03/01 2012 Posted In Friends & Community, Thoughts From Annie, Yoga

Fair Trade and Sustainable Businesses

“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” –Jane Addams.

Dear Friends,

By now you may have heard about the controversy surrounding the founder and leader of the Anusara yoga community. I won’t inventory the allegations here, but the founder is a charismatic man with power over thousands of teachers and practitioners. Enough said. You can read more details here.

I started practicing Anusara yoga sometime around 2001, and finished my Anusara teacher training in 2004. I studied with the founder on several occasions, and found him to be a good teacher – funny, irreverent, and capable of performing great postures. And yet when the accusations against him came out earlier this month, I wasn’t shocked or devastated.

Why? Because he is a person. Just because we establish a yoga organization, minister to a church, do international aid work, or work in an orphanage, doesn’t mean that we are perfect. All of us, regardless of what we do for a living, have the same human tendencies toward greed, anger, and delusion. And if we have a well-loved teacher or mentor, our biggest and most dangerous delusion is that our teacher or leader could never succumb to greed, anger or delusion.

Now I don’t really know why humans struggle with greed, anger, and delusion, I just see from experience that we do. And for me that means that I accept that my beloved teachers are capable of making unskillful choices. It is my responsibility to live with my eyes open to this truth about my teachers and about myself. The first of the Buddha’s Four Reliances, as translated by the Dalai Lama, says, “Do not rely on the person, rely on the teachings.”

What it also means is that organizations are more vulnerable when they are controlled by one human being.   It’s a lot harder for us as leaders to make good decisions when we have absolute power. And it’s a lot easier for us as students to think our leader is God-like when they have unbridled power over so many people. That’s why the checks and balances system of democracy is so important.   And it’s why the Buddha taught that we all need spiritual friends, sangha, to help us stay on the path. We are like bees that need a beehive. If we are a bee alone, we cannot survive.

As Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Buddhist leader and himself involved in controversy over sexual impropriety, explains:

Your friends in the sangha provide a continual reference point which creates a continual learning process. They act as mirror reflections to remind you or warn you in living situations. That is the kind of companionship that is meant by sangha. We are all in the same boat.

When someone initially creates an organization, most of what is born is the founder’s vision. As more people get involved and the organization grows, when is it time for the founder to step back? When an artist paints a picture, it can be very difficult for him or her to let it go.   And it’s the same with an organization. It can be hard for the founder to let go of control. But if he or she doesn’t let go, the organization continues to rest on the back of that one person, with no shared oversight or support.

If we really want them to thrive, as organizations grow we need to share them with the community. Our organizations need to be guided by the sangha, each of us supporting each other’s ability to see clearly and make skillful decisions.  If one person stumbles, the organization doesn’t have to collapse and disappoint hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people. Everyone in the organization will be invested in the product or service that is being offered, and everyone allowed to have input into how the organization operates.

Our organization, Circle Yoga, has just taken the pioneering leap from a privately held small corporation to a worker’s cooperative, where decisions about studio operations, finances, and even whether it exists will be made by a board elected by the membership. In addition to worker-members, students who choose to can become student-members and be elected to serve on the studio board. (for more details, click here.) 

In this way, we hope to share the decision-making and income fairly with the entire community, creating a more resilient, versatile and impactful organization.  We are calling this Fair Trade and Sustainable Yoga. In addition, we hope to foster a community of equals, living the Buddhist teachings of equanimity and inter-being, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.”

We hope that as a community of practitioners working together, we will be able to support the highest and best in each of us, and in the teachings and activities that we bring to the yoga and mindfulness community.

with love, annie
12/04 2010 Posted In Busyness of Life, Love & Compassion, Presence/Showing up, Thoughts From Annie, Yoga

Energy Leaks and Bhakti Yoga

Dear Friends,

I hope that you all enjoyed a relaxing and delicious Thanksgiving holiday.

Last week, several days before our Thanksgiving feast, I happened to be in a local store, and was surprised to see a lot of Christmas decorations and displays. Well, I wasn’t completely surprised, having watched this trend toward seasonal overlap growing over the last few years. What was surprising, though was that the Christmas displays helped illuminate some teachings I heard from Rod Stryker, Cyndi Lee, and Sean Johnson (of the Wild Lotus Band) at a Yoga Journal conference earlier in November. Seeing the way that we start planning for the next holiday before we get through this one brought these varied teachings together. It helped me understand how we could live more from our hearts if we are able to stay with our current experience instead of always having one foot in the next event.

The focus of Rod’s workshop was learning how to maintain the healing energy that we create during a yoga class. He asked us what the half-life of a yoga class was, meaning how long the sweet energetic effects of a class last once we leave class. An hour, half a day, maybe a whole day? Rod shared that one of the main ways our energy leaks out is by having unfinished projects and activities. Our energy is then hanging out there with each piece of unfinished business, and we lose the energy that could support us with our life in the present moment. This rang true for me. I am an expert multi-tasker, and my energy is often split between the studio, homework from massage school, various to-do items, planning an upcoming class, my family, etc. And with all of these waves of energy lost in the past or the future, I have less presence for this moment.

In Sean’s class, we practiced a beautiful Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of belonging, or yoga of devotion. This practice includes chanting the names of the divine, sending loving-kindness to ourselves and others, and really dwelling in and living from our heart space. Bhakti Yoga practices are ancient, and uniquely human, recognizing that we are not in control of this amazing universe, and expressing gratitude for all the gifts we have been given. It is an uplifting practice which brings all of who we are forward to connect with our image of the divine. It too was about creating positive energy, with a very specific focus for the energy that we generate.

In Cyndi’s class, she defined yoga as relationship, rather than union. And this reminded me that Bhakti Yoga is also relationship. Bhakti Yoga is simply the awareness and celebration of our relationship with the divine, the universe, our own Buddha nature, or whatever we want to call it. It takes two to be in relationship, and so we can see that all of yoga is really about relationship with something. The same way that mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. It’s all about focusing our energy on something. And while mindfulness by itself is a neutral awareness, when we are present with our hearts and not just our heads, it becomes bhakti. When we focus our loving energy on the divine, our Buddha nature, or simply a friend, we are practicing the kind of yoga that is transformative.

Returning to Rod’s teaching that our energy or mindfulness leaks out when we have unfinished business hanging around, we can see how important it is to experience the beginning, middle, and end of each moment, each breath, each contact with another being. It’s only in this way that we can have the kind of loving bhakti energy that can transform a situation. Our modern way of living creates a huge challenge for us in this area. To bring all our loving energy to a conversation with someone means letting go of our phone ringing, our computer beeping, our email arriving, and everything else that wants to pull us away. When we bring the fullness of our energy to each moment, it is bhakti. We’re belonging to or devoted to whatever or whomever is in front of us. And yet it’s quite challenging to bring that quality of bhakti, or devotion, to each and every moment. It means we need to finish one holiday before starting another. It means finishing one email before starting another. And it means we devote our full attention and love to what we are doing when we cook, eat, walk, make love, dance, sing, converse, listen, or practice yoga. It means we bring all of us into every moment, at least as best we can.

If we bring the light of our full and loving presence to even one person or one moment today, we will experience the love ourselves, and also create a wave of love that ripples out in all directions. And we will be able to enjoy the richness of this moment or this day without leaking our energy into the future moments or days. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “”Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the earth revolves.” Or as the poet, Hafiz says, “How do I listen to others? As if everyone were my Master speaking to me his cherished last words.”

with a full and present heart,

annie.

with love, annie
08/07 2010 Posted In Contentment/Happiness, Difficulties & Loss, Family, Meditation, Perceptions & Thoughts, Thoughts From Annie, Yoga

What’s Still Alive in Your Garden?

Dear Friends,

This past week I received an unexpected letter from an old friend of my mom’s. My mom passed away, quite unexpectedly, about 5 years ago at the young age of 71. My mom, Sally, was a vibrant, energetic, and positive person, who did a whole lot for a lot of people, and was well-loved by many.

My mom’s friend described some of my mom’s wonderful qualities – always making the best of every situation, her enormous capacity to care for others, the importance of her family, her ability to work endlessly for causes she cared about, and her love of being surrounded by friends. She also reminded me of my mom’s tendency to be very private with her feelings, and her ability to get her own needs met without much sharing, and her endless capacity to put others’ needs before her own.

My mom was almost always in good health. But even if she wasn’t, you would have had a hard time knowing it. Within a short period of time, she went through treatment and recovery from two kinds of cancer, lost her mother, and had a serious thyroid disease. And yet I never saw her shed a tear, or in fact complain about any of the treatments. She always had time for entertaining her friends, cooking dinner for her family, and working. In some ways, she was a model of strength. And yet, because I didn’t ever see her vulnerable, I think I might have missed out on a deeper connection with her.

If you have met me, you probably know that, while I share some of my mom’s wonderful qualities, I am not one to hold my tongue about my feelings. Since my family members weren’t big believers in feelings, it took me many years and some expensive therapy to figure out what I was feeling, and learn how to share my feelings in a way that actually helped get my needs met. And I like to share my negative feelings. I consider this processing to be a part of my spiritual path.

And yet after reading this letter, and remembering my mom, I started to wonder whether there was something I could learn about not always needing to share my negative feelings. Is there something between Pollyanna (“I’m fine, everything’s perfect”) and needing to vent every time something difficult comes my way? I recently saw a dear friend who is going through a difficult break-up, and when I asked her how she was, she said she was fine, with a smile on her face. When I prodded a little deeper, she confessed that she was having a very hard year, but she didn’t want to keep dwelling on the negative. She wanted to start to focus more on the positive aspects of her life.

So I ask myself, and I ask you too, how do we keep our joy and gratitude alive without losing touch with our authentic feelings? And how much time and energy is most helpful to spend “processing” our negative feelings? Can we simply feel them and let them go? I have found that sharing difficulties in my life has been a way to connect on a deep level with other people. If you saw the movie, I Heart Huckabees, you may remember in the conclusion of the movie, they suggest that human beings connect with each other only by witnessing each other’s suffering.

The Buddha discovered that dukkha or unsatisfactoriness is a necessary condition of living our life. He suggested that our dukkha is caused by either grasping at pleasant sensations, or pushing away difficulties. If we spend too much time complaining or dwelling on our negative feelings, are we grasping at the instant gratification of getting attention rather than sitting with the difficulty itself? And if we pretend that nothing is wrong, are we pushing away our difficulties? How much sharing of our suffering do we need to do in order to connect to others, and when is it too much?

Thich Nhat Hanh describes using our mindfulness to bring awareness to our positive elements:

Our body and our consciousness are like a garden: there may be a number of trees dying in that garden, but that does not mean that the whole garden is dead. Maybe the majority of the trees are still vigorous, beautiful. That is why we should not allow the negative to overwhelm us, because there are still many things that work well within our bodies and our consciousness. The therapist can invite his client for a walking meditation session, and during that session, he will try to put his client in touch with the positive elements within him or around him. In the Buddhist practice this is very important. Mindfulness is the energy we generate, and first of all we want that energy to help us get in touch with the positive things-joy and happiness.

Dear friends, this is the koan (an unanswerable question/riddle) that I am sitting with. If you have any insights, I would love to hear them. What I do know is that the practice of yoga, including sitting meditation and everyday mindfulness, are what I trust to help find the way. I am heading off for several weeks of vacation and retreat, and perhaps I will discover some insights sitting on the beach, listening to a dharma talk by Thich Nhat Hanh, or being together with extended family. I will certainly let you know. And if it rains the whole time, or we have other difficulties while we are there, I am sure I’ll still want to tell you all about my troubles. But with practice, perhaps I can avoid getting stuck in my dukkha, and remember all of the positive parts as well. I’ll let you know.

much love and joy,

annie.

with love, annie