From the ravages of war to damaged personal relationships and financial insecurity, each one of us will at some point face the challenge of change that inevitably comes  with human life. It is a fact, whatever our personal resources and situation, that all birth leads to aging and death, the ultimate cycle of change none of us will swerve. So a relevant question for all of us to reflect on is:
 
Do crises only bring difficulty or might they also bring us a clue to our wellbeing and happiness?
 
In times of crisis it’s natural to react with resistance, we don’t want it or like it. We often feel aggrieved at the way events have conspired against us. Circumstances change in a way we neither like nor anticipate and we feel out of control. Whatever the cause, it’s our reaction to whatever is happening that is both the source of the pain we feel and also the signpost to recovering our balance.
 
Our instinct rails against this idea, surely others are to blame for how we feel. Whilst behaviour and circumstances might be unfair, unjust or mistaken, the difficulty of our lived experience is personal to us and it is uniquely conditioned by the perspectives, beliefs and habitual thoughts we hold about ourselves and others. This personal lens through which we view events means we fail to have all the information we need to move towards something more wholesome.
 
How might we do this? Whatever has happened, however unfair, unjust or mistaken, our first step towards recovering balance is recognising:
 
“What we think and ponder upon becomes the inclination of our mind.” MN19  v11
 
If we repeatedly inhabit our stories of blame and criticism, we create defences in our mind that fuel our speech and action.
 
 “He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me”, in those who harbour such thoughts, hatred is not appeased.
 
“He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me”, in those who do not harbour such thoughts, hatred is appeased.
 
Hatred is never overcome by hatred in this world. Hatred is only overcome by love. This is an eternal law. Dhp v3-5
 
Learning how to take control of these tempting impulses is one of our greatest acts of kindness to ourselves and others in our life. It is how we reverse the flow and expansion of discontent and unwholesome experience.
Changing direction internally needs us to step out of the familiar stories we repeat, and learn how to redirect the energy that fuels them, but how to do this?
 
This radical proposition, seductive in its simplicity requires us to investigate beyond the familiarity of reaction that we have invested in so heavily. The difficulty we all face here is how to re-focus our attention and begin to reconcile within ourselves the resistance that’s fuelling our reaction and has such an adverse impact on our happiness and wellbeing.
 
Investigating what we do not yet understand within ourselves, at a deeper level than our surface thoughts and habitual dialogue can start with a simple exploration of:
 
“I forgive myself for not understanding.” From the teaching of Bhante Vimaralamsi
 
The approach we need is to let ourselves rest with the simplicity of these words repeating them and staying open to the experience that unfolds. It can take time and patience to learn to listen in this way, to move beyond verbal analysis and internal dialogue and directly meet the defended wounds inside with kindness and compassion.
 
When we find the courage to look within in this way, we move from being hostage to an outer resolution that might never be forthcoming, to a freedom from our inner resistance and defensive tension. This gives us the opportunity to discover how crises can reveal the path to lasting happiness.
 

Many of us initially approached yoga asana practice attracted by what it can do for us physically and mentally. I can certainly remember being surprised how inflexible and unsupple I was in my 20’s even though I considered myself to have a high level of fitness. Yoga offered a different way of inhabiting my body and it wasn’t long before I was hooked on the benefits.

As we practice, we develop new movement patterns, range of motion, flexibility and muscular strength and if we are fortunate we are guided how best to think of our body in terms of bones, joints, muscles, orientation, shape, weight, muscular contraction and release. In turn we’re guided to push down, draw up, engage, tighten, to stack our bones, balance effort and ease, look for physical alignment and to feel and work with the force of gravity. These cues encourage the presence of tension, often to support release elsewhere or to help stabilize joints, and this tension in turn helps us sense our body’s position (proprioception) and to directly experience the biomechanical forces within our body.

Awareness of this sensing and our breath brings focus and concentration to the practice which then can calm our mind.
Developing and training our physical body in this way brings significant benefits, it allows the release of some gross and superficial tension, opens up our joints and helps rebalance the muscular skeletal system. It develops a somatic awareness that is often absent and gives us a language and lexicon of the physical body. For many of us the increase in wellbeing, vitality and mental clarity is more than enough justification to practice.

In this respect, a physical approach to yoga delivers tangible benefits, but what I hope to show is that this is not the full the potential of a physical yoga practice and in fact may make it more difficult to access that potential.

Yoga is not primarily a physical practice

The primary purpose of yoga is not to develop the physicality of the body. This is a wonderful by-product and there are texts describing the health benefits of individual postures. Its primary role is a different process of development bringing together varying levels of body, energy and mind into a comprehensive, integrated system for affecting real inner change.  Yoga is certainly a practice expressed through the physical body but the path of development described in various traditions invites us to transcend not augment physicality. Without that, development can stall.

How do we move beyond the physical body by using the physical body?

In many Eastern traditions progress on the path of transformation towards a wholesome body and a wholesome mind moves from the physical, to the energetic then to the mental and finally to an understanding of the nature of consciousness. The transition from a physical to an energetic practice is an important step in this progression.

How we perceive our body changes our experience of our body

The challenge here is that thinking of and using our body from a physical / mechanical perspective  cultivates a particular ‘bodyset and mindset’, a way of perceiving our body and using our mind. There’s nothing new about this. We know this just from daily life. Our mind is very powerful. If we believe a task is going to be difficult or unpleasant it invariably is. If we’re invited to think of ourselves as heavy and tired the experience often follows. This also applies to the way we invite our mind to think about our body in Yoga asana practice.

As a result we are continually inviting ourselves to relate to our body in these physical terms. It keeps us referencing the body and invites a holding onto the physical sensation and experience as the primary awareness of importance. If we are to move towards an energetic practice this will need to change.

Cultivating our energetic system

Within the teaching of yoga, working with the energetic system can start with the cultivation of the physical Bandhas and the Ujjayi breath. Both Moola Bandha and Ujjayi stimulate the PSNS and a relaxation response whilst also providing structural integrity and postural stability. The combination is effective at stimulating our energetic system and provide the gateway towards an energetic based practice.

As we tune into this different source of structural integrity and postural stability that’s not based on tension, our mind recognises that we can begin to release the muscular tension we previously used for support. With this release the energetic system becomes more effective and efficient encouraging further release.
 
Rather than think of our body from a mechanical perspective we start to think of it from an energetic perspective. Support comes from an energetic connection with the earth, movement with water, the breath with air, energy with fire and the release of tension with space. The classical elements are helpful here because they help us reconnect energetically.

As this process continues we begin to re-frame the way we view ourselves from a purely physical to a mixture of physical and energetic.  We become aware that deliberate contraction of our muscles reduces the effectiveness of our energetic system and so we begin to move away from bio-mechanical inspired actions and cueing, and with this our language, lexicon and direct experience of the practice begins to change. Increasingly our practice feels lighter, more flowing and effortless.

As we release more tension in this way our body becomes more sensitive to what our mind is doing and the importance of where we place our minds attention in order to keep our joints, muscles and mind more fluid and mobile.

Gradually the balance between the physical and energetic changes, and the source of movement comes more from an energetic intention rather than a deliberate physical force. The practice becomes softer and more deeply relaxed supported by an inner energetic toning. Movement becomes the natural consequence of transitioning from a state of greater to lesser tension. Balance is the expression of minimal tension. 

Integration of body, energy system and mind

For our energetic body to express itself fully we must integrate the mind and the body, bringing together our intention, attention and awareness of tension. When we do this it supports the deeper expression of our energetic system that comes when we fully relax to a degree that not available from a physical / mechanical  perspective in many postures.  This integration of body, energy system and mind signal the transition from a physical and mechanical to an energetic “mindset and bodyset”. It takes time and patience not only to find this energetic system but also building the confidence that it can provide the structure, support, stability and integrity we need to take the first step in the transformation from a practice focused on the physical, to the energetic, then mental. When we finally allow this to happen it feels like we have stepped out of the way,  we no longer do the yoga and the yoga starts to do us.  The integration of body, energy system and the mind now become a gateway for a deepening exploration of the subtle nature of consciousness.
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We’re all familiar with situations where we’ve been on the receiving end of someone else imposing their will, and how that closes us down rather than opens us up.  The challenge for us all is to recognize that whilst our will is the route to productivity and achieving results, it’s a blunt tool on its own.

When we attempt to impose our will the wider impact gets missed along with the opportunity for connection with others. Words and behaviour can become ungenerous and cause harm in ways that slip under the radar whilst ‘getting the job done’ ‘meeting the goal’ or perhaps most aptly summed up with the phrase ‘getting our own way’. We’re often left with a feeling of ‘winning or losing’ rather than ‘finding a wholesome way forward’. 

It’s easy to notice this when it’s our perspective that’s not being taken into account, when we can find it difficult to express ourselves or act in a balanced way ….like when the energy of anger takes over or our energy drains away. Whilst times like these can be very challenging, these experiences are also the opportunity to see how our internal whirlwinds or the sensation of “pulling the plug” happen. If we can observe this we can begin to reshape our engagement in a way that’s balancing, helpful and wholesome. 

It’s less obvious for us to notice the way we too can have tunnel vision. It’s like our own will locks on to a ‘mental target’ and with it a satisfying certainty about the direction we are headed and our gathering momentum. If we don’t know how to pay attention and listen at this point, we risk missing out on any peripheral information that lies outside our focus, including how we and/or others are closing down in the face of this certainty. 

2500 years ago the Buddha’s extraordinary vision and wisdom enabled him to set out a framework of personal growth for us so that we can practice to see more clearly the power of our personal inner lens and intervene where it will make a difference to states of mind – such as when we face the internal whirlwinds, the sensation of “pulling the plug” or tunnel vision, that are out of balance. 

His pioneering investigation into the nature of mind revealed new insights about how it operates and a way to pay attention to retrain it towards wholesome states of mind, including the ease, contentment and happiness “Sukha” and the expanded deeper states leading towards liberation “Nibbana”. 

The process he taught for us to explore how the movements of our mind operate, is meditation. The way he taught this process to be effective is by developing the capacity to pay attention and listen – the practice of mindfulness “Sati”. He changed the traditional focus of meditation from the observation of something outside of ourselves to something within, the movements of our own mind and directed the skill of mindfulness towards seeing this.

As we practice and our capacity to pay attention and listen grows, we see our tendency to impose our will involves the somatic experience of tension and tightness around our brain as well as other parts of our body. It’s a reaction to incoming information, filtered through the senses and conditioned by our inner library of past experience – our habits, beliefs, stories and expectations. What’s also clear is it’s happening all of the time, from petty preferences to strongly held convictions, it’s how the mind shortcuts information to make speedier decisions and ward off threats. 

The difficulty is that our personal lens is, by its nature, not objective and so the shortcuts that are made are not always skillful or wholesome. Meditation is a subtle somatic practice and can help us find a different approach and restore balance in situations of familiar distress. In it, we keep practising releasing and relaxing the tension (and the drive to control what happens next), choosing instead to move into the next moment from a place of inner balance, smiling. 

The key here is repetition, the more we repeat this, the more quickly we embed a new habit of meeting tension generously, and this means we will feel our tension levels dropping, energy levels rising and more peace, calm and balance arising. We’ll get hijacked less and recover faster when we meet situations that triggered us in the past until there’s no longer any reverberation knocking us out of balance. 

It’s easy to recognise that the choices we make from this place of inner balance have the benefit of much wider vision and wisdom from which to proceed. We’ll also notice a difference in how interaction with others plays out: when we succeed in sidestepping the usual pitfalls within ourselves, others too find they are on new ground from which to respond. When this happens, a more dynamic playground opens up in our relationships as we step off the habitual merry go round of the past creating a more wholesome present experience. 

Like everyone reading this, we have our range of mind habits which can drag or slow us down, or speed us up with agitation and worry; it's all very ordinary and normal.  So, it's a relief that there's a way to find ease from all this and a sense of balance and space - not as an idea we tell ourselves but a real lived somatic experience that evolves from the way we learn to hold ourselves in the times we find most difficult.

The Sukhita approach has at its heart a profound simplicity that makes this somatic experience accessible. Our challenge, is not to strive to achieve some state of balance, but to learn to do less, to develop a simplicity of effort, contrary to our learnt reflex, that reveals how we get in the way of the balance we seek. Rather than fight and try to achieve what we long for we need to let go to find a new and more wholesome way for us to approach life. 

It's a lot like looking after plants. We cannot demand fruit ripen when we want. We all know harvest materialises when the conditions are right for growth and maturity. Nature takes the time it needs. In the same way our job is to give our attention in a skilful way to create the right conditions for our own fruit, and in this sense, we are all gardeners, simply needing the knowledge of what to sow and how to grow, how and when to prune, and what to let wither and remove. When we learn to do this well, nature will take care of the rest.

​In recent years we’ve come to understand that the mind can be developed, trained and altered structurally in the way we’ve understood the physical body can be developed for millennia. We only need to see the variety of shape, appearance and capacity of Olympic athletes to realise using a pole volter in a weight lifting competition, a weight lifter in a sprinting competition, and either of these in the swimming pool would not lead to medals. Training develops in a certain direction. Just like each of these have different training resulting in different outcomes, in the same way the capacity of the mind develops dependent on the training we do.

So what aspect are we training to develop? Is it to accomplish more and more complex forms, ever greater endurance and strength, deeper and deeper levels of concentration?  If so we will increasingly identify with this and resent and become depressed when our body and mind changes in ways we don't like or wish for, leading us to become disillusioned and unhappy.

So what do we want from our practice? Not more attachment, we simply have enough of that already in our lives. Yoga if it is to free us from all that, must offer a different path. A path that moves us away from reliance on the unreliable, identity with the changeable. 

We're all going to face changes at some point and that's when the mental development of our practice will show through.  Does our practice lead to less attachment to our body, less identity with it being a particular way and does our development of mind bring balance around changes we have little or no control over.  If the answer is no, then we need to ask ourselves what is it we are doiing? If the answer is yes then we understand with an openness and clarity when we ask ourselves: 'What are we training for? 

When we smile in response to feeling happy or not, something really special happens. We send a signal to our brain that releases mood enhancing compounds that give us an uplifted feeling. This happens even when we smile regardless of how we feel. The effect is enhanced further when we smile with our eyes as well as our lips. So smiling can be in response to how we feel or change how we feel.

So how do we learn to smile when we least feel like it? Over the last 20 years huge strides have been made in understanding how the human brain learns and trains. Instead of being fixed as we enter adulthood it’s now understood that our brain remains adaptable all through our lives. It can learn new tricks at any age, just not as quickly as when we were younger. All we need to do is train it, and train it consistently. Repetition is important here. Knowing that and understanding all is not lost we can retrain our response to the challenging and difficult.

That’s the science, what’s the art of smiling?
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This is how we apply this knowledge. How do we take it into daily life and daily experience? Whenever we feel challenged, whatever we are facing if we train ourselves to smile and relax the tension we feel both in our body and inside our head, our mind will feel more uplifted and expansive and we’ll get less caught in the spiral of thoughts, judgements and self-criticism that can be so disabling at these times.  That will help us face whatever we are dealing with from a more balanced place enabling us make better choices whilst being kinder to ourselves and those around us.

“Here feeling, thoughts and perceptions are understood as they arise, understood as they remain present, understood as they pass away. It is this way that you exercise clear comprehension. “ (Abbrev from SN 47.35)

Today we are increasingly familiar with popular practices to reduce stress, induce calm and promote wellbeing. They help fix uncomfortable feelings and quieten emotions. What’s often left unsaid and waiting to be explored is how a meditation practice can help us address the underlying cause of feeling out of balance, so we can really change deep seated patterns from a place of understanding and live more easily with what comes along to test us. This path is not so much about getting a quick fix and then needing another, as about an attitude to looking after ourselves through a practice which quietly, gradually and sustainably transforms us towards wholesome experience over time.

The calm we can be looking and hoping for in meditation is just one aspect of practice. Certainly it can give us a mental resting place from the overstimulation we are used to, but importantly it creates space for us to develop the clear comprehension that is vital for the quiet, gradual and sustainable internal transformation we’d find beneficial. When the aspects of calm and clear comprehension are developed together we are giving ourselves the best chance for a natural unfolding of this experience and wisdom.

How does this happen?

As our mind begins to calm we can develop a more subtle awareness around every day experiences. If we are careful we can consciously direct this awareness to observing how aspects of our experience begin, how they persist and how they subsequently fade away. This means paying particular attention to three aspects:

· The first of these is feeling meaning sensation. There is a reflex to sensation which we can learn to recognise as simply pleasant, unpleasant or neither pleasant or unpleasant.

· The second aspect is our thoughts, including images in our mind.

· Lastly our perceptions; the mental process that becomes aware of our experience and identifies through memory.

From this directed awareness the clear comprehension we need to progress can develop and it’s possible to see that all we take personally is actually impermanent. At this stage our meditation practice enables us to begin to address the underlying causes of feeling out of balance in daily life. Each time we meet movements of mind without getting involved, we are guiding our mind to re-balance and re-set to feel steady. It takes a particular kind of effort for this to fall into place with ease and we’ll be exploring what this means another time. When it does, our practice supports us to take the fuel away from the uncomfortable feelings and emotions that drag us down to transform our experience quietly, gradually and sustainably towards the wholesome.

When we smile it has a transforming effect within ourselves and those around us. We all know what it’s like to be with someone who has a sunny personality. Everything feels a little lighter, more possible, optimistic, connected. At times we can feel if only I were more like that……..

What’s interesting is we can be!
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This doesn’t mean having a relentlessly positive and hi-vibing energy all of the time, constantly cheerful. It’s more subtle than that. It’s a question of looking at the reasons we aren’t smiling.

It’s easy to smile when everything is going our way, we feel energized and in control of our life and direction. What about all the other times?

At these times, smiling is even more important and it’s not about feeling happy, at least not yet.
This smiling is about our response to challenge and difficulty, it’s not false or trying to suppress or disguise how we feel. This smiling is the act of recognizing that our reaction to our present experience is to feel tense, constricted, withdrawn, disconnected in our mind, heart and body that may even extend into feelings of abandonment or loss. It’s a sign that we have taken our experience personally in the sense that we have identified with it, something that is being done TO me.

In truth our reaction to whatever the circumstances are, have come FROM me. When we recognize this, we don’t have to react the same way every-time something like this happens. We can de-couple the rightness or wrongness of what happened from our reaction.

If we’re careful this decoupling means we can still be smiling without feeling our smile trivializes what’s happening.  My smiling is me looking after myself, restoring a sense of balance to an imbalanced situation. 

It’s so hard to smile at times.

I know, at times smiling can feel like the last thing you want to do. There’s so much going on in your head, so much emotion, commentary, judgement and self-criticism. Remember, choosing to smile isn’t forcing you to feel happy, it’s the process of releasing tension in your face, particularly around your jaw, lifting the corners of your mouth AND the corners of your eyes. BOTH are important here. This sends a signal to your brain which causes the release of the same chemicals as when you are happy.

So two things are happening here, you are changing your habitual reaction to the circumstances by choosing to respond with a smile (increasing your sense of self-control in a situation you may have no control over) AND you are releasing the chemicals within your brain that will bring a change in mood.

How to practice.

Make a determination in the morning to smile into everything that happens during your day. Then notice the times when your smile has faded, and smile again and keep your smile going. Let me know how you get on. 

In recent weeks we’ve been talking a lot about humility: what it is; how easily we can misinterpret it; and how becoming more aware of how to have it, can help us find an inner confidence that is grounded, realistic and helpful to move forward in different areas of our lives.


What is humility?

Humility is often described as a virtue, and the Buddha considered it an important part of spiritual practice and daily life. It is however is a tricky thing to pin down. It’s often confused with self-deprecation, either the fine art of self-effacing modesty or the destructive process of running ourselves down. Here are a few ideas about the confusion we can experience: Can you recall feeling uncomfortable in the face of a meaningful compliment or is it straightforward to accept the gift in the moment? Or perhaps you have an inner commentary about not being experienced or skilled enough for a task that is within your capability or reasonable potential? What about a covert desire for affirmation for yourself whilst overtly praising others? Or presenting something one way when actually you feel about it another – an elaborate meal as taking not much effort, something expensive as a sale bargain, a beautiful photo of you as being all down to the photographer? Some of these ways of communicating with ourselves and at times with others can become so ingrained that we don’t see them as they are happening and so misinterpret the presence of humility when in fact there is a different back story in our subconscious running the experience.


How can we become more aware of how to have humility?

All this suggests that humility is something we can grow into but how might we do this? Changing our perspective about confidence is really helpful here. Sometimes there are things we do well whilst acting from the best place within ourselves and then there are other times where we could do better. Understanding this cultivates a particular sort of confidence: the confidence that it’s ok to be imperfect – one that acknowledges our capacity and ability but also recognizes that we are not complete and there’s more work to be done and that this is absolutely natural and fine. This is an awareness we can feel secure in, because we are seeing things clearly for what they are and then can grow in confidence to be in a dynamic place of learning.


The Buddha praised this clear-sightedness and how it reveals what is wholesome and what is less so because it gives us the energy to change. He taught a practice to see the inner workings of our mind without getting caught up in unhelpful patterns of thinking, beliefs and others opinions. As we practice meditation, it’s not long before we begin to see our motivations, beliefs, opinions, our attitudes and capacities. Such simple, direct and straightforward feedback about our strengths and weaknesses helps us identify the growth we need and gives us the capacity to learn effectively.


In this way, humility is a good friend, freeing us from the reflex to hide away from areas for growth whilst maintaining a balanced self-regard.
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