embodied self

the earth AND sky

jennifer whitney

“Yoga or union is the cessation of the movements of the thinking mind for the time being in order to feel “Who am I?”  Sri Bramananda Saraswati’s translation for Yogash Chitta Vritti Nirodhah

From “Uji” by Dogen

An ancient buddha said:
For the time being stand on top of the highest peak.
For the time being proceed along the bottom of the deepest ocean.
For the time being three heads and eight arms.
For the time being an eight- or sixteen-foot body.
For the time being a staff or whisk.
For the time being a pillar or lantern.
For the time being the sons of Zhang and Li.
For the time being the earth and sky.

city horizonWalking in Brooklyn, in warmer weather when the cold air doesn’t push your gaze down and in, you can look ahead and see both the earth and the sky.  It’s harder to do in Manhattan, the horizon is obscured, and that meeting place is rarely seen. The head has to move, has to choose, it’s the earth or the sky.

I imagine that when this poem was written, everyone could always see the earth and the sky.  And usually they wouldn’t go too long without seeing them meet at the horizon.

In asana practice, it’s easy to be flipping back and forth – sky/head (breath, intention, gaze) and earth/limbs (standing, balancing, aligning). Skipping around the body is an easy habit to fall into. Earth or sky, sky then earth, earth, earth, sky, sky, sky.  Imagine practicing as this line in the poem: Earth AND sky. In touch and filled all the way through.

BKS Iyengar’s description of satya includes; “…as long as one cell of our body holds back and disagrees with the others, our success is not assured.”  Could you set as your intention to bring all the cells, from sky to earth, on board with your practice? To feel the soles of your feet contacting the earth and all the way through to the crown of your head sensitive to the air above you.  To feel the breath move throughout the body. To integrate every cell – those being flooded with breath, those devoted to focusing with your intention, those sensing your body in space.

Just as we draw lines between earth and sky in the body that don’t really exist – so too with the world. Earth elements are held in particulate in sky and vice versa. The body, the world, is more like the inhale and the exhale – you can be solidly in one part, but pulling out one from the other isn’t actually possible.

This is true of you and your family, lover, dog, apartment, city, and beyond. We are not one hundred percent dependent or independent. You and I are a collection of everyone we’ve ever known, every being we’ve been in contact with today, and vice versa.  And also, you are uniquely, brilliantly, hopefully more and more so, you. The next time you’re at the store, in the subway, at a party, leaving home, bring this in and notice what shifts?

When you are walking outside this week – can you walk taking in the earth AND sky. What shifts?

When you are in the middle of your day, can you feel the breath go down to the soles of the feet and meet the earth and travel all the way up through the horizon of the body to the sky? What shifts?

And when you have a moment of reflection – where in your life is there an OR when AND is more appropriate?

earth and sky
“i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes…”
e.e. cummings  – from Xaipe

Contracting, Letting Go and Intimacy

jennifer whitneyLeave a comment

The 8 Day Silent Meditation Retreat I went on over the summer with Michael Stone has provided many lessons .  It also provided the opening I needed to create an overdue shift in my daily practice.

Since returning from retreat, I have not played a game on my phone, I have sparingly listened to music on my ipod. When I ride the subway home into Brooklyn I might read a book or listen to a podcast. Rides into the city, I am only present. When I first got back I neither listened to music, nor a podcast.

This is not because the subway has teaching moments I want to be awake to –although it does.

This is not because reading provides me with insights – although it does.

This is not because technology cleanses are necessary – although they are from time to time.

Small-World-600x400This is because that is how I contract – it is what I specifically contract around – it’s where and how I make my world small, disconnect from others, leave the moment, and lose touch with my embodied self. All of which are pretty much the opposite of what I want to cultivate.  However and whenever we contract, this is what happens.

When I began to feel that I could listen to a podcast or music without contraction, I did so. Although I don’t listen to them nearly as much as before, and I go to them to learn, study and enjoy, not to tune out or avoid.

Clues for where you might contract:
1) When I’m deep in the mode of contracting – the discomfort is so strong that it can be almost painful not to contract, not to do that thing.
2) When I’m refreshed and nourished after a vacation, retreat, or deep workshop – I feel unattached, and that those things are not necessary.

When I came back from retreat, I was in just exactly that second mode.  I realized that, in fact, the whole time I thought I had been turning up the ipod in order to maintain a pleasant state in the face of the literal ugliness of the subway – I was actually avoiding being with myself.  I knew I wanted to be present, but who can be enjoyably present with the wet matted trash on the tracks? Being present isn’t being with that external object, it’s being with you, with your body, with your breath. That’s the main focus. I tune outhad been missing that point (avoiding it?) and chose to escape with audio. After the retreat, being with my breath and body was home, and I finally could see how I had been making my world small, turning not only the world out, but myself as well.

The less you contract, the more you’re able to be with your body – to embody, moment to moment to moment your practice. You can be awake with your whole body. You become the best transmitter, physically, energetically and emotionally, of what you most hope to express.

We contract around things in our practice as well – we can contract around our injuries, our desires for the class, our fellow yogis, our balance, the breath itself.  How and when do you make your world small on the mat? How and when do you make your world small in life?  Then make it easy on yourself – the next time you’re in the second mode – reflect on this and use that time to let go AND make your world expansive, connect with others, stay in the moment, and embody your life. Letting go is only ever the first step.

Kaisen said:
Even if you obliterate your meditation seat with tireless sitting (you’re really fierce), and if your conduct is immaculate (like you know how it’s done), even if you’re eloquent dharma teaching astounds heaven and earth causing flowers to rain miraculously from the blue sky, even if you annihilate all thoughts and emotions and your body is like a dry tree, even if you never loose mindfulness though confronted by disaster, even if you die while sitting zazen and appear to have gained great realization and liberation; if you’ve not reached intimacy, it is all without value   (From Dharma Talk by Koshin)

intimacy-in-relationshipsKaisen is a dharma heir of Dogen – who was really big on intimacy. Intimacy with the breath, with the moment, with oneself. And nowadays we think also of intimacy with the sangha, with the teachings, etc.  Let go and be intimate.