An Unshakeable Peace

I’ve wanted to write about this idea for a while, but never had a good title or way to describe it. I want to thank Kirsten Warner for another wonderful yoga class this evening and for the final bit of inspiration to write this, and for the title.

Kirsten began the class talking about a recent retreat she was one where for most of the retreat she felt completely inspired and in one peak experience or another for most of the retreat. She was curious about how to hold that peak experience once she returned home. The teacher spoke of staying open and being present as keys to remaining in and experiencing each moment as a peak experience.

At the end of class, Kirsten offered a blessing – may we all have an unshakeable peace to live from. I don’t know if I have the blessing in full, but the words an unshakeable peace struck a chord with me. That is what I feel and what I’ve wanted to write about. I also just love the way it sounds as I say it and what goes through my body as I let it resonate.

An unshakeable peace is a knowing, in a bodily sense, of a deeper stillness or peace or resonance that is undisturbed by life, by emotions, or anything that happens during the day. There may be other words as well – silence, harmony, awareness, grace, beingness, vastness, aliveness, serenity. Some might call it God, or Source, or our Buddha nature. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, it is always there.

The first step is to start to be able to feel that peace.  Yoga is one of that perfect opportunities to begin to experience this if we can stay present in the asanas (poses) or prana (breath) or any of the eight limbs of yoga. Meditation is another frequent means of discovering that deeper stillness. There are many other ways as well – sports is one, perhaps it’s cooking and preparing a meal, or doing pottery.

Once you’ve started to notice and experience that peace, then it’s a continued practice to stay with it for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then an entire yoga class. Then it’s time to take it everywhere – when you’re grocery shopping, or driving, or eating. Even more challenging it to feel it when you’re angry or upset or feeling grief. In real, practical terms this actually means a multi-attention – paying attention to the stillness while you do a yoga pose or feeling the ground of stillness while you have an argument with a loved one.

I don’t know when I first started to actually feel that deeper peace – it’s been several years at least, but I had no words or concepts to put with it. Just something I felt. As I read more and listened to more people I came to understand exactly what Kirsten was talking about. There’s a saying – the mind, or at least the left-brain/logical brain, is always the last to know. My body knew way before my mind understood anything. Now for me it’s fairly constant. Sometime it’s stronger than others, I’ve had goosebumps for days on end from feeling this unshakeable peace and other times it’s only a few moments. I don’t always have the awareness of staying with it, but I know it’s there and I know how to feel it at any time.

The truth is that peace is always unshakeable, it’s always there. The practice is truly how to feel that unshakeable peace while living a human life.

May you all find and know your unshakeable peace.

Reminders

It continues to amaze me every day how often I'm reminded to return to the present and what I'm actually doing, or where the best place for my attention is. There are so many examples every day.

Driving seems to be particularly adept at this. It could be the deer or fox or chipmunk that dash across the road. When I come to a stop sign, I bring my attention back to the give and take. As I approach cyclists I'm careful to ensure both of us are safe. Backing out of the driveway as I watch for cars, bikes, and people walking.
In meetings at work occasionally I'll drift and suddenly realize I have to reconstruct the last minute or so while still listenting to the current conversation. Better to have just stayed present.

Using a knife to cut up fruits or vegetables. Shaving. Eating an ice cream cone on a warm day and paying attention to the melting. Even something as simple as the short interaction with the people ringing up your food at the grocery store and sharing a brief smile and how's your day.

While running, every big rock and root is a reminder to pay attention to where to plant your foot. In the pool, counting strokes, counting laps, and planning your next breath.


I'm also frequently reminded to stay with what is. When I start planning what I'm going to do with the tax refund
and the new tech toy I'm going to get, as soon as that check arrives, my car will suddenly have engine trouble and there goes to the tech toy. This happened recently with a lease I signed - while waiting for the landlord to return a signed copy I gave 30-days notice as my current rental. And guess what, the property I was going to rent is suddenly up for sale.

Maybe it's reminding myself of something I want to say to a friend the next time I see them, and as soon as I show up, something else becomes more important. Or looking forward to a favorite menu item as a local restaurant and then finding out they are out.


I could go on with many more of both being present and being with what is. Sometimes it's annoying - most of the time though I am entirely grateful to have these reminders.

Listening to Levon

Mark Cohn sings a song titled ‘Listening to Levon.’ It’s about a young man on a date with Mary (her name in the song) and while he remembers a few details, he’s elsewhere, listening to Levon (Levon Helm). The chorus is this:

I was lost
I was gone
Listening to Levon
In another place
In some other world
I was was lost
I was gone
Listening to Levon
I was looking at the girl
But I was listening to Levon

I suppose I can relate. I remember dating a woman a while ago who clearly saw I was more interested in cycling than in her. Maybe it might be more precise to say at the time I was more interested in proving something, and cycling was the way to do it. So as the song continues:

Sorry if I hurt you
Mary if you’re out there
You know who you are

I believe we all have activities that pull us in, where we’re lost in another place. It could be fishing, online gaming, church, or any pursuit which truly feeds us. Our deepest interests have their own sacredness and fulfillment to them.

For a long time cycling was it for me. More recently it’s been running, meditation, and yoga. Each one offers a stillness, peace, depth, connection. It’s not unlike listening to Levon. Engrossed and absorbed seem more relevant to what I feel than lost or gone. Truly being in the run, or on the mat – being present and nowhere else. The result being a similar vein of captivation and experience. In that sense, I feel the resonance of Cohn’s chorus. I feel the want for the magnificence and simplicity of those places deeper than being human.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a passionate kiss, a heartfelt embrace, the twinkle in a lover’s eyes, the deep blessings of a woman’s heart. Those truly reflect some of our most profound desires as humans - wanting to be loved, yearning to be connected, being in relationship with someone close. I feel that pull as well.

The truth is we need both and to find a balance of both. We need those places that bring great joy and satisfaction, an inner pace; and we need to acknowledge and meet our human state of being. We need to support this in each other so that each person blossoms in their own interests and then returns with renewed energy for those he loves.

Done well, this is truly having our cake and eating it too! I’m off to bake my cake and then enjoy the delight of human senses!

More on Vulnerability

"We have the strange idea, unsupported by any evidence, that we are loved and admired only for our superb strength, our far-reaching powers, and our all-knowing competency. Yet in the real world, no matter how many relationships may have been initiated by strength and power, no marriage or friendship has ever been deepened by these qualities. After a short, erotic honeymoon, power and omnipotence expose their shadow underbellies and threaten real intimacy, which is based on mutual vulnerability. After the bows have been made to the brass god of power, we find in the privacy of relationship that same god suddenly immobile and inimitable to conversation. As brass gods ourselves, we wonder why we are no longer loved in the same way we were at our first appearance. Our partners have begun to find our infallibility boring and, after long months or years, to find us false, frightening, and imprisoning.

We have the same strange idea in work as we do in love: that we will engender love, loyalty and admiration in others by exhibiting a great sense of power and competency. We are surprised to find that we garner fear and respect but forgo the other, more intimate magic. Real, undying loyalty in work can never be legislated or coerced; it is based on a courageous vulnerability that invites others by our example to a frontier conversation whose outcome is yet in doubt.

We have an even stranger idea: that we will finally fall in love with ourselves only when we have become the totally efficient organized organism we have always wanted to be and left all of bumbling ineptness behind. Yet in exactly the way we come to find love and intimacy with others through vulnerability, we come to those same qualities in ourselves through living out the awkwardness of not knowing, of not being in charge.

We try to construct a life in which we will be perfect, in which we will eliminate awkwardness, pass by vulnerability, ignore ineptness, only to pass through the gate of our lives and find, strangely, that the gateway is vulnerability itself. The very place we are open to the world whether we like it or not.”

-- David Whyte

Vulnerability

Today I found a link by Owen Marcus to a TED talk by Brene Brown. I've watched a bunch of talks from TED and this has to be one of the best I've ever seen. Brown has powerful ideas about shame, guilty, vulnerability, worthiness, and courage. Amazing that she packs so much into just 20 minutes.

After watching both that TED talk and this one, also by Brown, I'm at a loss for words. Mostly I want to share so others this these talks as well. They really drive to the heart of being human.

Just watch

Meditating with Pink Floyd

Every once in a while I like to lay on the couch, close my eyes, crank up the stereo, and just listen to really good music. Last night was one of those nights. As I lay there listening I had an idea, what if I meditated while doing this?

I decided to try it and sat up into my meditation position on the couch – legs crossed, eyes closed, tall back, hands on my knees, relaxed. Focus on the breathing – and now feel my body.

The next step was to choose some music. I started with some Pink Floyd and from there I tried others - Barrage, Ray Charles, Chris Rea, Seal, Mark Knopfler. The volume was cranked up, well above a conversation level, but not ear-splitting. Enough to feel the music. For me the best music was mostly instrumental and with good, solid bass. My favorites were Sorrow and On the Turning Away by Pink Floyd.

What was really awesome was all the sensations in my body. I could feel the vibration of the low notes coming through the bottom of the couch. I could feel the mid-range and bass notes pulsing from the front speakers into my chest, arms, and face. I could feel the energy in my body following the rhythm of the music, rising, falling, anticipating, cresting almost like an internal dance. And wave after wave after wave of whole body shivers and goosebumps! Top to bottom, left to right, swirls, colors. Through all of this I could easily maintain a focus on my breathe. I’m certain that if I had wanted to choose any meditation style, I could have done that as well I felt so absorbed and aware.

In total I sat for about 90 minutes meditating, breathing, feeling – and one of the most peaceful, dare I say fun, and satisfying meditation experiences I’ve ever had.

Fullness

Last night was a full moon, but its brief visit was obscured by the rare clouds here. It's with that full moon in mind that I write this post.

This morning I went to a new yoga class, at a studio I've never been to, with an instructor I haven't been to before. I'm in an exploration mode so this is happening quite frequently lately. So how do yoga and the full moon relate? Exactly!

During the first parts of the class, Kirsten, the instructor, brought the full moon to our attention. (I will try to bring her eloquence and simplicity here.) She was reminding us that the moon is always full - it's always fully there. Most of the time only part of it is bathed in light from the sun, but if we look we can distinguish the full globe.

It's the same with us as humans. We are fully here all the time. And parts of us can be hidden in shadows or light we haven't shined around corners in awhile. Kirsten was encouraging us to use the time with yoga today to remember our fullness and embrace all that we are. I liked the analogy and the reminder, it stuck with me all day.

Here's to you - and hoping you remember your fullness!

The Swing

This is one of those days I love when I watched something and came to a new understanding of the world and how I see it. Or in this case it’s about Baseball and Golf …

well sort of …

Tonight I watched Moneyball, a movie about Baseball – yes Baseball with a capital ‘B’. An All-American game. I’m not a baseball fan, but the movie reminded me of why for some it’s such a fascinating game. Sure there are statistics – more than any other sports. There are strategies based upon anything and everything. That’s all for the spectators.

For the players it’s all about the moment. The moment the ball goes across the plate and the batter decides to swing or not and hope to connect with the ball. Or at least that’s what it would be for me. I’ve never really played baseball, a little t-ball as a kid, hitting a few tennis balls in the backyard with a bat, but never baseball. But maybe I understand the mind of a player a bit more.

How can I bring every last bit of experience of my life into this one moment, this one decision? To assess the weather, the light, the wind, the pitcher’s throw, the curve of the pitch, the spin, my stance, my grip, how will I swing, how I’ll lift my front foot, how much to step forward, to swing in exactly the right spot to hit the ball. To bring forth every previous time at the plate, whether in a game or practice, to bring forth the experience of every previous pitcher, every word of advice from a coach. And not just the baseball moments, but everything – the moments in the weight room, the moments of eating, time spent in preparation, hours and quality of sleep, all the rituals and superstitions, all voices in my head coming together for one moment. Every moment of my life compressed into a slice of time to hit a ball with a stick.

The truth is the statistics of the number of connections is low. There are the pitches never swung at, some smartly because it’s not worth chasing. There are pitches misjudged which should be swung at and aren’t. There are pitches that are swung at that miss. There are pitches swung at that go wild and out-of-play.

Still I know that if Baseball was my game I’d spent the hours and days and weeks to step up and make that connection, with the ball and with life. I understand why they stand around and wait. For those 5 or 6 times at the plate in 9 innings to put it all on the line.

It’s the same with Golf. I’m not a golfer, but I have gone to the range to swing at a few buckets of balls. Even in those short periods of time, I can feel the pull. To find a grip, a stance, a swing, shoulder placement, follow-through, twist, concentration, focus, precise effort (not too much, not too little). I can feel the pull to try again. To try something different. To connect better with the ball, to get the perfect arc, to send it farther down the green. I can feel the pull. To try again to bring every bit of life into this one swing that lasts a second in time.

Then I let go because it’s not my game. And because I want more.

I want more than the moments of the smack of a bat against a ball a few times in a game. I want that complete devotion to the present now, … and now, … and now. I want to bring every bit of who I am into every moment in time. Every piece of work, every slice of play, every smile to a stranger, every footfall of a run, every connection with another being.  To be present here and now. I don’t know how well I’ll do, but I’m sure going to give it my best!