Lion’s Roar magazine has been a supporter of my writing for over twenty years. When I first opened OM Yoga Center in NYC, I was invited to write a column about Yoga and Mindfulness and that continued for 3 years. I’ve contributed numerous articles about yoga, breathing, meditation, taking spiritual refuge and even Slow Sewing. I’ve been commissioned to write the main feature story twice, and even had my picture on the cover!
I am going to share some of that material and other pieces I have written over the next few weeks as I prepare and then attend Dani Shapiro’s upcoming writing retreat. The pieces I am sharing form a series called:
How My Spiritual Practice Influences My Life.
(I use the word “influences” but it’s so much more than that. Just as putting a tea bag in hot water turns it into tea, my practice has transformed my life.)
And, as a bonus! — if you scroll down I have included a link to another piece in Lions Roar that includes a mindful yoga practice with pictures!
The following piece poured out of me when I found myself caring for my ailing mother. She was at the beginning of what became debilitating Parkinson’s and Lewy Body dementia. My dad was gone and there are no other siblings, so it was my job to care for her. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Still, there were only a few moments when the despair overwhelmed me. My mom was a loving, smart and fun mom. It was a gift and an honor to care for her. She died peacefully in 2015 and I wrote this piece around 2007.
Perpetual Motion Machine
My mom can't move her foot. She tells it to move, she looks at it. Nothing happens. She's been slowing down for some years now but this is not slow. This is stop.
The reason for this has suddenly become so blindingly obvious that it's like the stun gun effect of Dallas air-conditioning or the wake-up slap of heat when you go back outside. A click of insight reminds me that life is a Rube Goldberg; a game of Mousetrap. A rolling marble travels through a tilted chute, plops down a stairway and lands in a pool of water, which splashes up, tipping a match, which strikes and lights a candle. Aha! A certain set of causes and conditions have ripened.
Looking back, I can see how things were developing this way for a while and who knows what karma or genetics—is that the same thing—are in play here? But in the meantime I am grateful that I can help my mom.
Over the years of teaching yoga, I've developed a deep and wide bag of tools for helping people connect their minds and bodies; to align intention with exertion and positively affect their momentum toward health and joy. So when I say to my mom, "Move your right foot toward me," and nothing happens, I try something else because words aren't working. First, I demonstrate by lifting my right foot up high and firmly stomping it forward. Sometimes that clicks with her and she can mimic that action. If that doesn't work, I tap her right leg lightly and say, "Can you move this leg?" We try shifting weight back and forth, wiggling toes inside shoes, bending knees, looking at her leg and looking at where we want it go—whatever I can come up with to access the ability available to her in that precise moment.
This all takes so much longer than you would think. In the slowness, space opens in my mind and I remember all my teachers who are right now helping me to help my mom. I feel all my teachers with me, as if they were right here holding my mom's arm, leading her through a relaxing breath sequence, teaching her that pushing down with the arms creates a lift up in the chest and that is how she can use her walker.
The feeling of gratitude extends to all my students who have helped me develop my teaching skills, my discriminating eye, my sensitive hands, my loud and soft voices, my depth of understanding of how the body and mind work together. I've always thought of teaching yoga not as a job, but as a practice; just as "doing" yoga is a practice. Teaching is a method of cultivating wakefulness, with the students as the dots of awareness that tell me what to do when and how, if I can only pay close enough attention to them and remember to apply kindness to all that I see. What better gift have I received from all my students than the ability right now to help my mom when she needs me?
My other practices are also helping me in new and unexpected ways. My years of meditation and pranayama are giving me the patience I need to go through this process on my mom's timing, not mine. Once we do get going, we go together very, very slowly. Not my usual zooming-around-Manhattan pacing at all, but literally one step at a time and "it's okay to rest whenever you need to."
I've not been known to be a naturally slow or particularly patient person. I'm ambitious and driven and I like to move! But things are different now and I would do anything to help my mom and I would never want her to feel that she is a burden to me in any way. So I stay steady and am finding that those years of walking meditation are coming in handy.
Another thing that comes to mind between the right footstep and the left footstep is a memory of something a student said to me one day. She is someone who doesn't come to the studio all that often but always attends the annual workshop of a guest teacher. After not seeing me for a year she said "You've changed. You've become kinder." Even though it kind of made me feel bad—was I that unkind before?—I knew it was true. I had become kinder. In the year that she hadn't seen me, my father had passed away. My heart had broken in a million pieces and I got softer. I literally started to feel other's pain in a way that I hadn't before because I just didn’t understand it in a visceral way. I did lovingkindness meditations and studied compassion and wanted to be an empathetic person but the best "practice" for attaining that real sensibility was to feel hurt for myself.
It seems like our precious group of practices are about developing skill sets for dealing with real life; these times when the rubber hits the road and there is friction. That's why it’s called practice and real life is called real life. But at the same time, I think we can say that real life is practice for… further practice; a fertile ground for deepening, extending and connecting in unknown ways.
At the same time that what we do on the mat or cushion can be considered practice for when we are off the mat, our "real life" is both practice and performance, if you will. Even though I always encourage students to think of meditation as a long term project, rather than a task oriented activity, all these spiritual practices actually can get put into immediate use—even for beginning meditators and yogis. It’s not the same as if we were knitting a sweater that we will wear later or making a cake that we will eat later. In yoga and meditation we are wearing the sweater at the same time that we are knitting it, and yes, we are actually making our cake and eating it, too. So as I am drawing on my years of meditation, yoga and pranayama, this experience of going slow, of being kind and helpful, of caring for someone as if they were my only precious child is starting to affect my awareness and actions in other situations, as well.
You see, it's easy and natural for me to help my mom. I don't need to do a compassion meditation to try to open my heart to her because she is my heart. I feel as if we are really the same person. And we are. Growing up, my mom taught me how to do a cartwheel and the splits, how to knit and sew, solve crossword puzzles, be a smart and fast shopper, use moisturizer, hold my ground and be fiercely loyal. All these lessons are currently in heavy use in my daily life. Through these direct transmissions, just as a guru's mind becomes one with his students, my mom and I are one being. Not to mention that we look exactly alike. So it is not a stretch for me to feel her frustration, sadness and her still witty, fierce personality and to want to help her. Even though she is my mother, it feels more like I’m her mother now.
My teacher Gehlek Rimpoche taught us that everyone has been our mother in a previous incarnation. Now I want to ask Rimpoche this question—if everybody was my mother before, does that mean that I have been everybody's mother, too?
As a yoga teacher, I relate to this idea. I feel motherly when I teach yoga. I take the approach of teaching people, not poses, and consciously try to figure out how best to help every student that comes into my classroom, whether I'm in Moscow, Mexico, Stockholm, Seattle, Boston, Bali or at my own studio, OM yoga in New York City. In other words, there are people who have a different language and may not understand what I'm saying so what else can I do to communicate yoga to them? Or I might feel challenged by a student with BO or one who seems closed to my offering or who stands too close to me or asks too many questions. But my teaching practice is grounded on the bodhisattva vow and so I am committed to digging deeper into my bag of tools to try to find a way to connect, to be helpful, to share the goodness and benefits of yoga with them. But you know, sometimes I just can't do it. For no particular reason, I just don't like that person and I don't want to look at them or touch them or help them. I can't be their mother that day.
Can I translate what I am experiencing with my mom, both in feeling and in action, into a practice of opening to others? Can I cut down on my hesitation time before reaching out to help another? Can this experience be a fat juicy reminder that we really are one?
The thing is, we all are the one person. The popularity of the green movement is an example of that realization growing worldwide. What any of us does affects all of us, every time, all the time. We know this and it can and should become a guiding principle in how we live our lives.
But sometimes we forget that we (people, bugs, dolphins, eagles, poodles, et al) are all interdependent. The good news is that our grounded practice of yoga is a way of imprinting this sense of connection. We are always exploring the results of our actions in yoga; in immediate ways such as how planting the four corners of the foot creates stability, and in more long term scenarios such as cultivating a more open heart. At the end of the day, the measure of our practice is how we interact with others. Those "other" beings who aren't really others after all; they are us and we are them. Just as the love and kindness, fun and firmness my mom showed me when I was a child has made it natural for me to return the favor, it also created the conditions for me to care about and help "others." Isn't that what our practice is supposed to do? Isn't that what our parents are supposed to do?
The Rube Goldberg contraption feels like it is now evolving into a perpetual motion machine. Science says that perpetual motion machines can only be fictional systems because, due to friction or air resistance, they lose more energy than they create. Can we find a way to just keep going? Can we deny the conservation of energy law that says energy cannot be created or destroyed and continue to recycle our own air/wind energy; our natural lungta? Buddhism says that our mind rides on our wind, our breath. If we don't resist the situation then we can ride that mind. I'm not going to let this get me tired, I'm going to keep going—inhale, exhale, stay present, lift your leg toward me, good job, mom. You took care of me, now I take care of you, perpetual motion machine. I will try not to let my mind wander and wonder, who will take care of me? I will practice literally going one step at a time.
How to Practice Embodied Mindfulness
Practice Opportunities
This is the last online retreat in this series. It’s a 4 hour practice session with a dharma talk, contemplative writing, group discussion, sitting and walking meditation, stretching and restorative yoga. It’s long and you can do it! You will gain confidence in yourself and your practice!
Mindfulness is about much more than being present and paying attention. This is a practice that transforms your life through it’s protective qualities. We will explore a different protection each day and you will begin to notice how this shifts your judgemental mind when you are off the cushion. Grow your self-compassion!
Explore the notion of sustainability in yoga. This work is about presence, curiosity, and personal connection; it is never goal-oriented or performative.
Through nourishing movement designed to balance your physical and mental strength, you will embody sustainability as you experience:
Inspiring dharma talks
Medium-paced asana flows that combine precision and playfulness
Meditation for focus, awareness, and mental nimbleness
Breathwork to regulate the nervous system
Restorative yoga to relax and refresh
Return home feeling more energized and expanded in your capacity to move, breathe, and live well into the future.
*** CEs available for Yoga Alliance ***
Spiritual refuge offers a path for connecting to the basic goodness of the body, breath, and mind. Breathwork, meditation, and OM Yoga are all effective tools that offer healing, self-awareness, compassion, and mindfulness.
Join legendary yoga teacher, Cyndi Lee, for a week-long program that immerses you in deep embodiment, mindfulness, and curiosity. Through meditation, breathwork, yoga, time in nature, group discussion, and more, you will:
Understand the relationship between breathwork, meditation, and asana.
Develop a reliable structure for ongoing personal practice.
Enhance your work as a yoga or meditation teacher.
Begin, or further, your Buddhist studies.
Transform boredom into curiosity.
Each day’s work will build on the day before so you can observe the effects of your practice. Return home with resources that offer you a refuge for the rest of your life.
*** ONLY 5 ROOMS LEFT ***
This retreat is open to everyone! Our practice will focus primarily on sitting and walking mindfulness meditation, sustainable yoga, and restorative yoga. Yoga props will be available in the yoga studio and modifications will be offered for everyone. Each morning will include a short dharma talk and group discussion.