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Personal History (and Samskara and Opening to Grace)

ByElizabeth

A samskara is generally defined as an impression left in us by a past action or experience.  I found myself thinking about the process of samskara yesterday, when I went with long time friends of my family to watch their son taking class at the summer program at the Kirov Academy of Ballet.

I have not watched a ballet class (except on the occasional film) since I was actively studying ballet as a teenager and young adult.  I have long been conscious of how ballet imprinted my body image and way of looking at myself, but have not found a space before where I was able to look at this aspect of my history with fresh eyes.

What was different yesterday, was that I was observing with openness.  I was sitting with people I have known all my life, sharing their warmth, love, and parental pride for their son, rather than concentrating on my own history.  It brought back memories, but not in the same way that sitting by myself or with a girlfriend, watching a documentary has done.

In this open state of reflection, I witnessed something that I knew at some level, but had not given much thought to before:  how much having taken thousands of hours of ballet class has informed the way I teach.  My tendency in my own practice and in my teaching to see the details of  alignment and to try asanas repeatedly until it seems that I or my students have experienced the alignment in the most optimal way for the day is straight out of my experience in ballet class.

Softening and witnessing instead of feeling or judging from past experience gives the possibility of shifting from samskaras, even ones that are very deeply etched into body and mind.  Being with my friends yesterday, of course, gave me the joy of seeing the spectacular dancing of these young men and the delight of connection.  It also gave me the unexpected gift of a moment of understanding how the Anusara principle of “opening to grace” allows us to shift.  When we are open, nonjudging witness consciousness  (an aspect of “opening to grace”), that is when we have the possibility with each thing we repeat, to experience it new without being bound by our samskaras.

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  • Sauca (and freecycle)

    ByElizabeth
    The first of the niyamas or ethical restraints set forth by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras is sauca, which means cleanliness or purification.  BKS Iyengar in his Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali says that sauca is both internal and external and that mastery of yoga is unrealizable without observance of the ethical principles of the yamas and niyamas [non-harming, truthfulness, non-stealing, aligning with the good, greedlessness, cleanliness, contentment, fire for practice, self-study, and acceptance — my definitions] is not possible.
    What does cleanliness mean in this time in our society?  Scrubbing the kitchen and bath with toxic cleaners and slathering ourselves with chemical products and taking long showers may make our house and body look and feel clean, but it is soiling the earth.  It is definitely easier to practice in a neat room than a messy one, but we need to learn how to be clean also keeps the earth’s environment clean as well.
    Earlier this week, I started cleaning out the “art closet.”  I have always created visual art, and before I shifted to teaching yoga, I spent a number of years creating at a wild pace (partly at the encouragement of a live-in partner), using a room in my house as a studio, and exhibiting and selling my work.  One side effect of that intense period of creation (and one of the key reasons I shifted away from it), was that it created a lot of stuff — for every painting or photograph I sold or gave as a gift, another five or eight accumulated in the house.  When I entered yoga teacher training, I turned the art studio into a yoga studio.  I was unable at that time to make a decision as to what to keep and what to discard.  Thus paralyzed, I put it all in a closet — art works and extra supplies alike.
    Having a closet full of stuff long untouched and only some of which was wanted makes a house energetically stale.  Finally, this week, I cleaned out most of the painting materials.  I even decided not to keep images that I did not want to sell or exhibit again.  It was tempting just to break everything up and put it out on the curb for trash.  But the stretchers for the canvas are completely reusable by a working artist.  So I took the paintings apart and and then did a posting on “freecycle dc” offering the art supplies.  If you are not familiar with freecycle, it is pretty simple.  You join the group in your area and let people know what you have to give away.  Nothing is for sale.  Nothing is bartered.  The point is to transfer something you no longer want to someone who wants/needs it.  The recipient is local, so only limited fossil fuels are used to transfer the goods.  What you no longer want is saved from the landfill.
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    Outside the Verizon Center

    ByElizabeth

    I walked over to the Verizon Center to see how the kalachakra was spreading into the space around it. Towards the end of my foray, the traffic light at a corner outside the Verizon Center changed in my direction, and I headed into the crosswalk. A cyclist going north in the southbound lane started cursing and screaming at me for blocking his way. The loudspeakers were blaring their usual commercial fare, the neon were glaringly lit even by day, the big video screens showing ads and offerings of upcoming sports events, and the tourists were jostling down the sidewalk, carrying their plastic containers full of stuff from McDonalds and Starbucks. On the other side of the Portrait Gallery was a special “market place” with silk shawls, t-shirts, silver and turquoise jewelry, thangkas, prayer wheels, and Himalayan food served in styrofoam containers with plastic forks.

    I am as certain as it is possible to be that the space inside the Verizon Center is being transformed by the practice of the kalachakra for world peace empowerment inside. We cannot make others receive such an offering if they are closed and uninterested. We can, though, seek to open our own receptivity and our own hearts. As I observed my reaction to the plastics and the noise and having been cursed out when I had the “right of way,” I thought that the axiom “peace starts from within” is counsel that though we may not be able to change others, we can and are responsible for ourselves.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    Signs Around Town (Guru Purnima Style)

    ByElizabeth

    Either everyone–including yourself is guru–or noone is. Listen to your own inner wisdom (a little training and practice helps in that regard, at least in my own experience).

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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