An intention determines the actions that we take. It's like a roadmap in which we plan the best route. If our intention in practicing yoga asana is to build physical strength, then we may challenge ourselves all the time, go for the most difficult option, practice the poses we are working on even after class is over. If our intention in practicing yoga is liberation, which is what "mukti" in Jivamukti means, then one thing we must learn to do is gain perspective by way of careful observation. The word "sakshi" is Sanskrit for witness. To become a sakshi, we learn to observe things as they are- without denying, without minimizing, without exaggerating, without blowing out of proportion, without dramatizing, without putting a lot of ego. It sounds like a simple concept, but it is a difficult practice. I know that sometimes when in a pose I struggle with, my thought bubble would be "This pose is killing me", which is of course an exaggeration. I have not heard of death by arm balance, and yet in my egocentric subjective experience, I choose that as my reality. There is a loss of perspective when my ego takes over that does not help my intention to be liberated. Whether one wants to be liberated or not, gaining perspective is a very practical skill to have. It spares us from day-to-day stress. For example, we may feel really good after taking a yoga class, but once we are on the road back home, we start to get agitated with the atrocious Manila traffic. If we practice gaining perspective and putting objectivity into this situation, we will realize that our point A is having taken a yoga class which we are grateful for, and point B is going back to a beautiful home which we are lucky to have. Now we are merely going from point A to point B, both of which are wonderful things, and yet we choose to be irritable and hot-tempered? That's a loss of perspective. When we start to observe that much of our suffering comes from our own ignorance and lack of perspective, we will come to the conclusion that our suffering is self-inflicted. Liberation then becomes more accessible. If we were the ones holding us back from being happy, then we too are responsible for our own happiness. All of the negativity that we bestow on ourselves? We can choose to let them go. We choose to let all of them go. I think it is great that many yoga practicioners are serious about asana, but I sometimes wonder if the desire to perfect certain poses is actually getting in the way of liberation. If we beat ourselves up or start to feel competitive or become a show-off, we have lost our perspective- that yoga asana provides us with such a rich landscape in which we become sakshi to our inner lives. We practice asana so we can hone our skills of observation so we can gain perspective on what it means to be liberated. When we are able to put things in perspective, then it becomes logical that if we want to be happy and free, then we give happiness and freedom to all beings. If our intention is to be liberated, we consult our roadmap to liberation. We take the route of compassion towards all beings.
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There is a travel website called Couchsurfing, and I use this to stay with locals while traveling, and I also use this to host people visiting Manila. I've met many interesting people this way, including this girl who asked me to host her a while back. She sent me a long detailed message to introduce herself, and I knew we would get along. Apart from being vegan herself, she was at that time volunteering at an orphanage that takes care of abandoned children with medical needs. I was inspired by she was doing and I read some of her blog entries. I came upon a quote by Mary Oliver that said "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" I thought those words guided the way in which she lived her life with intention. For many of us, we do not automatically think or act as though our lives are wild or precious. We tend to think of our lives as routinary, following a pattern, and in that sense really more domesticated than wild. But if we stop for a moment to consider what makes us who we are, we will soon realize that we do indeed have a wild and precious life. We have a body fit enough to practice yoga asana. We have a voice we can use to speak up for others. We have a sound and intelligent mind. And then we also have gifts that are unique to us. Some of us are proficient with words. Others are inclined to make music or delve in the arts. Others are drawn to sciences and technology and innovation. When we consider our own unique set of gifts and skills and talents and inclinations, we realize how wildly we can live this life, and how precious it is that we can offer this to the life that we live. Given all of this, we can ground our intention. We can think about what purpose it is that we live this life. It can be very specific or it can be general. We can aim high and say we want to leave this world a better place than we found it. That is huge. Massive. An intention of great proportions. A part of us may hold back and think it is too much. That is only fear speaking. But make no mistake. This fear is not the fear of being unable to live up to our intentions. On the contrary, we are afraid of acknowledging just how great we can be. An intention like that may at first appear intimidating, until we dig deep and see that this intention will be fulfilled by individual actions, small decisions, and daily choices. When we practice yoga asana, regardless of the pose we come into, we work on different actions. Some may come in progression while others are independent of other actions. Whether it is a downward facing dog that we have done thousands of times or a handstand practice that we are still working on, we get to experience with our own body what it is like to take small steps and individual actions to fulfill one intention. There are many instances where we also get to practice our own variations of a pose, and I think it requires some amount of courage to do this, to value the authenticity of our actions and intentions over norms and conformity. It is a beautifully phrased question that Mary Oliver asked. "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" To live with intention does not mean we all have one path. It does not mean we shut others out and live in isolation. It does not mean we leave the world as we know it behind. What it is is personal and individual and only we will know how to live our own life with intention. To fuel this question with inspiration, I leave you with the words of another great thinker. Martin Luther King Jr. said "Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." Note: To know more about my friend Shannon's volunteer work at the orphanage, please visit her blog at http://chegringa.blogspot.com and read the entries from 2011. We were taught at Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training that students choose teachers but teachers do not get to choose students, and in that regard never to refer to students in the possessive (i.e. never to say "my students"). I deeply value this intention because it places so much humility in the individual teacher. The simple choice of words reminds the teacher to move away from rajasic tendencies and move towards a more sattvic approach to teaching. Students are students of yoga. They are not "mine". They are never "mine". And because they are not mine, I am less inclined to people-please and more motivated to teach yoga in the most authentic and effective way that I can. A teacher of yoga does not necessarily do things or say things that students like. A teacher of yoga does and says things that are helpful in inspiring a state of yoga. Because of this, Jivamukti teachers routinely talk about animal rights and veganism. Some students might not like to hear it. But as David Life, co-founder of Jivamukti Yoga, says: "By giving a student what they want, rather than what they need, a teacher serves avidya, raga and dvesha – all obstacles to Yoga. By providing consistent structure the teacher allows the student to step aside from these desires and confusion and rest in the sublime dispassion of repetition. If yoga is taught on the level of entertainment, then...it is like trying to raise a child by satisfying their endless desires rather than by establishing good habits of temperance and self-control." Whether one is a yoga teacher or not, the practice of non-possession can be very helpful. Imagine if we started to act as though we owned no one, not our families, not our partners, not our friends, not our employees, not other beings. Would we not feel more grateful for their presence- that they chose to be in our lives for as long as they did? And for whatever reason- death or separation or growing apart- that they leave our lives, it will not paralyze us because we understand very well their free will or the works of the universe or the temporal nature of all things. When people choose to leave our lives or if we choose to leave other people out of our lives, it will make us sad, no doubt, and we will mourn the loss. Grieving does not necessarily mean that we meant to possess. What we choose to do with this sense of loss is what defines our non-possession. If we insist we must have control, if we rack our brains trying to change things that cannot be changed, we are trapped in our prison of possession. If we sit through our discomfort and pain and try our best to accept things as they are, then we let go of our need to own. We let go even of our need to possess a predictable and desirable outcome. To approach life not owning others is a necessary life skill if we want Yoga. If we feel and act as though we own others, I think it is the exact opposite of Yoga. Owning someone would mean that we are more important than the other, that the other is subject to my will and my desires and even my whims. Owning, simply put, is objectification. If yoga teachers act as if they own students, it will be all too easy for teachers to abuse their power. If people act as if they own their partners, they will negate the feelings of the other person and prioritize their own. If societies act as if they own animals, they will find nothing wrong with the routine use, abuse, rape, and murder of sentient beings that is commonplace today. If we go through our lives with a mindset of possession, we can never be free. We will continuously want things to go our way, according to our plan, and we will suffer every time we do not get what we want. With actions that are rooted from possession, we will enslave others and cause suffering to others. And simply put, as long as we hurt others, we will never be free, we will never find Yoga. How then to live life without possession? I think it is to live with sensitivity. I borrow the words of J. Krishnamurti: "Do you know what it means to be sensitive? It means, surely, to have a tender feeling for things: to see an animal suffering and do something about it, to remove a stone from the path because so many bare feet walk there, to pick up a nail on the road because somebody's car might get a puncture. To be sensitive is to feel for people, for birds, for flowers, for trees - not because they are yours, but just because you are awake to the extraordinary beauty of things." To live without acting as if we own anything is the way of love- to choose to appreciate rather than demand, to observe rather than change, to be present rather than own. Because others are never mine, and because I never own, I acknolwledge that I am free, and you are free, and all beings are free. None of us own the other, and yet all of us are teachers to each other in the name of liberation. Quotes from: Teaching Yoga http://www.jivamuktiyoga.com/teachings/qa-sharon-and-david/p/teaching-yoga Think On These Things http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1963-00-00-jiddu-krishnamurti-think-on-these-things-chapter-22 Sometime last week, I was going around telling friends I needed a detox and I started what was supposedly a 10-day program called the Master Cleanse. I have done this successfully a few years ago as a new vegan, when a fellow vegan told me that the meat we ate years ago are still stuck in our colons. Disgusted by the idea, I finished the cleanse at that time with much ease. This time around, though, I quit. After just one day, I threw in the towel for Master Cleanse. You see, even though I have been telling everyone that I was doing a detox because of consuming too much processed food, that is not completely true. My true motivations- my honest intentions- for wanting to do it was because I was feeling insecure with how I look lately. My skin has been breaking out and I have been gaining weight. In other words, I wanted to do it for vanity's sake. I quit after one day when I caught myself being inconsistent with my beliefs. I realized that as a yoga teacher, I go to class teaching what I truly believe in, that this body is just a vehicle, that images are merely images and no more than that, that we do not have to look a certain way or earn a certain amount of money or have a certain relationship to be happy. I believe with all of my heart for those to be true, and yet I fell victim to my own insecurity and set out intentions that were in contradiction to my ideals and beliefs. How can I not practice what I preach? And that is why I stopped. The thing with intentions is that it is very personal. Actions themselves are empty. Actions are public while intentions are private. We can tell the world one thing while secretly thinking something completely different. But because intentions are personal, we find that we can lie to the whole world but we cannot lie to ourselves. The intentions we set are extremely important. It spells the difference between staying stuck and freeing ourselves. Had I continued to lie to everyone about my intentions, I would likely address my vanity and lose some weight. What then? I would reinforce in myself the habit of pursuing external "goals" as a way to achieve some superficial pretense of happiness. I would be ridden with guilt when I promote positive body image when I myself have such a negative attitude about my own. My actions will not match my beliefs. My intentions would be a complete sham. So, no. When we examine our intentions and do the difficult work of being honest, it may not make us look perfect. It may not necessarily look good to the rest of the world, but we free ourselves from the friction of our inconsistencies and inauthenticity. We liberate ourselves from a cycle of self-inflicted suffering. We give ourselves a shot at true happiness. Let us choose our intentions well- for happiness, for freedom, for liberation. The sexualization of yoga is not yoga's fault. Asana, pranayama, dhyana, and other yoga practices benefit practitioners on so many levels that we understand it goes beyond the image of hot sweaty bodies. More than anything, my personal observation is that it is the ones who do not practice yoga who sexualize yoga. In other words, it comes from ignorance- a misunderstanding more so than a lack of understanding. They assume things about the yoga practice without having a practice themselves. I am fortunate that because I teach Jivamukti, the spiritual and emotional aspects of the practice are very prominent. It draws clear boundaries and sends a very direct message: we practice yoga as a path to enlightenment. I have the honor of teaching students who have a sincere desire to learn while being so forgiving of my shortcomings and imperfections and "un-enlightenment". But here is the thing. Shortly before I took Jivamukti teacher training, I taught vinyasa yoga classes for two weeks straight mainly to get over my fear of public speaking. In this very short span of time, I got a taste of what it is like for a yoga teacher to be sexualized. There were comments made to me that had sexual undertones. I had my doubts and thought maybe I was the one who got it wrong. Maybe this person really wanted to work on a particular pose. My conclusion though, is to trust my instinct. If it strikes me as a sexual advance, then it is likely a sexual advance. I thought about this again today, two years after that first incident, because I felt that my occupation as a yoga teacher was again sexualized. And I am offended by it. What was even more offensive is that it was made by someone whom I considered a friend. Granted, he is not a yoga practitioner. But that is no excuse for disrespecting women. This is what happened. One of our friends cracked a mindless joke about a private yoga session with sexual undertones. I was not offended by the joke itself, more than the reaction it elicited from the other guy who said, "Malay mo, kumagat." (Who knows, she might say yes.) I was not sure if he knew that I heard. At that time, I chose to ignore it. But the more I thought about it, the more unsettling it feels. It was a very sexist, patriarchal comment. It strikes me as something a rapist might say. A rapist does not take no for an answer right? I thought initially of just letting it slide. I thought my best course of action was to cut this person off of my life and that is that. It would not be too hard because we hardly see each other anyway. But my good friend Marie reminded me to never be silent, to speak up for myself and to support all women. Since the aforementioned guys have no interest in yoga or veganism, they do not read this blog. They will hear from me though. To all of those who sexualize yoga and yoga teachers and yoga practitioners, this is what I have to say to you: Excuse me. My body is a temple. I have no desire to mix my energy with the energy of those who cannot see me as a whole being. To all of those who sexualize women in general: Do you not have a mother, an aunt, a wife, a girlfriend, a sister, a friend, a daughter? How would you feel if someone treated them the way you treat women? A disrespectful comment is not just a comment. It is very revealing of what you think of women and faithfulness and loyalty. To women everywhere: If you were sexualized at any point in your life once or repeatedly, it is not because of what you wear or what you say or what you do. It is because the person who sexualized you is, for lack of a better term, an asshole. Lastly, I apologize if this particular post is not very yogic in your opinion. But my body is a temple and my voice is a speaker. Namaste. I just watched Ellen Page's speech and I was deeply moved by her honesty and vulnerability. Truth is, I do not know what it is like to be bullied as a teenager, or to be made fun of because of who you are. I was largely spared from it. I was more invisible than anything, and it served my selfish interests well to blend into the background. Listening to her speech and seeing how nervous she was made me think of the significance of her actions. How courageous, I thought. It made me think of my peers when I was growing up, the ones who were bullied and made fun of, the ones who were cast aside. I realized I never once stood up for any one of them. I was a bystander who merely watched. I was a spectator who- I am not proud to say- took some amusement to watching things unfold, as if I were watching a TV show instead of being part of real life. Why did I never intervene? Why did I never say stop, that's enough? Why did I watch bullies torment others because of their weight or sexuality or the way they look or the way they speak? Why did I not think it mattered? Why didn't I see it caused so much anguish? The other day, I was visiting family and I was playing with my grade-school age niece. We were at the bunk bed when her younger brother wanted to climb up and join us. She said, "No boys allowed" which would have been fine, but then she followed it up with "If you came up here, it means you're bakla (gay)". There was ridicule in that statement, as though being gay was an undesirable outcome. The question lingered in my mind: how did we learn to hate? How is it that young children think nothing of the discrimination that they already put upon others? I think we learn to hate when we accept things that are not okay as okay. We learn to hate with social conditioning, when a large majority of our society accepts things that are not okay as okay. We learn to hate when we watch our parents and family and relatives and teachers and friends put down others because they are different. We learn to hate when those around us act as though those who are different from us are inferior. We learn to hate when those around us choose to do nothing, because choosing to do nothing is choosing the side of the oppressor. How did we learn to hate and how can we unlearn it? We unlearn hate by being courageous. We unlearn hate by questioning the so-called norms of society. We unlearn hate by empathy, by putting ourselves in others' shoes, by seeing others as equal. We unlearn hate by listening and watching and observing. We unlearn hate by embracing love. We unlearn hate by forgiving others. We unlearn hate by trusting ourselves and surrounding ourselves with people who can lift us up. We unlearn hate by showing others love. My nephew decided to climb up the bunk bed anyway, unafraid of his sister's so-called threat. I told my niece, whose only interest is perhaps to keep the space to herself, "There would be nothing wrong if he were gay." I may be too late to speak up for my peers in school, but I am going to start now. Before my life as a yoga teacher, I had a normal office job. One time I was on a business trip in Beijing with my bosses from London. I suppose my presence there was largely due to my language skills. I translated English to Mandarin and vice versa as necessary. After the official events were over, they wanted to go shopping. We went shopping. Then they were hungry and wanted to have dinner somewhere. By this time, I was already vegan so I knew dinner would be a tricky situation. I had suggested going to a vegetarian restaurant but one of them said he does not really eat vegetables so the conversation stopped there. I know that I would not be willing to order non-vegan food for them. I know it was not my place to stop them from ordering peking duck or whatever it is they might want to eat, but I also cannot in good conscience help them do it. In the same way that I may not be able to stop rape, I am not willing to help someone do it. That was clear in my mind. On our way to the restaurant, I thought a lot about what I would say to make my ethical boundaries clear. I thought I would say "I would be happy to order vegan food that everyone can eat. But if you want something else, I am afraid I cannot help you." I was sitting there thinking about the best choice of words that would balance my intentions, that is to make my ethical stand clear, while communicating that this is not about me being difficult. We arrived at the restaurant and for some reason or another, it was closed. We had an English-language magazine that had a listing of restaurants, so we picked one, got on a cab, and asked to be taken there. We got to this second place and it turned out that the address was not updated. The restaurant had moved to another area. We then chose a third restaurant to go to. By this time, the traffic had become so bad that they decided we should all call it a night and go back to the hotel. Just like that, I was spared from my dilemma. Was I lucky? I certainly felt lucky. Was it a coincidence? Of all the many restaurants, we picked three that did not work out for them but worked for me. It seemed like an amazing coincidence. Yet I've been learning from reading resources for February Jivamukti focus of the month that when one's intentions are strong, the world outside would start to match the intentions. The skeptic in us might brush this off. If this were true, then should we not focus all our intentions on winning the lottery? It does not quite work that way. Ego desires and intentions of the spirit unfold quite differently. In the field of psychology, Carl Jung coined the term synchronicity to describe events that are meaningfully related. He believed this to be proof of the collective unconscious and parallel to theories in quantum mechanics. In spiritual teachings, it is said that if we live our dharma- the right path of living- things fall into place. We may be going through a specific situation and we meet someone who says the exact thing we needed to hear. It is the path of least resistance. They say synchronicity or signs are everywhere, but we are often too busy or too shut off to notice them. That is where the practice of yoga comes in. When we are new in our practice, we may find that no matter how the teacher struggles to describe where to place our hands or feet, we get confused because of a lack of body awareness. In time, we become more tuned in to our breath, our body, and even the more subtle movements. Without looking at our feet, we may instinctively feel if they are lined up or not. It is this learned awareness that will help us see those coincidences as signs and synchronicity. Many of us spend so many years of our lives wondering what our purpose is, why we are here, what we intend to do with this life. The signs are all out there. We merely need to open our eyes and hearts to see them. The stars are indeed aligned so we can live the best life we could live, but it is not going to happen if we do not pay attention. May our yoga practice help us tune in to our highest intentions. May we be grounded in that intention in whatever form that it chooses to manifest love. May we find the dharma that is our personal expression of Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. P.S. A synchronistic event important to my path as a Jivamukti yoga teacher was that I had intended to take my first Jivamukti class December of 2010 during my visit to New York. I was, however, distracted by my vegan eating schedule, which also involved (among many others) peking duck, though this was a vegan version that I had at a Korean vegan restaurant called Franchia. No more than two months after the trip, Cat Alip-Douglas of Jivamukti Yoga London taught the first Jivamukti class in Manila which I attended. So even though I prioritized gluttony over yoga while in New York, Jivamukti found its way to me in Manila. At a time when I felt hopeless about the world being so violent, I heard for the first time in my life veganism discussed in a yoga class. P.P.S. You can have a vegan version of the peking duck dish if you live in Metro Manila. A Chinese restaurant called IMC Kavino along Jupiter Street in Makati has it on their vegetarian menu. P.P.P.S. I have once translated non-vegan food from Filipino to English to my couchsurfing guests. They asked me what sisig was. I said pig ears. They asked what dinuguan was. I said pig's blood. They asked what gising-gising was. I said it's chopped green beans in salty spicy and creamy coconut milk. Intention is that which guides our actions. In many Jivamukti yoga classes, we set our intention to the mantra Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu, which my teacher Sharon-ji translates as "May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all." It is a powerful intention that takes a lot of practice, and we can start by sending our thoughts to the most important person in our lives. We practice dedicating our actions to the freedom and happiness of this person. By thinking of the person we love, we practice moving without our egos and selfish interests. We practice acknowledging that the world does not revolve around us. It is a humbling way to experience that we move alongside other beings, that our comfort is no more important than the comfort of another. It may seem like an easy thing to dedicate our practice to the one we love. After all, we already love this person. Of course we will do what it takes to make this person achieve happiness and freedom. And yet when we are already there, in a difficult asana that the teacher has asked us to hold for a long time, we easily forget our intentions. For many of us, we forget our intention as soon as challenges arise. We think: "How can I think of this person when I am the one who is suffering?" The ego takes over. This is the same tendency that we have in our lives off the mat. We start with the best of intentions. But then a financial challenge arises, or we encounter a relationship crisis, or we are faced with a job-related dilemma. We get caught up in our own drama and we forget that we had those intentions in the first place. That is why it is important to understand that commitment is an element of intention. Intention is to see through our actions despite difficulties and setbacks. It is to get back up if we fall out of the wagon. It is to dust ourselves off, pick ourselves up, and try again. It is to look forward with hope, and not back with regret. It is to know that intention means we will do our best, and if we lapse, we forgive ourselves and we try again. There is a woman who epitomized strong intention and commitment known by the name Julia Butterfly Hill. In 1997, she climbed a 1500 year-old tree to prevent loggers from cutting it down. She stayed there for a total of 738 days. She did this successfully. We can only imagine that there were many rough days. Some days the weather would have been horrible. Some days she may have been fighting hunger or boredom or even hopelessness. I don't know and I can only imagine. What I know is that it took unfaltering commitment to see through this intention. What would have happened if she had felt at one point that the discomfort was unbearable and let that take over her intention? Surely the results would be very different. And so, going back to our yoga practice, we can use asana to elevate the way in which we experience the world. By setting our intentions beyond our ego and for the happiness and freedom of the person whom we love, we get used to what it is like to commit despite our personal difficulties. As we get more proficient at doing this, we can include more and more beings into our elevated intentions. From the most important person in our lives, we can include other people whom we love. We can start to see our families, relatives, partners, and friends as being happy and free. We can start to understand that their happiness and their freedom do not take away ours. We can include others whom we know- our co-workers, our neighbors, our acquaintances, our yoga community- and also see them as being happy and free. We also begin to understand that their happiness and their freedom do not take away ours. We can start to include other people we do not know and have not met and will likely never meet- people from different backgrounds, different beliefs, different religions, different preferences, different races. We may often not understand them and they may often not understand us. Just the same, we can see them as being happy and free, and know that their happiness and freedom do not take away our happiness and freedom. We can include other beings, nonhumans, animals- animals in the wild, animals we have domesticated, animals in farms, animals in slaughterhouses- and we can start in our mind's eye to see that they can and should be happy and free. Their happiness and freedom do not take away our happiness or our freedom. When we are able to practice consistently with this intention, it will dawn to us that when others are happy and free, we too are happy and free. When we practice yoga with the intention of reaching the state of yoga, we aim for non-duality and non-separation. Yoga asana practiced without intention can give us acrobatic abilities, but yoga asana practiced with the intention of liberation can free us. Therein lies the difference. To achieve yoga (union with all others), our intention and commitment must be to yoga itself and nothing less than that. Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu. |
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