KonaYoga.com

Of Hooks and Things

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.

-Mae West

In her article titled "Don't Bite the Hook", Pema Chodron defines the Tibetan word shenpa as the root cause of aggression and craving. Someone says or does something and you immediately react with anger or distaste.  You feel a sensation in your body and without thinking, you scratch the itch or feed the craving. The hook appears and you bite without thinking. Some things are just charged with energy that forces you to respond (almost like a reflex) and you say and do things that you ordinarily wouldn't.

"It's a quality of experience that's not easy to describe but that everyone knows well", writes Chodron. I think Flip Wilson's character Geraldine, tried to explain it best by saying, "The devil made me do it!"

Chodron offers meditation as a way to learn to open and relax with all of the hooks that may appear, without picking and choosing. We can learn to diffuse the charge if we catch shenpa at an early stage, she says. I think we can also do it while physically active and moving through life.

Jehangir Palkhivala has suggested that we allow ourselves to experience santosa, or contentment, before trying to move deeper into a yoga pose: count three breaths, enjoy where you are in the present and then move and make any adjustments on the fourth breath. It takes away the urge to go directly to the edge only to hang out with the discomfort of your efforts or anxiously await the next pose. Instead, you have a chance to appreciate each step along the way.

With enough practice, it will translate as well to life off the mat. The hooks will become more visible, even when disguised by bait, and there would be no need to avoid temptation. Until then, we practice.


~~~~~~~~~
~Read "Don't Bite the Hook" by Pema Chodron in Tricycle Magazine.
~Watch Flip Wilson tell a short story about Geraldine and her preacher husband. You Tube, 2:45.

 
Image: Shumata on Flickr

Eat Food

Avoid foods that are pretending to be something they are not.  -Michael Pollan

I'm reheating my food blog, Ono Bee. While maintaining the Eat Local theme, I'm also encouraged by Michael Pollan's book Food Rules and artist Terry Border (creator of the scene above) to keep it simple and fun.

 
There's so much news and information streaming toward us on a daily basis, often conflicting what was said the month before, that most people give up trying to understand it all.  What Pollan did was seek out answers to the simple question, "What should I eat?" and came up with sixty-four simple rules which could be even further reduced to seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

I know, it sounds like marching orders for a little rabbit. That's why, the other  thing I plan to do with Ono Bee is to find good tasting, healthy foods to make at home or restaurants that serve the same.  It's bound to be good for all of us.

In the end, it's our healthcare system and our country, and while a growing number of us are shopping for fresh, local and organic food, the majority of Americans who end up in our healthcare system are not. Thus there is always a need for constant outreach and education. Excerpt from Healthcare:The High Cost of the American Diet. Organic Connections Magazine

Please stay tuned to www.OnoBee.com.  In the meantime, a few more food rules:

"It's better to pay the grocer than the doctor".
"If you are not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you are not hungry."
"Don't eat anything you aren't willing to kill yourself."

and more...

Photo: Food Art by Terry Border via GPL Teens

A Voting Decision

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-Susan Ertz

In early 2006, I was at the Verrazzano Castle winery with friends, on the outskirts of Florence. Giovanni da Verrazzano was born there and later went off to find a passage to Asia and sailed into the mouth of what would later be called the Hudson River. As she explained all this, our friendly guide tossed a sideways glance waiting for the association, a connection that my raised-in-Hawaii brain was not able to make. Later that year, I passed the Verrazzano Bridge in New York and quickly took a picture of what symbolized a joyous, albeit slow, synaptic event.

Whenever I look at this picture, my senses first remember the crisp, wood smoke scented air of a hillside in Italy and then I remember the warmth in my brother's car as we headed for the airport on a rainy morning. Then, I see the modern structure of steel and concrete. Quite a different reaction would occur though, if I passed the bridge everyday or had never experienced the other Verrazzano landmark. Luxurious, five-star hotel suite memories rise first.

I thought about this when I read Gretchen Rubin's "Dealing with Post Election Blues". Research has shown that we tend to overestimate how bad or good we will feel about a particular outcome. "The identity of the President is important, but it won't be the only thing that you think about on November 5, and December 12, and March 19, etc." Rubin says. Either way, we'll just keep on keeping on.

While we may not be able to accurately forecast the weather, the elections or the future, we can predict, very accurately, how we will feel about a particular event. Even though we might overestimate the intensity of our feelings, we know if we will feel good or bad. That becomes our story and we stick to it. With that capability, why would anyone choose to feel bad? And, if you could choose to be happy, then why wait for the future?

When I choose to feel good in the present moment, whether I'm in a castle in Italy or the back seat of a car on a rainy day, it impacts my future. When I have to pass through all of those good memories before I react, chances are that the actions I take and the decisions I make, will be in pursuit of the same.

That's it, I've made my decision. I vote to be happy no matter who becomes the 44th president of the Unites States of America and I approve this message.

Block Poster of a Blog Poster

Recipe: One blank wall, one new printer, 20 letter sized sheets of photo paper, one photograph of choice,and Block Posters.com. Upload your photo of choice (no larger than 1MB) and they will in turn give you a PDF file to print.

I used a photo of myself taken by Jerrie Stafford, turned it into a "watercolor" and took the 20 sheets and taped them together. You could cut off the borders of each print to eliminate the white lines, but I wanted the window pane effect. Five binder clips hang on picture frame hooks on the top and I added another five on the bottom just for balance and weight.

I took this photo before 6am this morning while my optic nerve was still asleep. I decided to use it anyway to give you an idea of what it is like to be near-sighted with astigmatism.

Block Posters: easy and FREE.

Full of Me?

A wonderful little reminder from Tricycle Magazine about holding an open mind:

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the cup overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. "it is overfull. No more will go in."

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" - Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones From Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

When I was a realtor, I had a client who bought and sold investment properties. She had the amazing ability to patiently ask the same questions of everyone who had anything remotely pertinent to offer. "They all have different viewpoints," she explained. "When you buy an apartment building, the janitor, rentor, owner and neighbor all see it in a different light. I want to know what they all think."

Showing up full of our own opinions and speculations may save time, but it might make for a poor investment.

Life Works

When you look at what is working, then you generate a vibration within you that says my life works, and then, in everything that you approach - your life works.

-Abraham-Hicks

If you always regard the good things that happen to you as miracles, it's a telltale sign that you might be viewing hardships and disappointments as a fact of life and to be normal for you. The old "glass is half empty" model of thought. What would the converse look like?

The Abraham-Hicks quote continues:
You could have ninety-nine things not working in your life and only one thing working, and if you would focus upon the one thing that is going right, for a disproportionate amount of time, saying "my life works; my life works; my life works..." the other 99 things would fall in line with what is working.

A crucial component is the way you feel as you speak those words, "my life works". If you're just spouting the words and still feeling angry or fearful, you won't register very high, if at all, on the Richter Scale of Happiness & Well-Being. It takes practice. You saw that coming, didn't you? Practice.

When we are new to yoga, we often have to be reminded to breathe. As our practice expands, we learn to allow our breath to become the thread that weaves through our physical movements. Then, through further practice, we are able to think of something that brings us joy as we inhale into each of the postures.

At that level of practice, every yoga class is a joy to us. The teacher, style, location or size of the class matters not. Our personal practice time becomes something to look forward to, not just an item to be checked off a list. We are able to extract joy simply through the act of inhaling.

If you have not yet experienced yoga or that aspect of it, you could begin by changing your focus. Start looking for things to appreciate that are right under your nose...even if it's just a mirror that fogs up because you're breathing.

The last part of the Abraham-Hicks article continues to say:
So when we say to count your blessings or look at the positive aspects, that's just about deliberately activating what is working in your life. Because when you do that, you get more and more, and more of that. That's how the better it gets, the better it gets - the better it gets. That's when it's easy to accept that Well-Being is the order of this Universe.

Reference: Abraham-Hicks.com: "My Life Works", March 22, 2003.

Photo:roadtomingulay

Looking Through Different Lenses

There's a great message on Senia.com today titled "6 Ways to Do SOMETHING DIFFERENTLY- exactly where you are". Her premise is, why wait to go somewhere in order to be more observant or to enjoy life? Why not do it just where you are?

Focus close-up as I did with the bottles on my windowsill, or focus wide-angle and enjoy all of the trust that every driver along with you at the 4-way stop possesses.

Today, I think I'll look for something that I haven't noticed or paid much attention to at the studio. Something to appreciate in a new way. Thanks, Senia!

4:45pm Here it is...

The studio floor. It takes a daily beating from hands and feet pressing down on yoga mats, to massage tables laden with bodies at rest. Lately, some of the underlying spackling is peeling off and exposing bare plywood and when I look at the floor I'm usually thinking about ways to replace it.

Today, I want to acknowledge our floor, represented here by the two hard working fellas who hold our movable walls in place. When I hold yoga classes and face the ocean, I look down at the floor and see them smiling up at me.

Painting the floor would have been a back breaking job if not for my years of uttanasana, and the sliding walls would not have been possible if not for the ingenious woodsmen, Albert and Mike. I think I'm going to look at the floor through softer lenses so I can see a way to transform rather than replace it.

Masking Tapes

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
-James A. Baldwin

Has your personality changed in the last five years? Psychologists have determined that we have five main characteristic traits: conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness, and extroversion. Once believed to be genetic and static after age 30, new research suggests that we do change quite often and quite a lot.(1)

It's not certain if we change in response to the situations in our lives or, if the changes we make bring about new circumstances. It's probably a combination that varies but can you imagine operating with the same habits and beliefs developed at a time when your intentions were different?

Many times, change is already under way when a person steps onto the mat for the first time. He is open to the nuances of yoga but comes to class with old methods of learning and moving his body. I see a willing body, waiting for it's owner to change his mind.

As I have been taught, I instruct "feel, don't force your body". Then, there is a visible tug-of-war between feeling and forcing. The two are welded together like conjoined twins. When the separation occurs, it is like removing a mask to reveal the joy underlying the struggle.

I've come to believe that a lot of the negative self- talk we constantly listen to are nothing but old beliefs. They sound off in the background like an ignored, but persistent TV. We exist in the present with our fresh, new personality waiting to unmask.

Photo: Veneto's Attractions
References:
(1) Personality Changes Throughout Life. New Scientist.com

Do You Hear What I Hear?

"There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls."
-Howard Thurman

I've been entertaining the flu for the past two weeks. All that's left is a lagging and unwelcome cough, but during the first week I was only able to get out of bed long enough to discern that I was alive and living somewhere in Hawaii.

I might have had a fever, I don't know. I wasn't awake long enough to feel hot or cold, or sore, or hungry. During one lucid moment I told myself that I was behaving like a retired slug!

Deprivation is a stern teacher of appreciation. As I regain my usual energy level, my senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell) are what I appreciate most. One would assume that taste would be first and foremost but I find that I'm enjoying and craving, the sense of hearing.

I'm in love with sounds of my exterior: roosters crowing, trucks braking, and birds arguing for position at the feeder that hangs from a tree outside my door. All of the sounds within my living space are melodious and rhythmic: the whirring fan in my laptop, my wind chime and refrigerator, even the the trilling geckos.

Then there are the sounds archived somewhere in the seams and folds of my brain. I remember my old friend Mr. B., singing 'I don't want to set the world on fire', as he tossed golf balls onto the mat for me, making sure I stayed on the driving range. That's a memory sound byte that's nearly 30 years old but in the last few days it's played over and over. Watching

Celine Dion sing with Elvis on tv last last week, extracted some of the most well-aged sounds within me. You do remember my Elvis-obsession- confession and my wish for a life of Elvis sitings?

We experience, interpret, and remember life through our five senses. As we grow and mature, we learn to trust and follow our own senses, rather than those of the masses. In yoga, the next evolutionary step is to release our attachment to our senses. It is the practice of pratyahara.

Here's what I interpret the yoga sutras to say about this: "You've put your senses on cruise control, auto pilot. You'll continue to believe that you have no control until you remember that YOU and cruise control are distinct and separate entities."

That might be the opportune moment to ask for what we would like our senses to perceive: everything I hear, is music to my ears; all the sounds I recall, are happy love songs; I see only what is good in people; only the foods that are good for me, taste good, etc. When our senses and/or our beliefs are held in suspension, we lie open to divine suggestions. If I truly learned a lesson, I guess my days in stupor did not mean I was ill. I just took a few days off to get better.

Listen to: I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire (by The Ink Spots)

Read: Did You Hear?, another post I wrote about the subject of hearing. The 2 comments that follow are worth the time!

Photo:CultivateGreatness.com

Yogafont

  Bill Grainger, a yogi from the UK, has created an ingenious way for us to have access to asana pictures through type fonts, yoga-type fonts. The pictures above are the result of typing KONA YOGA in Yogafont.

I had them downloaded in my old PC and had forgotten all about them until I was ready to update the Kona Yoga printed schedules this afternoon. The download is free and much too good to keep secret. Just go to Bill's site, look it over and easily download it for your own use.

I sent Bill a "Thank you" message when I first came across his fonts, I think it's time for another note of Mahalo!

YogaFont site: http://www.yogafont.co.uk/