SATI: NOTES FROM A YOGI

New Website, Blog & Facebook

2011-07-27T23:32:00.003-04:00

Greetings! There has been a major overhaul on all my communications recently. This blog will be taken down soon and taking it's place is a new blog, facebook account and website! Be sure to check it all out!

New Website:

www.satiyogini.com

Facebook:

www.facebook.com/satiyoga

New Blog

www.satiyogini.blogspot.com

A New Creation

2011-01-19T15:09:00.005-05:00

After a bit of a blogging break, I'm happy to announce the launch of my new company that I've co-founded with Matthew Colaciello, Vasudhaiva Tours and Retreats. We will be leading tours and retreats with other scholars and yogis around the world, though most of our work will be based in India and Nepal. Visit the website to learn more about us and our upcoming adventures! Please note that our website is best viewed in safari or firefox browsers.

Blessings

Taking A Quantum Leap Over A Divided House And Finding Home

2010-10-18T22:57:00.031-04:00

Picture by Johnny Alamillo. Oct 2010

For several months, I could feel this essay swelling up in me. Germinating. Nesting. Fermenting. And now, the story has unfolded. The meaning clarified. The words revealed, as the image of a morning landscape gives way to a lifting fog…

THE GLIMPSE AND THE DIVIDE

In the Zen Buddhist tradition, there is a word assigned to the experience of having a sudden glimpse of pure awareness or enlightenment. This glimpse is called, satori. Thereafter, it takes up residence in one’s memory as a jewel of recognition and a lamp that illuminates the path of practice as the student passes through the delusional web of the mind and the distracting phenomena of daily life. Satori fans the flame of one’s spiritual practice to return to that place once again. In short, the glimpse becomes an ever-present call of home.

When I was 13 years old, while attempting to meditate for the first time in my life (first time was the charm in my case) I had a glimpse of a field of awareness that I was not so much witnessing but embodying, that forever provided me with a direct recognition of the truth of my identity (or non-identity) well outside the limits of this contained body/mind construction I usually associate with. That moment provided me with a profound validation of spirit that no barrage of crazy mind waves since, could ever take from me. That moment would remain a most scared experience of direct knowledge. I had others follow every couple of years, and like satori, these quick, otherworldly visits to my elemental nature, fueled and refueled my spiritual inquiry. I had been home and I knew it.

After every visitation ended, “I” came back; that is to say, an individual sense of identity, enveloped in a fleshy frame, wandering about this dimension continuing to work out my karma. And while doing so I began to discern that while I knew I had an absolute home, I also had versions of home in this relative realm as well. Specific encounters would touch me with such a profundity, it felt like I was dwelling in my birthright; energetically, emotionally, kinesthetically, intellectually and so on. Even though these experiences were temporal and literal expressions, they nourished a passion to be in life itself, even as I sought the journey of transcending it. I started to see specific phenomena taking on the same role as a religious symbol by evoking focus, love, surrender and a reminder of wisdom. I cherished them as living deities that could wake my heart up and break me out of delusion.

Sometimes these earthly manifestations of home appeared as a place and sometimes as a person, and sometimes both simultaneously. Sometimes I touched it. Talked to it. Kissed it. Looked at a photo of it. Dreamed about it. Told others I wanted to be there, in it, with it, doing it. And occasionally, fell out of this dimension and experienced that I WAS IT. Home would come as a profound recognition, like a lightning bolt entering my being and once it struck, it pushed the pause button on my usual state of perception and my destructive thought patterns went on vacation. A portal in me opened up for a brief period lasting anywhere from seconds to days to months, depending on the circumstance. In through this portal came love. Gushing in so much I started to feel my spirit swell. My heart rejoiced. This is home. This is home. This recognition was not so much a giddy explosion as much as a melting into a blissful tranquility. I am reminded of the words of Dilgo Kheyntse Rinpoche, “Whatever circumstances arise, do not plunge into either elation or misery, but stay free and comfortable, in unshakable serenity.” Yes, unshakable serenity.

As satori-like glimpses, they provided a memory of wonder and thereby an impetus to continue to work hard on facing my self-defeating beliefs and habits. To stop wanting and start having. Stop wishing to become and actually be and embody. But like all spiritual rookies, the path home is often shrouded in obstructions and the unknown variables that discern a student from a master. Depending on one’s individual karma, it may take intellectual prowess, relationships, travel, death, creative work and perhaps even marriages, divorces and children as part of that process. Nonetheless, the memory of that lucid realization of what, where and with who you can be never, ever, leaves.

I recently watched a documentary about the composer, Phillip Glass. In it, he likened to writing music as getting really quiet to hear a river that runs underneath the earth’s surface. The music is always there and it can be ignored, but if one just listens, one can hear it. Often the quality of the musical score is determined by the quality of listening. Is not the quality of our life determined by our ability to listen to the subterranean call of home? The experience of knowing where home is, but not being there, is what has made me feel like a divided house. Even in my moments of total rebellion, I always sense that I have a choice to live in exile to my deepest call or not. The division is one between surviving and thriving, liking and loving, bland and beautiful, good enough and great, between using 10% of my ability and a hell of a lot more. Now more then ever, I find that my tolerance level for living in this state of division waning. I’d grown tired of my old excuses and all my coulda, woulda, shouldas. I've never quoted a politician in anything I’ve ever written, but the words of Abraham Lincoln echo the sentiment of what it often feels like when the ego is trying to catch up to the wisdom of the heart: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Thank You Mr. Lincoln.

For those who exemplify this way of being, I like to call them: But People. These are people whose sentence structure looks a bit like this: “I would love to do this but...and I would really move here but…and I should have always done this but…again and again and again. It’s like they graduated high school and immediately entered into But People Academy. The mission statement is: The place to learn how to successfully rationalize why you cannot and should not ever do what your heart is telling you do to. If such a place existed in physical reality I imagine it would go bankrupt, but many people seem to have enrolled in such a place within themselves and have gone spiritually bankrupt.

Recently, I came to terms with the fact that I myself, had been a card carrying member of the But People Academy. And on one formidable account, I was ready to bridge the divide. What follows is a summary of a leap, from one version of myself to another; over one particular divide to one particular home.

A LEAP HOME

This October marks one year of my living and teaching in Orlando, Florida. When I told the owner of the yoga studio that I work for, that I would commit to a year of teaching and see how things unfolded, I wasn’t aware that I had officially set the timeline for one of the most pivotal internal revolutions of my life. In retrospect, it’s clear that I came here to end one major chapter of my life and prepare to begin another. Orlando was neutral territory for me. I had no history here, few friends and little to distract me. Therefore, I spent a lot of time alone in my one-bedroom apartment, turning it into a purification retreat in which to meditate, cry, shout, write, daydream, wrestle with my demons and dance with my hopes.

As I started to head into my 30’s last year, I became more and more consumed with a thirst to know where I wanted to build a home and plant some roots long-term. I wanted to travel and study extensively, but I also knew, I wanted a place to land that would anchor me in all the wondrous ways an actual physical location can. I yearned for a place to call home; a city, a culture, an energy that correlated with my own. A place that surprised me and delighted me and was an exuberant display of what I valued. Every day of the 10 years I’ve lived in Florida, I knew this place was not it. This knowledge always prevented me from committing to any long-term ventures. Over the years, I traveled and considered many other locations that would have been a much better fit with my character, but I never made the leap.

Then last summer on my visit to Nepal, I got a glimpse of my dream home nestled in the valleys below the Himalayan peaks. Nepal was like a shock wave and a healing elixir all at once. It was a chaos and a calm I intrinsically understood and I imagine, very close to the kind I would find in India, the one place I’d been passionately wanting to study and live in for sometime. Kathmandu became my city of love and yet, I STILL came back to Florida. Instead, I committed myself to living in Florida for at least another year, to teach and help build a new Ashtanga Yoga community. I threw myself into all the daily to-dos of a typical life but would secretly rebel against them just as quick. I was signing contracts that I really wanted to tear up. Driving a car and talking on a cell phone I no longer wanted and sought refuge from a landscape of rampant commercialism whenever possible. I had lost my taste for this American life. I gave myself a few good-natured pep talks but they all seemingly failed. Finally, I got real with myself: why was I doing this? I could not suppress these yearnings any longer. The glimpse of home was in my memory, grinding down my wall of fear everyday. Everything in my being was telling me to get my ass back on a plane and head east for something wholly different. I had been home and I knew it.

I initially told myself I would try to live six months in the U.S. and six months in Asia and why that may not be out of the question in the future, when I investigated that line of thinking more closely, I couldn’t find a compelling reason to come back for six months each year. I saw it as a formula that still had a tablespoon of fear in it. If I was going to go (as least for the immediate future) I had to go all the way in. And if my heart suddenly felt a deep a yearning to live in my own country once again, then I would do so. I knew that the point was to surrender to the call of home and not to compromise, bargain or mutate it to make it more palatable.

Well before my visit to Nepal last year I had been wrestling pretty consistently with a feeling of entrapment. This feeling constantly fed a lingering sensation that I was not living in a place that inspired me to live my greater potential and it was driving me nuts. But to actually acknowledge and live what I felt that potential was, meant shedding so much of myself (including my environment) I wondered if I would even recognize myself afterwards. So I was running. Running by rationalizing with the feeling instead of surrendering to the most expansive call. After all, it was less scary to work with the fractured self I knew instead of jumping heart first into the unknown.

At first it may seem strange that a girl who was raised in family who relocated every 2-3 years throughout her youth (Germany, Ohio, Washington, Sicily, Hawaii, Japan, Vermont) and had learned to travel abroad alone with confidence would even bat an eye at establishing a new home. But I had gone from being a deeply insecure 19 year old girl to unearthing the performer, therapist and yogi I am today on Floridian soil. And whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was attached to this hot, humid, swampy, peninsula of sand. It was the one place in my life I had lived the longest. The place that served as backdrop to my twenties. The place my parents and sister lived. I had a lot of growth and a lot of memories here. I was dumbfounded by the thought of beginning to manifest a life in such a brilliant new context. And yet, my spirit was very clearly telling me that this was what I was destined to do. It was just a matter of time. While sitting in meditation one day last spring, I heard a voice within me loudly say, “You came back to say goodbye.” THAT folks, was the voice of wisdom. THAT was the voice of truth. In that moment, I knew why I had come to Orlando. I’d come back to say goodbye to a fractured self, to Florida and to the personal limits I had existed within up until now.

On the day that I told the studio owner I would be moving to Asia, I realized that I was not just moving on from a one year commitment but a way of life and belief system that had been in operation for at least ten years and I FELT the reverberation. Right after that phone conversation, I was the Kali Yuga personified. There was a several week period where I felt my insides totally rupture and my sense of foundation unreservedly absent. I was in a fetal position for days, crying and crying, floating in an abyss of darkness. I woke up everyday nauseated and could barely eat. I could barely speak and if I did, it was a pre-programmed version of myself, because “I” was gone. Truly. My ego was trying to catch-up to the fact that there was a massive shift in my infrastructure taking place. I had taken an action that was completely antagonistic to my previous wiring. The old me would have not left Orlando. She would have been planning new projects and teaching commitments and have set up some sort of temporary life here for several years. She would have been resigned to being comfortably, uncomfortable. And suddenly, I was doing the opposite. This was a distinct personal death. That time, especially the first week after giving notice, was horrific but it was my right of passage. It was like walking through The Valley of Shadow of Death with only a compass fashioned out of love to guide me through. That was the week of my quantum leap.

It seems true that after the darkest moments come the most glorious light and this experience has been no different. Where I was before, at a loss for savvy ideas of how to relocate, build and sustain a life abroad, suddenly people, resources and a flux of ideas abound. Right now, I’m amidst sorting through it all and making a plan. I’m taking all my belongings and selling, storing or giving them away. I leave Orlando in late December and head back to Jacksonville to live with my family and meet up with a best friend who has decided to collaborate on this next phase with me, which has been an unexpected and joyous development. The coming months will be filled with projects all aimed at living and studying in Asia. In 2011, Operation Move Sati To Asia officially begins and I have the memory of home to propel me forward. I cannot imagine doing anything else.

IN CONCLUSION

Even though this particular leap was to a place, it could just as well have been to a person. Either way, there is something glorious in how embodied forms can illuminate a light that damn near blinds us. A light that calls upon us to pull out our swords and slice through our pretenses. You may have to abandon all you thought you were for the dream of who you could become. And in moments of quiet, you’ll hear that subterranean truth. All you have to lose is everything that barricaded your heart and fogged up your vision. All you have to let go of is your attachment to being homeless.

Recently, one of my students gave me the book and CD set, Flow of Grace by Krishna Das. The CD is the chant, the Hanuman Chalisa and the book tells the story of the deity, Hanuman and his role in Hindu mythology. In the Hindu epic, The Ramayana, Hanuman, The great monkey god leaped over an ocean 800 miles in distance to reach Sita who was being held captive. He made the leap to find her whereabouts and to deliver a message to her from her husband Ram, who was God incarnate. Hanuman was the only one who dared make such a leap and he did it out of pure love and devotion to Ram. I read the story several times before I went to bed at night and realized that Hanuman was a perfect reflection of the role I am enacting right now. That is why this gift had fallen into my hands.

In truth, I am Sita. I need to be saved. I am Ram. I am ready to save. But perhaps most appropriately at this moment, I am Hanuman, the servant who out of total devotion to love, makes a leap over a divide that no one thought he could make. A leap that would help God build a bridge to his love. A bridge to a new life. A bridge home.

Written by Shannon "Sati" Chmelar

Lineup

2010-09-03T23:49:00.003-04:00

I’ve got a lineup of lovers
All pointing me towards
The great teaching of how to love pain

And I see them standing there before me
Ready for anything:
a hug, an order, or accusation of what I thought they did

It’s time to see the symmetry in which you all came
It’s time to stop pretending that you were an accident
Instead of just simply; part of the plan

I want you all to know
That since we last met
I’ve been training
And trekking within

And that this once Grand Drama Queen
Truly, only ever had, one aim:
To one day, be the Sage.

And like all good students of spirit,
I now see that you were all diamonds
Meant to sharpen my bruised psyche on

So, perhaps much to your surprise,
I am here before you with an invitation

To my table
In a far off country
In a corner
Of my choosing
Of my making

To finally acknowledge
What always needed to be:
That you are indeed my spiritual family

There are those who covet the same exalted view
And there are those who have been soldiers of my release

That is you
That is you

This lineup of players has become my divine tribe because
You tested the integrity of my love
And pulled my wrath taut until it’s limitations were exposed

So I could see

That when there is nothing to hang on to
There is nothing to let go of

This is a dream where
I’ve worn you
And you’ve worn me

But now,
We can finally sit beside each other

Under the stars
In a far off country
In a corner
Of my choosing
Of my making

And toast to the thread of lucidity that runs
Through us all:
As family

Prayers In The Dark

2010-08-10T14:22:00.007-04:00

Sometimes You

Speak to me
By making me
Recite prayers in the dark

Don’t You?

When beliefs that were breastfed and nurtured are suddenly
Up against a wall
Tethered down
Facing a firing squad
All dressed up in your clothes

Sometimes You

Play the killer
And as soon as I die
You become the mother
Expelling me from your flesh

I know you are laughing–
While nauseated,
I supplicate in this fetal position
And weep and moan

I know you are watching, amused
As I exorcise this most certain goodbye

I imagine things must look a bit different
In the Awakened Land where nothing gives rise

I may not be particularly lucid in this moment
However, I am acquainted with your manner–
Your lack of introductions
And your brisk departures

As you head toward the door
Tip toeing over my bloody mess
You turn, look at me, smile and say,

“Be sure to open a window. It’s time too let in the wind and the light.”

To India. To You.

2010-07-31T09:26:00.016-04:00

It's time

My love

To come to you

Land of my lineage

Labyrinth of holy paradox

When you first summoned me I was

Too young

Too distracted

Too unsure of my own stride

To acquiesce your call

So, in the meantime

I sang your songs,

To Spirit

I let your mantras

Heal the abrasions on my heart

I committed my flesh

To your yoga

I chewed my teeth

On your dharma

I allowed you to transfigure me

And your purifying language consume me

Like a love letter sent from a distance

Years passed

Years explored

But your fierce call never ceased

You loved me while

I fought to preserve the

Integrity of my powerlessness

You loved me as

I waltzed with delusion

And in the end,

My dissidence collapsed

Under the weight of so much loving

Now, I am ready to taste your nature

With all my senses

You take the weakest beings into your fold

But you also take the strongest

And when I prostrate on your body for the first time

I will do so with an ancestry of

Of both dimensions in residence

So many renderings of self

So much karma

To cremate

I’ve been feeling your heat

But I haven’t become the fire

Yet, I’ve always known that was my destiny;

As Sati, to burn myself alive

Through one-pointed focus

Through devotion

Through you

This used to be the fear

But now, it is the promise

A joyous death

Of all that made me recoil

Of all the fallacies and demarcations

Of all the shit that masqueraded as “good enough”

I don’t want any more stakes in my ground

It’s time to make love

Like I’ve never made love before

Its time to let you engulf me;

The feeble and the formidable pieces

This convoluted mind

Finally, let it implode

Let it come crashing on down

I’m

Ready

Cease

And thereafter,

When others search for who I was

All they will find

Are the ashes,

From where I burned

Love Without Reason

2010-07-04T18:53:00.015-04:00

Photo from video shoot for Sufficiently Bruised Performance. 2004

I once told someone that I loved without reason. If there was a reason, a characteristic, a why of this love, then it would always be in danger of disappearing. Reason gone. Love gone. But if there was no reason–no particular set of conditions that the love depended upon to survive–then it was beyond the world of form, conditions, and temporality. It was without condition and therefore eternal. This love, I wagered, would outlive even my mortal body. Love to the last breath and beyond into the bardo and the various dimensions of my spiritual existence. Unconditional Love.

The love that The Bhagavad-Gita espouses, is truly one without conditions, precursors and limitation. Perhaps that is why humans yearn for such a moment, because to truly experience unconditional love is to taste their own divinity. With such a love, there is an undeniable sense of merging back into a state of oneness with another human. As if the love serves as a temporary transport vehicle and takes our egoic nature, locked in the world of duality, separation and relativity and all it’s accompanying defense mechanisms, and sends it on a ride back to non-duality and it’s essential absolute nature via the heart. Ah. What a ride.

When this happens, it’s unbelievably validating. Our spirit celebrates: Yes, we are one! I am without limit! My heart has crossed over the divide! My heart has transcended form! However, most of those experiencing this love-induced expansiveness are still very much embodied in form and have a dynamic mind to contend with. The mind is loaded with samskaras (mental imprints) and kleshas (afflictions) that have not been totally purified. And yet, for a beautiful, suspended moment in time, it’s as if the divine found a crack in the elaborate web of our obstructions and without hesitation passed through to the other side. Suddenly the mundane become miraculous. The simplest moments are imbued with an outrageous joy.

But for most unenlightened folk out there in this world, this becomes a temporary fixture of their experience. There comes a point when the wisdom of the heart is often overshadowed by the ailments of the human mind. Craving and attachment rear their ugly heads and suddenly one’s individual happiness and joy isn’t rooted in love any longer, but in a set of conditions that they find pleasurable and that appease the ego. Suddenly, the architecture of relationship begins to become, “I will love you if…” You can fill in the blank. Conditions and reasons arise and someone lassos their sense of security and joy onto a person (and his or her own unpurified mind) and not on pure love. What follows is a game of control and manipulation by an ego to make sure it gets what it needs to be satisfied. Sound familiar?

Suddenly you aren’t a vessel of love, but a controlling puppet motivated by fear and an overarching feeling that your life-support system is resting on someone else’s fragile human ego. This is called attachment. And I hope I save some of you out there reading this a little pain by telling you that this path is NOT sustainable or rooted in an eternal anything (remember that mind and body are impermanent aspects of phenomena). And because of this it will bring suffering. It will implode. Then, one day, you will find yourself standing amongst the ruins of a relationship that looks like it just got firebombed wondering what the hell happened.

The even sadder moment comes afterwards when we confuse that whole escapade as love itself! What a mess. This is why study is so important. Study yourself and learn to differentiate between what motivates your experience of suffering and pain and what liberates you. The sooner you can do that, the sooner you put yourself in the driver’s seat of wisdom’s divine chariot.

I would go so far to say that true love is an aspect of wisdom itself. But it’s all the other crap that goes around masquerading as love (i.e. craving, lust, greed, fear, power…) that is indeed, very foolish. And these are the seeds of human suffering. How can you tell the difference? Love is truly unselfish. Craving is wholly selfish. Love breeds compassion. Craving breeds cruelty. Why? Because craving is filled with need and therefore an inherent sense of lack that seeks to fulfill itself. Need has a dualistic imprint on it. It depends on duality to survive. There is a half-empty quality to craving that always say’s “Gimme.” Love just says, “I am.” Love is bliss. It is non-dual awareness. In the words of Kahlil Gibran, “Love is sufficient unto love.”

Love seems to be the most common theme for songs. The love song. And yet, I feel that so many of these “love songs” are really just “lust songs." Songs of craving and not of clarity. Songs of confusion instead of wisdom. Songs that sought the piercing insight of love but got lost along the noble quest. Love does not fade. It is only obstructed. In the same way that Brahman is obstructed by maya and the way sunlight is obstructed by the clouds. Coming in contact with this knowledge is the first step. Embodying it is second. There is theory and then there is practice and that makes all the difference. Wisdom can transform a self-proclaimed heart-broken seeker into a sage. But one must practice. Practice.

About 15 years ago I was that heart-broken seeker. I was so broken that I think, had I not found the wisdom teachings and been in contact with several very important spiritual teachers, I probably would have ended up killing myself or spent my days in a mental institution of some sort. Spending a day in my psyche was no joke and I knew how to suffer. I knew how to do it really, really well.

Everything one can do wrong in the way of love, I did. I did it with a vengeance and an angry power. And it was slowly killing me. It was destroying my spirit. And while the journey began in my teens, my quest to fully understand love didn’t come to an earth-shaking awakening until just a few weeks ago. It was a moment of awakening that not only allowed me to directly perceive the truth, but it also unveiled how every love in my life since the beginning, the entire cast of characters, had offered me a chance to step out of the muck of my ignorance and into the magnificence of my true, non-dual nature. Every relationship was a test to see how well I was surrendering into the flow of love’s teachings.

In that moment of awakening I can honestly say, that I was not in this realm. I had transported myself out of this world and was taken into a much more lucid state of consciousness, that funnily enough was catalyzed by an amazing opening of heart. And all of sudden, in a meditative gaze, I looked out into empty space and I saw it. I saw my narrative play out and I WAS everyone involved. I was basking in non-dual reality. And in that moment it was so clear that I had failed again and again in varying degrees, over the years to love without reason and without condition. And I saw each defining moment that had been offered me to do this in every relationship. Each relationship that had radiated a piercing divine love all ended up to one pivotal test:

One of the greatest tests of love is when the person you love wishes to walk away from you.

And in those moments I saw myself fail. I saw myself succumb to attachment and craving. I saw myself affirm duality and separation. I saw myself explode with “What I want is more important than what you want!” I saw myself absent of compassion. I was no sage. I was a screaming child.

In that moment of awakened insight I fell to my knees. Tears of searing joy erupted. Nothing I can really say will explain the moment I had. Where I was. What I saw. It was truly beyond words. My identity was well beyond the limits of my individual ego and I was inside light. I cried tears of total affirmation and then the laughter came. I began to laugh and laugh and laugh. I ran back to couch and fell off in laughter. The answer was always there. Right in front my nose the entire time. Just love and I had already arrived. I had it all. I was them. They were me. There was nowhere to go because I was already there. I saw with unbelievable precision, how my suffering had decreased in direct correlation to the level of craving and attachment I had managed to dissolve over the years through conscious practice. Practice! If you want to call it mind training, fine. If you want to call it heart training, fine. If you want to call it yoga, fine. If you want to call it Buddhism, fine. If you want to call it an out-of-body experience, fine. It doesn’t matter. Wisdom will come to us in an infinite manner of forms but the essential teachings are the same when it comes to what causes human suffering and liberation. So love people. Love without reason.

In January of 2004 I created and performed in what would be my last one-woman show for quite some time. It was called Sufficiently Bruised: Cooking Dessert with SZM. That performance was a story that explored the trajectory of my understanding of love up until that point in my life. I was 25 years old. It was a triumphant moment for me in so many ways, but most importantly it marked the end of many years of feeling victimized and the beginning of a truly conscious journey towards fully realizing the experience of love. Now 6 years later, it has become clear that my return to the stage will be to share the love story that has followed since Sufficiently Bruised.

Just a few days ago I was digging through my old SZM performance archives and was reading some of my old show programs. I opened the one for the Sufficiently Bruised show and in the first paragraph I was reminded how courageous that previous incarnation of me had been to share her story. I felt like she was calling out to me now, reminding me to be brave and not to forget to taste the sweetness of love as it manifests in this period of my life. And not to shy away from telling others my new love story. In conclusion it seems appropriate to end this essay with her words:

The redemption of my heart has been no small feat. Throughout the course of creating this work, the desire to jump ship has occurred many times over. The romance of giving up, flying away, sinking below, squeezing inside, something else far away from the high and mighty calling of Sufficiently Bruised. If only to stay bruised for just a little longer. But redemption was in order and enormously desired. It was time to give in and taste this dessert.

Thank God I did.

Taking In A Wider View

2010-05-28T00:39:00.008-04:00

Brooklyn Botanical Gardens on my recent trip to NYC

I recently created a philosophy program at The Yoga Shala here in Orlando, Florida. While I totally admit it’s a shameless way for me to indulge in my own philosophical studies and share them with aspiring Yogis, it is also to answer, I feel, a very important call to encourage more scholarship in the Western Yoga community.

I’ve heard too many vague, discombobulated and just down right confused statements by teachers regarding Yogic practice. Most of the ignorance seems to be around understanding the context of practice and how asana practice directly relates to the spiritual objective of a Yogi. I think this is because the value of philosophical inquiry has not been fully understood by many students of Yoga practice. I’m here to bring the heartbreaking news that knowing the 8 limbs of Ashtanga Yoga isn’t going to cut it folks. Sorry. That's like memorizing the table of contents to favorite novel. Why this small bit of information is regarded as a Yoga student's needed philosophy background in total is bewildering to me.

What I find in my own Ashtanga Yoga community, are a lot of kinesthetically advanced but philosophically weak practitioners. To do practice without understanding the intent of practice is to divorce the How from the Why. One way to look this relationship is in this scenario: You just learned how to drive a car. You decide to take it out for a spin without knowing where you are going and when you get lost, you realize you don’t have a map. In your confusion you hit an obstacle in the road, which kicks you in high gear for a classic melt down. You feel totally alone, in doubt and darkness and you don’t know why you wanted to learn to drive in the first place and why the heck didn’t you bring a map!

So you learn one of many practices of Yoga. Great. But along with this practice you need to study the nature of it’s aim and how this fits within the larger intention of Yoga. In short, you need a map. If you have this, your drive with Yoga will be much more productive to say the least. One of my favorite questions that I think every student should ask a seasoned teacher is this, “What makes Yogic practice spiritual practice?” If a Yoga teacher has started to refine the mind with philosophical study, such a question may have several very good answers and probably a few counter-questions.

Yoga itself is a formal philosophical school. It has the honor of being one of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy. Over the centuries the school of Yoga integrated the teachings of two other schools into it’s fold, Samkhya and Vedanta respectively. The very fact that Yoga is one of the great philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent, seems to make it obvious that this spiritual practice holds a sacred place in the world’s wisdom traditions. Last time I checked the philosophy of spinning and free weights hasn’t made it there yet. This is why it’s inane when people insist on devaluing yogic practice to a “work out?” All you have to do is take 5 minutes to read a little history and you should be in awe that the subtle, mystical glory of Yoga has reached your neighborhood.

Use your mind to train the mind, just like you use your body to train the body. The philosophy of Yoga is just as concerned with your well-being as your nutritionist. Yet, it's nature dances with a different dimension of your being. Remember when you dive into philosophical study, you don’t have to agree. You just have to care. That is all. Compare. Contrast. Critique. Digest. Debate. Laugh. Languish. Take in a wider view. That is the practice of philosophy.

When you are ready, come on by the shala this summer. I’d be happy to hear your thoughts.

Om Shanti

Getting Off The Train Of Perpetual Discontent

2010-03-30T22:53:00.010-04:00

Kopan Monastery

A couple of days ago I tripped and fell down a flight of stairs on my way to teach a yoga class. After about 30 minutes of pain and limping, it became apparent that I had broken one of my toes. Since I don’t really believe in accidents (sorry, but I cannot recount here 31 years of antidotes to explain why), I immediately started contemplating the deeper meaning behind the incident. My thoughts turned to the time when I fractured my left ankle in a dance class about 9 years ago. Fracturing that ankle ended up shifting the course of my creative process as a performance artist and my interactions with a few specific people, that was, in retrospect, exactly what I needed to do. I became much more empowered by the rippling effect of that ankle fracture. I regard the event with thanks.

So now, I have this toe issue, this small reminder of something. Something. The first thing everyone said to me was, “It must mean you need to slow down.” Which my first reaction was, “I thought I wasn’t going fast enough?” I have a lot of reasons, I (sorry again) cannot write at the moment to explain why I felt this way.

However, upon closer inspection, it wasn’t my daily schedule that was haywire, so much as the race of my own thoughts. I have a daily meditation practice that runs about 30 minutes each day. After the accident, I had a bit more time to invest in, not only my meditation time but also reading, writing, and clarifying what the nature of my mind-stream was as of late. And the fact is, I have to admit it: they are right. There has been bit of a treadmill quality to my thinking. I am guilty of the thought pattern of: hurry up and get this done so you move onto this next thing so you can FINALLY get to this thing…it’s sad. I know.

If you’ve studied any yoga, you know, this is the type of thinking that meditation practice aims to harness and with a steady, razor sharp focus, weaken and eventually destroy all together. So I sat. And sat. And continued to sit in meditation and realized, I’m still caught in a little thing called, chasing happiness.

By chasing happiness I don’t mean not enjoying the moment, I mean not being able to be fully present in the moment AT ALL. I bought a ticket and boarded the Train of Perpetual Discontent. Faced pressed against the glass, I watched the landscape wizzing by. Sometimes, we Westerners try to make this human ailment attractive by calling it Ambition. Nice try. But it’s a no go. A little introspection will let you know if are being motivated by an abundant desire to create and explore or just run to the next thing because you are afraid of fully sitting with what is happening in the present. One is motivated by abundance and clarity. The other is motivated by delusion and dissatisfaction. One is a path of wisdom. One is a path of fear.

I got on the wrong train. I know it. In my meditation, I could see all my spiritual teachers, waving goodbye to me from the platform for my yet another, excursion on Perpetual Discontent. After I roll out of the station, they all go out for a cup of coffee and lament over my progress. “When will she get a clue?”

So I broke my toe. It was enough. Just enough to get me to sit a little deeper and a little longer in my last few meditations.

I got off at the next station and took a breather. Looked around and assessed my situation for what it really was and remembered that my future karma is determined by my awareness and actions in this VERY MOMENT. And this very moment was filled with a sense of desperation about how to manifest a specific dream I have. Not good. I knew this intellectually and yet, I needed a strong reminder experientially. I needed it to enter my heart. I needed a broken bone.

If the present moment is motivated by desperation then you are manifesting desperation. If you feel, act, and complain that your greatest dreams are miles away, then they are miles away. If however, you see how the present moment is filled with abundant potentiality, then your future, my dear, will be abundant. Your future will be a cornucopia of good stuff. Let it go and you finally get it. Be fully present and you will finally manifest a fulfilling future.

I had a good cry–several actually. The kind of cry the wells up organically with no accompanying feelings of pain. It was a cry of crystalization that screams, “YES!” It was so funny, because in that cry, I felt like I could hear the machine of the universe start to launch itself into gear to get all the stars aligned for the next exciting life dream to begin. I heard Kurt Russell’s voice in the movie Captian Ron, “Lets kick the tires and light the fires!”

So what is this future dream, I’m chasing, you ask? I want to devote more of my life (huge swaths of it…like years) to more intensive devotional practice and less time to worldly pursuits. That is something I know in the deepest part of my core and it’s time I fully live from that place NOW and stop putting it in some imagined future. It’s time to take my spiritual practices and craft an entire life that supports me doing these practices over long periods throughout the day in the land of my spiritual lineage…yes, India (and Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bali…you get the point).

The truth is, my interest in living in the U.S. and participating in it’s capitalist culture has been waning for the last few years and ever more so with every passing season. However, for most of my 20’s I used to really enjoy it. I didn’t mind joining the game and the signing the contracts to buy things, drive things, wear things and insure things. But now, lately, contracts make me sweat. Honestly, I don’t like them. Even a lease makes me uncomfortable. And this is coming from a girl who bought her first home at the age of 24 years old.

The thing is, when I look out my window, I don’t see what I value being reflected back to me in any prevalent manner and it makes me itch. In addition to that, I see a lot of women my age having babies, buying homes and getting married. They are interested in nesting and shaping their entire lives to support that decision. Yet, the only thing I feel like nesting at the moment is divine revelation. I ask myself, “Why cannot I, make a nest for God, as others make nests for babies and family?" Make a nest for God. For Emptiness. For Brahman. Sounds good to me. The inclination becomes more and more insistent. Every year, I always have one friend that looks at me and asks, “Are you going to become a Buddhist nun?”
“Nooooo.” I say. “I cannot go back into doing performance art if I become a nun…can I?”

The fact is, even after walking the path of genuine spiritual inquiry since I was 13 years old and 10 years of focused study in yoga, I feel like I’m just getting started. I’m still REALLY hungry for philosophical and spiritual knowledge, travel through Asia and above all, devotional practice in holy places of pilgrimage. My trips to Asia thus far have only further confirmed the resonance I feel in that part of the world. It has wet my appetite, not satisfied it.

Daily, I’m stirred by the words my friend Patricia said to me on my last day in Nepal; only 4 hours before my plane was due to take off, she took my hand and said, “Come back to us Sati. Come back to us.”

It took everything I had not to fall into her arms and not let go.

How this will manifest exactly, I’ll let you all be surprised (including myself). It may take a bit of work, but I know for sure that I’m present and therefore, I’m empowered to make it manifest. I know it’s time to stop making excuses as to why I cannot fashion a life with new shape, color and sound. The shape has the contours of prostrations, hands in prayer and ancient asanas. The color is a landscape filled with Buddhist and Hindu devotion. The sound is of ancient mantras in Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan.

I found an old poem I wrote while I was visiting Thailand about chasing happiness. I thought it was apropos to republish it here. I think I'm a bit more courageous then my previous incarnation who wrote this several years ago. How do I know? Because, she asked herself the important question. Now, I’m ready to answer it.

Sati. It’s time. Build a nest for God. Build a nest for Emptiness. Its time to get off the Train of Perpetual Discontent. It’s time to stop chasing happiness.

Chasing Happiness
(originally published 12.13.06)

Stop.

Be Still

Stop.

Chasing Happiness.

You are like a dog running after a toy that you may never get in between your teeth
Amidst all this change
Rushing, rolling, polluted city
I found a full moon
A blind man trying to cross the street
Countless people driving too fast
Chasing Happiness

I kept walking
and thinking
as I often do
wondering what life would be like without

WANT

If I stopped trying to chase happiness for one moment
and did as my teachers have said
Just BE PRESENT

Am I willing to lose myself to that degree?
A girl without need
Not yet. But perhaps. I'm tickled by the possibility.

I've seen tragedy
I've known debilitating pain
I've beheld beauty
and love so profound
my ability to express seemed
a mere joke of the divine plan

Yet I wonder:

by the light of this insane and lovely creation–

Could I dare
Ever dare

Stop.

Chasing Happiness?

A Village of Women: Remembering How To Play

2010-03-19T22:13:00.013-04:00

Laughing on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Asheville, North Carolina

I have a funny little tradition that I guess you could call, Calendar Foreshadowing. At some point in my mid-20’s I discovered that the images on my annual wall calendar somehow always ended up reflecting the general theme of what that year would hold for me. Month after month, I would see these thematic images being reflected back to me as the year unfolded, much to my own amusement.

Now, when I go for that purchase in January, I have a strong awareness of what I’m being drawn towards. In 2009, I had a calendar with images of Buddhist sculptures throughout Asia. Then, last September, while exploring Swayambhunath Temple high in hills above Kathmandu, I realized that I was standing face to the face with the exact statue of Buddha that I had been staring at on my calendar a few months prior. Needless to say, that was an impressive moment.

I assumed I’d have another Buddhist inspired calendar since it’s always on mind. However, the calendar I chose for 2010 was of humorous, playful vintage images of women from the 1940’s with empowering quotes that celebrate feminine nature and the shared relationships between women. I put it up on the wall and it made me smile. I had no idea what I was in for…

As if the universe knew the exact moment I hung that new calendar up on my wall, I was suddenly playing back-to-back host to some of the most enriching female friendships of my life. It started with a visit from Melissa, a best friend from high school who spent the holidays with me before she moved to Hawaii from D.C. Then came Caroline from New York City, my yogic comrade and fellow spiritual adventurer. Then came Jeanna who, with her 3-year old and husband camped out in my living room with sleeping bags on Valentines Day. Then came Jasmine, my roommate from Bennington College who I hadn’t been able to see for any length of time in almost 12 years! I gave these women the other half of my bed and I suddenly remembered all the sleepovers I used to have. I remembered staying up too late to talk about things that are worth staying up late for. I remembered holding them when they needed to be held. I made them brownies. They made me laugh. We shared stories of the mystical. We shared stories of the mundane.

But most obviously, the profound intimacy I share with these women reconnected me with something I had forgotten as soon as my plane landed on U.S. soil from my recent trip to Nepal. I FORGOT HOW TO PLAY. When Caroline burst into my sunny apartment last January she sounded our new era: “Girl. It’s time to PLAY.” And play, because we could now. Play because we had witnessed each other overcome so many dark, delusional moments with daily yogic effort and spiritual prowess. We were now basking in a lot more light and a lot more wisdom. Our attachments had lessened. Our compassion had increased. We had kicked down a few major walls and while we have a few more to go, the buoyancy was, and is, apparent. The kind of play I speak of is not some muddy form of distraction, but rather an expression of joy. This is the sort of play that connects us deeper to spirit. It is a play that is the natural outgrowth of our whimsical sensibilities, reverence for life and quite frankly, of love.

In addition to daily laughter, dancing and discussion, Caroline and a few new friends came over for a night of music making and singing by candlelight. We beat on drums, played the guitar, rang the chimes, played the singing bowl, chanted and sang. Intermission included eating star fruit and giving each other healing massages and bodywork. Even the rough moments had a sense of humor: After Caroline ran to the bathroom to vomit after catching the flu that had kept me in bed sucking on sugar-free popsicles for several days, she exclaimed, “Girl, we are down!” And we just started giggling at the absurdity of it all. We were down, but in other ways, we were way, way, up.

As soon as Jasmine got into my car when I picked her up at the airport she said, “You look good.” And I replied, “Girl, any light you see, is light I’ve WORKED for. I’ve worked for this light!” And we burst into laughter. Jasmine and I reinstituted a few old Bennington College traditions, including spontaneous pajama dance parties to Crimson & Clover by Tommy James & The Shondells as well sneaking to turn each other’s shower water on ice cold while mid-shower. Of course, this lovely tradition is followed by screams and then light-hearted threats. As Jasmine and I looked back at old photos of us together when we were 18, it really hit home that play is truly a celebration of life, and an expression of not taking our daily gifts for granted. We both felt we were in a position to celebrate in a way we hadn’t before, and we didn’t want to waste anymore time.

While basking in the glow of my village of women, I asked myself: Why do so many women suddenly lose these moments to the oncoming march of “maturity.” Why don’t we kick our partners out of our beds, for a night with our best friend? Or at least pitch a tent in the living room to enjoy a magical world with our special confidant? Why do women allow themselves to become isolated islands flanked by an ocean of responsibilities? Who made the rule that maturity means we should live top-heavy, responsibility-laden lives with little time for friendship and play and why are so many women practicing it? I think, unconsciously, if we see a common formula of what we are told a mature woman looks like, we assume it’s around because it’s successful, but honestly, I just don’t think that is the case.

I know too many women who feel trapped by their big homes, big cars, multi-tasking and consumer culture madness. So many women who are in bondage to an “idea” of what they think a mother, wife or woman should be instead of expressing these roles authentically, originally and ecstatically from the core of themselves. As the parade of convention rolls a woman into her 30’s and 40’s, there seems to a general lack of time to commune with other females in a joyous expression of play. So many lose their village of female friendship too the high maintenance island of daily errands, kids, cars, career, commute, making money and spending it. The happiest women I know are those who are living on their own terms and those women all seem to deeply value the time they have to play and nurture their female bonds. These women are living 'out of the box' lives, sure, but they seem to be enjoying themselves, so I'm taking my cue from them.

Yes, it may require a radical shift of priorities or lifestyle. But shouldn’t we all do something radical once in a while? What if play was just a signal that you are indeed a more liberated, happier you? What if play meant you were a better wife, mother and woman? What if we reframed this idea that play is just the abode of youth, but instead, an ecstatic expression of age? What if we laughed and rejoiced with our best girlfriends every day? How is that a bad idea?

I feel blessed that this year has already carried with it the reunion of so many of my past female connections. I look forward to see who is coming next. In the words of my new friend, Dani Shay, “It’s immature not to play.” And I can honestly say, I quite agree with her. Cheers to my sisters; to my village of women.

"In my friend, I find my second self." -Isabel Norton

A Legacy of Love and Coming to Receive It

2010-02-15T10:28:00.010-05:00

The Stage Awaiting Krishna Das

"When man gets it, he loves all, hates none; he becomes satisfied forever. This love cannot be reduced to any earthly benefit because so long as earthly desires last, that kind of love does not come. "

-Narada

If there is something I need in my life on a regular basis, it's really good kirtan, i.e. Bhakti Yoga practice. Of course, it's better when you get to do it with one of the best, Krishna Das. When I heard Krishna Das was making a trip to Tampa, I jumped online and got my tickets. The event was held at a pretty amazing Hindu Temple and the night was packed with those who knew, and didn't know what kind of transmission of love was in store for them. The last time I saw Krishna Das was in 2005 at a Yoga Conference and never forgot the power of his teachings, voice and love. I went that night with a very clear intention to being open to receive his and his Guru's guidance.

He came to the stage with a tabla player and violinist, sat quietly, made a few jokes and then suddenly spoke of grace. Tears started to fill my eyes. His teachings on grace at the very beginning were what I really needed to settle into myself as my heart traversed the sounds of the evening in committed focus. Near the end of the night, almost without thinking, I jumped to my feet and started dancing around to Hare Krishna.

KD's stories and teachings that night were about getting lost in love. A transcendent love. A divine love. A love that never leads to suffering because it is not attached to form. It is a love the is plugged into the formless isness of all. It is a love you swim in. A love you dance in. A love you sing in. A love that is endless. It is the same love The Bhagavad-Gita espouses in it's poetic elegance.

Whether I or anyone in that room were experiencing or had experienced that love almost didn't matter. What mattered is that everyone was there in a joint effort to celebrate the possiblity of one day doing so. It was a celebration by using the power of chant to clear away the attachments, darkness, confusion and delusion from our own hearts. To stop viewing others as seperate entities but as an explosion of incarnations from one source.

Formally, in Bhakti Yoga, there are elucidated higher and lower realms to this path. On the lower forms, there is a strong dualistic quality creating a division between devotee and that to which he/her is devoted. In the higher forms, there is a love beyond all form with no discernible separation of identity between the yogi and the Divine source. Whether that divine source is a formless God with no attributes as Advaita Vedanta teaches on the Hindu path or pure emptiness as the Buddhists teach, I personally don't care. I know it's a edgy thing for a Yogi-soon-to-be-Buddhist to say, but, I think the formless finality as described in both traditions, are the same place. It don't think it's a thing that can or should be debated. Debate about form, but the formless can only be experienced. Those who taste that love will either melt into oblivion or return to our earthly realm to tell us about it.

After a pretty heavy last few months, the night comes at perfect time as I have felt an ever increasing buoyancy of spirit. Thank You KD and Thank You Maharaji. I plan to see and hear you soon.

In Bhakti

Sati

Understanding The Nature Of Endings: A Year In Review

2009-12-20T12:39:00.008-05:00

A moment of contemplation in Bhaktapur

While I can never truly depart from spiritual discourse, for this entry, I’ve decided to move away from my usual contemplative essay on yogic practice.

Instead, I find myself thinking about everything that has occurred in 2009. What is highlighted is a theme of endings, and trying desperately to fully understand them. Endings that I created and endings that I witnessed like a passerby. Endings that were marked by a flow of silent tears. Endings that made my heart swell with expansive love and recognition. If there was a taste to 2009, it was the taste of bittersweet.

In the west, we believe in FOREVER. We believe that the cultivation of personal security, safety and stability is a worthy way to live one’s life. Make relationships last forever. Make your investments last a lifetime. Live like you aren’t going to die tomorrow. Obtain every type of insurance you can and risk as little as possible. Beginnings are always framed in glow of optimism. Endings are to be mourned, or to be thought about as little as possible. To most westerners, the nature of impermanence isn’t a liberating idea; it’s a sad one, because impermanence means there is an inevitable end. In contrast, to those in the east, forever is considered an idle delusion that leads to sadness. Imbedded in the teachings of much eastern thought is the concept that all form is subject to the laws of nature, and therefore have a temporal physical existence. As such, the tide of life brings death. Endings aren’t sad. They just are. Beginnings aren’t always wonderful. They just are. You can frame each aspect anyway you want. But overall, endings in the east, often have a positive connotation that doesn’t exist here in the west. I think this is largely due to a strong connection to nature and a firm belief in reincarnation. Either way, all things in manifest form (including thoughts) are subject to a rising and falling within time and space. And that includes your own sense of self and everything that you come in contact with. Fighting this fact, means fighting the tide. Going against the flow.

While this seems wholly practical and pretty obvious to the rational mind, for most of us, deep suffering is experienced throughout our lives, because we fight the tide of impermanence. We fight change and nature itself. Our persona grasps onto what it’s currently got and holds on tightly for fear of the unknown. We fear that our present psychological, spiritual, emotional and physical identity and those close to us are subject to extreme change. We attach ourselves to what we crave and we repel (which is another form of attachment) what we don’t. Everyone is inspired by the thought of evolution, but forget that evolution implies movement. It implies tiny births and tiny deaths everyday. It implies continuous endings and beginnings because as insight increases, delusion subsides. Nothing in truth is a marble statue. Not even a marble statue is a static entity. Exam a statue at it’s most microscopic point and there is no solid mass. The Buddhists knew this. The Yogis knew this. We experience this reality everyday and still we fight this fundamental aspect of our existence.

While I’d been working ardently at releasing a lot of my own personal attachments, especially in the realm of my heart, I still hadn’t come to peace with understanding the nature of endings, and that is probably one of main reasons, I found myself in Nepal, arm-in-arm with the Tibetan Buddhists this last summer. I was immersed in a culture that doesn’t have a belief in physical finality, but rather a stirring recognition of change and impermanence. Endings lead to new beginnings, which is the force that conducts this samsaric symphony of existence until enlightenment (a place beyond change because it is a state beyond form) is achieved.

The summer was filled with poignant examples of this teaching. Only into my second week in Nepal, I found out that my grandmother had passed away. I was totally shocked and confused as to why this happened while I was on the other side of the world, unable to be near my family to comfort them during this time. Yet my circumstances provided me with the opportunity to witness the Buddhist community come together in honor of my grandmother and the monks performed death puja prayers to help her journey safely to the land of Amitabha, the land of pure light, before she entered her next incarnation. I was overwhelmed by the compassion of so many strangers.

Several days before I returned to the U.S. I discovered that a dear friend of mine, Kit Pun, who I met back in Thailand in 2006 had died in a bike accident near Portland, Oregon at the age of 26 years old. We had communicated while I was in Nepal and I, at her request, went to visit an Nepali orphanage that she had volunteered at several years prior to check on the kids she had cared for. She was so happy to hear about them, and then suddenly, she was gone. As soon as I got back home, I went to a salon and had my hair colored like Kit’s was when I met her. It was my way to honor her. She had a sense of humor and I think she would have loved the gesture. I could almost hear her laughing.

While I was about halfway through my stay in Nepal, I found myself sink into a really clarified state of mind and lucidity that I am rarely privy too. I started contemplating ALL the reasons I was there, not just some of them. When I got down to it, I realized that it was a deep dissatisfaction with my life back home that brought me to this holy land as much as a profound pull for personal and spiritual expansion. I felt the duality of this realization and for once, I was ready to get honest with myself, about what I valued and how I wanted to experience myself in this world. A profound peace came over me one night, as I sat on the roof of the International Buddhist Academy gazing at the stars. I knew in the deepest part of me, that my future belonged in arms of Asia and I would do anything to make it a reality. A profound and unequaled love came over me. What I was experiencing in Nepal was something I had never known before, never had my soul felt so at home. After realizing this, I knew it would have been spiritually immoral for me to return as if nothing had changed; as if Tibetan Buddhist culture, this land and it’s people had been only a whimsical souvenir and not a piercing effect on my sense of identity. I wasn’t interested in keeping up appearances. I wasn’t interested in maintaining the status quo.

What followed were a lot of endings. The end of living in Jacksonville for 10 years. The end of a deeply, transformative relationship. The end of my 5-year teaching practice with so many beautiful students. The end of a major chapter in my life. For the first time, I was creating a lot of endings, and I was moving with the tide.

In Hindu mythology, Shiva represents the purificatory process of change and destruction. I knew my actions were being moved by this energy within me. I also knew that my decisions were not going to be fully understood or supported. But I realized that there is no substitute for direct experience and insight, and no one back in the U.S. knew what I was going through. Know one was there, dwelling in my spirit so many of those nights. And that is okay. I’m at peace with that, because my suffering and my liberation are my own responsibility and gaining someone's particular sympathies does not change that well-worn truth.

I knew that it was going to take courage because I didn’t know (and still don’t at the time of writing this) what was going to built in place of what I was destroying. I didn’t sense what Brahma (Hindu god of creation) had in store for me in practical terms, all I knew was that I had to act and I had to end even loving, comforting and beautiful aspects of my life because they weren’t reflective of this massive internal shift.

And so here I am.

After the storm of an ending, there is lot of silence. A lot of time alone. I’m in a new city, not too far away, introducing myself to a lot of new people and teaching what I know. The bittersweet taste of 2009 is still there. The yearning for a return to Nepal and a visit to India is with me every second of everyday. Yet, the path back to Asia is not fully clear. I just know there is a path; there are many. Maybe I’ll totally drop out of western society and just spend my days studying at ashrams and monasteries. Maybe I’ll find a way to balance a life in both parts of the world. Maybe I’ll start performing again. Maybe I’ll laugh more, listen harder and make fewer concessions. Maybe I’ll follow my heart with more abandon and feel more empowered with my place in this temporal universe.

In the meantime, the words of my spiritual teachers are my constant companions. I hear them the loudest right before I fall asleep. I hear their words of wisdom guiding me even as I enter into the darkness of the unknown. “Remember that endings lead to new beginnings, Sati. Remember to be like water and flow with the tide. When you do, you will not suffer. You will thrive.”

Mysore Minds: Finding The Balance

2009-11-23T10:58:00.009-05:00

“The Yogi who enjoys the state of Samadhi is not consumed by death; he is not bound by Karma, nor is he subdued by anybody.”

-Hatha Yoga Pradipika

There is an idea, and perhaps, a truth that yoga teachers don’t train bodies, but minds. From the yogic viewpoint the flesh and bone body is just a kosha, or layer of a human’s spectrum of consciousness (I will use the word Mind to mean this here) that includes many others layers that operate as fully integrated systems.

As I’ve been teaching to a new community of Ashtanga yoga students these past 2 months, I’ve had an opportunity to really sit back and watch with a great degree of interest. A lot of the students who have come to study at The Yoga Shala already have been introduced to Ashtanga yoga and have established practices, which gives me a lot of information to work with. Comparatively, when I taught in Jacksonville, most of my students had no experience with the practice so my input was taught and harnessed by students early on. This input is so important because it provides a framework for the student in terms of how they should be practicing, and not just what they are practicing. I have found the how of practice to be just as important as the practice itself because it clarifies a student's intentions which largely determines if a student can create a sustainable, steady practice over many years.

It doesn’t take long to learn about an individual if you just watch them practice in the mysore room. It’s like having an intimate conversation with someone you just met. You see their fear, anger, compassion, love, sweetness, discipline, confusion, barriers and passion, all play out in varying degrees. But what you see most of all, is what isn’t working and what is interrupting their growth and evolution. Since Hatha Yoga is based largely on ideas of bridging and balancing the feminine (i.e. flexibility, adaptability, compassion and softness) and masculine energy (i.e. structure, strength, power and ambition) that all beings have within their energetic systems, I often see the imbalances in practice in this way. Depending on the student, If I see an excess of feminine energy and depletion of masculine energy (and all the correlating mental-emotions that goes with that) then I push them harder, reframe their practice to induce more work in the strength and structure. I may work on getting them to believe more in their personal power on the mat. For students who have an excessive amount of masculine energy and a depletion of feminine, I may teach them to slow down and lighten their practice. I may have them hold poses longer then the usual 5 breaths and really work with them on softening their tissue and their mentality towards practice. Ultimately, what the practice is working to unveil is balance in the mind of a student so they may navigate life, relationships and spiritual practice with their energies in the most efficient and empowered way possible.

When habit patterns that have developed in students with an established practice have been around for sometime and it takes a lot of work and reminding to establish new, more balanced patterns. In my own practice I use visualization and mantra techniques as well to help reshape my mind during practice so that is also something I invite my students to do. It’s a little unorthodox in the Ashtanga world, but if I can find a tool that is effective in harnessing the mind that has worked for me, that is something I will share with students.

Lets not forget that the primary series of Ashtanga Yoga is called Yoga Chikitsa in Sanskrit, which means, “Yoga Therapy” and I feel strongly that part of that therapy is the balancing of our inherent masculine and feminine principles. Of course, this isn’t the only successful way to create an energetic balance but it is a way that works and one that prepares yogis for meditative practice that is an essential outgrowth of this Hatha Yoga path. When that does happen, an equilibrium is established and deeper dimensions of spiritual practice can occur. More subtle practices of pranayama and meditation prove to be fruitful because the mind and body is in a more liberated, easeful state.

Meditative practice classically falls under the title of Raja Yoga in yogic texts. From a steady mind, one can use it to pierce through it’s own very nature to see what is outside the mind itself. The other side of that is a realm beyond the expression of language and a place beyond form. It is beyond contrast, conception, or idea. It is the Truth and the place of eternal oneness. The irony is that only with the direct experience of what is not mind, can a human being see that mind is illusionary and that material existence has no inherent substance or reality. When this occurs liberation or Samadhi has taken place.

While this goal seems far from basic day-to-day work in the mysore room it plays a big role in preparing the mind for this wider, more penetrating journey within. I feel blessed to be apart of the process and I look forward to working with new minds in the mysore room.

Om Shanti
-Sati

“The entire universe is a mental construction; and the imaginary world too is a mental construction. Turning the mind away from all that which is a mental construction, you can certainly attain peace.”

-Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Saying Goodbye

2009-09-21T01:43:00.009-04:00

The Stupa

Today is my last full day in Kathmandu. I fly out tomorrow evening. I’m sitting on a rooftop café looking out at the stupa and swarms of pigeons dancing about. I’m eating a breakfast of eggs, potatoes and a croissant. I’m drinking a latte. I can hear cymbals crashing and bells ringing from a nearby puja. The sky is thick with clouds but the sun is finding a way to pierce through open pockets to give me a little hopeful light.

For most of my time here, this stupa has been a 15 minute walk from the bed I slept in at IBA. I’m spending my final days at a guesthouse that is only about a 5 minute walk. I look out onto this scene and wonder how anyone could take this for granted. Even on my less then fabulous days, I made a point to kick myself out of my egocentric madness and looked up at the grandeur of what surrounded me. I would look into the eyes of passing Tibetans. I would look into the eyes of beggars.

When I see the tourists arriving to Boudha Gate and innocently paying for a ticket to enter (you totally don’t have to, but they don’t know that. Sometimes I just watch them and laugh), I pity that their understanding of this place is based on a quick afternoon visit. Living here adds a soulful dimension. You see the stupa at different times of day, during pujas and you can feel the differing energetic moods. The waiters get to know you at the cafés and you share a smile and a laugh. You haggle with vendors, telling them that you live here and therefore refuse to pay their inflated prices. You can run into the pigeons and watch them fly up for a few moments as you yourself pretend to fly with them. You have countless memories of doing kora around the stupa alone and with friends. You hear all the mantras you recited. You recall all your prayers.

There is something about hanging out in this culture of extremes that keeps my spirit awake. Wide awake. There is something about the neighborhood of Boudha that keeps me optimistic and in love. I don’t know how I’m going to handle returning to the Florida landscape of innumerable strip malls and manicured suburban enclaves, where you I'm offered every luxury except the enrichment of spirit. Having been raised in a military family that relocated a lot, I learned how to say goodbye at an early age. I learned how to say goodbye to my friends, home and the particular identity that I had created in that place. However, I think this goodbye is going to be hardest of my life. Actually, I know it is.

You gave my back my laugh. You gave me back my spirit. You gave me back my heart. You gave me back my dreams. You gave me back my poetry. You gave me back my humility. You gave me back my ability to be awed.

Thank You.

Evening views from Boudha

A Reflection Within Myself

2009-09-20T05:11:00.013-04:00

Lake Phewa in Pokhara

For centuries using water as a spiritual metaphor has been of great use when describing complex ideas such as karma, awareness, creation and the emptiness of phenomena. I found myself finding this purpose in a body of water during recent trip to Pokhara, a beautiful town cradled by the Himalayas and Annapurna Mountain Range. The city moves at a much slower speed and can be reached by a 6 hour bus trip north-west of Kathmandu. I didn't realize how accustomed I had become to the crazy Kathmandu city vibe until I went to Pokhara and landed on it's beloved Lake Phewa. A boatman took me out to a Hindu temple resting on a small island in the middle of the lake. When I got there I looked out at the luminous reflections for a bit and eventually sat down and closed my eyes. I wanted to take a moment to see what was being reflected back within me.

What I found was a lot of sadness. Sadness that I was leaving soon. Sadness that I couldn't know this place more intimately and sadness that my world in the U.S. was so far away from this one. The melancholy wasn't severe but it tinted the experience.

The great sage of yoga, Patanjali says that our essential nature is obscured by the movements of consciousness which includes all those lovely senses that give us the experience of living. When the movements of consciousness are finally stilled, formless awareness (which relates to consciousness like water reflecting the sky above) can finally reflect it's true and consequently, our essence. This essence is formless and free from the various guises of consciousness. The truth can finally be known in that moment. Water isn't sky. Water is reflecting sky.

Even if someone disagree with this as an ultimate teaching, there is a great tool to be utilized here. It reminds the spiritual seeker that underneath sorrow there is no essential sorrow. That underneath happiness there is no essential happiness. That underneath confusion there is no essential confusion. There is no essential anything when it comes to emotions. They don't represent our true identity. They are just the play of sky above water. Suffering occurs when water forgets that what is reflected, is not it's true nature at all. This teaching takes a lot of fuel out of the emotional fire and allows one to get closer to having a taste of, if not equanimity, at least the space between two crazy thoughts and their accompanying emotions.

My time on Lake Phewa was a reminder that not only is the reflection of my consciousness valuable but also knowing that what is being reflected isn't as all powerful as it would have me believe. I am beyond my reflection. I am not the reflection at my core.

I left Lake Phewa that day with a prayer on my lips. That I would be in it's watery embrace once again. And that I would be able to receive another teaching in it's reflection. Until next time...

Giving Thanks To A Dreamer

2009-09-11T06:18:00.009-04:00

Ven. Kenchen Appey Rinpoche

Found of the International Buddhist Academy

When I went up to receive my certificate of completion and a kata by my teacher, Khenpo Jorden I felt a deep sense of connection and assimilation. The Madhamikya text we covered over these last two months was incredibly dense, laborious, precise, and sometimes just confounding. I was told that usually it takes a full year for the this text to be taught and is usually presented in the 9th or 10th year of a monks monastic training. I arrived to Nepal and to this course bright-eyed and totally ignorant of what I was getting my self into. The good news though, is that after this, it's going to make most other Buddhist reading seem like a piece of cake. It gave me an introduction to the philosophical base of Tibetan Buddhism as well as highlighting the importance that logic plays in analyzing the nature of self and creation. It also introduced me to the leading Sakyapa scholars as well as some major debating points between the Sakya and Gelug traditions.

During our last class today, Khenpo Jorden gave a small speech elucidating why he had decided to teach this text. I was surprised to find out that it was by the request of his own teacher and founder of IBA, Khenpo Appey. To see the reverence and love that Khenpo Jorden has for his teacher and how that bond inspired him to take on this enormous task was very inspiring. It was a reminder that the heart often propels the intellect.

During my time here, I was blessed to be able to witness a dharma teaching by Khenpo Appey who is currently retired from teaching. He spends most of his time quietly immersed in his practices. When word got out that he was coming, a huge crowd attended and I had the pleasure to meet him and offer him a kata after the teaching. Since IBA was his brainchild, I couldn't help but think of what kind of effort it must have took to find a way to not only build this amazing center but also find a way to teach very challenging philosophy to foreigners of all backgrounds and abilities. We all came here to study Buddhadharma but of course, the intricate design of life made this trip more complex, layered and rich. As my fellow students start to pack up their rooms and jump into taxis for home, further study or travel, in just 2 weeks new lay students and monks will be arriving for an intensive 15-month translator program and a leadership program for monastics. The place will be alive with new energy.

The constant turnover is yet another reminder of impermanence. However, the IBA, it's energy, rhythms and people have become part of my story now and I am eternally grateful.

Auspicious Signs

2009-09-07T19:36:00.002-04:00

At Swayambhunath Temple

Sometimes images speak louder then words

I went to temple and there was a circular rainbow surrounding the sun obscured by clouds. That circle was directly above the spire on top of the stupa. Pigeons were flying. Offerings were being made. Newari men were chanting. Kathmandu rested below me. It's not too hard to figure out why I love this place.

Sacred Lineage: Gyana Vajra Rinpoche

2009-09-05T04:26:00.024-04:00

Gyana Vajra Rinpoche

Picture by Rene Edde

As my time at IBA starts to wind down I've been going through pictures that I and my friends have taken during various events over the last 2 months. In August, IBA hosted a 10-day visit of Gyana Vajra Rinpoche, who is the youngest son of Sakya Trinzin the head of the Sakya lineage. Some of the Tibetan Buddhist traditions are carried on via reincarnation and other by hereditary lineage. The Sakya tradition is passed on by hereditary lineage but also has many recognized reincarnates within the lineage (see above).

There was a lot of excitement on campus for this event. Visiting monks came from other monasteries to greet him and a huge crowd of monastics, Tibetans and students from Rangjung Yeshe (a neighboring buddhist studies school) came for a Manjushri initiation he gave at the end of his stay. From the beginning of this trip, the sites, sounds, rituals, language, symbols, and philosophy have been such drastic departure from my yogic studies. My friend Connie, a Tibetan Buddhist scholar likes to call me "The Little Hindu" on campus. I wear the title proudly. I'm such a fan of Vedanta and yet, I have such a respect for these Buddhists. A lot of us here are praying that we can find the funds and time to return here next year to continue to be a part of the IBA family. That is truly what it feels like here–a real family. The connections I've made here in 2 months far exceed those I made during my 6-month sojourn to Thailand. It's a bit of a surprise, but I'm eternally grateful.

Since tomorrow is Sakya Trinzin's birthday I figured it was a good time to post this event on the Ol' blog. I hear that we are having a puja and birthday cake to celebrate Monday morning! Very excited about that. Thank you to the Sakya Lineage for receiving me with an open heart!

Love Sati

Offering a kata

Picture by Rene Edde

The puja in the shrine room. I'm on the far left, white top, black hair. This is the room where we have daily philosophy classes

picture by Rene Edde

When he arrived on campus

picture by Rene Edde

Awaiting his arrival with a kata

picture by Zara

Female Devotion In Red

2009-08-27T04:19:00.006-04:00

A magic moment in the rain of Shiva's blessings

A new Nepali friend of mine told me that Sunday was the exciting celebration of Teej. This is the Hindu festival for women. It's the only time when men are not allowed to enter the temples. All the married women dress in red, the color of joy and devotion. The unmarried girls attend in saris of other colors. They feast on the first day of the holiday. On day two, they go to temple with offerings to (ironically) pray for the long life of their husbands and fast for 24 hours. During the second day there is lots of dancing and singing. The sacred location for the celebration is Pashupati River where the most sacred Hindu temple resides in Kathmandu. About 100,000 women stand in line for hours to get to the celebration site. It was outrageous!

I went to be overwhelmed and I was. I cried and danced and goosebumps covered my flesh when I first saw the mass of celebrating women. It was unreal. One woman came up to a friend of mine and addressed her as "sister." YES! They may have been praying for their men, but this was a powerful celebration of the feminine spirit! When the rain started to pour we were told that t was Shiva's blessing.

I can honestly say that those women, their faith, their power, their love, their devotion and their joy is what blessed me! Eternal Thanks!

Jai Shri!

Spiritual Resuscitation

2009-08-25T13:59:00.003-04:00

In Bhaktapur

In both yogic and Buddhist traditions, there are fair warnings to the practicing disciple of potential “enemies” that will rear their ugly heads at some point along the spiritual path. Depending on what spiritual tradition you practice, the enemies include but are not limited to: desire, laziness, doubt, anger, delusion, fear, greed and egoism. More often then not, teachers don’t seem to frame these potential pitfalls as a “if they happen” but rather, “when they happen.” Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the enemy of doubt.

Those who have walked the spiritual path before us know the structure of mind, with it’s habits and latent imprints that will rise up to protect it’s turf, when deeper dimensions of practice start to challenge it’s authority. Ego breakdown does not come easily after all. Effective spiritual practice knows that what feeds our suffering and what sets us free. However, to the chagrin of many students, just because these practices are put into motion, does not that all the enemies are completely eliminated or dissolved when they want and how they want.

I have noticed in my own experience, that poor habits and harmful emotional reactions tend to dissolve slowly, in a slow-burn fashion. This is overshadowed by the moments when a distinct and rather intense trigger sets off a fireworks display of nasty reactions that catches us off guard, sending in army of doubt to deal with. Immediately, a student will be tempted to point the finger at their practice, and not their own imbedded mental and emotional framework. We become plagued with doubt. With thoughts like “Is this working for me at all? Why is this happening again? I thought this was over?” The ground underneath starts to feel unstable, one’s vision gets blurry. It is at this crossroads when a student may wish to abandon their practice to pick-up a new one. Yet, this juncture also as the potential to be one of the most valuable evolutionary leaps in a student’s spiritual practice.

Students of yoga practice, myself included, often underestimate the power of negative habit patterns on gross and subtle levels. However, like the worn out cliché, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” is applicable here. If the student has the presence of mind to get still enough to find out what set off a trigger of doubt, there is the possibility of getting to the root of that mental imprint and ridding it altogether or at least prevent if from arising within certain contexts. When I was talking to a wise friend of mine, about this topic he said simply, “If you haven’t mastered riding a bike, what makes you think you won’t fall off?" Reflection on what caused the fall in the first place, is the work that creates wisdom and will give rise to a more balanced state of being in the future. If you haven’t mastered your chosen practice, what makes you think you are immune to what you are attempting to remedy? Abandoning practice is not the answer.

On one hand, it’s easy to view your spiritual practice in dualistic terms, separating the practice as this stable, unchanging structure and tradition that you can lean on as a reflective device, as if you were looking in a mirror. Yet, at other times, it’s more productive to view your practice as nothing more then one entity; you and practice are one. I always float between these perspectives.

Being in Kathmandu has given me a lot of quiet time to examine all the motivations that brought me here and also review the causes and conditions that manifested my life since last summer. What I have been finding with my newfound Kathmandu clarity is that I succumbed to doubt. It came over me with a power that I had never experienced before. The doubt tipped me over and sent me flying for sometime. It was of course, catalyzed by a series of bumps in my own personal road. With my trip here, I have found a buoyancy and strength that allows this realization to fully sink in. It’s as if I just climbed to the top of a large mountain and now all I have to do is sit and enjoy the view over the full spectrum of my consciousness–doubt and all.

Oddly, while I’ve been here in Kathmandu studying the very daunting Madhamikya philosophy, I’ve been inspired to pick up the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali again. I found a translation I didn’t have by Chip Hartranft, who casually compares the philosophy of Patanjali with that of Buddha throughout the text and in a small essay at the back of the book. The comparison between yogic and Buddhist philosophy is one of the many motivators that brought to Nepal, so I was really excited to find this copy. While perusing it in my room, I was reminded in sutras 1.17 and 1.18 that as the yoga practitioner starts to move toward stillness there are latent impressions that are left behind by one’s four kinds of cognition; analytical thinking, insight, bliss, and a feeling of an individual self. These impressions or imprints are dormant but also form the identity that is reborn into future lives. Chip remarks, “In Patanjali’s view, shared by Samkhya, once action leaves an imprint, it will eventually erupt into a new thought or action. It’s latency can even survive death and the body’s reabsorption into nature’s matrix, then carry over into a future rebirth.” For these imprints to cease altogether means one has reached samadhi, which may take a few lifetimes. So, in the meantime, the practitioner needs to become very aware of when they are arising and be mindful of how not to empower the destructive tendencies. When doubt is at your door or any of the other enemies that challenge our spiritual practice; we cannot indulge them.

So in short, the advice of the sages is to get back on the bike. You fell. You had a meltdown. One of your nasty, negative imprints had a party in your psyche for a while. You can lament or you can continue what I consider to be the most worthy ride of one’s life. Get creative. Get determined. Get a sense of humor. There will be times when it’s easy to look for excuses around you. But the seeds of your triumph and destruction lie within. The wisdom teachings are there to remind us that we aren’t the first ones to give this a go; we aren’t the first ones to suffer, trip and fall. The wisdom teachings are also there to remind us that there is a path–many paths actually–and if you follow one to the end, you will be blessed to find what cannot be found here in this worldly realm. Along the way, you will get the chance to climb a few mountains within yourself. When you get to the crest of one, take a moment and breathe. Enjoy the view. That will be your spiritual resuscitation. Then continue on.

Om Shanti

Jai Shri

Thamel

2009-08-15T12:51:00.001-04:00

Traversing the crazy neighborhood of Thamel

Laughing Again. Playing Again. Loving Again.

2009-08-15T12:44:00.003-04:00

Ani and I

Since I’ve here, I’ve been laughing everyday, more than anytime in my life. I have my sense of humor back. I’m playing again. I find myself doing simple things I never do back home and enjoying every minute. Walls are coming down and I’m dancing on the rubble.

I went to help the monks and staff pull-up weeds the other morning, getting my hands in the dirt while finding out that Tibetans feel that German grass is better then American grass. I was on my back laughing to tears when some IBA students were shooting basketballs while doing yoga poses at the same time. I’ve played badmitton with and rubbed the shaved head of the feistiest Buddhist nun out there. I’ve laughed so much before philosophy class that I’ve been stuck doing prostrations with cheeks that feel like they are going to explode. I arm wrestled a guy from Guadalupe in a restaurant while 13 of my IBA classmates cheered me on. He let me win, and then proceeded to win every match afterwards until a huge Nepali man from a neighboring table came over and killed his winning streak–the restaurant went wild..that was a good night.

In society there is codified devotional practice and intuitive, spontaneous action. When the heart is joyous it seems that every action becomes an act of devotion because we aren’t grasping the external for some sort of fulfillment but rather expressing an outpouring of internal riches, no matter how simple or sublime.

I wanted to get a photo with an amazing nun (see above) who I have fallen in love with here at IBA. She is a tiny thing with explosive energy who can do backbends and jumps around campus with the body mechanics of someone is who 25 years old. She makes us laugh every day and is always there to offer advice to us, “her babies” she calls us. She is both younger and wiser then most people on this earth. She is 65 years old. Even though she comes to IBA every year to study, she lives in California the rest of the year. I got an invitation to visit. I'll be there Ani.

Devotion at Work

2009-08-14T05:27:00.000-04:00

Prostrations at the stupa

Evenings at Boudhnath Stupa is when devotion dances the strongest. The heat of the day has subsided making way for bells, prayer wheels, chanting, prostrations, prayers, the fire of butter lamps dance, children laughing and the rolling of the beads. In this world, worship is on display not only at the stupa by also be it being integrated into daily activities. The low hum of mantras can be heard while carrying children, taking a stroll and running errands. In the district I’m staying in, there are as many monasteries as CVS pharmacies back home.

The feel, touch, smell, look, and reality of spiritual devotion here is such a drastic departure from the U.S. In large areas of the U.S. there is a strong movement to make spiritual practice comfortable. How comfortable, fashionable, trendy, exciting, and popular can churches become. How “cool” can it be made. Buddhists aren’t interested in converting a population or in popularity. That intention in itself belies the effort to stay humble and cultivating compassion for other’s differences.

While transmission of spiritual lineages needs to stay relevant and understood, the devotees also need to step up to do the work as well. Spiritual practice isn’t easy, but from what I’m observing in my own country, they’d like you to think it is. Transforming your consciousness, dissolving old habits and pushing past delusion to get a glimpse of the ultimate truth is not for the lazy.

Here you see the work. The emphasis on practice is one of the elements that I love about Buddhism and yoga. Here you see earnest attempts to stretch current limitations of hearts and minds to receive greater wisdom. You see it on their bodies. With the suggestion of a friend, I realized that the reason so many Tibetan Buddhist monks have such muscularly defined arms and strong upper body frames because of all the prostrations they do. The abrasive realities of daily life are juxtaposed with profound spiritual love.

I had lunch with a Tibetan family a few day ago. While I was being served food with the utmost graciousness and love, there was a monk in the living room reciting prayers and ringing a bell. This was juxtaposed with the television playing bollywood music videos. I wondered if it annoyed the monk but I was told, “he has good concentration.” The first time I had visited this Tibetan home this particular monk had just finished a reciting a prayer that looked to be about 500+ pages long in the pecha (traditional Tibetan text) format. He had started early in the morning and had just finished when I had arrived in the evening for a quick visit. Now that is a prayer.

Small Joys. Big Difference.

2009-08-03T14:24:00.004-04:00

Young monks playing at Kopan Monastery

In this place, I live with the wind. My windows stay open. My senses are no longer pacified by the controlled protocols of western life.

Self-imposed isolation is so easy in the U.S., especially if you live in the suburbs. You move from one contained environment to another; from your house to your car, to your job, to a big box store and back to your home. It’s totally fractured. It’s too easy not to know your neighbors. It’s easy to forget the common humanity of those who live around you.

On the streets of Kathmandu your senses are not pacified, they are exploited. I am learning to enjoy the turbulent ride. The independence of the children here is quite admirable and one of the elements of being on the streets that I’m really watching.

Kids learn street smarts very early here, you see 7 year olds or younger walking hand in hand around the neighborhoods, with no parent, traversing traffic, beggars, stray dogs, sacred cows, shopkeepers, monks and pot holes. They laugh and play and understand life in a way American children will never know. Some of them become monks, other go to school, some work in small shops as child labor well into the evenings. But the happiness in many of them is radiant.

Life is hard, but it is more intuitive. Yet, They don’t seem caught up in analyzing their situation, as much as living day-to-day and finding joy in the small things. They seem to be fine playing with each other in a field, throwing their shoes at each other. They don’t need the endless stream of things that Americans believe our children need. Lack of activity is not a problem. Running from stillness isn’t an occupation.

Since I live in the Boudha, the Tibetan neighborhood of Kathmandu, I’m surrounded by a lot of Tibetan children. When I do kora around the stupa, I get a chance to see the spiritual lives of these children. Sometimes the power of it leads me to near tears. Yesterday, I saw a small child with a walker almost running around the stupa on one leg to gain merit. He was smiling.

What the west can bring to these people isn’t our materialistic obsessions, our endless toys for distraction; but good ideas for installing infrastructure to lighten the load of daily living, keep them healthy and educated. However, as soon as doors open for western influence, it seems like a lot of the crap gets in with the good stuff and the disease of extreme capitalism starts to infect many innocent people.

I hear the valid complaints from locals who want to see major change in this country and city, but I see a lot I wouldn’t change. I see spiritual devotion that illuminates daily life. The kind that lives on the streets, and on the calluses of their fingers, heads and knees from prostrations. I see a culture that doesn’t feel the need to own so much “stuff” and spend a bunch of extra time maintaining it. They use that time to pray and put towards laughter and building relationships.

In the time that I’ve been here, I find that I’ve broke out into spontaneous laughter with various strangers around the stupa numerous times–a toothless monk and an old woman selling butter lamps. Life here awakens my spirit. It challenges me. It makes me surrender to what I don’t understand fully but nevertheless, see working around me in the spirit of it’s people.

Thank You Buddha. Thank You Dharma and Sangha. Thank You Kathmandu.

Sacred Turns at Boudhnath Stupa

2009-08-01T14:33:00.003-04:00

Boudhnath Stupa

Prayers to the Wind

2009-07-22T04:11:00.007-04:00

Prayers to the wind in Boudha

A few days ago my beautiful grandmother, Ann Elizabeth McKinley passed away peacefully in her sleep. It was only 2 days before her 84^th birthday. The news came to me late at night and some of my IBA friends were kind enough to offer conversation and hugs for as long as I wanted before falling asleep.

Khenpo Jorden and some of the resident monks led a puja in her honor the following night. Fruit and incense were given as offerings and about 20 of the IBA students showed up as well to pray and meditate while the monks chanted prayers for about 30 minutes. It was a beautiful way to honor this transition.

The prayers were to assist her soul during the time of Bardo following death, which is a transitory realm. The prayers guided her to the Buddha Amitabha and led her to a heavenly realm of light. It is in that realm she can receive instructions from the Buddha before entering her next incarnation. Khenpo instructed me to visualize her entering the pure light realm.

I kept asking myself about the timing of the situation. Why now, when I’m so far away from family? But during the puja, I realized why and the layers of meaning behind this trip started to peak through.

I love you grandma. I hope you heard our prayers.

Room with a View

2009-07-15T19:57:00.011-04:00

Views from my room at the International Buddhist Academy
Kathmandu, Nepal

When I arrived in Kathmandu, I was thrust into outrageous poverty, unruly traffic, goats, potholes, dust, and a portion of the population in their vibrant diversity. Immediately after getting my entry visa I was scooped up by an airport employee (I hope) who grabbed my luggage and pulled me past some 50 people in the security line to a another airport official who asked simply, "are these your bags?" I said yes and he waved me thru. Of course, the bag snatcher wanted a nice tip for getting me in front of the line. I realized then that I had start thinking fast on my feet to navigate a place where everyone looks at you and sees dollar bills.

My pre-paid taxi driver was called, KT. He threw my bags in the back of a car that looked like it was made in the 1950's and flew me up windy roads. After 24 hours of plane travel, I actually enjoyed the daring ride with my life on solid ground. When I mentioned to him that in the U.S. we have lines that the cars stay inside, he replied, "If you follow lines it will take 2 hours to get where you are going. " I laughed. I couldn't argue.

The intensity of Kathmandu hit me so hard that I just observed in a mild disbelief. It's sensory overload. When we arrived at the gates of the International Buddhist Acadmy (IBA), they immediately were opened by a gate guard who appeared out of nowhere. We drove into the courtyard and into incredibly peaceful energy that felt as if I had just been transported to another dimension. Out walked a Tibetan Buddhist monk, who I later found out was Rinchen, originally from New Jersey. Small world.

They sat me down with some hot Nepali sweet tea and I waited for the registrar to arrive as I looked for something that felt mildly familiar..nothing. Wow. I'm here. I chatted with a student from France for a while and after being registered was introduced to the room that shall be my respite for the next 2 months.

I have an awesome view from my room and I took photos immediately. The area of town I'm in is called, Boudha which is the Tibetan Buddhist enclave with the largely Hindu Kathmandu. There are monasteries all over the place and there is one a stones through from my bedroom. It's now my official wakeup call..a 4:30am wakeup call. In addition to the the sounds of traffic, children, birds and barking dogs, the monastery provides a soundtrack of gongs, chimes, and Tibetan music. Every morning at 4:30 the gong begins it's stream of vibration. I've realized it's almost impossible NOT to be a morning person in this country. I guess you'd have to try really hard. Double earplugs perhaps.

My jet-lag has been really bad and the second day in I slept 14 hours and still find that my body clock isn't totally reset yet. The first 2 days I spent unpacking, meeting fellow students (it took me exactly 5 minutes to find another who practices Ashtanga Yoga), shopping for some basic needs, getting my bearings and sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.

Yesterday was the first day of classes. In short, my introduction to Madhyamikya Philosophy with Khenpo Dr. Ngawang Jorden makes me feel as if I've landed in philosophical paradise. In addition to him, I'm surrounded by people who love philosophy and love talking about dualism and non-dualism; Buddhist vs. Hindu philosophy, scripture translations over lunch. YES!

I found the nerve to get up and ask Khenpo a question on our review class the first day. To be able to have his knowledge at my disposal for the next 2 months is largely why I came here. He is so detailed in his lectures that on the first day we only covered 1 1/2 pages on the first day. Today was pretty much the same. Slow going but the material requires it. There are so many layers and contexts to be understood.

The protocol for class is that you arrive at least 5 minutes early to the shrine room and do 3 prostrations to the Buddha if you wish. When the teacher enters you stand and bow your head until he reaches the front of the room. He then does 3 prostrations and most of the students do them again along with him. We then recite The Heart Sutra in Tibetan (yeah, working on that one) and several other prayers to other gurus. We then meditate for a few minutes that he marks with a gong and he begins to lecture. Good stuff.

When we have our revision class in the afternoon we do the same thing (minus prayers) and he summarizes the morning teaching and the floor is open for questions for him to answer. There are 2 microphones set up so you have to stand and walk to one to ask him. The overall energy is really great. The energy is of genuine interest and love and it's great to see such a diverse student body all come to study dharma.

I also started Tibetan language class yesterday taught by a spunky, modern Tibetan gal who knows how to use an hour and cover a lot of material leaving me at least, feeling totally overwhelmed. Tibetan IS NOT GOING TO BE EASY. But I'm going to give it my best. It requires at least 1 hour of additional study a day.

I'm back to the mat and it feels so fantastic. Thank You Ashtanga Yoga! Of course I'm practicing on a paper thick travel yoga mat that has amazing grip but no cushion to speak of. It will take some time to adapt since I'm practicing on stone floor.

This is what my schedule is looking like:

7am Breakfast
8am Philosophy Class
9:30 Tea Break
10:00 Tibetan Language
11:00 open
12:00 Lunch
1:00-2:15 Study
2:30 Philosophy Review Class
3:30-6:30-Yoga, Shower, Chill
6:30 Dinner
Evenings are for meditation, homework and laughs

*Mondays are days off. Sundays there is no Revision class.

I did venture out one day to see the grand Boudhanath Stupa but it was on route to buy some necessities and I didn't meander. When I head back into town again I'll be sure to take more photos and post soon.

Well, more later!
Peace
Sati

Mr. Muhammad

2009-07-14T20:14:00.002-04:00

I’m sitting the International Doha Airport, in Doha, Qatar. My eyes and head are heavy with fatigue and my stomach is confused. I’m desperate for a bed and a shower but my flight to Kathmandu doesn’t depart for another 2.5 hours.

My 13 hour flight to Doha left me dehydrated so I’m chugging down bottles of water and contemplating the fact that I’m in the Middle East, a part of the world I never thought I’d step foot on. The desert landscape was quite an image to behold while landing. I’ve never seen the desert stateside (on my list of things I really want to do) but I just landed on the motherload of desert. On my return flight in September I’m scheduled to stay at a hotel in Doha so hopefully I’ll be able to explore the city on foot a bit. I’m watching Muslim women as black swaths of floating entities, only eyes.

When I nestled into seat 35 B on Qatar Airways flight from Washington D.C. to Doha there was a older man sitting by the window. The seat in between us was empty. When his cane fell from the baggage compartment up above, I offered to put it up more securely. That broke the ice and I soon found out that I was sitting next Muhammad, a 64-year old Pakistani Muslim and American citizen with a vibrant history.

He was a very passionate man, wanting to pass the wisdom he had gained in his years. The words that he had for me were apropos (and incidently, aligned with aspects of yogic and Buddhist philosophy) when he said, “The future is a mystery. The past is history. Now is the gift! God is One!”

To hear those words and love those words is one thing. To realize them is quite another. That is perhaps why the universe would have me sit next to Mr. Muhammad. To remind me that as I ventured into the unknown, there was indeed nothing to be afraid of.

I've Got My Head Turned West

2009-05-25T22:24:00.005-04:00

I've got my head turned West
Soul in the East
Somehow I got stuck in between
Feeling foreign in a familiar land

The Gita calls me home
To a subtle plane

The Price?

Listen.
Listen.
Listen To Me.

Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois Leaves His Physical Body

2009-05-22T10:45:00.003-04:00

Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois
July 26, 1915-May 18, 2009

Forever in my heart...

A Tibetan Story...For Me

2009-04-17T17:35:00.002-04:00

On my recent trip to Islamorada, Florida to study Ashtanga Yoga with Sharath Rangaswamy, I met a Tibetan woman who made me cry and opened my heart. The only thing more unusual then going to the Sport Fishing Capital of the U.S.A. to study Ashtanga Yoga with teachers from India, is to run into a Tibetan woman while I was there. No accident, I’m sure.

In recent years I’ve been wanting to know more about the historical plight of Tibet under Chinese occupation, the culture of it’s people, The Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism. Reading books, watching documentaries and meeting those who practice Tibetan Buddhism has only fanned this flame growing within me. It has seemed as if the Tibetan people have been reaching out to me. The first time was a few years ago when a Tibetan monk located at the Sera Jay Monastery in Mysore, India read my online blog and emailed me wanting to become pen pals. My correspondence with him has been a blessing, if not a total surprise at the beginning. Having a dialogue with Tenzin has kept me more attuned to a monk’s daily struggles to have their basic necessities met so they can pursue dharma study. To learn more about the place Tenzin calls home, you can go to the website: www.serajeyngari.org.

During my trip in the Florida Keys, I walked into an Asian restaurant with my travel partner, Shivani to fulfill our joint yearning for sushi. We were greeted by our hostess a very beautiful and vibrant girl. She immediately looked at Shivani’s Buddha necklace I had given her a few months ago. She smiled at us said, “That is a Tibetan Buddha. I am Tibetan.”

We remarked how surprised we were as she guided us to our table. We both wanted to talk to her. I felt this deep pulling to say something but wasn’t quite sure where to begin. Then out of nowhere she just squatted down beside our table and after asking us if we had ever been to Tibet and proceeded to share her story with us. She was able to convey her journey incredibly well considering she had only started learning English 8 months ago. Her story was deeply moving. It was a tale of persecution, protest, love, adventure and hope. I’ve decided not to detail the story here for various reasons but it is truly a triumph of love. The Chinese government has cut the phone lines to her parent’s home in Tibet so she cannot speak to them and she can never return to Tibet under the current regime. Yet, despite her hardships she was incredibly grateful for where she was in her life at the moment. My own stupid personal barriers prevented me from seeking her out and embracing her as we left the restaurant. I really wish I had, because I felt as if she gave me something precious. It’s hard to put into words clearly other then to say, it’s like an experience of emotional abundance.

Since our meeting I’ve had two dreams about her. And so, more signs continue to guide my way. Maybe this part-time quest will morph into a full-time one…we’ll see. In the meantime, I continue to be inspired by the strength of the Tibetan people, who have suffered torture and genocide, who have lost their country and still have retained their spiritual and cultural legacy as it is now scattered across the earth.

Peace and Love

The Jocks and The Nerds

2009-03-01T17:12:00.005-05:00

In my studies of Buddhism in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist Traditions, I always leave my cushion in awe of this tradition’s unbelievable understanding of the human mind. From the Buddhist perspective, we cause our own joy and our own suffering, regardless of external circumstance–period. Once we dig into the wellspring of the mind (via wisdom teachings and direct insight through meditation) and start to understand how and why this happens, unending joy and bliss comes forth.

I was recently watching an interview with Ashtanga Yoga Master and scholar, Richard Freeman and he said that the yogis and Buddhists are “the jocks and the nerds” of the spiritual quest. He also said that both are at end of the day, pointing to the same truth. It’s reasurring to hear that beyond thousands of years of historical, ritual, practical, conceptual and linguistic differences–the same space was found by both–yogis and Buddhists. I figure the same space was found by the great Christian and Islamic mystics as well. But the connection between yoga and Buddhism really interests me because the more I study, the more I realize that these two schools of spiritual exploration were for many, many, years not isolated from each other but rather, deeply entwined and influenced by each other–through scholarly contact or by monks and yogins bumping into each other while practicing in Himalayan caves or dense Indian jungles. The Buddha himself was a practitioner of Samkhya Yoga! There was indeed contact, even though at first glance the two traditions do not hang out in the same philosophical school (i.e. soul vs. no soul, god vs. no god, etc…) when you scratch the surface, what you often find are not arguments of fundamental reality as much as linguistic and pedagogic differences.

It’s a new world for me but an interesting one as I compare and contrast and love the ride of exploring where Mind, God, Purusha, Emptiness, Brahman & Allah reside. Sometimes I like to imagine that they are the same entity (or non-entity) sitting at a café, drinking a latte and having a good laugh at our arguments over it all. Who knows…maybe.

From Slums to Samadhi

2009-02-01T17:09:00.014-05:00

Maybe many of you who also saw the movie, Slumdog Millionaire felt the same way I did upon leaving the movie theater: emotionally exhausted and obsessing over the idea of how to open an orphanage to save all the children living in the slums of India. It seems that lately, I’ve been bombarded with images of human suffering…especially those of children. From Afghan school girls who had acid thrown on their faces for going to school to little Tibetan monks struggling with Hepatitis to the slum kids of India, I cannot help but wonder if it’s possible to be a yogi and not adopt a needy child out there in some fashion at some point in our lives.

A lot of my friends are having babies lately, and if they aren’t pregnant, they want to be. And while I’m told we females are genetically designed to want to procreate, to date, I have had no desire whatsoever to give birth. The mere idea of it instills a deep aversion. However, when I see so many children who are already on this planet without families, homes or even a basic shot at happiness I feel that all humans must be genetically inclined to want to help at some level.

This period of time in the U.S. has been filled with major social paradox. The jubilation and optimism with the inauguration of our new president and all the new dreams that come with his administration, juxtaposed with the reality that many of us are struggling to pay our bills and keep the basic foundation underneath us. I myself have felt the pinch (or punch as it sometimes feels) of our weakening economy but then I open a magazine or newspaper and see images of a family cramped together in a Winnebago because they lost their house; I exhale and emotions of deep gratitude overwhelm me. I’ve got a roof. I’ve got food. And I’ve got a lot more than that too.

I have often experienced that the darkest moments seem to precede the most brilliant light so this may be a good time for yoga practitioners to step up and move beyond the bubble that defines their daily existence and reach out to those in need. What’s great is that the yoga community is creating easy ways to become active by forming organizations that integrate one’s yoga with activism and charitable engagement.

If you are interested helping anyone, anywhere get on the firm ground that you yourself enjoy. Sponsor a monk, nun, child, adult or even a tree because giving from the heart is in itself an act of receiving.

Peace & Love

Paradigm Shift

2009-01-02T21:59:00.001-05:00

Asheville, North Carolina 11.15.08

In 2008 I chanted a lot of Sanskrit and said a lot of prayers. I voted early and stayed up late on November 4th. I graduated from The Florida School of Massage and passed the national board exam to become a Licensed Massage Therapist. I prostrated at the feet of the living guru of Ashtanga Yoga, Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois and took class with his daughter, Saraswathi Rangaswamy at the historical grand opening of the Ashtanga Yoga Institute U.S.A. I delved deeper into my personal yoga practice with my friend and teacher, Tim Feldmann in Miami. I attended a 10-day Vipassana Meditation retreat. I was front row and 4 feet away from music goddess, Ani Difranco live in concert. I graduated the second class of aspiring yoga teachers through the Yoga Life Yoga Teacher Training Program. I was featured in a national ad campaign for lululemon athletica. I worked too hard and got sick too much. I got my first chemical peel (ouch!). I took part in a gay rights demonstration. I visited Asheville, North Carolina. I was exposed to new philosophical models for teaching, communication, and therapeutic relationships. I ate amazing noodle soup. I co-taught a mysore program with friend and colleague Caroline McMahon. I was able to sit and receive the healing sounds of John Shannon by candlelight and dance to a drum circle under the stars.

I waged war. I made peace. I fought. I surrendered. I cried. I screamed. I loved. And I loved some more.

2008 was quite a year.

Love
Sati

A Thought For The New Year

2008-12-21T13:20:00.004-05:00

Karandavasana

"Life is a pilgrimage.

The wise man does not rest by the roadside inns.

He marches direct to the illimitable domain of eternal bliss, his ultimate destination. "

-Swami Sivananda

The Way of The Master: No Perfection. Only Pursuit.

2008-10-11T17:01:00.002-04:00

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what qualities make a master. By master, I mean someone who has achieved an extremely evolved level of practice, precision, discernment and execution in a craft. I was watching the T.V. show, No Reservations by Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel recently. In this particular episode he visited Japan. While there, he traveled all over the country to visit masters of various realms such as sushi, Kendo, Ikebana…etc. They had all dedicated themselves to a single art for the majority of their life and the seemingly endless-pursuit of perfection. Watching them in action you could see what they were after wasn’t just some idealized form, but an embodied understanding of self, spirit, and nature through their craft over 50, 60, 70 years of practice. Just observing them teach and practice through the T.V. screen was powerful, so I could only imagine how humbling it was to be in their presence.

Throughout the show Anthony asked all these masters the same question, “Does perfection exist?” Surprisingly (or maybe not) they all responded with the same answer. They said they weren’t sure, but if it did, they had never reached it.

This little t.v. moment just reaffirmed what I had always believed; that the world’s greatest masters are also the most humble. It seems that mastery is only achieved by those who never claim or believe themselves to be masters. They are eternal students even while they have become world-renown teachers in their own right. For these guys each day must hold the potential of unknown possibilities. There is no end. No boredom. Only creative potential.

I personally believe that any idea of perfection is totally relative. It is an idea. A form. But there is no ultimate form and no ultimate idea. Classic yoga philosophy would say this is so because we live inside form which infinite and impermanent. The only Ultimate Perfect Anything is that which is not form, known in yoga as Purusha, which is described as pure, all-pervading consciousness. Perhaps, these Japanese masters all aim (knowingly or not) to experience that source of infinite, spacious consciousness by focusing on their chosen form with such unwavering attention that they pierce through it’s temporal nature and see Purusha; using the mind as one does during meditation. So, maybe the sushi man is meditating or maybe the sushi man is even Enlightened!

This understanding resonates within me deeply regarding my own creative and spiritual practices. One of my favorite singer, songwriters, Ani Difranco wrote, “Humility has buoyancy” and I couldn’t agree more. I know it’s a great paradox (among many) but mastery seems to be the journey that never ends and the seeker that never finds. The fact that this eludes most of is, keeps the gods laughing I imagine. Great masters are living reminders that we should not get tied to a static idea or image of perfection but rather, enjoy the endless pursuit of obtaining deeper, more refined levels of awareness. This applies to yoga practice and all that it entails from asana to meditation. Don’t perfect an asana. Pursue it. Don’t perfect your breath or your concentration but pursue the ever-unfolding journey deeper into it. There is no end to insight. Don’t pretend there is.

OM Peace
Sati

Looking Forward. Staying Present. And Everything In Between.

2008-09-22T18:55:00.002-04:00

The Stream In Which We Flow

2008-07-14T09:50:00.010-04:00

The Stream In Which We Flow
By Sati Chmelar

The great yogic sages have all made a point to speak to all earnest students of the inevitability of change and the impermanent nature of life. Essentially, change IS life itself and we live our lives as a series of beginnings and endings in thought, action and feeling. You’d think that since we came out of the womb subject to this law, humans would get a little better at learning how to paddle in the stream of impermanence in a way that reduces suffering and increases joy…you’d think wouldn’t you?

It’s not that the tools aren’t there. We have been given so many spiritual practices and the accompanying wisdom to learn how to swim in the stream of life. We’ve also been given instructions on how not to cling to other swimmers and how to successfully avert large obstacles that may be lodged in the center of the stream in which we flow.

Of these, the practice of meditation has been a major point of focus precisely because it’s the practice that targets the nature of our mind with the most pristine force. Meditation as it is taught by the great teachers has nothing to do with lowering blood pressure or decreasing stress (as these are just nice byproducts) but ultimately allowing one to slowly get closer and closer to truly seeing the truth of impermanence in all manifest existence and to pierce through it to find one’s true self held in the arms of the only permanent thing–God. The word used for God in yogic scripture is Ishvara in the Samkhya philosophical school and Brahman in the Vedantic schools.

Brahman is never born. It never dies. It knows no sorrow because it never clung to anything for joy. And why would it cling if it is the essence of all things and therefore, any “thing” would be a partial and incomplete aspect of the Ultimate Self. Brahman is beyond contrast. It is beyond any concept of the mind. Therefore, we must pierce through the very nature of the thing that prevents us from seeing and experiencing this truth, which is the mind. In meditation we eventually find a door and open it to see Brahman. You see that your true eternal self is Brahman.

But until then, our minds and bodies are subject to the stream of impermanence. We suffer. We cling. We sing. We dance. We desire. We collapse in pain. We search to find something and when we find it, we search for something else.

I was asked recently in an interview for a magazine article what I thought was a vital part of health and wellness. I sat in silence for a moment and the first and seemingly most important, essential element came to me: “Self-awareness,” I said. The spiritual journey begins with self-awareness. The journey towards a decrease in personal suffering always begins with self-awareness. Embracing the principle of impermanence of life can only truly be done when each individual starts to reflect on life and not just impulsively move through it. We cannot change our suffering if we do not truly see that it is our lack of surrender and cooperation with natural law that causes it. If we start to become observant and less reactive we give ourselves a chance to change patterns of suffering we have created in this stream of impermanence we call life.

I recently experienced a lot of major change in my life. Within a several week period my career, home and several personal relationships were subject to a stream of change at a greater speed and force then I’m used too. While I may be a bit dreamier then most Capricorns, my foundation-loving nature was still shaken up a bit. Even though these changes were all intended and welcome I found myself searching for the feelings and thoughts that usually carried me throughout the day and they just weren’t there. I was responding to my new environment on an intuitive level and the images, smells and feelings were all brand new. The definition of myself was undergoing a major overhaul while my mind was searching for the it’s well-worn habit patterns of being. Even though I was facilitating change, I found myself still resisting change, which meant ultimately, that I was resisting the very nature of life (Suffering 101).

I was full-swing in the stream and I needed to return to my asana and meditation practice so I could flow again.

When I finally got back to my mat, this time on the 3rd floor balcony of my new apartment I did the same old beautiful Ashtanga practice for the first time off solid ground. I was disorientated at first and felt a shadow of fear rise up. But then I realized that my drishti was sky, which was a vantage point I had never really experienced before. The breeze hit my face and I realized that everything was going to be OK. I felt my stability-loving nature be given a buoyancy. I stopped clinging and started surrendering to impermanence and then I sat down to meditate.

“I find people complaining that they do not find time for worship or meditation. But I feel, and everybody knows well, they always get sufficient time for their illness, worries and physical needs. The reason is that all these things are of greater importance to them than the Divine duties.”

-Ram Chandra

“The mind alone is the cause of bondage and liberation among humans”

-Amrita-Bindu-Upanishad

“The stream of the mind flows in two directions. It flows toward the good and it flows towards the bad…restriction of the whirls of the mind is dependent on dispassion and discernment.”

-Yoga Bhashya

The Grand Opening of AYRI U.S.A....Finally!

2008-05-27T15:27:00.017-04:00

My students, sister and I with Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois and his daughter,
Saraswathi. March 23, 2008.

On March 23, 2008 a momentous occasion occurred on the small island of Islamorada off the southern coast of Florida. It was the grand opening of the new Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute U.S.A. The event was of great historical significance as this is the only other official location of AYRI outside of Mysore, India, where the founder, Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois has been living and teaching since the 1930’s.

After two cancellations (due to ill health) the living Guru of Ashtanga Yoga, Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois, his daughter Saraswathi and his granddaughter Sharmila came to officially bless and open the new center. There was a beautiful grand opening party that included time to give respect and speak with Guruji, hear speeches by several people including Eddie Stern from New York, traditional Indian dance, Hindu puja, and a huge buffet of Indian food. The energy of that first night was really warm and inviting. The crowd was smaller so it felt like a private party. There were children dancing around, old friends in embrace and new friends being made amidst loving conversation.

It was my first time in the presence of Guruji and the minute I walked into the room I was shaking and in tears. After years of wishing and hoping, I finally was able to experience his loving presence and bow to his feet in absolute gratitude for all he has done to carry on this great and penetrating tradition. After the party, there were three days of led primary series classes. Those classes were packed out, making some students practice in adjoining rooms to the main shala. Seeing the crowds that came for class made me especially grateful I was able to experience the intimacy of the opening party.

Each day of class Guruji seemed to have more energy. He opened each class with the invocation and on the last day managed to do the closing prayer as well. He would alternate between napping and then lunging forward in an intense gaze on day 1. On day 2 he led the counting for the opening sequence of postures but got a little confused and Saraswathi took over. On day 3 Guruji was on fire and called the entire opening sequence strongly and kept calling even after Saraswathi started to take over. He didn’t want to stop and Saraswathi and Sharmila both had words with him in their native tongue at which point he let go of the reigns. Experiencing the family dynamics and transference of power between Guruji and Saraswathi made me feel as if I were witnessing a major evolutionary shift in the history of yoga.

Each day made my heart move between distinct sensations of sadness and joy. The reality of Guruji’s age juxtaposed with the excitement of finally being in his presence made me feel as if I had to say hello and goodbye in the same meeting. What kept me strong was the sparkle in his eyes and his smiles and laughter. Saraswathi’s presence was really bright and and humorous. Her counting was strong, balanced and even. She cracked a few jokes during practice sending the entire room of 175+ yogis into giggles. Feeling such a strong female lineage in the room really appealed to me. After each class there was free chai tea waiting in the kitchen and people would go up to Guruji and Saraswathi to give thanks, take photos and get autographs. After class on the last day there was an explosion of applause and a standing ovation. Saraswathi announced that she and the family would be back as soon as possible and that she was very excited to return to teach. Eddie said that “This is just the beginning of Ashtanga in Florida” and that all upcoming events and classes would be posted on the AYRI website.

In retrospect, the event was about transition on so many levels. It was being at the cusp of something new, giving respect and offering myself humbly to something old, and trying my utmost to accept the present moment with unconditional love.

Jai Shri
Sat Guru
Maharaj ki

Jai!

Before led primary

One of the many beautiful family portraits on the walls

Saraswathi, Guruji and family!

For The Joy It Brings

2008-05-04T19:13:00.002-04:00

"I do it for the joy it brings, cause I'm a joyful girl. Cause the world owes us nothing and we owe each other the world."

-Ani Difranco

Getting Intimate with Intermediate

2008-04-27T19:48:00.010-04:00

Yoganidrasana Take 1

Yoganidrasana Take 2

A few teachers have told me that in a lot of ways I'm not your typical Ashtangi. Why? Well, I'm not one to want to move ahead in a series–which I hear is rather rare. I also have a pretty colorful, emotional, and in some ways, fantastical relationship to my asana practice.

For one, I talk to my poses and turn them into people. I also work at building intimacy with each asana and ultimately the series in terms of years, not weeks or months. Essentially, while I know that my practice is a mirror for the relationship I have with myself, I find that I also view the asanas and the series as I would human relationships. There is the "acquaintance," the "buddy," the "friend," the "good friend," the "best friend," and the "lover." When I first meet a pose that is rather scary and challenging that pose temporarily is the "someone I'd rather not hang out with." This approach came about organically but it works well because being a good human being and observing how I relate to an asana becomes one in the same.

After years of practicing primary series, learning Ashtanga in a non-mysore setting, refining my practice alone, not moving ahead to play with the next series, I've nurtured a very intimate relationship with Primary Series (a.k.a. Yoga Chikitsa or 1st Series). When I finally entered into the mysore room and was brought into Intermediate Series (a.k.a. Nadhi Shodhana or 2nd Series) I felt tentative. On one hand I was excited. On the other hand I felt like I had a lot of new relationships to build and I would often get the next pose from a teacher before my desired level of intimacy was had with the previous pose. While I would make a good celebratory sound when a breakthrough happened (those are always fun days), on a deeper level of consciousness, I fought and rebelled against the new 2nd series dance I was being asked to embrace. After all, I had so many memories, so much history, so many tears and laughter and joy with Primary Series. Primary had become a hard-earned, fluent ride of breath, ease and total love.

Ultimately, I realized that I was going to have to acknowledge a certain death. The death of Primary Series and even a combined Primary and Intermediate Series no longer being my daily practice. The nature of life is that change is constant and flux is the fuel for evolution on the manifest plane. Except it with grace and you won't suffer. I had to let go and make peace with this law of nature. I had to start getting excited to meet and hang out with Intermediate Series daily. Once this finally happened my practice opened and softened (big surprise).

However, I cannot forget that I still get to visit my beloved Primary Series once a week. I get to teach it several days a week and that is pure joy. Intermediate has brought me some lovely gifts thus far, including a favorite pose, Yoganidrasana. Yep. It's comfy folks.

While I'm currently passing through deep emotional spaces within Pincha Mayurasana and Karandavasana, I see that Intermediate Series isn't going to take any of my fear-based crap and that is nice to know. We all need a friend to call us out on our self-defeating patterns and Intermediate might just be that friend for me.

Make Space For Your Soul

2008-04-24T01:29:00.006-04:00

Musician and Mystic John Shannon

One of my best friends and fellow yogini Caroline McMahon and her partner, John Shannon are out on tour right now for John's new solo CD, American Mystic. Caroline sings back-up to John's gentle, stirring, poetic landscapes. His sound is ethereal and his message is one that all yogis and ardent spiritual seekers are familiar with; we are ONE. Beyond the apparent duality of our existence, there is one underlying reality which is One Voice. One Consciousness. One Creation. One Spirit. One eternal nothing that gave birth to the illusion of so many somethings. Listening to this album is like listening to a sonic dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna from The Bhagavad-Gita. I hear the seeking of Arjuna. I hear the wisdom of God incarnate, Krishna.

I have been playing the album at the end of my Ashtanga Yoga classes during savasana. When I hear the songs at this particular time there is even a deeper resonance. His words seem to reinforce the efforts of all the resting yogis in the room. They know it. I know it. And a communion of intention occurs.

I hope to share this music with you all. The album is released in the U.S., France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland April 29. You can download the CD on i-tunes or pre-order the CD now at most major locations such at Amazon, Borders and Barnes and Noble.

Go to John Shannon's Site to hear a few of the songs or click on the album title above to see the record label's website. I'll be posting more news here!

"I believe in the awakening power of song."

-John Shannon

Getting Quiet. Getting Ready to Dissolve.

2008-04-19T12:16:00.022-04:00

Cotton field we drove by on our way to retreat

I'm back from my 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat as taught By S.N. Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. My dear friend and I both attended the Dhamma Patapa Center that just opened in south Georgia near Jesup (i.e. in the middle of nowhere!) The center only had 3 buildings constructed and currently can hold 30 students. There is a small registration building, the dining hall and the main Dhamma Hall with adjoining dorms for both men and women. The center has purchased a lot of acreage and has plans for expansion eventually housing up 100 students. While humble compared to other centers (I heard) it was sparkling new and the paint colors and furniture were all warm and soothing.

After registration and settling into our appointed rooms we had an orientation where we could ask questions before the rule of Noble Silence was put into action. I won't go into detail but there A LOT of rules and regulations in Goenka's retreats including no forms of communication (speaking, gaze or gesture) no reading, writing, or physical activity except walking. I was told that other centers take your car keys and lock the center gates (our center didn't have a gate). While anyone can really leave is they wish to, the staff do make it known that they expect you to fulfill your initial 10 day commitment. Alot of the living rules mimiced thse found in a monastic environment, yet aura of this particular retreat struck me as much more severe then when I had studied Vipassana for a few days with Buddhist monks in Thailand. In Thailand we were able to mix sitting and walking meditation and we were allowed to practice yoga asana as well. There was also an incredible feeling of love and peace the prevaded my previous experiences that I didn't feel at this center.

Obediance to a moral code, no forms of self-expression and communication, 11 hours a day of meditation and a highly regimented schedule were all created to assist in purifiying and focusing the mind. The only distraction IS your own mind! Yet, despite this removal of factors, I found myself unable to fully relax into my meditation practice. The tension of the place and the reality of being watched at all times didn't help. There was one female manager for the female meditators and male manager for the male meditators. They tell you at the beginning that the manager serves the purpose of helping you with any issues that arise regarding accommodation, health etc...Yet, it became clear that the manger was also a watch-dog of sorts who would enter your room unannounced, without knocking to make sure you were meditating in your room at specific times. The course teacher is only allowed to be spoken to at specific times of day for private interviews or questions. Yet the teacher is not given any real power to speak or teach from his/her personal experience. It seemed like our teacher only "checked in" and reiterated what Goenka had just taught. That lack of communion with a teacher in the room seemed a little odd.

The 10-day course and meditation instruction was totally led by Goenka via audio and video recordings. The teaching of the technique was the most meticulous I had ever come across and I appreciated the detail. Day by day, there was a slow progression/evolution of theory and practice. Every evening there was a video discourse (about an hour long) by Goenka. These discourses ended up being my favorite part of the retreat. I found Goenka to be insightful, sharp, funny, learned, passionate and a great story-teller. However, I also found him as having a few blind-spots, especially in regard to the power of Vedantic teachings and other forms of meditation that he feels, do not work at the deepest level of mind and therefore, do not fully liberate a person. I feel that meditative discipline is varied because personal constitutions vary and therefore one (as he did) may be more constituionally aligned with Vipassana meditation while another student may find great success with japa meditation in the dissolution of the ego. There were many enlightened masters before Buddha and many after (who didn't practice Vipassana I dare say) and there is no doubt that enlightened awareness is also an outcome of devotion and grace, not just scientific method. Goenka's nature seems to rejoice in a more linear exploration of spiritual practice and therefore it made a lot of sense to me that the emotionalism of a bhakti practice didn't deliver him as far as his Vipassana practice.

For all of Goenka's talk of non-secular and universality of technique that should be accessible to all, he forgets that the diversity in this manifest world is the face of universality and therefore, no one technique, even if innately effective, should inspire every spiritual seeker in the known world. No more then Ashtanga Yoga should be touted as the only effective asana practice that purifies the body. Oddly, I found out at the end of the retreat that one fellow student came to study at the Georgia center because she had been denied entrance at another center due to being a Reiki practitioner! Apparently, a policy at some centers (if not all) will not accept Reiki practitioners, saying that historically, they have seen that Reiki folk have bad experiences with the Vipassana technique. I don't know if Goenka personally endorses this policy but if he does he'll have to say that Vipassana is for all people "except Reiki practitioners."

Because of the what I often felt like was, prison-like energy of the place I wasn't able to fully surrender. A part of me rebelled internally to the repressive energy. Day 1 and 4 were downright traumatic. Day 6 was really tough. I passed through some really heavy emotions during the retreat. I kept thinking to myself, "If Goenka or even Buddha himself was a woman this whole set-up would be different." If a female were at the helm I imagined a greater softness and pliability in the living style and a more nurturing approach to the communication of the teachings. Granted, If I hadn't already had many transcendent spiritual experiences in other formats from other forms of seated meditation to creative process, perhaps I would believe that this format was required for one to purify the mind, dissolve the ego and taste pure emptiness/consciousness leading to liberation.

I’ll take Goenka’s own advice, “Trust your own experience.” My experience tells me that Goenka’s method and interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings is a path among many. His reiteration of so many of the Buddha’s teachings in the Pali Canon remind me how pragmatic the Buddha was and how much his teachings truly do reach beyond so many cultural boundries to bring rich rewards. Goenka’s discourses gave me a lot academically and philosophically. My time on the cushion gave me some much-needed intimate time with my own mind and heart. I had a few signficant releases/realizations during this retreat. For this I am very thankful. I look forward to continuing my study in Vipassana but I will probably be returning to study in the monastic setting of Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist traditions.

It is very clear to me that the heart has to drive my spiritual practice. Even if I choose to practice something that is very rational, scientific and tedious; it is essentially the heart, a sense of loving that drives and maintains my practice. I love that the Buddha felt love was the key too.

"Whatever grounds there are for making merit productive of a future birth, all these do not equal a sixteenth part of the liberation of mind by loving-kindness. The liberation of mind by loving-kindness surpasses them and shines forth, bright and brilliant.”
~ The Buddha

Graduating From The Florida School of Massage: What Are You Aware of Now?

2008-03-18T23:00:00.001-04:00

My shadow.
At a potluck lunch the day before my graduation from FSM

Tomorrow I jump in the car and drive to South Beach to continue my studies with Senior Ashtanga teachers, Kino MacGregor, Tim Feldmann and Greg Nardi at the Miami Life Center. It's been 11 days since my graduation from the Florida School of Massage, which has been just enough time to take a big, deep breath. I feel like I have my life back. I have time. I have sleep. I can return to being immersed in yogic studies and if feels damn good!

I will be heading back to FSM to stay connected with a few teachers and continue advanced studies. FSM isn't just a school, it is a phenomena and a "social experiment" as the director calls it. This truth brings people back to stand on it's grounds, to contemplate, to taste the reality of the community. In it's 34 years, FSM has only had 4 graduations indoors because of rain and ours ended up being number 5. At first we were all bummed out but then as our class and 250 guests packed together in one room in the sweltering humidity, the intimacy seemed a perfect closing to our time here. Our graduation committee created a deeply moving, often hysterically funny ceremony that had me smiling so much my cheeks hurt and then so touched I started tearing up. An alumni of 12 years ago was there and chose to come up to the mic and speak to us all. She told us that it had rained at her graduation as well and that her class was especially blessed and so would ours. Jai to that!

FSM is largely about fostering compassionate touch and therapeutic intimacy. It seeks to introduce the cultivation of awareness in it's students, many who have never even heard of that concept or idea before attending the school. The question, "What are you aware of now?" was a favorite phrase of our teachers so it was placed on the back of our grad school t-shirts. It's a perfect question for me right now, having just said so many goodbyes to my fellow classmates. Some are staying in Gainesville while others are heading as far as Israel.

Now that I'm out of the formal schooling atmosphere, I will be learning to trust my intuition more as I deepen as a massage practitioner. As I study for the National Certification Exam for Massage and Bodywork, and continue along this path, I will have a dual focus on teaching Traditional Thai Massage while refining my personal style as a Therapeutic Bodyworker. I'm excited to see what develops. After all, this is just the beginning.

Thanks to all those who took this journey with me the last 6 months. Thank you for the daily hugs and kisses. I especially want to thank Anne, Christen, Rachel and Healey. I want to send special thanks to my teachers Paul Linn and Adam Silverberg.

I won't forget.

One of the many sculptures on campus

The Ecstatic Practice

2008-03-02T17:27:00.003-05:00

Ustrasana in 2nd Series

While in conversation with several yogis these last several years I've heard a common desire to have one's asana practice be like brushing their teeth. When I first heard that said, I felt something inside me twitch. I internally thought to myself, "What?" While I understand the wish to have one's practice be a habit that is integral to one's daily life, the last thing I wish is for my practice to be a daily, mundane ritual, such as brushing my teeth.

It was the transmission of a profound, divine love via a great teacher that opened my soul to this path. It is that same love that drives and fuels my devotion to spiritual practice in general. While asana is just a small part of my wider spiritual practice and devotion to God, I am not afraid of exploring the idea of asana being an ecstatic experience.

My moments with boredom, dis-ease and lack of focus are all afflictions of my own mind and have nothing to do with any error or lack of power of the Ashtanga Path. Meeting such afflictions on the path, well-stated in the great yogic shastras, are no surprise to any Guru or veteran practitioner. My intent is to be renewed in each moment of this practice. To glory at each breath and experience the wonder that is this life; this divine play of Purusha and Prakriti or Brahman and Atman.

As I delve deeper into 2nd series and face various fears in the upcoming poses I'm reminded that it's not the posture of the body that is asana's greatest gift. It's the posture of the mind.

"Where love reigns, the impossible may be attained"

-Indian Proverb

A Transmission of Love

2008-02-27T18:26:00.007-05:00

I am eternally thankful to all the spiritual masters who have come into my life. They all couldn't be more different in look, manner, and approach. They all showed up when I least expected it. Some are public and some are private. Yet, they all have graced me with the same thing; a transmission of love. A love that tips me upside down. A love that swells from my insides and comes out in tears of profound devotion. A love that is beyond human and fully spirit. A love that defies categorization. A love that transforms. A love that makes the story of my life, nothing short of fantastical and mystical. A love that shows me another glimpse of the power of The Divine. It is this love that is the force behind all LILA.

When I was young girl, I used to cry and call out to you. And now you come. Come. And come again. My soul bows to you.

A Long Road

2008-02-17T18:11:00.013-05:00

With friend and collegue, Sara Torbett

Yoga Life Teacher Training Graduation Day 2.17.08

It's been a long 1 1/2 year road. From the day Sara approached me to co-direct and co-create the Yoga Life Teacher Training Program to the graduation day of our first training.

One the most significant and unexpected events in my life these last few years is the day I went to Yoga Life and met Sara Torbett. She has become a wonderful partner in my life. Our distinct personalities seem to balance out perfectly with our mutual Capricorn natures. We both have a drive for excellence and evolution but we express it differently. I believe that has added a real richness to our program and to our teaching.

I put so much energy, love, and dedication into this program and the graduates have put just as much into completing it. Graduation Day started with a visit to the Hindu Temple of Northeast Florida to attend the Satyanarayan Puja. It was a beautiful experience and the priest made a point to speak about the power of yoga because we had come to visit. It was also great to recognize many of the traditional Vedic chants that we had been chanting together in our group over the training. After Puja we went to Sara’s for food and then had the Sanskrit Naming and Certificate Ceremony. I prepared a speech and it took everything I had not to cry while I read it. Sara read a beautiful poem that is in Iyengar’s Book, Light On Yoga. After the ceremony the students each took a white carnation, pulled off the petals and we all threw them in the river as an acknowledgement of change and regeneration as a new identity. After that we had a bunch of fun “don’t take yourself too seriously” yoga games with prizes.

Congratulations To:

Left to Right: Laura "Priya" Guiffrida, Cynthia "Isa" Evangelista, Melissa "Kamala" Schwartz, Sara Torbett, Sati Chmelar, Laura "Shivani" Randeles, Kristin "Madhavi" Althea, Melissa "Anila" Finelli, (Bottom Left): Jessica "Radha" Carnes, Mary "Mohini" Morcom.

Finding The Words

2008-02-17T15:00:00.001-05:00

Sati's Graduation Speech For Fall 2007/2008

Yoga Life Ashtanga/Power Vinyasa Flow Teacher Training Program

By choosing to take this journey over these last 6-months, you have dared to dive deep. Into what exactly, maybe you weren’t quite sure to begin with. Maybe you thought you were diving into the depths of an ancient spiritual science and wisdom tradition. Maybe into your own body, breath and heart. Maybe into your core.

The word “core” is a commonplace term that is often used in yoga classes. We often encourage students of yoga to “tap the source of their innate nature”, “to find themselves” to “speak, move, act, and breath from their core.”

But, if we examine this idea closely we are met with a vague postulation. What is my core? What is yours? Is it physical? Energetic? Made of stardust? Is it an afterthought of this great universe or on the flip-side, a perfectly designed microcosm of the ever-beguiling macrocosm? Vedanta states that our core is Brahman. Samkyha states that our core is Purusha. All state that our core is eternal.

Most would agree that human nature is in a constant state of flux. We relentlessly traverse new territory, reacting differently to the environment that surrounds us and the environment that lies within us. We get lost. We feel found. We evolve and then take a few steps back. We hit a rough patch. We approach a clearing. All of this happening within us, all the time, sometimes simultaneously, as if our minds and emotions were pancaked on top of each other.

It seems that movement and change are more relevant to our experience of life then this idea of a changeless, ultimate core identity and Absolute Truth. We experience relative truth every nano-second. We live in a world of ups and downs. Shadow and light. Birth and death. And we suffer. By God do we suffer.

Which is why the pursuit of our innate self suddenly becomes so important. To reduce and eradicate our suffering and the suffering of others is the outcome of fully realizing our core, our absolute nature.

The great sage, Ramana Maharashi said that the most important question you can ask yourself is, “Who Am I?” over and over and over again. This was his teaching and method of spiritual practice. Yoga takes the question of “Who Am I?” very seriously because Yoga is the practice of posing that question through various practices via the body, mind and breath. Who are you? Ask that question enough and watch your habitual responses start to morph into a nebulous field of awareness. That is when things get really interesting. That’s when you start to truly transform.

To be sure, if there was no core self to be found, there would be no Path To Yoga. No Practice Of Yoga. Yoga literally means “to yoke.” This tells us that ultimately we are destined in this practice to experience a coming together of two aspects. Depending on who you ask, this yoking is the Relative Self merging with the Absolute Self. The Individual Soul merging with God. Nature merging into Pure Consciousness. A lost Ego trying to find it’s way Home.

As students of Yoga and now, embarking on the path of teaching Yoga, remember that you can only guide those on a path, that you yourself have walked. So keep on walking. Dive Deeper and love the journey of continually getting lost and being found because one day–one day, that process will end. That will be your day of YOGA. After that, I cannot tell you what will happen. Because I myself, have not known that day.

However, I have been blessed with glimpses of what I know to be the Absolute. My core. And I’ll be bold enough to say that I believe that everyone here today has had a glimpse of that same place. It’s whispers to us, calling us home. That whisper is what brought you to this moment. To Graduation Day.

So please, continue to listen to that whisper and practice even when you have a hard time hearing it. To be a yogi is to be a spiritual adventurer who embarks on the most daring, mysterious, divinely lit ride of existence. And in the middle of it all, do not underestimate your power. Do not underestimate your core.

One Of My Favorites

2008-02-04T20:58:00.001-05:00

"Serve. Love. Meditate. Realize."

-Swami Sivananda

Sivananda Yoga Website

A Yogi's Love

2008-01-16T21:37:00.001-05:00

Kapotasana with Tim Feldmann
November 2007

There is a common understanding in most yoga circles (at least in Ashtanga) that Kapotasana, a deep backbending pose, often induces emotional releases (i.e. uncontrollable bursts of tears) directly relating to the heart which more specifically, relates to loving. It hasn't happened to me but the phenomenon reminds me of the role the heart plays in one’s yoga practice and how heart is explored in traditional yogic philosophy.

In our culture the word LOVE often equates to other things; desire, attachment, sex, passion, lack of emotional control and perhaps, even socially acceptable madness. Now, if you take that cultural baggage and sit it beside yogic philosophy and the aims of yogic practice what you find are some serious contradictions. In yoga there is a conscious attempt at reducing and eventually dissolving desire, passion, uncontrollable impulses, adoration etc...But in yoga there is nothing (to my knowledge) that suggests the dissolution of LOVE known as BHAKTI. Rather, there is an entire tradition of yoga based on loving practice and devotional attitude.

This leads the student of yoga to re-evaluate what they think LOVE is. It has been my experience that when teaching yogic philosophy, the most heated debates occur around the ideas of desire and attachment. I think this is because it's almost inconceivable for a contemporary westerner to think that there could exist a state of loving that does not have to do with desire and is not attached to the state of who or what one loves. What if my love does not love me? What if the object of my love, loves another…leaves me…dies?

In yoga and especially in non-dual Vedantic philosophy, love and desire are two totally different states of being. (The Gita even deciphers between the notions of desire and pure intent). Furthermore, the Bhagavad-Gita (a primary Vedantic text) elucidates that desire and lust lead to an inevitable cycle of suffering and possible ruin:

If a man keeps dwelling on the sense-objects
Attachment to them arises;
from attachment desires flare up;
from desire anger is born

from anger confusion follows
from confusion weakness of memory;
weak memory–weak understanding
weak understanding–ruin.

2.63-63

I invite you to consider that passage from the Gita and explore it through the lens of your own experience. Have you seen that pattern arise and play out at some point in your life in varying degrees?

It may seem like a bitter philosophical pill to swallow at first; that any desire leads to suffering, but this understanding can be ultimately quite liberating once we can re-orientate ourselves to consider the possibility of loving without limit and that such a state of being is eternally bountiful and brings equanimity.

I would suggest that the yogic perspective does not recognize the existence of LOVE that is not unconditional and that any emotional attachment belongs to the realms of lust, adoration, desire and therefore are limited, conditional and induce suffering. If LOVE is truly an element that does not hinder one on the spiritual path of enlightenment then it would have to be, by it's very nature, unconditional and therefore the LOVER would never be swayed by the emotional state, reaction, and choices of another. The LOVER would know serenity, wisdom and ultimate peace.

In serenity, all one's sorrows
disapper at once, forever
when one's heart has become serene,
understanding has become steadfast.
2.64

Now, to understand how that ultimate state is achievable means that the LOVER has reached a significant place of insight and wisdom (generally through a devoted spiritual practice) to see that all phenomenal existence, including that which is LOVED is indeed an aspect, shadow, manifestation of divine conciousness and ultimately the LOVER'S very own being.

Abandoning all desires,
acting without craving,
free from all thoughts of "me" and "mine,"
that person finds utter peace.

this is the divine state...
Absorbed in it, everywhere, always
even at the moment of death
One vanishes into God's bliss.

2.71-72

This means that not only is unconditional LOVE a result of insight but it is ultimately, impersonal love. To love one means to love all. And that understanding is enough to humble anyone.

In traditional Bhakti Yoga, there exists a series of practices that correlate to the degree to which a yogi is slowly moving beyond the idea and experience of separateness of oneself from God/Divine/Brahman and closer to a sense of total union and oneness. From dualism to non-dualim. From conditional to unconditional.

Granted, most humans on this planet are not interested in such pursuits, but for the genuine yogi who is plain worn out from the limited, roller coaster ride of ignorance, this is worth it. The calling for a return home drives the yogi to uncover a reservoir of infinite wisdom and love. For the darkness to recognize that it is indeed, light.

Asato Ma
Sad Gamaya
Tamaso Ma
Jotyir Gamaya
Mitor Ma
Amritam Gamaya

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

(translation)
Lead me form the unreal to the real
Lead me from the darkness to light
Lead me from fear of death to immortality

Om Peace, Peace, Peace

Celebration of Birth

2008-01-09T18:07:00.001-05:00

It was my 29th birthday on the 8th. This week is filled with celebrations in various forms from quiet to loud with a diverse group of friends and family. I've been a bit overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and good wishes from so many you as far away as Asia! I didn't know half of you knew when my birthday was! Thank You! This picture is from the party on my birthday night with my FSM friends. We had some serious laughs!

LOVE TO YOU ALL.

“There is nothing lost or wasted in this life.”
-The Bhagavad-Gita

P.S. the coat is faux..of course!

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T23:15:00.000-05:00

"Better then living one hundred years poor in understanding, unfocused, is a single day lived as an insightful meditator."

-The Dhammapada
Teachings of the Buddha

The Feminine Drishti

2007-12-26T21:23:00.000-05:00

Lululemon photo shoot in December

Where is my gaze as this year ends and a new one arrives?

I hope, not too far in the future. I hope, more anchored in the present tense. It is here in this very moment where all the potential unspoken manifestations and various incarnations of who I could possibly be reside. I hear it. “RESIDE WITHIN ME. I AM HERE. IT IS ALL HERE. I AM EVERYTHING AND NOTHING AT ONCE. I AM THAT I AM...” The Divine whispers to me right before I drift off to sleep and before I awake each morning.

These last days of 2007 leave me (and consequentially being 28 years old. I turn 29 on January 8th) immersed in my ritualistic dance of cleaning and clearing out various belongings. Every year after Christmas I redecorate, reconsider, reevaluate, revise, and a couple other ‘re’ words as well. It’s usually a good time for me because I love the process of letting go to leave room in my life and psyche for new tokens, people and realizations. However, I relish this particular time for myself more then ever before because I've recently had so little time to just BE these last few months.

Being in massage school, I've been exposed to a myraid of philosophies and approaches to bodywork, therapeutic relationship and human connection in general. It reminds me how I felt when I first started to practice yoga almost 8 years ago. Yoga Land felt like a confusing forest of approaches that I tried to traverse as I figured out where I belonged amidst it all. As I strive to mature as a practitioner and philosopher within massage and bodywork I am already aware that I’m revisiting a similar landscape. I guess you could call it The Great Philosophical Forest. There is one in every creative, spiritual, therapeutic, scientific and practical discipline in existence. Because I’ve never been good at just skimming the surface of anything I’m even vaguly interested in, I won’t be getting a Get Out Of The Forest Free card anytime soon. Truth is though, I do love this form of exploration. I know that the more I investigate an approach with equal parts of openness and discrimination, I will inevitably become more effective within that communicative faculty, whatever THAT happens to be.

I hope that this year brings greater insight into what is called Experimental Performance, Ashtanga Yoga and Massage. But if I scratch a little deeper at those things I find they are just paths to gaining a deeper understanding of myself. And when I scratch at that for a bit, I find that I am actually asking to know the source of myself; Divine, God, Brahman etc...This leads me to see that ultimately I hope 2008 brings greater insight into the source from which I and all creation springs from.

Cheers to that.

Sati

"I've got more and more to do and less and less to prove."
-Ani Difranco

“Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Shift(ing) at FSM

2007-10-20T11:00:00.000-04:00

Looking up from the campus of FSM

Today is the first day in about 4 weeks I've been able to sleep in. By that, I mean until 8am. I've gotten used to getting up at 4:00, 5:00 and 6:oo am regularly and running out the door to do a myriad of things. I Float between spending a few days in Gainesville and then a few days in Jacksonville as I continue my studies at the Florida School of Massage, train future yoga teachers at the Yoga Life Teacher Training Program, keep my yoga practice consistent and try to be socially available to attend various events with my fellow social circle of yogis and therapists.

After a quick trip up to Philadelphia and Washington D.C. to see friends, attend the Philadelphia Fringe/LIVE ARTS Festival and just decompress from 8 months of reorientation back in Jacksonville after my Thailand Adventure, I started my first day at the Florida School of Massage Sept. 12. With the exception of struggling to get enough sleep, my quality of life drastically improved when I started at FSM. I think this is largely to do with being thrown into a community of like-minded individuals. I've already joined a contact improv dance group, attended Kirtan with a beautiful yogi and devotee of the Hindu faith as well as Dharma teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition with Lama David Bole. I've danced by a bonfire to the powerful beats of a drum circle at an awesome party the seniors at FSM put on for our new incoming class. And daily, I explore the power of touch and human connection guided by some great teachers, eat fresh vegetarian lunches prepared on campus and get to use the FSM sauna and cold plunge between and after classes to energize. New friends are being made that I genuinely feel connected too.

Contact Improvisation: Learning To Fly
I've started to dance again, taking contact improvisation classes led by one of my massage teachers. I simply adore it and it's funny to notice things that I'd almost forgotten about, like the inevitable appearance of bruises on my legs after class! I'm able to explore more advanced expressions of trust in the class, including learning to fly and float on a partner's shoulder which feels amazing! I've already noticed a major shift in myself since the last time I was part of a contact group. In the past, I was always the person who felt more comfortable in the role of being the supporter. I always carried someone else and took the role of the grounding influence in a dance. Since I've started dancing in this group, I have been more apt to submerge into a place of release, allowing myself to be lifted and supported by someone else. For those who know me well, they know this is a big deal. I am the quintessential Capricorn in so many ways. In the past, I always felt a little cynical that someone would be strong enough to hold me, carry me, and perhaps "meet me head on." As a result I felt more vulnerable allowing myself to be held versus doing the holding (and got really good at it). But now that is changing. Thank God! Because I've secretly always wanted to fly.

Massage: Swedish Modality Celebration
The celebrate the completion of the Swedish Modality, my class at FSM took a field trip to the Orlando Science Museum to attend the exhibit, BODIES: A UNIVERSE WITHIN. The exhibit was produced by one of the many offshoot companies that sprung up in the wake of the enormous popularity of the original BODIES exhibit. The exhibition was really interesting and I didn't get adversely affected like some of my fellow classmates. After visiting the cadaver lab at the University of Chiang Mai in Thailand, this exhibition looked like Cadaver Does Vegas or something. It wasn't raw or hard to look at for me. Surprisingly, the two things that really excited me were the 3 tiny bones in the ear and the blood vessels and circularity system. The artist in me was overjoyed to see that our circulatory systems looked like a mix of sea coral and bonsai trees. BEAUTIFUL! For the majority of the time, my friends and I hung out with my A&P professor to ask questions and hear what he had to say, which basically means we were the last of the group to leave the exhibit after 3.5 hours!

It's hard to believe we finished the Swedish modality. We move onto Reflexology next week and then onto Connective Tissue. At first I struggled with the lack of structure within the Swedish Tradition of what constituted a clear, effective massage. But during the last week, I started to accept it's more free-form nature. Coming from my Thai Massage training to this has been a drastic jump philosophically and experentially. I've felt like I've been straddling East and West and contrasting and comparing approaches, trying to figure out and feel where I fit as a therapist in all of this. I know it's still early and I'm bound to have a few epiphanies in the next 5 months so I'll just continue riding the FSM wave and see where the power of touch and the innate intelligence of the mind/body connection leads me.

I know it may sound funny, but I find that I have missed the act of praying before and after of giving a massage in the western tradition. I pray in Sanskrit and offer thanks before and after my Ashtanga Practice and I pray in Pali before and after every Thai Massage. While the training at FSM leaves room for a sense of the sacred in this practice, I realize that prayer is really important to me and I want to find a ritual I can do that can be integrated into this often de-ritualized, secular, western massage realm...I already see that no corporate spa is going to want to hire me!

Communication
The one element of instruction at FSM that has surprised me the most is the power of the Communication Skills classes they have every Friday. I've never taken a Communications class and was curious how they were designed. Some days are pretty heavy and you leave the class feeling somewhat drained from the tears and other days are filled with laughter. What has made a strong impression on me is understanding the difference between one's "observation" and "imagination" and seeking to find clarification between the two. After that particular class I thought about how many arguments could have been avoided if I had fully comprehended the difference between the facts and my personal interpretation of someones behavior. I hope to implement this understanding in my future relationships.

The Only Constant Is Change
The Senior Class graduates November 2nd so I will have to say some goodbyes soon. I have grown to really appreciate them and will miss the daily hellos and hugs but I have a feeling a few will still be around. This school has a bit of energy vortex around it that draws you in if you are open to it. For the last few weeks a bunch of Peacocks from the nearby nature preserve have been on campus. They hang out on the 12 acres of the school's property and sometimes peak into the french door windows to check out class. I figure they feel that energy too.

Jai Shri
Sat Guru
Maharaj Ki
Jai!

LOVE
Sati

Two Poles

2007-07-26T00:42:00.000-04:00

SZM in Determining Independence. 2002

"The body has two poles — tradition and freedom. It’s never about just one element. You need both.”

-Butoh Dance Legend, Akira Kasai

www.szmperform.com

Artist to Artist

2007-07-22T10:29:00.000-04:00

I went to a going away party for a family of dear friends the other night, one of which is a fellow performing artist that I have shared the stage with and have had many creative dialogues with. We hadn't seen each other in over a year as what happened with many of my friends who were a major part of my life when I was doing a lot of creative work as SZM, but a natural distance incurred when I started down the path of Yoga in depth.

I mentioned to him that I needed to stop performing to go more profoundly into the spiritual discipline of Yoga and the healing modality of bodywork and massage with one-pointed focus. I went on to say that I was very curious how these realms were going to inform my future creative work as a dancer and performer when SZM returns and I foresaw an integration in the next couple of years of these three realms that I've been developing. Then my friend reminded me that this procession of artistic, spiritual, and healing cultivation I've been inside, is a well-understood rite of passage for any artist. He simply said:

"Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis."

That was it. In just three words he illuminated my path so much more simply and clearly then I had been able to. I was instantly reminded why I loved our dialouges. They were little communions of spirit.

Thank You Dear Friend.

More Matisyahu!

2007-07-18T12:43:00.000-04:00

"Will you come to the Matisyahu concert with me? I'll buy your ticket," my sister asked me a few weeks back. My only reply was, "Who is Matisyahu?"

When I was told that he was a brooklyn-based Hasidic Jewish Rabbi who sings reggae and beat boxes I simply didn't believe her. "What?!" I couldn't believe it. At first I was just trying to get a visual picture of what this looked like. I then discovered that not only was my sister a big fan, but also my own mother owned a CD of his! How I was not privy to this I do not know. But there you go. Everytime I mentioned his name to friends I got the same response, "Matisyahu! I love him!" It looks like amidst all my recent yoga study and teaching, I have become totally out of touch.

I listened to his music and watched a few online interviews and it all started to come together. I steadily became enthralled with this guy. Not only is this an artist who has amazing skills in his musical genre but is passionate about his spiritual path which is a combination I deeply respect. He is now in his late 20's, married, and a father who has found his artistic and spiritual calling and is sharing it with the world. I ended up going to the concert with my sister and was blown away. His energy, presence, and voice backed up by an excellent band was a awesome experience! When he hit the stage my butt peeled off the seat and had no interest in sitting back down throughout the show.

You can check him out at matismusic and at matisyahuworld.

PEACE

Tim "One More Time" Feldmann

2007-07-03T11:45:00.001-04:00

Getting adjusted in Dwi Pada in 2nd series.
Mysore class with Tim Feldmann.

I'm still floating on a cloud of pranic energy after a 3-day Ashtanga Workshop with Authorized Ashtanga teacher Tim Feldmann. I had met Tim and Kino MacGregor at their new Miami Life Center last April and felt a sense of kinship. When I was able to co-organize Tim coming up to teach in Jacksonville I was counting down the days until I could soak in new teachings and wisdom. Tim's essence, character, experience, approach, humor and reverence captured the hearts of everyone who studied with him. Tim's teaching style and manner had an ingrained elegance. His extensive background in contemporary dance and choreography organically informed his approach to the Ashtanga practice which emphasized kinesthetic investigation and trust.

Personally, I had hit a wall in my practice and Tim helped me push that wall down in just those 3 days. It's amazing how profound change and expansive growth can happen when one is ready for it...and I was! My soul was screaming, "Open Me Up!" I'm consequently embracing 2nd series more then ever. Hands down, Tim is one of my favorite Ashtanga teachers. But I haven't just found a new teacher, I have met a new friend and kindred spirit. I'm now counting down the days until I can get to Miami to study further.

Until the next surya namaskara Tim!

Thank You

Peace
Sati

Jazz Hands

Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo

2007-06-14T11:16:00.000-04:00

The Book. The Woman.

Some books change you. Some books confirm what you have always felt deep in your soul. Some books inspire you to create positive and profound change in your life. This book is doing all that for me and more. I HIGHLY recommend this book for anyone who enjoys reading about a spiritual quest.

Its the story of Tenzin Palmo, an English woman who was born as Diane Perry to a fishmonger on London's East End and discovers at a young age the she is a Tibetan Buddhist. She then discovers in her early twenties that she is a reincarnation of a Tibetan Buddhist monk and yogi who served and studied under Khamtrul Rinpoche. In this reincarnation she comes back as a western woman and vows to "attain enlightenment as a woman" which shakes up much of established Tibetan Buddhist monastic traditions. She moves to India and finds her teacher Khamtrul Rinpoche again (who was by this time in exile in India) and continues studies under him for 6 years in north India before venturing deeper into the Himalayas to live in a cave for 12 years doing her spiritual practices and meditating on the quest for enlightenment.

When she comes down from her cave she begins a nunnery near Padhiarkhar, India at the request of her Lama and is currently a major force in opening up education opportunities to female Tibetan Buddhist nuns that were only previously given to the male monks. She now oversees the construction and expansion of her nunnery and travels the world offering her teachings and has published her own books as well.

You can visit her personal and her nunnery's website, Dongyu Gatsal Ling at www.gatsal.org. On her website you can choose to sponsor a nun for only $365.00 a year which is only a $1.00 a day and that covers the living and education costs of one nun! I plan on doing this.

You can listen to a fabulous audio interview with her in 2002 here on NPR. I hope you are just as inspired by this amazing figure as I am.

Sati

Great Guruji News!

2007-06-12T19:58:00.000-04:00

I was so happy when I read this post I teared up with a deep sense of gratitude. Shirley (a buddy from an Ashtanga teacher training program I took in Thailand last year) sent this to Jeff and Harmony my teachers and friends. They posted it on their blog as well! The Ashtanga News blog made a nice post. Thanks Phillipe!

Greatest Love and Gratitude
Sati

"On Thursday, June 8th, Guruji came out and said the opening prayer before the Mysore class. He walked up to the front of the room and chanted it as powerfully as he always does. I found out later that he was so excited to get down to the shala, he was dressed and ready by 4:30 am. Sharath and Saraswathi had to tell him that he had another hour to wait! After class he was sitting in the office, and it was the first time since being sick that I was able to bow to him and touch his feet. Then without me even asking the question, he told me in a very determined voice that he was going be be back teaching in one week!

This morning, (June 9th) for usual Friday led-primary class, Guruji was back again to say the opening prayer. Then, it seemed to everyone's surprise, he started to count, without missing a beat, he moved right into leading the whole primary series class. He call the whole thing with all the vinyasa-s, and didn't forget a single posture or side for even a second. It was so powerful. At the end, he stood up without help, and said the closing prayer with such strength both in his stance and his voice. It was an amazing experience to witness. He's back!
I just can't express in words how inspired I am by him. I feel truly blessed to have him for our Guru!
With Love,
Shirley"

We too feel truly blessed to have Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois for our Guru. He is a true Yogi, and a living example of how powerful this practice really is.
Pranams to Guruji.
We humbly bow at your lotus feet.

Yoga Peeps

2007-05-23T12:12:00.000-04:00

A nice website, Yoga Peeps that features audio interviews and podcasts with a global community yoga teachers from all yogic traditions. All you have to do is scroll down to check out the interviews and click to to listen!

Enjoy

Medin's Interview with Jeff and Harmony Lichty

2007-05-11T10:49:00.000-04:00

Jeff and Harmony Lichty

"Certified" Instructor, Alex Medin who is currently teaching at Pure Yoga in Hong Kong conducted an interview with my friends and "Authorized" teachers, Jeff and Harmony Lichty. Their passion, commitment, and humor for the Ashtanga practice has been a steady influence on me as I focus on maintaining a strong personal practice. I cannot wait to study and laugh with them again. I've included the interview below or you can click on the interview link to read it on Medin's blog.

Love You Guys!
Sati

11.05.07 Mysore Harmony and Jeff are a beautiful couple and living examples of the radiance and strength that comes from a committed practice. They've made frequent trips here to Mysore to explore the various aspects of a deeper practice, pursue their personal studies and just committing themselves to a greater integration of Yoga in general. They were one of the primus motors behind Yoga Thailand for a couple of years, but have now moved on to do freelance work around the world before they plan to eventually open a little shala in their home town of Calgary.

Why do you keep spending all this time in Mysore?
We continue come to Mysore in order to pursue our studies with the Master of this wonderful Ashtanga Yoga system, and to practice side by side with other great teachers and practitioners from around the world. It is a real treat to just be around those who are diligently practicing yoga in their lives, and who are integrating the lessons that this practice teaches the student at a deeper level.

Is the energy different now since Guruji is not teaching?
Harmony misses her hug and kiss from Guruji at the end of practice, but we both still feel the "juice" in the room. Sharath and Saraswathi are excellent teachers, and the practice itself, as well as the commitment to daily practice continues to teach us many lessons. We also feel that Guruji is still showering his blessings and energy down on us from a few floors up when we're in his shala each morning.

What is it about being here that helps in your personal journey towards greater yoga?
Coming to India always seems to bring with it different challenges. Every trip we've made to Mysore has brought with it new challenges and lessons, and consequently new growth. Whether it is a need to work on our patience, compassion, forgiveness, or non-attachment, it seems that India has a special way of finding one's weak areas and of pushing all the right buttons to help you get to the root of whatever aspect of yourself or your life that you need to develop and work on the most. The greater yoga is beyond just what you learn on your mat in the Mysore class or any particular asana you might be struggling with. The true yoga is how you deal with all of those frustrating, and challenging moments on and off the mat. We've found that taking the time for deep personal practice, study, and reflection has helped us integrate this practice more fully into all aspects of our lives.

How long have you been teaching Yoga?
We've both been teaching for 5 years.

What is your view on the many styles and disciplines of Yoga now in the world?

Honestly, who are we to comment on the other styles and disciplines of yoga, we have enough to work on and to practice on our own mats. However, we do feel that in whatever discipline we choose, we must develop the conviction to practice diligently, so as to avoid confusion. Mixing styles can often create confusion, and who needs to put more obstacles on their own path!

How are we to know what is real, more genuine and will actually lead us towards Yoga rather then darker corners of our own ignorance?
Direct personal experience, and the guidance or grace of a self-realized teacher.

What inspires you and how do you keep yoga real to all the students you meet?
Living a life of simplicity. Practicing with sincerity. Cultivating serenity.

Any advice for wannabe Yoga Teachers?
Practice, Practice, Practice! Always be a student. Create situations that support your personal practice and your growth. Love yourself first, and let this love radiate to all your students.

What is your ideal way of teaching?
Mainly Mysore Style classes, along with some led classes, and a time set aside for questions and answers. We think it is best to try to follow as closely as possible the example of the teacher (Sri. K Pattabhi Jois).

How has Yoga influenced your life?
Physically, yoga has completely changed our bodies. Body weight for each of us has stabilized at appropriate levels given our individual body types. We are both are much stronger and more flexible than we would have ever imagined, and we seldom get sick.
Mentally, yoga has provided a sense of discipline, self-respect, and determination. Slowly we have been cultivating new mental habits that are supportive to all areas of our lives: relationships, finances, travel, home-life, etc.
Spiritually, yoga has increased our awareness and expanded our understanding to encompass all systems of belief that are based on non-violence and love. It has created a strong sense of compassion within ourselves, which can then be passed along to others.

Why do you keep practicing?
We continue to practice yoga, as we believe that within the practice of this ancient tradition everyone, including ourselves, can find the keys to self-transformation, freedom, and true lasting happiness. A kind of happiness that transcends the "ups and downs" of our daily existence.

What does it mean to be established in Yoga?
To us being established in the practice of yoga is to develop a constant awareness of the impact of our attitudes and actions in all aspects of life. This establishment starts to grow gradually after one has completely committed to the practice of yoga (as many of the eight limbs as possible) and continues the practice through the various stages of life and development. However, it must be done with an attitude detachment and without any self-criticism. The benefits of practicing yoga correctly will be experienced immediately in your life.

What do you speculate about the state of Yoga in the world in ten years?
The transportation of yoga asana to the west has enabled many people to enter the path of yoga and start to experience the physical benefits. However, the practice of yoga must start to expand further then a mere physical practice in the future. It needs to move out of the gyms and studios and become deeply rooted in our lives. Even a small step towards taking up the chief yama (the first limb of Ashtanga yoga): ahimsa (non-violence) in our daily lives would change not only ourselves, but also the entire world!

You both have a very strong, dedicated and committed practice. What inspires you to roll out your mat everyday and continue your journey with the practice?
Witnessing and experiencing the benefits that the daily practice of yoga brings keeps us inspired and motivated.

Any mistakes you've made on your yogic journey you would like to share with us, to help us from falling into similar pitfalls?
We don't believe in mistakes. All things happen for a reason and purpose. Every person and experience is placed in our path to help us grow and develop the virtues necessary for true yoga. However, one thing we all need to be careful to avoid is being critical of others. A judgmental attitude is not compatible with the practice of yoga.

Why do you always seem so happy?
Practice.

Conquering the Body

2007-04-25T23:00:00.000-04:00

Sunset in Ponte Vedra

I've been thinking a lot lately about my roots in the dance tradition and how my relationship to my own body and breath has deepened since I started to pursue yogic practice. It turns out that even outside the realm of traditional Hatha Yoga texts, the Upanishads had a lot to say about the role the physical body plays in acting like a compass pointing us out of our limited sense of body-based identity and into the subtle space of the infinite divine.

I.

For the ignorant person, this body is the source of endless suffering; but to the wise person, this body is the source of infinite delight.

For the wise person, its loss is no loss at all, but while it persists it is completely a source of delight for the wise person.

For the wise person, the body serves as a vehicle that can transport him swiftly in this world and is known as a chariot for attaining liberation and unending enjoyment.

Since the body affords the wise person the experience of sound, sight, taste, touch, and smell as well as prosperity and friendship, it brings him gain.

Even though the body exposes one to a whole string of painful and joyous activities, the omniscient sage can patiently bear all experiences.

The wise person reigns, free from feverish unhappiness, over the city known as the body, even as Indra dwells in his city free from distress.

It does not cast him into the pit of pride like a high-mettled horse, no does it cause him to abandon his "daughter" of wisdom to evil greed and so forth.

-Yoga-Vasishtha

II.

Everyone is conquered by the body. But the yogis conquer the body. Hence how can he fruit of karma, such as pleasure and pain, affect them?

He who has conquered the senses, the mind, the higher mind (buddhi), desire, anger, and so forth, has conquered all. By what could he possibly be disturbed?

As the great elements and the other principles of existence are gradually involuted, the body made from seven constituents is slowly consumed by the fire of Yoga.

Even the deities cannot see the immensely powerful yogic body, which is supreme, released from the bond of differentiation, and endowed with various capacities.

This body is like space, even purer than space, more subtle than the subtle, appearing coarse yet not coarse, insentient yet sentient.

The master yogi, who is independent, can assume any form at will, and is beyond birth and death, sports anywhere in the three realms according to his play.

Such a yogi, who has mastered the senses and possesses incomprehensible powers. assumes diverse forms and then dissolves them again at will.

Through the power of Yoga, he is not subject to death. He has already died through hatha-yoga. How can death strike one already dead?

Where others are dead, there he is fully alive. But where ignorant people are alive, there he is surely dead.

There is nothing left for him to do, nor is he affected by what he does. Having become liberated in life, he is always transparent, free from every blemish.

-Yoga-Shikha-Upanishad

Looking for a Guru

2007-04-14T22:55:00.000-04:00

Images of Guruji laid to wait at the new retreat center in Islamorada, Florida.

When I found out that the retreat with Guruji in Islamorada has been cancelled, I was on the phone with one of my best girlfriends. It was only 4 days before we were set to leave for the retreat. When she told me she found out via email, I turned my head to tell another best girlfriend sitting besides me, at which point we both just yelled in unison–"NOOOOOOOOO". I was totally crushed to say the least. We all were. We, like so many other yogis were straddling the reality of not being able to be in Guruji, Sharath, and Saraswathi's presence with the other looming realization that Guruji had fallen seriously ill. In the back of my mind was the unwelcome thought that I could perhaps never be in Guruji's presence. Had I lost my chance to drink in the essence of Ashtanga's Guru?

Even though I was battling a bad flu at this same time, my friends, sister and I all decided to take the trip anyway due to the fact that we would loose money on the hotel we had booked and all really needed a change of pace due to a series of recently crazy events in our lives. So headed south we did and when we got there, became aware that we were part of special phenomenon of stranded Ashtanga yogi's all held up on a piece of floating landmass that is earmarked as the "Deep-Sea Fishing Capital of the World." Thank God authorized teacher Terri Smith was there and opted to teach in spite of the retreat cancellation. Terri ended up being a fantastic teacher and lovely person who found a way to make room in class for my friends and I in spite of over-flowing mysore classes that were entertaining waiting lists for yogis wanting to practice somewhere–anywhere. She taught classes at Paradise Yoga, a small studio that opened it's doors and it's floor space when there was no where for stranded yogis to go. When the main practice room was full, they practiced in the hallway, in the bathroom and on the outdoor porch. It was a crazy but awesome vibe.

Of course, I went to see the new Ashtanga Yoga Retreat Center. The way I felt when I walked around the center could be epitomized by the image of the two beautiful photos of Guruji that rested on the floor–never hung. Things just stopped. When I went near the Shiva sculpture, some irrigation workmen were on site working near it. One approached me and offered to turn on the fountain so I could see it full of life and take a few photos. I was completely taken aback as the workmen moved all their equipment out of the way, turned on the fountain and then offered to take my picture near it. I was touched.

After 5 days in Islamorada we drove to South Beach, Miami with a quick stop in the Everglades National Park for some alligator and bird-watching action. My purpose in visiting South Beach was to take class at the brand new Miami Life Center founded by Kino MacGregor, Tim Feldmann, and Greg Nardi. I had been anticipating the opening for sometime and couldn't wait to see it as it is the closest official Ashtanga center near Jacksonville. Kino and Tim ended up being incredibly welcoming and the mysore room was warm, simple and elegant. The modern vibe of the center was offset with smiling yogis chilling out in the lobby that made me feel like I could and chat for hours, making new friends instantly. I plan on being a frequent visitor to the center.

In retrospect, I would say I went to Islamorada looking for a Guru, but instead of the one encapsulated in a 93 year old human body that I was seeking to be near, I found a Guru in other places on this trip that I hadn't expected. I found it in old and new friends; I found it in nature and in the vortex of stranded, disembodied Ashtangis. It was a series of circumstances that came about as a result of the unexpected and sometimes, it is in the unplanned moments we gain the greatest insight. I came home stronger then when I left. I came home knowing, among other things that to be a member of the Ashtanga community is a blessing and a privilege.

Special Thanks To: Terri Smith for her impromptu teaching, Paradise Yoga for offering your space, and the team at the Miami Life Center for creating your amazing space and community.

OM Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.

Exterior

Shiva Fountain

This is perhaps a waiting room of sorts.
I couldn't angle may camera right to get a picture of the practice room itself which seemed large but not outrageously so.

Beautiful swing in the back

the colors are warm and peaceful

Pics of the Everglades 3.29.07

2007-04-13T22:31:00.000-04:00

Images of the florida keys

2007-04-10T18:12:00.000-04:00

Pics of Miami Trip

2007-04-01T12:28:00.000-04:00

Always Look Up!

3 Gals. One Beach.

Go to A La Folie on Espanola Way for a great breakfast European Style

Moon Days

Lobby of the super chic Delano Hotel
(no we didn't stay there)

Lincoln Theatre on Lincoln Road

Art Deco architecture abounds

South Beach

The color of the water at South Beach is so different from the keys.
It's a different kind of blue beauty

being SZM

2007-03-10T18:24:00.000-05:00

Szm has returned to the public eye in a first small step...she has a website.

I've got three distinct circles of friends and acquaintances; those from the Szm era, those from the Sati era and those who know me simply as Shannon, before either aspects of Szm or Sati developed. As the last few years have been devoted to yogic study and practice and therefore to the evolution of Sati, Szm has since fallen out of public sight. I tell people she's hibernating and watching everything from deep inside a warm, comfortable abode waiting patiently for her return. I'm well aware that Szm is hibernating and has not died based on the the intuitive understanding I have embedded in me that brought her life in the first place.

It's seemed that Szm knew about Sati's manifestation before I did and therefore was very clear not provide me with the layout for the next performance at the same rate or speed as years previously. However, Szm has been giving me enough information over a period of time to keep me listening and watching for what is on the way. I knew (as I usually do) the title for the next performance even while I was finishing Sufficiently Bruised back in 2004. Since then I have became aware of the general mission of the work with a large outpouring of information being given to me over this past summer in Thailand. It's an odd way in which to create performances. I know the title before I even know what the title means. I know the goal before I see how I am supposed to get there. To say the least, to be Szm means to have inherent trust. It its like giving birth. I know there is a being in me but I don't know for sure what the breathing reality will look and feel like until the night of the performance. I listen, wait, prepare, produce, perform and BHAM!...baby is here.

Usually, the gestation process varies but this has been the longest period between performances and in the meantime I've had no desire to perform any other minor or collaborative creative work at all. So that is where Sati has had time to mature and develop. My offstage life has since found a formal spiritual discipline which is something I craved for. Szm IS a spiritual ritual, a rite, a divine visitation of sorts that transcends my ego and it's desires and fears. Yet, I needed a daily practice to seek such a place within myself offstage; a way to commune with spirit before and in between meals. I found this in the science of Yoga.

Now that this has happened I see finally that my life is becoming what I had always wanted it to be; A SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE. A way to seek and commune with God via creative means. Yogic practice is inherently creative. Multi-media performance is inherently creative. Both these paths push me beyond a limited sense of self.

How this change will be reflected in new performances will be most interesting to see. Previously, Szm was very much a vessel to dispel negative energy. With all this recent growth and change it's probable the future of Szm may include fewer exorcisms and more explorations. Yet, the underlying foundation experience of Szm will not change. I'm sure of that.

The new Szm site is
www.szmperform.com

December Morning Glow

2007-03-03T13:40:00.000-05:00

Doi Suthep in December at sunrise

My friend and artist Olga, just emailed me these astounding images of last December when we went to Doi Suthep to hear the monks chant and see the sunrise over Chiang Mai. These images capture so much of how I felt in that moment as well as the ironic vibrancy of a contemplation. It truly does take an artist to visually capture the emotional quality of our life experiences.

Love
Sati

Mr. Freeman: Yoga Body, Buddha Mind

2007-02-17T16:43:00.001-05:00

Richard Freeman, Ashtanga master of the West is one who inspires as much awe and respect in students (and fellow teachers) as Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois and Sharath Rangaswamy.

Recently, I had an intense dream with Richard Freeman in it. It's quite vague now but the gist of it was that I was working towards my spiritual evolution through an internal spiritual dialogue and with every thought Mr. Freeman would pop (walk, fly, or spontaneously manifest) into my field of view and respond to me. He could read my mind and would address every concern, question and contemplation. I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed with the realization that I had no private thoughts but also felt a profound connection with him.

A few days after that dream I felt a pull to go to Barnes and Noble. I was browsing around when the Shambhala Sun magazine jumped off the shelf at me with the title: "Yoga Body, Buddha Mind: Why yoga and Buddhist meditation make the perfect mind-body connection." The article was partially comprised of interviews with various yoga and Buddhist practitioners, one of whom was–you guessed it, Richard Freeman.

This is a topic that I've been contemplating heavily since I arrived in Thailand last summer. I've met many yogis who are practicing Buddhists or who are just practicing Vipassana meditation (including myself) and it lead to questions largely in regards to my own meditation practice and interest in Buddhism. I wondered; "Is this just another American creation that merges (distills, mutates, etc...) various spiritual traditions for convenience or are they indeed, appropriate and complementary traditions?" As I asked this question to various people, I got a whole range of answers. But it eventually dawned on me that I was asking two (and maybe more) questions instead of one and therefore there were just as many answers. There is a difference between being Buddhist and doing a Buddhist meditation practice. There is a difference between being a Yogi and doing a yogic practice. This I think is a very important distinction. And if you get deeper into each realm you find the various distinctions within various yogic and Buddhist lineages and traditions that either facilitate or distance the possibility of correlations between yoga and Buddhism and their corresponding practices. That in itself is a PhD thesis project.

I believe that an enlightened individual from any spiritual tradition is at the same divine realization, regardless of what religious or spiritual practices brought them there. So at the end of the day all paths do lead to the same place. But one must be honorable and respectful of the path and pay respect to the gurus and wise ones from each tradition. To do so, one should thoroughly research and explore critically and experientially the way of something before turning it into some hyphenated mutation based on your egoic needs and sense of comfort.

While I certianly am far from having delved fully into this topic or come out with the most mature answers, I do see the harmony of merging a yoga asana practice with Vipassana meditation. However, in trying to philosophically reconcile Yoga's underpinnings in either Patanjali's Samkhya or the Vedantic schools of non-dualism with being a traditional Tibetan Buddhism would be tough. At that level, concessions would have to be made.

Richard Freeman had some interesting comments in the article that made me smile, giggle and just nod my head in agreement. Here are a few selected excerpts from the interview:

"...we run the risk of becoming watered-down eclectics, using the fact that there are alternative practices and views to avoid going deeply into any one of the them. If a practice is legitimate, at a certain point it's going to make us face things as they are. We're going to have to face that fact of impermanence and death, and that's very difficult. Often people will bail out the moment and jump to a different tradition. Then they'll stay with that one until that same crisis arises, and they'll jump to a different school..."

"I think people find that unless you follow the practice to its end, it doesn't really work as a permanent source of pleasure. The simplicity of the mindfulness awareness approach is that it doesn't require a theological commitment. It doesn't require a secret mantra it just puts you face-to-face with your breath and your mind, allowing people to get started right away with meditation practice..."

"I don't think there is going to be a single synthesis arising in which all of the yoga schools and all of the Buddhist schools understand their essential interpenetration and become one big, monolithic, happy family. But I have a feeling that communication is really opening up, and that people are no longer afraid to consider other traditions, to consider that other schools have at least a couple of good points to make..."

Well said Mr. Freeman.

Save the Deepening of Spirit

2007-02-06T23:17:00.000-05:00

Caroline in Prospect Park Brooklyn, New York. June 2006

Sometimes, we all need to take a moment to truly dwell in gratitude for those friends in our lives that we posses a profound communion with that cannot be contrived or created but is simply just present. Perhaps, it is the result of many other lives together or perhaps it is just that two beings search for the Self is so similar that they most aptly recognize the divine in the other. Whatever it is that makes kindred spirits, I would like to take a moment and honor one of mine: Caroline Devi McMahon. She is a confidant, dreamer, lover of Hanuman, Neem Karoli Baba, Ramana Maharshi and Mother Nature. She is a singer, actress, traveler, dancer, animal intuitive, cook, angel, Ashtangi and above all, a devotee of God. She finds beauty everywhere and therefore radiates a luminosity so few posses. I am truly blessed to know her. I hope some of you will be able to take some of her yoga classes in the future, for she embodies the yogic spirit.

"Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”

-Kahlil Gibran

Manju Jois and The Mission of Ashtanga Yoga

2007-01-28T19:53:00.000-05:00

Manju and I after Mysore class today

What can I write? What can I really say about Manju Jois. He is the force that awakened my soul to the path of Ashtanga Yoga and will forever remain the teacher that flamed a spark that lay deep within me that I didn't know existed. As such, I will always be humbled in his presence and profoundly grateful for the role he has played in directing my spiritual thirst for yogic practice.

Being with him again after 1 1/2 years was a chance for me to sense and experience the growth of my practice (and not just in asana) since I was last with him. There is something about re-meeting an old teacher that allows one to grasp the nature of ones evolution. While this meeting was drastically different for me then our two previous times, I will say that there was no lack of realizations that came from it; and as usual, I think Manju would want no less from any student of yoga.

Manju drove me less harder this time around simply because I was driving myself harder then before. I have cultivated the internal discipline, personal philosophy, and love for Ashtanga that he had previously shared, provoked, and implanted within me. I have moved on from being raw and wonder-eyed to more refined and intuitively moved. I guess this is an obvious shift. Manju left me with a lot of questions this time around. Realistically, perhaps no more then he did before but I will say this: one major question he left looming for me to contemplate was simply this: "Within the modern yoga culture of the western world that abounds with new asana inventions, methods and philosophies with so many offshoots and derivatives that you start to think that the current landscape of yoga asana practice looks like a science experiment in genetic mutation; amidst it all, WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN?"

While I believe in innovation and always will, I have deep respect for tradition and therefore in Ashtanga Yoga. My heart, my tears, my sweat, my frustration, my joy is all packed up and riding in the back of the Ashtanga Yoga Wagon Train. I'm moving over and through a discipline that kneads me pliant and caresses my soul.

I am on the path. Thanks for getting me started Manju...thank you.

In Exile

2007-01-21T13:56:00.000-05:00

Sand Mandala one day before destruction

Yesterday, my sister and I went to a performance by Tibetan Monks in exile from the Drepung Loseling Monastery in India. The Tibetan plight is one most of us are familiar with (it's enough to make the most indifferent person cry) but the actual depth and power of the Tibetan Buddhist path is still a topic that many are still very much ignorant of. A friend of mine explained Tibetan Buddhism as "ornate" and I think that is the perfect word to describe such a complex, labyrinth-like tradition. Having just emerged from Thailand, the land of Theravada Buddhism {read: no frills baby} which is incredibly different from Tibetan or Mayahana Buddhism, I was beside myself with general awe and a deep appreciation for diversity within various spiritual traditions and their corresponding cultural representations. There was an exquisite mandala on display that had been created over the last week in the lobby. The live performance consisted of traditional music, chanting, dance, and an example of traditional debating that monks do as part of their studies. The debating, was by far my favorite. Previously, I had seen pictures of hundreds if not thousands of monks debating in the larger-than-life monastery courtyards and felt myself immediately mesmerized. The sounds, gestures and laughter during the debate really illuminated in a short moment the power of the communal atmosphere of being a Tibetan Buddhist Monk. In that moment I wanted to fly out of my seat and straight to India to witness the debates as they occur at the monastery. The next best thing is You Tube of course..So here are some clips of the monks debating at Sera Monastery outside Lhasa, Tibet.

Monks Debating Video 1
1:11
Monks Debating Video 2
1:08
Monks Debating Video 3
0:25

Dalai Lama image on stage

Sand Mandala

Floating in Abstraction

2007-01-09T23:13:00.000-05:00

I turned 28 on January 8th. It's another "365 days around the sun" as one of my birthday cards stated. I'm heading into a new orbit.

It’s been a whirlwind since I've come home and it hasn't let up just yet. I imagine it will take me a good month before I start to get the hang of being in th U.S. again. Everyone asks me how I feel and it's still to early to fully tell. I'm not doing a very good job in verbally explaining how my (first) 6-month tour of Thailand trip has impacted me. My parents asked me over dinner (at a Thai restaurant no less) what I missed most and the thing that first popped into my head were the monks–the Buddhist monks everywhere. I miss seeing the saffron robes; the flashes of color that will now forever mean the pursuit of enlightenment and the cessation of suffering. I miss having that kind of devotion so readily available to be witnessed on a daily basis on the streets. In our own U.S. landscape, the most readily available reality to be witnessed is consumerism not spiritual practice and devotion. I feel a bit like I'm floating in abstraction right now. What do I mean by that? Well, I guess I mean that I feel more like a palette of colors and less like a clear, easily identifiable rendering of something.

Everyone and their mother has been telling me for months to read, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I had already read The Last American Man (which was brilliant!) written by Gilbert but I didn’t realize that this book was by the same author. I finally bought the book a few days after I got home and love it, like everyone said I would. Eat, Pray, Love is a memoir of Gilbert’s journey out of a divorce and a serious depression and into a search for "everything" as she puts it, by taking a one-year journey to Italy, India and Indonesia. I'm flying through the book realizing that reading this woman's quest is exactly what I need to reorganize my thoughts. I'm booked up with classes, workshops, and a teacher-training program until the first week of July and after that there are many, many options for me and no lack of inspiration or desire. My only issue is that I want to do everything NOW...and that just isn't how it works in this space-time continuum. I'm a hopeless case. I love to make plans for the next adventure before I've even had a chance to fully digest the ride that just finished. Can you say, Type A? I think so. I'm not a corporate type A personality though. I'm more of a sandlewood type A.

Different style. Better smell.

Post Time

2006-12-28T20:01:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers

I've made 3 new posts, including the "Sitting In White" story about the meditation retreat. I hope my sharing of the ITM experience offers a bit of inspiration and information to those planning to go to Chiang Mai to study massage.

Peace and Happy Holidays
Sati

Homage-assage

2006-12-28T17:24:00.000-05:00

With John, Founder and Director of ITM

An homage in pictures of my Thai Massage training and teaching
at the ITM school in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Immense gratitude to John, Atchara, Kate and Liz. To the ITM staff for the laughter, hugs and instruction; Noo, Mon, Sri, Boy and Yen. To my fellow CPT students, thank you for being a part of this experience.

Massaging the elderly

Class

Instructor Boy teaching a class

Class

Virginie

Level 1 class

Instructor Sri

A break

The old Hilltribe master massaging DEEP into my abdomen

Julia

Everyday

Class

Noo showing a sitting position Level II technique

Marta and Olly

Teaching the Thai Community

Kate teaching a class

Ed from Arizona

Noo teaching a move

Instructor Mon

Class

Angela

Practice

Class

Nina from Colorado

Pallavii

Christine from England

Class