7 Day Mindfulness Challenge - Doors

My generation grew up with Yahoo chat rooms and AIM instant messenger. We accessed the internet at as snails pace, but information was at our fingertips. Internet search engines were the next big thing, and I was in love. 

Almost twenty years later, my love affair with the internet is still alive and well. Although, I like to think that our relationship has matured into something deeply meaningful, exploring Google, and Wikipedia, seeking out answers to life's eternal questions. 

Last week I stumbled across the Vajrayana Institute's 7 Day Mindfulness Challenge. Having just finished a book filled with mindfulness exercises, I was ready to take on whatever 7 tasks the Vajirayana Institute had to offer. One task a day - how hard could it possibly be? 

The first email came in on Sunday afternoon. "Every time you pass through a door direct your attention to the present for a moment. Leaving your home, getting in and out of your car, into a meeting, out for lunch, visiting a friend, and returning home."

An easy one.

Ego was growing.  This assignment was not foreign to me, in fact it was nearly identical to a practice from the book that I had just finished reading. I enthusiastically flagged the email reminder for my "doors practice" to start at eight thirty on Monday morning.

Six in the morning, too darn early. I've never been a morning person. It doesn't matter what time I go to bed, my brain doesn't turn on until at least eight or nine. I was halfway into my lengthy commute before realizing, I'd forgotten about "the doors". 

Shoot. . . Doors... Remember doors. It'll be easier to remember the doors after I've had some coffee. 
 

Working through Monday morning emails, the reminder for the "doors practice" pop up. Realizing I had missed a few more doors since my arrival at the office, I plucked the purple pen from the can behind my laptop and quickly sketched an image resembling the front door of our house onto a hot pink Post-it.

The book about mindfulness had suggested placing sticky notes in obvious places as reminders. I stuck the  Post-it onto the handle of the phone.

As the morning progressed I continued to forget to notice doors. I grabbed a metallic blue marker and wrote the word doors on the underside of my ring finger. It would have been more helpful to write the note on the back of my hand, in a more obvious place, but then I would be stuck explaining my practice all day.

The remainder of my day continued in much the same fashion, only remembering about a third of the doors I entered.  This practice, though simple, ended up being much harder than I had expected. I had been over confident. 

Beginner's mind is a term commonly used in Zen. It refers to an attitude free of preconceptions, even when studying something that is at an advanced level. Like all things, it would have been beneficial for me to approach the "doors practice"  in this fashion.

Humbled, but not discouraged, I am ready for tomorrow's challenge. Hopefully I will become better at noticing doors, entering each one, leaving behind the past and becoming aware of each new moment as it arises.

Determined as I am, only time will tell.

A Life with Mirrors

It took me forty five minutes to get dressed today. Forty five minutes just to put my clothes on, not including the time I spent completing the rest of my morning ritual.

Not too long ago I could be out the door, teeth brushed, hair done, makeup, the whole process completed in twenty minutes. 

Outfit after outfit, nothing fit the way I wanted it to. Busted zippers, shirts creeping up above the mid line, cursing the mirror, jumping up and down desperately trying to work my ass into my skinny jeans. There's supposed to be a Buddha in that mirror, but where she was this morning, I could not say.

Less than two years ago I landed my dream job and immediately started building an appropriate wardrobe. Unfortunately, it feels like everything I purchased over the last year and a half has shrunk. 

Impermanence.

Twenty-fourteen, so far, seems to be a great year filled with growth, spiritual growth, personal growth, career growth, ass growth. I could do without the last one, but it is what it is.

Something about mirrors. 

They have always been a fixture in my life, although laity the large mirror in our master bathroom has become a source of frustration.

Reflection is always helpful. Most of us have been told at least a time or two to turn our attention inward. But mirrors don't reflect what's really inside. 

I was an awkward child - pale white skin and jet black hair. In elementary school I was often teased, and called names. Children can be so cruel. 

Little me was soft and sweet, but the constant viciousness of my peers eventually rubbed that tenderness away. 

Looking at that girl in the old cassette tapes, boxes spread across the dining room table, I barley recognize her, yet somehow, that was me. Just a baby stuffed into a lacy, red and white dress. . . or a girl grinning from ear to ear, building Lego worlds with the, dark haired, young boy in front of her.

How can that be us, the inner voice whispers.

Puberty really kicked in over the summer between seventh and eighth grade. With my new hormones came many new emotions, along with boobs, makeup, and a new, unimproved, attitude.

What a shame.

When I was younger, because I had a habit of looking deeply into every mirror I passed, my mother would make comments, concerned about my vanity.  I never felt the need to correct her, since her assumption seemed to imply the confidence that I was trying to portray to the world.

I reflect back on that, stick thin, teenager, desperately trying find her own identity.  It can feel impossible when the entire world is demanding you to conform to its tragically modern ways. 

These memories bring me mixed emotions. She was a bitch on the outside, but  deep down she was putting up walls of protection. 

She could stand transfixed in the mirror for hours, applying layers of makeup. Now determined not to be picked on, even if it meant becoming the bully herself. When did this unfortunate transformation happen?

That foolish girl, working so hard to be beautiful on the outside, so distracted. She didn't even notice how ugly her insides had already become. She was loosing herself. 

I feel the urge to hug that girl. I want to tell her it will all be alright and then somehow shake her out of her foolishness. What a nightmare. Thank goodness I woke up.

 

In more recent days, I care much less about what other people think of me, but I still find myself critiquing in the mirror. It's funny. I don't think I care what other people think, but I don't want to just "let it all go" either. 

Where are my tight tummy and well defined biceps hiding? Are they still in there somewhere, or have hours of time at the gym been wasted? At this moment I am leaning closer to my second answer. 

I'll really be kissing that "yoga butt" goodbye if I don't change something soon. 

Aging is inevitable. Impermanence is a very central Buddhist teaching. I guess I need to spend more time reflecting on this, but still I am not ready to give up my fitness. 

This body is the only on I have, and we're going to be together till the end, and who knows when that will be. Me and my body might as well be good friends and if I get to choose or have any influence, I'd rather it not be falling apart in old age. 

Who we really are cannot be found in the mirror. I know that now. It is all superficial and the mirror is just a tool, although on some days it might be a tool that we could be happier without. 

In the mean time, since we are not going renovate the master bathroom in our new home anytime soon,  the new me and I are going to work on getting better acquainted.

With a little humor, and a fair amount self compassion, I think everything is going to be just fine. I'm not quite thirty yet, and if I'm lucky, I've still got a long way to go. 

Here's to getting older, and to all the Dharma gates that aging can inevitably bring our way.

Aha! A Poem! Kyttnyoga.blogspot.com

Dark Clouds

I love him so much. He gets me in ways that no-one else can, and yet he still doesn't get me. . . I don't even get me sometimes.
How foolish we are, expecting each other to understand deeply seeded emotions that we ourselves hardly know and recognize as our own.
Untangling Indra's net. . . Deeply reflecting.

We cannot shed light on one another without first pointing that light inward, where shadows and monsters lurk.
So dark. . . Emotional scars, twisting through the walls of our mind's like storm clouds blocking out the sun.
Bring the wind. . . Let it blow, hard, so that we may see clearly, obstructions cleared.

Amaya sat frozen, lost in the words on the page in front of her. So dark, and yet so true. She was in a dark place, but somehow she had never felt better. 

She, He, & The Spider

She and He were gliding down the sidewalk. Ice cream in hand, fresh Texas night air, sending tingles up her neck. So delightful. Summer had always been her favorite season.

He stood tall, and tight. The seriousness of his stance could only be offset by the warmth of his smile. What a smile. He smiled with his eyes; eyes you could get lost in if you were not careful.

Side by side, under the large, stone, awning they wandered, peacefully. The night was perfect. Perfect as every moment. But moments are momentary.

Suddenly the peace was broken. She gasped, and turned around, frowning, as she held out her popsicle stick.

It was as if he were peering right through the melting dessert between them. She wasn't sure if he had seen the spider violating the end of her evening ice cream indulgence.

"It's a spider" she pouted. From the look on his faces she was unclear if he was waiting for her to continue, or just wondering what the problem was. "I might have eaten it" she continued.

"It wouldn't have been your fault" he grinned, but she felt otherwise.

If she had been less aware, off in a day dream, not paying attention, she would have eaten the spider, and it would have been her fault.

She smiled and, gently, shook the spider off to the side of the walkway. Her eyes darted side to side, wildly, searching for the nearest garbage can.

Both smiling, together, they turned back in the direction they had come from.

She never had to touch a door handle or knob while he was around. It was a small gesture that revealed a lot more than the couple would reveal about themselves verbally.

It felt good, sitting in the passenger seat beside him. As the car pointed back in the direction of home, she was grateful. Life is so fleeting, always winding, full of ups and downs, but she felt fortunate.

"What a weekend."

Style Undefined

I started with a basic Vinasa flow DVD. Now I flow freestyle. My Asana varies from day to day depending on my mood. Sometimes its fast, and energetic, and other days its slow and relaxing. I let my body tell me what it needs. I have very little classroom time, so my yoga is not included by any particular style. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Austin, Texas has a very large, and fast growing yoga community.  Driving up and down the streets of Austin Texas - "the big city" - one finds a very large variety of yoga studios. 

So many studios, so many different forms of yoga, the choices can be overwhelming to somebody who is trying to choose a class for the first time. 

We, in the western culture, seem to be obsessed with branding, and putting labels on things. We dwell over making names for ourselves, and strive to prove to those around us that we are unique, or gifted one way or another, but in the end all these efforts at differentiation are essentially meaningless, because deep down we are all the same. 

We are all unique, every single one of us is unique by nature. We are all gifted, we have skills that we excel at, and everybody excels at something different, but in the end we all have the potential to be great at one thing or another. 

All of the qualities that make us seemingly different, when looked at on a deeper level, actually tie us all together, and at the heart of it all, we are all the same. Everything comes down to perception.  No one man, is any better than any other, because we are all, essentially the same, just formed out of different sets of circumstances. 

The same is true with yoga. All the studios, all the varieties, how can any one studio claim that their way is better than the studio up the road? Better is the wrong word, in most cases. Different is much more accurate. Different, yet similar. 

Generally, yoga is thought to have six main branches. Six is a small number, when you consider that there are more than seven billion people in the world. 

I propose that yoga is one thing, a union, that can be achieved in many ways. If you were to invite the entire world to one destination, all seven billion people, not everybody would arrive at the same time.  Its also reasonable to believe that they would  not all journey through the same path.

I believe that there are many roads to enlightenment, perhaps even as many roads as there are people, and that no one person's road is any better than anybody else's. 

My yoga is my road, and its mine alone. Though others may influence the choices that I make along the way, ultimately I am responsible for the journey, and the directions and paths that I take on the way to my final destination. 

My Asana practice, is as unique as my journey. It is alive, breathing, moving, growing, and evolving. It changes from day to day, depending on my physical and mental health, and is as undefined as I am. Really, "it" is me. It is an expression of me, it becomes me, and it shapes me. I grow through my practice, and every day I witness my practice growing. There is a union. 

Making Real Changes

Taking my yoga practice "off the mat" has brought many positive changes into my life. One of the strongest lessons I have learned has to do with change. Of all the things you will find in life, the only thing that is, truly, guaranteed is change. 

Change is constant, so expect, and welcome it. The past is gone, so reflect on the past as if there is something to learn from it, knowing you can never return there. The future is beyond our control, but dreams and goals are good for the soul. Now might be all we have, so make it count, enjoy it. Live in this moment, for this moment. 

Making substantial changes in ones life is a gradual process which can only be achieved through true desire, drive, and dedication.

If a person doesn't truly care about changing, and they are not willing to work towards the goal of evolution, then real change becomes impossible.

Change is something that has to cone from within, and it has to be done for ones self. Change is not something that can be forced by a second party. So if you have any expectations or desires about changing anyone but yourself, drop them. Its a futile up hill battle with the odds stacked high against you.

Learning to talk the talk is easy for most, but learning to walk the walk is something that many people struggle with.

Unfortunately, I know so many people out there who are all talk. Seeing this often, it was easy for me to decided that I had no desire to be that way.

I started by reflecting on myself. Every time a thought would cross my mind that went against the teachings I was studying I would consciously stop, look at myself, and ask "why is it that I feel this way?"

When another party and was involved in the situation I tried to put myself into that person shoes and remind myself that didn't know what the persons motives were and it wasn't my place make assumptions.

I also am learning to focus on meaningful conversation - Not speaking unless what I have to say is of some benefit to the situation. Sometimes this is still difficult for me. I have to consciously tell myself stop and think before I speak, and then ask myself, "is there any point to releasing this information.

Day by day and one step at a time, these changes are getting easier. I am happy in the here and now, but I am looking forward to the future, and seeing where my evolution will take me.