John Friend

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    “If there were lights to turn on…” (and Purna) (at the Anusara Grand Gathering)

    ByElizabeth

    The first two days, including the Solstice, of the Anusara Grand Gathering were bright and blue and sunny and pleasantly cool in the morning and warm in the afternoon–“perfect” New England summer days.  The third morning dawned cloudy.  By the time the morning session was underway, a pleasant drizzle had turned into a deluge.  Rain started coming in from the sides where the tent was open, and then the roof started leaking.  The clouds were sufficiently dense that the light was no more than at dawn or dusk.  It was getting pretty dark and wet in the tent.  At one point, after having told stories about rain being regarded as blessings in Hindu rituals and exhorting us in surya namaskar to jump forward and splash in a puddle like a kid, John said, “I would turn the lights on, but there aren’t any lights to turn on.  So this is perfect!”

    One of the conundrums in explaining the philosophical principle of purna, which means “perfect” or “fullness” is reconciling it with the evident fact that our divine perfection or fullness aside, we are still working to shift and realign our minds and bodies through the practices.  The divine consciousness, which is everything, say the yogis, is utterly perfect as it is and completely full (or fully empty and thus all potential, depending on how you look at it).  We are told that we (and all of being) are the divine consciousness manifest and then given a slew of techniques and instruction to help us change ourselves.

    If we are completely perfect and full, what is the point of learning all the technique and seeking to expand and shift our bodies and minds?  The yoga teachings say that we forget that we are this fullness and perfection, and it is our forgetting that leads to suffering (which is different than pain, but discussing that distinction will have to wait for another blog entry).  The practices are not to perfect or improve us, but rather to shift our alignment (mind and body) so that we remember the perfection of ourselves as spirit.  When we remember, we are better able to recognize the perfection in ourselves, other people, beings, things, or events, even what we find challenging or difficult.  From this space of recognition, in my experience, we naturally become happier and more generous of spirit.

    I think that moment at the Anusara Grand Gathering is a perfect (word choice intentional) illustration of the apparent dichotomy of seeking change and appreciation of the perfection of every moment.  If there had been lights to turn on, John would have turned on the lights so that we could have observed the alignment better during the demonstrations and he and the assistants could have seen the students more easily.  The universe did not have it in store for us to have a light-filled dry day; we were getting a wet and dark one whether we liked it or not.  Having no lights to turn on, John reminded us in a light-hearted way that the teachings and practices would invite us to fully embrace and enjoy the weather we got and practice space we had (while staff were busily making alternative arrangements for classes later in the day), getting the most out of it.  I thought it was pretty fun to practice in the cool rain, though it’s easy for me to say since I and my things stayed dry, and the rain was a welcome respite from the worsening drought in the DC area.

     

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    Web Version of May Newsletter–Invitation to the Dance

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,

    One of the most captivating elements of dance as artistic expression for me is that it has the capacity to show the beauty in the full range of emotions.  Whether the choreographer is telling a story or sharing an impression, making a political statement or expressing a feeling, the dancer’s inherent grace can show us that there is beauty in all things, helping us through the artistic medium to abide with what might otherwise seem emotionally intolerable and to celebrate more fully that which would naturally make our hearts sing.

    Since I first began practicing asana, it has been for me an embodiment of the dance.  The exquisite technique of the Anusara® principles of alignment  transformed healing work into a dance of exploration.  The expansion of my strength and flexibility in middle age — when because of my dance history I thought only would contract with age — allowed me to express progressively more fully the joy I find in my body.

    This year, John Friend’s overarching theme for his workshops and trainings around the world is “Dancing with the Divine.” The theme resonated especially fully for me because I started attending regularly last fall the Sunday contact improv jam on Capitol Hill and have been re-exploring dance after all the shifts I have made with an ever-deepening asana practice.  It has been with an eye towards not only my own dance, but the connection of the community, and our dance of relationship with our living planet that I am choosing which trainings and workshops to attend this year.

    When deciding what my study priorities are for the year, I look first at where my practice and teaching could benefit from some deep attention and wisdom offerings.  I look to the local offerings to deepen my connection to my home community and to minimize the environmental impact of getting to be in the same room as the teacher.  I am thoroughly appreciative of how wonderful it is to have a burgeoning and dedicated local community that has incredible teachers and draws others.  When planning which workshops or trainings with John Friend I will attend, I look at whether there is an opportunity to combine a training with a visit to friends or family or an opportunity to see art exhibits or museums that are of particular interest to me.  I like to go to any trainings that I can get to by train and, like even better when it happens, where I do not need a car once I get to the training/workshop location.

    Next dance for me with the bigger community is the Anusara Grand Circle in Stratton, Vermont for the summer solstice.  My heart expands with the anticipation of being in the mountains of Vermont with clear, starry nights and bright, vivid almost endless days for a gathering of fellow yoga dancers, those I already know and love, those whom I will get to know better, and those I will meet for the first time.

    It is especially exciting to know I will have the opportunity to study with some of the incredible teachers in the international community I am honored to know, but from whom I have not yet had the privilege of taking a class.  It is also a great opportunity to be with people who are just beginning to get excited about Anusara (gatherings like this are a great opportunity to study with John Friend without having the formal application process.)

    Local yogis, I look forward to seeing you in regular class offerings in the neighborhood and Willow Street, including just until the end of May, Thursday night restorative yoga.  I expect delightedly to see you, too, as fellow students at many of the incredible offerings both in and around DC and the country.

    And if any of you are interested in coordinating a trip to the Grand Circle to celebrate the solstice, send me an email.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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    “Now Write in Your Journals…” (and What It Means to Be a Good Student) (DWTD)

    ByElizabeth

    The first day of the advanced intensive this week, John Friend invited us to write in our journals about what we wanted to get out of the three days from both an energetic perspective and from the perspective of a particular asana that has challenged us. This was not long into the first session of the first day, but it was after he spent some time speaking about what he believes it takes to be a good student–of yoga and of life. Though he did not specifically relate the qualities to the Anusara principles or the mahabhutas (elements), based on what I have heard him teach before about studentship, which is a significant aspect of a committed yoga practice, the qualities of studentship he outlined are parallel to the principles of alignment.

    The first quality of studentship, he explained, is having a simultaneous sense of wonder and of humbleness (openness to the teaching and the teacher). This is about being spacious (akasha) and an application of the first and highest principle–opening to grace.

    The second is steadiness, which includes showing up, paying attention, being consistent, being diligent. This is being like the earth, being muscular and strong (muscular energy) in how one studies.

    The student also needs to be accommodating, to be able to be fluid (like water), to go with the flow of the teacher, the studies, and the class as a whole. This is similar to how the expanding action of inner spiral helps us make more space to grow in a pose.

    Third, the student should always do his or her best, to be on fire to learn and grow. Doing one’s best in this way is like the action of tucking the tail bone to engage fully outer (or contracting) spiral to draw into the inner power to shine.

    Finally, just as air reaches out in all directions and the Anusara yogi, in asana practice, uses organic energy to extend outward, a good student makes offering of all he or she is learning, to make studying an act of loving service (seva).

    When John asked us to take out our journals this week, I took mine out and wrote on what he asked. As I did so, I found myself remembering the first time he asked me to write in my journal, which was at an Inner Harmony retreat in 2003, when I was in the middle of my Anusara teacher training. I have been keeping a journal steadily since I was 11, and though I was on fire for studying yoga, being told what to write in my journal felt a little like an invasion of sacred and intimate personal space. I think others probably expected this; they had “yoga” notebooks with them and did not need to write in a personal journal when the received this instruction, but all I had was my regular journal.

    I am still in Miami; tomorrow I will be visiting a friend and then joining with others for the Mahashivaratri celebration, or I would pull out my journal entry from the week at Inner Harmony to see what I wrote. I know that I wrote as much about why it was hard for me to be told what to write in my journal as I wrote on whatever was the topic on which I had been directed to write. I know also that was the week I really decided how important it was to study with John. Finding the balance between knowing what was my own space and truly understanding where I would best learn by following completely the teacher, was a critical part of my yoga studies. Being a good student is not always easy, but it is an evolving part of the sadhana (practice) of relationship, which is the true yoga. This is why how to be a good student initiated the week’s teachings for a group of advanced students, most of whom were teachers themselves.

    This afternoon, at the end of the last session, John asked us to get out our journals (I am still using my regular journal as I am not much for taking notes and separate notebooks for yoga just get left behind mostly empty) and look at what we had written on the first day. Did we get out of the training what we had written that we wanted, he asked. For me, the answer was mostly yes, and in some profound and unexpected ways. Would I have gotten so much in that regard if I had not done what my teacher directed and thereby focused my intention for the training? I think probably not. And part of what I wanted, though I did not write it down that way, was to be yet still a better student of my teacher, the teachings, and the spirit.

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    Satgurus and Upagurus, Teachers and Teachings

    ByElizabeth

    In Paths to God, Ram Dass speaks of satgurus and upagurus.  A satguru is the true teacher.  The upaguru is anyone who teaches us something, which, when we are truly open to recognizing the good in all, is literally every one.

    The satguru may refer to that within us that is the power, or the essential pulsation, or the light, or the illuminative wisdom, or the heart unbound by space and time that leads us to know the true Self.  As such, the satguru unfolds the means to experience the love that the satguru is/experiences.  The very rarest of individuals do not have to make any effort either through the various yoga practices (yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, etc.) or practices in another spiritual tradition to experience the fullness of consciousness unbound by self, or time, or space.  The rest of us must engage in shifting our lives to align better with nature to experience the highest bliss of being.  For this, we need teachers and we receive, if we are paying attention, teachings.

    Sometimes a person will will recognize the satguru embodied in a particular human form, as Ram Dass has with Neem Karoli Baba.  Sometimes, the teachers illuminating our journey are acharyas, great spiritual teachers who illuminate pathways and practices for finding the satguru within ourselves and in others.  They are important teachers for many and a profound influence, but except to the extent that we are all the satguru, they are not “gurus,” nor do they hold themselves out as such.   I think of my primary teachers–those I have studied with personally and a couple, like Ram Dass and J. Krishnamurti, whose writings have deeply shifted me–as acharyas.  That they may have human foibles does not diminish the power of what I have learned from them and the joy I have experienced and shared from studying with them.

    Other people we meet — all of them — are upagurus; we can learn from everyone and anyone.  That is what Quakers are taught and seek to practice; that is what Ram Dass is offering for us to consider in both Paths to God and in more detail in Be Love Now. Sometimes we meet a stranger just for a moment, but the stranger in that moment exhibits such grace, that the stranger is one of our teachers for life.  It is by being open and spacious that we get the opportunity to recognize those who have just one perfect teaching for us.  When we are closed off, we can miss both teachers and teachings.

    If we are open enough to seeing the light in everyone, we will also find that even those that trouble us can help us better respond in the highest.  Those are the ones Ram Dass calls “teachings” instead of “teachers.”   And those who will trouble us will come.  We will meet someone and that person will push our buttons.  Perhaps the person demonstrates too strongly some behavior or trait we don’t like in ourselves.  What a great teaching that can be.  When I see such a reflection of myself, I know that when I respond or act in similar ways, I am out of alignment, and it is a great motivator to release the behavior or trait.

    Perhaps someone shows up to help us reenact an old emotional pattern that has not served.  That someone is the laboratory upaguru who has arrived to give us the opportunity to discover whether this time around we are able better able to embody the principles that we are studying.  In being faced with our old stuff, we are given an opportunity, by changing how we respond, to dissolve the old patterns (samskaras) that, if not dissolved by practice, commit us to perpetuate the suffering resulting from our past actions (karma).

    Sometimes the upagurus come from the past.  They are seeing you through the filter of their own past and have reappeared for something on their own journey.   In such people, we perhaps get a teaching that reminds us why we are seeking to better align, why we have sought to shift and change old patterns.  We might also meet in an upaguru who has been part of our past someone who has shifted and grown and inspires us to go further on the path, sharing it for a while.  Those who are parts of our life for a long time, I think generally serve as both teachers and teachings, and we are the same for them.

    With regard to everyone we meet, from an embodied satguru to the most troublesome, the more we are open, the more we hold all that we encounter in what John Friend calls “luminous spaciousness,” the more able we will be both to recognize the true teachers and to learn from the teachings.

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    Web Version of E-Newsletter “New Year’s Greeting”

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,

    The changing of the calendar gives us a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the past year and think of how we might wish to grow or shift to best serve ourselves and others in the coming year.  2010 was such a difficult year for so many, with suffering of a magnitude of which I can hardly conceive, even though I have had my own struggles.

    In the midst of the challenges we are facing globally, societally, and locally, 2010 was a good year for me, although it had some partings and disappointments that were painful.  With all the challenges and suffering of so many, I am especially conscious of how fortunate I am.  John Friend, at the weekend workshop in Bryn Athyn, reminded us that with the privilege of having the material, physical, and intellectual well-being to be able to study and practice hatha yoga as we do, comes the responsibility to serve, to share in the best way we can and to seek to illuminate not only our inner world, but the world around us.

    In 2010, most important of what filled my year was that I deepened and committed further to my studies of meditation and tantric yoga philosophy with Paul Muller-Ortega.  I have been invigorated by my continuing studies with John Friend and other senior Anusara yoga teachers.  I am almost overwhelmed by how much joy I get from practicing and studying and the community of fellow practitioners and look forward to going deeper and sharing my explorations in 2011.

    Three new things that were not part of my formal yoga practice brought great joy into my year, and I am sure, in the years to come.  The magnificent and enormous middle-aged cats, Uma and Sully, who moved into my house on an emergency fostering basis, quickly became permanent inmates and  unceasingly offer entertainment and comfort.  I had a solar array installed on my roof, which was an inspiring way to see technology in a positive light.  I look forward, as the days start lengthening, to watching the electric meter run backwards. Most recently, I was led to the DC Contact Improv Jam, which I am finding just wonderful.  I am sure the delight of dancing and the freedom and play of contact improv will shift my own practice and expand the offerings for class.

    What I have learned during my time practicing is that when I am sick or injured or feeling excessively challenged my practice supports me and helps me remember what is good and nourishing and sweet.  When I am feeling exuberently full of life then my practice just expands the joy.  Most of the time it is somewhere in between.  With the expansion of my own studying and practice, I will be teaching a little less and, in my offerings at Willow Street, emphasizing healing, nurturing, and a sweet opening to supportive shifts; all are welcome both to the Gentle/Therapeutics Saturday noon-time class (registration preferred, but drop-ins always welcome) and to one or all of the restorative workshops that will be held the last Saturday of January, February, and March.  The William Penn House class is as all levels an embrace and invitation  as you need it to be for your support and delight–from chair yoga to drop backs, depending on your practice and the day. Drop in any week; no advance notice required.

    Proceeds from the house classes will continue to go 100% to environmental causes in 2011.  In March, I will again be offering at Willow Street, “Yoga for Gardeners,” with my profits going to benefit the Youth Garden at the National Arboretum.  And if you are ever looking to browse for used books — or looking for a good place to donate some of your own — please visit the Lantern Bookshop in Georgetown, where I have been volunteering one Sunday a month for 15 years or so.

    Whether 2010 was a more a year of challenges or joy and expansion, I wish you the best in 2011 and hope to see you soon, sharing in the joy and support of the yoga.

    Peace and light,

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    What Does It Mean to Be Yogic? (and “The New York Times Article”)

    ByElizabeth

    This weekend, a friend whose marriage of decades is precipitating towards dissolution, said to me, “I am having trouble reconciling being yogic and still needing to do what I need to do in connection with divorce.  How do I deal with that?”  I told her about a yoga principle I learned at the first Inner Harmony Retreat I attended with John Friend in the summer of 2003.  He had asked a student a question that yielded as the answer the four yoga principles of ardha (physical and material well-being), kama (relationship, including intimate and love relationships), dharma (life path or work), and moksha (liberation or freedom).  The fellow student answering the question, who was also my teacher, gave the classic yoga explanation that we try to do the first three elements in alignment so that we can then transcend and go beyond them to become free (enlightened).  John replied that was the traditionally correct answer in dualist, classical yoga, but that from the tantric perspective of a person living in the world as a yogi, we look apply the principles differently.  By living in a way that we have taken care of our physical and material well-being, have happy and loving relationships, and work with delight and passion that we will be embodying a life of the spirit; we will then be living and embodying freedom (jivanmukti).  That encapsulation of tantric yoga resonated deeply and is a significant part of why I have chosen a path of tantric yoga rather than one that preaches renouncing the body and mind (which I think is impossible for one staying in the world).

    My friend’s question seemed especially significant to me in light of the dialogue that has ensued following the publication of the New York Times article on John Friend, John’s blog in response, and the Elephant Journal interview.  The essence of the article and the reactions, to me, seem to be about the intersection of our “outer” notions of societal success–fame and fortune–and yoga and whether the two can be reconciled.  The New York Times article is obviously intended to be sensational and to create controversy; that is what makes a journalist who gets fame and fortune.  But the alleged tension highlighted in the article is indicative of a bigger societal confusion of how and whether we can be spiritual or religious beings and also have human needs and wants.  Ours is a society that hungers for panaceas and palliatives.  In “discovering” yoga and its benefits in the late 20th century, far too many have put onto it expectations that have no basis in what is yoga and how it is supposed to aid us.

    There is no word in yoga philosophy or in India for “yogic.”  The word “yogic” is a western creation of relatively recent vintage.  Webster’s dictionary does not have it as a separate word, but just has it at the end of the definition of “yoga” as “adj, often capitalized.” What do we mean by being “yogic?”  It seems that we have gotten this notion that if we practice yoga seriously or teach it, that means we must be perfectly pure and good.  We will need only light and air to nourish our bodies (and maybe a little local raw food in season); we will have neither needs nor desires; we will be so suffused with peace, compassion, and equanimity, that we never feel or show anger or grief, even in the face of injustice, violence, pain, or outrageous behavior.  We expect that somehow we will be a perfect monk while still living with family and going to work.

    We expect this not only of ourselves, but even more so of our teachers.  In essence, we somehow expect yoga to release us from the realities of being human.  To have such expectations inevitably will lead to disappointment in ourselves and our teachers (for being unable to reach this impossible ideal) or in the practice (both for not yielding this ideal and for, in our delusion, creating this expectation in the first place).  My meditation and philosophy teacher Paul Muller-Ortega would say that to have such expectations is “adolescent” spirituality.  When we practice “adult” spirituality, we take responsibility for ourselves and our own practice.  We expect our teachers to offer us the teachings, but we honor and recognize them as human beings.

    To practice yoga sincerely while still living in the world should make us more humane to ourselves and to all around us, not beyond being human.  This is the true essence of Anusara yoga.  To be richly and freely and wonderfully human and feel great love and compassion for that, even as we balance the realities of life with attempts to live in greater alignment.   I am incredibly grateful for the teachings and the community that John Friend has created and the offering to study and get as deeply into the yoga as makes sense for me.  Whether there are things I might do differently in the realm of ardha, kama, or dharma if I were “the yoga mogul” is of little moment because to find moksha we all strive to do our best in our own way (and one thing I know of John is that he always strives to do his best).

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    Track Work on the Red Line

    ByElizabeth

    I am writing this post as I sit on the Metro platform at Takoma, waiting for a train back to Union Station. There were already dozens of people waiting when I got here. I have been here for ten minutes or so, and there is no time posted on the board yet for the next train.

    Some people are talking on their phones or socializing with each other. Some are pacing back and forth. Some look resigned. Some are going into tirades about the problems with Metro. Some are reading and have made themselves more or less at home where they are.

    I sit cross-legged, basking in the sun, blogging for now, and if time permits also in my journal. I could be angry or impatient or annoyed, but it would not get me home any sooner. So I just find enjoyment of the waiting time with the materials at hand.

    Although there are circumstances where physical pain or suffering cannot be avoided, yoga can help us find a greater sense of equanimity when we are challenged. As John Friend reminded us this week in a different context, “in a large part, it will be seen that the suffering is optional.”

    I now approach Union Station. Perhaps when I get home I will supplement this post with appropriate citations to Patanjali. Or maybe I will play with the cats and pick some grrens from the garden for dinner.

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    John Friend on “The Art of Feedback”

    ByElizabeth

    I recently had a project that I did in connection with an organization of which I am a member.  The ultimate goal of the project was for me to transmit to another group a report of decisions made by the organization of which I am a member.  When I emailed my report, I “cc’d” my organization’s list serve.  In response, there were a few heated postings on the list serve about the subject matter, even though I had sent a “cc” of a final report, not a request for new input.  These postings in turn generated a number of emails both sent to me personally and postings on the list serve as a whole.  The “secondary” emails were as much about how we were responding and communicating on the list serve, as they were about the subject matter itself.

    It was hard for me to soften and to listen without defensiveness the emails that were well-intentioned, but stated strong opinions that could have been interpreted as suggesting the report was wrong or inadequate.  As I made an effort to finish my project from a place of service, which in my mind included appropriately addressing the after-the-fact postings and emails, I was deeply grateful for the teaching John Friend had offered last year to the Anusara yoga community on “The Art of Feedback.” It is an inspired teaching and one that applies with equal force to the situation I was in this week.

    For me, this is a deeply challenging area based on my personal history, but I work to grow.  What are your challenges in receiving and giving feedback?  How might shifts in how you receive and offer your opinions enhance your relationships and your goals for living and society?