Yes, though it is Thanksgiving week, there is class this Tuesday. It’s a great opportunity to support your own well being, while helping others. Please come join us this or any other Tuesday.
Sometimes when I am blogging about my garden — the joys I experience and its wonderful produce — I feel like I might be presumptuous. I am no Christoper Lloyd or Alice Waters. I just have a tiny space behind my urban, rowhouse that I have turned into a personal celebration.
A visitor from out of town graciously commented that in some ways the limits of my garden make it even more wonderful. In this sense, I know, perhaps best, from my garden the yoga teaching that ultimately to find freedom in this life we need to celebrate all we are within our limitations to find an inner space of unbounded, liberation.
(Shown here, cucumbers, mint, nasturtiums, peppers, greens, sage, savory, basil, okra, onions, more peppers, red and yellow cherry tomatoes (well picked), brandywine and roma tomatoes, eggplant (slow to start this year), echinacea, lavender, orchid.)
I dreamed last night that I won 30 million dollars in the lottery. I had no recollection of having bought a ticket (in waking life the only time I ever bought a ticket was 17 or 18 years ago as part of a 15-person group of co-workers who collectively bought two tickets when the prize was 75 million; we were going to quit en masse if we won).
In the dream, an acquaintance also won the same amount. She immediately quit her job and started engaging in activities about which she had previously only imagined doing.
On learning of my windfall, I stopped and paused and found that I didn’t want too much change right away. I deliberated about whether to take a lump sum or an annuity and to whom I would give the money. I wondered whether I could take a couple of months leave and then go back to my job part-time. I thought about whether I would like to move or set up a charitable foundation or teach yoga full-time. I found that after having been given financial freedom, I was still content to work and to live comfortably, but relatively modestly. I wanted to take time to deliberate where I could make the best offering with this outrageous stroke of luck.
The dream reminded me of the Zen proverb that was popularized in the 1970s: “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” What was beautiful about my dream was a sense of a deep acceptance, a sense that even with my desire to grow and change for the better, that in my middle age, I am essentially comfortable with how I am living. I will keep seeking a deeper and more loving and compassionate way of being, even as I recognize that there is no prize that will transform me from the challenges of being human.
Vikalpa samskara is a term that describes the fundamental process of an ever refining yoga practice. It encompasses both study of text (with a teacher) and experiential learning and practice. With just experience, we may feel full unto ourselves, but we cannot explain the richness of our experience to others nor can we understand why. If we just hear something from a teacher or see a picture or read about it in a book, however, no matter how book smart we are, we do not have the understanding that comes from personal experience. It is by continuously combining and refining study and practice, that we can have a progressive deepening of true knowledge.
We often talk about “beginner’s mind” with respect to asana practice and meditation (and bringing the beauty of that state off of the mat). We are invited to be receptive and open the way is an ideal beginner, who wants to learn, but does not yet know the topic.
What does “beginner’s mind” really mean, though, in the context of someone who is experienced? I do not believe that it should mean discarding either book learning or discrimination built of experience. What it suggests to me is to approach our practice and life with freshness, with open-mindedness, without being bound by preconceived notions. I think this is the true process of vikalpa samskara. To be able to deepen our knowledge ever more deeply, we have to be willing to be open to shifts and changes in understanding. Then “samskara” does not become a rut, a bad habit, the inevitable effect from a previous action, but the development of a deepening path for more refined understanding.
The true tantric practitioner is fully engaged in the life of a householder. In my book, that means being educated about the issues, participating in social change, and fulfilling the citizen’s responsibility to speak by voting.
I hope all of you will not only be voting, but also will be encouraging others to vote–especially those who actually can elect representatives to Congress and the Senate (unlike those of us in DC who continue to be disenfranchised).
