The Practice of Forgiveness

An extract from the first draft of my new Yoga & Dharma manual which I'm using in my trainings...

The Practice of Forgiveness

“Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed. This is the ancient and eternal law.” - The Buddha

If you want to see the brave, look to those who can forgive.

Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.

All human beings experience betrayal, conflict, loss, and pain during their lifetime. When we consider forgiveness practices we are finally willing to let go of carrying a heavy burden for the rest of our lives.

While we all vaguely know that forgiveness is an important spiritual practice, it can be important to realize that forgiveness for others is also done for ourselves, not necessarily for the person that hurt us. Most of us do not realize how much energy goes into carrying a grudge. Truthfully, we need all the energy we have for our own transformation; carrying resentment uses up a lot of energy. This insight can provide additional motivation to undertake the task of forgiveness.

There are some important thoughts around forgiveness that need to be considered.

Forgiveness comes from a place of strength, not weakness. When we forgive it doesn’t mean that we condone what happened to us or others in any way, shape, or form. We may do whatever it takes to make sure it never happens again. In fact, the first step may be to make sure that the trespass cannot be repeated.

We may have to leave a situation or create proper boundaries. We may never forgive the action, but we are contemplating to forgive the person, since we realize that we too have done things that need forgiveness.

As forgiveness is such a difficult practice, we tend to avoid it and shove it to the back of our consciousness. Of course, if it were so easy everyone would do it right away. It is a good thing that even the contemplation of forgiveness will start the process.

Forgiveness doesn’t happen all at once. We can’t achieve forgiveness by covering up our genuine hurt. We may have to fully experience feelings of grief, rage, despair, and pain before a sense of forgiveness can even begin to happen. We may need to seek and pursue justice, but can still be willing to engage in the practice of forgiveness.

We truly need all the energy for our own transformation – that is why forgiveness practices are often done before any other formal practice. We don’t want part of our energy trapped in the past.

When practicing forgiveness, sometimes we will notice that we feel genuine forgiveness. Sometimes we will feel all the resentment we are still holding. Remember that it is a practice, and we just continue on doing it for the time being until it starts to work and we feel the release. It is the process that matters. Tears will wash away our bitterness and bring healing.

Dreaming the World

I just got back from my tour in Europe. It was fun to bring the Dharma to all these different communities; sometimes I feel like a hummingbird, collecting nectar and spreading it around. As I have always loved hummingbirds, this feels like a good use of my inherent potential!

I love being back home in Santa Fe. I don’t know what it is about this enchanted place, but it makes my heart sing and my soul breathe like no other place I’ve ever been to.

Some thoughts for your contemplation:

Just like the tiniest grain of sand has a particular mass, a mass that remains attached to the big mass called Earth, every thought has a mass too. Some science, like quantum physics, verifies this and confirms that even random thoughts may have consequences because of the mass they possess. When many people focus their thoughts on the same thing, the mass increases and so does the outcome.

As we grow up, we often forget our dreams. This is an unfortunate outcome of “growing up”, as it is our very dreams that help us realize our full potential. When we forget to dream, we may get stuck in habits – good or bad. In order to change habits, we need to be fully aware of them to see how best to proceed.

It is said, while the Buddha made every mistake possible on his path to freedom he never lied to himself about it. Making mistakes, consciously, allows us to actually learn from them. I often invite my students to make new mistakes! Making the same mistakes over and over again seems very depressing to me. To go and make a new mistake is one of my missions in life.

Yogic practices, such as chanting, invite certain archetypes and possibilities into being. For example, Ganesh, the elephant-headed son of Shiva, is not just the master of obstacles. He also represents an invitation to accept our life just as it is, to get grounded in the here and now. It is said, when Ganesh appears we stop wanting to be somewhere else. When this happens we actually show up, fully, to who and where we are in this moment.

One description of enlightenment is exactly that – the moment we stop wanting to be somewhere or someone else. We realize that we are in the right body at the right time, with the right people, on the right planet. We wake up to things as they are, as well as learn to hold a vision about where we are going. From this vantage point we get to work intelligently with the obstacles in the way. Holding this paradox is exactly what yoga is about.

There is an ancient teaching from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika that talks about a link between our mind and our life energy, called Prana (or chi, dao and many other references to describe this life-force in different cultures). The relationship between these two vital forces, although invisible, is one of deep connection. It is often described with the image of two fish swimming in tandem.

The work at hand is to be fully awake to where we are, and to see ourselves and others clearly. We must also cultivate the ability to cast our mind forward, say two years, to get a sense of how we want to feel in a relationship, at our job, or any other place in our life. Our life energy focuses and reorganizes around this possibility, eventually manifesting it into being. At the same time, the honest view of where we are, at the moment, and what might stand in the way, helps us to deal wisely with the obstacles.

On the yoga mat, investigating this link can take a very tangible form. We can focus our mind on the simple reality of sensations in the body while we are moving through the asanas. Instead of practicing to achieve some perfect idea of our body or the pose, we connect with the wholeness of who we are in that moment and simply accept. In that liberating instance of just being with what is, it is possible to perceive everything as sacred. Usually, once we leave the mat after one of those experiences of wholeness we feel supremely, and maybe even sublimely, okay with the way we are, including the fact that there is room for improvement. In essence, our body becomes an ally in the quest for full realization instead of an obstacle to overcome. This is good news!

Dharma, Freedom and Honesty

One of the most straightforward definitions of Dharma is to think thoughts and act in a way that sets you free. I love it! While this definition is, indeed simple, it is obviously not the easiest to do. If it were, you would think more people would actually do it.

In the first place, how do we find out what actually sets us free? For example, I believe in the pleasurable things in life (since life is often hard enough as it is) and I often feel that enjoying them puts me in a good mood and makes me feel grateful and generous towards myself and others. So far, so good. But where is the line between something that has a good effect on me versus something that might actually, in the long term, enslave me, or cause me harm?

For many years I was a pretty “pure” yogi. I rarely drank alcohol, went to bed early each evening, and got up very early each day to practice. I only ate “the right” kinds of food. I only had sex on Friday nights according to the instruction of Pattabhi Jois’ Asthanga bible. (Okay, that’s exaggerated, as I never heeded that particular advice. But, since I didn’t really have a boyfriend at the time, it didn’t matter anyway which is why Sharon Gannon from Jivamukti gave me the nickname “Brahmachari” - celibate). Then, at some point in my 30s, I discovered how much I enjoyed a glass of red wine at night. I loved the ritual of it. It made me feel closer to my family in Switzerland where wine often is a part of long, drawn out evenings at dinner with lively and interesting conversations about God and the world. I firmly believe in the healthy qualities of red wine, that when it is consumed in moderation it actually is a boon to your health in every way. Just as chocolate is – a fact that has been only recently discovered in America but has long since been known in Switzerland.

Recently, a friend made me a good margarita, with organic lime juice, on the rocks, and even taught me how to make one myself. I haven’t had much hard liquor for some time, so I felt the effects pretty quickly and we had a fun evening. I came home and decided I would like to try making my own margaritas.

It didn’t last long. I realized fast that this particular practice did not set me free. On the contrary, being sensitive, I would feel the effects of even one margarita the next day. I don’t think that tequila, the main ingredient used in this particular beverage has any beneficial qualities for my health and, in fact, I worry about my liver since that organ is one of the weak spots in my body. I’m not saying that I will never make a margarita again. I’m sure I will. But, I will not turn this into a practice on a regular basis because I know it won’t set me free.

As I abandon my newly acquired skills of making a bad-ass margarita (I even bought myself a professional shaker and all), I feel a certain regret, I really do.

But my commitment to the Dharma is deeper. I want to be free. It is said that the Buddha made every mistake that one human can make on his journey to being free. But it is often emphasized that he never lied about making those mistakes. The very foundation of the Dharma is this kind of honesty and while it is easy to say that we will do the things that set us free, doing is not as easy and requires an ongoing investigation and a willingness to tell the truth about our experiences at all times.

From this vantage point, I understand the rather strict and moralistic rules that are often set in yoga and Buddhism. The point can be made that it is easier to avoid all alcohol due to the addictive quality and mind-deluding properties. But, just to avoid things in life is not really the Dharma to me. And the request can, and has, at times, felt like a punishment or denial of life itself.

Yes, to actually inquire what is or isn’t setting me free is a lot of work. It is so much easier to just “believe” something or follow a teacher or a system. I do believe that sooner or later we actually all have to do this work and come to our own conclusions based on our own experience. And to me, this is truly worth it.

Viva red wine!

Fall 2008 Newsletter - Grist for the Mill

Grist for the Mill

According to the Buddha, we can evaluate the quality of a society by observing the way in which its most vulnerable citizens are treated. If this is indeed an accurate determinant of our society’s well being, we are in trouble! So, how exactly do we treat those who are most vulnerable? Say — women, the elderly, children and those who have made mistakes and are serving time in prisons? How is it that most yoga practitioners in this country are women, yet the most successful, renowned yoga icons are mostly men? How about all the unpaid work that women do raising children and keeping house? And how are our children doing? Children in middle class and poor families are getting less and less of a chance at having a decent education these days. Children whose parents are forced to hold down three jobs in order to make ends meet (a fact that President Bush seemed quite proud of in one of his speeches), are suffering from inadequate care at home. Other vulnerable populations in our society include: the elderly, who are conveniently tucked away in old-folks’ homes; and today’s enormous prisoner population – who, once released, end up all too often back in prison. In part, this is due to the lack of opportunities for rehabilitation that would enable them to lead a normal life.

Perhaps looking at how we deal with our personal vulnerability and weaknesses can shed light on how our society got itself into such a mess. Mainstream society teaches us to hide our weaknesses and our vulnerability. Consequently, we have learned to spend our time and energy hiding, fighting or fixing these aspects of ourselves. When faced with our personal weaknesses, we find that, as in society, we are unprepared to manage what we have inside of us. We judge and treat our vulnerability viciously.

The Dalai Lama noticed this trend when he first began teaching how to cultivate loving kindness in the West. A practice that traditionally begins with feeling loving kindness for ourselves first, His Holiness was shocked by how many of us Westerners are judgmental and loathsome of ourselves.

Thankfully, there is a remedy to this! Yoga and related practices promote a different approach to managing these universally shared aspects of being human. Through Yoga, we can realize that our weaknesses are in fact a means to a deeper connection to ourselves and also to each other. Once we find ourselves walking on this path, we learn to recognize our vulnerability and weaknesses as grist for the mill. I propose embarking upon an exploration of the tendency to deal with ourselves so harshly. We begin by asking questions of ourselves, and answering them honestly. What is our habitual way of dealing with our weaknesses? Is our main strategy to hide them? Fight them? Fix them?

In our yoga or meditation practice, we can start to pay attention to what happens when we encounter our weaknesses. When we sit the body down in meditation, or start to mindfully breath into our body while moving, those weaknesses will show themselves quite quickly. Instantaneously, the body will respond based on how we have conditioned ourselves to hide, fight or fix.

Instead of expending so much of our energy in this way, we could just make space for their presence. In doing so, what becomes apparent is that in each weakness is also a hidden gem, waiting to be uncovered.

As an example, I would like to use myself. When I was younger, I was somewhat of an arrogant yoga teacher. Coming from a background in dance, the advanced yoga poses came relatively easy to me and because of this, I had little compassion for stiff and slow students.

Later, I suffered a number of injuries. Initially I viewed these as a bother and an obstacle to “true yoga,” a weakness of which I was ashamed. Finally, I accepted them, and listened to the message these injuries were bringing to me. The hidden gem was revealed: Humility, compassion and a deep connection with all those who suffer.

I also became somewhat of an expert in all kinds of physical injuries, since I had journeyed through most myself. Often our weaknesses are blessings in disguise, ideally leading us to tenderness, wisdom and compassion.

Another insight into this occurred for me many years ago during a weeklong activist camp with Julia Butterfly Hill. She gave a talk. As she came to a particular place in her story, she started to cry.

I immediately felt uncomfortable. There she was, exposing her vulnerability in public. I expected her to be embarrassed, maybe even pull away or stop talking. None of this happened — in fact, quite the opposite. Her message became clearer and stronger. She remarked that she always had to cry when coming to this point in her story, leaving me with the impression that this was a powerful person with a message who was unafraid to share everything, including her tears, to communicate that she really CARED!

This experience changed me. I realized that caring, which often causes our emotional vulnerability to arise, is a form of strength and not weakness. I also learned that when we reveal our caring, vulnerable selves to each other, we fuel our message. Imagine that as a society, we translated our vulnerability and weaknesses as strength and power, and used these new definitions to protect what is good, and, to step up, making even more good in our lives and therefore in our communities.

In the upcoming immersion that I will co-teach with my dear friend, Madhuri Martin, at Yoga Kula in Berkeley, it is my intention to create a safe environment in which my students can explore these very things. It is such a delight to watch people transform vis-à-vis access to the ancient teachings of Yoga and the Dharma, in tandem with receiving the loving support of a community that is learning together to use the incredible tools offered by the Yogic tradition.

I am excited to co-facilitate and witness another powerful group get in touch with who they really want to be! If you are interested in joining, please read the information below. There is one non-negotiable requirement — that is, I am asking for each individual’s full commitment!