What's Sprouting?

Student Video Project 3

2008-05-01T06:29:00.003+09:00

You may have noticed that a few times a year we do a video featuring the real stars at Yoga Garden, our wonderful students.

The videos all revolve around a simple question. The first one was, "Why Do You Like Yoga?"

The second one was, "What's Your Favorite Pose?"

And, I'm proud to announce the question for our third student video...

"What Pose Is Giving You Trouble?"

We'll be making this video for the whole month of May, so think about your answers, and when you've chosen your troublesome pose, we'll be shooting the mini videos after class!

I'm still thinking about mine. It might be Pasasana...

or Firefly...
Let's have fun with this video!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Secret Project Unveiled!!

2008-03-09T07:28:00.006+09:00

Hi everyone, I've been tinkering away in the dead of night on this, and it's finally ready for the public!

Here Lies Patrick

I've finally got my own homepage. Everyone check it out, leave some comments. I'll still be posting on What's Sprouting monthly, but the new site will be less formal and updated more often.

Why I'm Voting for Barack Obama

2008-02-20T02:18:00.004+09:00

This is my first and I promise it will be my last foray into politics on this blog. Politics is a black hole of partisan opinion, misleading rhetoric, distortions of truth, and outright lies.

Below is me and my absentee ballot for the Presidential Primaries.
I voted for Barack Obama and here's my reasoning.

Before we get to directly to Obama, let me first share why I am a Democrat. Of the two parties in American politics (I wish there were more) Democrats tend to have a more interdependent worldview. Interdependence is a Buddhist concept that means nothing in this world exists independently of anything else. Everything is connected and constantly interacting. Say, for example, I steal 10 dollars from your wallet, and you don't notice. It may appear that I've gotten off cleanly and that my action has had no impact aside from letting me have a good lunch that day. But suppose, not having as much money as you thought you did, you don't tip your new waiter well at your lunch and he has negative feelings for you which he carries over to his next customer, who thinks the service is lousy and tells all her friends not to go to the new restaurant which closes down 6 months later due to lack of business. Of course this is a rather trite and trumped up example, but it serves its illustrative purpose well enough. (And doesn't take into account all the internal reverberations you will feel from stealing money from your friend)

All the things we do emminate outwards in impossibly complex ripples, and all the things that happen to us are the result of a distant action sometime in the past.

This is not only scientifically true but it has the advantage of having an inbuilt civic code. Eventually my actions and the actions of my country will come back to me in some way or another. So yes, I can sanction polluting the environment and messing with other countries governments for a personal gain, but it's not hard to see how sooner or later those choices will affect me and those I love in a negative way as well.

Interdependence is unfathomable. We have no idea what will happen even despite our good intentions. That's why we need to make choices that tread softly on the Earth and our neighbors, rather than blazing ahead with a misguided sense of what is right and wrong. I'm not afraid of high taxes or of helping people in my society who are worse off than me. And as it turns out, Denmark, with one of the highest tax rates in the world, also ranks as the happiest country on Earth. This week 60 minutes has a great story about the reason why Denmark is so happy and America isn't doing so well.

So that's why I'm going with the Democrats. Now, why I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton.

America does not need dynasties. I find it mind boggling that more people aren't asking what is wrong with America that we have had just two families in the White House for 20 years. (not including Bush seniors 8 years as Vice President) I am 28 years old which means that for my entire politically aware life I have been looking at a Bush or Clinton behind a podium with the Presidential Seal. It's a shame that with such a dynamic and intelligent population we can't get past these two families.

Is Hillary really empowering for women? I respect and esteem women and think they make great leaders (women too have a better sense of interdependence). I'm sure Hillary Clinton was a great corporate lawyer before, but it's clear that the only reason she has gotten to where she is now is based on who she married rather than her own accomplishments. This seems to me the antithesis of feminism. I would much rather see our first female president (and it will happen) be someone like Nancy Pelosi or even Condoleeza Rice who has won the post on her own merits.

Hillary Clinton has had her chance. A few months ago when Hillary teared up at the luncheon and told us all that she kept going because she just cares so much, I had a few moments of sympathy and fondness for her. But then a voice inside my head said, "Wait a minute, this person had the ear of the single most influential man in the world for 8 years. She's been in the highest seats of power and has had her opportunity to change her country. She's had more power than you ever will." My sympathy for her quickly vanished.

Bill Clinton gives me the creeps. No, not because of Monica Lewinsky. Because of the way he acted in South Carolina. For a few days the curtain was parted and we could all see the man for what he is, a politician who will do anything to win. His false attacks and marginalization of Obama as another "Jesse Jackson" left a bad taste in my mouth which won't go away. Like Bush, 8 years of Bill Clinton was enough for me, I'm all full up.

Up until now this post has been all negatives. But that is just a small part of why Obama has my vote. Here's the happiest thing. I'm going to lay out why I like Obama and I don't have to apologize for things he's done, do any mental wriggling to be at peace with his positions, or convince myself that he's the right person for the job. I just honestly support him.

Obama isn't straight out of the 60's. Before Obama became a serious contender, way back in the summer of 07, he made a statement that really got my attention. He said, “I didn’t come of age in the ’60s. I’m not invested in them.” He went on to explain that the Baby Boomers have been having the same fight since the Vietnam era. The Hippies vs. the Establishment. As Andrew Sullivan from The Atlantic put it much better than I ever could:

"At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce.

The traces of our long journey to this juncture can be found all around us. Its most obvious manifestation is political rhetoric. The high temperature—Bill O’Reilly’s nightly screeds against anti-Americans on one channel, Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World” on the other; MoveOn.org’s “General Betray Us” on the one side, Ann Coulter’s Treason on the other; Michael Moore’s accusation of treason at the core of the Iraq War, Sean Hannity’s assertion of treason in the opposition to it—is particularly striking when you examine the generally minor policy choices on the table. Something deeper and more powerful than the actual decisions we face is driving the tone of the debate." (For the full article click here)

Before I heard Obama's comments on the 60's divide I didn't have a clear understanding about what so turned me off about American politics. As soon as I heard him say that a lightbulb went off in my head that illuminated so much. These people are still arguing about something that happened more than 40 years ago. I was born in 1979 and I don't care who went, who didn't go, who supported and who dodged the draft for a terrible war that we didn't even have any business starting. I don't care. What I do care about are the issues facing us today, a sensible foreign policy, alternative fuels, healthcare, and sustainable growth. This isn't to say that the 60's era politicians like McCain and Clinton don't care about these things either, but they are hampered in their vision by these old, bitter divisions which have shaped their lives.

Obama lived abroad. A few months ago, when asked about his foreign policy experience, Barack Obama said:

"Probably the strongest experience I have in foreign relations is the fact I spent four years overseas when I was a child in Southeast Asia."

The next day Hillary Clinton mocked this answer, saying "Voters will have to judge if living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face.’’

This response deeply unnerved me as it could only be said by someone who has never lived abroad. Living in a foreign country for long periods of time (sorry, a semester in England doesn't count) is a deeply changing experience. It teaches you that the way you interact with the world is not due solely to your own personality but to your culture, your upbringing, and even your language. (interdependence again) Knowing this about yourself, that you approach a situation not just as "Jane" but "English speaking Jane from East Coast America middle class" will forever alter your worldview. It allows you to respect that other people might not see things like you. It gives you skills for compromise and also informs you of when compromise is impossible due to too great a cultural gap. Does it matter that Obama was a young child when he lived in Indonesia? Not at all, the lesson from living abroad is like riding a bike, it's a part of you that you never lose. Clinton's answer is far too characteristic of the self-centered, narrow perspective of the ugly American.

Fareed Zacharia, who has more degrees than I have fingers, wrote very eloquently about this in Newsweek, excerpted here. Please read it if you have the time!

The dude can talk. I have been continually amazed at George W. Bush's poor public speaking. I mean, you are the President of the United States. Being able to think on your feet or deliver a good speech should not be optional qualities. If you're trying to be an actor, a certain amount of handsomeness is required. If you're unattractive, that's ok, but maybe acting isn't the best field for you. We have no qualms with this reasoning and I don't see why we shouldn't hold our leaders to similar standards of public speaking. Being President means speaking a lot. And no one does it better than Obama.

Obama snorted cocaine. One of the most depressing aspects of American politics is how our electorate insists its leaders pretend they are perfect beings. And then when they show a crack and act like a regular old human, with addictions, lusts, and skeletons in the closet, we cast them out with disgust. None of us could live up to the ideal of the Puritan American leader. What I respect much more is someone who has had their problems and actually worked through them. And isn't ashamed of it. Plus, you gain compassion for people in the same circumstance and are less likely to get on a high horse about anything. I deeply distrust someone who has never done anything bad in their life. There's just something unnatural about that, something pent up and explosive. Doing bad stuff (I would rather say unskillful), and then coming back from that line is where we find our humanity.

So, that's all I'll ever say about politics. I just figured if there ever was a point to say it, now, when things are being decided, is that time. Thanks for reading, and sorry for all the non-Americans who don't give a damn about our crazy political system! : )

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Receipts

2008-01-21T21:34:00.001+09:00

This month I've made it my priority to finally get on top of all my old receipts which for the past year I've just been throwing in a big plastic box every few days when my wallet gets too full of them. For tax reasons I have to keep track of each and every purchase, and put it into a spreadsheet. But I've just been throwing them in the box.

So tax season is coming up and I decided once and for all to break my bad habit* of not cataloging my receipts in a timely manner. So I've invested in a whole new system of files and folders and gotten the entire 2008 year ready to go, and it's working marvelously so far. But I also wanted to put the past behind me and finally enter all those old receipts.

So, I spent an entire day organizing and another whole day putting the receipts into Excel. This amount of time (nearly 16 hours) spent closely analyzing stuff I bought more than a year ago really taught me a lot about myself and my spending habits. So many times I wondered why I had bought some stupid thing and even more times I couldn't help imagining how much extra money I would have today if I had only skipped a few of those mochas or snacks from the convenience store.But what was most revealing was that some months in particular had a lot more receipts for junk food, pizza delivery, and cheap restaurants. It took me a while to figure out the pattern, but finally I put it together. It was during times of emotional stress that those receipts for junk food and eating out really shot up. And the good months when everything was going well had me buying a lot of healthy food from the supermarket and vegetable seller. The irony is of course that when you're under a lot of pressure your body is already going through the wringer, (see my post on How Stress Affects the Body) and the last thing it needs is fatty, nutritionless junk going in it. Also, if there was ever a time to slow down and quietly prepare a home-cooked meal, it would be when you are stressing out.

The funny thing is, I thought that I was pretty in control of myself during those tough stressful times. After all, my job is teaching people how to handle stress and take care of themselves. And if you had asked me during those hard months if I was "stressing out" I would have been like "nah, it's hard right now but I'm dealing with it well." The receipts however, tell a different story.

So the next time you're feeling the pressures we all go through in the course of our lives, stop for a minute and try to imagine yourself looking back at the situation a year or two out. What choices would you be proud you had made? And which ones would you slap yourself on the forehead about? It's a pretty sure bet that one good one would be to make a small space in the day to enjoy the rhythms of chopping, the smell of fresh ingredients, and the satisfaction of actually thinking about what you but in your body, with a home-cooked meal.

Patrick
Yoga Garden

*I've found this site called Joe's Goals really, really helpful in getting me to stick to my resolutions this year. What I've found is that when I fail to change a habit, it's not because I'm actively deciding not to do it, just that I forget about it because it's not, well, a habit. This site makes it so that you see your goals and are reminded of your commitment often throughout the day, and that's usually enough to get me to do it. I've added my Joe's Goals graph on the blog so you can check in and see how I'm doing over there on the right side!

Get Yourself Into a Pickle!

2007-12-11T19:44:00.000+09:00

One of my favorite things about living in Morocco was the family of sheep and goats that lived under my rooftop quarters. They were noisy as hell and didn't smell great, but there was nothing more satisfying than taking out my food scraps and seeing them happily devour them, without a crumb wasted. That plus the fact that there were no plastic bottles, cans, or packaging meant that my total waste from eating was essentially nil.

These days, I often end up with a situation like the one pictured here. I made a lasagna and salad for dinner, but I didn't need a whole cucumber, zucchini, or carrot to make the meal. So I had these halves left over. I usually try to put them in the refrigerator with the hope that I'll eat them in the next few days but that rarely happens, and I usually end up throwing out rotting, soggy halves of vegetables I really meant to eat but never got around to.

That was, until I found out how to make pickles!

Pickling is easy and fun. You don't need any special equipment, but if you have a chance, pick up a cheap pickling jar like the one shown in the photo above. It's a glass bowl with a heavy glass top that adds pressure to the pickles as they sit in the brine. But more on that later. For this batch of used veggies I decided to make two kinds of pickles. The first batch will be regular vinegar style and so I'll cut the pieces small, along with some very thin strips of ginger for flavor.

This type of pickle brine usually calls for:
1/2 cup vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2/3 teaspoon salt
ginger cut into small strips

But here's my secret if you don't want to bother with all that. Sushi rice vinegar! It has just about the same proportions of sugar and salt as the recipe and it's all already mixed. It works great but you might want to cut it with a little water if you don't like too sour a taste.

Put the cut vegetables in a bowl and, with your hands, rub them with about a tablespoon of salt.

This is part of the magic of making pickles. Getting the water out of the vegetable and replacing it with the yummy stuff.

After rubbing in the salt for about a minute, leave the bowl for 15 minutes... and...

... you'll see that the salt pushes the water out from the veggies. Separate the water and vegetables and it's on to the last step.

Gently squeeze the vegetables with your hands, kind of bruising them so that the vinegar will be able to get into all the nooks and crannies. Then place them in your bowl or pickling jar.

For the best effect you'll need a heavy lid that presses down on the pickles. The weight of the lid will draw even more water out from the vegetables as water is lighter than the vinegar. As I said before a 12 dollar (1300 yen) pickling jar is great, but if you don't have one I'll show you how you can make your own in the following recipe.

Now with the vegetables under a bit of pressure all you need to do is wait at least 24 hours. If you want the pickles to be eaten much later you should cut the veggies into bigger pieces. If you want to eat the next day, keep the size small and thin.

This recipe will give you a really typical "pickle" taste.

This time I decided to make another batch with a spicy chinese flavor.

3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
(or as before just use sushi vinegar for the last three ingredients)
1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 small red pepper or red pepper flakes
ginger cut into small strips

Prepare the water, oil, and vinegar mixture.

Just as before you want to bruise the veggies a little by lightly hitting them with the flat side of a knife or something like that.

Mix the vegetables into the vinegar mixture and be sure to coat all the surface area on them.

If you don't have the special pickle jar you can just use two bowls that fit inside each other like this. To get the weight you need for the proper pressure, you can fill the top bowl with water or, like I did here, just put an onion or whatever heavy thing you have laying around in your fridge inside the top bowl.

So here are my two pickles. Regular on the left, and spicy Chinese style on the right. I'll put these in the refrigerator overnight and they should be pretty tasty tomorrow!

The next day, here are the regular style pickles. They really shrunk overnight and are packed with flavor now!

And here are the spicy pickles. Yummy!

Add a bowl of rice and I've made a meal out of what yesterday I was thinking about throwing out because it would probably end up rotting in my refrigerator. It's no substitute for a goat, but making pickles is a simple, tasty way to reduce your waste! Enjoy!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

What Riding a Bike in the City Can Teach You

2007-11-09T09:38:00.000+09:00

One of my favorite things about living in Japan is not needing a car. I have never been interested in cars, and I don't really enjoy driving. Sometimes Japanese people will tell me that one of their hobbies is "driving", but for me speeding down an asphalt road in a big hunk of metal with other bigger hunks of metal just inches away also moving at high speeds, it's just not my idea of relaxing.

Instead, I ride my bicycle just about every day of the year. I can get to any part of the city in under a half hour on my bike, often faster than a car. And over time I've learned a lot from riding a bike. These lessons also apply to a well-lived life, and so I'll share them with you now!

Lesson 1: Get off the rails! Back in the early 90's when video games didn't have a lot of processing power, there was a genre called "Rail Shooters." In these games you had a spaceship or a dragon or something, and you were traveling along a path through a stage, shooting at the bad guys. You could move up and down, and strafe to the left or right, but these only gave the illusion of freedom. In reality, you were just on a rail, like a Disney world ride. Here's one of the more egregious examples, StarFox.

Needless to say, these games sucked, and were eventually replaced by games in which you could fly any direction you wanted.

Driving in a car is very much the same experience for me. You're stuck on a track, looking through a big sheet of glass, watching the world go by like so much background scenery in one of those rail shooters. And you can't even shoot anything. Well, you could, but it would end up being a short trip.

On the other hand, on a bicycle the city becomes your playground. Everything is open to you... One-Way streets, red lights, back alleys, jogging paths, shopping streets, these all add to the fun. There is room for variation and creative solutions. I'm sure everyone has had the experience of driving, slipping into a kind of hypnosis, and snapping out of it, finding you have arrived at your destination without even remembering the trip. This has never happened to me on a bicycle. The mind is alert, working, and solving problems.

I think some people kind of have a life on rails. They've locked themselves into situations at work or at home where variation is impossible. Starting the studio was one way we tried to bring more freedom into our lives. Maybe for you the solution doesn't have to be as drastic as opening your own business, maybe just starting a new hobby, going to a place you never thought you'd like, or just putting the left sock on first will be enough to get the brain juices flowing again?

Lesson 2 : When seeking a goal, be flexible and keep the overall picture in mind. Let's say I want to ride my bike to Yokohama station. I always have in mind the arrival point of Yokohama station, but how I get there is not set in stone. For example, if I hit a red light (that I can't blaze through) I'll happily take a left or right and cross the street at another point when the light goes my way. Or sometimes it's just the opposite. The light will be green and it will look like a good chance to get closer to my goal, but by taking the light at that point I'll hit a mass of businessmen getting off the subway which will ultimately take longer than passing on the green and using another route. I've found that what looks like the most direct route on a map is often not the fastest.

When you have a goal, it will rarely turn out that everything goes your way and you can zip right to it. Be ready to take some right turns. Just because your not moving directly towards it doesn't mean that you're not still moving towards it! And also be wary of easy chances for quick gain at the expense of the overall destination point.

And lastly, speed isn't everything. Sometimes I will choose a longer route because it goes down a tree-lined street, a lively part of Chinatown, or past some graffiti I like. Enjoying your life is the ultimate goal after all!
Lesson 3 : Not being attached doesn't mean you don't try. I have written a lot in this blog about the Buddhist idea of "non-attachment" as the key to lasting happiness. But sometimes people take this to mean a laissez-faire approach to life in which you just float along in a kind of haze. That's absolutely the wrong way to approach this, and I've found a great illustration of this on my bicycle which I've been eager to share with people.

On one of my usual bike routes, there is a long street from which you can see the traffic light at the end from really far away. This happens to be a long light without any of those options to zig-zag that I discussed above. So, I can see from a few hundred yards that the light is green. I know that if I pedal hard I have a chance to get across, which will really help me out, as I can get to my destination faster and get on with my day.

So I dig in and go for it, weaving through pedestrians and narrow street like an X-wing through the Death Star. And sometimes I make it through just as the light turns yellow, but often the light turns red before I reach it, and I'm stuck at the corner.

Now here is where the attachment comes in. If I've really built up the idea that I'm going to make the light, get to where I'm going early, have more time to do my stuff, and therefore have a more fulfilling and relaxing day, when I hit the red it's a little upsetting, I might even curse under my breath. On days when my mindfulness isn't really engaged this often happens. But, on a more mindful day, I'll miss the light, and just let it go, coming back to the present moment (as opposed to that fantasy where I got there early and had a more relaxing day) and enjoy the sun, look at the things in the window of the corner shop, and watch the people on the other side of the street going about their day. Much healthier!

But you'll notice that in both situations, I still pedal hard to make the light. Being non-attached to outcomes doesn't mean you just throw in the towel and meander through the streets. Go for it! But if it doesn't go your way let it go just as easily as if you had made it. This is really tough and if you're like me you'll often find yourself almost faking non-attachment, saying to yourself "I didn't really care anyway" when inside you're still churning about the incident. Those times when you honestly and completely let go of attachment are so wonderful and good signs of progress!

Lesson 4 : Don't invest too much in the vehicle. I've never spent more than 120 dollars on a bicycle. Bikes get stolen, run over, and break down, especially the way I ride them. A bicycle or a car is just a way to get somewhere. Maintain them, be good to them, but don't cling to them.

Of course this is also a Buddhist idea, often formulated as "Leave the raft behind." The Buddha didn't want his followers to be attached to him or his practice too much. He compared the Buddhist path to a raft you use to cross to the far shore of a river. When you get there, you would be crazy to pick up and and start carrying the raft! You leave it behind, for it has served it's purpose and is no longer useful. This same light touch should be applied to our spiritual path, whatever it may be. As we can see any day from reading the international headlines, investing too much in your particular religion leads to violence and bloodshed.

However, some people take this to mean that their bodies are also just another vehicle that we shouldn't spend too much time on. Ascetic philosophies stresses this point a lot, with the idea being to transcend the impure, worldly body in favor of the pure mind.

For me, this is a serious mistake. You aren't a little person inside your head "driving" your body around, able to transcend it if you try hard enough. You are your body. I'll say that again, You Are Your Body. Your brain and the rest of you are completely interdependent. Taking care of your mind/body is the single most important thing you can do in your life. Part of this means exercise, part of it meditation, healthy diet, stress reduction, good sleep, and surrounding yourself with a good community of people.

A great way to get a headstart on all of those things is getting out of the hunk of metal with wheels and into the open air on a bicycle! So, see you on the roads, I'll be the one pedaling past you as you wait in traffic!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Where I've Been!

2007-10-22T17:26:00.000+09:00

Hey all, sorry for not updating in so long. I've been spending a lot of time producing our videos for YouTube which you can find here. Check them out, give them a rating (rate it even if you hate it!) and leave a comment if you feel so inclined!

I'll be back soon with a real update and news from Yoga Garden!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Yoga in Yamashita Park

2007-08-21T08:09:00.001+09:00

Thanks to everyone who came out early to enjoy the earth and sky at our yoga in the park event. It was so popular we'll do it again next month! Check the homepage for information!

Yoga Garden

Stop Saying This to Me!!!

2007-08-12T07:54:00.000+09:00

I usually don't complain about things, but today, I'll share with you something that gets under my skin and has been happening a lot recently.

I meet somebody, I say, "Hello, what's up?"
They say, "Not much, how about you?"
I say, "I'm cool, thanks"
They say, "That's great, but you look so tired."

"Oh, you look so tired" I must hear that 4 or 5 times a week. I think I hear it more than most people because of a simple genetic quirk which you can see in this photo from my childhood:

Now in this photo, I am two or three years old, and you can see that I have little wrinkles under my eyes, with some dark shading under the wrinkles. I can assure I was not a tired, overworked 2 year old, and that this stuff under my eyes is just part of my face. Here's a more recent picture of me, and you can see I've kept the baggy eyes...
So I understand why people think I "look tired." And I think that usually the speaker is trying to say that I am a hard worker and it's good that I'm busy. But let's just think about the two possible outcomes of saying, "Oh, you look so tired"

Situation 1: You really are tired, you've been working your ass off, or your sick, or you're having some kind of tough emotional situation and you're not sleeping well. In which case, do you really want to hear that you look as bad as you feel? Would you ever say to someone struggling with their weight, "Dude, you look fat?"

Situation 2: You're actually feeling pretty good. Maybe like me you have baggy eyes, or you went to a great party the night before and are still feeling good. So you're bopping along, and suddenly you hear "You look so tired", which basically says, "You sure don't look as good as you feel." So you're thinking, damn, if they say I'm looking tired when I feel good, I must really look like crap when I'm actually tired!

So you can see that in either situation hearing the news that "you look tired" is a total downer. In both cases the net feeling is a (-). So why say it at all? I present now an alternative, which is to find something positive to say. Someone's always got a good point going on, be it their hair, their clothes, something good that has happened to them recently, or just the fact that you're happy to see them. Let's look at the situations again.

Situation 1: You feel terrible. But someone says, "Hey, that shirt really suits you." All of a sudden your whole mindset changes. Yeah, you're life is going down the toilet, but hell, you've got a shirt that really suits you! You're actually pretty damn cool.

Situation 2: You're feeling great. Someone says, "Those shoes are awesome, where'd you get them?" You're feeling even better! Of course she likes your shoes, what's there not to like, you're such a hip and happening person!

So, either situation results in a positive (+) outcome, just from a few kind words.

Of course we all know this. From childhood we're taught the lesson that "If you can't find something nice to say don't say anything at all." But I would like us to take a less school-marmish approach to this rule of thumb.

Really, it's all about Right Speech, one of the tenants of Buddhism's Eightfold Path to wisdom. Right Speech is much, much subtler than being honest, or not gossiping. It's about being aware of the implications of your speech, however small. In itself, "You look so tired" is not a mean thing to say, in fact it could come from a place of compassion. But we need to step back and try to consider how our words will be heard from the other end, like we've done in our Situation 1 and 2 above. This is moving towards mindful speech, which, if practiced daily, will transmute into Right Speech.

We all have our own communication styles that hurt others without us even knowing it. For example, when I am teaching a beginning yoga student I give them a lot of encouragement and positive feedback, but as they progress and get fitter and more flexible, I give them more criticism and technical details. As a result, one student told me recently that in fact he felt he was getting worse, when just the opposite is true, simply because I hadn't told him how great he was doing recently.

So let's pay a little closer attention to how our language affects those around us and try to introduce as many (+s) into the day as possible!

Now I'm going to sleep, cause, man... I look tired.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Thanks For a Great Event!

2007-07-05T07:13:00.000+09:00

Hi everyone, I just wanted to say thanks for all the people who came out this July 1st to celebrate 2 years of Yoga Garden! I'll let the pictures do the talking!

And if you're interested we made this short video on the veranda after the event!

-Patrick

Yoga Garden

10 Days of Hunger

2007-06-15T19:05:00.000+09:00

This weekend I am entering a karate competition. Like most combat type sports karate tournaments have different weight classes, and I entered for the 65 kilos and under division. The thing is, I paid the entry fee and everything before I actually weighed myself. I roughly knew my weight, but that was from 6 months ago and in pounds, so my sensei brought in a scale to double check. A week and a half ago I got on that thing and it said... 67 kilos.

At first, I was like, "pshaw, no problem," because when I wrestled in high school I could lose 2 pounds overnight just by not drinking any water and spitting into a bottle a lot. Then it hit me... the damned metric system strikes again! 2 kilos over actually meant 4.4 pounds of heaviness! And 10 days left! In the language of my old wrestling days, I needed to seriously "cut weight."

When I wrestled, I had the hardest time with weight control. Like most teenagers I guess, just the fact that someone said I couldn't do something (like eating to my heart's content) made doing that thing just so irresistable. So it was doubly hard to diet. But I always made weight. One time I slept with my window open in the middle of winter because shivering helps shed a few extra ounces.

I decided this time wouldn't be any different. I was going to make weight. Besides, it was a perfect chance to try something that I had been thinking about ever since I heard of it, the CR diet. CR stands for calorie restriction, and it has been around since the 1930's. I won't go into detail but basically scientists found they could double lab animals life spans by restricting their diet to about 30% of what is considered normal. So imagine every meal you had today, and just eat one third of it. 1/3rd of that piece of toast, 1/3 of that spaghetti, 1/3 of that salad. Of course I am doing CR a disservice by describing it like this, in reality it's not just a matter of eating less, but of using your limited calories on the foods that will complete your nutritional needs. This funny, well balanced article describes the process very well and is full of good links if you're really interested.

So I decided to do "CR light" for 10 days, basically, choose healthy things and eat about 1/3rd of the usual amount. Also, I decided to only drink water to take off the extra sugar calories from the juices I usually drink. So, for the last week and a half I have been eating; for breakfast, half a piece of bread and an egg, for lunch, a vitamin bar, and dinner (when I have dinner), raw tofu with green onions and soy sauce. And if I get really hungry I will break down and buy a cheese stick. Mmm... string cheese...

At first it was hard as expected, but within 7 days I had lost the 4 pounds, and learned a lot of things about myself and my relationship with food, which I will share with you below.

Being hungry isn't so bad. When was the last time you felt really hungry? I mean, not just a little rumbling in the tummy, but real gnawing hunger. I don't know if it's because I'm older now or because of zen training, but this week it didn't really bother me. It was just another feeling, which, if I didn't cling to, wasn't so terrible. Of course being chronically hungry is terrible and will kill you. But for just a few hours before my small cube of tofu, it was actually kind of a good feeling, a very alive feeling. Try it, you might see what I mean.
Food is matter. Before, I just thought of food as stuff to eat. But when you start seeing a bannana as something that weights 30 grams, you get a new appreciation of it.
I also learned that I spend a lot of time thinking about, preparing, and eating food. Suddenly, on this CR diet, I had so much free time! Before, I would spend 1 to 2 hours buying, cooking, and eating, but these last ten days that has all been condensed into about 30 minutes. That's at least an extra hour a day. I got so many things done that had been on my to do list for months. Plus, when you're hungry, you don't just want to sit around and feel hungry. You find something to do. Folding clothes, cleaning the toilet, catching up on emails, etc...
I saved a lot of money. I didn't really think about this when I started, but cutting back to 30% of your regular caloric intake means cutting 70% of your grocery bill. And when a 120 yen block of tofu gets you through 3 dinners, the savings add up quick!
Eating less actually gives me more energy. We have this kind of mentality that food equals energy, like adding gas to a car. But your body has to work hard to get energy out of that food, and, well, that can make you tired. Staying lean seems to strike a better balance betweeen the amount of work needed to break down food vs. the amount of energy gained.
My sense of smell "improved". I put quotes around "improved" because I think that because I was often hungry I just noticed smells much more than usual. Biking around Yokohama there are so many delicious foods to smell! At first I kept thinking that it was a holiday or something because everyone seemed to be making so many wonderful smelling dishes.
When you've lost some weight the desire to binge gets less and less over time. I thought that, like highschool, I would be spending all my waking hours fantasizing about food. But this time, the thought of an overly large meal just makes me queasy. I enjoy the small amounts I can eat, and when they're finished, I seem to just be able to let it go that I don't feel totally stuffed like I used to.
And, of course, when the only thing you're going to get to eat for lunch is a nutrition bar, mindful eating becomes really useful. Small bites with many chews not only allow you to feel more full, but you get to truly experience the flavors of each morsel. If only we could eat like that all the time, obesity wouldn't be a problem. After about 30 minutes of working on just a small piece of food you don't want anything else!

Now I don't want to get a flood of emails about how I'm turning anorexic here. Let me be clear that after weigh-in on Sunday I will return to my normal diet, more or less. This was dreamed up entirely as a temporary kind of mindfullness training for myself, and not recommended for just anybody! However, my 10 hungry days gave me a lot of information about the role that food played in my life, and I am much better for having experienced it. My theory is, that, as organisms, we are suppposed to be hungry sometimes. Just as we are supposed to be happy, sad, bored, and excited at other times. It's an essential part of life, but a part that most of us in the modern world hardly ever feel. In the future my challenge for myself is to listen to my body, not the clock on the wall, for when it is time to eat something.

There are now more overweight people in the world than hungry ones. Technology has given us a huge gift, the ability to not worry too much about where our next meal comes from. We need to learn to control this power. Just as we try not to blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons, we should avoid eating ourselves into the ground. So, next time your out and about, treat yourself.... skip a meal!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Where the #$^% Are My Grounds!!!?

2007-05-12T18:30:00.000+09:00

A few days ago I returned from a short trip to the US. I got back to Yokohama around 4:00 pm and had appointments straight through until 9:30 pm that evening. So I did all that and it was about 10:00 and I remembered that I didn't have any food in the apartment because I had cleaned out the refrigerator before my trip. So I went by the only place open at that time of night, a store with the implausible name of Don Quixote.

If you don't know, Don Quixote is like a very small Walmart on crack cocaine. The ten foot high shelves are literally sagging under the weight of anything anybody might want to buy. Steering wheels, kitchen knives, weight loss pills, ropes for bondage sex, dehumidifiers, disco lights, food... it really is an amazing place. The thing is all of this happens under a cacophony of thundering mismatched music. I guess in an effort to keep things funky, in place of a central music system they just put stereos on top of the shelves every 20 feet or so and turn those things up. And all the stereos play a different CD. So, it's like Heavy Metal, Japanese Rap, Balinese Gamelan music, all kinds of crazy #^&* punctuated every once in a while by the shrill maniacal Don Quixote theme song, sung by a Japanese woman trying to do a cabaret riff with the lyric "Don don don, don don, don Qui-ooooooote!"

So, I had been awake for like, 28 hours, and I just wanted some bread, milk, eggs, and coffee so I'd have something to eat for breakfast the next morning. I just wasn't feeling the Don Quixote ambiance that night so I tried to get out of there as quickly as possible, I grabbed the last bag of bread, a small milk pack, a half dozen eggs, and a bag of coffee that would get me through the next few days until I could get something better. I blistered through the place, hopped on my bicycle, and got home around 10:30. I didn't even brush my teeth, just went to sleep.

Fast forward to 4:00 am the "next" day. I'm laying in bed wide awake. Ah, the joys of jet lag. But I wasn't too upset about it because I had a lot to do and figured I might as well take advantage of a wacked out body clock and get some things done. So I stumble out of bed in the dark, turn on the lights, turn on the computers, put a coffee filter in the coffee maker, put some scoops of the coffee I bought the night before in the coffee filter, turn on the coffee maker, and go to the bathroom for all that morning stuff you have to do.

When I came out of the bathroom the coffee was almost done, and I noticed that it was a really thick and black. But I figured that would be as good as anything considering my exhausted/wide awake state, so I added my milk and sugar, and went to catch up with my emails.

But let me tell you, that coffee tasted nasty! It was too strong to drink. I kept telling myself it wasn't that bad, and got through about half a cup. But then I got to thinking that I had bought a new brand the night before and it must have stronger beans or something. I must have put too many scoops in. So I decide to try again. I got out the coffee, opened the compartment to take out the old filter, and what do I see? Nothing.It was just an empty filter. There weren't any grounds in it. There weren't any grounds anywhere. Not even along the sides where you can find them if the filter breaks or something. It was as if the water had gone through an empty filter and come out strong, sludgy, black coffee. So, I was a little freaked out. Sometimes, trying to be efficient, I take the used filter out just after the coffee is done and throw it away while it's still hot. Had I done that this morning and forgotten about it? And put a new filter in? But wait, the filter in the coffee maker was wet. So the water must have gone through that filter. But where the #*$& were my grounds!!? Maybe they had all been sucked into the coffee maker. Great, I'd probably have to get a new one. That would explain the bad taste at least. So I'm like turning the coffee maker upside down trying to find the grounds. Nothing. The only other answer had to be that I had actually taken out old filter, threw it away, put in a new one that had somehow gotten wet in the process. But I didn't remember doing that.

I felt like I was losing my mind. So I actually searched through my garbage can, looking for that original filter with the grounds. Nothing. So finally I'm just standing at the counter in the dark, in my boxer shorts, 4 am, totally paralyzed. Was I still dreaming? I always thought it was so stupid when people say that in movies, but I'll be less hard on them now, because when you're in a situation where nothing makes sense that "Am I dreaming line" becomes the only rational explanation. And if it was a dream, it was the realest dream of my life, and if I was going to have the realest dream of my life, why in the hell would I dream about this.
After a while I found the bag the coffee had come in, and everything became clear. In my sleep deprived state, I had bought instant coffee at Don Quixote. It came in a bag and looked just like regular ground coffee, but the back clearly showed an illustration of the coffee being stirred into hot water. So I had put instant coffee in the filter, the hot water had mixed in, and the whole shebang had dripped through and left a wet empty filter.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, I hope it's not too much of a stretch to say my early morning misadventure parallels the entire human experience. Most people, at some point in their lives, feel that something is missing. We have a million different ways of saying it. We're searching for meaning, for happiness, for the perfect job, for our destiny. We're trying to become a good person, a more peaceful person, a more important person. We're trying to get rich, or feeling guilty for trying to get rich, or feeling guilty about feeling guilty for trying to get rich.

This searching for that missing thing is neurotic. It makes us do strange things, like searching through the garbage at 4 in the morning. I would argue that every misery, jealousy, and violence stems from someone feeling like they needed something that they couldn't find. And here's the real kicker; that thing we are looking for is easy to find. My coffee grounds that I couldn't find anywhere were actually dissolved into the coffee I had been drinking. I had them the whole time.

So however you call it, peace, wisdom, god, happiness, whatever, take a few moments from time to time and ask yourself how much of it is already here. I'm not pitching the lame "don't take things for granted" line. The whole, "those summer days of my junior year, they were the best days of my life" crap. What your looking for isn't always sweet. Sometimes the coffee tastes really gross. But once you know you already have what you're looking for you can take some real action. For me, once I had a clear understanding of what had happened I could get out of the trashcan and get on with my day. Some people call this calm, clear understanding mindfulness. If you want to get some more of that in your life then go here.

Thanks for reading.
Patrick

Yoga Garden

My Little Friends

2007-04-01T21:33:00.000+09:00

It's spring! Warm weather, blooming trees, life is everywhere. And that includes bugs.

People have a strange relationship with bugs. There is an instinctual fear of insects, which I think comes from the fact that they seem so different from us. Too many spindly little legs, small beady eyes, scary waving antennae. And they are so small, and so unlovable.

This difference in size and cuteness results in a lot of squishing. And some people take pride and joy in the squishing, especially of mosquitos and cockroaches.

But here's a different perspective. This is a chart of all of the Kingdoms of life today. Please enlarge by clicking on it if it's hard to read.As you can see, there are three main Superkingdoms, The Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucaryota, within these are the regular Kingdoms. Humans, of course, are on the Animals branch (animalia). Where are the insects? Surely they must be pretty far from the animals, maybe even another Superkingdom...?

Actually, they're Animalia too! So on that big tree, with all those lines, we and the insects share the same little branch. From this perspective, we're practically cousins.

One of the ideals of Buddhism is to reduce suffering in the world. Killing a lifeform results in suffering, so naturally Buddhists try to avoid killing stuff whenever possible. Notice that the phrase is reduce suffering and not eliminate suffering. To be alive is to cause, (and receive) suffering. Even as I type this, my immune system is killing viruses left and right. Everytime I wash my hands I kill off thousands of microbes and bacteria. And of course, sitting down to a healthy vegetarian lunch includes the decapitation of a head of lettuce, tearing away the life giving umbilical cord of a tomato, and ripping some poor carrot from it's underground home to be cut up into little pieces on my chopping board.

Of course, you could stop eating, take a drug to suppress your immune system, and never wash, but then you would die, which would just be more suffering.

This gets to the idea that to be alive is to participate in suffering to some extent. But we can make choices that reduce suffering in small ways. I think it's safe to say that chopping up a head of lettuce results in less pain than chopping up a cow.

Anyway, vegetarianism is a blog for another time, what I want to talk about here is bugs.

Don't squish bugs! Even gross ones. They didn't do anything to you. Take a closer look at them, and you'll see that they are amazing little animals that are really loveable once you get used to their little quirks.

I know this sounds crazy to some people, and these are the usual objections I get to my "don't squish bugs" sermon.

Insects are dirty. Actually, there are more germs in the human mouth than on a cockroach or any other bug. Cockroaches, for example, are really quite clean animals, on par with a cat.
Insects are pests and parasites. It's true, many insects use you for their own purposes. Dust mites eat your dead skin, mosquitos incubate their eggs in your warm blood. But let's put this into perspective. Jonas Salk, the man who developed the polio vaccine, once said "If all the insects on earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on earth would disappear. If all humans disappeared, within 50 years all species would flourish as never before." Who is the real parasite? I'm not saying that we should be exterminated, Matrix-style, just that in the big scheme of things, we take a lot more from this planet than that mosquito takes from us.
It's just one bug, what's the difference? This is true, squishing that bug doesn't make any difference. But challenging yourself to have compassion for even small ugly creatures will have a big effect on you. And it feels good when you take an extra 30 seconds and help a lost bug get to the outdoors!

I'm not trying to say bugs are more important than humans. The last time I killed a bug was in autumn when one mosquito had bitten me about 12 times all over my face, and had kept me up for about 2 hours. She was resting on the wall, full of blood, and I smacked her with a book. But before that smack I really thought about what I was going to do, and after it I wished the bug the best, and, now I know you'll think I'm losing it, but I shed a tear or two for her.

So, yes, if you run a risk of catching malaria, or if termites are going to destroy your home, or if locusts are going to kill your crops, do something to get rid of the bugs. But don't just squish them because they're there. We're all in this together on this floating blue ball in space, show some kindness to our little relatives this spring!
Patrick

Yoga Garden

Lessons of the Jacket

2007-02-26T18:13:00.000+09:00

I don't know why, but ever since I can remember, I have favored scruffy, beat-up clothes. My grandparents almost disowned me a few times for getting my new white tennis shoes intentionally dirty on their first trip out of the house. If I had a shoelace that could come untied, a shirt tail that could come untucked, or a sweater that could be stretched out, you can bet what would happen. Haircuts also remain one of my least favorite activities.

Gwen, however, loves the sheen of new things, which is one of the reasons we get along so well. We happen to wear the same size shoe and usually fit into the same jackets, so traditionally, when she wears out a cool pair of sneakers I get them, nicely broken in and looking sufficiently scruffy. With this system I have only bought two new pairs of shoes in 7 years! (At times, however, the system stings, like when my bicycle was stolen, so Gwen got a new bike and gave me her old rusty one)

Well, last Christmas, Gwen and I were doing some painting in the studio. It was cold and we were wearing our jackets inside. Gwen leaned up against a window frame, and when she turned around, skunklike, she had two streaks of white going down the back of her one year old down-filled Columbia Sports jacket. Ha ha, she was mad! But I knew that before the winter was up that jacket would be on my back! And the two streaks down the back were just the kind of character I like in my clothes.

So, I was really happy. That jacket was warm, light, and looked cool on me. And one of the best things about it was that in addition to a standard zipper it had magnets sewn into the lining that automatically went together. So, if you were just going out for a short trip you just let the jacket button itself up with the magnets. It even came with a hood that snapped on and protected you all the way up to your nose with mess free magnets. It was the coat of the future, and it was going to be mine, all mine, as soon as Gwen figured out that it was going to impossible to get white wall paint off of a dark gray polyester jacket.
So, this winter, as the weather turned cold I reached for Gwen's old Columbia jacket which she had of course passed on to me. Little was I to know that it would also be my curse.

It started with one of my bank cards, which suddenly wouldn't work in the ATM. I didn't think much of it, applied for a new card, and went on with my business. Then it was my point-card from the supermarket, and then my credit card which stopped working. These things were happening a few weeks apart so I didn't really put it together. One day the key to the yoga studio, which is kind of like one of those hotel key cards, stopped working. I took it to the landlord, and they explained sometimes the keys lose their magnetic charge. They recharged it, but a few days later it stopped working again. I figured the guy didn't put a strong enough charge on it the first time and took it back. After just two days the studio key stopped working again, on the same day as another bank card, all of which was on a busy Tuesday when I had to pay rent and do a dozen things before going to my second job. It made an already stressful day unbearable.

I went to the bank to try and get yet another new ATM card, my number was 316, and the current number was something like 290. I was really frustrated and trying to think about what was messing up all my cards. Was my apartment in the middle of some kind of high voltage zone? Was someone trying to steal my bank information from a remote scanner? Maybe it was the Suica train pass scanner that I used to get through the train gates, didn't those idiots know they were erasing peoples' data!!? Someone needed to write them a nasty letter!

So I was sitting there, stewing, when I noticed the metal chain that attaches to my wallet was sticking to my jacket. I had actually noticed this many times, had even played with it sometimes, seeing how hard I had to pull to make the chain come loose from the magnets in the lining. But this time I really noticed. Metal chain. Magnetic coat. Erased magnetic data. Could it be? The magnets in the coat were so small. And it's not like I went around rubbing my credit cards against my jacket.

Still I decided to pay close attention to the jacket in relation to my wallet (the studio key is also attached to my wallet by the way) For the next few days I tried to take note of how the wallet was interacting with the jacket. It wasn't long before I was paying for some groceries at the supermarket when I saw it.

The cashier was handing me some change, which I was going to put in the change pocket of my wallet. But having only two hands, I was pressing the wallet against my chest to better open the change compartment. See picture below...
...thereby pressing all the cards and my key right against the magnets, anytime I got change. And it was happening more and more often as the winter went on because I was wearing the jacket more and more. Mystery solved. I stopped wearing the coat, put on some extra layers, and haven't had a problem since.

What does this have to do with anything? Strange as it sounds, that jacket taught me a lot. Here are some of the lessons of the jacket, from least to most profound.

Beware of shortcuts in life. Having magnets on my jacket saved me at most, 1 minute of zipping up during the winter I wore it. Contrast that to the 5 or 6 hours I spent replacing cards and keys during the same time. The same thinking applies to the time you "save" eating fast food, in relation to the weeks or years that kind of food will ultimately cut out your life with visits to the doctor and time in the hospital.

Learning to love long lines. It was at about this time, when I was spending hours in lines to replace my erased cards, that I heard a zencast podcast with Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal in which he talked about how waiting in line is a great time to just be happy in the moment. He said when someone says to you "Sorry to have kept you waiting" try saying "Please, don't apologize, I was enjoying just sitting here." Sounds cheesy, but it really worked for me and continues to take the stress out of waiting in lines.

Finding some "bells of mindfullness" in daily life. In some styles of Buddhism, when you go on retreat sometimes they will ring the bell at a few random times throughout the day. When you hear the bell, you quietly stop what you're doing, take a few deep breaths, and come fully into the present moment. And of course, if you do this several times a day the mindfullness seeps into your actions even without the reminder bell. In that period when I was trying to figure out how my jacket could be affecting my bank cards, every time I was wearing the jacket and had my wallet out I was paying close attention, and, without planning it, I was coming back to the present moment. The wallet/jacket combo was a bell of mindfullness that rang a few times a day. Some other ideas I've heard include being mindful: everytime the phone rings/ everytime you stop at a red light/ everytime you hear the jangle of your keys/ everytime you hear a police or ambulance siren/ everytime you wash your hands/ everytime you hear your new email signal/ everytime you see a baby/ everytime you see a Volkswagon Beetle/ everytime you turn on a light. Really it's up to your imagination. Just make sure it's not something that happens too frequently or infrequently. About 6 times a day is good.

The universe is not malignant towards anyone. At my most frustrated I was actually entertaining the idea that someone was tampering with my wallet just to spite me. As soon as I figured out that it was my jacket, all that outward directed anger evaporated. In her book Everyday Zen which I was rereading at the time of all of this, Charlotte Joko Beck gives us a great image. Imagine we are out on a foggy lake rowing our new boat and having a wonderful time. Suddenly, out of the mist, another boat comes straight towards us and we collide. At first, there is a lot of anger. "Look where you're going! I just painted this boat! Don't you have any sense!" But then we see through the fog that the other rowboat is empty. In a flash all of that anger is gone, and we immediately relax. "Oh well. Stuff happens. I'll just have to repaint it." Joko Beck's point is that all of the interactions we have in our lives are with empty rowboats. If a child kicks you in the shin, or someone lets you down, none of these things are attacks against you. It's just the universe playing itself out. To go around constantly feeling put upon is not only useless, but sends your stress levels through the roof, and makes others around you suffer. So when things don't go your way, remember how crazy you look yelling at an empty rowboat.

All of these lessons from a piece of outerwear! Truly, wisdom is open to us every day and in every thing. Just be open and ready to hear it, and for heaven's sake don't always hold your cards so close to your chest!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

My Thoughts After the Chakra Workshop

2007-01-27T21:52:00.000+09:00

I'm not sure when this change started happening to me, but every year I am becoming less concerned about what is true, and more interested in what is right.

Today we had a Chakra Workshop at the studio, and I eagerly attended, as I don't know much about that aspect of yoga and Indian spirituality.
I know a little more now, and I will try to explain it, in the absolutely non-technical and poorly referenced style that drives my discussion group members crazy in my graduate school program.

According to the Indian tradition, our bodies are kind of conduits of energy. Energy is divided into two types, the cool, feminine, moon type, and the hot, masculine, sun type. In our bodies these two wavelengths of energy come together in 7 places.

The interaction between the two energies creates a swirling wheel (actually a funnel) of concentrated energy. In Sanskrit the word for wheel is cakra, which, which over time becomes Chakra.

The 7 Chakras each have a different area of the body, mind, and spirit, to take care of. For example, the base Chakra...
...has to do with our basic survival and security instincts, while a few Chakras up the Heart Chakrais the agent of love, compassion and healing. (If you want to know more about the exact function of each chakra, you can check this excellent site out)

With stress, unresolved emotions, poor diet, bad habits, etc... one or more of the Chakras can become "blocked", I guess meaning it doesn't conduct the energy very well. So, if you're having trouble saying what you mean, your throat Chakra might be out of wack.

And that's only the preamble. If you succeed in really opening all of your Chakras, through a variety of methods you can begin to tease out your spirit's true power, which is visualized as a coiled snake at the base of your spine. This is the famous Kundalini energy, which if you can get it up through all the Chakras (it gets harder the higher you go) will unite you with the universe, the Brahman.

Here's Shanel explaining all this much better than me. Thanks for an awesome workshop Shanel!)

I am a very skeptical person by nature , and I'm not at all sure that I have spinning funnels of energy inside me. The Chakra system has a number of things which we could point out as nonsensical and inconsistent. And a few years ago I might have taken a kind of cynical delight in doing just that.

But the more I learn about these ancient systems the more overlap I'm seeing. Here for example, are two images of the Chinese Grand Chi Circulation system. This one goes down the body towards the tip of the spine...

And this one goes up to the top of the head...

According to the Taoist idea, our life force (chi) leaks out in our day to day activities, and when our supply is gone, we kick the bucket. But by learning to draw the chi up from the base of the pelvis and back towards the crown of the head we can conserve this resource and have happier healthier lives.

Here we have two highly advanced ancient cultures, operating thousands of miles away from each other, who come up with a system of alternating energies (in the Chakra system, Ida/Pingala, in Taoism, Yin/Yang) which conduct the essential energy (prana/chi) of the universe. Furthermore, this energy can be coaxed up through the spine area for better health.

I spend about 20 hours a week teaching, studying, and doing yoga and meditation, which makes me something of an "expert" in our world. But the people into this stuff in old India and China might spend 20 hours a day on it. And I'm going to tear down these ideas because I've read some science books and a Wikipedia article? No way man.

But more importantly, at today's workshop, the Chakra system totally worked for some of the students. Using it they were able to come closer to themselves, to relax, and to heal. For others it's tai chi, still others find that in a pew at church, or on a prayer mat facing Mecca. For me it's on a meditation cushion looking a wall. And, when you really think about it, these things are all ridiculous, but that doesn't make them any less right. We're all trying to make sense of the world, and in the end I think that all of these practices are metaphors pointing to the same thing.

This is a lesson I am glad to have learned. Because running around trying to prove everyone else wrong is exhausting!

Thanks to all who attended the workshop!
Patrick

Yoga Garden

Here are some other websites that made getting all my facts straight for this blog much easier:
http://www.kheper.net/topics/chakras/chakras.htm
shivasakti.com

Beginner's Mind

2006-12-15T14:26:00.000+09:00

Recently I started looking around for a new physical discipline. My body is very accustomed to the rhythms and flow of yoga, and although I am far from any mastery of yoga I was feeling the loss of my "Beginner's Mind."
"Beginner's Mind" is a really important phrase in both my and Gwen's life. Like most people, we came across it from Shunryu Suzuki's book "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.""Beginner's Mind" on the surface has a simple meaning. Try to do things with the spirit of an absolute beginner. When a beginner approaches a task they don't have any assumptions about how it should be done. They look at everything with fresh eyes.

When I was a kid I used to hang out at the arcade. This was the early 90's; the golden age of the fighting game. Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, and Samurai Showdown were the games we all came to see and be seen on. I was pretty good, and could beat most people who challenged me, but I remember that the hardest people to fight were those who had never played the game before. They just went crazy, smashing all the buttons and waving the joystick in all directions. None of my attacks worked because the new person wasn't playing right, there was no sense of timing, no special attacks, it was just random button pushing. In fact, when we veterans would get beat like that, we'd console ourselves by saying "don't worry about it man, that guy was just a button pusher."But you know, those button pushers had the most fun of any of us. They were just happy to see their character move around the screen and do cool stuff. That's beginner's mind. But in time they would learn about the special moves and combos and then they became really easy to beat, because suddenly they were trying to win.

So I asked around and researched and decided, in tribute to my youth as a video game brawler, to try a martial art. Originally my plan was a soft art to complement yoga, such as judo, aikido or even tai chi, which is based on martial arts. But I couldn't find a style that fit my schedule and location. I was asking my friend Kaz about it one day and he mentioned that he had seen a new karate dojo just down the street from the yoga studio. I checked out their poster and it was like "full contact!" all over the place in exploding font. With some reservations, I climbed up to the 3rd floor to check the place out.

Well, they were really nice, and after a few kicks and punches I was really into it. It was such a change from yoga, but not jarring. Instead of using the muscles for pinpoint control, I was using them for explosive power. But it's the same muscles, and the balance and breath are all similiar to yoga.

But a few things bothered me, especially "sanchin dachi." This is the basic stance in karate and looks like this:At first I just couldn't see how this could be a helpful way to stand. The knees and ankles are torqued like crazy, the joints are all out of line, and the spine is forced into an awkward compact curve. I kept widening my stance, and the sensei kept correcting me. After half an hour I realized that I was carrying over a lot of ideas about how the body should be positioned from my yoga experience, and that, even in my first lesson, I had lost my beginner's mind. So I relaxed, listened to the teacher, and didn't worry about why, just enjoyed the how.

Well, I've been practicing karate hard for a month now, and I can say the sanchin dachi continually surprises me. What I felt as unnatural torque in the joints is actually more like a wound up spring, and when you throw a punch (combined with a twist of the hips) you can powerfully release that energy. In addition, having your legs closed allows for easy blocks of low kicks.

That's just one small example of how letting go and not thinking so much has taught me more than forcing my preconceptions onto things. But the true meaning of beginner's mind is not about how to be good at any physical activity, but how to approach yourself. Beginner's mind ultimately means looking at everything, including your thoughts, without judgment, without endless commentary, without an overlay of the ego. It means to be in the moment, truly alive.

Hai Ya!
Patrick

Yoga Garden

Clock Time vs. Real Time

2006-11-27T08:13:00.000+09:00

Hi all, sorry it's been so long since the last update. We have been busy with new teachers, new projects, and big changes.

One of the projects that kept me busy this month was my presentation at Yokohama International School's annual conference, "Bridging the Gap." You may remember (and you can check the blog archives) that we gave a yoga presentation at the same conference last year. This time, I thought it would be good to change things up a little bit, and decided to focus on Buddhist ideas rather than Yogic ones.

I'd like to outline here the first part of my lecture that day. It has to do with the way we perceive time. I started by asking the attendees what images came to mind when they thought of the word time. The first answer was, of course a "clock."

Clocks are very useful machines, but they have a way of distorting our perception of time. When you look at a clock, the present moment is just the smallest sliver of a line, and you get the feeling that the present is getting away from you, especially with the clocks that have a ticking second hand. "Tick-tick-tick-tick...." just the thought of it makes me feel stressed out, like time is running out. Stand in Shinjuku station and watch people running madly to catch a train on the Yamanote line. In a full sprint, they will sometimes knock people over to catch that train. The thing is, the Yamanote line has trains coming every two minutes. This is the end result of a culture that obsesses about time getting away from it. Always running, never feeling like there is enough time.

In the modern world it can sometimes seem that we are walking the tightrope of time, the past a huge, yawning space behind us, the future an immense fog ahead, and we are stuck on the smallest bit of now, marooned between two chasms. You can get this feeling by looking at one of the oldest ways to measure time, the hourglass...

Do you see how "now" is squeezed between the two larger sections of past and future? What a stressful way to think about the world! It's also completely wrong. This is the good news of buddhism. The present moment is the only moment that anything has ever or will ever happen in. For example, I am thinking now about the time I got my wisdom teeth pulled. That was about 5 years ago. But 5 years ago is an imaginary place. In reality, my brain is going through a electrochemical process to bring up that memory in the present moment. Similiarly, I am now thinking about my plans for the New Year holiday which happens in a month. But that New Year's Holiday is an imaginary place. The thoughts about it are happening now. All we have is now. And when you stop investing so much energy into the imaginary past and future, and instead focus on the very real present moment, you are practicing what buddhists call mindfullness. Accepting the moment for what it is without extra layers of judgement and comparison.

This is all kind of heavy stuff, so I find it helpful to use illustrations to make it more vivid. Let's revisit the hourglass from before, except this time we'll try to make an hourglass that reflects the true nature of the world...

The past and future are the parts that should be squeezed out, not the now, in fact if you keep squeezing them smaller and smaller you'll get something like this...

look familiar?

And how about that clock that was chopping up the present moment into impossibly small chunks? Well, I'm happy to announce you can now buy this clock from this online store.

Something special happens when you let go of the past and future, or more accurately, of the way things were and the way you want them to be. Instead of "I hope this rain clears up so I can go out" you arrive at "Look at the rain. It's so nice to be warm and dry inside right now." The first is a thought pattern of frustration, the second a pattern of thankfulness and compassion. Which would you rather spend your short time on earth experiencing?

The thing is, our world practically forces us into the past/future way of thinking. Every advertisement you see is selling you a future you, where you are happier and more complete (with the help of their product). To break out of this thinking requires a lot of effort. You can feel it in sports, where you focus completely on the task at hand, or in a hobby where your attention is completely absorbed. But there is a much more accesible way to gain access to the present moment. Just sit down, and stop doing so much. Stop doing anything at all. Sit and let your thoughts come and go, without grabbing on to them and chasing them around. Just be.
Welcome to the world of meditation.

So, what time is it right now? Remember, there is the imaginary answer...

and the real one...

Enjoy your now!
Patrick

Yoga Garden

True Forgiveness

2006-10-21T20:10:00.000+09:00

Almost all western religions talk about the value of forgiveness, and almost all western cultures ignore it. I remember when I was a kid in Catholic school and I first heard the part of the Sermon on the Mount about "if someone smacks you on the right side of your face, show them the left side so that they can smack that one too." Ok, I'm paraphrasing, here's the real verse:

"You have heard that it was said, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."(Matthew 5:38-42, NIV)

I remember reading that and thinking "Jeeze, you'd be a real sissy if you did all those things." That kind of "forgiveness" made you a sucker... a rube... a doormat. In the movies of my childhood the hero always got the last laugh. I really liked the cartoon G.I. Joe, and you never saw those guys turning the other cheek when Cobra Commander attacked their secret base. This spilled over into my real life too. I used to have these vivid fantasies about learning kung fu from an old master and beating up the school bullies with my lighting fast spin kicks and hardened chi punch-blasts (I told you they were vivid!). Turning the other cheek meant that you... well, had lost. And who wants to be a loser?
Unfortunately it seems like grown-ups are just as succeptible to these revenge fantasies. After September 11 Noam Chomsky wrote a book detailing exactly what the US had been doing to make Muslims so angry and he was given a really rough time about being a terrorist sympathizer. People wanted to get even with those guys, not to understand them. Anyone who saw how angry Arabs were with us and actually wanted to know the reasons behind this anger (beyond "they are evil") was treated like a traitor. 9/11 is just the first example that popped into my head, there are so many smaller ones. Another one I can think of is whenever the US executes someone, the media always manages to find a relative of one of the victims who says "I hope he rots in hell." Not to forget how some people said AIDS was god's vengeance on homosexuals.

And in our own lives, how often do hear about something bad happening to someone we dislike, and think "well, he got what he deserved." The other day a taxi almost ran over me on my bicycle and as he sped away I thought to myself, "I hope he smashes up his taxi and has to pay for it." This kind of thinking for most of us is subconscious and automatic. Sure, it's nice to say "turn the other cheek," but come on people, this is the real world. You don't want to be a sucker, do you?

Well, this week we all had a chance to catch a glimpse of what the world would be like if we all lived up to the ideal of Jesus. A gunman went into an Amish school and executed 5 schoolgirls before he killed himself. The full, sad, story is here.

This is an interesting event to me because it is the most extreme example of injustice anyone could ever come up with. These people are Amish! They have never hurt anybody. Not only that, they were Amish schoolgirls! There wouldn't be a soul on earth who could blame these parents for hating the man that did this with all their hearts.

But that's not what the Amish did. They forgave the gunman. And they went beyond that, they really did turn the other cheek, they set up a fund for the killer's family at a local bank. The full, uplifting story is here. What's so wonderful is that both the Amish and the killer's family aren't getting stuck in a cycle of blame and recrimination. They are moving foward, and even creating new bonds in their community out of the ruin of this tragedy.

And do the Amish look like suckers? No way! They have shown the world that they are true Christians, (I am now a big fan of the Amish and will think highly of them for the rest of my life) If they could do that for a madman who killed their daughters, would it be so hard to imagine forgiving that taxi driver and wishing him the best, maybe even not try to cross the street in front of him even when my walk signal is green?

It's almost impossible to imagine a world where terrorists attack us and we say, "we forgive you. How can our government aid you in a way that your young people have more to live for than becoming human bombs?" But we can make small steps in our own lives, not only to forgive, but to take the extra step, give the theif our shirt and our cloak.

It makes me think of one of my favorite lines from G.I. Joe. When one of the good guys would have a risky plan, the team would always think it over and after much debate someone would say, "It's so crazy it just might work."

Peace.
Patrick

Yoga Garden

Mindfulness Is Hard!

2006-09-05T07:32:00.000+09:00

I often speak about the importance of mindfulness, that is, being in the present moment, and last week I experienced a good example of it.

I was beginning my meditation practice at around 6:00 pm. I sat facing out onto the veranda at the studio. As I prepared to do zazen I happily noticed that the sun would be setting during my meditation time, and I would have a chance to really enjoy the changing colors of the clouds. I was relaxed and comfortable, it was going to be a great sit.
As you may know we have a small reed fence on the studio veranda, and as I sat with it in front of me I noticed that the strips that hold it to the rail really needed to be clipped. You could see the ends of them hanging out over the balcony and it just didn't look well put together. The only problem was that it would be really hard to reach them. Once before I tried standing on a footstool and leaning over the rail but it felt pretty dangerous with half my body hanging out over the edge. The other option would be to climb over the fence and stand on the little outside ledge, that way it would be easy to clip the strips, but I would have to keep one hand on the rail at all times. Perhaps I could tie myself to it in case I lost my grip?

That reminded me of a similiar situation when I was in boarding school in North Carolina. My freshman year I lived on the second floor next to my friend John, and during study hall we would open our windows and talk to pass the time. One day John had locked himself out of his room. I don't remember why now, but it was really important that he get back in there quickly. Fortunately, he had left his window open, and I proposed that I just hop out on to the ledge of my window, shimmy over to his window, jump into his room and open the door from the inside. We decided this was a good plan. Sure, it would have been a 20 foot fall, but the infirmary awning would catch most of my weight and I wouldn't break any bones (probably).

So, I clambered out onto the ledge, and just as I was about to make the tricky transition to John's ledge, I hear "Mr. Reynolds, get off of there this instant!" It was the headmaster. Of all the times in the day, he had chosen that instant to take his poodle for a walk around the back of the dorms where no one ever goes. "Stay in your room, I want to have a serious discussion with you! There will be consequences for this!"

Meanwhile, John was freaking out. He had never been in trouble in his life. He said he was going to get kicked out of school for "aiding and abetting." He actually used those words, and he was rolling around on the floor holding his stomach because he was so nervous.

Anyway, we got in a little trouble, but nothing too serious. And now we all laugh about this story. I was sitting there with a big grin on my face just thinking about it.

Oh, right... sitting. Suddenly I snapped back into the present. The room was the same, the fence needed to be clipped, and, it was almost dark outside. Almost dark! I had missed the sunset entirely. In one way I remembered seeing its golds and reds and purples, but instead of looking at it with mindfullness I had played this old memory over it.

My meditation was a perfect example of the two directions our minds spin out into. One was the future, where I made all those plans to clip the strips off. The other, the past, a home movie we watch over and over and somehow never get tired of. How easy it is to slip into these two imaginary places. All it took for me was looking at a ledge!

Now maybe you think what's the big deal? Plans are exciting to make, and memories, especially good ones like the one I had, are pleasant. The problem is not in the plans or memories, it's in what you miss while you are daydreaming. That sunset will never be repeated, and I missed my one shot at really appreciating it. Maybe one sunset is not such a major loss, but think of all the beautiful sights and wonderful people we miss everyday of our lives when we live without mindfulness.

Something for everyone to think about!
Patrick

Yoga Garden

Our Message of Peace

2006-08-01T18:20:00.000+09:00

Check out the summer issue of Yogini, you might see some friendly faces somewhere in there!

Yep, that's us! The magazine asked us to design and make a T-shirt with our message of peace for the world. Gwen and I knew almost immediately what our message would be.

Be Peace

"Be Peace" is so simple and catchy that it runs the risk of just sounding like a new-age catchphrase, along the lines of "be here now" or "it's all one, dude." I had an English professor who said that the best poems are those that are bigger on the inside than on the outside, and I think this phrase is the same.

Before I go on, please go to this site and watch the video if your computer can play flash. It is a short feature with narration by Thich Nhat Hanh and his philosophy about being peace. Thich Nhat Hanh is the one who taught us this phrase and despite our efforts we couldn't give him a shout out in the Yogini article.

I think that almost anyone you ask will say that they want to change the world for the better. It's easy to get wrapped up in the activist parts of improving the world, things like signing peace treaties, building wells with clean water, destroying nuclear weapons, or protecting the environment. At my university it was almost impossible to walk across campus without getting a leaflet about how you could join a protest, sign a petition, or boycott a product. These things are certainly good, but from a buddhist perspective, not very important.

Buddhism is strange like that, things are always opposite of what you expect. All these things we try to do to bring peace into the world will not be much help unless we are peaceful within ourselves.

When I was an aid worker I noticed that the volunteers who enacted the most long lasting change in their communities were the ones who seemed to have themselves sorted out. Many people, including myself, tried to just push projects through, and the results were never pretty. Maybe I will go into it more in another blog, but basically a project that required a lot of doing by the volunteer ended up neglected, misunderstood, and ultimately unsuccesful. However, there were some volunteers, who had something that made their communities trust and respect them. It was something that translates across languages and cultures, and that is a solid, quiet, sense of inner peace. Volunteers who were really there in the community, not running around trying to fix everything, got so much more done! And it didn't require a lot of outward effort. They didn't make peace, they were peace.

We can't all go do aid work in Africa, nor do we need to. A peaceful person spreads peace to every person they encounter, just as an angry person spreads ill will. So if you are the kind of person that wants to make positive change in the world, forget all those protests and petitions for a while, and concentrate on really being ok with yourself. Yoga and meditation will help! But the most important thing is to appreciate the moment you are in and the people you are around, without striving to make things the way you think they should be. That's the definition of peace, and it's not something you can do, it's something you can BE!

Peace,
Patrick

Yoga Garden

One Year On

2006-07-08T22:08:00.000+09:00

This July 1st Yoga Garden turned one year old. We had a big "all you can stretch" event. I think some of the braver souls got more than 3 hours of yoga in! It was a lot of fun, and we want to send a big thanks out to everyone who came.

I've been thinking about what we learned in our first year of having the studio. Here are a few of the life lessons of 2005/2006. Some came naturally, some we learned the hard way, and some we're still figuring out. Here goes...

Don't give up! A lot of people will tell you something can't be done, until you do it. Then everyone acts like it was meant to be.

Listen to people. Usually 5 minutes of listening will help someone more than 25 minutes of you talking to them.

You are your community. Sometimes it's not enough to search for people who are on the same path as you. You have to carve that path out of the jungle and recruit a team to follow you in.

Keep it simple. Life is complicated enough. Whenever possible offer clear choices and real answers.

Knowledge is not a limited resource. Everyone loves to learn, if you have some knowledge that is useful for others, share it freely. The rewards will come back to you in one way or another.

Listen to Gandhi. He said, "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." Find a job that gets you closer to that sentence. Happiness is much more valuable than a big salary.

Stop paying too much for a haircut. You can get a really good one for 1000 yen! Girls too!

Learn things by doing things. Put yourself in situations where you must grow or you will fail. Faced with this choice, you will almost never fail.

Listen to your body. If you're tired, sleep, if you're working too hard, relax. Not much is important enough to neglect your one and only body.

Calorie Mate is not a food group.

Listen to Mark Twain. "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." Don't devote your energies to all the "what if" scenarios. Most of them never happen. Stay in the present and react to life with a fresh, nimble mind.

To all of our customers, friends, and family.
Thank you for a great year!Patrick

Yoga Garden

How Stress Works

2006-06-26T07:30:00.000+09:00

Don't ever ask Gwen or me about computers, we will sit you down and explain in great detail why you need a Mac. We might even walk you to the Apple store, pick out your computer, and hold your hand while you put the money on the counter. Macs are the best computers in the world.
We run things off a G4 powerbook, which is a sweet machine. We created our whole business with it. But sometimes we ask too much of it. I'll have a graphics program open, Gwen will have the website editor going, we'll be uploading to the website server, checking email, downloading a TV show, browsing the web, and streaming audio from the net. (Here's a typical screen from a day in the life of our G4.)
Even a Mac has trouble with all this. It gets grumpy. Things slow down, programs get stuck. So we've learned that if one of us wants to run a large program, we need to shut down any other big programs that are open to keep the computer running smoothly.
Which brings me to the point of this blog. Our bodies work in much the same way as our overworked computer. Our G4 might have a dozen programs running at any one time, from small ones like the clock in the corner of the screen to the really obvious ones like Microsoft Word. Well, at any one time your body is doing literally thousands of things. Think about it for a moment, your eyes are taking in the writing on the screen, your brain is giving meaning to the writing, your mouth is producing saliva, your inner ear is sending signals to keep you upright, your lungs are respiring, your heart is pumping, your stomach is digesting, your kidneys and liver are filtering, your intestines are moving material, your pancreas is, umm... pancreasing... you get my point.

So let's imagine a situation in which you need to run a "big program," something beyond the body's usual functions. The classic example here is encountering a wild animal, but when is that last time anyone did that? I prefer something we can all relate to, let's use as our example walking down a dark street at night, and noticing that you are being followed.
You know the feeling well... your hairs stand on end, your muscles tense, your breath gets short, your heart races, and you have a surge of energy and hyper-alertness. It's the much talked about "fight or flight" response.
But what's really happening here? Well, your body is doing exactly what we do when we need to run a big program on our computer. We open the programs we need for the task at hand and close the programs that we don't need for that job. (For example, if I need to open Adobe Illustrator and work with graphics, I will also open iPhoto to have easy access to our photos, but I will shut down our FTP uploading program, because there won't be anything to upload until the graphics are done, and I can use that RAM for other things.) Pretty obvious right? Turn on the stuff you need, shut down the stuff you don't need.
Now, back to that dark alley where you're being followed. For this situation, what do you need?

Alertness: the sight of the bad guy sets off the locus coeruleus region of your brain, which makes your senses hyper-fast, like in the Matrix.
Energy: Adrenaline cranks up the heart rate and blood flow.
Fuel: Norepinephrine is released by the brain into your involuntary nervous system, hiking up your blood pressure and breathing rates (giving you the fuel of fresh blood and fresh air.) At the same time Cortisol hits the liver and produces glucose, a sugar that can be used by the muscles and brain for short term bursts of energy.

Now, during this life or death situation, what do you not need to do?

Digest dinner: That same Cortisol that spikes your glucose levels shuts down the digestive actions of the stomach.
Pass food: The rectum contracts.
Fight disease: We're worried about the next five minutes here, not the next 5 years! Shut off that immune system for now!
and many, many, more...

All of this happens in a matter of seconds. Your body is jerked from its natural chemical levels (homeostasis) into a revved up, ready to kill or be killed state. Heart racing, you stop, turn to face your attacker in the alley...and... see a tired businessman fumbling with his keys, getting into his car parked on the corner, and driving away.
Phew! Lucky, right? Maybe not. Let's take a look at the state of your body now. Your heart rate is high and will take a few minutes to get back to normal, you have lactin and glucose sloshing around in your body that was never burned up. Your stomach has to start the digestion process all over again, and your immune system is suppressed. And with all that extra adrenaline in your blood you probably won't be getting a good sleep tonight.

If this only happened on dark streets at night, it probably wouldn't be a big deal, but we modern humans have very little skill at separating what are real crises, and what is a manufactured stressor, like a report, an important meeting, a problem in the family, or a test. We respond to these everyday incidents with the same chemicals that we used to respond to wild animals with. There is an important difference however. Our ancestors actually did some fighting or flying, using the systems that the body developed. We don't. And the effects accumulate over time. Among them, muscle tension, headache, indigestion, ulcers, and disease. There are other side effects as well. If your body is constantly being told it needs to be ready to flee, it will want to stock up on short term energy boosting foods with high carbs and fat (McDonalds anyone?). And if you can't unwind after repeated "fight or flight" incidents, you will be tempted to "come down" using external depressors, alcohol, drugs, excess TV, etc... All of this leads scientists to state that 90% of all disease is caused by stress.

And this is where the analogy of our poor overworked laptop breaks down. If we push our Mac too hard and the screen goes black one day, we can get another computer. But your body, that's an irreplaceable, one of a kind model.
How can we take better care of it? Well, one way to deal with all those stress chemicals floating around in your body is to burn them off with exercise. This takes care of the worst side effects of over-stress and is definitely recommended. It took 50 years for people to really get the message that exercise is not just good, but necessary for a healthy life.
But there is more to the story! Are you satisfied with a life of simply being "not sick?" No way! You want to feel great right! Luckily for us life is not all about "fight or flight." There is a whole other nervous system in your body, one that we can call "rest and relax." (The technical terms for these two systems is the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, but no one can ever keep straight which is which!) The rest and relax system does just the opposite of the fight or flight system. The heart rate slows, the bowels and musculature relax, the immune system is boosted, and calm, clear thinking is possible. Here is a helpful graphic from this great website that illustrates the difference between the two systems.
The trouble is that Westerners never became very good at actively engaging the rest and relax response. But it turns out that some wise people on the Indian subcontinent did, and passed on the gifts of yoga and meditation to the world.
I have tried to keep my facts all based in science up till now, but these investigations into how yoga and meditation affect the body are still in their infancy, and solid figures are hard to come by. But every single study I've read shows that doing these practices lowers stress, boosts the immune system, and helps you live longer. In 20 years this will probably be accepted as the most obvious fact, just as we accept that a balanced diet and daily exercise are key to good health now.

If you've read this far, you must be interested! So I beg you to take that extra step for yourself, find a yoga class and meditation program near you, and get started! And if you're already doing these things, trust that they are helping you not just today, but long into your future. You won't regret it.
Uh oh, my laptop is starting to make a funny noise, I better end it here!
Patrick

Yoga Garden

If you're in business and want to know more about how stress affects you check this article out.

And how could I neglect to link to this site!

Interview with Kazuhiro Ono

2006-06-11T05:56:00.001+09:00

This weekend, certified Rolfer Kazuhiro Ono gave his "Mechanics of Movement" workshop at the studio. We had a big turnout and everyone learned a lot about how to use their bodies more efficiently. The session began with a discussion of the diaphram and how to use it to get the most from each breath. Next we moved on to healthy walking by using the psoas muscle. Kaz gave us a lot of small exercises we can do to improve these fundamental functions. I'll write a blog in the near future that will illustrate these exercises for you!
After the workshop we went to a cafe and had an informal interview with Kaz. Here are some excerpts from it. He's a really interesting guy!

Yoga Garden: You used to be a manager for a home construction company. Why did you change to a career in health?
Kaz: I had a proffessor in university who told our class that we should go into one of three fields, clothing, food, or housing, because those are three things that people will always need. I went into housing with the construction company, but I started to think that there was an even more important thing for life, your health. Which is more important for you, a nice house, or your health? Also, I didn't like working for a company. I don't like to have a boss, and I don't like to be the boss.
YG: There are many kinds of health therapies, why did you choose Rolfing?
Kaz: Most forms of massage focus on the body one area at a time, the shoulders, or the feet, for example. I was interested in changing the whole structure of the body, for a long term effect. So I chose Rolfing.
YG: How exactly does Rolfing help people?

Kaz: All of our muscles are surrounded by a thin layer of tissue. This is the fascia. If you ever buy a piece of uncooked chicken, you can see the fascia, it is the thin white covering over the meat. Over time, the fascia becomes tight and locked up. Right now you are wearing a T-shirt. Imagine the muscle is your arm, and the sleeve of your T-shirt is the fascia. (Kaz sketches this picture on an envelope)

If I hold your sleeve very tightly around your arm, it's hard to move your arm isn't it? It is the same for fascia that is locked up. With strong pressure, the fascia can be loosened up, which allows your posture to improve, and your movements to become smoother, and more efficient.
YG: Can a person feel their own fascia?
Kaz: It takes a little practice, but you can feel your fascia. Someone told me that if you press on your skin with as much pressure as it would take to squish an ant, that's the point where you are making contact with the fascia, but I don't know if that's true, I never tried really squishing an ant!
YG: The pressure used in Rolfing can be painful, right?
Kaz: Sometimes, especially problem areas in the fascia, where there are a lot of nerve endings, can be painful. I do not enter the patient's boundary of too much pain, however. There is usually another way to work with that area that is less uncomfortable.
YG: Do you have some clients who are skeptical about the benefits of Rolfing?
Kaz: Yes, once that happened. A client said he couldn't feel any changes in his body after a session. That's ok. I didn't mind, because I could see the changes in him. But almost all of my clients feel a big difference after just one Rolfing session.
YG: How can Yoga and Rolfing work together?
Kaz: Since I started doing yoga with you guys, I have noticed that my movement has improved a lot. So maybe Rolfing can prepare the body structure for more efficient movement, and yoga can teach that efficient movement. I see some yoga students having trouble with balancing poses, like tree pose, and I think that if their structure was improved, they would have an easier time with that pose. There are many connections between Rolfing and yoga, I think. We have to discover them together!

Thanks Kaz, for a great workshop! If you're interested in learning more about Rolfing, check the Rolfing Institute homepage, or Kaz's homepage here. We had such a good time doing this workshop that we want to arrange "Mechanics of Movement, Part 2" in the coming months. The second workshop will focus on the two girdles, shoulders, and pelvis. Keep checking the workshop homepage for more information.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Fight!

2006-05-30T06:18:00.000+09:00

Last week Gwen and I were sitting in a cafe, mapping out the summer and fall events at Yoga Garden. We had snagged one of the elusive window seats with the big chairs, looking out at an intersection near city hall. Gwen saw this first, and from what we pieced together after this is what happened.
A salaryman was waiting at the corner for the light to change, and another guy in a windbreaker on a bicycle clipped the salaryman. The salaryman started yelling at the windbreaker guy, and kicked the bicycle. The windbreaker guy cuffed the salaryman on the back of the head, and at that moment the salaryman sensed this guy was a loose cannon and walked away cursing. The windbreaker guy threw his bicycle to the ground and stalked after the salaryman with a murderous glint in his eye. At that point they had walked out of the sightline of the window to the sidewalk in front of the building.

Gwen and I had a choice then, although things happened so quickly we didn't really recognize it as that. The incident had happened outside, through a window, and the two men were now in the front of the building, where there were about 20 other cafe customers, a park, and a busy sidewalk. It was out of our hands, right?

If you've spent any time in a psychology class you'll have heard of the "bystander effect." The idea is that in an emergency situation where someone is in danger, the more people that are around, the less likely that anyone will help that person. There are many famous (and sad) cases, where someone is attacked in a very public place (an apartment buildings front steps, on a busy bridge) and no one stops to help or even call the police. I had a psychology teaching assistant, who once, in the middle of the lecture, was suddenly attacked by another teacher. The attacker threw him to the ground and they kicked and fought their way out into the hall. In our lecture room of about 100 people, no one moved a muscle, we were frozen in our seats. The teaching assistant came back in a few minutes later and revealed that it had all been an act, and that frozen, "what's going on?" feeling was the bystander effect. This effect happens to everyone, no matter how "good" or "brave" a person you are.

But what was interesting in this story is that Gwen and I didn't really think about it, and went into action. I went to the front of the building while Gwen got the staff to call the police. Out on the sidewalk, the windbreaker guy had just caught up to the salaryman, and all the cafe patrons were watching them swear and scream at each other. The windbreaker guy suddenly grabbed the salaryman by the throat, threw him into a bush, and was squeezing his windpipe with one hand and strangling the salaryman with his own tie with the other! I ran over to them and pulled the windbreaker guy off the salaryman, but his grip on the necktie was so tight that all three of us kind of lurched out of the bush. I told the attacker to relax, that it was a small problem, nothing to get upset about, and peeled his fingers off the necktie. The two men were eerily quiet, just staring at each other with hatred. I was afraid to let go of them, or they might start trying to kill each other again. The police arrived shortly and broke it up, took all of our statements, and that was that.

I was thinking about it later, about how it had been a perfect example of the bystander effect. There were a dozen people closer to the guys than we were, but no one else moved a muscle, just like that psychology class. What made Gwen and I act so decisively? Neither of us is particularly brave or eager to "save the day," and we don't even speak Japanese that well, especially all that emergency vocabulary that you should learn but never bother to. Like everyone else there, we just wanted to relax and enjoy our coffee. What I concluded is that the difference between us and the rest of the crowd there is that we do a lot of yoga and meditation.

One of the lessons of yoga is to relax and accept unfamiliar situations. In half-moon pose, for example, your body weight is one hand and one leg. Your body wants to come down and touch the floor with another limb for stability, and, if you are new to the pose, that is exactly what happens. But, after a few tries, you find that relaxing, breathing, and accepting the strange position makes it much easier. If you do poses like that a few times a week, maybe your brain structure starts to change, and instead of an instinct to run away or deny strange situations, you stay with them and see where they lead.

The other thing is meditation, which teaches you to be in the moment, not clinging to the past or future. When I saw those guys my only thought was that I had to stop them in that moment. It made doing the right thing very natural and easy. Again, I want to stress that I am not a particularly good person! My reaction was just different from the other people there.

Buddhism teaches the 8 fold path as a method to overcome suffering and make your way on your spiritual journey. The 4th limb of this path is "skillful action," that is, using the energy of your actions skillfully, to bring about understanding and to do no harm. One of the nice things about meditation and yoga is that they change you on a very deep level, slowly and over time. It doesn't require much rigour, just small, daily steps. And you'll see changes in yourself, sometimes very suddenly, as I did when I was pulling that oxygen deprived business man from the bushes. So keep practicing everyone! If you like, consider it training for the time when you will need to act decisively, skillfully, and for the good of someone else.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Making the Connection

2006-05-15T06:22:00.000+09:00

This sign is something you can buy for your new Mustang on this web site. But it's also a sign of the times. Making physical contact with another human being is getting rarer and rarer as we wrap ourselves in layers of technology. Touching is out, unless you're talking about your Nintendo.

Which is why it was so refreshing to conduct and participate in the partner pose workshops we held at the studio last weekend. Partner poses use the power of two yoga practitioners to take poses deeper. But the nicest part of it for me was seeing students connect with each other.

In Japan, especially, touching someone else's body is kind of taboo. It can be hard at first to overcome the discomfort of being in close contact with someone. So one of the first exercises we did was back to back meditation, where the partners consciously try to breath together. Sitting with your back to someone's spine, feeling their back muscles and shoulders move with the breath, is a very surprising experience. Try it with someone, and you'll find yourself amazed at the sheer amount of life and vitality there can be in a single inhalation. It really drives the point home that there's another person there, with their own set of joys, fears and dreams.

Following this and a few other "connecting" exercises, we moved into some more complicated partner asana. Many people who do yoga go very deep within themselves during a lesson, but during a partner pose you have to constantly stay focused on the balance between you and your counterpart. It really keeps you in the moment.

After the full session, everyone was so happy! I think the yoga had only a small part to do with this. Mostly, people were joyful to have spent some time being human. We spend everyday surrounded by concrete, glass, and plastic. But if you think about it, we share none of the qualities of those materials, we are all soft, squishy, curvy messes! And yet, our elegance shines through. Thanks to everyone who came!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Getting to the Bottom of Sanskrit

2006-04-24T07:43:00.000+09:00

When I was going to high school in England, I had a Japanese friend named Michiko. Michiko had a really nice host family and one weekend we went over to see them. A few weeks before our visit Michiko had given them some presents from Japan wrapped in beautiful gift boxes. The family was so taken with the boxes that they had made a kind of display of them high on a shelf in the sunroom. They asked Michiko what she thought of the display and she said "It's really nice, except that they're all upside down."To the family, the elegant kanji on the box was like a pretty abstract picture, not actual writing. (I also heard a story once from someone in my Japanese class at university whose friend had the kanji for fire tattooed on his arm... it looked pretty cool, except that it too was upside down.)

I see the same thing happening sometimes with Sanskrit and yoga. First, some history.
Yoga (not just poses, but the whole philosophical system) has been around for at least 5000 years. But the yoga we are most familiar with was codified by a guy named Patanjali about 200 CE. (by the way, CE means "common era" and is the hip way to say AD) Patanjali wrote his text "The Yoga Sutras" in the academic language of the day, Sanskrit. (To learn more about the history of yoga click here)

It would be misleading of me to say that Sanskrit was a common tongue 2000 years ago. But from what I understand, in south-east asia it was the language of learning and religion, much like Latin in Europe. So Patanjali and most of the great philosophers wrote stuff down, including the names of the yoga poses, in Sanskrit.

So let's take a pose with its sanskrit name, for example, Paripurna Navasana. There is something very alluring about the name in its original language, the double Ps and the silky way Navasana rolls off the tongue. It's exotic, it makes you feel like something big is happening.

But let's come back down to earth and look at the Sanskrit word for word.
paripurna means "complete" or "full"
nava means "boat" asana means "pose" or "form" (in Sanskrit, there is a complete liason between vowels, so nava asana becomes navasana)And there you have it in plain, practical, boring English... full boat pose. It's easy to get involved in the beauty of the ancient language, but we run the risk of being a little silly, like Michiko's family gazing at upside down boxes. Face it, this pose looks like a boat! And when you do it, having the image of a boat bobbing in the water really helps. (By the way, if you ask someone doing this pose what they would like to call it, they'll tell you call it whatever you want, just let it be over!)

So, teaching yoga in Japan, I try to use Japanese names for the poses as much as possible, based on the original Sanskrit. I want my students to know that nothing exotic is happening during the poses, and to really get the idea of the form. Bhujangasana sounds really cool, but it won't get a student to press their hips into the mat like "Cobra Pose" will.

The person who really brought me around to this way of thinking is Thich Nhat Hanh. When we went to his retreat a few years ago there wasn't a word of Vietnamese or Pali the entire time. All the chants, songs, and meditations, except for "Om" were in English. And a lot of people there were dissapointed at how "ordinary" everything was. At the end of the retreat, if you took the 5 Mindfullness Precept s, you were given a dharma name in English. (My name is "Silent Breath of the Heart" and Gwen's is "Lovely Teacher of the Heart") One of the women in our group asked the monk "Can't you tell me my name with the Vietnamese version? I bet it's beautiful!" The monk smiled and explained that he could, but that he would not, and gave the argument that I have outlined above, that these names are to help us, not distract us. Now, years later, I still remember most of the chants from that retreat, because they were in English.

So, in yoga, by all means study and learn the Sanskrit, but don't be fooled into thinking that these foreign words make the practice any more exotic. For Patanjali these names were nothing special, they were just a way of describing the shape of the body. Like zen, yoga is nothing special, and once you accept that you'll really start going places!

Namaste (namas=I bow, te= to you!)
Patrick

Yoga Garden

Tea and Antioxidants

2006-04-12T11:51:00.001+09:00

While I was in America a few weeks ago I went to a health food store and stocked up on tea for the studio. I bought about 30 boxes. The girl at the check out counter beeped the boxes for two minutes, then looked up over her hipster eyeglasses and said "You got a cold or something?" It was pretty funny. This is a picture I took with my cell phone of my suitcase filled to the brim with tea. I felt like some kind of smuggler.

Tea has been an important part of our lives for a long time, and we have tried to incorporate it into our studio as much as possible. Sharing tea after the lessons brings the students together, gives a sense of community, and is healthy.

That health benefit is what I want to blog about today. Everyone has an idea that tea is good for you because it contains antioxidants. And everyone knows that antioxidants are good because they... um... antioxidize? This is where understanding breaks down and pseudo-scientific health claims start popping up like "Reverse Aging!"

So I'll try to explain what antioxidants do in plain English.

Inside your body there are lots of little molecules floating around that scientists call "free radicals." These little guys, for one reason or another, have lost some electrons and are unstable. So they bounce around ripping up your healthy cells and DNA, as they try to get the right number of electrons. These start chain reactions, because as an electron is taken from a normal atom, it becomes an unstable free radical too!

Having your cells and DNA ripped up is, of course, bad. It makes you age.

Along come the antioxidants, naturally occuring neutralizers. These guys float around, and when they meet one of the free radicals they stick to it and make it a happy, stable molecule! Yay!

You can get antioxidants from all plants, vegetables, and fruits. And one of the easiest ways to raise your antioxidant intake is with a cup of herbal or green tea.

There are hundreds of different free radicals, and each one is neutralized by a different antioxidant, so the key is to have a healthy, varied diet that covers a wide range of flavors and colors. That's one reason we change our tea every week.So come by, take a yoga class, and enjoy some of these teas from the US. Most aren't available in Japan and they are all delicious!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Energy Exchange

2006-03-30T06:38:00.000+09:00

Because she's too modest to tell anyone, I wanted to note that Gwen is featured in this season's copy of Yogini magazine, and the studio got a nice write up in the back as well. Yogini comes out every three months, so check it out if you see it on the newstands.

The story they did with Gwen was a perfect fit for Yoga Garden. Gwen and one of the magazine's editors went to Chiba earlier this month and met a group of people who are trying to live more simply. The Hayashi family in particular has endeavored to live in a natural community that reduces waste and reliance on modern amenities. They live on a hilltop overlooking rice fields in a 200 year old house without air conditioning, plumbing, or electronics. They were interested in trying yoga, but there were no teachers in the area, so the editor of Yogini contacted Gwen and together they drove to the community to give them a lesson.

What's most interesting about this community to me is that they have created their own currency called "awa." They use awa between themselves and 100 or so other spots around Chiba and Tokyo that have agreed to take part in the plan. Gwen was payed 2000 awa for her yoga lesson, and she used her awa to buy lunch and some organic vegetables from the farmer on her left in the photo. You can "pay" with awa at the barber, flower shops, bookstores, and many other stores. You could also use your awa to have snow cleared from your driveway, wood chopped, or your yard maintained.

What I love about the idea of "awa" money is that it's working on a principle of direct energy exchange. Our modern monetary systems remove us several steps from this basic and life affirming feeling. We have all agreed to see money as a thing unto itself, not just paper that represents the sum of our labors. Imagine how different the world would be if we truly appreciated the energy and effort that went into getting those little pieces of paper that we throw around carelessly.

We can't all participate in an alternative currency like the Hayashis, but we can keep in mind the idea of energy exchange in our relationships. When you have a conversation with a friend, are both of you getting more of less equal energy from the dialouge? Are you giving too much energy, depleting your resources? Or taking too much, not seeing that your friend also needs to speak and share their opinions? Does your job give you as much energy (in terms of salary, free time, and happiness) as it takes from you? Anyway, something to think about and work on with small, mindful movements.

Take care!
Patrick

For more information about the awa money movement, check this site.

Please See the Attachment Below...

2006-03-23T05:36:00.000+09:00

Greetings from America! My trip here is halfway over, and I finally found some time to share an experience I had on the way here.

For this trip to America, one of my grandfather's friends generously let me use one of her "buddy passes" that she receives each year thanks to her husband's long years of work at the airline. If you've never heard of these, here's how they work. You don't get a ticket for the flight, you fly standby, meaning you show up after all the other passengers have checked in. And if there's a free seat, you get it for a great price. The beauty of the buddy pass is that if that free seat is in business class, you fly business class, no questions asked. In fact, the only way that you don't get business class is if it's full (which is rare) or someone else with higher priority uses a buddy pass and takes that seat.

Tokyo to Atlanta is a long flight, and for weeks I had been imagining myself living it up in business class like this:
Feet up, drinking champagne, and choosing from a wide variety of movies and menus offered to only the most valuable customers, people who deserved it. People like me.

The day of the flight came. All the regular passengers checked in, and there were 6 of us waiting for standby tickets. We were told that there were three seats in business class available, but that some of us would have to fly economy class. I looked at the others with pity, poor sods, having to sit in economy while I enjoyed my luxurious 12 hours in the front of the plane. The tickets were passed out... I glanced at the ticket, gate 94, seat G32, class... Coach.

The horror! How could this have happened? There must have been some mistake. Those two ladies with the paisley baggage must have cheated me, or maybe someone slipped the check-in person some cash in his passport... the check-in lady seemed to know one of the people, she probably bumped me so her little friend could ride. Someone will pay for this!!!

Seriously, these were the thoughts that went through my head as I trudged through security. I had fallen into a trap. The trap of human life... attachment.

Attachment is a very poor translation of the Pali word samudaya. Many people use the word clinging or grasping instead. None of these three words really captures the tone of samudaya, so I'll just use attachment as it has become kind of a standard in Buddhist texts. Attachment is simply giving energy to the idea that you own something, deserve something, or don't want to lose something. According to Buddhist philosophy, it is attachment that is the cause of all human suffering.

We all have ideas about how the world should be. We and our loved ones should have long, happy lives, we should have enough money, we should be rewarded for our work. If we have these things, we should be happy, if we accomplish our goals, we will feel satisfied at last. These are the biggest of our attachments.

Of course, everyone comes with their own set of personal attachments. Have you ever seen a picture of yourself and thought "that's not how I look!" That's the attachment to your projection of yourself speaking. In yoga people often get frustrated that they can't do certain poses... this too is attachment to the "right pose" or "good flexibility." Or maybe you have your eye on a shirt in a store, and you tuck it in the back of the rack so no one else can get "your" shirt. In reality, it wasn't "yours" until you formed the attachment to it.

Well, needless to say, I had been nurturing this attachment to my "dream flight" for a few weeks, and when the reality turned out to be different, it really hurt! And my first reaction was be angry, to blame, and to see enemies all around me. Even with a Buddhist background informing me of exactly why I felt like that, it took me an hour to get over it.

And here is the real danger of attachment. During that 60 minutes I lost all sense of gratitude for my chance to travel to America for a great price. I forgot that I would get to see my family soon, and that I have the opportunity to travel around the world and have adventures. And I'm sure during that hour I wasn't particularly kind to the security workers, the check-in people, the flight attendants, or the passengers next to me. Attachment spreads suffering liberally!

Anyway, I have the same chance to fly business class on the way home in a few days. But this time I will go to the ticket counter with a much more sane mindset. If I get business class, great! If I don't, then that's also great. Life is great. The present moment is always there, real and accesible, if we can just let go of things enough to see it!
See you soon!
-Patrick

This is only the surface of the four noble truths of buddhism. If you want to learn more this is a nice link.

The best way to get your head around these ideas is to meditate. Come by any Sunday at 6pm for free zazen!

**PS . I didn't get business class on the way home either, but I was lucky enough to have the seat next to me be unoccupied. Without the expectation of a great seat, this small fortune seemed even better.

New Mats!

2006-03-15T19:29:00.000+09:00

Hi everyone!
I've seen it a dozen times, one of our students comes into the studio and excitedly tells me they've taken the plunge and bought their own mat. "That's great," I say, ".... is this the first time you've unrolled it?" If the answer is "yes," we're in trouble.

Why? Well, in the manufacturing process, most mat companies apply a thin veneer of oil to the surface of the mats. This is to keep the mat soft and supple during the months between its production and your purchase. Mix that layer of oil with a little sweat on your palms or feet, and "downward facing dog" becomes "sliding onto your face dog." Simply put, a brand new yoga mat unrolled for the first time is very, very slippery.

What to do? A lot of people recommend putting your new mat into the washing machine with a mild detergent before using it. That will take care of the problem very quickly, but personally, I think that it makes the mats too sticky, they lose some of their organic feel. I prefer a gentler breaking in period of a few weeks. I like to lay a mat out in the sun, and simply do a lot of yoga on it. Other ideas are putting your new mat under an old one for a few sessions, going over the mat with one of those green backed sponges (using the green scrubby part). Whatever method you use, do it before the lesson so you can enjoy your new mat!

Speaking of which, many people ask me which kind of mat they should buy. Prices range from 1000 yen to 10,000 yen. We have seen really poorly designed mats for 4000 yen, and some very durable, thick mats for 1000 yen, so don't let price alone decide the matter. There are a few factors you should consider.

1. Thickness. Mats come in all kinds of thicknesses, which you will be able to compare easily in the store. If you are a little bony, you should opt for a thicker mat. Gwen uses a double thick Gaiam mat at the studio, but I use a relatively thin mat, because I like to feel the floor more during poses. Another thing to consider is that a thick mat will be harder to fit into yoga bags and (in general) be a little more difficult to travel with.

2. "Grippiness" This is the amount of friction between you and the mat. Thicker mats will offer a much stickier feel because your hand or foot actually sinks into the material. It's difficult to tell how "grippy" a mat is in the store, but you can get an idea from how raised the bumps on the surface are. The higher the bumps, the better the grip. (I once saw a really cheap mat that just had bumps painted on it, and was actually a single, slick surface) Actually, the bumpy style is going out of fashion now, and lots of rubber mats are coming out that offer superior grip. They are usually covered in a grid or squiggles. (the downside to these is that they are heavy and expensive)

3. The "it" factor. This is simply choosing a mat that you connect with. You will be spending a lot of time with it, and having some fondness for the style and color is really important. These days the choices are amazing. You can get every color in the spectrum, funky patterns, or a dragon descending down the mat. So don't just say "this one will do," make it fun, shop around, until you see a mat and say "that's IT!"

Gwen and I just got some traveling mats for the spring and summer. Bright, huh?. And thanks to Rika for getting us a good deal on them!

Patrick

Oryoki for Busy People

2006-02-15T20:39:00.000+09:00

Oryoki is the name for the zen-monk's style of dining. A usual meal consists of three bowls. A small bowl for miso soup, a medium size for rice, and a large bowl for the main dish, which consists of light, in-season vegetables. (A small saucer of pickles is optional.) We bought this great book about it a few years ago which explains a lot more about the philosophy behind oriyoki.

While Gwen and I were on a zazen retreat last summer, we noticed how much healthier and lighter we felt on the 3 bowl diet. I don't know why, but the balance between carbs, protiens, hot, cold, plain and flavorful is just perfect for settling the mind down. After that, we determined to eat "monk food" a few times a week.

But, of course, life gets busy, and it's easy to wander into a restaurant or fast food place when you're hungry and the grocery shopping hasn't been done. So, it is in the spirit of compromise that I offer the modern, microwaveable, 3 bowl meal.

You can see in this picture 2 packages of microwave rice, two packages of instant miso, two bags of pre-cut microwaveable vegetables, and three varieties of pickles conveniently stored in plastic tubs. And seven minutes later...

a balanced, nutritious, and possibly radioactive, meal. Itadakimasu!

P.S. Recently I went on a Zen retreat and made this movie about the Oryoki tradition. Check it out!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Yoga For All Seasons

2006-02-04T21:36:00.000+09:00

The UN just released this report that says half of the world's population will be urban by 2007. Living in a city is a very disconnecting experience, especially when it comes to enjoying the change of the seasons. Moving from one climate controlled building to another (in a climate controlled car or train), hardly seeing a tree or grass, and having access to avacados and strawberries year-round, it can all make the seasons seem like a backdrop to our busy lives, nice to look at but unimportant.

But I think this is changing. This year I've heard so much in the mainstream media about Seasonal Affective Disorder. People are starting to get back to the idea that we constantly interact with and are changed by our environment.

Being sensitive to how your body is reacting to the changing seasons can also be brought into your yoga practice. During the winter, energy levels drop, muscles tighten, and circulation decreases. In yoga classes you can take notice of how your body feels at different times of the day and year. Your yoga practice can reflect the seasons, having a practice that allows the body to restore itself during the winter and burns off energy in the summer, for example, is one way to do this. Eating and resting habits, as explored in this article, should also reflect the seasons.

Relective, relaxing postures such as seated forward bends, legs up the wall, and reclining bound angle poses, all of which can be found on Yoga Journal's informative Pose Finder page, can be combined for a home practice that will allow your body to restore itself. These sorts of poses are also helpful in recovering from colds and flu.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Have You Downgraded Recently?

2006-01-23T13:50:00.000+09:00

This week I was in the store. I needed some new razors. In case you're not up to speed on the latest razor technology, I'll tell you what's out there. There's the Mach 3, a 3 bladed razor, which is what I was using. And there's the Mach 3 Turbo, which has a lotion strip I think, and then there's the Mach 3 PowerMax or something like that, which I hadn't seen before. This one really freaked me out because it has a button on the top that makes it vibrate. I mean, this thing is vibrating hard. It almost hurt my hand to hold it! I guess the idea is that the vibe-motion gets the beard hair better. And next to all that was the Quattro, with 4 blades. Upon further research when I got home I discovered the Quattro not only promises a clean shave, but an entirely new lifestyle! And they were so expensive, about 1200 yen for 4 razor heads.

Now, for those of you who haven't met me, I am not exactly hairy. My best attempts at facial hair growth (while in the Peace Corps) resulted in a fine wispy halo of hair around my jaw, and an ugly moustache! I was standing there thinking, what do I need 3 razor blades on one razor for? Sure, I like a clean shave, but this is getting ridiculous. Next year they'll probably come out with something with 5 blades that also harvests wheat. That's when, out of the corner of my eye, down at ankle level, I saw the Gillette Sensor. That was the first razor I ever had, in high school. It had 2 blades and it worked great. Not much has changed about my facial hair since high school. And the Sensor came with more blades for half the price. And it looks cool. Kind of art deco design. I bought it, and threw out my old Mach 3.

It was a freeing experience, to actually downgrade something in a world that is always pushing the newest model. Try it this month, find some small thing that is complicating your life and choose a simpler option.

In Buddhism, there is a lot of talk of the "middle path." The Buddha is famous for rejecting a life of princely luxury, but he also rejected the overly austere life of the ascetic. The Buddhist prescription for happiness revolves around navigating between these extremes, and my little razor, with more than 1 blade, and less than 3 (or 4), is a reminder to me of that each time I see it in my bathroom.

Happy Simplifying!
Patrick

Yoga Garden

***Update, February 7, 2006. I am not kidding, just three weeks after I wrote this blog Gillette started selling it's next-gen razor, the Fusion. Also, I ran across this Onion article from 2 years ago that predicted the whole thing. (May not be suitable for kids)

Reading Between the Lines of Yoga Studies

2006-01-07T06:50:00.000+09:00

Just before Christmas this study started popping up all over the web. I'll break it down for you. They took 101 people with back pain and divided them into three groups. One group used books to learn about back care. Another did a gym style stretching and strengthening class. And the final group did a 75 minute yoga class once a week. The yoga group decreased their pain and increased their range of movement faster than the others. Eventually, the gym style stretching group caught up with the yoga group, and the book learners didn't show much improvement.

This study can teach us several things.

First, It has been publicized as a testament to the healing power of yoga, but there is an important caveat, the fact that the stretching group caught up to the yoga group. This tells me that the most important factor here wasn't the actual movements, but the breathing. The style they used in this study was vini yoga, a very soft, slow style that uses the breath even more than a regular hatha yoga form. Breathing properly has so many benefits, I would bet that alone accounted for much of the yoga group's improvement. The change in the just the lymphatic system shows how much better your health can get with proper breathing.

Second, you'll notice this study was done by "Seattle's Group Health Cooperative Center for Health Studies" with a test pool of only 101 people. This is not a major study in any way, and yet it was leading health headlines at BBC, CNN, and Yahoo News for almost a week. This shows that there is a public hungry for scientific news related to yoga. I can count on one hand the number of serious medical investigations involving yoga that I have read about in the last few years, and they were all done by non-profit organizations such as this Seattle group. (Many were led by Dr. Dean Ornish's Preventive Medicine Research Institute)

Why so few? Well, sadly, I think the answer is that yoga isn't going to make anyone rich. The pharmaceutical companies that sponsor the "real" studies that have 1000s or 10,000s of participants aren't very interested in telling us that significant health improvements can come from an investment in a yoga mat and a few hours a week.

But that's ok, people are smart, and they don't need a study to tell them that something is working! So we'll have to trust our instincts until science catches up and tells us exactly why yoga makes us feel so good.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Resolutions

2006-01-05T20:58:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year from Yoga Garden. See you on the mat!
-Patrick

Yoga Garden

Zazen Comes to Yoga Garden

2005-12-09T08:04:00.000+09:00

You may have read the post from a few months ago when Gwen and I went to the zen retreat in Shizuoka. For us, there is no denying the benefits of seated meditation, and we have wanted to give this option to our students and guests for a long time (and do more ourselves).

So when I made my vision map (read post below) one of the things I imagined was bringing more meditation into my life and the lives of people around me. The very next day, Yoga Garden was given a generous meditation donation from In Control accounting services, a business run by one of our students. With these funds, we were able to purchase enough zafu (meditation cushions) to host a group of meditators, and I am happy to announce that we are offering weekly meditation on Tuesday nights! Please come by if you can, there is no charge.

To read more about it, click here.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

P.S. I recently made this video about how to start a zazen practice. Check it out!

Bridging the Gap

2005-11-21T07:14:00.000+09:00

This weekend we had the honor of giving a one hour presentation at Yokohama International School's yearly education conference, Bridging the Gap. The idea of this program is to bring fresh ideas and creative thinking into the school environment. 30 teachers, parents, and community members attended our event, which was held in the school's spacious dance studio.

Our discussion was based around the idea that as humans we have a tendency (especially in the modern world) to separate our minds from our bodies, and in that duality, something important is lost. The brain is just another component of the total system, it is effected by the body just as the body is controlled by the brain. So, for example, studies have shown that if you smile (even without any real emotion behind it, a fake smile) the smiling muscles send messages to the brain that trigger a happiness response, and you cheer up a bit. There is a constant flow of communication between the brain and the body, which, if managed correctly, can lead to a better standard of life.

After a short discussion we moved to the experiential part of the session. We took the 5 main parts of the Sun Salutation and broke them down, explaining scientifically what is happening to the brain and body during each segment. Then we brought them all together for two complete Salutations. As usual, people were surprised by the amount of sweat and energy it takes to do yoga. Following that, we did a standing pose (triangle) a balance pose (tree) and a "power" pose (chair). Everyone really seemed to enjoy this small sample of yoga!

The final portion of our event dealt with meditation. Exercise and yoga are great a reducing stress levels, but meditation has the quality of eliminating the causes of stress before they enter the mind-body system. The idea is that yoga (or your favorite form of exercise) coupled with meditation can really increase your standard of contentment.

We were having so much fun during this event, no one thought to take a picture! If anyone has a photo of this, please forward it to me and I'll post it here!

Thanks to everyone who attended, and to YIS for inviting us to speak. We really enjoyed it.
Patrick

Yoga Garden

Vision Map Workshop

2005-11-14T19:30:00.000+09:00

Last weekend, the studio became a huge workspace for 10 participants of our first Vision Map Workshop.

If you haven't heard of Vision Mapping, the idea is simple. You go through a stack of magazines and cut out any pictures or words that appeal to you, without overanalyzing why you have chosen the things you did. The next step is to use those pictures to make a "map" of your future, or to answer a specific question. So, you could make a map thinking about "Where do I want to be in 2 years?", or "how can I make my job more rewarding?"

The most interesting part of Vision Mapping is that once you have committed your ideas to paper they have a knack of coming to fruition. Perhaps it's magic, or perhaps you subconsciously make these things happen after visualizing them.

Everyone had a great time, and the maps were both beautiful and intriguing. I'll keep you updated on whether our visions come to be! Thanks to our vision map coach, Kim Brasington, for an insightful and inspiring workshop.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Circuit Training, Step Aerobics & Yoga

2005-11-07T10:48:00.000+09:00

This week the YC&AC held it's Sports Fair. I was asked to give a short yoga lesson at the conclusion of the 90-minute cardio workout (circuit training & step aerobics). If you're interested in going to the next fair, please contact Justin Tenbeth at the YC&AC. The next one's in January and promises to be as much fun as the last.

Gwen

Yoga Garden

Flying with David Swenson

2005-10-15T08:33:00.000+09:00

Last night, from 7-9:30 pm, I joined 40+ other yogis & yoginis at a studio in Shinjuku to learn about Ashtanga yoga with David Swenson. The theme of last night's class was "The Physics of Flight" and we focused on the five ingredients necessary for having an Ashtanga practice: breath, vinyasa (flow), drishti (focus), bandha (body valves) & asana (postures). Whew, when I write it out like that there's a lot going on in the body when you do yoga.
For the purpose of this post, let me just focus on one of these 'ingredients,' the breath. The breath is the thread that holds all 5 of the ingredients together. It's the one thing that, if we don't have it, we don't have a yoga practice at all. Last night David said, "the minds is more difficult to control than the wind." And from the Upanishads (sacred yoga texts), "he who has control over his breath has control over his mind." What does this mean for us when we approach the mat? Do we even need yoga in order to reign in the breath/mind? Yoga is a tool for learning to control the breath, and it takes time but eventually you can learn to inhale and exhale with the movement. That's where the idea of 'flight' comes into play. The breath allows you to glide, or flow, or fly, easily between poses.
Clearly there are other ways to flow/fly in life. You can paraglide, skateboard or race cars. Yoga is an accessible, safe way to fly. And all you need, really, is your body. And to do that one thing you've done a handful of times while reading this post: breathe.

Gwen

Yoga Garden

Eat Your Colors

2005-10-09T06:56:00.000+09:00

Salsa, bell peppers, and guacamole... a painless way to eat your colors.
Lately a lot of people have been asking me about the "yoga diet" and how they can extend their practice into their eating. The yoga diet is pretty simple; little or no meat, fresh vegetables that are naturally in season, and nothing too spicy or jarring to the system. It's quite striking sometimes, you can read a yoga text from a thousand years ago describing the proper diet and it's almost identical to the FDA's multi-million dollar food pyramid.

Anyway, I've been reading about how important variety is in your fruit and vegetable choices, and it can be a little overwhelming trying to figure out how to get this percentage of Vitamin D and that amount of anti-oxidants and enough of the "good cholesterol," which I still don't really understand. So I was reminded of that big movement a few years ago, "Eat Your Colors."
This movement really stuck with me because it said to use your eyes instead of a chart to achieve a healthy diet. By having a table of many bright, varied colors, you are providing the right balance of nutrients for the body.

The science behind "eat your colors" is that the same things that make fruits and vegetables bright and colorful are also really good for us. These chemicals are called "phytonutrients" and have been closely linked to the anti-oxidant process.

Whatever the science says, the colorful approach to food is tasty, energizing, and nice to look at. I find that certain styles of cooking, especially Mexican, lend themselves well to this approach. So the next time you're in the produce section, try to get a full spectrum of color in your basket, and a full spectrum of nutrients in your body!

If you want more details about phytonutrients, I found this site very informative.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Zen and Yoga

2005-09-15T07:48:00.000+09:00

temple garden

Last week Gwen and I went to a 3 day zen retreat near Shizuoka city. It was held at a temple called Tokei-in, which is one of the places Shunryu Suzuki taught at before he went to America. I've been into zen since high school and have recently been thinking about how yoga and zen can be used together. After the session, I solidified my ideas a little more and I'll try to express them here.
How Zen and Yoga work together.

1. The basic sitting posture for zazen meditation is full or half lotus. This posture comes from the asana tradition that has been around five thousands years. So basically, Buddha was struggling to become awakened, and one of the things he remembered was this yoga pose he had done once that made him feel very stable and centered. So at their root the two practices are connected.

2. Many of our students say that one of their favorite things about yoga is that, during a pose, their thoughts drop away and they are totally in the moment. This is the same "no-mind" that zen encourages as well.

3. Back when the monks were living in the temples, they had a lot of manual labor to do during the day, which they approached with the same mindfullness as their meditation practice. So they got a daily dose of physical activity which complemented their seated meditation. But now people work in offices at desks all day, getting no physical excercise, and then go home and try to do some more sitting in zazen. I think yoga is a good substitute for the neccessary physical labors of the past. Only sitting will make your mind too squirrely, I think.

4. Sitting in zazen is physically taxing, as it requires long periods of stillness in a difficult posture. I see yoga as a perfect preparation and post-zen activity, to loosen and awaken the body.

There is a big divide in the alternative therapy world between "meditation" and "excercise." I think you need both to be as healthy as you can be. In the global age we have the chance to discover these different schools of thought, I hope we can keep finding ways that they overlap.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Vegetable Sushi

2005-08-19T22:48:00.000+09:00

Everyone knows vegetables are good for you, but did you know that boiling or sauteeing your veggies breaks down the majority of the vitamins that make them so healthy? This is a big problem for Gwen and me, as we really like soups, chilis, and curries. And aside from salads, we rarely eat raw vegetables. So I've been trying to find creative ways to trick us into eating uncooked vegetables more often.

One tasty option is vegetable sushi. When I first started making sushi I tried to be very "by the book," using only the fish and vegetables I had seen in sushi bars. But in the last few years, I've been doing whatever I feel like with the sushi rolls, especially adding all kinds of raw vegetables that I usually find unpalatable. Some of my best combinations:

Classic Roll: carrots, cucumber, and avocado.
Rainbow Roll: with red, yellow, orange, and green peppers. Plus mayonaise.
Crunchy Roll: asparagus gently rolled with creamy sauce and a thin layer of cream cheese.
Green Giant Roll: Broccolli and green beans, dipped in salad dressing.
BLT Roll: Bacos, cherry tomatos, and lettuce.

That's only the beginning! I know it's not really "sushi," but it is a good way to get those veggies down without cooking them to death.
To find out more about proper sushi, check this funky link page.
And a quick meat is bad for you page I just found on Google.
Have any other ideas to trick yourself into enjoying raw foods? Feel free to comment!

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Rolfing

2005-08-14T06:53:00.001+09:00

Kazu visits Yoga Garden!
Have you ever heard of Rolfing? I know, it sounds like something you do when you have food poisoning, but it's named after the lady who invented it, Ida P. Rolf. The name she prefered was "structual integration."

When we opened our studio we tried to find all the other alternative health businesses in our area to let them know about us, and that's how we met Rolfing Kazu. His Rolfing studio is a few minutes up Motomachi street from our place.

So, the idea of Rolfing is that you can correct posture and alignment by working with the outer sheath of tissue (the fascia) surrounding the muscles. Using pressure and long strokes, the facsia is smoothed out and moved into a more efficient position. I was kind of sceptical at first, but I've been "getting Rolfed" for a few weeks now, and the results are amazing. My body is moving much more easily, as if all my joints have been oiled. And my posture is getting much better. I still have 5 more sessions before I finish the Rolfing course, so I'll keep you updated!
If you want to know more about Rolfing, you can visit the Rolfing Institute's homepage.
And here is a link to Kazu's studio.

Patrick

Yoga Garden

Yoga in Yoyogi Park

2005-08-08T09:03:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I went to a yoga event in Yoyogi Park, sponsored by Yoga Jaya, with special guest Louisa Sear from Australia. The event started around 9:20 in the morning, with about an hour of pranayama (breathing exercises) and meditation. About 150 people turned up. After we did meditation and breathing there was a short break followed by an hour and 15 minutes of yoga asanas (poses). Louisa led a Vinyasa Flow sequence that was challenging and sweat-inducing. Although it was hot, it was lovely doing yoga surrouned by trees, feeling the earth just under the mat, hearing the sounds of a thousand crickets all around us. After asana practice there was an informal picnic...everybody shared watermelon, orange carrot juice and salads. Yoga Jaya plans to sponsor more of these free yoga in the park events in the future...look for us there!

Gwen

Yoga Garden