Living Dharma- Self Titled Blog

I just finished reading the latest blog from the Yarn Harlot, entitled "Bridge." In it, she describes her disdain for transitions. Specifically, she talks about traveling from one place to the next and the emotional and physical upheavals into which she is thrown. It struck me as interesting because late last year I wrote a blog with a similar emphasis on travel, except I took the opposite stance, describing what I loved about leaving places.

So as I was reading I started thinking about how much I enjoy the transition, the excitement of something different, the excitement of the upheaval, and furthermore, how I tend to struggle instead with readjusting once I have arrived and then maintaining a level of excitement once I am rooted.

For me, I feel as though the journey, the transition is the greatest part. There is something about having only exactly what I need, the bare minimum upon which I can survive, the supreme detachment to all of my stuff and then embarking on an adventure. It's here that I can learn the most about myself because myself (or, you could say, my Self) is all I have. It feels like I'm living Truth. This, for me, is what life is about. The journey, the adventure, the learning, the revelation.

It is when I arrive that I am most thrown off guard. What do I do at the destination? Sometimes it feels as though I've forgotten why I initially intended to travel, having gleaned something I often feel is absolutely greater than I what I set out for in the first place. So I am there, and I have new information and new eyes. It would appear that I may never find myself lost while traveling, but may instead have no idea where I am when I arrive. Where do I set my things down? How do I interact with others? And generally, riding the Traveler's High, I generally am thinking, When do we get to do it again?

So it's safe to say I am not always most comfortable with the settling period. (Oh, by the way, if you haven't caught on yet, I'm so very not talking simply about literal travel anymore...) Eventually, however, I do. And the next thing that comes is the attempts to stay excited about where I am. You could say I sometimes may confuse the word "stable" for "stagnant." It happens in yoga ("When will my next 'aha' moment be?!"), it happens in my life ("This daily routine feels like I'm stuck in a hamster wheel!").

As I'm writing and reading here, I am now able to see that the difference here is awareness and mindfulness of the present moment. In one situation- when I travel and experience detachment- I am fully alive. I am aware only of the present moment. In the other situation- when I am settled and becoming more attached to things or stuff or what have you- I am distracted and I lose this awareness.

Last night I had dinner with a friend and we had an extended conversation about balance and the middle path. As we talked about things happening in our lives, and the issues that were most important to us presently, we realized that at the core of every issue, we were trying to find the center between to poles. It seems that in this life we are always attempting to find balance. How can I be nice and not a pushover? Stern but not a bitch? How may I follow my heart and my own path without disregarding the feelings of others? How may I find myself both rooted and detached?

If I could find a way to see my life as the ceaseless journey it truly is, I could be fully aware and alive. There is no hamster wheel! Every moment is an 'aha!' moment!

Incidentally, I have just gone on the journey of this blog. I have traveled and explored. I have arrived at a destination, and I am lost. Now what? Now that I have gained some insight for myself, how do I apply it? How do I use it without overwhelming myself? At the end of yoga class we have 10 minutes lying in Savasana for deep relaxation, to let our practice sink in. Yet again, yoga gives us tools for real life applications of this new knowledge... My mind just did a really intense yoga practice and needs some Savasana.

I'm on to something here, I know it. It's something I need to meditate on. It's part of this transformation. I call my blog Living Dharma for a reason. I can find this middle path, or walk a lot closer to it on a more regular basis. I get closer every day and am grateful to think of myself as I was 2 years ago, 1 year ago, heck, 2 months ago and know that I get closer every day.

On Being Who I Am

Yesterday traffic in Evansville was awful. A drive that normally takes me 8 minutes took 20. It was quite possibly one of the most annoying experiences in my life. So there I was in my car, fuming slightly and talking to myself road-rage style: Not sure why the guy in front of me was such a huge jerk and had to leave so very many car lengths between himself and the car and the one in front of him. Pretty miffed about the fact that only 2 or 3 cars were making it through stop lights because the idiots making left hand turns were running red lights. You know... the usual. And then, after a while of this (I mean, relatively speaking, I was in the car for a long time...), the thought occurred to me that I was sitting in my car, headed back to my apartment to do yoga, thinking bad thoughts about people. In that instant, I felt like a fraud. When I go to yoga, and when I meditate, I create an atmosphere inside myself of peace, quiet and love and I feel good about myself, sending love outwards to others. Yet here I was, settling into my frustration and allowing it to envelope me. I didn't feel very true to the yogini in me at that moment. It made me feel... well... bad.

Tonight at yoga class, true to form, Andrew hit the nail right on the head with his intuitiveness. (I'll leave my theories about his unique abilities to read my mind for another day.) At the end of class he said this: "Remember when you're outside of here that you are the same person as you are in this quiet place on your mat." He went on noting that when we get frustrated or impatient or angry in public, it's important to come back to our breath and remember who we are when we're in that place. (Seriously... Andrew just plain freaks me out sometimes...)

The point is, we are calm, loving, peaceful people. When we come to the studio, we make it a point to leave our baggage at the door. I'm realizing now the importance of carrying my yoga practice outside the studio and not leaving it on my mat. The outside needs the work of the inside to function properly.

So we arrive at my new goal: to carry my yoga practice with me outside of the studio, and off of my meditation mat. To remember that I am the same person in both circumstances. I cultivate peace and love. I breath in strength in the midst of a challenge. I let go of attachment to ideas.

I am a yogini.

i take a hint

"Be prepared for a few scheduling hiccups, today. Suddenly, an unforeseen event could limit your free time and make you feel a little bit like you're under the gun. But have no fear! This rapid change of pace will not send you down a stressful path. Instead, it will be invigorating and bring out your competitive, aggressive nature. This will be a fun day, full of twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat -- and ready for the next curveball to come your way!"

At 7 am, I was at work, reading my horoscope on MSNBC, thinking "Yipes... I don't know how I feel about this one..."

At 1:30 pm I was thrilled to only have an hour left of work and looking forward to errands, the weekend and lots of yoga classes.

At 5:35 pm, I was standing at the corner of Barker and Mt. Vernon, looking sadly at the front bumper and headlights of my car lying in the middle of the street, cleanly detached from the body of my car. Another hour or so and I was watching my precious darling car being towed away. Fast forward another half hour and I'd gotten a ride home and was making reservations to pick up a rental car in the morning.

It wasn't until after dinner that I remembered my horoscope this morning. And then I reflected on how I'd been feeling quite scattered and distracted all afternoon. My brain was moving a million miles an hour and literally seconds before my accident tonight I explicitly recall saying to myself that I needed to get out of my head and focus on life as it was happening in front of me. I remember thinking these words exactly, "You just aren't paying attention to the world outside of you tonight." That was an understatement.

Then it occurred to me... in my last blog I was talking about how happiness is always there for us to touch 24/7, if we're just mindful and aware we'll see it. I think tonight was a gentle (?) suggestion from the Universe to broaden that idea. Not just happiness, but life itself. Thinking back on the day... I almost feel like I should've seen this coming. Starting with my horoscope, which I generally just read for fun and don't actually use as a guide. And then there was my own advice to myself to focus on what was happening in front of me and to stop living in the world going on in my head. I was very in tune with how distracted I was this afternoon. In fact, I was so in tune with my distraction that it was distracting... Clearly...

It was like the Universe was saying, "Yes, Jenny. Happiness is there to be touched 24/7, but that's only because Reality is there to be touched 24/7. Truth is there 24/7. Just listen to me and you'll be able to be there for all of it. Happiness, chance, even disappointment." I had forgotten that in order to recognize you are at the mountain's peak, you must also recognize that there is a valley far below. They are both there and they can not be without the existence of the other. And there was the Universe, all day long trying to tell me what I needed: to be aware, to be mindful of it. But I simply wasn't listening for that.

This has been a very interesting lesson I've learned tonight. I'm also proud of my reaction to it all. I've surprised myself by being so calm about everything. To speak truthfully, I think this is almost a good thing that has happened. Sometimes I recognize the extent to which I cling to a routine and I have been known to get very agitated when my routine is interupted. Yes, I realize this changes the plans I had for the weekend a bit. Yeah, it sucks I missed yoga tonight and I'll miss it in the morning. But I can accomplish nothing if I focus strictly on how I wanted things to go and how they didn't go accordingly.

Life happens and all that there is to control is how you react to it. You have plans and sometimes the plans have to change. You make the best out of what you're given.

And you learn to listen. To all of it.

breathing in, breathing out

I've decided to start a meditation routine in addition to my yoga practice. There are moments in class that I am in deep relaxation and I feel like I can feel the tiniest bit of real, true presence and I think that's something worth developing and reaching for. Thich Nhat Hahn said in Buddha Mind, Buddha Body that unless you are present in this moment then you aren't really alive because you're living in the past or the future or in a fantasy. But presence, alertness, mindfulness in this moment... that is to be alive. Sometimes we get so caught up in what we're worried about and some place that isn't right here and we're just losing all this time... all these moments... all these nows... exactly where life is happening. I've been one of those people and it's caused me suffering. So with diligence and intention, little by little I'm going to learn to be really, really alive. Not threatened by the silence, but amazed by the vastness. Not a slave to my mind, but a master of it. Not reactive towards my emotions but just simply aware of them.

Slowly but surely, I'm going to learn to be.



“Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”
Thich Nhat Hahn

this instant

I'm finding myself to be distracted by impatience today. I'm distracted by the plans and decisions I've made. Instead of focusing on the present, I'm obsessed with the future. I felt noticeably irritable today, while my mind was constantly begging to be elsewhere and the present was forcing me back to where I was, where I am.

So now I'm asking myself, how do I live right now, in today? Buddha teaches that we suffer because we desire. This is something that has proven to me over and over again in my life. Meditation instructs us to be mindful of these sensations, acknowledge them for what they are, and then release them. A person should stay present, focused on this instant. It's these instants that will walk me towards my future plans. It's these instants that, when cast aside, are lost forever. Ignored, they are chances missed to be prepared for the future I hope to create.

Here I am then, giving myself a new task: to be mindful of the moment, the instant, the now. There is nothing but now.