If you can take just a few minutes for yourself to calm your body, your feelings, and your perceptions … Joy becomes possible. The joy of true quiet becomes a daily healing food.
-from Silence by Thich Nhat Hanh
Quiet … Food For The Soul
silence is hOMe
The practice of mindfulness is very simple.
You stop, you breathe, and you still your mind.
You come home to yourself so that you can enjoy the here and now in every moment.
All the wonders of life are already here. They’re calling you. If you can listen to them you will be able to stop running. What you need, what we all need, is silence. Stop the noise in your mind in order for the wondrous sounds of life to be heard. Then you can begin to live your life authentically and deeply.
-from Silence by Thich Nhat Hanh
Warrior Status. Time To Grow Up.
- Tibetan Prayer Wheel, McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala India, March 2012. Photo: MBuffett
Those who train wholeheartedly in awakening … are called warriors – not warriors who kill but warriors of nonaggression … They are willing to cut through personal reactivity and self-deception. A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. This not-knowing is part of the adventure. It’s also what makes us afraid.
Wherever we are, we can train as a warrior… Our tools are sitting meditation, tonglen, slogan practice, and cultivating limitless qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.
The training offers no promise of happy endings. Rather this “I” who wants to find security – who wants something to hold onto – will finally learn to grow up. If we find ourselves in doubt that we are up to being a warrior-in-training, we can contemplate this question: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”
-from Comfortable With Uncertainty By Pema Chodron
I Can Not Save The World
“It is not within anyone’s power to save the whole world, but it is within your power to add whatever you can, with a loving and caring and peaceful heart. You can attend the portion of the world that you touch, you can add a bit of beauty and understanding to the world, you can become the one calm person standing in the boat in a great storm… And by doing so with peace and equanimity, you can show others that it is possible for them to do so as well. When you do, you will join with the forces of peace in the complex unfolding of life. And in that moment you will feel yourself to be one with the vastness from which you and all beings were born, returning to the silence that surrounds you in every moment of your life.”
-from A Lamp InThe Darkness: Illuminating The Path Through Difficult Times by Jack Kornfield
Suffering, A Doorway To Ecstasy
“The body, then, is the field in which we grow and harvest our experiences, which may be positive or negative, painful or pleasant. While negative, painful experiences do not bring us immediate joy, they do so in the long run because – if we are wise – we relate to them rightly by regarding them as useful lessons. No experience need be devoid of merit. People have had major spiritual breakthroughs as a result of suffering and debilitating illness. Even physical pain does not have to be a merely unpleasant experience. In fact, it can sometimes be a doorway to ecstasy.”
– from ‘Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy’ by Georg Feuerstein
The Virtues of Lying-Down Meditation
“The most important thing to keep in mind when practicing meditation lying down is that it is about falling awake… There are many virtues to meditating lying down… We can surrender completely to the embrace of gravity, and let go into the floor or mat or bed and let it do the work… In practicing dropping into the embrace of gravity itself, we are more motivated and more willing to drop unconditionally into now, to bring a radical and open- hearted acceptance to whatever we find is going on in our minds and our bodies and our lives in any moment or on any given day, in a word, to be and let go.”
-from ‘Coming To Our Senses’ by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Grounded In Wakefulness
“I find it useful to meet each moment freshly, as a new beginning, to keep returning to an awareness of NOW over and over again, and let a gentle but firm perseverance stemming from the discipline of the practice keep me at least somewhat open to whatever is arising and behold it, apprehend it, look deeply into it, and learn whatever it might be possible to learn as the nature of the situation is revealed in the attending.
When you come right down to it, what else is there to do? If we are not grounded in our being, if we are not grounded in wakefulness, are we not actually missing out on the gift of our very lives and the opportunity to be of any real benefit to others?”
-from Coming To Our Senses by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Meditation Is A Way Of Being
“Meditation is a way of being, not a technique… Meditation is not relaxation spelled differently… We might say that meditation is really a way of being appropriate to the circumstances one finds oneself in, in any and every moment. It is the non-clinging, and therefore the clear perceiving, and the willingness to act appropriately within whatever circumstances are arising that constitute this way of being that we are calling meditation.”
-from ‘Coming To Our Senses’ by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Restorative Yoga For Digestion. ‘Tis The Season!
Proper digestion is integral to balanced holistic health and is at the heart of our body’s energetic regulation. When it is all working correctly, throughout the day our digestive system is ingesting food, secreting fluids, breaking down and digesting fiber, absorbing nutrients and defecating waste. When the system is not working optimally we harbor toxins and waste which can cause a constellation of maladies like bloating, nausea, sluggishness, or general discomfort. At worst, i an over-taxed or improperly functioning digestive system can lead to serious illness or disease.
Obviously a conscious diet and good hydration are the first steps in maintaining a healthy functioning system. But as the holidays quickly approach and the parties and meals become more abundant and celebratory our digestive systems can use more help in keeping up with increased demand.
Restorative Yoga is a tailored, supported, restful practice that awakens our parasympathetic nervous system and assists with physical as well as mental digestion. When we drop into this mind/body state that reigns over meditation and elimination, we allow our innate functions to simply happen on their own. Not only does the practice aid in the physical digestion of toxins and waste products from our bodies, it assists in the digesting of thoughts, images, and incessant chatter that cloud our minds as well.
The Holidays are a great time to give yourself the gift of Restorative Yoga.
Following is a suggested Restorative Yoga practice specifically sequenced and designed to assist in good digestion for optimal functioning of body, mind, and breath. Try one pose or all of them. And take 3-10 minutes in the poses for the best benefit. Leave me a comment below to let me know how it goes for you.
Wishing you true Joy for the upcOMing holidays! XOXO Melanie
Hero Pose (Virasana)
Child’s Pose (Balasana)
Cat / Cow
Knees To Chest Pose (Apanasana)
Reclined Pigeon (Sucirandhrasana)
Extended Leg Pose (Paschimottasana)
Supported Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)
Reclined / Supported Cobblers Pose (Supta Baddha Konasana)
Reclined / Supported Fish Pose (Matsyasana)
Reclined Twist (Jathara Parivartasana)
Supported Savasana
Supported Seated Meditation
A ReInvention of Sorts
This time last year I had one of those pivotal moments where I hit a wall and was faced with the reality of my life and the choices that lay before me. Things were going relatively well. A third teacher-training group was about to graduate from my Yoga Birds program and the studio was chugging along offering valuable services to the community. I had a nice house, great husband, awesome dogs, and loving family all around me.
My practices of daily asana and meditation were steady, life at home was good…but something was missing or just not right with me. I prayed and I meditated and finally realized that I was not where I wanted to be or doing what I truly wanted to be doing.
It was one of those God-moments when I realized in full force the finite nature of my time on earth, the importance and impact of every choice I make, and the preciousness of every moment that has been given to me.
I started making plans to close my beloved little yoga studio and to get back into film acting which I had left in 2008 when I moved to Fairhope from New Orleans. So, in case you were wondering, that’s where I have been all year…. In acting classes in New Orleans. More on that later…
I have not abandoned yoga. Or, more accurately, yoga has not abandoned me. I have taken a massive break and rest from daily vigorous asana (poses) practice. It was not intentional and happened naturally as I stopped teaching so much. I am still a firm believer and advocate that asana yoga teachers should be practicing what they are asking of their students. I asked a lot of my students ergo I spent a lot of time on the mat in my own personal practice doing sun salutations and warrior poses, etc.
This break from the physical yoga for me has been utterly healing and informative…which is essentially what our practices should be about. So yes, my chaturanga and my pinca mayurasana probably SUCK right about now, but really…. I don’t care. And this is cOMpletely LIBERATING for me!
What I do practice regularly is Restorative Yoga. Apparently my nervous system needs a daily re-set to truth, consciousness, and joy. My husband Burke who is a brilliant wordsmith dubbed Restorative Yoga a practice of ‘pillows and gravity’. It is absolute heaven and gives back to me ten-fold in the currency of connection to Spirit, relaxed groundedness, breath awareness, clarity, patience, kindness, happiness, contentment, and vibrant energy. All it asks of me is to stop, become still, and hang out there for 5 or 10 minutes at a time. And BTW… it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds.
In these past several months I have explored different neighborhoods –literal and figurative. I miss my friends and family and community of yogis in Alabama and further east. I have made some incredible new friends in the acting and film and fitness communities of New Orleans. Life is a constant paradox. But it is certainly wonderful.
I am ready to start teaching again with a fresh new perspective on how yoga can support day to day life and courageous choices that foster the manifestation of the sparkling, healthy, vibrant lives that are our birthright.
Next month I will be in Fairhope at Prana Health and Wellness Sunday, November 24th. Becky Ardrey and I are co-hosting an open house and discussion about the collaborative 2014 Yoga Birds Teacher Training being held at Prana. Stay tuned for more details about the open house and about the training.
Also in the works in New Orleans is a yoga class in conjunction with the indoor cycling classes (called RIDE) I have been teaching at Romney Pilates Center on Magazine Street. More details TBA.
On Sunday morning, November 17th I am presenting a Restorative Yoga Session at the Mahabhuta Yoga Festival. I can’t wait to immerse in yoga for the whole weekend with so many friends and teachers! I hope that you can join me there for my class or to attend some of the fantastic classes of other teachers with me.
That’s all I have for now. Please be in touch with a comment below or drop me a line or a ‘like’ on my personal profiles at Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. And if you’re interested, check out my new acting website at www.melaniebuffett.com. Hope to see y’all soon in a festive and joyful place!
Much Love and Peace,
Melanie Buffett