What is Love?

Is there more loaded word than “love”?  What do we crave more than to love and be loved?   Is there any other emotion more capable of creating both euphoria and crushing pain?  How do we cultivate the powerful positive force of love while freeing ourselves from its dark side?  Without doubt, more art, poetry and music have been inspired by this subject than by any other.    These are questions that philosophers and spiritual seekers have been asking for millennia.

Some 2600 years ago, the historical Buddha provided some guidance on love as a spiritual practice in his teachings on the Four Brahmaviharas, variously translated as “Transcendent Virtues”, “Immeasurables”, “Divine Abodes” or “Limitless Ones”.  The four are: maitri (love), karuna (compassion), mudita (joy) and upekkha (equanimity).  Of these, maitri (Sanskrit) could be seen as the fundamental state from which the others extend, but really each supports and balances the other.

When we think about love, we usually mean passion or sentimentality.  These states are related to feelings of desire, wanting and seeking pleasure.  They are emotions that come and go, bringing moments of happiness, but all too frequently also leading to feelings of sadness, regret, loss and anger.  But maitri is not like this at all.

Because the word love has so much baggage, maitri is often translated into English as “loving-kindness” or even “unconditional friendliness”.  Maitri is an expansive, open longing for someone (or everyone) to be happy.  It is not bound to a feeling of “what’s in it for me”.  In the words of Buddhist nun and author Pema Chödrön, a “combination of honesty, or clear-seeing, and kindness is the essence of maitri—unconditional friendship with ourselves.”  Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg says that metta (the Pali word for maitri) “translates both as friendship and also gentle, as in a gentle rain that falls indiscriminately upon everything. Metta practice is a steady, unconditional sense of connection that touches all beings without exception, including ourselves.

How do we begin to cultivate this quality of open friendliness in a seemingly hostile world?  Not surprisingly, we begin with ourselves.   We look at our messy lives, our messy minds and decide that we can make friends with who we are.  We do this through the powerful practice of mindfulness, through seeing ourselves as we really are without leaping to judgements of bad or good but rather just acknowledging what is going on.  Accepting who we are right now is the foundation of all spiritual growth.   Just as a doctor can’t give us the right medicine without properly diagnosing a physical condition, we can’t apply the right spiritual practices without seeing ourselves with honesty and gentleness.  For many of us in the Western world, brought up in a culture where unachievable standards and self-denigration are all too common, this can be a huge challenge.  In working with others, we remind ourselves that all beings want the same thing that we do: to be happy and avoid suffering.  Everything we say and do arises from this same fundamental motivation.

Mindfulness meditation is a key practice for cultivating clear seeing, tempered with gentleness.   Another valuable tool is “maitri practice”, a contemplation for cultivating loving-kindness.  It begins with developing maitri for oneself and then opening outward to feeling the same sense of appreciation and kindness for others.   This is a short practice that can be done in 5 or 10 minutes and can be practiced anywhere, anytime.  Below are a short set of instructions for maitri practice.  I hope this article and these instructions will inspire you to practice, but I strongly urge you to seek instruction from a qualified teacher, in person or through a book (see some resources below).

Maitri Practice

1. Sit in silence for several minutes, allowing the mind to settle and a sense of openness to arise.
2. Bring to your mind a person, or it could be an animal, who, when you think of this being, you feel an uncomplicated sense of affection, appreciation or gratitude.  Resting with that feeling of warmth and loving-kindness, in your mind repeat the following phrase:
   “May <NAME OF YOUR PERSON > be happy and enjoy the causes of happiness.”  Stay with the visualization of the person and this feeling of loving heart for 2-3 minutes.
3. Now bring your awareness to yourself and repeat in your mind “May I enjoy happiness and the causes of happiness.”  If you lose the feeling of loving, open heart, come back to the person for whom you found it easier until you touch in again with your heart and then come back to wishing happiness for yourself.  Spend a few minutes sending yourself loving-kindness.
4. Then open your awareness to the people dear to you – good friends and perhaps family members – and form the wish “May you be happy and enjoy the causes of happiness”.  Stay with this stage for another 2-3 minutes.
5. Now send this same wish for happiness to all the neutral people in your life – your colleagues at work, your kids’ coaches, the cashier at the supermarket you say “hi” to every week.
6. Next, think of a person you have difficulty with, perhaps someone who irritates you, or who you are a little afraid of, and wish for this person to be happy and enjoy the causes of happiness.  This will probably be quite challenging.  You may find you get caught up in the storyline associated with your emotional connection.  When that happens, just come back to the wish for happiness.  Don’t worry if you can’t connect with the same depth of loving heart you had earlier.  Just see what arises.  You can remind yourself that all beings, even the ones who cause us suffering, want happiness just as we do.
7. Finally, allow your awareness to expand outward to take in all people everywhere.  Offer the wish “May all beings everywhere be happy and enjoy the causes of happiness.”

I’ll leave Pema Chödrönwith the final word on maitri practice (from “The Places That Scare You”): “As we continue to do this practice, we make friends with our fears, our grasping, and our aversion.  Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons.  Everything we encounter thus becomes an opportunity for practicing loving-kindness.”

If this practice resonates with you, I strongly encourage you to connect with the teachings of Pema Chödrön and Sharon Salzberg.

On-line resources:

• Pema Chödrön explains Maitri (Youtube video)
• The Love that Never Dies (Pema Chödrön’s instructions for maitri practice )
• Facets of Metta (Sharon Salzberg’s instructions for maitri / metta practice)

Books:

• Pema Chödrön -  “The Places That Scare You” (and many others)
• Sharon Salzberg – “Loving-kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness”

Come to Your Senses!

Think of a time when you felt completely at ease; without thoughts or emotions tugging your mind in one direction or another, a time when everything felt right with the world.  Perhaps it was upon seeing a beautiful sunset over a still lake, or while holding a sleeping baby.  Maybe it was on reaching the summit of a mountain after a challenging hike, or as the last chords of a breathtaking piece of music died away.  This is the experience of resting the mind in its own natural essence, free of opinions, emotions and story lines. What is it we are touching into when we have this experience?  In the Buddhist teachings, it is called “Buddha Nature”.  Meditation master Chögyam Trungpa called it “Basic Goodness” or “Basic Sanity”.   Yoga teacher Shiva Rea calls it “Intrinsic Consciousness”.

Unfortunately, these moments of pure awareness are all too few and far between.   In our daily life, we lose this freshness, covering up the purity of direct experience with our “thinking mind”.  This thinking mind does have an important role.  Without it, we wouldn’t be able to make dinner, do our job or communicate with others.  However, most of our thoughts are preoccupied with the past and the future, comparing, judging, hoping and fearing.   It is our overactive “thinking mind” that keeps us from being happy.

As Yoda once said about Luke Skywalker: “All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things.”  A Jedi may not, but we regular folk certainly do.  But Yoda had it right:  paying attention to where we are and what we are doing – that is what brings us joy and peace and also what makes us most effective in helping others.   When we lose our awareness of our surroundings and disconnect from our senses, we no longer benefit from the energy of the world.  We lose our passion for life and our ability to truly be of benefit to others, or to feel lasting happiness.

How do we reconnect with this direct experience?  By learning to relax, by trusting in who we really are, and in opening to our senses.  When we experience the five senses without grasping or pushing away, this is when we really experience the joy of being alive.   As we drop the barriers we erect to avoid experiencing our true, elemental nature and explore our ever moving and changing essence without resistance, we can savour the rasa, the sweet sap of life.

On Saturday, February 11, I am offering a workshop called “Yoga for the Six Senses”.  In this 2 hour session, we’ll have an opportunity to let the “thinking mind” drop away and experience our world directly through sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and mind (the sixth sense).  I hope you’ll join me to explore your world and experience the bliss of awareness and openness.

Thawing Out

It has been a loooooong time since my last post.  As we move into the heart of 2012, I’ll be putting more effort into this blog and sharing my love of yoga and of life.

I feel that I’m beginning to thaw out from the stresses of the past year.  2011 was a challenging year me and my family.  My daughter Kayleigh suffered awful and baffling health problems through most of the year, but fortunately has returned to full health.  Caring for Kayleigh and looking for ways to address her health issues was a huge weight on the family and something had to give.  In August 2011, I took the opportunity to sell Windhorse Yoga.  Letting go of the studio freed me to dedicate myself to my family.  Now with Kayleigh back to full health, I’m enjoying having a bit more space in my life and the opportunity to reconnect with people and activities I haven’t had time for in years.

While I loved being able to offer yoga to so many people through the physical space of my studio, I know I can still share my experience and passion for yoga through classes, workshops and through words.

So stay tuned!  I’ve lots to say!

Winter Solstice Yoga Mala (108 Sun Salutations)

Dear friends, the weather may be getting coolor (at last!) but I’m feeling warmer.  I feel like my heart is thawing out after being stuck for a long time. I feel freed by the transition from studio owner to freelance yoga teacher, joyful at the return to health of my daughter, and softened by the recent passing of my father.

I hope to be writing more in the weeks to come.  In meantime, I’d like you to know that I will be again leading a “Yoga Mala”, the practice of 108 sun salutations, to honour the Winter Solstice.  For the first time in 4 years, I missed this quarterly ritual at the fall equinox due to my daughter’s health issues and the closure of Windhorse.  I’m delighted to be bringing it back.

If you are sound of body and have some familiarity with Surya Namaskara A (the simplest form of sun salutation), please join me on Saturday, December 17 from 1:00 – 3:00 at Adi Shesha Yoga Wellington to celebrate the change of seasons and raise money for the Red Cross appeal for Attawapiskat, Northern Ontario.

Love,
Sheila

Making Friends with Our World

“In the practice of meditation, having developed a sense of trust in oneself, slowly that expands its expression outward, and the world becomes a friendly world rather than a hostile world.”
- Chögyam Trungpa

 We have all had the experience of feeling completely at ease: no thoughts or emotions tugging our mind in one direction or another; everything feeling right with the world.  Perhaps this happened on seeing a beautiful sunset over a still lake, or on reaching the summit of a mountain after a challenging hike, or perhaps as the last chords of a breathtaking piece of music die away.  This is the experience of resting the mind in its own natural essence, free of thoughts, opinions, emotions and story lines.

Usually, these moments of directly experiencing our world occur in relation to a particular set of causes and conditions (like the sunset) and disappear almost instantaneously as concepts and thoughts rush in to fill the vastness of our mind. Suddenly, instead of just enjoying the sunset, we’re annotating it: “Wow that is so beautiful.  Look at the pink in that cloud.  I wish it would last longer.  It’s almost dark already…”  Instead of simply enjoying the experience, we feel the need to add something or hold on to it. And as we do, the feeling behind the words drifts away.  And of course, every sunset, no matter how glorious, fades into night.

It is possible, however, to experience this same sense of joyful openness and stillness at any time and beyond a fleeting moment.  Through meditation we train the mind to rest in itself, cultivating the capacity to see directly without the filters through which we usually view the world.   As we relax into our world, we begin to see how our own mind causes suffering for ourselves and others. We learn that we already have everything we need to be happy. Discovering the innate peace and brilliance of our own mind, we become happier and can help others to be happier too.

It all begins with sitting still and resting the mind.  This is the profound practice of shamatha, or “peaceful abiding”, meditation.

In meditation, we teach our mind to stop jumping from one object of pleasure to another and instead learn to rest in the unchanging peace of the mind itself, where there is no craving for things to be different than they are right now.  Through taming our wild mind, we can learn that true, lasting happiness comes from within, rather than from satisfying our eternal pursuit of pleasure from things that will inevitably fade.  This doesn’t mean we no longer enjoy life.  Rather it means we don’t get attached to experiences and objects, but instead appreciate them completely while we have them.  We appreciate them all the more because our experience of them is no longer clouded by fear (the knowledge that these experiences won’t last).  Living with a peaceful mind also doesn’t mean we become a doormat.  When situations arise that require action, our action is no longer tainted by our habitual patterns, and instead is completely skilful, uniting compassion and wisdom.

The good news is that every human being has the innate capacity to achieve the lasting peace that comes from meditation. Our mind naturally has the capability to be stable and clear. We’ve all experienced glimpses of this (remember that sunset!) and therefore can have faith that this is true. In the Buddhist teachings, this inborn capability is called “Buddha Nature”.  The Shambhala teachings refers to this quality as “Basic Goodness”. Yoga teacher Shiva Rea calls it “Intrinsic Consciousness”.  This fundamental quality we all have is the inherent ability of the mind to rest within itself.

Yes, even YOU have Basic Goodness! How can you touch into it?  Through meditation.

Wide Awake!

Starting Monday Oct 10, I’ll be teaching Wide Awake: Buddhism for Teens, a 6-week introduction to meditation and Buddhism specifically for teens at the Ottawa Shambhala Centre.  It runs Mondays, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. for 6 Mondays Oct 10 to Nov 14. Please pass this info on to any teens in your life!

As I prepare to teach this course, I’ll offer a few blog posts on the view of meditation.

I have been a practicing Buddhist for 15 years and am trained as a meditation guide in the Shambhala tradition, a branch of Mahayana Buddhism.  Mahayana Buddhism, which includes Zen, Chan and Vajrayana schools, teaches that true enlightenment comes with the realization of shunyata, the union of compassion and wisdom, epitomized by a Bodhisattva, a realized being who foregoes his/her own final enlightenment to help all other beings become realized.   The posts that follow are based on my understanding of the view and teachings of Mahayana Buddhism.

May these words be of benefit.

Back to Class + Special Event

I’m so looking forward to getting back to teaching yoga classes this week after almost a month off!  Adi Shesha Yoga Zone Wellington opens this Monday (Sep 26) and I’ll be teaching 4 classes a week there.   I won’t be teaching Hot Flow Tuesday Sep 27 at 6:30 a.m. as I’ll be camping Monday night at CHEO with my daughter but will teach all my other classes next week: Tuesday 12:00 Gentle Flow, Thursday 9:30 Hatha Flow and Saturday 9:00 Power Flow.  Please come and check out Adi Shesha next week!

Special Event – FREE Yoga with Sheila!  Join me on Sunday October 2 for a FREE class: Yoga Flow to Live Music at Santosha Westboro‘s “Day of Renewal” – a full day of free yoga classes.

And for those who have asked: I promise I will soon post about my daughter’s journey through chronic pain.  Looks like it’s going to have a happy ending very soon!

Enjoy the warmth this weekend.

Yoga classes with Sheila at Adi Shesha – starting Sep 27

The preparation of Adi Shesha yoga Wellington is taking a little longer than expected so the studio will be opening on Monday Sep 26.

Sheila’s first classes at Adi Shesha will be on Tuesday Sep 27 (6:30 a.m. Hot Flow, 12:00 Gentle Flow & Meditation.  Enjoy the break and then come join me for some joyful flow yoga to celebrate all your body and mind can do!

Sheila is featured in an article on Yoga for Children

Last spring, the lovely folks at Healthwise magazine came to visit one of my Family Yoga classes and Debra Huron interviewed me. The outcome is an article on yoga for children in the fall edition of Healthwise Ottawa, currently available FREE at locations around Ottawa. If you can’t find a copy of Healthwise, you can read the article here (PDF). I don’t plan to be teaching any Family Yoga or Yoga for Kids classes this fall (except perhaps as a substitute teacher) but hope to be adding one to my schedule in January.

Retreating into Nature

On Labour Day weekend, I did something I’ve long pondered but never actually done: I went solo canoe camping.  It had been two years since I’d been back to my source, Algonquin Park.  Somehow last summer got away from me (owning a business can do that), and this year my favourite paddling partner is in a wheelchair.

It had been a challenging summer with letting go of my yoga studio and caring for my daughter through her pain and disability.  My husband urged me to do something for myself on the last long weekend of the summer.  And so I decided it was time to get over my apprehension at going solo and just do it.  It wouldn’t be a challenging trip.  My object was to find solitude – to not interact with human beings for two days, to meditate, read and, dare I say it… to relax.

The lead-up to a canoe trip is anything but relaxing.  There aren’t any convenience stores in the back country.  What you bring is what you have.  As I hadn’t used most of my gear in two years, in the days before I left, I tested my tiny stove, water filter and single-person tent.  I planned my menu and carefully packed my food to ensure I’d have enough but without carrying too much weight. 

By early Saturday morning, my pack was full, my canoe secured to the car and I was off. It was still only mid-morning when I paddled into Sec Lake, sun and cloud vying for dominance above and plenty of people vying for campsites on the lake.   I had chosen the closest access point in the park, which in my twenty years of paddling in Algonquin I’d never bothered with because it doesn’t really go anywhere.  Well, this time around, I didn’t want to get anywhere so Sec Lake was fine with me.   The disadvantage was that as one of the few lakes in the Park with campsites just a few minutes paddle from the access point, Sec Lake was chock-a-block with groups of families and friends.   After 45 minutes of paddling along the shore and around islands, it became clear that a decent campsite was going to be hard to come by.  Most of the sites were very close together along the southern end of the lake.  The press of people made my heart sink, on this weekend when solitude was paramount.

It was then I noticed on my map, a lone campsite at the north end of the lake.  Fifteen minutes of paddling brought me close enough to see it was vacant.   I arrived to find a site too small for more than two people but wonderfully spacious for a party of one.  And best of all, it was remote from the big groups clustered at the south end of the lake.  I had achieved my goal: I was alone.

The next two days were a completely new experience for me: absolutely unscheduled, no possibility of being contacted, no obligations and no one to please but myself.  I gave myself to hours of meditation, to watching the rain, more rain, and then more rain.  I practiced gentle flow yoga (when it wasn’t raining!).  I did a few sudokus, and I read as long as I liked.  I savoured the feeling of swimming naked in the cool lake in the warmth of the afternoon. 

During a few hours of sun on Sunday, I paddled and portaged to a nearby lake, enjoying the challenge of getting over (and under) trees fallen over the portage, and nearly getting wind-bound on the paddle back.  I worked with twinges of fear at being alone and possibly in trouble paddling alone against the wind. 

I stayed with the soft feeling of loneliness after two days on my own.   I wasn’t silent: I said “hello” to the milk snake and black rat snake who lived near my camp site.  I talked to the loons and mergansers on the lake.  I spoke to the rain, the sun and the clouds.  I suppose I was really speaking to my own heart.  I heard its reply in the song of the wind in the trees, the cries of loons on the lake, the distant call of an owl in the forest.

Paddling home after a last lunch at my little refuge, I felt completely restored.  Touched by all the elements, I felt grounded, fluid, alive and open, ready and yearning to be back in the embrace of my family and my life.