What might this look like in practice? I find myself in Trikonasana and my awareness begins to descend. Groin and hamstrings feel tight. Legs and core-body feel weak. I breathe, not because I want to create a release and not because I want to strive toward any ideal. I breathe because I want to let the sensations become louder and more tangible. Awareness indiscriminately welcomes all of life’s expressions. Then, I feel drawn to shift a little in my hips, not because that would make me more perfect, but because something magnetic and deeply intuitive invites me to. I shift and the whole process starts again. As I drop further into listening I realize something much more essential than a standard or belief is calling me to movement. It is the same force that rotates the planets, changes the seasons, and creates me from moment to moment. In my deep listening I hear the familiar voice of the achiever within me, but even that I let be. I let be the quivering of my muscles and the flows of sensation. All seeking ceases.

As a teacher, I feel it is my duty to question the conscious and unconscious assumptions I make about yoga. May we all find a thousand ways to come to Self through presence, to celebrate the totality of our humanness and to live as love simply by being.

We have an assumption in our society that tortures us. It is that we are broken and must be fixed, that we are fallen and must be saved – then we'll be ok, valuable and happy. A self help empire has been built on the belief that we are not ok as we are. Religious institutions have gotten rich because of this belief. It pervades the microcosms within our society and the yoga subculture is no exception. Subtle though it may be I have often felt threads of this way of thinking in many of the classes I've attended. And, I've heard myself speak variations of it in my own mind.

There have been times when I've burdened myself with the thought that I should really be able to perform an unsupported handstand as a teacher, or that a full bridge pose (backbend) shouldn't be so hard for me still. The underlying belief is that if only I could do these things, then I'd be ok. Through yoga I could fix my brokenness, repent my sins, and finally, be acceptable. I have wondered if this is the same for others. I need only spend a little time watching the desperate body language of students in classes across our nation to find my answer. I have seen people strain through headstands, with heads cocked and eyes bulging. I've known people who have chased the eternal golden carrot of perfect alignment for years believing that one day they'll get it right and be absolved of their suffering. What assumptions are driving this? It hurts my heart to think that anyone has been made to believe that this is what's necessary to reap the fruits of yoga. This is a call to ask ourselves as teachers and practitioners to what is at the heart of our practice. Can we begin to uncouple the assumption that if we get the techniques right that we will have value and find happiness?

Is it possible, instead, that our practices and classes could be built around our inherent goodness, perfection and value? Asana, then, becomes a chance to see ourselves from the perspective of the life in the body. We come to the moment from a different perspective than through our ideas of what ought to be. We begin to respect life in it's many forms as it expresses itself within and without. We experience the value of every feeling, sensation and state of being regardless of how it fits in with personal and cultural ideals. We begin to actually experience our desperate need to feel ok rather than bandaid these feelings (for a short time) by achieving the best asana or the deepest meditation. As we come to experience our inherent value through deep presence and acceptance we may still choose to lengthen our hamstrings or master headstand but these things are not longer associated with our value. Instead, they become functional activities that enhance our lives rather than determine our worth.

Yoga can be a vessel through which we come to understand that we are valuable rather than a way to earn value. I think of my alcoholic brother. It's a bloody long way from where he is to a daily yoga practice, perfect postural alignment and a purified colon. I refuse to believe he is less valuable a person than any super-yogi whose life has been defined by a different kind of addiction - that of perfecting the illusory sinful self. 

I have had a number of people ask me why I chose Falling Open as the name of my blog and website. Here is what it means to me:

Falling Open : A descent out of the chatter of our minds into the experience of the present moment. A willingness to be aware of and experience all of life that is moving through us, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. As we begin to feel the moment through the perspective of our body the crowded mind begins to quiet. And spontaneously, in an act of Grace that is out of our control, the feeling of Openness arises.  It is the experience of space in body, heart and mind that we all have had in brief moments that we try desperately to recreate.  We believe that if we just try hard enough, eat the right foods, buy the right things, hang out with the right people that we will be able to create it.  But it cannot be created, manipulated, grasped or controlled. It simply shows up from time to time when we show up to ourselves.

I chose Falling Open because it is only through a deep surrender and letting go into knowing myself, in all of my lunacy and glory, have I experienced profound spaciousness, receptivity and flow. This site and my contributions in writing and teaching are dedicated to this. It is a reminder and a invitation for myself and all who join me to let go and know the moment as it is.  To know the feeling of being here. 

We cannot control when we are graced with the profound feeling of Spaciousness , but we can choose to make ourselves “Open to the Openness” as philosopher Martin Heidegger says. So wherever you're at today in your mind, body and heart take a moment to become aware. Notice if you resist this becoming aware.  Notice how fast your thoughts are moving and what they are compelling you to do, are there standards and ideals that have you striving in some way? Perhaps worrying about the future or lamenting the past? What does that feel like in your body? What else is there at a sensation level? Heat? Soreness? Tension? What happens if you don't fight any of it, but simply let it be there? Fall, for a moment, into your honest experience of right now. Then take a breath and then another one, and another one....

 I just spent the weekend in an advanced Enneagram workshop with two of the most spiritually influential people in my life.  The Enneagram, in brief, is a system of personality typing which helps us to become aware of our habits of thinking and acting.  The premise in this system is that if we become consciously aware of our patterns then we do not unconsciously act them out over and over again.  Instead, through awareness, we are able to choose our actions.  In doing The Work, as it is called, we start to live more authentically and freer from our compulsivity.  As a One on the Enneagram I am prone to perfectionism and judgement of self and others. Becoming aware of it through work in the Enneagram and yoga has allowed me moments of clarity, through which I am able to function consciously in the world.  I become able to know that judgement may be functioning but it doesn't have to define my whole experience.   Yesterday, I questioned one of the workshop facilitators, who also happens to be my long time yoga teacher, how the Enneagram fits with the philosophy of yoga.  She commented that, as a non-dual system, the Enneagram asks us to honor the dualities of life (good and bad, sadness and joy, darkness and light etc) as part of our human, embodied experience. She explained that when dualities are in a useful relationship to one another a third force is revealed.  This third force is Grace or Spirit and is the simple Isness of life.    She commented that working in the non-dual practice of the Enneagram with the compulsion of the One toward judgement does not mean eliminating judgement.  In a dualistic system which seems to be predominant in the self help culture of our time judgement would be seen as a negative quality to be eliminated through various techniques.  In dualism, one might say,  I would be seeking to purify myself of judgement.  In the non-dual tradition judgement is simply seen as part of the human experience.  I can notice judgement, know it, even honour what it has to offer.  Then I would bring the opposite experience of non-judgement in to my awareness in order to nourish it.  In holding both experiences I am lead to a deeper experience of the fullness of my humanity.  Nothing repressed or denied, nothing aggrandized or overvalued.  In this fullness is Grace, Spirit and the simple Isness of life.  
As  I descended to my teachers basement to set up for my class with her I suddenly felt a wave of emotion come over me.  I realized that at a very deep level I had associated Grace and Spirit with non-judgement and I also knew that I would never be completely free of judgement.  What this meant is that I would never be in the light of Grace, that I would never know Spirit.  Of course, at a cognitive level I knew this to be false.  But yesterday, the knowing birthed in my heart and I wept in relief knowing that I could be who I am, and it is BECAUSE of who I am not DESPITE who I am that Spirit is available to me. 

I often ask my students to invite all of themselves onto the mat.  I have a deeper understanding of what this means now.  Today, whatever your spiritual practice might be, can you bring all of you to it?  Can the practice be a way to honor your fullness rather than purify yourself of what you've labelled undesirable?  Can you know, in the deepest part of yourself, that you are Loved in all of your humanity, and rest there, even for a moment?  I'd love to hear about it....

At 9 years old I was shocked when I realized the degree to which we could do harm to one another. Prior to that time I had been exposed to all sorts of violence on tv, in movies and in rumors and hearsay. But it was the bullies at elementary school that saddened my heart enough to spur a life of questioning. At this young age I began to question the nature of suffering, how any so called benevolent creator could allow for such suffering and whether it was possible to be free of it. At the age of twelve, I was graced with the first glimpse of life without suffering. It lasted no more than 5 minutes, but it's echo remains with me still. I was sitting before a sunset. It's painted beauty silenced any thoughts that plagued my young mind. In the awe and stillness of that moment the little self that experienced pain was dissolved and what was left was simply the sky. I've come to know this experience as Oneness, or non-duality. In this moment, and numerous times since, I have felt the dissolution of suffering. It has been my call, from that experience on, to know what happened on that cool summer night in 1991. Perhaps if I could understand it, I could live and share it. In the naivety of my youth I dreamt of a world free of suffering. I suppose I dream of that still.

Questioning has allowed me to live in an intimate relationship with life. It is through questioning that I have come to know philosophies of east and west in experiential ways. I question philosophies until I can feel it in my bones. When I came across yoga in my final year of university I knew that I had found system through which I could understand suffering and Freedom. I began to dig as deep into the philosophical system of yoga as I did in to my own experiences in asana. And a whole world began to unfold.  This was a homecoming for me.

I continue to question myself and yoga every day of my life. It is how I pay both these things my deepest respect. I refuse to skim the surface of the gift of my existence and the system of yoga. Instead I want to honour both by knowing them deeply, intimately, beyond assumptions or the hearsay of others. For me, to know something, to be present to it is to love. The oracle at Delphi said, “Know thyself, through dialogue with self and others”. I move forward with this blog in the spirit of deep respect and love through questioning. I hope you'll join me in the dialogue.