Zen and the Art of Peacekeeping

What does yoga have to do with peacekeeping or Afghanistan?

When I started blogging I was living in Afghanistan, working as a human rights officer with the UN peacekeeping mission. These days I'm hosting '30 days of yoga'.

What happened?

When did this become a yoga blog? What does all this yoga have to do with peace-building, world-saving and human-rights defending? What does it have to do with Afghanistan?

Firstly, this isn't a 'yoga blog'.

You are as still just as likely to find me writing here about young women activists in Afghanistan, finding your purpose or how to write without writing as you are to find me writing about whether or not it is best to practice only one kind of yoga. 

What links all these topics together is my understanding that we each have a unique and essential role to play in the world.

Each of us has a unique set of experiences, skills and qualities that makes us perfectly qualified to do what it is that we do best.

When we discover where our passion and purpose lie, we are then free to follow our own authentic path to service in the world.

In my life the sense of purpose came early. What took me longer was the process of unravelling the well-hidden fears that lay beneath my good intentions and which, as long as they were unexamined and unaddressed, undermined my ability to serve.

Yoga and meditation have been my path to meet my own self.

In the sometimes terrifying stillness and clarity of the meditation cushion and the yoga mat I have finally kept company with the thoughts and feelings that I had long preferred to avoid.

By holding my seat, continuing to breath and leaning into the softness of my own exposed wounds I have been able to first glimpse, and then rest into the spaciousness that has always been here, waiting for me to sit still long enough to come home to it. 

What all of this has to do with my work as a human rights advocate and peace-builder is this:

"If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That's the true practice of peace."

                              Pema Chodron, Practicing Peace in Times of War.

'Bodisattva' made simple: Taking a vow to help others

“Taking the bodhisattva vow to help others implies that, instead of holding our own individual territory and defending it tooth and nail, we become open to the world that we are living in. It means we are willing to take on greater responsibility, immense responsibility. In fact, it means taking a big chance. But taking such a chance is not false heroism or personal eccentricity. It is a chance that has been taken in the past by millions of bodhisattvas, enlightened ones, and great teachers. So a tradition of responsibility and openness has been handed down from generation to generation, and now we too are participating in the sanity and dignity of this tradition.” 

                                 Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

– via Shambhala Sunspace and Ocean of Dharma, and found in The Pocket Chogyam Trungpa

More on whether or not it is "better" to practice only one type of yoga

Last week I wrote a post asking “Is it better to do only one kind of yoga?. The comments on this post were so insightful and interesting that I decided to write a follow-up post looking at some of the responses and saying a little bit more about my experiences.

Two of the responses came from women with whom I have travelled closely along the yoga path. They are kindred spirits so it didn’t surprise me at all that they, like me, described themselves as ‘straw-suckers’.

KL said “I’ve been a straw sucker myself mainly, and sometimes feel "less than" because I've been unable to dig deep in the desert. Is that just how circumstances have manifested around me or is it because I’m lacking in commitment and focus?”

Laura F described similar feelings in her comment: “I think I may have been a bit hard on myself when, once in while, I feel like doing something aside from Kundalini.”

I think these feelings of “less than” are very common and therefore important to acknowledge. So I love, admire and thank KL and Laura for their honesty.

Life is full of opportunities for us to feel shame about who we think we should be and are not. It saddens me that yoga and our yoga practice often becomes yet another one of these opportunities.

I know KL well enough to know that she has developed a high degree of shame resilience (to borrow a term from one of the best books I’ve ever read about social expectations, perfectionism, women and shame, by Dr Brene Brown), but not all women have this resilience and as a yoga teacher and compassionate human I am mindful of not providing new shame triggers for the women (and men) who come to me for yoga teaching.

Another close companion of mine on the yoga path, Kelly, had a much more positive take on her ‘straw-sucker’ approach.

“I am a serious straw sucker. Committed even. I think there is so much to be learned and there are so many wise teachings available to us on this planet that I want to stay as open as possible to it all. What I've found is that gradually, a certain pattern emerges from the nuggets of wisdom I've collected and forms a cohesive picture. Where there is convergence of information from many different sources, there tends to be a strong resonance for me. When the good people of the world, the serious seekers and the wise leaders have independently come to the same conclusion I know there must be a universal value or truth to their words. Where there is disagreement, there is still a wealth of value to be gained. The more information I have in my toolkit, the more people I can attempt to understand or to connect with. As a teacher, I find that immensely valuable. As a human being, I find that absolutely necessary.”

I personally share many aspects of Kelly’s experience. I’ve learned from many great teachers; some have been yoga teachers, some have been Buddhist teachers, two of them are my mother and father – born-again Christians who live with true service and compassion.

I also find it useful to be able to draw on different approaches when I work with students. Different styles, different language, different practices will work for different people.

On the other hand, I have total respect for the teacher who has found an approach, a language and a set of practices that works for her and who teaches this approach exclusively. She knows that she will attract to her the people for whom this approach resonates and works. That also makes great sense to me.

Evolution towards diving deeper?

Radha suggested that the difference between drawing from different traditions and immersing oneself in just one tradition was a matter of progression or evolution. She explained that in her experience:

“When you're ready, you'll find the one practice and stick with it, but until then will keep searching and trying different things, which will be useful, informative and help you grow and you'll convince yourself it's the right way because we all want to feel what we do is right!! When your consciousness evolves to the next level, you probably won't even talk about the one practice and one practice alone that you do. And you'll understand why, but there aren't words to emphasise the importance of one practice, just an individual souls own experience.”

I have to confess that this was the comment that gave me the most pause. Unlike all the other commenters, Radha seemed to be suggesting that one approach was better than the other. That one is an evolution on from the other, a progression, a deepening, an improvement. Perhaps she is right. Perhaps I’m just convincing myself that my approach is ‘right’ for me because my consciousness hasn’t evolved to the point that I can understand the importance of one practice. I happily concede this is quite possible.

In all fairness, my description of my approach to yoga and the spiritual path may not have been very clear. Radha seemed to have been left with the impression that I was “dipping my toes” into the water. In response to this she expressed a beautiful wish:

“I hope everyone finds their one practice soon, it will be nothing like the gentle toe dipping of different practices. It's like diving into water, however far under the ground it may be, and stopping breathing, and fighting and struggling for your survival, and then magically realising that it's ok, you can surrender because you have actually always been able to breathe in that very water, you just weren't aware of it. It's the hardest thing in life to do, but whilst dipping in different waters, you'll be safe from this experience.”

Deep water and thin ice

When I read this I knew that I recognised Radha’s description of the deep water. Although I am interested in learning about and from different traditions, I have certainly found the practices that throw me into my own deep water. I’ve felt the ground fall away from under my feet. I’ve been left floating in the waters of not-knowing and I’ve learned that – despite my powerful desire to hang on to something solid – it is possible to surrender to that not-knowing and let everything be exactly as it is. So perhaps the straw-sucking metaphor was misleading. Perhaps a better image is that I was always standing on such thin ice that it only took 21 days of a zen-style meditation practice to throw me in over my head in my own deep water.

Different appetites and a varied diet

On the other hand, my friend T-bone (yes, he was the person who I was eavesdropping on in the first place) proposed an analogy of our practices being like our food:

“I think of spiritual path like the food I eat. What works for me may not provide you with what you need and vice versa. Over time, my appetite changes and we all know variety is the garam masala. Personally, I like my diet varied with high concentrations of my favorites while having the odd import is good too. Samskara, Karma and Dharma is so intensely individual. What Marianne overheard was actually part of a very personal narrative. Rather than 'better' (after all upon comparison one always loses through dividing, separating) perhaps more union-fostering would be 'relevant' its more kind, non-violent even.”

Thanks T-Bone! You rock figuratively as well as literally. Yes, it is possible to be a sensitive and committed yoga teacher and a rock star. T-Bone is living proof of that.

Better vs. More Useful - choosing union over separation

I was so glad that T-Bone took issue with the word “better” in the title of this post. It’s not a union-fostering word at all, and since union is at the heart of all yoga it seems a poor choice of word for this question.

I much prefer to ask what is most useful for each person. Which practices add most to your well-being and to your deepening awareness of the union of all beings? If the practice of yoga (and most Buddhist practices) is intended to help dissolve the illusion that we are separate, then it seems unhelpful to ask a comparative question that emphasises that very illusion.

Dhyan made a similar point, albeit more beautifully, when he pointed out that:

“There has never been any real reason to worry since all small individual rivers are already on their way to the ocean, to the Whole. It is not about swimming, it is about relaxing and to float with the river in a basic trust that life already leads towards the sea of consciousness, towards the Whole.”

Word, bro!

BZ also suggested that “once you've climbed the yoga tree, you can sit on any of its branches and get the same view.  … I've found that good teachers and different types of yoga help me to connect to the same source.”

This has also been my experience. The source remains the same. The practices and paths that help us connect to that source may vary, but we’ll recognise it when we get there.

We are all one, but we are not all the same

Many of the comments reinforced T-Bone’s point that “what works for me may not provide you with what you need and vice versa.” Jim pointed out that:

“Everyone is different. It is so great that many people can try different things in which to improve themselves, hopefully finding one or a few that really 'hit pay dirt' so easily. But like some of your readers pointed out, sometimes there are few choices. All things change. Maybe someone's practice is 'perfect' for them, but there is no guarantee that it will be that way for their whole life. Our 'outer' practice is just that. It helps with our 'inner' practice so one shouldn't get too attached to it, no matter how good it is.”

Kelly said:

“I think it comes down to knowing your own nature. Some of us are straw suckers and would never be satisfied only drinking from one well. Some have to go deep and stay in one pool. And I think it depends on who you are which path you take. I too, love and respect that deep-digger friend of yours immensely. It is my opinion that he is on the right path for him. And I think I'm on the right path for me. And we've got a lot to learn from each other. Beware judging yourself harshly. When you follow the path that feels authentic to you, whether it's a path strewn with holes poked by your straw or one deep channel downward, you can't go wrong.”

True dat, sister!

The final word on all of this goes to Laura F, who made a very good – and very practical point.

“Perhaps as a beginner, like me, it would help to dig deep - to learn how to stay focused, work on your commitment, intention etc, just to strengthen your yoga base.”

Laura, I think you are probably right. That’s certainly been my experience and the advice of my teachers and at the end of the day that's all I've got to go on.

Thanks to all the people who commented including the awesome comments that I haven’t quoted here because this post was becoming very, very long. I’d love to keep this conversation going so let me know what you think!

Fear and getting in over my head

Today I'm a guest over at Cheerio Road, one of the blogs I read most regularly. Karen Maezen Miller is a mother, a writer and a Buddhist and she had spoken words of simple truth to me in many moments of confusion. It is an honour to be invited to be her guest.

Enjoy!

Living the questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

            Rainer Maria Rilke ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ (1934)

I've read this quote so many times. In the past I've read it and aspired to love the questions, even while my heart and mind seemed determined to yearn after the answers. We live in a society that believes in solutions and that sees the questions not as a place to reside but as a barrier to get through as quickly as possible. Recently I rushed headlong towards a resolution to uncertainty. I leapt to embrace a solution despite the fact that it didn't fit.

I woke up the morning after this moment of decisiveness and felt out of sorts and out of place. I was not ready to live this answer. Instead I decided to keep company with the questions for a little longer. It was a wonderful relief.

At first I wondered whether this was the relief of avoidance. I wondered whether I had simply turned away from the hard questions and chosen to live in blissful, willful ignorance. I wondered how I would know the difference.

But as I sat in meditation one morning I realised that I already knew the difference between avoiding the question and keeping its company. As long as the questions were with me, as long as I was willing to sit with them and observe the feelings, thoughts and sensations that came up for me in their company, I was living the questions. 

Three weeks later I don't know if I am any closer to an answer. But in the meantime living with the questions has turned out to be a refreshing change. Now that I don't feel the terrible pressure of making a choice, I can relax and really pay attention.

The Peacemakers Art: An Unbiased Heart

 

Image of Ishmael Beah by John Madere from Ishmael's website

If you've been reading here for a while then you'll know that I believe in the world-changing power of a story. I believe that listening, with an unbiased heart, to someone's story may be the most important thing we ever do for them. This much I learned in two years in Afghanistan. I also believe that telling our own stories can change our own lives and can open space for wider change in the world. This much I am learning as I find the courage to write my own book this year.

One of the kindred spirits I have met along my own journey to uncover the simple, profound power of story is Laura Simms. I've never actually met Laura in person but we have spoken on the phone and emailed each other at different times over the past three years.

Laura is a storyteller, writer and meditation teacher. She is also the adoptive mother of Ishmael Beah, a storyteller in his own right. If you haven't heard of Ishmael and his story then I highly recommend his memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier about his experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone.

Next month Laura and Ishmael will be leading a workshop at Esalen. I went to a workshop at Esalen for the first time this past summer and I was very impressed. The site, in Big Sur, is stunning. From my cabin I had views out across the beautiful organic vegetable gardens to the ocean. I soaked in the mineral hot pools and walked through the beautiful grounds. Even if the workshop I attended hadn't been amazing (it was!) it would have been worth it just to enjoy the rare luxury of peace and simplicity and community that I found at Esalen.

Here is the overview of Laura and Ishmael's workshop:

At the heart of peacemaking is the art of unbiased presence, genuine listening, and the ability to discern meaning. How we communicate can plant the seed of compassionate change or it can be the source of misunderstanding and conflict — in our own hearts and in the world.

This workshop will unfold as a deepening process of working with embodied presence, mindful awareness, and sharing the age-old wisdom of storytelling and visualization to uncover our inherent capacities for accessing tools for peacemaking in ourselves and among family and community, including humanitarian and educational endeavors.

Each day will begin with guided Chi Kung and meditation practice, and continue with storytelling and writing activities that promote unbiased listening and show how genuine presence and story can nurture nonaggression and peace. Each participant will leave with skills and practical information, and a personal story that uses mythic image and experience.

I highly recommend this workshop. I would be there if it were a little closer. If you go, will you promise to report back here about it. A guest post maybe?

Why being sad is okay with me

 

Antonio*: good friend, loving husband and father, great listener, straight talker and UN Peacekeeper. May he rest in peace.

I'm sad today. Yesterday suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a UN guesthouse in Kabul and killed nine people. On the same day a car bomb in Pakistan killed many more. I went to bed last night with sadness and I woke up with sadness. But I don't mind being sad.

When I am sad my heart is tender. I feel the deep presence of love that sits beneath the sadness and transforms it into compassion. When I am sad I am also open. I feel the pain of those who suffer, but I also feel the incredible stability of that love. I am no longer afraid of drowning in my sadness. I understand that it arises out of love and that love is big enough to hold it.

So I don't mind being sad. I think it is what our heart and our true nature require in response to times like these. In the sadness our hearts soften, the barriers we have built between ourselves and the rest of the world crumble a little. We feel the truth that we are all always together. We experience the power of our own compassion. In sadness we are very close to love.

Today I'm sad and I'm just fine with that.

*NB: Antonio died last year, not in the attack yesterday, but he's in my heart today.

Change the World: Make friends with your Heart

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.

— Rumi

Last week I wrote a list of 10 things you probably shouldn't say to a friend who doesn't have children. It was quite an experience. People responded, to say the least.

One of the ways in which people responded was by talking to me about it. As a result of one of those conversations I realised that one of the items on the list is probably the most important of all. It's also the item that bothers me least, these days.

What used to bother me the most was the suggestion that the love between a parent and child was much deeper, wider and more profound than any other love. The inference was that if I was unable (or unwilling for any reason) to have children then I would never experience true, deep love.

This no longer bothers me. It can still be pretty hurtful to others, though, so I still suggest you might want to think twice before launching into your rant about how only having a baby has taught you what true love is.

It no longer bothers me because now, finally, I understand that the fullest, deepest love already resides within me. If I don't experience this love for all beings all the time it is simply (ha!) because of the barriers and obstacles that I've erected around my heart, because of the way I contract and withdraw my heart in fear or shame or blame or guilt.

I'd suggest that babies have a special gift for getting us to lower those barriers. It may be their inherent vulnerability or it may be because they haven't yet put up any barriers around their own hearts, which is the same thing. But one way or another babies invite us to let down our barriers. This is particularly but not, in my experience, exclusively true of our own babies, whether by birth or otherwise.

So we let down our barriers. We engage with these marvelous little beings in moments free of fear, blame, guilt or expectation. As our hearts open we experience our own true nature, which is love, joy, equanimity and compassion. We then attribute this experience to the other being. We assume it is this wonderful baby that causes this love to arise in us (I've done the same with lovers). When, in fact, it was all within us all along.

So now when people tell me that since they have had their baby they have come to know what love really is, instead of feeling cheated I feel joy. I feel joy that another being has opened their heart. I know now that there are other paths towards an open heart. I've come to understand that although a baby may be one of the best short-cuts around, ultimately we can all learn to open our hearts irrespective of the company we are keeping. It's not easy but it is simple.

It starts with sitting still and making friends with your own mind and heart.

It's another way to change the world.

Cliches

There are a few phrases that have become so well-used that their meaning seems some days to have been worn thin. But some of them are used so much because they touch on simple yet powerful truths and it is worth pulling them up into the light and really thinking about what they have to say to me.

The first is "be the change you want to see in the world", from Gandhi. This one is perhaps the most well-used of all. A google search for the entire phrase threw up 276 million results. We see it used in marketing slogans, on bumper stickers and - over and over again - on blogs. It has become so ubiquitous that it is easy to stop really hearing what Gandhi was saying and, perhaps more importantly, what the words themselves say to each of us right now.

I know that these words are the words that come to me when I am fuming in frustration at a friend who is once again running late for lunch, dinner or a movie. They are the words that come to me when somebody cuts me off in traffic or pushes past me to get the last seat on the train. They are the words that come to me when I'm feeling threatened or insecure about a situation or person in my life.

In those moments I am reminded that I always have a choice, and that if I say that I want to see more love, more joy and more compassion in the world then I have the opportunity in each of those moments to choose to bring more love, more joy and more compassion.

What I've learned through meditation and yoga practice is that I don't have to overcome my inherently jealous, angry, insecure nature by putting on some external mantle of loving kindness. If I practice regularly the scales of attachment start to fall away from my eyes and I can see the world more clearly, I also find myself resting down into my true nature - which is loving and joyful and compassionate - unencumbered by the distractions and confusions of fear.

It's not a kind of utopia, though. Fears still arise, my insecurities still get triggered, I still worry that my boyfriend will wake up one day and realise what a total geek I am and run away with one of the cool party girls. But little by little the practice seems to be giving me quicker access to the truth that lies beneath these passing fears, and I can find my way back to compassion faster and with less suffering.

That's what it means to me to "be the change that I want to see in the world". That's conscious activism.

Conscious activism

Twee Merrigan (yoga teacher) watches Edo Kahn and Jo Mall (musicians, devotees and music therapists) play and sing with children living in an orphanage in Bali

Conscious activism is an idea that I've been playing with for a couple of years now, and here in Wellington I've had the joy of finding some friends and traveling companions who are also interested in practicing their own form of conscious activism.

The most signigicant discovery for me this past year has been the incredible gift of sangha, good company. On Thursday mornings I've sat in meditation with a handful of friends and strangers who have become dear friends. What we all shared was not only a commitment to supporting each other in our meditative practice but also a commitment to uncovering a mindful path of 'activism'.

Each of us had plenty of experience with social change, having been activists in various forms ourselves, and each of us was committed to grounding our actions in a solid base of simply being.

Over the course of this year I have learned so much from these friends and from the simple but profound practice of sitting in meditation with the people with whom you want to plan to take action to ease the suffering of all beings. I've found that there can be a transparency that develops between people who sit together. When you see someone once a week and what you do together is sit in silence there is a quality that develops to your relationship which defies the logic of our 'talk' culture. There is also a shared commitment to this process of sitting, even when we all dissolve into giggles for ten minutes, that gives us a shared - though silent - language.

So we sit. We each do the un-work that is sitting, letting go one by one of the thoughts and feelings that rise to the surface. Settling into the vast sky of the big mind. Sometimes struggling to let go, sometimes wondering how the others can possibly look so calm. Sometimes chanting together, sometimes in silence.

And then, at other times and in other places, we come together to plan actions for social change. We agree that it is important that our actions reflect our commitment to ease suffering, that we don't employ means that create more suffering. We recognise that generating and perpetuating a sense of 'us' and 'them' leads to the creation of more conflict. We choose instead to try to act with compassion, love, hope and joy in all our activism.

I imagine sometimes what my old colleagues might make of all this. Brave, committed but often angry people. I suspect some would find us naive.  But I know what I have come to understand, that if I want there to be more peace in the world - more joy, more hope, more compassion - then I have to begin with me. This is what conscious activism means to me.

What does conscious activism mean to you?