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Another Toy Story

“Life is a sum of all your choices.”
-Albert Camus

A teacher appeared for me last week, in the guise of a 5 year old. The setting: the toy section at Wal- Mart, two boys (5 and 7) and a $20 budget (explained beforehand).

The boys were on a quest for the most powerful Yugioh cards this side of the universe and I was looking for a way to entertain them on a rainy day, as their last-minute-stand-in-not so-Super Nanny.

In less than a minute, the older one decided that K-Mart had a bigger and better selection and they both agreed to my decree: "we will NOT be coming back to Wal-Mart if you don't find what you want at K- Mart." Reacting with glee to the queen's ruling, my little knights marched on ahead of me until we reached the evil Clearance Items toll bridge!

The toy trolls are a savvy bunch and their child-level lures grabbed the 5 year old's awareness. "I need this, and this, and this! I beg of you!!!" Who taught him how to speak to a queen?

After a few minutes of being reminded of his spending budget, he narrowed it down to a set of Matchbox race cars with a Monster Mummy Track (see how bad the toy trolls can be?). Now it was time for his final decision. I had to remind him that if he chose this toy, he was giving up the chance to buy anything at K-Mart.

What followed was the most brilliant display of a 5 year old brain at work: First, a bit of whining. I want this AND I want Yugioh cards. You have to buy them for me. Hmmmm. No immediate effect, she's even smiling...I don't know how long I have to whine before she gives in and time is of the essence. Next, let's try to entice my older brother to buy something so we won't even go to K-mart. That's the ticket. Look at this! You can make monster food. It doesn't look good but I'm sure it will taste good! Drat, no sale. Third try, plead guilty. I can't make a desidjun! I can't!

Luckily, I was long on time and patience and the older brother was very understanding and generously patient. A bit of explaining about making choices, acknowledging the difficulty to do so and dodging the stream of passers-by, led finally to a lesson on coin tossing. Of course, none of the tosses landed correctly. We tried a bigger coin. When the coin toss turned into a game of its own, it was time for the ultimatum.

What I really wanted here was a happy decision and a happy boy. No prisoners. "All right. You have to decide now and you have to decide to be happy with this toy, or happy to go to K-Mart and make a choice there....or make no choices and have nothing."

As though I had knighted him Sir Happy, my dear friend picked up the toy, we paid the toll and rode off to the kingdom of K-Mart. He didn't ask for any Yugioh cards, though tried to tempt his brother with some videos. When we left K-Mart, big brother couldn't wait to open his set of cards, but the Mummy Matchbox Race Set sat on the car floor, unopened. A happy 5 year old sat singing and smiling over his decision.

How often do we agonize while trying to make a decision because we fixate on all the unhappy possibilities? What if we find out that we want that and not this? We don't want to make bad choices but in reality they are simply, choices.

ToysR(NOT)us. We just want the joy and happiness that we think they'll bring. We love choices but loathe to choose. What would happen if we consciously held happiness as our guide to choosing? We'd have to trust our emotions and quiet the fears of things that may never happen. I suspect there would be more singing and smiling in all kingdoms, this side of the universe and back.

Photo: Artbandito

A Life of Sundays

When any experience of body, heart, or mind keeps repeating in consciousness, it is a signal that this visitor is asking for a deeper and fuller attention.
-Jack Kornfield

When I sit down to write this part of my weekly message, there's often a theme or thread that has run through my life for the last seven days that inspires me. I'm usually able to find a picture and a quote with ease but distilling the theme down to a few cogent paragraphs sometimes takes hours. I might be satisfied with an article in the morning and then come back and wipe it out in the afternoon. But by the time I press the send key, I've understood my lesson, run spellcheck and sent a copy to my e-mail to be sure that all the embedded links work correctly.

I have come to cherish my Sundays for that simple act of defining the past week and the act of completion. When my eyes open on Monday morning, they're looking forward to What's Next.

The other reason why Sundays are so special is that I have a standing dinner date with my parents: their home, my mom cooks. It's a steady, constant rhythm much like a heartbeat. I take all of the bits and pieces of my week and tie them neatly together on Sunday. The following six days are all a bonus.

I know that I truly love and guard my Sundays because it's so easy to say no to everything else. I'd like to find more days within the week to claim sacrosanct. That, was constantly on my mind last week so I'm about to pay fuller and deeper attention to it.

Photo: skier_abc

Looking for more Sundays

Some people look forward to Sundays as a time to take long naps, do the crosswords or do nothing. Are Sunday's enjoyable for you? Tell us. Inquiring minds want to know!

Is any other day of the week more special to you? Why?

If you're new to blog commenting, here's a little tip sheet: Geek to Live: Lifehacker's guide to weblog comments.

Photo:Lukim

Intention is like seeding the future.

"All doubt, despair, and fear become insignificant once the intention of life becomes love, rather than dependence on love."
-Sri da Avabhas

Muhammad Ali is on the cover of the latest Ode magazine as one of the featured sports champions who has mastered the power of intention. Ali used mental skills such as affirmations, mental rehearsals and rhyming mantras that enhanced his physical performance.

Stellar athletes, according to the article, learn how to block out images that represent doubt. The most productive and important intention of all for these performers is to envision their victory.

Psychologist Jeanne Achterberg, who leads a workshop this weekend in Hawi, is mentioned in the Ode article for her study of cancer patients and the effectiveness of their visualizations. Achterberg maintains that patients who practice regular, vivid mental rehearsals using powerful imagery and symbols while holding a clear intention, are able to successfully recover from illness.

Lynne McTaggart, author of The Intention Experiment: Using Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World , addresses recorded cases of spontaneous remission and suggests that wrong thinking often leads to illness and that "casual thoughts that run through our minds every day together become our life’s intention".

If humans are able to harness the power of intention and become world class athletes or overcome life threatening illnesses, should we not be able to use those same techniques in all areas of our daily lives...with ease?

I think we do, quite masterfully. So be careful what you wish for.

Read the Ode article by Lynne McTaggart, "The Power of Intention".

McTaggart is planning an Intention Experiment to take place on March 24, 2007. "THE INTENTION EXPERIMENT is going to test whether this effect gets stronger, the more people think the same thought at the same time."

Photo:Vijay Barve

A Heart Beats Away!

“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
-Joseph Campbell
The Mars Orbiter Camera captured this image of a heart-shaped hill some 279 yards wide on the south polar region of the planet.

The human race has developed the technology to peer millions of miles out into space and to project and reflect sentiments of love and care from a distant planet.  Man is also capable of looking deep within the human body to witness beating heart cells, awed by the persistence of nature.

Curiously, whenever a new year marches in we become aware of being a bit off beat and do a little hop,skip and jump to try and catch up. Yes, I'm speaking of resolutions and goals for the new year. It's a natural urge: to grow and improve.

Highly evolved as we are, we tend to begin each year with similar declarations. Similar to those of others and similar to our lists of years past.

We all do some amazing things out there in the world. Most of us create, change, save and/or better the lives of others. Yet when it comes to those things we'd like to do for ourselves, it's stop procrastinating, drink more water, lose weight, etc. Don't we deserve all of that and more?

I like the idea of developing a new habit every month, as this blog suggested in 2006. Aside from the author's mundane "drink more water" habit, his thesis sounds much more doable than an entire list of resolutions to be worked on from Day One. What do you really want to be, do or have in the new year? Let's come up with goals that will make our old resolutions look timid and meager.

The old year is usually represented by a weary Father Time, hobbling off into oblivion and the new year comes eagerly crawling in as a baby. Let's resolve to put some joy into this next year, let's make this baby laugh with glee!

Rumor Mirror

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.
-Charles Dickens
    Last night a rumor circulated about a major earthquake and tsunami that was to hit Hawaii today. My son told me that it was a rumor and when I relayed it to others around me, I also said it was a rumor. I suppose that's how a rumor keeps on going.

Even if the authorities send messages to the contrary and even though we know that no one can predict earthquakes, we've been experiencing a few jolts lately so the rumor seemed plausible.

What I found comforting after talking to my mom and my son, was that we all planned to go on with our day as scheduled. Hit or miss, there was nothing we could do about it. Our reactions made me happy.

I later checked my e-mail and this is the message for Monday from Tricycle's Daily Dharma:

A Mirror

According to the wisdom of Buddha, we can actually use our lives to prepare for death. We do not have to wait for the painful death of someone close to us or the shock of terminal illness to force us into looking at our lives. Nor are we condemned to go out empty-handed at death to meet the unknown. We can begin, here and now, to find meaning in our lives. We can make of every moment an opportunity to change and to prepare--wholeheartedly, precisely, and with peace of mind--for death and eternity. In the Buddhist approach, life and death are seen as one whole, where death is the beginning of another chapter of life. Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected. --Sogyal Rinpoche

All of our power is in the present, whether dealing with a rumor or an actual disaster. We can still choose our reaction. Have a great day!

Photo: Kelsey1086

The Power of Speech

I want a language that speaks the truth. -Studs Terkel

    A few Saturdays ago, this message from Tricycle's Daily Dharma was the topic of the Yoga for Women's class:

"Speech is a powerful force. But how much attention do we pay to our speech? . . . Do we actually bring some wisdom and sensitivity to our speaking? What is behind our speech, what motivates it? Does something really have to be said?
When I was first getting into the practice of thinking and learning about speech, I conducted an experiment. For several months I decided not to speak about any third person; I would not speak to somebody about somebody else. No gossip. Ninety percent of my speech was eliminated.
Before I did that I had no idea that I had spent so much time and energy engaged in that kind of talking. It is not that my speech had been particularly malicious, but for the most part it had been useless. I found it tremendously interesting to watch the impact this experiment had on my mind. As I stopped speaking in this way, I found that one way or another a lot of my speech had been a judgment about somebody else. By stopping such speech for a while, my mind became less judgmental, not only of others, but also of myself, and it was a great relief." -Joseph Goldstein

Mr. Goldstein tried this for a month, how about trying it for a week? Except for the instances when you need to convey a need for someone on their behalf, if someone is not present, don't talk about her.

Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson

Please call back...

Does this only happen to our phone at Kona Yoga: people call and ask for directions to the studio or to get a list of classes and you can understand everything they say except their phone number?

• "Please call me at four-oh-five-thhehdhshd-two-eight-nweidfaks."

"We're staying at the Kona-waka-mole Hotel. Please call us back at ???-????." (No room number or name, Kona??? Hotel).

I'm sure some visiting yogins have wondered why we never returned their call but cell phone messages with spotty reception are a challenge. It has prompted me to say my phone number twice, slowly, whenever I want someone to call me back. Bottom line: if you leave a message at 808-331-1301 and don't get a return call within 24 hours, please call us back. We really would love to talk to you!

Photo by Gosiak

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Variations of the blind men and the elephant story are the result of what lesson is being imparted. One could argue that each of the blind men are describing different aspects of the 'truth' so they are all correct within their own experience. The other would suggest that holding on to your point of view disallows a larger truth to be discovered.

It's a brilliant parable. We have different points of view depending upon our experiences and opportunities. We all have our blind spots too, whether conscious or unconscious.

Newscasts often remind me of this painting and then I envision all of us spread out on planet earth proclaiming our "grip" of reality as true and right. It must be pretty funny to an on-looker, alien or omnipotent. Then I speculate on how change would begin. Somewhere it develops, the faith that would allow a few people to release their grip and work their way over to the loudest outcry. They then begin to realize that they're in it (on it) together by trading views.

Walking a mile in someone's shoes didn't work. I have hope in technology. I sat at home yesterday and received and exchanged ideas with people across 3 time zones. Then articles, pictures, and videos flashed before me from my computer and left me richer with thoughts and emotions without me even walking out my front door.

All that seems to be needed is the desire to understand others, and the comfort of knowing that releasing our hold of this physical world, takes us to something bigger and better! Why argue for a white elephant? 

Here's a sampling of my web-weaving for the day:

Free Hugs. A YouTube video with a happy ending.

Steven Wiltshire (5:15 minute video).This is a man, an artist savant, with an exceptional ability to see, recall, and reconstruct.

A Good Argument. What's an argument? Why argue? How to argue creatively.

Point of View on PBS. 

Yoga for Teachers

Betsy Cole, deputy director of the Kohala Center, sent me an article regarding yoga for teachers:

Lessons from Yoga
Beyond toning the body, yoga conditions the mind to think about teaching and learning through a powerful pedagogical paradigm. Yoga workshops for teachers are popping up in school districts all over the United States. The summer issue of Educational Leadership examines a program called Yoga Ed that has led hundreds of California teachers through a yoga training program that integrates yoga into public school curriculum.

I found it fitting for teachers of all subjects, even yoga.

Read the entire article.