The Unknown World

tomorrow
yesterday
later today
an hour ago:

it's all "unreal"
in a certain sense

and the more we sense
ourselves
and
live
right
here
right now

the more
all of that
doesn't matter

and is that any way
to love

yes

because that person
in front of us
who "did something wrong"
last week
and therefore
we can get worked up
because they "might"
do something wrong again
next week
or tomorrow

right now:
they are just the person
in front of us

now,
they may be yammering away
totally asleep
and can we wake up
to our beauty
and theirs
underneath the yammer
right
now

can we listen
for the love
of life
that is trying
to pour
forth
from their hearts
and ours
right now

the unknown world:
what's inside of another person
what's inside of us

and yet,
there
are hints
aren't there

ah
sweet

what's missing in yoga therapy, physical therapy, chiropractic

In these three,
the human body
is like a machine,
a car say,
and when the car is broken,
you get it back into
alignment,
or you adjust this
or that,
and then it can go back
to being a good bone
and muscle
and posture machine.

in feldenkrais,
the job is more like
this:
you are a chetah
that thinks and acts
like you are a car;
how to wake you
back up to realizing
the grace
and power
and beauty
of being a chetah

and how is that done:
by learning
and discovery
and transformation

not therapy<
but expansion:
how can we tap
into forgetten abilities
to learn
and to change
and to become new
and newer
and newest

that's what's
possible

Beyond Strength and Flexibility

In a Feldenkrais class
a teacher doesn't have the problem of "What to do
with students at different levels?"
since the work is so slow
and awareness oriented.

But in a yoga class,
where people come wanting to improve
strength and flexibility,
what is a teacher to do
if people come at all sorts of different levels.

How can the class be made challenging for all.

Well,
heck,
let's try a whole list of ways to challenge people
in a yoga class starting with these two.

So.
challenges:
strength
flexibility

what else:
awareness
presence
ability to go beyond habits
i.e. non-competitiveness
self love
love in general
joy in general
curiosity
attention to inner states
attention to inner habitual judgments
ability to not judge ourselves
ability to come back to present
ability to come back from "edges"
ability to follow the breathing
ability to discover something new inside ourselves
ability to enjoy the process

loving now
really
isn't that the greatest challenge
and the one
that gives
the biggest payoff??

What happens when we realize
we are asleep
and want to live a more full and awake
and wonderful life?

we can go right back to sleep
by telling ourselves that
we waited so long to discover this

we can go to a more interesting sleep
and make a dedicated vow to be all
the time awake

we can cultivate an awareness of what
we like
what we love
in the moments of beign awake

we can cultivate a taste for the difference
a hunger for the real
a subtle alertness to the quality of our life

we can laugh when we wake with a start
to knowing
once more
that this now
is it
this is our life

we can smile with happiness
and breathe a sigh of relief:
ah,
i'm home again.
i'm here
i'm now,

what is my life right now?

hmm.
how nice to realize that is
a fine
and fun
and fruitful
place to put out attention:

what is my life right now?

hopefully
there is love
and amusement
and some little sweet and amazing
challenge

Affirmations

Up here in Ananda land
they are big on affirmations,

they gave out an all purpose one
that i find quite nice

maybe you'll like it:

I GO FORTH IN TOTAL FAITH
IN THE POWER OF OMNIPRESENT GOOD
TO BRING ME ALL I NEED
AT THE TIME I NEED IT

and then i like

I AM ALIVE
AND I LOVE TO LIVE
AND LOVE TO LOVE WHAT IS IN ME
AND AROUND ME
IN EVERY MOMENT

who knows?

Relationship heaven and hell

Talking to some people at the farmer’s market, I commented that the reason I was writing the book on relationship heaven, relationship hell was that I’d spent so many years in relationship hell, and had discovered that to make the shift only took a few shifts of attention. But without these shifts, the hell was hard to avoid. With these shifts, heaven was easy.

They asked the obvious question: tell us a couple of the shifts. Okay, I said.

One: come into the present. Get quiet in your mind and look at your partner. Let go the stories of what they did wrong yesterday, what they are supposed to be later that day. Just breathe, sense yourself and pay attention to them now. Being in the present and being in love are very close. Very.

Two: use nature as your model. Think of how you approach a redwood tree. Do you want it to weigh ten pounds less? Love you more? Think you are wonderful? Or do you just dig it for what it is? That’s the way to think of your partner, as you would think of anything in nature, a rose, a tree, the ocean. For that is what we all are, a miracle of life and nature.

Three: give yourself what you think they should give you. This is called the “TURNAROUND” in the Work of Byron Katie, found at www.thework.org (The Work of Byron Katie forms a nice chunk of my book; for me it's the way out of suffering when my mind won't shut up and let me back to the present; it's a marvelous set of very simple, very effective tools for transforming unhappiness and confusion into presence, love and peace). If you think they should love you more, love yourself more. If you think they should support you more, support yourself more. If you think they should stop being critical of you, you stop being critical of you.

Four: give them, what you think they should give you. Again, this is part of the TURNAROUND. If they should listen to you more, listen to them more. If they should stop lying to you, you should stop lying to them. (Get brutally, and humorously honest with yourself, and you will always discover how you are doing what you are accusing them of doing.) If you think they should stop criticizing you, you stop criticizing them.

That’s the short version.

Even the long version in the book will be less than a hundred pages. It’s all pretty simple, take the wisdom of now, or nature and love and bring that to yourself and your partner.