Aligning with Grace

This is a day that is often celebrated by lovers, but it truly offers all of us an opportunity to give and receive love and embody compassion. I have been reflecting on the Buddhist meditation practices of lovingkindness and tonglen and their relationship to compassion, as I prepare to share these techniques in a meditation short course, and as I also integrate the theme of compassion in my own yoga classes this week. I am in essence, killing two birds with one stone! In the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, the word "karuna" is translated as compassion. Compassion is one of the Brahmaviharas - or four sublime attitudes, along with lovingkindness, joy, and equanimity. These attitudes are described in Buddhist teachings, and also in sutra 1.33 of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Whether we are Buddhist or Hindu, Jewish, Christian or Muslim - I do believe we all recognize the importance of cultivating all of these attitudes and especially embracing, expressing, and embody...

I slept in and arose this morning to a sunny day, and sat out on the deck reading the Sunday paper to a joyous choir of birds singing their little hearts out! It was warm outside, and I think they were enjoying the autumn reprieve as much as I was! This week, I arrive at the last and most magnificent of the brahmaviharas - upeksha . My favorite translation of this word is equanimity. Almost a week ago, I received darshan from Mother Meera and came away with the gift of equanimity. I know this, because in the past week I have experienced a stillness of soul, mind, and body, that had eluded me for a long time. And, there was also a discernible shift in my meditations. Some of the translations of upkesha I came across were: "disregard towards the wicked," and "overlooking those who have hurt you." When I studied with John Friend in March, he spoke a lot about this brahmavihara , and how this is a very difficult spiritual practice. He bid us to act in " upeksh...

There are many different kinds of joy. This week, I focused on " mudita ," the third of the brahmaviharas in my yoga classes. There are other words for joy in Sanskrit, but this a special kind of joy. One of my students lit up when she heard me use and describe the meaning of this word. She kept repeating it - and said she would share it with her own children... As I researched the word, I found many others that were used to explain it - and of course I came across so many different translations of Sutra 1.33 by Patanjali. One of these described mudita as "honor for those who embody noble qualities." My own personal interpretation is "joy in service to others." It is the kind of feeling that we feel when we celebrate the accomplishments and successes of others. When I think of embodying mudita , I think of unveiling what is extraordinary at the heart of ordinary experiences - and I also think of those ordinary individuals who manage to make a differen...

This week, we continued to explore the second of the brahmaviharas - which is karuna - or benevolent compassion, as a theme in my yoga classes. We connected this to the action of Inner Spiral to widen our hips, and our lower backs, all the way up to T12, and up to the back doors of our hearts. By creating this opening by widening needed areas within our bodies, we begin to widen our perspectives and perceptual lens as well. Only then, can we truly embody compassion. Only then, can we truly embrace the unity that is at the root and heart of all diversity. We often regard compassion as a form of love - and very much like the practice of metta - or lovingkindness, we must cultivate compassion toward ourselves - in order to more fully embody and reflect it to others. Kuan Yin is the Goddess of Compassion to the Japanese and Tibetan Buddhists, and the story is often told that when she was ascending to heaven at the end of her life, she heard the cries of all the suffering beings that ...

Yeah, I knew that might be a catchy title for a post! I had to take a narcotic last night - and as as someone who made it through the 60's and 70's without "inhaling," ingesting or partaking of "certain" substances, or engaging in any hard-core, partying (I know - it is amazing and boring) - anything of the sort in the present tense is certain to send me places only deep meditation has revealed. (And of course, that experience is so much more sublime!) But seriously, early this evening, after working on the theme for my yoga classes this week, I sat in meditation. More on my meditation in a minute. I am working with the second of the brahmaviharas this week - karuna - or compassion - and linking it to "Inner Spiral" and its capacity for widening and making space in our pelvis - but also in our lives - and ultimately in our hearts. Inner Spiral is the third of Anusara's Universal Priniciples of Alignment. I recalled that John Friend focused ...