The Where and How of the Heart

Yoga has given me back some of the autonomy I always feel organised religion takes away from people. It has pointed me towards another path entirely and given me a practical way to improve myself and my life. As my present yoga teacher recently said to me, yoga is a path that gives people the power to change- their bodies, their levels of self-esteem, their control over their mind, the way they live their daily lives and much more. It is a path in which the idea of ‘god’ is much more open to interpretation and much more flexible; a path that suggests that ‘god’ is much, much closer to home; that perhaps ‘god’ is inside every one of us; that we are all part of something infinitely greater than our individual selves and fragile, demanding egos and that we are all connected to one another in ways deeper than we usually recognise. Yoga is also what got me reading about philosophy and what led me towards Buddhist meditation. That and an amazing book by Tiziano Terzani called A Fortune Teller Told Me.
In yoga it is from the heart centre that we lead in many postures. I’ve lost count of the times that a teacher has urged me to ‘open the chest’, ‘expand the heart centre’, ‘lead from the heart ’. Retaining awareness of the heart centre helps to regulate and expand the breath and also aids alignment in the asana. On a more subtle level, opening the heart centre physically has made me very aware of how, over the years, my body has developed in such a way as to protect my heart centre: my shoulders have rounded forward closing down the amount of my chest that is open to the potentially damaging world. It was practising yoga that first illustrated to me the connection between my body and my mind- that emotional experiences are stored in the tissues of the body and that our bodies take on the form of these stored up states.
Back bends feel as though they are almost forcing the heart open. After doing urdhva dhanurasana I can sometimes feel a great emotional release as though old hurts and tensions have been wrung out of the muscles and tendons.

I can also feel literally more open to others, as though the barriers between me and the outside have been lowered. I hear more clearly and respond in a more relaxed way, less fearful, more aware.
Recently when practising the Marichasanas,I have felt huge levels of discomfort- these forward bends and twists constrict the chest and affect the breath, and although they are still tough for me physically, recently I have noticed how challenging they are for me emotionally: distressing memories come into my mind randomly, I get distracted from the flow of my practice by the smallest things and my energy levels suddenly and dramatically drop as soon as I get to this stage in the sequence. This is new in the past seven years of my practice.
Observing the changes in my practice from one day to the next gives me clues to my emotional state: distracted, calm, upset, afraid, joyful. Occasionally I have insights into my more general psychology: one day recently I realised how my perfectionism can stop me from taking risks: Finding the jump back and jump through impossible and frustrating, I really felt like giving the whole thing up in disgust- ‘If I can’t do it properly, then what’s the point?’ This is one of the things I love about this practice- not only do I get a jolly good physical workout every day, I’m also undergoing some interesting psychoanalysis into the bargain.
This yoga has taught me the importance of discipline, respect, acceptance and, to a certain degree, faith -in the practice itself, my teachers, my body. It has helped me to recognise the tricks and habits of my mind and to begin to accept that suffering is a part of life, something we cannot get rid of no matter what we have, where we live or who we marry.
Practising ashtanga vinyasa everyday and sitting in vipassana meditation, I have begun to observe the reality of the present moment. Even with a restless mind, with discipline and awareness, the inner chatter at some point settles down, quietens and allows the watcher to observe the subtler truths of existence: the sound of the breath, the tiny vibrations on the surface of the skin, the arising of emotions, thoughts passing. And what these things all have in common is their impermanence. They arise and at some point, sooner or later, they all pass away. Even the severest of back pain, after sitting on a flat cushion for ten hours, eventually changes. The only thing that remains the same, ever watchful, silent and full of peace is the watcher herself. For reasons I can’t yet explain, noticing this witness phenomenon, I understand that I am not my body or my feelings or my thoughts. And understanding this has changed the way I feel about the world. It has changed the way I approach almost everything. It has allowed me to feel a greater peace and a greater joy than I have felt for years.
Now what I want and need to do is keep practising.
Be Happy!

The What of the Heart?

I set out on my own nearly a year ago in search of something. It’s no secret that I was (and still am) searching for a way to happiness and, bigger than that, searching for an answer to what this life is all about. I feel I can’t settle until I find some answers. It gnaws at me this issue- Why are we here? Why is it so hard sometimes? Who or what is responsible? What’s His address? In these past twelve months I’ve read lots and lots of books on the subject by great yogis, Buddhist scholars, monks and nuns, physicists and respected philosophers, both Western and Eastern. Many refer to God. Almost all talk about soul and spirit. Some discuss the inner voice. But the image that has come to mean something to me is that of the heart. I have always found it impossible to have blind faith in God. I also accept that modern science does not (yet?) have all the answers. Since I was about 13, I really, really, really wished I could just believe in God and Heaven and have some of the happiness that gives the ‘Happy Clappers’ their name.But no- either I wasn’t born with those genes (although, having said that, many people in my family, on both sides are believers) or my dad’s atheist views rubbed off on me (Nature or nurture? Discuss). Or perhaps I was destined to follow my own path...
One thing I do know for sure is that it has always made me angry when people who have blind faith talk about the existence of God and all related concepts as if there was some kind of proof that they exist. Maybe I’m just envious. But I think there’s more to it than that: I feel angry because I feel that blind faith is not good enough. I’m getting fobbed off. The whole subject has been dumbed down. As an independent, educated thinker, I can’t simply accept the interpretations by others of ancient texts as truth. I have to do the work needed to find my own truth.
All through my teens I just wanted a better answer. When I didn’t find one, I eventually gave up, called myself an atheist and threw myself into the business of living. It took me this long, some major life events and some serious unhappiness to start reviewing the situation.
So, having reviewed for the past twelve months, what answers have I come up with?

Journeys to the heart
Since returning to India in April and continuing my search, I have been on many journeys, some of them taking several days, and I’ve covered large expanses of land all around the north west of the country, from Dharamsala to Kashmir, Leh to Delhi. On these journeys I’ve seen some of the most beautiful landscapes of my life and also some of the harshest and most intimidating. Wandering in the lush mountains of Kashmir and driving over the dry, desert passes of Ladakh, illustrated to me how small I am in comparison to these seemingly empty expanses of our planet. Something frightening to the ego on one hand, but equally reassuring on the other, that, at a time when we hear so much of over-population and the destruction of our environment, there are still, in fact, places on earth that man has hardly touched.

Journeying Inside
To me these journeys and the landscapes I have encountered recently serve as a useful metaphor for the inner journey that I have also been taking.. The mind is a huge expanse of chartered and unchartered territory: exciting and frightening, beautiful, powerful and familiar, sometimes a refuge, sometimes unpredictable to the point of betrayal.
In April I did Dhamma service at the Vipassana Meditation Centre in Dharamkot, Dharamshala. For ten days I served 45 of my fellow seekers as they learned the method of Vipassana meditation, sitting for up to 10 hours a day, often struggling in silence with their physical pain and mental suffering, discovering some of the workings of their mind and finally emerging on the 10th day to share their experiences together and to spread their loving kindness to all sentient beings, first to themselves, then to each other and their loved ones and finally to all beings seen and unseen (in the practice of metta meditation). The service I did during those 10 days taught me much about myself too and taught me more ways in which I can attain peace and happiness in my life: As Dhamma servers, our teachers encouraged us to practise and develop metta (loving kindness) during our work, as we helped students with their practical needs and while giving emotional support. At the end of every evening, servers would sit together and meditate on metta before going to bed. I found this practice extremely powerful and felt strong feelings of empathy, sympathy and wishes of goodwill towards the students. The days were sometimes long and emotionally challenging but I found that remembering to focus on feelings of love and kindness for others as much as I could during my work and meditation, helped to give me the energy and mental strength I needed. During this meditation, I found myself focusing on the area around my heart and I distinctly felt a warmth and power emanating from my chest and radiating out into the room towards others. I felt as though my heart was opening.
This has been a very important lesson for me and perhaps one of the answers I was hoping for. Since learning to practise metta, I have tried to incorporate it into my daily practice and, since reading a book on the subject, I have started to use metta in a daily walking meditation and in carrying out my daily activities. Ananda Maitreya Mahanayaka Thera likens metta to cool water poured onto the fire of human existence. So metta can help you if you feel negative and help give you perspective on your troubles .

(Read the Dalai Lama’s Book of Love and Compassion or check out http://www.buddhanet.net/). I have noticed a distinct improvement in my own feelings towards others since starting to practise metta: I am less focused on myself and my anxieties and therefore it is easier for me to feel empathy and to pick up on others’ emotions and I often remember to feel lucky because I am!

Opening the Heart

The diary extracts that will follow in the next week or so are a series of experiences I wrote about near the beach in Tempurung, north Borneo. My days at the beach house were a great opportunity to practise yoga and meditation, but as is my wont, I often had periods of loneliness and frustration in paradise, surrounded as I was by canoodling honeymooners and happy family groups. One evening while walking along the beach alone, I realised exactly what I should do...

All these events happened over a period of 4 months but they are all closely connected and related to the search that I have been on since leaving London in September 2008.

I will gradually add another part of the ‘story’ to my blog and hope that this makes it more manageable for all my friends and family, who, I greatly appreciate, lead very busy and active lives. Although these are my personal experiences, I sincerely hope that the people who read about them can benefit from the inner journeys I have had the time and great privilege to travel.
May you all be well, happy and peaceful.