Journey into Buddhism

Turning to Buddhism, for me, has been a very natural transition. As facts started to present themselves to me, through research and digging, I have begun to feel at home. The teachings correspond with beliefs that have been deep within me in my earliest stages of life.

Embarking down on this path has been  natural to me, as if I am called into it, or born into it. Finding my way home, and becoming aware of my true self. 

Studying the Buddha's teachings has lead me to truly examined myself, on a very deep personal level. In the cultivation of this knowledge I have proceeded in traveling down the path in the direction of an awakening.

This is not at all to say that I have been "fully awakened" but rather my eyes are in the process of being opened. Realizations have arisen in me, and I am aware that, that for along time, I was a in incomplete human being - shallow and distracted by illusions.

I never thought that I would ever become a "religious" person, even though I grew up attending regular church services. I was never able to think theistically. As a young person, I tried for years to get behind the all knowing, and punishing being that commanded obedience, for fear of the eternal  damnation that was reserved for the nonbelievers.

Even at a young age, I remember questioning the things that we were told in church, and feeling as if there was something wrong with me due to my inability to blindly follow what could not be proven to my young mind.
Eventually, in my teenage years, finding the act tiresome, I gave up the façade, much to my mothers dismay. My lack of religion and openness about the, unjustified, bitterness that I had for the Christian church put an immense strain on my relationship with my mother, who expected me to continue attending regular services.

I was stupid, and prideful. A teenage rebelling, but my dislike for church was not just something I used to irritate my mother. Deep down, everything about church made me uncomfortable.


Mind you that this is, in no way, a reflection of my current feelings about the church or Christianity. Through my own journey, into Buddhist teachings, I have learned a great respect, and even a fondness for true followers of Christ.

These teachings are still not for me, but they do not have to be. There are many paths to salvation, and I do not believe that any one path is better than any other. We are blessed with a planet filled with many cultures and religions, and each person's own religion is their own salvation.

Any religion that teaches the values of honesty, love, compassion, and  kindness is a benefit to the world and its people.The Dali Lama, when asked about his own religion, does not claim to be a Buddhist. Instead he has been quoted as saying, "my religion is kindness."

This journey is endless, as I am always growing, and learning. Following the path, picking up lessons, like stones, along the way.

Once filed with a deep darkness, and hatred, I am now transcending my old ways. That void - an enormous, dark, hole - is now gone, and I have filled it with the one and only thing that could ever be big enough to fill such a space - love.

Food Inc. Full Movie

Watch Food Inc online for free here.

AcroYoga Still Makes Me Smile

 

It is very important to take time out of our busy lives to do the things that make us smile... and AcroYoga still makes me smile. I need  to make more time to do this, because it brings me true joy.

 

 

 

 

 

Just for fun - my latest Acro video...unfortunately, I have not been practicing, so I am VERY shaky, but the scenery was perfect, and my old Acro partner, Tyrone Chuang, just happened to be present, so we went for it.

Change the World

I don't know if I can change the world, but I feel like if there is the possibility that something that I could do might make things just a tiny bit better for even ONE person its worth a try.

The internet is an AMAZING tool. With only a few keystrokes, you can reach the WORLD. This tool is a gift that is often misused because we fail to see and appreciate its full potential.

Twenty-six percent of consumers are digital omnivores (own a laptop, smartphone and  tablet).
 It is estimated that 80% of people have access to the internet either at work or at home, meaning that only 20% percent of the entire United States' population does not have regular internet access.  This is an AMAZING fact. We have been granted an amazing gift!

There are many different reasons that people may decide to log on.The internet can be used to increase productivity, cultivate knowledge, communicate, or it may be used for sheer entertainment.  

 I was fortunate enough to be exposed to computers from a young age.  My grandfather was an architect and, as far back as my memory reaches, my grandparents always had a computer in their home. I, fondly, remember the days of DOSS,and the emergence of the groundbreaking Windows OS.  
When I was younger my grandparents bought me lots of computer games, but all of the games, that I can remember, had educational value. I also remember spending hours upon hours "painting" in M.S. Paintbrush, and allowing my imagination to run wild.

Today, the video games that children play do not seem to have nearly as much educational value. I believe them be addicting, especially for young minds, and many experts agree that violent video games such as Halo and Grand Theft Auto carry the potential to adversely effect learning and behavior.

Only in my most recent adult years, am I truly beginning to understand the full potential of the internet, and more specifically social media.

It is estimated that more than half of the worlds population uses social media, and 1.11 billion people are currently signed up to use Facebook. Twitter currently has 554,750,000 users. As of January 2013, LinkedIn reached 200 million members, Pinterestis only 3 years old and already has 48.7 million users.

Imagine the reach one person could have if they utilize ALL of these, and other various FREE social networking giants.

What if ONE person was to REALLY uses all of these sites to deploy positive messages to the world?

How many people could that one person reach? What if everybody that that first person reached decided to reach out to their own networks, and the chain continued down the line, reaching more and more people?

I don't know if I can change the world, but if something I share can make ONE person's life just a LITTLE bit better, than all of my time and social media posts are more than worth it.


I have started an experiment - an event on Facebook. On it I have shared the one of the most AMAZING passages that I have EVER found on the internet. I am hoping that my "Facebook friends" will share it with their friends, and by the end of the year, I will be able to see how far this event has spread.

The event page is called "Be The Change We Wish To See In The World." 

I don't know how many people I will be able to reach with this event page. I may not reach many people, but ever single person counts and everybody I reach is equally important.

It takes lots of people to change the world... but LOTS of people ARE on the internet. Please share.

 

A Journey into Living Pure in a Toxic World

     We live in a toxic world. 

     The realization of this fact might be frightening to you, but it doesn't have to be. We can learn to live our lives free of contamination. We can make the choice not to allow poisonous substances into our bodies, and homes. We CAN protect ourselves and our families from toxins.

     There is a LOT of talk on the internet about organic foods, GMO's, and fluoridated water.  It’s very likely that you have heard of at least one, or not all of these issues, but unfortunately, food and items that we directly put into our bodies are not the only sources of contamination that we face these days.

     Say you already read labels on your food products, and you have taken the time to educate yourself about how misleading descriptions about product contents can be. You already know of the hidden dangers lurking inside boxes of highly processed foods, and that some food products contain chemicals that are known to cause cancer and other diseases.

     How is this happening? Why are these companies allowed to create dangerous food products? These days everybody is on the lookout for the best bargain. Companies make money off of selling massive quantities of cheap foods that is low in nutrition and quality. We are stuck in a cycle of quantity over quality.

      I often hear the excuse, "organic food is too expensive." Sure you might pay a little more per pound for organic food than conventional food, but it’s time we change the way we value our food. As I stroll down the aisles of my local grocery store I do not price my food pound for pound, I price my food based on nutritional content.

     In America, we pride ourselves on being full, but nutrition is often an afterthought. When you buy organic foods, you get more nutrition, and are avoiding a multitude health risks. Eating healthy may seem more expensive, but in the long run an organic diet, free from toxins and filled with lots of nutrient rich organic fruits and veggies, can prevent a slew of diseases.

     A heart attack can easily cost $30,000 - $450,000 for a single procedure. The average cost of a 30 day cancer prescription drug treatment is close to $2,000, but newer cancer drugs can squeeze $10,000 a month from your pocket. For a patient without insurance, diabetes can cost close to $1,000 a month. The worst part is that these health problems are food related, and avoidable.

     By simply eating an organic, mostly plant based, diet all of the health risks above can be avoided. When you eat organic foods you are not getting pesticides, GMO's, antibiotics, rBST hormones, or artificial sweeteners, and you are dodging a HUGE bullet - the direct assault of chemicals on your body from the inside out.

     If you are planning on making just one change this year, I beg you to go organic - eat organic foods. Going organic has made a tremendous difference in my life, my energy level, and my general health.

     If you are already eating organic foods, then consider looking into the chemicals in your cosmetics, hair care products, body soaps, and household cleaners. Since these items are part of unregulated industries, and are not intended for human consumption, these chemicals are very often dangerous.

     We apply chemicals such as phthalates, parabens, and sulfates to our bodies on a daily basis. These poisons easily soak into our skin and begin pumping though our bodies. We eat food off of counter tops that have been wiped down with chemicals known to cause damage to our kidneys.

     Most dish soaps are made with petroleum based ingredients. Just one bottle of dish detergent can contain a list of cancer inducing agents that are left behind and then transferred onto our food.

     If we find a bad smell in a room, rather than opening a window, we fill the air in our homes with formaldehyde – a well-known carcinogen, found in most air fresheners.

     There are many all natural and organic cosmetics, soaps, and hair care products available on the internet and in retail stores. You can even find online tutorials with detailed instructions on how to affordable make your own products.

    There is no reason for us to waste our hard earned dollars buying toxic chemicals to "disinfect" our homes when a quick online search can reveal a long list of safe and affordable alternatives.

    As our world becomes more and more aware of these problems the number of safe natural products continues to rise. I really love the natural cleaning products that I can easily acquire from my local grocery store. Brands like Mrs. Meyers and Seventh Generation are becoming widely available.

    It has been my personal experience that natural cleaning solutions tend to clean even better than their cheaper, dangerous, counterparts. It makes me wonder how we were tricked into buying low quality, hazardous products, in the first place.

     I have made the switch, and I am never looking back. The choice wasn't that hard for me to make… Stay healthy, or live sick?

     

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. 

Another Journey Begins

Yesterday my mother and I went to our first yoga class. The goal is to go every Monday. I am very excited about finally starting classes, and even more excited that my mother has decided to join me on this journey.

My first class was not difficult, thanks to all the time and effort I have been putting into my practice over the past few years. In fact, I deeply enjoyed the simplicity of this class, basics, sun salutations, and familiar poses.

There's something relaxing about being in a class full of people moving in unison. Yoga class is about connections, not competitions.  Everybody leaves themselves open and exposed but nobody feels vulnerable. It's truly beautiful.

Leaving class, I had the blissful, tingling, feeling that only a long and focused practice can provide. Its a feeling I can't explain. I get drunk on yoga, high, but clear, calm, and collected.

It wasn't always like that. I can still remember a time when I felt completely overwhelmed, staggering, quivering, and wobbling along with my Shiva Rea Fluid Power DVD. Then practice was all about getting physical and shaping up my buns.

I was in over my head, that DVD was definitely not intended for a beginner, like me. There is a sharp contrast between how I felt after those early workouts and how I currently feel after a deeply focused practice. Relaxed is not a word that I ever would have used to describe my earliest workouts, worn out, maybe.

The beginning was the hardest part, keeping the momentum going, and pushing myself not to give up. I am eternally grateful for the positive yogis in my life, who always provided encouragement and advice, guiding my early journeys.

My mother is now in the  exact place where I once was. She has two choices, give up, or dive in and give it all she's got. I wish her only success, and hope to be a positive voice in her ear, just as my friends did for me, now that she is sitting on the edge of her very own yoga journey.

Downward Dog

Downward dog, an often under appreciated old friend. It's one of the first poses I learned, and even now, years into my practice, I keep fining new ways to rediscover it. So many different variations for all my different moods.

First Yoga Class

I'm so excited! My mother and I are examining the class schedule at our local yoga studio.

I've been doing yoga for years now and I've got a confession to make. "I've never taken a yoga class." 

Teachers are valuable, and if you have the opportunity to work with one, then definitely take it, but I don't feel like you have to go to a formal yoga class to practice yoga. 

If yoga really is my natural state - our natural state - then learning it should come naturally. I feel like my yoga journey is an intimate voyage with myself into learning my true, deeper, self. Do we really need someone to teach us how to be our natural selves? Though I do think going to class is a great way to accelerate your learning, I believe that with determination and persistence, you will still  eventually arrive at the same destination. 

Don't misunderstand what i am trying to say. I love, and respect, teachers. I am extremely grateful that we have people in this world who live to teach others. Someday, I also hope to join the teaching family. 

I'm just trying to say that times are hard and maybe you can't afford to take regular yoga classes, or you live in a small town where there aren't any yoga studios. There are many reasons that class might not be an option right now. Don't make excuses. Nothing should stop you from doing yoga or anything else you really want to do.

I'm also grateful for YouTube and all the amazing online yoga teachers. There are so many great free resources online. Its wonderful that there are people who have decided to put the time and effort into sharing knowledge and information over the internet without expecting anything in return. 

If it's all out there for free why would I want to pay to take a yoga class? I'll tell you why. There's only so much the Internet can teach you and though there is a tone of great free resources out there. Nothing compares to having somebody to give hands on, physical training. I look forward to receiving that personal level of help.

Though my close friends and family, would say that I am "no Yoga novice." I still plan on starting with very basic classes. That's right. I'm going to go to beginners yoga class, because there's nothing wrong with me revisiting my basics, and making sure I've got those down with accuracy. Doing the postures correctly is important, so as to avoid damage to the body.

Having an accurate, sustainable, practice is essential. We are only gifted one body, so taking care of it is a necessity,  because we have roughly one hundred years to live in it.  How do you want to live your one hundred years? Will you be sick and miserable or healthy and active? It doesn't seems like a real question, does it? Which of those 2 would you choose? 

I have a good general idea of what to expect from my first yoga class, but honestly it still feels like there will be surprises waiting for me there.  I look forward to being a room full of people moving in unison. I look for to seeing teaching in action, because that's where I hope to be someday.

Every now and then there's a part of me that gets nervous for no reason at all,  though I tell myself "You got this. This is your yoga  and the nobody will ever change that."

Everybody is different. Yoga can take you down many paths, just like life. Not everybody will take the same life path, so it makes since that so would yoga. Were all unique individuals. That's wonderful.

You know what? I like wearing makeup. I like waxing my legs. I have a man with definitely not into yoga. I do things my way, because I rather write my own book then follow someone else's.

Natural Body and Mind

Naturally we are kind forgiving loving. We have energy and are free of disease, sickness, and allergies. 

Naturally we are born perfect. Even most birth defects can be traced back to improper diet of the mother before and during pregnancy.

We start out pure, honest, free of greed, lust, or hatred. 

Have you ever watched a baby playing? Have you ever noticed how flexible and infants are? We all start out flexible but in today's modern society staying that way is not highly prioritized, neither is staying natural, true to ourselves, or being healthy. 

So why isn't this a priority? It's sad that as a society we are have grown to be so far from who and what we are meant to be. Instead of healthy, loving beings, we are a culture of sick, selfish, creatures.

Sick. . . Obesity, cancer, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, high cholesterol just to name a few major killers of the world. The worse part is that all of these ailments are caused by the foods we eat, combined with a lack of exercise.  We have no one to blame for our woes.  

Its our job to learn how to care for our bodies, and not depend on other people to teach us how to care for ourselves, but knowledge, and continued growth seem to also be values lost in modern society. Instead of chasing continuous personal growth, we spend the majority of our time lost, climbing the corporate ladder, seeking to grow useless material wealth. 

This type of living is not only  self destructive, but socially perilous as well. 

I spent the past two years a deep in study, seeking answers to these modern woes, and sharing ny findings to all who would listen.