Thoughfulness Versus Thinking Too Much

While chatting over dinner with a friend about a year ago, I worried I was annoying her. At dinner a week before, she smiled, was engaged, and I had hoped she enjoyed my company. But this night, she was detached and unmoved by everything I said. I reviewed everything I'd said during dinner, then everything I said to her earlier that day. Nothing made sense. What had I done?

In the weeks and months prior to this night, two special friends reminded me frequently that not everything was my fault. This is obvious, but knowing this fact is not enough. When are things my fault, and when aren't they? I needed to learn that discrimination. On this night, I remembered this lesson and tried an experiment. What if my dinner-friend's "reaction" had nothing to do with me?

I quieted my mind, which was still racing with self-blame. Listening to her, watching her -- there's something! -- I saw my friend blink a long, slow blink. I was reminded of trying to stay awake during class after a late night. My friend might be tired. Maybe I truly wasn't to blame!

Looking back at the first paragraph, I see many self-action phrases: "I was annoying her", "What had I done?", "enjoyed my company", "unmoved by everything I said". I wanted to be a good friend and good company, and when the unexpected happened I took a 'me-centered' view -- it was my fault. I was in control of the situation and I screwed it up. Usually, I follow these thoughts with intense self-scrutiny, hoping to find something I can fix. It usually turns into a wrestling match with reality, where I try to bend events to my will.

The ending of this story is the best part. While it felt nice not to blame myself, the joy came afterward. I asked my friend if she was tired, and learned she hadn't been sleeping well. By thinking less and listening more, I was able to take a step into her world. I felt thoughtful and supportive, like a good friend. We said goodbye early that night, so she could take care of herself.

No, thank-you.

This might be the most-important story I was told last year.

I was chatting with a good friend, and asked about being open while protecting myself from abuse. She shared a parable about an abusive old man in a small village. I applied the lesson from the parable later that same night, and several times that week.

An old man in a small village enjoyed intimidating his neighbors. He would abuse them verbally until they felt bad about themselves, telling them how lazy they were, or stupid, or thoughtless. Everyone was afraid of him, and this made him feel powerful. Having mastered his village, he wanted to go further and dominate the guru who lived peacefully in nearby hills.

He visited the guru and offered rotten fruit as gift. The guru declined, saying nothing more than "No, thank-you." The old man feigned anger, and began his verbal lashing of the guru. After receiving each abusive statement, the guru simply said "No, thank-you." Eventually the old man's feigned anger turned to real anger, and he lost control, yelling "What do you mean, 'no thank-you'? That doesn't make any sense, I wasn't offering you anything!"

The guru replied, "When you offer me rotten fruit, I say 'no, thank-you' because I know it is bad for me, and I do not accept it. Then you have to carry your own rotten fruit while you return home."

Almost every application I have had for this lesson has been in defense of myself, from myself. While listening to the story, I missed an important call. When I discovered this, I made myself feel guilty for not returning home sooner. Then I saw how I offered myself that rotten guilt, and accepted it. Finally, I told myself "no, thank-you" and refused to accept the guilt any longer.

The story's abstract lesson, for me, is that I can protect myself without building defensive walls. There's no need to create one-size-fits-all boundaries. Instead, I can remain open but discriminate between good and rotten fruit. Of course I will make mistakes, most likely accepting rotten fruit due to an assumed obligation. When I observe myself compounding those mistakes with additional self-abuse, I simply tell myself, "no, thank-you."

Give your yogi a cookie

While visiting a friend in San Francisco, she asked if I was hungry and offered me food. She nibbled on a cookie and described what she had in her refrigerator, completely ignoring the plate full of cookies on the counter. I finally stopped her and asked if I could have a cookie too. She was happy to share, and explained why she hadn't offered one earlier: "You practice yoga, and I assumed you wouldn't want a cookie."

Let me set the world straight on something. You don't achieve inner-peace and bliss by not eating cookies. You achieve bliss by practicing enough yoga that you can eat cookies and not feel guilty.

Offer your favorite yogi or yogini a cookie the next time they visit. It's part of the practice.

Why I want to teach yoga

I've nearly finished the first half of my yoga teacher training with Mark Stephens. I am revisiting my original intention for teaching yoga, again asking why I want teach, and to what audience. My current guess is that I have a selfish reason for teaching, so selfish it doesn't matter who my audience is.

My original intention was to work with senior citizens and chemotherapy patients, because of personal experience. My reasoning was that members of both groups would enjoy increased awareness of the ways in which they are alive while they face acute physical and emotional challenges. One of the primary objectives of yoga asana practice is developing and maintaining awareness in difficult situations. When I think about working with members of these communities, I usually have a strong emotional response and get a lump in my throat. However, I'm just as excited to teach yoga to my friends as I am to senior citizens and chemo patients. I think I created this explanation to convince myself that teacher training would result in useful action. I wanted to have a plan.

I get excited about teaching yoga when I think about sharing joy. I feel movement -- in yoga, dance, sports -- is a celebration of life, a luxury. When I savor every movement, including limited movement when I'm injured or ill or sore, I am reminded that little things can yield boundless joy. And the joy I find in little things -- in movement, seeing someone smile, watching trees -- blossoms into an awareness of the joy that surrounds me. I want to share these feelings with everyone, but I don't know how. Perhaps I am selfishly hoping to encourage awareness of the goodness of life by teaching yoga, and increase the opportunities I have to celebrate these feelings with others.

I'm comfortable with this explanation, because it comes from observing my heart and feelings. My rational mind understands this explanation, even if it doesn't understand why I get excited about asana practice and seeing trees sway in the wind. Though this explanation doesn't tell me what comes next or where I'm going, it tells me I'm on the right path. Even if I can't share my joy directly, I'll bet I can share my enthusiasm for yoga. I don't know who I'll be teaching, but if I'm very lucky, maybe I'll witness someone else finding joy in their practice of focus, awareness, and union.

What is a work-out?

In yoga teacher training, we recently got distracted by the term "workout." I decided to follow-up with a quick gander at the Oxford English Dictionary (I have the compact version, with 9 original pages micrographically printed on each page). However, a trip to the OED is never quick for me. Instead of writing a short email with a cute explanation to the interested party from teacher training, I wrote the rambling text you see below. Hopefully I've quoted the OED in a way that doesn't violate the spirit of copyright law.

With respect to the origins of the term "work-out", here's what I could deduce. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed) has "work-out" as follows: A boxing bout for practice; more widely, an exercise session, practice, or test.". It has quotes from 1909 onward, with the early quotes all related to boxing:

• 1909, R. A. Wason in _Happy_Hawkins_: "I expect to give it a fair good work-out before I'm through with it."
• 1923, H. C. Witwer in _Fighting_Blood_: "I aint going to get no gym workout"
• 1927, Daily Express on 27 May: "Either in a workout or in an actual contest."

but a quote from a decade later has a clearly non-boxing context, where the subject is not a boxer, and the event is not clearly a "practice."

• 1938, M. K. Rawlings in _Yearling_: "'Will we take both dogs?' 'Nobody but old Julia. She ain't had a work-out since she was hurt. A slow hunt'll do her good.'"

The definition for "work-out" points to a subsection of the 38th definition for "work". The definition for "work" is broken into 39 meanings covering 13 pages. Definition group 38 is for "work out", and it is broken into 3 sub-categories. The third category has the relevant definition: "To box for practice, as distinguished from engaging in a set contest. Also gen. to practise, take exercise, rehearse." There's a few quotes from 1927 through the present, with a quote related to dancing in 1929, and a quote using the general sense (beyond boxing) in 1948 from Gore Vidal's The_City_And_The_Pillar_: "Jim worked out in the YMCA."

More interesting to me were other definitions in group 38. Here are entries from the first two sub-categories:

sub-category 1:

• a) "To bring, fetch, or get out by some process or course of action; to get rid of, or effect a riddance of; to expel, deliver, efface, etc." (quotes from 1595)
• d) "To wear out, esp. by labour, or by continued application of force (obsolete or rare)" (quotes from 1611)

sub-category 2:

• f) "To bring about, effect, produce, or procure (a result) by labour or effort; to carry out, accomplish (a plan or purpose)" (extra def from Shakespeare in 1597: to persevere until the end) (quotes from 1534)
• j) "To bring to a fuller or finished state; to produce or express in a complete form or in detail; to develop, elaborate." (quotes from 1821)
• k) "To study or investigate completely; to work through (obsolete or rare)" (quote from 1830)

Having copied these definitions carefully, a process which encourages me to think more carefully, I would venture that the use in boxing might have originated from uses like sub-category 2, j and k. That is, a boxer would work out his moves, or his plan for a fight. This "strategic" sense of "work out" would make more sense if boxing practice was less athletic (compared to modern "working out") in the early part of the century. From there, I can easily imagine loose usage of "working out" a plan in boxing leading to generalized "practice" exercise in a gym (as opposed a "soccer practice", which we don't usually call "working out").

It is fun to pick and choose definitions we might like for yoga, versus aerobics and other gym workouts. For instance, the catharsis of 38a is nice for all exercise, but I prefer to leave 38d to exhausting oneself through jumping rope and such. 38f and j might mean chiseling your abs on a machine, or might be self-transformation in yoga. 38k sounds much more like yoga than like aerobics -- though I suppose "total body workouts" might claim membership for 38k. My hypothesized pugilist use fits nicely with the idea of yoga, where asana is part of learning and practicing focus and awareness for life in general. Of course, such picking-and-choosing is probably hard to support academically, and is more of a mirror of my yoga-biases than of real meanings.

Yoga Intent Haiku

Very little time to write about anything lately, but I wanted to share a small verse. I started yoga teacher training recently, and we were asked to come to the first class with a Haiku expressing our intention in practicing yoga. I realize my verse probably isn't a proper haiku, but the number of syllables seems correct. =)

Sharing our practice,
dancing, we move together.
All breaths become one.

Maybe I'll update this post later with some notes about the last line, which has special meanings for me.

Yin and Raja Yoga

In one of my favorite Vinyasa Flow classes (actually, all of them are favorites), we sometimes practice one or two Yin poses. I'm not really familiar with the philosophy of Yin yoga yet, but I think I can safely say that Yin poses emphasize stillness, as opposed to Yang poses (the stuff I normally do) which emphasize motion. Last week I tried Brandy Falcon's Yin class at Devi Yoga in Menlo Park. Brandy was out, but the substitute was very good. The whole experience felt new and a little mysterious. The studio felt like a calm moonlit walk when the night air surrounds you protectively. I am intrigued, and will take another Yin class this week.

On the weekend, I tried Tamara Perkins' Raja yoga class at 4th Street Yoga in Berkeley. I had no idea what to expect, except that the website titled the class "Gentle yoga". The sequencing of poses was interesting. We did some backbends early in the practice instead of at the end, but the instructions were mindful and it felt safe and comfortable. Instead of simply holdinga side bend, we moved in and out of it several times. Tamara pointed out that the majority of the benefits could be achieved though this motion, and that extreme physical flexibility need not be a prerequisite or goal. Other dynamic asanas included a twirling spinal twist and a fun chi-gathering exercise. Both had accompanying breath work. When I left the class, I wasn't sure what I'd take away from it. However, the next morning I found myself with time for three poses before heading to work, and I chose the twirling spinal twist, a dynamic Warrior I, and the chi-gathering exercise. I felt great all day, and did something similar again this morning. As I reflect on the class, I see how Tamara gave each pose enough time and consideration to reveal its stand-alone identity. Despite my enjoyment of flow classes, having the poses taught like this makes it easier to do just a little self-practice when I have desire but am short on time.

Shaila Catherine: Hindrances to Meditation

I am interested in meditation, but am not ready to commit to a ten day Vipassana course. At this time, I'd prefer to use a week of vacation to visit Iceland or India or Turkey. Thankfully, a local group called Insight Meditation South Bay runs weekly meditation courses near my home in Mountain View, California. This group practices in the Vipassana tradition, which means they follow the Buddhist meditation teachings. Despite the connection to Buddhism, the group and Vipassana meditation are both non-sectarian. In fact, the meeting location is an Episcopal church.

Tonight was the first class in a six-week series titled Overcoming Hindrances to Meditation. The teacher, Shaila Catherine, and the courses were recommended to me by two trustworthy friends. Judging by the first class, the format is 40 minutes of seated meditation, followed by a 60 minute lecture. Shaila provided guidance at the beginning and middle of the meditation period, and finished with a chant. Her first lecture was well thought-out, clearly presented, and immediately applicable to meditation -- and to daily life. The subject was an overview of "the five hindrances" to meditation: desire, aversion (ill will), laziness, restlessness, and doubt.

Shaila suggested that we use our breath as the object of the meditation. I'm not sure whether Vipassana meditation requires and object. As part of her guidance, she asked an interesting and useful question: "take a moment to evaluate the quality of the mind -- why can't you observe your breath clearly?" In context, the answer is clearly that one of the five hindrances is in your way, distracting you from your breath. I find value in the question even without the hindrance framework, because it immediately makes you an observer of your mind, and gets right at where you are "resisting" (to borrow from Hatha Yoga practice) your own objective.

The lecture introduced the five hindrances, and gave a useful example of each. I feel that this hindrance framework is useful, though an obvious question is why there are exactly five hindrances, and why would every distraction to meditation fall into one them. With a little thought, I made my own answer to the latter question. Hindrances are anything which take you out of the present, which in this case is meditation on breath. If you are not in the present, where are you? Nearly any answer can be cast as inappropriate desire to do something different than what you are doing now, or be somewhere else. Don't take this too literally, because loose language is part of definition of the hindrances, and it seems they are defined more by example than denotation. Similarly, laziness and restlessness are simply symptoms of wanting to do more or less than meditating on your breath. You can frame any distraction from the present in terms of the hindrances. As another example, I'm comfortable defining desperation (a possible hindrance) as doubt plus restlessness.

At this point, I ask myself if the hindrance framework is over-complicated, since any distraction from breath might be cast as any of the hindrances if you use some imagination. Consider that you could have just one hindrance -- deviation from the present. What is doubt besides nonconstructive speculation about the future? What better example of ill will is there besides ruminating on a negative past encounter with a troublesome coworker? The future and past are clearly not the present, and that is problem. However, my simple definition of deviation from the present isn't always easy to apply, and when applied, it provides little guidance on why you left the present, what is fueling your departure from the present, and what you need to do to return to the present. The five hindrances model addresses all of these things, by making broadly applicable categories with familiar examples and concrete remedies.

Shaila gave an example of how Buddhist monks might have been taught to counter desire. I'm going to mix in my own understanding, and if this doesn't make sense it is all my fault. Suppose you find yourself thinking of a beautiful woman (I guess Buddhist monks are male) instead of meditating on breath. This is only a problem when you become attached to your desire. This constitutes "[improper attendance] to a beautiful object". What is improper about it? My take is that your desire for the beautiful woman relies on a mental model of the woman -- what you desire is not the woman, but what you think of as a woman. It's something in your head. Where Krishnamurti might tell you to simply return to the present before you hurt yourself with thoughts, Shaila told us the monks might deliberately recall unavoidable repulsive aspects of a beautiful woman. For example, her flesh will rot after death. By properly attending to aversion, you counter your improper attendance to aversion.

I am looking forward to more detailed consideration of the following questions for each hindrance, which are a standard part of this study: is the hindrance present, is it absent, what is fueling the hindrance, how do I remove the fuel? Actually, I thought there were five questions, but it's late and I'm tired. For me at least, these questions are part of aware living, not just seated meditation.

One final note. Recall that there are five hindrances, and hence we can't just pair them up to counter one another. The odd man out is doubt. The materials Shaila gave us tonight say only that doubt is countered by "proper attention", unlike the other hindrance which are countered by proper attention to something in particular. Until we discuss doubt five weeks from now, that leaves me with the simple "return to the present" advice that Krishnamurti gives. I tend to think abstractly and get along okay with Krishnamurti's advice, but on challenging days I wouldn't mind having a few Buddhist tricks up my sleeve.

Which way is up? An observation and a few computations.

While listening to some music and meditating tonight, my head did not feel upright. By moving my head from side to side, I figured my neck was straight because it felt as if it were at maximal extension. Still, there was something tugging my head back and to the left. Then I realized my head was pulled, more or less, toward the current position of the moon. I wanted to know if this was completely crazy (my guess: yes, crazy), so I tried a second experiment and then ran some numbers.

I turned to face the opposite direction, and tried to undo my mental moon bias. After several minutes of relaxation, my head felt pulled right and forward -- still toward the moon. The sensation wasn't strong in absolute terms, but I definitely felt like the world had gone slightly sideways and my head was not balanced. Even now, facing a new direction, I still feel a tug (back and right, this time, still toward the moon).

After looking up Newton's law of gravity, as well as a few masses and distances, here are some relative forces that might help us gain some perspective.

Mass 1	Mass 2	Distance	Gravitational attraction
Human head, 5 kg	Earth's Moon, 7.36 E+22 kg	385,000 km	0.16 micronewtons (uN)
Head	Another head	1 m	0.0017 uN
Head	Earth's Sun, 1.99 E+30 kg	1.5 E+8 km	29,480 uN
Head	Earth	3,175 km	49 N

So my head's attraction to the sun should swamp the attraction to the moon. However, it was about 11:30pm when I did this experiment, which (I think) means the sun should be just about directly "underneath" me, pulling my head almost straight through the Earth's center. Since Earth's attraction on my head is about 1690 times stronger than the sun's, I'm unlikely to notice the sun's force in this configuration. So much for the sun, and even accounting for the not-perfect alignment at this hour I think the sun would also be pulling my head to the left in the first experiment.

I don't think I should conclude anything from my numbers. That said, I know my head felt pulled in an odd direction, toward the moon, even after turning around. The sensation is better described as gravity going somewhat sideways, and my head did not feel balanced until I moved it back and left. I am willing to believe that a very aware human can sense small differences in force. Consider that human fingers can sense about one-thousandth of an inch discrepancy between two surfaces (a woodworking estimate I read once), and human ears can detect pressure variations down to one-billionth of an Earth atmosphere.

An ear drum is about 55 square millimeters. One atmosphere is about 0.0103 kg per square millimeter. So one atmosphere of pressure variation on an ear drum exerts a force differential of about 0.57 kg times 9.8 m/s^2, or 5.57 newtons (can I really make that calculation? Help would be appreciated!) One billionth of that is 0.00557 micronewtons, which is roughly 28 times weaker than the force of attraction between my head and the moon. And human hearing is weak compared to other animals.

In Mysore-style Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga practice, the day of a full moon or new moon is observed by resting. One explanation for this tradition is that on these days the moon's gravitational attraction is most opposed to the Earth's attraction (full moon), or most aligned with it (new moon), resulting in undesirable lightness or heaviness. These days are called "moon days". I have not yet accepted this explanation, since the moon's attraction on the preceding or subsequent day would be very similar to the attraction on the moon day. However, I am entirely willing to believe we can detect the gravitational attraction of the moon, which seems reasonable given the calculations I just made. There are other explanations for my particular symptoms tonight, but I won't ignore the moon's attraction in the future.

Besides, I've always been attracted to the moon.

Stationary walking

I have been studying yoga for little while now, learning about meditation from one friend, and have taken a couple sense-meditation walks with another friend. Sometimes I can combine these practices, and meditate somewhat while walking to and from work.

On good days, my gaze softens and broadens, increasing visual awareness. I might focus on breathing and articulation. I can soften my shoulders, face, and neck. My mind will be quiet and restful, instead of grinding through speculations, concerns, and insecurities. On these days, I am receptive and can listen internally and externally to what is happening now. On these days, the internal and external worlds don't seem so separate.

While an undergraduate, I remember walking up a steep hill with a friend named Lisa. For a second I had a strange sensation of the world moving under my feet, instead of my feet propelling me across the ground. I recently rediscovered this sensation, on a good day. I was still, listening, and my feet pulled the trees, water, and mountains toward me. Galileo might point out that normal walking and this "stationary walking" are fundamentally equivalent, but even so the change of perspective is exciting and enlightening.

In stationary walking, I feel I am moving the world where I want it, instead of climbing over life's obstacles to get where I want to go. With stationary walking I am always at my destination.

Tonight was a good night as I walked home from work. The sun had set, and the tree images were soft or silhouetted. My gaze softened in response, and this time auditory awareness grew beyond visual awareness. My thoughts did not disappear, but they did not distract and my mind rested. I could move my head and smile normally at bicyclists and cars that passed, without losing focus or reducing awareness. I felt no threats, internal or external. I saw whole trees without the tunnel vision of analyzing tree-parts. I was breathing, walking, listening peacefully.