Yoga & The Cultivation Of Freedom
27 Jan 2012 2 Comments
A couple of years ago, I was in Shizuoka, Japan visiting my favorite Japanese tea farm, Yamanien. It was a blissful experience, sitting in their beautiful, ancient tearoom and speaking with Goto-san, the farmer and tea master. Yamanien teas consistently win gold medals in Japan and their top-level sencha is the tea favored by the royal family.
On my visit, I noticed that the tea plants were left to grow wild. This is very unusual, especially in Japan. Almost all the tea bushes that I have seen in Japan are highly manicured and tended. When I asked Goto-san about it, he nonchalantly gave me a giant pearl of wisdom. He said “If the plant is healthy, the tea will be good.” For over 400 years, his family has been putting that understanding into practice. Through free cultivation, the result is a world-class tea that brings bliss.
This has me thinking about the deeper meaning of cultivation and of impact —the manifestation of our choices. What is it that we are really trying to cultivate through yoga and through life? Is it compassion and a vision of hope and peace and joy and love for all living beings, grounded in a sense of moral and ethical principals, or do we just want to get our ya-yas out? And, how about impact? Do we truly care about our impact or do we choose to be oblivious to our impact on those around us and the world at large? Are we rooted on the path of yoga, or tumbling down the path of bhoga (pursuit of sense enjoyment that brings suffering?)
Bhartrihari, one of the greatest Sanskrit poets writes about the dangers of a life wrapped in the confusion of yoga and bhoga. He writes:
We did not enjoy pleasures, instead we ourselves were consumed by them. We did not practice austerities, but only underwent suffering. Time did not pass, only we are passing away. Our desires did not decay, only we are growing old.
When we cultivate with a foundation of skilled principles that are rooted in experience – either our own or the wise who have gone before us, our actions become healthy. When our actions are healthy, the impact that we have, not only on ourselves, but on those around us can also be positive. As the saying goes, “When the tide comes in, all boats rise.”
Yoga is the path of action. This is the central message of the Bhagavad Gītā. When we allow ourselves to act, while at the same time detaching from identifying ourselves AS that action (ie, I AM my job, etc), there can be freedom from ignorance. Like tea plants, we can let ourselves grow in our natural state. Freeing ourselves from negative, limited, habituated patterns, allows health to flourish on all levels. When health flourishes, all those around us can be uplifted. This is true freedom.
Seeing our impact on others is vital as accurate feedback to avoid self-delusion. Yoga is a path that constantly moves towards the relief of suffering. If one sees freedom as simply being able to do whatever one wants and yet other people in proximity are suffering because of those actions, this is avidyā (ignorance) disguised in freedom’s clothes. True freedom does not leave a body count behind. Is there really a greater gift then helping to uplift those around us – those close to us and even those who we don’t know? Why be here at all if not to add the fruit of our cultivation as an offering to the world?
Sometimes, wrapped in the middle of our lives, it is easy to lose perspective and we can veer off course without realizing it, creating suffering. It is challenging to have the courage to recognize this. Cornel West says “It takes courage to interrogate yourself.” However, seeing the impact on others is a instant reality check. My mom read me a great quote from Jack Kornfield the other day that says “If the bird and the book on birds disagree, always trust the bird.” The negative ego lies. It tells us that we are living free and spiritually when our actions are producing suffering. Do we have the courage to face the impact of our actions, take inventory, and change if we don’t like what we see?
Tea, at it’s essence, is very direct – the interplay of water and leaves. In a way, yoga is the same, the interplay of human and divine. Yoga is not meant to make us more spiritual —we already are more spiritual. It is a path to make us more human.
One Family
03 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
One of the most beloved books in India is Hitopadeśa, “friendly counsel”, a collection of animal fables used for teaching young people the path of righteous living. At the end of each of the stories is a Sanskrit verse that encapsulates the lesson of the tale. One of my favorite verses deals with the nature of attachment and how it causes suffering and sorrow.
The verse is this:
अयं निज: परो वेति गणना लघुचेतसाम् ।
उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् ॥
ayaṁ nijaḥ paro’veti
gaṇanā laghu cetasām
udāra caritānāṁ tu
vasu dhaiva kuṭumbakaṃ
The translation is:
“This is mine, but that belongs to someone else” – this type of “counting” is of small-minded people. For those with generous minds, the entire earth is one family.”
This verse got me thinking — How much suffering is caused by the false belief that we actually “own” anything, especially other people? How much time do we spend trying to protect what we feel is ours? Is it this sense of ownership that lies at the root of jealousy, control and aggression?
In the Yoga Sutras, asmitā, the sense of “i-am-ness” is seen as one of the root causes of suffering, and one of the primary beliefs that the process of yoga seeks to diminish and ultimately release. While we may need some sense of asmitā to function in mundane, daily life, as we begin play with the idea that asmitā is neither the deepest truth of self, nor an unshakable law, we can begin to cultivate an awareness of a self beyond individuality and dualism.
Even love, the strongest force for change and awakening in the universe, can be polluted by the smallness of the grasping ego that seeks to own both people and things. As we demand to “own”, we attach our identity to those very things. In attaching our identity, we attach our sense of happiness. Happiness based on external, fluctuating objects cannot be true happiness. Believing impermanant happiness to be true happiness is a core definition of avidyā (ignorance), and avidyā, according to yoga philosophy, is the root of all suffering.
This verse from hitopadeśa reminds me that, beyond ideas of ownership, there is a sense of interconnectedness that permeates humanity. At the core, we are one family, engaged in the wild, sacred, full-spectrum adventure of life.
Here is the verse from hitopadeśa chanted by the wonderful, inimitable Dr. Ram Karan Sharma. Dr Sharma, past president of the International Institute For Sanskrit Studies (IASS) is an ocean of knowledge and humility, and a man that I feel deeply honored to call both a teacher and a friend.
Dr. Ram Karan Sharma
Listen Here: Vasudaiva Kutumbakam
Back To The Land Of The Gods
29 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
Two more days and then I am heading back to Bali! I am thrilled to be going back to this magical place. I’ll be teaching Yoga Philosophy for my dear friends who run the wonderful, intense, and transformative Vibrant Living Teacher Training. You can find out more about this exceptional training at http://www.radiantlyalive.com/training.php
The Art Of The Gourd Banjo
23 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in Music
my left-handed fretless cherry wood gourd banjo
I’ve played old-time music for 15+ years. Often, in the late afternoon, I can be found sitting out on my deck, watching the sun disappear beneath the redwoods while playing a tune from West Virginia or the Round Peak area of North Carolina. From the banjo, old sounds of a half-forgotten past filter through the air.
I was introduced to the banjo by my close friend Martin Simpson. He played me a recording of Dock Boggs’ Country Blues. To this day, that song still haunts me in the best way possible. I have also had the good fortune of learning the banjo from one of my dear friends and musical heroes, the inimitable Jody Stecher.
I have always been attracted to the sounds of the gourd banjo, which is exactly what it sounds like – a banjo made from a gourd (think: veggie with a neck!) For years, I have played a banjo made by Bob Thornburg from Bishop, California. It has served me well, but like all organic things, has started to revert back to its more original, compostable state. When I decided that I wanted a replacement, I turned to Jeff Menzies, a wonderful banjo maker (and lovely human being) from Toronto, Canada.
Jeff approaches his art and his craft with boundless energy, love, and precise attention to detail. Having him create a superb gourd banjo for me has been nothing short of a joyous experience. For anyone interested in a banjo built with love and expert skill, I can unreservedly recommend Jeff’ Menzies. Feel free to tell him I sent you…
Jeff’s website: http://www.jeffreymenzies.com/
A short biography on Jeff can be found at:
http://www.dhyatt.com/craft_bio_menzies.html
A very nice history of the gourd banjo can be found here:
http://www.dhyatt.com/history.html
Here is a sound sample of me playing my Jeff Menzies banjo. Groundhog
Lessons from the Devil’s Brew
16 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in Counseling, Sanskrit
Years ago, I went to an acupuncturist who perscribed me what was the singularly most heinous concoction of herbs to boil into a tea. The brew tasted like a mixture of old mushrooms, sweat socks and human injustice! 
Getting even half a cup of this devil’s brew down was a herculean effort. My body would tense and I would find myself repeating how awful it was; my own personal negative mantra. Then, all of a sudden, I had an epiphany — I realized that I was directing “citta” (consciousness) into the concept of “bad” and I was lumping this noxious concoction with all of the other things that I thought were also “bad” — clubbing baby seals, eating meat (I was strictly vegan at the time) etc. There was no real distinction between these things, they were just all lumped into the notion of “bad”.
Once I saw this, I was able to stop and ask myself “Is this tea really awful? Or am I just taking a short-cut to avoid experiencing the tea as it is?” As an experiment, I decided that I would consciously avoid labeling the tea and just experience it. When I did that, the tea just became experience and the drinking of it just became sensation. My body relaxed and I was able to drink the full amount for the rest of the week, letting the concoction do what it was intended to do, which was to aid in healing. I even began to savor it….not the herbs perse, but the experience.
I had a similar experience when I was tattooed for the first time at the beginning of the year. Past the fear of the unknown, the idea of pain or “not-pain” ceased to be the reference point. When I allowed myself to just experience, each touch of the needle became pure sensation. Not only that, but each line of ink was a totally different sensation and, as such, the entire experience became endlessly fascinating, a “sensation meditation”.
Another experience I had highlighted the opposite:
Several years ago, four of us had a birthday celebration for a loved one at a wonderful Japanese restaurant. To celebrate, I bought an outrageous bottle of sake from San Francisco’s premier shop, True Sake. It was utterly mindblowing — tasting like essence of strawberry, melon and cotton candy, feather-light though not sweet. Like the purest water once swallowed, the taste disappeared as if by magic. Anyway, the synergy of food, sake and conversation made the evening truly memorable.
Fast-forward several months — one of the friends who was at the celebration (remember there were only four of us) had a birthday coming up. When I asked him what he wanted to do to celebrate, he said “I want to go back to the same restaurant and drink the same sake.” As soon as he said it, my first thought was “uh oh…trouble.” I could tell that he wanted to recreate the experience as before. I went to the sake shop, explained the situation to the owner and…bless his heart, he refused to sell me the same sake that I bought before! He knew that it would never live up to the demand that my friend was putting on it, which was basically to recreate the past. So, I bought another great bottle instead, made a reservation at the same restaurant, and invited the same friends. The evening of his birthday, my friend came over before dinner and had such a bad stomach ache that he had to go home! Birthday celebration cancelled. The demand to recreate the beautiful experience from the past returned as anxiety and suffering.
Of course, to prevent the evening from being a total loss, after he went home, we drank the sake. Tasty, tasty karma yoga….!
When we automatically attach our identity to our experience, seeing ourselves AS the experience rather than as the one who is witnessing the experience, we create attachment and suffering. We place the timeless, immortality of Self within the everchanging realm of impermanence, and demand for what is impermanent to be immortal. When that does not happen, our sense of self is shaken. We become anxious, and from that state of anxiety, motivated to repeat pleasurable experiences and avoid painful ones. However, both actions are rooted in avidyā (ignorance). Every experience is unique and unrepeatable. We demand that experience be the same, and thus try to preserve continuity because we falsely believe that we ARE these things. By seeking to avoid painful experience out of fear, we keep past painful experiences alive. We “feed” them through our awareness. Both of these actions, chasing pleasure and avoiding pain, are “flip sides” of the same coin, and both obscure the deeper sense of Self that resides beyond this duality.
In my last post, I mentioned two essential, dymanic practices and principles of yoga. The first is Abhyāsa, the effort and practice of placing one’s attention fully at a chosen point of focus. Abhyāsa creates the power of harnessing and directing the mind and its thoughts. But, just like wings on a bird or a plane, there needs to be a counterbalance. One is not enough. With just effort, there can come attachment to the fruits of that effort and the lure of defining self through past experiences. In the Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad Gītā, the counterbalance is Vairāgya.
more on Vairāgya in the next post…
Abhyāsa & The Yoga of Action
08 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
in Counseling, Sanskrit
The central theme in the Bhagavad Gītā is action; yoga being the willingness to act fully and completely without attachment to the results. For this to happen, two essential, dynamic, and highly practical principles of yoga, described both in the Gītā and in the Yoga Sutras, need to be cultivated.
The first of these principles is abhyāsa. Abhyāsa is the effort of placing one’s attention at a chosen point of focus. This effort (not to be confused with “struggle”) is something that becomes a practice by allowing it to blossom over a long period of time; to be refined through continual application, and to be brought alive through an attitude of devotion. Abhyāsa is one of the fundamental keys to living a life rich with committment — committment to fully be in the moment and to let it go as it passes.
In my counseling practice, one of the most common issues that clients face is the fear of committment. This often comes from the fear that choosing one thing fully will eliminate the ability to choose other things, and results in the feeling of being trapped. In the attempt to keep free, we refrain from action. However, refusing to act is actually what traps us. When we are afraid to act, we try to hold ourselves in place — treading water as the current of life flows by. As we do this, suffering occurs.
Also, we fear committment in action because we have been trained to think that we need to know what the results of our actions are going to be before we act. We want a guarantee that everything will turn out exactly as our egos think it should. From this place of control (which is the anthesis to growth), comes the demand that says “I want to grow and change….but I need it to look exactly as I think it should be.” This becomes the very thing that stands in the way of growth.
Another reason that we fear committment is that, both culturally and personally, we deeply fear making mistakes. This comes from the false preception that says that we ARE our choices, rather than the empowered realization that we MAKE our choices. We are afraid that if we make a mistake, we ARE that mistake. This misperception, born from shame, keeps us paralyzed and afraid to act.
From the perspective of the Bhagavad Gītā, yoga is equanimity in both success and failure. The willingness to learn from both our successes and our mistakes and to use them equally as vehicles for growth and self-realization, is the essence of yoga in action.
Committment only looks frightening from the outside in. Once there is committment to action, the very willingness to act brings with it a deep sense of peace and freedom.
As an exercise, take a moment to think about abhyāsa – the willingness to place your full attention at a chosen point of focus. What is one thing that you want to place your attention on? It can be anything that you choose. For one week, take some time in your day, it can be 5 minutes, and fully commit to placing your attention on this thing. As you do that, practice consciously releasing any attachment to the result from your action. Act simply for the sake of acting.
Interview for Namaskar Magazine
25 Jun 2011 1 Comment
in Uncategorized
I was interviewed for the June, 2011 issue of Hong Kong-based yoga magazine Namaskar.
Here is the interview….
First Morning in Bali
10 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized
First morning in Bali! Wow, it is an epic trip to get here from California, but so well-worth it when surrounded by this beauty.
The first leg of the trip, from SFO to Taipei, was on a plane that China Airlines must have had in service since before the cultural revolution. In the safety video, the voice said “please do not use your cellular telephones or CB radios (!!) until instructed”. Excuse me…CB radios? What decade are we in? And I was so looking forward to connecting with all of my Chinese trucker friends on the flight!
xie xie, good buddy.
Also, it is clear that China Airlines feels that 3 inches of leg-room is ample. The guy in front of me essentially reclined into my lap for the better part of 13 hours! Since I couldn’t really see the one blurry screen towards the front of the plane (that I believe was showing a movie from circa. 1987) I put the blanket that they gave me over my head, american burka-style, and then listened to the audiobook of Game of Thrones as we flew through the night towards paradise.
A bowl of congee in the Taipei airport, while having a 3 hour layover and before a 5 hour flight to Bali (on a brand new, all amenities included China Airlines flight…go figure) was warming to heart and belly. Inexplicably, they only offered darjeeling or earl grey tea at the airport.
Still, after close to 30 hours, door to door, I am at the splendid Anahata Resort, located in the hills of Ubud, amidst rice fields and the verdant jungle. Spectacular doesn’t quite do justice in describing the surroundings. The air is thick with the intoxicating scents of foliage and flowers that I have never seen before, much less know the names of.
Woke up at 4am to practice yoga under the pyramid-shaped thatched roof of the yoga room, then sat with my mom (the supreme travel companion) on the open-air deck of the veranda, drinking taiwanese oolong (baochong) and watching the first rays of morning catch on the jungle and throw prisms of light in all directions. Something has to be very right in this world to allow for such sublime beauty.
I am really happy to be here…
Vintage Hindu Deity Prints
05 Mar 2011 4 Comments
in Art
In the summer of 2000, I stumbled into a dusty Indian gift shop on the lower East Side in NYC. The shop was overflowing with dresses, trinkets and knick-knacks. It was owned by a sweet Indian man who made me chai in a little tin cup that he held over a sterno-filled burner which looked like it could explode any second! The tea was industrial strength, brewed for what seemed like the better part of a week, to which he added the requisite 6 tablespoons of sugar. If you ever had a cup of chai there, sleep that night was pretty much out! This became part of our ritual on this, and subsequent visits.
While foraging around his shop that first day, I came across a stack of Hindu deity prints in a ramshackle pile by the back wall. They seemed modern (like everything else in the shop) – bright colored Gods and Goddesses that had a kitschy, Bollywood vibe to them. After going through about 20 or so, I put them down, not really interested. It was then that I noticed the corner of one of the prints near the bottom poking out. The colors looked different; more subdued but radiating intensity. I pulled that print out and felt my breath catch as I saw an incredibly beautiful image of Krishna staring back at me. Whoa, this was art with soul! I asked the owner about the print and he said “Oh yes, you are liking the old ones. Not so many these days.”
Over the last 11 years I’ve been collecting these old prints when I can find them; finding some in dusty shops, some brought back from friends traveling to India, and more recently from a wonderful couple who are modern art dealers (for their day job) but have a passion for the antique deity prints and go far and wide within India to collect them.
Deity prints have been used for over a century in India as an integral part of devotional life. In India, the prints aren’t pictures of the Gods – the ARE the gods! And, as with anything, when you imbue it with devotion, it becomes sacred. And there is indeed something undeniably sacred about these prints to me, especially the ones from the early days (pre 1930s) — the “golden age” of oleographic printing . In the 1930s, when offset printing and a change in aesthetics (color, style, etc) took root in India, the prints took on a different flavor. There were still incredible prints being produced at that time (and later) but the early prints have a special quality that is all their own.
Art tends to move circularly and things that were once dismissed as common can become all the rage, staying like that for some undetermined amount of time before receding out of the public view. In the past several years, perhaps coinciding with the wild-fire popularity of yoga on the world stage, there has been great resurgence of interest in the deity prints, both within India itself as it rediscovers its own art, and throughout the Western world. As a result, these classic prints are becoming scarce and, as a natural by-product, expensive. Part of it has to do with the fragile nature of the medium and the fact that India has a climate that is not conducive to paper remaining in good condition for a century or more. Factoring all of these things together, when one finds a vintage deity print from the “golden age”, it should be cause for celebration!
I only have so much wall space, and I do have a love for sharing what I’m interested in, so… for the last couple of years, from time to time, I’ve been selling a small selection of these beautiful, antique prints — lucky survivors which have escaped the ravages of time and have remained preserved in lovely condition. I mostly sell to yoga friends and to friends of yoga friends — to people who have an appreciation for these things. It is very low-key — a fun hobby shared, much more than a business.
I usually have a dozen or so beautiful prints on hand. If interested, drop me an note and I can send photos/prices, etc.
सत्यम् सुन्दरम - truth is beauty
