I often find myself in class talking about the body as if it were a separate thing from the person that inhabits it. “Listen to what your breath is telling you,” “the hips need to think about what they can do to keep the pelvis straight,” “let the body relax, don’t force it to do something it doesn’t want to do.” This language troubles me, since if asked, I would deny any conviction in a mind-body duality: I do not believe in a special soul that makes us who we are and gives us value; I do not believe that thought, emotion and ego are anything more than the workings of a very complex piece of material: the human body. There is no “me” separate from my hips, pelvis or breath. So, if the mind is a part of the body just as the arm or big toe are, then why do I create this distinction in my language?
The fact is, this duality is not just in my language but in my experience, and it manifests in many different ways, both on the mat and off. On the mat, I’m taking a symmetrical pose, say Downward Facing Dog, and it feels like I am doing the same thing on both sides of my body. My mind tells me I’m symmetrical. But I work around a little, I open my practice so that my body can voice itself clearly, and I discover that actually, I’m doing totally different things in my hips, my pelvis is completely out of whack, and to put myself in correct alignment is a Herculean task that requires shrunken and alien muscles to be summoned by some bizarre ritual of bending, breathing, jumping around and sweating. My practice is about coaxing these far-away muscles into my mind, so that they can do their jobs effectively, and I can skip the song and dance to convince them to perform. My goal is to get my body as symmetrical as my mind thinks it is.
Another opportunity for my body to speak with a voice that is not “mine,” arises around the question what I put into it. Before I was a yoga, I was quite happy eating meat and junk food, smoking and drinking often to excess. I knew it wasn’t good for me, but since I didn’t feel that it was doing anything particularly bad, I figured I was okay. Once I started practicing and getting in the habit of listening to my body, I found it saying things like, “hey, that animal’s back leg may not be such a good thing to tear off, chew up and digest,” or “hm, actually, when I stay up late and smoke and drink, I am really significantly less productive for the next few days than I would like to be.” It tells me when I need to consume more iron or protein, or when I have consumed too much, say, sugar.
Sadly, just because the body voices itself, doesn’t mean I always listen. In fact, when it comes to that last row of chocolate and a cigarette with a glass of wine, I still indulge every now and then; but now I cannot take a puff off a cigarette without hearing, clear as language, a hearty shut up barked at my body.
And there are other things, bizarre things, emotional things, like the way my body gets sad when I menstruate, or happy when I’m around blood-relatives, regardless of whether I get along with them or not. But I can’t say that these are things that I feel—I don’t: there is sadness in my body; there is happiness in my body; and what my mind makes of itself is, of course, coloured by these states; but, I do believe, that if I am able to identify them as something happening in my body, I have a better understanding of why my mind is creating the kinds of thoughts that it does.
I have been exploring this question of duality for a couple years now, philosophically and anatomically. My research is not extensive, but I have stumbled across certain ideas that might offer some inroads.
I was touched, recently, by a remarkable talk given by a brain scientist who suffered from a stroke. Jill Bolte Taylor gave an 18 minute account on TED.com of how her faculties gradually shut down as a golf-ball-sized blood-clot grew around the key language centers of her left brain, and describes for us the states of consciousness that she experienced as her awareness shifted between a semi-functioning left-brain state to a euphoric and essentially non-functional (but heavenly!) right-brain state. To summarize her talk, the left brain is a linear, analytical, serial processor that divides the world up into me and not-me; into details and values and order. The right brain is a parallel processor that receives unresolved sensory input from all sides; that experiences the energy of this body as one with the energy of all things. As Ms. Taylor lost the faculties of her left brain, she found herself in a state of Nirvana.
I believe it is a simplification to say that the left brain makes our ego and the right brain gives us unity consciousness, but I would lend credibility to the idea that certain cognitive and certainly evolutionarily advantageous mechanisms would be responsible for creating a subject-object duality that us meditators are so critical of; and that there is a purely kinesthetic awareness of sensory input that does not divide the world up by value and form, and for all I know, it might as well be a right brain affair.
Taylor urges us to take a step to the right of our egos and find peace and unity in that hemisphere of our brain. It is possibly this simple, although other neurological accounts of Enlightenment would claim that it is not just the right brain but the result of balanced and highly communicative hemispheres. I do like the idea, though, of a non-verbal, kinesthetic way of “thinking,” a state of receptivity that our brains are capable of bringing to the forefront of our consciousness. It sounds very much like the place I go to in my yoga practice, where these other states of awareness start to operate in their non-linguistic ways. And it makes the more esoteric justifications of the practice tangible: one may not believe in Enlightenment by Sun Salutation, but one can believe in practice that exercises the brain in all the right ways by doing different things with its body.
In terms of more immediate behaviour, though, and voices that tell me coherent and analytical things about my wants and needs, another model has presented itself, that makes a lot of sense to me.
In the aforementioned book, Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, Gary Marcus identifies two streams of thought that determine our actions: the more recently evolved and judicious deliberative system that can conceive of things like short-term sacrifice for long-term gain; and the automatic and largely unconscious reflexive system, evolved according to the needs of humans who lived under prehistoric conditions, and based in the hardware common to almost all multicellular organisms. (45)
The reflexive system operates off the more ancient parts of the brain that are responsible for things like balance, breathing, alertness and proprioception—things that we just know how to do without thinking, and that were essential to the survival of our pre-hominid ancestors as well. The deliberative system operates out of the forebrain, particularly the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain swollen in humans to an unprecedented degree, and gives us the capacity for self-awareness and reasoned decision making.
There is a lot that is relevant to the practice in this distinction, and I will no doubt come back to it in subsequent entries. But for now, it sounds like the deliberative system in the prefrontal cortex is where the I of my intentions lives, and the hindbrain is where the non-linguistic voice of my body comes from. In my practice, I am using meditation and concentration to quiet the forebrain and go into a state where my habitual tensions and inhibitions don’t restrict the available movements of my body. I am using the physical practice to strengthen not just my body, but the capacities of the hindbrain—balance, breathing, movement, proprioception—and bring them into harmony with the deliberative, conscious aspect of my reasoning, my I. Through the practice of yoga, I am teaching my forebrain to stop fighting against the natural movements of the body and to stop trying to dominate the inevitable; and instead I am encouraging the hindbrain to speak up, to show itself because the more I know about the base drives and balances of my body, the more I will be able to act in accordance with them or curb when necessary.
Left brain-right brain; hindbrain-forebrain; it seems these days dualities persist, but at least now both sides are ontologically consist. I will continue to explore how the brain works from an academic perspective as it helps me understand the relevance of what we are doing on our mats, and also how my body works and how my self is made. And, I will continue to embrace a physicalist perspective on the mind and body and also our experiences of transcendence, not to cheapen the physical world that we live in, but to celebrate it.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
http://drjilltaylor.com/
http://mystrokeofinsight.com/
Marcus, G. (2008). Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Poem--Louise Gluck
For years I have been trying to identify what it is that I believe we are doing when we practice yoga. As t turns out, the perfect articulation has been taped to my kitchen wall for months now.
Parable of the Dove
A dove lived in a village.
When it opened its mouth
sweetness came out, sound
like a silver light around
the cherry bough. But
the dove wasn't satisfied.
It saw the villagers
gathered to listen under
the blossoming tree.
It didn't think: I
am higher than they are.
It wanted to walk among them,
to experience the violence of human feeling,
in part for its song's sake.
So it became human.
It found passion, it found violence,
first conflated, then
as separate emotions
and these were not
contained by music. Thus
its song changed,
the sweet notes of its longing to become human
soured and flattened. Then
the world drew back; the mutant
fell from love
as from the cherry branch,
it fell stained with the bloody
fruit of the tree.
So it is true after all, not merely
a rule of art:
change your form and you change your nature.
And time does this to us.
Louise Gluck
Parable of the Dove
A dove lived in a village.
When it opened its mouth
sweetness came out, sound
like a silver light around
the cherry bough. But
the dove wasn't satisfied.
It saw the villagers
gathered to listen under
the blossoming tree.
It didn't think: I
am higher than they are.
It wanted to walk among them,
to experience the violence of human feeling,
in part for its song's sake.
So it became human.
It found passion, it found violence,
first conflated, then
as separate emotions
and these were not
contained by music. Thus
its song changed,
the sweet notes of its longing to become human
soured and flattened. Then
the world drew back; the mutant
fell from love
as from the cherry branch,
it fell stained with the bloody
fruit of the tree.
So it is true after all, not merely
a rule of art:
change your form and you change your nature.
And time does this to us.
Louise Gluck
Running (with) a Studio
The question I am asked most often is, “so, did you come to Cambodia to start a yoga studio?” And the answer is simple: no. The fact is, this studio was here already like a seed in winter soil (or possibly an airborne bacteria) and just needed a body to make itself grow; it picked me—I’m not entirely sure why: I had only been practicing yoga for one year (although, I confess here and now, I lied about that at the time to gain people’s confidence. Sorry guys, it is not a proud moment in my yoga history), I had no business experience, and had only been in Cambodia for two months and had maybe two friends in town, let alone contacts and resources to help me out. But, fate’s logic is often elusive, and looking back, it seems to have worked out. I have been a good host, learning from my guest as we have gone along.
The whole process of building NataRaj from classes at Le Royal, to our little den on street 21, to our open-aired and verdant haven on street 302, has been an adventure. In my mind’s eye, I see the business striding along in bold steps, motivated by our community’s enthusiasm and support, and I am the short-legged child being pulled along by the hand, running to keep up. I have no idea where we are going, but it must be somewhere important, and we seem to be in a terrible rush! The corners and turn-arounds take me by surprise, but the most exciting thing is all the people we meet on the way.
As of August 11, we will have been running along hand in hand for 4 years, and like a snowball down a mountain, we have been gathering people, support, resources and dimensions as we go. I have been ready to leave Cambodia for about two years now, and have had opportunities to do other things in other parts of the world, and god knows, my parents wouldn’t be sad to have me nearer for a while; but the studio wasn’t finished. My hand is losing circulation, my arm is about to pop out of its socket and my legs are wondering how much farther we still have to go, but I must say, I do enjoy the journey. I also feel, though, that things are about to change: a looming edge is in sight, as wide as the horizon, and we are running at it full tilt, preparing to launch ourselves over. We will discover over the next few months if we have wings or not.
Since its beginning, the studio’s stride has only been growing; starting with baby steps from class to class hoping to have enough students to cover the $400 a month rent; now a single stride takes up 30 classes a week, 3-5 teachers (or more like 10-15 if we include all the ones involved by email with plans or hopes to come), yoga therapy, community outreach and, increasingly, teacher training and professional development for promising young students. Yogis from all over the world come through, some of whom are quite influential teachers and studio directors, and all see something in this place that is true to the practice, but different from what they have in their own. They’ve got the white towels and ant-free practice rooms; and we may have a fish-paste pranayama, but we’ve also got the karma. I’ve seen it again and again: people come, they meet the amazing people that we work with, hearts open and these teachers leave with that splinter of Cambodia stuck firmly in place. And those who have the opportunity to work with our outreach groups leave a splinter of equal measure in the hearts of these young Cambodians, a whisper of the depths of the practice, glimpses at different ways of being in the world, a whole, empowered way of using one’s body and mind; and the conviction that anyone can make life into what they want it to be. There are people who believe in this place as a place of growth and transformation; and people believe that through yoga, we can touch people, and empower people to heal themselves and also heal others. People believe in the possibilities in Cambodia and the value of making them real.
And when you’ve got enough people believing in something, it has a good chance of becoming real. Here is where we take the leap.
Right now, we have lots of classes at the studio, and lots of clients; this is good. Sometimes we have more teachers than at other times, but we make do. But what we have in surplus is possible groups of Cambodians who want to start yoga classes and we’ve got quite a number of organizations that want to bring yoga classes to their own clients; with Vannac on his way back from Australia, we will have a certified Cambodian instructor who can take on groups of serious Khmer practitioners who don’t have enough English to be able to follow regular public classes, and who has enough experience in the business and initiative to take a serious managerial position. We also have 5 more young Cambodians with a serious commitment to their practice, who want to make it their life. All these young women come from disadvantaged backgrounds and will be in a position to share with others first-hand knowledge of what the practice can provide in a therapeutic capacity.
We also have relationships with yoga studios in at least 4 different countries (continents, actually) who want to help us out; and that number can be magnified significantly with a little planning. And we have individuals and teachers all over the globe who have heard about what we’re doing and applaud us. What I find when I go back to New York and meet with the people who have heard about our studio is how much will there is out there from people who believe in the practice of yoga, how many diverse skills and contacts they have and how much they want to share it all but don’t know how. When I sit down to these meetings with people I have never met, it’s like sitting under a waterfall of unformed intention: I walk onto the scene into an overflow of ideas, and after a few hours of dialogue, this amorphous river of intention congeals into specific resources and capacities that, when used in the right way, can have a huge effect on a lot of people. I then get to take these semi-crystallized resources home with me, and tinker and combine and shape and breathe life into them. We have had some great results: yoga classes for victims of trafficking, sponsored by a Taiwanese yoga studio with an interest in cultivating Karma yoga; assisted by a Swiss-American yoga teacher who specializes in kids yoga, especially with adolescent girls; combined with my contacts amongst yoga teacher trainers to get the serious ones amongst them certified so that they can go on to teach other young women with traumatic pasts. For example. Or yoga classes for orphans sponsored by American yogis with an interest in Cambodia, taught by Vannac, our Cambodian trainee who is now making a living off yoga, and working with other yoga teachers in other parts of the world who not only teach yoga but also work with kids, or are also counselors, or ESL teachers, to form our own school program, combining English classes, yoga classes and nutrition and health education, along with healthy and inexpensive recipes that they can take back to the orphanage with them. This is my favourite part of the job—being the sculptor of such wealthy materials.
Here’s the problem: I am now sitting in a house full of semi-crystallized intention with only two little hands, one of which is cramping in the iron grip of the yoga studio. I am desperately trying to pick up bits of wood and string with my other hand to hold it all together, but to have a fighting chance, I would have to let go of NataRaj. But, to drop a living, breathing institution with 300-odd active participants and several outreach projects for a ball of good intentions, is not something a responsible person can do. Especially when that living institution could be such an indispensable asset towards something bigger.
And this is where we come to the edge of the world, at the end of our 4 year romp, and this is where we close our eyes and gather our intentions and sculpt for our lives, and hope we can make a pair of wings from them that will keep us soaring.
Summary: we have people who want to give yoga, but they live far away; we have people who need yoga, and they are right here; we have people who want yoga so that they can give yoga, and they live here and they also need jobs. Let’s create an institution that acts as a hub: that receives from those who want to give and shapes these raw resources into something Cambodian, in a way that they can be passed from one body to a hundred and to a hundred more and a hundred more. I don’t want to think about business anymore; I want to think about a machine that flies, that runs on shared values of good health and empowerment; that sustains itself and perpetuates itself through the symbiosis of giving and receiving.
I am in the process of shaping a proposal to get the funds we need to spread our wings. Krama Yoga Cambodia is the name of our karma yoga project, and as soon as we get the tiny amount we need to cover our bases, I believe this caterpillar called NataRaj will discover a new body: a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing yoga and personal empowerment to Cambodia by providing training for up-and-coming teachers, funding for more outreach projects so that these new teachers can make a living teaching other Cambodians; as well as encompassing a smaller for-profit enterprise called NataRaj that continues to give yoga classes to the public, taught by certified Cambodian teachers and visiting teachers alike. We have the fund raisers, we have so many people who are experts in their field to help design projects and lead trainings, workshops and classes to the general public and our private clients; we have a growing base of motivated, talented and intelligent young Cambodians who will one day be able to run the show. We have all the pieces and all we need is the glue and nails, which I hope to find soon.
I will be leaving Cambodia soon and so the edge is approaching fast. One way or another, though, we’re going to make the leap; and my hand may be cramping and my shoes wearing thin, but I’ll be hanging on until I see us pick up and fly.
The whole process of building NataRaj from classes at Le Royal, to our little den on street 21, to our open-aired and verdant haven on street 302, has been an adventure. In my mind’s eye, I see the business striding along in bold steps, motivated by our community’s enthusiasm and support, and I am the short-legged child being pulled along by the hand, running to keep up. I have no idea where we are going, but it must be somewhere important, and we seem to be in a terrible rush! The corners and turn-arounds take me by surprise, but the most exciting thing is all the people we meet on the way.
As of August 11, we will have been running along hand in hand for 4 years, and like a snowball down a mountain, we have been gathering people, support, resources and dimensions as we go. I have been ready to leave Cambodia for about two years now, and have had opportunities to do other things in other parts of the world, and god knows, my parents wouldn’t be sad to have me nearer for a while; but the studio wasn’t finished. My hand is losing circulation, my arm is about to pop out of its socket and my legs are wondering how much farther we still have to go, but I must say, I do enjoy the journey. I also feel, though, that things are about to change: a looming edge is in sight, as wide as the horizon, and we are running at it full tilt, preparing to launch ourselves over. We will discover over the next few months if we have wings or not.
Since its beginning, the studio’s stride has only been growing; starting with baby steps from class to class hoping to have enough students to cover the $400 a month rent; now a single stride takes up 30 classes a week, 3-5 teachers (or more like 10-15 if we include all the ones involved by email with plans or hopes to come), yoga therapy, community outreach and, increasingly, teacher training and professional development for promising young students. Yogis from all over the world come through, some of whom are quite influential teachers and studio directors, and all see something in this place that is true to the practice, but different from what they have in their own. They’ve got the white towels and ant-free practice rooms; and we may have a fish-paste pranayama, but we’ve also got the karma. I’ve seen it again and again: people come, they meet the amazing people that we work with, hearts open and these teachers leave with that splinter of Cambodia stuck firmly in place. And those who have the opportunity to work with our outreach groups leave a splinter of equal measure in the hearts of these young Cambodians, a whisper of the depths of the practice, glimpses at different ways of being in the world, a whole, empowered way of using one’s body and mind; and the conviction that anyone can make life into what they want it to be. There are people who believe in this place as a place of growth and transformation; and people believe that through yoga, we can touch people, and empower people to heal themselves and also heal others. People believe in the possibilities in Cambodia and the value of making them real.
And when you’ve got enough people believing in something, it has a good chance of becoming real. Here is where we take the leap.
Right now, we have lots of classes at the studio, and lots of clients; this is good. Sometimes we have more teachers than at other times, but we make do. But what we have in surplus is possible groups of Cambodians who want to start yoga classes and we’ve got quite a number of organizations that want to bring yoga classes to their own clients; with Vannac on his way back from Australia, we will have a certified Cambodian instructor who can take on groups of serious Khmer practitioners who don’t have enough English to be able to follow regular public classes, and who has enough experience in the business and initiative to take a serious managerial position. We also have 5 more young Cambodians with a serious commitment to their practice, who want to make it their life. All these young women come from disadvantaged backgrounds and will be in a position to share with others first-hand knowledge of what the practice can provide in a therapeutic capacity.
We also have relationships with yoga studios in at least 4 different countries (continents, actually) who want to help us out; and that number can be magnified significantly with a little planning. And we have individuals and teachers all over the globe who have heard about what we’re doing and applaud us. What I find when I go back to New York and meet with the people who have heard about our studio is how much will there is out there from people who believe in the practice of yoga, how many diverse skills and contacts they have and how much they want to share it all but don’t know how. When I sit down to these meetings with people I have never met, it’s like sitting under a waterfall of unformed intention: I walk onto the scene into an overflow of ideas, and after a few hours of dialogue, this amorphous river of intention congeals into specific resources and capacities that, when used in the right way, can have a huge effect on a lot of people. I then get to take these semi-crystallized resources home with me, and tinker and combine and shape and breathe life into them. We have had some great results: yoga classes for victims of trafficking, sponsored by a Taiwanese yoga studio with an interest in cultivating Karma yoga; assisted by a Swiss-American yoga teacher who specializes in kids yoga, especially with adolescent girls; combined with my contacts amongst yoga teacher trainers to get the serious ones amongst them certified so that they can go on to teach other young women with traumatic pasts. For example. Or yoga classes for orphans sponsored by American yogis with an interest in Cambodia, taught by Vannac, our Cambodian trainee who is now making a living off yoga, and working with other yoga teachers in other parts of the world who not only teach yoga but also work with kids, or are also counselors, or ESL teachers, to form our own school program, combining English classes, yoga classes and nutrition and health education, along with healthy and inexpensive recipes that they can take back to the orphanage with them. This is my favourite part of the job—being the sculptor of such wealthy materials.
Here’s the problem: I am now sitting in a house full of semi-crystallized intention with only two little hands, one of which is cramping in the iron grip of the yoga studio. I am desperately trying to pick up bits of wood and string with my other hand to hold it all together, but to have a fighting chance, I would have to let go of NataRaj. But, to drop a living, breathing institution with 300-odd active participants and several outreach projects for a ball of good intentions, is not something a responsible person can do. Especially when that living institution could be such an indispensable asset towards something bigger.
And this is where we come to the edge of the world, at the end of our 4 year romp, and this is where we close our eyes and gather our intentions and sculpt for our lives, and hope we can make a pair of wings from them that will keep us soaring.
Summary: we have people who want to give yoga, but they live far away; we have people who need yoga, and they are right here; we have people who want yoga so that they can give yoga, and they live here and they also need jobs. Let’s create an institution that acts as a hub: that receives from those who want to give and shapes these raw resources into something Cambodian, in a way that they can be passed from one body to a hundred and to a hundred more and a hundred more. I don’t want to think about business anymore; I want to think about a machine that flies, that runs on shared values of good health and empowerment; that sustains itself and perpetuates itself through the symbiosis of giving and receiving.
I am in the process of shaping a proposal to get the funds we need to spread our wings. Krama Yoga Cambodia is the name of our karma yoga project, and as soon as we get the tiny amount we need to cover our bases, I believe this caterpillar called NataRaj will discover a new body: a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing yoga and personal empowerment to Cambodia by providing training for up-and-coming teachers, funding for more outreach projects so that these new teachers can make a living teaching other Cambodians; as well as encompassing a smaller for-profit enterprise called NataRaj that continues to give yoga classes to the public, taught by certified Cambodian teachers and visiting teachers alike. We have the fund raisers, we have so many people who are experts in their field to help design projects and lead trainings, workshops and classes to the general public and our private clients; we have a growing base of motivated, talented and intelligent young Cambodians who will one day be able to run the show. We have all the pieces and all we need is the glue and nails, which I hope to find soon.
I will be leaving Cambodia soon and so the edge is approaching fast. One way or another, though, we’re going to make the leap; and my hand may be cramping and my shoes wearing thin, but I’ll be hanging on until I see us pick up and fly.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
From Vannac
Dear all,
I am very happy with my teacher training course and living in Australia. My yoga is improving so much: the Asana, Pranayama, meditation, philosophy and the yogic lifestyle. This course makes me understand more and more about practicing yoga. These are some of the things I am learning about:
- Asana = use of the body in the correct positions/alignment
- Pranayama = use the breath to calm body and helps me hold the position longer than before
- meditation = makes me more aware of my breath and enables me to scan my body
- philiosophy = helping me understand more and more about the background of studying yoga and I have realised many comparisons between yogic philosophy and Buddhism.
The yogic lifestyle has made me understand about the meaning of the eight limbs of practice.
For my living, I am very happy to be living here, because everyone takes care of me like my family. Isabelle arranged everything for my living and Sophie is very helpful in helping me study the English texts which are very difficult and we discuss our lessons together.
Nicky and James are very nice teachers. They always ask me what I need and they want to help me all the time. We live with Priska who has been very kind to me and has given me a very comfortable place to live.
Thank you all for helping me financially and for all of your encouragement.
Namaste
Vannac Yan
I am very happy with my teacher training course and living in Australia. My yoga is improving so much: the Asana, Pranayama, meditation, philosophy and the yogic lifestyle. This course makes me understand more and more about practicing yoga. These are some of the things I am learning about:
- Asana = use of the body in the correct positions/alignment
- Pranayama = use the breath to calm body and helps me hold the position longer than before
- meditation = makes me more aware of my breath and enables me to scan my body
- philiosophy = helping me understand more and more about the background of studying yoga and I have realised many comparisons between yogic philosophy and Buddhism.
The yogic lifestyle has made me understand about the meaning of the eight limbs of practice.
For my living, I am very happy to be living here, because everyone takes care of me like my family. Isabelle arranged everything for my living and Sophie is very helpful in helping me study the English texts which are very difficult and we discuss our lessons together.
Nicky and James are very nice teachers. They always ask me what I need and they want to help me all the time. We live with Priska who has been very kind to me and has given me a very comfortable place to live.
Thank you all for helping me financially and for all of your encouragement.
Namaste
Vannac Yan
Smile!
I’m reading a book called Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, by Gary Marcus, and came upon an idea that is quite relevant to our yoga practice. The premise of the book is that the mind is actually not quite as slick and coherent as we think it is, and he draws upon research and experimentation in the areas of cognitive psychology, as well as familiar anecdotes about personal behaviour that we can all relate to, to illustrate how piece-meal our consciousness actually is, how unreliable our memory and inference, how clumsily designed our cognitive capabilities, and how personally and contextually driven our notions of “objective” actually are. A correlate to his arguments, though, is how much we can influence our own state of mind by affecting our own body in strategic ways, to lead us to greater levels of happiness and productivity.
Chapter Two is on formulating beliefs, and although we might try our very hardest to articulate an objective understanding of a state of affairs or issue a level-headed response to a question, there are certain reflexes of the mind that all but annihilate the possibility of an unbiased belief. There are several modes of what Marcus calls “mental contamination” that arise from our susceptibility to environmental queues and personal interest. There is one in particular that I would like to share, because I see in it a positive application.
According to Marcus, we form beliefs based on stored memories, a capacity to infer new information from old, and perceptions; and none of these work in such a straight-forward way as to form an objective piece of information about how the world works. One set of experiments he names have to do with the effect of the physical position of the body on our opinions. They are quite fun.
In brief: two groups were asked to watch cartoons while holding a pen in their mouth. The first group is told to not let their lips touch the pen, while the second group is told to purse their lips around the pen. When the groups were asked to rate their general level of enjoyment of the cartoons, the ones who did not touch the pen with their lips averaged a higher level of enjoyment than the ones with pursed lips. The conclusion was that the position of the face that must be maintained to keep the lips off a pen, is upturned lips drawn back at the sides—like a smile. When the face smiles, it is because there is something good going on; so people’s actual memory, and thus belief about their cartoon watching experience was influenced by the position of the body. Can we say they misinterpreted their own enjoyment, or that their belief about their own experience was faulty? Or is it that there are many factors that come into play when formulating a belief, some of which have to do with the subject matter at hand, and some have to do with the state of the body?
Marcus sites another experiment, equally simple, about how the position of the body and one’s opinions. People are given a list of celebrity names and they are asked to put the names in a chart of like, dislike and neutral. They are asked to write the names with their non-dominant hand, while the hand they usually write with is placed in one of two ways relative to the table. Either, their dominant hand is placed palm down on the top of the table, pressing downwards; or palm up on the bottom of the table, pressing upwards. Results revealed that those pressing the palm up listed more names in the Like column, and those with palms down listed more Dislikes. As holding the palm up is a gesture of openness and approachability, it puts people in a kinder frame of mind; palms down is a closed position more defensive in nature, and increases the likelihood of casting negative opinions.
These are fun little experiments, and they are relevant to how we take our asana, and also illustrate a deeper benefit to the practice. Relative to the actual asana practice, we know now that if you are in a difficult pose—smile! You’ll like it better! If you are in Corpse Pose, turn your palms up, stay open and you’ll be more likely to enjoy that blissful relaxation that follows a practice. If you are scrunched up and tense in Dolphin Pose or Revolved Triangle, you are creating a negative mindset for yourself, which in turn makes you scrunch up and resist yourself even more, not to mention hate the pose or think you can’t do it. If you find a way to relax some part of your body that is typical of positive emotion, your mind will take the queue: breathe deeply, relax the neck and eyes, open the hands; according to the conclusions reached in this research, these minor adjustments should help you to form more positive memories of the pose and the muscle groups you are starting to use, as well as the effort it takes to get into it. You will feel the challenges of the practice as something that brings pleasure, not something you must brace yourself against.
Secondly, if our opinions are affected so noticeably by such minor things as open or pursed lips, palms up or down, imagine how affected we are in our daily lives by much more dramatic habits of posture. Many of us go through our day with pain, often in the spine, knees or hips. Many of us have perpetually tense shoulders and chests rounded defensively inward; or weak abdominals that don’t support our spine, making it harder to balance and less in control of our own movements. These physical queues are constantly informing our mental selves that there is a threat in the environment, that we are not safe, or at the mercy of external forces instead of engaged participants. This will effect not just our moods, but our very experience of the “objective” world that we perceive, interpret and draw inferences from. By learning to pay attention to what our body is telling us, and gaining skills to create a body that is balanced, centered, upright and open, we are in a very direct way making ourselves happier.
Marcus, G. (2008). Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Chapter Two is on formulating beliefs, and although we might try our very hardest to articulate an objective understanding of a state of affairs or issue a level-headed response to a question, there are certain reflexes of the mind that all but annihilate the possibility of an unbiased belief. There are several modes of what Marcus calls “mental contamination” that arise from our susceptibility to environmental queues and personal interest. There is one in particular that I would like to share, because I see in it a positive application.
According to Marcus, we form beliefs based on stored memories, a capacity to infer new information from old, and perceptions; and none of these work in such a straight-forward way as to form an objective piece of information about how the world works. One set of experiments he names have to do with the effect of the physical position of the body on our opinions. They are quite fun.
In brief: two groups were asked to watch cartoons while holding a pen in their mouth. The first group is told to not let their lips touch the pen, while the second group is told to purse their lips around the pen. When the groups were asked to rate their general level of enjoyment of the cartoons, the ones who did not touch the pen with their lips averaged a higher level of enjoyment than the ones with pursed lips. The conclusion was that the position of the face that must be maintained to keep the lips off a pen, is upturned lips drawn back at the sides—like a smile. When the face smiles, it is because there is something good going on; so people’s actual memory, and thus belief about their cartoon watching experience was influenced by the position of the body. Can we say they misinterpreted their own enjoyment, or that their belief about their own experience was faulty? Or is it that there are many factors that come into play when formulating a belief, some of which have to do with the subject matter at hand, and some have to do with the state of the body?
Marcus sites another experiment, equally simple, about how the position of the body and one’s opinions. People are given a list of celebrity names and they are asked to put the names in a chart of like, dislike and neutral. They are asked to write the names with their non-dominant hand, while the hand they usually write with is placed in one of two ways relative to the table. Either, their dominant hand is placed palm down on the top of the table, pressing downwards; or palm up on the bottom of the table, pressing upwards. Results revealed that those pressing the palm up listed more names in the Like column, and those with palms down listed more Dislikes. As holding the palm up is a gesture of openness and approachability, it puts people in a kinder frame of mind; palms down is a closed position more defensive in nature, and increases the likelihood of casting negative opinions.
These are fun little experiments, and they are relevant to how we take our asana, and also illustrate a deeper benefit to the practice. Relative to the actual asana practice, we know now that if you are in a difficult pose—smile! You’ll like it better! If you are in Corpse Pose, turn your palms up, stay open and you’ll be more likely to enjoy that blissful relaxation that follows a practice. If you are scrunched up and tense in Dolphin Pose or Revolved Triangle, you are creating a negative mindset for yourself, which in turn makes you scrunch up and resist yourself even more, not to mention hate the pose or think you can’t do it. If you find a way to relax some part of your body that is typical of positive emotion, your mind will take the queue: breathe deeply, relax the neck and eyes, open the hands; according to the conclusions reached in this research, these minor adjustments should help you to form more positive memories of the pose and the muscle groups you are starting to use, as well as the effort it takes to get into it. You will feel the challenges of the practice as something that brings pleasure, not something you must brace yourself against.
Secondly, if our opinions are affected so noticeably by such minor things as open or pursed lips, palms up or down, imagine how affected we are in our daily lives by much more dramatic habits of posture. Many of us go through our day with pain, often in the spine, knees or hips. Many of us have perpetually tense shoulders and chests rounded defensively inward; or weak abdominals that don’t support our spine, making it harder to balance and less in control of our own movements. These physical queues are constantly informing our mental selves that there is a threat in the environment, that we are not safe, or at the mercy of external forces instead of engaged participants. This will effect not just our moods, but our very experience of the “objective” world that we perceive, interpret and draw inferences from. By learning to pay attention to what our body is telling us, and gaining skills to create a body that is balanced, centered, upright and open, we are in a very direct way making ourselves happier.
Marcus, G. (2008). Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Poem--Mary Oliver
A Dream of Trees
There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.
There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.
I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?
Mary Oliver
There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.
There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.
I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?
Mary Oliver
Monday, July 21, 2008
Eating Habits: Response to Comments
Oh dear: I have just read the comments posted for the entry on Eating Habits. I had been hoping people would start participating in a dialogue around this blog—I have received some kind responses in personal emails to me, but maybe it takes a different sort of sentiment to motivate one to stand up in a public forum. Either way, I do believe that all voices should be heard, and I greet each of yours with gratitude.
What was shared has given me much to think about and write about, and I thank you all for illuminating some issues that I might focus my practice on. Some of you said things that are mean, but many of you said thoughtful and well-articulated ideas that I take to heart.
I will write this next entry on how I feel about my body and why I have chosen yoga as a way of life, not just to practice but to teach; and not just to teach, but as a set of values in honour of the body and the selves they create, that I have deemed important enough to dedicate my time and resources to building an institution and a community around.
First of all, though, we are talking in cyberspace—I know none of you personally; or if I do, your identities are disguised to me—so let me begin by introducing to you my body so that we may remember that despite the computer interface, we are speaking amongst humans.
I am 5’11 and weigh anywhere between 71 and 75 kilos, depending on my levels of stress. I am not of slender build, and have a body that I consider heavier than what one expects of a yoga teacher. I am also gay, many would call me butch and I am often mistaken for a man. Being mistaken for a man is no longer affronting to me; what has been a much greater challenge has been living in a woman’s body and being treated in a way that does not correspond to who I feel myself to be. In short, my body has caused me much anxiety in my life, and while not the whole reason, it is a significant part of why I take yoga so seriously. [And yes, I anticipate given the previous responses, that these confessions will also be taken as offensive to people with similar insecurities. Fire away, and maybe we can make some headway together.]
I am quite a shy person, and get very nervous standing in front of people; when I teach, I put people in a meditative or restorative pose if I am going to go on for any length of time because it freaks me out to be watched as I speak. When I am, I shake and hope nobody notices. And yet I stand there, sometimes up to twenty times a week including private sessions (which are considerably less scary), in little shorts and tight tops so that people can see my body so that they might better understand theirs. When I began teaching, I assured myself that it was comforting for people to see someone without a Vata body-type who was still healthy, fit and maintained a serious practice. I am interested to hear from other yoga teachers who feel that there is an expectation to have a tight ass and six-pack in order to call yourself an authority on the practice; and who prefer instead to demonstrate a standard of health that clashes with social standards of beauty.
And yet, despite my anxieties and the pressures I take on based on social expectations, I value this body. I spend many hours a day being overtly looked at, and many more hours where I am not on stage but just by virtue of who I am and how I dress and look, fall short of what is a social ideal and often what is socially accepted. I cannot change my body type or my sexual orientation; I will not change my gender; and I refuse to shackle myself with insecurities. There is only one solution then, and that is learning to love the material that makes me who I am so that I can proceed in my life motivated by what I believe in, and not what I am afraid of. This doesn't mean attacking those that make me uncomfortable, but regarding my defensiveness as insecurities, and resolving them within myself.
The practice of yoga is my way of living on the inside of my body and looking from here to the outside, instead of standing in a sea of opinions and emotions, looking back at what I am through the waves. From the outside, the idea of my body may make me uncomfortable, but from the inside it is healthy, it is strong, it is kind, creative and competent; I love it, I move it, and it feels like me. The practice of living from the inside out is a lifelong commitment that requires constant attention, and it is my pleasure and my responsibility to maintain.
My practice is also about clearing paths of awareness through layers of impressions, tendencies and expectations that otherwise steer my thoughts into inauthentic manifestations. I believe consciousness begins in the body as emotions; we have the choice to recognize those emotions and desires for what they are and grant them honest expression; but through our lifetime, we layer grids and cutouts over the body so that an intention has to travel a long and obscured path through anxieties, norms, aversions, defenses, back over itself and around, distorting the beauty of its initial impulse, rendering it something that is socially acceptable and safe to pronounce, but has the effect of silencing our true intention. My practice is being unafraid to articulate what is inside, whilst maintaining the openness to see what comes out so that I may cherish it, heal it, dig deeper with it, or articulate it better. This is honesty; crafting sentences and identity that will put other people at ease, is not. This is my own practice.
As a yoga teacher, my practice is different; it is putting my self to the side and creating a space and an energy that invites people to discover the vocabulary of their own bodies and minds. I use words in my classes in attempt to bring people’s awareness to parts of themselves that they may not feel comfortable exploring on their own, or wouldn’t have known was there to explore; and I invite those parts to voice themselves so that they may be heard and either owned or healed. I do not create an easy, comfortable space; I create a space that challenges people to look into themselves so that they may see what is there, so that they may observe their own reactions to certain ideas or movements and gather insight into their own defenses. I read the angry comments that have been posted as expressions of anxiety, and embrace them as opportunities to learn—I learn about myself based on my reaction to you, I learn about you and how you have chosen to present yourself; and hopefully you learn about yourself by seeing your words in context and being open enough to think of how they sound from the outside, and to the minds that receive them. I see between ourselves a place to practice.
I do not take offense at what you have said and accept or reject your claims with equal humility, but I will take a firm stand at the doors of our yoga studio and refute any suggestion that the yoga space I am responsible for is anything less than sacred. Every body who enters the studio, I greet with love and openness—overweight people, underweight people, happy people, stiff people, bendy people, people who smell like cigarettes or alcohol or perfume, noisy people, sexual people, reserved people, suspicious people, chatty people, nervous people. Our yoga space is not a place for egos to develop, is it a place of humility and hard work, and trust is the most important element in maintaining that space. As a teacher, I cannot do what I do if that space is not real. To indulge my own ego and give any credence at all to the possibility of my own judgments in this space is to sabotage my own project and deny my own values. And, if my intentions are not genuine, then all the hallmark philosophy about love and kindness that can be presented in bite-sized catchphrases and dotted through the practice, will not convince the bodies that enter this space that they are safe. For me to be self-indulgent in this shared space is to close off my ability to see, and to contaminate the very openings that I encourage people to receive and inhabit.
To some people, a yoga teacher is someone who teaches exercise class; there are those of us who see yoga as something quite different and I take my responsibilities to lead a clean and non-violent life very seriously, for my own sake and that of my students. I invite anyone who has felt undermined in my classes or at my studio to address me in person, so that your discomfort may be resolved through mutually honest and courageous dialogue.
I have had much to apologize for in my past, and, as a writer, an adventurer and an honest yogi, I will certainly be called upon to apologize in the future. Saorla, you read something in my entry that I did not intend, you have inferred an opinion that I cannot own, and you have all painted me in colours to match these opinions and judgments that I don’t recognize as mine. But, it is true that I chose the words I did, regardless of the meanings you have given them; I put these words in public and that leaves me vulnerable to the will of my readers such as yourselves. I can only accept responsibility for what my words have become, and so for manifesting in this blog such dark and shrunken opinions, I apologize.
What was shared has given me much to think about and write about, and I thank you all for illuminating some issues that I might focus my practice on. Some of you said things that are mean, but many of you said thoughtful and well-articulated ideas that I take to heart.
I will write this next entry on how I feel about my body and why I have chosen yoga as a way of life, not just to practice but to teach; and not just to teach, but as a set of values in honour of the body and the selves they create, that I have deemed important enough to dedicate my time and resources to building an institution and a community around.
First of all, though, we are talking in cyberspace—I know none of you personally; or if I do, your identities are disguised to me—so let me begin by introducing to you my body so that we may remember that despite the computer interface, we are speaking amongst humans.
I am 5’11 and weigh anywhere between 71 and 75 kilos, depending on my levels of stress. I am not of slender build, and have a body that I consider heavier than what one expects of a yoga teacher. I am also gay, many would call me butch and I am often mistaken for a man. Being mistaken for a man is no longer affronting to me; what has been a much greater challenge has been living in a woman’s body and being treated in a way that does not correspond to who I feel myself to be. In short, my body has caused me much anxiety in my life, and while not the whole reason, it is a significant part of why I take yoga so seriously. [And yes, I anticipate given the previous responses, that these confessions will also be taken as offensive to people with similar insecurities. Fire away, and maybe we can make some headway together.]
I am quite a shy person, and get very nervous standing in front of people; when I teach, I put people in a meditative or restorative pose if I am going to go on for any length of time because it freaks me out to be watched as I speak. When I am, I shake and hope nobody notices. And yet I stand there, sometimes up to twenty times a week including private sessions (which are considerably less scary), in little shorts and tight tops so that people can see my body so that they might better understand theirs. When I began teaching, I assured myself that it was comforting for people to see someone without a Vata body-type who was still healthy, fit and maintained a serious practice. I am interested to hear from other yoga teachers who feel that there is an expectation to have a tight ass and six-pack in order to call yourself an authority on the practice; and who prefer instead to demonstrate a standard of health that clashes with social standards of beauty.
And yet, despite my anxieties and the pressures I take on based on social expectations, I value this body. I spend many hours a day being overtly looked at, and many more hours where I am not on stage but just by virtue of who I am and how I dress and look, fall short of what is a social ideal and often what is socially accepted. I cannot change my body type or my sexual orientation; I will not change my gender; and I refuse to shackle myself with insecurities. There is only one solution then, and that is learning to love the material that makes me who I am so that I can proceed in my life motivated by what I believe in, and not what I am afraid of. This doesn't mean attacking those that make me uncomfortable, but regarding my defensiveness as insecurities, and resolving them within myself.
The practice of yoga is my way of living on the inside of my body and looking from here to the outside, instead of standing in a sea of opinions and emotions, looking back at what I am through the waves. From the outside, the idea of my body may make me uncomfortable, but from the inside it is healthy, it is strong, it is kind, creative and competent; I love it, I move it, and it feels like me. The practice of living from the inside out is a lifelong commitment that requires constant attention, and it is my pleasure and my responsibility to maintain.
My practice is also about clearing paths of awareness through layers of impressions, tendencies and expectations that otherwise steer my thoughts into inauthentic manifestations. I believe consciousness begins in the body as emotions; we have the choice to recognize those emotions and desires for what they are and grant them honest expression; but through our lifetime, we layer grids and cutouts over the body so that an intention has to travel a long and obscured path through anxieties, norms, aversions, defenses, back over itself and around, distorting the beauty of its initial impulse, rendering it something that is socially acceptable and safe to pronounce, but has the effect of silencing our true intention. My practice is being unafraid to articulate what is inside, whilst maintaining the openness to see what comes out so that I may cherish it, heal it, dig deeper with it, or articulate it better. This is honesty; crafting sentences and identity that will put other people at ease, is not. This is my own practice.
As a yoga teacher, my practice is different; it is putting my self to the side and creating a space and an energy that invites people to discover the vocabulary of their own bodies and minds. I use words in my classes in attempt to bring people’s awareness to parts of themselves that they may not feel comfortable exploring on their own, or wouldn’t have known was there to explore; and I invite those parts to voice themselves so that they may be heard and either owned or healed. I do not create an easy, comfortable space; I create a space that challenges people to look into themselves so that they may see what is there, so that they may observe their own reactions to certain ideas or movements and gather insight into their own defenses. I read the angry comments that have been posted as expressions of anxiety, and embrace them as opportunities to learn—I learn about myself based on my reaction to you, I learn about you and how you have chosen to present yourself; and hopefully you learn about yourself by seeing your words in context and being open enough to think of how they sound from the outside, and to the minds that receive them. I see between ourselves a place to practice.
I do not take offense at what you have said and accept or reject your claims with equal humility, but I will take a firm stand at the doors of our yoga studio and refute any suggestion that the yoga space I am responsible for is anything less than sacred. Every body who enters the studio, I greet with love and openness—overweight people, underweight people, happy people, stiff people, bendy people, people who smell like cigarettes or alcohol or perfume, noisy people, sexual people, reserved people, suspicious people, chatty people, nervous people. Our yoga space is not a place for egos to develop, is it a place of humility and hard work, and trust is the most important element in maintaining that space. As a teacher, I cannot do what I do if that space is not real. To indulge my own ego and give any credence at all to the possibility of my own judgments in this space is to sabotage my own project and deny my own values. And, if my intentions are not genuine, then all the hallmark philosophy about love and kindness that can be presented in bite-sized catchphrases and dotted through the practice, will not convince the bodies that enter this space that they are safe. For me to be self-indulgent in this shared space is to close off my ability to see, and to contaminate the very openings that I encourage people to receive and inhabit.
To some people, a yoga teacher is someone who teaches exercise class; there are those of us who see yoga as something quite different and I take my responsibilities to lead a clean and non-violent life very seriously, for my own sake and that of my students. I invite anyone who has felt undermined in my classes or at my studio to address me in person, so that your discomfort may be resolved through mutually honest and courageous dialogue.
I have had much to apologize for in my past, and, as a writer, an adventurer and an honest yogi, I will certainly be called upon to apologize in the future. Saorla, you read something in my entry that I did not intend, you have inferred an opinion that I cannot own, and you have all painted me in colours to match these opinions and judgments that I don’t recognize as mine. But, it is true that I chose the words I did, regardless of the meanings you have given them; I put these words in public and that leaves me vulnerable to the will of my readers such as yourselves. I can only accept responsibility for what my words have become, and so for manifesting in this blog such dark and shrunken opinions, I apologize.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Vannac at the Esplanade
When they get back, Sophie and Vannac are going to know more about yoga and the body than I do.
Vannac, actually, had his first lesson in bodies on the day he arrived in Cairns. When I was here two years ago and first started thinking about ways to get Vannac certified, I remember going down the Esplanade, the grassy strip beside the sea, and seeing the ocean of mostly-naked sunbathing backpackers as the most glaring clash of cultural values that a Cambodian would face. I wish that I had been with Vannac when he went out to explore on that first morning; but I did have the pleasure of hearing about it, several times, in fact.
After a morning with the neighbour’s unsecured wireless connection, I shut my computer and asked Vannac if he’d care to join me for a walk and some neighborhood reconnaissance. He was in his room and said he’d been out already and wanted to rest, so I went out alone. Later that afternoon, I again invited him to leave the premises, and again, he said he’d rather not. We all spent most of the first few days sleeping, so it wasn’t surprising that he was still taking it easy.
That evening, though, as we bumbled around the kitchen preparing our respective evening meals, Vannac broke the comfortable silence between us and mentioned in an unassuming voice that he had gone down to the sea today and walked along the grass. I was pleased that he has gone out by himself, and asked him what he thought. He looked down and grew that apologetic smile, and said “yes, it very nice.”
Without quite catching my eyes, he continued, carefully picking his words as if to keep the reality of what he was saying at bay.
“I walk all the way down.” Did he wonder if I knew what was coming? I nodded, naïvely.
“I see many people. They lie on the grass.” He looked to the side, as if he were trying to figure something out. “Many people, they have no clothes on; the girl they take off their shirt and wear only…” and he drew with his hands on his body, unsure if his words could actually communicate this, “they wear just bra and underwear.”
Ah, yes. He looked at me, pleadingly. I smiled, composed, maintaining his trust so that I would get all the details.
“Those are backpackers, Vannac. That’s what they like to do, lie in the sun to get suntanned.”
“In Cambodia, they think crazy. They would never do like that. I think I tell my family and they do not believe me.”
“Yeah, people have different ideas about bodies. Here, they feel safe enough and free enough to do pretty much whatever they want with their bodies, men and women.”
He was still slightly mesmerized by the mental image.
“I try to take picture,” he revealed, with utter innocence, “but the police came and say that I cannot.” The police? I put down the carrot I was grating and turned to him. This time I was less successful at maintaining composure.
“The police, Vannac?” I tried to keep my eyes in my head and my laughter if not disguised, at least subdued. I failed.
And this is where his story became slightly less linear, although a narrative came together after a few repetitions, first to Priska and then to Sophie, and then to anyone else who came in the house to visit.
“I took picture of the people who lay down on the grass to get the sunshine. I see a group of Japanese people come to take a photo but they walk very fast, they just move and they take. So I try to follow, but I not move so fast. I don’t know, I just stand there and I take and then I stay there. And the police, they came over. They wanted me to show them the picture that I took. They tell to me that you cannot take picture of the lady or the children and they asked me to delete just one. The rest okay, but they asked me to delete one picture.”
When Priska heard this, (“Hey, Priska, guess what Vannac got up to today! Tell her Vannac!”) she roared with laughter at the idea of our innocent Cambodian perving on backpackers, dazzled by oceans of thighs and rolling expanses of breasts. It is unclear how the police came over, and it sounded from certain tellings that one of his models got up and objected, but, as this dissenter only made one appearance in countless recitations, it is hard to say if he misspoke, or if he was so mortified that he decided to edit her from the final version.
Good ol’ Vannac for getting in trouble with the police on his first day in Cairns! We are all proud. We got great pleasure imagining the dialogue that would have taken place between the police officers and Vannac, our man’s English getting a little rusty when he’s nervous, but always retaining a calm, respectful and innocent demeanor. He would have raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders and put his hand to him mouth, and said “oh, I am so sorry, I did not know, I never see like this before.” I wonder if he would have appealed to Cambodia to explain his behaviour, or if he decided to just swallow it himself. He would have willingly handed over his phone and shown them anything they asked for and apologized again and again; in fact, he probably would have quite endeared himself to the security guards and stroked their authority in quite the right way. I wonder if he thought he’s be asked for a bribe.
The three of us went back to the Esplanade last weekend to have a snack by the public pool. Vannac, now an old hand at all things bizarre and confronting, marched in undaunted. We found an unused patch of shade and ventured to sit down for our picnic, but Vannac got that glazed look and awkward smile again, and couldn’t quite get himself to sit down. We looked over and saw a small herd of bikini clad girls lying on towels, buns up, just beside us.
“Does it make you uncomfortable, Vannac?”
“No, it’s okay.” Pause. “But, I cannot eat here. Maybe we go to eat over there.”
Indeed, and I must say that my years in Asia would also have me eating somewhere a little more subdued. So off we went to a distant patch of grass under a tree, and he pointed out the Japanese tourists who walked speedily through the crowds with their tiny cameras held waist high, snapping shots with stealth.
“Oh, they don’t believe me when I tell them. My family say I’m crazy.”
Vannac, actually, had his first lesson in bodies on the day he arrived in Cairns. When I was here two years ago and first started thinking about ways to get Vannac certified, I remember going down the Esplanade, the grassy strip beside the sea, and seeing the ocean of mostly-naked sunbathing backpackers as the most glaring clash of cultural values that a Cambodian would face. I wish that I had been with Vannac when he went out to explore on that first morning; but I did have the pleasure of hearing about it, several times, in fact.
After a morning with the neighbour’s unsecured wireless connection, I shut my computer and asked Vannac if he’d care to join me for a walk and some neighborhood reconnaissance. He was in his room and said he’d been out already and wanted to rest, so I went out alone. Later that afternoon, I again invited him to leave the premises, and again, he said he’d rather not. We all spent most of the first few days sleeping, so it wasn’t surprising that he was still taking it easy.
That evening, though, as we bumbled around the kitchen preparing our respective evening meals, Vannac broke the comfortable silence between us and mentioned in an unassuming voice that he had gone down to the sea today and walked along the grass. I was pleased that he has gone out by himself, and asked him what he thought. He looked down and grew that apologetic smile, and said “yes, it very nice.”
Without quite catching my eyes, he continued, carefully picking his words as if to keep the reality of what he was saying at bay.
“I walk all the way down.” Did he wonder if I knew what was coming? I nodded, naïvely.
“I see many people. They lie on the grass.” He looked to the side, as if he were trying to figure something out. “Many people, they have no clothes on; the girl they take off their shirt and wear only…” and he drew with his hands on his body, unsure if his words could actually communicate this, “they wear just bra and underwear.”
Ah, yes. He looked at me, pleadingly. I smiled, composed, maintaining his trust so that I would get all the details.
“Those are backpackers, Vannac. That’s what they like to do, lie in the sun to get suntanned.”
“In Cambodia, they think crazy. They would never do like that. I think I tell my family and they do not believe me.”
“Yeah, people have different ideas about bodies. Here, they feel safe enough and free enough to do pretty much whatever they want with their bodies, men and women.”
He was still slightly mesmerized by the mental image.
“I try to take picture,” he revealed, with utter innocence, “but the police came and say that I cannot.” The police? I put down the carrot I was grating and turned to him. This time I was less successful at maintaining composure.
“The police, Vannac?” I tried to keep my eyes in my head and my laughter if not disguised, at least subdued. I failed.
And this is where his story became slightly less linear, although a narrative came together after a few repetitions, first to Priska and then to Sophie, and then to anyone else who came in the house to visit.
“I took picture of the people who lay down on the grass to get the sunshine. I see a group of Japanese people come to take a photo but they walk very fast, they just move and they take. So I try to follow, but I not move so fast. I don’t know, I just stand there and I take and then I stay there. And the police, they came over. They wanted me to show them the picture that I took. They tell to me that you cannot take picture of the lady or the children and they asked me to delete just one. The rest okay, but they asked me to delete one picture.”
When Priska heard this, (“Hey, Priska, guess what Vannac got up to today! Tell her Vannac!”) she roared with laughter at the idea of our innocent Cambodian perving on backpackers, dazzled by oceans of thighs and rolling expanses of breasts. It is unclear how the police came over, and it sounded from certain tellings that one of his models got up and objected, but, as this dissenter only made one appearance in countless recitations, it is hard to say if he misspoke, or if he was so mortified that he decided to edit her from the final version.
Good ol’ Vannac for getting in trouble with the police on his first day in Cairns! We are all proud. We got great pleasure imagining the dialogue that would have taken place between the police officers and Vannac, our man’s English getting a little rusty when he’s nervous, but always retaining a calm, respectful and innocent demeanor. He would have raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders and put his hand to him mouth, and said “oh, I am so sorry, I did not know, I never see like this before.” I wonder if he would have appealed to Cambodia to explain his behaviour, or if he decided to just swallow it himself. He would have willingly handed over his phone and shown them anything they asked for and apologized again and again; in fact, he probably would have quite endeared himself to the security guards and stroked their authority in quite the right way. I wonder if he thought he’s be asked for a bribe.
The three of us went back to the Esplanade last weekend to have a snack by the public pool. Vannac, now an old hand at all things bizarre and confronting, marched in undaunted. We found an unused patch of shade and ventured to sit down for our picnic, but Vannac got that glazed look and awkward smile again, and couldn’t quite get himself to sit down. We looked over and saw a small herd of bikini clad girls lying on towels, buns up, just beside us.
“Does it make you uncomfortable, Vannac?”
“No, it’s okay.” Pause. “But, I cannot eat here. Maybe we go to eat over there.”
Indeed, and I must say that my years in Asia would also have me eating somewhere a little more subdued. So off we went to a distant patch of grass under a tree, and he pointed out the Japanese tourists who walked speedily through the crowds with their tiny cameras held waist high, snapping shots with stealth.
“Oh, they don’t believe me when I tell them. My family say I’m crazy.”
Thursday, July 10, 2008
What I Love About Yoga
It feels great to be back in the practice; heading out to the studio each morning in the dark and setting up in the corner to do my own practice while the group of 16 teacher trainees do their thing with Nicky. Even though I’m not receiving any instruction, just being around people helps to focus, and I am kept entertained by Nicky’s snide remarks to her students and their echoing groans and pants while I happily laze through some backbends at my own pace.
The course has only been on for four days and I had a day of (exhausted, jet-lagged, frozen, failed) self-practice before, and I am amazed at how quickly the body recovers when you give it half a chance. A little less sugar, a few more carrots and all of a sudden I can touch my toes again. By the same token, whenever I get off my practice and bogged down under the heap of classes and admin that is NataRaj, I am invariably surprised at how much torture the body can endure—little sleep, too much coffee, chocolate, wine and stress. You feel the toxins accumulating and they just keep building long after the yoga-alarms start sounding, but the body plugs along. I feel sorry for these bodies, like horses who are made to pull loads that are too heavy or run on broken tendons. We do such terrible things to them but they carry on anyway, and they never stop giving to these authoritarian egos until they are forced to give in by sickness or injury.
But then we come to Nicky and she sets us right. Nicky is a pretty right-brained person, a little spacey at times, but fiercely knowledgeable about the practice with a deep understanding of what it’s for. Plenty of teachers will list off poses to you, many will give you instructions about technique and alignment, and some will even insert Hallmark wisdom into the class to prove that the practice is spiritual. Nicky does it differently.
Nicky offers a tough-love yoga practice that drives a wedge under your ego and pulls it off to reveal the real you. It hurts like hell, it makes you cry, it makes you shake, but damn it, you get somewhere, and the transformation is bloody spiritual.
There are many yoga teachers out there who justify the importance of the practice by icing the physical postures with a spiritual justification: wrap your leg around your head and think of a person who needs the most love, as if your feat of impractical flexibility not only helps you but makes a distant recipient of your hamstring energy better off, too. I just don’t believe that goodness in the world is proportional to the flexibility of my legs. And I really don’t believe that spreading lovey-dovey language all over my yoga mat—or anyone else’s, for that matter—is going to bring anyone closer to Self-realisation. Ego-realisation, maybe, but not much about the Self.
Moving through ego hurts: shame, anger, sadness and guilt are what happen when the ego is asked to twist in ways it doesn’t want to. All these come up in a serious practice, and to the unsuspecting, it seems like we’re doing something wrong. We tend to think of yoga as something to do at a spa or by the beach, something good for us but still a bit indulgent and relaxing; and we think that spiritual pursuits are of the same nature—a luxury, not a responsibility. So when it hurts—not that hurt-so-good gym pain, but that broken-hearted, exposed-wound kind of hurt—we can feel angry at the teacher, victimized by our circumstances, guilty for not doing better or ashamed for being vulnerable or weak. None of these feel good, until you start to recognize them as part of the practice; and passing through them as the essence of the practice.
One key aspect of Nicky’s teaching is that she has you hold the pose—and hold, and hold. And it burns, and it stings and you are sure your body is about to come apart at the joints and you are about to scream and cry and shout and laugh and rage all at once… but you don’t. You hold the pose. And as you hold, things start to change; the body intelligence starts to wake up like a sea monster that has lain dormant for a thousand years. It shivers and the ground cracks, and it stretches and layers of collected debris and calcification start to break open (this is your ego that encases your body), and it looks like the landscape is tearing apart and things are all going wrong; but actually, it turns out to be a living being that is coming back to life, and that being is you.
When you practice with a teacher who is afraid to push the limits of her students, or when you are undisciplined in your own practice, it is like tapping at this layer of barnacles and broken shells with a teaspoon, sort of hoping in an abstract kind of a way that it will open but really not having much intention to get at what is living underneath. Indeed, if you are practicing with someone you don’t trust or just by yourself to get the kinks out in the morning, the idea of breaking through (never mind the actual feeling of it) can be quite horrifying.
I have gotten to a point in my practice where I experience the pain of breaking through layers of emotional and mental sediment as positive; I look for it. Pain in a difficult pose doesn’t mean I am working harder than I think I should be, thereby a jab at my ego that I would experience as anger or self-pity; I am happy that I have found a movement that I need to work on and I experience it as an opportunity to fix something that is not as strong as it should be, like tuning up a bike.
There are other poses that are not just difficult for my muscles, but that I really don’t like doing and generally avoid in self-practice unless I am feeling particularly gallant or disciplined. These are the mounds that house dormant sea creatures. Under the guidance of someone like Nicky, I can move into these poses, break into the shells of anger and sadness and exhaustion that separate me from what I’m seeking, all the while knowing I am safe, knowing that even though my ego is being taken for a ride, I can ignore its complaining. I know that I am working properly and constructively, and the emotions I am experiencing are draining from me like water from a tap until I am rid of them; and once I am rid of the blockage, the pose will no longer pose a challenge to me—or, will pose a different kind of challenge, a muscle building challenge, not a mental challenge.
I have experienced this enough times in my own practice to know that the uncomfortable immersion into the sticky, crusty shells that we install between ourselves and certain movements or parts of the body is worth the trouble; and when I get through it, I will have discovered a new life form that I can move and breath and dig and build with.
Having gone through my Nicky initiation two years ago, it is interesting watching Sophie and Vannac receive theirs. The first day’s practice was gentle but deep, and they both strode home at lunch, energized and confident. Since then, Nicky has lowered her students steadily into their individual pits to fight it out with their blockages. Sophie is facing hers full on, wrestling her anxieties like a rodeo cowboy at a steer; and it is hard to tell with Vannac. The thing about Vannac is that there is so much going on at so many levels, he is in his pit 24 hours a day, not just the four hours of morning asana.
It would be great to be here all month and see how it unfolds for both of them, what happens when the shell starts to crack, how they get through it and what they learn. It will be very different journeys for each of them. But then again, it might be a good idea to get out of the path of the tornado, and sit tight in Cambodia until they get back and show us what they've hatched.
The course has only been on for four days and I had a day of (exhausted, jet-lagged, frozen, failed) self-practice before, and I am amazed at how quickly the body recovers when you give it half a chance. A little less sugar, a few more carrots and all of a sudden I can touch my toes again. By the same token, whenever I get off my practice and bogged down under the heap of classes and admin that is NataRaj, I am invariably surprised at how much torture the body can endure—little sleep, too much coffee, chocolate, wine and stress. You feel the toxins accumulating and they just keep building long after the yoga-alarms start sounding, but the body plugs along. I feel sorry for these bodies, like horses who are made to pull loads that are too heavy or run on broken tendons. We do such terrible things to them but they carry on anyway, and they never stop giving to these authoritarian egos until they are forced to give in by sickness or injury.
But then we come to Nicky and she sets us right. Nicky is a pretty right-brained person, a little spacey at times, but fiercely knowledgeable about the practice with a deep understanding of what it’s for. Plenty of teachers will list off poses to you, many will give you instructions about technique and alignment, and some will even insert Hallmark wisdom into the class to prove that the practice is spiritual. Nicky does it differently.
Nicky offers a tough-love yoga practice that drives a wedge under your ego and pulls it off to reveal the real you. It hurts like hell, it makes you cry, it makes you shake, but damn it, you get somewhere, and the transformation is bloody spiritual.
There are many yoga teachers out there who justify the importance of the practice by icing the physical postures with a spiritual justification: wrap your leg around your head and think of a person who needs the most love, as if your feat of impractical flexibility not only helps you but makes a distant recipient of your hamstring energy better off, too. I just don’t believe that goodness in the world is proportional to the flexibility of my legs. And I really don’t believe that spreading lovey-dovey language all over my yoga mat—or anyone else’s, for that matter—is going to bring anyone closer to Self-realisation. Ego-realisation, maybe, but not much about the Self.
Moving through ego hurts: shame, anger, sadness and guilt are what happen when the ego is asked to twist in ways it doesn’t want to. All these come up in a serious practice, and to the unsuspecting, it seems like we’re doing something wrong. We tend to think of yoga as something to do at a spa or by the beach, something good for us but still a bit indulgent and relaxing; and we think that spiritual pursuits are of the same nature—a luxury, not a responsibility. So when it hurts—not that hurt-so-good gym pain, but that broken-hearted, exposed-wound kind of hurt—we can feel angry at the teacher, victimized by our circumstances, guilty for not doing better or ashamed for being vulnerable or weak. None of these feel good, until you start to recognize them as part of the practice; and passing through them as the essence of the practice.
One key aspect of Nicky’s teaching is that she has you hold the pose—and hold, and hold. And it burns, and it stings and you are sure your body is about to come apart at the joints and you are about to scream and cry and shout and laugh and rage all at once… but you don’t. You hold the pose. And as you hold, things start to change; the body intelligence starts to wake up like a sea monster that has lain dormant for a thousand years. It shivers and the ground cracks, and it stretches and layers of collected debris and calcification start to break open (this is your ego that encases your body), and it looks like the landscape is tearing apart and things are all going wrong; but actually, it turns out to be a living being that is coming back to life, and that being is you.
When you practice with a teacher who is afraid to push the limits of her students, or when you are undisciplined in your own practice, it is like tapping at this layer of barnacles and broken shells with a teaspoon, sort of hoping in an abstract kind of a way that it will open but really not having much intention to get at what is living underneath. Indeed, if you are practicing with someone you don’t trust or just by yourself to get the kinks out in the morning, the idea of breaking through (never mind the actual feeling of it) can be quite horrifying.
I have gotten to a point in my practice where I experience the pain of breaking through layers of emotional and mental sediment as positive; I look for it. Pain in a difficult pose doesn’t mean I am working harder than I think I should be, thereby a jab at my ego that I would experience as anger or self-pity; I am happy that I have found a movement that I need to work on and I experience it as an opportunity to fix something that is not as strong as it should be, like tuning up a bike.
There are other poses that are not just difficult for my muscles, but that I really don’t like doing and generally avoid in self-practice unless I am feeling particularly gallant or disciplined. These are the mounds that house dormant sea creatures. Under the guidance of someone like Nicky, I can move into these poses, break into the shells of anger and sadness and exhaustion that separate me from what I’m seeking, all the while knowing I am safe, knowing that even though my ego is being taken for a ride, I can ignore its complaining. I know that I am working properly and constructively, and the emotions I am experiencing are draining from me like water from a tap until I am rid of them; and once I am rid of the blockage, the pose will no longer pose a challenge to me—or, will pose a different kind of challenge, a muscle building challenge, not a mental challenge.
I have experienced this enough times in my own practice to know that the uncomfortable immersion into the sticky, crusty shells that we install between ourselves and certain movements or parts of the body is worth the trouble; and when I get through it, I will have discovered a new life form that I can move and breath and dig and build with.
Having gone through my Nicky initiation two years ago, it is interesting watching Sophie and Vannac receive theirs. The first day’s practice was gentle but deep, and they both strode home at lunch, energized and confident. Since then, Nicky has lowered her students steadily into their individual pits to fight it out with their blockages. Sophie is facing hers full on, wrestling her anxieties like a rodeo cowboy at a steer; and it is hard to tell with Vannac. The thing about Vannac is that there is so much going on at so many levels, he is in his pit 24 hours a day, not just the four hours of morning asana.
It would be great to be here all month and see how it unfolds for both of them, what happens when the shell starts to crack, how they get through it and what they learn. It will be very different journeys for each of them. But then again, it might be a good idea to get out of the path of the tornado, and sit tight in Cambodia until they get back and show us what they've hatched.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Get Me On A Plane!
He's found prahok.
It comes in a jar with Angkor Wat on the label (but made in Thailand.... Cause for riots?)
It would be an abuse of authority to send him into the backyard to eat... yogis don't do that.
Sigh. It is hard being a yogi sometimes.
It comes in a jar with Angkor Wat on the label (but made in Thailand.... Cause for riots?)
It would be an abuse of authority to send him into the backyard to eat... yogis don't do that.
Sigh. It is hard being a yogi sometimes.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Pigeon Pose
We’re staying in a little house not far from the studio, the three of us together and a woman named Priska. It is a typical Queensland house, wooden wall, stilts and shakes like an epileptic when the wind blows. Originally, it was just going to be Sophie staying here; Vannac would stay at the studio, and I would stay in Cambodia. But then I decided to come down and we raised enough money for Vannac to spend at least part of the time in a rented room, so after a few frantic emails, Priska made space for us. It has worked out perfectly: the studio space would not have been nice to stay in, as the studio is in a mini-warehouse, not terribly cozy, and without cooking facilities which would have been problematic. And, Priska, a Swiss-born traveler and world-wise person herself, has adopted our young Cambodian as her temporary son. She is delighted to have not just a person from such a different culture a her house, but a Buddhist no less! They are very happy going to the Buddhist center together for meditation on Sundays and Mondays; and Vannac is enjoying his celebrity status as an Authentic.
Having spent so many years as the foreigner in Cambodia, it is fun to see the roles reversed—instead of the white person being the object of curiosity, Vannac is on the receiving end of all the questions about what it is like to be him. And I think he quite enjoys it. When Sophie and I leave the room, Priska asks the questions that would be awkward to a Western ear, like whether all Cambodians have skin colour like his; what his eating habits are and whether they are like all Buddhists; and some that even Sophie and I are curious to hear the answers to, like what he thinks of Edith Piaf and organic dark chocolate. (“Does it have milk?” “No, Vannac.”)
So when Nicky learned that Priska’s house was a little more expensive than the other houses on the list, and she wasn’t even giving Vannac a discount, she and James took to the email and asked Priska themselves to lower the price for him. She was a bit embarrassed to receive it and sat Sophie down and explained that she set the price for a reason and a discount would undermine her fairness; but, at the same time, she did want to give something to Vannac’s cause, and she would be happy to offer him the remaining two weeks in her house for free. This is great as Vannac is very well off here, we are close to the studio, Sophie and him can do homework together in the evenings and review class material that Vannac might have missed; so, between these accommodations, Priska’s help with everything, the bikes that Nicky and James have lent us, lifts into town and to the markets when needed, we are all very well looked after indeed. Actually, we are all getting quite spoiled, and I am becoming wary of what seems like a puffy chest and do-no-wrong doe-eyes growing on our innocent one….
Having spent so many years as the foreigner in Cambodia, it is fun to see the roles reversed—instead of the white person being the object of curiosity, Vannac is on the receiving end of all the questions about what it is like to be him. And I think he quite enjoys it. When Sophie and I leave the room, Priska asks the questions that would be awkward to a Western ear, like whether all Cambodians have skin colour like his; what his eating habits are and whether they are like all Buddhists; and some that even Sophie and I are curious to hear the answers to, like what he thinks of Edith Piaf and organic dark chocolate. (“Does it have milk?” “No, Vannac.”)
So when Nicky learned that Priska’s house was a little more expensive than the other houses on the list, and she wasn’t even giving Vannac a discount, she and James took to the email and asked Priska themselves to lower the price for him. She was a bit embarrassed to receive it and sat Sophie down and explained that she set the price for a reason and a discount would undermine her fairness; but, at the same time, she did want to give something to Vannac’s cause, and she would be happy to offer him the remaining two weeks in her house for free. This is great as Vannac is very well off here, we are close to the studio, Sophie and him can do homework together in the evenings and review class material that Vannac might have missed; so, between these accommodations, Priska’s help with everything, the bikes that Nicky and James have lent us, lifts into town and to the markets when needed, we are all very well looked after indeed. Actually, we are all getting quite spoiled, and I am becoming wary of what seems like a puffy chest and do-no-wrong doe-eyes growing on our innocent one….
Monday, July 7, 2008
Eating Habits
We’ve arrived in Cairns; thawed, partially; discovered the markets and the almost-naked sunbathing backpackers down by the lagoon (we’ll get to that story in later). We’re still having some trouble with food, though. It is true that food is grounding, and it is upsetting that not only are all the people different, the houses, the language, the weather, the airplanes and sandwiches different, but damn it, the soy sauce is different! Vannac is now truly destabilized.
With a kitchen and a chance to unpack, though, Vannac is able to cook his rice again. There is no rice maker, but that is a compromise we can accept, and soon he will be able to eat meat again which is also reassuring. Although still quite opposed to western food, he is beginning to see the appeal: the rest of us walk into the kitchen, pull out our bread and sprouts or yoghourt and muesli and off we go; meanwhile, Vannac is diligently chopping his onions, mincing his garlic, scrambling his egg, boiling his rice, salting his fish, and long after we’ve retired to the living room, Vannac is ready to eat his breakfast. No sooner is he done, he begins on his lunch. A few four-hour asana sessions with Nicky and his hunger might just start to crack this attachment.
I find I’m getting frustrated at his attachment to food. I believe that the basic state of one’s psyche is reflected in the relationship one holds with food. If you guzzle your food, that consumptiveness will be reflected in the way you interact with other people and your environment, and indicates a state of want, or an invisible or feeble self-image. If you are conscientious about how and what you eat, that conscientiousness manifests as care towards other people and things in your life. With Vannac, his intolerance of any deviation in what he is used to reads to me as a belief that “strange = bad,” a principle I believe is opposite to what we do in yoga.
Of course, I understand that familiar food is his touchstone in this upside-down land and certainly don’t condemn Vannac for wanting to eat what he is used to. I am just worried about his being uncomfortable here and I wish that he could be as relaxed as we are. At the same time, leaping into a world so utterly and shockingly different is the best way of severing attachments, of learning to orient oneself on something other than what one is used to, discovering things without knowing if they’re good or bad or ho they work, and moving into a place of not-knowing. This is yoga. But, this is also the hardest part of yoga.
That being said, we had an interesting conversation at dinner last night about this word, “nutrition,” a word Vannac didn’t know. I have some Khmer, but I don’t have the words for “vitamin,” “mineral,” “proteins,” “enzymes,” “calories,” but I wish I did. Priska, the woman who’s house we are in, is very conscious about nutrition and diet and together we explained to Vannac why we eat brown rice and not white rice; why we like to eat fruits and vegetables and not instant noodles; and how we can balance our diets by combining rice and beans, which are very easy to get in Cambodia, instead of eating meat. We also talked about how some people in Western countries can be very fat, but because all they eat is processed and refined foods, they are actually suffering from hunger; that is, nutrient deficiency. Vannac the sponge was quite taken by this idea of nutrients, and thought that maybe he should start using brown rice. I wonder if anyone has thought to write a simple kids-type introduction to nutrition and how our bodies process food; it is something I would like to share with the orphans, also, who don’t have access to a wide variety of food, and could benefit from eating intelligently.
I think a lot about teaching yoga as an ideology and am quite uncomfortable teaching anything that sounds dogmatic. But when it comes to food, I have no reservations about preaching vegetarianism and seeking converts. Am I taking advantage of Vannac’s open ears? But then again, maybe vegetarianism is not an ideology, and is actually as scientific as Nicky’s style of yoga.
With a kitchen and a chance to unpack, though, Vannac is able to cook his rice again. There is no rice maker, but that is a compromise we can accept, and soon he will be able to eat meat again which is also reassuring. Although still quite opposed to western food, he is beginning to see the appeal: the rest of us walk into the kitchen, pull out our bread and sprouts or yoghourt and muesli and off we go; meanwhile, Vannac is diligently chopping his onions, mincing his garlic, scrambling his egg, boiling his rice, salting his fish, and long after we’ve retired to the living room, Vannac is ready to eat his breakfast. No sooner is he done, he begins on his lunch. A few four-hour asana sessions with Nicky and his hunger might just start to crack this attachment.
I find I’m getting frustrated at his attachment to food. I believe that the basic state of one’s psyche is reflected in the relationship one holds with food. If you guzzle your food, that consumptiveness will be reflected in the way you interact with other people and your environment, and indicates a state of want, or an invisible or feeble self-image. If you are conscientious about how and what you eat, that conscientiousness manifests as care towards other people and things in your life. With Vannac, his intolerance of any deviation in what he is used to reads to me as a belief that “strange = bad,” a principle I believe is opposite to what we do in yoga.
Of course, I understand that familiar food is his touchstone in this upside-down land and certainly don’t condemn Vannac for wanting to eat what he is used to. I am just worried about his being uncomfortable here and I wish that he could be as relaxed as we are. At the same time, leaping into a world so utterly and shockingly different is the best way of severing attachments, of learning to orient oneself on something other than what one is used to, discovering things without knowing if they’re good or bad or ho they work, and moving into a place of not-knowing. This is yoga. But, this is also the hardest part of yoga.
That being said, we had an interesting conversation at dinner last night about this word, “nutrition,” a word Vannac didn’t know. I have some Khmer, but I don’t have the words for “vitamin,” “mineral,” “proteins,” “enzymes,” “calories,” but I wish I did. Priska, the woman who’s house we are in, is very conscious about nutrition and diet and together we explained to Vannac why we eat brown rice and not white rice; why we like to eat fruits and vegetables and not instant noodles; and how we can balance our diets by combining rice and beans, which are very easy to get in Cambodia, instead of eating meat. We also talked about how some people in Western countries can be very fat, but because all they eat is processed and refined foods, they are actually suffering from hunger; that is, nutrient deficiency. Vannac the sponge was quite taken by this idea of nutrients, and thought that maybe he should start using brown rice. I wonder if anyone has thought to write a simple kids-type introduction to nutrition and how our bodies process food; it is something I would like to share with the orphans, also, who don’t have access to a wide variety of food, and could benefit from eating intelligently.
I think a lot about teaching yoga as an ideology and am quite uncomfortable teaching anything that sounds dogmatic. But when it comes to food, I have no reservations about preaching vegetarianism and seeking converts. Am I taking advantage of Vannac’s open ears? But then again, maybe vegetarianism is not an ideology, and is actually as scientific as Nicky’s style of yoga.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
New Perspectives
Sophie and I collapsed on the sofa bed, but after a strong cup of instant Vannac was already out exploring Neutral Bay, where we had landed. Actually, take a step back. After raiding our suitcases and Lucy’s closet for the warmest or at least the most clothing we could find, we bundled up in a small mountain of cotton and wool (it was 13 degrees! Vannac’s from Cambodia, but Canada and England, what’s your excuse!? But oh god, it was Cold!) and then went our respective ways—to the sofa bed and out walking. It only took about three hours to recharge enough to last the day, and around noon we boated across to the Opera house in the temperate sunlight. In Cambodia, except for those silver moments after a thunderstorm, the sun’s bleaching whiteness burns the colour off everything it touches, but in New York, Montreal or, as it turns out, Sydney, the sun falls at an angle even at midday, and paints the city with a generous palette.
We learned some things in Sydney that day. We learned that the opera house was inspired by segments of an orange. We learned that foreign exchange kiosks are just as likely to rip you of here as in Cambodia. We learned that lunch is a lot more expensive in Sydney than in Phnom Penh, and comes complete with unrelenting stomach ache for the rest of the day. We also learned that maybe we should have started training for bread a few months ago, and that cheese is to be avoided at all costs. Vannac understands very well now that cheese is not his friend. Unfortunately, he is also pretty clear that Western food in general is not his friend. There was a brief window where potatoes, bread and salad maintained a healthy question mark—he even bought a sandwich for the trip—but somewhere over the Pacific suspicions began to arise, and the glimmer of possibility was snuffed after 24 hours of rice-free living. He is still open to salad, but before accepting anything now he asks, “does it have cheese?” As soon we landed and found our way to a Woolworth’s, instant noodles and white rice have been headlining the menus.
We also learned that Western art is a little different than Cambodian art. The Sydney Biennale is on right now, so off we went to the Contemporary Art Museum. The theme of the Biennale is “Revolutions, things that move,” which made it easier to explain some of the works in terms Vannac could relate to. We looked at the works of Miroslav Tichy, a Czech photographer who made cameras out of found materials, and a video of how he put the cameras together. This man also came from a poor country after a war and he was using commonplace materials to make art in a way that a Cambodian could also do, if they were inclined. To me, seeing Tichy put together cameras from bits of garbage highlighted the question that underlies this whole experience of the West, which is why this country and these cities, Sydney and Cairns, looks like this and Phnom Penh looks like it does? It is too easy to put the two contexts in different worlds and dismiss them is incompatible realities—Vannac, who works mostly with foreigners, does this all the time, “this is how Khmer people do this,” “Khmer people cannot eat that, say this, be like that.” To see this man make something in a way that a Khmer person could do, unable to dismiss the difference as “in Cambodia, we can’t,” invites the question of what the difference is in the mindset and conceptual basis that Tichy works from versus what a Cambodian works with, so that the impulse to make a camera out of toilet rolls and plexiglass would even occur to Tichy. I don’t know what Vannac thought about when he watched the man in the video, but as we talked bout how even a Cambodian has the means to make the art that this man is making, something was clearly processing.
Vannac made his way gallantly around the soap-bubble installations, multimedia pieces, taxidermy horses suspended from the ceiling, but it was a little hard for him to read the plaques that might have offered a clue to decoding them. Beauty was certainly not their objective. But, he was never judgmental and never closed minded, just a little frustrated that he couldn’t quite understand. He glimpsed a looped video collage depicting the European upper classes of the 18th and 19th centuries living in fear, then the destruction of the revolution, then the post-apocalyptic aftermath and then the re-coronation of the aristocracy after the revolution, and then the video starting again, and we discussed what the author might be saying. We looked at the recent history of Cambodia, how the king oppressed the communists, and the Lon Nol regime oppressed the people, and then the Khmer Rouge came in as saviours, and then they too became corrupt and destructive. So the people had to be liberated again, and then Hun Sen came into power, and now he is corrupt. We saw the loops in power, corruption and violent change that are just as relevant to Cambodian recent history as they are to European history, and this video was a way of talking about that and making people think about it. He watched the video a few more times.
By the time we had discussed the suspended horse and the fake paintings in a row on the wall, we understood that this art was not meant to be something nice to look at, but rather contemporary Western art was about thinking about things. I am very good at coming up with explanations and meanings, and I’m quite sure that most of the time they have nothing to do with what the artist had intended, and certainly would differ radically from what a lot of other people say. But, as I pointed out to Vannac, the point of this art isn’t to say something in a concrete and unambiguous way, but to invoke questions and ideas in the viewer, to invite a dialogue between people, and between viewer and material. We look at these pieces of art in order to think about things we hadn’t thought of before, not just to believe what the artist is telling us. That’s what academics is for, but I didn’t say that.
One of the last pieces we got to was an installation of small spherical objects made of intertwined roots and branches, clay, pomegranates, round stones… arranged on the floor. We were able to see how all these objects were potentially in motion but not, and each had their own texture and weight; if they were to move, they would all move along different trajectories and at difference velocities, resulting in a kind of chaos. We looked at the tension caused by each sphere having its own "voice" and would wanting something different, ready to launch itself into a movement that may or may not coorespond to the other objects. To help make the point concrete, we applied it to Cambodian, looking at the tension underlying the current political regime, all these heads thinking their own thoughts with their own sets of wants, but maintaining stability. But if something were to happen to destabilize the arena, then all the heads would run off in their own interests, wanting different things. It captured the tension between unity and freedom, and the complexity of revolution in a simple visual sentence.
After about five of these installations, Vannac was full but Sophie and I were ready to move back to the West, if not actualy into a contemporary art museum. The sun was setting outside and we snapped up shots of the opera house and a few more of the orange-legged seagulls. I really don’t know what Vannac is coming away with, he probably doesn’t either, but he is certainly taking it in. I guess we’ll see how it unfolds.
We learned some things in Sydney that day. We learned that the opera house was inspired by segments of an orange. We learned that foreign exchange kiosks are just as likely to rip you of here as in Cambodia. We learned that lunch is a lot more expensive in Sydney than in Phnom Penh, and comes complete with unrelenting stomach ache for the rest of the day. We also learned that maybe we should have started training for bread a few months ago, and that cheese is to be avoided at all costs. Vannac understands very well now that cheese is not his friend. Unfortunately, he is also pretty clear that Western food in general is not his friend. There was a brief window where potatoes, bread and salad maintained a healthy question mark—he even bought a sandwich for the trip—but somewhere over the Pacific suspicions began to arise, and the glimmer of possibility was snuffed after 24 hours of rice-free living. He is still open to salad, but before accepting anything now he asks, “does it have cheese?” As soon we landed and found our way to a Woolworth’s, instant noodles and white rice have been headlining the menus.
We also learned that Western art is a little different than Cambodian art. The Sydney Biennale is on right now, so off we went to the Contemporary Art Museum. The theme of the Biennale is “Revolutions, things that move,” which made it easier to explain some of the works in terms Vannac could relate to. We looked at the works of Miroslav Tichy, a Czech photographer who made cameras out of found materials, and a video of how he put the cameras together. This man also came from a poor country after a war and he was using commonplace materials to make art in a way that a Cambodian could also do, if they were inclined. To me, seeing Tichy put together cameras from bits of garbage highlighted the question that underlies this whole experience of the West, which is why this country and these cities, Sydney and Cairns, looks like this and Phnom Penh looks like it does? It is too easy to put the two contexts in different worlds and dismiss them is incompatible realities—Vannac, who works mostly with foreigners, does this all the time, “this is how Khmer people do this,” “Khmer people cannot eat that, say this, be like that.” To see this man make something in a way that a Khmer person could do, unable to dismiss the difference as “in Cambodia, we can’t,” invites the question of what the difference is in the mindset and conceptual basis that Tichy works from versus what a Cambodian works with, so that the impulse to make a camera out of toilet rolls and plexiglass would even occur to Tichy. I don’t know what Vannac thought about when he watched the man in the video, but as we talked bout how even a Cambodian has the means to make the art that this man is making, something was clearly processing.
Vannac made his way gallantly around the soap-bubble installations, multimedia pieces, taxidermy horses suspended from the ceiling, but it was a little hard for him to read the plaques that might have offered a clue to decoding them. Beauty was certainly not their objective. But, he was never judgmental and never closed minded, just a little frustrated that he couldn’t quite understand. He glimpsed a looped video collage depicting the European upper classes of the 18th and 19th centuries living in fear, then the destruction of the revolution, then the post-apocalyptic aftermath and then the re-coronation of the aristocracy after the revolution, and then the video starting again, and we discussed what the author might be saying. We looked at the recent history of Cambodia, how the king oppressed the communists, and the Lon Nol regime oppressed the people, and then the Khmer Rouge came in as saviours, and then they too became corrupt and destructive. So the people had to be liberated again, and then Hun Sen came into power, and now he is corrupt. We saw the loops in power, corruption and violent change that are just as relevant to Cambodian recent history as they are to European history, and this video was a way of talking about that and making people think about it. He watched the video a few more times.
By the time we had discussed the suspended horse and the fake paintings in a row on the wall, we understood that this art was not meant to be something nice to look at, but rather contemporary Western art was about thinking about things. I am very good at coming up with explanations and meanings, and I’m quite sure that most of the time they have nothing to do with what the artist had intended, and certainly would differ radically from what a lot of other people say. But, as I pointed out to Vannac, the point of this art isn’t to say something in a concrete and unambiguous way, but to invoke questions and ideas in the viewer, to invite a dialogue between people, and between viewer and material. We look at these pieces of art in order to think about things we hadn’t thought of before, not just to believe what the artist is telling us. That’s what academics is for, but I didn’t say that.
One of the last pieces we got to was an installation of small spherical objects made of intertwined roots and branches, clay, pomegranates, round stones… arranged on the floor. We were able to see how all these objects were potentially in motion but not, and each had their own texture and weight; if they were to move, they would all move along different trajectories and at difference velocities, resulting in a kind of chaos. We looked at the tension caused by each sphere having its own "voice" and would wanting something different, ready to launch itself into a movement that may or may not coorespond to the other objects. To help make the point concrete, we applied it to Cambodian, looking at the tension underlying the current political regime, all these heads thinking their own thoughts with their own sets of wants, but maintaining stability. But if something were to happen to destabilize the arena, then all the heads would run off in their own interests, wanting different things. It captured the tension between unity and freedom, and the complexity of revolution in a simple visual sentence.
After about five of these installations, Vannac was full but Sophie and I were ready to move back to the West, if not actualy into a contemporary art museum. The sun was setting outside and we snapped up shots of the opera house and a few more of the orange-legged seagulls. I really don’t know what Vannac is coming away with, he probably doesn’t either, but he is certainly taking it in. I guess we’ll see how it unfolds.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Getting There
At first, strange was fun, although airplane sickness is less fun. Meals that don’t include rice are not so fun either, but strange tastes are to be expected in an airplane, so they can be forgiven as a temporary deviation and not too much of a bother. The little tv’s on the backs of the seats are fun to play with, but the movies are not so interesting, but the picture of the little plane over a map of the world caught the magic of the moment. The 9 hour moment. After he fell asleep, I turned it off so it would be darker, and he woke up and turned it back on. Just having it there for reference was important, as if it expressed some truth about what he was doing right now, a reality of height and distance that was not evident in the noisy, black room with drawn blinds and the occasional turbulent shudder. I should have brought a map of the world with pins in Sydney, Cairns and Phnom Penh to help him maintain his perspective while he’s here.
We didn’t get much sleep on the plane, but Vannac isn’t one to complain or admit to tiredness. We met up with Sophie who is also here for the course—we left Phnom Penh at roughly the same time and arrived at almost exactly the same time, but on different airlines. The taxi ride into town was carefully documented on the telephone video camera, especially the lengthy tunnels that run for kilometers under the city. We arrived at Lucy’s house at around 7 am with a morning light casting gold all over the buildings across the turquoise harbour. Vannac’s first observation was a breathy “it’s beautiful.” One could almost have called it emotional.
We didn’t get much sleep on the plane, but Vannac isn’t one to complain or admit to tiredness. We met up with Sophie who is also here for the course—we left Phnom Penh at roughly the same time and arrived at almost exactly the same time, but on different airlines. The taxi ride into town was carefully documented on the telephone video camera, especially the lengthy tunnels that run for kilometers under the city. We arrived at Lucy’s house at around 7 am with a morning light casting gold all over the buildings across the turquoise harbour. Vannac’s first observation was a breathy “it’s beautiful.” One could almost have called it emotional.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Getting on the plane
He’s not very expressive, our Vannac, but when something strikes him, he lets us know. He doesn’t excuse himself when he bounces around the airport like a little boy during our 4 hour layover in Hong Kong, although his smile communicates a half-hearted plea for forgiveness at his uncurbed enthusiasm. He figures out the airport signs and leads us to our departure gate, still yelping at the moving sidewalks, but after the first one, no longer falling over.
The departure from Phnom Penh was momentous, to say the least, with thirty of his closest friends and family all packed into a bus to take him to the airport. Good thing we got there three hours before the flight, just enough time to have my picture taken with every family member one at a time, Vannac with his friends and the Phnom Penh International Airport sign behind them. The grandmothers in their bald heads and sarongs gave Vannac their blessings, and villagers tucked hard-earned dollars into his hands to send him off with. They hung around the entrance as we checked in, ran around the side to get a better view as we stood in line, waved at us as we went up the escalator to immigration and security, and were still waving again after security. As we boarded the plane, Vannac was sure to give a quick call down to let them know we would have a red dragon painted on our tail and liftoff was meant to be at 11:30. After that, they would all go home again.
Since we left them at the front of the building, every detail of our trip has been carefully recorded on the telephone camera for subsequent viewing. Although we have been doing everything together, with Sophie and her sister Lucy in Sydney, and Nicky and James here in Cairns, he is very much out of context here; you can all but see the entourage of friends and family that he had brought with him to keep himself grounded and to keep matters in perspective. He can’t share his experiences with me, as I wouldn’t understand, but his people would know how utterly bizarre and huge this whole trip truly is.
The departure from Phnom Penh was momentous, to say the least, with thirty of his closest friends and family all packed into a bus to take him to the airport. Good thing we got there three hours before the flight, just enough time to have my picture taken with every family member one at a time, Vannac with his friends and the Phnom Penh International Airport sign behind them. The grandmothers in their bald heads and sarongs gave Vannac their blessings, and villagers tucked hard-earned dollars into his hands to send him off with. They hung around the entrance as we checked in, ran around the side to get a better view as we stood in line, waved at us as we went up the escalator to immigration and security, and were still waving again after security. As we boarded the plane, Vannac was sure to give a quick call down to let them know we would have a red dragon painted on our tail and liftoff was meant to be at 11:30. After that, they would all go home again.
Since we left them at the front of the building, every detail of our trip has been carefully recorded on the telephone camera for subsequent viewing. Although we have been doing everything together, with Sophie and her sister Lucy in Sydney, and Nicky and James here in Cairns, he is very much out of context here; you can all but see the entourage of friends and family that he had brought with him to keep himself grounded and to keep matters in perspective. He can’t share his experiences with me, as I wouldn’t understand, but his people would know how utterly bizarre and huge this whole trip truly is.
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