Because I sit in a chair all day. Because my lower back was injured in a car crash. There could be a hundred reasons, and by accepting the challenge and answering its inquiry, you now know something more about yourself. You have broken the surface and are now free to move beyond. For more intense challenges, life challenges, the answers may be a little uglier, a little more painful. But that only makes you more beautiful for accepting.

  Looking within is the very first lesson yoga should teach you. And challenge is one tool to help you see what goes on inside your heart and spirit. What motivates you and what holds you back. If you never manage Hanumanasana, but learn to truly see yourself, than you can count yourself among the yogi. And if you can see a challenge for what it is, then you are marching down the right path.

  So open up, everybody. Be bold. Be brave. Challenge has a gift for you. What is it?

  16

  The difference between a choice and a decision is about as large as the space between embracing bodies. But, given the nature of the quantum universe, this infinitesimal space is actually as large as a galaxy or two. Decisions and choices are the same leaf of paper in a book, capable of carrying the same tale or two different stories entirely.

  Our lives are a series of choices. Every day, all the time, we are making choices. Do this or not. Buy this or that. Some choices are made without thinking. As a matter of fact, most of our choices are made by rote, either a reflection of our conditioning or whatever op
tion is easiest and most familiar. We know what we know, we like what we like, and our daily choices most often demonstrate that.

  I don’t say that that is necessarily a bad thing. If we continually familiarize ourselves with good information, right thinking and conscious lifestyles, then our subconscious choices will usually be wise ones. But if we simply think as we are told, worship at the altar of Madison avenue, or believe that we really have ‘no choice’ than our choices choose for us and we often find ourselves in the wrong place.

  Learning to make smart choices is as easy as being informed and following the consequences of your choices through to their logical and natural conclusion. This is one of the many things I love about the study of yoga. It demonstrates in a visceral way how a simple choice, sometimes even an unconscious one, can have rippling effects. Like a cascade, yoga teaches you how your choices play out. This is a rare and blessed opportunity to see things all the way through to a possibly surprising outcome.

  For instance, a simple choice in a balancing posture can lead to steadiness or disaster. An adjustment that may seem unrelated to the task at hand can lead you to great ease and confidence or send you tumbling ignominiously to your butt. I’ve been in both sets of shoes, and landing on your duff in a room full of people is not a choice I think any of us would make willingly.

  So we become aware. If my knee rotates gently then my hip opens and relaxes. Ah, that’s better. Now that my hip is open my foot feels wider and more steady. Ah, I feel more sturdy. Now that I feel more sturdy my jaw relaxes because I’m not concentrating so hard. Because my jaw is relaxed my neck softens and my shoulders can drop another inch or so. Ah, this pose is much easier now. Like a ripple effect, the simple choice of rotating the knee has created a better pose and a more positive experience. This is good. Not only for you, but for everybody that is around you. Your steadiness radiates through the room, perhaps helping others find their own. All of this comes from a small, simple, aware choice.