Yoga

SCIENCE OF MEDITATION AND YOGA

Science tries to understand and explain the workings of the world with logic and by employing observation and experimentation before coming to any conclusions. Building on past knowledge and explanations can be helpful but not always totally accurate or reliable. We still need to rely on our own observations and experiments before we draw any conclusions. When I was younger, I did a lot of reading and studying on meditation and yoga. You might call meditation and yoga part of the mystic arts which could also include Zen, Taoism, Sufism and the like. These might be called mystic practices because so many people find such practices mystifying and don’t really understand what they are about. But there is a science of meditation and yoga that has emerged here in Western Civilization, and it is based largely on a modern understanding of anatomy and physiology. It is how I try to understand what these practices are about and what my own practice is about.

Ostensibly meditation is about practicing stillness which is a very foreign concept indeed in Western culture. As I see it Western culture is about movement, improvement, invention, progress, development, work, and enterprise. So what is it with these folks who like to sit in meditation for hours on end and contemplate their navels or whatever it is they are doing? What a waste of valuable time it appears to be when you could be working on something and improving yourself or your society for the better.
Consciously staying still (and maybe relaxing) is to be avoided and so this sort of practice is a mystery. We are geared for action and accomplishment. We are in the driver’s seat and always moving forward towards a bigger, better, and brighter future. What sense does it make to idle in neutral or even to turn the engine off? But that is exactly what the meditator does, idle in neutral or turns the engine off. And what can be amazing about this process is that when the engine is not in engaged, when we idle and consciously stay still, interesting things can happen. Insights may appear.

We may become aware of how tired we really are and how tense we feel. We can sense that we are all tied up with tensions in almost every corner of our bodies and burdened with a fatigue that is deep and profound. We may ache in our belly and heart and head. We may begin to discover what the actual remedy may be for our afflictions and it may not be, and probably isn’t, what we call physical education, exercise, and fitness. If we practiced yoga before, the nature of that practice can totally change when awareness ripens in this way. Our practice is then not an exercise anymore but an ongoing physical therapy guided by our own sense of stiffness, tension, and ache. Our practice becomes inspired and creative, guided by an inner sense of the body. We might be inclined to instruct others in what we have discovered, but always with the realization that others have their our own paths to follow and theirs may be different from our own. But there is still common ground to share, and we need to reach out to others and share what we know and feel.

It is my impression that this kind of process is happening in a big way in America now and in Western Civilization. Much material is appearing and being shared by people on this kind of journey and eventually it may even change the course of our civilization, make it less driven, aggressive, and destructive and introduce a kind of balance we have been lacking. These emerging teachings will show us the value of stillness, rest, ease, peace, and relaxation. They will show us what it is we have been missing and lacking in our lives, and maybe reveal a more essential, natural, and spontaneous way to live.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION 2.0

THE TROUBLE WITH SPORTS

On sports: “It should be an experience of pleasure, happiness and healthy recreation to all concerned, not an unnatural struggle involving distortion and loss of consciousness through the ‘determination’ to gain an end even at the cost of personal exhaustion and damage.”

From: “The Trouble With Physical Exercises”
By F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the “Alexander Technique”.

I don’t get sports. Maybe because my father never showed any interest in it I never did either. I bet it helps to have a parent who shows some interest. I might watch a football game or a basketball game for five or ten minutes and, after getting the gist of it, I don’t feel like I need to watch anymore and certainly not another two or three hours of it. What could be more uninteresting and boring than all this back and forth and back and forth chasing a ball or running with it or smacking a hockey puck around or endlessly swinging at balls and whacking them to kingdom come.

I have to admit there must be something to it or else so many people wouldn’t be so passionate and interested in sports. I think I lack a competitive spirit, or maybe have too much, and don’t want to incite it or excite it too often. I can’t really tell, but there is a real freedom in not being interested in sports. I can discard the hefty sports section of any newspaper and devote myself to reading about other trouble spots and more deadly struggles happening around the world.

There was a time, and in a few places, where sports were truly deadly. Ancient Rome comes to mind and their arenas where blood sports and deadly contests between men and between men and beasts were all the rage. There has been some speculation that some Native American ball games saw the sacrifice of the loosing teams. Those were the days when sport was a very serious matter and where blood flowed and heads rolled. We have largely tamed those more violent tendencies but the struggle, strain, exertion, and fierce competition in sports has remained. Let’s face it. Human nature has an aggressive, competitive, pugilistic side and it needs expression. Better to play football or basketball than go to war and without sports we might just be going to war all the more.

So I have to admit there is and should be a place for sports in our society even though I don’t feel much need to watch or engage in them myself. Something in human nature needs to be vented and sports are an expression of that. But there are other ways to use our bodies (and what I am much more interested in) and there are systems as ancient as sport for doing that. Practices like yoga, Taoism, Do-In, Sufism, and more modern forms like the Alexander Technique, or Feldenkrais, Rolfing, Bioenergetics all aim at freeing up the body and the mind. They aim to relieve chronic tension, align bodily structures, get energy flowing and unblocking those areas that are stuck, knotted, tense. These practices taken together, or apart, are what we could call ‘Ways of Liberation’.

Liberation from what? There is a famous Buddhist parable about a wounded man who has been shot with a deadly arrow. But, before he will allow the doctor to remove the arrow, he wants to know all about the man who shot it, and where he came from, and what he made his bow and arrows out of, and what his religion might be and all sorts of irrelevant details. Making it quite odd considering he has been shot with an arrow. Perhaps we are all wounded in a way, shot through with an arrow of tension, strain, and physical distortion. We are twisted, warped, and riddled with tensions that torque us out of alignment. We are indeed wounded, and yet occupied with irrelevancies and details that have little to do with finding relief. Our minds are distracted, entertained, and otherwise occupied while our bodies are pierced through with constrictions and caught in a deadly vice. Sounds serious and it is.

And as we age those strains, constrictions, and distortions begin to take their toll. We break down in a thousand different ways, all those “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” as Shakespeare put it. Hearts sputter, joints deteriorate and need replacing, immune system gives up and opens us up to all sorts of diseases, organs and systems cease functioning or are hobbled. What remains is often a shadow of our former selves; we are broken, hobbled, disabled and totally in the hands of doctors and the medical profession. Now comes the time for pills, lots of them, and perhaps surgery. And I can’t help but think that all those sports we played as teenagers and young adults not only didn’t help but maybe even contributed to what we have too often become by age 50 or 60, wounded men and women.

Yet I do believe we can nip the whole process in the bud. We can learn to recognize and develop the awareness that we are indeed wounded; we are tense, strained, knotted, and warped. Begin the process of relaxation and release. Yes, we can be competitive and engage in struggle and strife all the days of our life or we can surrender to another equally natural capacity, one that often gets buried away, the capacity for Rest, Relaxation, and Release. Sports allow us to express our competitive, energetic, and aroused nature, but if that is the only way we know to express our deeply physical nature, or all we find interesting, then we might just be missing the better half of our being, the part that is peaceful, easy, and relaxed. It is the part of our existence that might have a lot more to do with health, healing, and well being.

Allan

ADJUSTING THE CHEST

When we speak of adjusting any part of the body, it is often the spinal adjustments we are referring to.  But almost any joint can become strained and distorted. And most joints can also be manipulated and adjusted including those in the skull and the chest.  Chest adjustment, particularly near the top of the chest, where key neck muscles attach, can have a profound effect on lung and heart functioning.  Tension, strain, and distortion in the chest often translates into all sorts of breathing difficulties and lung and heart symptoms.  A couple of Yoga Tools can be helpful in adjusting and manipulating the chest.  The “Wedge” and the “Roller” can be effective tools for this purpose and are shown here working the chest.

With a large Roller aligned as shown the top of the chest and the clavicle can be pressed, massaged, and adjusted.

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Rolling the chest is good exercise for the arms and loosens and relaxes all along the sternum.

With the forehead supported on a small Roller, the Wedge presses into an adjusts the top of the sternum and chest.

REMEDY FOR PROLONGED SITTING

Most of us sit for long periods of time.  We sit at the computer, our desk, in the car, or on a chair or couch when we read or watch TV.  For many of us sitting defines what we are actually doing most of the day.  And the fact is so much sitting can have a profound and detrimental effect on your body.    Drape your body over a roller placed at the hips. Let your arms rest above your head, as shown in the above photo, with the elbows falling to the floor. A foam roller is shown, but it can also be a simple rolling pin wrapped in a kitchen towel. Let go. Feel the deep, hip flexing muscles get a nice, easy stretch in this position. Surrender to the tool and the position.  No exertion at all is necessary.  Let the weight of your body and the force gravity do the work.  Muscles deep in the pelvis have a major role to play in creating posture and, to a large extent, affect the health of the organs in your lower abdomen. The hip flexing muscles too often become tight and short because of prolonged sitting. The lumbar spine tends to stiffen and compress with long periods of being flexed in the sitting position.  The above pictured stretch is an extension of the spine and hips.  Gently stretching over a roller, placed at the hips, is a good remedy for prolonged sitting.  It is the exact opposite of sitting and a minute or two in this position is just what the doctor would order (if he knew about such things).

Now draw the knees up and let then drop down towards your chest while the thighs press against the abdomen. Your arms now are down by your side. Let gravity do the work.  Surrender to the tool and the position.  The lumbar spine is being stretched and elongated as is the entire spine.  This simple position gently pulls apart the spinal vertebrae that have a tendency to shrink and collapse as we grow older.  This position allows the vertebral disks to be decompressed and for greater elasticity in the discs to be restored.  This is a very simple, easy, and effective inversion and traction technique that almost any one can perform.   These two simple postures, performed on the floor and with a roller placed beneath the hips, go a long way to offset the effects of prolonged sitting and the tightening and shortening of muscles and the compression of spinal joints that often come with too much sitting or the advancing years.