1.0 The Ethics of Yoga

“We have all come to the right place.

We all sit in God’s classroom.

Now, 

The only thing left for us to do, my dear,

Is to stop 

Throwing spitballs for a while.”

—-

“One regret, dear world,

That I am determined not to have

When I am lying on my deathbed

Is that

I did not kiss you enough.”

—-

“...Look at the Perfect One

At the Circle’s Center: He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass,

Beyond all that is Rational,

To show this dear world

That Everything,

Everything in Existence

Does point to God.”

Hafiz, I heard God Laughing, Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky

The Ethics of Yoga:

It is no wonder that we crave the deep, slow returning into the body, mind, and heart that yoga offers and that has made it so popular across the globe.  Yoga and Mindfulness teach us wonderful tools and technologies that we can bring into our everyday lives if we can take the simple essence of the lessons off the mat and actually apply the practices into our busy days.

Yoga gets complicated when you begin to dive in to all of the many words, concepts, and constructs that describe the mind and consciousness, which of course is also what makes the material so rich, textured, and transformational.  We will be diving into that material in all of my writing carefully and with a lens of self-investigation. 

While I love the philosophical maps that are laid out for us in Yoga text and tradition, I also think that the complexity of yoga tradition and philosophy keeps some people away because it seems too complicated, too religious, or too mysterious.  

There are a few lessons, however, that summarizes all of the yoga systems and that, if you can really move these lessons into your heart, have the ability to change your deepest perspective, create tremendous spaciousness in your mind and heart, and lead you to the goal of yoga without all the fuss- which is simply inner contentment, resilience, and reverence for your whole miraculous self.

“Notice What You Notice”

The first and by far the most important lesson of yoga might be summed up in the phrase “notice what you notice.” Have you already checked your phone, or clicked several tabs on your browser, or wandered off into the vast travels of the mind about a million times today?  This is how the human mind works.  

It’s not called a “monkey mind” by so many people for nothing. For thousands of years people have been so fed up with our mind and its generated thoughts (each of which, if you will notice, convinces you how extremely important it is, right? This thought matters!  Listen to it!  And this one!) that it has been the main focus of yoga from the get-go.  How do I make this windy mind more of a gentle breeze up in the atmosphere rather than an insufferable tempest at ground level?  

There is only one way to still our thoughts, and that’s by honing our concentration.  This is why we are drawn toward the deep meditative focus in art, music, tinkering around at this or that project in the garage, even the modern day single-pointed obsession with social media and technology.  

Notice that.  Notice what you are doing in every single given moment.  Begin by just pausing a few times in your day to notice what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, what actions you take to self-sooth uncomfortable feelings.  Don’t try to change your activities.  Don’t manipulate your thoughts or feelings. Just notice them.  Become the great observer of your life.  If I could sum up every teaching of yoga in one phrase, “notice what you notice” always stands out.

“Be Kind to Yourself”

Or, put more boldly:

“Fall in Love With What You Notice”

When you become the great observer of your life you will see that you are uncomfortable most of the time.  We shape shift all day long in order to distract ourselves from our discomfort.  Be kind to yourself.  Kindness, or non-harming, toward yourself is a core lesson of yoga philosophy.  

This is because once we notice all of the agitation and material of our thoughts, emotions, sensations, and perceptions, we begin to see that most of this material has judgments attached to them.  Not only are most thoughts and emotions themselves uncomfortable, but the judgment that we layer upon these agents becomes what some psychologists and practitioners call “the second arrow.”  You are already injuring yourself by that obsessive thought, and now you are adding your judgment toward yourself and others to that pierce, making the combination extra-painful.

When we feel into the body we begin to fall in love with its simplicity.  The body breaths.  The body moves.  The body looks for balance, health, and homeostasis.  The body looks for repair, regeneration, and support.  What an absolute miracle.  We discover that it’s actually a lot easier to be kind to ourselves when we start to breathe, to move and stretch and flex.  To feel the agency of our form and the exhilaration of its power.

I have seen, again and again, that when we begin to practice kindness and compassionate mindfulness within ourselves it is much easier to express those attitudes toward others.  You don’t need to pretend to be nice to someone else.  You can be at ease with yourself and allow that ease to spill out the cracks and shine around.

We are so trained to accommodate the world around us: to act a certain way, to believe a certain way, to dress a certain way.  By noticing these behaviors and by loving yourself for what you approve of as well as what you do not approve of within yourself you will have gone the entire length of the yoga path, which leads directly to the heart. 

Here is a universal truth that everybody knows if we pay attention: the mind divides us into stories, agitation, and the agony of individual righteousness.  The heart unites us in wonder and spaciousness.  

The solution is walking the path backwards from the mind to the heart.  Follow whichever path you are given.  If you can notice what you notice and send kindness into the whole of your being you will be walking the sacred way back home to yourself. It does not matter at all what lines the path, what you look like or where you live, what sights you’ve seen along the way, what shirt you have on or what family you were born into- you are capable of this simple yoga.  May we meet in the cave of the heart together, in wonder.

Peaks and Troughs:

Let’s get back to that great circle. Sometimes I think of the top arc of the circle as bliss, completion, or peak experience. The trough is despair, challenge, and the black pit of anxiety, fear, or grief.

The meditation I have been following for the past six months (and that has helped me in so many ways weather the cyclone of 2020) is the statement from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: Heyam Dukham Anagatham (YSP 2.16): The Suffering that has yet to arrive should be avoided.

I find this statement very humorous. I imagine the author(s) called Patanjali as smiling as they wrote this. Heyam Duhkam Anagatham. Avoid your future suffering. It’s wise, and it’s witty. It points to the circle. The circle spins, and what you know for sure is that sometimes you’re at the top, at the peak, and sometimes you’re at the bottom, in the muck. But whichever it is it will most certainly keep turning. So better to decide now that you will avoid that suffering that is certain to come. How? By seeing the cycle as a natural force of change that will take its course, move on, and linger back.

Yoga reminds us that we are in fact the center of the circle. The spokes move out in all directions, turning, peaking, dipping, always moving. But there is something essential in ourselves that does not change. This is what we are returning to in our practice.

Woe is the spiritual seeker who thinks she can find a spiritual experience and hold on to it. Find a state of perfection, land, and hover there forever. The circle moves. It’s hard to admit this when you’re at the top, but it’s a great relief when you’re at the bottom!

The solution to the circle? It’s not jump off the Ferris wheel (as long as you have a body and a working mind). That does not quite work though you might kid yourself from time to time that you’ve achieved just that. Instead, notice what you notice. Maybe, just maybe, over time you will learn to love that which you notice.

That wheel’s center does spin and whirl like a golden compass. You- your heart- the center. For what else could you call God?