Entitlement Ruins Gratitude

Every year around my birthday I like to take stock of the past twelve months--what was awesome (seeing Stevie Wonder in concert), what changed (I moved in with my boo),  what challenged me (balancing work and art), what just sucked (my grandmother's house burned down). It’s like a personal New Year. Gratitude for all of those things, even the sucky ones, is something I’m working to cultivate, and it doesn’t happen just by thinking, “Oh, I’d like to feel more gratitude in my life.” It’s a choice, and it’s a practice. And life promises ample opportunities to do the practice.

Recently I was biking with a friend. We passed through an intersection in which the other street had a stop sign and we did not. The driver at the stop sign waved us through, and my friend mouthed “Thank you!” and waved backed. I was incensed.

“Why are you telling him thank you? We have the right of way!! He had a stop sign!! He had to stop!!!”

She was surprised at my fury, to say the least. I argued that to say thank you was encouraging drivers to think of giving bikers the right of way as a courtesy rather than a necessity, something they might just as easily choose to ignore. My friend countered that when a driver was friendly, being friendly back might help them to have a more positive view of cyclists. And besides, she felt better inside when she was friendly rather than self-righteous. Oh, I said.

Entitlement is the killer of gratitude.

When we feel entitled to something (a possession, a job, a roadway, a societal position), it squelches in us the ability to feel grateful for having it. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some things that are basic human rights that we all should feel entitled to, and be angry about when we don’t have them (or when others don’t have them, for that matter), and fight to get them. But there are many other smaller things that we think we deserve that maybe we don’t, things that we think belong to us, that actually belong to no one, or to everyone.

There’s an Ani Difranco lyric that I’ve carried around in my heart since high school (yes, don’t laugh, I was once a devoted Ani Difranco fan) that sums up my position here:

 

The world owes me nothing, and we owe each other the world.

I’ve started thanking drivers on my bike more often than not. Being grouchy to drivers certainly isn’t helping anyone. I don’t get it right every time, but I’m practicing. When entitlement creeps up, I try to find gratitude instead. Because ultimately, I feel better inside when I’m grateful instead of entitled. And I think those drivers on the road do too.

uch love,

Bear

The Bounds of Compassion

I have felt immense compassion in the past couple of month for my friends, loved ones, and acquaintances who have been the victims of violence around the city. This is easy--they are my friends, I care about them, I don’t want them to hurt.

But quickly my mind goes to all the people in the city who suffer and have suffered violence--people who I don’t know, who don’t look like me. Can I extend compassion towards them, these people who are the victims of crimes that might never even be reported?

And then I think of the perpetrators of this violence. What kind of suffering must a person go through to put them in a position to be able to commit violence? Can I feel the same compassion for a person who attacked someone I care about? Can I imagine them as a person with wants and needs, hopes and dreams? With friends and family who love them? Can I imagine this person laughing?

What happens to us when feel compassion towards others is that we open ourselves to their suffering, and ultimately, to their humanity. We see through the illusion that we are separate. Our hearts open and soften. We grow wider, more expansive.

I’ve been thinking about all of these things as I watched the horrendous events unfold in Paris last weekend. Quickly my newsfeed was filled with Eiffel Tower peace signs and French flags. And then started appearing the images of Beirut from days earlier, which had been absent until then. If we feel compassion towards Paris and the people there who are frightened and grieving, can we also extend that compassion towards the people of Beirut, whose trauma fails to make the news? Can we extend compassion towards Syrian refugees, who are fleeing from their drought-ridden war-torn homeland? How many of us can remember when we once also wore the moniker of 'refugee', fleeing our city ten years ago because of a terrible combination of mother nature and governmental failure?

The poet Rumi says “Your task is not to seek for love, but to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” This week in class we’ve done a Buddhist Metta (lovingkindness) meditation--this is a practice to help us break down the barriers we’ve built against love and compassion. Below are the words we’ve recited all week, and here is a free Tara Brach guided Metta meditation.

May you be at peace. 

May your heart remain open.

May you awaken to the Light of your own true nature.

May you be healed.

May you be a source of healing for all beings everywhere.

Much love, 

Bear

Hopelessly Devoted

I’ve been practicing yoga now for nearly ten years--a relatively short time compared to some, but a lifetime for me. The only other constants in my life for that long are my mama, my best friend, and New Orleans. My relationship with yoga has been a deep, wild affair from the start. I started practicing yoga in 2006, shortly after “The Katrina,” (as my Gretna friend calls it).

I was falling in love, but I wasn’t ready to commit. I went to classes fairly regularly, but I didn’t understand how to practice on my own, and I wasn’t really interested in that, to be honest. I liked going to class, having someone guide me, and being in the company of other sweaty, struggling bodies. I needed that external voice, and those external bodies, to encourage me to keep going.

I didn’t get serious about yoga until 2008. I had finally graduated from college (I was on the 7 year plan), moved back to New Orleans, and was trying to figure out what to do next. I was flailing, waiting tables full time at two restaurants, going out too often, drinking too much, sleeping too little. I had an inkling that I might want to teach yoga. And I figured if I was going to teach yoga, I should probably do a whole lot more of it.

So I started going to classes all the time, three or four times a week, and I finally, finally, started practicing at home. At first it was just a few Sun Salutations (and let’s be real, that’s often all I squeeze in even now.) And slowly, over time, I developed the capacity for a longer practice on my own. I learned to listen to myself, to hear the instructions of my teachers, to trust my own intuition. I found this thing called devotion. I still like to have a fancy cocktail every now and then, but my priorities have shifted.

My practice continues to evolve, and I don’t believe we’re ever finished, but for the most part, yoga is what brings me back to myself over and over. It’s the thing that holds up all the other parts of my life: my art-making, my relationships, the big picture, the minutia. It’s firmly rooted, stable, and solid. It has become my foundation. It’s not easy (as described in last week’s post), but it is truly transformative. I’m glad I’ve settled down.

Much love, 

Bear

Working Hard? Or Hardly Working? {Sutra 1.13}

by Paul Green via Unsplash

Sutra 1.13: Tatra Sthitau Yatnah Abhayasa

Practice means striving to be there.

Quieting the mind comes in many forms, but it doesn’t come free for any of us. This is the real work of the yoga practice. The dedicated effort of moving towards stillness is called abhyasa in Sanskrit. In the Sutras, it’s paired with vairagya or non-attachment. Both of these, practice and detachment, must be held in tandem, in balance, in order to move towards quieting the mind.

But we must start with effort. Donna Farhi, in her great book which I often quote, Bringing Yoga To Life, describes this as the running start we all must take. It’s standing to pump the pedals before you bike up a hill. This effortful effort is necessary to give us momentum. Without it, we’re forever inert, stalled out and stagnant at the bottom of the hill.

And it likely won’t be easy. One translation describes abhyasa as a “continuous struggle.” There are many obstacles to overcome--fear of failure, as in, ‘I might screw this up, so why bother trying?’; perfectionism, as in, ‘I already screwed this up so I’ll just quit now, thank you’; pain, as in ‘This is uncomfortable in my body or heart, and thus, I’ll be done now never to return’; and laziness, ie, ‘It would be so much nicer to just keep eating Halloween candy and watching Fleetwood Mac videos on Youtube,’ (or maybe that’s just me?)

But this steady discipline, this persistent effort, this persevering practice known as abhyasa, is what paves the path for our transformation. It’s a straight shot back to your own essence, a direct line to who you really are. And it’s so worth it.

Much love, 

Bear

You think you're your thoughts...{Sutra 1.4}

via www.oilae.com

But you’re not!

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are super clear on this one. When the mind is still and quiet, ie, in a state of YOGA, then we have the capacity to see ourselves for all our luminous wholeness. But, say the sutras (specifically 1.4), most of the time, we misidentify with the stream of thoughts passing through the mind.

Referencing the post from a couple of weeks ago, we think we are the glitter shaking in the snow globe, when really we’re the unicorn in the center. And it’s not that there’s anything wrong with glitter, aka your thoughts, it’s just that that’s not who you are. But it’s hard to tell when the glitter is just everywhere, and you know it’s always everywhere. Glitter, like your mind, is hard to control.

A more traditional metaphor is this: You are the ocean. Waves happen on the surface of the ocean. They roll and roil, splash and crash, but ultimately, they settle back into the broad expanse of ocean. They are part of the ocean. But they are not the ocean. In the same way, when thoughts and feelings arise, we often get confused and think we are those thoughts. We think, I AM sad, I AM angry, I AM blissful, I AM anxious, when we really only FEEL sad, angry, blissful, anxious.

And this misidentification makes us suffer. The waves of our thoughts toss us around and we go under, flailing. Eventually we emerge, sputtering and breathless. But we’re really much more vast and spacious than any one particular wave. The waves settle, and we can see clearly again.

So this then, is why we practice, to find moments in which the waves subside, or in which we can dive beneath them, to be held in that vast, calm, spaciousness that underpins our existence.

Much love,

Bear

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Do Whatcha Wanna {Sutra 1.39}

via Storyville

Last week we focused on all the various methods the Yoga Sutras offer us to quiet the mind, but the last one on the list is definitely worth mentioning. After listing all the different things you can concentrate your mind upon in order to make it stable, Sutra 1.39 says,

“...OR CONCENTRATE ON ANYTHING AT ALL THAT YOU LIKE!” (emphasis mine.)

In essence, try all these different techniques, and if none of those work, fine, okay, concentrate on any old thing that pleases you and the mind will chill out. I love this because it reminds me that it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.

The techniques and formal practices are so useful, don’t get me wrong here, but if they’re not working, feel free to quiet the mind in some other way. When I’m drawing, or sewing, or chopping vegetables, or working in the dirt, or even washing dishes, often my mind goes quiet, in the same way that my mind goes quiet when I’m in Savasana at the end of a yoga class. Psychologists sometimes call this being in a “flow state,” where you are completely immersed in what you are doing.

Just like in a formal meditation practice, the state brought on by these mind-quieting activities can also make clear to us who we really are. And that’s the point, at least according to Patanjali, of all this effort anyway, to “abide in your own true nature” (Sutra 1.3).

Have you experienced that kind of “flow state”? What quiets your mind outside of formal meditation practices? And are you able to see yourself more clearly afterwards? How does that change the way you walk through the world?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Much love,

Bea

Glitter For Brains...{Yoga Sutras 1.34-37}

...Or, How To Quiet Your Mind

Lately I’ve been describing my mind as a snow globe filled with glitter, and all day long I walk around and the glitter shakes and swirls. So when I come to the yoga mat, or sit in meditation, I like to imagine that the glitter settles down, and I can see clearly the Statue of Liberty or tiny unicorn or whatever it is that’s in the middle there. My mind needs help to settle down; it’s not very good at just being quiet on its own. Thankfully for me, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras offer a whole host of methods to get the mind to be still. My very loose paraphrasing of Sutras 1.34-37 is as follows:

“The mind becomes stabilized by concentrating on the breath, the sensations of the body, the ever-present Light within, or some other being that is actually stable.”

All of these different methods can work for us. The breath is first, I think, because it’s the simplest and the most readily available. The sensations of the body help me to get out of my over-analytical brain and back into my arms and legs, fingers and toes, and remember that I’m not just a disembodied snowglobe walking around. The ever present Light within is a little more esoteric but connects me with that same Light that lives in all of us--I’m not alone in my experiences. Goddesses and gurus don’t really do it for me, but my favorite stable beings in town are the ancient oak trees in City Park. (Did you know some of them are more than 800 years old?)

There is no single approach to yoga. It’s a complex lineage with a varied history that all point back to the heart of this simple practice. Find what works for you to stabilize your mind, because when your mind is quiet, you're able to see yourself clearly, luminous and without separation.

Much love,

Bear

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Putting Your Yoga Into Action {Sutra 1.33 Maitri}

Nola to Angola

Practicing maitri:
Compassion for those who are suffering

This week in class we’ve been looking at ways to take compassionate action against injustice--how to take the lessons of the yoga practice off the mat, so to speak. As you’ve heard me say in class, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, and Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate of all fifty states, so we’re currently living in the prison capitol of the world.

And the way we incarcerate people largely depends on the color of their skin--black people are imprisoned at rates six times higher than white people, to say nothing of other populations that are also disproportionate imprisoned. This is big, systemic, messed up stuff we’re talking about.

Yoga, to me, is not a means for escaping the overwhelming, distressing realities of our world and culture. Rather, it’s a way to find steadiness inside myself so I’m able to be more present to these realities, which is the first step to undoing them.

Nola to Angola is a solidarity bike ride that aims both to raise awareness about our prison problem in Louisiana, and to raise funds for the Cornerstone Builders Bus Project, which provides free buses for New Orleanians to visit their loved ones in prisons across the state. These buses are often the only way people can travel to prisons, and the parents and children, spouses and friends that arrive on these buses are often the only visitors that inmates ever get.

For the past two years I’ve donated half the proceeds of one class to Nola to Angola. This year, I’m sending in half the proceeds from the whole week’s worth of classes. Lots of you gave extra to go straight to support this effort, bringing our total for the week to nearly $200. And if you didn’t make it this week, or if you want to give a little more, visit nolatoangola.org. This is one small but concrete way we can extend our compassion to those who are suffering.

It's notable here that Nola to Angola is just one organization doing work around prison issues. Many organizations, including lots of them that are helmed by people of color, have been doing this kind of work in New Orleans for years. If you're interested, you might check out BreakOut or VOTE. (Thanks to Lydia for pointing this out!) 

Let me know if you’d like to discuss these issues more--I’m always up for a talk!

Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu. May all beings everywhere be happy and free.

Much love,

Bear

P.S. If you like what I write, sign up for weekly blog posts direct to your inbox by clicking here or filling in the form below! And if you want even more connection, find me on Facebook and Instagram.