After reading a recent blog entry [http://kquvien.blogspot.com/2011/08/now-what.html] by one of my yoga teachers, Kquvien, who just returned from India, I was struck with one word to describe her entry: Beautiful. But why would I associate beauty with descriptions of starving animals, feces, and pollution? I asked myself the same question for several days. I attended her yoga classes and a Sutra Workshop, where we discussed the idea of himsa, violence and the Yama (Moral precept) Ahimsa or nonviolence.
It made me think about how I felt when I first read Thich Nhat Hanh's Poem "Please Call Me by My True Names". It's a poem in which he identifies with an entire scene he witnessed: from the birds and frogs to a 12-year-old girl and her rapist. At the time it was so hard to wrap my head around that kind of reverence and compassion for the nefarious workings of the universe. It still is for the most part. But when I considered how I felt about Kquvien's blog, it dawned on me that perhaps I was able to get a glimpse of and gain an appreciation for the wholeness of experience -- the good, the beautiful, the bad, and the ugly. I don't know. I do know that at this stage of our evolution, unless we have that duality to compare in name and form before us - we can never appreciate the good parts.
I feel it's all here so we do (hopefully) evolve. It's what I'll call our "Gross Reality" and yes, I love the double entendre. In yoga, we learn to move from the gross to the subtle - from our outer limbs, etc to our inner organs, and then our life force, or energetic Prana. As I always say, I am by no means an authority, I'm still just getting a fingernail hold on things, but for the purposes of my blog I'm coming up with two terms: "Gross Reality" and "Subtle Reality". "Gross Reality" is what we think we experience (Note: Descartes', "I think therefore I am"). It's what we think we see, feel, taste, and hear. "Subtle Reality" is what our consciousness cannot know with its limited faculties. Yet, it is what our energetic force senses (for lack of a better term)--let's consider that force in the idea: I am, therefore I think I am. In this "Subtle Reality" that force "senses" on a level of oneness with a much bigger energetic universe.
In Dennis Waite's article in the Fall 2011 Yoga International "Science and Consciousness" he talks about how scientists are writing more and more about the non-dualist nature of reality.[See http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/yoga-international-magazine/philosophy-articles/scienceandconsciousness/] He says, "Scientists have made a significant contribution to persuading people to consider that the world may not be as it initially appears to our limited organs of perception.[...] "Reality" is far more subtle than everyday experience would have us believe." That's no news to yogis.
Again in a philosophical spiral, I go back to my initial sense --possibly a semi-subtle notion, albeit a top layer on infinite layers, of appreciation for the beauty of an imperfect whole. What caused that? Could that happen again? Could I get to subtler levels of experiencing this top layer of the bigger picture? I think it was in the movie Total Recall when Arnold Schwarzenegger went to some scientist, inventor-type, who made these robotic masks of faces. The guy kept telling Arnold that the imperfections are what make it real. I guess I'll sum this up by having you consider the face of a handsome man or a pretty woman - if we put a microscope to that face we would see billions of imperfections and maybe even something really gross - you know like two amoebas violently attacking a skin cell; but pull out and look at the sum of its parts and it's amazingly beautiful.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Good Cellsmanship Begins with Breathing Room
For most of us our entire day is externally focused around family, home, hygiene, food, school, work, friends, partners, shopping, or entertainment. It is seldom, if ever, inwardly focused where 100 trillion cells categorized into 100 different types are performing an extremely complex function for us.
Each cell in our body is capable of reacting to stimuli, transforming nutrients into energy, growing and reproducing itself. Each cell works tirelessly with other cells to give us the functionality of our humanness.Consider it as if we each have a 100 trillion personal employees working for us to insure we get the nutrients we need to provide the energy to go about our day.
How do we pay them for all that work? Do we keep a record of their contributions? Have we spent time with them. Ask them their goals? Shared our mission with them? Have we ever given them a bonus? Doubtful. Most of us haven't even acknowledged they exist; and yet, without them we couldn't survive.
I challenge you to take a moment everyday, shut off the diversions of your outside world and for just a minute breathe. Turn your gaze inward and see what you can see.Give yourself a little breathing room. Honor the cells that support you everyday.
You may be surprised what happens. For those who would like to give yourself even more breathing room, I invite you to learn more about the breath and life energy in Pranayama class, Wednesday nights 7:00-9:30 PM at Stillwater Yoga. Stillwater is located at 930 Monroe Dr NE, Atlanta. For more information please call (404) 607-9090 or visit their website at stillyoga.com.
Each cell in our body is capable of reacting to stimuli, transforming nutrients into energy, growing and reproducing itself. Each cell works tirelessly with other cells to give us the functionality of our humanness.Consider it as if we each have a 100 trillion personal employees working for us to insure we get the nutrients we need to provide the energy to go about our day.
How do we pay them for all that work? Do we keep a record of their contributions? Have we spent time with them. Ask them their goals? Shared our mission with them? Have we ever given them a bonus? Doubtful. Most of us haven't even acknowledged they exist; and yet, without them we couldn't survive.
I challenge you to take a moment everyday, shut off the diversions of your outside world and for just a minute breathe. Turn your gaze inward and see what you can see.Give yourself a little breathing room. Honor the cells that support you everyday.
You may be surprised what happens. For those who would like to give yourself even more breathing room, I invite you to learn more about the breath and life energy in Pranayama class, Wednesday nights 7:00-9:30 PM at Stillwater Yoga. Stillwater is located at 930 Monroe Dr NE, Atlanta. For more information please call (404) 607-9090 or visit their website at stillyoga.com.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Dangers of Pleasing Your Boss By Keeping Your Butt in the Seat
It used to be the only way your boss felt like you were working was if your butt was in the seat of your office chair. However, research shows sitting could be detrimental to your health.
The sitting epidemic may have all started at work. However, since wonderful inventions like the TV, we began to leave work and come home to sit some more in front of our big entertainment screen. Munching healthy foods like microwave dinners, Ho Hos, and chips.
When computers became more portable, we began taking them with us to sit here, there, or anywhere. Still today, gamers sit transfixed playing endless-multi-level games into the wee hours of the morning, moving only to get more snacks out of the kitchen. And we wonder why we have an obesity issue.
Since the advent of pre-K, students as young as three or four have been forced to sit in schools, and continue to be reprimanded for moving. Today, many are categorized ADD or ADHD merely for the fact they can't sit still. If I was a young student today, I would definitely have been pigeonholed into one of these classifications. But these kids are just doing what comes natural.
We are built to move. James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. says, "Much like a Ferrari, the human is meant to move." Kids instinctively know that. I would even go so far as to speculate the proliferation of ADD and ADHD is a direct evolutionary response to our sedentary life.
Sitting for extended periods of time, according to a recent 12-year study by Canada's Pennington Biomedical Research Centre which involved 17,000 people, increases the risk of heart disease, type-two diabetes, and osteoporosis not to mention back and shoulder pain.
It makes you wonder if libel suits will come up against corporations and educational facilities as they did against fast-food restaurants as far back as 2000. In 2000, it was announced that a poor diet and physical inactivity caused 400,000 deaths, a 33% jump over 1990.
It was also the year, the U.S. House of Representatives recognized the concept of 'personal responsibility', and gave their overwhelming approval of a bill banning lawsuits by obese customers who say they became overweight by eating at fast-food restaurants.The debate started when the government announced that overeating could soon replace smoking as the No. 1 preventable cause of death - with a statistic that two out of three adults, and nine million children are overweight or obese. Republicans argued that exposing the fast food industry to suits like those against the tobacco industry would wreak havoc on an industry that employs almost 12 million people -- the nation's 2nd largest employer behind the government.
Most obesity claims have been dismissed in court. However, the suits have pushed
restaurants and snack food makers to offer a larger number of more healthful products. Will similar healthier ways to work and study be implemented in corporations and schools? I hope so. People may be dying to know what the future of workstations and school desks will be. Until then, let start a Movement to get off our butts whether our teachers or bosses like it or not.
The sitting epidemic may have all started at work. However, since wonderful inventions like the TV, we began to leave work and come home to sit some more in front of our big entertainment screen. Munching healthy foods like microwave dinners, Ho Hos, and chips.
When computers became more portable, we began taking them with us to sit here, there, or anywhere. Still today, gamers sit transfixed playing endless-multi-level games into the wee hours of the morning, moving only to get more snacks out of the kitchen. And we wonder why we have an obesity issue.
Since the advent of pre-K, students as young as three or four have been forced to sit in schools, and continue to be reprimanded for moving. Today, many are categorized ADD or ADHD merely for the fact they can't sit still. If I was a young student today, I would definitely have been pigeonholed into one of these classifications. But these kids are just doing what comes natural.
We are built to move. James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. says, "Much like a Ferrari, the human is meant to move." Kids instinctively know that. I would even go so far as to speculate the proliferation of ADD and ADHD is a direct evolutionary response to our sedentary life.
Sitting for extended periods of time, according to a recent 12-year study by Canada's Pennington Biomedical Research Centre which involved 17,000 people, increases the risk of heart disease, type-two diabetes, and osteoporosis not to mention back and shoulder pain.
It makes you wonder if libel suits will come up against corporations and educational facilities as they did against fast-food restaurants as far back as 2000. In 2000, it was announced that a poor diet and physical inactivity caused 400,000 deaths, a 33% jump over 1990.
It was also the year, the U.S. House of Representatives recognized the concept of 'personal responsibility', and gave their overwhelming approval of a bill banning lawsuits by obese customers who say they became overweight by eating at fast-food restaurants.The debate started when the government announced that overeating could soon replace smoking as the No. 1 preventable cause of death - with a statistic that two out of three adults, and nine million children are overweight or obese. Republicans argued that exposing the fast food industry to suits like those against the tobacco industry would wreak havoc on an industry that employs almost 12 million people -- the nation's 2nd largest employer behind the government.
Most obesity claims have been dismissed in court. However, the suits have pushed
restaurants and snack food makers to offer a larger number of more healthful products. Will similar healthier ways to work and study be implemented in corporations and schools? I hope so. People may be dying to know what the future of workstations and school desks will be. Until then, let start a Movement to get off our butts whether our teachers or bosses like it or not.
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