Wedding zen

On 19th September I got married. As you can imagine (or as you may remember from your own big day) the wedding was quite a roller-coaster-ride of events and feelings. In this article, I'm not going to mention the months of planning, decisions, discussions, and bookings. I'm also not going to mention the jittery, energy-filled week preceding the big day, or the plans for how to get various members of the family to the wedding venue on time.

What I'd like to discuss is how the day itself went, how I felt, and in particular how I think my yoga and meditation practice affected things.

"The day"

On "the day" my alarm went at 6:30am and I straight away sat on the floor of the hotel room for 30mins meditation. I remember feeling quite calm and trying to stay present with my attention in my belly, whilst being aware of my room-mate (a good friend of my mum's who had also come from Sweden for the wedding) moving about and using the bathroom. I was actually quite surprised that I was this calm! This friend was desperate to visit Stonehenge (not far from the hotel in Salisbury where we were), and this morning was our only option since we were too late the night before. So after I'd finished the meditation we had a quick breakfast and headed out.

Stonehenge

Me at Stonehenge on the morning of my wedding

Getting out of the car in the visitors car park, the cool freshness of the air hit us. Neither of us had worn enough. After watching the stones silently appearing out of the mist as we approached, we then spent a wonderful half-hour circling the henge, taking photos, and drinking in the stillness of the 5000yr old monument.

I'm sure it was a fairly unorthodox way of starting a wedding day, but in hindsight it worked out really well! Out of town, and away from any stressing family!

My practice has taught me how to stay focussed on the moment in hand. I was able to be present at Stonehenge, feeling the atmosphere, whilst not letting my mind wander onto thoughts of the wedding.

Venue preparations

We got back to the hotel at about 11am. Over the next few hours things began to ramp up in both external activity and internal activity (in my belly)! We started moving stuff over to the venue from about 12:30 and all the preparations and decorating had to be done between 1 and 3pm, with guests due to arrive at 3:30 for a 4pm start.

Strangely enough, I found putting on my suit really helped me stay relaxed (see my previous article on the widsom of specific clothes). Once I'd got my shirt on I didn't want to sweat (miraculously it was a lovely sunny day), and wearing the suit and nice shoes brought with it a feeling of elegance. I found that walking and moving slowly with an intention of grace (whether or not that translated into a look of grace) really helped keep things calm. Purposefully talking slowly and calmly also really helped. It was hard though, and required attention to keep things slow.

Preparing the wedding venue

When I arrived at the venue, I found them still setting out the dinner tables All the stuff we'd hired (linen, crockery, cutlery, glasses, etc) was piled together, unlabelled in a back room. The flowers and decorations were still on their way, and people started asking me what they could do to help...

It was around about this time that I became extra-aware of my belly. Notably the churning, mildly nauseous feelings deep down in my abdomen. I worked on simply accepting their presence, and continuing to do my best to walk slowly, speak quietly and slowly, and being (or attempting to be) graceful.

When we found out that they'd missed off dinner plates from the hire list, my tummy took a fairly significant somersault. But I think this is really where the years of practice started to make a difference. I felt very little sense of panic, and only a slight rising of anxiety. I was acutely aware of my churning belly, which I think helped to keep my attention low in my body and therefore out of my head. I remember feeling sure there was a solution to the problem – and indeed one presented itself fairly quickly. The venue themselves kindly lent us their plates.

The ceremony and later into the evening

Over the last few years I've developed a habit of internally checking every now and then "am I in my hara". What I mean is: is my hara relaxed, and do I have some component of my attention resting in my hara? Experience has shown this to be particularly useful in stressful times, as, when I do check, I often find my belly tense and energy up in my head.

So regularly during the wedding ceremony and all through the evening I was asking myself "am I in my hara?" – purposefully softening and relaxing my belly, and asking myself what feelings are churning around. Every time I went to the loo, that was also a great time to stop, tune in, and purposefully settle, relax and let go (excuse the pun).

I guess you could say I did regular mini-meditations or body scans. This seemed absolutely essential.

The Zen candle ceremony, representing the coming together of our spiritual paths 

I don't think the practice necessarily makes you feel calmer – because you're more aware and sensitive to all that is going on – but it does give you the tools to simply observe without getting caught up in the whirlwind. It allowed me to appreciate the moments, the feelings, emotions, interactions, and the beauty and love of the day in a way that I don't think I could have otherwise. It's about noticing the discomfort in the belly, the stress and rising energy, and being OK with it, softening and allowing.

Before the wedding, friends said to me the day would flash by. But that's not how I experienced it. Sure it went quickly – there was lots to do and lots happening – but my ability to stay in the present moment (developed over years of practice) meant I could appreciate and savour the moments and people that were there sharing it with us.

It was the most amazing day, and I love my new wife very much. Thanks to all who came, helped out, and shared the celebrations with us.

I am a member of the Zenways sangha led by Zen master Daizan Roshi, and I teach meditation, mindfulness and yoga at the ZenYoga studio in Camberwell, London. See my website for further details.

I'd love to hear from you

How do you remember your wedding day? How has your practice has helped in a stressful situation? Leave a comment below, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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The applications of mindfulness in modern society

As I discussed last week modern-day secular mindfulness grew out from its Buddhist origins in the latter part of the 20th Century as people started to realise it's benefit for helping people deal with chronic illness. People like Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts came up with the, now very popular, 8-week course format for teaching the fundamentals of mindfulness and getting a formal practice embedded in people's daily routine. The results from the early studies were remarkable, paving the way for mindfulness to enter into mainstream society.

Evolving from a clinical to non-clinical setting

Nowadays the two most popular 8-week courses are the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course created by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the US, and the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) course put together by Segal, Williams & Teasdale here in the UK. Both of these courses, however, originated in a clinical setting as an intervention to treat people with long-term, chronic illnesses (stress and pain in the case of the MBSR, and depression for MBCT).

Part of the popular success of these programmes has been the way they've extracted a practice originally devised for religious purposes within the Buddhist tradition, and applied it in a completely secular way. "Mindfulness" itself is a commonly understandable term with no religious connotations, and the courses themselves are couched in language that is entirely secular and backed up by scientific research.

However, that same scientific research has also shown that daily meditation has the potential of boosting peoples' general health and longevity, increasing creativity, reducing general levels of stress, and a whole host of other benefits. This has long been known in Buddhism! The Zen tradition has a word for this kind of meditation – "Bompu Zen", literally meaning ordinary Zen or ordinary meditation. This is practice with the view or the intention of problem solving.

Mindfulness for wellbeing (and productivity, performance & sex)

An increasing number of people are realising that mindfulness and meditation can have a dramatic effect on their sense of wellbeing, productivity, effectiveness, and happiness – even without a chronic illness to deal with. If you like, the chronic illness has become the stresses and strains of daily life here in our frantic, go-go-go culture!

For example, I teach an 8-week course in Camberwell (South London) that was put together by Zen master Daizan Skinner (Zenways) that is specifically designed to help everyday people deal with their everyday issues. All of us experience stress and pain at some points in our life, so having the tools to help us deal with them as and when they arise can be enormously life-changing. Furthermore we could all do with a way of improving our concentration and focus skills, and that's precisely what mindfulness teaches you. With a few weeks of regular practice I've witnessed just how much of a boost in vitality, energy, and liveliness it gives people!

It's not just individuals who are looking to reap the benefits of mindfulness. As I mentioned last week it's now being very successfully taught in schools (via the Mindfulness in Schools Project) to teenagers and younger ones. Big companies such as Google, Microsoft, BAE Systems and Deutsche Bank are also aware of the benefits of meditation and encouraging its practice at work. In sports, athletes are waking up to the benefits of mindfulness practice on their ability to focus and cope with performance stress first alluded to in the famous book "Zen and the Art of Archery". Etienne Stott (London 2012 Olympic gold medallist in canoeing) said

The famous book from the 1930s

"using mindfulness helped me to win gold. It helped me achieve a level of mental clarity that is vital in intense situations. I would highly recommend mindfulness to any individual or organization who wants to get an edge." 

Multi-time beach volleyball Olympic gold medallists Kerri Walsh-Jennings and Misty May-Treanor swear by it. Basketball coach Phil Jackson famously used it for many years with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers. Tennis star Novak Djokovic also practices mindfulness. I've also been teaching mindfulness to the GB long-range rifle team over the last year.

Meditation and sex might not be the two things you’d most naturally associate, but as this lovely article from Headspace explains, mindful awareness can help you develop and maintain intimacy and set alight that spark of passion.

Moving beyond mindfulness

Mindfulness practice involves both formal and informal meditation practices, and non-meditation-based exercises. Formal meditation is done in stillness (standing or sitting) with the attention on the body, breath or sensations, or just whatever arises in each moment. There are also formal mindfulness exercises like mindful walking or mindful eating. Informal mindfulness is the application of mindful attention in everyday life – being mindful in all moments.

It's this every-moment awareness is really the end goal. In Zen they have a lovely term for this: Mu-Nen. Nen is the Japanese for mindfulness, and mu is a negative (like "un" in English) - so it translates as no-mindfulness or perhaps effortless mindfulness. It's when non-judgemental awareness is no longer a skill you have to apply, it's just part of your way of being.

When you combine this open-minded awareness with a gentle sense of enquiry, it doesn't take long before certain ideas or insights into your self or the nature of being coming up. It's inevitable. Often this is something that clinical-based mindfulness teachers don't talk about. But it's incredibly important, and can lead to a new way of seeing – a whole perspective shift. That's why I also teach a separate 8-week course based around developing insight and self-understanding.

I am a member of the Zenways sangha led by Zen master Daizan Roshi, and I teach meditation, mindfulness and yoga at the ZenYoga studio in Camberwell, London. See my website for further details.

I'd love to hear from you

What's your experience of mindfulness in modern society? Leave a comment below, join the discussion.

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The benefits of mindfulness on your health & wellbeing

Many of life’s demands can cause stress, particularly work, relationships and money problems. When we feel fearful or anxious, our body's hard-wired response, evolved over millennia of dangerous encounters in wild, is the "fight or flight" reaction. The problem is that these days, probably the two worst things we could do when faced with, for example, an impending deadline, or an overbearing relative is (1) punch them/someone or (2) run away...

Stress-proofing

Practising meditation and/or yoga, particularly with an emphasis on awareness and mindfulness, has been shown to be an incredibly effective way of stress-proofing ourselves. It does this in two ways: firstly by providing us with a little oasis of quiet in amongst the business of the day (some me-time); and secondly by teaching us how to see things clearly. There's a huge difference between conscious and unconscious stress. The great Zen master Hakuin compared people who were conscious and aware to water whereas ordinary people are like ice. Our mindfulness is like the warm sunlight that can melt away the perceived stress. It's our relationship to the feeling that changes.

Science has been making some great progress in understanding the why exactly lowering our stress levels boosts our health and wellbeing. Let me talk about just a few of the recent discoveries.

Tell me about telomers

Telomers: chromosome caps

Why of course... Telomers are a repeating DNA pattern that act as a kind of protective cap on our chromosomes, shielding their ends from potential damage each time our cells divide and the DNA is copied. In the 1980s an enzyme called telomerase was discovered that can protect and rebuild telomeres. Even so, our telomeres dwindle over time, and when they get too short, our cells start to malfunction and lose their ability to divide – a phenomenon that is now recognised as a key process in ageing. The discovery of telomers won Elizabeth Blackburn the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

As detailed in this lovely article, Blackburn and her group began a study back in 2000 to test the effect of stress on telomer length (at the time genes were seen as being the most important factor, so at the time this idea was highly controversial). The results from their pilot study showed that the more stressed the participants were the shorter their telomeres and the lower their levels of telomerase. Scientists are always marvelled when they manage to connect real lives and experiences to things happening on the molecular level, and in this study they'd done it! Feeling stressed doesn’t just damage our health – it literally ages us!

Researchers have since linked perceived stress to shorter telomeres in Alzheimer’s caregivers, victims of domestic abuse and early life trauma, and people with major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

How does it work? The presence of the stress hormone cortisol seems to reduce the activity of telomerase, while oxidative reactions and inflammation (all physiological effects of the stress response) appear to erode telomeres directly. Age-related conditions from osteoarthritis, diabetes and obesity to heart disease, Alzheimer’s and stroke have all been linked to short telomeres.

In one follow-up project, Blackburn and her colleagues sent participants on a three-month meditation retreat, and found that afterwards they had higher levels of telomerase than the control group. A study in 2013 of dementia caregivers found that, after practising 12 minutes of meditation a day for eight weeks, they had significantly higher telomerase activity than a control group. And in another study in 2012 Epel et al. measured the association between telomere length and peoples' natural level of mindfulness. They found those who reported high mind wandering (i.e. lower mindfulness) had shorter telomeres, even after adjusting for stress.

So stress and ageing are clearly very related. No wonder Wallace et al. back in 1982 found that people who'd been practising meditation for five years were physiologically (as shown by their blood pressure, vision, hearing, and skin elasticity) up to 12 years younger than their non-meditating counterparts! For more on that, see this article showing some photographic evidence, or just look at any photo of a prime minister or president – in just a few years they go from looking fresh and vibrant to grey, haggard, and worn out!

New genes, new neurons

In another study, a group based in Massachusetts took blood samples from a group of 19 people who had regular meditation practice, and 19 others who never meditated, and ran genomic analyses (identification of genomic features such as DNA sequence, gene expression, etc) of the blood. They found that the meditating group had suppressed more than twice the number of stress-related genes than the non-meditating group. This is an incredible result, since the more these stress-related genes are expressed, the more the body will have a stress response. This study is in the field of epigenetics, which I've written about before.

Lastly, I just wanted to mention this article detailing some work done here in London that found that increased levels of cortisol seems to decrease neurogenesis (the ability of the brain to produce new brain cells) in adults. Studies have shown that these adult-born neurons appear to have a role in the regulation of stress by possibly augmenting the role of the hippocampus in controlling the stress reaction and/or inhibiting the amygdala (the region of brain responsible for the fear reaction). Neurogenesis has also been linked to brain plasticity.

So, it's never too late to start practising mindfulness and meditation, and slowing down – possibly even reversing – the ageing process!

My next 8-week course in Mindfulness for Health & Wellbeing will start on Friday 16th January, and I'm now taking bookings. See my website for further details.

 

I'd love to hear from you

If you've noticed that, like me, your mindfulness practice is leaving you looking younger and more radiant, your skin is shiny and there's more of a healthy glow about you, I'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment below, join the discussion. 

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Mindfulness for rifle shooters

You might think shooting to be a very unlikely sport for a yoga and meditation teacher, but there's been a very strong connection between the two in my life.

Back when I was at university, I was quite seriously into shooting – the variety where you're lying on your front with a target rifle, shooting at paper targets. I started off with an air rifle, then at university shooting .22 calibre (small-bore) rifles at distances of 25-50m, then quickly found it much more fun to shoot outdoors at targets between 300-900m away using 7.62mm (full-bore) rifles.

I remember reading a training manual just as I was getting going with it all, and it suggested that having a body-movement practice such as Alexander Technique, yoga, or Pilates would be extremely beneficial (as I've written about before). Target shooting is a surprisingly meditative sport, involving steadiness of the body, control of the breath, and a strong emphasis on rhythm and repetition – it was good advice!

So that's what got me into yoga in the first place.

And what goes around often comes around – last weekend I went down at the famous Bisley ranges in Surrey to give a workshop on mindfulness to the Great Britain full-bore rifle team.

Bisley range 600yds

GB rifle team in Australia 2011

To me, the application of mindfulness in shooting is obvious, and potentially incredibly useful. It can help us to stay focussed on the present moment and not worrying about the outcome of any shot; it can help develop the focus and concentration needed to perform; it can teach us how to enter that elusive flow state (or "the zone"; see my previous blog article on flow here); and it can help us manage the stress of a competition.

Millennia of evolution have hard-wired us humans to react to danger and stress in a very specific way. If we're walking in the hills and come across a wolf, or beating our way through the jungle and come across a tiger, the body responds by preparing us to either fight or run away (or sometimes to freeze/play dead). This is the famous fight or flight response.

The thing is, it doesn't matter whether it's something small (like missing the bus), something imagined (like being scared of the monster under the bed), or something big (like slipping off a cliff) – we react the same. The body diverts energy from our non-essential systems such as digestion and reproduction to our muscles, and releases adrenaline and cortisol (and other hormones) to help boost our energy, deal with possible inflammation and damage, and focus our concentration.

In an active sport, running around or shouting can provide a good way of releasing all the extra energy and adrenaline that comes as a result of this stress response. However, in shooting you have to find a way to deal with it in a different way – there's no physical outlet. And that's where mindfulness can really help.

Now, traditional sports psychology approaches such as goal setting, positive self-talk, or visualisation all aim to optimise performance by controlling the internal, mental factors that affect performance. They're control-based techniques. However, despite their wide-spread use and popularity, research has found (at best) inconsistent results for these approaches.

In recent years there have been a number of suggestions in the scientific literature (e.g. Gardner and Moore 2004) saying that "rather than trying to control internal phenomena, it's better for athletes to develop skills in present-moment awareness and acceptance."

"[These] control-based approaches may inadvertently result in excessive cognitive brain activity [that] prevent you from automatically engaging your previously developed athletic skills, to appropriately respond to environmental cues, and to maintain task-relevant focus."

And sports coaches often talk about the importance of being in the present moment, focussing on process rather than outcome, letting go of the uncontrollable, significance of letting go of memories of shots, staying in the present, accepting whatever happens without judgment, looking for rhythm in the game, etc, etc.

All these things precisely describe the practice of mindfulness! As opposed to control, mindfulness is a "letting-go-based technique".

As I always say to people, mindfulness isn't something alien to us. We are all mindful, to a lesser or greater extent, every day. The thing is, not everyone is aware how useful it is to be mindful. And once you realise it's effectiveness, how can we then learn how to be more mindful?

What I teach are tried and tested techniques for learning how to become more mindful. A nice, simple, and accessible place to start is by practising this short 3-minute meditation. Try doing it every day (or more) and you'll soon start feeling the benefits. That's what I suggested to the shooting team, so we'll see how they get on!

And if you end up using this 3-minute meditation, let me know how you get on by commenting below.

Waiting for the morning star

About 2500 years ago, a young prince from an area just into present-day Nepal, northern India, left his comfortable palace life and went off into the forest in search of what life was all about. He met a number of teachers who taught him how to meditate, and through these methods he achieved amazing states of relaxation, bliss and joy. But still, he felt, something was missing – these states he achieved were very beautiful but they wore off when he came out of it. They were changes in state, not trait.

Bodhi tree much like what the Buddha sat under

So he tried some other things, including fasting. In fact he fasted to such an extreme that he became just a bag of bones and almost died. The legend says that one afternoon he met a milk maid who offered him milk rice sweetened with lumps of honey and he took it. It gave him a boost, and settling himself down comfortably in the shade of a big tree he made a vow: "if only my bones and sinews remain and all my skin and flesh wither away I will not leave this practice place until I have realised full enlightenment".

So he sat all through the night, and as he saw the dawn and the rising of the morning star he woke up completely and fully – not because he was snoozing(!) but in the sense that he realised everything and understood the true nature of the universe. After that he became known as the Buddha – meaning the awakened one.

In the Zen tradition they celebrate the Buddha's awakening on 8th December. In a monastery they would hold a 5-day retreat (called a sesshin) in the days preceding the 8th, and on the last night, sit all night until the dawn like the Buddha did. It's called the Rohatsu sesshin, and here in London we just did the last bit.

So we gathered at the ZenYoga studio in Camberwell on Saturday night (7th) at 9pm, and after a short recap from our Zen teacher Daizan about why we were there, we all had a bowl of milk rice sweetened with lumps of honey (commonly known as rice pudding). Freshly lifted into the Ambrosia sugar high we began our night of celebration: 25 mins sitting meditation, 5 min break, 25 mins sitting, 10 mins walking meditation outside around the neighbouring tennis courts, all the way through to 7am.

At about an hour in I started calculating how many hours there were left! After about 2 hours I needed to open out my cross-legged posture. After 3 hours my back muscles which were holding me upright started getting quite uncomfortable. The hardest period for me was from 12-2am where my body was uncomfortable, I was restless, and it was difficult to stay concentrated. The discomfort in my legs started shouting "YOU MUST MOVE", but I knew the best thing to do was to just encourage it to soften and let it be. It took some effort to resist though. Surprisingly the pain gradually faded into the background – only to move into my left shoulder and the process repeated.

At about 2am I realised just how much I was resisting being in the moment. And somehow that realisation allowed something deep inside to give up its fight. The minutes start flying by. The sound of someone's breathing came into sharp focus for a moment or two and then disappeared. The sound of the second hand of the wall clock became incredibly loud. And that made me remember how physical time goes at a constant rate no matter how much you will it to go faster, or how much you get absorbed. Time is such a funny thing.

By 3am I had an impulse to work out how many sits we'd done, to congratulate myself on how far we'd got. But I had no idea. How many times had we walked around the tennis courts? No idea. But it was bracingly cold each time we went outside (no-one put on a coat or extra layers besides shoes) and so invigorating. I came back inside zinging each time! Sleepy sensations swirled around but never really took hold. My body seemed to stay quite upright without much problem (the back pain had faded), but by 5am the mind started going in and out of dull sleepiness like someone was slowly twiddling the focus knob.

Each time we sat back down, I noticed how the same muscles felt sore, then sorer. I was stretching and trying to relax those same muscles again and again. For a time I was fed up with doing these same movements – there's that resistance again. Then I was grateful for how relieving it felt, then there wasn't even that. There was just the movement, the sitting, the walking, and no me doing it.

At 6am with only one hour to go I got a second wind! Only one hour... well I'd better get down to it then. I'm not sure everyone felt like that though. Glancing around the dojo I saw at least 5 people slowly falling, nodding sideways with sleep!

At 7am we finished, stood up, bowed, and hugged each other. We shared a simple breakfast from what people had brought, and left into the morning sunshine to go home.

Offer the time,
offer the space,
offer our presence,
offer our effort,
offer the support,
offer our willing,
make the intention,
and the rest will take care of itself.

Is a daily practice important?

I guess it all depends on what you’re doing it for. And what the “it” is.

Going to a weekly physical yoga class is a great way to keep up your bodily health and fitness, flexibility and strength. If you’re looking to improve any of these things, then maybe going to a class twice a week is a good idea – or combining the yoga with another physical training activity.

But when you’re wanting to develop a deeper understanding of yoga, and particularly when it comes to meditation, having a daily practice is very important. But why?

Did you ever learn to play a musical instrument when you were at school? Learn how to do keepie-ups with a football? Learn how to touch-type? Like learning any difficult skill, practising a little every day gets you a lot further than doing a big blast of it once in a while. If your hamstrings are tight, a daily physical yoga practice with lots of forward bends will work wonders to loosen them up and help your posture. If your concentration skills are poor, then a daily meditation practice of counting the breath will gradually enable you to hold your mind still on something for longer and longer periods.

So a little every day improves our skill, but is that the only reason?

Why of course not! How about patience? A whole day of hamstring stretching might really loosen up your legs - but it won't be lasting, and you might end up very sore. It takes time, gentleness, and patience to let those tight areas open up.

Committing to a daily practice brings also us up against all those times when we don’t feel like it, don’t feel well enough, or we’re so busy that there’s no time.

In my 8-week courses in mindfulness we make a commitment at the beginning to practice every day for the whole 8 weeks. In our 3-year sadhana course with Jonathan Monks, we also made that commitment. One of the most common questions I get is: if one day I really don’t want to or just don’t find the right time, is it ok to miss that day? Of course you can miss a day – I’m not going to chase you up and make you do your practice! But what an incredible missed opportunity it would be.

Why don’t you want to? What are you finding hard? Where are the resistances? Instead of finding every excuse not to practice, why not practice with a spirit of compassion, patience, inquisitiveness, curiosity? Face those resistances head on and you might find they start to dissolve – or perhaps aren’t as powerful as you thought they were.

Another question that comes up: if I force myself to do my practice when I really don’t want to, won’t I start building up an unhealthy association with it?

True, if you’re forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to, then you'll end up resenting it, resenting your teacher, or hating the practice. But the question to ask is if it’s really something you don’t want to do. Hopefully you can see the benefits of doing the practice (or I guess you wouldn’t be doing it) – so why do you think it wouldn’t benefit you today?

A sustained daily practice also makes you aware of the cycles of ups and downs in your life – day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month. Your practice is like a constant light, illuminating your mood, feelings, body and mind state. Without this, these very normal fluctuations can easily go unnoticed. One day you might wake up bright and full of energy, confident you can run 10 miles; other days you might feel sore, down in your mood, not wanting to get out of bed.

And why is it important to become more aware of these up and down changes? Because then we can start making that connection between our yoga/meditation practice and our everyday lives (see my blog article on that). Developing that awareness of how we feel right now can help a great deal in our relationships, and knowing how best to manage our lives, what we eat, etc.

Another aspect of life that daily practice helps us to cultivate is that of acknowledging change. Every day when you come to your yoga mat or meditation cushion, you are different. Life is a flow, everything changes all the time – moment-to-moment. Just because I can't sit cross-legged today doesn't mean it'll always be like this. Just because I have a good range of movement in all my limbs now doesn't mean I'll always have this. Yes I can remember what I did yesterday, but one day I may not. Nothing remains the same. Practise every day and you'll see how obvious this is, but also how the subtle strands of our disbelief of this fact take years of practice to break down.

"Practice once a week, and you’ll get sore. Practice three times a week, and you’ll get fit. Practice every day and you will transform your life."

Bridging the space between formal practice and everyday life

What situations do you find hardest to stay mindful, to keep the ego from rearing up, to remain true to yourself, to stay in the flow?

I'd guess it would be a situation involving a group of people. Maybe your family, maybe work colleagues, housemates... The closer they are, the better they know how to press your buttons!

So maybe we can do yoga or sit in meditation and observe our tendencies to judge ourselves, perhaps as someone who's easily distracted, or someone who always wants to make things ok, or worries about what others think of us doing yoga or meditation. Maybe we can even start letting go these "I am" identifications: "I am a person with tight hips", "I always get angry when I can't do something", etc. But how does this help at a family dinner when your adversarial uncle starts drawing you into a conversation on the rights and wrongs of intervening in Syria? It's not much use to pull out your best warrior II pose on him... (might make him shut up for 5 mins though!)

It's not easy to bring what you learn on the mat or on the cushion into everyday life. But isn't that why we call it a practice? We're practising for everyday life. And what use is a practice where you can achieve beautiful flowing, non-dual, ego-less, oneness for 30 mins a day but still bite your colleagues head off in your morning meeting?

That's why it's helpful to build a bridge into our practice. A bridge between formal on-the-mat/cushion time and normal life. We create time to do a reasonably unchallenging activity 100% mindfully, bringing our practice to bear on something that isn't on the mat/cushion.

For this reason, in Zen we practice working meditation, or Samu in Japanese. It's emphasised to such a degree that it's actually one of the four principal components of Zen practice (along with sitting meditation, private meetings with your teacher, and talks).

Working meditation includes the practice of mindfulness, giving or generosity, duty, and selfless service. In Zen monasteries every monk (or retreat participant) has a duty to do work for the maintenance and upkeep of the building and grounds, or help with the cooking, shopping, accounts, etc. But it's more than a duty - the task is performed with the same mind as sitting meditation. Doing the activity 100%, becoming the activity. An opportunity to put what you've learned on the mat/cushion into practice.

Me doing samu on retreat in Japan (weeding the gravel)

For inexperienced practitioners (like myself), the working meditation activity should be super-simple: something like cleaning, gardening, or chopping wood/vegetables. The repetitive simplicity of these kind of activities needs very little thinking power, leaving plenty of energy to devote to being 100% mindful. A favourite
in Japan is weeding the gravel in the monastery garden (see photo).

Can you see the true nature of the universe in every weed you pick? In every stone or piece of earth you move? Can you disappear into the flow of the cleaning cloth sliding over the kitchen floor?

Gradually as our practice develops and we're able to stay with it more and more doing simple tasks, we can introduce some harder things. Cooking, for example, requires much more cognitive input, but can you stay 100% mindful when the saucepan is boiling over but the recipe says "gently simmer"?

I remember my teacher Daizan saying that the monastery accountant is always one of the most senior monks because it takes a very developed practice to stay 100% with it when you're doing the books!

So you can see that letting go of our frustrations, our right/wrong judgements, our need to win the argument, remaining empathetic, compassionate, loving, and not letting the ego direct our actions is hard enough when we're just hoovering the living room. Doing all that whilst your uncle is banging on about how important it is for our economy to maintain a military presence around the world, including Syria, is advanced practice!

Start small, and build up. If we're patient, diligent, and compassionate, one day we might find ourselves flowing through every situation with ease, being 100% our true nature without a speck of self.

The Yoga of Time Travel

This week I wanted to review a book I've just finished reading called "The Yoga of Time Travel" by Fred Alan Wolf PhD.

I was lent this book by someone at our Zen group. It piqued my interest as it's on that physics-spiritualism border. In true Amazon style, I'd give it 4 stars (out of 5): It's well written, has some fascinating concepts in there that were certainly new to me, he does a great job of explaining special and general relativity with regards to weird space-time effects and time dilation, and he attempts to connect all this to a number of interesting spiritual aspects. I'm not giving it 5 stars because it's obvious he hasn't gone very deep into the spiritual side of things (his understanding is noticeably superficial), and the connections he tries to make between the hard physics of time travel (what's allowed by quantum physics and relativity) and the spiritual experiences he discusses are not so easy to follow. Plus, he totally confused me in his discussion of transportable wormholes where two people remain holding hands but get separated by space and time!

According to his website and wikipedia, Fred Wolf got his PhD in theoretical physics at UCLA in 1963. His field of research was high atmospheric particle behavior following a nuclear explosion. As time went by he got interested in the relationship between human consciousness, psychology, physiology, the mystical, and the spiritual. Now he's nicknamed "Dr. Quantum"(!) and writes books on the relationship between quantum physics and consciousness.

One of the things in the book I found the most interesting relates to our perception of time. We all have those periods where it feels like time is going at a snails pace (e.g. waiting for somebody) or when time absolutely flies (e.g. when we're enjoying ourselves). As modern humans we have come to measure time using a clock - in the old days using the back-and-forth swing of a pendulum as the yard-stick (as it were), or nowadays the vibrations of an electrified quartz crystal (e.g in your watch) or the resonant transitions of electrons in an atom (in an atomic clock). But who's to say which is the truer measure of time? We have come to think our perception of time passing is distorted when what we feel is different to what the clock says.

And that brings me onto another of the things he discusses. What really is time? One of the first physical measurements that set the "direction of time's arrow" came at the beginning of the industrial revolution. It was found that hot things cool down and in doing so heat up cooler things; you cannot heat up a cold object without doing work (the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics).

"Put the thermodynamic arrow of time together with the energy required for manual labor and you come up with the time-clock punch - the means to measure the working person's wage. Linear time became the ultimate frame upon which Western culture determines its technological progress, its labor laws, and its riches, or lack thereof."

Later in the book he suggests that our internal concept of time arises through sequential focussing and de-focussing on particular points in space-time (a thought, action, moment of reality). "Our conscious experience consists of a sequence of these focal points, sites of more specific focus separated by sites of unfocussed possibilities." … "Focal points are places in space-time where objective awareness occurs and the more blurred sites are places where objective awareness diminishes but subjective awareness persists. [Converting] a possibility into a probability corresponds to the process that produces a focussed point or "sudden awareness", while a blurred site [represents] "unawareness" or unconsciousness."

In meditation, we encourage the de-focussing or blurring aspect, "letting go of fixed ideas I have about myself and others". Moving from a more blurred to less blurred state would represent moving forward in time, whereas increasing de-focus would conversely imply moving backward in time. Letting go implies increasing the uncertainty of an event in space-time, and, essentially, travelling backwards in time. "When we let go of old habits, we also move backwards in time... our subjective time-sense [runs] counter to objective time." - These connections between blurring and time travel are what I find less easy to understand.

Interestingly he says that travel backwards in time is not at all forbidden in quantum mechanics - and may actually be necessary for certain physical phenomena. He says that this naturally leads on to the concept of parallel universes (which he discusses quite a lot), and this is how we can solve the apparent paradoxes that arise through time travel.

After all this I'm definitely interested to read more from him, like his latest book "Time Loops And Space Twists" or "Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics" by Henry Stapp.

Fly practice

As I mentioned in last week's post, I was in Spain for a yoga retreat with Jonathan Monks and his lovely assistant / top student Beth. In the mornings, Jonathan would always go out to a particular place in the garden and do his own practice between about 7-11am. That's certainly a very dedicated personal practice - and yet he still complained there wasn't enough time to fit everything in!!

Anyway, in the first couple of days I was there he talked about the challenge of dealing with all the flies buzzing around in the garden. He said how difficult it was to be ok with them buzzing around, landing on you and crawling around. It was pretty hot, even at 8 in the morning, and the flies were fresh from a good night's sleep…

When I arrived on Sunday I set my intention of doing an hours sitting each day of the retreat. Naturally I sat inside the studio to avoid distractions. However, after hearing about Jonathan's experience with the flies, I thought I'd give it a go too.

So on Wed, Thurs and Fri I sat in the morning 2x30mins outside by the pool.

It was ok at first, no flies came. Then there was one on my arm. And one on my face. The one on my arm flew up to my ear. Then there was one on my nose trying to crawl up my nostril. Meanwhile the one on my face had crawled over my lips and was heading up to my eye. Then there was another on my other eye. And another on my ear. Bzzz, and it landed on my ear again. Goosebumps rippled down my left side. The ones on my eyes seemed particularly attracted to the corners (where I guess they could find some food… euww).

During the sitting, they would come, buzz around a bit, take off and re-land, then go. One or two would stay, feasting on the gunk in the corners of my eyes or around my nostrils. When they were still for some time I could feel the cold dabbing of their "tongue" on my skin. Around the back of my neck it was tickley, on my ears I got goosebumps, and on my eyes it was just weird.

Initially it was all about mindfulness of sensations. My whole awareness was filled with flies. It was a practice of letting go of the distraction, the annoyance and irritation, letting them be, getting on with their business of feeding. The important thing, I noticed, was the knowledge that they weren't doing any harm (if they were mosquitos the situation would have been very different!). It was actually fascinating to really tune in to all the sensations they produced.

On the second day of sitting outside, it became much easier to let them get on with it, and I started being able to come back to following the breath. Gradually I started feeling a detachment from the body and its sensations. My body is not me, these sensations are not me. Just accept things as they are and observe the moments passing without wanting them to be different. I found the 'not wanting' started releasing the tension and allowed quite deep relaxation.

Try it sometime…!