Why Do I Teach Yoga?

I teach yoga to be the aliveness instead of the thingness.

The Little Bird

One of the most inspiring stories I have ever heard is the Buddhist tale, The Little Bird. I have retold this tale in my book in progress, Journal Workbook for Finding Peace Within (It's a working title.). I have a question for anyone who would comment. Many tellings end with a god being moved to bring the rain by the little bird's actions. I removed "god" from this retelling. Do you think it is still warm with that caring consciousness when told this way? Click on "comments" below to share your view.

The Little Bird

Once there was a little bird whose nest was high in the treetops of a beautiful, living forest. On a clear, blue morning the little bird awoke to a sense of panic all around. The forest was on fire. Looking down, he saw his four-legged, six-legged, and many-legged friends running away from the flames. Looking up, he saw all the birds of the forest flying in fear in every direction.

The little bird flew high above the forest. He saw that the flames were coming much faster than many of his friends could flee. To the west was a river. Quick as he could, he went to retrieve water. “Come with me,” he cried to the other birds, who were flying away from the dangerous heat. “Help me put out this terrible fire. See how our friends are suffering below in the forest.” The little bird filled his beak and began to fly back to the fire.

“Turn around, little bird,” the other birds pleaded. “You are flying into harm’s way.”

The little bird shook his head. He flew so hard that his wings ached. Below him the fire licked the heels of a family of deer. He opened his beak and dropped the water. His beak was so small that the little drop of water it held fell glinting in the sunlight only to evaporate in the fire’s rising heat. The little bird did not notice. He was already half way back to the river.

This time, he filled his beak and dipped his feathers in the river. The water made his wings heavy, but he flew back to the forest where so many of his friends had no means of escape. He opened his beak and shook his wings. Still, not a drop reached the fire below. Back and forth the little bird flew from the river to the forest fire.

His wings were scorched, his eyes watered from the smoke, his muscles ached, and his tiny lungs burned. Now, standing alone at the river, he gathered the last of his strength to make the journey back to the fire. The little bird did not notice the rain clouds gathering behind him. This time, as the little bird flew, silently, rain clouds followed. And back at the forest, just as the little bird shook his wings over the fire, the clouds burst open, and it began to rain. Tiny drops from the little bird’s wings fell with giant raindrops from the life-saving clouds. Rivulets traveled sizzling down tree trunks, and rolled across the scorched forest floor extinguishing every spark of the forest fire.

The little bird flew into the cloud to see who had saved the forest. But the cloud was heavy; it was hard to see, and wherever he flew, it seemed it was he alone.

Bird photo by Rob Palmer.

Why am I Practicing and Teaching Yoga?

I am practicing yoga in pursuit of yoga, union. In 1995, in my first yoga class above the Hoboken Farm Boy, Yolante Smit guided me into the corpse pose. I wanted that attunement and peace to last forever. The pose ended, the effect lingered, but eventually faded in the rush of traffic and work and worry. I am practicing yoga to transform my way of being, to yoke myself to that peace permanently. I know people who have done it. So, I know that it can happen.

The techniques of yoga, Patanjali's yoga, the yoga of the Bhagavad Gita, are compassionately given to us so that our fondest, most fragile hopes can be realized here and now. We hope we are not alone. We hope we can be happy. We hope there is meaning. Yoga holds myriad prescriptions for the myriad physical, emotional, and mental suffering of human being. In my time teaching yoga I have seen my students shed worry and tears for peace and laughter. I have seen them grow closer to the core of their being, their own peace, happiness, and certainty.

Every single one of us can find peace. I can't imagine anything nicer to practice or to share.

Don't Hate, Meditate

I have had some pretty high minded ideas throughout my life, as I imagine you have, too. I wanted to win a Nobel Peace Prize when I was about 8, because, well, duh... PEACE for crying out loud. I could feel it inside my soul with absolute certainty, absolute clarity, I knew that everyone could feel it, the truth of it. I knew that shared belief could overcome anything. I still believe that. What I don't know, is the word for that most obvious fact. "Peace," is a hippy word. The "peace sign" does not evoke that most obvious inner knowledge, it evokes a strung out, unbathed, menace dancing badly.

At about 15 years old, I started reading about inhumanity. I particularly remember reading John Hershey's Hiroshima, and books about the Holocaust. I wanted my eyes opened up very wide. I had a reason in mind for this reading. The reason was, "in case something like this happens again, I don't want to be a person who passively allows it to go on around me. I want to be very familiar with the signs and symptoms."

Two thoughts recently went through this mind that made me remember this project. These thoughts put me on alert, in case I might passively allow things to happen to my neighbors that in the clarity of hindsight would look a lot like everything I had tried to know better than. Wouldn't I have known better than to inter Japanese Americans if I had been alive in the 1940s? Or, if in Germany, wouldn't I have known better than to ghettoize my Jewish neighbors? Wouldn't I have known better than to dislocate American Indians if I had been alive during the Andrew Jackson administration? Or would I have been relieved that "someone" was "doing something" to "protect me" from a "threat?"

Someone whose thinking I respect recently said he believes we are in a religious war. Maybe so. What thoughts this war, whether it is economic, religious, political, or national, evokes in me will tell me a lot about my deep attachments, my deep identifications. Identifying "them" will tell me who I still, erroneously, believe "I" am. It will show me the distance I must travel to my Peace Prize.

Spiritual Consumerism

A point of brutal honesty came along in my meditation practice. Asking myself, "Why am I doing this practice?" the answer came, "because I want good health." I found in myself an attitude along the lines of, "If I pay into this spiritual system, I will be purchasing certain goods."

What kinds of "payments" was I making, and what was this "spiritual system?" One form of payment was following the instructions of meditation teachers I encountered through books and schools. Making financial payments to the spiritual teachers and institutions I "believed in," was another form of payment. Service to individuals in my spiritual community was another.

I say this was a moment of brutal honesty, because ostensibly my goal was spiritual unfoldment, but in fact I was yearning for health, and relief from my physical discomforts. I was hoping some outside force, organized through traditions and teachers, a "spiritual system" would deliver the goods if I made the right forms of payment.

Oops! I seem to have lost my "I" in this conceptualization. I see a little "Me" relating to a powerful "Other" in a role that might even be more lowly than a consumer. Does it seem a little bit like I have spent the last twelve years of my meditation practice as a spiritual beggar? It does, a little bit. This is not to denigrate the "payments" I was making. I can still participate in spiritual groups and classes with a different self-concept.

It took some time to answer the question, "If not for health, (a pretty good motivation) what motivation do I wish I had for doing this meditation practice?" A morning glory on my fire escape helped me re-conceptualize my goal. Maybe you know something about morning glories, but I didn't know anything about them when I put the seeds in my planter box: assorted wildflowers and some morning glory seeds. At first I was sorry that only one morning glory seed sprouted. But there is a lot of life force in one morning glory seed. This phenomenal life force unfolded hundreds of leaves, that incidentally created shade for the less hearty wildflowers in the box. That life force requires a lot of the limited water the planter box can hold, and the wildflowers suffered in the competition. The morning glory wound its way up the water spout toward the upstairs neighbor's tomato plants, and I can't tell you what happened up there, because I am afraid to look.

It's perfectly natural. And in my way of looking at a morning glory, it's perfectly wonderful. But using the morning glory as a metaphor for myself, I would like to make it my goal to see the whole planter box. I think it would be wonderful if I could transform myself so that even in my brutally honest moments I could answer that I am doing my meditation practice for the good of all. I'm not there yet, but I find it helpful to have a direction in mind.

Clear Water Meditation Circle

The Clear Water Meditation Circle meets on Tuesday evenings from 6:45 to 8:45 pm in Manhattan.

6:45 - 7:00 Gather

7:00 -7:30 Silent meditation

7:30 - 8:15 A short passage from the literature of some meditation tradition begins a talking circle. Participation is voluntary.

8:15 - 8:45 Social


Clear Water Meditation Circle is open to meditators from any tradition. Please e-mail Jennifer at jelyrose@gmail.com for location.

We do not have any expenses and collect no donation for the Meditation Circle. However, you may make a donation to support our efforts to bring spiritual teachers to New York, if you wish.

Hope to see you there.

photo c. Luke Stodola

Actions Enlighten You

"Concepts, followed by proper action, (remember, action enlightens you not the knowledge!), brings the result...you doubt that, that is what you get." --Yogacharya Nishit Patel

A Noiseless, Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.