Being peace



If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left
behind in the sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal.



For the seventh and last Moksha pillar, Be Peace, I wanted to commit to a daily meditation and silent mornings. I'd wanted to do this and had it on my "to do" list (so counter intuitive that it be on a must do action list but I digress!) since the training as something I really wanted to integrate into my daily routine. I hadn't gotten around to it - what, with work, teaching, practice, training, distance projects - that when it was time for this project, the timing was perfect. But that's no fluke! Each and every project, and the order in which they've flowed, have been exactly what has been needed in our development and paths as teachers and individuals at that particular juncture.

With a lot going on emotionally due to upcoming changes in my life and in my work, Be Peace was exactly the opportunity I needed to go inside and sit with what was, and is, coming up. I used the month to quiet down and slow down my mind and breath. I used the month to take the (little) time a daily meditation requires and saw how much it changes your conscious and unconscious reactions to the world around you. I used the month to practice household silent mornings, in order to appreciate peace, affection, and interactions differently. I also used the 30 days to journal and observe subtle and obvious differences in my mood, behaviour, stress, and relationships and to create lasting proof to myself to continue to commit to this daily practice when things get overwhelming or too busy.

Silent Mornings

Silent mornings were certainly not a difficult concept for me to wrap my head around. Even during training, when we did silent mornings, I looked forward to these because it gave me a chance to be true to my introversion by not having to fuel dialogue and conversation. What I found then, and again, this time, is that silent mornings make all of my thoughts seem really loud so I have to be conscious about not letting them invade all at once and to take them one at a time and resolve them.

The interesting aspect of silent mornings this time around is who I was sharing them with. During training, the circumstances were such that those you encountered at 6:00 am were almost all also doing silent mornings. There were circumstances during my silent mornings where the people I was around didn't want to do silent mornings as it made them feel uncomfortable. There were instances where not talking would have been hurtful (i.e. to a stranger on the street offering you a kind gesture). So adjusting to these little realities was an interesting struggle.

For the first few days, I caught myself talking to the dog a few times. By day 3, instead of words, I was affording him more physical attention and closeness to get my point across or to evoke what I was feeling. Not talking did pose its challenges with the dog - he gets up to go outside and pee in the morning when I trick him by asking him to go see if there are any raccoons in the backyard. Without the "r" word, even the sound of the door opening and my enthusiastic wave did not get the point across. So I was late for work a few times trying to silently coherce the four-legged beast outside before I left!

Overall, throughout the 30 days, I felt my interactions being more intimate. For example, getting on the bus, I would nod for a transfer and make eye contact with the bus driver. There was a moment of appreciation and understanding and there were not any words clouding this. But that having been said, there were some days when writing notes or doing charades to communicate was more frustrating than having used words.

And because of that, there were also days when there was necessary talking. Each of these days included something "above and beyond" the ordinary - traveling so needing to call a cab, plans changing when taking the dog for his surgery, etc. So in all of those circumstances, I chose my words carefully, I considered responses, and I spoke with care. There was one time where I didn't do this and it stands out so vividly. I was taking Tao in for his surgery. I felt really overwhelmed and lost in my thoughts. And then when I was trying to get Tao to pee, I got a parking ticket. I was 10 feet away from the car and the attendant and I was in tears. I couldn't handle my emotions and needed the output through words. I walked into the vet and every word that came out seemed so loud and not settled.

Meditation

For the daily meditation, it was easy to make compromises to make it work for my schedule and this is something I noticed had a big impact on how I felt about my commitment to meditate and how it affected my interaction with the world, or, didn't. After 30 days, I can confirm that what works best for me is a morning meditation (about 15 minutes is what I was doing), in a space that is set up for meditation with all of the right props and no distractions. This helps me start my day off right, with a deeper breath and a clearer mind. It also seemed that my thoughts were quieter in the morning so I was able to concentrate on the breath and waking up the body and the mind, slowly and without too much stimuli. Below are some of the different meditations I did and some of the highs and lows I encountered.

Compassion Meditation

At the yoga conference, I took a workshop with Kelly Mcgonigal, entitled Strengthening the Heart. Kelly works at the Centre for Compassion and Altruism at Stanford. She led us through a series of compassion and self compassion meditations and moving meditations. We practiced Tonglen, a meditation practice rooted in Tibetan Buddhist traditions of sending and receiving, where one visualizes taking onto oneself the suffering of others on the in-breath, and on the out-breath giving happiness and success to other beings.

I left the day long session feeling much more open and much more connected to others through the idea of common humanity. Later that evening, I went to visit Tao at the animal hospital who was a day out of complex surgery. He was hooked up to IV's, sedate, crying and whimpering, and while clearly in pain, also comforted by my presence. I laid down next to him on cold tiles for a few hours and practiced tonglen. The way our breath moved and the way the energy transformed in the room was really emotional and powerful.

Moving Meditation

A few of my meditation sessions (seated upright, spine straight without too much muscular effort), I turned into moving meditation by rounding the spine on the exhale and lifting the chest on the inhales. The science presented by Kelly was that there is increased gray matter denisty in the brain stem of meditators, and spikes in the activity of the brain during moving meditation (in terms of the variances of respiratory and heart rate synchronicity). So I tried it as a way to focus the breath and had great success with it, in particular, to lengthen my breath. By associating my breath to a movement in the body, I was able to make it more fluid and longer.

Savasana

There were a few times where I extended my savasana to make it my time to meditate, going through a back and forth (based on what I've experienced versus what I've ready/heard) about savasana being a legitimate practice for meditation when it is on the cusp of asana and meditation. What I did feel was that my body is able to find the calm and relaxation response of savasana very quickly which usually leads to a quieting of thoughts and slowing of breath very quickly. Also, with the support of the ground beneath my bones, it was easier on a muscular level to release, as less effort is expended on suspending the body.

Peace in practice

Many times, especially in early am classes, my meditation was seated on blocks, on the mat, in the silence of the practice room. These were my favourite times for meditation as the space is so sacred to me, it is easy to come to the mat and leave everything else behind and just be. What I noticed in meditation before asana practice, is a deepening in my practice. I would make my intention to find peace in my mind throughout the practice and to use the present moment on each inhale and exhale to make my practice a moving meditation. I can't say that I was always able to achieve this for the full 60, 75 or 90 minutes but it did add a third (or fourth) dimension to my entire practice.

Challenges

Some of the challenges I encountered during the daily meditating included physical discomforts from not being used to meditating consistently since training. Sore spine (especially in the morning), feet falling asleep, wanting to go back to bed, getting cold,  restlessness, you name it! After a few days, it did get better but some days are better than others.

Meditating at night (only done a handful of times) was a challenge as it would often be in my hotel room or in my bedroom on the soft bed and not in the right position to have an effective meditation. One night, I laid down to do a savasana meditation. Might as well just have called it like it was: sleepytime.

On days where the thoughts were restless, even in the morning meditation, I thought back to my night's sleep, and almost every time, it was due to restless or affected quality of sleep due to an incident the day(s) before. On these days, the meditation was the most needed and also the days where it was most difficult to go through with it and appreciate it.

On days where I was so busy I couldn't fit in my meditation (5 times), I realized at the end of the day that my days would have been a lot smoother and leveled stress-wise and I would have been a lot more peaceful inside, if I'd taken the time to meditate.

Impact on others
I do believe that the benefit to our own practice extends to benefit all beings everywhere. What I found to be interesting during these 30 days was the filter between action and reaction. A lot of stuff came up that I sat with instead of suppressing, but my reaction was inward, not outward, and while there are things I still wish I'd handled differently, in retrospect, it doesn't matter. I can and have to let it go, and move forward from here knowing I did the best I could in the moment.

There is no path to peace. Peace is the path. - Gandhi

Going forward
I'm definitely going to keep up a daily meditating practice. I was able to get a taster or what it can bring into my life and that it is doable, no matter how busy you are. I also found what works best for me. In terms of silent mornings - I think that for me, this would be more beneficial if done as a full day, once a month or so. To really reconnect on a regular basis and re-experience a natural pace, presence, and self-interaction.

What I'd also like to see happen is to be able to find the aspects of meditation when not meditating - so taking it off the mat - in order to generate the response in stressful situations. I was not able to apply this during a race this month and felt a bit defeated by that. But I also figure I can't force it upon myself and it will happen organically. Ask me after the Ottawa marathon. Maybe another 6 weeks of daily meditating will help at my finding zen during 42.2!