So What

An 2003, I attended a life-changing concert--Herbie Hancock teamed up with other jazz greats such as Michael Brecker (now passed on) and Roy Hargrove. Whether yoga asana or jazz, both modes point to that oneness of being we all share. Both point to and celebrate spirit. The following is an excerpt of something I wrote about this event.


Holy.

It was Spiritual. There was a moment in the concert when the horns were off stage allowing the rhythm section to solo. The concert hall was dark except for three dim spotlights, each illuminating a musician on stage. Herbie Hancock was hunched over his keys popping dissonant chords like ice on a red-hot stove. John Patitucci's fingers blurred and tangled as they whirred around the fretboard of his double bass. The drummer was nimbly tap-dancing around his set. Popping, clinking, banging, like someone rummaging through a junk drawer. Then, each musician began to play as if oblivious to the other musicians. All three seemed to abandon the song's underlying structure, the musical map that makes playing together possible. They were alone--lost and consumed in the rite of making their own art. Time began to slip away, and it became more of an abstract idea than a perceptible pulse--impossible to find a down-beat.

The music floated like this for eternally long minutes. I could see the music personified on the furrowed brows and grimaces of the musicians. Their notes were together turbulent, raging, furious, and at times lackadaisical. I too drifted with the music. Despite the joy of this ride, however, something was gnawing at me. It was my rational mind wondering how the music could possibly come back together from this entropy. I could see no signs that the musicians were following any sort of map in the song's structure. How would the horns know when to come in and start the melody again, the head? How would the rhythm section come back together? And with these questions, my eyes fixed upon the musicians, hypnotized to the scene before me. Afraid to miss a single note, I stared wide-eyed, wondering what would happen next. Minutes and seconds had ceased.

And after an age, suddenly the horns were back on stage. Without a word, and without a cue, without a gesture, not even a glance, the rhythm section simultaneously aligned to a slow, swung 4/4 meter at the precise fraction of a second that both sax and trumpet blew a soft, low, singular, note. The timbre of this note could not be discerned by the nature of the instruments; it was both sax and trumpet. A third horn. A new name. Invisible but right in front of me. And with this new horn they began the head.

All five were playing as individuals, carving out their own signature and personalities with their instrument. Yet despite the apparent autonomy, chaos, and dissonance, every sound by each musician originated from the same steady beat of one shared heart. It is this heart that makes the maps and this heart that sews the musicians together with an invisible thread. My soul was witnessing a miracle: as I watched and heard them play, I was sensing this shared, invisible heart. I was seeing the finger of God.

One my favorite songs of the night was one that Roy Hargrove wrote called The Poet. It honors Miles Davis and tells an emotional musical story about Miles' character. When Roy took his solo, I was particularly honed to what Roy was saying with his trumpet. As he played, he told me: " if you look in your heart, look deep inside, look way down, keep going deeper, and listen really carefully, amid the discord of life you will find the answer to what you are looking for. You'll find the peaceful and beautiful melody of your deepest inner soul. But be patient and diligent because it will be fleeting; nonetheless, be privy to it. It's there and it's the peace and joy that always resides in you."

I hope that you have similar experiences in your practice of daily living, in those moments of being awake. Maybe you'll find one like this in yoga this week.

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Running in the Light of Darkness

A couple years ago, I was with my wife, Celeste, and our friend Ben spending an afternoon in the paradoxical desert of the Great Salt Lake. The texture of the sand, crusted with salt, weather, and time is a sensational feast for bare feet. We played a game: In this extremely barren, extremely flat land, we decided to close our eyes and run blindly and at full speed in any direction for 100 paces. Eager for the adventure, we closed our eyes and shouted, "GO!" I bolted into the darkness of the afternoon sun. My other senses came alive. I could smell the mud, the salt, the sulfur, the decaying brine. I felt the texture of crusty-soft sand beneath my feet as they beat across the surface of the desert. I could hear my companions several paces from me, their feet slapping the sand, laughing and panting.

Then a thought entered into my head, "Hadn't I seen some ominous-looking spikes sticking out of the sand? I would really prefer not to impale my foot on one of those." Regardless, I tightened my closed eyes, quickened my pace, and began to laugh, wild with wonder and worry. " . . .53, 54, 55 . . . ." My paces were whizzing by but the thought of me stepping blindly onto something sharp had almost put me into a panic. ". . .71,72,73 . . ." I could no longer hear my fellow runners and wondered if I'd veered wildly off-course. " . . . 83,84,85 . . ." Only fifteen paces to go. I desperately wanted to stop and open my eyes. Instead, I let out all the stops, opened my running to as fast as I could, and sprinted madly in any direction, no direction, the only direction-forward. From deep in my gut came a raw and uncontrolled scream of anticipation and fear and fun, "98, 99, 100!" at which point I dug my feet into the sand and did an immediate halt. As I stood there panting, I slowly opened up my eyes and looked down at my feet, muddy, unspoiled, unharmed, these feet who willingly leapt me through space as I ran through the darkness toward fear, away from fear. After a moment, I looked up and around for any spikes. None. Nothing for miles. What a rush!

An important concept as explained in the Yoga Sutras explores the relationship between perceptions and actions. If our perceptions are incorrect, we'll often find ourselves in difficulty or fear. If we know what creates such problems, it is easier to avoid them. If I knew for sure that there were no obstacles in my path, I'd have had an easy run. These elements of faulty perceptions are called Avidya. Interestingly, one of the most common false perceptions is called Dvesa, the action of rejecting things because of fear. We have a difficult experience and are afraid of repeating it so we project the effects of the past to try to illuminate the future and end up making our present moment unpleasant. Unfortunately the effects of Dvesa tend to make us reject things that are unfamiliar, even if we have no history with them.

Until we are enlightened, it is impossible to avoid all fears, and therefore we have a model to face those that remain with a sense of adventure. I've referenced a few times one of my favorite movies, Wings of Desire (if you haven't seen it, go out and watch it tonight, but bring a glass of milk to wash it down-it's rich). In this film, an angel, Damiel, decides he'd prefer to live one life, fully human, sentient, and alive, than an eternity of the colorless, only observational life of an angel. Once mortal, Damiel happens upon another mortal who was once an angel (who, interestingly, is Peter Falk playing himself--what better character to decipher the mystery of life than a sleuth). Damiel pleas for Peter Falk to tell him everything there is to know about being human. As he's walking away, Peter Falk turns to Damiel and playfully shouts, "No! You have to figure it out for yourself. That's the fun of it!" You've got to shut your eyes and run full out and experience what you are going to experience. Since we can't avoid all fears, to the extent that it is possible, we must somehow learn to see the beauty and adventure in them.

Even in our fears and failings there is amazement and beauty. Poet David Ignetow says, "I wish I knew the beauty of leaves falling. To whom are we beautiful as we go?" He says that even in our failing, there is a part of the Universe that finds us astonishing in that going. In yoga, we explore the relationship between what is personal and what is universal-the universe inside. Therefore, there is a corner of your heart that can grant a magnificence to the most difficult of circumstances.

Through yoga and mindfulness, we learn and experience more about our True Self, Home, who's opposite is fear and worry. With the remembrance of our True Self, we are less and less persuaded by Dvesa's false perception of fear. Against the backdrop of the magnificence our True Self, even in the smallest understanding of it, many of our fears simply dissolve. And from this courageous place, we face what fears remain with presence and boldness. We run into the darkness screaming, laughing, and fully alive.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

--Wendell Berry.

Scott

The Wisdom of Kenny Rogers

You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em . . . (lyrics by Don Schlitz)

Everything dies. And hallelujah. Like that first job I had when I was a teenager when I'd dress up like a chicken and go stand on the sidewalk and invite people over to eat at a fast food restaurant while fielding drive-by cat calls, single fingered gestures, and death threats. I'm glad that job
died. And the restaurant too, for that matter. I was happy the day that my fifth-grade romance with Kelly Campbell died. Something about our relationship was very sweet: I gave her the Twinkie from by lunch box. When I lost my interest in Twinkies, she lost her interest in me. So I'm happy that died. Breaking up with Kelly Campbell made way for my romance with Brooke
Anderson to whom I even gave a locket on valentines day with my picture in it. I was 11 at the time. It was very serious.

We die too-several times. Regardless of what you believe in regarding reincarnation, try the idea that we die and are reborn several times during our lifetime. I'm certainly somebody different
now than I was even five years ago. We all are. That old self who was a little flaky or maybe overly committed to work and underly committed to also having a personal life might need to die in order to give birth to a more satisfying way of living. Old habits, relationships, the old self, can all die. Some things live their season then croak on their own and other things need to be euthanized. With the mindfulness we practice in yoga, perhaps we'll be savvy enough to know when to sustain things, when to let things die, and when to kill them.

The Yoga Nataraj is a statue that depicts Shiva, a Hindu deity, as a dancer with four arms. The dance refers to the constant cycle of birth and death, sustaining and evolution, that happens with all things. We set ourselves up for disappointment if we attach ourselves to any part of this cycle understanding that everything is changing. It's like trying to enjoy the scenic view while riding
the Scrambler, that diabolic amusement park ride designed to spin you mercilessly in circles, eventually scrambling your brain, or making you puke, or both. The Nataraj suggests that everything is turning, changing as we speak. Just as things are dying, something else is being born.

We practice this death every time we rest at the end of class in savasana. In many ways, our yoga practice represents our life: we're born, we grow and learn, we slow down and eventually lie
down. But at then we get to start over. We do so with renewed life, keeping all the good stuff and letting the rest decompose. It's like a computer update-we get to use the most current version of
our own personal operating system.

Practice rolling through this cycle by coming to yoga this week. What in your life needs to die so something else can be born?

See you in class.

Radical Permission for Truth

If it hasn't happened already, there will come a time when we stop trying to produce that infallible vision of ourselves and allow ourselves the radical permission to be exactly what and how we are. This permission revolves around the yogic principle of Satya or truth. To be honest with who and where we are, both our strengths and weaknesses, allows us a solid platform from which we can skillfully step to the next place. We stop trying to be everything that we're not and finally find how perfectly we belong to exactly where we are.

With intention, direction, work, and most of all appreciation for our present situation, our dreams of where we want to end up will start to fill out. If we feel stuck, indecisive, depressed, or angry, our truth is to speak to that place. We can speak to all our situations with yoga, an embodiment of all our inner landscapes.

What we want is within our reach; it's simply laced with a bit of irony: the key to fulfillment in the future is to be content now. If we're committed to the honesty of where we are and are content for what is, knowing things change, we create a bridge of present content moments which links us to contentment in our fulfilled future. Without present contentment, without appreciating the truth of where we are, we may find ourselves where we previously hoped for only to discover our habit of malcontent, and, disgruntlement, wishing we were back where we started or somewhere else. We're back in the viscous cycle of hoping for anything but what is true, what is here.

Our main task as I see it is to understand where we are, where our love lies, and bravely organize our lives to focus on what matters most.

I hope that this truth and brave path may lead you to yoga this week.

Here is an offering I learned from my teacher that you may want to use in your meditations:

By the power and truth of our simply practice,
May we and all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May we and all beings be free from sorrow and any causes of sorrow.
May we and all beings never be separated from that sacred happiness which is beyond sorrow.
And may we and all beings live in equanimity, without too much attachment and too much aversion.
And may we live recognizing and honoring the equality of all that lives.

Sarva Mangalam (May the greatest goodness unfold)
Scott

Yoga with a Knife

There are many ingredients to this soup. Read like a mantra, there is zucchini and summer squash from mom and dad's garden. There are carrots, sprouts, macadamia nuts, sunflower seeds, veggie broth, Bragg's, oregano, parsley, and salt and pepper. And, of course, a knife--to cut through what was once solid. And fire--to cook it up so I can assimilate it.

Another essential ingredient to this practice is breath. I breathe in deeply and smell the aromatic cauldron of veggies boiling on the stove; a scent so pure and strong, it reaches each room with misty tendrils, filling the entire apartment. The broth has turned an orange-brown color and juggles the bits of veggies--orange, green, and yellow--with its rolling boil. Each breath fills me with calm satisfaction, a sensual comfort of work close to Earth.

Like many rituals, this one has a costume. Instead of tight lycra, here I don my bulky, heavy-cotton chef shirt; a now-dirty white, the sleeves rolled up to the wrists, the chef shirt boasts two columns of buttons on either side, with my jazz moniker "SP Train" sewn into the correct place, over my heart. The jazz reference seems fitting. After all, cooking is a performance of sorts. The kitchen is my venue, my Village Vanguard. The other players are the stove on bass, the cutting board on drums, and the sink on piano. It's a concert. It's like jazz and yoga, both: equal parts recipe and improvisation.

Music is part of the ritual. Usually it's Chet Baker or Miles Davis (the trumpet sounds so good in the kitchen). But today, it's the indie band Fleet Fox. My good friend who's struggling right now just discovered this band and gave us a CD as a thank-you gift for letting him stay with us last week. I let the sounds waft through the kitchen on repeat so I can digest all of it: the album, the memory of my friend, the ingredients, the time at home, and the opportunity to savor a moment lost in my own thoughts and designs. I can't help but think how "tasty" this music is, how easy on the ears.

Of course, there is an order, an alignment, to this practice. In the same way I'd align my body in yoga practice, I align all the members of my kitchen. I boil the carrots before the squash to get the texture right. I cut and cook before I clean. At the end, this knife goes here, this plate there. I stretch and reach to put away the tall glasses in the top of the cupboard. I squat to put away the heavy pot in the drawer beneath the stove. My body knows what to do next, accustomed to this ritual.

My life changed the day I realized that I would be doing dishes every day, sometimes a couple times a day, for the rest of my life. This was not a sigh of resignation, but a relaxing realization. Regardless of any other important mental, spiritual, or physical work I may do in this lifetime, one of my most fundamental tasks will be dish washing. It is something simple and ordinary but grounding and essential. Like breathing, I guess. Like moving my body through the same sun salutations. In this way, I get new lessons from old teachers.

There is contentment and ease in this practice. I love the sensation of the warm water and suds over my hands, the stable feel of my feet planted into the kitchen floor. Celeste is in the other room reading; her peaceful pleasure is palpable throughout the apartment, like a sigh and a slow, beating heart. I can feel she's as content as I am, happy to have the comfort of both of us at home, me creating a meal for us in my favorite practice in the kitchen.

Eventually comes the moment of enlightenment: eating. I struggle not to analyze the food. What if I would have added some fennel while the veggies were cooking? I decide in time before I've spoiled the magic that it's good enough, that there's nothing else to do. But eat. This is the moment for enjoyment, nourishing body and soul. I savor it slowly and eat just enough, not too much, like we practice with yoga postures, finding the balance--so we're satiated but not uncomfortable.

This practice starts with me directing the kitchen into chaos: pots boiling, utensils strewn on counters, something dribbling over the stove onto the floor, the molten hot contents of the blender exploding into a veggie volcano when I hit the pulse button... Then calmly, happily, I use a little bit of muscle and bring it all back into order, one sponge wipe at a time. I towel off the last bit of the silverware and put it back into the drawer. I bask in the clean, clear quiet at the end, and then, finally, take off my chef shirt and hang it on its familiar peg as I walk out the door. Only to do it again tomorrow.

As the old Zen adage, "Cut wood. Carry water," teaches us, if we don't find enlightenment, meaning, and purpose in life's everyday tasks, we are moving too fast and missing the bigger picture. Slow down, and find a way to enjoy it. This daily life is the practice. Eat it up!
Scott

Rest in Natural Great Peace

This week I'd like to invite you to rest in natural great peace. This invitation was introduced to me recently by a poem written by Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist monk. For me, to rest in natural great peace means to come to that place of deep, abiding calm. I believe there are many tools we can use to find this peace, even if our experience of it is momentary. In yoga this week, I'd like to invite you to come and practice creating the conditions for this great peace by moving through your body, accessing your breath, and clearing your mind. Come. This will feel really good.

Oh, and in case you aren't familiar with the term, samsara is a term meaning the continuous flow of recapitulation as a result of the choices we make and patterns we develop. The idea is once we break those patterns, and therefore stop the results (karma) which develop from those patterns, we are not longer beaten by the continuous waves of those past ways of being; we are free.

Here's the poem:

Rest in natural great peace
This exhausted mind
Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought,
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves,
In the infinite ocean of samsara

The Things That Scare You

What if this week you practiced being with those things that scare you? Call on the spirit of Virabadra, the warrior, to practice strength and focus, call on Tadasana, Mountain Pose, to practice being steady and strong and unmovable, call on Dhanurasana, bow pose, to at once shoot the sacred arrows designed to strike the demons of fear that plague your heart and at the same time keep that heart wide and open.

This week, I invite you to step up to the edge, call on your higher self, and take the leap. Only you know the fears which creep in your heart. This week, practice inviting your fears to the surface to find the power you know is there somewhere and remind yourself of the part of you that is beyond fear. This week, come to yoga with the intention of addressing your fears. Come ready to walk away with greater strength in body and heart. Come ready to find the strength to abide with those things that scare you.

Scott Open Heart Great SAlt Lake

I Go Among Trees and Sit Still.

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

Wendell berry