Community and Family

thoughts on how we fit into the web of community, family and society

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    Two Temptations of Maya

    ByElizabeth

    In classical yoga, maya is the illusion that the tangible world is what is real.  Only atman is real; the world we experience through our senses (and our senses them selves) as reality is an illusion.  We renounce the world to escape the temptation of being drawn into it as reality.  In so doing, though, we ineluctably must come to the conclusion that all that is ill with the world is as much an illusion as that which is tempting.  In turning away from the world we would be also turning away from the pain of seeing inequity and suffering and the desire to seek change in the tangible, sense-experienced world.

    As I was walking around New York City, ankle-deep in slush and being hyper-stimulated by the lights and the noise and the smells and the bustle and the choices, I found myself thinking about maya and that in its classical sense has two surface temptations for me.  The first is the temptation to turn away from the stimulation, to reject consumption of more than needed to exist.  In the face of such excessive stimulation, the idea of nothing, of utter simplicity, of quiet seems desirable.  If the turning away is another form of seeking pleasure or escaping pain, though, it is still in the trap of maya — the worldly illusion that binds us in the pair of opposites–pleasure and pain.  The second temptation, the temptation to withdraw from everything except seeking the light within, is more subtle.  If we truly are to turn away from the world of the senses, we turn away from notions of justice and equality and freedom that are based how we live in the material world as much as we turn away from consumption.

    The true path of renunciation, of pure meditation, is a rare and beautiful path, but to stay in the world and to withdraw ineffectually in such a way might earn the hackneyed epithet “navel gazing.”  My path is not that of the renunciate yogin, nor do I have the fortitude to live a life of Christian poverty, which would reject riches and live for service.  Where can we find the support in the yoga path to stay engaged and yet still live mindfully, fostering the expression and recognition of spirit in ourselves and others?

    In tantric philosophy, maya is understood somewhat differently than in classical yoga.  The maya is not the world itself.  When we think that getting and having and avoiding is all that there is and that it is separate from spirit, then  our lives are cloaked by maya, and we are ignorant (avidya) of the true bliss of spirit (satcitananda).  To know spirit, we must see through maya.  To do that requires discrimination (viveka) in what we take into our senses and ethically responsible action in the tangible world to align our lives in a way that expands the opportunity to recognize spirit, which in my mind includes having less material disparity in society, which disparity most assuredly makes the essential truth of blissful consciousness more opaque (due to the play of maya) for both the haves and the have nots.  While we make our attempt to live with more discrimination and grace and with less cause of conflict or suffering (doing better some times than others), we still try to recognize and savor the exquisite divine in each sight and taste and sound and creation.  How extraordinary always is New York in all its wild manifestation!

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    New Page About Books

    ByElizabeth

    It should come as no surprise to those who have taken my classes or have been reading this blog with some regularity, that an incredibly important source of inspiration is my library.  At the suggestion of my fabulous web designer, who is currently in graduate school for library sciences, I have gone live with a  library page. Given the nature of a blog; everything I have read is really part of its bibliography; this is the much edited version.  I am using Library Thing, which is a fascinating space for book nerds in the electronic universe.  I hope that you will enjoy this opportunity to expand the dialogue about books in our lives, our studies, and our practices.

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    Walking Holiday

    ByElizabeth

    Walking has always been my preferred form of getting from one place to another; if time and distance require it, I intersperse a lift from bus, metro, or taxi on one end or in the middle of a walk.  All I really wanted to do with my time off–I don’t have to go to the office or teach class until January 3rd–is to walk and practice and visit with friends and family and look at art and cook and read and study and eat and play with the cats and write and photograph and dance (an open-ended term) and maybe knit or draw.  For me, walking is walking in itself; time to practice bhavana — deep contemplation; time to practice japa–repetition of mantra; opportunity to open the mind and senses to allow the flourishing of creative projects–mostly writing and photography; a way of going from one place to another for shopping, working, visiting, etc; and sometimes an activity to share with friends.  And of course walking to get food is wonderful both for stimulating the appetite and for aiding digestion.

    Yesterday, we were given 90 minutes of administrative leave.  On leaving the office at 3:30, I walked west from my building to the last Thursday until spring of the Penn Quarter Farmer’s Market.  I didn’t really need anything, but wanted to support the farmers who were braving the cold, so I bought a wild oyster to eat while I stood there and a bag of arugula and a few apples and pears.  From there I walked back east, traversing the Capitol grounds to East Capitol Street and stopped in and browsed at Capitol Hill Books.  It was turning dark when I walked east into Lincoln Park before turning north to go home.

    In less than an hour, a good friend will arrive at the door in her walking shoes.  We are going to head out on foot to the Mall to talk and to look at art and to share a meal in Penn Quarter or back on the Hill.  Later in the day, I will walk along the bus route to Dupont or walk to the metro to go to a Christmas Eve potluck dinner at Friends Meeting of Washington.

    Tomorrow, Christmas Day, I will celebrate Christmas in the manner of New York Jews (Chinese food and a movie).  After walking through Lincoln Park and down Kentucky Avenue SE (where are some of the most beautiful trees in the neighborhood) to get a massage, I’ll walk to the U.S. Botanical Gardens to meet a friend I have known since third grade who is town with some of her NY friends for the holidays.  We will probably walk up to Chinatown after that.  Then I’ll go see a movie.  Whether I walk or take the bus will depend on whether it is dark by the time the movie lets out.

    On Boxing Day, I will go to Georgetown to volunteer at the Lantern Bookshop.  I will walk some of the way and take the bus the rest of the way.  The length of the walk will depend on the amount of time I spend making breakfast, caring for plants and cats and house, and writing.  How much of the return trip ends up being on foot will depend on how many books I decide to take home from the Lantern.  Sometimes I only get one or two.

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    Neighborhood Holiday Lights Charity Challenge

    ByElizabeth

    How we collectively yearn for the light, though we seek it in different ways!  For anyone who can tell me exactly where I took each of these photos, I will give a donation to charity in your name (total for all persons guessing correctly $250).  Hint:  All photos except the last, which was taken this morning, were taken on the solstice, and I did not go out of my way to take the photos.

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    Web Version of Holiday E-Newsletter

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,

    May your inner light shine brightly for yourself and others through the holiday season.  I wish you all much joy and safe travels.  As I get ready to take some time off and celebrate with friends and family–with a little sojourn in New York as part of the plan–I wanted to let you know the schedule to make it easier to plan.

    There are no Willow Street classes for the rest of the year–though a number of my friends and colleagues are offering what look like a fantastic array of workshops at Willow Street from 12/29 to 1/2.  There is William Penn House this coming Tuesday, 12/21 and also 1/4, but not on 12/28.  There will be two special house practices for regular students on Thursday 12/23 and Monday 12/27.  Please email me if you wish to attend.

    Free class week,, which runs from 1/3 to 1/9, starts the new Willow Street session.  I will be offering two classes at Willow Street Takoma Park during free class week:  restoratives on Monday, January 3rd, and gentle/therapeutic on Saturnday, January 9th.

    In addition to continuing the gentle/therapeutics at noon on Saturdays in the Winter Session (registering is great, but drop-ins always welcome), I will be offering the last Saturday of the month from January to March “Relaxing into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives.”  After a little gentle stretching and self-massage to bring awareness to the breath and body, we will enjoy the exquisite application of Anusara’s Universal Principles of Alignment to restful and supported restorative postures to release old patterns and invite in the new to find greater ease of body and mind. The workshop is designed to be a great practice for all levels; sign up for the full 3-class series and save $15!  The workshop series–or even just one–makes a great holiday gift for yourself or a friend or loved one.

    Also please mark your calendars in advance for “Yoga for Gardeners,” which is for all levels of yogis and gardeners alike.  It will be on Saturday, March 18th. A portion of the profits, as is my tradition, will go to benefit the Youth Garden at the National Arboretum.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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    Teaching Less to Practice More

    ByElizabeth

    This morning is the last Saturday in the foreseeable future when, even waking up before dawn, I have to cut short my morning practice to get on the metro to go teach. I have a strong memory of a relatively novice teacher telling me, before I started teaching, that she was going to stop teaching indefinitely because she needed more time for her own practice. At times over the years, when my other job was at its most demanding, I would think about that statement. Mostly, though, I have circumscribed other activities to fit in time for work, teaching, and a full practice.

    It came time to admit, though, after nearly two years of steady study with 0Paul Muller-Ortega, which expanded my meditation practice from 25-30 minutes a day, in addition to asana practice and studying, to an hour a day plus additional practices and more studying, that there are not enough hours in a day for all I want to do.

    I have been teaching on Saturday mornings for a number of years now. I love my Saturday morning students and have embraced the discipline of getting to class to teach.

    The energies have shifted. I will still teach my noon class on Saturday and my weeknight classes, but I will have more time for a full practice and perhaps some extra garden time from this shift. I expect that this time to deeper into my own path will bring new energy and light to my teaching. I hope trust I will see my Saturday morning students at other classes and workshops, both when I am teaching and taking class together at Willow Street.

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    Brahmacharya, Civic Responsibility, and Enlightened Self-Interest

    ByElizabeth

    I saw this water main break while I was walking to work this morning. Several people walked past it without a glance–could they really not have noticed? It looked relatively recent because the puddle was still modest and had not started freezing. I paused, took out my mobile device and telephoned the mayor’s city-wide call center (in DC “311”–whoever answers will transfer you to the right place; in this instance, “water emergencies”). A couple of people who saw me calling looked at me as if it must have been my fault or else why would I be calling,

    I thought about what it was that moved me to call. I saw harm to the environment (colossal waste of water while we are in a drought if the leak was allowed to continue without the earliest possible intervention) and potential danger to people from spreading icy water that will turn into ice late this afternoon. What is it, though, that leads one to take action to change or fix something that is technically not one’s business. What makes it part of one’s duty or responsibility when it is not directly related to one’s individual property or person? At some levels, it is just social contract. By choosing to live together in closely proximate society, it is in all of our self-interest to take care of shared areas, though the ubiquitously unshoveled sidewalks leads me to believe that most people haven’t been taught or grasped the principle that if we all contribute “our share” the whole place and our own lives would be far more enjoyable.

    These thoughts led me to think of the application of the yamas and niyams in Patajali’s Yoga Sutras and in particular, the principle of brahmacharya, which is one of the five yamas on the first level of the eight-fold path of yoga in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

    Brahmacharya literally means being like Brahma, but it is often translated as celibacy. Brahmacharya, from a less socio-morally result-driven interpretation, could also be thought of as aligning with the divine. Before we are enlightened, though, how do we know what will help us align with the divine? I once heard Professor Douglas Brooks say, in a lecture I attended a number of years ago, that the yamas and niyamas, the ethical precepts that lay a foundation for the practice of yoga are for the goal of the individual reaching enlightenment. I was a bit taken aback by the statement at the time. It sounded as though the yoga precept was that the purpose of ethical behavior was self-interest, and was not because ethics was summum bonum. I am less troubled by the idea after much contemplation. What is the harm of the goal enlightenment serving to motivate and shape our behavior? The methodology that includes the yamas and niyamas would have us engage in certain ways of living and practices in order that we can change our karma by shifting the patterns (samskaras) that take us away from spirit rather than lead us toward spirit.

    To me, this means acting in away that not only does not harm (ahimsa–the first of the yamas), but seeks to expand the possibility of fostering the collective good, including the good of the earth. In this sense, to the extent that brahmacharya is a precursor to enlightenment–the merging of the individual self with the greater “Self” or spirit, acting from a placed of enlightened self-interest can be seen as helping us to find the true Self (as long as we are not attached to a particular good or outcome, but that is a whole other topic).